Life

It appears I am first to respond.  You're right, I'm game.

 

Five Things In My Refrigerator

1. Pineapple juice, lemon-ginger juice, fizzy water, italian grapefruit soda, blood orange soda, tonic water, cranberry juice (100% cran - not ocean spray), homemade iced tea, 4 bottles of champagne, 2 bottles of white wine - we had our housewarming party yesterday.

2. Assorted imported olives & cheese (we eat them at the same time)

3. Homemade root vegetable soup (I made it last week when I was recovering from my dental surgery)

4. Zachary’s pizza - the best deep dish pizza in the Bay Area and possibly California (since I lived in Orange County and San Diego I think I can make that bold statement)

5. Kale - one of the healthiest things you can eat.  It's great sautéed with olive oil and shallots; just wilt it a bit.  It takes 5 minutes!

 

Five Things in My Closet

1. A movie poster from The Outlaw introducing Jane Russell

2. Paper japanese lanterns (they hang at the bottom of the light pull string)

3. My vitamins (I put them in a small box because the Vitamin B STINKS)

4. Scarf & hat collections - it gets cold in the winter

5. My art supplies (glue gun, embossing gun, two light boxes, pen collection of maybe 100 pens, sticker book, glue dots, circle cutter, templates, rulers, scissors...and still growing)

 

FIVE THINGS IN MY PURSE

1. Bart Ticket (have to get across the bay) & Pre-paid bus ticket (for the Transbay Bus)

2. Lip liner & lip stick (I don't use them as much now as I did pre-Dustin; he likes me better w/o make up)

3. Cell phone

4. Purell (you need it when you take public transportation)

5. Hand lotion (to offset the alcohol and smell of purell)

 

FIVE THINGS IN MY CAR

I don't have a car.  I haven't had a car in about six years.  In San Francisco, especially at the height of the dot com era parking was horrific.  I took a bus to work and still spent $100/month on parking tickets.  Add the cost of registration and maintenance (which was averaging $200/month for my old VW Golf) it didn't make sense to keep it.)  Dustin has a car.  That's enough for the two of us.

Ok, I'm tagging too:
artsysf
jack
xpix
rebecca
ellie88

I am posting the following article because I am sure that most people missed it when it was published.  I printed a hard copy and kept it on file; it was conceivable to me at that point that the information might go missing at some later date.

I am really frustrated with the politics of today.  I have written several letters to my representatives and senators today.  I would urge you to do the same.  If you don't know what's up in the world, go to visit the ACLU site or moveon.org or truthout.org or the Associate Press.  But please, educate yourself about what is happening in our nation.  1984 is in the near future not the recent past.

---

  Friday 17 October 2003

  WASHINGTON - President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.

  Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp., a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

  Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism. The documents do not show any evidence Bush directly aided that effort. His position with Union Banking never was a political issue for Bush, who was elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 1952.

  Reports of Bush's involvement with the seized bank have been circulating on the Internet for years and have been reported by some mainstream media. The newly declassified documents provide additional details about the Union Banking-Thyssen connection.

  Trent Duffy, a spokesman for President Bush, declined to comment.

  Union Banking was owned by a Dutch bank, Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaardt N.V., which was "closely affiliated" with the German conglomerate United Steel Works, according to an Oct. 5, 1942, report from the federal Office of Alien Property Custodian. The Dutch bank and the steel firm were part of the business and financial empire of Thyssen and his brother, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the report said.

  The 4,000 Union Banking shares owned by the Dutch bank were registered in the names of the seven U.S. directors, according a document signed by Homer Jones, chief of the division of investigation and research of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, a World War II-era agency that no longer exists.

  E. Roland Harriman, the bank chairman and brother of former New York Gov. W. Averell Harriman, held 3,991 shares. Bush had one share.

  Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as other financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.

  Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

  No charges were brought against Union Banking's American directors. The federal government was too busy trying to fight the war, said Donald Goldstein, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

  "We did not have the resources to do these things," Goldstein said.

  Fritz Thyssen broke with the Nazis in 1938 over their persecution of Catholics and Jews, and fled to Switzerland. He later was arrested and spent 1941 to 1945 in a Nazi prison. His brother lived in Switzerland from 1932 to 1947 but continued to operate businesses in Germany.

  The new documents were first reported by freelance writer John Buchanan in The New Hampshire Gazette.

  By Jonathon D. Salant
  Associated Press