Monday, March 28, 2011

Waiting for Spring

It's monday again and March is almost over. Spring hasn't quite made it here yet, it is still not quite warm yet, at night the temperatures dip below freezing, and there is no daffodil in sight. The crocuses are out though and I have seen some brave shrubs tentatively unfolding their tiny leaves. I'm quite hopeful that springtide is coming soon as it seems to be just around the corner.
Therefore I am trying to shake off the remaining bits and pieces of the winter doldrums to be vernally inspired. Isn't that a wonderful word? Vernal. It makes me think of fresh and green things.

Here's the definition from Webster's Online Dictionary:


1. Suggestive of youth; vigorous and fresh.[Wordnet]
2. Of or characteristic of or occurring in spring; "the vernal equinox".[Wordnet]
3. Of or pertaining to the spring; appearing in the spring; as, vernal bloom.[Websters]
4. Fig.: Belonging to youth, the spring of life.[Websters]
5. Being young, youthful, juvenile, adolescent or beardless. [Eve - graph theoretic]
6. Being new, fresh or recent. [Eve - graph theoretic]
7. Being springlike or flowering. [Eve - graph theoretic]
8. Being immature, green, unfledged or sappy. [Eve - graph theoretic]
9. Being late or latest. [Eve - graph theoretic]
 So, I'll be taking out my apple-green spring coat, put a spring in my step, give the apartment and the balcony a spring cleaning, get back to my yoga practice, ride my bike, look forward to local fresh produce, soak up the sun and wait in giddy anticipation for spring to finally show up.

I'm wishing y'all a vernal time.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Equality for all

March is already in its second week and while spring hasn't quite sprung here yet, I can hear it traipsing nearer.
And I am trying to get back on track, after spending the last month either stumbling along in a right-side-hearing-impaired-due-to-a-very-persistant-head-flu-kinda-daze or subsequently hiding in the ditch beside the track. Getting back on track means also posting more on this blog. Hopefully. I'm working on it.

Anyways, since it is WTF Wednesday. Here's another treat for you: Daniel Craig in drag via the SmartBitches




Truthfully, the part that made me go WTF?! isn't so much lovely 007 in drag (dang...the man is smokin' even wearing a rather unsexy dress), but the staggering numbers of women facing violence daily. You know, sad part is, even while they are staggering they are really not surprising. I wish they were. And I wish we could get around to make this world safer for women everywhere. And fairer. And a place where men and women really are equal, because with all this patriarchal inequality crap, we're not only hurting women, but everyone.

Happy belated Women's Day everyone.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

WTF Wednesday: Bad Feminism, Monkey Pee and a shameless Secretary of Defense

It's wednesday which means it's time for my weekly wtf roundup.

On the wtf-I-didn't-know-these-people-still-existed front:
Apparently the worst thing that ever happened to womankind is feminism. Yepp, you heard me. Feminism took away our rights. Our right to be wives, our right to be cared for by our husbands, our right to be paid for by our husbands. It's just so demeaning. But fear not. There are women out there fighting the evil forces of feminism. And they have written a book: "The Flipside of Feminism" by Phyllys Schlafly and Suzanne Venker.

On the wtf-monkeys-are-weird front:
Male Capuchin monkeys pee into their hands and rub their fur with urine to appear more attractive to females. Classy.


And on the wtf-this-makes-me-really-angry front:
Apparently a large portion of the people in my homecountry believe the theft of intellectual property is a peccadillo and scholarly work is useless. Otherwise I cannot explain why so many of them stand behind the thankfully now resigned Secretary of Defense who copied 70% of his PhD dissertation from sources he neglected to name and who apparently finds it beneath himself to apologize for it. Here's the backgroumd on what is going on.

Happy Wednesday.