Hitler Upset About Favre

This video totally cracked me up.

Brain Fog

I'm having trouble linking to an article I just read. It's from a post-partum feminist mom who loves her baby and recognizes that for awhile her brain is going to be foggy because of hormones, sleep deprivation, etc.. That's okay with her because there isn't anything else she'd rather be doing than spending time with her baby.

The article has received a lot of attention and animosity from some feminists because she claims her baby is like an addiction and asks why feminists can't embrace their love for their children. If you're interested, you can go to the main website and scroll around for the article.

www.doublex.com

You know, your brain is going to be foggy for awhile after having a baby. For some of us (me) longer than for others. Can you imagine being a few months post-partum with a special needs child, being thrust into a whirlwind of travel, having your son ship off to war and being the butt of jokes from national comedians?

No one cut Sarah Palin any slack (nor did she ask for any). Isn't a presidential campaign an extraordinary feat to begin with? To undergo it during the fog of recently having had a baby requires a superhuman effort.

Yes, she needed to be examined as a potential president, but did she need to be dissected? Couldn't she just have been scrutinized to the extent that, oh, say, Obama was?

Health

I haven't been feeling well lately, and I've noticed that I feel worse when I think about the government and how much it's trying to takeover. I've decided that I must have some kind of syndrome, and that other citizens must be experiencing the same condition. In fact, I've decided it's probably an epidemic.

So, what should we call it? Here are a few choices -

Overreaching-Bureaucracy-Aggravating-Me Anxiety (OBAMA)
Tax-Hikes-from-an-Unaccountable-Government Syndrome (THUGS)
or
Really-Atrocious-Healthcare-Mandate Syndrome (RAHMS)

Of course, I could be overreacting and it might just be a case of Government Anxiety Syndrome.

Facebook

I'm on facebook now, and I'd welcome friends.

The Written Word

I used to think I'd be a writer. I wrote reams of papers in college, and enjoyed my creative writing class. Writing was my fall-back position. But then, after years of writing nothing, I'm finding my sentences are little more than "It's good. I liked it."

So really, it's not that my writing is so bad, it's just that I'm not the deep thinker that I used to think I was. There are a few things that I care passionately about and I'm able to focus long enough on them to reach coherent, meaningful and perhaps interesting opinions.

One of the purposes for my blogging, is to train myself to start thinking and analyzing more. Some days I'm going to write about vegetables. Some days I'm going to write about TV Shows. Some days I'll write about the Packers. And maybe every once in awhile I'll have a coherent thought on some vast injustice in the world.

We're going to be starting school next week, and this year I've decided to place more emphasis on writing. Over the past year especially, I've realized the importance of helping train my children to become strong communicators.

We're going to be using Andrew Pudewa's Excellence in Writing program. Pudewa has a great quote on one of his DVD's that helped to crystallize in my mind why communication is so important -

"It's very important, this writing business, because we are faced with a world full of lies, basically. And the liars are very good at what they do.... History proves that a bad idea well presented is more powerful than a good idea poorly presented."

Whether it's in the realm of social, political or spiritual ideas, there are always going to be people spreading lies and evil. And they do it well. We will have a greater impact if we train ourselves to communicate clearly and confidently.

I Can't Quite Drop It

I can't seem to let this whole Julie/Julia thing go. Here's the thing. Julie kept bringing up the fact that she worked with so many Republicans. She must have used the term "Republican" to mean mean/insensitive/greedy etc. several dozen times. I don't like to classify myself as a Republican, but it was just so annoying. And lazy.

I know, I just don't have a sense of humor. Blah, blah. How about this? I've also worked in bureaucracies, and there were plenty of Democrats there. My main impression is that they spent a lot of time complaining about the governor (then a Republican), how little they were paid, and perusing the Current Opportunities Bulletin (COB) to see what other jobs were out there. Wouldn't it be hilarious if I repeatedly used the term "Democrat" to mean whiny and lazy?

I'm sure I'd have to go through some sort of writer sensitivity training if I did.

Julie and Julia

I've been seeing commercials for this movie for a few months now, and I'm anxious to see it. As with most movies, I'll wait until it hits our local second run theater to see it (or, I'll wait until it's on DVD).

Julie Powell, the author of Julie and Julia, spent a year cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blogging about it. The book tells snippets of Julia Child's life, as well as detailing Powell's year of cooking.

A few weeks ago, I saw an interview with Powell and discovered that Julia Child hadn't liked her blog. It made me feel bad for Powell to have invested so much of herself into the book, and then find out that Julia Child was disappointed.

Yesterday, I picked up my copy of Julie and Julia from the library. I'm only a few chapters into it, but, I have to tell you, I'm agreeing with Julia on this one.

Maybe it was my expectations. I love reading The Pioneer Woman's blog or The Crockpot Lady's. I was expecting a funny, "hang out with me" story. But, the thing is, while I would love to hang out with the Pioneer Woman or the Crockpot Lady, I don't think I'd like to hang out with Powell.

Certain things set me off right from the start. She discusses harvesting her eggs for money. I don't care for her language. She discusses some, er, reading material that her father had hidden (a book, not magazines) and how her experience reading that is similar to her experience reading Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

But, perhaps these offenses could have been overlooked if I wasn't detecting an underlying tone in her writing. She's appalled by the fact that she may have to live her life as a mere secretary, even though she isn't really working very hard to get an acting career going.

During the course of the past year, I've become overly sensitive to and irritated by elitest attitudes and snobbery towards people living ordinary lives. I'm sensing a mindset of privilege in Powell. She annoys me.

But, I will continue to read the book and I'll amend this post if necessary.

I'm hoping the book doesn't ruin the movie for me.

What Brett Doesn't Get

Brett Favre recently made a comment along the lines of "A true Packer fan would understand why I have to play for the Vikings."

Whatever.

The thing is, a true Packer fan never loved the Packers because they brought Brett Favre to greatness. We loved Brett Favre because he helped return the Packers to greatness.

In sports, love is always conditional.

John Hughes

I was never really into John Hughes films as a teenager. I married someone who was, and have since learned to appreciate Hughes's work.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles is probably my favorite Hughes film. I also really like Only the Lonely, which he produced.

Here's a great tribute to Hughes.

(Unfortunately, I read a couple archived blog posts from the same author, which ruined her sentiments a bit for me.)