(link)

Sasha Baron Cohen in Milan (article).

video here.

'Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America For The Purpose Of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable In The Presence Of A Gay Foreigner In A Mesh T-Shirt'

Questioning my love for James Bond

"...the attachement view of love was, and perhaps still is, radically out of line with our culture's estabilshed social and psychological ideas of adulthood: that maturity means being independent and self-sufficient.  The notion of the invulnerable warrior who faces life and danger alone is long ingrained in our culture.  Consider James Bond, the iconic impervious man, still going strong after four decades.  Psychologists use words like undifferentiated, codependent, sybiotic, or even fused to describe people who seem unable to be self-sufficient or definitively assert themselves with others.  In contrast, [British psychologist John] Bowlby talked about 'effective dependency' and how being able, from 'the cradle to the grave,' to turn to others for emotional support is a sign and source of strength."

- Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson, for my Marriage and Family Counseling class, and is actually one of the first "self-help" books I've ever read, if you don't count The Purpose-Driven Life.

crap.  it looks like I need to start looking deeper at why I think James Bond is so alluring.  

thanks to Julie for introducing me to them!

Google + T-mobile = gphone

(source)

“This is as good a computer as you had a few years ago,” said Google’s co-founder Larry Page, who along with the company’s other co-founder, Sergey Brin, arrived on roller blades at the New York stage where the companies held a news conference.

Google has invested tens of millions of dollars in developing the Android operating software and is giving it away for free to cellphone makers and carriers. The company hopes that many companies will build phones based on Android."

article: nytimes "Google Introduces a Phone With PC Features"

What I'm going to be for Halloween: Bon Qui Qui

To Read:

(source)

Ever wonder what Maria Montessori had to say about adolescent education in high school and middle school?  Well I seriously have.  Here's an article about it.  From what I can gather, she believed that farm manual labor and apprenticeship were they way to go for those tweens and teens.  Interesting.

Article: Montessori Secondary Schools: Preparing Today's Adolescents for the Challenges of Tomorrow

Article: "Erdkinder (Land-Children)" by Maria Montessori

To Read:

Economic Scene - Issue is Payback, Not Bailout - NYTimes.com

I don't really get the $700 Billion bailout, but hopefully this will help.  

Raw Milk

(source)

My coworker at the florist I work at has been talking a lot about the benefits of raw milk lately.  She is not a raw foodist, but subscribes to traditional food magazines is really interested in making a lot of her and her husband's food in order to cut out the preservatives often found in store-bought food.  

During our lunch break today I was reading one of her traditional food magazines and the entire first section was filled with testimonial letters that told stories of children or grown-ups riddled with ADD, bipolar, schizophrenia, etc., who found no help in conventional medicine.  However, after a couple months of drinking a quart of raw milk a day, their systems were readjusted and they functioned normally.  

In reading the wikipedia article on raw milk, I am reminded a little of why many states ban the stuff.  However, my coworker points out that until the industrial revolution, the entire world drank raw milk.  True enough.  She has also said that the pasteurization process (heating up the milk so as to kill anything living) kills all useful bacteria and critters that help our system digest the milk.  

She buys raw milk directly from a farmer - which is the only way she can legally get it, as stores are prohibited from selling it in the state of Missouri.  The only thing close to it is buying raw cheese (aged for 60 days) from the Whole Foods down the street.  I might have to take a gander.  

Amazon: Nourishing Traditions:The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

Lil' Wayne at coachella

I love Lil' Wayne's style.  Here he is performing on SNL:

This look is terrific.  I can't quite figure out which is neckline and which is necklace.  But it's terrific.

The Sartorialist

Here's the same girl in Facehunter!  She needs to eat a sandwich, but still...sweet outfit.

I really like the way this outfit is put together.

The Sartorialist

Not so new, but still funny: Mad TV

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.

2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

from Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (p.163)

Similarities and Differences:

Mizzou vs. Seminary:

- the seminary hopes that Christians would take over Viacom (or any of the other major media conglomerates), whereas Mizzou just hopes for Viacom's destruction.  

- both don't really trust "postmodernism."

- the grad students at Mizzou shower less and smoke more, but love to hear themselves talk the same amount.

more to come...

Adventures in feeling dumb

I got a speeding ticket last week for going 23 miles over the speed limit.  It was on a highway (44 and Kingshighway for St. Louisans) where the speed limit was 55 and everyone was going 70.  I was going 78.  Whatever, I deserved it, but I was late for work.

So I got a number from DP's girlfriend Kristen for a lawyer who takes care of tickets for $60 plus whatever court fees there are.  Awesome.  

I call him up yesterday and he calls me back an hour later and explains that I need to send in a check for $60 plus a copy of my ticket.  Red flags go up in my mind.  "So, how do I, you know, make sure that this will, you know, work?"  

He says: "How do you know that I won't take your $60 and run for the border?  I didn't spend $140,000 in getting a law degree to steal your $60."

"Um.  Right.  Thanks."

All I can say is being poor makes you irrational.  

This has nothing to do with the Sea Wolf song other than that I like them right now.

Mighty Boosh - "Crack Fox"

Best Font Ever

from Julie and NotCot

Vampire Weekend PSA

I saw Vampire weekend at the Pageant on Wednesday night and it was one of the most delightful concerts I have ever been to.  The lead singer hopped about the stage on his tip-toes and had the skinniest legs in the skinniest of skinny jeans.  The band was adorable.  

St. Louis' hipster scene is dreadful.  It makes me want to leave.  

Twilight

(source)

Most of the middle school girls I know are reading Twilight, the book about hot vampires who fall in love with mortals, the one that was made into a movie with that obnoxious skinny chick from Into the Wild.  

I borrowed it from an 8th grader and am only three chapters into it but I can totally see why they all love it.  The main character, Bella, seems devoid of all social anxiety.  This must be maddeningly attractive to middle schoolers, always in the throes of drama and self-loathing.  The book opens as Bella is moving from Arizona to Washington state.  She does this out of duty to her mom (it seems) and at 16 or 17 seems completely emotionally differentiated and self-sustaining.  Boys flirt with her at school, she becomes annoyed.  Everyone wanted to be this girl in middle school.  

I forgot the rest, more to come.

Welcome Chrome!

(source) 

So I've been reading in the past couple months about how in the future cloud computing will be a reality and instead of our hardware (laptops, operating systems, etc.) being important, the Internet browser will be.  In the NYtimes article "Browsers Are a Battleground Once Again" talks about the competition between the browsers and the improvements in technology now that people are thinking in more of a cloud-computing direction.  

But, all this to say, I heard on NPR this morning (I think) that Google released their own browser, Chrome!  I'm typing in it now, and it's different but awesome.  To a layperson like me, it just seems like a pared-down version of all other browsers.  By mistake, I just found out that you can use ctrl+any number and it will jump to that number tab.  cool.  oh wait, i just tried the same thing in firefox and it works as well.  oh well - fun fact of the day!

Here's a cool comic description of Google's Chrome and why it's cool and why it's the future:

Google's OS is actually a Browser

thinking about...Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

(source)

Equilibration: evidence for humanity being a bunch of suckers

"Equilibration is the natural tendency to maintain a balance between what one already knows (the cognitive network) and what one experiences in the world. when this balance is disturbed - that is, when we experience something that does not fit what we know - we experience anxiety, discomfort, or confusion. This confusion is called disequilibrium. Equilibration compels us to reduce the disequilibrium by restoring the balance, or equilibrium, between our understanding of the world and our experiences with the world.

"An example of this in an educational setting is an exam. Students prefer living in a state of equilibrium. However, once the professor announces that an exam will occur in the class next week, the student suddenly develops anxiety and fear. This disequilibrium is only resolved by reading, studying, and memorizing the material that serves as the basis of for the exam. In this example, the disequilibrium facilitates learngin by serving as a motivating influence for study."

from my text book for my Educational Foundations class, Christian Education by Michael J. Anthony

Invisible Children: Go

map of the day:

tip: read this so that you can know stuff before other people do

New York Magazine Culture Vulture Blog

something that I wish I was cool enough to go to:

from Kanye

Two books recommended by my magnificent boss:

Author Darrow Miller's profile at Food For The Hungry's pathetic website (here).

Two girls I wish I could hug and tell them that God loves them:

Lily Allen in a Rolling Stone interview, May 2007

Kanye West "Love Lockdown"

(source)

Guide to: Celebrating your Birthday on Facebook

It's weird in a social-dynamic way who wishes you happy birthday on facebook. It is never the people you talk to on a regular basis. It is only the "guy who dated my best friend in high school" or the "youth group kid" or the "girl from the group project in college" or "girl I've been meaning to hang out with now that I moved back to St. Louis" or the "friend of a friend who I always thought was cool." All whom I speak to once every three months, at the most.

After discussing it with my roommates, I think I will take these birthday wishes as compliments. They saw my name on the side of the facebook home page, thought "Oh, I liked her" and wrote me a note.

These people are below the level of friendship where I would say "um, you didn't call me??" and above the level of friendship where I would say "who are you??" The happy medium level of "Oh! I like you!" It's nice to know.

Movie rating systems and youth group

(source)

My roommate had some high school kids over from youth group the other night and after dinner we sat down to watch a movie in our awkwardly-elongated living room. Picking movies is always kind of a struggle with youth group kids, as you know that they've all watched NC-17 movies with their friends but you have to keep it to the PG-13 movies because you're affiliated with a church.

We decided on "Casino Royale" (which I own, I love James Bond with a burning passion) because it had the least amount of sex scenes that we could remember. However, as we were watching it, I noticed with new eyes that the movie was quite violent. Why is sex so much more of an issue than violence in movies?

While in New York City with missionary kids this past July, I was talking to a kid named Marc who grew up in Madrid. He was talking about the movie "Monster House" and how it tanked in Spain because of their rating system. Violence is rated a lot more harshly than in America, and it turned out that only 15+ year olds could get into this "kids" movie.

Assuming that we are (and I believe that we are) affected by what we see, I would assume that parents see sex as a more imminent threat to their kids than violence. AK-47s are not readily available to 15 year old upper-middle class preppy kids, while their girlfriends' bodies are. At least I think that this is the logic. However, I think that both watching sex on TV and watching violence on TV make us think of people as objects, either way. And that is nothing to be encouraged either.

The Wealth and Poverty of St. Louis, or, Economic Inequalities, or, Stories from being 'The Help'

(source) - not the wedding

I helped set up for my first wedding with my new job at a florist this past Saturday. The reception was to be held at the home, and tents were set up on the property. The home was in Ladue, which is one of the more ritzy parts of St. Louis, left over from the 1900s when St. Louis' economy was booming. The house reminded me of the houses in Jane Austen novels, complete with servants' staircases, a small kitchen, and dining rooms with mural painted walls. I hadn't been in this close of proximity to this much wealth in a long time.

As I am sorting through my education at Mizzou, and piecing it into my daily life, I can't help but think of the emphasis that was put on the cultural power of class differences, and how true it really is. In Freakonomics (I think, or the Tipping Point), they talked about how really the only consistent indicator of how well a child will do in school is how educated their parents were. The parents show the child what to appreciate, what is valuable to learn about, etc.

All of the children in this family had attended a wealthy prep school in Ladue and went to Amherst in Massachusetts for college. Wow. Looking around their house, you could see the differences that class makes. Books on Winslow Homer were within easy reach in the drawing room. A book called "Test Your Cultural Literacy" was toilet reading. Really.

And I don't believe that any of that was posturing. The Bride was one of the most intelligent and collected people that I've interacted with in a long time. And it was her wedding day. She knew exactly what was supposed to go where and dealt with everyone with courtesy and kindness. She was inhuman.

I've been dealing with the emotional effects of having little to no extra money lately. I think I'm making it out to be a lot harder than it actually is, but I think there's a reason that the Bible mentions money being a popular idol. What constitutes having a good life?

Design: Chubby Brothers dining room table

by designer Brian Lee

from Kanye

This song needs to be on the radio more: City High "Caramel"

Movies & Replacements

I found a replacement for my Ragtag Cinemacafe in Columbia. The Ragtag was wonderful, always showing the bizarre, little-known documentaries and films. Webster University in town, where my friend Carrie goes, has a terrific and similarly-themed selection of movies showing two or three times a week. I hope to go see this one next Thursday: "Urban Explorers: Into the Darkness"

My roommate Sharon's favorite song right now:

I watched Gossip Girl with my roommates last night, saving my dignity by making fun of it the whole time, inserting lines, belittling the characters, etc. But the whole day at work today I kept on thinking about the characters, what their back stories were. I'm in trouble.

New Job

I started a new job today, after quitting my previous job as a waitress after a week. I quit because I couldn't sleep for three days while I was training - I was so stressed out. All the details and that there seemed to be zero margin for error...it ended up that the only reason I would keep on working there was for the money. And we all know that's a bad idea. Allie and I went to lunch at a different location of the restaurant on Labor Day and it seemed ridiculous how stressed out I got at work. I mean, how hard is it to get someone's pizza for them and make sure their water glass is full? I guess it was just a bad fit for me right now.

So I started my new job today at a florist and it seems to be more of a fit. They're very very laid back there and I have always wanted to have a broad knowledge of flowers and plants. My grandma would always be able to tell you what kind of plant was what and if it liked the sun or shade. Amazing. Here are my two faves so far:


Cherry Brandy Rose - call me corny but this is my favorite type of Rose. It looks neon, like it is lit up from inside.


Coxcomb - like a velvet coral/brain, but pretty.

I'm definitely into the more sculptural flowers and plants - most of the ones I have around the house are succulents (kind of like cacti - you only have to water them every other week). My favorite is my String of Pearls cactus.