This entry may cause people to become angry and possibly look down upon me. They may want to pat me on the head and say, "Awww, how cute." They may want to write back in a long and angry rant. I say, bring it. The purpose of this entry is not to make you angry, but rather to make you think. It's like a dare or a game of chicken. Use that grey matter.

This has been a service announcement brought to you by Utopia.

Since the big thing in the news seems to be this whole Dubai Port Purchase mess, I thought I would contemplate the issue. I have been listening to all the sides on NPR since the whole mess began. To be completely and totally honest, I’m not certain which side I fall on. The issue seems laden with racism, prejudice and political booby traps.

What has struck me though is the fact that people can’t seem to choose between Capitalism and Socialism in my country. If we want the ports to be controlled by the government, it means that we have to accept our slow progression toward socialism. Yet, if you begin to suggest that this is the case, people try to tar and feather you. They prop you up on the spiked pole and parade you around like the latest dissident who is against the “American” way.

The Dubai Company has gone about in a completely legal manner to purchase part (not even all) of the port operations of several ports around the world. The company itself is massive, probably one of the top three in the entire world for the shipping industry. How do you grow in a market like that? Well, you buy more companies and more ports and push out the smaller guys that you can absorb. This is capitalism. People buy and sell to those who offer the best deals. This is Laissez Faire (laissez faire, laissez aller, laissez passer): Let do, Let go, Let pass. Yes, I know Laissez Faire is largely antiquated, but it presents just the basic idea of what Capitalist like to flash as their banner.

So, America wants to be a good Capitalist, Conservative, God-Fearing country. Yet they only want it to be capitalist so long as you have the same ideals (and same God)? The big argument right now is that letting Dubai take over part of the port operations will “Let the Terrorists” in. What about the English, French, Chinese and Latin American companies who also operate part of our ports? Are they less likely to be terrorists because they aren’t Muslim or Arab? In my mind, it has to be all or nothing. You can’t claim to be capitalist yet deny others their capitalist freedom. (Of course, we also cry like little babies when democracy in other countries doesn't go the way we want it to go.) You can’t deny one person access yet let others in because they are your friends of the moment.

We are constantly forgetting that most Terrorism in America is caused by Americans. The purpose of terror is not to kill, but rather to cause terror. And, generally, death causes terror. Terror causes reaction; generally in the form of lashing out against what is scary. We all huddle together with our security blankets against the monsters under our bed until one day we get up the courage to look beneath it and see that nothing is there.

I digress.

The ports would still be worked by Americans (or people with green cards). They would just be owned by Dubai. If they do wish to hire out of the country, those people have to acquire green cards and that means a background check. Where as if they hire an American, they can just hire anyone they want to without such a check. Ownership of the ports doesn’t suddenly make the port like an Embassy: it doesn’t make it a country inside a country. The port won’t become the sovereign land of Dubai, it will remain part of the US. You won’t be able to run there and ask for asylum. This means that it is still subject to the laws of this country. It is still subject to our customs law and rules.

So, what is it? Capitalism or Socialism? Do we want our ports operated by the government? Are we willing to remove the other countries that still hold sway over the port operations in our country?

I’m all for becoming a Socialist country. Yep, pour on that tar and shove that spiked pole up my arse while you parade me around. Socialize health care, transportation, infrastructure, ports (water and air), higher education, etc. Imagine a world where you don’t have to pay thirty grand for college and you can continue on to even higher education if you qualify. Imagine that lack of pressure to pay for school and maintain good grades.

Now, many people will say that this is a step closer to Big Brother watching over us. Socialism doesn’t mean removing democracy. Socialism is an economic platform that allows for both free market and government market.

Oh well. I suppose I will have to dream as socialism isn’t the “good” and “American” way. Sink or swim I guess.

People want the ports to be controlled by America. This would mean that the Government would operate part of the economy. That is socialism. Or, some just don’t want Dubai to operate the ports because they aren’t ‘westerners’. That’s racism. So, in this land of mine that is supposedly open and welcoming, equal and capitalist; we have a quandary.

I love hypocrisy.

**Update**
I did find a fairly good reason to be against the Dubai port purchase. They participate in the Arab boycott against Israel. This means that they won't Import/Export from/to Israel. This also means they won't transport goods that have parts of them made in Israel.

I would be lost without my holy land, passover-approved matzo and gefilte fish. I'm sure others would be truly crushed as well.

More info: Exclusive: Dubai ports firm enforces Israel boycott

Well, I have been saving this entry for a rainy day. A while back, I¹ received a chain letter/pyramid scheme in the mail. It happened not more than two days after anti-[everything] received his "Holy Prayer Rug" from his local (or rather not so local) crazies.

Now, I remember back in school when people would pass chain letters in class so you got a wish or something equally assinine. To be completely honest, I never expected to receive one in the mail. What is more disturbing is that these people got my address.

Anyway, I open up the envelope and see this lovely thing at the top.

Now, isn't that just spiffy? They want to quote the bible at me in an effort to propagate their chain letter money pyramid scam. Now, I admit, this isn't as bad as the Prayer Rug incident as described by anti-[everything]. At least, that's what I thought at first.

I read through the lovely chain letter and see "God Love a cheerful giver!" Uhg... they are trying to use God against me. People must fall for this shit. I mean the two little boxes had names in them and they managed to pilfer my address and send this flaming turd to me. Anyway, I continue reading. I admit I skipped much of the text and just read what was in the boxes first. I want to know how these bastards got my name and address.

I find that I can "Find Opportunity Seekers" from this company in Salt Lake City. I send them money and they send me addresses of other poor schleps to send forward this chain letter with. So, this is a double whammy. Not only do they want me to send $10 to the person in the little box, they also want me to send money to this “Opportunity” company to buy personal information from people.

Anyway, this letter was sent by “Future Success Today”. So I went digging around on the internet searching for them. I had suspicions that they were part of the same company as the “Opportunity Seekers” vampires. No luck. I suspect it is some guy in a garage who just wanted to scam a bunch of people.

While this doesn’t smack of the holy bullshit as the prayer rug, it does try to use god to extract money from people. It’s not quite as deviant as promising answered prayers, but it does promise money. It amazes me that people are truly this stupid.

Well, that’s a lie. I am never surprised by stupid people anymore. They are everywhere. They want the easy, instant gratification of success. I say to them: go masturbate. Sure it’s not money, but it is gratifying and you don’t hurt anyone with it so long as you keep your cum out of my hair.

Anyway, here is the whole letter. I edited the names because it amused me to do so. Click the image for a larger picture.

I was wandering about some of the blogs I read on a fairly regular basis and I was reading Vesper's Escape and I found this little thing about Johari Windows. I did a bit of research on it and found a wiki encyclopedia entry for it. And wow, this really seems interesting to me. I try to keep a realistic point of view of myself, but I tend to get a bit haughty about being smart. This is a way that other people can tell me what they think I'm like.

The Johari window is a list of positive aspects of yourself. By choosing adjectives about me, you can tell me what you think I'm like and see if they match up to what I think I'm like. It could be I've overblown my view of myself and everyone doesn't think about me what I think about myself.

I find this highly likely.

The Nohari window is quite similar, except that it lists negative aspects of the self. This was actually easier for me to pick words from. Perhaps it's easier for me to pick on myself than to praise myself. Who knows. Anyway, I know I have a loyal reader or two, so I am posting the links to my Johari and Nohari window. Tell me what you think about me.

I can take it.

Utopia's Johari Window
Utopia's Nohari Window

And suddenly I've become and attention whore. Ack. Ah well. I figure it will be interesting to see what the differences between the people I know only online and the people I actually know are. I know the two personas are slightly different.

Bread bowls are an underappreciated item on the dinner table. Back in the day, lots of people used bread for bowls rather than actual bowl because they were cheaper and safer to eat out of. Bread was hard and nasty, but by serving soup or stew inside of it, it both softened the bread and made it so you didn't need extra serving utensils.

I like bread bowls. I especially like bread bowls made from a cheesy sort of bread with some chili or thick goulash in it. Yum. However, there are times when it is just nice to have both the fresh baked bread and soup. Talk about comfort food at its finest.

For bread bowls, it's best to make sure you make a bread that will have a good solid crust. You can force breads to have thicker crusts in two ways:

1. Rub the bread with a layer of olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of cornmeal. This will sort of bake/fry the outside of the bread producing a thicker, crunchier crust that is perfect for bread bowls in general.
2. Bake the bread in small, greased custard dishes. This will make the bread both more uniform in shape and produce a taller shape for the bread. Baking the bread in a dish generally makes the bread form a thicker crust, the drawback of this is that the crust can be a bit more tender. This can be solved if you cook the loaf a day ahead of time and let it cool on a baking rack overnight.

There are more recipes for bread bowls than you can shake a fist at. I like the bread bowls that are a bit thicker and heavier, but you can also go with a lighter, more porous bread like a light french bread or a sourdough. You can also make a cornmeal bread bowl that is perfect for chili and thick stews. A whole wheat bread is very nice for potato base soups and adds a certain flair of rustic charm to any meal.

I thought I would share my recipe for both a cornmeal bread bowl and a whole wheat bread bowl. I prefer my cornbread a bit sweeter rather than salty, so I suggest using a sweet, golden cornmeal and honey rather than a plain, white cornmeal.

Without further ado, the recipes.

Cornmeal Bread Bowls

1 package dry active yeast
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 cup warm water
2 ½ -3 cups flour
1 cup golden cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons honey

• Add yeast, sugar and warm water to a small bowl and let set 5 minutes. Yeast mixture should turn frothy and bubbly.
• Add flour, cornmeal, salt, oil and honey into the yeast mixture and mix well.
• Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic.
• Place in a greased bowl and let rise until doubled in size.
• Divide into 4-6 pieces (depending on how large you want the bread bowls). Shape into round balls and place on greased cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.
• Let rise until doubled.
• For a crunchier crust, rub the outside of the balls with a little bit of olive oil.
• Alternatively, you can place the balls into larger custard cups rubbed with oil to produce a taller loaf with a thicker crust.
• Bake at 400°F for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and when you tap on them they sound hollow inside.

This is a great recipe to go with Chicken Paprikash or any sort of chili. The slight sweetness of the cornmeal will definately round out any spice you put into your dishes.

Whole Wheat Bread Bowl

2 packages active yeast
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups luke warm water
1 Egg
2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
3-5 cups white flour

• Add yeast, sugar and warm water to a small bowl and let set 5 minutes. Yeast mixture should turn frothy and bubbly.
• Add half the wheat and white flour, salt, oil and egg into the yeast mixture and mix well. Slowly add remaining flour a half cup at a time.
• Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic.
• Place in a greased bowl and let rise until doubled in size.
• Divide into 4-6 pieces (depending on how large you want the bread bowls). Shape into round balls and place on greased cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.
• Let rise until doubled.
• Bake at 350°F for about 15-20 minutes or until a rich brown and when you tap on them they sound hollow inside.

In case you can't tell from my recipe list thus far on my site, I bake a lot of bread. I could probably post a different recipe every day for a month or so of simply yeast recipes. That wouldn't even get me into the soda bread recipes I know. I am trying to teach myself how to make sweetmeats and fruit stuffed breads that won't explode and leak when I bake them. When I master that, I'll start posting those as well.

In a valiant attempt to remove the clutter from my sidebar, I added drop down menus. Horray. They thwarted me for a while and wouldn't look pretty in different browsers. This caused me much aggrivation. So, switching between IE and Firefox, I finally got them to look at least semi-nice in both. This is annoying. I generally only use Firefox, but I know tons of people who still use IE.

Yes, this is a very boring post of me patting my own back and adding in those silly menus. I know it's not really cool or spiffy, but I decided to also post the code I used so other people can play about with them as well. I could have added little "GO" buttons as well, but i didn't want to. I might add them tomorrow with a nice little graphic that will act as the button. I don't know yet.

Here are the Category Archives Drop down Menu. I am still trying to make it show the subcategories as well, but I think I need to install perl to make it work. Yech. I am far to lazy to do that.

<form action="" name="pulldown1">

<select name="mypulldown1" onchange= "document.location=pulldown1.mypulldown1.options[selectedIndex].value">

<option style="color: #215146; font-family: palatino linotype, verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:10px; background-color: #dffff8" value=""> Home </option>

<MTArchiveList archive_type="Category">

<option style="color: #215146; font-family: palatino linotype, verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:10px; background-color: #dffff8" value="<$MTArchiveLink$>">
<$MTArchiveTitle$>
</option>

</MTArchiveList>
</select>
</form>

You can change all the stuff inside the "option" tags to match your layout and make it rather nice and pretty. To change this to an archives list, you just change the name of your pulldown menu in the form brakets. Them you change <MTArchiveList archive_type="Category"> to <MTArchiveList archive_type="Monthly">. Then change <$MTArchiveTitle$> to <$MTArchiveDate format="%B %Y"$>. That should pretty much do it for you.

If you are still confused, I learned the basics of what I should do from Learning Movable Type: Pull Down Menus.

Edit: Durrr... Note to self, when naming your <DIV>, remember it is <DIV CLASS="namehere"> and not <DIV="namehere">. Oye... I am a fucking moron some days. Ah well, at least I fixed it today. Some days I think I must have left my brain in bed.

Everyone needs a good giggle every now and again so, I shall provide you with one. This is me. No really, it is. I was in an 80's cover band in college.

This is me with a bad bleach job, bad fashion and a goofy attitude. I deserve to be laughed at. Laugh at me damn it!

Note the "Punky Brewster" bandana. Sexy. Also, note the flower print undershirt. You can click the image for me in all of my geekish, sunburned and infantile glory.

After this concert, I went to the Pat Benetar/Patti Smith look. I was a leather pants wearing, spikey topped, black mascera wearin' sexy bitch. I pulled off that look far better than I could ever pull off this one.

I think the bad bleach job lasted for about a week before I coloured my hair to it's normal dark red. Oye. This is horrible, but really fun to laugh about.

I am totally and completely exhausted. I'm burnt out in ways I can't even begin to describe. I come into my cubicle today from lunch and I find several binders upon my desk with pleasant little post-it notes attached in a cheerful plethora of colors. Since I wasn’t at my desk for people to ask me to dump their work on me, they instead just did it and informed the higher ups that I was suddenly in charge of the tasks. The cheerful notes anger me the most. Who thought it would be nice to make post-its in bright cheerful pink and blue? Don’t shit on my desk and call it gold.

I think the cubicle ninjas have been in my pencil drawer again as well. I found today I have no pencils left, only pens. And my binders are multiplying. My lab coats still haven’t returned from the cleaners so I can’t go into the lab to hide away from the people who are plotting my eventual demise in a sea of paperwork. I know those fuckers are waiting with lemon juice to pour into my open wounds and paper cuts. I can sense their presence.

I can hardly keep my eyes open today. I’m not sleepy, just drained. My weekend was a whirlwind of excitement and I am in recovery. Okay, maybe not excitement, but it was something at least. I got free swag from the Gaming con I went to and I met Jennie Breeden of The Devil’s Panties. We even hung out a little bit. We talked about Batman because of my extra cool batman digital camera. I got her a matching camera (because I’m a little otaku fangirl) and she gave me free books. It was cool. I now have books about Pirates and the first two Devil’s Panties books.

This has made it harder to come to work and continue my valiant battle against the cubicle ninjas who work to destroy me. They have taken all of the coffee from the break room leaving only the “fancy” coffee machine that dispenses liquid evil (a.k.a. Starbucks). They have also stripped the vending machine of the Pop-Tarts and granola bars, leaving me hungry and bitter. They are definitely up to something today. I suspect it will strike in the middle of the week after my spirits have been sufficiently crushed into a bloody mound of goo that everyone can urinate upon as they dance around my crushed carcass chanting with mirthful laughter.

I know I shall prevail. I shall brandish my “Punk as Fuck” mug and call upon the powers of the office pirate. The powers of “Fuck” shall give me the strength I need to make it until the end of the week. They will not crush my spirit yet.

YummY! asked:

How did you get kicked out of Jr. High?

This is a long and drawn out tale of school politics and shitty people. The short answer: I lived out of the school district of the school I attended.

For the long answer, read on...

I was accepted into the school district where a brand new Junior High had just been completed. I went to that brand new school. I was in both the first sixth grade and first seventh grade class at that school. I went to this school because it was closer to my house that the special school I was actually supposed to go to.

Yes, I was supposed to go to the "Special" school for gifted students. This would mean another two years of taking the short bus to school and living in relative security with other children who were also gifted. My parents didn't want me to go to that school because they thought it was too far away. So, instead they arranged to have me go to this brand new school where my cousins happened to go.

I got to that school from my accelerated school and was bored out of my mind. I can't explain to you how boring every single class was for me. They were reading books I had read in first grade, they were doing math that I could already do in my head in second grade. I was beyond bored.

Now, something you must understand about me. When I get bored, I don't do anything. I sat in the back of my classes reading my own books and doodling on notebook paper. I did nothing. When a teacher asked me a question, I answered it and went back to what I was doing. I hated school, I hated the people and I hated the teachers for teaching things I thought were simplistic and infantile.

One teacher noticed. She called in my parents and we all sat in a big room with the principal and my other teachers. They talked about me like I wasn't there. After a while, the teachers started asking me basic questions about what they were teaching in their classes. I answered them trying to do my best to look interested when all I wanted to do was escape. Needless to say, at the end of the meeting, they moved me into the seventh grade. They also put me in their gifted program and made sure I was in the eighth grade algebra class.

I was still bored in school. Skipping a grade also made me even more of an outcast.

Previous to this school jump I was moderately popular where I went to school. I was the cool girl. Of course, I was in a place where I only had kids like me around me.

I floated through seventh grade until about the last quarter.

Now, remember when I said I went to the same school as my cousins? Remember how I've often said that my family is full of mean people? Well, this all came to bite me in the ass. My aunt basically "tattled" on us. She arranged it so that I would be removed from the school. I guess I was making her son look bad or she just wanted to be a selfish bitch. I don't really know.

One day I was called into the administration offices and my aunt was there along with my mother. I was confused; I thought something horrible had happened to my dad or something. Anyway, they sat me down and told me I wasn't allowed to go to anymore classes at that school and that I was lucky they had decided not to sue my mother for sending me there. They said I was putting a strain on their resources because of my advanced status. I was told to clean out my lockers and come back to there and that I would receive the yearbook I paid for and then leave.

My mother was pissed. When my mom gets pissed she rants and raves for ages. I thought she was going to kill my aunt.

There was about a month left in the school year, but they wouldn't give me a report card which meant I wouldn't graduate to the next grade. So, I was moved to another school in a different district nearby and finished out the year.

So, that is the tale of how I got kicked out of Junior High. I wish I had beaten some kid with chains or something; it would be a better story at least.

Fuck.

How I adore that word: so fucking expressive.

I am now 'in charge' of the whole "I say Fuck" thing. I will probably be setting up another page for it and making lots of nifty graphics and assorted stupid things. I may even set up a blogroll for those people who also say fuck and want to be a part of it.

I don't know how this will go. I suspect that setting up a different site for the group? club? thing will make it something like the Shitty Blogs club. If that is true, it means that it will be 10 time more popular than this page even if I let it wallow in disrepair. That's good, because I'm lazy, but I think I'm able to actually keep up a blogroll and get things rolling on the whole thing. I may even set up a message board for it.

So, great. I have an idea of what I want the site to look like and I'm actually kind of looking forward to fucking around with it ... mostly because I know I'll meet a plethora of unfunny whores who come to mock me. I may even meet a few holier than thou twats who want to shut my foul mouth down.

So... bow down to the new Queen of Fuck, listen to me as you would a guru (or a woman with Tourette's Syndrome) and remember that I speak the holy words of the prophets when I say FUCK.

So, monogodo pointed me in the general direction of this amusing (group? club? graphic?) thing. I say fuck quite often. The idea amused me so much, I emailed the person who ran it before and offered to take it over. Will I be accepted? Doubtful. I am already shitty, can I also be a guru to those who say fuck? It seems like too much to wish for.

I modified the above graphic to look more like me. Note the plethora of earrings and red hair. I couldn't quite manage the spikes or Farrah Faucett fluff I seem to have going on lately, but its a fucking cartoon. It's only a generic copy of myself, put up for my own amusement.

Fuck it.

Update
Well, I was offering to take over the I say Fuck thing, but it seems the email given to ask for such an honor has been deleted or otherwise nullified. Damn. Here is the response I got:

This is an automatic response. This email is being used for spam. There is no way for me to stop it as far as I can tell. So, I deleted the account. If you really need to get ahold of me, you will prolly already know how. Otherwise, bummer and best of luck to you at trying to reach me. Again, this email account has been deleted due to spam. If you have recieved an email from this account by anyone other than me, TRACEE (I am a girl also btw, for those of you who were writing to some boy named Marcus) it is crap. Have a nice day!

I guess I won't ever become some guru for people who say fuck... though I could steal the amusing idea and start my own club. however, i don't think I have enough readers/minions to be able to pull it off properly. Then again, I doubt jeckles had many either before he took over the Shitty Blogs Club. (Perhaps one day I'll even be given the "keys"...)

Damn... And I was going to make little graphics with different hairstyles and everything so people could pick which ones to put on their page.

So now, I go in search of this ellusive new email address. (I'll probably find it on her front page.) I believe in me and my abilities to say fuck often and at varying volumes. So... I shall return with more information and perhaps victory!

Update #2
I'm a fucking winner!

Hoo-rah!

Soon, I shall be adding something very special to my page.... soon. I'm giddy. Really.

The whispers behind my back reminded me that I would never be one of the ‘popular’ ones. I could hear those tiny murmurs through every muscle, every tendon, every cell of my body. The whispers may as well have been shouted through a bullhorn as they vibrated through my being.

Did they think I could not hear?

Did they think I could not tell what was going on when I looked into their eyes?

It didn’t matter. I just walked past and smiled, knowing things they could never know because of their own ignorance.

My locker was open and once again someone had stolen my lunch. I glanced to the girl who occupied the locker next to mine. I knew it was her who was breaking into my locker. I didn’t mind that she wanted my feeble cookie or my precarious apple, she could have simply asked. I never understood the need to steal it. I never ate the sweet bits in them anyway. I was content with my sandwich and pint of milk or juice.

It’s hard to eat when you sit alone.

I just shook my head and walked off, taking the empty bag from my locker as I walked away. I glanced to the girl who murmured to her friend and simply smiled. It was a smile that said, “I know what you’re doing” but she was too shallow to grasp the meaning of the smile; or perhaps smart enough not to react to it. She just murmured to her friend about how she was stealing from me and how I was a ‘dumb skank’.

I’m not an outspoken woman and as a girl I was content to be silent as well. The people who know me know that I speak without words. I am content to listen and nod my understandings. I’m still amazed how people think that I’m deaf and dumb. Just because I don’t say anything, doesn’t mean I don’t hear you. If anything, because I’m not speaking I do hear you.

The day I was kicked out of my Junior High … yes, I really was kicked out … I confronted the girl who stole my lunch every day. I was cleaning out my locker and I looked over to her and said, “You should have just asked for my lunch if you wanted it, I would have given it to you.” I nodded to her and held out the cookies from my lunch toward her. Then I turned and walked away.

I heard her murmurs to her friend. The hurtful remarks made to my back cut even deeper then. I was the better person and it didn’t matter.

I knew I would never see anyone there again and I didn’t care.

I was not popular and I was not liked.

I don’t know what made me think of this today. It’s not something I’ve thought about in a long time. I’ve tried very hard to let go of the past. Who I was then is not who I am now. I don’t want to be waist deep in that angst. I would say I am a moderately happy person.

I rarely eat alone anymore.

Lately, many people have been pointing fingers at my generation of people (we 20-somethings) and calling us apathetic. Their fingers and eyes drill these accusations into us as if we have done something horrible and wrong. I do not think my generation is apathetic. We are not a raucous bunch, but we do speak. I think this is the difference between us and the previous: we speak, we don’t shout.

One person pointed out that our generation is apathetic because we are poorly taught our history as compared to our parents and our grandparents. I don’t think this is true. One of the hardest parts about teaching history is the fact that history becomes longer and more complex every day. With each day that passes, a new day of history has to be added. We not only have to learn the history of the original Founding Fathers, but also that of our more recent Founding Fathers and Mothers. We have to look back on the Civil Rights movement and understand that they too are the people who forged this nation into what it is today. We have to look back not only on the two World Wars, but also Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Panama, Bosnia and countless other events that left a huge impact on our nation.

We are not being taught our History poorly, we are being taught it briefer. We don’t have an entire semester to cover just the revolutionary war. We also have to cover the Civil War in the same semester so we can also study everything that came after it. We have to compress the learning down and ingest concentrated bits. This is not to say that we don’t learn it. We just have to learn it differently because we have to learn more. Such is the ravage of time.

As a generation, there are many of us who are ignorant. But what generation has been void of the ignorant and the shallow? But there are just as many who aren’t. No one in my generation has to be ignorant. With instant information at our fingertips, we can learn anything we want to at the click of a button or the movement of the mouse.

If you scour the internet, you’ll see countless 20-somethings speaking their voice on the ‘net. Not all of them do it eloquently or wisely, but they are doing it. We are aware of the world around us and we do strive to change it. When we think of the generations of people, we have to do so in retrospect. Often we look back not as the culture as a whole, but rather the counter-culture that spawned from it.

We have hippies, beatniks, punks, anarchists, atheists, and transcendentalists of the past, but what have we got now? What is our counter-culture? It is hard to say. These counter-cultures of the past have become the mainstream; their ideas accepted and integrated as the norm.

Anyway, I digress. Allow me to wander back toward my point (yes, I do actually have one) instead of philosophizing pointlessly as I often do.

My generation is not apathetic. We are sarcastic, satirical and bitter. We hold no illusions about what can and can’t be done. We speak rather than shout because if you shout you look like a twat. We are a generation who thrives on snide comments that are not intended to hurt, but rather to poke fun at the useless, ignorant prattlings of those who don’t take the time to bother to learn. We may seem apathetic, but we are anything but.

If anything, we are empathetic. We are concerned about our fellow man and people around the world, but we realize that each person must live their own life. We speak soft and carry a placard of sarcastic, snide remarks around in our heads. We dryly state our displeasure. We come in droves to speak anonymously because we have learned from our forefathers that you can’t get respect until you’re 40. We’re young, we’re tattooed and pierced, but we’re not “punks”. We’re the amalgamation of everything that has come before us. We are aware of politics and the culture around us. We do fight it, but we fight it our way, not your way.

If you wish to call us apathetic, first look in the mirror and then tell me where the shouting got you when you were my age. Tell me truthfully. When did the change happen? Did it happen when you were shouting? or did it happen when you were old enough to truly be in charge?

We are here, we are listening and, most importantly, we are speaking. Maybe you can't hear us above the din of your own yelling.

Four Legs good, two legs bad.
-Animal Farm

I don’t even know where to begin with this.

First exposed by a document leak to NBC News in December, the agency runs an information-gathering project called Threat and Local Operation Notice, or TALON, which spies on so-called "suspicious incidents." Those incidents reportedly have included anti-war campus protests and demonstrations against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy against gay personnel.
-The Pentagon Admits Improper Spying

So, apparently now we are actually spying on our citizens as terrorists. I am bothered by this because I can’t quite make up my mind as to which reason they are spying on this particular group. Is the government spying on them because they are gay or because they are protesting the policies of the army? Perhaps it was the double threat. All we need now is for them to join up with the Impeach Bush crowd and we’ll have the perfect triple threat.

Do you remember in school when they taught us the Bill of Rights. You know, the first Ten Amendments that the founders of our nation thought of as fundamental right for our nation to be founded on. I wonder how many people can actually quote back what each of them are? People are always spouting off about the First Amendment that gives the right to free speech, but do they remember the other integral right that the First Amendment provides? Let me refresh your memory:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

We have the right to peaceably assemble and to petition our government for change. Yet, the people who go out and do these things are labeled as terrorist, communists, or even worse, liberals. Cindy Sheehan tried to peaceably protest at the State of the Union address. She wore a shirt that the White House didn’t approve of so she was removed. Her actions harmed no one. They were peaceful and her way of addressing her grievances with the government. The problem was, the Government doesn’t agree with her. To me, this wasn’t an action that abridged her free speech, but it did abridge her First Amendment rights.

Let me remind all of you of another Amendment in the Bill of Rights; the Fourth Amendment. How many people can remember which Amendment that is? Once again, allow me to refresh your memory:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

We are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures. Had our forefathers thought of inventions like telephones, email and such, I am certain they would have been included in this Amendment. This means that no citizen can be searched without immediate probable cause without a warrant. This means that we can be secure in our persons and have the right to private conversations and means of living within our private abodes. In essence, email is paper… electronic mail. If these were letters to be mailed, they would be subject to this right. However, the Government has tried to pass laws that abridge this right. It is the Fourth Amendment. Right now, the Government guard dogs seem to think that this right can be suspended when they feel like it. They can search our email, library records and bank records without redress or warrant.

There is one last Amendment in the Bill of Rights that I would like to present to you all as a refresher. It is the Tenth Amendment. I think this Amendment isn’t flaunted enough.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

This means that laws not written in the States law or in the Constitution belongs to the people. For example; this means that if your State doesn’t have a law banning same sex marriage, then it is your right to be married. This law gives Americans more freedom than they realize. So long as your actions hurt no one, then it is your right to do as you please. People need to be reminded of their right, they need to possess knowledge and use it. Now, I am no lawyer, but I know that we were taught all of these things for a reason. We were taught so that we could stand up to our Government when they are doing something wrong.

Now is the time to stand up. Redress your grievances with the government, use the freedoms guaranteed to you. Do not let the Government twist these laws to their own perverse uses. The people have the real power, never forget that. Do not let our country become a twisted version of Animal Farm with the manipulation of the laws.

Four legs good, two legs better.
-Animal Farm

I Died for Beauty but was Scarce
By Emily Dickinson

I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

For Claude and WebKittyn. I know how much pain she must be feeling right now. There is nothing I can say or do to make the hurting stop, but, maybe in the next life they'll meet again. Claude, her familiar and guardian, I'm sure he is still watching out for her, even if it isn't in the direct manner he was before.

When I was in school, everything was a popularity contest. I though that on the web, there wouldn't be such things. I know, I know, it was naive and foolish. I know I don't have the most popular blog in the world. I know I don't even have a quarter of the readership that the other blogs I was up against had. I knew I was going to lose.

There is only one thing that truly and completely pisses me off about the whole thing (aside form the fact that I don't think any of the judges actually read my page...):

I lost to a mommy blogger with a broken template. Bah! She probably got brownie points for bitching about pushing a child out of her womb. How she did it wasn't even Sarcastic or witty. You know what, I have a womb! You don't see writing about the goings on within it. My mother had a womb and even pushed me out of it. Lots of people have wombs and babies are born everyday from them. But, how, how does writing about having a child make you a Sarcastic Journalist? The old posts on the blog were pretty good and I have no problem losing to a blog like that, but the recent evolution of the blog makes me cringe.

I thought the judging was going to be impartial and based on content and looks and everything. I think, in the end, like all other things, it was only based on popularity. Why even bother putting my in the same category as those other blogs if it was going to be based on that? I thought the BoBs were supposed to ncrease your readership? Well, my hits are about the same as when I started. Perhaps I ought to stop bitching.

I am black sheep ... hear me BAH!

Hey BoBs, this finger's for you! (That's Galileo's middle finger in case you're wondering. No living middle finger for you, only the dried, rotting flesh of a 'heretic'.)

To the sites that won, congrats! I have nothing against any of you, you're all wonderful and hard working. Even you mommy bloggers. (Okay, maybe not the blogs of mommy bloggers, I still hate them with the fires of a thousand suns.)

I am taking that stupid Utopias place today. She is a dirty libber commie and needs to be tawt a lesson. She is a scientist. We all know that GOD don’t want NO WOMAN SCIENTISTS. God wants us good women to stay home and take care of babies for the Lord’s work. What next? A libberal woman president? She should be at home taking good care of her husband like a good wife. She probably even votes different from him. He is probably some puss man who is really GAY. He stays at home to cook? No real man would do that. He must be the gay man. So he is going to HELL.

Speaking of gay, that Utopia is probably also gay. We all no that them libbers are gay cuz they don’t like r President Bush. We all no Bush will SAVE AMERICA and give us freedom and freedom to those heathens around the world. He’ll spred good Christian values and then there will be no more TERRORISTS in the world. Bobbie Sue Ellen and me r glad that Bush is so honest with us. He don’t like baby killers or TERRORISTS!!!11!! I am glad that r president cares about us enuff to listen in the phones for terrorists who want to DESTROY AMERICA. We all no them secret courts are full of libbers who let doctors and women kill babies.

Bobbie Sue Ellen is pregnant again. It’s a good thing she has a double wide trailer cuz her husband has such a gr8 job. She is very glad that Bush is pertecting us from terrorists all around the world. She wants to make sure that her children get to be in the army just like her brother Joe Allen. Joe Allen is in Iraq right now killing those heathen terrorists who flew plane into NY. Joe Allen says he’ll come home soon and he’ll start work with my husband in the mines. He is going to marry that girl Jamie with their baby and make her a good upstanding woman.

NEway. That Utopia is a no good woman. She don’t even want no kids. How can a woman not want children? That is the reason GOD made Eve for Adam. She is going against GOD and Jesus. She works and does science that is against GODS work.

I am DIStopIA! and I stole this blog for GOD and JESUS!

As before, inside is a rant on women's health rights and abortion. If you are offended by such material, don't read on.

In 2001, the US imposed a gag order on abortion. They cut funding to any International organization that provided abortions (directly or indirectly) or encouraged women to seek them. Because of this policy, the International Planned Parenthood Foundation has had to close dozens of its clinics due to its refusal to sign the order. To help IPPF, England has pledged about 6.8 Million Dollars (3 Million Pounds) in aid to help provide safe abortions in developing nations. The US Administration, on President George W. Bush's first day in office, reinstated the Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule. This policy prevents foreign organizations from receiving US funding for their reproductive health work if they work directly or indirectly on abortion-related activities, with the exception of post-abortion care. The result of this policy is more unwanted pregnancies, more unsafe abortions and more maternal and child deaths – particularly affecting women who are young, poor or vulnerable.

Not only does the IPPF provide abortions to women in developing countries, they also provide reproductive health care and education to women in those countries. They educate women of all ages about HIV/AIDs, women’s health and other women’s reproductive rights. They provide access to health care adolescents who would otherwise receive none. By providing safe care to women who seek it, they hope to lower the related mortality rate of women by 75%. About 600,000 women die every year due to pregnancy related causes and the World Health Organization attributes about 80,000 of those to unsafe abortions.

America is supposed to be a progressive nation that the world looks to set the standard of freedom and choice in the world. We are supposed to be advocates for women and their rights, yet, we are falling behind. Luckily for us, England has stepped up to the plate to pick up where we have fallen behind. The more I look at America, the more I see our rights being cut off. When Roe v Wade went into effect, we saw am 85% drop in deaths due to unsafe abortions. This means that people will seek them even if they aren’t legal and even if they are dangerous.

It is the same world wide. I am glad to see that at least one country realizes this. It’s just too bad I’m not living in that country.

So, I was sitting in my cube today, plotting my revenge on the cubicle ninjas when I turn and look over my shoulder. If I turn and look over my shoulder, do you know what I’ll see? Well, I’ll see through the door of the offices to the windows that lead outside. This land of outside is a magical and distant place. I can see it beyond the cubicle walls on the other side of two walls of glass.

I digress.

I looked over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of this elusive outside and what should I see falling from the sky? White Death. White death was falling from the sky in a vast flurry of huge, wet flakes. I think most people refer to this White Death as snow or something. It looked horrible… cold. I could feel the nasty thing sinking into my skin despite the sea of cubicle walls and dual layer of glass that buffered it from me (along with a rather large desk that sits in the office that provides that dual layer of glass protection).

What is this?!

Now, I should be upfront, I do not like this cold substance that falls from the sky. It is strange and foreign to me. I grew up in the desert. We rarely had anything fall from the sky, let alone frozen white things. It is now February and I was hoping that I would be able to go camping next month, but if this low temperature and cold wet stuff persists on falling from the sky, I will be thwarted in my attempts to escape from the grey cubicle walls that are slowly crushing my will to live.

I think this is yet another plot by the cubicle ninjas who work to destroy me. I know one of their Kung Fu bosses has mastered some sort of ancient art of bringing down the weather to destroy good, faithful office workers everywhere. By crushing their will to live, the cubicle ninja shall prevail over the everyday worker … and steal our nicest pall point pens and highlighters.

I got a new phone. It has a camera on it. Using this phone I have taken pictures of the evil cube in which I have been spending most of my life. You too can see the evil walls that threaten my very existence. I think I’ve even got a cubicle ninja or two on film. They’re tricky bastards … and fast. I also captured a picture of the glimpse of the “outside” I can view from my cube (you can also see my pinstripe lab coat). Now I just need to figure out how I get these pictures off of my phone.

You can’t see the White Death falling from the sky in the picture, but it’s there. Oh yes, it’s there.

Soon, we office pirates shall unite and uprise against the cubicle ninjas!

Some of my brethren in London have already started the revolution.

In case you haven't noticed, it took me a while to get up my next and better Utopia banner. Well, a picture says a thousand words. So, here is why:

It took me all day to colour the lines I found of that sweet-faced pirate. Don't let the pretty face fool you. She's really a cunt.

Maybe with a cool graphics, people will listen to my show. That would be pretty nice. It is on right now, as I type this. It's not a bad show. (Not my best, but definately not my worst.) I really do want to get my listenership up. I'm not shooting for WebKittyn Ranges, but it would be nice.

I am working on a banner for the Utopia Show. yes, I have a podcast. I actually do two a week. One on Saturday and one on Sunday. They are both on Mango Radio. No one listens to my show because I suck. Of course, no one reads my blog either. Okay, I have like 10 regular readers whom I adore. They make me feel special.

Anyway, I am trying to think of ways to get more people to listen to my show. My husband volunteered to try to get my show on the regular iTunes RSS feed and set me up a Yahoo! page. I think I'll probably let him. This also means I'll actually have to get on the ball with my shows and probably set up a Pod-O-Matic site or something.

So, in honour of trying to promote my show, I made a banner. Maybe I'll get cool Mango schwag. I'm going to try to make a better banner, maybe with an actual pirate on it. But, here is the preliminary... if this was on a mug, would you drink whiskey from it? If it was on a T-Shirt, would you wear it to the movies with your date? No, probably not... but I will come up with one that's better.

Arrr! and shit. I'm an angry fucking pirate. Angry and full of hate.

The more I learn about Mango, the more he reminds me creepily of myself. I was catching up on old Mango Radio broadcasts of the other dj's because I have fallen woefully behind on them. When listening to Mango's 12/30 broadcast it struck me suddenly that we have a lot of stupid things in common. It's crazy.

Examples:

1. Mango was in jazz band, I was in jazz band.
2. Mango used to swing dance, I used to swing dance.
3. Mango hates stupid people and rants bout it, I hate stupid people and rant about it. Okay, this is not uncommon, but the manner in which we rant is very similar. Eerily similar.
4. We have nearly the same taste in music.
5. We both loathe the same things.
6. We both swear like angry pirates on our radio shows.
7. We have similar tastes in humor.
8. We hate the same blogs with the same hateful and angry wrath.
9. He has his Rebekah and I have my Sparky.

Okay... maybe it's really not all that much in common. Maybe there is some strange dichotomy in the world that it needs a male and a female version of the same person to rant and rave on opposite coasts of the States. So, if we are so similar, should I change my name to something like Papaya? Or should he change his to something like Distopia?

I think we should remain as we are. I suspect the world would implode if we ever met... you just shouldn't have that much unfiltered rage in one place. (Or that much swearing.)

Apparently I ought to write about controversial topics more often. The Wal-Mart topic is my most popular ever! If you take off my own comment responses, it has more comments than any other post on my blog so far. (Even my abortion blog, wacky!) Jinkies. The sad thing is, the point of my topic was not Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart was just the front man I used to present how our economy isn't really as good as people claim. I think most people missed the point I was trying to make because of the big debate surrounding Wal-Mart itself. I don't care if people like Wal-Mart or hate it to be honest. It is a symbol that people want cheap things because that is what they can afford.

There may be job growth in the Nation, but what kind of jobs are they and how much do they pay? That was the real purpose of my last post. I used Wal-Mart to illustrate the fact that the jobs don't really pay enough for people to live on and Wal-Mart is booming because of their ethic of providing cheap stuff for people to buy.

What should I write about next? Some trivial, yet controversial topic? Should it be Harry Potter? That blows people's top more than it ought to. I've never understood trying to ban or burn books simply because you don't like them. Only ignorant and single minded zealots would allow for such a thing.

I could write about video game "corrupting" out youth. Or "rock" music. Or "violent movies". But, those all boil down to the same thing. People wanting to blame someone for their rotten kids and lack of parenting. I listen to that dirty rock music (and even worse that "goth" and "punk" music ... Lordy!^*), I play violent video games and watch gory slasher flicks and porn, yet I'm not going out shooting up schools or turning children to "the dark side".^** I watched all that stuff all my life, but I didn't feel the need to make little cuts on myself or delve into some crazy eating disorder. I didn't beat other kids with baseball bats or torture pupppies. Few people who do those things do and most of them are even productive members of society. So, that topic is out... boring. Too many people are already bitching and whining about that.

What controversy does that leave me with?

SPAM? The potted meat product, not the email infestation. What does SPAM stand for? Originally it was called SPiced hAM. But, it is also made from Shoulder Pork and Meat. Hmmm... that controversy shall continue. It is far too complex for my feeble mind to truly grok.

I could bash on Bush and his lackies, but other people would do it far better than I.

In the end, this blog is what it is: a personal blog of my random thoughts and ideas.

Fuck it. I'll write about whatever the hell I feel like.

I'm sure I'm not going to be the only one to talk about the State of the Union today, but what I want to talk about is the real State of the Union: The Union where real people live and work and have to pay for things.

People are always talking about the "Great Evil". And no, I'm not talking about Saddam or Hammas or even everyone's favorite Iranian President. No, I'm talking about Wal-Mart. People hold protests over this chain of stores. But, it is a great indicator of how the Union is really doing.

Wal-Mart comprises 2% of the total GNP of the US. That is truly massive. Last year alone, Wal-Mart made about 300 Billion dollars. Every week 138 million people shop at a Wal-Mart store. Over 90% of Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is an economic powerhouse.

Now, you're probably thinking that I am going to say that since Wal-Mart is doing well, the Union is doing well. Actually, I am going to say exactly the opposite. Wal-Mart thrives because it's cheap. For people who don't have a lot of money, shopping at Wal-Mart stretches their meager earnings just that much further. Why pay $4 for deodorant when you can buy the same deodorant for $2.50? Why buy a movie for $20 when you can get the same one for $7.50? Food costs on average 15% less at Wal-Mart than at the grocery store. (And this doesn't even take into account when Wal-Mart has specials or coupons.) This means that when Wal-Mart is doing well, people are spending less money.

Now, I'm not going to go into some economic bullshit about spending money = making money. That's crap. Instead, I'd like to point out that most of the people shop at Wal-Mart because it is cheaper and that is what they can afford. When I was living in New Mexico in college, my husband and I live on about $700 a month. A month. I spend more than that on my rent now. Half of that $700 went right into rent. That left $350 for food and bills. Take off another 150-200 for bills, that leaves us with about $150 a month for food and basic necessities that you need to live. We shopped at Wal-Mart because we could get more for our money. We also were in the ~10% of Americans who didn't live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart. We had to drive nearly 60 miles to get to one.

A sign that Wal-Mart is doing well shows that there are countless people who are just barely scraping by. They shop at the store because that 15% in extra groceries means they won't have to eat ramen and peanut butter sandwiches every day for a week or so. Wal-Mart raised my standard of living. When cheap shit raises your standard of living, it's a sign that things are not right in the Union. When people have to shop at Wal-Mart because they can't really afford anywhere else, it is a sign that while there may be jobs, they aren't paying enough for people to live comfortably.

It is true that many people live beyond their means. But, a family of four can't make it on an hourly job that pays about 30k a year. There is no way. But, maybe, if that family shops at Wal-Mart, they can stretch that money out a bit more and make it to the time when they can make a little bit more money.

There may be more jobs in our lovely Union, but most of them are industry jobs. Industry jobs are all well and good, but most are hourly and don't pay as well (or as steadily) as a salary job. Even Salary jobs don't pay enough for most people. Mine barely pays enough to get us through month to month. But, my husband and I don't live outside of our means. We don't go out and buy expensive things just because other people have them. And, more importantly, we don't have children.

Freshly graduated college students are having a harder and harder time finding a job in their field of study. Job growth for educated people is stagnant. Pay is barely keeping up with inflation. Taking into account the recent extraordinary raise in the cost of oil (and thus natural gas), people can’t afford to pay their $300 gas bills, let alone drive to work everyday.

The national average savings last year was -2%. Negative percentage means that most people are not saving money, but instead, they are in debt. (This doesn’t count mortgages.) What does this mean for the next year? How many people will be able to pull themselves out of that debt? Probably, not many. Instead, the debt will most likely increase and people will go on spending money they don’t really have.

So, the more money Wal-Mart makes, the less money people have to spend. They buy cheap because cheap clothes are better than no clothes. More cheap food is better than less expensive food. Cheap deodorant means more money to spend on the modern needs.

We are living in a Wal-Mart nation. Even if Wal-Mart didn’t exist, we’d just have another company that stepped up to the plate and filled in its position. We’d have Super K-Marts and Targets everywhere rather than Wal-Mart.

Next time you shop somewhere, think about what you’re buying and how much you’re spending. Are you buying the cheaper item?

I know I will be.