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

'Tis the season

A little something irreverent for Christmastime: Vintage21 Jesus videos. Turn up your speakers.

In keeping with the theme of the last post, who came first: naked women or the Grinch?

When you get done shopping at 10:20 pm, there aren't a lot of options for supper if you're not in the mood for McDonald's or Taco Tico or a nicer sit-down place. So we ended up at Hooters. This is not a common default choice; the last and only other time I was there was my sophomore year of high school. The food was ok, the music was too loud, but my real complaint is the waitresses were wearing practically nothing! No, just kidding, my real complaint is that we got crappy service. As in, no asking if I wanted my water refilled, no checking how our meals were, no smile. It's true that I'm not going to give you a better tip if you flirt with my boyfriend like I saw you and other waitresses doing at tables of all males, but it's not true that I'm not going to give you a good tip just because I'm a female and it's Hooters. I'm going to give you a decent tip if you provide decent service.

New twist on the ol' chicken/egg question

Which came first: Santa Claus or naked women?

According to Ron Raffonelli, 65, of Cranston, R.I., Santa Claus did (see story about a Paris Hilton Christmas display on cnn.com).

Any other opinions out there?

Quotation: from Middlesex

I found this quotation from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides interesting:

"Everyone struggles against dispair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It's the thing that lets us say good-bye" (524).

The thing that lets us say good-bye. In my mind, it usually takes two parties to say good-bye. Is dispair winning in both parties, just the one leaving (the context of this quotation involved a dying person), or just the one who has to let the leaving one go?

Thoughts? Agree or disagree with the quotation? I'm not sure if I fully understand it, but I found it interesting to think about.

Copy editor's day off

I'd just like to say that in the four CNN.com articles I've read this morning, I've found three errors. For whatever reason, errors in the media make me giggle (not to say that I never make my own errors; those don't make me giggle.).

"...added Alex McLeod, 16, who lives three houses down on the opposite side of the three-lined street..."

"The 'Image' mosaic with a flowered peace symbol in Central Park."
It's actually the "Imagine" mosaic. This error is even funnier because it's a caption to a picture of the "Imagine" mosaic, which very centrally has the word "Imagine."

"Many fans will remember Lennon at the 'Imagine' mosaic—named after one of his most famous songs—that is the centerpiece of 'Strawberry Fields' (named in honor of another of his songs), a section of Central Park across the apartment where Lennon lived with his wife, Yoko Ono."
Wow, that must be a pretty large apartment in order to contain Central Park, or at the very least, a section of it.

It really IS Christmas

Gosh I hope my modmates read this because I think it's very important for them to know that A Very Brady Christmas will be airing on FOX this Saturday at 1pm CST. Will Bobby reveal to his family that he dropped out of school to race cars? Will Carol EVER see Cindy as a grown woman and not her little girl? And perhaps most important of all, will Mike survive the building collapse?? Oh, the suspense.

My work day = a baker's dozen hours

I've been at work for the last 13 hours. Well, I did leave for lunch, but does that really count? On the plus side of things (aside from finally (mostly) finishing a huge project—you BC alums better appreciate when you're reading your new Context magazine), I did discover that two Eminem CDs + one extra song from a third CD will pretty much exactly get me through three hours of work. It's good music to work to...just not so much during regular business hours, so it must be reserved for post-5 o'clock.

Good-bye

I've had to say good-bye to too many people recently. Not as in the death sense, just the see you later sense. But still, the see you A LOT later sense. One person, will I ever see her again? Another, when will be the next time? I feel lucky to have seen you four times in the last ten years. That's sad. I think we will never live near each other. I wish we would. Instead, we live $600 away from each other.

Today was not one of the best days of my life

Today was not one of the best days of my life. And neither will tomorrow be. I hate good-byes.

The church and the trial OR privacy and the media

Last night, I felt sort of down. So my church has been affected by a recent criminal trial. Two people who were recently tried and convicted of approximately 30 counts each. These two people are members of my church. I think the fact that several of the charges had to do with abuse of people affects the church more than if they were only charges of things like tax evasion or insurance fraud. Our church had a processing meeting last night. People could talk about their feelings, and we tried to come up with the answers to, "What do we do now?" All of that is not what got me down last night. Oddly, perhaps, what did make me feel sort of hopeless about humanity is an announcement our pastor gave at the beginning of the meeting. He said that an area tv station had received an anonymous tip from someone letting them know about the meeting. The camera crew and an anchor were outside the door right then. Obviously, I cannot know that it was a congregation person who called the tv station...but it's not like the meeting was advertised in the newspaper or something. It definitely could have a case where such-and-such church member told such-and-such non-church member and that's how it ended up getting to the media. If it came from a church member, that would make me sad.

This was an interesting situation to come up for me at this time. A couple of Sundays ago, I was on a panel of professionals from our church to talk to a Mennonite History class about how being Mennonite affects the work we do. [Side note: I was the communications professional from the church—whoa, weird...am I old enough to be that?] One thing I mentioned was that at the time I was looking for a job, it came down to a decision between my current job and a job as a newspaper reporter. The reason I was aware of at the time for not taking the reporter job was that it didn't fit my personality as well as what I do do. Ok, yes, I was somewhat afraid to step out and do those things that I'm not all that comfortable doing, but I love my job now, so that's worth quite a bit too. Anyway, I mentioned at the panel presentation that I didn't know exactly why being a newspaper reporter didn't fit in all that well for me with being Mennonite, but that I thought it related somehow. And I don't know that it doesn't fit in with the theology of Mennonitism—it's probably more of a cultural thing...not being intrusive or something. So it was interesting to me that my experience last night at my church reinforced my occupational decision.

Now for an admission: Just because I don't want to be the one being intrusive and finding out about those things that perhaps should be allowed to be private doesn't mean that I'm not one of the people reading those "juicy" stories. I'm just as curious as the next guy. Ah, hypocrisy.

In addition to the somber feelings, I also felt very proud of our church for having the meeting. I'm not a fan of things being swept under the rug or conveniently ignored. I'm proud that the response wasn't just "pray for them that God will show them their evil ways." I'm proud that some people want to confront them, want to talk to them about what is seen as guilt. I'm proud that people are struggling with this—what to feel, what to do. I'm proud that people admit they don't have the answers.

Poverty

So I've been attending our church's Wednesday night study of poverty. The text we've used is What Every Church Member Should Know About Poverty by Bill Ehlig and Ruby K. Payne. My thoughts about the text are lukewarm, but the discussion has been interesting. Things that have caught my attention the most from the study:

• Nearly 50% of students in the Newton schools receive free or reduced school lunches (I think the actual figure is 48%, with one school coming in at 60%). I know some of those instances might reflect situational poverty rather than generational poverty, but half of the students. Wow. I'm not sure what the stipulations are for receiving free/reduced lunches. I know I received reduced for a while in 5th grade after my dad was laid off.


• There are currently 50 kids in Newton? Harvey County? waiting for a match with Big Brothers/Big Sisters.


• Publicity hasn't even gone out yet that Habitat for Humanity in Harvey County will soon be accepting applications again. However, Habitat has recently received 20 inquiries for applications.

What to do? Where to start? How to get involved? Last night at the study, I got to thinking about how I'm so immersed in my little Bethel world—work, lectures, leisure time with other Bethel/former Bethel folk. Yeah, I do the little things from the list of suggested actions of how to get involved with people in poverty. And I mean, the little things. Things like talking with my cashiers at discount stores or talking with/trying to always be pleasant with waitstaff at restaurants. Like I said, little things. Our church (as well as a dozen other area churches, I believe) has been approached by the local homeless shelter to commit to staffing the shelter for one week every quarter. Part of me thinks, how can we not agree to this? Part of me knows that every time a notice in the newspaper appears about training for staffing the shelter, I seriously consider it and then always chicken out out of fear. Do I really want to stay at the shelter overnight?

Today was one of the best days of my life

Today was one of the best days of my life. I feel great about life right now. I finally did something that's been two and a half years overdue. I feel strangely liberated.