A Blacker Friday – Wal-Mart Worker Dies

While buzzing around on CNN today I discovered the following article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/28/black.friday.violence/index.html

And this article really makes me wonder: have we as a nation finally lost our minds?  First of all (and not to make light of the issue), has anyone else noticed that Wal-Mart is a crappy store?  Why in the world would 2,000 people gather outside at 5 a.m. and then trample someone to death in order to enter?  How good were those sales, exactly?  How do you not notice you’re stepping on a human body?

I know that money is tight for almost everyone at this point, but is anything on sale that you really can’t get online or somewhere else or, say, without killing someone?

For the love of all that is good and holy, don’t we all have enough junk already as it is?  I’m sure there is some sort of adrenaline high surrounding the whole “camping out in the Wal-Mart parking lot” experience, but to become so caught up seems, well, mad.  Here’s our best foot forward to the world: on the eve of our national holiday celebrating good will and thanksgiving, we gathered underneath the glowing lights of a retailer known for its mistreatment of our fellow citizens.  Before the sun rose, the doors began to open and in our raging excitement, we rushed towards them, mindlessly asphyxiating someone along the way.

Still Moving Out, two years later

When I first started this blog, I chose the name “Moving Out” because it was at my breaking free point in my life.  I was graduating from college and looking forward to being completely on my own, with all the fun tax breaks that provides.  I was about to move into the first apartment that would be paid for and lived in by myself alone.  “Moving Out” seemed to encapsulate all of that.

I somewhat regret that my writing here has been undefined by a particular topic or genre.  I have wondered if readership wouldn’t dramatically increase with a more focused range of topics.  I blog for a local nonprofit as well and topic-driven content has worked well.  I just couldn’t give up the freedom to write about all my crazy ideas in one place.

I’m applying to graduate school these days and I’m somewhat pleased that I am still “Moving Out.”  I have enjoyed working for a year and will have two years of “real” experience to my credit if and when I enter graduate school.  Maybe then I can blog on my chosen field (journalism/ethnomusicology – yes, you can do both).  I took a forced break from studying music after graduation and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  I met a lot of practical people who explained to me all the reasons academia can be impractical and overly-exclusive.  I thought long and hard about not returning to school.  I blogged about a lot of trivial things and maybe a few important ones.

I can’t say I’m overwhelmingly proud of my blog here.  It seems kind of random and kind of boring at times.  I enjoy writing, however, so I can’t say it wasn’t worth it.  I just regret that I didn’t make it more focused and witty.  A blog full of smart-sounding, intellectual articles would be a nice addition to my grad school applications, as shallow as that seems.

In any case, I’m still here in Ohio, somehow still constantly moving despite having graduated over a year ago.  In the last five years, I’ve lived in two dorms and four apartments in the U.S., Mexico, and Spain.  I was even denied for a credit card because I had so many different addresses on my credit report.  (Being under 21 didn’t help either.)

I’m feeling apprehensive about this next move, mainly for financial reasons.  The sheer cost of applying to graduate school is enough to deter many low-income people, I would think.  Enough coworkers and businesspeople have expressed disdain about graduate degrees to make me think twice.  Yet, here I am, editing my resume and thinking about references.  I have a glimmering hope of a great financial aid/scholarship/assistantship offer and great excitement about a new level of study.  As always, we’ll see.

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Banning Books is Just Silly

Banning books really seems damaging to me, especially since some of my all-time favorites are on the list below (a meme from Spynotes – one of a few blogs I read consistently).  Honestly, the only one I agree with is Little Black Sambo.  I read it by accident at a relative’s house as a little girl and still remember wondering what century it was from.  I’d like to read the others.

Some of the authors are unsurprising, but Toni Morrison didn’t become a talented writer by hiding her head in the sand.  How fair is it to forbid future authors from reading the great writing of our time?  I’m all for parents keeping an eye out, but let’s not be ridiculous.  There would be a certain irony to banning Fahrenheit 451, however, don’t you think?

Here’s my list and instructions for you to do the meme yourself: Bold the books you’ve read recently or as a child.

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice(Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boyby Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughtersby Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sonsby Lynda Madaras
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shortsby Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What?by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Here’s the list of the 10 most banned/challenged books for 2007:
And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
TTYL,by Lauren Myracle
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

Someone got shot . . .

The random ellipse infuriates me. I know that grammar is for big dorks, but let’s face it, this is stupid:

“Hey, I wanted you opinion on this report, but maybe you are out . . .”

“Maybe we can go later . . .”

“I think this is a good start . . .”

ACK! We get it! Most statements require some type of response. I hate the use of an ellipse simply to indicate that a response is needed, wanted, or expected. Social emailing with friends, sure; Facebook messages, great – use whatever punctuation you like. When I receive, however, twenty-five work-related emails per day that request my response in the form of “. . .” it kind of makes me want to rip out a clump of hair.

It doesn’t help that someone was shot in our back parking lot at work recently either! I’m using that incident as an excuse to write articles like these about petty things that bug me. Why? Because when it all comes down to it, no one ever lost their mind over something reasonable. One thing bugs you a whole bunch, but it’s the little things that accrue later which seem to cause the most aggravation. Now stop shooting each other out there already!

Help, the Internet Fried my Brain!

In the Atlantic Monthly a couple months ago, there was an article called, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that discussed the different ways people now process information post-Internet revolution. The basic point was that before the internet became so popular, people read books, newspapers, and magazines in which information was developed throughout articles. Newspapers’ inverted pyramid structure (placing the most important info in the first paragraph) probably first approximated chunking techniques used in writing for the web.

With “chunked” text (shorter segments of more relevant information) readily available, we stopped truly reading. Instead, we skim web pages, looking for key facts or items that quickly pique our interest. If we don’t find anything, we move on.

Per the Atlantic author, this skimming technique has shortened our reading attention spans somewhat. We can barely be trusted to sift through a few paragraphs of text on a web page, never mind digesting an entire article.

For me, this is doubly true – once an (extremely) avid writer, I enjoyed journaling, etc. I found the impulse to write slowly wearing off until one day, I noticed the spaces between my entries were getting longer and longer, the articles themselves shorter and shorter. When my computer broke, I was beside myself, but I found myself reading the huge stack of magazines that had built up in my absence. Now, I can write again and I want to write again. Ideas for blog articles, things I want to “write out” via journal articles, seem to pop into my head every few minutes.  Imagine how fun that is while driving.

Thus, while I wouldn’t say Google is making me stupid, it might be shortening my attention span.  Reading quickly reverses the process, but I’d hate to ever get stuck in that ever-shifting rut of “Ooh, this looks interesting (click) . . . nah, never mind (click), but wait how about (click).”  We’ve all been there.

*Side note: I’ve been reading up on journalism lately and, taking a cue from one article, have been cutting out some extraneous phrases and all conjugations of “to be.”  Ok, I left some.  It’s been kind of interesting, however, to see how differently the articles evolve.

Straight mom breaks Spurlock streak

I was dead wrong.

Hear that?  Dead wrong.

I said that everyone comes away from Morgan Spurlock’s new show 30 days with their mind changed.  Well, one traditional mom proved me wrong.  After staying 30 days with a two exceptional gay parents and their four adoptive sons, she didn’t change her mind about gay adoption (she was against, the couple was clearly for).  The best she could do was to “agree to disagree.”

I can hardly even process this nonsense, er, her mindset.  A woman whose close friend was shot and killed learned to appreciate guns, and a straight mom couldn’t budge more than a centimeter on gay parenting even after being shown the horrors of foster care?  The main culprit behind the woman’s refusal to consider gay adoption seemed to be religion and I can understand that many people take their faith quite seriously, but I think that we can at least temporarily take the mindset of someone else.

I understand how the straight mom felt, alone, ostracized, and threatened.  However, when the episode ended with both gay parents crying after the mom walked away from their final discussion, well, they won me over.  She just seemed heartless.  And so the question is, what could she have done better?  Assuming that breaking her religious beliefs would truly affect her on a deep and personal level, what could or should she have done differently to protect those beliefs, but still respect the gay parents?

The gay couple (two men) was almost perfect as far as parenting is concerned.  It would be difficult to fault them for many aspects of their parenting and watching them both sobbing quietly when the woman told them that she couldn’t accept them as parents was pretty painful.   Is that really what Jesus would have done?

Morgan Spurlock challenges opinions on “30 Days”

For those of you who enjoyed “Supersize Me” and, hopefully, decreased your fast food consumption as a result, you’ll be happy to know that Morgan Spurlock is at it again.  His new(er) show, “30 Days” is aimed at examining new viewpoints and does so in an unconventional way.  Participants in this challenge agree to live a lifestyle they oppose for 30 days.  A straight mom spent 30 days with a homosexual couple raising children.  Spurlock and his fiancee traveled to Columbus, Ohio to work at minimum wage jobs for 30 days.  A gun-toting hunter lived a vegan lifestyle with a PETA activist and her family – for a whole month!

I keep watching as the episodes are posted on Hulu  (unhook your cable now, it’s too expensive when so much is free online!), and I’ve been waiting for one person to come out of his/her thirty days unchanged.  It has yet to happen.

More interestingly, the show is actually educational.  It’s as if Mr. Rogers came back with some sass.  We get to watch as the participants spend a final night in their hometowns and vow to never change their minds.  Then, there  is the obligatory annoyance, followed by some combination of fear, anger, and sadness as the hunter learns what it is to torture an animal and the Spurlock duo hits the ER at 4 AM.  Yes, there is some repetition, but it’s somewhat cleansing to see that people can change their minds.

Plus, what do you know about working a minimum wage job?  How about coal mining?  Same sex parenting?  Animal activism?  The list goes on and on.  Plus, Spurlock doesn’t just recruit ordinary people who kind of dislike something.  He finds a person whose friend was killed by a gun and asks that person to be pro-firearms for a month.  He takes a person whose identity is hunting and asks him to consider that chickens have rights.

Siskel and Ebert can say what they like, I’m giving this one two thumbs up.  And you, reader?  What have you learned from television lately?

Broken electronics!

So, right now my computer monitor is broken (or the cable connecting the monitor and computer itself is broken), and my internet is down, meaning that my phone also doesn’t work.  It’s in times like these that I’m so psyched to have my one television channel — until whenever it is that we all have to buy “the box.”

Suffice to say, I’ve spent far too much time this week already researching DVI cords, and new monitors, and trying to rewire things so that they work.  So far, they still don’t, but I’m not out of ideas yet.  In the meantime, however, it may be a bit dark on the blogging front.

How to stop being a night owl

I found myself in the drinks aisle at Meijer tonight around 10:30pm after an impromptu dinner gathering and in anticipation of a movie night at my place tomorrow.  A good start to the weekend, I think, especially since it’s only Thursday.

I’ve been doing my best serious adult impression for the past few months, which involves going to the grocery store once a week on a weekend morning.

Peti is not a morning person.  Read that again, slowly.  Peti is NOT a morning person.  Mornings make me feel like I’m operating on half a brain.  On good days, I feel ok by about 10am.  Before that I’m polite and I’m functioning, but it’s hard to buck the body clock.

Driving to the store, I felt so much happier at the prospect of groceries than usual.  There was no traffic, the air was cool, and I had to smile when I saw three cars in front of me make my favorite crazy beeline across the parking lot.  (Said maneuver is impossible on weekend mornings.)

Going inside was like finding a store full of myself.  Everyone had baskets, not carts, everyone was wearing sweatpants or looked ready to go out, and a few choice aisles were full.  The self checkout was actually zipping along for once.  And it was quiet (you’ve got to focus to pick the beer, apparently).  Mike’s Hard Lemonade was on sale and Woodchuck was sold out.  Meaning?  Tomorrow must be some kind of international girls’ night out.

It was so nice to shop without being bombarded by carts, strollers, screaming members of the next generation, and soccer moms.  Don’t get me wrong: I love kids, and kids need moms, but I’ve had my heel clipped by one too many manicured mommies to not see them as a threat.

Even now, I feel more alert than I do at 8am despite peanut butter laden breakfasts.  I thought I was making big strides towards breaking my old habit of staying up late and waking up later.  And I was, I’ve been doing it for months.  The truth, however, is that I long for the old days of enjoying the night.

Internet Rage

It’s curious how angry we all are, underneath it all.  While reading random things online, killing time, I always come across blogs on random topics that attract crazy, hateful comments.  To be fair, they’re usually blogs on politics or religion, which tend to get people all riled up and crazy anyways.  But still, sometimes the things people write are so insane, so hateful, that I wonder why anyone is willing to write on certain topics at all.  I suppose some are more primed than others to defend their beliefs.

I wonder about all these hateful commenters, too.  Are they this angry in “real” life?  I mean, are these just the run of the mill angry people that we all run into, or are these nice people who just feel more free to blow off some steam when they’re more anonymous than in real life?  I think anonymity has a lot to do with it.  Most of us are at least somewhat undercover online trying to avoid your not-so-fun stalker types.  But, yikes!

I think it’s also the impossibility of face-to-face confrontation that gets to people.  Who knows what someone who randomly contacts you online is really thinking or feeling.  It’s easy enough to get emotions confused via email or IM when you don’t know someone.  Unfortunately, what goes online stays online for a long while in many cases and there’s no way to rescind anything without making an extraordinary fuss.  Hmm.  Remind me to forgive angry commenters, would you?  Maybe they just made a mistake or are having a bad day.  After all, we’ve all felt the sparks of road rage once or twice haven’t we?  Maybe we should coin a new term: “Internet Rage.”

Argh.