From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V10 #122 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, April 13 2001 Volume 10 : Number 122 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: p.s. we're making a record ["JH3" ] Re: feg-casting-call [Capuchin ] Re: for those of us without [Capuchin ] Re: for those of us without [Viv Lyon ] soft boys videos [Bayard ] [none] [Stephen Mahoney ] Re: feg-casting-call ["Renee Haggart" ] "pulse of my heart"? what is that, sting? ["Andrew D. Simchik" ] Re: "pulse of my heart"? what is that, sting? [Aaron Mandel ] RE: feg-casting-call ["Brian Huddell" ] Re: in the midst of life we are in death etcetera [Christopher Gross ] sb 4-7-01 for trade or b&p ["oleg grinshpan" ] Waterloo Sunset [Jill Brand ] RE: Soft Boys/Hollywood [Marc ] Dave Sim [Terrence Marks ] [none] ["Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" ] RE: p.s. we're making a record ["Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat] It's no Hitler Pez Dispenser, but ... [Jeff Dwarf ] Brave New Feg [GSS ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 17:22:53 -0500 From: "JH3" Subject: Re: p.s. we're making a record >>Well, the sad emerging reality seems to be that there's >>more demand for a "Soft Boys" album than a "Robyn >>Hitchcock" one. >Wait. why "sad"? Yeah! I don't see that as sad, or even surprising. Lots of us (well, me and Dave Blatzman, at least) think Robyn works a lot better with a band than he does by himself. The material tends to "rock out" more, for one thing. Some of his efforts to do "rock" numbers on the more recent non- Egyptians solo albums (esp. Moss Elixir) have seemed a little forced to me. Don't ask me for specifics... Also, vocals are usually more interesting (IMO) when there's more than one person coming up with harmonies and such. If it's just one person, it tends to get somewhat predictable. Compare something like "When I Was Dead" or "Veins of the Queen" with something like "Jewels for Sophia" - the latter is just fine technically, but all it is, really, is a 5th on top of the obvious refrain. He probably wouldn't do anything more anyway, because he wants to be able to reproduce it faithfully when playing it all by himself. Besides, as far as I'm concerned, anything that prevents Robyn from becoming a "mature, serious artist" is a thing that should be highly encouraged! >>...Private Fegpoll (email me your answers): To pronounce >>the word for a slip of paper which gives one a discount >>price, do you say "COO-pon" or "KYOO-pon"? I usually say "SOO-ih-side NOTE." Presumably most hit-men will give you a discount if the intended victim has already offed his- or herself before the hit-man actually shows up. (One of my high-priced lawyers told me that.) John "still workin' on that novel" Hedges ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 15:37:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: feg-casting-call On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Renee Haggart wrote: > I promise to ace any kind of audition you can come up with. Why... that's a fine idea... an audition. Right this way to the ...um... audition room. We have several ...screen tests. Have a seat right here on the sofa. Would you like a drink? Catching hell when he gets home... J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 15:39:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: for those of us without On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, scary mary wrote: > http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/playground/theremin1.shtml You know, when I got back from San Francisco, I got this nice bonus check... and I was dead set on using it to buy a Theremin (a Big Briar EtherWave, to be exact). After watching the Minus Five in Seattle, I could think of little else. But I bought unbelievabley expensive shoes instead. And I took my darling out for a wonderful anniversary dinner (two years). Gads, I'm a sucker. Sucking, J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 15:58:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Viv Lyon Subject: Re: for those of us without On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Capuchin wrote: > On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, scary mary wrote: > > http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/playground/theremin1.shtml > > You know, when I got back from San Francisco, I got this nice bonus > check... and I was dead set on using it to buy a Theremin (a Big Briar > EtherWave, to be exact). After watching the Minus Five in Seattle, I > could think of little else. > > But I bought unbelievabley expensive shoes instead. > > And I took my darling out for a wonderful anniversary dinner (two years). > > Gads, I'm a sucker. NO, no, no...it is I who am sucking. Sucking the very brains from your head, preventing you from accomplishing your works of genius as you spill your creative energies into my black void. Feels good, don't it? Vivien ps- yes, that Dave Sim has got a hold on me. I find him _fascinating_. pps- you should go to: http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/sim.htm It cracked me up. I am now reading this guy's essay on why Lord of the Rings isn't so great. I was all set to get steamed, but when he said Ursula LeGuin is a better writer than Tolkien, I was strangely mollified. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 18:51:48 -0400 (EDT) From: Bayard Subject: soft boys videos Two more, better ones added. (pervert/stones) see URL below. comments welcomed. On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Bayard wrote: > Streaming soft boys videos by Ed Poole: > (if they look cruddy upgrade your player or blame me or real.com) > > http://glasshotel.net/gh/theatre.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 15:54:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Stephen Mahoney Subject: [none] I think that Hitchcock hits or misses with a group setting as well as on his own, I thought moss elixir wasnt his strongest album but then not all of the soft boys catalogue clicks for me and certainly not all of the egyptian material.................. I often dream of trains and eye are his best solo underwater moonlight his best soft boys fegmania and I gotta let this hen out! his best egytians of course this has all been: IMHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! any waits fans out there? Quote by Vonnegut: Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the universe. Anagram of quote: A masquerade can cover a sense of what is real to deceive us; to be unjaded and not lost, we must, then, determine truth. Stephen Mahoney Multnomah County Library at Rockwood branch clerk stephenm@nethost.multnomah.lib.or.us 503-988-5396 fax 503-988-5178 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 16:11:09 -0700 From: "Renee Haggart" Subject: Re: feg-casting-call >Have a seat right here on the sofa. > >Would you like a drink? > can my feg sister audition at the same time? would that be ok? - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 16:27:48 -0700 From: "Andrew D. Simchik" Subject: "pulse of my heart"? what is that, sting? >From: Aaron Mandel [Dave Sim insanity] >(The Comics Journal, www.tcj.com, has reprinted the whole thing so you can >read it without giving him any money.) Um...where is it, again? >From: "victorian squid" > >You need to rent "the Governess". It's actually somewhat cheesy in that >"art house softcore" sort of way, but there is at least one seriously nude >nude scene you might be interested in. Yes, I think I do need to rent it. > >someone named Jonathan Rhys Davies, I don't know who he is. > >My bad. Sorry about that. I just get overprotective of my talentless pretty boys. :) >From: "victorian squid" > >Yeah, but think ... if you fantasized bout being with him, it would be an > >automatic 3som. > >Hear that Drew? 2 for the price of one! :) Actually I've never been all that attracted to Bowie or Robyn. It's weird that I'm into Rhys Meyer, because I don't dig tall skinny boys as a general rule (he said, breaking the hearts of so many fegs!). Must be those lips. >From: "Poole, R. Edward" > >OK. This is overstating it a *bit*, but the fact remains, that much of RH's >best "tunes," not lyrics, derive from the 1977-81 time period. This isn't a fact, as I'm sure you know. I love the Soft Boys songs, but primarily I love the arrangements, not the tunes especially. Perhaps that's what you mean when you say you miss hearing Robyn rock. I was surprised at the Fillmore show when I found it very hard to hear Kimberley's contribution to the whole affair. Did they screw up his sound, beyond just the monitor mixup described in the tour diary? Through several numbers where I expected to hear his guitar just blazing up, I could hardly detect him and I saw him kind of scowling and playing pensively. What gave? >(with the possible >exception of the, IMNSHO, wimpy "Pulse of your heart.") I kinda like that one. Frankly, I don't care if it's a Soft Boys record or a Robyn record. They're both Robyn, really. But frankly, I thought several JfS songs sounded more like the Soft Boys and rocked harder than the new Soft Boys tunes do. Drew - -- Andrew D. Simchik, drew at stormgreen dot com http://www.stormgreen.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 16:37:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: feg-casting-call On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Renee Haggart wrote: > can my feg sister audition at the same time? would that be ok? Why... that's highly irregular. If you insist on it, then, perhaps we can work out a special arrangement. But understand that this is HIGHLY irregular and it will have to be VERY SPECIAL in order to receive equal consideration with the other auditions. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 19:52:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: "pulse of my heart"? what is that, sting? On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Andrew D. Simchik wrote: > >From: Aaron Mandel > > >(The Comics Journal, www.tcj.com, has reprinted the whole thing so you can > >read it without giving him any money.) > > Um...where is it, again? I swear, there was a big link to it on the front page this afternoon. It's at http://www.tcj.com/232/tangent0.html aaron ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 17:02:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Eclipse Subject: in the midst of life we are in death etcetera hey gang, just wanted to say thank you all for the unexpected outpouring of well-wishes i have received in response to my rant. you guys are the kindest buncha people i've ever met in an online forum like this, and your words mean a lot to me. it's nice knowing that someone out there cares/sympathizes, even if you've never met them. sometimes you just get the shit end of the karma stick. or, as The Stranger said to The Dude: "sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you" i'm still basking in the glory of last week's SF show, and especially of being mentioned in the SF tour diary (yes, i'm Barbara). that's about the coolest thing that's ever happened to me (shows you how exciting a life i lead ..!). i, for one, can't wait for a new SB album, but i would buy it whether it was SB or RH solo - any new material from them is worth picking up. not "sad" to me at all! next up: cEvin Key and Philth (Phil Western), aka Download, DJ'ing tomorrow night at the Cat Club on Folsom. gotta keep busy.. and, fwiw, JfS has some good songs, but i personally was really captivated by Moss Elixir when i first heard it - i randomly picked it up in a small record shop in a small town in WV, thinking i hadn't heard any new RH in ages. i was sucked in again thanks to that record! to this day it remains one of my favorites. the largo set sounds f***ing amazing. what does one have to do to get a copy of this - or any other shows - if one is not familiar with the ways of tape trees and doesn't have much to offer in return? loave and fishes for all the kindly fegs! gently, Eclipse (who might could be played by janeane garofalo in a curly wig in 'Fegmaniax 2: Electric Boogaloo') there is no sentence like the past and i always see from my point of view you just never listen and talk to me even if i smell, you wouldn't say - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Eclipse | eclipse@best.com If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 19:03:37 -0500 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: RE: feg-casting-call Jeme: > Have a seat right here on the sofa. > > Would you like a drink? > > > Catching hell when he gets home... Indeed. Apparently Viv's black void isn't, um, sucking hard enough. You know, you people are hell on us 10-years-married types! +brian ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 20:20:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: in the midst of life we are in death etcetera On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Eclipse wrote: > i'm still basking in the glory of last week's SF show, and especially of > being mentioned in the SF tour diary (yes, i'm Barbara). [snip] > next up: cEvin Key and Philth (Phil > Western), aka Download, DJ'ing tomorrow night at the Cat Club on Folsom. > gotta keep busy.. Wow, the Soft Boys followed by Download! Now that's a combo I could support. If only they would tour together.... - --Chris np: Skinny Puppy, "Testure" (12" mix) ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 17:57:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Stephen Mahoney Subject: [none] since you have mentioned comics artEEsts, I must bring up someone who seems to fit in with the surreal antics of the robyns soft egyptians. www.jimwoodring.com so- no waits fans? howabout ken nordine??? Quote by Vonnegut: Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the universe. Anagram of quote: A masquerade can cover a sense of what is real to deceive us; to be unjaded and not lost, we must, then, exhume ruth. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 19:13:22 -0700 From: "oleg grinshpan" Subject: sb 4-7-01 for trade or b&p Hi there. I attended the 4-7 fillmore show & somehow walked away with this recording...not audiophile grade (at822>md>mono)...but complete & very fun....anyway, it's 2 discs (tom waits @ bridge school benefit same equip but stereo as filler)...i would like to offer it in trade for your (whoever) favorite rh show ( i only have "a soft boy no more", doubt that's anyone's favorite).....if you have nothing in trade I will B&P or contribute it to some tree structure...pardon me if this has been covered. thanks, oleg. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 14:25:53 -0700 From: Joshua Pickering Subject: being for the benefit of non-LA (and LA) fegs Hello everyone. I am a first time caller, long time listener to the fegmaniax list. I moved to LA recently from Boston and knew it would be great for many reasons. When I heard that the Soft Boys would be playing on KCRW (arguably the greatest NPR station in the whole network), I knew it was destiny. Anyway, at the risk of raising the ire of the extremely cool (and hopefully level-headed) people at KCRW, I recorded the Soft Boys performance on 4/9/01 directly on to my computer through a high quality sound card. The result? REALLY excellent sounding mp3s than can be downloaded here: ftp://beatplasma.net/pub/softboys These were encoded as 70% VBR mp3 files for optimum sound. Burn them to a CD in order in Disc at Once mode and you'll hear it exactly it went over the air! I hope my donation earlier this year to KCRW will help me out here... Enjoy, everyone. JP ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 12:38:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Stephen Mahoney Subject: Re: New "online" "content" two blocks??? which direction I'm at 7th and thompson. On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Viv Lyon wrote: > On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Stephen Mahoney wrote: > > > written on the wall of an abandoned security building next to where I live > > is "police chief kroeker f*^ked my children" > > ..........harsh! > > Dude! Where do you live? Are you talking about the ADT building? We live, > like, two blocks from there! > > Vivien > Quote by Vonnegut: Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the universe. Anagram of quote: A masquerade can cover a sense of what is real to deceive us; to be unjaded and not lost, we must, then, determine truth. Stephen Mahoney Multnomah County Library at Rockwood branch clerk stephenm@nethost.multnomah.lib.or.us 503-988-5396 fax 503-988-5178 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 19:51:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Jill Brand Subject: Waterloo Sunset Uh...how did I miss reading the fact that Robyn did Waterloo Sunset at Largo? It was only after reading Kay's post that I spotted it. Jill, ripping her guts out at the thought - ----- End forwarded message ----- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 01:31:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Marc Subject: RE: Soft Boys/Hollywood From: Eb >I believe Marc H. was still there, getting his usual shopping >bag of records signed, so he can supply the waning, late-night >details. Shopping bag? More like a duffle bag to hold all that stuff (har har)... Really, not even close--I just had two album covers and a 45 sleeve to get signed by Matthew and Morris (and one for Kimberley). Robyn and Kimberley had already signed previously, on another tour. I only wound up following through on 2 pieces--a Canadian "Underwater Moonlight" sleeve and the "Only the Stones Remain" sleeve. All four signed them and they look GREAT!--especially the "Only the Stones" sleeve. I usually don't bring much if any stuff to shows anymore, and usually limit it to a couple two or three cool pieces when I do bring something. I like to have something special to put up on the wall or tuck away in the collection, in addition to the memories of the show(s), especially if I'm driving 5+ hours each way to make it to a show. I wouldn't have even bothered responding to Eb's joke except for the fact that there IS a guy who shows up at the LA area shows with bags of stuff. He has shown up with 50+ items at a time to get signed and tends to just keep at it until he exasperates people. Robyn has become really annoyed with him in the past. I don't want to have people confuse me with this guy and thought I'd take a second to set that straight. Thanks, Marc--a bit odd, but not too scary, honestly!!! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 02:32:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Terrence Marks Subject: Dave Sim You know, I figured that people were just exaggerating when they were talking about Dave Sim and women. I hadn't read his works. I figured that maybe, just maybe, some elements of his work were blown out of proportion (a la Miss Buxley), and he just dealt with it poorly. I had heard good things about Cerebus and had planned on reading at least the early volumes some day. I don't think I can get past all this. I never knew a man who could be so wrong about so many things on so many different levels. He's got bad history, bad theology, bad statistics, bad psychology....he's just so _wrong_. It frightens me. Bitter tax-is-slavery minarchists who laugh when a government worker's child dies, they don't frighten me. The guy who wants to bring back the worst aspects of serfdom, he doesn't frighten me. I find Dave Sim alarming, confusing and, yes, scary. PS. Ernest Hemingway and his cat? Sim isn't serious, is he? Terrence Marks Unlike Minerva (a comic strip) http://www.unlikeminerva.com The Nice (an organization for comic strips) http://nice.purrsia.com normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 00:02:13 -0700 From: "Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" Subject: [none] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 01:48:07 -0600 From: HAL Subject: Re: Dave Sim (or Ernie was a cat fucker) Terrence Marks wrote: > I > find Dave Sim alarming, confusing and, yes, scary. Based on the one essay you read, I can sympathize. > > PS. Ernest Hemingway and his cat? Sim isn't serious, is he? See the annotations in the back of latest volume of CEREBUS ("Form and Void" - out in May) for the weird world of "Papa" and Mary Hemingway (aka "Ham Earnestway" in the storyline itself) as seen through the scholarly spin of Sim. It's yet another reason people "differ" with Dave (the contrary bastard!) It's also highly entertaining stuff. Serious? It seems that he is. To appreciate (or form an opinion of) all of this, though, you should read the entirety of Cerebus. What's it about? About 6000 pages. Plus essays. /hal ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 01:13:23 -0700 From: "Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" Subject: RE: p.s. we're making a record At 5:59 PM -0400 4/12/01, Poole, R. Edward wrote: (pop quiz: >what's the best song on "Jewels"? Times up: Nasa Clapping. Honorable >mention for Gene Hackman, but that doesn't fit my point). BZZZZZT! Challenge! Antwoman, baby, Antwoman by a nose. (Ok, lyrically it's not the best song, but it's just so HEAVY. And I may be biased by first having heard the bitchin' live version he did on the GLH tour.) I must confess I've also grown very affectionate of the understated "Mexican God". Further, I like >But, I still love rock 'n' >roll. A new Soft Boys record promises more rock n roll (with the possible >exception of the, IMNSHO, wimpy "Pulse of your heart.") Point taken, but, what about "Adoration of the City" from Star for Bram? Or even "The Underneath" (in its own strange way.) Opinions 'R' us, Michael Kupietz Anagram of name: Ham lice puke zit ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 02:45:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: It's no Hitler Pez Dispenser, but ... http://www.theonion.com/onion3713/easter_cards.html ===== - ---evidence of how sick the world is, stolen from Harper's. 300,000: Number of Africans infected each year by "sleeping sickness," a fatal mosquito-borne illness. 1,000: Doses of eflomithine, a proven cure for the disease, that were available worldwide in February (2001). 60,000: does that will be available by June, after the discovery that the drug also eliminates facial hair. Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 07:31:25 -0500 (CDT) From: GSS Subject: Brave New Feg ================================================== Bush ignores comments and quietly imposes rule; privacy advocates pin hopes on House resolution Dear Friends: We have bad news and good news to report regarding our e-mail campaign for medical privacy. First the bad news: In a surprise move, President Bush has quietly decided that the HHS regulations will start going into effect on Saturday, April 14. According to an article in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, Bush has quietly decided "against any further delays in implementing" the Clinton-era rules. You may have noticed that the Bush ruling, which the Journal said "stunned industry lobbyists," got very little publicity. That's the way Bush wanted it, because he and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson know that the public is becoming alarmed at the government's attempt to seize control over medical records and turn them over to "third parties." Bush's maneuver comes despite the fact that: * On Monday, Thompson admitted that he had been inundated with over 24,000 letters commenting on the rules and needed more time "to assimilate the written documents." Thompson claimed he wanted a 60-day delay to allow time to change the rules before imposing them. Oddly, Thompson made no mention of the Bush decision, which was also made on Monday, according to the Journal. * The regulations were originally written by the Clinton administration under the guidance of then-HHS Secretary Donna Shalala. * Industry groups had warned that the new regulations could cost the health-care system up to $18 billion over 10 years. * Most important, more than 60,000 people have flooded the federal government with comments over the past 30 days. As of Thursday at 4:15pm, 43,975 people had signed the pro-privacy petition to Congress located at http://www.DefendYourPrivacy.com. Combined with the 24,000 comments mailed to the HHS, that means that the opinions of over 67,000 Americans have now been brushed aside by the Bush administration. (A White House spokesman that Thompson will "work to modify the rules" over the next few months, but doing so will be much harder once the rules are put in place.) But the most dangerous aspect of this regulation -- and the one most overlooked in news reports -- is that for the first time the government, rather than patients and doctors, would be in complete control of private medical records. That's because the regulation requires doctors and hospitals to share all electronic medical records with the government for a variety of vague purposes, such as to "streamline medical billing procedures" or for "public health surveillance." Then the government, rather than individual patients, will decide who gets to see them. Not surprisingly, the government promises to keep your medical records confidential. But keep in mind that this is the same government that once promised to keep your Social Security number confidential. The same government whose IRS employees illegally rifle through Americans' tax returns. The same government whose FBI agents illegally turned over 4,000 confidential personnel files to the White House. Sadly, the only way to truly protect your medical records is to make sure the government doesn't have them. And that's why Bush's sudden decision is so disappointing. Now here's the good news: There is still one way these rules can still be stopped, whether Bush and Thompson like it or not. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas has introduced a resolution, HJR 38, which declares that the rules "shall have no force or effect." Under federal law, this resolution would make the HHS regulation null and void -- but only if it passes the House and Senate within 60 legislative days. In other words, if we can generate enough Congressional support for HJR 38 by about June 15, Bush's directive would become irrelevant. And there's good reason for optimism: According to reports by Reuters news service and The Washington Post, Thompson has come under heavy pressure from "industry groups and lawmakers" who are worried about the regulations. Translation: Our e-mail campaign has grabbed the attention of Congress, which in turn grabbed the attention of Thompson. At this point, House representatives have been inundated with an average of 101 e-mails each from http://www.DefendYourPrivacy.com -- and that's far too many to ignore. No wonder Americans are worried. This regulation, which was published in the Federal Register on December 28, 2000, would: * Give dozens of government agencies and thousands of bureaucrats access to your medical records -- including the private notes of a psychotherapist -- without your consent. * Assign every American a "unique patient identifier," whether you want one or not, by working in conjunction with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The number would be similar to a Social Security number for medical transactions -- and would make accessing an individual's medical records as easy as running a credit check. * Permit police agencies to access medical records without a search warrant. * Let government agencies share your records with marketing companies. The rules specifically allow pharmacies to share prescription records "for the purpose of marketing health- related products and services" without your consent. * Allow private insurance companies to compile the medical information into a database. * Prevent patients involved in health research projects from accessing their own medical records in some cases. Now that the Bush administration has issued its anti- privacy decree, it's time to concentrate our efforts on HJR 38. If we can hit Congress with another big wave of e-mail over the next 60 days, we might be able to force the government to pull the plug on the regulation permanently. Our strategy is to let politicians know that they will be held accountable on Election Day if they refuse to dismantle this regulation. Sadly, unelected bureaucrats like Tommy Thompson may not care what you think; after all, you can't fire them. But you can fire your Congressional representative -- so they *have to care* what you think. Now it's time to let your House representative know, loud and clear, that you're opposed to any attempt to turn your private medical records over to the government and third parties -- and that you want the HHS medical privacy rule killed. Please visit http://www.DefendYourPrivacy.com immediately. With the click of a button, you can ask your Congressional representative to support Joint House Resolution 38, which would pull the plug on this regulation once and for all. Then circulate this e-mail to your friends and refer them to the site. Thank you again for your support of http://www.DefendYourPrivacy.com ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V10 #122 ********************************