who'll stop the rain

From A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (bold emphasis mine):

"She [Marilyn Monroe] was just like our whole country - not quite young anymore, but not old either; a little breathless, very beautiful, maybe a little stupid, maybe a lot smarter than she seemed. And she was looking for something - I think she wanted to be good. Look at the men in her life - Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, maybe the Kennedys. Look at how good they seem! Look at how desirable she was! That's what she was: she was desirable, she was funny and sexy - and she was vulnerable, too. She was never quite happy, she was always a little overweight. She was just like our whole country...
And those men, those famous, powerful men - did they really love her? Did they take care of her? If she was ever with the Kennedys, they couldn't have loved her - they were just using her, they were just being careless and treating themselves to a thrill. That's what powerful men do to this country - it's a beautiful, sexy, breathless country, and powerful men use it to treat themselves to a thrill! They say they love it but they don't mean it. They say things to make themselves appear good - they make themselves appear moral. That's what I thought Kennedy was: A moralist. But he was just giving us a snow job, he was just being a good seducer. I thought he was a savior. I thought he wanted to use his power to do good. But people will say and do anything just to get the power; then they'll use the power just to get a thrill. Marilyn Monroe was always looking for the best man - maybe she wanted the man with the most integrity, maybe she wanted the man with the most ability to do good. And she was seduced, over and over again - she got fooled, she was tricked, she got used, she was used up. Just like the country. The country wants a savior. They country is a sucker for powerful men who look good. We think they're moralists and then they just use us. That's what's going to happen to you and me. We're going to be used."



Obamamania says what?

Whisper words of wisdom...

"What's wrong with this country? There is such a stupid 'get even' mentality - there is such a sadistic anger...
Is this country so huge that it needs to oversimplify everything? Look at the war: Either we have a strategy to 'win' it, which makes us - in the world's view - murderers; or else we are dying, without fighting to win. Look at what we call 'foreign policy': our 'foreign policy' is a euphemism for public relations, and our public relations get worse and worse. We're being defeated and we're not good losers.
And look at what we call 'religion': turn on any television on any Sunday morning! See the choirs of the poor and uneducated - and these terrible preachers, selling old Jesus-stories like junk food. Soon there'll be an evangelist in the White House; soon there'll be a cardinal on the Supreme Court. One day there will come an epidemic - I'll bet on some humdinger of a sexual disease. And what will our peerless leaders, our heads of church and state... what will they say to us? How will they help us? You can be sure they won't cure us - but how will they comfort us? Just turn on the tv - and here's what our peerless leaders, our heads of church and state will say: They'll say, 'I told you so!' They'll say, 'That's what you get for fucking around - I told you not to do it until you got married.' Doesn't anyone see what these simpletons are up to? These self-righteous fanatics are not 'religious' - their homey wisdom is not 'morality.'
That is where this country is headed - it is headed toward oversimplification. You want to see a president of the future? Turn on any television on any Sunday morning - find one of those holy rollers: that's him, that's the new Mister President! And do you want to see the future of all those kids who are going to fall in the cracks of this great, big, sloppy society of ours? I just met him; he's a tall, skinny, fifteen year old boy named 'Dick.' He's pretty scary. What's wrong with him is not unlike what's wrong with the TV evangelist - our future president. What's wrong with both of them is that they're so sure they're right! That's pretty scary - the future, I think, is pretty scary."
(bold emphasis mine)


-from A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, written in 1987 and set in the 1970s

Another excerpt to come later. In the meantime, continue to be fucking amazed that the horrid future of this country was so fucking predictable. Or is it just that Irving was an amazing psychic?

Stick it in my yeah

So on this one fine evening this fine young lady decided to finally get her ass in gear and head down to Westheimer to get her totally deep and meaningful tattoo that she has been planning for months, even years. She knew exactly what she wanted: the words "Ancaro Imparo" in a sort of handwritten cursive font (called, quite nicely, Jane Austen) on her right wrist in white or goldenrod. She had searched online for the best tattoo studio around and found one that had rad reviews and seemed super legit for featuring the work of real artists and professionals (Sacred Heart Studio, if you're interested). After taking forever to do the worst parallel parking job in the world, she eventually arrived.

But lo and behold, dear readers...

They are such artists and professionals they refused to do a pale-colored and appropriately subtle tattoo! They claimed that without being in black, or at least outlined in black, it would all blur together and look quite incomprehensible. They offered to refer this fine young lady to another tattoo place that had lower artistic standards, but she figured that a studio that would refuse her business instead of give her a shoddy tattoo probably knew what they were talking about.

And so she headed home, a little relieved after the terrifying buzz of the needles and the thought that they would be anywhere near her wrist, but ultimately disappointed that she is now back at square one with regards as to how to permanently scar her body. Thus she is now open to suggestions. Got any?

In red blue green

If you didn't know I left, I'm back now! I went to Chicago for Lollapalooza, which all things considered was amazing. And it's kind of weird that I would think that, because I missed bands I wanted to see and some bands I wanted to see and did see weren't that great, so I think somewhere inside me my personal growth is growing towards happiness like a sunflower towards the sun. Whoaaaaa.

In light of that fact, I wanted some happy ancaro imparo news to spread. But uhh, everything starred on my google reader is pretty downbeat, and maybe its because of the coffee or the 7am sunlight, but I just don't wanna go there at the moment. So here's a loldog to brighten your day. Have a good weekend!

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 :)

ching chong

I saw Chinese people do a Chinese firedrill today.

It was pretty much the best thing ever.

heavy boots are caught up in the crowd

Uh oh... A new study is saying that flip flops are bad for feet. They cause you to walk differently and can eventually lead to assorted problems like tendonitis. That is unfortunate, because I live in flip flops and can't imagine ever wearing anything else. They're the only shoes that I can walk in all day and my feet never get sore.

Luckily the researchers were from Auburn, so I will discount their findings entirely.

a little afternoon delight

Probably a little more than you ever wanted to learn.



This is why the internet was invented.

hi i'm a douche and i approve this douchey message

Ermmm, wtf? Here's a clip of McCain on SNL that I saw tonight:



Seriously... I don't know what to make of it. Why was he on SNL at all? It's just a campaign ad thinly THINLY veiled in humor... maybe SNL has always offered itself as a platform to political candidates, the show is 13 years older than I am so what do I know. And besides that, everyone knows SNL isn't that funny to begin with, but even with that standard in mind it's pretty bad humor. He's uhh, making fun of how shitty his state is? Or what a bad job he's done as a senator? Cos I don't think highways and post offices fall under pork barrel expenditures. And I know he made a lot of fun of his age in the skit, so we're supposed to think actually he's not that old, but everytime I see him it makes me realize all over again how fucking old he is. He's FUCKING OLD.

Also, earlier in the show they had Fred Armisen in blackface to play Barack Obama. Complete with big fake ears. I mean, I guess they had to cos the only other black male on the cast right now is Kenan Thompson. Uhh... yeah.

i've got to admit it's getting better, a little better

If you haven't heard by now, the Supreme Court finally ruled, 5-4, that detainees at Guantanamo Bay - although to hell with semantics, they are PRISONERS - have the right to habeus corpus, i.e. a trial before an independent judge. Justice Kennedy wrote "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times" and it's like, motherfuckin yeah they are! The Constitution wasn't designed to keep the peace in peaceful times, it was written in the years following a motherfucking war. Don't you think they maybe had wartime in mind? Those who give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither kinda shit? But no, Bush et al are all "We're in danger! The Constitution doesn't apply!" Fuck that shit. Thank you SCOTUS! All is not lost. Now please keep your slim liberal majority and do not overturn Roe v Wade. kthxbai

Also, Justice Scalia wrote in his dissenting opinion that this decision "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." THEY'RE ALREADY BEING KILLED IN YOUR MOTHERFUCKING WAR. I fail to see how finally granting prisoners their legal RIGHTS - rights, not privileges, basic rights they have been denied for years - will have any role in increasing attacks against Americans. I only see how it could lead to a decrease. The Americans being killed at the moment are the ones who invaded a motherfucking sovereign country for no reason whatsoever. (Ok, it was actually the government that did that. The Americans being killed are their pawns. Is it too insensitive to write that?) Anyway, the point is, the "radical Islamists" he refers to are not going to hate us more because we're finally giving at least some lip service to fair legal rights. Actually the point is that his argument is so dumb I've been sitting here for 30 minutes trying to attack it and it's just too dumb to fathom, so I'm not even going to bother anymore. Suck it, Scalia.

do you realize?

K so tonight (I am writing this Tuesday night but am posting it later) I had a rather personal ancaro imparo moment, which holds truer to what I feel the spirit of ancaro imparo is more than the random facts I normally post do.

Although my parents have always said I can do or be whatever I want - lawyer, teacher, activist, homemaker, whatever strikes my fancy - I have never realized before that it is a rather female privilege. (Upper middle class educated female privilege, to be sure). I had never thought before about the pressures placed upon males from a relatively early age to be breadwinners. I've never once had the feeling or pressure that I would have to be the sole earner for my family. I've figured I would work and he would work, but never that I would have to go to school to get educated so I could get a good job to provide for a family. I've felt that I can do whatever I want, and I've joked about being poor and never making much money, because I have been raised with the privilege and the belief that I will never be able to make a substantial contribution to raising a family - which is both freeing and limiting. I've focused upon the limitations of being a woman, in terms of the career glass ceiling and wage discrepancies etc, but never upon the limitations of being a man and being expected to have a substantial salary. Male readers of this blog - have you ever felt that what you did wouldn't matter, because you would have a partner in raising a family, or have you always figured you would have to make a decent income? How many men are raised, not in the latter, but in the former environment? How many men go to school with zero career expectations upon them? I've only begun thinking about this tonight, and talking about it with a couple girls, so I don't have a male perspective on it at all. The more that I think about it, the more that I think it's rather odd that my family will invest $100,000+ in my education with zero real requirements upon me other than that I be happy and do something I enjoy. In a small way, that might make me more privileged than a male - although I will qualify that by saying there are a thousand other ways women are less privileged. And with that qualifier, do any of these male problems matter? Like, boohoo, someone actually thinks you're capable of being financially successful and supporting multiple people off of your own work. Because the more that I think about it, the more I feel kind of insulted that no one has ever held me to that standard.

And its just weird, because I typically consider myself a strong woman. But in the subconscious back of my mind, my life plan has always included the support of a male (if I were to raise a family, which I most likely will. Until that happens, I plan on being able to support myself). And any job that would enable me to support a family by myself would probably be outside of my ideals and what I would like to do with my life. So from a strong woman perspective, do I need to abandon the work I would most like to do so I could be the breadwinner? Continue on my merry path of do-whatever-the-fuck-you-wantdom and know that I'll have to have someone else be there to support that?

Heavy thoughts for a slow Tuesday night.

I don't expect any comprehensive answers. These are all double-edged sword type problems/conundrums and I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this.

[Postscript] It is now Wednesday afternoon and I'm re-reading this before I post it. I'm not sure that what I've written is entirely clear and is probably more repetitive than anything, seeing as how I originally wrote it rather drunk and stoned at 2am. But instead of taking weeks to revise this until it makes sense I'm just going to throw it out there to try and start a dialogue, which could hopefully be more clarifying or illuminating than running in circles in my own head is.

houston we have a problem

Lesson for the day: Don't get into your car with a vague destination in mind without, in fact, knowing where that destination is. Otherwise you will end up an hour later outside the loop and missing a quarter tank of gas, on the phone with your dad yelling about how much of a retard you are, in fact, are.

This isn't the most amazing Ancaro Imparo fix, I admit. So here's a little more to go with the lesson: The famed Heights neighborhood is not, as you might think, a neighborhood. I was under the impression that it was a few quaint little streets, like the Village, but it's more the larger part of north Houston (NoHo, if you insist on being a douchebag). Basically the space between Memorial Parkway and 610? Which is apparently a rather large area.

Furthermore, the Heights (or at least the section I finally stumbled upon, West 19th between Heights Blvd and Shepherd) is not a cute little collection of affordable vintage-tastic shops. It is right in line with the overpriced designer crap at the Village. Perhaps one day I will be able to afford an 80$ tank top, but today is not that day. Nor is that day anywhere in the near future, so in this area at least this little brokeass Houston gal will be sticking to what she has already learned (Taxi Taxi!). And maybe that is the real lesson to get out of all of this.

what i can do for you

Fucking learning something every day, aren't we! Or every other week or so. Or whenever I get around to actually putting fingers to keyboard (is it sad that that's the new "pen to paper"?)

Like this: I was thinking recently about getting a new computer, and Dayna's about to get one soon too. So I went looking on the Rice website for a student discount cos I had some faint foggy memory that we get something somewhere (I mean, that 30,000$ has to pay for something other than just your professor's wrinkled khakis and filling Leebron's pool with 1$ bills.)

And look what I found! A whole page of discounted laptops, desktops, cell phones, printers, and other random tech stuff. Why don't they tell us about this stuff? Do they tell us about this stuff? Well now we all know! Now go forth and save 100$ on that 1500$ Macbook!