Meet the new year...
Friday, December 31, 2004
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
In case I don't cough up any new words for the next couple of days, here are my favorite entries from 2004, titled as though they were Monk episodes.
* Miss Jen Visits Downtown Vegas
* Miss Jen Comes To An Understanding With Los Angeles
* Miss Jen Makes Friends With The Desert
* Miss Jen Buys Some Firewood
* Miss Jen Learns Black History
* Miss Jen And The Red Carpet
* Miss Jen And The Dive Bar (Part I)
* Miss Jen And The Dive Bar (Part II)
* Miss Jen Visits Downtown Vegas
* Miss Jen Comes To An Understanding With Los Angeles
* Miss Jen Makes Friends With The Desert
* Miss Jen Buys Some Firewood
* Miss Jen Learns Black History
* Miss Jen And The Red Carpet
* Miss Jen And The Dive Bar (Part I)
* Miss Jen And The Dive Bar (Part II)
I'm back from a week in Hawaii with Rick and da in-laws. I'll give the highlights (and gracefully omit the lowlights) later, perhaps.
In the meantime, I'm gorging myself on a big, heaping plate of online news, columns, comics, and other goodies. Honolulu's local newspaper is for shit.
In the meantime, I'm gorging myself on a big, heaping plate of online news, columns, comics, and other goodies. Honolulu's local newspaper is for shit.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Hey, it might help them get into a good kindergarten...
The New York Times reports on:
...the Time Tracker, a device whose purpose is to help children improve their performances on the standardized tests that have become unavoidable in education. Recommended ages: 4 and up.
Shaped like a colorful peppermill, with a digital readout panel, lights that suggest a traffic intersection and an electronic male voice that booms "Begin" and "Time's up," the Time Tracker, which sells for a list price of $34.95, has turned into a surprise hit of the holiday season, according to some toy sellers.
[...]
"Lower-middle-class parents are concerned about their school quality and their children's grades," Professor Carnoy said. "The upper middle class is less concerned about the quality of the school than about the performance of their own kids on these make-or-break tests."
And this, friends, is why I prefer teaching poor kids. Most rich kids aren't kids -- they're short, bratty, immature adults who worry more than I do.
The New York Times reports on:
...the Time Tracker, a device whose purpose is to help children improve their performances on the standardized tests that have become unavoidable in education. Recommended ages: 4 and up.
Shaped like a colorful peppermill, with a digital readout panel, lights that suggest a traffic intersection and an electronic male voice that booms "Begin" and "Time's up," the Time Tracker, which sells for a list price of $34.95, has turned into a surprise hit of the holiday season, according to some toy sellers.
[...]
"Lower-middle-class parents are concerned about their school quality and their children's grades," Professor Carnoy said. "The upper middle class is less concerned about the quality of the school than about the performance of their own kids on these make-or-break tests."
And this, friends, is why I prefer teaching poor kids. Most rich kids aren't kids -- they're short, bratty, immature adults who worry more than I do.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Why did the Scott Peterson murder trial get so much attention? Certainly he wasn't the first asshole to kill his wife, or even his pregnant wife.
Turns out Steve Lopez from the LA Times wondered, too, and wrote:
The morning after the death penalty verdict came in, I called the Los Angeles County district attorney's office with a question: How many men have killed their wives around here lately?
As I write this, they're still counting the number of cases filed in the last two years.
"We have at least 50 cases in which men have been charged with killing their wives or significant others," says Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.
[...]
[T]he next case on the docket in L.A. County involves a man charged with the stabbing death of his live-in, pregnant girlfriend, as well as the murder of their unborn baby.
Anyone ever hear the names Roger Marquez or Noelle Chagolla?
Of course not. And you may never hear them again.
"I was wondering the same thing about why the Peterson case got a lot of notoriety," says L.A. County Sheriff's Det. Rich Ramirez.
He's the veteran investigator who took the call on the Chagolla slaying on April 14, 2002, drove out to the 21-year-old woman's East L.A. home and found her body wrapped in bloody blankets. Marquez, now 25, claimed he had come home and discovered his girlfriend's body, but he later was arrested.
"In all the years I've been doing this, it was probably one of the more gruesome cases I've handled," says Ramirez, a homicide detective for six years.
Ramirez gets a new domestic homicide case every four or five months. He says he didn't want to sound cynical, but he has an opinion about why some murders get press and others don't.
"We weigh the value of the victim and the defendant, in my estimation," he says. "And that's a sad commentary."
To put it even more bluntly, certain segments of society are expected to kill their loved ones now and again, so when it happens, it's no big deal.
Turns out Steve Lopez from the LA Times wondered, too, and wrote:
The morning after the death penalty verdict came in, I called the Los Angeles County district attorney's office with a question: How many men have killed their wives around here lately?
As I write this, they're still counting the number of cases filed in the last two years.
"We have at least 50 cases in which men have been charged with killing their wives or significant others," says Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.
[...]
[T]he next case on the docket in L.A. County involves a man charged with the stabbing death of his live-in, pregnant girlfriend, as well as the murder of their unborn baby.
Anyone ever hear the names Roger Marquez or Noelle Chagolla?
Of course not. And you may never hear them again.
"I was wondering the same thing about why the Peterson case got a lot of notoriety," says L.A. County Sheriff's Det. Rich Ramirez.
He's the veteran investigator who took the call on the Chagolla slaying on April 14, 2002, drove out to the 21-year-old woman's East L.A. home and found her body wrapped in bloody blankets. Marquez, now 25, claimed he had come home and discovered his girlfriend's body, but he later was arrested.
"In all the years I've been doing this, it was probably one of the more gruesome cases I've handled," says Ramirez, a homicide detective for six years.
Ramirez gets a new domestic homicide case every four or five months. He says he didn't want to sound cynical, but he has an opinion about why some murders get press and others don't.
"We weigh the value of the victim and the defendant, in my estimation," he says. "And that's a sad commentary."
To put it even more bluntly, certain segments of society are expected to kill their loved ones now and again, so when it happens, it's no big deal.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Shut up, Beavis!
I had another Asian food adventure, this time with a rockin' $2 sub from a Vietnamese storefront in Chinatown, and I didn't notice until after I'd ordered that the place was called:
MY DUNG SANDWICH SHOP.
I'm sure it sounds better in Vietnamese.
I had another Asian food adventure, this time with a rockin' $2 sub from a Vietnamese storefront in Chinatown, and I didn't notice until after I'd ordered that the place was called:
MY DUNG SANDWICH SHOP.
I'm sure it sounds better in Vietnamese.
Labels: food
Friday, December 10, 2004
There's an amusing but fairly throwaway article in today's LA Times about Americans who don't just threaten to move to Canada, but are seriously pursuing it.
Of course, most of these people are disgruntled progressives, rightly appalled at the direction of the US. This quote, however, took me very much by surprise:
Joan Griggs said she's tired of being surrounded by immigrants and wants to leave. "We'll go somewhere where we're the immigrants," she said.
Wow. White flight to the surburbs is old hat. And sure, there are the old farts who want to move to Iowa to get away from the Mexicans. Certainly, Southern California's old people have started retiring to lily Utah instead of the old favorite, Arizona. But moving to another, whiter country to get away from immigrants? While acknowledging (but apparently not caring about) the complete hypocrisy inherent in this decision?
It makes me wonder idly about what would happen if, as America gets browner (particularly from the southern borders on up), people really will just keep fleeing north. I suppose this will only work until they get far enough north to hit Eskimos.
Of course, most of these people are disgruntled progressives, rightly appalled at the direction of the US. This quote, however, took me very much by surprise:
Joan Griggs said she's tired of being surrounded by immigrants and wants to leave. "We'll go somewhere where we're the immigrants," she said.
Wow. White flight to the surburbs is old hat. And sure, there are the old farts who want to move to Iowa to get away from the Mexicans. Certainly, Southern California's old people have started retiring to lily Utah instead of the old favorite, Arizona. But moving to another, whiter country to get away from immigrants? While acknowledging (but apparently not caring about) the complete hypocrisy inherent in this decision?
It makes me wonder idly about what would happen if, as America gets browner (particularly from the southern borders on up), people really will just keep fleeing north. I suppose this will only work until they get far enough north to hit Eskimos.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
A new Asian food adventure
The last time I went to an Asian market and picked up some really random groceries, I wound up ingesting horse piss.
No preserved duck eggs this time, but here's my latest haul:
Experiment #1: A rather disturbingly bright yellow drink made of "cane" (that's "sugar" to the rest of us, I assume) and something called imperatae. When asked what it tasted like, I was forced to reply, "I have no idea." That's why they pay me the big bucks. Anyway, it didn't taste good. I later learned that this is because it's medicine. For, among other things, urinary infections. Stick to cranberry juice.
Experiment #2: A mixed package of Vietnamese (?) dessert blobs, one white, one black, and two green. Two were dusted with coconut. All, so far, contain mung bean paste. Mmm. Mung bean. The ingredients list claims sweet rice in there somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Overall consensus: not enough mung bean, too much glutinous flour.
Total experiment cost: $1.98.
The last time I went to an Asian market and picked up some really random groceries, I wound up ingesting horse piss.
No preserved duck eggs this time, but here's my latest haul:
Experiment #1: A rather disturbingly bright yellow drink made of "cane" (that's "sugar" to the rest of us, I assume) and something called imperatae. When asked what it tasted like, I was forced to reply, "I have no idea." That's why they pay me the big bucks. Anyway, it didn't taste good. I later learned that this is because it's medicine. For, among other things, urinary infections. Stick to cranberry juice.
Experiment #2: A mixed package of Vietnamese (?) dessert blobs, one white, one black, and two green. Two were dusted with coconut. All, so far, contain mung bean paste. Mmm. Mung bean. The ingredients list claims sweet rice in there somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Overall consensus: not enough mung bean, too much glutinous flour.
Total experiment cost: $1.98.
Labels: food
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
This summary of a TV documentary isn't the best-written thing I've ever seen on the BBC, but as far as I can tell the gist is this: New York City foster kids with AIDS/HIV have been given experimental, not particularly safe HIV drugs, against their/their parents' will, at a weird Harlem building owned by the Catholic Church.
And a happy World AIDS Day to you, too.
And a happy World AIDS Day to you, too.
Thumbs-up to all NaNoWriMo participants, and an big congrats to all the sleep-deprived, hungover winners. Maybe I'll be back for more punishment next year.
