June 2005 Archives

BTW, you may have noticed a halfway done site style change hanging around. I'll fix it next week. This weekend, it's all sewing all the time. Oh yes, the $3200 Bernina Aurora and I are going to bond.

p.s. I can never spell remodeling.

I just reserved airplane tickets and a hotel room for BlogHerCon in Santa Clara, CA on July 29-30th.

BlogHer is a network for women bloggers to draw on for exposure, education, and community. By holding a day-long conference on July 30, 2005, and establishing an online hub, BlogHer is initiating an opportunity for greater visibility, learning and success for individual women bloggers and for the community of bloggers as a whole.

This flagship event is open to all bloggers—including men and beginners—interested in enhancing their online exposure, learning the latest best practices in blogging, networking with other bloggers, and specifically cultivating the female blogging community.

I have to keep myself busy from 8-3 on Friday and from when I wake up to 5:30 on Sunday, but that's just fine. San Francisco, anyone?

I don't think I've ever taken a trip before where I wasn't going to see someone I knew. Unless you count France. But I was with people I knew. So this is, well, new.

Flea (NOT WORK SAFE) has found a way to involve her children in the cultivation of their new garden:

I have already trained the boys to chase the birds out of the garden. They have adapted to this very well, screaming their scripted line at the top of their lungs, "GIT OFF MAH LAND! GIT OFF MAH LAND!"

I'm going to buy my first car at age 30. I love the idea of going to the grocery store all by myself and not having to judge the weight of my groceries as well as the price, but I really hate the idea of using gasoline.

I know, I know, I use gasoline now when my friends take me places, and I will still have control over how much I use. The car doesn't have to run me. I can walk right past it and take the bus whenever I want. But I still feel like I'm doing something icky, so I've been keeping an eye out for ways to do it in the best way I can.

First good find is the Better World Club:

Better World Club provides nationwide roadside assistance. We are the nation's only environmentally friendly auto club. Membership includes eco-travel services, discounts on hybrid cars, insurance services, free maps, auto maintenance discounts and bicycle roadside assistance. We donate 1% of annual revenues toward environmental cleanup and advocacy.

This is in contrast to the AAA, which, as the Sierra Club puts it, "is now a major force in pushing for more highway spending, fewer pollution controls and less money for mass transit." Rivlin's piece, in the National Resources Defense Council journal, also mentions that the AAA opposed the Clean Air Act and the mandatory installation of airbags.

My happy second discovery was via Joel Makower's blog Two Steps Forward. He highlighted a new phenomenon called Green Tags:

The simplest explanation I can muster is that when you buy green tags, you’re paying a electricity generator to put a certain amount of renewable energy (usually from wind, sometimes from solar or biomass) into the grid, thereby reducing the need for some dirty power plant to produce the same amount of juice from coal or natural gas or nukes.

Buying green tags has a couple of other benefits besides reducing the need for fossil-fuel electricity. It helps to stimulate markets for renewable energy, and it allows individuals, businesses, and others to "offset" their climate emissions -- from electricity, driving, and other activities.

The Green Tags producers he lists and compares are Certified Clean Car, DrivingGreen, Bonneville Environmental Foundation (I don't think there's a relation to the Cadillac of the same name), Native Energy, and ETA Roadside Rescue (in the UK).

CNN did a story on Green Tags last week featuring a company called TerraPass, which sends you a sticker when you buy the credits for your car:

Not surprisingly, few SUV drivers have been buying them. Most have gone to owners of fuel-efficient cars that produce relatively few pollutants.

That initially surprised [Tom] Arnold, [TerraPass's chief environmental officer and sole full-time employee].

"We fully expected to target SUV drivers with SUV guilt," he said. "It just doesn't exist"

Instead, he's been travelling to environmental fairs pitching the idea to those who, for the most part, drive fuel efficient small cars and gas/electric hybrid vehicles.

"Environmentalists have a very conflicted relationship with their cars," said Arnold.

And how!

DJ #1: Here's a song by Toni Price that she learned off a Billie Holiday record, and I have to say, as good as Billie Holiday is, I like this version better.

DJ #2: I will stab you in the heart.

People who live in Michigan call themselves Michiganders.

From Totalitarianism Today a while back:

A recent study in this month's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 88, No. 4) suggests that social exclusion reduces people's ability to self-regulate or defer gratification. The conclusions are interesting in their suggestion of a tight link between ability to self-regulate and rationality:

These findings make sense, the researchers say, because regulating our behavior is what allows us to fit into society and be accepted in the first place. People who are rejected may feel that their self-regulation efforts were for naught and be less likely to self-regulate in the future. In fact, a follow-up experiment in the study suggests that rejected people are merely unwilling, not unable, to self-regulate.

I kept thinking I would have something to say about this, since I spent a year working part-time with homeless youth ages 14-22. Talk about refusing to self-regulate. But I don't have anything deep to say. Just providing it as something to think about.

Notmyself.com recently made a good point about Movable Type:

Dear Six Apart.

I think we're all ready for you to spend some time on your Movable Type default styles. You've created quite the system for TypePad users, and yet the default styles for Movable Type are still really, really ugly.

We all know by now that I love a good complaint. ;) But what I love even more is at the end of the comments thread:

Actually, I think we're all with you about the templates. We do need some new ones and have some cool plans to provide those.

However, as you mentioned, customizing the templates is not only possible but pretty damn easy. You've seen CSS Zen Garden, right? You don't even need to modify the templates, but instead only the CSS to come up with pretty great designs.

So since customizing the templates is easy for customers but adding new functionality (e.g. dynamic publishing, commenter authentication, a ridiculously powerful API to name a few from the past) is not, we've been focusing our efforts on those other things.

I think you'll like what you see in the future. :-)

-Jay Allen

I agree with him that modifying "only the CSS" makes customizing the MT templates "pretty damn easy." However, most of my template modifications end up making more ugly templates. Who needs that? And even the MT templates I find for sale are not nice, just like the default "several colors on the same template" styles for MT. Just give me a few good launching pads to choose from, and I'll mix and match the colors myself.

So I'm glad to even hear rumors about template-related good things in the future. It would be a relief for the lizards, who are forgiving but slightly embarrassed about the appearance of the website that represents them in the world.

I KNEW that the year I moved back to Austin (2000) seemed really, really hot. I just attributed it to the fact that I spent a lot of time outside waiting for buses due to job interviews. But lo and behold, from the Statesman's front page this afternoon...

Matthew Yglesias says:

It would be nice indeed [if] neat ideas became law just because some smart folks thought they were super-awesome, but in practice not so much.

My approach to encouraging people to copy on both sides is likely to sound like this: "I WILL SEND THE DOG TO BITE YOU IF YOU DON'T GET WITH THE PROGRAM! WHERE DO YOU THINK MY CHILDREN ARE GOING TO LIVE WHEN YOU FINISH DESTROYING THE PLANET?!"

Environmental Defense, as part of a project with Citigroup, has come up with a much better approach: Reasonably funny, cute signs that encourage people to use both sides.

I wonder if I'm brave enough to sneak around and put them up at work. Maybe I should make it a goal to work my way through the building.

My apartment is so small that this really isn't necessary, and I don't even have cable or caller ID. But oh, how I want it...

From the New York Times (a while back): MEDIA NETWORKING; Ingenuity Can Pay When Wiring The Home, and Cost Less, Too

When an estimate for running the skeins of wire needed to network Michael Spilo's 21-room Connecticut house for audio, video, phone and computers came in at $60,000, he did what any software engineer and entrepreneur would do: develop a system at a much lower cost.

The result is SkipJam, hardware devices connected by a single wire that let you run music, television, phone, security cameras and PC's anywhere in a building from anywhere in the world with Internet access.

The setup requires one $799 iMedia center that attaches to each device. It routes signals to a $499 iMedia player, which has outputs and built-in amplifiers that connect to speakers, TV's and computers.

The system has a built-in TiVo function and ties phone, PC and TV together, so your television and PC screen can display caller ID. You can watch your computer's video files on the big screen, and the TV remote doubles as a phone handset and an intercom, so parents can call their children to dinner and turn off their television from another room.

Mr. Spilo's installation of audio and video for 6 rooms and audio for 10 more costs about $6,000. The units are available at skipjam.com and at home networking and automation dealers.

Of course, it would probably run amok and destroy Tokyo...but that's a small price to pay.

Dads & Daughters first came to my attention on some PBS show during the day when I was contracting from home. Since I've noticed that I keep going back to their site when I need comfort from a scary world, I thought I should share.

The organization doesn't just encourage dads to be good to their daughters. It also encourages them to speak up in advocating for girls' issues, such as Title IX and damaging media imagery:

DADs inspires fathers to actively and deeply engage in the lives of their daughters and galvanizes fathers and others to transform the pervasive cultural messages that devalue girls and women.

Too often, cultural and media messages bombard our daughters with the notion that how they look is more important than who they are.

DADs will lend its voice to calls for greater public policy attention to girls' health issues (like tobacco use, eating disorders, etc.).

In the interview I saw, one of the founders explained some of their activist strategies. As men in our culture, they knew they might be able to get more access to decision-makers in corporations. They also knew they could talk with folks like that on a father to father basis, a persuasive tool that other organizations or activists might not have.

It was one of the best answers I've ever heard to the question "So what do I do with the privilege I get from society?"

Selected searches that led to lizardkingdom.org, from June 6th to June 12th:

• gojira
• macrame owl instructions
• someone kill me
• lizard wrapping paper
• how to make a flyer for housekeeping
• kingdom austin
• foundation for a better life propaganda
• how to make a felt design wall for quilting
• anti microbial peptide crocodile
• volvo joke
• summer associates sushi memo
• find johnny depp sheets and car seat covers
• figuring texas school tax rate
• dating with scientologist
• daily nexus lego
• pitbull puppy blue eyes black cheap
• hellhound clash of the titans

Amanda at Pandagon made a few interesting comments in a discussion of e-Harmony, the online dating site. I didn't know this until recently, but e-Harmony has a historical connection with Christian communities and organizations. So it turns out that the majority of its users are pretty Christian.

The company doesn't have to be upfront about its interest in "family values" type Christianity in order to attract almost nothing but that demographic. The fact that the TV commercials emphasize marriage as the end goal of the people who join up is enough to ensure that's the result.

With all these fundies running around talking up the institution of marriage a value in and of itself, a right and responsibility of those lucky enough to be straight, an obligation that we need to take on in order to fit in, and the only right way to have a family, is it any wonder that dating services like this are filling up with people who are trying to slap a ring on as fast as humanly possible?

[...] most non-religious people want to marry someday, but the official reason that you give for dating is to have some fun and get laid. If love and marriage happens, it's a happy accident.

She then goes on to posit that Christians who see their "need" to get married and have children as a religious obligation wouldn't be that good at the dissembling required for successful dating, and so they very well might benefit from a service to connect with others who want to "dispense with the bullshit and get to the wedding." She contrasts these folks with the presumably non-religious types who only have marriage as "a vague goal in the distant future" while dating.

I couldn't help but laugh. A chuckle, not a mean laugh. Her post is called "Who makes marriage the end goal?" Well, that would be me. But we'll note that it's 2005 and I'm still not married (again), so I'm obviously not just running straight to that end goal regardless of the cost.

I'm not quite sure how to articulate the rest of my thoughts on this, but it struck me as strange that she was identifying people who have marriage as a strongly articulated goal only as people "dispense with the bullshit and get to the wedding" and "slap a ring on as fast as humanly possible."

I have these periodic fits of mild outrage about how my parents were unjust to me when I was a kid. I'm not actually mad at them for it anymore, but (for example) virtually every time I wash my hair I feel the need to make a speech about the oppression I experienced when my mother told me I was using too much shampoo. Hello, Mom, your hair is thin, fine, and short. Do those adjectives describe my hair? Rarely. Case closed. And Dad, telling me I was going to end up in the gutter because of Guns N' Roses was just silly. YOU OWNED APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION, for cryin' out loud!

Anyway.

Much more recently than the abovementioned traumas, my mother told me that turning off the lights when you leave the room isn't necessary because light bulbs use very little energy. Marshalling all my intellectual forces, I asked "then why did Saturday morning cartoons tell us to turn them off?" Her response: "Because that's something kids can do."

I was suspicious.

My vindication, which I located via the Natural Resources Defense Council's article "Everlasting Light" (which I found on some blog, because what else do I read these days?):

Every American is encouraged to change out their 5 most frequently used light fixtures or the bulbs in them to ENERGY STAR qualified lighting. If every American home made this "5 light change" not only would each family save more than $60 every year in energy costs, but together we'd also keep more than one trillion pounds of greenhouse gases out of our air. That's a $6 billion energy savings for Americans equivalent to the annual output of more than 21 power plants.

If we can equal 21 power plants by downshifting, I think it's just possible that turning off lights when we're not using them could do some good.

p.s. I love you, Mom!!!!

It doesn't get any better than this.

Via a post on Gristmill, my favorite eco-blog:

If you're still looking for ways that you can do your part to stop climate change but you've already cut all the carbon emissions you possibly can, check out the National Phenology Network. They use data collected from lilacs (and other plants) around the country to determine global patterns in climate, by recording when plants at different latitudes go thorugh [sic] different cycles of blooming. Send in your request for lilacs and then report when your plants go through different phenological events.

I often wish that The Dog would earn her keep. Loudly. However, my friend has C. pointed out that it's often difficult to secure gainful employment without a resume. I realize now that my complaints have been far greater than my investment in The Dog's future. Even such a small task as a resume is difficult for a creature with no verbal skills or opposable thumbs - and yet, I have not stepped in to assist her.

So I have created a draft as a jumping-off point, and I invite constructive comments.

CONTACT: thedog at lizardkingdom dot org

OBJECTIVE: Cheese. Lots of cheese. Or possibly yogurt. Willing to negotiate.

CHARACTERISTICS and SKILLS:

• Strong sense of curiosity and willingness to explore single topics in detail.
• Proven ability to focus on repetitive tasks.
• Alert to changes in environment which might influence normal course of business.
• Really, really, really good at pulling things.

EXPERIENCE:

• early 1997, supporting participant in low-income community service project
• 1997-2000, social benefit delivery and textile remodeling in a team environment
• 2000-present, responsible for individual projects, including sanitation

You're interested in getting out the vote, but bored by all the cliches?

Merlin's got you covered.

(Democracy Arsenal is a cool new-ish blog devoted to educating liberals and progressives about national defense issues. I particularly like their use of Top 10 lists as a handy way to present information in small enough chunks for those of us who know nothing about the topic. They do one each week.

So here are three of my favorites from the last few months:

Top 10 Things the Bush Administration Could Do, With No Change of Policy, That Would Improve America's Image Around the World

Top 10 Questions Progressives Should be Prepared to Answer

Top 10 Things the UN Does Well

[Updated 6/14 to clarify. Change in brackets.]

So one of my friends tagged me with one of these bizarre blog meme things. I usually ignore these, but since she called me out by name it seemed rude [to ignore this one].

The instructions are this: List your six favorite songs and tag six others to do the same.

Oh please.

SCENE 1

Setting: C-Man and I are lounging on the couch watching Farscape. One disc ends, and he turns to The Dog - who is skulking about, lamenting the bad luck that brought her, 8 years ago, to a home with free food, clean water, medical care, toys, and treats.

C-Man: Dog, change the DVD!
The Princess: If you can teach her to do that, I'll make my parents give you a dowry.
C-Man: Cool. (pause) But hey, is the dowry going to be a cow?

SCENE 2

Setting: C-Man and I are lounging (which we apparently do a lot judging from this writeup).

C-Man, with a serious look: I need to tell you something important.
The Princess: What?
C-Man: I love you.
The Princess: Oh. Good.
C-Man: What?
The Princess: You looked so serious. I thought you were going to say something scary.
C-Man: Like I've been lying to you all this time and I'm actually a high seas pirate?

Eating yogurt with a fork is actually possible.

Also, in contrast to C-Man's criticism of my spelling, it CAN actually be spelled yogurt OR yoghurt.

In case you don't believe the message you're getting here,

you can play with this pretty toy

or this one.

I, however, am going to bed.

Here's a quote from Van Jones, an activist doing work to connect issues of environmentalism, community development, and incarceration:

One thing I've been saying a lot lately is that Dr. King didn’t get famous with a speech called "I Have a Complaint." At some point, we have to say what we're for.

You can read more about Mr. Jones in "Green Jobs, Not Jails" on Joel Makower's blog called Two Steps Forward. And I'm going to keep his words firmly in mind.

The Chinese word for crisis is NOT composed of the words "danger" and "opportunity."

North and South Holland are only two of the provinces in the Netherlands, and as per Wikipedia Dutch is the English word that means "of or relating to the Netherlands" and is also the name of the language that is mostly spoken there.

Google is not helping you if you want real information on these topics and you ended up here.

• my lizard kingdom [Note: You can have your own, that's fine with us.]
• outside voice
• steve martin french waiter
• pictures of the worlds freakiest people
• the saddest girl ever
• charcoal machine [A machine that makes charcoal? That runs on charcoal? That's made of charcoal? WHAT DO YOU WANT?]
• buddha statue skymall delta
• lizard with redhead [Well, OK, this one is pretty accurate.]
• crack pipe
• volvo joke
• decorative gutter spout
• why did they change wooburn to woburn [You will find no answers here to the strangeness of New England.]
• kindness and gentleness email
• squished lizard pillow

Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, the Paramount Film Series is showing the original version of the 1954 Godzilla.

I'm really excited! My mother, in addition to being a devout Methodist Sunday school teacher and gardener, is also a fan of monster movies. Mothra was a staple of my childhood television viewing. Godzilla came later, and now I am working my way through the Godzilla films to build a list of personal favorites. (So far, Godzilla v. Gigan and Destroy all Monsters join the Mothra films as my top picks.)

The New York Times had a good piece on how the restored film differs from the version that was originally made available to American audiences.

As the historian William Tsutsui reminded us in last year's cult classic, "Godzilla on My Mind," the 1954 movie was a dark, poetic production that dealt openly with Japanese misgivings about the nuclear menace, environmental degradation and the traumatic experience associated with World War II. [...]

The American company that bought the rights to distribute the film in this country cut a large chunk from Honda's original film and rearranged the plot. The biggest change involved splicing in Raymond Burr, who played an American reporter chronicling the devastation for the press. Dialogue that dealt heavily with human suffering, the morality of all-out war - and the temptation to play God with weapons of mass destruction - was left on the American cutting room floor.

I love watching Gojira stomp on tiny tanks, but I also like a little substance with my smashing. Thanks to the Paramount for such an opportunity!

Four posts in one day, it's insane. But don't stop me before I tell you what I just made, mostly so I won't forget.

Smoothie:

• 1 C orange juice
• 1 banana, with the strings removed BECAUSE THEY'RE GROSS AND THAT IS NOT WHERE ALL THE FIBER IS NO MATTER WHAT MY EX-BOYFRIEND SAID
• about 2/3 C frozen cantaloupe
• about 1/3 C frozen watermelon
• about 1/2 C ice

Oh, it is lovely.

Done posting now. Here. If you want to know where my political posting life has picked up, email me.

Movable Type released MT 3.17 today, which included the following fix:

Fixed a bug in mt-db2sql.cgi which caused it to fail in certain situations when subcategories are in use before conversion.

Now the bragging: my baby figured out that it was broken and why! And he told them! C-Man is The Man! There's a reason his domain name is benign-ninja.com!

The 6A folks were awesome during the whole encounter, btw. C-Man sent them his theory, and within 48 hours they sent us a new script that worked all fine and dandy. Huzzah for Six Apart!

He's a generous one.

don't miss - in 1898 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Black History Month Miss in court? News

Obviously it's a new series in works...

Getting three copies of your message makes me suspicious.

I'm just sayin'.

The Democratic Message and Targets by Marc Campos is an interesting and very short read about his search for the Texas Democratic Party's message. Check it out.

Ben mentioned Medicaid in a post about Wal-Mart, and I had mixed feelings. I do believe that Wal-Mart should be providing affordable health insurance for its workers, but with the number of people in this state and country who are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but not enrolled...I'm almost grateful that they're doing outreach!

But here's what I've been thinking over the past few days.

In February 2004, 1 in 9 Texans relied on Medicaid for either health insurance or long-term care (source: Medicaid In Perspective by HHSC).

I'm as concerned about health care cost inflation as the next girl, but aren't we missing a more fundamental problem here?

Why the heck are 1 in 9 Texans so poor that they have to depend on Medicaid for help?! The Federal Poverty Line (FPL) for a family of four was $18,850 in 2004. Children ages 6-18 are only covered if their family income is under that line. While the income limits are more generous for younger children, it only goes as high as 185% of the FPL ($34,872) for newborns up to their first birthday.

It boggles my mind that getting people to an economic status where they don't qualify for Medicaid isn't the focus of the discussion. I know we believe we lost the War on Poverty, but COME ON, people. Get a grip on the real issue here. Move these families out of poverty, cut almost 25% of your Medicaid budget, since that's the proportion of Medicaid costs attributed to children. Some of those kids would move into CHIP with a rise in family income, but hey, we get a better federal match rate for that. ;)

Can't we have positive, inspiring goals anymore?

Dear The Dog,

You will not fit under my pillow when my head is lying on it. I know you're scared of the storms, but please stop trying to make that your refuge.

Thanks,
The Princess