I Miss You

Happy birthday my sweet quail.

The Horror

Aleah drove up from North Hampton to visit me but was visibly disturbed my the new Christmas sweater my mom bought for me...

Smell You Later

I am flying home tonight for X-mas on a red eye...I will arrive in Boston at approximately 6am tomorrow morning, EST, which will feel like 3am for my body--fun. I hate red eyes so much and every time I get off the plane in Boston or NYC I vow never to take another one again. But I am cheap and they are usually the most affordable price so months later I find myself thinking "it won't be that bad, I'll sleep the next day." So here we go again.

It has been snowing a lot back East and my family keeps telling me to pack my warm clothes. Wha? They don't seem to understand that I wear the same clothes all year round: jeans, tshirt, hoodie and various jackets, depending on the season. Last year it was 50 degrees at Christmas time and I found myself thinking that with the whole global warming thing I could handle moving back. So I went ahead and applied to a bunch of grad schools on the East Coast.

This trip will be a sort of mini-challenge, can I handle the snow for 9 days? If so, maybe I could handle the snow for five months? That seems like a big leap so I'm just taking baby steps and for today doing my best by bringing my motorcycle boots.

O Pioneertown!

This past weekend I went down to LA and then drove out to the desert to visit Pioneertown and Joshua Tree. Both places are magical, but for completely different reasons.

Pioneertown was founded by some Hollywood actors in the 40's to be a permanent set for Westerns. No one ever lived there, it was just a replica of a town in the 1880's but now there are houses all around it and some of the buildings, like the post office, are functional.

Joshua Tree was totally gorgeous and I was lucky enough to be there at sunset. I hiked to the top of Ryan Mountain which had amazing views. There landscape is totally Dr. Seuss, there are giant free standing polished looking rock formations, many bright cacti and crazy trees with spiky tops. I love the desert.

I Don't Approve

Cloned cats that glow?!

Thursday, December 13, 2007 2:35 PM by Alan Boyle

South Korean scientists say they have cloned cats whose genes have been altered so that they glow in the dark - taking advantage of a technological twist that could someday be used to make more dramatic genetic changes in all sorts of creatures.

A research team at Gyeongsang National University, headed by Kong Il-Keun, produced several kitty clones in January and February, the government-managed Korea.net news service reported Wednesday. This week the scientists showed off the cats, which now weigh about 7 pounds (3 to 3.5 kilograms) and glow a dull red under ultraviolet light.

"The ability to manipulate the fluorescent protein and use this to clone cats opens new horizons for artificially creating animals with human illnesses linked to genetic causes," the Ministry of Science and Technology said in Wednesday's report.

The procedure for cloning a cat has been around for six years, and Kong himself first performed that particular feat back in 2004. What's noteworthy about the newly reported twist - other than that glow-in-the-dark kitties are really cool - is that scientists fiddled with the donor cat's genetic code, then passed those changes on to the clones.

Here's what the researchers say they did: They took skin cells from Turkish Angora female cats and used a virus to insert the genetic instructions for making red fluorescent protein. Then they put the gene-altered nuclei into eggs for cloning. The cloned embryos were implanted back into the donor cats, which effectively became the surrogate mothers for their own clones.

Four kittens were born by Caesarian section, but one of them died during the procedure, according to the Korea Times. The fact that the kittens' skin cells glowed under ultraviolet light served as evidence that they were really gene-altered clones.

Full article here CLONED CATS THAT GLOW?!

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves

A group of vigilante women in a poor area of India calling themselves the 'pink gang' are making the news. These women are bad ass! For the full article click here.

They wear pink saris and go after corrupt officials and boorish men with sticks and axes.

The several hundred vigilante women of India's northern Uttar Pradesh state's Banda area proudly call themselves the "gulabi gang" (pink gang), striking fear in the hearts of wrongdoers and earning the grudging respect of officials.

Nobody comes to our help in these parts. The officials and the police are corrupt and anti-poor. So sometimes we have to take the law in our hands. At other times, we prefer to shame the wrongdoers," says Sampat Pal Devi, between teaching a "gang" member on how to use a lathi (traditional Indian stick) in self defence.

Sampat Pal Devi is a wiry woman, wife of an ice cream vendor, mother of five children, and a former government health worker who set up and leads the "pink gang". "Mind you," she says, "we are not a gang in the usual sense of the term. We are a gang for justice."

End Hunger While Studying for the GREs

There is a really crazy web site called FreeRice.com. I think they want you to believe that a grain of rice can feed a family of 10 for a month. But even if my vocab contributes very little, its an interesting mix of altruism and education. Albeit, of the colonial variety. Here is the deal:

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com. FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.

Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.

Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.

Big Shocking Surprise

Everyone already knew that Queen Latifah is a lesbo, right? When I lived in NYC, I heard tales of the wild parties she would throw on the roof of her Park Slope brownstone. Well I guess now its official, she has been dating her personal trainer (left) for the past four years. But it seems there's some dyke drama:

In an exclusive interview, MediaTakeOut.com spoke with Ty, an open lesbian who says that she and Latifah's girlfriend have been carrying on an illicit affair for months. Ty tells, "I met [Latifah's girlfriend] at the BET awards ... we exchanged numbers and a couple of weeks later it was on and popping ... since then we see each other every chance we can." According to Ty, who used to model for the fashion designer FUBU, Latifah's girlfriend may be ready to leave the Oscar-nominated actress. The model explains, "in the beginning, me and [Latifah's girlfriend] used to sneak around, but not anymore ... now we just do our thing and if [Queen Latifah] finds out about it - then oh well."

Save Chairman Meow

This web site 'Save Chairman Meow' is sooo cute. His human companion (don't say owner), Wendy Chao, is a freaking genius. Vets are expensive and she clearly loves her cat so much. Who wants Chairman Meow buttons in their stocking this year? I do!

What the F***?

I don't know anyone who likes it like this:

It All Finally Makes Sense

Unhappy? Self-Critical? Maybe You’re Just a Perfectionist

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: December 4, 2007

Just about any sports movie, airport paperback or motivational tape delivers a few boilerplate rules for success. Believe in yourself. Don’t take no for an answer. Never quit. Don’t accept second best.

Above all, be true to yourself.

It’s hard to argue with those maxims. They seem self-evident — if not written into the Constitution, then at least part of the cultural water supply that irrigates everything from halftime speeches to corporate lectures to SAT coaching classes.

Yet several recent studies stand as a warning against taking the platitudes of achievement too seriously. The new research focuses on a familiar type, perfectionists, who panic or blow a fuse when things don’t turn out just so. The findings not only confirm that such purists are often at risk for mental distress — as Freud, Alfred Adler and countless exasperated parents have long predicted — but also suggest that perfectionism is a valuable lens through which to understand a variety of seemingly unrelated mental difficulties, from depression to compulsive behavior to addiction.

Some researchers divide perfectionists into three types, based on answers to standardized questionnaires: Self-oriented strivers who struggle to live up to their high standards and appear to be at risk of self-critical depression; outwardly focused zealots who expect perfection from others, often ruining relationships; and those desperate to live up to an ideal they’re convinced others expect of them, a risk factor for suicidal thinking and eating disorders.

“It’s natural for people to want to be perfect in a few things, say in their job — being a good editor or surgeon depends on not making mistakes,” said Gordon L. Flett, a psychology professor at York University and an author of many of the studies. “It’s when it generalizes to other areas of life, home life, appearance, hobbies, that you begin to see real problems.”

Unlike people given psychiatric labels, however, perfectionists neither battle stigma nor consider themselves to be somehow dysfunctional. On the contrary, said Alice Provost, an employee assistance counselor at the University of California, Davis, who recently ran group therapy for staff members struggling with perfectionist impulses. “They’re very proud of it,” she said. “And the culture highly values and reinforces their attitudes.”

Consider a recent study by psychologists at Curtin University of Technology in Australia, who found that the level of “all or nothing” thinking predicted how well perfectionists navigated their lives. The researchers had 252 participants fill out questionnaires rating their level of agreement with 16 statements like “I think of myself as either in control or out of control” and “I either get on very well with people or not at all.”

The more strongly participants in the study thought in this either-or fashion, the more likely they were to display the kind of extreme perfectionism that can lead to mental health problems.

In short, these are people who not only swallow many of the maxims for success but take them as absolutes. At some level they know that it’s possible to succeed after falling short (build on your mistakes: another boilerplate rule). The trouble is that falling short still reeks of mediocrity; for them, to say otherwise is to spin the result.

Never accept second best. Always be true to yourself.

The burden of perfectionist expectations is all too familiar to anyone who has struggled to kick a bad habit. Break down just once — have one smoke, one single drink — and at best it’s a “slip.” At worst it’s a relapse, and more often it’s a fall off the wagon: failure. And if you’ve already fallen, well, may as well pour yourself two or three more.

This is why experts have long debated the wisdom of insisting on abstinence as necessary in treating substance abuse. Most rehab clinics are based on this principle: Either you’re clean or you’re not; there’s no safe level of use. This approach has unquestionably worked for millions of addicts, but if the studies of perfectionists are any guide it has undermined the efforts of many others.

Ms. Provost said those in her program at U.C. Davis often displayed symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder — another risk for perfectionists. They couldn’t bear a messy desk. They found it nearly impossible to leave a job half-done, to do the next day. Some put in ludicrously long hours redoing tasks, chasing an ideal only they could see.

As an experiment, Ms. Provost had members of the group slack off on purpose, against their every instinct. “This was mostly in the context of work,” she said, “and they seem like small things, because what some of them considered failure was what most people would consider no big deal.”

Leave work on time. Don’t arrive early. Take all the breaks allowed. Leave the desk a mess. Allow yourself a set number of tries to finish a job; then turn in what you have.

“And then ask: Did you get punished? Did the university continue to function? Are you happier?” Ms. Provost said. “They were surprised that yes, everything continued to function, and the things they were so worried about weren’t that crucial.”

The British have a saying that encourages people to show their skills while mocking the universal fear of failure: Do your worst.

If you can’t tolerate your worst, at least once in a while, how true to yourself can you be?

This Is What Democracy Looks Like

Has anyone else been feeling coo coo when reading the New York Times lately? The whole 'lying liars and the lies they tell' really sums it up, huh?

C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes of Interrogations

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

Poop on the Wall

From a distance my office building, a stately old converted Victorian, looks very nice. Approaching the steps you get your first inkling that things might be amiss. Depending on the day, weather, and who slept on the front stoop the night before, any manner of bedding, food, and miscellaneous personal items will be scattered throughout the front yard. Several tenants in the building claim that they have seen people defecating in the shrub next to the steps. I luckily have been spared seeing or smelling such a sight.

The building houses the National Lawyers Guild and the Tenants Union, so naturally we let homeless people camp overnight. Being a human rights activist, I am naturally in agreement with this practice. However, being afflicted with OCD means that I am deeply grossed out and disturbed by the debris as the stuff gets pretty funky. We had to take measures when people started blocking the door and shooting up on the steps during office hours. Now there is a sign that says we reserve the right to remove things left overnight which caused the homeless people to retaliate with a note calling us "Buppy Guild Attorneys". I don't know what buppy means.

Usually the gross is confined to the outside of the building, but not always and not today. Today someone smeared poop on the wall of the upstairs bathroom. This is the bathroom that everyone on the top floor uses, myself included. The building manager Ted has been in meetings since I discovered the situation and that's probably a good thing, because I want to freak out on someone and it would probably be him. This is too much, even for social justice, even for non-profits, even for the sake of access to public bathrooms. Basta.

Stop With The Cuteness

My intern Erica has taken to emailing me pictures of animals doing cute things (hence, the lion video). I don't usually go in for cute overload but this shit is bananas...

Sai Mai, a 26-month-old female tiger, plays with baby pigs at a zoo in Thailand's Chonburi province, 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Bangkok, on May 7, 2004?. The Royal Bengali tigress was born in captivity and breast-fed by a female pig for four months after her birth.

Smoke Your Marajuanic-ah

My good friend from high school, Eleza, wrote a piece about the meaning of Hanukka and the great party her parents throw for the Generation J web site. I am a very honored gentile to be mentioned in the article. I love the Hanukka Party and I am sad Hanukka is early this year because I am going to miss it!

One of my favorite memories of the Hanukka party is the year Eleza asked me to bring my brother's Adam Sandler CD so that we could play the Hanukka song. So I brought it (the Catholics deliver) and in the middle of the party, while some very religious guests from Israel were having what appeared to be a spiritually important conversation, Eleza put on the CD and started dancing and singing along really loud in the middle of the room. The Jews from the Holy Land looked perplexed at this American show of enthusiasm but as we would say in Boston, it was wicked awesome.

So Much Love

This makes me very, very happy. I want a big hug and kiss from a giant kitty. I love interspecies love!



> The woman in the video found this lion injured in the forest, ready to die. She took the lion home and nursed him back to health. When the lion was better she made arrangements with a zoo to take the lion and give it a new and happy home. The video was taken when the woman went to visit the lion after some time to see how he was doing.

F U Bigots

Michael Savage sues Muslim group campaigning for ad boycott

Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

(12-03) 17:14 PST SAN FRANCISCO - Conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage sued an Islamic rights group today for rebroadcasting on its Web site several excerpts from his show in which he called the Quran a "book of hate" and said Muslims "need deportation."

Savage, in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, said the Council on American-Islamic Relations had violated copyright law by using the excepts in a campaign to persuade advertisers to stop sponsoring his show.

In the excerpts, Savage calls the Quran a "hateful little book," says Muslims "breed bombers" and asserts that the religion of Islam seeks to "convert or kill" nonbelievers.

The council, in rebroadcasting the excerpts, urges visitors to its Web site to complain to Savage's advertisers.

Savage, whose syndicated show is based in San Francisco, says in the suit that the excerpts are "stolen material" that were taken out of context. He said his comments were directed toward Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other "violent terrorists who mask their personal evil with a false religious aura."

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the lawsuit frivolous and said the Web site was entitled to use the segments because Savage is a public figure.

"He (Savage) has the right to spew hate, but he doesn't have the right to be subsidized by the American consumer," Hooper said.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/04/BAB7TNIQ3.DTL

Save the Oaks!

Yesterday, the Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild had a press conference at the Berkeley Tree Sit. We got some good media coverage and my scowling little face was actually on Fox News last night (who's that angry lesbian in the background?).

The tree sitters are bad ass and the university is just plain wrong about this situation. They want to demolish the grove and put in a new workout gym. Aside from the obvious reasons, this being an ecologically precious area, a world war 2 memorial, and an active earthquake fault, it's also a Native American burial ground. I am glad that we are fighting for the trees and I hope UC loses big on this one. Here is our press release:

NLG Condemns Berkeley Police, University Actions Against Protesters
November 29, 2007

Unlawful Arrests, Reckless Tactics Used Against Peaceful Tree-Sitters and Supporters

Berkeley

The tree-sit will celebrate its one year campaign anniversary on December 2, and the NLGSF will host a press conference at 11:30 a.m. on that day at the Memorial Grove. Speakers will include Attorneys Dennis Cunningham, Hunter Pyle, Tony Serra, and Carol Strickman.

I Carried A Watermelon

Last night I went to see Dirty Dancing at the Castro Theater. It was the first time I had ever seen the movie on the big screen and let me tell you, it was awesome.

You know how some childhood movies just don't stand the test of time? You watch them years later and think: 'How the hell did I sit through this 5 million times from the ages 11-13?' (Beaches, anyone?) But Dirty Dancing is not like that. Dirty Dancing remains brilliant into the 21st Century.

The fact that throughout the movie, hairstyles, clothes and music hop bizarrely between the early 60s and late 80s does nothing to detract from the pleasure. Tremendous feats of cinema greatness are performed as Patrick Swayze manages to be sexy with a mullet and macho while ballroom dancing. Geeky teen-age angst never looked so hot (at least not until My So-Called Life) as with Jennifer Grey's dance routines.

What really makes this movie a timeless classic is the dialog. Say "Nobody puts Baby in the corner" or "I carried a watermelon" to anyone between the ages of 20 and 35 and they will immediately know what you are talking about. I give most of the credit to the fact that Dirty Dancing was written and produced by women. Baby's sexual brazenness is totally ahead of its time and the back alley abortion sub-plot really sends a clear feminist message.