Daily Dose of Common Sense

I think Tina Fey is the DDOCS poster girl. She’s smart, funny, and interesting–exactly the kind of person who makes your “famous people I’d like to have over to dinner” list. Plus, of all the public figures out there, no one speaks more common sense than Fey, who is the creator, writer and producer of the genius 30 Rock.

Here are some of her recent gems:

On being the ‘thinking man’’s sex symbol:
“What I’ve come to realize is that when people say, ‘The thinking man’s whatever’ — there’s no such thing. The thinking man also wants to fuck Megan Fox.”

Normal Girls:
“I feel like I represent normalcy in some way. What are your choices today in entertainment? People either represent youth, power, or sexuality. And then there’s me, carrying normalcy.” Pause. “Me and Rachel Ray.”

The Skinny:
“People will say, ‘Oh, fashion magazines are so bad, they’re giving girls a negative message’–but we’re also the fattest country in the world, so it’s not like we’re all looking at fashion magazines and not eating. Maybe it just starts a shame cycle: I’m never going to look like that model, so… Chicken McNuggets it is! And conversely, I don’t look at models who are crazy skinny and think I want to look like that, because a lot of them are gigantic, with giant hands and giant feet.”

On fame:
“I think my level of fame will drop back down. I think it’ll recede. In fact, I know it will. That’s life on planet earth. And I’m okay with that. Besides getting tables at restaurants and special treatment at the airport, what else is there?”

Here she talks on Letterman about being a 24-year old virgin:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV0NA3UfpvA&feature=player_embedded

[Source: Huffington Post]

As a self-professed “black thumb” who loves eating garden-fresh vegetables (but struggles with the actual garden part), I was thrilled to discover the the square foot gardening concept.

Popularized in 1981 by Mel Bartholomew in his book (and subsequent PBS series) “Square Foot Gardening,” the concept is experiencing a resurgence in the blogosphere everywhere from home design blogs to of course, gardening blogs–many of which are dedicated specifically to square foot gardening.

The basic concept is just as it sounds: take a 4′x4′ plot, divide it into 1′x1′ squares and plant one type of plant in each square. Proponents claim that the square garden is space efficient (it can be as small as 4′x4′), outproduces conventional gardens, uses less water, is pestcide and fertilizer-free and reduces weeding to minutes a day. While this may sound a little too-good-to-be-true, the longevity of the idea speaks to its practicality and overall success.

Now, can a black thumb like myself pull this off? That remains to be seen.

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A 604 lb. woman living in New Jersey says it would be a “fantasy” to be the world’s fattest woman, which would mean weighing 1,000 lbs. She’s only 42 and has a 3-year old daughter. To supplement her $750-a-week grocery bill, she has a web site where men can watch her eat fast food.

“When you have a 3-year-old daughter and you’re trying to run a household, things like this tend to be a fantasy,” Simpson told The Post today.

Yes, quite the fantasy. CRAZY fantasy. Does this woman have no one in her life that can teach her the serious health consequences of being so overweight? Does she not want to be around to watch her daughter grow up, and possibly have grandchildren? Also, what quality of life can she give her daughter when, admittedly, she can only move 20 ft. on her own without a break.

It all reminds me of The Simpsons episode where Homer wants to gain weight. He wants to be fat enough to be considered disabled, which would allow him to work from home. As Dr. Nick Rivera advises him, use Pop-Tarts instead of bread….

Via PatsPapers

Talk about a genius invention! The PeePoo bag allows someone to pee and/or poop in it and then bury the bag to use as fertilizer. Now, you might not need this in your suburban town with fancy city-run sewage. But, think about third-world countries who struggle with the human waste issue every day.

For slums in the developing world where human waste is an unregulated nightmare and flying toilets are common practice, the bag provides a means of waterless sewage disposal and organic fertilizer all in one easy, biodegradable step.

The bag has special lining that breaks down the waste and it even kills any bacteria or pathogens inside. Completely brilliant! If only every invention could be this useful. Sort of makes the Flowbee all that more embarrassing….

[Thanks to Denise R. for the link!]

I don’t agree with everything Bill Maher says, but in this particular case, I think he nails it.

Maher just wrote a piece on Huffington Post called, New Rule: Let’s Not Fire the Teachers When Students Don’t Learn–Let’s Fire the Parents. It’s a long title, but a great read.

A struggling high school in Rhode Island fired every single teacher recently. Certainly there might be bad teachers in that group, but ALL of the teachers? That sounds reactionary and drastic. And, more importantly, it’s not putting a big chunk of blame where it should be placed: the parents.

From Maher’s piece:

According to all the studies, it doesn’t matter what teachers do. Although everyone appreciates foreplay. What matters is what parents do. The number one predictor of a child’s academic success is parental involvement. It doesn’t even matter if your kid goes to private or public school. So save the twenty grand a year and treat yourself to a nice vacation away from the little bastards.

Teachers make a pittance of what they should and most of them work incredibly hard to make our kids better people. Yet, we continue to set them up as the fall guys. A speech pathologist friend of mine said, “There are many more factors to consider as to why these students are failing: learning disabilities, parent responsibilities of making sure homework is done and kids are on time and in school EVERY day, a stable home environment etc.” In other words, it’s not always the teacher’s fault.

So, give teachers a hand and spend some time helping your kids learn.

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I’ve always wondered why this doesn’t happen more often.

A Nebraska man test drove a truck, during which he went and had the truck’s keys duplicated. He then came back a few hours later and stole the truck from the dealership. He was caught almost right away when the truck was discovered near his house.

However, it seems like a smarter criminal might have a better chance at getting away with it. The dealers who let folks test drive without a dealership employee along for the ride must know that the only people who would try such a nefarious plot aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.

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Some Texas conservatives are looking to rewrite textbooks for elementary, middle school, and high school students in order to push their political agenda. The State Board of Education is holding hearings on proposed changes, and will take a preliminary vote this week. There are seven conservative members on the fifteen-member board, and they hope to change textbooks to, “portray conservatives in a more positive light, emphasize the role of Christianity in American history and include Republican political philosophies.”

Here is a proposed change:

There have also been efforts among conservatives on the board to tweak the history of the civil rights movement. One amendment states that the movement created “unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes” among minorities. Another proposed change removes any reference to race, sex or religion in talking about how different groups have contributed to the national identity.

“Unrealistic expectations?” Oh, Texas. Please come to your senses and don’t rewrite history with your crazy theories.

But, wait! There’s more:

References to Ralph Nader and Ross Perot are proposed to be removed, while Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, is to be listed as a role model for effective leadership, and the ideas in Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address are to be laid side by side with Abraham Lincoln’s speeches.

I guess Texas wants to make sure the kids learn racism and never find out about independent political candidates.

How about just sticking to the facts? The unbiased, neutral, mostly historical facts?

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This is an example of smartness:

Bank of America will no longer let you spend what you don’t have. Revolutionary, I know. The bank is not allowing customers using accounts linked to debit cards to spend more than in their checking accounts.

Customers making a purchase without sufficient funds will be rejected at the cash register, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said today. Those seeking to withdraw more than their balance from automated teller machines must agree to a $35 fee before they can get the money, spokesman Don Vecchiarello said.

$35 is pricey, but at least you can’t spend yourself (and us) into debt. Living within your means can be hard (who are we kidding–it sucks!) but, it’s a good way to avoid financial disaster down the road.

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Thanks to George P. for the link!

At a Wisconsin zoo on Friday, a woman wanted to feed the bears by hand. (I mean, who doesn’t? They’re all like Winnie the Pooh, right?) She ignored several barriers and warning signs in order to get up close and personal with the bears. Result? She lost several fingers after she was bitten. The woman’s boyfriend was also bitten as he tried to help her.

But this is not even the most disturbing part of the news report:

The woman’s boyfriend was bitten as he tried to pry the bear’s mouth off her hand, but he didn’t lose any fingers. Her 3-year-old granddaughter wasn’t injured.

Yes, that’s right. The woman, through her own stupidity, gets expectedly injured by a bear IN FRONT OF her granddaughter. Way to scar the little one for life, Grandma.

We’ve written about zoo stupidity before, but it really never ceases to amaze us how people purposely cross barriers and restricted areas to get to the wildlife. If you’re this reckless and dumb, you deserve whatever the animals dish out.

Progress in technology always brings about new kinds of dangers. Crossing the street must have become a frightening experience for a fair percentage of the folks who lived through the transition from horse-drawn to motorized vehicles, but soon every 5-year old knew enough to look both ways before they cross and pay attention to traffic signals. Education and adapting your behavior are the key.

The security dangers posed by the Internet are no different. By now (hopefully) we’ve all learned not to open email attachments we weren’t expecting (even if they appear to come from friends).

But a newer and more subtle danger is deceptive web links in emails and on web sites. But, like the simple rule about looking both ways, there’s also an easy way to mitigate this danger as well.

The key is to understand that the text of a link doesn’t necessarily have to match the actual web “destination” (the technical term being a URL, Uniform Resource Locator). So, if I want to link to CNN, I can make the link text match (http://www.cnn.com/) or use some other text (CNN).

The malicious links are crafted to appear like that first link that shows the URL as the text (let’s call this a “bare link”), but the actual URL is a different site that is a fake version of the real site shown in the text. So, how can you detect this subterfuge?

Every web browser and email program has a feature that shows you the URL of a link when you hold the mouse pointer without clicking (called hovering) over the text. So, for instance, this fake bare link to Citibank can be easily detected: http://www.citibank.com/

So, anytime a bare link’s destination URL doesn’t match what looks like the URL in the text, don’t click it. It’s as simple and common-sensible as looking before you cross the street.

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