Category Archives: Links of Note

New Pet Food Crisis

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Because tests by the FDA are inconclusive, pet treat manufacturers are not required by law to recall their products, and none of them have volunteered to do so. But given that the tests have not pinpointed the contaminant does not mean it is not contaminated. The FDA issued a warning to pet owners in November, 2011 in regards to this issue.

The question many are asking is how many dogs will have to die before the products are recalled? It is already estimated that the dead and dying are numbered at more than 500. This number does not count all of the cases that have not made the connection yet between a pet’s illness and the treats. The treats are causing kidney failure and Fanconi syndrome, with some cases resulting in death; others, in chronic kidney disease.

So far, the list of brands with treats made in China that are linked to pet illness and deaths are:

Waggin Train
Canyon Creek Ranch
Dogswell
Booda Bones – Aspen Pet
Milo’s Kitchen
American Kennel Club
Hartz
Dingos
Beefeaters
Kirkland
Cadet
Sargents
Ever Pet ($$ General)
Home Pet 360
Walgreen’s new brand – Simple
TheKingdomPets

If your pet has eaten tainted treats, symptoms may include:

Decreased appetite
Decreased activity
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Increased water consumption
Increased urination

Pass this information on!

Artsy Links

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I’ve had a couple windows open in my browser with some links of interest to the artsy-fartsy set. Might as well share them now while I’m sitting at my desk being a lazy slacker.

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Wooloo.org … where artists find open calls! I haven’t signed up for an account yet (it’s free) but I have been looking through the open calls for artists and finding some things of interest. They do seem slow about removing things from the database after the deadline has passed though, so be aware of that before you fall in love with the idea of entering something and check the deadline date first.

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I found 10 Tips to Find Your Own Artistic Voice to be full of useful advice. Didn’t help me too much, because I forged ahead through the problem of finding my own voice a while back (though it is still an ongoing endeavor), but still, it’s great advice and good reminders for those of us who think we have that all worked out already. LOL!

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LCKM@ is a project bringing together artists whose works are donated and sold to support childhood cancer research organizations such as Saint Baldrick’s. At some point in the future, I will be donating some works, but you know, first I’ll have to actually get something finished. I’ll let you all know when I do so you can buy my art and support a really great cause, and in the meantime, go buy someone else’s art and support a really good cause!

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BONUS LINK:

This has nothing at all to do with art, though the person who created this contact page is a designer of some sort. I don’t even know how I ran across the link (maybe someone emailed it to me?), but you really just have to read it yourself. I wouldn’t want to ruin the joy of first discovery by telling you why.

Listen My Children, and You Shall Hear…

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You remember that girl in a beauty pageant a year or two ago? The one who went on and on about the reason some Americans can’t find the USA on a map is because they don’t have maps, and her answer made no sense at all? She had the usual deer in the headlights look and finished it off with the usual beauty queen smile. It’s a pretty common thing to see and hear at beauty pageants … girls who don’t know how to answer a question they’ve been asked just babbling mindlessly with a vapid look on their face and a pretty smile. Now one can forgive these girls for being a little vapid, or for not being able to come up with a decent answer to sometimes rather interesting questions while standing on a stage with a TV camera pointed at them. I’ve been there. It’s not as easy as it looks, unless you are really, REALLY comfortable in that situation (and practice answering questions pageants might ask).

The question itself is not just one test, it’s two. How well does the person carry themselves under pressure (don’t crack or appear stressed), and are they capable of thinking quickly when on the spot and maybe not knowing a good answer (“I don’t know” is actually a workable answer, if fleshed out a little). I am capable of answering any question, anywhere, at any time (or saying I don’t know an answer), but I am 46 years old. I have far more experience than a teenager standing on a stage in a spotlight in front of a TV camera (likely for the first time in her life). So yes, I can forgive even Map Girl for seeming a little stupid and not having a decent answer to a relatively easy question.

What I can’t forgive is a woman of my age, who has been the governor of a state, and has run for vice-president of the United States of America trying to pull the same deer in the headlights look and big smile while spouting a completely incorrect answer to a question just about any elementary school child could answer better on the topic of American History. Beauty pageant contestants WISH they got such simple questions! Therefore, I must once again break my moratorium on mentioning Sarah Palin. I do apologize.

While in Boston, a reporter asked Palin who Paul Revere was. Yeah, I know. It’s a ridiculously easy question for anyone who has completed a basic level of education in the USA. For someone who went to college? Should be a total no brainer. One would hope a person with political aspirations might at least have some kind of reasonable answer to such a simple question, but dear, dear Palin … well …

“He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”
–Sarah Palin

Uh. No. Not even close. Nowhere near the ballpark.

Would it pain her too much to at least read a Wikipedia entry or two on the historical locations she is out visiting before stepping off her bus? I’m dumbfounded that someone claiming to be such a proud patriot doesn’t seem to know anything much at all about the history of the country she insists she loves so much, but I could even forgive her that, if she’d at least TRY to read a web page or a guide book or ask her children or SOMETHING before standing in front of a camera acting as though the words falling from her lips weren’t the steaming pile of stupid they always are. She keeps acting as though she’s a teen beauty queen being put on the spot, but really … who is Paul Revere is not a gotcha question, especially when one is in Boston and standing at the North Church tower (and has had any education whatsoever). Poor journalist probably thought he was handing her a softball.

Now can the national media stop following this woman around? Please? I am tired of not being able to easily avoid the stupidity she spawns everywhere she goes.

If I would have been able to suggest some reading for Ms. Palin before visiting Boston to sight-see, it would be this page containing Longfellow’s poem The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and a bit of history on the subject.

Baldness Ahead!

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2 days, 21 hours and some minutes until Lin and I go bald for the cause! If anyone is still interested in making a donation, it’s not too late! Every little bit helps. If you’d like to donate, I ask that you please do so on Linnie’s page. He’s gotten a late start, and I want him to feel like he’s making a difference too … cause he is. :)

And thank you again to everyone who has been so generous! You are all the sweetest of angels!

Americans Love to Panic

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Some questions running through my head tonight are … do Americans know potassium iodide is not a fix-all for radiation exposure, and do they know it comes with its own problems? Some other questions bumbling around in my brain are … do Americans know anything at all about radiation, and do they have any idea how much radiation they are exposed to on a daily basis? I’m also wondering if they know where Japan is on the globe.

I’m just curious, because I seem to be seeing an awful lot of really senseless panic among Americans. What’s really humorous to me is hearing people who have no problem at all going through the x-ray nudie machines at airports on a regular basis and aren’t at all concerned that we don’t really know exactly how much radiation they may be exposing people to every time they use one are now the very same people who are frantically trying to get their hands on pills to protect their thyroid (which could actually cause them thyroid problems if they take them). I imagine these same people stand with their noses glued to the window on their microwave too, and I’ve got news for you … all microwave ovens leak. If you know me and you have rushed out and bought a Geiger counter, do not inform me, because I guarantee you, I will laugh in your face. Seriously, I will.

I don’t recall reading about Americans panicking about radiation poisoning after we nuked Japan or while we were actively testing nuclear bombs above ground on our own soil. I also don’t recall all of America panicking about radiation poisoning in the aftermath of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, and one of those happened right here in our own country. Now though, America wants to panic.

People are making money by making you afraid. The only people in America who are going to benefit from the sale of potassium iodide pills and Geiger counters are the people selling them … and the news outlets who are buying your eyeballs for their advertisers with their scary sensationalism.

I have some suggested reading for anyone considering panicking about radiation poisoning in the USA due to events in Japan:

Background Radiation – Banana Equivalent Dose – Inverse Square Law

And this article is very, very informative. Must read for anyone in America considering panicking.

And for the love of all that is holy, if you are terrified of radiation, stop eating bananas right now … and definitely do not put that Brazil nut in your mouth.

On My Tree

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I awoke Saturday morning to the sounds of thunder, lightning, and rain. My first thought was “Oh no! My tree is out in the rain!” Then I chuckled to myself and went back to sleep. Of course “my tree” is out in the rain. Trees like rain, and it takes Mother Nature a long time to destroy acrylic yarn. When I next opened my eyes, the sun was shining and birds were singing, and I once again thought of my tree out in the sun being happy and looked upon by the young people flooding the university campus that day. It’s weird how I seem to have developed an attachment to that knitting-covered tree, but I have. Every time it crosses my mind, which is often, I find myself smiling to know that it is there and I am here and somehow … we are connected.

Thursday looks like it’s going to be a lovely day, so I plan to make the trek downtown to the Blanton to take photos of the installation (and of my tree) with a proper camera. There were so many clever, creative, unique, and down-right awesome trees, and I want to have photos to remember them by in my old age. Mine too, though I think it’s possible my tree is only awesome to me. For as much thought and planning went into it, it seems rather plain compared to others, but for me it does express what I meant it to express. “Building upon the singularity and simplicity of the trunk, the progression moves up and out into the chaotic fracticality of the branches and limbs and onward to the complexity of the entire multiverse,” was how I described my intention to Lin … who giggled, because it’s such an artsy way to describe having knit my stripes in the sequence of Fibonacci. All the same, that was indeed what my thoughts were on all those long afternoons spent knitting the thing.†

Anyway, it’s weird the way I feel like I miss “my tree” and I wonder from time to time throughout the day how “my tree” is doing. LOL! And now I must stop sitting here missing “my tree” and get back to the housework.

Footnotes
  1. † And I am pleased I am not the only knitter to have decided Fibonacci has a nice set of numbers. Pleases me even more to know there are girls in the next generation who apparently like those numbers too … and that they knit. Knitting is a universal good. [↩]

Hello World!

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This weekend, I celebrated my 46th birthday. Celebrated might be the wrong word. Maybe “made note of” or “observed the passing of” would be more accurate. Not that I get bummed out about getting another year older. I don’t. I’m actually one of those weirdos who gets excited and happy about being a year older. I think it’s awesome I’ve been on this planet for 46 years and have clear memories of life on Earth that go all the way back to when I was four years old in 1969. The world has changed a lot in my lifetime, and it feels like an accomplishment to still be here taking part in it all. LOL!

Things didn’t go quite as planned for my birthday. The universe decided the thing I most needed for my birthday was a break in my menopausal state after two years of of not feeling like utter and complete crap one week a month. Seriously, is that the best the universe could come up with for a gift?! Making me a bloated, crampy, hormonally induced emotional wreck with a migraine and a face full of zits?! Thanks, universe. That was just what I wanted … NOT!† Could it at least have waited until after my birthday? Grrr.

We’d had a pretty low-key day planned anyway though. When I have been working on some creative project for a while and then it’s over, there’s always a few days of total downtime during which I let go of that project, clear my head for the next, and catch up on mental rest. Even something as simple as knitting a tree sweater requires the downtime. I focus intensely on all creative projects, and they rattle around in my brain during the entire time they are in progress, even when I am not actively working on them. It doesn’t feel draining at the time, but once the thing is declared finished and the studio area cleared for the next project, I feel it. Since my birthday was going to fall during this downtime, I decided I just wanted to go hang out with my mom and go eat out and just sit around her house chatting.

So that’s what we did. To be honest, I didn’t even feel like doing that much, but I didn’t want to call off the plans either. I’d been looking forward to my low-key plans and the trip to Mom’s! We got there a little later than usual, because I was moving at a snail’s pace, so by the time we arrived at her house, we were all starving and needed to eat. The usual eating places were brought up as suggestions for the birthday brunch, but I really wanted to go somewhere new and different. With it being a Sunday, all the usual places would have been packed with locals getting out of church anyway. These places are the “usual places” because all the locals go to them. I didn’t want to wait an hour to get a table, and well, I like trying new places!

I looked through the Fritztown visitor’s guide, picked a place I’d never heard of that was just around the corner from Mom’s house, and then checked it out on Yelp. Yelp gave it fabulous reviews, so off we went to Sunset Grill. All I can say is that Yelp did not lie. It’s a tiny little bistro with world class cuisine at affordable prices. The three of us had mimosas, appetizers, and giant plates of incredible well-prepared food for under $50. It reminded me a lot of some of the really trendy (and pricier) places in Austin, and I will be eating there again in the future. It’s been added to the list of “usual places” for me.

I had orginally ordered Crab Cake Benedict, but they ran out of crab cakes. I was only mildly disappointed when the owner came out to inform me of this. He suggested the Smoked Salmon Benedict instead, and that had been my second choice anyway.

English muffins layered with West Coast Smoked Salmon, poached eggs, cream cheese, chopped red onions and capers and finished with our herb infused hollandaise. Your choice or either hash browns or home fries.

I kid you not, it was the best meal I have eaten in a restaurant in ages. Simply sublime. An almost transcendental dining experience. Every mouthful a delight. It was, in a word, perfectly prepared. I don’t often go on about meals in restaurants, but this one was worth going crazy over. If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Sunset Grill, you have GOT to eat there! It’s off the main drag enough that only the smartest tourists will find it too, which is always a bonus. I’m sure eventually it will become a madhouse one has to wait an hour to get a table in, but for now, it’s still an out-of-the-way and somewhat hidden gem.

So the meal went well, and we were all so stuffed from the HUGE plates of tasty food, we decided to just go back to the house and sit around being lazy. That had sort of been my plan anyway, since I was feeling poorly, so that worked out well. First we got down to the present opening. I hadn’t given my mom any clues as to what to get me, because I really don’t have any needs or wants right now. I’d have been fine with her not getting me anything (which is what I told her), but she can’t let a gift-giving event pass without some kind of gift. Amazingly, she gave me something I had actually been fondling in the store the other day and considering buying: a collapsible wire colander useful for all manner of kitchen duties. Mom thought it was a stupid gift, but I assured her it wasn’t. I’d have likely bought it myself next week when I do the shopping, because it had caught my eye and look really, really useful.

She also passed on to me a necklace and earring set her mom (Mam’O, my grandmother) had given her when she turned seventeen. I remember seeing it in my mom’s jewelry box when I was a little kid, and it was one of those things she never even let me touch. It’s a nice heavy cut glass choker with matching slip-on earrings, and I look forward to wearing it on special occasions. So lovely and so old and precious with a lot of family history behind it. I’m really pleased to have it, and I can’t wait to find excuses to wear it.

The only disappointment on my birthday was the lack of a birthday cake. This would be the first year ever without one, and I suppose I really have no one to blame but myself. For later reference, when I say “No, no, don’t bother making a cake. It’ll be such a fuss.” this must be run through the Middle-Aged Jewess filter. It will translate directly into “My gods, how can there be a birthday without a cake! Of course there has to be a cake!!!” But like I said, my own damn fault for not saying what I mean and just expecting people to read my mind. In the end, it wasn’t totally horrible not having a cake, because I ate so much at brunch, I wasn’t hungry until the next day anyway. But still … no cake. Wah! LOL!

The entire rest of the day was just sitting and talking (and Lin did some snoozing). I don’t even know what all we talked about. All manner of things! No politics for religion though, because I’d informed everyone that was forbidden on my birthday. A lot of the talk was about art … and my dad … and a little of the plans to move my mom to Austin. All in all, just a really relaxed day. That was really what I needed and wanted, and that’s what I got, so it was a very nice birthday.

Then we drove home and got back to doing my post-project vegetating, and I continued that all day yesterday. Don’t even ask me what I did yesterday, because I have no idea. I slept late, ate lunch, and ran to the store for a couple of things. Other than that, I don’t recall doing anything at all. I suspect I mostly sat on the couch staring at the TV without really watching it and snoozing. Yes, when I turn my brain off, I really turn my brain off. It always amazes me how an entire day can go by without me doing anything that I remember doing. It’s really refreshing though, and it’s sometimes necessary. I slept late again today, but I’m starting to feel like I have caught up on resting both brain and body, and I’m also starting to feel a little better. I imagine by tomorrow I’ll be back running at full-steam-ahead and getting on with the next art project. Right after I do a ton of housework. I’ve been ignoring the housework just a wee bit too much, and boy, does it show!

But I’m going to give myself the rest of today to be a total brain-dead bum, because I deserve it (and probably need it). After I hit the post button on this, my first order of business is a nice cup of coffee, and then I’m going to pick out which video game Lin is going to give me for my birthday. He said he wanted to get me one, but he wasn’t sure which, so it’s better for me to just pick it out (since I’m picky about games). After that … nothing but more vegetating and laziness is on the agenda!

Footnotes
  1. † Though I have to say that my body suddenly deciding to pretend it’s still fertile did make me sit and think about how very, very nice the last two years have been without all that. My gods, I swear I don’t know how I got through feeling like this every month. It reminded me that I am stronger than I think I am, and that lately I have been getting soft and lazy. I mean, I used to get things done even though I felt like crap, and I used to be able to control the hormonally induced emotions, but this week, I’m getting nothing whatsoever done (just can’t – no energy at all, and I hurt all over), and I’ll start blubbering and crying for no reason at all. I’ll be hibernating until it’s over. I am unfit to be out in civilized society. [↩]

I Am Not…

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I am not my hair.
I am not this skin.
I am not your expectations.

I am not my hair.
I am not this skin.
I am the soul that lives within.

Perfect time for a reminder: 43 days until I shave my head in support of childhood cancer research! Donate today and help us conquer childhood cancer!

My Sacrifice

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I’m really cranky about the rolling blackouts that left me spending most of my day sitting in the dark, huddled by the stove for warmth. Starting at about 6:30 am and continuing into afternoon, I’d get about ten minutes of power followed by 40-50 minutes of no power. I finally just crawled into bed and slept with the cats. No sense sitting around awake and miserable now is there?

I was in the “dark” as to why the power kept going off and on, until almost noon. Yes, it’s cold and some parts of Texas are seeing ice and snow, but we’ve had much, MUCH worse storms before and not had the power act so erratic. The first clue I had came from a friend in Dallas who said Texas was having an energy crisis and the rolling blackouts were the result. I still thought it was odd that the “rolling” part was so regular. It felt to me like someone was turning the stuff off and on, and at one point the cable box booted up quickly enough for me to catch a few minutes of local news before the power dropped off again. Why, yes … someone was turning the power off and on. These blackouts were a planned response to a power shortage.

This was the first anyone seemed to have heard of this plan, and it still seemed odd that of all the many people I know in Austin, only myself and one other household was experiencing any kind of power failure. Austin’s a big place. If these blackouts were “rolling” around, why only so few neighborhoods being without power? And what caused the power crisis in the first place? Surely we use just as much power when it’s 110º outside during the summer! The more information I managed to piece together, the less pleased and more cranky I found myself.

Then I read this post on the utility company’s blog. It’s an explanation of how the circuits were selected to have their power cut.

Austin Energy has 350 circuits that deliver power throughout our community. For the purposes of rotating blackouts, circuits that serve hospitals and emergency resources are excluded. In addition, circuits that serve large industrial customers and downtown Austin are excluded because the electrical loads are very large and therefore very difficult to bring back up. Also excluded are about 125 circuits with special equipment that provides the framework ensuring a stable system frequency of the Austin Energy electric system. Dip into that framework and you increase the risk of bringing the Austin Energy system down. This leaves about 50-75 circuits available for rotating blackouts. The load shedding requirement Austin Energy had to initially meet required rotating blackouts for 35-40 circuits. This necessitated repetition of this smaller number of available circuits to meet the load shedding requirements. As a result, some streets or neighborhoods experiencing outages were in some cases literally next door to others that did not.

The part I highlighted in bold is the most interesting and infuriating. Once they removed from consideration all circuits of importance to society, that left them with 50-75 they could leave without power for 40 minutes at a time. Yet they didn’t rotate through all of them. They used a smaller number and JUST KEPT ROLLING THE POWER OFF AND ON ALL DAY, instead of possibly using all the circuits they could so more people would suffer a little rather than a few people suffering a lot. Well, thank you VERY much. I’m thrilled to have made this all important sacrifice for my society. NOT!

So now, I’m not really any less cranky. I don’t mind doing things for the good of all, but I do ask that the suffering be spread around as equally and fairly as possible. I suspect very strongly it wasn’t. But wait! There’s even more making me cranky now! Seriously, it just gets better!

They’ve already announced that rolling blackouts will probably be necessary tonight and tomorrow again. Someone sent a Tweet to the utility company’s Twitter account a little while ago asking if it was going to be the same circuits being hit again, and yes … YES, IT IS! They are going to rotate through the same 35-40 circuits once more, rather than maybe a) use some different ones or b) switch through all 50-75 available circuits. I guess I’ll be having another cold and dark day tomorrow, if they decide they need to do it again. That pretty much grinds my last nerve down to a very raw little nub.

And everyone in Texas can now begin thanking me for my sacrifice –I accept cash, checks, money orders, and tasty foodstuffs– which apparently enabled the entirety of the state to have electricity, except, you know, those of us who didn’t. :angry:

Oh, and I haven’t even told you what caused this mess in the first place! The winter storm would seem to be the first suspect to point at, but not so fast! Not everything is as it seems!

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said late this morning that a broken pipe and a frozen pipe at two Central Texas electric generating plants helped trigger a statewide power emergency that forced rolling blackouts in Austin and across Texas.

and…

At the same time as the two plants were down early today, Dewhurst said other power plants were off-line from Texas’ utility grid, and pressure drops in natural gas supply lines caused by the freezing temperatures were causing problems at other plants.

The storm may have been the actual catalyst, but it seems to me the real problem –the thing that was the most direct cause of my sitting around a cold and dark house for a day– was, in fact, utter and complete stupidity combined with crappy infrastructure. Pipes freezing and bursting bringing down power plants?! Dewhurst was quite correct when he said “This should not happen.”

It really shouldn’t. I mean, it’s pretty damn stupid to not know that in the face of the lowest temperatures we’ve seen in quite a long while, pipes freeze and burst, and furthermore, one would hope taking down a power plant would require more than taking out a PIPE filled with water. Add crappy infrastructure security to my list of complaints. Let’s hope no terrorists are taking notes on how damn easy it is to knock out the power grid in Texas.

And before I run off to bed to catch a few hours of sleep, I also want to thank Mexico for sending in some electricity. Their electrons are coming in to do the jobs our electrons won’t. LOL!

I have a feeling I am not going to be a happy camper tomorrow.