Notes from the Shoe Pile

Covington Sucks

2006-07-16T18:57:00.000-04:00

Well, as if my last post didn't already convey a certain level of frustration with Covington, today we awakened to find C's passenger car window smashed in, his car ransacked, and, of course, his radio stolen.

Mind you, we live on one of the most busy streets in this suckville town. Mind you, there is a street light and a bus stop right at the corner where he was parked. Never mind, they still robbed him.

The neighbors have been sympathetic and actually seem surprised. The really truly sad part is I'm not surprised at all. I am actually more surprised that in the week or so both of us have been parking on the street that it's taken this long for one of our cars to be broken into.

Yeah, "it's happening" in Covington alright. I'm ready to start a countdown to move out of this shit town.

Love Thy Neighbor - So I'm Going to Hell, Right?

2006-07-15T10:50:00.000-04:00

Some of you have heard about my recent neighbor troubles. Long story short - my next door neighbor kept partially blocking my garage door. After having a "conversation" about this, my house was pelted with some dirty diapers and lots of miscellaneous trash began appearing in my backyard. Also, and perhaps coincidentally, my garage door opens and closes on occasion. One might wonder about karma in this situation, I suppose. So while I am one of the few residents in Covington with a garage, I am finding myself parking on the street more and more these days to avoid having my car stuck in my garage.

I've given this whole situation inordinate amounts of thought, and I've tried lately to push it out of mind. After all, in an equal act of karma for those who believe, my neighbor's car (with which he was blocking my garage) 'exploded' according to another neighbor and is no longer blocking anything, anywhere, including my garage. But something my neighbor yelled at me during our "conversation" has stuck in my mind. He said, "Just because you're a homeowner, you think you're better than me, don't you?".

I found myself reminded of this issue this week, while in lovely Springfield, OH, where I was watching "Good Morning America" in the Hampton Inn. Apparently in Lake Forest, IL, neighbors are upset because a woman has 3 potbelly pigs as pets in this affluent neighborhood. The neighbors who have complained say they can smell the pigs and they've (horror of horrors!) seen the pigs eat which means at some point those pigs will actually excrete too! Never mind the pig owner does not walk them around the neighborhood and doesn't chase after them with pig-doo bags around with her the way the dog owners in that neighborhood surely do. So it seemed to me the whole issue could be reduced down to snobbery or some sort of classism on the part of the pig-hater neighbors.

And it again made me wonder, as I have many times in my issues with my neighbor, how many neighbor conflicts are based on some sort of inherent snobbery or distaste for the 'type' of person who lives near you? Could I really be as upset with and angered by this guy because of who he is? If he had been the sort of guy who didn't wander around with no shirt, who played AC/DC at all hours and at all decibels, and who spoke English like his schooling hadn't surpassed the 4th grade, would I be less upset?

For all my democratic, open-minded claims, am I a hypocrite when it comes to my neighbor?

Me? Food? Who'da Thunk It?

2006-07-10T17:38:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned previously, I have wanted to write a separate blog about food in the Greater Cincinnati area. Finally, I have actually set up that separate blog and have begun posting to it.

Hopefully, the commentaries I write will get more interesting (and less wordy!) the more I write, and I'll even try to incorporate pictures as I can (will it be weird to be taking pictures of my food at restaurants? probably so...).

So feel free to peruse the new blog and add comments or make suggestions for places to try:

http://notjustchili.blogspot.com/

Happy Reading/Eating!
SBB

The New Roe v Wade: Or, Is Forcing Fatherhood a Good Thing?

2006-07-06T10:44:00.000-04:00

I'm enjoying a few days off this week courtesy of my company's new harsher 'use it or lose it' vacation policy for those of us who've spent years hoarding vacation days.

So while having some time off with nothing more to do with my time than repair bricks on my front porch, hang new mail boxes, and plant ground cover in my mini-backyard (really!), I found myself watching a rerun of "Dr. Phil" this morning while waiting for my appointment with my trainer. The show was about parents who have different ideas about how parenting should be done...and it seemed like a basic snooze-fest discussion of how to make kids go to bed on time or whether or not to let babies sleep in the bed with you.

But the first segment actually proved fairly interesting as it chronicled the story of a young man in Michigan (Matthew Dubay) who says his girlfriend claimed infertility and claimed to be on birth control for other medical reason but still turned up pregnant. Because Dubay claimed to have been duped and unready for parenthood, he has refused her claims for child support. It's important to note that Dubay says he was quite clear with his girlfriend about his lack of interest in and readiness for parenthood. The resulting unplanned pregnancy led to the current legal case. See here for the Michigan Attorney General's page about the case (interesting, if for no other reason than his over-the-top political rhetoric): http://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,1607,7-164--146339--,00.html

The issue is an interesting one, to be sure, and even the basic premise of a 'right to choice' seems fairly apt. The lawyer appearing with Dubay on "Dr. Phil" was pushing the right to privacy aspect of Roe v. Wade moreso than the choice aspect, and in either of those two respects, I can certainly see Dubay's point. But it does seem a bit of a slippery slope. Having grown up being supported (financially and emotionally) by a man who was not my biological father has shown me that biology can mean very little in the whole scheme of fatherhood. So should biological fathers be compelled to be a part of their child's life - even if that part is strictly financial?

Maybe the whole argument eludes me to some extent because I've always been someone who did not believe in alimony and has some Gloria Gaynor-ish notion that if a relationship fails, it is the woman's duty to carry on on her own, as an autonomous, independent, self-supporting woman. And to take money from a person with whom you could not sustain a relationship strikes me as a bit on the needy, desparate side. But I am not so naive as to believe supporting yourself is the same as supporting a child (or children), so I suppose while I might not believe in alimony, it would be foolish (and possibly harmful to the child(ren)) not to believe in child support.

And as a staunch believer in a woman's right to choose, I can't help but wonder, does the right to having the right to choose also mean you must bear the results of that choice alone? Another slippery slope of this issue, it seems to me, is that a woman ultimately has the right to choose whether or not she carries a fetus to term; even if her husband/boyfriend/one night stand steadfastly insisted he wanted to father the child, a woman could still choose to terminate the pregnancy, and most pro-choicers argue that that is precisely her right with her body. So does choosing to have the baby mean that that woman really, ultimately, bears the responsibility for that child alone?

I brought this issue up with a friend of mine today; I should mention this friend has two children and goes to great lengths to provide for them, even though he is not the custodial parent. He seemed utterly disgusted that a man would ever not provide for his child, whether he wanted the child or not. His reaction made me think that perhaps the issue here, for me at least, is even more squiggly than I first thought.

Having said all that (and saying very little in the process), I'm curious as to what others think of this issue/issues.

Ok, back to my vacay.

Back in Blog

2006-06-27T22:41:00.000-04:00

Well, here I am. Back in the Shoe Pile.

I'm not sure that anyone will notice my return or that anyone noticed my absence, for that matter. But given that life has gotten significantly busier this year and seems likely to stay that way for the rest of the year, I felt like I should return to blogging as a means of keeping in touch with far-flung folks and friends.

At the moment, I'm just outside of Columbus, OH for the week for work. I'm actually in Sunbury, OH but the school is in Marion, OH; this just happens to be the closest Hampton Inn and so here I am basking in the glory of my ever-accumulating Hilton Honors points.

I won't write much now but will be diligent about writing and keeping in touch going forward. I have lots of work travel, some fun vacations, and my normal stream of musing and moanings about the goings on in the world, so I'll document all of that here and will hope to hear back from any of you out there reading this. I'm also going to finally start that food/Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky restaurant review blog/site shortly as well. I'll be sure to plug that shamelessly here on the Shoepile when I get that going.

Until next post.
sbb

march 21 - houghton, new york - some dive

2005-03-21T23:22:00.000-05:00

i am not usually so vehemently unhappy about being in a small town, even for one night, but this place is a bit odd. there is nothing in this town except for a subway. and a sort of mini-mart attached to a citgo gas station. linda and i drove for almost a half an hour before finding a total dive with mediocre food. but we had nachos, gin and tonics, wine, and two hamburgers for $22. so all is not lost. except for our desire to live. because this place sucks it right out of you. i simply cannot fathom why people choose to live in places like this. and i cannot fathom how one can say the word 'unfathomable' while wearing braces - because i tried about 5 times tonight and could never say it.

march 18 – acme oyster house

2005-03-21T23:19:00.000-05:00

i am in either a routine or a rut. i went to the acme oyster house at the aiport again. i had the red beans and rice again. delicious as ever.

i had a praline from the praline connection. not good. threw half of it away. stick to aunt sally’s. i am growing more and more convinced this is the only truly good praline in new orleans.

march 17 – sweet ginger

2005-03-21T23:18:00.000-05:00

since it was st paddy’s day and we figured the entire french quarter would be teeming with more drunk people than normal, marco and i went our separate ways for dinner.

i cruised down gravier st towards my favorite hotel in all of new orleans – the internation house on camp street – in search of what i thought was the thai restaurant affiliated with the hotel.

i went into sweet ginger, even though i realized there was another thai restaurant on camp that was the restaurant that was part of the hotel. no matter – i was already seated in sweet ginger, with a great window seat on the camp side of the restaurant.

i started with a spicy shrimp soup which was delicious if extremely sour. it was spicy, to be sure, and it was served with a nice presentation of about four large shrimp in the center of the dish.

my entrée was a spicy fried oyster dish served on a bed of assorted vegetables with a large scoop of white rice. get this dish. it was amazingly good, and i will happily order this dish again when i return to sweet ginger on my next trip to new orleans (which will be next week!).

march 16 – gumbo shop

2005-03-21T23:17:00.000-05:00

while i waited in line, my two coworkers walked down the street to pat o’brien’s to get hurricanes. the line, though it was long and extended out onto the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, moved quickly, and we were seated within about twenty minutes of our arrival.

all three of us settled on the combination dinner, which included an appetizer (i had a side salad because i am a very big fan of their vinaigrette dressing, though i am utterly stumped as to what it’s made of), an entrée (we all three chose the combination plate of shrimp creole, beans and rice, and jambayala, a vegetable (the server said her favorite was the turnip greens, and i agree – these were among the best i’d ever had in a restaurant), and a dessert (i had the bread pudding).

the salad was as good as my previous memories, and the entrée was quite good though disappointingly not very hot either spice-wise or heat-wise. and as i mentioned, the turnip greens were quite delicious.

i went back to the gumbo shop with the explicit desire to get their bread pudding, which from my previous visit was among the best i’d ever had. my memory was that it was so piping hot that it took a long time to get through the dish. and my memory of the bourbon sauce was what brought me back to this restaurant.

sadly, the bread pudding was not hot, and the sauce was almost congealed. it was still tasty, but it was nowhere near as good as it should have been.

i’ll grant the staff at the gumbo show that they were busy and still had a steady stream of people waiting on line to get in when we left, but they should still focus on maintaining the high quality service and food that keeps those crowds coming in.

march 15 – nola

2005-03-21T23:16:00.000-05:00

very long story involved in how marco and i found ourselves at nola. i’ll spare everyone the long, uninteresting story and just say we stumbled in there from a very rainy, cold night in new orleans.

it looked as if there were plenty of open tables, but when we made our way in, there was clearly a wait. so again without reservations, we were told we could do a ‘first come, first served’ at the bar, or if we were willing to wait a minute or two, they’d check on ‘another option.’ intrigued, we waited. our wait, though, was nice and short. Promptly, the hostess took us back to a chef’s bar, where we were seated right on the edge of the kitchen and right in front of the sous chef who handled many of the appetizers and side dishes. while we were seated right in front of his prep station, we were also located right in front of an enormous brick oven where many of the seafood dishes were prepared. almost immediately, servers were at our sides getting drinks and just providing some very amiable chit chat. charming – without a doubt.

it took me longer than it should have to decide on a dish, and once i’d decided to order the seafood stew, marco mentioned he was ordering that, so i felt like i had to get something else.

in the meantime, the chef in front of us – lo – placed a mozzarella, basil, and tomato appetizer in front of us, compliments of the house. it was delicious even if it seemed somewhat incongruous with the restaurant or the menu.

i finally settled on the special salad of the day, which was a mixed green salad topped with some sesame fried oysters. the dressing was a sweet, tangy sauce that was an amazing compliment to the oysters. there were also some very thinly sliced red onions along with some crumbled gorgonzola cheese. all in all, this was an amazing dish, and i would have been more than happy to have a dinner of nothing but this salad.

i ordered the cedar plank fish after seeing several of them prepared in front of us. the dish looked like an enormous amount of fish covered with a citrus-based horseradish sauce. while i normally avoid any fruit-based sauces, gravies, or toppings of any kind, i decided to bust out of my shell and order this fish.

plus lo told us that this had been on the menu for over 12 years, and it was clearly a house favorite. how could i go wrong?

but wrong i went. this was definitely not a dish i enjoyed. and in fact, the fish was so citrusy and there was so many strands of citrus peel in the sauce that the texture was one i simply could not eat. fortunately, marco is a generous dining companion, and so we swapped meals midway through.

the fish did come with a nice cucumber and tomato salad, which was quite tasty.

marco’s seafood stew had a very delicious assortment of very fresh seafood – including enormous shrimp and spicy sausage.

while we reviewed the dessert menu (which also included a very impressive list of after dinner drinks, which both marco and i thought seemed quite expensive across the board), we both declined and got coffee instead. while several of the desserts sounded good, none sounded especially good or at least good enough to get.

all in all, i’d have to say i was very happy to have tried nola, but it’s not a restaurant i would return to for anything other than the fantastic, attentive and friendly without being insincere service we received from everyone we encountered.

march 14 – tommy’s

2005-03-21T23:14:00.000-05:00

we went back to tommy’s given that there were approximately 35,000 in new orleans for a telecommunications conference, and we somehow thought because this restaurant was not right in the FQ, it would not be crowded. surprisingly, we were somewhat right and were seated without reservations.

i could not resist having the maison tomatoes with blue cheese again, and it was as good as i remembered.

as my entrée, i did venture out into new territory though and tried the seafood casserole, which included shrimp, crab, and crawfish baked in a crockery dish with large pieces of eggplant and cheese. the top was also coated with some breadcrumbs and even a bit more cheese – parmesan i believe. this was a good dish with a lot of dense, rich flavor, but the eggplant seemed far more plentiful than the seafood, and there was so much cream and cheese that almost nothing held its own distinct flavor and instead just tasted overwhelmingly cheesy. while this is sometimes a good thing – when you’ve got the opportunity to have such fresh seafood in a dish, you want that to be the predominant taste of the dish.

so while it would be inaccurate to say this dish was not still quite enjoyable, it’s not one i would readily order on another trip to tommy’s.

my co-worker greg tried the praline pecan bread pudding. this was also served with a bit of bananas foster on the side and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. talk about gilding the lily. I tried a bite of the pudding, but i was not so overwhelming impressed that i rushed to order any more for myself. the coffee was a good chicory coffee and served as a nice (lighter) alternative to dessert.

march 13 - covington - home!

2005-03-14T23:56:00.000-05:00

who knew it possible? i actually ate dinner at home tonight. made my typical salad with my delish homemade dressing (loosely defined combination of honey, garlic, evoo, balsamic, and whole-seed dijon mustard). also made my fav sockeye salmon with ginger/honey/garlic/lemon.

made me really, really miss being at home so that i could cook. alas, i had to head back on the road on monday, but at least it's back to food city, usa - new orleans!

march 12 - covington - subway

2005-03-14T23:54:00.000-05:00

back home for one very brief weekend before heading back to new orleans for the work week.

today we celebrated eli's first birthday - amazing! and we had those ginormous subs from subway. they were actually much better than i ever expected them to be, so all in all, not bad.

march 11 - honolulu - spa! and plane-ride home

2005-03-14T23:51:00.000-05:00

i spent the day at the mandara spa getting a lomi lomi massage and lounging by the spa's pool. so so so nice. and such a perfect way to spend my last day in hawaii.

food-wise, though, the day was uninteresting.

i had a 'spa juice' which was actually quite a nice blend of fresh pineapple and papaya.

on the hideous plane-ride home, they actually served us salads - as the main dinner entree. i've never had a salad on a plane before. i was actually relieved bc i wasnt in the mood for their usual crap food, and this was fine and light for the long haul.

and wonder of wonder, i actually slept most of the ride home. hallelujah! maybe i can now sleep on planes.

march 10 - honolulu - hatsuhana, the dole plantation, and the trailer at the north shore

2005-03-14T23:41:00.001-05:00

brad and i trekked up to the north shore on our first day off after the conference ended. he was planning to go diving with the sharks, and i was planning to sit on the beach and work on my tan while avoiding being mugged, beaten or robbed (we'd been warned several times about the high theft rates against tourists at the north shore).

anyhoo, after getting slightly off course and ending up on the west shore and not the north shore, brad and i finally got our bearings, and we made it up to the north shore to see the massive waves that purportedly were between 30-35' high.

i like brad. he and i have about the same level of enthusiasm for seeing such awe-inspiring forces of nature at work.

we drove past the waves, which looked like any other waves i'd ever seen, agreed they were waves, and kept driving.

we did stop for lunch at a trailer on the side of the main road that was referenced in brad's lonely planet guide. we both had some yummy chicken teriyaki, though it was slightly surreal and slightly ghoulish that while we were eating the chicken, real, live chickens were hovering around our table. though we both commented on the irony, we both also chowed down on the teriyaki. all that wave-watching from the car made us hungry, you know.

on the way back to honolulu, i twisted poor brad's arm to stop at the dole plantation. i am quite the fan of the pineapple. so we stopped. and while we spent almost as much time looking at how pineapples grow (i was genuinely interested; brad was genuinely interested in taking a cool snappy snap of the varieties of pineapples they grow at the plantation) as we did looking at the north shore waves, we did both partake of the 'dole whip' - which was pineapple soft serve. yeah, it sounds better than it tastes. well, it was good. not something i feel any desperate need to eat again, but i scarfed that down.

we also tried to eat some real sugar cane. i'd always wanted to try it, and brad had previously had a delicious experience with it in africa. this was not delicious. not worth the effort. not in any way, shape, or form something i'd try again with braces on. no good. dont do it.

brad and i also had more sushi at hatsunama at the hilton before he headed back for the mainland. aloha, brad!

march 9 - honolulu - sidestreet inn

2005-03-14T23:35:00.000-05:00

this was a local hawaiian restaurant that my masseuse from the mandara spa pointed me to for some real authentic hawaiian food.

brad and i ventured over after getting an animated approval from the attendant at my hotel who got us a taxi. i am guessing it's not often the hilton guests head over to this dive.

and dive it pretty much was. it was a 'sports bar' according to our server, but it was much less sportsy-bary that what i'm used to seeing. aside from a few tvs tuned to sporting events, it basically just seemed like a divey bar.

but the drinks and food were amazing. we started with lychee flavored vodka, or the eyeball drink as i called it when i spotted it on the bar. delicious, though i am somehow becoming less tolerant of hard alcohol (straight) as i become more and more of a wine drinker.

we split a large salad of local greens with blue cheese and a delicious vinagrette that neither brad nor i could figure out the ingredients for. yummy all the same. we also split a smoked roasted pork dish which was amazingly good. i could have eaten a plate of just that and been quite satisfied. we also shared a plate of clams cooked in a nice garlic butter broth with loads of cilantro (so you know i loved it) and peppers. a nice alternate to the pork but just no where near as good.

a good place to visit - get the pork.

march 8 – honolulu – cheesecake factory

2005-03-14T23:33:00.000-05:00

had my cheesecake factory standard: sante fe salad. yummy as always. also had coffee heath bar cheesecake, which proved once again to be too rich to eat. so i ate all of the whipped cream instead.

had probably the best time i’ve ever had going out with my co-workers though. tyra and i crafted a list of the top ten things men do to screw up relationships, and the guys were able to craft a list of 4 things women do.

march 7 – honolulu – keo’s

2005-03-14T23:32:00.000-05:00

easily the best thai food i’ve ever had.

again, dave chose to pass on the thai food. but brad and i went to town. we ordered fresh spring rolls to start which were very tasty but did not have enough seafood for my taste. a very nice peanut dipping sauce accompanied them.

i had my thai standard – thai basil, but per my server’s recommendation, i ordered it with seafood (not on the menu, but still available). it was fantastic. it contained a mixture of thai vegetables along with an assortment of shrimp, squid, and scallops. very spicy (though i did order it hot) and delicious. we ordered the thai sticky rice which, while interesting and tasted very good, proved almost too sticky to eat easily with chopsticks.

brad had the shrimp evil jungle prince. though he got chicken evil jungle prince. it was good and a nicely flavored coconut-based sauce, but we both agreed it would have been better with seafood.

march 6 – honolulu – hatsuhana (hilton hawaiian village's japanese restaurant)

2005-03-14T23:31:00.001-05:00

by far, the best sushi i’ve ever had. my pal brad and i tried several kinds:

unagi (apparently my new favorite sushi)
squid (delicious if ever so slightly tougher than i expected)
spicy tuna (fantastic, probably the best of our selections)
fresh fish roe (i actually did not try this as i had some at todai’s the night before and did not like it at all)
volcano (creamy spicy scallops)

exceptionally fresh, nicely presented, and very reasonably priced.

service was quite good too as dave, unable or unwilling to try sushi, ordered chicken teriyaki, which he also did not like. the server was so upset that he hadn’t eaten enough that she gave all of us free ice cream. we should all eat with dave more often.

march 5 – honolulu, hawaii – todai

2005-03-14T23:30:00.000-05:00

ok, so hawaii is nothing if not heavily influenced by japanese culture. Accordingly, japanese food is plentiful throughout honolulu. todai’s is a chain seafood buffet that someone from my work group thought was the apex of japanese food.

my impression was less favorable. i should start by saying that i am generally not a big fan of buffets unless it’s chock full of breakfast food goodness. that being said, i was skeptical going into the place.

the food was overflowing – and came in all sorts – hot seafood dishes included various assortments of cooked fishes, chinese-style fish and vegetable dishes, and crab legs (i only ate some of the spicy calamari (good, not great) and the garlic eggplant among the hot foods, so i cannot speak to much of the food quality here. the cold seafood included a large assortment of japanese salads and sushi. the sushi was good but not great and given the restaurant’s location in honolulu, the fish seemed less fresh than it should have been.

one major milestone: i tried unagi for the first time and actually found it quite tasty.

the desserts at todai’s are cuter than they are tasty. they are served in teeny-tiny little portions, which is probably good – given that they seemed relatively flavorless, the tiny cheesecakes and tiramisu were not worth any amount of calories to expend on them. the bananas in caramel, though, were quite yummy.

march 4 – acme oyster house (airport), kate latter’s praline

2005-03-14T23:29:00.000-05:00

after realizing at the acme oyster house last night that i’d actually already eaten in the restaurant since i had eaten at the airport location of the restaurant on my last trip to NO, i figured i’d find somewhere else to eat while i waited for my flight. no luck. the louis armstrong international airport is a sad place for food, given this city’s rich culinary tradition.

so i went back to the acme at the airport as my only other food choices were beignets or ice cream.

tonight i ordered red beans and rice and a side of hush puppies (one of my favorite childhood foods). the red beans and rice were, by far, the best i’d ever had. and they would have been more than sufficient alone but were served with a very large piece of sausage. together, the combination was perfect. the beans were thickish but certainly not unlike a chili consistency. they were cooked with a nice smoked ham, many pieces of which were still in the beans. the white rice was average and really didn’t do much in the way of adding any flavor to the beans. the sausage, though – oh the sausage. spicy but not hot; smoky but not smoked. very very good.

and while i was waiting for my plane, i decided to give another praline a try. i’ve always been an aunt sally’s praline kind of gal. but tonight i tried kate latter’s maple praline. and i’ve concluded that I am still an aunt sally’s praline kind of gal. the kate latter’s praline was much more like the consistency of fudge than of a traditional praline. the maple flavoring was a nice change from the traditional praline flavor, but it just seemed too far afield from what I would normally consider a praline to be, and while i’m always up for something new, this something new was not something i think i’d try again.

march 3 – acme oyster house, café du monde

2005-03-14T23:28:00.000-05:00

After my earlier failed attempt this week to make it to the acme oyster house, i decided this week i’d make an earlier visit hoping to secure a spot in the seemingly always overcrowded restaurant off of bourbon st, even if it was just at the bar.

so an early trip is certainly the key to getting in. but i did end up sitting at the bar. after chatting with my bartender about what raw oysters tasted like, she offered to give me one to try for free. though i’ve always kind of had the squicks about the idea of eating raw oysters, this was actually quite good. i could easily see how, if they weren’t fresh, they could be quite bad quite quickly. not the case here – fresh as could be and, as my bartender told me, pretty much just take on the taste of anything you put on them. i tried cocktail sauce, tabasco sauce and just plain lemon juice. all were quite good.

for my entrée, i hurriedly made the choice to get the peacemaker po boy. bad call. the bread was poor, very chewy, and hard to bite into without the sandwich just falling apart. after about two failed attempts to bite into the sandwich, i ditched the bread and just ate the fried oysters and shrimp after squeezing some lemon juice over them. very good. especially the oysters.

had another evening of a large café au lait at café du monde before heading over to preservation hall and maison bourbon for some fantastic live music. preservation hall is clearly the main place to really experience old-style live jazz music in the FQ. and it is well worth the inevitable line you will have to wait in. don’t be annoyed or dissuaded by the clueless tourists around you who will whine and groan about the wait. it’s worth it; stick it out.

NB: the price of tickets for one set at preservation hall has increased from $5 to $7.50. you’re scooted out after one set is over, so be prepared to wait on line longer than you will be able to listen to music.

march 2 - olive branch, tommy's cuisine

2005-03-02T22:35:00.000-05:00

two words for today: yum-my.

tommy's cuisine
746 Tchoupitoulas StNew Orleans, LA 70130-3636 Phone: (504) 581-1103

tommy's came to us recommended by our client (our lady of holy cross college), as an outpost or satellite of irene's cuisine, another local favorite. so my co-worker and i ventured over to the street with the best name in the world to check this place out after 10 hours at the client site.

it's located in the warehouse district of NO, which is a trendy, young, very much on-the-way-up neighborhood that borders the french quarter. and in fact, the neighborhood seemed so much less seedy than do parts of the touristy/tourist trappy french quarter that i just might check that area out on one of my return trips here this month and really get to know that area better.

so...the food. in one word - wonderful.

i had the maison tomatoes appetizer, which was three very large slices of ripe, fresh tomatoes that had been drizzled heavily with a nice EVOO and a rich balsamic vinegar. you could choose between crumbled blue cheese or fresh mozarella to have with the tomatoes. without hesitation, i chose the blue cheese. it also came with a generous portion of very thinly sliced mild red onions. with the combination of the tomatoes, the oil, the vinegar, the cheese, the onions, and the overabundance of freshly ground pepper, i was right at home...quite literally. i have a salad each day at lunch that is identical, only i have mine with romaine lettuce. but this was light years better than what i make each day - and maybe it was just the simplicity of the dish or the high quality of the ingredients. whatever the case, it was a wonderful start to the meal.

speaking of a starter, while we both passed on tommy's wide assortment of seafood-based appetizers, our server (the waitstaff at the restaurant is all male, and all older european...it somehow seems utterly normal and utterly appropriate in this dreamy and dream-like, heavily wooden and curtain-drawn series of dining rooms) brought us a small plate with two pieces of bruscetta, compliments of tommy. the bread was perfectly not too crisp and not too fluffy, like too many bruscetta seem to be. it was topped with two slices of roma tomatoes, freshly chopped garlic and basil, and topped with some melted parmesan or parmesan regiano. excellent. excellent.

unlike nearly every where i've ever eaten in new orleans, the bread at tommy's was outstanding. it was a large, italian loaf seeded with sesame. could have easily passed for true european bread and it was head and shoulders above the spongy, uninterested bread i've been disappointed by throughout this city.

and at last...my entree. i ordered the soft shell crabs on a bed of linguine with a garlic basil crawfish sauce. absolutely delicious. the crab was as most soft shell crab is - a bit lacking in flavor in the legs but the body was quite tasty and crabby. the sauce, quite abundant with the fresh crawfish, was so delicious that any of the crab with the sauce was just a wonderfully tasty combination. the pasta also had several little piles of fresh spinach that had been very lightly cooked with some oil and garlic. this proved to be an amazing combination with the sauce, and i can almost say if i'd had the spinach with just the sauce as my dinner, i probably would have been nearly as happy.

as a rather stark contrast to dinner, we had a rather ho-hum lunch at the olive branch, a little dinette near to the school. i had a blackened shrimp caesar salad which, while good, was nothing remarkable and certainly nothing memorable in comparision with the dinner that followed.

alas, no bread pudding today.

march 1 - steve's deli, old coffee pot

2005-03-01T22:58:00.000-05:00

steve's deli

800 block of gravier street, new orleans

steve's is a sweet little diner that serves a quick breakfast and lunch from a walk-up counter where food is dished out for you while you watch. very friendly staff with very tasty, home-cookin' food. several varieties of coffee, including chicory and flavored.

grits and cheese: grits are one of my favorite foods in the world. i cant help it. i'm from kentucky. love 'em. here they'll serve you a heapin' helpin' with a mound of shredded cheddar or american cheese at the bottom of the bowl. they'll top the grits with some melted butter if you'd like. a delicious breakfast for under $1.50. also serve a full array of big breakfasts and breakfast sandwiches on what looked to be fluffy, oversized biscuits.

a most uninteresting lunch at bennigans, and after this, i am not sorry that the bennigans chain doesnt seem to have much of a foot-hold in cincinnati.

old coffee pot

714 St. Peter Street, New Orleans 504-524-3500

to be honest, i did not seek this restaurant out. i had planned to go to the acme oyster house first, but the line there was well down the street. then i planned to go to the gumbo shop, but the wait there was also more than my stomach could tolerate. so i wandered down st peters until i stumbled onto the old coffee pot. its exterior is similar to the gumbo shop, and its interior is not that different, but somehow the gumbo shop seems to be more run-down looking for effect; the run-down look to OCP seems authentic. a bit of courtyard dining area (also like the gumbo shop) and a large bar in the main dining room. some very interesting original features to the dining room....gorgeous fireplace, a lot of french artwork, and a most interesting or most hideous chandlier...i couldnt decide if it was amazing or atrocious.

i ordered the crawfish etouffee, since i'd read today that it's crawfish season is now in full swing here. it was quite tasty, after i doctored it up with a bit of tasbasco bc, to my tongue, etouffee should be spicy...maybe i'm just biased bc dee felice's etouffee is quite spicy. the crawfish was plentiful, tasty, fresh and not at all tough (as sometimes crawfish, shrimp, and other shellfish can be when either overcooked or cooked in large quantities)...nicely balances with some green peppers and some of the strongest onions i think i've ever encountered. an excellent mix of flavors. served with a heaping mound of white rice.

two complaints about the meal: the etouffee was only warm, not hot, which was disappointing. also, several bites included something that seemed a bit crunchy, and i could not tell for sure if it was just a stray piece or two of undercooked rice or if it was a piece of crawfish shell. in any case, it wasnt noticeable enough to be cause for concern or disgust, but it was noticeable on two or three bites.

bread pudding and coffee. the coffee was regular with no chicory. the bread pudding had been microwaved, which didnt seem to detract from the flavor but which did make the interior blazingly hot and the sides barely warm. this bread pudding had raisins, and IMHO, it had too many, but they were nicely swimming in the rum sauce that seemed to melt a bit of whipped cream they put on top. the mixture of the cream and the rum sauce made for a wonderfully creamy sauce that gave the bread pudding the bulk of its flavor. a bit more cinnamon would have improved the dish overall, but without question, it was quite good.

hands down, this restaurant had two things going for it:

1) the staff kept commenting on why this pretty girl (me!) was having dinner alone (hey! i take compliments where i can these days)

2) it's only a few doors down from preservation hall, which is, without question, one of the best places to visit in this town. the show starts at 8pm each night, and so a line usually forms, sometimes even up to the OCP. but that line might mix with the crowd trying to get into pat o'brien's, which is directly next door to the OCP. needless to say, st peter's street is an interesting mix of things to do, see, hear, and eat.

february 28 - tujagues

2005-03-01T22:30:00.000-05:00

tujagues
http://www.tujagues.com/

823 Decatur St.New Orleans, Louisiana504-525-8676

having heard for years about this restaurant, i always wanted to give it a try but didn't for the following reasons:

1) it has that super-authentic, old-school look, and i found that slightly intimidating bc i thought it might mean it was expensive

2) it is a restaurant i'd heard of, and typically restaurants i've heard of or seen on tv are usually a bit outside of the normal per diem food expenses, and so i've avoided it

3) it is directly across decatur street from both cafe du monde and aunt sally's praline shop - two of my favorite places in NO...

so i ventured down to decatur to where tujagues is located. it's a fantastic location...just off of jackson square, right across from the old french market, and within an easy view of the riverfront.

this is a prix fixe place - no menu at all, except for alcohol. so come with an open mind and an empty stomach bc it's a FIVE COURSE prix fixe menu.

the four entree offerings change each day, and on my visit the options included:

-filet mignon
-crawfish in a cream sauce over pasta
-shrimp and crabmeat in a butter sauce over fried eggplant
-a fish dish

i had the shrimp and crabmeat over eggplant, but here is how the meal broke down:

shrimp remoulade: a salad of plain greens topped with chilled boiled shrimp generously covered in a spicy (cocktail-sauce-like, only with much more kick) remoulade dressing. delicious. spicy but not in a 'bam' way so that it's spicy for the sake of being spicy. it's a nice horseradish spice with a zesty tomato undertone.

gumbo: probably the best, though most subtle, gumbo i've had in new orleans. a very thick soupy broth, that was delicately but perfectly spiced. a nice garlic and pepperly flavor without either being cloyingly heavy. very minimal vegetables in the gumbo and a small portion of the meats - shrimp and sausage. the fact that despite the relative dearth of visible ingredients is testament to how well done the soup itself was - it didn't need all the other hoo-hah to distract you from the actual flavor. served over a bit of white rice.

beef brisket: the house speciality, served in a small, sample-size portion. my server said they just want you to sample it with their tomato-horseradish dressing. while this dressing seemed reminiscent of the remoulade, it wasn't exactly the same, and in fact, the accompaniment to the brisket was even tangier and had more horseradish heat, and i prefered it to the remoulade. i dont believe i've ever had such tender brisket - it literally pulled apart with barely any effort against the fork. excellent. i would have been exceptionally satisfied with a larger piece of this for my dinner.

eggplant with shrimp and crab: of all the courses, this was the most disappointing, though speaking relatively, this means it was still quite good. the seafood was exceptionally fresh. the crab meat was not quite as plentiful as i'd hoped, but there was enough of it that the butter-based sauce did take on a distinctly crabby taste. the crab taste was a tad overwhelmed by the presence of both red and green peppers in the sauce. the eggplant was fried but not into that utter mush that some fried eggplant becomes. crispy but not overly seasoned breading on the eggplant. pleasant, but as i say, the least impressive of the courses. served with a very boring side of steamed vegetables, including squash and carrots.

bread pudding and chicory: of all the courses, this might have been the best. the bread pudding had no raisins (a HUGE plus in my book, though i enjoy bread pudding enough that i will tolerate raisins) and had an amazing caramel-ish sauce. it might have been a rum sauce, which would be quite traditional for NO, but i couldnt discern any rum flavor at all. excellent. and a wonderful combination with a small glass of chicory coffee to which i did add cream and sugar. a mild chicory, to be sure, but still quite delicious. an amazing contrast of flavors that really compliment one another very well.

and just to prove what a glut i really am, i made a stop later in the evening to cafe du monde to have a cup of cafe au lait. probably the sweetest, most delicious coffee i've had in NO, and maybe anywhere. but dont compare the CDM cafe au lait to what you'd get at starbucks. the chicory base on the coffee somehow gives this an altogether, and to me, much preferred, flavor. heaven in a cup. plus cafe du monde is one of the best locations in NO for some decent people watching...and on a cool, early spring night, it was perfect to sip some hot cafe with a cool breeze blowing in from the river.

a month of eating dangerously; or, how the tan girl sought the best bread pudding in new orleans

2005-03-01T22:17:00.000-05:00

so i'm spending a month travelling pretty much non-stop.

i'll be in new orleans for much of the month, excepting a side trip to new york (upstate, not manhattan, sad to say) and another little jaunt to HAWAII!

yes, many, many days i will moan and groan about my job. but not this month, friends. this month my job rocks because it's taking me to new orleans, one of my favorite places on earth and to hawaii, not one of my favorite places on earth, but a nice diversion from covington to be sure.

and in savoring a bit of bread pudding tonight, i decided i'd keep a food journal of my time in new orleans as a means of recording my hits and misses for future trips to NO and also as a helpful guide to pals coming to NO - since this is a town i am getting to know pretty well, and i think i can provide some decent out-of-towner's advice on the city.

so just to be orderly about it, i'm going to do a separate entry for each day.

enjoy!

yes, as a matter of fact, i do like to beat dead horses

2005-01-20T14:40:00.000-05:00

$40 million: Cost of Bush inaugural ball festivities, not counting security costs.

$20,000: Cost of yellow roses purchased for inaugural festivities by D.C.'s Ritz Carlton.

200: Number of Humvees outfitted with top-of-the-line armor for troops in Iraq that could have been purchased with the amount of money blown on the inauguration.

$10,000: Price of an inaugural package at the Fairmont Hotel, which includes a Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon reception, a chauffeured Rolls Royce and two actors posing as "faux" Secret Service agents, complete with black sunglasses and cufflink walkie-talkies.

22 million: Number of children in regions devastated by the tsunami who could have received vaccinations and preventive health care with the amount of money spent on the inauguration.

1,160,000: Number of girls who could be sent to school for a year in Afghanistan with the amount of money lavished on the inauguration.

$15,000: The down payment to rent a fur coat paid by one gala attendee who didn't want the hassle of schlepping her own through the airport.

2,500: Number of U.S. troops used to stand guard as President Bush takes his oath of office.

26,000: Number of Kevlar vests for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan that could be purchased for $40 million.

taken from: geraldine sealey, salon.com

the choice is yours

2005-01-20T06:10:00.000-05:00

ok, so i've been a woefully bad blogger lately. i know.

the holidays. the fall. the cold. the cold. the cold. the vacation while still having the cold. and still with the cold. so forgive me. i've been too busy reaching for kleenex to do much typing lately. my profuse apologies.

and rather than write one of my long, rambly tomes, i'm going to just write a quick blip on various issues that have caught my attention in my recent tylenol cold-induced haze.

1) the obvious: the inauguration

i realize i'm only about the 57th person that you've heard whine this week about the fact that bush is allowing over $40 million to be spent on his inauguration and accompanying festivities. i'll avoid pointing out the sheer disgustingness of this vulgarity given the world has just seen well over 200,000 people die in what was probably the worst natural disaster to ever befall the world. or that social security is crumbling before his very eyes. or, i dont know, there are troops riding around in iraq in tanks and humvees and neither the troops nor the vehicles have armor to protect them from the barrage of enemy fire they will, without doubt or question, see.

and i know that bush is having his corporate cronies donate all of the money and that none of it is actually taxpayer money. right. get it.

but have a soul, bush. tell your rich friends to donate their money to tsunami relief. or shovel a pile of $20 million towards armor for the troops. something. christ. this is disgusting.

all this administration had to do was take the cue from FDR, who, in his fourth inauguration in 1945, decided that he could not allow or tolerate excessive funds to be spent on his inauguration while a war was on (gee, sound familiar?), and so he allowed a mere $2000 be spent on his inauguration.

this administration should be ashamed. utterly ashamed of itself. (and anyone reading this blog with any consistency knows i'm usually a bit more gentle with these dipshits than this, but even i have had it. finally.)

2) the sublime: i love the 90's part deux

joy has returned to my life. i can once again spent night after night, weekend after weekend, immersed in vapid jaunts through my past with a bunch of c-list actors and comedians (special exemption from this nobody status goes out to michael ian black, mo rocca, and loni love).

happiness is a vh-1 retrospective.

i thought i was going to fall off my couch and die when loni love said after watching the video for chris isaac's 'wicked game,' she had to change her underwear. love her. come on, you know you did too.

3) the beautiful: hawaii here i come

if anyone has been to hawaii, give me some tips as to whether or not i should tack on an extra weekend and go to the other islands. i'll be there for my work conference in march and need to figure out what i'm doing. so far, i'm going to the conference. suggestions for things that might be remotely more interesting than that are most welcome.

4) the beautiful, part 2: henderson, tennessee here i come

found out today i have to spend a week at freed-hardemann university. suggestions for things that might be remotely more interesting for spending more time in henderson are not most welcome.

5) the find of the year: trader joes

this is the best grocery store around. period. and the fact that in ohio, unlike my previous home, pennsylvania, you can actually buy alcohol in grocery stores makes this truly the best grocery store in the area. except jungle jims. but i'm not driving all the way up there. do check out the charles shaw at trader joes for $3.39 a bottle (especially the shiraz, though the merlot is pretty tasty too) - with a 10% discount if you buy a case. not that i buy cases of wine. not me. surely.

and i'd tell you about the best. cookies. ever. that they have there, but then you all would do a mad rush on them, and there'd be none left for me. so no cookie tip here. sorry. me likes my cookies.

6) the best new sport: snow tubing

yes, the poconos is one of the best locations on the east coast for skiing. but that's so over. plus since my ass had only just recovered from my tumble down the stairs and my only other skiing adventures have proven injury-inducing, i wimped out.

but snow tubing is the best new sport, hands down. fun, terrifying, and giddiness-inducing all in one.

and if one more person in this area tells me you can now snow tube up at perfect north slopes, i'm going to smack them. (kidding. just kidding.)

7) the best new sport part two: running

yep, you read that right, folky folks. i'm a runner. i've taken up running. heh.

as in i spend about 85 minutes on the treadmill these days and about 8 minutes of that time is spent running. but it's 8 more minutes than i ran in the whole of last year. so i'm ahead of the game.

plus i have to get up my endurance. i'll be doing the flying pig HALF marathon in may. (not kidding. not kidding.)

and i'm only on running shoes pair #3. but that's ok. more stock for the shoe room.

8) the impossible, the ridiculous: quentin tarrantino

is it possible that there is a person alive who have never seen a quentin tarrantino movie? never? ever? none?

because i am the lamest of movie goers, and even i have seen quentin tarrantino movies. and i live under a rock. brad, what's your excuse?

9) the joy, the exhaltation: i was proposed to!

on my way to kaldi's, a man proposed to me! stopped me. proposed marriage. on the street.

he said he'd be good for me.

and he said he'd be my rabbit. whatever i wanted.

my rabbit? oy.

'scuse me while i slip back into the champagne glass jacuzzi

2005-01-10T07:58:00.000-05:00

i'm on vacation in the poconos!

no doubt there will be blogs aplenty upon my return!

maybe i am the faggot america; or, how irony and perversion seems to be taking over my life

2004-12-27T17:39:00.000-05:00

ok, so i'm about six months behind the times, i realize, bc i should have made these comments when this album first came out, but i have to just let you all know what an amazing album greenday's 'american idiot' is. genius, pure genius.

and just bc this song is so amazing, i'll put the lyrics to 'american idiot' here:

dont want to be an american idiot
dont want a nation under the new mania
can you hear the sound of hysteria?
the subliminal mind fuck america
welcome to a new kind of tension
all across the alienation
where everything isnt meant to be ok
television dreams of tomorrow
we're not the ones meant to follow
for that's enough to argue
maybe i am the faggot america
i'm not a part of the redneck agenda
now everybody do the propaganda
and sing along to the age of paranoia
dont want to be an american idiot
one nation controlled by the media
information age of hysteria
calling out to idiot america

the one line that really resonated with me recently was the 'maybe i am the faggot america' (obviously - since i stole it for my title). i actually thought a bit of this line while i was on a rental car shuttlebus in the midst of the hell that was my return trip to cincinnati last week (more on that later).

i noticed the youngish, biggish guy sitting across from me was reading a book. the way he was holding the book was such that i could see the title page. it was 'imperial hubris' by michael scheurer (the senior cia analyst who retired after publishing this book this year).

BUT....

he had another cover over the hardback. the cover was for a book called 'finland: the land and the people.'

which got me to thinking -- if this guy is covering up the actual title of the book he's reading, it's pretty clear he doesn't want others to know what he's reading. but why? as i said, he was a large guy, so he probably could easily take care of himself if he ever needed to (and i doubt seriously that most airport discussions end in fisticuffs). but so it made me deduce he just felt: uninterested in engaging in a debate with someone who had an opinion on the book and its criticism of the bush policies on terrorism; intimidated to engage in a debate on this subject; ashamed to be reading something critical of bush; or uncomfortable reading something so overtly political and critical that it was a better option to hide the title and prefer to let everyone think he was brushing up on all things finnish.

this little experience really unsettled me. i nearly asked the guy about what he'd done (and anyone who knows me knows how very out of character it would be to talk to someone i dont know - especially on a car rental shuttle bus - when i am usually most interested in ignoring all other elements of humanity). but i didnt. clearly he had done what he'd done bc he did not want to have that very conversation. so i respected his decision not to have that conversation, even if i found his tactics quite squarely in the camp of the cowardly people.

but it's made me really wonder if there isnt quite a chilling and quieting effect falling over most people these days. i mean, except in very close friend or family settings, i just do not hear political discussion anymore...and by 'anymore' i mean since the election. are people so resigned to being unhappy or dissatisfied that they wont even engage in the political discourse? or maybe people are so blissfully happy that there's nothing to talk about it? i doubt it.

i got to thinking that there are just so few people to talk to about politics anymore. people are either burned out or turned out. and the effect is people seem utterly disengaged. hell - i even signed up on the day after the election to be a volunteer for the democratic party of kentucky. and you know what -- they still havent bothered to contact me. how's that for disaffected? how's that for discouragement?

the democrats had the perfect opportunity to capitalize on voter frustration and passion right after the election. and as usual, they squandered it. this party doesnt need to worry about being beaten in elections. it's utterly self destructing. and with terry mcauliffe's term as the party chairman coming to an end this weekend, i fear that the party will continue its serious downward spiral. unless, perhaps, howard dean gets the chairmanship. but he still seems such a polarizing figure, that i'm not sure he'll be any more effective than was mcauliffe (whom i thought was brilliant but frustratingly ineffective as the chairman).

enough politics for now. i fear i'm talking into a vaccuum anyhow. but please feel free to prove me wrong on this.

life is ironic.

due to the hideousness of the weather here in the cincinnati area, i was stuck in philadelphia last week. stuck at the airport. on wednesday. the storm kept brewing until well into thursday afternoon. so in my infinite wisdom, i decided to screw any attempt to get into cincinnati by plane and instead i rented a car and drove straight into the storm. and it wasnt so bad. aside from some pretty wicked rain along the pennsylvania turnpike, the weather was much better than expected. so i made it back to the old homestead in covington in my sleek little silver chevy malibu. no problems. none whatsoever. the car weighed about 5 lbs and had no weather-specific attributes i could discern, but it got me back to kentucky in one piece. so i felt i'd have no problems whatsoever once i got my big, bad SUV from the airport.

i got stuck in the snow right in front of my house.

but the weekend of the irony that is my life got better.

i was celebrating a belated christmas with my nephews last night. noah and i were upstairs watching tv. they called him down to open his presents, and he and i took off like lightning down the stairs. i slid on something, and down i went. taking poor little noah with me down about 10 steps. hardwood steps. no carpeting steps. HARD steps. needless to say, noah and i were both in quite a bit of pain. he openly cried from his pain. i tried my damnedest to stifle mine. i heard myself scream out 'fuck that hurts!' really loudly...fortunately later in the evening, i asked my mom what i'd said when i fell. she said i didnt say anything. so i guess my little outburst was entirely in my head. and today i have some nice, nasty, ginormous bruises up my leg and arm. but the best part of this story is that when noah and i were in the kitchen, he just looked at me said he had no idea that i'd wanted to get down the stairs so fast. hahahaha! i love that kid.

and i was not in the slightest bit tipsy, toasty, or even remotely inebriated. or in heels. how many thousands of times have i charged down those stairs in either or both states and never once fallen. but yesterday, stone cold sober and in flat shoes with plastic bottoms, i went flying.

needless to say, i'm spending the rest of my christmas vacation holed up in my house.

is this blog billable?

2004-12-21T13:52:00.000-05:00

ok, ok, so yes, i am technically 'working' right now. as in i am actually sitting in malvern, pennsylvania, ostensibly serving my clients as their project manager while stationed at my corporate headquarters. somehow, though, it is slower than slow here today, and because all of my clients are schools, they're all fleeing fast and furiously on their holiday breaks. those lucky stiffs get off next week too since most colleges close for the week between christmas and new years. i would whine about that a little more but when i stop to think that most staff who have administrative positions at colleges make about $.50/hour and work tirelessly - at least most of them - i feel a little less inclined to grouse about their extra week of vacation.

so instead, i took a little mental vacation and perused salon.com - one of my perennial fav websites.

and on it, i saw a most horrifying statistic: TWO THIRDS of americans surveyed could not name a single supreme court justice. TWO THIRDS! TWO THIRDS! TWO THIRDS! i was not aware that TWO THIRDS of americans lived under rocks. anyhoo...the blurb went on to say that the Center for American Progress (clearly a somewhat left-leaning group....heheh) wanted to let all of the unwashed and uninformed masses of americans living under rocks know what they might expect in terms of bush's likely appointments to the court in the upcoming years given that there will be, without a doubt, 2-3 replacements made in bush's next term. since bush has heralded both antonin scalia and clarence thomas as the two justices who best represent all that is right in gwb's world, the CAP wanted to highlight some of the major accomplishment in the careers of these two judicial supahstars.

below is that list --

Ten Things President Bush Doesn't Want You To Know About Scalia and Thomas
December 20, 2004

SCALIA OPPOSES EFFORTS TO EFFORTS TO DESEGREGATE SCHOOLS: In his concurrence on Freeman v. Pitts, Scalia indicated he would favor stripping the authority of Federal courts to regulate school desegregation, "even for those schools that remain significantly segregated." [Freeman v Pitts 1992]

(shoegal: ok, ok. i'm not sure i have anything to say to this one. i mean, what can you say, really?)

THOMAS FAVORS STATE-SPONSORED RELIGION: Thomas has "advanced the position" that constitutionally mandated church/state separation applies "to the federal government, but not to individual states – a position that would allow Virginia, for example, to declare a state religion." He would allow individual states to "adopt particular religions and use tax money to proselytize for them." [Elk Grove v. Newdow, 2004]

(shoegal: is this taken out of context? is he really saying it's ok for states to adopt a state religion, or is he clearly delineating between federal vs. states' rights?)

SCALIA SUPPORTS SEX DISCRIMINATION: Scalia dissented from the Court's 7-to-1 decision that rejected the Virginia Military Institute's male-only admissions policy. He called the male-only admissions standard at the school a "well-rooted" tradition. [U.S. v. Virginia, 1996]

(shoegal: ok. he's a jerk.)

THOMAS WOULD ALLOW THE PRESIDENT TO EFFECTIVELY WAIVE DUE PROCESS RIGHTS: In last term's confrontation over detainees in the war on terror, eight of the nine Justices squarely rejected the Bush administration's sweeping claim that it could detain citizens indefinitely as enemy combatants based merely on the executive branch's assertion of enemy combatant status. "Only Thomas supported the Bush administration's position." He claimed "due process requires nothing more than a good-faith executive determination." [Rasul v. Bush, 2004]

(shoegal: ok, he's a jerk too.)

SCALIA AND THOMAS OPPOSE FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE: The Family and Medical Leave Act "guarantees most workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a loved one." Last year, the Court upheld the law, but Scalia and Thomas voted to strike it down, arguing that Congress exceeded its power in passing the law. [Nevada v. Hibbs, 2003]

(shoegal: again, is this a federal vs. states' rights issue? seems to me that they are distinguishing between disagreeing with the issue and law in and of itself but instead are coming down on a decision (or decision-making body) that had clearly overstepped its bounds.)

SCALIA AND THOMAS SUPPORT EXECUTING THE MENTALLY RETARDED: Scalia and Thomas dissented from the Court's 6-3 ruling that executing mentally retarded convicts constituted "cruel and unusual punishment." [Atkins v. Virginia, 2002]

(shoegal: ok, so they're both jerks.)

SCALIA AND THOMAS SUPPORT BRUTALITY AGAINST PRISONERS: A recent case considered a Louisiana inmate who "was shackled and then punched and kicked by two prison guards while a supervisor looked on." The beating left the inmate "with a swollen face, loosened teeth and a cracked dental plate." The Court ruled the inmate's treatment violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, but Scalia and Thomas dissented, arguing "the Eighth Amendment was not violated by the 'insignificant' harm the inmate suffered." In another case last year, Scalia and Thomas dissented from a 6-3 decision to ban the Alabama practice of chaining prisoners to outdoor ''hitching posts'' and abandoning them for hours without food, water, or a chance to use the bathroom. [Hudson v. McMillan, 1992; Hope v. Pelzer, 2002]

(shoegal: hmmm...this is a tough one. in my (admittedly feeble and weak-on-the-logic front) mind, it is to be expected that in prison life, there will be a certain amount of brutality. and so to some extent, the notion that a prisoner might suffer a 'swollen face, loosened teeth and a cracked dental plate' does not strike me as being horrific torture or gratuitous violence. i would have to understand the context of this situation - for example, did the prison guard just single out this prisoner and start beating on his head and teeth? did the prisoner attack the prison guard, and the guard only reacted in self-defense? while i, under most all imaginable circumstances, would not condone or approve of unwarranted violence against any individual, i cannot say that i can imagine prison life. i imagine that if it's anything like the hell i think it is, it is probably a situation in which very base and very unsavory elements of the human psyche and character emerge in order to survive. yes, i realize this is a bit of a cop out. but this is not an issue for which there is a simple rebuttal.)

SCALIA AND THOMAS SUPPORT CRIMINALIZING CONSENSUAL SEX: Scalia and Thomas dissented from the Court's 6-3 decision to strike down a Texas state "sodomy" law, "banning private consensual sex between adults of the same sex" and approvingly cited the execution of homosexuals during colonial times. Scalia lashed into the decision for pandering to the "so-called homosexual agenda." [Lawrence v. Texas, 2003]

(shoegal: ok, so they're both really jerks.)

SCALIA AND THOMAS OPPOSE FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION OF POLLUTERS: Scalia and Thomas voted to strip the EPA "of the authority to prevent damaging air pollution by industries when state agencies improperly fail to do so." They dissented from the Court's decision that the EPA could make polluting companies use the "best available control technology" to limit pollution when they built new facilities. [Alaska v. EPA, 2004]

(shoegal: i'm leaning towards this being a state vs. federal issue too.)

SCALIA AND THOMAS WOULD ALLOW STATES TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST THE DISABLED: After a Tennessee man was arrested for failure to appear in court because he was unwilling to crawl or be carried up the stairs to his second-story courtroom, Scalia and Thomas argued the state was right to arrest him because the Americans with Disabilities Act could only be enforced at the federal level. [Tennessee v. Lane, 2004]

(shoegal: this seems like a backwards state vs. federal issue. i'm confused by this. but i am not confused enough to say that if my ass were called into court, i'd be carried, crawl, or lick my way up the stairs to the second floor if it meant keeping my same ass out of jail.)

clearly i am not well informed on these cases. but the point i'm making is not so much the particular cases or judgements about these cases were right or wrong, and i am in no way, shape, or form trying to act as an apologist for either scalia or thomas. i find them both repugnant in many ways.

but if the democrats or democratic-leaning organizations (such as CAP) feel they must distort, embellish, or misrepresent the stands and positions that people take in order to either scare people away from or to turn people's opinions against the republican candidates or viewpoint, then the democrats are no better than the republicans were with their tactics in the last election (surely we havent already forgotten the swift boat ads, the gay marriage issue, or oh, i dont know, a word here or there bandied about regarding national security, terrorist attacks, and a faraway land called iraq).

and yes, i realize the republican strategy of solidifying their base and playing into everyone else's fears and anxieties won them the election.

that does not mean this is the strategy that will also work for democrats.

and even if - even IF - it did, would the win be worth it? becoming that which you despise in order to defeat it seems a bit self-defeating as well...does it not?

the top ten reasons to join a convent: or, internet dating gone awry

2004-12-10T10:06:00.000-05:00

per beejybone's brilliant suggestion, we're compiling a list of internet dating horror stories. post away, friends.

i'll get us started:

1) muslims beware of psychotic psychiatrists!

having emailed back and forth with a man who seemed exceptionally intelligent, insightful, and kind, i agreed to meet him.

we met in a rather crowded, very urban, and therefore very diverse, metropolitan grocery. customers can get coffee, drinks, and food and eat right in the grocery. and it's a happenin' scene - especially on weekends. being both young professionals who felt we had a good handle on current events, we were discussing something about the middle east.

the conversation invariably turned to september 11.

and this professional, polished, articulate mental health professional (he really was a psychiatrist!) started to go on a very animated, very loud diatribe about how all muslims should be exterminated. with raised, high-pitched voice, with arms flailing, the comments flew fast and furious: 'the world will be better without them!' and 'they're all responsible for killing 3000 americans!' and 'i'd be happy to see them all die - i'd even kill some myself if i could!'

i was not only completely offended at his ridiculous and racist comments, i was worried about how loudly he was making these comments. after all, i am more than sure there were very likely some muslims within earshot of this guy. so i was angry, horrified, and afraid.

shortly after this, i scooted us out of this downtown location asap - and i thought it was a good way to bring the night to an end. unfortunately, he didnt get the hint and kept wanting to do something else. needless to say, i wanted to cut the night as short as i could.

and as if this wasnt enough, he actually seemed surprised that i declined any further outings or contact of any kind. whatsoever. ick.

anyone else? come on, i'm sure there are even better stories still to come.

the cheese stands alone

2004-12-06T18:09:00.000-05:00

ok, perusing cnn.com (which i spend probably about 1/4 of any given day doing), i stumbled across this little gem:

THE TOP CHEESY MOMENTS IN FILM!

but this is not some list voted on by some raging film snobs. this was voted on by the people. the people who eat bread. in england.

yeah, warburtons, a british baker launched this survey and asked the breadivores to vote on their top three cheese picks from the film industry.

before i get to the joy that is that list, i am stopped short by the obvious question:

which is not, 'why in the world would a baker conduct such a survey?'

but rather, 'why in the world don't american bakers do something so very clevah?' i mean, i dont see wonder bread or peppridge farm asking us to form opinions on pressing phenomena of popular culture. why not? why is that everything cool is british (baking industries)?

about once a day i think just how very much better life would be if i lived in london. now here is tangible proof of just how very better it would be. indeed!

without any further ado, here is the list (as stolen from cnn.com) with my oh-so-very-witty commentary to follow:

The list of big cheese moments:

"Titanic": Leonardo DiCaprio's "I'm the king of the world!"

(shoegal: i take great pride in saying i have never, ever seen titanic. never. ever. i must be one of the three people left on the planet who have not. but me and the other two are pleased as punch that we didnt lose 3 hours of our lives like the rest of you saps. and this scene from the movie just makes me all the gladder (i know it's not a word, but i havent seen titanic and you have, so i am allowed to make up words.))

"Dirty Dancing": Patrick Swayze's "Nobody puts Baby in the corner."

(shoegal: sends shivers down the spine. literally. patrick swayze AND a line this gross just deserve no comment.)

"Four Weddings And A Funeral": Andie McDowell's "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed."

(shoegal: YES! YES! YES! this line almost but not quite ruins the movie. it gives me the squicks each and every single time i watch this film. i mean, andie mcdowell has to be one of the worst actresses on the planet. and her wooden, utter lack of feeling or emotion of any kind in the delivery of this line confirms that. plus anyone who is about to be alone with hugh grant would surely say, 'yes floppy, i am standing in the rain. and my hair is getting all frizzy. do let me into the flat now so you can towel dry me.' right?)

"Ghost": Demi Moore's "Ditto," to Patrick Swayze's "I love you."

(shoegal: patrick swayze and cheesy line again. note the pattern. no more comment necessary.)

"Top Gun": Val Kilmer to Tom Cruise: "You can be my wingman anytime."

(shoegal: yes, totally lame. but there are so very few instances when a guy will express emotion to another guy in a film that i'm willing to let this slide.)

"Notting Hill": Julia Roberts' "I'm just a girl ... standing in front of a boy ... asking him to love her."

(shoegal: anglophile that i am, my brits have let me down here. i adore this scene, this film, julia roberts, the whole nine. i will, inevitably, without a doubt, set-your-clock-by-it-consistent tear up in this scene. when i watch the dvd. which i own. enough said.)

"Independence Day": Bill Pullman's "Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"

(shoegal: have not seen and probably will never see because i hate big action-thriller movies where the earth gets blown up and some smart-mouthed punk has to come in to save our day.)

"Braveheart": Mel Gibson's "They may take our lives, but they will not take our freedom!"

(shoegal: am ashamed to say i havent seen this either. plus i think from what i have seen/heard about it, i'd be caught up in the passion of the patriotism and might let this comment slide. plus it was back in the day before mel gibson became a jesus freak, so even more latitude would be afforded him.)

"Jerry Maguire": Renee Zellweger to Tom Cruise: "You had me at hello."

(shoegal: adore this scene too, even though in my rational state, i will argue till the cows come home that anyone who claims they need someone else to 'complete' them deserves to end up with a toad. plus you gotta love RZ in this movie. too cute!)

"The Postman": A blind woman says to Kevin Costner: "You're a godsend, a savior." He replies: "No, I'm a postman."

(shoegal: i'm going to go out on a limb and assume that's a joke. surely that line is not really from a real movie. a movie that got made. a movie that a studio paid for. please and spare me are the only words that come to mind. though i think i had brain rot by just reading such drivel.)

since this list was fun and i'm all about the countdown shows that now pervade E! and VH-1, let's come up with our own list of something - suggestions welcome.

he wasnt on my ballot

2004-11-29T15:54:00.000-05:00

according to osama bin laden, we had our choice of a third candidate in the election: SATAN!

in a video aired on al-jazeera, al-zawahiri said: 'You can elect Bush, Kerry or Satan himself, it doesn't matter to us...What's important to us is the U.S. policies toward Muslims.'

(time out: policies towards muslims? who knew? i didnt realize the US had any policies towards muslims? or is that the problem? the utter and dire lack of such policies? and why would we have specific policies towards one religion and not others? i presume he means our 'policies' towards israel? please discuss amongst yourselves, or blog away, whichever you prefer.)

if i'd have known i could have voted for satan himself, my choice might have been easier. hahaha.

this is one of the funniest things i've heard out of the region since i learned of a high goverment post in the taliban-era afghani government - the minister for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice.

where was that job at my college career fair?

note to all: i've not gone all quiet. i've tried on many occasions to write up an analysis of the new bridget jones and what it suggests about being a swinging single gal. alas, blogger keeps eating my post. maybe it's saving me from making some humiliating public observations about my life/thoughts on this subject. more to follow...

oh woe is my computer

2004-11-15T21:59:00.000-05:00

yahoo! finally some great debate going on the blog. couldnt be happier. well done, fellas! let's see more!

as many of you have heard in endless detail, i have had my share of computer woes of late, thus no blogs from me in a week. after getting the loudest laptop in the history of mankind flown to me from sunny san diego (with the power cord arriving one lo-ong day later), i'm back in bidness, so to speak, and will be blogging later this week - there is just oh so much fodder from which to choose my topic.

but tonight is movie night for me - made all the better with my new glasses. yes, i broke down and finally bought my long-sought-after black chunky glasses. and i look every bit the nerd that you might imagine. for those who might be that interested, i did take a snappy snap of me in the new specs with my camera phone and can email it to you! who'd ever have thought it - little ol' sbb with her very own sporty specs, camera phone, and blog. welcome me to the 20th century!

more to come this week - but in the meantime, please debate away. i'm off to watch 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,' a jim carrey film with a title plucked straight out of my favorite alexander pope poem, 'eloisa to abelard.'

and i didnt need new glasses for most of you to yoke me and nerd in the same sentence, eh?

thine loom and churn must be still on the sabbath

2004-11-09T20:52:00.000-05:00

so...funny quote from ed helms, doing a bit on last wednesday's day-after-the-election episode of 'the daily show.' very funny. and i dont usually find him all that funny. stephen colbert is my man. but i digress.

the idea that american life might get ever so slightly more skewed towards religion made me think back to last week when i was discussing religion in school with a couple of friends while we watched the early election returns. and one friend was quite passionate about how important it was that the ten commandments be present - taught even - in schools. when i pushed him on why he felt so strongly, he said that the ten commandments were in reality not strictly religious tenets as much as they were basic instructions on how one should live one's life and treat others.

while i dont necessarily disagree with the core of what my friend said, i suppose i am a moral and ethical relativist (thanks, jc!). i pushed back with a 'so if we all agree that we can post the ten commandments in the classroom, then why cant i also insist we post excerpts from the torah, the bhagwad ghita, the book of mormon, or even the koran?'

equal time for all possible religions, right? fair is fair.

but of course no one really feels this way (and especially not the friends with whom i had this discussion). and even i dont feel this way. while i think if one religion gets airtime in a publicly-funded school, then ALL religions should get equal airtime. but the point here is that no religion should get ANY airtime in a publicly-funded school. this is precisely at the core of separation of church and state, yes? dont use my tax dollars to force a particular religious doctrine or core teaching on someone who may or may not share such beliefs. and i no more want to have my nephews be taught to live their lives and shape their hearts according to the teachings of a religion they dont know, dont understand, and perhaps wont ever believe than i want their religion being used as the basis to shape the minds and hearts of their classmates. and, as my other friend in this conversation pointed out, wasnt the freedom from having religion forced upon them and their children the very purpose for and rationale on which our forefathers and foremothers founded our great country? excellent point ('tis pity i didnt think of this myself. oiy!)

the teaching of religion or religions to children should be done in the home or in the church that the family belongs to or that the child chooses to pursue. because even if i did concede that some amount of religion (or, more aptly, my religion) could be taught in schools, then that begs the question as to who will establish the curriculum of these teachings -- who decides what interpretation to teach? who decides what i might or might not want my child to be exposed to? what gets censored? who makes that determination? these are NOT questions i want my public schools to answer for me and certainly not for any child i might ever have. see what a slippery slope we begin to slide down...?

but what strikes me as even more interesting and even more complex is that it seems that the more conservative a person politically - and by this i will say that i mean conservative republican (because, let's be blunt, conservative democrat is almost an oxymoron) - the more strongly they tend to feel about prayer and religion being an important part of schools' teachings.

i need to understand how this can reconciled with the notion that republicans, and in particular conservative republicans, believe so strongly that the federal and state government should be small, that government should not interfere with the choices a family makes on almost any other issue, and that the individual in our society should be given the freedom to live unencumbered by a bureaucratic, monolithic 'big government.' i cant quite wrap my brain around how many of the same people could be espousing that government really should take a backseat in so many issues except for religion.

it's too simple, and too much of a simplification, to suggest that people are just so blinded by the rightness of their own religious beliefs to exempt themselves from their own normal mode of thinking about and viewing the role of government to take such a position, isnt it? there has to be a logic here that i am utterly missing. someone please help me understand this line of thinking, because i admit - i am lost.

but i am chilled to my core at the notion, being covered heavily on websites, blogs, and the talking heads on tvs in the past few days, that this country is on the verge of a huge cultural divide if not out-and-out war. the pundits were saying over and over tonight that bush is, in his first seven days of having been elected by a relatively small majority of american voters, already setting the stage to restock his cabinet and the supreme court with religious conservatives that take bush's same 'my God is my guide' approach to goverment and governing that bush takes. just listen to what he's said publicly - he'll spend the 'capital' he feels he won in this election to make the choices he knows his fellow republicans will support in both the house and senate.

one part of me smiled and sighed a great breath of relief seeing the news tonight that ashcroft resigned. until i wondered by whom he might be replaced.

and on that cheery note, a good night to all.

no wine, please, we're american

2004-11-07T22:33:00.000-05:00

yes, another night with wine through a straw. somehow my good pal michelle thought this seemed like such a revelation of utter genius that i had devised a way to keep drinking my beloved red wine while not tainting my clear braces with that oh-so-attractive hint of burgundy discoloration. luverly. but that is one of the things i dearly love about my friend michelle - she always lets me know that the things i do that make me feel the stupidest are actually things that she thinks makes me very clevah. merci, mon amie!

speaking of wine and such, i had a great wine tonight and a dog of a wine. the winner of the bunch was a very nice 2002 merlot from jacob's creek.

the less than great wine was also australian - a 2002 shiraz from kalbarri. please friends, spare yourself. it's almost indescribably unpalatable. and coming from me - a girl who drinks her wine through a straw - that's saying something. whew. that dog is going down the drain toot sweet.

(if anyone writes to me telling me i should have written 'toute de suite' instead, i'm going to make sure you get a bottle of yummy kalbarri from me for christmas.)

well, while we're on a food roll here - pun intended! - i'm going to make this blog into a food review of my weekend food revelries. the restaurant references will only be helpful to those of you reading this blog in the greater cincinnati area, so my apologies to my friends out there in those glam locations like collegeville, exton, malvern, easton, delaware county, and darien - but all the more reason to visit me, and we can visit (or avoid) these places when you're here.

double dragon: szechuan broccoli with shrimp. this is my new favorite meal in the world. i adore broccoli and shrimp just about more than anything in the world, and the coupling of them together in the szechuan sauce at DD is food nirvana, so far as i'm concerned. and the folks at DD are so chummy with my family that they actually will make the SBwS extra spicy for me. i can't say much for DD's soups though as both recently - the hot and sour as well as the wonton - have both been disappointing. i've never quite had such a flavorless wonton soup. i think i might talk to them about jazzing that up a smidge. because aside from that, DD is one of my favorite holes in the wall in northern kentucky. plus, you simply must love a chinese restaurant that has a drive thru.

http://www.citybeat.com/gbase/Restaurant/RestaurantListing?restaurant=Double%20Dragon

the county seat: sunday brunch. this is not my new favorite meal in the world. the sunday brunch, priced at $9.95 is so-so at best. as far as breakfast went, it only had: scrambled eggs; (very yummy) hashbrown casserole; way, way, way overcooked, dried-out goetta (the horror, the horror); sausage links; NO BACON - wha? huh?; biscuits; sausage gravy; loads of pastries and cakes; and some lunchy stuff that i didn't bother to check out bc sunday is all about breakfast.

i will give them props, though, for a damn tasty bread pudding. but that's my second venture to this cute little restaurant in burlington, and both times i've been rather underwhelmed with the food.

another set of props is due to them for having some baked goods and candies to buy and take away. i've never in my life been able to buy fresh buckeyes in a store. they were good, but they weren't as peanut buttery as buckeyes should be. so were they worth the whopping $.59/piece price? yes, of course. were they as good as my mom's? no way, jose. and i mean that literally in florence. teehee.

but the county seat deserves the biggest credit for giving me the flashback of my life. in their candy/bakery take-away, they had haystacks! that's the little concoction of chocolate, peanut butter, and oats that is right up there with buckeyes as far as i'm concerned. but more than that, my friends, cooking haystacks was what got me to the kentucky state finals of the 4H cooking competition when i was a mere 4th grader. come on now - i know both shelly and michelle were the lucky recipients of some of my 4th grade cooking prowess. yeah, you remember.

http://www.boonecountyheritage.org/content/Services/PlacesToEat.asp

wild oats: assorted cheese, olives, and bread. ohhh, how i miss fresh fields in philadelphia. wild oats is owned by the same company (whole foods is what i think we're meant to call all of their stores now, thank you very much). but wild oats could fit in the prepared food section of the fresh fields in philadelphia. not exactly, but it sort of feels like it. but they do have a decent cheese department - not great, but ok, and friendly (read: cute) help willing to answer any cheese-related questions (i didnt push my luck). i walked away with some boursin (more for my (yum!) salt bagels that i bought than for regular cheese consumption); maytag blue (good, would have preferred their english stilton, but i could not find a piece for less than $10, and i wasnt feeling the need for stilton that badly); and some reblochon. anyone who knows me even slightly knows for my adoration of the strong, smelly cheeses. this one did not let me down. though i think it might have been ever so slightly past its prime. ah well. still very yummy in my book. me and the travelling gnome with our smelly cheeses. mmm, mmm good.

wild oats simply must do better with their prepared foods selection though. it's shameful. and when covington gets its own wild oats - go covington city commissioners, fulfill that promise!! - i will be the obnoxious customer who will fill out the comment cards that whole foods always wants its customers to fill out. yep, that'll be me. the future manager of a starbucks will be filling out her comment card at wild oats while wearing her birkenstocks and patchouli. i can see it now.

ok, clearly it's bedtime. robert palmer is singing 'she makes my day,' and i'm feeling e'er so slightly weepy thinking of memories associated with this song and the fact that poor robert palmer died last year. such a pity. such a voice.

drinking wine through a straw

2004-11-05T22:35:00.000-05:00

these dahmn braces! i cannot wait to get them removed and i can go back to drinking my merlot like a normal human being.

(is it a truth universal that drinking through a straw makes you drunk faster, or am i just psychosomatically making myself expeditiously inebriated? say that five times quickly!)

speaking of truths universal and such, my mind tonight can't stray far from a conversation i had with a friend earlier this evening and which seems to have followed me around all evening as i went to the gym (go me!) and watched bill o'reilly and as i came home and watched hannity and colmes while eating my szechuan broccoli. [do not ask why all the fox news tonight. it was coincidental, i think.]

so anyhow, the topic was gay marriage and in particular, john kerry's stand on gay and lesbian marriage.

a lot of press is out today that president clinton, while advising kerry on how to conduct himself in the latter stages of the campaign, encouraged kerry to come out in favor of the 11 states which had ballot measures to prohibit same-sex marriages. specifically, in kentucky, the language was so confusing that you had to vote 'no' if you were, in fact, a-ok with the idea of same-sex marriage. here in our great commonwealth, the ballot was a yes or no vote on whether or not state law should be ammended to prohibit same-sex marriages. so if you agreed that such unions were fine in your book, you actually had to vote no so as to defeat the measure to ammend the state's laws.

[just a brief interlude: WHY oh WHY must legislation be worded in such a way that many, if not a majority, of the electorate can't quite tell what position they should take to vote their conscience? i am just cynical enough to suspect this is quite intentional. even my poor mom, one of the smartest women i know, voted the opposite of what she really meant to vote because of how the wording on the ballot was construed.]

so back to kerry, clinton, and same-sex marriage.

clinton advised that kerry come out in favor of all the on-the-ballot laws to make such unions illegal. clinton, purportedly, felt that this would engender more support amongst the more socially conservatives among the democrats and potentially even engender support among relatively liberal republicans who, while they disliked bush, disliked kerry's social views even more. kerry refused to back such legislation, even though he personally disagreed with the notion of same-sex marriage.

[point of clarification: kerry has asserted that he is in favor of same-sex civil unions. it's marriage that he does not condone among same-sex couples.]

while kerry hasn't clearly articulated why he is in favor of unions and not marriage, i am not as struck by this (rather unfortunately glaring) ommission on his part; i am, though, struck by the power of kerry's conviction and his fortitude on this particular issue.

there is no doubt in my mind that kerry would have won more votes had him clearly articulated some less liberal views on social issues. even if he'd moved his positions ever so slightly to the right, he still would have been miles and miles left of bush's views on any social issue one could imagine. so the fact that he would not moderate his view on same-sex marriage and would not sell out his public position in order to (potentially) gain more votes makes me respect him all the more.

but more importantly, it raises the question in my mind: are there other issues that kerry simply would not compromise himself on in order to win this election?

as we read article after article, hear pundit after pundit, and hear armchair quarterback after another dissect kerry's campaign and highlight every perceived failure, i am struck by learning that kerry, despite the strong urging of his closest advisors, would not compromise the notion that coming out in favor of the anti-gay marriage legislation was tantamount to 'legislative gay bashing' (as he referred to the 1996 defense of marriage act, as quoted on salon.com by geraldine sealey in her article, 'thank you, john kerry' 11/5/04).

to me, this exemplifies that kerry is a complex man with a complex set of ideas. while he might personally find an issue problematic or troublesome - such as gay marriage - he understands and respects that the greater good might necessitate refining or broadening that opinion. this is NOT flip flopping. that is a vast oversimplification of this means of addressing an issue. intelligent folk understand that while an idea might be good (or bad) for me personally, the greater good necessitates that i don't just think in terms of myself but in terms of society, culture, or the world at large. such thinking is vastly more rational, vastly more sound, and vastly more intellectual than a one-size-fits-all, my-God-is-my-guide way of looking at one's personal life and one's public agenda and about life in general.

while i was not kerry's most fervent supporter during this campaign - hardly, one of my dear friends actually said i morphed into a republican there for a while (not true!) - i am coming to the opinion that he was much more logical, sound, and right than i ever gave him credit for being.

and while he did get my vote last tuesday, i am saddened to think of those who now, like me, may re-evaluate kerry's views in light of what we will now learn about how he conducted his campaign and realize - tragically too late - that he was a far better candidate and possible president than the majority of voting americans gave him credit for being.

ps -

this is a hilarious site. but please - my bush-supporting friends out there - do NOT watch this unless you are in a particularly open-minded and good-spirited frame of mind:

http://filmstripinternational.com

this is in no way, shape, or form kind at all to bush. don't say i didn't warn you.

a big thanks to ms shelly for always being the source of the good anti-bush rhetoric out on the web.

pps -

why won't sean hannity let anyone speak? he had geraldine ferraro on tonight - geraldine ferraro for cripes sake! - and he wouldn't let her finish her sentences without jumping all over her to interrupt. someone please, muzzle him.

and while i'm at it

2004-11-04T11:35:00.000-05:00

ok, i have wallowed enough.

i made the decision a while ago to stick with my instinctual beliefs and, perhaps more importantly, my heart, and vote democrat in the election.

so john kerry and john edwards got my vote.

they got my vote with a whole slew of other democrats who lost their bids on tuesday as well. and rather than feel bitter and dejected, i felt motivated while reading through some political quotations this morning. i felt especially good after seeing the following:

jesse jackson:

"In politics, an organized minority is a political majority."

to that end, i marched myself right over to google, did a search on the democratic party in kentucky, and i signed up as a volunteer for the kentucky democratic party. for any of you feeling equally inspired to work towards the upcoming elections in 2006 and 2008, do check out the following and sign up to volunteer:

http://www.kydemocrat.com/index.php?display=Home

and in the spirit of doing good works, i have also signed up to do the upcoming thanksgiving day race - in honor and memory of thom, who, as you many of you know, did this race every year. i'm trying to corrall the family to join me on turkey day for the 6.2 mile walk/run, but please anyone else who might be interested in a fun time that will mean the world to me, check out the thanksgiving day race website:

http://www.thanksgivingdayrace.com/2004/home.asp

thanks, all.

that pretty much says it all...

2004-11-04T09:40:00.000-05:00

from john kenneth galbraith...

"There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose."

i will not allow covington to be their shopping mall for sex and drugs

2004-11-01T21:34:00.000-05:00

i thought that's what newport was for...

hah hah!

in all seriousness, the quote is from mr alex edmondson, who is running for re-election tomorrow for covington city commissioner. and while i've done a good job of waffling around about which candidates i will support tomorrow, i am pleased to say i will definitely be supporting edmondson.

first of all, he's got the following things going for him:

1) he's helped to clean up loads of old, blight-y buildings around the city - and god knows we need as much of that as possible.

2) he's targeting in on certain areas of covington, including my little piece of paradise - austinburg. and he wants to get a park in this neighborhood - wonderful idea. hopefully that will give the kids somewhere to play besides my front porch where they vandalize my property and smash my plant boxes.

3) he included a snapshot of the cock and bull tavern in his literature. gotta love a man who includes my favorite pub in covington on his campaign materials.

4) he came to my house tonight. and i am not ashamed to admit that the site of a very young, very enthusiastic, and very cute politician at my front door is just about all the convincing i need to vote for someone. thanks to mr alex, i was driven to distraction all evening as i shopped through the latonia krogers imagining just how very lovely it would be to be a politician's wife.

[pshaw! on all of you who think i'm being serious. all who know me know just how very seriously i take my politics.]

so, with that being said, please check out my new boyfriend's website:

www.alexedmondson.com

and for you covington residents out there, be sure to give him some serious consideration at the polls tomorrow.

ahhhh...just listening to ella fitzgerald singing 'i love paris.' between this music and my new screensaver of the medici fountain at the luxembourg gardens in paris, i might as well be saying 'oh la la, ma chere' while spreading nutella on a baguette while wearing a beret. francophile, i am.

and while it's no paris, to be sure, maybe covington has more going for than i gave it credit for.

ps - BIG, WONDERFUL happy anniversary wishes to mr stephen and ms shelly!

pps - new great blog i'm happy to plug: http://ponderon.blogspot.com/

ppss - very interesting article passed along from my friend, mr jc, who likes to share good reads with me: http://amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html

if you're looking to go on a sex tour, don't go to ohio

2004-10-19T10:33:00.000-04:00

truer words have never been spoken, friends.

hahahah.

actually, jon stewart spoke these particular words on last night's episode of TDS whilst trying to explain where they'd been for the past 10 days and why we could all stop waiting, and wishing, and hoping they'd stop showing repeats. guess they've been gearing up for the next two weeks.

but while we're on the great-quotations-in-unlikely-places tip, here's a little gem i stumbled on last night while reading 'the third person' by henry james (in case you don't know - like i didnt - that this story is about two - dare i say it? - spinsters):

'The Misses Frush were not vulgar; they had drunk deep of the cup of singleness and found it prevailingly bitter; they were not unacquainted with solitude and sadness, and they recognized with due humility the supreme opportunity of their lives.'

because i had a couple requests for more information on my puttanesca, or as stephen so delicately called it - whore's sauce (ahem. stephen, it is listed in the 'joy of cooking' as streetwalker's sauce, thank you very much.), here's the gist of what i did:

sauteed in EV olive oil an enormous amount of fresh garlic, anchovies (yes! the more, the better - i love them!), oregano (which i insist on pronouncing as the british do - oar-ay-gahn-no. say it with me.), fresh parsley, black olives (not good oil cured ones, though, so there was some flavor lacking here), an equally enormous amount of capers (couldn't get those ones covered in salt like i could in philadelphia, alas), and a large can of peeled tomatoes that i crushed in hand.

i must say, the puttanesca is even better on day two. seemed somehow even more flavorful if that was possible. i put it over some cod that i'd cooked in some more garlic and oregano. perfecto. call me mary ann esposito.

and some recent (CHEAP!) wine finds:

yellow tail makes a nice merlot/cabernet which is also better on the second day - and a steal at 5.99 at krogers.

brown brothers makes a delicious shiraz (2001) - this came to me compliments of my australian wine expert and drinking buddy, linder (or to you folks without the heavy aussie accents, linda). this was also a relative bargain at about $12 also at kroger.

we will draw no conclusions about me having discussed being single, eating, and drinking a lot of wine in one blog. there is no connection whatsoever. none. at all. really.

a plea for literature - a plate of puttanesca

2004-10-17T22:40:00.000-04:00

one of my friends suggested that i take a break from the political talk and return to an earlier passion - literature. i'll let it go at face value. i'll assume his suggestion was in no way, shape, or form motivated by his utter revulsion that i have any (however slight) sympathetic leanings towards bush. heh.

but i'm feeling somewhat unable to talk about literature right now. i think this stems from several reasons:

1) i've made it a goal for my life that i will read all of henry james. i adore henry james. adore him. that doesn't mean he's easy to read. i'm making my way through 'the beast in the jungle' at the moment. yes, i realize this is a short story, and i should be able to 'make my way through it' in one sitting - alas, one sitting for a work by james could last for several days. and even though i have loads of free time, even i don't have that much time on my hands. so it's slow going. i still recommend james, though, so do read him whenever you get a chance (my favorite work of his that i've read is still The Ambassadors).

2) in talking with one of my friends, for the first time in my life, i heard someone say that shakespeare was "boring." pshaw! long - yes. intricate - i hear you. cumbersome language - gotcha. boring - you've got to be kidding me. and this perhaps struck such a chord because i was at the time retelling the premise of Othello, which surely must be at the very tippy top of my list of favorite works of all time, and especially of works of shakespeare. i've leave this issue go so that you all might ponder the notion that shakespeare is boring.

3) derrida died. many of you may not know or may, more to the point, not care who derrida is, or should i say, was. he was a theorist. and to be blunt about it, he (along with about 20 or so other theorists) made my graduate school experience unpleasant. heh. that's putting it mildly. but there is a rather interesting piece in today's New York Times about the role of theorists and how the particular wave of theorists - of which derrida was at the very crest of said wave - are acceptable insofar as their philosophies coincide with social and cultural change. a bit of the chicken and egg, i know and grant you. an interesting example in the article is that deconstruction and other (literary) theories came to prominence (and by 'prominence' - i mean to say they were embraced by loads of wonky literature professors and english grad students who preferred to navel-gaze and ponder the binaries that constitute our existence than actually to pick up a literary work and read it) as events unfolded in china, the soviet union, and eastern europe. that is, in effect, it became easy to speak about deconstruction in a literary sense when deconstruction in quite a literal sense was going on all over the world.

but how does this keep me from talking about literature? i'm not sure. maybe it just harkens back bad grad school memories - and grad school did little more than confirm for me that i have nothing intelligent to say about literature. heh.

if anyone wants the article, let me know.

so rather than be overly literary or analytical today, i decided to make some puttanesca sauce -- err, gravy (sorry to my italian friend, david gallagherio). and it was damn fine. if any of you is looking for a nice and spicy italian meal, i'll happily make more of my puttanesca. i think it might become my new specialty. in my current sorry state of a kitchen, it's easy for me to forget that i'm actually quite a good cook when i set my mind to it. and, to boot, now my house smells of garlic. ahhh...the smell of heaven.

you're partisan - what's the word? - uh, hacks

2004-10-17T22:14:00.000-04:00

ok, we all know just how very much i adore tim russert. but after last week, jon stewart is giving tim a run for his money as the love of my life. a snippet from salon.com's 'war room' column describes his appearance on 'crossfire' last week. you go, jon. tell that stupid tucker carlson who's boss.

Jon Stewart: Crossfire "hurting America"

"I think you're a lot more fun on your show," said Tucker Carlson to "Crossfire" guest Jon Stewart this afternoon. "And I think you're as much of a dick on your show as on any other," Stewart shot back. It wasn't the faux avuncularity we've come to expect from Stewart on "The Daily Show" but there, of course, he's playing a role. Here he was himself -- and he wasn't buying any of it.

From the moment Stewart sat down he made no secret of how repugnant he found the show. In fact, he said to Carlson and co-host Paul Begala that he had been so hard on the show he felt it was his duty to come on and say to their faces what he has said to friends and in interviews. What he said was that their show was "hurting America," and he was being only slightly hyperbolic. Stewart told them that when America needed journalists to be journalists they had instead chosen to present theater.

Carlson, trying to affect an air of dry amusement that a comedian would presume to lecture him, important pundit that he is, but looking as if his bow-tie were about to start spinning, could barely contain his outrage. In an absolutely mind-boggling moment, Carlson tried to counter Stewart's criticism by pointing out that during John Kerry's recent appearance on "The Daily Show," Stewart asked the candidate softball questions. "If you want to measure yourself against a comedy show," Stewart said, "be my guest."

Paul Begala tried to put a more conciliatory face on things by pointing out that theirs was a "debate" show. Stewart was having none of it. "I would love to see a real debate show," he said. And went on to tell them that instead of holding politicians' feet to the fire by asking tough question, "you're part of their strategy. You're partisan -- what's the word? -- uh, hacks."

It's almost a cliche by now to talk about "The Daily Show" being more trusted than real newscasts, but Stewart showed why. He pointed out to Carlson that he had asked Kerry if he really were in Cambodia but "I don't care," and when Carlson asked him what he thought about the "Bill O'Reilly vibrator flap," Stewart said, "I don't." It was as concise a demonstration of the triviality of the media as you could hope for.

"I thought you were going to be funny," Carlson said toward the end of the interview. Stewart responded, "No, I'm not going to be your monkey." And that was what was so bracing.

Stewart's "Crossfire" appearance is going to generate talk about how prickly he was, how he wasn't "nice" like he is on "The Daily Show." But prickliness is just what was needed. If you've built your reputation as a satirist pointing out how the media falls down on the job, you're not going to make yourself a part of their charade.

I've heard people talk about "The Daily Show" as an oasis of sanity, a public service. I couldn't agree more. Stewart's appearance on "Crossfire" was another public service. He went on and acted as if the show's purpose really was to confront tough issues, instead of being the political equivalent of pro wrestling. Given a chance to say absolutely what he thought, Stewart took it. He accomplished what almost never happens on television anymore: He made the dots come alive.

-- Charles Taylor

and a big thanks to shelly for providing a link to video of the brouhaha:
http://www.ifilm.com/filmdetail?ifilmid=2652831&htv=12

i'm going to disneyworld!

2004-10-12T13:25:00.000-04:00

no - not really. but i am going to florida. boca raton, actually - oh la la. and then when i return, i will jet off to lovely cleveland for two days. but at least there i have a planned trip to the rock and roll hall of fame! hurrah. and i'll be back in time to spend another lovely weekend in covington. though greg was kind enough to point out www.site59.com for me. nice, cheap weekend trips. do check it out.

also just noticed that laura bush will be on larry king tonight. i love laura. i love that she's a former teacher and librarian. and i love her because she is tangible proof that george bush made one good decision in the whole of his life thus far.

ok - off to the airport - ta, friends.

to set the record straight

2004-10-11T15:55:00.000-04:00

because it is being so grossly misportrayed around the internet today, here is the excerpt from the NY times magazine article about kerry:

"But when you listen carefully to what Bush and Kerry say, it becomes clear that the differences between them are more profound than the matter of who can be more effective in achieving the same ends. Bush casts the war on terror as a vast struggle that is likely to go on indefinitely, or at least as long as radical Islam commands fealty in regions of the world. In a rare moment of either candor or carelessness, or perhaps both, Bush told Matt Lauer on the "Today" show in August that he didn't think the United States could actually triumph in the war on terror in the foreseeable future. "I don't think you can win it," he said -- a statement that he and his aides tried to disown but that had the ring of sincerity to it. He and other members of his administration have said that Americans should expect to be attacked again, and that the constant shadow or danger that hangs over major cities like New York and Washington is the cost of freedom. In his rhetoric, Bush suggests that terrorism for this generation of Americans is and should be an overwhelming and frightening reality.

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apolcalyptic worldview. "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance," Kerry said. "As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.""

("Kerry's Undeclared War," Matt Bai, The New York Times Magazine, October 10, 2004, 44-45.)

please - someone, anyone - explain to me how this is being distorted to suggest that kerry says terrorism is the same as prostitution or gambling. because if someone can do that, then i will say that i learned nothing in all my years studying and teaching the english language.

ny times: bastion of the left or inexplicably high kerry content today?

2004-10-10T22:02:00.000-04:00

well, a few of you probably know me well enough to know that my sundays are pretty much filled up by reading my new york times (after, and only after, getting my fill of the sexiest man alive, tim russert, on sunday mornings).

today my sunday was pretty much chock-a-block full of NYT with a brief break mid-afternoon to visit the wallace woods historic home tour (it's nice to live so near to such a cool street of gorgeous old homes).

if anyone else saw today's NYT, it was probably not hard to see that it was all-kerry-all-the time. there was a lengthy article about his relatively humble background and upbringing - which flies in the face of the notion that he, not unlike his sparring mate, was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. the article makes an interesting case that he benefitted from the wealth (and kindness) of his extended family. and that his relatively modest way of living extended well into his career in the senate when he did not own his own home in either massachusetts or washington and often stayed with friends and supporters in both locations. maybe this makes him seem like a mooch to some - to me, i like to see it as a man of the people, living among his people (haha! even i dont believe that!). but it's an interesting article nonetheless.

more interesting, though, was the extensive article in the NYT magazine (kerry is on the cover as well). the article was the result of three interviews with kerry as well as interviews with various legislators who have served with him as well as some of his campaign advisors. the article was, for the most part, favorable but was not without criticism of kerry. an interesting read, to be sure, and makes BY FAR the strongest case for kerry on foreign policy - and in particular on the war on terror - that i've read anywhere. do read it if you can. if you cant get a copy of it or access it online, let me know. it's good enough that i'll happily share my copy with anyone.

but the presence of both of these rather extensive articles brought to mind a bit of a spirited 'debate' i'd had with a friend lately regarding the NYT supposed liberal bias. somehow, i'd missed this altogether in all my years of being in tune to the world around me. but the appearance of these two articles made me wonder how much effort/pressure the NYT was putting into getting kerry elected.

this thinking raises all kinds of questions:

1) is this wrong? should major journalistic endeavors (be they newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, what have you) take such a firm stand on an issue, a position, a person? does it cease to be journalism if it does take a stand? if so, why?

2) does it mitigate the inherent problem of taking sides if there is a relative equal number of such outlets for each side? does that balance the equation so as to make the playing field somewhat level? does fox news equalize cnn? does the NYT equalize the washington post? newsweek and us news? etc., etc.

3) should we care? some (cynical folks like me) would argue that there is no such thing as truly objective and unbiased reporting anymore - therefore this is a moot point to discuss. for instance, bob woodward's (and carl bernstein's) investigative reporting brought a rather abrupt end to nixon's political career. yet woodward's 'plan of attack' and 'bush at war' were touted and, to some extent, even endorsed by the bush administration. is this a case of his being so unbiased as to be non-partisan (brings down one republican president while extolling the war skills of another?) or has he swung from one extreme of the pendulum to ther other? and i'm willing to concede this might be a bad example because whenever he appears on the chat shows, woodward seems fairly non-partisan, but his most noteworthy accomplishments in his career seem to beg the question.

ahh...sunday night musings on politics while listening to tony bennett. it doesn't get much better than this, folks.

(if anyone is interesting in reliving friday's debate in a retelling done by a salon.com writer, please check out the following story. i feel somewhat bad pointing out that joyce mcgreevy does a better job of keeping me amused than did the actual debaters...quite funny. laugh out loud funny at times (if you're a kerry supporter, that is.).)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/10/09/blow_by_blow/index.html

shoe count: 2 - debate winner: kerry?

2004-10-09T17:05:00.000-04:00

yes, two new pairs of shoes made it home with me today. damn lazarus macys.

quick descrip for those who care: one pair of high (4+") camel leather heels (made by steve madden, who i am now convinced makes the absolutely most comfortable heels around today - send me free samples, and i'll be happy to say more, steve madden people) and one pair of lower (3"?) black leather mules with cute little leather bow near toes (made by nine west, ok, so you gotta go cheap sometimes). i'm a suckah for the bows and the heels.

so the debate: who won?

clearly in my mind, i think i know who won, so i was mystified this morning to read accounts that most who were polled felt it was a dead even draw. were these people watching the same debate as me? were they drunk while watching? was i?

i will admit a serious bias: i admire people who are well-spoken, articulate, and who attempt to speak clearly and correctly. old english teachers die hard, you know. and i will also admit a bias in favor of someone who clearly seems presidential.

to me, kerry seems ever the statesman. bush still seems the cowboy. kerry seems worldly and able to move in diverse circles while speaking intelligently and informed about a whole host of issues. i still can't shake the suspicion that bush can barely veer off of the script he's been forced to rehearse for the days leading up to the debate.

some specific points that rubbed me the wrong way:

bush on:
mistakes he's made (come on! 'fess up to something! and don't scapegoat people you've appointed as being 'mistakes'!)

bush on:
stem cell research (does he not get this at all?)

kerry on:
stem cell research (don't just throw out the names of celebrities who are speaking out on behalf of this - talk about the real and widespread benefits this research can achieve)

bush on:
future nominations to the supreme court (did anyone else have a serious case of the icks when he said he wouldn't name names because he wanted them all still to vote for him?)

bush on:
future nominations to the supreme court (dred scott? huh? wha?)

kerry on:
too many topics to list - STOP wasting time refuting the waffling - nail bush on the facts, and the waffling issue goes away by default. i was tired at the end of the debate hearing about how kerry wasn't a waffler - i wanted him to prove that to me with what he said. unfortunately, he blew that opportunity one too many times.

bush on:
winking to someone in the audience. who was he winking at? because when CNN cut to laura in the beginning, she was way in the back, and far out of winking distance. so what was the deal?

bush on:
jumping up to speak/rebut before kerry was done or his time was up. talk about making him look defensive. bad form, george.

bush on:
jumping charlie gibson's shit. what was that about? doesn't he get that that kind of behavior makes him look bad? bad form again, george.

i could go on and on. i'll spare you the boredom. clearly i thought kerry performed better - and while on the issues, i'm still not sure he and i are on the same page - i'm starting to think more and more that i'd like him in the office of president than bush.

others' reactions to the debate?...

pumpkin spice latte: or, how i learned to stop hating my job while almost getting killed

2004-10-08T16:33:00.000-04:00

fall is here, my friends!

the pumpkin spice latte has arrived at starbucks!

and the countdown begins until the egg nog latte makes its annual appearance. ah, the nectar of the gods....come on, greg. i know you feel me on this.

so yes, i was having such an utter crap day at work today that i decided to take a little breaky-break and go get some starbucks. only for those of you who know covington, this is not as easy as it sounds since the only starbucks in this area is attached the convention center. so i parked way over yonder near the courthouse and walked over. and on my return, while savoring the pumpkin spice goodness of my latte, i crossed scott st against the light.

yes, my big city livin almost did me in folks. a car came careening around the bend and did not slow down and even seemed to speed up as it approached me while mid-way across the street.

i could see the headlines now: dumb yuppie dies while drinking starbucks on way back to SUV. ah, the cliche that is my life!

but onto the important things: the debate.

yes, tonight is it. the debate bush did not want. i cannot wait to see how this goes.

even mr bill o'reilly said last night on 'the daily show' (yes, he was on both 'the today show' and 'the daily show' - i wonder, was he also on 'the tonight show' too? teehee!) that if bush loses the debate tonight, he'll lose the election.

every once in a while, bill o'reilly says something that makes sense.

handy political/movie tip of the week:

turner classic movies is showing prominent politicians' favorite movies on upcoming thursdays @ 10pm.

last night was john edwards: 'dr strangelove: or, how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb' (the best movie title ever)

upcoming thursdays include:

john mccain, 'paths of glory'
joe biden, 'dead poets society' (GO JOE! old delawarians and fellow blue hens die hard.)
orin hatch, 'to kill a mockingbird' (at least he has the right idea about something.)

ok, kids. it's quittin' time here at the quarry.

why dave chappelle is the funniest man alive

2004-10-07T14:33:00.000-04:00

if you spend any amount of time watching his show, i know you'll agree.

but i am still doubling over with laughter recalling his recent send-up of 'law and order.'

have you seen it? please tell me you have.

wheeee....just thinking of the rim of the glass and a big old 'FIF'...if you've seen it, you're with me. i'm crying. (shout out here to mr stephen, who is with me in thinking this was some of the funniest shit evah on tv. shelly - i still dont get how you dont agree with us.)

if you've seen this online anywhere, please let me know.

it's not on the comedy central site. though i might have gotten lost in a jon stewart lusty haze whilst looking there.

yes, i am sitting on the fence with bill o'reilly

2004-10-07T11:12:00.000-04:00

i mentioned in my first entry that politics is an interest of mine.

that's kind of like saying katie couric likes mascara. or britney spears likes skanky boys (justin excepted, of course).

but so yeah, i like politics.

and seeing as how it's the height of the political season with the election coming up in a mere 27 days, it's all-politics-all-the-time around my abode these days.

and this morning i saw mr bill o'reilly on 'the today show.' he's making the rounds to promote his new book, 'the o'reilly factor for kids.'

and while for many years, i thought bill o'reilly had probably reached the apex of his career whilst hosting 'inside edition,' some friends (shout out to my republican friends!) recently have made me reconsider bill and indeed all of fox news in general. and in the overall spirit of fairness and open-mindedness, i'll admit i watch it fairly often now. (dont ask me to define 'fairly' in that sentence.)

and he's interesting in a provocative and, yes, i'll (grudgingly) admit it, thought-provoking way. my thoughts may sometimes be 'he's a nimrod' or 'what kind of jackass would actually say that?' but still thoughts are being provoked. i'm a literalist. forgive me (shout out to my democratic friends there!).

[note: who saw naomi wolf on the ORF a couple weeks ago? she was a bit of a flake, unfortunately, but it was a most interesting discussion on the role women are playing in iraq and for the US.]

and today was no different (only without the nimrod or jackass comments from me). he's written a book that parents should read and then pass onto their kids and discuss. i'll admit i haven't read it myself yet, but i like his approach even if it seems a bit simple-minded (dont do drugs!, stay away from 'bad' kids!, avoid becoming an alcoholic, and so on). but in theory, i like the idea.

i do not like that bill o'reilly appropriates mr rogers. he admitted this on the show today and even is in a sweater on the cover of the book (at least not a cardigan, though). come on, bill. no one really wants to be your neighbor. heehee.

but matt lauer couldnt let him get away without asking about the election and showing some disbelief that bill claims he's an undecided voter. bill claimed he'd vote for kerry if kerry answered his 15 questions. [for those who dont know, bill interviewed bush and asked 15 questions; bill wants to ask 15 questions to kerry as well. presumably not the same 15.] i must have still been in a 7:45-in-the-morning-haze because i find it hard to believe bill would say he would vote for kerry only if kerry answered his questions.

and matt, my dear sweet matt, tried to get bill to agree to a new years resolution (you go, matt. get a jump start on that new year) - never to say 'shut up' again on air. matt, being a dad himself you know, said in the spirit of writing a book for kids, being a good role model for them and all, bill should use more appropriate language and to speak in a more dignified manner, even when he disagreed.

bill claimed he'd only told people to shut up 3 times on the show. granted, one of those times was to someone who'd just lost a family member in the twin towers, but you know, what's a little harsh language here and there when it's situationally appropriate?

matt claimed they had 29 instances 'shut up' on the show.

maybe we should look at www.factcheck.org or in dick cheyney's world, www.factcheck.com - which, in fact, is george soros's anti-bush site. way to go, dick!!

my first blog entry

2004-10-07T10:29:00.000-04:00

welcome to my blog!

i am a woman of many interests and i love to talk about these things - so a blog is a natural for me, right?

here are some main interests of mine:

politics
pop culture
music
shoes
literature
travel
art
shopping
wine (who am i kidding? all alcohol - especially those new dandy fruitty vodkas!)
food (the good, the bad, the ugly)

though i never met a topic i didn't have an opinion on, so i probably won't limit myself here either.