The Doctor Is In part II

Having attempted to tackle the timely flu-season advice of feeding fevers and starving colds, I thought it might be time to tackle another piece of timely, er, medical advice. Seeing as how New Year's Eve is upon us, I thought I might see what Google.com might have to say about the drunken old wife's tale, "Liquor then beer, in the clear in the clear; beer then liquor, never sicker."

I thought maybe webmd.com might have something to say about this, but now I figure their advice is probably the best: don't drink to excess. Well, we'll see how well everyone follows through with that advice. But that's beside the point. I want to know where this oft-quoted piece of advice came from and if there is actually any basis to it.

At the risk of being an enabler, a website named www.all-about-hangovers.com explores this myth and others ( click here for the link).

Or, for those who really need an enabler, I should hook you up with a guy I knew in college, we'll call him "Fred," who was wont to say, "Liquor then beer, in the clear; beer then liquor, you're still okay." No word out there from webmd or any enabler drinking sites if this is indeed sound advice. Also no word as to whatever happened to "Fred."

Grown-Ups Do The Darndest Things

Today at work I asked a 6 year-old kid what his family's plans were for New Year's. You know, making small talk with the kids is my specialty. Anyway, he asked, "Why do we do stuff on New Year's?" So we talked about how the calendar worked and that going from December to January is a big deal.

"I know all that," he said, "But why do we celebrate it?"

I was silenced for a change. "I have no fucking clue why we celebrate it," is what I wanted to say. Instead I told him, "It's like celebrating your birthday, only we're celebrating 2004's birthday."

This was a terrible explanation and not logical. We'd have to be celebrating the equivalent of January's birthday for my explanation to have parallel logic. But he seemed satisfied with my answer or (more likely) bored with the topic and we moved on to bigger and better things, like how the Spurs rule and the Timberwolves drool.

So the kid moved on, but I could not. How the hell did New Year's celebrations originate? Click here for a dutiful uninspiring answer to this question. Why does it cross cultures? And what's the best way to explain to a 6 year-old why we make such a big deal out of New Year's Day? Or, more aptly, how do you explain to six year-old why, on Decemeber 31st, grown-ups will drink so much they act like 6 year-olds?

Damn, do I have a challenging job!

By the way, Emily and I are going to a wedding celebration tomorrow night for New Year's Eve. How cool is that? Then I'm off to San Francisco, bright and early on New Year's Day to visit with some college friends. Word.

The Doctor Is In

Emily was sick last week and did the typical sleep and decongestant routine. Then on day day two she decided to stop eating. Apparently she actually took to heart the whole "feed a fever, starve a cold" advice from I don't know when. Maybe from the same doctor who thought leeches were a dandy way to get disease out of the bloodstream.

Anyway Emily did indeed begin feeling better after starving herself. I guess she got this idea from me, since I mindlessly tell her "feed a fever..." henever she gets the sniffles. But did her health improve because of this baseless advice or simply because two days had past and she had been resting?

So I did some in-depth research (i.e. sat on my ass in front of the computer and went to Google. And as far as I can tell, not only is there no basis for "feed a fever, starve a cold," people are still trying to figure out if it's "feed a fever, starve a cold," or "feed a cold, strave a fever."

Click here for Cecil Adam's (of The Straight Dope fame) take on the issue.

Or Click here to see what some guy who claims to have THE TRUTH about Old Wives' Tales thinks about all this.

Or, for the more clinical-minded, click here for a more objective overview.

Pandora's Box

I have debated blogging about the whole Dru Sjodin media mob for awhile but felt it was in poor taste. But, now that I've been empowered by the comments of Angie and our Dairyland friends (see post below), I'm going to let it all fly. The proverbial can of worms has been opened.

I have to preface all this by a feel like a shithead being critical of any media attention to this story (overblow or otherwise). I do not want to even imagine what her fate is like. I cannot imagine her family's pain.

But (and here's where I become a shithead), why did her abduction get the lead story for two weeks? She was clearly a very attractive woman. You top it off with the fact that she was a clean-cut apple-pie girl who also happened to be a sorority girl who worked at Victoria's Secret, and people are going to pay attention. Her persona struck a chord with every slice of the midwest demographic. It's not as if the newspapers and TV stations are all to blame for this. The public was gobbling it up.

I am fine with all this, and more power to the Sjodin family for using the resources available to them (money, internet, TV, radio, newsprint...) to bring Dru home. I know I would do the same.

start rant here But what actually did piss me off was when Governor Tim Pawlenty used Dru's disappearence as an opportunity to try and reinstate the death penalty.

In the interest of full disclosure I should add that I am opposed to the death penalty for two main reasons: a) it only applies to poor people who can't get good lawyers and b) each person has his/her own definition of a crime worthy of execution. How dare we, as citizens, stand by as governors or judges play God and make the final call regarding a very subjective line between life and death. Oh yeah, and two wrongs don't make a right.


But I digress.

Even if I loved, LOVED, the capital punishment, Pawlenty's call for the death penalty after Dru Sjodin's disappearence is offensive. Why wasn't he calling for the execution of the murderers of Tyesha Edwards last November? So the loss of life when it's an attractive, white All-American college girl is worthy of the death penalty. But when an 11 year-old African-American girl is killed while doing her homework in her living room with her 6 year-old sister, her murderers don't deserve to die.

Like or not, this is exactly what Governor Pawlenty is saying when he brings up the death penalty before Dru Sjodin has even been found, and TWELVE FUCKING MONTHS after Tyesha Edwards was killed. It smacks of racism, classism, and sensationalism.

end rant here

Bottom line:

1. Dru Sjodin's story and her family's pain is terrible and awful. But the same is true for all the other abducted people like her that didn't end up with their pictures on the cover of People magazine.

2. Few things will get me off my ass to protest. But any movement to re-instate the death penalty is one of them.

Talking Heads

Two thoughts about the whole Saddam capture.

First of all, it's good. It's a great morale booster for the troops over there, but what it means beyond that remains to be seen. I have already begun tuning out all the analysis about what this will do to the region and the 2004 election. Time will tell. The only thing that interested me was someone saying that this is a golden opportunity for the Bush administration to get back the support of the UN and everyone else they pissed on over the past 18 months. But for the moment this isn't about Bush and the 2004 horse race. I'm just glad a bad guy got caught and will be brought to justice. Okay, one tyrant down, 234 to go.

Secondly, what ever happened to Dru Sjodin? On Saturday morning her disappearance was still the top, above-the-fold story in the Star Tribune. But now that Saddam is captured, it's like she never existed. It's things like this that makes it very easy to be cynical about the way news is packaged and sold.

Horseshit, Apple Butter, and the Presidency

Back in the day when I was a cook at a rural Iowa steakhouse, I had to work a 10 hour shift on Thanksgiving. We'd roast the turkey days in advance and carve the birds the night before and served everything family style for anyone in east central Iowa who wanted to fork over $25 a head for our "home cooking."

One year we ran out of turkey around 4:15 p.m., 45 minutes before we closed. So the owner, an old-German drunk, decided we'd have to serve processed turkey (the kind for sandwiches) and pass it as home cooked bird. The waitresses started raising all kinds of hell, yelling at us cooks as if this was our great idea.

Here is one conversation I remember:

Wendy: "Do you asshole fuck faces really expect us to send this crap out?"

Me: "And Happy Thanksgiving to you, too."

Wendy: "Go to hell."

When some customers first complained about the Carl Budding quality of our turkey, I got to go tell the owner. Here's how that conversation went:

Me: "A family out there says they know we're not sending real turkey out."

Owner (three sheets to the wind, one hand holding a drink, the other running the meat slicer): "Let me talk to them. They don't know horseshit from apple butter." Then he handed me his drink and walked into the dining area to lecture the customers, I guess about the difference between horseshit and apple butter in terms of texture, taste, origin, and ingredients.

Well, it looks like our President also believes we don't know the difference between horseshit and apple butter. Click here if, like me, you just learned that the turkey Bush was pictured serving to the troops was a fake turkey.

Just like rural Iowa diners know the difference between Carl Budding lunch meat and a 23 pound turkey, it looks like Americans know the difference between a bullshit photo op and a President who cares about the soldiers' who are making sacrifices he never had the courage (or financial need) to make.

Things That Torment me

It's an age-old debate for those who know me well, and it's one I still can't mentally put to rest. Which is more instrinsically funny, robots or bananas?


Sure bananas have the slapstick and phallic humor going for it (along with the banana-as-phone routine), but there is just something that is damn funny about classic robot comedy. You know, like an excited R2D2 spinning its head around and chirping. It's a tough call to make.



Image from www.toothpastefordinner.com

VS.

Image from www.abitmark.com

David Robinson and Tim Duncan Are Sports Illustrated's Sportsmen of the Year

Click here for the whole story.

Word.

And in the spirit of their sportsmanship, I'd like to add what the article didn't...

LAKERS SUCK ASS BULLION!!!!!!!!!

Salon and MoveOn Sittin' In A Tree...

If Fox News can report on Washington Post stories, I guess it's fair that Salon.com often covers the goings-on of MoveOn.org.

Anyway, Click here to read Salon's story about the Iraq movie we saw at Sunday night's MoveOn.org house party.

Taking the Filter Off

Unfiltered news is impossible, but it would be nice if we could news that is less filtered than what is on the networks, clear channel, and cable. Independent Media Center is a nice start.

Click here for the Twin Cities Independent Media website.

Or, click here for the homepage and scroll down. On the left you will find links to your hometown (or somewhere nearby) or country, for the blokes living across the pond.

Moving On

Tonight Emily and I went to a Moveon.org house party to watch a documentary about the Iraq War. The video was worthwhile but really didn't add any new information to my anti-Bush arsenal.

So I left the party wondering, what's the point? The documentary wasn't exactly unfiltered information and was basically preaching to the choir. For me, the video was just a damn good reason to get 40+ like-minded people (who don't know each other) in the same room and, if not mobilize, at least get energized.

I was able to connect with a professor from graduate school (whom I hadn't seen since I was in grad school) and I'm sure many other connections were made. And these connections and any momentum gained from the event made the whole party worthwhile. The movie was just a backdrop.

But this leads to another problem: rather than preach to the choir, how do you let the undecided or apathetic voters see your point of view without preaching to them? How do we open up the dialogue to everyone instead of just the liberal, urban elite that gather at these parties? Case in point: the Twin Cities had 14 parties. My hometown of San Antonio had two. And these two metro areas are relatively the same size.

We all gravitate to our comfort zones; it doesn't matter how conservative, liberal, or apathetic we are. We all tend to bunker down in our social circles and agree with one another, rather than consider an opposing view.

It's always been that way, I'm sure. But it seems that now, more than ever, this nation is becoming polarized and we're too busy shouting at one another from our bunkers on the right or left of center, and we're not listening to one another.

I don't know what the solution is, but I think the best thing Move On is doing for the country is pushing the left's point-of-view back into the mainstream. Whether or not this will help open the dialogue remains to be seen.

Those Crazy Bloggers

1. Go to Google.

2. Type in "miserable failure" (include the quotation marks)

3. Hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" tab.

Funny stuff. Click here to read about how people (mostly bloggers) manipulated Google's search engine to make this happen.

Jedi Wife Trick

There is a Seinfield episode where George insists he can break any girl down after three dates and she will fall for him, no matter how annoying he was the first two times. He likens himself to a commercial jingle; after hearing the Chili's theme song three times, it's stuck in your head.

I bring all this up because Emily was singing songs about donkey balls a few minutes ago, and by balls, yes, I mean testicles.

It just so turns out I have spent the last, I don't know, four years of our relationship, singing songs about donkey balls. In the past, Emily has ignored these songs or rolled her eyes. But tonight, she is singing a classic I have been singing for months: "I Can Show You My Donkey Balls" (set to the tune "I Can Show You the World" from Aladdin).

So either, like George Constanza, I have finally broken her down, or she was really affected by the giant penis mascot she saw in San Francisco.

And just to explain, it's not like I'm some freak with all this donkey balls business. It's just something to do while poking around on the web, waiting while on hold on the phone, driving in the car... Some people twiddle their thumbs, some tap their feet, I choose to sing about, well, donkey testicles. Wait, that is kind of weird.

I See Dead People

Okay, so maybe it didn't have as many twists and turns as The Sixth Sense, but I finished reading Life of Pi a few days ago and that book kicked me in the teeth quite a few times. I'm not in a book club, but after reading it, I wish I was.