Chicken Underworld

I got my new Palm Pre today, and I love it (but am still learning to use it).  It's so sleek and can do so many things at once.  I'm just as impressed by it as an iPhone, if not moreso, and the plan is quite a bit less expensive. Getting it was quite a process.  I found out in advance that the Best Buy in Cambridge was getting just 9 phones (apparently more than were available at other stores), and they opened at 10am. I've been waiting for this phone since I inadvertently drowned my old Treo back in February, so I was determined to get one today.  So I went at 8am to stand in line. There were two guys there who had been there since 5am.  Fortunately, the Best Buy staff took down our names as first in line and said we could come back when the store opened to get the phone.  Woo for Pre day!

On the eve of the dreaded comprehensive exam week ("comps" to all of us at Heller), I'm looking at my most recent pictures and thinking of some things that make me happy... and hoping this happiness (and luck) will extend all the way through until next Thursday, when comps are over. Since I can't put captions on the photos here, I will list the happy-making things pictured below (not necessarily in order of priority):
1) Sabritas Habañero limón. I discovered them in Mexico last summer and it was LOVE, then I found out they sell them in Cloverdale, the little town on the 101 side of Mendocino. Yum. Wish I had some for this week...

2) My cow socks from my mom. 'Nuf said.

3) The cardinal in our backyard (we don't have those in Cali)

4) Eating pupusas, especially with Nicky

5) My pink beer! (Magic Hat's spring variety)

6) Zoe

7) This man

8) The flowers in my garden (there are lots of these - more happiness to share)

9) Nikhil shaving his beard

10) Nikhil shaving his head

11) My neighbor's cherry tree

12) The five-leaf clover (no joke) I found in my yard this week. (I'm hoping this one will really carry me through all this. Clearly I don't know how to preserve a clover between glass because it's looking a bit worse for the wear. But still exciting...

                                                               

Click here to download:

things_that_make_me_happy.zip (6707 KB)

I posted earlier about Luis Ramirez' murder.  Besides the legal ruling, I am also horrified at how the AP story speaks of Ramirez repeatedly as "the immigrant," reducing him to this one label (which is often used in a derogatory way in the U.S.).  Using this label instead of his name or even calling him "the man" obscures his humanity and his identity as a person who was murdered.  It distracts from the facts of the case and instead refocuses the reader's attention on Ramirez' immigration status, a peripheral detail to this horrifying crime.  I was similarly horrified by th use of language around the two women attacked and killed (respectively) by the so-called Craigslist killer, Phil Markoff.  This article from the Boston Herald refers to the victims as "an exotic dancer" and "a hooker" exclusively.  Again, using these titles exclusively (and ever using the word "hooker") implicitly devalues these people as humans who have been victims of violence and instead focuses the reader on their jobs in the sex industry.  The same thing happened in the Duke rape case, when the survivor was repeatedly called a stripper and her other identities (mother, student) were effectively erased.  It sends a coded message that violence against some women (e.g., "hookers") is acceptable or maybe just a little less severe than if the victims were, say, nuns or young, white, full-time mothers.  Reporters must learn that the labels they use and the framing of their stories have tremendous power over the way news is perceived.  I hope responsible journalists will work to improve this in the future.