Liz's Bloglet - Friday 21 November 2003

This is a story about a boy named Jack. Jack lived up in the mountains and loved a river. Jack grew up to be one of the most famous aquatic scientists in the world. Jack's country did some damage to the river he loved but it also had the right and power to make the river healthier. The government asked Jack and some other scientists to come up with a plan to better manage the river. They did. The government liked the plan and was going to use it. Then a new president was elected. He told Jack to go to hell. Now Jack is a mad, extremely famous aquatic scientist, watching the river he loves die. And he's not being quiet about it. In an email he sent to our restoration working group, Dr. Jack Stanford said, "Sometimes science is not enough." Just as with the Iraq war and the economy, the Bush administration's environmental policy ignores the truth in favor of its a priori agenda. They must be stopped, for the sake of the whole world, and the Gunnison River. _
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09:04:31 AM, Friday 21 November 2003

South Carolina may be boring in lots of other ways, but it is home to more species of carnivorous plant than anywhere else on earth. _
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09:36:08 AM, Thursday 20 November 2003

My proposal is, in fact, D-U-N Dun. I just have to get it to FedEx by 6, which means I can actually do work today. _
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08:56:39 AM, Wednesday 19 November 2003

Number one reason I should hurry up and finish this proposal:
I see no reason not to title it "If you build it, they will come: Ecosystem effects of stream restoration." _
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02:01:20 PM, Monday 17 November 2003

It would be nice if big, important people with Dr. in front of their name and 10 billion publications remembered that they weren't always famous and that 10 minutes of their time can make all the difference in the world for someone just starting out. But they don't. _
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01:48:37 PM, Thursday 13 November 2003

Took the afternoon to get my sanity under control and do a little ::shudder:: self-examination. In honor of this, I tidied up the sidebar. _
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07:04:13 PM, Wednesday 12 November 2003

Creepy Conspiracy Theory
Four of the soliders who rescued POW Private Lynch are dead, one having died in action in Afghanistan and the other three dying in separate incidents after returning to the US. Although the doctors who examined Private Lynch in Iraq deny any physical evidence, the Pentagon has announced that Lynch was shot and stabbed and that she was raped. The former was later retracted, but the latter has not. Bizarre amounts of propaganda and profitting abound.
/Creepy Conspiracy Theory _
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08:23:07 AM, Saturday 8 November 2003

We have a walnut tree overhanging our roof. This makes for excitement and fear when the wind blows this time of year. At some point I should actually go out in the yard and pick some up. _
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07:56:38 AM, Saturday 8 November 2003

It must be so nice to be a Congressman...to be able to say that an unpleasant medical procedure should be outlawed because it makes you uncomfortable...to be able to say that you don't need to include a clause protecting a woman's life in the bill because you have decided that the procedure is never medically necessary...to be able to vote for this law knowing it will never be your own death sentence...and then to be able to go home, look at your wife or daughter, and say, "I love you, honey, but principles are more important than your life, re-election is more important than your life, and I don't trust you and your doctor with a difficult decision, so my friends and I made it for you." _
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08:15:50 AM, Thursday 6 November 2003

My advisor is an extremely optimistic person, sometimes to the point of insanity; she convinces me to do what I really want to do, even when it seems like a longshot. _
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03:39:05 PM, Wednesday 5 November 2003

All those designing webpages meant to convey information who use animation and sound effects, or stupid little flash menus, or anything else completely unnecessary, should be made to peel potatoes. _
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05:13:26 PM, Monday 3 November 2003

It's Fall Break. And you know what that means...that's right, it's time for a conference on invasive exotic earthworms at the Institute of Ecology. This means that I could spend the day not doing anything at all related to my research while still being at work. _
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08:30:49 AM, Friday 31 October 2003

CNN does a story on the SUV culture wars at UGA. _
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12:38:42 PM, Thursday 30 October 2003

Who are they trying to make happy by saying that the president's staff wasn't responsible for the "Mission Accomplished" banner? Those of us who knew at the time the mission wasn't accomplished are not that likely to believe anything that comes out of the president's mouth at this point. Those who were convinced the mission was accomplished in the May are just going to be confused about why the president doesn't want to take credit for the banner. I mean, really. _
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09:33:37 AM, Wednesday 29 October 2003

My senior year of high school, I was female student-athlete of the year. I just discovered, while idly wandering the internet, that my male counterpart did a post-senior year at Phillips Academy Andover, then was a big basketball star at Penn State, and now plays for an Italian team in the European league. My current big athletic achievement is walking to school everyday and using my body to block soccer balls on Sunday afternoon. Oh well. _
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09:59:55 PM, Saturday 25 October 2003

I'm just so weary of stereotypes/generalizations/statistics/saying something about an individual based on a group to which they happen to belong. I'm tired of "Stereotypes are based on truth." I'm tired of "Without these prejudgements we wouldn't be able to say anything at all. We wouldn't know how to treat other people. Our social interactions would fall apart." Please, if all you know about me is based on a prejudgement about women, Southerners, white people, liberals, Johnnies, scientists, Presbyterians, bloggers, folks living in sin, or eaters of noodles, please understand that you still know nothing about me. I will try to do the same. It's a big, sometimes virtual, always awkward world, and realizing that what we are is not who we are will help us all get along a little better. _
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08:56:47 PM, Saturday 25 October 2003

Everybody sing along: The idiot son of an asshole (warning, may offend people who don't like music and/or Republicans) _
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11:18:47 AM, Saturday 25 October 2003

There is going to be a class in Advanced Banjo next semester. But there is also supposed to be much thesis completion next semester. Why do I have to make these choices? _
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03:11:59 PM, Thursday 23 October 2003

The tone of this article makes me ill. How dare Busta Rhymes criticize Republicans? Doesn't he know it's unamerican and reflects badly on our homecoming festivities? _
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11:01:09 AM, Tuesday 21 October 2003

Let's see...I really enjoyed Kill Bill. It made me laugh and the violence was just silly, anime-style stuff, not even vaguely real. I am a Christian (who avoids saying it because I'm so ashamed of what so many people have done with the word) who loves a (cultural, non-religious-practicing) Jew. I absolutely believe in the idea of a homeland for the Jews and one for the Palestinians. I used to read The New Republic all the time, but about halfway through Clinton's first term all their political stuff became torture and I only read the book, movie, and art reviews. Recently I've stopped reading even those. Easterbrook's stuff mostly bores me, but I think his writing on Kill Bill was 1)stupid and 2)anti-semitic. If he was so offended by the violence in Kill Bill, he should get out more. There's a lot of horrible ugliness in this world that he could be fighting against, and very little of it involves samurai swords. Or perhaps he should get out less and not see movies like that so he wouldn't feel the need to say nasty things about the movie executives who funded a movie that was actually really good. _
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09:47:40 AM, Tuesday 21 October 2003

For those who like to plan ahead... _
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12:38:44 PM, Monday 20 October 2003

Is it so weird that I am offended when a man uses "woman" as an insult to another man? _
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08:50:56 AM, Monday 20 October 2003

"It's hard to say who's the best. I mean, Bela Fleck's the best, but, other than him, it's hard to say who's the best."
--also my banjo teacher _
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02:14:19 PM, Friday 17 October 2003

"Banjo playing isn't hard work. If it was, I wouldn't be doing it. I've managed to avoid work my entire life."
--my banjo teacher _
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09:47:43 AM, Friday 17 October 2003

Haven't been feeling bloggy. College Park is a pretty dull place, but there is an awesome Burmese restaurant (and the Metro to get to more interesting places). I'm glad to be home, though. Athens rocks. _
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04:47:09 PM, Wednesday 15 October 2003

Today we're going to work at our UM PI's house in Davidsonville, then for a ride on the bay, then dinner in Naptown. It's worlds intersecting all over the place. _
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08:37:25 AM, Sunday 12 October 2003

"Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives. It's about advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and in our world. Politics is about doing well for people." -Paul Wellstone _
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12:17:16 PM, Thursday 9 October 2003

Many people think that The Simpsons was the first primetime cartoon where kids would get half the jokes, but the political and social humor was for adults. They are wrong. And now the first season of Rocky and Bullwinkle has been remastered and released on dvd. _
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09:30:06 AM, Saturday 4 October 2003

We're having unusually perfect fall weather: cool, breezy, shocking blue sky. Not even vaguely Georgia-like. This sort of weather always makes me think about cross country and marching band--not that I would ever want to be in high school again--but we sure had fun. _
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04:13:30 PM, Thursday 2 October 2003

John Spencer (Leo on The West Wing) played the grieving father (uncredited) in the first ever episode of Law and Order. Oh, and of all the horrible Southern accents in JFK Kevin Bacon's was the absolute worst. (This message brought to you by the 'Remi's out of town and I'm doing data entry to dvd's' department). _
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09:02:30 AM, Tuesday 30 September 2003

Michael Moore responds to the wacko attackos. Frankly, I'm getting weary of leftists dissing Michael Moore to prove how fair and balanced they are (see snopes.com). It's nice to see him sticking up for himself and his art in the face of all the "common wisdom" about how partisan and error-prone the movie was. _
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11:54:27 AM, Thursday 25 September 2003

A lot of the Annapolis underwater pictures made me cry, but this one is pretty funny. Uh...they have boats...right? _
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03:10:52 PM, Tuesday 23 September 2003

Sonny Perdue isn't evil. It is easy to think only the worst of those with whom we disagree. Sonny Perdue did pander to racists with the confederate flag issue in order to get elected. But I take back calling him simply an one-issue, ignorant, racist. He is, in fact, like most of us, a multi-dimensioned human being. (I'm not going to go so far as to say the same for the president and his cronies.) _
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12:14:59 PM, Monday 22 September 2003

I just heard the owner of City Dock Coffee on All Things Considered. It sounds like the city dock was pretty devastated. He said some stores are probably total losses. Some National Guardsfolk built him a wall of sandbags and he was open this morning serving coffee to Annapolitans, in spite of there still being 3 feet of water outside. _
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05:26:22 PM, Saturday 20 September 2003

Watching Newsies while doing data entry, I wondered if any of those singing and dancing young men went on to have careers. Well, Christian Bale certainly did. You might think that Max Casella hasn't done a whole lot since Doogie Howser, and you'd be mostly right, but he played a recurring role on The Sopranos, he's done lots of cartoon voices, and is currently playing Marcellus in The Music Man on Broadway. Aaron Lohr was one of the Bash Brothers in the Mighty Ducks movies (you know you love them). Otherwise, they've had bit roles in the Scary Movies and Jeepers Creeperses, been on MTV's Undressed, and been dancers in music videos. A few of them haven't acted since they were on Kids Incorporated! (big bonus points to anybody else who remembers that show). _
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03:17:50 PM, Saturday 20 September 2003

A Metatalk post about the particular simple style of Metafilter, and its popularity in the blog-world, and the possibility that Mathowie invented it. Matt says, basically, he looked at Slashdot and got rid of the things that drove him crazy. Until I read this, it hadn't really occurred to me just how much I prefer Metafilter, and the basic Bloglet blog, to other weblog styles. Live Journal drives me insane with all the little subtitles and icons and I feel that way about lots of things that people have created themselves with Moveable Type and such. So, my question is, am I just a boring person or is readability (and, to some extent, enjoyability) lost with bells and whistles? Do some people really enjoy having little Harry Potter faces tell them the mood of the blogger? _
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01:49:19 PM, Friday 19 September 2003

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