Mournful Monday

Reader, weep. This weekend the pro-life movement demonstrated some contrary feelings about the value of human life by murdering abortion provider Dr. George Tiller while he attended church in Witchita, Kansas on Sunday. Dr. Tiller, who had survived another attempt on his life in 1993, had been a tireless advocate for abortion rights. As one of the few providers in the nation to provide third trimester abortions, he was a lightning rod for the anti choice movement.

Awful and powerless but the ladies at Feministing had some ideas about what people that care about woman having access to safe and legal abortion. Make a donation to Medical Students for Choice. I did so, in memory of Dr. Tiller. It doesn't really matter if abortion is legal if there are no trained doctors to perform them.

Onto a lighter note. The words I hear associated with laundry duties for families run along the lines of relentless, never ending, drudgery, etc. Ironic then, that ads for laundry products show laundering women in such orgiastic rapture. Sarah Haskins sets her laser focus on this particularly idiotic slice of woman-focused advertising:

Traffic School and Baby Animals, The End

Reader, I've finished traffic school and passed my "test." If you need to catch up on my foray into law breaking and my efforts to wipe the proverbial slate clean, and you really should, you can do so here, here, and here.

The online traffic school had seventeen separate modules and quizzes about all the aspects of driving safety you could never ever want to learn about. Peppered through each module were pieces of a story about some girl named Anna and the details of her day. For example, stuck right in the middle of the module on speed limits would be the line, "Anna had eggs for breakfast." Later, in the drugs and alcohol section, "Anna had diet soda with lunch." Etc.

At the time I didn't pay much attention/didn't quite understand what they were doing there, but when I logged onto the final exam, sixteen of the forty questions were about Anna. I spent more time combing through the modules trying to find out what kind of car Anna drove and her dream vacation destination than I did on driving safety.

If only I had known what a sham online traffic school was I never would have spent as much time as I did reading all the modules and taking all the quizzes. Perhaps embedding these questions is their way of forcing you to have some interaction with the content but boy it irritated the hell out of me. An irritation that can only be soothed by the balm of baby animals.

Here's a home grown one. Isn't she stinkin' adorable?



Some of you know Nellie. She's the formerly feral kitty of Potrero Hill. She looks innocent here but if you know Nellie, you know she grew up to be a murderess of the highest order. No bird or small or medium-sized mammal is safe when Nellie's around.

For example, this little creature would be dispatched in a trice, cute bunneh feet and all.


Agh, those feet! I die.

You must go look at this mama and baby orangutan montage. It is sweetness.

This concludes our series on traffic school, because really? Zzzzzzzzzzz. But this will not be the last you see of baby animals.

Pink Tulips, Late Afternoon Sun

Sexual Violence in the Congo and That Thing Attached to Your Ear

Reader, I'm not sure of the sequence of events that led me from watching episodes of Alice on YouTube to this clip from Raise Hope for Congo:



I've heard of conflict diamonds, sat through the not-so-stellar Blood Diamond, but never conflict minerals. I couldn't connect the dots between the Congo, cell phones and rape. It's like this: three critical minerals used to make cell phones (and computers) are tin, tungsten and tantalum. (That last one I had never heard of until today. Yay for the humanities!) Which are all mined in the Congo. And to maintain control of natural resources in the area, the militia uses rape. Vile.

Raise Hope for Congo is packed with interesting stuff, but check out some nifty learning resources here.

What can you do, short of embracing your inner Luddite?

1. Urge manufacturers to sign the Conflict Minerals Pledge here.
2. Tell a friend.
3. Tell all your friends.
4. Check on the current policies of companies you buy products from. Apple addresses this in their corporate site, which you can see here. Way at the bottom, "In addition, we require Apple suppliers using Tantalum or Tungsten, metals used in a small number of components, to declare that the metals are not sourced from illegal mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo."


Not sure what mineral this is, but it sure looks dramatic, doesn't it?

Music Monday: First and Last Post About The Dead

Reader, this has been a bit of an odd weekend but Professional Critic is rolling with it. Best to bend when the strange winds blow.

Last Thursday I went to my very first Dead show. If you care about such things, you can download the show here. I learned some important things about Dead shows, so if you have never been to one and think you never will, now you'll know.

It's all about the people watching. Especially on the lawn section.
Still not liking their music but now appreciate their talent.
Understanding that songs don't have to be five minutes long when they can be thirty seven (see below).
Importance of extended jamming.
White guys going fucking nuts with spasmodic dancing during said jamming.
Most of the audience is white people.
Awesome smelly dirty hippies dancing/spinning/running through the crowd making meaningful hand gestures.
Don't worry if you didn't bring your own weed.
Tie-dyed fifty-somethings driving Volvo SUVs.
Kids and babies getting their groove on.
Earth mamas selling veggie burritos out of VW buses.
Girls wearing many layers of skirts. One really isn't enough.
Hand crafted bongs and a variety of baked goods being hawked in the parking lot.

And for a taste, here's I Know You, Rider:



Drums with the fire ladies, who I've since learned are Kalalea Fire. I like it around minute six. That girl is teh hotness.



Reader, after this experience I was positive the Dead were going to show up in Stuff White People Like but it appears not. Instead, see entries for Bob Marley and apropos of nothing but very funny, sea salt. This blog always makes me laugh.

Moving on. The Farmer's Market yielded many beautiful flores which moved me evermore than the veggies this time.

Some of the hottest pink Gerbera daisies I have ever seen:



Freesia filling the room with their Fruit Loop-y smell:



Gus pondering whether there might not be a better living arrangement out there for him. One where the service isn't so slow, the food variety better, a more constant stream of adoration:



It's hard out there for a ball-less housecat.

Random Health Bits

Reader, can you appreciate my sense of outrage and betrayal when Netflix told me In Treatment DVDs were coming today but I came home to an EMPTY mailbox? I'm having a hard time recovering and am thus incapable of writing cogently. Here are some random bits and pieces floating about interwebs you may find interesting.

The FDA has just spanked General Mills for their Cheerios ads. Apparently by marketing their product as "clinically proven to lower cholesterol" they inadvertently caused it to be a drug, i.e. a product used to prevent disease. The FDA now kindly requests that General Mills knock it off or submit a new drug application. No kidding.

In other weird health news, a group of cancer patients is suing a biotech company and the Patent Office for granting an odd pair of patents. One patent is for the process of testing for two genes that indicate increased risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Okay, fine. But the other patents are for the genes themselves. I didn't think you could do this and apparently you usually can't but the company argued that it wasn't just the gene but the isolated, purified DNA, which was a product of their process. Thorny. Fraught. Discuss amongst yourselves.

On a health roll here, check out Rachel Maddow's commentary on Obama's decision to cut funding for abstinence only sex education programs and fund sex education programs that actually work. Yay for sanity!



And last, is there anything better for your health than seeing interspecies love? Hm, that sounded dirty and not at all what I was trying to convey. See?



Nestled in that pile of puppehs is an orphaned baby squirrel. Can you say squee?

I feel better.

Epic Fail Treating PTSD in Iraq?

Reader, perhaps you've heard that an American solider went postal today, killing five of his fellow soldiers at a military stress counseling center in Baghdad. The shooter has been taken into custody.

At today's press conference, a Pentagon spokesperson said the incident “speaks to the issue of multiple deployments." I'll say it does. This reminded me of two things ... what are they again? Oh yeah: the pressure the military has been putting on doctors to not diagnose PTSD, which I wrote about briefly here and the movie Stop-loss. Though not a fantastic film, Stop-loss really helped you see how multiple deployments, which is a nicer way to say the involuntary extension of active duty, make soldiers completely bonkers. Really, the question isn't so much why did this happen today, but why doesn't it happen more often? Sadly, what happens far more frequently is suicide, which the military has a history of hiding.

Was the shooter receiving treatment at the center? Or had he been trying to access treatment, but told by a doctor, under orders to limit PTSD diagnoses, that he didn't qualify for treatment? I'll be staying tuned for more details. Hope they're forthcoming.

Music Monday Tribute to Mother's Day

This digital short from Saturday Night Live is a little bit wrong, but mostly pretty right. May not be super safe for work; keep the volume down and you'll be okay I think.

Bed is Good

The ladies at Feministing featured a fantastic Spanish mattress commercial. Yes, you read that right. An amazingly beautiful ad for a bed.



American commercials aren't very successful at conveying emotion without slipping into saccharine, but this one? Bwahhuhwhhawh!

On the Couch

Reader, just a quickie to tell you that I'm about halfway through the first season of In Treatment and IT RULES. Srsly? This show is good. Oh, and Gabriel Byrne is sex on fire, btw.

Here's a clip of him in session with a client, Laura:



Here he is talking to his therapist, the amazing Dianne Wiest, about his attraction to Laura.



And the way he says 'Laura?' [falls over]

Parkinson's, Grace and Olive Oil Cake

Reader, last week I had a great night on the town with Liz. We went to see Michael Pollan interview Michael J. Fox at the Herbst Theater. Fox is married to Pollan's sister Tracy; their comfort with and admiration for each other was evident. Though first known as an actor, Fox is now known equally for his Parkinson's activism, particularly for his highly respected foundation and vocal support of stem cell research. Perhaps you saw the commercial he made in support of Missouri politician Claire McCaskill that caused a kerfuffle with colossal fathead Rush Limbaugh back in 2006.



Although he left full-time television in 2000, he is still acting, about to appear in Rescue Me, playing Dennis Leary's soon to be ex-wife's new boyfriend. Here's a clip:



Fox was very funny and incredibly graceful about the many accommodations he's made in his life for the disease and equally impassioned and optimistic about finding a cure. I highly recommend going to see him if the opportunity arises.

After the talk, we went for dessert at Citizen Cake. Right off the bat we knew we wanted the molten chocolate cake with coconut sherbet. It made you understand (if you didn't already--we did) why more women prefer chocolate to sex. There was also an olive oil cake on the menu, which I had been wanting to try for some time. I love olive oil and I love cake and yet the combination of the two seemed wrong-ish. But we went for it. It was served with whipped cream, rhubarb consomme and a bunch of other hoity toity ingredients and it was so. Damn. Good.

That next day I made olive oil cake at home using this recipe, but first read all the comments and made some changes based on that feedback. Hundreds of fellow bakers can't be wrong. My thinking anyway. Anyway, doubled the lemon zest and the lemon juice. And because I can't be bothered with cake flour and springform pan foolishness I used regular flour and a glass pan.

I served it to the Urban Farmers with sliced strawberries that had stewed in some balsamic and sugar. The correct term for that is macerated, but that word is so very awful, I shan't be uttering it again.

The result was quite good, but nowhere near the yumminess of the Citizen Cake variety. The textures were very different and I'm not enough of a baker to even speculate on the possible causes. I will definitely make this again, with some minor changes. Maybe a little less olive oil, even more lemon zest and juice and maybe I would buckle and try some cake flour. Or try orange zest and juice or adding a light lemon glaze. Mmm, lemon glaze.