Friday, June 29, 2007

Crushes

I've gotta be honest and tell you that I'm dissatisfied with the babe-pool as of late. Am I just not noticing or are there not as many?

My 2007 Crushes (thus far):

Fareed Zakaria
John Krasinski aka 'Jim Halpert'
Christiane Amanpour
Frank Morrison
Dahlia Lithwick
Nancy Pelosi
Tina Fey
Jeff Goldblum
Solex

Enduring Crushes (those that have rolled over from 2006):


Prince
Barack Obama (wavering)
Christopher Walken
Pharrell Williams
Tom Waits
Margaret Atwood
The White Stripes
Terrence Howard

Those That No Longer Rate:

Sarah Silverman
Jimmy Carter
Joshua Redman
Fiona Apple
Ben Bernanke

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Aerenchyma and SK: Conversation of the Week


From: Aerencyma
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 2:08 PM
To: SK
Subject: I'm sure you've noticed this...

..for a long time we had flags along Market in U City that read “Avenue of Technology” and they’ve replaced them with flags that now read, “Powering Commercialization”…isn’t that bizarre?


From: SK
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 3:32 PM
To: Aeremchyma
Subject: RE: I'm sure you've noticed this...

I did notice. Very strange wording. Do you think they're trying to make a point that it's just the kind of science supporting the debunking of creationism?


From: AerenchymaRager, Elizabeth (TS USA)
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 3:34 PM
To: SK
Subject: RE: I'm sure you've noticed this...

Hadn’t thought about it that way, but you might be on to something.


From: SK
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 3:42 PM
To: Aerenchyma
Subject: RE: I'm sure you've noticed this...

Really? I was just being a crackpot. I think they are just building the notion that this city is growth oriented.


From: Aerenchyma
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 3:44 PM
To: SK
Subject: RE: I'm sure you've noticed this...

If you replace “creationism” with “socialism”, yeah, I think you’re onto something.

By growth-oriented…do you mean selling out the “other” through innovation?


From: SK
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 3:47 PM
To: Aerenchyma
Subject: RE: I'm sure you've noticed this...

Do you mean "others" like in the Dharma initiative? They were kind of socialist, in a way.

From: Aerenchyma
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 3:49 PM
To: SK
Subject: RE: I'm sure you've noticed this...

I was sort of going for a Hegelian other but the Dharma folks will do.

From: SK
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 3:52 PM
To: Aerenchyma
Subject: RE: I'm sure you've noticed this...

Friday, June 22, 2007

Didn't Want to Leave for the Weekend on a Sour Note

So I'll leave you with these:

Try to make this if you can. It looks like a blast and Ubs and I will be there.

This is brilliant. Super fantastic. Sis and I have been talking about the need for just such a rating system about this particular subject matter for years! Enjoy!

And on that note, have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Monsters

They should burn the place down for what they did.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Aerenchyma and SK Conversation of the Week: The Altruist's Paradox

The following is a discussion held between me and my beloved after reading this little NYT diddy.

Aerenchyma:

-forwards said article to SK-


SK:

I don't care that it's unseemly that I'm counting; I am right three times this month.

I will submit to calling an act altruistic if the giver (mainly you) would just drop the campaign for martyrdom and admit that it make her feel good to give.


Aerenchyma:

Of course, it makes me feel good. Never denied that. Just said that my motivation didn’t originate in the feeling good but in the doing good.


SK:

Chicken and egg, chickie. Have you learned that doing good makes you feel good and that's the reason you're motivated to do good?


Aerenchyma:

Don’t chickie me, dopey. I have learned nothing of the sort. You assertion of such does not confirm its truthiness.


So I ask you, which one of us is right?

Friday, June 15, 2007

I Think Bumble Has Allergies

Poor little guy was up all last night…with his father (better he than me). Unfortunately, I myself do not feel entirely well-rested and it is my night tonight. Sigh. Compounding my exhaustion is Goo's refusal to bow to my alpha-ness. -We have a trainer working with the family to teach us how to help him be a better pup and the furry beast is pushing back something fierce. So frustrating. Add on Ubs new-found, "It's too hard, I can't do it!" approach to life and forgeddaboudit. All I can say is it's a good thing each and every one of them is super-duper cute because otherwise I'd ship 'em off.

Kidding, I kid!

…well, that's not entirely true. I would ship them off for a weekend. Any takers?

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Richard Rorty Dies

Contemptuous of analytics (of which I am), Rorty promoted fluffy humanism, claiming the goal of philosophy should be to improve the human condition. Nutty pragmatist.


Considered wacky and uninspired by the graduate student me, I now see a thoughtful man whose intellect was applied to the real stuff. What I once thought lacking of intellectual rigor has been replaced with an understanding that rigor for its own sake is a game unworthy of our best thinkers. Rorty got that and lived it. I'm glad I grew up enough to appreciate him. Maybe there's hope for others too.

Suggested title.

Adding to my reading list.


Thursday, June 07, 2007

100 Things About Me (Items 26-50)

26. I hate murder t.v. and have been trying to refrain from viewing any show that has at its center, murder (eg CSI, Law and Order, Dateline Mystery, City Confidential ect…). This is way harder than you would think.

27. I like quiet a lot.

28. I think that doing nothing in the face of harm being caused another is as culpable as causing the harm.

29. I love Dr. Jack Kevorkian; a practicing visionary rather than a theorizing one. This difference is the one that will get him into heaven.

30. I don't believe in heaven.

31. I'm an atheist but am not contemptuous of those that have faith. I just think you all the tiniest bit weird.

32. I do not intend to become more conservative as I age.

33. I like my hands and feet. They are attractive.

34. I prefer white gold to any other color.

35. I am done having children. I know this because I've been giving clothes away that Troubadour has outgrown. I gave nothing away of Ubs.

36. I am a typical girl and love all things perfumey.

37. I do not wear perfume.

38. I love, love, love gerber daisies. My favorite.

39. I love my doggy.

40. I love mom, dad, Jennifer, Sharon, Darryl, Ubs, Troub and Kevin too. Plus a lot more people, including my Ellen and Sam, but these are the ones on my mind currently.

41. I adore photographs of all sorts.

42. I take healthy teeth as a sign of moral goodness. I know that's wrong.

43. I have a hairy chin that's only getting furrier as time speeds past me.

44. I have a black thumb.

45. I secretly want a Volvo. Only good people drive Volvos in the movies and I want to be good.

46. I do not believe that the Justice System is even remotely just. Not even a smidge.

47. I would love for incarceration to be about rehabilitation rather than retribution.

48. I love frogs.

49. I also love bugs of all sorts including spiders.

50. I dig applied systems; mathematical, logical, you name it. Concrete, cut and dry, organized, answerable, binary, yummy.

Friday, June 01, 2007

100 Things About Me (Items 1-25)

A friend of mine wrote a list of 100 Things About Her that I love and visit often. To you I give the first of four installments about me.

  1. I love coffee in the afternoon but can't handle the caffeine.
  2. I drink loads of diet caffeine free Pepsi even though my brother-in-law works for Coke.
  3. I boycotted Coke in the early 90s when they supported apartheid in South Africa and haven't overcome my disgust.
  4. I continue to boycott Domino's Pizza, though I have no idea whether they are still owned by the right-wing anti-choice wacko that was the founder.
  5. I still miss smoking cigarettes, sweet little delicious friends.
  6. I only miss a beer on a warm spring day.
  7. I vote.
  8. I love purple.
  9. I am unforgiving of those that fail to forgive me.
  10. I sport very little guilt.
  11. I straighten better than I clean.
  12. I "detroit" things.
  13. I make up songs all of the time.
  14. I read the newspaper…the actual (non-electronic) newspaper.
  15. I read as much out of duty as out of enjoyment.
  16. I knit poorly, but I knit.
  17. I love a tub with a slanted back.
  18. My favorite magazine is The Week.
  19. I like to eat food that is not good for me.
  20. I have no idea how women cook healthy meals for their families after a day at work.
  21. I enjoy little people and wish I had the same level of curiosity as they have.
  22. I like going to the movies but always pick poorly.
  23. I'd seriously consider doing Prince, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Carl Levin, LL Cool J (because the ladies do love him), that Time columnist that shows up at Stephanopoulos' roundtable from time to time…his initials are F.Z. but I can't recall his name, Christopher Walken, and Daniel Dennett.
  24. I pondered doing, but decided no on; Stephen Colbert, John Stewart, Keith Olbermann, George Stephanopoulos, Milan Kundera, and George Clooney.
  25. I seriously can't stand the evil and shallow John Stossel. His voice grates on me something fierce and when he's on the television I can't refrain from mumbling obscenities under my breath. Prick. Pompous, righteous prick.