Friday Web Round-Up

NYTimes: "As His Inmates Grew Thinner, a Sheriff’s Wallet Grew Fatter": "The prisoners in the Morgan County jail here were always hungry. The sheriff, meanwhile, was getting a little richer. Alabama law allowed it: the chief lawman could go light on prisoners’ meals and pocket the leftover change. And that is just what the sheriff, Greg Bartlett, did, to the tune of $212,000 over the last three years, despite a state food allowance of only $1.75 per prisoner per day."

Frommers: "Pasadena" (a city that will always have a spot in my heart): "Some Pasadena locals like to say that their town and Los Angeles were about the same size years ago, but that their place spent time growing gracefully while the Angelinos let their city mature without any wisdom into the sprawling mess it is now considered to be. Pasadenans have long considered themselves a cut above the hurly burly in LA, the smaller city's manicured lawns, imposing but dignified residences and quiet air a pleasing (to them) contrast to the bigger city's vulgar noise and energy."

NYTimes: "A Lifestyle Distinct: The Muxe of Mexico" (I thought this was a really interesting article when I read it, but I forgot to post it until now): "Acceptance of a child who feels he is a muxe is not unanimous; some parents force such children to fend for themselves. But the far more common sentiment appears to be that of a woman who takes care of her grandson, Carmelo, 13.
'It is how God sent him,' she said."

As a chronic over-sharer I both shuddered at the all-too-realness of this post, as well as (oddly) mourning a time of greater decorum.  Jezebel: "Tell Me More!  Why Do We Overshare?"  In some ways it does seem crass that people (including myself) will talk about nearly anything and everything only minutes after meeting someone.  On the other hand, though, I have always looked at such sharing as a way of saying "hey, I'm only human, I'm not pretending to be anything other than the flawed person that I am."  Also, I tend to befriend people who are similar oversharers.  Unfortunately, I have also found myself feeling resentful at people who are not so quick to share - which is probably not fair, and betrays my desire for instant approval (if you share with me, that means you like me....right?)

A pet peeve of mine is people who attended law school (or are looking to attend law school) because they "don't know what else to do." In my opinion, law school is way too expensive, time consuming, and downright HARD to do on such a whim. Plus, as we are all seeing, it doesn't guarantee employment! I would guess the same is true with many other graduate programs, so I hope people think twice before taking the recession as a sign it's time to rack up student loans...

Last night I got around to reading Toobin's New Yorker profile of Barney Frank. Not particularly earth shattering, but interesting. Frank's reputation for quick wit certaintly seems to be well deserved! The profile was also given props on a website that is a new favorite of mine for LGBTQ news, The Bilerico Project. Frank (photo, left) offers us a hopeful outlook for the next wave of change:

"We're going to do three things in Congress," he told me. "First, a hate-crimes bill--that shouldn't be too hard. Next, employment discrimination. We almost got that through before, but now we can win even if we add transgender protections, which we are going to do. And finally, after the troops get home from Iraq, gays in the military. The time has come."

And why not start the year by resolving to make 5 simple changes to become greener?  As far as small actions and big impact go, these are pretty great.

Coming soon: a joint GoogleReader review/rave from Lipstick Lobbyist and I! She claims it can be a great tool for work..I claim it can be a lot of fun!