Ramblings

I know guns exist, but I've never thought they were close to me. This past week I've read more about guns than I care to. From the news it's seems obvious to me that Jared Loughner was mentally disturbed. I don't consider that unusual. What is maddening is that he had access to a semi-automatic Glock with a 30 bullet clip and was legally permitted to carry it. After the events of last weekend, I would think that people would acknowledge that we can work to tone down our political rhetoric, but what we can realistically limit is the easy access to firearms/the kinds of arms sold. I would expect our Congress to at least be able to put together a bill - not a bill to limit firearms within 1000 feet of just THEM (good one Rep Peter King!)- but a bill that protects everyone. Why is this so hard?? Especially important since new reports out show gun sales increasing nationwide with particular increases for the gun and magazine that Loughner used. The NY Times has an article out today to basically kill all expectations of that - New Gun Control Limits are Improbable Lawmakers Say. The NRA is too powerful, having more guns make people safer, people are scared of losing their 2nd amendment rights, etc ETC. Am I taking crazy pills? Hunting rifles are one thing, easy access to semi-automatic weapons whose sole purpose is to kill and injure people quickly are another. In an Op-Ed on Sunday, Gail Collins posed this question regarding gun control, "The difference is not about the Second Amendment. It’s about a technology the founding fathers could never have imagined." Very true! Did James Madison predict semi-automatic weapons? I doubt it. I didn't even imagine Khloe Kardashian marrying Lamar Odom! I feel legit scared thinking about weapon-laden citizens that have been overloading on partisan political rhetoric walking around the grocery store with me. This quote from the director of Gun Owners in America also stood out, "Having lots of ammunition is critical, especially if the police are not around and you need to be able to defend yourself against mobs." Mobs? What mobs do we come across on a daily basis? The mob at Target for the latest Twilight dvd??

I don't believe the argument that if the criminals are going to have guns, then we should be armed to protect ourselves too. If criminals are going to do something bad they are going to find a way around any law. I feel like that's my inherent definition of criminal. Does that mean I should be armed just because someone might do something bad in my vicinity? Doesn't it make more sense to take away the danger of excessive weapons so that a citizen doesn't do something reactionary that could have life and death consequences?

A co-worker came in on Monday and said that his laptop had been stolen. He called the police, but he felt like they didn't do a thorough job of investigating his neighbors. He had a hunch that the thief was a neighbor and that he might come back for something else. As a precaution - he slept with his gun under his pillow and told his friends not to come over because he was going to shoot at the slightest sound in the event the thief came back. Again - am I taking crazy pills? This was literally a story related to me on Monday as if the events of last Saturday never happened. I am uneasy around this co-worker now. Maybe I've been naive, but the thought that everyone has a gun in my immediate circle of acquaintances never occurred to me. It truly scares me. Not enough to arm myself though. I think that even though we're all a bit crazy at times, for the most part our rational sides prevail. Maybe I'm the one that's crazy???

Sad Day

Solomon Burke died in an airplane on Sunday. Dirty Dancing would be nothing without his "Cry to Me". My life would be nothing without his music. Not even an exaggeration! RIP.

When he had a bit of a "comeback" with his album "Don't Give Up On Me", Sandy Cohen (aka Peter Gallagher) sang the song on the OC. I WISH I WAS JOKING. The OC will never leave my brain.

Now Courteney Cox & David Arquette are separating. Kind of sad about this one! Courteney and I have been tight ever since her Family Ties days. Granted- I even had my doubts about David- but I thought they would make it. WTH world???

Maybe Jennifer Aniston is rubbing off on her? J/K.

re: Crazy Pastor in Gainesville

I haven't followed "the crazy pastor is going to burn the Koran on Saturday" much because it sounds ridiculous. However, I was forced to hear about it on NPR this morning. Yes, it's crazy and clueless, but why are they giving this guy so much media time? I know he's doing it on the anniversary of September 11th, but does that warrant this becoming an actual story? Not to get all Sarah Palin on you, but - isn't the "main stream media" making this guy a celebrity? Aren't there intolerant people all over this country every day? Why is this guy getting coverage?

Summer Reading Roundup: Eating Animals

I'd never read anything by Jonathan Safran Foer before, but I was always drawn to his cover art. Eating Animals was no different, plus it was on a topic that matters to me, and I may have bought it for Robert this Christmas because I wanted to read it. Well folks, I finally got around to reading it, a mere 7 months later!

I get preachy enough on JOP that I'll spare you a point-by-point summary of this book, but you should know that it is really good, really thoroughly researched, really well written, and I am vividly sicked-out by the bacon that just a few weeks ago I (a "vegetarian") ate.

The premise is that we all know animal slaughter is disgusting; we all know factory farming is wrong. The information is there for all of us and nobody doubts how awful factory farms are for us, for the environment, for communities, and finally for the animals. So why do we ignore that and keep eating meat? "Because it tastes good." Weak! Don't start with the "protein" junk, either. Americans get way too much protein and it has a lot to do with our cancer incidence.

But don't take my word for it! Eating Animals, which is a quick, page-turning read, gets the solidest A.

Silly Bandz: The Silent Killer

Maybe from now on I'll just diss on other sites/news outlets' (is JOP a news outlet?) writing. Today's is an insane alarmist piece on (shocker) Fox News...about Silly Bandz!

“See these cute little bracelets? They’re called Silly Bandz, and I think they could potentially be harmful to children if they’re not careful...Dr. Manny was especially concerned for kids who wear numerous Silly Bandz for hours at a time, or even fall asleep at night with them on."

Hmm, food for thought. Speaking of food, I think the only way this could be any kind of problem (the issue is apparently that they could cut off your circulation temporarily)(shaking and crying over here, just thinking about it) is if your child is so morbidly obese that a rubber band is that tight on her/his wrists. Which...you got other problems, in that case.

Sunny Thoughts on a Sunny Friday Morning

If you're like me, reading this will ruin your morning...but also if you're like me, it helps to have an idea of the worst possible thing that could ever happen to all of us (obviously related to the BP spill). Usually what actually happens is less severe, so I like to brace myself for the worst and enjoy a pleasant surprise when it turns out less bad.

First read this short story, which appeared in the New Yorker right before Christmas last year. It's short, and sort of funny!

Then read this Gawker post, which is just a Gawker post and based on a commenter on a message board blah blah blah. But even if (especially if?) the information is twice-removed from official sources, it was scary. Another comment:

"The loss of that much marine bio-mass would be absolutely disastrous. The social implications alone would strain every governmental and social institution. People from the coasts who rely on seafood as the staple of their diet would begin to migrate in search of food. These people number into the tens to hundreds of millions. National borders would become non-existent. Governmental structures would fall due to the social unrest of such an huge influx of people in such a short period of time. Famine, plague, ethnic border wars, and the collapse of authority would be just the tip of the iceberg. If that oil were able to do as much damage as is suggested (and there is no proof that it can; I'm not sold, but I'm considering the implications as an intellectual exercise), then we could very well see another dark age for mankind."

Is there any reason this won't happen? If you know some stuff about science, I want to know!

And sorry for the bum out, but I hope you all have a great weekend!

Who's to Blame? Us!

President Obama says "BP will pay" for the oil spill. And they should. They ran the Deep Horizon oil rig, neglected using adequate safety measures, and watched it explode hours after an inspection team left. Yesterday BP announced it will pay $20 billion to make the Gulf better than ever.

Terrific. Good. Yay.

That ain't enough.

BP is directly responsible, sure, but at the end of the line is, well, us.

The world's growing thirst for oil will be sated by someone, somewhere, as long as there's profit to be had. BP's relief wells will generate money for them, which will probably go straight to the relief fund, because it's poetic that way. But until we get full of oil, this will happen again, somewhere, to somebody.

I hope Obama uses this disaster for political capital. Normally a queasy tactic (Bush+9/11=Iraq War), the president can use the spill for kicking the oil habit. It was one of his campaign planks, and now's the time to get it done.

Splits

This news really blew my mind - Al & Tipper Gore are separating after 40 years of marriage. The Clintons are still together guys! What gives???

What doesn't worry me about the Times Square plot

If Faisal Shahzad is responsible for parking the SUV in Times Square, like he allegedly admitted to authorities, I actually feel a little safer.

Shahzad claimed he went to Pakistan to receive bomb training. His bomb consisted of fireworks, gas cans, and propane tanks. Mr. Shahzad, you got ripped off. Any idiot can think of that. I hope this is the best the Pakistani Taliban can do.

What worries me more is the way they caught him. A little more than two days passed between first noticing the bomb and having the man in custody. That seems right to me. But how in blue blazes did he board a plane to Pakistan, despite being on a watch list?

The Feds were tracking him, yet lost him. D'oh. That's bad, but I suspect it happens more often than not. Allegedly Shahzad drove to JFK, walked to the Emirates counter and purchased a one-way ticket, to Pakistan, IN CASH. These things should set off warning bells in the Emirates employee's brain.

"Hello, I need to leave the country immediately and forever."
"And where are you going sir?"
"Hmm. Somewhere nice this time of year. How 'bout Pakistan?"
"Will that be Visa or Mastercard?"
"Dozens of $100 bills, thank you."

Spring Songs

Now that the weather is warmer, I want to hear different music than when it was cold and dreary. Here's what itunes sez are my big hits lately:

The Ramones: I Want You Around. Rob and I watched Rock 'n' Roll High School a few weeks ago and this one really stuck with me. Watch the video: it is so cute and weird!

Nite Jewel: Want You Back. The early-80s-science-reel sound that made me love Neon Indian so is also here with Nite Jewel. This song is so catchy and dark, but not in a Knife way (not that there's anything wrong with that...I am a Knife mega-fan).

Dum Dum Girls: Jail La La. Honestly, this whole album has been topping my charts lately. More lo-fi female vocals, which apparently I just love!

Four Tet: Circling. This one puts me in a trance while I jog. Crazy but true: I listen to it on repeat while I jog!

LL Cool J: Paradise. Don't know how to sell this to you, I just like it! LL saying "Paradise is very nice" is usually stuck in my head,

just like most LL Cool J songs I love because of the way he says something (almost all of "I'm That Type of Guy" being another great example). This is the kind of song where you uncover something new with each listen--just this morning, I figured out what LL means by "touch it why don't ya/touch it why don't ya"...but I'll let you discover these things for yourself.

What springy music are you really into these days?

Air travel

A volcano explodes and European governments shut down the skies for a few days.

They did a good job. Government should be thinking of our safety in the skies before thinking about how to prevent airlines from losing $1.7 billion. Volcanic ash is dangerous stuff, not to take lightly. Some people did, like this guy:

"Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary called the shutdown imposed by European governments excessive. 'It might have made sense to ground flights for a day or two. That's understandable. But there should have been a much faster response by the governments, the transport ministers and the regulators,' he told The Associated Press"

Maybe he's right. But if a few birds can force a jet to "land" in the Hudson River, what could a small plume of ash do to dozens of planes thousands of feet in the air? Ryanair and co. don't want to know.

Bad on bad on bad

Bad news, that is! Three of my favorite places in Raleigh are going to be gone within 2 months (max). I'm sad and mad about this.

1. Rockford. Closed suddenly yesterday! Rob and I had dinner there just on Saturday and it was great. I was so thankful for the cozy little second-story space and unpretentious servers and cheap sandwiches and drinks. So thankful, but I guess not thankful enough! CLOSED.

2. Jackpot. I had mixed feelings about this place and occasionally would hem and haw about going there; but like many fun things, I quit my complaining when I got there and would usually stay until closing time. Especially after the smoking ban! Lots of complaints about "hipsters," blah blah, but it was cheap there and you'd always run into someone you knew. And the music was good most of the time. And IHOP is right across the gravel parking lot! Closing "imminently."

3. Get Dressed! If you know Greensboro, it was a little like Design Archives but not as pricey and right across the street from the bead store, Ornamentea...aka perfect! I bought a lot of things there that I now wear weekly or even daily, like my favorite little silver-feathers ring. I hate that this place is closing. It's happening next month though, so there's still time to go. I bet the final sales will be amazing.

This is all sad partly because I enjoyed these places and partly because they gave Raleigh some needed character and community. Community is a "buzzword" these days but I don't know what else to call walking into a bar and knowing everyone in it.

One commenter on the blog where I read all my bad news lately, New Raleigh, wrote this and I have to agree. Well said, "Synaesthesiac":

It is ironic that many of the qualities that make a city a popular new area for growth get bulldozed to support that growth. It occurs because of a major disconnect between developers and the street level of culture. Rarely a developer like Empire bridges the gap. It is the cultural elements that help make the headlines, attracting both good growth as well as soulless capitalists. I always wondered what is the fundamental difference between the Glenwood South scene, Jackpot, and Fayetteville St. scenes. Some casual interviews revealed that the Glenwood South crowd is dominated by very recent relocees, often northerners, whereas the other spots are mostly North Carolinians. The out of towners move here because of the headlines, but aren’t properly sensitized to understand the culture once they arrive. They have no sentimentality about a place like Jackpot, and will pay to move in to some new condo without a wince. It is a sad but inevitable process.

Review Round-Up: Have One on Me

Joanna Newsom's new album, Have One on Me, was finally released today and we are pretty pumped about it over here. But something annoying is happening in "journalism" where music reviews are concerned and that is lazy writing. Also comments on a musician's physical appearance...are male musicians ever described as "sexpots"? Anyway, how many times can you spot the following in any given review of this album?:

"pixie"
"elfin"
"dreamlike"
"indie princess"
"quirky"
"whimsical"
"freak folk"
"16th-century kewpie doll"

reference to Kate Bush
reference to Joni Mitchell
reference to Bjork
reference to Tori Amos (there are only 4 female artists, ever)

Now on to the reviews:

The one in Paste is annoying, but at least it's original.

The NYT review is probably the best piece of music writing of the bunch.

LA Times' write-up is pretty mediocre.

And I hate to say it, but Pitchfork is unassailable as usual. No lazy musical signposts, no complaints about the quality of her voice, no comment on JN's appearance or personal life.

And I straight-up hate the AV Club's review, mostly because of the comments discussing how hot she is, whether she or the girl from Beach House is hotter, what they would like to do to her, etc. Even a classy mention of DSL!

Ugh. If you can find any better reviews, leave them in the comments. If they exist, I wanna know!

This girl is me today. I might beat her for number of total sneezes? I LITERALLY almost passed out during a gallery tour this morning, I was so sneezy. Also the sneezing montage is hilarious.

PS:I swear I saw this on CNN, not copping the hipster mom blog!

this time o' the year (continued)

[photo credit: Roche Roche's facebook]

Current Events

I get that celebrities can think for themselves, but they better stop being so in my face about it....specifically in regards to the whole Roman Polanski mess. The more names I see signing a petition to free Roman, the more I start losing respect for everyone on the list. Today I find out that Natalie Portman just signed. wtF??? I guess it's hard for me to understand their position because a) I'm not in Hollywood and b) it's hard for me to understand how genius Roman is (he directed a few movies?). There's no denying he has had a rough life, aside from the troubles he's made for himself, but does that entitle him to get out of jail free cards for the rest of his life?

Sidenote - it's interesting that Jack Nicholson hasn't signed or said anything at this point considering it happened at his house.

Philadelphia is closing its public libraries!

This is the most fucked up thing ever!

http://libwww.freelibrary.org/closing/

I don't know about you or the people of Philadelphia or the people of America in general, but I certainly wouldn't mind paying a little more in taxes!!!! This is what happens when you insist on tax cuts in tough years, fools. We all lose. Congratulations.

UPDATE:

This is from an interesting comment on Consumerist about it. A different side of the story and still fucked up! Let's get it together, people!

What's happening is that city leaders are making a highly-visible yet token "cut" that's designed to annoy people and convince them that higher taxes are acceptable. Once people accede to this manipulation — which is really no better than an extortion scheme — these conniving officials are relieved of the obligation to do what they ought to have done in the first place: make the serious and genuine kinds of budget cuts that would actually make a difference ... such as cutting waste and graft, and paring the size of government down to something which is both manageable and affordable. They squander money in ways you would not believe — and they do it all the time, under the illusion that it's the best way to operate.

Example 1: The Connecticut DOT could not be bothered actually managing a construction project, so they contracted out that task to a well-connected company. Only that company, which was paid millions to supervise it, did absolutely nothing. The work done was poor and had to be redone. In order to avoid paying to redo it, the construction company liquidated itself, its owners reconstituted as another firm, and proceeded to lobby for more state business. CT DOT officials — who obviously had no problem with this situation — were ready to award them more work, when the story was reported and the state A.G. had to step in. The re-work took another 2 years and a great deal more money, only some of which has been recovered.

Example 2: New York City public schools are famously home to what are called "rubber rooms." These are places in which tenured but incompetent teachers are allowed to sit and do nothing all day, yet earn their salaries for having done nothing. You see, they cannot be fired, no matter how bad they are; since they are by contract "entitled" to work, this is the only way to keep them from hurting kids' education or harming them.

Both of these examples, and more, are basically ways in which money is sucked out of the public coffers, for no good purpose ... and which are actually, actively defended by some officials, who consider these to be good ideas.

It's not just Philadelphia that uses this scheme of token, annoying, noticeable cuts to entice taxpayers into paying more ... governments at ALL levels (municipalities, counties, regional authorities, and states) across the country do it. It's an old trick, but curiously, it seems to work more often than not, and most people are blissfully unaware they're being "played." The cold hard fact is that government officials profit too much from bloated government and artificially-high budgets, for them to slice them down to size.

Gonzo

This has been going around the 'net, so I thought I'd post it here again to give it more coverage for our 5 readers & counting! A screenwriter/comic writer compares 30 Rock to The Muppet Show. I love the Muppet Show but think 30 Rock is just 'aight. Which is weird because this guy makes a great case for them being the same show. The few times I've watched 30 Rock it just seems annoying and grating. I guess critics of the Muppet Show could say the same thing about Kermit - but srsly with that face how can you??? Brian's comparison makes me want to watch more in detail if I happen to see 30 Rock again.

Sidenote - I noticed this on his twitter update feed:

Zack Morris is a trending topic, yet the entire cast of CALIFORNIA DREAMS dies forgotten. Life is not fair. about 7 hours ago

We were just talking about this show last night! California Dreams needs some recognition people! There were a lot of different cast photos - but I mostly remember the early years and the weird brother that looked like he was already 30. Was he supposed to be the heartthrob?

Let's Have a Dance Party Soon!

I'm looking at you, Dr. Wow. It's been so long! Mr. Ahhh or BLCK DMND, feel free to come back in town. Corey, Ango, Grey, you too. Look what you're missing out on!

I like this picture because, despite my trance-y face (not listening to "trance," btw), my hair is so shiny!

Which editor is the #1 High School Musical fan?

Some "bunny" turns 25 today! Happy Birthday Winnie!