Pin-sanity: Pinterest

Can we talk about the evil amazingness of Pinterest.com for a minute? It is the ultimate virtual bulletin board. You've probably heard your girlfriends rave about it, and seen your guy friends roll their eyes about it. Well, I've jumped on the bandwagon. Here's why:

• Easy execution: make your boards as you go (essentially tags) and with the "pin it" bookmark button, you can pin wherever you are browsing.
• Visually simple: just pictures, everywhere
• Better than bookmarking: you can visually identify the project and then if you click on it, the site will direct you to the original webpage.
• Great for inspiration and ideas: follow other people with similar styles or interests to maximize your world. 

So, are you in?

Find my boards at: http://pinterest.com/angechang/

The Good, the Bad, the Weird

My facebook has suddenly become cluttered with links, and my anal-retentive side just can't handle it!  So here is the my breakdown of the past few weeks.

The Good:

• Sara Kruzan, a girl who was sentenced to life without parole at the age of 16 for killing her abusive, adult pimp, will have a chance to live some of her life outside of prison.  This is huge.  Why wasn't this a bigger story?
• Jon Stewart, my hero, makes some of the most sane and wise comments I've heard about the Arizona shootings.  Thank you.
• Sudan is voting to recede the South from the North, which would separate the Christian south from the Muslim north.  Will this finally put an end to the years of civil war and genocide?  Here's to hoping it's a start to real change.... 
• A nice spotlight on the embodiment of a real, true believer public defender: Judy Clarke, who will represent Jared Loughner.
• A man with an IQ of 46 was wrongly convicted and executed 70 + years ago.  He was just pardoned.

The Bad:

• The term anchor babies, code for we hate immigrants, hits the political spotlight.  Kentucky is trying to pass a bill that is even worse than Arizona.  Just what we need our politicians to waste their time on instead of making real, positive change.
• The Arizona shootings.  It's a sad story about the failures of our mental health system and innocent lives being taken.  
• Or the stupid: Palin throws out the term "blood libel" to lash back at criticism against her rhetoric and it's possible implications that it helped incite the Arizona shootings.  Typically ignorant, since the term is generally used to refer to the false accusation that Jewish people murdered Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals.  That is wonderfully helpful, Sarah.  Please refer to Jon Stewart's comments.  Of course it's not her fault.  But would it be a good moment to stop and think about how it is a problem that crazy people's words are reflecting the dialogue in politics?  YES. There just is no need for angry responses right now.
• Haiti is still majorly struggling.  It's been a year since the earthquake.
• A man with an IQ of 46 was wrongly convicted and executed 70 + years ago.  He was just pardoned.

The Weird:

• Dead birds dropping from the sky??  Arkansas.  California.  New Zealand.  Kentucky.  Italy.  Uh. This isn't like, a few dead birds.  It's hundreds.  Thousands. Does it not seem like the beginning of an M. Night Shyamalan movie?  But allegedly, this is not weird?

Political Depression

I'll be honest- I come from an immigrant Taiwanese family that was politically disengaged for as long as I can remember.  We did not talk much about politics.  For a long time, politics did not interest me.  In my adult life, I am still playing catch up to many years of apathy.  As I do so, I think I am more aware of the political apathy of people in my every day life and it disturbs me.  So I'm writing, I guess, to pump myself up.

As much as watching commentary and news on the political landscape depresses me, I force myself to be in tune.  I am realizing- maybe too late- that our country is in trouble.  We're in trouble because people like Sarah Palin are able to run for Vice-President.  People who, as Republican Lisa Murkowski stated recently, lack intellectual curiosity.  (There appears to be at least one Republican who can be somewhat reasonable and honest.)  We're in trouble because when I saw Mike Huckabee running for president a few years ago, he seemed extreme to me, but now seems relatively normal. 

How easy it is for us middle class folks to just stick our heads in the sand when it comes to politics.  We go about our lives doing the best we can, being good people.  I don't think this is enough anymore, if it ever was.  Educated, reasonable people must have a voice in what is going on in politics.  Someone has to tell Mitch McConnell it is an abuse of his political position to declare his mission is to prevent Obama from having a second term.  Stop wasting our time!!!

Ok, stepping down from the soapbox, now.  But seriously, please care.  If the likes of Sarah Palin or Mitch Romney (who believes in magic underpants) end up running the country, we really are done for.

Police: Mom left kids with felon

Police: Mom left kids with felon

News alert: it isn't against the law to leave your children with someone who has been convicted of a felony.  1) Maybe she didn't know he had a prior felony and/or a gun, and 2) not every person lives a life segregated from people who have committed crimes in the past.  I'm sure the kids got scared when they couldn't find mom (though I don't know why they were up that late anyway), and that's why they called the police.  There is actually no indication that the kids were in danger.  To make it all worse, they arrested mom, which means the kids are separated from her and will now have contacts with social services... never bodes well for a child.  Did he commit a crime by possessing a firearm?  Sure, fine, charge him with that.  As for the rest?  Stop messing with people's lives, government, you are only making it worse.  And Cincinnati.com, maybe you give reporting on poor mom's and their "child abuse" a break for a while.  I'm sure it's really doing their kids a lot of favors that you have branded them as bad mothers. 

Letter to the Media

Dear Cincinnati Enquirer:

I believe this screen shot explains my previous letter:

Sincerely,

A Seriously Crimed-out Reader

Letter to the Media

Dear Cincinnati Enquirer,

I thought that someone should point out to you that not every single crime and car accident that occurs is actually newsworthy.  In fact, you may want to think over your news story choices.  Here are some pointers:

• Drunk driving incidents and car accidents do not need to be reported daily.  We get that it happens.  Maybe sometimes when it's extra outrageous, sure, report it.  But when it's just a run of the mill, no accident occurrence, please don't tell us about it.
• No one cares how many showers Nick Lachey and his girlfriend take together: Nick Lachey and girlfriend keep it really clean.
• Perhaps you should not warn people that the Covington diocese is going door to door to see what churches people are going to in order to determine where to build churches.  Not only is that a terribly annoying thing to to, but now that you've tipped everyone off, we know how to avoid!
• It is not necessary to report a minimum of one child abuse case each week.  It also offends me that 99% of the time, the article shows a terrible booking photo of some unfortunate African-American women.  Get the gist?

Sincerely,

One of your readers