harmoniousglitter

Spammers, Dearest...

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:31:00 +0000

Dear Spammers Who Keep Sending Me Comments,

First of all, how do you find me?

Second, why do you think I'm going to approve all of your ads for Viagra, etc.?

Third, you do not know me. You therefore do not know who you are dealing with! You don't have a prayer of getting your ads approved on here.

Go solicit someone who gives a shit!

Sincerely yours,

Harmonious Glitter

Do Rattlers Work for the MTA?

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 09:07:00 +0000

Legend has it that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.

Did he also drive all the bus drivers out of New York City? Last night I had to wait for 35 minutes just for a crosstown bus - any crosstown bus - to come by and pick up the ever-growing line of people who were waiting on the street for several different lines. Either St. Patrick did his snake routine on every bus driver in the city yesterday or else they ALL took the day off to go to the Parade!

http://www.letssaythanks.com/

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:02:00 +0000

http://www.letssaythanks.com/

This is a link that can be used to thank our troops for the holidays - for free. Xerox has generously set this up. Select a card and a message and make a soldier's day! I love things like this. Military families are the best!

A Few New Lights Shining Away at Ground Zero

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 04:05:00 +0000

It's been taking forever. The rebuilding efforts at Ground Zero continue, but that's not exactly front-page news. They've been taking so long it's too long. For years now, about the only thing anyone can see to show for all the plans that have been made for the site have been cranes, cranes and more cranes behind the opaque fencing around the perimeter.

One building went up awhile ago but the others have been stalled. Mayor Bloomberg finally said something to make whoever is in charge of the situation, probably the Lower Manhattan Development group, start moving their butt already.

But these days, or rather, nights, when my bus breezes past that 'hood, there's a partially finished building that almost looks as if it's trying to get into the spirit of Christmas. Its unfinished floors are lit, or at least marked, by different colored lights.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to those lights - green on this floor, pink on that, four blue ones in a row on four others, yellow on another still. And they're just bulbs, like the ones that would hang in the foyer by a window if and when the building ever gets finished.

But they're lights. They're in different little colors.

And isn't this The Season of Light?

It may not sound like much, but for years the pit that is Ground Zero has been a dark and sad gash in that once-great and very proud block, the one where the Twin Towers once stood guard over my city, so really, those lights on that building are the first truly noticeable signs of life over there in I can't remember how long. If a building can be said to have some personality, maybe here comes a happy new one. It makes me wonder what other kinds of new buildings are on the rise there. Whoever is in charge of that one, at least, seems to be casually getting the place into the spirit of the holiday season, and one bulb per floor at a time.

It makes me wonder what kind of vibrant new buildings will be shining over there by next Christmas.

Christmastime in the City

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 02:56:00 +0000

Well, it's that time of the year again, folks: Christmastime in the city!

The decorations this year are better than ever. There's a store in the 50's on Fifth Avenue that has a whole ocean, complete with surfers, projected onto its facade; that's the Standout of 2010, in my humble opinion. Fifth Avenue in the 50's is so well-decorated this year in general that it's hard to know where to look first. Several decorations feature all-red lights, which I find really nice; that's more interesting than the ones with all-white lights or all-blue lights, which are fine, too, but have been a bit overdone. Others have lights that change colors, going through the whole spectrum. The new technologies bring so many pleasant surprises!

Saving America's Mustangs

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:52:00 +0000

Well, I keep trying to upload a beautiful graphic from a group that has been working to save America's Wild Mustang horses, but somehow the link won't upload. Still, the group is amazing. It's led by a woman named Madeleine Pickens, and in my humble opinion, anyone who works to save animals is like an angel come to earth!

Disgraceful Cover-Up in the Asher Brown Suicide Case in Cypress, Texas

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 08:39:00 +0000

Here's the latest mess in Cypress, Texas, and it's an outrage bar none.

The parents of the little 13-year-old boy in Texas, Asher Brown, who shot himself to death to escape further bullying at school last week in Cypress, said all along that they had called the school repeatedly to complain about their son's mistreatment.

One Kelli Durham, Cypress-Fairbanks school district spokesperson, stated repeatedly last week that the parents "never" called the school.

After the parents rightfully screamed to the media that they most certainly had called the school, and often, and didn't appreciate the insult to injury of being called liars, and hinting at a lawsuit, finally, this week, the story out of Cypress-Fairbanks is being revised a bit. NOW, the school is admitting that yes, they did get some phone calls from the parents...about which they did absolutely nothing, I might add. Doing something about it, i.e., doing their job, well, now, that requires work.

But here's the best part. This Kelli Durham is married to the assistant principal! It's a cover-up of ludicrous proportions. Now we know why she was pretending the phone calls "didn't happen," and now we can guess who put her up to lying besides. Did these Tex-ass yahoos think all of this wouldn't get out, ever? What goes on with the administration of that particular school system, anyway? They don't do their jobs, then they try to cover it up, and all the while they think they're going to get away with it. What "gifted" educators! What a sick group! I wonder, do they wear white sheets over their heads in the faculty lounge there, too?

I hope they all get prosecuted.

Some New Nominees for the Hall of Shame

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 01:44:00 +0000

It's been quite a week for bullies.

First Seth Walsh from Tehachapi, California, hung himself after years of bullying at his school. The school did nothing to stop the situation.

Next, a child named Asher Brown killed himself in Cypress, Texas, after years of relentless bullying in his middle school. Asher's mother and step-father contacted the school on several occasions about the mistreatment their child was being subjected to there; now the school is claiming that the parents "never contacted them." The job of issuing the denials is falling to a piece of work named Kelli Durham, school district spokesperson, and it's got the parents justifiably furious. It's enough to make even the mildest of persons blindingly enraged. Good God, if you fools in Cypress screwed up royally, at least come clean, like real adults, and admit it, rather than hide behind weak little denials that are clearly being offered because, too late, the school district in question is afraid of a lawsuit.

There should be lawsuits. Multimillion dollar lawsuits. I hope that Seth's parents, and Asher's parents, all sue, win, and bankrupt those whole useless school systems.

Then a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Tyler Clementi, a violinist, had his privacy violated by his roommate-from-Hell, Dharun Ravi, and Dharun's friend Molly Wei, who rigged up a camera in the room to record Tyler having sex, then promptly posted the video on the Internet in one of the most cowardly and vicious "pranks" I've ever heard of. Tyler Clementi committed suicide over it by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. Today the authorities found and positively identified the poor boy's body.

Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei were arrested and had charges brought against them, thank God; Dharun had to post bail, and Molly was "released on her own recognizance," a ludicrous state of affairs in this particular girl's case, since if she had any sense of recognizance this never would have happened in the first place. So far I have yet to find any information about the parents of the Ravi and Wei monsters, but am looking forward to seeing what they look like on the news. I wonder what it must be like to realize that the execrable "children" you brought into the world are mindless, vicious sociopaths who caused a boy they barely knew to jump to his death off the George Washington Bridge.

The Rutgers duo are perhaps the worst of the lot; the other two children who killed themselves were middle school students, tormented by kids about twelve, but these two jackasses who tormented the Clementi boy to death were eighteen years old and legally "adults," even if emotionally, they were both about ten years old, if that, and obviously not very bright, let alone decent, besides. Spokeswoman Kelli Durham in Cypress, Texas is also an adult, though no doubt another marginal one, and she clearly cares more about her paycheck than she does about telling the truth.

Bullying needs to be criminalized to the point it's a felony. Bullying that leads to a child's death, including death by suicide, should be punishable by mandatory jail time. Like it or not, Ravi Dharun, Molly Wei, and you too, Kelli Durham, Spokesperson with the Forked Tongue, all three of you contributed to these tragedies. You do not deserve a free pass. You do not even deserve to walk freely among the rest of us. You need to be locked up, preferably for the next few decades. I sincerely hope that the shame of what you have done follows you right to your graves.

I also hope that the three boys, Seth, Asher and Tyler, rest in peace. My heart goes out to your families. You're all irreplaceable; what a shame that your schools didn't tell you that.

Full Moon Over Manhattan

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 01:25:00 +0000

There's a full moon tonight over Manhattan, shining like a silver coin as I awaited my bus ride home.

A gentleman on the bus line pointed to a row of orange cones in the street. "See those?" he asked. "That's the sacred lane; I hate UN Week!"

"The sacred lane?" I repeated.

"Yeah! A whole lane reserved just for the diplomats' cars. God forbid they ride through the traffic like the rest of the vox populae."

Yes, the diplomats are out this week, all right, and not just in their sacred lane; they're all over the place. So are the police. There are cops congregating on every Midtown corner, especially by the hotels. I don't know who was coming out of one of the hotels I passed by on 57th Street this morning but there was so much security it had to be a dignitary, maybe even Ahmadinejad, who's in town, or maybe not: he probably needs to be guarded by his own army battalion, and while there were several cops around that particular hotel, there weren't enough for someone as notorious as him.

Meanwhile, the rest of us all have to leave for work at least an hour early during UN Week because the gendarmes tie up and redirect the traffic in favor of the Dips, making the rest of us late if we don't get up at the crack of dawn to allow for it.

I wonder if Obama's here too; last year traffic was stopped on Madison Avenue for half an hour by the Secret Service as they awaited the whispery passing by of his limo.

When I ultimately arrived in the vicinity of my merry workplace, an older woman in a plaid sundress and a funny, floppy had was marching down the street like Attila the Hun on the battlefield, screaming into a phone, presumably at her boss. "Oh, you don't like that I'm going to be late, eh? You don't like it that I'm late? Well, I've got a few things to tell you about your wife!" I was sorry when she passed by, if only because it meant I couldn't eavesdrop on the rest of this conversation, just when it was getting juicy, too.

Yes, there's a full moon over Manhattan, all right! Let the games begin!

The Find of the Week: Dramatization of Rosamunde Pilcher's Novels on British DVD's

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 01:56:00 +0000

I have been rejoicing for several days now because I found out that several of Rosamunde Pilcher's wonderful novels were dramatized on British television! And not only that, there are DVD's available. As anyone who's read any of the incredible British author's books already knows, they're wonderful romantic stories, usually set in either Cornwall or Scotland, and always a rare treat.

So far I've gotten my hands on two of them and counting: "Coming Home," which is stunningly photographed and as fabulous as the book, and "September." On the way are "Winter Solstice" and "Nancherrow," a sequel to "Coming Home" not written by Rosamunde Pilcher but utilizing the same characters.

This has made my weekend! This and the usual amount of shopping I did on Saturday.

New York City's New and Improved Inflatable Protest Rat!

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:49:00 +0000

Here's a link, with a great photograph, to New York City's new - and vastly improved - protest rat. NYC construction unions take great pride, pleasure, and sheer glee in inflating these giant rats and putting them in front of buildings whose owners are committing various no-no's.

This new rat is basically attired as a stereotypical greedy slumlord. He comes complete with two bags of money, a tux on his back and a cigar in his mouth, and is currently in position in front of The Lincoln Building over by Grand Central Terminal, where he shall remain on behalf of Laborers Local 78 until their needs are addressed. The tourists are having a ball with him; we locals enjoy seeing him, too. I've never seen a protest point expressed quite so, um, elegantly.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/seeing-a-rat-and-loving-it/

Outrageous Ads, Circa 1909, Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 21:30:00 +0000

They, um, can't have been serious!

A Halo for Steven Slater

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:49:00 +0000

The most fabulous job exit in the history of the world took place on Monday. Steven Slater, a flight attendant for Jet Blue Airlines, got hit in the head by a luggage-wielding passenger and decided that that was it. He wasn't going to take any more crap on the job.

So what did he do?

If you haven't already heard since this glorious little story is all over the television, print and onlnie media, he got on the loudspeaker of the plane, cursed out the passengers, told them off, "liberated" a beer, drank it, activated the airplane's escape chute, slid down it and quit. Wheeeeee! And what a way to tell his superiors they could take their job and shove it.

I LOVE IT!

The dear New York Post doesn't, though. They are calling Steven a "bag Nazi." Post, I beg to differ with you! How can he be the bad guy here? Somebody else hit him over the head with her luggage! Where's the uproar over her actions? Can't she at least qualify as a "Bag Barbarian?"

I believe Steven Slater has done something positive for his fellow man with his grand exit: reminded us all that sometimes, enough is enough! He deserves two wings and a halo. As for the passenger, somebody should've sent her sliding down the chute, too! At the very least, and before charging her with assault.

Robbing the Jobless

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 02:03:00 +0000

How's this for reprehensible?

One of my best friends lives in the Atlanta area and has been looking for a job for the past few months. She reports that the latest Internet scam involves job search websites. It seems that morally bereft identity thieves have no trouble whatsoever with putting fake job offers on job websites for the singular purpose of getting the applicants' Social Security numbers and other personal information - in order to rob the unemployed!

I should think that the sites in question should, at least, have some kind of protocols in place so that they can verify these potential employers, but then again, anyone who would pull this kind of a scam on the jobless is capable of anything.

All of this brought to mind another scam that used to be run by New York City personnel agencies back in the 1980's and 1990's. Knowing full well that plenty of people graduated from college with degrees in Media, Film, Theater, and English, like me, they would create bogus ads describing most kids' dream jobs. "Publicity Department in executive office of motion picture company. Work on special projects, write press releases, run special events," they'd say, among a whole list of other enticing job duties that were nothing but a come-on. Whenever I'd call the phone number and visit the agency in question, I'd be told, "That job was just filled this morning! But we've got another one that you'll love! It's in an architect's office." Then the sales pitch would come, when they'd sit there trying to convince me that with an English and Media degree, what I "really" wanted was to waste a few years in some office that sounded so boring I'd never want to go on the interview, let alone take the job. No one else, of course, wanted the job either. That's why they had to hide it behind fake ads for a position in another industry in the first place.

I later found out that if an employment agency does this, it's against the law.

I'm going to repeat that.

If an employment agency tries to in any way con or encourage an applicant to take a job that they do not want, that is AGAINST THE LAW. The agency needs to be reported to the authority from which they get their license. They could lose their license and be fined over it. And, scumbags though they are, unethical though their business practices may be, most agents still do not wish to be reported, so simply informing them that you are aware their actions are illegal usually is enough to stop them from harassing you to take any job you don't want. Get up, leave, and do not deal with that agency again. Ever!

They sure do like to try and intimidate the job applicants, though. My best war story about dealing with an agency happened at one in Midtown Manhattan that put dashes between the letters of their name in their logo, I know not why; it looked more over-the-top than chic or clever...or dare I say it? Dashing. I went in there once, way, way back in 1998, since the nice boss I'd been working for had left the company and I'd been reassigned to work for a dipshit. I explained to the agent, who was into the 'New Age," judging by the crystals on her desk, that I was trying to find a different job due to not liking said dipshit.

The employment agent's erudite reply? "Maybe you were a slave-owner in another life, on a Southern plantation, and you OWNED the boss, and now, it's karma, and she's getting revenge on you!" She actually was saying I might have once owned my dipshit boss, and in another life on a Southern plantation, yet...I who am a descendant of a Civil War Major-General of the Union Army! That's when I noticed the agent's eyes were glowing strangely, as if they were lit from within, like a madwoman's. Uh-oh...

Well, to make a long story as short and succinct as possible, once I got out of that agency with the dashes in its name, having basically informed that agent to go dash herself, I never returned there again, and, in fact, never went through a job agency to get another job again, either. I'd rather send out my own resumes and take my chances than deal with middlemen who play tricks with bogus ads and try to play mind-games with the job applicants. I've always wondered just why they can't place truthful ads in the papers and bring in applicants who would, say, want to work for an architect, rather than rope in the ones that don't. But that would mean they'd have to do a little honest work.

Chelsea Clinton Gets Married/Flower Power?

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 03:07:00 +0000

Tomorrow's the big day in Rhinebeck, New York: the day Chelsea Clinton gets married to Marc Mezvinsky.

I wish them both the very best. They're clearly a shining example of the best kind of young people. The groom's mother, Marjorie Margolies, many, many years ago, like when I was in the tenth grade of high school, wrote a book called "They Came to Stay" about her adoption of two little girls, one from Korea named Lee Heh and another from Vietnam called Holly. Marjorie adopted them as a single parent and was one of the very first single parents, in the 1960's and 1970's, ever allowed to do so. Later, she met Mr. Mezvinsky and they had more children. To me, Marjorie has always been an inspiration, and I'm thrilled over the idea of this wedding celebration.

I've only got one little blog comment to make. The media is reporting that the flowers for this wedding are going to cost $500,000.

Five hundred thousand dollars? For flowers?

How many flowers, exactly, are we talking about, here?

And more importantly, just how accurate are these "flowering" media reports? Five hundred thousand dollars worth of blossoms sounds a little excessive to me, to put it mildly, if only because you've got to wonder - if the dubious reports are true, that is - just where are the Clintons going to put them all? Let's take a low figure, gang. If each blossom were to cost, say, five American bucks, that would be one MILLION flowers. Little Rhinebeck, New York may not be big enough to house all those blooms. Neither might the entire state of Maryland.

I would be willing to bet any amount of tulips and roses that the floral budget for this wedding doesn't even reach fifty thousand bucks, let alone half a million. If the media isn't going way far overboard to the point of hilarity with their exaggerations this time, I'll eat my hat.

There are supposed to be other cool touches to this wedding, like fireworks after the ceremony, so it sounds like it's going to be a great party. The best to all involved!

Temperate Weather

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:41:00 +0000

This morning the New York City area received a rare (this summer, anyway) treat: a nice little downpour. It didn't last as long as I would have liked, though; it didn't bring a cold front in yet, and we could use one! Seriously, I'd love it if we could get hit with a lovely little twenty-degree drop in temperature, one that would remain dropped until, say, Autumn Equinox.

If I were to ever relocate, which probably won't happen until I retire, I've often wondered where to land. I doubt I'd head towards the sunbelt. Why, you may ask? Well, honey, it's too darn hot!

Seattle supposedly has a much more temperate climate than New York. Their winters rarely dip below 30 degrees, and their summers rarely flare up beyond 75. I'd love that. But it rains in Seattle 300 days out of the year, and while I don't mind rain, and actually enjoy the palette of a muted rainy day much more than I do a glaring sunny one, 300 of them in a year might be way too much for anybody to take, even me.

When I was about ten years old I recall reading a book that captured my imagination. It was about a foster child who was sent to live with a decent, kind family on a little tiny island in Maine. The family had to take a ferry to visit "the mainland" and lived in a small island community, with plenty of snow in winter, the beach in the summer, ocean breezes all year long, and without 300 days of downpours. That's an even better plan than going to Seattle.

Prince Edward Island's in Canada, and I've thought of maybe heading there, too. Just think: it's another island, it's on the ocean, it's in Canada, it's not too warm, the weather's lovely, and I'd never have to turn on a news program and listen to either the Democrats OR the Republicans fighting and propagandizing about any subject ever again! Ah, bliss!

But...the island in Maine actually sounds terrific! Maybe I can go there and just not get Cable.
Ah-ya!

Have Some Fun with the Warholizer!

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:24:00 +0000

I am having more fun with a little website called "The Warholizer." Upload any picture and you can have it "Warholized" into either one, four or nine little identical pictures of yourself, colorized the way Andy Warhol liked to make them. If at first you don't succeed in liking the colors that the Warholizer selects for you, try, try again, hit the "Shuffle" button and different combinations will come up. You can save whichever ones you like, and best of all, it's all free!

Here 'tis:

http://bighugelabs.com/popart.php

Bad Taste Bedding

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:53:00 +0000

Want to laugh out loud? Walk into any Bedding department in any department store and take a look at the designs and the color combinations. The hideous, non-harmonious, outrageously awful color combinations.

The bad taste in comforters has just plain sunk to an all-time low. The funniest of the lot today was one horror that was bleeding dark reds and burnt oranges in a paisley eyesore. It looked like it might have been appropriate in a whorehouse, but in a home? Forget it! Another one, a patchwork in somber shades of mauve, brown, navy blue, and mustard, etc., got my vote for Second Place. Honorable Mention went to the navy blue one trimmed in acid chartreuse.

I would not want any of these linen concoctions in my line of vision, let alone on my bed. Who, exactly, is picking out these designs and shades, anyway? And who's buying them? What kind of decor do they have if navy blue and acid chartreuse is able to somehow enhance it?

Whatever happened to pastels?

Those Phony-Objective, Laughably Partisan News Networks

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 03:29:00 +0000

Just wanted to put this idea out there, for whatever it may be worth.

A hundred years ago, plenty of little town or regional newspapers had names like the "So-In-So-ville Democrat and Chronicle" or the "Such-In-Such County Republican." If the papers were partisan, they not only admitted it, but many of them also put their affiliation right in the paper's name.

Now what was so "wrong" with that?

As someone who is politically Independent, and who doesn't really identify too closely with either the Democrats or the Republicans, I for one get a royal kick out of watching CNN and Fox News Network, and plenty of others like ABC, all pretending to be "objective" when they're anything but. This is high comedy of the most hilarious order. Five minutes into watching the programming on these stations, it's always obvious which way they're slanting the news, so why can't they just come clean and admit it? "CNN Democrat News," "ABC Liberal News" or "Fox Conservative News Network" would be infinitely more honest monikers for these outrageously biased stations.

Honesty is easy to respect. But bullshit? Bullshit is only easy to laugh at.

Spy Swapping and LeBron Who?

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 02:37:00 +0000

So after all this spy talk that's been such fun all week, what happens? Four of the Russian spies who were caught in the U.S., including Anna Chapman, the femme fatale, have been returned to the shores of the former Soviet Union and in return we're getting some of our own back. Spies, that is.

My, is that the end already? I was so hoping for a more colorful finish than that!

Speaking of colorful finishes, I liked the look of Anna Chapman's red hair. I wonder if I should try that shade myself. The latest dye I used on it sucks.

As for this LeBron James situation, my father called me yesterday to say he was really and thoroughly sick of hearing about it, over and over again, on every single news channel.

"Who's LeBron James?" I asked.

"Some ball player," Dad said.

"What sport, like football, or something?"

"I think it's basketball," Dad said.

"I don't follow any of them. I don't even know the names of most of the teams, I don't much care to find out, and I've never heard of this guy before in my life."

"I know," said Dad. "It's all over the airwaves, but who cares? Aren't we lucky to be theater geeks, instead?"

"AMEN, MAN! YES!"

The "Polarized" are Fun to Watch

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:42:00 +0000

I don't know one single "polarized" person of any stripe who spends their energy trying to change/convert their friends and family members to be "just like them" who is happy. And who would want to emulate somebody who isn't happy?

Not me, thanks! I've seen them all, and they are the most miserable lot alive.

When I was growing up there were three different types of fanatics that exposed anyone they came into contact with with their rhetoric. This was in the 1970's in the suburbs of New York City. The suburbs attract a very unusual crowd. Most of them don't want to live in the big, bad city, but aren't too happy sitting out in the suburbs with not much to do, either. So the most hilarious ones I knew growing up got into one of three different ways of being. I won't mention which ones, only because I cannot bear to write about any of them...to write about them would mean to have to put some of their rhetoric on here, and I won't do that to you; if you had any interest in any of it, you'd have looked it up already for yourself anyway. Suffice it to say that one group was non-traditional religious, one was sociological/touchy-feely, and one was political.

What did they have in common? Only one thing: all were miserable.

They may not have been, had they learned anything at all about the concept of live and let live, but that didn't work for these three bastions of joy and stability. It wasn't enough that they were following their own star and doing what was right for themselves. Oh, no. You had to follow along with them, too, or else they had some of the most spectacular conniption fits I ever was treated to seeing. I wish I'd had them on film. Future generations could have watched them on YouTube videos when they searched out the keyword "fanatics."

One look, and that might have discouraged any potential new followers forevermore.

These days some of them have a new routine that's also fun to watch, though annoying if it's directed at you. The latest is that they'll say, "I don't agree with you about some things! I don't agree! I don't agree!" They sound about three and a half years old when they state this, and then they take it from there. Never mind that nobody ever asked them to agree in the first place.

My answer to this usually stops them dead in their tracks. Not always, but usually. I'll shrug and say, "And this is your business because?"

Tantrums may have been amusing to read about when it was Helen Keller throwing them at the age of seven and rioting in her dining room, but when you've got a sixty-five-year-old who weighs three hundred pounds in front of you, jumping up and down and screeching because you won't hug the same tree as they're embracing, well, that's a threat to the fault that runs under 125th Street and might just mess with the Richter Scale, in addition to being rather flabbergasting to watch. This could be choreographed into a ballet. For circus animals.

Okay, I'll stop there.

I'm just so glad that I was influenced by positive books, plays, shows and movies when I was young enough to absorb their messages, and before I met some of these, um, polarized personages. If any rhetoric should be thrown at the people, maybe a regular public service announcement about "live and let live" might be a grand idea.

Those Glorious Childhood Books

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 02:33:00 +0000

Mentioning "Harriet the Spy" on my blog yesterday brought to mind a lot of the other books I read and loved as a child. Harriet's nanny told her "There are as many different ways to live as there are people," and that stays with me yet. Harriet, a budding secret agent with her own "spy route" around Manhattan that was more like the rounds of a peeping tom, believed, "Spies should not get caught!" The eleven Russian spies we just arrested here should have read that book as a training manual.

In addition to the tome about Harriet, First there were the series of mysteries that I loved: The Happy Hollisters, The Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew. There was always a big problem like a stolen object or a person who was pretending to, say, haunt a hotel to scare away the customers. All three series featured young detectives, from four-year-old Sue Hollister and six-year-old Freddie and Flossie Bobbsey on up to Nancy Drew, age 18 and driving a roadster. Nothing stopped them. They always, always, always got their villian by the end, usually after a chase, or being tied up, or another wild challenge. No one foiled any of them. Most who tried regretted it.

A children's biography about Helen Keller, the blind and deaf girl who graduated from an Ivy League college, was a favorite. I taught myself sign language from the diagrams of the Manual Alphabet on the back page and I loved to read about all the splendid tantrums she threw before she was taught language. A brat with excuses, she even wrecked the dining room single-handedly when she was seven! Once she learned sign language she became a great student after that, though a little boring for my tastes, but hey, I was ten.

Maybe the best one of all was a Scholastic book that I still have and still love called "Secret Agents Four." The same author, Donald J. Sobol, wrote another children's detective series, "Encyclopedia Brown." The main character in "Secret Agents Four" was Ken Mullins, a boy whose father was an American agent for an organization like the CIA, which they called "Mongoose." The opposing side, like the KGB in Cold War America, which apparently, this week, really and truly is still here and operating, was called "Cobra." The boy and his three friends knew of a plot afoot to terrorize their city and they decided to help, calling themselves - get ready, here - "Volunteer Agents Crusading Unsteadily Under Mongoose," or V.A.C.U.U.M, for short. You notice how I still remember what every single one of those letters stood for, which shows you how much I loved the book. The boy volunteer agents may have crusaded unsteadily, but I'll give you one guess who saved the day, the town, and captured those Cobra agents.

I still love that book so much that it's in a bookcase in my apartment. It would have made a great children's movie or Disney Channel special.

Maybe someday it still will. I found out it's still in print.

Last but not least, there was a Carol Ryrie Brink adventure story called "Baby Island." It concerned two sisters who are set adrift in the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat with four tiny babies. They land on an island and have to fend for themselves...and like all the best children's books I was raised with, they've got the fortitude to prevail.

My generation was lucky to have such stories to influence us. Being told when you're nine or ten, over and over again, that you've got the ability to prevail is nothing less than a gift.

Louis Armstrong on Jazz

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 02:08:00 +0000

Someone once asked Louis Armstrong, who was known during his life as America's Goodwill Ambassador, what his technique was for playing jazz music. Louis replied, "If you ain't got it in you, you can't blow it out!"

At Last: Some Justice for Jaycee!

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:02:00 +0000

I was just made aware of a wonderful development. Jaycee Dugard, who was the child held captive for 18 years in a tent by a crazy California pedophile, Phillip Garrido, is being awarded $20 Million Dollars from the California State Department of Corrections because they didn't properly monitor Garrido. If they had, they may have realized the creep was keeping the poor child in a tent right in his own backyard.

Don't even get me started...

This $20 Million Dollar award is great news and it's the very least that Jaycee deserves. All the very best to that brave young woman!

Who Let the Spies Out?

noreply@blogger.com (harmoniousglitter) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:35:00 +0000

Last week President Obama could be seen on the cover of the New York Times eating a burger alongside the President of Russia.

Then this week, folks, we find out there's a ring of eleven Russian spies operating in the United States of America.

And they're not just any spies, either. They're an astonishing collection. There's Anna Chapman, party girl. She looks better than most models. There's another couple using the Irish surname of "Murphy," which bugs me. I'm mostly Irish American. The phony Murphy wife went to Columbia University for an MBA and, while there, was trying to find Americans she could "turn" for Russia. Another spy is a lady from South America. She doesn't look like a model. Oh, no. She looks like she ought to be one of The Pittsburgh Steelers.

Maybe she should have been; football might have been a better profession for that woman. I can recall reading the children's book "Harriet the Spy" by Louise Fitzhugh when I was a little girl, and even at age ten I could have told you what Harriet, aspiring agent of espionage, knew well, which was that, "Spies SHOULD NOT GET CAUGHT!"

These spies have gotten caught. They're a bumbling group. One method Chapman used to signal that a situation was okay was to stick a stamp on a map, presumably in some public place. The case is uproariously funny on one level, and disturbing on plenty of others, for what are they doing here in the first place? What are they trying to find out about the USA? Russia is one of our allies now. The Cold War is over...or is it?