Healthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Resolutions, v.1.1
Our President-Elect's life: The more Obama's life intensifies, friends said, the more he relies on the gym -- which is why he might be taking office in the best shape of his life. The gym is where he...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: De-Mystifying Yoga
You may think of yoga as a mystical, spiritual practice performed in solemnity by reed-thin human pretzels and pretentious starlets.Actually, it's just fancy stretching.
View ArticlePostcard from the Edge of a Popped Bubble
Picture, if you will, a Southern California suburb: 12 miles due north of Zuma Beach in Malibu, 36 miles to downtown Los Angeles, blessed with near-perfect weather and extraordinary schools. Barbra...
View ArticleWhat's For Dinner? Pie, of course UPDATED
At bake sale fundraisers, people are always amazed when I bring in a homemade pie. Among the 37 different brownie batches, 42 different batches of chocolate chip cookies, and one unloved dozen...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Presidential Fitness
At one point in the 1970s, every kid in physical education at my school was ordered to engage in a series of six exercises: push-ups, pull-ups, running a mile, situps, one that I don't remember, and a...
View ArticleCrashing computer?
Today my computer has been freezing and crashing after reading DailyKos. It's not happening after reading any other sites, or doing any other tasks.It was a dark and not-so-stormy night, last night...
View ArticleDon't just sit there and eat pie!
It's already noon PST, and no one has yet diaried the most important event of the day...National Pie Day! Yes, not to be confused with National Pi Day (March 14, duh), today, January 23, 2009 is...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Dichotomies and Lunchtime Adventures
Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, a beautiful day in Southern California. I don't want to miss one minute of the inauguration, so I wait until PST lunchtime to go running. I'm fortunate enough to...
View ArticleHow Proposition 13 has created California's crisis
California's current budget crisis is a lot like watching the bullets in the Matrix movies: one bullet taking 30 years to arrive, but ultimately killing its victim. The bullet is named Proposition 13....
View ArticleCalifornians: It's time to reform Prop 13
We all know the problem of the current state budget crisis. Our governor and controller agree that California is a large state located on the West Coast facing financial armageddon, even though they...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: I hope you don't need to read this
I hope you don't need this. I hope that every day you wake up happy and eager to get out of bed and face the beauty of a new day. However, during the time that I've been here, I've noticed many...
View ArticleCalifornians: Even the Affluent Schools are Terrified
I live in a tiny smug yuppie school district: 4 out of 5 schools are National Blue Ribbon winners (we're terribly embarrassed by the fifth one, which is only a lousy California Top 100 school), we send...
View ArticleI just took a survey on ending affirmative action in California
I'm on an internet survey list, where I just finished a survey directed toward Californians on affirmative action. It sounds like someone's gearing up for a proposition fight testing different...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: An Unlikely Friendship In Thin Air
Colin always looks forward to Kevin's birthday parties, but this year when he got the invitation, he was unusually quiet. "It's at the rcok climbing gym, Mom." I don't dare ask a thirteen year old boy...
View ArticleHousing Crisis? What Housing Crisis? Who Wants to Reinflate a...
Did you ever buy something, pay full price, and three weeks later it goes on sale? Did you ever get really annoyed? Maybe even argue with the store manager to give you a rebate? Did you ever, in...
View ArticleCalifornia: Blood, not love, in the air -- UPDATED -- DOA? or not?
They're debating on the Assembly floor. They're debating on the state Senate floor. First casualty: Chuck DeVore, A-70 (parts of OC), Republican whip. Anyone not doing anything for Valentine's Day...
View ArticleCalifornia: Can the rage be channelled?
They locked the state legislature in the office last night and told them not to come out until they had a budget...but there is still no budget.Tonight's tactic: to give them a good night's sleep and...
View ArticleGood news! Report from Sacramento!
The Legislature has voted to implement a carbon cap and trade system!It's now legal to distribute salvia divinorum to anyone, including minors!And Darrell Steinberg is really boring when he talks about...
View ArticleBREAKING -- CA's Legislature is Stoopid! Worst. Budget. Ever. (may pass...
California's state legislature: Like Congress, but without the brains. The debate on our budget makes Eric Cantor look like a genius. They were in session for 30 hours starting Valentine's Day...
View ArticleCalifornia: Worst. Budget. Ever. For. Real.
It's a budget! Weighing eight pounds, six ounces; eleven inches long and eight inches wide! This has to be the ugliest budget ever born! Cigars all around!Unfortunately, the budget only arrived...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Worst Case Scenario, CO Hiking Ed.
I really wonder about the popularity of those Worst Case Scenario books even as I browse them. They're clearly written for extreme situations. The advice is serious (in a superficial way), not...
View ArticleMy chicken died today
Now that spring is just around the corner, I was starting to draft a keeping-backyard-chickens primer for Kossacks. (Briefly, they're easy to raise, legal in more places than you'd imagine,...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Snakes on a Trail, Rattler Ed.
Tracts of McMansions going further and further out into what used to be wild land means lots more human-animal interaction. This diary is a few common sense thoughts on interacting with one kind of...
View ArticleIs exercise political? Should it be? The health care reform...
Short answers, national edition: yes, but not the way health insurers want it to be. As usual, detailed explanations are below the fold.Short answers, local edition: Yes, most often in connection with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What's for (Breakfast, Lunch, and) Dinner? Eggs! green or not
The perfect food! High in protein, low in calories, contains all essential amino acids, iron, many vitamins and minerals, inexpensive, versatile, satisfies carnivores and most vegetarians equally!I...
View ArticleNo One is Recession-Proof: Entertainment, Education, Health
In the conventional wisdom, certain industries are recession-proof. Notably, those sectors are entertainment (people escape their troubles by going to movies and sporting events), education...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Irish workout! with video!
Top o' the evening to you all! I've tried, I've really tried, to bring you a themed workout. Before eating all that corned beef and cabbage, you need to burn off calories, right? A brisk workout...
View ArticleGood news for national parks, bad news for Bush midnight rules -- UPDATED
A federal judge has just refused to implement one of the dumber Bush-era regulations permitting people to carry concealed weapons in national parks. Sorry, NRA, you can't shoot a moose defend yourself...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Three License Plates, Three Trails
Three national parks' most famous attractions are so well known that they've made it on to their state license plate: Delicate Arch in Utah's Arches National Park, Old Faithful in (mostly) Wyoming's...
View ArticleFree Choice, POTUS Town Hall, Blue Cross, and Me (guess who loses)
I have a minor but annoying medical condition. I decide to see my doctor. My choices go from bad to worse. Nothing that Obama says today gives me any hope at all.
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: 13.1 Miles in National Parks!
Two of my favorite things in life are running and appreciating national parks. My idea of heaven? Running in a national park, as a fundraiser for my local school, with spring wildflowers blooming...
View ArticleWhat's for Dinner? Salad! Death By Chocolate Dessert!
What do you make when you have ten minutes? when you want to celebrate the beauty of spring? when you want to eat healthy? when you must avoid all leavening for the next eight days? when you're trying...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Peep show! Wanna see pix of hot, cute, naked chicks?
Introducing:ValkyrieMedeaand Irene!
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: "Wanna see where Gram Parsons fried?"
The primary industry of the California desert is weirdness. This area generates more per-capita weirdness than anywhere else in America, beginning with the Joshua tree. (Of course, it helps that...
View ArticleExcuse me, can I please have my teabag back?
I'm a tea drinker. I have been, by choice, for years and years. I don't like coffee. I'll drink coffee once every week or two, either if I've had a horrible night or it's my only caffeinated choice,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Peep Show! Chicks with Cute Tails! Pix! Week Two!
My backyard chicks are growing up! If Easter hasn't inspired you to get your own chicks, these pix will!
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: 40 Frogs in his Pants!
Several years ago, I decided that Mother's Day is for hiking, on the theory that my then-whiny kids would be least likely to moan and whine on that day; other mothers might lounge around with breakfast...
View ArticleGood news for Alaskan polar bears: Bush drilling lease voided
A federal appellate court has just voided a Bush-era drill-baby-drill oil lease in Alaska for failing to consider the environmental impact to marine life. This is very good news for the polar bears,...
View ArticleWhat's for Dinner? Pizza! Baseball! Bonus Teabag Recipe!
I make pizza when it's hot outdoors. The time involved is also roughly equal to watching a major league baseball game. Just as a good baseball game comes down to, at its most basic, a ball, a bat,...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Mt Hood Gets Stimulated 3x!
What good does it do to spend federal money in particular places? Let's explore the impact of federal spending in one awesome place, Mount Hood, just above the Columbia River, an hour or so east of...
View ArticleAction alert? Proposed federal insurance czar will hurt consumers
The AP is reporting that large property insurers might finally get what they've been wet-dreaming about for years: one set of federal regulations rather than the current patchwork of 50 states'...
View ArticleJunior Statespeople of America Report: The Kids Are All Right!
"Democracy is not a spectator sport!" Neither is being asked to chaperone 24 high school kids on 24 hours' notice to a convention of 1200 aspiring politicans. Reporting from the Junior...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Thoughts on a Hotel Treadmill
This past weekend I was stuck in a hotel and had to use the treadmill to get a workout. I hate treadmills! This treadmill is a state of the art Precor. I still hate treadmills! It even has its own...
View ArticlePeep Show: Chicks Discover Grass!
They grow up so fast! One day they're just innocent little newborn girls, so small you can hold them in your hand, and not very much later they're running around in a fast crowd all crazy because...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: 50 Miles with Great Vigah!
Ever tried a Kennedy Walk? Can you hike 50 miles in one day? It's a great challenge for a Democratic activist: honor one of our great Presidents while knowing that you're in prime physical marching...
View ArticleBREAKING -- Obama's Not Changing Bush's Polar Bear Rule.
I am ill. I donated, fought for, and voted for Obama because I thought he could repeal all the stupid pigheaded wrong decisions of the Bush Administration, most especially on global warming. Now the...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Yosemite's Secrets, UPDATED to add gun news
So you want to know the secrets of this park? You're planning a trip this summer to camp in Yosemite Valley*? You want to see the prettiest waterfalls**? You're planning to drive to your campsite,...
View ArticleContract with California, 2010: in case we're not FUBAR yet!
Yesterday I was polled by a research center on behalf of a group that may call itself the Contract with California (shades of Newt Gingrich!). A group with sufficient money to commission a poll is...
View ArticleHealthy Minds, Healthy Bodies: Fuss Re Oil Leases at Arches NP?
Arches National Park and its environs has been generating a lot of news lately. In December 2008, Tim DeChristopher sabotaged the Bush administration's midnight auctions of oil and gas leases near...
View ArticleWhat's For Dinner: All American BBQ Food for Racists
You're hosting, or attending, a BBQ for red state neighbors? Here's some classic all-American food.
View Article
