Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work,
from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.
-Henry Matisse
Some calm, misty mornings around here, these last few days.
Meanwhile, I feel like I’m a speeded-up black and white silent film, a Buster Keaton maybe; a comedy of errors. I keep messing up the simplest things. I am fatally behind on emails, projects, life. Everything I do is wrong.
Ever feel that way?
Anyway, some weekend reading for you. Enjoy!
Is the recession hurting our health? Let’s see, Spam sales are up, McDonald’s, Dominos, KFC, all up. Gym memberships down by 20%. What’s wrong with this picture? What’s the real cost?
I have one real vice, one siren call that makes me put on shoes and brush my hair and go to the store…and it is Pepsi. I know, it’s sad, and I’m working on it, I swear. It looks like Pepsi is switching out the (mercury-tainted) high fructose corn syrup and replacing it with real, actual sugar. Does that make it any better?
The average age for a first cell phone in the UK is 8 years old. Ha, don’t tell my kids… I told them they could get cell phones when they were old enough to get a job to pay for them.
People are out of their minds. I’m sure you heard about the lady whose chimpanzee ripped her friend’s face off (I was unlucky enough to be subjected to the 911 call on the news) and was shot dead.
You may or may not know that the chimp’s mother also was gunned down.
Now the Huffington Post reports that there are about 7,000 pet freaking tigers in America. I repeat. People are out of their minds.
Jeff pointed out that probably lots of pet chimpanzees have their lives end in violence. Because they are not meant to be pets, not meant to be kept in captivity, not meant to be mated and bred, not meant to be forced to live among a different species. Primates have families and societies and cultures and they probably just… snap at some point. I mean, wouldn’t you?
OK, back to the economy. I really liked this article from Jim Randel which advises that “young people should not invest in stocks, real estate or even savings beyond a reasonable safety cushion. They should invest in themselves.” Love to hear your thoughts about this.
Ugh, ugh, ugh, yuck, yuck, yuck. Just when I thought my daughter might be growing past the Dora the Explorer stage, Nickelodeon and Mattel forge an evil partnership and create tweenage Dora and friends.
This groundbreaking initiative, featuring fashion dolls and accessories, is a completely new brand extension that empowers girls to influence and change the lives of Dora and her new friends. It’s innovative, diverse, wholesome, bi-lingual and entertaining.
It’s sickening, that’s what it is.
Here’s another one I wrote for Eco Child’s Play: Remembering When Scholastic Meant Good Books. This has had the most pageviews of all my articles, meaning that many more people in the world know what a booknerd I am and always have been.
I know I spend a lot of time here reminding people to donate to their local food banks, but the need doesn’t go away when the holidays end. Food banks were hit hard recently by the whole peanut butter recall and were forced to throw away thousands of pounds of food containing tainted peanut products.
Remember, a dollar can pay for several meals because food banks buy in tremendous bulk. Every dollar counts.
Finally, because I couldn’t resist:
Drunk Pantsless Man Steals Elderly Lady’s Diapers.
Yep.
That’s all, folks.
Wokka wokka wokka.
Where do people GET pet tigers?! I would think that would be illegal. Hello! Tiger! Dangerous animal! How did people mess that up in 7,000 instances?!!!
On the other hand, I guess you could say they're helping the species survive — 7,000 is "more than currently inhabit all the wilds of Asia." But still. Ahhhh!
About investing in yourself — an idea I've thought a little about. That's basically what I'm doing right now, going to a very very expensive college and of course being abroad to learn. Problem: I didn't take enough advantage of going to such a good college. Networking is the area that I have trouble with. (This "investing in yourself" idea is also the reason why I'm not holding myself back from experiences while I'm here in Europe because of worrying about money.)
(Trying to shorten my thoughts on this…)
I think a really good investment in yourself right now are the things a lot of eco-bloggers recommend: learning to cook, eating locally and seasonally, canning/freezing/preserving, learning to garden, and learning to get by on less. That way you have the resources to support yourself as you do "higher-level" investing such as taking night classes and seminars.
I may need to write a blog post on this if I really want to get in-depth.
Oooh, I loved the Scholastic Book Club! I rarely was able to buy books every month but I did love getting the summaries of all those books — then I could check them all out of the library later.
Really fascinating collection of weekend reading this weekend. Though I miss your posts throughout the week. Hope everything starts getting right soon! Maybe you just need to stop everything for a while and re-start again later.
Stephanie, have I mentioned lately how awesome you are? I love knowing you're out there and actually reading what I'm writing.
Even baby tigers are intimidating… they have giant claws. I cannot imagine who thinks that raising a tiger is a good idea. Wait, yes I do. CRAZY PEOPLE.
Absolutely you should write up your thoughts on investing on yourself…I'm chewing on it too. And I'm not so young as I once was.
It occurs to me that instead of weekend reading, I could just write on each one each day… But I do like doing the roundup. I'm sure posting will explode once I see some signs of SPRING!
I think it helps that you have this awesome message above the comment box. I love reading the quote as well as thinking about someone dancing with joy because of a comment. 🙂
I do like your weekly roundup of links as well. That way I can set myself up with a cup of tea and spend some time with focused reading, just what you've posted about instead of my usual click-everywhere-and-feed-knowledge-cravings style of reading on the internet. I probably wouldn't make the time as easily for one or two links posted daily.