Silly Site o' the Day

Something a little different today. A coworker passed along the latest version of this "inspirational" story. It ended, "You have two choices now: 01 Delete this. 02. Forward it to the people you care about. You know the choice I made." And that really bugged me, because it showed that the original message, whatever it was, had been turned into a chain email, and if someone made a conscious choice to delete it instead of cluttering people's in-boxes they would obviously be seen as negative and evil and sacreligious to boot (since the revised version has "the G word" all over it). So basically, I felt the tack-on negated the message, and mentioned this to my coworker, who has now decided never to include me on anything again ever. So voila, my discomfort with the twisting of an inspirational message wound up producing the exact opposite of that message's intent. And I'm even more isolated at work. I really, really hate email chains.

Unclear on the Concept

I would kindly advise the fellow who just emailed me offering to give me $250 if I put his ad atop my blog, and moreover insists that he reads and likes Pen-Elayne, to reread this post, as well as scrolling down my sidebar to find the button that says "Ad-Free Blog." I don't pay a single penny to post, so I don't need to recoup any costs, thank you. (As far as the old "but your time is valuable!" chestnut, sure it is, whether I'm blogging or reading comics or watching TV, and I don't ask people to subsidize my comics-reading and TV-watching time either.) When and if I want to sell something I'll let folks know about it, and it'll probably be my husband's art.

RIP Dennis Weaver

Damn, not another death. Winter must be hard on elderly actors, even in temperate climates.

Silly Site o' the Day

Sorry, the day's getting away from me. Here, have some Geeks in Love. Via Kaja Foglio.

Liberal Coalition Top Ten
Week of 2/18 thru 2/25/06

[Reposted from cache...heaven bless Google...]

Somewhere between bidding farewell to houseguests and reading up on all the other sites talking about The NY Comic Convention Debacle (it even made the NY Times, pow bam and all that), that's where I'll always love the Liberal Coalition members' posts that I found most intriguing, informative and/or enjoyable this past week:

• Alex at Sooner Thought reports on Black Monday at the Oklahoma City GM plant.

• Echidne of the Snakes is not friendly with The Fast at all.

• Jane Hamsher at firedoglake has the goods on NARAL and NOW and Alito, as well as the Dickfest finalists.

• Jeff at Speedkill recommends WordPress' free blogging and hosting service. It seems okay, and when I get the time I may mosey over to the blog I created there and start recording all my Silly Sites into a coherent listing, but I don't like the fact that their templates are closed-source and you can't edit them the way I've done to customize the sidebar on this blog; apparently HTML is "antithetical to the purpose" of their service, rather than a helpful adjunct. So no, I'm sticking with Blogger for now.

• I have no idea why Keith's WCC feed at Invisible Library suddenly worked today, producing part of this post in my Bloglines reader (missing out the first couple lines). I didn't think Wytheville Community College's RSS thing worked any more, period, not for a couple years. Alas, either IL or Bloglines is still having problems with Keith's Atom feed (standard issue on Blogger blogs)...

• Maru at WTF Is It Now?? finds the listing of the 21 finalists for the updated Seven Wonders of the World.

• Mustang Bobby follows up on the informative emails being sent out by Pen-Elayne reader Anders regarding the situation with the University of Miami janitors.

• Steve Gilliard at The News Blog asks, where are all the black bloggers? before suggesting (and I paraphrase) that many other bloggers bite him.

• Norbizness at Happy Furry Puppy Story Time has a great collection of quotes for Presidents Day.

• Scott at ...You Are A Tree has a little trepidation about what he's seen of the upcoming version of MS Word, but I use that program a lot and think it appears very workable to me.

• Lastly, Trish "Countess" Wilson talks about BOOBIES! Yeah, like she needs to raise her hit count.

Whew, not too bad - now back to all those unread posts... or, hmm, maybe those unread comics... or that unslept sleep...

Oh, Blessed Change of Plans

Turns out Reed Exhibitions will not be selling any new on-site tickets for the NY Comic Con today either, so Leah's son - the main reason we were going to attempt entry today in the first place - wouldn't be able to get in. We're all going back to sleep now (well, I am, anyway), and will probably find a local place to brunch (oh dear, I'm verbing again, now I know I'm not feeling well) and perhaps a nice indoor activity or two before Leah drives back home. Fortunately, a weekend is never wasted when a beloved friend comes to visit!

Departures in Threes

RIP Darren McGavin and Don Knotts; found out about the abovementioned passings via Mark Evanier's blog, which erroneously (or prematurely) reports that the NY convention yesterday was turning away "people who didn't secure advance tickets." Um, no, when we arrived they were turning away even those who had paid (many of whom were justifiably furious, particularly those who had driven hours to be there and had already paid for parking), and even those who had their badges from the previous day or earlier yesterday and were trying to get back in. Update: And from Cory at BoingBoing, the sad news of the death of Octavia Butler.

Silly Sites o' the Day

I could have done without the insomnia last night, as we'll be leaving the house at 7:30 this morning to arrive at the Javitz Center by 8:30 latest in case there's a queue. If the queue is indoors I should be okay; if it's outdoors I'm staying in the vehicle. If it were up to me I'd stay home. I'm beyond "blech" at this point. Two Silly Sites today, one that I found yesterday and the other in honor of the houseguest who started the Links o' Silliness idea in the first place: I can't remember where I found The Blogga Song, but it should be appreciated both by librarian bloggers and those who know from the Llama Song. And Leah likes the animated short Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Bone (sfw), because it's Just So Wrong.

The Convention That Wasn't

So I'm sitting here with Leah "Moose Shoes" Adezio blogging post-AYCE-sushi because we couldn't get into the convention. More details as and when I feel like it, but as she says, "bad convention fu," and I wanted to explain to everyone who was expecting to see us why we weren't there. It wasn't for lack of trying! See, the convention organizers, not being that familiar with the comics industry, made no distinctions between "civilians" and professionals when it came to pre-registered attendees. So when we got to the Javitz at about 2:20 they were turning away everyone, saying the con floor was full up and "nobody is getting in and nobody is coming out." To tell you the truth, that last part had me kinda worried. Maybe I should be glad I didn't get into that particular roach motel? Anyway, they wouldn't even give us our steenkin' badges, so I rang Leah, who was probably about an hour and a half away at that point, and we decided to meet up at home base instead. Turns out ol' Leadfoot Lass got to our area about five minutes after the Alte Kaker Express dropped us off, so at least something's going right. We're about to dig into dessert (S&S Cheesecake topped with raspberries, plus plum wine) and utter way too many double-entendres, so I'd better go. Sorry again to our friends; we'll be getting in early tomorrow to try to gain access once more, but I'm not holding my breath. Ah well, at least I'll have Bristol to look forward to (hope they get their website fixed soon)!

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, after a night's sleep the remnants of the illness seem to be centered pretty solely in the throat, which is great as far as the chest congestion not being a problem at present, but terrible for things like talking and swallowing. Thank goodness I'm going to a convention this weekend where I won't be expected to converse! Um... Oh well, maybe I'll be fashionable, isn't laryngitis The New Black? Meantime, best take care of this morning's errands before worrying about that. Let's watch some TV instead! CurrentTV, that is. Their Super News folks keep sending me email updates, so I may as well plug 'em (the cartoons are cute, they're the third row down here) so I can unsubscribe from yet another politically-oriented mailing list I never asked to be on. Seriously folks, I don't mind individual emails or even mass-mailed stuff from folks I know, but I just delete the rest without even reading it so it'd be nice if it stopped...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Amy and Datsa have been fighting/playing since we got home. She makes a good stealth kitty:



I just wish they wouldn't go at it so late...

46 Days Until Opening Day

Ah, ain't it the truth. That was the sign atop Yankee Stadium this evening as our bus took us back home from a little DC Comics pub gathering (and here I am obligated to remind Sean Carolan about next Thursday's Firesign chat, at which I might even show up). I don't even feel spring in my step, much less in the air. Bloody cold out there this evening. Hope I didn't relapse. I feel pretty horrid, and just spent way too long in the "reading room," but the illness seems like it's mostly stuck in the throat and chest now, so I've been sucking down lemons and staying far away from alcohol intake. Need to replenish my lemon supply tomorrow morning, then take another leisurely bus ride into midtown and transfer for the local to the Javits Center. Don't expect to see us there until at least 1 PM.

A Modern Lament

Rana at Frogs and Ravens has a good list of many of the things being an American progressive means. I would add it means wondering whether to just leave one's Arabian Nights paperback at home instead of taking it to read on the plane to England for fear of being pounced on by fellow passengers or detained by airport security. [Which is a shame; I know I could take any other books from my vast folk-tale collection and pass the paranoid muster, but this one was next on my list to read because of the Vashti story I want to write, and the flight would have been a perfect venue for it...]

Silly Site o' the Day

Eagerly Sing. That's probably my favorite anagram for my name given to me by the Anagram Generator (via Bob). Although I like Sea Gingerly as well.

Over It, And Married To It

Over the worst of the illness, that is; I hope I'm not jinxing anything, but the fever appears to be gone at last, my appetite has returned which means my system must be regulating itself, and aside from some lingering shortness of breath and of course the chest congestion/cough which I expect will be hanging 'round for at least another few days, and the continued lack of stamina which I guess is to be expected, I think I'll be okay for this weekend.

When I shall remind people once again that I'm married to it - a comic book artist, that is, attending the upcoming New York Comic Con. We won't be there tomorrow, as a coworker has the day off so I need to be at the office, but we'll be there for as much as I can take on Saturday (when they're open 11 AM to 7 PM) and Sunday (11 AM to 6 PM). We'll probably be skipping the parties, as I don't want to relapse by staying out too late, and besides we're meeting Leah and her son Stephen who are staying with us Saturday night so we'll be dining with them locally, hoping to find a parking spot near the all-you-can-eat sushi place (dicey but doable given Leah's amazing parking karma). We look forward to meeting as many folks as possible at the con - although we won't be at a table we should have name badges (if not, this is what we look like) and I'm sure anyone who wants to will be able to find us.

Oh, and the first seven pages of issue #92 of Birds of Prey, the DC Comics book that Robin's inking, are now up in the Previews section of Newsarama. Enjoy!

Silly Site o' the Day

Robin informs me that Song Dong's biscuit city has finally been completed, and of course the public literally devoured it.

Febrile

A steamy 101.5° last I checked about a half hour ago, so I'm waiting for the Tylenol to do its job so I can get to sleep. I hate going to work with the flu. I'm going to be really pissed if this interferes with my weekend plans.

Here We Go Again

Oh good, we waited weeks for Mark Morford to get back from vacation only to have him shove his fatphobia in our faces again. Can't someone start a letter-writing campaign? This guy's normally so astute, I can't imagine he wouldn't respond to common sense written (politely) by dedicated size acceptance experts.

Silly Site o' the Day

I hate being sick. I make a lousy patient and, particularly if I get sick at the end of a weekend, I never seem to get enough rest. A coworker has a vacation day today, another coworker is out tomorrow and Friday, so I'm at the office again all three days, just like I dragged myself in yesterday. At least my cardiologist's office confirmed I can take cold medicine without it interfering with my usual medications. Getting older sucks sometimes (although the alternative is, I think, far worse). At least there's always the cats playing with each other to cheer me up (they're doing that "Datsa walks by the vanity chair whilst Amy, on the chair, grabs at his tail" game), as well as the 1,000 Hand Bodhisattva Dance (via Houston).

The First Dozen Are Free

I agree with Augie, it will be an interesting experiment to see if anyone's willing to pay for future Ricky Gervais podcast shows. I'm kind of torn, Robin and I have been enjoying the free ones a lot, but there are only so many entertainment hours in a day and having to fork over money for something when I can just as easily find Teh Funny elsewhere in my life may be a no-go.

Silly Site o' the Day

Last night turned into a bit of a bust, as I developed a fever of 100.5° which I don't feel like I'm quite over yet. Add to that my boss' wife chastising me in email that I didn't call the Met to find out which seats were available for Saturday's opera when I have a big bold-faced note on their contact card saying they don't give out seat availability over the phone (turns out they do now, for special subscribers, but how was I to know?) and it's shaping up to be a glorious day indeed. I'd chastise myself as well, because it never hurts to double-check things by phone, but the fever makes it hard to think straight and you know, I don't get paid to be a personal assistant for my boss' family to begin with, so not all that much incentive to hop to it. And his car has finally pulled into the parking lot, after I've been here struggling for three hours. Bleh. I need to cheer myself up by rewatching The Wand (via Desi).

Silly Site o' the Day

I'm really angry at my body, which seems to be breaking down on me again. I suspect the pain in my intercostals and accompanying stuffiness/cough may be due to fluctuating temperatures, but it's still preventing me from going on the bike and trying to get in better shape, which of course perpetuates the vicious cycle (pun unintended). Bleh. Not only that, but my blogs aren't all marked-read yet and I've only gotten through the Bat-books in the DC comp boxes (which I read in alphabetical order by imprint as it's easier to file them that way afterwards). I suspect I need more 5-day 3-day weekends. I can't even get through creative light-drawing on the Flavin site (via Eszter); heck, even saying "Flavin" in that Jerry Lewis manner is painful...

Pen-Elayne Guest Bloggers Announced

Wow, that was quick! During the time Robin and I will be in England, Desi from Mia Culpa (and formerly from GreatScat) and Wayne from PSoTD will be guest-blogging here. Thanks so much for volunteering, D & W, and don't forget to remind me to send you the "keys" before we leave! Considering how much you each post on your own blog, I don't think Pen-Elayne will lack for new content this coming May!

Liberal Coalition Top Ten
Week of 2/12 thru 2/18/06

It's that quiet time between morning tea and Robin going to work, so it must be time for my weekly perusal of Liberal Coalition members' posts that got my attention:

• Alex at Sooner Thought details his recent trip to Washington DC.

• Bryant at Make Me A Commentator! seriously gave me the giggles this past week as he and his pseudonyms-- uh, I mean co-bloggers all took turns doing blogarounds.

• Chris Brown at LeftyBrown's Corner dredged up a bad memory by invoking CrossGen, which long-since-bankrupt company still hasn't paid whistleblower Robin the $1300 they owed him, and doubtless never will. But you know, don't cry for Mark Alessi, he's doing just fine.

• As you know, I've been watching the detectives Winter Olympics this week and, while I agree with just about every other blogger that the American coverage itself sucks, I've been trying to ignore it as much as possible in favor of enjoying the athletes' incredible feats. And I really thought men's and women's events had achieved a pretty good parity until I read this post by Echidne of the Snakes about how there's no women's ski jumping. I had no idea, the coverage is so selective and badly done that I figured it was one more sport at which Americans didn't do well so NBC thought it not worth televising. I think the arguments against including this sport at the Olympic level won't hold water and we'll doubtless see it included in Vancouver in four years.

• John at archy examines non-partisan conservatives and salmon. Yes, two separate posts.

• Kathy at Liberty Street annotates a Rumsfeld speech and expresses concern over possible submarine-launched missile attacks against Iran.

• Ken at T. Rex's Guide to Life found some more oil giveaways.

• Michael at Musing's Musings is working on his thesis, so it's a good thing he loves studying history.

• Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof pays tribute to the 'stache.

• Norbizness at Happy Furry Puppy Story Time brings us the real Hume-Cheney interview.

• NTodd Pritsky at Dohiyi Mir gives me another unpleasant flashback as he talks about wind damage up his way.

• Lastly, Trish Wilson, the Countess, examines the whys and wherefores of flame wars.

Now to clear out the rest of the unread blogs by using Bloglines' magical "Mark Read" option before returning to comics reading!

Milestone Notes

Since I'm so behind in blog-skimming I'm probably giving up again and doing a big ol' "mark read" on a lot of friends' blogs (for which I apologize but it can't be helped) just to catch my breath again (I also haven't even skimmed the Koufax-nommed blogs!), so I'll probably miss a bunch of important things I should note here. But you know, there's this latest blog "meme" (I last saw it on Anne's site but it's been making the rounds):

If there is someone on your blogroll who makes your world a better place just because that person exists and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence on your blog.

And in keeping with that, I'd like to note the following:

• Yesterday was Julia's fourth blogiversary!

• Tom Negrino was released from the hospital on Friday!

• Congrats to Susie on her new apartment!

More additions as I fast-forward through the blogs...

Update 2/20: Finally caught up! Now I can go back to bed and read more DC comps. Here are some more milestones and other interesting bits I found:

• Happy belated birthdays to Jim Capozzola and Feministe founder Lauren.

• All best wishes to Blondesense's Missouri Mule on her upcoming surgery.

• The 2006 Glyph Awards nominations have been announced.

• Lastly, Nona Williams, who supplied my fishy car emblems, is now a member of a Nielsen family and is soliciting input.

Silly Site o' the Day

Alas, I never did get to those comics yesterday and, wouldn't you know it, our DC comp box arrived so now I'm three months behind! I can only chalk it up to laziness, I suppose. I would have said "body pain and lack of a proper sleep cycle" but I just deleted a really strange comment that accused me of equating laziness with being Jewish (and called me a snob as well) before I even bothered to see to what post that comment was attached, so there you go. I was thinking maybe it was the Lazy Monday parody-of-a-parody video that I found on Chazarmaveth's website, in which case the hit-and-run commenter with the lack of reading comprehension would have been blaming the wrong Jew (shooting the messenger and all that), but a quick search shows that I don't believe I ever linked to that Silly Site until just now. Truth be told, I may be the only lazy person in my family; that's a bunch of active Jews, let me tell you! Did I mention my wonderful godson Jonny is tearing things up on a Junior Bowlers tour? That takes athleticism! (Yes, this was another excuse to Jewglebomb...)

Silly Site o' the Day

I'm supposed to be tutoring a member of my boss' family this morning in computer basics, which makes me a bit nervous as I haven't put on a teaching hat in decades. I don't think I'll be nearly as good as Professor Fizzwizzle (via Cory at BoingBoing)...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

It's a kitty sitting pretty!



Amy doesn't take to chairs all that often (except when she burrows under a living room recliner cover), but Datsa loves them.



He also fills them out a bit more completely than she does.

Upcoming Pen-Events

Just a heads-up that March madness will soon be upon us, and I do plan (despite perpetually falling behind in blog-skimming) to repeat my Estrogen Month celebrations once more (although on a much smaller scale than last year) and add a few more women to the blogroll. If you want to start perusing the women-written blogs I've bookmarked for consideration so far, they're in the Where the Women Are sections of my Bloglines subscriptions (also and always accessible via my sidebar where it says "Where are all the women bloggers who aren't on the blogroll below? Many are here!"). Goodness knows I won't have the time to give many of them a second look in the next couple weeks, I haven't even begun to review all the blogs listed in the Koufax nominations! I hope the lefty blogosphere realizes what an embarrassment of riches we have in all these wonderful and articulate voices.

Also, although we've been considering purchasing a laptop in preparation for going to England in a few months, chances are I will feel much more like visiting with Robin's family and our friends than blogging, so I'm prepared to take an eight-day hiatus from bloggie stuff from May 12 through May 19. If you wish to be a Pen-Elayne guest blogger during that time, please email me (e-address at sidebar) so we can set you up with the keys to the castle, as it were. Knowledge of Blogger's edit window is a big plus, and willingness to post at least one bit of new content every day is mandatory.

Silly Site o' the Day

With my boss out of town (but still in the country) for a couple 55°+ days and one of my major projects completed yesterday, I have a little time to breathe and possibly catch up on blog-reading, although I suspect much of it's going to be a quick "mark read" (the modern equivalent of "mark time"?). A big drop in temperature is predicted for this weekend, so I'm hoping most of the snow piles in around our house not only melt but evaporate by then, as any water in the U-shaped driveway leading to the main road tends to freeze solid quickly. But you know, I'm not even thinking about the impending chill that much, because - have I mentioned? - we're going to England! Not Ireland, not Wales (although a side trip from Bristol to Cardiff is certainly possible, we'd have to be mad to attempt it) and not Scotland, although I did enjoy the Interactive Weaver Tartan Generator (via Cory at BoingBoing). England! That green and pleasant land, over the pond and through the woods to Dad's house we go!! Yeah, I'm just a bit giddy.

Upcoming Convention Appearance

No, I'm not talking about the New York con, although we will certainly be there. I'm talking about the Comic Expo in Bristol, England. It's official - this morning Rob booked our hotel for the weekend, and we've just now made our airline reservations into Bristol on 12th May (our jet-lag day) and out of Gatwick on the 20th, with five full days after the con to spend with Robin's family and our friends! I'm so excited! This will be our first away-from-home vacation in over two years - since Datsa got sick, in fact (so we'll be boarding him and Amy at the animal hospital where I get his medicine as they're well versed in how to administer it). And we have a wonderful downstairs neighbor to look after things in the Bronx, and with Rob working steadily and my medical troubles presumably behind me the extra expense is finally doable (let's hope the exchange rate doesn't worsen!). I hope I'm giving any London-based bloggie friends enough lead-time in case y'all want to get together, we'll definitely include a trip from the Lewes area up to The City during the week of 15-19 May. Hoorah, we're going to England!!!

Silly Site o' the Day

My blog semi-hiatus continues in favor of watching the winter Olympics, despite the risk to my blood pressure of the intensifying jingoism. The phrase that raised my hackles last night? When discussing the snowboarding half-pipe, which was apparently filled with "American medals and an international flavor." That's right, folks, seems Torino and the other athletes are merely a colorful background to the main point of Americans picking up medals. And not just any medals, of course. The incredulity of the talking heads at how Kostelic seemed happy with the silver medal for the alpine skiing combined, almost as if it were an honor to be there and a thrill just to compete, pretty much said it all for me. And the contortions through which the announcers put themselves to make excuses when something negative happens to an American is embarrassing to the point where I find myself rooting for Bode Miller and Apollo Ohno to continue to screw up. The mentality of "It's the Americans' gold medals to lose because we deserve them by divine right" is proving more tiring than watching curling (which it feels like NBC is only showing ironically since the Americans don't seem very good at it so the coverage makes me nod off). Not to mention it's completely antithetical to the Olympic spirit, but I think I've already mentioned that. Besides, the rules the rest of the world has to follow don't apply to the Empire, do they? Speaking of which, Wanda passes on a very funny edit of a State of the Union speech from a couple years back.

Silly Site o' the Day

Happy Valentine's Day from the Star Wars gang, via Something Awful.

Going Straight to Hell

And comments like "why couldn't the hunting buddy have been Scalia?" will put me on the express track for sure.

Letters, He Gets Letters

Notes Glenn Greenwald, "It is somewhat amazing to write a post describing this phenomenon only for Bush followers to deny its validity and, in doing so, provide such vibrant examples of exactly what I describing." Here's his original post, linked to by pretty much everyone in the lefty blogosphere. Update: And here's Dwight Meredith on the matter of (lost) trust.

Silly Site o' the Day

Woke up feeling lousy; I think today might be another bread(sticks)-and-water fast day, my system isn't operating optimally and I think it needs a bit of flushing. Speaking of "it must have been something I ate," via Betsy Devine - can you tell a coder from a cannibal?

Liberal Coalition Top Ten
Week of 2/5 thru 2/11/06

The Canadian women's ice hockey team is on their way to another prerecorded lopsided victory, and when the commentator makes a big deal out of how one of their members knows Italian and everything, I know it's once again time to abandon the Olympics and check in on what posts caught my eye this past week from Liberal Coalition members. First, just a note that Chris Brown's old site got hacked and he's temporarily taken residence residence here. Now, on with the highlights:

• Alex at Sooner Thought recommends Mrs. Benny Hinn's Holy Shit Ghost moment of Zen. I guess it was so amazing she lost not only her surname but her first name as well!

• Bora informs us in Circadiana that science has found no link between the lunar cycle and childbirth rates (although I'm told there's certainly a link between a full moon and the ferocity of a Nor'easter!); and in Science and Politics he admires a parody blog (although it's probably incomprehensible to folks like me who don't waste any time obsessing over the right side of the blogosphere) and has some good advice for writers who want to shut down their blogs.

• Bryant at Make Me a Commentator!! reminds us of conservatives' dicey history with racism.

• Echidne eavesdrops on the President, along with some open mikes; and has some musings about blog pseudonymity based on Ann Bartow's post from Sivacracy, which I just realized wasn't on my Group Blogs list despite linking to me; that's now been fixed. (By the way, Ann, Flea isn't anonymous, she's Leigh Ann Wilson and One Good Thing has even been written up in her local paper.)

• The Farmer is back blogging again, this time at Farm Runoff, where among other things he links to an article tracking the rise of the authoritarian right.

• Horatio at Dodecahedron makes my skin crawl with his praise of Ampulex compressa.

• Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake enumerates the sins of Barbara Comstock.

• Kathy at Liberty Street links to Riverbend's latest post about her aunt's house and neighborhood being raided by Iraqi "security" forces. Riverbend's blog is starting to bear uncomfortable similarities in places to The Diary of Anne Frank, and this is one of her more evocative posts. Kathy also passes along the horrific news of South Dakota trying to ban all abortion outright.

• T. Rex continues his series of reality versus conservative arguments, focusing on Guantanamo prisoners and the efficacy of illegal wiretaps.

• Michael at Musing's Musings Olympic-blogs, but joins the bobbleheads in not mentioning (vis a vis the parade of nations) that the largest obstacle to Korean reconciliation remains the US.

• Moi at bloggg is also Olympic-blogging, asking why media-anointed darling Michelle Kwan took Emily Hughes' spot on the US women's figure skating team in the first place being that aware of her own injuries. I think the an$wer is obviou$ but maybe that'$ ju$t me.

• Mustang Bobby on Bark Bark Woof Woof asks, "Is there an actor, director, playwright, singer, composer, or artist whose work you won't see based solely on that person's political points of view?" For me there are a number of them, particularly sexist and sleazy guys. There's enough entertainment out there for me to enjoy without needing to ever come near a Woody Allen or Roman Polanski film again.

• Natalie Davis at All Facts and Opinions sings the praises of oats, complete with recipes, and remembers Bob Marley.

• Lastly, Steve at The News Blog finds an article from a Beeb correspondent that actually gets it about blogging. I love the comparison to the Baker Street Irregulars!

Okay, slightly more than ten again, so sue me...

Silly Site o' the Day

Why isn't freestyle wheelbarrowing (via Bob Harris) an Olympic sport?

Weather Report

Hard to wake up completely with all this snow about (more than Maru's getting, for a change). I'm very grateful I have the car back; commuting tomorrow would have been difficult without it, particularly the morning walk to the bus. As it is, the snow's supposed to stop before day's end so I think the area should be plowed enough to make careful car commuting okay by the morning. And thanks to having the car we were able to do most of our errands yesterday, and cover the vehicle in plenty of time to protect it from the storm, so no worries.

I can now spend time bitching about how NBC doesn't see fit to run Olympic events in real time on weekend mornings, how all their affiliated channels are busy with infomercials instead, and Italy just six hours ahead of us. You'd think they'd want higher Sunday morning ratings with captive audiences eager to see stuff that only comes around once every four years.

The main local NBC station has a good excuse, they're covering the blizzard pretty thoroughly - a good thing, considering The Weather Channel is apparently too busy with fluffy fill-in reports on Mardi Gras preparations to actually cover a major Nor'easter blizzard as it's happening - but even that has its drawbacks. For every "how is Emily Hughes going to get to the Olympics now that The Media-Anointed One Michelle Kwan has finally realized she's not up to it?" report there's one where the only local stringer who hasn't bitched about being out in the storm and wanting to go back inside the news van has an impromptu conversation with some idiot who wandered into the picture only to find out he just happens to be selling "Blizzard of Aught-6" caps, whereupon she takes one from him and puts it on her head and says "Well, there you have it, now it's official!" This is, by the way, a very New York City thing, that a local weather event or disaster becomes Official the moment it can be exploited and sold to you on a piece of clothing.

So I'm going back to bed until such time as NBC deigns to bring us the prerecorded Olympics featuring more of their anointed American darlings, half of whom aren't even making it out of qualifying rounds and the other half of whom aren't worth rooting for because of their overblown sense of American entitlement and provincialism. As Rob noted, you look at the faces of the silver and bronze medal winners from other countries and they're obviously thrilled, where even gold medalists from the US seem somehow surly. It's as though the "Olympic ideal" of acknowledging that it's an honor just to be there and compete only counts if you have absolutely no chance of winning anything and can be turned into a heartwarming human interest story. Ah, but I'm still a sucker for the thrill of international competition, and I live in hope that some lower-profile US atheletes believe in the ideal even if their media doesn't, so blogging should be pretty light the next couple weeks whilst I'm deep in Olympic territory...

Silly Site o' the Day

We're off on the road to Ikea / Where is it? Paramus this time
My car is back, I need to drive, it's only half an hour
We must get back before it snows, then I can take a shower
And do other errands in town
Like half the population we're Ikea-bound!

No, that wasn't a silly site, that was just me being all Hope and Crosby-like. Sorry, I haven't had my morning tea yet, so I'm feeling kinda stupid. How stupid are you feeling? Via Moi.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Vanity, all is vanity!



Well, Amy on the vanity, at least. Not that she isn't well aware of her own cuteness to begin with...

Maintenance Notes

A fond farewell to Len Cleavelin, who's hanging up Dark Bilious Vapors for the foreseeable future but will, I hope, continue to contribute to our comments section. Also, since I haven't seen any cobloggers on Nitpicker for awhile I'm assuming Terry is once more a single act, so he gets moved back to Da Guys section of my sidebar.

Silly Site o' the Day

I have my car again (have you heard?), the Olympics start tonight, Arrested Development is on for two whole hours opposite it but it's okay we have a DVR now, and Valentine's Day is coming up, so I heart the whole world! I heart you, do you hear me? Here, Moi points us to a heartmaker generator-thingie! As my distant relative Dinah Shore used to say when she blew kisses at her studio audience, *mwa*!!!

Friday Cat Car Blogging

I'm driving again!



It handles even more beautifully than before, if that's possible, but that could just be my utter relief talking.



This is the face of a happy camper. Naturally, I get it back just in time to cover it up for the expected snow this weekend. But in the meantime, it's shopping and an early Valentine's Day dinner this evening and errands tomorrow morning and wheee! I'm mobile once more!!

Silly Site o' the Day

Our downstairs neighbor was kind enough to give me a ride to the bus-to-the-train this morning, and will drop us off tomorrow morning at the auto shop so we don't have to trek down there. Guess my exhaustion finally caught up with me, so I'm very grateful for her help. I can't even think straight today, much less write creatively, so it's Colleen Doran to the rescue with two very cute Mad Lib-type sites: a Mary Sue Mad Lib story creator, and a slash fiction Mad Lib one.

The Incredible Inedible Egg

My ex-husband gets the Alpha Capsule treatment. (I suspect this won't be amusing to that many people who don't know him, but I smiled all the way through the post.)

A Day Later, A Dollar Richer

I just got off the phone with the auto shop guy, who said my car needed a little more time to dry from the coating that was applied today, and I could either pick it up tomorrow morning at 10 "or, if you want to wait to pick it up on Friday morning instead, we could do all kinds of little things to it in addition to your regular oil change for free, as a thanks for being so patient." New wiper blades? Free. Washer fluid? Free. Pressure and alignment, yadda yadda yadda? Go right ahead, sir! I know the body's all fixed, there was never anything to be repaired in terms of the car's functioning, it's not going to snow in the next day, my Metro North ticket is good through tomorrow... so, in exchange for one more day without a vehicle I'm getting what sounds like a free veritably-complete tune-up, which I was doubtless due for anyway and which would have taken much of a Saturday had I brought the car in on my own time. I can so deal...

Silly Site o' the Day

He's baaack. Feels weird to have a "boss day" again, but this will be the norm for at least the next three months. And I'm keeping up with him so far, which isn't always easy! Having the car back tomorrow should help even more, as returning to my usual sleep cycle and commute should leave me more alert and energetic. Maybe I'll even feel like dancing! (Via Laura.)

First Out of the Gate

Hey Pam, Estrogen/Women in Blogging Month isn't till March! :)

Might As Well Face It, I'm Addicted to Car

Well, at least insofar as my commute goes. I went without a car for 25 years and was fine, and yes, there have been a couple good things about the public transit commute to which I've had to reaccustom myself - once I'm on the train or bus I don't have to be all that alert except to make my connections, and I've rifled through about a year's worth of AAA mags and almost caught up on Entertainment Weekly - and I'm also mindful of the harm that cars do to the environment. However, all in all I tend to prefer a 25-minute commute to and from work (and an extra 1½ hours sleep in the morning) to one that takes between one and two hours depending on the route. And it's nice to be able to food-shop whenever I want to. And geez, my back hurts already. Anyway, this was all a roundabout way of saying that I'm getting my car back on Thursday morning!! Yay! And they're throwing in my quarterly oil change/safety check for free!

Who Stands To Gain?

That's one of the first questions I always ask myself when faced with trying to make sense of a daunting political situation. In the case of the rioting over the Danish cartoons, obviously the radical Muslim clerics egging on their followers have as much to gain as the radical Christian clerics do in this country when they foment phony Wars on Christmas and the like. But then why didn't they whip up their base months ago when the cartoons were first published? Barbara O'Brien finds one answer, via Flogging the Simian, a weblog that I thought had stopped publishing so I took Romanian-based Soj off my list of Where the Women Bloggers Are. She seems to hit the nail on the head with this post.

In a nutshell, the Saudi government planned poorly once again for the January hajj, and 350 pilgrims were killed in stampedes. "Even the most objective news stories were suddenly casting Saudi Arabia in a very bad light and they decided to do something about it. Their plan was to go on a major offensive against the Danish cartoons. The 350 pilgrims were killed on January 12 and soon after, Saudi newspapers (which are all controlled by the state) began running up to 4 articles per day condemning the Danish cartoons. The Saudi government asked for a formal apology from Denmark. When that was not forthcoming, they began calling for world-wide protests." And the rest is history, although no longer mystery.

The paragraph I found most instructive:

Saudi Arabia's influence on the Sunni Muslim world is incalculable. The sermons from high-ranking Muslim clerics are read and studied by Muslims around the world, who in turn give sermons to their local congregations. While the Saudis do not have direct control of the world's Sunni flocks, their influence is similar somewhat to the Pope's pronouncements and the sermons that Catholic priests give to their flocks the following Sundays. Saudi Arabia also finances a number of Muslim "study centers", where all the literature and material is provided by the Saudi government, filled with hatred for Jews and other extremely racist material. For them to promote an idea based on religion, including "outrage" at some cartoons published months earlier, is standard operating procedure.

Good stuff, read the whole thing. Soj's post also links to Alhamedi's blog The Religious Policeman, "the diary of a Saudi man, currently living in the United Kingdom, where the Religious Police no longer trouble him for the moment," which I found fascinating as well. And Soj follows up with this post to her Daily Kos diary.

Update: Curiouser and curiouser. Tristero says the inflammation is not just due to the Saudis, but to secular Egyptians as well. And others have reported that the right-wing papers Jyllands-Posten, which first published the Muhammed cartoons, had rejected cartoons lampooning Jesus for fear of offending readers. So much for the concept of free speech and freedom of the press!

Silly Site o' the Day

The back-ordered part for my car is expected to arrive at the auto shop today, which conceivably means I could be driving again as early as Thursday, but I've heard this all before so I'm not holding my breath. Fortunately, dry (but seasonably cold) weather is expected throughout the work week, so the morning walk-to-the-bus-to-the-train will remain unimpeded by the elements and only slowed down by my body's inability to obey me at 7:30 AM. Sooner or later I'm sure I'll be back in the land of Exxon toasting the planet (via Houston Bridges).

Auto Updates

Karen's car has been found! Mine's still at the shop, awaiting the back-ordered part...

Silly Site o' the Day

Off again to the bus to the train to work. Maybe my car will be done today. My boss is definitely back tomorrow. It doesn't look to be a good week for me. I'm glad I got so much writing and blog-skimming (and sleeping!) done over the weekend. Here's a cool generator for bloggers, which takes your content and makes it into a "word cloud" then tries to sell you a t-shirt which you can ignore. I first saw it via eRobin at Factesque.

Islamic Religious Art

I had asked a commenter on PZ Myers' first thread about the Danish Muhammed cartoons if he could provide me with any examples of the Islamic art of which he spoke which depicted the Prophet. Here's an interesting overview page, and here are two examples of such art featuring the Prophet and the Angel Gabriel. (By the way, PZ has a follow-up post.) Update: Laura has more. And here's a very interesting post about this from the POV of a Jordanian, The Black Iris (via upyernoz).

Post-Game Wrap-Up

Hey, the Stones only got bleeped twice, for "cocks" and "come" (the latter as in "you make a dead man [blank]"). Not a bad ratio for only three songs.

Funniest Second-Half Ad - The Nationwide ad with Fabio, with and then without makeup. Okay, needlessly cruel, sorry, but then I kept expecting a bird to fly along and smack into his face again.

Best Self-Aware Ad - Okay, I admit it, the Dove self-esteem ad made me smile; even though the problem of girls' low self-esteem is caused in major part by corporate advertising, at least they're keeping their own house clean. And we need all the enlightened self-interest we can get to combat those horrid GoDaddy and Honda Truck ads.

Best Un-Self-Aware Ad - Yes, I'd say a Hummer is pretty much a monster. Great CG imaging, horrid planet-eating car. I thought the folks wearing the protective suits in the following ad were doing so because of all the poison the local Hummers spit into the atmosphere.

Best Nostalgia Ad (not counting the Rolling Stones halftime show) - I never watched McGuyver, but I was kind of hoping that MasterCard ad would end with Richard Dean Anderson driving the truck to Stargate HQ or something.

Best Use of Yakety Sax - The Sprint couch-on-fire ad, of course.

Halftime Report

Because it's all about the ads (as is most of TV) anyway, despite everyone shaking their heads and wondering what the heck was going on with Seattle during the last minute of the second half:

Most obvious as to where the money went - The Mobile ESPN (Sprint?) ad and the caveman FedEx. I liked the punchline of the latter, but I didn't think the anachronism worked. (Yeah, I know, if you're going to posit cavemen discussing FedEx in the first place you shouldn't quibble about them not being around when dinosaurs were, but it still niggled for whatever reason.)

Funniest - Both beer ads - the "magic fridge" one brought a chuckle, and I thought the lamb-streaker in the sports parody one was cute.

Most sexist - Godaddy, sadly. I'm shamed to say that's where our domain is registered.

Weirdest - Five-bladed razors? Reality has totally outstripped parody by now, hasn't it?

Back to the Stones, I suppose...

Recipes for Disaster

I'm a very organized person, so it drives me nuts when there's an area in my life with dangling threads. My recipe collection is one such area. I've been collecting practical recipes (meaning "ones I think I'll actually use") for about 20 years, cutting them out of newspapers and copying them down from friends and relatives and printing them off websites. Back before blogs I started typing them into the MasterCook program, but that's since undergone so many incarnations that I can no longer print out the same template I want for my 3x5 index cards and I'm too lazy/busy to read through the template instructions. So that project has been back-burnered until probably after my retirement. Considering the state of my recipe scrap collection, I hope I can hold out that long!



The falling-apart recipe collection, with the large envelope with more loose recipes underneath it.



I understand there's a version 8.0 out now. I'm doomed. I'll never catch up...

In my Mis en Place post I talk about the difficulty of cooking with a life and kitchen that bears no resemblance to what's shown and promised on TV (so what else is new?). The recipes I favor, therefore, tend to be easy, not terribly time-consuming, and fun to put together. Here are a couple of my current favorites. I was going to do four, but my running commentary takes up too much room for that. It may take less time for you to make these dishes than to read about making them here!

Keema Matar

What You'll Need:

• The Meat – 1½ pounds of ground lamb, which we buy from either the neighborhood Food Emporium or Stew Leonard's, since many stores don't carry it but Rob loves his lamb
• The Stuff That Needs Prepping – A couple garlic cloves and mincing equipment (either a chopper or a knife/cutting board), or just buy minced garlic and use about a tablespoon
• The Dry Stuff – Curry powder, cinnamon stick, ground ginger (we tried fresh ginger with this but think the ground stuff works better), salt or salt substitute
• The Add-In – One 10-ounce package of frozen peas (I prefer the baby peas)
• The Veg – Basmati rice, cooked according to package directions
• The Hardware – Large nonstick skillet, small saucepan, stovetop burner, medium-sized wooden or plastic mixing spoon, three measuring spoons (tablespoon, teaspoon and ½ teaspoon), measuring cup, potholder

What You Do:

Timing is everything. Measure and cook the rice in the first (that's what you need the measuring cup and saucepan for), 'cause it takes longer. I was getting a brand that only took about ten minutes total but the package yielded two servings; now I buy in a slightly bulkier form but it takes a lot longer to make, as they tell you to soak the rice for 20 minutes before you even boil the water, then you simmer it for 15 minutes then you take it off the heat, fluff it a bit with the mixing spoon, and let it rest off the stove and on a potholder for another 10. That last 10 is when you make the Keema Matar, it's that quick.

Preheat the skillet. I didn't start preheating skillets till just recently, and was amazed at what a difference that minute or so makes. Oh, and I almost always work at a constant high or medium-high temp throughout the entire cooking process for this one.

Dump in the lamb and start breaking it up so it doesn't stick together. The sucker tends to be sticky, so keep taking your aggressions out on the meat by continuing to break it up forcefully. You are the meat's chaperone, darn you, do your job! No meat-snuggling on your watch! After it's started to cook and the pan gets moist, get your dry stuff ready. Throw in a cinnamon stick, the garlic, about a teaspoon of salt or salt substitute, and the ½ teaspoon of ginger. I wait until the meat's a little more done (maybe another minute or so of stirring) to throw in two heaping tablespoons of curry (yes, two, don't skimp on this stuff and it makes the kitchen smell great!), as it's easier for me to tell the pinkness from the brownness without the added yellowness. Ignore where the online recipe says to keep the lamb crumbly but not cooked; you'll want both it and the curry thoroughly heated through. It only takes a couple minutes more.

The recipe also says to spoon off excess oil, but don't do this, the moisture will be minimal and you'll want it there when you serve the sucker. Last thing you do is dump in the package of frozen peas, break them up and stir them in with the rest. Keep the heat on until they're heated through (try one or two along the way to make sure). Portion out the rice, pour the meat mixture on top of (or next to) it, and you're done! If you have a bottle of mango chutney as a side condiment you're more than done. If you also have a Kingfisher beer you're probably blotto by now.

Guacamole Deviled Eggs

What You'll Need:

• The Stuff That Needs Prepping – 4-6 eggs (which you'll need to hard-boil), two avocados
• The Dry Stuff – Salt or salt sub, scallion, paprika, cilantro
• The Wet Stuff – Lime, Tabasco sauce, Worchestershire sauce, Dijon mustard
• The Hardware – Small saucepan in which to hard-boil the eggs, stovetop burner, medium-sized mixing bowl, knife, cutting board, potato masher, wacky deviled egg serving tray (optional), utensil-type spoon, mixing spoon, measuring spoon (optional)

What You Do:

I've developed a better knack lately for getting how some kinds of food seem to go together. Avocados, limes, cilantro – all green, all well-matched. You can play with eggs and avocados a lot; today I'm making a salad with those ingredients, romaine lettuce, scallion, cheddar cheese, and the Tabasco/lime/cilantro flavor trio (oh crap, make that a duo, the cilantro's gone bad; darn this extended exhausting commute anyway). You also don't really need to measure stuff for this as critically; about a tablespoon each of the Worchestershire and Dijon will do, for instance, and the other ingredients you can pinch or squeeze or add to taste.

First boil the eggs. I put the eggs in the saucepan and add enough cold water to cover them, bring it to a boil and then let it go for about five minutes, after which I drain the hot water and pour in cold water and wait for maybe half an hour while I do something else. Or you can give it an ice bath if you're impatient. I recommend you crack the eggs on the air-pocket end, which makes it easier to peel them (give them a rinse after peeling to make sure the shell fragments are gone). Cut them lengthwise, not across the middle. I can't emphasize this enough, because I screwed it up the first time. Remove the yolks (they should come apart easily) and dump them in the mixing bowl. Arrange the egg-white halves on your wacky platter.

Cut the avocados lengthwise around the pit, moving the 'cado rather than the knife then twisting the halves in different directions to separate them. You can remove the pit with a spoon or your fingers; don't worry about getting the 'cado a little mushy, you're going to mush it up anyway. I like to "score" inside the half-cados by making squares, running my knife along at inch-long intervals first one way then the other, it seems to come out easier that way. Just scoop it all out with a spoon and dump it in the mixing bowl. Then go to town with the masher.

Chop up a scallion (aka green onion) and dump it in the bowl. Roll the lime back and forth a bit to break up the membranes and release more of the juice, then cut it in half and squeeze the juice from both halves into the bowl. Let's mix again, like we did last summer. Shake in however many drops of Tabasco and pinches of salt/salt sub as you want. The online recipe calls for two teaspoons of minced seeded jalapeno pepper, but we don't like jalapeño and that mincing and seeding is a lot of work anyway (not to mention dangerous if your hand happens anywhere near your eye). Trust me, you won't miss it.

Toss in the Worchestershire and Dijon, then chop a tablespoon or so of cilantro (again to taste) and toss it in as well. Mix everything together one last time. Fill the empty egg halves with the mixture, and sprinkle everything liberally with paprika. There will be a lot of mixture left over, even if you use six eggs; it's fine to eat just as it is, so save that spoon!

Hope these recipes have inspired you to create or even just to smile. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a salad to prepare and a couple recipes to file away wherever they'll fit...

Liberal Coalition Top Ten
Week of 1/29 thru 2/4/06

Time once again to check in on what members of the Liberal Coalition have been saying:

• Amy at blogAmy makes with teh funny.

• Andante at Collective Sigh mentions the vase-shattering incident at the Fitzwilliam Museum. My klutz karma undoubtedly prevents me from making more museum visits; I fear a similar stumble on my part might have resulted in wiping out the entire floor's collection.

• Bora at Science and Politics expresses skepticism about a discovery that hits close to home, the so-called Bosnian pyramid...

• Charles2 at The Fulcrum is perplexed over the US freeing an actual terrorist, whose release should be as notable as allowing members of the bin Laden family fly out of the US unquestioned on September 13, 2001.

• Echidne notes the re-election of Finland's Tarja Halonen.

• Guy at Rook's Rant passes on some blogging rules.

• Jane Hamsher at firedoglake sinks her teeth into the GOP treason scandal (aka the Plame Name "Game") once again.

• Kathy Kattenburg at Liberty Street has some choice words about the now-so-called Long War.

• T. Rex issues an interesting challenge: come up with one policy from President Bush that was successful. My AAA magazine touts his transportation bill from last year as " an extraordinary comprehensive and complex piece of legislation that will benefit motorists, pedestrians and public transit riders alike," but as I recall that was filled with pork-barrel crap, so I'm stumped.

• Leah at Corrente sings the praises of Newsweek correspondent Christopher Dickey and his lack of myopic provincialism.

• Both Moi at bloggg and Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof pay tribute to Betty Friedan, and Bobby also remembers Coretta Scott King and Wendy Wasserstein, the last of whom he had the pleasure of meeting.

• Norbizness previews the February movies as only he can.

• Lastly, Scrutiny Hooligan Uptown Ruler excerpts a new AlterNet interview with Noam Chomsky.

Happy reading, folks!

Silly Site o' the Day Year

Finally, the exact sort of thing I've had in mind ever since Leah introduced me to the concept of a Link o' Silliness. So Leah, this one's just for you. It has it all - it's adorable, clever, very Japanese yet somehow universal, and won't raise your cholesterol! Ladies and gentlemen, via Cute Overload, I'm pleased to present i love egg!

Calorie Commandos

As readers know, last month I had a bit of a heart scare. One of the fears expressed to me repeatedly by the somewhat hysterical resident cardiologist at the hospital was that I had all sorts of ticking time-bomb things wrong with me, including diabetes. (Much of her overblown predictions of doom seemed to come from her immediate assessment that, since I was fat and I'd just had atrial fibrillation, I was at high risk for just about everything.) This led to, among other things, my primary care physician recommending I visit an endocrinologist, which I did earlier this week. The endo confirmed my suspicions that I'm at fairly low risk for diabetes despite a family history, but she also recommended I try to drop about ten percent of my body weight (not coincidentally, just about the amount I've gained since my myomectomy six years ago), as that would put even less strain on my system, lower my blood pressure and probably leave me in the clear as far as having no chance to develop diabetes.

Now, like many size activists I tend to have something of a knee-jerk reaction to the "lose weight or else!" crowd, but this was somewhat different. The endodoc stressed exercise first and foremost, suggesting I work my way up to a half hour daily on my stationary bike over a period of however long it takes me, perhaps breaking it up to 15 minutes in the morning and 15 in the evening (as my current commute exhausts me and includes a third-mile walk each weekday morning, I'll be starting on the bike when I get my car back). She was disappointed to hear that I sometimes only ate one meal a day in the evening, bringing up the havoc that might wreak with my metabolism in terms of putting my body into temporary starvation mode (the next best thing to setpoint theory that an endodoc could say to me). Neither did she insist I lose stone after stone of poundage to arrive at some sort of "normal" or "ideal" weight. Lastly, she emphasized that the desired-by-her weight loss, while it would indeed relieve some of the strain on my 48-year-old body and probably lead to lowered BP and such, wouldn't be some sort of instant miracle but rather involve a gradual lifestyle change for me.

Then she gave me this corporate-sponsored booklet (yes, it even has a picture of the latest incarnation of the "here's what science says is good for you until the next gimmick comes along," the food pyramid scheme) and told me to aim for between 1800 and 2000 calories per day.

Um, yeah, right.

In any case, I took the chart home, where it still sits because it's been One of Those Weeks and I'm not starting any lifestyle change until I have my now-familiar lifestyle back. But I made the mistake of mentioning the doc's weight-loss advice to a couple coworkers.

You know how ex-smokers are among the most adamantly anti-smoking zealots around? The same goes for people who've been on diets, particularly fad ones like South Beach or Atkins. So I casually mention the food chart, and suddenly one coworker decides to gently chastise me for the sodium-free breadsticks I've been munching on since I cut back on my salt intake because "you know how many carbs are in each of those?" (According to the pyramid scheme, after all, if I eat 6-11 of those a day all my carb servings are used up!) And this weird pity-sympathy mix in their voices - it's truly like they consider fatness some sort of disease to which we're all privy (another rather thin coworker is constantly talking about how she needs to lose 10 pounds), only some more than others, and if you're overtly (i.e., visually) more privy to it than they are you're obviously crying for that helping hand which they will gladly give because who wouldn't want to lose weight?

And I find myself in a long pharmacy queue a couple days later renewing a prescription and munching on unsalted macadamias, where I make the mistake of phoning Robin to pass the time and chatting about my hunger and The Chart to a woman within earshot ahead of me on the queue, who promptly chirped "What diet are you on? I was on the South Beach diet and lost 100 pounds! I lived on those macadamias!"

You don't need me to tell you that modern society is calorie- and pound-counting crazy, but no mention ever seems to be made on all these diet-substance(less) ads of actual nutritional improvements like lowering one's salt intake. I'm sure 100 calorie soups are very inviting for many dieters and profitable for the corporations pushing them, but try searching the same sites for "low sodium" (let alone "salt free") and see what you get. My less-sodium lifestyle shift has made supermarket shopping way trickier (in much the same way that Steve's gluten intolerance made me read labels more back when we were married), but if all I'd sought was "diet" this and "diet" that, no problem finding those claims labelled on every other product! What a racket.

The idea of weight loss as the ultimate goal and physical proof of a healthy life, rather than a possible-but-not-guaranteed by-product of a sensible diet and exercise, has always niggled at me. It's gotten so bad that health itself is almost never mentioned as the primary goal at all. I know that discussing health is boring and weight loss stories seem more interesting and dramatic, but you know, that's TV, that's storytelling. Human beings are supposed to be sensible enough to tell the difference between fictional drama and humdrum old real life.

Here in my real life, I do things by increments. So I might get around to trying out that pyramid scheme caloric-intake program by spring, which may amount to nothing more than halving dinner portions and creating more leftovers to bring to the office. But first I concentrate on becoming less sedentary and more active, and taking better care of my actual health, not the corporate-driven visually-expected appearance of health.

Well-Lived lives

Al Lewis was one of a kind, a real New York character. Never did visit his restaurant, but I'd heard from a number of folks it was quite fun. And Betty Friedan was always one of my heroes.

Never the Twain

Josh Marshall crystallizes what's been bothering me about the Danish Muhammed-cartoon controversy, and how so many American sites have disclaimers that they've chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam. "The price of blasphemy is death. And among many in the Muslim world it is not sufficient that those rules apply in their countries. They should apply everywhere." Bold-faced emphasis mine. I really resent the implication of any religious adherent telling me I need to act according to their beliefs, beliefs I obviously don't share. As Houston Bridges puts it, "Anything that wishes death to me for being who I am is my sworn enemy... They want us to show respect for their fucking retarded religion? Show some respect for mine. Mine says that I am a child of the living god with all the blessings entitled therefrom. One of the problems of organized religion is that the moment any particular group is dominant, they think they need to set the standards for the rest of us." That's pretty much it for me, mutual tolerance. Anyone who expects acceptance of their right to their own beliefs needs to demonstrate and practice acceptance of others'. The world has just become too small to survive any other way. [And a propos of nothing, it's starting to niggle at me that many bloggers have mistakenly referred to this as a Dutch controversy. No folks, we've already covered that one. Holland and Denmark are not the same country, as I hope Amsterdam-bound bloggers are aware.] Update: Here's a good background page on the Beeb's site, showing that this all didn't just come out of nowhere. Also worth perusing are the related articles linked to on the site's right-hand sidebar (under "Background and Analysis"). Meanwhile, the Bush administration once again doesn't get it. To paraphrase Robin, it's not the freedom of commerce for which the Muslim world hates us. It's the freedom of expression, the very freedom our government appears to be denouncing.

Silly Site o' the Day

Still sans car until at least Tuesday morning, but it could so much worse. We are blessed to live in an area with lots of public transit and have multiple busses we can take to go shopping; most supermarkets in this area deliver (which saves us having to carry heavy stuff up two flights!); and we still have our health - at least if I get some more sleep this weekend. Which is my plan for this weekend, punctuated by the aforementioned food shopping trip, writing a couple long-overdue posts for carnivals and the like, and watching Superbowl ads. In the meantime, this site gave me quite the giggle, thanks to Christopher at After School Snack.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Yes, bed again, for me at least.



But shelf for kitties! I don't think they were looking at this creature, though, whom I snapped last weekend:



Here it is at full size:



Squirrelly goodness!

Car Troubles

Yeah, it's a pain having my car in the shop for over 2 weeks and counting. But it could be worse. A lot worse. Please offer your sympathies to Cathie from Canada and Karen Zipdrive on their recent vehicular situations.

Louder Than Words

Via Jeff at Speedkill, here's a site that reprints the 12 cartoons depicting Muhammed by various Danish cartoonists (complete with English translation) which has led to all this. I found the first one by Kurt Westergaard in poor taste, but would I find a cartoon of, say, Jesus wielding a machine gun equally tasteless? I don't know; I'd probably interpret the latter example as being a comment about the disparity between Jesus' message of love and the reality of hate many Christians practice. Overall the cartoons seem a lot milder than I'd been led to believe, so I think it's worth it for people to look at them and judge for yourselves.

Let's Stand Him On His Head!

No no no, Phil, you have it backwards. Blogging is easy; comedy is hard.

Silly Site o' the Day

My socks and sneakers are soaked through this morning from the 10-minute walk to the bus-to-the-train. Oh well, could be worse, could be snowing. *sigh* I miss my car... Trying to think of nicer weather, though, and the Freeway Blogger's Iraqomo (via everybody but I saw it first from Radical Russ at Pam's House Blend) definitely puts me in a Beach Boys kinda mood, although I'm sure that wasn't its intention.

Memory Hole

Quick, get me Western Union, I need to send a telegram! "DEAR AMERICAN PUBLIC - STOP - WE ARE NO LONGER SENDING TELEGRAMS - STOP - YES, WE'VE STOPPED - STOP" There's a few more movies that won't make sense to anyone in the future. Via Len, who also talks about some Congressional staffers following in the footsteps of Winston Smith. Six years so far and nobody's told these people that 1984 is a warning, not an instruction manual?

Silly Site o' the Day

This sans-auto state, particularly the lengthening commute with its train-bus transfers and stair-climbing and other walking, is draining me more and more each day. Some "vacation" from my boss - I can't even enjoy a respite from him, I'm so exhausted, and he's back next week! The latest is that the auto shop is still awaiting two back-ordered parts from the manufacturer... *sigh* Meanwhile, my concentration is shot to hell. I'm so mixed up, I can't keep track of things. Is Punxsatawney Phil a human-animal hybrid and did he see the Oscar nominations? Personally, I'm rooting for Brokeback to the Future (via Xeni at BoingBoing)...

Whatever Happened to Dress Codes?

If I were ever invited to a somewhat formal occasion like a State of the Union speech, I would miss the hell out of my comfy sneakers and jeans, but I wouldn't wear them there. There may be nothing illegal in what Cindy Sheehan (on the left) and Beverly Young (on the right) did last night, and certainly the Capitol Hill cops overreactd but it seems to me that dressing down in the first place by wearing a t-shirt to this sort of event is tacky and inappropriate at best, not to mention asking for trouble. (Yes, dipping your fingertips in purple ink strikes me as an inappropriate stunt as well.)

Neighborhood Rapists

A coworker passed along an informative website this morning, which seems fairly legitimate on its surface, but they also appear to arrange presentations at organizations which like to create "an entrepreneurial, business-friendly environment attractive to investors," and they're associated with the National Heritage Foundation, which has, among other goals, "Replacing tax-dollars with charitable dollars, thus lessening the burdens of government." So I wouldn't entirely trust something that right-leaning, but founder Steve Roddel doesn't appear to have any closeted skeletons and an ACLU rep gives it a conditional thumbs-up, saying "I don't have any problem with websites like these that try to share information about sex offenders. As long as they are educational and pro-active, I think it is a good thing." Still, I don't tend to cotton to fear-mongering, and Roddel's remark "We are ready to launch in Britain. We are just waiting for the law to be changed." tends to give me pause; exactly what law needs to be changed there, and why does it exist to begin with? Yes, I'd like to know how to avoid rapists' homes as well, but any time I hear a version of "it's for the children" it usually sets off all sorts of mental red flags.

Silly Site o' the Day

White Rabbits! Via Anne Zook comes (and I suppose I mean that literally) this somewhat disturbing game called Stroke the Bunny. And yes, that is what the kids are calling it these days, those adorable wankers.