“Forum called off after poets plan to protest”:

The White House has called off a poetry symposium to have been hosted by first lady Laura Bush after one poet sought to use the event to protest military action against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The event, scheduled for Feb. 12, was to celebrate the works of Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson. But one poet who declined the White House’s invitation sent an e-mail to other invitees and poets asking them to “make February 12 a day of Poetry Against the War.”

My reaction: (unintelligible grumble)

Jeremy Lott writes about his experience at the 2002 Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) Convention. Some of the wares described sounded familar to this Christian bookstore visitor: Scripture mints and other candy, jewelry, clothing outlets, and of course the books.

Frankly, I detest some aspects of the commercialization bonanza going on in the Christian culture industry, but that’s what it is: a market targeting a certain audience, and in this case it happens to be the evangelical population. Lott sums it up nicely:

The products, good and bad, that dominated the CBA both reflected and validated the subculture that generated the demand for them. The people who read the books, listen to the music, hang the Thomas Kinkade paintings in their homes, and use the other products of this industry are surrounding themselves with artifacts that reflect their values and beliefs, that validate who they are. For such consumers, the Left Behind novels, the evangelical pop music, and all the rest serve as the building blocks of a shared evangelical cultural identity. In brief, evangelicals are using the market to fashion and refashion themselves, and to project the resulting identity to others, in just the way that all consumers do. (emphasis mine)

How many 22-year-olds do you know who don’t have a driver’s license, much less experience of any sort behind the wheel?

Well, you’re looking at one.

(You may pick up your jaw now, the floor is quite dusty.)

I took the permit test Friday and passed. Saturday afternoon, my mom and I are cruising towards my parents’ place after a shopping jaunt in this monster when my mother says, “You’re driving home.”

Silent protest: You’re making me drive this THING home?

My palms start getting clammy. I swallow hard as we pull towards the curb, and slowly get out of the passenger’s seat to trade places with my mother.

Put seatbelt on.
Check mirrors.
Release parking brake.
Shift gear from “Park” to “Drive.”
Keep foot on brake pedal.
Make sure no innocent pedestrians or other drivers are nearby to watch this humiliating endeavor.

Go.

End result: I didn’t crash into anything. I didn’t have to slam on the brakes. I even parked the Monster in front of the house with no problem.

I drove a car.
(Okay, I drove a van.)

But rest assured that from now on, no matter how nice it feels to be that high off the ground in such a huge vehicle, I am sticking to learning how to drive in my sister’s little Accent.

And I will not let my mother play driving instructor ever again, either. Not when her instructions go like this: “Follow the line, keep steering this way…yes…now step on the brake! Step on the brake!…Remember to signal. Yes. Good. Reverse and park now. I said reverse! Watch out for the curb!”

One of my favorite food magazines has a website. Woot!

Yes, I am a food junkie. I might eat and cook like a college student, but inside I want to be a chef - or at least be able to cook goodies as well as my mother.

Interesting article in the Chronicle yesterday: “Kind of looking for Ms. Right: Older bachelors say freedom, high standards keep them single”

Once they hit middle age, most never- married men will stay unattached. Charles Waehler, a professor at the University of Akron in Ohio and a psychologist, studied heterosexual never- married men for more than a decade and concluded that there’s only a 1-in-6 chance that men older than 40 will leave the single life. After age 45, the odds jump to 1 in 20.

Census figures from 2000 show a tremendous jump in the number of unmarried middle-aged men. In 2000, 20.3 percent of men ages 35 to 39 had never married; in 1970, 9.4 percent. Today, 15.7 percent of men ages 40 to 44 have never married; in 1970, 6.3 percent.

On my last quiet weekend, the Raiders won the Super Bowl.

(Made ya look! Buccaneers all the way, baby!)

On my last quiet weekend, my sisters went browsing for a good tattoo parlor.

(Vic: So, are you gonna get a tattoo too, Sarah?
Me: Ehh…
Murm: I think it’s common that the second and fourth kids in the family do the weird things, and the other two stay normal.
Vic: I don’t think #3 is very normal…
Me: What makes you think I’m normal?)

(Should Christians get tattoos?)

On my last quiet weekend, I started to wish my five week vacation got extended for another month.

I suppose I should start praying that I retain my sanity this semester, this being my last quiet weekend and all…right?

Josh Claybourn has posted a new column called “Lingering Questions: I’m Not Yet Sold on Iraq.” Good stuff, but it’s this part that I’d like to point out:

The principle, “Don’t fire unless fired upon,” can be traced back to our nation’s founding, but its roots go even further to Christian “Just War” doctrine and beyond. The question seems central to the debate - have we been fired upon?

Josh goes on to say, “The Iraqi link to al Qaeda may very well exist, but the current evidence available to the public is weak at best.” In October, Martin Roth published his own commentary to refute the “just war” argument, and it’s worth a read, as well.

Too many variables are clouding this situation of whether or not our country will go to war, though war almost seems inevitable with the recent buildup of troops in Kuwait and an uncertain outcome with the UN inspections.

To be honest, I’m neither hawkish nor dovish about what could happen if we struck at Baghdad. I have my doubts about striking at Iraq, but if the U.S. actually goes ahead with military operations against Iraq, I wish we’d quit with the political wrangling and just do it already.

And as Collin May points out, the French and Germans aren’t making the situation any better. (Okay, bigwig European powers, sure, but since when did they suddenly represent the EU’s overall stance on the Iraq situation?)

Some further thoughts about this: as it is, nobody can accurately predict what will happen if we were to actually go to war with Iraq - because it hasn’t happened yet. Offer all the possible scenarios you want, but until the first shot is fired, we don’t know what the outcome will be.

(via Bene D)

HA - don’t be surprised if you see me in Terminator 3!

A federal judge has ordered Verizon “to identify one of its Internet subscribers who was suspected of illegally trading music or movies online.” Verizon says it will appeal the decision and withhold the user’s name for now.

When it comes to online file-sharing, I have to wonder sometimes what “sharing” actually means. If you use Kazaa or other P2P programs, be aware of what this decision could mean for you.

…to nudge a writer’s drowsy mind into wakefulness. Or to fill the space between the clock-in and clock-out times becauseworkisprovingtobeextremelydull. Or you have nothing better to do after a meal. You get the picture, I’m sure.

ONE: Ever taken the psychological test where you’re supposed to respond with whatever happens to be at the top of your head when you hear a certain word? Take the word and the result (or just one of them) and make up a story. I did this exercise with a friend last night. What follows are the words, the results, and the story:

1. glass: shard
2. horn: toot
3. star: velvet
4. dough: mother’s hands
5. crisp: crunch
6. fear: shudder
7. kind: sweet
8. face: clear
9. enormous: trunk
10. blue: eyes
11. Jason: smile

The glass shard impaled the rubber horn attached to the bike, cutting off its usual toot. The young star, her velvet smile vanishing, shrieked in anger outside the small house, and the dough promptly fell from mother’s hands as she hurried to investigate. Unfortunately, she forgot about the crumpets in the oven, which burnt to a crisp and crunched between their teeth at dinner. The older boy shuddered in fear, but the kind woman merely shook her head in her usual sweet way, and his face immediately cleared. Beside the enormous tree trunk in the yard, the girl’s tearful blue eyes dried when the boy, Jason, smiled and produced a new toy…

Now you try it.

TWO: Pick a blogger and write a story using the names of all the sites on his or her link list.

Have fun!

The New York Times has a profile on Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame. I wouldn’t exactly call him a prolific blogger (trust me, it goes way beyond being merely prolific), but he’s not an Internet addict, either. I think I’ll stick with “online pundit.”

Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor has a great article on urban warfare training for U.S. soldiers being deployed to the Persian Gulf. What do you get when you cross a swamp with pyrotechnics and fake bodies? The realistic version of “Street Fighter XX.”

A friend and I took a walk down Market Street earlier tonight after catching Two Towers at the Metreon. The first thing I noticed was that there was a Starbucks on pretty much every block that’s dominated by a skyscraper, especially when one gets closer to the Embarcadero. The second thing I noticed was that the further away one gets from the Embarcadero, especially after passing the Powell Street intersection, the emptier the street becomes. Literally. Empty office spaces, boarded buildings. Not too many homeless people about tonight - the ones that were out we avoided. (My friend said something to the effect that after trying to help these homeless folk by giving them food, you stop caring about them after a little while because they only want money to support their drug habits. ‘Course, he’s more familiar with the downtown area than I am, so he would definitely know.) And let’s not forget the pickpockets and the not-so-obvious as well as the so-obvious-that-it’s-ridiculous drug dealers.

While the walk was nice, I can’t really say strolling in downtown S.F. in the evening is exactly fun - not when you’ve got these visible problems lingering about. S.F. has a lot of great spots worth checking out and some wonderful history, but I also think it could use a facelift, and maybe even a heart surgery.

In the meantime, some S.F.-bashing has been going on in the blogosphere. I’m siding with this gal.

And lemme make it clear here that I’ve never been to L.A. or NYC, and would like to visit both cities. From what I’ve heard, L.A. is much bigger than S.F., population- and size-wise, and NYC even more so, so perhaps this whole comparison thing is a bad idea. The next thing you know, one o’ these cities will start dropping leaflets in the so-called rival’s airspace that read, “My Neighbors Can Beat Up Your Neighbors - And You, Too!” Yeah, well, my neighbors already have trouble with the schoolkids down the block, so no thank you.

(Confidential to my upcoming August visitor: there are a couple camera shops on Market that I’m planning to drag you to!)

Whether you love or hate it, San Francisco is still the City By The Bay.

Isn’t that what diplomacy is?

Author Orson Scott Card has written a pretty interesting article explaining why the U.S. is willing to invade Iraq and not North Korea. I just finished reading Ender’s Shadow, and yes, the guy definitely “knows how to read a map.”

(link via InstaPundit)

Am I the only one who thinks willfully using one’s body as a human shield in a war is the epitome of sheer stupidity? Who is this person trying to defend, an Iraqi civilian or soldier?

The next thing I expect to hear is that the families of these people, especially if they actually get killed, will be filing wrongful death lawsuits en masse against the U.S. government.

Poetry section? {Insert checkmark here.}
Short story section? {Insert checkmark here.}
Link Section? {Insert checkmark here.}

No checkmarks so far.

Do you save your ticket stubs for a reason? And don’t forget about the 2003 Bloggies - go nominate your favorite blog…

Caught wind of this short blurb in today’s SF Chronicle:

Adam Ashton, a student at San Francisco State University, received special honors from the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for his work on the student newspaper the Golden Gate [X]press.

Ashton was chosen for the Outstanding Student Journalist award for his coverage of student government in the spring and his work on the [X]press throughout the year. He wrote about student elections, university health-care fees and a dispute over restaurants on campus.

“My two years on the [X]press taught me how to dig up information for a tense investigation, how to build good relationships with reliable sources, and how to encourage my colleagues to do the same,” Ashton said. “I hope my stories reflected a campus with a sense of community.”

Ashton, a Livermore resident and a geography and English literature major, also edited the [X]press in the fall of 2001 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The paper’s coverage earned the national Best of Show prize at the 2001 Associated Collegiate Press convention.

I’m usually pleased to watch my peers get the kudos they deserve. Adam was my editor-in-chief when we both served on the high school newspaper staff (yeah, we went to the same high school and graduated the same year, and now we’re going to the same college). A very kool guy. Congrats, Adam.

Rachel, Aaron=cousins
Miriam, Victoria, Larry=siblings
Chris, Stacy, Nicole, Mike=friends

The original goal of leaving my folks’ place last night was to go hang out at the mall as bored students on winter vacation are wont to do when boredom creeps upon them. So me, Miriam, Victoria, Rachel and Aaron (poor guy, he was stuck in a car full of chicks, and none of them he could date either) pile into the car, a Mazda Protege that was yellow enough to be seen even in the dark, and head out. We get to the mall, and much to our disappointment they’re closing early because it’s a holiday and the mall employees are tired of putting up with whiny customers trying to return gifts for their loved ones that they should’ve never bought in the first place. So we take the back way home.

Miriam calls Larry on the way there, finds out he’s actually awake, and he asks us if he wants to see a movie. We can’t agree on which one to see, so Miriam suggests we meet at the Hollywood Video to rent some flicks instead. Okay, to Hollywood Video we go.

(Minor digression for this leg of the story: There was this short Asian guy there in the following attire: black beanie, baggy khakis, t-shirt, sports jacket. Aaron’s attire: black beanie, baggie khakis, t-shirt, sports jacket. I’m in the drama section and I see something that prompts me to turn to the beanie-sporting dude beside me and ask if he still watches the History Channel. “Um, are you talking to me?” I turn around; this beanie dude is not my cousin. From here on after, Aaron’s lookalike avoids whatever section of the store I happen to be in. Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming…)

Larry arrives and informs us he’s going to see Antwone Fisher. Rachel and I decide to tag along.

We’re in the theatre parking lot and somebody’s trying to flag my brother down. Enter Chris, Nicole and Stacy, who’ve come to see Catch Me If You Can. We all talk a little bit before parting ways to go get tickets. Unfortunately, Antwone Fisher is sold out. While we’re deciding what to do, Larry suddenly gets a call from Mike, who wants to know if my brother wants to join him in a game of pool. Rachel goes with him, and I stay behind after deciding to see the movie with Nicole, Stacy and Chris.

(Twenty minutes before the movie starts, Nicole locks her keys in her car. Stacy calls her mom for a ride, they go back to Nicole’s house to get the extra key to open up her car, they’re twenty minutes late.)

End of the story: I got to see a movie and friends I haven’t seen for two or three weeks, my sisters get to watch their rentals in the cozy warmth of the house, Larry gets his daily intake of cue and eight ball. Everyone goes home happy.

All this to prove networks work. Yeah!

There’s somethin’ about the first day of the year that reminds me of every single time we have a rainy do-nothing day. Okay, okay, I guess we should give all them party-into-the-wee-hours-of-the-morning people a break since they have to make up for the hours of sleep they lost the previous night one way or another. Watching somebody fall asleep at the dining room table is just too funny, though.

And yeah, someone in my household is currently doing that. My brother has collapsed on his end of the table, in front of his computer. I’m not sure he’s even aware he keeps kicking the table, but I’m glad he’s not snoring, at least. Yet.

The moral of this story is to try to find a couch if you know yer tired. Feeling the table shake every time the sleeper’s foot connects with one of the table legs earns him a Look because suddenly I’ve got a scrawl of ink in some unintended spot in my notebook. (’Sides, ain’t the couch more comfortable than the table anyways?)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!