Bye bye Kelloggs

Yum, Roundup-Ready beets for sugar. Because you always want to eat something with an adjective that refers to pesticide. I guess this means no more Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies or Coco Puffs for me. The Organic Consumers Association has called for a boycott of Kellogg’s products because the company indicated it won’t have a problem [...]

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Rice-A-Roni is Armenian

Today, I heard this great story on NPR about the origin of Rice-A-Roni. I haven’t made Rice-A-Roni in years, but I remember liking it. Of the woman who created the inspirational recipe, the story goes: “Mrs. Captanian, I had a liking for her right away. So we moved in. Tommy would work until about 7 [...]

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I Hate Loafers

There are certain things in this world that give me the heebie-jeebies and I cannot explain why. Can I just say I’m so glad there is such a word as heebie-jeebie so that I can relate to you what gives me them. Often it’s a word that give me them, examples being “squat” and “slacks.” [...]

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NASA Audio Slide Show

The BBC has an audio slide show of the past 50 years of NASA. Check it out. Photo via HowStuffWorks.

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The Bearer of Gifts

I’m not sure why I thought of this memory. Something triggered it from the news. I remember when I visited my relatives in Thailand a comment that my cousin made that made me uneasy. My relatives wanted so much from me. They wanted me to find a husband for my cousin, a good one they [...]

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Record Number of Homeless to Vote

I found this article fascinating. Advocacy groups and shelters across the country have stepped up efforts to register the 3.5 million people who drift in and out of homelessness in the United States. “Just because we’re homeless or low income doesn’t mean we don’t have an opinion,” said Estelle Bearcub, who plans to vote for [...]

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Smart Girls

I love this scene from The Big Sleep. It’s playful, risque and the woman is well read. What more could you want?

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Food Network Stars and Virginity

So I’m reading the Seattle Post Intelligencer (not sic) blog on the reality series “The Next Food Network Star” when all of a sudden this sentence pops out at me. Do I question it? Do I make any sense of it? No, I just assume it’s some weird Food Network language. Luckily an astute commenter [...]

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Oops

That’s Larry Craig pictured on the button. Not Larry LaRocco.

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My Weekend

Since I haven’t noticed anything hugely newsworthy to write about, I thought I’d change things up a bit and talk about my weekend. It was one of those weekends where I didn’t have a moment to relax. I went to three parties, and just barely got a moment to myself late Sunday evening. Saturday afternoon [...]

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Critical Mass Riders Go Mad

Bicycle organizations around the world schedule “Critical Mass” rides around major cities in order to take back the city from cars. During a Critical Mass ride, cyclists keep together to control the flow of traffic preventing cars from passing them. If you ever ridden a bicycle on city streets it can be a daily guantlet [...]

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Fascist Control

Two pieces of news interested me today. First that Barack Obama was asked by the Pentagon to not visit wounded American troops in Germany because it would be seen as politically partisan. Second that State Department had instructed its employees to not attend Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin to “maintain a pretense of neutrality.” We’ve [...]

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Fake German Villages

I thought I might talk a bit about why there exist fake German villages in America for McCain to do photo ops at. The fake German village in Washington state where I live is called Leavenworth. And it’s history is as follows: A sawmill and a healthy logging industry eventually fell apart, however, when the [...]

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Crawford, Texas

Warning, the following audio is extremely disturbing. By now, the blogosphere is abuzz with the astonishing fact that President Bush only bought a ranch in Crawford, Texas because it fit into the narrative that George Bush is a cowboy who loves to clear brush just like good small town southern folk. Here you can see [...]

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Asian-American self-loathing and tennis

What is it about Asian Americans that makes some of them be ashamed of being Asian? I’ve noticed this phenomenon in the past on a NPR cartoon where Adrian Tomine talks about how the character Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles ruined his life. Now I read a very interestingly titled article “Dear Michael Chang. [...]

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The Heckler

For all that’s been written about the ”disastrous” Clinton campaign it certainly was miles ahead of the McCain one. The strategy appears to be same – that is the kitchen sink strategy, but McCain’s execution is terrible. If John McCain is trying to dispel the idea that he is a crotchety old man he’s not [...]

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McDonald’s Goes Fancy

I thought this was a really interesting article on how McDonald’s has reinvented itself in Europe. I’m always a little bit surprised when I see Americans traveling abroad go into Starbucks or McDonald’s and such. Where’s the experience? To make the Golden Arches a place where Europeans want to hang out necessitated a major design [...]

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Why can’t we just get along?

Cute guinea pigs.

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Amtrak Part II

No I haven’t yet gone to Glacier National Park on Amtrak, but I did just notice some interesting details on Amtrak’s site. First of all my accommodation is much better than I had originally thought. Apparently getting a roomette means I’m traveling first class. Having never traveled first class on a plane, this is very [...]

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Could Obama Victory Hurt African Americans?

More appropriately, could CNN have any less regard for the intelligence of African Americans? Because we all know how bad it is to actually have role models.

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White House Bullies

In response to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s endorsement of Barack Obama’s withdrawl plan, Dana Perino makes what certainly sounds like a threat to me. “We don’t think that talking about specific negotiating tactics or your negotiating position in the press is the best way to negotiate a deal,” Perino said after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [...]

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South Carolina is So Gay!

Or not. In late June, travel agent Matthew DeGuire got a call from a customer about an ad in London’s subway. “South Carolina is so gay” read the ad, alongside others touting Las Vegas, New Orleans, Boston and Atlanta as also being “so gay.” The ads were timed with London’s annual gay pride festival. “He [...]

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Where is your money?

Clearly, my mom’s understanding of FDIC wasn’t that far off. David Horsey gets it right.

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Obama’s Foreign Policy

A good short article by Arianna Huffington. Republicans love to portray Obama as naïve when it comes to foreign policy. Let’s go to the scorecard. Iraq: Prime Minister Maliki just announced he supports Obama’s troop withdrawal plan. Afghanistan: Obama has long argued that Iraq has been a dangerous distraction from what should be the real [...]

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Pedestrians taking back the streets

In an unusual undercover operation, Delgado posed as a pedestrian on a busy street while fellow officers waited for drivers to barrel past her in violation of a law that requires them yield at crosswalks, even if there is no stop sign. In Chicago, most drivers were puzzled to find themselves pulled over. Roland Sapitula [...]

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