NPR

I heard once, on NPR, that 4pm on Wednesday was the most popular time for suicide attempts. I believe it. I am not proposing anything rash, but it is truly the most miserable time of the week.

Bizarre and Fascinating

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On this day in history...

Today, Sarah is 24. While she may think that her birth is the only notable event that ever occurred on May 23, I have discovered some evidence to the contrary. First of all, she shares her birthday with other notable public figures like Drew Carey and Mike Myers. And also Bob Dylan, some guy the kids really liked back in the day. According to the History Channel, on May 23, 1911, the New York Public Library was dedicated; on May 23, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde were killed by the cops; on May 23, 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was established; and on May 23, 1960, the capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was announced.

Happy Birthday, Sarah, and many more.

Headlines

I like this story, http://nytimes.com/2005/05/17/nyregion/17painting.html, about a guy who stole a $1.5 million dollar Basquiat painting from the cargo area at JFK. Problems being that the heist was recorded on video and that he had been required to give a copy of his driver's license to enter the area.

Mr. Porcelli had worked for Cace for seven or eight years, said the
company's president, George Cunningham. He added that Mr. Porcelli had
visited the airport on multiple occasions - presumably enough times to know
about its security procedures.
"To me he's a complete idiot," Mr. Cunningham said yesterday. "Why would you give someone your driver's license with all your information and then go and do something like this?"

Other news... I found some delicious irony in Donald Rumsfeld chastising Newsweek on the news last night. "People are dead," because of Newsweek's maybe-right-maybe-wrong report of desecration of the Koran in Guantanamo. If the report was untrue, shame on Newsweek for sure. But shouldn't the shame come from someone else who isn't responsible for an even greater and intentional loss of life? I mean, I am more qualified than Rummy to dole out shame for causing death in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Don't you think?

In related news, today's cover of the New York Post, referencing the same story reads "HOLY SHIITE!" Awesome.

Meanwhile, the future doesn't look bright as 253 more girl ages 7-15 were arrested in NYC in 2004 than in 2002. And apparently getting kicked out of preschool has become a real problem (http://nytimes.com/2005/05/17/education/17expel.html)

Jonathans and Me

I’m told Jonathan Safran Foer recently bought a place not far from where I live in Park Slope. So seeing as how I was an English major and he is a neighbor (with pretty eyes, brown hair and glasses) I have decided to read Everything is Illuminated. It’s not really working. Magazines are just too tempting.

Last weekend, for instance, I ditched the novel for an article in New York Magazine, written by another Jonathan with three names. Only this one hates Brooklyn. Here is a highlight from Jonathan Van Meter’s piece “I Hate Brooklyn.”

"When I hear modern-day yuppies talk of being “pioneers” in certain Brooklyn neighborhoods—so smug in their 718 T-shirts—I want to poke my finger in their eyes. Brooklyn is not a clean slate. People who live there have a history, one that, more often than not, is of grit and forbearance. It’s a history that I imagine the shabby Gentiles of Park Slope and the midwestern hipsters of Williamsburg—colonists, all!—don’t want to think about too much”

Now I’ve been accused of gentrifying, who hasn’t? But colonizing? I mean I do belong to the Prospect Park Y, a community center whose stated mission it is to “put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all.” But my activities there are innocent enough. I mostly just take the free-of-charge mambo-salsa dance class. So that should the “original inhabitants” of my building be playing their “music” at 9 o’clock on a Saturday morning, I can be doing the steps under the covers. I have a hunch, however, that they’re playing meringue.

Like my ipod. Louder. Outside.

Does this mean we are pop culture?


http://www.summerstage.org/

Where are we going?

Michael Bruce Ross is a much more interesting national issue than Terri Schiavo. We could have debated the death penalty. We could have talked about volunteers for death row. We could have talked about a lot of things. And of course there was some discussion... I liked reading about how much a volunteer for death screws up the whole paradigm of the debate over the death penalty. But nothing like Terri.
The disturbing trend: Government involvement in living and dying. Congress should convene to keep Terri alive against her husband's wishes. The State of Connecticut should kill a man, a murderer, because he wants to be killed. Where is this going? I don't think I like it.
On one hand, I kind of thought they wouldn't kill him, it wouldn't actually go through. The death penalty in the self-righteous blue-state New England? No... the death penalty is for TEXAS and FLORIDA... and New York. And Pennsylvania. Wait, we used to think those red staters couldn't make informed decisions. What about the executions in Blue states?
The other point that comes to mind: Remember how the whole issue in the US has always been States Rights v. Federal Rights? Since when do they get to say who lives and dies and when? Since when is conservatism about big government and big brother? Aren't we all supposed to be living on ranches with a lot of money and a lot of guns in a Republican paradise? An overstatement I know. It just makes me very sad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/13/nyregion/13cnd-death.html?hp&ex=1116043200&en=2c6bf26c81a00088&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Is this so wrong?

I kind of want to read this book. And her previous book, "Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office." What does this say about me, feminism, the sexual revolution and why I don't have any money?

13 going on 30, without Jen Garner.

It seems like this has been coming up a lot lately-- how folks are friends with one another. On one hand we're older, wiser and more mature, on the other hand we continue to hurt or be hurt by people whose concept of what it means to be a friend is different. One bloggette related the story of being at a friend's house with another friend when the second received a phone call and invitation to play a certain board game. The second turned to the first and asked her if she wanted to go play. This was very upsetting to the blogette, transporting her back to an earlier time. A time of people getting in daily "fights," laying dibs on who would play with who during recess and backstabbing. In so many ways we've been well-socialized since then, I do wonder though how genuine the its been. We still gossip, though now we go it under the banner of concern/interest in our friends. People are still excluded, though now we attribute it to insecurity and carelessness rather than malice.
Exclusion is an interesting idea. The excluder feel somehow entitled, the excludee feels sad and resentful. My mom was talking about my sister's friends. They are 13/14 and in 8th grade. My mom was marveling at how well they all get along, how little jealousy is involved. She asked my sister where her best friend was that night, "Oh, she's at a movie with Rachel." My mom, instigator that she is, goaded her "Did they invite you? Does that make you sad?" And Zoe said "No." I marvel at how unfair it is that she got the hot bod and the emotional maturity. And how she managed to become friends so early on with a bunch of girls who aren't using inclusion/exclusion to make themselves feel better about themselves or to hurt their friends. I think we could all take a lesson from those Clara Barton Open School 8th graders. Plus their cell phones have way cooler ringtones than ours.

Cubic Zirconia

An -ist in the age of -isms.

From time to time I've wondered if I'm racist.
My dad would say, "everyone has prejudices, but if you recognize them and don't let them affect the way you treat people, you're doing better than most people."
But this isn't what I'm talking about. I am starting to believe that the biggest -ism that threatens to make me an -ist is Ageism.
In my job there are a lot of young associates. I've encountered a lot who went straight from undergrad to law school and started at the first since graduating in 2004. Note: This makes them 26 years old. As in, two years older than me, the same age as my boyfriend, and younger than Erica's brother. I was stuck working with one such lawyer last week, into the evening on Friday. She graduated from Bates in 2001. She pronounced "Iroquois," "Ear-rack-waas." She was in charge of telling me what to do and frankly I thought she was too young. And maybe too dumb. But also dumb because she was young. Erica hung out with her friend from high school and his friends, they are 2Ls at NYU. They sit around and play video games and smoke pot and in a little over a year- they will be lawyers. This is silly.
However, one day I will be a lawyer. And granted I'll be 28 instead of 25. Will I be biased against myself? Will I be skeptical of my own competence? Have I been exposed as the raging Agist I am? Um, probably not since I know how to pronounce Iroquois.