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Stem Cells For My Wallet

You can tell it's a Monday when you walk out of the house in a blissful haze, get to the Metro station, and realize that you seem to have forgotten your wallet and cell phone, prompting a slow trudge back to your house to retrieve such items lest you go the day anonymous, poor, and electronically disconnected from the world.  Screw this cloning sheep and organs crap, I need scientists to create wee little legs and a brain for my wallet, so it knows to run and jump in my pocket as soon as I open my front door.  Or, at the very least, to start screaming, "What about me?  What about my needs?"  Being single these days, I almost miss hearing that around the house.

I have this to say about the denizens of DC - they are absolute wusses when it comes to the snow.  My well-RSVP'd Oscars party started off with a slurry of text messages from my friends who claimed they were "snowed in."  On this side of the country, "snowed in" evidently means that there is an inch of snow on the ground, which might *gasp* get one's booties wet.  I have only ever been "snowed in" once - in Flagstaff, Arizona - when a nice little blizzard managed to bury my friend's SUV up to its windows in snow overnight.  If you have to retrieve your car with a snow shovel, I think you can qualify yourself as being "snowed in."  Saving that, I think you should heretofore text me to tell me that you're "wussed in."  Much more accurate that way.

Having said that, the Oscars were kind of a bust, I thought.  Long, meandering, lacking in surprise, and entirely devoid of the kind of spontaneous speeches that they were supposed to have this year.  Winners were not supposed to bring papers to read from.  I think it would have been a fabulous Oscars if the Oscar model, who normally just stands there looking tall, suddenly ran forth in her high heels, snagged the winner's paper out of their hands, and dashed off the stage.  Ellen was an amicable, albeit boring, host.  I miss Billy Crystal.  (And Jack Nicholson's hair, come to think of it.)  The best gig of the night (since Sacha Baron Cohen didn't get up on stage) was watching Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, and Meryl Streep do a mini-rendition of "The Devil Wears Prada."  Proof that Meryl Streep should have won the Oscar?  She can manage to look sexy and imposing, even while wearing what looked like a Hare Krishna outfit.  The Oscars ran so long that I ended up changing the channel to "The L Word" at 11pm.  Sorry, Oscar, read-from-a-pocket-note-slowly-and-in-a-monotone-manner speeches just can't compare to gratuitous nudity.

Jesus Has Rights, Too

The Department of Justice unveiled a new initiative in its Civil Rights section this morning called the "First Freedom Project."  The aim of this new pet project?  Stricter enforcement of laws against religious discrimination and "greater enforcement of religious rights for all Americans."  Given the abject lack of information on the DOJ's website about the rights of atheists and agnostics to not practice religion (one nation "under God" anyone?) or the rights of indigenous people to use naturally-occurring plants as part of their religious rituals (word to the wise - the DOJ does not look kindly on religions that uses anything classified as a "drug" to achieve spiritual enlightenment), I'm guessing that this new initiative is mostly aimed at the Judeo-Christian among us.  Because, of all the initiatives that the DOJ could focus its time and energy on, defending the religious liberty of the majority of Americans is paramount.  Hmm.

Who Would Have Thunk It?

Evidently, fish can purr.  Better yet, they purr when mating.  I'm getting all hot and bothered just thinking about it.

France and Utah have more in common than I first realized.  I'm starting to feel less guilty about mocking the French as a pastime. 

Life in Coach

It has been an obscenely crazy past couple of weeks of travel for yours truly.  To give you a taste of my jet-setting lifestyle (in coach, of course), here's my recent itinerary...

Mon, Feb 5 - Boston
Tues, Feb 6 - DC
Wed, Feb 7 - Phoenix
Thurs, Feb 8 - Phoenix
Fri, Feb 9 - Mon, Feb 12 - DC
Tues, Feb 13 - Boston
Wed, Feb 14 - Boston
Thurs, Feb 15 - DC
Fri, Feb 16 - Mon, Feb 19 - London
Tues, Feb 20 - DC

If an airline offered me a free ticket right now, I think I might run screaming in the other direction and join a cult that believed that flying in airplanes was akin to worshiping false idols.  Through all of my travels, I have divined a few basic truths:

(1) Staring is not considered a rude and shameless activity in Britain.  Perhaps it's all the exposure to trashy, gossipy newspapers, or the fact that lesbians are considered rare and endangered birds in London, but every time I went out and about on the town, there were no end of eye pairs taking a long gander.  Until, of course, I gandered back.  Evidently, Britains are voyeurs, but not confrontationalists.

(2) Cleanliness it not next to godliness, but the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston might be.  I mean, who wouldn't love a large, garden-style tub (big enough to actually fit this amazon without forcing her knees up to her ears) set in a bathroom with a cut-out in the wall, which affords the bather with the opportunity to watch the 40-inch flat-screen TV from the comfort of her own watery heaven?

(3) My argyle scarf evidently pegs me as the kind of international nuisance that needs to be given the full pat down twice at Heathrow airport (which is amusing to me, as my general demeanor has never occasioned American security to give me the looky-loo).  Those with an interest in international airport security will be happy to know that the security guards in Britain were more than happy to pat down my legs, breast, and hoo-ha looking for my super-secret weapon of preppy destruction!  I suppose it would have been a better experience if the people taking an interest in my nether regions were actually attractive, but alas, no.  No strip search fantasies fulfilled that day, I'm afraid.

(4) If one must make a connection when coming back from a foreign country, one should allot at least two hours for such shenanigans.  Else, you might end up sprinting through JFK in the late hours of the night, huffing and puffing in a most un-ladylike manner.  Unless that's, like, you know, your thing.

(5) England may be suspicious of me and my argyle, but U.S. Customs loves me.  On my last return trip from England, the Customs man noted that I has the most thorough customs form that he ever did see.  This time around, a different Customs man remarked on my good penmanship.  Next time around, I'm going to ask if there are any awards for these sorts of things.  I can put them up next to my perfect attendance awards from high school.  What better way to attract a mate, I ask you?

The Science of Scent

There are many things about the science of scent that I don't completely understand.  For instance, why is it that every time I walk through the perfume section of a department store (which somehow manages to be at every entrance of a department store, even if I try to outwit the perfume counter by taking the parking garage entrance reserved solely for those who enjoy a good mugging), I am assaulted with the overwhelming scent of a flower gone terribly, terribly wrong?  Are there no other pleasing scents in the world other than the reproductive systems of plants?  I mean, really.  Michael Kors' "Island?"  Smells like flowers that you would find an island (or, at the very least, imported to an island resort).  Elizabeth Taylor's "White Diamonds?"  Smells like white flowers that have gotten drunk on too many gin and tonics.  My secret hypothesis is that the lab geeks in charge of creating scent have finally gone crazy from too little exposure to natural light and have started importing flowering plants to the lab to be gunned down by a semi-automatic rifle while a malevolent robot captures the flowers' dying essences in a bottle.  It could happen.

Moreover, if one does manage to find a scent that doesn't smell like a rotting, alcoholic flower and also manages to actually last on the skin (Demeter fragrances – I heart your "Laundry" and "Cucumber" scents, but they last all of about .02 seconds after I spray them on me), the perfume fails to appropriately attract one's target audience.  Case in point – after much research into finding a scent that would not make most of my would-be dates sneeze, retch, or run screaming in unholy terror, I settled on Lucky Brand cologne.  That's right, I wear a scent that can be purchased with corresponding after-shave.  Some of you will no doubt associate this coincidence with my love of pick up trucks and softball, but I say it is in defense of flowers.  Anyway, given that the majority of the population is heterosexual and that at least one of the aims of cologne and perfume is to attract a mate (being capitalists, we like to brand, mass produce, and market our pheromones), I would have thought that my choice of fragrance would be optimal for my pursuit of womankind.  Alas, all my Lucky cologne has brought me is a bevy of men who think that I smell fantastic!  That is not the kind of lucky I was trying to get, mmkay?

You scent researchers need to start human trials on this stuff and give me a little marketing perspective.  I mean, pharmaceutical companies give me a nice fact-sheet with the percentage of adverse events on it when I buy their drug – how sick to my stomach or anxious or subject to priapism I might be after ingesting the drug.  That's all I'm asking for Mr. Kors and Ms. Karan - a little adverse event info on your perfume - what percentage of wearers attracted men, attracted women, and made passerby collapse in an asthmatic attack.  This would save me and my nose a lot of effort the next time we try to make our way through the great floral massacre section of Macy's.

Little People in Space

I'm just catching up on some of my old Discover magazines (the perfect quick, at-my-desk lunch) and just read an article on Pluto's removal from our galaxy's list of planets, and placement into the nebulous realm of "dwarf planet."  ("Dwarf," coincidentally, is never a flattering term, unless you happen to be in the middle of some Tolkien-like role playing game.  I'm informed that people with dwarfism actually prefer the term "little person."  Just one of many reasons why "The Wizard of Oz" is evil - slighting of the little persons by calling them "munchkins."  Glinda was a naughty, politically incorrect valley girl.)

Inquiring minds want to know - are any of you really upset about this re-classification?  I, for one, was not particularly, if only because I had crossed off Pluto on my list of "Planets To Visit" as a child due to it's rather icy and cold climate.  Brr.

I am very upset, however, that the drive to re-name 2003 UB313 (the other "dwarf planet") to "Xena" (and the moon orbiting it "Gabrielle") failed.  Where is the romance these days, I ask you?  You can't very well call out the name "2003 UB313" in bed, now can you?

Atkins for Pandas

When panda porn fails, there's always the latest diet fad...gee, animals really are just like us.

Sponges for Jesus

It is indeed a sad day for the education system in our country when a school board is persuaded out of screening a scientifically-based and supported, yet eminently accessible, movie about global warming (yes, that would be Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth") by the religiously-motivated protestations of a parent, who evidently believes that the warming of the earth is a sign that Jesus is getting ready to return.  (One wonders if this man is burning plastics containing CFCs in his back yard to hasten the lord's return?)  The movie is devoid of violence, sex, nudity, or explicit language (unless "ice floe" became a naughty word that I didn't know about).  The only thing about the movie that could be somewhat objectionable, from an educational standpoint, is that the science presented in the movie could be debated (though virtually every major scientific body has supported the film's science, but perhaps you could find some scientist from remote New Guinea who might have another theory).  But alas, I thought that was the point of education - to teach children how to access and consider a proposition, whether scientific or otherwise, and then to arrive at their own conclusion.  Does Hester Prynne deserve the scarlet "A?"  Does the theory of relativity make sense?  Do humans hasten the warming of the earth's atmosphere?  By bending to one parent's religious principles, the school board is doing a disservice to all of its students, which are its primary responsibility, because it is failing to teach its students the most basic educational lesson - to reason and think for themselves.  If Mr. High and Mighty Religious Parent actually had a defensible position, then he would be able to sit his daughter down after she came home from watching "An Inconvenient Truth" and explain to her why it was wrong and why the melting of Antarctica is a harbinger of Judgment Day.  And then she would get to decide for herself which theory made the most sense to her.  Faith is not the business of the public school system, nor should it ever become the business of a school to fail to teach a child to think for herself because of the religious ideas of her parents.  If her parents really want her to become a sponge for Jesus, there's always a private school happy to serve that need.

From Canada to DC - All the News That's Fit to Print

It's always nice to marry someone who shares some of your interests, even if those interests include, for example, assault.  It appears that two women in Canada found that their rap sheets bespoke greater underlying compatibility and decided to tie the knot while serving time in a Canadian prison. 

In other news from north of the border, Ontario's Court of Appeal ruled that three parents each have a separate legal right over the same child.  The case involved two lesbians, one of whom had the child with the father prior to the relationship.  The lesbian couple did not want to adopt the child because they didn't want to cut off the father's parental interest.  (Gee...a rare case of parents going to court to actually act in the best interests of the child instead of using the child as a sharp boomerang of revenge...how very novel.)  The court ruled that both the lesbian couple and the father had legal parenting rights to the child, noting that recognizing the non-biological mother's rights was in the best interests of the child and necessary should something happen to the biological mother.  (Insert inappropriate three-way joke here.)

In news from around these parts, the Supreme Court heard yet another commerce clause case involving garbage.  Once again, the so-called "dormant commerce clause" finds itself associated with human waste.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Reasons to not use eBay in the near future - eBay CEO Meg Whitman helped Mitt "the Dick" Romney (yes, that's my own personal nickname) raise $6.5 million for his potential presidential campaign.  Evidently, Romney is on his way to have the cachet of money necessary to compete with other presidential hopefuls Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.  Now, all he needs to do is actually get a brain, a heart, and some courage from the Wizard.

Oh, I Wish I Had an Oscar Miers Weiner...

So, President Bush thought Harriet Miers was a perfectly qualified candidate for the Supreme Court, but he doesn't trust her to defend the White House against the incoming Democratic Congress and their potential assertion of subpoena power?  Well, gee, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about his judicial nominations.

The Underbelly of Affluence

The NY Times has a really interesting article on state-sponsored AIDS drugs for the homeless and poor, and what happens when a state chooses, for whatever reason, not to fund those drugs.  It's interesting because it bring into harsh light exactly happens to those whom the private health care industry leaves behind (i.e. those who cannot afford health insurance) - they die.  Yet, at the same time, one wonders if paying $885 per month per patient for AIDS drugs is the best use of state resources and taxpayer money.  A state is charged with so many different tasks - educating the future, conserving what little wildlife we have left in America, keeping up infrastructure, etc., that state-sponsored health care inevitably drains money from those other resources.  What exactly is the best allocation of resources?  What do we want our legacy to be?  Do we want to fund education at the expense of the health of the less affluent?  Do we want to keep as many of our citizens alive at the expense of our environment and our education?  Or do we want to do as much as we can with as little as we have, thereby ensuring equal opportunity for all programs, but excellence in none?

We do seem to be moving to the point where health care costs are so out of control that some form of government regulation appears necessary.  The market is, frankly, not working.  But complete government ownership over the health care system comes with its own massive problems.  One need only take a look at the tangled web of Medicare, which doesn't even cover half of American's population, to realize that government health care would have massive systemic problems.  But what are the solutions?  America has never seemed to wholly believe in social Darwinism - the idea that those who fall by the wayside are better lost, yet America is also firmly against the prospect of wholly shared resources (the bare mention of socialism in some parts of the United States is enough to inspire McCarthy-like gesticulation and spitting).  We are capitalists with a conscience, but our problems our bigger than our resources.  What is there to do?

Arizona's Gut is Expanding

My home state is now the fastest growing state in the union, swelling tremendously thanks to displaced Californians, immigrants from south of the border, and the ever expanding retiree population.  Hmm...my decision to stay on this side of the country keeps looking better and better.

The Evils of Pop Culture

There are positives and negatives to being an avid consumer of pop culture. The positives including rocking the Entertainment category in Trivial Pursuit, being your friends' handy go-to guide for movie information (who the hell needs Ebert when you've got me?), and dreaming of Katherine Heigl (directly related to a recent overdose of Grey's Anatomy DVDs, no doubt - I need to do that more often). I'm not sure all those positives outweigh the large negative that happened the night before last, however - I dreamed that Britney Spears was my teenage daughter and I needed to help control her drinking and partying. Having Britney be present in a dream is a frightening enough occurrence, but actually being related to her is enough to want to make me move to the wilds of South Dakota and feed on nothing but root vegetables and the Outdoor Network. I thoroughly blame US Weekly (and MTC, who provided aforementioned illicit materials) for this hypothalamus horror show. The only saving grace was that Paris Hilton didn't show up in the dream. I'd rather have constant nightmares that the Taco Bell Chihuahua was eating me alive, toes first, while saying, "Yo Quiero Taco Flesh" than to have that woman show up anywhere in my ego, id, or superego. Gah!

God Before Country

It's a sad day in this country when Christian evangelicals can get inside access to the Pentagon to make a 10-minute, pro-evangelical video, but a pagan soldier who died serving his country can't get a Wiccan-themed headstone without much hassle and delay.  Your job is to serve your country and your fellow citizen.  Serve God on your own time, bucko.

The Brain/Hand Dilemma

Brr...it is motherfuckinggoshdarnnutbusting freezing here today!  Why is it again that I live in a place that has actual winter?  Oh right, it's because someone once told me that I looked hot in a turtleneck.  Screw the turtleneck, I look good naked, too, and could just as easily go to work naked if I lived someplace temperate, like Arizona, Florida, or Argentina.  Okay, fine, I'm a lawyer, I should dress up a little bit.  I'll wear a tie.

I'm getting a little fed up with the bureaucracy of my job...although I'm given a great deal of responsibility, I also have to write a memo for my superiors on just about everything.  Sometimes, when I go to the bathroom, I wonder if I should have sent up a memo on that, too, explaining the various pros and cons behind squatting or sitting, using a toilet seat cover or not.  Hmm...maybe next time I send a memo up, it'll be on that subject.  I wonder if anyone will notice.

I think it's time to think about other employment.  Perhaps I'll take my hands on a freak show tour of the United States.  After measuring my paws against a 6'5'' guy's hands and realizing that my fingers were only about a quarter-inch shorter than his, I've decided that I'm a certified freak of mammalian nature (since I only stand a mere 5'11'' 1/2 at last measurement).  Although, I'm not sure that the profit from selling tickets for freakishly large hands will quite cover my gym membership, let alone my rent, so perhaps I should just seek a job in which I could use my hands.  Hmm...massage school, perhaps?  Those guys make like $1 per minute, which is definitely more than my brain makes per minute in my current job.  Alas, my brain is the inferior breadwinner!

The Biology of Religion

Discover magazine has a really interesting article on researchers who are seeking a biological basis for religiosity.  From religious-leaning genes to hallucinogens that we produce naturally in our heads, these researchers seek to explain religion as a somewhat biological experience.  (The hallucinogen theory is my favorite, as test subjects who were dosed with the naturally-occuring hallucinogen not only reported mystical, religious experiences, but also visions of clowns, elves, robots, and being eaten alive by insectoid creatures.  Nice!)  That would totally debunk my theory that religion is an essentially human narrative, handed down through the ages as compensation for the fact that humans, for whatever reason (perhaps genetic or chemical), tend to feel incomplete when left all by their onesies.  We seem to have a deep, internal need to find some "other" that is not "self," as evidenced by Aristophanes' theory of split-aparts, Christians' search for knowing God through Jesus Christ, Buddhists' search for enlightenment, as well as the common conception of marriage and monogamy as an interweaving of two souls and lives (unity candle, anyone?)

Quote of the Day

"He needs much help who thinks he can compel others to do what seems right to him."

Santa's Butt, Trans Fats, and Breeding Cheneys

Maine is prohibiting the sale of "Santa's Butt Winter Porter," under the theory that beer named after Santa's posterior is sure to attract sugarplum fairies and wee ones.  Last year, Maine prohibited the sale of "Seriously Bad Elf" Ale from the same beer distributor because it depicted women's bare breasts.  Because, after all, those old enough to drink still aren't old enough to look at a woman's bare boob.  (Just ask Department of Justice attorneys under Ashcroft's reign of chastity.)  The beer maker is now suing Maine in federal court under a First Amendment freedom of speech argument.  Well, if the Supreme Court seems some artistic value in pole dancing, then I suppose there's some artistic value in a beer label.

Mary Cheney and her partner are on the cusp of breeding.  If it's a boy, I'm sure grandpappy will be happy to buy him a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle for his third birthday. 

New York has decided to ban pretty much all trans fats in its restaurants, leaving places from McDonald's to Chez Swanky to figure out gustatory work-arounds.  While I fully support making restaurants disclose caloric counts and what items have trans fats, I'm not sure that forcing all restaurants to eliminate them is warranted government intrusion.  After all, if you simply provide people with all the info, and they tend to choose non-trans fat items, then the market will likely adapt.  If the market fails in that instance, then go for government regulation, but it seems like we're missing the middle step here.  Markets tend to work, so long as their is equal distribution of information.

Snarky, the Artiste

So, I'm assembling a frame today for my bar certificate, and my secretary comes by and says, "I bet you're really good at art."  Hahahahahaha.  I informed her that while I am perfectly handy, I was the kid who got a "B" in elementary school art, which loosely translates into "artistically retarded."  Every kid in elementary school gets an "A," except for those who are upstaged in their artistic expression by schizophrenic cats, i.e. me.

Oh well, artistic expression aside, I have now assembled a lovely little wall 'o Snarky at my office.  Now, my colleagues can come into my office and be assaulted by my various accomplishments, beaming down at them from behind my chair like a ray of light from heaven (or, perhaps, the fading, sputtery fluorescent beam of one who longs for the golden days of law school).  Now, I just have to decide whether to put up my high school accomplishment awards for perfect attendance.  Thoughts?