Wednesday, November 29, 2006
good writing
Having watched
Criminal Minds tonight, I want to say that I think it's amazingly written and performed. I like the strength of each character and personality, especially because they seem to be holding back something in each case and that makes each person all the more interesting. Given Mandy Patinkin's prediliction to overwhelm a role, his restraint is especially welcome and indicates what a skillful actor he is. The writing is so powerful, however, that I almost always toss and turn the night it's on.
Labels: huh?
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
new series
The ever readable, astute and succinct
Dustbury commented recently that he has long written "vents" wherein he does not (necessarily) vent in the usual sense of the word but, rather, engages in more personal writing than usually appears on his blog. His
510th vent is representative and as good to read as pretty much anything he writes - and leads me to wish him a belated-by-three-days most happy birthday and to point out that some of my favorite people are born in November. He and it have inspired me to allow myself the latitude to write personally now and then, perhaps with an audience, while keeping extremely (excessively?) personal remarks away from my main page (here). I thus am borrowing his idea - with thanks and a bow - and naming it
the dust up in his honor.
Labels: huh?
Sunday, November 26, 2006
uh-oh
Either dramatic and horrible mis-reporting is being engaged in, or there are more and more early warning signs that Russia isn't going to be a quiet
ally non-arch-enemy for much longer.
Labels: huh?
the season has begun speeding
There was a nice craft fair two weeks ago and another one this weekend, capping the jollity of the last four days. About thirty years ago, we went to the first of this one at the local community college, and it was wonderful. In fact I still have the duck push-toy that we bought there, slightly abstract body with heavy floppy leather webbed feet that go slap! slap! when you roll it along, and a cute painted face. Over the years, it's been pushed and giggled at and talked to by my and my best friend's four children as well as by all but the newest of their six children. How cool is that? It's good to have lived long enough to observe the threads and some strange qualities of life in the creating and existence of handmade artistry. And on a crasser level, I must say it's good to have bought some nice presents for some of the people on my list.
Labels: holidays, reflections, s.p.e.e.d.ing, things to do
journals
Several people I know keep journals. They use the word as a verb ("I journal") which seems jarring, but I'm almost as used to it as to 'scrapbooking'. Anyway, my point at the moment is that I envy people who journal. I've always thought it must be a splendid way of expressing and exploring one's feelings and thoughts. Blogging is related but it's not as personal. More accurately, it's personal but it's not interior or confessional. Confessional writing tends either to bore me or make me uncomfortable. I took a class once called something like 'turning the personal into stories' but the results were a lot of fairly appalling stories about rapes and cruelties that had been experienced by the participants. I have to admit that I prefer the slightly cooler atmosphere of blogging. Another important plus about blogging, for me, is that I know someone may actually read what I'm writing. (Having an audience apparently matters to me, Dr. Freud.) But there are things I'd like to write about more privately, and yet - interestingly, puzzlingly - I literally cannot write one word if I'm only writing for myself. Near-physical writer's block. A juicy conundrum, eh? Some writers, some of whom blog, don't seem to have any trouble writing very personally. I wonder if they are less fearful - and I more so - about something and, if so, what that something is. Or if the issue is something else altogether. Anyway, I'd really like to sneak around that corner and write about being a child and a parent, about interactions between family members and between friends, about how to know what makes you happy, all the things that make a person unique. I would like to explore. So what do you think: Do bloggers journal? Do journal writers blog?
Labels: huh?
Saturday, November 25, 2006
recovery
The whirlwind is slowing down. After cooking all day Wednesday, being amid family and friends - including five energetic children - all day Thursday and Friday, I feel wonderful but also have a bit of 'empty nest'. I really love the hustlebustle of crowded families, even though one needs a nap now and then, and I would love to live amid the slight chaos of children and several other people. The gods don't always let you have what you want, of course, or at least they like to give it to you only now and then so you'll be wistful for it the rest of the time. Anyway, it was a good three days.
Labels: about me, family, food, reflections, shopping
Thursday, November 23, 2006
good day! speeding
To anyone who chances by today, I wish you a wonderful day yourself and whoever you are with. I love that there is this day when no one chides me for being sappy about the people and things I really like a lot, about how lucky I feel because of my children, my grandchildren (although that word still sounds as if I'm talking about someone else except that the girls are so fabulous and I wouldn't dream of them being anyone else's descendants), my job, my manager (who deserves a post of her own one of these days), the firm for which I work, two terrific new friends, my best friend (we've been friends now for - gasp - more than three decades), my bf's children and
their fabulous children, my French class and the others there, my fabulous stove and oven. Okay that's a long enough litany. But it
is a great day for allowing oneself to take positive stock without feeling silly.
Labels: france, reflections, s.p.e.e.d.ing
getting ready
I'm sure I'm not the only one who plans and preps badly at holidays, but I wish I'd get over it. I always seem to end up staying up until 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. before the family big days that we're celebrating together - Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays. Did I go shopping early this morning so I could get going with the cooking midday? No, of course not. I slept an hour later than if I were going to work, then did some knitting and some reading, made some lists, made some lists of lists, and got out to the stores around noon. Then I ended up having to go to three different stores because each one was out of something, which seemed really odd considering that this is an eating holiday. For example, I had a devilish time finding plain bread cubes. Pepperidge Farm and Arnold used to have big bags of bread cubes, not spiced or cornbread or anything. I never found those but thankfully found a local bakery's or I'd still be toasting and cubing, toasting and cubing. Anyway, everything's done except one quickish thing, so I'll get a bit of sleep now before embarking on the fun and frolic.
Labels: about me, family, food, holidays, reflections
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
birthdays
Today is the birthday of Charles de Gaulle and Rodney Dangerfield. And George Eliot, Andre Gide, Hoagy Carmichel, Benjamin Britten, Geraldine Page, Billy Jean King, Tina Weymouth, Mariel Hemingway, Scarlett Johansson . . . and my sister. A motley group, eh? Compare and contrast . . . and explain, if you can.
Labels: anniversaries, people
eve of giving thanks
Much cooking and running about to do today. My daughter and I are going to have a cranberry sauce competition because we each claim to make the best we've ever tasted. (Since we both like the Ocean Spray jelly, our taste may be questionable, but that's a different subject.) I make two different delicious ones, both easy but wonderful. One requires cooking but the cranberries take care of themselves as long as you stir them. The other is entirely in the blender, amazingly, and includes orange and lemon rind! I'm also making the out-of-bird stuffing (pears are my secret ingredient, adding a hint of sweetness) and an apple pie. I may do Brussel sprouts, too, because I love them. Anyway, happy Thanksgiving Eve!
Labels: food, holidays, reflections
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
excellent reading
Four articles to recommend today.
Bookworm's piece on grammar, spelling and vocabulary. I have to say I've almost always enjoyed knowing good grammar because it comes easily and makes sense to me. I spelled well for the same reasons (plus, I won spelling bees) and I enjoy twisting my way through inconsistencies of the English language. Similarly, I have a fairly large working vocabulary because I enjoy learning and understanding words' roots and add-ons as well as how meanings change depending on spelling and context. I might not feel as strongly about good spelling if I found it as baffling as some do, and I might not care about vocabulary if my memory and understanding of words were poor. On the other hand, I agree with Bookworm that all three are absolutely vital for clear communication and understanding.
David Warren's essay on Milton and Rose Friedman (much thanks to Seablogger). A gentle, engrossing, lovely piece about the renowned economist who died last week at 94, and his wife of many decades. Warren describes a tea meeting with them ten years ago and says, "Even in their mid-eighties, they left an impression of guileless youth." His joint enthusiasm for the economics and the personal is a treat.
Thomas Sowell's article, The Washington Meat Grinder, discussing the gutter-level trash talk in which so many are currently engaging about political and other figures in the public sphere. He writes so alluringly that it's hard to know if you agree with him or just go with his flow, but he makes a darned good case that dragging people's reputations and careers through the mud is horrible and not even useful.
Last is a semi-humorous piece by Clyde Haberman in the New York Times on cellphones as weapons. Physical weapons. Unfortunately I cannot link to it because it is among the pieces that are, appallingly, only available with a paid $8.00 a month subscription, an outlandish sum, but if you can put your hands on a copy of today's NYT, it's the far lefthand column on the first page of the Metro Section.
Anyway, these are all interesting reading and fodder for nuanced and stimulating discussions.
Labels: reflections
Monday, November 20, 2006
grrrr
I've been trying off and on all day to enter a comment on a couple of blogger.com blogs but to no avail. Perhaps this is the latest form of torture devised by the powers that be.
AND "recent comments" has been sorting according to the dates of the posts they're attached to, all of a sudden, not by the dates they (the comments) were written. Since one of the main points of displaying that list is to see comments even when they're not made to the most recent couple of posts, it's a real true blue cause for dismay. I know blogger is wonderful in some ways but it really does seem that if they want to keep doing it successfully they don't put more effort into communicating the issues and problems to their community.
Labels: blogs (mine), reflections
thanksgiving thought speeding
While mucking around with the blog yesterday, the tv was on for company and to remind me that the world keeps on spinning even when I'm very frustrated. Mostly I paid no attention, but one of the few things that caught my interest was - of all things - a Tony Robbins plug for his
Basket Brigade. I'm not a devotee so I almost changed the channel as I heard his intense driving voice (apologies for my reaction to him but although I appreciate the passion that Robbins exudes, I find him too glib and quick with just the right answer for everything that ails you) until found myself fascinated by the very cool
Basket Brigade which provides food and household items to - get this! - more than 2 million people in 74 countries annually. Apparently his family wasn't well off when he was a child and one year some neighbors brought them food for Thanksgiving. His memory of how much that meant to his family fueled his own efforts beginning about 30 years ago when he passed out food in his town. Now the International Basket Brigade is a huge and international enterprise. Isn't it marvelous to know that some people put their money and energy to such genuinely helpful use?! And we can all add to his efforts, too, with money and/or by joining the delivery teams. Information is at the website. Cheers to him.
Labels: s.p.e.e.d.ing
Sunday, November 19, 2006
update2
Uncle. I'll say it again: Uncle. And did you ever notice that "lots" is "lost" spelled backwards? Well, I'm throwing my hands up in baffled dismay because I've tried lots and lots of things . . . from Google Group threads to HTML verification programs to peering closely at the code with highlighters in hand, etc., etc. I simply cannot make it look okay in both Firefox and IE. If I so much as breathe near Firefox and then open it in I.E., some text and images get BIGGER and some text and images get really really
small and then I get a stack overflow error if I click anywhere on the page. On the assumption that either blogger beta will really be better or I'll migrate to Squarespace or Wordpress in the not-too-distant future, I've copied the almost original code back with a few clean-ups in place, and I'll go do housework to recover. Which is a tiny clue to how annoying this all is.
Labels: blogs (mine)
update
Some progress, some greater bafflement. I've cleaned up the code in terms of duplicates and being certain that open and close codes are there for divs. But I was able to use negative bottom and top margins before - to line up things that otherwise are on different lines, for example - and now that results in overlapped-and-therefore-hidden text. On the other hand, it looks a tiny bit less-worse in Firefox. You know the progression from obese to fat to overweight (and, if you're lucky, to normal)? Well, I've made it down to fat. Not good but at least it's an improvement.
Labels: blogs (mine)
glitches
I'm determined to make headway on the display problems in Firefox and on some pc's. I saw this blog on another pc that uses I.E. 7.0, which is what I use, and it looked horrible. If I'm spending time tweaking its appearance, I want it to look okay to everyone who wants to visit. Anyway, the point is that there will be times today when the page looks ghastly because there doesn't seem to be a way to do this offline in blogger. You don't see the same display with "preview" that you do when you "republish", which is annoying and puzzling but nevertheless true. Anyway, thanks in advance for your understanding and patience.
Labels: blogs (mine)
Thursday, November 16, 2006
majoring
Laura muses
today about a Florida school program that's requiring 8th graders to select a "major" and a "career". As am I, she is disturbed by this. It's one thing if a child is naturally driven and focused on something (Hemingway and writing, for example) but altogether another if our choices are narrowed and restricted externally. Most people are going to spend at least five decades, maybe as many as eight, at work and in careers, and I'm not sure that there's a prayer of choosing well without knowing oneself thoroughly. I know we live in the age of self esteem but that's not necessarily the same thing as self awareness. Almost every adult I know would major and minor in different subjects than they did in college. Many would want different jobs and pursue different careers. I'm guessing no one's mentioning anthropologist or aesthetician (the philosophical kind, not the day spa kind) to these eighth graders. Or textile designer or ice cream flavor tester. Or any of the many many possibilities there are. Plus, despite how mature we think we are when we're kids, we're not, and very few of us are encouraged to develop and recognize the quirks and enthusiasms that make us who we are - and give us a chance to be reasonably happy people. I'd love it if we could institutionalize going to college at 30 for people who want to after they've had some experience at figuring out their actual dislikes and passions, not the ones they thought they ought to have when their parents and teachers talked about it. In fact, far from it being a good idea to narrow things down in 8th grade, choices and possibilities should be expanded and widened much much further, don't you think?
Labels: children, schooling
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
mercer foundation speeding
Thanks to
technorati, I discovered that the proprietess of
Suitable for Mixed Company read and wrote about
my first post on speeding and about the
Johnny Mercer Foundation and its
Accentuate the Positive project. I'm gratified to know that others have similar ideas but do also want to emphasize that
speeding will never be platitudinous or sugary. If it starts to be,
please someone slap me hard (verbally). Anyway, the main goal of the Foundation is
"to initiate a series of dynamic new fun, hands-on educational programs designed to introduce the songs of Mercer, and Berlin, and Gershwin, and Ellington and all our great American songwriters to our children quick, before their ears change"
which is an awesome and extremely speed-worthy goal. (I hope
DevraDoWrite knows about this Foundation. It's right up her alley.) There was an "Accentuate the Positive" weekend last spring during which schoolchildren sang and danced by way of presenting the Great American Songbook. The site has a database of songs, a 'jukebox' with which to listen, and all kinds of other information. Pretty darn
speedful!
Labels: gk1, s.p.e.e.d.ing
yarn question
If you, dear rare reader, are also a knitter, can you help me find two or three skeins of Happy (by Idena) in dark green (their #575)? I've put one on a border of a present, assuming I'd easily find more online. But there seems only one store online with that yarn in that color. I just
know there are others. Help!!!
Labels: knitting
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
the U.N. and john bolton
Oh good. It isn't all sweetness and light today. The new Friends of George are asking him to show his willingness for compromise by not re-nominating Bolton for U.N. Ambassador despite his well-regarded performance. While feeling inadequate to the task of expressing my reaction to such ludicrousness, I chanced upon
Ligneus' post. I just hope that straight-forward thievery isn't reprehensible or even in the same category as plagerism since it is, in this case anyway, a form of praise. I wanted to write something sharp and just "so" about GWB's usually clear-headed response to pressure (at least in my opinion and at least thus far), but clearly it is more reasonable simply to reprint his post. Beginning with his comment that the
Wall Street Journal has "the grown ups' view" about the discussion of Bolton's job and quoting the WSJ as follows:
So let's see. Democrats retake the Senate, and their first act of "bipartisanship" is to declare that they'll deny a confirmation vote to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton. And now, say the arbiters of Washington manners, President Bush is supposed to show his willingness to compromise by withdrawing Mr. Bolton's nomination.
If Mr. Bush obliges, he'll be taking a big step toward turning last week's GOP defeat into a rout. Mr. Bolton has performed in exemplary fashion as a recess appointee these last two years, winning plaudits from everyone except those who admire Kofi Annan and Hugo Chavez. He has followed State Department orders and argued forcefully for U.S. policy.
The opposition to Mr. Bolton is based on nothing save vindictiveness. Republican Lincoln Chafee, who would have lost his GOP primary without White House support and who finally did lose last week, now says he won't vote for Mr. Bolton though he had once supported him. Mr. Chafee is a mystery wrapped in a muddle even to himself. Democrats Chris Dodd and Joe Biden are trying to show that any political appointee who refuses to bend to their wishes can't be confirmed. They know other Democrats would vote to confirm Mr. Bolton if he made it to the Senate floor.
Having had one recess appointment, Mr. Bolton can't get another one and be paid. But he could retain his position and be paid if Mr. Bush names him to a non-confirmable post at State and then assigns him to the U.N. Ambassador's duties. Now, that's a compromise.
Ligneus adds, "I hope GWB exercises his famed loyalty here and has the balls to say 'up yours' to the Dems, compromise be damned." There is no reason for me to elaborate.
Labels: politics
is there a lull?
Seems like a strange day. No one is screaming invectives over the political airwaves, no one has bombed anyone, the
NY Times didn't have a dead body on the front page, red state and blue state people are sharing jokes, etc., etc. What is the world coming to? Clearly this won't last very long and it makes me uneasy even after about half a day, but it's kind of interesting.
Monday, November 13, 2006
autumn speeding
I didn't want to let the day end without
speeding, and the thing that struck me today was the astonishing beauty of this year's trees along the Hudson River, which I am lucky enough to see every single day going to and from work.
Labels: gk1, s.p.e.e.d.ing
Sunday, November 12, 2006
feeling clear speeding
I'm always reluctant to write something quite personal on
jmbm so I'll spare the details, but I'm feeling interiorly calm and warm-all-over (you know that clear-eyed, focused, quiet feeling?) after pondering whether and how to say something about something important to me, and then composing, writing and actually sending email in which I explained my feelings and thoughts. Hey, I vowed to
speed each day and this is far and away the best candidate today.
Labels: gk1, s.p.e.e.d.ing
why didn't i think of these?
The redoubtable
Dustbury wrote about a doo-hickee you can mount on your car that says it's a hybrid and looks like the model name in metal. I guess that means that if you see a Hummer that says it's a hybrid, the chances are excellent that the owner bought one of
these.
In
Natural Knits for Babies and Moms, a really nice knitting book, there's a pattern for a mom's sweater with buttons on the front looking great. It's a cleverly designed sweater that makes it easy for nursing mothers to feed their babies without having to either forego sweaters or undress. Yesterday, three of us were looking at the book together, experienced and creative knitters all, with seven children and two grandchildren among us. How come none of us ever thought of that?!
browsers
Just downloaded I.E.7 because I got tired of my computer "reminding" me to load service packs or switch to 7. I hope nothing really annoying happens. I've tried Opera, Mozilla and Firefox a few times. I liked the way Opera looks best of all and there were things about the others I liked, too, but some pages didn't load at all and some features didn't work. I'd open some pages in I.E. and then switch back to Firefox for others. Not much fun. Some people are wildly devoted to it, though.
Labels: blogs (mine)
Saturday, November 11, 2006
young entrepreneurs speeding
When I pulled into my driveway this afternoon, I saw two neighbor nine-year-olds sitting at a table in their driveway next door and waving and shouting at me. I got out of my car and saw the girls standing at the path to my front door, apparently politely waiting for me. I asked what their table was for. They said they had Snapple, iced tea, Hi C and Dr. Pepper. I willingly handed over a whole entire dollar when I learned the price was fifty cents per drink, for which I got two bottles of Apple Spice Snapple (which I didn't even know existed). They were so happy you'd have thought I'd bought a house from them and paid half a million bucks. I asked what the "cause" was and they said, "us! we're poor!"
Labels: s.p.e.e.d.ing
11/11 - veterans day
Doesn't it seem odd to say "happy" when observing Veterans Day? Partly it's just verbal custom but there's also the point that we are grateful that people have been willing to risk their lives for their countries. Nevertheless, when one visualizes the reality of a soldier's life, it bogles the mind. There's a ton of magnificent literature - poetry, non-fiction, novels - not to mention movies - that makes it easier to picture but I'm sure nothing comes even close to the actual experience. I can't imagine willingly putting yourself in the path of bayonets and guns. But thank goodness some people perform astonishing acts of bravery, including the act of being there.
Col Jack Jacobs, a
Medal of Honor recipient for saving over a dozen lives in Vietnam, acknowledges that "it was very unpleasant" but says simply "it had to be done." The quiet, steady courage of soldiers is stunning.
Several times today, let's stop and remember, think about, pay respect and send thanks for the courage and strength of all the soldiers who have protected our world.
straw poll
Captain's Quarters is running
a presidential straw poll about who you would like to see run in 2008 among the currently obvious conservatives.
Labels: blogs (mine), politics
Friday, November 10, 2006
speeding
Inspired by Clare at
Three Beautiful Things, whose blog I visited after reading
normblog's interview with her, and remembering
my own impulse to do the same thing, I'm going to try
Saying something
Positive
Each and
Every
Day. It can be one thing or several, lists or thoughts. If nothing else, this guarantees one post each day even when I'm lolligagging or seem unable to write. My
speeding today is:
1. living in a democracy where people get to choose who will represent them in our governing bodies - even if it's imperfect and neither the representatives nor the governing bodies work as well as I'd like them too, nevertheless it's a grand and hopeful enterprise
2. platitudinous though it is, the weather yesterday and today - in the sixties, sunny, absolutely lovely
3. my daughter's birthday yesterday (I won't say how old she is and, anyway, that would make me about 20 years older than that, which is patently impossible!)
4. the picture of my daughter's daughter that I have beside the flowers on my desk - the one where she's throwing back her head and laughing
It'd be awesome if you add some
speed of your own in comments. If you want to
speed with me, let me know and I'll make a group page. Meantime, I'm keeping track of my own
speeding at
go-4-speed.
Labels: gk1, s.p.e.e.d.ing
Thursday, November 9, 2006
i hope not
Seablogger has been pondering and mulling things over throughout the election. Now, on Rumsfeld's proffered resignation and Bush's acceptance of it, Alan comments that he thinks "Bush cut and ran". Done earlier, it could have had a salutatory effect on the election. Later, it would have shown faith in his own convictions and decisions. As it is, it does seem like cutting and running and I would have sworn Bush would never do that. Alan also thinks this is a harbinger of what Bush will do in Iraq (he "will now govern entirely like a Democrat, having deemed that the will of the people"). The idea that GWB gives a rat's patooty about the changeable and windblown "will of the people" and might waver from his goals and principles makes me something less than distraught but definitely surprised and distressed. For Bush to resemble Clinton in any way, let alone in this scurrilous way, would hugely disappoint and surprise me.
Labels: politics
green & red sweater
I need a charming pattern to knit a sweater for a <10-year-old girl. She wants it in red and green but I don't want to make something so egregiously holiday-esque that she can only wear it for a week or two. I picked up a middy sort of pattern that is very cute but the more I look at it, the less I think it's what she had in mind. Ideas and suggestions are invited and welcome.
Labels: knitting
blogging
Weird goings on at blogger these days. If you feel like wading in and reading many many diabtribes, feast on the blogger help group at Google Groups. I wish I didn't like the ability to read and fuss with the template or I would flee, skipping away as fast as my fingers could carry me. Google Mail is never down or problematic as far as I can tell from experience and reading about it, but boyoboyoboy is blogger different. Hard to know whether they just don't prioritize it, but it's a shame to cause so much consternation among obviously good customers.
Labels: blogs (mine)
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
p.s.
A friend of mine came up to me earlier and said "isn't it a wonderful day?!" Hoping to deflect what I assumed was a reference to the elections, I cheerfully and expectantly asked, "Why? What happened?" She looked surprised and said "We have the House and maybe the Senate!"(using "we" as if any clear thinking person would share the same reactions). I wanted to go to slightly safer territory so I said I was sorry about who won in New York (which I am) since those candidates don't seem to inspire the same crazy emotions as the national ones. So then we had a fairly rational discussion although in the end we agreed that we had to accept that our opinions differ about most of the candidates. As I thought about it, however, I felt sad that we've been so divided in the last few years and puzzled that some perfectly fine people think Bush is a villainous, foolish, dumb lout while other perfectly fine people think he's a principled, decent, intelligent adult. Maybe a good outcome of this election will be some kind of rapprochement since the power of government won't feel one-sided to either side. Maybe now that everyone is in there kicking together, ruffled feathers can calm down and we can again think about ourselves as a whole. You know: fifty
united states and three hundred million
united Americans.
Labels: politics
what, no derangement syndrome today?!
The people who lost elections yesterday, and the people who supported the people who lost elections yesterday, will now be all freaked out and start moaning and groaning and gnashing their teeth about the demise of freedom and life as we know it, right? And they'll get their medical insurance to pay for therapy because they're so upset. And they'll threaten to hightail it to some other country. And they'll stay in bed all day for at least three days because they're so depressed. And then in case they haven't acted out enough, they'll yell and scream some more and call the winners nasty names and liken them to evildoers of the past. Right? Oh but, wait,that's what the people who just won did when
they lost. Anyway it's not winning or losing that's the problem, no, no, it's the evil man himself who occupies the White House. Of course. How could I forget? Silly me.
Labels: politics
on a few positive notes
Finding a bit of rose tinting his lenses,
Spiced Sass writes:
On the good side it will be a change for the Dems to have to take some responsibility instead of sniping from the sidelines.
And I hope that
normblog knows whereof he speaks, quoting both
the Chicago Tribune:
Democrats have vowed to raise the minimum wage, allow Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, make college tuition tax deductible and implement all of the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission to secure the nation's borders and ports. They have also promised to expand federally funded embryonic stem cell research, which Bush gave his first and only veto to this year.
On Iraq, Democrats have said they would begin a phased redeployment of U.S. forces and would require Iraqis to take responsibility for their country. They have also promised to double the size of Special Forces in order to track down and destroy terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda.
. . .and
Jeff Weintraub:
All elections are important, but this one is potentially crucial and historic. Whatever else any of us may want to see accomplished politically, a vital first step toward any kind of constructive change is to break the monolithic one-party monopoly of the national government that the Republican right has held during the Bush II administration. (I think this holds true, dear reader, even if you normally vote Republican.) It may also contribute in a small way to 'normalizing' debate elsewhere in the world about America's international role.
Labels: s.p.e.e.d.ing
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
election
Even though I don't get to sport an inky finger, I did it. I voted. I pulled those cute little levers, possibly for the last time if one is to believe the reports of their imminent demise. I also got to shake Jeanine Pirro's hand. She and George Pataki were greeting everyone coming down the MetLife escalators. Pataki looked shorter than I remember him, and considerably less cheery. Pirro looked tiny and was very upbeat, her handshake nice and strong. She made eye contact, which was unusual and pleasant. Flash forward. We arrived home on time and I drove to the polling place. It's now at the back of a local elementary school and lit so badly that it fairly begs for a petty criminal to seek some publicity there (cynic that I am). I voted against everyone who will almost certainly win. I felt democratically engaged but also disenfranchised, not because I'm in poverty or rural but because I hate mediocrity and hypocrisy. Nevertheless, I did my part and I'm glad.
Labels: politics
the mayflower
Fitting as a way to observe and honor the end of an election season, I think, I've just begun reading
The Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, lured by several hugely enthusiastic reviews. I was wary that it would have any one of a number of political and/or politically correct agendas. In particular I am not interested in reading more of the "we are white middle class empire builders who need to beat our chests with remorse for what we did to various and sundry indigenous people". It's not that I don't hate what was done and wish everyone had been polite and kind to each other but what happened is done and wasn't my fault and it won't change anything or help anything if I rip myself apart about it. Anyway, all that aside, this seems to be a complex and fascinating story about an extraordinarily complex and intense group of people. More, anon. (By the way, did you know that almost ninety percent of the original Jamestown Colony settlers died in the first year they were there??)
Labels: books
Monday, November 6, 2006
election eve
The fallen-flat joke was followed closely by near-silence on the part of all the hoopla-sayers about the Democrats trouncing the Republicans in the mid-term election. My suspicion is that, just as in the last two presidential elections, the millions of American people are using their individual and careful judgment to make decisions they believe are correct and they're not going to be persuaded one way or the other by the loonies who write copy for the newspaper and television media. I suspect, too, that the majority still trusts and champions GWB - horrifying as that thought is to some - and therefore will vote with him, albeit narrowly.
Labels: politics
unhappy people
I guess some people are just unhappy. And some need to recognize where they leave off and the rest of the world begins. You know, just outside your own skin, right . . . there! All of which is on my mind because this weekend I went to a yarn shop about an hour from my house, one that I had stayed away from due to what seemed a kind of haughtiness the last time I was there but which a friend assured me had changed. Indeed, the owner has mellowed considerably and seems pleasant and non-judgmental now. But one of the store's 'regulars' is a doozie. Maybe she just took a dislike to me but I had been there less than half an hour and was being pretty quiet when it all began. I'd been weighing various patterns and color combinations when she asked if I generally made things for myself. An odd question but one that knitters do often ask, so I answered "not usually" and asked why. Apparently she then thought it appropriate
and her business to observe aloud that since I was spending so much time trying to figure out pattern and yarns for someone else, I have "self esteem issues". I didn't want to start an argument but was tempted to say I hadn't noticed the sign saying one could only enter the store if one was making something for oneself. A few minutes later the owner got involved in my choosing and began suggesting yarn and color possibilities. I guess that was just too much for Boundary Woman who then pursed her lips and said she was surprised I was letting myself "be dictated to by a six-year-old". Gasp, clutch chest, fall to the floor. (Not really, of course.) I was appalled because I don't know what's wrong with trying to pick carefully and well. I had gone to the store precisely to find a pattern and wool for a gift for a little girl who had asked me to make her something specific, which was an endearing request so I wanted to make something special. Doesn't one usually try to please a recipient with a gift? By the way, no, I wasn't an uninvited intruder who'd stumbled into a 'knitting circle' - it was just a random Saturday afternoon hanging out. I can't help but wonder if the owner likes customers to offer personal critiques of other customers? I'm considering returning the yarn because it feels "tainted" but I know that's immature. Bad karma and all, though. What do you think?
Labels: gk1, huh?, knitting, shopping
electioneering
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I find the campaigners who block access to trains or staircases or escalators beyond annoying. Don't they realize that antagonizing potential voters is a bad idea?
Labels: politics
Sunday, November 5, 2006
elections
On the one hand there are the ugly, uglier and ugliest compaign ads in the papers on on tv. On the other hand there is my increasingly deep dislike of nearly all the candidates this year. I can't wait to get to the polls on Tuesday to act out my negative feelings. This is the first time in all the years I've been voting that every lever is will be a deliberate shot
against someone rather than a hopeful and supportive action. (Uh-oh, is this a negative ad?)
Labels: politics
steyn on 'the joke'
As usual, Steyn
says it succinctly and with more wit and pointedness, than almost anyone else.
Labels: politics
dubious i.q.
On Halloween the president of the University of Pennsylvania posed for
a photograph with a student in a costume of a suicide bomber. I always thought Halloween costumes are supposed to be witty or funny. Political commentary is fine, but with wit. The whole thing is supposed to be a gigantic costume party, not an editorial. How is a suicide bomber a good costume? How about 'dressing up' as a concentration camp resident? If not, why not? I suppose a case could be made for his choice simply being in bad taste but I think it's simply over the line.
But back to Winfield Myers, said U.Penn president. In yet another example of disingenuousness by an apparently smart person who evinces a slippery relationship with honesty, and appalling low awareness of the real world, she said that she didn't notice what his costume was before she posed with him. She issued an apology but I wonder what dictionary she uses because this doesn't fit the definition in mine. What she said was
"The costume is clearly offensive and I was offended by it. As soon as I realized what his costume was, I refused to take any more pictures with him, as he requested. The student had the right to wear the costume just as I, and others, have a right to criticize his wearing of it.
Excuse me???? How did President Myers get those words out with a straight face? How does she expect anyone to believe that, complete with a Ph.D. and successful candidate for the job of running an enormous and complex university structure with thousands of academics and administrators and students, she didn't notice a large gun and cannisters of explosive strapped on to someone standing next to her??? Plus, although censorship always bothers me, I'm not sure that pretending to be someone who wants to kill everyone including the people they're with is a freedom we need to guard, but maybe it is; I have to think about it.
Labels: politics
Saturday, November 4, 2006
targeted advertising?
In today's mail I had something from DirecTV. Which isn't all that odd except . . . it was in Cyrillic. The entire thing. One small place said something about 'Russian DirecTV' but the rest was unintelligible to me. Huh?
Labels: huh?
saturday's birthdays
Today's celebrants include Laura Bush, Walter Cronkite, Will Rogers, Pauline Trigere, Art Carney, Doris Roberts, Kate Reid, Jimmy Pearsall (!), Loretta Swit, Alexei Ulanov, Robert Mapplethorpe, Kathy Griffin, and Matthew McConaughey. What do they have in common aside from being vivid and strong personalities - any ideas?
Labels: juxtapositions
gum and spit
Tote that tool box. Haul those screwdrivers (the metal kind). Hey, don't blame me that I fix things ineptly - I'm just a girl (heh). And apparently don't blame anyone else when things go mechanically wrong. It turns out we should all be thanking our lucky stars. Wait til you see
this story. (H/t:
Bilious Young Fogey)
Labels: fun
war movie - road picture - war picture - road movie
The 49th Parallel is an interesting pre-war movie supposedly written to urge the U.S. into WWII. It's absorbing and wonderful in many ways although also a bit odd. It has a fair dose of Canadian cheerleading, complete with Mounties and gorgeous lakeside scenery, as well as the curiosity of dialogue written before we became quite so cautious about expressing our opnions about "good guys" and "bad guys". The script is so strong that Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger won the 1941 writing Oscar. Of course, it doesn't hurt that there's a Ralph Vaughn Williams score and a phenomenal cast (Anton Walbrook, Raymond Massey, Lawrence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Glynnis Johns, among others) none of whom is the "star" because it's essentially a "road" picture as the German submarine survivors set off on a quest to get to then-neutral America. Some things are wrong (the type of planes changes from the beginning of one scene to the next, which is jarring, and the Germans walk across the border with Canada (a) with no apparent weakness brought on by hunger and thirst and (b) with no sense that they can just turn left and enter the U.S. without so much as a glance). (The
TCM comments are worth reading to get a sense of the breadth of reactions it inspires in different people and even in oneself during the two-hour film.) The final shot of the train heading to America, high atop the Niagara bridge, is lovely. A bit heavy on symbolism, but beautiful.
Whether Powell-Pressberger really meant to be urging the Americans to join the war, or were simply writing about people standing up for their beliefs, it's a darned good yarn. There are tons of good lines throughout this terrific script but my favorite today is when Raymond Massey, reacting to his opponent's Germanic diatribe, answers that:
We have the right to be fed up with anything we damn please, and to say so. . . and we can dish it out, too.
Labels: juxtapositions, movies
Friday, November 3, 2006
beating a dead horse joke
Yeah, okay, enough. But no, no, tiz knot. Et iz whey two mush phunn. All those years of spelling correctly and now we get to do something with not spelling correctly! Nauw czech zeez aud:
- Chris Muir's cartoon
- Kawling All Millblogers at Recruiting Tirade but be careful if someone you have to be quiet around is nearby
- Scrappleface's re-interpretation of the joke's interpretation
- Believe it or not, two days later, there are already bumper stickers!
Oh, and I meant to mention this yesterday, but in his fauxapology CaryKerryJon said that listeners had misunderstood what he said (as opposed to him misspeaking, you understand) in which case
we inferred wrongly (we didn't
imply the 'wrong' meaning which is what he said we did) and more accurately
he implied wrongly.
Labels: politics
p.s.
Can you say Watergate? Wasn't that the seminal moment when we learned the important lesson that covering-up is worse than the problem? That's what I thought but apparently I was wrong. The Kerry folks don't seem to know as indicated by their apology that really says the problem was people misunderstood. And the New York Times doesn't as indicated by their printed wrong text and mistaken information in the first place and their
correction (it's the third one down) in the second. It's hard not to think the Times wrote their apologia deliberately given the rest of the article and now ha ha they have to twist and turn to get out of it without sounding as deliberately misinformational as they were. Don't they see that it would always be simpler to print things
as actually said and then not have to go through backtracking? By the way, like
Laura, I noticed that the Times put their coverage way inside on page A15 and yet they couldn't bring themselves to show the witty
rejoinder banner by the soldiers even though it was all that far into the paper. When I was growing up, there was plenty of verbalized and acted-out classism but at this rate, if we don't keep our eyes on reality even if we decide to paint it with our own colors, and if we don't throw in a sense of humor, the political morass is going to swallow us whole pretty soon.
Labels: politics
Thursday, November 2, 2006
logic
I was thinking about it and trying to understand the logic of the "joke" in which CaryKerry supposedly meant to poke fun at President Bush. He says what he meant is this:
get an education = get a good job
But if Bush was the target then he presumably meant that education would help the kids do better than Bush (because you certainly wouldn't want to emulate him). But Bush did have a sort of decent education (Andover, Yale and Harvard) and he's had a few pretty good jobs (sports team executive, state's governor, country's president). And didn't JK want the job that Bush has? So he must've meant something else. Maybe he meant this:
get an education = get a better job than being a soldier and having to go where someone tells you and maybe getting shot at for months on end or even killed
But then the "joke"
would have been cutting on the troops and he says he really really really didn't have that in mind. So maybe he really meant this:
Bush has soldiers stuck in Iraq and if you don't get a good education you might have to be a soldier and then you could be one of them and have to go where someone tells you and get shot at for months and maybe get killed
But then that means he wasn't talking about education at all. (Uh-oh.) It means that he was talking about how much he doesn't like Bush or what's going on in Iraq. But that's not what he actually said. And I still don't see where the joke (i.e. funny part) is.
Labels: politics, reflections
apologies
I once worked for someone who had - for want of a better way to put it - unfelicitous relationships with many staff members. When he would reduce someone to abject fury and/or tears he would invariably shake his head and say "I'm so sorry you feel bad" and then be puzzled when the furious or upset person was even angrier or more upset. Likewise, Jon Cary. ("I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.") For one thing, the whole education thing was ridiculous since he and GWB had similar midling grades at Yale but it was GWB who also earned a Harvard MBA. For another, even grammatical gymnastics make it impossible for the original comment to refer to the President and not to the troops when he said that "education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq". But bottom line,
what kind of apology is it to lay the problem at the feet of "misinterpretation" and "implication" and "being offended"?
Labels: blogs (mine)
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
nanowrimo
It's that time again - National Novel Writing Month - day one as 2006's
write-a-whole-novel-during-November gets underway. Check it out or jump in and see what happens. Let that muse have some fun for thirty days.
Labels: writing
can't resist
1: Zillions of people have posted it and will see it, but I must, too. It's simply irresistible.
Click on the image for the full effect.
2: From the Associated Press: "Al-Jazeera to Start English Channel". (It's
a real news story.) START one?? There already IS one!!!!!
(Shamelessly & gratefully stolen from with cheese.) Labels: blogs (mine)
