The Silence of Our Friends

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Interview Meme

I resisted this one for a few days, but then gave in to Eli at Mult-Medium. Just a warning, if you ask me to interview you I will ask totally embarrassing questions! Or really hard ones like having to do with sines and cosines, ok, maybe not since I don't remember much about them from high school or college. But I'll be difficult and mean!

Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better. If I already know you well, expect the questions may be a little more intimate!
You WILL update your journal/bloggy thing/whatever with the answers to the questions.
You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

These are the questions Eli asked:

1) What was the first blog you ever read?

I'm not sure. It was either Hullabaloo or SmirkingChimp. Does SmirkingChimp count as a blog or message board? I used to post there all the time but they turned into a version of Kos, group think, be moderate, no "conspiracy theories" which means no questioning the status quo, and always support the Democratic candidate even if he or she is DLC Republican lite. I didn't post much at Hullabaloo, but read all the time and used the blogroll to find other liberal/progressive blogs. Blogrolls are more important than Atrios gives them credit for.

2) Who would be your dream president (living, dead, fictional even), and why?

Dr Martin Luther King Jr. He understood the value of all people. The world would be a much safer place because I think King would have believed in diplomacy and cooperation instead of might makes right. I think he would have socialized America so that no one would go hungry or homeless or without health care. He's such a wonderfully persuasive speaker and with so much conviction, I think the more people got to hear, the less able they would be to make the argument that people of color are less intelligent or have less capability than whites. He wasn't perfect but he had great leadership qualities and would have made an excellent president.

3) What is your favorite book and author, and why?

I rarely read any book more than once. I do like anything by Jane Austen and have read several of hers many times, but as you know I also confuse them with one another. I also like mystery writers. Ruth Rendell writes the most bizarre twisted plots that are impossible to figure out before the end. The same goes for Francis Fyfield. One book though? I can't choose!

4) Who inspires you the most, and why?

At the moment, many POC bloggers who can hold their anger. Nezua, BFP, and Kai top the list. I also love BlackAmazon even if she can't help but get angry like me. Each is passionate, learned, but also knows the most effective ways to express themselves so that many people not just POC will listen. I think I go with my feelings instead of my head more often than not. It's cathartic in the short run but I think it will wind up turning people off in the long run. There is only so much of watching and listening someone else's rage that people can take.

5) What is your favorite breed of cat and/or dog, and why?

My gray tabby! I don't like dogs, but only because they are high maintenance. I like other people's dogs. As weird as it sounds, my cat's contrariness amuses me. When I want her around to cuddle she disappears, but if I am busy suddenly she is all over me needing love. I also like sneaking up on my kids and sticking her icy cold nose on the back of their necks.

posted by Donna at 11:51 PM |

17 comment(s):

Ooo, MLK's a good choice.

I wonder, if he were around today (and youngish), do you think he could get elected? (That wasn't the intent of the question, I'm just musing) He's at least as charismatic as Obama, and certainly more inspirational and genuinely progressive .

The Republicans (and probably a lot of Democrats) would view him as an existential threat.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3/19/2007 2:18 AM  

I've done one of these, but I'm curious about what you'd ask. So interview me!

(If the answers are too embarrassing, I'll just delete my blog and start again. :-p)

By Blogger Sylvia, at 3/19/2007 2:29 AM  

No fair, Eli! You didn't mention that he would have to be Mr Electable! LOL

No, in this political atmosphere, he wouldn't have a chance. The animosity and hatred of the right is predictable. But the Democratic powerbrokers like insiders. I think Dean self-imploded, but he got lots of help from the DLCers because he couldn't be controlled by them. By the way, I couldn't stand Dean. I prefered Clark another outsider. I think both of them were stealth candidates. I think Dean was far more conservative than people believed, his VT record shows that. I also think that Clark is more liberal than people credit him with.

Sylvia, I'll have to sleep on it, but...MUAAAAHAHAHAHA!

By Blogger Donna, at 3/19/2007 2:42 AM  

By the way, I couldn't stand Dean. I prefered Clark another outsider. I think both of them were stealth candidates. I think Dean was far more conservative than people believed, his VT record shows that.

I felt much the same way about Dean as a candidate, plus he was alarmingly gaffe-prone.

But I like him very much as DNC chair, because he seems to have a much better understanding of what the Democrats need to do to build and sustain a majority, and he certainly understands that the media is the enemy, and how to deal with them accordingly.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3/19/2007 8:43 AM  

Alright Sylvia, here are your questions.

1) You have a recent post on Pride and Prejudice and annotations. Do you think the word condescending means the same now as it did then, but that our view of classes has changed, or that there is a substantial difference in meaning between then and now?

2) Let's say a very good friend is excited to have you try a delicacy from his homeland that grosses you out. You know you absolutely can not get it anywhere near your lips. Can you give us a creative way of turning it down? Remember this is a good friend who you don't want to hurt, no gagging sounds.

3) Your genie grants you only one wish, the creep! What is that wish?

4) Where have you travelled outside the US or where would you like to go?

5) How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Say it three times fast, then answer.

By Blogger Donna, at 3/19/2007 10:17 AM  

I wondered about the gaffes too, Eli. I don't really like it when politicians are so careful that they don't say what they mean, but that isn't always what Dean did. He would just not think at all before speaking. I like that Dean recognizes that the red states aren't completely red and that those blue voters need to be motivated to vote too. I'm all for the 50 state strategy.

By Blogger Donna, at 3/19/2007 10:24 AM  

*blushes*

Can Ih ave a donna interview!

By Blogger Blackamazon, at 3/19/2007 10:34 AM  

Alright, for BlackAmazon:

1. You see a cute kid with a lemonade stand and decide to buy a cup for a quarter. After you drink it, he laughs wildly and tells you he is really a mad scientist and that the lemonade was a formula that will transform you. You blow it off as an imaginative kid and go on your way, BUT the next morning you wake up and you are transformed. You are now a bland white woman, like Jodie Foster! (I love her, but she is monochromatic.) How do you explain this to your mother when she is whacking you and asking you what you have done with her daughter? (You thought I was going to ask you what you would do as a bland white woman, didn't you?)

2. What do you love best about yourself, physically? Explain why.

3 How about mentally or emotionally or both? Also explain why.

4. Do you think humans, all or some animals, and maybe even plants have souls? Or is it all a bunch of hooey?

5. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

By Blogger Donna, at 3/19/2007 2:57 PM  

2. What do you love best about yourself, physically? Explain why.

Um, is this before or after she turns into Jodie Foster?

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3/19/2007 10:43 PM  

ok, I want you to interview me. You're asking great questions. :-)

ps. you definitly don't give yourself enough credit--I always come over here to make sense of the world--I often times get so passionate I can't even think. You may be angry, but you're calm. It helps me to think whenever I read your stuff.
hee hee, I think if you were a killer, you would be christian bale in american psycho or whatever that movie was. very calm and methodical and precise. I would be jason. Maggots in my hair, no eyeballs--an alarming tendency to strike out and miss. haha.

By Blogger brownfemipower, at 3/20/2007 12:55 AM  

heh...interview me!

By Blogger Rootietoot, at 3/20/2007 10:14 AM  

My husband is home from New Hampshire for the first time in three weeks, so I don't intend to spend too much time online for the next couple days. I'll be driving him like a dog in the Iditarod...MUSH! MUSH!

So I'll have to give you the interviews on Thursday. But it gives me more time to think up brutal questions! LOL

By Blogger Donna, at 3/20/2007 3:04 PM  

oh, sign me up.

By Blogger antiprincess, at 3/20/2007 4:30 PM  

For BFP:

1. Everyone has a soft spot for a sappy white singer or group. At least one! Who is yours? Examples; Barry Manilow, The Carpenters, John Mayer.

2. What's the last movie you saw, can be either rental or at the cinema, and was it any good?

3. What about you annoys your family members the most?

4. If you won the lottery and could build your dream home, what would it be like?

5. Do you have any unusual or interesting nicknames or had any in the past; what are they and how did you get them?

By Blogger Donna, at 3/23/2007 6:02 PM  

Rootie,

1. Admit it, you had the hots for John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever! How long before you gave up looking for a sizzlin' Italian in a white suit with perfect hair and settled on Sweet Daddio? (No fair telling me I am projecting.)

2. Did you have a band or a DJ at your wedding, and did you pick a special song for you and SD to have your first dance as husband and wife?

3. Build the perfect bouquet, what flowers do you think look best together?

4. Have you ever witnessed something where you wished you had a video camera because you know you would have won the $10,000/$100,000 on Funniest Home Videos?

5. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

By Blogger Donna, at 3/23/2007 6:21 PM  

Antiprincess,

1. A friend wins a vacation to a tropical destination and can bring half a dozen friends, you are one of them! You get there and are unpacking your swimsuit and your friend says that it won't be necessary, it's a nude beach. Are you thrilled, no tan lines, or horrified and nervous?

2. Is there any theme to your home decor?

3. When was the last time you said something like, "Oops, well it seemed like a good idea at the time" and what was the "good idea"?

4. Do you have any irrational fears? Something you know you shouldn't really be afraid of or at least not to the extent that you are, for example spiders.

5. What's love got to do, got to do with it? What's love but a second hand emotion?

By Blogger Donna, at 3/23/2007 6:50 PM  

clearly this is the place to be interviewed. please do me.

no rush . . .

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3/24/2007 10:34 AM  

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