-
Half of a Yellow Sun
Last night, I finished the second book in my Chunkster Challenge, Half of a Yellow Sun, in which the author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells the story of the small, short lived nation of Biafra. Biafra tried to seperate itself from Nigeria in a horrible civil war, from 1967 – 1970. Nigeria received support from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, while Biafra was supported covertly by France, Rhodesia and South Africa. While Nigeria certainly had military superiority, they mainly won victory by shutting off borders and shooting down relief planes, causing a famine that killed over a million people. It was from the horrors of Biafra that the humanitarian…
-
Rethinking the Draft
Memorial Day came about as a day to stop and honor those who died in service to their country, following the Civil War. On Friday, I listened to an interesting radio program (which I already mentioned on Saturday), which discussed the meanings of Memorial Day, and how the bulk of this war is being carried by the military, and the rest of us are pretty much free to go about our business, hopefully spending plenty of money at the mall, maybe even buying a new car or two, so that we can keep the economy strong, and get that Dow Jones up higher and higher. There is such a huge…
-
Misc. Thoughts…
(I found this odd apple image at http://princev.front.ru) Maya’s come home from Science Camp. It is SO nice to see her…to hug her and hear her stories. They took hikes, sang songs, went to the ocean, checked out tidepools, saw tons of stars, and Maya won the title of “Hard Core” by eating an entire apple, stem, seeds, and all. Atta girl. Watched “The Queen” the other day. It was good. It was interesting to see a bit of what maybe went on in the royal family at that time. I came away with a feeling of, ‘wow, I’m glad I’m not part of THAT messed up family.’ And while…
-
Friday Poll
I’m stealing this one from Gina…she likes to do Friday Polls, and I’m jumping in. But I honestly want some advice here, which she sometimes does, sometimes doesn’t… I was talking to my mom last weekend, and she told me two interesting things that I have yet to test, and I’m not sure when I will be able… 1. A great cure for PMS? Chocolate covered potato chips. I wonder, does this work equally well for chocolate covered pretzels, or do you need the potato and deep fried fattiness of it to make it work? Because I don’t think I’ve ever SEEN chocolate covered potato chips. 2. A great cure…
-
Thirteen Movie Previews I Have Recently Seen
Maya and I went to see the new Shrek movie last Friday. My review? Yawn. I would have preferred to be at home watching a DVD of 90210 or something. Which just goes to show that everyone has their own source of stupid. Really, I’m tired of kids films. I’m glad Maya is 11, and is outgrowing most of this genre. For the most part, they’re simplistic and cloying, or sassy and full of gross-out humor. I’m tired of it, and kinda prefer films with actual dialoge and a plot. Call me crazy. While waiting for the film to start we saw 8, count them, 8 movie previews. Wow. There…
-
Earth
I finally watched Earth the other night. If you haven’t seen this film yet, it is the story of the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947, at the end of British rule there. The story takes place in Lahore, in the Punjab region of India, where many cultures come together. The picture above is of Lenny, the little girl who tells the story. The woman next to her is her ayah, or nurse. The men are the ayah’s admirers, and they include Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims. They are a group of friends who all get along very well, until the divisive power of partition takes them over, and…
-
Wordless Wednesday – Spring Photo Edition
-
Song of the Day – Summer of Love
The SF Chronicle is currently running a series on the Summer of Love, aka, 1967. This is the 40th anniversary of that crazy summer, just one in the hippy era at Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. When I see those words, Summer of Love, part of my mind thinks of the actual cultural reference, but then I start thinking about when I first moved to San Francisco, back in 1987. It was the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and San Francisco, quite the provincial little city, always in love with itself, was all atwitter, just as it is now. I moved to a flat just a few blocks…
-
Pickney Gone…
Maya’s gone to Science Camp for the week…or, truthfully, she will have gone in a few hours, right now she’s still asleep in bed. But once I take her to school today, she’s off for a week of hiking in the woods, exploring tidepools, looking at different biomes and ecosystems…fun fun fun. I don’t know if most states/areas do Science Camp, but I gotta say, it was the BEST week of my whole elementary school education. It was the first time I was away from family for that long, which is a pretty liberating feeling. No homework or regular school stuff to do, which is also awesome. Nature, hanging out…
-
Sad tales of ears…
(See the tasteful little earrings on her ears? Not the ones in question today…) Anybody remember how Maya got her ears pierced back in August? How I struggled with the decision, because I wasn’t allowed to pierce my ears until I was 16, and here she was, 10, and I had to decide whether this was one of those things where things had changed since I was that age, or not? How we decided to pierce the ears, but only little studs, no hoops or danglies to make her look older than she is? OK, so now you’re up to date. Well, since then, her ears got infected once, so…
-
Congratulations to Big Sis!!
Today, Laluna’s eldest daughter, Big Sis, is graduating with her BA from Berkeley. We are all bursting with pride, as her hard work, dedication, and all around smartness are clearly paying off. Go, big sis, go! You rock!
-
Winning an Argument Meme
The astute and hilarious Ploop has come up with a group meme, in which we discuss our methods of winning arguments, and link to his post. If you haven’t been to Ploop’s blog, Plooptionary, let me tell you that Ploop is able to explain concepts both trivial and complex through the use of charts and graphs, and has made me want to embrace the art of the Venn diagram. He tagged me to play, and I will happily dive in. First off, I must confess that when it comes to political arguments, I don’t often win. If you’re louder or meaner than me, or if you start quoting obscure factoids…
-
Wordless Wednesday
-
Does God Speak to You?
He doesn’t so much speak to me, as he sends me emails….like this one (see the return address…does this mean that God is processing loans in Russia? I thought he had a better gig than that?), that I received yesterday…what I kinda wish, though, was that he would use my home email, rather than my work one. It’s more personal, right?
-
7 Things That Happened to Me as a Teen
(El Capitan – See number 5 – I got this picture from mariposa.yosemite.net.) I was tagged for this meme by Michelle over at Scribbit. She morphed it from one of those “7 random things about me” memes into the teen thing. I’ve written plenty of random stuff, so I’ll stick with her morph, as she intended.  So, here we go…7 things that happened to me as a teenager. 1. We finally stopped moving. This was huge, because prior to 6th grade, we moved pretty much every year (or we might as well have, because even if we stayed in one house, we were put in different schools). Moving that often taught…