Because anyone who knows me knows...

that this warms my heart:

A Senator's Gift to the Jews, Nonreturnable. - NY Times


I would also like to start wearing a mezuzah necklace, and have one at my house.

MAZEL TOV.

Ok, NOW I want an iPhone

Because before, nothing had sold me. ;)

Ever since two of my silly guy friends made their own "I Am T-Pain" song, I've been really wanting an iPhone.

So imagine my obsession with the following:

Protect Insurance Companies PSA

Haha!

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Where Kanye and healthcare converge

In New York City (of course, duh) subways.

Below are some new ads set to go up:

image via NY Times

And I guess some experts argue this subway marketing works- after all with the nutritional labeling and trans-fat ban, NYC is one of the "thinnest" cities in the US.

Adding my two cents to the healthcare debate (Partisan pigeonholers be forewarned, I think mine's pretty independent):
One of the most essential but hugely unspoken element of the healthcare debate is that of what Americans are eating. I don't need to regale us with all the statistics of how obese we are or how large our portions are or how much we spend on weight-loss products...it's all a mess and too much money goes towards something that is not progressing.
Maybe I am not one to talk because I am not obesity- or diabetes-inclined, nor do I work in or formally study the healthcare industry. But when you see numbers like $263 billion going toward funding the two combined, I don't think it's entirely fair in some way that I am paying into something that is, as it appears (pun intended), for the MOST part (not all- type I diabetes anyone?) entirely preventable.

Maybe I've hit a nerve, and if so, I apologize. But please, do yourself and all other Americans a favor. I don't need to tell you to get '5-a-Day' or to work out or to not drink milk and all of that ... but I guess I just did.

I really liked President Obama's speech actually ... (revoking cancer treatment halfway through IS extremely wrong) ... and we shall see if his promises pan out. Even flaming conservative libertarian Glenn Beck, who TIME accuses as a fear-marketing "Mad Man" said
"I don't know personally a single Democrat who is a dope-smoking hippie that wants to turn us into Soviet Russia."

But politics is something in which I cease to find much satisfaction, as the more I read about it, the more confused I find myself. Maybe you could argue that anything worthwhile is, in it's essence, confusing at the core. But I can't seem to catch a break from this little thing called the US political economic system.
And coming from a politically apathetic family (read: Beltway Burnouts turned Carefree Californians) doesn't help.


But I think all of us can agree that in light of the pathetic and utterly rude Kanye antics of last Sunday's VMAs...

THE jackass comment is totally justified...

and maybe you totally disagree with me above on healthcare, but below here, can see why I deemed this the best subway ad of summer 2008:



T. Swizzle: you're welcome.

NYC: You can't come soon enough.

Happy weekend.

God Nurse America

Regarding this...

Freedom of speech is really rad.

Other countries (cough Iran cough):
why would you want to miss out on all this sweetness? ;)

Where Jason Mraz and Adam Smith jive

For the past week or two, I've been reading Greg Mankiw's blog. He's an economics professor at Harrrrvard, and his blog is written in a way that, for the most part, is concise and well-understood.

And because my cousin took his class, and used to be an econ major, I shot her an email (she's in Hawaii for the summer) asking about him: Could it be true? Could there really be a free-market economist in Cambridge?! Huh?

She said that truth be told, most of the H'vard economics department is conservative.


HOWEVER,

I don't know whether to be more shocked about Mankiw's post today.
Whoa, did someone hijack his blog?
Really, loving a Jason Mraz concert, and even more, K'naan?

(I was laughing out loud at that music video almost as much as I was at THIS)

Wow, Mankiw, you're cool.


Now I have a grand idea:
a Kroks and Pitches original collaboration about Reagan and Obamanomics... to the tune of "Lucky"

???


(PS: In the video, Mraz is in Prague...TOO WEIRD: I was oddly obsessed with this song when I was there!!!)

The Winker, edited

The August '09 Vanity Fair does not disappoint, with yet another giggle-inducing article about Mrs. Wasilla.

(Don't chalk this face up to Tina Fey's acting chops)

BUT the best part is that VF edited her gubernatorial resignation speech. Can you say hilarious.

(To me, correct grammar will always be sexier than politics.)

On a different note, the issue has some pretty rad pictures of Tim Burton's Alice and Wonderland.


I saw the following on Brunette Bombshell and decided it is my new life mantra:

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the queen.

"When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Universal health care will make you taller

Thought of the day:

I KNEW I looooved Deutschland so much...

Because aside from having pink castles that reminded me of my late grandmother Loraine...

(Neues Palais, Sans Sousi Park, Potsdam)

And beautiful countryside in which to ride bikes...

(Frankfurt-Oder near the Polish border)

And delightful, entertaining, very often silly company...

(Berlin Wall- haha my face is so round...this was after Spain, and after Sarah and I had eaten our weight in Belgian lieges just days before hehe)

Germans are the 3rd tallest people in the world!

(Oh, did I mention I'm reading THIS)

It was such a respite from being stared at so much in dwarf-y Spain to pull my shoulders back, and see eye-to-eye with pride amongst those beautiful Germans.

Tallest countries: Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Norway, Denmark

I KNEW I should just move to Europe!

US citizens are not just short, but our heights have actually decreased.

"Americans stopped growing in 1950s and haven't grown taller in almost sixty years...
the average US man is 5'9.2" and woman 5'3.8"...
Women have declined by 0.3 inch over forty years , which is significant," says Cohen.

She says "someone should run for president on the slogan 'Universal health care will make you taller." It's true. Talls are found wherever childhood health care is top notch, mothers get months off after birth, and social services abound."



I KNEW the Obamas were just trying to make everyone as tall as them!!!

(and here's the Romney rebuttal)

Twittering Tehran

Regarding the current events of the tainted Iranian elections, I suggest you read this fascinating Q&A on TED of how social media is quite literally, revolutionizing a revolution.

I hopped over to NY Times to get more details, and sure enough, they had an article detailing this very phenomenon happening amidst the Tehran tumult.

Wholly supports my belief that 'journalism is the first draft of history.' Exciting to see it be written in ways that, even a couple years ago, had not been invented.

(Photo via NY Times)

Conflict-free diamonds are a girl's best friend

I highly recommend watching this ABC 4-part fictionalized documentary that looks at the diamond industry politically and culturally...from the war zone to the show room.

I loved the movie Blood Diamond for shedding light on this issue, thus I really enjoyed Diamonds for taking on a whole new (and more complicated) storyline and cast of characters that all revolve around the business, deception and cruelty of 'conflict' diamonds.




It's well-thought out, with plotline not limited to Sierra Leone or even Africa, but more realistically connected to many other parts of the world.

Plus, you can watch the 4 episodes for free...
Go to Abc.com and click on "Free Episodes" at the top
(Click HERE for the first episode.)


Denmont, the main diamond company depicted in 'Diamonds,' presumably refers to the real company De Beers: the overarching antagonist in Blood Diamond as well.

After looking on the World Diamond Council and UN Websites, as well as Wikipedia (here and here), my burning, perhaps trite (and probably unanswerable) question remains of why advertising (as it appears) has created such a high demand for diamonds in Western culture.

Forget governments, forget rebel groups...are we really just buying into a grand marketing scheme with ugly, unseen colonialist implications?

Or perhaps Hollywood is blowing this issue out of proportion: In 2003, George W. Bush passed the Clean Diamonds Trade Act (click on "US Legislation) and the WDC alleges that conflict diamond trade has been reduced from 4% to 1% of the total diamond trade.

Hmm.

Maybe you have an answer or an explanation?
Or perhaps you have read a well-researched book that further brings this issue to light?
Please share your thoughts!

Sarah, Sarah, go away!

Call me a flaming liberal, but I cannot stand Sarah Palin.

She is a good person, yes.

But please, GOP, for goodness sakes, go do some serious PR damage control and bury this woman out of the limelight because she is only making you look like chauvinistic pigs who have managed to reverse notions of what an intellectually capable, Beltway-astute woman represents.

If Alaskans were dense enough to elect her, then fine, keep her there...in the land where one can barbarically shoot rifles from a helicopters, Todd can run his snowmobiling business, and one has the God-given right to keep an eye on those pesky Russians.

My mom's Alaska-native college roommate said this over our families ritual Christmas Eve dinner this past year: "I know what it's like up there, and as such, I've worked very hard to keep myself out."

I am seriously embarrassed and a little angry at Palin in the following.
She's doing me, and other fellow women, a huge disservice.

Too bad everything she says is unfortunately... comical. And the fact that another fellow woman has reduced her to that is plain unfortunate.




To the writers of SNL: Do your thing...

See original Washington Post article here.

Robin Williams on Election '08

Doing what he does best... to a crowd of Brits, no less...

There are too many funny things about this, seriously, you must watch it for yourself.




Speaking of crazy Brits, here's a silly story.

Sarah, Todd, John and George- All in one!

Enough said.