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Friday, Jun. 15, 2007 - 7:06 p.m.

Way back in 1998, the last summer I was living in LA during the 90's, I was waiting tables at Macaroni Grill. And one balmy (read: hot as Hades) summer evening, as I was working on the patio, a lanky, very handsome man with gorgeous blue eyes dove to open the patio door for me as I made my way toward it laden with an immense load of dirty dishes. I thanked him profusely, registered that it was Jack Scalia, and that he had the most amazing blue eyes I'd ever seen, went through the doorway, as I continued through the crowd, turned to say that he had gorgeous blue eyes, because baby, did he EVER. He smiled like he was surprised and said well thank you very much, and we both went on our merry ways.

So today, as I'm working the help counter totally alone and way overburdened on this Father's Day weekend, I've got people 3 deep at the counter and all 5 lines on hold, and the first person before me asks for a book, so I type in the information he's giving me, pull it up on the screen, and raise my head to answer the question...and instead blurt out "You opened a door for me in 1998, and I have thought of you fondly many times since. It was very nice of you, thank you." To which Mr. Scalia (as you may have divined it was) says to me, I don't remember that, but I'm glad I could be nice enough you remember it 10 years later, and I say well, it was one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me. Which is a misspeak, because it's one of the most thoughtful things, not necessarily one of the nicest, *especially* in the service industry, where the people one is serving tend to dismiss one as invisible at the best and as servants beneath them at one of the worst. For a customer to actually hustle to get to the door ahead of you just so they can hold it open for you and then be stuck following along behind you in a busy restaurant on a busy weekend evening is pretty much like striking gold while planting geraniums. Sure, it *can* happen, but does it? Practically freaking never. So I was happy to return the favor and help Mr. Scalia today, though sadly, not well, as I was super busy, and we didn't seem to have the book he needed. But I tried. After I couldn't find his book, he asked me my name, and I told him, and he proferred his hand and told me he was Jack. Scalia. And I said "Oh, I know who *you* are, sir," and we both smiled, and again, went our merry ways. And I hope he has a very happy Father's Day. :)

Plus, Jack Scalia is totally stalking me at work, y'all!

(I'm kidding. Please don't send me a cease and desist letter for claiming on the internets that your client is stalking me. It's a joke. Likewise, if you're Mr. Scalia - doubtful, since I figure you have better things to do than google your name, but maybe your kids or significant other do not - please don't think I think you're stalking me. It's a comic effect thing. Honest. :) And also? Mr. Scalia? You still have really pretty blue eyes, sir. And despite the overall impression my blog might give, I am not a psychotic freak. I just have a few anger management issues with the world today. Honest.)

This week's Do Not?

Do not stick your used gum inside a book. That is not what books and their pages are for. That is what TRASHCANS are for. If God loves books - and I have a feeling he just might - your soul is in very big trouble when you leave this plane. You're lucky I'm not God, because I say again, I think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat books, and if you are the kind of person who sticks your used gum between the pages of a book - especially a book you do not even freaking own (and a hardcover, at that) - then you are a person of the lowest order and not fit for much of anything, other than shoveling manure. And I personally think that does a disservice to those people who shovel manure for a living, but really, I can't think of anything more onerous and requiring less education*. If you are a person so ignorant, lazy, slovenly, and disrespectful as to stick your gum between the pages of a book in a store and replace that book on the shelf as if nothing happened, you do not deserve a place in society. And I mean that with all my heart. I don't care who you are or what you do for a living. You simply suck.

*Bygones to all you people who muck out stalls or otherwise shovel manure for a living, because I know it's an honest living, and I have nothing against making an honest living, no matter how you do it, nor do I look down on you, so please don't think that's what I mean. You probably don't stick your gum in the pages of books, so obviously, you shovel manure for reasons which are not known to me and which I am not qualified to judge, ergo, I am not judging. Please don't send me mail because you think I look down on manure shoveling. Nothing could be father from the truth. It is, however, a yucky, disgusting job, and people who stick gum in books should have to do it. That's all I'm saying. You can have their job. Assuming you want it. Maybe you like shoveling manure. I don't know. All's I'm sayin' is that if you want to trade places with the gum-stickers, you should be allowed to. Or not. As you wish.

So, managers at Los Alamos (nuclear) laboratory have been sending and forwarding each other top secret nuclear information via unsecured email. As in, unencrypted. Regular email. As in, similar to, but not necessarily specifically, AOL. Or yahoo.com. Which kinda slipped their minds when they appeared before a Congressional committee investigating security problems at the lab.

This is the kind of thing that if I heard it on the news as having happened in another country, I'd roll my eyes and think what kind of freakin' idiots do they have in charge over there? What frigging morons - it's top secret nuclear information, for God's sake; you don't send that kind of thing willy nilly through the ether. You have to take precautions. Encrypt it. Send it over secure lines. Not through AT&T or leave it sitting on an Earthlink* server somewhere. Thank goodness we in the US take this sort of thing more seriously.

Yeah. You can pretty much guess my reaction to the fact that WE are the morons in this scenario, not some halfass, fly-by-night, formerly-run-by-the-KGB, defunct organization. And one of the consortium of companies responsible for providing the security underwhich this sort of thing was acceptable behavior and for whom the morons responsible worked? Bechtel.

Yyyyep. Bechtel. The same guys providing "security" in Iraq. And building the border fence between America & Mexico. Those guys. Gee. Why am I not surprised? Iraq...Los Alamos. Iraq...Los Alamos. The security apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, does it?

The same people who provide security at Los Alamos also provide security at Pantex, btw. "What's Pantex?" I hear you asking. Funny you should ask. Pantex is the only place in America where we actually assemble and disassemble nuclear weapons. The facility is 100% responsible for maintaining the safety and security (as well as the reliability) of every single nuclear weapon in the United States nuclear weapon stockpile. That means every single nuclear weapon the US owns. The same idiots who thought AOL* was a perfectly safe method of sharing top secret nuclear information are in charge of making sure that no one bad (like, oh, say, I don't know, radical Muslim fundamentalists or someone like Timothy McVeigh) happens across information like how to build a nuclear weapon, where nuclear weapons are kept and stored and how many, when/where nuclear weapons are transported, etc. Don't you feel safer already?

It boggles the mind that the Bush administration and their cronies are actually able to campaign on a platform of keeping America safe. All I can imagine is that most Americans just don't know or care about all the security breaches, lapses, and ineptitude running rampant, or that the same 3 deeply screwed up and lax companies are in charge of "securing" *everything*. It's much nicer to tuck your kids in at night telling yourself they're safe. Sadly, the more I find out, the more stuff like this comes to light, the more I think nothing could be further from the truth. We're just waiting for it to happen. I think we've been unbelievably lucky up to now. That, or prior administrations actually gave a crap what was going on. I haven't decided whether it's ineptitude, cronyism, or just a complete and utter disregard for regulation that's causing the problems. So I don't know whether it was ever actually under control or not. But the current situation is just stupefying in its entirety. It really, really is.

Peace out,
Katie


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Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
In which Katie returns after a very long absence - Monday, Jun. 25, 2012
In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
In which Katie asks you to please click the link and send the message to protect the rights of artists - Wednesday, May. 21, 2008

 

 

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