Just more Cook County politics?

Northwestern University professor David Protess, founder of the Medill Innocence Project, has been subponaed by the Cook County state's attorney's office seeking his students' grades, his syllabus and their private e-mails.

Protess and his group have been featured numerous times on TV and their efforts have sucessully resulted in the release of eleven people from wrongful imprisonment. They have previously discovered coercion by police in many of those cases.

Bitter Feminist #1

My previous post stirred up some debate about the definition of feminist and the use of the word bitter in describing some of them. Therefore I will now occasionally post real-life incidents I have observed or read about of self-described feminists whom I consider (my opinion only) to be bitter.

Here is my first example.

A self-described feminist in an office setting tells co-workers that she is leaving to get a cup of coffee. A male co-worker in the office asks politely, "Would you mind bringing me back a cup of black coffee?"

Her reply : "I didn't get a PhD to serve as somebody's waitress."

This incident was told directly to me by the feminist at a dinner party. I asked her if the man was sarcastic in his request. She indicated no. I commented that perhaps he simply wanted a cup of coffee and since she was going to the break room... It made no difference to her, she thought the request was degrading.

Finger Lickin Not So Good

There are people who lick their fingers when eating ribs. There are people who lick their fingers when eating fried chicken. Some establishments even encourage the habit.

But some people lick their fingers at other times. Like the sales clerk I encountered yesterday. I purchased a dozen ornaments for a Christmas tree. As she was explaining to me that she likes to wrap things very carefully because she herself had a bad experience with a clerk poorly wrapping a purchase (blah, blah, blah, blah, blah ... TMI and I'm in a hurry), she licked her fingers, picked up a sheet of tissue paper and wrapped an ornament.

I had to watch this 12 times. Then she promptly licked her fingers again to open the plastic bag wherein she placed my purchase.

Of course, I was in total shock, so I was speechless and just stood there watching her again and again and again, thinking about flu pandemics and Orbit "Dirty Mouth" commercials.

I walked out holding the bag on the opposite side of where she touched it, dangling it like a dirty diaper.

Here's a tip: To open a plastic bag, rub the bag (near the top) between the palms of both hands for a few seconds, and voila, it opens. No spit required.

Be careful what you Tweet

Helping protestors in real time can result in searches and confiscations, at least in the USA.

"When protesters in Iran similarly used Twitter to organize anti-government rallies, the U.S. State Department hailed the micro-blogging service as a boon to democracy."

Secrets for a youthful middleage

Someone told me it was hard to tell how old the picture was in my recent Halloween post. When I said it was taken nearly 20 years ago, she said I really hadn't changed that much and asked how I do it.

Here are my secrets:

1. Pick the right DNA. My maternal grandmother died in her 90's and looked 75. My mother is 84 and has few wrinkles. I was always carded well into my 30's.

Mommy:

2. Have very, very thick hair as a youth. As your hair thins when you age, you'll still have much more hair on your head than there is on the bathroom floor.3. Stay out of the sun (and tanning booths) and don't smoke. Especially don't do both. Of course when you're young you think it doesn't matter, but one day you'll look in the mirror and see a dried up, brown reptile coughing up green stuff staring back at you.


4. Don't grow very tall. People always think short people are younger than they really are. Maybe because they can buy clothes in the kids' department. Who looks youngest in this picture?


5. Unless you're already a dried up, brown lizard, you don't need to be rubbing all kinds of junk into your face. The more rubbing that's done, the more wrinkles you get because you're stretching the skin. Just wash with a good soap, splash water to remove it and pat dry.

6. Don't dye your hair. You're not fooling anyone. We all know that no person over 50 has naturally golden blond or jet black hair. Even Barbie.

7. Avoid botox, plastic surgery, and any of the other hot eternal youth solutions, unless you want to look like all the other androids.

8. Dress your age. Nothing says old lady skank or old man pervert than wearing something more appropriate for a 20 year old.

9. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

10. Get plenty of sleep. She not called Sleeping Beauty for nothing. It's always the ugly old witches who are flying around at night.

11. Keep moving. Notice I didn't say exercise. Run amuck.

12. Have a sense of humor. If you want a long life, it's inevitable you'll get old so you might as well enjoy the trip. And it will be so much easier to find someone to change your adult diaper if you can laugh about it.

Shaking bitter women back to reality

Here's an excellent essay that very well sums up my feelings about the modern feminist movement:

" If you weren’t so bitter about the broken promises of Feminism, you would be able to see the difference between Feminism and Women’s Rights."

The real reason Republicans won in New Jersey

In the modern world of an over-weight population, you'll never gain popularity during election time by mocking a chubby opponent, especially when Christmas is just six weeks away.