Guys, I don’t know about you, but for me it has been a long week, in a number of ways, not all of them bad. Nevertheless, I have been ready since about Tuesday for this week to be over. Here’s what cheered me up today: a mid-afternoon break to walk over to a nearby farmers’ market with my friend from work. We ranted and soapboxed for a while about our various gripes, and then we made our way to the best of the three bakery stands, where the endearing and flirtatious Bakery Man (who recognized me from...
Continue reading...Archives
Are you in Boston? See this.
Ivy: “We’re all just people, some of us accidentally connected by genetics, a random selection of cells. Nothing more.” Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County, which won the Tony for Best Play in 2008, is currently playing at Boston’s Colonial Theatre. The play centers around the Weston family, who come together when their patriarch, Beverly, goes missing. The matriarch, Violet, is played by Estelle Parsons (who is 82 years old, please note) and she is fantastic. Violet is addicted to prescription drugs and is barely coherent in several scenes, slurring her words and stumbling around the house. A...
Continue reading..."Honestly, I’ve been having sex for a while now, and it took me a long time to be 'totally comfortable' with it."
(title quote from Amanda Hess, link to article below) So partly because I work in the women’s health world, and partly because I just find the subject fascinating, I think about sex education a fair amount. Mostly I think about how much the sex ed I had, freshman year of high school, sucked. It just sucked. I went to a public, suburban high school, and even at age fifteen I was completely dismayed at the overt religious overtones of the “education” we received in this area. Here are 3 highlights: Skit: Two volunteer students stand on a...
Continue reading...What happens tomorrow and Friday
Tomorrow, Britons will go to their polling locations and elect a new House of Commons. This much is certain. What happens next is anybody’s guess. Currently, there is no parliament, but as required by law, there is still a Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. And, until the votes are tallied, and the “winner” is summoned to the palace, Brown will remain the No10. As according to convention, Brown, as the P.M., will be the first asked by the Queen to form a government. It is widely expected that Labour will do terribly tomorrow, and that the Tories will...
Continue reading...Champions and Also-Rans
The British Parliament is holding elections on Thursday, with perennial majority Labour looking certain to lose 10 Downing St. to the Tories, or perhaps the Liberal Democrats. Today, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City — the English football teams supported by Ghost of Hemingway’s Gun and Estes, respectively, square off in Manchester to potentially decide who finishes fourth in the English Premier League, reaping the financial windfall (and prestige bump) of appearing in the Champions League, in which neither has appeared for at least a decade. Estes and I are here to guide you through both of these...
Continue reading...Guns vs. Hammers
I read an article yesterday about a recent spate of violence at schools in China. In the latest attack, on Friday, a farmer attacked children at a kindergarten with a hammer before setting himself on fire. This story is horrific, as were the other two recent attacks, which took place with assailants with knives. It’s awful and scary when unhinged people (the MSNBC article says the attacks “have been blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness”) seemingly randomly turn violent. I was struck, though, with the contrast between the recent attacks in Chinese...
Continue reading...Baking Case File 1: Cinnamon-Chocolate Cookie Strips
When I was starting college, my dad gave me a cookbook as a present. It is Betty Crocker’s Quick & Easy Cookbook: 30 minutes or less to dinner every night. I was appreciative but skeptical. For one thing, my parents’ cookbook shelf is full of Moosewood tomes, full of lovely vegetarian dishes by the lovely Molly Katzen, who writes things like “Pile up everything in a provocative yet compelling arrangement” in the margins of the recipes. Whereas Betty Crocker seemed too… old-fashioned? Midwestern? Full of recipes like “Cheesy tuna broccoli skillet casserole”? Yes, all that. So I...
Continue reading...My First Derby
Before Saturday, I had never watched the Kentucky Derby, even though I grew up just a few hours north of Louisville. I guess I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. But after reading Ghost’s charming paen to Mint Juleps, I figured I ought to try one, and check out the race while I was at it. One of my favorite alcohols + one of my favorite herbs + tons of sugar = what not to like? The real question is why I’d never sipped one before. Anyway, the julep was delicious, though my friend R., who’s...
Continue reading...Getting Outside
It’s a boring, quiet Tuesday here in my cubicle. When one spends the entire day in a cubicle with no nearby windows, one can sometimes lose perspective and sort of forget that there’s a world outside, that it might, in fact, be a beautiful day out. Which it is, today. I just got back from an afternoon jog, and I’m feeling ever so much better. I am always grateful for the chance to step away from my desk and computer. One of the things I love about living in DC is being surrounded by people who are...
Continue reading...Diane Wood
As the de facto left-wing short-list candidate for Justice Stevens’ seat on the Supreme Court, Diane Wood has already drawn lots of ire on the right for her supposedly radical views, especially on abortion. Several articles this week make a strong case for Judge Wood– nothing that would persuade right-wingers, of course, but it’s good to see these articulate defenses. On Monday, Glenn Greenwald wrote a lengthy piece on Judge Wood’s record, calling her “a superior alternative” for the seat. He starts with the following analogy, calling attention to the fact that Judge Wood is not actually...
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