Anthem for the Independent Woman

I found my anthem yesterday on the new Dixie Chicks CD, Taking the Long Way (be sure to follow this link and watch the video clip). I fell in love with the song, "The Long Way Around," the first time I heard it. It's got a catchy tune and Natalie Maines' voice isn't too sharp or nasal on this track (there are a few other songs on this CD of which this cannot be said, but there are enough good tunes to make it worth the investment). But the best - the BEST - part about this song is its lyrics, and how it captures the spirit of the independent woman. You can find them here.

This may sound a little silly, but I would like to dedicate this post to my fellow non-conformist, phenomenal woman, and wonderful friend, Leslie-Ann. :->

Ancient forest-friendly

Did you know that vast tracts of ancient forest are being destroyed here in Canada just to make things like facial tissue and toilet paper? There are alternatives - tissue made from recycled paper! And Greenpeace has published who's using what as their source materials, and where you can choose to purchase paper products here in Canada that are ancient forest-friendly. Because it's the right thing to do!

Support Kyoto, dammit!

Concerned that the new Canadian government is abandoning the Kyoto Accord? So am I! Here's an easy way you can encourage PM Harper to support Kyoto.

Hang-gliding

Andrew
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Hey folks, guess what I did today???? I went hang-gliding! Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of myself yet (believe it or not, some people still use film instead of digital!), but you can click on this photo to see some of the shots that I took after my own flight. (They're quite repetitive so the other participants could download as many photos of themselves as I took.) But this particular photo is awesome - not sure how I managed to take it! :)

The folks at High Perspective were great - I would definitely go back! More details when I get the other pics developed.

Chances to give back to Nature

Looking to do something fun, be part of a community, and give back to nature? I've found a couple of links for activities in Ontario where you can assist with trail maintenance, wetland restoration, habitat improvement, etc. Check them out:

Ontario Nature
Credit Valley Conservation Authority
Durham Region Coastal Wetland Monitoring Project

They're just a few! :)

Beautiful ceilings @ Commerce Court North

Beautiful ceilings @ Commerce Court North
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Today was the first day of Doors Open, an annual event in its 7th year, in which buildings of architectural and historic significance are opened to the public. It’s free! This is the first year that I actually went (having the best of intentions the last three years). Some buildings had lineups that were too long for me to even consider joining. But I was able to catch Commerce Court North (25 King St. W.) and the Canada Permanent Building (320 Bay St.).

Of the Canada Permanent Building, the Doors Open section of the Toronto Star (Thursday, May 18th) reads:

Opened in 1930, the skyscraper design was influenced by classical architecture. Corinthian columns are decorated with wheat sheaths and fleur-de-lis. CIBC mellon funded the award-winning restoration of the Art Deco Banking Hall in 2001.

For all the pictures I took today, click here.

Now if you can, get out tomorrow and visit some of these sites before Doors Open is finished for another year!!!! :)

The Incredible Maya Angelou

Thursday night, I and four friends went to see the incredible Maya Angelou speak at Roy Thompson Hall.

I’ve wanted to blog about the experience ever since, but have struggled to find the words to describe it and her. But I want to try.

When she walked onto the stage, she was dressed in an ankle-length black dress, and she was adorned in gold jewelry. The phrase “grande dame” popped into my mind because of her tremendous grace and dignity, despite requiring assistance to walk to centre stage.

Her speech was a demonstration of how to live in the moment. You could just sense her commitment to that time with us. She told stories, she broke into song, she cackled with laughter, she shared some of her life experiences, she imparted wisdom.

The theme of her speech that evening was that we all have a unique light to shed on the paths of those around us, that we can never know the impact our lives will have on others’, and that in one way or another, we all are teachers.

She talked about the importance of humour (“I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh”) and love for yourself (she said she doesn’t believe it when somebody tells her that they love her but don’t love themselves – “There’s a saying in Africa, ‘Beware when a naked man offers you a shirt!’”)

I wish you could have been there. I know you would have enjoyed it. But instead, you can do a search in Google for “Maya Angelou + interview” and find many links to various interviews she’s given over several years. I’ve gone to a few (this one, this one, this one, and this one) and each one has something different and worthwhile.

But next time she comes into town, GO!!!!

Flaunt the FBI and place your pin!!!

My readers (yes, you!) tend to be a shy bunch. Very few of you will add comments to my posts, but I know you're out there because you send me e-mails instead. I understand - you can never be too safe. The CIA or the FBI might be trolling these comments, looking for something incriminating. They obviously don't have anything better to do (isn't that why they tore down a barn looking for the decomposed remains of former teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa?).

So let's start out small. I've just added a guest map to the blog. It's down a bit, and to the right. It looks like this:

Now, this is a bit tricky: the button will change text. One minute it will say "View my Guestmap", and then the sneaky bugger will change to "Place your pin" or "CLICK HERE". But you're an intelligent bunch (why else would you be reading this blog, or avoiding the FBI/CIA for that matter?) and I know you can handle it. :->

So place your pin! Rejoice that, unlike other members of the animal kingdom, you don't have to lift your leg or leave a fragrant pile of turd to mark your territory! Just click! :->

Flirt

flirt
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

This is my all-time favourite picture of myself, back in the day when I knew how to flirt. :)

At a park in Seoul

korean snrs park
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

This is one of my favourite pictures of myself. 1997. Visiting Seoul for a weekend with friends Laurelle and Melissa. We were at some public park where senior citizens tended to gather. We got chatting with a couple in my broken Korean, and before you knew it, we had gathered quite a crowd (I guess the Korean old folks didn't get a lot of entertainment). Fortunately, a younger Korean happened along, and he served as our interpreter. They asked the normal questions like where were we from, how old we were, how long we lived in Korea, when we intended to get married, etc. I got a real kick out of telling them that I would get married when I could find a man who would cook and clean for me (scandalous to their Confucian culture!). I know, not very nice to seek to scandalize people, but I prefer to think of it as "re-education". LOL

I didn't realize that Melissa was taking this picture at the time. So I like it because it's a candid shot, and I'm very obviously enjoying talking with these people (Koreans are truly lovely people). This photo also reminds me that I enjoy my little adventures, and it's important to honour this aspect of myself.

Prom

Prom
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Okay, different time in my life .... Back in the day my hair was feathered and permed (and skin tanned) ... 1988, I think. I went "stag" and so did my friend Laura. We didn't realize that our dresses were the exact same colour and fabric until the DAY of the prom. (It was in Sarnia, what can I say???) Embarrassing then, funny/stupid story now. :)

Whirlyball

whirlyball
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Have you ever played Whirlyball? It's so much fun! If you don't know what it is, in your mind, combine bumper cars and basketball. The ball is a little smaller, and you catch/throw it with a scoop, but otherwise it's like basketball with bumper cars. Frigging hilarious! My team won the day this photo was taken ... I was terrible at catching/throwing, but I was awesome at defense!!! LOL

Phil and Elizabeth

Phil and Elizabeth
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Here are two other of my favourite people from my time in Texas. Phil is also from England (and recently married his longtime girlfriend Kate), and, last I heard, Elizabeth was living in Madison, Wisconsin, working on her PhD.

Thanksgiving 1999

thanksgiving
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

So going back through my photos for that picture of Abi and me in the previous post got me feeling a little sentimental (unusual for me), so I thought I'd share some other great pics that you may not have seen.

This photo, for example, was taken at my "apartment" in Texas 1999 (when I was on the VB course with Abi). It was the American Thanksgiving. Most of my classmates were European, but there were a few Americans with us as well who really struggled with being away from their families over this holiday. The course was pretty intense, and there were lots of little cliques among the class. I decided to invite the whole class to my apartment for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner, and, surprisingly, most people showed up. Even more astonishingly, we all had a fantastic time, and we really gelled as a group that day. To be sure, there were spats and conflicts, but weeks later, our instructors said that they had never seen a class that worked so well together.

I don't know what it is, but I think I have the gift of pulling people together. I don't consider this bragging, as I have no idea how I do it. Nor does it happen all the time. But when it happens, it's pretty cool, and seems much larger than just me.

Abi's brilliance

WAY back in 1999, the company I worked for at the time sent me on a 9-week course to learn Visual Basic (which I have never used since). There, I made a wonderful friend named Abi, who is English.

Through the years we have kept in touch (if sporadically), and the other day she sent me a link to her pics on Flickr.

I love Abi. I love her for her decency as a human being, her honesty, her vulnerability, her restlessness, and her brilliant intelligence and wit.

Below is an amazing example of the aforementioned wit, which I begged her to allow me to share with all of you. It's a picture on her Flickr site, and the comments she added to it are frickin' awesome.

"An 800 year old tree in Sherwood Forest that needs a bit of help to stay upright.

I can't decide whether it's a good thing or not, a tree on life support... "

Oh, Abi, you make me laugh!!!! :->

Spider

spider
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

And one more entry re. my cats, this time about Cleo. I got her from the Oshawa Humane Society back in April 1999. This picture makes me melt. She is much, MUCH bigger now. :)

My 300th post!

cute in hammock chair
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Well, folks, this is my 300th post since joining Blogger! Who knew I had so much to say? (hopefully at least some of it has been meaningful or worthwhile, or at least entertaining!)

Normally I don't like to talk/write about my cats. I don't want to be a cat lady. But sometimes you just have to share how adorable your little beasts are. This photo is Sabrina, who is now 9 years old. This picture was taken in 1997 or 1998, but she hasn't changed much (just a few freckles on her nose, little redhead that she is). Still perky and playful and goofy. I bought her as a little kitten at a fish market in Chonju, Korea. (Lordy, did she smell!) She's got the big ears, narrow face, and the long legs and body of an Oriental cat. She's actually quite pretty.

Flyer the Puppy

In case you have not yet met, allow me to introduce you to Flyer the puppy.

Unbelievably, someone threw this sweet little animal into a river from a car, driving on a busy street. Fortunately, Joanna Jedlewska (and her little daughter and niece who were riding with her at the time [in a vehicle headed in the opposite direction]) actually saw the man holding the puppy by the scruff of the neck out the window, and then hurl her into the river thirty feet below as he drove over a bridge. Jedlewska and the kids turned their mini-van around and were able to find the puppy - shivering with cold, but otherwise unharmed. (Details and video here will give you an appreciation of what happened to this dog. The sweetness of the children involved in the rescue is also something of a balm.)

Initially it seemed as though they would never find the idiot who abandoned this puppy in such a cruel manner, but apparently police received a tip, and they have arrested a man and charged him with one count of causing unnecessary suffering.

Meanwhile, Flyer has found a loving new home.

I know that there are daily atrocities against humanity (starvation, child abuse, death or disability by preventable diseases, death squads, North Korean death camps, etc.), and these are outrages beyond expression. But I still reserve the right to be disgusted and angry with any a$$hole who would hurt or abandon a helpless animal. I cannot fathom the darkness that must lurk in someone's soul that would enable him or her to harm a puppy.

Sulky Stephen Harper

Poor Stephen Harper. He just can't get along with those pesky journalists on Capital Hill:

OTTAWA — Stephen Harper says journalists on Parliament Hill are biased against his government so he'll be avoiding them. The prime minister says the parliamentary press gallery seems to have decided to become the opposition to his Conservative administration.
...

The comments were sparked by an incident Tuesday when two dozen Ottawa reporters walked out on a Harper event when he refused to take their questions. The prime minister does not want to hold press conferences unless his staff choose which journalists ask questions from a list they compile. The Ottawa press gallery has refused to play by those rules.
...

Dornan said Harper's allegation is surprising because the Conservative government has generally received good coverage in the national media.

Harper earned mostly glowing headlines for the federal budget, for his new Accountability Act, for changes to the way Supreme Court justices are named, and for a cultural deal with Quebec.

But he also came under fire when he recruited David Emerson and the unelected Michael Fortier to cabinet. Harper has said he expected a negative reaction, but that it was worth it to build a stronger cabinet.

The government also received poor coverage when it announced journalists could no longer cover the repatriation ceremonies for soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Even so, Harper's government is off to a good start with Canadian voters. Recent polls have placed his Tories above 40 per cent, which could put them on track toward a majority government.

Relations with the media began deteriorating just weeks after the prime minister took office. The relationship is so poor that his spokespeople have asked registered lobbyists to act as intermediaries in dealing with reporters.

Question: Do you think this guy has any social skills?

The parental visit

The parental visit
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Yesterday my parents visited me in the big city for a brief overnight stay. Here they are in my living room (the weird metal thing between them and hovering over my dad is a floor lamp). My dad looks highly suspicious of my camera.

Today, my mom helped me with a lot of the remaining spring cleaning, and even cleaned my bike for me, which was rusting out on my balcony without me realizing it. So now my bike and my kitchen gleam.

Last night, we went out for dinner to the Baton Rouge. I generally don't eat a lot of pork, but the baby back ribs are amazing, and so are the garlic n’ bacon mashed potatoes. I have been to this restaurant several times, sometimes with large groups of people, and I have never heard of anyone having a bad meal there. So it’s a great place to bring visiting parents. Unless they’re vegetarian. Or Jewish. Or Muslim. Hunh. I guess you’re on your own then! :)

David Suzuki tells it like it is

Huge long quote following, but it's all so bang-on and timely:

[David Sukuki's] less than thrilled with the state of the world. The recent ascension of the right is not providing much comfort. “The thing that just terrifies me,” he said, “is trying to imagine George Bush or Ralph Klein or Stephen Harper, Stockwell Day, or [Nova Scotia MP] Peter MacKay trying to really understand what exactly is global warming. Or what is a stem cell. If you can’t at least be literate enough to understand the basic principles, then you end up making decisions for purely political reasons. And that’s what’s really terrifying. These guys are still convinced by the skeptics, the people paid for by the fossil-fuel industry, that global warming is bullshit. And they don’t have the ability to judge for themselves.”

An activist concerned about palace politics might second-guess such public comments, but Suzuki doesn’t think the Conservative federal government has any interest in collaboration with environmentally minded groups like the Suzuki Foundation anyway. Or any clear plan at all, for that matter. “Harper’s turned me down,” he claimed. “As soon as he got elected, I wrote him a long letter and I said, ‘You know, the best environmental prime minister we ever had was a Tory. That was Brian Mulroney.’ Now, I didn’t say the reason was public interest was so high he had no choice—he didn’t give a shit about the environment. But I was saying, ‘Tories have a great record and I hope you’re going to follow in his tradition. And we have this thing of Sustainability Within a Generation [www.davidsuzuki.org/WOL/Sustainability/], and I’d love to have the opportunity to meet you and explain it to you.’ Well, he turned me down. He sent the word back to the foundation: no. Now, [Environment Minister Rona] Ambrose, when she was appointed, within two weeks called the office and asked if she could come and visit. I thought that was great. She did come and visit. But let’s face it: they’re all totally subservient to Harper. He’s calling every shot.”

And what are Harper’s plans for the environment? Given his actions to date—appointing chief energy guru Gwyn Morgan as public-accountability watchdog; undoing Canada’s obligations under the Kyoto Protocol; and, most bizarrely, allowing oil-patch MP Ambrose to order Environment Canada scientist Mark Tushingham to keep away from the launch of his own global-warming thriller, Hotter Than Hell—there’s little cause for optimism.

“Harper claims that he’s going to develop his own plan,” Suzuki said. “The thing that’s really outrageous is he has no plan. We’ve got this from Ambrose’s assistant now. We were talking to him, ‘Are you doing this? Considering a carbon tax?’ ‘Nothing yet, we’re open to everything.’ In other words, they don’t have a fucking clue. I think it’s outrageous that he’s coming in, gutting Kyoto, and he’s acting like he’s going to substitute something and he doesn’t have an idea.”

We're forked until we get a new non-Conservative government.

Time to get rid of the old air conditioners!

Folks, with Stephen Harper now our Prime Minister, and turning his back on all sorts of constructive ways to protect the environment, it's time to get rid of your old air conditioner before that rebate* goes the way of the Kyoto Accord.

*Rebate is a $25 coupon at Home Depot or Home Hardware per A/C unit - AND they will safely dispose of your air conditioner for you!

An Inconvenient Truth

Hey, just wanted to mention that there's a movie coming out ("An Inconvenient Truth") that I, for one, intend to see. According to its website:

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media - funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late.

It sounds pretty interesting, and, by gawd, it's about the environment! For those of us in Ontario, you will be able to see it in theatres in Toronto, Ottawa, London, and Waterloo (check for cities/theatres/dates). I'll be sending out an e-mail to my Toronto-based friends soon to see if we can assemble a "posse" to go see it together the first week it's in town. :)

Calling all naturalists!

Calling all naturalists!
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

What the heck happened to this tree? Inquiring minds want to know!

At the Kortright Centre for Conservation

My hiking buddies
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

My dear friend Nancy and I decided to visit the Kortright Centre for Conservation on Victoria Day, and Nancy invited her friends Mark and Michelle to join us. (Lovely and interesting people!) It was a great day, meandering for several hours along the trails, enjoying the mix of terrains and landscapes in a single conservation area, and learning how to use my new camera! (To see more photos from yesterday, click here.)

One of the many reasons that I love Nancy is that she is truly in touch with her inner child; in this photo you can see the long branch that she chose to drag behind her for about half an hour as she walked - just because. :->

The Kortright Centre is a great place to go - lots of trails, quite a few different habitats to see in a relatively small area, wildlife to watch, and various demos of conservation techniques to learn from. I will definitely be returning in the fall (if not sooner for kite-flying!).

At the maple shack

At the maple shack
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

For the last two years or so, I've been using a cheap point-and-shoot camera that takes quite good pictures of people, but makes vegetation - even the most lush kind - look greyish- brown.

So this weekend I bought a new camera and (TA-DA!!!) I now can take pictures of trees!

Happy and Hating It

A couple of days ago, I was surfing Blogspot, and came across an amazing blog. I was going to mention it here, and then when I tried to go back to it today, I get a “Not Found” error. What the …???? It was a brilliant blog, and it seemed to me a shame that this man’s thoughts and his honesty should be lost (if indeed he has shut down his site). So thanks to Google, I found a cached version of his blog, and would like to share with you some quotes. I love the way he expresses himself, the way that he is so self-aware (if sometimes pathos-invoking). He described his blog as “Sporadic permutations from within a mid-life crisis”. The power in his writing is that, no matter how sad or possibly hurtful his feelings were, he was completely honest about them – and the fact that in this venue he was able to be real (and realistic) without prevarication.

On April 3rd:

Too many people give their perspective as though they have their own lives pretty well figured out. They are madly in love with their spouses and everything. Half the time, I smell a scam. They want to be liked. Nothing wrong with that. The surest way not to be liked is to come off as angry, frustrated, or out of control.

But I want to be real. I don't even know what real is so I have to start by not pulling any scams. I think I've done it before. Don't mean to here but you never know. So contradictions and wild mood swings are to be expected. Dig it.

On April 5th:

Happy
I have a wonderful life. I married a woman of great energy and unique talents. She is smart with money, loves to cook and garden, and is amazing with children. Especially difficult children, such as she works with at school: crack kids, autistic kids, etc. Plus we have two teenagers who are well above average in the great kids department.

Hating It
Examining my ever-wandering and wondering mind I've come to learn I married before I had any clear idea what sort of woman I was looking for. This is not uncommon and frequently people adapt and find compromises that make the partnership "good enough". But I'm now deep in a phase of wondering if good enough really is good enough. I'm haunted by my almost total lack of social experience prior to meeting her. I'm not good at hiding and my doubt and lack of passion have effectively broken my wife's heart. I see my alternatives as a) stay and always wonder (and continue to absorb my wife's own sometimes violently expressed personal issues), or b) break the family and possibly wind up alone. Sadly, sometimes (a) seems worse than (b).

Happy
I have an interesting and challenging job for one of the planet's premier corporations. I get to be a little creative, I get to travel a little bit, I get to tell my kids that my division is doing cool stuff.

Hating It
I never wanted a corporate or even conventional job. I studied engineering because it was more practical than history and graphic arts. Sometimes it is interesting. It's a relatively easy way to make a good living. But my music, my drawing and my writing were what moved me as a child and now that I've gone to work and raised kids and played the game awhile, I'm finding (like many people my age) that the only things that really move me now are the same things that moved me thirty years ago.

On May 10th:

[Some dude] launched into a diatribe of wonder at the ignorance of people. He had been talking to a Muslim co-worker and could not believe the man didn’t understand that the current troubles in the Middle East all stem from the rivalry between Isaac and Ishmael. It’s all in the Bible, he said; everything that’s happening, and everything that’s going to happen. The Jews are from Isaac, and the Arabs from Ishmael. I kept my trap shut and looked it up later to learned that, in time, God will allow for the slaughter of millions as the descendants of Abraham’s sons fight it out for final dominion. Of course, Israel ultimately will win. Personally I find the exercise rather pointless. Why kill so many, why have such a horrible war? But I gather that religious folk see it as the will of God and therefore inevitable and thus, acceptable.

Armageddon seems likely enough. But it won’t be because God said so. It will be because enough people believe God said so. That’s all it takes.

On May 12th:

Time to make time for a long sentence at least

I don't know if I should write a story about a man who follows the irresistible siren echoes of unfulfilled youth and drifts away from his wife in pursuit of romance and new experience and to learn all those things about himself he feels he cannot learn from within a marriage whose purpose and origin has been lost under twenty-plus years of inexplicable experience, eventually to return, wiser and sadder, either to his long-suffering wife or a new partner very much like her, all as an analog to his loss of faith in God and departure from the Church and exploration of alternate faith traditions that eventually leads him back home again to the church whence he came; or if I should write a story about a man who follows the irresistible siren call of secular rationalism and leaves his church and abandons his faith to find fulfillment in reality-based human experience and a sort of life-affirming Epicureanism that eventually leads to acceptance of his spiritual nature and his fundamental human need for a return to ritual and faith-based fulfillment, all as an analog to his emotional separation from his wife of many years and an undeniable need to discover love and self-fulfillment on terms that relate to him and not to tradition and two-decade-old vows but which will lead him ultimately, after much painful experience, more or less back where he started, everything the same except in such details as no longer being a stranger to himself.

He takes my breath away. If his blog ever comes back online, you can get to it here.

Back again

It’s been a long time since I’ve added any postings to this site – I apologize for the absence!

I was feeling pretty run down (three sinus infections in less than three months, for instance), and I was dragging myself towards my two-week vacation! The plan was for me to stay in town, save myself some money (for a vacation in Europe next year), but go on lots of little day trips to scenic places around the city for lots of hiking and biking. I’d relax, be refreshed, and get fit. And then I saw the long-range forecast for the first week of my vacation:

And let me just say folks, that forecast was disappointingly accurate.

So in the first week of my vacation, I’ve gone to the gym almost every day (a very good thing) and completed about 80% of the spring cleaning for my apartment (cleaning out closets, throwing out/giving away/recycling tons of stuff, moving furniture to attack mutant dust bunnies, packing away winter clothing, etc.). The good news is that I can now view any closet in my apartment (or the storage closet in the creepy basement) with pride. The bad news is that half of my vacation is gone, and I feel I only have clean closets and lactic acid burn in my muscles to show for it! LOL (Actually, I have painted a cabinet, made copious amounts of chicken a la king for the freezer, completely restocked my kitchen with groceries, visited with a few friends, read a couple of books, watched Pride and Prejudice about 5 times, researched and bought a new digital camera, researched for upcoming trip to Chicago + shopped for flights, etc.)

Well, now that my obsession with cleaning is almost at an end (and better weather ahead), I should have more exciting things to blog about in the next week!

My new hero

I lost the stomach to follow American politics as closely as I once used to do, but from time to time I've checked out the superb and insightful observations at the Whiskey Bar. Through this blog site, I read about Stephen Colbert's brilliant speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner (video or written transcript). It's amazing - he's my new hero.

Billmon writes:

Colbert used satire the way it's used in more openly authoritarian societies: as a political weapon, a device for raising issues that can't be addressed directly. He dragged out all the unmentionables -- the Iraq lies, the secret prisons, the illegal spying, the neutered stupidity of the lapdog press -- and made it pretty clear that he wasn't really laughing at them, much less with them. It may have been comedy, but it also sounded like a bill of indictment, and everybody understood the charges.