Food crisis and grade schools

I went to get groceries today, including a loaf of bread. I noticed that the price of the brand of bread that I normally buy had gone up 20 cents since the last time I bought groceries. There's that domestic food crisis pinch.

I don't really understand all this. I don't know enough to know the reasons for the "crisis" and the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it could be everyone talking about a food crisis so much that it manifests itself.

All I know is that the school where I work has a deal with a nutrition company that requires that every student take an entree and a milk, even if they don't want it. Sometimes there is not a vegetarian option. I don't know what would happen if a student was a vegan and refused to take both. What really kills me is that even though the students aren't allowed the choice of leaving the milk, once they touch the carton, it's "contaminated" and they have to dispose of the milk. That means I watch the lunch aids open 20 or so milk cartons (just in the lunch period that I'm there) and dump them out into a bucket.

I understand that they're trying to get the students to eat healthy and get all their nutrients and calories, but it's still bogus. I'm writing a letter to the school district.

Barack my state!

Looks like Obama is going to win in Oregon. Turns out that party switch at the last minute wasn't all that important, but I wonder how many Oregonians did the same. 2%? 3%?

Now, how about this delegate/ super-delegate business? Would a party really nominate someone based on important people in the party than the popular vote? Sounds kind of like the electoral college to me, which some people think is outdated. This politics stuff is too complicated to me. I just want to make a positive difference in the world.

Plastics make it impossible

I just watched a good chunk of This piece about plastic in the ocean. (Warning to viewers: there's quite a bit of R rated language, so take care where you view it. Also, I just skipped the parts where they were on their way out to sea, part 2 to about part 9.) The crew went out searching for a "garbage island" the size of Texas. What they found were billions of tiny pieces of plastic floating in the ocean, squeezing out life so that the samples that the researchers were gathering had a ratio of 1000 to 1 plastic to sea life. That's disgusting. That's unacceptable. God help me if I ever buy anything in a plastic bottle again.

Don't you dare tell me that plastics make it possible.

Oye!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! (In an hour)
It's not Mexican Independence Day, but the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, and is now a general celebration of Mexican history and culture. In honor of my Mexican brethren and sistren, I give you a picture of Cesar Chavez
An American of Mexican descent, he was an activist for civil rights, particularly for farm workers. (I don't agree with everything the UFW did regarding illegal immigrants during Chavez's leadership, but the dude stuck by his convictions.)
also, a piñata
When I DJed at the college station at Oregon State, we had a Cinco de Mayo party. We had a piñata, but nothing to hit it with, so we hit it with our fists. We were THAT hardcore. Then we watched some hip hop music videos and "El Mariachi" while eating Taco Bell. Best party ever.

Project 40: March/April

I only finished one book in March because I didn't really feel like reading, so the last two months are combined.

March
“Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew” by Ellen Notbohm
This is kind of a primer to get you started or remind you of things that are useful when interacting or living with or raising a child with autism. And they are good reminders. The downfall of this book is that it was written by the mother of a child with autism who, instead of writing a full story about her child, threw in tidbits of how her wonderful son overcame the challenges of autism to do this perfectly normal thing and that amazing thing in the middle of general tips to all parents and teachers. It kind of rubbed me the wrong way because it felt like “Ten Things Ellen Notbohm’s Child Wishes You Knew” at times. C+
April
“Catch 22” by Joseph Heller
It took me a long time to get into this book, which is unfortunate for me, because it’s a long book. I know that getting frustrated with the characters was probably the whole point of the story, and in that way, Heller accomplished his goal, but it still took me a lot time to actually want to pick up the book and read it. There are a lot of storylines that stop before the punchline and start several chapters later, stop again, and are resolved somewhere unexpected. It takes some getting used to, but it’s not a bad book. A book about despair, futility, bureaucracy, death, war and prostitutes can’t be all that bad. B

“Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference” by Shannon Daley-Harris and Jeffrey Keenan
Like “The Green Book,” this gives lists of suggestions to play a small or large part in ending world poverty. The approach is based on the UN Millennium Development Goals http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/. I felt that it had a good mix of domestic and international focus, and kept a positive, yet realistic perspective on the prospect of meeting the Millennium Development Goals. The authors clearly believe that people of faith can, should, and do play a big part in addressing poverty, and give many suggestions that are specific to faith communities. The way the topics were split up made it a simple and quick read. B+

“Look Me In The Eye: My Life With Asperger’s” by John Elder Robison
This is an excellent memoir of a man with Asperger’s Syndrome, an Autism Spectrum disorder. What I liked most about it was that he had a mostly nonchalant attitude about totally awesome things that happened in his life, like inventing flaming and exploding guitars for KISS as a technician and designing games for Milton Bradley. He keeps this up for the whole book, except when he talks about his son and his second wife. Then his tone changes into a child-like language, like a kid pretending to be an animal, and it’s a little weird. Some readers might have heard about John Elder Robison before. He’s the older brother of Augusten Burroughs, author of “Running With Scissors.” A-

“Songs of the Gorilla Nation” by Dawn Prince-Hughes
This is a not really excellent memoir of a woman with Asperger’s Syndrome. I read on the book jacket that Prince-Hughes worked with Jane Goodall, of whom I’ve been a big fan since I was little, and I was excited to read about a scientist who was as obsessed with gorillas as I had once been. Her writing language disappointed me. It was SO over the top, I almost wanted to stop reading. When she described root beer as “the dark liquid, like some ancient sea,” I threw up in my mouth a little. Apparently, everything she experienced as a child was SO AMAZING that it required extra similes and metaphors. It got a little better when she dropped out of school and her wild and crazy life took over the story. Then it got worse when she started romanticizing about the gorillas she worked with. Meh. C

Rev. Jeremiah Wright

I'm going to post the link to the Bill Moyers Journal interview with Rev. Jeremiah Wright because the more people that see it, the better understanding people will have of who he actually is and works for rather than the image he's got because of a seconds of video of one of his sermons that got passed around without the full context. When I saw this on Friday, my view of the man was completely changed. I thought he was a fanatic too. I'm as guilty as the next person at jumping to conclusions. Here's the link Bill Moyers interviews the Reverend Jeremiah Wright

I did it

I registered with the Democratic Party. Am I a sellout? Maybe. I just know that I want a stake in who will be the next president, and the Oregon primary is actually going to matter this year. I'm going back to being unaffiliated as soon as the primary is done. Oregon's so silly. They actually have an Independent Party, which is only a few years old, and it's different from being unaffiliated. I guess it gives a foundation to run for people who aren't Democrat or Republican, so I support what it's trying to do. Do any other states have an Independent Party?