Ok so I remember back when Tina Fey did her little sketch on SNL supporting Hillary how everyone just flew at her about her snarky comment about how “Women today feel perfectly free to vote for whoever Oprah tells them to”. (If you want to know where that came from just google Tina Fey Bitch is the New Black). Well, folks here it is from the New York Times, there are economists who have done a study that approximate Obama received a million or so votes because of Oprah’s influence. Check out the Times article if you’re interested. I just think it’s interesting to finally have Oprah’s influence quantified, she is truly remarkable to have that much influence on the country. And while people may argue about how these economists got their evidence, I don’t question the validity of it. Perhaps it is only anecdotal reference but I have far too many friends/acquaintances/colleagues/family members who do take her opinion very seriously to underestimate it’s significance. While I do not read her magazine or watch her show I am well aware that she does hold a significant amount of power to sway public opinion. Far more than any politician I would imagine.
Tag: nytimes
Band-aids Are the New Fashion Statement
Imagine my surprise when I open up my favorite section of the Thursday paper to discover that band-aids are the new hot accessories and mascara has started vibrating. What will they think of next. I mean I can sort of understand the desire to get the sympathy vote via the bandaids but to make up an injury just to accessorize does seem a bit much for me. Not to mention the idea of vibrating mascara baffles me. Perhaps I’m not looking at the benefits closely enough but I’d imagine you’d have to be a good deal more careful with your daily make-up routine in order to use something like that. And I have to wonder who has the time in this modern fast paced world to spend extra time in the morning before work. But perhaps this is catering to a different sort of clientele.
Cylcing to Work or Reading the Newspaper?
This is my dilemma. I really don’t have time enough in the day for both activities but I took my first bike ride down to work today and I was a little slower than public transportation but I also didn’t have to wait for a bus or train, which was awesome. I’m a little precocious on my bike since I haven’t ridden in ages and well let’s face it driving around in downtown feels like someone’s going to run you over all the time. Thankfully that is only approx 5-10mins (depending on lights and cars trying to take me out) out of my 40ish-min trip down. Actually it may be faster than public transportation come to think of it… I think it’s just the taking out the bike, locking it up that takes up all the rest of the time to make it relatively equal.
Ok I got a little side-tracked there. But here is the real dilemma. I subscribe to “The Times” as the good little informed person that I’m supposed to be (at least so says my uncle who is ridiculously biased and been a subscriber of the Times since the 60’s). Now I haven’t always been a fan of the newspaper. In fact, I don’t particularly care for any other newspapers but after subscribing for a little over a year when I was living in CT I got quite attached to reading the Times every week day and at least a good bit on the weekends. Now that I’ve moved to Chicago I have found some problems with this. For one, I don’t have time to read on the weekends because I’m in grad school and my weekends are devoted to a little soccer and a lot of studying and maybe a couple of hours to see some friends if I’m lucky. Just last weekend I decided I wanted to make a healthy change in my life. With my crazy schedule it’s difficult for me to find the time to work out during the week. But then I thought to myself if I get a bike and just bike around town (and luckily Chicago is a hugely bike-friendly city, yay!) then I’ll get my exercise and cut out the irritating waiting for public transportation deal and it’ll be perfect! While I was thinking about this I totally forgot that I will also be cutting out my down-time of reading the paper while on the bus/train. So now I don’t know what to do. I know that I definitely don’t have time to read the paper during the week should I bike to work. But I’m hesitant to give up my subscription altogether.
I suppose I may try suspending my subscription for a little while and see how I feel about that. Oh how I wish there were more hours in the day. Maybe if I just leave early for work and get to work early I can take half an hour to unwind with the paper afte
What is with Obama Mania?
Perhaps I’m a little jaded, maybe I’m just a bitch (for lack of a better word) or something but I just don’t understand this whole Obama mania. Especially in my favourite columnist. I happen to be a huge fan of Maureen Dowd, now this might just stem from the fact that I loathe “Dubya” and she has written some incredibly funny op-eds mocking him. But I have to say I have been sorely disappointed with her columns of late. It could be that I am a Hillary fan and am still disappointed that she didn’t get the nomination. But really what is the appeal? I just don’t see it. I also don’t understand why everyone in the media just falls all over this guy. Quite frankly I don’ t think he’s all that qualified. I don’t think he speaks *that* well (no, I’m not saying he speaks poorly, I just don’t have that fall all over him reaction that seems to be the recent trend). And I’m not a huge fan of his dog-whistle tactics that were used in the primaries. I guess the title of my post is a little misleading, I don’t really care what is with Obama mania, I just really wish we could all get over it. Especially my columnists, I just want them to go back to mocking all politicians equally. Is that really too much to ask for?
Coffee is Healthy?
Really, who knew? I was just reading this morning about how coffee can be good for you, in numerous ways. Now I quit drinking coffee several years ago… it was a bit unintentional but I discovered chai. And while I know that there is a drastic difference between (what I call) “coffee-house chai” and real chai, I still tend to prefer either of those to any kind of coffee. Also to be honest, while I did tolerate regular american coffee for several years I have always preferred the espresso kind. I guess my favorite coffee would have to be a latte. Come to think of it I remember hearing something about how a smidgen of espresso a day is good for you, sortof like that one glass of red wine a day thing. Perhaps I should pick up drinking coffee again. Just something to think about.
Shorts at Work
Color me conservative but I just don’t think shorts belong in the workplace. I know there seems to be this desire to show off men’s bodies and shorts in warm weather does make sense but I still think there’s a huge difference between a woman in a dress or skirt than a man in shorts or even a woman in shorts. I guess I just think of shorts as leisure-time attire which is drastically different from what is (and in my opinion should be work appropriate). Perhaps I am just balking at the next great fashion statement but no one said that the fashion trends of the present are necessarily the way to go. I mean look at the 80’s I think most sensible people would like to forget the existence of those fashion statements. I would be greatly saddened if the beautiful classic suit were to be replaced by the shorts suit.
Reflections on the Middle East
As an American, I am often frustrated with the politics and segmentation of our country. half the time I want to run away and half the time I stubbornly refuse to leave because if everyone who had a problem with the politics left then well, hell, we’d really all be going to hell in a hand basket, I mean just look at the last 8 years. I’d like to think it can’t get much worse than that but I don’t think running away is a good way to address the problems.
Anyway, the point of this post is to discuss the affairs of the Middle East. I was just reading the times on the way to work this morning and an op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman really made me think. I mean everything that is going on in the Middle East isn’t quite so easy to categorize as we have a tendency to do in our comfortable living rooms in our first-world nation. It’s not quite the same to sit here and pontificate about how we shouldn’t have gone to war with Iraq, we should have gone after bin laden, etc etc etc. but you know, that’s not really the problem. I think Friedman put it quite nicely when he said that drilling for oil cannot be the only reason to go to war but neither can this so called war on terrorism when we haven’t spent enough time thinking about the basics of why these “terrorists” exist. (I am not getting too detailed about his idea) I appreciated the ideas that he put out there because it actually made me sit back and think outside of party-lines. Outside of what the media has been feeding us for several years now. In fact it made me think about a lot of things that I don’t get a chance to think about quite frequently. I’d like to say this is because I don’t have time (which is partially true) but it is also because everyone is so busy being behind a party-line or some such extreme stance that no one has bothered to look at the bigger picture.
Oil is not a reason to go to war. Neither is the fact that the United States believes that Iraq should be a democracy. What about the Iraqi people, I mean yes they are stepping up and perhaps this is a bad example because they do seem ready for change but let’s look at Afghanistan, they don’t seem to be up for change right now. If the people of the country are not going to fight for equality or for change then what are we doing going to war. And beyond that why is war the solution? Aren’t there other effective political measures such as embargos etc that we could use to carry just as effective a message? Sure there is the oil factor but let’s face it. We have always known that oil is in limited supply, let’s get moving’ with the times people, we need to find more efficient ways of creating energy. The time of the oil industry is over; let’s explore solar, wind, and nuclear power sources. Let’s see what other resources we can use to revolutionize this next century instead of being dolts just following upon the path of our fathers refusing to see a revolution in the makes.