I’ve got to get my thoughts together on this, but quickly now — his first fucking veto, not to reduce spending, not to help Americans struggling against rising costs, blah-didy-blah, but instead to limit research into something that potentially help so many affected by so much. It is such a fucking tragedy.

My Aunt Ann took my grandmother out to see Calendar Girls. If you haven’t heard of that movie, it’s about a bunch of upper-middle-aged women who strip naked for a calendar to raise money for one of their number’s sick husband.

My grandmother, you must keep in mind, is a devoted Catholic. After viewing the movie, she turned to Ann and asked, “Is this your idea of pornography?”

More “creative purchasing” with taxpayer money following Katrina. This time, however, the money wasters are government employees. I know, I know, after me: “Gasp! NEVER!”

This one is my favorite:

A Coast Guard employee bought a $230 beer-brewing kit for parties. The Coast Guard claimed the kit saved money and gave the GAO a “detailed five-year analysis” to support its claim. The GAO cited “a dubious need for the government to brew its own alcohol.”

By Philip Roth.

This is my “light” reading I’m intermixing with my “deep” reading: i.e., the 900 billion page bio of Winston Churchill.

The Plot Against America also deals with the Second World War, but from the perspective of a United States which did not elect Franklin D. Roosevelt to a third term as President — rather, putting notorious anti-semite and Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh into the White House. Yep, it’s an “alternate history”

I’m not far into it — look, let’s be blunt, that Churchill bio is really fucking gripping and hard to put down! — but it grabs hard and is an exciting, and scary, read.

It’s a terrifying thought, y’know, contemplating what would’ve happened if Halifax had been made British PM instead of Churchill at that crisis point. If Roosevelt wasn’t reelected for a third term. If if if. Hitler only had to win one of those for the whole outcome of that war to change.

This is a scaaaary book. And the only monsters are flesh and blood humans.

So.

Six Feet Under ended for me last night when I watched the final two episodes of the show’s final season.

I found redemption for Nate in his last scene, where he tells Brenda that he’ll love their child very much for ever and ever. I teared up just a might. Zenchick made me watch the final end sequence twice — Anthony’s gay, Durrell goes into the funeral business, and is that his adopted son? Brenda remarries and has a second child — as we tried to figure out the developing relationships following the show’s end.

At one point, Brenda wakes up to check on newborn Willa, born prematurely. Nate’s ghost tells Brenda that the child will never be normal, and no one will ever love Willa because she’s broken from the start. I observed that Brenda was projecting her own fears on the child — Brenda had a rocky childhood, and even as an adult was pretty self-destructive. It’s good to see her character find stability.

It has taken me a bit under two months to get through all sixty-some episodes of the show. Intense shit.

I love this song, by Scottish artist Sandy Thom.

Thanks to Zenchick for pointing it out to me, and Nunsense for the link.