On Sprouts and Dooce

Reader, I am killing it with the oven-roasted brussels sprouts right now. My secret, which I will unsecret just for you: bacon fat. This is a better method than putting cooked bacon or pancetta in with the sprouts because the fat melts as they're cooking and just envelopes them in rich porky goodness. A little of this goes a long way--I use a few slugs of olive oil and then maybe a tablespoon of bacon fat doled out in pea-size dollops. Sprinkling of kosher salt, cook until browned and tender, with crispy bits and pieces. That's it. If you want to be fancy you can add shallots, garlic, sweet potatoes and carrots but just sprouts is great. So. Damn. Good.

I just did a key word search on my blog and discovered that I have written about some combination of brussels sprouts and pork products five times already! Which could lead you to conclude that I am either in the grips of early onset dementia or I know what I like and I like to tell you about it over and over. Okay, maybe a third revelation is possible--I continue to be amazed that a sprout, which I grew up eating steamed and therefore wanted to eat exactly NEVER, could be so delicious.

In an non-pork matter, I read today that Heather Armstrong of Dooce fame has separated from her husband. Both she and he wrote about it on their respective blogs. I was moved by his raw honesty of the sudden, harsh shift in his reality. Not that hers is so great either, chased by the dog of depression nipping at her heels, yet having the comfort and normalcy of her children, her animals, her home. There was something so painful in reading Jon Armstrong ask the internet to help him find a place to live, a place to work because of course, he can't work at their company, the one they built together, the one that is about them. Then through reading all of this, my unsettled feeling that their relationship or the unraveling of it is a private matter yet since they built their brand on chronicling the minutiae of their lives together, isn't private at all. The internet is weird.

Weepy Wednesday

Oh, reader. The political shit show in this country rolls on, so my love of Twitter was in full flower last night as I caught the developing hashtag #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement.

Does this phrase ring a bell? No? Allow me to enlighten: it's the response given by his office when idiot Senator Jon Kyl was called out on his Senate floor claim that abortion is "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does," when it's really 3%.

REALLY? Lying and then avoiding responsibility for lying is behavior a nursery school wouldn't tolerate. What choice did Stephen Colbert have but to launch a Twitter attack, which naturally the Twitterverse picked up gleefully?

Some of my favorites from Colbert:
Jon Kyl was sent from the future to kill Sarah Conner.
Jon Kyl developed his own line of hair care products just so he could test them on bunnies.
Jon Kyl can unhinge his jaw like a python to swallow small rodents whole.

Wait, there's more!! Some dingalings on Fox and Friends tried to convince their audience that the services offered at Planned Parenthood like breast exams and pap smears could be obtained at your neighborhood Walgreens. The normally poker-faced Colbert could barely keep it together for this absurd turn of reality:



Jesus wept. Here's a balm for your weary soul: Cute Roulette! Like Chat Roulette without the penises!

You'll Fume, But Will Be Glad You Did

Reader, I put off seeing Inside Job, the Academy Award-winning documentary about the financial crisis, for a long time knowing it would make me blood boilingly, teeth gnashingly cra-zay. However this weekend I broke down, largely because I forgot to keep moving it to the bottom of my Netflix queue, it subsequently appeared in my mailbox and I didn't think I could stomach the guilt of returning it unwatched.

So yes, it was just as I imagined it would be--awful, maddening, heart-breaking, but excellent. Director Charles Ferguson did a great job of breaking down all the contributing factors that led to the entirely foreseeable and totally preventable shit storm, with a minimum of Michael Moore-style inflammatory shennanigans.

Here's Ferguson, on why he made the film and why you should watch it, despite the good possibility that you'll be thrown into a state of rageful despair:



On an unrelated note, last week the Associated Press officially dropped the hyphen in 'e-mail' in their style book. I guess this was kind of a big deal.

Music Monday on the First Sunday

What it is, reader. Thanks to the Mama, a clump of my brain cells is saturated with Willow Smith's godawful Whip My Hair. How do I exterminate this evil earworm? Huff spray paint? Hit the crack pipe? I'LL DO IT.

Thankfully, all I need to do is listen to Jimmy Fallon's genius Neil Young-style cover. This is a song I could have looping through my noggin, no problem:



In the past few months I've seen Nicki Minaj all over interwebs and print media. Over the holidays the Mama and I investigated this Trinidadian hip hop artist to see what all the fuss was about. We started with Your Love. By second 38 we had both heard enough of the whiny, Auto-Tuned ballad. We proceeded to Right Through Me, whose opening "movie" was laden with so much cringe-inducing dialogue and "acting" we almost didn't make it past second 12 to the start of the music, which sadly did nothing to improve our opinion of Ms. Minaj.

At this point we were both totally stumped why Nicki Minaj was famous as a hip hop artist as there was no hip hop in sight, just a pile of steaming cheese. But we gave her one last try with Massive Attack:



Yes, the video is utterly redonk, but I thought the song was pretty good and on this last point the Mama and I finally agreed: Nicki has a pretty impressive ass.

Troubling Fashion Trend: Spats

Reader, while perusing a Garnet Hill catalog I saw two pairs of boots that made me go 'hmm.'





There's something about the second pair that's kind of zexy but I think it's the corset-style lacing rather than the spat effect. I'm cosigning the tan suede as the black ones just read as professional dom, don't you think?

What the hell is the point of spats, anyway? I thought they were originally supposed to keep your shoes and lower part of your pants protected from all the horse poop in the streets back in the day but I can find nothing to support this theory. I guess they're just decorative. MJ sports gangsta spats in the Smooth Criminal video. Great dancing in this video btw.

I'm inclined to thumbs down this shoe trend. What say you, reader?

Sexism to Conquer Homophobia? I Think Not.

Reader, sigh. Like every other thoughtful progressive person, I am in favor of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It's discriminatory. It's reactionary. Oh, and active military members aren't supporting it, either:

“Service members said the most important factors for unit cohesion and readiness were the quality of their officers, training, and equipment,’’ said Laura Miller, a military sociologist at the RAND Corporation, a private research group that has long advised the Pentagon, which conducted the study along with the University of Florida. “Serving with another service member who was gay or lesbian was not a significant factor that affected unit cohesion or readiness to fight.’’

Can I get a DUH!? So why did Dan Choi, poster child of the DADT repeal movement, decide to invoke sexism to battle homophobia by calling Harry Reid "a pussy [who] bleeds once a month" in a recent Village Voice profile?

The Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) quickly called out this dumbass move in an open letter to Choi, excerpted below:

Your comments about women are irresponsible, indefensible and inexcusable, and you should publicly acknowledge that fact. As a human rights advocate, you should know that degrading one group of people to promote the rights of another disserves everyone. Your sexist comments also undermine SWAN”s efforts to achieve our policy objectives, which include promoting equality for all servicemembers.

As an organization that advocates for equal opportunity for all servicemembers and veterans, SWAN is keenly aware that there is still a tremendous amount of misogyny both within the military and the LGBTQ community, and that misogynistic and homophobic language is rampant in the military.

Comments denigrating women's bodies, or suggesting that simply being a woman is abhorrent, are unacceptable. Unfortunately, this type of language is all too familiar to women in the military.

As a direct result of misogynistic language, a hostile work environment for servicewomen–both heterosexual and lesbian–is allowed to thrive. Hate crimes, sexual harassment, lesbian-baiting, gay-bashing and sexual assault have flourished. Adopting and promulgating hate-filled speech against women only serves to increase the danger that servicewomen and LGBTQ servicemembers face on a daily basis.

Choi issued an apology via Twitter. Which is also lame. C'mon Choi, get it together. Because in 2007 women made up less than 20 percent of the Army and Air Force, but accounted for nearly half of DADT’s discharges.

My mind remains boggled that still, STILL! the very worst thing you can call a man is a woman.

Fail.

Tuesday Recap

What it is reader! I'm just back from vacay, tan but fighting off a cold. I'm hopelessly out of date with all things interwebby, so let's do a quick recap of the week's events, shall we?

1. Folks' undies all in a twist about healthcare rationing. Really? Never had a doctor prescribe something for you that wasn't on your insurance formulary? You know, that list of drugs your insurance company will pay for?

2. Same folks undies all wadded up about socialized medicine? Expecting MediCare when you're 65? Socialized medicine. Like to get a response when you call 911? Socialized public safety. Like to borrow books from the library gratis? Socialized public services. Expect your kids to get a free education through grade 12? Socialized education. So STFU already! My patience for this non-argument has left the building.

3. Annie Liebovitz is broke. I care, a little, maybe.

4. Jet Blue has an interesting deal: fly all you want between September 8th and October 8th for $599. Offer ends Friday, so step on it.

5. Men can sport a gut and still be considered hip and attractive. This is news?

6. PETA takes sexism and fatphobia to stunning new heights. FAIL. Check out some of the links to other grody PETA ads at Feministing.

7. The third season premier of Mad Men was Sunday. You can read all about it here.

And I'm tired. Happy Tuesday, reader!

Oy and Then ...

Reader, preeminent African-American scholar and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested on his own front porch for allegedly breaking into his own house last week. NOT GOOD. Then James Hannaham from Salon writes that the incident has made him "proud of America" because Gates was only arrested and not actually lynched by the police? Umm ... hooray? You can read more about this fiasco here and here.

Let's take a break from racial profiling and cancer to watch a clip from 30 Rock. This particular segment has got to be one of the damn funniest moments of this show and one of the many times I am absolutely mesmerized by Alec Baldwin:

Getting Sliced by Occam's Razor/Public Service Announcement

What it is, reader! Hope everyone's weekend was filled with thrills and chills or you at least finished the laundry.

Reader, have you heard of Occam's Razor? If not, you're surely familiar with the everyday translation: the simplest explanation that takes all the facts into account is usually the right one.

This is the theory hypochondriacs struggle with but Occam's Razor was made for you: in the absence of any other symptom, a headache is not brain cancer, but simply the need for a glass of water, a better night's sleep, maybe an aspirin.

But once in a while, really not all that often, the simplest explanation is not the right one at all.

And so we move on to the public service announcement component to this post, oral cancer awareness! How FUN!! Oral cancers in the young and healthy are on the rise. According to the Oral Cancer Foundation there was an 11% jump in cases in 2007 alone, thought to be due to a strain of HPV. Remember HPV? We talked about HPV a while back, when it leads to cervical cancer but HPV gets up to other mischief in your noggin, when mischief = sucky cancer.

So, reader: ask your dentist to screen you (which s/he should be doing anyway), don't ignore sores in your mouth that won't heal or any of these symptoms either.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. DUH.

Disclaimer: Sorry if this post freaks your shit out.


I can haz oral cancer screening?

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?

No, Really. This is Important

Reader, file this under WTF?! Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins is dating Tila Tequila? I cannot get this through my mind grapes.

The enchanting Sarah Haskin is back with another episode of Target Women, and this time her sights are set on the fast food advertising douchebaggery of Carl's Jr. Love!



This is so fucking rad. Got to there.

On the opposite end of the radness spectrum is this piece of turd news that the Army is pressuring doctors to not diagnose PTSD. O, epic epic FAIL. Are there not sufficient numbers of civilians freaking out and committing random murder/suicides? Must we expand the pool of traumatized Americans to include those with weaponry experience? Professional Critic is aggrieved.

By this, too: the stupidest marketing campaign I have ever seen, for the idiotically named Fling chocolate bar. My eyes are rolling around so much I have given myself a headache.