Do the Yak

How closely can we follow current events? Try taking this quiz from the New Yorker. It's masochistic, really. I don't know why I keep ranting here about Bush et al when it does no good and only bores people who most likely already agree with me, but I can't help it -- I guess it's somehow cathartic. Maybe this blog is a valve through which huge quantities of otherwise harmful noxious gases must be vented. Not that there aren't enough parodies running around the web, but check out this item in the tragicomic vein of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." To keep things in perspective, tonight is Halloween, so I'll have the pleasure of seeing the kids dressed as a bumblebee and a furry doggie and watch them giggle and collect candy and have weird extrovert-type fun while I think about tooth decay and web site architecture. I try to live in the moment...

1. I'm happy to have girls rather than boys, especially after reading Laid-Off Dad's latest . And you have to love his take on kids' book titles . Reminds me of my favorite compilation of children's book titles you'll never see . 2. Becky after I correctly answered a question she'd asked me: "Smart brain, Mommy!" 3. A great new formulation and marketing plan for mayonnaise . 4. "Like everyone else, we like a good laugh," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy, about how some of his fun-lovin colleagues enjoy reading The Onion, even though the publication has been ordered to stop using the presidential seal in illustrations accompanying its parodies.

Wal-Mart: savior or scourge? (lots of jobs and low, low prices for all, but horrible labor practices). Not surprisingly I tend to lean toward the Satanic view, mostly because of the labor issue but also because they’re a leader in the fight to homogenize America. But my antipathy on the labor front got a boost from this article (CNN re-reporting the New York Times), which notes that like many companies, Wal-Mart is struggling with rapidly increasing health-benefit and pension costs. However, it’s taken a somewhat novel approach to the problem: don’t hire anyone sick, old or even mildly infirm. Or anyone who might get old. Or anyone who might get sick. Or anyone who might put up with working there long enough to earn full health benefits or a pension. One proposed tactic is to have "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)." OK, so for example: “Flo, I need you to take a break from the register and bring carts in from the parking ...

I love this country, especially its forms of play, which are often fun and aggravating at the same time. I mean, you can enjoy drinking Budweiser and have a happy history of beer pong, yet still be amazed and mildly appalled at the transparent cynicism of Anheuser-Busch , which is shocked -- SHOCKED! that people are using beer rather than water to play the"Bud Pong" game it was marketing. And you can revile Barbie dolls for all the usual feminist reasons and still be amused by the decades-long effort to craft the life of Ken , the longtime love doll she dumped who's now getting a fashion makeover so he can get his baby back. (The hilarious photo captions might have been written by Wendy McClure .) If you're an employee of Anheuser-Busch, Mattel, Ronco or any of a thousand other American companies, how can you put in years of your life on campaigns like these and keep your sanity? As Abraham Lincoln said, "If I didn't laugh, I would have to weep?" Perhaps...

The news just keeps getting worse for Bush, thank God. What with Miers, DeLay, Rove/Libby/Plame, FEMA, the transparently choreographed video chat with soldiers in Iraq, etc., people may finally be taking notice. Though there's nothing we can do to the bastard for three more years, since impeachment is NOT an attractive option given who's next in line. Hopefully Bush won't slime his way out of his messes before 2008, a hope I hold mainly because his chief slimers are the ones in trouble, and the press is finally reporting on the crap they've been pulling , as if it's a surprise to anyone who's been paying attention. Meanwhile, as Hyrricane Wilma meditatively eyes Florida, we hear that disgraced political hack former FEMA head Michael Brown was even more incompetent than we realized , even as he tried to blame everyone else for his incompetence.

It's autumn, a season of many holidays and seasonal traditions. And here's one you may not have heard of: Grobnachakkel hunting season has begun! (third item down on the left). Sarah likes to sing, and she doesn't want anyone else to sing, either alone or along with her. She has perfect pitch, by the way. Yesterday I protested that I know songs and like to sing them as well. Her response: "I have all the voices in my body, so only I can sing them." Earlier that evening, on the swings: "What's a snail on a boat? A snailor!" And by the way, Interrupting Cow is tops in our house right now. We're halfway woken up almost every morning just before NPR kicks in around 6:45 by Sarah, who climbs into bed between us to snuggle (usually with thumb in mouth and other fingers clutching Peeper). She still power-sucks as she falls asleep. Becky prefers snugglage in her own bed, which is just fine, especially when she throws her little arms around my head or a...

A Sarah comment out of the blue that stopped me in my tracks: "Life never ends." She's five. A terrific James Carroll column (Boston Globe, 10/17/05) eerily echoes a piece that Ben read in our synagogue on Rosh Hashanah about God being not unknown, but by definition unknowable, so therefore we must say... Attention religious zealots: don't waste your time and irritate everyone else by claiming to know what God wants people to do, why he causes things, etc. -- or more to the point, don't even assume God is a sentient being who causes anything or wants anything, period. Please note once again: the Bible is not literally true nor the word of God. Why do people have so much trouble with the concept of METAPHOR? Your life is your own, so do whatever you want, or think you ought to. It doesn't matter to anyone but your own conscience and people whose lives you directly affect. So please keep your simplistic concept of God to yourself and try not to impose it on the...

First, a word from my favorite recent blog entry: unintentional vegetarian propaganda (click on the mysterious one-word links). Now then. About the Red Sox. Great column by Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post saying that the Sox-Yankees era of dominance is over (debatable) but, more to the point, that Steinbrenner's high-priced players made a deal with the devil to go to a team dripping with fame and money that gives them a chance to win the World Series with no heavy lifting required. But it didn't work this year, and definitely not last year (HA!). Now his unrelenting egotism and unrealistic demands have driven away his pitching coach after already driving away his bench coach a couple of years ago (Zimmer), and maybe his GM and manager are sick of the bullshit as well. It's so gratifying when even an unlimited budget, apparently talented GM and maybe the best-ever manager are not able to make Steinbrenner happy ("Win me a World Series championship or you all SUC...

Remember that family with 15 kids I mentioned a couple of months ago? The link goes to a news story from May 2004 right after our heroic mom delivered #15 (all home-schooled and with names beginning with J). Well, she's done it again, folks -- #16 just arrived , and Mom rarin' to go for more. She's 39 and obviously healthy as an ox, so why not? Hell, I didn't even get started until I was two weeks shy of turning 39. I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. Most disturbing is the video interview on today's CNN home page. There are 16 children (the oldest is 17) arrayed attractively on, behind and in front of an overstuffed couch, with the proud parents in the middle. The video clip almost five minutes, so figure around half an hour before editing. The scary thing is that the kids NEVER MOVE. The girls on either end have their hands decorously and symmetrically crossed in their laps, the boys are standing or sitting at attention, and no one breaks their pose the wh...

Here's a shocker: Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court in large part because she's a fellow fundamentalist Christian . Don't forget the other reason: that she's an old Texas buddy. Obviously we've learned exactly zero from the Michael Brown cronyism brouhaha. Also she's a token woman, meaning she's biologically female but would never do anything unladylike such as making waves about the rampant sexism she's personally encountered throughout her career. Sort of like Clarence Thomas is a token African-American. Not that there aren't politically conservative African-Americans, but to think that Clarence represents the legal views of the majority of that group is absurd -- and that's the only reason he was nominated. Bush Senior: "I gotta nominate a black. Find me one who has a law degree and is conservative." Sweating aide: "OK, we found two. One of them smears feces all over his cell, and the other one has a room-temper...

1. A wedding held at the fabulous deCordova Museum uniting two artistic philosophy majors -- with great eats, a cool band that did NOT offer a rendition of "Shout" or "The Hokey Pokey," and a groom who played and sang a funny and touching song he'd written to his new wife. 2. God Shuffled His Feet (Crash Test Dummies) 3. A friend's demo of the latest iPhoto on a big honking monitor. Yes, chimney-pot photos CAN be beautiful! (And he's an excellent photographer of lots of other subjects as well.) Anyone who prefers Windows to Macs has a screw loose. Run, do not walk , away from your unreliable and derivative PC to the incredibly easy to use and elegantly designed Apple product. 4. Rediscovering the site of Mahir , the Turkish love-monkey. 5. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan.

1. The Red Sox are doing it again. Tony Graffanino is the new Bill Buckner. So now they're down two games to none and must sweep the next three to stay alive. Sounds improbable, except this same team accomplished the feat in 1999, 2003 and 2005 (four straight against the Yankees, which is still SO SWEET!). If they can pull out just one win, I won't feel so bummed. But hey, the Red Sox losing late is normal, and as Boston fans, we live for this, as Jose Melendez points out in wallballsingle.com. 2. Sometimes I read the "offbeat" news stories and find it not worthwhile, but today's featured item had me slack-jawed with amazement. How can a snake even think he could swallow a whole damn alligator? What hubris! It would have behooved him to wait until the gator was dead or pert-near dead, snacking on some loudly dressed tourist hors d'oeuvre in the intreim. Well, he paid the ultimate price. Next time, listen to your mother.