Deme Mis Tacos!

My beloved Los Angeles taco trucks are under fire, and, under no circumstances do I intend to let them go down without a fight.

A new law would prohibit them from parking in any one spot for longer than an hour without receiving a $1000 fine. Thank GOODNESS someone has stepped up to combat this madness. A pair of ex-Oxy roommates currently living in Highland Park have created www.saveourtacotrucks.org to mobilize taco truck lovers across LA. They have even declared May 1st taco truck night.

I will be visiting my own personal favorite-- Leo's on Eagle Rock Blvd in approximately 10 minutes to demonstrate my own solidarity with the movement. 'Ain't no one gets between me and my quesadilla de pollo con guacamole y limon. Especially not Antonio. It's ok for him to sleep around with Latinas, but when Angelenos try to buy a late-night snack from one, he gets his panties all in a twist? That boy's mama needs to smack some values into him.

I'll Let You Borrow My Panda if You Come to the Olympics

I'm sorry. This is too rich. In the midst of all the Olympic-torch-tibet-mania, this just in. According to an article today on the LA Times website,

Japan’s oldest giant panda, Ling Ling, a longtime star at Tokyo’s largest zoo and a symbol of friendship with China, died today of heart failure, zookeepers said.

Another Reuters article postulated that this could be an important chance for China's President Hu Jintao to practice panda diplomacy (perhaps some form of black and white loan?), when he visits Japan later this week.

I'm sorry. Did I miss something? I think perhaps Mr. Jintao might want to focus on a few more pressing issues of diplomacy involving men in red robes. Human rights abuses, anyone?

I Will Not Blog About the Gross Austrian Man

Enough said. Where's the gulasch?

Allergies, Smallergies

Revelers in Trastavere, Rome yesterday got down and dirty with an enormous pillow fight.

At this point, I can only express my severe and utter jealousy. If there is one thing Los Angeles needs, it is a giant feathers-flying, out-and-out. downright brawl of our pillows. A union of all things synthetic and down, a pillow fight is just the kind of out-of-the-box therapy Angeleans would benefit from. Even those bizarre pellet-filled viscose blobs would be helpful. Forget our manicures, our massages, our over-priced and not-always-so-tasty lattes. They obviously haven't helped us with our road rage or the release of our feelings. Italy has the right idea.

Even Spain understands. Bunol, Valencia is the host of the Tomatina (the tomato fight) in which boys align against girls for a day of slinging the red fruit back and forth until the streets are ankle-deep in pulp. Afterwards, everyone makes salsa with the pulp. Alright, that last part might be a lie.

Still, even India has the color war, Holi, in which everyone throws water balloons full of colored powder at one another. Or at least that's how it goes in the movies. Why do all these other countries have so much more fun than us?

According to IndianChild.com,

Festivals bring joy and happiness in our lives. If we celebrate all festivals alike we can spread the message of joy, happiness, brotherhood and humanity among one another and live as one family and community.

I'm not sure I would go that far, but I can't say I wouldn't mind putting on my pj's and slinging some pillows.

And I Always Thought I Was Mean To My Little Brother . . .

See Evan? Here you have it-- you had it easy.

Economy on Fire

According to an LA Times article today, people across the country have begun burning down their homes and crashing their cars in attempts to escape the constraints of their mortgage, home, and car payments. Given, the trend is still small at this point, but Insurance Fraud Investigators are sitting up and taking note, eager for their home institutions (if an insurance company could indeed be called an institution) to maximize their profits and deny as many claims as possible.

It's hard to ignore the parallel between the current trend and that of the suicidal Brooklyn Bridge Wall-Streeters of the great depression, albeit to a far lesser degree. Admittedly, our current recession hasn't yet spurred our economy into a downward spiral sharp enough to induce such a level of manic depression and sheer panic at the dire state of one's condition.

Perhaps this is because in our current state of economic downturn, the big guns aren't being held as responsible for the downturn of their businesses as they might have been in 1929. Take Bear Stearns for example. Even after their initial Fed bailout raised protests from some, the price per share paid by the Fed for the financial giant was increased voluminously.

Some Americans are being repaid in the form of tax breaks this year, but none on so grand a scale. According to a CNN.com article, the average tax return in 2008 will be about $2500-- far too small a sum to pay off the average debts of consumption-happy Americans. Furthermore, with a high marginal propensity to consume in the US, it's unlikely that whole check will be going towards paying off old debts. For many families, Uncle Sam may just be financing the purchase of a new Wii.

Back In My Day . . .

Things have come a long way since I was in high school. All I got in the way of a promvitation was a, "Hey gurl, Wanna hook up at prom next weekend? I can get us a good deal on condoms," scribbled onto a paper cafeteria napkin and stuffed into the vent in my locker when I wasn't looking. Sadly, my would-be-suitor forgot to sign his name, so I never got to take advantage of his once-in-a-lifetime offer.

Only kidding. My high school had a graduation ball rather than prom. Our parents all came. Nookie and intoxication were scarce. Still, if someone had invited me to the prom on Digg, had I known what it was, I probably would have said yes. I mean, this kid has cojones. Slightly nerdy cojones, admittedly, but cojones nonetheless. Talk about a potential for public humiliation. On that note, I sure hope she doesn't shoot him down.

Pope's UN Adress Falls Just Short of Benediction

Pope Benedict addressed the UN General Assembly today as a part of his visit to the US.

He said the notion of multilateral consensus was "in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action by the international community."

While Benedict did not mention any specific country, this appeared to be a reference to the United States, which led the 2003 invasion of Iraq even though the Security Council refused to approve it.

The Vatican strongly opposed the recourse to war.
(Reuters Copyright 2008)

Interestingly enough, the Pope will not be attending the White House dinner in his honor this weekend. Hmm . . . subtly reprimanding US actions and refusing to be honored by the US all in one visit. Coincidence? I think not. SOMEONE'S trying to send a message from the Catholic Church. Let's see if George and Dick pick up on the REAL reason for this papal visit. They may need a little help from above to retract themselves from their current mess.

What is THAT?

Until I came to college, I had no idea how unusual it was that I knew the names and utilities of most plants and animals I encountered in my day-to-day life. I could tell you which mushrooms were delicious with garlic, as opposed to those that would kill you or leave you running zig-zags around imaginary giant rabbits. I knew which woodland berries were edible and delicious and which would leave you retching in the bushes.

The daughter of a master gardener, I had spent my childhood hiking through the woods, picking stinging nettles for quiches and soups and tea (touching only the tops of course), digging worms wriggling from their dark, damp holes and pitting them against millipedes and pill bugs that I found in the woodpile. I could have even demonstrated to onlookers the utility of the banana slug as a tongue numbing device, although if I ever did, I have since blocked it from my memory.

You can imagine my surprise then, when I came across a YouTube video on Digg.com today proclaiming that a new survey of children found they could identify 1000 logos, and only 10 plants and animals. Yes, that's right. Ten. Collectively.

This makes me quite sad. I could identify more than ten varieties of personal pets as a child, largely because I had at least as many. Not to mention more than ten exotic animals, more than ten farm animals, and far more than ten plants. And I believe my life is better for it. I don't squirm at the sight of rodents or insects-- no daddy longlegs has ever caused me to jump as it does my city-raised friends.

Yes, people sometimes poke fun at me, when, in the middle of the Golden Gate Park's AIDS Memorial Walk I leap excitedly from the trail to seize upon a bush of luscious salmonberries, but I know that inside they are only jealous. Their teasing does little to mask their obvious gratitude at having befriended such a resourceful young woman.

I'm Not Inviting China to My Birthday Party!

US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley announced in interviews today that it would be "a cop-out" for the US to boycott Beijing's opening ceremonies for this summer's Olympics. He said that the quiet diplomacy the US is currently using is the best medicine for China's recent bad behavior, and that those countries who plan to boycott the ceremony are merely using the opportunity as an easy way to check the Tibet problem off of their to-do lists.

This is absolute cock-a-nannie. The US's "quiet diplomacy" is SO quiet that it has yet to result in any visible progress. In fact, rather than engaging in talks with the Dalai Lama, as the US has previously suggested, China even went so far as to declare him a terrorist-- allied with Islamic extremist groups planning to cause some sort of commotion at this summer's games.

Of course WE should avoid confrontation with China-- they are our second largest trading partner and have one of the fastest growing economies in the world-- but for Hadley to denounce other nation's attempts at putting international pressure on China's horrific human rights policies smacks of arrogance and ill logic. Such foreign policy is reminiscent of a childhood game, wherein Hadley is the sore loser. "If WE can't publicly embarrass China, then no one else is allowed to either," he seems to be saying.

Those countries who aren't in economically dependent relationships with China should, by all means, place public pressure on their violent mistreatment of protesting Tibetans. In the meantime, I'm sending Hadley to the corner for some time out.

Well I'll Be a Smashed Atom

Here's hoping we don't find ourselves sucked into the Franco-Swiss border this summer. I'm trying to go to school in Le Maroc next fall.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-collider13apr13,0,7765588.story

Overwhelmed by Oil

This morning, I was quite taken aback to read the following excerpt from an LA Times article. This seems like a pretty sweet deal, at least for Santa Barbarans, but I can't help but wonder what kind of state this new 'park land' is in. Hmm . . . trading greenery for depletion of the world's resources . . . are environmentalists really winning here or merely being duped into selling out? And what will happen to the currently emerald hue of this oceanview property once Californians have bought and used all 200 million barrels of oil it is said that PXP stands to gain from this deal? I am a little dubious. As my dear old dad always says, "If something seems too good to be true, it usually is."

A Houston oil company has agreed to shut down its offshore oil production off Santa Barbara County decades early in exchange for approval this year to drill into untapped undersea reserves and cash in on the nation's record oil prices.

To sweeten the deal, Plains Exploration & Production Co. -- known as PXP -- also has agreed to donate about 200 acres of oceanview property along the sparsely populated Gaviota coast and an additional 3,700 acres in Santa Barbara's premier wine-growing region for public parkland. It would withdraw a proposed housing development on that land and pay millions to fund projects that offset carbon dioxide emissions, such as low-emission public buses.

It's My Life and I'll Cry If I Want To

I have work to do. A lot of work. Sometimes I worry I might spontaneously combust if I think about it all at once. So instead I am making a list of everything I have to do in the next 3 weeks in order of their chronological due dates.

1. Write article about environmentalism at Oxy (4/10)
2. Make draft of Olympics protest presentation (4/11)
3. International Econ midterm (4/17)
4. 15 page take-home Sufism exam due (4/18)
5. 20 minute Econ presentation in-class (4/24)
6. Final blogging research project due (4/26)
7. Write 22 blog entries -- admittedly my own fault (4/30)
8. 10-12 page Econ research paper due (5/2)
9. Econ final exam 6:30-9:30 p.m (5/6)
10. Politics final exam 8:30-11:30 am(5/8)
11. Run naked through campus 11:31 am (5/8)
12. Sleep (5/9-5/18)

This list may have been a bad idea. Now I feel a little like this . .

Beauty is only skin deep