news?

yet another example of why i despise and actively avoid the fox news network...
i was just at wanda's, getting some coffee. while i was waiting, i glanced up at the television to see if anything interesting is happening today. now, these televisions are religiously tuned to the fox news network 24/7, so the glance is just to see if there is something going on in the world for which i need to make sure i catch the story on either NPR or the nightly world news on ABC. this afternoon, the lovely fox network was covering a car chase in the LA area. already i'm slightly annoyed, because the last time i checked, car chases are not news, they are sensationalism. what really provoked my ire was the blurb they were showing under the video stream which informed the audience that 'the suspect is heavily tattooed'.

what the crap!?!

what does that have to do with anything, except to play into the already heavily entrenched prejudice and racism prevalent in the right-wing, ultra-conservative fox news audience? if they're anything like my grandmother, they believe that everything that comes out of pat robertson's mouth is uncontroverted gospel, which is therefore also attributed to the network as a whole.

i am so sick of 'news' networks and programs using a medium which should be educating the populace in all information so as to enable them to make their own educated opinions and decisions to instead indoctrinate the populace into their own biased opinion. these opinions are not based on any true introspection or thought, but on the fact that some talking head in a flashy suit who supposedly subscribes to the same 'religion' told them that this was the best and most 'christian' way to think.

while i'm on a news rant, i'm also disgusted by the network news programs who pawn car chases and reports on paris hilton and anna nicole smith's baby off on us as 'news' when important events around the world are completely ignored. where is the news about france's elections and the fact that they have fallen to 50% unemployment and the 17th economy in europe and are on the verge of imploding? where is the news about the genocide in sudan? where is the news about everything that is going right in iraq instead of only what is going wrong? where is the news about how vladimir putin is slowly but surely eroding away at the democracy in russia and setting himself up to be another russian dictator? a majority of the american public get their news solely from these networks and are being spoon-fed exactly what they need to be placated into a false sense of global security and superiority. and then armed with these half-truths they turn around and demand certain actions from our government which might serve america well, but will ultimately harm our global community.

i'm coming to the realization that i need to use my voice to change this travesty instead of just using it to yell at the television.

anybody else with me?

san diego

heather treated me to a weekend in san diego. we went with no plans, and it was splendid. the hotel we stayed at is in the gaslamp district and was the hotel wyatt earp stayed at when he was in san diego.
on saturday we decided to go to the zoo, and it was a gorgeous day. this was the view of the city from the skyway at the zoo.

it seems that if you point a camera at heather and i, we are incapable of making normal faces. this was our attempt at 'scared face'.

aren't meerkats enormously entertaining? these guys live in the children's section of the zoo, and they kept us hanging around for about 20 minutes with their schenanigans.

and finally, i came across the 'star wars cookbook' at urban outfitters. i was tempted to buy it until i realized that the key to star wars cooking was adding an action figure to your recipe. just add the princess leia action figure, and those boring old cinnamon rolls become 'princess leia hair rolls'.
so who would win in a light saber duel, obi-wan or a chicken kebab? that's a hard one.

russian wisdom

i moved most of my stuff out of my storage unit this weekend.
*applause and congratulations here*
i only have a few big things to move, once i figure out how to do it. (anyone with a large vehicle willing to donate about a half hour of your time will be greatly appreciated.)
so today i was sorting into keep, give away, throw away, and sell on ebay piles and i came across my old chalkboard.

slightly ironic, don't you think?

garden

this weekend i planted an herb garden. i've been buying fresh herbs at the grocery store for various recipes and realized that it was getting really expensive. so this weekend i went out and bought parsley, thyme, peppermint, spearmint, basil, oregano, dill and cilantro plants. i spent less than half of what it cost me to buy bunches of herbs at the store. i'm all excited for them to get bigger so i can go out and clip some and bring them in and cook with them.
now the trick is to not let the snails eat them first.