Mary Ann Sorrentino's Open Salon Blog

Movin' On.....

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 19:11:57 -0500

OK...just because there are some of you whom I would follow into hell

(and feel as if I have, over the years!) I'm going over to Our Salon with the rest of you.

There's certainly not a hell of a lot going on here any more....too bad...

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Open Salon is a community that uses the OS website to stay in touch with a core group of people who enjoy writing and discussing all kinds of topics. We, the writers, are the community; Open Salon is only a platform.

We believe the OS platform has become incapable of supporting the community that has developed here. We want to preserve our community as much as possible. The destination of choice for the greatest number of OS members has become OurSalon, a site that was created as a sort of lifeboat for Open Salon members in the event that Open Salon closed down. We have established memberships over there and many of us habitually double-post.

That has proven effective, but the result is a community split between two locations, complete with duplicate conversations, many between the same people at both locations. Until Open Salon becomes technically viable again, we would rather collect it at a single location, as that would result in less duplication of effort and, more importantly, far less frustration for the members of this community. That frustration has resulted in some community members leaving us altogether.

Let’s try this again. We will not engage in any activity on Open Salon for a minimum of a month. This will allow us to centralize our community in a location that is fully functioning. After that period, if Open Salon has addressed its problems, those of us who want to will revert to double-posting.

If you are ready to join in this trial move, please post this letter on your blog right away and make sure you open an account on Our Salon. We will plan to begin the trial on Monday morning, November 19, 2012.

Checking in with OS Friends... Sorrentino's Still Kickin'

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 14:11:46 -0500

SEND THIS TO YOUR DAUGHTERS AND GRANDDAUGHTERS

Just wanted to check in, read some of your great posts on OS, comment here and there and say hello.

I haven't fallen off the earth, but there are only so many posts one can post if any of them are to have any merit at all.

I hope to be back to OS soon, meanwhile, check in with me here if/when you can.

Enjoy the holidays and GO HILLARY!!!!!!

Get the Word OUT: ROMNEY Would Kill FEMA

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:10:49 -0400

NO More Mr. Nice Guy!

Obama's troops MUST get the word out, during this disastrous post-hurricane-Sandy time, that Romney said he would eliminate FEMA.

Encourage the Democratic National Comittee to start running ads ASAP

letting voters know this while FEMA is hard at work helping America's victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Pass this on PLEASE.

Here's the DNC contact link

and see/hear Romney on FEMA for yourself here

WOMEN, MAKE SOME NOISE!

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 20:08:24 -0400

By now most of you know I’m probably not voting for Romney. In fact, as the days go by, I am more and more amazed that this man is the best the GOP can come up with. Then I remember the Republican debates and the alternative candidates like Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and the like and I stifle a giggle.

The president isn’t the most popular man on the block and even some Democrats feel disappointed in Mr. Obama. Having said that, I realize again how this election could have been a cakewalk for the other party: instead we have a squeaker of a race developing where a landslide might have been possible.

It’s as if Romney wants to self-destruct, and his party wants to help him do just that! For women voters, it is even more amazing that the right wing keeps finding more and more ways to offend those of us who make up more than half of the nation’s voting population.

Grandma’s worried about Republicans who want to privatize her social security and cut back her Medicare benefits. Mom and Dad are working hard in this struggling economy Romney says he wants to fix, but they don’t understand why they have to struggle so the rich can get more tax breaks while blue collar pensions are decimated.

Young women (and their mothers and grandmothers) are having a really hard time cozying up to a man who wants them to go without student loans for college, give up contraception, forfeit freedom of choice if they do end up with an unintended pregnancy, and face the prospect of proving they were survivors of “REAL rape” (as opposed to that other make-believe kind Republicans fantasize about, I suppose.)

I don’t care about Romney being a Mormon, but—let’s face it—a religion where a guy can have an endless number of wives in heaven isn’t really very different from another faith which promises its heroes scores of virgins at the pearly gates. In either creed, women are nowhere near equal: in fact they are only slightly better than chattel.

The country that Romney and company promise is not the place I and millions of other women have worked so hard to create for our daughters and granddaughters. We didn’t perish in the Triangle fire to have equal opportunities, collective bargaining and safety in the workplace set aflame again. We didn’t fight in two World Wars to have the military mistreat us, sexually and otherwise, while politicians winked. And we didn’t hemorrhage to death in back alleys so Republicans could tell us that effective, affordable birth control and safe surgical abortions weren’t going to be available if/when we need them.

I’m not even going to mention the aspirin between the knees remark, and the other GOP jackass who went to Israel on a political junket last month so he could skinny-dip in Christ’s Sea of Galilee. But really, are we supposed to take this gang seriously about running the country?

I think women care less about Romney’s secret tax returns than they do about the world view of a man who has nothing in common with the average Joe—and even less in common with the woman who gets the average Joe going every day! Come November, we’ll have to see if hell really hath no fury like the women scorned so brashly by Romney and his party.

Ladies, get to the polls and make some noise!

What Would Zeus and Hera Think?

Sat, 4 Aug 2012 13:08:40 -0400

On August 12, after the Spice Girls reunite to close the London Olympics, televisions around the globe will go dark for a while, then spring back to life to showcase more sports mania, reality shows highlighting addiction, infidelity, weight gain and loss, and the endless talking heads reminding viewers of what they already know about the lousy state if the world economy. For “entertainment,” many will try to convince themselves that America [really has] Got Talent while couch potatoes fantasize that they are Dancing with the Stars.

Since the opening of the spectacular London games, however, even those who usually ignore sports admit to occasional eavesdropping on “the games.” Here in Rhode Island, young swimming great Elizabeth Beisel has captured Southern New England’s heart and mind and we are not ashamed to say so. Hundreds of her friends and fans have crammed beachside eateries and bars to watch her win a silver and a bronze medal so far (while local fire marshals have probably turned a blind eye to the capacity limits of those establishments.)

Having visited Olympia in Greece where the games were originally played by the Hellenic gang that gave us this phenomenon, I cannot help but wonder what they—and the gods they were trying to please—would think of what is being offered up today. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine some of the 2012 events taking place on what is now a pile of marble rocks on a huge field where once naked male athletes competed for wreaths to mark their victories. (That’s right—naked—so Italian swimmer Flavia Zoccari need not have wept when she had a “costume malfunction.” Her bare butt was, in fact, more in keeping with Olympic tradition than the jump suits today’s swimmers wear in some races.)

There were no MacDonald concessions, no competing TV camera crews jostling for the best photo op and certainly no digital timers to document the real-time accuracy of close races. There were also no badminton, beach volleyball, basketball or kayaking events under the blazing Greek sun.

Instead, athletes competed in purer shows of athletic prowess—running, jumping, hurling a javelin, throwing a discus, wrestling and the like. One cannot resist the temptation to wonder, “What would Zeus say?” about today’s events and games where urine tests for drug use and speculation about who may be gay are a routine part of the scene. (Hera would probably smile at the female athlete majority, however.)

I celebrate all Olympic athletes and the rise of women in the games. Whatever their gender, color, creed or sexual preference, these contenders deserve our respect for their dedication, discipline and focus. Team USA is also giving its countrymen and women new reasons to be proud in an era when— too often —respect for our nation is fading globally.

Still the question eats away in the minds of some as to what is a “real” sport deserving of Olympic attention and what is not. If the games start to look more like America’s Got Talent, then we should all take a good hard look at what the Greek founders originally intended and rein in some of our 24/7/365 coverage needs to include anything that vaguely resembles “sport.”

Until then, don’t miss the tatting and lumberjack events —only kidding.

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(photo: www.thedailytelegraph.au )

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