protoplace

I want to eat the whole world and then throw it back up again.

This is pathetically sad and borders on unfunny; but true to The Corner tradition it still manages to stay within the realm of unintentional comedy. sherarara you'll also love/hate this, but since I got it from resident_geek you've probably seen it already.

The Corner, "It Sticks In My Craw", National Review Online.

Hey all - the phone is back but it only lasts 20 or so hrs on a charge. Since we're moving this week things are a bit hectic. I have added a new yoga class to my roster - http://www.urbanlotuschicago.com - weds nights. What else...

My phone is missing. It's already at the point of "It may be really gone this time". I have two phone calls to make to find out if it's really really missing or just in someone else's hands - beyond that, I'm screwed and will need a new phone. So just be advised - over the next few days, if I don't call you back, I DO STILL LOVE YOU.

Oh boy oh boy I'm back! It's nice to be back state-side, though I wish we'd stayed one extra day for Obama's big speech. Pics are forthcoming on my Flickr page - they're uploaded, just need some rearranging.

So far I've used about 1/3 of the cabbage. I did a brief juice fast a few days ago and broke it by sauteeing some cabbage, onions, and a potato. Super simple and even a bit hoboey, but very good.

Now, I'm bringing my favorite borscht recipe to a boil. It's so pretty I'm taking a picture

I'd love to make sauerkraut. I've got some store bought kim chi in the fridge. Maybe fermented foods (and bevereges, eh??) are my next project. Then sprouting. Hey, why not, life is long...

I'm divorcing This American Life. I've been a fan of the show for a long time but I'm never listening again.

This morning I listened to the show, which was actually a repeat I hadn't heard before. It which contained two heart wrenching, devastating stories. They didn't really warn you going into it, it started with Ira Glass with his smirky jokey terribly overdone at this point "i'm a big intellectual dork but i also know things but I'm humble and all the NPR-fangirl milfs want to do me haha!" schtick like it always does, which is sometimes okay with me and sometimes irritating but putupwithable.

Anyway, the show had two "acts", each one a separate deeply troubling and (pardon the use of the pop psych term) "triggering" elements to it to me personally and I think a lot of people - at least, anyone who had a troubled or even awkward teenage or adolescenthood. I sat down and sobbed multiple times while listening to it. You can get it online if you want to, the show has a website with free archives. I'm not linking.

Anyway immediately after the first story they go into the chirpy "NPR is sponsored by blahblahblah and health insurance, and other crap blah blah", which I thought was jarring and somewhat in poor taste. Then after the second bit, which ends in a SERIOUSLY disturbing and gruesome scene, they immediately cut to the chirpy end-shpiel, which includes a goofy joke every week attributing a quote from one of the bits to the show's producer and WBEZ station manager Tory Malatea*. They use a quote from the show in a completely inappropriate manner. I was horrified.

Sure okay Ira Glass is from Baltimore but I am no longer required to like him solely by virtue of this. This show is officially off my list of media i must consume weekly. WBEZ goes out with the bath water, I'm sick of the whiny pledge drives and the homogenization of every program into first-person-awkward-singular formula. I'm not listening anymore and I'm not BitTorrenting their fucking tv show ever now. That I will never donate again - and this of course is key - goes without saying.

Yeah I realize at least a little part of this this is me venting my spleen at somewhat random at a harmless target who doesn't even know I exist nor think I matter, but fuckit. Happy Equinox, and happy spring cleaning everyone.

*who is also on my hate list for taking Dick Buckley and all jazz programming off the air, and wanting to turn every single show on WBEZ into the exact same thing as his TAL cash cow.

Plus one endnote: I feel like the stories themselves really were great - the people who presented them did a great job, and the stories are good stories and need to be told. Both have related books either out or coming out, and I really want to check those out. I hate the way these stories were handled.

And one more endnote: See also: http://midnightcowgirls.blogspot.com/2008/03/ira-glass-my-ass.html

OK so this time of year it seems like the smallest head of green cabbage available in the market is 6.44 lbs. Thats the size of the one that is staring me down in the kitchen right now. I bought it to make borscht, but I'll only need a few cups of it chopped...what to do with the rest? Any veg-tastic recipes or ideas out there?

Over the years I've made peace with a lot of cheap ingredients I thought were hard to make or I thought I didn't like (beans, rice, kale, collards) and I think it's high time I crossed over that line with cabbage. 39 cents a frickin pound! Yeahhh!

Tnx everybody who responded to this query on facebook too. :)

EY So Chiditarod was excellent as always. Enjoy a few photos of CARTSMITH on my flickr photostream, same name there as I am here, eh.

So here is a special Presidents Day video for you to enjoy. NSFW unless you wear headphones.

Welcome to the world, John Michael Corrado!

Congratulations dance_shiva and ausir!!

Friend me. FRIEND ME FRIEND ME FRIEND ME FRIEND ME FRIEND MEEEE!

Magnum Force guns for the stage
Singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, apparently a Magnum Force obsessive, reportedly plans to turn the Dirty Harry sequel into a stage musical


THANK YOU JESUS!

I haven't been able to get this song out of my head all day. Yay!

For Arab Clan, Days of Agony in a Cross-Fire, NY Times, 1/10/09. I have to warn you, this one's not easy to take. The photos and story are graphic and terribly sad.

Also: Nov 5 Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen, UK Guardian. Israel broke the cease fire on the day of the US Presidential election.

A friend of mine involved with Jewish Voice for Peace brought me down to the University of Chicago for a forum with three scholars on the Israel-Palestine conflict yesterday. I feel like I learned a lot, or at least got some more perspective on the situation. The most interesting point territory and power are Israel's to lose; to some extent it works in their favor to keep warring directly with the Palestinian Authority rather than negotiating and moving towards long-term solutions.

Effectively, the war going on right now is not a response to rocket attacks from Hamas on southern Israel. It's a response to what panelist Norman Finkelstein called the Palestinian ""peace offensive".

The panelists, assembled by the University's Muslim Students Association, were all critical of Israel, though they disagreed on what they thought the future held for the region and its inhabitants. They all agreed that by endorsing a policy of what is essentially ethnic cleansing Israels staunchest and most hawkish defenders are actually its biggest threat to its existence. Israel already risks finding some of its government officials in a UN war crimes tribunal. If this campaign goes on long enough they could find themselves the target of international sanctions, just as happened with South Africa.

So a country has a history of unrest between warring factions. Certain people in one area of the country are lobbing missiles at their enemies nearby, so they get their government to go in and drop bombs from airplanes. They do manage to take out a few targets but blow up a lot of innocent civilians in the process as well.

I have a question. If you have the legal authority to do so, wouldn't it be more in your long-term political interests, as a Prime Minister or whatever, to send in the police (or even the army) and arrest the people lobbing the missiles and bring them to justice? I don't get it - what's the point of dropping bombs from airplanes on your own territory?

If the idea is deterrence, it seems to me the deterrent is so ideologically clumsy and logistically careless that it's no more effective or legitimate than your normal garden-variety terrorism.

[Edited at 5:15 to clarify that last bit.]

Hi people in warmer places than Chicago, [1]

Yes, we've had a few chilly ones the past few weeks. We thought it was cold in early December when it dropped to the teens and then the single digits [2].  We got to have our first big snow of the year. Then the second. Then a few small ones a few nights back-to-back. Then another pretty big snow fall, plus two medium-sized ones in the week following.

Through all of this we mostly forgot that winter hadn't officially started yet. Yesterday it did. Yesterday I got to find out what 6 below feels like. Wow.

I'm pretty sure I've experienced six below with wind chill before but this was six below straight up. Real six below. The wind chill was like minus thirtysomething. [3] I didn't know there was cold beyond fuck-you cold. The scale goes like this:

Cold  -> Quite cold -> Damn cold -> Bitter cold -> Fuck-you cold -> Impressive cold

It is impressive, really - the sheer aesthetics of it, the fact that the streets of Wicker Park (a rather bustling neighborhood) are deserted. The oppressive nature of Bitter and Fuck-you transforms itself into Impressive cold - so cold that cold turns into a whole different kind of thing.

Anyway, it may be tough going this year [4]. It may be difficult to keep in mind over all this time between now and May 2009 [5] that we live for that idyllic spring, summer and fall and that winter is -- oooh -- worth it.

Hey I'll be in Baltimore [6] in a few days. If you wanna go do something, let's go do something.

[1] According to the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman and the Chicago Tribune, it's currently 10 degrees warmer in Wasilla than it is here.
[2] Yes, Fahrenheit
[3]Chicagoans don't believe in wind chill. It's not real weather, like in the sense of hard meteorology science.
[4] No, I haven't been riding my bike. !#*% you!! You ride YOUR bike!!!
[5] *sob*
[6] It's 20 there now. I can't wait!!!

I have this pumpkin. I'd like to curry it. Anyone have a good recipe?

EDIT: It is a rather large pumpkin. Small enough for eating, but on the biggish side of small. I'd better get a pumpkin bread recipe too.