Thanks to Bored in Vernal, I get to pretend that I'm famous

I've always wanted to be interviewed. In fact, I used to lay in bed at night and imagine being the subject of one of Rolling Stone magazine's famous (or perhaps infamous) interviews. Yeah, even though I have no discernable musical talent. Ah, well...they interview writers too. So, when the opportunity came up on Bored in Vernal's blog, requesting requests to be interviewed, I couldn't quite help myself. So...

1) Britney Spears recently "acted out" by shaving her head. What would you do publicly to "act out?"

I have to admit, with a great deal of embarassment, that I have acted out at least once in public. In my defense, this happened nearly twenty years ago. It had to do with a broken daisywheel for a typewriter (yeah, I'm old) and an assignment due early the next morning in a class where the instructor did not accept late papers. It was after closing time for places like typewriter repair stores, and so I started calling around to the big chain office supply stores, which stay open somewhat later. I finally found one that had the particular daisywheel (for those of you who only know computers, the typeface for the typewriter I owned was mounted on a daisywheel...broken wheel meant no typing) and confirmed that they would still be open by the time I drove the thirty miles to that store. By the time I got there it was nearly nine p.m. I walked in and looked for the the thing on the shelves. They didn't have the one I wanted. So I asked one of the clerks about it. She didn't know, so I asked to talk to the manager. "Oh, she said, "we don't carry those. Never have." I explained that I had called first and that I had been assured that they did carry that particular item and that it was in stock before I drove the thirty miles to purchase it. I would have been fine if the manager hadn't laughed; I would probably have been fine even with the laughter if she had bothered to apologize. But she didn't; she just thought it was really funny. I lost it at that point; and threw a little fit...no, a big fit...right there in the store. My poor mother was so embarassed; she just walked off as if she didn't know me, and I don't blame her a bit.

But, to answer the specific question, I actually thought that Britney chose perhaps the best way a woman can possibly act out. It is dramatic, because in our culture women - especially young, famous women - just do not shave their head unless they're doing it for a role in a film or are undergoing chemotherapy. It really makes the point that "I am not happy." Yet it isn't a permanent commitment. Yeah, you'll be bald for awhile, but hair does grow back and in a few months you'll be well on your way back to those long, flowing locks that represent femininity in most Western cultures. So, if I felt the need to act out in a really dramatic way, I think I might do exactly what Britney did. Minus the drugs and the underwearless partying, of course.

2) Which of the First Ladies do you most admire, and why?

That's a difficult one, BiV. I don't actually know much about historical first ladies, so I'll have to confine my answer to the first ladies I remember. I think I have to say that Betty Ford gets the most of my admiration. While her husband was president, she was so up-front about her attitudes about her children and about the various problems she had at a time when first ladies were pretty much still expected to be seen and not heard. And she held her own even when she came in for a great deal of criticism for some of the things she said. I also need to go on record that while I didn't have much admiration at all for Nancy Reagan when she was First Lady (I'm still convinced that she drove people to drugs with that "Just Say No" campaign), I had to revise my opinion of her to an extent as I watched the quiet dignity which she maintained through the nearly interminable activities after her husband died. She showed a great deal of class at a very difficult time.

3) What is the perfect age for a woman?

This might be a weasly way of answering this one, but I think whatever age a woman is, is perfect. I don't think we "lose value", as some would have us believe we do, when we start to show outward signs of aging, or when we leave our child-bearing years (I'm getting pretty close to that one now), or when we reach the point where we might have to have some help getting around and doing things on our own. I think we are perfect just the way we are, no matter where we are in our individual life journeys.

4) What is in your purse at this moment?

Just a sec. I'm going to have to go look. Okay, there's my wallet, which pretty much holds the ususal things. A bottle of Tylenol. Hairbrush and comb. Calculator. Several receipts from various places; most of them are still from my recent trip to Southern California. Two scrunchies, one yellow and one red. Several paper condiment cups from Long John Silver's. I picked up a few more than I needed and then just threw them in the purse rather than throwing them away or leaving them to be cleaned up by the staff. A partially empty back of Luden's wild cherry throat drops. Receipt from my most recent payment for car insurance. Reservation confirmation for my motel from the trip to SoCal. Nine thirty-nine cent stamps with Ella Fitzgerald on them, still unused. Proof that I paid my car registration, because the postal service never bothered to deliver the sticker that goes on my license plate (just in case I get stopped). One random piece of yellow paper with an old shopping list on it. One unused (still wrapped in cellophane) toothpick. Shoulder strap that can attach to my wallet in case I want to carry just that rather than my whole purse. A spare feminine napkin, just in case. Earpiece and mic for my cell phone. Empty aspirin bottle (to put my mother's meds in if we are going to be away from home when its time for her to take them).

That's it. However, whenever I leave to go somewhere, my cell phone goes into the purse, along with my journal, which I bought just for the fact that it fits in my purse, and - if it fits - my current carry-around book.

5) Describe your best friend in high school. Would you still be best friends today?

My best friend in high school, Debbie, has actually been one of my best friends since we were both three years old. Additionally, her father and my father grew up together, so we are really second-generation friends. She is tall (6 feet in her stocking feet), funny, extremely talented artistically and musically, bright, a wonderful photographer, and a loving mother. Although she lives in the English Midlands now, having married an Englishman in the early 1980s, we are still in contact and I still consider her to be one of my best friends...one of the few people who know the real me and who I would not hesitate to tell anything to and who I trust completely.

*******

Now it's your turn. If you would like to be interviewed by me (littlemissattitude) and pass this meme along, here's what you need to do:

1) Leave me a comment telling me you want to be interviewed. Either leave your e-mail address in the comment or e-mail me at ElnFrei at aol dot com with your addy.

2) I will respond by e-mailing you five questions of my choice.

3) You answer the questions in your blog.

4) When you post your answers, include this explanation in the post and offer to interview someone else.

5) You send five questions of your choice to those who ask to be interviewed.

I think I've aged...

It has just come to my attention that my profile here claims that I'm 250 years old. LOL. And while I'll admit that I feel about that old some days, when I've been fighting with my computer at work, I haven't been around quite that long.

But it occurs to me to ask...what would you do if you found out that you would live forever, no matter what? Would you be elated? Would you try to find a way out of it? Would you suddenly start living far more dangerously than you ever would knowing that your time on earth is finite? Would being immortal be a good thing or a bad thing, in your opinion? And, would you tell anyone?

Also, what would you do if you found out that someone you know is immortal and in fact had been around for thousands of years? If someone told you that, would you believe them? Would ask them to prove it? How could they prove it to your satisfaction?

Well, I think that's enough questions for a Saturday morning. Let me know if you have any thoughts on immortality and its implications.

The Art of the Nap

I took a nap this afternoon. It was a lovely thing, at least an hour and a half long. I felt sort of like a cat stretched out in a pool of sunlight, a slight breeze wafting in through the open window keeping me from being too warm to be comfortable.

Yeah, there were other things I could have been - should have been - doing, but it was the perfect afternoon for it. I had struggled with work, not being able to find the updated information that I needed for an article I was writing, which left me feeling stressed and frustrated. I needed to relax and a nice, late lunch hadn't done the trick. I was trying to do some reading after lunch, but I couldn't settle to it and laying there in the sun my eyes just kept shutting of their own accord. I could have gotten up and done something productive...I have a load of laundry sitting waiting to be done...but the nap seemed like the thing I needed most.

I don't usually give in and take naps. As it is, I often complain that I need to figure out a way to live without sleep, because they aren't going to shoehorn any more hours in the day. There's all that stuff to do, all those books to read, all that writing to do, after all. But I got spoiled last week. I was on vacation, out of town, and felt no guilt at all about laying down every afternoon for at least a short nap. So, now that I'm back on my regular schedule...up at 7 am, if not earlier...I find myself wanting to sleep for awhile in the afternoon.

I'm really beginning to think that the cultures who practice the siesta have the right idea. Rest a little in the middle of the day, stay up a little later at night. I get more done late, anyway, but it's difficult to function late when I have to get up so early. Maybe I'll have to schedule a nap...even if not one of epic length as today's was...more afternoons a week. After all, summer is coming. Around here, it's too hot to do anything in the middle of the afternoon anyway.

Holiday silliness...

Holidays make me do strange things sometimes. Things like actually posting the results of silly online quizes. Like this one:

You Are Jelly Beans

For you, Easter is all about fun and sweet treats. None of that Jesus dying on a cross stuff!

What Easter Candy Are You?

The scary thing about this one is that it is completely accurate. Jelly beans are, in fact, my favorite thing about Easter. Used to be chocolate Easter bunnies, but since I can't eat chocolate any more (a long story for another time) jelly beans are it, as far as I'm concerned.

And, no I don't mean all those fancy Jelly Belly beans in their plethora of exotic flavors. Give me yellow (lemon), orange, and white generic jelly beans and you can have the rest. The red ones are too spicy, non-vegetable green food in general doesn't thrill me (won't catch me eating green pancakes on St. Patrick's Day), and the black licorice ones are just nasty...although I have a friend who loves those, so when we worked together, I would just give those to her. In addition, the idea of bubblegum or popcorn flavored jelly beans...eewwww. Just, eewwwww.

As far as the other, more serious part of the result of the quiz, I really try to remain respectful of my observant, more traditional Christian brothers and sisters and their beliefs surrounding Easter. However, I have to admit that I just don't understand the whole concept behind blood sacrifice. I guess I can't grasp why God couldn't think of a less gruesome way to save his children. I've given the whole idea a lot of thought over the years, a lot, and so far I just can't make it make any sense for me. I don't mean that to sound disrespectful, honestly. It just hasn't ever made any sense to me.

Be that as it may, I hope all of you had a wonderful Easter holiday, observed in the manner which you feel is most appropriate.

And I hope it involved lots of jelly beans.

By the way, I found this on Sr. Susan Rose's Musings of Discerning Woman, which you can reach via my links.

Just a little personal aside...

Maybe it's just me. It's been a long week.

So, maybe I was just in a bad mood when I walked into the minimart this evening to use the ATM (I was on my way out to dinner and I prefer not to use cards in restaurants if I can avoid it). But this really bugged the crap out of me.

I was trying to get to the ATM, which is the far corner of the store, and as I walked past the counter a woman, not looking where she was going as she backed up, nearly stepped on me. I tried to be polite. I said, "Excuse me," and waited for her to move so I could get through. She looked around and said, in a semi-nasty tone, "Well, I didn't see you." But she did move, just enough so that I could get by her. Which was fine. Maybe she'd had a bad day, too. But, after I had moved far enough away from her so that she had to say it loudly enough that everyone in the store could hear, she said, "Maybe you should wear a bell." Slightly nastier tone that time.

Excuse me?

I held my peace. Not that I didn't think of about five other things that I could have said back, all of which would have taken me right down to her level. But I didn't say them because it would have been rude, provocation aside. I went ahead, waited for my turn at the machine, used it, and left.

What I don't understand is why some people feel that they have to be needlessly rude to people they don't even know, and who haven't done anything to them. Maybe it goes back to upbringing. Maybe we're all like those rats in experiments where they put too many rats together in too small a space and they started, after awhile, to tear each other up, and we just do it verbally sometimes instead of physically. I don't know.

I do know that it seems that, more and more, being polite seems to be considered a sign of weakness...the moral equivalent of a "Kick me" sign, in neon, on top of one's head. Whatever the causes of it, I think it's a shame.

Anyway, if you've got any answers to why this is so, drop a comment.

Book review: "Hotel California" by Barney Hoskyns

I just finished reading Hotel California: The True-life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends, (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006), by British music critic and writer Barney Hoskyns. And I mean I just finished it, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes ago. And I have to recommend it to anyone with any interest in the Los Angeles folk/country rock/singer-songwriter movement of the 1960s and early 1970s.

This is a very good book. It’s quite gossipy, and no one here comes out looking like an angel. However, it also looks at this group of musicians, most of whom lived in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon for at least part of the period covered, and the various managers, producers, record executives, and hangers-on surrounding them, in a comprehensive and appreciative manner. Hoskyns talked to just about everyone involved (the list of those he interviewed runs to nearly a solid page) and relied on interviews by others of those who were inaccessible or not interested in talking. From the looks of the list, which appears in the preface, almost everyone who was still alive at the time was willing to talk.

The amazing thing…the most amazing, I should say, because there were a few amazing things here…to me was the sheer amount of cross-fertilization there was during the time covered, musically speaking. (There were other forms of cross-fertilization - and a lot of it - going on as well, but that is in the realm of that gossip I wrote about, above). At some point, it seems, everyone worked with everyone, even if they didn’t exactly get along that well all the time. I grew up during that time, listening to some of that music, and I knew about some of the collaborations that took place, but I had no idea of the extent of it. For a little while, it was a real community, making a lot of very good music.

One of the things I like best about Hoskyns’s book is that it doesn’t just cover the headliners. All the folks you’ve heard of and whose music you know are in here…CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Jackson Browne. But so are the ones you might have heard of but whose music you might not know, or might not know you know…Gram Parsons, J. D. Souther, Chris Hillman, Van Dyke Parks, and a host of others. There are guest appearances by none other than Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and a few others. And there are the ones who you’ve probably never heard of but who were, according to the information here, integral members of the community. They all have to be here, to make the story complete.

There were even things I could connect to personally in the book. When I attended the March 25, 1973 performance of Neil Young’s Time Fades Away tour at the Fourm in Inglewood (34 years ago tonight, as I write this, I just now realized) I had no idea of the drama that had accompanied the tour. That is covered briefly here, and made me sit up and take notice as a place where my own experience crossed, however briefly and on the surface, with the events of the book. It was a hell of a show, by the way, with Linda Ronstadt as the opening act and guest appearances by David Crosby and Graham Nash. I’ll forever remember the idiot in the audience shouting out a request at one point between songs. Young’s answer: “It’s my concert, and I’ll sing whatever I damn well please.” The audience, myself included, cheered the answer.

The book is bittersweet, especially as Hoskyns covers the casualties of the period, writing about the ones who didn’t survive the excesses of the era. But it is also heartening to realize that the relationships that seemed at times during that era to be irretrievably broken, didn’t really mean the end of the music that some of those folks made together. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, who certainly had their ups and downs both individually and in terms of their interpersonal relationships, have toured as recently as last year. The same with the Eagles.

At the end of the book, there is some coverage of how the music industry has changed since the time covered here. That got me to thinking. At that time, if an artist didn’t hit right away, their label might well stick with them, let their music mature into something that could be really successful. Today, on the other hand, the industry is just that: a corporate enterprise that only considers the bottom line and has to issue a profits statement every quarter. It is an environment where there are very few second chances, and where what gets heard is not necessarily what is good but simply what makes money, even though it might only make money because millions of prepubescent girls buy the music because, as in the case of the boy bands, the singers are “cute”. Well, even back in the 60s and 70s, not everything that was good got heard and being “cute” definitely helped a singer or group get heard. But the very good point is made that in the singer-songwriter era there was still some room for conscience in the industry; it doesn’t seem to be the case much now.

At the very least, Hotel California is a good enough book that I’ve already got an earlier Hoskins book, Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes, and the Sound of Los Angeles, which takes a wider look at the L.A. music scene, already on request at the library.

And then there's the other reason I haven't been posting...

My lack of posts here recently doesn't have anything to do with a lack of things to write about, but rather with a proliferation of important issues and the fact that when I start to write about them I tend to get upset, stressed, and more than a little bent out of shape.

I guess it isn't much of a secret that I'm not really that happy with some of the directions I see my country, the good old US of A, going these days. Or, should I say, the way it is being led down a dangerous path by the current administration. I have some very strong views about some of the things that have been going on...Iraq and Afghanistan, an administration that leaks like a sieve when it thinks it will serve its ends, the efforts to pack government agencies with a bunch of ideologues, and more. I want to address these issues, but I want to do so from a logical, coherent point of view.

Unfortunately, lately, I just haven't been able to remain calm enough to write sensibly about it all. Not that I think there is anything wrong with getting upset about what has been going on in my government. Actually, I think distress is probably a healthy response to the dysfunction going on in Washington. But I prefer to write from logic rather from emotion, simply because arguments from emotion are not nearly as effective as arguments from logic. And so I've just refrained from writing about these issues at all.

I'm getting there, though. I'm working through the distress and frustration, and I think I'll have some things to say on the state of the world fairly soon.

Meanwhile, I've been reading some really good books, some of which have only been adding to my distress. But they've been adding to my store of knowledge from which to write from logic as well. Two books I've finished recently and would like to recommend are The Republican Noise Machine, by David Brock, and The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney.

As you can tell, there's a definite theme running through the two volumes. Brock takes as his subject the media which, he shows, is not biased toward the liberal end of the spectrum but to the conservative end. He points out that while reporters might be a bit more liberal socially than the US population at large, they are more conservative economically. And, despite that liberal bent on social issues, the reporters are not the ones who decide what gets reported on the air and printed in the papers...the job of deciding and approving editorial stances goes to management and ownership. And the owners of newspapers and broadcast media outlets are clearly conservative, both economically and socially. Added to that, the repeitition over the past few decades from the conservative media that the media is liberal has resulted in people actually starting to believe that, all evidence to the contrary. Brock points out the number of conservative pundits who get heard and published regularly as opposed to the number of liberal or progressive pundits who have a regular outlet for their opinions. The balance isn't even close to even, with the preponderance of domination going to the conservatives. And, as Brock shows, even some of the "liberal" commentators in the media aren't really all that liberal at all.

I think Brock's most important point is that the conservative media has succeeded in pushing the center so far to the right that what was considered conservative not so long ago is now seen as moderate. And those who were once considered liberal are now looked at as raging leftists, all without changing their views at all. I know that to be the truth. I have long considered myself to be quite moderate in my political views, but I find my opinions (which haven't changed all that much) now pushed farther and farther to the left. What is seen as liberal here in the US would be squarely in the conservative portion of the spectrum in most European nations.

Mooney's book is more narrowly focused on the steps that Republicans have taken in Congress and among the regulatory agencies to discredit and disenfranchise objective science as a force in governmental decision-making. By calling anything that doesn't favor corporate deregulation "junk science", by insisting on "equal time" in public school classrooms for so-called Intelligent Design, by arguing every point made by the scientific establishment on issues such as global warming, by editing scientific reports to conform with administration prejudices and forbidding scientists from speaking either to the press or to colleagues about scientific issues, the Republicans have endeavored to remove science as a component of the decision-making process within the government. Mooney goes into detail about how this has happened in relation to a number of issues. I recommend The Republican War on Science as an essential book for anyone who is concerned about how decisions get made in Washington, D.C. in regards to science and technology issues.

Too many blogs to read, too little time...

And I'm about to point you to a couple more.

It has been a month since I've posted here. I've come to the conclusion that I've been reading too many other blogs and not giving enough time to writing my own. Which is bad for this place, but actually pretty good for me, because I've been reading some pretty interesting stuff. So, I've added a couple of links that I think you all should check out.

First of all, there's The Brad Blog. Brad Friedman and his guest bloggers cover news about voting issues as well as other developments in the political world. Recently, there has been a lot of good coverage of the Libby trial and the issues arising from that, but his top issue continues to be issues concerning voting machines and the struggle to make sure that elections in the United States remain fair and protected from tampering.

The other new link will take you to Mind on Fire, which covers a variety of fascinating issues. That's one of the places where I've been spending a lot of time lately, not only reading their observations on faith, post-faith, and spirituality issues, but responding to these ideas as well. It's a small but active community that encourages an intelligent conversation on those and other issues.

Weekend Edition or, I spend Sunday morning with the headlines

I suppose most people look at the weekend as a slow time for news. Well, except for politicians who are trying to slip something through and issue their press releases so late on Friday that they don't hit the media in a meaningful way until Saturday. But sometimes I think that the most interesting news emerges on the weekend, when it has time come through all the weekday political news.

For instance, there's this: A new study presented Saturday before the American Assoication for the Advancement of Science claims that people in the United States know more about basic science than they did 20 years ago. The research, by Michigan State University professor Jon D. Miller, says that only 10 percent of the population knew enough about science to understand news articles reporting on scientific topics, but that by 2005 that number had reached 28 percent. That's still not a lot, but it definitely represents an advance. The study attributes most of that advance to the fact that college students are now required to take at least some science classes, no matter what their major.

Of course, a panel of researchers still expressed concern that more college students say now that they are "unsure" whether the theory of evolution or creationism represents the truth about how life has developed on the planet, and that more people believe in things like astrology and UFOs. They passed off the higher belief in "space aliens" on television shows such as The Twilight Zone and Star Trek that "endorsed a link between UFOs and alien spacecraft". This according to Carol Susan Losh, an associate professor at Florida State University.

Well, that last is kind of a conventient rationalization in my humble and nonprofessional opinion, especially considering the fact that establishment science hasn't really bothered to look into the issue of UFOs based on their perception that they couldn't possibly exist anyway. The last mainstream scientific study on UFOs, after all, was conducted by the Condon Committee, and by all accounts that I've ever seen that study wasn't really all that unbiased. But never mind. The major points of the new study are well taken.

Especially in light of another story I found, also reported by AP via Yahoo! News. It seems that a state representative in Georgia circulated a memo which claimed that the teaching of evolution should be banned from the schools because it is a myth that originated in Kabbalah, a system of Jewish mysticism. State Representative Ben Bridges says he didn't write the memo, but the Anti-Defamation League is demanding that he apologize anyway.

Apparently Bridges didn't write the memo himself, but Marshall Hall, the president of something called the Fair Education Foundation, says that Bridges asked him to write the memo, which was then distributed to state legislators in several states. Hall is a retired teacher who maintains an anti-evolution website that advances the theory that the Big Bang originated in Kabbalah centuries ago.

The Yahoo story provided a link to Hall's website. Following that link was an interesting experience. Not only was Darwin wrong, according to Hall, but so was Copernicus. In his world, the earth does not revolve around the sun, nor does it rotate. It just hangs in space, unmoving. Oh, and the universe is not as big (or as old, of course) as billed. All that is what he calls a "religious conspiracy".

Hall claims, of course, that his site is not anti-Semitic. But on one page of his site, he claims (as near as I can tell; his writing, and his logic, is a bit circular) that the Big Bang theory and the idea of an old universe come from kaballah. He claims that idea is wrong, and he calls it a "conspiracy". Sounds fairly "anti" to me.

The scientific panel at the AAAS meeting was complaining about pseudoscience. Well, as far as I can see, there's plenty of that on Hall's site.

****************

And now, for something completely different...Unless you've been living in a cave since Friday night (or just have a life, which I clearly don't), you know that Britney Spears has shaved her head. This disturbs people for some reason.

Well, yeah. Spears has been acting out a bit recently, if you believe the reports. But, really. The press is acting like she...oh, I don't know, dangled the baby over a balcony railing or something. There has been lots of pontificating about how her life is "spiralling out of control."

Come on, people. It's hair. It's very likely to grow back. And, honestly, I think it may be the most healthy thing she's done in awhile. I'm not the only one, either. I saw one story where a psychologist said that the act could be her way of trying to take control of her own life after having been told for so many years what to do, how to look, how to be a model little pop star. Of course, everyone else seems to be calling for Spears's mother to ride to the rescue, take her daughter in hand, and make her behave. Turn her back into a little pop princess.

Sheesh, people. Leave the woman alone. Perhaps if she hadn't had the world press passing judgment on every move she's made for the past few years, maybe should wouldn't be acting out like she reportedly has been. I'm not a fan of Spears's in any way, shape, or form. But I know it would drive me crazy if people were doing that to me.

I Catch Keith Olbermann in an error...

I was sitting here, as I often do at this time of day, minding my own business and watching Countdown on MSNBC. And before I gloat, I have to say that I think Keith Olbermann is a pretty smart guy. But I caught him in a mistake. Not a big mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

He was referencing the fact that today was Hugh Beaumont's birthday. If you are very young and/or never watch TV Land, Beaumont is probably best known for portraying Beaver Cleaver's dad on Leave it to Beaver between 1967 and 1963. Which has nothing to do with Olbermann's error.

Olbermann said that Beaumont was one of the stars of a 1950s B-movie, The Mole Men. Oops. The movie was actually called The Mole People and was made in 1956. I know this because it is one of my favorite bad movies.

Well, I thought, maybe that was an alternate title. Could have been. Olbermann doesn't make that many mistakes on his show. So I checked. The closest I could find on IMDB was Superman and the Mole Men (1951). Checked the cast list. No Hugh Beaumont. Instead, Superman and the Mole Men starred George Reeves, Phyllis Coates, and Jeff Corey and, while it was released in theatres, was the pilot for the 1950s series Superman and was Reeves's first appearance as the Man of Steel.

Okay. Maybe I shouldn't gloat. I make mistakes all the time. And many times, when I think someone else has made a mistake I end up being wrong. So, when I think I'm right and I discovere that I am right, I can't help but enjoy it. Kind of like when I saw Jurassic Park when it was first released. One of the characters references Disneyland's opening, which he says occurred in 1956. No. It was 1955. I didn't even need to look that one up to make sure. I was a little disappointed in that case that Steven Spielberg hadn't done his homework.

I'm not as disappointed in Olbermann's error. It's a natural mistake. People. Men. It's a cultural thing. I don't care how enlightened you are, the two get used interchangeably.

I'm what?

I do these quizzes from time to time, but I've never posted the results from one before. But I thought this one was, well, interesting.

Your Animal Personality

Your Power Animal: Shark Animal You Were in a Past Life: Polar Bear You have a strong character - you are an aggressive, ambitious, go-getter. You were born to lead.

The Animal Personality Test

I can buy the shark. I can buy the polar bear...there has to be a reason that I like the cold so much more than the heat. And I do have a pretty strong personality, I'm fairly ambitious in my own way, and if I want something I definitely go out and try to get it.

But aggressive? I can think of a lot of words to describe myself, some good and some bad, but aggressive is definitely not one of them.

The most interesting thing, though, is that "born to lead" thing. It seems like I often end up in leadership positions, always have. But I've never stood up and raised my hand and said, "Me, me...I want to be the leader." I don't particularly like being the leader. Too much responsibility. Finding myself in those sorts of situations has a lot more to do with my seeming inability to say, "No." That's something I'm better at now than I used to be. But still.

Oh, well, maybe what it means is that it's my destiny to lead, whether I want to or not, whether I like it or not.

Two gifts of wonderful writing...

I've added two links that I really want to call your attention to, dear readers.

As you've probably noticed if you have read very many of my posts here, I am not always that happy with organized religion. On the other hand, I greatly admire spirutual individuals...in and out of organized traditions...who live out their convictions in compassionate ways. And, so I've added two links to blogs written by spiritual women in two traditions who are living their convictions and blogging about their lives and beliefs with great eloquence.

In alphabetical order, then:

Musings of a Discerning Woman follows the journey of a Catholic sister who is currently a novice in an order active in social justice issues.

The Velveteen Rabbi offers the on-line meditations of a Jewish woman in the middle of her studies to become a rabbi.

Both women are wonderful, thoughtful, insightful writers. I thought that this was the perfect day to share their blogs with you. So, please...I hope you'll read and enjoy the offerings they are kind enough to share with us in the blogosphere.

There's no place like home for the holidays...

I'm not much of a holiday person. I admit that. But there are some holiday memories that just stick with me, make me laugh and make me mist up a bit.

There was the time when I was very little, probably four or five years old, and was in the Christmas pageant at the Methodist Church, where I went to Sunday School at the time. I remember very little of the pageant, but I remember that we almost didn't get there. When it was time to go to the church for the program, it was so foggy that we nearly couldn't see past the hood of the car. It wasn't typical southern California fog, but more like San Joaquin Valley tule fog, the kind that everyone thinks of when you compare fog to pea soup. When we stopped off to pick up my grandmother, we waited at the end of her long driveway and my dad walked up to the house to bring her to the car; he was afraid that if he drove in, he wouldn't be able to back out again without hitting a tree.

Still, we perservered and made it to the church. As we were going inside, my dad said, "Wouldn't it be funny if were clear as a bell when we come back outside later?" We all laughed and said the early 1960s equivalent of "Yeah, right." We all went inside, the program went well, I guess, since I don't remember any big mistakes being made. I think there were cookies and punch afterward. And when it was time to go, we went outside...and it was clear as a bell. The east wind (you might have heard of it as the Santa Ana wind) had come up and sent the fog back out to sea. Not that my dad was a prophet or anything...he had just lived in the valley long enough that all he usually had to do was go out and take a look at the sky, see which way the wind was blowing from, and he could usually give an accurate weather forecast.

But that's not my favorite Christmas season story. My favorite is from the Christmas about five years after that.

That was the year we were living in Blythe. In a motel room. The thing was, my dad was a produce inspector for the state of California. Sometimes he got sent away from home to work for as long as a month or six weeks at a time. Since it was just my dad, my mother, and myself, we always went along with him when he would work out of town. A few times we lived in apartments, but most of the time we would live in a motel room with a kitchenette attached. This went on for the whole time I was in elementary school; at least a couple of years during that time, we were away from home for at least six months out of the year.

That year, we happened to be in Blythe over the Christmas holidays. Down in the desert there are a number of crops to inspect at that time of the year. I think it was the only time we were actually away from home that time of year. We would have rather been at home, but we got a small tree to sit on the dresser in the room and there were the full complement of presents underneath it. But we didn't know if my dad would have the day off or not; he had had to work on holidays before, so we didn't plan anything.

When he got home after work on Christmas Eve, though, he had news. He had Christmas Day off. Then he asked if we'd like to go home for Christmas, spend the holiday in our own house. Well, of course, my mother and I both said. And so we packed up the car and off we went. Thing was, it was a Volkswagen bug...the old, traditional kind. So I shared the back seat for the more than 260 miles from Blythe to Simi Valley with the Christmas tree and all the gifts. It was a good thing I like the smell of Christmas trees.

We drove a good part of the night, got home very, very late, slept a few hours, had Christmas morning at home. Then, of course, we had to pack back up and head back to Blythe since my dad had to be at work bright and early the next morning. We stopped off at a Denny's restaurant or somewhere like that for Christmas dinner along the way, I think. But we were home for the holidays, and that was a wonderful thing.

And so, for those of you who are home for Christmas this year, treasure the opportunity. And for those who aren't able to be at home this year, treasure the memories of the times you were home and I'll send good thoughts that you are able to be home...wherever you consider home to be...next year.

Happy Holidays.

I knew there was a reason why science wouldn't make the cut either...

At dinner this evening a friend and I were discussing the whole Harry Potter situation and what it would do to the curriculum at a school that couldn't discuss murder, greed, or violence at all. I was going through the list of things that probably could and couldn't be taught, and when I mentioned science she reminded me about all of the violence in the animal world. It's inherent in the food chain, after all. So, at least zoology would be a no-go, and probably biology generally. I'm pretty sure that physics and geology would still be okay to teach, though.

The Censors Lose a Round

I see where the Georgia Board of Education has decided that Harry Potter is legal for the kids of their state. This, after a woman named Laura Mallory has spent at least a year trying to oust the boy wizard from the state’s public school libraries on the theory that J. K. Rowling’s wildly popular books are “mainstreaming witchcraft in a subtle and deceptive manner, in a children-friendly format.”

Uh-huh.

It occurs to me that some adults in this country have much more trouble telling the difference between fantasy and reality than do most children. But Ms. Mallory’s witchcraft delusions don’t worry me nearly as much as do other statements she has made. In arguing that the books are not suitable for children, she was quoted as saying that the books are full of “murder, greed, and violence. Why do they have to read them in school?”

Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

Okay. I’m back. I’d be interested in how Ms. Mallory feels about children reading the Bible, which contains a bumper crop of all three. Let’s see. Murder first appears in the fourth chapter of Genesis. That’s six pages in, in the Bible translation I have on my shelf. Now, granted I’ve only read the first couple of Harry Potter novels, but neither one of those have a murder six pages in, as far as I can recall. Greed plays its part before Genesis is over as well, and violence is fairly common all through the Good Book.

But let’s lay that aside. I’m assuming that Ms. Mallory is Christian when the article I read does not give any evidence of that. There are still other questions that are more intimately related to the school curriculum in light of her assessment: which subjects are the schools going to have to omit if there is to be no mention of murder, greed or violence in our national schoolrooms?

History would definitely be out. All those wars, you know, not to mention palace intrigue and other historical activities. Lots of violence there. Greed, too, when you stop to think about it. Economics would be eliminated simply on the greed factor. Couldn’t teach literature, either. Honestly, how many works of fiction can you think of that don’t have any violence at all, either physical or otherwise? Murder? You bet. Lots of greed in some literature, as well. The schools couldn’t teach anything about current events, as under Ms. Mallory’s theory there would be no place for the daily newspaper in school libraries, either. What about civics, aka government? Right. Gotta get rid of that, too, or at least severely restrict what is taught. The arts? Have to be very careful there, too. Math and science might make the cut, but I’m not even sure about that.

I’d be interested in knowing if Ms. Mallory shields her own children from the evening news on television; from newsstands displaying the day’s headlines; from, well, the whole world.

Now, I’m not going to argue for making kids grow up any faster than necessary. In fact, I’m a firm believer in letting kids be kids for as long as they can be. Goodness knows, that is a precious short time as it is these days. On the other hand, I also believe it is a mistake to overprotect children from the realities of the world or to give them a mistakenly benign view of how the world works. It’s a very fine line to walk, and all too easy to step off to one side or the other. But letting kids think that the world is a nice, sweet, safe place where no one will ever be mean or try to hurt them is doing them just as much a disservice as turning them into little miniature adults with all the cares and worries that implies before it is necessary.

Keeping kids from reading harmless fantasy like that found in Harry Potter is, I think, probably a good way to ease them into a knowledge of the reality that there are bad people as well as good in the world and that not everything turns out right in the end all the time, all without unduly traumatizing them.

As far as I can see, people like Ms. Mallory are much more of a hazard to children than J. K. Rowling and the books that she writes.

Happy Turkey Day...

The time has just flown by. I think of coming over here and commenting on something almost every day...goodness knows there have been more than enough things to comment on in the news in the past little while. I mean, we've had a whole election, among other things. But that pesky real-life stuff just keeps getting in the way and keeping me busier than any three people really need to be. And so I think about writing, but then I don't do it.

I've also been sick for the past couple of weeks, preceded by a week of trying not to get sick...which, shall we say, was a waste of time and energy. That means I've had about enough energy to do the work I get paid for, keep my place tolerably clean, and not much else.

But, hey...it's Thanksgiving, my cold is almost gone, and the sun is shining, which it hasn't done much of around here in several days. I don't have to cook, which means I won't have to clean up. So Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Eat big, take a good nap, and get all prepared for the Christmas shopping season that starts tomorrow. I'll be thinking of you when I'm avoiding the stores tomorrow, because I never, ever shop on Black Friday if I can possibly get out of it.

Can I just say that this has me, oh, a little upset...

Sometimes, you know, you see a headline and you just know you shouldn’t click on it but you do anyway. Inevitably, you realize that you should have followed your first instinct.

Well, I saw this one: “Nuclear meltdown may have caused cancers”, and I knew…I just knew…what it was about, and I knew I shouldn’t even look. But, of course I did. And this is what I found:

A 1959 nuclear reactor meltdown at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory may have caused hundreds of cases of cancer in the community, and chemicals threaten to contaminate ground and water, according to a report released Thursday.

The report by an independent advisory panel estimated it was likely that radiation released during the meltdown caused about 260 cases of cancer within a 60-square-mile area around the reactor.

The lab's former owner, Rocketdyne, has said for years that no significant radiation was released. But the independent advisory panel said the incident released nearly 459 times more radiation than a similar one at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979.

You can read the whole report on the KTLA website.

This is one of the main reasons why I don’t trust my government to tell me the truth, and tell it in a timely manner. The meltdown in question took place on July 26, 1959. The public didn’t find out that there was any contamination, really didn’t find out that there had even been a meltdown, until the release of an Energy Department report that said widespread radioactive and chemical contamination had been found around the site. The owners of the Lab, past and present, have been fighting tooth and nail to say that there wasn’t’ really any contamination, and that if there was it wasn’t really harmful. Well, guess what, folks? It was harmful.

You might be wondering at this point why this report has got me so upset, why the continuing revelations since 1989 have gotten me angry. Well, on July 26, 1959 I was a little less than a month away from turning three years old, and the lab in question was what I saw from my bedroom window, up on the mountain two, maybe three, miles as the crow flies from my house. In other words, I was in just about the perfect location to be contaminated by radioactivity released into the atmosphere from that meltdown.

No, I haven’t got cancer, so far as I know. Not yet. But I have got reduced thyroid function, which could very well have resulted from that contamination, or from the rocket fuel leaks during the time they were testing rocket engines for the space program (including the rockets that took Apollo - and men - to the moon). Both, apparently can cause that, as well as some very nasty kinds of cancer.

So, yeah. I’m not happy right now. Nice to know that my government (and the corporations it protects) is, and for decades has been, perfectly fine with using me and my family and friends as guinea pigs. It’s nothing new, of course. Ask all the soldiers who were marched out into the Nevada desert to witness atmospheric nuclear tests with virtually no protection or shielding whatsoever. As the military men who were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, and the ones who have been sick since their participation in the first Gulf War and who the Pentagon are still telling that there’s really nothing wrong with them. And ask the people who lived at Love Canal and all the other place where the government dumped, or allowed to be dumped, or released into the air, land, and water, substances that they knew to be toxic.

But, somehow, it is different when it’s you who were the guinea pig. Just call it the government’s personal touch, I guess.

Short Subjects: Because There's Just Too Much Going On...

...and I've been way too busy.

First of all...It's banned books week. Celebrate. Go out and read a book that someone says you shouldn't. Read a Harry Potter book. Read To Kill a Mockingbird. Read Catcher in the Rye (you read it...I've had to read it three different times for classes, and I hated it worse every single time, but you might like it, so read it).

This is the week that libraries promote all of the books that people complain about because they're too politically correct, or not politically correct enough, or that they're took explicit, or have too many "bad" words. The flyer I got at the library refers you to www.ala.org/bbooks, so I will, too. If that link doesn't work for you, try Googling "American Library Association". That'll probably get you there.

Next.

*******

Over at the United Nations the other day Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, called George Bush "el diablo"...that's "The Devil" for all you non-Spanish speakers.

Now, I'm not a big Dubya fan. You'll know that if you've read this blog. Didn't vote for him. Don't trust him as far as I could throw a piano. But that "el diablo" stuff didn't set well with me. I thought about that for awhile, because it bothers me when I feel like I'm siding with him. But if finally occurred to me. It's like family. You can insult your own family all you want, but when someone outside the family does it, well, them's fightin' words. He's our president, part of our national family, and those of us who don't like him and don't agree with his policies criticize him liberally. (Get it? Liberally?...Ah, sheesh. I know it was bad. Never mind.) But when someone from outside the family starts in, it just doesn't sit right.

Anyway, Hugo was wrong. George Bush isn't the Devil.

As we all know, Dick Cheney is "el diablo".

*******

And then there's the Pope.

First, a disclaimer. I'm not Catholic. I don't have any interested "side" in this one. But...

I don't think that anyone who hasn't read the full speech that Benedict XVI gave in Germany on Septebmer 12 has much of a place commenting on it, much less criticizing it. I've read the full text. And, yeah, you can argue, I suppose, that he could have used another example to make his point. But he did use that example. He didn't say it was what he believed. He just used it as a "for instance".

The thing is, he was arguing what I think is a really good point: that violence doesn't have any place in religion, but that reason does. In this day and age, when few enough people subject their faith to any serious reasoning and when way, way too many people think that the first thing they should do when they feel that any of their deeply held beliefs...religious or secular...has been insulted, is to go out and blow up a few buildings and kill a few people, this is a very important message that everyone needs to hear, no matter what side of the God thing you come down on.

So, you know, leave the Pope alone, on this one at least.

*******

Oh, and one personal thing.

Some slimeball tried to steal my car the other night. Didn't get away with it, but they managed to jam the ignition all to hell and I'm going to have to have it replaced. And I've had to rent a car to get around in because the parts have to be flown in from Ohio or somewhere, and the guy who's doing the work won't be able to have it fixed until Wednesday or Thursday. Which is fine. He got out to look at it when he said he would, he's charging me a reasonable price for doing it, and I didn't have the car towed because he has a mobile service.

But it is costing me money to get it fixed, and to rent the car for several days. Just because some idiot doesn't understand the concept of "if it isn't yours, don't freaking touch it." And I've thought about it seriously. An academic exercise...the very nice police officer didn't dust my car for prints, but another car parked within feet of mine was also broken into, and Slimeball was wearing gloves, so they won't be catching him, at least for this caper...but I've decided what his punishment should be. No, not jail. Not flogging. Not having his right hand chopped off.

No. If they ever were to catch him, and let me assign punishment, I know exactly what I'd do. I'd make him write, "If it is not mine, I will not touch it" one million times. And the whole time, he'd have to listen to a continuous loop recording of Whitney Houston singing "I Will Always Love You", Celine Dion singing that horrible song from Titanic, and Britney Spears singing anything.

That'd teach him.

Apology? What Apology?

There has been a hue and cry among the conservative media that "someone" owes an apology to Karl Rove because it has apparently turned out that it wasn't Rove, but Richard Armitage, who outed Valerie Plame to the media as a CIA operative.

All I can ask is, "Why?" Republicans have been telling lies about opponents ever since before I can remember. They never apologize. In fact, they often repeat the same lies over and over, long after it has been conclusively settled that they have lied. They do this, presumably, because they think that if they same something often enough it will magically become true. Some of the pundits are still trying to make us believe that Al Gore somehow claimed that he "invented the Internet," years after that was shown to be a gross and deliberate misrepresentation of what was said and what was meant. Which makes that assertion, oh, a lie. And that is far from the only example.

So, no. Nobody owes Rove an apology.

Isn't there some, oh, real news to report?

When I logged on to AOL today, I was met with the headline that Jessica Lynch is pregnant. You remember her. The was the soldier who was held as a prisoner of war for a period of time at the beginning of the Iraq war, suffering severe injuries int he course of being captured.

Well, apparently she and her boyfriend are going to be parents. I'm happy for her. I really am. I'm glad she's got good things going on in her life now, after having to go through all of that courtesy of George and Dick and the boys and their little adventure in misdirection. But her pregnancy is not news. Surely there are many more important things going on in the world.

And by important, I don't mean the landing in Colorado of the plane carrying that Karr guy who says he's the one who killed Jon Benet Ramsey. But, apparently, MSNBC, which carried the landing live this afternoon, did. It was under the category of "Breaking News", and I guess they thought it was absolutely vital for us all to know that his plane had landed the very moment it happened.

It is very possible that this guy is simply a raving nutjob who is looking for publicity, or is playing out some perverse fantasy, or even just getting some kind of private jollies out of confessing to an infamous crime. In that case, the media is playing right into his...whatever it is that he's doing. Even if he did murder that little girl (something I'm still more than a little skeptical about, honestly), his plane landing is not breaking news. If they find his DNA on crime scene materials, that might be breaking news. Maybe. Personally, I can wait until the next scheduled newscast to find that out.

Then again, I've never seen an adequate explanation as to why the media is so obsessed with this particular killing. Lots of kids get murdered, but the media doesn't spend day and night on the story. Hell, just over two years ago right here in Fresno a man murdered nine of his children and grandchildren (some of the victims were both) one spring afternoon. After an inital spate of publicity, there was very little said about the whole thing in the national media, despite the sensational aspects of the case - incest, polygamy, weird religion, antique coffins, and an apparent obsession with vampires. When the perpetrator was convicted, there was mention in the national press, but just barely. The difference? The victims here, some of them younger than Jon Benet Ramsey, were of mixed race, not especially photogenic, didn't have much money.

I'm not saying that the murder of one child isn't a horrible thing. Of course it is. But the idea that one murder is more horrible, or more important, or just more worth covering because the victim's parents were rich and the victim herself was pretty, is disgusting. And I'm not advocating not reporting any of the cases just because they can't all be covered in depth. All I'm saying is that there is reporting and then there is obsession...and the Jon Benet story long ago reached the level of obsession on the part of the media.