'Guest' Post

Wanted to share, totally true and has a quote from my favorite man over 40, Anthony Bourdain <3<3<3

CHINA FOOD SCARE HAS TASTE OF RACISM
by Jeff Yang, Special to the Washington Post

The French delight in preparing food; the Italians adore eating it. But no people on Earth are so engrossed in food as the Chinese, for whom it is not just craft, pleasure and sustenance but the fundamental building block of society.In the West, acquaintances greet one another with "How are you?" The Chinese ask, "Have you eaten?" So for the Chinese, tainted food is more than a health hazard — it's a kind of sacrilege. As one Chinese shopper told National Public Radio, "People here think food is as important as the sky. If there's something wrong with the food, it's as if the sky is falling."Nevertheless, China has been portrayed as a nation blind to hygiene and blissfully unconcerned about recent reports of food contamination. That's troubling, because it reinforces the notion that befouled food is the consequence of a foul culture.
Chef and gustatory adventurer Anthony Bourdain may have said it best in a 2006 Salon interview in which he noted that there's "something kind of racist" about culinary xenophobia: "Fear of dirt is often indistinguishable from the fear of unnamed dirty people."And this, in turn, spells danger. What one might call "food libel" has long been an aspect of a larger fear of China. The association of Chinese with dubious edibles has insinuated itself into our cultural consciousness in seemingly trivial ways: in schoolyard taunting, in sitcom gags about takeout food, in standup monologues about puppy chow mein.But when the stakes are raised, as they have been by recent scandals, such jokes turn deadly serious. The fringes of the pundit set have already been intimating that these tainted-food incidents are deliberate. In May, the conservative news organ WorldNetDaily.com asked, "Is China Trying to Poison Americans and Their Pets?" The nativist drumbeat has since only pounded louder, suggesting that China has been waging a secret biowarfare campaign to destroy the United States from deep, deep within — planting WMDs in the Wal-Mart cart, if you will.Yellow-peril imagery has been oozing from the extreme margins into the mainstream. Recently, the Utah-based health food company Food for Health International even became the first to take this "China equals menace" meme to market, instituting a new label and ad campaign promoting its products as "China-Free." There's talk about calling the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing the B.Y.O. Olympics. The leading customer-advocacy blog Consumerist.com came up with a catchy nickname for the fiendish assault on American shoppers: "The Chinese Poison Train is still out there, lurking on a container ship headed our way," editor Carey Greenberg-Berger warns in one May post. "Nobody knows when it will strike again." You can imagine the silent-movie tableau: the fiendish Chinese Poison Train bearing down on the hapless American consumer, tied to the tracks by a nefarious evildoer with a Fu Manchu mustache.Of course, serious problems exist in China's massive food-export complex, which is the source of the vast bulk of additives such as xanthan gum and ascorbic acid, as well as 12 percent of the world's fruit and vegetables and about half of the global supply of farm-raised fish. But many of these problems have stemmed from China's embrace of capitalist ethics, unrestrained by the government oversight present in more established industrial economies.Ultimately, the reasons why Chinese goods make up such an enormous part of the U.S. shopping basket are the same as those behind our undocumented-immigration quandary: Companies want higher profits, and consumers want lower prices. If Chinese sources were stripped from the food-industry supply chain, corporations would simply turn to other low-cost exporters, with comparably poor safety records.FDA records show that China isn't even the leading source of contaminated imports to the United States. India and Mexico have exceeded China in "refused food shipments" during the past year, and the leader in rejected candy imports was a country with an otherwise antiseptic image: Denmark. Domestic food sources also aren't exempt from scandal: Remember the California spinach scare last year? And last month, another California-based company recalled more than 75,000 pounds of hamburger distributed in the western United States, the latest in a lengthy series of tainted-meat incidents — all from American suppliers.But the media's obsessive focus on China is an easy one — as easy as the old playground singsong slur that starts "Me Chinese, me make joke" and ends with a tainted Coke. Pointing the finger at Asian imports was the default PR strategy for U.S. auto manufacturers in the 1970s because it was easier to blame nameless foreigners than to address the industry's real problems.Asian-Americans have already seen the fruit that grows from such toxic soil: Twenty-five years ago last month, Vincent Chin, a young Chinese-American man in Detroit, was killed by two disgruntled autoworkers who accused him of being part of a conspiracy to "take away American jobs" before beating him with a baseball bat. Bitter fruit indeed, and a dish we'd rather not see served up again.

Dream 9?

In some sort of school environment, where a big-haired incredibly critical teacher was constantly evaluating everyone, and seemed to have an especially low opinion of me and my work. I never actually got really angry at him though, just a little annoyed when he started personally attacking my behavior in addition to my art, saying that since I always sat next to this one girl our work was a copy, but then I shot back something about no art being original but he just kept going.

Dr. Ralph Stanley

Just got back from Fiddlefest-- and Dr. Ralph Stanley! I can't believe how great it was. I hadn't totally thought about how awesome he is, and how I've wanted to see him perform live for years... so I was totally blown out of the water by his awesomeness and the whole experience. He did so many wonderful numbers-- two a cappella including 'O death" which was AMAZING of course; a fast version of 'Pretty Polly' where I was again really thrown by the emotional power in his voice he so judiciously uses, he is really such a great artist; another case of that was the 'wildflowers' song; there were quite a few good gospel numbers as well, and when he broke out the CLAWHAMMER on BANJO I couldn't help a squeal of delight. There were three generations of Stanleys on the stage- the youngest boy only 14, although he looks much older, at least high school if not more my age. It was just great. Ralph Stanley is just an all-round gentleman and I hope *hope hope* that I can get to see him again. Just to be that close to him was really quite awesome and I will not forget-- at least I hope not.
There was also free ice cream, great weather, beautiful scenery and good company. And lots of funny/cheezy bluegrass jokes, including a great one Ralph & associate told regarding the "climate" in Florida (I bet our fiddlin' Mary knows this one. I heard she got hired by a band, actually-- One might say she's outstanding artist in her chosen field. And they'd be right-- Cause that's where we found her, out standing in the hay field.)
I'm pleased as punch. Hope you had a great Saturday too.

Fests of many colors

I wish I were at Floydfest this weekend, camping with the hippies. Instead, I'll attend fiddlefest, with Ralph Stanley! Not a bad substitute. I also visited another local festival and went on a drive thru Jefferson Nat'l forest this morning. Lots of stuff going on this weekend :)
I've got some peaches, and look forward to them ripening in a couple days. I have an interview Monday, am going to feed the cats and pick up a few things in town before I head back this way. If I stop at Wal-Mart, I'll pick up some drink mix for Claire ( http://claire-rim.blogspot.com/ ) and a phone card for Africa to use for both her and Karine ( http://www.karine-in-uganda.blogspot.com/ ). Exciting!
Plus, it's nice to have my cellphone back.
OK I really have to get going. See yas!

Yay!

I have an interview! 12 noon on Monday. It's not for a job I really want, and it seems like the woman knows I am super overqualified and pretty much told me I would be bored. But she said something along the lines of 'well if you would like to come down we could talk and at the very least you could learn a little bit more about things' and I said "yes, I think that would be helpful" so I am looking forward to talking to her. It will be good to be able to pick her brain about things, although I basically am not going take the job at this time. She said I might be qualified for 'clinician' positions as well, which I thought was interesting and hadn't realized existed. Not that I know what that actually means. Anyway, progress is progress. And I now have a contact at a really nice mental hospital very close to my house that was previously rather off-limits in terms of the kinds of people they were looking for, so that would be good if I can at least talk to some people over there. It all sounds good to me. I'm also looking/applying in more varied areas at this point, mainly because there are opportunities open in satellite areas at this time. I need to look at some other local state agencies though. I basically just got started late on the ol' job search.
All in all, I am pleased, and looking forward to some recreation and oddjob catchup this weekend as a reward.
Oh, and to end things on an "Oh... tmi" note, don't you just hate it when your uterus sheds in huge chunks causing you incredible pain? yeah, me too.
<3

getting back in the groove

Back to my usual daily (nightly) post schedule. I had a productive day and applied to two more jobs, but unfortunately realized that in both my cover letters I said i was looking for "outpatient" instead of "inpatient" work.... eep. too late now. Hopefully it won't a)make me seem like a total idiot (it already has) b)make them think I was really looking for something outpatient and ignore my application all together. I should have just not attached a stupid cover letter anyway. Anyway, I did get two sent out and I have some more I can do tomorrow, including some research-oriented stuff.

I'm tired, not only from the trip north but because my cousins are staying here for a while to visit. They wore me out, but in a good way. I always like hanging out with them/playing videogames/looking at spiders/watching family guy and participating in all kinds of other youth-corrupting activity. I played pool, listened to stories, watched two consume 2/3 of a bag of double-stuff oreos in under five minutes, heard some awful piano, a bit of middle-school gossip, watched 'so you think you can dance' with one (guess after you've read the whole post), ran around, and all that good cousin stuff.

What I wish I didn't have to do but inevitably spend time doing: attempting to point out that it's not nice to call people you don't like gay/call people gay who are or seem gay, (as an insult)/using 'gay' in a generally insensitive manner. Let's not have a generation of KKK nuts intent on cleansing our sexuality. I wonder why these kids do it. I know in some of their cases it's because their parents are incredibly backwards idiots ::ahem, you don't know who you are, but everyone else does:: but I would have hoped that society would have broadened their horizons just a bit. Not to mention that one quite possibly gay cousin is surrounded by hardheaded bigots who are oblivious to his love of musical theater and 'harem' of 'girlfriends'.
I mean, he just bought a "Legally Blonde: the musical" cd from B&N. Wake up and smell the half-calf double latte with sugar sprinkles.
Anyway, in the interest of defending my future-likely-gay cousin/queer people everywhere, I am trying to step things up a bit in the "don't be a dumbass, kids" rhetoric category. I think it's confusing them more than anything at this point, which is OK. At least they get on some level that something isn't fitting quite right.

I also find myself correcting them about things like 'adults' do. Things like being messy while eating, too loud, etc... It makes me feel old fart-ish. But to my credit, not only am I older, but they are too, so I think a lot of my 'pointing things out' is kindof going along with me thinking they are too old to act a certain age. Although, now that I think of it, maybe I should be taking into account that phenomena where the collective IQ of a room of men drops each time another man enters... Three boys = roughly 1/3 the intelligence per each. I'll consider that next time I'm compelled to point something out.
Anyway, I went on about that longer than I meant to. I like my cousins and they are generally very nice when not acting uninformed regarding civility. We've had a good time. I am looking forward to hanging out with them again tomorrow.
see yas!

sorry y'all

OK, so I have heard from several people about not updating. I have to say that While i was visiting my Grandmother up north (just got back) not only did we not have internet at first, but when we fixed that, the entire computer crashed, so I was not even able to check my email while we were gone. Thankfully I didn't miss anything too important.
I was really looking forward to writing sarcastic entries, too!
Right now I am exhausted, but here is one poorly-written tidbit on manipulative gift-giving.

While in the bathroom, I heard mom exclaiming 'oh what a pretty bag" from the other room. I immediately cringed. Why? Because it her comment violated one of a series of rules I realized I've internalized regarding my grandmother. The rule she broke was "never express interest in anything that isn't nailed down." The reason? Constant pestering regarding your acceptance of said item. And not only was the bag not nailed down, but it was new, meaning it was as good as wrapped. My instinct was correct, because not a minute later, Grandma was trying to pawn it off on mom, who was indeed forced to accept it by the end of the trip.

....ok this makes no sense if you don't understand that everything my grandma does is designed to gain subtle power and control over others, particularly her offspring. Just read some Marcel Mauss, will ya? it's good for you. Mom said so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_%28book%29

College

I miss you guys!!!

Eeep! / Dream #8

I know I haven't posted in a while, I'm sorry. I applied to three jobs this week so have been very busy, and am getting ready to go visit my Grandparents who live 8hrs drive north. But that means, for those of you not familiar with my maternal grandparents... in all likelihood some really entertaining posts forthcoming.
I was also at mom's house for a few days this week, so excuses continue. Anyway, I had an epic dream last night where I was back in my high school for a reunion? of some sort and about 1/3 of the attendees turned into zombies, and so I/the other non zombie kids had to fight them off all night. It was pretty intense. Lots of chasing and biting and judo-chop action on my part. I'm sure you can imagine that the zombies were scared. Er, they Would have been afraid of me, were they not zombies.

Habitat

People don't have "native habitat," animals do. People have homes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6898241.stm

SOME people really piss me off.

tired.

Well, I feel the quality of my posts has gone down a bit of late, specifically in the areas of grammar and humor. And preciseness of language. No good explanations. I haven't been sleeping well (weird for me, right?) but that's not why. Anyway, today was booooring. I needed to do some more work, but the internet was fritzy and I was frustrated and I gave up. Apparently a cellphone battery is on the way, so I may be somewhat more reliable to get in touch with now.
I did enjoy talking with Grandma and reading this week's "Crystal Ball" report. I thought it was especially meaty and on point after what has been a rather lame series. I also signed up for Unity08.org, which really didn't give me anything to do other than say "Stephen Colbert should run for president"... duh. Stewart/Colbert08.
Oh, and I could work on an organic farm in India in exchange for room and board. Dates, coffee, cows, yoga and meditation anyone? ::coughs:: backbreakinglabor...
http://www.wwoof.org/newsite07/wlist2.asp?cy=INDIA
I am considering it.

Dream 7

Had a dream last night where I was given a tour of Duke, Where I'd been accepted for graduate study. The young man was from physics of some other science dep't, and showed me their facilities. It was nice because it really felt like we connected easily and I was enjoying my time there. When he had finished showing me this dangerous piece of physics equipment, we sat down outside. He told me the real reason he was asked to talk to me was to talk about/determine if I could handle Duke's rigorous study, because of my historical 'problem.' He meant procrastination. I said I understood, but that I had succeeded in the past regardless, and thought I would in the future... I didn't really think Duke's study would be that much harder than undergraduate. He was nice though and ... sympathetic, I guess. He thought I was smart and capable but I guess just wanted to serve as a guard dog.

<3<3<3

http://www.suvir.com/index.html

Stage 1: Denial

My inability to get a job is clearly due to one undeniable fact:
I'm just too awesome for employers.
They can't handle my vast and extensive level of expertise. They can't handle my 'soft skills' and fluid, casual use of psychological jargon. In other words, they are afraid that I would show them up even as their underling.
Now, I can understand their fears. I scare myself sometimes with just how obscenely productive I am. But let's just hope the folks at the certain company I just applied to aren't too vain for their own good, and realize the value of having an overly qualified employee.
Let's hope.

Dream 6

So I woke up with a nightmare and can't get back to sleep, so here goes.

A woman had come to a man's house to prepare dinner for him as part of some TV contest. As a debreifing they asked the man why he signed up, and one of the reported answers related to him wanting to hit on her, basically. She was surprised and a little miffed, but he said they must have made it up because he didn't say that, so the rift was minimized. However, her being a fresh celebrity, it made the third page of a magazine that I happened to read. I learned that this page was being torn out in copies all over America at the publisher's direction, which seemed odd to me since it wasn't that big of a deal. As I flipped through, looking back it seemed it must not have fit with the image this woman was trying to create, as she began modeling various fashions she had created, often with white chenille fabric and bright blue ribbon overlays. They weren't that great. Then she was set to appear in a film, then the film was with Jude Law (I thought to myself, that can't be good--he's always a bad guy), and I saw pictures from the 'film' of them together, then in love, then I somehow knew/had heard that she was to be dissected by him in the end! and I asked myself "does that really happen?" and began to get scared, and I flipped to the last page, and there was a picture of her on a makeshift operating table. it was quite horrifying, as the magazine had come to seemingly show her life's timeline... and what had first seemed like frames from a movie then seemed like pictures from her real life, just like the fashion ones earlier.

Enjoyment

finished some projects, woke up late after not sleeping. Tasty leftovers, looking forward to getting up early tomorrow. Yes, looking forward. I have to apply for at least one job tomorrow, so things are looking promising for a productive day. I'm also considering temping, and i might call a couple agencies about it.
It's been SO hot lately, even the cat was laying around the house all day, plopping wherever it was convenient. I also basically did the same, organizing some of my music on iTunes between work sessions.

oh, and I had a dream where I was trying to get drunk and laid (uncharacteristically desperately and as always, unsuccessfully...), but mom was trying to make me move out of my house next to the river. I was driving around, worried, but when i got home I remembered/noticed that it had flooded, so she couldn't take me away anyway.

weird. night all.

Gaay:

Cow.

Today I started learning uber-basic Hindi. Language is hard. I spent an hour and didn't even get through twenty words. I'll get there though. my goal is 20/week, with full retention, which would get me a 1040 word vocab in a year, which is poor but get-alongable I think. Actually I have no idea how good that is.
I also got quite a bit of other stuff done, like paying the bills, making fancy spinach-cheese packets and cucumber yogurt sauce for dinner, cleaning/moving ALL of my stuff out of the back of the truck finally, falling swiftly, squarely and gracefully on my ample buttcheek in the process. In other words, if you'd seen you would have laughed.
I also picked wineberries and blackberries, making a delicious blackberry sauce this evening which we had on vanilla ice cream topped with a few wineberries. (darn should have taken a photo!) If local peaches are in soon we'll make a cobbler and have the sauce on that-- TAKE THAT peach melba!!!
Too lazy to think of a witty closing. Will add though, that it seems everyone is going overseas for adventures, and I am jealous. I'll just have to promise myself that I'll go to India... at least by the time I'm thirty. Here goes.
I promise myself that I will go to India, at the latest during the year following my thirtieth birthday.
There. You can now hold me to it, not that you'll need to.
love yas.

Lackadaisical

What started out as a promising day literally ended with me languishing around the house, taking a nap, surfing the net, and watching food network because I didn't have energy to do anything worthwhile. I wish I had an excuse but I just kindof crashed. I think the honeymoon period is over. Or at least this is my midnight catastrophising view on things.

Other news: wineberries coming in nicely. Blackberries are especially flavorful this year, hopefully making up for the complete lack of black raspberries. Aimee Mann also hitting the angry-girl spot right now. I plan to eat and flood myself with sound to self medicate tomorrow should I wake up and still be in a funk...


Missing college.

Quickone

I am tired, but want to post for the last couple days because I've been at mom's.
Had a nice time bonding with her and the kitties, who were especially fuzzy just for me, as always. Both seemed to want to spend a lot of time in my lap. Let's see, I picked up my clothes from the tailor, helped mom at school (she's getting set up for summer school), hung out generally, did a little work, helped cook, ran errands. There was a huge gong at the hardware store, it was really quite random.

In amusing news, dad has decided the deer have had enough leisure time in our garden, and it's time to 'go rambo on their ass'; my words not his. So he's taking down the gun... the paintball gun. I went and got 200 hot-pink paintballs from Mall-Wart today and we did a little stump target practice. We can hit them if they get close enough... and stand still. Which is actually relatively plausible, since they seem to be more and more brazen. My concern was that the paint would make them easy targets for hunters, which seem to be their only natural predators around these parts, but dad thinks it will wear off/be shed off by the fall hunting season, and I tend to agree. If we do get them though, it's gonna look like there is a herd of wounded deer traipsing around the woods (or at least deer with bad indigestion and a lack of hands to properly pour their pepto-bismol).
We went to the Buchanan fair tonight and really enjoyed seeing all the old rickety rides that were probably actually antiques... primitive tilt-o-whirl, an art-deco scrambler, etc. ... although I could literally count the number of non-white people I saw on one hand. Everyone seemed friendly enough though, and there was a general kind of relaxation around that indicated everyone was content.
It was a nice way to spend an evening. Even if those delicious french fries did make me grateful for my opposable thumbs and knowledge of antacids. I did manage to spray myself with ketchup though, thankfully mostly in wipe-offable areas.
OK, that wasn't so short. but It's time for bed. Oh, one last thing, the blackberies are in, enough to make sauce, and the wineberries are at the "first one on the vine tip is ripe' stage, enough to taste as you pick. So good times.
And good night all!

July 4th

I had a very nice independence day. Went into town for the fireworks, which were great as always. They had music and played "Dancing in the Dark" and I saw a woman that had hair just like Claire's and for a moment I had a major college flashback, I almost turned to talk to Rachele and LE... "this is your SONG!!!"
Sigh.
Wonderful dinner and blueberry pie. Lots of multicultural families, incl. Latinos, Africans, the ever-present Bosnians, and even some Sikhs, which was cool. Played Uno with the fam and learned that the ultra-competitive Unit style didn't go over quite the same... note to self, I am not Karine, therefore I cannot pull off the overly excited "booyah"/high five combo she does while drunk, particularly since I am stone cold sober.
All in all a successful holiday. I hope Claire did something special, and Karine, since both were out of the states. I was thinking about you!
ps careful with those firecrackers kiddos
<3 your M-om

Things I've learned recently

1- In becoming my parents' parent, I become my parents, and make their mistakes.
2- This is horrifyingly unacceptable.
3- Just as they no longer feel as responsible for my behavior now, I can also learn to take a back seat...
4- Even if they still seem to NOT KNOW ANY BASIC SOCIAL RULES.

Funny Business

Keeping my mind off things. More media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw6RgIf6epQ&mode=related&search=

make sure to also watch 'beating your kids'.