Links to published work on the web

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) I finally decided that since the holiday temperatures where I live have only recently stopped reaching highs in the 90’s, I would make my December more festive by buying a candle that smells like Christmas . . . .

‘Jingle smells, Jingle smells, Jingle all the way’
‘Oh what fun it is to sniff a spicy-pine scented can-DLE!’

2) Yesterday on Good Morning America, the news-folk featured a product called ‘Insta-snow’. It’s made out of the same material used in diapers to absorb liquid. You just add water, and POOF . . . .

‘Have a synthetic, polymer Christmas’
‘It’s the best time of the year’
‘Say hello to plastic snow’
‘That spreads fake Christmas cheer’

3) Don’t laugh, but I’ve never eaten chestnuts. So I bought some, and tried to heat them by the only means familiar to me in this age of techno-mania . . . .

‘Chestnuts exploding in the microwave’
‘Scrubbing chunks off of the walls’
‘Maybe I should have grown them myseeeeelf’
‘Instead of buying chestnuts in a can’

 

Anybody remember that bizarre, yet totally awesome, cartoon from the early 90’s called Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?
Well, it seems to me that the last quarter of 2006 is shaping up to be the real life sequel of the loony cartoon. Only this time, the gamut of garish grocery items has been expanded to other parts of the produce aisle.
In October we had spiteful spinach. Beginning in late November we had vile chives from chalupa-ville (Taco Bell). A few days ago, Jamba Juice announced a strawberry scare.

Forget being hit by a car when you cross the street. The real danger now-a-days is healthy food(?) Everybody’s so concerned with eating organically, with the fastest route from soil to stomach. But according to the FDA, that is just the problem. Fresh foods, especially ready-made, uncooked fruits and vegetables, are high risk foods because they are often consumed without being washed or otherwise processed in a way that would pulverize the pathogens.
 
The Jamba Juice strawberries that were suspected of contamination by Listeria monocytogenes were frozen!!!! I’m wondering what a quick rinse would have done to cleanse spinach that freezing would NOT have done to sanitize the strawberries.

Then there are the E. coli-tainted chives that have prompted the family of a young boy in New York to sue Taco Bell Corp. on the grounds that the restaurant chain was negligent.
This despite the voluntary and immediate recall that Taco Bell issued for chives, and their temporary shut-down of several restaurant locations that were suspected in the outbreak.
Jamba Juice was equally prompt in dealing with the suspected contamination, tossing even batches of strawberries that were not believed to be affected and cleaning all their stores. It sounds to me like the appropriate steps were made to take care of the problem, at least in terms of the handling of the produce once it was out of the field.

Who is really to blame in these cases?
It’s not that much of a separation for people to sue the makers of door handles from which they pick up rotavirus or a common cold. Or maybe we should sue the makers of pharmaceuticals for not inventing a drug to cure something, which is negligent because if they could make it, we wouldn’t get sick. I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if the legal system works as it is intended to.
Not that people shouldn’t be protected, or advocated for, but come on! You can sue someone for doing something to you, but you shouldn’t be able to sue someone for not stopping something from happening to you. It all seems backward, somehow.

 

 

Yesterday, December 6, 2006, at 7 a.m., EST, the Iraq Study Group, a coalition of ten democratic and republican politicians, co-chaired by Lee Hamilton, and James Baker, reported on their findings regarding the situation in Iraq, and their recommendations for the future. Lee Hamilton, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives in Indiana, and a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, was the first to speak in front of the press. His first words were, “The situation in Iraq is grave, and deteriorating.” Hamilton went on to site statistics that indicate the gravity of the situation, such as the 2,900 dead Americans, the 21,000 wounded Americans, and the 400 billion American dollars that have been allocated to the effort in Iraq. The Iraq Study Group is composed of five democrats and five republicans, each with long-standing and decorated careers to our government.

Hamilton went on to say that the Iraqi people are suffering, and that the democratic government that replaced the tyrant Saddam Hussein has been hugely unsuccessful in making the country more secure, in delivering services to its people, and in furthering economic development. Hamilton was unfaltering in his criticism of the goings-on in Iraq, announcing, “The current approach is not working.” Hamilton made it clear that the group agreed with President Bush’s supposed goal in Iraq, which has always been said to be the creation of an Iraq that is self-governing, self-sustaining, and self-defending. But Hamilton added that the group was recommending a new approach to pursuing that goal, a “responsible transition.”

79 recommendations were made in all by the report, as Hamilton’s co-chair James Baker explained, the recommendations ranged in focus from military, political, and diplomatic matters, to oil, reconstruction, U.S. intelligence, training of U.S. government personnel, U.S. budget process, and issues of criminal justice. Each of these 79 recommendations was approved by each of the ten group members, lending to the report the strength and validity of a truly bipartisan and collaborative effort. The three most important of these recommendations, announced the speakers, are as follows;
1. Change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the U.S. to begin moving combat forces out of Iraq.
2. Action by the Iraqi government to “achieve milestones” in terms of national reconciliation, security, and improvement of the daily lives of Iraqis.
3. New and enhanced diplomatic and political action.

Hamilton expressed the collective opinion that, if the Iraqis are encouraged to take control of their own future, the U.S. can slowly and responsibly pull out. Furthermore, our role in Iraq should take the shape of support, not primary responsibility. Both speakers expressed that the Iraqi government will need our help for some time, but our commitment should not be open-ended. Even if the Iraqis falter in implementing active changes, the U.S. should stick to its schedule, and make it clear to the Iraqis that we intend to do so.

As Baker admitted, there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. But this is no excuse to remain complacent with an ineffective plan and futile efforts. The direct message to President Bush was that he needs to send a message to Iraqi leaders that the U.S. will support them as long as they take action to support themselves.

My thoughts on all of this? Hmmmm . . . Well, Bush has been known to ignore recommendations of influential groups before. Can we all say “WMD’s?” So even though Bush has been called out, and the general consensus is that he’s blowing it in Iraq, will the Whispering Wind’s of Change be effective, or do we need a Howling Hurricane, a Screaming Flurry. Needless to say, I am skeptical. What do all of you think? Will the President heed the call?

 

Maybe I am feeling cranky and overworked today, as I'm sure many of  you are. But let me share something with all of you that struck me as I began my evening stare session with Anderson Copper 360. As you may have realized by now, I often sit down with a glass of relatively inexpensive red wine at the end of the night to watch the CNN super- star, telling myself that I'm doing myself a favor by allowing small amounts of world news to trickle past the wine buzz into my exhausted brain. Deep down, I know that the bigger reason I watch is that HE'S DARN ATTRACTIVE. Oh come on ladies, admit it; there's something about
 those blue eyes, that slight frame in a suit, his expert command of the information . . .ANYWAY, there I was feeling plum tuckered out after a day of working my butt of for a salary that has me within the 200th percentile of the poverty level, feeling fairly sorry for myself and generally pissed at my entire situation, when one story caused me to instantly snap out of my self pity. Unless you have been hibernating with a clan of Kodiak Bears for the last week or so, you have probably heard of the Kim family, who were stranded in the wilderness of Oregon for nine days. The father, James Kim, is still missing after having left his wife and two young daughters with the snow-bound family car, in order to search for help. Kati Kim reportedly kept her children alive by breast feeding both of them, an infant and a four year old. They burned the car tires in an effort to make signal fires, and Kati eventually succeeded in flagging down rescue helicopters by using an umbrella. The reason for my recap is this; whatever the challenge you may be experiencing, GET OVER IT!!!! I can't tell you how tired I am of reading comments like this on our message boards;
 "I can't choose what law school to go to", or  "Which law firm should I work at, the one that pays first-year associates 200 grand per year, or the one that pays 100 grand per year and has 100 % bonuses?", or "I'm sleeping with one of the senior partners. If I stop, will my career suffer?"
There are people with real problems, and chances are that you are not one of them. So stop sniveling and just deal with your issues, rather than hemming and hawing, and wasting the time of the people that have to listen to your idiotic tragic monologue.

 

As the holidays creep towards us, many of us are still enjoying the privilege of taking ample time to find that perfect gift for everyone on our lists. But there are a handful of us that, though we may know just what that perfect gift would be, have no time to make or buy it. With the immense volume of shoppers out-and-about at any given time, the idea of finding a parking spot at the local mall is enough to give us indigestion. And then there are the piles of merchandise, strewn willy-nilly across the stores in the wake of shoppers who got there early. We have to mine the piled boxes in the electronics department, or struggle to extract that perfect sweater from the over-stuffed rack without loosing the hanger and pulling down the surrounding items, which we (I hope) would then have to re-hang. I am exhausted just blogging about it!!!
That’s why the gift card is such a spectacular idea. Yes, there is a certain special quality to a gift that was chosen just for us by someone who knew just what we would want. But let’s face it; usually the things we get are not what we would have picked up for ourselves. For example, one Christmas I was given a trash can by my grandmother. Another time my uncle gave me a candle that said “Cowboy” on the package. It had a musty dirt odor mingled with a hint of horse. Needless to say, the candle went into Nana’s trash bin.
My point here is that, while gift cards may not be terribly romantic, they are practical. I’m at the point in my life where I don’t need stuff. And gift cards allow me to keep the clutter to a minimum, while still feeling appreciated.
Now that I have made my case for gift card-giving, I feel it necessary to make contradictory commentary on a pertinent news story I recently read. Starbucks pre-paid gift cards are quite possibly ascending to a status that is right up there with the mark of the beast, only for coffee. A news article from the Associated Press says that last holiday season, 15 million Starbucks cards were sold, and brought in a whopping 170 million in revenue upon their redemptions. Since November of 2001, roughly 96 million cards have been sold in the U.S. and Canada. Cards are also a form of caffeine-scoring currency in the U.K., Japan, Spain, Thailand, Australia, Germany, and Greece, and don’t think that Starbucks is planning anything short of global takeover. Pretty soon we will have no way of getting caffeinated but by using the magical plastic. Latte-deprived cash-carriers will wait in hour-long lines only to find out that paper doesn’t cut it anymore. They will stumble away from the register bewildered, dragging their plastic to-go cups along the shelves of pre-fab pastries, and compilation CD’s. Dazed, they will wander into mom-and-pop cafes with their pockets turned inside out, trying to by go-juice with their library cards or sticks of gum.
I can see it now. The days of paying for something when you buy it are over. Now is the time of paying now and buying later. I’m so disturbed, I may convert to tea.

 

Something recently came to my attention, and perhaps some of our readers are aware of it as well. About a week ago I was relaxing at home with a glass of red wine, after a long day at work. Although I’m sure there must have been some delectable trash on TV – don’t scoff, I know you all have your guilty pleasures when it comes to week-night television – but I decided to do something good for myself, so I turned on CNN. When this story came on, I nearly spit my $3.99 merlot allover my fake leather couch!!!!!!!!

Democratic Congressman Charles Rangle from New York wants to reinstate the draft. Hold on, let’s let that marinate for a second. The draft, the draft, didn’t that go kinda sour for us the last time?

That is something Rangle knows about first-hand. He’s a Korean War vet, and a critic of Bush’s handling of the Iraq War. Rangle has suggested reinstating the draft in the past as a way of putting the President and Republican Congress on the spot. He says his goal in calling for a reinstatement of the draft is to focus the public.

People like William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense, agree with Rangle’s underlying motives. Cohen has made statements about the need for parents to get “heartburn” when they think about what our country is up to overseas. He says that we all need to ask ourselves exactly what we are committing someone else’s family member to do when we send our soldiers off to war. I definitely agree with this angle of the argument, but I don’t really feel comfortable with the idea of a draft.

There are a lot of military experts who say that it is a bad idea to mess with the system during a time of military action, like now. They say that to integrate untrained draftees with a trained force would be distracting, and ultimately a setback. 

As scary as the idea of reinstating the draft is, Rangle’s message has accomplished its purpose for me.  I am having the conversation, and I want to hear from everyone else too! Apparently, one of Rangle’s main objectives is to insight the country to have the conversation. As he explains, when we say that X and X are a threat to us, then we all have to be willing to put up our fists and fight.

What’s your verdict on all this?