today's Super Tuesday, so here are some things to think about: if you haven't seen "the oreo cartoon," a short about the national budget spending, by one of the founder's of ben & jerry's ice cream, you can watch it here: read up on the issues and candidates in your state, then get yourself over to your local polling place and vote. the league of women voters runs a non-partisan site that supplies information about the candidates and issues, vote411.org.
Read MoreGen Y: "cognitively sharp but intellectually immune"
in today's chronicle of higher education was a review of: The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens after High School (Tim Clydesdale) it was extremely depressing, but confirmed my suspicions -- anti-intellectualism, always a trend in america, has now become the norm for Gen Y. An excerpt from Lang's review: "In other words, freshmen spend most of their time and intellectual energy figuring out how to handle life without parental restraints and support: how to deal with money (or lack thereof); negotiate newfound freedoms with sex, drugs, and alcohol; and determine how much time to devote to studying, working, and playing. But what freshmen don't do during their first year of college comes as more of a (perhaps depressing) surprise: "Most American teens keep core identities in an 'identity lockbox' during their first year out and actively resist efforts to examine their self-understandings through classes or to engage their humanity through institutional efforts such as public lectures, the arts, or social activism."
Read Moreart show
she's going in a new direction artistically, and it's been really cool to see her explore new things and try out her voice. when we were hanging out on friday night, i got to see my new favorite painting of hers, and hear the music that went with it, which made it even more awesome. what i like most about the new direction she's going in, is that she's getting really good at expressing the numinous through paint.
Read MoreCloudy in a bad way
That was the sun this morning. The air is so full of smoke and ash that it looked like it was a normal overcast morning... until the sun glowed red behind the clouds. I slept very badly last night, and woke up having slept through both alarms, dehydrated, with no voice, and feeling like someone had hit me with a truck. My ribcage hurts every time I breathe in. Scratch that; it hurts constantly, but worse when I breathe in.
I want to find the arsonist who started the Santiago fire and roast them over a fire. Hammurabic justice is apt in this instance, don't you think?
exciting in a bad way [fires]
this is Really Not Good. that west edge of the fire is awfully close to my family. if the wind changes, life could get very, very interesting. so i'm staying home from work tomorrow to be ready to move them, if needed.