Uganda Village Project

It's been a while, but I got great news last night. I was accepted as a summer volunteer with the Uganda Village Project in the Iganga district in southeaster Uganda. I'm only slightly torn about committing to this project prior to hearing about the UN position. The UN job would be with the Department of Disarmament Affairs--my resume made it through the first round of "cuts" a few weeks ago--but I won't hear until March. My instinct is to believe that hanging out in the Ugandan jungle for 9 weeks is greater than pushing paper at an office in New York but it's still the UN. But really, it's been a really long time since I've been out of the country--save those 5 days in Thailand last March--and I'm really excited about the prospect of spending 9 weeks in a completely different environment. So yes, in the run-up to what I expect with be an incredible summer, I will try to write more, and then I will write a lot once I'm there.

Heart and Liver Failure

So it may appear that I've become obsessed with bacon this week. Trust me, this is nothing new. Bacon in all its glory is incapable of doing anything except making something awesome more awesome or something mediocre excellent. But this. This takes the cake.

Rhody Pride

Gallup has published a the first of a four-part survey on political allegiance in the 50 states. It details percentages of citizens who identify themselves as one of either major party, using that to determine the most democratic and most republican states in the nation. Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Hawaii are the most democratic states as well as the District of Columbia. Utah and Wyoming rank number 1 and 2 on the elephant side. In addition to obviously being seriously proud of my little home state, the implications of the study are huge.

There are only 5 states that have large pluralities of people who identify themselves as Republicans. The two mentioned previously plus Nebraska, Alaska, and Idaho. Tell me again what happens in those states. I don't mean to be rude--honestly--but the major industries or economic activity in those five states seems to be potato farming and snowmobiling. Throw in fundraising to defeat civil rights legislation in neighboring California and you have yourself a hell of a trifecta. Let's look at the Donkey-loving states. We have Rhode Island, home of Roger Williams, America's first pioneer for religious freedom; and there is Massachusetts--where the shot heard round the world was fired and where Paul Revere led his men by the light of the Old North Church. Hawaii just happens to be tropical and the home of President Barack Obama (never. gets. old.).

So I ask you, would you rather follow a party whose base resides in a world where Joseph Smith and his golden tablets run the show, or where Paul Revere and Roger Williams--America's early patriots--are remembered and loved? All this talk about patriotism and Americana has me remembering what it was like to grow up in the fertile crescent of America's democracy. Inspiring.

Bacon is sexy

Don't even bother arguing with me. You know this is the most incredible thing you've ever heard of.

Fantastic news for graduate students

This piece in the New York Times--however slight the connection it marks--officially ends my on-again off-again effort to cut back on my coffee consumption during the semester. Viva la cafe!

Happy Birthday Dad

January 19th, 2009. My father's 64th birthday. Had Janis Joplin lived, she would be 66 today. Also the birthdays of Dolly Parton and Robert E. Lee. My father once told me that when he was a kid growing up in the south, people often bought him books about Robert E. Lee for his birthday so he knows a whole lot about the Confederacy. Some places in the south still count it as a holiday honoring their famed general. While I'm pretty neutral about Dolly Parton, I truly enjoy Saturday afternoon cooking sessions with JJ in the background. Needless to say, January 19th is a big day. Particularly this year.

2009's version of January 19th also happens to be Martin Luther King, Jr. day and the day before we inaugurate America's first-ever African-American president. It also happens to be the 19th day of the bicentennial year of Abraham Lincoln, after we just closed the centennial year of Lyndon B. Johnson's birth, the signer of the Civil Rights Act. Such a convergence of events makes me think a greater power may have decided it was proper that we Americans be slapped in the face with the reality of all our failures and all our potential at the same time.

What an incredible time to be an American. I have never been so proud and so hopeful and so confident in our ability to achieve everything that our collective being is capable of and so much more.

Happy Birthday Dad, I know today and tomorrow mean more to you than I might ever be able to understand. And Rest in Peace, Reverend King. I think we made it to the Promised Land.

Will Ferrel is the new Nostradamus

This is eerily frightening.