Liz's Bloglet - Monday 30 July 2007

Also, our cats want you to see how stupid they look when they're asleep

_
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07:59:58 PM, Monday 30 July 2007

I finally found my camera cord, so now I can show you the sisters Rios

and me

at Cafe Du Monde. _
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07:52:37 PM, Monday 30 July 2007

Biologists Helping Bookstores
I'm not sure if you've noticed, but some bookstores seem to have a little problem discerning science from non-science. I'm specifically talking about biology books vs. creationist books. Sometimes, you will find psuedo-scientific rubbish such as "intelligent design" books next to such authors as Darwin, Mayr, Gould, et al.

It is my mission to correctly re-shelve books to the appropriate section of the bookstore. _
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03:06:36 PM, Monday 30 July 2007

A recent study found that men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice". _
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11:49:14 AM, Monday 30 July 2007

So I don't read Gawker. But somebody from Metafilter pointed out that they were running a Vote for America's most annoying liberal arts college contest. Since Metafilter's most annoying member is a Johnnie, the assumption was the SJC would be on there. But it's not. In general it's a very New York/New England centric list. Which isn't shocking since it's Gawker. They did manage to squeeze Reed and Evergreen and Oberlin on there, though. And Swarthmore. They really don't care for Swarthmore.

The finalists were Sarah Lawrence and Wesleyan. Sarah Lawrence got the most votes, but the editors gave the win to Wesleyan on the grounds that Sarah Lawrence alumns were excited about it.

But what I really wanted to say was that this contest brought to my attention for the first time Goddard and Eugene Lang and I have to admit that they are both more annoying than I would have expected from schools that I had not heard of before. And going back now I probably would have voted for Goddard. (I voted for Brown because I just really hate the Ivy League). _
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09:11:23 AM, Saturday 28 July 2007

LOLDeatheaters!

Obviously this should not be read unless you have an affection for Harry Potter and have finished Book 7. If you do and have, you will enjoy its loving mocking. _
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11:52:57 AM, Friday 27 July 2007

Spiderman and Planned Parenthood team up to educate kids about sex _
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03:33:28 PM, Thursday 26 July 2007

I have learned something. The reason all of our academic buildings are so cold in the summer is that they used chilled water systems rather than conventional air conditioners. The system is actually most energy efficient at around 50 degrees F, which also helps maintain proper constant temperature and humidity in the labs. The air warms as it moves through the building. To make offices closer to 70 than 60 would actually require using extra energy to heat individual rooms directly or reducing the efficiency of the chilled water system. I don't know why I never knew this before, but now I will wear my longsleeves inside without griping. _
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10:56:57 AM, Wednesday 25 July 2007

I went to get my Harry Potter, but I can't read it yet. I have to tell you these stories, first.

Joan and William
Joan was a schoolteacher. Her dad was sick and lived with her in the house she grew up in. Her next-door neighbor and dear friend William took care of her dad during the day while she worked. Her dad died one week before Katrina hit. Joan and William spent the week grieving and planning a funeral and hosting out of town friends and family. They did not pay attention to the news.

Joan was awakened early the morning the hurricane hit by a call from family who had just arrived home after driving all night from New Orleans. They told her to leave then. She checked on William, but he didn't seem to be home so she assumed he had left with his sister. She left town as fast as she could.

William's sister thought he was with Joan. William was at home asleep, though. He was awakened by the storm. The next morning, water from the canal filled his home (and every home on the street) to the ceiling. He was found several days later on the roof of a house a couple of blocks away. He was taken unconscious to Texas. His leg was amputated to save his life from a Vibrio infection. Semi-conscious, he told someone his name was James, and he was listed that way on the hospital list. Luckily, he had given himself a distinctive tattoo in high school, and he was finally found by his family and friends that way.

We finished the drywall in Joan's bedroom, and the one that used to be her dad's. She still needs a plumber and an electrician, which will probably require more months of waiting. In the meantime, she feels lucky to have found an apartment in the city, so she can come visit the volunteers working on her house. The school she worked at has not reopened. William is still in Texas. His roof is still covered with a tarp, which is slowly falling apart.

Winnie and Charles
Winnie and Charles were living their dream. They had sold the family house in the Ninth Ward and bought a big house in a nice neighborhood. Winnie's mother would be able to leave the nursing home and live with them. Two weeks later the hurricane hit.

Winnie and Charles went to stay in a shelter, all of their possessions including all of their new furniture in their new house was gone under 5 feet of water. Winnie's mom was rescued from the nursing home and eventually went to stay with her other daughter in San Francisco. She got sicker, and had to go back into a nursing home there. Winnie and Charles came back to their neighborhood as soon as they could. They started asking around about who was helping people. Their house was one of the first ones in the neighborhood gutted, and the work was done by volunteers. Then volunteers rebuilt the whole thing.

On Friday morning, I stood in Charles and Winnie's house as it was dedicated. It is beautiful. Two years after the storm, it was the first house completed start to finish by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance in New Orleans. Other houses that did not have to be gutted have been finished, but this was the first complete rebuild. In honor of the occasion, Winnie wore the flip-flops given to her in the shelter when she showed up without shoes. She explained that she wears size 11, and those were the only shoes they had which would fit her. They were so excited, because finally her mom would be able to come home. _
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10:47:07 AM, Sunday 22 July 2007

Besides lolcats quizzes, another happy thing--reconnection with an old friend who found me on MySpace. Wes and I were 2 of 5 kindergarteners in a classroom full of 1st graders (I've never understood why it was so unbalanced). From kindergarten to high school, he was the biggest science nerd in our class, the one who was able to revel in it and seem cool for his love of science. I'm delighted he found me. _
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08:52:45 AM, Sunday 22 July 2007

You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone. _
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08:00:10 AM, Sunday 22 July 2007

I can take a picture of one destroyed house. I can even take a picture of a whole street of destroyed houses. But I can't take a picture of a destroyed city. Google's satellite images show New Orleans as I cannot.

Lower Ninth Ward

The block I was working on in New Orleans East

Eastover Country Club

The block I worked on last Thanksgiving near Tulane

Scroll around at any scale and just look. Every blue spot is a tarp on a house that can't be repaired in any other way until it gets a new roof. Those tarps are now aging and falling apart.

It is not over. They need our help. Any of us in any city could be next. We are all in this together. _
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10:31:14 PM, Saturday 21 July 2007

This morning I watched the sun rising over St. Louis Bay as we left Louisiana and headed through Mississippi. This evening I watched it set over the hills of central North Carolina.

I offer you two statistics. The disaster area following Katrina was the size of Great Britain. Currently, 2 years later, in New Orleans, the best estimate is that 25% of residences have been repaired and have been reinhabited. There is no current estimate of what percentage have been abandoned and will never be repaired.

Go look out your window right now and imagine your neighborhood with 3/4 of the houses in various stages from no roof to no walls, with rotting 2 year old tarps everywhere. Imagine some of your neighbors living in trailers in the front yard, but most of them leaving the (poisonous) trailers behind and living in Houston or Memphis or Minneapolis or San Francisco. Whatever your neighborhood is like--apartments or houses or townhouses or big suburban mcmansions--I saw a neighborhood just like it in New Orleans that was in that condition. _
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09:53:11 PM, Saturday 21 July 2007

We're here. I thought it would be better. But it's not. For those of you who wonder what the Gulf Coast looks like almost 2 years after Katrina, the answer is hardly better than it looked 1 year after Katrina. We drove past the same shells of apartment complexes and the same FEMA trailer parks. _
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07:22:21 AM, Monday 16 July 2007

"The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America," he said. "After all, you just go to an emergency room."

President George W Bush on healthcare reform _
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08:54:28 AM, Friday 13 July 2007

So I did get to see Girlyman at Festival for the Eno. And they were amazing and fun and I can't wait to see them again. Sets at the festival are usually broken up by an hour and frequently performers switch stages between sets. In between seeing Girlyman, I saw John McCutcheon (check out the url, that's how long he's been doing this stuff). I had seen him before and grew up hearing his songs not know who wrote them (you probably did to). He even was the commencement speaker at my sister-in-law's college graduation. But it was great to see him again. He sang a new song that made the whole crowd go silent, then sing on the chorus:

In the little town that I was born in
Early every Sunday morning
We'd drive past those fields of corn
That lead us to St. James
Planted in those hard, oak pews
Your neighbors sitting next to you
We said the words each of us knew
As well as our own names

Our Father, who art in heaven
Holy is your name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
Give us our daily bread
Then came the hardest part
The one that troubled every heart
Those haunting words of mystery
That long have followed after me

Forgive us as we forgive
Forgive us as we forgive
Forgive us
Forgive us

In the long years since those days
My soul and heart have often strayed
But still I bow my life to pray
Those sweet familiar words
And though the meanings shift and dart
Whenever I come to that part
It stirs my soul and stills my heart
Like nothing I have heard

Forgive us as we forgive
Forgive us as we forgive
Forgive us
Forgive us

In that Pennsylvania town
That awful day that awful sound
Madness struck the young girls down
A tale too often heard
These strangers from another time
They knew the grief, they knew the crime
Still somehow, somewhere they could find
The strength to say these words

Forgive us as we forgive
Forgive us as we forgive
Forgive us
Forgive us

Sometimes what's holy is so true
It's standing right in front of you
There's nothing you can really do
There's nothing you can say
Except to humbly take your place
In the trials that we face
May we somehow find the grace
To live the words we pray

Forgive us as we forgive
Forgive us as we forgive
Forgive us
Forgive us _
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08:39:27 AM, Friday 13 July 2007

Check it out: I have something pleasant to report about Duke. A bunch of students are spending the summer in New Orleans as part of Duke Engage, which is a big service learning program. They are working in all different aspects of life in New Orleans and documenting their stories in a really interesting blog. So, today, for a couple minutes, I will say nice things about Duke. Duke Engage is a cool program, and the way these students are spending their summer is about the best thing they could be doing. _
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10:33:41 AM, Thursday 12 July 2007

Orac explains why the classic libertarian lines of argument against global climate change are stupid, and would still be stupid even if scientists were wrong about climate change Also, it makes for very unfunny stand-up. _
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12:59:52 PM, Wednesday 11 July 2007

When I was 8, I found this rock in Flat Creek in Montreat, NC. Every summer when we visited the town I would go spend some time hanging out on this rock and fooling around in the creek surrounding it. When I got older, groups of us would "rock hop" the length of this stream through town, spending hours, then walk back home on the roads. I believe that our genes, and each and every one of our experiences, and everything else all go into making us who we are, and who we are called to be. But I also am pretty sure that this rock and this creek made me a stream ecologist.

_
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06:07:24 PM, Sunday 8 July 2007

This Mary Oliver poem has been stuck in my head for a couple of weeks now, so I thought I'd post it to my blog. It fits my summer, and other people's words are so much better than our own, sometimes.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver_
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06:10:53 PM, Saturday 7 July 2007

If Iran Were America (And We Were Iran): A Timeline _
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07:45:07 AM, Saturday 7 July 2007

Let's play Libertarian Bingo! _
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03:58:45 PM, Friday 6 July 2007

A cool new energy storage system, despite the unfortunate phrasing of a Dept of Energy official.
"We'd like to see storage ubiquitous," says Imre Gyuk, head of energy storage for the Department of Energy, which helped fund the AEP project. "Stick it any place you can stick it." _
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03:49:19 PM, Thursday 5 July 2007

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover-leaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh, hear my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.
_
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07:47:40 AM, Wednesday 4 July 2007

Keith Olbermann gives the commentary of the year
�I didn�t vote for him,� an American once said, �But he�s my president, and I hope he does a good job.�

That�on this eve of the 4th of July�is the essence of this democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis �Scooter� Libby. _
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07:42:10 AM, Wednesday 4 July 2007

Another victory for the oligarchy. They don't respect us, our laws, our elected representatives and judges, our justice system, or our Constitution. _
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06:33:22 AM, Tuesday 3 July 2007

SiCKO made me cry. Our household hasn't faced that many healthcare problems, but who knows what could happen tomorrow: one of us has student health insurance (full of bizarre exceptions) and the other has none. Moving to another country doesn't seem so bad right now, except for the problem one of the Americans living in France talked about, how she feels guilty for having so much better of a life than her family still in the US. _
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10:06:29 PM, Sunday 1 July 2007

Michael Berube writes about the power of Harry Potter in the life of his son Jamie, who has Down's Syndrome.
...at one point a Ministry operative, assigned to Hogwarts in order to undermine Dumbledore, gives Harry a series of abusive 'detentions' that consist of scratching the sentence 'I must not tell lies' into his arm. It's gruesome, not least because Harry is telling the truth; but then, this is one of the lessons of the series: the people in charge are often capricious, clueless, and cruel. Jamie could have been horrified by this, but he wasn't. Instead, he began to ask about things like 'innocence' and 'justice.' So the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, in Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (1995), gets at this critical question by way of Charles Dickens, and Jamie Berube gets at it by way of J. K. Rowling: so what? One's a prolific novelist who writes triple-deckers packed with plot twists and idiosyncratic characters, and the other is a pop-cultural phenomenon with an enthusiastic American readership and a line of products A Christmas Carol chief among them that has spawned all manner of spinoffs and tie-ins. Both are seductive narrators, and both have had their snooty detractors. _
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04:07:09 PM, Sunday 1 July 2007

Pro-Life Patter _
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10:13:36 PM, Saturday 30 June 2007

Congratulations nutcase conservatives, the Supreme Court is re-segregating our public schools. Are you happy, yet? Are you still feeling oppressed by liberals and our horrible ways? _
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08:07:09 AM, Friday 29 June 2007

So I am here this week. We have wireless (it is the 21st century after all), but I hope to not be online all that much because there are so many other things to be doing. _
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08:16:36 AM, Monday 25 June 2007

The American Civil Liberties Union today applauded the Senate Appropriations Committee�s decision to cut funding for the Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program and raise funding for the family planning program Title X.

woot. _
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09:27:35 AM, Friday 22 June 2007

So, brief actor craziness. The boy who played Zack on "Picket Fences" (which is supposed to be released on DVD any day now) was on "Gilmore Girls" many years later as the much picked-on Brad at Rory's high school. He disappeared from that show for awhile, and the explanation was made that Brad was somehow on Broadway playing Jack in "Into the Woods".

It turns out that Adam Wylie actually was on Broadway playing Jack in "Into the Woods", thus raising his coolness level pretty much infinitely. It would have been hard to top being on "Picket Fences", but he managed to do it. He's now in "Wicked" in LA, which I know less about but is probably also very cool. _
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08:24:09 PM, Thursday 21 June 2007

I am starting a professional subject matter blog focused on stream restoration with hopefully some collaborators as a follow up to a project that is now ending after several painful years. It might well be quite dull to those who aren't interested in the science/art/business/myth of stream restoration. I have wanted to do science blogging but find myself torn between that and political/religion/life blogging and the real incompatibility of the two, so my solution is to have two completely separate blogs that don't link to each other and have the science one associated with my name. This is not to say that there will not be science here. Since that is a stream restoration focused blog and my scientific interests are a good bit broader than just stream restoration, it is likely that science content will still be here sometimes. Anyway, the name of the blog includes the word restoring and also the word rivers and it is hosted on that rather common blog hosting site owned by google. And that's as close as you're going to get to a link. _
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02:51:43 PM, Wednesday 20 June 2007

I just want to call Tim out in public for his excellent participation in discussions about healthcare recently. It can be hard to hold a minority opinion, especially when you're speaking from experience and other people are speaking from ideals. And we all agree (ha) that unfortunately many people somehow managed to leave SJC without learning anything about how to actually have a conversation. So, good on you, Tim. You gave me a lot to consider about the practical applications of universal care, as well as why we're in this mess to begin with. _
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06:52:44 AM, Wednesday 20 June 2007

Sticks and stones
Battle zones
A single light bulb
On a single thread for the black
Sirens wail
History fails
Rose-colored glass
Begins to age and crack
While the politicians shadowbox
The power ring
In an endless split decision
Never solve anything
From a neighbors distant land
I heard the strain of the common man

Let it be me
(this is not a fighting song)
Let it be me
(not a wrong for a wrong)
Let it be me
If the world is night
Shine my life like a light

Well the world seems spent
And the president
Has no good idea
Of who the masses are
Well I'm one of them
And I'm among friends
We're trying to see beyond
The fences in our own backyards
I've seen the kingdoms blow
Like ashes in the winds of change
But the power of truth
Is the fuel for the flame
So the darker the ages get
There's a stronger beacon yet

Let it be me
(this is not a fighting song)
Let it be me
(not a wrong for a wrong)
Let it be me
If the world is night
Shine my life like a light

In the kind word you speak
In the turn of the cheek
When your vision stays clear
In the face of your fear
Then you see turning out a light switch
Is their only power
When we stand like spotlights
In a mighty tower
All for one and one for all
Then we sing the common call

Let it be me
(this is not a fighting song)
Let it be me
(not a wrong for a wrong)
Let it be me
If the world is night
Shine my life like a light _
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02:30:28 PM, Tuesday 19 June 2007

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