Usually I spare any rare readers from news of the condition of my head, physically speaking, but I have to whine to someone so you're it. I have a code idd my head add my noze is reely redd. I need soup and a blankie.

Labels: about me, whining

Laura of Miscellaneous Musings cites several pieces about Hillary, all by Brits, interestingly enough. A few days ago I expressed the hope that people remember what she really is like (here). Are their memories so easy to dismiss? Am I almost alone in remembering how furious everyone was during the last months of Clinton's second term? The vitriol, the disgust, the anger . . . . I wonder if eight years is too long to be president, or at least too long when there's no chance of revving up again for a third term. The active person begins to become the former president around year 5.5. You know how you prepare for something big in your life? Like when the last child is about to leave for college and you know your life will change significantly so you begin to pick little fights with each other and then it seems partly a relief when the moment actually comes? I think this may be like that, a bit. It might be good to remember that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Keep that thought.

Labels: gwb, history, politics

February 2nd is coming. Thus an excuse to watch Groundhog Day again. Again. Again. How many times have you seen it?

Update. According to IMDb, GHD will be broadcast on the Comedy channel on Friday 2/2/07 at 10:30 am plus at 1:00 and 3:30 pm, as well as on Saturday 2/3/07 at 7:30 and 10:00 am plus 12:30 pm which means we can see it again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Is this a great country or what.

Labels: fun, movies

Cool! a non-"lorem ipsum" random text generator. Lynn at A Sweet Familiar Dissonance, who finds some of THE most interesting sites and blogs, pointed it out. It's called Hint Plus and its stated purpose is to find alternate solutions for simple tasks (my paraphrase). The paragraph I got is:

Epidemiographist cancerating psw edo incommixed methide gammerel roland planirostrate plantership agelaius unmigrant peaker unimputable tremolist vefry batterman. Shirehouse bemedals leukeran overvaliantly colliquant enteria. Merginae elizabeth temperably entreasuring accloyed takiest thorascope zealotist uncontrasting radly unmaniac incunabuulum.

And we mustn't forget Word's "link=(#)" which is very nice, too.

Labels: blogs (others'), fun

How beautiful he was and what a lovely addition to our world.

Labels: farewells

Sorry for the mess of this page, this morning. I made one very small change last night, in an attempt to restore a sleeker, more minimalistic look and all of that proverbial hell broke loose. I've made one attempt this morning to fix things but with very little success, and I can't get back to it for several hours. Feel free to rant and rave and tell me how annoying it is. I agree with you!

Labels: blogs (mine)

The bubble of Hillary's campaign is expanding. In a clip of her talking to Iowans, she portrays herself as a pleasant midwestern woman. Golly, how can they not hear the acting in her voice? The patronizing. She's about as midwest and normal as Camilla Parker-Bowles-Windsor. Has everyone forgotten the infamous chocolate chip cookies incident with Mrs Bush#41 and Mrs Perot?

Update. After her new 'joke' today, I feel compelled to suggest aloud that being in front of television cameras and on newspaper front pages more than a few times puts a person at risk for a magnetic effect that wipes out the ability to see clearly. First JonCary [sic] and now Hillary say something stupid and then say they were making a joke when, well, it wasn't funny. It may be entirely and sadly true that Hillary feels able to deal with 'evil impossible men' because of you-know-who, and it may indeed titillate us to know that she knows that we know what she's been putting up with all this time, but what part of that piece of - er - humor speaks to her ability to be a world leader? Let's see: you know that you're being demeaned and treated badly and then you suck it up and live with it. Sure, that sounds authoritative and statesperson-like.

Labels: politics

Molly Ivans is dealing with another bout of cancer, per Dustbury. I hate the vitriol she laces through her political columns but she's a feisty, argumentative (in a good way) thinker we need around for decades more. Prayers and positive energy....

Labels: politics, writing

I'm really tired of trying to find clothes that fit and that I like and that aren't dowdy. I'm not a size two (lol) nor twenty-something or even thirty-something (heh) but lots of clothes I see would be fine except they're only made for young and small people. How about sewing? Years ago, I sewed a lot and made a few outfits. Being short-waisted, though, dress tops bloused too much and waistbands fell at my hips. Plus it was when a-line types of neat and prim clothes were all the rage. Styles too unforgiving for a neophyte seamstress. These days there's more of a sense of playfulness and less structure in designs. Maybe Project Runway is having an impact. Anyway, I'm going to look into this. Sewing machines are versatile and capable, I hear, without being as cumbersome as the old full-table Singers. Recommendations or advice, anyone?

Labels: about me, runway

Just watched most of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which I haven't seen in many many years. Sadly, it seemed dated: stiff, arch, unnatural, odd. Le Carre often seems that way in his books, though it took me years to admit it because I told myself he was a genius so it was just that I wasn't clever enough.

Labels: books, movies

Today I started off at Laura's Miscellaneous Musings, noting her comment that "It's time for this country to fully embrace Martin Luther King's dream and get past color-based politics and racial separatism". I agree. Times have changed, witness Obama being taken completely seriously as a candidate, so it's time to cease separatist activities like the Congressional Black Caucus. They were necessary and helpful, but it's time to accept that we've changed.

2. TV Shows on DVD. A compendium site, not a blog. Laura (see #1) has mentioned this site before but I've never visited. It's a place where you can vote for shows you'd buy on DVD, and how you'd want to buy them. It also lists DVDs that have already been released (old, new, classic and cancelled shows, no less, as well as what's about to be released). Plus, they tell you where you can buy them. Great resource!

3. Blog associated with #2 called (guess!) TV Shows on DVD Blog. It's been in existence since December 2005 so I guess I've been thoroughly out of this loop. Anyway, the blog is the personal comments of the folks who maintain #2. Fun to scroll through.

4. Yikes. Only two links on #3 (its own (see #2) and its Flickr photos), so there's no go-to-able link, thus stopping my rule #3 in its tracks. Back to #1 and off to Farmgirl Fare. Susan displays photos (like the fabulous black and white cat trying to get through a wire fence (one wonders whether it met with success) from a 240-acre (!) farm in Missouri where she moved after prep school, college, businesses, etc. The site won the Best Food Blog (Rural) for 2006 and has a handy "welcome to the site" page which is informative and interesting. Descriptions of seed starting, recipes, things to buy, ways to cook and store what you grow, etc., etc. A terrific site that will get more of my time, that's for sure. (Hmmm, chocolate biscotti . . . .)

5. On to These Days in French Life, written by Riana, "a food-driven, travel-loving American residing in the south of France with her French husband". Great photos and descriptions of the countryside and life in France. Check out that kitchen! She studied engineering until calculus did her in even though she'd done well in AP calc in high school. (Sounds awfully familiar tho' my intended major was physics, abandoned for the same dreadful reason in favor of philosophy, believe it or not.) I need a lot more time here.

Well, now I have food and travel lust with avengence, so it's a good thing I'm done for today.

Labels: blogs (others'), france, reflections

(1) bloghop every Thursday

(2) make 5 or 7 hops (prime numbers rule and 5 & 7 are a prime twin) (thanks, CGH!)
(update 3/23/07 - turns out that 5 is sometimes too many, given that I like to wax rhapsodic if I really like a blog, so the required minimum is now changed to 3 with the allowed maximum still being 7 - and anyway 3 is still a prime number!)

(3) (a) start at the last site from the previous week's hop or from one of mine
(3) (b) go to one of that blog's links, then to one of that blog's links, and so on and so on

(4) (a) cannot go to a link I already know
(4) (b) cannot say 'I don't like this one' and move on, i.e., must take whatever link I click on

(5) write something about what I see, what the site looks like and seems like, what's interesting (or not) and/or unique

(6) may add new limitations or expansions as time goes on

Purpose: to discover unexpected sites and ideas, and to write about them.

Labels: blogs (mine), reflections

At the risk of adding to the excessive amount of time I've spent recently referring Rare Readers elsewhere, I must mention a wonderful essay at Spiced Sass. I tried to leave a comment there, telling Ligneus how much I like the piece, but comments rejected me no matter what I did, yesterday and today. So I hope he reads this. Anyway, This and That starts off with pop and jazz (Rodgers and Hart [and Hammerstein], 40's big band singers, Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, Fats Waller, Elvis's Sun recordings, Billie Holiday. . .), moves on to Brahms' awesome Third Symphony, and lands on poetry (Philip Larkin but mainly Thomas Hardy). Hardy's novels have begun to wear thin for me, being so endlessly depressing and glum - I mean, how much of that can a girl read before she seeks a mill on a pond of her own and does herself in? Hardy's poetry is everything good poetry can be, however, and the cited poem is worth the price of admission all by itself. This is the kind of post that exemplifies why blogging holds at least some of the future of literature in its verbal, egalitarian, exciting hand.

Labels: blogs (others'), books, juxtapositions, music

Interesting and thought-provoking analysis of Dinesh D'Souza and the attacks on him by the conservative right. Andrea (Victory Soap) is particularly good at hitting proverbial nails on their proverbial flat little heads and she's done it here. She starts off with a tossed-off comment about conservative bloggers being perhaps better characterized as "economically and socially libertarian non-pacifist bloggers" which is so true. Not jumping right up on the liberal and save-the-world-through-peace-and-love bandwagon doesn't prove you're is a right-winger, after all.

Anyway, her discussion is about "why 'conservative bloggers' are so angry at D'Souza" for denigrating the crass, superficial, materialistic values notably visible in Hollywood. These values are, in fact, part of our culture but it's a big big world out here and my own feeling is that we should let the crass people do what they want as long as they leave the rest of us alone, and "cleaning ourselves up will benefit us spiritually and morally, but we'll still have the enemy to contend with". We might be better off trying to be better people, and I'm sure many of us are working on that, but we can become nuns and saints all we want and it won't make any difference. The extremists aren't interested in a world with multiple values or the concept of "live and let live". They want the infidels gone, wiped out, off the face of the earth. We need to understand that and be ourselves.

Labels: blogs (others'), reflections

I tried valiantly to set up Annie at BlogU's elegant hide/expand lists but they're not working for me (yet). Could be my coding, could be blogger, dunno, but I need to obsess on them and can't for now. Meantime I've put in the less elegant but very functional ones designed by Hacko. If I could change the white background, they'd seem less clunky, but they're fine for now. And in case I haven't said it before, boyoboy do I appreciate the work and generosity of the big deal blogging hackers.

How and/or why do some codes change, seemingly on their own???

By the way, what do any Rare Readers think about a black background? Readable? Like it? Hate it? Let me know what you think.

Labels: blogs (mine), web design

The apparently excellent book by Mark Steyn is called "American Alone: the end of the world as we know it". The engrossing and entertaining review is by Christopher Hitchens', of the book. Neither of these writers ever minces words or fails to say what he thinks. (h/t Bookworm Room and City Journal)

Labels: books, politics

Three cheers! There's another stunning British actor on the scene, one who's been around a few years to those in the theater know but emerging as a big deal only now to the rest of us. Stunning, by the way, in both senses of the word. He's Rochester in last evening's and next Sunday's Masterpiece Theatre's Jane Eyre and was the villain in Die Another Day (Daniel Craig's James Bond film). He's handsome as can be but without much smolder, so his is an unusually not-unpleasant Rochester although I must admit I quite like his portrayal. (Freud would be relieved to know that one Bronte's symbols are intact - dark and white horses, fire, flowing water, etc., etc.) There's a YouTube interview with him from the BBC's morning programme and a fan site of course, though not a particularly fawning one, which is nice. A few years ago when younger than 35, he made a huge stir in Hamlet in London; as the son of Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, perhaps his talent is genetic.

Labels: tv

Here are some things I haven't figured out and that are driving me crazy trying different solutions.

1. How to make a selected link border not show. Seems like this is the equivalent of active in the old blogger so I tried adding code to the html but with no effect.

2. How to have less space between categories in the sidebar list. They seem to be in table rows (if you highlight them, you see faint lines between each item) but expanding widgets doesn't display coding for them and no site I've lurked on has mentioned this, even though theirs display nice and tidily.

3. How to search in text in widgets. Sure, I can copy text into Word or Notepad and then search there, but it seems counterproductive and time consuming.

4.(a) How to display and modify a feed element's code to make it look as I want. (b) How to display more than 5 titles or other items in a feed widget. When I add the code recommended by others (?max-results=[n]), the url is invalid. Only posts or comments work so far (note the optimistic "so far"!).

5. How to paste code from other blogs' suggestions into a widget with line breaks instead of as a run-on huge paragraph. I changed the formatting setting to not convert line breaks, thinking it would temporarily work, but I was wrong.

That's all for now. I think.

Labels: blogs (mine), blogs (others'), web design

Looks like winter does exist this year. The midwest and even California(!) had freezing rain and snow already but the northeast has been spared. January and February usually are the "it" months, though, and it's really cold the last couple of days (15 degrees or so). And now we're going to some snow showers (whatever that means) all week, off and on. Better put those sandals away, huh?

Labels: weather

Mitt Romney has also stated his intention to think seriously about thinking seriously about running for president. This tip-toeing stuff is so stupid, but so is the whole campaigning process at the moment. As if it nets us a person with principles or ideas who can galvanize people. Anyway, Laura (Musings) wrote an interesting piece on Romney yesterday. P.S. - And Seablogger has a good post worth adding to one's knowledge base about all this, quoting the always quotable and pointed Mark Steyn.

Labels: politics

The woman who insisted she would serve the people of New York as long as they would have her, the woman who fakegraciously 'let' her husband run because she wanted to support his ego, the woman who stood by her man over and over again despite - well, you know - today threw the brim of her hat into the ring. Meaning that she declared her intention to intend to make a run for the presidency in 2008. Current election financing demands that a person officially declare he/she is thinking of doing it, now, but it seems so cagey and calculated to announce on her website on a Saturday, especially what with Obama getting so much positive press recently. (What? Hilary cagey and calculated?! Aw, come on. ) I vacillate between wanting to crawl under my bed until it's over and someone convinces me it's safe to come out because Hilary's not the president, and being pleased that we're at a time when a woman and a black man are the two most likely contenders at least for the moment. Except for the lies and nonsense, the anger and vitriol that lie ahead, this could be an interesting two years. Course, I'd rather not have a president with no principles whose actions depend on the polls, than one who has principles upon which he/she insists on acting. Is that just me?

Labels: 2008 election, politics

There are some smart people out there who deserve recognition for generously sharing what they know with those us who may not be as adept at figuring things out or can use a boost. Their explanations and/or codes are fantastically helpful. This is in notably stark contrast to some blogger forum (non)helpers who are arrogant and dismissive in the extreme, not even responding to carefully worded questions. But the angels are helpful and encouraging. The best I know so far are Beautiful Beta (beyond terrific), BlogU (awesome), Hackosphere, Blogger Wiki, Hoctro, and several others referenced on the sidebars of all of those. They make it interesting and - dare I say it? - fun.

Labels: blogs (mine), web design

I've tried sighing and whining but it's not working. I need to buckle down and buy a new car. Well, a used car but new to me. I can't quantify how much I don't want to do this, mostly because I hate the idea of spending all that money on something that gets me around. Plus, I spend several thousand dollars a year on commuting by train, so it seems so superfluous. On the other hand, it's necessary. On the other hand, I don't want to. Stamp, stamp. I wish I could just go online and do it all there, impersonally, and have the car appear in my driveway.

Labels: shopping

I imagine any Rare Readers are tired of hearing me going on about the new template and all, but one more thing. I saw a terrific widget (one of the big bell-and-whistle changes) that displays a sort of button that you click to go to another place on your blog (read: site). For example, a button that says "categories" so you don't have to scroll all the way down to see if there are any, you just click the button and there they are. So that'll be part of the weekend's blogging entertainment. I bet you can hardly wait.

Labels: blogs (mine)

For more on the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children Conference which no media seems to be covering for some reason (why???), read Laura Bush's remarks here. This is a vital and fantastic effort. The ICMEC has a website here, and it would be good if everyone got behind this effort thoroughly. Much more attention needs to be paid to this, not only when boys are found alive (or not) or when pretty blonde girls disappear from Utah or the Carribean. There are appalling things being done to young people around the world and it's simply unacceptable and should be stopped.

Labels: children

The New York Times ran a story today on a conference which is being attended and run by Laura Bush with Mrs Putin and Mrs Chirac, and several other wives of world leaders. It's quite an impressive list of organizers. It's very sad that the paper put it in the inside fold on page A6 and only ran a one-column piece. Not flashy or nasty enough, I guess. Nevertheless, it's a fantastic effort and I'll link it with a longer post if I can find more details about it.

Labels: children

Okay, I caved. I upgraded my template. I'm not happy with this but at least I'm not feeling as utterly stupid as I did over the weekend. I'm almost ready to think about writing about something interesting instead of about blogging. I looked into about a dozen other places to blog and they're just as restrictive as this is. Actually, this may not be so bad once I learn more about the coding. I just don't get why blogger decided one way to write codes is now - presto! changeo! - obsolete. Nor why so many of the people who answer things on the blogger help are (a) unable to read all of a question and (b) phenomenally unhelpful and (c) rude as all get-out. Anyway, onward.

Labels: blogs (mine)

Re: old dogs and new tricks. If you've already transmigrated to the new blogger and have anything you can say to help with understanding the different language, feel free to pass it on. I don't want to use the standard templates and I'm finding the widget formatting difficult to get my head around. The new blogger stuff doesn't load as quickly, either, I don't think. You?

Labels: blogs (mine), web design

Great. Now that I've migrated to new blogger, I'm getting buckets of spam comments. Good to know they've already figured out how to do circumvent css and all the other codes.

Labels: blogs (mine)

I began watching Super Nanny occasionally last season and I'm enjoying it more and more as time goes on. It's entertaining in a way, even though part of what's amusing is watching other people behave terribly. It's heartwarming because everyone always ends up growing together, being nicer to each other, feeling and acting like a family. Tonight was probably the worst beginning yet - a single mother of four young children one of whom had leukemia a few years earlier, a 2-year-old baby, and two boys who beat up on each other something fierce. The father died less than a year earlier and almost certainly everyone was still very angry, not to mention sad. At the end, they were playing together, enjoying each other, and they even planted a tree in the backyard in the father's honor. They truly were embarking on a new beginning. From a boy who ripped up Jo's rules and swore at her, to that. Peace and smiles.

Labels: children, reflections

There's an interesting if slightly difficult thread over at Seablogger, about dying and who might be there to help in one's last months and days. This is on account of Alan looking at various possibilities himself, about which he often thinks aloud. It's sometimes scary and often sad but he always arouses interesting thoughts and reactions from me as well as from other readers. After all, some of us are inevitably getting older, even though we'd rather not think about it most of the time, and we will have to face what Alan's facing in some way or other, eventually. But then along comes a blow for ingenuity and wit as Ligneus first bows toward a recently departed friend and then adds his always unique take on things by telling us about an erstwhile invention/fantasy:

I ‘invented’ once a device for protection against creeping senility. It is implanted under the skin and contains a dose of lethal poison. It contains a battery that releases the poison when it runs down after thirteen months. The idea is that you change the battery on your birthday, if you are too far gone mentally to remember to do so on that date of all dates, you have a months grace.

A grand idea except for those of us who already have memory problems. Unless, of course, he's also got an antidote to implant side-along-side the poison.

Labels: about me, family, getting older, reflections

I know I'm not stupid but I simply haven't been able to figure out how to edit the appearance of page elements beyond the large categories provided. I just know I should be able to change them but how the heck do I change the fonts and colors ONLY where I want? I'm not even trying on this main page for now, of course, but I'm ready to move it there so I can have labels, but not til I figure out how to add and change. Grrr. The new language - Google ML is what they call it, I think - is terse and less clear than HTML. If anyone has a learning site to point me to, I'd be thrilled and grateful.

Labels: blogs (mine)

As Craig Akers says, the intense publicity of the Missouri boys' recovery is a unique and superb opportunity for getting out more information. One thing I'm hoping to find out is how Devlin snatched the boys, not from prurient curiosity but because these boys are alert and smart - and yet they were taken. It seems highly doubtful they'd have jumped into a car with a stranger willingly. Ben had just passed his friend Mitchell's house walking along the road toward his own home after getting off the schoolbus, and Shawn had been riding his bike to a friend's house. So how did Devlin cajole and grab them? A friend and I came up with at least a plausible scenario - Devlin could have driven his truck directly right at a boy, startling him to fall off his bike (Shawn) or knocking him down (Ben), then jumped out of the car saying something like 'Oh gosh I'm so sorry are you okay?', and then grabbing the unsuspecting boy and throwing him in the truck. Well, could be. Anyway, I hope we find out so it can be added to everyone's preventive arsenal.

Labels: children, modern culture

Do you finish things without any problem? I'm told some people do and boyoboy do I envy them. I can do things, lots of things, without any difficulty and often with enthusiasm and interest. But once I hit that moment of adding a collar or putting the last period at the end of a sentence. Interestingly, Bookworm apparently has the same problem at least as far as laundry, as she mentions in her list of things we may not know about her ("I hate folding laundry and hate, even more, putting it away. I have no problem getting it into the washer and the dryer. . . . It's just that, once the laundry is clean, I'm done with it. I don't want to go through the final steps associated with good laundry management.") I'm thrilled to know I'm not alone in this, but I'd sure like to know what it's really about and I'd really really like to get over it. Then I could put away all the holiday decorations and finish seams and sleeves. Got any (a) suggestions about how to get over this or (b) stories about finishing things??

Labels: blogs (others'), knitting

Miracles do happen. People do pay attention. People do see things and people talk about them. The discovery of two Missouri boys, preceeded by an abducted baby's return in the same jurisdiction a few months ago, is nothing less than wonderful in the full and truest sense of that word. The Sheriff who led the operations to recover all three children seems calm, upbeat, articulate. As one officer said, he's never seen anything like this.

I was particularly fascinated by the press conferences this morning. Everyone spoke clearly and carefully. Ben Ownby's family still looked shell-shocked although Ben himself looked relaxed and cheerful. Being 11 makes it easier, I suspect. I enjoyed watching his sister Amanda try to look slightly aloof but unable to quite pull it off. Also, so I'm on record as having really thought so when I say "I thought so" when it comes out, I think that Ben had not been forced to do anything sexual or even especially bad. Perhaps the abductor was letting him get accustomed to being there, in a twisted kind of backwards logic. Ben's face still has the open, quick look of an 11-year-old. His recovery may probably not be especially difficult.

The Hornbeck conference was quite different. Fewer law enforcement personnel (why? don't know). The family was more energetic, but they've lived with this for almost five years. And the young man was striking. He is a handsome young 15-year-old. His eyes were what startled me. They were very very still. Two dark brown pools gazing out from experiences and emotions that must have scared and horrified him more than most of us will ever know about, let alone experience. No school, no grandparents, no friends for over four years. What must that have felt like? Every now and then, he'd stare at his mother, just stare. Once or twice, he put his head in his mom's shoulder, in her hair. What must he be thinking and feeling today? I hope he's still young enough and the evident love of his parents sufficient to help him heal. His stepfather, Craig Akers, certainly seems aware of everything, loving, kind, intense. He commented that they are going to let Shawn tell them things in his own time, if and when he wants to. It will be a long road but if anyone can make their way, it seems they can.

Both boys were in apparently good physical health, something the defense will undoubtedly use as a mitigating factor. (If you don't think so, consider that Saddam's co-defendants submitted papers saying they shouldn't be executed at all because they were originally sentenced to be executed when he was, but weren't, and therefore have endured undue psychological pain. In a world with that kind of logic, we'd better hope this guy stays locked up forever.) I'm not sure why bail was set, even a million dollars. Isn't this a case for none?

Anyway, cheers to everyone involved. To Sheriff Toelke, all the officers, the FBI, the volunteers, the alert young man on the bus, the press who exercised restraint for once, the families, on and on.

Labels: blogs (others'), children, modern culture

We were conversing on the train this morning about whether one preferred to be ignored or argued with. Many years ago I definitely came down on the side of being ignored, thinking that would be gentler and less unpleasant. I have now changed my mind and would far rather be argued with because at least it's paying attention to what I'm thinking and saying. It's like the old adage that indifference is cold and distant but hate is closer to love.

Labels: fun, people

I was tagged by Laura at Wide Awake Cafe - my very first tag! - whose response to being tagged was her own interesting list.

1. My first job was in a penny candy store on the west side of Sixth Avenue just north of the Jefferson Market. It was fantastic. It was a branch of an apparently famous store on Cape Cod and we made fudge as well as selling penny candy. Our customers included Greenwich Village regulars like Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks as well as passersby. It was a wonderful job.

2. My favorite book ever is A Covenant with Death by Stephen Becker. As the story begins, a man's wife is being murdered but not by the husband (a fact to which only we omniscent readers are privvy). Within the first pages, the husband is arrested on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to death, and then - drum roll, please - he grabs and executes the hangman as he's about to be hanged. He knows and we know that he is innocent of the original murder but feels justified in the second. His defense attorney is a rumpled, charming character, an erudite and studious man who'd rather hunt and fish than do anything else. He bases his defense on Hobbes' principle that a state's fundamental reason for existence is to protect the safety of its citizens so if their safety is threatened (as the husband's was), then one has a right and perhaps even an obligation to do whatever must be done. I was wild about this mix of serious ideas with an enjoyable mystery story, so much so that I went on to major in philosophy at college and read and watch thousands of mysteries.

3. On my train commuting to work along the Hudson River, I like to sit facing home. As a result, I ride backwards in the morning and forwards at night. I have no idea what that's about and only realized it when someone pointed it out to me.

4. In 3rd grade, I recited the entire poem of Hiawatha on a stage in some sort of presentation to parents and teachers. In fifth grade my parents were told I was a show-off. I still feel exhilarated when speaking to groups of people. I'm not sure I shouldn't have been encouraged to be an actress.

5. I hate to wear socks or anything else between me and my shoes. I used to wear pantyhose like a good professional adult woman but a friend said one day that she hated wearing pantyhose and spending money on something that wears out in seconds, and ever since then I've tried to wear sandals whenever I could and at least go sockless when I cannot.

OK. Happy??! I suppose this is how those lists of a hundred things about oneself originate. Anyway, now I'm tagging my blogfriend and fellow movie fan Laura at Laura's Miscellaneous Musings, interesting writer and idea-logue Bookworm at Bookworm Room, and Charles at Dustbury who may not be into such silliness tho' it would be cool if he'd do it.

Labels: about me, blogs (others'), books, places, reflections

The full text is here. More on this tomorrow after I digest, listen and think. (Which would be helpful if others did, too, but ha ha ha.)

Labels: gwb, politics

I give up (for now). How about a nice, simple color scheme? Readable, loads really quickly, looks okay. Nothing I've tried meets all the criteria. Sigh, alas, alack. Onward to bigger and more important things that are more worthy of my obsessing over them. (Those would be ... uh ... not sure.)

Labels: blogs (mine)

Not sure if this is "it" but I took a photo of a swatch of yellow yarn and mucked around with sizes and colors and bevels and embossing and all sorts of other things . . . and I can stand to have this here while I learn more and fiddle more (even though Rome's not burning, that I know of) and come up with someing perfect something I can live with for more than a day. Opinions continue to be welcomed.

Labels: blogs (mine), web design

David Bowie is 60 today. I need smelling salts.

Labels: getting older, people

There was a report of a gas odor in Manhattan today. I am relieved to know that someone - anyone - is paying attention to this since I reported it on Friday and everyone told me I was imagining things. Evidentally I was not smelling my own perfume gone bad, eh? More to the point, the explanation is obviously not the goofy ones they're putting forth partly because if it's the smellable element added to natural gas then it's natural gas (duh). Whatever it is, it's probably not harmful since, as I know, it's been going on for three-four days, no matter what they say.

Labels: huh?

Decided to weed out some of my sidebar links. There were a number of dead links and some that I haven't paid much attention to for almost a year. Out with them. Plus, I'd love to redesign the page more clean and readable. Arrgh.

Labels: blogs (mine)

I never watched Sex in the City when it was on the first time and have very much enjoyed getting to know everyone in repeats, at 11:00 every night, but tonight's episode is the one that gets me upset. Baryshnikov's character has swept Carrie off to Paris in a big romantic gesture, then keeps leaving her on her own while he does what he wants, so she begins to go to museums and stores by herself (which I like to do, but that's me). At a bookstore, the staff goes wild when they realize who she is and they plan a party for her - the first time she'll have anyone paying attention to her for herself since she arrived. Then the artiste has a panic attack (passive-agressive you think?) and Carrie tries to help by skipping her party (think how those nice people were left to feel) and then Baryshnikov goes off and ignores her all night, surprise, but of course he doesn't see it as abandoning her since his ego is being fed. I realize that Carrie is a spoiled brat but I hate that he's so cold and cruel, and I almost can't watch her be alone and mistreated. Yeah, okay, the rest of the episode is good as it ties things up, but I really hate the other part.

Labels: france, tv, web design

Few people with Bush Derangement Syndrome bother with details either in writing or verbally. Mostly, they foam at the mouth, most of the time only symbolically, thank goodness, without mentioning specifics and without taking facts into account. I strongly recommend House of Eratosthenes' Why the Hatred for thoughtful and well-stated ideas about the whole thing.

Labels: blogs (others'), gwb, politics

There are so many people writing wonderful blogs about schooling (home and otherwise) but I wonder how people influence their children to become excited about learning and curious about the world. I grew up in a family where curiosity and intellectual expression were rewarded the way saying "please" and "thank you" are rewarded in most families. Learning and good grades were so expected that it wouldn't have occurred to any of us that there were other choices. Keep in mind that we grew up before television was omnipresent and obviously way before the internet. (Yes, it was the 17th century - the cat's out of the bag.) Now that I and my friends are beginning to have grandchildren in this time with so many other influences than ourselves, I am seeing the impact of many other elements and influences on not only what a child learns and experiences, but also (and perhaps more importantly) how a child is prepared to learn and experience. Not unlike gardening, a child needs good soil and good mulch as well as seeds and food. So I'm wondering whether any Rare Readers have thought about this and, if so, whether you have ideas about enriching children's soil and mulch. (And apologies for the slightly clumsy analogy, it's just that it's so perfectly apt.)

Labels: children, schooling

What motivates you to do things? I've been reflecting on that this morning because I have dilly-dallied so long with my French reading that I have almost 80 pages (loose-leaf size) to read and understand, and a report on the last 20 to write before Wednesday. I chose to be in this group so it's not as if it's school that's forcing me and I'll fail some huge test or anything, but it is a little like exercise: if you let it go because you just don't feel like doing it, you're in for doing tons more just to catch up. Oo la la, quelle stupide.

Labels: france, reflections, schooling

Obituaries are enthralling because they demonstrate vividly that history is people. If you can separate yourself from the slightly "Harold and Maude" feeling when reading them enthusiastically, you often find unexpected, interesting, creative, unusual people. My favorite example is the man who set up the first shopping mall. This week, Vincent Sardi, Jr.'s obituary was a fascinating piece of New York and theater history, as Laura mentioned, since Sardi Jr. was the son of the founder of Sardi's restaurant and ran the restaurant for several decades. Laura also referes to a really nice piece that Chevy Chase wrote about President Ford. And the Los Angeles Times has a wonderfully piece on Momofuku Ando, the man who invented noodles in a cup - don't miss it.

Labels: farewells, people

Laura over at 11D has an interesting post today about over maintenance of oneself by which she means lots of coloring your hair, having botox treatments or facial surgery, etc. The post was prompted by Nora Ephron's newest book and a New York Times review of the same (which I'm not linking because the Times requires payment when something is a few days old). Anyway, Ephron apparently asserts that women do "over maintenance" in order to fend off fears of being bag ladies. As you can read in the comments to 11D's post, several of us have risen to a sort of defense of bag ladies by pointing out that bag ladies are not simply women who let themselves go all over slovenly, but are women who came into psychological and financial bad times. Ephron's using them for jolly fun shows a bit of insensitivity, no matter how unintentional but her callousness and lack of awareness aside, my feeling is that most of us use creams and astringents as our skin starts to feel less comfortable and when we look in the mirror and see skin and hair becoming more slack and less lustrous - regardless of whether others notice it (yet). Plus, as we grow up we learn that we are decorative objects in the world at large whether we rail against it tooth and nail or not. Even those who refuse make-up do so mostly with a sort of rebelliousness. (A few months ago, I met a woman who appeared to be a grown up counter-culture type who turned out to be a movie cosmetician. Since that was entirely not what we expected, with her cargo jeans and sweatshirt, long hair and clear but apparently unaided complexion, we complimented her and asked for her "if you had one thing to recommend". Ha ha, she laughed, won't you be surprised, yes use cleansers and all that but the real secret is excellent eyeliner and light foundation. Everyone will be sure it's just you and your fabulous genes.) Fear of bag ladiness, my foot. It's fear of age and decrepitude and death.

With that, here are some questions for any Rare Readers who would like to join in: (1) do you color your hair, (2) do you wear eye make-up, (3) do you wear foundation, (4) would you do botox or other treatments, (5) would you do facial surgery, and (6) why or why not for any or all?

Labels: about me, blogs (others'), reflections

I suppose it's the ascension of Nancy Pelosi that's bringing it on, but there's been more than the usual spate of blogging about what the next months will be like for the Bush administration. There seem to be three main thoughts: those who think he'll just be sitting it out, like a weak lame duck; those who think he'll be sinking like the stone they characterize him as; and those who think he'll pull out a grand gesture or two so as to exit both gracefully and with strength. I've long been of the school of thought that thinks the reality of this administration differs considerably from what we hear and see, that many effective and good things are taking place at Bush's behest almost every day. I think he's cannier and smarter than many people think he is and I think I'll be proved right. What do you think?

Labels: gwb, politics

Interesting recently-observed phenomenon. Where I live, the temperature is very very cold in the mornings though warm in the evenings. Since I live 70-75 miles north of New York City, this makes getting dressed for work a kind of tricky business what with a long commute and all. So I decided to see if there was any reality behind my sense of things. I put weather.com's banners on the bottom of this blog, one for NYC and one for Dutchess County. What to my wondering eyes should appear but the fact that temperatures are 10-20 degrees apart in the mornings, 5-15 degrees apart in the late evening with Dutchess the colder by far but that from around noon until evening, the temperatures are identical with Dutchess County often warmer. The Hudson Valley is a valley so I assume some of the explanation has to do with trapped sunlight and all that. But it used to be consistently colder than in Manhattan even in the summer when the Hudson's waters would presumably have tempered things. By the way, one of my commuting pals lives 20-25 miles north of me and the temperature there is consistently 5-10 degrees warmer than where I live. Pretty wild, eh? Now to find us a geologist and/or a weather student to explain all this.

Labels: weather

The satin texture background was beginning to annoy me (couldn't you just hear the fabric making noise?) but I like the gray and, besides, a couple of Rare Readers liked it, so I'm working on something not dissimilar but closer to my comfort level. I tried a screened and very low color and low resolution image of T2CGITW but even with all the volume-lowering, it was too vivid for a background. So I'll fiddle with Photoshop and figure out how to emboss something like this temporary one. I'll see what I come up with. The colors will stay essentially the same and readability is the underlying principle.

Labels: blogs (mine)

I can get to my front page, at least for now, but few of the blogs I like to check out every morning load. Since all non-blogger blogs are just peachy, it's evidently another of the now millions of times that blogspot has problems. Andrea at Victory Soap mentioned it yesterday because gmail was down, too, suggesting that Google isn't keeping the mail and blogging servers separate any more. Every time this happens, I ponder moving to different software and hosts, but I really like the control, workability and simplicity of blogger. I'd like it even better if it worked reliably.

Labels: blogs (mine)

Many bloggers sound very sure of themselves. They make statements about national events, religious ideas, political theories, on and on, seemingly without any hesitation. I often know what rings true or comfortable to me but I rarely know something is certainly true. This is partly a reaction to growing up with dogmatic academician parents who knew (or said they knew) everything beyond a shadow of their own doubt. I still physically cringe at a particular tone of voice which inevitably carries words that dismissively cite other opinions.

In this space I try to ask many questions and to write with a degree of assurance yet without dogmatic certitude. The more I read and think, the more I am convinced that there are very few certainties. And I am more and more convinced about the importance of civility and kindness, which is a slightly different subject although civility allows one to elicit and thereby hear and learn from other people's opinions and ideas. It's the ideas I haven't thought of that quite fascinate me now. Maybe I've lived with my own thoughts and ideas so long that I want to try others' out. Maybe it's curiosity about how many roads you can take to get to the same places (happiness, contentment, etc.). I don't know. What about you?

Labels: about me, blogs (others')

I haven't been able to load or view lots of blogs off and on all day. I can't even get to google groups to check and see if there's lots of weeping and moaning. Frustrating.

Labels: blogs (mine)

Both blog and human friends have been discussing resolutions and/or goals for the new year. Brenda at Coffee Tea Books and Me and Mrs Catherine made it seem less daunting because they listed things they want to learn this year and that's an approachable concept. CTB&M put gardening at the top of her list and knitting (yeah!) as the second. With that in mind and making sure they're not all about knitting or reading, here are my 3 learning goals:

(1) intarsia so I can make ever more adorable things for AvSo and friends,
(2) Access - but starting from scratch, not just more editing, and
(3) gardening - particularly in the areas beside and behind my house

And here are my 3 resolution-type goals:

(1) plan next year's Christmas projects and begin making them now so most are done by June,
(2) unpack and/or throw out and/or give away the boxes in the attic from when I moved in,
(3) get half an hour more sleep each night so I'm not always sleep-deprived during the week

Those all seem do-able and not particularly pressured, so I might actually get them all done.

Labels: books, reflections, shopping

I've been puzzling over the rhapsodic and gushy comments about Gerald Ford ever since he died on 12/26. Even allowing for the fact that many journalists like to pay hommage to the adage about never speaking ill of anyone deceased, they've demonstrated that they are either brain dead or have no memories or don't know how to do research or ask questions of their elders. In point of fact, during his tenure Ford was generally regarded as a bumbler. There were Chevy Chase jokes about him by the hundred and one had the sense that we'd elected our grandfather before he got old. I've had to rub my eyes a few times to make sure we're all taking about the same man. Please understand that I am all for paying lots of respect to someone simply because they are in a position of authority, but there is no equal sign between respect and admiration and I'm not sure why the media seems compelled to act as if there were. The reality is that Ford became president simply because he was the vice president when a president resigned to escape criminal conviction. And he'd become vice-president to replace a someone convicted of actual crimes. Not exactly auspicious. Are journalists simply overlooking (a) how Ford came to office and (b) that he never particularly rose to the presidential occasion, and (3) that his obsequiousness probably helped us get where we are today nationally and internationally? I have to assume so. I mean, apparently he was a decent and kind senator, husband and father, and he certainly had a compassionate and smart wife who brought social and personal respectability to recovery from drug addiction. But truth be told, he jettisoned into history books on a Peter Principle rocket and didn't do a lot with it. As Spiced Sass succinctly said:

One wrong step leads to another, Kennedy's intervention in Vietnam led to Johnson's escalation, led to Nixon's election, led to the Ford inter-regnum, led to Jimmy Carter! until finally Ronald Reagan got things back on the right foot. . . .

It would be nice if journalists other than those with agendas could keep it all straight.

Labels: farewells, politics

Does a patterned background work? Do you like it? Do you like the other colors? One of my semidemihemi resolutions for 2007 is to set up a layout and colors and stick with them for weeks or months, partly just to see if I can. Reactions from rare readers will help, if any. Thanks!

Labels: blogs (mine)

Getting up was okay today but I was so sleepy on the train you'd have thought I haven't slept in weeks. I got loads of sleep all week, matter of fact. But I didn't buy coffee for the ride in because I had a horrible caffeine headache the day my vacation began. And I went to bed at 3:10 last night (i.e. this morning) because I couldn't stop doing things. Which might explain why I just want to put my head down on my desk right now. My eyes are very h e a v y . . . . is someone trying to hypnotize me?? I'm pretty sure the real moral of the story is that vacations are fundamentally bad for you.

Labels: reflections

Some days there are no good bad movies on tv when you want them, like when you're hanging out in your living room and knitting and it's a holiday. (Which is not the same as bad good movies, you understand.) Some days there are several and you just wish you could knit and channel switch simultaneously. I guess that's why they invented - and why I should buy - Tivo. Send discretionary money and I will.

Labels: movies, tv

It's here - the new year, number 2007 (as our calendar counts it, anyway). Sadly, it's not a prime number as someone suggested, but it's nice visually anyway.

My daughter asked me if I make new year's resolutions. I have, some years, and haven't, far more often. I like the idea of taking stock on a regular basis but resolutions have that slightfly unpleasant sense of "have to" that reading Silas Marner had, many years ago. Setting goals for the year sounds more appealing. At least three, I think. One that's almost certainly achievable, one that's a bit hard and one that's unlikely but worth reaching for. Now to sit and think, and choose three.

How about you? Do you set them, like them, keep them??

Labels: reflections