The debate about climate change is hotter than ever, no matter what climatalogical changes are actually taking place. And now there's a new book to reckon with. Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming is written by Bjorn Lomborg who, in 2004, was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He's written for many publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, and is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School. And he initiated and runs the Copenhagen Consensus, a conference of top economists who come together to prioritize best solutions for the world’s challenges.

Amusingly but not surprisingly, the comments at B&N and Amazon from reader-reviewers are at wild extremes, no doubt driven by the writers' points of view. In fact, the book urges that the discussion - and resulting actions - must become more rational rather than persisting with the extremes of "it’s a hoax" and "the world is ending tomorrow." To borrow from the publisher's description, the book argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions currently being utilized to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and often are based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions. Furthermore, and worst of all, many - if not most - of these actions will have very well have little impact on the world’s temperature. He argues that we really need to focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, and that we need to gain and maintain a safe, fresh water supply - which can be addressed at a fraction of the cost and save millions of lives within our lifetime. He laments that the debate over climate change has stifled rational dialogue and killed meaningful dissent. In particular, he asserts that the current yelling and panicking do not establish a constructive place from which to deal with any of humanity’s or the globe's problems, not just global warming. Amen.

In a post today, Seablogger writes about an idea to add pipes to the oceans in order to raise cooler water from the bottom of the seas. He is a long-time, educated, serious and informed student of weather and climate. As for the pipes, it seems evident even to relatively-uninformed me that it's impractical and silly, but Seablogger adds that the most significant argument against it is that "There is absolutely no proof that “global warming” is causing harm at present [because] the fact remains that warming improves the lot of humankind overall." How's that for throwing out something to think about?! He adds that "More people die of cold than heat. A warmer world would be more benign. Climatalogical optimum is probably five to ten degrees warmer than the present temperature." In addition, he says "there is no evidence of anthropogenic warming" and "the actual amount of CO2 added to the atmosphere by humans is trivial, compared with the vast greenhouse of water vapor we inhabit."

Put all that in your pipe (heh) and smoke cool it.

Labels: blogs (others'), reflections, warming, weather

Continuing about indecisiveness in writing, one of my CRRs was kind enough to say he "know[s] what [I] mean! It's a bit like insomnia, the more you think about it, the less likely you are to go to sleep." That's SO true. It's the thinking about it that paralyzes me. I used to say I simply couldn't write, even though I wanted to. Clearly three years of blogging demonstrates otherwise, yet when I set myself to write something "real," I still can't. It's some weird variation on the theme of writer's block, I guess. I wish I knew how to combat this.

Labels: blogs (mine), writing

Yesterday and today I cannot decide what to write about. Just as I envy writers who cannot not write any more than they cannot breathe (Hemingway being the most touted that I know of), I envy writers who always have something interesting to write about. Well, interesting to me, anyway. I use this blog partly as a device to make myself write as close to every day as I can twist my arm without thereby preventing writing, but sometimes I'm at a loss. So don't yell at me if you're bored sometimes. But do accept my apologies.

Labels: blogs (mine), writing

It's the birthday of one of my friends today, a very nice woman, as well as that of Faulkner, Christopher Reeve (a/k/a Superman), Mark Rothko, Dimitri Shostakovich, Phil Rizzuto, Barbara Walters, Scottie Pippen, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas (did you know they share a birthday?!), and Will Smith. As for astrological and "sign" similarities, other than that they are well-known, I'm darned if I can find anything they have in common.

Labels: friends, juxtapositions

Yesterday Greg Gutfield said he would mark the International Day of Peace by setting fire to a yoga instructor. He'd noted that it was the International Day of Peace and, predictably, had some less than complimentary things to say about it. Gutfield is thoroughly not-politically-correct and yet sometimes extremely funny and spot-on. (I suspect he reneged on his commemorizing plan, don't you? I must remember to find out.)

Labels: silliness, writing

Ahmadinejad's visit to the U.N. and NYC could have been used much more productively, it seems to me. Rather than providing him a reddish carpet and a carte that's only slightly off-blanche, a quid pro quo could have been employed in which he and his speech/q&a in a class at a prestigious school here, were matched by the U.S. President speaking/q&a-ing in a class at a prestigious school in Iran. Whatever Bush's real or imagined limitations in the eyes of some, it cannot be denied that he is passionate and occasionally eloquent about liberty and freedom, and such an exchange would have been useful and interesting, not a propagandistic moment and a chance for Columbia to appear to support an academic and political repressor. Oh, the silly advisers who either didn't think enough outside the obvious boxes or, more likely, dissuaded GWB from doing this.

I'm willing to accept that there is intellectual merit in permitting utterly disagreeable people to speak in college classes where they can be queried and disagreed with, or even be persuasive to some. I doubt I would want to attend a class session led by Ahmadinejad even I were able, but I truly do understand and agree that free speech and intellectual curiosity should not stop where my concurrence and agreement stop. However, big however: I do not understand why the Columbia class does not include someone in a similar political position from the U.S. or Israel, or some other country that strongly disagrees with him. If Ahmadinejad actually means that he is going speaking in order to further the cause of ideological discourse, then he would agree to such a forum; if he did not agree, it would expose his assertion as a falsehood and would provide a valid reason for disallowing him to speak publicly. Also, he said he wanted to lay a wreath at Ground Zero which does seem odd (did he want to pay respect to those who flew the planes?), but could have been used as an opportunity to influence him - allow him to visit the perimeter of the site and also require him to tour the Holocaust Museum and voice his reactions. Although he claims the Holocaust did not occur, he would then be forced to see evidence. What would he say? Perhaps more measured statements could have been wrested from him.

I am not of the "everyone has a good side" school of thought but I do think there is value in listening to those we disagree with, even profoundly disagree with, if we can gain something in the process.

Labels: headlines, reflections

Just saw a clip of Hillary from Fox News Sunday - which, to her credit, she was willing to appear on - in which she talked about bipartisanship. I suppose it's all about broadening her base and wooing voters and counterbalancing her husband's idiotic response to Chris Wallace last year. It's nice to see one of the NutDems drop the ridiculous boycott of Fox. It still baffles me how anyone can expect to get elected as president of the whole United States while refusing to acknowledge or appear on the country's most watched news network.

I also still marvel at how superficial and forked-tongue-like Hillary sounds, even when she's saying something rational. As she supposedly reacted with a spontaneous chuckle, it was a visibly and audibly prepared. Well-acted, but acted nonetheless. If she won an Oscar or an Emmy at least she'd remember her speech and not lapse into shrieking expletives, which is certainly a good thing. But it would be nice to be able to trust or believe even one or two things as genuinely being what she thinks or feels.

Labels: politics, silliness

I am baffled about the M.I.T. woman who strapped a bomb - or a pretend bomb, depending on whom you believe - to herself and went to Logan Airport. Is she insane or what? Even pre-9/11, it would have been ridiculous. Post-9/11, it's a new word that means ridiculous-to-the-third-or-fourth-power. Logan was the airport of departure for 9/11 airplanes, for one thing (to its eternal regret, I'm sure). And what would the point be of such a stunt? I might be able to get a little bit around it if she wanted to test whether security caught on, but she's way too elite-snotty for that. No, she just wanted to do it. Whatever that means. I've always thought M.I.T. was the best of the best, a place where rationality and cleverness nurtured each other. It never occurred to me that stupidity might enter that equation.

Labels: education, headlines, silliness

I almost didn't notice and therefore failed to remark on the fact that September 4th was just muttering's 3rd blogiversary. All those hours spent designing and redesigning, reading about html, fretting about crashing browsers, writing sometimes amusing and sometimes boring stuff. It all began in San Francisco in the fall of 2004, while visiting one of t2cgitw shortly after her birth, when I asked an apparently innocent question of my s-i-l. "What," I said, "is a blog, anyway?" He smiled, reached for his laptop, opened I.E., went to blogger.com, fiddled around for a couple of minutes, and said, "There, you have a blog." The rest, as they tritely but accurately say, is history.

Labels: blogs (mine), web design

Greg Gutfield (he of Red Eye (read the London Guardian's enthusiastic review here, the Daily Gut and Greg-alogues) says "Look, the real rebel doesn't need a tattoo. All you need is a bumper sticker that says 'I Voted for Bush'."

Labels: fun, headlines, silliness, writing

And they call Great Britain a nanny state. Read this and weep (h/t Laura's Musings).

Labels: blogs (others'), children, headlines, silliness

Dadvocate writes about the beginning of his children's school years - one beginning college and two in high school - and speaks so warmly and eloquently of them, and of parenting, that I have to reprint it here. He says:

A cornerstone of my parenting philosophy is don't mess them up. I expect good grades but they make better grades than I expect. I want them to play sports but they play more and perform better than I could have reasonably hoped. I give them encouragement, praise and modest rewards. And, I try to help them live their dreams, not mine.But, my kids have enriched my life and taught me more than I could ever enrich theirs or teach them. For that, I am eternally grateful.

This mix of standards, expectations and joy is the best. Lucky man and even luckier sons and daughter.

Labels: blogs (others'), children, parenting

I'm liking simply and cleanly designed blogs more and more, so I've pared down my design a bit. Everything is still here - just organized along one side instead of two. There are links to subject matters under "site menu" but blog readers are smart and this isn't rocket science so I figure anyone can find what they want. I suppose a tag line about what's here would be more in order now, though. I'll ponder that one.

Labels: blogs (mine), web design

One of the blogging friends I have extrapolated from reading/commenting to actually and genuinely caring for (Fresh Bilge's Alan Sullivan), is going through a sad and difficult time at the moment. His long-time partner, Tim, has had several seizures brought on by alcoholism which led to malnutrition and severe electrocardiac misfunction. Coincidences - or Providence - being what it is, Alan was in North Dakota for the first (and last) time in ages when all this happened. So the dubiously good news is that Alan was able to get Tim to the hospital; it's hard to imagine the outcome if all this had happened when no one else was at home. One hopes very much that Tim will have been sufficiently frightened by all this to pull at least some semblance of himself together, since he is only in his mid-fifties and could have several decades of writing and living ahead of him. But Alan's description of their relationship as "a mutual enabling society" in which "Tim went directly from being the spoiled but pressured eldest son in a large family to being my partner [and] sublimely disinterested in mundane aspects of life like shopping, cooking, snow-shoveling, house-painting, etc." suggests that it's unlikely. In fact, Alan "took care of everything in the physical world [while Tim] earned a living with financial planning, and [they] worked together as literati." It must have been quite wonderful for a while and I hope they will both be able to remember and enjoy those memories. If not now, some time in the future. As someone who neither loves nor loathes alcohol, I find both its power and its utterly devastating and disastrous effects most puzzling. Anyway, I wish Tim some modicum of repair. And I hope Alan finds relief, solace and pleasure in the seacoast and waterways he loves so much in Florida.

Labels: blogs (others')

It's been ages - well, three months - since I did a Thursday bloghop. I'm really bad about anything I set myself to do every day or regularly, in any case. Good thing I like to eat.

1. Started at Wide Awake Café, one of my favorite daily stops. The last couple of days Laura's written eloquently and with great feeling about the General Petreaus testimony and reaction (here and here). She's always terrifically articulate, about everything but her impassioned and compassionate writings about being a military commander are really exceptional. She covers a wide range of subjects from her own art to her classroom work to her family to traveling to cultural observations to politics. Never a dull moment and always very worthwhile reading.

2. Red Sugar Muse is tidy and attractive. It seems more buttoned-up than it turns out to be once you start reading. Unfortunately there is no "about" or similar way to find out who this interesting Tanya person is, but she uses words to awfully good advantage and makes me laugh while I'm finding out what she thinks about things. I particularly recommend her 9/11 post, although you should be warned that it's not all sweetness and light. I also recommend this post on a man who keeps finding dead bodies (well, that's not really what it's about) and a couple of other things. I'm interested to see that among her high selective list of links is one of my daughter's favorites, Dooce, to which I clearly need to give more attention. As for Red Sugar, I'll definitely be back.

3. Couldn't resist the name: One Sentence, and the intriguing idea: one-sentence "stories". The blog discusses stuff about the stories so they kind of go together. One of the ones I like a lot (and have said in real life, as a matter of fact) is this one: "I told my three year old son that he was putting his shoes on the wrong feet and he responded that they were the only feet that he had." Yeah, okay, that's not a story with any kind of beginning middle or end, but the rules are just that they have to be true and they have to be fun to read. I suppose it's an extreme version of extremely short stories, right? I have to say, too, that I see that One Sentence also talks about Dooce, she of my daughter's and Red Sugar's appreciation. Is there something going on here?

4. One Sentence doesn't explicitly have links but it mentions people who have mentioned it, and I found one I particularly enjoyed, CTV.ca, so there it is. It's a bit of this and a bit of that about technology and tv, with a Canadian slant (.ca) but no limitation on wit or excitement about the gadgets and things. He mentions an "exhibit" on the Nikon Japanese website, for example, of master Origami paper work, and it's phenomenal.

So many websites, so many blogs, so many things to see and read and write about. . . .

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

After much discussion and many e-mails with friends, it's clear that it's not at all clear. There are SO many good cameras out there but almost none that do precisely what I want. For starters, I want a 3" LCD display, a viewfinder for when the screen is hard to see because of bright light or position, image stabilization, a great metal lens, manual as well as auto focus, manually adjustable as well as auto white balance, an automatic fluorescent light compensation setting, digital and optical zoom that's easy to operate while shooting, a continuous-shot feature, controls and menus that are easy to understand and easy to operate, quick start-up and between-shots time, gorgeous picture quality, and raw uncompressed format. Oh, and I don't want a DSLR because I want to be able to carry it with me every day. Several of these combinations seem to be deal breakers. Plus, most of the camera sites are exceedingly unhelpful. On one of them that purports to help you by letting you select items that matter to you, I specifically chose Nikon, Canon, Sony and Panasonic as the brands I wanted to see . . . and it proceeded to show me Samsung and Fuji and a whole bunch more, as well. On another, one of the famous and well-regarded ones, I said 3" LCD and manual focus . . . and got none at all even though there are at least three with both.

I tried out the Panasonic TZ3 which is a dynamite camera with many of the features I want. But it lacks fluorescent compensation, manual anything, and raw. The Panasonic FZ8 seemed like the eureka moment until I saw that it has a 2.5" display. There are two new Sonys (T100 and w200) that have some of the features and got good reviews but they lack important things. Then, just when I was despairingly trying to decide which compromises I'd (have to) make, a colleague said that Canon has just announced the G9, successor to the G7 (why bother with 8 if you can skip directly to 9?). It does seem to have it all, and in a compact size and shape. I'm waiting for just one review confirming that its images are good, and I'd also like to get a teeny tiny price break below full market price, but it looks as if this may be the one. Even if it's not a Nikon.

And by the way, what's with all the letters? Z? X? W? P? etc. What the heck do they mean and why doesn't anyone explain them, even their own manufacturers?

Labels: about me, photos

I've said many times that I think the last part of the 20th century - and perhaps the 1st half of this one - will be seen as a long, drawn-out 4th world war. Now, thanks to Laura's link to a thoroughly thought-provoking article by Mark Steyn (does he ever write badly or trivially?), I learn that Norman Podhoretz thinks so, too, to such an extent that it's the fulcrum of his new book, World War IV. It certainly makes me feel astute and fortunate for being in such exalted company. But it's also depressing and sad because the current thinking in America is so hell-bent on blaming various entities of ourselves - based, I suppose, on the "well I would never go out at 4:00 a.m. in a bikini so it couldn't happen to me" theory that we city-dwellers sometimes turn to for solace after a crime. But as Steyn points out, all the suing and blaming of entities who could've and should've seen 9/11 coming (according to some of them and as if it isn't actually a cultural and religious clash) . . .

. . . invariably misses the forest for the trees. Sen. Craig should know that what matters is not whether an artful lawyer can get him off on a technicality but whether the public thinks he trawls for anonymous sex in public bathrooms. Likewise, those 9/11 families should know that, if you want your child's death that morning to have meaning, what matters is not whether you hound Boeing into admitting liability but whether you insist that the movement that murdered your daughter is hunted down and the sustaining ideological virus that led thousands of others to dance up and down in the streets cheering her death is expunged from the earth.

Amen and may people come to their senses and may it not take another horrible event to wake people out of their "if only we had . . . " constructs.

Labels: headlines, reflections, world war 4

Happy Grandparents Day to anyone out there who has the great good fortune to be a grandparent. I still cringe at the word because of connotations of white hair and old age, but then I remind myself that one needs only to be 40 to achieve this pinnacle. I have to acknowledge that it's mysterious and wonderful when one's children have children and that those children² are simply the best. So if you have or are a grandparent, tell the other side of the equation how much you love them and how much fun it is. Sure these days are greeting card company constructs, but they're also nice opportunities to be more vocal in our appreciation of each other than we might otherwise allow ourselves to be. Enjoy the day!

Labels: about me, family, getting older, t2cgitw

"As a red crayon, your world is colored with bright, vivid, wild colors. You have a deep, complex personality - and you are always expressing something about yourself. Bold and dominant, you are a natural leader. You have an energy that is intense... and sometimes overwhelming. Your reaction to everything tends to be strong. You are the master of love-hate relationships. Your color wheel opposite is green. Green people are way too mellow to understand what drives your energy."

P.S. And here's the whole sequence of Crayola colors since 1903. How fantastic to have the entire list.

Labels: about me, children, silliness

My readership varies enormously from day to day, which is kind of intriguing. I've been trying to identify the factors that lure or repel more or fewer readers but it's not immediately obvious. It seems as if readership nearly doubles when I write about political topics, even tangentially political things. Is that true? Is it true of all blogs?

Labels: blogs (mine), blogs (others'), writing

If the mother (and father?) of that little British girl turns out to be her abductor and/or murderer, I think someone should seriously consider telling the press and other media to take a hike. There are thousands of people who donated a lot of money and spent a lot of time and energy looking for the little girl. It always seemed weird that the parents would go to dinner in a restaurant out of the hotel where their babies (2 and 4) were sleeping, but many of us thought maybe we were being prissy Americans and, after all, Europe is such a more relaxed and friendly place. Well, balderdash. Someone did something with or to Madeleine and please please please don't let it have been her own parents.

Labels: children, headlines, safety

Thompson is in the race for real. I have my fingers crossed that he is what he seems - strong and witty, focused and relaxed, a leader and a guide. He sounds as if he could be independent, thoughtful and even popular without pandering. It's way too early to tell whether any of that will turn out to be the case, but wouldn't it be nice?!

Labels: headlines, people, politics

Fresh Bilge mentions the publication of Until Proven Innocent and an article on it, The Massacre of Innocence, about the Duke lacrosse players' party and its aftermath that led to so much ghastliness. Indeed there were ladles-ful of appalling behavior on the parts of the prosecutor and his staff, the university and (particularly egregiously) video and print media. It's good that they are all being called to task and that the town-gown aspect of the problem is also receiving its fair share of the blame. But can I just say "Tawana Brawley" here, please? That was *exactly* the same situation except that the initially-identified bad guys weren't glamorous and the D.A. wasn't especially eager to jump on the condemnatory bandwagon. The press and media, and the politically active black community, were every bit as vile, however. And there has been no Until Proven Innocent for that horror. There should be some reckoning, some way to expose misplaced zealotry that assigns blame solely because of decades' and centuries' old grievances, or it will happen yet again.

Labels: books, headlines, reflections

There are a bunch of new yarns out there, and extraordinary patterns, so the only word I can think of that's appropriate is "ravishing." When I learned to knit - in prehistoric days - there was only acrylic yarn in most stores (Coats & Clark, notably). You could find wool if you were willing to spend lots of money and go to out-of-the-way places or knew a farm and a store. Nowadays, it's almost hard to find yarn that's not lovely. The general consumer stores (Michael's, Joann's, A.C.Moore, for example) have plenty of inexpensive yarn that's perfectly nice to the touch and knits up just fine. Lion Brand has a wide range of yarn, too. For some purposes, the inexpensive stuff is best, as a matter of fact, like a blanket for a baby who may spit up on it and whose parents may want to be able to throw it in the wash without worrying about cold or warm water, or air drying. (Which isn't to say that an heirloom doesn't have its place, of course!) Many available yarns these days are cashmere or alpaca or buffalo (honestly!) and it's so nice to know yarn can come from anything with fur, without having to damage the animal. One of my favorite stops at October's annual NYS Sheep & Wool festival is the angora rabbits who sit demurely on an owner's lap while their fur is coaxed and stroked off of their backs directly onto a spinning wheel. Anyway, it's all just ravishing!!

Labels: about me, knitting

I'm not sure I could deal with wearing or working with it, but doesn't this look as if it feels wonderful?

Labels: knitting

Nominations are underway for the 2007 Okie (Oklahoma) Blog Awards. Oklahoma boasts some astonishingly good blogs - really, many of the best - and no, I don't know why - so this is an opportunity to visit and revisit many of them and, perhaps, nominate and/or vote.

Labels: blogs (others'), silliness, writing

There's almost nothing that brings a smile to my face as quickly as a rubber duckie. No, I have no idea why. The plain, yellow, bright-eyed cutie just knocks me out. I admit to quite liking the variations, too (Devil Ducky, Glow in the Dark Ducky, and all the myriad rest) but the word "quack" always makes me laugh and a small rubber duck always delights me.

Labels: about me, silliness

Not sure whether to laugh or cry at the increasingly ridiculous news items. Hillary has lots of money and lots of it is from shady characters - but what politician vets every penny, if we're honest about it? More to the point about laughing and crying, the Anchoress had a pretty hilarious rant yesterday and I highly recommend reading the whole thing. The parts I especially like - and wish I'd said first - have to do with noting that Bush "is 'bad' because he goes to Iraq and uses the troops for political propaganda [but] Katie Couric is not bad even though she too uses a trip to Iraq (and the troops) for her own ratings propaganda" and "if it’s Tuesday Britney Spears is either showing you her ass or wrecking your car, and Posh is still resolved never, ever to smile again". There's much much more but those are my personal favorites.

Labels: blogs (others'), silliness, writing

On her first morning as new host of The View, Whoopi Goldberg defended Vick and his dog fighting/murdering ways as social and cultural difference. Oh for goodness sake. Sure I realize she's got a forum to beat the band, now, and who can blame her for using it. And ABC probably suggested she stir up a little trouble since it's good for ratings. But check this out and see what you think. Now I'm the one feeling like my friend who railed at me when they thought I was sounding tolerant of bathroom solicitation. I cannot see even one glimmer of gray when it comes to drowning and strangling a living animal. Can you? How exactly can that be considered "sport" by anyone other than a sadist? And even if you give leeway for one, under the "group psychology" cloud concept, don't you notice what you've done after you've killed four or five? And if your employer says quit it and the press begins saying you're a murdering brute, shouldn't you pause and consider what you're doing - even if you think the behavior is ok in some godforsaken part of this varied and sometimes strange country of ours? Whoopi has a long record of attacking like a hunting bloodhound when she thinks social injustice has been committed. Does she only care about when people of a certain type are the victim?? I just don't see how she can possibly justify anything about Vick's behavior.

So the deal is that The View swapped Rosie the 9/11 conspiracy theorist for Whoopi the dog murderer apologist. Yup, that sure was a good trade all right.

Labels: headlines, reflections, tv

Yes, I'm probably cheating a bit. The exercise wasn't meant to be oh-so-clever nor to rush through it, but I'm determined to get through the alphabet by the end of today or tomorrow, and why not think in a different box. Anyway, "op" originated in the sixties and seventies and meant the optical illusional art that people like Andy Warhol and Viktor Vasarely did. Derived from Bauhaus thinking, it emphasized simplicity and unusual / unexpected / clever ways to present and see things. MoMa officially kicked it off with The Responsive Eye in the mid-sixties. There is an element of trompe l'oeil to it, but that's only part of it. Warhol's famous soupcan paintings were early warning shots of what would become op art, and there were the folded canvases where you saw one painting when you stood on one side and another when you stood center-on and yet another from the other side. There were many other variations on many themes and much use of color playing against color, shape against shape. Even fashion designer Mary Quant got in on the act with her sharp-edged geometric designs. Very clever and probably computer-assisted nowadays, but brilliant at the time.

Labels: art, reflections

I adore the word mnemonic. Partly because of what it means, but mostly because it's so much fun to spell, write and say.

Labels: about me, writing

I decided that it's high time I caught up with my alphabetic knit-a-long since it's almost the two-year anniversary of beginning the whole thing. Apologies for taking so long, but better late than never. Also, I learned from this and from trying to keep my "good things" blog that there is something about requiring something very specific that makes me toss it to the four winds. Bad me, but there it is.

Labels: about me, knitting, writing

Which seems too easy and too predictable, but that's just too bad. That's definitely what "k" is for!

Labels: about me, knitting

My father's sister was born in 1904. She would be 103 years old which is what I kind of thought she was, when I was little. She was very short, probably less than 4 feet tall, and petite although not slender. She was a professional textile designer, creating knitted and crocheted garments and accessories for the then-major yarn companies and 57th Street boutiques in New York City. She kept a scrapbook for two years in the early fifties, so I do have a record of some of the extraordinary things she made, but unfortunately most of what she did is lost to posterity and memory. She made angora sweaters and shawls, hats of all kinds, dresses with striped patterns that looked elegant and sophisticated, capes, gloves, shrugs, etc. Her work was definitely a harbinger of today's textile fervor. She would have been thrilled to see the burgeoning popularity of all of it.

Judith taught me how to knit when I was 4 or 5. She taught me the "throw" method for some reason even though she used continental and went at two hundred miles an hour. I remember that there were times you truly could not see the needles moving. Plus, she far preferred smaller needles to larger, so she made entire dresses and sweater sets on size 1 or 2 needles. She always had a project with her and always sat on one side or the other of our sofa, of an evening, knitting or crocheting while chatting and being part of whatever was going on. It sometimes seemed odd, to a young girl (me) but the end results were amazing. Nowadays, after a ten year hiatus somewhere along the way, I seem to be channeling her. I inherited her needles and some dreadful Coats & Clark yarn when she died fifteen or twenty years ago (how she would have loved the new yarns!) and that kicked me back into gear so that now I'm the one who always has a project I can concentrate on. Soon I'll get to teach t2cgitw. What fun!!

Labels: about me, family, knitting, reflections

It felt so much like Sunday, last night, that I forgot it was Monday and time for part one of the season finale of The Closer. Thank goodness for TiVo.

Labels: about me, tv

Remember Mark Spitz? Today is the anniversary of his 7th gold medal swimming victory, in 1972. It's pretty much inconceivable that it's been thirty-five years since then because, among other things, I cannot possibly have lived thirty-five years since it happened. I suppose most of the people I might mention it to, today, were not even alive at the time or were still crawling. I wonder what Spitz himself is up to, being in his fifties now as I suppose he must be. Anyway, all that nonsense to the contrary notwithstanding, we who DO remember it can have pleasant memories today and wish him well.

Labels: about me, headlines, reflections, sports

It seems I may have been eloquent and fired up, but mistaken. Two people I generally trust for accurate information told me today that I was being naive and silly about the Craig incident. (Actually, one of them is downright angry with me for supporting the cause of someone who is a hypocrite and probably an adulterer.) One said it's just fine to say it doesn't matter what Craig's sexual preference is, whatever it is, but that Craig is well-known for being anti gay (which I didn't know and hadn't learned in my research on him) and yet also is known both in Idaho and DC as probably being gay himself. Brother. I should do more homework before I champion a cause, eh? His "reputation" in Idaho probably explains the silence from his supporters who may be going "duh" while the rest of us get all worked up. Plus, that airport men's room is apparently famous as a pick-up joint (don't you wonder how does information like this get around?). And more to the point, a man had come out of the men's room and told a security guard that someone was using the foot-tapping signal . . . and *that* is what sent the policeman in. I guess it would be germane to know ALL the facts before launching a defense or an attack but there seem to be several layers of truth and dishonesty to this story. Darned if I'm able to sort it out, so I hope someone does. Finally, while I'm sure there are those who would say that since solicitation is, in fact, a real crime, I do still think this is a far less useful way to occupy police than having them prevent violence against property and people and, if possible, help maintain a semblance of quality of life.

Labels: blogs (mine), crime, headlines, modern culture

Today being the last non-school-night day of summer and all, many people are having blowout picnics and all-day fests on their lawns and in their backyards. It all sounds idyllic, doesn't it? But come listen to the screaming kids and watch them tearing around in various stages of partial dress, jumping all over everyone's back porches and flowers, driving their bikes madly from one driveway through backyards to the next driveway. It's basically loud mayhem and it's been going on since around 11 this morning. I did briefly try to chat with my next door neighbors and see if things could be kept to a pitch just below pedal to the floor on account of it's also a holiday for me and my friends and we'd hoped to watch a couple of movies and have dinner in my living room. Despite the congeniality we generally share, I got glared at and almost certainly commented on when I left. And yes, I know and agree that kids need to screech and be wild sometimes but how about a wee bit of consideration for others, too?

Labels: about me, modern culture, people

Upon further reflection, I need to say some more about the Craig incident. His judgment was wacky (pleading guilty immediately, not calling a lawyer before doing anything, etc.), but it's fair to consider that many people who have never had any contact with police or lawyers wouldn't have the first notion of how to proceed. He may have been so startled and scared that even if he did know what he should do, he was sort of paralyzed. If you listen to the "interview" with policeman, it certainly lends some sympathy to the idea that he was being entrapped. (It's worth finding out why and I'm not sure why no one in Idaho or Washington is chasing that down.)

Anyway, I realize that I think the whole Craig incident is appalling and alarming. First of all, if he is gay and was seeking a quickie, it really mainly impacts his wife and his children - who may already have known that he's gay, if he is. Oh sure, it may freak out his right-wing religious constituents, but they're supposed to be awash in compassion and therefore should weather the storm. Second, he just may have been tapping his foot and reaching for toilet paper without a sexual agenda; it does sound far-fetched, but reality often is, if you think about your own life (and isn't that part of why reality tv is so interesting?). Third, since he was caught in the act of doing . . . er . . . nothing! . . . I'm not sure what the furor is about nor why politicians are starting to gather like vultures smelling blood. For heaven's sake. Keep in mind that the worst thing he may have done is begin to solicit casual sex (not actually solicit or have it) (and he may not have even done that). But so what, even if he did? Are police so bored and have so little to do that they need to spend time following people into bathrooms to see what they're doing? Are midwest airport police so overwhelmed by sexual panhandling in bathrooms that they feel the need to put lots of manpower into combatting it?

It was wonderful when we left the judgmental and unforgiving social atmosphere of the 50s and 60s in the dust. So what's happened that ordinary people are having their personal freedom (in bathrooms, of all places) ignored? Why are police morphing from guardians of freedom to storm troopers? It's not as if this thing can be attributed to fighting terrorism since there was nothing destructive or warlike at all going on. And it's frightening to think that police might be deliberately trying to snag people who are simply behaving oddly. And we need to keep in mind that there are almost always psychological and, eventually, social consequences for semi-Faustian trades such as political careers for sexual secrecy. And we must not forget - and, in fact, must cherish - the fact that, in America, oddness can be wonderful and, in any case, is not criminal in and of itself.

Labels: headlines, reflections

Like many before me, I've come to loathe and despise Time Warner Cable service. They twist customers' arms to make us pay more for fewer channels that are less reliably available, month after month. The latest two to fall by the wayside seem to be TBS and ESPN Classic. I realize that no one's world will be significantly improved or worsened with or without these two channels, but it's not free so I don't see why we don't get to say "no" or pay less or something. Actually, I do see because the point is that they want to force us to migrate to digital cable and maybe they think if they take away all the channels, one by one, we'll just scream uncle and agree to digital. Myself, I'm holding out for FIOS which is Verizon which is its own set of monopolistic gobbledeegook, but at least there are over two hundred channels and reputedly awesome reception all for less than we're paying now for TWC. The whole thing is so galling - the phone and television offerings. It's one of those things that we ought to have raised the roof about but we've let it go so long that raising the roof now will still leave the floodwaters leaking in through the floorboards. (Too many metaphors, but you know what I mean.)

Update. Now (Sunday morning) there's a message on the TWC phone saying that a bunch of channels' reception is messed up and "appreciating" customers' patience. I wish it was all right to write the words that $%^&* represents because this is ridiculous. Those channels have been off the air for two days already and I'd bet a lot of money that they'll be off until the holiday weekend is over. Monopolistic cable companies are wrong.

Labels: tv, whining

When it's good, it's very very good. The weather today and, apparently, for the whole weekend is perfect. Sunny, low-80s in the daytime, low humidity, breezy but not windy. Some sadist decided to make us even more loathe to see summer depart than we would be otherwise. It's enough to make one dread February but it *is* six months away, so to heck with it. It's been a fairly pleasant summer except for a couple of deluges and not enough ocean visiting but this is a fantastic way to officially end it. Hope you're having as good a weekend wherever you are.

Labels: about me, weather