Recently a US Army presentation put together by the Army’s 304th Military Intelligence Battalion and found on the Federation of the American Scientists website expressed their concern about how social networking technologies could be used by terrorists (Source: Wired) .

I’m glad the Army is paying attention to social networks, perhaps they could use some of the underlining technologies to better communicate with other branches of government!  “Hey Mr. Homeland Security guy, would you be my friend on Facebook?!”  … “Sorry General, I’m just anti-social.”

All kidding aside, the thing that struck me the most was this passage:

Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences.

Wait a second? Did i read that right…. VEGETARIANS!?!

Unfortunately the report forgot this little reminder:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Twitter isn’t a subversive tool that Vegetarians use to disseminate our no-meat 3 bean chili recipe. It’s an online extension of people’s right to speak their mind (no matter how inane they might say) and freely and peaceably assemble.

I know military intellgence is an oxymoron, but I take very seriously when our country uses the word terrorsit.  It’s a weighty word and it shouldn’t ever be used lightly. Over the past few years that term has been thrown around way to casually, the way in which “communist” was thrown around during the dark time in our country which was called “The Red Scare”.

I really hope when Barak Obama becomes president he addresses the departments of government who seem hell bent on spending their budgets on anything and everything they decided are terrorists.  Because the last time I checked, not eating meat didn’t make you a fucking terrorist!

Not all Earl Grey teas are created equal. Because the bergamot oil can mask a less than stellar leaf, many tea companies do not use really high quality tea leaves for their Earl Grey.

Rishi uses a solid leaf from Yunnan for their Earl Grey, a hearty black tea which comes from the same region as Puerh tea comes from. As a result you can easily get 2 full steeping from these leaves.

The tea has a nice balanced flavor, the bergamot isn’t overpowering and it compliments the sweetness of the Yunnan tea. Prior to the Rishi I was purchasing Mighty Leaf’s Earl Grey and I have to say that I prefer the Rishi. It all boils down to the choice of tea leaves (which should seem obvious) but Rishi’s choice and the price point of this tea make it THE Earl Grey to beat!

I really enjoy Sarah Vowell’s work and I’ve often recommended  Assassination Vacation , so I had pretty hight expectations for The Wordy Shipmates.

At its core The Wordy Shipmates is a very interesting book. Vowell takes a look at a very specific time and space in American History and shines a light into many preconceived notions of the Puritans and their experience in early America.

What’s missing from The Wordy Shipmates is Vowell herself. In Assassination Vacation, Vowell’s own journey was the glue which held the book together. Here that kind of journey is mostly absent and so the book often gets stalled in the historical content.

That all said, it is a fascinating book and Vowell is immensely talented. My instinct though is that hearing her read this story would be more enjoyable and entertaining than reading it, and this comes from someone who rarely listens to audio books.

So if you’re a Vowell fan, do check this book out, albeit with lower expectations as it’s no Assassination Vacation.

Lets face it, unless you regularly get into accidents, odds are you think you are a good drive. In fact you probably think you are a great driver. That you are one of the best drivers on the road and everyone else are the fucking idiots. I hate to burst your bubble, but like me, you’re one of those fucking idiots on the road, because like me, odds are you’re not really that great of a driver.

Everyone starts out at the same place when it comes to driving, we all suck. The first time behind the wheel is a rats nest of nerves and over thinking it all. First time drivers make jerky moves, react too late and all around suck. But somehow all of us transform from sucky drivers into beautiful perfect drivers who know how to merge, can parallel park with ease and always keep our lanes. But that just isn’t the case, in all of us there’s still that crappy ass driver that first got behind the wheel. Drive long enough and you feel like driving is automatic. And on some level it is. But that isn’t an excuse to thumb through your email as you’re stopped in stop and go freeway traffic – yup guilty. That doesn’t mean you can take your attention off the road when you’re driving because you’re engaged in a conversation – that’s me again. And that doesn’t mean you should try to beat yellow lights at intersections without red light cameras. Just today I gunned it through an intersection that I knew didn’t have a red light camera, just nearly beating (or was it missing) the change from yellow to red.

If you don’t believe me how crappy ass a driver you are try this experiment: find a friend to drive with for a full day. In the morning you ride shotgun and watch how they drive, really watch them. Then midday switch and let them watch you.  At the end of the day if you were really honest with each other you’d find that you’re a lot poorer driver than you think you are.  But this whole rant isn’t about you, it’s about me.  I’ve realized that I’m not the best driver in the world, my parallel parking often involves bumping the curb, my u turns are never perfect and I’ve cut off my fair share of people because I wasn’t driving like crap. I know this, and knowing it is the first step…right?

The thing is, I’m actually a really good walker. I’ve been walking for a lot longer than I’ve been driving and aside from some encouraging words from my parents I sort of figure out the whole walking thing on my own.  Sure I stumble and trip now and then, I’ve bumped into people in a crowd, gotten into that dance you get when you meet someone coming from the other direction and both decide to go the same way. But no one has gotten hurt with me walking and the scary fucking truth is in a car my absent mindedness or crappy ass driving could actually kill someone.

So does this mean I’m going to not drive? Well I’ve been trying to drive less (and that decision goes beyond weather or not I’m a good driver), and really I’m not as crappy a driver as I’ve portrayed myself. I’m a fairly OK driver with periods of crappyness. I’ve really tried to become a lot more cognitive about my driving and have worked on changing how I drive so I drive slower and pay more attention. But losing the idea that I’m some sort of great driver is important, it makes me much more aware when I do things that aren’t great and reminds me to do things like put down my sidekick and focus on my driving.

So I’d ask you the same question…. How Good a Driver are YOU…Really? Because I have a feeling you and I are the same fucking idiots we honk at and yell at on the road.

A trend I’ve noticed among the twenty or thirtysomething, iPod wearing, MacBook Pro using, Latte drinking, tattooed set is an increased animosity towards the antics of kids. Now I’m not singling any one place out or one cafe out, this problem is wider than that (spend a day in the Buckman, Alberta, NW, LoBu or Close in SE neighborhoods and you’ll see what I’m talking about). Somehow, somewhere these people elevated to a higher plane, one where they could chastise those of us who chose to replicate and hiss under their breath ‘Breeders!”  I am a father of three, so I’ve seen a lot. My kids have broken down and gone berserk at some of the most unfortunate times in some of the most unfortunate places. My wife and I have always been attentive, always worked to help diffuse the outburst and if needed removed the kid from the area (when we can).

There are lots of parents who just don’t care about what their kids do and who their kids pester. But this piece isn’t about them… It’s about the all to smug, too cool for school cats who think that disdain is the only response to family with kids. And to them I say “Yo Mama’s A Breeder!” Seriously, these same schlubs spending their afternoons milking a single late thinking that it entitles them to rent the spot and the wifi for a day were the same runny nose, screaming and tantruming kids that they now seem to despise.

Portland is world renowned for being a great city to raise kids and the irony is that many of these self important ‘Breeder Haters’ will someday actually get laid and that someday may result in having kids. Then rather than seeing the annoyance in a kid standing in the middle of a cafe yelling NO at the top of their lungs, they’ll see the beauty in life, the raw unfiltered nature of children. The universe of little people who don’t filter what they say, what they say is how they feel and what they think. A skill us adults only seem to find at the bottom of our third scotch or fifth pint of beer.

Michael Ian Black’s book promises to blow your mind, but it doesn’t say that it will play with the blood splatter and bits of brain on the floor. I am an avid reader and rarely do I stop friends and family to read aloud what I am reading. With My Custom Van I read many of the eassays out loud (especially letters to a squirrel).

I’ve often found Michael Ian Black to be hit or miss with his humor, and while not all 50 essays in the book are genius, most of them are pretty funny. I appreciate the fact that Black takes risks with his work in the book and writes about topics people just don’t write about (Like coloring his genitals with permanent market). Wild, sick, perverse and laugh out loud funny My Custom Van is a must read for fans of severely biting humor.

I’m officially sick of “Me Too” books that try to follow in the footsteps of Laurel K. Hamilton, Charlene Harris and Kim Harrison. I recognize that Urban Vampire stories make up a pretty strong and popular genre, but the imitators fall well below the mark of even the poorest efforts of the notable authors in this space.

Lori Handeland’s Any Given Doomsday feels like someone threw the top books of the genre into a blender and then tried to make something out of the mix.  The book is  jumbled and disjointed as it tries to hit almost every kind of were creature, daemon and vampire.  You know the book has hit the pinnacle of ridiculousness when one character turns to another and says a third is “one eight were creature”…. what?!?

What the genre really needs are fresh new voices, not imitators.

I am a fucking hypocrite. Don’t worry, I know this…The thing is, you’re probably a fucking hypocrite too. We live in a ‘do as I say not as I do’ universe. But I’ve picked a particularly difficult path in this upside down crazy train, you see I’ve decided to be Vegan. Make no mistake, it was a decision. No one forced being Vegan on me (and consequentially I don’t force being Vegan on anyone else). For your reference, being Vegan means that I do not eat any animals or consume any products which are derived from animals.  So this means no Cow, cow’s milk, gelatin (made from cow parts), leather, whey (which is a protein made from milk), casein (which is a protein that makes cheese gooey) or anything that is even remotely derived from an animal.

I am not a fanatical Vegan and yet isn’t being Vegan by its very nature fanatical. I’ve adopted a strict group of rules about what I will and won’t eat. When I was young I bitched about the whole ‘kosher thing’ and now I’m following a diet even more strict.  It’s a real dichotomy, by my very nature I am a rule breaker. I’m someone who hates to be told what to do and what not to do.

I’m often asked “Why” I’m Vegan. The answer to this is pretty straight forward – I don’t think animals are on this planet to serve humanity. It’s not our right to do whatever we want with sentient beings. Confinement, torture, inhumane treatment isn’t cool with me and unfortunately a lot of what ends up on peoples plates gets there in a way that I can not stomach. It makes me sick. I’m compassionate and don’t think my own personal tastes are more important that the life of animals.  And yet, I am not someone who draws an absolute line. I think PETA is full of shit when they try to ban companion animals and pets. My life and the lives of my family have been amazingly impacted by our cat. It’s enhanced all our compassion and understanding of animals. I don’t think that using horses for things like police work or pulling carriages is absolute evil.

That’s right. Fucking hypocrite. I should be disowned by the vegan community and cast out as impure.  But that’s not everything. I squish bugs without impunity, lay down ant bait and destroy entire ant colonies. I eat Thai food that’s obviously got fish sauce in it. Friday nights I eat Hallah that isn’t vegan (it has egg in it), I tried Vegan hallah and it just wasn’t Hallah…and the cars I drive have leather seats.  Oh and did I mention, I also eat honey. All these facts come together and make a clear case against me being Vegan. In fact there are people in the Vegan community who would say that I have no ‘right’ calling myself vegan.  And for a while that bothered me.  Then I thought about why I’m doing what I do and why I’ve made the choices I’ve really made.

Vegan is just another fucking label that people put on you. It goes along with White, Jewish, Nerdy, Tall, Funny, Writer, Dad, Neurotic… None of them really accurately say who I really am, they are just societal shortcuts to push me quickly in a box so I can be dealt with.  So I’ve decided that it’s best to embrace and own my hypocrisy. Imperfection is an essential part of the human condition, and to pretend otherwise is to present one of the greatest falshoods you can. So I’ve really come to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter if I’m Vegan or not. I don’t need a label to validate my own personal life choices, I don’t need to be categorized and defined by anyone else. I know what I do and why I do it, and I’ll leave room for that to change and grow over time.

How terrifying is it to hear that someone in your circle has cancer? Cancer is the Al Queda of diseases, it’s the thing that keeps some level of terror in life no matter what you do.  This past week I got ‘THE’ phone call. It’s a call I’ve received many times in my life, and this one was no different.

“I’ve got some not great news…. Meg has Lukemia”. My brother’s shaky voice breaks my heart, it shatters right there even though we are 1500 miles a part.  Cancer is the big white elephant in the room, it’s something that almost everyone will be touched by, even if its effects aren’t direct… it’s something that someone you know or someone you love will ultimately face and unfortunately I’ve had to face it several times before.

This whole situation is even more complex, you see the woman in question who now has to grapple with this horrid disease is the same one whose barred me and my family from seeing my niece and nephew.  My first thought on hearing the news (aside from deep empathy for my brother) was that somehow the grappling with this disease had some impact on the way in which she dealt with the world and therefore with us.  How long had cancer lurked under the surface before it reared its ugly head? It doesn’t matter anymore, Cancer ends family feuds, it’s the ultimate trump card in any argument and it’s the kind of thing that you simply drop all your shit for and do everything you can to help.

The whole thing was a sobering reminder to me not to delay the enjoyment of my life. On a walk home from a haircut I got that day, I was walking hand and hand with my son Aaron and I said to him “you know I love you, no matter what…. Whatever you do, I will always love you.”  That’s the kind of stuff we SHOULD be saying to our kids, and hearing the news that my brother and his wife are now hand in hand in a fight for her life was just the kind of kick in the pants to remind me to make sure I say the kinds of things to my kids that a father SHOULD say…These kinds of things DON’T Go without saying,

The moments in the day since that I am alone with my thoughts I run the what if scenarios through my head. How could my brother survive the loss of his wife, be a lawyer and raise two kids?  The answer is, I hope he never has to find out. But if this story doesn’t have a happy ending, I belive in the amazing capacity of people, to survive and transcend tragedies. My deep hope is that this is something that Jeremy and Meg can beat, if not for good, at least for a good long time.

Fucking Cancer.

Walking Through Walls - A Painfully Bad Memoir

In Walking Through Walls: A Memoir Philip Smith doesn’t spend much time sanity checking the outlandish tales of his father and his ability to heal via telephone or speak to spirit guides. All this must be taken immediately on faith, which some readers might be able to do. I wasn’t.

But even if you do accept what Smith writes about his father, you’ll still be painfully bored at the countless variations of Smith’s telling and retelling of the same exact thing. OK we get it, Smith’s Dad healed people…but do we need to hear the indepth details about each and every healing.

Somewhere along the way Philip Smith lost sight of the story and instead defaulted into trying to do a blow by blow description of his father’s life. He fails miserably in a book that will leave you feeling more trapped than uplifted. By page 200 I was desperately wishing it would end, and when I got there I was surprise at just how little time was spent on a fairly climatic event.

There are so many better memoirs than Walking Through Walls, I’d highly recommend spending your time with them. I suggest: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir,  Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity, A Million Little Pieces (even though it’s fiction too) or Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction  – all of them infinitely better than this one.