Dear NYT, and Seattle Times, and Post-Intelligencer, and Oregonian, and Statesman, and Spokesman-Review, and Post, and Daily News, and..., I do not believe that a purportedly unbiased medium should endorse a candidate for any office, nor endorse any ballot measures or legislative activity. By all means discuss it on your opinion pages, but do not give us our news and then tell us how to interpret it. Though there are lemmings in the world, we don't need you enabling them. Furthermore, a...
Which of the following to you hear most about: 1. The U.S. presidential election 2. The war in Iraq 3. The war in Afghanistan 4. Your local senate race 5. The genocide in Sudan Probably not #5. In fact, you have to read pretty carefully to even get an idea that it's going on. Kristof from the NYT reports that about 100,000 people (men, women, children) have died. Look at a stadium full of people watching a football game and think about all of them, dead. And at most stadiums, that's...
Was phoning my former bosses, a married couple, for whom I worked as a rafting guide for several summers. They're listed as references for many of the jobs I've been seeking. We've become good friends and they came to H's and my wedding this summer (we scheduled it especially for their availability). Good people, they are. The three summers I worked for them were the best in my life, hands down--if I could make a living as a rafting guide, I would. Er, anyway, I was phoning them: In the ...
I vividly recall few things in grade school, but I do remember one Red Ribbon Week, which is the don't-do-drugs type of thing. You sign a pledge form and wear a red ribbon on your clothes all week, and then on Friday you tie ribbons on the fence to demonstrate to the neighborhood and all the parents that your school is one where the students are drug-free. Our teachers showed us pictures of the bad things that happen to your body or the car you drive when you were on drugs, including alcohol ...
Human gnome project. This one came to my attention whilst perusing the slush pile at the publishing house I worked at for awhile. The guy was writing a very serious book on the Human Genome Project, and that typo was in his first sentence. If it were in some far back page of the manuscript, I could forgive it. But the first sentence of the first paragraph of the first page? C'mon. I'll give him points for letting the manuscript stick in my head, though I don't think we ended up pu...
I love tea. It's something I picked up from my brief stints in England. I love the teapot, sugar and cream, the cup--and mostly just sitting for a few minutes being contemplative. I love McVities Hobnobs and the caramel biscuits to munch or dip as I please. Sometimes I read a book. Sometimes I just look out the window. I never blog, and I never watch TV during teatime. Simply, I enjoy the time and don't want to be upset or excited, which makes me wonder: If I were to sit down for tea with ...
Bad things with close proximity: 1. Gaelen died driving home from mountain climbing. 2. H didn't get the Most Awesome Job in the World (and, to date, the only interview he's been confident about). 3. Glen, quadriplegic*, finally died. Only I wonder if this is good or bad. Good things with close proximity 1. I had an interview today. Only I wonder if this is good or bad as it's for a job I don't really want, but rather, simply need. Maybe it's good that H and I are in good health (we...
"Desperate Housewives, the new ABC prime-time soap (Sundays, 9 p.m. ET), bites into the shiny red apple of American suburbia and finds a worm inside." --slate.msn.com I clicked on the review for "Desperate Housewives," wondering what their writer thought. At first I encountered that pretty metaphor above, but by the end of the article, I still wasn't sure whether the reviewer thought it was good or bad or just an opportunity for her to write pretty paragraphs and get paid for it. What i...
Politicians lie? People are arrogant? Really??? Read any top political article's comments and see the people who point fingers and say, "It's the right wing nuts trying to spin things" or "Lefties are liberals" or "George Bush is a liar" or "John Kerry is a cheater" or any variation. What it boils down to is that the accusations made by each side at the other side are pointless. It should be pretty obvious that spin happens. (That'd make a great bumper sticker...) We have people who want t...
In no particular order: American History X -- hopeful and sad look at racial tensions and what it takes to get out of a cycle Love Actually -- the most un-cheesy, realistic look at love in the romantic comedy genre Big Fish -- only because it mirrors a relationship I have with my own father, so perfectly A River Runs Through It -- is anything more beautiful than Montana and fly fishing? Snatch -- hilarious. well-edited, just the right number of twists, great cinematography--and the DVD...
I've not seen a discussion about this topic yet on JU, so I hope I'm not treading on anyone else's toes by bringing this up (if you've blogged about this, feel free to post a link below). Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is a concept where you vote for presidential candidates in the order that you would prefer rather than voting for one and only one, and risk an independent candidate stealing votes from, say, a Democrat (like Nader and Gore in Florida....?). For example, this year we have Bush...
The rate of obesity in children ages 12 - 19 has tripled, and for ages 6 - 11, doubled in the last 30 years. My own 18-year-old students last year were not among the slimmest I've ever seen. One day we got into a discussion about chores in class. What I heard from them was disturbing: approximately half had never had to do much more than wash the dishes and make their beds at their own home. Why? Here's what I learned from them: -Many of their parents live in suburban homes where the yardw...
I use Mozilla. It's free, it's easy, and it has nifty features that Internet Explorer and Safari (my other two browsers) don't have, like the tab feature. It automatically blocks popups and you can right-click and block ads you don't want to see... Unless, that is, the ads are done with the graphics animation program Flash. Those I cannot figure out how to block, and--even worse--they're the ads I *really* hate. LIke all the DNC "Help remove Bush from office" ones (not that I'm a Bush fan, ...
Have you ever taken the time to write a pretty well-thought-out article, only to have someone steal it and rewrite it on their blog? It's a little irritating. Not bad, but kinda like a fly in the room that won't leave irritating. In the literary world it's called "plagiarism" but I wouldn't describe it as such in the blogging world. That happened to me a couple months ago. The offending user replied to my article, then someone addressed her/his comment, and rather than responding to that...
Awhile back I was in line at Starbucks (I know it's the devil and I don't go there often) and asked for my drink and a venti (x-large) ice water to go, as we were setting out for another interview and would be on the road for many hours. The oh-so-helpful girl behind the counter said, "I'm sorry, but we can't give you a venti ice water to go. We can give you a tall [small] --would you like that?" No, you idiot, I'm driving a thousand miles and I'd like a venti. "Okay," I said reasonably...