| Micaso's Musings | |||
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Saturday, January 18, 2003 ( 1/18/2003 05:12:00 PM ) Jeanne Well I just found out another job possibility...playing a civilian in training missions for the military. This is supposed to enable soldiers to think quick about weighing enemy forces and civilian casualities when deciding whether or how to attack. The military actually does hire non-military to perform this function! In other military news I am completely disgusted by the military's use of amphetamines in pilot missions. Supposedly the two pilots who killed Canadian soldiers were all hopped up on speed, which doctors say can impair judgement and increase aggression among users. In the Christian Science Monitor on Friday a military document is quoted as saying their goal is "continuous assisted performance" of combatants for up to seven days and, "In short, the capability to operate effectively without sleep, is no less than a 21st century revoltuion in military affairs that results in operational dominance across the whole range of potential US military employments." Hmmm obviously they have no prior experience with speed freaks. You know, those people who continuously operate on a steady diet of amphetamines for seven days with no sleep. I personally remember some late night and very incoherent calls from friends who went down this very freaky and completely unhealthy path. These are the people who are going to be flying combat missions. What happened to just say no? What happened to biology for that matter? Oh wait I guess they'll just give them lots of vitamins to make up for the fact that speed cuts apetite and then they will give them what the military also calls "no-go" pills to make them sleep. My mistake. # Wednesday, January 15, 2003 ( 1/15/2003 04:21:00 PM ) Jeanne Today I went to see the companion exhibit to the banned booked exhibit I saw last week. This one was called Charles Baudelaire: A Poet and his Painters. I hadn't realized that Baudelaire was actually a very prolific art critic and it was a fascinating show because they actually had paintings, along with his commentaries, both good and bad, all together in the same room. Seeing the paintings in the context of his writings was really interesting. Krannert also had a show of 20th century artists' depictions of war. Much more disturbing, but also very interesting. Just finished up a batch of Vegan Apple Walnut Granola Bars for the Coop. Last week they sold two dozen of them in less than 24 hours! I must say that I love having a real, true cooperative market to shop at, our last place of residence had a coop, but it was much more commercial and the prices reflected that. Because the coop here is almost entirely run by worker/members (I think they only have 3 or 4 people on salary) and a small space the prices are truly low and baking gives me an extra discount so I can actually afford to shop there. I have become extra commited to using products with as little packaging as possible. They have bulk everything, including dish soap and we've even started buying milk in glass. For many years I worked in health food stores and could afford to shop with the discount I got, this system enables me to do so again. Sometimes I think the whole health food/organic thing is just so friggin' elitist, in general it is so incredibly expensive and I often wonder if it is necessarily so expensive or if it is a "gourmet" kind of thing masquerading as "crunchy". I worked at Whole Foods Market in California and got so irritated at all the rhetoric they were always throwing around about how wonderful they were to workers (and then they fired someone who tried to organize around labor issues!) and the whole "Peace, love, granola" BS. They are a CORPORATION! I just wanted them to be a little more honest about their motives: making lots of money...and if being nice and hiring hippies helped them do that, well then. I was actually featured in some kind of industrial training video on the value of "teams" in the work place. The producer of the film asked me if they could use my rather negative comments on the system. Basically if they were using that particular system it was because it was good for business, not because it was particularly altruistic. I'm sure if it didn't make them money they'd scrap it. I told them to use it I didn't care if they showed it to the president, as they said they would. I didn't have any kids to feed then so if I got fired for saying what I thought so be it and they didn't fire me anyway:-) Ok rant off. Time to go. # Tuesday, January 14, 2003 ( 1/14/2003 07:14:00 PM ) Jeanne Micaela and I are geared up for the second part of the PBS documentary on Chicago. It ended last night just after the infamous fire and is very good if somewhat heavy on the superlatives. That said Chicago is an amazingly beautiful city and I wish I could get up there more often. We're not far, but just far enough to make it a trip. I started reading a book called The White, which I will eventually talk more about on my book blog. It actually made its way into my book bag because it is the imagined life of a real person I had come across before. Her name is Mary Jemison or Jameson and she was a white woman who was captured by the Seneca. A few years ago I did some research on Perry, New York in the Gennesee Valley. This is where Mary spent most of her life and I came across her story in some old papers. I also found a great story about a couple of guys who rigged a fake Loch Ness monster there in Silver Lake to try and drum up the tourist trade. They were only discovered years later when their hotel burned down and the "remains" of the monster were found. # Sunday, January 12, 2003 ( 1/12/2003 08:02:00 PM ) Jeanne Micaela and I went to see Illinois women's basketball today. They played Wisconsin and won. I love going to the games, the only part I really hate is when the Illini mascot, The Chief, comes out and does a totally ridiculous dance and everyone makes "Indian" noises. Ugh. I'm no fan of political correctness, but I honestly believe that they should retire the chief. I wonder how Catholics would feel if there was a team mascot, "The Priest", or Jews "The Rabbi," or maybe "The President"? We could get some white guy in a dark blue suit to dance around. Of course that would be a whole 'nother kettle of fish. It seems to me that using other people's sacred symbols for mascots is just disrespectful, and I don't think the argument can be made that a majority of Illini fans are Native Americans! # |
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