probably not worth titling

In this post I will give you the best advice of your life.

1) Order a bag of partially baked baguettes from your favorite local bakery.

2) Take them home and put them in the freezer.

3) Every morning, finish baking a baguette in your oven.

What could possibly be better than warm, amazing bread in the morning?

In the world of things less important than baguettes, apparently we now have a reason* to fight global climate change.

*assuming my reaction to poison ivy is similar to my reaction to poison oak...which ain't pretty.

Getting tagged has forced me to come back to the blogosphere. You can blame the back of the hill.

Sigh.

Meme:
List what you and your significant other did before a certain time in the morning on your own blog.

I begrudgingly woke up at 8, very confused due to furniture rearrangement the night before, and being in my own bed for the first time for 5 days! By some miracle, I managed to get my robe on, feed the obnoxious cat (Leo's cute, but not so much when all I want is sleep), and hop in the shower. By an even greater miracle, I was able to turn on the water and apply shampoo, conditioner, and soap, hopefully to the correct parts of the body in the correct order, but one must never expect too much out of a person before 9 am. I seem to smell allright and my hair is still in, so I couldn't have screwed up too badly. I got out, dried off, and dressed. Then came the part of my morning that I always hope to fix, but never get to...wanting coffee and food but being too late. So instead, in my dangerous non-caffeinated state, I hopped on my bike for my ten minute commute, got to work, clocked in, put on an apron, and dashed to the espresso machine. And so the ungodly hour of nine came, and I was somehow expected to be a productive member of the workforce.

As for the SO, he's accross the world right now, so I can't say for certain, but he claims to actually be getting up at 7 am. I don't believe it, so I'm waiting for confirmation. But normally his routine is comprised of rolling over, mumbling when woken up, and going back to sleep. I sure do pick 'em well.

he's a bit nutty, but anyone's better than Clinton!

The only major party candidate who I would consider voting for is Mike Gravel...polls are looking like I don't have to worry about voting for a largely pro-war, corporate sponsored political party's candidate. However, I've got to share these gems:

Apparently the former senator shares my disgust for his party:


Most reasonable people will disagree with our current homophobic policies regarding gays serving in the military. Gravel goes a bit further...

not the Ahmadinejacket!

Pesach started off well, as always. I'm sure flying frogs and a slight excess of alcohol (if there is such a thing) helped. However, as the days dragged on, I quickly became sick of a diet of fruits, veggies, eggs, and nuts. My body also seemed to need more...after about 30 flat, easy miles of bicycling on Sunday, I became very fatigued and wondered why, when normally that sort of ride should pose no issue...and I realized that the two apples, a banana, infant sized portion of mashed potatoes, cup of coffee and glass of milk probably wasn't the heartiest diet. It is at moments like that when we consider the important things, the reasons behind why we do what we do. For some, it is easily explained by a strong faith in God (how easy it must be). For others, like myself, of little to no faith, it's got something to do with culture, or tradition, or identity, or something like that...or maybe it's just massochism.

Anyway, the point is, we've all got our "big stuff" to think about. It seems to come out at times of great stress, and it happens on many levels...the pesonal, the community, the political, etc. And at times like these, when it seems that half of the news is about Iran, and there are murmurs of the threat of a new war around the corner, it's time to start asking ourselves the big questions about Iran. Luckily, we've got the New York Post to do it for us.

ps...No, I'm not clever enough to think of the word "ahmadinejacket." Apparently it's really in use.

more Leo

In case you haven't noticed, I have a very cute cat, so everyone has to be subjected to cute pictures.

Terribly sorry for the huge gap between posts. Things have been crazy at school, I'm working too much, and anyway it's not such a bad thing to cut down on internet usage, I figure.

Now I've got a break, the weathers beautiful so I'm back to cycling a ton, and I admit I'm a little bit bummed because I missed out on a great camping chance (I swear, the one night in about a year that I was asleep at 8:30pm, and I get an email invite...just my luck), but I figure I'll take it real easy this weekend...it's certainly quiet enough around here. And, I had a birthday recently, and despite it being in the middle of a big testing period here, I got together a bunch of my best friends and had a nice meal out. So my mood is generally good.

This is enough to let down any sort of good mood:
WILLITS -- It's the first stoplight north of San Francisco on 101. Willits is a quaint valley town of about 5,000 that some people say has a secret poisoned heart. Residents here have a wide range of health complaints:

"I've been nothing but sick," says 43-year-old Deanna Deaton. "I have bronchial problems all the time. I have neurological problems. I have tremors which I can't control."

"It's unbelievable. I've had 13 surgeries on my female organs and then a total hysterectomy when I was 28 years old," explains Melissa Anasatasiou, 32. "My daughter had her first surgery on her female organs when she was fifteen."

33-year-old resident David French developed a rare, often fatal blood disease: "Being exposed to the chromium and the burning of chemicals and the dumping in the creeks around there … I feel without a doubt that's what caused me to get sick."

Many people blame their illnesses on chemical toxins from the now-closed Remco chrome-plating plant in the middle of town. But despite lawsuits, angry meetings and expert panel recommendations, what's making the people in Willits sick remains unknown and, some say, intentionally hidden.

"We don't know for sure, because they haven't been studied," says Dr. Robert Harrison, an expert panel chairman in Willits. "They haven't had examinations or been provided with the kinds of medical services we recommended."

Court documents in a new lawsuit reveal decades of pollution dating from the sixties contaminating the air, the soil and the groundwater in Willits. The creeks flowing near what once was the busiest plating plant west of the Mississippi took the brunt of the toxic waste.

"When we were children, we'd play in the creeks all around Remco and around the schools," remembers resident Julie Johnson.

Baechtel Grove School, the town's middle school with 400 students, sits 40 feet from plant property. Court records show more then 30 years of pollution may have contaminated generations of children. One boy abruptly died several years ago, his parents say, after he drank creek water.

"I'm disgusted now, that they knew this was going on for so many years, and nobody was ever told," says 57-year-old resident Margaret Dryden.

Scientists have known for 50 years that hexavalent chromium used in plating causes cancer. But federal regulators resisted stringent workplace standards until just last year. Remco did massive defense work on missiles and submarine and cannon parts.

In court records, the company's own insurance carrier claimed the contamination was widespread and criminal. The contamination included not just chromium, but also solvents and toxins created by burning chemicals.

"My husband worked there for 18 years and he died a terrible death," says Gwendolyn Underhill, a 76-year-old resident who still lives in Willits. "He bled through the pores of his skin. Just bled, bled, bled."

Judy Cartwright-Gully says respiratory failure almost killed her two decades ago. She grew up a block from the plant in an area where state experts estimate high levels of toxics drifted through the air daily.

She says her mother died of cancer, as did her husband. Her son is now sick: "He just turned 40 years old and his father died when he was 43. It really bothers me he's going in the same path."

Deanna cleland says she had cancer and a hysterectomy at age 30. She lived for years right next door to the plant and says both her children have been sick almost from birth.

"I brough them home to the house on Franklin Street believing it was safe," says Cleland. "Your home is supposed to be safe. It wasn't."

Consider one idyllic street about a hundred yards from the Remco plant, on West Oak Avenue. It's what residents call "cancer alley." There have been 21 cases of cancer just on this block. It's where Patricia and Marvin Brannon have lived for the last 29 years.

"Why should you have to be sorry about that?" ask 78-year-old cancer patient and grandmother Brannon. "Why should you feel guilty that you let your grandchildren play in that creek where the water turned orange and the fish died?"

The Brannons say their three generations of cancer, reproductive problems and other abnormalities baffle their doctors.

"The best answer they ever told me was it was an 'environmental anomaly,'" says Marvin Brannon. "[That] was the word they used. I don't know what that means; it means they don't know."

Court records indicate toxins spilled and spewed from the plant for decades. Other court documents allege some workers intentionally dumped them in a nearby local pond and at many other spots around the county. The plant had the best jobs in town. Most workers kept quiet.

"There's people sick and dying in this town, and it's going to continue for a long time to come," says former plant employee Brad McCartney, whose body is riddled with tumors.

At a town meeting last June, Willits' leading doctor downplayed health risks, quoting a state report.

"It estimates that chrome exposure might cause at the most 13 additional lung cancers among the residents living near Remco," hospital Chief of Staff Dr. Mills Matheson explained at the meeting.

Matheson declined to speak to KTVU, but said smoking is a greater lung cancer risk than Remco chromium and that medical monitoring for lung cancer would do more harm than good: "In the largest screening program that's ever been done, the people who were screened died sooner than the people who weren't screened."

Plus, Willits' city manager Ross Walker says city officials struck a deal with the plant. The agreement recently made front page news in Willits because it gives up any claim for future medical monitoring.

"The city's been in the thick of this since we sued the company in 1996," says Walker.

UCSF occupational health specialist Dr. Robert Harrison chaired a panel of experts looking at the Willits case. It concluded that ongoing medical help for residents is crucial.

"Those health effects may not be noticed for 20 or 30 years, even after the plant has closed," says Harrison

But many in Willits say most people here are not sick, and talk of illness and pollution is bad for business, turns off tourists and prospective home-buyers. The city says it is currently focusing only on plant clean-up.

"People want it to get cleaned up, put back in productive use, and move on," explains city manager Walker.

After millions of dollars in remediation, the head clean-up official says there is no significant risk today at the plant. The town dump is closed and being cleaned up. But townspeople say other contaminated sites around the Willits area are being ignored.

In order to clean someplace up, you have to face the reality that there's something wrong" argues 51-year-old local resident Julie Johnson

In return for the city giving up medical monitoring, plant owner Pepsi-Americas gave $4 million to a private foundation to build a new hospital. The daughter of Remco's founder heads that foundation; hospital Chief of Staff Matheson proposed the deal along with other doctors

Some residents say the hospital got the cash and they got the shaft. "I think we should get that money," says an angry Deanna Cleland. "It should help us get healthier if that's possible. We're all too young to be sick like this."

Several hundred residents sued Pepsi-Americas. The company has admitted no wrongdoing, but six months ago settled with about 300 people. The plaintiffs said a link between disease and the plant was difficult to prove. Most received $1,500.

"I just seen it as a sell out," says former Remco worker McCartney. "I took the money they offered and it was a cop out probably. I should a stood and fought, but I'm tired of fighting."

Bay Area civil rights attorney Bill Simpich has filed a new lawsuit based on new science on behalf of about 140 people including 57 children.

"We've got evidence that these individuals were literally poisoned by one particular chemical from one particular plant," says Simpich. He claims that chemical is dioxin from Remco and that its unique chemical fingerprint left in resident's bodies may finally prove their case.

Pepsi-Americas declined to speak to KTVU for this report and it's clear a lot of people in this town would just as soon this all would go away. But this new lawsuit appears headed for trial next year.

A grassroots group is trying to start its own health study and doctors say the cancers and other diseases will likely take years yet to develop. Activists say they don't want people to forget that what happened in Willits should serve as a warning to other communities.
Article
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bat demons

In some places, rapists are prosecuted.

In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania...well....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6383833.stm

We have a tendency to forget that our thoughts are predictable, signals fired due to the situation, influenced by our genetics and environmental impact, in short, our phenotype. We're fancy computers...while many choose to escape knowledge of such through religion, I'll carry on with the assumption that readers have chosen to accept reality. Yes, college has turned me into an elitist snob. Now I will continue to puh-poo all conservatives or religious people while sipping very bitter espresso.

Of course while we accept that we are computers, we live within the reality in our brains...otherwise we'd be considered sociopaths. We experience our emotions and get passionate about our "values." So of course I feel strongly about my "individualized brand of super-liberalism." And I read this article: The Ideological Animal

The second paragraph was good enough material to make me feel more self-righteous: after all, I was better than that silly typical San Francisco liberal: I didn't view just Republicans as ignorant, intolerant yahoos, why, I knew that both Republicans AND Democrats could be viewed as such.

The third paragraph was a reminder of how my brand of liberalism was individualized...oh no, I'm no sheep. I agree with her on small government and gun control, as well as personal responsibility!

I went on to the meat of the article. I laughed at the thought that my politics could have been easily predicted. Most peoples, sure; not mine. Then I read the list of characteristics associated with liberals

Messiness: dear lord, if one were to look at my room with that in mind and predict my politics, they'd think I go to every ANSWER function. Maps, travel documents, and flags: I haven't done as much travelling as I want, but check, check, and check. I love books, music, I'm an optimist (with the exception of my newly acquired "jaded" college student thing...all the cool kids are doing it), I love art...allright, just put me in my box!

Bah!

On vegetarianism

Once in awhile I feel the need to review some of the basics of my lifestyle. A recent questioning of my dietary decisions at work and a roommate hastily turning to veganism (which likely isn't going to last, as it's halfhearted), and a cooking binge made me review my vegetarianism.

Actually, I'm not a vegetarian. I eat fish (but only the kosher kind). This apparently makes me a pescetarian, whatever that's supposed to mean. I was raised a meat eater. It never made sense to me. I always felt ridiculously guilty eating meat. After all, if I wouldn't want to kill an animal myself, it was probably for a good reason. However, I accepted the way I was raised and assumed that meat was necessary.

In the summer before tenth grade I worked for the conservation corps. It was there that I first remember being exposed to vegetarianism...I was in the fake hot dog line for kashrut reasons. Talking to vegetarians made me realize that it was possible...for a few months I filed the information away, then I went veg. Full out, no fish. And a couple years later, due partly to the urging of my mother, partly to research on fish-exclusive omega fatty acids, and probably partly to the deliciousness of lox, I went back to eating fish.

They say you are what you eat. I'm largely chocolate. But it is true that when I eat well (healthfully), I feel much better. I've been using a cookbook that I absolutely love, Jump Up and Kiss Me: Spicy Vegetarian Cooking, by Jennifer Trainer Thompson.

Anyway, it's a lifestyle decision that I feel strongly about. I don't go around preaching (though I'll be honest if asked), but I will say this: Do you really want to be directly responsible for the death of an animal you've been around? Having worked a good deal with goats, I'll bet they're smarter (and cooler) than your household pets...ok, that was low...but they're awesome. Same goes for many other animals. So why is it any better to pay for a bunch?

All of this is ignoring another huge reason

Of course, that makes me feel guilty for not being a vegan. I try to be careful about where I get my eggs and milk, but beyond that, it's hard. I could never be a vegan without seriously putting my health in danger. I don't have the time or money...and truthfully probably not the willpower. It's all about the extent of which you can do something...it's impossible to be perfect. But, I ought to push myself. I think I may stop eating fish, and maybe a vegan day a week? Hard to say. Such things take much thought (and support always helps, too) to stick to.

If you're feeling guilty, maybe it's time to do some reflection, find internal inconsistencies, and do what's possible to remedy them. If you're not, good for you.

And no, I am not procrastinating on studying...

NARAL campaign needs your help

Disturbingly enough, in some places, abstinence only education is still around. I'm still trying to figure out how someone could possibly think that a teenager's teacher telling them about such things would encourage them to have sex. I vividly remember being disgusted by my seventh grade teacher teaching us what oral sex was. And the pictures...stds that look like cauliflowers...well, let's just say that I'll be scared for life. Good job, bay area public school!

http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/choice-action-center/take-action/sex-ed-curriculum.html
Here’s how you can help:

1. Request a copy of your school’s curriculum. Whether you are a parent, student, or a community member, as a tax-paying citizen you have a right to know what your public schools are teaching.

a. Call your school’s superintendent’s office. Request that they mail you a copy of the sex-education curriculum. Here’s a sample script to use:

“Hello, my name is _____ and I’m a parent/student/community member in [your town]. I’m researching sex-education programs in our area and I’d like to request a copy of our school district’s sex-education curriculum.”

b. If you don’t reach your superintendent, you can contact principals, health teachers, school board members, or any other school administrator and pose the same question.

Grr, Mark!

A- Available or single? Nope

B- Best Friend? I've had my best friend from elementary school, best friends from high school, best friends from college...I guess the best term is "close"...not even closest...because if we're going there, I might have to reference reasons for my answer to the previous question.

C- Cake or Pie? Cake all the way. But it's gotta be good cake, more like great cake...if it's bad cake, forget it, I'll take a bad pie. But a great cake....mmmm.

D- Drink of Choice? Coffee. Of what sort? Depends on my mood. Also, milkshakes.

E- Essential Item? My motobecane.

F- Favorite Color? Teal or turquoise...depends.

G- Gummi Bears or Worms? Sour worms...when they're not sour, then the little bears.

H- Hometown? Born in San Francisco.

I- Indulgence? Chocolate...bars, mousse, decadence, ice cream...ok, chocolate.

J- January or February? I prefer February, I guess, for the very slightly more tolerable weather.

K- Kids and names? 1, Leo. Oh, humans? No, none.

L- Above referenced reason for answer to question A stole the computer and wrote: Life is incomplete without? My cat, Leo. That and posting pictures of Leo on my blog. And talking about Leo.

M- Marriage Date? No.

N- Number of Siblings? None.

O- Oranges or apples? Oranges...I kinda like really good apples, but even then I prefer oranges.

P- Phobias/Fears? Falling, also open water is kinda scary.

Q- Favorite Quote? Albert Camus...what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

R- Reason to Smile? Glass Danse, The Faint

S- Season? Spring. I'm cliche.

T- Tag three people! You see it, you do it!

U- Unknown Fact About Me? There's a reason it's unknown.

V- Vegetable you hate? Beets...yuck.

W- Biting fingernails. Blogging!

X- None. But I've had an MRI. Oh yeah, teeth...if those count.

Y- Your favorite food? We've been through this...chocolate! Savory? Garlic bread, or a good thai green curry.

Z- Zodiac? Pisces...not true...I suck at swimming.

Important news: Leo was neutered today. I guess he'll be a little boy forever. Also, he weighed in at 9 lbs 2 1/2 oz. My coworkers laughed at me when I called the office to make sure he was allright, and I think the receptionist did, too. I hope I'm not on my way to crazy cat lady status. He's my baby (Mark, you understand, right?)!

I came accross an interesting article:

A twist on the oldest profession

It seems to make quite a bit of sense. My biggest question is: why wasn't this around before? If a woman is in Vegas and would normally go to the nearest bar/meat market with one goal in mind, why not pay a little extra for her pick of an STD-tested, good looking man who's likely ging to be a bit better between the sheets than most (though with our fairly repressed culture, it probably doesn't take much)?

updated pictures!

More of the little guy...getting bigger by the day. He'll be 6 months old on the 13th.

More actual content to follow...eventually.











































Goodnight everybody.

part of a 7.4 billion pound tidying program

Something else to laugh at Britain for...like we needed more
tidy tape