Message from Americans to our European friends

Anyone who says we all have the swine flu is absolutely 100% correct. We do! We are positively dripping and spewing swiney germs. Miss C has had the swine flu for 6 weeks now and she is highly contagious.

DON'T COME TO AMERICA, oops, I mean AMERIKA. STAY IN FRANCE OR GERMANY. I REPEAT, DO NOT COME TO SAN FRANCISCO FOR THE SUMMER. BESIDES THE SWINE FLU IT IS FOGGY AND COLD HERE. STAY OUT, oops, I mean STAY AWAY, FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, OF COURSE.

Also, we let old people drive tour buses, so you are at risk for "http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tourbus-crash30-2009apr30,0,3721876.story French tour bus crash."

True multiculturalism

My friend's mom is from China. She makes delicious chinese dumplings filled with pork and cabbage wrapped in wonton wrappers. When she makes the wrappers she uses a tortilla press to flatten the balls of dough.

My Panamanian friend used to be married to a American soldier. She and her husband were stationed in Germany for a few years. My friend became close friends with some German women. She grew to deeply admire their cleaniness and skill at housekeeping and she set out to aquire it for herself. To this day she has the cleanest house of anyone I have met.

The other day I took Devil Dawg to the marina to play catch. When I got there, I saw a man, and a woman in a burka praying to Mecca on a prayer rug they had placed right next to the tennis\basketball court. While the man and woman prayed, their 2 children, a small cheeky boy and a very pretty teen girl wearing a long black dress and head scarf were shooting hoops. The girl was very good at basketball.

After the prayers and the playing were over the family came up to the grassy area in front of the court to have a picnic of falafel sandwiches. They stopped to admire Devil Dawg's drinking from a garden hose. Even though I couldn't see any part of the older woman's face but her eyes, I could tell that she was smiling. After the picnic the man and woman went for a walk and the kids went back to playing basketball.

We will, we will seduce you!

I was at a sandwich shop a couple of weeks ago. In line, in front of me, were 2 Amerasian teen girls in soccer uniforms. (The sandwich shop is a hang out for the local high school athletes)

The place was busy and the girls were having a lively conversation about the physical/racial characteristics of their various family members.

One of the girls said, "Everyone in my family, like, married a Caucasian."

"Like, it's kind of really hard not to," replied the other girl.

What's sauce for the goose. Foie gras, animal rights and force feeding

I watched a program on PBS about the marine mammal rescue center and saw the Peta types gleefully force feeding seals and sea lions. In truth, some of the animals, once captured, never leave the center again, as they are unable to eat on their own and so are subjected to constant force feeding for the rest of their lives.

Here from the marine mammal center,

Rehabilitation

When a "patient" is admitted, our staff performs all necessary procedures under the direction and protocols set by the Animal Care Director and our Veterinary Medical Director. During the course of rehabilitation, animals require a variety of treatments such as administration of antibiotics and subcutaneous fluids, tube feeding, force feeding, wound care, etc. Most animals come in dehydrated and the most effective means to provide fluids and nourishment is through tube feeding. The process requires blending of fish, electrolytes, warm water, vitamins, and medication into a fish formula. This formula is fed to the animals by inserting a flexible tube into the stomach using large syringes. As soon as the animals are hydrated and stable, we wean them to eat whole fish.

Caucasia

The other day I saw the novel, Caucasia, and was taken by the title. I told a Black co-worker that I was going to change my name to Caucasia.

"No you are not, she said. That is my new name. It is my stripper name, Caucasia Williams."

"You know, I said, strangely enough, Caucasia does sound more like a Black woman's name than it does a White woman's."

"That's because of the Zshuh sound, she replied. That is what makes it sound Black."

"Bodies of Mumbai terrorists unburied"

Yawn, shrug.....

Have you hugged a pirate today?

The lefty media have been in orgasmic throes lately over the idea that ignorant fishermen\Somali pirates have been violently assaulting tourists and merchant seamen on the high seas. It doesn't even matter to the lefties if the ships hijacked are carrying aid for starving Africans, or the crews are made up of mostly darker skinned internationals, they just can't stop crowing about how American military might is powerless against such a clever foe.

Except that we haven't been using military power up to now. The ships' owners, crews and especially the cargo insurers have been avoiding using force. Which only proves that force works. It's been working really well for the pirates.

One of the security guards at work, never before a fan of President Bush, was waxing lyrical about the old Bush days. "If Bush was still in office, them pirates sure would be sorry," he said, sounding melancholic indeed.

We even have US senators going to Mogadishu with a checkbook in hand to ask the oxymoronic sounding "Somali government" how much money they need to stop their criminals from engaging in piracy. Clearly he should just open them an open ended account.

In any case, the cost of living is so low in Somalia that the millions they have already taken in ransom could have been used to build schools and hospitals and roads accross the country many times over.

What's going on around here is so bad that I cannot write about right now it so I will tell a funny story instead

I had lunch this week with a friend of mine who is a retired librarian. He told me that he has been seeing a former library patron of his around Berkeley, usually running from the cops.

"Vaseline guy, I used to call him," said my friend.

"He would get a book on art or architecture and sit at a table with it and smear himself with Vaseline and turn the pages with his greasy hands and get Vaseline all over the books."

"One day he got an expensive architecture book off the shelf, opened it on the table and pulled out his tub of Vaseline and started rubbing it all over his bald head, face and arms and I just couldn't take it any more."

"I ran over and snatched the book from him and said, You have to choose. It's either the books or the Vaseline, but you can't have both!"