i’ve been fascinated by these images for several weeks now – i keep returning to them over and over again, drawn to their power. they are stunning. arresting. inspiring. in particular, the world water day essay, the chernobyl essay, the steve mccurry essay, and the guantanamo essay.

sometimes you just need to share some beauty.

you can also check them out via slate’s featured photos.

broken social scene – looks just like the sun

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for as often as i call the u.s. a police state…

British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to push through a new anti-terrorism law before he steps down next month giving “wartime” powers to police to stop and question people, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

…snip…

The “stop and question” power would enable police to interrogate people about who they are, where they have been and where they were going, The Sunday Times said. Police would not need to suspect a crime had taken place.

If suspects failed to stop or refused to answer questions, they could be charged with a crime and fined, The Sunday Times said. Police already have the power to stop and search people but have no right to ask them their identity and movements.

my oft-opined views on the erosion of privacy rights can found here, here, here, and elsewhere. i’m feeling too disheartened to work up a proper rage

(thanks andy)

the clash – police and thieves

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from my window at 9 pm this evening.

the killingtons – twilight

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yesterday being kerryn and tracey’s anniversary, we went out for a few drinks in the evening. between 7 and midnight, i had 3 glasses of red wine. came home, had a bit of food, went to bed.

got up and was sick in the middle of the night. ugh.

all day today, i’ve felt like death. we’re talking actual writhing and moaning. i’ve had 14 ibuprofen during the course of the day, and been sick once. not so much fun.

that, combined with the disturbing new trend of day-long migraines after even mild nights out, pretty much means wine is off the menu for me from now on. the past 6 months, i’ve had really bad hangovers all out of proportion to the amount i drank, and a niggling thought has developed at the back of my head. i’ve always gotten a flushed face from even small amounts of alcohol, so i’m beginning to wonder if i’m developing some kind of actual intolerance.

gah! i already can’t eat dairy. now no wine, and no cheese. how could life be so cruel?!?

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my name often feels like the bane of my existence.

as you may have surmised, jen is of course, short for jennifer. it’s a name i’ve never felt suits me particularly well. it’s overly formal, stuffy, uptight. there’s just something about it which has always chafed, to the point where i’ve given serious consideration to actually changing it. it’s just not “me”, and as such has always felt like something of a burden to endure. there is also the additional annoyance of having a name as common as dirt. as an american girl child born in ‘72, i grew up with a whole phalanx of jennifers around me – jennifer was the single most popular girls name from 1970 – 1984, finally falling out of the top five only in 1989. that’s nearly 20 years, with 3-4 million births per year – it’s jennifer madness.

my family have never even called me jennifer – as a little kid i was jenny, and from about 11 years old onward, i’ve always been adamantly jen. i don’t call myself jennifer, i don’t introduce myself as jennifer, and i don’t answer to jennifer.

here in the uk though, there is a refreshing dearth of jennifers. i personally, in my four years here, have only met one or two others. and i’ve never met anyone who goes by jen – i’ve heard of mythical jennies, but not yet spotted one of these elusive creatures. and whilst i’m thrilled to not be constantly surrounded by a swarm of people with the same indistinguishable name, it still manages to cause me consternation, even here.

a typically british trait is that almost all names are shortened to some sort of nickname, but yet almost no one seems to intuit that jen is a diminution of jennifer. and consequently, they almost never get it right. i don’t introduce myself as jennifer because i don’t want people calling me that, but “jen” without the context of my longer name seems to cause inordinate amounts of confusion. i am continually called jan/jane/jean by work colleagues i’ve known now for several years. over the phone, i have to spell out j-e-n innumerable times. i get post addressed to “jan” even when they’re replying to a letter sent by me with my name right on it. i sign all my emails jen, but still some people insist on replying to “jennifer” (from my assigned work email address), or even jenny (infuriatingly childish) because jen just befuddles them. it’s as if three simple letters were the equivalent of that indecipherable symbol that prince used.

so whilst i’m no longer trying to individuate myself from a sea of jennifers, i’ve now got the opposite problem. whereas before there were far too many jennifers/gennifers/jenns/jennies/jennys, now there are too few. i might as well have a name like condoleeza, for all the grief it causes me, or the number of times i find myself repeating it over and over.

what name would i want? well i’ve always loved my middle name – noël (the traditional french spelling) – but honestly, you try getting identification, filling out forms, etc. with a name that has an umlaut in it.

and over here, where noel is a common boys name, that’d just be opening a whole different can of worms.

so i’ll stick with jen for the time being, but it certainly lends creedence to the old chestnut: be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

i’m from barcelona – jenny

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happy first anniversary to kerry and tracey!

anniversaries, like weddings, aren’t important in the grand scheme of things… but it’s a nice excuse to celebrate anyway

wishing you happiness on the first of a lifetime of yearly celebrations,

love
jen and jonno

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Peace is the only battle worth waging – Albert Camus (1913-1960)

this weekend is memorial day weekend in the states. and that means a lot of “support our troops” emails are making the rounds. several of them have made it into my inbox, and i find myself grappling with how to respond.

it’s a bit of a touchy subject for me – one i find hard to explain without coming across as coldhearted. i don’t usually do it very well, so i’ll attempt to make a better job of it here.

when i read about people lost to the war, of course i find it sad. it’s incredibly sad. it’s even more tragic because i think it’s wholly unnecessary. but even though i don’t want anyone else to die (please, don’t let anyone else die), as a pacifist i can’t bring myself to say i “support the troops”. to my mind, to condone the existence of the military is to condone the machinery of war and death. as a pacifist, i don’t believe in the military, i don’t believe in guns. i don’t believe anyone should have to “fight for me”, much less die for me. i can’t say i’m “proud of them” because i don’t believe anyone should ever kill, even in self defense. i don’t believe the government has the right to take a life, under any circumstances. i don’t think death should ever be a source of pride. i can’t say i “appreciate what they do for us”, because they don’t do it for me – i’ve not asked them to, and i don’t want them to.

i therefore also refuse to believe that i should show gratitude towards those who support an institution i don’t agree with. lots of people find that offensive, but there you have it. i don’t believe in a military and i don’t feel indebted to those who’re part of it.

that doesn’t mean i don’t want them to come home safe and alive. i hate this war and i hate the wasted lives it has spilled. not just american lives, but all lives. memorial day (and remembrance day) for me means reflecting upon what a colossal tragedy it is that we’re still running around killing each other over politics, religion, land. that anyone should die for such

most people (even most of those who’re anti-war) still feel there’s a need for the military, that they serve a valuable function – and that’s something i can’t reconcile with my beliefs. i disagree with the fundamental premise that the military is a necessary institution. most people find that position naive and hopelessly idealistic. it probably is.

i am very much aware that my opinion is in the minority – i have no desire to try to convert people or defend my beliefs. most everyone i know disagrees with me, and that’s fine. personally, i think i’m in pretty good company.

but even if I am wrong, i’m not going to change my core values, simply to match “reality”. call me naive, call me unrealistic, call me what you will. but they said the same thing about Gandhi’s, Martin Luther King’s, the Quakers’s (dare i say, even Jesus’s) belief in the power of non-violent protest. so i’ll continue to side with peace, no matter how foolish such a simple option may seem, no matter how difficult to understand.

fellow pacifist Albert Einstein famously said: “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage and resolution than are needed to prepare for war. We must all do our share, that we may be equal to the task of peace.” that comes closest to saying in a nutshell what i feel at the centre of my soul, what i will never waver from.

and what i will be thinking about this memorial day.

the submarines – peace and hate

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memorial day, pacifism

one of the things about being married to a south african is that i’m often called to account for why america is the way it is. as the sole native representative in our flat, i’m asked about the vagaries or unique peculiarities that an outsider wouldn’t necessarily understand. so sometimes i get into discussions with j where i try (ineptly) to explain some of the differentiations between federal and state law. not that i fully understand them all the time myself, mind you. and there are plenty of times when, in trying to untangle the complicated knot of confusion that is our legal system, that i just have to concede the point to j as he states the obvious: my country is fucked.

for example, in massachusetts same sex marriage is legal, and entitled to all the same legal rights and privileges as any other marriage. children born in that marriage, therefore, are automatically legally bound to both parents.

that same sex marriage is not, however, recognised by federal law. the federal government also says no other state is required to recognise same sex marriages. (i have *no* idea how that works for tax purposes, but whatever.)

meanwhile, back in viginia, mary cheney and her partner of 15 years have had a child, and not only can they not get married or even have a civil union (not that i know if they’d even want to) but her partner has absolutely no legal ties to the baby. can’t even adopt as a second parent. set aside for a moment how incredibly sad that is, and move one step next door to maryland, and it’s yet another different ball of wax.

now how am i supposed to explain *that*? that even though a couple from massachusetts may consider themselves married, god forbid they get into an accident across the border in new hampshire, because suddenly none of those rights apply. and you haven’t travelled to another country, or even a different time zone. you can be 10 miles from where you started that morning and yet you’re no longer considered your spouse’s next of kin. and in the eyes of the federal government, you never were. and if that same couple move to virginia, how does the state consider their child?

of course to an outsider, it’s beyond ridiculous. forget about the subtle nuances of respect and love – it’s a mess because when citizens of the same country are at the mercy of such disparate political agendas, you can’t even pretend that everyone is equal under the same constitution. any notions of equality are completely undermined by variances in state law. so when j says things like, “how’re you supposed to know what the laws are if you’re not a native of the state?” “how can you have different gun laws from one place to the next?” “how come some felons can vote in some parts of the country, and others can’t?” “why don’t residents of washington dc have elected representation in congress?” i just have to nod my head in depressing agreement.

my country is fucked.

division of laura lee – the truth is fucked

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zeke is meowing annoyingly

j: will you talk to your cat please? in a minute he’s going to be doing an “r. kelly”.

me: what’s an “r. kelly”?

j: he’ll believe he can fly… as i push him out the window.

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Google invests in genetics firm

Google has taken a stake in a biotech company co-founded by the wife of one of the search engine giant’s bosses.

According to a report in the Financial Times, chief executive Eric Schmidt said Google believes personal information will be one of the firm’s key avenues of future expansion.

“The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation,” he was quoted as saying.

“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’”

my emails (those sent to other’s gmail accounts), my web history, and now potentially my dna – all linked tidily together to one account. which of course the government will *never* be able to touch

it’s not that i don’t trust google (or even whoever google may sell that info to) – it’s that i don’t trust my government to stay *out* of google. i don’t trust my government any further than i can throw dick cheney.

link my genetic fingerprint to that account? no thanks.

foo fighters – best of you

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i’m a few weeks behind in my podcasts, so i was listening to this american life on my run tonight.

i’m ashamed to admit that i usually try to tune out the news about guantanamo bay, because frankly, it makes me feel simultaneously enraged and full of despair, and i just can’t handle walking around in that frame of mind – it eats me up. and if i, sitting in my safe, comfortable flat, feel enraged and despairing, i can’t even begin to fathom the mental anguish of the innocent people (because there *are* innocent people there) who’ve been held, in what is for all intents and purposes a black hole of deprivation and torture, for the past six years. no rights, no recourse, no end in sight.

but i listened to this american life tonight – they recently rebroadcast a piece they did a year ago on former detainees who’d been released from guantanamo, called “habeas schmabeas”. and if you haven’t already heard it, i strongly encourage you to listen. it’s deeply moving to hear the voices of those who thought they’d lost their lives forever. and it’s a stark and important reminder of just how dangerous my country has become, when it believes it no longer needs to operate in accordance with the principles it was founded on. it’s fundamentally unamerican. it’s a reminder that we *can’t afford* to tune out the news about guantanamo – because the media is now the only voice they have. if we don’t listen, don’t remember, don’t keep hold of the rage, then their situation becomes truly hopeless.

i’m ashamed to admit i needed that reminder, sitting here in my safe, comfortable flat.

you can download, listen, or read the transcripts of the show here.

laura sweden – release me

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guantanamo bay, habeas corpus, this american life

j: “heh heh heh heh heh”. that is my eddie murphy laugh, zeke. *you* cannot do it because you are a *cat*.

zeke: meow

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Hellish, hellish work week – the kind that drives you to tears – and i want nothing more than to turn up the volume, dance my ass off, and forget everything but the music.

so indulge me.

MP3 playlist (M3U)

featuring dj riko, diplo, goldfrapp, tv on the radio, i’m from barcelona, and the blow.

here’s the .

dj riko – p-funk is playing at my house
diplo – shake it over and over
goldfrapp – strict machine
tv on the radio – wolf like me
i’m from barcelona – this boy
the blow – come on petunia (police cover)

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surprise, surprise: politicians discover what any 10 year old knows – it’s impossible to eat well on $3.50 a day.

Hunger activists challenged New Yorkers yesterday to try spending only $3.50 on food, just for one day, to get a taste of what life is like for folks who actually have to rely on food stamps.

It’s the latest installment of Let’s Make a Meal, the “paltry pantry” game that started last month when the governors of Oregon and Utah took a “food stamp challenge” and tried to eat on a meager $3 a day, which the average food stamp recipient does by necessity, as opposed to novelty.

…

Not that $3 a day goes very far, anyway; you’ve got to get the maximum calories for the minimum price, which means filling up on cheap fats and carbs like peanut butter and ramen noodles. Fresh fruits and vegetables? Might as well be caviar. We subsidize commodity crops like corn and soybeans, keeping the price of nutritionally bankrupt processed foods artificially low, while doing nothing for the “specialty crops,” which is what the USDA calls the fruits and vegetables it tells us we’re supposed to eat five to nine servings of each day. Isn’t that special?

and so, 40 million people in poverty continue to have higher incidence of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, while trying to count ketchup as a vegetable. that’s shameful.

good nutrition isn’t rocket science – but apparently funding it is.

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my mother turns 60 this year. she taught me everything i know about being a strong, self-sufficient woman – and for that, i owe her everything. she’s been the best mother i could ever have hoped for – loving, constant, giving.

and i know she still has so much more to teach me. happy birthday mum.

beth orton – someone’s daughter

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i haven’t been to the states for a visit in a year and a half, and probably won’t be for several months yet.

it’s the longest i’ve been away, and i’m kind of homesick.

i want to drive – fast. i want to hang out with my family in my brother’s kitchen and eat american-style chinese food while the kids run riot. i want good salads the size of my head and fluffy towers of pancakes and uber-hip coffee houses. i want grocery stores full of 18 different toothpaste brands and 23 kinds of bread. i want clothes i know the sizes of, where i still fit into single digits. i want inexpensive shoes that i can wear in good weather.

i want space and nature and dryers where the towels come out as soft as clouds and college radio stations with gritty underground fabulous bands i’ve never heard of. i want greenbeans that don’t come pre-packaged, pre-trimmed and shipped from south africa. i want lactose free milk and cheese that doesn’t taste like moldy wax. i want my friends that know me inside and out, who i can call just because and say “remember when?” to. i want crappy brash sitcoms and over-produced slick dramas. i want to see fake white straight aesthetically pleasing smiles beaming at me everywhere i look. i want mountains and trees. i want to hear “have a nice day” until it makes me scream.

doesn’t matter that i’ll be sick of it all in a week’s time. right now, nothing else will do.

wilco – hate it here

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i’m not one to take pleasure in anyone else’s passing, but i can’t help but feel that the world will be just a little kinder without the likes of the reverend jerry falwell.

for the benefit of any uk readers, jerry falwell embodied everything that is intolerant, misogynist, and homophobic about the ultra-conservative religious right in the u.s.

some of his more memorable quotes:

“AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

“I think Mohammed was a terrorist. I read enough by both Muslims and non-Muslims, (to decide) that he was a violent man, a man of war.”

oh, and let’s not forget, he was the person who first outed teletubby tinky winky, thus saving millions of little children from a life of tv-induced homosexuality! surely he’s going to heaven for that alone!

still, as full of hatred as he was, i can’t hate him – only pity.

pixies – monkey gone to heaven

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jerry falwell

when i was a kid, i knew summer was approaching by the warm, orange light still filtering through the window at bedtime, dappling the sheets and walls, the sounds of older kids playing kick-the-can until the streetlights crackling to life signaled time to head home.

i took these the other day at 8:30 pm.

modest mouse – talking shit about a pretty sunset

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(cat mewing piteously at the cupboard holding the food after *just* finishing his breakfast.)

j:”zeke, it’s a shame there are no oscars for kitties because you would surely win.”

cat mewls forlornly in reply.

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happy mother’s day. thanks for being such wonderful mothers in our family. i love you all.

the pretenders – every mother’s son

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my friend amity was recently interviewed by prima magazine for an article on women bloggers. at some point they asked her if she knew anyone from the internet that she’d met in real life, and she mentioned me. see, we originally became acquainted through a online forum for american expats, but have since evolved into a curious combination of both internet support network and real-life, hanging-out, wine-and-wisdom friends.

so when they got to the part about taking a photo to accompany the article, they asked her if i would come along as well. y’know, the whole “amity and her friend exchange laughs catching up over lunch” captioned kind of photo.

which is how i came to be trudging into soho, windblown and sweaty and hungover early on a saturday morning. we spent the better part of an hour in the empty “ed’s diner” (opened specially for the shoot) practically touching noses and grinning maniacally while pretending to drink chocolate and strawberry milkshakes as a camera was shuttering furiously just a foot away from our faces. yes, it was just as horribly, painfully cheesy as it sounds. there were american flags involved, in an american-style diner, with two american girls – because it was just that subtle. we hunched over a newspaper with mugs of coffee with serious looks, pretending to discuss weighty current events. we smiled and fiddled with straws, with giant, juicy hamburgers featured prominently in the background on the red formica and chrome countertop, big neon signs flashing behind our heads. we giggled and leaned in conspiratorially as if checking out imaginary hot guys walking past the gleaming plate glass windows. it was so goofy, you had to chuckle. what started as a chuckle and a few wise-ass remarks (”i feel like we should be walking along the beach discussing that ‘not so fresh feeling’ “…) turned into real, riotous belly laughter, leaving us red-faced with tears leaking out of the corners of our eyes. the real shame is that i’m quite certain none of the photos of genuine laughter between genuine friends will get used.

still, it was a cool little experience and we got a free lunch out of the deal – chili fries, fountain coke and all. and after saying goodbye to the photog, we went around the corner to a bar, to hang out, offer support, talk about our lives, relationships, family over a few glasses of pinot grigio as the wet world passed by outside – an afternoon of wine and wisdom spent between friends. the kind of honest sharing and fun that can’t be captured by images of milkshakes and flags, no matter how many pictures you take.

joni mitchell – big yellow taxi

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