What Kind of Man is McCain?

The British Timesonline published the following list, on Friday, of examples of McCain's sense of humor. His jokes are, at best, less than tasteful. It was his comment to his wife, quoted at the end of this article, that I think I found to be one of the most disgusting of these and revealing of what kind of person he is. Cindy is so bleeding rich...Why doesn't she leave him and support Obama? Really, why not? Anyway, here are John's "jokes"...

1. The rape joke. During his 1986 Senate campaign, he told the following joke in front of a number of journalists: “Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'"

2. The “Bomb Iran” song. Earlier in his presidential campaign, McCain was asked by a participant at a town hall meeting when the US “should send an air mail message to Tehran”. He replied: “Do you know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?” before proceeding to sing “Bomb bomb bomb” to the tune of the hit Barbara-Ann

3. The one about killing Iranians. In July, McCain was asked by reporters on the campaign trail about data showing a ten-fold increase in US exports to Iran during Bush’s presidency, with a particular rise in tobacco exports. “Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” he replied, chuckling awhile before adding: “I meant that as a joke.” Iran, understandably, was not so amused.

4. The Chelsea Clinton joke. At a Senate Republican fundraiser in 1998, when Chelsea was just 18, he took aim at both her appearance and that of the then attorney-general . "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" he asked guests. "Because her father is Janet Reno."

5. The one about waterboarding. Despite previously condemning primary rival Rudy Giuliani for comparing the race to torture, McCain made a similar reference at a press conference with Florida governor Charlie Crist in January this year. When Crist was asked by reporters whether McCain had pressured him for his endorsement, McCain, a torture victim himself, interjected: "It was just waterboarding."

6. The other ones about waterboarding. About a month later, McCain made a very similar joke reported in the New York Times. With his presidential hopes apparently fading, a number of his staff had deserted the campaign, only to return when McCain resurrected his bid with a New Hampshire victory. There was, he jibed "a short period of waterboarding to find out what they did in their absence."

7. The Fidel joke. In February amid reports of Castro’s failing health, McCain told a town hall in Indiana, "I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon."

8. The Alzheimers jibe. Shortly after President Reagan had been diagnosed with the degenerative illness, McCain made the following joke at a Republican fundraiser. “ Do you know the best thing about having Alzheimer's?” he asked. “You get to hide your own Easter eggs.”

9. The IED joke. When appearing on the admittedly satirical (and liberal-leaning) programme The Daily Show earlier this year, McCain joked that he'd brought host John Stewart an improvised explosive device as a gift from Iraq. The jibe drew criticism from relatives of US soldiers, over 1,700 of whom have been killed by IEDs.

10. The one about the French. In an interview with Fox News, McCain aimed at America’s allies in Afghanistan. "You know," he began, "the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who is still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it."

But despite his penchant for a little not-so-gentle ribbing, McCain doesn't cope very well on the receiving end. During his 1992 Senate campaign, a little inter-spousal teasing got out of control when, in front of aides and three reporters, his wife Cindy playfully twirled his hair and noted that he was thinning a little on top. His reply? "At least I don't plaster make-up on like a trollop, you c**t."

Great Fathers: Unsung Heroes

Okay, I just had to respond when I accidentally came across a really offense post attacking Obama as a father. The author seemed to believe that there are no good African-American fathers and therefore Obama must be pretending to be a good father but couldn't possibly actually be one. It wasn't the attack on Obama that bothered me so much as the assumption that there are no good African-American fathers. I know many. None of these good fathers are really celebrated in popular culture and many people (like Obama and Cosby) have been understandably vocal about the number of absent African-American fathers. Maybe it's time we started talking about those that are there and doing good with their kids...

Here's my reply to that blogger:
Fortunately, no one seems to be reading your blog because it's really sad that you, like so many, are unaware of the many African-American men who have dedicated their lives to being good fathers and role models. While people like Will Smith and Forest Whittaker are celebrity examples of wonderful fathers, and yet not really celebrated for this in the media, there have been many equally excellent fathers throughout history, despite the many challenges that African-Americans have faced as families were split apart first by slavery and then by poverty and all that comes with that. Behind many successful African-American men and women are good fathers like Charles Drew himself who had four children or his father, Richard Drew(who stressed the value of education to his children, or Lorraine Hansberry's father, Carl Hansberry (active in the black community in Chicago, including in social change work.) Neither of these fathers were absent or abusive but, on the contrary, were supportive of their children and positive role models inside the home and out. I assure you that they are not alone and if they were more celebrated in popular culture then young men now would have these men to look up to, like they can now look up to Obama as a role model. If you want to attack Obama then stick to the issues, attacking his personal life is not only low but will get you nowhere. Meanwhile, I would recommend you visit the site, fatherdad.com to read about yet another good African-American father...and a current day one at that.

Why Spain Isn't On My List of Places to Visit

I can't go another day without mentioning this on my blog...the Spanish have continued a long history of being unapologetically racist and both their men's and women's basketball team have taken pictures of themselves making the "slit-eyed gestures" so often used to mock people of Asian heritage. As The New York Times writes,

No one involved in the advert appears to have considered it inappropriate nor contemplated the manner in which it could be interpreted in China and elsewhere.

In fact, while some members later apologized, others members of the Spanish men's basketball team have simply stated that they thought their Chinese hosts would consider it a harmless joke or even an honor.

Meanwhile, this reminded me and many others of some of the very offensive, racist, and hateful epithets screamed by Spanish soccer fans at players during games. Clearly, they have a problem and brushing this off as just a little joke gone wrong is not going to fix anything.

Eating Happy and Healthy

In the summer, everyone around me seems to be dragging out the ice cream, frozen yogurt, and other calorie-laden cold desserts. Fortunately, I'm one of those people who really doesn't crave ice cream and such to any degree. However, I do like candy and popsicles and the calories in all such food (even 100% fruit juice pops) really adds up. Some ways around this problem is making popsicles from diluted fruit juice or, if like me you really like sour stuff, then make popsicles from lemonade with extra lemon juice. According to the bottle, the organic lemon juice I purchase from Whole Foods has 0 calories so I can drink as much as I like. I used to drink a lot of lemonade but now I'm training myself to drink my water and lemon juice without sugar. I still like it. Another way to satisfy a craving for something cold and sweet is to suck on frozen fruit. Frozen cherries are a great choice. The little one (7 years old now) loves frozen blueberries. And then there are frozen strawberries, peaches, rasberries, and oodles of other choices. Check them out and enjoy the rest of your summer...I'm going to go pour a glass of cold water.

Vegetarians are Sexier

"I am Alicia Silverstone and I am a Vegetarian."


No Fish and Chips for this Brit.


I've met Forest Whitaker. He's not only an amazing actor but a really nice person and a good father...

How Bush Killed Harry Potter: An Exposé

Warner Bros' film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was originally scheduled to be released this November. The film was shot and edited and the studio released a couple of trailers, one a 15-second teaser trailer preceding The Dark Knight in theatres and just a few weeks ago, they released another teaser trailer, this time much more substantial and just under a minute and a half long. This second trailer depicted a movie that, many would argue, really does the book justice in a way that the first couple of Harry Potter movies (directed by Christopher Columbus) did not.
This one is no Disney movie but a very dark story of madness, murder, and magic. It is just these sorts of themes that some parents would rather their children not read about or watch in the movie theatre, particularly that last one. In fact, several fundamentalist Christians have denounced Harry Potter and even called for the banning of the popular series in libraries and schools because they "promote witchcraft" among children. Apparently, this discomfort among Bush's fundamentalist base translated contributed to a decision by the rating board in Los Angeles to give the finished 6th film a rating of R, attempting to limit the number of children who would see this film or at least censor the content of the film. In order to avoid retaining this R rating, Warner Bros is forced to return to the set, reediting what had been the final product and even refilming particular scenes. Because the studio is trying to play this off as the fault of the writer's strike (how dare they want to get paid for their work) which ended six months ago and isn't admitting to the ratings scare, we can only hope one day the original cut of this film will be released. This is one case where the director's cut of a film is of real interest.

Now, you might agree that some of the dark material of Harry Potter is of questionable value for young children or any children for that matter. I too think that Harry Potter is a very violent story that includes a great deal of murder and death that children might have difficulty dealing with. The question however is not so much whether this latest Harry Potter film deserved an R rating but whether the MPA is rating films in an equitable fashion. Many of us could give examples of films with very violent content or even sexual references and bawdy humor that received a very kind rating of PG or PG-13. So, my question is: Is it possible that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is more violent and dangerous for our children to see than that latest very violent James Bond film, Casino Royale or The Dark Knight, both of which received a PG-13 rating?

Federer stunned by Blake in singles

I know, "two sports posts in one day?" But I yelped when I heard this on the radio today. JAMES BLAKE finally beat Federer! Blake is now in the running to earn an Olympic medal and Federer is left to lick his wounds before he cedes his #1 ranking to Nadal on Monday. I'm so excited for Blake. I had to search some to find a picture of Blake during or after this match. Even though many news sources covered the story, most pictures were of Federer. The one posted here is from ESPN and was preceded by a photo of Federer (and a Hooters ad). Usually the triumph of an American would be very much celebrated but...Maybe I haven't mentioned this on my blog before, however there is still a heck of a lot of racism in tennis (and golf and soccer and certain other sports). A network commentator during Wimbledon said that Venus' forehand reminded him of a favorite horse of his. Later he said that, like their mother, he wasn't sure which of the Williams sisters to root for and..."I'm not anywhere near related to them." So, what's the difference between not being related to someone and not being anywhere near related to them? If Venus' forehand reminded him of a horse, he reminded me of a used diaper.

Keep Swimming!

Have you guys heard of this kid...


That's Cullen Jones, olympic swimmer. Traditionally there definitely hasn't been much diversity in swimming so it's nice to see him there and doing so well. This is also especially refreshing (swimming pun intended) because many african-american children are in the same danger that he was in when he was little. When he was 5, he didn't know how to swim and nearly drowned at a water park. The statistics reveal that minorities are three times more susceptible to drowning. Now Jones is teaching little kids how to swim. There are a number of blog posts and articles online about Jones, including from major newspapers like the New York Times.

Wifeswapping: Pants and Politics

"So," you say, "What a cute photo. That must be Cindy and John McCain, right?" John McCain, yes. Cindy, no. Meet Carol, his first wife. He was married to Carol, the swimwear model, until she got too old and ugly for his taste. Don't believe me? Listen to Ross Perot: "After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona and the rest is history." Countering those who might chalk it all up to the difficulties of returning home after being a POW in Vietnam, Carol herself said in regard to the failure of their marriage and his infidelity, "I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else." And John agrees, "My marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam." I admire the honesty. I don't admire the history of infidelity and I don't admire the mainstream media for making infidelity a huge issue for others but not when they talk about McCain. Most people I have spoken too don't even know that he was married before, not to mention that he cheated on wife #1 multiple times and then finally dumped her for the filthy rich 25 year-old Cindy.

By the way, I wondered what his first wife looked like and googling her (I've got to stop using that damn search engine of the Machine) lead me to the site Constructive Anarchy. This site is pretty humorous and reminded me of a few additional things about the lovely McCain like that he actively opposed and voted against creating a national Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Apparently, with the exception of some photos posted by the Washington Post chronicling McCain's life, there are surprisingly few pictures of Carol McCain online. The thing is though, she was a professional swimsuit/underwear model before this. A gazillion people must have pictures of her in magazines, on calendars, pin-up posters, etc., in their attics. But, even with McCain being a public figure for years now and despite the fact that this is his second try for the White House, none are online? Can we say weird?! Moreover, none of McCain's philandering past has received mention on any of the mainstream networks that I know of. I asked people about this after I read it and they said that they had no idea he had a history of infidelity, that he was still married to Carol when he was running around with Cindy, or that Cindy had a drug problem and stole drugs from a charity organization. These kinds of things are apparently not as newsworthy as Edwards' inability to keep his pants or whether Michelle Obama is proud of everything this country does or not.

I would argue that basically none of these boys can keep their pants on, so I don't really care who the latest person to have had an affair is...I just want some equitable coverage when it comes to the candidates. Even better, let's just talk about the issues and stop the character attacks, warranted or not. So Edwards was sleeping around...does that suddenly mean that the issue he has put so much energy into, that of eliminating the poverty that affects so many in this country, isn't actually an issue at all? McCain's filandering ways are also much less important to me than whether he would, as president, continue the unchecked and inhumane military actions of the Bush administration.

Every Now and Then She Speaks

That's me...the every-now-and-then-online girl. Anyway, I recently came across a very interesting online magazine called Truthout. I'm sure many of you have already seen this but it was new to me so I decided to post a link here. The Web is really the only place to find real news these days. Most everything else is just blather from the corporate machine.

Why I Love the Olympics (smell the sarcasm)

The Guardian published this article in July of last year and, of course, things have only gotten worst since then...Olympics blamed for forcible removal of 2m over 20 years.

If you didn't know already...

I like World Cup Soccer and even Speed Skating but Tennis is definitely my Favorite Sport so let me share my enthusiasm for the moment...

Venus and Serena rock! They are outstanding tennis players and I love to see them play.

And then there was that very long very exciting (read: close) Federer/Nadal final today. Wimbledon does not disappoint!

Victoria's Big Secret is Slave Labor

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/69022/

What are We Doing?!

Not only are we sending young people over to murder innocent people abroad but after they have done their "duty for their country" we treat them like shit. There was a story on the network news last night about medical malpractice within the military and the inability of soldiers to sue for malpractice. There is a law barring them from doing so. The reporters had come to interview an officer who was not told that he had skin cancer and so went eight years untreated. When the reporters arrived though, he was shrunken and all but withered away, bearing no resemblance to the loyal and robust officer in his late twenties that he had been. He died just minutes after they arrived. His son will receive only 55% of his benefits because he was forced into retirement by the condition that army doctors neglected to tell him he had, though the doctor made note of the melanoma in his records. This kind of medical malpractice is only part of the negligence the armed forces are guilty of with regard to their "employees". It is also clear that they show callous disregard (or worse) when it comes to mental health issues. Senator Barbara Boxer recently send this message to Army Chief of Staff George Casey about the sharp increase recently in suicides and suicide attempts among the armed forces:

I was alarmed to read in The Washington Post that 121 soldiers committed suicide and another 2,100 soldiers attempted suicide in 2007, the latter being a six-fold increase from 2002. Though I appreciate the efforts the Army has made to improve mental health care and services for our soldiers, I fear that the strain placed on our forces by frequent and lengthy deployments is simply becoming untenable for service members and their families. These tragic suicides and attempted suicides may be a terrible consequence of that strain.

I would also like an overview of what steps the Army is taking to address the increasing trend in suicides and suicide attempts. In particular, I would like to know:

· What action is the Army taking to reduce the stigma associated with soldiers suffering from mental health issues?

· How many mental health providers are deployed in support of our soldiers, and what impact has this had on the availability of mental health providers for our soldiers and their families in the United States?

· How many soldiers who have attempted or committed suicide have been under the care of a mental health professional?

· Does the Army need additional resources from Congress to assist in curbing the increasing trend in suicides?

Unfortunately, these terrible tragedies remind us of the grave consequences of sending our men and women into harm's way. But they also remind us that we can and should be doing more. As always, I remain committed to ensuring that our military has the best possible mental health resources and services in place to care for our men and women in uniform. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer

United States Senator

Returning Soon

Stay tune for the updated Alien Citizen...

New Orientalism, Feminists, and Presidential Candidates

A friend and I recently got into a discussion about Persepolis, Kiterunner, and the new orientalism. Well, really there is nothing very new about new orientalism. The orientalism today is simply a continuation of a long history of orientalism that goes back literally centuries. From Professor Fatemeh Keshavarz,

"Orientalism is a way of thinking about the world and the cultures that inhabit it. It acquires global significance by defining and presenting these cultures in ways that endorse, even reinforce, the political and economic supremacy of the West. Edward Said, the thinker who coined the term Orientalism, pointed out that the Orient was almost a European invention since antiquity as a place of “romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes.” In another sense, the Orient helped Europe to define itself, or the West, as its contrasting image in terms of people, ideas, experiences, etc."

My friend thinks that Persepolis is awesome reading and great feminist literature to boot. I don't necessary completely disagree but there was something about this sudden recent interest in literature like Satrapi's Persepolis and Husseini's Kiterunner that really bothered me. Here is what I wrote to said friend.

Dear Daniel,

Persepolis does have feminist sensibilities but it really stood out to me that the success of this book, like Kiterunner and other of Khaled Housseini's works, has been largely due to a predominant orientalist view of that part of the world. If we set the same story in the united states about a girl growing up worshiping rock and roll singers with a backdrop of, say, the fundamentalist Christian conservative politics of this country, then I wonder if it would have seen the same success. So, yes she seems to give a view of the Iranian as something other than the exotic but then her picture of the oppressed woman fits right into the orientalist narrative. Case and point: Gloria Steinem's glowing praise of Persepolis. Steinem is someone who makes her own extremely reductionist assumptions about the world, positing for example that sexism somehow wins out over racism as a "most restricting force in America". I agree with the author of the blog, Reappropriate, quoted below in her response to Steinem's most recent statements on the presidential race.

"We’ve heard many argue that it’s time for an African American president, and many more argue it’s time for a female president. But, nowhere in the race vs. gender frenzy that has swept the nation has anyone challenged the very validity of the question. How can one compare racism to sexism – and if one tries, where do those of us who are disadvantaged both by our race and by our gender fit in?"

Let me know what you think...

As Beautiful, As Soothing, As Kind, As Fleeting.

For a large part of my growing up, I dreamed of being an opera singer. I sang all the time, listened voraciously to classical music, watched what opera I could catch on Public Television, and tried composing my own music for the keyboard. I've tended to, recently, keep my love of the Opera under wraps...afterall, I've long since come to the realization that one does not become an opera singer without training since a wee age and afterall, I do not like all opera. The difference in quality between one opera singer and another can be so profound that to me their work sounds, at best, like two wholy different genres. But to listen to those who truly love what they do and who are not masters of the music but synonymous with it...The transformative quality of Pavarotti, Caruso, and Jose van Dam's voices have been called ethereal. However, I appreciate them more for their ability to ground me...to make me feel at peace with the earth. On a warm autumn day, I like to come back from the library, clean from top to bottom (okay, mostly just the bottom), fling open the windows so my mix and match lace white curtains billow in the breeze, put on a recording of Nessun Dorma and sit out on the front steps with a book. While we still have his recordings...I'll miss Pavarotti's presence in this shared universe of ours. He was an amazingly beautiful person, transforming the world (and not just the privileged) with his golden voice.

Why Bush should be the new Miss South Carolina

I'm going to assume everyone has seen Miss Teen South Carolina attempt to answer a question about why Americans can't find their own country on a map. She gave a really really really excellent answer in my opinion. They always say to teachers, "show, don't tell." Well, she was just demonstrating to the audience how Americans think or...don't think. Americans, she informed us, are just dumb.

Anyway, here is why I think Bush should be crowned the new Miss South Carolina...



That's right. He's got just the right amount of intelligence for the job. But how does he look in a swimsuit? *shudder*

On Senator Craig

I just wanted to put out there what the media isn't bothering to say: It doesn't matter whether he is gay or not. While the nightly news, newspapers, the Senator himself, and others are sounding more homophobic than ever in pursuing the question of whether he is or not, I don't give a hoot. It is completely irrelevant to whether he was propositioning people in a public bathroom or participating in any other lewd behavior in the same location. Being gay is not a federal offense, nor is it lewd and had he done the same thing in a women's bathroom to a female officer then we would not be discussing his heterosexuality, as if this was the problem.

Adult ADHD

If you like me, have ADHD then you'll appreciate how much harder it is to get information about this than getting information about childhood ADHD. There is a great deal more information now than ever before, books and such, but it was nice nevertheless to find this dated video on the subject.

Posted Feb 19, 2007

ADHD in adults and other important information

FedEx Sucks

This is just the second time that I've ordered something that was supposed to come via FedEx. The first time, I changed the address I wanted it delivered too shortly after placing the order and while the computer said that they had this information and it would be delivered by the end of the week to that location, the driver instead tried delivering it to the old address and then took two more days to figure out what the correct address was...the address I had given them a week before and which they had in their computers.

This second time, I was impressed that they deliver on Saturday since UPS doesn't and was happily awaiting my package at home. About 2pm and still no package so I decide to track it online. It says it was delivered to my front door not 15 minutes before (signature service not requested)! Now, there are several people here and none of us saw FedEx even drive by. I check the front door, no package. I consider asking the neighbors if they got it but going out and taking a walk up and down the street I see no package at anyone else's front door. So, I call FedEx and tell the lady who says yeah the driver said he delivered it to your address. So My 200 dollar package is AWOL but like before they say they will tell my local FedEx facility (who I was told customers I not allowed to call themselves) and they will talk to the driver and eventually, days later I should get my package. FedEx sucks.

Wise Words

I was watching the inspirational speaker, Dr. Wayne Dyer, tonight. A quote from him: "It makes just about as much sense to me to have a smoking section in a restaurant as it does to have a peeing section in a swimming pool."

And from someone he quoted: "Wisdom is knowing I am nothing. Love is knowing I am everything. And in between the two, my life moves."

The Pinker the Better

That last video was Pink. So is this one. An artist who sees the world with open eyes...

Dear Mr. President,

TwoCrows posted this on her blog and I love it so much that I'm posting it here.

iReading

I have something over 200 books in one small space...they always surround me but I like it that way. I've always dreamed of having a proper library or of living in a library, getting locked in a library, etc., etc. Anyway, these hundreds of books were more numerous in the past and I had to (painfully) pack some away because of allergies, etc. Books do unfortunately hold a great deal of dust and other allergens (incl. mold if there is enough humidity in the air) because they are made from organic material. Luckily, we live in a digital age and many of those books that I might have bought in a used bookstore, along with all the requisite nostalgia causing mustiness, I now own in electronic form. With a large enough screen and good backlighting, I have found reading text in electronic form to be quite rewarding. Recently, Sony came out with a nice reader just for this purpose. This may be a little reminiscent of those flat pads the crew used to read from on Star Trek: TNG but, even without being a fan of new technology, anything that allows me to carry around an entire library of books in my pocket is a winner with me. Note: I carry about 180 titles on my PDA and have had no difficulty reading from it, even in dimly lit environments.

I can't remember if I recommended it already or not but the Korean movie, Kim Ki-duk's film "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring", is a very good (Buddhist) tale. I think of it often. Was thinking of it while listening to an episode of Chinesepod today about monks (the movie is about a monk and his son/disciple and so is the children's story in the ChinesePod episode). I also highly recommend Chinesepod (did this already on my other blog, Yinyangwriter, last year.

Taking a Writing Break...

...that is, a break to do some writing. So, I'm back to blogging here every now and then (rather than daily) and will focus my blogging energies on Yinyangwriter as a complement to the actual writing of the novel. At Yinyang, you can even track my progress on the novel with the wordmeter. Hopefully, I truly do have something to say and I'm not just wasting my time ...writer's anxiety, writer's anxiety. I don't care so much that this particular book is published/successful. I think I just need to get it out of my system so that I can finally write something more commercial. I've learned a lot about writing already that I didn't know when I started, so this is certainly a learning experience. As everyone says...the only way to become a writer is to write. I'm considering simultaneously outlining something commercial...I have some ideas when it comes to the structure (and the symbolism to use, etc.) but not the plot itself so much. Or rather I seem to be drawn to ideas that require fairly extensive research and I don't want to go down that path with the next book either. Researching rather than writing is sometimes just plain annoying.

Addicted to Colbert: An Autobiography Part II

This one had me in stitches.

Addicted to Colbert: An Autobiography

We're All Busy People :-)

Irrelevant Nonsense

I am so busy again...writing my novel and typing in another for revision and potential publication. Here's something amusing a fellow writer had on his blog. Apparently, I had the word "kill" on my blog 3 times too many and 1 "dead", thus the rating. Oooooooo...

Happy Harry Potter Day, Muggles, Witches, and Warlocks!

Word of Caution: I make some very controversial and somewhat uneducated guesses about what will happen in book 7 at the end of this post. I have not read, not to mention laid eyes on, a single copy of book 7.

Well, not sure what to call today but Harry Potter is apparently more important even than one's own birthday. "That's a minor event. Harry Potter is a major event, " Little One tells me. So, we're waiting for the package to arrive...maybe by apparition, maybe by that magical bus that they send for wizards and witches in need, and maybe by UPS...but I'm hoping that the story strand about eliminating slavery was not eliminated itself but was in fact further developed and is crucial to the plot in this final volume of the series. Hermione seemed to lose interest or steam or else was working completely behind the scenes in Book 6 whereas in Book 5 her campaign was in full throttle. I say Free the House Elves and all similarly employed adult and child muggles in sweatshops around the world now or risk finding that you are complicit in something more evil than he-who-must-not-be-named!

My Prophecy (aka silly guess as to what happens):
Snape saves Harry, in an unexpected and crucial moment coming in to save the day and clearly choosing good over evil...and then Snape himself is killed (perhaps he had to sacrifice himself to save Harry) and then we all go for Kleenex. And I would hypothesize also that Snape or Voldemort is Harry's real father but this has already been debunked by Lady Rowling so I won't go there. Afterall, it's a children's book aaaand that plotline is a bit played out already since Star Wars, etc. :-) Have fun reading everyone!

Hook a Canuck: Courtesy of Michael Moore

I just saw Sicko (finally)! I want to leave this country so bad. Or let us all lead mass demonstrations in the street for healthcare. Else, what's the point? A lot of the time, it seems you tell Americans they are getting screwed and they nod and go back to work. Did everyone else already visit hook-a-canuck.com? Here's the video from the website.

Ducttape Your Windows: An Atmosphere of Fear

Don't Judge a Woman by Her Cover?

Haha, this video made me laugh...and that's a good thing.

"We Think a Brother did This."

I believe it was 60 minutes that I was watching last night where they had a story on how crime often runs in families and were making the claim that this was a genetic connection between relatives. Unfortunately, this was just one more case where the writers/producers of a story failed to work through an argument logically. Their argument is that because the children of convicted criminals often become criminals themselves, the family carries some sort of criminal DNA. Of course since many of the people we have convicted and imprisoned are african-american, this was really the old story claiming that black people are genetically criminal. Wow, how we have progressed as a society! Not. But, what is wrong with this argument? Surely, I can't disagree that there is some connection, given the statistics...afterall, I'm a mathematician. It is not, however, the statistics that I am questioning. It's the logic of the argument, the conclusions they are drawing from that data. Given the same information, it is very easy to make a completely different and not unreasonable argument about why some criminals have "criminal families." First, consider who most convicted criminals are, where they come from. Never was white-collar crime discussed in the story. We weren't apparently talking about Martha Stewart or Scooter Libby. And most prisoners in our society do come from disadvantaged, low-income communities with terrible school systems (which I have taught in). If you live in Crenshaw, CA or Camden, NJ, drug use and violence are familiar parts of your life. Okay, so here is where the crime is coming from and it didn't require any nascent criminal tendencies. When people have very little to look forward to in their lives and few positive role models in their community, it's easy to get pulled in by the bad crowd. Just go talk to any group of teenagers if you doubt that.

But then, once imprisoned, surely we cannot expect their children to be attending ivy league schools and starting fortune 500 companies or otherwise being well on the way to completing their American dream? By looking at the children or even the siblings of convicted criminals, we are immediately narrowing our focus to those people who are also living in an environment that has demonstrated itself to be conducive to criminal behavior. If your father is in prison, then you are growing up in a single-parent household and thus your mother is working her butt off to support you all the time and therefore likely not around, as much as she might like, to keep you from giving in to the temptations of the neighborhood. It's a well documented fact of psychology that people often unconsciously copy the behavior of "lost" parents, no matter how abusive. These kids are disadvantaged and abandoned because their parents are in jail. What's to stop them from following in daddy or mommy's footsteps? I think the producers of that story are focusing entirely on nature and neglecting to look at how "nuture" or environment plays a role in the opportunities that people have in life. And the truth is, it's not always a 'bruther' that did it.

Furthermore, where was the positive side of this? Knowing that relatives are more likely to commit offenses, why don't we use this to enact preventative programs...why not focus all the more on educating those children of our most lost members of society. Believe me, the children aren't lost. They are not doomed by DNA. On the contrary, they need us more than anyone.

Seitan is Damn Good

I mentioned seitan in my last post and I wanted to explain what it is for anyone who isn't already familiar with this delicious and versatile food. Seitan is the same as wheat gluten and if you've had chinese food then you've probably eaten seitan before as it's often used in various savory dishes there. Seitan has a dense, chewy texture and has a long history as the perfect meat substitute. I have served it to meat-eating relatives many times and gotten the response, "I thought you were vegetarian?" It is so like meat that some vegetarians won't eat it because it bothers them. I think that's a little silly but that's just me. Seitan absorbs flavor in much the same way that meat does as well. Seitan roasts are deeeeelicious. It's also great for sandwiches and really basically any dish that traditionally includes meat. The easiest way to make the basic seitan is by making a "dough" from vital wheat gluten (you can get this in boxes or bulk at your local health food store) and a broth of Bragg's Amino Acids (tastes like soy sauce but is much healthier), ginger and garlic powder, and water. You knead this dough, let it rest a little, then simmer pieces in broth for up to an hour. Then you can eat it as is, fry it so the outside is crispy, bake it with sauce in the oven or use it in whatever other recipes you can find. And there are a multitude of wonderful recipes for Seitan online! For more specific instructions on how to make it, here's a recipe from the vegetarian resource group

Quick Homemade Gluten
(Makes 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 pounds or 2 to 2-1/2 cups)

This is the basic recipe for gluten.

2 cups gluten flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1-1/4 cups water or vegetable stock
3 Tablespoons lite tamari, Braggs liquid amino acids, or soy sauce
1-3 teaspoons toasted sesame oil (optional)

Add garlic powder and ginger to flour and stir. Mix liquids together and add to flour mixture all at once. Mix vigorously with a fork. When it forms a stiff dough knead it 10 to 15 times.

Let the dough rest 2 to 5 minutes, then knead it a few more times. Let it rest another 15 minutes before proceeding.

Cut gluten into 6 to 8 pieces and stretch into thin cutlets. Simmer in broth for 30 to 60 minutes.

Broth:
4 cups water
1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
3-inch piece of kombu (a type of seaweed)
3-4 slices ginger (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring broth to a boil. Add cutlets one at a time. Reduce heat to barely simmer when saucepan is covered. Seitan may be used, refrigerated, or frozen at this point.

Total Calories per 4 oz. Serving: 77
Fat: 0 grams

...and for photos of what this delicious food looks like, take a look at the very cool blog, Don't Get Mad, Get Vegan. So, call me Seitan's little helper but I love to cook it and love to eat it too! :-)

Animal Products in my Wine?

I don't drink alcohol. It's a personal decision that could very well change since I have nothing against drinking in true moderation. However, "Western" culture pushes people to drink "socially" far too much in my opinion and I will only drink alcohol if it is something I personally want to do and if I come to that decision on my own, without pressures.

But we do use wine occasionally for cooking (the alcohol evaporates and leaves only flavor). When we have guests, or just get a hankering for a fancy meal, nothing does it quite like Mushroom and Seitan Bourguignon, Baked Yams with Ginger and Orange, Crown Bread, and Lemon-Garlic Broccoli. I never considered however that there might be animal products in our wine. And while I suppose we were okay since we bought organic wine which seems exempt from these worries, as a vegetarian (a compassionate person) I find the very idea revolting. Well, at about.com (which I dislike, but that's another post), this article talks about just that, what animal products can be found in both wine and beer.


If I'm vegan, can I drink beer and wine?

...if you're a dedicated vegan and are choosing to rid your diet of animal foods, have you thought about what goes into the alcohol you drink? Many beers and wines are refined using a product called isinglass, which comes from fish, or may be filtered with bone char. While it may be easy to spot the worm in a bottle of tequila, determining which beers and wines are strictly vegan is another chore! In general, organic wines are usually vegan, and beers made in Germany, where there are strict laws regarding ingredients [being] vegan-friendly.

They also provide a link for this guide to vegetarian and vegan wines, beers and liquors.

Data on Nuclear Armaments

From HÉCTOR CORVALÁN, an English Professor from Buenos Aires, comes this data...
Countries with nuclear weapons:

Rusia: 1587 Megatons (nuclear power)
EE.UU: 1299 Mts
China: 273 Mts
Francia: 46,8 Mts
United Kingdom: 14,4 Mts
Israel: 1,6 Mts
Paquistan: 0,7 Mts
India: 0,6 Mts
North Korea: 0,01 Mts

The total (3000 Mts) is equivalent to 238.748 atomic bombs as the Hiroshima bomb.

Data: Newsweek Argentina (11-7-2007) ...thus the spelling. Note that, second on the list, EE.UU or los Estados Unidos is the United States.

So, while the "West" is complaining about Iran and North Korea, they have a buttload of nuclear arsenals themselves (far more than these other countries) and we have of course supplied Israel with its own supply of nuclear weapons to 'protect our interests' in the area.

Do You Know What's in Your Shampoo?

I feel like I've hit gold. The website, Skin Deep, just (re)started two months ago(less than) and it rates a gazillion household products based on the safety of the ingredients in them. From toothpaste to babywipes, from deodorant to sunscreen, they seem to have covered most everything. Someone has needed to do this kind of product testing for a long time. Finally here it is and, sadly but not surprisingly, coming not from our regulatory commissioners but from a nonprofit organization, The Enivironmental Working Group. The government is, afterall, clearly more than a little bit influenced by corporate lobbyists. I have pasted below the entire press release for Skin Deep.



*********Toxic Chemicals in Cosmetics:*********
Skin Deep 3.0 Reveals Ingredients in 25,000 Products Site Gives Consumers Brand-by-Brand Safety Ratings for Quarter of all Personal Care Products on market

Washington, DC — Most people think that the ingredients in personal care and cosmetic products are safety tested before they are sold. But there is no such requirement in federal law.

To help consumers make informed decisions about their products, Environmental Working Group (EWG) is re-launching its popular Skin Deep website, the only online source for assessing and comparing the safety of personal care products. Skin Deep, first launched 3 years ago by the EWG, generates more than 1 million unique page visits a month. Skin Deep 3.0 is a dramatic upgrade of the database, both in the number of products assessed and the sophistication of EWG's safety reviews. This newest version evaluates the safety of nearly one-fourth of all personal care products on the market.

Skin Deep fills the information gaps left by an industry that markets thousands of products with ingredients that have not been assessed for safety by either industry or government health experts. By law, the government cannot mandate safety studies of cosmetics products or their ingredients, and only 13 percent of the 10,500 ingredients in personal care products have been reviewed for safety by the cosmetic industry's own review panel. For virtually every product on the market, safety decisions are made behind closed doors, guided by an industry-funded panel, without the benefit of peer-review or independent pre-market safety testing.

"Under federal law, companies can put virtually anything they wish into personal care products, and many of them do. Mercury, lead, and placenta extract — all of these and many other hazardous materials are in products that millions of Americans, including children, use every day," said Jane Houlihan, Vice President of Research at EWG. "Mothers shouldn't have to worry about what is in the baby lotion they use, and now they don't have to. The new Skin Deep database provides information on nearly 25,000 personal care products so people can find out for themselves which products are the best choices for them and their families."

EWG's scientists and programmers built Skin Deep to be a one-of-a-kind resource, coupling our in-house collection of cosmetics and personal care product ingredient listings with more than 50 integrated toxicity and regulatory databases — the largest public, product-safety database in existence.

Consumers can also use Skin Deep to create customized shopping lists — products free of fragrances or carcinogens, for instance — while manufacturers can construct one-of-a-kind safety assessments, rating all their product ingredients at once to aid in reformulation plans to make their products safer.

###

EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C., that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment. The new database can be found at http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com and is also located from EWG's home page at http://www.ewg.org.

Two Matters

One, I want to say how honored I am at receiving a Thinking Blogger Award/Nomination from 2 Crows the magnificent. I will, of course, do my duty as an award holder and, now that I've looked up meme,...Pay It Forward to five other worthy bloggers. I already have at least one blogger in mind but need 4 more so I'll keep thinking about it. hehe

Two, Water is Heavenly. That's it. Just wanted to let everybody know. Peace.

The Movie

Okay, I won't give anything away but this latest Harry Potter movie is, by all reports, excellent. That's from a group of Harry Potterites who had nothing at all good to say about the last movie, #4. Both were PG-13 but there wasn't much to worry about in the latest...just a lot of great storytelling and compelling action. Of course, Harry was also involved in a little smooching. Next week, the book!

Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000

I just read this Washington Post article giving the numbers from Lancet on the civilian deaths in Iraq since the invasion. Awful data...even more shocking, this article is from October. Since then, many more civilians have died.

Both this and the earlier study are the only ones to estimate mortality in Iraq using scientific methods. The technique, called "cluster sampling," is used to estimate mortality in famines and after natural disasters.

The government response?

"The Department of Defense always regrets the loss of any innocent life in Iraq or anywhere else," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros. "The coalition takes enormous precautions to prevent civilian deaths and injuries."

They love to make up new words for things though..."Excess" death? Like gee, I shouldn't have eaten that one extra slice of cake...it really put me over the top...not gee, I just murdered 650,000 people. These are dead people, not slight "boo-boos".

Argh! Can I Light a Fire Under Some Democratic Butt?

I am not just disappointed in Pelosi...I am really disappointed in the Democratic party as a whole. As I see it, they have been really apathetic or otherwise completely inept at taking action where the republicans run around doing whatever they want and taking away our civil liberties one chip at a time. And this coming election...what the hell? Right now, they have at least one more viable candidates than all of those on the democrats side. There is just no way middle America is voting for Barack Hussein "Osama" (as the news media keeps accidentally calling him) or for a woman who many so called liberal voters themselves don't even like. Why do the republicans always find actors and other people who know how to play to a crowd and talk to people and the democrats put up wooden people like Kerry? Lets stop dreaming that everyone in the country is so freaking open-minded and will elect pretty-boy Edwards, B**** Hillary (their words, not mine), or Muslim B.Osama with the wrong color skin. Lets get our heads out of the sand and figure out whats really important. Do we really want to risk the republicans getting into office again and pushing us further back toward Jim Crow days? We have people locked up in prisons indefinitely without having charged them with any crime. We have to have permission from the Federal Government (aka a passport) before we are allowed to leave the country. People are being encouraged to turn each other in (remain vigilant) and discriminate based on ethnicity and religion ("I won't go on that plane with him!") How far do we have to go before we are in a police state? And how close is to close? Lets put on the brakes now, while we can. Be active and speak your mind. Talk to people about what is happening offline and online.

My Dreams are Riddles, Riddled with Math

A question on YA: "There are 120 customers in a store, 80 purchased at least 1 item. If 4 people are randomly selected, what's the probability all will buy at least 1 item?"

My Answer: The probability of any one customer having purchased an item is 80 out of 120 or 2/3. So if we are looking at parts of a whole, that represent all the possible combinations of events that could have occurred, then the part of this whole, where the first of the 4 people purchased an item, is 2/3 of the whole. Then the probability of finding a second person from the remaining crowd that also bought at least one item is 79 (because we already found one) out of 119 (again, because we have one less person to choose from in the crowd). The probability for the third person is found in a similar fashion...it would be 78/118 and 77/117 for the fourth person. We are each time finding an even smaller fraction of the whole that represents the final probability. If the probability for each was the same (independent events) then we could see that the area was decreasing exponentially (something I was never explicitly taught in school). To find the probability of all 4 people having bought at least 1 item, you need to find the product of the probabilities for each person. The answer then is 2/3 x 79/119 x 78/118 x 77/117 = approximately 19.25%.

It's Harry Potter Month!

That's right. Only...what...2 days till the movie and 12 days till the book? Yikes! A certain little one in my life has gotten me hooked. I'm taking her to the library tomorrow for the first day of a whole week of HP activities there. 25 dollars a child. Guess I ought to get my sleep now so I can rise in the morning. "We should get there early so we can sign-up." She stated very maturely tonight. Indeed.

I've had the same bloody end of the day headache for about three days but I think that is mainly from not drinking enough water. Its the only effective way my body has found so far of telling me I'm dehydrated. I wish it would do so earlier in the day...I end up drinking tons before bed (doesn't make for continuous sleep) and not drinking much at all during the day. I've just got a million other things on my mind most of the time. Will try and do better. Sleep and water = health and beauty, right?

New Domain!

Yeah Baby! We've got our own domain name now. Look up and view the glory. That's right, we're Aliencitizens.com. Nice.

Taking Count

Last time I heard, 2,752 people died in the 9-11 attacks (not including the 10 hijackers). According to Fixiraq.com, 3,592 US citizens have died in Iraq. I'm a mathematician so you'd have to tie my arms to keep me from crunching these numbers... That means that the losses in Iraq are now 130% of the number of people lost in 9-11. At globalsecurity.org you can get stats on the number of soldiers lost on a monthly basis. They made a graph of the data from May 2003 to February of this year and so I made a few amateur lines of best fit which gave me at least three reasonable equations, one of which was C = 1.74M + 38, where C is the number of casualties that month and M is the number of months since May 2003. That gives an estimate of 121.52 casualties in May and 123.26 in June. The true numbers? In May, 121 US deaths were reported in Iraq. In June 98 died. That suggests that, unfortunately, there does seem to be a positive correlation between our two variables...that is, the number of soldiers killed every month generally increases with time. However, this is only an estimate and, fortunately, in many months fewer soldiers died than the equation would lead us to believe. Little solace for the loved ones of those that did. Hmmm...Now, I wonder who is tracking the number of Iraqi civilian deaths?

Ex-Senator Freddy Boy

So, I learned at Tom Cat's Blog, Politics Plus today that Fred Thompson, who I formerly only knew from television, is an attorney and big-time politician. Which means it didn't take a heck of a lot of skills to play those roles on tv, now did it?

But more importantly, this man who seems to be playing himself off as a Washington outsider, a regular boy...is really very much an insider. He was even involved in the investigating Watergate and warned Nixon that the tapes/taping system was about to be exposed. And he wrote his autobiography about it a whiles back so...maybe he isn't trying to pretend to be a Washington outsider but that's how it seems to many of us young people unfamiliar with his Washington history.

I had no idea that Freddy boy had experience dancing in political circles. He was a lobbyist in Washington for at least 18 years and is an attorney and a former Tennessee Senator! He's apparently also a recent friend or anyway strong supporter of Scooter Libby. And his Law and Order job is perhaps a reward for lobbying in favor of NBC parent company, GE, in Washington. Of course, Reagan himself was a GE spokeman and his "GE Years" are considered pivotal in his conversion from a democrat and "New Dealer to the Core" (as he called himself prior to his time with GE) " to a staunch supporter of corporate interests.
Note: Perhaps in his favor, Thompson also represented Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, that populist leader that the US went in and kidnapped.

And if you still think perhaps he's just a regular guy, driving his pick-up truck and living with the common folk...Here's the Wikipedia description of good 'ol Mclean, Virginia where he lives.
"McLean is home to many diplomats, members of Congress and high-ranking federal government officials, entrepreneurs and service businesses partially attributable to the close location to Washington, D.C. and the Central Intelligence Agency."
Just your common folk. Shucks...bet they'd come if I invited them to a barbecue.

I Am Nothing If Not Random.

That's the title of my autobiography I think. Anyway, I posted before about a new author I'm excited about. Tao Lin wrote a story on his blog (also on blogger) called the Nearly-Severely Depressed Bird. Like I often do when friends send me poems and such, I decided to write a piece in reply, in this case a possible continuation of the story. Click reply and read the original post (not sure how to link to it directly given his set-up) and then you can read my bird addition. Here it is...

The next night, the bird lays permanently incapacitated under the claw of Jane Fonda, a languorous young cat who, following her nap, had been engaged in a series of kinesthetic exercises, when the nearly-severely depressed bird flew by. Although she is accustomed to corporate commercial enterprises and credit card machines, it has been sometime since she has been in such close proximity to a bird in flight and the cat could not recall immediately which side of her paw to swipe with. However, her hesitation was only infinitesimal and was certainly not a pause long enough for the bird to escape through before she being flattened.

It was originally assumed by interested parties that the bird had accidentally come across the cat. However, later it came to light that the bird had packed up her nest (as if expecting to be away for sometime) and had left a prescient final note in her moleskin journal which read, "Small Cat." Perhaps her nearly-severe depression had turned into severe depression and lead her to attempt suicide in this most terrible way or...perhaps, having just read Bighead, she had thought to find a kitten who might pacify her enemies and thus become her protector (especially on long flights away from the nest).

And, by the way, he just awarded me a copy of his book Eeeee Eee Eeee with pictures! Yay. Can't wait to read it.

What God would Bless America?

One of my favorite bloggers, Two Crows, recently wrote a comment which echoed my own feelings about this national "holiday"...July 4th is

"a pretty hollow holiday, these days. it never _was_ one of my favorites -- I never could get behind celebrating genocide, slavery, discrimination, sexism and the general sense of 'we're better than everybody else and don't you dare forget it!"

Sometimes I don't say anything rather than venting my frustration with the state of things...of course change rarely comes from silence however. They were celebrating the troops, including the marines, etc. and this will bring to mind my student Chris (see former post, Now, I'm Angry. I cannot celebrate the fact that the marines have taken him away from those of us who care about him, about his soul (how else can I put it? The army sends home hollowed out people. There must be no mistake in the words "Hollow" and "Hallow" being so close to each other.)

What God would Bless America?

Yahya! Love the Swedes!

This commercial shows some of the true beauty of the world. Wish more companies were willing to break with the status quo.

The Chess Game: See the Whole Board

Bush is a classic fratboy and I've always been wary of those types. They are always crass, sexist, secretly or loudly racist, and don't think there is anything wrong with putting their selfish desires above the good of everyone else. Basically that means that partying and drinking his braincells away while bashing them out of others has always made a lot of sense to Bush. I couldn't dislike him more. But on the other hand, he is just a puppet leader. Especially if he is as stupid as he acts. The real power players include Cheney, Bush Sr. Mrs. Bush Sr., Karl Rove and Company (that is a real political consulting firm based in Austin, Texas), and many others in the national and international arena, whose names we may never know. They are playing a deft chess game and when they lose a pawn (Bartlett), a bishop (Wolfowitz), or even a rook (Rumsfeld), you can bet they saw it coming and thought it was worth the sacrifice. I think we (I'm always guilty of this, see previous post) need to stop focusing so much on the individual and whatever other candy they hand us and look at the goddamn big picture. Because you can medicate the pain and the patient will still die of the disease. And I see us, as a global society, bleeding in a million places right now....Vampires at our necks. Remember...Bram Stoker's Dracula was written (based on a real man)about the wealthy aristocracy exploiting the less fortunate ...No matter how much we may wish it so, it's not just fantasy horror. This game is happening right now.

Don't Get Caught with Your Pants Down

...or your pants up and your zipper down. Or your zipper down and staff members "helping" you get it back up. Bush is an idiot. What more can I say?



No, I'm not sure this is a genuine photo. The original poster (a DNC employee apparently) is someone familiar with Photoshop. But I ran this one by some similarly skilled friends and they said it was a darn good job if it isn't real. Apparently Bush just needs help pulling up his zipper. Lies and can't keep his pants up...sounds like he's impeachable even by the Republican party's own measure.

Now, I'm Angry.

I just realized that in all my emotional upset this May, I didn't think to blog about what was bothering me. I'm really upset that one of my former students has decided to join the Marines. He's a really nice person as far a I could tell and he will never be the same again because of this monumental decision he has made to pay for his education by joining perhaps the worst of our armed forces. I know he has always worshipped order and routine in some ways and he used to say that he wanted to be a prince but that was silly kid stuff and also him trying to deal with a hard home life. His mother is depressed and they have tons of money troubles but how awful is that to decide to escape it all by joining our murderous forces. I'm just terrified for him. He will truly never be the same again. So many local kids have already gone and either never come back or returned mentally scarred (the July 4th fireworks isn't helping anyone's PTSD, that's for sure) and physically disabled. The latest to return came back with literally no feet. I just wanted to talk him out of it and I'm sure he would have listened - he basically had had noone to talk to when I wasn't there - but he had already sworn in by the time I showed up for his graduation. I've cried and wanted to cry some more. This is all so unjust. They are truly taking some of our best and brightest and twisting them into their contorted molds. Chris got duped, like so many young people, and now there's nothing I can do about it. I've never felt more like I failed a student. History: He was a student at the first school I taught at (an awful elitist boarding school). Said school has gone only further down the tubes since I left. Everyone said I was lucky to have left after the first year.

Get 'Em Young

Deserving of a Post

Click the title of this post to read an inspiring author of today. I love how the internet has been a natural medium by which author Tao Lin communicates with his audience (in the most untraditional of ways) and, generally speaking, simply expresses himself on a day-to-day unedited way. His stories remind me the most of Kurt Vonnegut but, on the other hand, they are nothing like that. Ho Hum, Eeeee Eee Eeee. Happy Birthday, Tao Lin!

It's a Small Classroom, after all...

I'm keeping track of all the countries from which hail (or have hailed) my students. The list just keeps growing every year. The additions from the just ended school year are the island of Dominica, New Zealand, and Australia. The kids from the last two countries were not even friends with each other or in the same class. It just happened that those very close countries both ended up with representatives in my classes last year. Go figure. I don't know if I could write all the rest down from memory. Cameroon is definitely on there...

Cameroon
France
Italy
Taiwan
Thailand
Korea
Puerto Rico
Mexico
New Zealand
Australia
Cape Verde
Norway
Dominican Republic
Island of Dominica (sp?)
Japan
Vietnam
Sri Lanka
India
United States
Canada
...

Those are the 20 that I remember. I'm sure I'll have to update this list later when I recall who I've missed. :-)

Shine Some Light on the Situation

I am attempting to construct my own lightbox. I tried to use a couple of mini-flashlights at first for lighting but of course that really didn't work at all, especially since my box is so short. The "box" is constructed of two picture frames. The top is the two sheets of glass from the frames with tissue paper sandwiched in between. I'm going to krazy glue the frames together I think. But still need to get a fluorescent bulb for the box or it won't work. Hopefully there's a small enough bulb for my 11 x 14 "box".

By Request

Figure Drawing for All Its Worth is a pretty darn good text on drawing...well, figures. I started with this text by Loomis and have supplemented it with many other texts as well. He has several including one or two focusing solely on how to draw some of the two most difficult aka interesting parts of the human body (no, that's not what I'm talking about, get your mind out of the gutter)...I mean the head and hands.

This Phillipino blogger's site is a good starting place if you want to download these books by Loomis and other worthy art teachers. I'll link to some other sites with Loomis titles soon. I meant to just upload the files since I have them myself and would like to make them as widely available as possible but...how to do this easily on Blogger? If you know, please do tell.

The Topic of the Summer

I've considered starting a new blog with the graphic novel project as it's main focus but decided to keep it all right here. Afterall, I don't write on this blog nearly enough and maybe I'm a little superstitious...every one of the other million blogs I've made for projects and goals has sat inactive for months or years and the project/goal that inspired each has been abandoned or all but. I can't help but think that most of the time, when I think I have a great blog idea, I really just have a great post for this blog. If only there were some fast way of consolidating all my blogs! That'd be vunderful. :-)

Classic, Man, Classic

Why the Artist is Starving

So, as I said...I am learning to do graphic art. It seems that the brushes for inking drawings...well, for coloring/painting them after the outlines are already inked, are incredibly expensive. So much so that one ends up trying to decide between buying the paper, markers, paint, etc. for the traditional inked pictures and buying a graphic tablet like the Intuos 3 or even a tablet PC. Markers like the Sakura Pigma Brush Pens or the Copic Sketch Markers have these beautiful brush nibs so you can essentially paint without the hassle of painting (stretching the paper, etc.). You can even blend colors and so on but the prices are absolutely exorbitant. Of course the professional comic artists don't do their own inking at all, they do all the sketching in black and white and then send them on to another department, well ok...another person or two.

So, just wanted to register that complaint...about the exorbitant cost of doing this kind of art. If anyone has a set of Copics they would like to donate for a good cause, drop me a line. :-)

How to Draw Eyes

Some of the not so hidden potential of sites like YouTube is as an open university online, like so much of the internet, where people are sharing knowledge in new and really exciting ways. Maybe I should make videos of me solving math equations with some simlarly cool musical soundtracks. :-)

Travelling in the Twilight

A Post from Beppe Grillo.

"Someone has given me a book called "Viaggio nelle tenebre" {Travelling in the twilight} by the Centro Aurora, the National Centre for children who have disappeared and those who are sexually abused. I've read it. I felt sick. It's right that you too should feel sick. I will ask the publishers for permission to publish it on the blog.
It's a document on paedophilia, on organ trafficking and on Satanism. The principal actors: children. Stage: Italy

From the book:
"In Italy calculating exclusively the data on the declarations made from the year 2004 to March 2007, we see that there are 3,399 minors who have disappeared and are not yet found.
Some disappeared children will sadly be destined for organ trafficking like macabre spare parts. The estimates relating to this are to say the least chilling and they present a real table of prices…. 50,000 euro for a new born, 30,000 a liver, 15,000 the corneas
According to the Trieste District Anti-mafia Division, it is a place with a lot of traffic for the buying and selling of organs so much so that a dossier on the topic has been presented to the Ministry of the Interior. Pier Luigi Vigna, National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor has denounced that just in 2004 there have been about 30,000 victims of trafficking in human beings."

Italy is even active in imports from abroad:
"Italy is denounced by René Bridel, the UN representative of the International Association of Jurists for the Defence of Democracy, by the daily papers "La Nacion" in Buenos Aires, "O Globo" in Rio de Janeiro and "La Repubblica" in Lima: our country is defined as the biggest importer of Brazilian children, as the biggest purchaser.
Léon Schwartzenberg, euro-deputy, has stated that: "From 1988 to 1992 four thousand Brazilian children have left their country for Italy. The official reason is always adoption, but of these youngsters looking for a family only one thousand have been found alive….""

Graphic Novels, Comics, and Society

As some of you know already, I am working on producing a graphic novel this year. Therefore, a lot of my "free" time is spent researching whose shoulders I am attempting to clamber up on. The history of comic books it turns out, is really very interesting, especially as a lense through which to understand more about United States history. Well, perhaps lense is the wrong word but the history of comic books is indelibly linked to that of the country in which they were largely created and the politics of the society from which hail its writers.

In watching this documentary on comic books from the history channel, I found it particularly interesting that, during WWII, comic books were full of hyper-patriotic propoganda where the superheroes ran around beating up the enemies of America, the Nazis in particular...but they were (as they mention in the video) themselves representative of a Nazi ideal, that physically superior aryan male specimen of fantasy that dominates everyone else. This is of course not surprising given the ultra-racist dominant culture of United States itself. The writers of the comic books themselves had ended up writing those magazines of comics in the first place because they couldn't get a job writing comic strips in the respected newspaper business because they were Jewish. So the superheroes could go beat up the Nazis but mentioning that the holocaust was taking place was not going to happen and neither was demonizing the racist philosophies of the Nazis because, after all, our country shared many of the same beliefs.

Also of interest, that even when comic books have deeper storylines (like contemporary comics that question American policy surrounding the Iraq war and that would even go so far as compare the destruction of 9-11 to attacks carried out by the American Government on say...Dresden) none of that is translated to movies and other pop culture media through which those of us who don't actually read comic books on a regular basis understand who these comic book creations are. The layers are almost entirely lost in translation. However, since the essence of X-Men is it's message about bigotry, perhaps it was harder to make this more superficial or maybe its simply because in that case the original creators of the characters were involved in the development of the screenplay/movie.

Black Sheep - Movie Trailer

28 Sheep Later? This is particularly amusing if you take into account that there are at least 10 sheep for every person in New Zealand.

Torture by Any Other Name and Other Linguistic Exercises

"The arguments used to justify the administration's coercive methods can be used to justify anything," writes Steve Chapman in his article, Parsing Words About Torture.

Fuzzy Math Lesson

I looooove this! I've got to show my kids. A fabulous opening to a conversation on place value.

Human Devolution

There's a reason The Simpsons has been on for such a long time. While it can (of course) also be really dumb, it's often also "right-on". Here's a example of the kind of Simpsons humor I love. Note: Like a lot of television, I don't actually watch it regularly or basically ever...but when I have seen it, I've generally been very amused.

Things You Shouldn't Do on the Beach

..if you want lucrative corporate sponsorship from anyone other than the adult film industry, then don't do what Ronaldo's ex did...with her boyfriend...on the beach.

Alanis Morissette Does Black-Eyed Peas Spoof

I wasn't quite sure whether BEP themselves weren't spoofing their genre, the whole hip-hop obession with sex and money...explicitly sexual degrading portraits of women and ostentatious love of money and self. But, even if that's so, they don't get let off the hook in any way given that most of their young audience will not see their videos as anything more than a validation of hip-hop culture with all its -isms. So, I like Canadian Alanis Morisette all the more for showing them to be the fools that they are, for "dissin 'em", in this video.