REAL BLOGS DON'T JUST share your observations 100% of the time. Instead, they can also be awfully good platforms for sharing the writing of people whose work you admire - people who deserve a larger audience.

I read this blog first thing today (see link below), and I thought some of… Read full post »

I AM LATELY REMINDED OF AN ASSIGNMENT when my metro editor sent me to cover a “gentle protest” over the Gulf War of the 1990s in Jackson, Mich. (Don’t remember that war – or what it was about? That’s OK – because it was probably “security” and &… Read full post »

Memorandum

RE: In Memoriam

I don’t want to hear

Where you were

Or what you remember about 9/11.

How the planes crashed, and the towers fell

And our world “changed forever.”

No.

(Nor how our fears rose,

And… Read full post »

Who is silent this Labor Day, and therefore I cannot be

Dear Jerry,

You know what today isn’t? Today isn’t Labor Day. But you already know that. Maybe that’s as much a comfort to you as me.

Because Labor… Read full post »

OH, PILLORY ME IF YOU MUST, but so gosh-darn many people are famous for not having contributed anything valuable to society these days, or for being infamous, that I have taken it upon myself to create a click-through media embargo list. Call it the last bastion of my tattered sanity in… Read full post »

WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL, you know, back in the early ‘70s (born in the far-out ‘60s), I wore dresses. And roughly cut-off, hand-me-down jeans as shorts. And pixie-cut hair – and no shirts.

I looked like a little boy. The way my sister and I ran around the… Read full post »

IF YOU NEED A REASON TO SMILE, this one's as good as any:

I got this from a girlfriend tonight. As of now, YouTube says only 3oo+ people have viewed it.

I'm going to go out on a limb - and say by weekend's end, it's MORE.

Celebrate life. Celebrate love. Be… Read full post »

A FEW MONTHS BACK, WHEN ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS, DAVE - aka "The Squealer" to those of us who knew him as the king of snarky columns at our college newspaper (before the word "snarky" became vogue, and the vogue became law) - well, as I say, when Squealer sent… Read full post »

I'VE OVERCOME AN ABSOLUTE TERROR OF HEIGHTS since I was a kid by putting myself in situations that force me to deal with it. So one of my greatest successes in curing me of this phobia (well, as much as anyone can actually be said to be "cured") was leaning into the windows at the… Read full post »

Hey, YOU! Yeah, YOU - I'm talking to you, pal! The guy who's publicly humiliating the poor cowed waitress at the table next to me like she doesn't only owe you decent service but isn't fit to wipe the mud from your pathetic Birkenstock knockoffs....

Or YOU - the girl who's sassing… Read full post »

YOU KNOW HOW PEOPLE TALK about lightning strikes being the COOLEST THING EVER?

They have no idea what the hell they are talking about. I know because, before last night, I was one of those people.

I was working on the computer - late as usual, because when you run… Read full post »

HERE, IN NO SPECIFIC ORDER - AND BASED ENTIRELY ON MY EXPERIENCE OVER THE PAST YEAR or so - are my observations about how to glean the highest ratings and most views on Open Salon as a writer.

1. USE 'SPAMALOT.' Specifically, use it in your title:"Pitbulls in Spamalot," 'Thongs in Spamalot,… Read full post »

IT OCCURS TO ME SUDDENLY on this fine Friday that if liberty were as easy as eating delicious cake, we'd all be jostling each other to be the first in line, with our plates and forks at the ready, and wishing we could do something to get our first slice.

This Independence Day,… Read full post »

SUPER QUICK and for no one's edification, moments tonight after the news that MICHAEL JACKSON has, and I quote, left "mountains of music" unpublished that could be released for years.... (oh, joy):

Allow me to share one of my all-time favorite DAVE CHAPELLE shows, where a D… Read full post »

YOU KNOW WHAT JULY 4 HAS BECOME? At least for the majority of Americans? An extended weekend away from work, one long beer fest and a massive mobilation of toned bodies determined to get their tan on as summer hits its stride. Whatever.

Oh, sure.... There are the parades, and the fluttering… Read full post »

LAST NIGHT, I WATCHED FRIENDS OF MINE AND PERFECT STRANGERS AROUND THE COUNTRY FALL APART - in their own individual ways - grieving, sobbing and emotionally distraught over the deaths of their formative icons Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

They blogged or tweeted messages of "RIP" and pers… Read full post »

SEEN & HEARD ON A RECENT BLOG read by hundreds of OS readers:

Advertising inserted into blogs? What if we don't endorse said product[s]? WTF? ARE YOU SERIOUS? 

My honest response, and apparently my mistake:

Sorry, friends. As a long-time journalist who's always had to share my word space wit… Read full post »

1. Gov. Sanford's impossible love of "magnificent, gentle kisses." Eww. This is news? Really? Damn, I thought we had about 5 major international crises we were dealing with! But this Argentina thing... well! That's above the fold fodder!

2. Jon + Kate + divorce lawyers beginning to square up. Lemme s… Read full post »

Friends, I am what my husband calls a "meanderthal":

mee-AN-der-thal: a musical Neanderthal; someone who meanders while listening to music, with the express intent of finding known, beloved music that reminds me of my glory days, with little to no interest in exposing my ears to something remotely al… Read full post »

Go on, admit it.

You've clicked. You love clicking. You'll click anything that moves. You click when you think no one is looking.

But they're looking, trust me. I don't know who "they" are - but your every move is monitored - and what we're fed as news online is entirely based… Read full post »

 

NPR - you are like a bad partner who keeps hurting me, but I just can't leave you, no matter how hard I try.

Your latest radio transgression, one I'm having a really hard time forgiving, is the March 20 annihilation of "Day to Day," your quirky, West-coasty, thought-provoking midda… Read full post »

My dear, talented, omni-sexual, ever-lovin' Adam,

Say it ain't so! How can you have possibly been in the bottom three when I was sure, quite sure, you were a ringer for gold in the non-competition that is season 8 of American Idol?

Let me confess: I haven't voted for you… Read full post »

 1. Way to go, Arlen Specter!

Here in PA, we don't give a rat's ass that you've been a Republican and now you're a Democrat. Big woo. You're one of the most respected, most senior senators in the whole darn-fangled nation, you've more than ably represented the interests of not just/… Read full post »

I've heard from a number of you asking this very question since I dropped off the face of the Earth around Thanksgiving.

Shucks! <kicking of foot, bashful expression> ... I knew we were a community here, but I didn't realize or even hope anyone would notice! 

I'd love to say I've… Read full post »

I love Thanksgiving. It's my favorite part of the holiday season, before everyone's a stressed-out mess. Family is happy to be together, there's non-stop chatter, and no forced laughter like you hear by Christmastime. Relaxed, warm, and aromatic with every wonderful spice that has blessed mankind and… Read full post »