According to this article from USA Today, Venus and Serena Williams aren't going to vote in the November election because they're Jehova's Witnesses. Apparently, Jehova's Witnesses don't vote. Huh. Whooda thunk.
That being the case, I move that we pass a shoot-on-sight ordinance for Jehova's Witnesses who knock on my door while I live there...as in ever.
Who's going to vote against it?
2008/06/25
telco immunity
It isn't that Democrats are more or less susceptible to corruption. Every politician is a human first (with the exceptions of Phil Gramm and Tom DeLay).
It's that Democrats can be bought cheaper.
http://themoderatevoice.com/politics/democratic-party/20615/but-why-did-94-democrats-change-their-votes-on-fisa/
It's that Democrats can be bought cheaper.
http://themoderatevoice.com/politics/democratic-party/20615/but-why-did-94-democrats-change-their-votes-on-fisa/
2008/06/24
2008/06/18
Juneteenth
Juneteenth is Thursday.
My office is having a Juneteenth Potluck. Two of the four black people who work in my office are going to be out that day...planned well in advance.
I'm white. I kind of feel like Juneteenth is the kind of holiday where people like me should tread lightly. Maybe wear a t-shirt that says, "You're right, we're kind of assholes."
I don't think that it's a day when 40 white people should sign up for a pot luck with items like "good ole' cole slaw" and "mammy's fried chicken."
My office is having a Juneteenth Potluck. Two of the four black people who work in my office are going to be out that day...planned well in advance.
I'm white. I kind of feel like Juneteenth is the kind of holiday where people like me should tread lightly. Maybe wear a t-shirt that says, "You're right, we're kind of assholes."
I don't think that it's a day when 40 white people should sign up for a pot luck with items like "good ole' cole slaw" and "mammy's fried chicken."
2008/06/17
check one more for Obama
My mom is *still* an ardent Hillary supporter.
She mentioned that she was considering voting for McCain. I said, "rather than vote for the chosen candidate of your lifelong party, you would pick a guy who married a beauty queen and then divorced her after she got in a car wreck and wasn't pretty anymore...only to marry a drug addicted heiress to fund his political aspirations? That's a vote that makes sense to you?"
She had no idea what I was talking about. I e'splained.
She's voting for Obama now.
She mentioned that she was considering voting for McCain. I said, "rather than vote for the chosen candidate of your lifelong party, you would pick a guy who married a beauty queen and then divorced her after she got in a car wreck and wasn't pretty anymore...only to marry a drug addicted heiress to fund his political aspirations? That's a vote that makes sense to you?"
She had no idea what I was talking about. I e'splained.
She's voting for Obama now.
R.I.P
- Tim Russert. I confess that I wasn't that much of a Sunday-morning-bobblehead watcher but he seemed to be a bastion of journalistic integrity; one of the gold-standard sort. The kind of guy who doesn't oppose the O'rlys of the world but rather renders them irrelevant.
- Stan Winston. Did you fall in love with Edward Scissorhands? Do you remember Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise as vampires? Did Danny Devito's Penguin make you a little sick to your stomach? Then you will miss Stan Winston.
- New Orleans, again, maybe: Flood waters are cresting in St. Louis today and it's still raining upstream. I guess we're about to find out if the repairs to the levees are going to hold up.
- Stan Winston. Did you fall in love with Edward Scissorhands? Do you remember Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise as vampires? Did Danny Devito's Penguin make you a little sick to your stomach? Then you will miss Stan Winston.
- New Orleans, again, maybe: Flood waters are cresting in St. Louis today and it's still raining upstream. I guess we're about to find out if the repairs to the levees are going to hold up.
2008/06/02
I set the pedestal too high
Anthony Bourdain is something of a culinary and cultural hero of mine. Or maybe he was. No, he still is, but his armor's a little tarnished in places.
There's an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations that I had not seen in its entirety. In fact, I still haven't. I just caught a little more of it tonight.
It's the episode in Argentina that includes, among other things, a barbeque with 150 cows crucified over trench fires and a walk on a Patagonian glacier with a couple of Gouchos.
There is a scene, the one I had missed previously, on an estancia (a ranch to you and me) where Tony witnesses first-hand the process of cutting spring calves. There's the winnowing out of calves from their mothers, the branding, and some fairly graphic castration. This particular estancia favors a Hereford variant that lacks noticeable horns so Tony was spared the sawing and the ensuing bloody skulls.
Tony's little tummy got upset.
Two decades of slapping meat on a grill; a lifetime of derision spewed at vegetarians and all it takes to shake him to tears is the sight of a little blood.
Welcome to my entire childhood.
I don't claim to speak for my kin or anyone else who raised a show calf, lamb, hog, rabbit, turkey, or chicken. I can only speak for myself.
If you don't eat meat, you're a grazer. If you've never taken the life of an animal and put its carcass to your nourishment, you're just another vulture eating cellophane-wrapped carrion. I'm not saying for a second that I'm any better but to see a chef get all misty-eyed at the process of producing his raw materials seems a little naive.
If you're going to eat meat, something has got to die. For the meat to be any good, it's going to have to be castrated as a toddler and slaughtered as a pre-teen. Calves are usually harvested within a month or two of losing their baby teeth. And Tony's mistaken about the reason that the balls are taken; it does make the males more docile but, more importantly, it robs the body of testosterone which toughens the meat and leaves an abundance of estrogen which causes the body to store intramuscular fat; that delicious material known as "marbling" in the rendered product.
Food doesn't come from the grocery store. It comes from the ground. Grab some perspective. It ain't Nagasaki and you ain't Oppenheimer. It's a cow; you're a cook. Have enough respect for the creature to hold back your tears when you realize what it gets put through to make a decent meal.
Sugarpants.
There's an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations that I had not seen in its entirety. In fact, I still haven't. I just caught a little more of it tonight.
It's the episode in Argentina that includes, among other things, a barbeque with 150 cows crucified over trench fires and a walk on a Patagonian glacier with a couple of Gouchos.
There is a scene, the one I had missed previously, on an estancia (a ranch to you and me) where Tony witnesses first-hand the process of cutting spring calves. There's the winnowing out of calves from their mothers, the branding, and some fairly graphic castration. This particular estancia favors a Hereford variant that lacks noticeable horns so Tony was spared the sawing and the ensuing bloody skulls.
Tony's little tummy got upset.
Two decades of slapping meat on a grill; a lifetime of derision spewed at vegetarians and all it takes to shake him to tears is the sight of a little blood.
Welcome to my entire childhood.
I don't claim to speak for my kin or anyone else who raised a show calf, lamb, hog, rabbit, turkey, or chicken. I can only speak for myself.
If you don't eat meat, you're a grazer. If you've never taken the life of an animal and put its carcass to your nourishment, you're just another vulture eating cellophane-wrapped carrion. I'm not saying for a second that I'm any better but to see a chef get all misty-eyed at the process of producing his raw materials seems a little naive.
If you're going to eat meat, something has got to die. For the meat to be any good, it's going to have to be castrated as a toddler and slaughtered as a pre-teen. Calves are usually harvested within a month or two of losing their baby teeth. And Tony's mistaken about the reason that the balls are taken; it does make the males more docile but, more importantly, it robs the body of testosterone which toughens the meat and leaves an abundance of estrogen which causes the body to store intramuscular fat; that delicious material known as "marbling" in the rendered product.
Food doesn't come from the grocery store. It comes from the ground. Grab some perspective. It ain't Nagasaki and you ain't Oppenheimer. It's a cow; you're a cook. Have enough respect for the creature to hold back your tears when you realize what it gets put through to make a decent meal.
Sugarpants.
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