Melyssa-with-a-Y

(Sorry, it's turning into politics-all-the-time around here, huh?) We all know that Dubya's last SOTU [hurrah!] was all about framing his legacy. [HA! What legacy? ahem. sorry.] Here's a nice post at 23/6 about his lame duck status and what he will try to take credit for in the coming years: ... he'll dedicate his last year in office to ending the unpopular war he started and turning around the economic recession that happened on his watch. He also laid the groundwork for taking all the credit should the next administration manage to balance the budget his administration unbalanced. But I think my favorite part of this post has to be the graphic, mostly because it expresses the clear superiority of my favorite (faux) Democratic President, Jed Bartlet. :)

If you've ever seen an issue of the New Yorker , you've probably seen Eustace Tilley. You know... the dandy with tophat and the spectacle, looking at the butterfly. Since 1994, the magazine has held a contest, inviting the public to "re-imagine" Tilley. Here's a Dr. Seuss version. There are some amazing entries posted on the Flickr site . The winners will be announced on Monday, February 4.

heard on NPR this morning: "Tonight will be President George Bush's **last** State of the Union address." I swear, I almost shed tears of joy. P.S. And if you haven't read it, go read Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg's OpEd in the NYT .

Last month, I was reminded of the utter idiocy that abounds in (parts of) Texas. This month, I'm pleased to say, my position was upheld by some pretty smart people. Regarding the proposal by the Creation Institute to train "science" teachers in creationism in Texas : "The latest round of so-called creation science truly scares me and all of my colleagues here at UT Southwestern Medical Center," wrote Alfred Gilman, dean of UT Southwestern's medical school and a Nobel Prize winner in medicine. "Approval of this sort of nonsense as science in Texas will have a significant negative impact on our ability to attract the best minds to the state." HA! The one that really gets me is from another Nobel laureate: Steven Weinberg, a physics professor at UT-Austin and a Nobel laureate in physics, [said,] "In my opinion, it would be a blow to science education in Texas, and an embarrassment for Texas ," he wrote. But ...

For someone who has spent so much of her time knee-deep in politics, I haven't said much about the 2008 election. Well, here we go. With primary season in full swing, the political machinations of the 2008 election have "officially" started. I have been reading political commentary and listening to NPR, and even if I hadn't already decided who I was going to vote for, I would have come out for Barack Obama. There's a lot of chatter out there comparing Obama with Bobby Kennedy . I have been thinking this same way for a while - this man has the right attitude and is saying the right things to bring a lot of people out to vote who never bothered before. I've heard and read in multiple places that he gives people hope , which is exactly what RFK did in 1968. (There's also a discussion about whether he's just saying nice things to get elected, or he means them, but I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.) The first-time voters in 2008 reall...

With the Hollywood writers on strike, the glitz and glamour of the Golden Globes (yes, I love alliteration!) last night were truncated to a one hour press conference-type deal. I understand the actors' solidarity, not wanting to cross the picket lines, but I wanted to see some hot men in tuxedos! to check out the fancy (and freakish) dresses! Sigh. The good news is, the foreign press picked some real winners! [selected] 65th Golden Globe Award Winners Hollywood Foreign Press Association 2008 Golden Globe Award Winners for the year ended December 31, 2007 ( click here to see the full list of awards ) BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA: ATONEMENT *ooh, must see this one. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA DANIEL DAY-LEWIS, There Will Be Blood *must see this one too! BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET *YAY!* BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL JOHNNY DEPP, Sweeney Tod...

I started a new program at my gym, which includes bi-weekly sessions with a nutritionist, continuing to work with my trainer, plus a pedometer and a food diary. The nutritionist is very nice (much better than the woman who was there before). At our first appointment last week, she started suggesting that I lean more toward natural foods -- real butter instead of margarine, almond butter instead of JIF (waaah!), etc. She was impressed that I already knew how to keep a food diary, but after all these years on Weight Watchers, it's really second nature. She took me to the (regular) supermarket yesterday, to talk about what to buy and what not to buy. We looked at organic everything , from apples to cereals to milk to energy bars. We talked about the nutrition content of the stuff that I had been buying, which was full of chemicals and preservatives. I always look at the fat and calorie content of the foods (to count WW points), but I have to start looking at the ingredient list and a...

His face was pale and his eye was odd. He shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again. He trod a path that few have trod, did Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street* Paul and I went to see Sweeney Todd at the Alamo Downtown last night. I've been itching to see it since it came out, although I will admit I was a little hesitant about Johnny Depp's singing voice. But the show is one of my all-time favorites -- I know all of the songs, and I listen to the Original Broadway recording with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou all the time. So we went! First thought: Johnny Depp's singing voice is about an octave higher than the standard for the role. ( Brian Stokes Mitchell also had a short run as Sweeney Todd, and he was fantastic.) But after I got over that, I was immersed in Tim Burton's vision of London of the mid 1800's. Helena Bonham Carter did well, Alan Rickman was positively creepy, and Sacha Baron Cohen proved that he's ...

Sorry I'm a day late, but it wasn't officially a Happy New Year until the Rose Bowl game ended. :) And boy, it couldn't end soon enough for the Illini. Final score, 49-17. (The Trojans could have gone over 50 pts if Pete had called a time out with 10 seconds to go so we could set up, but that would have been adding insult to injury, so the game just ended.) It did sort of irk me that the cameras kept showing closeups of the Illinois fans, making it look like they had taken over far more than the 1/4 of the stadium that they actually got. And there was a bit of taunting, sure -- the Trojan players didn't really need to be dancing on the sidelines when the game started, and Desmond Reed didn't need to do a front flip into the end zone on a TD (which resulted in a penalty), but to have unsportsmanlike conduct called at the end of every other play in the fourth quarter... that was a bit much. Of course, by that point, it was just as often called on the Illini as it...

After much fun and debauchery at Dani's birthday, I had another birthday party to attend the following night. Here's the story: Dani and Giselle are two of my best friends in the world, and yet I have never been able to get them in the same room! I have plenty of friends that have met both of them... but they've never met each other! It's weird. And, their birthdays are a day apart! So, on Friday, Dani turned 36, and on Saturday, Gigi turned 40! She invited people from near and far to a soiree at her apartment. She made West Indian meat pies, spanakopita, ham and egg cups (muffin-sized), brownies, chocolate cake, cranberry chutney, apple crumble... and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Oh! and Grand Marnier-Pomegranate-Champagne punch. YUM! It was all SO tasty. (I think she started cooking a month ago!) We watched the Giants-Patriots game, as Gigi is herself a New Yorker, and had invited some other NYers and a few Bostonians. The perfect season, indeed. The par...