Liz's Bloglet - Monday 20 January 2003

So, if you insist that your god be as small and petty as you are, shouldn't that mean I get a god who's ever so slightly less small and petty? Why does it have to be a least common denominator thing? _
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10:36:03 AM, Monday 20 January 2003

"She's eighteen and you have the emotional maturity of a blueberry scone. Ask her to dance." _
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07:26:50 PM, Thursday 16 January 2003

Odd. Law and Order is on downstairs and I'm not watching it. I'm not in the mood for Law and Order. I thought I wasn't sick anymore, but it seems my sickness has taken a new and strange form. _
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10:45:19 PM, Wednesday 15 January 2003

I'm taking an engineering class. It's Open Channel Flow, and was openly advertised outside of the department (Biological and Agricultural Engineering, a secretive enclave far away on South Campus, full of people who secretly wish they were at Georgia Tech). There are 6 people in the class, 4 engineers, a guy from Forestry, and me. In spite of having actively recruited us, the professor seemed a little concerned about having non-engineers there, that we might not be able to handle the math. So he starts out with, "Most of you know how to calculate integrals, but you probably don't know what it actually means." But I'm a Johnny, so I know what an integral means (see the first page of the Principia), but only recollections from high school of how to calculate one. _
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04:15:35 PM, Wednesday 15 January 2003

Sometimes politicians are not unreasonable, evil fools. Citing 17 people wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, Governor Ryan of Illinois commutes all death sentences in his state. _
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12:28:23 PM, Saturday 11 January 2003

I heard Miss Manners (yes, I know, but bear with me) on NPR the other morning and she wasn't talking about how long you can wait before sending thank you notes. Her main point was that etiquette/respect/decency is very much dead right now and, to many people, the law seems to be the only resort. If people had any sense of etiquette/respect/decency they wouldn't smoke in crowded rooms, use their cell phones while driving, or say horrible things about women, minorities, or homosexuals on their albums. But outlawing these things ranges from silly to unconstitutional. But we pass the laws, anyway, if we can get away with it, because what's our other option?

Then I was reading yet another Metafilter thread on SUV's and thinking that the plague of vast vehicles is probably an extention of this same problem. Why do people drive huge, wasteful, dangerous vehicles? Because they can. It's not against the law. It's their right as red, white, and blue blooded Americans. Does it show any consideration for those around them? No, but it's their personal choice. And so is smoking, and so is using a cellphone while driving, and so is the junk said by certain comedians and musicians. They have a right to do it. And so they do it. Because they can. And nobody dare say that we shouldn't do everything we're allowed to do. But Miss Manners. And who cares what she says? _
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02:41:18 PM, Friday 10 January 2003

I hate making phone calls almost as much as I hate being sick. _
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02:25:32 PM, Friday 10 January 2003

Buffy Buffy Buffy Buffy Buffy Buffy Buffy Buffy _
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10:11:17 AM, Friday 10 January 2003

We've all heard that dividend taxation is double taxation and that more than half of American households own stock. But CNN reports the numbers that actually matter. "According to IRS data, just over 25 percent of U.S. tax filers claimed any dividend income on their 2000 returns, and 63 percent of the dividend income declared went to taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $100,000 or more." There now, don't you feel better knowing Bush is looking out for his friends so well? _
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08:51:24 PM, Wednesday 8 January 2003

New antibiotic. _
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10:04:21 AM, Wednesday 8 January 2003

I was healthy for one whole week. Thursday I even had energy. ::grumble:: _
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10:15:14 AM, Saturday 4 January 2003

This has really become The Home of the Rant lately. I would like to say that I had a lovely break. I spent a great week in Huntersville with much good talk and good food, my folks, Lee and Katrina, and almost all of my relatives at one time or another. Becca, Remi, and I had a fun night out. I got some very nice presents. I even got mostly healthy. Then we went to Michigan and attended the wonderful wedding of two wonderful people. And now I'm back at work/school, doing what I love to do. As angry as the world may make me sometimes, it's actually pretty good and I am pretty lucky. _
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09:29:00 AM, Thursday 2 January 2003

Neil linked to this, but I'm so upset I'm linking to it again. We made integration work. Charlotte-Mecklenburg was a good place to go to school for all kids. Huntersville Elementary was a good place to go to school for all kids. I went to school with kids from the projects and kids from the dairy farms, kids from the suburbs and kids from north Charlotte, kids from the trailer parks and kids from the country clubs, kids who could walk to school and kids who rode the bus a very long way. People moved to town from New Jersey and California and didn't know the history, didn't remember the struggle, didn't appreciate success. They have destroyed something that made me who I am, and I will not let it go unremarked upon. _
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08:51:36 PM, Wednesday 1 January 2003

We leave in the morning for Michigan and The Big Wedding. _
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09:48:19 PM, Sunday 29 December 2002

Thank you all for your lovely birthday wishes. My parents gave me a 40 gig portable drive, which will definitely help the ole 1 gig laptop out. The next step is to upgrade my 16 megs of ram. The computer could take 2 32-meg chips, for a whopping 80 megs of ram. Crazy. And it would cost more than the gig of ram we got for the G4. _
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12:45:25 PM, Thursday 26 December 2002

So, tomorrow is the Midwinter's Day. You know what that means: time to start reading The Dark is Rising. And today I was struck by the fact that two of the best children's authors, and probably two of the best fantasy authors, of our time are women whose main character is a boy. The boys have female sidekicks--well developed in Hermione's case, not so well in Jane's--but these are books where boys have adventures and girls "help". Looking at other books from the same genre, it could be argued that Rowling and Cooper have no better female characters than C.S. Lewis, but at least they do have some (see Tolkein). Dianna Wynne Jones seems a little bit better, with more developed and interesting female characters. And then I think about the other authors I loved as a child--Roald Dahl, Daniel Pinkwater, John Bellairs--and once again the best one can hope for is female sidekick. Is this a big deal?

Well, children's self-perception is definitely shaped by cultural messages in tv, movies, and books, just as much as by their interaction with other people. How many books do little girls have to read about playing second fiddle before they get the point? Then again, I never had trouble imagining myself as a main character, male or female, from any of those books. But I also had a strong aversion from all things girly, and I have to wonder if it was out of fear that wearing a dress would force me into sidekick status.

I remember the first time I read I, Robot and the delight I felt at Dr. Susan Calvin. Yes, she was a flawed, strange human being. But she was a woman, and she was the main character, and she didn't suck. And I have a lot of hope today because of the brilliance of Phillip Pullman. I think that Lyra Silvertongue is probably the best character in any children's fantasy book, beautifully gifted and beautifully flawed, and Sally Lockhart is pretty excellent, too.

My point is not to accuse J.K. Rowling or Susan Cooper. I don't want to say, "You are women, so you have to write books centered on female characters." My point is to accuse all children's writers, to ask why they feel they must follow the formula, why they can't be a little more creative and interesting, why they must keep their characters within societal conventions. They might have a flop. But they might have a Golden Compass. _
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09:36:45 AM, Friday 20 December 2002

Stupid paranoid leftists comparing Republicans to Nazis. It's really happening. They actually are rounding up Muslims. d _
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09:47:31 AM, Thursday 19 December 2002

Tonight's story on the Women Airforce Service Pilots was one of the best things on NPR in a long time. As one of them said "I just know I would have been really good at dogfighting." _
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01:42:42 AM, Thursday 19 December 2002

That's really weird. An hour or two ago I made some random post about how annoying the EPA webpage is and it was apparently rejected by my blog as not worth posting. _
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01:18:26 PM, Wednesday 18 December 2002

Trent Lott declares on BET that affirmative action is a good idea. The mind boggles. _
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09:10:14 AM, Tuesday 17 December 2002

Since Charles Schultz isn't around to do it anymore, I'd like to wish you all a Happy Beethoven's Birthday. _
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10:06:53 AM, Monday 16 December 2002

I wonder what Max Cleland and Henry Kissinger will have to say to one another. _
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03:31:31 PM, Thursday 12 December 2002

I took the population final and now that experience is finally over. So, I get to the computer lab and come to find out I needn't have bothered with all that hard work when the secret to getting tenure was on the web all along. _
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03:00:57 PM, Thursday 12 December 2002

On a completely unrelated note, many of you may not know that the newest DA on Law & Order is played by Senator Fred Dalton Thompson of Tennessee. _
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11:14:38 AM, Thursday 12 December 2002

In response to the president's latest reason for us to be hysterical, I thought I would offer the population ecology perspective on smallpox. Smallpox is not particularly prone to epidemics, because the ratio of infectiousness to time of infectiousness is pretty small. That is why, although not that many people were vaccinated, it was fairly easy to eradicate. This ratio is much larger in polio and measles, which is why they have not been eradicated. Remember, the Europeans had to give the Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox, because casual contact with an infected object was not enough to spread the disease. Also remember that a substantial portion of our population (those older than 50 or so and many younger who were born in other countries) have already been vaccinated against this not particularly infectious disease. Epidemics depend on having a critical size population infected all at once. We already have a smaller critical susceptible population, making an epidemic even less likely. Finally, remember that this vaccine is a live one, and as such is pretty dangerous in and of itself. Balance all of these facts against the absence of any credible threat, and then ignore the breathlessness of the president and CNN. _
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11:05:46 AM, Thursday 12 December 2002

I'm pleased to announce that I do not have mono. _
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11:06:37 AM, Monday 9 December 2002

For our fall concert, the Athens Chorale Society did Grieg's Four Psalms, which were fine and pretty, if a little old-fashioned, and two pieces by the American composer Robert Campbelle, conducted by him. They were interesting modern works, the Te Deum very music theory geeky, while the Magnificat was quite lovely, mixing some of that geekery with a blend of styles from throughout the ages. Oh, and it was the first performance of the Magnificat, so that was kind of cool.

For the spring concert, we're doing two pieces I've never heard of: Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna, which is apparently the hot new choral piece right now, and Dubois' The Seven Last Words. Any of you music geeks out there know them? _
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06:28:31 AM, Monday 9 December 2002

To further reinforce what Debbie said, and strongly support them in their decision to get out of NC for the duration, I'll repeat what I heard from my dad, who works for Duke Power, the power company for the western half of the state (CP&L is the company for the eastern half of the state). Half of Duke's customers have no power. The earliest they are promising power to people is Wednesday. 80% of CP&L's customers have no power. Debbie said the estimate on power restoration in Durham was a week, and so I would imagine for the many rural areas in eastern NC it could be even longer.

Before this, the largest outage in NC was Hurricane Hugo. Twice as many people have no power now. After Hugo, some people had no power for up to two weeks. Hugo was in September, when we were fine without heat or AC. It has been below freezing every night since the power went out in NC. My parents, and many other people in the state, have well water, so without power they also have no water. Without water moving through them or heat in the house, pipes will freeze and eventually break. My parents are lucky in that they have fireplaces, a gas grill, cars, and friends and relatives with water and power. Many people have none of these things. _
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10:47:46 AM, Saturday 7 December 2002

Because my term paper is not due until Friday, instead of Thursday as I had thought, I allowed myself a whole 1/2 hour of goofing off. Now it's back to the debate of whether predictable and/or unprdictable floods constitute a population-level disturbance in temperate vs subtropical vs arid vs mediterranean vs urban streams. _
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02:11:33 PM, Tuesday 3 December 2002

Since none of you silly people are blogging, I feel obligated.
We had:

Butternut Squash Soup
Turkey (with really good gravy)
Dressing
Green Beans
Cranberries
Sweet Potato Puffs
Cherry Crisp

And it was all really good. _
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08:58:38 AM, Friday 29 November 2002

It snowed. Just for us. How sweet. _
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10:27:24 AM, Wednesday 27 November 2002

"First I'll kill her, then I'll save her." _
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05:19:05 PM, Monday 25 November 2002

I can almost see the end of the semester from here. _
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11:25:27 AM, Thursday 21 November 2002

In 1971, 294,000 high school girls participated in high school sports in the US. In 2001, 2.7 million high school girls participated in high school sports in the US. When my mom was in high school, there was only a women's basketball team. At North Meck, when I graduated in 1995, women had cross country, tennis, soccer, swimming, basketball, volleyball, softball, track, and (because of Title IX) they could join the golf, wrestling, and football teams. The opportunities afforded me by Title IX enabled me to survive jr. high and high school. Now Title IX is under review.

I understand the complaints of the male wrestlers and gymnasts. It is not fair for their sports to be eliminated. The fault there lies in the size of football teams, however, not in the size of women's programs. NCAA Division I football teams can have 140 players. NFL teams can only have 100. The elimination of 40 football players, right here at UGA, for instance, would make space for men's wrestling and gymnastics, while keeping equal participation opportunites available for women.

So far in the review process, the voices loudest heard are those of people who would demolish Title IX. If you are a woman who ever played any sport in school, or if you just appreciate that everyone should have equal opportunities for sports, you can email the commissioners at OpportunityinAthletics@ed.gov. I will be telling them my story. _
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12:03:43 PM, Wednesday 20 November 2002

I'm going to drop out of school and become a professional soccer player. Just so you know. Today while we were playing it was very windy. About halfway through the game there was a horrible noise and one of the tall, skinny pine trees that borders the field fell over and landed on the sidelines. It was very exciting. I think the adrenaline rush helped me play. _
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04:32:00 PM, Sunday 17 November 2002

A pretty dramatic map of the second person plural. I participated in this survey and am the little dot over Huntersville (they do it based on where you lived during your childhood). _
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03:19:32 PM, Thursday 14 November 2002

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