Hello folks, I would like to introduce you to .... Georgia. As in O'Keefe.
She is a lovely, brand new (as in picked up last night) MacBook Pro with a Intel Core i5 and running Snow Leopard.* Her graphics are crisp, her keyboard action is lovely, and she is (in the words of the Sydney seagulls in Finding Nemo) mine..mine...mine...
Who knew that getting rear-ended could have such a pleasant fallout? Not that I would recommend it as a matter of course...
I have been having some connectivity problems which may or may not continue. I still have to get everything set up correctly. All of this means:
Hopefully more writing.
I can finish setting up my spreadsheet which will allow me to set prices on the jewelry I hope to sell on Etsy before too long (I figure with ten necklaces and the same number of bracelets I have enough stock to at least get started).
Job searching should be easier.
I can return to hanging out at Starbucks, which, believe it or not, I find more productive than working at home. (I do buy stuff, I promise. I do not simply freeload.)
I currently have no access to the latest edition of MS Office, which means that I will need to download Open Office or some other open source software, or resort to using Google Docs.
Woohoo!
*What the heck is Apple going to do when they run out of large cat names?
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Monday, May 09, 2011
Osama Bin Laden is dead.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past two weeks, I expect you know this. Actually, make that under a rock in a remote cave.
Certainly nowhere in the United States.
As Jon Stewart said, I suppose I should be ambivalent about the killing of another human being...
But as Jon Stewart also said, uh, no.
Yes, I rejoice in the death of this man, the same way I would have rejoiced in the death of Adolf Hitler had I been alive in 1945. There are just some people who deserve to die.*
However, it was not, contrary to what the President said on that Sunday night, justice. Was it necessary? Possibly. Was it completely justifiable? Damn straight. That does not make it justice, except in perhaps the most abstract and universally karmic way. In the casually metaphorical way we speak of people getting what's coming to them.
Thomas Nachbar wrote an excellent article for Slate which dissects the difference between an act of justice and a military action. He does a better job of analyzing this issue than I ever could. It is an important article and I encourage you to read it. Even more than that, I would urge you to read what Terry Karney has to say on the subject: he points out what we have lost by not allowing justice to be done.
For me, I am most concerned about the role that torture may have played in the operation. Apparently, some of the information was obtained through the use of "harsh interrogation techniques." USA Today, in rosy-eyed view of the American public, stated "It's a safe bet that most people would accept torture if it were the only option for catching the most hunted villain in U.S. history. Indiscriminate use of torture is another matter entirely."
They're absolutely wrong. If they thought it would give them a small amount of security, the American public would be more than willing to torture just about anyone. Because who's to say that the next terrorist we stop through use of torture is not a Bin Laden in the making? Or worse?
But how many terrorists will we be making through torture? And what damage are we doing to our own psyche, both as a nation and as individuals? Do we have a right to ask people to become what they must to be able to torture another human being?
And there is a glaring question that needs to be answered. Was there a way to get this information through other means? According to USA Today, one of the ways that the CIA was able to confirm the importance of a Bin Laden courier was because other high ranking Al Qaeda figures lied about him after being waterboarded. The question is, if they had enough information to know that the people were lying, why did they need to torture? For confirmation? Am I the only person that is bothered by that? Anyone?
There are roads you don't walk down because they may prove so enticing that it will be impossible to come back. Way leads on to way, as Robert Frost noted, and it is possible to lose your identity -- personal or national -- so much that you can never reclaim who you were. Yes, Virginia, there really are slippery slopes. Torture is one of them.
I once said that there are fates worse than death, that I would rather risk dying as a free and ethical woman than support torture to make myself more secure. That the rule of law and due process and the moral requirements for how human beings treat each other matter more to me than whatever I might gain in exchange for throwing them away.
Nothing that happened to Osama Bin Laden changes one damn bit of that. And any regret or sadness I may feel over the death of one of the most justly reviled men in history would be that it will be a continuing justification for those who will continue to do evil in my -- and my country's --name.
*Given my unalloyed opposition to capital punishment, for me this is a very small group indeed.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past two weeks, I expect you know this. Actually, make that under a rock in a remote cave.
Certainly nowhere in the United States.
As Jon Stewart said, I suppose I should be ambivalent about the killing of another human being...
But as Jon Stewart also said, uh, no.
Yes, I rejoice in the death of this man, the same way I would have rejoiced in the death of Adolf Hitler had I been alive in 1945. There are just some people who deserve to die.*
However, it was not, contrary to what the President said on that Sunday night, justice. Was it necessary? Possibly. Was it completely justifiable? Damn straight. That does not make it justice, except in perhaps the most abstract and universally karmic way. In the casually metaphorical way we speak of people getting what's coming to them.
Thomas Nachbar wrote an excellent article for Slate which dissects the difference between an act of justice and a military action. He does a better job of analyzing this issue than I ever could. It is an important article and I encourage you to read it. Even more than that, I would urge you to read what Terry Karney has to say on the subject: he points out what we have lost by not allowing justice to be done.
For me, I am most concerned about the role that torture may have played in the operation. Apparently, some of the information was obtained through the use of "harsh interrogation techniques." USA Today, in rosy-eyed view of the American public, stated "It's a safe bet that most people would accept torture if it were the only option for catching the most hunted villain in U.S. history. Indiscriminate use of torture is another matter entirely."
They're absolutely wrong. If they thought it would give them a small amount of security, the American public would be more than willing to torture just about anyone. Because who's to say that the next terrorist we stop through use of torture is not a Bin Laden in the making? Or worse?
But how many terrorists will we be making through torture? And what damage are we doing to our own psyche, both as a nation and as individuals? Do we have a right to ask people to become what they must to be able to torture another human being?
And there is a glaring question that needs to be answered. Was there a way to get this information through other means? According to USA Today, one of the ways that the CIA was able to confirm the importance of a Bin Laden courier was because other high ranking Al Qaeda figures lied about him after being waterboarded. The question is, if they had enough information to know that the people were lying, why did they need to torture? For confirmation? Am I the only person that is bothered by that? Anyone?
There are roads you don't walk down because they may prove so enticing that it will be impossible to come back. Way leads on to way, as Robert Frost noted, and it is possible to lose your identity -- personal or national -- so much that you can never reclaim who you were. Yes, Virginia, there really are slippery slopes. Torture is one of them.
I once said that there are fates worse than death, that I would rather risk dying as a free and ethical woman than support torture to make myself more secure. That the rule of law and due process and the moral requirements for how human beings treat each other matter more to me than whatever I might gain in exchange for throwing them away.
Nothing that happened to Osama Bin Laden changes one damn bit of that. And any regret or sadness I may feel over the death of one of the most justly reviled men in history would be that it will be a continuing justification for those who will continue to do evil in my -- and my country's --name.
*Given my unalloyed opposition to capital punishment, for me this is a very small group indeed.
Our recurring cast of characters...
Recent readers of this blog may or may have not become acquainted with the diverse group of inmates in my insane asylum. Unlike the CIA agent and little girl that followed John Nash around "A Beautiful Mind," these alleged people really do exist.
First off, there is the Rocket Scientist, my husband of 28 years. There is a reason that his ring-tone on my phone is the theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark. He can't go to space, so he makes up for it by going everywhere on earth he can. As an aeronautics engineer, geologist, arctic explorer and generally all around smart guy, he can go a lot of places. He was recently disappointed that a project he wanted to do didn't get funded, because, among other things it meant he would not get to spend next May in the Atacama desert. (The main reason, of course, was that it was an interesting and important project, and he really likes his job.) That means he will have to postpone picking up his sixth (and seventh) continents until next November, when he goes to the Antarctic.
He is the only person in my personal life, as far as I know, that has his own IMDb page. (Not to mention a Kevin Bacon number of 3.) When I discussed on Facebook whether or not I should write a bogus biography for him, several friends chimed in to say that would be totally unnecessary -- his actual life is pretty interesting on its own. He spends time every summer in the Canadian Arctic, and is one of only three people that I know personally who have had training to ward off polar bears. He is also a smart ass, although he disapproves of snarkiness and sarcasm on general principle. (In that regard, he is a nicer person than I am.)
Once, during a very contentious project he was heading up in Spain, he walked into a meeting he was leading with a flogger. He slapped it down on the table, and said in a quiet but menacing voice, "The beatings will commence until morale improves." The entire group went completely silent (except for me and a couple of friends, who were desperately trying not to snicker). It worked, though: people piped down and stopped fighting with each other.
There is my eldest son, the Not-So-Little-Drummer Boy. How much does this kid love music? Years ago, the first weekend he had his drum set he played it so much that the neighbors called the cops. He has the largest music collection of anyone in my immediate circle, much of it by artists I have never heard of. I can't figure out whether I am happier or more worried that he may well end up working in music or art: on the one hand, he would be really good at it, and he really should follow his heart; on the other, it's hard to make a living doing that.
On the surface, he is almost too cool for words. Underneath, he is a big goofy puppy. He likes doing crazy things -- he was looking forward to college so that he would be able to do stuff and his friends wouldn't act like he was completely insane. He's a sophomore now, and it both freaks me out and breaks my heart that in a couple of years, he will be mostly gone from my day to day life.
Then we have Railfan. I have a lot of sympathy for my middle child: he is a solid, smart kid, who most families would be a standout, but in ours is sandwiched between two peacocks. He doesn't show up in this blog as much as his brothers, because he is less likely than they are to say outrageous things. He is the nicest person of the three, and the one most likely to ask how my day has gone. He has struggled with Asperger's Syndrome, and still has issues with social cues, but is at heart a really really sweet boy who has come a very long way.
Railfan is the one of my children I would most want with me on a desert island. He's also the one that I am least worried about being able to cope with the logistics of the real world once he leaves home. He'll be the one that has his checkbook balanced (better than me) and will pay his bills on time. I am terrible at providing structure -- he has learned how to create some for himself, and I fully expect him to be fine on his own. He is also, of the three of them, the one I am least worried about being in a car with him behind the wheel.
And then we have the Red-Headed Menace. Last weekend, when he complained that I always blogged/Facebooked the things he said, I informed him "That's why we keep you around, comic relief. Otherwise we would have sold you to the gypsies long ago." A flamboyant, brilliant child, with a tendency to melodrama as strong as the current in the Colorado River, he is far more likely to want to have a discussion about the fall of the Soviet Union than, say, baseball or movies. What can you say about a child who on the way to school one day asks you what your favorite subatomic particle is? (My answer, for the record, is charmed quarks, simply because of the name. His was the Higgs boson -- I don't remember why.) Or who exclaims, on Valentine's Day, "I suck at relationships" with a huge dramatic sigh? (I was very good. I did not give my first response, which was "my, we're being a drama queen today" or even my second, which was "you might have better luck if you did not develop crushes on girls with boyfriends" or even what a friend of mine said, which was "of course he does, he's fourteen! What does he expect?" Instead, I very gently stated that he was still very young, and that things would get better when he got older. And spent the afternoon snickering about it.) I have discovered that the secret to dealing with RHM when he is in full Oscar-worthy mode is a poker face and the oft repeated phrase "that's nice, dear," said in the blandest voice possible.
He also hates hates hates to lose arguments. When he is discussing something, he will increase the outrageousness of his hypotheticals until the other side gives up in disgust, and you find yourself saying "Fine, if the sun goes supernova tomorrow, you do not have to mow the lawn on Sunday. In the meantime...." He's the one I am most likely to tell "Because I said so" simply because arguing with him can be exhausting. Amusing, often, but exhausting. (That is why reducing him to speechlessness during the lawyer discussion was so very satisfying.) I have explained to him that he really does need to become a lawyer, but he is having none of it. (He keeps changing what he does want, though, which given that he is fourteen, is entirely predictable. A couple of months ago, he wanted to be a physicist. On Sunday, he stated he wanted to be a genetics engineer. He has also expressed a desire to be a philosopher, preferably one of Plato's philosopher kings. Good luck with that one, I tell him.)
We also have a housemate, the Resident Shrink. We forgive her for being a New Yorker, and she forgives us for insisting that there is actually reasonable pizza outside of the five boroughs. (I'm willing to concede that there are no decent bagels other than in New York, however.) She's a vegetarian, and we go around and around about our own dogmatic views on food: she has the aforementioned pizza/bagel issue, and I keep trying to make her see that neither proper red beans and rice nor proper pea soup are vegetarian. (Neither is proper onion soup -- it's made with beef broth -- but I have kept a discreet silence on that one.) Proper chili is not vegetarian (nor does it have beans in it), but I am willing to concede that vegetarian "chili" is mighty tasty and I am very willing to eat it provided a) it does not have fake meat products in it and b) it is not really called chili.
So that's the household. If I seem bemused by them all, it is because I generally am. In many ways, I am the least interesting of the bunch. I have no idea if that is a good thing or not.
First off, there is the Rocket Scientist, my husband of 28 years. There is a reason that his ring-tone on my phone is the theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark. He can't go to space, so he makes up for it by going everywhere on earth he can. As an aeronautics engineer, geologist, arctic explorer and generally all around smart guy, he can go a lot of places. He was recently disappointed that a project he wanted to do didn't get funded, because, among other things it meant he would not get to spend next May in the Atacama desert. (The main reason, of course, was that it was an interesting and important project, and he really likes his job.) That means he will have to postpone picking up his sixth (and seventh) continents until next November, when he goes to the Antarctic.
He is the only person in my personal life, as far as I know, that has his own IMDb page. (Not to mention a Kevin Bacon number of 3.) When I discussed on Facebook whether or not I should write a bogus biography for him, several friends chimed in to say that would be totally unnecessary -- his actual life is pretty interesting on its own. He spends time every summer in the Canadian Arctic, and is one of only three people that I know personally who have had training to ward off polar bears. He is also a smart ass, although he disapproves of snarkiness and sarcasm on general principle. (In that regard, he is a nicer person than I am.)
Once, during a very contentious project he was heading up in Spain, he walked into a meeting he was leading with a flogger. He slapped it down on the table, and said in a quiet but menacing voice, "The beatings will commence until morale improves." The entire group went completely silent (except for me and a couple of friends, who were desperately trying not to snicker). It worked, though: people piped down and stopped fighting with each other.
There is my eldest son, the Not-So-Little-Drummer Boy. How much does this kid love music? Years ago, the first weekend he had his drum set he played it so much that the neighbors called the cops. He has the largest music collection of anyone in my immediate circle, much of it by artists I have never heard of. I can't figure out whether I am happier or more worried that he may well end up working in music or art: on the one hand, he would be really good at it, and he really should follow his heart; on the other, it's hard to make a living doing that.
On the surface, he is almost too cool for words. Underneath, he is a big goofy puppy. He likes doing crazy things -- he was looking forward to college so that he would be able to do stuff and his friends wouldn't act like he was completely insane. He's a sophomore now, and it both freaks me out and breaks my heart that in a couple of years, he will be mostly gone from my day to day life.
Then we have Railfan. I have a lot of sympathy for my middle child: he is a solid, smart kid, who most families would be a standout, but in ours is sandwiched between two peacocks. He doesn't show up in this blog as much as his brothers, because he is less likely than they are to say outrageous things. He is the nicest person of the three, and the one most likely to ask how my day has gone. He has struggled with Asperger's Syndrome, and still has issues with social cues, but is at heart a really really sweet boy who has come a very long way.
Railfan is the one of my children I would most want with me on a desert island. He's also the one that I am least worried about being able to cope with the logistics of the real world once he leaves home. He'll be the one that has his checkbook balanced (better than me) and will pay his bills on time. I am terrible at providing structure -- he has learned how to create some for himself, and I fully expect him to be fine on his own. He is also, of the three of them, the one I am least worried about being in a car with him behind the wheel.
And then we have the Red-Headed Menace. Last weekend, when he complained that I always blogged/Facebooked the things he said, I informed him "That's why we keep you around, comic relief. Otherwise we would have sold you to the gypsies long ago." A flamboyant, brilliant child, with a tendency to melodrama as strong as the current in the Colorado River, he is far more likely to want to have a discussion about the fall of the Soviet Union than, say, baseball or movies. What can you say about a child who on the way to school one day asks you what your favorite subatomic particle is? (My answer, for the record, is charmed quarks, simply because of the name. His was the Higgs boson -- I don't remember why.) Or who exclaims, on Valentine's Day, "I suck at relationships" with a huge dramatic sigh? (I was very good. I did not give my first response, which was "my, we're being a drama queen today" or even my second, which was "you might have better luck if you did not develop crushes on girls with boyfriends" or even what a friend of mine said, which was "of course he does, he's fourteen! What does he expect?" Instead, I very gently stated that he was still very young, and that things would get better when he got older. And spent the afternoon snickering about it.) I have discovered that the secret to dealing with RHM when he is in full Oscar-worthy mode is a poker face and the oft repeated phrase "that's nice, dear," said in the blandest voice possible.
He also hates hates hates to lose arguments. When he is discussing something, he will increase the outrageousness of his hypotheticals until the other side gives up in disgust, and you find yourself saying "Fine, if the sun goes supernova tomorrow, you do not have to mow the lawn on Sunday. In the meantime...." He's the one I am most likely to tell "Because I said so" simply because arguing with him can be exhausting. Amusing, often, but exhausting. (That is why reducing him to speechlessness during the lawyer discussion was so very satisfying.) I have explained to him that he really does need to become a lawyer, but he is having none of it. (He keeps changing what he does want, though, which given that he is fourteen, is entirely predictable. A couple of months ago, he wanted to be a physicist. On Sunday, he stated he wanted to be a genetics engineer. He has also expressed a desire to be a philosopher, preferably one of Plato's philosopher kings. Good luck with that one, I tell him.)
We also have a housemate, the Resident Shrink. We forgive her for being a New Yorker, and she forgives us for insisting that there is actually reasonable pizza outside of the five boroughs. (I'm willing to concede that there are no decent bagels other than in New York, however.) She's a vegetarian, and we go around and around about our own dogmatic views on food: she has the aforementioned pizza/bagel issue, and I keep trying to make her see that neither proper red beans and rice nor proper pea soup are vegetarian. (Neither is proper onion soup -- it's made with beef broth -- but I have kept a discreet silence on that one.) Proper chili is not vegetarian (nor does it have beans in it), but I am willing to concede that vegetarian "chili" is mighty tasty and I am very willing to eat it provided a) it does not have fake meat products in it and b) it is not really called chili.
So that's the household. If I seem bemused by them all, it is because I generally am. In many ways, I am the least interesting of the bunch. I have no idea if that is a good thing or not.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
*rimshot*
Me: You really need to become a lawyer, Red Headed Menace.
RHM: I don't want to be a lawyer, I want to be a genetic engineer.
Rocket Scientist: Then you can create giant mutant cockroaches!
Me: Or giant mutant lawyers.
Railfan: There's a difference?
RHM: I don't want to be a lawyer, I want to be a genetic engineer.
Rocket Scientist: Then you can create giant mutant cockroaches!
Me: Or giant mutant lawyers.
Railfan: There's a difference?
Because we're THAT sort of family
I just received a Mother's Day card with the greeting on the envelope written in hex.
I have interesting children.
I have interesting children.
Friday, May 06, 2011
Miscellanea
I will be getting a new laptop soon, probably within the next week. I will hopefully be posting more then.
******
The laptop is courtesy of the insurance company of the elderly man who ran into me in February. They offered me (in addition to paying all my medicals bills) $1000, basically as a "We're so sorry you're hurt, please don't sue us" gesture. I resisted the temptation to tell them to talk to my counsel, since I had absolutely no intention of suing anyone, provided they paid my medical bills. Suing people is a pain in the backside, and I had had no real "pain and suffering" (which is what this is compensation for) except for a mighty uncomfortable three hours in the Stanford ER and several days stoned out of my gourd on Vicodin. I didn't tell the insurance company that, of course, but simply took the grand. I think if I had pushed I might have gotten two, but that seemed unethical to me. Contrast this with my insurance company, who is being aggressive with the people who I hit in March (it's been a bad year for cars in my household), even though it was the same sort of injury (soft tissue damage, whiplash).
The litigious nature of American society is also why I have certificate for three days stay at a resort hotel in Hawaii, as another "We're so sorry you fell getting off the poorly designed tram, we're very glad you weren't seriously hurt, please don't sue us" plea.
******
The Apple Store in Palo Alto California employs some seriously pretty geek-boys, such as the one today who explained to me the difference between flash or solid state memory and traditional hard drives. Cute, enthusiastic, and didn't condescend to me when it became clear that I was a reasonably intelligent person -- actually, not even before then. And he did not even steer me towards the most expensive option! (Well, he did suggest I consider a Macbook Pro, when I told him I keep computers until they die, since it had the most recent Intel processors, but I had already decided to do that anyway.) I realize that in some sense this is objectifying this lad, so I lose some feminist street cred here. Oh, well.
*******
Quote of the week comes from the Red-Headed Menace. After reading about a third of Romeo and Juliet (you could tell he was reading it, too, because he yells at the characters in books the way other people yell at characters in television shows -- in this case, "Romeo, you wuss. What is this about Rosaline? Get over her, man!), he came into the kitchen and asked "Mom, I realize this is purely hypothetical, but do you think a romance between me and Juliet would work out?"
No, son. It wouldn't. Her family would definitely disapprove. On top of that, she's a fictional character. From the sixteenth century. Who had a boyfriend/husband. Who committed suicide. So I think you're pretty much out of luck on this one. Things not going too well with the crush object, are they?
******
In the toy store today, while buying a butterfly net for Railfan for his Bio project, I noticed that there are two new versions of Trivial Pursuit out. The Trivial Pursuit Master Edition seems to be nothing more than a standard game with a timer added. I can just swipe the timer from the game of Pictionary gathering dust in the hall closet and save myself $45.
Trivial Pursuit -- Bet You Know It!, however, seems to involve betting on who will get what right. Hehehehe. I see the possibility for an entire new income stream. Of course, I'd mainly be winning stuff off of the people in my household, so in the end it wouldn't matter, but still....
******
I have discovered that the Rocket Scientist has his own IMDb page, due to having appeared as "himself" in two episodes of the documentary series, Mars Rising. (He does not, alas, have his own Wikipedia page.) Also, by virtue of Mars Rising having been narrated by William Shatner, he has a Bacon number of three, and an Erdos-Bacon number of 6, the same as Natalie Portman. I'm not sure what to make of all this, other than to find it terribly amusing. [Edited to add: The Rocket Scientist says that James Cameron was also onscreen in Mars Rising, so he has two different routes to get his Bacon number of three. He also says that when he was introduced to Cameron, he had no idea who he was, since he had not seen Titanic and it was before Avatar. *facepalm* To say that popular culture is not his forte would be an understatement.]
I have thus far resisted the temptation to create an entirely bogus biography of him. It's taken a lot of willpower, but I am being good.
******
A friend introduced me to Straight No Chaser. Oh. My. God. I think I may have a new obsession in the making. I especially love their version of Tainted Love, and am thinking of trying to find a version to use as a ringtone on my phone.
Of course, I do love having the Superchicken Theme as my default ringtone. I have come a long way since I had Pachelbel's Canon in D Major as my ring tone mainly so as to not bother other people. Maybe, having turned fifty, I just don't care anymore. The Superchicken theme is so much in keeping with my personality, anyway. Really.
******
When I was considering law schools, I made the mistake of visiting Stanford on a day almost exactly like this one. The sky was this amazingly intense cornflower blue, it was neither too hot nor too cold, and the hills were still green and lush. I fell in love. Who knows, had I visited during a heat wave in August, when all the hills have turned brown, I might have ended up in DC. Or Austin.
This is not to say that Stanford was not very very good to and for me, and I still have a great deal of fondness for both the place and the people associated with it. It's just that I need to remember and treasure days like today, because all too soon everything will dry up.
It is also an object lesson in doing your homework. Had I actually checked it out, I would have found out that the the area around Stanford has an average annual rainfall of roughly 18 inches a year, as opposed to over 50 for the Tampa Bay area (where I grew up), or Atlanta (where I moved from). There are (sob) NO summer thunderstorms. Oops. What can I say? I was young and stupid(er).
It all worked out in the end, though. I do wonder, sometimes, what I would have been like had I gone to Georgetown, UT, or even Berkeley.
******
Mother's Day is Sunday. I suppose that it would mark me as a bad mother to say that I really would like to go out drinking. I think that I should emulate the example of my mother.
My mom loves Disney World. My father hated it, primarily because his knees had gotten bad enough that walking around/standing were uncomfortable for him, and he would have had to be completely immobile before he would consent to something like a scooter. (True story about my Dad: I showed him the book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche when it came out. Dad growled "Real men eat whatever they damn well please." He paused, then asked, "What's a quiche?") So Mom only got to Disney World when the grandkids were in town.
After my dad died, one of the first things Mom did, after her first initial mourning period, was buy a season pass to Disney World. "I love him, but he's gone, and I want to go to Disney World. I'm too old to worry about what people will think."
You go, Mom. I never said this when I was growing up, what I have decided you're the person I want to be when I grow old.
I hope you got my phone message last week. If not, then here's wishing you (again) a belated Happy 84th Birthday. You'll outlive us all, I expect. At least I hope so. I'm going to miss you when you go.
And a Very Happy Mother's Day, Mom. And to all the other mothers I know out there, regardless of age, race, creed, sexual orientation, or birth/adoption status: you guys rock.
Here's hoping the people around you tell you so.
******
The laptop is courtesy of the insurance company of the elderly man who ran into me in February. They offered me (in addition to paying all my medicals bills) $1000, basically as a "We're so sorry you're hurt, please don't sue us" gesture. I resisted the temptation to tell them to talk to my counsel, since I had absolutely no intention of suing anyone, provided they paid my medical bills. Suing people is a pain in the backside, and I had had no real "pain and suffering" (which is what this is compensation for) except for a mighty uncomfortable three hours in the Stanford ER and several days stoned out of my gourd on Vicodin. I didn't tell the insurance company that, of course, but simply took the grand. I think if I had pushed I might have gotten two, but that seemed unethical to me. Contrast this with my insurance company, who is being aggressive with the people who I hit in March (it's been a bad year for cars in my household), even though it was the same sort of injury (soft tissue damage, whiplash).
The litigious nature of American society is also why I have certificate for three days stay at a resort hotel in Hawaii, as another "We're so sorry you fell getting off the poorly designed tram, we're very glad you weren't seriously hurt, please don't sue us" plea.
******
The Apple Store in Palo Alto California employs some seriously pretty geek-boys, such as the one today who explained to me the difference between flash or solid state memory and traditional hard drives. Cute, enthusiastic, and didn't condescend to me when it became clear that I was a reasonably intelligent person -- actually, not even before then. And he did not even steer me towards the most expensive option! (Well, he did suggest I consider a Macbook Pro, when I told him I keep computers until they die, since it had the most recent Intel processors, but I had already decided to do that anyway.) I realize that in some sense this is objectifying this lad, so I lose some feminist street cred here. Oh, well.
*******
Quote of the week comes from the Red-Headed Menace. After reading about a third of Romeo and Juliet (you could tell he was reading it, too, because he yells at the characters in books the way other people yell at characters in television shows -- in this case, "Romeo, you wuss. What is this about Rosaline? Get over her, man!), he came into the kitchen and asked "Mom, I realize this is purely hypothetical, but do you think a romance between me and Juliet would work out?"
No, son. It wouldn't. Her family would definitely disapprove. On top of that, she's a fictional character. From the sixteenth century. Who had a boyfriend/husband. Who committed suicide. So I think you're pretty much out of luck on this one. Things not going too well with the crush object, are they?
******
In the toy store today, while buying a butterfly net for Railfan for his Bio project, I noticed that there are two new versions of Trivial Pursuit out. The Trivial Pursuit Master Edition seems to be nothing more than a standard game with a timer added. I can just swipe the timer from the game of Pictionary gathering dust in the hall closet and save myself $45.
Trivial Pursuit -- Bet You Know It!, however, seems to involve betting on who will get what right. Hehehehe. I see the possibility for an entire new income stream. Of course, I'd mainly be winning stuff off of the people in my household, so in the end it wouldn't matter, but still....
******
I have discovered that the Rocket Scientist has his own IMDb page, due to having appeared as "himself" in two episodes of the documentary series, Mars Rising. (He does not, alas, have his own Wikipedia page.) Also, by virtue of Mars Rising having been narrated by William Shatner, he has a Bacon number of three, and an Erdos-Bacon number of 6, the same as Natalie Portman. I'm not sure what to make of all this, other than to find it terribly amusing. [Edited to add: The Rocket Scientist says that James Cameron was also onscreen in Mars Rising, so he has two different routes to get his Bacon number of three. He also says that when he was introduced to Cameron, he had no idea who he was, since he had not seen Titanic and it was before Avatar. *facepalm* To say that popular culture is not his forte would be an understatement.]
I have thus far resisted the temptation to create an entirely bogus biography of him. It's taken a lot of willpower, but I am being good.
******
A friend introduced me to Straight No Chaser. Oh. My. God. I think I may have a new obsession in the making. I especially love their version of Tainted Love, and am thinking of trying to find a version to use as a ringtone on my phone.
Of course, I do love having the Superchicken Theme as my default ringtone. I have come a long way since I had Pachelbel's Canon in D Major as my ring tone mainly so as to not bother other people. Maybe, having turned fifty, I just don't care anymore. The Superchicken theme is so much in keeping with my personality, anyway. Really.
******
When I was considering law schools, I made the mistake of visiting Stanford on a day almost exactly like this one. The sky was this amazingly intense cornflower blue, it was neither too hot nor too cold, and the hills were still green and lush. I fell in love. Who knows, had I visited during a heat wave in August, when all the hills have turned brown, I might have ended up in DC. Or Austin.
This is not to say that Stanford was not very very good to and for me, and I still have a great deal of fondness for both the place and the people associated with it. It's just that I need to remember and treasure days like today, because all too soon everything will dry up.
It is also an object lesson in doing your homework. Had I actually checked it out, I would have found out that the the area around Stanford has an average annual rainfall of roughly 18 inches a year, as opposed to over 50 for the Tampa Bay area (where I grew up), or Atlanta (where I moved from). There are (sob) NO summer thunderstorms. Oops. What can I say? I was young and stupid(er).
It all worked out in the end, though. I do wonder, sometimes, what I would have been like had I gone to Georgetown, UT, or even Berkeley.
******
Mother's Day is Sunday. I suppose that it would mark me as a bad mother to say that I really would like to go out drinking. I think that I should emulate the example of my mother.
My mom loves Disney World. My father hated it, primarily because his knees had gotten bad enough that walking around/standing were uncomfortable for him, and he would have had to be completely immobile before he would consent to something like a scooter. (True story about my Dad: I showed him the book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche when it came out. Dad growled "Real men eat whatever they damn well please." He paused, then asked, "What's a quiche?") So Mom only got to Disney World when the grandkids were in town.
After my dad died, one of the first things Mom did, after her first initial mourning period, was buy a season pass to Disney World. "I love him, but he's gone, and I want to go to Disney World. I'm too old to worry about what people will think."
You go, Mom. I never said this when I was growing up, what I have decided you're the person I want to be when I grow old.
I hope you got my phone message last week. If not, then here's wishing you (again) a belated Happy 84th Birthday. You'll outlive us all, I expect. At least I hope so. I'm going to miss you when you go.
And a Very Happy Mother's Day, Mom. And to all the other mothers I know out there, regardless of age, race, creed, sexual orientation, or birth/adoption status: you guys rock.
Here's hoping the people around you tell you so.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Question of the day
Me: I'm losing my mind.
Rocket Scientist: Where was it the last time you saw it?
Rocket Scientist: Where was it the last time you saw it?
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
I am, in the popular argot, a cheap drunk. A Really. Cheap. Drunk.
At Wellesley, every year the juniors put on a show. My freshman year, the Junior Show included the line "It takes more than two drinks to change a Wellesley woman's mind."
Not in my case. All it takes is two drinks. Unless...
One of those drinks is the "Corpse Reviver " at the British Banker's Club in Menlo Park, California. In that case, it only takes one.
I was at the BBC this evening meeting a friend of my housemate, the Resident Shrink. I was planning to order at the most two drinks. The time before this, when I had gone out drinking, I had had two rum and cokes and had barely noticed them. (Which could be why I lost the game of Trivial Pursuit that evening (lack of enough alcohol) but that's another story...) So I figured I would be okay, right?
I ordered the Corpse Reviver because it looked interesting and had absinthe in it. How can you resist a drink with absinthe in it?
I drank it down. It was easy to drink, tasting faintly like lemon and licorice. (I know that sounds like an awful combination, but work with me here.) It was decent, but on the second round I ordered my standard Mai Tai.
I had taken barely a sip of Mai Tai when I knew I was in serious trouble. As in, "I am slurring my words and I have only had one drink" trouble. I excused myself and headed to the bathroom, staggering a bit and definitely holding onto the rail on the way up the stairs.
But then, I had this Mai Tai. What to do? I did what anyone half drunk would do. I finished that one, too. At this point, I was having trouble walking, period, let alone up or down the stairs.
The Rocket Scientist and the Resident Shrink showed up. Fortunately, the restaurant where we were having dinner was within easy walking distance, and the Rocket Scientist held my arm the whole way. I refused sangria, even though the sangria at Iberia Restaurant in Menlo Park is very good. I settled for a coke.
I managed to make it through dinner. At the end, I succumbed to temptation and had a glass of sangria because, hey it was there and we needed to finish off the pitcher and the Rocket Scientist couldn't have any more because somebody had to drive us home and it sure as hell wasn't going to be me.
I have been assured that I was in fact charming and not at all embarrassing, which is good. I am sitting here dreading what I will feel like in the morning. All of which means...
Next time, avoid ordering any drinks with really scary names.
At Wellesley, every year the juniors put on a show. My freshman year, the Junior Show included the line "It takes more than two drinks to change a Wellesley woman's mind."
Not in my case. All it takes is two drinks. Unless...
One of those drinks is the "Corpse Reviver " at the British Banker's Club in Menlo Park, California. In that case, it only takes one.
I was at the BBC this evening meeting a friend of my housemate, the Resident Shrink. I was planning to order at the most two drinks. The time before this, when I had gone out drinking, I had had two rum and cokes and had barely noticed them. (Which could be why I lost the game of Trivial Pursuit that evening (lack of enough alcohol) but that's another story...) So I figured I would be okay, right?
I ordered the Corpse Reviver because it looked interesting and had absinthe in it. How can you resist a drink with absinthe in it?
I drank it down. It was easy to drink, tasting faintly like lemon and licorice. (I know that sounds like an awful combination, but work with me here.) It was decent, but on the second round I ordered my standard Mai Tai.
I had taken barely a sip of Mai Tai when I knew I was in serious trouble. As in, "I am slurring my words and I have only had one drink" trouble. I excused myself and headed to the bathroom, staggering a bit and definitely holding onto the rail on the way up the stairs.
But then, I had this Mai Tai. What to do? I did what anyone half drunk would do. I finished that one, too. At this point, I was having trouble walking, period, let alone up or down the stairs.
The Rocket Scientist and the Resident Shrink showed up. Fortunately, the restaurant where we were having dinner was within easy walking distance, and the Rocket Scientist held my arm the whole way. I refused sangria, even though the sangria at Iberia Restaurant in Menlo Park is very good. I settled for a coke.
I managed to make it through dinner. At the end, I succumbed to temptation and had a glass of sangria because, hey it was there and we needed to finish off the pitcher and the Rocket Scientist couldn't have any more because somebody had to drive us home and it sure as hell wasn't going to be me.
I have been assured that I was in fact charming and not at all embarrassing, which is good. I am sitting here dreading what I will feel like in the morning. All of which means...
Next time, avoid ordering any drinks with really scary names.
I visited my neurologist yesterday. I have to be evaluated every six months for migraines and to make sure that my tremors are benign and that I do not in fact have Parkinson's. They have been determined to be "essential tremors."
I asked my neurologist "What does that mean, 'essential'?" He answered, "It means that essentially we have no idea what causes them."
Nothing like having doctors with a sense of humor.
I asked my neurologist "What does that mean, 'essential'?" He answered, "It means that essentially we have no idea what causes them."
Nothing like having doctors with a sense of humor.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Because planning for emergencies is so important
Quote of the day, from the Red Headed Menace. who is vegetarian: "the velociraptors should eat me, I'm grain-fed. I taste better."*
Yes, we were discussing what to do in case of velociraptor attack. That's just the sort of family we are. Next up, how to prepare for the coming zombie apocalypse.
My kids are already thinking along those lines: last Christmas, the Red-Headed Menace asked for a laser. For his birthday this year, Railfan asked for a girlfriend and C-4, both of which are helpful in warding off brain-eating monsters.**
*He then remarked that "Actually, the velociraptors should eat vegans. They're practically grass-fed."
**We had to sadly explain that the girlfriend was something he needed to take of himself, and as it would be illegal for us to own C-4 ourselves, buying it for him was pretty much a moot point. Besides, we figured he would just use it to blow up his brother.
Yes, we were discussing what to do in case of velociraptor attack. That's just the sort of family we are. Next up, how to prepare for the coming zombie apocalypse.
My kids are already thinking along those lines: last Christmas, the Red-Headed Menace asked for a laser. For his birthday this year, Railfan asked for a girlfriend and C-4, both of which are helpful in warding off brain-eating monsters.**
*He then remarked that "Actually, the velociraptors should eat vegans. They're practically grass-fed."
**We had to sadly explain that the girlfriend was something he needed to take of himself, and as it would be illegal for us to own C-4 ourselves, buying it for him was pretty much a moot point. Besides, we figured he would just use it to blow up his brother.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Thoughts for Earth Day (most of them pretty obvious) ...
Believe it or not, I was a member of the Environmental Law Society at Stanford. (More than that, I was managing editor of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal.*)
I was, in many ways, an odd duck to end up in the basement offices of ELS. I had little interest in saving the wilderness or endangered species. My dedication for natural resources law was, to say the least, not remotely awe-inspiring. Not that I am not glad that there are people who are devoted to those, mind you -- I think that is very worthwhile, nay vital. It's just not my thing.
I was passionate (and stilll am, all these many years later, although my environmental interests have broadened, pretty much due to my involvement with ELS) about historic and architectural preservation.** I was living and working in Atlanta in the early eighties, a time when, according to the papers, there were arguments about saving Margaret Mitchell's house*** which centered primarily on whether the house was sound enough structurally to be worth saving, but where many people thought it would be okay to run the Jimmy Carter Presidential Parkway through the Sweet Auburn neighborhood, which was crucial in the struggle for civil rights. Or where an architecturally important building could be demolished to make way for a MARTA station, although they were careful to save the facade statues, isolated and removed from their original setting for the enjoyment of riders.
So what's so different about the the desire to protect nature and the desire to protect historic sites? In many cases, the tactics are similar, and in some cases the ends coincide (in the case of Native American sites that are also environmentally sensitive, for example). I think the underlying question is one of emphasis.
Historic preservation is about people. Saving places that tie people to their past, to their sense of who they are, as individuals and as a culture or society, is paramount.**** It is about not forgetting, the good or the bad. It is about remembering the heritage which we justly take pride in, and the past which we would rather forget but which is dangerous for us to do so.
Environmentalism, in the larger sense, is not necessarily about people. For many environmentalists it is, but I also know environmentalists who view humans as a blight upon the planet, who tend to be disdainful or dimissive of those who stand in their way. One friend -- and she was a friend, in spite of our differences -- once described herself unapologetically as an "environmental Nazi." She had no problem with whatever regulatory and legal tactics were necessary to protect resources, wilderness and wildlife. People were in many ways an impediment, and dangerous to the earth.
It comes down, to me, a question of "Why save the planet?" .
One can say that the planet needs to be saved for its own sake. That wilderness and resources and endangered species provide their own justification, and need none from us.
But for me, we need to save the planet because there are people living on it. Yes, you need to save the whole planet -- not just the parts where there are people living -- because it is a complex system and it is impossible to say what will matter in the future. And far too many environmental decisions made by individuals, governments and societies are disastrous for people in both the short term and in the long run.
I also believe that people need wilderness, need the idea of wilderness. We have to have whales, regardless of any practical use they may have, because we are creatures with a capacity for wonder and curiosity, and we require objects for that wonder. If you doubt the need for whales, go on a whale-watching trip with a group of elementary school kids to see just how vital they are.
All of this influences how you see the struggle, and what problems you become interested in. Given the choice, I would much rather focus on the short-sighted repeal of the Williamson Act, and what this means for municipalities and farmers, than on saving the Amazon rainforest. Again, it's not that I do not view this as important, but that I can only retain focus on a limited set of problems at one time. Water resource issues, and the tension between agricultural use and municipal use, interest me more than the problems with traffic congestion (and its attendant air-quality concerns) in Yosemite. The former is much more central to how people live their lives on a daily basis.
The lead singer of Great Big Sea, Alan Doyle, once caustically commented on celebrities who went out to the ice to protest the baby seal hunt. Where were they the rest of the year, he asked, when people were trying to feed their families and get by without having to leave where they have lived for generations? Whatever you think of the seal fur trade, he has a very good point. Telling people that they are evil for killing fur seals, or for logging in endangered species (such as spotted owl) habitat, may well get the response "Screw you, I need to feed my kids."
All of which means you have to enlist individuals in the fight. Give people living in the rainforest incentive to save it themselves (which has happened in a lot of areas) and you will be more effective than imposing outside regulation. Giving farmers financial incentives to conserve through water marketing is going to work better in the long run than imposing quotas on water use. Outside regulation is only needed to keep the all-too-powerful forces of the (alleged) free-market system from overpowering people acting in the best interests of themselves and their families. Or where the problems -- such as air and water pollution -- are larger than can be addressed locally. Or where what is threatened is one of those areas we need for the health of the people living on the planet even though no people currently live there. (E.g., the Everglades) .
This is a change for me from twenty years ago when I was in law school. I no longer see regulation (as very important as that may be) as always the best way to solve environmental problems. Outside regulation is a fragile reed: that which is given under an environmentally sensitive administration can be taken away by one who is held captive by industrial interests.
And maybe I have come to have more understanding of, and sympathy for, people who really are just trying to get by. Because they live on this planet, too.
*One of the more thankless things I have ever done. That I got through the year without strangling anyone -- including myself -- never ceases to amaze me. One contributor in particular... never mind. I'm pretty sure I did not do a good -- or even an adequate -- job. I like to think of it as a clear example of the Peter Principle in operation.
**The difference between the two (although they are sometimes used interchangeably) is that a building can be historically important and completely nondescript: the elementary schools at the heart of Brown v. Board of Education, are historically important, but pretty unimpressive to look at. On the other hand, both Fallingwater and the Robie House, residential structures from two different points in Frank Lloyd Wright's career, are aesthetically pleasing and architecturally important, but aside from that have very little historic significance.
***Don't get me started on Gone With the Wind. Any book which glorifies the slave-holding culture of the antebellum South is a very bad thing in my estimation.
****Saving not-so-historic places, because people have attachments to them, matters too. See my rant about Kelo v. City of New London.
I was, in many ways, an odd duck to end up in the basement offices of ELS. I had little interest in saving the wilderness or endangered species. My dedication for natural resources law was, to say the least, not remotely awe-inspiring. Not that I am not glad that there are people who are devoted to those, mind you -- I think that is very worthwhile, nay vital. It's just not my thing.
I was passionate (and stilll am, all these many years later, although my environmental interests have broadened, pretty much due to my involvement with ELS) about historic and architectural preservation.** I was living and working in Atlanta in the early eighties, a time when, according to the papers, there were arguments about saving Margaret Mitchell's house*** which centered primarily on whether the house was sound enough structurally to be worth saving, but where many people thought it would be okay to run the Jimmy Carter Presidential Parkway through the Sweet Auburn neighborhood, which was crucial in the struggle for civil rights. Or where an architecturally important building could be demolished to make way for a MARTA station, although they were careful to save the facade statues, isolated and removed from their original setting for the enjoyment of riders.
So what's so different about the the desire to protect nature and the desire to protect historic sites? In many cases, the tactics are similar, and in some cases the ends coincide (in the case of Native American sites that are also environmentally sensitive, for example). I think the underlying question is one of emphasis.
Historic preservation is about people. Saving places that tie people to their past, to their sense of who they are, as individuals and as a culture or society, is paramount.**** It is about not forgetting, the good or the bad. It is about remembering the heritage which we justly take pride in, and the past which we would rather forget but which is dangerous for us to do so.
Environmentalism, in the larger sense, is not necessarily about people. For many environmentalists it is, but I also know environmentalists who view humans as a blight upon the planet, who tend to be disdainful or dimissive of those who stand in their way. One friend -- and she was a friend, in spite of our differences -- once described herself unapologetically as an "environmental Nazi." She had no problem with whatever regulatory and legal tactics were necessary to protect resources, wilderness and wildlife. People were in many ways an impediment, and dangerous to the earth.
It comes down, to me, a question of "Why save the planet?" .
One can say that the planet needs to be saved for its own sake. That wilderness and resources and endangered species provide their own justification, and need none from us.
But for me, we need to save the planet because there are people living on it. Yes, you need to save the whole planet -- not just the parts where there are people living -- because it is a complex system and it is impossible to say what will matter in the future. And far too many environmental decisions made by individuals, governments and societies are disastrous for people in both the short term and in the long run.
I also believe that people need wilderness, need the idea of wilderness. We have to have whales, regardless of any practical use they may have, because we are creatures with a capacity for wonder and curiosity, and we require objects for that wonder. If you doubt the need for whales, go on a whale-watching trip with a group of elementary school kids to see just how vital they are.
All of this influences how you see the struggle, and what problems you become interested in. Given the choice, I would much rather focus on the short-sighted repeal of the Williamson Act, and what this means for municipalities and farmers, than on saving the Amazon rainforest. Again, it's not that I do not view this as important, but that I can only retain focus on a limited set of problems at one time. Water resource issues, and the tension between agricultural use and municipal use, interest me more than the problems with traffic congestion (and its attendant air-quality concerns) in Yosemite. The former is much more central to how people live their lives on a daily basis.
The lead singer of Great Big Sea, Alan Doyle, once caustically commented on celebrities who went out to the ice to protest the baby seal hunt. Where were they the rest of the year, he asked, when people were trying to feed their families and get by without having to leave where they have lived for generations? Whatever you think of the seal fur trade, he has a very good point. Telling people that they are evil for killing fur seals, or for logging in endangered species (such as spotted owl) habitat, may well get the response "Screw you, I need to feed my kids."
All of which means you have to enlist individuals in the fight. Give people living in the rainforest incentive to save it themselves (which has happened in a lot of areas) and you will be more effective than imposing outside regulation. Giving farmers financial incentives to conserve through water marketing is going to work better in the long run than imposing quotas on water use. Outside regulation is only needed to keep the all-too-powerful forces of the (alleged) free-market system from overpowering people acting in the best interests of themselves and their families. Or where the problems -- such as air and water pollution -- are larger than can be addressed locally. Or where what is threatened is one of those areas we need for the health of the people living on the planet even though no people currently live there. (E.g., the Everglades) .
This is a change for me from twenty years ago when I was in law school. I no longer see regulation (as very important as that may be) as always the best way to solve environmental problems. Outside regulation is a fragile reed: that which is given under an environmentally sensitive administration can be taken away by one who is held captive by industrial interests.
And maybe I have come to have more understanding of, and sympathy for, people who really are just trying to get by. Because they live on this planet, too.
*One of the more thankless things I have ever done. That I got through the year without strangling anyone -- including myself -- never ceases to amaze me. One contributor in particular... never mind. I'm pretty sure I did not do a good -- or even an adequate -- job. I like to think of it as a clear example of the Peter Principle in operation.
**The difference between the two (although they are sometimes used interchangeably) is that a building can be historically important and completely nondescript: the elementary schools at the heart of Brown v. Board of Education, are historically important, but pretty unimpressive to look at. On the other hand, both Fallingwater and the Robie House, residential structures from two different points in Frank Lloyd Wright's career, are aesthetically pleasing and architecturally important, but aside from that have very little historic significance.
***Don't get me started on Gone With the Wind. Any book which glorifies the slave-holding culture of the antebellum South is a very bad thing in my estimation.
****Saving not-so-historic places, because people have attachments to them, matters too. See my rant about Kelo v. City of New London.
Monday, April 18, 2011
As a result of Jan finally having completely bit the dust, I have no access to my music. Damn.
So I have been listening to a lot of Pandora, especially on the Droid. The Mazda's sound system has likewise gone the way of the dodo, so it is a convenient way to listen to music while driving (absolutely necessary for me).
I keep hearing new music I love, and music I used to listen to that I forgot how much I love. One of my channels is "Mary Chapin Carpenter Radio", so I find myself listening to a lot of women songwriters in country and folk genres.
So far I have found one song I love love love that I had never heard before: "Let the Wind Chase You," by Trisha Yearwood, which led me via YouTube to Sally Barris's original.* And I have rediscovered a song I adored when I went through my country music phase about eight years ago: the cover of Nanci Griffith's "Outbound Plane" by Suzy Bogguss.**
It's wonderful. I can hardly wait until I get Jan's replacement (probably a month or so down the road, tentatively named either Eduoard (Manet), Claude (Monet), Chuck (Close) or Marc (Chagall)) so I can buy them for my iTunes.
*The best song I have ever heard for people suffering from unrequited love. Even better than Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me." Not that I have any experience with this. Not, not at all.
**Yes, I know. Griffith's voice is rawer, and a lot of people like that, in the same way that a lot of people (myself included) prefer John Hiatt's version of "Drive South" over of Bogguss's. But I just love Suzy's voice.
So I have been listening to a lot of Pandora, especially on the Droid. The Mazda's sound system has likewise gone the way of the dodo, so it is a convenient way to listen to music while driving (absolutely necessary for me).
I keep hearing new music I love, and music I used to listen to that I forgot how much I love. One of my channels is "Mary Chapin Carpenter Radio", so I find myself listening to a lot of women songwriters in country and folk genres.
So far I have found one song I love love love that I had never heard before: "Let the Wind Chase You," by Trisha Yearwood, which led me via YouTube to Sally Barris's original.* And I have rediscovered a song I adored when I went through my country music phase about eight years ago: the cover of Nanci Griffith's "Outbound Plane" by Suzy Bogguss.**
It's wonderful. I can hardly wait until I get Jan's replacement (probably a month or so down the road, tentatively named either Eduoard (Manet), Claude (Monet), Chuck (Close) or Marc (Chagall)) so I can buy them for my iTunes.
*The best song I have ever heard for people suffering from unrequited love. Even better than Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me." Not that I have any experience with this. Not, not at all.
**Yes, I know. Griffith's voice is rawer, and a lot of people like that, in the same way that a lot of people (myself included) prefer John Hiatt's version of "Drive South" over of Bogguss's. But I just love Suzy's voice.
What a long, strange trip it's been....
I turned fifty yesterday.
That number feels odd. Unlike forty, where I relished the idea that I did not have to worry about whether people liked me or not anymore, fifty is disturbing. I am not sure what its significance is, other than people seem to feel that it is significant.
The Red Headed Menace tells me that my life is half over; he seems to believe I will live to be a hundred. Lovely child.
I know better. Part of the reason fifty feels so unsettling is that, without being overly melodramatic, there were times when it was a question as to whether I would live to see forty. It's a full decade past that, and I'm not sure what to do with myself.
There is the "WTF have I done with my life?", usual for birthdays and New Year's Eve. And the answer is, as always, elusive. I have made my peace, I think, with the fact that I am not going to be anyone whose name the world at large will ever hear. I am not going to change the world: the best that I will be able to do is to enable others to do so. Since I believe firmly that no one does anything on their own, that we are all connected, I recognize that in itself to be an important task. Still, given the tools that I was blessed to have, in education and ability, it feels like I have wasted far more opportunities than any one person should have the right to.
There is a different sadness this year. For various reasons in my personal life, I have become acutely aware of all the people that I have lost track of. I think of them often; I wonder where they are and how they are doing. And I wonder if I will find the strength to find them and apologize for ever having let them go.
Maybe that's the task for my next half-century.
That number feels odd. Unlike forty, where I relished the idea that I did not have to worry about whether people liked me or not anymore, fifty is disturbing. I am not sure what its significance is, other than people seem to feel that it is significant.
The Red Headed Menace tells me that my life is half over; he seems to believe I will live to be a hundred. Lovely child.
I know better. Part of the reason fifty feels so unsettling is that, without being overly melodramatic, there were times when it was a question as to whether I would live to see forty. It's a full decade past that, and I'm not sure what to do with myself.
There is the "WTF have I done with my life?", usual for birthdays and New Year's Eve. And the answer is, as always, elusive. I have made my peace, I think, with the fact that I am not going to be anyone whose name the world at large will ever hear. I am not going to change the world: the best that I will be able to do is to enable others to do so. Since I believe firmly that no one does anything on their own, that we are all connected, I recognize that in itself to be an important task. Still, given the tools that I was blessed to have, in education and ability, it feels like I have wasted far more opportunities than any one person should have the right to.
There is a different sadness this year. For various reasons in my personal life, I have become acutely aware of all the people that I have lost track of. I think of them often; I wonder where they are and how they are doing. And I wonder if I will find the strength to find them and apologize for ever having let them go.
Maybe that's the task for my next half-century.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Not dead yet...
I am still alive. Really. I am not spending all my time playing Angry Birds, either.
I am writing. What I am writing - and thinking through in preparation - for writing is very personal, and not really for public consumption.
There is a possibility of me having writing published. Not a lot, and it is by no means a sure thing, so I don't want to talk about it, yet. But I am excited.
Life is.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
I have drunk the Kool-Aid*
I am typing this from my new Droid phone.*
*And just how annoyed do you think the makers of Kool-Ade get about this saying? In Jonestown, Jim Jones used Flavor-Ade. At least "going postal" refers to an actual incident involving a disgruntled fired postal worker.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Um, yeah. I think so.
The Not-So-Little Drummer Boy attends a college which does not hand out grades but instead gives the students evaluations at the end of every term.* He sent us his evals for the winter and fall terms. Among the gems were:
"In the final piece [NLDB] showed both a strong understanding of the software and a powerful grasp of the production of graphic design projects."
"[NLDB] is a talented visual art student whose interest, skills and effort often lead him beyond the visual."
And my favorite:
"[NLDB] remains a credit to [XYZ] College..."
The rest of the evaluations were equally glowing, with only occasional areas needed for improvement. (I loved that for his computer music class he reworked the "worn-out classic 'Stairway to Heaven'" [his professor's words, not mine] -- I really want to hear what he's done.)
He got an A- in the class he took via college exchange at a neighboring institution.
What kills me, though, is that he ended his email to his father and me with "i hope this is satisfactory."
Oh, I guess it is.
*I tried to explain this to an insurance agent once, who, after a long and circular discussion, stated that he was not eligible for the good student driver discount because he didn't get As in his classes. *headdesk*
My work here is done.
As a parent, one of my raisons d'etre is to embarrass and discomfit my teenage children. Talking about sex does not work -- they're modern kids, and are more or less comfortable with those sorts of discussions, as long as the conversations are serious and restrained.*
However, I have discovered a secret weapon....
It makes Railfan sing loudly "I can't hear you lalalalala" and the Red Headed Menace flee the room. What is this gem?
Tom Lehrer's "Masochism Tango."
Hehehehe. Guess what is going to the top of my iTunes playlists?
*Actually, they tend to initiate discussions -- and questions -- about sex. I think they are trying to discomfit me. I usually tell them to ask their father.
However, I have discovered a secret weapon....
It makes Railfan sing loudly "I can't hear you lalalalala" and the Red Headed Menace flee the room. What is this gem?
Tom Lehrer's "Masochism Tango."
Hehehehe. Guess what is going to the top of my iTunes playlists?
*Actually, they tend to initiate discussions -- and questions -- about sex. I think they are trying to discomfit me. I usually tell them to ask their father.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living...
Unions have been much in the news lately. The efforts of conservatives in places such as Wisconsin to dismantle worker protections -- and the support with which those efforts are met -- are another example of the very short historical memories of far too many people in this country.
Unions are responsible for protections which are ingrained so deeply into law and society we take them for granted: child labor laws, workplace safety requirements, the very concepts of a forty hour work week and overtime and vacation and sick pay. All of those are union victories which benefit everyone, not merely those who pay union dues.
Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Terry Karney has a nice piece of writing on the fire, and more importantly, on the conditions which existed for workers in that factory. It is sad and chilling reading.
Well worth a look.
Edited to add: This post at Jason Cochran's blog is a must, too. He says what I've been thinking.
Unions are responsible for protections which are ingrained so deeply into law and society we take them for granted: child labor laws, workplace safety requirements, the very concepts of a forty hour work week and overtime and vacation and sick pay. All of those are union victories which benefit everyone, not merely those who pay union dues.
Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Terry Karney has a nice piece of writing on the fire, and more importantly, on the conditions which existed for workers in that factory. It is sad and chilling reading.
Well worth a look.
Edited to add: This post at Jason Cochran's blog is a must, too. He says what I've been thinking.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Last night I saw one of my very favorite bands in the world, Great Big Sea*, in concert in Petaluma It was amazing.
Great Big Sea's music, when listened to on CD is... okay. Their renditions of traditional Newfoundland and Gaelic songs are the best perhaps; their original modern pieces range from good ("Ordinary Day," "Straight to Hell") to overly sentimental and sugary ("Walk on the Moon," "Boston to St. John's"). (Interestingly, some of their best songs are contemporary songs written to sound like traditional ballads: "England" and "Safe Upon the Shore" being the two best examples I can think of.) Their covers of "When I'm Up I Can't Get Down" (originally by Oysterband) and R.E.M.'s "End of the World" are wonderful.
GBS in concert is another kettle of cod entirely.
A GBS concert is an excuse for a party: the audience is usually like a bunch of Parrotheads who are better behaved and far less drunk. The band interacts with the audience. People sing along. There is dancing in the aisles - if there are aisles - or in front of the stage -- if there is space for it -- or, failing everything else, in people's seats. It would not be a GBS concert if people were not enthusiastically bobbing up and down for most of the show.
The unexpected can happen. Last night, for instance, Alan Doyle jokingly launched into the first few bars of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth." It might have ended there, except people in the audience started singing along. Shrugging and laughing, the band went on playing the song while the audience sang. It was great. It was nearly as much fun as the audience sing along -- led by Doyle -- of "Bohemian Rhapsody" at their San Francisco concert two years ago.
The Mystic Theater in Petaluma was a great venue to see these guys. In Canada, they sell out arenas. In California, they play in clubs no bigger than your average multiplex theater. No joke -- the theater where I saw "Mars Needs Moms" was bigger than this place. So you are never far from the stage, even when you sit in the back. And with a large empty area in front of the stage (perfect for the aforementioned dancing), you didn't even need to settle for staying in the back.
Their music improves so much in concert. Songs that might be treacly on disc are infused with a needed energy and edge. ("Yankee Sailor" being the most significant example last night.) Songs which are fun on the stereo ("Hit the Ground and Run"**) become frenetic and even more fun. And there are songs that just do not work unless you have an audience involved with them: "Helmethead" (my favorite song to see them perform live) and the wonderfully over the top "The Night that Paddy Murphy Died."
I know Alan Doyle fans: he's the cute, articulate clown. Sean McCann is his straight man, and pretty amusing in his own right. Me? I am totally, unabashedly, a drooling Bob Hallet fangirl. The man makes playing an accordion look sexy. Really. And last night he played (in addition to the accordion), mandolin, recorder, harmonica, tin whistle, banjo, guitar, and most wonderfully, violin. I adore multi-taskers.
It was a wonderful concert. I only wish I could go to Carmel to see them on St. Patrick's Day. Now that is going to be a good time.
And - to end the night? As part of their encore, they played the one song I've always loved that I have never heard them do live: "End of the World" (with thirty seconds of Beethoven's Ninth sandwiched in the middle -- don't ask, it just worked).
I can die happy now.
*My fondness for GBS is the best argument I can think of in favor of music file sharing. I first heard them on a mix tape sent by a friend. Since then I have bought three CDs (other people in my household have bought another two) as well as ten individual tracks off of iTunes. I have seen them in concert seven times. It seem to me that whatever income they lost by my friend sharing that music with me they made many times over.
**"Hit the Ground and Run" is an Appalachian bluegrass number written by a Canadian (Alan Doyle) and an Australian (actor Russell Crowe). For some reason I find this terribly amusing.
Great Big Sea's music, when listened to on CD is... okay. Their renditions of traditional Newfoundland and Gaelic songs are the best perhaps; their original modern pieces range from good ("Ordinary Day," "Straight to Hell") to overly sentimental and sugary ("Walk on the Moon," "Boston to St. John's"). (Interestingly, some of their best songs are contemporary songs written to sound like traditional ballads: "England" and "Safe Upon the Shore" being the two best examples I can think of.) Their covers of "When I'm Up I Can't Get Down" (originally by Oysterband) and R.E.M.'s "End of the World" are wonderful.
GBS in concert is another kettle of cod entirely.
A GBS concert is an excuse for a party: the audience is usually like a bunch of Parrotheads who are better behaved and far less drunk. The band interacts with the audience. People sing along. There is dancing in the aisles - if there are aisles - or in front of the stage -- if there is space for it -- or, failing everything else, in people's seats. It would not be a GBS concert if people were not enthusiastically bobbing up and down for most of the show.
The unexpected can happen. Last night, for instance, Alan Doyle jokingly launched into the first few bars of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth." It might have ended there, except people in the audience started singing along. Shrugging and laughing, the band went on playing the song while the audience sang. It was great. It was nearly as much fun as the audience sing along -- led by Doyle -- of "Bohemian Rhapsody" at their San Francisco concert two years ago.
The Mystic Theater in Petaluma was a great venue to see these guys. In Canada, they sell out arenas. In California, they play in clubs no bigger than your average multiplex theater. No joke -- the theater where I saw "Mars Needs Moms" was bigger than this place. So you are never far from the stage, even when you sit in the back. And with a large empty area in front of the stage (perfect for the aforementioned dancing), you didn't even need to settle for staying in the back.
Their music improves so much in concert. Songs that might be treacly on disc are infused with a needed energy and edge. ("Yankee Sailor" being the most significant example last night.) Songs which are fun on the stereo ("Hit the Ground and Run"**) become frenetic and even more fun. And there are songs that just do not work unless you have an audience involved with them: "Helmethead" (my favorite song to see them perform live) and the wonderfully over the top "The Night that Paddy Murphy Died."
I know Alan Doyle fans: he's the cute, articulate clown. Sean McCann is his straight man, and pretty amusing in his own right. Me? I am totally, unabashedly, a drooling Bob Hallet fangirl. The man makes playing an accordion look sexy. Really. And last night he played (in addition to the accordion), mandolin, recorder, harmonica, tin whistle, banjo, guitar, and most wonderfully, violin. I adore multi-taskers.
It was a wonderful concert. I only wish I could go to Carmel to see them on St. Patrick's Day. Now that is going to be a good time.
And - to end the night? As part of their encore, they played the one song I've always loved that I have never heard them do live: "End of the World" (with thirty seconds of Beethoven's Ninth sandwiched in the middle -- don't ask, it just worked).
I can die happy now.
*My fondness for GBS is the best argument I can think of in favor of music file sharing. I first heard them on a mix tape sent by a friend. Since then I have bought three CDs (other people in my household have bought another two) as well as ten individual tracks off of iTunes. I have seen them in concert seven times. It seem to me that whatever income they lost by my friend sharing that music with me they made many times over.
**"Hit the Ground and Run" is an Appalachian bluegrass number written by a Canadian (Alan Doyle) and an Australian (actor Russell Crowe). For some reason I find this terribly amusing.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
I have a new external hard drive. Jan is sort of back, but flaky, so I have been backing things up externally. The external hard drive I had was named Francisco (after Goya, natch). It was a good drive...
Up until I kicked his cord and knocked him off the table onto the floor while he was copying something. Oops.
Back to the drawing board -- having lost some data, I still have my long-term important documents. (As well as the problem of what to do about my music library, half of which requires authorization by iTunes, but the version of iTunes I can run on Jan is old enough you can't actually access the Music Store, and every time I try to authorize something, I get an error message. Out of 1976 pieces of music, I can access all of 748. Damn you, Apple.)
So, let me introduce you to Henri (as in Toulouse-Latrec). He is a 500 GB iOmega Ego portable drive, with a rubber cover that hopefully will help protect him. According to the salesman at Fry's, these guys are pretty sturdy. The Rocket Scientist confirmed this by stating that this is the portable drive he uses in the field sometimes.*
So maybe Henri is in fact Pat-proof. I sure hope so. I'm tired of having to recopy whole disk drives.
* I didn't take any chances, though, given my recent lack of luck with anything computer related, and bought the extended warranty, which normally I wouldn't.
Up until I kicked his cord and knocked him off the table onto the floor while he was copying something. Oops.
Back to the drawing board -- having lost some data, I still have my long-term important documents. (As well as the problem of what to do about my music library, half of which requires authorization by iTunes, but the version of iTunes I can run on Jan is old enough you can't actually access the Music Store, and every time I try to authorize something, I get an error message. Out of 1976 pieces of music, I can access all of 748. Damn you, Apple.)
So, let me introduce you to Henri (as in Toulouse-Latrec). He is a 500 GB iOmega Ego portable drive, with a rubber cover that hopefully will help protect him. According to the salesman at Fry's, these guys are pretty sturdy. The Rocket Scientist confirmed this by stating that this is the portable drive he uses in the field sometimes.*
So maybe Henri is in fact Pat-proof. I sure hope so. I'm tired of having to recopy whole disk drives.
* I didn't take any chances, though, given my recent lack of luck with anything computer related, and bought the extended warranty, which normally I wouldn't.
I haven't forgotten you guys, really. All, oh... six of you. Although that's not fair -- I know more people who read me on RSS feed, which isn't tracked on Sitemeter.
Life is what is what it is. Which means right now, things are getting in the way. And, yes, I know, if I were the writer I want to be I wouldn't let it.
I actually wrote nearly two thousand words during the time I was computerless, all in a composition book. I just have not had a chance to enter them into Blogger. They are a variety of topics -- some of them actually analytical and thought-provoking! At least for me.
So I'll be back on a more regular basis when I can. I'm working on it.
Life is what is what it is. Which means right now, things are getting in the way. And, yes, I know, if I were the writer I want to be I wouldn't let it.
I actually wrote nearly two thousand words during the time I was computerless, all in a composition book. I just have not had a chance to enter them into Blogger. They are a variety of topics -- some of them actually analytical and thought-provoking! At least for me.
So I'll be back on a more regular basis when I can. I'm working on it.
Really....
Every so often I stumble across something I should have heard years ago but somehow managed to miss. Like this morning...
I love Weird Al. I especially love some of his original works -- nobody does a better breakup (or dysfunctional relationship) song. "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder," "You Don't Love Me Any More," and, most wonderfully, "One More Minute." (How can you not love a writer who thinks of images such as "I'd rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue than spend one more minute with you"?) This morning, though, my iTunes tossed up a song I don't remember hearing before: "I Was Only Kidding."
Um, yep. Been on the other side of that one. Ouch. I love that it turns into a revenge fantasy.
Still not as good as "One More Minute," but close.
I love Weird Al. I especially love some of his original works -- nobody does a better breakup (or dysfunctional relationship) song. "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder," "You Don't Love Me Any More," and, most wonderfully, "One More Minute." (How can you not love a writer who thinks of images such as "I'd rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue than spend one more minute with you"?) This morning, though, my iTunes tossed up a song I don't remember hearing before: "I Was Only Kidding."
Um, yep. Been on the other side of that one. Ouch. I love that it turns into a revenge fantasy.
Still not as good as "One More Minute," but close.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
One Million Lawyers...
Conversation with the Red-Headed Menace, concerning his track coach, who in addition to being a former Olympian attended Stanford Law and graduated a couple of years ahead of me.
RHM: There are sports lawyers?!?!?
Mom: Of course there are sports lawyers. Wherever a field of human endeavor exists, there are lawyers involved.
RHM: Cutting down trees.
Mom: EIRs, Endangered Species Act issues, suits from loggers, suits from the Sierra Club...
RHM: Nuclear power plants.
Mom: Give me a break! Permitting, liability for negligent releases of radioactive materials...
RHM: Battlefield reenactments!!
Mom: Potential personal liability issues, permitting and possible land use.
RHM: Art.
Mom: Copyright. And disputes over ownership. And museum tort liability in slip and falls.
RHM, clearly frustrated, ponders....: AHA! THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS!!!
Mom: Patent law.*
RHM: Dammit.
At which point, he sullenly got out of the car and stomped off to Phys Ed.
Mom: 1
RHM: 0
Because Mom, trained as a lawyer, may not know the law anymore, but she still does know how to bullshit convincingly.
*This is, of course, a totally bogus answer. I have absolutely no clue whether patent law has any bearing on theoretical astrophysics whatsoever. In fact, given that it is, um, theoretical, the only legal implications I can see (other than copyright issues implicit when one publishes work) are if two astrophysicists lose it completely and starting hitting each other with their Powerbooks. And then the issues are potential claims of assault and battery. If anyone can actually think about the ways in which lawyers could be involved in theoretical astrophysics, please let me know.
RHM: There are sports lawyers?!?!?
Mom: Of course there are sports lawyers. Wherever a field of human endeavor exists, there are lawyers involved.
RHM: Cutting down trees.
Mom: EIRs, Endangered Species Act issues, suits from loggers, suits from the Sierra Club...
RHM: Nuclear power plants.
Mom: Give me a break! Permitting, liability for negligent releases of radioactive materials...
RHM: Battlefield reenactments!!
Mom: Potential personal liability issues, permitting and possible land use.
RHM: Art.
Mom: Copyright. And disputes over ownership. And museum tort liability in slip and falls.
RHM, clearly frustrated, ponders....: AHA! THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS!!!
Mom: Patent law.*
RHM: Dammit.
At which point, he sullenly got out of the car and stomped off to Phys Ed.
Mom: 1
RHM: 0
Because Mom, trained as a lawyer, may not know the law anymore, but she still does know how to bullshit convincingly.
*This is, of course, a totally bogus answer. I have absolutely no clue whether patent law has any bearing on theoretical astrophysics whatsoever. In fact, given that it is, um, theoretical, the only legal implications I can see (other than copyright issues implicit when one publishes work) are if two astrophysicists lose it completely and starting hitting each other with their Powerbooks. And then the issues are potential claims of assault and battery. If anyone can actually think about the ways in which lawyers could be involved in theoretical astrophysics, please let me know.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
We are such a weird family
My two younger children are arguing about the ethics of assassinating leaders. One is studying W.W. I, the other W.W. II.
At least they are not discussing Halo or Pokemon.
At least they are not discussing Halo or Pokemon.
Oscar? Oscar who?
So the 83rd Annual Academy Awards have come and gone. Herewith, a few notes:
Dear red-carpet commentator: given the term's origins, calling a 14-year-old girl a "nymphet" is not really a nice things to do.
No egregiously bad dresses this year, but the sooner the bow-on-butt/bustle craze disappears, the better. I mean, most of these women have no backside to speak of -- do they really have to emphasize that fact? And besides, those things just look silly.
I love Tim Gunn. Seriously.
The opening montage was far better than I expected it to be. Franco and Hathaway make an adorable couple (chemistry, even!) and she is, as Kirk Douglas noted, gorgeous.
Speaking of Kirk Douglas and the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, Melissa Leo's heartfelt acceptance speech -- from her asking Douglas what he was doing after the show to her dropping the "f-bomb"(and even better, her reaction to herself) -- was priceless.
The adapted screenplay included Toy Story 3 as being "based on previous movies"? Really? Of course, I can only think of two cases where sequels were nominated in any of the major categories (Godfather II and Return of the King) and both of them were based on books.
The wins by The Social Network and The King's Speech in the screenplay categories were completely predictable.
As was Randy Newman's win for Best Song.
While I preferred the How to Train Your Dragon score, having the words "Academy Award winner" and "Trent Reznor" sitting next to each other creates a lovely sense of cognitive dissonance. It's always wonderful when the world turns out to be a much more complicated place than you imagine.
Christian Bale is English? Really? You could have fooled me.* And what in God's name has Geoffrey Rush done with his hair? I really hope that's for a role he's playing.
Cute musical number, Anne. Totally irrelevant to anything at hand, but cute. And that blue dress you changed into is absolutely killer.
Has Pixar won best animation every year it's been offered except the first? When Shrek won?**
Inside Job is an important documentary about serious subjects. Exit Through the Gift Shop is a bizarre movie about non-serious subjects,*** which may or may not have been a hoax. Clearly, the more significant film won. Nonetheless, I was sort of hoping Exit would win, just to see if Banksy would show up.
No applause between dead people during the "In Memoriam" segment. I guess the Academy realized that it was a little tacky to have people cheer a lot for Paul Newman and not so much for Sidney Lumet Pollack, as happened last year. [Sorry, Sidney Lumet died in 2011. Oops.]
Bring back Billy Crystal! Best Oscar host ever.
Of course Natalie Portman won for Best Actress. Having a nervous breakdown on screen is the sort of thing the Academy just loves. Also, she looks so cute pregnant.
Having Jeff Bridges speak to each nominee was a great touch. Same for Sandra Bullock. Her "Dude, Dude, Dude, you won this last year!" to Bridges was especially endearing.
I would give good money to see Colin Firth dancing after his Oscar win. Of course, I would pay money to see Colin Firth do just about anything -- I saw the film version of Mamma Mia!.
Sorry Academy, as much as I liked The King's Speech (see Colin Firth, above, not to mention Geoffrey Rush, who was equally good) Darren Aronofksy took more risks with Black Swan than Tom Hooper did with The King's Speech.
Wait, Tom Hooper's mother found the story when attending a play reading ? And it still fit in the Original Screenplay category? How does that work?
And, while I disliked it intensely, Black Swan is simply a better movie (as a movie) than The King's Speech is.
Can someone explain to me the rationale behind having a bunch of elementary school kids singing "Over the Rainbow" to end the show, which was, as usual, already running late?
In two more days I get the Entertainment Weekly issue with its usually somewhat snarky analysis of the awards and the fashion. And it is only a few short months until the Tonys.
I can hardly wait.
*Actually, looking him up on IMDb, he's Welsh. Wow.
**2001, in the first award in the category, Shrek beat out Monsters, Inc. In 2006, Happy Feet beat out Cars. Still, Pixar has won six awards in the eight years they have been nominated, which is a pretty good batting average. I still think How To Train Your Dragon was a better movie than TS3, and Despicable Me -- which wasn't even nominated! -- was a better movie still.
** Your Mileage May Vary on whether or not you think street art is important. Maybe. As much as I recognize it as art, and as much as I love art, it still pales in comparison to the major economic meltdown.
Dear red-carpet commentator: given the term's origins, calling a 14-year-old girl a "nymphet" is not really a nice things to do.
No egregiously bad dresses this year, but the sooner the bow-on-butt/bustle craze disappears, the better. I mean, most of these women have no backside to speak of -- do they really have to emphasize that fact? And besides, those things just look silly.
I love Tim Gunn. Seriously.
The opening montage was far better than I expected it to be. Franco and Hathaway make an adorable couple (chemistry, even!) and she is, as Kirk Douglas noted, gorgeous.
Speaking of Kirk Douglas and the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, Melissa Leo's heartfelt acceptance speech -- from her asking Douglas what he was doing after the show to her dropping the "f-bomb"(and even better, her reaction to herself) -- was priceless.
The adapted screenplay included Toy Story 3 as being "based on previous movies"? Really? Of course, I can only think of two cases where sequels were nominated in any of the major categories (Godfather II and Return of the King) and both of them were based on books.
The wins by The Social Network and The King's Speech in the screenplay categories were completely predictable.
As was Randy Newman's win for Best Song.
While I preferred the How to Train Your Dragon score, having the words "Academy Award winner" and "Trent Reznor" sitting next to each other creates a lovely sense of cognitive dissonance. It's always wonderful when the world turns out to be a much more complicated place than you imagine.
Christian Bale is English? Really? You could have fooled me.* And what in God's name has Geoffrey Rush done with his hair? I really hope that's for a role he's playing.
Cute musical number, Anne. Totally irrelevant to anything at hand, but cute. And that blue dress you changed into is absolutely killer.
Has Pixar won best animation every year it's been offered except the first? When Shrek won?**
Inside Job is an important documentary about serious subjects. Exit Through the Gift Shop is a bizarre movie about non-serious subjects,*** which may or may not have been a hoax. Clearly, the more significant film won. Nonetheless, I was sort of hoping Exit would win, just to see if Banksy would show up.
No applause between dead people during the "In Memoriam" segment. I guess the Academy realized that it was a little tacky to have people cheer a lot for Paul Newman and not so much for Sidney Lumet Pollack, as happened last year. [Sorry, Sidney Lumet died in 2011. Oops.]
Bring back Billy Crystal! Best Oscar host ever.
Of course Natalie Portman won for Best Actress. Having a nervous breakdown on screen is the sort of thing the Academy just loves. Also, she looks so cute pregnant.
Having Jeff Bridges speak to each nominee was a great touch. Same for Sandra Bullock. Her "Dude, Dude, Dude, you won this last year!" to Bridges was especially endearing.
I would give good money to see Colin Firth dancing after his Oscar win. Of course, I would pay money to see Colin Firth do just about anything -- I saw the film version of Mamma Mia!.
Sorry Academy, as much as I liked The King's Speech (see Colin Firth, above, not to mention Geoffrey Rush, who was equally good) Darren Aronofksy took more risks with Black Swan than Tom Hooper did with The King's Speech.
Wait, Tom Hooper's mother found the story when attending a play reading ? And it still fit in the Original Screenplay category? How does that work?
And, while I disliked it intensely, Black Swan is simply a better movie (as a movie) than The King's Speech is.
Can someone explain to me the rationale behind having a bunch of elementary school kids singing "Over the Rainbow" to end the show, which was, as usual, already running late?
In two more days I get the Entertainment Weekly issue with its usually somewhat snarky analysis of the awards and the fashion. And it is only a few short months until the Tonys.
I can hardly wait.
*Actually, looking him up on IMDb, he's Welsh. Wow.
**2001, in the first award in the category, Shrek beat out Monsters, Inc. In 2006, Happy Feet beat out Cars. Still, Pixar has won six awards in the eight years they have been nominated, which is a pretty good batting average. I still think How To Train Your Dragon was a better movie than TS3, and Despicable Me -- which wasn't even nominated! -- was a better movie still.
** Your Mileage May Vary on whether or not you think street art is important. Maybe. As much as I recognize it as art, and as much as I love art, it still pales in comparison to the major economic meltdown.
Collision Course, resolved
The Supreme Court just handed down their decision in Snyder v. Phelps. They got it exactly right.
From John Roberts' eloquent majority opinion:
It feels weird to be cheering a win for the WBC. But in the end this decision shields not only the WBC, but also war protesters, or environmental activists, or same-sex marriage supporters. This "different course" Roberts speaks of has to protect all of us -- or it can not safely protect any of us.
From John Roberts' eloquent majority opinion:
Westboro believes that America is morally flawed; many Americans might feel the same about Westboro. Westboro’s funeral picketing is certainly hurtful and its contribution to public discourse may be negligible. But Westboro addressed matters of public import on public property, in a peaceful manner, in full compliance with the guidance of local officials. The speech was indeed planned to coincide with Matthew Snyder’s funeral, but did not itself disrupt that funeral, and Westboro’s choice to conduct its picketing at that time and place did not alter the nature of its speech.
Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and—as it did here—inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate. That choice requires that we shield Westboro from tort liability for its picketing in this case.
It feels weird to be cheering a win for the WBC. But in the end this decision shields not only the WBC, but also war protesters, or environmental activists, or same-sex marriage supporters. This "different course" Roberts speaks of has to protect all of us -- or it can not safely protect any of us.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Odds 'n' Ends
I have a loaner laptop. Huzzah! I may get around to actually posting things I've written over the past two weeks as I have been away.
This weekend was "Psychotics in Media" weekend: on Friday night the Rocket Scientist and I saw Black Swan and on Saturday the Resident Shrink and I saw Next to to Normal. Nothing like watching crazy people on stage and screen to reaffirm one's basic belief that the world is in fact insane. Watching the latter with a psychologist was amusing, however. She says they got the psychiatry basically right.
I have a backlog of posts about several different things which I really should put up here before they become too out of date. On the other hand, right this evening I am feeling brain dead.
The past three weeks has seen quite a number of really misogynistic proposed bills at the state and federal level. It's quite disturbing. It makes me feel relieved, sadly enough, that I do not have daughters. I would not want to be a young woman now, and it would be very upsetting to think of what a child of mine would be faced with. This does not mean that I do not fight as hard as I can against the terrible misogyny that seems to be rearing its terrible head right now, simply that it is not quite as immediate. I recognize that this is a privilege that other mothers do not have. My job is to raise up young men who are as appalled as I am about what is going on, and who are as determined to fight as I am. I think I can do this.
I turn fifty in two months. I am trying not to feel old, and also trying not to lie to people about my age. Both of them are proving difficult. I have decided against having a tattoo, for medical-related reasons, so am at a loss to know what to do to mark this momentous occasion. Going to a dive bar and getting really, really drunk, as attractive as it sounds, is not particularly noteworthy. On the other hand, maybe the solution is simply to ignore it. Age is just a number, right?
I am rereading one of my favorite "popcorn"* books: Letters of the Twentieth Century: America 1900-2000. It is by turns infuriating (the letters sent to Jackie Robinson after he crossed the color line), intriguing (Ayn Rand's letter to Frank Lloyd Wright -- sorry, libertarians, but she was a loon), amusing (Groucho Marx's letter to Warner Brothers when they attempted to stop him from naming one of this movies A Night in Casablanca, or my favorite, a series of exchanges between an ad executive at Ford and the poet Marianne Moore regarding the naming of a new car, or Clyde Barrow's letter to Henry Ford telling him what a great car he made) and moving (an Oklahoma woman's account of life in the Dust Bowl, a Vietnam soldier's letter to a friend regarding the killing of a nine-year-old child). The human spirit is an amazing thing.
Goodnight all. It's good to be back, more or less.
*Popcorn books are books that are collections of items that you can read bits and pieces of.
This weekend was "Psychotics in Media" weekend: on Friday night the Rocket Scientist and I saw Black Swan and on Saturday the Resident Shrink and I saw Next to to Normal. Nothing like watching crazy people on stage and screen to reaffirm one's basic belief that the world is in fact insane. Watching the latter with a psychologist was amusing, however. She says they got the psychiatry basically right.
I have a backlog of posts about several different things which I really should put up here before they become too out of date. On the other hand, right this evening I am feeling brain dead.
The past three weeks has seen quite a number of really misogynistic proposed bills at the state and federal level. It's quite disturbing. It makes me feel relieved, sadly enough, that I do not have daughters. I would not want to be a young woman now, and it would be very upsetting to think of what a child of mine would be faced with. This does not mean that I do not fight as hard as I can against the terrible misogyny that seems to be rearing its terrible head right now, simply that it is not quite as immediate. I recognize that this is a privilege that other mothers do not have. My job is to raise up young men who are as appalled as I am about what is going on, and who are as determined to fight as I am. I think I can do this.
I turn fifty in two months. I am trying not to feel old, and also trying not to lie to people about my age. Both of them are proving difficult. I have decided against having a tattoo, for medical-related reasons, so am at a loss to know what to do to mark this momentous occasion. Going to a dive bar and getting really, really drunk, as attractive as it sounds, is not particularly noteworthy. On the other hand, maybe the solution is simply to ignore it. Age is just a number, right?
I am rereading one of my favorite "popcorn"* books: Letters of the Twentieth Century: America 1900-2000. It is by turns infuriating (the letters sent to Jackie Robinson after he crossed the color line), intriguing (Ayn Rand's letter to Frank Lloyd Wright -- sorry, libertarians, but she was a loon), amusing (Groucho Marx's letter to Warner Brothers when they attempted to stop him from naming one of this movies A Night in Casablanca, or my favorite, a series of exchanges between an ad executive at Ford and the poet Marianne Moore regarding the naming of a new car, or Clyde Barrow's letter to Henry Ford telling him what a great car he made) and moving (an Oklahoma woman's account of life in the Dust Bowl, a Vietnam soldier's letter to a friend regarding the killing of a nine-year-old child). The human spirit is an amazing thing.
Goodnight all. It's good to be back, more or less.
*Popcorn books are books that are collections of items that you can read bits and pieces of.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Quote of the Day
"I'm a teenager. Half of my motivation for anything is impressing girls." The Red Headed Menace (discussing why he's doing track).
Monday, February 07, 2011
Enforced Radio Silence... sort of
There is a reason I have not been posting the past few days. I've had limited net access -- the AirPort went kaput, so the only computer with access requires standing for a while, or sitting in painful (to me) chairs. While this has proven acceptable for checking email and Facebook, it doesn't allow for the lack of distraction needed for blog posting.
I have been writing, however: on paper. So once I get a new laptop (which will hopefully be sooner rather than later), you may end up flooded with several posts all at once.
I have been writing, however: on paper. So once I get a new laptop (which will hopefully be sooner rather than later), you may end up flooded with several posts all at once.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
I was going to write something for the anniversary of the Columbia disaster, or at least link to what I wrote at the time, but my friend Bill Gawne pointed me towards the best tribute to Columbia I've ever read. It's a little long, but well worth reading.
Anything I might say feels redundant, somehow.
Anything I might say feels redundant, somehow.
When is it rape?
When is it rape?
That's the question raised by a bill currently in committee in the House of Representatives, H.R. 3. And the answer the bill gives is pernicious.
The bill itself purports to be about eliminating "federal funding for abortion." Bullshit. There has been no federal funding for abortion -- through any federally paid for health plans, including those offered to any federal employee -- for years. The bill really is about eliminating any health plan coverage for abortion: it would make any premium paid for an insurance plan that covered abortion non-tax deductible. Guess how many insurers would choose to retain abortion coverage under those circumstances?
However, there have always been those exceptions: rape, incest, and life of the mother. (Not the health of the mother: even in this bill, if a pregnancy would result in a woman ending up in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, but it wouldn't actually kill her, then there is no abortion coverage allowed.) But apparently, "rape" was just not specific enough for the sons-of-bitches who wrote this bill.
The only recognized rape, the only rape that you will be allowed to have insurance coverage for, is "forcible rape."
Forcible rape.
So, what does that mean? Do there need to be bruises or broken bones? Does there need to be a knife or gun? What if the woman is told about the knife or gun but doesn't actually see them? What if she is married to the bastard and the threat is not to her but to her children? What if she is drunk? Drugged? Unconscious? In a coma?
Developmentally disabled?
What if she is held down? How hard does she need to fight to get free? If she doesn't struggle enough, does that mean it doesn't count? What if she is just terrified?
This bill does not recognize statutory rape, either, except for incest. If a 13 year old is coerced into sex (and let's face it, there are a lot of ways to coerce a young girl into sex that do not involve "force") by her father or brother, and gets pregnant, she can get an abortion and have her health plan cover the cost. But not if she is coerced into sex by her 20 year-old camp counselor, or her 32 year-old next-door neighbor, or her 53 year-old gym teacher.
Presumably, too, in order to have coverage be allowed there would have to be a police report. How else would you prove force? There are women who do not report being raped, for some very good reasons, too: ranging from fear of public shaming, to desire to move past the trauma, to fear of what their attackers (or sometimes their own family members) will do.
The perniciousness goes even further: do you really want your insurance company deciding if a rape is forcible enough to be eligible for coverage? Do you really think they will ever find that force existed, unless the woman was left very badly beaten, with very visible marks of trauma?
I have had several people tell me this morning that "this doesn't change the legal definition of who can be charged with rape." That is entirely beside the point. The issue is of humane treatment for women* who have undergone the horror of rape, only to be faced with being forced to undergo a potentially hazardous experience (and make no mistake, pregnancy is a far more dangerous proposition than legal abortion) before she can heal from her ordeal.
Funny, anti-abortion activists spin this as a freedom from having to financially support a procedure they find objectionable on what are, at their heart, religious reasons. Sort of a warped freedom of religion argument. What about those of us whose religions require us to care for and take care of those among of who have been victims of violence? Who believe that God calls us to support the victimized in doing what they need to do for their own well-being? I guess our religious beliefs don't matter.
Please, please, write your Representative now. I would say that this atrocity is dead in the water, given the makeup of Congress and a Democratic president who would surely veto it, but you never know.
*Poor women, that is. Financially well off women will be able, as always, to pay for -- and to travel to other places for -- legal abortions.
That's the question raised by a bill currently in committee in the House of Representatives, H.R. 3. And the answer the bill gives is pernicious.
The bill itself purports to be about eliminating "federal funding for abortion." Bullshit. There has been no federal funding for abortion -- through any federally paid for health plans, including those offered to any federal employee -- for years. The bill really is about eliminating any health plan coverage for abortion: it would make any premium paid for an insurance plan that covered abortion non-tax deductible. Guess how many insurers would choose to retain abortion coverage under those circumstances?
However, there have always been those exceptions: rape, incest, and life of the mother. (Not the health of the mother: even in this bill, if a pregnancy would result in a woman ending up in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, but it wouldn't actually kill her, then there is no abortion coverage allowed.) But apparently, "rape" was just not specific enough for the sons-of-bitches who wrote this bill.
The only recognized rape, the only rape that you will be allowed to have insurance coverage for, is "forcible rape."
Forcible rape.
So, what does that mean? Do there need to be bruises or broken bones? Does there need to be a knife or gun? What if the woman is told about the knife or gun but doesn't actually see them? What if she is married to the bastard and the threat is not to her but to her children? What if she is drunk? Drugged? Unconscious? In a coma?
Developmentally disabled?
What if she is held down? How hard does she need to fight to get free? If she doesn't struggle enough, does that mean it doesn't count? What if she is just terrified?
This bill does not recognize statutory rape, either, except for incest. If a 13 year old is coerced into sex (and let's face it, there are a lot of ways to coerce a young girl into sex that do not involve "force") by her father or brother, and gets pregnant, she can get an abortion and have her health plan cover the cost. But not if she is coerced into sex by her 20 year-old camp counselor, or her 32 year-old next-door neighbor, or her 53 year-old gym teacher.
Presumably, too, in order to have coverage be allowed there would have to be a police report. How else would you prove force? There are women who do not report being raped, for some very good reasons, too: ranging from fear of public shaming, to desire to move past the trauma, to fear of what their attackers (or sometimes their own family members) will do.
The perniciousness goes even further: do you really want your insurance company deciding if a rape is forcible enough to be eligible for coverage? Do you really think they will ever find that force existed, unless the woman was left very badly beaten, with very visible marks of trauma?
I have had several people tell me this morning that "this doesn't change the legal definition of who can be charged with rape." That is entirely beside the point. The issue is of humane treatment for women* who have undergone the horror of rape, only to be faced with being forced to undergo a potentially hazardous experience (and make no mistake, pregnancy is a far more dangerous proposition than legal abortion) before she can heal from her ordeal.
Funny, anti-abortion activists spin this as a freedom from having to financially support a procedure they find objectionable on what are, at their heart, religious reasons. Sort of a warped freedom of religion argument. What about those of us whose religions require us to care for and take care of those among of who have been victims of violence? Who believe that God calls us to support the victimized in doing what they need to do for their own well-being? I guess our religious beliefs don't matter.
Please, please, write your Representative now. I would say that this atrocity is dead in the water, given the makeup of Congress and a Democratic president who would surely veto it, but you never know.
*Poor women, that is. Financially well off women will be able, as always, to pay for -- and to travel to other places for -- legal abortions.
Friday, January 28, 2011
In memoriam.
For....
Francis R. Scobee
Michael J. Smith
Judith A. Resnik
Ellison S. Onizuka
Ronald E. McNair
Gregory B. Jarvis
Sharon Christa McAuliffe,
Rest in Peace.
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space...
...put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Also, the best speech Ronald Reagan ever gave.
Francis R. Scobee
Michael J. Smith
Judith A. Resnik
Ellison S. Onizuka
Ronald E. McNair
Gregory B. Jarvis
Sharon Christa McAuliffe,
Rest in Peace.
High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space...
...put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Also, the best speech Ronald Reagan ever gave.
On this day, twenty-five years ago, the world changed.
It is one of those "Where were you when..." moments. Where were you when the planes flew into the World Trade Center? Where were you when Kennedy was shot? Where were you when...
Challenger blew up.
I have written about Challenger before. In many ways, I'm not sure I can add to what I wrote then. But January 28 has a resonance for me that the other notable dates in what a friend of mine at Goddard Space Flight Center calls "dead astronaut week" don't. I was too young to be affected by the loss of three astronauts in the Apollo 1 fire. When Columbia disintegrated over east Texas, I was saddened, and worried about the impact, both professionally and personally, on people I or my husband knew, or on NASA in general, but its impact on me was more removed.
Challenger's destruction, though, terrified me. Those twin spirals of smoke trailing off into the deep blue Florida January sky would crop up in nightmares off and on for years.
I was the wife of a man whose sole mission in life was to reach outer space. The Rocket Scientist had wanted to be an astronaut since the age of about four. I have not met many people who have been so single-minded about a goal.
Even though I knew about his dreams, and knew at an intellectual level that spaceflight was dangerous, I had not internalized exactly how dangerous an undertaking it was. I was not alone: the fact that civilians were being taken along shows how blasè we all had gotten about this space business. (Senator Jake Garn* may have been a pilot, but that was not what got him his gig as the first sitting member of Congress to fly on the shuttle.) Christa MacAuliffe was on Challenger precisely because at some level it was thought a safe place for a teacher to be.
Challenger changed all that. As I looked at the television, and then looked over at my husband staring in horrified fascination at the smoke trails, I couldn't help but think "that could be him, in a few years time." Even before asking him, I knew that nothing had changed.
I had a decision to make. When someone you love desires danger, the time to figure out whether you can cope with that is not when they get what they want. The time to decide whether you can stand watching your husband and best friend be strapped to a rocket and shot into the atmosphere is not when he is selected for a mission, or even when he is chosen for the astronaut corps. It is before he even begins the application process.
You decide to deal with it, or you leave. Those are your choices. Trying to change someone who has their eyes on the horizon, for whom the dream of space is and always will be their first love, even above you, is hopeless and cruel. For both of you.
I stayed. All through the years of applying. There was a callback, which in itself, given the numbers of people who apply, is pretty good -- but in the end, my husband didn't become an astronaut. And through all those years, every once in a while, the nightmare would return, with the smoke trailing off into the sky -- but instead of seven strangers in there, it was him. The end of that dream brought its own issues -- he had to find a way to channel that first love into other avenues -- but at least the Challenger nightmares ended.
The day after Columbia disintegrated, I asked the Rocket Scientist (who at that point had passed the age where being selected for the astronaut program was realistic) if, having seen what had happened to Columbia, if he would still have gone in to space. "I would go tomorrow," he answered without hesitation. I mentioned this online to my friend at Goddard, who said "Of course. We all would. This doesn't change any of that."
And if my husband had that chance, even given Columbia, even given Challenger, I would do what every loved one of every astronaut or every astronaut want-to-be must do: I would swallow hard, smile, and say "Vaya con dios, love. The kids and I will be waiting for you when you get back."
So I find myself thinking today not just about the astronauts, but about their families. About what it would be like to have experienced such a tragedy. And about all those who send the ones they love into danger with a hug.** And about the courage and conviction the families of those seven men and women showed in response to such heartbreak.***
And I salute them.
*Jake Garn was so spacesick on his flight, that a scale of spacesickness is named after him. [pdf. p. 13-35] "One Garn" is the highest level of spacesickness an astronaut can experience.
**Not just astronauts: the families of soldiers, cops, and firefighters face this on an everyday basis.
*** The families of the Challenger astronauts founded The Challenger Centers for Space Education, a remarkable monument to their loves ones.
It is one of those "Where were you when..." moments. Where were you when the planes flew into the World Trade Center? Where were you when Kennedy was shot? Where were you when...
Challenger blew up.
I have written about Challenger before. In many ways, I'm not sure I can add to what I wrote then. But January 28 has a resonance for me that the other notable dates in what a friend of mine at Goddard Space Flight Center calls "dead astronaut week" don't. I was too young to be affected by the loss of three astronauts in the Apollo 1 fire. When Columbia disintegrated over east Texas, I was saddened, and worried about the impact, both professionally and personally, on people I or my husband knew, or on NASA in general, but its impact on me was more removed.
Challenger's destruction, though, terrified me. Those twin spirals of smoke trailing off into the deep blue Florida January sky would crop up in nightmares off and on for years.
I was the wife of a man whose sole mission in life was to reach outer space. The Rocket Scientist had wanted to be an astronaut since the age of about four. I have not met many people who have been so single-minded about a goal.
Even though I knew about his dreams, and knew at an intellectual level that spaceflight was dangerous, I had not internalized exactly how dangerous an undertaking it was. I was not alone: the fact that civilians were being taken along shows how blasè we all had gotten about this space business. (Senator Jake Garn* may have been a pilot, but that was not what got him his gig as the first sitting member of Congress to fly on the shuttle.) Christa MacAuliffe was on Challenger precisely because at some level it was thought a safe place for a teacher to be.
Challenger changed all that. As I looked at the television, and then looked over at my husband staring in horrified fascination at the smoke trails, I couldn't help but think "that could be him, in a few years time." Even before asking him, I knew that nothing had changed.
I had a decision to make. When someone you love desires danger, the time to figure out whether you can cope with that is not when they get what they want. The time to decide whether you can stand watching your husband and best friend be strapped to a rocket and shot into the atmosphere is not when he is selected for a mission, or even when he is chosen for the astronaut corps. It is before he even begins the application process.
You decide to deal with it, or you leave. Those are your choices. Trying to change someone who has their eyes on the horizon, for whom the dream of space is and always will be their first love, even above you, is hopeless and cruel. For both of you.
I stayed. All through the years of applying. There was a callback, which in itself, given the numbers of people who apply, is pretty good -- but in the end, my husband didn't become an astronaut. And through all those years, every once in a while, the nightmare would return, with the smoke trailing off into the sky -- but instead of seven strangers in there, it was him. The end of that dream brought its own issues -- he had to find a way to channel that first love into other avenues -- but at least the Challenger nightmares ended.
The day after Columbia disintegrated, I asked the Rocket Scientist (who at that point had passed the age where being selected for the astronaut program was realistic) if, having seen what had happened to Columbia, if he would still have gone in to space. "I would go tomorrow," he answered without hesitation. I mentioned this online to my friend at Goddard, who said "Of course. We all would. This doesn't change any of that."
And if my husband had that chance, even given Columbia, even given Challenger, I would do what every loved one of every astronaut or every astronaut want-to-be must do: I would swallow hard, smile, and say "Vaya con dios, love. The kids and I will be waiting for you when you get back."
So I find myself thinking today not just about the astronauts, but about their families. About what it would be like to have experienced such a tragedy. And about all those who send the ones they love into danger with a hug.** And about the courage and conviction the families of those seven men and women showed in response to such heartbreak.***
And I salute them.
*Jake Garn was so spacesick on his flight, that a scale of spacesickness is named after him. [pdf. p. 13-35] "One Garn" is the highest level of spacesickness an astronaut can experience.
**Not just astronauts: the families of soldiers, cops, and firefighters face this on an everyday basis.
*** The families of the Challenger astronauts founded The Challenger Centers for Space Education, a remarkable monument to their loves ones.
Monday, January 24, 2011
32 degrees and dropping. How much fun is that?
I am freaking coooooollllllddddd. If I wanted to freeze to death I would have stayed in Massachusetts after I graduated Wellesley. The next time I think, "Baltimore-D.C. in January, how bad could it be? It's not like it's Chicago or Boston" please slap some sense into me? Please?
In the words of Jimmy Buffet, "I wanna go where it's waaaaarrrrmmmmm!"
In the words of Jimmy Buffet, "I wanna go where it's waaaaarrrrmmmmm!"
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Notes to Self
Eating at the bar in a hotel -- especially a nice hotel -- is freaking expensive. Even if you did forego having breakfast at the hotel this morning in favor of Starbucks.
Being in a pissy mood is no reason to go out and buy not one but two books on crime, especially on murder. And spending parts of today reading about serial killers. You do want to be able to sleep tonight, right?
I am a very cheap drunk. I had two (expensive -- if I had known they were going to be that much I would have ordered the house specialty drinks which were cheaper) Apple Martinis, on the grounds that I am going to the National Gallery tomorrow. (Don't worry, that last sentence makes sense, sort of, in context.) I did not have a third, and although a large part of my brain is screaming for me to call down for room service to bring me up an Irish coffee, the small portion of my brain which is in fact not inebriated at this moment is overruling it. I desperately need to have more chocolate, however, and may go out in search of some, although, given the aforementioned inebriation, that might not be such a good idea.
I am writing. This, under the circumstances is somewhat amazing. I have to remember not to blog anything I would find embarrassing in the morning, however. Of course, I may find this whole post embarrassing.
Damn, that was good onion soup. The jazz trio was very nice too, as was sitting right in front of the fire and eating good onion soup and drinking Apple Martinis and reading Criminal Minds: Sociopaths, Serial Killers & Other Deviants. I now know who Edmund Kemper is. Oh, boy.
I wish Mythbusters was on. I feel like watching a good explosion. Also, Tory Belecci is a seriously cute geek. Of course, as far as I am concerned, most geeks are seriously cute. I have a penchant for geeks. As my Facebook interests say, "Smart People Turn Me On."
I am trying to figure out what sort of trouble I could get into right now. I feel like trouble. Probably better just to go to bed with a good book. About serial killers.
'Night all.
Being in a pissy mood is no reason to go out and buy not one but two books on crime, especially on murder. And spending parts of today reading about serial killers. You do want to be able to sleep tonight, right?
I am a very cheap drunk. I had two (expensive -- if I had known they were going to be that much I would have ordered the house specialty drinks which were cheaper) Apple Martinis, on the grounds that I am going to the National Gallery tomorrow. (Don't worry, that last sentence makes sense, sort of, in context.) I did not have a third, and although a large part of my brain is screaming for me to call down for room service to bring me up an Irish coffee, the small portion of my brain which is in fact not inebriated at this moment is overruling it. I desperately need to have more chocolate, however, and may go out in search of some, although, given the aforementioned inebriation, that might not be such a good idea.
I am writing. This, under the circumstances is somewhat amazing. I have to remember not to blog anything I would find embarrassing in the morning, however. Of course, I may find this whole post embarrassing.
Damn, that was good onion soup. The jazz trio was very nice too, as was sitting right in front of the fire and eating good onion soup and drinking Apple Martinis and reading Criminal Minds: Sociopaths, Serial Killers & Other Deviants. I now know who Edmund Kemper is. Oh, boy.
I wish Mythbusters was on. I feel like watching a good explosion. Also, Tory Belecci is a seriously cute geek. Of course, as far as I am concerned, most geeks are seriously cute. I have a penchant for geeks. As my Facebook interests say, "Smart People Turn Me On."
I am trying to figure out what sort of trouble I could get into right now. I feel like trouble. Probably better just to go to bed with a good book. About serial killers.
'Night all.
Kelo: The aftermath.
An important five-year anniversary passed last June, and I failed to mark it. June 24 was the fifth year since the Supreme Court decided Kelo v. City of New London 545 U.S. 468 (2005). It's odd to think it's been five years; perhaps because it was such an atrocious decision it is clear in memory -- it could have been only last week.
Very few cases have engendered the outrage over the past ten years as Kelo has. The Economist called it the worst decision of Justice John Paul Stevens career. The aftermath stands as a cautionary tale about the limits of economic reliance upon private developers.
For those of you unfamiliar with the case, Susette Kelo lived in the Ft. Trumbull area of New London, Connecticut. She had made numerous improvements to her property; it also had a view of the water. Another petitioner in the case, Wilhelmina Dery, had been born in her house in 1918, and had lived there her entire life. Her husband, Charles, had lived there sixty years. All told, five petitioners owned nine lots in the area.
New London had development plans for the area adjacent to Fort Trumbull. In addition to other development, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had a facility there. The entire plan was designed to provide "economic revitalization" to the city. The private developers proposing the development stood to lease the land for $1 per year. A great deal if you can get it -- especially for 91 acres of waterfront property.
Although the city had reached agreements with most of the landowners in the area, these five petitioners remained. Since they were unable to reach agreement, the city exercised its right of eminent domain. The landowners sued.
This was not a blighted area. The eminent domain was exercised specifically to turn the property over to a private developer. The city essentially acted as a go between, with the hope that the development would jump-start the economy.
The Supreme Court ruled that exercise of eminent domain for purely economic purposes was an acceptable public use under the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, prompting a stinging dissent by O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas. This is one of the rare times I agreed with the conservative wing of the court.
In the opening of her dissent, O'Connor wrote:
She was exactly right.
I am not a communist, nor am I prone to calling people communists, but this is, in effect, a communist idea: that property should be allowed to be used for what the government deems the "best" purpose, regardless of what the people who own it believe. That the entities who stand to benefit by this are developers and pharmaceutical companies does not change anything.*
What the city of New London ran up against, and what the Court ultimately dismissed as unimportant, was the attachment of people to the land they own. A house becomes a home by loving it, by living in it, by accumulating history within its walls. It is not true that "everyone has a price": how can you put a price on eighty years of a woman's life? There is a reason that eminent domains exists, and it is not only because people ask for more than the market values of the house. People often hold onto their houses because of the meaning they have for them. It is one thing for a house to be purchased for a road, or a park, or another clearly public use, but to be turned over to a private developer, even allegedly with the best interests of the city at heart, is appalling.
And even though it won in the courts, the story did not end well for the city.
In an move showing callousness towards the owners being displaced, the city originally announced it would charge the landowners rent for the five years the case had been winding through the courts. Since they had exercised eminent domain, the theory went, the owners had been living on city land for five years and owed thousands of dollars in back taxes. The case finally ended with New London paying a lot more for the landowner's properties, and agreeing to move Susette Kelo's house to a new location. All of this freed up the waterfront for the development the city claimed it so desperately needed.
Except....
It never happened. The developer couldn't get financing. Pfizer, the 500 pound gorilla in this picture, closed its New London facility and moved 1500 workers, just before the tax breaks from the city were due to expire.
And the place where Susette Kelo's house once stood is an empty lot. The city spent tens of millions on this enterprise just to see it evaporate.
I don't know what the moral is in this story, of if there is one. Cities are supposed to be about the people in them. And yes, jobs are important too, but the idea that a corporation -- any corporation -- can be trusted not to take the least expensive route -- or the route in its best economic interest, which may not be in line with the public's -- is naive. And government at any level is supposed to protect its citizens from predations by private entities, not abet them.
*Somewhere in here is a ranting post about how the free-market system isn't, but I don't have the energy right now.
Very few cases have engendered the outrage over the past ten years as Kelo has. The Economist called it the worst decision of Justice John Paul Stevens career. The aftermath stands as a cautionary tale about the limits of economic reliance upon private developers.
For those of you unfamiliar with the case, Susette Kelo lived in the Ft. Trumbull area of New London, Connecticut. She had made numerous improvements to her property; it also had a view of the water. Another petitioner in the case, Wilhelmina Dery, had been born in her house in 1918, and had lived there her entire life. Her husband, Charles, had lived there sixty years. All told, five petitioners owned nine lots in the area.
New London had development plans for the area adjacent to Fort Trumbull. In addition to other development, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had a facility there. The entire plan was designed to provide "economic revitalization" to the city. The private developers proposing the development stood to lease the land for $1 per year. A great deal if you can get it -- especially for 91 acres of waterfront property.
Although the city had reached agreements with most of the landowners in the area, these five petitioners remained. Since they were unable to reach agreement, the city exercised its right of eminent domain. The landowners sued.
This was not a blighted area. The eminent domain was exercised specifically to turn the property over to a private developer. The city essentially acted as a go between, with the hope that the development would jump-start the economy.
The Supreme Court ruled that exercise of eminent domain for purely economic purposes was an acceptable public use under the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, prompting a stinging dissent by O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas. This is one of the rare times I agreed with the conservative wing of the court.
In the opening of her dissent, O'Connor wrote:
Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded—i. e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public—in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings "for public use" is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property—and thereby effectively to delete the words "for public use" from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
She was exactly right.
I am not a communist, nor am I prone to calling people communists, but this is, in effect, a communist idea: that property should be allowed to be used for what the government deems the "best" purpose, regardless of what the people who own it believe. That the entities who stand to benefit by this are developers and pharmaceutical companies does not change anything.*
What the city of New London ran up against, and what the Court ultimately dismissed as unimportant, was the attachment of people to the land they own. A house becomes a home by loving it, by living in it, by accumulating history within its walls. It is not true that "everyone has a price": how can you put a price on eighty years of a woman's life? There is a reason that eminent domains exists, and it is not only because people ask for more than the market values of the house. People often hold onto their houses because of the meaning they have for them. It is one thing for a house to be purchased for a road, or a park, or another clearly public use, but to be turned over to a private developer, even allegedly with the best interests of the city at heart, is appalling.
And even though it won in the courts, the story did not end well for the city.
In an move showing callousness towards the owners being displaced, the city originally announced it would charge the landowners rent for the five years the case had been winding through the courts. Since they had exercised eminent domain, the theory went, the owners had been living on city land for five years and owed thousands of dollars in back taxes. The case finally ended with New London paying a lot more for the landowner's properties, and agreeing to move Susette Kelo's house to a new location. All of this freed up the waterfront for the development the city claimed it so desperately needed.
Except....
It never happened. The developer couldn't get financing. Pfizer, the 500 pound gorilla in this picture, closed its New London facility and moved 1500 workers, just before the tax breaks from the city were due to expire.
And the place where Susette Kelo's house once stood is an empty lot. The city spent tens of millions on this enterprise just to see it evaporate.
I don't know what the moral is in this story, of if there is one. Cities are supposed to be about the people in them. And yes, jobs are important too, but the idea that a corporation -- any corporation -- can be trusted not to take the least expensive route -- or the route in its best economic interest, which may not be in line with the public's -- is naive. And government at any level is supposed to protect its citizens from predations by private entities, not abet them.
*Somewhere in here is a ranting post about how the free-market system isn't, but I don't have the energy right now.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Restaurant Review
I rarely give reviews of any sort, but these people deserve it....
If you are ever in Baltimore, and you love beer, and you love burgers, you have got to go to Alewife. It has forty beers on draft (plus a lot of others) and a knowledgeable staff. The smoked tomato soup was wicked good. The Smoke burger (with smoked gouda, gruyere, grilled cippolini onions, and chipotle aioli) was, no joke, the Best. Burger. I. Have. Ever. Had. The fries are cooked in duck fat, and even the ketchup is amazing -- it's homemade. So. Good.
If you are ever in Baltimore, and you love beer, and you love burgers, you have got to go to Alewife. It has forty beers on draft (plus a lot of others) and a knowledgeable staff. The smoked tomato soup was wicked good. The Smoke burger (with smoked gouda, gruyere, grilled cippolini onions, and chipotle aioli) was, no joke, the Best. Burger. I. Have. Ever. Had. The fries are cooked in duck fat, and even the ketchup is amazing -- it's homemade. So. Good.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Last Saturday, The Red Headed Menace and I had an adventure.
It started out as a simple trip to the beach. A cold gray morning had turned into one of those magnificent autumn/winter Northern California afternoons, where the sky is a deep cerulean blue except where the sunlight dapples through the tree leaves.
I know the way to the beach. I know several ways to the beach, as a matter of fact. My planned route involved taking the Page Mill exit onto I-280, then getting off and Sand Hill and taking the roads back to pick up California 84. (I realize that for all of you who live in other places this makes no sense.)
Except... somehow I forgot to exit off Page Mill. I'm still not sure why; my mind was on other things, perhaps, or just caught up in the beauty around me. At any rate, I was about a mile up Page Mill before I realized, oh, yeah, I don't go this way. Why not, I thought? Page Mill runs through at least as far as Skyline. So I kept going.... and then remembered exactly why I never took this route.
It's been a long while since I have white-knuckled a road. It's been even longer since I white-knuckled a road in broad daylight. This one had all the elements that scare the crap out of me: twists with blind curves, oncoming traffic that had a tendency to drift over the line, no shoulders, and freaking insane bicyclists. Oh, yes, and the late afternoon sun hitting me in the eyes. I kept telling RHM to enjoy the view, because I sure couldn't.
After an eternity, we reached the major crossroads. Hurrah! "But mom," he said, "The sign says to go to Pescadero to go straight." "No way, " I said,pulling a sharp right. "From here it gets worse." So we drove north to 84, took that to 1 and drove south to Pescadero. The whole disaster probably costs us an additional forty minutes.
But when we got to the coast...
It was about forty-five minutes to sunset. The late-afternoon sun hit the waves, turning them golden. we drove along in the cool, soft, mist-laden air towards Pescadero. RHM and I talked about how, even though people say the ocean is blue, it often is not -- being gold, or steel gray, or green. To be with my son, on such an afternoon, was joy itself.
We decided to go to the Arcangeli Bakery in the town of Pescadero. (If you are ever in our neck of woods, it is worth not merely a detour but a trip.) Although we were in the store for only a few minutes, the golden late afternoon had been socked in with a thick blanket of clouds. Ah, coastal California. Wait five minutes and the weather changes.
We still went to the beach. That's why we were there, after all.
Alone among our family, RHM and I are ocean people. We will go to see the ocean in a driving rainstorm (barring lightning) or, in the case of yesterday, in a cold overcast with winds that drove through my two layers of sweatshirts like they were chiffon.
"I'm sorry the weather is so bad." "That's okay, it is still wonderful."
The best part of this was that, since the music player in the LGM (Little Green Mazda) was busted, we actually talked the whole way. He said that when he was older he wanted to bring his wife/fiancee/girlfriend to the coast -- "Are there any B&Bs around here? I would love to wake up with someone and take breakfast on the beach." We talked philosophy. We talked about just why we were ocean people.
RHM is excited about the vast array of life that exists under the waves and along the shore. Me, I am fascinated by the horizon -- by the wonderful thought that on its other side is a whole new world, and all you need is a boat to get there.
I am very blessed. I know people whose teenagers only talk to them to ask for money or what's for dinner. Without stopping being a parent (believe me, I get a fair amount of attitude and mete out a fair amount of discipline), I am a friend.
It was a wonderful experience, a reminder of how good life can be.
It started out as a simple trip to the beach. A cold gray morning had turned into one of those magnificent autumn/winter Northern California afternoons, where the sky is a deep cerulean blue except where the sunlight dapples through the tree leaves.
I know the way to the beach. I know several ways to the beach, as a matter of fact. My planned route involved taking the Page Mill exit onto I-280, then getting off and Sand Hill and taking the roads back to pick up California 84. (I realize that for all of you who live in other places this makes no sense.)
Except... somehow I forgot to exit off Page Mill. I'm still not sure why; my mind was on other things, perhaps, or just caught up in the beauty around me. At any rate, I was about a mile up Page Mill before I realized, oh, yeah, I don't go this way. Why not, I thought? Page Mill runs through at least as far as Skyline. So I kept going.... and then remembered exactly why I never took this route.
It's been a long while since I have white-knuckled a road. It's been even longer since I white-knuckled a road in broad daylight. This one had all the elements that scare the crap out of me: twists with blind curves, oncoming traffic that had a tendency to drift over the line, no shoulders, and freaking insane bicyclists. Oh, yes, and the late afternoon sun hitting me in the eyes. I kept telling RHM to enjoy the view, because I sure couldn't.
After an eternity, we reached the major crossroads. Hurrah! "But mom," he said, "The sign says to go to Pescadero to go straight." "No way, " I said,pulling a sharp right. "From here it gets worse." So we drove north to 84, took that to 1 and drove south to Pescadero. The whole disaster probably costs us an additional forty minutes.
But when we got to the coast...
It was about forty-five minutes to sunset. The late-afternoon sun hit the waves, turning them golden. we drove along in the cool, soft, mist-laden air towards Pescadero. RHM and I talked about how, even though people say the ocean is blue, it often is not -- being gold, or steel gray, or green. To be with my son, on such an afternoon, was joy itself.
We decided to go to the Arcangeli Bakery in the town of Pescadero. (If you are ever in our neck of woods, it is worth not merely a detour but a trip.) Although we were in the store for only a few minutes, the golden late afternoon had been socked in with a thick blanket of clouds. Ah, coastal California. Wait five minutes and the weather changes.
We still went to the beach. That's why we were there, after all.
Alone among our family, RHM and I are ocean people. We will go to see the ocean in a driving rainstorm (barring lightning) or, in the case of yesterday, in a cold overcast with winds that drove through my two layers of sweatshirts like they were chiffon.
"I'm sorry the weather is so bad." "That's okay, it is still wonderful."
The best part of this was that, since the music player in the LGM (Little Green Mazda) was busted, we actually talked the whole way. He said that when he was older he wanted to bring his wife/fiancee/girlfriend to the coast -- "Are there any B&Bs around here? I would love to wake up with someone and take breakfast on the beach." We talked philosophy. We talked about just why we were ocean people.
RHM is excited about the vast array of life that exists under the waves and along the shore. Me, I am fascinated by the horizon -- by the wonderful thought that on its other side is a whole new world, and all you need is a boat to get there.
I am very blessed. I know people whose teenagers only talk to them to ask for money or what's for dinner. Without stopping being a parent (believe me, I get a fair amount of attitude and mete out a fair amount of discipline), I am a friend.
It was a wonderful experience, a reminder of how good life can be.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Why Vote? Because it matters, dumbass.
Steven D. Levitt can bite my ass.
In his book, Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt, the "rogue economist," includes a piece called "Why Vote?" from November 6, 2005. In it he argues that any given vote does not really matter, since very few elections are decided by small margins anyway. He then goes on to mention the 2000 presidential election: "It is true that the outcome of that election came down to a handful of voters; but their names were Kennedy, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas. And it was only the votes they cast while wearing their robes that mattered, not the ones they may have cast in their home districts."
He then posits three reasons for voting: 1) people are not very bright; 2) people tend to view the vote as a lottery: "you buy the right to fantasize how you'd spend the winnings -- much as you get to fantasize that your vote will have some impact on policy." 3) people vote out of some sort of civic pride.
He goes on to rather cavalierly dismiss the effect of large numbers of the population opting not to vote, analogizing it to telling your daughter not to pick flowers because if everyone did there would be no flowers left.
He also talks about the experience of the Swiss, who experienced a decline in voting rates following the move to all-mail voting. In the end, he concludes that people vote because of social pressure to b e seen at the polls.
Idiot.
Firstly, he ignored a much more relevant example than the Swiss: Washington State, which since 1997 has had vote-by-mail in all counties but one. In 1996 general Presidential election, the turnout for eligible registered voters was 54.77%. In 2000, it was 60.7%. In 2004, it was 66.9 %. In 2008 it was 66.5% Even taking into account that the three latter elections were more hotly contested than 1996, it is still a marked improvement in turnout. It is certainly not the case that, at least statewide, voter participation decreased.
Secondly, and much more importantly, whenever you are analyzing elections results, the issue is not just what the effect that individual votes cast have, but those that are not cast. Until 2007, Florida did not allow anyone who had ever been convicted of a felony to vote. Ever. Given that a sizeable proportion of those (primarily) men were African-Americans, who tend to vote more heavily Democratic, that would have affected the outcome of the race. And that is without taking into account the "purge list" of 173,000 names used by Florida officials to disenfranchise people who, it turned out, were only guilty of misdemeanors. Hasty efforts to return individuals to the rolls before election day were imperfect, at best.
Those four men and one women were only allowed to determine the outcome of that 2000 election because so many people down the line had not been given a voice. Ask any of those people how they felt about being not allowed to vote, and my hunch is a lot of them were outraged.
Ask any Proposition 8 proponent -- or opponent -- whether their vote "had some impact on policy." Damn straight it did. And this also completely ignores the effect on local races, which turnouts affect even more heavily.
Voting matters. For all of us. There is a reason why so many people have fought -- and in some cases, died -- to secure that right. And it is not just so their neighbors will think well of them.
Elections are like streams. They are chaotic systems. Yes, removing one drop of water from the stream may not have an effect, but as you remove more and more, the stream changes course and power. Since no one droplet can be identified as determinative, but removal of too many of them is disastrous, then each of them must be considered crucial.
It is hard enough to get people to vote. (Especially young people; and two of the people who lauded this book to the skies to me were under twenty-five.) The last thing we need is some "rogue economist" effectively dismissing its importance.
In his book, Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt, the "rogue economist," includes a piece called "Why Vote?" from November 6, 2005. In it he argues that any given vote does not really matter, since very few elections are decided by small margins anyway. He then goes on to mention the 2000 presidential election: "It is true that the outcome of that election came down to a handful of voters; but their names were Kennedy, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas. And it was only the votes they cast while wearing their robes that mattered, not the ones they may have cast in their home districts."
He then posits three reasons for voting: 1) people are not very bright; 2) people tend to view the vote as a lottery: "you buy the right to fantasize how you'd spend the winnings -- much as you get to fantasize that your vote will have some impact on policy." 3) people vote out of some sort of civic pride.
He goes on to rather cavalierly dismiss the effect of large numbers of the population opting not to vote, analogizing it to telling your daughter not to pick flowers because if everyone did there would be no flowers left.
He also talks about the experience of the Swiss, who experienced a decline in voting rates following the move to all-mail voting. In the end, he concludes that people vote because of social pressure to b e seen at the polls.
Idiot.
Firstly, he ignored a much more relevant example than the Swiss: Washington State, which since 1997 has had vote-by-mail in all counties but one. In 1996 general Presidential election, the turnout for eligible registered voters was 54.77%. In 2000, it was 60.7%. In 2004, it was 66.9 %. In 2008 it was 66.5% Even taking into account that the three latter elections were more hotly contested than 1996, it is still a marked improvement in turnout. It is certainly not the case that, at least statewide, voter participation decreased.
Secondly, and much more importantly, whenever you are analyzing elections results, the issue is not just what the effect that individual votes cast have, but those that are not cast. Until 2007, Florida did not allow anyone who had ever been convicted of a felony to vote. Ever. Given that a sizeable proportion of those (primarily) men were African-Americans, who tend to vote more heavily Democratic, that would have affected the outcome of the race. And that is without taking into account the "purge list" of 173,000 names used by Florida officials to disenfranchise people who, it turned out, were only guilty of misdemeanors. Hasty efforts to return individuals to the rolls before election day were imperfect, at best.
Those four men and one women were only allowed to determine the outcome of that 2000 election because so many people down the line had not been given a voice. Ask any of those people how they felt about being not allowed to vote, and my hunch is a lot of them were outraged.
Ask any Proposition 8 proponent -- or opponent -- whether their vote "had some impact on policy." Damn straight it did. And this also completely ignores the effect on local races, which turnouts affect even more heavily.
Voting matters. For all of us. There is a reason why so many people have fought -- and in some cases, died -- to secure that right. And it is not just so their neighbors will think well of them.
Elections are like streams. They are chaotic systems. Yes, removing one drop of water from the stream may not have an effect, but as you remove more and more, the stream changes course and power. Since no one droplet can be identified as determinative, but removal of too many of them is disastrous, then each of them must be considered crucial.
It is hard enough to get people to vote. (Especially young people; and two of the people who lauded this book to the skies to me were under twenty-five.) The last thing we need is some "rogue economist" effectively dismissing its importance.
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