1) Greetings should  include either handshakes or hugs. Head nods and goofy smiles are unacceptable.

2) Come to a dinner party for dinner—not solely drinks or dessert—or don’t come at all.

3) No one uses the word ‘rape’, except when discussing the actual crime.

4) Compromise doesn’t make you weak. It actually makes you strong.

5) Just because you’re gay, that doesn’t mean you can touch a woman inappropriately.

6) You had the child, you’ve relinquished the right to a family dinner in any restaurant you may choose.

7) When you sincerely apologize for something, you should make eye contact. Otherwise, don’t bother.

8 ) No “day of” canceling of plans.

9) Car horns are for emergency only. Otherwise you need to swipe a debit card and are charged $20 if you feel like being a jerk-off.

10) Treat people waiting on you as if roles were reversed.

11) Stop going to TMZ.com or watching their insipid TV show. Celebrities aren’t animals.

12) Don’t forward mass emails. Ever ever.

Bonus Web Content: Give good wine, not hard liquor as a gift. Any idiot can go into a shop and point to a bottle of vodka.

I went to DC this weekend to see the Colts-Redskins game and, as it so happened, the White House had opened its numerous gardens to visitors. It does so four days a year, which would lead one to believe that there would be huge lines to get into to see the Rose Garden, where the Kennedy children played, and Michelle Obama’s organic vegetable garden. In addition, visitors could get up close and personal to trees planted by President Andrew Jackson, the Clinton’s, both Bushes and a whole host of other first families.

Even though I’m an avid gardener I hadn’t heard about the opportunity—we literally happened upon it—and so the number of people who were granted the incredible access was not commensurate to the number of folks who would’ve been interested had they known.

GG and I grabbed free tickets, without waiting on line, and for the next 90 minutes we walked around the White House grounds unhurriedly, actually getting close enough to the Oval Office to throw a pebble at a window and ask President Obama to come out and say hello.

We left and I couldn’t help but marvel at how poorly the White House had promoted the event. And then I realized that it is probably fitting; this administration seems allergic to touting what good it has done so far, so cowed by the terrible poll numbers that keep cropping up: unemployment, housing statistics, and so forth.

I wonder why that is? President Obama is the first president to actually ensure, not just through words, but legislation, that no child will be without health care, and that no elderly person will live without proper medication, in a nation this wealthy. It is a huge accomplishment, an amazing accomplishment, really.

And yet his cabinet seems skittish about discussing it. Perhaps they’ve watched too many American citizens decrying “Obamacare” and “socialism” or, they are too hung-up on the deteriorating poll numbers for the midterm elections. Or…they’re chicken, plain and simple.

Let’s face it: the party in power always gets creamed in the midterms. The maxim in football—the most popular guy on the team is the backup quarterback—would seem to apply to the political party not in power as well.

Unfortunately, the Republicans are trotting out some pretty scary, unqualified individuals. Not all, or even most of them, mind you. But there are a few doozies: The witch. The Aqua Buddha. The racists, sexists, homophobes and mental incompetents. And if even half of them win, we will wake up the next day with a significantly less tolerant, more reactionary government, which is exactly what we don’t need right now.

I wish I could shake the administration and tell them that there is nothing wrong with showing decency and it’s not a weakness to say, “We care.” They’ve managed to reverse some of the last president’s disastrous environmental policies; have drawn down in Iraq and may be on the slow torturous path to doing so in Afghanistan; are holding banks accountable for the mortgage crisis; and are no longer making it easy for foreign governments to radicalize their citizenry against the country. These are all positive developments.

And yet President Obama has been traveling the country attempting to run against the bogeymen of the GOP: Glenn Beck and John Boehner, simultaneously speaking in a harsh manner about the hand he’s been dealt. If I had his ear, I’d argue that he should be talking about the positives that have happened and run a more forward-looking campaign. One that offers hope and not blame.

Are we still screwed? Of course we are. I know more talented, out-of-work people than I do those with jobs. But, “They’re worse at governing than us” is too negative to win this time around. It seems so tone deaf, especially from the people who ran such a pitch-perfect campaign in 2008. I had a far-smarter-than-me friend recently refer to the U.S. as “ungovernable” and, sadly, I think he’s right. Because if this guy can’t bring people together, then no one can.

It’s getting late already on the midterms and so the president needs to look beyond them and focus on 2012. We have a gridlocked legislature and that’s with Democrats controlling both houses. Regardless of what happens in November, that isn’t changing. Obama needs to let people know about how he’s shown a commitment to the enforcement of equal pay for women and has limited to access of lobbyists to the West Wing. There are dozens more tweaks he has made to the way the country is run, and most of them are really sensible and are producing results.

But some of the practices that I find most notable and that would gain him greater traction are regarding our troops. No longer are Americans shielded from the horrors of war—we can witness our heroes’ coffins returning from battle. That’s important, in my eyes. We’re now better able to better acknowledge that our votes have cost people’s lives. Perhaps now voters will take the responsibility more solemnly and not entertain incoherent jackasses like Sarah Palin or Christine O’Donnell, who cloak their ignorance in “real talk”. I’m ready for that reckoning and I think everyone else should be, too.

An example of the decency I’d spoken of earlier is the president’s decision to bear the costs to ensure that family members are on hand to accept the bodies of the deceased soldiers. I’d always known how Americans treat our veterans better with words than deeds—standing ovations at ballparks and vinyl car ribbons rather than quality health care or job training—but I couldn’t believe that it took the 44^th president to make this practice mandatory.

I think the American people deserve to know, irrespective of how damaged our country seems to be, that the man running it is concerned with honor and dignity. And that, whether you agree with his policies or not, that he actually understands the problems and is working to fix them.

But you didn’t hear it from him. Unfortunately.

Unlike a lot of kids, I was never really bullied growing up. Why not? Well, I was seven times the size of many of my classmates and, despite the fact that he wasn’t a bully himself, my brother was feared in our town like Michael Myers, only with a hair-trigger. While I’m not exactly Detective John Rebus, I’d imagine those facts are all somehow related to each other.

Sure, I was occasionally excluded, sometimes ridiculed and, even humiliated once or twice. But that’s called surviving adolescence. I had long hair, listened to heavy metal and read heaps and heaps of books. And Vanity Fair. Yet I was never afraid to go to school and never worried about being physically attacked or verbally abused. (It’s not like I was taught by nuns, or anything.) Judging from the news reports these days, I consider myself to be one lucky individual.

I’d  been trying to figure out whether or not there is more bullying now than when I was a kid—as opposed to just more media coverage—and I’ve recently decided that there is, especially with social networking and anonymous blogging and camera phones. As a result of that, it seems like every other day a few more kids succumb to the hopelessness and alienation and take their own lives. It’s like the plot of Heathers —”Teen Suicide (Don’t Do It)”—but not even remotely funny.

I [am forced to] watch the morning shows [by my wife] and they discuss the warning signs and what they see are the solutions to the epidemic. Talk to your kids, they advise. Talk to their teachers. To the bullies’ parents. To the police, if need be. Talk talk talk. All well meaning advice, but it doesn’t address the root core of the problem.

We have become a bullying society; our television shows are filled with screaming talk show hosts and reality contestants who are rewarded for physically dominating each other. Our professional athletes taunt their opponents, not content with merely winning on the scoreboard, but feeling the need to strip their dignity as well. Dexter, a serial killer, is a hero. So is Eric Northman, a vampire.  MTV, the graveyard of music, is filled with teen moms and Jersey guidos hurling insults at each other and, occasionally, exchanging blows. The word “diss” has made the Oxford English Dictionary.

And in this environment, children are growing up—too fast, already—and projecting their inner turmoil outward, onto the teen gay-lesbian-trans-gender community, but also immigrants, heavy kids, short kids, and those with disabilities—basically the very people who need their support, so desperately. It makes me profoundly sad to think that someone can reach the end of his or her rope so soon. Unless of course, the rope keeps getting shorter, which it seems to be.

Much of the bullying occurs in school and yet education budgets keep shrinking as class sizes swell disproportionally. Unfortunately, teachers don’t have time to act as referees, while school administrators are more concerned with trying to provide enough desks for everyone. In some cases the schools should shoulder blame for not intervening, but in all of them, parents of bullies need to take stock in what kind of kids they are raising. Cruelty and violence don’t come implanted in babies, after all. I was brought up to eschew violence, and have often wondered why everyone wasn’t the same way.

There has to be a point when the United States heads into a voting booth and collectively decides that education is at the top of the priority list. That, above all else, every dime we spend on providing a safe environment for children to express themselves is a dime spent to better our nation’s future. If we can give kids the tools they need, they can build a much smarter, safer and inclusionary America, one free from bullying.

Or, we can just send my brother around to schools. That seemed to work very well in the past.

“Where’s Tina?”

And just like that, Bella barged back into my life. I was outside cleaning up, and my seven-year-old neighbor popped her head out of her window, which happens to overlook my terrace in a high-school-production-of-Rapunzel manner. She was asking about my wife, whom she seems to regard as something of a rival.

“Her name’s Gina,” I replied, looking up her, while trying to extract weeds from beneath a…never mind. Interestingly, Bella was dressed like a ballerina, which neither of us chose to discuss. When you see a kid dressed like a ballerina, as opposed to a princess, she’s usually involved some sort of organized activity. I know; I’m a genius.

“Oh yes,” she says, sounding like Meryl Streep as the fake Anna Wintour. “Is she helping you?”

A recurring theme in Bella’s banter is that Gina doesn’t spend enough time at home. She seems to regard it as somehow improper and seems to suggest I am somehow being taken advantage of. This, from the girl who wanted us to have a fleet of babies “so they could do all the gardening.” Clearly, a child should not make an adult feel defensive, but she is no ordinary child, and I am no ordinary adult.

“Nope, she’s visiting some friends.”

The entire time we are speaking I see Bella’s mom in another window shaking her head apologetically. She does that a lot.

“Hmmm…..so…is your house messy?”

“No, Gina makes sure it’s clean.” All of a sudden I’m speaking like the seven year old. “Why?”

“Because your garden’s messy, Tony, you’ve let it go.”

Honest to God, this is how the kid talks. She uses my name and everything. Why that creeps me out I have no idea. I actually like my name. Just then Bella’s nine year-old brother Roman appeared next to her.

“Did Gina mess it up?” he inquired. “Because sometimes Bella messes my room up and blames me.”

“ROMAN, THAT…IS…NOT…TRUE!”

So I’m sitting there, gardening and smoking a cigar, and the two of them are bickering in the way only a brother and sister can. She’s throwing verbal haymakers. Eventually, Roman gives up and disappears, but not before waving to me. The kid has the manners of Prince William.

So I said, “Bella, I don’t think my deck’s that messy. I’m just…”

She wasn’t having that: “Oh no, it is totally. Your gloves have been on the ground for, like two weeks. And there are weeds everywhere.”

Bella had a point, as she so often does. But ‘everywhere’ was a bit of an overstatement. I was going to challenge her assertion, when she cut me off.

“You know,” she said, “if Gina was ever home, maybe she could help keep your garden clean.”

Then she giggled and disappeared and I realized that she is under the impression that my wife wouldn’t hit a child ballerina, even one that appears to be throwing mud.

She would be wrong.

Last week, I braved bedbug hysteria and went to the movies to see a documentary called “Catfish.” I think that I’m still cringing. The premise is familiar to many of you, actually most of you: two parties meet online, they become friendly and slowly they develop a relationship. It’s platonic, at first, but the faux intimacy grows until there are all sorts of heavy breathing and naughty talk. And that’s me putting it nicely.

In the movie, a NYC-based photographer named Nev Schulman becomes entwined with a Michigan family, which includes a MILF, a seven-year-old art prodigy and a smoldering half-sister, who he naturally zeroes in on for a viral mackathon. Along the way Nev chooses to ignore the warning signs that practically scream at him to proceed with caution. With his opportunist brother and his brother’s co-filmmaker egging him on, Nev hurtles headlong into a virtual four-way that became a pupu platter of sad, creepy, fun and sweet.

And then something happens and he becomes suspicious, and his crew decides to bumrush the family, by driving unannounced to their humble (literally) abode, cameras in tow. All the trip was missing was Joey Greco from Cheaters.

Much has been made of the twist at the end, and so I won’t give it away. But I will say that it’s both expected and unexpected. Everything you think you’ll feel, you don’t, and your preconceived notions get turned around on you right quick. Oh, and there’s a one-eyed Nazi baby singing opera. But that’s all I’ll say.

I’ve met some really cool people online, but luckily I’m all set in the relationship department, so I don’t have to put on any airs. Besides, you’ve read all kinds of crap about me; it’s a little late to talk about my Purple Heart or my love of fixing motorcycles with the orphan children who I mentor. I mean, I hate dolphins and think corn syrup solids get a really bad rap. If my television had wheels, I would take it wherever I went. And I think the government should heavily tax salad fixings. I’m a child trapped in a grown man’s body. Minus the energy.

And so the people I develop a rapport with usually know far more about me than I do about them. But then, through the magic of social networking, I find out more about them, too.

A couple of Saturdays ago, one such person — a twenty-something, no less — came to town, with a friend in tow, and we met for lunch at Schillers on the Lower East Side. I was a bit apprehensive beforehand because I don’t really like most of the people I already know, forget about meeting new people. But Barbara’s blogged and tweeted words belie that she’s a cool and interesting character, with a nimble imagination despite some weird fixation with dissonant music and her hair. And…Medieval something-or-other. And there also appears an affinity for machinery and a haughtiness concerning improperly worn military clothing. (I don’t know, there’s apparently a lot going on up there in Canada.)

The funny thing is that it wasn’t weird at all, because there was no sense of “getting to know you, getting to know all about you.” I feel like we picked up in mid-conversation, even though we’d never spoken. We had a nice lunch, went to PapaBubble and purchased some candy and then we went our separate ways. But…not entirely.

And I think that therein lays the crux of the social networking story. Minus the Nazi baby, of course.

“So how this thing supposed to go? We got no narrator or nobody?”

Yesterday, Dwyane Wade opened the 2011 NBA season with an honest question, at a mobbed press conference featuring an estimated 275 “reporters”—a term that nowadays includes nearly everybody with two arms and a PDA. ESPN carried it live, naturally, and after watching every painful moment of it, I couldn’t agree more with D-Wade: the event definitely needed a narrator.

A wary Wade was sitting between a subdued LeBron James and a nearly comatose Chris Bosh. They looked like three people who would rather be any place else. And, for three guys who used to wear their love for the game on their faces, it was a sober reminder to everyone involved that they will be wearing black hats this season.

On the upside, I thought they showed real team chemistry as they helped answer each other’s questions, which were all a variation of, “LeBron…blah…blah…blah…traitor?” If any of them were smiling, it was hidden on the inside. Which is my way of saying that no one was smiling.

They may turn out to be the nucleus of the best team ever, but it probably isn’t going to be fun, which I think was made pretty clear yesterday. Even folks who know nothing about the game are aware that they upset the balance of the NBA. And while what they did wasn’t illegal, it seems unfair, and the tone of the questions and the defensiveness of many of the answers belied that.

By the time they have the privilege of spending their Christmas Day with the now-cuddly Kobe Bryant, they’ll probably be wondering just what happened to the laugh-riot that they promised each other when they hatched the plan in…. so, let’s just say “early 2010” to avoid legal issues.

The season’s upside is that they play in the comfort of South Beach where they won’t have to worry about anyone paying attention to anything they do while wearing shorts. Despite their one NBA title, Miamians are more attentive to the fit of their jeans than how the Heat players move without the ball. Their knowledge of basketball consists of this: the arena’s California roll uses real crabmeat.

After a few dozen pat questions and pat answers, the press conference ended fittingly: they stood up and wandered off. Although I was sitting at a bar watching, I couldn’t help but ask aloud, “Are we having fun yet?”

The bartender looked up at the TV and then back to me and said, “Fuck them.”

And that was that.

There’s been a lot of soul-searching in the blogosphere lately. Or at least my little corner of it. It’s been a curious phenomenon, and one I really have no business weighing in on, but that’s never stopped me before.

I’ve noticed a handful of the top product and fashion bloggers have begun to publicly question their existence as spokes in what they collectively identified as a relentless promotional wheel. I don’t want to mention them by name, but it isn’t hard to figure out, if you’re like me and you spend time on looking around on the Internet for like-minded obsessives.

The crux of their self-flagellation is the nuts-and-blots of what they do daily: identify a product, digest the press material and condense it, occasionally offering an opinion as to its validity within a hierarchical formula filled with kicks, fashion, furniture and so on. But more often than not, with a lack of staffing and operating as their own tech department, the bloggers have little time to do anything other than clean it up and post it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Occasionally, however, when they’ve been able to stretch their legs and write in a lengthier style, usually about an event, opening, or something that particularly excites them, it’s really, really good. (Most also have some other written outlet that they’re able to nerd out on.) But, in general, they’ve succumbed to the velocity, and sort of gotten away from why they entered into this line of work: to write. The term “journalist” is one which I find archaic, in this day and age. I think of Bob Woodward and Seymour Hersh, not some guy who writes for GQ about a fancy pants actress. Or certainly, not one who does what we do here in the blogosphere.

I’ve read a few columns, and seen some back-and-forth on competing blogs, and felt the frustration on the pages. Yet far as I see, they’re all being way too hard on themselves. First of all they’re all really good, discriminating writers. No bullshit. And if they weren’t so busy doing nine other things to make ends meet, they could probably be able to add a more powerful filter on what they post and not feel like the Dunkin’ Donuts zombie: “Time to make the donuts.”

But, as for now, they operate businesses whose goal is to sift through the hundreds of items and stories daily and whittle them down to a few, while providing a handsome space for some advertising. That’s the only business model that exists in the non-print world, sadly and for the foreseeable future.

Granted, there’s some overlap between them in what they report on and that is unfortunate; and not every post is a home run, or even a double. Yet they all hit for a high average, in my eyes. As a matter of fact, the fashion and product blogs are, in general, of a higher far caliber than some other more esoteric web sites.

So says the guy who writes the most esoteric nonsense found on any of them.

Ever since I was young, I have written letters (mostly angry ones) to major U.S. corporations, telling them how they should be going about their business. I’m serious. It started the day I wrote a letter to Aunt Jemima imploring her to release a cherry flavored version of her breakfast syrup. I was probably seven years old. I also recommended that she release it in time for Christmas. (Timely, right?)  Then, a few weeks later, I received a letter from someone named “Pam” thanking me for my helpful suggestions. Afterward, I called her. And she didn’t take my call. But it was okay because, on that day, as Pam dodged the phone call of an excitable nerd-child, a fuse was nevertheless lit.

Over the years, I’ve written to airlines, magazines, and even Mr. Peanut because, if you must know, I thought that the giant plastic peanut I had ordered in 5th grade wasn’t sufficiently stuffed with nuts. (I wish I were joking.) Sure, I’ve had beef with trading card companies and Krazy-Glue (those a-holes), yet still most of my letters have been written to food companies. There is something about packaged food, when rendered poorly, that has balled my fists since they were tiny. Or, more accurately, medium-sized.

The reason I am mentioning this apropos of nothing is that I found a ratty old notebook of mine filled with all kinds of half-thoughts coupled with nonsensical meanderings of ramblings of an escaped mental patient, aka me. And I came across a letter I had written to Nerds in which—surprise, surprise—I sounded angry. And so here it is, in its entirety. Unedited. Please don’t judge me. I’m very sensitive.

Dear Nerds,

This one’s harder than it was with those toaster pastry freaks. Because I love you Nerds. Love you, love you, love you, love you. I don’t care who knows it. (Because everyone I know already does.)
But lately—here we go again—I’ve been disappointed with your behavior. Quite simply, I expected more. For such a dynamic candy I expected more flavors, more products, more everything. Rainbows Nerds was awesome. But Nerds Rope? When, exactly, did you stop giving a shit? Rope?
Even Twizzlers, which actually looks like rope, calls itself “vines”. It’s like you don’t even want it to work. Where are the tremendous advances that technology has afforded? Where is your cotton gin, your fax machine, your something-something cancer vaccine? I mean, I saw on TV where they can put a mouse’s brain into a turtle’s skull and you idiots cannot even add two new flavors?
These Wonka people are like bad foster parents. If I were running the show, there would be sour-stuffed Nerds, Nerds-flavored ice cream and Nerds chunky-soda (these are off the top of my head) in addition to all sorts of wild flavors like blue-raspberry-tangerine, mango-lemon and passionfruit-kiwi-pineapple. Get it together, people.
REVOLUTION, NOT EVOLUTION…can you hear me?
I don’t need to ask if you know that the other candy brands are gaining on you. Airheads, SourPatch Kids, even Skittles—they’re all laughing and your timidity and your provinciality. Hahaha. Just like that.
Shut their traps, for once. You’re Nerds, godammit! The heavyweight champion! They can’t touch you. Hell, they can’t even come close.
It starts now, Nerds. This is your wake-up call. There’s no “snooze” button in the confectionary world, jackass.

Respectfully, and with a mouth full of suspect teeth,
Tony.

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”—Macbeth

On Fox News, they’ve been referring to President Obama as a “one-term president” for months now. I’ve watched them gleefully trumpet the Tea Party Express (that’s its Christian name) as it has grown in prominence and fury. And the entire time, I’ve been wondering if perhaps the network has been misreading the situation. Maybe they missed the signs, being too busy rubbing their sweaty hands together like giant houseflies.

In my eyes, the Tea Party’s emergence, and the results of the GOP primaries, are both promising developments if we have any hope of turning this ship around. Delaware saw loonybeans, anti-masturbation advocate Christine O’Donnell beat a moderate Republican, Mike Castle, who probably would’ve netted 55% of the general election vote. A well respected voice on both sides of the aisles. A legislator.

She, who wrote a college thesis on the role of women in Tolkien’s books, will struggle to reach 45% when all the November votes are tallied. Last night I read an interview where she spoke of dabbling in “witchcraft” in high school, and engaging in a date atop a Satanic altar, and I get the feeling that this is merely the tip of a very unseemly iceberg.

The people who funded her are mad as hell at President Obama, but more importantly, at their own party, petulantly kneecapping it, with their crazy signs and angry rallies. These “We the people” people injected a dose of adrenaline into their gathering of old white folks, but like the fun guy at the party who eventually has a few too many and barfs all over your suede couch, GOP leadership must be wondering just who the hell they are letting in.

They’re actually giving the Democrats more than a puncher’s chance at escaping the midterms without losing both majorities. O’Donnell (and Angle in Nevada, and that crazy guy running for governor in New York) are so unelectable I thought Karl Rove was going to cry when they won. He knows better than anyone what it takes to win. He is, after all, the guy who got President Bush elected…twice.

They will eventually drive moderates, the real Republicans—small government, low taxes, national security—out of the party with their social platform: anti-gay, anti-immigrant, religious intolerance, etc. The reason that these candidates have won anything is because they are running in Republican primaries, not general elections. If you combine the number of votes it took for Tea Partiers to win in Alaska, Delaware and Nevada, it was just north of 156,000 votes…combined.

In the general election, these candidates will get a total of zero Democratic votes and attract a minority of Independent voters. Because, really, they are the reason the economy is in a shambles. What they are complaining about—basically, “out-of-control spending”— isn’t going to be solved any time soon, no matter who is elected. Over the last nine years, the average middle class household’s income has dropped $5,000. Economists call it a “lost decade” which followed on the heels of our nation’s most prosperous decade…under President Clinton. That is the landscape in the United States, as of five minutes ago.

Tens of millions of people are now without jobs, as unregulated industries paid for their sins by firing the rank-and-file. Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans have gutted social programs, like education and emergency preparedness. The additional spending that has elicited such ire, is to keep one-tenth of working age people from being cast into the streets. You add dependant children and the elderly into that, and the number is closer to 15% of the country’s population. Republicans want to curb spending? They should’ve thought of that 10 years ago, when they entered the voting booth.

With majorities in both houses of Congress, the GOP grew the US government to a record size, at a record pace, dragged us into two foreign wars (both fought on credit), and had failed us time and time again, by hiring cronies instead of competence. Alberto Gonzales. Donald Rumsfeld. Goddamn Brownie.

They took Clinton’s surplus and left us with a deficit. They always run on competence, but those were the eight least competent years in our country’s history. And now they want to take the wheel again. And they think the best way to do it is to threaten and breathe fire.

I often wonder on which planet they are living. See, Earth has a recorded history, and we all know how everything went down. This is all fact, not vitriol or opinion. The problem is, it doesn’t make for a pretty sign.

So when Obama was elected, he was handed the keys to a gas guzzling Hummer and his detractors expected it to immediately burn fuel like a Prius. Except the truck is also broken. And while he’s under the hood, people are shouting at him, calling him all sorts of names, questioning his citizenship, his leadership, his heart. And then there are two Hummers. No wait, three of them. And he has to fix them all, in two years, with two wars, a cruel depression and an obstructionist legislative branch.

Now I know why Tea Party Express members call themselves a “movement.” The funny thing is: when all is said and done, it will be the Republicans, both in the midterm and 2012 presidential elections, that will be on the receiving end of their discharge.

Have at me.

——————

Addendum: I read an informative article today that Montana GOP’s platform includes the position that homosexuality is considered illegal. (Of course it is.) Here is the link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gays_in_montana

The prosecution rests.

I was watching the roll call of those who perished on September 11th, an event that took far longer than the attacks themselves. It was a brutal three-plus hour exercise for the families and friends, who took turns reading the names and paying tribute to the fallen. It was heartbreaking and still so incomprehensible.

I saw a woman pay tribute to her deceased brother while wishing his daughter a happy 11th birthday and I thought about a friend who lost his dad and brother. And I was in a perpetual state of nearly losing it with grief, however abstract mine may be. All my relatives came home that day. Otherwise I can only imagine my hurt.

Then I went onto Twitter to see what everyone else was thinking and came across someone I occasionally follow defending her right to make 9-11 jokes, since it was okay to make AIDS babies dying in Africa and dead prostitute jokes.

Seriously. I said, “I think you need some new friends” and she quickly replied: “I think I need a new America.” I should say that she is from Europe and not from a particularly vocal country about much of anything when it really matters.

And I thought about how different people’s experiences on Twitter are from my own. I crack jokes and make observations and most of the folks that I follow do the same. We make fun of television shows and people with bad fashion sense and we try to make our lives sound a little more glamorous. And we make new friends, however slender those threads may be. It’s actually fun. At least I think it is.

But this woman made me realize that there is a whole other side to Twitter, where people try and shock each other, and play a macabre game, writing violent or sexually explicit tweets. Or write abusive tweets to celebrities.

And today, as these thousands of innocent people are being mourned by their parents, siblings, young children and friends, this woman, in her home halfway around the world, questioned why it was not okay to share a laughs with her ghoulish friends at their expense. Apparently, she was attempting to justify it by citing the geopolitics of this country.

It’s the sort of esoteric, intellectualized argument that makes people hate intellectuals. One has absolutely nothing to do with another. And these people’s grief is an emotion that cannot be picked up and played with over the internet. Because you’re bored. Not passionate about it. Just to kill a few minutes.

Again, I’m sick with grief and you would be unable to dissect why. It’s nine years later and, perhaps because of the protestors who are preparing for another round of xenopalooza today with a protest at the WTC site, I feel very much frozen in place.

I stopped following her and was instantly relieved that I don’t have to spend another minute of my life in her world. I also wanted to say, “Go crawl back into your hole” but those are six more words than she deserves.

PS No I don’t know any AIDS baby or dead prostitute jokes either. I guess we don’t get out nearly enough.