Making sure that Massachusetts passes an anti-trafficking bill on October 25 .

The Massachusetts International Justice Advocacy Group has organized a call-in event and is looking for Bay Staters (people who live in Massachusetts) to participate in it.

On OCT 25, join fellow MA abolitionists and let your MA State Representative know that you want to see a strong anti-trafficking bill passed in MA as soon as possible!

Massachusetts is one of many states that do not have any legislation against anti-trafficking even though it is affected by it.  It is ironic the state  that prides itself on fighting for individual freedom, and abolishing slavery has dragged its feet on passing legislation to save those who are being trafficked.

Random Moments of Funny on TV - to me

Frasier: There are many, but the Marty and Ronnie wedding takes the cake. No air conditioning, manure delivery, Daphne's brothers (played by Anthony LaPaglia, who totally must have enjoyed a break from being the deadly serious Agent Jack Malone on Without a Trace, Robbie Coltrane, and Richard E. Grant) getting the flower girl drunk, Daphne giving birth in the vet's office - yeah.

GI Joe Renegades: There is really only one episode - the one where Duke gets thrown in the big house and Scarlett after failing to infiltrate in the ways that you'd think would be successfully ends up having to go undercover as a redneck/white trash pregnant stereotype let loose from the Maury Show or Jerry Springer.  If that was not funny enough, once they get into the truck and beat it out of Dodge, Duke looks at Scarlett, who is still wearing her disguise and asks how long he's been inside.

My Wife and Kids: Michael's battle with the mouse.  This was over the top stupid.  From the profiling to the Rambo night ops mission to Michael actually believing that the mouse orchestrating the cat's assassination by their oldest daughter. Of course the point is made during this homage to the movie "Mouse Hunt" that if he had just had a professional take care of the mouse, it would have saved a lot of trouble (but there wouldn't have been a story).

Whose Line Is It Anyway: So, so many, but one of the favorites has to be Colin's "monkey, monkey chew the butter" weird jump rope chant for the 'Scenes from a Hat' segment.  More of a "What The?" moment.

Star Trek: TNG: Anything that has Data's demon cat Spot.  Apparently Data is clueless that his cat is descended from the same cat that showed up on Friends (one of the where Rachel spends $1000 on a cat that totally hates her) and the cat on the short lived series Committed where one the characters tells the other that she had brought evil within the house.  "Capt. Picard Day" - just the concept and Picard's reaction to it was hilarious.

The Law and Order franchise: Not a lot of funny moments for this show.  A lot of them are "What The?" moments or mildly funny moments.  Two were perpetrated by Logan-one on Prime where he stops a fleeing suspect with a garbage can lid a la Tom and Jerry.  The other was on Criminal Intent, where only he could start this huge mob fight between the police and the firefighters.  The fight opens the episode with poor Wheeler on the ground calling for backup/help. Then we see how they got there and you understand why Ross probably had a bottle of Maalox in the drawer all the time.

Briscoe taking pleasure in taunting Munch about sleeping with Munch's ex-wife every chance he got especially during a stakeot in a cemetary was just....funny and wrong.

John Quincy Adams - the first Tweeter

The Massachusetts Historical Society has since 2009 been tweeting a line a day from the journals of the 6th President of the United States, John Quincy Adams.


President Adams fils (son) has kept a journal since boyhood, having been encouraged to do so by his father, President John Adams, who also kept a journal and authored many essays and letters. In fact, this Adams family has been a goldmine for scholars of the early history of the United States of America since members in this family (including the women) documented many aspects of their lives - domestic and political, which at times were one and the same.

It turns out even further that President Adams fils also mantained a journal where he recorded what happened in his life, but only using about one line a day - clearly the ancestor of tweeting. It is from this journal that a project was set up to actually tweet these lines on the date that they were written (some 200 years to the date later) daily.



The Twitter handle is: http://twitter.com/#!/JQAdams_MHS.



The link to the Massachusetts Historical Society project: http://www.masshist.org/adams/jqa.php.

Why I participate in the Walk For Hunger – anyway I can

The Walk For Hunger is an annual event organized by Project Bread, one of Massachusetts’ premiere organizations working on the frontlines to combat hunger in the state.

It began as a way to raise funds to support Project Bread’s work way back in 1969, by a small but intrepid group.  Almost 43 years later, the Walk For Hunger raises raises hundreds of thousands of  dollars through its walkers, which is no longer a small and intrepid group but a huge and intrepid group.
I count myself as one of the them.

Ever since the day a representative from Project Bread came to my high school and told us about hunger in Massachusetts and how we mere high school students could take action to help in the fight against it, I’ve walked all 20 miles, collected money, volunteered with registration and spread the word about the work that Project Bread and other organizations that fight hunger.

It never gets old for me, though at times it can be hard.

I hate that while we have made strides in how we deliver food to people in need and that we are being more nutritionally responsible to those who receive that food, the demand increases every year.
I hate that the more people try to get ahead, the more people have to decide between food and shelter, let alone food and dreams.

Nevertheless, the fight goes on and I am committed to it.  We are all just one job, one wage cut, one medical expense, one catastrophic event away from hunger.

Please give to Project Bread to support it’s work to make sure that residents in Massachusetts of all walks of life are little less hungry today than they were yesterday:
http://www.projectbread.org/site/PageServer?pagename=donate_main

Hiding

People are surprisingly good at hiding.  We hide because we have an image to maintain.  We hided because we don't want to spend years trying to take back our identity from identity thieves.  We hide because we fear things like the truth or being confronted with the truth. 

Sometimes hiding is necessary.  Sometimes you need to hole up and come out renewed again. 

Many times hiding is just delaying the inevitable: the inevitable reveal, the day or event that you fear.

The one of the tricks as always is knowing when to hide and when not to.  A larger trick is knowing that all the hiding in the world will not make the world go away so you have to deal with whatever stuff is left behind.

Motivation

Motivation is a funny thing.  It's amazing that a person can be motivated to travel great distances to do the thing that's fun, but not the thing that they ought to do.

This is because the things that we ought to do routinely and diligently are usually NOT FUN.

Picking up your clothes, paying bills, cleaning the kitchen, putting together a shopping list - NOT FUN.

Watching movies you haven't seen in a while, doing tons of shots the night before you have to show up for another mindnumbing day of work, recreational sex - FUN

Unfortunately, when we are motivated to do the FUN things instead of the NOT FUN things and not do the NOT FUN things at all, bad things usually happen.

Being a responsible adult means you dig down and find the motivation to do the NOT FUN things because they need to be DONE. 

Sunday morning coming down

Sunday-the day after.  This when you sleep in-but not too much.  You re-adjust and re-evaluate.  You are picking up after the previous evening's bachannale, which often serves as a reminder to never overindulge in your own liquor.

The first Sunday after New Year's is especially sobering because the haze of the holiday season wears off.  All that Ebenezer Scrooge TMOC (True Meaning Of Christmas)/The Whos' Roast Goose/Tiny Tim's Razzleberry dressing stuff goes to the wayside.  I personally feel that if you haven't been practicing the TMOC all year round, it's a bit inefficient to wait until one season out of the year to practice it when you can build upon it throughout the year.

So if you are into sports-this is an important time.  College Football is winding up with the BCS Championship Bowl, the culmination of a season.  Pro Football is finishing the regular season and everyone is thinking about the Superbowl.

Everyone else is working on keeping resolutions and beginning again. 

As for me, the last three months of 2010 were not filled with warm and happy thoughts.  New Year's was even a reserved affair.  I knew that when I woke up Sunday morning, that all the things that were left in the old year was facing me in the new year.  I wouldn't be beginning again, but taking up what was already there.