All I needed is another deadly disease to worry about.   My hypochondria is truly satiated via the internet.   It's not as if I don't use all the online tools to self diagnose myself with the deadly diseases of the world, it's that they create w… Read full post »

Ah, the French.  Turns out Ms. Bruni, the first lady of France, aka Madame Sarkozy, once again is in the eye of the press, mostly the British Tabloid press and maybe the French-- did not look, yet.  

Before Carla married, Mr. Sarkozy, she was a model  and  a singer. She… Read full post »

A meme, what is a meme?  Basically, something smart, clever, silly or even stupid that is copied by countless other beings.  

I am testing to see how "the Googles" and such work.  

I will not spoil it for you, go to Flickr.   What do you see?  How did it… Read full post »

Leave it to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now to tell us the real news story.  Yes, there are pirates that take ships and crews at gunpoint off the coast of Somalia, but is it that simple?  (updated) Also, right here at OS Edgar Alverson has first hand experience and great re… Read full post »

Recently I have started a minor film retrospective.  I call it the, watch a movie that moved you in your youth and see what works and does not work forty years later.  Last night it was The Graduate.  

The movie  works on a number of levels, but for me, it's Simon and… Read full post »

Laila El Haddad is a Palestinian.  She was living in Durham North Carolina, and blogging during the Israeli attack on Gaza.  She is now trying to go back to Gaza.  She has to fly into Egypt and drive to the Gaza crossing in Raffah.  Right now the crossing is closed.  … Read full post »

"Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has tra… Read full post »

Ok, I get mad at some bloggers, but the Parliament of Iran is seriously considering applying death penalty to those who under Quranic law, "spread mischief via the internet".  

First, I am opposed to all death penalty.  I find it to be an anachronistic vindictive tradition that has no… Read full post »

Binaries are great.  They give us contrasts. Simplistic world views.    Yet, they offer a glimpse of a certain reality.  California vs. New York, is always a great one.

In the world of shallow and "I cannot believe I am watching this" Real Housewives series are the "it" television… Read full post »

Help, what just happened?  

Ok, fellow west coast people, don't look.  I taped from the HBO East and watched it on DVR.  Technology, my friend, once again.

Roman is dead, but Bill is a jerk.  I don't like Bill each season more and more. He manifests… Read full post »

For some reason I find this video intriguing.  It's 1981, it's from a local TV station in San Francisco and it looks at the future of newspapers and computers.  Honestly, it was not that long ago.  

The toxic assets plan is being slowly unveiled and the Obama administration is falling for the biggest scheme to continue the failed financial system.  

The plan is to use the remaining 350 billion in TARP to buy the toxic assets.  You thought the bonuses were an outrage?  Ge… Read full post »

It seems that within a few weeks the main stream cable media and many bloggers have distorted the history of the earmark debate.  I would like to propose that we put our heads together, starting with this skeleton, and fill in the earmark… Read full post »

 

It was not a full formed memory, more of a sensation.  A flash,… Read full post »

American artisan bakers, cheese makers, vintners, and cooks have gone to all parts of Europe, learned the trades and came back to America to create a revolution in good food.  They took the great ingredients available in America and took all the Euro food traditions ten… Read full post »

I will not claim addictions.  Addictions imply a medical condition that I need to cure or medicate.  I choose to label my obsessions as vices.  I like the word vice and I want to wrestle it away from the religious people.

A vice is the opposite of a… Read full post »

Carnival, carnem levare” (to remove meat).  Stop eating meat.  For the 40 days of lent, the forty days of lent in the ecclesiatical calendar, meat was prohibited.  In early days and not so early, even in my childhood, in the Greek church it was complete vegan diet. 

Yes, my… Read full post »

You and many others ask what is your favorite movie?  My question is, when?  When I was a young girl?  When I was a teenager?  When I was in love? When I was angry at the world?  When I had childen?  When I felt nothing was worth living for?  The question… Read full post »

Sally Schneider, the Improvisational Cook, has a great technique for slow cooking cheaper cuts of meat to a melt in your mouth, if they can make it to your mouth in one piece from your forlk. 

The Technique: 

1. Take some eye of round, or spare ribs, or chuck… Read full post »

Stimulus Watch is an online database that has many of the proposed projects.  Remember the lists at this stage are wish lists.  I don't blame them for putting everything they have been trying to fund for years.  Putting these projects on the list for one time capital projects, frees up… Read full post »

Krugman summarizes my feelings about this bipartisan crap.  You cannot give them an inch. 

"So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians… Read full post »

I usually don’t include recipes in what I write, but I was taken by this particular recipe and thought I should include it in this post:

“The cadaver of a reddish man (because in such a man the blood is believed lighter and so… Read full post »

"There is a common lamentation among transplants to California: “We miss the seasons”. The crisp air. The leaves. The snow. They huddle in corners around mid October, thinking we cannot hear them, talking about how California does not have seasons. California has seasons, transplants are… Read full post »

It seems that boys named Matt or Dan are less likely to commit crimes than boys named Ivan or Ernest.  A new study, published in the Social Science Quarterly, and of course the idiotic news feed at Yahoo, Google and other places pick it up.  (Why we need editors.) 

"… Read full post »