hey, assholes

what are the rest of us supposed to do for new year's, eh?

it's hard to be a Jew on Christmas...

...especially if your crew is already in Europe.

Alright, it's official: I, like Meghann before me, am branching off and starting my own blog for Italy: www.laurenkunin.com [for some reason you have to type in the "www" part or else it doesn't work. I'm working on it].

I'll give you my address in Rome as soon as I find out what it is.

Anyway, Merry Christmas, or Buon Natale!

20 days until I leave! Ahhhhhhh!

I wonder if there's a suitable translation for "peace out" in Italian. I shall research and report back, never fear.

Peace out!

What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart?

I keep changing this post because every time I read it it just sounds so overly dramatic.

Mike and I broke up, it fucking sucks, and that's life. Let's leave it at that.

Bring back Bill

"Charlie Rangel wants me to pay more taxes so you can pay less, and I think that's a good idea." - Bill Clinton, Harlem

I really need to know

This is bugging me. A lot. So much that I am inspired to make a Facebook group just so I can get a big discussion going about it. But the question is this:

WHY do Republicans/conservatives/whoever loathe Hillary Clinton so much? I feel really ignorant not knowing, but it just astonishes me the amount of hatred that gets thrown at her. Is it because of Bill? Healthcare reform? Cuz she's a girl and she's blonde? I mean honestly, she's not even very liberal if you ask me. She supports the war, for fuck's sake. She's got a lot of the same ideas as, say, Barack Obama, but he doesn't get nearly as much crap for who he is. The way Republicans talk about her, it sounds less like they're against her politics and more like they're outright terrified of her. Is there something they know that I don't? (I'm gonna go with yes).

So does anyone have any insight? I just want to know what the big deal is.

Mission: accomplished

Well, I'm here. I'll talk about it later. Right now I need to sleep and try not to have a complete emotional breakdown.

Chez Meghann

Marihuana: The Weed With Roots in Hell

Jean Cocteau, The Act of Creation, 1949

If you like Harry Potter...

What the fuck?

Ditech is wrong. People are NOT smart.

Controversy over a new advertising campaign by Trojan, the condom maker, has trickled down to the local level, with television stations in Pittsburgh roundly refusing to show it, and stations in Seattle giving it the green light.

When Trojan introduced the condom commercial last month, it was rejected as national advertising by both CBS and Fox. Fox said it objected to the message that condoms can prevent pregnancy, while CBS said it was not “appropriate,” drawing a firestorm of criticism from public health advocates and bloggers...

...In the commercial, women in a bar are find themselves sitting next to pigs, one of which metamorphoses into a handsome suitor after it procures a condom from a vending machine. The tag line: “Evolve. Use a condom every time.”

“The spot was pretty clever, but not one that we thought was appropriate for the market,” said Ray Carter, general manager of WPXI, the NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh.

As for NBC accepting the ad, which will still be broadcast on the national slots on his station, Mr. Carter said: “I’m not employed by NBC. We’re owned by Cox Television. In this situation, whether the network would accept the ad has little bearing on us.”

The Pittsburgh ABC affiliate, WTAE, also broke with its network in rejecting the ad. Rick Henry, the general manager, did not respond to a message seeking comment, but in a written response to Trojan, the station said, “WTAE will not accept or air advertising for Trojan or any other advertiser in the category.”

The CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh, KDKA, rejected the spot as well, echoing the decision of the national network. Trojan did not try to place the ad with the local Fox affiliate.

Seattle, by contrast, put out the welcome mat for the company: every station it approached, even affiliates for the two networks that rejected the ad — CBS and Fox — agreed to broadcast it.

Mr. Daniels of Trojan said he saw hypocrisy in networks accepting ads for products aimed at conditions like erectile dysfunction and herpes, but rejecting condom ads. “One of my hopes is that we see the networks’ standards evolve to be more practical and fair,” he said.

Please read the rest of the NY Times article here. It's worth it, just for the ridiculousness.

Untitled.

Why do we strut out into the world every day thinking that we know everything about life and everything about love and everything about sex? I mean, you can watch Sex and the City until you know every line by heart, you can read books and watch movies and look on the internet and talk to your parents and friends until you're ready to teach Sex 101. But what you don't know could fill libraries. Big ones.
And what you don't know about relationships could fill entire cities.



It's been a year and a half [almost] and sometimes I still feel like I know nothing. I'm still an only child and I still have my tendencies; I'm still selfish and I still think about myself more than I think about him, I'm still the one who screws up 90 percent of the time - I'm the one who hurts him. He's kind and caring and sweet and as close to the perfect boyfriend as you can get... and sometimes it kills me. I mean, come on - I complain about how he's too nice. What the fuck is that?

But after three Mike-less weeks I've gotten into my own routine and now I'm confused because he's back and I'm fighting the urge to claw my way to independence again. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm extraordinarily lucky and pleased with my good fortune.
But isn't it human nature to just always want more? And if I do want more, is that terrible?

We're gong to Rome together in six months and I want to be comfortable with myself with and without him. I feel like I'm in his shadow sometimes because he's so funny and charming and so often the life of the party. And I feel like a lot of people didn't get to know me very well last year because of it; it was always the Mike show and I never got a chance to give myself any sort of presence, because he's more entertaining and more likable and I just can't compete with that. Maybe I'm just making excuses or being juvenile or maybe I'm just scared. Either way, I do know that I can't take him for granted. But I can't take myself for granted, either.

I just had to let it out.

Jason Brent Johnson is a piece of shit

And I know that is libel, but whatever.

So I had this teacher for newswriting last semester who I thought would be great, because he's a full-time staff writer for the Chronicle and has a truly impressive resume of jobs and internships. Unfortunately, he was a terrible educator. And what's worse, he was completely unwilling to improve his skills. Okay, if a staff position isn't hacking it and you want to make a little money on the side, do what everyone else does and freelance. Don't teach a college class -- full of intelligent adults, some of which will be as old if not older than you are -- unless you truly enjoy it.

So I spent three a hours a week last semester in Mr. Johnson's class, supposedly getting an introduction to the art of newswriting. Things started off well enough, but then he announced that we'd have a weekly quiz of ten questions taken from the Chronicle. That's right. We were to read the Chronicle cover to cover every day and then be quizzed on it. Aside from that fact that I was taking four other upper division classes, working, and reading the stupid text book for this class already, who even remembers EVERY SINGLE article they read in the newspaper? Needless to say I tanked these quizzes. He also gave us an AP style book quiz on the second class meeting, without ever having explained to us what the book was. He didn't tell us to study it, or even tell us, "don't forget, AP style quiz next week." Nope. He wrote it on his inaccurate syllabus and that was the end of it.

He read my first writing assignment in front of the class. So apparently, it was good enough to be published. I had taken journalism in high school, but he didn't know that. Did I mention that he assigned this first story to us without first practicing writing a full story in class? Yeah. We had written a couple leads, a couple nut graphs, and then it was, "ok kids, 500 word story. And I want interviews, but I'm not going to tell you that before you turn it in."

So after I received a C+ in this class because I hate reading the newspaper, I was pissed. I got A's on every single writing assignment and turned in all of my homework, but apparently that wasn't the ass-backwards point he was trying to prove. I managed to swing an A- in fucking statistics, but got my ass kicked in J221.

Up until now, it may seem that my grade was in proportion to my effort. However, it must be mentioned that in our review session for the final, he was still clarifying to several people in our class that a lead was supposed to contain about 50 words. As much as Olaina is a bitch, in that journalism class we learned how to write about 5 different kinds of stories and put together an 8 page newspaper in the time that this guy couldn't get across how to write a lead, let alone an entire story. Granted, I'm sure there were some idiots in that class, but if he hadn't wasted so much time on news quizzes and pod casts and other extraneous stuff, we might've actually mastered NEWSWRITING.

So I ran into Erna Smith, chair of the department and former Wall Street Journal reporter, in the pub lab yesterday and she asked me what I was doing for the summer. She asked me what I got in newswriting, I told her, and she said, "yeah, I saw that, and I thought, 'that can't be Meghann'." So there you have it. This woman has never seen me write more than a 2 page book critique and she knew that I couldn't have screwed over newswriting so badly.

So good riddance, Mr. Johnson. I'm sure I'll have a great time explaining the only C of my entire college career in my grad school interviews.

Travelling soldier

I am easily disoriented. For the past few years, every time I got home from a week at camp, I would feel anxious and depressed for a few days until I adjusted to summer. I thought maybe it was because school would end abruptly and I would immediately be whisked away to an alternate universe of constant excitement, only to be dropped back into reality without a new game plan. Last year I felt it a little bit more, because instead of going home, I went back to a new apartment and a new internship, not yet adjusted to the new lifestyle.

This year is particularly bad. And it's funny because after I made it through my ordeal and moved into my new apartment, I was so comfortable and at peace with it. When I first got back to San Diego, I was bored as hell and a little frustrated that I had left my new apartment, where I was having such an easy time adjusting. But I adjusted back to my San Diego life and I was having a pretty good time despite the fact that I wasn't really doing anything. So now I'm back in this apartment that I love but I am depressed and anxious because I don't know what to do with myself. There's no TV to waste hours, my friends have all gone home for the summer, and I won't be working for another three weeks. I start school tomorrow but I don't know if that will do the trick. I have lived three different lives in the past month and I don't know how to adjust.

The shittiest part about this anxiety is that there really is no treatment except time. I could be working and going to school and hanging out with friends all day long and it wouldn't make a difference until my brain catches up to me. I can't even remember what I did before I was home. School seems like forever ago. All I want to do is go home and work at the bakery and hang out. It's weird how that is the most comfortable scenario I can think of.

What the hell am I going to do when I get to Paris? And when I get back? I'm going to have a freak out when I leave Paris and my home base is gone. I don't even like to think about it because I get sick to my stomach. Maybe I need a Xanax prescription.

Whatever. I'm going to the gym :).

Serve me the sky...

So. Remember about seven months ago when I posted a little entry that looked like this?
Well. Seven months and a lot of stress later, I'm standing on my own two feet and I've finally figured things out:

I'm a Global Studies major, an Art History minor [I'm trying to get a job at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art this summer], and ladies and gentlemen, I am going to Rome next spring.



I win.

A few pearls of wisdom for you

And if you've never watched Real Time with Bill Maher, I suggest you download it or something.



On the French:

"New rule: Conservatives have to stop rolling their eyes everytime they hear the word 'France.' Like just calling something 'French' is the ultimate argument winner. As if to say, 'what can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully conceived and brilliantly executed war in Iraq?' And yet, an American politician could not survive if he uttered the simple, true statement: France has a better health care system than we do, and we should steal it. Because here, simply dismissing an idea as 'French' passes for an argument. John Kerry? Couldn't vote for him, he looked French. Yeah, as opposed to the other guy, who just looked stupid.

Now last week France had an election, and people there approach an election differently -- THEY VOTE. 85% of them turned out. You couldn't get 85% of Americans to get off the couch if there was an election between tits and bigger tits and they were handing out free samples. Now maybe the high turnout has something to do with the fact that the French candidates are never asked about where they stand on evolution, prayer in school, abortion, stem cell research, or gay marriage. And if the candidate knows about a character in a book other than Jesus, it's not a drawback. The electorate doesn't vote for the guy they wanna have a croissant with, nor do they care about private lives.

In the current race, Segolene Royale has four kids but she never got married. And she's a Socialist. In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him a liberal, he grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill something. Mme. Royale's opponent is married but they live separately and lead separate lives. And the people are okay with that for the same reason they're okay with nude beaches -- because they're not a nation of six year olds who scream and giggle if they see pee pee parts!

They have weird ideas about privacy. They think it should be private. In France, even the mistresses have mistresses. To not have a lady on the side says to the voters, 'I'm not good at multitasking.'

Now like any country, France has its faults, like all of that ridiculous accordion music. But their health care is the best in the industrialized world, as is their poverty rate. And they're completely independent of Mid-East oil. And they're the greenest country, and they're not fat. And they have public intellectuals in France. We have Dr. Phil. They invented sex during the day, lingerie, and the tongue. Can't we admit we could learn something from them?

So, from now on, all you high-ranking Bush administration officials, because the French are righter than you on some things, when France comes up in conversation you are not allowed to roll your eyes. The only time you get to do that is when your hooker from Ms. Julia's is blowing you."

On George Bush:

"And finally, new rule. Jimmy Carter must be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay. Last weekend, former US president and current Al Qaeda operative Jimmy Carter launched an unprovoked attack on democracy itself by telling an Arkansas newspaper that the Bush administration has been the worst in history, and people were shocked. Arkansas has newspapers?

But once again, we were sucked into a phony controversy about who said what and how it hurts George Bush's feelings. Cuz when you hurt George Bush, you hurt America's feelings, and when you hurt America's feelings, you hurt the troops. And when that happens, Tinker Bell's light goes out and she dies.

Now as for Carter's assertion, I was up all night on Wikipedia doing an exhaustive search on former presidents and, while other presidents have sucked, Bush is like a smorgasbord of suck. He combines the corruption of Warren G. Harding, the warmongering of James Polk, and the abusive power of Richard Nixon.

Nixon got in trouble for illegally wiretapping Democratic headquarters -- Bush is illegally wiretapping the entire country. Nixon opened up relations with the Chinese -- Bush let them poison your dog. Herbert Hoover, who was literally named after a machine that sucks, sat on his ass through four years of the depression. But he was an actual engineer, and if someone had told him about global warming, he would've understood it before the penguins caught on fire. Ulysses S. Grant let his cronies loot the Republic, but he won his Civil War. Harding sucked, but he once said, 'I am not fit for the office, and never should have been here.' So at least he knew he sucked.

He never walked off stage like Bush does, after one of his embarrassing, language-mangling press conferences, with that smirk on his face like, 'nailed it!' Or maybe that's just the look you get when you have a showdown with the Democrats and you win, like he just did with Iraq. You don't get to be the worst president ever without a little help from the other side.

You know I like Jimmy Carter, but when the Republican fake-outrage machine pretended to be so upset at his remarks, Carter did what Democrats do and he backed down. He said his words were careless and misquoted, and the sun was in his eyes and his hearing aid went out, and he was molested by a clergyman. Instead of looking them in the eye and saying, 'no! I meant what I said because it was true. And speaking as the first citizen of Habitat for Humanity, let me take out my Jimmy Carter tool box and build you a house where we can meet and you can BLOW ME'."

Sins of the father

Maybe I'm just too affected by someone else's problems, but listening to Alec Baldwin's message on his daughter's voice mail just now. . .I literally almost broke down. More than 7 years ago, when I grabbed my backpack, got out of my father's car, and walked home, he left several messages just like that on my home phone. I recorded them on the empty space at the end of my Haftorah practice tapes. All I can say is I hope Ireland is strong enough to realize that she doesn't need an abusive egomaniac like that in her life, even if -- especially if --, he is her father.

Modern Times

[via e-mail]

Dad:
Anything going on at USCB about the Virginia Tech thing? I was on the VT campus about 20 yrs ago; it's very pretty, & remote.

Me:
Um there was a candlelight vigil Monday night and the chancellor sent everyone emails and stuff. I don't know, I guess not too much. I don't really get it... I mean, I know it's a terrible tragedy, but people die every day from dumb shit like that. I mean, Iraq? hello? and they're glorifying the shooter sooo much... in the NY Times every day since Monday there has been at least a page dedicated to articles about the shooter, but barely anything for the victims, who are the ones who really matter. It seems like it just encourages copycats because of all the media attention this guy is getting.
Whatever.
The front page of the NY Times today was ridiculously depressing. Bombs in Baghdad, the supreme court decision about abortion, the shooter, an article about how colleges can't do shit about people like that, more suicide bomber things.

Why don't people do anything good these days? I mean, I know they do, but we never hear about it. It's very discouraging.

Dad:
It's one more tragedy in a world full of them, but you might expect it to hit home more on a college campus, just like the Columbine thing resonated with high schoolers and their parents, and 9/11 particularly with those (including me) who had some connection to the WTC (one of my first big consulting clients was on the 104/105 floors and lost more people than any other company). We're not going to change the 2nd amendment, but the best comment I've seen directed at the NRA is: "what part of 'well regulated' don't you understand?"

Don't know if you've discussed this in class or outside, but I have, especially lately: we're in a war that we went into without a clear objective and found ourselves in a no-win situation. It's Vietnam revisited. Back then there was a lot of noise, organized protest, eventually resulting in, among other things, shootings on college campuses, in Ohio and Mississippi, at least, not by wackos but by local authorities. Also resulting in the media taking a stand against the war, starting with Walter Cronkite, resulting in a President refusing to run for re-election, and ultimately withdrawal. But now, there's no protests, the media is way too unwilling to rock the boat or investigate and tell the truth. I have a hypothesis that with all the new media outlets since then, internet, cable tv, satellite radio, etc., what remains of the responsible press can't make enough money to keep going, so they have to pander to corporate owners and political contributors. There's never been any money in reporting on what good things people do, and now there's not enough profit in the business to allow for those kinds of things. There's no draft, so nobody is being asked to sacrifice anything, we all go about our daily lives pretty oblivious to the war. It's being run by an incompetent and corrupt administration for reasons of ego and personal enrichment. Finally the people have spoken in the last election, but the administration still doesn't listen. Phil Ochs wrote "it's always the old who lead us to the war / it's always the young who fall" I'm afraid it's up to you. . . .

Emotional Landscapes

My grandma died on Tuesday. It wasn't a surprise, it's been coming for a long time, but that doesn't necessarily make it easier for my mom. I'm mostly sad for her; I didn't really know my grandma. But I just don't know how to handle myself when my mom is sobbing on my shoulder because she "[doesn't] have a mommy anymore."

Face2Face

photo from http://www.jr-art.net/

As an undercover photographer, JR transforms his pictures into posters and makes open space photo galleries out of our streets... Using a camera he found once in the subway, JR finds inspiration in informal encounters he makes following his travels and his intuitions.

His latest project: Face2Face.

After traveling through Israel and Palestine with friend Marco, the pair concluded that Israelis and Palestinians "look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families."

So they decided to display this idea by taking portraits of Israelis and Palestinians doing the same activities, making the faces, etc., and blowing up these photographs to an incredible size.
This Sunday, March 4th, they will install these images on both sides of of the Israeli/Palestinian separation wall, with hopes that the photographs will encourage more understanding between the Israeli and Palestinian people.

face2faceproject.com

thanks to Abbie for the tip

yeesh

The top five movies at the box office right now, according to RottenTomatoes.com:

13% The Messengers	$14.7M
06% Because I Said So	$13.1M
03% Epic Movie	$8.4M
45% Night at the Museum	$6.4M
27% Smokin' Aces	$6.1M

all bad.

Re: Oscar fever

I'm just going to preface this by saying that my predictions, as of right now, will be more of a discussion than a final choice. I have to admit that my deft predictions last year came after reading many an article and television spot on critics' choices.

Actor in a leading role: First I want to say, The Academy must love Ryan Gosling, because he didn't get a Golden Globe nod. I'll have to pick Forrest Whitaker for this one as well, although Peter O'Toole is a close second (based solely on reviews I've read about Venus).

Actor in a supporting role: I'm going to have to go with Eddie Murphy. I haven't seen Dreamgirls, but I heard that he was exceptional.

Actress in a leading role: Helen Mirren. End of discussion. Actually, PS, I feel for Kate Winslet because she gets nominated constantly and never wins. One day, Kate.

Actress in a supporting role: As much as we all love Abigail Breslin, it's just not going to happen. And apparently Jennifer Hudson is amazing, but it's her first film and first nomination, and The Academy puts a lot of weight on body of work versus individual performance. So I'm going to say Adriana Barraza or maybe Rinko Kikuchi. I haven't read enough reviews of Notes on a Scandal, but those two were break-outs in Babel.

Animated feature film: Cars.

This is the part where I skip the technical awards. I don't have much of an eye for that stuff, although I rightly predicted Titanic for make up in 1997.

Directing: Well I'm going to say Clint Eastwood (Letters from Iwo Jima), with Martin Scorsese close behind, because of that whole body of work thing. Martin Scorsese is to the Oscars what Susan Lucci was to the daytime Emmys. He might win based on his career, although I don't think (and I'm pretty sure the pros agree with me) The Departed is his best work.

Documentary feature: Probably An Inconvenient Truth, but that's pretty mainstream as far as documentaries go. I heard that God Grew Tired of Us was amazing -- why isn't it nominated? If a documentary about the Sudan won an Oscar, it wouldn't hurt.

Best picture: I'm going to say Babel or Letters from Iwo Jima. As much as I loved The Queen, the whole movie is predicated on Helen Mirren's performance, and everything else about it really pales in comparison.

Writing (adapted screenplay): Wouldn't it be amazing if Borat won? Other than that, it will probably go to The Departed. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.

Writing (original screenplay): Probably Letters from Iwo Jima. Apprently this movie was amazing and perhaps it should have been released wide, because I heard that Flags of our Fathers (it's English-language companion film) wasn't that good.

Again, this is all tentative. If I have a breakthrough in the next month, I'll be sure to update with more solid premonitions.

That's all

"It's amazing how much you can get when you quietly, clearly, and authoritatively demand it. That's all." - Meryl Streep

I am in love

The brilliance of the Apple iPhone. Now tell me that isn't the coolest mother-fucker you've ever seen.

These faces are our own

Happy New Year!