Frosty

Woke up Monday to a half-foot of snow on the ground, and more falling. All told, we probably got about 10 inches. At least we've now got firewood -- the guy finally got his truck in working order and dumped a cord on the driveway. It's the small things that count, like not having frozen pipes.

Worked like a dog on the day job all day while the kids slept late and enjoyed a snow day.

Have I mentioned that chickens are not so fun to take care of in the winter? The metal water buckets tend to get a bit icy, and the peeps are kind of testy. It's a wee bit chilly for them -- I'm thinking the wind chill is close to zero this morning -- so they're not venturing out of the coop. And after I built a nice little straw-lined 2'x4' windbreak box for the ducks ... they're just hanging out in the open, freezing their butts off.

Got a call from John's guidance counselor. He's struggling a bit, which, we agreed, is not unusual for a 16-year-old. Sigh. But he is trying harder this year than last, so I really don't have too much to complain about.

Speaking of which, this is just a really neat NY Times story and almost makes me feel badly that I had no idea there was a show called "America's Next Top Model." I suppose this would make me a cultural doofus. Anyway, this woman should've won, for being really brave if nothing else:






December 4, 2007
Well
Asperger’s Syndrome Gets a Very Public Face
By TARA PARKER-POPE


Heather Kuzmich has the neurological disorder known as Asperger’s syndrome. She is socially awkward, has trouble making eye contact and is sometimes the target of her roommates’ jokes.

But what makes the 21-year-old Ms. Kuzmich different from others with Asperger’s is that for the past 11 weeks, her struggle to cope with her disability has played out on national television.

She is one of 13 young women selected by the supermodel Tyra Banks to compete on the popular reality television show “America’s Next Top Model.” The addition of Heather Kuzmich to an otherwise superficial show has given millions of viewers an unusual and compelling glimpse into the little-understood world of Asperger’s.

The disorder, considered a form of autism, is characterized by unusual social interaction and communication skills. Aspies, as people with the condition like to call themselves, often have normal or above-average intelligence, but they have trouble making friends and lack the intuitive ability to gauge social situations. They fail to make eye contact and often exhibit a single-minded fixation that can be both bizarre and brilliant.

By definition, people with Asperger’s are outside the mainstream. Even so, in recent months the syndrome has been cast into the limelight. “Look Me in the Eye,” a memoir about living with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison, who once created special effects for the rock band Kiss, has been a best-seller. In August, the Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Tim Page wrote a poignant article for The New Yorker about life with undiagnosed Asperger’s.

Mr. Robison says the popular appeal of these stories may be due, in part, to the tendency of people with Asperger’s to be painfully direct — they lack the social filter that prevents other people from speaking their minds.

“It’s important because the world needs to know that there are tremendous differences in human behavior,” said Mr. Robison, whose brother is the writer Augusten Burroughs. “People are all too willing to throw away someone because they don’t respond the way they want. I think books like mine tell the world that there is more to us than that.”

But while Mr. Robison and Mr. Page tell the story of coping with Asperger’s from the perspective of men in their 50s, Heather Kuzmich is just beginning her life as an adult with the disorder. And it is often painful to watch her transition from socially awkward adolescent to socially awkward adult.

A gifted art student from Valparaiso, Ind., she has a lean and angular look well suited to the fashion industry. But her beauty doesn’t mask the challenges of Asperger’s. The show requires her to live in a house with 12 other would-be models, and cattiness and backbiting ensue. Early in the show, she appears socially isolated, the girls whisper about her within earshot, and viewers see her crying on the phone to her mother.

One girl is frustrated when Heather, concentrating on packing a bag, doesn’t hear a request to move out of the way. At one point, the others laugh when they stake out their beds and Heather has no place to sleep.

“I wish I could get the joke,” Heather laments.

“You. You’re the joke,” retorts another model, Bianca, an 18-year-old college student who is from Queens.

If there's such a thing as karma, then perhaps Bianca will soon become Long Island's Next Top Crack-Addled Prostitute. Keep your fingers crossed.

And, just because I can't go a day without seeing something genuinely worrisome:

Riots and hunger feared as demand for grain sends food costs soaring
· Expert to warn industry of threats to world supply·

Biofuels and Chinese boom put pressure on harvests

Jonathan Watts in Beijing

Tuesday December 4, 2007

Guardian

The risks of food riots and malnutrition will surge in the next two years as the global supply of grain comes under more pressure than at any time in 50 years, according to one of the world's leading agricultural researchers.

Recent pasta protests in Italy, tortilla rallies in Mexico and onion demonstrations in India are just the start of the social instability to come unless there is a fundamental shift to boost production of staple foods, Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute, warned in an interview with the Guardian.

The growing appetite of China and other fast-developing nations has combined with the expansion of biofuel programmes in the United States and Europe to transform the global food situation.

After decades of expanding crop yields and falling food prices, the past year has seen a sharp rise in the cost of wheat, rice, corn, soya and dairy products.

"Demand is running away. The world has been consuming more than it produces for five years now. Stocks of grain - of rice, wheat and maize - are down at levels not seen since the early 80s," said von Braun, whose organisation is the world's largest alliance of agricultural researchers, economists, and policy experts.

So far, crises have been averted because states have eaten into national stocks, but this could be set to change because China, in particular, has run down its supplies.

"Over the next 12 to 24 months we are in a fairly risky situation. Large consuming nations, particularly China, will feel pressed to enter international markets to bid up prices to unusual levels," von Braun warned ahead of a speech today to the institute's AGM in Beijing.