Say it with me now: DUH

"There's no credible evidence that what's in Airborne can prevent colds or protect you from a germy environment," David Schardt, a nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a written statement this week. "Airborne is basically an overpriced, run-of-the-mill vitamin pill that's been cleverly, but deceptively, marketed."

Apparently Airborne just settled a class-action lawsuit for $23 million. I don't know whether to be happy for the plaintiffs (because lord knows Airborne has made a fortune off of this herbal Alka-Seltzer), or bonk them over the head for being a bunch of morons. There is NO cure/vaccine/whatever for the common cold. How many times does the CDC have to tell you? Take some DayQuil and drink some tea cuz you're going to have to ride it out like the rest of us.

(I actually yoinked the quote from Perez, but here's an article from a reputable news source.)

Bitch is the New Black

The H-Bomb

The part about Tucker Carlson just tickles me. If the best a pundit can come up with is that Hillary emasculates him, then good.

Thanks, Dad.

Scene I:

Kunin residence in San Diego, California. It is a warm winter day.

Lauren & her dad have just arrived home from doing errands. Lauren drove. They both get out of her car. Lauren walks around the back of the vehicle after locking it and meets her dad in the garage, where he is looking for something in his own car.
Lauren holds out her hand and waits for her dad to put money in it.

Lauren: So dad, where's my tip?

She doesn't actually expect to get anything.
Dad turns around and looks at her.

Dad: Your tip?

Lauren puts her hand on her hip.

Lauren: Yeah, you're supposed to tip your driver. Especially when they don't kill you in a car accident.

Dad is less than amused. He continues to look for something in his car.

Dad: You want a tip, eh?

Lauren: Yeah...

Dad pauses and thinks for a moment, then turns back to Lauren.

Dad: Learn how to say "condom" in Italian.

Oh, The Onion...

I Got What America Needs Right Here

by Jimmy Carter

Sometimes I'm a little stupid, maybe, a little slow in the head, so I'm wondering if you can help me get something straight. Maybe you can help me understand one fucking thing right now, America, and explain to me what in the Christ is going on here. 'Cause, unless I'm missing something, this country is in the middle of a motherfucking shitstorm, and I have no fucking idea what you're gonna do to get out of it. I mean, are you seriously considering voting for one of these shitbags you got here in '08? Fat fucking chance.

Way I see it, America needs a president who's gonna somehow un-royally screw up the Middle East, do some serious cleaning up after you dropped your pants and took a steaming dump all over the fucking environment, and—boom!—restore dignity, honor, and all that shit to these United States.

See, I got solutions to all your problems—I got 'em right here in my big, hairy ballsack.

Read the rest...

Conservofascism

"The idea that the [9/11] attack was because of American foreign policy...it has nothing to do with our foreign policy. It is because of their ideas, their theories -- the things that they have done in the way they've perverted their religion into a hatred of us. And what's at stake are the things that are best about us: our freedom of religion, our freedom for women, our right to vote, our free economic system. Our foreign policy is irrelevant." - Rudy Giuliani, 01/05/08


So what you're saying is...terrorist attacks threaten our freedom for women? Why, because women die in terrorist attacks? And then they can't vote or become doctors? I can honestly say that I have never heard anything more convoluted in my life. This is pure propaganda. Next you're going to tell me the the government is full of Communist spies and the Jews really were responsible for the collapse of the German economy.

That's right, guys. They hate us for our freedom.

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.