Thursday, October 23, 2008

Rochester by the Sea/Great Lake


I still refuse to believe that the Great Lakes are actually lakes. Lakes are what people back home go fishing on. You can see to the other side. There are seas smaller than Lake Ontario. And don't talk to me about salt versus fresh water. I refuse to hear it.



Autum

This year the foliage has been beautiful. I drove up to Rochester this past weekend and it was like driving through a painting. I would have stopped to take photos along the way, but I was late both coming and going and didn't have time. I'm particularly sad that I didn't capture all those little villages nestled between hills surrounded by red, orange and gold trees and also the Erie Canal, with which I've had an odd fascination from childhood...but I'll save that story for another time. But I will share some photos of the upstate leaves that I do have.

Friday, October 17, 2008

A brief interlude for a word on Mississippi politics

Mississippi made the New York Times today. And while they managed to drag racism in a little bit with the flag issue – as they always do whenever mentioning Mississippi - I found it last obvious than usual; almost non-existent in the story. A good sign maybe?

Maybe they finally realized that Staten Island is WAY more racist than Mississippi has ever been in my lifetime. And that’s their own backyard. In fact, in the two and half years I’ve lived here I’ve more racist comments against any number of minorities than I ever did in the south. Until now I’d say that Greenville, Miss., was the most racist place I was ever forced to live. But I’ve never lived anywhere (until now) where complete strangers would drop racial slurs into casual conversation. I’ve never heard so many white people use the N word.

However, as to the politics in this story, I don’t trust Musgrove as far as I can throw him. I had very limited experience with Roger Wicker when I covered politics in Mississippi, so I can’t say much about him as a person, but Musgove is one of the most fake people to ever grace Mississippi politics. He kind of weasely. I like the comment in the story from the voter who said, “Both of them are crooks,” Mr. Covington said, chuckling. “One of them’s just a little bit less.”

Monday, October 13, 2008

Monday. Your bad news roundup.

So I get to work today and park. This normally would be unremarkable.

Except:

A) It's Monday and I'm normally not at work.
B) It was 9 a.m. and I'm normally in bed.
C) The car in front of me not only has a McCain/Palin bumper sticker,
it also has a "Go Gators/Florida" license plate holder. - If it
weren't for the reporter standing next to me, I would have poured my
coffee all over the car.

Friggin' Mondays.

Also:

LOCAL NADER STAFF TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE TO ANNOUNCE LAUNCHING OF NEW OFFICE
Launches New York Office and 21 Others Nation-Wide
WHO:      Ralph Nader for President
WHAT:    Press Conference
WHEN:    Tuesday, October 14 at 11 a.m.
WHERE:    2617 South Salina St, Syracuse

With three weeks to go until the ballots are counted, Presidential candidate Ralph Nader will open a campaign office in Syracuse, New York Tuesday, October 14 where the local campaign staffers will be inviting press for an 11 a.m. conference. As part of its get-out-the-vote effort, the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign is adding 22 offices and nearly 50 field-staff staff to its base of thousands of volunteers this week, aiming at securing votes in 49 states. A map of all office locations is available at www.votenader.org.

Recent polls indicate that a growing number of independent voters are moving away from the two parties in the wake of last week's Wall Street bailout. The Wall Street Journal and CNN put Nader's support at 5 and 6 percent in this third presidential campaign, despite having been excluded from the presidential debates so far. Offices are opening in swing states such as Colorado and Pennsylvania as well Florida, where Obama is polling at 52 percent and McCain at 45, and where an October 1 poll by CNN found Nader pulling votes from the Republicans.

About the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign
The Nader/Gonzalez independent presidential candidacy is on the ballot in 45 states, polling at 5-6 percent nationally. A recent Time/CNN poll has Nader polling 8 percent in New Mexico, 7 percent in Colorado, 7 percent in Pennsylvania, and 6 percent in Nevada - all battleground states.

Friggin' Nader

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Ladies First

I was reading with amusement a story in the New York Times today about gender in regards to service at restaurants. In my experience as a woman, I think it's still fairly common for the waiter/ess to give the bill to the man. It's less common, but definitely not UNcommon for the waiter/ess to take my order before a man's. And I still find, though it's fairly rare, that a waiter (not ever a waitress, though) will pull out the chair for me to sit in. I don't often dine at upscale restaurants, but on the few occasions when I have, I've also had the waiter (and sometimes waitress) put the napkin in my lap.

As a waitress, it has never even occurred to me to do any of those things. I stick the bill between the people at the table and I usually hand them both the menu at the same time.

Part of what peaked my interested in this story, though, was that I went to dinner at Spice (my favorite Thai restaurant in Manhattan - definitely not upscale, but good food and fun) Monday night with TomClancy and the waiter tried to take his order first. TomClancy looked at me and sort of motioned with his head and said (to me), "Go ahead." This amused me.

I don't personally care if the guy orders first. I don't mind if they give the check to the guy, though I am often paying the tab. I feel awkward when people pull my chair back for me, but I also feel awkward when it comes to valet parking and bellboys - all of which I lump into the same category.

TomClancy and I both grew up in the South where manors are very much alive and well and so, though I consider myself a feminist I also kind of like it when a guy holds a door open for me. I'm not like my aunt who sits in the car until her husband comes around and opens the door, but I also don't mind if when we are going into a building a guy opens the door and waits for me to go through.

Anyway, enough about me, back to the article, because what REALLY caught my eye was the following passage:

Certain musty rites — chivalrous from one perspective, chauvinistic from another — have faded or disappeared. It’s a rare restaurant that gives menus without prices to women dining with men. And most restaurants no longer steer the “ladies” toward the banquette, assuming they want to face out toward the room.

THEY USED TO GIVE MENUS TO WOMEN WITHOUT THE PRICES?!!! What the...? That took me completely by surprise. I'd never heard of such thing. Can you even imagine it in modern day? Can you fathom going to a restaurant and there being two different menus? One for women and one for men? Wow. I mean, WOW.

Spain: Part 1 billionith (billion is the new million) - Valencia

Editors note: Bucky gets paid per punctuation mark she gets into the headlines. Ignore the seeming lack of knowledge of all rules of English grammar.

So I know I'm telling you all about my trip to Spain in a very random order, not at all approaching the way I actually experienced and also now more than a month after my return. I THOUGHT I would be telling you all about my new iPhone, which was supposed to be a birthday gift, which is now also almost a month overdue. But alas no. I got stood up again. And so I revert back to Spain. This time Valencia.

We didn't really spend that much time in the home of paella, but what time we did spend there was definitely filled with the rice-y goodness. Much more of it than we should really and truly have eaten. But what can you do. It's like an entire country of my mom shoving food down our mouths. I would show you some pictures of the food, but somehow I decided not to take any pictures while I was there (the first time).

I also rate the beaches of Valencia higher than those of Barcelona and the water was still warm and swimable in late August.

Most importantly, and something you probably did not know (and this I did take pictures of), Valencia is the home of:


That's right. The Holy Grail. People are all the time looking for it and there it is in the land of good beaches and good paella. Here's a closer, though fuzzier look (my camera doesn't have a great zoom on it, it was dark and you couldn't get too close to it):


Since you can't really see it (even in person): The Cup is made of agate stone - a popular material for drink vessels in those times. It is a homogenous piece cut out entirely from a lare chunk of agate, 9 cm in diameter. Naturally, decorations of gold and pearls were added to the supporting structure over the centuries. (Valenciavalencia.com)

Naturally.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Single? How to marry a millionaire

Oh, Cosmo! Is there anything you can't teach us?!

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Single? Don't move to any of these places

So according to Sperling's BestPlaces the Top Ten Least Single Cities are:

1 McAllen, Texas
2 Lake County, IL
3 Nassau, NY
4 Edison, NJ
5 Poughkeepsie, NY
6 Bakersfield, CA
7 El Paso, Texas
8 Allentown, PA-NJ
9 Salt Lake City, Utah
10 Oxnard, CA

Sigh. This is sad news indeed.

Friday, October 03, 2008

El High School Musical

Our hotel in Madrid (I'm reverting back for lack of anything recent to blog about) was near what, I guess, is the Broadway of Spain - as on this stretch of road there were about 14,000 musicals, including:



I, myself, have never seen "High School Musical" and cannot speak to whether this is the best, possible product America could have chosen to export to our Spanish-speaking friends in Europe. I also have never gone to high school in Spain. However, I have seen movies set in Spanish high schools AND I am familiar with the standard mythology/plot development of American movies set in high schools. And so what I wonder is this: how to Spaniards understand what the hell is going on in this musical?

I mean, seriously, how do they get whatever there is to get about it? While "Beauty & the Beast" (playing just across the street from this) deals with the all-cultural, timeless story of true love being more than skin deep, this...THIS deals with, what? Singing and dancing about gym class? Do they have cheerleaders in Spain? What about "chemistry teams"? (We didn't even have that one in MY high school.)

Can you imagine the daunting task of translating "High School Musical" into Spanish? Does any even know the Spanish word for "math nerd", because we haven't gotten to that unit in my text book yet.