Happy Birthday Daniel Henney

Today, November 28th, is Daniel Henney’s 29th birthday!

Henney (SO FINE), an American-Korean actor and model, is most recognized for his role in the hit Korean drama, My Name is Kim Sam Soon. He will also be playing David North (Agent Zero) in the upcoming film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

You can check out his site here.

Happy wishes from the714club Daniel!

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Thanks to president-elect Barack Obama, most of America is going to spend Thanksgiving reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s often-mentioned book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genuis of Abraham Lincoln.

I’ve already received mine via Amazon and am very excited to start especially because of all the hype that’s been surrounding this non-fiction historical book, mostly from comparisons to Obama’s Cabinet selections.

But who is Doris Kearns Goodwin? The name sounded vaguely familiar, as if I had heard of it before its recent rise to popularity, and I decided to do some research.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is an American author, historian, and sometimes political commenter. She’s written several biographies on past Presidents and won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1995 among many other prestigious awards.

The reason she sounded familiar was because of an article in the Los Angeles Times several years ago; Goodwin had been accused with plagiarism for her work, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Homefront During World War II.

The MLA handbook however, excuses this plagiarism as “unintential” and Goodwin has fought to prove her innocence and I’m sure mistakes can be allowed for the huge amounts of research and reading that goes into her works.

Whatever the past circumstances, the situations of the present indicate that anyone interested in American politics should definitely read Team of Rivals and I look forward to share my thoughts on it right here at the714club!

You can also check out her website here.

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! the714club hopes you’re having the best turkey (or tofurkey) of your life and that you’re sharing it with the people you love! Alright, at least with people you can tolerate.

Green Aluminum Foil

I absolutely love baked potatoes and I like to do it the old-fashioned way with aluminum foil and the oven, however, I’ve noticed that it’s adding up to a LOT of wasted aluminum. My local recycling center won’t take aluminum foil sheets so I’ve been wondering if I can use less or be more green by using it in a variety of ways.

Luckily, I found out ten AWESOME ways to reuse my aluminum and, hopefully, yours too!

1. Sharpen your scissors. If you’ve got some dull scissors that aren’t fit to cut through oxygen, try folding some old aluminum foil into seven or eight layers and then cut into it with your scissors. It’ll be sharp and finally you can use them to cut out some of those now, much-needed coupons right?
2. Use as a stove cover or burner liner. I get spills and messes all the time from soups and grease, but cutting a hole in some aluminum foil and placing that around my burner makes the cleaning process a lot easier.
3. Gift wrap with it. This one is Landon’s idea and I’m not exactly sure if I approve of it aesthetically, but hey, it works!
4. Clean your jewelry. All you need to do is to take your jewelery (gold or silver), wrap them in foil along with some salt water, let it sit overnight, and in the morning it’ll be shining like nobody’s business.
5. Simply reuse it. Clean the aluminum with some warm soap and water, let it dry, and then use later on to wrap lunches or other food items.
6. Clean your iron. Is your iron getting all gross from starch and buildup? Run a bit of aluminum foil over your hot iron and that should do the trick.
7. Keep your pets off the furniture. I actually haven’t tried this before because I don’t mind my dog on my couch, but apparently if you place some of the foil over any area, your pets won’t jump onto it because of the noise.
8. Scrub pots. Those hard to clean messes after get-togethers can suck. My mom recommends that you crumple some aluminum foil and start attacking the stubborn left overs. It really works as well as steel wool!
9. Soften brown sugar. Wrap the hard sugar in foil and stick it in the oven at around 300° Fahrenheit for five minutes.
10. Fix loose batteries. Don’t you hate it when the batteries in your remote control keep getting loose? Just attach some aluminum to the springs; now you can get back to watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta in peace!

I hope these tips make living green a little easier and if you have some ideas of your own, please feel free to leave them in the comment box and I’ll post your suggestions right here!

John Mayer

GOD, John Mayer is so kick-ass. Normally at this point in the post, I’d do a little background and detail information, but he’s way too amazing so I’ll just let you listen to a couple of his tracks and start soaking up his awesomeness.

 Slow Dancing In A Burning Room, Continuum

 Daughters, Heavier Things

Absalom, Absalom!

I consider myself to be a great reader and lover of books. My library is extensive and I’ve read everything in it at least once, most twice, and some many times over.

I wish I were a book snob, but I’ll read anything that even remotely holds my interest (and some that won’t) and it’s just a wonderful bonus if it’s written well, so I’ve read a very wide range of genres.

Back in high school, we were required to read a lot of the great American novels and one of them was Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner.

Faulkner is a favorite of mine and I’ve read all of his other novels and most of his short stories, but Absalom, Absalom! was painful enough the first time (I don’t know what it is about AP English in high school, but it makes certain books very unappealing), so I never seriously contemplated reading it for pleasure again.

However, it seemed pretty unfair considering my grudge against it; the main reason I disliked it was because of my teacher. I’m all for analyzing and themes and symbols and literary styles, but there should be a law regulating how far one can go in ruining a good book. I mean, this guy leeched every meaning out of Absalom, Absalom! so that in the end, there was really nothing left and it made for a very unwholesome, highly unsatisfying experience.

But this weekend, I was determined to give it a second chance. I bought a fresh copy (one without any awkward and embarrassing annotations from my sixteen-year old self) and armed myself with just a cup of tea and a highlighter.

If you’ve yet to read it or if you didn’t like Absalom, Absalom! the first time, PLEASE open it again. I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much better it was the second time around (especially without the aid of my annoying English teacher) and it’s definitely worth a reread.

It’s Been Kinda Crazy….

We apologize for our lack of new posts for the week of Sunday, November 16th to Saturday, November 22nd.

As everyone probably knows, the wildfires have been ravaging many areas in Southern California where both Sophie and I live. Thank God, we haven’t been directly hit, but a lot of our friends are now homeless and we’ve been lending a hand wherever help was needed.

That’s why the714club decided to take the week off in this time of crisis; we should have given a heads up beforehand so we’re sorry, but now that that’s said, we hope everyone is praying and showing support for those who lost so much in the wildfires.

Thanks for your patience and please continue to check us out for more posts!

Prop. 8: STOP THE MADNESS!

PLEASE, protesters of Proposition 8, STOP the craziness.

I am a proud advocate of gay rights and I’ve marched in the streets peacefully alongside my friends and coworkers, but in NO WAY do I pardon the violence and disrespect that is marring our cause.

Of course I believe in the struggle and of course I fight for gay marriage, but only through marches, letters, blogs, and continuous support for the gay community.

TRUST ME. I know why people are angry and their anger is COMPLETELY justified, but threats and aggression is NOT THE ANSWER.

We need to rally around logic and reason; continued hostility will only make our opponents defensive and this is the time to open their minds and hearts to our motivations and intentions.

For those of you who want to learn more about our arguments against Prop. 8, look under politics for more posts on the714club’s reasoning.

Happy Birthday Rev Run

Shout out to Rev Run, because today, November 14th, is Mr. Joseph Simmons’ birthday!

Rev Run founded Run-D.M.C. as a rapper and he is now well-known among the younger generation for his MTV reality show Run’s House (SO HILARIOUS). He is the younger brother of Russell Simmons, a hip hop mogul and entrepreneur.

Happy Birthday Rev and many more to you!

Prop. 8: It’s Disgusting and Then Some

We here at the714club are sick and tired of Prop. 8 supporters trying to diminish the gay community, homosexual activists, and Prop. 8 protesters by labeling them as violent or disrespectful.

the714club DOES NOT condone violence and are saddened that some protesters are acting recklessly, but let’s remind everyone that there are extremists and crazies on BOTH sides of the fence, and that the majority of the protests are peaceful and law-abiding. But think about this: if a basic right of your own had been forced away, and by the vote of your fellow Americans, how would you feel? If you had to pay taxes to a government that refused to recognize your status as married, how would you react? These protesters are angry, and justly so, because they are being denied the right to be equal and just for being different and holding a minority belief.

We also want to take this time to address some of the allegations and arguments that Prop. 8 advocates have made. (We have other posts regarding Prop. 8 and you can look for them under Politics.)

Tony Perkins, a well-known conservative who is the president of the Family Research Council, has said that the “historic definition of marriage” is between a man and a woman only and that it is the duty of the American people to defend that institution. But if we played everything by its historical definition, blacks would still be slaved, women would not be empowered, and there would be no such thing as progress.

He also maintains that only heterosexual marriage is what’s best for children and that we cannot change public policy for only a few. Mr. Perkins, if you really wanted to do the right thing by our young people, you would allow those who have gay parents to have the benefit of a legal family. And what is this nonsense about not being able to change public policy for a few? We understand that although America makes decisions based on majority vote for majority benefit, those concern issues regarding rights that ALL people have, and not everyone has yet the right to get married. Also, please note that the American legal system is formulated to PROTECT the minority; we think someone needs to brush up on Government 101.

Another supporter of Proposition 8, this time one of our fellow bloggers, calls for love and acceptance. WHAT?! Love? For our government who has just refused the gay community equal rights? Acceptance? Just like Prop. 8 promoters accept that marriage should be legalized and available for all?

No. We cannot and will not love those who have stripped gay’s rights to marriage. No. We cannot and will not accept the intolerance and prejudice that forces gays to be lesser to heterosexuals. And until this Voldemort-like evil (whoo-hoo! A HP reference to boot! Take that Tony Perkins!) is abolished, we will continue to embrace our gay friends and family and strangers and we will further resist against intolerance and prejudice.

There is also confusion involving religious concerns. STOP throwing the Bible at us. Prop. 8 has NOTHING to do with religion or ethics or morals or beliefs. Proposition 8 is about politics and public policy and it shouldn’t matter what a person’s preferences are, government should NOT hold double standards. Prop. 8 is about giving everyone their due claim and without discrimination of any nature.

Many are also saying that gays can have civil unions, just not marriage. YOU KNOW WHAT? If EVERYONE can have civil union and NO ONE can have marriage, that’s FINE WITH US, because all we ask for is justice and impartiality.

If anyone has anything to add or disagree with anything we have said, PLEASE SPEAK UP! We welcome all intelligent counters and will continue to keep posting more arguments opposing Prop. 8 on this blog.