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In The Drink

Hi Crasstalkers!

1:33pm EST It’s ihatediamonds and I have a confession. Since 12/25/10 I have had exactly two glasses of champagne.
I know what you are thinking, I’m not about to reveal that I’m an alcoholic. I’ve just been training really hard in the gym and booze and 1000 calorie-burning workouts don’t really mix.

But today, all bets are off! I’m at the Extreme Beer Fest in Boston with a few of my nearest and dearest.

For your reading pleasure, I’m going to live blog this little adventure.

1:48 the only other black girl here and I just shared a knowing, hazy glance

1:41 beginning to sober up waiting in line. But there is carrot cake beer on the other end. I will not be deterred!

1:50 I’ve already fucked up my time line. Awesome. Also thank god for iPhone auto capitalization.

2:02 breaking the seal.

2:15 I love girl beers. Hatas to the left. There are a lot of bearded
dudes basically mainling Sierra Nevadas jelly bean beer. So
stout/porter snobs can fuck a duck.

2:25 just played a game of find the nipple with friends P and E while
in line. Classy

2:39 extreme beer Fest major pro amazing ladies room

3:06 so erd up a bit with header jalrpeno pretzel. Perfect drunk
food.

3:24 sigted pregnant person drinking, disturbed

3:28 drank gloden delicious. Pretty sure named for me

3:48 lost feinds in crowd. Drunk why are people wearing top hats?

4:15 favorite beer of the day Sam Adams Chocolate Cherry Bock

4:22 friend P, single male it’s slim pickings all round

4:34 Short break blogging will resume at Harpoon Brewey at 6pm

6:23 Tasty Burger in Fenway. It’s not In & Out and Burgerville but
om nom nom

9:01 at harpoon Brewey! Raspberry beer is pleasure. Trying to
upload photos. Failing.

9:43 drinking since 1pm solid 8 hour day of beer drinking. I’m ether
beyond drubbj of fucksing wasted.

10:40 waiting for the D line at park st. My feet are weeping. Soundtrack: Bishop Allen. Thanks for following today.

12:04am  I would give someone the blow job of their lives for a foot rub… if I didn’t end up passed out on their crotch from exhaustion. Waking up with balls imprinted on your face can’t be a good look.

Sidenote: (oh god…I’m a little drunk already) this place is full of penises. Lala I’m going in for the kill… Maybe.

Daylight Saving Time Is Here

A reminder that tomorrow, or tonight depending on how late you’re up, is the time to spring forward an hour. Since the government won’t stay out of our lives and keeps messing with the date we can never predict when this will happen from year to year. Here is a list to help you get ready.

  • If you regularly apply updates to your computer then the electronic demons that live inside it will take care of this for you. If you don’t apply updates then you deserve the fate that is going to befall you.
  • Your iPhone may or may not wake you up at the correct time on Monday. History tells us that it won’t so you should plan accordingly.  I’m not joking on this one.
  • If you still have a VCR then it’s best to just unplug it and let it go back to flashing 12:00.
  • Your watch will require that you pull that little knob out half way and then spin it backwards for a bit.  Or if you still have that Casio then you have to hold down the left two buttons while pressing the right top button three times in a row, then release all the buttons and press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A.  Then you should be all set.
  • Your dog will be confused and will still want to eat at its regular time.  Dogs don’t care about daylight saving time.
  • If you are in Arizona, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, U.S. Virgin Islands or American Samoa you can ignore all of this.

Image Flickr.

8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Northern Japan- UPDATED 1:30pm EST SAT

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit  373 kilometers off the coast of Northern Japan at 2:46pm today. Quake triggered a 13 ft. tsunami, sweeping massive amounts of debri inland. As of 5:50am EST 32 are dead in Japan.

This quake was the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded. The strongest ever in Japan. Quake has been followed so far by 19 aftershocks, all at least a 6.0 magnitude.

Authorities in 20 countries haves issued a tsunami watch, including Hawaii and the entire west coast of North America, including Washington, Oregon, California and Mexico. Residents who live in coastal areas of these states should be alert and prepared to evacuate. For Alaska the watch has been downgraded to a warning.

The USGS has instructed residents of all coastal areas on the west coast of the United States to stay out of the ocean and away from the beaches. Residents of Hawaii are urged to seek higher ground for the entire duration tsunami, which will come in several waves.

Officials in the Philippines, where the tsunami is expected to hit first, have ordered evacuation of 19 coastal provinces.

This quake was the latest in a systemically active week in the region. Wednesday a 7.2 quake struck off the course of Honshu followed by a 6.3 quake Thursday in roughly the same area.

According to Japanese authorities, as of 6:00am EST, Japan’s nuclear power plants remain undamaged.

UPDATE 10:00am EST:

Death toll has been raised to between 200-300 bodies in and around Sendai, the epicenter of the quake.

Japanese authorities have ordered the precautionary evacuation of residents who live around the nuclear plant effected by the quake as technicians are having trouble cooling the reactor. Despite this the U.N. nuclear oversight agency has said that all plants have shut successfully shut down.

Thousands remain stranded in cities, especially Tokyo, as all trains have shut down. Tokyo has remained largely unscathed.

30 aftershocks have followed since the main quake, the strongest measuring 7.1.

Japan has reached out to the U.S. for assistance. The U.S. Navy is already positioning ships in the area to be of assistance to the Japanese people.

There are no reports of mass panic or lawlessness in the wake of the disaster. Way to be Japan.

UPDATE 2:30pm EST:

There has been no official update about the death toll. But the tsunami is probably responsible for more deaths and injuries than the quake itself. There are reportedly more than 500 injured and over 351 missing. Rescue workers are currently searching for 80 dock workers that were swept out sea.

An oil refinery that exploded continues to burn in Fukushima Prefecture. Also in Fukushima Prefecture, a small leak could occur in a nuclear plant and a dam failed and washed away about 1,800 homes.

U.S. Air Craft Carrier group Ronald Reagan is moving into position to provide aid and help with reconnaissance missions that are already underway to help the Japanese government map the disaster zone. The U.S. has also sent two search and rescue teams from the Agency on International Development to provide aid. Link

A nuclear emergency has been issued for the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant as it is not currently cooling.  The US is flying in additional coolant.  News.com CNN.

“A second nuclear power plant may be overheating.” CNN

California counties Del Norte, Humboldt, San Mateo and Santa Cruz are under a state of emergency.  CNN Damage was reportedin Santa Cruz county earlier today.  NBC Bay Area

“ Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa ordered the evacuation of the Galapagos Islands and of cities along the country’s coast Friday.” CNN

Update March 12:

From Kyodo News:

“Four people have been injured in an explosion that occurred at the No. 1 reactor of the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday.

The explosion was heard at 3:36 p.m. following large tremors and white smoke was seen at the facility in Fukushima Prefecture, the company said.

The four workers were working to deal with problems caused by a powerful earthquake that hit northeastern Japan on Friday.”

Update Saturday 1:30 PM EST

CNN is reporting that 900 people have been confirmed dead thus far, but that the number is expected to rise into the thousands. Over 9500 hundred people are unaccounted for in the town of Minamisanriku alone. Rescuers have pulled more that 3000 from the rubble since the quake.

The New York Times is reporting that evacuations continue in the communities affected by radiation releases from two malfunctioning nuclear power plants. In a chilling development, officials are distributing iodine (which is used to minimize thyroid damage in the event of radiation exposure) to people in the surrounding areas. The management of the evacuation is also severely overtaxing resources already needed for search and rescue efforts.

Source and Photo Credit: NPR

La Vida Sencilla (The Simple Life)

Now that I am only a month or two away from moving away from the tiny Mexican pueblo – about an hour away from Puerto Vallarta – that has been my home for the last seven years, the anticipation I felt at returning to live in the United States has been replaced by a general feeling of dread, a kind of malaise of the soul.  All I can think of is how much I will miss almost everything about this town: most especially, my warm, welcoming and easily communicative neighbors, none of whom speaks English.  They have all been tremendously patient with me as I chatter away in my amusingly broken Spanish (although it is far better than it was when I arrived with five years of long-ago language schooling and little practical experience speaking it).

I am flummoxed as to why in the U.S., Mexicans have received an undeserved reputation as being lazy; it is my experience that nothing could be further from the truth. In addition to witnessing how hard they work, I have also come to greatly respect their sense of reverence for family – extending quite literally from the cradle to the grave. I have been fortunate to have been invited to baptisms, quincinieras (a huge party for a girl’s 15th birthday), weddings and funerals over the years, and always, I have been treated with respect even though I am clearly not a native Mexican.

The picture accompanying this post is the view from the roof of my house; the vacant lot next door is home to a couple of cows and an obviously nocturnal donkey who serenades us often in the middle of the night. Chickens and dogs wander freely, and herds of goats and cows traverse the town’s small and perilously uneven cobblestone streets. Horses are mostly used for transporting tourists curious about our unusual bucolic existence. Young children safely walk unescorted through the streets; traffic is light, drivers are cautious in town, and everyone here knows each other, which enhances a feeling of safety as well as community.

Elsewhere in Mexico, there have been reports of rampant violence related to drug cartels and/or high unemployment. In Puerto Vallarta, the cruise lines imposed a moratorium on cruises into the are which lasted almost a year. But the violence which Bad Karma wrote about in his article on San Miguel de Allende (12 hours away from here) has, thankfully, not affected us. There have been an increase of break-ins in a wealthy nearby enclave, but no injuries or deaths as a result.

Fortunately, the word has gotten out that this area is a relatively safe one, and the cruise ships and tourists are back in force, sampling the various Mexican delicacies – from taco stands to high-end restaurants – sunning and surfing on the glorious beaches and shopping  at the tianguis (outdoor bazaar-style stalls), locally owned shops or expansive malls. This is the best time of year, weather wise – it is absolutely ideal – and many tourists come to seek brief refuge from their inhospitable home environs. A friend of mine just regrettably returned to Chicago after two weeks in paradise. Her response upon returning home was a terse “I don’t even want to talk about it.”

After living in such a friendly, open and free environment, my concern is that living back in the U.S. will feel stultifying to me in comparison with the liberation I’ve been so blessed to experience here. My hope is that the friendships that I form (and re-incite) when I return to America will encourage me to continue being as warm, kind and open as my Mexican neighbors have inspired me to be.

Infinite Mourning: How Personal Grudges Become Congressional Hearings

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As Peter King looked out over the circus he had convened yesterday he only had one thing on his mind: revenge. And this time it was personal.

“It was personal, he says, for everyone in his Long Island district, which was home to dozens of the police, firefighters and financial workers who died at the World Trade Center.” It was time for him to finally have revenge upon those that had so cruelly turned their shoulders on him all those years ago.

You see, King knows that Muslims are more likely to engage in terrorist activities because, well, they’re Muslim and the Islamic faith is inherently violent. Wait. That sounds an awful lot like racism and gross generalization. Nevertheless, King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee has seen it first hand; that’s right King has seen Muslim-Americans being Muslims, right here in America. King has actually spent a lot of time with the Muslim-American community so he should definitely know what they’re all about. King insists that “radicalization” (I think this means they’ve started skateboarding and listening to Suicidal Tendencies) in fucking rampant in Muslim-American communities, so much so that it’s necessary to hold hearings about it. Obviously these hearings are complete bullshit and really serve to either 1) ease the paranoia of King and similarly minded political friends or 2) maintain the discourse of scary Muslim terrorists maybe working at your local deli, plotting to put a stick of dynamite in your corn beef and rye. Actually, it’s probably a bit of both, wouldn’t you say? And to think King accused his detractors of being hysterical.

You see, King’s hearings smack all too much of political pandering. Back in January people gathered at the Long Island Islamic Center to discuss the upcoming hearings and what could be done to stop them. However, for this mosque the issue was particularly upsetting. “He used to come to our weddings. He ate dinner in our homes,” the mosque’s chairman, Habeeb Ahmed, said of King, the man whom is supposed to represent them in congress. No member of the Islamic Center in Long Island has ever been accused of terrorism and King has had long ties with the community; yet King has now turned on people he once considered friends, calling the Long Island Islamic Center a “hotbed” of radical Islam and accusing its leaders of being Islamic extremists.

It’s hard to guess what King’s motivation for conducting these hearings is (one can assume they’re partly political, King sees the way the country is swinging and wants to be able to say he was on the front-lines against radical Islam, in a district that’s 90% white alienating a religious minority might actually improve you electoral standings), although he had this to say yesterday as he opened the hearings: “Al-Qaeda is actively targeting the American Muslim community for recruitment. Today’s hearing will address this dangerous trend.”  King has also maintained time and time again that Muslim communities are not doing enough to stop radicalization within their communities. This is ostensibly the real reason for the hearings being held: King believes that not only must all Muslims be held accountable for the acts of fringe groups that represent an extremely small portion of the actual Muslim population but that they must meet his standards of what constitutes appropriate measures to prevent terrorist acts from happening.

King’s split with his Muslim constituents began immediately after 9/11; when King first became congressman he would deliver speeches at the Islamic Center often and held book signings in the prayer hall. He took in Muslim interns and was one of the few Republicans who supported U.S. intervention in the 1990s to help Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. In return King had received generous outpourings of support from the Muslim community in his district, including significant financial contributions. In the days following 9/11 Americans were confused and bewildered; no one knew what to believe or discredit as false and there was vast amounts of conspiracy theories and conjecture being thrown around. It was in the climate of confusion that one of the Islamic Center’s directors, Ghazi Khankan, made this comment:

“Who really benefits from such a horrible tragedy that is blamed on Muslims

and Arabs? Definitely Muslims and Arabs do not benefit. It must be the enemy

of  Muslims and Arabs. An independent investigation must take place.”

This seems like a perfectly reasonable statement to have made at the time and was probably in response to a direct question regarding who could possibly benefit from committing such an atrocity. Personally, if my religion (I don’t have one, but if I did) was being blamed left and right my first reaction would probably also be one of denial; who wants to think their religious brethren could be capable of such a thing? However, the failure to immediately react without thinking whatsoever infuriated King who claimed they were turning their back on America at its time of greatest need, “they were trying to look the other way while friends of mine were being murdered.” So it would seem that these hearings are the culmination of the grudge and resentment that King began to hold deep within his soul when his friends failed to rabidly demand vengeance for the death of 3000 Americans. He was upset that they didn’t mourn as hard as he did, didn’t want to exact vengeance on the perpetrators with every fiber of their being as King did.

“You have to understand the confusion and shock at the time,” continued Khankan, “tapes of Osama bin Laden had just been released in which he praised but was not yet openly taking responsibility for the attacks. Many at the mosque still remembered that Muslims had been immediately and falsely blamed for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.” See, the unfortunate truth is that not every American does feel as strongly about 9/11 as others might. America has an enormous and diverse population with a regrettable history of systemic discrimination against racial and religious minorities. I’m sure most Muslims fervently denounce the 9/11 attacks (King actually claimed yesterday during the hearings that 15% of American Muslims believe suicide bombings are justified, which in itself is a completely negligible percentage but a bit of digging reveals that the poll he was referring to states this:  It is 12% with 5% saying it is “rarely justified,” 7% saying “sometimes,” and 1% saying it is “justified.” This adds up to 13 percent) but can we blame them for not all rallying around the flag as America geared up to launch a war into the heart of their religious community? Can we blame Muslims for being wary of rabid, nationalist Islamophobia given the deep history of suspicion that Khankan’s above quotation speaks to?

“My district, I think it is a good barometer. Nobody in my district didn’t know somebody who was killed on Sept. 11. It is still very personal.” Look, Mr. King, I’m sorry your friends died.

I’m sorry that you were upset by your friends too, Mr. King, I really am. I’m sorry that their denouncement of 9/11 (which the Islamic Center did time and again as more information came to light) was not passionate enough or American enough for you. I’m sorry but you should be ashamed of yourself. You are a grown man and because you cannot control your emotions you have brought an invasive and arbitrary interrogation to bear on your own constituents from the very highest level of government. These are people that supported you, they gave you money, they fucking elected you to be their congressional representative and you’ve now sold them down the river for cheap political gain. You’re personal grudges shouldn’t be resolved through the congressional harassment of an entire religious group, Mr. King.

house.gov, MSNBC, WaPo image via Guardian

Infographic – If States Were Countries

How would the 50 states measure up by GDP if they were individual countries?  To give the readers a better idea the Crasstalk infographic team compared the states by GSP (gross state product) to the GDP (gross domestic product) of countries around the world and then mapped those countries onto the states.  The data is for 2010 and comes from Wikipedia.  The state GSP is mapped to the country with the closest GDP without being higher (Price Is Right rules).  The map is courtesy of the US Government’s National Atlas Map Maker.

Click the image to enlarge

Our previous infographics are here and here.  Top image Wikipedia.

 

Comparing Battle Scars

I was thinking about how strange it is that people seem to struggle both with wanting to fit in yet trying to be unique. Common parlance seems to be that unique-ness is a stretch at best in our world of 7 billion odd no matter what you create or tattoo on your flesh. Face it, we are disorganized ants.

One thing thing that we can see on the outside that tends to be truly unique, our own, is our scars. Rarely acquired purposely in modern cultures (yes, there are exceptions as with anything), each has a story usually involving pain and/or blood, seared flesh, surgery or having done something stupid.

I thought I’d share a couple of mine and see what you all had as well. Everyone has a good scar story!

 

 

 

The one above my eye is from a dart board. A friend and I were fighting and he tossed me into the board at our local pub. It didn’t bleed at all but you could see my bone or skull really I suppose.

The one on my arm is from a surgery I had to remove an out-of-control birthmark. It was burly. Looked like a huge mole & was possibly cancerous so snip! Helps me know my right from left now. I know. I’m brilliant.

How about you?

The King Hearings – Hypocrisy In Action

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Ten term Congressional Representative Peter King (R-NY) became the House Chairman Homeland Security Committee in December 2010. He brought to that position his fear and distrust of all things not white and Christian. Under the guise of finding the root cause of, and eradicating, extremism among American Muslims, King is holding hearings this week on “The Radicalization of Muslim Americans”. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), has King’s back, “The purpose [of the hearing] is, if you ask Chairman King, to try and assess how we can better work with the Muslim community in America to stop the spread of radical Islam”

Representative King has a history of painting Islamic-Americans with broad strokes of a very unfriendly brush. In an interview broadcast on February 9, 2004 on Sean Hannity’s radio show, he claimed that “no American Muslim leaders are cooperating in the war on terror,” and further claimed that up to 85% of American Mosques are “ruled by the extremists”. More recent statements leading up to the hearings seem to indicate that his opinion has not mellowed in the last seven years. When asked if he would consider broadening the inquiry to all extremism leading to domestic terrorism by American citizens, Rep. King stated, “It would diffuse and water down the hearings”. He added, “The hearings are aimed at protecting Muslims from being pressured to commit terrorist acts.”

Besides his zeal being a moderating influence on our Muslim brothers, Patriotic American Peter King is well known for his very public support for the Irish Republican Army. When recently asked to justify this, he coyly dodged by saying, “The fact is, the IRA never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States,” A pretty weak defense as the IRA is known to have killed at least one American citizen in a terrorist attack. His statement becomes even more absurd when you remember who was donating weapons to the IRA in the 1970’s; none other than Muammar Gaddafi, Muslim Extremist and Dictator Extraordinaire. If Peter King wants to see what a supporter of terrorism looks like, he should look in a mirror.

My thoughts are that I believe we could improve Islamic relations in the U.S. by letting folks build community centers and not burning down their places of worship. If they weren’t spending all the community’s time defending themselves, both rhetorically and physically, Muslim-Americans could direct their energies to engaging with the public and answering questions, and, ideally, be freed of the stigma of  “Otherness”. If the extreme right in the U.S. was more inclined to allow Muslim-Americans their right to be seen and heard freely, without constantly being required to account for themselves, King might not have to ask why Muslims don’t speak up or speak out against violence.

 

(via: AP, Bloomberg, Washington Post – PostPartisan, Voices – Washington Post, White House Image)