Geeky Chic

Roe v. Wade has never been a big deal for me (though, if they were to overturn Roe and Griswold*, that would be another story).  So, it is of no huge matter to me that the new nominee’s mother
candidly admits, “Of course he’s against abortion.” (Part of me also
harbors the belief that if Roe was overturned, it would galvinize the
“blue states” out of their apathy  to combat the extreme Right
with real energy)

I haven’t investigated his positions on the big issues (though, I heard
the a murmur that he would return us to the laissez fair, big business
run-amok, Lochner world *shudder*), but at least, I can point out that he follows Professor Fried’s mode of being 1st Amendment – Free Speech friendly.  
One small consolation if his opponents lose the confirmation battle.
(And, I know somewhere, out there, a grad student is reading this and
muttering, “E*…Pollyanna!”)

Edit: Ew, he’s not so great on 4th Amendment restraints against search and seizure.

**

Oh, and just as there is currently an HLS-majority on the SCOTUS, if
Alito is approved, there will be a Catholic majority, and it could have
this impact.

*The right to privacy originated in Griswold.  Without that ruling, states would be able to ban contraceptives entirely.

Last Christmas, I purchased Fresh candles as presents from the Hitchcock-era classic SF Gump’s.  This year Fresh products are for sale at Bath and Bodyworks
and there’s a cross-promotion with Memoirs of a Geisha: the
Movie.  I may never spend another dime if this mass adoption rate
continues to speed up (it’s the same efficient pattern: (1) get
products into small, hip boutiques; (2) give products away to celebs;
(3) work out deal with celeb publicist and fashion/entertainment mags
to mention product in print; (4) get product into highend store; and
(5) move product down to mass retailer –> all in 18 months tops).

Wait, B&BW now carries Molton Brown
products?  Geez, the Limited Corp. is reinventing the brand away
from my associations of it with teenage girls smelling of trips to the
mall.

Do I need to go to b school to become a brand manager?

**

Oddly, I hated Goldin’s Memoirs of a Geisha, when I read it, but I may see the film thanks to its intriguing trailer.

Quite possibly the most depressing article
that I’ve read this year.  Spinster, former law partner who goes
into public service, supports medical bills of ailing mother, and
doesn’t have enough stashed away for retirement.  I do not want to
be nominated for the Supreme Court.

Edit: Why is the Miers-o-Meter
so high?  *Sigh*  I really hate the nagging guilt that I feel
that it isn’t the cronyism, her lack of credentials, or the Christian
right “discussions” that disturb me the most about Miers, but rather
the fact that I think she looks trashy.  More of a roadside truckstop waitress than a member of the Supreme Court.

Thank you, Gap Corp., for making cashmere jump the shark. 
This is akin to the sandwashed silk shirt craze of the early 90s,
wherupon Target began selling silk blouses for under $20.  Silk
has never recovered in my esteem.

I went to hear Ray Kurzweil speak last month on how technology is
speeding up to the point where it essentially self-propagates. 
The tone and subject of the speech reflected the Boomer techie faith
that technology will be the messiah that will provide immortality
(Kurzweil’s attitude is that if he can just keep his aging body in good
condition for ten more years, nanotech will solve all his ails).

Along with the speeding up of technology, comes a reduction in its
price and its availability for the masses.  So, at the end,
someone asked Kurzweil, “If this technology is so cheap, how much would
it cost to create a bio-hazardous agent to wipe out New York
City?”  Kurzweil estimated that it would only cost a couple
hundred thousand dollars to set up a lab to create a deadly
virus.  With the publication of the 1918 killer flu genome, Kurzweil and Bill Joy are now sounding the alarm of the possibility that someone could easily engineer and unleash a killer flu on us all.

Oh no, another essay on the Boomer fear that we 20-somethings are “wasting” our lives.

In a way, I am glad that my parents are not perplexed by this.  My dad is still trying to grow up, between his new baby and Verve Remixed CDs.  And my mom is fabulous about the idea of aging.  I wrongly asked her, “Was there an age when you felt that you started that you were getting less pretty?”*  And she responded, “I’m fat, but I’m still pretty.  All I need to do is take off my glasses and put on my contacts.”  Bless her heart.

*This question was inspired by my casual observation that one begins to age by either having a face that becomes too gaunt or too chubby.

**

Perhaps we should be worrying about the Boomers.  While we’re off collecting degrees and passport stamps,  they’re the ones OD’ing:

In California, the age at which someone was most likely to die from a drug overdose in 1970 was 22; by 1985, it was 32; and today it is 43, according to calculations by Males, based on state health data.

I may be done visiting countries that border Colombia. 
There should be an entry about giant tortoises here.  But no,
that’s not what you’re going to get.  Why?

Well, today, I really had to use the restroom, so the friends with whom
I travelled allowed me to go through the passport checkpoint in
Guayaquil first.  I went through without a hitch, but then two
narcotics officers gestured me to their table, and asked to see my
luggage.  I complied, and they rifled through my bags, and of
course, found nothing.  I thought that I was done, but then one of
them said, “Come with me,” and off we went through one set of doors, up
a flight a stairs, past the AA Admirals Club, and through another set
of doors to the officers’ office (somewhere along the way he collected
another narcotics officer).  Keep in mind that my friends were
behind me at the passport checkpoint, so they did not see where I went,
and I had no idea what the officers had in mind for me.  After we
arrived in the office, one officer took down my passport number in a
log book and started to fill out a form.  I saw a computer screen
with an abdominal X-ray, and asked, in a Spanish accent,
“Radiation?”  “Si.”  Then they X-rayed me, and the screen
just revealed a straight spine (that was my first fleeting thought, “Damn, I have a nice spine.”) and
the underwire of my bra, so they let me go, to my great relief. 
When I shakenly reported this to my cabinmate during the trip, he said,
“No big deal, now you know how it feels to be a black man in America.”

They also pulled aside another one of my friends for the X-ray, but she
freaked out a little more than I did about the prospect of being taken
to the backroom, so she brought along the managing editor of the
Internet edition of this Mexican newspaper,
as her translator (he was in our tour group).  The editor asked
the officer if this was standard procedure, and he replied, “No, we
rarely do this because it’s rude.”

So, we really have no idea why we fit the “profile” of cocaine mules.

I have returned to civilization, Guayaquil, after a week where my watch was the only mechanical device capable of providing me with information.  Coincidentally, my hotel is on a boulevard named 9 de Octobre, and today is Guayaquil Independence Day (185 years ago, Guayaquil civilians arrested the Spanish authorities and declared their independence from Spain).  So the streets are festooned with the Ecuadorian flag, in its primary colors, and blue and white starred ribbons/flags (the Independence Day flag).  So, I’m off to the obligatory parade before my sojourn home.

**

Edit (This silly keyboard will not let me type colons or dashes, so imagine a colon here) Back at the hotel to rest before an early flight, but two more observations.  Because of the festivities, there are quite a few beauty queens running around the hotel in full regalia (Miss Guayaquil is quite pretty).  Also, on our way out to the parade, a police escort outside of the hotel helped some sort of Latin American rapper board his tinted van without being assaulted by his groupies.  My companions wanted to rubberneck, but I did not, for countries where police officers casually carry M16s make me nervous.