silveradept | Welcome to the newest year

Most years, it takes me a bit to start writing the right year on the correspondence, but when credit card bills come running, you write the right year on and make sure of it. Hopefully everyone’s new year has gotten off to an excellent start.

Thus, hitting the ground running and then some, here’s 21 things to do with your coffee grounds after you've made coffee with them. Pick-me-up and then some nice environmental things, too. Might be important to do so - 2007 was a year of record-setting weather.

Elections in Pakistan will be delayed a month, according to the official line from Musharraf’s government. Threats of violence have already been lodged if the elections do not happen on their original schedule of January 8. New footage available at AlterNet suggests that Bhutto's death was indeed by shooting, rather than the skull fracture of the government's official statements. If verified, then the next question is why the government of Pakistan is feeding fiction to the people right around an election with regard to a popular opposition figure.

Violence has already erupted in Kenya, with a church destroyed and fifty killed in riots over the disputed election of Mwai Kibaki. The election did not meet some international observer’s standards of democratic election, and the rioting opposition claims the result was rigged. Just what we needed, right? More instability and violence in the world. Iraq is hoping to avoid a large violent incident this year. I have no idea if they’ll actually achieve it. Tony Blankley thinks that the continued progress will give America it's first victory in the hearts and minds of Americans when it comes to the GWOT, and will justify the costs and the rationale of having gone to war. Casualties have gone down. Maybe it’s because the unmanned aircraft are doing a lot more of the lifting.

In American politics, the Iowa caucus will be occurring tomorrow, and the New Hampshire primary election soon afterward. Now that it’s finally in their sights, Lawrence Lindsey offers advice to those voting in primaries on selecting a candidate, by asking and finding the answers to three questions he considers sufficiently important that transcend partisan ideology. In addition, there's more rumoring that Michael Bloomberg will enter the Presidential race as an independent.

Economic opinions are being weighed in today - Brian Carney snarls that the decision to make more energy-efficient lightbulbs standard in a few years is basically giving lightbulb makers extra profits while hiding behind the energy savings benefits. Thomas Sowell thinks that the best way for the federal government to solve the current economic situation is to do nothing, a view not shared by presidential candidates, who are practicing “Santa Claus Politics”, in his opinion.

One of the resident vegetarians on the list suggests a Zen Habits post, for those thinking about joining the ranks. How to Become a Vegetarian, the Easy Way offers gradual transitions into vegetarian cooking, and tips and hints on how to maintain a healthy balance while going veggie.

My techie side says “Nice” to a desk modification designed to declutter your desk by putting most of the equipment on the other side of the desktop. Very clean, very neat, wouldn’t work for me because I lean back and would bang things.

The following link discusses alternative sexual practice, equipment malfunction, and life in the medical profession. If any of those is squicky to you, skip on over this paragraph. An ER doctor discusses a call he got from a rather confused urologist when the defective male chastity device the ER doctor had removed a couple weeks ago was on the urologist's instrument trays. Apparently the cleaning crew had mistaken it for one of the urologist’s actual tools.

Taking things out to their satirically logical conclusion, NewsTarget has a press release about how the RIAA has declared that remembering a song in one's brain is a violation of appropriate copyright law, because the brain is a recording device and makes unauthorized copies of the songs it hears, even if they are incomplete or incorrect.

Here’s a blurb with just enough ambiguity to make both sides of the conflict possibly be right - a mother and her children were escorted off a Fort Worth bus for reading her Bible, apparently too loudly. The mother claims she was discriminated against over religion, but the company says that the woman was reading too loud and was bothering the other passengers and/or the driver. But, of course, there’s not enough detail to tell whether it really is a case of one or the other.

A little less ambiguity comes from the continuing struggle of the University of Oregon to be able not to disclose the names of students the RIAA wants to subpoena for file-sharing. The Ducks want the RIAA to actually prove their case before they do anything regarding the disclosure of private information. Very refreshing, very nice, even if it does eventually fail. We’re hoping for great successes, though.

The Slacktivist take a bit of a reminiscence and proves one of the things that I’ve learned about the universe - throwaway ideas are often winners. The Slacktivist’s throwaway involved a blog before there were blogs, and a thing written pseudonymously many years ago that started to propagate, and then started re-crossing the Slacktivist's path later on. Much like how I keep hitting my head on things

The last thing for tonight, however, is a production of things that have too much time, and that are great in their 8-but wonder. Namely - Tecmo Super Bowl simulates the NFL's wild card playoff weekend. With correct teams and almost completely correct players. If this is a continuing series, it’ll be interesting to see how well Tecmo Bowl predicts.

A postscript - a privilege meme floating about. I would like to wonder why these items are chosen as markers of privilege, considering someone who has all of them might not have any sort of privilege, or those who have none might have felt they had all the privilege they could stand. It sounds like there’s a study behind this somewhere - I’d like to see it, if I can.

To participate in this blog game, copy and paste the above list into your blog, and bold the items that are true for you.

Father went to college

Father finished college

Mother went to college

Mother finished college - But it took her some time to do so, considering the kids got in the way.

Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.

Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers. - How am I supposed to know that? My instructors could make magic out of a teacher’s salary, as can just about any other teacher - once you get used to having only the money you do, there’s a lot that can happen to make it seem like you make more than you do.

Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.

Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.

Were read children’s books by a parent. - My family reads. Period. My descendants will read, my library users will read. There will be books.

Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.

Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.

The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively. - Well, now, that’s a rather interesting question. Do you mean, superficially, the people who dress and talk like me when I’m at work, say? Or the people who dress and talk like me when I’m at home? Or when I’m out on the town, or doing social activities? I can give you no for all of those on dress, and even more nos for talk.

Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. - Don’t think so. I think it was after that.

Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs. - I say yes on this not because of tuition, but on all the other costs associated with living, they paid for them, majority quantity wise, if not also total amount-wise.

Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs

Went to a private high school.

Went to summer camp. (Boy scout outings don’t count for squat. And I raised the money for my Lions Band trips, thankyouverymuch.)

Had a private tutor before you turned 18.

Family vacations involved staying at hotels. - Heh. Family vacations meant seeing the relatives. I’d take Grandma over Disney anyway.

Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.

Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.

There was original art in your house when you were a child. - I think so. I don’t know if they was expensive, but I haven’t seen all that many like them.

Had a phone in your room before you turned 18.

You and your family lived in a single family house. - Huh? This question makes no sense. If it means that only parents and kids lived in the house, then yes. We didn’t have to live with cousins or grandparents or anything like that. I don’t know what a “single family house” is, though. As I am told, though, this means that it is a house that stands on its own, rather than an apartment complex, townhouse, or other multi-family unit.

Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home. And were very happy the year they paid it off.

You had your own room as a child. - For a small part of my life, yes, but not for long.

Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course.

Had your own TV in your room in High School.

Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College

Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. - Lions’ Band trips. Sorry, no privilege here - we raised that money.

Went on a cruise with your family.

Went on more than one cruise with your family.

Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up. - Hands-on Science museums, sure. I only really got to the art museum stuff when I was on a college campus that had an art museum.

You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. - This does not mean, however, that the house was warm all the time, by any stretch of the imagination. And occasionally, I’d see one of the bills, but the numbers were meaningless then. They’re a little bit more meaningful now, sure, but it was never a matter of worrying about whether there was enough money.

The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.

I think that last one finally gets at what the authors are trying to show what privilege means. And I probably walked right into it. If privilege is never having to truly worry about whether there’s enough money to make everything meet, the ability to spend with a relatively free hand, then yes, I probably had it. If it’s people looking your way and not seeing an “other”, be it black or female or a foreign accent, they’re not looking hard enough for the things that make us all “other” to others. Or it might be because they’ve transcended the part of society that wants to judge based on looks. And while being white and male is generally considered two positives in the privilege category, the time is approaching where that will no longer be true.

What I really want to emphasize out of all of this is: Having seen that, how well do you think you know who I am? Without the commentary, just with the yes or no, how well would you know what my life is and was like? What would you expect from me? And how wrong would we all be if we went into things expecting everyone to behave according to their privilege level?

Time for me to go to bed. Work tomorrow and all that. Totally ruins your nightlife.