Taking care of our veterans

NPR ran a story the other day about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans asking for financial donations from fellow citizens via the internet. The organization the story spotlighted on is USA Together, a non-profit based here in Silicon Valley.

Here is what they say about themselves:

We are a group of people, some with military background, others without, that have come together to help this amazing group of Americans.

We are based in Silicon Valley and think that there is a power that the internet can bring to solving this problem.

We have no political, religious or other affiliation or agenda and represent a variety of backgrounds.

The only problem here is the fact that we need this organization so badly. Our veterans are entitled to quality health care, an education and general assistance when they need it - we can all agree on that. We made good progress last year when the new GI bill passed, giving them more money for education, modeling the benefits our WWII vets received when they returned home, but there are still problems. The last administration preferred to dump money into private companies to fight our conflicts and underpay their own voluntary soldiers - then soldiers returned home to moldy hospital room, debt, broken home lives and inadequate health care, especially mental health care.

A lot of reform lays ahead.

Until the government gets back into the business of caring for its citizens, rather than stealing from them, organizations like USA Together are a good cause to support, if you're lucky enough to have anything to spare right now.

8 Years in 8 Minutes

As always, Keith Olbermann continues to rank among my all-time, very favorite people. The clip below is from his show the other night - a masterful summation of the crimes, lies and mismanagement that we'll spend the next 20 years undoing.

Winter schminter

California? Yeah, the living is good.

He sleeps with the fishes...

I never thought a shrimp could strike me as adorable, but leave it to National Geographic to change my mind.

This is a photo of shrimp poking his head up out of the sand, it just kills me:














I have an unexplicable soft spot for sea creatures.

If you do, too, here's a link to some more great pictures. And another.

Oh, the things we know...

I just noticed on my personalized iGoogle homepage that the "How Stuff Works" gadget features an article on everyone's most disquieting creature: the tapeworm.

(I was going to post a picture, but they sort of made me feel queasy.)

Happy discovery!

Winter wasteland: a summation

I’ve been back at work for one week and am already feeling burnt out. Just pathetic. (Don’t worry, I won’t let this diatribe last too long.) There’s no one to blame but myself – I threw myself back into things a little too hard and overdid it in a feeble attempt to clobber the enormous mound of work I’ll be facing until March. And, predictably, I was only to maintain my energy for about three days before utterly crumbling.

*Sigh*

Backtracking a bit, our extended winter vacation was good, though it hardly went as planned. We were halfway to Palm Springs when Honky, our car, overheated and appeared to be leaking antifreeze. The nearest town was Coalinga; its most distinctive feature was a huge K Mart (city of pride, my ass). The local garage (run by drunken in-breds) was unable to identify the problem, but refilled our radiator and gave us instructions should the car overheat again. Rather than risk it, we turned around and headed home, our getaway plans thus thwarted. When our trusty, non-inbred mechanic heard about the trouble he was pleasantly taken aback, seeing as our car had just been in for a tune-up. We arrived home without incident and took the car in early the next morning. They were unable to find anything wrong with it – apparently the car had decided that Palm Springs was a bad idea. So, Sean and I stayed home and my poor in-laws were stuck eating an entire turkey by themselves – it’s amazing they didn’t overdose on tryptophan.

For Xmas we went to Sean’s sister’s house for turkey, copious inebriates and family-bonding time with the Wii – a good time was had by all (except maybe by my in-laws who fielded several drunken phone calls from our party). The only other highlight to our time off (unless you call sleeping in, watching movies and eating our weight in rich foods exciting) was a quick visit from my college-era buddy Steph. Frieda and I took her to Half Moon Bay to take in the coastal scenery and see the wintery beach – fun times. For New Year's Eve I left Sean at home and attended a raucous wig-and-moustache-themed party in San Francisco, which was great until people started vomiting everywhere. Nonetheless, there was a sweaty throng of dancing going on when we exited – very impressive, in my book.

And… here I am, in 2009. Work is busy, as I mentioned, but all else is great. I booked a trip to NYC in late May to romp with my beloved Carse and other denizens of my hometown; and Sean and I will go stare into the abyss that is the Grand Canyon in early June.

I was deeply disappointed to learn that the Ranier Maria Rilke class I was registered to take here at Stanford was canceled due to lack of interest. Ditto for the Orson Welles class Sean had planned to take, so instead we’re going to take beginning Italian together, which will be super-fun, but still doesn’t fill the Rilke-sized hole in my soul, I’m sad to say. (More on him in a later post, I’m sure.)

Now that you’re thoroughly bored with my admittedly drab little life, I’ll leave you with the link to a movie I am very excited to see: Milk. Generally I find bio-pics to be ambitious, worthy attempts with terrible results (Ray, Walk the Line [insert your own retching noise here],... Knocked Up), but the pairing up Sean Penn under Gus Van Sant’s direction, to tell the inspiring story of San Francisco’s own Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist and CA's first openly gay politician (in short, a hero), is irresistible.

Here’s to you, Harvey.

Ain't got shit to do

I'm on vacation.

A long, wonderful, intensely empty vacation. I know, I just returned from a fabulous Hawai'ian vacation, I'm not denying that.

BUT.

But, that was a rush-around, try-to-see-and-do-everything, all-while-dealing-with-my-mother, vacation. Not relaxing. Amazing and unforgettable (and the change of scenery really helped me feel less burnt-out at work) but I did not return well-rested and I had a nasty sinus infection the entire time we were there.

No, this is the vacation I've been dreaming about since I started working at Stanford in August of '06. I have no family obligations, no long-term holiday visitors, no airport travel - none of that. I can sit around, unwashed, for indeterminate amounts of time. This is especially sweet because January and February are going to be hell, I already know this. It's application season, so I will return to boxes of mail to laboriously open, file and process and it will not cease until March.

Fear not, my vacation will not spent entirely on sloth. Sean and I are heading down to Palm Springs for 6 days (more like 4 with two days of traveling) to kick it with his mom and step-dad. They rented a condo or something, so we're going to join them in their imbibing of nog and other inebriates. The reason this does not irk me is because participating was entirely voluntary, we get to explore parts of the state we've never visited, and all that is expected of us is to show up and be relaxed. We plan to go hiking in Joshua Tree National Park on Xmas day (weather permitting) and I'd love to make it to a few yoga classes, if I can find a studio that's open down there.

When we return home, my pal Steph arrives in from the east coast to stay with us for one night. I can handle entertaining people in low doses, in fact I'm looking forward to seeing her.

And sure, there's a bunch of stupid crap I'd like to get done while I have the time: planning my next round of poetry submissions, cleaning the bathroom, cooking good stuff and lots of yoga, but the openness of my time makes these things purely pleasurable undertakings (except the bathroom, that task always sucks).

Today, Sean and I are hanging around the house, hoping our landlady finds a plumber to come unclog our kitchen sink - she was surprisingly cheerful about it when we called this morning. I'm glad we held off until 11:00 - no one wants a work call coming in before 10 am on Sunday. Simply no one.

I'll leave you to enjoy your day with this little nugget of news: the New York Times ran a story today which basically claims that the Bush administration knew about the financial crises as far back as 2003 and did nothing to avoid it. You can read about it here.

Happy, happy holidays!