Cur, the Curative

My two-month vacation officially starts tomorrow. My husband and I just bought a shiny new gadget on wheels Prius. We'll be vacationing in Monterey for our anniversary. Bush's approval ratings are in the low 20's. I feel safe in saying I am the opposite of depressed regarding my existence these days.

Nonetheless, out of curiosity today I scanned through an article entitled something to the effect of "12 Ways to Deal with Depression" or some such (I'm too lazy to link, and it was barely worth the read). The list contained groundbreaking suggestions such as Make Friends! Find a Hobby! Exercise! (Although the winner had to be "Number 9: Get on Your Knees" which was apparently meant to inspire people to pray). That gem notwithstanding, these lists are almost always laugh-worthy to me because, well, duh much? If you spend all your days lazing in isolation on your ever-expanding posterior with nothing to stimulate your intellect but staring at a talking box, of course you're going to be depressed.

I was, however, pleased to see the presence of furry friends on the list. This, I think, is my secret to surviving what has been a horridly stressful year for me pretty much unscathed — DOGS. (And yes, they really do require the dreaded all caps.) It is definitionally impossible to get all woe-is-me, sad-snowflake when you have 25 pounds of wiggle sticking its tongue in your ear. Really, they should be prescribed. Prescription drogs.

While I Wasn't Blogging: More News You Might Have Missed

This just* in: Scanners that see through clothing installed in US airports.

Really, beyond the headline, do you need anything else?

Okay, in case you do, have a quote: "While it allows the security screeners — looking at the images in a separate room — to clearly see the passenger's sexual organs as well as other details of their bodies, the passenger's face is blurred, TSA said in a statement on its website."

I'm sure none of those videos will ever pop up on YouTube.

*By "just" I of course mean 19 days ago, but you know.

While I Wasn't Blogging: News You Might Have Missed

When I was a kid, my parents (posterity and my mother would like me to note that credit here is in fact due to my grandparents) got me a subscription to Ranger Rick magazine. Through reading that magazine I learned about meerkats, cool bugs, and why chopping down the rain forest is bad. I also learned about the Exxon Valdez.

You remember the Exxon Valdez.







To put the following paragraphs in context, in February of 2008 Exxon announced the largest quarterly profits that any U.S. company has ever reported. Ever. Profits so high that the corporation made approximately $1,300 a second in 2007.

$1,300 a second.

Puts our offshore drilling "debate" in perspective, no?

Given that reality, I find it beyond appalling that our highest court in the land (emphasis, apparently, on "high") reversed the $2.5 billion dollar ruling against Exxon in the Exxon Valdez case as "excessively punitive." Excessively punitive to a company that made $2.5 billion dollars in less than three days last year.

Is it even possible to punish this in excess?



According to the Supreme Court, the "reasonable" cost of atonement for the Exxon Valdez oil spill is not $2.5 billion, but $507 million — an amount which the corporation is projected to make in less than one day. And that $2.5 billion was already down from the $5 billion that Exxon was originally ordered to pay by "a jury of its peers."

But see, Exxon doesn't have any peers. Except for maybe Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who had to recuse himself from the case because he owns Exxon stock.

Of the people, by the people.

While I Wasn't Blogging: Phoenix is for Crackheads

Thanks to Tom Waits, I have fully relinquished all anger about paying $4.50 a gallon for gas. Why, you ask? Because I realized it's not overpriced oil I'm paying for — it's the privilege of not having to spend my travel time standing (standing!) next to a whiskeylicious homeless man freestyling on his harmonica and dishing out parenting advice to a women three rows up who (mercifully) doesn't speak any English anyway.

And all of that was after he gravely informed me that a good wife listens to her husband.

Matters hardly improved once we escaped that stalwart bastion of egalitarian eco-friendly transportation, the city bus. After walking three quarters of a mile in 112 degree heat to get to a Circle K, we arrived just in time to see a pock-faced transient tweeker get into a fist-fight with the Circle K cashier over a four-pack of tall cans.

We theorized that maybe Tom Waits intentionally planned his tour to hit as many economically depressed towns as possible in order to boost their economies, in which case more power to him. But may I suggest an Oregonian logging town next time?

While I Wasn't Blogging: Essays and Eses

I'm going to spend the next few days trying to get back into the swing of things after having abandoned my blog to go frolicking in Fort Collins and Phoenix (the latter of which is actually a fairly non-frolic-friendly locale during the month of June, can I just say).

Today's "While I Was Living My Life Somewhere Other than in My Armchair" entry will focus on some of the folks I met while scoring AP World History essays for the College Board. No, not the charming Texan gentleman I sat next to on the shuttle or the lovely Alabaman professor with three sons and two dogs or the fellow Californian vegetarian. That would be far too upbeat. Rather, I'd like to share with you my fond remembrances of the guy who made me want to shove my empty wine glass down his throat in hopes that it would dislodge the silver spoon that was undoubtedly planted firmly in his gullet.

Some of you may be familiar with the Absolut Vodka ad that sent Loofah O'Reilly and his ilk into a tizzy:



How unamerican! How incendiary! How... historically accurate!

I was in the midst of deciding exactly how much tequila one ought to consume before having to get up at six in the morning when lo and behold, one of my AP-reading happy hour companions — who ought to by his very station as a history teacher know better — began a most craptastic instructive monologue regarding how all of this "hubbub" about how the southwest used to be part of Mexico is "crap" because (and I'm not making this up) "they weren't using it anyway."

Indeed! The crux of his argument was that hardly any Mexicans lived in what was at that time northern Mexico — part of an undisputed sovereign nation — and so they had no business getting upset when the United States began annexing it in bits and ill-used pieces.

Fascinating argument, really. Just one problem.



I fully expect this gentlemen to chortle in amusement and take another sip from his deeply dirty martini when Russia annexes the northern half of Canada since, you know, they're not using it anyway.

Furthermore, I find it interesting that someone as undoubtedly devoted to the capitalist ideology as this fellow must be defines ownership solely on the basis of usage. Perhaps he'd endorse a sliding scale for theft-related prison sentences based on the extent to which the original "owner" actually utilized the possession. You know, seven years if you steal his liver, seven months if you steal his brain.

We can call it the the "I'm Taking Your Ball and I'm Going Home Act."

Still on Vacation, But.

Some people look life in the face and make excuses for why they don't have to be as good as they could be.

Other people look like in the face and say, "I feel like a million bucks. I think I'll do that again tomorrow."

Senator Ted Kennedy falls into the latter category.

(And yes, blah blah Chappaquidick he deserves cancer blah blah. But let's have an intelligent conversation about your 40-year-old sins before we start espousing right-wing talking points regarding a man whose flesh is digesting itself, shall we?)