I don't have much to post about cuz I spent a quiet night in, finally finishing the Fassbinder movie "fox and his friends" after about 5 tries. This movie has some of the elements I love about Fassbinder, but I think it took a few more years for him to reach his full potential. But I love the fashion of the foxy boyfriend with the mustache, and that it takes place in this alternate reality in which it's completely accepted by everyone (even conservative, rich parents) that the protagonists are openly gay. I like this film still because it shows a typical shot from the movie. A nubile young boy is lounging around naked for no reason. That's Fassbinder in the foreground. He plays Fox.
OK, I'm rambling. All I wanted to blog about was to say that the current New Yorker (the one on the stands, unfortunately the one online is next weeks), is tops! I read it from start to finish (except the fiction of course) and it was all great. The standout piece is Ian Frazier's article on wild hogs. So funny!
I am attempting to abstain from xmas (at least the gift part of it) but I have to buy a few gifts for family members. Have you ever heard of heifer international? It's the best charity ever! You can buy farm animals for poor families. For as little as ten or twenty bucks you can buy some chickens or bunnies for a family in a third world nation and they will be given the equipment and knowledge to take care of them. It can completely change a families economic situation. I just read an article in Harpers about a guy in China who got a few bunnies from Heifer International and is a now a millionaire entrepeneur who trains other peasants to take care of bunnies. I wish I could give money to this organization as my gift, but that's kind of a crappy gift. It's a cop-out because if I want to give money why don't I just give money that I would have used to buy myself something? Rambling again!
27 comments:
I just spent 20 bucks buying a ten dollar share of a goat and a ten dollar share of three bunnies for a needy family! You should check out the website.
We just bought bees on Heifer Intl site.
Tess
Yay! thanks so much for telling me about this. I bought some sheep shares off the site and donated a bit to the org. i liked the drop down box for how you found out about them. they have all these normal choices but one of them says "motley fool." so random. i really hope that someone will get a sheep because of my donation.
Bees!? What if the family gets stung by the bees? I wish you could buy a family a wolverine. Then maybe Joel would contribute. By the way, Joel's back from Hawaii and I heard a rumor he's hooked on ice.
Two years ago for Christmas my aunt bought a flock of ducks from Heifer Intl. for a family in my name. That was nice and all, but it made me sad because I really like ducks, they're so sweet, some of my fondest childhood memories include feeding Cheerios to ducks in Illinois, and I know that they were sent to the family to die. In my name.
Christmas is a dark holidy for me now.
-marie d
Oh my God! Knowing of your love of ducks (remember when we went to Vietnamese and Paul ordered duck?) that is like the worst present for someone to give in your name!
Alice,
The Motley Fool is a stock market/investor online magazine thing. I know this now because I'm practically a stockbroker. It would be funnier if it wasn't and that heifer international just put that up there in their pull down menu.
Almost stockbroker, fun-killer-
Ella
Why do they have to use such cute, fluffy pictures of the bunnies and ducks when you know those options will end up as somebody's dinner?? Of course, I'm a jerk for having those feelings about the animals, as opposed to the people the gift is going to help. Maybe the knitting basket present is a better way to go.
The people don't just kill the animals. They breed them and take care of them. Some of them are used almost exclusively for milk or eggs and rarely for meat (i.e. goats, chickens). And I'm sure the families take a hell of a lot better care of them than we do the animals in our slaughterhouses. But if it bothers you there are lots of other cool charities. I like their tenets, like when the family breeds the animal they are obligated to pass some of the offspring on to another family.
i got the sheep cuz i'm hoping they will just shear them. but, they might eat them too.
thanks for the motley fool tip ella.
They milk the rabbits and eat the bees.
Joel is back but now only speaking in Hawaiian. He also only eats coconuts and pineapples so he ends up sitting on the potty 50% of the time.Xmas show is going to be great, we're practicing more than we should be allowed to.
ninja
This is a long story, but it has a tie into something that Heck said, I swear.
When I lived in Des Moines, Iowa in the late 80's, I was in middle school in an art class and our art teacher had put some of the student's clay art projects in the kiln that was in the room. Something went wrong, and some kid's clay sculpture of a human shull got shattered while it was baking in the kiln.
The teacher invited us all up to come look at the broken skull sculpture and told us "This is what Ice does to your brain". That was about 1988. I think that was the last time I heard the word "Ice" used as a drug term, until today.
Whenever I think of ducks, I remember the crazy Mckinley park duck that we saw raping a dead duck on duck island. Damn dirty duck.
dave ninja-
shouldn't you be practicing right now? would you like me to look up the lyrics to puttin' on the ritz to help you out? or how about these for the sopranos theme song?
You woke up this morning
Got yourself a gun,
Mama always said you'd be
The Chosen One.
She said: You're one in a million
You've got to burn to shine,
But you were born under a bad sign,
With a blue moon in your eyes.
You woke up this morning
All the love has gone,
Your Papa never told you
About right and wrong.
But you're looking good, baby,
I believe you're feeling fine, (shame about it),
Born under a bad sign
With a blue moon in your eyes.
You woke up this morning
The world turned upside down,
Thing's ain't been the same
Since the Blues walked into town.
But you're one in a million
You've got that shotgun shine.
Born under a bad sign,
With a blue moon in your eyes.
When you woke up this morning everything you had was
gone. By half past ten your head was going ding-dong.
Ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes,
like a voice telling you there was something you should
know. Last night you were flying but today you're so low
- ain't it times like these that make you wonder if
you'll ever know the meaning of things as they appear to
the others; wives, mothers, fathers, sisters and
brothers. Don't you wish you didn't function, wish you
didn't think beyond the next paycheck and the next little
drink' Well you do so make up your mind to go on, 'cos
when you woke up this morning everything you had was gone.
"Some of them are used almost exclusively for milk or eggs and rarely for meat (i.e. goats, chickens). And I'm sure the families take a hell of a lot better care of them than we do the animals in our slaughterhouses."
Okay that is good to hear! Like I said, I'm a jerk because my immediate reaction when seeing the pictures was too get all sad over the possible loss of a fluffy bunny life, rather than helping out an entire family that needs the income and nutrition.
"Heifer International" sounds very Britpop...it also seems like something a group fo fey, pretty kids would whisper to each other on seeing me walk into Bud's Buffet.
- Fatrone
Marie,
Im sorry about your childhood Heifer related trauma but
doesnt that water buffalo look delicious?
Tess
ps. Good one, Patrone!
The only mp3 of the Sopranos theme i could find is the full 5+ minute version that has a long speach at the begining and a rap part in the middle.
we aleady learned putting on the Ritz last night. practice in T-5 hours...
ninja
I think that should be we "learned" Putting on the Ritz.
-biz
I want you to do the rap, too, mostly because it contains this line:
By half past ten your head was going ding-dong.
I can't believe you're giving away what songs you're doing! Sellouts!
miller
back to the goats, my xmas bonus last year from one of my bosses was a goat from this organization,
i got nothing against the goats, but man was I bummed.
-alicia
Hey Miller...if you see Liam around tell him I need that fuckin' tamborine back.
-biz
OK, but I gotta warn you, he's become really attached to it.
miller
Really? Looks like he hates it, he keeps throwing it to the ground.
-biz
no way! that gift is not a cop out hecka.
last year Camille gave Red Cross a donation in my name. not only was it one of the kindest gifts i've gotten, she also has had to suffer a years worth of their incessent junk mail. it truly is the gift that keeps giving.
Tough love, mate.
Liam
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