Load of Bollix

*My* favorite quote about communism comes from a former sorority sister: “Communism is a lot like 69ing. Good in theory, but not in reality.” So here we go, my v. first blogroll, combing 69ing, communism, Marty McFly, Mark Twain, and history (not necessarily in that order). Not bad. http://jimunfiltered.blogspot.com/

The “I'm not a plastic bag” bag. This bag is the idiot’s equivalent of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. My arm is not a plastic bag. Neither is the keyboard I’m typing on. But that doesn’t mean I have labeled either as such for others to see. The gaudy diamond ring epidemic. The once exclusive diamond ring has become the female penis size: there is a point where big = ridiculous or gross. Rest easy that for each carat of your wang bauble, 250 tons of earth were mined. That's 50-60 elephants or 8,000,000 "I'm not a plastic bag" bags worth of dirt. Go green, indeed. Sunglasses on the metro. I hate to break it you, oh diva of the subway, but you are underground. The sun does not shine in the bowels of the city. The rest of us surface dwellers know this, so what’s your deal? Aviators on the metro. If the above is a flush in terms of annoying, this a full house. “How was your weekend?” I’m pretty sure you don’t care what I did with my weekend any more than I care what you d...

[I started this post in January, and duly forgot about it. You'll see the article referenced below is a tad old]: I am qualified to write a blog post on religion because I, in a fit or boredom, ordained myself online during springs finals week my freshman year of William and Mary. If you have ever been to Williamsburg, you’ll agree that there is quite literally nothing else to do there. Here is my opinion on The Matter as an online reverend and child of a self-professed wannabe nun: religion is not a Bad Thing. Many intelligent people were or are religious. Many scientists (horrors) are religious. In fact, Francis Collins, the head honcho on the Human Genome project, wrote a book entitled The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief and he has been charged wtih “playing God” by mapping our genes. (He really quotes C.S. Lewis a lot, so you may as well just read Lewis' Mere Christianity while you're at it). Issac Newton, genius and crazy bugger that he was...

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his." The Importance of Being Earnest The following phone conversation is not embellished. It is real and just took place. (Phone rings) Hello? Hi Mom. Hi! What’s the matter? Nothing. Does your head hurt? No. Your head can hurt because of the barometric pressure. My head doesn’t hurt, Mom. Did you know that? I don’t have a headache. Oh. Well, I do. We are such creatures of the earth. What’s up? I was just calling to see if you’d be around later. I need to bring Dad his birthday present. Oh. I will be. I do want to go out and buy one of those things, you know, for directions, that you put in the car. A GPS? What are they called? They give you directions? A GPS. I’ve missed out on a few things because I’ve needed directions. So I think I’ll get one. Jim’s Dad sent him one and we used it yesterday. Have you ever used one? Do you have any male or gender-neutral wrapping paper? I need to wrap Dad’s pr...

I'm not going to judge how people waste their time. God knows I do stupid things to waste time. -J___ A few days ago I joined Facebook. It was not premeditated. Suddenly it just dawned on me—"I'll join Facebook." So I did. I watched the alarming process of my gmail contacts automatically populating my friend list. And then I began the even more alarming process of 1-seeing people on my gmail contact list to make me wonder aloud "When the hell did I email them ? and 2-realizing that just about the whole world is on Facebook (save my Laissez-faire, libertarian love and quote source). Within hours, I had alerts in my inbox about how so-and-so wants to "friend me" and so-and-so has "written on my wall"—messages roughly akin to "Whoa, what are YOU doing on here? I thought you hated this?" I never HATED Facebook, per se. If you don't know anything about me, know that I am an over-reactor (Irish and Italian blood are a volatile mix). I...

The thing about celebrities is that I know they are no good. Most celebrities are famous for no reason other than they look good. Those of us who spent some time in a place called High School know that the good looking kids aren’t really useful for anything, other than being the prom queen. The thing about this country is that we idolize celebrities. Photographers hound them and we buy the magazines full of their pictures. We read about their lives and how they drop their baby weight in a week, we want to know who they are wearing, which other good-looking celebrity they are dating. And our celebrities become more and more vacuous with each passing day (I saw Paris Hilton’s Funny or Die ad the other day and almost puked on myself). We are a tabloid culture, a looks-ocracy. I’m OK with this, only because I don’t know how to change it. I can tell myself its meaningless and move on to judge the next person. But I guess most of America doesn’t think like that. Certainly the celebrities do...

The following are excerpts from a travel journal kept during my visit to Honduras in March 2005 with Habitat for Humanity. Getting to Honduras, as the title suggests, my co-Gringos and I had a four hour layover in El Salvador. I happened upon this journal after a visit to my mother’s house where she insisted that a three-drawer Rubbermaid cabinet from my college days accompany me home. Eager for something useful to come out of my four year sentence at William and Mary, and noting the 100,000 post-its and index cards stowed in the drawers (infinitely better than a degree), I obligingly took it with me. It was only later that I discovered the Rubbermaid not only held index cards of every size and color, but my Honduras journal. It was by no means faithfully kept, but I recall several nights at least in which I sat on the roof and wrote in it, smoking a Cuban cigar like any normal visitor to Central America would. It speaks of thinks occupying 22-year old Mary's inner thoughts--dealin...