Politically Problematic

There is a house down the street from where I live. I can imagine it in its glory days, for it must have once been a beautiful home. It is a single family dwelling, unusual for our area, with some neat features. Unfortunately, now, well, it's a dump.

For starters, the place looks as though it hasn't been painted in 25 years, with paint peeling off the siding exposing the bare wood. The trim is rotting, and some of the windows are broken and boarded up. The yard (if it could even be called a yard) is overgrown with weeds and brambles. In the driveway are 5 or 6 broken-down, rusted-out cars that look as though they are slowly melting back into the earth. Behind the house is something that looks as though once, in its hayday, was a garage. But it now looks as though even attempting to pry the rusted door open might send the entire thing crashing to the ground. The whole piece of real estate is rather Adams-family-esque, somewhere I'd definitely be wary of going to trick-or-treat.

What I find to be ironic about all this is that the entire front of the house and yard are covered with political signs. There are signs endorsing senators, city councilors, and various pieces of legislation.

Now, here is my question: should I be more or less inclined to support those candidates and issues endorsed by our aesthetically un-inclined neighbor?

TV Immunity

You know, I've always been one of those softie, flaming liberal types who loves to get on the bandwagon of all types of progressive programs to change the world. But sometimes, usually due to a discussion with Mr. Love-it-or-leav-itt and his fiscal and political sensibility, I come across something that challenges my innate senses of all things liberal.

This time, however, it wasn't Mr. Love-it-or-leav-itt. It was network television.

Now, many times in my life I have, with my liberal cohort, condemned the violent and sexual content of TV, especially TV for kids. It's influencing them, we've said. That's why they are so violent. They see violence on TV and they think it's cool and want to be violent themselves. Same with sex.

With these assumptions, comes the natural conclusion that what we see on TV influences us, that what we see on TV, we do in our own lives.

However, if this is true, can someone please explain to me how I can be sitting in my chair watching "The Biggest Loser" and simulatneously deciding to have a glass of red wine and an ice cream Sundae?

More Info Please

When I worked in the school district, one strategy they taught us for helping kids obey rules was letting the kids know why the rules existed. If kids were empowered with information, it seemed, they were more likely to abide by the rules created from that information.

So with that in mind, I'd like to submit the following proposal to the City of Cambridge:

Please install postings detailing the reasoning behind each intersection at which:
1) Right turns on a red light are not permitted.
2) Left turns are prohibitted.

For instance:



Below that a small sign that reads: Oncoming traffic does not stop. OR Heavy Pedestrian Traffic.

If the city implements this plan, I promise (cross my heart and hope to die) to obey all such traffic postings. (Not that I didn't already, of course.)

MAN LAND

Well, in addition to diet cola for men, they now also have CHURCH FOR MEN!!!

Check it out! 12 easy steps to turn your church into a man cave.
http://www.speakingofmen.com/manfriendlychurch.html

Among my favorite pearls of wisdom:
Why should men go to a large church? Well, because "Large churches have many advantages. Probably foremost is quality."
Why should men go to a church with a fit male pastor? Well, because "Guys are drawn to men who exude a healthy masculinity, but are turned off by softies."

I guess I better just give up and take my feminine, "messages composed of familiar, comforting religious jargon" on the road to womensville.

News Snooze

Well, we've done it. We broke down and got....an antenna. This might not sound like a big deal, but it has changed our life quite a bit.

We have a relatively new TV, so we avoided the digital converter box installation drama. However, we had been surviving without cable for some time, subsisting on movies and netflix, when we decided it was time to plug back into the world of broadcast television. With a powerful antenna that could get signal even in our basement condo, we were reconnected. I soon realized that there wasn't too much was new. There are only about 5 shows: Medical Show-ER spinoffs, Crime Show-NYPD Blue Spinoffs, Reality Show-RealWorld Spinoffs, Young Adult Show-Friends Spinoffs and, well, the news.

Now, I'm not sure what's happened with TV news since I've been away, but whatever it is it is NOT good. For instance, here are three news stories I saw this week:

Turtle's Life Saved This story had two trailers in the first half hour of the show making it seem like some miraculous veterinary triumph. When the story finally came on it was this: someone had let her pet turtle outside (well, there's your first problem), which had gotten attacked by a racoon and lost its two front legs, but the vet had "saved" it by attaching small felt furniature moving pads to the front of its shell so it can still push itself around with its back feet. Don't get me wrong, I think it's important to have good veterinary care, but why is this on a nationally syndicated news show?

Girl Wants IPOD The trailer for this story informed us that a young woman who had been attacked by robbers in her own home was asking for something special. What it is? I thought. Forgiveness? Reconciliation??? How Christian, I thought. When the story finally came around at the end of the hour, it turned out the girl was asking for her IPOD.

Fight Over Fries This story was reported in each of three news hours on each of three different news channels. Apparently, two customers in a McDonalds in in Qunicy, MA had attacked a worker after she had given them the wrong size order of fries.

I'm amazed that these stories pass for "news." Not a single story engaged any issue of national or international importance. Not one of them opened a wider discussion about important topics such as drug use, health care, or crime. Are we not fighting wars on several fronts right now? Are we not having an economic crisis? Are we not facing a battle on health care reform? Are we not attempting to institute nucelar disarmarment and create peace in the middle east? Why, then, are we talking about turtles, ipods and french fries?

*The photo above is not quite the model we got, but it's close!

Vacay

Hello readers! We just returned from some time away in our beloved Oregon. It was a great vacation, full of visits to family and friends (some of whom reminded me that it had been a while since I updated my blog!), lots of delicious food and beer and many memories of good times. So now, we are back and you can expect some new blog content coming soon!

Suck Fest

A somewhat crazy, incredibly manipulative, outright terrifying German supervisor I once had told me two things about myself: I have issues with authority and I am a perfectionist. At the time, I thought she was being ridiculous because, well, she was somewhat crazy, incredibly manipulative, and outright terrifying. But earlier this summer, when I took up tennis immediately after being told by my optometrist that engaging in racket sports could be detrimental to my long term eye health, I began to wonder whether or not her scare tactics about my psychological profile had some merit. Maybe I did have issues with authority. Why else would I, as athletic as I am not, as hot as the weather here is, and as much as I've not recently been interested in any sport other than badminton and croquet, take up tennis in direct and blatant defiance of the orders of my eye-health care practitioner?

Well, if good ol' A.Z. had me on one count, she wouldn't get me on the other. Because tennis has opened up a whole new world for me and my allegedly-perfectionist-self in that it has allowed me to hone a completely new and important life skill: sucking at something publically.

Now, I don't think I'm some sort of image-conscious maniac, but I do have the tendency to want to appear as though I have a basic grasp of things. But the normal survival mechanisms for looking good don't work here. There is no pretending-to-kick-as-on-all-fronts allowed out on the tennis court. If you're terrible, everyone is going to know it...mostly because you are hitting balls into their court and disrupting their game. And I am terrible. My most favorite move of late is to lob the ball about 100 feet in the air, instead of barely over the net like the pros, and making my partner wait for it to return from space before returning it. A close second favorite is to send the ball completely out of the court, and then anxiously waiting to see if it ends up on the other side of the fence or in the garbage can.

Luckily, the court we've been playing at is home to a broad range of skill levels. Also luckily, I've found out something strange: it's actually really fun. And I actually don't care that much how terrible I am. I'm just glad to be out there.

So take that Germany!



p.s. My optometrist also told me not to take up boxing.....hmm........