Link dump: latest outrages edition

• Ohio Town Sees Public Job as Only Route to Middle Class -- too bad that their legislators are trying to gut that option too
  
  
• House Agriculture committee: Cut food assistance, but keep farm subsidies Sigh.
  
  
• Buried Provision In House GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps To Entire Families If One Member Strikes -- unreal.
  
  
• Republicans want 'In God We Trust' emblazoned on 9,000 federal buildings, cost could top $100m -- of course, see the two previous...
  
  
• Retired General: Republicans Making Nuclear Terrorism More Likely by cutting our programs to help countries like Russia get rid of heaps of nuclear materials
  
  
• Cuts Weren't Enough -- GOP plans to phase out Medicare, so they can stop being annoyed at how successful and popular it is
  
  
• The Death and Life of the Democratic Party -- the withering of unions has pushed the party into the arms of big business, leaving it torn about its principles; see also this cartoon. Sigh.
  
  
• Boehner’s Tough Spot Hides Democratic Ideological Giveaway -- more evidence that the Democrats no longer even see themselves as standing for something
  
  
• Epic irony: Mideast moves forward while America moves backward -- a grim compilation of the war on women's rights, in particular. Related: No justice on earth until there is justice for women -- seems an obvious point
  
  
• Obama administration curtails rights for terror suspects -- same as the old boss?? See also US military's "gratuitously harsh treatment" of Manning condemned by NYT, WaPo, LAT, ACLU and Clinton To Congress: Obama Would Ignore Your War Resolutions -- it all makes me want to cry.
  
  
• TOM THE DANCING BUG: U.S. Bombs U.S. Schools -- kind of sums up my frustrations with our involvement in Libya
  
  
• How a lie enters the political bloodstream -- important piece about how journalists set the terms of acceptable versus fringe debate

  What's key to understand about this model is that what ends up in the various spheres has very little to do with empirical or logical merit. These are not truth categories, they are categories of practice, shaped by social forces. In other words, they are deeply, intrinsically political, though "objective" reporters seem almost incapable of recognizing that they are engaging in political choices.

• Weak Job Market Forces Maine Legislator to Leave the State -- their legislature is part-time, so reps really "feel the pain" just like their constituents!
  
  
• Speaking of Maine, Maine Governor Orders Mural Depicting Labor History Removed From Labor Department -- these guys really take Orwell to heart!
  
  
• Who Screwed the Middle Class?

  A lot has happened over the past 30 years, but if you're looking for a single political sea change that's had the biggest impact on middle class wages—more important than union decline, more important than NAFTA, more important than the end of Glass-Steagall—it's the political consensus that underlies the Fed's reluctance to allow labor markets to stay tight enough to generate wage increases in the real economy. And it's something we're seeing all over again right now, as the DC chattering classes have almost unanimously decided that inflation is our real enemy right now, even though core inflation is running around 1% and unemployment is still near 9%.

• Beware the Vultures -- our policing of parents is making their lives almost unworkable.
  
  
• TSA to retest airport body scanners for radiation -- some have shown 10 times more radiation release than we've been promised so often is harmless. But you can trust the TSA!!

If only...

There are many times when we wish "if only" -- if only smarter people were in charge, if only the media focused on what was important, if only politicians would worry about jobs and not the deficit, if only America appeared to be true to its ideals. Well, having written that list, it's a bit anticlimactic to append the two links that sparked it, but here they are:

1. I wish smart econ bloggers were in charge!

   In a rational world, there should be no discussion of the deficit as policy. Team D and Team R would present their competing visions for what the government should spend money on, and where that money should come from. ... Ideally, we'd have one party that thinks we should spend a bit more on things like social safety nets, and do so with more progressive taxation, and one party which thinks we should spend a bit less, and with more regressive taxation, and the voters would have a reasonably clear choice.

   Sounds like crazy socialist Euro-think!


2. I wish that people wouldn't fantasize that Presidents can fix everything!

   The federal government is full of smart, competent, persuasive people working in a system that prevents them from rapidly addressing even the problems with obvious solutions. Let’s see some realistic thought experiments that address that.

Well, at least there are some homework projects for the industrious among us to contemplate and maybe even work on...

Quote of the day

No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile.

-- Mark Helprin
via Mrs. Gamely, in Winter's Tale

Top books of 2010, Speck edition

Speck goes through cycles of having us read to her a ton versus showing interest only at bedtime, but a few books seem to transcend her general pattern to become repeat entertainments all by themselves. Three books really stood out in this category during this past fall and winter, to the degree that I thought they deserved some public recognition.

1. The top of this list would have to be Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney, a book that describes a little llama (star of several other books) on his trepidatious first day at preschool, initially so overcome with missing his mama that he's unable to participate in any of the fun taking place around him, but eventually getting sucked in by the kindness of the teacher and kids and having a good time. Top quotes: "Don't be sad now, little llama! It's ok to miss your mama. But don't forget: when day is through, she will come right back to you!" and "Llama Llama, please don't fuss; have some fun and play with us!"
   
   I initially got this book from the library to help introduce Speck to the idea of preschool, to help her visualize what might be there, how she might be scared and/or might have fun. I thought it might give us some entries to talk about that stuff, and indeed it did, much more than I anticipated. She asked about the line "Mama Llama goes away; Llama Llama has to stay", and we developed a set of discussion points such as "mama has to go to work" and "preschool isn't for mommies!" We talked about the little llama turning away from games and fun, and how he was missing out on possibilities. We speculated that he probably didn't really "hate that book" but was just feeling grumpy and unwilling to give it a chance. We grinned over the way he shouted and dropped his crayons when he saw his momma returned to pick him up, and laughed when she tried to fit inside the playhouse. Most amazingly, we read this book over and over, day after day, exhausting our library renewals and then getting it out again and repeating the process, long after Speck had made her own successful transition to preschool, long after I should probably have already bought the book but kept imagining we'd be done with it soon.
   
   Reading this book (and the next) also became linked to having a snack of matzohs and cream cheese in the afternoon; either could suggest the other. But there was never a single pass through this book. It's been at the library for a month or two now, but writing this has made me realize that I should probably go and get it out again and see what new tidbits it might have to offer...



2. Next up is Night Shift, by Jessie Hartland. This is a rare case where I brought home a library book whose illustration style (something like chaoticized child's drawings) I actively disliked, because it seemed like a neat topic: what sorts of work goes on around a city in the evening hours and overnight, that you never get to see? We visit boat captains moving freight, a museum guard listening to a late-night DJ, and donut bakers getting their wares ready before dawn, among many others. It's long (which appears to be a draw for Speck in certain moods), but offers nice linkages from one player to the next to pull us along until the late-nighters and the early-morningers all meet at a diner for breakfast.
   
   Anyway, she loves it, and it's another that has been read and read until her parents nearly groan to see it coming out of the pile. But there's lots of detail and silliness to pick out along the way, as well as questions to ask about how the world works -- why is there less traffic at 2am? why do the bridge painters paint around a hawk's nest? etc. Speck particularly likes following some oscelots from their shipping crates to their cage in the nocturnal section of the zoo, through various edge-of-the-action cameos (and maybe a diner outing at the end). Anyway, the book has won me over, what with all the rereadings and examination of details, and I now look upon its multicolored pages with affection.



3. Finally, we made a great find in The Year at Maple Hill Farm, by Alice and Martin Provensen. I thought that this might be kind of a stretch for my 2-year-old when I brought it home, but she was entranced with it immediately and had us read it obsessively until she had memorized whole sets of the shorter descriptions. It talks about the months and seasons of the year by way of how they affect the activities of the animals who live on a farm, with horses feeling frisky in the spring and roosters dealing with the indignity of moulting, and does a good job of evoking the seasonal sensibilities of life on a farm without the need for a treacly or historical patina.
   
   The book is full of detailed drawings and quirky barnyard personalities, which later led us to visit the also-wonderful Our Animal Friends by the same authors. Both books treat the animals and their readers with great respect and a little wry affection, and will offer more to readings at subsequent ages. These books were recently reissued in softcover (after original publication in the 1970s, I think), and we quickly bought both, although not all of the color is perfectly reproduced from our well-worn library copies. I look forward to Speck's viewing this one as one of her old friends.

Latest shadenfreude

I'd like to be a bigger person, but for now I'll have to live with the fact that this story just made my day. Can we be done with this "I'll show you mine if..." crap already?!?

(via HunterDK's Twitter feed)

Another almost-funny

The inimitable Fafblog comes through with an appropriate take on our actions in Libya, both funny and painful.We can haz freedoms? Sigh.

(via Atrios)

Where credit is due

Echidne has really been on a roll lately -- on what the Right is up to, on recent anti-union maneouvers, even on what does and doesn't get said about Elizabeth Taylor's roles and what that reveals. I've linked to this week's posts, so just go get edumacated via some chewy analysis of Stuff!

Belated primer

Have been meaning to post this for a while, but it's still useful even if the winds of media have shifted: Some Perspective On The Japan Earthquake, which includes things like some analogies for how large/long the country is and where the earthquake actually hit, and also talks about the nation's preparedness, etc. Helpful for figuring out how much of the country has actually been affected, why your friends in Tokyo are mostly ok, etc.

Passing of a legend

Was a bit surprised to see at boing boing this morning that Elizabeth Taylor has passed away, although a scan through recent images makes it clear that she was failing.

Anyway, for those who have appreciated her movies and her larger-than-life presence, there is a wonderful cross-section of images here, and a short video tribute by Paul Newman here. She certainly left a wealth of screen performances through the decades, many which hold up well to time...

Thought of the day

But won't you be ashamed
To count the passing year
At its mere cost, your debt
Inevitably paid?
For every year is costly,
As you know well. Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.

- Wendell Berry
lines from Sabbaths 1998, VI

(via whiskey river)

Thoughts from an elevator

Today as I was getting into my office elevator, I was reminded of the widespread superstitions about elevator doors -- for example, the large number of people who are afraid to try to reach out to stop their closing, even if it means a long wait for another elevator, because, I guess, they are afraid that their hand would be caught/crushed/devoured.

And I want to explain that their imagined hand-waving target region is too high, that we live in the post-ADA era, so that you have to think about where a wheelchair would roll, and thus that the target for optical sensors would be about thigh-to-hip height. And that I've many a time stopped such an elevator with a sheet of paper or a hand, at no risk. But my gut is sort of saying, dismissively, "This is why smart people live longer." So I never open my mouth.

Really, on further reflection I realize that there are just a broad class of people for whom the world at large, and technology in particular, is full of impenetrable mysteries. And why is that so? Because if you start with the belief that there's no approach to such matters, you continue to find that true because you have never tried to analyze any of them. Some things may be hard to understand or frustrating, but many many aspects of the world yield to some kind of deductive analysis, whether the outcome is actual facts or just probabilistic insights, and your mind does that kind of work all the time (watching any kid over time is instructive in this regard). You just need to learn to believe in that framework.

So, rather than be dismissive, I wish to change my silent conversation to something like, "Every increment of deductive reasoning that you can bring to bear makes life a little bit easier." Which is not entirely different from saying that smart people function better in the world, but has the added benefit of pointing out a tool that anybody can adopt -- assume that you can reason a way through many of the stupid or mysterious parts of the day. And you, too, will find that you are right! Take heart, fellow travelers!

Babies! What makes those things tick?

Two hilarious videos recently of kids laughing hysterically at everyday things:

1. Tearing paper is the new definition of funny!
   (via Follow Me Here)
   
   
2. Mom blowing her nose -- both terrifying and hysterical! (This kid has just amazing expressions!)

Go on, you know you need a Friday giggle!

Somebody needs to do it!

Parents can do it, and apparently schools can do it too: help students discover the joy of learning and take ownership of their own educations. This sort of experiment terrifies harried school administrators, but the proof is in the pudding.

The students in the Independent Project are remarkable but not because they are exceptionally motivated or unusually talented. They are remarkable because they demonstrate the kinds of learning and personal growth that are possible when teenagers feel ownership of their high school experience, when they learn things that matter to them and when they learn together. In such a setting, school capitalizes on rather than thwarts the intensity and engagement that teenagers usually reserve for sports, protest or friendship.

Inspiring, challenging stuff.

(via FreeRangeKids)

Good to keep in mind

Amid all the destruction photos and nuclear nailbiting coming out of Japan right now, they actually did amazingly well in the face of a really huge earthquake. We tend to focus on what failed, so it's good to remember that good disaster planning -- from construction codes to evacuation procedures -- actually saves thousands (or millions) of lives. We could learn a lot from that, if we still believed in learning...

A quiet book

I much enjoyed the January project of trying to notice/write one brief thing every day (see, e.g., these) -- made me realize how seldom these days I exercise the discipline of putting words to observations, something I love. Anyway, turns out that the organizers were so overwhelmed by the result of their project that they put together a book, which culls some of the most satisfying pebbles and mixes them with a few quotes and observations to make what looks like a great way to dip into the quiet moments in other people's days. Worth a look!



(Note: I make no money from this project in any way.)

In a nutshell

There are just so many ways that this picture summarizes the experience of parenthood -- the cuteness, the pressure, the exhausted parent . . .

Giant pre-vacation link-dump

Infuriating:

• The New Obama Budget (by Krugman)

  ...listening to the administration, you’d think that discretionary spending, not health care, is at the heart of our long-run deficit problems — and you’d also think that the job of rescuing the economy was done, with unemployment still at 9 percent.

  More on this, in a different form, here.
  
  
• Krugman: Republicans want to "eat America’s seed corn" -- along the same lines, Echidne: Eating the Seed Corn. Who Needs Education?
  
  
• Health insurers continue to drop children's coverage
  
  
• Journalists angry over the commission of journalism (fact-checking is upsetting!)
  
  
• Wisconsin Update: Trashing “the Hippies”
  
  
• Frustrated in Florida -- more overprotection of capable children/teens
  
  
• Schools often react poorly to student suicides, experts say -- in fact, the most common responses are precisely counterproductive!
  
  
• Military Personnel Say Pentagon Ignores Sexual Assaults, Harassment
  
  
• Today's Deep Thought -- restricted range of arguments about gender equality
  
  
• Toxic Chemicals and Where the Burden Should Be -- quit blaming moms and let's get some decent environmental regulation!

  But there is only so much time in the day - is my time really better spent researching which deodorants are least likely to cause developmental problems in potential future babies, or is it better spent advocating that the FDA and USDA and other acronyms stop letting poisons into our products in the first place?

• Alaska state rep refuses TSA grope of her mastectomy scars, drives home from Seattle -- and for those who think this is all accomplishing something, there's TSA airport body scan tests miss gun: report
  
  
• The undiscussed elephant in the room: poverty!
  
  
  1. It Takes a Village, Not a Tiger

     The parenting wars look like they are about children, but really they are only about each parent’s own child. That’s why they serve such a useful social function. Without them we might have to think about the frightening place America is becoming for ever more millions of kids. Who knows? We might even feel that we should do something about it.

  2. Class And Social Security

     A 30 percent cut in benefits would represent disaster for tens of millions of Americans, but a barely noticeable inconvenience for VSPs and everyone they know. A rise in the retirement age would be a vast hardship for people who do manual labor, but if anything a gift to VSPs, who don’t want to step aside in any case. And so on down the line.
     
     So going after Social Security is a way to seem tough and serious — but entirely at the expense of people you don’t know.

  3. The compensation-productivity gap

Fascinating:

• The Strange Powers of the Placebo Effect
  
  
• An Interesting Study on Drug Use Prevention
  
  
• My big picture view of Wisconsin -- how people think wealth is distributed (versus how it is, how it should be)
  
  
• Why Do Protests Bring Down Regimes? neat!
  
  
• Quantum Mechanics vs. Relativity: It Depends on What "Understand" Means -- heck, they're both hard
  
  
• TEDxSF - Jill Vialet - 11/17/09 (video talk) -- how critical play is to children, and how amazingly they respond to even a pilot effort
  
  
• The Mad Men Account -- why is the series so appealing (and to whom)?
  
  
• SoundWorks Collection: Gary Hecker - Veteran Foley Artist -- performing sound effects back into movies; amazing!
  

Cheerful:

• Can I Get An Amen? America doesn't run the world.
  
  
• Obama administration replaces controversial 'conscience' regulation for health-care workers -- do your job or find another one!
  
  
• Russ Feingold Launches Progressives United PAC -- aiming at the Citizens United decision, in particular
  
  
• Religious Coalition Tells The GOP That ‘The Budget Shouldn’t Be Balanced On the Backs Of The Poor’
  
  
• Mushroom and BalletBoy Go to the Park! kids need some independence!
  
  
• They Said Shut Up, but mombloggers continue to share everyday life with others working through it
  
  
• The Court would like to balance the scales -- time off, as long as you're excited about any kid you get!
  
  
• Jon Stewart Nails Fox News Hypocrisy On Teachers Vs. Wall Street Pay Levels
  
  
• Parov Stelar - Catgroove -- this guy can dance! great fun!
  
  
• What would Feynman do? -- long but hilarious skewering of stupid interview questions
  
  
• Today’s Silly Question -- what's cuter than a smiling piglet?!?
  
  
• And now for no apparent reason… Kittens… in… Bowls!
  
  

Poem of the day

The Infirmament

An end is always punishment for a beginning.
If you're Catholic, sadness is punishment
for happiness, you become the bug you squash
if you're Hindu, a flinty space opens
in your head after a long night of laughter
and wine. For waking there are dreams,
for French poetry, English poetry,
for light, fire although sometimeskoan
fire must be punished by light
which is why psychotherapy had to be invented.
A father may say nothing to a son for years.
A wife may keep something small folded deep
in her underwear drawer. Clouds come in
resembling the terrible things we believe
about ourselves, a rock comes loose
from a ledge, the baby cries
and cries. Doll in a chair,
windshield wipers, staring off
into the city lights. For years
you may be unable to hear the word monkey
without a stab in the heart because
she called you that the summer she thought
she loved you and you thought you loved
someone else and everyone loved
your salad dressing. And the daffodils
come up in the spring and the snow covers
the road in winter and the water covers
the deep trenches in the sea where all the time
the inner stuff of this earth surges up
which is how the continents are made
and broken.

- Dean Young

(via whiskey river)

Obligatory birthday-related posting

Well, we've had some festivities around the household, and the incremental aging of small persons! With balloons and presents and much bouncing in a Tigger-like way.


Yes, this critter turned 3 years old.


This was the lilypad + frog cake. Stencil a last-minute addition.


This year, she ate the cake! CAKE!!
(chocolate by direct request)

I feel like the first three years have been very tangible to us, with all the sleeplessness and intensity of time-spending, and general infinitesimal subdivision of the day into tiny discoveries and battles. And yet I can feel that things are starting to speed up, that 4 will arrive at a stunning rate, that I will be amazed that time could ever resume its prior rush. This musing, looking backward from the huge distance of 6, made me cry a bunch.

Onward we go.

What doth portend?

Holy crap! Obama Administration finally disavows Defense of Marriage Act, will no longer defend heterosexual privilege in court. w00t!


(via Atrios)

From the department of The More Things Change...

This map of collective bargaining rights in the US includes states that require it for labor contracts, those that are neutral, and those that forbid it. And yet the boundarys correspond to divisions in so many other things... I hate to say it, but there are just places in this country that make it mighty hard to live!

Quote of the day

Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist.

- Bill Bryson

(via whiskey river)

In case you were wondering

The Republicans make it pretty clear where they stand when it comes to the little guy. Let the buyer beware! I guess we'll all sink together...

Link dump, next: Parenting-related bits

• Leading and Being Led -- a great reflection on the negotiations of everyday childrearing, and also on the recognition of a moment when a child has something to teach us.
  
  
• Here's to Having Kids! -- a reaction to both humorous and humorless put-downs of the childrearing experience, arriving at an interesting perspective.
  
  
• Want a safe place to raise kids? Look to the cities yay!
  
  
• 12 Tips For Choosing A Guardian For Your Children
  
  
• Lesson Eight: I'm Judging You -- more tales of the free advice/judgement offered by strangers and fellow parents. feh.
  
  
• Free Range Kids -- doesn't even have laziness to recommend it, just healthiness for kids.
  
  
• Keizer 3-year-old calls 9-1-1 to save his father -- I guess this is a self-nudge that it's time to teach Speck about 911.
  
  
• The 5 Best Toys of All Time -- lots of room for imagination in there!
  
  
• Earth To Be Made Child-Safe -- some humor from the Onion, heh.
  
  
• Deconstructed Valentines -- a great craft project plus a reminder that nothing in parenting ever goes quite as planned.
  

What goes round...

This is a great parable about modern living, in a city or anywhere else. You can find neighborliness in the densest and dirtiest places, or you can fence out the world in a safe and luxurious area -- have met both kinds.

(via free range kids)

Your Friday dose of cuteness

At least, if you didn't see it on Cute Overload earlier this week. Just an overwhelming cuteness of bunnies in a row! Yay!! It's almost more cuteness than I can take in -- I want the one on the left!

Always a good time for a leer!

Stay Classy, TSA

Quote of the day

The Thing Is
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, how can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

- Ellen Bass
psychobabble

(via whiskey river)

Power to the people!

Well, this is exciting! I haven't felt so invested in the self-transformation of a nation since we watched people walk for days and stand in long lines to vote in post-apartheid South Africa. Of course, any revolution can go sour, but there's such a feeling of empowerment, of hope for a fairer government and better times, that one prefers to set aside such trepidations and just join in the upswell of joy.

Update: Yeah, well...
Update 2: Hey, it happened!!

Four bits on women (and maybe on who defines/controls them)

• How It Is Done: Working Mothers, Guilt and Childhood Obesity -- bad science used to beat up on working mothers, as though parenting weren't hard enough.

  But whatever the demerits of the study, that popularization really is utterly loathsome. Loathsome! Note that working fathers are not mentioned. Fathers are not mentioned. And the recommendations for women, or rather the scolding: Try not to work so much!
  
  I write about these kinds of crappy studies because they are worms which drill through the skins of women and fester deep inside us. We are not worthy! We are responsible! Nobody else is to blame! We must walk on our hands through life and not fall! I don't write about them because I somehow think that women are perfect, for example, but to show how this thing is done. It is non-stop, really.

• Feminists Make Better Lovers -- doesn't apply to women exclusively, but reveals biases about many things, including what kinds of studies do and don't get popularized. [Hint: the ones that do are the ones that confirm the cultural narrative!]
  
  
• Take Your Legislation Off Me -- some grim legislation being discussed right now, the discussion again revealing all kinds of underlying assumptions, including that men should get to make all the decisions in matters affecting women.
  
  
• On Labor -- a personal story that serves as a reminder that women carry disproportionate risks in creating our next generation.

  Every day women choose to do the hard labor of a difficult pregnancy. Its courageous work, which inspires in me a degree of admiration exceeded only by my horror at the notion of the state turning that courage, that hard labor, into a mandate. Women die performing that labor in smaller numbers as we advance, but they die all the same. Men do not. That is a privilege.

  Amen.
  

A good seed

Holy crap! This video made me cry, right at my desk. He's right that anybody should be proud to have him as a son, just like he's right that families are about commitments to one another, not any external characteristics. Wow.

A little knowledge...

It's true that we hear about Americans' budgetary ignorance on a regular cycle, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. Why have the Democrats become so cowed by the national security folks that they're not willing to point out the bloatedness of our military budget, or the fact that almost no dent can be made in our money woes without looking there? Why don't we counter the foreign aid debates with a couple of key visuals? Heck, one big pie chart with a tiny green stripe for foreign aid and a huge half-pie for Defense might make for an interesting TV sound-bite -- "why are we debating how much to cut this little sliver while completely ignoring the elephant that is our outings in Iraq and Afghanistan?" (A similar pie chart could help us get back to thinking about further health reforms, or at least not gutting the recent ones, but I fear that chat is done for the time being...)

Monday cat-blogging

Yes, you heard that right -- we still have cats! Amazingly, they're on the long side of 5 years old, but still spotty and mewpy, still generally entertaining, although their lives are a bit constrained by the unpredictable whims of a toddler...


Yes, they even have back their beloved cat tree,
which reclaimed the spot from some large kid toy. So happy!!


I love this dangle that Pixel does, as though her arms sort of don't belong to her.
A previous version can be seen here (at 6 months).

Great visual!

The new Starbucks "Trente" size is big enough to hold an entire bottle of wine with room to spare. No straw for me, please!

(Don't recommend the video because (a) most of it is him opening the bottle, and (b) he doesn't even rinse out the cup before putting in a perfectly good bottle of red wine!! ack!)

Quote of the day

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's own, or real life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's real life is a phantom of one's own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it's hard to remember it all the time.

- C. S. Lewis

(via whiskey river)

Just what the doctor ordered

Do a lot of tech support for your parents? Google has put together a little selection of step-by-step videos for some commonly tricky tasks that you can send as an email care package to help empower the struggling user. Brilliant.

(via FreeRangeKids)

That makes sense

I had wondered why violence didn't really erupt in Egypt until after Mubarak promised to step down -- sour grapes? an attempt to get a do-over? TPM offers the likely explanation that this is about positioning for the aftermath. Probably if we knew a bit more about the players, we'd know who was benefitting from the conflict, politically or tactically or whatever...

Link dump II: Cheerful and/or interesting

And hey! I had more of these than of the grumpy kind!

• The 10 weirdest physics facts, from relativity to quantum physics
  
  
• Ten Weirdest New Animals of 2010: [National Geographic] Editors' Picks -- why let physics have all the fun?
  
  
• The Truth Wears Off -- Is there something wrong with the scientific method? Talk about weird!! (!!)
  
  
• Leave Your Tasks Unfinished to Maintain Momentum and Avoid Mental Blocks -- counterintuitive at first glance, but spiff!
  
  
• The prettiest woodpile I've ever seen -- neat.
  
  
• The Human Incubator -- human contact can trump high technology.
  
  
• Turbine-free wind power -- a neat alternative in development
  
  
• Poetic sensitivities -- the limits of perception expressed in everyday terms (accidental poetry).
  
  
• Senate Passes 9/11 First Responders Health Care Bill -- ok, this was a while ago, but good to celebrate rare shows of sanity.
  
  
• Now We're Talking -- the argument you never hear: why the retirement age should be lowered, not raised. Atrios echoes and extends the idea here.
  
  
• Also too rarely seen: Muslim and Christian, Egyptians stand together against violence (this is before the current political unrest)
  
  
• Also uplifting: A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
  
  
• Don't Touch My Junk! Jesse Ventura Sues The TSA -- he might be just the guy to press this issue.
  
  
• Another dumb idea gets its comeuppance: Dubai's artificial islands "sinking"
  
  
• Totally inspired (and addictive) resource: Wikipedia's List of common misconceptions, from sports to religion and everything else.
  
  
• The Unspeakable, in Its Jammies -- how we deal with difficult language in literature (as in the recent Huck Finn controversy), and a touching account of discussing the matter with kids.
  
  
• Chop, Fry, Boil: Eating for One, or 6 Billion -- three basic approaches to cooking can do everything you need.
  
  
• Characters from The Wire broken down by appropriate D&D alignment -- soooo right.
  
  
• Brimming with Holiday Spirit -- Tom Tomorrow gets to the heart of why worry about Assaults on the Holidays are absurd...
  
  
• The Fun Theory -- can making things fun help people do the right thing? Dunno, but these little demonstrations make me pretty happy.
  
  
• My Blackberry is not working -- pure British sketch silliness.
  

Look out! Link dump!

Just too many tabs, languishing at the top of the screen forgotten. Just barely feeding this blog these days, as with so much else in my life... First installment is from the Grumpy files: latest outrages, ongoing woes, etc.

• The Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics -- magical thinking explains a lot of counterproductive behavior by our leaders, especially with regard to unwinnable conflicts.
  
  
• Alan Grayson CALLS OUT Obama's Blue Dog Only Cabinet -- I'm sure all the recent corporate additions have really improved the range of ideas coming in...
  
  
• Top Wisconsin Court Ok's Putting Non-Sex-Offenders on Sex Offender Registry -- there's no tool for depriving folks of rights that we can't gleefully spread in ever wider directions.
  
  
• "Politically Correct": The Lazy Bully's Label of Choice

  In short, any move to be more inclusive in extending consideration or respect, anything that challenges the comfortable world in which certain people quietly maintain their privileged status, may be met with a roll of the eyes and a sarcastic "Oops. I forgot we have to be politically correct here …"

  Comes up again and again.
  
  
• The Stupid, It Burns -- gender policing: it's always in fashion!!
  
  
• Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet "Kill Switch" -- I don't want any one person to be able to turn off the Internet/free speech/internal communications. Is this really a serious proposal?!?
  
  
• Heritage Asks Issa To Reverse Decades Of Worker, Consumer, Environmental Laws -- so excited about this new GOP majority!
  
  
• Math and Economics Are Hard! -- like "reducing the deficit," "increasing productivity" is something that might not be a good goal during a serious downturn like ours. Too bad that those in charge of the recovery don't seem to understand that (among other things)!
  

Late pebbles

Snow and exhaustion continue to dog the start of my year, make the weeks hard to imagine and the time fly jumpily. Intermittant blogging and even more intermittant observation, I fear.

Day 27

from around the manhole cover
steam rises in pulses
as though beneath the sidewalk
a dragon sleeps...

Day 28

the street untouched
in inch-deep snow --
almost loath
to leave my doorstep
and mark my passing

Day 29

The bushes are flattened as though a giant had sat on them --
some bounce back once freed from their heavy loads of snow,
but others still hang low, limbs broken or bent for good.
So winter leaves its mark on us all.

Things that surprise me

Two developments in the legal world that ingrigue/perplex/amaze me, in various ways:

• Common Cause asks DOJ to look into Scalia + Thomas misconduct in Citizens United Case -- apparently there's some basis for saying that the two should have recused themselves. No idea whether anything will come of this, but the CU case is so chilling that one looks for any hope of warmth...


• Rahm Emanuel booted off ballot in 2-1 Appellate Court decision -- it's something to do with residency, and whether he's a resident of Chicago just because he didn't sell his house there. Josh Marshall says that usually there's an exception for federal service, but again, no idea whether he'll have luck with an appeal here. Or who else might be running that would make a better next king of Chicago.

Icy pebbles

Day 22

amid the romping dogs
motionless forms of their huddled owners

Day 23

Catching the wind for an instant
the leaf jerks forward
like a nervous iguana
across the snow

Day 24

In the subway station, the man on the stairs behind me sings, "I'll catch the next one" in the sing-song usually reserved for mocking (naah naah...), but softly. Is he defying the Fates?

Tuesday baby-blogging: It's fun to be a toddler!

Here are some wacky out-takes from recent Speck silliness, to help perk up a cold and groggy day...


Why NOT wear shoes as mittens?!?


A little nose-picking mischief from a couple of months ago,
while playing with (horrified) Gammy...


Teddybears make great underwear models!

Quote of the day

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an
injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are
aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons,
especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.

- Thomas Szasz,
author, professor of psychiatry (1920- )

(via A.W.A.D.)

Gathering no moss (Small stones, Day 21)

For no apparent reason this morning, flashes of recall of two grandmothers. Me set up with a snack tray on the screened-in porch while she mends and he reads the paper; the magic of a musty drawer full of things collected to fuel my imaginings. A cup of tea for three generations of ladies, discussing books; her amazement at the prowess of my generation with all things. Two grandmothers who in different ways made me feel capable of anything, interesting, followed with admiration.

Impossible to know what pebbles catch as the river flows by. What will my daughter recall of our house and its ways, of her grandparents, or any of the rest? How will she be polished?

Now here's a proposal I can get behind

We need more mockery and drinking games, honestly. Because taking politics seriously is driving me to drink....

Nomorum

Ah, Rick Santorum, just an endless source of head-smacking quotes. If only I could find it funny...

Loose pebbles

Have gotten a little away from this project, but here are some efforts from the last week...

Day 12

the short path of snowflakes
under a streetlight ---
evening hush

Day 15

the open expanse of an empty desk: inviting or bleak, depending on one's mood...

Day 17

the birch and dogwood
fused by ice
where their branch tips touch

Day 18

my boots make a shush-crunch with every step
in the newly fallen slush

Belated post: MLK, still pushing our comfort zones

I liked this reminder that there's plenty of King that doesn't fit the homey dreamer image we'd like to encapsulate for his holiday, and plenty to challenge us to greater ambitions.

Are we really taking this thing seriously? 'All men are created equal.' And that means that every man who lives in a slum today is just as significant as John D., Nelson, or any other Rockefeller. Every man who lives in the slum is just as significant as Henry Ford.

Yeah, still doesn't feel like our operating principle....

Groggy Tuesday baby-blogging

A little frolic in the couch cushions for Speck on a cold and frosty afternoon (34 months old):


Speck defies all comers from her cushion fort!


A few minutes is all it takes to produce this
Blinded Me With Science static effect! hilarious.

Passing of an era

Today I deleted all my personal files from a computer I've had for some sixteen years and got it ready for Craig's List or donation. I've switched computers plenty of times through the years, but this was the only one that ever made me feel misty, and I even put off shutting it down for the last time.

It's not that I've had it pretty much as long as I've had The Internet (!!), or that I got it to write my Ph.D. thesis on (heh), or anything specific about the magic of the Mac Performa 5200 itself. Definitely part of it is that I started, grew, and finally passed on a publishing business conducted entirely on that system, a creative endeavor that I've gotten a bit distant from in the throes of parenthood. But even more, this was my last computer before a wave of technology cut me off, before USB ports made my peripherals obsolete and, even more, Apple's switch to a Unix base meant that my software and files couldn't be transferred to new machines. That means that for the first time I'm watching a large segment of my work and invested time get filed away in an essentially unreachable form -- there are Zip disks full of journal layouts, essays I wrote and correspondence I wanted to keep, scans and images and Christmas letters and who-knows-what that are now in practice paperweights.

I printed out some Supplement books for the new Acorn editor, in case she ever wants to republish any of them. I made sure I had clean copies of my two most important haiku theory essays. I played an ungodly number of games of that 1987 original Russian Tetris that has followed me to every computer since my very first (and that saw me through long stretches of 20-something angst and busy head). And then I shut it down and unplugged it. And moved on to other things.

More pebbles

Day 9

the bed so warm
when I crawl back in

Day 10

rushing back out with bread --
the sparrows already gone

Day 11

Morning light softens the city -- a haze of horizon pink reflects on edges of silver-blue skyscrapers, harmonizes the smudges of brick, calls to our forgiving natures...

Eliminationism, domestic violence, and responsibility

Have wanted to write something since Saturday, to rage at the right-wing machine that has been spewing violent language directed at liberals and Democrats for years (great summary from 2010 here) and then disavowing and link when crazies take them literally and hurt somebody. But most of that has probably already been said. How they can continue not to see their own role in fomenting terrorism amazes me, but there's plenty of precedent for such blindness, so it's unlikely to be cured now.

Anyway, a couple of folks have now written more cogent and in-depth reflections on these matters than I was likely to manage. There were two NYT pieces, one an editorial and one a Krugman piece, which are discussed in this DailyKos piece.

It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman's act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge.

The point that this language really comes exclusively from the right these days, despite the media's preference to talk about "the partisan divide" or "polarization on both sides" or whatever, is made very well in Gabrielle Giffords and the rightwing hate machine.

...The right’s messaging infrastructure, meticulously constructed and refined over decades, promotes an image of liberals as traitors and America-haters, unworthy of their country and bent on destroying it. There is simply no comparable propaganda effort on the left.

The imbalance is stark: Democrats and liberals rail against the right’s ideas; the right rails against the left’s very existence.

I noted some of this previously when gun-toters started showing up at Obama events and the like; not feeling much more chipper about it now...

Latest pebbles

Day 6

The old man moves his hands
in an energetic conversation
only he can hear.

Day 7

in a dim room
unsure of what woke me
until she cries again

Day 8

through my windows
snowflakes growing larger
silently

Vacuous well-wishing post

Have a great weekend, y'all! Here's some color and fun to carry you through...



Frogs and snakes Go Wild in the realm of Speck. (Actually, usually frogs spend a lot of time being put down for naps under toilet paper squares, or acting up and refusing to nap, but sometimes they take Adventure Outings too...)

Sorry ... what?

Arianna Huffington explains the benefits of sleep, even for perennially busy or fatally macho folks. That reminds me of some of my weekend plans...

More pebbles

Day 4

pink glow of morning over the rooftops --
black branches sharp against the blue

Day 5

a wordless smile
from the next person in line
at the library return box

Link dump: the rant-inducing subset

With minimal comment, given how long a stretch these have been collected over...

• The Cost of the Castle Doctrine -- PA wants to be among the states who shoot neighborhood kids
  
  
• U.S. College Degrees by County (a map) -- another reflection of the cultural and economic divide
  
  
• Republican fiscal hawks avoid Appropriations Committee like the plague -- it's easier to criticize than to do
  
  
• Antibiotic impasse: Resistant to progress -- if you're not scared about this, you're in denial
  
  
• A few TSA-related bits:
  
  
  
  1. Molecular biologist on the dangers of pornoscanners -- the TSA isn't worried about your health
     
     
  2. TSA has no regular testing system for its pornoscanners -- but they want you to trust them
     
     
  3. You Are No Longer Free To Move About the Country -- airport security is just the first step
     
     
  4. How our "security" obsession costs us -- our national life, not just our safety
  
  
• Paul Begala For DNC Chairman

  You can be on the side of angels without having to be cautious, indecisive, and paranoid all the time. The angels actually want you to be scrappy and assertive.

• Our Meth House -- a couple's dream home turns out to be uninhabitable
  
  
• In a Sign of Foreclosure Flaws, Suits Claim Break-Ins by Banks -- the amount of outright theft seems to be increasing
  
  
• Poll: 92% of Young Afghan Men Don’t Know about 9/11 Attacks -- what can we possibly achieve over there?!
  
  
• Memo to the media: They’re called “obstructionists” -- the watchdogs are asleep...
  
  
• Media Pay Insufficient Attention To Unemployment While Obsessing Over Deficits, Taxes
  
  
• Top Democrat Identifies Another Threat To Social Security In Obama Tax Plan -- oh well....
  
  
• We Wouldn’t -- want to think about the atrocities now commonly committed in our names, that is
  
  
• White House order would normalize under Obama "indefinite detention" introduced under Bush -- why are Democrats frustrated with Obama, again?
  
  
• The Myth of Pink and Blue Brains

  In the past 15 years, claims about hardwired differences between boys and girls have propagated virally, with no genuine neuroscientific justification. In reality, culture, attitudes, and practices influence boy-girl academic gaps far more than prenatal testosterone does. The sooner teachers open their eyes to such influences, the sooner we can bring out the best in every child.

• The Different Costs of Motherhood -- it's a bigger blow at the top of the economic spectrum

Something new: A river of stones

Am going to try joining this project, which encourages the observation and recording of one sharply observed moment (small stone) per day for the month of January. Don't know if I'll manage either to record or blog them every day, but will do my best -- a good start to the year and maybe a way of finding my way back to my haiku self too.

Day 1

How gently she covers each snowball with a blanket of loose snow. Whiteness against green and brown.

Day 2

Smaller somehow
the newly bare Christmas tree

Day 3

The cat arches into my hand,
then steps away

Snowstorm baby-blogging

Speck was greatly delighted by the snowstorm that hit our area after Christmas, and insisted on going out to play several times per day for as long as the snow persisted. We got about a foot, so there was plenty of fodder for shoveling, making footprints, or just sitting down in a drift (with several changes of pants and mittens along the way)...


For some reason, Speck's first focus is always on brushing off the car.


Eventually the joy of pure frolic took over...


Finally, checking whether the sidewalk in front of the gardens needs attention.

She's a little deflated that all that snow has melted away -- although warm weather did mean a trip to the playground over this past weekend, complete with carrying remnants of snow hither and thither and "hiding" snowballs at the base of trees. There are a few flakes on next week's forecast, so who knows!

Quote of the day: Happy New Year edition

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

- C.S. Lewis

(via the CSLewisDaily Twitter feed)

Gritting my teeth

Our society really has some crazy mental blockages when it comes to physical integrity and what constitutes rape. I really can't improve on this explication at Feministe, which might have introduced the definitive simile to help the slow-witted with this one.

(via Medley)

Quote of the day

All points are starting points.

- Hugh MacLeod
(gapingvoid online)

(via Nowthis)

Give a little, get a little

It's hard not to sympathize with this everybody's an idiot view of our multifaceted forced interactions living in a city. But I think it's better to turn it on its head. Ever been a pedestrian? then maybe you can be a bit forgiving when you're out driving, and let the frozen foot-commuter have right of way at an intersection (which, you know, he's supposed to have anyway). Ever driven in Philly streets? then maybe you can be a bit understanding, as a bike, of the visibility limitations where there aren't bike lanes, and of the frustrations that drivers feel watching you sail through red lights. Ever been stuck in any traffic situation not of your own making? then maybe you can lay off that horn or take a pass on flipping the bird -- there's almost always a reason for the tangle, and you're unlikely to help by getting steamed.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled mid-holiday rants.

The best of Christmas to you and yours

Here's a wonderful reflection on the wonder and layered memories of Christmas, something we can all hope to find at the turn of the year.

may the smallest most tender
memories of Christmas
tie our hearts to both seen and unseen miracles.

Indeed. Here's wishing you whatever whiff of pine or line of song helps you find your way there.

(via A Mindful Life)

Quote of the day *

All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with;
all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong,
or deny to be possible.

- George Santayana,
philosopher (1863-1952)

(via A.W.A.D.)

To Speck at 32ish months (written a bit late)

The last few months have seen the continued emergence of your independent self, more distinct in its tastes and more feisty in its demands. For the first time, you're willing to play by yourself for stretches of time; you'd still like a spectator, but you're willing to build structures for your frogs yourself and narrate their activities. You've also mastered a host of new skills, from jumping with two feet (still an iffy proposition) and pedaling your trike (a stretch) to blowing your nose (a fall cold made you a real expert). You can come along to a few restaurants and eat off the menu right with us, all nonchalant with your fork and cup. And you now lie next to your heap of sleep friends, rather than on top of them, and have even taken to using a pillow at night -- just like real folks! hah.

Your grasp of language also continues to deepen. Many times the awareness of this comes as a surprise to your parents, as you recite a stretch of a favorite book ("A cautionary tale in five chapters"), show interest in every occurrence of a particular word (e.g., pointing to every "up" on a page), or correct us when we deviate in the slightest way from the wording of a library book we've only had for a week or two. Other times, it seems a natural extension of your existing interests -- for example, you love to give naturalist lectures based on the book of North American birds (with special attention to the "gaberhorn" category that you invented), jumbling together facts and phrases from all kinds of sources. You're also starting to play with language a bit, making up your own exclamations ("seds!") and playing with nonsense sounds, much to your own amusement. You're also a sponge for idiom, and sometimes leave acquaintances agog when you come out with some ornamented turn of phrase they absolutely weren't expecting from a toddler. (Luckily, to date, nothing profane or embarrassing to parents, at least as far as we know.)

We've also really experienced some of the legendary "terrible two" behavior -- opposition, whining, biting. Amusingly, this sometimes comes with self-narration ("I'm falling to part!"), but it's often exhausting and frustrating to all concerned. Luckily, long stretches of grumpiness are usually interleaved with multiple days of basic cheeriness, giving us a reprieve and a chance to enjoy each other's company again. So I suspect we'll muddle through.



One source of some excitement this fall was your debut in nursery school. First our top preschool pushed us to start you earlier than we planned, and then our initial "warm-up" visits there left us with a bad feeling about its excessive structure (and/or waiting-around time). A panicked scramble landed us in a much mellower place, and you, for your part, seemed completely untraumatized by the prospect of going to school (perhaps due to much advance reading of "Llama Llama Misses Mama"?) -- you were excited by your new lunchbox, happy about the little games and rituals of the day, and even motivated to take your nap at school like the other kids (certainly a lot sooner than we had expected!). A lot of our insights into your day come from new games that the frogs play -- from circle time with the guitar guy, to nap time with blankies and teddy bears -- and from your pride in understanding more about the calendar and the days of the week. But you also call it your "fun class," so I guess it's a winner on the most important front of all.

So there you are! We're preparing for an exciting week of Christmas, with a heap of grandparents on hand, and the next time I write to you will be after you turn three! You're growing like a weed and getting busier every day, so I just hope we can keep up with you in the months ahead! Can't wait to find out.

Post-racial THIS!

We surely don't live in 1960 anymore, but those who argue that America is in a post-racial era are self-deluded (and probably speaking from a position of oblivious privilege). Here are just a couple of examples of the way in which racist bias permeates our culture and constrains the options of minority individuals:

1. Cupcakes With a Side of Racism!
   
   
2. Why Barack Won’t Get Angry

I look forward to a day when Otherness is not noteworthy, and when individual performance/behavior isn't appraised differently when given different racial or gender contexts. But that time has not yet come, and we've got some work to do.

Wow, this weekend was a busy one!

Score another one for lame-duck sanity. Amazing! I guess rich people must eat too, or the GOP would have found a principle on which to oppose this...

(via a Medley retweet)

Amen

I look forward to seeing President Obama sign this one. Long overdue -- one form of sacrifice is enough for any American!



Update: worth watching the video here, which summarizes the history of DADT debate and gives some live reactions. Teary stuff.

Link dump: Parenting edition

This is several weeks of interesting links, in the short window of free time before my office party begins... enjoy!

• Parents are trending away from picture books for children, rushing their preschoolers and kindergarteners into "chapter books" and other more text-reliant forms. This is a loss for booksellers and the world of talented illustrators, but also for children, who continue to benefit richly from the interpretive power of images as they learn to read and understand the world, well into their elementary school years. Plus, there are some favorites it would be tragic to stop revisiting...
  
  
• Gordon of Real Live Preacher shares some insights into the need of couples to keep track of one another's needs, especially when the stresses of child-rearing are at their worst. Important advice.
  
  
• Catherine of Her Bad Mother shares the Bad Mother Manifesto, a wonderful reflection of the doubts and convictions that guide anybody trying to parent in a thoughtful way. I especially like this part:

  I reject entirely the idea that there can be any community consensus about what – beyond the provision of love and care – constitutes a good mother. I reject entirely the idea that we can or should judge each other as mothers, beyond the obvious and most basic standards of care, and even then, I reject entirely the idea that any one of us is so perfect that she could throw the first stone without hesitation.

  Amen. We all have aspirations, and we all sometimes just have to Get Through the Day. Nobody's perfect.
  
  
• Cory Doctorow gives a glimpse into his family life and offers suggestions on how to use the computer/Internet with children in ways that facilitation exploration and play, rather than becoming the mesmerizing Root of Evil that so many fear. It feels about right.
  
  
• Here's an argument for raising your kids in the city rather than moving to the typical house in the suburbs, for a mix of reasons from the environmental to the feeling of community (yes, really!).
  
  
• Bullying has gotten a lot of coverage recently, from schoolyard heckling to college suicides. The really amazing news is that preventing the crushing effects of being bullied takes only the tiniest intervention -- just one adult who believes and stands behind the bullied student. This could be you, saving a life!
  
  
• Finally, in a wonderful counter to the frenzied concern of many parents with stuffing their young children full of letters and numbers, this essay: What Should a 4-Year-Old Know? Just as important are the tips to parents about what doesn't matter at all.

May all your hearths be warm, and all your holiday prospects cheery.

So close...

I gotta say, this one is a nail-biter. I thought repeal of DADT was dead for some long time, now it seems possible, and yet.. and yet...

Here's hoping!

Farewell to fall (baby-blogging)

No snow in sight, but it's bitterly cold around Philadelphia and I'm already tired of winter. In a hopeless attempt to stave it off, here are a few last photos from a fall playground visit with Speck about 6 weeks ago (32mo old):


A first realization that fences can be good climbing fodder too!


This year's best leaf-pile!


The rare playground hobby horse brings out Speck's wild side...

Hear, hear!

And yet, one supposes that Washington will not hear... Thanks for trying, Holbrook, although your case might have been stronger made in person on the airwaves!

Too true...

Remind me again why Tom Tomorrow is funny?
Sigh.

Picking a hat

Sounds like Obama has come out as a pragmatist, once and for all. Sorry, progressives -- better luck with your next flag-bearer! (And when was that last one again?)

Link dump: Interesting and cheerful edition

Apparently my ability to blog is a bit broken. Or at least constipated, to judge from all the tabs I pile up with good intentions. Anyway, enough with the grumpy! Let's have some cheeful and interesting stuff from the last week or two!

• Purely uplifting (whether silly or sublime):
  
  
  1. If only we had Photoshop for the world around us, imagine how we could fix things! heh.
     
     
  2. Remember that campaign "It Gets Better"? Here's how you can make sure that happens. Always good to be reminded of little things you can do right around you.
     
     
  3. While you're at it, save your slivers of soap to help prevent disease around the world.
     
     
  4. Pentagon study: Gays could serve with no harm. Seems clear to me, but I didn't expect such a clear response, nor such a clear call to action to follow.
     
     
  5. Yay! Evidence that some hospitals, at least, are putting recent infection-prevention results into practice. Cultural change is slow, but this stuff is critical, before we're all overrun with drug-resistant bugs!
  
  
• Fascinating:
  
  
  1. Top 20 miscroscope photos of 2010 -- gorgeous as design, interesting as science.
     
     
  2. A chat with the first autistic Presidential appointee (to the National Council on Disability) reveals some interesting differences of perspective on how to deal with autistic folks in particular and the disabled in general.
     
     
  3. 311 service works -- not only on specific problems, but helping to identify wider neighborhood issues, seasonal patterns, and other things that help cities run themselves.
     
     
  4. A translation of the Lord's Prayer from the Arameic that may not sound that familiar -- some real insights there into what Jesus may have been all about!

     Create in me a divine cooperation: from
     many selves, one voice, one action.

  5. Also mind-blowing: evidence that what we're *about to experience* affects us now. Can we see the future? (or are our scientific methods really flawed?)
     
     
  6. Man makes a functional and beautiful living space in absolutely tiny outside dimensions, giving hope that we could live smarter and more economically without feeling caged...
  
  
• Laced with schadenfreude:
  
  
  1. House Dems press GOP reps to abandon their federal health benefits based on the same principles underlying their opposition to health care reform.
     
     
  2. So, when did you choose to be straight? You know, if it's a choice?
     
     
  3. The Onion: 20,000 Sacrificed In Annual Blood Offering To Corporate America (seems like more over the last couple of years...)
     
     
  
  

Nutshell

Bruce Schneier get to the essence of what frustrates me most about the TSA absurdities -- it's not the specific threat of humiliation while going through screening, it's the further evidence that our government is willing to vastly curtail our freedoms (and much of the way we visualize our way of life) in the name of defending us.

An empty Washington Monument would serve as a constant reminder to those on Capitol Hill that they are afraid of the terrorists and what they could do. They're afraid that by speaking honestly about the impossibility of attaining absolute security or the inevitability of terrorism -- or that some American ideals are worth maintaining even in the face of adversity -- they will be branded as "soft on terror." And they're afraid that Americans would vote them out of office if another attack occurred. Perhaps they're right, but what has happened to leaders who aren't afraid? What has happened to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"?

Nobody's going to close the Washington Monument to make a point, but is it too much to hope that there's still time for sanity to return, and for discussions to get beyond the hysterical?

(via Medley)

Poem of the day

You Learn

After a while you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises,
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes open
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
and you learn to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure.
That you really are strong.
And you really do have worth.
And you learn. And learn.
With every good-bye you learn.

- Jorge Luis Borges Veronica Shoffstall

(via whiskey river)

So much to do, say, think about!

Just have to post a couple of these recent Speck videos that I stayed up too late last night editing. A glimpse into the free-range narrator and explainer that she's turned into in the last couple of months.


"Reading" a cookbook, with reference to cooking and... bug identification? heh.
This one is a bit long, but I couldn't really shave it more (although I did clip some digressions into another video). [from August, 30 months]


Playing with balloons, which apparently need "puffing" before they're ready for the public.
[from October, 32 months]