Liz's Bloglet - Friday 16 May 2008

Indeed _
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11:54:24 AM, Friday 16 May 2008

more cat pictures _
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09:34:41 AM, Friday 16 May 2008

Around 3, there was a steam pipe explosion just below where my office used to be and a maintenance worker was killed The entire basement is flooded and the building is evacuated until further notice. And in the building next door we didn't even know anything had happened. _
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04:58:21 PM, Wednesday 14 May 2008

In non-"ways Liz hates the healthcare industry" news, this looks promising _
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03:22:25 PM, Wednesday 14 May 2008

Seriously, Dr. Specialist who bills $900/hr, I can get patronized and dismissed for free from any number of people in the biology department.

If you tell me to email you about how I'm doing, I assume that's because maybe this time you're not going to patronize and dismiss me, or at the very least that you'll actually respond to the email that you requested. _
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02:54:17 PM, Wednesday 14 May 2008

Nothing but love for Durham _
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10:07:21 PM, Sunday 11 May 2008

Tolerance and diversity are values that I grew up with explicitly and implicitly. I was raised into them, so it's hard to pinpoint the origins of them, though I know they came from my parents. There are moments that stick out, though.

--I have an older brother. I could handle people saying I couldn't do something he could do because I was too little--I knew that meant that in three years I would be able to do it. People saying I couldn't do something he could do because I was a girl made me screaming and spitting furious, and usually meant I went ahead and did it anyway just to prove I could. Having a brother and having male friends, and always doing the same things as them, I can't remember that justification ever not sounding really stupid.

--My preschool was a diverse place and one of my friends there, who was black, was the son of the woman who drove my brother's elementary schoolbus, which later became my schoolbus. At some point in elementary school, Freda the bus driver left and was replaced by a white guy who was still in high school. He said horribly racist things pretty often. That was my first exposure to really awful, unashamed racism: most of the people I'd been around who said racist things whispered them. Because she cared about our safety, and she knew my parents, Freda was an authority figure I automatically trusted. This young guy, who said horrible things about people who looked like Freda and didn't seem to care about all the kids on the bus equally, was also a chance for me to start to distrust authority.

--Most kids I grew up with were Protestant Christians of either the mainline or evangelical varieties, so we all had been taught more or less the same things about religion. My brother's best friend in elementary school was part of a large family of Jehovah's Witnesses. There was one of them in almost every grade. They did amazing art projects together, and they all played musical instruments and would sometimes perform bluegrass concerts for the whole school. They didn't say the pledge of allegiance, and we couldn't invite them to birthday parties, which always seemed so sad. After a few years they left for a religious school, because it was just too hard to be different

--My mom has an aunt and a cousin who are gay. I think I knew that from fairly young although I didn't really know them, or any other people who were openly gay (I have no doubt at all I knew gay people who were not open about it). Kids always joked about homosexuality, and I knew their jokes were wrong because I knew they would hurt people, and I knew that jokes that hurt people are wrong (which is why I still hate most stand-up). I don't think I really internalized the idea that love=love until I got into the Indigo Girls in jr high. The emotions in their songs were just as true and real as in any heterosexual love songs. I decided if people could love each other the same way then it didn't make sense for one kind of love to be wrong and the other kind to be right.

I am not one of those people who remembers everything that ever happened to her as a kid. These are the moments and ideas that still come back to me a lot. Which all leads me to conclude that it's not hard to raise kids who are open to diversity, if their parents care about it and they are raised surrounded by it. But I can't imagine it's easy, if you're raising kids in a place where most people look and think exactly like them. It does seem like we are a long way, though, when ideas like "jokes that hurt people are wrong" are culturally unacceptable to large parts of our society. _
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03:38:33 PM, Sunday 11 May 2008

Those of you who live in DC should go see this tonight, because I can't. _
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08:49:16 AM, Saturday 10 May 2008

A decent draft of Chapter 1 of my dissertation is to my advisor. I'm not done with it by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels like it right now. The plan is to have this out for publication and have the draft of Chapter 2 done by the end of the summer.

If the drought abates this summer, I will have 5 chapters. If it continues, I will only have 4, because one experiment needs 3 months of more or less reliable baseflow to complete, and we haven't had that since last Spring.

I'm gonna get me a PhD. _
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04:21:36 PM, Friday 9 May 2008

"I didn't mean it" isn't an excuse for not having to apologize. When I step on someone's foot unintentionally, I still say "I'm sorry." So should Clinton _
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07:35:50 AM, Friday 9 May 2008

I'm not much of one for linking to ESPN but this is good, _
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03:20:24 PM, Thursday 8 May 2008

An e-book reader that focuses on pdfs and organizes them through an interface that looks like Papers (which itself looks a lot like iTunes), able to connect to the internet, search using Web of Science, JSTOR, Google Scholar, etc and import new papers directly in, as well as connect to a computer. Even though I just made it up, I expect Apple to be marketing this in the next year or so. _
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02:14:34 PM, Wednesday 7 May 2008

John Edwards did not drop out of the race in 2004. Jerry Brown did not drop out of the race in 1992. Neither one of them ever did particularly well. Jerry Brown, obviously, was running to the left of the presumed nominee, while Edwards and Kerry had few policy differences between them. Both Edwards and Brown were known for saying not very nice things about the frontrunner. Al Gore ran to the right of Dukakis throughout the 1988 primary, smeared him openly, came fairly close to beating him, then dropped out and endorsed him. In 1984, Hart, attempting to run to the left, called Mondale out of touch and came close to beating him until June. Teddy Kennedy ran neck and neck with Jimmy Carter throughout 1980, and, although Carter had clearly won, refused to concede until the next to the last day of the convention.

But none of them ever got accused of being evil bitches out to destroy the Democratic Party.

Interestingly enough, Jesse Jackson, running to the left and doing very well in many primaries, was vilified for not dropping out of the race in 1988, and then snubbed in the vice presidential choice although he had a substantial number of delegates to the convention.

Edited to add: Because I guess it needs to be said, I don't particularly like Hillary Clinton. I don't particularly like Barack Obama either. If Clinton were the apparent nominee, and folks were trying to force Obama from the race, I would be posting the same thing. The parallel to Jackson would be only more obvious. _
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09:53:09 AM, Wednesday 7 May 2008

Mildred Loving died The Supreme Court case on behalf of her and her husband, Loving v Virginia, ruled that interracial marriage could not be outlawed. Mildred was a class act:

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don't think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the "wrong kind of person" for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people's religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people's civil rights. I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard's and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That's what Loving, and loving, are all about. -Mildred Loving, June 12, 2007, on the 40th anniversary of the Loving v. Virignia decision. _
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02:28:14 PM, Monday 5 May 2008

This medic earned a Silver Star by doing exactly what it is claimed women are not capable of doing and then she got removed from her position because "women can't serve in combat".

Chivalry is dead. Chivalry is dead because it is stupid. You cannot simultaneously "honor" or "cherish" somebody while saying they are incapable of doing things. If you value me as a person, treat me like you'd treat anybody else. Treating me like a delicate flower is not treating me like a human being.

I hate this war. All war is bad, but this pointless, messy, horribly run war is the worst kind of all. But I feel better about it knowing there are people like Pfc. Monica Brown there to take care of our soldiers when bad things happen, and worse knowing a stupid and arbitrary rule is now keeping her from doing the job she is very good at. _
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09:11:49 AM, Saturday 3 May 2008

Lauren defends Indiana against "liberal" pundits in a blogpost that could have been written about North Carolina with a few details changed. _
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10:57:04 AM, Wednesday 30 April 2008

Thankfully, this lottery-loving homophobe won't be our governor much longer I'm voting for this one because she seems slightly less slimy than her opponent. And, yes, NC almost always has a Democratic governor. The whole red state/blue state thing really doesn't work out. _
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09:39:48 PM, Tuesday 29 April 2008

The nice women who live across the street from us are taking their kid and moving back home to Canada. I can't say I blame them, what with living in a state that doesn't recognize their marriage. But it's definitely a loss for our neighborhood. _
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05:08:30 PM, Tuesday 29 April 2008

Michael Berube on why Obama is better than Clinton on disability rights and why both of them are better than any previous president. No, I still haven't decided who I'm voting for and yes, I know I only have one more week. _
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03:12:21 PM, Tuesday 29 April 2008

Yes. This. Reason #1,365,982 I'm Sad John Edwards Dropped Out of the Race _
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01:37:56 PM, Monday 28 April 2008

The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet In a different world... _
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05:30:27 PM, Sunday 27 April 2008

Am I the only person who sings "xkcd versus Adam Ant"? Having posted this, am I likely to remain the only person? _
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11:02:35 AM, Friday 25 April 2008

I have said very little about this, but I guess I might as well say it here and then maybe people will understand the somewhat irritable nature of my blog over the past couple months. I've suddenly developed arthritis. It is impacting my ability to live my life as I am accustomed. It is especially impacting my ability to do my work, which is for me pretty much the essence of who I am as a person. I've now been to a rheumatologist, who really doesn't know what's wrong or what might happen next. He is hopeful that it is an auto-immune response to one of the many viruses I had over the winter and will just go away on its own. But it could be a precursor to bad things. So, for now, I am handling pain the best I can and hoping for good things while fearing bad.

The combination of pain and frustration sometimes makes me just not want to deal with anything else. So I am doing less dealing with everything else than I usually do. I'm not begging for sympathy, I know several people who deal with more pain daily and have for their entire lives. I'm just stating for the record that I don't have the energy for some of the daily battles of the internet right now and probably won't for the next few months. I hope those of you reading this who have to deal with me in real life understand my recent somewhat difficultness and unreliability a little better and those of you who primarily interact with me online understand my lessened participation. _
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11:02:15 AM, Thursday 24 April 2008

And then there's this which is probably at least as good a reason to vote for Obama as the two that Ampersand gave. But there's also this, and the pride on those two women's faces is worth something, too. _
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03:29:57 PM, Wednesday 23 April 2008

Yesterday a new study was released saying 1 in 4 NC children live in poverty and discussing the life-long consequences of this. This is all they're talking about on the news here, and I firmly believe that all a Democratic candidate has to do to win NC is talk about his or her policy proposals to end poverty.

But instead there will be endless soundbiting and surrogating and no discussion of any policy proposals at all and, at the end of it all, 1 in 4 NC children will still live in poverty. In 4 years, it will be more than that.

I care about ending the war. I care about universal healthcare. I care about clean water and clean air. All of those things will help everybody in this country. But, right now, 1 in 4 NC children live in poverty. _
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08:55:18 AM, Wednesday 23 April 2008

So, now we have them. Good reasons to vote for Clinton by Kate Harding and Good reasons to vote for Obama Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 from Barry Deutsch

Yeah, that didn't really help me. I see both of their points. I'm still unpersuaded. I've got two weeks to decide what I'm going to do. _
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08:05:12 PM, Tuesday 22 April 2008

Some disturbing events have been happening here at Pseudo Ivy, between Chinese students and students advocating for Tibet. This young Chinese woman, trying to do the right thing, got caught in the middle with horrible results _
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06:22:56 PM, Tuesday 22 April 2008

Something we're not likely to see in the US any time soon But I want a socialist government that will begin a complete progressive overhaul of government and society. _
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04:00:30 PM, Monday 21 April 2008

The Bush administration violated federal law last year when it restricted states' ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families, and its new policy is therefore unenforceable, lawyers from the Government Accountability Office said Friday.

But what about the BABIES?!?!?!?11/? _
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09:51:27 AM, Sunday 20 April 2008

Unpacking the invisible knapsack using lolcats I'm not going to explain what the knapsack is. This joke is for those who already know about it and understand their white privilege. If you don't, just leave me alone and laugh at the funny kitties. _
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02:51:40 PM, Friday 18 April 2008

Obama supporter Barry Deutsch has a list of bad reasons to vote for Obama
Clinton supporter Kate Harding has a list of bad reasons to vote for Clinton

They're both working on lists of good reasons to vote for their candidates. I await these. Because so far all I've heard from both camps can be summed up by the two lists above. _
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04:10:48 PM, Wednesday 16 April 2008

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters _
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12:24:30 PM, Wednesday 16 April 2008

And again with the awesome: "See, the problem with your own internalized bigotry is: You can't see it." _
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09:14:54 PM, Thursday 10 April 2008

Important Announcement: Feminism is an integral part of progressivism. If you're not a feminist, you're not a progressive. After all, it's been a week or so since I linked to Shakesville. _
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04:43:16 PM, Tuesday 8 April 2008

"If we backed off of everything because of words the Republicans found silly we'd have a lot of pregnant teenagers and no healthcare." _
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10:16:57 AM, Monday 7 April 2008

Unlike most students at Pseudo Ivy University, I have next to no interest in NCAA basketball. This year, however, the cinderella team of the tournament was my hometown team. A small liberal arts college, with academic scholarships but no waiver of their ridiculously high academic standards, they proved that smart people can still play sports pretty well. I'm at my parents' house tonight, and the top seeds are playing the final four games, but sitting in a bedroom less than a mile from campus, I can attest that the Davidson Wildcats are absolutely delighted with having played in the Elite Eight, and are throwing a party to rival any in rival college town Chapel Hill. So, hey, just for tonight, Go Cats! _
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09:43:51 PM, Saturday 5 April 2008

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