What to Read in the Bath
I've decided to dispense with the tables. I downloaded the Opera 5.0 browser and discovered that somehow the combination of stylesheet markup and tables meant my journal pages were unreadable. Not that I know many people who bother with Opera, though it is now free and works okay, if you don't mind ads. (Though what's that stylesheet-table bug?) But I can't get sounds to work in it. But we gotta be cross-platform!
Anyway... my bathroom needed some new reading material so I visited the bookstore and purchased the latest issues of Utne Reader and Real Simple. Utne Reader is a compendium of New-Agey, touchy-feely, we-gotta-get-tribal, dose-ourselves-with-herbs and feng-shui-our-homes-type articles. There's something to encourage bowel movements on every page. A random sampling: "It was 1980. I was 16 and trying to figure out why my country had turned its back on its most gifted black musicians." I had not heard of this and I was 27 in 1980; but of course, the unspoken subtext (how's that for some lit-crit-speak?) was that was the year Big Bad Reagan got elected, and everything went to hell for the Downtrodden. So of course Prince and Michael Jackson (still technically "black" in 1980) didn't mean anything. But I digress. Here's more constipation-curing verbiage: "'I wonder about our species-centric value system a lot, and finally I just chalk it up to one of those genes that is bred into us to ensure that we sorry humans continue...'" This bon-mot was brought to you by one Carolina Paul, a firefighter according to the blurb, or byline, or whatever that thing is called that indicates the author of a quote. (Twelve years of English grammar down the drain.) She goes on to complain that she had to carry some ungrateful old woman out of a burning house - apparently the woman had the temerity to complain about something, Ms. Paul didn't say what, just that she was sure the old lady was thinking critical thoughts about her abilities because she (Ms. Paul) was a mere girl. Then Ms. Paul says she once (in what context she did not say) picked up a large German shepherd who did not growl or bare his teeth or complain in any fashion. Perhaps we should send old women to dog obedience school so that the next time Ms. Paul has the occasion to rescue one from a burning house (it is her job after all) there will be none of the complaints or whining that so disturb Ms. Paul's world. I do so hope that she is not a firefighter in my area.
There is also an article on big, bad oil - or rather, what to do once the two inches or so that are left in the world's reserves are gone (basically says this article). And I found a gem of a notion in the article: apparently an "astronomer" by the name of Thomas Gold is of the opinion that oil is not created from the remains of eons-dead plants and animals. The article calls this fact "the usual rap." This Gold person thinks that oil is an inorganic substance that is created somewhere in the earth's core and once our present supply dries up more will just be created and "depleted fields might just fill again as more oil oozes upward." Well, I guess that Mr. Gold being an astronomer, he should know. Of course all is not lost for those who can't wait for the lights to go out and civilization to fall: "Sounds hopeful," (quoth the author of the article, one Jeremiah Creedon, a name in which I do not believe) "until you factor in global warming." Thank Goddess for global warming! For a minute there it looked as if we'd never get rid of this boring prosperity. Yes, children, soon, any day now, just one more burning emission away, we will find ourselves in a new dark, if warm and damp, age. After all, it's in the Mayan calendar.
Real Simple is one of those "lifestyle" magazines. The sort of "simple" lifestyle it promotes seems to cost a lot of money. It is not really offensive, merely beside the point (for instance, in order to have a "$150 Spa" in your own home you need five or so women friends who each have $150 to spend on mudpacks and herbal teas, and it wouldn't hurt to live in a home with huge wall-to-ceiling windows showing acres of unspoiled someplace-not-in-suburbia wilderness). I always thought that a "simpler" lifestyle meant giving all your stuff away to the poor and moving into a monastery, but to the publishers of Real Simple magazine the "simple life" means turning your cell phone off on weekends.
In other news: I made the mistake of tuning in to the last half hour of last night's episode of "The X-Files." (I refuse to put a link in to the official site. I am boycotting the creators of this show.) What a mistake that was. The experience was rather like slowing down to look at a car crash, though you know you really shouldn't, and seeing that the crash victim was someone you knew. The show's in the toilet, folks, and there goes my last reason to watch network TV. Oh well, there will always be cable and the various types of crap to be found thereon to keep me good and depressed for some time to come ("Not another episode of LA Law! Oh god, I have no reason to live").
I will really do anything to avoid working on my research paper.