Keturah's Year In Review

Every year since I began journaling (1984), I've written a year in review on New Year's Eve. Right now I'm sitting in my little room in Miami, listening to a rousing party going on in the main house and feeling a little sad about not wanting to go out, dance, act crazy as we ring in 2006. Mostly I'm feeling contemplative about my future, our world's future, John's future with me. A year used to seem so much longer than it does now. The crucial happenings in my life are as follows:

January: Our country inagurates Bush for his second term as the leader of the Free World. I am shocked and appalled. Also, Iraq holds its first free elections which makes us all think for a brief, miscalculated second, that we might be able to leave that god-forsaken place in the near future. 'Tis not to happen. Meanwhile, I am reeling from falling so deeply in love a few months earlier, and dealing with the tail end of my first separation from John, while working on "Le Nozze Di Figaro" at Opera Pacific. The sets are terrible, Orange County has more rainfall than it's ever had (easily shown by the amount of leaks in the roof at OP - usually right on top of the harpsichord), and my toilet literally explodes in the hotel room in Costa Mesa. Despite, Harry Silverstein and I get to connect again and I choreograph a jaunty little number for Sari Gruber and Kyle Ketelson.

February: I travel to Chicago to work at DePaul University for the second time. This is separation #2 for John and I, but he comes to visit. I connect with my cousins, Melissa and Rita, while staying in their guest room for a full six weeks. They have the most fantastic little dogs: Otto and Zelda, and I am in instantly in love (even though I miss Lucius like mad). I choreograph and assistant direct "Idomeneo" with Harry again. It is wonderful to work with him twice in succession, and Melissa's plumbing works beautifully the whole time. Chicago has a fairly mild winter while I'm there. I miss it terribly every time I walk down the street. I am ecstatic to be able to take John on a sight seeing tour, and we see Lillian Groag's exquisite "Resurrezione" at Chicago Opera Theater. I am reminded that anything can be made into theater.

March: Martha Stewert is finally freed so she can go back to making cakes and putting up holiday decorations!! More importantly, Terri Schiavo's husband is trying to help her find peace while the Florida government is trying to make it very difficult for him. Meanwhile, I'm still in Chicago for part of the month, then fly directly to New York to make my debut as a solo dancer in "The Pearl Fishers" at New York City Opera. This is my third and final Pearl Fishers. I am feeling quite bittersweet about the whole thing. I stay at my friend, Danny's partner's apartment on the Upper West Side and have the most amazing New York experience I could possibly imagine. I tour everywhere. I see Ground Zero, museums, Greenwich Village, the Noguci Museum, and "Don Giovanni" at the Met (with a very grown up Isabel Bayrakdarian). John visits and I am so happy to see him and introduce him to friends. It was so amazing to see all of these people I had history with. I make a resolution to make it New York City more often.

April: The Pope dies and Prince Charles gets married and I am still in New York trying to cram the whole experience into my final couple of weeks. I get home and go instantly into rehearals for "The Barn Owl Lingers," my final performance with Malashock Dance and Company, with whom I've been since 2001 (and the reason I originally moved to San Diego). I am happy to be away from them. It was time to go - sometimes circumstances make that very obvious. What I don't fully realize at the time is that my leaving the company will really be the beginning of the end for me as a performing dancer. Hindsight's a funny thing. John and I move in together (foreshadowing of good news to come).

May: The whole world knows who Deep Throat is as I travel up to Ventura, California with Malashock Dance for my last show with the Cypress String Quartet. I start looking for opera assisting jobs full time. The career shift becomes a full time job. John and I rent a mini van and drive cross country for Memorial Day so that I can take him to the Indianapolis 500 (his second, my 16th). Danica Patrick almost becomes the first female winner of the race. On the way back, we go to my parent's farm and pick up my mother's rolltop desk. Not the most expensive piece but one that instantly reminds me of family and childhood. It's wonderful to work on something that holds so many beautiful memories for me.

June: Michael Jackson is aquitted and I get a job at Florida Grand Opera. John and I begin to think about what that means for us if I'm gone for nearly six months. In the meantime, we go to the regional Emmy awards together and "Love and Murder" wins three Emmys including Best Performing Arts Program! I take a trip to San Francisco to see "Pearl Fishers" in its final incarnation and spend time with my friend, Erin. I love knowing people all over the world.

July: London is dealing with some major subway bombings while I'm beginning my third year teaching movement at the Summer Movement Conservatory for the La Jolla Playhouse. I have terrific kids this year and still maintain communication with a couple of them. I am thinking constantly about Florida Grand and trying not to think about the separation from John.

August: I get to perform again when Allyson Green asks me to dance in "Dancing to Beethoven," a collaboration with the La Jolla Chamber Music Society's Summerfest. The project is very successful and John does a beautiful documentary on the making of the piece. While John is celebrating his 50th birthday, Katrina makes landfall in the Gulf and our government's approval ratings take a downturn almost instantly. Huge amounts of people are uprooted and treated very poorly by an elitist group of government officials. I am officially appalled.

September: I have a little time off. Justice Renqhuist dies and we are faced with the possibility of taking a huge step back in the Women's Movement. I travel to Missouri to stand up in my best friend's wedding. She's a basketcase but we still have a great time and she looks beautiful! My other friend, Margie, gets married in Arizona and I am now officially the only singleton in the group.

October: Saddam Hussein, Scooter Libby . . .lots of news this month. The U.S. death toll in Iraq reaches 2000. The two biggest things affecting me, however, are my cross-country road trip with John to begin work at Florida Grand Opera in Miami, and Wilma, a Category 3 hurricane that scares the hell out of me and makes rehearsing "La Fanciulla Del West" with Lillian Groag a huge hardship! We have a very resilient cast however, and the show goes on with great success! I am missing John like mad by the end of the month.

November: Paris is burning with race riots, we are still reeling from Wilma, and Fanciulla is in full force. I am settling into Miami for the time being, but still feel like the city is entirely toxic. I can't stand going out in the mass chaos that is Miami. I fly home for 48 hours to spend Thanksgiving with John. It's a welcome respite, however short.

December: I take a terrific trip to New York, see my friend in Queens and see "An American Tragedy" at the Met. I am blown away by the whole experience! We start up "La Fille Du Regiment" with mass chaos almost instantly. No hurricane this time, but there might as well be with the amount of chorus time we are cut short. In the best few days of my life, John comes out and takes me to St. Augustine for Christmas, where I get engaged!!

And so, because he is so far away, I sit here in this little room and think "I could be having a good time at a party, but I'd rather talk to John on the phone." I am waiting for him to call and hoping that this New Year brings a little more peace, a little more love, a little more career opportunity, a little more friendship...Resolution? To lose 15 pounds and to start doing my own work whether I have the money or not. To get married and continue to be a terrific partner..

Happy New Year everyone!!

Vivandiere Du Regiment!!

I think this is a drawing of Jenny Lind as Marie, "La Fille Du Regiment" form 1856. Our "Marie" is not Jenny Lind, she is Chen Reiss from Israel (though she does sound like a songbird).

We had our final rehearsal in the rehearsal hall today and will move to the theater tomorrow. This rehearsal schedule has left me unable to think about anything else while I'm in the middle of work (except, of course, getting engaged, but that's another post...). We have very little time to get the chorus comfortable with all of the action they are doing due to union restrictions of chorus time and an unbelievably huge amount of chorus stage work in this production. My whole life revolves around who moves the bench in the first act and who hides behind the harpsichord in the second. Who takes down the clothes line, who hands off the gun, who makes sure that the crate is moved in time, who picks up the sheet music, who, who, who. . .

It got much more urgent yesterday as well.

Our director had a traveling snafu as she tried to come back after Christmas, and was stuck in New Jersey for an extra day. She called me at 7 in the morning and I was instantly up and learning everything I could about the chorus scenes that had not yet been staged. I've never watched a video so many times in succession. As Assistant Director, if the Director is unable to be at a rehearsal, I take over (sort of like the Vice President of the production). Last night was showtime for me. A pretty scary thing when you aren't expecting it to happen.

I watched the video, took copious notes, ran the sequences over and over in my head, and when the time came I felt pretty confident about what was happening. I don't really remember the rehearsal. When you stand up and direct fifty people at one time, the adrenalin rush is such that your body goes into overdrive (and you sleep really well once you get home).

Today was a little more back to normal (whatever that is) with the director back and the principals getting a full run in the afternoon and us spending the whole evening drilling the ROTC work into the chorus men and discussing the emotional content of the opera with the chorus women. We have a great principal cast, which helps. John Osborn, as Tonio, hits those nine or so high notes with such aplomb that everyone on the sidelines is giddy. Tim Nolen rattles around the stage as a gravelly little Sulpice, hitting every comic moment with a sledgehammer. And Joyce Castle, our amazing Marquise, blows me away every day as her performance and timing just gets richer and richer. Dottie (the director) and I were talking tonight about how hard comedy is to put together. People have this misconception that, because a work is light, that it's easy to throw on stage. On the contrary, and these singers have helped immensely in the huge undertaking of making a comic opera work on stage.

Tomorrow is the theater, and I will continue to drill the chorus as much as possible to ensure correct timing. We haven't had nearly enough time with anything to give them confidence in their performance.

Timing is everything, and the fact that the rehearsal period for this opera falls during the holidays is very bad timing indeed.

BIG NEWS!!

I've been out of writing practice for a bit. Things get to be too much sometimes what with the holidays and ten straight days of grueling rehearsal at Florida Grand Opera.

Suffice to say, Christmas weekend was a huge blessing. John came over from San Diego and we drove into the chillier air of Northern Florida, spent three nights in St. Augustine, taking harbor cruises, walking among the twinkling lights of the historic city, eating hot soup at an Irish pub on the main thoroughfare, eating cheese and crudites in our hotel room . . .

. . . getting engaged . . .

The moment was so sweet and perfect. We had dinner at Le Pavillon: oysters Rockefeller, rack of lamb, salmon. Waiting for a dessert menu, waiting, waiting, and our waiter brings out a lovely custard, pie, tiramisu, I don't even remember. What I do remember is the huge strawberry on top that bore the most simple, beautiful claddagh I've ever seen.

The restaurant was crowded, John slid off his chair, onto his knee, and asked me to marry him.

Yes.

The waiter asked if I was surprised.

Yes.

I have had some very difficult holidays in my past. Some times when I wish that Christmas would just take its leave and I could go back to my daily routine. This was not one of those years. With sadness I dropped John at the airport yesterday. It will be another month until we see each other. Time cannot move fast enough..

Rataplan Rataplan

Now, what you see above is what a rehearsal room SHOULD look like. If you remember my initial posts when we started "La Fanciulla del West," you'll know why this set up makes me much happier. The maestro can sit in the middle of the room, I have a full table upon which to spread out, I am at a vantage point where I can see everything that's happening and I don't think that singers are going to fall on me whenever they come downstage to sing.

Today was not about fancy sofas and harpsichords, as you see in this picture, however. Today was about military-style marching and drum corps rifle work. I don't think my poor chorus had a clue when they walked in this morning that most of the singing they were doing in this show was going to be accompanied by marching and, sometimes, gun twirling. The most difficult of these formation-style chorus sections, is one that only involves the male chorus in a march and the Corporal shouting orders. The song, for the most part is the word "rataplan" (rat-a-tat in English) sung over and over again, sometimes being shortened to "plan." Every change in the music results, in terms of Dottie's staging, in a different formation, but because the words never change, it's hard to articulate when these changes happen for the singers. One of our choristers asked Dottie and I, "what am I singing when we circle the guns?" as he tried to figure out where in the music he was. The only viable answer for us, because the music is so unchanging, was "rataplan plan plan plan plan plan plan . . ." So frustrating when you are trying to explain where movement happens to a group of non movers. Thank goodness for scores where we can all make notations.

Confused? You should have seen us trying to get the information across in rehearsals.

Dottie added in one bit of heinous ROTC rifle work that kicked a couple of chorister's asses. She taught it to me and one of the stage managers this morning so that we could pull people aside and teach it as the day wore on. By the end of the day, every person involved in this show could be seen in a corner or off to the side trying to twirl their rifle, turn it around, slam the butt on the ground on the right count. As we ran through the number, I was standing on a chair, barking orders, waving my hands around and pointing in the direction they should be marching, mirroring all of them as they did the rifle work. As crazy as all of this movement is for them, this is when I feel the most confident and on my game. This is when I feel I can give the most to the production.

The boys will look great. They just need continual pep talks and encouragement to get through the more intricate bits.

My Candle Burns At Both Ends....

I feel somewhat like the poor, deflated Santa in this picture, about the holidays, about my work, about my being so far from home.

The construction is still going on in front of my house, which is the first thing that puts me off every morning when I wake up with a headache from the jackhammers thumping and the concrete breaking. The other night I came home and they had completely blocked off all access to our house from every street. I parked in the middle of the street on the other side of the "caution" tape and lugged my bags over someone else's yard to my apartment. My landlord was home and excited to see me. "I was waiting for someone to come home so we could move our cars together." She led me out the door and I followed her in my car around the block to the caution tape blocking off our side street. She pulled over, got out of her car, walked over to the caution tape in her suit and tennis shoes, pulled scissors out of nowhere, and cut through the tape. We drove on through and parked along the side of my house. We weren't in the way of any of the work, and I delighted in the rule breaking! It felt a little like high school all of a sudden.

The construction is not the half of it, however. We started rehearsals on Tuesday for "La Fille Du Regiment," a Donizetti comic opera about a French girl during Napolean's campaign in 1805 who was raised by a regiment of soldiers and then, being found by her aunt, is taken into a rich home to be domesticated. I don't particularly care for the opera. I think it's a bit trite and sing-songy. There's one aria, "A Mes Amis," sung by the tenor, which is beautiful (mostly because of all the impossibly high notes he sings and holds), but everything else seems rather dull.

We have a great cast, and Dorothy Danner, our director, is an absolute delight, but the schedule (once again) is a nightmare. Despite being unencumbered by hurricane madness, we are trying to cram the entire opera into ten days of rehearsal before the Christmas break begins. I'm not sure how this is going to happen, though we've been plowing along rather nicely with several exhausting three session days. Opera rehearsals are generally done in blocks of three hour rehearsals, twice a day. According to contract, singers can only rehearse six hours a day, so this schedule allows any one singer to be at the entire day's worth of rehearsals. A three session day makes scheduling tricky because you have to make sure you are staggering scenes in such a way that every singer only works six hours. This comes down to some massive logistical juggling for Sherrie Dee and I, which puts a damper on the rehearsal process a bit.

The other thing about this show that's difficult is that there are huge chunks of dialogue. There are a lot of operas out there with dialogue (Die Fledermaus, Carmen, Magic Flute, etc) but this one just seems to have so much, and it's all done in French. Most of our singers are pretty good with their french, but a couple have been sweating bullets over these dialogue scenes. I'm proud of them as I listen to them rattle off in one of my favorite languages - especially when I see them going over the scripts with tension crawling all over their foreheads. We have a dialogue coach, Sandryne, who is really sweet and patient with them, so I'm sure that helps.

Anyway . . . we're working for ten days straight to get this show on its feet. I get a break, finally, on Thursday. It can't come fast enough for me. John is coming in from San Diego on Tuesday. Rehearsals will go faster when he is around to curl up with afterwards!

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You...

I understand the need for funds in order for the people of New Orleans to rebuild their lives, but despite the "hearfelt" sentiment and explanation in the blurb about this tour, I think Gray Line Tours New Orleans' newest tour is still about as tacky as it comes.

We're Screwing Ourselves

This government of ours. This government voted in by only a marginal majority (1% if I remember right) is committed only to isolating us from the global community. They did it in the Middle East by going to war with no U.N. support and now they're doing it in Canada by remaining at war with our delicate environment.

Montreal is showing us, once again, that the President's priorities have nothing to do with our future.

Clinton Says Bush is "Flat Wrong" on Kyoto

Oh, to remember the times when Clinton was our president. . .

Fond memories . . .

Thank god for him speaking out against Bush's asinine ideas concerning the U.S. involvement with the Kyoto Protocol and the greenhouse-gas emissions damaging the U.S. economy.

More Messes in Miami

So they've been doing some major construction along my little street for the past four or five days. Yesterday they moved quite close to our house on the corner and I figured there would be a giant hole in the ground in front of the house when I got home from work. When I pulled in, however, they hadn't passed our drive yet, so I parked there, thinking they either wouldn't be working the next morning, or they'd start a little later.

Silly me...

At 6:45 in the morning, I awoke to the dulcet tones of a giant backhoe (see lovely photo above) digging its claws into the pavement. I looked out the window, which is right above my bed, and saw that they had moved even closer to the drive and they had placed this massive concrete block over part of the driveway, making my exit a sticky one. (See below photo).

So I jumped out of my warm bed and threw some sweats on, slipped into my Birkenstocks and ran outdoors to move my car to the side of the house so that I wasn't stuck in my home the whole weekend. Being half asleep, I misjudged the distance between me and the concrete block, and ran my tire right into the corner, slitting it open. Fortunately, the kind gentleman at Goodyear in Hialeah told me that it was just a "flesh wound" and I should be able to drive around on it with no problem.

Be that as it may, I am still incredulous at being woken up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday by a group of loud mouthed guys digging out a storm sewer ditch. The street is mucky, these idiots are running around in shorts and tank tops, no hard hats, with cigars sticking out of their mouths while they climb down inside these holes and help guide three ton concrete blocks into their proper resting places. In the meantime, they've knocked down several branches off of the tree you see in these two pictures and don't seem to care.

It's not that I mind them having to do construction work. Having been through Wilma, I certainly understand the importance of having a working storm sewer. It just seems that this loud, obnoxious, inconvenient bit of stuff is simply the latest in a large pile of straw being laid atop this camel that is my existence in Miami.

My nerves are shot here. I am experience more road rage, eating more junk food and complaining more under my breath than I ever have in the past. I am slowly beginning to think that this city is toxic. Toxic for me anyway. Getting out of here will do me a world of good.

Barge Haulers On The Volga

This is the painting I was talking about. I think it's so haunting. It tells so many stories in one image. I think it's hard to tell, but the fourth guy from the left is staring right at the viewer with a look of exhaustion and questioning on his face. I love it. The piece is by Ilya Repin and has the date 1870 on it.

. . .A Helluva Town . . .

I just spent a glorious two and a half days in New York City! There is no ill in the world that can not be cured within me by spending some time in New York. It's been since April when I last stepped foot there and spent the most incredible spring working at New York City Opera. This time I was there for a much shorter period but was still able to do and see so much.

On the fine art front, I went to the Guggenheim to see their "Russia!" exhibit. I actually went straight off the plane. I leaned into the cab driver and said, "Guggenheim please," and we were off. Apparently, this exhibit is the largest collection of Soviet art ever assembled outside of the Soviet States. The exhibit wound itself up the spiral of the Guggenheim's stark walls in chronological order, with the religious iconic art from the 13th century starting everything off and iron curtain art from the mid-eighties rounding out the tour in the High Gallery. I was most enthralled, I think, with the portraits and huge political realism painted during the cold war period, as well as some of the revolutionary paintings from the 1870's. There was one in particular entitled "Barge Pullers on the Volga" or something like that, which depicted a bunch of tough looking raggedy men strapped to huge leather harnesses, as they pulled a ship to shore. The individual expressions on all of their faces were what did it for me, and I found myself looking at their eyes for a good ten minutes. As exhausted as I was after closing "Fanciulla" and getting up at 5am to fly to LaGuardia, I had enough energy to get myself through that exhibit and enjoy everything I was seeing.

On the shopping front, I walked down Madison Avenue during "Miracle on Madison," a shopping fundraiser going on during the holiday season. Christmas music was piped in at every street corner and with the little dusting of snow on the ground I was in a true holiday mood. I only wish I had enough money to purchase one thing for sale in any of the shops on Madison Avenue.

On the opera front, I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience and got to see "An American Tragedy" at the Met. I had nosebleed seats but still had a perfect view of the stage and great binoculars so I could still watch facial expression. As I've come back to Miami, I've realized that the critics haven't exactly been kind to Tobias Picker, and sometimes not to the cast or production team as well. I'm not sure what to say about that other than I disagree. Some complain that it is too much about redemption and not enough about Clyde Griffiths being shallow and horrid. To that I say that the book is also about redemption. Some say it's too long. It's almost three hours (not all that long for an opera). When I got up at intermission I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, that act was really short." When I looked at my watch I realized it'd been an hour and fifteen minutes. The show seemed to speed by for me. I didn't want it to end. People have all sorts of criticism about the music to which I can't even respond. I don't have a technical background in music and can't talk about it that way. What I do know is that I found it exciting. I thought that the high society parts seemed a little musical theater-esque, but then I thought maybe they were supposed to. Everything in high society has the appearance of being tied up in a neat little bow when there are really much darker things lurking underneath. I felt the same way about some of the music. I loved the huge chunks of recitative, I loved the interludes between arias, I loved the one constant high note that permeated through the final scenes as Clyde was beyond saving. I loved the opera.

The performances were great too. I felt like the set, with it's great moving planks, brought out the best in everyone's voice as it sent the sound sailing to the back of the house. I felt like Patricia Racette got Roberta's pain exactly right and the young treble who played Clyde as a young boy gave me goose bumps. I was very happy. . . Plus, there were flurries falling as I walked out of the opera house and the city was alive with Christmas lights and buzz and I just wanted to lay down in the middle of the plaza and let the world spin around me for a few moments while I let the perfectly crafted ending sink in and the snow soak into my skin. I miss living in the North...

On the friend front, I got to see some people I rarely get a chance to have time with. I met my best friend at the hospital where she works and we took the train back together to her house in Queens. I was actually an hour early to meet her because my feet were killing me after walking down Madison and I just wanted to rest in the waiting room for a while and play my Sudoku and rest my eyes. The guy at the front desk was worried about me and how long I was waiting and no matter how much I tried to convince him that I didn't mind sitting, he wasn't buying it. I was infinitely glad when Laural finally came down in her scrubs and coat. We sat on the floor of her living room later and drank beer and ate a BLT and watched "The Family Guy" and looked through wedding photos. I couldn't have imagined a better time.

I had lunch the next morning with Brea, a dancer friend of mine who has just moved to the Big Apple and is dancing with a German choreographer named Johannes Wieland. We met at Lincoln Center and walked until I recognized a place and laughed about other dancers we knew and old stories about ridiculous times. We talked about future and career and love and cold temperatures. We walked to a coffee shop down the street and ran into a line wrapping around the block for the "King Kong" preview and passed Tony Danza while crossing the street, then I held my arm out long as we pressed our heads together back at Lincoln Center for a photograph in front of the ugliest Christmas tree I've ever seen.

I had dinner with a choreographer friend of mine who was there when I started my opera career and I can't imagine not being there to bounce ideas off of, talk to about failure, cry with over nerves and personal frustrations. We shared pasta at a little Italian hole-in-the-wall on the upper West side and caught up on our lives, loves, plans. The thought of him hooking his arm in mine and trudging down the street next to me makes me grin ear-to-ear.

I had coffee with a newer friend who shares both an artist's life and Tourette Syndrome with me. We talked about being creative, surviving critics and production week and new work, and tics. I love talking to him because I feel like I'm not alone and I felt instantly like I could say pretty much anything and he wouldn't think less of me. He is brilliant but unaffected and his power in the arts community does not seem to do anything to his outward demeanor. We sat across the table from each other and watched our tics get worse and worse as often happens when two touretters are together. There's something about the power of suggestion that makes us all start ticing worse than ever when we see the other person doing the same thing. It made us laugh and also put me into a strange sort of ease.

So, now I'm back in Miami starting prep for "Fille Du Regiment," which is a rather insipid opera but I think I will enjoy the process of putting it on stage. Mostly what gets me through my days here is thinking about the fact that John will be here in two weeks. The other thing that gets me through this week is the respite I had over the weekend.

Thank god for art. Thank god for friends. Thank god for New York.

How the Other Side Sees Us

So I was going through some older files and found this quote I had copied down from this blog. This is an offshoot from "A Family In Baghdad," one of the blogs listed along the sidebar, and I think she gets it about right.

Monday, January 17, 2005

It amazes me how some people are still supporting the war on Iraq till this moment.
I just received another hate mail (haven't been getting such junk for a while), from a US soldier I donno where from, but he seemed to like cursing a lot!...i found this part of his message kinda interesting..

Should the American people choose to they could wipe the majority of your disgusting race off of this planet in a matter of days. Go ** **** *** ******. The best way to take peace is with a knife.

I can never understand how can someone think like that. When I first read his message, I laughed, but then I realized that this is not a comedian writing this to entertain me, its actually someone believes in what he's saying... I realized that this is so sad.
I donno who feeds him with this sort of feelings and thoughts, who supports his racism... but anyway, it doesn't sound nice to me when I know that this person is the same one who came 20 months ago to liberate me.
I feel disappointed whenever I read from such a loser who thinks he has a purer blood because he's american.
such a virus can spread around quickly, and this kind of people could destroy their own nation, more people like him and there will be nothing left to be proud of.

The title of this post links to a website called "Iraq Body Count," which details reports of civilian deaths in Iraq since the beginning of the war. The powers that be should be ashamed of themselves, and we should all be ashamed of ourselves for not speaking out more...

Our Fearless Leader

Here he is, our fearless leader, our ambassador to the rest of the world . . . unable to open a simple door.

Apparently, Dubya was trying to escape a press conference in China and botched his exit in front of a myriad of cameras. His facial expression says it all.

I'm so tired of being scared for our world's future...