Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Not much to say today.

Although, I broached the subject of telecommuting with my boss and he was very receptive to the idea. I’m only interested in a day or two a week, but I would get a lot accomplished before lunch on those days I’d be at home and I wouldn’t have to face that commute. So we’re going to talk logistics and work out a plan. Yay!

Monday, February 14, 2005

From Eric:

It’s said that the best way to find out what’s important to someone is to look in his or her checkbook register (although an updated variation would refer to credit card receipts).

While I’m not nosy enough to ask about your check register (well, I am that nosy, but I also know that you wouldn’t tell me), I would propose that another way to learn about someone else is by a review of his or her browser bookmarks. And in pursuit of such knowledge I hereby propose this simple meme:

1. Open the bookmarks list in your favorite web browser and note the bottommost entry (which may or may not be the last one you added), even if it’s inside a folder. Copy the bookmark title, along with the URL, into a post or comment.

2. Count up your list from there, and select every fourth bookmark, until you’ve picked another four. Add them to your post or comment.

3. Publish the list of five bookmarks and wait for the world to marvel at your eclectic and sophisticated interests!

My bookmarks are listed in folders, so I used the first folder listed - blog stuff. My answers:

1. All Consuming - Book lover’s portal.

2. Tickie’s Web Page Themes - Lilacs Theme - from when I was researching skins for this site or my mother’s webpage.

3. Sitemeter - from when I used them for my stats.

4. The link to my webhost email control panel. You don’t need that.

5. Junk Science - a page that debunks junk science in the news.

Ok, it’s your turn.

It’s Monday and it’s busy.

And it’s Valentine’s Day, so there have been quite a few bouquets of flowers delivered to the courthouse, including one woman in our office who claims that her husband has only sent her flowers twice in their 20+ years of marriage. He sent her some lovely tulips and iris.

I’ve long been slightly anti-Valentine’s Day because I consider what used to be a minor Catholic feast day to have become a ponzi scheme by the card, flower, and jewelry industries. That makes me sound unromantic, but I’m as romantically notioned as the next gal and if I had one, I would prefer that my beau show his affection on a more regular basis than to go all out on one commercially manufactured pseudo-holiday. I’m not alone my thinking.

Anyway, I’m busy, so little posting until later…

Sunday, February 13, 2005

ECD and I just finished watching The Manchurian Candidate (2004) with Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, and Meryl Streep. It was OK and I was liking it pretty well until near the end when I was mightily offended by one particular scene that was unnecessary to the story and completely repulsive. If you’ve seen the movie, then you might know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, then let me spare you the rental now.

As a remake, this one isn’t too bad. But I’d like to point you in the direction of the original, 1962 version starring Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey, and Angela Lansbury. I know that I plan to add it to my Netflix queue for a rewatch.

***THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS - AVERT THINE EYES IF YOU DON’T WISH TO KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY***

Denzel and Liev are both excellent. Meryl is just plain creepy - from the git go. And that’s where the remake loses some of it’s impact. In the original, while we understood the mother to be manipulative, there’s still that shocking element at the climax. In the remake she’s so far beyond mere manipulation that the scene at the end that I object to was almost a forgone conclusion. The unstated implication of the Oedipal complex was enough - putting it front and center was a cheap attempt at adding new shock value - maybe for those of us who have seen the original? Who knows the reasoning behind it - it was a bad call.

Sadly, I can’t recommend the remake of the movie, although I give it 2 stars out of 5 for good performances by Denzel and Liev. Another strong performand was by Kimberly Elise as Rosie (Eugenie Rose in the original - played then by Janet Leigh).

I met my mother at 7:30am and she drove her mini-SUV to the Wegmans - more space for the haul than my little trunk. We got there a little before 8am and sailed into a parking space not too far from the doors. They had parking attendants directing traffic for the masses. We each got a cart and headed in.

Produce: this is where Wegmens excels - fantastic and fresh produce. It’s a huge section and we each stocked up on various fruits and veggies.

The Marketplace: this is where they have the old school butcher, fish monger, bakery, deli, etc. Again, excellent stuff. And the prices are very reasonable - very competitive with the other grocery stores. It was this section that was mobbed and no one was observing cart etiquette. Fortunately, we had pretty much reached the end of that section when I was starting to feel slightly claustrophobic, so we moved on to the regular grocery store section.

I spent about double what I had planned, but it was mostly stuff I needed, so that’s OK. I did buy a lovely bouquet of flowers for our kitchen table and that ended up costing more that I thought - I went by the sign in the section rather than actually looking at the tag on the bouquet.

The coolest item I was able to buy was spelt bread made by the Vermont Bread Company. I found this brand at a health food store when I lived in New Hampshire and was trying to watch my wheat intake. VBC’s spelt bread is the best out there, imho. I also bought a loaf of their oat bread.

My only complaint was that there were too many helpful employees roaming the store. They hosed cart traffic and just got in the way.

We were back at the house by 10am, so two hours wasn’t that bad. When we were driving out of the lot, we could see a long line of cars waiting to get into the parking lot. We were happy to have avoided the larger crowds of slackers. All in all, it was a good grocery shopping event.

LATER: The link for Vermont Bread Company has been hijacked by some animation company. Weird.

I’ve made known my thoughts about the Pope and my opinion that he should retire. The topic came up last night with my parents and my mother said she saw an interview this week where the interviewee said that the Pope had discussed the subject of retirement and that he would retire “when Christ came down from the cross.”

There’s a serious flaw in his theology with that statement and there ensued an enlightening discussion of Catholic vs Protestant thought about Jesus himself, our salvation, and the huge chasm in our theological thought and interpretation of Scripture. In a nutshell, we Protestants consider the work of salvation to have been done with Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection where Catholics consider that salvation will come in the future. But I digress ...

Doing some quick research for that quote from the Pope, I found this article and it turns out that is not exactly what he said,

The Pope has said repeatedly that he will never retire or resign, having asked: “Did Christ come down from the Cross?”

Big difference. Just thought I’d clarify.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Want verification that you were among 15 Michaels in your class? Check out the Baby Name Wizard. Yype in a name and you’ll see a graph that maps the name’s popularity from 1990 to 2003.

Jennifer ranked #1 in the 1970s, so my parents were a little ahead of their time, but not by much, I shared many classrooms with more than a couple other Jennifers in my day. Being the lone Jen made things a wee bit easier, the others tended towared Jennie/Jenny as their nicknames.

Courtesy: Accidental Verbosity

Robert the Llama Butcher shares a tale of rebellion in the classroom from his high school days. It’s rather amusing, although the reason for his rebellion is not so amusing. His commenters share equally rebellious and witty anecdotes (myself excluded) - it’s sad that these people were not the norm in our public schools.

My favorite part of Robert’s story:

I, on the other hand, absolutely refused the assignment. It was, I believe, the only time in my entire academic career that I did so. When my turn came to give my presentation, I calmly stood up and announced that I didn’t have one. When asked by the teacher why not, I launched into something of a rant about how idiotic the whole business was and how I thought the purpose of an English class - particularly an advanced one - was to hone reading and writing skills. I also used the opportunity to briefly give my opinion of Mr. Henry David Thoreau, who I thought (and still think) to be nothing more than what P.J. O’Rourke called him - a sanctimonious beatnik.

When I had finished explaining myself, the room was a sea of stunned bewilderment, as if I’d just cold-cocked Mother Theresa.

That’s just beautiful. Heh.

My moment of academic rebellion came in my freshman year of college. I was taking the requisite Religion 101 (Introduction to the Old Testament) class (I went to a Baptist college) and my professor was teaching heresy, imho. His liberal theology was astounding to me and I refused to give him the answers that he wanted on the exams. Instead I gave him the correct answers.

An example of what he was teaching is the account of the parting/crossing of the Red Sea. The Bible says it was the Red Sea that the Hebrews crossed when the waters parted and then when Pharoah’s army followed into the Sea, the waters came back together and the army was drowned. My professor taught that it wasn’t actually the Red Sea that the Hebrews crossed, but rather a small creek to the south. To me it takes a bigger faith to believe that Pharoah’s army drowned in a creek, but I believe in the miracles of God. He’s way bigger than our little minds can fathom. I was bothered that some theologians were trying to box God into man’s limitations.

At mid-term, I discussed with my parents the idea of withdrawing from the class because I had an academic scholarship and I was afraid that a failing grade would jeopardize that small bit of financial aid. To their credit, my parents were supportive of whatever decision I made regarding the class. I decided to stick it out and for my troubles I went into the final exam with a low D.

The professor knew what I was doing and called me into his office on the last day of class. “All you need to pass this class is a D on the exam. You know this stuff, just give me the right answers,” he encouraged. “I can’t do that, Dr. Heresy. You’re teaching wrong theology,” I replied. I failed the exam and the class. And I did end up losing the scholarship after the next semester.

Anyway, go read Robert’s post. You’ll get a good chuckle.

Friday, February 11, 2005

Regarding my post about the Maryland judge with questionable judgment, I had this visitor today.

Interesting.

On my commute in this morning, I heard the report by Brian Ross of ABC’s 20/20 about a segment on tonight’s show about a sex ring in Congo that is run by UN officials. Yet another investigation into the UN. When are we going to kick these yahoos out of New York?

NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 2005 — Widespread allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of Congolese women, boys and girls have been made against U.N. personnel who were sent to help and protect them — despite a so-called zero tolerance policy touted by the United Nations toward such behavior.

The range of sexual abuse includes reported rapes of young Congolese girls by U.N. troops; an Internet pedophile ring run from Congo by Didier Bourguet, a senior U.N. official from France; a colonel from South Africa accused of molesting his teenage male translators; and estimates of hundreds of underage girls having babies fathered by U.N. soldiers who have been able to simply leave their children and their crimes behind.

Ravaged by decades of civil war, and one of the poorest countries in the world, Congo has relied on the United Nations for both military protection and humanitarian aid.

“The U.N. is there for their protection, so when the protectors become violators, this is particularly egregious,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch who investigated the allegations on behalf of her organization. “This is particularly bad.”

That’s an understatement. Sheesh.

William Swing, a former U.S. ambassador to Congo who now heads the U.N. peacekeeping mission there, admitted the sexual crimes were a black mark on the United Nations.

“It pains us all,” he said. “It’s absolutely odious. And we’re determined to wipe it out.”

But Swing said the problem was just recently brought to his attention, and that only a small percentage of the 11,000 U.N. personnel in Congo were involved.

“A few people have managed to basically cause disgrace for the mission and for the U.N., and that’s why we’re determined to conquer it. I have sent a dozen home,” Swing said. But human rights investigators have reported a far wider, even systemic problem, recording more than 150 allegations against U.N. employees in Congo.

And there is what human rights investigators have called “survival sex.”

“We have heard cases where they have traded eggs for sex or bread for sex or a jar of peanut butter for sex,” said Van Woudenberg. “These are not people who have very much. So they hang around the outskirts of these U.N. bases in order to try and get a handout, a little food. Maybe they can sell some bananas or some peanuts. And it has become not uncommon that peacekeepers invite these girls in — and of course the younger the better, because there’s less chance that they will be infected by HIV/AIDS.”

The United Nations has documented cases where this has happened to girls as young as 11, according to Van Woudenberg.

Man’s depravity knows no bounds. And the UN is investigating itself on this? Something is very, very wrong here.

It gets worse.

Another gaping problem U.N. officials failed to address is the hundreds of babies born to Congolese women and fathered by U.N. personnel.

[...]

“What’s going to happen to those children?” Van Woudenberg asked. “These are not women who are likely to find a lot of support for their children. So this is creating a whole different level of problem in the Congo.”

And as of now, the United Nations said it will not take direct responsibility for babies abandoned by its troops, though Swing said the mission is “currently looking at a way to have a clearer and more viable paternity policy.”

That this is even an issue is madness. Those men should be prosecuted and made to pay for the support of their children. And while I’m not a huge proponent of restitution, in this case, I believe that the UN should be required to make restitution to these girls. The whole thing is absolutely repugnant.

This scandal is larger and more important than the oil-for-food scandal, imho. But I’ll be willing to bet that the MSM won’t drive this story much like they didn’t in Rwanda in 1994 and Sudan today.

I heard this news story on the radio on my commute into work this morning.

NORTH LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A newborn boy — believed to be less than an hour old — survived being thrown from a moving car onto a swale alongside a busy street Thursday afternoon, Broward County sheriff’s officials said.
The car sped away, and investigators are seeking the parents of the eight-pound, two-ounce child whose umbilical cord was still attached when found by a woman passing by the scene.

Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Leljedal said the unidentified woman who found the baby brought him to a nearby sheriff’s office. The baby was taken to Broward General Medical Center, which upgraded his condition from critical to serious Thursday night.

“He’s doing remarkably well and we’re hopeful that he’ll recover,” Leljedal said.

Another sheriff’s spokeswoman, Veda Coleman-Wright, said Thursday night that the boy is improving. It was unclear what injuries the baby may have suffered from being thrown.

In the report I heard, they said that he had no broken bones, but was listed in serious condition.

Investigators are searching for a white, older-model large sedan that eyewitnesses observed leaving the scene. The woman who rescued the baby — which was inside a small plastic bag when tossed from the car — said she observed a man and woman arguing inside the vehicle.

The baby was thrown from the passenger side of the vehicle, landing three or four feet away in the grass. When the Good Samaritan approached what she thought was a package, it began to move and she realized a baby was inside.

Thank God that lady witnessed it and actually stopped to check on “the package.” I hate to think what might have happened to the baby if no one had found him for a while.

If you live in the North Lauderdale area, keep an eye out. These animals need to be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. My gut reaction is that justice would be having them thrown from a moving car, but that’s just me.

UPDATE (2:50pm): Turns out the mother is the one who “found” the baby along the side of the road, only the boy was never tossed out of a moving car in the first place. She made the story up.

I’m still waiting for a link. Here’s a link.

**Note: This is my 3rd attempt to post this ridiculous item. I keep getting kicked out of the cp.**

ECD and I are both at work, although I’ve advised ECD to call her doc today to try to get in to see her. She’s at the point where she needs antibiotics, I think. Meanwhile, I’m much better today, so I don’t know what was going on with me this week. I’d think it was some weird fatigue if not for the slight fever I had on Tuesday.

No great plans for the weekend except that my mother and I are talking about going to the grand opening for the new Wegmans out her way on Sunday morning. So all you people in Fairfax, just stay home on Sunday, mkay? We don’t want to deal with you.

What do you have planned for the weekend?

Thursday, February 10, 2005

A woman in my office confessed that her doctor told her she tested positive for mono when she went in earlier this week. She thought she had the flu that’s been going around.

Mono is highly contageous, no?

Oh, dear Lord, help us.

So I managed to import the posts from the old blog, but the categories are hosed. I have no inclination to fix them for now, so I apologize if you’re trying to find that obscure song lyric or whatever.

On the emoticon front, I think I know what the problem is. However, the solution involves a lot of typing that I’m not feeling up to doint at the moment. At least not in one fell swoop. My plan is to do a line or two at a time as I think about it. I think I have about 20-30 smileys, so do the math.

When I went to the new members dinner thingy at my new church last month, they had us fill out all sorts of paperwork. On mine, I expressed an interest in the Worship Arts team. The other day I got a call from the worship leader.

We had a nice chat where he asked about my singing background and skillz and also briefly about my spiritual walk ("I assume you’re a follower of Jesus,” I think was how he put it, to which I said, “It goes without saying."). I have an appointment next week to audition as a vocalist where I’ll be required to share my testimony as well as sing about 15-20 snippets of songs - he wants to hear my voice, of course, and also to hear me attempt to pick out harmonies, which I can do, but I’m not that great at it all the time - on some songs it’s harder for me to hear a good harmony line. So I’ll be singing melody lines alone and then with him and then he’ll sing melody lines with me trying not to make our ears bleed with dreadful harmony combinations.

It’s my own American Idol moment. I’m a little nervous.