Custard Buns

I've done it. I have finally maxed out my credit card and exhausted the parental resources. Now I truly am living on my own, on a pathetic salary (for New York) and figuring out how to do that. But helping that path is the discovery of Custard Buns. Not kidding. Those are a) delicious and b) 60 cents each. That's what I said. There's a bakery in chinatown that makes them and they really are that cheap and I love them. Thank God.

Really I find some parts of New York to be fantastically cheap, and other parts to be ridiculously expensive. It's kind of confusing, to tell the truth. Sometimes I don't have any problems finding cheap furnishings, food, books, music, whatever. But Boyfriend and I have on more than a few occasions, spent eighty or one hundred dollars on ONE DINNER. What is going on with that? For the most part, quality of food is high all over the city, not just in certain areas. And yet, some of the restaurants here will charge forty-five dollars for a cocktail and not blink an eye. And I have friends who pay that much and also don't blink an eye.

Naturally I remember the easy days at college, where my parents paid for just about anything and the money I made was mine to spend how I saw fit- mostly on things like movies, Barnes and Nobles, clothing. Things of that nature. But now, of course, I wish I could have just half the money I made and put it back in my account. It's amazing how much we waste during our college years, thinking that when we're out and on a salary we'll do just fine. For some, that's fine. If you're a business major, you'll probably be making plenty of money. But if you were a humanities major, you're not. Trust me. Unless you came into your trust fund on your graduation day, you're probably struggling with student loans (yes, you have to pay the university back) and other living expenses, like silverware. Seriously. Silverware. I never thought aobut that in college.

I also, of course assumed I would pack up all my things and bring them to New York with me. Again, I was wrong about that. I brought almost nothing to New York and had to start from scratch. Which isnt' fun, especially when you're on a budget. And Ikea is located in NJ. I've never understood why they won't open a NYC store. Think of allthe money that would bring in!!
But I'm still fantasizing about having my own place all the time. During lunch hour I was surfing craigslist, looking at listings for sale and thinking about what a bargain a one-bedroom for 399,000 is, especially in the West Village! it's sad that seems like a bargain. Really sad.

Then I think about what that much money would buy down south and it's a heck of a lot more. I could probably have several acres with a house. But I wouldn't have the Morton Williams right down the street. Or a drugstore that delivered. And I bet getting movies would be a huge pain in the butt. Besides that, life would be grand.

The Thrill of Apple Chill is Gone

Apple Chill was essentially a pottery and arts festival begun in 1972. The idea was to give local artisans, potters, and musicians a chance to spread their wings and show their wares, and maybe make a little cash in the process. It began as a week long festival including concerts, community activities,ending with a pottery and artisan sale. It was a chance for the community to come out with their families and be proud to be a part of Chapel Hill.

Later on the festival was shortened to just span a weekend, and then ended up being a Sunday afternoon. Then, and I'm not sure exactly how or when this happened, the festival itself would end at six, and then "After Chill" would start. After Chill is mainly black teenagers and young adults from all over the region who come in to show off pimped out cars, motorcycles, and hit the Chapel Hill club scene (what there is of it). This would continue until roughly 11 p.m. with loud cars, radios, and people spanning Franklin Street and the whole downtown scene, blocking traffic for miles and making it difficult for other stores and restaurants to stay open. Eventually many local businesses actually began closing for Apple Chill, finding it wasn't worth the effort of finding people willing to work during such a disruptive time.

Then, Apple Chill took a turn for the worse. The crowds became dangerous after nearly a day of drinking and driving around. This year, Chapel Hill hired 235 extra policeman to peruse the area and make sure everyone stayed out of trouble. The arrest average rose. I remember my first year in Chapel Hill being unaware of After Thrill and going out that evening. I quickly became stuck in traffic on 15-501 near Franklin Street and screamed as a motorcycle with two passengers and no helmets swerved in front of me. Screamed because they almost ran into me and that they would have been killed or seirously injured had I hit them. I couldn't believe anyone in this day and age, with the knowledge we have about the dangers or riding BIKES without helmets, much less MOTORCYCLES, would be riding around illegally in Chapel Hill. But they were, and there were plenty of others along with them.

Gangs in Durham have certainly been growing in the last few years, or maybe just the effects of the gangs have. The law office I worked for was representing a case of a gang member who was on death row for his initiation- killing three women. One of the women he shot twelve times, and she survived, so now he's sitting in Central Prison. He's nineteen years old. So it was no surprise when rumors began to fly about gang members, particularly Crypts and Bloods, were heading into Chapel Hill for After Chill. How does a pottery show and arts and crafts fair turn into gang war turf?

I don't blame the mayor for saying that this would be the last year for Apple Chill. It was costing too much money, most of the people attending the show were no longer local, and local famillies and the community was afraid to go out after dark because of the violence that ensued. Because it's in the South, there's also the issue of race. White girls afraid they would get raped as part of a gang initiation (going there is like stepping back 50 years), black men afraid of getting arrested for being just that. It's almost a relief that someone finally stepped in and said Enough. Now the debate is what to do. Originally this festival was intended to bring hte community together and now it was pushing the community apart. Some people suggested putting the money elsewhere, into parks or taxes or something along those lines. I wonder why Chapel Hill couldn't just return to its roots and make Apple Chill what it was supposed to be- a festival celebrating a small community full of artistic talent. Maybe spreading the events over a week or month even would help bring the community together without the pressure of one day. Maybe it would help dispel the gangs who show up. Or maybe it would encourage them to set aside their guns (three people were shot this weekend and 87 arrested) and check out a Carrboro kiln.

They're Destroying Houston Street

I remember a card coming from my mom's goddaughter. It was a thank you for a gift but she had included a sort of note to me in it. She moved up here after graduating from college, moved in with her aunt and uncle in the city and started a job at Bloomingdales. And hated it. Hated everything. After moving into a boarding house of sorts, she still didn't like it. Her roommates didn't speak English and wouldn't talk to her. Her job sucked. But most of all, she said, she felt like she wasn't really cut out to be a New Yorker. There was always too much going on in the city, construction that would literally change the way a street looekd and felt and could happen in as little as a day. I didn't quite understand her until I moved up here. Then it hit me. she was absolutely right. The city is always shifting and changing, parking garages being turned into apartment buildings, streets being torn up and repaved only to be torn up again, restaurants opening and closing so fast it's hard to imagine they served a single soul.

But I like this, like that everything is always changing. Every day when I walk home there is something going on. I have o wonder, though, what the city would look like if they took down the scaffolding. All of it at one time. Imagine if they just stopped, maybe even for a couple of weeks. Just stopped what they were doing and looked at what they had already completed, what was great about the buildings that were already standing. Its wishful thinking, I know, for a city with ten million people and new ones arriving every day, but what if. I like the way the city streets look when there isn't anything going on on them. Except movies and fun stuff like that.

The most miserable street of all, now that we're heading towards the summer montths, is Broadway below Houston. It's killing me to make my way through hordes of people all trying desperately to squeeze themselves into Urban Outfitters or the boutiques that line the streets that used to hold warehouses and strange artsy types. It's fasicnating.

Watching New YOrk, is like watching evolution in process. Much of New York rests on filled swamp land. I wonder what would happen if that ever fell apart.

Challah French Toast

I never would have heard of it without being up here. I think. I can't think of a single Jewish person I knew from back home. I mean, I'm sure there were some, or at least descendants of some, but I can't think of anyone. It's a totally foreign culture to me. Sometimes I'll let out an oy, or schlep, or something of that nature, and I know a little about the Holocaust and where Long Island is located, but beyond that, no clue.

But Challah bread. Definitely something I wish I'd known about earlier. One of the great things about New York is the freshness of baked goods. You can get a great loaf of bread for not much more than you'd pay for a loaf of Merita. And the kinds of bread- pumpernickel, rye, challah, irish soda. It goes on and on. I have to admit that I'm a bread freak. You should have seen me in Europe- I was literally eating my way through it. And it was delicious. I can't believe I even made it back. I probably shouldn't have come back. I think I read somewhere that it's cheaper to live there. Maybe because all you eat is bread. They are the anti-thesis of America's idea of a diet. As opposed to Atkins, it's ALL CARB AND I LOVE IT.

Not that I don't love America. Isn't that what we're supposed to do now, a paranoid turn-around? You begin to say what negative thing you really feel about America and bounce right bakc with something that's great about it. So I'm going to bounce back by saying a big thank you to the "Jewish Reservation" out on Long Island, a people who definitely know how to cook, even ifsome of the stuff is a little weird.

Ebay Fiasco

I've just recently really begun making purchases on Ebay. Yes, Iw as fully aware of it before but you have to be cautious when you're ordering this stuff and even more cautious when you're entering in your maximum bid. I can see why it becomes addictive. Nothing is worse than watching as someone outbids you in the last minute or minute and a half of an auction and walks away with what should hav ebeen yours.

Then I fell into a trap. I've won a few things on Ebay and really enjoyed knowing i didn't pay retail for them. But thus comes hte paradox of the Balenciaga bag. it's my new secret obsession. Retailing for $1000 and up, these bags are lovely, vintage looking and hold lots of stuff. They are being seen on everyone famous. Except i have a feeling that the famous people don't even have to pay for them. So I've become a little obsessed with them. Just a little.

I did what any American girl with a break at work and keyboard at her fingertips would do. I typed my request into Ebay's search engine and it came back with something like 600 of these bags up for grabs. Natrually I could see that almost all of these "authentic 1000% guaranteed bags were fakes" but there were a few that sounded convincing. So I bid on one, and WON. I was happily congratulating myself on getting this bag for more than 75% off when I came across an article about a woman who had been through a similar experience, paid a fortune for a "real" bag, and then received a fake. My stomach dropped. I began doing more and more research and found that i'm in no shape to be ordering Balenciagas on line. I'm not even sure what half of the stuff on them IS. And theres a big difference between paying 1000 for a real bag and paying a smaller fortune for a good fake bag. I checked on the street outside my office and have found they go for around thirty bucks. That's a much better deal.

So I waited impatiently for the package to arrive. Of course i hadn't been paying attention to where it was coming from and so I was being sent a purse from Switzerland. Thank goodness the girl who sold it to me was really nice about it. Otherwise I would have been even more stressed out. I waited, and waited. And waited some more. But hte bag continued to not show up at all and then I thought I really had been ripped off. So I kept harassing this poor Swiss girl with imperfect English and finally received the bag. Of course, i knew when I pulled it out that it wasn't real. Certain small details didn't match up at all.

Fortunately Ebay is set up to handle these disputes. If you use Paypal, there's a good chance you'll get at least some of your money back, and I was one of hte lucky ones. But I have learned my lesson. I made a phone call to the Balenciaga boutique to see if there was a chance it was real and the woman on the phone told me that in the five years she had been with hte company she had never seen a real one come off a website. What makes this worse is that when I told the Swiss girl this she was shocked, saying she had originally purchased the bag on ebay and was told it was real. I'm sad for every girl out there who thinks that you can get a $1000 bag for $200. Even if it was stolen off the back of a truck, no way would anyone part with those for so little.

Now I'm going to be a lot more suspicious about what I purchase off Ebay. but it saddens me that a website built on trust like this has so many false people becoming a part of it. I can only imagine what's out on the streets.

The End of an Era

I realized today, walking to work, that never again am I really going to have a choice over whether or not to show up. Sure,you might say, no one is forcing you to work, though I'd have to disagree. My apartment owner, Time Warner Cable and Con Edison may not be literally behind me every morning dragging me to work but they certainly expect me to go so I can immediately turn over the money to them. That's the way it goes. And thus I am a part of hte adult world.

it's amazing, when you think about it, that people continue to work. I have to wonder if the human population was really designed to do this. What if there were no bills, if people simply performed jobs because they enjoyed them? Or if they didn't perform jobs for the same reason? I wonder, just maybe if that would work. There is the all too logical response of who would carry out the garbage, but I bet our prisoners could be forced into that one as part of their imprisonment.

What would I do if I had all that time? Maybe volunteer for a non-profit agency, definitely write, and try to figure out how to manage my life in a way that is beneifical to those around me. Sure I'm not perfect, but I'm certainly not incapable of handling certain aspects of who I am and what I can do to contribute. Isn't that what it comes down to? Who can contribute? Many of the great scientists in the world kept their theories shut up in drawers for years and years before finally releasing them to the public. Artists who weren't famous at all until after their deaths. People who use their money to support the arts or after school programs or help out with their churches.

I like the idea of the freedom of choice. I like the thought that I could control my own schedule and make each day different. one day i could be painting a playground, the next day lounging around someone's pool. I hoie that at some point I could have the chance to do that. Some people are born into independent money and while I"m not one of them, I'm sure that something good could come of it. Something good could come of everyone if they would just consider what they really want to do with themselves and their time

There was a special Dr. Phil on last week honoring people who made a difference in the lives of children. What was great about it was that these people were ll incredibly selfless. A woman in her thirties who had housed over 50 foster children, including many with disabilities. A man who had begun the Urban Music Program because he felt too many school swere cutting out music and making it difficult for those kids to have a shot at doings oemthing they wanted to do that had nothing to do with "No Child Left Behind". It frightens me that any president would implement a program so focused on narrow subjects that smart children were pushed outside the box and slow children wouldn't stand a chance. Everyone knows the program will ultimately fail or leave an overweight generation with no idea who Billie Holiday is.

I hope that some answers will start coming to me soon. I hope that I'll be able to take a good look at myself and see what I can become just by being that person, just by taking hte opportunity to leap.

On the Hunt

Again, I'm not dressed appropriately for the weather. Yesterday I was wearing too little clothing, today, it seems, I am wearing too much. It's supposed to be almost seventy today and I'm in a turtleneck sweater (albeit cotton) with a skirt and knee socks. So I'm burning up without a hope of having time to change today. Ah, the New York Spring. How we patiently wait for consistent anything. It's almost as bad as it is in North Carolina. I may as well be in North Carolina.

And i'm on the hunt for a career change. Or trying to figure out a career change, is maybe a better way of looking at it. There are so many choices and I am just now starting to hunt through them, looking at different options and trying to decide where I best fit in in this place. The most interesting part of New York to me is that while the city has to employ literally millions of people and therefore has plenty of jobs at any given time, it's incredibly hard to find a job that a) fits what you're looking to do and b) pays enough for you to do it. I never fail to be fascinated by how quickly restaurants turn over and people become cab drivers, etc, yet in certain areas it seems dry.

So I'm back at square one, trying to decide, as so many other people in the quarter-century crisis are, what do I do with myself now? Where do I go? I truly feel we have the most opportunity of any prior generation and yet are the least grounded, most likely to wander the earth without knowing where to go or what to do. I know that's me. In my head I'm a hundred things, traveling down a hundred career paths. I'm everything from a pediatric AIDS specialist in Africa to a translator in France. I'm a magazine editor and a vet and a scientist. I write novels and plays while simultaneously discovering a cure for the common cold. I am a Pulitizer prize winning photographer for National Geographic.

Except really I'm still just a kid.

Day of the Lord (but come ON!)

Easter Sunday is a really fascinating holiday, when you think about it. Here we are, celebrating the life, death, and resurrection of a man from 2000 years ago who happened to feed some people and spread something we call the Gospel. And he got famous from it and now has the largest "cult" following in the world, myself included. But there is something fascinating about the way Protestants view church compared to other sects, such as Catholicism and Greek Orthodox.

We believe in time limits for church. As hypocritical as that sounds, we like for our services to be a small part of our Sunday and our thinking about God and Jesus to be a larger part of our life. I don't feel any better when I'm in church for three hours versus when I'm in church for one. As a matter of fact I usually feel worse, thinking about how much I would rather be outside appreciating what God is offering us. Especially Methodists and Presybeterians tend to feel the same way. We would rather be doing other things with our WEdnesday nights nad Friday afternoons. Not to say taht there aren't plenty of people who spend their time doing all sorts of church related activities all the time. I'm just saying that for me, I can find plenty of ways to share in Jesus' love without being all up in his place.

Sunday morning was no exception. Generally the Easter service is pretty predictable. There are the traditional Easter hymns, a sermon about Jesus rising from his tomb, the children get candy and you wear a pretty hat. But yesterday the preacher at my grandmother's church added in Holy Communion. I would hav ethought that in order ot do that you would cut something out in consideration of all the people working on a large meal for their families in the afternoon. Yes, we understand that Jesus broke bread with his disciples before his crucifixtion, but he did only have 12 and in that church we had about 200 people. So it added almost forty-five minutes to a long enough Easter service and we were out late, thus eating late, thus I didn't ge tto spend much time with the family because I had to fly back to NYC. And what more would you like to know?

So i'ts made me reconsider my feelings about religion. I'm very religious, of course a G.D. liberal kind of religious, but religious all the same. I try to do as many good th ings for other people as I can. I even gave up time during Lent to do something good out of my way good every day for someone and found it so rewarding I think I'm going to keep it up.

Immigration Protests

THere were about 100 full fledged protests yesterday afternoon regarding the bill that President Bush wants to pass charging everyone involved with illegal immigrants, or at least helping them to make a new start. Many of hte Republicans and Democrats for that matter want a change. They want to close down the borders, grant harsher penalties for people who aid these "fugitives" and deport people on a more regular basis. So yesterday afternoon thousands and thousands of people crowded the streets, proving what i guessed all along- that America is a country based on immigration.

Imagine if your family had been turned away at the border fifty or one hundred or two hundred years ago. Imagine if your grandfather, who arrived at Ellis Island with a dime in his pocket, had immediately been sent back to Japan or Europe or Ireland. What kind of country are we to preach the importance of religious freedom and a "dream", when we don't want people to have a shot at that dream? We already don't give them much of a chance. Many of them are unable to get green cards and thus havev to work illegally for ridiculous amounts of money, barely scraping by.

Americans have so many resources, so much STUFF at our fingertips. We produce more than half of the world's annual amount of garbage and yet make up less than 20% of the world population. We can go shopping and have thousands of items to choose from. I think about all the Russians who were forced to wait in line just for the chance to get a loaf of stale bread and I am shocked that anyone would turn them away when they come here and see a glittering array of brands and ingredients. Who are we to decide who gets to come in and who stays out? In theory, we were the ones who marched in here and got rid of the "Savages" already running this country for thousands of years before we knew about it. I'm sad that it even has to be an issue.

What should have been an issue was making sure that the immigrants could receive the correct paperwork, that they could get health insurance, have a warm, clean place to live, have schools nearby for their children, be able to get to work. We could make sure they understood enough English to get by, provide them with literacy tutoring. There are so many ways we could help the new people coming into our country. There are so many ways we should want to work with them, want to help them in ways maybe we didn't have when our ancestors were coming in.

The whole image of America has been based on immigration. Without it, the country would not exist. It doesn't matter if you're second or tenth generation here, you came from somewhere, and unless you're Native American you didn't come from here. I wonder what descent Bush's family is, where they came from, how they got to this land. If the thought of his great grandparents being turned away from the border doean't affect him, then I w ould have to say we have an actual unfeeling dictator sitting in the Oval Office. i'm tempted to say that now regardless.

That was what was so great about yesterday. Was that all these immigrants from everywhere but particularly Mexico and Puerto Rico and South American, pulled together as one group and marched. Marched for what was promised them on reaching American soil- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It's Become a Race Thing

The Duke Lacrosse team has been accused of gang-raping a stripper they hired for one of their parties about a month ago. The girl claims she performed a dance for them but tried to leave after being called various profane names. When she got outside one of the team members came after her, asking her to come back in. On going back in, she was forced into a bathroom and raped by several members of the team while others watched. After leaving the house she immediately went to the hospital and called the police. Smart girl, right? On the night of the rape she wen tahead and filed her report.

The next week the coach resigned and the lacrosse season was cancelled early. The week after one of the players was suspended from school. Beyond that, the team hired a defense attorney. And then, silence. Driving by the house you can see the bathroom window from which the girl was raped- blinds ripped down, hanging on edge. Much like she must be doing emotionally right now. It has been almost a month and NOT A SINGLE PLAYER HAS BEEN CHARGED IN THE INCIDENT. The community is in an uproar. The exotic dancer was black, and the majority of the team is white, and together it created a racial tension that would not have been there otherwise. Now it's about more than a private dancer's right to call it quits when she wants, it's about white men raping black women and then getting away with it because they are athletes at a prestigious private university. of course that university is located in a town that may as well be in the sixties according to racial problems there.

I grew up only about an hour or a little less than that from there, and remember being told, when I turned 16, not to drive there after dark in certain parts. To make sure that I knew where I was going at all times, to have my doors locked and cell phone on. To not be alone. Not just because it wasn't particularly safe for a young girl to be out by herself, but because I was specifically white. And that would be enough to provoke an attack. One of my co-workers expressed surprise that the event had turned into a "black/white situation" but I told her I would have expressed surprise if it hadn't. Sometimes it feels like intergration never happened in our neck of the woods. People are frowned upon for embarking on inter-racial relationships, crosses are still occasionally burned, and there are sections of town for white people and black people, further divided into those with money and those without.

Yes, it is physically beautiful. But it makes me cry to see how little we have advanced. Duke University Hospital is one of the leading hospitals in the nation and even the world but it still counts to be a certain race. What black groups are currently protesting is how long it's taken for anyone to be arrested. Those boys are still out there. They say had it been several black men raping a white woman, it would have already been done. Oh, how I wish I could say they were wrong, that we have surely moved further than that. But the truth is we haven't. We've barely taken three steps inthe right direction. And so there are rapists on the loose that should be behind bars. And a young black woman who must feel incredibly invalidated.

Katie Couric is Leaving

not in general, but she is leaving the Today show after fifteen years (or more than half my lifetime). I was shocked to find out. She's moving to CBS. I guess they don't consider each other the enemy. It's really difficult to imagine what's going to happen to Today and what I'm going to do about my morning television watching. Which I may be doing a lot more of soon enough.

Yes, that's right. I"m looking into Grad School. Right now I'm working a job which has me roughly below poverty level without benefits. I can't imagine that every company is like this, but right now, since the economy is so hard-pressed, it's difficult to find any job with benefits and decent salary. People are becoming greedier and greedier and while CEOs are making tons of money, everyone else is struggling to make ends meet. Makes you think communism isn't such a bad option. At least then you'd be on a more even scale. Of course, I'm too damn liberal to live in a communist nation. Guess i"ll just stick with the facist one.

But this Katie Couric thing has me in shock. I always thought she'd stay at Today for forever adn instead she is moving forward. She said her heart told her this was the right move, and she'll be the highest paid and first important female evening news anchor. Thanks for making the path easier for all those girls who are wanting to move up in the television industry. And thanks for helping me think more clearly which will hopefully lead to better career choices.

The Devil Wears Prada

I just finished reading it for the second time and must admit it's still as terribly written as the first time, but the story itself rings true. THere are a ton of bosses like that scattered throughout the city. Bosses who make their assistants show up at weird hours and then send them on errands for dry-cleaning and household supplies and copies. There are bosses who force their employees to show up at certain events, demanding everything from black tie to gallery openings.

When you're in your early twenties and just starting out in this city you can't say no, either. becuase you wouldn't even be here without the terrible job you're dragging yourself to five to six days a week. Maybe you're doing that and bartending on weekends because what I've found is that starting salaries aren't very high, considering living expenses and that college degree your parents photographed you with in the good ol' days of school, when you imagined job offers pouring in as people realized how smart, capable and fun you were to work with.

Job offers did not come flying my way and the ones that did offered no benefits, no vacation time and a salary that was less than my rent for a year. When one finally came along that at least pretende to offer me something useful in the way of experience, a tleast, I attacked it, happily leaping upon it the way a hawk leaps upon a snake in the grass. Jobs in New YOrk are elusive. They are never around very long (we pay people to literally carry things up and down the blocks) and you need some sort of psychic ability or connections to even know they're available half the time. Jobs in this city go back and forth with the discretion of the mob, or so it seems.

I'm worried about what's going to happen when I'm "done" with my current job and forced out into the world of the unemployed again. My first instinct (as with most twenty-somethings) is to go back to school, immediately, quickly. To duck back into the world of college and late afternoon drinking games and daytime television. I salivate just thinking about it. But then I read that you're not supposed to use grad school as an escape from reality. I mean, why the hell not? What better escape from the depression associated with the Republican party right now and our faltering economy?

My Political High Horse

Boyfriend and I decided to check out the Darwin exhibit at the Museum of Natural History yesterday. We headed uptown in this gorgeous weather (and it has been GORGEOUS) to see the man himself's original just about everything- preserved specimens, notebooks, journals, letters, magnifying glasses. They had various fossils that Darwin used to develop his theory about the evolution of man.

What was most interesting about this exhibit however, was that there was not A SINGLE corporate sponser. Generally with this kind of thing they would have to have someone paying for everything, and that someone would usually be a huge corporation that would not only contribute money but be able to say that they helped educate the future generations. Not this time. The money was given by private donors. Without them, I doubt the museum could have put on this exhibit. Live Galapagos tortoises can't be found just anywhere. I'm pretty sure most people didn't even notice that there were no signs advertising Cingular or Chase Bank Manhattan. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't just read an article in the New Yorker about why there were no corporate sponsers. Maybe you can guess, or maybe you weren't even aware.

Bush. Our president doesn't believe in evolution. Not that this should matter in theory, because state and religion are seperated, right? Or are they? IN an age where science, Judaism, and feminism are actually once again struggling causes, Bush would not support the exhibit. He also strongly "discouraged" corporations from supporting anything that doesnt mention intelligent design. The museum refused to mention anything about Creationism or Intelligent Design because they are NOT scientific. They have no basis except in that of a few men who in 200 AD decided to write a book telling people how their lives should work. Bush, being a man and an exaggerator himself, fully agrees with the Bible and believes everything to be as it is written, but cannot except the evidence that is literally right before him.

As with the HPV vaccination, which will now go through a grueling process to be approved, thus guaranteeing that more than ten thousand women will contract cervical cancer before the vaccine is pushed through and hundreds of thousands will contract the HPV virus itself, Bush believes the only right way is his way. Never have we had a president with so much information at his feet and yet so little going on inside his head. His solution to the HPV virus was to push abstinence only education and tell people to only have one sexual partner in their lifetime. While it's true that this would prevent the virus, with a divorce rate of more than fifty percent and many girls sexually active before their 16th birthday it's unrealistic. But Bush doesn't seem to believe in realism, does he? He has hindered science more than any other president before him, turning the country into an evangelical machine.

The Darwin exhibit is only one of many examples of this. But I hope that the public attention continues to grow.