You are currently browsing the Crucial Minutiae weblog archives for November, 2007.
Gossip Girl is doing everything right.
Not since the days of back-to-back episodes of Dawson’s Creek and Felicity, on the now defunct WB11, has a teen drama captivated me so.
It’s overwritten and over the top. Like Sex and the City for the teenage set.
And I set my VCR to tape it on a weekly basis. (Yes. I still use a VCR).
I want to like police officers. I really do—I don’t want to automatically distrust anyone with abadge and get nervous when an officer so much as looks in my direction even if all I’m doing is crossing the street. But man, police departments around the world, can’t you help me out a little?
I read this hilarious, but also disturbing article in Dame Magazine (where I am now the editor-at-large) this morning. It describes a program by the LAPD called Operation Any Booking. The goal: to arrest as many people as they can in 24-hours. Oh, and it gets better. Lt. James Tatreau said, “It’s just a friendly competition to have a little fun out here. It’s a morale booster.” Yeah, I bet all the arrested folks are happy as clams in their overcrowded cells.
Then just now, I read this article about a police department in Australia who deemed it necessary to jail a crocodile that “threatened local fisherman.” Yes, you heard me right, a jailed crocodile. That makes a lot of sense.
Paul Tibbets died today at the age of 92. He dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Strangely enough, he named the B-29 Bomber for his mother. The bomb, (also strangely named) Little Boy, killed 78,000 people instantly– a number which doubled by the end of the year as the radiation spread.
I recently heard that U.S. Military who went over for the clean-up efforts in Japan, referred to as Atomic Veterans, were also exposed to radiation and have suffered health problems as a result. My grandfather may have been one of them– but I’m not sure he ever considered that. When he spoke of his time in Japan, he wore a smile, recalling the wonderful culture he had the chance to discover. He lived a long, happy life– although a good twenty years shorter than Tibbets. Perhaps that’s not something I should even think about.
Have you ever heard Tibbets explain why he didn’t regret dropping the atomic bomb?
Have you ever listened to the lyrics of Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack?
You see these shackles
Baby I’m your slave
I’ll let you whip me if I misbehave
WTF? Is that bringing sexy back? Really?
I’ve been exploring what “sexy” is to me. I’ve been strutting down the street, shoulders back, head up, breasts bouncing up and down, hips swaying with each step. I’ve been taking singing lessons, belting it out, finding places in my voice I’ve kept hidden for years. And last week, thanks to the lovely Jennifer Gandin, I took a free introductory S Factor class, slid down a pole, stripper-style, and loved it. But none of this compares to what I experienced at a Halloween party on Saturday night.
