Liz's Bloglet - Wednesday 3 November 2010

It is a far, far worse thing to call someone a racist than it is to stand by and watch while thousands of people die and a major US city is destroyed. Just when you think you really dislike the current crop of politicians, Former President Bush would like to remind you just how much he sucked. Yes, he set the groundwork for the wave of anti-intellectualism, racism, religious bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia that swept over our government yesterday. But he really really sucked all by himself. _
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12:32:52 PM, Wednesday 3 November 2010

I look forward to saying Boehner as 'boner' as often as possible in the next couple of years, because I am 12. _
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08:15:58 AM, Wednesday 3 November 2010

This is a cool story about Justin Long, about whom I had no opinion at all previously, but whose next movie I will probably see just because he seems like a decent guy who's trying hard. _
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01:03:26 PM, Tuesday 2 November 2010

I linked to this on Facebook courtesy of my friend Jenny. But it is just so perfect that it must be linked again. Clean all the things _
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08:52:27 PM, Thursday 28 October 2010

A recent study by Green of 200 chronic pain patients in the University of Michigan health system found that black patients were prescribed fewer pain medications than whites and that women were given weaker pain medications than men were given. The research published in the Journal of Pain showed that, on average, a minority pain patient would be prescribed 1.8 pain medications compared to 2.6 drugs for non-minority sufferers.

We are so far from a post-racial and post-feminist society. _
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10:54:19 AM, Wednesday 27 October 2010

Pictures of Muslims Wearing Things

For the edification of Juan Williams and others who say really stupid stuff. _
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08:15:37 PM, Saturday 23 October 2010

Because this myth still gets trotted out in my daily life all the time by people who claim to be scientists, Females Are Equal to Males in Math Skills, Large Study Shows. I'm about to have a PhD in a math-heavy field, and I still have to remind myself that I can do calculus, statistics, and computer programming. Imposter syndrome and stereotype threat are real things, and they suck. _
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12:02:23 PM, Wednesday 13 October 2010

As viruses go, this is a particularly unpleasant one. Big thanks go to the student or labmate who so thoughtfully shared it with me. _
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04:45:57 PM, Saturday 9 October 2010

I was feeling all grumpy about how buggy Office 2011 is (which I recently got from Pseudo Ivy OIT). Then I discovered that it hasn't been released to the public yet. So I guess I'm beta testing and didn't even know it. It's actually really, really good--much better than 2004 (which was slow because it was PowerPC native) and certainly better than 2008 (which was essentially unusable because of how many functions had been removed). It's just buggy still. But by the time everybody else gets it, maybe all the bugs I've found will be fixed. _
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01:33:59 PM, Thursday 7 October 2010

Social stress increases inflammatory markers. This could explain so much about my life. _
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05:57:15 PM, Wednesday 6 October 2010

Reason number 25 million why I want to teach: Weirdos like me feel better while teaching. It's true. _
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04:43:44 PM, Wednesday 6 October 2010

I've tried really hard to avoid saying "I told you so" but, well:
What Daschle said here -- in his interview with Volsky and, apparently, in his new book -- is crystal clear, and is consistent with what has long been clear: despite its stream of public statements to the contrary, the Obama White House made no efforts to have a public option in the bill because their secret, early agreement with "stakeholders" was that no public option (and thus no real mechanism of competition with private industry) would be created.

One can reasonably argue that entering into secret, backroom deals to please industry interests was a "pragmatic" thing to do, notwithstanding how often Obama railed against exactly such transactions during his campaign (remember the I'll-put-all-health-care-negotiations-on-C-SPAN pledge?). One can also argue that the public option would never have gotten 60 votes even if Obama and the White House had pushed for it. But one cannot argue that the White House did push for it, or even that they wanted it, since it was part of their deal with industry and its lobbyists from the start that it would not be in the final bill.

The Onion says it better than I can _
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11:04:51 AM, Wednesday 6 October 2010

Among the many poor choices in President Bartlet's second term was John Locke as Chair of the Joint Chiefs. Because it's freaking me out. _
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09:02:46 PM, Wednesday 29 September 2010

So totally this My support for the president has weakened because I have been paying attention. _
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10:12:46 AM, Tuesday 28 September 2010

According to Wikipedia, Eddie Long went to my high school. I feel dirty. Our only other mildly famous alum is Andrea Stinson, who was a star of the WNBA for awhile. yeah. The Wikipedia entry on my high school is an argument for why Wikipedia is not so useful on many topics. _
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08:58:44 AM, Tuesday 28 September 2010

A perfectly lovely story about squash _
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06:47:18 PM, Thursday 23 September 2010

Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Christine O'Donnell aren't "crazy"�they're just assholes. One day, the "Left" will actually be left and disliking a woman's politics will not be an excuse for misogynistic attacks.

Yeah, I know none of these ladies would piss on me if I were on fire, but, as I've said many times before, I will continue to defend Sarah Palin et. al. against misogynist smears not because I endorse her or her politics, but because that's how feminism works. _
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05:47:36 PM, Thursday 23 September 2010

Perhaps this will be the final straw. As long as the industry is for profit, as long as they answer to their shareholders, not the rest of us, they will continue to do things like this. We can't pass a law that will fix the health insurance industry, so let's pass a law that eliminates it (except as extra special fancy stuff for rich healthy people, like other countries have). _
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02:27:35 PM, Tuesday 21 September 2010

A much more interesting kind of social science than the usual kind _
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09:57:00 AM, Tuesday 14 September 2010

Presented without comment _
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11:07:41 AM, Monday 13 September 2010

Check it out: the FBI managed to catch an actual terrorist for a change _
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06:42:45 PM, Friday 10 September 2010

Our neighbor, Matthew, stumbled upon some croquet-playing Johnnies at Pseudo Ivy Gardens Bonus points if anyone actually knows who they are, which doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility. _
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02:19:16 PM, Thursday 9 September 2010

This is good. For Remi as he endures another day of "Sociology of the Family" and other nonsense. _
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11:45:03 AM, Thursday 9 September 2010

There are thousands of Priuii in Durham, but we rarely see another Insight. Until last week, when I started seeing one everywhere. And it's in the slightly-more-disturbingly-bright shade of blue that I really wanted, but was not willing to wait for when there was a slightly-less-disturbingly-bright shade of blue car we could drive off in that day. (As seen here, ours is Atomic Blue and the other is Clear Sky Blue.)

I saw the bright blue Insight parked today, and it turns out it's one of the new Zipcars. Pseudo Ivy started having Zipcars last year, but they were all Priuii. I'm imagining price had as much to do with it as anything else (it did for us), but it is still nice to see another Insight around. It is an awesome little car and we continue to be happy with it. _
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07:05:01 PM, Tuesday 7 September 2010

want _
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05:32:01 PM, Tuesday 7 September 2010

Has anybody heard from Libby? Is the baby arrived? I've been worried about her, but in the random "I know you from online only and so sending you an email seems weird" way. _
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04:10:07 PM, Tuesday 7 September 2010

I can't even feel bad about how much I enjoyed Machete. The anti-immigration and xenophobic rhetoric has reached such a volume (both in terms of quantity and loudness) that it is easy to think I'm a big weirdo for appreciating my Latino (and Muslim) neighbors and not seeing any reason at all why we shouldn't be developing a rational immigration policy that accepts that our society is, as it always has been, built on immigration, and that the current rules are obviously not appropriate and not working. It was just really nice to for once be reminded that there are enough people in the US who are not huge xenophobes that a movie like this could be made with big name actors and a wide release. _
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08:53:08 AM, Sunday 5 September 2010

I'm not a fan of the Emmys, have always found Jimmy Fallon annoying, and I gave up on Glee a long time ago but this is wonderful. I especially adored seeing Jorge Garcia out there. _
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06:19:11 PM, Monday 30 August 2010

This is a real thing that you can buy _
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03:13:09 PM, Monday 30 August 2010

Hi Shakers! I never in a million years expected my little blog to get linked from Shakesville. Thanks! _
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07:24:03 PM, Friday 27 August 2010

Reading about the 9th Ward still makes me cry. There are few places in the modern US where we can stand and see how thoroughly our government (as in, one elected by people who are among us right this minute) has harmed our fellow human beings. This was not a natural disaster, this was not some past government, this was not our forebearers' fault, although they certainly are responsible for creating the societal inequities which remain and contributed. But we, right here right now, for choosing the politicians we have, allowing the Army Corps to operate the way it does, or, alternately, remaining ignorant of how our government works, are responsible for this:

The reason it looks like the houses in the background are stacked on top of each other is that a number of them used to be in the "field" in the foreground and were transported by the flood. _
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11:36:52 AM, Friday 27 August 2010

So, it turns out that all of the stories of violence in the convention center and the Superdome were lies and the stories of white vigilantism and lynching and murderous cops shooting innocent people were true. And it only took 5 years for the truth to come out.

I still want to go back to New Orleans and do more to help the city. But I would be looking even more skeptically at the folks in power. _
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04:27:07 PM, Thursday 26 August 2010

I just spent 6 hours in TA training. If hadn't already taken a semester course on teaching biology, gone to many hours of workshops, spent a year in the Preparing Future Faculty program, TAed four classes, and designed and taught a class at a liberal arts college, it might have been a little bit useful. It just suddenly occurred to the department that they had never trained us and so now they started in a way that was just a little bit condescending. The best part was when they asked one of the new professors to talk to us about his knowledge and experience, and it turns out he TAed a year in grad school and that's pretty much it for training. Seriously. _
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03:07:10 PM, Wednesday 25 August 2010

Washington Monthly's ranking of colleges and universities in terms of public good and service is really, really neat. I love seeing Morehouse at the top of the liberal arts colleges list, primarily because they educate so many young men who receive Pell Grants and then go on to do good in the world. Good ole Pseudo Ivy is not doing so hot, on % receiving Pell Grants, or community service, Peace Corps placement, etc.

SJC, I think, does pretty well for what we are. Among other things, we are # 2 in Peace Corps placement for liberal arts colleges (second only to Reed). Very interesting. _
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11:52:23 AM, Tuesday 24 August 2010

I'm not feeling so bad these days, but I stumbled upon this Emily Dickinson poem, and just yes.

Pain--has an Element of Blank--
It cannot recollect
When it begun--or if there were
A time when it was not--

It has no Future--but itself--
Its Infinite contain
Its Past--enlightened to perceive
New Periods--of Pain. _
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05:13:38 PM, Monday 23 August 2010

This is truly awesome. _
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11:25:23 AM, Monday 23 August 2010

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