Monday, January 23, 2012

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Adventures in Baby Land

Allow me to introduce Katherine (Katie) and Marie. They are the twin daughters of my cousin* Jim and his partner Charles. Aren't they adorable?

Now. The girls were born a few weeks premature in Northern California. They hung out at the hospital for a while and are now ready to go home.

To upstate New York.

In a rented Winnebago.

I have a slight amount of disappointment that I was not invited on this trip to document what would surely become the next innerwebs sensation.

That's all I'm saying.

*cousin. Actually I think my grandfather and Jim's mother were cousins and the number of seconds, thirds, and twice removeds is beyond my reckoning capabilities and so, since we *are* Southern, we'll just let it go at cousin.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Adventures in Thordom

Thor saves us from the invasion of the peanut sucking zombie squirrel:





Thor sez: No thanks needed. Second breakfast will be sufficient.
(Photos by JAZ)

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The Day LOLCats Died!



Email, call your Senators! No to SOPA and PIPA!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Go Get 'em, Mitt!

Mitt Romney is airing a commercial in SC saying that he will judge every federal spending program by this criteria:

"Is is worth borrowing money from China to pay for?"

Awesome!

I'm sure Wells Fargo, BP and other corporations who raked in record profits over the past few years AND received about $125 BILLION in tax payer money on top of that profit are shaking in their boots now!

Right Mitt? Corporations that make huge profits, we don't need to borrow money from China to give them anymore, right?

Mitt? Mitt? Hello! Over here! Mitt, I'm trying to ask you a question.

Average federal tax money spent on "traditional" welfare programs: 59 Billion.
Average federal tax money spent of "corporate" welfare programs: 125 Billion.

To paraphrase Ghostbusters, "Who you gonna cut?"

Mitt? Yes or no? Are your corporate sponsors on that China criteria or not?

Yes or no.

Thor sez: Even I can answer a yes or no question, Mitt.

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Do You See What You are Looking At?

Last night, Jason got an assignment and I was allowed to tag along. I earned my ticket price by acting as a human light stand for a little while, so it's all cool.
We went to see a screening of a documentary that is beginning to make a splash and SHOULD be making a tsunami.

The title is Miss Representation.

Here is a trailer:


If you can watch the entire documentary, please, please do. Pay particular attention to how women of power are treated in the media. The film makers also most excellently draw the lines from deregulation of the air waves in the 80's and 90's to the explosion of political opinion as news that we see today on all sides of the spectrum.

One illustration that stood out to me was a print article in which a female legislator had "complained that", but a male counterpart had "stated that".

There was a good crowd there and a lively panel discussion with much input from the audience. I wanted to say something but didn't because, believe it or not, I am extremely shy in crowd situations. But the question was, what do we do from here? We've seen these things, now what do we do?

And I wanted to say, "Tell other people. Because once you see something, once you know something, it is very hard to unsee, unknow it. You can go into a state of denial, but the tension will always be there. Once you know how you are being manipulated and lied to, it will begin to lose its power."

I will add to that, don't buy that magazine. Don't watch that tv show. It only takes a quick search to find an email address and shoot off an email to a network to express why you will no longer watch their product, much less time than it will take to watch the show, I am sure. When you pull up your favorite news site, don't click on the celebrity news story. Don't click on the obviously made up for sensationalism story.

It isn't exactly true that the media is only giving us what we want. They are giving us what makes them the most money. So take your money away from them and they will have to find new things to give us.

Watch the documentary with everyone you know. Talk about. Find examples in your everyday media consumption and ask yourself, why? Why did they use that word? Why is the woman dressed like that and the man is in a business suit? Why?

And, here is my little pet peeve. I cringe at the word feminist sometimes because it is so easily manipulated into something ugly. I was very happy with the number of men in the audience last night because this isn't only about women. Men are affected by this also. It's a human problem when half of the population is not allowed to reach full potential.

The boyz say: But what about the negative portrayal of cats and cat people in the media?

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Charles Towne Landing

Douglas, Adrianne and I met my brother Mike and his son Eammon at Charles Towne Landing last week.

This is a life sized statue depicting a captured Indian woman.

A picture of Doug and Adrianne taking a picture of Doug and Adrianne.

Rigging on the Adventure, a replica of a trade boat.

Eammon steering us to distant lands.

Bison!

Bobcats!

And Thor,

oh my!