Culture
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Proof of the Apocolypse:
Noam Chomsky talking at West Point on CSPAN2. Never thought I would see that. Yet there it was on Monday night TV. (It was on Book TV, which won’t come up right now, so I can’t find out if there’s a link to the actual show or not. Like you’d want to watch it, I know. It was classic Chomsky, though, which is always interesting.) Proof I married well: When the cadet goes up and gives Chomsky a gift at the end of his talk, Ted says, “What if it’s the user manuel to his car?” HA!
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Time for the Ego
In a complete 180 from yesterday’s post, today I’m thinking of ways to improve myself, in very superficial ways. So, first, I want to stop eating like a wolf. I used to eat very slowly, chewing my food complelety before swallowing. If I didn’t chew all of the way, it would kind of make me sick. Then I had a child. And every time you want to eat, they need something. And she had colic, so we had to take turns eating while the other one held a screaming baby. After months of colic and years of a child needing you 24 hours a day, I turned into a wolfer.…
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What’s W doing at Mom 101’s Blog?
Looks like he took over for a few minutes and did a meme. Mom 101, I hope they didn’t ship you off to Gitmo while he worked on this! ‘Cause you know, it probably took him quite awhile!
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Yeah, that will work….
Well, Wisconsin is pretty and green, I’ve heard they have some mighty nice cheese, and you can probably find a condo there for under 500K, but this is crazy. For those of you (and you know who you are!) getting your news from this site, the governor of Wisconsin has decided that it should be LAW that sex ed teachers need to emphasize abstinence over all other forms of birth control. …teachers must emphasize that refraining from sex before marriage is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. A spokesman for the governor, a Democrat, said most Wisconsin school districts already take that approach. I wonder…
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What’s Wrong With These Glasses?
If you’re saying that there are no frames holding the lenses onto the face, you’re correct…almost. They are attached through the bridge of her nose…you pierce the bridge of your nose and put a tiny wire through and that holds them. I can’t imagine much more disgusting than that. If you want to read more about this horrid (wonderful?) idea, click here. (The part of me that remembers people complaining about the pain of glasses and earrings in 30 below weather wonders what a piercing right there would feel like, too…ugh.) I’ve thought about getting the surgery on my eyes, so I won’t need my contacts anymore…I get so tired…
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Much More Disturbing….
My mother-in-law and I went to see a movie this weekend, Water, that was the saddest movie I have ever seen. I came home wanting to see something cheerful and uplifting, like maybe, Romeo and Juliet. Madame Butterfly. You know, comedy. Water takes place in India in 1938, and is about the 2,000 year old custom of how widows are discarded after their husbands die. The main character is an 8 year old girl, Chuyia, who doesn’t even remember getting married. She is brought to an ashram and left there by her father. She is scared and confused, and convinced that her mother will be coming to get her soon.…
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Guyanese Proverbs…
After yesterday’s recipe, I started thinking about the culture of Guyana. I’ve never been there, and I cannot claim to be any sort of authority on it at all. BUT, I can say that there are some pretty interesting expressions/proverbs. My personal favorite, especially when Ted says it while doing his best Bill Clinton impression (Don’t forget the little gesture with your hand, like you’re putting your ATM card into the machine), is this one: “When mattie’s house afire, trow watah upon you’un” Literally translated: “When your neighbor’s house is on fire, throw water upon your own” I love that in Bill’s voice. I think Bill should go down to…
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What’s Wrong with America?
If we were to take a poll today, my 4 loyal readers, and ask people, “What is the greatest challenge facing the United States today?”, what do you think the answer would be? Would it be terrorism? The war in Iraq? The ignored war in Afghanistan? The ‘homosexual agenda’? Godlessness? Racism so deeply ingrained, we may never be free from its ugly grasp? Maybe infrastructure, or how Americans are working harder than ever and losing ground in so many areas? I’m gonna go out on a limb here, and say, Poverty. Poverty is the root of SO many problems in our country, that if we, the richest country in the…
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Violence Begins at Home…
I was walking the dog yesterday, listening to my beloved iPod, and this week’s (last week’s, really) This American Life is about crime, and the allure of it. There are several segments in each episode of TAL. The first was Julia Sweeney (Pat, from Saturday Night Live), talking about how she fleeced an old employer for 10K – 15K way back in her youth. Interesting. Perhaps even cute, because, you know, she’s Pat. Maybe we should all write about the crimes WE’VE committed, and that might be pretty interesting…make sure the statute of limitations is past, however. Anyway, the second segment was about a bank robber, Joe Loya, who enjoyed…
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The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All The…
I was mixing some ground lamb, turkey sausage, and turkey thigh meat into a mix with Parmesan cheese and herbs to make meatballs for Ted’s birthday party dinner (spaghetti and meatballs, of course), drinking a glass of wine, listening to some music, and my mind drifted to Mad Cow disease…and I started thinking about that…about how my mother-in-law doesn’t want any of us to eat beef anymore because of it, etc. Well, the safest answer to mad cow disease is of course to not eat beef, but that’s not so likely, since I kind of think of it as the same as trying to keep people from having sex (abstinence…
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Pyramid Friends…
Black Belt Mama‘s post about House Parties, got me to thinking. You know, the candle parties, makeup parties, fake purse parties, tupperware parties…whatever. I’m not a fan of the party where I have to buy something so my hostess can get a gift. I have friends who enjoy these parties, and hey, MORE POWER TO YOU, but I probably will find a good excuse to not be there if you hold one. Consider yourself warned. But it also got me thinking about some other experiences I’ve had. Has this ever happened to you? You’re walking along, enjoying the sunshine on your lunch break, getting a little bit of exercise, and…
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R.I.P.
Are you old enough, or young enough, to remember the thrill of the mixed tape? When you would pour over your collection of albums (vinyl, cassette, or CD, but vinyl were the best for actual mixing), think about what songs you would choose, what order they would go in, and put them on a tape. You could make different tapes for different moods…I had a tape specifically for breaking up, which was the mushiest crappola you would ever NOT want to hear, I’m telling you. Well, Ted and his brother have both paid their dues as Disc Jockeys, and BIL even had a pirate radio station out of his bedroom…
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My Shotgun…
OK, drinks were offered…well, one drink, but I’ll take it. So now I’ll tell you the tale of my shotgun. Go ahead, sit a spell. Now, I may be a card carrying liberal…I drink Chardonnay, give money to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, I believe in gay marriage and a decent living for migrant workers. I’m a secular christian, meaning I don’t really think there’s a god above, but I love Christmas and Easter and Hannukah and all of that (I know, Hannukah isn’t Christian, but maybe Jesus had a dreidel? You think? I don’t know tech stuff.(quick, what’s that movie reference? The tech stuff one?) ) But I have…
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Work/Life Balance
I was reading here about a discussion on the “Mommy Wars”, and newer “Daddy Wars” (It’s a good blog post, you truly should go check it out! Now! But come back, ok?) and it reminded me of an issue at an old job, which was who was going to put in the million hours of OT, and who wasn’t. The argument went that the parents of small children couldn’t be expected to work late, because they had to pick up their kids at daycare, they had to get to a soccer game or a ballet recital, they had to tuck their kids in at bedtime. These are very valid arguments,…
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Here’s the post where I climb up on my soapbox…
Family Dinner Table I’ve been hearing and reading about the “Family Dinner Table” lately, and I’m sure that I’m preaching to the choir here, but come on people what the hell is so hard about sitting down to a meal together? I keep reading reports that talk about how only 58% of families sit down to dinner together 5 or more nights a week, and then I hear that within this 58%, for a large number of these folks, that means they each heat up their own microwave meal and scarf it down, and then go their seperate ways. This is upsetting to me. Do you want to hear the…