An interesting read on french history and the new president they elected.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/federa.../?id=110010049

Can Sarkozy Save France?

A reform-minded politician is the next president. Now what?

BY MICHEL GURFINKEL, Wednesday, May 9, 2007

French elections can be as entertaining as Russian roulette. Twelve years ago, in early 1995, it was taken for granted that Edouard Balladur, a conservative prime minister, would succeed the outgoing Socialist president François Mitterrand without further ado. The left was then a spent force. So, evidently, was Jacques Chirac, another conservative Gaullist and a former prime minister (and unsuccessful contender for the presidency). But then a satiric TV show, "Les Guignols de l'Info" ("The News Puppets"), started featuring Chirac as a French-style Forrest Gump who would answer questions on any topic, political or economic, with the phrase "Eat apples." In April 1995, Jacques "Apple" Chirac won out over both Mr. Balladur and the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin.

Two years later, Mr. Chirac called a new parliamentary election, not in order to solve a crisis between the executive and the legislature but simply to suit his political convenience. This, though allowed under the constitution, had never been done before, and the public did not like it. His parliamentary majority was ousted and replaced by the socialists. Mr. Jospin now became prime minister and remained in place for five years.

The next presidential election, in 2002, was even more sensational. Bidding for a second seven-year term, Mr. Chirac was challenged again by Jospin, who this time looked sure to win. But then France's two-ballot system came into play. In the first round, a plethora of left-wing candidates pulled so many votes away from Mr. Jospin that he was reduced to the third position, behind Mr. Chirac and the far-right agitator Jean-Marie Le Pen, and was ejected from the race. On the second ballot, some 80% of the voters backed Mr. Chirac over Mr. Le Pen. Mr. Chirac was foolish enough to believe they had elected him.

And now we have the elections of 2007. First the presidential election, with its first ballot on April 22 followed by a runoff between the two top vote-getters this past Sunday, in which the maverick conservative Nicolas Sarkozy beat Socialist Royal; then the National Assembly elections in June.

Two years ago, everyone would have sworn that the presidential winner would be Mr. Sarkozy, France's minister of the interior. Then his fortunes declined sharply, while those of another star--and another maverick--were rising: Ms. Royal, governor of Poitou-Charentes in western France. Early this year, Mr. Sarkozy made a strong comeback, and Ms. Royal fell from grace. At that point a third candidate, Fransois Bayrou, a nice, decent, articulate, overambitious centrist, unexpectedly entered the picture, effectively challenging both Ms. Royal and Mr. Sarkozy. Complicating matters still further was the perennial candidacy of Ms. Le Pen.

Now that Mr. Sarkozy has won, what does it all mean? Common wisdom--in America at least--is that the French are and will always remain an utterly fickle people, as individuals and as a nation. This may be true--up to a point. My own belief is that the vagaries of the French vote tell us a great deal about the profound uncertainties the country is now facing.

Books about "national decline" and the "growing national crisis" have been best sellers in France for at least the past four years. The first and still the most trenchant was "La France qui tombe" ("Falling France," 2003), by Nicolas Baverez, a lawyer and a graduate of the immensely prestigious Ecole nationale d'administration (National School of Public Administration, or ENA). The same year saw the publication of "Le Grand Gaspillage" ("The Great Waste") by the distinguished Sorbonne historian Jacques Marseille, followed by the same author's "La Guerre des Deux France" ("The War of the Two Frances," 2004) and more recently "Les Bons Chiffres pour ne pas voter nul en 2007" ("The Right Figures for a Sensible Vote in 2007").

Both Messrs. Baverez and Marseille can be described as moderately conservative free-marketeers; both write columns for Le Point, the right-of-center weekly of news and opinion. Two other declinists come from a very different background. Michel Godet, a professor of industrial economy, was originally close to the Christian left but over time developed a robust critique of French industrial and social policy. His 2003 book "Le Choc de 2006" ("The Shock of 2006") pointed to the exorbitant price the country was paying for its extensive welfare state, a thesis elaborated this year in "Le Courage du bon sens" ("The Courage of Common Sense"). Claude Allègre, a geologist of repute, served as a minister in Mr. Jospin's government, where he tried and failed to reform the French educational system. Subsequently he became one of the country's best columnists, first at L'Express, the left-of-center weekly, and then at Le Point.

A fifth should be mentioned: Louis Chauvel, a young sociologist at the Institut de sciences politiques de Paris (Paris Institute for Political Science, or "SciencesPo," as everybody calls it), who has produced a short, dry assessment of the collapse of the French middle class, "Les Classes Moyennes à la dérive" ("The Middle Class Adrift"). Like Messrs. Godet and Allègre, Mr. Chauvel was seen initially as a man of the left, and is still supposed to be close to that orientation--which makes his indictment all the more notable.

To understand where these various authors are coming from, it helps to bear in mind the bedrock fact that France is one of the founding nations of Europe--that is to say, one of its oldest nation-states. Since the Great Revolution of 1789, since Napoleon, it has been a modern, secular society. In the 19th and 20th centuries it grew into a world leader in science, technology, finance, culture, art and literature. It conquered and then emancipated a large colonial empire. And it took a decisive role in the formation of what is set to become a 21st-century superpower, the European Union.

Very few countries can lay claim to such a glorious destiny, or to a more stable national identity. To be endowed with a special destiny and identity is, in itself, a political blessing. But what if that glory is challenged, and the national identity eroding? What if the actual stuff France is made of--its shared culture, its assurance of a common heritage--is disintegrating?

It has happened before. The early decades of the 20th century were a time when France, suddenly mired in a demographic and economic slowdown, seemed to hover between national pride and national despair. This culminated in the full-fledged disaster of 1940, when France was crushed by Germany and subjected to nationwide occupation. Fortunately, Germany was crushed in turn by the Anglo-Saxon powers and Soviet Russia, and France was allowed to recover. And so it did, with a vengeance. >From the 1950s through the 1970s, there was much talk in the world of a Japanese miracle, a German miracle, even an Italian miracle. France was a fourth and no less impressive miracle. National independence and national influence were restored, demographics improved, the economy boomed once more. France felt like France again.

Despite warning signs, like the simultaneous rise of Mr. Le Pen's National Front on the far right and of various Trotskyite and other radical groups on the far left, this newfound optimism lasted for two more decades. Since the mid-1990s, however, it has become untenable. Drawing from the works of our four or five whistleblowers and others, we can reliably paint the following portrait of France today.

Demographic Upheaval

Before the 1789 revolution and the Napoleonic wars, France, a very rich agricultural country, was the most populous state in Europe, with 27 million inhabitants. Right after the defeat at Waterloo, the birthrate started to decline, and by the last third of the 19th century had fallen close to zero. From 1800 to 1900, the French population increased by only 30%, whereas all other European nations experienced a growth rate ranging from 100% to 300% or even 400%. (Although differing on the reasons, most present-day demographers believe that France was one or two generations "ahead" of a cyclical population bust that ultimately affected the entire Western world.)

France was dwarfed by its neighbors--a leading factor in its defeat at the hands of Germany in 1870 and its desperate quest thereafter for anti-German alliances with Russia, with England, with the United States, with the small Central and Eastern European States, with anyone. Hence, too, its second and more humiliating defeat in 1940.

After 1945, the country made a startling demographic comeback. This could be attributed in part to another cyclical phenomenon known as the postwar baby boom--whereby, after the carnage of World War II, all combatant nations started to produce an average of three to four children per family. In France, additional factors were also at play, including immigration from other European countries or from overseas colonies. All in all, the French population grew by 25% in the 15 years between 1945 and 1960, leading Michel Debré, General de Gaulle's first prime minister, to draw up plans for a "100-million-person France" by the year 2000.

It did not materialize. By the late 1960s, France had swung, just like all other largely Caucasian nations, from baby boom to an even more drastic baby bust. The overall birthrate fell below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. Thanks to the generous natalist incentives of the French welfare state, and to the much higher degree of immigration from overseas countries with very high birthrates, the decline was not as pronounced as in other European countries; nevertheless, by 2007 France's population stood at only 63 million. According to the U.N., it is likely to be no higher than that in 2050.

True, most other European populations are also forecast to decline sharply; by these standards, stasis may sound like good news. But the French population as a whole is aging: in 2005, almost one-fourth of the population was above 60, while citizens between the ages of 20 and 59--i.e., those whose labor supports the rest of the population, either directly or indirectly--amounted to just 50%. Then, too, immigration, which is sustaining the French population, is at the same time gradually displacing the native French community. But that brings us to the next element of the picture.

Immigration Shock

Six million legal immigrants, 90% of them from the Islamic lands of the southern Mediterranean or from sub-Saharan Africa, have entered France over the past 30 years. The rate of entry is accelerating, and so is the rate of naturalization: 150,000 new citizens yearly since 1999. For its part, illegal immigration seems to be keeping pace--at a rate, according to some sources, of 100,000 to 200,000 every year. Most of these illegals stay, and are eventually granted immigrant rights. Moreover, any child born on French soil, whether of French or immigrant or illegal alien parents, is given French citizenship.

The immigrant and postimmigrant community is estimated today at more than 15 million. It is much younger than the native French population, and it tends to have a much higher birthrate. In all likelihood, then, its share of the population will rise dramatically over the next two decades, to the point where the 63 million people forecast for France in 2050 may inhabit a southern-Mediterranean, African, Islamic country that also happens to include native French enclaves. The trend is magnified still further by the growing sense of identification between the immigrant community and the five million nonwhite French natives living either in the overseas "departments" of the West Indies and Réunion Island or in France proper, many of whom are also converting to Islam.

The 2002 presidential election was the first in which immigrants and postimmigrants showed their muscle: when the anti-immigrant Mr. Le Pen was defeated by Mr. Chirac in the second round, thousands celebrated in France's major cities while waving the flags of their countries of origin, especially Algeria and Morocco. This year's election campaign highlighted even more dramatic changes. Every single political party, including that of Mr. Le Pen, wooed immigrant and postimmigrant voters, now a sizable chunk of the electorate. All the candidates surrounded themselves with immigrant aides, and in televised meetings of candidates with panels of ordinary citizens, immigrants, postimmigrants, and nonwhite native French were routinely overrepresented. Political leaders are quite candid about the leverage these "neo-French" will exert, and are entitled to exert, on the nation's future.

Social Chaos

Classic French society--the one that lasted from the revolution to the end of the 20th century, that is on display in the pages of the great French novelists, and that features in the work of the great film-makers from Renoir to Truffaut, from Chabrol to Sautet--was based first and foremost on strong nuclear families. As designed by Napoleon's civil code, divorce was allowed in principle but very difficult to obtain in practice; legitimate children, although strictly equal among themselves, were favored over natural ones; fathers wielded greater authority than mothers.

French society rested also on a pervasive but highly respected state apparatus that included the military forces and the civil service as well as the school system, the universities, and a whole array of state-run industries and workshops; on the franc, a gold-related currency; on special arrangements in religious matters according to which a secular government and a large freethinking minority coexisted with a nominally Catholic majority and other faiths; on a very substantial class of small farmers, and an even more substantial urban working class with a distinct socialist or communist subculture; on the predominance of Paris, the "city of lights"; and finally on a broad and vitally important middle class, comprising (in the words of Louis Chauvel) "senior civil servants, academics, engineers, entrepreneurs and tradesmen, executives and bureaucrats, craftsmen and shopkeepers," all sharing a common education and a common culture and committed to the maintenance of the national heritage.

Naturally, there were constant changes and adjustments; but these, until recently, were brought about in a piecemeal and cosmetic fashion. While the modern French polity was proverbially unstable--14 constitutions, three royal dynasties, five republics, and some 50 revolutionary crises from the storming of the Bastille in 1789 to the suburban riots of 2005--French society itself was remarkably stable. Just to give one stunning example: the baccalauréat, the test that monitors access to French universities, and the concours des Grandes Ecoles, the highly selective exams by which a slim elite is filtered into the top superuniversities, were suspended only once, during the German conquest of France in June 1940. Four years later, they were conducted as usual amid the no less feverish liberation of the country by the Allies.

All that is now gone.

The main contributing factor is probably the disintegration of the family. The divorce rate has grown from 12% in 1970 to almost 40% in 2005; 20% of all French couples are unwed; one-third of all mothers are living alone; 40% of all children are born to unmarried parents. Indeed, the "recombined family" has become the French sociological and ethical norm, the result of successive unions and separations in which children wander from home to home under arrangements of "shared parental authority" and must learn to get along with a host of similarly forlorn children produced by the companions of their biological parents. In order to keep up with the trend, the civil code itself has been revised--thus accelerating the process. Full equality has been introduced between fathers and mothers, between legitimate and natural children, between married and unmarried couples; although same-sex marriages are still not legal, same-sex civil unions are.

A series of other, analogous disruptions has affected every aspect of the French way of life. While the state has grown inordinately, most of its rule-making functions have all but disappeared. Everybody knows that the ultimate seat of power, in terms of laws and regulations as well as in terms of judicial recourse, is now the EU rather than the French Republic, the European Parliament and the European Commission rather than the French Parliament and the French government. State schools, once excellent, have been crippled by the combined effects of the feminization of the teacher corps and immigration. In most urban areas, school premises have been effectively consigned to teenage thugs who make a point of constantly challenging and humiliating female teachers and principals. State universities, once outstanding, have steadily deteriorated since 1968, and the superuniversities or Grandes Ecoles have faced fierce competition in the global learning market. (According to a March 2007 report, not a single French academic institution is listed among the world's 100 best universities.) Since the abolition of the draft in 1995, the state's armed might has been reduced to a largely symbolic nuclear capacity and a rather small rapid-deployment force for peacekeeping missions only. And the franc has been replaced by the euro.

As far as religion is concerned, the Catholic Church collapsed in the late 1960s and has never recovered: according to one recent poll, only 51% of the French own to being Catholic, and only 17% of these observe Catholic rituals. Evangelical Protestants are trying to fill the Christian void--there may now be twice as many evangelicals as mainstream Protestants--and the Catholic Church itself, or at least the laity, is attempting to fight back, so far without discernible success. As for the French secular religions (the freethinkers, the so-called humanistic schools of thought, the old socialist and communist subcultures), these are faring even worse.

Agriculture, industrialized and now EU-sponsored, still plays a sizable role in the French economy, but farmers have virtually vanished as a class (constituting only 3% of the working population), and whole sections of the countryside have reverted to fallow land and untended forests. The industrial working class is shrinking as well: from 38.5% of all jobs in 1974 to about 20% in 2005. Workers are deserting both the unions and the left-wing political parties. Thanks to the depredations of urban-renewal projects, historic Paris has been emptied of its traditional working- and middle-class population and turned into a yuppie theme park. Much of its unique vibrancy is gone, and other French cities have so far not been able to replace it or to compete with the so-called Eurocities of London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Zurich, Milan, Barcelona.

The French middle class, Mr. Chauvel sums up, is haunted by "a sense of impending doom." Salaries have not kept pace since the 1980s; meritocracy no longer seems to work as a vehicle of social promotion; unemployment is climbing, devastating the lives of people already deprived of a functioning family; property has become unaffordable unless one inherits; prospects of a secure retirement grow dimmer every year. The parents of today's middle class, Mr. Chauvel writes, "dramatically improved their own standards of living," but the children "know they will not enjoy a similar fate. In fact they fear they will be downgraded to an impoverished condition.

"Finally, as if all this were not bad enough, there is crime. Until the 1960s, France was largely a safe country: people like my parents would slip their keys under the doormat or just leave the door unlocked. It is now an extremely unsafe country, rife with violent assault, arson, armed robbery and murder, often savage. According to the Institute of National Statistics, the overall crime rate--the ratio of reported criminal activity to population--grew from 12% in 1960, to over 60% in 1980, to about 70% in 2000. The rise may be related to all sorts of circumstances, including economic ones. But it is incontrovertibly related to immigration. According to police sources, over 60% of the criminals and over 90% of the crime bosses operating on French soil are either foreigners, immigrants or the children of immigrants.

Bankruptcy

France is still indisputably one of the richest and most economically successful countries in the world. It has a gross domestic product of $2.2 trillion. Its per capita national income is above $30,000. In other words, it is in the same league as Japan and Germany, two much more populous countries.

Present French wealth rests in part on traditional occupations like agriculture, tourism and fashion; in the past 30 years, these have turned into high-value-added activities. It is also rooted in traditional industries and services (think of Airbus in aviation, Carrefour in mass distribution, Accor in the hotel business, Total-Elf in oil, Renault and Peugeot in the car industry, international banks like Société Générale and BNP-Paribas) as well as in high-technology fields (nuclear energy, telecom, pharmaceuticals). But more disquieting developments have been surfacing over the past two decades.

Whereas most big French companies have been profitable for years, the French GDP has been growing very slowly or not at all. What this means is that French industry and services derive the bulk of their revenue from activities overseas rather than from the domestic economy. In fact, some companies have already drawn the logical conclusion and moved out: a flagship French company like Renault is now registered in the Netherlands.

As for those remaining at home, they are not able to provide enough jobs for the present working population of approximately 30 million. And so about 9% of French residents are unemployed--roughly twice the rate in Britain, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, Japan or the United States. Among able-bodied persons under 24, the unemployment rate jumps to 22%. To top it off, over 50% of today's jobs are thought to be more "virtual" than "actual," i.e., they fail the test of rational business management. According to an index compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average number of hours "effectively" devoted to work is only 617 yearly for France, as against 801 in Britain and 865 in the United States.

How do the French cope with this? Simple: They rely on an ever-expanding welfare state that takes care of the unemployed, the poor who are beyond any prospect of a viable job, the uneconomical state-run companies, and the supernumerary petty civil servants or "public-convenience" workers. And this does not count the various handouts and incentives, usually in the form of tax rebates, bestowed by the government on companies that agree not to shut down and move elsewhere.

This aspect of the system started in 1936 with the introduction of paid holidays and official recognition of the role of trade unions. It became firmly entrenched in 1945 with the creation of Securité Sociale, an extensive program of health, retirement and family benefits. More social programs were to come in the 1950s, including large-scale public-housing works.

A guaranteed minimum wage was introduced in 1950, to be replaced in 1968 by a constantly upgraded "guaranteed-growth minimum wage." Working hours were gradually reduced, either by the constant expansion of paid vacation time (from two weeks in 1936 to five weeks in 1982) or by the downsizing of the work week to 35 from 40 hours. Retirement was made compulsory at age 65, in some cases much earlier. "Preretirement," that is, early retirement with full benefits, became a usual practice in the 1970s. Dismissals were made subject to bureaucratic review, and were frequently compensated by special benefits. Both the civil service and the state-run companies were supposed to create jobs for jobs' sake.

The state also covers education. Elementary schools and high school have been free since the days of the Third Republic; attempts in the 1960s to raise tuition fees for colleges to a meaningful level failed abjectly, as did efforts to introduce more competitive selection for college admission.

The process reached its apex in the 1982 Revenu minimum d'insertion ("minimum social-integration income")--which provides a state income to the long-term unemployed, either French or alien--and the 1999 Couverture medicale universelle ("universal medical coverage"), which gives the same group free access to the (already subsidized and low-cost) health service. All in all, the state budget now eats up 54% of the nation's GDP, while taxation absorbs 44% of real income.

As Jacques Marseille points out in "Les Bons Chiffres," France is becoming a dual country, in which the majority lives on its "guaranteed-growth minimum wage" and a not-so-fortunate minority pays the "tax on fortune." Even so, the state cannot make ends meet and has been borrowing extensively. The public debt grew from the present-day equivalent of 213 billion euros in 1978 to 454 billion in 1990. It then jumped to EU740 billion in 1995, and grew again to EU.2 trillion by the end of last year.

But what is called public debt in France is less than half of what would be listed under that heading in countries like the United States or Canada. The category does not include the retirement funds for the civil service (between EU800 billion and EU trillion), the national-health-service deficit, or various private debts (like that of Credit Lyonnais) taken over by the state. In fact, the true public debt amounts to something like EU2.7 trillion, or 130% of GDP. Mr. Marseille warns that it may double over the next 15 years. This is on the scale of the debt of the Ottoman empire in the late 19th century.

Jacques Chirac was the worst or at any rate the least effective president in the history of the Fifth Republic, the regime founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. It was in his two terms--1995 to 2002 and 2002 to 2007--that the French crisis turned into a catastrophe.

In fairness, one must acknowledge that Mr. Chirac realized at the outset that things were deteriorating, and instructed his first prime minister, Alain Jupp, to implement several key reforms. Unfortunately, neither he nor Mr. Jupp managed to mobilize public support for the effort, or for that matter to focus on the appropriate measures. Less than a year after his election, protracted strikes and demonstrations forced him to withdraw most of his reform bills. He would never recover, and never again try in earnest to salvage the country.

If Mr. Chirac presided over a "falling France," the three main contenders in this year's presidential race were all born, so to speak, after the fall. They are younger than Mr. Chirac, by about two decades--Mr. Bayrou is 55, Royal 53, Sarkozy 52--and their colorful personal and political narratives, each in its own way, fit with the present chaotic situation. None of them would have been a feasible candidate in previous elections. But that is not to say that any of them, if elected, could be expected to stop or easily reverse France's downward curve.

Viewed against the grim backdrop of France's decline, indeed, this year's election campaign seems almost irrelevant. For that decline is related not so much to the policies of this or that national leader, past, present or prospective, as to the essential workings of the country's political system ever since the inception of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

France is nominally a democratic republic, with a popularly elected president, a bicameral Parliament (where most power lies with the lower chamber, the National Assembly), 22 regional governments and about 40,000 local councils, a constitutional court, and a more or less independent judiciary. It adheres to the original French bill of rights, issued in 1789, and other bills or declarations including the 1948 U.N. Charter of Human Rights and the two European charters of rights, the first issued by the Council of Europe in 1950 and the second promulgated by the European Community in 2000.

The reality is different. There are strange, outlandish, Pinochet-like authoritarian elements in the 1958 constitution and in the way that constitution is interpreted. The president can bypass the regular lawmaking procedures and call a referendum on any legislation or even on any constitutional change he favors. Under Article 16, he can declare a state of emergency and rule as a near-dictator for a period of months. "Domaine réservé"--"private domain"--a concept that appears nowhere in the written constitution but is nevertheless part of it, gives him almost exclusive control in matters pertaining to national defense, foreign affairs and state security. Even the right to pass a bill, that hallmark of modern democracy, has been largely withdrawn from Parliament, since government-initiated bills, dubbed "projects," have priority over parliamentary bills, known merely as "proposals.

"True enough, there are countervailing powers, most of them unintended by the redactors of the constitution. Referendums can be lost. The executive branch is weakened by latent competition between the president and the prime minister: the former may appoint the latter but may not dismiss him. Even when both belong to the same party, conflicts are frequent, and such conflict can lead to a state of dual authority (a k a "cohabitation"). France then has to resort to ridiculous measures like sending both its head of state and its head of government to international venues like the European Council or meetings of the G-7 and G-8.

But what really undermines France as a democracy is the constitution behind the constitution: that is, the role played by the nonelected state bureaucracy. As Mr. Chauvel puts it:
What used to be said of Prussia--other states have armies, but Prussia is an army that owns a state--applies to France today, with a slight difference. Other countries may have a state bureaucracy, but France is a state bureaucracy that owns a country.

Statism in France is hardly a new issue. Tocqueville devoted a book, "The Old Regime and the Revolution," to the subject. He contended that the 1789 revolution, for all its upheavals and radicalism, had ended by reinforcing rather than destroying the monarchical nature of the French state; everything still revolved around the central power and its hierarchically organized agencies. And bureaucratic statism was to play an even more pervasive role in the late 19th and especially in the 20th century.

In 1940, the Vichy regime set up some 60 "leadership schools." After the liberation of France, one of them, located in the southern Alps, became the model for the Ecole nationale d'administration, founded in 1945 by de Gaulle. Better known by its initials--ENA--the new institution was the epitome of meritocracy. Entry was subject to a competitive examination and in practice highly restricted. The curriculum was very broad: it included economics and management as well as public or administrative law. ENA students traveled a great deal, both in France and elsewhere. What was deemed essential, however, was the school's spirit: a fierce resolve to make the country great again, and a feeling that ENA graduates were not so much civil servants as the nation's mentors and guardians.

It took the ENA a decade to mature from a mere project into a full-fledged operation. By the time its graduates, soon renamed "enarchs," became numerous enough to fill up most senior positions in public administration, France seemed mired in disaster again. The Fourth Republic was a weak all-parliamentary regime, riddled with ministerial chaos and corruption and reeling from defeat in Indochina and the outbreak of war in Algeria. On the other hand, the "French miracle" was under way, thanks to developments like the baby boom, postwar economic growth, the Marshall Plan and European integration. The question was whether France could seize the moment.

De Gaulle saw to it. Living in apparent seclusion since the early 1950s at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, a hamlet in rural eastern France, he still had many loyal--even fanatical--supporters. In 1958, when part of the French military rebelled in Algeria, a frightened political class called on the old general to "rescue the republic." He obliged, but in doing so insisted on remodeling the constitution in his own way and on having it approved by referendum. The Fifth Republic was born, de Gaulle was elected president, and he stayed in charge for 10 years.

The 1958 constitution was drafted by Michel Debré, a fervent Gaullist who had also been the main architect of the ENA. No French constitution since the Second Empire so drastically enhanced the executive branch or downgraded the legislature. Even more pertinent, however, was its preferential treatment of civil servants and enarchs over elected politicians. In a complete break with the Westminster model, members of parliament had to resign before joining the executive, but administrators could be elected to parliament or be appointed as cabinet ministers without resigning from the civil service. Moreover, the moment they quit politics, they were allowed to resume their former jobs, with full social benefits.

The logic of "enarchization" was overwhelming. It has been estimated that since the 1970s, 70% of all members of Parliament have been civil servants of some sort, including university professors--almost all universities are state-run--and high-school teachers. When it comes to cabinet members, almost 90% are enarchs. Out of 17 prime ministers since 1958, six have been enarchs and another nine have been civil servants or former civil servants, former military men, or former employees of state-run companies. Among presidents, only one, Mitterrand, was a private person; the other four were essentially state servants, and two of them, Messrs. Giscard d'Estaing and Chirac, were enarchs.

What gave the civil servants even more absolute power was their control of the economy. Ever since 1936, many large companies had been gradually nationalized, from banks and insurance companies to railways and airlines, from mining companies to the steel industry, from radio, TV and media agencies to aviation and cars. The post-1958 Fifth Republic went much farther, embarking on large-scale industrial schemes that blurred most distinctions between state-run and private companies. The latter became so dependent on government contracts as to behave like de facto divisions of the former. Some government contracts were also tailored to help favored private companies against their competitors. As enarchs managed the state sector, other enarchs--or the same ones--would be "lent" to private companies in a practice known as pantouflage ("slippering").

One need not be familiar with Friedrich Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" to surmise that such comprehensive sway over a country will gradually become counterproductive, and worse. The more absolute their power, the more the enarchs have tended to run France in their own interest, while assuaging the citizenry with bribes of all sorts. One such bribe, rhetorical but no less effective for that, has taken the form of nationalistic posturing, usually directed against the United States; a favorite slogan of the enarchs is that France's mission is to uphold and protect a superior continental civilization based on the welfare state against the Anglo-Saxon model of "predatory" free-market capitalism. Structural problems--an aging population, swelling immigration, the public debt--have been ignored.

There was some resistance to the enarchic takeover, to be sure, mostly in the form of social unrest among those who were hit the hardest. There was the so-called student revolution of 1968, which rocked the Fifth Republic for a few weeks and diminished de Gaulle's personal standing, and there was a brief romance with left-wing terrorism in the early 1970s. By and large, though, statism prevailed. One reason was that it seemed to be working, and indeed to have fulfilled its primary mission of saving France. Then there were the emollient effects of the ever-expanding welfare state. Finally, under the Socialist François Mitterrand, just about every single elite or quasi-elite body in the country, including the Communists and the intellectuals, was brought into--or bought into--the system. In the ensuing decades, the only real challenge has been European integration, especially in the form of "single-market" provisions that have brought more transparency, competitiveness, and fluidity into European economic life.

So what chance, really, is there for a change in 2007? Interestingly enough, three of the four presidential front-runners as of the end of March--Messrs. Sarkozy, Bayrou, and Le Pen--were not enarchs. And Ms. Royal, though an enarch, seemed to have fallen out of touch with that milieu. Of the four, Mr. Sarkozy, openly pro-American and a (cautious) critic of the welfare state, was probably the only candidate to have given serious thought to France's necrotic condition, hinting at various constitutional reforms--from the abolition of the prime minister's office to a stronger parliament and stronger parliamentary commissions, not to mention progressive cuts in the civil service--that would bring the republic closer to the American political model. Not to be outdone by Mr. Sarkozy, Mr. Bayrou announced in early April that, if elected, he would abolish the ENA altogether.

But now that a reform-minded president has been elected, who will assist him in carrying out his declared program, when enarchs and other state servants are all there is?

Mr. Gurfinkiel is the president of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Paris.

My blackberry wanted a name, and the name Henry came to me.

My blackberry wanted to be called - Henry, Lord Blackberry.

But later this evening, he decided he wanted "The Right Honourable" as an honourific so I had to change his name.

My blackberry's name is now "The Right Honourable Henry, Earl Blackberry".

And my blackberry's name is Henry and never Harry. Every time I hear the name Harry I think of that book I loved as a kid "Harry the Dirty Dog".

Did I mention I named my car. My german car's name is Siegfried or "Sieggie" for short.

I am blogging from my blackberry to test it out. I just voted for Blake for American idol just because he's the only boy, and I don't want an all-girl show.
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

Wow, I haven't blogged in about a month.

I had the worst case of really bad allergies up until three weeks ago. Nothing I tried work. Finally, I had an aryuvedic treatment for my nose which involves oil going up your nasal passages. Gross as heck, but in a week my allergies cleared up.

I saw "Grindhouse" and loved it! I am going to buy the dvd when it comes out.

What else? I went up Carmel Valley to a seminar at Quail Lodge in a house hosted by someone who lives there. Her living room overlooked a lake on the golf course, but then you could see the golfers walk by. How weird! Doris Day lives in Carmel Valley above the golf course, but the woman who lives there swears she's never seen her.

I messed up my knee because I decided I wanted to look cute and walk around in my brown suede spikey heeled boots. They're not that high at 1.5 inches, but the spikiness threw my gait off and my knee hurt so bad I couldn't walk up or down the stairs without feeling pain.

I had a myofascial treatment on Thursday and acupuncture on Saturday, and the pain went away. But it's still not a 100%, so I am getting another myofascial this week. Myofascial treatment is amazing, and if you can find someone who knows what they're doing they can work miracles on your body's aches and pains.

I decided to upgrade my phone and try a Blackberry. From the time I turned it on, I could see how it can become addictive and why people started calling it "crackberry". I bought a refurbished one because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be that connected, and I'm going to see how it goes.

Of course, just when I get into Blackberries, RIM decides to announce a new one called the "curve". If I end up liking my blackberry, whom I've name Henry, then I'll probably get the new one in a few months. The blackberry ISP service is cheaper than the other internet services, and I don't know Microsoft has quite managed the "push to pda" thing like RIM.

I just finished my taxes. I got a very small refund last year. I should have renewed my business license, but I didn't. You really get some great tax breaks when you have your own business. Oh well.

I should be glad I'm even getting a refund I guess. I claim 2 on w2 form, and I still end up with a refund. But then again, I have about $1400 in charitable contributions every year. That new donation law really sucks! I guess the charities got tired of getting torn clothing. If I didn't have the charitable deductions, I'm sure I'd owe money on my taxes instead of getting a refund.

I totally hate my desktop! It is so slow. I use my laptop all the time, but I just can't get used to the idea of not having a desktop. That would be so strange. I could just buy a new desktop, but I'm always thinking why bother when I only use my laptop.

My desktop computer is still updating. This is what happens when you don't turn your computer on in months; you spend the whole night having to do all the updates. It is such a drag!

Wow, it's been over a month since I last posted. I've wanted to post but then forgot.

Not much going on really.

I saw the movie "300" and loved it. I am dying to see "Grindhouse" and "Blades of Glory".

On Easter I went to the De Young museum to see the Vivienne Westwood exhibit, and then the made the woman manning the cashier put on the Adam Ant cd so I could hear Antmusic.

I think the beginning of the exhibit would have been so much better if they were playing early 80's english punk music.

I am blogging from my desktop computer which I have not turned on in months, but have to use now to do my taxes. I still have not done my taxes. Can you believe that? I am so bad! I usually have them done by February and now it's April 10 and I still haven't done them.

I got sucked into watching "American Idol" again. A good friend is watching and kept asking me what I thought, so I had to tune in. Hate that!

I'm so glad that freak Antonella got voted off the show. I could not stand that woman mouthing off to Simon Cowell like that. The woman's voice compared to the other strong singers on the show was bad, and she sang with no heart. I think she only lasted this long is because someone put semi-nekkid pictures of her on the internet. I'm sure she put them up herself.

Heard she got offered half a million to be the spokeperson for a porno company. She'll probably take it.

In the last two weeks, there have been two earthquakes here. One just in the last half hour. At least I was at home for this one. It was interesting to see my floor lamp swinging from side to side. The first one happened at work and it was so scary because I think the buildng is built on rollers, and when the earthquake happened I felt my body swing back and forth.

My office buildng will definitely move alot if I'm at work and it's a big one. I have to remember to dive under my desk in case stuff starts falling down.

My boss nominated me for this award at work called a "Spot Bonus Award" for these webpages I designed and wrote for the programs that are worked on by me and my group. I am a web page author! The nomination has to be reviewed by a committee and it was finally approved this week.

So she gave the highest award which was $500 and when I received the check today it was so tiny! Taxes took out 42% of it! Talk about a bummer!

Okay, I guess I need to comment on the scandals regarding SF Mayor Gavin Newsome. Honestly, I don't care who the man is sleeping with. It's like his business. Someone at work said she knows someone who worked at City Hall and that people on Newsome's staff knew abou the affaire as it was going on, and were amazed that the husband didn't know. So what I find interesting is that a Newsome staffer didn't leak the news of the affaire then. Does this mean his staff is that loyal? I don't know. But because it was such public knowledge within City Hall as it was happening, I can't help but wonder why did the news leak now? Was it to cover something else up?

And the media in SF could not talk about anything else and I'm like who the hell cares! I don't. It just made me lose even more respect for the half a horse town media out here. Whatever! I so want to leave San Francisco. The politics disgust me so much! It's so darned hypocritical.

San Francisco, which is supposed to be most liberal city in the world, is having a cow because its mayor had an affaire. How hypocritical is that? The jerk supervisor from my ex-district even called for his resignation. UGH! That made me so ill!

I can't even watch or hear Cokie Robert to this day because of her stupid comments about Bubba Willie's affaire with Monica. I swear to God she sounded more like a woman scorned than a journalist. And I'm like "Honey, he's not your husband, get over it!"

In January I went to see the Anselm Kiefer exhibit at SFMOMA. I first saw his work when I took Modern Art history, so I was interested in seeing his work close up. His symbolism is so very interesting. Quaternity is my favorite piece. Check it exhibit page out - Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth.

I've been on a movie binge lately, trying to see a bunch of movies before the Oscars.

The Departed -great movie! I loved the dialogue. It was so realistic and I thought the writer was on par with Quentin Tarantino or David Mamet. I was so jealous of the writing and the story, until I found out that the story was taken from a Hong Kong movie called "Internal Affairs". I'm getting the movie from Netflix so I can what the differences are. Jack Nicholson was over the top. Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin were total scene stealers. I saw the movie in a half full SF theatre and people laughed at all the "homo" jokes. It's interesting how you can have those kind of jokes in a Scorcese movie and nobody says anything. Whatever. This movie is going on my top movie list. Somehow this movie reminded me of "LA Confidential", which is a huge fave of mine, and I wish I could figure out why.

Letters from Iwo Jima - loved this movie alot, but thought it was way too long. I looked at my watch a couple of times, which is not good. Other than the length it was quite good. It made me want to read the book the movie was based on because I think the book will be quite interesting.

Pan's Labrynth - After all the hype that this movie got, I think I was a little let down when I finally saw it. I really wanted to see more of the weird fairy tale stuff. My friend really loved it, but I'm thinking maybe I didn't really understand it. I don't know. My friend is sure I didn't get the movie. She's probably right.

The Queen - loved it because it was about an event I esperienced. Di's death was such a world event. I thought Helen Mirren was fab! She really did an amazing job of turning herself into a living famous figure.

Dream Girls - I wish I'd seen the original broadway play, so I could compare the movie to the stageplay. After Jennifer Husdon's solo, people clapped. She really did outclass Beyonce in the movie, but I don't know if that's because that part wasn't very well-written. I also saw the other woman who played Eddie Murphy's girlfriend in a bunch of plays at ACT, so it was nice to see her in a big movie.

Charlotte's Web - I had to see it, but I wasn't sure about Julia Roberts as the voice of Charlotte. All the other voices were just right. Not much else to say about the movie other than I loved seeing the story in movie form.

Notes on a Scandal - Brilliant and riveting with two amazing actors in Dame Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. I'd love to read the book because I think they are probably more juicy comments in print. I'm not sure I got all the comments because they were so Brit and alot about class, but I think I got most of the them. I loved how Judi Dench just so looked so god awfully wrinkled, because it made her character so realistic. But honestly seeing wrinkles on a woman on a huge big screen is just really, really frightening. THe boy was really cute, but I guess I don't see the attraction of illegal age boys.

So yes, I have not felt like blogging this year and I feel guilty. Right now, I am watcihng my guilty pleausre show "The Housewives of Orange County". I am so jealous of Lauri. I love her relationship with George. I wish I had a boyfriend/fiance like him. He is loving and generous, and he's not bad looking. Seriously, I don't think Lauri is not that pretty. I think she sometimes look like a skinny man in drag, but I'm sure she looks much better in person.

I'm watching the finale of "Top Chef" and I feel bad that I didn't watch the whole series, but that Padma chick really turned me off. I just read in her bio that she's written cookbooks and hosted her own show on the Food Network, but honestly listening and watching that woman was such a big, big turnoff! And those outfits .... she makes Nigella Lawson look like a puritan.

Whatever I'm sure she's there just to get guys to watch.

I just saw a car commercial and memo to guys: a Honda, any Honda is not a "chick magnet".

I'm thinking Nordstrom is going through the same financial issues as The Gap, only we don't know about it because Nordstrom is a private company. I was a loyal Nordstrom shopper for years, until I couldn't find anything in natural fibers anymore. Nordstrom started carrying polyester stylish but cheap looking clothes. Yes, they were fashionable but in a throw away fashion kind of way, not in a fashionable classic way.

Even my standby store Talbots is failing me. I can't find anything in there that I like anymore. Macy's is becoming my store of choice. Maybe bankruptcy did well for them because all of sudden, their clothes got better.

I mean, I don't think my fashion sense has changed other than I'm probably not as conservative as I used to be. I'm actually trying to be just a bit more trendy and broke down and bought a pair of DKNY Soho jeans with wide boot legs. Boot leg jeans just look better on me now than straight leg jeans and they feel fashionable. The DKNY jeans were also stretchy and I normally hate stretchy jeans, but these jeans didn't feel so polyster. In truth, I only bought them because I still can't see myself paying over $50 for a pair of jeans and these were only $48. They fit too and were so comfortable. One of these days I guess I'll have to see if a $150 pair of jeans really makes a difference.

I was in Beverly Hills over the weekend wearing my new DKNY stretchy widelegged jeans, my new brown suede boots, a brown cashmere sweater, and grey lacy camisole top topped with a vintage pearl necklace I bought at Gallery of Jewels on Union Street a few years back, and I felt fairly fashionable. Talk about strange because I've only ever felt dowdy looking ni LA, and this was the first time I've ever felt fashionable there.

I love the new jeans now because they don't sit at your waist. I've never had the kind of body, even at my thinnest, where I was narrow in the waist. I've always been straight up and down, and most jeans now sit below the waist which is so nice. I also have a short rise and could only wear certain brands, now I actually fit into most brands.

I mean at my thinnest in college, the only jeans that ever really fit me properly were mens jeans. Mens jeans fit my waist, butt and my legs back then, and women's jeans fit in the waist and were way too baggy every where else. I still remember the pair of YSL jeans I constantly wore when I was 19 years old; they were men's size 28 and were so comfortable and perfect.

The media has recently been bemoaning the fact that Gap has lost touch with its core base, and I'm like "Hello!" That was like fairly obvious a few years ago when the Gap's market share started to drop, but nobody thought to write about it back then.

You gotto love how the Gap won't even admit to the fact that they might have made a mistake.

<<"We've never veered from the core brand essence of Gap," insisted Stacy MacLean, a spokeswoman for the company. "We certainly think the brand has staying power."
On the other hand, she acknowledged that Gap made a point of going after customers ages 18 to 25, and that this strategy might not have worked out as planned. "We're re-examining our strategy, our tactics, everything," MacLean said. "We're definitely at a crossroads." >>

Ding dongs! Just admit your strategy to chase the younger crowd failed! Or maybe The Gap is taking a play out of Slick Willy's playbook and this is their version of saying "I did not have sex with that woman." Hell yes, your strategy failed and now you are on the selling block.

I think this is what The Gap was after - from the NY Times "stores like Primark are leaders in the quick-growing “fast fashion” industry, selling cheap garments that can be used and discarded without a second thought. Consumers, especially teenagers, love the concept, pioneered also by stores like H&M internationally and by Old Navy and Target in the United States, since it allows them to shift styles with speed on a low budget. " The problem is what worked for Old Navy did not work for The Gap's main stores. The NY Times observed that teenagers change their styles every six months, and The Gap just couldn't keep up.

Of course the day after I wrote that my job wasn't so bad, I had a really bad day at work. The senior VP of my division gets all freaked out because he thought I was going to program manage this vendor, yells at my director who then overreacts to the situation, and the next thing I know I am in someone's office trying to explain myself.

I was trying to fly under the radar at this crazy place, and I keep getting pulled in to weird stuff and vps throw my name about like it was garbage. I actually thought the senior vp didn't even know who the hell I was, but I guess not because he was talking about me.

I swear, people project onto me and ascribe more ambition to me than I've ever had. I just want to do my analytical work and be left one. I don't like being in the spotlight. I'd rather support people and have them take the heat and be on the front line. I like working behind the scenes. I don't need to manage or be known or get recoginition at his job.

It's not that I don't want recognition, sure I want that, but for my novels so a publisher will want to publish my books or make my script into a movie. I don't want "work recognition"! It's a huge bother and really not worth all that much effort unless you're going to use it to become a VP or something, or a director. I want to get paid and I want to leave my job at 5 pm and I don't want to deal with stupid political intrigue at work.

I feel like the universe is testing me and saying, "are you sure you want to stay at this pretty awful job, because it will get worse?" And I'm saying back, "I don't care about recognition, I want my free time, I want to be able to leave at 5 pm and not take work home, I want time to write my novels and screenplays and still be able to workout and lose weight on a daily basis. I want this job because I can do it with my eyes closed and I get paid enough to pay my bills and have a little bit left over. STOP TRYING TO TEST ME!"

Okay, it's been ages since I've been blogging and so much has happened. On January 9 I received a call from a company that I'd sent my resume to in 2005. What a hoot! They had kept it for what, two years, and now they were finally calling for an interview. Talk about flattering, and awkward too because the woman who tipped me off about the job no longer worked at the company. T worked directly for the CEO and they had a huge falling out and she quit in a huff, claiming that the CEO was trying to cheat her out of her commissions.

The CEO knew T and I were friends and even asked about her. How very weird and awkward because I'm sure he thought that T told me all kinds of horrible things about him, which was totally true. But I didn't want to let him know that. When he asked if I had talked to T in a long time, I truthfully told me I hadn't talk to her in a long tim which was actually true.

I went to a pre-interview on January 16 and decided that I did not want to work for another startup. I don't want to work 1o-12 hours a day and not having any energy and time for my novel writing. This was a big decision for me because 1) the job would have probably paid $5-10K more a year 2) I would have learned a tremendous amount and 3) I am so over my job right now. But ... it's hard to give up a job that I can do with my eyes closed, pays well and where I can leave at 5 pm and not take any work home. I am choosing my free time over a higher income, and this is something I would never have done three years ago.

It was a very tough decision because I had to give up so much of what I considered to an integral part of my work personna. Now I'm even thinking about trying to see if I can swing it with a part time job so I can have more time to write.

I was supposed to do a three-hour interview on January 24 and I told me today that due to personal reasons I did not want to continue the interview procees. Talk about strange because I know that I could have had this job if I wanted, Oh well. I suppose there is something to be said about having a job that allows me to live a more balanced life.

Then a firiend of mine saw a job advert for a job that would also sounded alright, until I realized that the job entailed sitting in 6 hour meetings every two weeks. I hate, absolutely hate meetings that go mor than two hours, so I told her thanks but no thanks.

I felt so flattered that this company was totally hot to hire me, and that has been a good feeling. But things have gotten better at work so I'm not as unhappy as I used to be.

I tried to post last night becauase it's been ages since I've written, but Blogger was not working quite right. What is up with that? But I saved what I wrote, and I will post it separately.

Happy New Years 2007! I'm at home watching the Rose Bowl. One of these days I'm going to see the Rose Bowl Parade in person so I can those beautiful floats made from flowers.

I went to a New Years Eve party which was nice and peaceful, until midnight when people were screaming "Happy New Years" all over Portrero Hills. At least there weren't any gunshots. I even drank a little champagne.

I am so bummed about going to work tomorrow. It was so relaxing to have the whole week off.

I am glad to see 2006 end, and am looking forward to a better 2007.

A very good friend of mine laughed at me when I told her I spent most of 2006 mourning breaking up with M-Square. She said "You had a crush on someone while you were supposedly dating, you lined someone up right before you broke up because you hate hard landings and then, and then three months later you were hot for MBA guy at work."

So here's the real truth.

1) Yes, I kind of had a crush on this guy at work while things were hot and heavy with M-Square. I don't know how it happened, but we were talking on the phone and we connected. Nothing happened, but I did feel bad about it. And now we're working together a ton which is great because he is so cool to work with.

2) And yes, I am one of those who believes that if things start heading south, get a "lifeboat". I never break up a relationship without a new guy in the wings. And if my intuition is working right, I line a new guy up just before a guy decides to dump me. A girl's got to have something else to think about besides the breakup of a relationship. I did kind of of have an "possible lifeboat" in the wings when things went bad with M-Square. It was too soon to do that, but old habits die hard. My lifeboat guy gave me a soft landing instead of a hard one, and it was wonderful for a few months to have it.

3) MBA guy at work just happened out of the blue. I wasn't expecting it. I went to the guy's welcome party and didn't feel connected. But when we started talking and couldn't stop, I knew the guy was a soul mate. I just don't talk for hours to a guy without us having some past life connection. And it was a good connection too because we just got along so well and there was no weirdness between us. And MBA guy at work went from May and is kind of actually still going, although it's not as intense anymore. I did talk to MBA guy before Christmas at a division party, but it was short and he apologized for not spending more time with me because he's been like totally swamped with work. I totally love MBA guy but as friend I think, and not as boyfriend material. We've been there and done that in our past ives and made it work, so we don't have to do it again. That's kind of a nice thought isn't it? I had a past life where my relationship worked so well that there wasn't any karma to carry over.

Okay, so I didn't really mourn M-Square and I'm sure the boy is not mourning our breakup either. I wanted to mourn but the fates kept sending me guys to fall in love with, so what's a girl to do?

At home today cleaning up and getting a huge pile of stuff to take to the Salvation Army for my year-end charity deduction.

I'm so psyched Barry Zito is going to stay in the SF Bay Area and play for the SF Giants. He'll have to hit the ball now, because in American League they have designated hitters for pitchers.

Watched the body of Gerald Ford pull up at the church in Palm Desert. Betty Ford looked so old. It was kind of sad because I think he was a nice guy who just happened to be President of the US at such an interesting time. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

The news channels have been speculating for hours about when Sadam Hussein is going to be hanged. How weird. I had no idea that there's a state that lets you choose between lethal injection and hanging. If the hanging is videotaped, you know it will show up on YouTube eventually. The man was a butcher like Hitler and Stalin, and I don't understand why people are making such a fuss over him. Talk about America trying to impose their moral standards on the world. In Hussein's part of the world, they execute people all the time. The same people who love multiculturalism are saying he shouldn't be executed. Isn't that hypocritical? I mean, they hate that America exports its values around the world, but I guess it's okay that we export our value of no execution. I don't get it. Multicultuarlism isn't selective.

I saw "Night at the Museum", and liked it despite the fact that the first half of the movie was just not very enjoyable for me. The Ben Stiller character is not sympathetic, and he came off almost too pathetic. But half way through the movie, it got better and I laughed. I saw the moview with about 30 kids and they didn't laugh during the first half of the movie either.

The movie has some great special effects, and it made me want to revisit the Natural History Museum in New York.

I also saw "Curse of the Golden Flower" directed by Zhang Yimou. I loved his movie "Raise the Red Lantern", and loved the spectacle of "Hero" with Jet Li.

The movie was beautiful and slow going, and ends with the typical cloying chinese song at the end. I couldn't help but think of Quentin Tarantino's movies "Kill Bill, Parts 1 and 2". Quentin Tarantino sure does know the kung fu movie genre. And yes there were lots of good fighting scenes. I saw chinese grandma types with their daughters there, which I thought was so cute. My grandma would have loved this movie, and I wish she was alive so I could take here to a theatre so we could watch the movie together.

I saw "Curse of the Golden Flower" at the Sony Metreon, which was a little strange because it's not like they show a lot of Hong Kong kung fu action flicks, but I liked that a very mainstream SF movie theatre was willing to have it there.

Who knew that if you see a movie before 12 noon at Sony Metreon theatres the cost of the ticket is $6. Talk about a bargain! After 12 noon, it goes up to $8.50 and after 6 pm, it's regular price.

Would love to see "Happy Feet", "Dream Girls" and "Children of Men", since I read the PD James book. A friend was raving about "The Departed" recently as well "The Queen".

So around 10:30 pm on my Christmas vacation, I am editing a newsletter that I have to email to my boss before the end of the year. I got way behind on my weekly industry updates and have been putting them off, but I can't put them off any longer.

What a life, huh?

I went to see the Titanic exhibit, but it wasn't cheap. The ticket cost $22 and $5 more if you wanted the audio. There were a lot of artifacts, and I did get to touch a piece of the hull of the Titanic but still. A friend recommended I go because she liked it, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you're into the Titanic.

It was only fun because of the movie, and it would have been more interesting if they had included some of the movie props and the real stuff.

But oh well. I paid for a ticket and an audio, and I'm glad I got to see it.

It's day after Christmas and I know I should be at the mall checking out the discounts on xmas decs and seeing what else is on sale, but I hate crowds!

I really am very shopped out right now. I don't think I could buy one more thing unless it was totally cheap as dirt and I absolutely had to have it.

Besides it's supposed to rain and it's too cold to be out. I am out all week from work. This is the second year I've take the off the week between christmas and New Years. I kind of like it. This year we got Christmas and the day after christmas off, so it was a short week anyway.

It's probably the best time to be in the office because it would be so quiet, but I'd rather stay at home and be lazy. I am going to try to do some movie watching this week, and hopefully if the weather gets better check out Angel Island. I've been to Angel Island a few times for parties, but I've never seen the whole island. Angel Island was the west coast version of Ellis Island in New York.

But then again, it would be nice to just hang at home and go through my stuff so I can do some year-end charity donations.

Merry Christmas everyone! Wow, I finally got some useful presents this year, which is a first for me.

I needed a new wall calendar for my bedroom and I got a big calendar and a smaller calendar for work.

I have one of those home fragrance burner things from The Body Shop, which I've been wanting for awhile now.

A friend gave me an astrocartography reading with San Francisco, London and Bombay India as the chosen places to check out. I've lived everywhere where there is a line; interesting huh? I don't think I'm supposed to be living in San Francisco, which I've known for about two years now. Check this out - Las Vegas is supposed to be a good place for me to live. I can't imagine living there because I have to live near an ocean and I don't like to gamble.

And my cousin sent me Joel Osteen's newest books. I love that man's sermons.

Speaking of pastors, Rick Warren has been on TV a ton and I really, really like him. I love his book "The Purpose Driven Life".

We had christmas pudding for dessert. We doused it with brandy and lit the baby on fire. You gotta love food that burns. We also had french brioche in the shape of loaves, which was fattening and divine, for appetizers, and I made braised chard with garlic from a recipe that was in the San Francisco Chronicle. I love chard! The recipe is definitely a keeper.

Okay, one last post. It's freezing here! I wake up every morning and my car is covered with white stuff. It's not snow, but the dew is frozen and white on my car.

I just bought a new parka from LL Bean that is wind proof, and I am very grateful for it with this freezing weather. The parka is warm, maybe too warm, but that's fine with me. The parka also has thinsulate in the body which is nice.

I decided to get rid of books I'm reading on the left side bar. It's too hard to keep up with because I read a book a week. This year however has been a bad year for reading. I thought I would increase the number of books I read this year, but I didn't.

My movie watching has also been abysmal. I hardly went to the movies this year, and now that I use Netflix insetad of Blockbuster I don't rent as many movies either. With Blockbuster I was forced to watch my movies in a week. With Netflix, my movies sit around for months on end before I watch them. There is no urgency at all for me with Netflix.

I have to decide if I should go back to Blockbuster only because I did like the serendipity of going to the store and seeing what was available. I ended up discovering many good movies this way. Netflix is good for renting movies that are hard to find, especially the classic old movies. But that's about it.

I saw the movie "Apocalypto" at the new Century theatre in Union Square that is part of the new mall with Bloomingdales. The theatre has leather seats and they were big and roomy.

I really liked "Apocalypto" and am glad I saw it on the big screen. Some of the cinematography was so beautiful. I went to the Mayan exhibit that were here last year, and it was fascinating to see how the Mayans were depicted.

I didn't think the story was a bad as the reviewers said, and I loved the violence. However if you're not into violence then I wouldn't watch it. The amount of violence kind of reminded me of a porn movie. In a good porn movie, there's like a sex scene every five minutes or less. In "Apocalypto", there's a violent scene every five minutes which was fine with me. I mean, HELLO! It was a period piece and back then life and living was hard and violent. People killed animals and ate them. They didn't go to the butcher to buy meat.

I wasn't sure about the ending, only because I think I wasn't expecting it. But it makes sense. So I don't know what is the big deal about this movie. I loved that it depicted a non-white culture, and a culture there are so few movies about.

I had two work gift exchanges this year and there were completely different experiences.

The first gift exchange I went to was "funny" gift exchange. You had to buy a funny gift up to $15. Talk about a dumb idea. The gifts were so dumb, like a farting Santa, Homer Simpson slippers, etc. $15 is a lot of money to spend on a funny gift. And it wasn't fun at all because who wanted to steal stupid gifts. I rebelled and bought a $10 Walgreens card. It's kind of funny to me because you would normally expect to get a gift card from an expensive store. It would have been more funny I suppose, if I had a McDonalds gift card but I didn't think about it until I saw the commercials on TV.

The second gift exchange was much better and the limit was still $15. The gift were really great like a mini fondu maker, a 1 gig memory stick, expensive chocolates, etc. I was in the middel of the draw and picked a bottle of wine. My bottle of wine was immediately stolen, so I opened another present and got a mini fondu maker. I was so excited, but of course as is my karma, my boss steals my fondu maker, so I stole back my bottle of wine. It's so much more fun to steal gifts if the gifts are worth stealing.

The 1 gig memory stick was stolen three times. So was the fondu maker. But thank god I was able to hold on to my wine. At the first gift exchange, I ended up with a bunch of self-help books. I was a little upset, but the books are at least ones I wanted to read but didn't want to spend the money to buy.

But it is so not fun to steal a "stupid" gift. No one wants a farting Santa!

There's too much white space on my blog, so I am going to post the picture that was desktop background for a year.

Okay, I fixed the archiving problem and now they're back. Apparently I had code that was older than two years. Whatever!

I am all shopped out, except that I have to buy one more gift to buy because a friend of mine gave me more present than I was planning to give her. I was only planning to give her an ornament, but she gave me a calendar and an ornament.

I spent way too much money this year, more than I was planning to spend. I even took back a gift because a friend told me I was giving too much. That was hard but I did it. It was just a stocking stuffer anyway and not the real gift.

Somehow my archives disappeared and now I have to figure out how to get them back.

The woman, who made my current job miserable since the first month I started, was escorted out of our building yesterday. The HR person didn’t even give her time to pack up the pictures of her children that are in her office, and an hour later the lock to her office was changed.

Life changes quickly. At noon, we were all in a staff meeting and she came but left after an hour. At around 3 pm, we were all called into the director’s office and told that she had “resigned effective as of today and if we needed to contact her about work issues, we need to go through him.” A friend who has seen this kind of thing happen before said she was terminated, otherwise why would they have escorted her out of the building like that without even time to gather her personal things.

I never liked the woman, but I felt compassion for her. They wouldn’t even let her take her kids’ pictures with her. That is cruel. The woman totally deserved it, but still.

I guess I am sucker for rock music ballads because I love the new song "Lips of an Angel" by Hinder.

I bought the whole season of Heroes from iTunes and I just found out I can't copy them. What a bummer. And who knew downloaded tv shows would cost me 5 gigs of disk space! Yikes! That's what it says on iTunes on my laptop. I should buy a DVD recorder and record the shows I want to watch instead of buying them! What a drag!

I'm probably going to catch total flak for doing this, but I declined to participate in buying a gift for the director of our group. This is the first department I've worked in where the employees buy presents for the boss instead of the boss buying gifts for the employees. In the 2.5 years I've worked at this company, I have never received a gift from my immediate boss for christmas or for my birthday.

I see other bosses giving their employees gifts in other departments, but not ours. Oh no. We, the employees who are getting paid less than the director of the group, are shelling out money to buy a gift for the director who gets paid way more than us. That is so weird. I mean, I can understand buying a gift for your boss if they're getting married or having a child, but not Christmas. That is so odd!

I'm sure my fellow employees are going to talk about me, but I don't care. I really need to get another job. This place is so strange. It's calmed down for now, so I stopped looking for a job, but I know it's just going to get bad again. I don't fit here, I never will and I keep denying it to myself because every time I start looking for a job, something happens in my life that makes me want to stay.

But this christmas gift giving to the boss is I think the last straw for me. It's always the little things for me that decide a course of action for me, never the big things. I thought with this new director things would change, but obviously they haven't. It's a new person, but the weirdness in the department still exists.

I'm not a fan of Anne Coulter by any stretch of the imagination and hate almost everything she's ever written, but I kind of like this article. Ann Coulter: How can I make your flight more uncomfortable?

We had a photo contest in my department and I won first place in "Offsite Picture" and "Best Overall". There were only six people taking photos so it's not like there were dozens to choose from, but I was so surprised I won. I didn't even buy my digital camera. My cousin gave it to me in 2004, and I'm pretty sure she bought it at Walmart's or some store like that.

The photo was taken at Domaine Chandon, a champagne maker Napa. I think it won because on the right side of the photo somehow I captured a beam of light. Is that hard to do? It must be because it's never happened to me before. The mushrooms were just rocks piled up to look like mushrooms.

I won treats from Peet's coffee: a bag of chocolate toffee almonds for best offsite picture, and a one-pound bag of coffee called "Holiday Blend" for best overall.

I need to update my reading list. I have been getting into reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation stories.

I've read Prelude to Foundation, Fondation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, and Foundation's Edge. They are amazing stories.

A friend got into reading Asimov's Robot stories and she's going to lend me her books.

I'd like to read all of Asimov's books; he is such a good author. When I really like a writer I read all of their books. So far I've read all of F. Scott Fitgerald, Elie Weisel, Oliva Butler. Can't remember any more right now.

The worst thing about having to sit around and wait to see "Heroes" is having to watch Howie Mandel on "Deal or No Deal". I just don't get him and that show, and even just five minutes of it is torture for me.

I'm getting over a cold and waiting for "Heroes" to come on. There was an article on SFGATE.com about the show, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/11/09/apop.DTL&hw=dna&sn=003&sc=242, and I had to watch it. I downloaded the episodes I missed on iTunes and got hooked. What can I say?

For Thanksgiving I drove up to Redding to see my aunt and uncle. There were their usual selves and I spent Thanksgiving at an indian casino gambling, just like the last time I saw them. My aunt made turkey dinner and I brought home a ton of leftovers. But it was rainy up there and I think I got too cold and on Friday I started sniffling. This is my second cold of the season. Normally I get a cold when I can't get enough sleep. I didn't know I could get a cold when my body temperature drops too low, so this is a new one for me.

The first one only lasted 4 days, although I was in recovery for a couple of weeks. I'm on day 3 now and feeling better, but I think it will take me all week to get over it.

I've seen three movies with all this time off. So here are my capsule reviews:

Marie Antoinette - I wanted to see this movie because The Cure contributed two songs, but there were instrumentals only. I was so bummed. The costumes were beautiful and I think Sofia Coppola was able to film at Versailles, which is rare. I read the review afterwards and loved The NY Times review. The movie needed I think some editing, and I think the type of storyline that worked in "Lost in Translation" doesn't quite work in this type of historical fiction movie. Jason Schwartzman was totally miscast only because he looks so much older than Kirsten Dunst. Marie Antionette was 15 years old when she become engaged to the Dauphin, who was only a year older than her. If the Louis character looked around 16, the storyline might have made more sense. If you're into late 80's post-punk music, then you'll like the soundtrack. I think it might have been better if I saw this movie in a theatre with a better sound system.

Casino Royale - Daniel Craig is beautiful and he looks like he could kill a man with his bare hands; how cool is that! The first James Bond actor who actually looks like he can kill people, and not some dressed up Brit pansy. I mean Pierce Brosnan is not a man I want to see sans clothes, but I'd love Daniel Craig to walk around in my apartment permanently in the nude or with those cute swimming shorts of his. I normally hate men in tiny swimming shorts, and Daniel Craig is an exception. He is so cute! And so rough and tough too with great biceps! He looks mean and nasty. There was not not quite enough violence in the movie to suit my taste. I think they toned that part down, but there was some good hand to hand combat scenes with 007 getting punched out and bleeding. Some guy in the theatre afterwards said that Daniel Craig looked like Joe Montana. Interesting. I'm not into blondie boy either, but Daniel Craig can definitely act and he's got killer blue eyes like my first love. I'm a sucker for boys with deep blue eyes.

For your consideration - not as outrightly funny as their other movies, but the laughs are there if you get the jokes. It helps if you know yiddish too. Catherine O'Hara was brilliant as usual, but even more so in this movie because she went through quite a transformation. I think you have to know quite a bit of how Hollywood works to get this movie fully. The characters aren't quite as self-explanatory as they are in the other movies. I'm not sure how many people will like it because it represents an evolution from their other movies. Instead of just presenting people as they are, they added some commentary probably because it's Hollywood and it's their business and they have a ton to say about it all works.

I think I just added I just added a favicon to my blog. It's showing up on my computer, so hopefully other people will be able to see it.

I went down to Pacific Grove to attend a seminar. The weather was gorgeous and the monarch butterflies were there for their migration. A volunteer at the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Pacific Grove that last year there were 17,000 butterflies, and this year their number had increased to 23,000. There were flying overhead in the grove of eucalyptus trees and it was amazing. I had never seen so many butterflies in one place before. It was hard to get a photo of the butterflies, but I did manage to take a photo of one.

My digital camera is not the greatest, but I did get a decent photo. If you are passing through the area, the monarch butterflies are going to be there through I believe mid-December. It is so worth seeing them. The volunteers had a telescope set up and I saw the monarch butterflies clinging together like a daisy chain. It was so unreal to see them like that, all close together and just hanging on to each other. It was like I was looking a live butterfly curtain, which felt so surreal and yet it was right there in front of my face.

Then we drove down to Carmel and walked down to the beach to watch the sunset, so here's my Carmel beach at sunset pic.

The weather was warm which was so unexpected since it was rainy and cold just a couple of days ago. Okay, one more photo.

We were at a gallery afterwards and asked the gallery person for a recommendation for dinner, and she said to go across the street and try the newest restaurant in Carmel called Cantinetta Luca http://cantinettaluca.com/, which is located on Dolores Street between Ocean and 7th Avenue. The woman at the gallery said the pumpkin ravioli was to die for.

We were able to only able to get a table because it was 6 pm and very early for dinner, otherwise the restaurant was all booked up with dinner reservations. For appetizers, we tried 1) Arancini - fried risotto balls with mozzarella and prosciutto and 2) Grilled local sardines, eggplant crostini, teardrop tomatoes and balsamic Vinegar and the Tricolore salad of bitter greens, green apple, gorgonzola, walnuts and honey vnaigrette. I loved the fried rissota balls, very inventive, and the local sardines were out of this world. I'm not a big sardine lover, having only ever had the canned variety, but I could get used to eating fresh grilled sardines.

We each had the pumpkin ravioli with brown butter, sage and saga and just a glass of wine each of the Sangiovesse, Remole " Marchesi de Frescobaldi" 2003. The sangiovese was like a pinot noir only a little more earthy, and a very good wine.

We were thinking of eating at the Merlot Bistro on Ocean at Lincoln. I've eaten there a couple of times before, but it's nice to try new restaurants especially when one that's been recommended. And it wasn't that expensive either I think. We paid around $80 with tip for dinner for two; not cheap but not outrageous for great food and very, very nice wait staff. And I love that they had dishes I'd never seen before and wanted to try.

Never give money to your political party or to a candidate you like, because they will sell your identity and at election time your home will be bombarded by pollsters and voicemails from party freaks wanting your vote.

Okay, I'm one of those crazy people who permanently votes absentee ballot but who totally waits till the night before the election to vote. Nutty, yes!

And there were so many things to vote for this time, what a bother! I'm thinking this is the first time, but I know it isn't, that I'm voting for the other party! I am still peeved at the Phil Angelides people for booting Steve Westly from the demo primary for Governor, so I absolutely cannot vote for him. In fact, I'm still so peeved I voted for his opponent. Oh well, the Governator will sweep Cali big time so one more vote won't hurt.

I've also never voted for either Dianne Feinstein or Nancy Pelosi. I cannot stand either of them. I detest Dianne Feinstein for her performance as mayor of San Francisco, and feel she is directly responsible for SF's homeless problem. Nancy Pelosi is way to left of center to ever get my vote, plus whenever I hear the woman speak or give a speech I totally cringe!

And just to be incredibly anti-Feinstein and anti-Pelosi, I voted Republican in both races. It's a wasted vote since they will probably both sweep.

I also could not vote for Cruz Bustamante and had to sadly vote for Steve Pozner. Boy, maybe the pundits are right when they say that the older one gets, the more conservative one votes.

Plus since I'm in a major contrary mood today, I whipped out the Bay Guardian guide to voting and voted against everything and everyone they endorsed! Actually, that was the fun part of my voting experience.

I am so looking forward to the elections being over because I've been bombarded by voicemails from people asking me to vote for this or that. I received voicemails from Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and didn't even listen to the message and hit the delete button. The Democratic Party sold my identity and had all kinds of democratic freaks calling my home. I even received a voicemail from Nancy Pelosi; talk about scary!

I heard a phrase in a meeting today that I thought was very intriguing - "dollar curtain". It's a variation of the phrase "iron curtain", which was coined by Winston Churchill to define the boundary between the Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe and the West European countries.

"Dollar Curtain" means a town that defines the boundary between the rich and riff-raff/have-nots. Mission Viejo was described as a "dollar curtain" town in Orange County.

Is it like totally weird that one of my ex-boyfriends has his own entry in Wikipedia? I knew there was a reason I named him "the one that got away".

I had a dream about him last night where I was kissing his neck and it tasted very salty!

Men are like so dang emotional! I can't stand it! There's this guy at work, the one I took a two-hour coffee break with a couple of weeks ago, and he is like so mad at me. I don't want to work for him, and I have been avoiding not telling him because I hate conflict. So tonight there was like an Octoberfest outing for his group that I got invited to, and I went thinking I could talk to him. Big Mistake! It was not the right time and place and there were way too many people, and I got so triggered so I like flirted with whoever was sitting next to me and this guy like gave me the evil eye the whole time. God I hate that!

Okay, I know the guy is mad at me because I haven't fessed up to him that I don't want to interview for a position in his department, but does he like have to give me the evil eye at a company outing. I was only going to stay for one beer and instead ended up drinking three beers, and finally I couldn't stand it and had to tell him on the way out that I needed to talk to him.

How dang awkward! Oh my god! I'm not his fiance and I don't need him being all mad at me because I'm too chicken to talk to him and tell him that I don't want to work for him. He wants to talk to me in person and so I'm going to have to take him to lunch next week and break the news to him, like he doesn't already know that I don't want to work for him. What a bother!

But I totally like this guy and he's like a soul mate and everything, and if maybe things were really different and he wasn't like that much younger than me and not spiritual, I might go for it somehow. But god! The guy has got a fiance whom he totally loves, but for whatever reason the guy totally loves talking to me and we can talk to each forever and feel like there's no one else in the world but the two of us. It's a weird situation and I can't deal with weird right now.

But I guess he has a right to be mad at me because I'm like such a wuss, so I'll take him to lunch next week and face the music and hopefully salvage our friendship.

So like I am wondering if I should torture myself again and do the National Novel Writing Month. I was so good in 2001, 2002, and 2003. I failed in 2004, and completely skipped it in 2005.

It's such a great exercise for a writer to see what your capacities are for novel production. Lessons I've learned:

I can write every day, but it is very challenging with a full-time job.

I can only write for 2-hours at a time and then I burn out.

I can do three writing segments with each segment lasting 2 hours, if I have a 1-2 hour break in between each segment.

Four writing segments is way too much for me. I tried but I couldn't do it.

I need to write with an outline with the story loosely plotted out, otherwise I will get lost and take detours and spend hours writing about one thing.

What a busy weekend! Missy L and I and her mom drove down to Pacific Grove to a seminar on Soulmates, and then we went to my favorite restaurnat "Fishwife". After lunch we walked to Asilomar Beach and hung out It was a beautiful day and there was a ton of people at the beach. The weather was so gorgeous!

Then we took a drive around 17 mile drive. The waves were so picture post card perfect, breaking at around 2-4 ft which is great for those beaches. The light was hitting everything at an incredible angle and everything just looked so beautiful.

We drove back on 1 and stopped at a veggie stand. Missy L bought a cinderella pumpkin and brussel sprouts. I bought 5 just picked artichokes for 50 cents.

Then we stopped at this new restaurant in Half Moon Bay called Red Ginger. a new pan asian fusion restaurant that just opened six months ago. The food was delicately flavored and pretty amazing. We were pretty darn impressed and definitely want to go back. They had fun japanese vodka maritinis. I had something called a "rose petal martinini, which we think was vodka and rose water. I loved it. Missy L had tangretini, which was like a tangerine flavored martini and her mom had something called a "geisha girl martini". The restaurants also served flights, which are three small glasses of either red or white wine. Flights are great if you're into a little mini wine tasting.

All in all it was fun day. And I can't believe the Red Ginger restaurant had a whole menu of vodka martinis, and not gin martinis which I abhor. The smell of gin makes me woof my cookies, which is kind of sad since I used to drink gin straight out of the bottle like any proper flapper girl. It's what always happens when you abuse something for too long. I totally abused my gin drinking in college and now cannot absolutely stand the smell of it.

I've been drinking vodka martinis since my first love introduced them to me in a bar in Washington DC the semester I was interning there. God I remeber that night like it was yesterday, which is shocking since I think I drank about 7 VMs. I hadn't seen MN since he transferred to Oberlin the year before and it was just so cool that he was still in town when I landed in DC. Had I known he was going to be home in Bethesda Maryland, I wouldn't have stopped in New York for a few days before flying down to DC.

Wow, talk about regrets. I used to think I had very few regrets but I so regret not going to DC right away. If I had gone early maybe MN and I would have gotten to know each other intimately, instead of my roommate walking in on us just was were getting really comfortable. Talk about a spoilt moment and a wasted opportunity. He was leaving to go back to Oberlin the next day. We would never have a moment like that again.

Oh well, probably just as well we didn't. MN was such a soulmate, but I think he was only supposed to be a non-romantic soul mate and not a romantic one. He was my best friend in college my freshman year. We did just about everything together but that. I still remember MN telling me once "if you can't trust me, who can you trust?"

Okay, I know it was probably all for the better but it's making me cry all the same. I'm also listening to the song "Too little, too late" by JoJo that I just bought from iTunes, so maybe that has something to do with the tears.

I did have a weird dream about my first love a couple of weeks ago. I haven't had a dream about him in years. God, I hope he's safe and sound and alright. He's like some president of some organization right now in New Jersey.

MN was the standard I used to measure all my boyfriends in my 20's. MN was so cool! He was the I think, the number one singles player in Maryland in high school tennis, was first violin chair in his school orchestra, he had his pilot's license, he was smart and so darned cute, and he played a damned good bass on his Rickenbacker. I still remember the time he played one of Rachmaninoff's piano concerto for me. I mean how bizarrely romantic is that!

I know it's way too late for us, but he's my first love, my soulmate, and we finished our karma together in this lifetime, which makes him so special for me. I would have converted for him back then if we had gone in that direction. But it's way too late for all that.

Today was supposed to be a day to wish for what you want. I read several articles about the "cosmic trigger event".

So I thought about what kind of guy I would want and came up with the following:

red-hair, spiritual, surfs, played college football, earring, lives in the SF Bay area, connection to Hawaii, lots of light, no addictions, my universal soul partner and soul mate.

And then I'm like thinking, in my wildest fbombing dreams!

Took a weekend trip with two girlfriends to attend a seminar in Sacramento, so now today at work I'm exhausted. We rented a huge suite and shared a room, so it was like a slumber party except we were all adults.

One of my friends love to gamble, so we went to Thunder Valley Casino every night and gambled and drank. Our hotel had happy hour every night and we each got two free drink tickets, so we started partying right after the seminar. It was cool though because then we got to socialize with people from the seminar outside of class.

I even got a Thunder Valley Casino travel mug and card. Gambling is entertaining if you can make your money last. It's a fun way to kill a couple of hours if you're with friends because we sit around and watch one person play and laugh and cheer if the person is winning.

We even had to go to Thunder Valley for lunch on Monday, because they had a sign that sais "Best buffet in a casino in California".

But I am so tired now. I had to come in to work early for an 8 am meeting, and I was planning to leave early but there's a division meeting this afternoon and I guess I have to attend.

And my week is not over yet. I'm going to meet my writing group for drinks tonight. Wednesday is my writing get together day. Thursday I have a massage appointment, and on Friday I have to get ready to go to Monterey to go to another seminar on Saturday.

Missy L and I are thinking we might stay at Esalen on Saturday night, but it's still all up in the air.

I love being busy but I am looking forward to quiet weekend alone!

This has been a good year for meeting new girl friends. I am becoming very good friends with this project manager that I was assigned to work with, in fact we are going away next weekend to Monterey to take a seminar on soulmates.

Missy L is so fun! She's a USC grad and has direct TV so she can watch USC football games. She's so lucky because her dad bought her this huge flat screen TV for her house. Nice dad huh? He also bought her this cute Rolex watch that I love.

She had an amazing spiritual experience when she went to Argentina over the summer, and when she was telling me about it as we were driving to a meeting I told her "now I know why we get along so well, you are spiritual. I only get along really well with spiritual people."

She has the cutest house in San Francisco in my old neighborhood. I am so jealous that she is a homeowner in San Francisco, and in a damn fine neighborhood too. She said she only got it because she bought a house in Menlo Park years ago and sold it when market was hot.

She's like from Long Beach and very tall, and she reminds me of what they used to call the "LA Poodle" stereotype. She's going a mile a minute, has kind of big hair, is very bouncy and laughs and laughs. She loves to wear fur and high heels, even though she probably is over 6 ft when she wears her heels.

We drove to a meeting in Sacramento together last month and then went shopping at Costco, Ross' and some carpet place that she wanted to check out afterwards. We just had so much fun, but I think she got bummed because she wanted to stop at a wine place and grab a couple glasses of wine but I had to go home to meet friends.

We were at a vendor conference together about a couple of months ago, and we drank way too many glasses of wine which was so much fun. We had way too many glasses the night before as well because there was a cocktail party before the conference. She is a hoot when she drinks too much.

She's got the cutest pomeranian dog who is quite friendly, and made me want a rat dog for a first time my life. Pomeranians are so fluffy and loving.

I want my own house in San Francisco and a dog!

I have this guy friend at work Mr. CE and we've been chatting off and on since March, and he is so cool! He is one of those rare guys who I can talk to for ages and ages and never realize how much time is actually passing. The conversation is just so amazing and you're so engrossed in each other that it's like no one else is around.

Like take Monday for example. We went out to get coffee together to talk about some work stuff and we were only supposed to be gone for 30 minutes. It was so weird because it didn't even seen like that much time had gone by, but we were gone from the office for 2 hours. Talk about a heck of a long coffee break.

Mr. CE is soooo cool! He has an MBA from U of Michigan and is so smart. Okay, the boy is much younger than me but is just the bomb! A friend at work thinks he is too intense, kind of nerdy and talks way too much, but I don't think so.

I think we were soulmates in another life, and it's so cool that we met at work. I am so impressed with Mr. CE's intelligence. He's the smartest guy I've met since my friend Brian from Texas in 1999. He's got tons of integrity too, which is so rare in guys these days.

But can Mr. CE eat! We went out for lunch last Friday and it was my turn to pay, so I took him to this great dim-sum place and I almost died when I got the bill for lunch which was about $70 something. He offered to pay for some of lunch, but I told him not to worry.

It's just weird how we can gab and gab and never run out of things to say or talk about, and time flies by so fast and I never notice anyone else in the room. I think there could a gun battle going on and we wouldn't even know it.

I don't know about you, but there is something very amusing about researchers giving mice California cabernet sauvignon. The questions I have are: 1) what was the brand? 2) how many points from wine spectator? 3) cost?


A glass a day: Cabernet Sauvignon may help ward off Alzheimer's disease (from The Advisory Board - News for Healthcare Executives, Sept 26, 2006)

A first-of-its-kind study by New York City-based Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers appears to support the suspicion that a glass or two of red wine daily lowers the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, WebMD reports. For the study—to be presented at next month’s Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta—researchers investigated the impact of California-grown Cabernet Sauvignon on 11-month-old transgenic mice that possessed genes that govern amyloid-beta protein production, which has been linked to brain plaque in Alzheimer’s patients. The mice were given water “spiked with red wine,” water mixed with ethanol, or plain water and allowed to consume as much as they liked for seven months, at which point they were placed in a maze and left to find their way out. Researchers found that mice in the red wine cohort fared the best and also had the lowest levels of amyloid-beta. The researchers say that although the findings offer no “direct experimental evidence” of red wine’s protective effect, the study may help guide future disease prevention efforts. —WebMD/CBS News, 9/20

I miss going to football games. It's been years since I've gone and I really, really miss it. I've been to Sunday games, Thursday night games and Monday night games. They are so much fun. It's just such a slog to get home.

There is nothing like the excitement of a close football game!

There is really no privacy on the internet, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I know what my ex's are doing, at least the ones who are posting their lives on the internet. I found an ex on myspace. How bizarre is that? And being the natural investigator that I am, I looked read through the comments on his profile and the comments he made on his friend's myspace profiles and found out what the guy's been doing for the past year.

Of course, my ex's could read about my life if they about my blog but I try to keep that part of my life private. And if they did stumble across my blog accidentally, at least it's impersonal enough I think for someone to not know it's me.

In other more happy news, the Oakland A's have beat their first round curse and have made it to the American League Championship Series. Go A's!

And the 49ers beat the Raiders in today's Battle of the Bay. Go Niners!

So North Korea had a nuclear test tonight, and a news commentator remarked "our world has changed overnight." Do you think it's true? Is this another 9/11?

My prediction about the automakers unloading their retirees to Medicare is sadly coming true.

From Kaiser's Daily Health Policy Report:
Ford Motor, as part of an effort to reduce costs, will offer 75,000 hourly workers buyout packages, some of which will include the loss of health and pension benefits, the Washington Post reports. According to United Auto Workers summary, Ford will offer eight early retirement and buyout packages to workers that range from $35,000 to $140,000, based on seniority and age. Workers have from Oct. 16 through Nov. 27 to consider the buyout packages, and those who accept the highest buyout packages will lose health and pension benefits. Ford also will offer as much as $15,000 annually in tuition assistance for workers who decide to attend two- or four-year college programs. Workers who accept the assistance will retain health and other benefits during their time in the college programs. Ford declined to comment on details of buyout packages. According to the Post, Ford and other U.S. automakers, "reeling from global competition and high gasoline prices, have initiated massive programs to slash costs." Last year, Ford entered an agreement with UAW that for the first time will require union retirees to pay monthly premiums and annual deductibles for health benefits (Freeman, Washington Post, 9/15).

Yes, I am still around but work has been crazy these last few weeks and I've been tired to write anything in my blog. I've been however busily taking notes on my next novel, and I think I am almost ready to start writing it.

This will be Book 1 of my elfgirl series, which I've renamed to "The Elf Chronicles". Oh well, no elf girl because my new writing partner said I was alienating boys from reading the story.

The title of Book 1 will be "The Price of the Future". I've got so many notes, and I think I have the plot almost all fleshed out.

I write with my new writing partner every Wednesday. We eat, and then go to her place and seriously write for an hour. We've been doing it all September, although now we're thinking of changing the day to maybe Tuesday and adding another day.

On the weekends, I've been going to the coffee house to write or type up my notes. And now this week I've gone back to working out.

What else? Oh yeah, I am job hunting again. I applied to six jobs last Tuesday, and have gotten two call backs this week. I had one phone screening interview today only to find out the job doesn't pay what I make. Oh well.

I had another screening interview right afterwards, and again found out they don't pay what I make but the woman said she was going to try and see what she could do. I'm not hopeful because it's a small place, but I told them I'd like to interview anyway. I need to start practicing my interviewing skills.

This job that I may interview at is going to administer the health plan that Mayor Gavin Newsom is proposing for residents of San Francisco. It's an exciting opportunity I think, and I would take a lateral to work for this place. I am still a firm believer in socialized medicine and would love to work for a company that is involved in bringing it to San Francisco residents.

OH NO! My liberal streak is showing! Yikes ....

Watching Monday Night Football made me wish I could date a pro football player. I dated a semi-professional soccer player from England and one from Texas who played semi-professional soccer in Italy. I dated a guy who played football for Santa Clara State and M-Square played football for the University of Hawaii. Cute guy from screenwriting class whom I had a huge crush on, played college football for University of Pennsylvania.

Now Chris Berman is on, and I really like him. When Red-Haired guy had a tryst in LA, it was so awkward I made him put on ESPN and we were doing it and listening to Chris. I figured that if the sex got kind of boring for either of us, we could at least catch up on sports scores. I love multitasking, don't you?

It's the 5th anniversary of 9/11 and I'm at home surfing the net and watching Monday Night Football on ESPN and not on ABC. I can't even remember how I spent my 9/11 five years ago. It's all a blur. I was probably watching TV all night long and listening to pundit after pundit trying to explain what happened.

The Oakland Raiders are getting their butts kicked by the San Diego Chargers. The 49ers got their bums kicked yesterday in Arizona. It doesn't look like it's going to be a good football season in the San Francisco Bay Area. I know I am being pessimistic because it's only the first game sof the season, but it would have been nice for both teams to win their first games.

Not sure if I like Monday Night Football on ESPN. I was watching the Redskins/Viking games and I was annoyed by the announcers. I recognized the voice and I was wondering if it was Joe Theisman. I can't stand his voice. It's so weird because I heard Joe speak at a company meeting. The guy sells himself as an inspirational speaker. I don't think so.

I think the only reason they had him speak was because the execs at that company were all football crazy. Fantasy football was a big deal among the executive leadership and they took it very seriously. The Booard Room with the $250K silk rug was used for the draft meeting and I heard it was a very serious event.

All the execs always played in the March Madness pool as well, but it was as serious as Fantasy Football.

Oh well. At least football fans must be happy because it's a double header. And one good thing about not havingn MNF on ABC is I don't have to watch promos for TV shows. It's been mostly Superbowl type commercials. This works for me. I hate watching TV show promos during a game. They are so annoying!

The guys that dress up in the Oakland Raiders Black Hole crack me up. When I attended the Jim Rome's The Jungle Oakland tour stop a few years ago, those guys were there all made up and in full custume. They really made me laugh. You gotta love a crowd that boos the warm up band. How funny is that. I tried to fit in and wore a push-up bra and tight t-shirt. I knew if I looked semi-decent, the guys would leave me alone. Plus, I dragged a good guy friend with me and Charlie was good looking enough to scare guys. We ended up talking to other couples there who all assumed Charlie was the Jim Rome fan and not me, which ended up being kind of awkward. But Charlie was a good BS'er so he could hang and not look too dumb. I had no idea he liked sports so much. That was a side of him I wasn't aware of until that day.

I'm back on a writing roll. I wrote on Monday, and then for a little bit tonight. And tomorrow, my friend S and I are going to write together.

I'm a bit bored editing my finished novel, so I'm now plotting out Book 1 of my elf girl chronicles. I sketched out a couple of new characters and now I am beginning to write the plot for book 1. Even though the chronicles will be in 7 books, I'd like each book to be distinct and be able to stand on its own.

I believe Tennessee Williams wrote his novels this way. He wanted every chapter to stand on their own like a short story, and thinking this way made it easier for him to write.

Book 1 will set up the conflict that drives the whole series, and so many things have to be introduced including the characters. An acting director I know does this. He has all his actors in his play appear in the first scene to 1) make the actors feel comfortable on stage right away and 2) introduce by sight all the people in the play to the audience. Book 1 will have to introduce, even if it's just for a page or two, all of the major characters in the story. Even the evil characters will need to be introduced.

Wow, this is getting so complicated. I have to write out so many notes, and keep track of so many things. But I think it will be fun because it will be like a detective puzzle trying to figure out what comes next. It' s a good thing I"m a pretty darn good detective on some level, and enjoy figuring out how things works, because it's going to tough to figure this all out.

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Mark McClellan, who is currently the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), may be resigning on Tuesday. I heard him speak at the conference I attended in Chicago last month. Mr. McClellan was articulate and interesting, and he definitely knew his stuff. I was very impressed with his Q&A style. He was relaxed and not easily fazed by the barrage of questions sent his way.

I'm always telling my boss that CMS or Medicare is a trendsetter for health care. In the next 10-20 years, I think the stats are 50% of the country will be on Medicare because of the baby boom retirees. That's a lot of people on the government plan. The sheer volume of people expected to be on Medicare make the current levels of payment unsustainable for the U.S. economy. The US cannot fight a war and have that many people receiving social security benefits and health insurance.

I would expect for Medicare to start some serious cost containment programs soon. CMS already has a few in place, but they will need to have them at all levels to try and control costs. Some exec at one of the plans, can't remember which, predicted that the pool of businesses that offer health insurance will start to seriously shrink and more and more people will have to turn to the government for health care.

Walmart started the trend by not offering health care, and other companies will soon follow. I have been predicting for some time that when, not if, the big three automakers (GM, Ford and Chrsyler) declare bankruptcy, the first thing to go will be the retiree health insurance. In fact, I can see the execs of each corporation recommending bankrupty as a way to unload retiree costs, since it looks better to dump them in bankruptcy than when the company is still solvent.

A bankruptcy would give them the cover they need to unload the retirees, get concessions from the unions, and restructure the company. And those poor retirees will have to turn to Medicare for their health care, and Medicare won't be able to handle it. The gloom and doom health exec then said that Medicare will contract with the individual health plans to take of the sudden influx of retirees into the government system.

This will be a recipe for disaster because right now the easier and in the short term cheapest way to reduce health care costs is to have everyone on medication. Preventative care requires too much manpower, and the CMS payment system does little too reward preventative care although they are trying to reverse this trend. In the long run however, I think that people on medication will cost the government more because who knows what the side effects will be for people on continual medication. I can only relay what what people have been predicting for the last 10 years, which is that 3 out of every 5 americans will be suffering from some debilitating disease and that there will more people requiring care than people paying into the system to pay for the care and people healthy enough to take care of the sick.

I had an idea to throw out some old furninture I had by posting for dirt cheap prices on Craig's list, but being the tech idiot I am, I didn't even think about posting pics of my stuff. Someone just emailed me asking for pictures. How dumb, huh?

I was going to have The Salvation Army come and pick it up, but they only take certain items, none of which I seem to have. If I can't get anyone to buy it, I will do the typical San Francisco thing and just leave it out on my sidewalk and pray that someone takes it. Someone always does. I just didn't want to haul the stuff out there. Or maybe even post it as Free on Craig's list and hope someone wants it. And then as a last resort, call 1-800-JUNK and pay to have them get rid of it for me.

Ahhh ... the joys of living in a modern disposable culture where everyone is giving stuff or selling it 24/7.