Thanksgiving Review

This is the Heilveil's dog, Stella, in front of their barn. What a great weekend! So great, in fact, that I wish it were Christmas and have less than no interest in doing my work...of which there is plenty. So, a review of this Thanksgiving weekend:

Wednesday

Ben and I go to California. Yay! Dating Ben has significantly changed my geographical prejudices. I no longer think of Southern California as just a dirty, crowded, strip-mall-fest. Ben's family lives in a truly beautiful place, up in the mountains away from L.A. Arrived at Burbank and enjoyed a ride home from Ira, Ben's dad (isn't it great when people pick you up at the airport!?) Can't really remember what we did that night, but I'm sure it was very nice and relaxing.

Thursday

Thanksgiving. Lilly (Ben's sister, who is 18 and going through college application hell, bless her heart) and I concocted an apple pie making plan that would allow us to take a break if family stuff got to be too much. Fourteen people were over for dinner, which may not sound like much to Kessler/Iten people, but is actually a lot to normal people, and I got to meet Ben's aunt, uncle, cousin, and strange distant cousin. Ben's family is adjusting to his grandpa's new wife, who had cataract surgery the previous day and so spent the whole evening donning sunglasses. Marsha (Ben's mom- I've worked up the courage not to call her Dr. McKeon) made a 28-lb. turkey and other delicious Thanksgiving things. REALLY good gravy and stuffing.

Friday

After-Thanksgiving Day. Ben's other extended family, which comprises great old friends of his parents and their families, came over. There were six dogs over with the people that evening. It was pretty crowded. I actually know this group of people from previous visits, and it was really nice to get to know them better.

Saturday

Wonderful breakfast. Everyone sat around and the conversation turned to people's experiences within their religious communities and their experiences of God. Reminded me of the Margulies household. Gotta love the Jews. By far the best thing about this visit was getting to know Lilly and Ben's parents better.
Lilly and Ben: I feel so lucky to be with someone with such a wonderful family. Lilly is much nicer to me than I've ever been to any boyfriend or girlfriend of my siblings, and I am so grateful for it! She's also really funny, which made me miss all of my sisters a lot, but also filled the void I know I would have felt at the holidays. Marsha and Ira remind me of all the parents of friends, especially Mary and Greg, Deborah and Bob, whom I miss so much. They are extremely open-minded, intelligent, and great listeners. Shout out to the Heilveils for being such a wonderful family to be with. Went to dinner with everybody and to see For Your Consideration with Ben and Lilly. Disappointing movie.

Sunday

Played catch with Ben, Ira and Marsha. With baseball mitts. Brad- you would have been sooo proud. Dad, why didn't you ever teach me to play baseball?
Left for Santa Fe.
Momentarily happy to be back in Santa Fe.
Shock sets in as mental to-do list is formulated.
Urghhh...

November Angst

I really don't like the month of November. What is it's purpose? How do I identify it? I identify it with Thanksgiving and it's only purpose is Thanksgiving. The rest of the month is unremarkable and disorienting. I'm thinking about Christmas but it's clearly not the Christmas season yet. I'm thinking about the end of the semester but I will have four papers to write before I go to Maine in December. Also, November is the sad month between fall and winter...in New Mexico we're caught in a weird kind of limbo. Every day it is sunny and between 50 and 60 degrees. It sounds like a nice autumnal kind of experience, but it's not, because it's clearly time for winter! I'm so confused!

Also, Ben and I are going to Ojai for Thanksgiving. Grandma and Grandpa Callahan are leaving for Brazil next week just in case anyone was wondering...thought of this because I keep meaning to visit Uncle George when I go to California but never do. Anyway, we're going to Ojai and I'm trying to clean up the apartment so that it is wonderful to come home to. The thing is (and I have doubts as to whether anyone who witnessed me growing up will believe this) the apartment is tidy. We do a pretty thorough cleaning once a week and tidy up every day. So why all of a sudden do I feel like it is NOT clean and NEVER will be? I think part of this has to do with spiders. There are lots of spiders in Santa Fe, and every time I do a corner cleaning or lift up something and find a spider (or two-agggh!) I feel like that corner just isn't clean and won't be until I get over having found a spider there. The second reason my apartment doesn't feel clean is probably because I've been here for a while and so now I know where all of the gross stuff accumulates. Finally, there's Birdie. He's cute, but very messy. So, I'm spending all of my time today that I'm not spending in class trying to make the apartment feel clean.

The final factor contributing to my November angst is Michael Richards' outburst.

Factors helping to balance out the angst are the Democrats' victories and Ohio State's performance last weekend.

White & Nerdy

Just in case anyone hasn't seen this yet. This goes out to: Boris, Adam, Mandy and all of her friends, all of my siblings, every St. John's student regardless of race, Teresa Deak (who actually was in a contest to memorize a certain number of significant digits of Pi) and especially those kids who spend their Sunday afternoons in Annapolis on back campus fighting with foam "weapons". And to Alan Handley.

Post game relief

Phew... That's over for another year.

At least I hope so. I don't think I could take a Michigan OSU matchup for the National Championship! Ben and I went to see Casino Royale last night. We enjoyed it very much. Before the movie there were previews for the silly-looking We Are Marshall movie, but I got so worked up about football that Ben dared me to yell "Go Bucks!" in the theatre. Which I did. It was well-received. Anyway, this Bond movie was thoroughly enjoyable, although not necessarily as repeat watch-able as Goldeneye. I liked that they went back to the beginning, and gave James the character development he has always deserved. There was one strange thing about this James Bond. You may have heard that this is the first Bond movie in which it rains and James Bond bleeds. Yeah, and it's the only one where I've noticed that he runs...and runs... and runs...I was more impressed by this than all of his jumping and fighting. Impressive running skills, James. The worst part of the movie was the opening theme song. Boo. Liked the graphics during the opening theme, though. Also saw Jesus Camp and Marie Antoinette recently. Jesus Camp, you tell me so much about the psychological damage inflicted upon me. Good movie. Marie Antionette could have been so much more. The rock music was a poor choice, and I think that the scope of the story could have been reigned in a little. Not sure why they ended it when they did. Ben and I were talking about wealth, and we thought that James Bond and Marie Antoinette served as good illustrations:
Wealth in James Bond (or Thomas Crown Affair): good.

Wealth in Marie Antoinette: bad. Very bad. See how I draw that line? For those of you who think that James Bond is extravagant, you haven't seen the fun of flipping over an Aston Martin at super high speeds often enough!

GO BUCKS!

Brad and Mandy have already expressed their keenly felt "Game" angst...so I thought I would just throw some positive energy into the mix. I mean, they just HAVE to win. I also think it is really unfair that Bo Schembechler died. Now that's all the commentators are going to talk about, and I'm sure they'll do some sort of tribute during half-time which will get the Michigan fans going. All I can is: Buckeye fans, stay strong. Don't let your Ohio-y niceness overcome your duty to your own team. Having said that, I think that all Ohio State fans (with the exception of my family) could really use a little Notre Dame-y-ness in their cheering and partying. A little dignity and image-consciousness. I know that the OSU fans are going to boo when the Wolverines take the field, and I know that, whether or not we win, they will probably set fire to more than one thing. Why can't we take the high road, Bucks? Then again, I am not actually advocating any serious change in behavior for fans, because whatever you've been doing this season, it's been working. I guess the bottom line is that, no matter what happens, it won't be as great as watching the Buckeyes win the National Championship in 2003 with mom beside us.

Al Jazeera International

I want to put in a much-deserved good word for Aljazeera. Because of the way most U.S. media operates, most of us think of Aljazeera as a scary, radical Islam-spreading news agency. I thought so too, until I saw... dun dun duuuun...a documentary about it. Shout-out to documentary makers! Republicans (and by republicans, I mean bad republicans like our do-nothing shitty congress and our crazy, idiotic president) must HATE documentaries, because the whole point of them is to tell the truth in pictures. Public radio does the same thing with soundbites. Those thorny rascals.




Anyway! Ben and I watched Control Room last weekend. It chronicles Aljazeera's coverage of the first month of our war with Iraq, and is an amazing and heartfelt film. It reveals that Aljazeera reporters are sensible and very highly educated, Aljazeera producers have incredibly high ethical standards, and that they are all wonderful, really cool people, to boot. Aljazeera does a kick-ass job of reporting, and everything is going relatively well for their coverage, except that the U.S. military is killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians (which actually upsets the Aljazeera reporters covering it) whose bodies Aljazeera shows on television. Then (get this!) the U.S. government is angry because Aljazeera is evoking anti-American sentiments by showing civilian casualties on TV. The worst, though, is when American planes bomb, BOMB, BOMB Aljazeera's and another Arab media source's locations in Baghdad. Two separate buildings, same day, and our government says, "It was an accident. Those reporters shouldn't be in Baghdad." One Aljazeera reporter was killed.

The good news is that you, too, can watch Control Room. The even better news is Josh, a really great young American military press guy, who is clearly genuinely conflicted by what he sees and hears happening around him. So, watch this movie and think about our responsibility to non-American human lives.

In more news, Aljazeera is launching Aljazeera International, an English channel, on Nov. 15th. We need to stop thinking of other news sources as enemies and begin to listen to people who disagree with us. I think there are many Americans who will be encouraged to hear that there are some out there who really care that thousands of Arab people have died because of our leaders. Here is more about Aljazeera from Aljazeera.net:

"Aljazeera has come a long way since it was launched in November 1996.

Free from the shackles of censorship and government control, Aljazeera has offered its audiences in the Arab world much needed freedom of thought, independence, and room for debate. In the rest of the world, often dominated by the stereotypical thinking of news “heavyweights”, Aljazeera offers a different and a new perspective.

Aljazeera's correspondents opened a window for the world on the millennium’s first two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our expanded coverage competed with and sometimes outperformed our competitors bringing into the spotlight the war’s devastating impact on the lives of ordinary people.

We continue to cover all viewpoints with objectivity integrity and balance.

Aljazeera.net English has been designed to attract readers from continents poles-apart. Not only does Aljazeera.net English offer a versatile content of news and information, but it also aims to be more interactive.

Our ultimate goal is to set up a more proactive relationship with our audience, where the audience is not simply a visitor at the other end of the line. They are and they will always be an integral part of the news reporting and news making process.

Our team of dedicated journalists with their multi-national education and diversified backgrounds share a common set of attributes: objectivity, accuracy, and a passion for truth.

Truth will be the force that will drive us to raise thorny issues, to seize every opportunity for exclusive reporting, to take hold of unforgettable moments in history and to rekindle the willpower within every human being who strives for truth."

Facts to keep in mind: Aljazeera is censored by some Arab states. It is only ten years old. Even if you disagree with everything that Aljazeera reports (which will be hard, because a lot of it is news) don't you want to hear what the "other side" is hearing?