Chicken Bones and Cigarette Stubs: Neither Are Garbage?

Lots of folks doing last minute shopping this afternoon* before all the stores close on Christmas Eve.  Traffic was very slow all over the 5 mile radius of our house where I ventured today.

[*I got caught up with cooking and did not manage to post this blog the same day the incident occurred, but wanted to leave it in present tense.]

borrowed from http://www.chiropractic-help.com/images/chicken-bones.jpg

I followed one older small sedan for a few miles, and I noticed them throwing small items out of the driver's side window periodically.  The first thing that flew out, I assumed was a cigarette butt, as people don't often consider them garbage (one of those great mysteries I don't understand...  maybe it has something to do with not being a smoker).

It seemed rather larger than your normal cigarette butt, and it did not have the nice glowing ember aspect they normally have.  A few blocks later, something else flew out the window, which I thought might be a crumpled up dollar bill (and yes, I thought about pulling over, but there were several cars behind me, and as Michiganders tend to tail gate relentlessly, that did not seem like the best idea.)

At the next stop light, I was now close enough to see what the projectile thrown out of the window actually was:  a chicken bone.

This person was driving around, by themselves, eating chicken and throwing the bones out into the street.  This is wrong on SO MANY levels.

First of all, chicken is something to be shared, not eaten all alone.  [our cats will attest to that truism]

Secondly, we have too many smushed squirrels and pigeons in the street already, we don't need to encourage small hungry critters to dash into the road for a chicken tidbit.

And finally, even though my husband says I should not be everyone's moral policewoman, I will continue to do it anyway!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Chebache: the rule of threes

A good friend of my husband created a board game called Chebache.  Though it is a two player game, it has a lot of threes in it.

• there are 3 colors in its scheme:  red, black & white
• its name is a combination of checkers, backgammon & chess
• it is now available as a physical board game, an iPad application & on-line

The iPad version is really cool, but the board game itself is nice as well.  Since the hubby has spend MANY hours traveling around the globe helping its creator extoll the virtues of this game, we have several copies of the physical version in the house.  He has also helped in the development of the iPad version (thanks to yours truly buying him the iPad2 as a combined Valentine's day & birthday gift earlier this year).  

So if you are looking for a good strategy game to put under your Christmas tree, your Hanukkah bush or your Festivus pole, (or on your iTunes account) please check out any of the links above.

To frak or not to frack?

I will have to think about whether I post this blog on Facebook, as it may offend some people.  It would be interesting to see how many people are offended by the fake expletive used in the title, and how many are given pause by my opinion about accessing energy currently hidden in shale under many parts of the US.

borrowed from http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/files/2011/08/fracking.preview.JPG

I was a casual fan of the original Battlestar Galactica (BG), but the remake was much better.  I did not remember that the first show also used the fake expletive, and according the Wikipedia  they spelled it with a "c" similar to the current practice of pumping water and chemicals into the earth to try and get some gas back out.

This compilation of all the FRAKs from season one of the newer BG series was just too good to pass up:
Click on Frak clips to be taken to the YouTube site to watch these.

I realize that we like to accrue lots of energy to support the needs and wants of our citizens, but I believe that there are safe ways to get that energy, and quicker easier ways to get it.  Bad things often happen when we take the easy way out, as I can attest to from personal experience.  I think that some of that is happening in this particular extraction method of hydraulic fracturing.

The New York Times has two recent articles which relate to this issue.  The first discusses the results of fracking itself, and the second has to do with a horrible accident at sea as the Russians rush to step up oil production in the Arctic and other offshore regions, since the returns from their land based rigs are starting to decrease.

I don't want to only bring up the downsides of fracking, so if you want to do some research on the energy industry's perspective on the safety of this process, a good place to start is here.

I will now leave you to do some research on your own to weigh this Shakespeare inspired question (a shout out goes to Heritage Coffee in Juneau and their support of the Theatre in the Rough coffee series which inspired this blog).

Proper word usage (or lack thereof)

For whatever reason, I am obsessed with people using the right names for things.  I try to apply this to myself as well, but I am human (though my husband thinks I might actually be a martian), so I sometimes make mistakes.

Being a student of political science, I understand the difference between public discourse and private discussions, and how powerful certain words are in our society.  I like to call a spade a spade, but you cannot be polite and do that (in all circumstances).

In my current sleep deprived state, and as the 2012 presidential election hubbub is churning pretty well this weekend, I recalled an interesting discussion I had with a young Mormon on a plane a few years ago.

I lived in Utah for about 18 months, and it was a beautiful place, but the pervasive nature of the Mormon religion got to me after a while.  I never got proselytized by anyone while I lived there, but the fact that my professors' kids could not joint certain scout troops because they were not a  Mormon really bothered me.

I went to Catholic schools most of my young life, and there were always a handful of non-Catholic students who were fully accepted members of the student body.  Maybe they did not take communion during the service, but they were not ostracized for being of a different religious persuasion.  There are many things I don't like about the Catholic church, but in my experience the parochial education facilities were fairly inclusive.  Some might say they were exclusive since you had to pay for them (though most also had scholarship programs), but my high school in particular was on the fringes of a major metropolitan area, and it had at least a 35% minority student body.  As the costs have risen over the years that percentage may have fallen, but I think my world view was shaped by that experience of diversity.

Okay, back on track now......

So I was sharing Utah memories with this young man, who wore a name tag on his pristine white dress shirt that read Elder Johnson (or some such generic last name).  He was a nice young man, who allowed me to get out some of my beefs about his religion.  I don't normally engage in conversations while flying, but this discussion was actually quite pleasurable.  He offered me a Book of Mormon at the end of the flight.  The lady on the other side of him asked for one as well, as her sister had recently married a Mormon, but he had given me his last spare.  [I gave it to her as we walked to baggage claim, since I only accepted it to be polite.]

I think to be a missionary you have to have a little used car salesman in you, and this kid had just the right combination of being able to draw out your curiosity, listening politely to your silly questions, and getting his point across.  He asked me for some feedback on his approach at the end of our discussion.

My only constructive criticism was that I, being old enough to be his mom, was slightly offended by the fact that he introduced himself as ELDER Johnson.  The name tag was not as offensive, being just a piece of plastic.  I explained that I understood this was a religious title assigned to him, but if you are trying to convince people of your credibility, how you introduce yourself is important.

I have a few titles, but I rarely use them.  I am always amused at military courses or meetings where you are asked to introduce yourself to a room of your colleagues, and people use their rank before their name.  We can see your uniform, so we know what your rank is, doofus!  It is even more ridiculous when they don't use their first name, so afterwards you are forced to call them Commander Smith, even though you are all the same general rank.

As I explained to Elder Johnson, in my most patient and nice voice, it just makes me want to giggle when someone who has been on this earth less than half the time that I have been uses a title meant to suggest otherwise.