January 10, 2008
This one seems to be going around, and I thought it was interesting enough to do. Evidently the idea is to explore "privilege" (whatever that is) and see what bloggers have in common.... For more background, see it comes in pints?, McGehee, or Dustbury.
Obligatory Legal Mumbojumbo:
Premise: bold each of the statements that applies.Okey Dokey. Onward to the list:Original source: The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.
Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor (I assume cousins of my own or subsequent generations don't count as they were not already practicing, and thus could not serve as role models)
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers (my teachers had way more $$ than we did)
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home Hello, Mom's a Children's Librarian....
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home See Above.
Were read children's books by a parent This is getting redonkulous
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 Violin lessons
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 and Dance lessons, too, I realize.
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively (Have you seen a scientist on TV lately? Yeah.)
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18 (Credit Card? I was 21 before I had a credit card!)
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs (Does the Caltech Scholarship Fund count? I didn't think so.)
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs (HA!)
Went to a private high school (the private high schools in Fresno SUCK. I got a MUCH better education at the math/science magnet)
Went to summer camp (Church Camp)
Had a private tutor before you turned 18 (I WAS the F-ing tutor)
Family vacations involved staying at hotels (Hell no, we stayed with relatives or at friends' houses, except one large trip)
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 (Mom sews. You should see some of my pretty dresses)
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them (My Neon. Loved it. Dad's car was too unreliable to pass on, and Mom's was new then, too)
There was original art in your house when you were a child (I'm guessing my kindergarten scrawls don't count?)
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18 Hello, former teenage girl here.
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home Still do, in fact. But for my generation, this really isn't as much of a sign of privilege as it might be now given housing prices then vs now.
You had your own room as a child Only child, duh.
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course (No, but I TOOK the SAT when I was 12)
Had your own TV in your room in High School After my grandmother moved in with us, I got her TV AND cable!
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College (you're shittin' me, right? I barely knew what a mutual fund WAS)
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (Nope, I was 17 the first time. I flew to NY and back by myself)
Went on a cruise with your family (I'm guessing the Catalina Ferry doesn't count. I've never been on a cruise)
Went on more than one cruise with your family (see above. What's a cruise?)
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up Museums, but not galleries.
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family (Nope, I always knew. Mom used it as an illustration of why we conserve energy.)
Wow, I guess I was a poor little rascal. At least, according to this metric. Funny how we thought we were doing well....
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) January 08, 2008
Then I whacked my forehead on a tree chasing the puppy, scared her (no big deal, I just put a little pressure on her shot site when I picked her up and it hurt) and then spent the afternoon trying to get her to calm down.
i quit.
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January 06, 2008
It's a miracle she even sleeps. She didn't shut up until 6 AM Saturday, and last night was pretty bad, although she quit crying a LOT earlier. I'm hopeful that sleeping in the crate/ pen/ whatever means she's ok with it now......
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January 05, 2008
Fifteen Ineffective Charity Fundraising Ideas
- Dogfight for a Cure
- Jersey City Bachelor Auction To Raise Chlamydia Awareness
- Tats for Tots
- The March of Counterfeit Subway Tokens
- We Don't Have A Problem And We Sure As Hell Don't Need Your Damn Money Gala Ball & Silent Auction
- PeTA and Hamas Pita-and-Hummus Dinner
- Tree of Syringes
- Everybody Get K-Fed: A Tribute Album To Fight World Hunger
- PTSD Father-Son Fun Shoot
- The Genital Warts Memorial Quilt
- Rock Against Xenu
- Enemas for a Cause
- Pledge Drive For Ron McDonald's House, No, Not The Ronald McDonald House, Just This Guy Named Ron McDonald, Whose House Needs Some Work
- First Annual $500,000 By 4:00 PM Or We Start Killing Hostages Telethon
- Take-a-Penny, Leave-a-Penny
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January 03, 2008
Here's a vocabulary word for you: Albedo
There's a natural cause that may account for much of the Arctic warming, which has melted sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature. New research points a finger at a natural and cyclical increase in the amount of energy in the atmosphere that moves from south to north around the Arctic Circle.I'm no meteorologist, in fact I teach BIOLOGY, but I know this much: the Earth has been around 5 Billion + years. We've been taking samples for 200 years. You do the math. Need more proof? How about this? The Earth turned itself into a complete ice ball and then melted, all before life even emerged on land. So how can anyone say that Global Warming is entirely anthropogenic?
But that energy transfer, which comes with storms that head north because of ocean currents, is not acting alone either, scientists say. Another upcoming study concludes that the combination of both that natural energy transfer increase and man-made global warming serve as a one-two punch that is pushing the Arctic over the edge.
Scientists are trying to figure out why the Arctic is warming and melting faster than computer models predict.
The summer of 2007, like the summer of 2005, smashed all records for loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and ice sheet in Greenland. In September, the Arctic Ocean had 23 percent less sea ice than the previous record low. Greenland's ice sheet melted 19 billion tons more than its previous record.
The Nature study suggests there's more behind it than global warming because the air a couple miles above the ground is warming more than calculated by the climate models.
Climate change theory concentrates on warming of surface temperatures and explains an Arctic that is warming faster than the rest of the world as mostly because reduced sea ice and ice sheets means less reflecting solar rays.
Of course the Apostles of the Church of Global Warming are trying to rip this research apart, but it was published in Nature, probably the MOST respected journal of peer-reviewed publications in the entire scientific community, so there's clearly something to it. I'll be watching this very closely.
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January 02, 2008
I was front and center for the spectacle, and my take on it may surprise some of you.
We left the house at 5:15 am, drove to a nearby church, parked the car and had a lovely pancake breakfast, then we walked to Colorado and Orange Grove, where our seats were located in the Grandstands, just to the side of the HGTV booth. We were asked to be in place by 6:30 AM so that the Parade organizers could stage the "opening number". We were in our seats at about 6:15. I people-watched until the parade got going, and hubby took a catnap or two, wrapped in our warmest USC gear and sitting on a thick blanket instead of a cold metal bench....
What happened was that a protest was organized wherein people were supposed to stand and turn their backs on the float as it passed, a sign that you disagree with China and it's human rights abuses. There was a pro-float group on our left, and an anti-float group on our right.
Here is the very beautiful and fun float in question:
First of all, where we were, VERY few people stood other than the few who were present specifically for that purpose. Most of us were too busy taking pictures of an adorable float and the acrobats and dancers hired to accompany it down the parade route. The few who did stand were real assholes about it, getting in front of people taking pictures and trying to be dickheads.
Which really detracts from a message of human rights and peace, in my book.
I hadn't really known how I was going to react. I am no fan of China's human rights practices, but at the same time, I had no animus against the float itself or the actors and dancers paid to make it fun. As the float passed us, and the spectacle unfolded, I came to a realization: The Rose Parade is not a venue for politics. The parade is about fun and spectacle and celebration. It's a moment for the thousands of kids who raised millions of dollars JUST TO BE THERE IN THE PARADE to enjoy their (cold) morning in the sun. It's a celebration. It's for the kids. Kids and politics shouldn't mix.
There were two beautiful little girls sitting in front of us. They were enchanted by the lion dancers and plate spinners and acrobats. As the float in question passed, and the little girls couldn't see it, they were debating their favorite floats. One preferred the circus float and the other preferred the Princesses and Rose Queen with their bouquets and big pearl crown. They could give a crap about China. They just wanted to see the floats and dance to the bands. Which is what the Parade is all about.
So keep the politics out of the Parade. Protest before the parade, stage a vigil at the float viewing sheds tomorrow and the next day, but keep it away from the magic of New Year's Morning.
Our kids have so little innocence anymore, and are severely short on magic. The Rose Parade gives them at least a couple hours of kid fun.
And for the record, this protest was, IMO, a truly cheap political stunt. Why, you ask? Well, first of all the float wasn't funded by the Chinese government, it was funded by a coalition of American companies and individuals, most notably the Avery-Dennison Corporation, a worldwide manufacturer of paper and office products based here in Pasadena. Furthermore, the float didn't promote the Chinese government, either. It promoted the 2008 Summer Olympics, which will be held in Beijing. And don't the Olympics themselves promote equality and human rights? So if they were protesting the idiocy of the International Olympic Committee being bullshitted about human rights improvements by the Chinese government, I'd almost understand the sentiment, but protesting China just makes it a cheap, opportunistic stunt staged for the TV cameras.
More pictures of the Beijing 2008 float can be seen along with the rest of my 2008 Rose Parade pictures here on Flickr.
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January 01, 2008
First, the FBI has decided that they really DO want to know whatever became of DB Cooper, even though they think he's dead:
The FBI is making a new stab at identifying mysterious skyjacker Dan Cooper, who bailed out of an airliner in 1971 and vanished, releasing new details that it hopes will jog someone's memory. The man calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as D.B. Cooper, boarded a Northwest flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle on the night of Nov, 24, 1971, and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite.I prefer to think he died the way the skyjacker modeled after him did in the classic episode of Qunicy, M.E.: slowly, painfully, and alone. In a tree.
In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parachutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico. Somewhere over southwestern Washington, he jumped out the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes.
On Monday, the FBI released drawings that it said probably are close to what Cooper looked like, along with a map of areas where Cooper might have landed.
"Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? We're providing new information and pictures and asking for your help in solving the case," the FBI said in a statement.
The FBI said that while Cooper was originally thought to have been an experienced jumper, it has since concluded that was wrong and that he almost certainly didn't survive the jump in the dark and rain. He hadn't specified a route for the plane to fly and had no way of knowing where he was when he went out the exit.
"Diving into the wilderness without a plan, without the right equipment, in such terrible conditions, he probably never even got his chute open," Seattle-based agent Larry Carr said.
He also didn't notice that his reserve chute was intended only for training and had been sewn shut.
Several people have claimed to be Cooper over the years but were dismissed on the basis of physical descriptions, parachuting experience and, later, by DNA evidence recovered in 2001 from the cheap tie the skyjacker left on the plane.
Second, a group of Criminal Justice students in Atlanta is taking up the case of the mysterious death of DC intern Chandra Levy:
Since 2005, students at Bauder College have sifted through old evidence and case files from unsolved crimes as part of the school's Cold Case Investigative Research Institute. This year, Levy's homicide and the disappearance three years ago of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba are on their agenda.Personally, whoever did it, I hope they catch him and he fries.
The 50 students will not be graded or get course credit for their work interviewing experts associated with the cases, preparing timelines and looking for clues in Levy's computer, but plan to turn their findings and recommendations over to Washington police and prosecutors at the end of the term.
Levy, 24, had just finished working as an intern for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in May 2001 when she disappeared from her apartment. Her body was found in a D.C. park a year later and her death ruled a homicide, but no one has been charged. The case attacted widespread attention because of allegations that Levy was romantically involved with Congressman Gary Condit when she went missing.
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