Archive for Miscellany and Whatever

Friday Petblogging

June 2, 2006 / / 7 comments

I’ve been told that some people like to look at pictures of other people’s pets. Okay…I’m nothing if not accommodating.

So here’s Slurm, our pet sourdough starter:
Slurm
Isn’t it the cutest thing? It’s five or six years old (I lose track of time), which is middle-aged in sourdough starter years.

Slurm can do all kinds of tricks no kitten can do. Do you know any kittens that can leaven bread? I didn’t think so. Can you make pancakes with kittens? Okay, maybe you can. Still.

If it looks sluggish, that’s because it’s fresh off a long nap in the fridge. It usually takes it a while to wake up. Once it does, though, Jody and Slurm will bake some bread together. Yum.

Friday Random Ten

June 2, 2006 / / Comments Off on Friday Random Ten

Siouxsie & the Banshees – The Passenger
John Foxx – Europe After the Rain
Wire – Two People in a Room
Material – The Hidden Gardens
Scenic – The Mid Hills
Single Gun Theory – Words Written Backwards
Talking Heads – The Big Country
Chris Isaak – The Lonely Ones
Shriekback – Black Light Trap
The Seeds – Pushin’ Too Hard

Post your own in comments…

Quote of the Day

June 1, 2006 / / Comments Off on Quote of the Day

Actually, yesterday…but who’s counting. Here’s Jim Henley, on the right-wing outrage at Google (for not having a special Google Doodle on Memorial Day):

Most of these people spent the 1990s urging others not to be so freaking sensitive about every little thing. Babies.

Mapping the American Taliban

June 1, 2006 / / 6 comments

Via Shakespeare’s Sister, here’s a great site that ranks the 50 states on the basis of reproductive and sexual rights, and support for families. It’s a great resource for anyone concerned about these issues.

Not surprisingly, South Dakota is number 50.

Fortunately, there’s something we can do about that. South Dakota Healthy Families spearheaded a successful petition drive to get an initiative repealing the abortion ban (passed by the SD legislature earlier this year) on the ballot. It looks like the initiative has a good chance of passing, and donations from outside South Dakota (on both sides) may well make the difference.

They also have a list of South Dakota legislators and how they voted on the abortion ban, in case anyone feels moved to donate to the good ones or to those challenging the bad ones.

If the South Dakota Taliban can be defeated, that would be a huge victory for the forces of good…and it would make the wingnuts in other states think twice about restricting abortion rights.

[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]

Hello There

June 1, 2006 / / 2 comments

Many thanks to Deborah for the kind introduction, and for her gracious invitation to post here in her absence. I did promise not to rail against vodka martinis or argue that David Niven was the best Bond (I guess I can always do that at my own place), but otherwise I pretty much have free rein.

It’s a little intimidating writing for a new audience. I don’t know all that much about Wicca, and I know next to nothing about Bond (or so Deborah tells me), so I’m afraid two out of the three constituencies here are likely to be disappointed. I will, nevertheless, try to keep you all entertained in the meantime. I have no idea what people want to read; but then, when I stop to think about it, I realize this is true of my own blog as well. So I’ll just post stuff and hope y’all like it. And, um, see how that works.

Three minutes in the shower

May 30, 2006 / / 10 comments

A few days ago, I was discussing hair treatments with my sister. (If you just snickered, bite me.) I’d recommended she try this conditioning treatment, and I was asking her if she’d had a chance to use it. And she said, yeah she had, but she just didn’t have time to use all these treatments, and who had the extra three minutes in the morning to do the deep conditioning anyway?

A day later (I’m slow) I thought, You don’t need three extra minutes. You put the treatment in when you first get into the shower, then you do all your washy showery stuff, and then you rinse your hair.

(Maybe my sister was kidding. Doesn’t matter.)

I thought everyone knew that. Or I never thought about it, even long enough to assume it (because it is, after all, just conditioning your hair and has very little effect on world peace). But if asked, I would have said well, yes, that’s how it’s done, that’s how everyone does it.

The grooming part here isn’t fascinating. What’s fascinating is how none of us truly know the private inner mind of another human being. We think everyone knows the stuff in our head, and we hope they don’t. We assume everyone is like us and we assume we are unique, and we never really know. » Read more..

Which classic female literary character are you?

May 28, 2006 / / 8 comments

Which Classic Female Literary Character Are you?


You’re Anna Karenina of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy!
Take this quiz!


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It’s okay if you marry the victim?

May 27, 2006 / / 10 comments

Oh. My. Gods.

Oh Gods I just saw the most horrible thing. Countdown had a clip of Matt Lauer interviewing Crazy Child Molesting Teacher Mary Kay Letourneau. CCMT married her victim, Vili Fualaau, and this interview commemorates their one year wedding anniversary.

Oh my frickin GAWD.

The entire tone of the interview was all about what a nice couple they were, and how everyone was wrong about them. What do you say, Lauer asked, to those few people who still have doubts. Still. Have doubts. Doubts about…whether child molestation is wrong? About whether it was true love from the start…when he was eight years old? (She has contended the ‘connection’ dates from that time. Which, ew.)

So what am I to take from this? Is marriage a magic panacea that wipes out all harm? Is this Luke and Laura for the public, and as long as we can spin a tale of “true love” that ends at the altar, it’s all okay? Is this the sanctity of marriage being protected by the right? (And of course, one year of marriage is enough to “prove” the “naysayers” wrong. Because we all know that your marriage is perfect if you pass the one year mark.)

I just don’t get it. The whole thing is painted as so all-American. Is this what they mean by family values? Grooming an eight year old for eventual sex, at age fourteen (or younger) is okay?

It was a seven minute interview. I was so disgusted, so sickened, and I thought, this isn’t like a train wreck. I can stop. And I fast-forwarded to the next segment (thank you, TiVo.)

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

May 23, 2006 / / 8 comments

You Are an Espresso


At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic

At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung

You drink coffee when: anytime you’re not sleeping

Your caffeine addiction level: high

You Are My Everything

May 22, 2006 / / 16 comments

I was reading this interesting post by Jill of Feministe. She’s talking about the situation that many feminist women find ourselves in, of being in relationships with men who aren’t feminists, or who think they are feminists, but have some seriously sexist blind spots.

[I]n just about every relationship I’ve been in, there have been at least a few feminist falling-outs. They weren’t usually deal-breakers, but they shaped my view of the person that I was with, and they generally just made me feel bad – like there was another reminder that I wasn’t entirely safe, even within my own relationship, and that this person who I cared about and maybe even loved could never really see me or get it.

The thing this got me thinking about was not feminism per se, but relationships, and the huge demands we place on them. » Read more..

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