Best of the Best of the Best?

Even if it's just for 15 minutes, we all like to have some sort of claim to fame. We like to talk about what famous people we've met and if we've ever been on TV. We like to talk about how far we've traveled and show off the beautiful/handsome person we married when we attend our 10-year high school reunions. Receiving that acceptance letter to college or a new job is even a demonstrate in fame, knowing that someone actually wants you for your accomplishments and thinks you're important enough to recruit to the organization.

But is there such a thing as us feeling too proud of ourselves? Can we take it too far? Let me show you an example: Forbes.com has named the 10 most lustful cities in America. Here, you can also see the other cities that top the list of the rest of the deadly sins: gluttony, avarice, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.

Interestingly enough, I've lived in or near several cities who top out some of these. Rochester and Buffalo NY tied for 10th place in the lust category, based on condom sales in those areas. San Francisco and San Jose topped out avarice and pride, ranking in the top three in both categories. I certainly don't call myself native to these areas, but when I think about Rochester NY beating out such "sexy" places as L.A. and NYC, I have to laugh. Does that mean we just protect ourselves better from STDs? It begs the question of how they gathered this information and came up with the results, and how they correlated those results with its Deadly Sin label. I mean, it's probably easy enough to come up with the average per capita income per person to correlate to "greedy" cities, and average BMI in a city to correlate to the "fattest," but envy based on how many cars are stolen?

Moreover, I find it also interesting that this was one of the most read articles on Forbes.com. It's like a weird way of people figuring out how they fit into the deadly sin superlatives. Who can forget those yearbook photos of smiling seniors rounding out who's most talented or most likely to succeed? Can you imagine your city being named the most envious or slothful, complete with a picture of the city's skyline?

You see it everywhere, though - your hometown probably has some sort of claim to fame or is home to the "World's Largest [fill in the blank]." Rochester is famed for its lilac collection and lilac festival every spring. San Jose was the pride and joy of the dot-com boom, and still boasts as headquarters to nearly everything that's in vogue with technology. San Francisco, well, aren't the bridges iconic enough around the world? My hometown, Erie, boasts itself as once the home of former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and close to the hometown of Sharon Stone, and depends on its tourism of its state park, Presque Isle, as a beach getaway and part of the fascinating Great Lakes ecosystem.

Even though we are all different in DNA, we are all still human. Even though our cities brought up different celebrities, they still have a mayor and a City Council and favorite hangout downtown. Even though snowflakes are all different in their crystal shape, they're still all made out of frozen water. A lot of American media is based on the fact that there's lots of things going on that makes people or cities different from one another. When it comes to associations of the famous, the impressive, or just plain different, can we settle with being both different and the same? Does it defeat the purpose of how we look at what is newsworthy now? Can I arm myself with this new information about these sinful cities I've lived in, and boast the facts to strangers and acquaintances for their interest and approval?

We spend our lives trying to be different and yet fit in at the same time. We set ourselves apart from others in a job interview by outlining selected accomplishments, yet yearn to be part of a work force that works for the same board of directors. I attended college with many other students who yearned to be part of the Penn State family, but made sure I involved myself in different clubs and activities to set my accomplishments far apart from those students who would eventually become my professional rivals after graduation. So when it comes to figuring out if we've lived in a city that boasts itself as the most lustful, does that mean we're trying to associate with a group of citizens who can boast the same thing, or set us apart from the rest of the country vying for the same boasting rights? Perhaps it's a dichotomy that the U.S. media will always use to its advantage.

If it's sexy, they will come

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was once quoted as saying that if being environmentally friendly was going to be successful, one had to make it "sexy" and attractive in order for the general population to pick up on it. And he's right, of course. Our hunger for more things and status and bling and the comments like oh-my-God-where-did-you-get-that will only be satiated when Mercedes makes their vehicles hybrids and Calvin Klein uses green energy to produce and deliver everything straight off the runway. Without using carbon credits, Mr. Al Gore, you silly man.

But the real point is that you have to make lots of things sexy for them to become mainstream. You say I can make my own web page, populate it with all things me, and people will come admire it?! MySpace and Facebook, welcome! You mean I can post videos of myself and earn instant viral fame?! YouTube/GodTube/YouPorn, my savior! (Yes, YouPorn really does exist. Yikes.) You mean I can actually learn to be grammatically correct and feel like I'm rubbing elbows with the stars at the same time?! It really does exist!!

My sister-in-law was recently voted by some friends on Facebook to Most Likely Correct One's Grammar, and both of us know where to stick our apostrophes. It seems there is a small movement to get Americans to care about their dangling participles and remember when to use to/two/too. See also Truss, Lynne: Eats, Shoots and Leaves; Grammar Girl; Grammar, Dr.; Grammar Aquarium, The; Grammar Blast; Grammar Bytes; Go Fug Yourself (Lohan, Lindsey). It probably seems ridiculous, but they're out there. No matter what, there is still that tiny movement of people who are silently correcting your storefront windows that say "Come Get You're Free Sample Today!" and loathing the fact that your "apostrophe's" are given possession when they only deserve a bit of plural healing. Let's face it, America has turned into a bunch of grammar slobs, and not to mention the fact that no one has yet made dieting and exercise sexy enough for us to become at least less fat than our First World country counterparts. We like vice. We like torture. We like cheating and guns and big scary vehicles with loud, rumbling, sexy engines. The movies give it all to us; you don't see Mr. and Mrs. Smith driving Prius hybrids as a getaway car, do you?

So, does this kind of "sexation" of the uncool appeal to our deepest, darkest selfish needs? Of course. We all just want to fit in, and being part of the so-called Grammar Police is only a term of admiration from others who just want to forget the sentence diagramming they did for an entire year in 8th grade. But don't worry. Once some of us admit that being green really is sexy and cool, we'll be sitting in the heart of America with the coasts coming closer than ever, bumming cigarettes and smoking them as though we're being watched through a lens, reminiscing about the good ol' days when LA use to shine brighter than the sun. Because that was the cool thing to do.

Happy Halloween - Get your shakes in now!

Yesterday there was a 5.6 magnitude earthquake about 15 miles inland of San Jose. Darn it, we missed it - shopping for pumpkins about 30 miles south of here, we missed all the "excitement." Ironically, for some reason, I was looking around online the night before about what to do in an earthquake; then my aunt had a dream that California was rocked by an earthquake. Which it was. Which panicked my parents.

But wait! An aftershock of 3.7 just rocked my computer desk and rattled the doors. I'm surprised the 5.6er didn't tip the CD case over, because the 3.7 was enough to rock me around in my chair a little. California, it is a-tremblin'...

Matters of Inversion

My grandmother sent me something very interesting today, asking me to "snope out the details." What I found was more disturbing that I bargained for.

"This should bother everyone. No matter the politics!! You will not see this heart-stopping photo on the front page of the NY Times or on the lead story of the major news networks. The protestors put up the Mexican flag over the American flag flying upside down at Montebello High School in California .

"I predict this stunt will be the nail in the coffin of any guest-worker/amnesty plan on the table in Washington . The image of the American flag subsumed to another and turned upside down on American soil, is already spreading on Internet forums and via E-mail. ; Pass this along to every American citizen in your address books and to every representative in the state and federal government. If you choose to remain uninvolved, do not be amazed when you no longer have a nation to call your own nor anything you have worked for left since it will be 'redistributed' to the activists while you are so peacefully staying out of the 'fray'. Check history, it is full of nations/empires that disappeared when its citizens no longer held their core beliefs and values. One person CAN make a difference. One plus one plus one plus one plus one plus one......... The battle for our secure borders and immigration laws that actually mean something, however, hasn't even begun. PASS IT ON"

I looked into this and found out that this email is "true," but it "lies by omission." There are several facts that are not in included that should clarify what happened.

In March 2006, about 1,000 students from neighboring school districts El Rancho (Pico Rivera, CA) and Whittier Union (Whittier, CA) walked out and protested in front of Montebello High School in Montebello, CA, unfairly attaching the innocent high school's name to this incident. Montebello students were on lockdown during this time because it was quite a rowdy crowd. The Montebello High School website offers the explanation here, near the end of the page. This memo MUSD school employees received describes the incident in further detail.

Snopes offered this article and clarification here.

Unfortunately, I also found a website that incorrectly reports the details, saying that Montebello students marched out in protest. This is not true, and I was horrified that there are seemingly "dependable" news sources publishing this thing, where others can take and reproduce on web forums, further perpetuating the mess.

However, these pictures are 100% authentic, as are the students who so foolishly tied their mugs to this abomination. Apparently, one single student from the El Rancho district was punished, but there are no details as to who it was or what their punishment was.

I would feel comfortable sharing these pictures, but there needs to be a better explanation with it. It lacks details, such as saying "the protestors," who could be anyone, but unfairly ties Montebello students with this label. Montebello students were known to march out in protest of immigration legislature, but they were only a handful, and they did not cause a commotion or doing something illegal. Yet another reason why I worry about some of those in the generation behind me representing "civil discourse" in all the wrong ways - it brings to mind Andrew "Don't Tase me, Bro!" Meyers and the like.

Sweetness

Hershey's (the chocolate company) is moving some operations down south to Mexico. I was discussing it in an email with my grandmother, who asked me to confirm the story before she sent it out to her friends. As you all know, once I start writing, I can't stop, and these words came out:

"Well, I first checked out Snopes, and the email is only partially true. It is true that they are opening a plant in Mexico, laying off about 3,000 Hershey's workers, and closing the plant in Canada, but they're not shutting down the U.S. operations *completely.* They'll still be working here. It's just that they're doing what everyone else is doing by outsourcing some of their labor to cheaper labor sites (Mexico and South Korea) to cut down operations costs, and likely phase out the powerful U.S. labor unions, although they'd never say that out loud! If you'd want to spread the whole truth, I would pass this article around instead. Click here for the story.

More from the horse's mouth, here is a press release about Hershey Mexico acquiring one of Mexico's top confectionaries back in 2004. In truth, Hershey Mexico began operations way back in 1969. We've probably been eating chocolate made in Mexico at one point or another for nearly 40 years. So I am really not surprised that after acquiring confectionaries in Mexico and South Korea that they decided to move some operations down south. Click here for the story.

Ironically, the plant that is suffering Hershey's cuts by the end of the year is located in Oakdale, Calif. Sounds like some of the immigrants here may want to think about returning home if they want to keep their manufacturing job :-( that article can be found by clicking here.

Even more ironic is that the world's melting pot is now handing out jobs overseas and enticing workers with good jobs at a fraction of the cost that an American would require. Considering the power of the American dollar is sinking fast, we are going to be seeing a lot of this happen more often, especially with companies that most people think are truly "all-American." You have to wonder what the powerful U.S. corporations are thinking about this immigration hullabaloo... it's as if they're saying 'Don't come to us - we'll come to you.'"

So if you want to boycott Hershey, buy Dove. I don't know where their chocolate comes from, though.

If you feel guilty about eating chocolate at all, this will make you feel a little better about it.

Go AWAY, Britney

Please, leave us alone. Now. I mean it.

All of these articles, plus more, have come from People in the last week. I think I counted about 10. She needs to pull a La Lohan and disappear in Utah for a few months so we can forget about her, so she can forget about herself, and she can learn what it means to be benevolent to her own kids instead of pulling a hit and run in the middle of her sorry mess. It's people like her that I have to try to explain to my kid someday that these people are not role models, REALLY, it's just the damn paps shoving the idea down your throat and hoping you are hungry enough to swallow.

Considering we're the unhealthiest country around, that's not too far-fetched.

Welcome to California

So we finally made it... we are here in sunny Cali, where the weather never changes! It's true. The weather hasn't change since probably April. The temperatures have been steady at 75-80, and the nights have remained cool at mid-50s. I will probably like it once the winter rolls around, but for now, I am dying to see a drop of rain! It is very dusty here and my allergies tend to act up more (which, coming from the north Eastern coast, shouldn't be happening in September.)

We are finally unpacked and adjusting to home life. Rachel is enjoying being home, I think, and I've been enjoying the home life and being able to run errands during the day.

We confirmed that we will be coming home for Christmas to Erie, so that is something to look forward to! Dates will be confirmed soon. I'm not sure when or how long we will get to stay, but I am hoping to stay through the New Year. We'll see how Spencer's schedule works out.

I know my poor brother has been bugging me to keep up with this blog, so here goes nothing. I will do my best. Rachel would like to say a few words:

ndder3ednui3den7nghfgd

I'm pretty sure that means I love you. kl. gb (also courtesy of Rach) =)