Wow, I'm lazy. Just about every day, I'll read something or have some conversation that will get the gears turning in my head, and honestly I'll plan to write about it... but then I never quite get around to it.
It's not that I'm too busy with everything else, because I've certainly never had a problem blogging in the past, even when I've had a lot going on. I guess I just haven't been too blog-oriented lately.
Well, today I learned that PetsMart carries kitten formula, I can make it from my parents' house in Pinnacle to PetsMart in Winston-Salem and back in 40 minutes, a giant pork loin takes nearly two hours to cook whether you planned to have dinner at 4:30 or not (but that can be okay as long as the former neighbor kid who's now in college pulls into the driveway just as you're sitting down for dinner), there are limits even to my enjoyment of ironing, and I really don't care about "Game of Thrones."
And that's all I'm in the mood for right now.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
Don't have anything in your mouth when you read this...
...because this blog is not responsible for spit take-related damage.
Here I am on a Friday night with a brand-new hard drive, catching up on my Internet reading, when I found this. I'm not sure what - I think it must've been the picture of the bike done up as a cow - that reminded me of one of the more bizarre conversations I've ever been a part of.
It was about 10 years ago, when I was a college student who'd naively volunteered to "help" costume a high school production of "Annie Get Your Gun," which, in volunteer language, means I was now the totally inexperienced costume director for a period piece with no budget. So, anyway, I'm in a fabric store in downtown Mt. Airy, N.C. (this is back when small towns actually had locally owned stores on their Main Streets), trying to figure out how little off-white brushed cotton I can get away with per each of 14 dance-able skirts, when this happens:
A young woman about my age approaches the cutting table...
(Aside - if you've never been in a fabric store, basically, you browse through bolts of material and then take your pick up to a giant table where a (usually) elderly woman cuts the length that you need. One yard, two yards, 18 inches, whatever - and the materials are priced by the yard. It's generally considered bad form not to know how much you need before you get to the cutting table. End aside.)
... holding a bolt of neon, zebra-print super-plush fabric. If memory serves, it was purple. Its pile, or depth (I guess), was roughly four inches. This was seriously plushy fur. Also zebra-print. Anyway.
The elderly fabric store owner asked the young woman how much material she needed. She didn't know. Well, what are you making?, the owner asked. Like me, she probably assumed that this was for some Pebbles Flintstone-related costume piece. Oh, no.
"My boyfriend's furring out his crotch rocket," the young woman said. Yes, I realize that this might be the single funniest thing I've ever written, and no, I'm not making it up.
I attempted to translate, since at that point in my life I was aware that "crotch rocket" was a type of motorcycle - something our very elderly and previously dignified fabric store owner was not aware of. "Do you just want to cover the seat?" I asked. "Oh, no," she said. "He wants to fur out the whole thing." I think we suggested that she measure the areas that needed to be fur-covered, and I (regretably) left before they resolved the whole thing.
But about a year later I saw, while getting a milkshake at Sonic on the way home from rehearsal, some sort of motorcycle with all its metal surfaces covered with neon-zebra faux fur. So, one of two things is true. Either my fabric store friend figured out her dilemma, or there are more than one of them in the world.
The moral of the story is, thank goodness for Google.
Here I am on a Friday night with a brand-new hard drive, catching up on my Internet reading, when I found this. I'm not sure what - I think it must've been the picture of the bike done up as a cow - that reminded me of one of the more bizarre conversations I've ever been a part of.
It was about 10 years ago, when I was a college student who'd naively volunteered to "help" costume a high school production of "Annie Get Your Gun," which, in volunteer language, means I was now the totally inexperienced costume director for a period piece with no budget. So, anyway, I'm in a fabric store in downtown Mt. Airy, N.C. (this is back when small towns actually had locally owned stores on their Main Streets), trying to figure out how little off-white brushed cotton I can get away with per each of 14 dance-able skirts, when this happens:
A young woman about my age approaches the cutting table...
(Aside - if you've never been in a fabric store, basically, you browse through bolts of material and then take your pick up to a giant table where a (usually) elderly woman cuts the length that you need. One yard, two yards, 18 inches, whatever - and the materials are priced by the yard. It's generally considered bad form not to know how much you need before you get to the cutting table. End aside.)
... holding a bolt of neon, zebra-print super-plush fabric. If memory serves, it was purple. Its pile, or depth (I guess), was roughly four inches. This was seriously plushy fur. Also zebra-print. Anyway.
The elderly fabric store owner asked the young woman how much material she needed. She didn't know. Well, what are you making?, the owner asked. Like me, she probably assumed that this was for some Pebbles Flintstone-related costume piece. Oh, no.
"My boyfriend's furring out his crotch rocket," the young woman said. Yes, I realize that this might be the single funniest thing I've ever written, and no, I'm not making it up.
I attempted to translate, since at that point in my life I was aware that "crotch rocket" was a type of motorcycle - something our very elderly and previously dignified fabric store owner was not aware of. "Do you just want to cover the seat?" I asked. "Oh, no," she said. "He wants to fur out the whole thing." I think we suggested that she measure the areas that needed to be fur-covered, and I (regretably) left before they resolved the whole thing.
But about a year later I saw, while getting a milkshake at Sonic on the way home from rehearsal, some sort of motorcycle with all its metal surfaces covered with neon-zebra faux fur. So, one of two things is true. Either my fabric store friend figured out her dilemma, or there are more than one of them in the world.
The moral of the story is, thank goodness for Google.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
This again?
Remember back in August '08, when Senator John McCain named then-Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate, and people who care about these things got warm and fuzzy feelings because the governor could fire guns and reproduce? And then there was this low-key, never-quite-bubbled-to-the-surface rumor that Palin's infant son was really her grandson, and that his mother was actually Palin's oldest daughter, then-17-year-old Bristol? And then the campaign announced that Bristol couldn't have given birth to a baby in April, because now in August she's five months pregnant with her own baby? Good times!
(By the way, I envy whatever copywriter gets to handle this chapter in the eventual Time-Life coffee-table book on the early 21st century.)
Anyway, a professor in Kentucky is bringing up all the Trig-birther BS again as part of an academic article on how the media covers (or doesn't cover) conspiracy theories. Now, if this were an analysis of how the press covered the Trig Palin rumors vs. how other "conspiracy" stories were handled, I think it could be a thought-provoking look at how our media gate-keepers make decisions. Why did the press spend more time parsing that time that First Lady Hillary Clinton fired the White House travel office, or - lest we forget - breathlessly chronicling Donald Trump's opinion of the president's birthplace? See, THAT would be worth understanding.
Instead, the paper is a rehash of the whole story about how Palin went into labor with her youngest son while at a meeting in Texas, flew home and traveled back to the small hospital in her hometown. I'll admit that, the first time I read about her 20-hour trip while in labor with a special-needs baby, it raised my eyebrows. But it's really none of my business, and I wasn't there.
I have to ask, though... Even if we were to grant that everything the conspiracy theorists believe is true - what is the significance? "Biggest hoax in American political history"? Please! The Obama birthers may be nuts who skipped sixth grade civics class, but at least there's some consequence to their conspiracy (Obama's eligibility to be president). If Palin were to call a press conference tomorrow and announce that Trig was actually birthed by her youngest daughter (plot twist!), what would we know about her ability to govern that we don't already know?
In other words, if one were to make a list of all the reasons that Sarah Palin shouldn't be in a position of authority, this would be just about the last item on it. Wasting time "researching" this says a great deal more about the conspiracy theorists than it does about Palin.
(By the way, I envy whatever copywriter gets to handle this chapter in the eventual Time-Life coffee-table book on the early 21st century.)
Anyway, a professor in Kentucky is bringing up all the Trig-birther BS again as part of an academic article on how the media covers (or doesn't cover) conspiracy theories. Now, if this were an analysis of how the press covered the Trig Palin rumors vs. how other "conspiracy" stories were handled, I think it could be a thought-provoking look at how our media gate-keepers make decisions. Why did the press spend more time parsing that time that First Lady Hillary Clinton fired the White House travel office, or - lest we forget - breathlessly chronicling Donald Trump's opinion of the president's birthplace? See, THAT would be worth understanding.
Instead, the paper is a rehash of the whole story about how Palin went into labor with her youngest son while at a meeting in Texas, flew home and traveled back to the small hospital in her hometown. I'll admit that, the first time I read about her 20-hour trip while in labor with a special-needs baby, it raised my eyebrows. But it's really none of my business, and I wasn't there.
I have to ask, though... Even if we were to grant that everything the conspiracy theorists believe is true - what is the significance? "Biggest hoax in American political history"? Please! The Obama birthers may be nuts who skipped sixth grade civics class, but at least there's some consequence to their conspiracy (Obama's eligibility to be president). If Palin were to call a press conference tomorrow and announce that Trig was actually birthed by her youngest daughter (plot twist!), what would we know about her ability to govern that we don't already know?
In other words, if one were to make a list of all the reasons that Sarah Palin shouldn't be in a position of authority, this would be just about the last item on it. Wasting time "researching" this says a great deal more about the conspiracy theorists than it does about Palin.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Keep turning back the clock
Progressives often accuse conservatives of wanting to "turn back the clock" on things like civil rights for women and minorities, or on policy that most of us have taken for granted for decades. It's not always fair, as scare tactics seldom are, but in the N.C. General Assrmbly's case, it's literally true.
Last year's midterm elections gave our state a Republican majority in the General Assembly for the first time in more than 100 years. Some of those Republicans are savvy enough to know that their majority may not last too long, and so they're not wasting any time. Which is why the people who ran on improving the economy and cutting spending have, so far, given us proposals to establish a new over-$1 million state bureacracy (only alloting $600,000 for it for some reason), bring back plastic bags on the Outer Banks (after only five months, which I'm sure won't cost anything at all), and to turn down $461 million that the feds have already promised us.
Comparatively, a bill that would change local elections, putting Forsyth County's municipal elections on the same cycle as presidential elections and making School Board elections partisan again (after only one cycle), seems like small potatoes, but it does matter. Starting with the obvious, this isn't something that we in Forsyth County have asked for (unlike the decision to make School Board elections nonpartisan, which got over 10,000 signatures on a petition).
Municipal elections, including mayor and City Council, are off-cycle from presidential and midterm elections. The last slate was in 2009. The bill's sponsors (all Republicans) argue that electing mayor and City Council in 2012 will be cheaper for the state, county, Board of Elections, etc. And I would buy that if the Board of Elections only functioned on a contract basis during election years. But they don't. They're there every day already, so where are the savings?
Having volunteered in 2008 and 2009, I can envision the horror show that we'd get if City Council candidates had to compete for attention with presidents. Candidates for Congress and agriculture commissioner already have it hard enough. Here in Winston-Salem, we had several City Council members face primary challengers, a few of whom won and now sit on the council. (That's a good thing.) Some of them were young and didn't have much of a base, name recognition or war chest. Some candidates were experienced incumbents who had three, but who would've struggled mightily to raise money in a crowded election. A City Council hopeful might need $30,000 to compete. He or she doesn't get that if drawing from the same donor pool that are also being hit up by campaigns for president, Senate, House, governor and state offices. What you would see is fewer people running, and shutting out willing leaders is never good.
If voter turnout (or voter burnout) is the issue, then that's on the candidates and their parties to reach out to voters and educate them - not a guy who won his last election with 69 percent. For the record, voter turnout in Forsyth County for the 2009 municipals was nearly 10 percent.
And the School Board thing is just galling. Non-political advocacy groups and ordinary citizens pushed for our School Board elections to join those of other counties in reflecting the fact that governing schools shouldn't be political. Basically, they took those Rs and Ds off the ballot. A record number of candidates ran, and all the incumbents were re-elected. This wasn't a radical change that knocked the Earth off its axis - so why turn back the clock?
I think it was my high school history teacher who first told me to always look beyond what an elected official says and find out who would benefit by that official's preferred policies. To that I think I would add, who does it piss off?
If the Republicans in the General Assembly were puuting forth ideas that they genuinely believed were best for our state, but that just happened to be slightly different from the Democrats' ideas, it wouldn't bother me. But thus far their leadership philosophy seems to be "We're in charge! Nyah nyah nyah!"
Don't believe me? I say again:
Federal government: Here's $461 million dollars!
Republican General Assembly: No.
I rest my case.
Last year's midterm elections gave our state a Republican majority in the General Assembly for the first time in more than 100 years. Some of those Republicans are savvy enough to know that their majority may not last too long, and so they're not wasting any time. Which is why the people who ran on improving the economy and cutting spending have, so far, given us proposals to establish a new over-$1 million state bureacracy (only alloting $600,000 for it for some reason), bring back plastic bags on the Outer Banks (after only five months, which I'm sure won't cost anything at all), and to turn down $461 million that the feds have already promised us.
Comparatively, a bill that would change local elections, putting Forsyth County's municipal elections on the same cycle as presidential elections and making School Board elections partisan again (after only one cycle), seems like small potatoes, but it does matter. Starting with the obvious, this isn't something that we in Forsyth County have asked for (unlike the decision to make School Board elections nonpartisan, which got over 10,000 signatures on a petition).
Municipal elections, including mayor and City Council, are off-cycle from presidential and midterm elections. The last slate was in 2009. The bill's sponsors (all Republicans) argue that electing mayor and City Council in 2012 will be cheaper for the state, county, Board of Elections, etc. And I would buy that if the Board of Elections only functioned on a contract basis during election years. But they don't. They're there every day already, so where are the savings?
Having volunteered in 2008 and 2009, I can envision the horror show that we'd get if City Council candidates had to compete for attention with presidents. Candidates for Congress and agriculture commissioner already have it hard enough. Here in Winston-Salem, we had several City Council members face primary challengers, a few of whom won and now sit on the council. (That's a good thing.) Some of them were young and didn't have much of a base, name recognition or war chest. Some candidates were experienced incumbents who had three, but who would've struggled mightily to raise money in a crowded election. A City Council hopeful might need $30,000 to compete. He or she doesn't get that if drawing from the same donor pool that are also being hit up by campaigns for president, Senate, House, governor and state offices. What you would see is fewer people running, and shutting out willing leaders is never good.
If voter turnout (or voter burnout) is the issue, then that's on the candidates and their parties to reach out to voters and educate them - not a guy who won his last election with 69 percent. For the record, voter turnout in Forsyth County for the 2009 municipals was nearly 10 percent.
And the School Board thing is just galling. Non-political advocacy groups and ordinary citizens pushed for our School Board elections to join those of other counties in reflecting the fact that governing schools shouldn't be political. Basically, they took those Rs and Ds off the ballot. A record number of candidates ran, and all the incumbents were re-elected. This wasn't a radical change that knocked the Earth off its axis - so why turn back the clock?
I think it was my high school history teacher who first told me to always look beyond what an elected official says and find out who would benefit by that official's preferred policies. To that I think I would add, who does it piss off?
If the Republicans in the General Assembly were puuting forth ideas that they genuinely believed were best for our state, but that just happened to be slightly different from the Democrats' ideas, it wouldn't bother me. But thus far their leadership philosophy seems to be "We're in charge! Nyah nyah nyah!"
Don't believe me? I say again:
Federal government: Here's $461 million dollars!
Republican General Assembly: No.
I rest my case.
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