A modern day Anna Karenina

The story of the Ukraine is a modern retelling of Anna Karenina. Married to staid old Count Karenin, Anna gets natural gas at a discount, a place to sell her goods, limited freedoms yes but security and comfort. Alas she is unhappy. She wants to be part of the West and live with Count Vronsky. She wants to sing, be free, swim with the swans, and travel to Paris and eat oysters and drink Cabernet. Count Vronsky loves Anna but cannot afford to support her extravagant lifestyle. Should Anna go to  Count Vronsky or stay with Count Karenin?

Editor's note: Looks like Count Karenin is playing a little rough.

Women's Olympic sports

This past week we have all been watching (or in my case grazing) through the Sochi Winter Olympics. We have watched women do the skeleton, the luge, curl, ski jump, and ski downhill. We have even seen the biathlon where they cross country ski, take a few pot shots at the crowd with a rifle, and then go back to skiing.

Curling I haven't figured out yet. Two women hover over what looks like an old model of a portable cd player and blow on it and scrape ice off in front of it. Some sports are best viewed in a bar.

Luge looks like a fun if dangerous sport. The Americans were cute when they waved at the cameras.

I'd like to see a few Olympic sports celebrating domestic life. In my view, women should engage in the Olympics to showcase their domestic skills. The sort of skills that would be useful for a future husband. Cooking competitions, baking contests, dish washing competitions would fill the bill. I envision stains on a huge arena floor. Contestants from each country would go out with mops and cleaners and compete over who could clean the stains first. Perhaps an ironing competition or a folding competition. Life affirming skills that would celebrate women's contributions to family life.

I guess I'm low on blood sugar from too much snow shoveling and ice scraping this morning. Happy Valentine's Day.

Beatles 50 years later

There's a lot of hoopla over the 50 year anniversary of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. Here's what I wrote a few years ago. Every once in a while they thaw out Ringo and put him on tv.

Pussy Riot falls apart

A few weeks ago I wrote about Pussy Riot. Now freed, I envisioned them doing a world tour, being on Saturday Night Live, opening for the Stones. From criminals to stars, soon millionaires going about in their Rolls Royces singing protest songs. Now, however there is a new wrinkle. The two most prominent members of the group, freed from the dungeons of Siberia, now have been expelled from, well, Pussy Riot. Apparently the more idealistic of the group back home want nothing to do with the commercialism afoot in the twosome and their recent public appearances.

The old battle among liberals returns. Like Trotsky and Lenin. Or Pete Seeger and Joan Baez on one hand and Bob Dylan after he plugged in his guitar. Pete and Joan saw music as a tool for a wider goal. Music was there to instruct the audience on liberal causes, the unions, the civil rights movements, the opposition to the Vietnam war. Bob Dylan and most of the stars that followed him saw music as a way to have a few laughs, make some money and maybe one day do a car commercial on the Super Bowl.

I remember once seeing Utah Phillips in Philadelphia and he commented that John Lennon was an s-o-b for not speaking out for union causes. It is the old schism that hinders liberals. Idealism vs. wealth and fame. Now the two lassies will have to tour as the artists formerly known as members of Pussy Riot. It's a god darn shame.

Update: Now they were arrested and released apparantly in Sochi. I guess some people seek out trouble.

Gap years

Recently I was listening to a podcast that discussed the current trend for young people to have gap years between high school and college. Apparently the idea is that the parents pay $20,000 to a non profit agency and their young scholars get to volunteer in a third world country and apparently, learn about life. When I was in college I heard about classmates who spent a few months in a kibbutz, or for the more politically active, a time helping Cuba with the sugar crop. It seemed like fun and I suppose it taught my acquaintances about life.

I guess I took a gap year after college, albeit involuntarily. After college I was supposed to get a creative and interesting job in New York but with the recession and all, I ended up selling hot dogs at Two Guys and working as a paraprofessional at a library thanks to CETA and family connections. I guess it was good, although it didn't seem so at the time. I also took a trip by car to California where I found my identity.

After I couldn't find a librarian job post librarian degree I again drove out west where I  worked for a data processing company in Denver. I guess you could say I had a gap decade before entering my exalted profession.

I suppose volunteering in Ethiopia is more interesting than selling hot dogs but both experiences can teach one about life. Even college teaches one about life, if you think about it. As Dick Cavett once said, "college teaches a man how to drink". So I suppose gap years are okay but some of us are probably too immature to take one on at the tender age of seventeen.

Bad weather

One of the features of living anywhere but southern California is that you get to experience a few rotten weather days every winter. You have to shovel snow and drive to work or go to work and you get dismissed an hour after you should have been let go. You brave your way through snow and ice and navigate slippery left turns. Finally you are home and you rush to turn on the television so you can experience the schadenfreude of seeing how much worse people have it in New York or Connecticut. Living between two television markets I can watch New York as well as Philadelphia street corners with news people gleefully reporting on miserable drivers and pedestrians in their not so fair cities. 

When the snow dies down, they go right into the next big thing, the cold temperatures. If the real temperatures are not scary enough they trot out the wind chill factor. Wind chill factors are terrifying but are really only true when you get a gust of wind. Sometimes even a pleasant but brisk day can scare the pants off of you if you believe the wind chill factor. Of course the people on tv don't want you to go out. They want you to stay in and watch them.

Well, the early predictions are in. No blizzard for the Super Bowl but it will be very cold. Especially if you factor in the wind chill factor.

Have a blessed day

I've noticed about once a week on the elevator at work I'll hear someone say "have a blessed day". I guess it's sort of like a Christian version of "have a nice day". 

I was sitting in a bar when I heard this story. Apparently the woman sitting next to me was a landlady and she was telling her "have a blessed day" story. She had a tenant that made a mess of the apartment she was renting, was always late in paying rent but always said "have a blessed day" when she met the landlord. Finally, the landlady had her evicted, had the sheriff's officer come over and remove her and her belongings from the apartment. The next day the landlady emailed the former tenant and said, "have a blessed day!"

Sitting in bars is a great cure for writer's block. Have a blessed day!