So This Is What's Come To

NBC will be debuting a show called Clash of the Choirs, in lieu of new shows written by actual writers.

You can't tell me that strike ain't working.

Oh.My.God

Barack Obama is a fan of The Wire. (swoon)

Oh, and my cuz has seen Andre Royo twice recently, just motoring around LA. I am wicked jealous.

Pretty Funny

Thanksgiving menu

“What?! Are you kidding? Can we roast a chicken? No, we can’t roast a chicken! How about fajitas? Or a chili bowl from Wendy’s? We’ll gather ‘round the Thanksgiving chili bowl from Wendy’s. Don’t talk on the phone with me while you’re typing. Talk to you later.”

 

- Mr. Scobie’s answer to a question I asked about the Thanksgiving menu

 

Even More Irritating!

As I mentioned a few days ago, I don't keep up much on the BPN Newsletters these days. But today, something caught my eye. A poster complained that her local precious market uses a marker to mark their organic produce. She is outraged by the ignorance and toxicity of this method of identifying produce. My first thought was, get over it. But of the seven responders, only one said, "Frankly, I think you're going way out on a limb on this one."

The other six people chimed in with various suggestions for community action, "vote with your dollar" nonsense. Seriously, has anyone in the entire world traced an illness, or even a bad taste in their mouth, to a dot of marker on the outside of their melon?

This one's even better:

The other thing is that at Monterey Fish market they use a very strong smelling, seemingly toxic magic marker to mark the outside of the fish package. I'd like to just pop the wrapped package into the freezer but always feel compelled to ditch the paper as soon as possible. I don't even like it being there during the trip home. This has always bugged me. I would be all for instigating a change if there was a community friendly way to do it.

So Irritating

Despite what amounts to cautionary advice from my buddy Seamus, I went ahead and took a candidate matching poll. My love matches are, inexplicably, Mike Gravel, John McCain and Dennis Kucinich. Hunh?

Okay, I admit there was a time in my young democratic socialist days when I defended the boy genius of Wherever, Ohio. But who is Mike Gravel? Why can't I be matched to someone cute, like Edwards or Obama? Or at least Richardson? He's not really my type, but he has his Bill-Clinton-swaggering-excesses way about him. I'd have a beer, act a little goofy. John McCain? I once admitted to a friend of my mom's, a veteran of the Korean War, that my boyfriend had made me a quilt for Christmas, and I got 45-minutes of gay-bashing, Army recruitment love advice. I sort of imagine that sort of conversation with McCain, even though I admire his fake evenkeeledness. So much what you think Kurtz might be if he came out of the jungle.

Fortunately, I was able to get what I wanted over at Select Smart (yeah, I don't know what it is either). Phew. My top three are DK, Barack and someone named Alan Auguston, whose campaign has already been suspended. That sounds about right for my success rate, candidate-wise.

Bigs Up to The JC

And by that, I mean Jed Caesar. My cousin-in-law is one of the artists in the Whitney Biennial 2008 (page 4). Boo yah. And Kate has not one but two shows next year, in LA and NYC. Their shows overlap in New York in May. See you there!!

Escalating Stupidity

I was thinking the other day that I hadn't posted about inanities of Berkeley lately. I don't have to go there very often now that L doesn't go to Broccoli Montessori. I can't even bear to read the Berkeley Parents Network Advice newsletters because they are all so long and redundant (does every new mother need to despair that her 3 week old nurses too much/little, poops too much/little, sleeps too much/little? and can't every new mother just read the voluminous back issues for their answer?).

That leaves only the mainstream local press as a source of Berkeley news, and I don't see much of that. Oh, except for the tree sitters. Here's the latest. Several folks were arrested yesterday. According to a man named "Ayr" (it took me a sec to get that too):

"We went to deliver sage and tobacco and water to the tree-sitters, because we had heard earlier that (police) were denying them food and water and threatening people helping them with arrest," Ayr said. "We got the stuff up to them and we were doing some chants and songs when one of the tree-sitters came down and started cutting the fence."

Ayr said the group included Native Americans who believe that the grove was a burial ground for Ohlone Indians. UC anthropologists have said there is no evidence that is true.

I don't think we need an anthropologist to tell us how the grove grows, if I can paraphrase. Remember:

All but a few of the trees were planted by the university after the stadium was built in 1923.

This is all such a tremendous waste of trust fund dollars. These tree sitters could be planning their next Burning Man project if they weren't busy spilling buckets of urine and feces all other eachother. Or (*snap*) maybe that's IT! This will be great at Burning Man! I mean it's no suicide, but it could really work! (whisper whisper) They've already spilled buckets of urine and feces on eachother at Burning Man? Hmmm. Okay, back to Ye Olde Oak Grove. . .

Chasing My Own Tail

Today I googled “Problem Focusing On Work” and “Procrastination” while at work, trying to avoid starting something. Not anything specific. I just have a really hard time starting whatever pile of crap is next on my desk to be dealt with. Now that I have avoided work by googling these terms, and then blogging about it, what do I do next? Are there any experts out there who can recommend what I should next do to avoid work?

Missed Opportunities

One thing about me that has annoyed Mr. Scobie since we first met is my willingness to form an opinion about something before I have ever read or seen it. I made it through college by learning about many books in the following fashion:

1. Develop a theory about a book based on its cover, back cover, first chapter or overheard conversation in the "C" Shop.

Note: I also read whole books, but since the UofC is a Great Books school, many of those books were totally opaque and impossible (for me) to comprehend. Thus my opinion of the book or author is still based on this applied technique.

2. Confidently extol this theory to Mr. Scob (after the first week of college he was the only one who had the patience to endure my "theories").

3. Have "theory" eviscerated by listener, who cites the actual content of said book or movie as "evidence" that I am mistaken.

4. Revise "theory" based on new "evidence" and test on new listener.

5. Repeat 3 - 5.

By the time an exam rolled around, I'd have a firm grasp of the subject matter. The downside, of course, is that while I may now remark that something is "Aristotelean" or "Kantian" or "straight out of Kierkegaard", I'm in the right universe but I can't get more specific than that.

This tendency of mine is a time saver, money saver, and a shield to struggling with anything that might be intellectually or emotionally challenging. For example, in 1996, a bunch of kids wanted to see Crash, the creepy Cronenberg movie, which was basically a snuff movie. I refused to go see it on the basis that the movie would be sensational, violent and upsetting to me. B confronted me with the fact that I knew nothing more than what had been written in the NY Times about it. I said, "I don't need to see a movie to have an opinion about it." I have, to the annoyance of many, stood by that proposition (and likely will forever).

B saw the movie, hated it and has declined to confront me so directly about my cultural . . . prejudices? foresight? since that time.

Why am I going on about this? Because it turns out that instead of seeing this an annoying quirk of my personality, he should have recognized it as a money making opportunity! There is a new book out called How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read, which I DID NOT WRITE, to my consternation. (Here's a review)

Worse, I don't even have an opinion of this book yet.

My Heart Swells

I gotta get my brag on.

This morning at breakfast, Li told us this: "There are some kids at my school who used to live in England. There was a mean king who would not let them hold meetings, so they moved to Holland. Then they came here on The Mayflower. They are called Pilgrims." (My son did not verbally link to Wikipedia. I added that so that you can check the fuzzy details of your memory against what is ostensibly the history of the Pilgrims).

*sigh* He is so cute.

Other Things from Montgomery That I Miss

Whew! Our long national nightmare is over. T&A Lady is back in the saddle, tackling offensive Halloween costumes and offensive social movements, all in a day's work. Check it out!

I also remembered some other excellent things about Ms. Kirkpatrick last night. She wore a seersucker suit almost every day, even though she was in a wheelchair, and she and her husband were accomplished recorder players. Yeah, recorders, the plastic wind instrument you briefly learned in fourth grade. Only hers weren't plastic.

Goodbye, Ms. Kirkpatrick

For no discernible reason, I wandered over to the Montgomery Advertiser just now, and it made my wonder about an old friend. Literally, an old friend and probably Liam's oldest. By sad coincidence, it turns out that Margaret Blake Kirkpatrick died on October 22. She was 94 years old. Ms. Kirkpatrick, or Mahh-gret, as I thought of her, was our neighbor in Montgomery. She was one of the best people I ever met. She was crazy about Li, and would always say, "Ewwwww, let me squeeze that beautiful little baby boy. I do love little boys, you know. I had two of my own. I always wished I'd had a little girl, too." She was funny, smart, talkative, an active reader, an integrationist, anti-homophobic ("I joined the Episcopalian Church for their toleration. Why would we exclude homasexuals?") and very supportive. "You still nursin' that little baby? Good for you!"

Once, she was taking a class at ASU, an all-black college, and some Klan members who had learned she was there, pulled the fire alarm and then ambushed her and a black student. Photos of her running out of the school were published in the newspaper, along with the "news" of her "race mixing", in an effort to embarrass her. It didn't work. When a racist neighbor of hers learned that she was helping a young black woman to get a teaching degree, he and some other men from some White "Christian" group sprayed water from high powered hoses into her windows while the young woman was visiting. Her home was vandalized repeatedly. Margaret's response to all this was, and this is just how they treat the white people. She knew that her views exposed her to very little danger compared to the dangers faced by Blacks who were fighting to end segregation and racism in Alabama.

We were crazy about her. It's silly that her passing made me cry, because she had lived such a full life. We last saw her in October 2005, when we went down to Montgomery for something else. She had moved into a nursing home, and missed being able to email (her computer had been stolen by someone else's guest) but was reading voraciously. She gave L an American flag she had, because, she said, she wasn't feeling particularly like she wanted it, what with things being the way they were. I have missed her since we moved, and will miss her more knowing that she's gone.

Here's her obituary:

Margaret Blake Kirkpatrick Departed this life October 22nd in Montgomery, Alabama. She loved friends and family, lifelong learning, educating the young, playing music and enjoying humor. She adored a good joke -even a clean one if it was smart. Born June 15, 1913 in Randolph County, Alabama, the youngest of three daughters, to Judge Stell Blake and Exa Sticklen Blake. At a young age, her parents fell on hard times, forcing Margaret and her mother to live with her sister Martha and brother-in-law Charles ''Doc'' Thigpen in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Margaret made many friends in North Alabama, becoming especially close to her niece Martha Thigpen McLemore and cousin (Senator) Howell Heflin. She received her Teacher's Certificate from Florence State Teachers College in 1933 and took her first job in Jones, Alabama. Married to Robert F Kirkpatrick in 1934, she and Kirk lived thereafter in Montgomery, and raised two sons, Robert F. Kirkpatrick, Jr. and John B. Kirkpatrick. Back to school in 1952, she earned her Bachelor's with a double major in English and Education in 1955 from Huntingdon College, followed by her Masters in Education from Auburn University in 1958. She taught fourth and fifth grade at Bear School, retiring in 1976. Never one to give up learning, she studied Jungian analysis in Switzerland, became Mentor for the Education for Ministry program at Church of the Ascension, and began the adult education program at Huntingdon College. For the latter she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Huntingdon in 2001.

Oh, And

I managed to write something over at The Union Lawyer today, in case you are catatonically bored and in need of some digression.

Catholic humor

I guess it shouldn't come as any surprise that it exists. What else is Benny Hill if not Catholic humor? Or at least little c catholic. Anyway, enjoy:



Thanks to the good deacon of Our Lady of Guadalupe for this.

A couple of observations

There is a 1:1 ratio between people who forward urban legend emails and people who do not know how to delete headers. Or the sender realizes that they are being suckers for a dumb story and want to share the blame.

Novelty t-shirts do not, standing alone, constitute Halloween costumes. Sorry, chubby dude in the Vote For Pedro t.

Umm, What?

I am not, by nature, an apocalyptic soul. That lil' tremble we just had? Ain't no thang. I am okay with it. How about that suicide on the BART tracks that delayed Mr. Scobie from making it home from dinner? Well, tragic, but not the end times. But Naomi Campbell pilgrimaging to Hugo Chavez? If that isn't the end of the world, well then, Chavez needs better celebrity friends. If Naomi Campbell and Kevin Spacey visited me, I would assume that I had been Left Behind, and that my only chance for redemption was to battle it out with those demon spawn.

Sheesh. What a day.

L's reaction to the earthquake: "I need to KILL the tectonic plates." His proposed solution involves some kind of Lego drill that launches the tectonic plates into space. It's better than my solution, which was to get under the dining room table and ask B to go look at Q, as if looking at him were a sufficient prophylactic to The Big One.

A Man of Action

Q is quite thrilled with his Halloween costume.

This picture hurts my eyes, with all the bursts of color in that room. Doesn't he look exactly like the little football player behind him?

Ya Got No Creep To Ya

- Kima Greggs, episode 2, season 1.

Yeah, that's right. The Wire is back, On Demand. It does not matter that we have it on DVD. I watched two episodes tonight making Liam's Halloween costume. Which costume does NOT include the following:

Heh heh.

And then finally, have you wondered what you might hate more than Blackwater USA, the mercenary contractor responsible for untold numbers of Iraqi civilians deaths and Godknowshowmany propped-up dictatorships? And how about those irritating sound effects in NPR stories? You know, the laughing children on the playground, the birds chirping, and then you have to change the station before you lose your mind? Do you hate that more, or less, than military contractors in Iraq? Well, I briefly got an answer to that question the other day when I heard a story about protests at Blackwater's training center outside of San Diego. The owner of Blackwater came out to address the protesters, but was quickly shouted down. He got back into his vehicle, and the tape catches a protester angrily yelling, "Oh, you drive a HUMMER?? What about the environment? You gas guzzler!!"

Like the owner of Blackwater gives a shit. Like he should be driving a Prius.

And for a brief moment, I felt . . . I don't know what. Sorry for how lame the protesters are. Sorry that I have to listen to NPR's pitiful filler-in-lieu-of-news every day. Sorry that the best argument that can be summoned to yell at the owner of Blackwater, just hours after 17 Iraqi citizens were killed, is that he's a gas guzzler.

Down with the Baby Boomers

I got an email from the Social Security Administration today. It was a press release trumpeting the fact that the "first baby boomer", Kathy Casey-Kirschling, applied for her Social Security benefits "online".

"Filing for Social Security benefits online is easy and convenient," said Kathy Casey-Kirschling, who turns 62 on January 1, 2008. "I urge my fellow Baby Boomers to give Social Security's online services a try. Save a trip and do business with Social Security from the comfort of your home or office."

I did not realize that Baby Boomers had been given free access to the SSA email database to communicate with one another, and frankly, I don't think its a good use of our tax dollars. I also think that KCK should hold off on applying for benefits for a few more years. Hasn't she heard that the whole system is going down the toilet?!? No matter WHAT Paul Krugman says?? And that you can get a lot more money if you wait until you are actually old to apply? I am not going to school her.

A different topic: Yesterday and today I watched The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (video here), about the coup attempted against Hugo Chavez. It's edge-of-the-seat good: two Irish filmmakers happened to be present (literally in the Presidential Palace) during the April 2002 coup attempt. They were there when the coup happened and they were there when it fell. It's really compelling to watch, and raises a few interesting issues. The private media in Venezuela were complicit in the coup, refusing to broadcast honest information about Chavez's whereabouts, and the massive demonstrations against the coup, among other things. They explicitly participated in the coup planning, which they explained in a celebratory post-coup news interview. By reference to contemporaneous U.S. news reports, you realize that the American media buys the Bush administration view of Chavez uncritically, and that its "neo-liberal" perspective is almost as bad as the private media in Venezuela.

The problem that detracts from this well-done expose is the filmmakers' assertion that the CIA and the Bush administration are behind the coup. While I don't doubt it - the U.S. can't not meddle in South and Central American politics - the filmmakers have no evidence at all that this happened. Here's the information they allege supports this conclusion: Pedro Carmona and Carlos Ortega, leaders of the opposition to Chavez, may have gone to the White House the year before; an airplane with U.S. registration may have been sent to take Chavez out of Venezuela when his government was restored. And I say "may" because Chavez didn't report that happening. The viewer learns it from some random person in the movie relating it as a rumor. So the movie is great, unfiltered news, it isn't hard journalism.

Another interesting problem the movie raises: Chavez was clearly thoughtful, passionate, articulate about both socialism and democracy in 2002, scaring the shit out of the upper class. He's done a lot of good things, and much of the things he is blamed for doing in the American media are not entirely true. For example, there is supposedly a constitutional basis for him refusing to renew the license of the TV station that participated in the coup against him, and they kept broadcasting on cable. Not exactly grossly offensive censorship, particularly since the FCC here is giving the green light to complete media monopolies. But I got into an argument with a guy I work with who is very pro-Chavez on the question about Chavez extending his term limits for 14 more years. (Supposedly he's just extending them until 2021, not indefinitely). He said that this extension was the will of the people. My view was, there is no exception to the rule that power corrupts, and that if Chavez does not have underlings (Vice President, cabinet members) capable of sustaining the programs he has created, then they don't have a democracy. And while I am ranting, I think socialism without democracy is, at best, paternalism, and at worst, dictatorship. I won't say fascism because I think JFB and I once may have argued about THAT word (or was it totalitarianism?).

The final analysis is: I wish I knew more about Hugo Chavez, and about nearly everything else in the world. When I learn new things - like about this coup - it makes me feel so dumb and naive. I feel like I know almost nothing when I learn anything at all.