Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone has had a Happy Halloween.

We had a great time carving pumpkins and trick or treating. I also wrote a few things about Halloween recently, notably a piece about the origins of some of our traditions for personal dividends. And yesterday I wrote about some "scary" money moves for Banks.com: Bad investment strategies and bad loan ideas.

I also found this cool video on Disney villains singing about money. Enjoy!

3 Keys to Being a Better Person

I read this quote over at My Two Dollars and really liked it. It offers 3 keys to how you can be a better person:

“I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.” — Lao Tzu

Does It Always Have to Be About the Mommy Bloggers?

Today, the local newspaper ran a story about women bloggers here in Cache Valley. It reminded me of a few months ago when the university station did a show on local bloggers. And it was all about the mommy blogging. Don't get me wrong. I read a few mommy blogs regularly for the humor and insight. Mommy bloggers are great. And some of them have an amazing level of influence. Loralee Choate (Loralee's Looney Tunes) has been invited to the White House. And just about everyone has heard of Heather Armstrong (Dooce.com).

But whenever a showcase of local bloggers is done, or when we talk about women bloggers, for some reason it seems to be all about the mommy bloggers. What about the rest of us? Yes, the story briefly mentioned a couple of local writers who don't really go that route. But there's a whole other world of bloggers out there -- some of them female -- that don't make blogging about their lives and families the main focus (not that there's anything wrong with that).

On this blog, you may find a few snippets about my life, but it's mostly my random thoughts on politics and society. It's not a very influential or popular blog. I don't have time to do much with it. Because I'm being paid to write blog posts for other people. I do this professionally. It's a whole, unexplored and interesting blogsphere out there, and everyone seems to focus primarily on mommy bloggers.

Maybe it's just my bruised blogger ego talking. This comes a day after USA Today linked to a blog post that I wrote for Personal Dividends (resulting in enough ad revenue for me to pay for Christmas this year). Naturally, my sense of my own importance is overblown. But if folks at NPR, U.S. News and World Report, The Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, and even some television station in Texas can find me, is it too much to ask for a little bloggy love in my own backyard?

I can't really complain. I write a column for the local newspaper. But it still kind of rankles. Maybe it's partly because when I people ask me what I do, it goes something like this:

"So, what do you do?"

"Oh, I'm a writer."

"What do you write?"

"Right now, I'm mostly a professional blogger."

"Oh, like a mommy blogger? That's great. How nice that you can supplement your family's income with a little bit of money each month."

At this point I smile vapidly and ask what they do. Because nailing them to the wall with a glare and saying, "Actually, I'm the primary bread-winner right now while my husband works on his Ph.D." would probably come out terribly mean and snooty. (This is why we have blogs. So that we can be mean and snooty when we feel like it, but we don't actually have to look people in the face while we're being mean and snooty.)

Jon Stewart Exposes "Faux" News

A couple of days ago, I complained about how sloppy journalism has become a hallmark of our "news" media. One of the reasons I love Jon Stewart is that he is such a great media critic. A few days ago, he did a great job of getting after Fox News for their coverage of a recent protest. It's not really anything new; Stewart is in a constant state of exposing conservative Rupert Murdoch's not-so "fair and balanced" media money-maker. But it still makes me smile every time. Just as much as when he exposes CNN and MSNBC for their appalling lack of journalistic standards.

Anyway, enjoy.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Queer and Loathing in D.C.
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

On Global Climate Change: Blog Action Day

Today is Blog Action Day. It's a day each year when thousands of bloggers get together and write about the same issue. I've been doing it since inception. This is the third year. The first year, the theme was the environment. Last year, it was poverty. This year, it's global climate change. We were allowed to vote, and, honestly, I voted for education. But clearly most of my peers are more concerned about global climate change. So that's what I'll write about for Blog Action Day.

Do I think global climate change is "real"?

Global climate change is real. There are natural cycles of climate change with regard to the way things are on earth. I also believe that what we choose to do as a society and the human race can affect our world. We wouldn't have been told to be good stewards of the earth if what we did made no difference. While I don't know to what extent human activities influence global climate change, I do think that there must be some effect.

What I think is more important than debating the issue of global climate change

While I suppose figuring out to what extent humans affect climate change could be important, I can think of other things that I view as even more important. Global climate change, unfortunately, is something that is "debatable." It has political undercurrents. I've written about this before. And I am yet again. The focus on global climate change drives me crazy. It's a convenient way to delay taking action on something that isn't debatable: Pollution.

We know that pollution is there. We can see it. We know it's bad for our health. We know it costs us money in terms of diseases and conditions. And we know it is bad for the environment. But we're so wrapped up in whether or not global climate change is "real" that we aren't paying attention to this very real problem that we can do something about.

And, really, once we starting solving the pollution problem, the portion of global climate change (however big or small that might be) related to human activity will solve itself.

The 24-Hour News Cycle and Sloppy Journalism

I just found out that Logan/Cache Valley made the list of top 50 places in the country to start a business. At least CNN Money thinks that Logan is a good place to go to launch a business. Logan is categorized as a small city. Now, if only CNN Money showed some interest in fact checking. As of this writing (perhaps the mistake will be rectified when some editor decides it should be done), the U of U is described as boosting Cache Valley's business profile with its "standout engineering program." Perhaps the U does have a standout program. But I think that Utah State University's program is better. And USU is, in fact, located here in Logan. While the U of U is located in Salt Lake City (which did not make the list).

Which brings me to a standing annoyance I have with the 24-hour news cycle and the fact the Internet, though an awesome source of information if you are discerning, has contributed to a certain sloppiness in journalism. As news increasingly becomes "infotainment" catering to increasing ad sales and revenue, and as news outlets compete to churn out a volume of content to remain relevant and competitive, standards are slipping. Truth to tell, standards have been slipping for years, ever since news became business, rather than, well, news.

Now, I understand that people make mistakes. We all do. However, it used to be that news organizations had fact checkers and others who went through and looked for glaring errors, such as confusing the name of the main university in a small city. When I was earning my M.A. at Syracuse University, if I had made such a mistake, or misspelled someone's name, or incorrectly identified something in an assignment article, I would have received an F for that entire assignment. No matter how well it was written.

Unfortunately, such rigorous standards are not often applied in the real world. Journalism is rapidly becoming little more than punditry, and everyone wants to write opinion pieces so that they can say whatever they want, without having to worry about such troublesome things as facts. I know that I do express my opinion. It's what a blog is for. But I never for a minute confuse my (informed, I think) opinions on my blog for true journalism. Although some of them come pretty close...

I Like Obama. But the Nobel Peace Prize?

I voted for Barack Obama. I think he has some great ideas. (Whether he will actually get to implement them as he'd like, thanks to obstructionists in his own party and outright lying by members of the other party, is another story altogether.) I like his idealism. I like how he is re-connecting progressive politics to a spiritual and moral framework. I like his message of personal responsibility in education, and his attempts to get us all to re-awaken the idea of civic engagement and unity. (That rich pundits and talk show hosts have more of an interest in keeping us divided and angry, and do so through lies, distortions and general rabble-rousing, is a disgusting commentary on what "political discourse" has become in this country.)

I like lots of things about Barack Obama. I think he's a good man, who's trying his best, and discovering that the reality of today's politics are ugly, and he's probably frustrated at being thwarted at every turn by people whose main motivations revolve around either keeping special interests happy (and the money from them flowing), or just seeing him fail for whatever reason they have for wanting a completely failed presidency.

But I'm not sure that the Nobel Peace Prize is really warranted. Obama's got good ideas, and he's trying his best to help the situation here in the country and around the world, but perhaps someone else might warrant the Nobel Peace Prize. Piedad Cordoba has been trying to get peace in Colombia for years, and has even arranged for the freeing of captives. Another interesting choice might have been Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad in Jordan who has been encouraging peace through inter-faith dialogue. Also, Sima Samar, an Afghan doctor who has campaigned for human rights and done a lot in Darfur. These were considered the three main front-runners.

I wonder if the committee just wanted to recognize an achievement, or if it is banking on Obama's future potential. But either reason, I think, is probably not good enough to get the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee cited his work in international diplomacy and his thinking toward nuclear disarmament, but I think that, perhaps, the prize could have waited a couple of years for some more solid accomplishments. Especially since this move is only going to inflame elements waiting to pounce, and cause even more spiteful rhetoric toward him.

At any rate, he was a class act, a stand-up guy as he delivered remarks upon receiving the prize.

On Weight Loss...

If you know me at all, you know that I am in a constant state of losing 10 pounds. Well, really, it's a constant state of losing 10 pounds, being really happy with myself for about two months, and then watching as my weight balloons over the course of a few weeks because for some reason or another I've stopped exercising and started eating waaaaaay too much junk. It's a cycle that I know is not particularly healthy. Besides, it is insanely annoying; I never know whether I'm going to fit into something I want to wear.

So I've signed up at a gym. Until now, I've been mainly against gyms. They are expensive. I can exercise at home for free. Sadly, though, I'm not effectively exercising at home. My favorite thing to do is swim, and we don't have a pool. I was going to the university to use that pool, thanks to a spouse card. But the times for lap swimming are rather inconvenient, and after a couple of weeks each semester, I give up. At the gym, though, lap swim is anytime I show up. So that's nice. (I'm at Sports Academy. No, they aren't paying me to shill for them. But I won't complain if you claim you're one of my referrals -- I can keep my initial lower rate.) I'm pretty certain I'll go to the gym because I'm paying for it. I've even worked out regular times that I can go swimming. I was going to do the yoga class, but in the end, as I looked through the door at all those people, I decided that I'm not the type for group exercise. I do yoga most mornings when I get up anyway.

I'm also trying something radical (for me, at least): Preparing healthy foods ahead of time for snacking purposes. I like red peppers, apple slices, baby carrots and grapes. If I wash these ahead of time, prepare them for easy eating and then leave them out (while sort of hiding the candy), I snack on these. At least, that's plan. I have to eat something sweet everyday or I go crazy, but I'm working on portion control.

So that's my grand idea to lose 10 pounds. Again. And hopefully keep it off this time. The key, as we all know, is making an actual lifestyle change. Hopefully, I'll be able to do that. Because the hard part is making an actual lifestyle change.

If You're a Woman, You Can't Be Attractive AND Smart?

In an effort to stop thinking about such maddening things as the health care "debate" and the attempt to kill a public option that would make health care more affordable, not to mention the absolutely stoopid (yes, stoopid) talk about Obama as a "communist Nazi", I went and saw a movie with my son. And have been dwelling on something that bothered me from Cloudy, With a Chance of Meatballs.

At first, I found it interesting that Sam Sparks would say something smart, and then back-track to something vapid. Having seen this many times as smart women dumbed it down for fear of rejection by men who don't want smart and thoughtful (solution: look for a man who wants smart and thoughtful), I found it an interesting look at a very real conundrum for many women. And the idea that the image-obsessed media won't even listen to her unless she's "cute and perky" is one that deserves exploration. Unfortunately, we discover that as Sam decides to let her inner-nerd re-emerge, it becomes apparent that she can't be both attractive and smart. No, in order to truly "be herself", Sam has to change her look. Smart girls can't be pretty.

Although I guess there is an argument for different kinds beauty. Flint does say that, with her nerd look, Sam is now beautiful.

But it still bothers me a bit. I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent (and not just because my test scores say so), and while I may not be a hottie, I don't think I'm totally unattractive. Anyway, the idea that a woman has to look a certain way in order to be viewed as smart does annoy me. And it annoys me that for some reason we like to think that beautiful people must be less intelligent. Is it part of some vast insecurity that we have as a society? I don't really have the answer. All I know is that it bothered me a little bit to see it on screen.