TRY TRY AGAIN

Do what? Live my life again? Could I do things better?

What age, which self would I want to be?

Be young again? See Mom one last time before she died? Find another place in Malibu to live? Produce my "Shattering Panes" play one more time?

Be a beginner dancer again? Could I stretch more, make myself more limber and, despite my feet, be a ballerina, even though some of essential ballet steps always looked silly to me? They still look silly to me.

Be a teenager, and deal with making the highest marks in school, and what am I going to be when I grow up? And pimples? And fall in love with the quarterback Dave, the big man on campus in High School?

I changed myself -- makeup, clothes, dimmed down my brain, learned to talk sports, made friends with Dave's side-kick, a shrimpy twerp who ran Dave's errands. Did I really gave the shrimp my facetious do-you-like-me love letter to hand-deliver to Dave?

Never, never would I want to be back in those days and feel how I felt when Dave never, never, never answered.

So what about love -- go back -- go on dates? I'm not geared up by my upbringing, my era, to picture myself functioning successfully in the current scene. And what would I wear? Would I wear Victoria's Secret bras that create super cleavage? Oh dear, I don't think so -- the man I've got is my pal, my family, my very best friend.

What would I want to go back and do again? Perform on a world tour? I've done that! I don't want to see the sights I've seen before.

Write another novel? Do another version of a "The Woman," a/k/a "Cordelia," a/k/a "Woman of the Century," a/k/a "'Somebody?" What about producing my play "Shattering Panes?" I did produce it, but I could improve it. Why not try try again?

Not again! Haven't I learned/yearned for a hit play? Revised it, loved, hated, mourned, sought -- that's me -- sticking to what I was, what I am now because that's me!

Hey, look beyond -- wave your magic wand!
Don't you see -- you're free to be or not to be --
Like "Hamlet" sad, or "Cinderella" glad!
Just don your glass-slipper sneaker and be stronger not weaker,
And write, write, write -- delight in your blog-site!

THE HUMAN BODY

Wow, this just arrived from my friend who knows what tickles me, and what I think is important!

It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach. One human hair can support 3 kg (6.6 lb). The average man's private area is three times the length of his thumb. Human thighbones are stronger than concrete. A woman's heart beats faster than a man's... There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet. Women blink twice as often as men. The average person's skin weighs twice as much as the brain. Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still. If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it. Women reading this will be finished now. Men are still busy checking their thumbs.

MILITIAS REVISITED

Do you know anyone in a militia? I don't. I don't even remotely know for sure that anyone I know has a friend in a militia.

Well ... wait a minute ... among my Facebook friends, I have come across some passionately anti-Obama attitudes, people who are anti-everything he's accomplished.

I don't live near these friends. I don't know that they or their relatives and hometown friends aren't part of the Militia Movement.

Feeling as I feel about war, about killing people, about finding a way to talk to your enemy, not to kill him or destroy his land or his possessions -- feeling that the Militia Movement is getting to be a real threat -- that they're gathering, drilling, rehearsing how to make a civil war ... Well, I wish I were a preacher.

(I'm remembering Jean Simmons in "Elmer Gantry," the movie about preachers in which she played a preacher.)

Could I put on a long white dress, carry a Bible and talk about civil war? I could ask the militia guys not to make war against their neighbors. Tell them -- "Talk with your neighbor, honor him, he's part of your family -- we are the family of each other. Don't let your politics affect your moral standards. Civil war in our country is -- oh God -- it's a wrong, foolish, terrible idea!"

Well, I don't have a long white dress, though I could borrow a Bible -- but I'm telling you, anyone who's reading this, wherever you live -- if you've got friends meeting and marching with a militia -- tell them loud and clear: Fight your enemy-neighbor with good deeds that help you communicate with him! Give him what you grow in your garden -- plants, flowers, food, dinner invitations, and an offer of friendship.

Talk with your neighbor, meet with your neighbor, coalesce, please. Even if it's just a sort of theoretical thing, hug each other and coalesce.

EQUALITY

I read three articles about equal opportunity for women today.
I have to admit, I never thought that gender equality was very important. Yes, the latest statistics show that a female earns seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man makes doing the same job -- and, yes -- there are jobs for males only, that females can do just as well. But gee, there are other issues about equality that I think are much more important to confront and fix.

People of color, males or females do not get the jobs the whites do!

Yes, yes, they do once in awhile, and yes, doors are opening -- lots of doors have already been opened, and that's progress, but it isn't equality. People of color, Moms, Pops, and kids, entire families -- they don't get the breaks, we get.

I am talking about American Blacks, American Indians, and India's Indians, people from Asia, the Far East, Orientals, Hispanics, Latinos, Australians, Blacks from East Africa and Blacks from South Africa -- whatever you call them -- blacks, reds, browns, yellows do not have the same possibilities for the good life, the hopes for success, and opportunities that whites have.

Affirmative action helped people of color for a while -- colleges deliberately enrolled minorities, but it became too important and whites objected, and then of course, times changed. Nowadays, with our economic troubles, the enormous cost of a college education and the fact that we have a Black President, the foundations and donors who were helping the blacks, reds, browns, yellows have been supporting other urgent things.

Hey, if I were black, red, brown, or yellow, finishing high school, thinking about a career in education, law, social work, government, or the arts, I'd be bracing myself -- gearing up to push, work, shove, and squirm my way into the upper echelons -- and even then, I'd know that I might not get there.

I think race prejudice is STILL a rumbling volcano.

What to do? People of color already know the future, for them, is fraught with troubles and dangers. We whites have to acknowledge it -- move over, make room, and share what we've got with the other guys.

FUSSING ABOUT CUSSING

What's your favorite expletive -- the cuss words you say to yourself? What do you blurt out, when inspired by something infuriating?

The first curse words I ever heard were my daddy's. Phonetic spelling -- it was mostly in Hungarian and it sounded like "Himmel-chrise-shucks-bum-donner-vetter-knock-em-al." It sounded great. I practiced saying it to my dolls.

Today, I think, inwardly: "s h i t," or "b a s t a r d." or "g o d d a m m i t." Occasionally I blurt out "f u c k" to shock the person I'm with, to show I'm an up-to-date, with-it person.

I wish more movies were done with nobody using the F word. For me, it belittles the character if he/she uses the F word or S word constantly. Also, m o t h e r f u c k e r.

I hope it's okay to spell these words out when I publish Em'sTalkery each day on Facebook. Yes, despite my "eeks" and "never will I join!" I joined. Having seen (on TV), the fresh-faced Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder -- (he looks boyishly wet behind the ears even though he's obviously a shrewd, dictatorial kid ) -- I'm figuring there's no FB ruling that'll get this essay blocked.

Currently, the FCC says you can utter #@%$x! as an adjective, or exclaim it after 10 p.m.
Here's what I learned from an article in Newsweek:

In the early sixties, the FCC got the power to levy fines. They levied the first fine against George Carlin's "seven words you can't say on television." His list included -- Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits.

The Supreme Court ruled that FCC could place restrictions on indecent broadcasts. And in the mid nineties, because of "shock jock" Howard Stern's casually obscene remarks, his producer, Infinity Broadcasting, paid $1.7 million in FCC fines.

The FCC fined Telemundo (another producer), for a suggestive hot-tub scene on a variety show, but when Cher said the F word, she got away with it, and when Bono on the Golden Globes said, "Really f -- king brilliant," the FCC didn't take action. (I guess everyone, including the FCC loved Sonny & Cher's television show.)

Radio duo, Opie & Anthony, were fined $357,500 for a segment on having sex in public places like St. Patrick's Cathedral. Clear Channel Broadcasting was fined $755,000 for lewd impressions of Alvin the Chipmunk.

In 2004, we had the historical revelation during the Superbowl, of Janet Jackson's right breast!

CBS paid a $550,000 fine, but got a million dollars worth of publicity for the "accident." (To my eye, the whole thing, including the breast looked fake.)

Anyhow, the FCC ruled that expletives were no longer allowed, which inspired the major channels in 2006, to sue the FCC over expletives. Meanwhile, CBS was fined $3.6 million for a teenage orgy in TV's "Without a Trace."

Finally, this year, the major channels lost their lawsuit -- the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rolled back indecency standards to 1978 levels.

Jeepers creepers -- all this fuss over cussing? Why doesn't any of this refer to movies on TV that are riddled with no-no words/deeds/visions?

How would you vote on this? YES -- stop the expletives, nudity, toilet, sex stuff? Or NO -- the kids hear it anyway -- it's part of our culture now?

How do I vote? I vote NO -- it's part of our culture now. But stop violence. Censor it! I'd okay a quick look at sex, a listen, and even sex talk, but STOP teaching us and our children to enjoy horrifically brutal murder, killing, death, and shocking violence.
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CRAZIES

I can't help worrying about nuclear bombs.

In the sixties, at the height of the cold war, the U.S. had 30,000 warheads. Under the treaty signed this past April by us and Russia, both countries will be limited to 1,550 long-range warheads -- we won't build anymore, if they don't build anymore.

Even so, nukes are a real terror.

We know, from two nuclear bombs we dropped on Japan, the "accident" that happened in Chernoble, Russia, that a single nuclear bomb can kill millions, devastate the land, and continue to have incalculable physical and chemical effects for years and years afterward.

What about Jihadists, who want to destroy us, no matter what the cost to them personally? Can they, will they find a way to build a devastating nuclear bomb?

And what about the crazies -- mentally deranged persons, or maniacal fanatics?

They're in the U.S. and many other countries around the world. Angry, desperate, passionate, religious guys who hate us, what we stand for, and what we represent.

Hate is in the air. The idea of murdering people who aren't like you, who think differently, worship differently from you, has not only caught on, it is also spreading.

Islamists have a thou shalt not murder law, as we do. But their law can be interpreted in different ways. In the Koran if you see a wrong, and it's against what you swore to upheld, the Koran says it is your duty to ignore your oath, and stop the wrong.

Words, oaths, allegiance -- doing what's right, can be stretched, mushed, pushed, and re-adjusted. What does it matter if they have good reasons or bad reasons? Some Islamists want to annihilate us.

And we, on the other hand, are intensely involved in ferreting out possible terrorists. Americans are now burning the Koran, threatening to burn more, talking about segregating Muslims, and stopping them from building Islamic centers everywhere, not just in New York City.

The book burners think all Islamists are the enemy -- the enemy is trying to kill us. It's banish them, kill them, or be killed.

I don't see people or countries making an effort to negotiate with Islam -- offering to sit down with them, and finding out what we can do for them, that would make them put away their weapons and squelch their desire to destroy us.

Our Secretary of State is meeting at regular intervals with major powers to discuss ways the Israel/Palestine conflict could be resolved without a horrendous war. How far, far, far, faraway is the possibility of negotiating with the Taliban, the Jihadists?

Am I one of the crazies, because I think it's a way to go, something to try?

Sometime this fall, the Senate will take up debate over the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that we signed with Russia. It takes two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty, which has been endorsed by dozens of generals and major national security officials. The no-sayer Republicans are stopping the White House from getting this treaty ratified.

But the no-sayer Republicans cannot stop a meeting. The White House and Secretary of State could attempt to negotiate with the Taliban.

I think it's something we need to try.

CONSERVING THINGS (video)

Conserving electricity, Emily find herself reminding John to turn off the lights. Also, concerned about wasting water, she teases John about his long showers. John finds himself reminding Emily about conserving heat, and recycling.

These days the problems of conserving things can be annoying, unless you find ways to keep the "nagging" light-hearted and amusing.