http://www.mnn.com/the-home/gardening-landscaping/blogs/orange-countys-law-breaking-landscapers
Maybe it's time to rescind that 40% rule, OC. You should be applauding this couple and encouraging people to follow their example, not taking them to court and fining them.
Maybe it's time to rescind that 40% rule, OC. You should be applauding this couple and encouraging people to follow their example, not taking them to court and fining them.
http://thecattycritic.com is up!
Right now, it's just the blog but eventually, I'd like to design and expand it beyond just restaurant review posts. A recipes section, entertaining design ideas...things like that.
And I just found out that I'm the #5 blogger on Urbanspoon San Diego! Very cool...
Right now, it's just the blog but eventually, I'd like to design and expand it beyond just restaurant review posts. A recipes section, entertaining design ideas...things like that.
And I just found out that I'm the #5 blogger on Urbanspoon San Diego! Very cool...
My best friend, Sarah, was quite eloquent on Holden and what he embodied and how many of us, as teenagers, felt connected to this character. I had to share.
"Warning: there are spoilers below. This post is intended for A) people who have finished reading Catcher in the Rye, B) people who never intend to read it, or C) who intend to read it but don't mind having that experience knowing background information.
I love the Catcher in the Rye. Those who find it unappealing usually don't like Holden's initial negativity or cussing, and some of the exposition can seem meandering. Holden positions himself as an unreliable narrator: "I am the most terrific liar you ever saw." (Which, interestingly, is in direct opposition to Fitzgerald's narrator Nick Carraway: "I am one of the few honest people I have ever known." Oh how I love thinking about Catcher and Gatsby together---they are two sides of the same thematic coin: alientation, loss of innocence, loss of the ideal, etc). So we know Holden is unstable. To me, that makes the book more exciting: Salinger, through Holden, draws our attention to the instability of creating personal or fictional narratives. Why should we, as audience or reader, trust the narratives of another?
The whole telos and mystery of the novel is this: why is Holden unstable? Why has he been kicked out of so many schools? Why does he feel "lousy" and "crumby?" Why does his head hurt so much?
We learn quickly enough that Holden's little brother died in the recent past. That begins to explain some of Holden's behaviors, but it doesn't quite reveal Holden's full psychology. Patient readers have to wait until the end to discover all of the layers about this character. I love that Salinger waits and waits to reveal crucial information. In the last few pages, we realize that Holden's whole narrative has been given to us from a mental institution---that he has gone insane, by someone's standards, although he insists that he is not crazy to feel the way he does about humanity.
Salinger is brilliant. He has put his readers in the role of psychoanalyst, and my first desire upon reaching the end was to re-read the book from start to finish again, now knowing what I knew about Holden's location.
Is Holden crazy? Or is he more sane than all of us? He goes to meet his little sister, Phoebe, at her school, and when he does, he sees graffiti on the wall (omission of the full curse word is my notation):
"But while I was sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody'd written'F--- you' on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them---all cockeyed, naturally---what it meant, and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days..."
Holden goes on to say that he wishes he could punish the creep who wrote the slur or even rub it off with his own hand, but he finds himself gutless to do either---and this makes him feel, in his own words, depressed.
Shortly thereafter, he goes to a museum and has a similar experince:
"I was the only one left in the tomb then. I sort of liked it, in a way. It was so nice and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, you'd never guess what I saw on the wall. Another 'F--- you.' It was written with a red crayon or something.... That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'F--- you.'"
I felt the same way today at the Wild Animal Park with Katie (post to come later tonight). We were looking at a gorilla and baby gorilla statue together, and Katie was pretending to feed them and was hugging them and loving them in all her innocent delight. Two separate times when we were visiting, two groups of 4th-5th grade boys came up and started making lewd comments about the mother gorilla's breasts. So different from Katie's pure joy... It made me feel sick to my stomach. The first time it happened, I wanted to cry... That such disrespect and vulgarity and lack of oneness with nature and beauty could intrude on us that way. I felt exactly like Holden. Exactly. I was reminded of him, before I came home and knew that Salinger had died.
So is Holden insane? Or is he right to feel depressed about human nature? He is probably the most pure character in the novel, and this is one reason why he suffers from alienation. We, being acculturated to the world around us, view Holden as extremely troubled in the beginning of the novel---but is Salinger making the point that, by expecting Holden to start fitting in a little more, we are the ones who are most troubled?
Phoebe asks Holden what he wants to be when he grows up. Holden misremembers a line from a Robert Burns poem:
"I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,' I said. Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around---nobody big, I mean---except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff....That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."
Holden wishes he could spare children "the fall"---the loss of their innocence. He wants to preserve purity in the world, but he knows he cannot. He begins to think like the rest of us: that he is crazy. In a world that thrives on drama and heartache, maybe he is crazy. Or is he? Salinger criticizes the baseness of human nature very roundly here. We're willing to lock Holden in a mental institution because he expects more of human nature than we can ever give him. He wants to save innocence from the intrusions of those who would seek to corrupt it, but like he discovers with being unable to rub out the graffiti on the wall, he is not powerful or courageous enough to do so. Society is too strong; the expectations of conformity weaken and condemn him.
Holden is one of my favorite characters in all of literature. So often I feel I could be him and let myself be overwhelmed by the forces of despair and animosity and perverseness. Unlike Holden, though, I have realized that while no physical place might be a place of complete peacefulness, there are places in your mind and heart that are unassailable if you put certain mental gateways in place.
I have learned, especially this past year, that no one can stop hateful people from entering her sanctuary---whether through physical trespass or through merely trespassing with hateful or untrue words. But the fact is, Holden is not crazy---and nor are the rest of us who really champion the beautiful and the good. Let the negative people believe that everyone thinks and operates as they do, or that we are all schemers or would use others. The problem with being a person like that is that you assume the rest of us operate like you do. Salinger shows us a character who takes more of a stand than any other character from the realism literature genre I have ever met.
Not everyone is in it for just himself, and as Salinger shows us, to the rest of the world, being true in heart, or trying to be a good person, might appear to be insanity.
Salinger was a genius.
When I first started teaching, I taught the third level of the three English 11s. There was AP, advanced, and regular. I taught regular. Lots of people had given up on those kids. Over the year, they would reveal much to me about that. Perhaps I was partly naive, and perhaps I had guts of steel, but I walked into those classes with many of the same expectations I would later have for my AP students. They were never "throw-away" kids to me. I did a horrible job teaching them The Crucible, but as I began to understand more about the craft of teaching, I taught them Gatsby and Catcher in the second semester. They could give presentations and analyze motif with the best of them. It helped that I loved both books, like really loved them. And it helped that we had a very luxurious pace.
I will never forget one of my students, Mike. In the beginning, he came in everyday with his hoody on, didn't want to make eye contact, didn't want to be there. I have a personal philosophy that you cannot teach a child that you don't treat like a human, so I would stand at my door everyday and say hello to every student. He didn't meet my gaze for a whole semester.
And didn't meet it for most of second semester. That's okay: as a teacher, you keep going. Finally we started reading Catcher, and something clicked for him. He started responding "Hello" back at me. At the end of Catcher, he asked me if he had to return it to the school library and if not, what would happen to him. The next day, I gave him his own copy to keep, and he said it was the first book he'd ever really read and that he loved it.
But that wasn't me... That was the gift of the author Salinger, who died today. Thank you for touching us all with your words."
"Warning: there are spoilers below. This post is intended for A) people who have finished reading Catcher in the Rye, B) people who never intend to read it, or C) who intend to read it but don't mind having that experience knowing background information.
I love the Catcher in the Rye. Those who find it unappealing usually don't like Holden's initial negativity or cussing, and some of the exposition can seem meandering. Holden positions himself as an unreliable narrator: "I am the most terrific liar you ever saw." (Which, interestingly, is in direct opposition to Fitzgerald's narrator Nick Carraway: "I am one of the few honest people I have ever known." Oh how I love thinking about Catcher and Gatsby together---they are two sides of the same thematic coin: alientation, loss of innocence, loss of the ideal, etc). So we know Holden is unstable. To me, that makes the book more exciting: Salinger, through Holden, draws our attention to the instability of creating personal or fictional narratives. Why should we, as audience or reader, trust the narratives of another?
The whole telos and mystery of the novel is this: why is Holden unstable? Why has he been kicked out of so many schools? Why does he feel "lousy" and "crumby?" Why does his head hurt so much?
We learn quickly enough that Holden's little brother died in the recent past. That begins to explain some of Holden's behaviors, but it doesn't quite reveal Holden's full psychology. Patient readers have to wait until the end to discover all of the layers about this character. I love that Salinger waits and waits to reveal crucial information. In the last few pages, we realize that Holden's whole narrative has been given to us from a mental institution---that he has gone insane, by someone's standards, although he insists that he is not crazy to feel the way he does about humanity.
Salinger is brilliant. He has put his readers in the role of psychoanalyst, and my first desire upon reaching the end was to re-read the book from start to finish again, now knowing what I knew about Holden's location.
Is Holden crazy? Or is he more sane than all of us? He goes to meet his little sister, Phoebe, at her school, and when he does, he sees graffiti on the wall (omission of the full curse word is my notation):
"But while I was sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody'd written'F--- you' on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them---all cockeyed, naturally---what it meant, and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days..."
Holden goes on to say that he wishes he could punish the creep who wrote the slur or even rub it off with his own hand, but he finds himself gutless to do either---and this makes him feel, in his own words, depressed.
Shortly thereafter, he goes to a museum and has a similar experince:
"I was the only one left in the tomb then. I sort of liked it, in a way. It was so nice and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, you'd never guess what I saw on the wall. Another 'F--- you.' It was written with a red crayon or something.... That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'F--- you.'"
I felt the same way today at the Wild Animal Park with Katie (post to come later tonight). We were looking at a gorilla and baby gorilla statue together, and Katie was pretending to feed them and was hugging them and loving them in all her innocent delight. Two separate times when we were visiting, two groups of 4th-5th grade boys came up and started making lewd comments about the mother gorilla's breasts. So different from Katie's pure joy... It made me feel sick to my stomach. The first time it happened, I wanted to cry... That such disrespect and vulgarity and lack of oneness with nature and beauty could intrude on us that way. I felt exactly like Holden. Exactly. I was reminded of him, before I came home and knew that Salinger had died.
So is Holden insane? Or is he right to feel depressed about human nature? He is probably the most pure character in the novel, and this is one reason why he suffers from alienation. We, being acculturated to the world around us, view Holden as extremely troubled in the beginning of the novel---but is Salinger making the point that, by expecting Holden to start fitting in a little more, we are the ones who are most troubled?
Phoebe asks Holden what he wants to be when he grows up. Holden misremembers a line from a Robert Burns poem:
"I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,' I said. Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around---nobody big, I mean---except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff....That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."
Holden wishes he could spare children "the fall"---the loss of their innocence. He wants to preserve purity in the world, but he knows he cannot. He begins to think like the rest of us: that he is crazy. In a world that thrives on drama and heartache, maybe he is crazy. Or is he? Salinger criticizes the baseness of human nature very roundly here. We're willing to lock Holden in a mental institution because he expects more of human nature than we can ever give him. He wants to save innocence from the intrusions of those who would seek to corrupt it, but like he discovers with being unable to rub out the graffiti on the wall, he is not powerful or courageous enough to do so. Society is too strong; the expectations of conformity weaken and condemn him.
Holden is one of my favorite characters in all of literature. So often I feel I could be him and let myself be overwhelmed by the forces of despair and animosity and perverseness. Unlike Holden, though, I have realized that while no physical place might be a place of complete peacefulness, there are places in your mind and heart that are unassailable if you put certain mental gateways in place.
I have learned, especially this past year, that no one can stop hateful people from entering her sanctuary---whether through physical trespass or through merely trespassing with hateful or untrue words. But the fact is, Holden is not crazy---and nor are the rest of us who really champion the beautiful and the good. Let the negative people believe that everyone thinks and operates as they do, or that we are all schemers or would use others. The problem with being a person like that is that you assume the rest of us operate like you do. Salinger shows us a character who takes more of a stand than any other character from the realism literature genre I have ever met.
Not everyone is in it for just himself, and as Salinger shows us, to the rest of the world, being true in heart, or trying to be a good person, might appear to be insanity.
Salinger was a genius.
When I first started teaching, I taught the third level of the three English 11s. There was AP, advanced, and regular. I taught regular. Lots of people had given up on those kids. Over the year, they would reveal much to me about that. Perhaps I was partly naive, and perhaps I had guts of steel, but I walked into those classes with many of the same expectations I would later have for my AP students. They were never "throw-away" kids to me. I did a horrible job teaching them The Crucible, but as I began to understand more about the craft of teaching, I taught them Gatsby and Catcher in the second semester. They could give presentations and analyze motif with the best of them. It helped that I loved both books, like really loved them. And it helped that we had a very luxurious pace.
I will never forget one of my students, Mike. In the beginning, he came in everyday with his hoody on, didn't want to make eye contact, didn't want to be there. I have a personal philosophy that you cannot teach a child that you don't treat like a human, so I would stand at my door everyday and say hello to every student. He didn't meet my gaze for a whole semester.
And didn't meet it for most of second semester. That's okay: as a teacher, you keep going. Finally we started reading Catcher, and something clicked for him. He started responding "Hello" back at me. At the end of Catcher, he asked me if he had to return it to the school library and if not, what would happen to him. The next day, I gave him his own copy to keep, and he said it was the first book he'd ever really read and that he loved it.
But that wasn't me... That was the gift of the author Salinger, who died today. Thank you for touching us all with your words."
CNN has a good running update on what's going on in Haiti. Some entries are sad as reports of confirmed deaths of noteworthy people such as the one below come in. But other stories are inspiring. $5million raised via texting to Red Cross so far. :)
5:50 p.m. (Haitian time) -- A Brazilian doctor whose work in Haiti earned her comparisons to Mother Teresa was killed in Tuesday's earthquake. Zilda Arns Neumann, 75, founded a charity providing education and aid to children, pregnant women, and families in Haiti. She was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/14/haiti.updates/index.html?hpt=T2
5:50 p.m. (Haitian time) -- A Brazilian doctor whose work in Haiti earned her comparisons to Mother Teresa was killed in Tuesday's earthquake. Zilda Arns Neumann, 75, founded a charity providing education and aid to children, pregnant women, and families in Haiti. She was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/14/haiti.updates/index.html?hpt=T2
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/14/as-wallets-open-for-haiti_n_423238.html
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/top-stocks/blog.aspx?post=1551273&_blg=1,1551052
Guess the lesson is, don't charge donations to your credit card...LAME.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/top-stocks/blog.aspx?post=1551273&_blg=1,1551052
Guess the lesson is, don't charge donations to your credit card...LAME.
The stories and pictures coming out of Haiti are saddening.
Doctors Without Borders reported that all the hospitals are closed/abandoned. They're still pulling people out of the rubble. Port-au-Prince and its people are in dire need.
You can help by donating to one of the following:
American Red Cross: The American Red Cross is sending money, supplies and staff to Haiti to support relief efforts. Donations to the International Response Fund can be sent to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013 or made by phone at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) or online. The Red Cross also will accepte donations via cell phone: You can donate $10 to be charged to your cell phone bill by texting "HAITI" to 90999.
Doctors Without Borders: The first reports are now emerging from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams who were already working on medical projects Haiti. They are treating hundreds of people injured in the quake and have been setting up clinics in tents to replace their own damaged medical facilities. To donate, click here.
International Rescue Committee: The committee, based in New York City, is a network of first responders, humanitarian relief workers, healthcare providers, educators, community leaders, activists, and volunteers. It provides emergency relief, relocating refugees, and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster. To donate, click here or text "HAITI" to 25383.
International Medical Corps: International Medical Corps is deploying an Emergency Response Team to Haiti. The team is providing medical care and other emergency services. International Medical Corps
Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund: Wyclef Jean is one of Haiti’s most famous sons, and his tweeting about the earthquake there has been a galvanizing force on the Web. Jean is most famously a member of the Fugees. His publicist says he arrived Wednesday in Haiti to assist in relief efforts. Several of the most popular topics on Twitter referred to a tweet from the singer urging people to send a text ("Yele") to his Haitian charity, Yele, to donate $5 to the savaged country. (The number is 501501.) To donate online, click here: http://www.yele.org
Many more organizations are taking donations and dispatching aid. Please help.
Doctors Without Borders reported that all the hospitals are closed/abandoned. They're still pulling people out of the rubble. Port-au-Prince and its people are in dire need.
You can help by donating to one of the following:
American Red Cross: The American Red Cross is sending money, supplies and staff to Haiti to support relief efforts. Donations to the International Response Fund can be sent to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013 or made by phone at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) or online. The Red Cross also will accepte donations via cell phone: You can donate $10 to be charged to your cell phone bill by texting "HAITI" to 90999.
Doctors Without Borders: The first reports are now emerging from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams who were already working on medical projects Haiti. They are treating hundreds of people injured in the quake and have been setting up clinics in tents to replace their own damaged medical facilities. To donate, click here.
International Rescue Committee: The committee, based in New York City, is a network of first responders, humanitarian relief workers, healthcare providers, educators, community leaders, activists, and volunteers. It provides emergency relief, relocating refugees, and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster. To donate, click here or text "HAITI" to 25383.
International Medical Corps: International Medical Corps is deploying an Emergency Response Team to Haiti. The team is providing medical care and other emergency services. International Medical Corps
Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund: Wyclef Jean is one of Haiti’s most famous sons, and his tweeting about the earthquake there has been a galvanizing force on the Web. Jean is most famously a member of the Fugees. His publicist says he arrived Wednesday in Haiti to assist in relief efforts. Several of the most popular topics on Twitter referred to a tweet from the singer urging people to send a text ("Yele") to his Haitian charity, Yele, to donate $5 to the savaged country. (The number is 501501.) To donate online, click here: http://www.yele.org
Many more organizations are taking donations and dispatching aid. Please help.
Last night, I made hotel reservations for Vegas for my big 3-0. Luckily, via my timeshare, we got an awesome deal. The plan is to see KA and nosh at a nice restaurant and then spend the rest of the weekend hiding out at the pool or in the big soaking tub. :)
Come to find out, the weekend before is http://vegasuncorked.com/
Was thisclose to changing the reservations...then I did the math and financially, to do the events I want x 2 (Dan would come along, of course!) would more than double the cost of our trip. And with that weekend coming right after we pay our mortgage...just not financially smart. :(
So the plan is to save up and go next year. Payard, Cora and Robuchon...wait for me.
Come to find out, the weekend before is http://vegasuncorked.com/
Was thisclose to changing the reservations...then I did the math and financially, to do the events I want x 2 (Dan would come along, of course!) would more than double the cost of our trip. And with that weekend coming right after we pay our mortgage...just not financially smart. :(
So the plan is to save up and go next year. Payard, Cora and Robuchon...wait for me.
I really enjoy blogging about my food experiences and am hoping to turn it into something that could be an actual job or produces some semblance of an income. If not...well, poo. But I'd really like to at least see the blog become something frequented on the intarwebs by people.
I'd really appreciate it if you could pass the link to the blog around to up readership/get the word out there. And if there's places that you think I should try out and review in the LA/SD area, let me know!
http://cattycriticfood.wordpress.com
My plan is to start doing weekly updates so that I have some sort of consistent schedule and also get into the habit of taking pictures of the stuff I eat to include in the posts (cuz we all know part of eating is done thru the eyes).
Any advice/recommendations on getting this to take off would be cool (Heh, Justin, I've been using what you sent me, thanks!).
I have a Yelp account already and am cross-posting. I'm going to apply for Yelp Elite and have been looking online at other foodie sites and came across la.foodblogging and am going to try and become a contributor to that/get linked on there.
I've also started a Twitter for Catty Critic where I'll post a link to updates and other food-related twitters when I'm out and about. http://twitter.com/cattycritic
Thanks!
I'd really appreciate it if you could pass the link to the blog around to up readership/get the word out there. And if there's places that you think I should try out and review in the LA/SD area, let me know!
http://cattycriticfood.wordpress.com
My plan is to start doing weekly updates so that I have some sort of consistent schedule and also get into the habit of taking pictures of the stuff I eat to include in the posts (cuz we all know part of eating is done thru the eyes).
Any advice/recommendations on getting this to take off would be cool (Heh, Justin, I've been using what you sent me, thanks!).
I have a Yelp account already and am cross-posting. I'm going to apply for Yelp Elite and have been looking online at other foodie sites and came across la.foodblogging and am going to try and become a contributor to that/get linked on there.
I've also started a Twitter for Catty Critic where I'll post a link to updates and other food-related twitters when I'm out and about. http://twitter.com/cattycritic
Thanks!
Comments
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/06/local/me-lopez6
i remember when i read the lopez article. all i could do was shake my head.