Well, hi!
Can't believe it's been just shy of a week and I haven't posted!
Pittsburgh was, for the second time in 22 years, voted Most Livable City by Rand-McNally. Yeah, Pittsburgh!! I know some people still have "hell-with-the-lid-off" type visions of my city, but that is way outdated. This city has had two renaissances since the 60's, and it's a city with sparkling scenery, great hometown folks, and arguably, the most beautiful baseball park in the US, if not the world. We have great colleges, world-class hospitals with state-of-the-art transplant centers and burn units, and are home to incomparable pharmaceutical, research, surgical, and communications pioneering.
When I say "great hometown folks", let me tell you, the people around here are world-class, too. I don't know about you, but I've been to other towns/cities, where you get lost, ask for directions, and people deliberately get you lost, just to laugh at the "greenhorn". Here, we not only give you accurate directions, we'll take you there, even maybe out of our way, just to see that you get there OK. I know this because a very nice letter was printed in our own Post-Gazette in '05, from a Toronto couple who, confused by the way the streets run parallel to the rivers here, asked for directions, and were not only escorted to their hotel by their new Pittsburgh friends, but were taken under their wings, invited out to some local hot spots, given their cell phone numbers just in case they got lost again, and accompanied to the Steeler/Penguin (I forget which) game they were attending. And that's just the way we are here. Friendly. Yinz come and visit now!
(Now if we could only do something about the Pirates, the property taxes, and the transit system!) Oh, God, did I really write that?
Good vibes to all of you!
Claudia
Monday, April 30, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Baklava and Stuff
Since in my last post I made what I'm sure will be seen by some as a flippant remark about discrimination against women, that, as a woman, I had faced discrimination in the form of being thought of by some well-meaning folks in my life (!) as being basically put on earth only for the purpose of being a help-meet and a brood mare, etc., I thought I'd cite two significant examples of discrimination against women that I had come across over the weekend.
The first, widely broadcast over CNN, etc. cited a study, done by Catherine Hill that shows that despite the passage of the Equal Pay Law in the 1960's, women one year out of college are earning, for the same jobs, 80% of what males are, and ten years after college, they earn just 69% of males' salaries for comparable jobs. This is compared to 59% for male equivalent jobs in the 60's and 78% in the 80's. When Hill probed the reasoning she was told, and I'm paraphrasing here, as CNN flashed the quote for about 5 seconds, "Employers assume women are going to take time out for young children and not be available to work the hours required." And although in my last post I said the same thing in a roundabout, sardonic way, that kind of thinking is prevalent even now, and exactly why there's a wage gap and a glass ceiling.
Is there any way for women to win? In today's economy, it still is at best a real challenge to a family's finances, and at worst impossible for a woman not to work outside the home. If she does work, she won't make as much as her male counterparts for the same job, she'll probably encounter some kind of sexual harassment or glass ceiling; if she takes off time to have children, she will not only make less than her male counterparts, she won't even make as much as the women like me, who decided to ignore the words of the well-meaners and not have children. (And let me tell you, I'm rolling in dough). If she decides not to work, well, the average age of widowhood in this country is 50, and that doesn't even take into account the marriages that break up over domestic violence, substance abuse, and the ubiquitous skirt-chasing and irreconcilable differences. I don't know for sure what it's like to go back to an office/restaurant and work after 30 years of homemaking and child-rearing, but I'm guessing it ain't pretty.
And as bad as things are in the real world, the glamour-pusses in the reel world aren't having a picnic either. In the 4/22 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mimi Yahn writes in her story, "Hating Women" that in 2000 she conducted a six-week study to track hate speech and bias language on prime-time TV. To make a long story short, 416 times out of 590, when there was any language at all that was demeaning, objectifying, derogatory, or pejorative, it was directed at women, with the rest of it spread between straight men, gay men, ethnic groups (mostly Asians, Jews, Native Americans and Arabs), and those seen as having problems with weight and appearance. Violence against women was ramped up as well. Whereas rapes and murders were once sufficient to fill the time between commercials, now women were "tortured, dismembered, beaten to death, burned, hung from ceilings and subjected to a range of horrific and sadistic
hate crimes never before seen outside of snuff pornography." Lovely.
Interesting to me was Ms. Yahn's observation that when referring to a white woman, TV writers simply call her a whore, but when referring to a black or Hispanic woman, they'll call her a "crack whore". Reflecting on the coarsening of our culture, Ms. Yahn summarizes, "Dehumanization is at the heart of it all." I couldn't agree more.
On the lighter side, I do remember a rash promise that I made in my first post that I would at times include recipes. I know quite a few of you really enjoy baklava. It's not that hard to make, if you're patient and just do it a step at a time. So here's my recipe. It's especially good at Christmas, Easter, or any time you want to apologize, cheer someone up, or impress someone.
Baklava
The Pastry:
1/2 lb. phyllo pastry sheets
2 sticks butter, melted (1/2 pound)
Nut Mixture:
5 C. Walnuts, coarsely chopped (I use a Mouli)
1 C. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1/3 t. cloves
Syrup:
2 C. sugar
2 C. water
1/3 lemon (I use 2 t. Minute Maid Frozen Lemon Juice, it = 1/3 lemon)
1/3 C. honey
1 t. vanilla
Make the syrup first. Combine the sugar, water and lemon in an 8" pot. Bring to a boil; boil 10 minutes. I put it in the fridge until I pull the baklava out of the oven. It should thicken up during its time in the fridge to the consistency of good honey or maple syrup. If it doesn't thicken noticeably by the time the baklava's been baking for a half-hour, put it in the freezer. When you take it out, stir in the vanilla and honey.
While your syrup's boiling chop the walnuts, mix the other ingredients for the nut mixture in a large bowl. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Next, spray a 13" x 9" pan with butter cooking spray. Melt the butter in the microwave in a small microwave-safe bowl. The phyllo sheets usually come frozen, in two half pound rolls of sheets. You just will need the one roll - 1/2 pound. Thaw it according to package instructions. Now I've heard some brave souls use paper towels, some waxed paper, etc. to keep the phyllo from drying out. I get two clean, clean dishtowels, wet them, wring them out thoroughly, put one down on the counter, the phyllo sheets on top of that, and the other clean towel on top to cover. Put a sheet of phyllo in pan, brush it evenly with butter (using pastry brush), repeat until there are 7 sheets of phyllo on bottom of pan. (Always cover unused phyllo while buttering). Put half of nut mixture on top of buttered phyllo, add 3 more sheets of buttered phyllo, then the rest of nut mixture. Butter and place the rest of the phyllo on top.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 1 hour or until golden. Check it after 45-50 minutes to make sure it's not getting too brown. Pour cold syrup over hot baklava. Cool. Cut into sqares, diamonds or rectangles, whatever suits your fancy. Enjoy! To serve these, I like to put them into cupcake foils because they look festive, they eat less messy, and most importantly, if they start to dry out a little, you can spoon a little honey on the top when you serve them and voila! Delicious!
Until next time, good vibes to all of you!
Claudia
Thursday, April 19, 2007
of Imus and the Virginia Tech shootings
Well, a sad week. This post will probably be pretty long. Those of you who object to reading "novels" might therefore want to skip over this post.
Monday's tragic happenings at Virginia Tech have knocked the Don Imus thing off the radar, at least for now, but I did promise to address that issue. So here goes.
First of all, let it be said that I am caucasian, and therefore cannot relate to how it feels to be black and be called a n-----, or a "nappy-haired ho". In fairness, I am a woman, and do know how it feels not to be given a fair shake due to that. I know, for example, that no man has ever had to field the amount of questions from well-meaning family and friends that I and many women nowadays do who put off (or decide to forgo) the marriage and children thing. You know the questions: "When are you getting married? When are you going to settle down and have kids?" As if somehow, if you don't, you're less of a woman, or have somehow failed to fulfill a purpose that apparently you must fulfill in order to have validity or stature as a "real woman". I was so relieved when I turned 40 and didn't have to deal with that nonsense anymore. And is there a woman out there who hasn't wished she had the height and strength of the lesser quality men who use those advantages to dominate us in personal as well as business relationships? I will not go into the differences in earnings between the sexes or any of the other typical gender battles, as I have digressed, and I believe I've made my point.
Not to say that this is even close to what black people have had to endure. And as has been stated elsewhere, God, to be black and female! It is definitely true that our society has a long way to go in terms of race relations. But I think the problem is alot bigger than that.
Once I read a book called "Miss 4th of July, Goodbye" about a Greek family that emigrated to West Virginia during WWI, was subjected to prejudice due to being foreigners, was threatened by, and fought back against, the KKK. The book was made into a movie for the Disney Channel starring Louis Gossett, Jr. and Roxana Zal. The book was written by Christopher Janus, and I highly recommend it. During the course of a conversation with his daughter Niki (the protagonist), her father George tells her, "Remember this, Niki: One way or another, everybody finds a n----- to kick around."
To my way of thinking, that right there is the crux of the problem. Just as the first instinct of many human beings is to strike out violently when we are angry, it seems that another toxic first instinct that we must own and master within ourselves is the tendency, especially when we feel frustrated with our lot in life, to immediately find somebody to feel superior to and kick around, figuratively or literally. Even in these United States, where all "men" are created equal, we have this problem. White vs. black, men vs. women, rich vs. poor, gay vs. straight, Christian vs. Moslem. And I know that you can pick out of each pair mentioned which one feels just a little superior, and which one gets kicked. I even saw an article in a magazine several months back about there being a division between women who stay at home and women who work outside the home!
My point is we will all have our differences. If we were all alike, as it is often said, it would be a boring world. Diversity should be a cause for celebration, not persecution. We as individuals need to cop to our tendency to hierarchize our place in the world, and our tendency to want to feel superior, and find a way to make peace with who and what and where we are in our little section of the mud ball. Our problem is not "out there", in others. We have seen the enemy, it is said, and he is us.
My kudos to the young women of the Rutgers basketball team for their grace in this situation, for their excellence on and off the basketball court.
As for the Virginia Tech tragedy, my God, where to start? My usual rant in a situation like this is where was everybody? Why didn't somebody see something was up and try to intervene? The problem nowadays is that we have forgotten how to be our brother's keeper, etc. etc. But we cannot fault the classmates and faculty at the college for not attempting to intervene. It is plain that they tried to intervene several times, to no avail. Tipped off by the young man's roommate, a magistrate ordered Seung-Hui Cho to submit to a psychiatric evaluation. The psychiatrist deemed Cho as perhaps a danger to himself, but not to anybody else. His guns were bought totally legally. He had never been convicted of a crime. His mental health issues resulted in a short-term, voluntary stay in a hospital, the termination of that stay equally voluntary, explaining why it was never mentioned in any record that would exempt him from owning a gun. The two young women that he allegedly sent inappropriate messages to declined to press charges. So it is obvious that once the young man got to college, people did try to call attention to his condition, only to apparently run up against a brick wall.
Of course this young man's problems started a long time ago. We know for sure he was bullied in high school, and probably long before that. We don't know what, if anything, his parents, neighbors, teachers, etc. did to try and stop the downward spiral the young man was on before he got to college. One thing I know, though: the younger the person, the better the chance of reversing such a violent, destructive mindset. Cho was about, what, 21 or 22 years old? How old is too old to fix mental illness like this? Does anyone know? Why don't we know?
I have listened to talk shows and read message boards ad nauseum the past few days. Some posters and talksters blamed the mental health professionals. They were trained, one argued. Regular people saw there was a problem, but the shrinks should have seen the extent of it and done something. But psychiatry is in its infancy, as much as people may not want to hear that fact. We don't know nearly as much as we need to know about the human body, and the brain is probably the biggest mystery to us. I suspect much of the testing to probe and understand the human brain may have been beyond us until very recently. And where is the funding for said testing? I was molested when I was a kid, and tho I am not going to get into THAT subject now, I will say this: I believe that many answers as to why some people become molesters are in the brains of those who were molested and went on to molest; those who weren't molested and went on to molest; and those like me who were molested and didn't go on to molest. And when we get off our duff, get our priorities straight, and put our money into studying things that will actually help us, and not the mating habits of the tsetse fly, we may be able to solve alot of our problems. Like molestation. And maybe even paranoid psychosis/schizophrenia.
The usual suspects pop up in the posts: guns, lack of religion/morality, the media, liberals, parents, psychiatrists, etc. But one young lady, a shining light to me, sees it the way I do. She posted on the MSNBC message boards as "Shut Up Girl". I tried to reply to her and get her permission to use her post here, or have her share her thoughts in a reply to this post, but I couldn't get logged in to MSNBC's site. I am going to share some of what she said here. I hope she won't mind.
"What the gunmen do is wrong and there is nothing that changes that fact; but we are ignorant to think that there is no one else at fault.
"...(we) have done a horrible job of teaching our children how to value each other. (We say) be successful, be important, earn money, be popular, but how often do we ever say, 'Be kind' or 'It is never OK to hurt someone.'
"There are some people who have not failed to teach this lesson, but this is the exception, not the rule.
"Everyone is so concerned about being cool, or worrying about themselves that they never stop to think how they might be hurting someone else.
"I have a hard time believing that no one can seem to figure out WHY these things happen; I think it is more along the lines that no one wants to admit why it happens.
"You are guilty every time you mock someone, every time you laugh at them, every time you snicker or point.
"You are guilty, every time you sneer at someone, every time you tell them how they have failed, and every time you make them feel as if they are never good enough to be your friend, or achieve their dreams.
"...We are blind to the pain around us, or maybe more importantly, we just don't seem to care. We are raised in a society that you can never let down your walls, or someone will dig that knife in a bit deeper. When all you really want to do is to know that someone understands how you feel and that someone cares and (will) not use that pain to hurt you even more.
"But that would be too much effort.
"When it comes right down to it, most of them are just angry that no one cares how much they are hurting, and they want others to understand just how far they have been pushed.
"In their minds, what better way to hurt others like they have been hurt, than to do something they have no choice but to notice?
"And that's the reality, whether we like it or not.
"We avoid talking about it, we just gloss it up and pretend not to notice our own role in what happens because it is easier to just blame insanity.
"We need to stop being blind and start leading by example.
..."Christian, Pagan, Agnostic...there is no shield for our actions; because let's face it, sometimes religion gets treated like a way of telling ourselves that we are good people, even as we are doing horrible things.
"And a way of trying to wash hands of any possible guilt, or possible blame.
"There is only one way to stop these sort of things, and I don't think the human race is really up to doing that just yet.
"We need to start caring more, and we need to start caring about the right things. Would these shooters exist if we didn't create them? Would these shooters exist if someone had taken the time to actually notice their pain and do something other than humiliate them with it?
"Think, people. And stop being so blind.
"This world depends on it."
Thank you, Shut Up Girl. I couldn't have said it better; that's why I quoted you. And yes, folks, I know that concerned people tried to intervene at VT; but what about before that? To try to make a difference when someone is as mentally ill as this young man was is damn near impossible. It doesn't happen very often, but I agree with President Bush: When you see someone who is acting that messed up, call attention to it, and don't quit until someone does something about it. It is your business, and it's just possible that if you don't do something, no one else will, and it is also possible that someone else's problems can quickly be made your business, just like this.
I would just like to add: Are the people who always say that people need to face consequences of actions the same people who are saying they don't want to see anymore of Cho's video or hear his ranting; the same ones who are blaming the shrinks, Virginia Tech, parents, liberals, guns, etc., instead of admitting that once again, we have seen the enemy, and he is us? Because who is "our society" if not us?
On a lighter note: If anyone is still with me, I would like to thank my Pittsburgh Penguins, who came out on the wrong end of the Stanley Cup Quarterfinals 4 games to 1, to the Ottawa Senators, after losing Game 5 by a score of 3-0. To the Penguin team: Thank you for a great year. You gave us lots of thrills and great times this year. You gave us a new arena, and hockey in Pittsburgh for another 30 years. The city of Pittsburgh loves its Penguins, and we loved cheering you on. Your learning curve was alot shorter than we could've ever dreamed, and we're looking forward to cheering you on again next year. We know you're just gonna keep getting better, and we're looking forward to taking that ride with you. Thanks to the Ottawa Senators, who gave our Pens something to measure up to. Ottawa, I just want you to know: you may have dominated our Pens this time, but we're gonna dominate you (and everyone else) the same way, only more, in a couple of years. Keep looking in your rearview mirrors, Sens. See that black and gold blur behind you? That's our Pens -- they're gaining on you. Enjoy your time in the sun, Sens. It ain't gonna last forever. [Claudia's note, 4/17/08, with the 2007-08 quarterfinals between the Pens and the Sens complete, with the Pens sweeping the series 4-0, I rest my case on that subject. Even if the Pens don't win another playoff game this year, I feel vindicated.] That said, I hope the team that took the Penguins takes it all!
Good vibes to all of you (the Senators, too)!
Claudia
Monday's tragic happenings at Virginia Tech have knocked the Don Imus thing off the radar, at least for now, but I did promise to address that issue. So here goes.
First of all, let it be said that I am caucasian, and therefore cannot relate to how it feels to be black and be called a n-----, or a "nappy-haired ho". In fairness, I am a woman, and do know how it feels not to be given a fair shake due to that. I know, for example, that no man has ever had to field the amount of questions from well-meaning family and friends that I and many women nowadays do who put off (or decide to forgo) the marriage and children thing. You know the questions: "When are you getting married? When are you going to settle down and have kids?" As if somehow, if you don't, you're less of a woman, or have somehow failed to fulfill a purpose that apparently you must fulfill in order to have validity or stature as a "real woman". I was so relieved when I turned 40 and didn't have to deal with that nonsense anymore. And is there a woman out there who hasn't wished she had the height and strength of the lesser quality men who use those advantages to dominate us in personal as well as business relationships? I will not go into the differences in earnings between the sexes or any of the other typical gender battles, as I have digressed, and I believe I've made my point.
Not to say that this is even close to what black people have had to endure. And as has been stated elsewhere, God, to be black and female! It is definitely true that our society has a long way to go in terms of race relations. But I think the problem is alot bigger than that.
Once I read a book called "Miss 4th of July, Goodbye" about a Greek family that emigrated to West Virginia during WWI, was subjected to prejudice due to being foreigners, was threatened by, and fought back against, the KKK. The book was made into a movie for the Disney Channel starring Louis Gossett, Jr. and Roxana Zal. The book was written by Christopher Janus, and I highly recommend it. During the course of a conversation with his daughter Niki (the protagonist), her father George tells her, "Remember this, Niki: One way or another, everybody finds a n----- to kick around."
To my way of thinking, that right there is the crux of the problem. Just as the first instinct of many human beings is to strike out violently when we are angry, it seems that another toxic first instinct that we must own and master within ourselves is the tendency, especially when we feel frustrated with our lot in life, to immediately find somebody to feel superior to and kick around, figuratively or literally. Even in these United States, where all "men" are created equal, we have this problem. White vs. black, men vs. women, rich vs. poor, gay vs. straight, Christian vs. Moslem. And I know that you can pick out of each pair mentioned which one feels just a little superior, and which one gets kicked. I even saw an article in a magazine several months back about there being a division between women who stay at home and women who work outside the home!
My point is we will all have our differences. If we were all alike, as it is often said, it would be a boring world. Diversity should be a cause for celebration, not persecution. We as individuals need to cop to our tendency to hierarchize our place in the world, and our tendency to want to feel superior, and find a way to make peace with who and what and where we are in our little section of the mud ball. Our problem is not "out there", in others. We have seen the enemy, it is said, and he is us.
My kudos to the young women of the Rutgers basketball team for their grace in this situation, for their excellence on and off the basketball court.
As for the Virginia Tech tragedy, my God, where to start? My usual rant in a situation like this is where was everybody? Why didn't somebody see something was up and try to intervene? The problem nowadays is that we have forgotten how to be our brother's keeper, etc. etc. But we cannot fault the classmates and faculty at the college for not attempting to intervene. It is plain that they tried to intervene several times, to no avail. Tipped off by the young man's roommate, a magistrate ordered Seung-Hui Cho to submit to a psychiatric evaluation. The psychiatrist deemed Cho as perhaps a danger to himself, but not to anybody else. His guns were bought totally legally. He had never been convicted of a crime. His mental health issues resulted in a short-term, voluntary stay in a hospital, the termination of that stay equally voluntary, explaining why it was never mentioned in any record that would exempt him from owning a gun. The two young women that he allegedly sent inappropriate messages to declined to press charges. So it is obvious that once the young man got to college, people did try to call attention to his condition, only to apparently run up against a brick wall.
Of course this young man's problems started a long time ago. We know for sure he was bullied in high school, and probably long before that. We don't know what, if anything, his parents, neighbors, teachers, etc. did to try and stop the downward spiral the young man was on before he got to college. One thing I know, though: the younger the person, the better the chance of reversing such a violent, destructive mindset. Cho was about, what, 21 or 22 years old? How old is too old to fix mental illness like this? Does anyone know? Why don't we know?
I have listened to talk shows and read message boards ad nauseum the past few days. Some posters and talksters blamed the mental health professionals. They were trained, one argued. Regular people saw there was a problem, but the shrinks should have seen the extent of it and done something. But psychiatry is in its infancy, as much as people may not want to hear that fact. We don't know nearly as much as we need to know about the human body, and the brain is probably the biggest mystery to us. I suspect much of the testing to probe and understand the human brain may have been beyond us until very recently. And where is the funding for said testing? I was molested when I was a kid, and tho I am not going to get into THAT subject now, I will say this: I believe that many answers as to why some people become molesters are in the brains of those who were molested and went on to molest; those who weren't molested and went on to molest; and those like me who were molested and didn't go on to molest. And when we get off our duff, get our priorities straight, and put our money into studying things that will actually help us, and not the mating habits of the tsetse fly, we may be able to solve alot of our problems. Like molestation. And maybe even paranoid psychosis/schizophrenia.
The usual suspects pop up in the posts: guns, lack of religion/morality, the media, liberals, parents, psychiatrists, etc. But one young lady, a shining light to me, sees it the way I do. She posted on the MSNBC message boards as "Shut Up Girl". I tried to reply to her and get her permission to use her post here, or have her share her thoughts in a reply to this post, but I couldn't get logged in to MSNBC's site. I am going to share some of what she said here. I hope she won't mind.
"What the gunmen do is wrong and there is nothing that changes that fact; but we are ignorant to think that there is no one else at fault.
"...(we) have done a horrible job of teaching our children how to value each other. (We say) be successful, be important, earn money, be popular, but how often do we ever say, 'Be kind' or 'It is never OK to hurt someone.'
"There are some people who have not failed to teach this lesson, but this is the exception, not the rule.
"Everyone is so concerned about being cool, or worrying about themselves that they never stop to think how they might be hurting someone else.
"I have a hard time believing that no one can seem to figure out WHY these things happen; I think it is more along the lines that no one wants to admit why it happens.
"You are guilty every time you mock someone, every time you laugh at them, every time you snicker or point.
"You are guilty, every time you sneer at someone, every time you tell them how they have failed, and every time you make them feel as if they are never good enough to be your friend, or achieve their dreams.
"...We are blind to the pain around us, or maybe more importantly, we just don't seem to care. We are raised in a society that you can never let down your walls, or someone will dig that knife in a bit deeper. When all you really want to do is to know that someone understands how you feel and that someone cares and (will) not use that pain to hurt you even more.
"But that would be too much effort.
"When it comes right down to it, most of them are just angry that no one cares how much they are hurting, and they want others to understand just how far they have been pushed.
"In their minds, what better way to hurt others like they have been hurt, than to do something they have no choice but to notice?
"And that's the reality, whether we like it or not.
"We avoid talking about it, we just gloss it up and pretend not to notice our own role in what happens because it is easier to just blame insanity.
"We need to stop being blind and start leading by example.
..."Christian, Pagan, Agnostic...there is no shield for our actions; because let's face it, sometimes religion gets treated like a way of telling ourselves that we are good people, even as we are doing horrible things.
"And a way of trying to wash hands of any possible guilt, or possible blame.
"There is only one way to stop these sort of things, and I don't think the human race is really up to doing that just yet.
"We need to start caring more, and we need to start caring about the right things. Would these shooters exist if we didn't create them? Would these shooters exist if someone had taken the time to actually notice their pain and do something other than humiliate them with it?
"Think, people. And stop being so blind.
"This world depends on it."
Thank you, Shut Up Girl. I couldn't have said it better; that's why I quoted you. And yes, folks, I know that concerned people tried to intervene at VT; but what about before that? To try to make a difference when someone is as mentally ill as this young man was is damn near impossible. It doesn't happen very often, but I agree with President Bush: When you see someone who is acting that messed up, call attention to it, and don't quit until someone does something about it. It is your business, and it's just possible that if you don't do something, no one else will, and it is also possible that someone else's problems can quickly be made your business, just like this.
I would just like to add: Are the people who always say that people need to face consequences of actions the same people who are saying they don't want to see anymore of Cho's video or hear his ranting; the same ones who are blaming the shrinks, Virginia Tech, parents, liberals, guns, etc., instead of admitting that once again, we have seen the enemy, and he is us? Because who is "our society" if not us?
On a lighter note: If anyone is still with me, I would like to thank my Pittsburgh Penguins, who came out on the wrong end of the Stanley Cup Quarterfinals 4 games to 1, to the Ottawa Senators, after losing Game 5 by a score of 3-0. To the Penguin team: Thank you for a great year. You gave us lots of thrills and great times this year. You gave us a new arena, and hockey in Pittsburgh for another 30 years. The city of Pittsburgh loves its Penguins, and we loved cheering you on. Your learning curve was alot shorter than we could've ever dreamed, and we're looking forward to cheering you on again next year. We know you're just gonna keep getting better, and we're looking forward to taking that ride with you. Thanks to the Ottawa Senators, who gave our Pens something to measure up to. Ottawa, I just want you to know: you may have dominated our Pens this time, but we're gonna dominate you (and everyone else) the same way, only more, in a couple of years. Keep looking in your rearview mirrors, Sens. See that black and gold blur behind you? That's our Pens -- they're gaining on you. Enjoy your time in the sun, Sens. It ain't gonna last forever. [Claudia's note, 4/17/08, with the 2007-08 quarterfinals between the Pens and the Sens complete, with the Pens sweeping the series 4-0, I rest my case on that subject. Even if the Pens don't win another playoff game this year, I feel vindicated.] That said, I hope the team that took the Penguins takes it all!
Good vibes to all of you (the Senators, too)!
Claudia
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Interesting Little Question
Got a letter with an interesting question in the mail yesterday. The Smithsonian, for some unfathomable reason, thought they would like to solicit my opinion (!!!) on any number of things, so to that end, the darlings sent me a questionaire. Most of it was forgettable, and I did not trouble myself to do anything beyond drop it in the circular file. But one query from it has been on my mind today: What is the most significant invention of the 20th century? A.The airplane B.The automobile C.The television D.The computer
My opinion is the television, because before its advent, we didn't sit down for much of anything. People listened to the radio while doing something else; they didn't need to fixate on a screen lest they miss something. I think television was the first thing that got us to just "veg out" for any length of time. Of course, we have more time to sit in front of the tube. In the late 19th century "those damned communard trade unionists" who agitated for fair wages and safe working conditions also fought for and won the 8 hour day and the 40 hour week we enjoy. And in the 20th century, for perhaps the first time in history, we all didn't have to work from sun to sun to grow and hunt our own food. We just went down to the supermarket and there it was; "someone else" had done the growing, harvesting and packaging for our convenience. Also, the 20th century saw the advent of all those labor-saving devices. More leisure time, but what to do with it?
I'll grant you a certain right of hard-working, stressed-out people to our entertainment, but for so many people TV is a drug, a babysitter, a companion, a segue into an alpha state easily influenced by advertising and news- and entertainment-lite. It renders them mute, passive, less than present mentally and emotionally. I think that both watching so many hours of TV and the insane proliferation of channels spewing so much "infotainment", so little real substance, has left people numb and dumbed-down. Do we recognize quality entertainment anymore? Has the fantasy-violence and the constant reporting of real violence desensitized our society? Has the passive state of TV-viewing spilled over and made us reactive, rather than proactive in our real lives? I'd be interested to hear what you all think.
Good Vibes To All Of You,
Claudia
My opinion is the television, because before its advent, we didn't sit down for much of anything. People listened to the radio while doing something else; they didn't need to fixate on a screen lest they miss something. I think television was the first thing that got us to just "veg out" for any length of time. Of course, we have more time to sit in front of the tube. In the late 19th century "those damned communard trade unionists" who agitated for fair wages and safe working conditions also fought for and won the 8 hour day and the 40 hour week we enjoy. And in the 20th century, for perhaps the first time in history, we all didn't have to work from sun to sun to grow and hunt our own food. We just went down to the supermarket and there it was; "someone else" had done the growing, harvesting and packaging for our convenience. Also, the 20th century saw the advent of all those labor-saving devices. More leisure time, but what to do with it?
I'll grant you a certain right of hard-working, stressed-out people to our entertainment, but for so many people TV is a drug, a babysitter, a companion, a segue into an alpha state easily influenced by advertising and news- and entertainment-lite. It renders them mute, passive, less than present mentally and emotionally. I think that both watching so many hours of TV and the insane proliferation of channels spewing so much "infotainment", so little real substance, has left people numb and dumbed-down. Do we recognize quality entertainment anymore? Has the fantasy-violence and the constant reporting of real violence desensitized our society? Has the passive state of TV-viewing spilled over and made us reactive, rather than proactive in our real lives? I'd be interested to hear what you all think.
Good Vibes To All Of You,
Claudia
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Pilot
Hello, everybody!
It's great to be talking to you! First, some introductions are in order here. My name is Claudia. I live in the Pittsburgh, PA area. I'm 41 years old. This is my first attempt at a blog, so bear with me, I'll try not to be too boring.
I decided to call this blog "Soup 2 Nutz", not because it'll be about cooking ("Aw, shucks!" some of you are saying. Hold On! I like to cook and I won't be above throwing in some recipes if some of you are interested.) I have quite a few interests and opinions, and I know you do, too. So this blog will be about everything from soup to nuts. My main thing tho, is, I want to give you info that will help you, cuz folks, I honest to God believe that we're all here to help each other.
So, away we go...
It's great to be talking to you! First, some introductions are in order here. My name is Claudia. I live in the Pittsburgh, PA area. I'm 41 years old. This is my first attempt at a blog, so bear with me, I'll try not to be too boring.
I decided to call this blog "Soup 2 Nutz", not because it'll be about cooking ("Aw, shucks!" some of you are saying. Hold On! I like to cook and I won't be above throwing in some recipes if some of you are interested.) I have quite a few interests and opinions, and I know you do, too. So this blog will be about everything from soup to nuts. My main thing tho, is, I want to give you info that will help you, cuz folks, I honest to God believe that we're all here to help each other.
So, away we go...
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