Lifting weight

A few things I've just got to get off my chest (in no particular order):

1. I am sick of hearing about the Gosselins. David used to watch Jon & Kate Plus 8, the reality tv show about an endearingly dysfunctional couple and their home life with twins and sextuplets. And I certainly read a story or two about them whilst enjoying my airplane-ride People magazine. Well, the endearing is long gone, replaced by disturbing and pathetic. I do not care what the root cause of their breakup is, or whether Jon is really in love with the woman (women?) he has started dating since he and wife Kate split a few months back, or any other detail of their private lives. I think they should end the show--now, for their children's sakes. I feel horribly for the kids, and wish the parents would see that this is not a period of their lives that needs to be filmed and shared with the nation.

2. I am loving, loving David Mitchell's Bildungsroman Black Swan Green. I keep telling David to remind me in a decade or so to read it again, just before Adam enters his teens, as it is a wonderful look into the world of the adolescent boy. And as it is written by an author who has several other similarly styled and highly acclaimed works, I feel as I did when I first read Salinger and Stegner, that sense of deep literary contentment with a promise of still more to come.

3. I not only laughed about the results of the trustworthy news anchor poll which reported Jon Stewart is America's most trusted newscaster, but wholeheartedly agreed (although the poll did not include Jim Lehrer, who I trust more than Jon Stewart). I think if every member of Congress watched the first 10 minutes of The Daily Show our government would function a lot better.

4. I'm so irritated by the ridiculous (I didn't say biased, I do mean ridiculous) accusations being lobbed at the healthcare reform proposals that I am struck speechless every time I hear a new one. Maybe that's the protesters' plan: render supporters dumb. [I had a follow up that played off the word dumb, about making supporters peers of sorts for the protesters, but decided that was all a bit too low. And just like the protests themselves, what would it help?]

5. Facebook is a massive time suck. But sometimes a very enjoyable one. I think it may be on the path to hell.

6. The meat industry uses up a LOT of natural resources, and I think if more people realized it we'd be producing a lot less meat. I consume meat. I feel guilty.

7. Insert dozens of other modern day conveniences and amusements in place of "meat" in #6. [This reminds me of a question that has long plagued me: Why do we do things that we know are bad for us? I should suggest this topic to the Freakonomics authors.]

8. I am fascinated by David Lynch's Interview Project. He (or his documentarians) are traveling the country and interviewing random people they encounter along the way. What a fabulous reminder of how much we have in common, how fallible and hopeful and basically content most of us see ourselves as being.