Free Movie at Punkin Sneezer!

Thanks to Jennie for the tip!

Enough Already

Enough with the shot-from-below-gazing-knowingly-and-heroically-into-the-eternities-while-communing-directly-with-god portraits of this jerk.

A Cynical Decision

A Disappointing Appointment

In case you are wondering, this is about Obama's selection of evangelical mega-church pastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation.

Food Is Great, Food Is Good

Today is a kitchen day, the kind that gives the holidays a good name. Medieval music on the stereo, a windy wintry storm outside, and I'm making spiced pecans, molasses cookies, and red chile sauce. Can hardly wait to start handing them out to all and sundry. Homemade treats involve so many sense pleasures in the making and the eating: the smell of cinnamon, the taste of chile, the weight of dough against a wooden spoon. And they represent a kind of socially acceptable public intimacy: something prepared with human hands gets given to another human, who then takes it into his or her body, turning matter into energy, transforming both food and flesh.

So, when Punkin Sneezers rule the world, gift-giving will be all about making and exchanging delicious food. No plastic objects from China allowed. If you need a plastic object, go buy it yourself. Presents should not be burdened with such deadening influences.

Great Moments in the Life of Rod Blagojevich

On the Future of Cars

While Detroit Slept, NYT Op-Ed by Thomas Friedman

"Someone is already developing an alternative to Detroit’s business model. I don’t know if it will work, but I do know that it can be done — and Detroit isn’t doing it."

Oh yeah, baby! This is so exciting. Although I'm not sure Detroit slept, per se, so much as it squeezed its eyes closed, covered its ears, and sang "La la la, I can't hear you!" as loud as it could.

We're Just Now Figuring This Out?

Via Reuters: Shoppers complain it's no fun at the mall.

I could have told them that myself, years ago, and I bet I would have charged a lot less than the Verde Group did to conduct a massive study. I could also have told them that shopping and hanging out are much more fun in an actual town, not some fake construct a million miles away from where people live.

More Reasons to Love Your Bike(s)

Thomas Gotschi, Director of Research at Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, writes in the New American Dream Blog:

"The bottom line is, bicycling and walking produce more than $4 billion in benefits every year, and modest increases in active transportation would yield $10 billion in benefits annually. Under substantial increases, this figure would increase to more than $60 billion in benefits every year."

Goodness Gracious

"SUVs at Altar, Detroit Church Prays for a Bailout"

Is any more evidence required of whacked cultural values?

OCD Knitting

Lately all I want to do is knit. I daydream about it while driving, while sweeping, while biking into town. Any moment that I can actually sit down and pick up the yarn is a vacation, an oasis, a hit. It's compelling the way magic must be. You look some yarn in the eye and say, "Abracadabra, be a hat!" And then it pretty much happens, even if you do have to rip it all out and start over a few times first.

Apparently I'm not alone in this addiction, judging by the products available from Knitters' Anonymous. Or the fact that such a group exists.