So, was it good for you?

This, well, on some level I suppose this sucker had to be covered (courtesy of the folks over at Reuters):

First lady Laura Bush has selected William Yosses as White House Executive Pastry Chef and praised him on Monday for originality and a light touch with desserts.

Yosses, who joined the White House in November as a holiday pastry chef, replaced Thaddeus DuBois who left last year from the post in charge of designing dessert menus for state dinners and other official and social events at the White House.

In all seriousness, somewhere out there there are pastry chefs who are crying themselves to sleep, yelling at themselves in the mirror, or wishing they hadn’t auditioned for the part by concocting chocolate mousse torts drenched in a molten devil’s food fudge and topped with whip cream and macadamia nuts.

(Photo © 2006 Robert R Elam)

Amy Sedaris (& Piglet) on Conan O’Brien

I have no idea what to write with this yet. But thought I’d share.

Wilco is my favorite band. I ain’t ashamed of this, and I kind of wear it on my short sleeves. When folks foolishly bash the band or tell me I’m a little “into” the sextet, I get protective as a parent. This is a band contantly morphing, and over the years they’ve had nine different members, and only two of the original players remain. Why? To accomodate the different sounds each album provides. Their debut album, AM, is a great example of poppy alt-country. Being There, their sophmore double album, adds classic rock and loads of distortion. Their third album, Summerteeth, is like listening to nihilistic Beach Boys, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is an album praised high and low for its complexities and trust in its listeners. A Ghost is Born won the band a Grammy for best alternative album of the year. A new CD, Sky Blue Sky, is forthcoming on May 15, 2007. Below, you’ll find to versions of a song that I’m praying, with my fingers crossed as I blow out the candles and wish upon Polaris, will appear on the album. It’s called “What Light.” It’s kinda fantastic.

@ Alderney Landing.

@ Lollapalooza 2006.

Tonight, I munched on some killer mater paneer, and of course, I added an order of naan. Typically, reading about what someone ate for dinner is probably as interesting as, well, as reading about what someone had for dinner. But daddy-0, we’re talking about naan. For those of you unfamilar (shame on you), let me familiarize you: naan is one of the many simply made breads in the world, right up there with pita, tortillas, and Italian bread. It’s always amazing to me how something made essentially from flour and water can taste like a little piece of heaven. Of course, that’s what manna was, so maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising.

If you’d like to make some yourself, you can find oodles of recipes over at All Recipes.

(NOTE 2 SELF: add thing from Wired on happiness and food!)

In “Fairly Good News for Nature News”, there’s this:

A species of shark rarely seen alive because its natural habitat is 600 meters (2,000 ft) or more under the sea was captured on film by staff at a Japanese marine park this week.

… Marine park staff caught the 1.6 meter (5 ft) long creature, which they identified as a female frilled shark, sometimes referred to as a “living fossil” because it is a primitive species that has changed little since prehistoric times.

Of course, the ill animal was captured, which isn’t necessarily a good thing (since “the shark died a few hours after being caught”). But at least these suckers are still kicking and screaming (or swimming and… well, I don’t know what sound sharks make). The platypus, the llama, the manatee, and now this ridiculously wonderful creation. A divine high five to Whomever or Whatever made this thing possible — it boggles the imagination, I tell you, and not this kind of Boggle neither. It’s glorious, really.

You can take a gander for yourself.

Dateline New Tampa, FL: January 18, 2007

This is, uh, well, this makes us smack a hand to our foreheads, over and over and over….

The two-lane road meanders for about a mile through open land primed for development. In the distance, houses with fresh paint and new sod peek out from behind transplanted trees.

The road was built so residents in bustling New Tampa could get from Hillsborough to Pasco County without having to take traffic-clogged Bruce B. Downs Boulevard. But at the end of the road, named Kinnan Street, sit barricades and weeds. Sixty feet away, across the county line, is another road, which was supposed to connect and complete the path to Pasco.

But the two roads might never meet, leaving the street a worthless $2.2-million road to nowhere.

This, my friends, is one of the problems with solely relying on the government to solve problems: too many politicians are morons. Will the two sides finally come to logical terms and connect this sucker? It seems about as likely as Eric and I connecting the two roads:

“We cannot consider (joining the roads),” said Bipin Parikh, assistant Pasco County administrator. He said he needs to look out for the residents and streets of Meadow Pointe, to the north of the road with traffic problems of its own.

Oh, boy. And oh, girl, while we’re at it.

Granted, we’re not convinced that the privatization of road construction is the answer, or even an answer. But it’s times like these when letters to the editor seem essential. When we essentially owe it to ourselves to call our legislators to get their heads out of their each other’s posteriors. Why? Because they won’t do it on their own.

* Photo by Mike Pease.

A little over a year ago, my writing mentor and good friend, David Citino, passed away from complications from MS. (Please consider making even a $5 donation here.) Thankfully, he left behind an incredible collection of work, including, my favorite book of his, Broken Symmetry, which snagged a citation for “notable book” from the National Book Critics Circle in 1998. And thankfully, you can find oodles of his work on the web; this serves best as a poetic primer to his welcoming, witty and wise work (right now he’s staring down, sighing and shaking his head at that asinine alliteration).

One of my faves is “Reading the M.R.I. Report, the Retired Pastor Considers Dementia.” David often wrote about his illness in ways that describe the disease from the voice of an imagined character, which made for more empathy toward others with MS. David never wanted pity — he found living too glorious for that waste-of-time emotion. You can always read the poem at the Cortland Review, but I’d recommend listening to the big man read it himself.

You can find David all over the web: at Poetry Daily and Verse Daily and in the Roanoke Review and The Literary Review.

Let me tell you one other thing about David. One day as he drove off campus, he spotted me on the sidewalk, rolled down his window and yelled, “Hey Z-man! Poetry rocks, and don’t you forget it!”

David, I haven’t.

I’m not one to dole out “mad props” loosely, so believe me when I heap those two words of praise on Canada for doing this:

Canada announced Sunday it will spend $25 million to protect one of the largest intact temperate rainforests left in the world.

The Great Bear Rainforest, a 16-million-acre preserve that stretches 250 miles along British Columbia’s rugged Pacific coastline, is teeming with grizzly bears, wolves and wild salmon and is the ancestral home of many native tribes.

Last February, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell said the province would protect close to one-third of the region from all logging and would require sustainable logging practices in the rest.

This seems particularly important and helpful since, according to Global Forrest Watch, “less than 8% of Canada’s forests are fully protected.” And since 81% of the lumber exported from Canada goes to the U.S. of A. (that means us).

This article’s got me thinking about ways I could start recycling paper products more, so I think I’m going to make the switch for my printer paper and envelopes. You can even pick these things up at the major office supply stores. Office Max sells 100% recycled paper (here, too), and Staples has their recycled paper products organized almost painfully well.

I’m out: I’m gonna get $hopping.

Well, it turns out that several states have one of the most backwards laws on their books: a ban on opposite-sex cohabitation. Since we try to steer clear of sarcasm, you can trust us that this ain’t our kind of humor, because, well, because it’s really not all that funny.

The states needing to meet the modern age? Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and everybody’s favorite Dakota, North Dakota:

In North Dakota, a man and woman who live together without being married are committing a sex crime. It’s right there in the law, a state senator said, alongside the prohibitions against adultery, incest and indecent exposure.

As you might suspect, these inane laws rarely are enforced, but, of course, that doesn’t mean folks never try to stop guys and gals from shacking up together in the Mountain State:

In West Virginia, a former prison inmate is challenging the state’s anti-cohabitation law because it delayed his parole from prison on forgery convictions. Officials rejected William Stanley’s plan to move in with his fiancee after his release.

Or in the Old Dominion State:

In one case, a Norfolk, Va., day care operator faced losing her license because she was living with her boyfriend.

And in ND there are, of course, folks who think they know what’s best for you and me:

Tom Freier, a spokesman for the North Dakota Family Alliance, said repealing North Dakota’s anti-cohabitation law would signal that the state doesn’t value marriage and the societal benefits it brings.

Thankfully, the ACLU exists. According to the article, the threat of facing an ACLU legal team all but forced the Virginia Department of Social Services to renew the day care operator’s license. The good news is that 43 states believe in freedom.

If you live in one of the seven aforementioned states, you might want to ink a letter to the editor or state reps blasting these backwards laws. When the populace learns about it, given the large number of folks living together, hopefully they’ll force the legisture’s hands. Nearly 10 million individuals live together, according to the Census Bureau. To put that in perpective, that’s more than the populations of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Maine COMBINED!

Or, if writing isn’t your speed today, maybe just give the repressive folks at the North Dakota Family Alliance a jingle at 701-237-4218. (I guess we’ve got a little of the Devil in us.)

All this, to us, is proof positive that our country still has room to improve, or, to quote Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: “We’ve got a whole lot of walking to do.”

We gonna start this sucker off with a capital-”D” Disclaimer: by discussing hemp, we’re not advocating the legalization of marijuana; we’ll advocate that later.

First, a little history. The fogged brains (maybe they were potheads?) running this here U.S. of A. back in 1937 decided with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 to, for all intense and purposes, put the kibosh on all this cannabis, even the practical, useful, environmentally friendly, and all-around-nice-gal hemp. Forty-nine states have bans  similar to the  federal one on their books. The lone state with common sense that’d make Thomas Paine smile and the hutzpah to lift a middle digit to the feds in your Peace Garden State and mine, North Dakota.  Of course, federal law still tells ND that cultivating hemp is a big no-no.

Hemp, which contains almost no THC, is the renaissance man of plants. Here’s a brief list of the swag you can build out of hemp:

• shoulder bags
• backpacks
• rope
• twine
• cord
• hats
• shirts
• shoes
• belts
• pants
• necklaces
• exfoliating washcloths
• back scrubbers
• wallets
• cosmetic bags
• soap
• lip balm
• hair care products
• skin care products
• hammocks
• powder
• pasta
• flour
• cereal

For some reason, the War on Drugs includes this innocuous yet intensely handy plant. Need we say more? We need. European and Asian countries hold the majority of the growing hemp-product market, leaving America behind. Of course, there are concerns by the business world who dig on synthetics and factory farmers who grow other natural fibers. We’re pretty convinced that if they’re against hemp, then we should be for it.

So, what can you, the average web reader do?

1. You could buy some stuff at Hemp Sisters or Hemp Basics or find other places yourself here.  This could be your way of continuing the popularity of industrial hemp products. Eventually, the capitalists will listen.
2. You could use drop a line to your representative in Congress.
3. You could make a donation to the Hemp Industries Association, even if you can only spare a fiver.
4. Speaking of five, you could pass FAQ link along to five progressive friends.
5. You could educate yourself ever more by watching this video, then passing the word (or link or both) along to your pals.

So, please, go forth and love, but don’t bother smoking, some hemp.

I’m willing to wager, dollars to donuts, that you’ve heard of the Do Not Call Registry. And if you’ve heard of it, I’m also betting you’ve signed up. If you haven’t, do it, baby. You want telemarketers to leave you alone? This government service is for you.

So that’ll take care of that thing that rings, then wakes the cat sleeping on your lap, who, as he or she leaps away suddenly terrified, only scratches the hell out of your leg if you’re lucky.

What about junk mail, those Wal-Mart fliers and grocery coupons, a googolplex of new credit card offers and one too many Publisher’s Clearinghouse promises of riches? Well, we may have stumbled on an answer.

Green Dimes is a service that gets your name and address off junk mail lists. That’s right: no more junk mail. By stopping the annoyance that is a mailbox full of useless crap, you in turn save, quite literally, forrests full of trees. There is a hitch, though: it costs you one dime each day. That’s it: 365 FDR heads. (Sorry, I made it sounds a hell of a lot more morbid than it is.) That’s 36 smackers a year. That’s six trips to fast-food joints (and, c’mon, we all know we should at least cut back our McMeals by at least six each year).

But Green Dimes (you can read more about Green Dimes and similar conservation services in this Newsweek article) is more than a junk-mail prevention service: they’re true conservationists. In association with Trees for the Future, Green Dimes “[sponsors] tree planting on behalf of [its] members.”

So let’s break this down old school:

1. Save some trees
2. Plant some trees
3. Spend next to nothing
4. Stop getting junkmail

Another fantastic service is 41 Pounds, which does almost the same thing as Green Dimes, except half of their profits go to nonprofit organizations. An additional benefit of 41 Pounds is that they promise to keep 80% to 95% of your bulk mail away for 5 years.

Whichever one you go with, go with one. Your mailbox will thank you. (Please note: your mailbox is an inanimate object and will not in fact thank you; we’re not all-out looney, okay?)