Iyow - in your own words

First, Gary Coleman got the plug pulled on him after one day, and now Rue McClanahan ? Say it ain’t so…

Now that all the excitement from the historic 2008 U.S. Presidential election has died down, Yuval Levin’s ‘The Meaning of Sarah Palin’ is the best analysis I’ve read yet on Sarah Palin and her symbolism, and why people reacted as they did to her. (And I’ve read a lot of them.)

It’s a fair and sober piece that understands the depth of Palin’s strengths – a stubborn belief in the importance of ethical government and the redeeming virtues of fair competition – as well as her (and more centrally McCain’s) electorally fatal deficiency in painting a full vision of why their beliefs would make Americans better off: “Palin’s potent combination of cultural populism and social conservatism might provide the roadmap a Republican politician will need in the future to make headway against the Democratic tide. But that roadmap will only take that Republican politician so far. The rest of the journey requires the articulation of a broader vision for American families, American prosperity and freedom, and American security; a vision of conservatism, not only a nimbus of populism.”

September 18th, 2008.

“It’s going down!” my buddy Chardmo yells.

I am awake.

“What’s going down?”

“The shit is hitting the fan!”

“When?” I mumble.

“Right fucking now! Let’s go! Move, Bitch! NYC for life!!”

I arise from my single bed that I have been sharing with Chardmo. My body comes alive. I can hear CNN rolling on our hotel’s Samsung TV set. I have no idea what the reporter is talking about. However, I can tell by his tone that the economic
excitement that kicked off this week is still in full effect.

“Let’s move!”

“Jesus. Alright. What’s the rush?” I mutter walking to the shower.

“Lehman Brothers. Wall Street. Now.”

...

Lehman Brothers was the same as the days before. Police barriers, reporters, camera crews littered the entrance of their corporate lobby. We walked by, making stupid comments, “Nice one guys.” We stood there for a minute; it felt a little strange. I thought maybe we should lay down some flowers.

Just off the Rue Yvonne-le-Tac, and no less unsettling, is the Fondue Refuge. ‘Fondue’ and ‘Refuge’ are two words not often seen together, and—even independently—a cause for mild concern when used in the name of restaurant….

Down along the wall from us was an American ski bum with his new girlfriend, trying to look swarthy while latched onto a nipple. No adult looks cool sucking on a nipple. Quite the opposite: It can be quite uncomfortable watching your aging friends across the table sucking rapturously on a bottle.

It’s especially hard to quantify feelings and conversations in social science, but kudos to Pew Excellence in Journalism for taking an excellent stab at it. Full article here.

The current presidential election is on OpenSecrets.org, this election has already surpassed the entire 2004 presidential cycle in total money raised—$895 million compared to $864 million. And we’re just getting started.

Barack Obama has raised a whopping $235 million to date. Hillary Clinton has pulled in $189 million and Republican John McCain has surged to nearly $100 million since becoming the nominee. The vast majority of these contributions have come from individuals like you and me. And so, my question for those thousands of generous and passionate donors out there is this: Which part of the election have you liked best so far?

Was it the fact that the Democratic primary gave us our first televised debate in history that treated name calling and character assassination as virtually the only worthy topic of conversation? Maybe it was Hillary Clinton’s revival of the infamous Southern Strategy, relying on not-so-veiled appeals to racial prejudice to win. Or maybe it was the spectacle of an Obama adviser whispering in the ear of a concerned Canadian official something to the effect of, “Don’t worry about the anti-NAFTA rhetoric. That’s just the stuff we have to say to win elections.” Or maybe it’s McCain’s public delousing to remove evangelists that somehow got embedded in the skin of his campaign, including Texan John Hagee, author of the notion that God sent Hitler to help the Jews reach the promise land.

Hee hee, if I could do it over again, I would want to be Tina Fey when I grew up… though it seems I’m already grown up.

Oh well.

This sort of stuff sent me straight to the Land of Nod in college, but it looks like political markets may be more accurate predictors than the entertaining-but-often-wrong talking heads on TV.

Justin Wolfers at the Wall Street Journal
reminds readers that the political markets figured out the Democratic takeover of Congress during the midterm elections an hour before the talking heads assimilated all the data coming.

Some fun ones to watch:

Hillary Clinton’s going price/chances for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
Barack Obama’s for same.

Hillary’s chances of winning the CA Democratic primary.
Obama’s for same.

WASHINGTON – Super secret satellite photos taken in September of this year reveal greatly increased activity at the Putin Soul Simulator site in Northern Siberia, Pentagon sources revealed today.

The news comes after repeated claims by Kremlin spokesmen that Russia is abiding by the new anti-soul-simulator proliferation treaty signed last year in Chennai, India.

“Obviously, we now have to view those Russian statements with a high degree of skepticism,” said U.S. Air Force Captain Rick Pego. “At about 0600 on the date in question, that place was lit up like a friggin’ Christmas tree.”

Tim Wu of Slate says that Google is trying to take over the world with its Android Gphone, but its really just another front in its war against closed, proprietary systems. Taking over the world may just be a side effect.

Who cares? In short, everyone should care – the results of Google trying to take on the big bell companies could have major benefits for consumers, small entrepreneurs, and every kid curious enough to try to make something work a little better.

Viva Net Neutrality! – for as long as we can make it last.

Rosie O’ Donnell’s recent tanking of her own prospective show deal with MSNBC probably didn’t hurt her none. She continues to get top billing for every outrageous thing she says, and she’s already as rich as Midas.

It’s such a weird thing with modern media – the hype about an event that hasn’t happened yet (or won’t) can eclipse the actual event.

Why get tied into a boring old regular TV show with a boring old format when you can get blogged about for shooting off your mouth or just being yourself?

Just last night, I caught a segment of Alive Day Memories, a documentary of ten soldiers and Marines who survived severe trauma accidents in Iraq – and lived to tell the tale of their ‘Alive Days.’

Regardless of one’s feelings about the Iraq War, “Alive Day Memories” brings into sharp relief the human cost of the war – the most jarring thing is seeing the videos of the young men and women prior to trauma, intact, confident, horsing around in their barracks; and after, missing multiple limbs, eyes, scarred faces. At the same time one is weighing the cost in lives – both American and Iraqi – the film elicits a contradictory feeling of pride in the committment and strength of the soldiers and their matter-of-fact optimism in the face of devastation.

The film also is visual reminder that though it’s reported troop survival rate in Iraq is higher than 90%, the injury and amputation rate are also higher because military surgery is doing a better job of saving people with deadly injuries.

The subject doesn’t need any added drama, but it’s produced and hosted by Tony Soprano! aka James Gandolfini, who does a fine, understated job giving center stage to the people who matter – the soldiers who fought for their country and survived.

“This restaurant is something you won’t see in England,” Joe said to my visiting friends, Tom and Helen. He was right.

It was called Café Gratitude. More than just a raw, vegan restaurant, it was a self-
actualization seminar. The staff all had that ethereal, slightly unhinged look of the unconditionally loving, their eyes wide and innocent like herbivores without prior consciousness of their natural predators. Their motto was: ‘Our food and people are a celebration of our aliveness.’...

...The waiter brought over our meals. “You are Flourishing,” he said to Helen and put her plate down.

He turned to Tom. “Are you Elated?”

“No. I’m Accepting.”

“You’re not Elated? Well,” he said to Joe, “you must be Elated.”

“I don’t think so,” Joe said, “I know I’m a side of Generous.”

“Well, who’s Elated?”

“I’m Fulfilled,” I said.

“Yeah, I know you’re Fulfilled,” he snapped.

“And Efferverscent.”

“So you’re not Elated?” he said to Joe. “You’re not Insightful, are you?”

“No,” Joe said, “I think I’m Celebrating.”

“You wanna be Elated?”

“Okay. I’ll be Elated.”

“Whatever. Or I can take it back to the kitchen and I’ll be Elated.”

When it’s still got gusto for taking on controversial, real issues – even in its 37th year. More yet, when it uses its forum to provide a voice for true stories from the front lines of the Iraq War – as Doonesbury has been doing with an open invitation to military personnel to post letters.

I’ve been a fan of Doonesbury since high school. I must say, at that time a lot of his sly humor went over my head – not least because of its wordiness. Nevertheless, I’ve always admired author G.B. Trudeau’s willingness to really use his forum – even when it occasionally landed him in the Editorial pages instead of the Cartoons.

Anyway, the from-the-front dispatches from Iraq are worth a look. Not least because it appears the editor took a light hand to them. I wonder though how frank most military personnel can (or want) to be while still in active duty.

Some friends of ours – Cuts Caine & Jewels are debuting a downtempo trip-hop band in SF tonight, at Rosewood , 9:30 pm tonight, August 11.

Come check it out if you’re in the area!

We’re just cleaning up server startups and such where I work on 2nd St. in SF, where we were just hit by an hour-long-ish wave of power outage.

Amazingly, there are rumors that there may have been a malicious or drunken human event causing server outage at 365 Main, one of the city’s main server hubs!

Is this true??!? Or just the fantasy of disgruntled workers everywhere, bubbling to the surface?

Valleywag reports, awesomely, that A drunk employee kills all the websites you care about.

Potential victims would include Craigslist, Six Apart’s TypePad and LiveJournal blogging sites, local listings site Yelp, and blog search engine Technorati. Hmm, sites I care about… sites I care about… thinking, thinking… sites I care about….

The past couple of weeks on my way to work, and on my way to lunch, I’ve seen people stacked up in line at the SF Passport Office on Folsom, between 2nd and 3rd.

I’d wondered if it was some new legislation impending, but it looks like it’s actually bad planning, post-9/11 travel restrictions:

Apparently, some people had been traveling across state lines to Seattle (the most efficient passport office) – but that secret’s been out in the open for awhile now.

The Chinese New Year, the Year of the Purple Boar began on Sunday, February 18, 2007. What’s special about the year of the Purple Boar? It closes the 12-year cycle in the Chinese calendar, making it a time for reaping benefits from past efforts. It should also be a time of peace. We’re two months in, but here’s a little background on what you can expect for the next ten months….
(Image linked from http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca.)

“Gung Hai Fat Choi!”
The traditional new year greeting literally means “congratulations on prospering in money.” But it generallyis used more like “trick or treat” on Halloween—except that kids who say “Gung Hai Fat Choi” may be hitting you up for lai see (cash in red envelopes).

What can you expect from a pig year?
The Year of the Boar is a time of fun and some licentiousness. Pleasure and enjoyment of the good life will be valued more than power and status. Pig years are a time to be close to the people you care about. Most people splurge a bit on extravagances this year and then scale back in the rat year.

The Chinese believe that the Boar year brings good fortune for intellectuals, financiers, and best of all for… women. While this is a time to enjoy, some cautions I feel duty bound to pass on—make sure your pleasures don’t yield pains to you or those you care about.

My parents have a cabin in Canada. It sits by itself on a small, nameless island, near where the St. Mary’s River flows into the North Channel. This time of year, as I look out on the soot-black snow and those low winter clouds that smell like pollution – the way old curtains smell like cigarettes – I think of that cabin in Canada, with the sun pouring in and warm, pine-scrubbed wind rushing to fills its rooms. I think of the clear water down by the dock, and the place where I can wade into it, my bare feet gliding across the rocks one by one until there are no more rocks and I sink completely in and feel the shock of the cold biting through to my bones.

It takes about an hour to swim the full distance around the island, or maybe a little more if it’s windy. First I swim against the current, in the open waters on the south side of the island. The waves slap against my face and once in a while I gulp water instead of air and taste minerals and plants and fish. If I see a big wave coming soon enough, I dive into it and listen to the weird, underwater roar as the water rushes past my ears. I pretend I’ve fallen into the water from a great height, and that somewhere above people are looking after me, thinking that I cannot have survived the fall. I blow out the last of my breath and sink further down, not wanting to resurface; to disillusion them and begin the long, humiliating journey back.

I get tired quickly at first because I’m trying to move fast and stay high in the water, out of reach of things unseen in the green depths below. Lamprey eels, for example, have been known to mistake a human thigh for the white underbelly of a Lake Trout. When they strike it’s like being struck with a barbed arrow. There is no removing it without making a second wound far more grievous than the first.

Kate was 26, just out of law school and working at a big law firm. She was a second generation Nuyorican who grew up in New York and spoke Spanish because her grandparents still spoke mostly Spanish and she’d studied it in school since sixth grade.

She worked as a first year associate lawyer and often stayed late at the office to draft documents for more senior lawyers and finish her assignments. Many evenings, she was the last person in the office and the cleaning lady, Rosela – a petite and plump Ecuadorian woman in her late 30s, with teeth that jutted out so much that it was difficult for her to completely close her mouth and with brassy highlights dyed into her hair – would often stop by Kate’s office to chat. Rosela had a wonderful sense of humor, and she often ribbed Kate about her long work hours (“these are the best years of your life, how are you spending them staring at books?!”). Rosela asked Kate to help her find a millionaire lawyer to marry and rescue her, or if Kate couldn’t manage that, Kate should find one for herself, have a whole minivan full of babies, and then hire her to live with Kate’s family in their big, beautiful mansion.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair. I feel bad for the women who has tasted the seed of Gingrich. That must of been such a wretched experience.

As a frequent Muni rider, I must say that sometimes I’m bored by my iPod. Yes, I love music, but how many times can I listen to my “38 AM” playlist? So, I was excited to finally give the podcast a go. Yes, I’m a little late to the scene (at least for San Francisco), but I am now a fan.

If you are unfamiliar with podcasts, I like to think of them as radio programs that are ready when you are (but, basically, they are media files). Many podcasts are weekly radio shows (like NPR’s popular Fresh Air) that are syndicated on the internet. Thus far, I have used the iTunes Store to download them for FREE (yea!) to my iPod. You also have the option to subcribe to many of these podcasts – iTunes will automatically download them to your computer when they are available.

Since I am obsessed with food and cooking, I did a quick search for podcasts on Chowhound. Then, I did a quick search on iTunes under Podcasts. This is just the beginning in my podcast listening, but Good Food on KCRW has already set the standard. This fantastic show was even included in Saveur’s recent Top 100 issue as the “Dishiest Radio Program”.

Until I’m able to upgrade to video (and, thus, the vodcast), the podcast is my latest adventure. If you’ve never tried it, give it a go. There are many, many topics to choose from. In fact, it’s a bit overwhelming.

If you have a favorite podcast you’d like to share, please post a comment. Thanks!

When’s the last time you saw a spork? Grade school lunches? Better yet, when’s the last time you used one?

For better or worse, I used a spork a few weekends ago at Vik’s Chaat Corner. This Berkeley institution, chosen by SF Chronicle as one of the best bargain bites, is popular even on a rainy Saturday. I was hoping to miss some of the lunch crowd by arriving at 2pm, but no such luck. The place was hopping as the regulars staked out empty tables. The line moves quickly, and we were lucky enough to snag a table near the open kitchen. I didn’t realize how lucky until each dish we ordered came out at a different time.

Try to subvert the will of the voters again… and again…

The South Dakota legislature, dissatisfied that the voters struck down their attempt at banning abortion, has introduced a new bill:

Bill Number: SD H 1293
Summary: Prohibits abortion throughout all stages of pregnancy except in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest. Also contains an inadequate health exception. Amended in February 2007 to add a section that automatically refers the bill, if enacted by the legislature and governor, to the 2008 general election ballot.
Sponsor: DeVries ®
Introduced: 01/31/2007
Last Action: Introduced

This bill adds a clause for rape and incest, likely hoping that change would make it pass this time, and added a clause that would automatically send the bill to the ballot.

I’ve long been a fan of Robert Moses’ Kin – a San Francisco-based modern dance troupe – for their committment to art that’s unafraid to address the philosophical problems of our times, without ever sacrificing the beauty and joy of dance and music.

So when I went to see them on Friday night in SF’s Jewish Community Center, I was happy to see my high expectations were delivered on – and more.

This is the rare modern dance company that can entertain and evangelize its cause even to non-dance fans. If you have the opportunity to see them, I highly recommend it. They are performing through Sat. and Sun, Feb. 17 – 18 8pm in SF; and at Arizona State University, Mar. 2 – 3; and have just returned from an engagement at Dance Amsterdam in New York last month.

‘All the necessary conditions to perpetrate a murder are met by locking two men in a cabin of 18 by 20 feet … for two months.’
— Cosmonaut Valery Ryumin

Or two women. Or a family in a station wagon for two weeks.

I’m strangely intrigued by this astronaut love triangle story, though it stops just short of tragedy only because nobody died (yet). Yet why all the handwringing about psychological screening of astronauts? This doesn’t seem to be a normative trend, like going postal. Sometimes, Stuff Just Happens.

My name is Sachie, and I’m a coffee addict. I love my cup of joe. I fill my stainless steel Zojirushi thermos with delicious home-brewed coffee Monday through Friday. Though our Cuisinart Grind & Brew is a pain to clean, it’s well worth the effort.

But on the weekends, I am free to roam. Brunch and strong coffee can’t be beat. Among the best in the city are Universal Café and Boogaloos (when you don’t need to wait an hour).

Expanding our coffee radius over the holidays, my husband and I finally went to Blue Bottle Coffee in Hayes Valley. It’s hip. It’s cool. It’s somewhat hidden. The lines are long. And the individually brewed coffee gives you a strong buzz. So strong, in fact, that it has led to inane arguments. And yet we still went back for more.

As for the best of the brews, this past weekend we decided to try Philz Coffee (the Castro location). I had heard about this place from a Mission hipster and was skeptical. But my husband insisted we give it a try. And I’m so happy he did. The coffee at Philz is transcendent. Brewed “one cup at a time” (like Blue Bottle) you need to wait for your coffee. I ordered mine with sugar and cream. Fantastic. I want to try every blend, but I don’t know if I’ll make it past the Tantalizing Turkish coffee with my current cardamom obsession.

The coffee is so good in fact that we gave it a shout-out last year. But when most of us are headed to work 250 days a year, sometimes we need a reminder to start the day with ‘the kind of thing that will get you excited about life’.

Nothing like getting out of your own home to understand its good – and bad – qualities in a better light. This past December, we followed some friends out to Jamaica and partook in a little Red Stripe, a lot of jerk chicken and even some Christmas Day goat curry. We spent the bulk of our trip in Port Antonio, an unaffected seaside town that is thisclose to becoming another resort, but for now is still a great find for the independent traveler.

For Americans, the place is paradise, where daytime can slow to a trickle of balmy weather and watersports – and English has long since been established the common tongue. Nightlife guided by knowledgeable locals can be jumpin’ with echoes of dancehall reggae.

Sadly, all its character and beauty doesn’t stem the flow of young adults making their way out of the country for better jobs and opportunities. For the educated elite that remain, entrepreneurship or management gigs in the tourism industry are the mainstays.

A cinematic first kiss:
“It was like he was E.T. —trying to phone home with my tongue”

The conversation starter:
“My parents don’t eat refined sugar”

The Planner:
“If you had to find roadkill right now—where would you go?”

A Positive Attitude:
“Earthquakes are so much better than hurricanes. At least it’s sunny while you pick up the rubble”

Daily Diet:
“I only eat 3 things: Pumpkin, Carrots and Water”

love it!

Have you experienced the thrill and agony of a first date recently? If not, you may be unaware that suddenly it has become common practice to ask someone out via text message. To clarify, I am not talking about high school students, but men and women in their 20s and 30s. We’re talking about first dates, not established couples deciding to meet up at their favorite Thai place after work. The would-be suitors most likely used “primitive” telephone dating rituals in their early days on the prowl – but have since abandoned this labor-intensive effort for the detached and impersonal texting future.

U want to go out w/ me 2night? ;-)

Now just when did this become acceptable? I’m assuming that by asking someone to dinner that your intention, at the very least, is to get to know them a little better (and let’s be honest here, the hope for naked activity). But with all those high hopes it seems that it has become too much work to actually make a phone call to invite the object of your slight affection. It’s a dismal sign of the state of dating today. We are all so overburdened with demands on our time and so technology-dependant that courtship, as well as what – only three years ago – were considered basic good manners, has evaporated. If she doesn’t answer that text—who cares?! It’s easy to forget you ever sent it.

Dating has become a matter of scheduling an appointment. Would you send a potentially lucrative client a text message to set up a time to meet? Probably not. The possible reward is too great, so you make the extra effort to give them a ring. Don’t your potential dates deserve some of that time investment? Or has dating declined to a series of miniature interviews with sexual encounters scheduled at a convenient time and location? Just think of how original and retro-cool you’ll be when you pick up that strange machine tethered to the wall of your home, take a deep breath, and have a conversation in “real-time”. I dare you.

What happened in my country last week? The American public voted decisively for change. And their anger seems directed at the Republican party, more than at the Iraq War or President Bush. This suggests a general feeling of malaise, that things aren’t going as they ought, but nothing specific. No Democratic incumbent lost, whether they voted for the Iraq War, ran in Hurricane Katrina-affected districts, or had political baggage of their own.

And kibbosh on the notion that ’ they shoulda won more’ – this was the most number of seats lost by a sixth-year president since Eisenhower. Most importantly, they won back both houses despite having significantly less support from the moneymen. (Notwithstanding any defections.) Previous Democratic National Chair Terry McAuliffe was esteemed as a fund-raiser, but couldn’t failed when it came to the only metric that really counts – winning elections.

Yet, Americans don’t seem particularly mad at President Bush.

I’ve been meaning to go to Nopa for months. My husband and I saw it one day when we were driving though his old neighborhood. “That used to be my laundromat!” he exclaimed.

In fact, this is just one of numerous changes I’ve witnessed since we started dating eight years ago. As this “North of the Panhandle Area” continues to gentrify, it is now harder to find parking here than SF’s popular Castro district and easier to find foodie gems.

But I digress. I feel like I’ve read about Nopa in every food magazine – Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine. The last straw was seeing it described as one of San Francisco’s “cool” restaurants in O Magazine (a gift from my mom, OK?). Wondering how much longer it would be cool, now was the time to make it happen. I was determined to get reservations on Saturday night.

My favorite libertarian recently told me that the President had signed some provision invoking martial law. Not quite, but he definitely, quietly got the ducks lined up that would make it easy to go there.

With legal wordsmithing over the Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus Act, President Bush’s administration can take over the National Guard for purposes deemed “National Public Emergencies” and not the harder-to-satisfy criteria of “Interference with State and Federal Law.”

What’s the significance? It’s a lot easier for President Bush to use states’ National Guard – any states’ National Guard – as a law enforcement tool at home. Previously, he had to have a specifically good reason, say, terrorist activity, or Hurricane Katrina – and even then states’ government could insist on their own authority.

It seems like a bad flashback from high school civics classes, but is shaping up to be real-time history in the making.

Daily Kos’s Major Danby breaks it all down. It’s worth the read.

Blood and Boogers and Shit, Oh My!

Here’s a story from one of those days where mundane things pass before my eyes. I don’t usually take notice, log these infinitesimally small things or seek to record them. They become part of what can only be described as another day, beneath the “dividing and indifferent blue” of an October sky.

I was walking down the street last Saturday in my neighborhood in downtown Chicago and this Black homeless man carrying a small black shopping bag and box from Saks crossed my path on his way to rummage through another garbage can. I’d watched him dig through a can near the park where Basil, my black lab and I were playing.

The dog park has only recently opened. For the past six months it has consisted of a small, grassless, muddy enclosure where dogs did their business and perfunctorily retrieved the ball a few times before heading home with nary a look back.

If you haven’t heard of Ladytron, you’re not alone. If you have, perhaps you were born in the 80s and “listened to them in high school” as one of the students at my school told me.

My husband – a self-professed college/internet radio devotee – requested a Ladytron album for Christmas on his Amazon Wish List. He heard them on SomaFM. I had no idea who they were, but found Witching Hour displayed at Virgin Megastore and bought it (sorry Amazon…and Tower). During an iPod update, I added the album on a whim.

Unlike some of his other selections, this one was surprisingly good from the start (not just obscure and weird). It drew me in. Before I knew it, I was playing it on a regular basis. Unfortunately, Ladytron sold out at Mezzanine before I could get tickets…. Thankfully, they played again at the Fillmore this past Monday, Oct. 16th.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. When I saw them I found a link to my own dark past – when applying black eye liner was a daily ritual. The weird part was that I liked it.

Sometimes a good fight is a good thing. Although everybody likes to take the ‘high ground,’ what is more important now than evaluating what we’re doing about the true terrorist threat?

More he said, she said quotes here, between the big guy himself and current administration spokeswoman Secretary of State Rice, re President Clinton’s admnistration’s proactivity trying to shut down Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and President Bush’s in comparison.

And a very funny bit on Clinton as Elvis by Bernie Quigley at Free Market News:’When I worked in the South they used to say about Elvis, “He never should have married that Yankee woman.” Caused him to want to rise above himself and cursed him to chase it back throughout his life in Graceland’s Jungle Room with any woman on hand. But Elvis would go home too and sing Gospel – beautiful, simple and utterly sincere, as none other could, to the very end of his life. When I left the South they started saying the same thing about Bill Clinton: “He never should have married that Yankee woman.”’ For the record, I’m a Yankee woman myself.

We went to the Guns ‘n’ Roses concert last Thursday at the Warfield, which was hot. It’s really more like Axl Rose and his cover band now, but it was still totally worth it. (Photo by Curtis Chin linked from the SFGate.).

I never saw them back in their glory days, but what shocked me most was his voice still sounded good, and he was actually really professional. After the reports this year of some no-show events, we were half-expecting the leadman to pull a runner. But show up he did at 11:30 pm, sang a full two hour-plus set in all his raspy, hysterical glory with fireworks, and even bid the crowd adieu with “Be good to each other. Drive home safely.”

Of course, he did throw three people out of the show.

My hometown SF’s Sixth Street is known more for the seedier side of life. Playbar’s Backlit Lounge is threatening to do some more damage, as ‘twas jumpin’ with musicians of electronic persuasion last Wednesday. Truly a pleasure, the commingling of earnest young bohemians with the earnestly unwashed.

In the spontaneous art culture that is SF, Backlit Lounge is stepping up an unsual committment to do it again every week, a treat for local denizens where the drinks are steep and the tunes are pretty.

The cost of the cassette to videotape a campaign speech: Two bucks.

The value of capturing and broadcasting your poltical opponent cheerfully referring to your American campaign volunteer of Indian descent as ‘Macaca’: Priceless.

(This clip is almost a month old – see Wonkette’s A-Big-Pile-of-Macaca for theories on what exactly Senate incumbent Allen meant – but who could resist getting to use the word macaca in a post headline? Really, I just like saying it as often as possible. Macaca macaca macaca.)

The Economist had an interesting article on the emerging boom in South Asian Indian art, as a result of its rising middle and upper classes. This is a good sign. The renaissance of tech is visibly raising the wealth level in developing countries – or, more likely, the continuation of the tech boom in places where the profit margins have continued to be juicy.

It’s also heartening on another level – it speaks to some universal need to push one’s culture forward after basic needs are met. It’s so common to hear news about wholesale economic re-investment in India and China, that one would almost think that the only thing people in developing countries do or care about is drilling their young in math and science and importing business into their country. Of course not.

In college, my native-born Chinese language tutor and I used to spar over values differences between the West and the East, as well as about the importance of wealth. I kept insisting that it was essential to people’s happiness that government took pains to ensure their freedom. My language partner laughed and said, “If you had to choose between freedom or food, what do you choose? Food, of course.” Uh, yeah. When you put it that way. But the follow-up to that, is once you have enough food, you don’t want more food, you want your freedom – and art, or maybe just something that reflects you.

A tip of the hat to former Texas Governor and knife-edged wit Ann Richards, who passed on Wednesday night due to esophageal cancer.

She was an inspiration and role model to women everywhere, especially those who grew up during the ‘80s, the first female to be elected to the Texas governor’s mansion in 50 years in 1990. Moreover, she was one of the few women then on the national political stage. I remember as a teenager watching her on TV do the keynote address for the 1988 Democratic National Convention, wondering who was this silver-haired, teacherly woman with the perfect comic timing and glint in her eye.

It’s a sign you’ve lived a good life when those you’ve served and even your professional opponents remember you with respect and wamth. She was famous for the line, at the same keynote speech, of then-Vice President Bush (I): “Poor George, he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

This is sort of sad, but one of my favorite things to do now is to delete all the email in my Inbox. Um, after making a best effort at reading and keeping the important stuff. Best effort, best effort.

(Is it email or e-mail? My first dot-com job involved knowing the proper form for that word. I don’t remember anymore, and what’s best, I don’t have to!)

New York Magazine has an intriguing and somewhat exhaustive article on grownups who maybe aren’t grownups at all.

The author makes some interesting points about how so many thirty and forty-somethings have not followed the path of their parents and grandparents into adulthood, and have perhaps gone to great lengths to avoid those traditional manifestations of parenting and growing up (although I would say that plenty of people still do).

At the same time, I was a bit put off by the author’s focus on clothes and lifestyle choices. Is adulthood really defined by working 9 to 5 and wearing a suit? Are you really putting off adulthood if you wear distressed jeans and pumas instead of Brooks Brothers and pursue a flexible schedule?

Most of the “grups” (her word for grownups who haven’t grown up) she interviewed seem to be paying the rent/mortgage, raising children, and managing a budget.

Are their (okay, our) music and fashion choices really an indicator of immaturity or is it just funkier window dressing? Is pursuing more unusual career choices in life past age 30 a sign of immaturity or a sign of greater opportunity in modern culture (especially for women)?

What does it mean to be an adult?

Blazin Hazen is the 80s pop star that never happened, the Dave Hasselhoff that never went to Germany. Love YouTube. Love love love YouTube.

It’s interesting that our reaction to a successfully thwarted terrorist attack generates almost the same reactions as a successful attack.

Instead of looking at what we (well, the UK) did right, and what we too need to do in the future to ensure continued success, instead of feeling a little safer knowing that these guys are on the job, protecting us, many seem instead to be shocked (shocked!) that a terrorist attack was being planned at all. Is this really a shock?

Graphic via blogger parodies from WiredBlogs.

Did some people really think that our current policies and actions meant less terrorism, instead of more?

The Aymara language, spoken by people living in the high Andes talks about the future as if it lies behind you and the past spreads out in front of you. Aymara speakers refer to the future as qhipa pacha/timpu meaning back or behind time and the past nayra pacha/timpu meaning front time. Their hand gestures are in keeping with their thoughts—they gesture ahead of themselves when remembering the past and backwards when talking about the future.

What is known is seen in front of you, what is unknown is behind you, hidden from view (the future).

I’ve reached my thirties with alarming rapidity. I didn’t know that I would live that long; I celebrate the accomplishment. My parents are visiting for my birthday. I see the folds of skin softening on my mother’s neck, the deepening bags under her eyes, the softening of my father’s stomach, the graying of their hair and I mark the passage of time in their faces and bodies in a way that I can’t seem to see in myself.

This is much funnier than the original.

After the defeat of incumbent Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman by political newcomer Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary this week, some pundits are decrying it as the beginning of the end of The Democrats in this election cycle, again.

This theory is cock-a-mamie, and actually signals a deeper, more structural change – one I think that benefits the real political moderates. Why? Well, among other things…

Ned Lamont is not Howard Dean.

‘NetRoots’ is the grassroots.

Iraq is not Vietnam.

What’s with the conventional wisdom’s love affair with Lieberman? Dunno, as he’s come out on the wrong side of his last three elections. But Eric Bohlert at The Nation has some good theories.

I was excited to learn that Morgan Spurlock’s show 30 Days is back for a new season. What a refreshing change. People still watch thought-provoking television?!

I missed the first episode about Immigration, but Tivo caught the second episode on Outsourcing. Definitely a hot topic in the US, especially in the Bay Area. In fact, my husband enlightened me to the fact that the Bush Administration suppressed a controversial report on the outsourcing of high-tech jobs during an election year (surprise).

The part of this show that impressed me the most was the impact of outsourcing on Indian families. In particular, women. Culturally, Indian women take care of the entire family (immediate and extended). With so many new job opportunities for English-speaking workers in India, women are quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in business.

So, Pamela Anderson is getting married three times – to the same guy, for the same marriage. (The first reported St. Tropez yacht wedding wasn’t legal because neither Kid Rock nor Pamela are French citizens.) Two down and one more to go. Is this a new trend in the wedding industry like cupcakes? If your friends and family can’t make one wedding, they have two other options?

Is this triple the stress and money, or just triple the fun?

My own wedding anniversary is coming up at the end of this month. It was a wonderful, touching experience. Personally, I can’t imagine planning and being the star of three weddings. Then again, I’m not Pamela Anderson.

The lovely Amy Sedaris a-tumbling w/ Stephen ‘You Can’t Handle the Truthiness’ Colbert and Paul Dinello.

Spotted by Xtreme Cable TV Analyst Gen-E_FIR.

I know you’ve seen them. Bright yellow plastic bags with bold, black type. Carried by 13 year old teens to 50 year old women. Ah, the allure of youth and great marketing. I give you Forever 21.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately?), I’m far from 21. That means I have bills and responsibilities. I can’t buy whatever I want and pay the rent. Oh wait, I can…sort of. Credit cards are nasty little things. But I digress. As Cyndi sang, girls just want to have fun. Thus, stores like Forever 21 were created.

If you are far from 21, but are among the curious, here are a few tips for surviving this shopping experience:

Reading the news is just too depressing these days, and I am an avowed former newspaper junkie. I feel as if I’m peeking between my fingers, waiting for the headline, “The End of the World Is Officially Here.” And then I’ll be sorry for not ordering those Red Cross survival kits.

This past week Israel’s fatal bombing of a residential neighborhood in Qana, in Lebanon, prompted the Lebanese prime minister to tell Secretary of State Condi Rice not to bother coming for those peace talks after all. Qana is also a site of biblical significance – where the story goes that Jesus turned water into wine – and a place of modern military significance, where Israel launched the “Grapes of Wrath” offensive in response to purported Hezbollah mortar fire. Thanks to Andrew Rice at Slate’s Today’s Papers for the history lesson.

This kind of makes me like him more.

Apparently, David Hasselhoff aka “The Hoff” (he’s big in Germany) was caught trying to get on a flight while drunk last week. First class, in Heathrow, England. At 7 a.m. Allegedly, when confronted by an airline staffer that “I don’t think you’re fit to fly, sir,” he goes, “I think you are right.”

Frankly, I don’t think it’s that big a deal that he was drunk while trying to get on the plane. It’s not like he was going to fly it. And plenty of people get drunk while on the plane.

First spotted by Xtreme Pop Culture Analyst xTeEna.

... of what? I used to poo-poo technical certifications, admiring people who figured stuff out on the fly. And now more than eight years after I embarked on my tech career, I find myself signing up for them and angling for ways to maintain my tenuous toehold in the bobo class.

But, “if you need a cert to continue practicing your profession, you’re in the wrong profession,” a friend recently posited to me.

Agree? Disagree? Don’t care anymore?

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, has testified that President Bush authorized the leak of classified information to defend his decision to go to Iraq. Indeterminate is whether “Scooter” got that nickname as a child or an adult.

Extra troubling is that somewhere in there, CIA ‘deep cover’ agent Valerie Plame’s name got leaked. Plame and her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, have filed a civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney and a dozen others for endangering the lives of them and their children.

Inquiring minds want to know, did George Bush approve the leak of Plame’s name? If he did, who’s going to get blamed for it?

And most of all, will being such a hottie help Plame’s case? We presume that’s why her pictures are finally flooding the Internet.

Articles linked from the BBC website, because, well, they know English better than we do. And they have a bigger reporting budget.

Conservative columnist Robert Novak – the guy whose column started the whole Plamegate saga – admitted that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was one of his leakers. Rove confirmed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent who had once been under deep cover.

This is hardly news but flagship newspapers all over the country have been downsizing staffs and slimming down publication costs, attempting to keep up with the rapidly changing media landscape.

This includes my hometown paper – and first professional publisher – The Chicago Tribune, as well as the other big five or six: The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many more regional papers. In the above-cited article, Slate columnist Jack Shafer’s analysis is blunt, yet optimistic that newspapers can retain profitability over the long-term even as their audience share shrinks, especially those serving ‘the chattering classes’ (media, government, consultants). Newspaper companies can also stay afloat by co-opting the new technologies. (For example, Slate was bought out from Microsoft by The Washington Post Co. a year and a half ago.) Shafer’s right that papers have been challenged ever since radio, then TV – really, anything that takes people’s attention and time – came on the scene.

Yet, will it ever be as pleasurable to receive large amounts of information over computer/TV screen, rather than through tangible printed media that we can thumb through, skim over, bring to the breakfast table, or the bathroom? Probably not, but it sure is faster. The printed word and image is an artifact that’s both treasurable and perishable. But the news and media world is all about Information Now, and the Web has brought us so much closer to that.

Apparently, click fraud – the systematic clicking of ads/links on sites for the sole purpose of driving up revenue and marketing statistics for that website – has become a Real Problem for sites with pay-per-click ad networks, like Yahoo and Google.

SFGate cites a report by Outsell, Inc, that about 14.1 percent of clicks (monetizing into about $800 million) is bogus. Companies such as Yahoo and Google have paid out about $500 million reimbursing advertisers.

Now, from what I’ve seen, Google is pretty vigilant about that sort of stuff. I did at one point ask some of my cousins to click on ads for this site, just to see what would happen, but they caught us at about the $11 mark. Admittedly, I do have a lot of cousins.

You read the above title, and thought, “That’s ridiculous, there is no such thing as a flying tomato.” But you are wrong.

I hate driving.

I really, really hate driving.

I get bored, I get cranky, I get impatient and angry. I will decide, then and there, that the entire world sucks because it has failed to understand or love me.

This is cutting off your nose to spite your face: Apparently, Spain has outlawed all peer-to-peer file sharing (the kind used by most people to share music, software, and movies) and takes it a huge leap further: Technical providers will be penalized there if their customers do it, and they’re taxing all forms of blank media, like flash memory drives, CDs, DVDs.

I’m sorry, but they’ll just be holding themselves back, while the rest of the world gets to take advantage of all the information media advances of, oh, the last five years. But if Spain is trying to stunt their own information industry (and its professionals), this is a good way to do it.

Okay, so she got fired from The View, and she pissed off Barbara Walters. That’s almost like a rite of passage! They’ve already gone through, like, three women of Generation X-ish age.

Who can blame her for wanting some free stuff?? Yes, it was tacky, greedy, and seems to have put her TV career in jeopardy. But at least she has a legacy, and it’s not just gastric bypass.

She’ll always be Bridezilla to me.

This was a deeply geeky thing to do, but I lost a whole afternoon at Green Apple Books reading political scientist Linda Hirshman’s Get to Work. I smirked when I saw the word “Manifesto” on the cover, but once I got through the preface, I was totally there and promptly found a cozy wood chair to get through the rest….

What I take away from her book is the feeling that she is someone who deeply cares about women’s empowerment, ideas, and how these things can make everyone’s lives better. That’s a leader.

As some of you may know, the FDA has approved Guardasil, Merk’s groundbreaking and lifesaving HPV vaccine. HPV was believed to be one of the few things that could not be prevented by condom use, so it was one of the few remaining Scary Things About Having The Sex. While sex and the inherent risks of intercourse should be taken seriously, sex is relatively safe these days.

Thus, certain religious groups are going out of their way to make sure that pre-teen girls are not automatically vaccinated. The rationale is that if you provide protection against HPV, then you remove one of the repercussions of having sex. The rationale goes, then, that removing this danger will cause a 100-fold increase in freqent and regular Preteen Animalistic Fracking.

That’s the thing about abstinence-only theory, it’s generally based on fear – the idea that if you have sex when you shouldn’t, then bad things will happen to you.

This is personally what I was taught growing up in the Christian church: If you have sex, then bad things will happen to you. And while it didn’t stop me from having sex, it did instill a low-lying panic, that every time I had sex I was going to die a horrible painful death, despite my very responsible behavior (thanks to a thorough sex education despite my church’s best efforts otherwise).

So I started thinking about all the other things in our culture that remove the repercussions of our actions, and that maybe we need more good old-fashioned fear instead of all these little safety nets we have no business relying on. I think we should re-examine all of the following, and consider returning to the good old days when actions had real and dangerous repercussions….

I went to Vloggercon 2006, a tech and media conference for videologgers and bloggers, the weekend before last, and was truly inspired (as corny as it may sound). It was all reconstructed hippie idealism, knee-deep A/V geekery, and wandering media types – and it felt so good. Photos linked to image on right from Laughing Squid on Flickr.

Did you know that a giant perma-frost larder for the world’s crop seeds is being built in Svalbard, Norway? This is to preserve our global agricultural viability in case of catastrophic events like, say, nuclear winter, or giant asteroids. I think I saw something like that in a movie or in Thundarr the Barbarian as a kid.

There’s a lot of other institutional seed vaults spread around the world, but this is to be a self-sustaining locally-powered backup of last resort.

This is scary to me. I mean, I’m glad they’re doing it. It seems to be one of the more productive activities that nations could work on together – you know, We are the World kind of stuff. But frankly, it makes the likelihood of nuclear conflict seem ever closer. Asteroid annihilation has never really been on my radar, har har.

Recently I was indulging in one of my secret vices – InStyle Magazine – when I came across an add for this little gem of a product for women. It’s the Venus Vibrance razor for women. That’s right kids, it’s a safety razor with a thick pink handle with a little button on the end. When you push the button on the end, it vibrates!

Batteries are included, believe it or not.

The literature tells us that shaving with the vibrating action exfoliates the skin. It doesn’t speak to other possible uses for the vibrating action or unusually thick handle. I am imagining the conversation deep in the heart of the Gillette Product Marketing department:...

This is cool: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice topped the list of female celebrities that men wanted to have dinner with, according to Esquire’s fantasy dinner survey, just ahead of Angelina Jolie and Oprah Winfrey.

Yay, score one for the nerdy girls! I can empathize with Condi’s nerdliness, if not her politics.

The Supreme Court has agreed to listen to a case assessing the fairness of using race as a criteria in school admissions.

The assumption is that if race is removed as a criteria from school admissions, many schools will start to look segregated again. Or at least they will if you count ‘non-underrepresented minorities’ East and South Asian Americans as ‘white.’

Does modern affirmative action penalize white (or other non-’underrepresented’ classes of) students? Are there better criteria (such as socio-economic status, wealth/resources of schools attented to date) to use to assess students’ potential? Most critically, is the dream of equal opportunity for children still alive?

While out for drinks w/ glamorous girlfriends Gen-E_FIR and XteEna, we started kvetching about work, and what we should be getting out of it. I thought about all the lofty visions I had of being empowered through my job, learning better ways to be useful, making a lot of money, and most importantly, being engaged with what you do.

Gen-E_FIR cut in, “I’m okay with my job as long as I get paid, and they don’t chase me out with a stick.”

Well. When you put it that way, to be honest, that’s about where I am too. Yup, to get paid and not get chased out with a stick is where it’s at.

Part three of ‘A Long Way Home,’ a series on immigration we began in April 2006.

As a native of a country that often appears in the top ranks in measures of development, wealth, education and well being, my choices have been full of opportunity. At school I could choose the sports I played, subjects I studied and people I hung out with. I could go to college, or not, and at a time when it was only a few hundred dollars per year. I could choose a career that interests me and choose where to live.

My first experience as a resident in a different country was almost automatic and unthinking. I’d guess that half the people my age went to the ‘mother country’ where we were welcomed as sons and daughters, if a little estranged. Many return home to tell stories for years to come of their OE (Overseas Experience). Others, like me, move on further — in search of adventure, further opportunity, some other fulfillment. Or, as in my case, realizing the influence of an adventurous and traveling grandmother who turned up on the shores of her new home country New Zealand in the early 1940s with a five year old daughter, no plans, and no husband, winging it.

My choice to move to the USA was sparked by a call to share a new experience — California — to dispel career stagnation and avoid traveling a standard path. It was assisted by personal connections, timing, care in maneuvering the immigration system, and, finally, luck in winning the lottery for a permanent resident visa.

I was technically never an illegal immigrant, where much focus is leveled currently, my encounters with “the system” showed me how this could both easily occur and can easily be hidden….

Why did I wait so long to experience Pizzeria Delfina? It opened last year on July 19th and it is now one of my favorite places in the city for delicious, thin-crust pizza. And I owe it all to Pizzetta 211 running out of pizza dough.

Does experience pay off? Or is it just scarring? I guess that’s one of those questions that depends on whether you ever get another chance at achieving your goals. Maybe it’s just a question of nerve.

A web videographer I met a few weeks ago who had worked in the Bay Area through the boom-bust sounded decidedly optimistic. He thought that this was the perfect position to be in, to be a bit battle-hardened, but well-situated in the middle of SF. It’s a well-worn cliché both in and out of the Valley that “we are an engine of economic growth.” Though it’s exhausting (and self-absorbed) to walk around thinking that.

If you stuck around somewhere long past your sell-by date, what next?

I swear we were just trying to figure out who was hosting this week, and who was going to bring the cupcakes.

Living in San Francisco, I do more than my share of walking. While I long for Carrie Bradshaw’s Manolo Blahniks, the knock-off versions do not do wonders for my feet. I’m not ready (and, let’s face it, probably never will be) for a pair of typical Birkenstocks. So, what’s a girl to do?

Can a recipe change the way you feel about a vegetable? This one did. I’ve had a long-standing aversion to broccoli which has been praised as a super food. Fortunately, I can now consume all the health benefits of broccoli since I discovered this delectable dish. It’s great because the prep is fast and the ingredients convenient. I normally have eggs and some type of cheese on-hand in the fridge, as well as broccoli in the freezer. I also love the individual serving size. Serve this for breakfast, lunch or dinner (very French).

I found the original recipe in one of my favorite cooking magazines, Everyday Food (see note *). However, instead of cheddar, I recommend using gruyère. Don’t get me wrong – I love cheddar. But I happened to have some leftover gruyère in the fridge one day, and it took this dish to a whole new level.

Makes four 8-ounce individual servings or one 9-inch pie serving

Butter, for ramekins

1 Package (10 oz) frozen Broccoli Florets
6 Large Eggs
1/2 Cup Half-and-Half
3/4 Cup (3 oz) shredded Gruyère Cheese
1/8 Teaspoon ground Nutmeg
Coarse Salt
Ground Pepper

I don’t know why this matters to me as I have no connection at all to Enron, but the jurors’ verdict declaring ex-Enron chiefs Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay guilty of conspiracy and fraud warms the cockles of my heart. (Cockles, anyone?)

When Enron imploded at the end of 2001, it felt like the nail in the coffin of dot-com era idealism. All the energy and innovation and workaholic culture stripped down to some backroom corruption in one of the oldest of old businesses. Many of my friends and I were either then locked into suboptimal jobs working for wacko entrepreneurs holding on to the boom’s last vestiges, or unemployed. And the wake-up call of 9/11 that year already made much seem surreal – I was strongly questioning the purpose of my employment at that time, writing GUIs for large disk arrays for print shops.

Nobody can change the past, but things are coming full circle…. The series is converging…. (It’s vague, but something a mathematical classmate of mine used to say when hinting at some long-awaited justice. I like the sound of it now.)

Check out this six-minute History of Dance, via YouTube. Brings a tear to my eye, sniff, watching this guy dance “Ice Ice Baby,” Chumbawumba, and N’Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye”in medley. That pretty much summarizes high school through my mid-20s.

Here’s a fun thread on plagiarism, that I’m going to plagiarize....

mjeppsen writes PlagiarismToday offers a thought-provoking article that frankly discusses concerns with plagiarism and rote content theft among bloggers.

But Slashdot says the content is owned by the poster (mjeppsen in this case), and posters post at their own risk – perhaps even copyright infringement. And Slashdot’s parent company OSTG’s own policy on links within their sites is pro-linking. So would that poster consider this a copyright infraction, and more importantly, one to be angry about?

If you ask me, this kind of story chain-linking is good for him, me, and the reader.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has recently won one small battle in the war for civil liberties. In its class-action lawsuit against AT&T for collaborating in the domestic spying program, the presiding judge refused AT&T’s request to exclude company documents, ordering AT&T to work with EFF to produce public versions of the documents.

Wired has the full account from whistleblower and former AT&T technician Mark Klein’s discovery of the surveillance operation.

If the EFF continues to make significant wins on the NSA/domestic spying issue, they will become a household name – and not just in Bay Area-like technospheres.

I’m not vegan (or even vegetarian), but I love this quick, healthy recipe for a super, quick supper. And so does my meatetarian husband Vince! So give it a try on a warm summer evening (or even a foggy San Francisco one).

I found the original recipe in Vegetarian Times, but I have made three modifications/suggestions:

1. I prefer to use Soba noodles. I think the Soba Noodles from Eden are delicious.

2. I do not recommend cooking the grated carrots. They are great raw! Just toss them in at the end.

3. I like salt. Maybe it’s my Japanese genes, but I think this recipe tastes better with half regular soy sauce and half low-sodium soy sauce.

Dressing:
1/8 Cup Soy Sauce
1/8 Cup Low-sodium Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Rice Vinegar
2 Tablespoons toasted Sesame Oil
2 Tablespoons Water

Noodles:
8 Ounce package of Soba Noodles
1 1/2 Cups frozen, shelled Edamame (If you want, you could even use fresh soy beans. But these are more economical.)
2 Cups grated Carrots
1 Small bunch Watercress (6 oz), coarsely chopped
1/2 Cup Green Onions, chopped
2 Tablespoons toasted Sesame Seeds* (See Sachie’s Cooking Tips)

I’d heard rumors from friends, but had doubted. But it’s definitely back. There’s actually jobs in the Valley. In SF, people are going out in the middle of the week. Ramen rations, almost forgotten.

Talk of VC, salaries back to where one may have continued on from 2000. This time, it feels less lucky and more hard-won, which is what six years will do. (There is a distinction between hard-won and deserved, but in a dog-eat-dot world, you get what you can get, period.) And there’re actually companies with working business plans and regular profit.

Can the Bay’s flocks of itinerant IT workers catch the dream of another wave? Can the slacker-cum-workaholic twenty-now-thirtysomethings of the last wave get it together and keep a life? Will anything real come out of this, besides a massive wipeout of the stock investments of millions of Americans? Stay Tuned. You know you can’t help it.

These new stories about the NSA getting phone records freak me out. Apparently, the government convinced AT&T, BellSouth, and Verizon to hand over phone logs of tens of millions of customers without a search warrant. BellSouth issued a non-denial denial where they claimed not to have a contract with the government and not to have provided “bulk customer calling records” – but didn’t ask for a correction from USA Today for printing the story in the first place.

So the current line is that they’re just detecting patterns in logs, but one would think they’d need to connect those patterns to actual people at some point to be useful. Also, where exactly is the line – the reasoning – between detecting patterns in calls and actually listening on those calls without a warrant?

I hope someone challenges this in court, and soon. Or, a geeky but less drastic step that can be done by anyone is to call your elected representative and let them know how you feel about this. I believe in fighting terror, but I also believe in the law and getting warrants for this stuff.

So glad that Our Hero of Caffeine Phil Jaber is getting some just desserts in the way of publicity from the local paper, the SFGate. They make cups of coffee to order for each individual customer, and you can taste it. A little jewel of care and dedication and finding god in the small things in each cup.

You haven’t really had the perfect cup until you’ve gone to Philz.

Having a little extra time on my hands, I actually read the 18-pp. letter/rant from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush posted intact by the AP.

The letter looks typewritten and sounds heartfelt, but winds all over the place, occasionally dipping into conspiracy theory territory. Apparently, conservatives in Iran’s parliament didn’t like the letter either; their parliament wasn’t consulted. And it shows – that letter definitely doesn’t look like it was edited by anyone, including the author.

The thing that’s so striking is that Ahmadinejad’s letter weirdly echoes the idea of using religion and faith to underpin society rather than institutions and rule of law, sounding more than a little like some of Bush’s White House’s initiatives.

Sigh, I hate these stereotypes of young-dot-commers happily skimming the cream off of dubious tech savvy. Now Coming Soon! To a theater near you! Web 2.0!!

SFGate really should’ve known better – the amount of ad revenue cited by one of their interviewees ($450/mo.) really doesn’t go that far in SF. And these little niches of income do not a down payment or retirement plan make.

It has not been a free ride for those of us on the work end of the stick. As a close friend said after the first bust, “I rode the tail-end of the dot-com wave, and all I have to show for it are 57 t-shirts and a severe case of burn-out.” As another friend said with a shiver as we discussed the oncoming whatever-it-is over dinner, “I’m scared.”

So, when trying to sell people on what you stand for, is it better to appear consummately moderate, or is it better to stake out a bold, clear position?

In an interview with the Washington Post, House Dem. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi bluntly stated that if Dems regain the U.S. House majority, she would push for investigations into the Bush administration, starting with the first term’s secret energy policy task force meetings up through handling of intelligence in the Iraq War run-up.

You can substitute cous cous for the Quinoa if you are in more of a pasta kinda mood, or Barley if you are feeling extraordinarily health-conscious.

Please note that these measurements are guidelines only – you may want to adjust the ratios to suit your own taste.

2 cups cooked Quinoa or Cous Cous
3 ounces Feta Cheese, crumbled
About 15 Kalamata Olives, pitted
2 medium sized Tomatoes (heirlooms work great) or a bunch of Cherry Tomatoes, halved
Bunch of Asparagus (optional)

Marc Lynch, blogger and author of Voices of the New Arab Public, points out something intriguing and disturbing: The open competition of the Internet is forcing mainstream media outlets to let go of any idea of content standards in favor of ratings.

In this post, Lynch argues that the common-denominator mentality must dominate because provocative, even exploitive, stories will receive mass Internet play, and as a result ratings-boosting stories such as the Jill Carroll video will flood all media outlets regardless of standards. Might as well get your share of the ratings and ad dollars.

Conversely, the lack of control over any media content even affects the types of videos that anti-Western jihadists put out to influence Arab moderates. Some are even claiming that beheading videos have been on the wane because jihadists don’t want them inadvertently picked up by large media outlets and alienating moderates unintentionally.

Anybody who’s tried to deal with all the varied plugins for video and media files for your browser knows that it can be a real PITA (or pain in the arse). In addition, many of us who prefer to use a browser more secure than Internet Exploder often have to do a little more legwork. That is, I did until I found this little plugin: Video Downloader by Javi Moya.

It’s great! If there is a video file or stream I want to view in Firefox, but I don’t have the correct plugins or software, it auto-detects and installs the correct piece. My one quibble is that it locally downloads the file or stream by default, whereas sometimes I’d prefer to play the file from the remote URL. But it’s easy enough to remove the file when it’s done, and that’s a small price to pay for the added functionality on one’s favorite browser.

Kudos to Boing Boing for first bringing it to our attention.

Part two of ‘A Long Way Home,’ a series on immigration we began in April 2006.

My parents came over in the late 1960s, my father from a poor, uneducated Armenian family in Iran (his father was a cab driver, his mother took care of the seven children), and my mother an orphan raised by her grandparents in Croatia. My mother was taking a “temporary” break from her studies at the University of Zagreb, and my father came to get an education, something that would have literally been impossible with his ethnic/religious and economic status in Iran.

Neither of my parents really spoke English when they arrived (they actually met in English language school). My father worked as a busboy at Denny’s while putting himself through night school (first English, then undergraduate, then graduate), my mother working at an insurance company as a clerk until I was born. They bought their first house in L.A. when I was born, about five years after coming into the country, a literal shoebox (one-bedroom, no garage)....

What I find most troubling about the current immigration debate is the talk of a guestworker program. Most of its proponents probably have no idea how badly this system bombed in Europe…. [I]f you think our immigrant debate is ugly, then you really haven’t lived elsewhere. It does get worse, much worse.

This is a few days old, but we had a freak car accident-turned-gas-leak-turned-explosion on San Francisco’s Castro Street last Thursday. One of the car’s passengers died, but given the wreckage, it could have been much, much worse. The saving grace was that a charity event, Dining Out for Life, occupied many people indoors, who normally would’ve been outdoors.

The photo above was taken by a long-time Noe Valley resident friend of ours on the street just minutes after the firemen arrived. This sort of stuff really does not happen often here. We do have more than our share of car accidents – thanks to spacey drivers/bicyclists/pedestrians and byzantine street signs – but it was the gas leak that created the horrific factor.

Well, yes, if you are Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

I can’t help but wonder how the hell Colbert got this gig in the first place? Did they learn nothing from seeing Jon Stewart on Crossfire? Did they miss that? Did the organizers simply never bother to watch Colbert’s show, or did they just think that he would be different when faced with the President in person?

What the heck is going on with Iran? The papers are full of dire signs.

Something about nuclear enrichment and deadlines and international agencies. But the sunny weather in SF and my Comcast on-demand cable subscription is shortening my attention span. Money is time, peoples!

So does Iran have nukes? Are we going to bomb them? Is that going to affect how much it costs to fill up my ‘91 Buick? Does the Axis of Evil end there? Will George W. Bush find happiness? Even my Cliff’s Notes on current events didn’t help today.

Courtesy of ZipZapZop inspired by AdBusters’ TV Turnoff Week. (Best seen on Firefox.)

Click to Play

Of course I am a big hypocrite, as my favorite thing to do with my free time is watch Tyra Banks torture fledgling wanna-be models.

AlterNet has a great story on the recent calls to impeach Bush bubbling up from state legislatures. First Illinois, then California, now Vermont, and Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina considering following suit.

All of the resolutions mention deliberately misleading the nation into supporting war with Iraq, torture, and illegal spying. California’s and Illinois’s proposals also cite Plamegate, while Vermont focuses on illegal spying of U.S. citizens.

Pres. Bush is practicing his pitch on immigration in the OC with mixed results. Most of all, it sounds pro-business to me: Undocumented workers stay – at the U.S.’s pleasure and a potential expiration date – but with no real ‘credit for time earned’ re the citizenship process.

He seems like he’s trying to have it both ways leaving open the question of criminalizing illegal immigration, but using a potential guest worker scheme as a consolation prize to maintain the status quo of undocumented workers.

For you policy geeks, some links to the Congressional resolution texts follow.

I have a lurid and horrible fascination with the Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards divorce trial.

A friend forwarded a synopsis during the workday that showed legalese parsing skills that would be coveted by many a judge in their clerks. Suffice to say she does not work anywhere near the legal profession, but where there’s a will there’s a way. Anyway, plenty of juicy stuff including: addictions to porn, gambling, and prescription drugs; death threats; reconciliations and violent break-ups… and a madam! Though the last is technically old news, wasn’t he lurking around the Heidi Fleiss trial a few years ago?

Anyway, all that matters is they’re really good-looking. (Though why he thought he could trade up is beyond me.)

Starting with the good news…

Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is a throw-yourself-to-the-ground-in-prostration kind of hero. This woman is going to be on a coin or a stamp one day, and not some randomly-sized dollar coin no one uses either (sorry, Susan).

In response to South Dakota’s draconian and misogynistic abortion legislation banning abortions, she has announced plans to open an abortion clinic on Sioux land.

My favorite Thai resturant makes a pumpkin curry that is orgasmic, but they refuse to deliver and are across town. After playing around a bit, I found this in one of Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks and modified it a little.

You might notice that very few measurements are provided in this recipe. This supports my philosophy that measuring things is too much trouble. The added benefit is that one doesn’t have to wash the measuring cup. Less dishes = more quality eating time.

Pumpkin Curry

• One can of Coconut Milk
• One can of Pumpkin (optional)
• One tablespoon of Green Curry paste – I like the Thai Spices brand (I’ve experimented with making my own, using lemongrass, lime leaves, curry powder, garlic, chili, all to taste – but I like this better)
• About two cups fresh Pumpkin, cut into chunks. I often substitute cut-up butternut squash, which is easier to get and also easier to prepare.
• Tofu, cut into chunks, or Shrimp, or both.

Zucchini and Blue Cheese soup sounds like the most disgusting idea ever, at least it did to me. But in reality it is heavenly. This one was inspired by the SF Soup Company by my office, it was suprisingly easy to recreate.

Zucchini and Blue Cheese Soup

• About a tablespoon of minced Garlic
• Tablespoon of Olive Oil
• Chicken or Vegetable Stock (1/2 box or a few cups, if you make your own)
• Bunch of Zucchini, I usually use about 6 medium sized ones.
• Gorgonzola or Blue Cheese

The NPR weekly program, Living On Earth, has teamed up with Salon and the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism to produce the series Early Signs: Reports From a Warming Planet. If you don’t have time to check out the show, the web site is certainly worth a look (or justify all that money spent on your iPod and download the podcasts from the site).

Anyone thinking of vacationing in any of those low-lying tropical islands out there might want to go sooner rather than later…

I’ll slab on another layer of meta to Slate’s meta conversation on the performance of The New York Times’ literary critic Michiko Kakutani.

The slam on Kakutani is that though a voracious reader, she is an unimaginative, pedantic critic with no personal style. Her defenders point out that she is almost always right. I have to agree. Though beloved critic Pauline Kael she ain’t (yet, wait 20-40 years and the next generation may provide the hagiographies), Kakutani has the critical ingredient of good taste.

So, yes, good taste is important for a critic to have, but how important is it really in the real world?

While wandering around, this video of a very fast drive caught my eye:

Video by vlogger of Video of the Moment. The music is especially good, sounds like one of those live pianos on an old silent movie soundtrack. (On Windows, best seen with Firefox ; or on Linux/Gnome Desktop, best seen on Totem Movie Player via Konqueror – it’s really slow on IE on Windows and crashes on Firefox on Linux.)

Annalee Newitz has been fighting the good fight on Slashdot this week.

Having myself worked in computer sys admin/programming for the last eight years, I can totally empathize with what she’s saying about wanting to stick it out and fight for a place in tech society, despite rude remarks about intelligence, looks, or belonging. For techie women such as myself in the workplace, it’s not so much that there are blatant comments, but the general feeling of “one of these things is not like the other,” and that thing is you. And the cultural/communications differences between genders ain’t no joke.

The public release of the 9/11 tapes in the Moussaoui trial — recorded conversations of people trapped inside of the World Trade Center with 9-1-1 emergency response operators — has reopened a wound. I sit, reading The New York Times, looking at a family, an older couple who lost a child in his prime. He died early one morning at work. I weep. Reading the excerpts of the transcripts brings back those agonizing moments, the plunging bodies, a leap from a hundred stories up to avoid burning to death. The smoke, the marching throngs, and an explosion in my home city revive in those few words.

I read their pleas, “Please hurry.” “Yeah, hi, I am on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center, which had an explosion.” “We had a conference up here, there’s about 100 people up here.” The operator responded, “Just sit tight.”

In an inspiring-yet-harrowing turn of globalization, there is a thriving international transplant organ market in China. Problem is, it’s been confirmed that a good part of those organs are likely harvested from executed prisoners.

Eric de Leon’s blog journal is a first-person account of his experience getting a liver transplant in Shanghai, first linked online in an SFGate article.

She got into the cab, he was a young, Eastern European guy with dark hair and intense eyes. He was listening to loud, angry techno. He avoided her eyes. She had the vague feeling that he’d driven her home before, and that he’d been a reckless driver, perhaps it was déjà vu. She got out her cell phone and called her husband, someone would know where she was if she disappeared.

One of the things that gets lost in the immigration debate with all of the special interest group politicking is that it’s not just residents of host countries that feel ambivalence: Immigrants are also conflicted by this decision. Aside from war refugees, immigration is usually motivated by economic pressures on both sides. Immigrants make a better wage by immigrating; host countries get skilled or willing labor that is scarce among its citizens.

I have a bit to say on this subject of immigration and choices made, and if you do too, let us know. The risks and rewards for integration amongst people of difference races, cultures, values, are richer and more complex than any sound bite. This piece is Part One of ‘A Long Way Home,’ a series on immigration we began in April 2006.

At a time when the U.S. social safety net is being slashed in almost every area (in SF, we’re particularly appalled by potential national reductions in food boxes to elders via the Commodity Supplemental Food Program), it’s interesting to get perspective from other parts of the world.

The French government is struggling to reduce benefits that seem overly cushy from here: 1-to-1 unemployment benefits period for time worked, full welfare benefits at age 25 if one has never had a job. Most jarring is that both of the above article’s twenty-something interview subjects – one a self-starting entrepreneur and the other a sporadically-employed temp employee/handball coach who has re-nested with his parents – have the perspective that people have a right to work owed them by the government.

a.k.a. how to buy off guilt for having it so good, and still get into Heaven

LEFTIES

$1-2/day x 20 working days/month x 12 months = $240-480/year

-and/or –

$21,725 (MSRP) – $300 annually in gas savings

RIGHTIES

$10/Sunday into the collection plate x 52 weeks per year – those 20 weeks gone on vacation or fishing or “work” = $320/year – and/or –

$87.60 for sendoff party once per year + $1.60 international postage 1x/ month for letters to missionaries in South Molucca
= $106.80

A Question:
How does one defend being:
1) FOR the death penalty, but AGAINST abortion?
or…
2) AGAINST the death penalty, and FOR abortion?

I’m not saying it’s impossible—but it seems taking either position would require higher-order reasoning and not a reliance on a pithy rejoinder like “I support life!” or “Killing is always wrong!”

And yet somehow it seems the first case (despite its inherent hypocrisy) is supported by the Right, and the second case (again, despite its inherent hypocrisy) is supported by the Left.

People who are against both the death penalty and abortion? Hmmm… how do we classify them? Well, I guess Catholics would apply here, but how many in the US, including American “cafeteria Catholics,” would find themselves agreeing with this?

Anyway, that’s a bit of a segue into the world of Latin America, where two leaders dominate the discussion among the incessantly bickering Left and Right in the Developed World:
FIDEL CASTRO
and
HUGO CHAVEZ

If you fall into either of two prevailing political moods today, then they’re both either:
DICTATORS
or
BENEVOLENT SOCIALISTS

Yes, I know they’re friends, confidantes, political bedfellows, ideological buddies, whatever. But isn’t there a clear difference between the two?

One of them was elected in free elections by his own people. Twice.

The other has not allowed elections since he seized power over 40 years ago.

So… regardless of how despicable or wonderful you think they are, one duly deserves the legitimacy of leading his people, while the other duly deserves the contempt of squelching the basic freedoms (expression, assembly, pursuit of happiness) of the people he is supposed to be uplifting.

Maybe it’s the ends justifying their means. You could be such a fan or opponent of their political/economic model that it really doesn’t matter how legitimate their power is. It’s just wrong or right.

Anyway, just getting this rant out…

(Yes, I’m aware that a precious few are willing and able to set aside today’s current polemics and render a more nuanced perspective, although I have to say, in my opinion, that precious few is really a precious few…)

I don’t always agree with what the government is doing, but I think that Condoleezza Rice struck the right tone on U.S. involvement in Iraq when addressing protesters in the U.K., insofar as going forward from where we are today.

Secretary of State Rice is quoted as saying that the U.S. had made “tactical errors, thousands of them,” but couched it by saying that it was the right strategic decision because “Saddam (Hussein) had been a threat to the international community long enough.”

I don’t agree that it was the right strategic decision – I think the policy and philosophy of containment was the right one. However, I am really impressed that she affirmed the protesters’ “God-given right to express themselves,” as well as her careful stance on Iran.

Full disclosure: Rice was the provost at my college, and I covered the beat for multiculturalism for the school paper. Same as then, I didn’t always agree with her politics or policies, but still believe her to be a thoughtful and precise communicator.

If you were an artist of indeterminate political leaning, what might your monument to the pro-life movement be? Say, a sculpture of Britney Spears giving birth while clutching a bear-skin rug head?

Jacob Weisberg’s article in Slate is an eye-opener re mortality and injury trends in the Iraq war. He points out that while the risk of being killed in Iraq is lower than in Vietnam, the chance of being injured is significantly higher – 3.1% as opposed to 1.8% of all those who have served. A major reason for this is that advancements in military medical care are now able to save patients that would have had no chance with previous wars’ treatment capabilities, according to surgeon Atul Gawande in this New England Journal of Medicine article. This Department of Defense table, circa Dec. 2004, illustrates this, and Weisberg cites the current number of injured or killed now around 20,000.

But, both articles point out that the military is having a harder and harder time recruiting new enlistees, both for combat and highly skilled medical positions. The main point of Weisberg’s article is the military is lowering admissions criteria to the point of endangering competency standards in order to meet its recruiting goals – and still missing them. And for medical professionals, Gawande says ”(t)he pay has never been competitive. One now faces a near-certain likelihood of leaving one’s family for duty overseas. And without question, the work is dangerous.” Which leaves as incentives only school loan obligations and/or true belief in the cause.

This is too bad for him but he’d have been naive to have been surprised. An Internet journalist in China got condemned to ten years for advocating the violent overthrow of the government. We here at blogs-r-us firmly believe in Free Speech , but last I heard the Chinese government has no such committment.

As the article points out, the ironic part is that the original Marx Communist Manifesto does advocate the violent overthrow of the government in the process of achieving pure communism.

A friend from New York used to say that the difference between New York and California is that in New York, people will say mean things to your face; while in California, people will say nice things about you behind your back. I don’t know where Carlos Santana grew up, but he seems to be a master of the latter. On the President, the Shaman said: ‘I have wisdom. I feel love. I live in the present and I try to present a dimension that brings harmony and healing. My concept is the opposite of George W. Bush.’

Carlos Santana is not strictly saying nice things about George Bush, but he is saying nice generic things next to a very neutral thing about Bush. Which is a very special twisty way to slam the Prez.

On the subject of killing with kindness, Margaret Cho has some zingers. Re Laura Bush and her rumored cigarette-smoking, ”(s)he seems like she hates [her husband] — in fact, she seems like she burns with hatred. Her smile is just a little bit too, well, wide. It’s more like a grimace…. I think she’s trying to kill him with second-hand smoke.”

At a friend’s baby shower, I was recently handed an independent documentary called “Voices of Patriots.” In it are oral-history-like opinions from experienced military, offering disturbing and difficult insights about our involvement in Iraq. Most of all, one gets the sense that there is no easy way out, and there will be no clear benefits to our military actions. More and more, I feel we will be lucky to achieve any stability at all.

More info on Voices of Patriots can be found here, and there is a Real Media stream here.

This is why I think that the DA in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial was thrown under the proverbial bus by her peers. (Zacarias Moussaoui is the lone defendant in the government’s case against the perpetrators of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks.) There’s no question that DA Carla Martin’s witness coaching methods were wrong by the letter of the law, as well as the spirit of a fair trial. But Slate legal analyst David Feige makes a strong case that this sort of thing happens all the time, just not so sloppily. So who would expose it when the stakes are so high and public sentiment so strongly in favor of a guilty verdict?

I don’t buy that a career bureaucrat such as Martin – expert in witness prep and aviation security – forgot the rules, or would try to flagrantly defy a system under which she is an established part. What person would break the rules so egregiously without encouragement by or assured protection from her superiors?

Honorable retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor still has a lot to say.

Sitting justices often can’t voice their personal politics openly, but now that she’s left the bench, O’Connor has some strong words against the intimidation and manipulative tactics that Republican Congress leaders have waged against the judicial branch. O’Connor plainly declares that though judges can often make the President and Congress “very very angry”, that is an indicator that judges are doing their job right. Link above to NPR’s Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg’s summary of a speech O’Connor made last Thursday at Georgetown University.

This is one of the more wrenching blog entries I’ve read in awhile.

This is a sobering insight, that income inequality is rising drastically, and not primarily correlated to education and/or skills. As economist Paul Krugman notes in the article, we like to say the disparity is education/skill based because it’s comforting: It implies the trend is virtue-related (via effort/product), and that we can do something about it. But the evidence shows marginal growth for people in the 80th/90th percentile – roughly, college grads – and exponential growth at the 99th percentile and above.

From my personal observation in the Bay Area, I can say that it’s true that professionals here are needing higher levels of income for middle-class goods, yet simultaneously living with decreasing financial security. It’s difficult even for two high wage-earners to buy a house here, and one would be a fool to bank one’s long term health insurance or retirement plan on a current job, no matter how good.

This is a thought-provoking article on the trends over the last 50 years in women’s participation in the U.S. labor force.

The data suggests that after a long upwards trend of women’s labor force participation, the last five years have been somewhat stagnant. Women in prime child-bearing years now participate at a 75% rate – up from 40% in the late 1950s – but still far below the 90% rate for men in the same cohort. Theories for this range: perhaps women have maxed out the amount of time that can be sliced away from home and family; perhaps more women are deciding they want to stay home; maybe it’s the persistent though narrowed pay gap.

In any case, I think the problem – and it is a problem on many levels – won’t truly be solved until government, businesses, and men shift the work-at-home burdens to be gender-neutral. It needs to be understood as a problem for all individuals and families that are concerned with work-life balance, not merely as a women’s problem.

Hee hee, I berate myself and friends for this sort of navel-gazing, but Joan Ryan’s column on the character of San Francisco is right on the money about the wonderful and exasperating nature of SF.

Here’s a poem with a similar theme.

This is an interesting exposition of the economic forces that pressure Hollywood to produce the kind of product it does. William Goldman, in Which Lie Did I Tell?, has a more pragmatic yet positive spin on it, that mainstream movies are formulated to comfort, while independent movies are aimed to discomfort. Goldsmith points out that part of this is because mainstream movies have to have profitability as a goal, in part because of the tremendous resources required to organize, create, and market a mainstream movie.

I’m late to the train, and in safe company, as Anthony Swofford’s novel on his experiences in the first Gulf War is pretty universally acclaimed.

But I think this is a very important book because it’s resonant on so many levels: the possibility of narrative to cut through to the heart of an experience; the complex reasoning of young soldiers preparing for war; the inevitable collision of powerful forces at odds. The language is tangible enough to chew on, real, seamlessly moving between dialogue and thought. It gives just a whiff of the glamorous machismo without allowing retreat into myth. The movie was well-intentioned entertainment, but it doesn’t compare to the book’s psychological density. Anyway, I could go on, but if it compels you, read for yourself.

This was pretty funny – stuff overheard in the loverly city of San Francisco re romance. A favorite bit from within my own circle was uttered by friend A., age 27, after a few years in SF boy- and job-hopping, “What I’ve learned is: Shitty job is better than no job. No boyfriend is better than shitty boyfriend.”

The sanctimonious outrage about Chinese civil liberties – provoked by Google and Yahoo’s recent forays doing business with China – is misguided. Most of those arguing against engagement with what is perceived as an authoritarian regime are either overly idealistic or pushing complex agendas.

Some are arguing this as an issue of civil liberties for the Chinese and of freedom everywhere. But political rights are inextricably tied to economic rights and the choices and privileges thereof. If we take a hard line against engagement, China becomes less invested in our interests and values, disrupting the entire process of integration.

Forwarded to me by my most pop culture-alert friend: James Lipton reciting Popo Zao,

James also often seems like he’d rather be dancin’ – the last two interviews I saw, he exchanged tendus with Dave Chapelle and initiated a pas de deux arabesque with Charlize Theron, respectively.

I too have often wanted minions to sort out my email and take responsibility for responding to the people in my life. Kudos to Today’s Papers’ most savage newsreader for catching that.

This article does a nice job of explaining Michelle Kwan’s enduring appeal to fans of figure skating (and dance). She is a legend partly because of her longevity, but more importantly because of how she embodies the spirit of a sport that is as much art as anything else. One of Kwan’s strongest qualities is her extraordinary musicality, something that is more relevant to the ability of a routine to transport watchers than the speed of a spin or statistically clean triple jumps. And this is why it’s somewhat futile to try to make figure skating an objective sport when what makes it truly breathtaking is the subjective.

The most valuable insight I got last month from my trip to Chile is that the road not taken may lead you to the exact some spot as the road you did take. I believe a lot of the fundamental issues that individuals wrestle with are deep-rooted enough that they manifest in whatever context you are. And consequently there’s no cause for regret for the things you (or someone else) didn’t do in the past, only cause to regret the thing you aren’t doing Right Now to advance yours and your loved ones’ lives.

In any case, Chile is beautiful. This picture is of Santa Cruz, Chile, where we went to watch some brave surfers paddle in that cold, cold water. And got a nice sunset too.

Hillary’s huge campaign war chest?
I get both good and bad shivers thinking about it. She could be the first ever contending female candidate for president of the United States. But she may be just the first ever contending female candidate for POTUS, thereby prolonging this ever-present feeling of impending doom that began some time in 2001.

Public Diplomacy = Running Interference or Modern PR?
Karen Hughes reminds me of what a waitressing coworker once told me about management theory, that if you can get people to believe two completely contradictory things, you can get them to do anything. She’s a master. I have no idea what she’s talking about.

I need a good story. I don’t even care if the author is milking his story, I’d probably pay to go see it again, something with an ending I know will turn out all right and has some oldie-but-goodie jokes. But André the Giant isn’t around anymore :( so how could it ever match the original?