I dunno how to embed a Flickr video… but check this out!
Cookies and milk… a life long pleasure.
Aug 23 2009
Kristof on Industrial Farming
Only a week after I saw Food Inc., Nicholas Kristof of the NYT has written a column on industrial agriculture and wistful memories of the family farm in the US.
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Food for the Soul
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: August 22, 2009
YAMHILL, Ore.
On a summer visit back to the farm here where I grew up, I think I figured out the central problem with modern industrial agriculture. It’s not just that it produces unhealthy food, mishandles waste and overuses antibiotics in ways that harm us all.
More fundamentally, it has no soul. Continue reading “Kristof on Industrial Farming”
Aug 18 2009
Random use of candles, empty bottles and cloth
A friend of mine thinks this literal translation of the video, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is a metaphor for the 4 years we spent in undergrad. Well, if you went to undergrad with me, you’ll probably laugh until you pee yourself. If not… I dunno what you’ll think.
Look at me I’m lifting my arms.
Aug 16 2009
Food Inc.
I saw the movie Food Inc. on friday night at the Bytowne.
It makes me glad I’m a vegetarian, but very concerned about hidden corn and soy products… and the production of just about everything we eat.
Sure, I live in Canada, not America… but I fear that there must be a lesson or two in there for us. So I went to the local farmer’s market to buy produce for last night’s dinner guests.
gah.
Aug 16 2009
Clevergirl’s Mashed Potatoes
This is my own made up recipe, which is why it’s not exact.
You will need:
Some potatoes
A handfull of chives (preferably from your garden!)
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed.
some butter or margarine
about 2/3 cup of low-fat gelatine-free all natural plain yoghurt (Organic even better)
salt & pepper to taste.
Instructions:
1) Cook the potatoes. I guess most people peel and then boil them, but I cook mine in the microwave using a Microwave Vegetable Cooking Bag that my Mum got for me at the One Of a Kind Show in TO. And I peel them while hot.
2) Either way, after you’ve cooked them, cut them in large chunks and place in a bowl with the butter or margarine. Get your good old potato masher out and mash by hand. Add the yoghurt. Continue mashing. (you may need to adjust the amounts a bit here it depends how much tang you want.
3) Hold the chives over the bowl and use scissors to cut them into small dice right into the bowl. Add crushed garlic. Mix. (** Alternatively, in stage 2 (above), you can add these to the bowl first and then mash right into the potatoes. I think it releases the flavours better… but you can also do this after mashing. It’s up to you.)
4) Add salt and freshly ground black pepper and mix.
I made it for company last night and two people said that they wanted the recipe. Try it…
Aug 09 2009
Julie & Julia by Julia… ;-)
When I was wee, I was enamoured with Julia Child because we shared the same first name and in those days in North America, it was rare indeed. Julie was quite a bit more common, but I was a Julia and the only other one I knew of was Julia Child, who was still doing a TV show right into the 1970s.
So, when I first heard of this movie in a trailer in June, I said, “We have to go!”
Then I dropped it right up until the hype started to heat up… and then everyday last week… “Are we going to J & J?” “When?” “Which night?”
Well, he held out right until this afternoon… and I was sooo glad… and not disappointed at all. It was a great movie. The parallels to my life/personality and between Julie’s and Julia’s lives/personalities was, to my mind, precious, subtle, and infinitely interesting. Then again, maybe one always feels an affinity with someone who shares your name?
I dunno. But I loved the movie.
Aug 06 2009
*&^%$#@!!!!! Malware
Not again! But, yes! Again… it seems that it is more than just bodily me who is taking sick leave today. Clevergirl is on the fritz, too. This time, I am zapping pretty much every older video, old blogs in my blogroll, and everything else, too. I may never embed a video, a photo, or a link again.
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Of the 199 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 10 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-08-04, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-08-04.
Malicious software includes 2 trojan(s), 2 exploit(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 4 new process(es) on the target machine.
Malicious software is hosted on 13 domain(s), including go00ogle.net/, openstat.ws/, ridmoyey.cn/.
5 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including go00ogle.net/, trafing.net/, peskufex.cn/.
This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS26347 (DREAMHOST).
Aug 03 2009
Towelhead
I watched the movie Towelhead on TMNOD last night. And, well, it was so not what I expected that I have to blog about it.
First off, the TMNOD description leads you to believe it’s a pre-teen movie (rated 14A) about fitting in, romance, coming of age & racism against Arab-Americans. It turns out, that it is all this… but it’s really really about much more: there’s Lolita complex, rape, sexual confusion, exploitation and abuse of minors, and frankly scenes that I had to fast forward through. I cannot figure out how it did not get an R rating by TMNOD!
I am particularly trying to get my head around whether Jazira was naiive, shy, innocent, or just blind to herself. She was completely unable to stick up for herself during much of the film — perhaps because she is so oppressed? And oppressed (or perhaps controlled?) she is: by her father, her mother, their separation, her identity and culture, Texas, her youth, her experiences, her beauty…
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