Last year, on September 11th, 2006, I posted a rant on my blog.  I was just re-reading it, and I thought it appropriate to post here, on this day, the day we remember and honor those who fight and die in wars, in our names.

I started off on this rant by copying something Markos had posted that morning.

In memory of a lot of things.
The Constitution only applies when the going gets easy.
War is the answer, even when you forget the question.
The truth is for sissies.
America has never faced an enemy as dangerous and as intent on killing us as King George, the Civil War, World War I, the Germans, the Japanese, a nuclear Soviet Union Al Qaeda.
The real September 11 story was badly in need of editing.
Just because they say it makes it so.
We have always been at war with Oceania.
A fool is born every election day.

Due process is for the innocent.
Patriotism means never having to say you're sorry.
It's all Sandy Berger's fault.

My input from that day with some modest updates below the fold.

Jeb? Bush was in Pittsburgh yesterday for a Santorum fundraiser at the exclusive Duquesne Club.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that he was not received well.  Not well at all.  Part of the time, in fact, he was hiding in a supply closet inside a subway station!

Full article here, and some excerpts and commentary under the fold.

So, I went to the ER one day last week because my doctor told me to go.  Chest pain, they don't want to fool around, etc.  I got there around one, one-fifteen.  They drew blood, had me pee in a cup, took an EKG, an x-ray, a cat scan.  They gave me toradol in an IV, the iodine dye in the cat scan, and three percosets to go.  I left around six, six-thirty with no diagnosis but advice to see my PCP as soon as possible to determine the source of my chest pain.

Total bill?

6595.25.

The breakdown, and brief commentary, below the cut.

You're missing something important.  

Truly, one of the best articles I've ever read on reproductive rights in any venue, anywhere.

Where is it, you might ask?

It's right here, on Daily Kos.  A little more below the fold. But not too much.

August Wilson has passed on.

Story can be found Here

August Wilson was one of America's great playwrights.  

Since I'm from Pittsburgh, the place of his birth and the place he wrote about, often, I am especially touched by his life and death.  More below.

What would you do if they left you to die?

If you had children crying for food or water-
If you had a grandmother who needed medicine-
If you had no car to leave and no money to leave with and no place to go when you got out-

What would you do if they left you to die?

What would you do if they left you to die?

Would you sit quietly and wait, hoping against hope that someone would come?
Would you lay on your roof and die of thirst rather than break the law?
Would you tell your children to hush, someone will arrive to help, just wait, wait, baby, wait.

What would you do if they left you to die?

(more below)

Well, this is it.

After much agonized thought, I've decided to stop doing the book diary.

My life is too busy, too hectic-I have for some time needed to take a look at where I can cut back, and this is one of those places.

More below

This week's diary is about.... science books!
Science is incredibly important to progressive causes.  Without science, we'd be wallowing in a sea of ignorance, without the most basic understanding of our world, our lives, or our bodies.  In short, we'd be just the sort of pliant clay that the neo-cons love to mold into unformed and uninformed voters.  Hence the title, because we can use science to un-blind us, to make us enlightened, informed people capable of sharing our knowledge and enlightenment with others.

Read more, with lots of pretty pictures and fun links, below the fold.

What a day.  We spent the day at Kennywood Park here in Pittsburgh, a beautiful park with lots of fun rides.  The rides and coasters take advantage of the hilly terrain, and there are gardens, old buildings, and the most beautiful carousel in the world there, giving lots of great photo-ops.  So naturally, this week's book diary was inspired, and it's all about coffee table books.

What's on your coffee table?  More below.

History can make for great stories.  Augmented or completely true, biography or time line, truth can be stranger than fiction and fiction can make the history more compelling.

Follow my twisted reasoning below the fold.

Last Saturday, my mom had her friend Sunny at Barnes and Noble for the big Harry Potter party.

Sunny's a short-eared owl, native to Pennsylvania.  She was injured in a collision with an airplane at the Greater Pittsburgh Airport, and lost a wing.  She's now one of the Western PA Wildlife Center's education animals.  My mom had her book reserved and picked it up that same day, and by monday, she'd finished it and was ready to pass it on to me and my daughter.
My mom is 60 years old, a voracious reader, and stopped her education four credits short of a PHD in elementary education.  So what is she doing reading kids books?  For that matter, what are any of us doing reading kids books?
More below.  But no spoilers, because I haven't finished it yet!

What makes a good book?

There are as many answers as there are people.  From the formulaic to the fabulous, from the unique to the unspeakable, everyone has certain criteria for what makes a book a worthy read.  Some of us are more eclectic than others, some are addicted to certain genres, to certain writers, or to certain styles.

In this week's book diary, I'm inviting you to share what you makes you love a book.

Continued-

Today, I was treated to the spectacle of Sen. Rick Santorum drawing a crowd outside my place of work.  They drug out a nice podium and all for him, and news crews were illegally parked hither and yon, disrupting the  day to day business of the state office building here in Pittsburgh.  What was the occasion?

He got away with it.

You might remember reading about Sen Santorum bilking money from the Penn Hills school district to pay for his children to attend Cyber School when they didn't even live in Pennsylvania, let alone in Penn Hills, PA.  Today, a preliminary report by the Pennsylvania Department of Education said that the school district waited too long to pursue legal action against Pennsylvania's junior senator.

Does nothing stick to this guy?  There's more, below the fold, including something that Might Stick.

Since the last couple weeks have been family and friends, this week is about those wonderful creatures that are both family and friends to so many of us-Animals.

Animals in literature are a long-standing tradition.  Not only are animals present in most early literature, but they're usually part of the first books we read.  What's the fascination?

Some possible answers below.

I have a very dear friend who is ill.  We've been friends for what will be 19 years this September.  About eight years ago, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

How the brain tumor was found is straight out of a book.  She worked for the local transit company doing bus maintenance.  One night, a faulty door holder gave way, and the engine door fell and hit her on the head.  When the ensuing headache did not go away after several months, an MRI was done and the tumor was located.  Had the bus door not fallen on her head, the tumor would have killed her within a year, two at the most.

What does this have to do with books, you might ask?  Find out below the fold.

I received the following in an email this evening.  It struck me, hard, and gave me chills.  It brought a tear to my eye.

How far have we gone to come back in a circle this way?  

What right have those in power to abuse it so?

And oh, how everything old is new again.

Read the whole thing.  It will do you good.  It did me.

Follows...

Ahh, family values.  The thing we've been hammered over the head with for lo unto these past five, six, what, twenty years now...

I kind of doubt they had Lazarus Long's family in mind when they thought of "family values", though.  Or the Karenin family.  Or even Harry Potter's "muggle" family, terribly dysfunctonal and abusive.  But families they are, some closer to reality than the whitebread Father Knows Best family that has been broadcast to us for the past 60 years.

What brought this on?  A day with my family.

More below.

A few weeks ago, I did a book diary on non-fiction, poetry and essays.  This week, I'm opening it up to all non-fiction.

For all you history, science, biography, sociology, women's studies (haaahahaha), archaeology, and travelogue buffs, this one's for you!

Disclaimer-I'm a woman, a feminist, and one who has spent considerable time studying women's studies books.  I'm just being funny above.

Continued Below!