Culture
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What are we eating?
Have you ever driven across the country in the summer on 80? What do you see? Corn. Corn corn corn. Well, I read a review in the Chron a few weeks ago about this book, The Omnivore’s Dilemna, and now I’m listening to the author talk about his book on Science Friday….wow, amazing stuff. Did you know that ecoli is caused by feeding cows corn? And that if they stop feeding the cows corn for 5 days before slaughter, and feed them grass, we wouldn’t have to irradiate beef? AMAZING. He says that we are eating SO MUCH CORN that it is starting to cause malnutrition in people who are…
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Superheroes
In yesterday’s post, which was a meme of six weird things about me, I mentioned that my personal real life hero is Harriet Tubman. I admire her for her grace, her courage, her determination, and her strength of conviction. She was a woman who wanted freedom, and found a way to attain it…once she had tasted the sweet flavor, however, she determined that she must free others, so she went back into harm’s way, so that she might rescue others. I’m assuming you all know of her work. Of how she, along with the help of the underground railroad, spirited slaves out of the south to their freedom in Canada.…
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Misc…
Just a few things…First, today is the first day of Passover. Happy Passover everyone, and if you celebrate with a Seder, enjoy! We’re only Jewish for Hannukah, so we won’t be celebrating…but we wish everyone who does a lovely evening. Second, today is national D.E.A.R. day. DEAR stands for Drop Everything And Read. Maya’s class does this in the mornings when they get to school every day, which is nice. If you have time in your day, sit down today and read for 30 minutes to celebrate. Why leave all the fun for the kids? 🙂 Lastly, I’m getting a lot of SPAM email. Blech. Comes in looking like this:…
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Wanted and Loved
We were watching “Six Feet Under” last night, and boy, that show has gotten pretty depressing. Wait, it has always been depressing. What am I saying? Anyway, David and Keith are looking into adopting or having a surrogate mother help them, so they can be dads. At one point, they go to the house of another gay acquaintance of theirs, who has some other friends over for drinks. They raise a toast to David and Keith’s endeavors. The toast? “May every child be wanted and loved just as they are, because otherwise, life is hell.” Wow. Now, I know this toast is coming from a gay man, and his personal…
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Boredom….
Ted just finished reading A Sense of the Mysterious, by Alan Lightman. Here’s a description that I found online: Alan Lightman was horror-struck to realise that he has no spare time. He has become “a unit of efficiency”. He has to reach back to his childhood for the last time he meandered through a day, when time was not cut into efficient byte-sized pieces for instant use. As he writes, the reader thinks. A Sense of the Mysterious is a collection of essays by physicist-writer Lightman, a great introduction to his work and pure pleasure for fans. So Ted was telling me a bit about this book yesterday, which got…
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Immigration…
There’s a lot of fuss about immigration in the news lately…and that, plus a couple of posts I’ve read, at Homesick Home and Angry Black Bitch, have gotten me to thinking. Mostly what I’m thinking is that ABB said it so well, I don’t know if I could do better. She writes so well, so passionately, that I would just be repeating what she said, and not as well. So I’ll quote her here: “So, here we are debating immigration again. This bitch rejects the notion that anyone working in America should do so without protection and rights. A living wage and legal recourse for abuse are basic rights and…
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Last mention, then never again…I promise
So the latest on the celebrity face match, in comments from readers, is that I look less like Evangeline Lilly, less like J.Biggs, and more like: Meryl Streep (I’ll take that) Glen Close (I’ll take that, too) and Laura Dern (I’ll definately take that!). When I was in High School, I had someone tell me I looked kind of like Susan Sarandon, but after that, maybe 1993, I used to get Laura Dern more often. Laura Dern is a lot taller than me, I think, and much skinnier/flatter chested, but there are definately similiarities. The shape of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, though her lips are fuller…maybe make…
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Implicit Association Test
My niece is a student at Berkeley, and took this online test for a class. It’s called an IAT, meaning Implicit Association Test, and it’s through Harvard Univesity. It takes a few minutes, but supposedly tests your implicit preferences on matters of race, gender, age, disability, weight, and so on. It will even test if you prefer FDR to George Bush. Wanna play? Click here.
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Here you go…
Click to open in a larger window. 🙂
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Blog Against Strawfeminist Week
OK, I read that someone has declared this Blog Against the Strawfeminist Week. (Click the link…fun-ish stuff to read and see!) I’m super busy at work this week, so I’ll keep this short. What is a feminist? Someone who believes that men and women are equal. Period. What is a strawfeminist? That person that people who don’t like feminists think of when they think of feminists…you know, ball basher, man hater, woman who wants to run men out of world and teach her boys to be sissies and so on. So let’s get rid of the strawfeminists, and if you think men and women are equal, proudly claim your role…
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The place where you’re from…
I’m reading a short story called “Post and Beam“, by Alice Munro. The main character has moved away from her small town and her small town family, and is now living in the city. Her cousin hops on a bus and travels across Canada to come for a visit. One of the themes of the story is how we leave part of who we are at home when we leave. So here is Polly, the country cousin, who has come to visit Lorna, and is a bit put off by Lorna’s ‘post and beam’ house (reminds me of the Eichler homes that are popular around here…the picture above is of…
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How is this NOT Los Angeles?
There’s an article in today’s Contra Costa Times about ‘pet hotels’ that bugged me. I know I’ve written before about people with too much money, but suddenly $400 cashmere baby hoodies seem more reasonable than they once did. (OK, no, they still don’t). The pet hotel in the picture is in Philadelphia. The dog is being fed Filet Mignon. Artfully prepared and presented on a gold platter. WTF?!?! I mean, our dog Genevieve is spoiled. She gets ‘premium’ dog food that you can’t get at PetsMart and those places. She gets two walks a day. She has a dog bed in the living room. But come on. $125 dollar a…
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Short and Sweet
I have to keep it short and sweet today…Maya has homework that she forgot about last night, so I have to wake her up soon to do it. I have a deadline at work. And, most importantly, my friend Rosemary is coming into town from Pennsylvania! HOORRRAY! So I’ll be hanging with her and her family this afternoon and tonight, before she departs for Lake Tahoe. Sigh. Nice weekend ahead. So, in the political turn that this blog has taken in the last two days or so, I’ll bring this up. Then maybe no politics for awhile, OK? OK. There’s a law suit that has beenn filed by the National…
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Cancer Sucks…and so does Senator Enzi.
On the heels of the loss of Dana Reeve to lung cancer, comes the news that Ann Richards has cancer of the esophagus. God bless her, Ann Richards is an amazing woman, and was the (democratic) governor of Texas before George Bush. Some blame her for losing that race, thus giving GW the chance to run for President. Others blame Clinton for letting his pants down (literally), thus creating the Republican backlash that was heard throughout many states, and, they say, caused Richards to lose to Bush. Without going into the miserable ‘what ifs’, all I can say is that I have the utmost respect for Richards, and I hope…
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Misc Thoughts…
I don’t have a central theme today…just thought I would pass on some things I have heard about, that may be of interest. 1. I was listening to the ever-beloved iPod this morning, to a podcast of To the Best of Our Knowledge, and one thing they mentioned in passing was these genetically modified flowers that have been developed in Denmark. Not so hot on the genetically modified agriculture, but these are good in a way that few things in this world are good. What do they do? You take the seeds to a country that has been at war, like, say, Afghanistan or Iraq, and you plant them in…