The Barackomercial

I watched Barack Obama's infomercial this evening (a recorded version). Here are my observations:

1) The tone was very touching, dramatic, and congratulatory, like one would expect on a news network documentary about an important figure in history, or at least a well-loved figure. The only problem was, it was actually made by the person it was about. So to me, it came across as very self-congratulatory, which I found obnoxious after awhile.

2) It starred white people almost entirely, except for Obama himself and a few others.

3) I felt impressed on one hand by Obama's obvious ability to harness the power of electronic media to deliver his message and through which to channel funds and acquire supporters. On the other hand, his huge presence in this way makes me uncomfortable and distrustful. Don't we all know how money can create any perception and sell any product? The McCain interview afterward on Larry King was a breath of fresh air to me. He was natural, conversational, enjoyable to listen to. I feel more trusting of that type of conversation with the American public over the glitzy documentary-style format. We humans can be very prone to manipulation by these types of things. Just music itself can cause our minds to swoon over something. I have always felt distrustful of this and feel that way even moreso in the area of politics, it turns out. Has anyone seen what the Discovery channel did to our birth film? Ugh. (insert horror movie soundtrack. Literally!)

4) Obama changed the income cut off of his tax relief to $200,000 from $250,000. McCain claimed later in the evening that Biden referred to it as $150,000.

5) I kept thinking about how Obama had once pledged on paper to use public financing. I had no idea that his campaign funding is so opaque.



6) As I watched the film footage of the different families pictured, a nagging feeling kept creeping up. A lifestyle of consumerism was promoted so blatantly...the family who needs money to make the car payment. How about not having a car payment? It showed one family eating at a restaurant after the husband's work hours were drastically cut. Huh? As Barack has put it in the past, "That's not change. It's more of the same."

In fairness, this consumerism is the American lifestyle. Obama certainly didn't create it. It's weirdly depressing to me that this is what America has apparently come down to: the government ensuring that our wants and needs are guaranteed. Easy for me to say, as I have never been hungry. He was speaking of things such as health care, being able to pay the bills, etc. and these are all noble pursuits, but implicit in that is this ability to have more wiggle room in our income for the other stuff. I keep thinking about my Grandpa Earl, for instance, and the entire generation that came out of the Great Depression and still found it within themselves to fight like hell for our country and for freedom. They still loved America, even though they had absolutely nothing for a very long time. I would guess that our modern-day consumerism is a direct result of that period of time when poverty was the standard for almost everyone. Will Americans still love their country even if/when the government can't possibly fix everything? I hope so.

Our pet microbes

I am a member of the first completely distance class offered in Microbiology through University of Alaska Southeast. Thus far, I have taken two anatomy and physiology classes via this campus, which involved all lab supplies being sent directly to our home, including dissection specimens such as a sheep's eye, brain, heart, and kidney, a fetal pig, and other parts. When I learned that Micro was also being offered without the in-person component in Sitka, I jumped at the chance, and within a week of enrolling, a customary USPS priority mail box showed up on our porch complete with agar plates (petri dishes), broth tubes, and other materials. Here are some pictures of my current projects:



Truth be told, if I knew then what I know now, I would have opted to do this class in person. It has been daunting to try to set up a decent lab in our little house without freaking out about contamination, etc. I am using proper safety precautions, and frankly, am being exposed to more familiar microbes than I would be in an on-campus lab, but I am still not as equipped as I want to be. Good news: culturing our dining room table resulted in only a speckle or two of colonies, and nothing too insidious. I'm tempted to start dabbing everything with a sterile q-tip and rubbing it on some agar, just to see what happens.

Also, this has resulted in some great teaching moments between me and the kids. The two jars above house Saccharomyces cerevisiae, common bread yeast, which led to some in depth discussion about how yeast makes bread rise. I'm tempted to whip up a batch of kombucha tea in all of its slimy yumminess. We also have enjoyed making sourdough bread in the past. It might be time for another pet sourdough starter for the fridge. Gotta love these non-pet pets. :)

Less coffee, same yum

Since coffee comprises an actual percentage of our bloodstream at this point in its pure form, I have tried a couple of suggestions that I've experimented with to get a good cup of coffee by using less.

The first tip came from the Tightwad Gazette: Use your original coffee grinds and add 50% of the original amount fresh on top of the old ones. Aside from the microbiological element to this process (ewwy) I thought for those consecutive half-pots from one part of the day to the next (yes, terrible I know) this might suffice. I tried it, and it does not work. Not hardly. Blech.

The second tip has worked very well and I now recommend it to you all. On a website, I found a tip about doubling up the filter and using less coffee, so as to cause the water to steep the coffee longer. This has worked quite yummily. It took a few tries to get the measurements right, but it's pretty straightforward. This has helped us to use 33% less coffee per pot without compromising any flavor at all, for the fraction of a fraction of a penny that a filter costs.

When I'm feeling exceptionally frugalgeeky, I will calculate the savings.

I'm going to die laughing right here and now.

Of course, from a practical standpoint, I can't help but cringe at the reference to "Eskimos." There are 11 distinct Native Alaskan cultures and 20 different languages. But still. And Todd! And the moose! Getting shot, no less! I'm gasping for breath!

Early morning windstorm

So I woke up at 4:30-ish to study for my midterms, and it sounded like the house was about to fall apart. Apparently, winds were ripping through our neck of the woods 80-100 miles per hour! The guy at the supermarket lost his whole fence. Trees whipped around horizontal, and sometime around 5:30 while studying Microbiology, our power went out.

Well, THAT was fun, being wide awake in a spooky, creaky, howling house with a power outage. I'm so spoiled in my 21st century life.

I spent the next half hour lighting candles and discovering that mason jars diffuse the light beautifully through a room.

Next, I got all the kids up at 7, still pitch black in the house, and we got ready for popcorn day at school by candlelight. It took a little while but mostly we felt adventurous. The kids loved it.

By 8:30, I was pretty much over the adventure of it all and wanted my lights back on. The sky had started to lighten up a bit, but still no sun over the mountains. I started hoping that school got canceled as I drove through the north part of town and saw that even the supermarket had lost its power and all was darkened.

Lo and behold, the only lighted building in town was Wolf's elementary school. Which leads me to my next realization, which is that Alaskan schools don't stop for anything. I can think of only one day in the last 3 years when I even heard of a school closing due to weather. Sure enough, Wolf's school was running generators and planning for one half of the students to be in class with the other half (they called it "reading buddies) because there was only enough power for one half of the school.

The wind was INTENSE! It's quite rare to have stormy weather here in our inlet. We got inside long enough to confirm that popcorn day was canceled and our excellent popcorn-passing-out skills were not needed. And back home we went to make our own popcorn and huddle in close with our electricity back on and our spoiled selves feeling warmer and cozier at the end of it all.

Here's a link to some pictures from around town. Bummer about that tree house!

The plan has backfired.

I don't know the sign for "All done" and started using a makeshift one with Bethany where I put my hands up near my face while saying "all done." (Hard to explain...think of it as though one is saying "I don't know" and putting up two hands while shrugging shoulders.) Today she used it! But instead of putting her hands up in the air near her face, she decided to put them into her hair and over her ears! So my child has learned that, right at the end of a meal when her hands are covered with sweet potatoes or smushed carrots, she needs to put those very hands over her ears and into her hair and say "All done!" with the sweetest smile on her face. Ack!

I am exhausted and trying to stay awake. I thought treating myself to a little blog-writing would wake me up. :) I have a Microbiology midterm tomorrow and three more on Monday (Organic and Biochemistry, Organic and Biochemistry Lab, and Nutrition for the Health Sciences), along with several big assignments due between now and Monday as well. My stinging eyes are fast giving up on me and I'm thinking it's time to hit the sack and set the alarm for 4-ish or so to give myself a break. Time truly doesn't exist in which to complete this work...I can't seem to pull all-nighters anymore without totally losing interest and fantasizing about my blankets (or just falling asleep face-first on the table until Bethany wakes me up over the baby monitor). It cracks me up to remember my high school days, for instance, when I would stay up all night writing poems and playing the guitar and any number of things while living off of a few hours of sleep a night. Until recently, I have been able to exist with very little sleep but Bethany especially is very exhausting these days. My darling husband cut his own sleep short today to give me some extra study time.

Oh, good news, by the way. Zoya learned how to ride her bike without training wheels today. She has had a big month (the reading, and now this). Now that snow is preparing to cloak our neck of the world, her excitement will have to be on hold for eight months until it melts.

Yawn. I hope this post is coherent. Good night, world.

Our precious Bethany

Bethany is the most verbal of all our babies. She imitates us constantly and, at nine months, has developed names for "dada" ("AH-DA!"), "sister" ("AH-TAH!"), "mama" ("MA!"), and loves to wave and say "hi." She blows through her lips when I blow a kiss and tries to do every goofy thing imaginable to get a smile out of us. Tonight when I came home from class, she smiled a big smile and immediately took my glasses off for me so she could share them right back. She charms us right and left!

We are not intensely committed to using sign language with our children but we have always incorporated some of it to aide communication in the early pre-verbal days. Bethany is no exception. We have found that our babies can use it from fairly early on and that it gives them a means of communicating their needs to us and lessening some of that pre-verbal stress when they know what they want but don't know yet how to say it.

The sign we introduce once we start feeding solid foods is "more." It looks like this:

putting our fingers together on each hand and tapping the tips. When I am feeding Bethany her fine fare of finely-ground oatmeal mixed with sweet potatoes or peas, I often use the sign for "more" when asking her if she wants more food. She picked up on it right away and has been using it with me ever since.

I was thoroughly awestruck when I heard what she did tonight with Alex, however! While I was at class, Bethany got hungry while sitting on the floor playing with toys. She looked at her daddy, made the sign for "more," brought her fingers to her mouth, and did that a couple times until he verbally explained what she was telling him so that she knew that he knew.

WOW! I can't get over the miracle she is. :)

Our fish has succumbed.

Alex noted the irony that he can whack a salmon on the head with a rock before bringing it home for us to eat, but somehow, the sight of our sweet little 10 cent goldfish limping around in its tank just downright touched our heart. It has been part of the family. Last night, it died. Rest in peace, fish. You've had many names. We will miss you.

R.I.P. Fishee

2008

Breaking the fast

Alex and I await the debate tonight with great reluctance. (Okay, that's not true. He's not thinking about it at all right now because he's sleeping...) I am trying not to shake my head in disbelief that the Republican Party continues this course. By the end of the evening, my face may actually have a handprint on it from covering my eyes at the way Palin will no doubt, as my good friend has put it, be "slaughtered."

I am of the belief that experience is important but not THE most important factor of a candidate. I have appreciated McCain's age as a great asset, not a detriment, because living 3 extra decades than the other guy should benefit someone with that much extra perspective and experience (one may argue, of course, that it may cause someone to be that much more stubborn too).

But defending her experience in the face of common sense~~in the face of reality~~is foolish. So what if she was mayor, governor, etc. if she has obviously not invested enough time into the process of learning about current events and the history of our country? Saying, "Well, she is governor!" does not matter if she has not gleaned enough information and experience to speak freely and correctly on matters that should matter to Democrats and Republicans alike.

Having "everyman" in office is great~~a true plus~~but not when that person cannot spontaneously ponder the possible ramifications of the events of this world in a way that reveals a studied mind. I can think of several people I know who are "everyman" and "everywoman" and possess an impressive body of knowledge and wisdom with which to ponder the world. Waaaaaaaaaaay more than Palin, apparently. I have not seen any evidence of a true appreciation and natural curiosity about the issues that she will have to deal with. She becomes more eloquent and passionate about subjects that interest her (abortion, for instance) but that is so not enough, it's not even funny. This has nothing to do with her being a woman and everything to do with her NOT KNOWING ENOUGH TO HOLD OFFICE!!

Who wants to be her right now? Raise your hand.