Liz's Bloglet - Friday 7 September 2007

Madeleine L'Engle died. She and Susan Cooper were the most important authors of my childhood and the only ones I regularly reread still. Her vision of the world has also been what I aspire to, where magic, science, religion, and love all blend together and there are people who really are battling for the higher good (and her bad people were usually more misguided and stupid than evil).

I've been slowly collecting the complete L'Engle--I'm missing 1 Austins book, 1 Crosswicks book, and two of the weird Hebrew Bible stories ones (Joseph and Jonah, I think?). Her non-fiction is bizarre and unexpected--Walking on Water is the most unusual book about the creative process I've ever read, and I love it. I know that many folks don't get her books, and the religion stuff bothers a lot of people, but her voice was unique and I think helped some kids learn to be better people.

She used this quote from Robert Frost in The Arm of the Starfish and I think his words say what there is to say about her life and what her books tried to teach us:
But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes. _
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08:56:53 PM, Friday 7 September 2007

I have lost my voice. It had never occurred to me just what an advantage this is in grad school. People leave me alone; my advisor expects only short answers to her questions; I don't have to answer the phone. I see very little incentive to get it back. _
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10:55:54 AM, Friday 7 September 2007

A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge An ongoing webcomic telling the story of New Orleans. Amazing art, with the scenery exactly right, and stories that make you cry. _
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09:47:42 AM, Thursday 6 September 2007

The Encyclopedia of Life, a new project in biology, should make it possible to discover the remaining 90 percent of species in perhaps a single human generation. _
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08:53:28 AM, Thursday 6 September 2007

Democratic leaders were quick to distance themselves from the subdued riot out of fear that condoning even a meta-symbolic political rebuke would alienate some of their more mild-mannered constituents.

Also,

Woman Overjoyed By Giant Uterine Parasite _
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09:58:11 AM, Wednesday 5 September 2007

50 years ago, a brave young woman named Dorothy Counts tried to change the world _
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04:06:36 PM, Tuesday 4 September 2007

We just started an epistemologies of biology discussion group in the Bio dept. The first discussion today reminded me of SJC in good ways at times, and in bad ways at times. We seem to have a contrarian, who is, probably not coincidentally, a student in the department you might expect such a discussion group to be located rather than in ours. And I think part of his contrariness is coming from the idea of scientists discussing the philosophy of our own science, rather than leaving it up to the professional philosophers. _
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02:05:37 PM, Tuesday 4 September 2007

Back to School: 5 myths about girls and science

1. Myth: From the time they start school, most girls are less interested in science than boys are.

2. Myth: Classroom interventions that work to increase girls' interest in STEM run the risk of turning off the boys.

3. Myth: Science and math teachers are no longer biased toward their male students.

4. Myth: When girls just aren't interested in science, parents can't do much to motivate them.

5. Myth: At the college level, changing the STEM curriculum runs the risk of watering down important "sink or swim" coursework. _
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08:19:41 PM, Monday 3 September 2007

We're having a decent sized cicada hatch this year. Tuxedo keeps coming to the door with them in his mouth and letting out muffled mauws so I will come see what he has brought me. They usually get away if he says mauw more than once. _
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01:27:47 PM, Monday 3 September 2007

First do no harm Two Women Blogging appears to be the most awesome new feminist blog I hadn't heard of. _
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08:12:34 AM, Monday 3 September 2007

The maternal mortality rate is going up. _
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07:28:48 AM, Saturday 1 September 2007

The night the Klan learned not to mess with the Lumbee _
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03:45:12 PM, Thursday 30 August 2007

Time Magazine makes a case for public service. Yes, the US Public Service Academy is part of their case. It is also one of the only parts that looks like to come to fruition any time soon.

If a candidate made this their platform, I would vote for them. It addresses all of my current concerns for this country in a comprehensive way (although I'm not sold on the necessity or desirability of the "baby boomer bond). _
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01:00:07 PM, Thursday 30 August 2007

Russ Feingold is chair of the Progressive Patriots Fund dedicated to ensuring that our next president is not "an unintelligent, corrupt, incompetent liar". I've got an idea, Russ. If you really care about that, how about you actually run for president? Please. _
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09:40:31 AM, Thursday 30 August 2007

52-year-old Israeli long-distance runner Heila Satayin continued to amaze early Saturday morning, finishing the World Championships marathon in Osaka in 19th position and booking his place at next years Olympics.

Satayin clocked a time of two hours and 22.27 minutes in the meeting's opening event and will represent Israel in Beijing after ending the race in the top third. _
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02:42:55 PM, Wednesday 29 August 2007

Remembering Katrina

For all the rhetoric, and all the lies, the president and presidential candidates posing in Jackson Square, real people were and continue to be affected everyday by the storm, its aftermath, and the government response. _
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09:46:45 AM, Wednesday 29 August 2007

Tonight I had a late meeting on campus so I decided to ride the bus that would take me from West Campus where I spend all of my time to East Campus, which is much closer to our house. East Campus is where the freshmen live. The bus contained several of them, who had just finished up late labs and late PE classes and now were on their way back to shower and change and (apparently) go out. In the dark, they couldn't tell that it's been 12 years since I stood where they are, although I never stood in a place quite like the one where they stand.

The cultural expectations for women at Duke have been called Effortless Perfection. They must be brilliant, they must be beautiful, they must be sociable, and they must do it all without looking like they're trying. One woman next to me really wanted to go to bed, but her "friend" insisted they needed to go to Shooters (Shooters being the bar you go in Durham to drink underage). It's Tuesday night. It's the second day of class. Who knows what their weekend was like.

I remember after the third seminar our freshman year, when the women of 3rd Humphreys had the spontaneous "I don't know what I'm doing here I can't do this everybody else gets everything and I don't" conversation that happens at St. John's sometimes. We got an onion and green pepper pizza. We finally figured out everybody's names. I had friends of the kind that every freshman deserves. Those after seminar talks on the floor in the hallway were some of the most important times of my life. I have no interest in ever being 18 again, but I'm sure glad I did it where and when I did. _
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09:05:02 PM, Tuesday 28 August 2007

Chris Clarke links us back to his definitive word on Burning Man
Faced with one of the last truly wild landscapes left in the US, their response is to build a city. This is not creativity: it is dreadful, dull conformity. Finding one of the last sublime remnants of the unpopulated West, they want nothing more than to pack it with tender urbanites in a glorified tailgate party. This is not an alternative way of life: it is standard American operating procedure. _
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07:45:58 AM, Tuesday 28 August 2007

Bush is going to New Orleans for the anniversary If you want to understand the anger of the city, read the comments. (This is the only time I will ever recommend that you read the comments on a newspaper article.) _
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09:39:39 AM, Monday 27 August 2007

There's a new poisonous spider in the Southeast. The brown widow is migrating from more southerly climes. This is especially for Julia, because she took a picture of one in New Orleans and none of us had ever heard of it. _
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11:48:23 AM, Thursday 23 August 2007

Lola Granola is back! _
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01:04:30 PM, Wednesday 22 August 2007

Welcome, part-time professors! _
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01:47:15 PM, Monday 20 August 2007

Diebold is changing the name of its blck box voting machines division and spinning it off

In other election stealing news:The investigative report detailed seven Sequoia plant workers who testified on camera about a mysterious order to use inferior paper on the company's punch card ballots to be used in Florida during the 2000 election. As well, they were told --- despite the objections of the plant's quality control manager --- to change the alignment on the punch card chads being sent to Palm Beach County. Rather's report tested the inferior, misaligned ballots that were sent to the county anyway, in 2000, and found that "hanging chads" resulted on ballots that had punched through cleanly for years before the bad paper and re-alignment was forced by still-unnamed company officials.

Stupid senior citizens can't understand a simple ballot... _
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07:57:39 AM, Sunday 19 August 2007

If you love The Dark is Rising I highly recommend not seeing the movie trailer. Really, the best thing is to ignore that the movie exists and, if someone tries to talk about it to you at any point ever in your lifetime, put your fingers in your ears and say "la la la" really loud. _
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06:43:43 AM, Sunday 19 August 2007

IT'S RAINING!!!!!!11!!!11!!! _
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09:40:18 AM, Friday 17 August 2007

I know a lot of diabetics, and this seems like a really cool actually useful technology. _
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11:36:20 AM, Wednesday 15 August 2007

Mike the Mad Biologist makes a good point about Karl Rove Confusing Brains with Sociopathy _
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10:17:46 AM, Wednesday 15 August 2007

It appears that the drought is finally succeeding in killing the peppermint and microstegium in my garden, which digging and weeding and mulching have not. I've had surprising success in the garden this summer in spite of weeds and drought. _
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01:25:15 PM, Sunday 12 August 2007

I'm sitting on a comfy couch in the lobby of a very fancy hotel, drinking a very large, very good ten dollar mojito, and using their free wireless. I'm staying at the Howard Johnson. It is a mile from the convention center and does not have mojitos. _
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08:46:54 PM, Wednesday 8 August 2007

I know that the worst thing in the world for jetlag is to lay down and go to sleep at the wrong time, but is that still true if you only had 4 hours sleep before getting on the airplane and then your traveling companions did not allow sleep during the entire trip and now you have a nice, quiet hotel room? _
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07:54:37 PM, Sunday 5 August 2007

44% _
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12:48:24 PM, Saturday 4 August 2007

nothing to see here _
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12:47:54 PM, Saturday 4 August 2007

I'm going to San Jose next week for a conference. The internets seem to be written by people from San Francisco who basically think San Jose is a boring suburban armpit of high tech. So far, I think Lake Cunningham seems like a nice place to spend an afternoon and that I'll probably go to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum because really that sounds pretty cool. Oh, and the park next to the convention center has a gigantic stream restoration project combined with a children's environmental education exhibit. So that will probably be on the itinerary. And then I guess there's a conference or something going on. _
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09:20:59 AM, Saturday 4 August 2007

Could adversity temper a jurisprudence that critics of the chief justice have discerned as bloodless and unduly distant from the messy reality of the lives of ordinary people who fail to file their appeals on time?

I would assume that the answer is no. Especially given that his seizure disorder is all Anne's fault anyway. _
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01:56:55 PM, Wednesday 1 August 2007

One of my pet obsessions, the US Public Service Academy, has been gaining a lot of attention since Sen. Clinton became a co-sponsor of the bill and has started advocating for it in campaign speeches. The Washington Post presents the idea today (and is slightly snarky). _
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12:23:41 PM, Wednesday 1 August 2007

White Lies: A Top Ten List _
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08:29:40 PM, Tuesday 31 July 2007

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