Moment today I most felt like a dumbass

So around my place of employment you notice if someone's wearing a suit because, aside from one or two key people, no one really does—unless it's board meeting time. Then suits come out of the woodwork. Or wherever it is they've been hiding...along with the "good" cafeteria food. And it is board meeting time right now. I was just coming back from lunch, and a guy who works here was coming in my direction from across campus...wearing a suit. As I pass him I say/laugh in that voice that is both talking and knowingly laughing, "I take it you must have an interaction with the board today." Response: "Nope. Funeral." So that puts the ol' kibosh on the talk/laugh pretty quickly.

{Sidenote: I ran spellcheck on this post and for "dumbass" it suggested "Dempsey" ... Dale Dempsey, anyone?}

The underlying thing I want to underscore is don't underestimate this product for your underarms, though it seems underpublicized

I've always been an antiperspirant kind of gal (as opposed to a deodorant kind of gal). I know all of the "health risks" of the aluminum in antiperspirant are still disputed and that we're all exposed to aluminum in other forms probably daily, but it can't hurt to cut it out where you can, right? So the other day I was at Alco (!!) browsing the deodorant/antiperspirant section, though I was in no need of buying more, and I saw this: Adidas Absorbent-Deo Wetness Control. It's a deodorant that is aluminum free, seems to claim it uses some sort of cotton technology, and contends that it works as well as antiperspirant. Always one to be drawn in by advertising, I thought I might as well give it a try. It's only day four of using the product, but I would like to give it my two thumbs up. So far, it does seem to work as well as the antiperspirant I had been using. I recommend it. And if you're the type who likes to have all of your brands match, while I'm at it, I'll also recommend the Adidas Rev II windpants. They are the best windpants ever. I have two pairs.

**SPECIAL BONUS**
Other fun words beginning with "under"

• underbred
• underbrim
• undercard
• undercoat
• undercool
• underdrawers
• underling
• undersexed
• underskirt
• understrapper
• underthrust

Sobering thought

So here's something fun: A marquee of a video rental store in town advertises, "Now Hiring Managers $30-35K First Year." Hm, maybe I should double my salary and work as a video store manager...

Naming sex offenders

[This is about the same person I mentioned in this previous post. By the way, the Xanga mentioned has since been shut down by its owner.]

The local paper ran a front page story about this kid, naming him and his mother, who sits on the school board. There were definitely mixed responses, from ardent applause to fervid reproach. I can't decide whether I think this was appropriate; I'm curious to hear the opinion of someone who has worked with victims. The information is already out there in the public sphere—you can easily do an online search of sex offenders in your city or county or by name, so it's not like the paper exposed something that couldn't already be known. I read two signed responses from later in the week: one from the editorial board and one from a rape-crisis counselor, both supporting the decision. The editorial board cited the relevancy of the mother's school board position, keeping its readers safe, and reporting public record. The rape-crisis counselor corroborated the "keeping other people safe" opinion.

I don't think the paper did anything illegal, but I question at least its consistency. A search on KBI's website results in 47 matches for the city, 58 for the county. Why is this one offender picked out and not the others? The only other time I remember a sex offender being named in the paper (other than in the Daily Record) was when there was one whom the state had failed to register. Or he had failed to register or whatever the proper steps are. I might be completely wrong, but my feeling is that this high school student is perhaps less of an immediate threat to others because he is 16. No, teenagers' parents do not know where they are all the time, what they are doing all of the time, but at least they have more accountability to someone than adults. I don't know. Opinions?

Verification of a legend

Everyone remember the story of one of the most famous Bethel pranks ever—where some guys attached a chain and cable to a cop's rear axle and also to a tree and then sped by honking and the cop took off after them and dropped his rear axle? Well, last night, someone I know admitted to being one of those guys. Interesting.

Too funny

Good reason to check out what you agree to do: Illinois governor didn't know "Daily Show" was a comedy spoof of the news

Don't understand

This may seem related to the last post—which it is—but the last post isn't what got me thinking about it. What got me thinking about it is there's a student at the high school who recently became a registered sex offender and someone, tastelessly, made a Xanga about it, which is how it came to my attention (I did check the registered list, and that was accurate). That, and the local news seemingly every night. People often wonder, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" That's a tough question to deal with, but what I really can't understand is, "Why do bad things happen to children?" And at the hands of adults? Not just how can an adult do such things to a child, but why can that happen? No human deserves to have another harm him, but with children it's even worse. Children are supposed to be protected, supposed to be taken care of. Why is it that some children have to have scalding water poured on them? Why is it that some children die at the hands of the adults in their lives? I wonder how many fewer problems the world would have if no child were ever mistreated.

Horrible world news

This was brought to my attention today. I had not before heard of this situation or this man. Actually, I think I've heard of the Lord's Resistance Army before but perhaps had not heard stories??

Old Horrors, Young Victims

I find myself surprised that the children can even stay safe on their daily commutes.

Saturday night snippet

Saturday night Brian and I went out to eat. It was one of those places where they mix stuff with oil on a plate and you get bread to dip into it. Here is the conversation that went along with that.

Waitress: [puts stuff onto plate for mixing with oil]
Brian: What are those granules?
Waitress: [makes high squeaky noise] Everyone must be reading their dictionaries today! Everyone's saying words I've never heard of before like that.
Brian: Granules?
Waitress: Yeah, that. And someone else asked for his invoice.

So I wasn't too sure about her at first, but she was really a very good waitress.

Strrrrrrrrrretch

My place of employment recently began offering (FREE!) Yoga once a week over the lunch hour. Yoga has been one of those things that I've been curious about but—let's face it—too cheap to actually sign up for. This is a sweet way to try it out. I've found that I like it and feel nicely relaxed afterward. Ahh. Yay, Bethel!

February 14

One thing that's always constant for me for Valentine's Days is chocolate. Being a lover of chocolate, I love <3 Day, and I love those chocolate hearts that Dove puts out. They have little messages on the inside, and one of those messages affirms my first sentence: "Chocolate. Always your valentine." So true, so true.

Here are some other Dove messages for you to daydream about:
"Think with your heart, not with your head."
"Remember your first crush."

Feeling accomplished

So...I can't believe someone from my college graduating class is a bank president. Seriously. Makes me feel good about where I am in life. Good job, self. Usually I'm content with where I am, but there are those times when I'm not. Not that it's not within my power to change some of those things.

Is this possibly for real??

According to aides, in his State of the Union address tonight, W "will propose long-term plans to promote alternative energy sources and take on an issue his critics say he has largely ignored for five years: the rising cost of health care."

Dare I hope??

Bush to aim speech at 'kitchen table' issues

Effective advertising?

Unfortunately, I won't remember the commercial exactly as it is, but here's my shot at it...

Last night I saw a McDonald's commercial that was, I think, for the Big Mac. There's a guy sitting down to eat a Big Mac, and he has a lot of sauces on the table with him, but then he takes a bite of the Big Mac and makes a pleased sound. Then the narrator's voice says, "Big Macs are so tasty, you won't need any of your _________." (When I first heard it, I thought maybe he said "sauces," but I think he actually said, "salsas.") Then it goes to a logo screen that includes two phrases in Spanish (none in English). I found myself sort of offended by the commercial. It seems obvious that it was aimed at Hispanics/Latinos (not sure here what the correct categorization should be), which isn't what I have a problem with, but it seemed to really be stereotyping in not a good way. Like people of that culture have to have salsa on everything or something. Maybe I shouldn't be offended, I don't know.

Here are two articles about advertising aimed at Hispanic consumers:
Latinos Taste the U.S. Market - Advertising Seeks Hispanic Consumers
Marketing Latin Style You can use the login minnie@mouse.com for this one or try porky@pig.com or bugmenot if you want.

Journalist deaths in Iraq

No surprise that this morning Good Morning America was all about wounded ABC journalists Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt, who were victims of a roadside bomb in Iraq Monday morning. An interesting statistic they also showed was the number of journalist deaths during the current Iraq war (since March 2003) compared to the number of journalist deaths over the entire course of the Vietnam war (1955-1975).

• Iraq War: 79
• Vietnam War: 63

Is it as simple as numerical statistics? Probably not. Perhaps many more journalists are covering the Iraq war. Perhaps they're doing increasingly dangerous reporting. Perhaps not many journalists even went to cover the Vietnam war until the later years. I really don't know. But the numbers are still very striking. Divided out, that's about 26.3 journalist deaths per year for Iraq, compared to 3.1 journalist deaths per year for Vietnam.

This article from September 2005 had slightly different figures: Iraq: more journalists killed "than during Vietnam war".

If links have expired, please see full texts at wounded ABC journalists and journalist deaths: Iraq vs. Vietnam

Ah, Committees

If you grew up Mennonite (or perhaps other denominations also; I just can't speak to those), you grew up hearing jokes about church committees. How many committees does it take to...? Why can't [insert task here] ever get done at church? And the like. So I am now one of these committee members and have been for a year or so. I experienced some of this "committee ridiculousness" earlier this week. My committee met because we had two tasks to complete. After an hour and a lot of discussing and reading of the bylaws, we determined that in reality, we had no tasks to complete. Apparently one of our supposed tasks is really the duty of another committee, so we punted it to them. Remind me again, why are there jokes about committees making everything take longer?

Drive-thru...literally

So I was in Bluffton, Ohio, around new year's for a wedding, and I saw one of the most comical things I've seen in a while. Now, I'm a bit confused about Ohio's liquor laws (e.g., what's a state liquor store? and why can only a state liquor store sell jack daniel's?), but as I understand it, only 3.2% can be sold in Bluffton, but harder stuff can be sold elsewhere in the state. Which is why there are two liquor stores right outside city limits, I suppose. I've seen drive-thru liquor stores before, but the ones I've seen are more like a McDonald's drive-thru, you know, with a window and all. One in Bluffton, on the other hand, is a true drive-thru, like the one in the picture below. By the way, as far as I can figure out, the one pictured is in Dayton, Ohio. Only in Ohio, I guess (I mean, probably not; I just haven't had the fortune to see them elsewhere).

Poverty2: hitting closer to home

So our church got on board with staffing the homeless shelter in town for a week—or is it half of a week?—every quarter (refer to Poverty post). Yay, church! My first overnight stay is next Monday, so I went to a training session a couple of days ago. My world was shaken a bit there: one of the guys staying there was a camper at Camp Mennoscah. And I mean a camper when I was a counselor or staff member, not a fellow camper of mine. I tried to place his age, remembering other campers who attended with him, and I came up with that he's at least two grades younger than my brother. That puts his maximum age at about 18 or 19. It really hit me, perhaps one of the saddest realizations I've experienced. And it's not that his family's staying there; he's all by himself. This is a "kid" I have had several longer conversations with in my past. For some reason, the two of us sort of hit it off at least one summer, if not more (let's face it—I was rarely the popular counselor or staff member, so I tend to remember those few kids I made connections with). When I talked to him the other night, it appeared that he may not even remember Camp Mennoscah, and he went there when he was somewhere in the age range of 7th-10th grades, for more than one year. I can't even imagine what's gone on in his life between then and now; he seemed so incoherent and scattered. That night, I felt the saddest I've felt in a while.

An unintended byproduct of controversy

What's interesting about the recent controversy surrounding James Frey and his book A Million Little Pieces is that it's getting such widespread publicity that even more people will now want to read it, if for no other reason than out of curiosity. I know I'm curious.

Some people should just quit airing their opinions

From Hugo Chavez to Ariel Sharon, no one escapes the criticism of Pat Robertson.

If links have expired, please see full texts at Robertson vs. Chavez and Robertson vs. Sharon