recipe for disaster

Go to bed with the news story of a tiger attack in a zoo in San Francisco.

Wake up with an oversized marmalade cat grooming your ear, one paw firmly placed on your scalp, the other on your neck.

Yes, awake. wide awake. Thank you, Boomerang.


Much to do today, homahgawd.

I've been noticing a lot of folk toting up their word count for the year. Interesting. I never thought to do that -- to be honest, it feels like adding work onto an already full plate. But people do seem to get satisfaction out of the number.

Do you writer-folk here keep track, or no? Why? What's the payoff if you do, or the reason why you don't? And do you keep non-fiction and fictions separate, or is it all Words? Your host is curious.

Benazir Bhutto, 54

Like any charismatic figure with power, there was much to admire and much to be wary of. But she was a major figure of her time, a public role model for women at a time and place when there were few available, and her murder is a sad moment for Pakistan, and the rest of the democratic and would-be democratic world.

Pause a moment, and, if you didn't recognize the name, take the time to read about her life and death. Watch history as it unfolds.

Sad, but fascinating.

Where Pakistan goes now is anybody's guess. Is this a death knell for more than a life? Or a ringing call for change? Or is something nobody could have foreseen going to come out of the shadows? It makes me cling to our fucked-up system, and pet our much-abused democracy, and glare even the more at those who would try to dismantle it....