It Is Done.

Barack Obama is now, officially, the 44th president of the United States. I watched the inauguration and the overwhelming message was one of buckling down and doing all that needs to be done to get us back on the right track. President Obama didn’t mince words. He broke it down for everyone just how knee deep in trouble we are in but he didn’t leave us hanging in hopelessness. He reiterated over and over that we can get through these troublesome times because we are Americans. We’ve been through worse and have survived, we’ll get through this too. As the president says: “It’s time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and remake America.”

New York Celebrates Good Riddance Day

On December 28th, the residents of New York were encouraged to take part in the second annual Good Riddance Day event in which they were able to throw bad memories of the previous year into an industrial sized shredder.

In an event that organizers hope will become a New Year’s tradition, New Yorkers and tourists were invited to bring bad memories from 2008 to Times Square on Sunday and feed them to an industrial-strength shredder.

“This is the perfect way to move on from a bad year, from a bad experience,” said Kathryn Bonn, of New York City, who shredded a printout of her boyfriend’s e-mail breaking up with her.

This is the second year the Times Square Alliance has sponsored the event which they hope will become an annual tradition. I hope it does too. In fact I hope it become a national event.

Decide the Fate of Our Country. Vote.

I’m just going to preface this article with the admonition that I am not a political person. I am a person who likes to dwell in the realm of ideas and the political arena always seemed like the Bermuda Triangle where good ideas get lost in the dead zone of bureaucracy. So I avoided it, preferring to leave the running of this country in the hands of people whom I assumed were more experienced and knowledgeable about the dynamics of governing a country.

But then two things happened that snapped me out of that fantasy world that I had been living in for the past four elections; Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was added to the Republican Party ticket and the economy took a nosedive. That’s when I realized that our political leaders are anything but leaders and that the political process had deteriorated beyond all recognition.

Two American Legends Slip Into That Good Night

This weekend the world became a little less funny and lost a little bit of its soul. Comedian/Actor Bernie Mac and Singer/Actor Issac Hayes passed away this weekend within two days of each other. Bernie Mac died of complications arising from pneumonia. The cause of death for Issac Hayes is still unknown.

Bernie Mac, born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, is best known as his role as the put upon father in the hit television series “The Bernie Mac Show”. The show earned him two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Bernie Mac began his career young, putting on comedy shows for friends, family and schoolmates. He was quoted as saying in a 2001 Associated Press article, “I came from a place where there wasn’t a lot of joy. I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn’t a lot of things to laugh about.” A goal which he achieved many times over in his long career.

30 Days of Hell-Mormon Housewife VS. Gay Adoption

Last night I watched a show called “30 Days”, a TV series created by Morgan Spurlock. If you don’t remember, that’s the guy that only ate Mcdonalds for 30 days, recorded the experience and turned it into a hit documentary called Supersize Me. The show was picked up by FX and began airing in June 2005. 30 Days aims to take people out of their comfort zone and immerse them in situations that challenge them at some level. For example, one show had a hunter live with a family of animal rights activists for a month.

The show I watch was titled “Same Sex Parenting”. The issue up to bat? Gay adoption. The show paired Kati, a Mormon housewife and mother of two adopted children, with Tom and Dennis Patrick who had adopted four boys out of foster care. Based only on her religious convictions, Kati believes that gay adoption is wrong and that children need a mother and a father. For 30 days she lived with the Patricks to get a firsthand look at the issue of gay adoption and same sex parenting.

The True Cost of Industrial Food Production

Here is a great article that makes a good case for learning to grow your own food. When we buy food from the grocery store, we often are satisfied at the “good deal” we got. However those $0.49 per pound bananas are costing you more in the long term.

Earth Hour is Tonight

Ack! I did not know about this until I went to Google to do some research on my previous article. Tonight is Earth Hour in which everyone is encouraged to turn out the lights in their home and otherwise not conserve energy from 8pm to 9pm your time. This is to encourage energy conservation and raise awareness of the, sometimes catastrophic, climate changes that have been going on in the last decade.

I will be participating. Will you?

Male Pregnancy: Has Science Gone Too Far?

There is currently an experiment going on where, through the miracle of IVF a man, Mr. Lee Mingwei, is pregnant.

I wish I could say that I was open enough to accept this and intellectually I am. I understand that this is just another step in human development. I predict a time when pregnant men will become a fact of life. It will be another thing for couples to decide on. Volvo or Volkswagen? Ranch house or Colonial? I have the babies or you?

I also understand that there is a lot that we do not know about our beginnings. The physical evidence of our existence goes back only so far. Who knows what information has been destroyed by time, natural disasters, human ignorance and greed. Maybe at one point men were able to have babies but for some reason, lost the ability to do so and this experiment is simply closing the circle.