lions and tigers = ligers, oh my!

Last night we saw Napolean Dynamite. This film is hillarious and I highly recommend it. One of my favorite moments is when Deb comes over to Napolean as he is drawing his favorite animal - a "liger". What's a liger she asks.... Napolean answers, "It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed, but for its skills and magic."



Well, I liked the idea of a liger too -- as a conceptual animal. It turns out, however, that they are REAL. Crazy people are doing crazy cross-breeding, and we now have living Ligers (or Tigons as they are alternatively called), but without skills and magic. I don't know how I feel about this, it seems sort of like playing with the hand of God...



Visit this site to see a list (and pictures) of all the hybrid animals known to exist.

smart or beautiful

Last weekend I saw a cute, funny, frolic-filled opera by Czech composer Leoš Janácek. The music was cheerful, the costumes delightful and overall it was a nice little escape. However, one section in the opera got me thinking about the constant challenge women have to be smart AND beautiful. The Vixen is portrayed as this beautiful, foxy, crafty woman. When she meets her love, she questions, "am i beautiful enough?" This bothers me. She's smart, she's cunning -- why aren't these factors presented in her monologue? Instead she worries about cuteness. In the opera she's portrayed as a feminist (certainly for the times this was true) as she tries to convince the chickens to revolt from their life of servitude under the Cock. The doublentendreses are all over the place, but at the end of the day...what matters is beauty. Ugh. When will we realize that pretty isn't enough? Or even what's most valuable? I agree, attraction is fundamentally important, but if you are cute and lack intelligence...this missing element always seems to outweigh the attraction. The Barenaked Ladies have a song (What a Good Boy) that i've always liked because it speaks to this idea of beauty as a fundamentally important attribute for determining a woman's worth. The song itself is more about the "chains" we're all born with -- men need to be smart (and strong) whereas women need to be smart and pretty:



When I was born, they looked at me and said

what a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy.

And when you were born, they looked at you and said,

what a good girl, what a what a smart girl, what a pretty girl.



at some time we've got to come to a point where pretty is relevant, but you can achieve success without it. Seems to me like we are still far away from that.

re-cap: fahrenheit 9/11

On Friday night I saw fahrenheit 9/11...the highlight: excellent soundtrack and typically-mooresque drama. Moore has certainly established himself as the "rush limbaugh" of the left. The movie was persuasive. It definitely supported my belief that we desperately need a new president. But will it accomplish anything? No. The movie preaches to the converted. I don't think there was anyone in the sold-out audience who wasn't already of the "dump bush" camp. I do wish that Moore had kept his focus on the one key point of the movie (that got lost in all the rabble-rousing): there was no link between 9/11 and Iraq.



On the other side, Bush has developed a new web-only commercial to reposition the discussion around his actions in the war as inappropriate given this that this is war time and he's a war president. He positions the left as "wild-eyed" with video frames of Dean, Gore, Gephardt and Kerry, juxtaposed with images of Hitler (similar to the MoveOn.org video)...and then he fades to black with the statement: "This is not a time for pessimism and rage...its a time for optimism, steady leadership and progress." What? Steady leadership? Isn't now exactly when we need to question our leaders? and push them to make the best and morally right decisions -- even if it means changing direction? I agree with Nelson: "Frankly, this is the time for pessimism and rage."



Watch the Bush propaganda here.



And what is Bush doing now? "President Bush shrugged off criticism in Europe over the Iraq war, saying Saturday he was more concerned about his standing among the American electorate." [1]

Dammit, this man is going to make it impossible for me to travel the world as an American.

99th post

bloglines rocks. This product (for FREE) allows one to subscribe to blogs that have an RSS/Atom feed. most excellent. Now i no longer have to stalk my friend's webpages wondering if they've actually made a new witty comment on their blog....



of course, there is a caveat: For some bloody reason the Atom feed i had set up for my blog appears to be broken...this will be fixed!

good guru quote

"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

-krishnamurti

fuzzy math

benfrank.net has some hilarious tunes. In particular, this poetic piece by George W. Bush: Fuzzy Math. (note: clicking link should launch an mp3 music file)

i do my little turn on the catwalk

my sister is a professional photographer. as a result, sometimes i have to (get to) model for her. let there be no mistakes: modeling is hard work. You have to constantly contort your body, smooch, be expressive and not get annoyed when the lights are too bright or you have to stand still for absurdly long periods of time. my sister is funny, and she's really good at making you feel comfortable, but at the end of the day -- having your picture taken isn't easy. below are a few of her recent snaps.









of course, a photo shoot wouldn't be complete without a picture of me and my doggie: