TILES!
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the resolution: "snark less"
butbutbutbut... consider:
(bullet point goes here) fusion cuisine has its points. but Irish and Mexican? really?
(bullet point goes here) Irish nachos. think about it. Irish nachos.
(bullet point goes here) it's Rachel Ray.
(bullet point goes here) EVOO
look at the yummilicious offering below:
would you eat it?
(I'd bet not)
now I'm in the mood for "nachos as big as your ass" from Costa Rica or from any of twenty good Mexican restaurants within a three-mile radius.
my tile guy has been hard at work...glad I got the kitchen cleared for his equipment.
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"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a "lone traveler" and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude - feelings which increase with the years."
–Albert Einstein
an occasional book review
Jeff Sharlet must have a debt of gratitude to Rachel Maddow. and Rachel back to Jeff. about the time this past summer that the John Ensign ( R. senator from Nevada - having an affair with a married woman in his staff) and Mark Sanford (R. governor from South Carolina - missing for five days in a 'hike') - it was Jeff Sharlet who in a series of appearances in the Rachel Maddow show acquainted Americans with the shadow organization known as "The Family". "The Family" is a secretive fundamentalist organization, now famous for owning a house in C street Washington D.C. where several members of Congress (Ensign and Sanford among others) lived while Congress was in session.
Sharlet has been following "The Family" for several years now. a few years back he spent several months in Ivanwald, one of the houses owned by "The Family" as one of a group of brothers - young men selected to be trained for future leadership positions in support and behalf of "The Family" and its principles of driven Christianity, "biblical capitalism" and "Jesus plus nothing".
The first chapters of the book are interesting, when Sharlet writes about what was it was like to be a brother at Ivanwald and describes the weekly breakfast meetings at the C street house, attended by several members of Congress, the Administration, lobbying groups and other powers around D.C.. Sharlet describes how while publicly supporting inclusive gatherings such as The National Prayer Breakfast, in private The Family has been closely involved with repressive regimes around the world in support of American fundamentalist supremacy.
The book lags a bit after these few chapters - Sharlet dives into a discussion of the beginnings of American fundamentalism, followed by narratives of how different persons have gained leadership within The Family, up to the current leader, Doug Coe. several of these chapters had their beginning in Sharlet's articles in Harper's and elsewhere
an occasional book review
as one of the "tired girls", the name the author gives to us, most of us women, who suffer from illnesses that are difficult to properly diagnose, treat, or cured, I read this book with interest. even though headaches are not part of my personal hell I found much I could relate to in this book - going from doctor to doctor, trying drug after drug (all of which worked. for a while), trying alternative therapies, and reaching a state in betwixt acceptance and resignation.
Paula Kamen makes her journey fun to read. she is immensely self-aware of her situation and of her privileged position - her parents pay for excellent health insurance that Kamen as a free-lance author could never afford; her parents also provide a place to retreat to whenever she couldn't handle the pain of her headaches or the hassles of her daily life.
in between the relation of her personal journey* Kamen discusses pain - the medical understanding of it, of its causes, of its management. she also discusses how pain as suffered by women is perceived differently than pain as suffered by men, both by the medical establishment and by society at large. Kamen also brings up the point that women are more likely than men to suffer from diffuse, chronic, cause-not-easy-to-pin-down pain, and the frequency with which the patient is dismissed by doctors as being 'difficult', 'non-compliant', and the kiss of death: "it's all in your head".
*and lest you think it has a happy ending - it doesn't. the headache remains; at times worse, at times somewhat bearable.
