Thanks for the hats, Becca!
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(2)
09:47:53 AM,
Friday 30 December 2005
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My mom and my nephew
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(3)
11:20:31 AM,
Thursday 29 December 2005
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I have uploaded some pictures to Flickr. Is their pro account good or is there some other photo site that people like better? I know that this has been talked about a million times, but I am apparently not an early adopter these days.
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(1)
11:13:52 AM,
Thursday 29 December 2005
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Thanks for the awesome package, Mike and Debbie!
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(1)
10:41:02 AM,
Thursday 29 December 2005
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E.O. Wilson has some nice things to say about a Liberal Arts college as a background for a scientist. (he is one of the greatest living American biologists, has written extensively on the philosophy of biology, and is the world expert on ants)
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(2)
09:18:53 AM,
Wednesday 28 December 2005
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Unrelatedly, Jingle Rock Bell is the greatest Christmas song ever and it pains me that those who don't read Metafilter may have never heard it.
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(8)
03:31:16 PM,
Monday 19 December 2005
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Advent Song
Thou shalt know him when he comes,
Not by any din of drums,
Nor his manners, nor his airs,
Nor by any thing he wears.
Thou shalt know him when he comes,
Not by a crown nor by a gown,
But his coming known shall be,
By the holy harmony
Which his coming makes in thee.
Thou shalt know him when he comes.
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03:27:05 PM,
Monday 19 December 2005
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Is it bad that on iTunes I've summarized Mendelssohn's Elijah into "If with all your hearts", "Lift thine eyes", "He watching over Israel", "O rest in the Lord", and "And then shall your light break forth"? Elijah doesn't even appear...
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(1)
02:20:18 PM,
Monday 19 December 2005
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Why I got arrested this Christmas. Some progressive Christians are using this Christmas as an opportunity to fight the war on poverty.
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(8)
12:48:37 PM,
Sunday 18 December 2005
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I'd just like to go on record as saying that I would rather die in a terrorist attack than live in a dictatorship. Thanks.
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(11)
05:07:34 PM,
Friday 16 December 2005
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The question has come up about the requirements for membership of different churches and I realize that I did not specifically address this in all of my verbosity about Presbyterianism. When I joined my church here I had to affirm the same things that I affirmed at my confirmation (I was 13) and that my parents affirmed for me at my baptism. Direct from the Book of Order they are:
"a. professing their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,
b. renouncing evil and affirming their reliance on God's grace,
c. declaring their intention to participate actively and responsibly in the worship and mission of the church"
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10:01:07 AM,
Friday 16 December 2005
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This is fascinating--the English translation of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex was done by somebody who knew nothing about French philosophical terminology and frequently gets her meaning exactly wrong (it also leaves out about 150 pages). The publishing house that owns the rights to English translation refuses to do a new one, and their rights don't run out until 2056.
What we need is a grad student in French who knows a lot about philosophy or a grad student in philosophy who knows a lot about French. Surely there's a Johnny somewhere who meets this description.
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(17)
09:05:45 AM,
Friday 16 December 2005
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This might be of interest to the nerdpublic--which is to say They Might Be Giants have a podcast.
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(2)
04:39:33 PM,
Wednesday 14 December 2005
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This just made my day.
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02:41:58 PM,
Tuesday 13 December 2005
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There's a new ocean forming in Ethiopia.
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10:35:03 AM,
Tuesday 13 December 2005
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Are "nice" and "honest" mutually exclusive?
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(2)
10:46:26 AM,
Monday 12 December 2005
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I'm just trying to have a dialogue!
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07:07:49 PM,
Saturday 10 December 2005
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What Not to Crochet. That is all.
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(3)
11:48:24 AM,
Friday 9 December 2005
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This AskMefi question about talking to people with different beliefs is poorly phrased and starts out badly, but this answer from one of Mefi's most notorious conservative Christians (and a Georgia Bulldog) is really, really good. This stuff should be obvious, but (obviously) it isn't. To summarize:
1)Don't call people names
2)Acknowledge the validity of their opinions
3)Don't generalize about people who share their beliefs
4)Make arguments against ideas, not the people who hold them
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07:53:06 PM,
Thursday 8 December 2005
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It would be nice if the Republican party would concern itself less with passing laws against things which reasonable people can think are acceptable (homosexuality and abortion) and concern itself a little more with not doing things that are already illegal because no reasonable person thinks they are acceptable (fraud, bribery, and torture). That is all.
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09:36:16 AM,
Thursday 8 December 2005
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Because Remi asked for it, my mom might find it useful, and other people might find it amusing, I give you: My Amazon Wishlist
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(3)
08:43:50 AM,
Wednesday 7 December 2005
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Or is that a nice way of saying they're too snobby? An extremely depressing story in the Duke paper today about how professors send their kids to pretty much any school except Durham Public Schools. A bright note is a guy I'm taking a class from in the Spring whose kids went to Durham schools all the way through and then both went to Harvard. Oh, and the principal from the elementary school on our street is quoted extensively and she's really funny (source of my opening line).
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(5)
05:52:20 PM,
Tuesday 6 December 2005
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My friend Dawn had her second baby yesterday, a little girl named Aspen Pearl. Everybody is doing well. I don't think she reads this, but people who know her do.
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(4)
09:21:59 AM,
Tuesday 6 December 2005
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A Light Blazes in the Darkness is a beautiful Advent devotional blog by a group of female progressive clergy. Updated daily.
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09:07:27 AM,
Tuesday 6 December 2005
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My friend Becky discovered a new diatom in Lake Superior. I am not that cool.
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(2)
10:56:01 AM,
Monday 5 December 2005
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Amanda nails it: Instead of openly admitting that they want to use any means necessary to force their religious beliefs on women, religious wingnuts instead are pretending that they are actually being oppressed if they are forced by law to respect others' right to their own beliefs.
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06:38:13 AM,
Monday 5 December 2005
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Remember how University Ford in Athens destroyed my soul by breaking my car further while not actually fixing it and charging me an outrageous sum of money? Well, they have been shut down. Apparently, they dealt just as poorly with the automotive companies as they did with their customers--they lost first their Lincoln-Mercury business, then Mazda last spring, then Ford in October and are now out of business. Good riddance.
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(2)
09:52:47 AM,
Sunday 4 December 2005
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Flo-Control: Nerds with Cats
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(4)
07:16:31 PM,
Saturday 3 December 2005
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It's sleeting. NC does crappy weather like no place else.
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04:40:21 PM,
Saturday 3 December 2005
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Remi's mom showed me Conceptis Logic Puzzles. Sudoku is the sort of thing they do, but it is the simplest kind of puzzle they have. New puzzles weekly, Easter Egg Puzzles all over the site, etc.
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(3)
09:51:36 PM,
Friday 2 December 2005
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This makes me nauseous. These people so lacking are willing to destroy our denomination just so they can dictate who God is allowed to call as a pastor. The use of the Presbyterian Church in the US name, a name inextricable from its racist origins, seems like a particularly bad idea, and I say that as someone who of course attended a PCUS church until the PCUSA reunified in the mid-80's.
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03:37:27 PM,
Friday 2 December 2005
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Privilege is driving a smooth road and not even knowing it. Alas, a Blog has been quiet recently, but here Ampersand revives one of his best posts ever--a must read for white people and men.
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(3)
11:18:49 AM,
Friday 2 December 2005
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Well I come 'round the corner and see you there
And my heart begins to race
You look up from where you are tying your shoe
And smile at me with such warmth and such grace
That I have to stop what I'm doing
I am frozen in time and space
When I finally move I trip over your cat
And fall right flat on my face
Because I'm stupid in love
I'm clumsy in love
I'm goofy in love
I'm stupid in love with you
We went to the ocean, we played in the water
We walked along the sand
And we went out to dinner and sipped champagne
And completely ignored the band
And you looked in my eyes and told me you loved me
And reached out to touch my hand
And that's when the waiter dropped our food
And ran for the nearest trashcan
Because we're stupid in love
I mean we're disgustingly in love
Revoltingly in love
I'm stupid in love with you
You fill me full of music
I'm singing all of the time
I am writing down my grocery list
And it's coming out in rhyme
Because I'm stupid in love
I mean I'm hopelessly in love
I'm cheesy in love
I'm stupid in love with you
Thanks for 8 awesome years, sweetie.
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(2)
09:00:48 PM,
Thursday 1 December 2005
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A professor here, and a man no less, just gave the most concise explanation I have yet heard about the disparity in numbers between men and women in the sciences:
To be a scientist requires a perfect balance of humility and confidence. Because of the way our society is structured, men are more likely to get out of balance on the side of having too much confidence, while women are more likely to get out of balance on the side of having too much humility. Nobody ever changed majors/dropped out of grad school/didn't apply for a post-doc/quit a job because of too much confidence.
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(6)
02:44:44 PM,
Thursday 1 December 2005
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Poop on Metafilter!
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10:56:05 AM,
Wednesday 30 November 2005
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Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
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(1)
10:21:32 AM,
Tuesday 29 November 2005
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