Liz's Bloglet - Saturday 24 January 2009

ER declares Durham "A great place to raise a child" with "more culture than you might think." _
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07:44:11 AM, Saturday 24 January 2009

Songbird totally nails my feelings on Rick Warren's prayer yesterday _
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04:55:47 PM, Wednesday 21 January 2009

Pretty cool _
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06:28:16 PM, Tuesday 20 January 2009

So I guess we're going to get a whole lot of snow. The plus side is that if I'm not teaching I'll actually get to watch the inauguration. _
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06:53:41 PM, Monday 19 January 2009

Commander
by Ty Greenstein
(2004)
Was it all there before you in a dream
Was it something that only you could see
Was it gold, or even better
Was it weapons-grade metal
Or a glimpse of your god?
Was it whispered right into the bones of your ears
Did you hear what you wanted to hear
Did they take you and make you believe it was clear
When they made you commander and you couldn't be it?

Well the women just didn't like your eyes
And the big boys they cut you down to size
When the war came you ran for your life
As your businesses dried
Were they all there before you just waiting in line
To include you in their crudest design?
You were bad fruit, they knew you wouldn't ripen on the vine
And they made you commander when you couldn't be it
You couldn't be it

As for Jesus, you never felt much, but you prayed
Cause you needed to believe that you could be saved

Now in private you don't cry but you have doubts
It's just better if you never let them out
Was it all there before you in a dream
Was it something that only you could see?
Cause it's right there before you when you close your eyes
You would kill it with a pill but it would still rise
It's the pain of a great love you cannot deny
And you may be commander but you don't believe it
You don't believe it
You don't believe it
You don't believe it

Have fun in your racist Texas enclave, Mr. President. I hope you spend your nights soaked in a cold sweat praying that Mr. Obama can sort out your mess. _
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09:05:31 AM, Monday 19 January 2009

Our class involves a lot of field trips, some of which take much more than our 3 hour class time. And it's hard for us to have office hours, since we don't have an office here and our actual offices are 40 miles away. So on Fridays we don't have scheduled class but instead have reserved the computer lab for them to work on their class projects and one of us hangs out in the computer lab for office hours. Last week 4 of them came and got help mostly in how to set up the webpage that is part of their class project. Since the class is more than half over I was expecting that more of them might come this today as they start to maybe get a little concerned about their projects and might have done enough work to have some questions.

Right now it is 14 degrees F here, with a high of 29. I'm not really expecting any of them to leave their dorm rooms. _
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08:52:09 AM, Friday 16 January 2009

"Our foreign policy must reflect our deep commitment to help millions of oppressed people around the world. And of particular concern to me is the plight of women and girls, who comprise the majority of the world's unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid. If half the world's population remains vulnerable to economic, political, legal and social marginalization, our hope of advancing democracy and prosperity is in serious jeopardy. The United States must be an unequivocal and unwavering voice in support of women's rights in every country on every continent." Soon-to-be Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton _
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05:11:45 PM, Wednesday 14 January 2009

Pam has a nice post about Marc Driscoll the Seattle pastor who reinvigorates the hate-filled misogyny of Christian fundamentalism and puts blue jeans and a goatee on them. My greatest fear many days is that people like this guy will win and the rest of us will finally have to find another name for our religion. _
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02:20:16 PM, Tuesday 13 January 2009

OMG _
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08:44:35 PM, Monday 12 January 2009

Bishop Gene Robinson will be giving an invocation to inauguration week or some such thing. Yes, this is too little, too late. No, it doesn't answer the question of why the hell we have prayers at government events anyway. But, quite simply, I like this particular Bishop and I appreciate the invitation. It's a shame it simply looks like political posturing on the part of the incoming administration. Let's hope that public policy on behalf of the American citizens scorned by Rev Warren (for being gay and/or female) will be better thought out. _
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03:03:27 PM, Monday 12 January 2009

It's Always Some Little Girl, Looking All Alone, Surrounded By Grownups, With Her Hair Done Up. But It's Different, This Time. _
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08:45:01 AM, Friday 9 January 2009

The notion of women as the mop-up crew or hall-monitor squad for men who just can't help themselves when too many of them get packed into a boardroom does not, in my view, change diddly-shit about Patriarchy: it puts women right back into the role of the Eternal Maternal, while simultaneously infantilizing men. _
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04:06:09 PM, Tuesday 6 January 2009

Thing I probably should have mentioned sooner:
I am now adjunct faculty at a little college up the road and am co-teaching a class for January Term. This is all pretty crazy.

I am also TAing the first semester intro bio class at Pseudo Ivy (i.e., the class for people who didn't have AP Bio in high school). For the next few weeks I will be spending more time teaching than researching. I am quite happy about that. _
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03:47:27 PM, Monday 5 January 2009

Do manga characters look "white"? _
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05:28:44 PM, Sunday 4 January 2009

Does everybody agree with me that this is clearly in front of Aromi d'Italia? The places lolcats go... _
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07:45:11 PM, Saturday 3 January 2009

We are having "wintry mix". It would be nice to live in a place more prone to snow than ice.

In the meantime, the cats and I remain in bed because it is warm there. _
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09:57:42 AM, Friday 2 January 2009

I wish 2008 a quick trip to hell. Worst year ever. Don't let the door hit you on your way out. _
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07:22:27 PM, Wednesday 31 December 2009

So today I moved on to the bigger, badder drugs. _
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05:53:32 PM, Wednesday 31 December 2009

It�s almost like a collection of poorly thought-out rationalizations of behavior based on a narrow and contradictory worldview can�t stand up to even the most remote scrutiny! _
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08:02:24 AM, Tuesday 30 December 2009

A 2008 survey of chronically ill adults in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States found major differences in health care access, safety, and efficiency, with U.S. patients at particularly high risk of forgoing care because of costs and experiencing errors or inefficient, poorly organized care.

More than half (54%) of U.S. patients did not get recommended care, fill prescriptions, or see a doctor when sick because of costs, versus 7 percent to 36 percent in the other countries.

But...socialism is bad. _
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04:16:15 PM, Monday 29 December 2009

This is why it's not enough to say we're "being inclusive" by allowing homophobia to remain part of the national dialogue. Because as long as it's perfectly socially acceptable for someone to say horrible things about gay people, to equate homosexuality with bestiality and pedophilia, there are those who will inevitably take the next step and think it's perfectly socially acceptable to do violence against them.

Bigots never think that they're bigots. I've known plenty of racists who insist that they're not racist, that they don't hate, that black people just are different from us and need to know their place. Bigots never think that they're bigots. _
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10:16:56 AM, Monday 29 December 2009

I love this. And everytime somebody nammers on about how different men and women are, that we're from different planets, that we can't communicate, that we just think about the world so differently, that we're different from birth, that we need each other to be complete, I think of this:

For every girl who is tired of acting weak when she is strong, there is a boy tired of appearing vulnerable.

For every boy who is burdened with the constant expectation of knowing everything, there is a girl tired of people not trusting her intelligence.

For every girl who is tired of being called over-sensitive, there is a boy who fears to be gentle, to weep.

For every boy whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity, there is a girl called unfeminine when she competes.

For every girl who throws out her easy bake oven, there is a boy who wishes to find one.

For every boy struggling not to let advertising dictate his desires, there is a girl facing the ad industry's attacks on her self-esteem.

For every girl who takes a step toward her liberation, there is a boy who finds the way to freedom a little easier.

Can you imagine if we stopped raising our children to be "men" or "women" and started raising them to be good people? _
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06:51:03 PM, Saturday 27 December 2008

In 1994, Chicago civil rights attorney Barack Obama gave a commentary on NPR explaining why Charles Murray's The Bell Curve was absolute nonsense. Unfortunately, it is not available online, except in transcript form. Why don't I link to a transcript? Because they are all on racist sites, who use it as proof that Obama is "anti-science". _
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07:35:56 AM, Tuesday 23 December 2008

I have not yet praised Obama for his science appointments, which have been awesome.

Stephen Chu. Secretary of Energy. Awesome.

Carol Browner. Environment Tsar. Was fine as EPA Director under the Clinton administration.

Lisa Jackson. EPA Director. Hadn't heard of her before, but I like what I'm hearing.

And I just heard Jane Lubchenco for NOAA director. She's an ecologist and has been involved in some pretty amazing stuff over the years. Several of her papers are in the set of things that all first year ecology grad students read, and more recently she has been outspoken in outlining the rules and responsibilities for people working in environmental science under the public eye. Really really awesome. _
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09:09:13 AM, Saturday 20 December 2008

There are no words _
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06:57:04 AM, Friday 19 December 2008

Because I know there are other Yourself Fitness fans on the blogmass, I thought I'd point out that a "new" version of it has been released for the Wii. Unfortunately it appears to be virtually the same as the old version, with very mild changes. Since my flexibility has gone to hell, I haven't been using YF as much as I used to, but a new version that actually took advantage of some of the Wii platform innovations would probably be worth trying. _
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03:50:46 PM, Thursday 18 December 2008

See, with a guy like Gates, you can plausibly argue that we need to transition smoothly and put someone in charge of Iraq withdrawal who knows his way around DoD. With your economic team, you can argue that we need to transition smoothly from the hell-in-handbasket economy we have now to the purgatory-in-knapsack economy of the future. But there�s no parallel argument for a guy like Rick Warren: no one out there is saying �we have to transition gradually from the open homophobia and bigotry of the Bush Administration to the utopian egalitarianism of the Obama Administration, and Rick Warren is part of our carefully phased withdrawal from homophobia.

I am so sick of the discussion all over the internet of "reasonable" people pointing out that Warren is only 1/2 as insanely hateful as Falwell or Dobson so we should be delighted that he's representing Christianity in the public eye now. And besides, what other religious figures exist?

This modern politicized hate-filled religion has done significant damage to our country and our civil discourse, not the least by convincing most of the country that they actually represent to the world the true face of a religion that is supposed to be about humility and love and taking care of all people, even the ones who totally squick you out. They're now in decline both in numbers and political power. We don't have to kick them when they're down, but we don't have to keep handing the microphone to them, either.

It's awesome that Obama thought of Joseph Lowery to give the benediction. The Civil Rights Movement is one time in American history where religious leaders did unequivocal good in our society. Why not have him do both prayers?

Nobody's going to think Obama's a Muslim if he doesn't have a fundagelical at his invocation, and the people who still think he's a Muslim wouldn't be persuaded even if Jesus himself showed up to give the invocation. As a sign that the country is changing, the world is changing, why not have an imam from Northern VA give the invocation? Or maybe Rabbi Rami? Or, as Michael Berube suggests, why not have a secular invocation done by Elizabeth Alexander?

Or why not have just have Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma play some Bach? _
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11:32:05 AM, Thursday 18 December 2008

Scroll up _
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11:21:01 AM, Thursday 18 December 2008

Scroll up _
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11:15:39 AM, Thursday 18 December 2008

Scroll up _
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11:15:31 AM, Thursday 18 December 2008

Why tie health insurance to a job? So sick people can't get it

Of course this is true, but I have never seen it quite so clearly stated before. _
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10:10:01 AM, Wednesday 17 December 2008

Three NC Episcopal priests are proposing that US priests stop acting as agents of the state in performing marriages i.e., that marriage should be a secular contract first, and then priests could bless people who are already married later.

First, this is a great idea, and, as they point out, the way marriage works in many countries.

Second, one of those priests, Jim Prevatt, is my uncle. And this is exactly the sort of rabblerousing I'd expect from him. _
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01:29:44 PM, Sunday 14 December 2008

Pseudo Ivy has a major in Canadian Studies. I am not making this up. It does have to be done in conjunction with another major. _
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10:32:51 AM, Friday 12 December 2008

I'm grading their final lab reports, and the weirdest thing happened: my students learned how to write a scientific paper this semester! Woot! Bonus: One of them just emailed me that she'd caught an error in the explanation of the nitrogen cycle in the class study guide online. Go biogeochemistry! _
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08:08:40 PM, Thursday 11 December 2008

I have many times on here said many mean things about the medical establishment. And they were all true. But my rheumatologist is great. She is currently on maternity leave (her 3rd kid, she's taking 1 month off). In her absence, her patients have been divided up alphabetically among the other 4 doctors in the practice.

Today I saw my randomly assigned doctor. And she was great, too. She had obviously just read my file, asked good questions, let me answer them completely, and did a physical exam that was thorough but didn't spend a lot of time poking and prodding and making me move things that hurt. Then she told me both what she thought and what my doctor had suggested we do next, which were basically the same thing. And then she gave me brochures and answered my questions, including telling me openly the parts that nobody understands, even the scary parts.

There are good doctors out there. And it seems like they've formed a rheumatology practice here. (With a soothing webpage as mentioned previously). _
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06:49:38 PM, Thursday 11 December 2008

Somehow, sexism isn't "real" if it's clearly a "joke" and Clinton (allegedly) laughed it off (though one must wonder how immune she must be to this stuff by now�and of course she'd be labeled humorless if she hadn't laughed it off). At what point does sexist behavior get taken seriously? At what point do people get punished in ways that suggest this kind of behavior, this kind of thinking, is unacceptable? At what point do we insist there will be consequences? _
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06:31:36 AM, Thursday 11 December 2008

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