Sunshine and Silliness...

I've found on a few occasions that self-employed or small-business people who make house calls tend to have very interesting philosophies. This morning was one such occasion. A squirrel fell into our chimney last night (silly squirrel, thought there might be something interesting behind screen #1) and this guy Mark arrives this morning. So he looks-- yup, a black squirrel. He then proceeds to bring in two boxes, sticky boards, then heavy gloves and a long pole with a claw. Long story short, he caught the varmint and stuck it in a box, to be released far, far away from my house (poor thing, it won't be able to find its buried food)

During this while, Mark talked about admiring women's hair (since you can do that without it being a pass), raising four kids, whether my eyebrow piercing hurt, and politics. Oh yes, politics. Bush and the justifiable military action (acknowledged). The liberals running over the country. The media and how they cover or emphasize information to advance their liberal goals. Clinton giving ballistic weapons secrets to the Chinese because they can launch satellites more cheaply than we can; and because they gave him hard money donations. Something about a communist Vietnam protester (now a conservative republican) who points out people who were communists and that the USSR financed the Vietnam protests. It was tough keeping ahead of this guy, mainly because I think he spends a lot of time in his van listening to all the talk shows he urged me to listen to. Interesting morning.

interesting fact #1 about squirrels: black squirrels chirp and make noise when they're in trouble, to attract other black squirrels to help. Regular brown squirrels don't.

interesting fact #2 about squirrels: my freshman bio lab teacher told us about a project done by a student to discover why black squirrels were replacing native brown squirrels. She found that brown ones had a tendency to cross roads on the ground, and were more likely to get hit by cars; black ones tend to run across on the power lines (and were thus more evolutionarily adapted to living in suburban areas)

Well, I wasn't even going to write tonight, but I had a few things to say about a certain NY Times article I just read. "Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad"
It starts out: "The Pentagon is developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries, military officials said."

Now is it just me, or does this sound like a foreign relations nightmare? First-- I wouldn't just publish the fact that information from America might not be worth the paper it's written on or the electrons used to send the email. (I suppose that if the administration's head man can plainly state that other countries are "evil" then it might just be following the lead). Surely the government already influences public opinion through the release or cover-up of certain information. But there's something wrong about them admitting it. Are they so confident that they think no one will care? Second-- What's to prevent this campaign from being extended to domestic news? I'm nervous that I won't be able to trust what my elected officials and government leaders tell me is truth, not that I don't take what they say now with a grain of salt.

Anyway, if you didn't read the article, find it or ask me-- I've saved it.

Other news. I went to see a few concerts in the last couple weeks. Umphrey's McGee and ekoostik Hookah performed at the Kzoo State Theatre on Feb 9. It was a great show, I was impressed by the amazing sound; it was great to see that there really are long-haired hippies in the Kzoo area. Funny thing is, I went to West middle school and KAMSC with the bassist of Umphrey's McGee-- one of my friends had a major crush on him in 8th grade. Ekoostik especially impressed me because their songs-- each about ten minutes long with multiple musical ideas-- were more amazing than just the sum of the individuals' musical talents. If you don't believe me, just go to their websites and listen to one of the entire shows they have online.

Then on Feb 15 I saw Accoustic Reserve and Dovetail Joint (two members of each band doing an accoustic set), and Brian Vander Ark of the Verve Pipe. I went with Troy, my brother Mark, and Nora (an avowed VP fan, this being the 26th time she had gone to their shows) It was a really cool show. Vander Ark seemed really down to earth (it didn't hurt that we were six feet away from him); his special guests, in contrast with his jeans, wore sharp black suits: a trumpeter, a gospel/blues singer, a guitarist, and Griff on harmonica. (I think he's local to Lansing since I've seen him at local folk fests and shows, but I guess he's been traveling with VP some)

I've also started to re-organize my homepage-- first, I'm hoping to make it useful with links to news agencies, as well as events in Kzoo and East Lansing. Then I'd like to add to the content with more about myself, my activities, and my interests. Also, I added some pictures of Emma to my online family photo album.

And a note about Blogger-- make sure to copy your text into your computer's clipboard before you try to post&publish it, just in case the server decides that you aren't logged in. I've lost my posts (and fifteen minutes worth of work) three times because of it!

Some happier thoughts for tonight:
My mom just visited Emma, Pete, and Anne in Wheaton. She says that Emma really does say "hi" and it wasn't just that P&A were being the typical first-time proud parents. Emma is only 3 months old as of Feb 1, and she's already playing with vowel sounds and saying a breathy "hi." Very cool.

Went to my clogging lesson today; I'm having some trouble with the backward basic. I'm hoping that I'll actually practice during the week once I get my "real clogging shoes." We went over the "Toby" and "Lucy" and I suggested to Kay that we have pictures of people so we have a face to associate with the name. And the Venture Crew eboard had a meeting tonight; I came for the last part of it.

and go here if you want to see more information at infect_truth.

I think there's a political conspiracy, some sort of Big Brother watching all of our computers... I was typing a little political criticism last night and bam! internet explorer crashes just before I was able to post and publish it. Darn you! Maybe Gates and Bush are in on something together...

Sunday was the Superbowl; I watched some movies but had the game on picture-in-picture so that I could flip back for commercials. The tributes to victims of Sept. 11th were touching, but the crop of ads this year wasn't too interesting. Although two kinds of commercials caught my eye.

First, the infect_truth.com commercials have been popping up lately on MTV, so I'm glad to see they got ad time for the Superbowl; it speaks for their growing influence. I like their unique commercials and the eye-catching way they educate the public. Who knows, maybe one or two smokers learned something new and it might give them the motivation to quit.

Second, I was talking with Troy the other night about the government ads linking illegal drugs and terrorism. The images in the ads used a lot of normal-looking people, and gave the impression that the Taliban was growing marijuana and making Ecstasy and shipping them to high schoolers in the american midwest; yeah right. So Troy saw a Fox News interview with an expert; there was an on-air bet as to what the largest source of X was: the Middle East (the anchorman) or Holland (the expert). I think I'll go with the expert on this one.

However, that brings up a point. In October, the NY Times ran an article outlining the pressures facing Afghani farmers; without enough seed to feed their families and to sell for profit, many (most?) farmers planted poppies to be sold to heroin producers. I wonder why this has been such a quiet subject-- until today I hadn't heard anything more about it, and still no one country has (in a bold spirit of international compassion) pledged to help.

And perhaps the U.S. government could focus on the real threat, the scary drugs-- y'know, the ones that can cause addiction, withdrawal, and overdose deaths? The ones that have large structured black markets run by drug lords. I'm sure that I'm oversimplifying the situation, but I'd much rather hear about DEA work on stopping heroin and cocaine. What do you think?