I made it to Grand Rapids, MI and the Amway Grand Hotel. I was not prepared for the bus to not run on Saturday. So there's $40 on a taxi. I was prepared for it to be in the 50s and extremely windy (like in my walk around the neighborhood I chose which way to go based on which way the wind did not make walking physically impossible). I was not prepared for how many people have told me how lucky I am to be here in such nice weather.
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(3)
03:40:57 PM,
Saturday 16 May 2009
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I just got an email saying our building is closed because the power is out. Neither of those things appear to be true since I am sitting here with the lights on charging my battery and there are a number of other people here as well. The air system is off, so for once it is not freezing cold and there is not a deafening roar. I look upon those things as a positive.
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(2)
07:58:55 AM,
Friday 15 May 2009
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I have a new nephew! Emmett Marlowe (obviously destined to be a mystery novelist) was born very early this morning.
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(7)
07:13:00 AM,
Friday 15 May 2009
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Star Trek was amazing. I was glad for the transformation into an ensemble cast, including rewriting of the previously auxiliary characters, especially Uhura. (and if you think it was an ensemble before, name more than two traits of Scottie, Chekov, Sulu, or Uhura.)
They did what they needed to do to reboot the series into the modern world and it worked (one of Roddenberry's stupidest decisions was that both feminism and the Civil Rights Movement would be utter failures for the next few centuries). And Simon Pegg and his muppet sidekick were adorable. I will see more.
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(9)
07:04:44 PM,
Friday 8 May 2009
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We have utterly failed to mention that we are leaving tomorrow for 4 days in New York, as a gift from Remi's family to celebrate Remi's 30th birthday (1 year and 2 weeks late) and to celebrate the conclusion of the semester and the most complicated year ever. We would love to see those New Yorkers who read this blog if things can be worked out.
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(9)
09:22:41 AM,
Friday 8 May 2009
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This is what satellites are for
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09:04:32 AM,
Saturday 2 May 2009
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Been reading about prospective Supreme Court nominees. Sotomayor is pretty remarkable. So is Kagan. Wood is being tossed around because she's from Chicago.
The nominee should be a woman. No, that's not tokenism, a quota system, or whatever. That's simply saying that a court that's supposed to make the final decision about the rights of all citizens of our country should at least somewhat reflect our country. One of the things Obama has always claimed he was going to do was go in and correct mistakes of the past and change the way our government works.
Whenever anyone says that sexism is over and women and men are treated equally in our country, I have only to point to the Supreme Court and Senate and laugh at them.
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(6)
07:35:41 AM,
Friday 1 May 2009
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Today, I am very proud that he's our president
There are many amazing parts, but I especially liked this one:
The fact is, an investigation into a particular physical, chemical, or biological process might not pay off for a year, or a decade, or at all. And when it does, the rewards are often broadly shared, enjoyed by those who bore its costs but also by those who did not.
That’s why the private sector under-invests in basic science – and why the public sector must invest in this kind of research. Because while the risks may be large, so are the rewards for our economy and our society.
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(2)
04:32:07 PM,
Monday 27 April 2009
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The swine flu is terrifying. But this happening in the town we used to live in is in my thoughts more. I have no doubt that the musical theater folks I know know the community theater folks involved. Outside of the university, Athens is a tiny place.
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(1)
09:05:30 AM,
Sunday 26 April 2009
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We saw The Soloist last night. It was better than I expected, and certainly a different movie than I expected. It was not "an uplifting story of a gifted artist overcoming mental illness and the man who saves him" (thank goodness). In fact, both of those expected cliches are turned on their head and exposed for the mean lies that they usually are.
I expect that neither Jamie Foxx nor Robert Downey, Jr will be nominated for an Oscar. If anything, the heroes here are music (there's a great synesthesia sequence) and the non-profit agencies that help the forgotten among us. After the show, I wasn't googling actors or the real-life people the portrayed; I googled LAMP.
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08:18:24 AM,
Sunday 26 April 2009
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Golimumab is now called Simponi and is available in the US. For now, I am doing great on Enbrel, and this drug works by the same mechanism. For whatever reason, these drugs sometimes stop working for people and then they move on to the next one. It's good that another next one now is available.
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09:12:32 AM,
Saturday 25 April 2009
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It's youtube night on my blog. Via my mom, here are music and images from the career of my Great-Aunt Dot
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(4)
09:51:34 PM,
Friday 24 April 2009
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For people who never got why I thought she'd make a pretty good president
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(5)
07:57:04 PM,
Friday 24 April 2009
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(1)
11:54:30 AM,
Tuesday 21 April 2009
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I really wish that people who lived in a country that enslaved an entire group of people, put others in internment camps and maintained policies which, for decades, have helped create a permanent underclass based on race and ethnicity wouldn’t talk about how a four percent hike in the marginal tax rate for two percent of earners is potentially “oppressive”.
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09:17:44 AM,
Monday 20 April 2009
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I had somehow missed that Beliefnet has noticed that not all Christians are of the fundagelical variety. They've pulled together Diana Butler Bass and Paul Raushenbush to talk about religion the way people around me do. It's a small, thing, really, but since many of their readers probably don't even consider the authors to be Christian, it's a pleasant surprise.
Elsewhere on the site, there are people identifying themselves as "Reformed" or "Calvinist" who are Baptist(?!?!). All of my ancestors on both sides are shuddering at that one. For all that they accuse liberals of ignoring history, at least I understand the different strains of Protestantism and the actual, interesting, long struggled over doctrinal, structural, and liturgical differences that have historically separated those two traditions, such that a Reformed (or Calvinist) Baptist is an oxymoron.
I think it means that the Southern Baptist Convention has wandered so far from its original roots in freedom of conscience and so deeply into fundamentalism that it stumbled upon the wandering fundamentalist ex-Presbyterians who were also uncomfortable with their own historical flavor of freedom of conscience, and it seemed obvious to join forces and see what fun they could have when nobody has any freedom of conscience at all.
(The answer is apparently really boring writing about how wrong everybody else is about everything and lots of use of words like heresy and apostasy. And a surprising amount of Dominionism, which is also not very Baptist.)
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(4)
04:49:08 PM,
Thursday 16 April 2009
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It's nice to know that we're now back to where we were in 2000, where only feminists are talking about the oppressive government in Afghanistan (more great pictures.
One of the many things that pissed me off over the past 8 years is the folks who suddenly noticed after September 11, 2001 that the Taliban was evil and tried to lecture me about it. I remember getting emails about what they were doing to women in 1997.
Another thing that pissed me off was people in 2005 trying to tell me that we had successfully removed the Taliban from power and everything was great for women in Afghanistan.
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08:43:20 AM,
Thursday 16 April 2009
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You know what isn't useful when you're really stressed out? More things to do and more reminders of how vital it is that you get things done.
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(6)
02:01:28 PM,
Wednesday 15 April 2009
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I'm just a big ole softie because this had me bawling
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(6)
07:05:20 PM,
Tuesday 14 April 2009
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Am not coming to Croquet. Too much work. End of semester in sight. End of PhD, not so much.
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(2)
09:34:45 AM,
Tuesday 14 April 2009
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Questing Parson gets his rant on
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09:41:23 AM,
Sunday 12 April 2009
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Come away to the skies, my belovèd, arise
And rejoice in the day thou wast born;
On this festival day, come exulting away,
And with singing to Zion return.
For the glory we were first created to share,
Both the nature and kingdom divine,
Now created again that our lives may remain
Throughout time and eternity Thine.
We with thanks do approve the design
Of that love that hath joined us to Jesus’ Name;
Now united in heart, let us never more part,
Till we meet at the feast of the Lamb.
Hallelujah! we sing to our Father and King,
And His rapturous praises repeat:
To the Lamb that was slain, Hallelujah again!
Sing all Heaven and fall at His feet!
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09:29:22 AM,
Sunday 12 April 2009
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As I've listened this week to the two stories that are being remembered, there are still new things to notice, and old things that are still striking. Moses didn't immediately save his people. First he ran off and got married and tended Jethro's sheep. It was the moment when he went off to find the lost lamb that set him on the course back to lead his people. The lamb was not lost, just thirsty and running around, looking for water. Moses caught it when it found a puddle. And then God decides to call Moses from a burning bush.
And always, every year since I read Plato, I'm struck by the moment when Pilate and Jesus have their bizarre little Platonic dialogue, "What is truth?"
As I'm surrounded by fundamentalists and atheists with equal disregard for how I read these stories, I'm still struck by what remarkable stories they are.
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(1)
05:04:30 PM,
Saturday 11 April 2009
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Adventureland worked for me. The plot was light-weight, but the setting and use of the park and just the general bleakness of working a crap job because life sucks were portrayed really well. The interactions with the public were even right on, the mix of attempts at good service and bored indifference coupled with both good customers and the kind that will pull a knife on you to get a giant panda. It's a shame they couldn't have set another plot in it, really, one with a little more depth to it. The peeks we got into the other characters lives were good.
It really took me back to my movie theater days, and the melodrama of my co-workers lives. I once worked a shift staffing most of the movie theater myself because the assistant manager was a huge slacker and my supposed co-worker had just been dumped by his girlfriend in the lobby while we were working and was sitting in the back row of one of the theaters crying.
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(4)
04:34:13 PM,
Saturday 11 April 2009
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The ever-insightful Duncan Cross on "Just Deserts" (including an etymology lesson)
I know I've mentioned before, but it still doesn't cease to amaze me, how many people's entire conception of the world is bound up in the idea that I did something wrong and that's why I got sick--that somehow I deserve it, and they can avoid it by being better people than me. In my peer group, this means more organic food, less meat, more yoga, more wacky herbal supplements. I'm sure every peer group has a different version of "the right way to live", which should be sufficient refutation of this argument. I agree with Duncan that this philosophy seems to be the source of many problems in our society and it is what we have to overcome to get universal healthcare.
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(13)
08:46:34 AM,
Saturday 11 April 2009
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(1)
04:36:30 PM,
Friday 10 April 2009
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Okay, so now they cancelled track maintenance on Monday, so I can take the train home on Monday.
I'm so confused and conflicted about this. I want to go to Croquet, especially what with the 10 year reunion and all, but there are several things going on here, some good, some bad, all of which make going out of town that weekend a bad idea.
Being able to take the train both ways is a plus, because it's the only kind of transportation not guaranteed to turn me into a human pretzel; I can get up and walk around every 15 minutes if I need to. Also, I would be able to get work done on the train, both ways, probably.
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(2)
12:03:09 PM,
Friday 10 April 2009
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Badness and doom
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(1)
12:52:19 PM,
Wednesday 8 April 2009
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Men Explain Things to Me This is one of the big hold-out sexist problems in academia.
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(23)
09:48:49 AM,
Wednesday 8 April 2009
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So last week I made red curry in the crockpot. We just got this book and this was the first recipe I tried. After dinner that night my hands started itching like mad. My body's one big freakshow these days, so although I considered the possibility of blaming the curry, I figured there were any number of other possible causes.
Tonight, I ate more curry and now my hands are itching like mad again. So, assuming its one of the ingredients in the recipe that we don't usually eat, am I allergic to coconut milk, sesame oil, or red curry paste?
All of those seem potentially disastrous, especially given how excellent the red curry is at our local Thai place.
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(14)
07:51:44 PM,
Monday 6 April 2009
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All of these mass shootings, including one of armed and trained police officers, is enough to make one think that guns do, in fact, kill people.
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08:46:14 AM,
Sunday 5 April 2009
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The TV networks prove once again that they don't get it For us, Hulu doesn't replace cable tv--we were never going to pay for cable. It replaces over-the-air broadcasting (which we've lost most of since it went digital anyway) and dvd rentals.
I'm also pissed at Time-Warner. We pay them $40/month for high speed internet, but they want to punish us for not paying another $40 for cable tv.
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(2)
07:29:00 AM,
Sunday 5 April 2009
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This
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(1)
09:53:27 AM,
Saturday 4 April 2009
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Talk about not having a sense of humor. These days you can't even sit down, rudely interrupt someone's conversation, insult them directly to their face, and then act like a complete and utter asshole without people getting super offended by it. It's like, Christ—lighten up, will you? All I did was show up and ruin everybody's evening.
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06:28:59 PM,
Wednesday 1 April 2009
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Remi and I have decided that Friday Night Lights is the closest thing to The West Wing on TV now. It's a show about high school football in a small Texas town, but you don't have to find any of those aspects remotely interesting to get completely sucked in. Among other things, in three seasons it has included the most honest depiction of disability and the best mother-daughter sex talk ever in the history of television. There was a slump in the second season in which they tried to do what the network thought they needed to do and briefly broke the show, but this season has been amazing. And despite all appearance that this would be its last season, it's just been re-upped.
Oh, and thanks to the wonders of the glorious age we live in, you can watch the first two seasons for free on Hulu
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(4)
05:51:57 PM,
Wednesday 1 April 2009
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Has anybody tried Things? I'm very much a pencil and paper organizer person and this is the first task management software that has actually seemed like something I might use. Maybe.
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(5)
09:13:48 AM,
Wednesday 1 April 2009
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