i thought it was pretty stupid too

someone hacked the "how to of the day" earlier today on igoogle. results below -

NOW i see why they're the enemy

having been one once, i've had a difficult time understanding the vitriolic lambasting recently leveled at teachers from every corner of the political ring. it wasn't until i saw this spot on the daily show that i truly understood! they really ARE the root of all evil!

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

keeping it humble

this is why i love my people!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(although, i find it very interesting that they only focused the camera on our plain clothes, low german-speaking (no, not dutch, as the reporter stated) brethren and not all those that look just like you and me. makes a better story, i guess. and thanks to sara fretz-goering for posting this - with utmost humility of course - on her fb page.)

homicides in the district to date

i know this isn't the most uplifting of posts, but it is interesting. homicide watch is a fantastic blog that's sprung up in the past year. laura norton amico started the blog to "mark every death. remember every victim. follow every case." in the district. she's created a fascinating chronicle of the stories that are too soon forgotten. (i actually wish she would have started this a few years ago when nannaboo was murdered because that case has been lost to history for a long time.)

today she posted a spread sheet containing all of the information on this year's murders to date. that got me wondering if there was any pattern to the madness; which led me to develop this map ... zoom in on any of the place markers to view the exact area of a particular homicide. many of the sites are in or near public housing projects. nearly all of those neighborhoods have a similar plan - non-descript, low rise buildings on cul-de-sacs, or dead end streets with no neighborhood services in sight.


View Homicides in the District to Date in a larger map

it's not seer-a-cuse!

it's SARE-A-CUSE

*maybe it's not the way it's pronounced by merriam-webster, but that's how the people who live there say it so that's got to be worth something. and remember, we're also the people that say "gahd" instead of "god."

oh yeah, it impacted the black people too

recently returned from a week long trip to training in new orleans. the city, in the wake of katrina, was specifically selected as a case study for leading change. we heard from politicians, school district leaders, economic development firms and federal agencies. and who were these talking heads - white man, white man, white man, white man and white man.

now, my knowledge of new orleans and katrina is limited to what i've seen on the news, but i seem to remember that there were at least a few african americans affected by the storm as well.

to be fair, we did hear from one african american woman - a new orleans native - who returned after the storm and is leaving her mark as a principal in the recovery school district. she was, by far, the most compelling speaker. of course i learned a lot throughout the week, but felt that it was a missed opportunity to hear from those disproportionately affected by the storm.

mennonite confession of faith article 25

you can read the first 24 articles here, but you will not find article 25. why? because it has never been written down before this very moment. article 25 goes something like this -

we believe that, although we are a small gathering of believers, we will organize ourselves in such a way, with mennos and non-mennos alike, that we might have maximum impact, even under the most stressful and dire of circumstances, within the shortest periods of time.

this is what it looks like in practice -

on friday at 2:00 pm, menno a's boss stops by and says "within the next hour, we must find a student in the district of columbia who meets each of the following 20 criteria, without exception, to attend an event with the President of the United States on monday morning at 7:00 am ."

menno a, not even breaking a sweat, says "not a problem."

menno a then calls menno b who says "oh, mennos c, d, e, f or g will absolutely know someone."

so menno a calls menno c and finds out that menno c is unavailable. does panic set in? no because menno a still has mennos d, e, f and g to call.

menno a then calls menno d who confidently say that, while she doesn't know said super child, she's absolutely positive that menno x, a menno not even in the original equation, will absolutely have a candidate.

at 2:30 pm, menno a calls menno x who says "give me 20 minutes and i'll have someone."

sure enough, menno x calls menno a and informs her that non-menno 1 and non-menno 2 have said super child.

menno a calls non-mennos 1 and 2 and, at 2:48 pm, ends up with not 1, but TWO super children to attend the event with POTUS!

a flow char will follow soon.

when it rains it pours - inside your house

the renovation coupled with the overnight apocalyptic rains have revealed that we have a leak! grrrrrr :(

the 1000's of dollars $150 project

remember the trip to lucketts and buckeystown? not to worry, i was there and almost don't remember it because it was so long ago. we had this grand idea to build a bed frame out of old farmhouse doors. that was february 2009.

i'm happy to report that the bed frame is almost finished and it is AMAZING thanks to the wonderful carpentry skills of our friend rex and impeccable color knowledge of our friend lawrence. and it's precisely because that the bed has turned out to be so AMAZING that we're currently living like this ...

you see, we decided that the bed must be the focal point of the bedroom since the bed is really turning out to be art. that meant that we needed to get rid of all of the other furniture in the room (although we will add a little couch or two chairs). and that meant that we needed to redo the closet, which meant that we needed to do a pretty significant renovation to remove walls, replace plaster walls with wall board and add lighting.

check back in about a month to see it in all its glory!

and with only one indigo girls reference

last night's episode of glee was absolutely fabulous. it was characteristically funny and irreverent and incredibly touching. the episode that began with one of the funniest takes ever on being confused about who you love, ended with a realization that it's less destructive, personally and to those around you, to be honest with yourself about who you love. dorothysnarker has an excellent reflection on her blog "dorothy surrenders." read it here. or watch for yourself -

Untitled from Ria Molina on Vimeo.

BEST discussion EVER about being confused

on tonight's glee -


brittany: i don't know how i feel about us

santana: let's be clear here. i'm not interested in any lables - unless it's on something i shoplift.

brittany: i don't know santana. i think we should talk to somebody, like an adult. this relationship is really confusing for me.

santana: breakfast is confusing for you.

brittany: sometime's it's sweet and sometime's it's salty. what if i had eggs for dinner? then, what is it?

i don't do macaroni and cheese - the criminal justice edition

last week, we were called - subpoenaed actually - to our civic duty as witnesses in a simple assault case. turned out that the guy ended up pleading guilty before the non-jury trial began, but that fact did not disqualify us from getting our witness fee. (yep, they pay you at least $40 to be a witness in dc superior court! nice huh, although i'm not sure it's worth collecting if there's a chance you might be intimated or killed.)

this day's fun really began when we were set to go home. you must go to the criminal finance division to collect your witness fee. within the criminal finance division they have 3 cashier windows, 2 "fines/court fee" windows and 1 witness reimbursement window. no one approached the cashier windows and only one person needed to pay a fine; however, about 30 people needed to be reimbursed. i approached both a cashier and a fine/court fee collector to see if they could help out with the reimbursements since both of them were just hanging out on their blackberries. i was quickly informed that they don't do reimbursements - clearly kin to she that does not do macaroni and cheese!

hail to the buff and blue?

some current seniors at my alma mater have started a campaign to get charlie sheen as their commencement speaker. how could you not be proud?!?@#@? actually, part of their justification is kind of funny -

He is an unemployed winner. And unless the job market miraculously picks up, we too will be unemployed winners.

battle royale - red velvet cupcake

the newest monument to excess in the district of columbia (no, not kwame's suvs)?

the boutique cupcake.

there are no fewer than 3 cupcake-only purveyors in the district alone, not to mention all of the bakeries that have jumped on the bandwagon. we even have a food truck that sells nothing but cupcakes. and while each has its fan, the reigning grandmommy of them all is georgetown cupcake, she of reality television fame. many have tried but none have been able to match the morsels for which people have been known to: 1) wait in obnoxiously long lines (me included); and 2) pay handsomely (me included). until this week ...

earlier this week, sprinkles cupcakes of los angeles, the self-proclaimed "original cupcake bakery," LA Times-dubbed "progenitor** of the haute cupcake craze," and subject of its own reality television show set up shop just a few blocks away!

so tonight we headed to georgetown to conduct a comprehensive test. here are the results -

branding -


pink box wins! it SCREAMS "georgetown cupcake;" while the brown box, even with its sticker, could be mistaken for your lunch from kfc.

cupcake presentation -


they know how to make it look better in los angeles! the cake is bigger, the frosting has height, and the center confection is flirty. you can just see it riding shotgun in a convertible bentley down rodeo drive.

based on outward appearances we're all tied up. but now for the taste.



cream cheese frosting -

georgetown = smoother and creamier

sprinkles = cream cheesier and grainier

red velvet cake -

sprinkles = lighter and airier with more of a hint of chocolate

georgetown = denser

center confection -

georgetown = understated and complementary sugary bite

sprinkles = colorfully inviting, but make sure that your dental insurance premium is up-to-date before biting into this tasteless, rock-hard disc

and the winner is ...

georgetown cupcake!

in the end, it's the frosting that makes the difference and georgetown's is far superior to sprinkles. and hey, this is dc. we don't do big, flashy and overly sweet. we do unadorned effortlessness with a hint of ennui.

in my humble opinion georgetown cupcake will reign supreme until magnolia bakery decides to jump into the mix. until that time, the battle is won.

**don't worry, i had to look it up too! it means - a thing from which another thing originates.