I’m having a blonde day. Watch out.

I would love to report that I am the sharpest pencil in the pack all the time, but alas, I have my days. Today, unfortunately, is one of them.

I was anticipating the monthly Romance Writers of America meeting. This month’s extravaganza is being held in a city about an hour away by car. I threw myself in the shower at zero dark hundred this morning (otherwise known as the crack of nine a.m.,) and got ready to zoom down there. Imagine my excitement to discover upon arrival that the meeting is NEXT Saturday. (My friend Lesa will be dining out on this one for months, I’m sure…) The Dauphin had decided to ride along so he could hang out at the library for a couple of hours. He hardly laughed at me.

Of course, no trip south is complete without waving at the VMAC (otherwise known as Seahawks headquarters,) back and forth. I was a little confused on the way back. Therefore, I missed my big chance to yell “Sign T.J. Houshmandzadeh” at the building as we whizzed by.

The Dauphin was realizing by then that I needed either some kind of evaluation by medical professionals or some protein, so he tried to cajole me into going to Dick’s. I chose to go to Burgermaster. It was closer, and at that point, I was not going to risk driving into Seattle. Ahhh, Burgermaster. My favorite. I ordered a cheeseburger; he ordered a bacon burger. How much trouble could I get in, you’re wondering?

I accidentally handed The Dauphin my burger. He ate it. I didn’t realize this till I opened the other burger and spotted bacon. I really love bacon (pork fat rules, to quote the deathless words of Emeril Lagasse,) but then I felt guilty that I was eating his burger.

I think it’s time for a long nap. After all, it would be a good thing to spend some time in our room, where I am not a hazard to myself or anyone else.

-S

The real cost of war: Pentagon lifts media ban on coffin photos

Tami Silicio, a military contractor, was fired for taking this photo in 2005.

It’s easy to ignore the wars if one does not have a loved one or friend serving in them, or one does not see the endless parade of flag-draped coffins on the nightly news (as those who grew up in the ’60’s did). It’s going to be a little harder to ignore now.

The media was banned from showing the returning remains of soldiers since 1991. How convenient, huh? After all, it would draw attention to George W. Bush’s illegal wars, not to mention the billions that have been wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we can’t have that. Plus, it puts a human face on the real cost of war — other people’s sons and daughters.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-war-dead-photos27-2009feb27,0,3073377.story

The Pentagon has decided to rescind a long-standing prohibition against press coverage of returning war dead, allowing families to say whether news organizations may photograph the arrivals, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday.

The remains of all U.S. service members killed overseas are flown to Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base. But photographic images have been prohibited since 1991. The administration of President George W. Bush rigorously enforced the ban, preventing pictures of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan from appearing in news coverage.

The new policy will leave it up to the families of slain service members to decide whether to allow the media to photograph the arrival of the remains in Dover.

“My conclusion was, we should not presume to make the decision for the families. We should actually let them make it,” Gates said.

I’m all for the families deciding. After all, it’s their loved one, and their grief over an incalculable loss. At the same time, those who choose to allow that flag-draped coffin photo are reminding people that yes, there are still soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the meantime, it seems we have an end date. Finally.

-S

OMG. Tom Brady married Gisele Bundchen last night, and a nation of women weeps!

Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady

Photo: news.sky.com

Those who’ve been reading The Little Pink Clubhouse for awhile are well aware that Tom Brady of the New England Patriots is the man I love to hate. Even though I’m sure his tears cure cancer (despite the fact nobody’s ever seen him cry,) and that he is everything all women are purported to desire, I never got the Tom thing. Really. Then again, I tend to enjoy “intelligent and funny” along with the “handsome”.

Where was I?

It seems that Mr. Brady and Ms. Bundchen are now man and wife. I wish them happiness. Of course, I’m relieved: This means the rest of us can get on with our lives.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tvguide/401713_tvgif27.html

Tom Brady has a wedding band to go with those Super Bowl rings: the New England Patriots star and Gisele Bundchen have tied the knot.

The couple of three years was wed Thursday in a Santa Monica, Calif. during a “very small and intimate” ceremony that started at dusk, according to Us Magazine. Among the guests were their families and Brady’s ex, Bridget Moynahan, who brought their son, John Edward Thomas Moynahan.

In the meantime, I’d like to nominate Bridget Moynahan for sainthood. (Attend any ex’s wedding? I’d rather be dragged buck naked over broken glass, but that’s me.)

Congratulations, you crazy kids, and Tom, the Seahawks look forward to beating you in the playoffs this season!

-S

Is South Carolina a third-world country? Ty’sheoma Bethea needs a new school, and the governor of her state is turning down the stimulus money!

A crumbling auditorium used for storage at J.V. Martin Junior High School in Dillon, SC

Photo: www.chicagotribune.com

Ty’sheoma Bethea is a young lady that wrote to the White House last week about the condition of her school. I realize we’ve spent most of our lives in suburbia, but I can’t believe these kind of conditions could exist in any school in the United States.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-school-stimulus_wittfeb12,0,628242.story

Ty’sheoma Bethea went to the public library in this struggling South Carolina town Tuesday night to write a letter to Congress about the economic stimulus bill.

The 8th grader had never thought about writing to Congress before. She didn’t even have a clear idea what a “stimulus bill” is. She went to the library because her family has no computer at home, and the handful of computers at her crumbling middle school — hand-me-downs once used by felons in the state prison system—were unavailable.

All the 14-year-old knew was that powerful people in faraway Washington were debating something that might directly help her school, where stained rugs cover holes in the floor, rain pours from the ceiling, classroom temperatures hover in the 50s in the winter and freight trains passing along nearby tracks shake the building so violently that the lights go out several times a day.

If this wasn’t enough, the following is pretty interesting, too.

The school money might seem like just another obscure line item in the massive recovery bill. But the students and teachers at the J.V. Martin Junior High School—a school so academically deficient that some of Bethea’s 8th-grade peers can’t recognize the letters of the alphabet—are hoping the federal money will be a lifeline.

It is 2009. In an era that “accountability” is the be-all, end-all, there are still areas of our country so poverty-stricken (and from what it sounds like in the two articles I just got done reading, by design,) that it’s not deemed necessary or important to teach children how to read.

State officials dismiss charges of racism and the assertions of structural inequality contained in the lawsuit. They say they are doing all that is required under the state constitution, which mandates only that the state government provide a “minimally adequate” education to schoolchildren, leaving local communities free to raise and spend more if they choose. The case has been awaiting a decision in the South Carolina Supreme Court for months.

But in a rural town like Dillon, where the local unemployment rate is estimated at 17 percent and 90 percent of the middle-school students come from impoverished homes, raising additional school funds is nearly impossible. Property and sales taxes have long been depressed by the faltering local economy.

“Minimally adequate,” huh? That’s all the state of South Carolina is responsible for? Is anyone in that state embarrassed by this? If they’re not, they should be.

So Ty’sheoma wrote a letter. She evidently didn’t even have money for a stamp. She gave the letter to the principal of her school, who scanned it and sent it to South Carolina’s representatives, and to the White House. A few days later, she sat next to Michelle Obama while Mrs. Obama’s husband kept a campaign promise: “I will not forget you.” He’d been to the school twice during his campaign.

In the meantime, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina is evidently intending on turning down money from the economic stimulus that might improve things for Ty’sheoma and her classmates. If you’re as angry about this as I am, please spend five minutes today letting him know. I’m sure he believes it’s none of our business. Every child in that school, every child in every failing school across this country, is our business.

Governor Mark Sanford
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12267
Columbia, SC 29211
Fax: 803-734-5167

Governor Sanford, congratulations. Your state has just been brought to the attention of millions of Americans, and this is not a positive thing. I’m also wondering how long you were in the office this morning before the President called.

Ty’sheoma Bethea deserves better. Her classmates deserve better. You, Sir, have failed her. I note on your website that you’re accepting suggestions on how to “cut the budget”. I have a suggestion: Let’s cut your salary. If your state is so financially deficient that you believe Dillon’s JV Martin Junior High is “minimally adequate”, and you’re considering turning down federal funds as a political statement, you need to find another line of work.

-S

President Obama: “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

The President of the United States addressed Congress and the American people a few moments ago. There were many highlights of his speech. To be completely frank, I was applauding as much as those in the chamber were.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/us/politics/24obama-text.html

But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this:

We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.

He went on.

I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time, they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer. This time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.

Oh, there’s MORE! After his comments on renewable energy and the auto industry, he said the following:

None of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy. But this is America. We don’t do what’s easy. We do what is necessary to move this country forward.

And this is the part when I started sniffling a little.

This budget builds on these reforms. It includes an historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It’s a commitment that’s paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue. And it’s a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in the years to come.

He kept going.

Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.

There was more speech, but this was my favorite part (well, besides the ending of tax cuts to American corporations who ship good-paying jobs offshore).

But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary.

Finally: I understand it’s a post-partisan world. I understand that there have already been decisions I’m not crazy about. At the same time, this man gives me hope. He makes me believe that there will be a better tomorrow. He also has rallied the troops, and not only those in our country that wear a uniform. He’s called all of us to action.

The future is now.

-S

Memo to the Board of Governors of the Academy Awards

We’d deeply appreciate it if Hugh Jackman would do next year’s Oscar broadcast in a Speedo.

Thank you for your prompt consideration of this matter.

Sincerely yours,

The women of America

p.s. On an unrelated subject, the fun and frolic of New Orleans on Mardi Gras is underway! Laissez Le Bon Temps Roulet!

President Obama reads ten letters a day from the public. Have you written your president today?

I saw this earlier this morning while half-asleep. (We spent last evening at our friend Elizabeth’s house. We had a great time, but we stayed up a bit later than we usually do!) To say that it makes me hopeful is an understatement.

President Obama has asked those working in the White House Correspondence Office to choose ten letters per day for him. I understand ten letters doesn’t sound like a lot. They get thousands of letters a day. At the same time, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, isn’t it?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/dear-president.html

The letter to President Obama came from a woman in Arizona whose husband lost his job. He was able to find work, but the new gig came with one-third the pay; the family is struggling to make their mortgage payments.

The letter from the Arizona woman illustrated a policy conundrum, recalled senior adviser David Axelrod. President Obama read it, and absorbed the lesson.

“She said they had made all their mortgage payments, but were running out of money,” Axelrod said. “And they were told they could not renegotiate unless they were delinquent in their payments.”

Before President Obama’s housing speech last week, he’d made copies of his letter and “sent it to his financial team and said, ‘This is the kind of person our housing plan should help,” Axelrod recalled.

Mr. Axelrod commented further down in the blog post that President Obama asked for the daily selection of ten letters in order to not become “isolated” in the White House.

There are lots of things I’d like to discuss with President Obama about our family and our current situation, so I’ll be writing a letter. I’m sure my thoughts aren’t much different than other letter writers, but the very idea that he’s actually making the effort to read letters from the public is encouraging.

If you’d like to write a letter of your own, here’s the address.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

-S

Hey, Microsoft, you suck: Software giant requests return of “overpaid” severance monies

Ohhh, baby. The next 24 hours may be a Microsoft festival at TLPC. There’s another story I’m sitting on till tomorrow morning, just because this one’s got my blood boiling.

Microsoft sent out letters to its newly-laid off former employees over the past few days. They’re looking for some cash back. After all, there was an “administrative error”, and some ex-employees were either underpaid their severance, or overpaid. Let’s chat about this, Microsoft:  Your company has how much in the bank, and you believed that the best way to cope with the fact that Vista just didn’t go over the way you wanted it to was to lay off employees? Does Steve Ballmer’s kids need some new shoes or something? In the meantime, I’d also like to interface about that H1B visa situation. You’re now the leading H1B visa employer in the USA. While I don’t wish anyone to lose their job, the silence from Redmond on THAT situation is deafening.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/401042_msftseverance23.html

Microsoft Corp. acknowledged over the weekend that it overpaid severance to some of the 1,400 employees it laid off last month and has asked the former employees to pay back the money.

The company also said it had underpaid some laid-off employees.

“An inadvertent administrative error occurred that resulted in an overpayment in severance pay by Microsoft,” said one letter to an ex-employee, which was posted on the TechCrunch blog Saturday.

“We ask that you repay the overpayment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you.”

One of the richest corporations on the face of the planet “overpays” some of those they laid off for no good reason (according to the public information, these layoffs were not performance based,) and they begrudge that small amount of money enough to send letters out that have now been made public by justifiably upset ex-employees? Maybe they should rehire some of the PR people, huh? After all, there is no way to put lipstick on this pig.

Hey, former MSFT employees, I’m not a lawyer, but I’d get some advice before I wrote any check at all. In the meantime, I’m wondering if the few thousands of dollars Microsoft will recover from this move will offset the firestorm of bad publicity they already got on multiple local television channels already this evening.

-S

The Little Pink Clubhouse is named in the “Top 100 blogs written by women”? I’m stunned!

My humble blog has been named as one of the “Top 100 blogs written by women” at the following:

http://www.blogtrepreneur.com/2009/02/05/100-must-read-blogs%E2%80%A6by-women/

To say that this is absolutely surprising and flattering is an understatement. There are so many listed in my blogroll that are much more deserving than I am, but I have to say “thank you” to Blogtrepreneur.com and the people who put the list together.

Thank you so much for the honor! It’s cake and champagne for everyone at The Little Pink Clubhouse today!

-S

p.s. Just throwing this one out here — I am the sole author of TLPC. After all, who else would be crazy enough to take this place on, huh?

DISH Network and Fisher Broadcasting spoils our Oscar party. Thanks, guys.

Oscar

photo: www.nypost.com

We’ve had the same tradition on Oscar night for the past eight years. Our former next-door-neighbor, Elizabeth, comes over. We have wings and beverages, and we watch the show. Elizabeth is a big movie buff, so there’s lots of conversation about the various movies. There’s also conversation about who’s wearing what, whom we think’s going to win, etcetera. I’m not making any predictions about this year. I really wish “Milk” had gone into wide release sooner so The Dauphin and I could have seen it before the show. In the meantime, there’s a slight problem with tonight’s festivities.  We can’t get the Oscar broadcast at our house, thanks to the continuing standoff between DISH Network and Fisher Broadcasting. Thanks, guys.

We’ve been DISH customers for the past fifteen years. We’ve spent a lot of money to stay with them — after all, we had to re-buy equipment and pay additional installation fees when we left our townhouse in 2000 for the house we currently live in. (We didn’t qualify for the “Dishmover” program.) We also upgraded our equipment last year for HD. For the most part, we’ve been happy with them and their service. Right now, though, if cable didn’t increase their rates every twenty minutes, our love affair would be over.

Don’t get me wrong: We don’t spend that much time watching Seattle’s ABC affiliate. Well, I don’t spend that much time watching it. The Dauphin has several favorites on ABC. (I just go for the craptastic “The Bachelor”, and hey, KOMO, thanks for not letting me watch it when someone from Kirkland is prominently featured in the show.) However, when the only network carrying the Oscars is ABC, not having an affiliate is a problem, isn’t it?

We don’t qualify for the mystical “distant markets”, either. We can’t even get SNOW from the Seattle stations, but we are within the mileage limit from Seattle; therefore, it’s a no go.

I realize there are other, more pressing problems in our world today. I realize that nobody’s going to die over this. At the same time, DISH and Fisher, the pissing contest got old a couple of months ago. Neither of you are providing what you contracted with your customers to bring right now, therefore, you’ve now come to the interest of the Washington State Attorney General’s consumer division. Have fun with that. (Did I mention that Washington state has some of the most stringent consumer protection laws in the country?)

We hope everyone else has a great time wallowing knee-deep in the hoopla, and we’ll be interested to see what happens in a number of areas…

-S