My only quibble is just that zed=the letter z. I LOVE our traditions here, the ZERO! (I’ve gotten them and celebrated that to everyone) And especially “FITZ!”

I’m not talking about traditions, I’m talking about the tendency I see of smart, brainy U.S. Americans to adopt Britishisms or whatever and disown their own native terms. I saw it back in college, I’m guilty of it. But people laugh at us, because we inevitably screw it up (as in shouting the last letter of the alphabet when you’re the first post).

I enjoyed what somebody wrote about getting between the dog and the lamppost, though. I’ll let “zed” go, but I’ve seen a LOT of these euro terms from clearly American (U.S., not Canadian) people, and I kinda wish we’d just stop it?

I understand and empathize with much of what you are saying. Their was a discussion at the time zed was declared by many pups to be another choice for use at the beginning of a thread. It’s silly, it’s clickish and I like it when folks in a group make up their own vocabulary along the way. (for fun, not war or political evasion)

The zero in a thread is seen by only one person. It disappears as soon as it’s filled in with a comment. I can’t think of any other situation where that occurs. Why not play with such an odd occurance?

I don’t have a dog in the hunt, but, see both sides. Glad you chimed in as always.

I think this whole silly “zed” thing is an affectation. The nicest people do it, but please stop. If we don’t talk like that, let’s not write like that. Let’s have the dignity of being ourselves.

Somebody last night was wondering how we would connect if They froze up the tubes, did we have snail addresses or phone numbers or anything. And there were these crickets. I am loathe to put personal contact info out for all, but connecting up in meat-based exercises from time to time is probably good insurance. We may need it. Sigh, Rayne is right I should get myself to a DL or something. Although I hate joining things. I invariably over-commit.

Hotflash, I read your comment and it really stuck. I just hate to always be putting “me, too!” posts in the commentary here. I’ll say this, my friend Strategerie (also comments here) was without power for DAYS after that horrible snowstorm, and I was really glad that we’d already exchanged phone and mailing addresses. We did communicate offline during that time and I updated other people.

I find that I have two lives and two sets of friends now – my political activist crowd, and the friends of work/daycare mommies. There is growing overlap between the two, but my virtual friends are the political, and could be completely lost to me in a day. Your post made me think about that. We could all be disconnected with little or no effort.

I have this fantasy. It is pure and unrealistic. I envision the CIA or someone who has power moving into the WH and removing George and Dick and the rest of the evil fuckers. And then they give us back our country. Does this mean that the usual channels of remedy are useless? Or am I way off base. Like on jupiter.

This is the job of our elected officials. It is past time for impeachment. I have contacted my senators, but my rep is hopeless.