Parking

I have been wanting to institute a parking policy here for awhile - there are a ton of cars parked in the parking lot that don't belong to residents, and a ton of cars that do belong to residents but that don't run, don't have any plates, or are otherwise illegal and /or useless.

I haven't started this parking policy yet because I have more pressing things to deal with, and before we can start enforcing it I will have to write a lease addendum, check with the proper authorities to make sure it's legal, and then all the tenants will have to come into the office and sign the lease addendum.

Today, the tenant who started the whole buzz about the old property manager stealing money was having a fit because she couldn't find a spot to park behind her building. Note: there are plenty of vacant parking spots, because only about half of the apartments are filled, there just weren't any behind her building. She got mad at another tenant in her building because they were taking up 2 parking spots (the tenant who yelled obscenely at me after I stuck a parking violation sticker on her car for parking illegally) , and you can imagine the shouting match that ensued. This occurred just as a prospective tenant was leaving my office after filling out an application. Awkward.... But, she's going to figure out the way of the neighborhood sometime. Better now before she goes through with the application process than after she forks over her money.

I thought to myself "I could go outside and tell then to stop fighting, but then they are just going to start yelling at me & want me to tell one of them that the other is wrong, and, to be honest, if they get carried away and one or both of them calls the cops my day will be much more interesting."

Sure enough, after they were done yelling first 1 then the other came into my office to complain about how the other was parking. I nod and sympathize and tell them about my plan for a parking policy, but refuse to assign parking stalls, which is what they both want.

My Least Favorite Part

I hate turning down people for apartments. Even though I know they won't pay their rent, they will be bad tenants, they will have problems with noise and traffic and the police and neighbors, it's my least favorite part of this job. Worse than evicting people.

Everyone needs a place to live. Everyone deserves a place to live. And in the sort of neighborhood I am in, if people don't get approved here, they probably won't get approved anywhere. Meaning that after this neighborhood, the next stop is living with a family member, in a shelter, or the street.

Ok, to be fair, there are plenty of scummy private landlords who will take them. but the rent will be twice as much.

I can't say I'll be surprised if I wind up addicted to pain killers. I hope the press is kinder to me than Rush Limbaugh. Oh, wait, I don't get any press. No worries, then.

The Funniest Thing I Have Ever Seen.

To this day, this remains 1 of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. Ever.

It is appropriate for work (tho it contains swear words), but if you work in an office where people will wonder why you're cackling out loud at your computer screen / cackling out loud at your computer screen will give you away as surfing the net, you may want to wait until you get home. Or print it out and read it at home.

Extra fun: if you ride the bus, print it out, read it on the ride home, and guffaw like a crazy homeless person (albeit a nice-smelling one). I guarantee you'll have that bench all to yourself!


http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule

Ants

There's an ant infestation in my office (which is a vacant apartment). It makes me feel like there are bugs crawling all over me, sort of like when you find a tick on yourself and then feel "ghost ticks" crawling on you the rest of the day.

Ah, the Midwest.

We don't use the kitchen (except for the fridge) so I'm not sure where the ants are coming from / what they're attracted to. Maybe they can smell the higher than normal levels of sugar in my blood stream. Carnivore ants. Awesome.

…AND THE BAD PROPERTY MANAGER OF THE YEAR AWARD GOES TO:

A woman to whom I gave a 5-day notice for having the phone in her boyfriend’s name (Lease violation! All utilities must be in the name of an adult on the lease!) asked me what she was supposed to do because she can't get a phone in her name. I told her “don’t call the office from that phone”.

petroleum cocktails

Funny work story o' the day: The maintenance lady left the gas container for the weed-wacker sitting on the front step of the main building, and someone took off with it. We didn't realize that someone had taken it until a guy came back with the container (full) and said he felt bad that his cousin had taken it to put in his gas tank so he had refilled and returned it.

He looked nervous, wondering what we were going to do, then looked confused when, instead of being mad, the maintenance lady and I just laughed.
She explained that the liquid in the container was a half gas, half oil mixture because that's what weed-wackers run on, so good luck driving the car.

I told her not to use the gas in the container the guy returned, because it was probably half gas, half water or something. Later, during our weekly meeting, my "consultant" said the guy probably brought the container back because the car had stalled after they put in the gas/oil mixture and he wanted to figure out what was going on. I'm not quite that bitter yet, but it made me feel a little warm and fuzzy.

Crime doesn't pay, after all. Not unless it's white collar crime, anyway.

Beware the Smug

I don't know if anyone saw the South Park episode where the U.S. is nearly destroyed by the giant cloud of smug emitted by people who are so self-righteous about their do-gooding they think their own farts smell like roses, but it was awesome. It made me laugh, and sort of reminded me of living on the East Coast. Until today, when I went to lunch with my husband, and it reminded me of living HERE.

Because in the parking lot of the sandwich shop where we went to eat, I saw not 1, but 2 cars with owners so clearly smug I wanted to run into them with my piece o' shit (but totally awesome) stick-shift-tape-deck-only-so-what-if-it-has-a-few-rust-spots go-wagon.

The first car was a newer model Toyota (or some other small Asian car), green, of course, with the license plate ECO CAR and the rear end plastered, I mean literally covered, with bumper stickers like "Think Green!" and "Love Your Mother Earth" and "Recycle" and shit like that. Note: They are called bumper stickers. Think about it. Bumper. Stickers.

Let me be clear about bumper stickers. I myself have a bumper sticker. ONE bumper sticker. It says "Family Farms - YES, Factory Farms - NO". I am from the Midwest and this is something I believe in very deeply. It is not something I follow very well, because I live in a city and shop at a chain grocery store that I guarantee does not carry local farm produce and the local meat at the farmer's market is too damn expensive. I like my bumper sticker and its message a lot, but I feel badly I don't follow it very well and it looks stupid on my car. Also, when I drive like an asshole I am afraid people are thinking "That girl just cut me off! Well, no way am I ever going to support local farms if all the local farm assholes act like that!" This is also the main reason I don't have any derby bumper stickers on my car. That and I like to be anonymous. Especially in my current line of work.

So, my own guilt about bumper sticker hypocrisy aside, I firmly believe the only bumper stickers that belong on cars are the ones that say things like "Honk if You Love Jesus", "My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter", "My President is Charlton Heston", and "Jesus Loves You, Everyone Else Thinks You're an Asshole". Or, any bumper sticker from a national park / landmark or commemorating a trip (a trip you took in your car, for all you asses who put those oval-shaped country stickers on your car to brag about the places you've been, like "UK". Oh really, how was the drive there?)

This is because those acceptable bumper stickers (see above) give you a good chuckle and a warning about the people who are driving the car. "Whoa, those people are a little crazy, I will just stay in this other lane". Or "Whoa, that guy is an NRA fanatic, I will not piss him off by riding on his tail". The same could be argued for other bumper stickers, I guess, but I'm not sure that "Goddess Power" gives me a good idea of how someone is going to drive.

The second car in the parking lot was a Honda Civic with the license plate NV MY MPG. That one really put me over the top. I was fuming so badly I missed the "Pro Life" bumper sticker. Luckily the hubster had the wherewithal to point it out, which stopped my fuming because my brain was wrapping around itself attempting to fathom the sort of person who is smug about being environmentally friendly but wants to oppress women. Unless they were just bragging about the MPG, in which case I am not surprised.

My other beef with bumper stickers is that they are pointless and, like car alarms, probably do more harm than good. When was the last time you were driving behind someone, read a bumper sticker on their car, and said, "My god, how can I have been so ignorant! It's all so clear to me now! My life will never be the same!" NOW, how many times were you driving behind someone, read a bumper sticker on their car, and wanted to run them off the road / follow them home and punch them in the face? More times than the first one, I'm willing to bet.
Add to that the number of people who are dumb enough to drive around with beer slogans, Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, and/or pot leaf stickers on their cars- yeah, I bet that makes your interaction with the police much more pleasant when you get pulled over.

I know that Americans spend more time in their cars than any other nation on the planet*
*completely unfounded unscientific claim
They already serve as a phone booth, stereo system, mobile food eatery, and daycare system, do they really need to be a billboard, too? Let's all do our part to make this a more beautiful America - just say NO to bumper stickers.


This post does not apply to a certain friend with 1 homemade bumper sticker "I *heart* cock". Keep up the good work.

Hooker with a Heart of Gold

aka, "the Pretty Woman Story"

After my first post about whores, I came across another one. Goodness, they certainly seem to be coming out of the woodwork today. But THIS whore has seen the error of his ways and wants to reform. He never wanted to be a whore, anyway, but what options are there for aging Army vets in this crazy, mixed up world?

Or, he's just a vindictive whore who has changed his tune now that he's been replaced by the new, younger, less inhibited guy on the block. Poor upper class white men. When will the cycle end!?!

(Again, parts that say "whore" are in bold type)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/washington/11surgeon.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

WASHINGTON, July 10 — Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.
“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.
The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.
When asked after the hearing if that “prominent family” was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, “You said it. I didn’t.”

In response to lawmakers’ questions, Dr. Carmona refused to name specific people in the administration who had instructed him to put political considerations over scientific ones. He said, however, that they included assistant secretaries of health and human services as well as top political appointees outside the department of health.

Dr. Carmona did offer to provide the names to the committee in a private meeting.
(highest bidder....)

Bill Hall, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that the administration disagreed with Dr. Carmona’s statements. “It has always been this administration’s position that public health policy should be rooted in sound science,” Mr. Hall said.

Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman, said the surgeon general “is the leading voice for the health of all Americans.”
“It’s disappointing to us,” Ms. Lawrimore said, “if he failed to use this position to the fullest extent in advocating for policies he thought were in the best interests of the nation.”

Dr. Carmona is one of a growing list of present and former administration officials to charge that politics often trumped science within what had previously been largely nonpartisan government health and scientific agencies.

Dr. Carmona, 57, served as surgeon general for one four-year term, from 2002 to 2006, but was not asked to serve a second. Before being nominated, he was in the Army Special Forces, earned two purple hearts in the Vietnam War and was a trauma surgeon and leader of the Pima County, Ariz., SWAT team. He received a bachelor’s degree, in biology and chemistry, in 1976 and his M.D. in 1979, both from the University of California, San Francisco. He is now vice chairman of Canyon Ranch, a resort and residential development company.

His testimony comes two days before the Senate confirmation hearings of his designated successor, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. Two members of the Senate health committee have already declared their opposition to Dr. Holsinger’s nomination because of a 1991 report he wrote that concluded that homosexual sex was unnatural and unhealthy. Dr. Carmona’s testimony may further complicate Dr. Holsinger’s nomination.

In his testimony, Dr. Carmona said that at first he was so politically naïve that he had little idea how inappropriate the administration’s actions were. He eventually consulted six previous surgeons general, Republican and Democratic, and all agreed, he said, that he faced more political interference than they had.

On issue after issue, Dr. Carmona said, the administration made decisions about important public health issues based solely on political considerations, not scientific ones.
“I was told to stay away from those because we’ve already decided which way we want to go,” Dr. Carmona said.
He described attending a meeting of top officials in which the subject of global warming was discussed. The officials concluded that global warming was a liberal cause and dismissed it, he said.
“And I said to myself, ‘I realize why I’ve been invited. They want me to discuss the science because they obviously don’t understand the science,’ ” he said. “I was never invited back.”

Dr. Carmona testified under oath at a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed by Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California. The topic was strengthening the office of the surgeon general. Dr. C. Everett Koop, surgeon general in the Reagan administration, and Dr. David Satcher, surgeon general during the Clinton administration and the first year of the administration of George W. Bush, also testified.
Each complained about political interference and the declining status of the office. Dr. Satcher said that the Clinton administration discouraged him from issuing a report showing that needle-exchange programs were effective in reducing disease. He released the report anyway.
Dr. Koop, said he had been discouraged by top officials in the Reagan administration from discussing the AIDS crisis. He did so anyway. (Bravo, non-whores!)

All three men urged major changes in the way the surgeon general is chosen and the way the office is financed.

A Whore for the White House

Today all the media coverage of the Senate Judiciary Committee's "interview" session with Sara M. Taylor, former White House political director, about the firings of U.S. Attorneys has reminded me of one thing: being a whore. And it made me wonder, what would you be a whore for?

(And by "you", I mean "me", not "you, the reader." In my head I call myself "you", not "me"... as in, "You better check yourself before you wreck yourself, R." Speaking of, I had the best ever description of the phrase "check yourself before you wreck yourself" at a 4th of July party- some guy there asked me what it meant and I described it as "take an accounting of your present behavior before it leads to undesirable consequences." But I digress.)

There are a lot of things I would whore myself out for. Of course by "whoring myself out" I mean metaphorically, not literally. I consider doing things that are uncomfortable, dangerous, time consuming, against your better judgement, or otherwise compromise your moral standing to be "whoring yourself out".

Derby, for one. I am pretty sure I have been doing that for about a year now. My job, for awhile. But only until I realise I am doing it, then I try to stop. But that's about it. And definitely, DEFINITELY, not the White House. I don't care whose White House. Poor Sara, on the other hand, has been used up faster than a $5.00 hooker. Don't believe me? Read for yourself (I put the phrases that say "whore" in bold) :
From http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitolbriefing/2007/07/taylor_walking_fine_line_in_te.html

"I have a very clear letter from Mr. Fielding," Taylor began at 10:40 a.m., pointing to the letter from White House Counsel Fred Fielding that has "directed" Taylor not to testify about internal deliberations and external communications while she worked in the West Wing.
Then Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) tried to ask about any meetings with the president on the prosecutorial firings. "Again, I have a letter," she said. Was she aware of any decision documents signed by the president, Leahy inquired. "Again, I've been asked not to comment," Taylor replied.

And so it's going this morning at a packed hearing inside the tiny hearing room of the Judiciary Committee. Taylor is trying to thread the legal needle of honoring the committee's subpoena commanding her appearance to testify about the matter, but at the same time honoring Bush and Fielding's broad request that she not answer specific questions that they believe would violate executive privilege.

Fact-based questions are actually fair game, not something that can be shuttered away by the privilege letter. So, a question asking if she ever spoke to someone about a matter is ostensibly answerable, but what the contents of the conversation were are off limits.

In the first hour of questions, Taylor cited the letter at least a dozen times. But, after a 30-minute break for a vote on an Iraq war amendment, Leahy reconvened the meeting and reminded her about what sort of questions she could and couldn't answer. At that point he asked the same three questions about Bush again, and she realized she had to answer: and the answers were 'no' to all three, she'd never spoken to Bush or been in any meetings with him about the U.S. attorney issue, nor were there any presidential signing documents that she's aware of.

It's a tough act for Taylor today. In reality, she's under no obligation to honor the White House request, she faces no possible sanction if she answered every question openly and truthfully and there's no legal fallout for her. (If presidential claims of executive privilege were iron clad regarding former White House staff, the nonfiction aisles of bookstores would be barren, with no aides-turned-authors writing at length about their Oval Office meetings.) However, for someone who is currently without a job, she might hurt her career advancement if she were to spill all the beans about all her conversations with the president, undercutting the idea that she's a loyal Republican.

"I admire his unflinching devotion to do what he always believes is right for the country," Taylor said in her opening statement.

Democrats had been hoping she would testify about the role White House advisers -- particularly her immediate boss, top political adviser Karl Rove -- played in crafting the plan to fire the prosecutors. E-mails between Taylor and Justice Department officials showed her political office was involved in the run-up to the firings.

She has huddled for about a half-dozen sidebars with her attorney, W. Neil Eggleston, who has been given the unusual privilege of sitting next to his client at the witness table, discussing whether those questions fall under the claims of the Fielding letter.

Ah, "It's a tough act for Taylor today", indeed, Washington Post.
From where I sit, all that whoring for a bunch of middle-aged Republican assholes who make you their scape goat would cost a lot more than the pay from her 2-bit job and a footnote in the annals of U.S. history, but maybe I just have more self-esteem.

Sad But True

Paris Hilton spent more time in jail than Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Let's review the charges:

*Libby was found guilty of two counts of perjury (lying to a grand jury), one count of making a false statement to the FBI and one of obstruction of justice.

He was found not guilty on a separate count of making a false statement to the FBI.

*Paris pleaded no contest in January to reckless driving stemming from a Sept. 7 arrest in Hollywood. Police said she appeared intoxicated and failed a field sobriety test. She had a blood-alcohol level of .08 percent.

She was sentenced to 36 months probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines.

Two other traffic stops and failure to enroll in a mandated alcohol education program are what landed the socialite back in court.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies stopped Hilton on Feb. 27 and charged her with violating her probation. Police said she was pulled over at about 11 p.m. after authorities saw the car speeding with its headlights off. Hilton was also required to enroll in an alcohol education program by Feb. 12. As of April 17, she had not enrolled.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!