read a book read a book read a.....

Hey hey hey---

My mom sent me a website today that seems pretty nifty for those of you into books and such. It's called Goodreads and it lets you create an account and then add books you've read, are reading, and want to read, as well as rate and review them. Then your friends can see them and that saves you the big old hassle of having to actually have a conversation with anyone about something as dorky and intellectual as books, shudder.

Here is my profile, by the way, if you're interested.

ein prosit

Wanna hear something pretty cool?

Yeah, ya do.

A recent Washington Post article posits that beer & alcohol have contributed to the survival of our species, and those who prefer alcohol had an edge over those who didn't because they weren't drinking as much dirty water. So our current society has legions of alcoholic ancestors to thank for the fact that we're alive today!:

To avoid dangerous water, people had to drink large quantities of, say, beer. But to digest that beer, individuals needed a genetic advantage that not everyone had -- what Johnson describes as the body's ability to respond to the intake of alcohol by increasing the production of particular enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases. This ability is controlled by certain genes on chromosome four in human DNA, genes not evenly distributed to everyone. Those who lacked this trait could not, as the saying goes, "hold their liquor." So, many died early and childless, either of alcohol's toxicity or from waterborne diseases.

The gene pools of human settlements became progressively dominated by the survivors -- by those genetically disposed to, well, drink beer. "Most of the world's population today," Johnson writes, "is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol."

So today, pour one out in remembrance of our alcoholic forefathers. Happy hump day!

piece of my heart

I have a post in the works about women in the military, but I want to make it a legit blog post and it's one of those things that you just keep putting off, you know? Even though I spend hours at my computer a day, it takes a while for me to write something that actually matters. And then I don't want to write anything at all until I get this one thing done, so then one or two weeks go by and I just don't write anything. So uhh, here goes something.

I started reading Backlash by Susan Faludi today. It was written in 1991 so it pretty much just covers stuff from the 80's, but it's still pretty powerful. It's about the backlash against the women's movement. Everyone thought by the 80s that the movement had been wildly successful and women had reached equality, so all of these studies and stuff came out about how depressed and anxious and suicidal single and working women were, but they were pretty bogus. Well I've only read to chapter three and that's what its about so far anyway.

I'll probably post excerpts from that while I'm reading it. They'll be strongly feminist, so if that's something you don't like, you've been warned. But if that's something you don't like, I urge you to read it anyway. The point of feminism isn't to make men feel bad. It's to raise awareness about the inequalities in our society - and not just between women and men, but between races, classes, sexualities - and then take steps to fix them. Not push men off the top of the hill, but even it out so everyone is on a level playing field.

Anyway I just realized I'm approaching a soapbox so I am going to slowly back away for the day.

Hope everyone's summer is going well :)