tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34435482011-10-10T15:10:44.926-04:00Non Sequitur Filethat reminds me ...mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.comBlogger551100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-25046236250948575362011-08-24T12:20:00.000-04:002011-08-24T12:20:03.709-04:00this is a post where every paragraph begins with "so". but it's about the earthquake.So here's the thing. While the earthquake wasn't frightening to me personally, I am quite capable of recognizing that this was because (a) (mainly) I was busy being baffled almost until it was over and (b) I work in a one-story building that is designed to be Quite Sturdy in ways I shouldn't say much more about. But the fact remains that here in Washington - on the east coast in general, in fact mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-82172807322805429812011-07-29T20:25:00.002-04:002011-09-04T18:18:32.227-04:00stratford festival 201122 July: BWI-BUF
Should have realized vacation was off to inauspicious start when Long-Term Parking A was closed. Parked in B just as bus pulled up, but wouldn't stop for me - 'you have to go to the bus stop', said the driver, who then went to the bus stop but pulled away before I could get there. Waited 10 minutes for next bus to come to that stop, though two came & went without passing my mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-69280043781814034262011-01-12T15:58:00.000-05:002011-01-12T15:58:38.186-05:00fuming, seething, spitting nails, etc.Copied and pasted from the Facebooks, mainly.
So look. I know we're meant to avoid ascribing to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity, so it would be charitable (to say the least) to conclude that Sarah Palin and/or her speechwriters and other handlers had heard the phrase "blood libel" at some point and drawn a couple of conclusions about what it seems to mean, and used it in mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-56322321896681655682011-01-06T11:29:00.008-05:002011-01-06T12:20:28.059-05:00i'm learning things i didn't want to knowI was at L's for New Year's last weekend, and in amongst everything else, she made me watch Chess.
To clarify for those of you not in this particular know: Chess is a musical in the rock-opera style with tunes by Benny and Bjorn of ABBA and lyrics by Tim Rice. It concerns the Cold War, a woman torn between two men (sort of), a man torn between two countries, and the whole business played out mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-49567813119276795652010-08-26T23:59:00.000-04:002010-08-29T17:25:06.832-04:00except it's played in theatres that I get very weary inPacking out now, and will have to find something to do with myself between leaving the B&B and going in for The Winter's Tale. In the lobby on Tuesday afternoon an usher approached me with an economic impact survey, so I've spent the last few minutes collating my receipts, and good grief I've spent a lot of money on the past few days. But on the other hand, I am on vacation, and as week-long mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-13184384979264748532010-08-25T23:59:00.002-04:002010-10-21T09:38:36.134-04:00but I did find the yarn shop.The trouble with this town is that it takes less than one day to exhaust everything there is to do that isn't live theatre. (It may take a little longer if you throw in the various tours they run - backstage, costume warehouse, and so on. I've done these, and they don't change.) There are two streets with shops on them. The most determined shopper can go out after breakfast and only be done mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-42301547511556094472010-08-24T23:59:00.000-04:002010-08-28T09:15:58.289-04:00not forgetting the Ontario Pork CongressFound town of Stratford much as I had left it. Am booked into single room in B&B, to be honest only slightly larger than the room I grew up in - which tells you how small my room is at my parents' house, really.
Two plays today. In the afternoon it was The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which I'd never seen, in the Studio Theatre, where I'd never been. I liked them both very much. The older I get mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-58218219319627435492010-08-18T14:52:00.002-04:002010-08-18T14:52:59.761-04:00dear everyoneAD NAUSEAM.
Really. "Ad nauseum" is wrong. It really is. This is not a matter, for once, of getting too prescriptive for one's own good, or usage determining correctness, or anything like that, because Latin? is not a living language. *AD NAUSEUM. AD NAUSEAM. I swear I'm not lying to you.
This has been brought to you by YET ANOTHER professionally-published article with "ad nauseum" in mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-20759304889768194912010-08-14T07:35:00.000-04:002010-08-14T07:35:51.423-04:00post hocMy apartment has many outlets and switches, of course, and thus many fuses. But these seem to be divided into two zones. The northern zone includes both bedrooms and half the living room; the southern zone includes the rest of the living room and "dining room" and the kitchen. Last night the power came back on in the northern zone, and only halfway or so in the southern zone. I unplugged the mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-2030009615824538522010-08-12T18:39:00.001-04:002010-08-13T10:48:31.389-04:00pepco had the gall to send me a bill today.Oh, let me tell you about my summer.
Three weeks ago Sunday, there was a forecast for a storm to come in, with a tornado warning. About 3:00 in the afternoon, the winds picked up a bit; and then the power went out; and then it rained like hell, with the dark sky and the blowing leaves and everything. That night I stayed in my own apartment (as did my house guest, who was on his way to take themkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-87557438876600680482009-09-23T00:36:00.006-04:002010-08-28T00:22:13.100-04:00me and the Stratford FestivalMy usual Stratford companion, C, and I disagreed in the car on Sunday about a couple of points in our shared history -- specifically, whether she had been with me when I saw The Two Noble Kinsmen (I said yes, she said no) and whether I had ever seen Titus Andronicus (she said yes, I said no). So this evening I looked in the Archival Box O Programs to research the matter -- I was right on both mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-62535387795349906702009-08-21T16:09:00.001-04:002009-08-21T16:09:36.355-04:00as we reckon timeHere's a story some of you will like.My father's parents were married in 1944 (So were my mother's parents, as it happens, but this is not a story about them.), on September 10.Along about the early 90's, my grandmother started thinking about what kind of party she was going to make for their 50th anniversary. There's a picture in the album of her parents' golden wedding party, and although she mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-54572877849525911152009-04-15T16:12:00.003-04:002009-04-15T16:19:58.935-04:00hold on to your cheerios for a sec.So I finally watched the Susan Boyle clip.Background, for those of you under whose rocks the news has not yet managed to creep: Britain's Got Talent is a reality-TV talent show in which aspirants who have sufficiently impressed some unseen producers (positively or negatively, one imagines) perform for a three-judge panel, including the famously acid-snarked Simon Cowell (not, not, not to be mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-3676461755824293092008-11-07T10:32:00.004-05:002009-04-16T22:49:34.293-04:00how to build a cathedralHere is an excerpt from an essay I remember reading as a teenager:The experience with the Driving Master emphasizes the profound truth of of an old story. If you don't know it, it's time you heard it. If you know it, you ought to hear it again once in a while.The story says that a traveler from Italy came to the French town of Chartres to see the great church that was being built there. mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-27254105631688938182007-09-09T23:58:00.001-04:002007-09-09T23:58:57.821-04:00it's a shame i don't work in advertisingYou know the Viagra commercial where a bunch of guys are singing "Viva Las Vegas"?I don't buy it. (I mean, obviously I don't buy Viagra. But.) I don't believe that a middle-aged guy, much less five or six middle-aged guys, would be so pleased to have needed Viagra in the first place that they'd get together with their buddies and sing about it, and assuming it worked for all of them, I don't mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-88583142266415348232007-07-06T10:17:00.000-04:002007-07-06T10:24:08.581-04:00[ruminative subject line here]Yesterday morning, the sky was low and grey and made me think of England.It's not precisely fair, because in the summer in Oxford there were plenty of fine days, with clearer skies and lower humidity (sometimes) than we get here, but there it is. I'm sure it also has to do with the fact that the place has been on my mind lately, for a variety of reasons:Sunday was a year to the day since I came mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-54827272523926456722007-05-16T10:04:00.000-04:002007-05-16T10:27:07.245-04:00a free people should be free to eat cake.Is it wrong -- or, you know, uncomfortably right-wing; you say "tomato" -- of me to be kind of unhappy about the trans fat ban in Montgomery County?I mean, I don't disagree that trans fats are bad. So are a lot of things, right -- but whereas driving too fast (for example) endangers not just me but many, many other people, consuming trans fats is a one-victim arrangement, like wearing six-inch mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-48442811033561126792007-05-12T15:05:00.000-04:002007-05-13T13:53:03.908-04:00red rover, red rover, let jesus come overSo the president of the Evangelical Theological Society has resigned in order to (re)join the Catholic church.This has sent Christendom (or, you know, the evangelical community in the US -- I doubt a lot of the rest of the theological world cares much, but I really wanted to use the word "Christendom") into a tizzy. One professor at a seminary called it "a sad day for all the sons and daughters mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-34788840868681793382007-05-03T14:25:00.001-04:002008-11-07T12:44:47.281-05:00this'll be the part where it comes around, i think.Step 1: AutoAdmit, apparently originally a law-school-oriented message board, becomes a -- well, a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and not in the fun way where you might run into Harrison Ford in the pub. Racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and other unpleasant -isms get way out of hand, which is ugly; individual students are targeted and identified by full name, e-mail address, and home phone mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1176762157881267712007-04-16T18:19:00.000-04:002007-04-16T18:22:37.890-04:00virginia techGod, this just got worse and worse every time it came up today. I saw the story at about 9:15, and then an hour or so later my office-mate said "Oh my god, did you see there was a shooting at Tech", and by the time I got to my meeting at the other building the death toll had leaped from one (1) to twenty-two, which was previously the figure for also injured, and I thought, did all those injured mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1173798872903497462007-03-13T12:08:00.000-04:002007-03-13T12:18:06.446-04:00again with the stress patterns, see?Language Log points out (or, pointed out six months ago) that it's Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time. That is, it's a [period of time] designed for saving or conserving daylight. We might even spell it Daylight-Saving Time, which might persuade us to stress it on the "Daylight" rather than on the "saving", much as "Empire State Building" should be stressed on the first word rathermkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1173797872327022332007-03-13T11:56:00.000-04:002007-03-13T11:57:52.336-04:00memo to me: there is a blog.So, winter's been fun. I have a job now. Hurrah! Won't be talking much about it here, because, you know, sensitivity of details and whatnot. But, there it is. Anybody reading? Anybody miss me?mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1163655379414027052006-11-16T00:27:00.000-05:002006-11-16T00:36:19.436-05:00double check me - it's weird that we're behind South Africa now, right?So. Tuesday, the parliament of South Africa enacted a law making equal marriage rights available to all citizens. (South Africa. A week after the Commonwealth of Virginia, which was, shoot, at least a generation ahead of South Africa on the race-relations front, adopted a constitutional amendment that -- well, we all know what the amendment said. RAR.)Wednesday, the WaPo had a piece about howmkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1162236545456652072006-10-30T14:28:00.000-05:002006-10-30T14:29:05.466-05:00gallaudetDude. I wish I could get whatever I wanted by the simple means of pitching a well-publicized hissy fit.mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1158112687747335322006-09-12T21:49:00.000-04:002006-09-12T21:58:07.760-04:00i win.It's not a victory along the lines of getting Exactly The Right Job or anything, but still, I win.The trouble is, I'm completely, comprehensively, thoroughly employable, but I'm having some trouble getting the word out. I've spent the past week or so sending resumes all over town, applying for things through craigslist and USAJobs and the WaPo classifieds and so on, and registering with every mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1156088220467131732006-08-20T11:28:00.000-04:002006-08-20T11:37:00.476-04:00when motivation failsWhat I should be doing today: packing the rest of my possessions in relatively easy-to-carry bags, boxes, etc., and sorting all of That Which Is Packed into two groups, being (1) the stuff I can take with me in the car on Tuesday and (2) the stuff I will pack into the truck on Thursday or Friday. (At the furthest outside extreme, there may be a third group, which is (3) stuff I may have to mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1155702474294336062006-08-16T00:16:00.000-04:002006-08-16T00:27:54.306-04:00okay, let's try this again.Hey, five months is less than two and a half years. And in the five months since my post about the Oscars, I've written a thesis, lost a grandfather, taken comprehensive exams, traveled from England to Boston for the ten-day World Championships of Curling, traveled from the US to Dublin for a week-long tour with the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church (Oxford), left Oxford for keeps, and spent a mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1141868112899053382006-03-08T20:34:00.000-05:002006-03-09T06:56:35.923-05:00play (actually movie) o the yearI have one thing to say about the Oscars, and it is this:KIM: Women's ice hockey.JEREMY: You're kidding.KIM: The U.S. women's team won the first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey and there were over four thousand fans in the arena to see them do it.JEREMY: They beat a team of Slovakian cocktail waitresses, and there were over four thousand people at my cousin Jacob's bar mitzvah.ELLIOT (to mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1141692348852543872006-03-06T19:38:00.000-05:002006-03-06T19:45:48.896-05:00i wonder what it's like to have a career.Someday, I won't have to have job interviews anymore. (But it is not this day.) In the meantime, today I had two -- which, okay, bonus, in one case getting the interview reflected having passed one hurdle already. I could conceivably do both jobs, if I were offered them, and make some decent money over the summer, which would be good, because the way the dollar's been hanging out around 57p, mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1141239563515687242006-03-01T13:56:00.000-05:002006-03-01T13:59:23.526-05:00here's something fun.Where by 'fun' I mean 'gruesome'. From a former co-worker:In an elementary school in Montgomery County, MD, a five-year old girl was suspended for having "adult" sexual relations with 3-5 boys on the school playground during school hours. That is a horrifying enough tale, but it gets worse if you have remotely feminist tendencies. The punishment for the boys--NOTHING! So far, no talk of mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1139668355452976932006-02-11T09:32:00.000-05:002006-02-11T09:47:05.443-05:00The thing is this.What I've always wondered about the serious bloggers is, where on earth do they find the time? I mean, bloggers are by definition not journalists, right -- the fundamental difference is between the mainstream media (which I swear I've seen called 'MSM') and the 'blogosphere' -- (so, yes, I have a difficult time with 'blogs' like those hosted at washingtonpost.com, but that's probably a conundrummkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1139628708346162462006-02-10T22:17:00.000-05:002006-02-11T09:47:27.953-05:00So that went well.I see from my records that it's been a hundred (or, okay, two and close to a half) years since I updated this thing. It's really no longer the same thing, therefore, is it -- I ought to draw a line and say Right, starting over from here. (I have accomplished this by switching to a new template. Also I couldn't make the old one do what I wanted anymore.)At that time, fall '03, I was in the lastmkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-1062628705403179242003-09-03T18:38:00.000-04:002003-09-03T18:38:25.550-04:00BEEN A FUN TEN MONTHS, EH?
Not that I expect anyone is reading this, at this point. If I were you, I'd have given up on me a long time ago. But maybe I can begin to rebuild a readership.
The thing is, I don't have a lot to say about politics and world life and whatnot. Before, I was trying, but I was never really in it. I try to keep myself informed, and sometimes I have Strong Opinions, butmkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-838299052002-10-31T11:29:00.000-05:002002-10-31T11:29:08.256-05:00AND SHE'S BACK
Hit the ground running? Well, no. I'm at a slow jog now, and I'll try to pick up some speed and then merge. I was going to get back here a lot sooner, honest, but between schoolwork on the one hand and getting utterly pissed off at my conversational adversaries on the other (memo: don't deliberately avoid Fox's questions and pretend you didn't understand her -- it just makes mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-821236272002-09-25T21:48:00.000-04:002002-09-25T21:48:11.133-04:00POP QUIZ
How is American Dreams not The Wonder Years with more music?mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-817546302002-09-17T23:15:00.000-04:002002-09-25T21:48:53.000-04:00HOW _______ IS IT?
Here's a fun thing about languages. In English, we have suffixes for two degrees of superiority beyond the standard: -er for comparatives and -est for superlatives.
In Inuktitut, a language that has suffixes for (seriously) just about everything, there are six degrees of superiority beyond the standard (big): comparative (bigger), superlative (biggest), exclamative (very mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-771541462002-05-30T16:35:00.000-04:002002-05-30T16:37:23.000-04:00AETERNAM HABEANT REQUIEM
The cleaup operation in New York has ended, with about a thousand of the dead unidentified or unrecovered.
I was very fortunate to have lost no one on September 11. (The closest call was a friend from college who was saved because it was Tuesday, when he always goes to the gym in the morning and therefore doesn't get to work until 10.) And I can't imagine the heartachemkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-770386772002-05-27T18:26:00.000-04:002002-05-27T18:26:15.280-04:00SOON IT'S GONNA RAIN
I can hear the thunder. The pressure is giving me a splitting headache. It's totally exhausting. I wish the storm would just get here already.mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-768982242002-05-23T17:45:00.000-04:002002-05-23T17:49:08.000-04:00HEAR YE, HEAR YE
It's been a few days, but until now I haven't had time to look up the link where a jury convicted the murderer of two students at Gallaudet University. The Post article sounds like the prosecution had a pretty open-and-shut case (defense wants to appeal by challenging the judge's decision to allow letters from the defendant to his girlfriend? scuse me?), and I'm glad.
I took amkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-768701082002-05-23T00:22:00.000-04:002002-05-23T00:22:37.610-04:00REQUIESCAT IN PACE
Almost a month ago, I noted that Chandra Levy had been missing for a year. Now, of course, they've found her.
The stark truth is that it's not much of a surprise. But still, as I said then, there's a world of difference between suspicion and certainty. Her family shouldn't have had to suffer this particular pain for so long. A family shouldn't have to wait a year to bury mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-766763722002-05-17T19:30:00.000-04:002002-05-17T19:30:36.466-04:00THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Wow, is my neighbor's piano the most annoying thing ever, or what?
She doesn't play badly, but she doesn't play especially well. Last September was when I first started noticing it, and it was because for hours and hours and hours at a time, all she played was a sort of jazz-piano abstract "Battle Hymn of the Republic." It was a nice arrangement -- once. Played constantly, mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-766476342002-05-17T01:30:00.000-04:002002-05-17T01:30:57.450-04:00EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES
That.
Was.
Awesome. :-D
I'll have more to say tomorrow, I think; right now, I'm off to bed.mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-760258282002-04-30T23:18:00.000-04:002002-04-30T23:18:57.943-04:00KARMA, or, HOW TO DO IT RIGHT
The storm that hit La Plata, Maryland the other night was an F5 "finger of God" tornado. The damage is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, two people are dead, dozens more are injured -- this is the kind of thing you expect to see following a hurricane, which doesn't tend to happen this far north.
While the governor and everybody's been touring the destruction mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-760245202002-04-30T22:42:00.000-04:002002-04-30T22:42:41.150-04:00WHERE IN THE WORLD ...
is Chandra Levy?
Today it's a year since she disappeared. For several months the search for Chandra (and the corollary raking-over-the-coals of Rep. Gary Condit) was the lead item on every news show, every channel, every hour. Mostly the media checked in to let us know they didn't have any new information to report. It was becoming (becoming?) indecent -- and then the mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-758557162002-04-26T14:04:00.000-04:002002-04-26T19:57:53.000-04:00IDENTICAL TWINS JOIN CHRONICLE STAFF
Ongoing war in Israel, with two peoples' survival on the line.
Kid in Germany shoots up a school that houses children as young as ten. (Incidentally, why does the discussion of school shootings never include Dunblane, where before killing himself the shooter killed sixteen five- and six-year-olds and their teacher -- who had tried to shield them with her mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-758132202002-04-25T12:38:00.000-04:002002-04-25T12:44:37.000-04:00DOCUMENTING THE INNER CHILD
which children's storybook character are you?
this quiz was made by colleenmkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-757981602002-04-25T01:03:00.000-04:002002-04-25T01:31:32.000-04:00BUZZ WORD WATCH
I just saw two commercials in a row invoke the Declaration of Independence. First, an ad for The Neighborhood by MCI (some sort of phone service plan, the details of which were TV-typically vague) concluded with the promise "All words are created equal again;" the very next spot began, "All power toothbrushes are not created equal." And I'm prepared to bet all the change in my mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-755953222002-04-19T15:33:00.000-04:002002-04-19T15:33:36.336-04:00AND THE WATERS WERE UPON THE EARTH
Heh heh heh. Monday's rally (which I couldn't attend, alas) got nice weather. A little on the warm side, but no biggie.
Today the anti-World-Bank crowd rolls into town, along with the anti-Zionists and a variety of other misguided knuckleheads -- and half an hour ago, I tell you the skies just opened. It suddenly got very dark, the wind picked up, and the mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-755579772002-04-18T16:20:00.000-04:002002-04-19T00:23:25.000-04:00ROUGH WEEK FOR THE STATUE-DRAPER GENERAL
Boy, it must be tough being John Ashcroft these days. First the Supreme Court strikes down two subparagraphs of 18 U.S.C. 2256(8) (Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996), effectively decriminalizing virtual-child pornography* and the advertisement and redistribution thereof; then a federal judge in Oregon rules that physician-assisted suicide, twice mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-755526912002-04-18T13:45:00.000-04:002002-04-18T13:45:50.520-04:00GO, SENATE, GO
By a vote of 54-46, the Senate has rejected an amendment to the president's energy policy that would, if it had passed, have allowed drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. This has been a big, ugly issue since the 2000 campaigns began -- with the hostility in the middle east holding steady on "broil" these days, the fighting about oil is even worse.
But I don't think mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-754361402002-04-15T17:03:00.000-04:002002-04-15T17:03:34.000-04:00SITTING OUT THE ISRAEL-BASHING MARATHON
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, with members from 53 states, has adopted a resolution criticizing Israel's "violation" of human rights law and reiterating Palestine's right to "resist". (If you're Israel, are you going to take a how-to course on human rights issues from Bahrain? Libya? Sierra Leone? No, I thought not.)
However! There mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-753404472002-04-12T18:06:00.000-04:002002-04-12T18:06:02.516-04:00DON'T FORGET TO TIP YOUR WAITRESSES.
Why is it that restaurant waitstaff aren't paid a living wage?
One of the basic foundations of our society is equality. We have historically gone to great pains to promote the ideal that no class of citizen is inherently superior or more entitled than any other. (We're still, obviously, working on this.) We have no hereditary aristocracy, and social mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-753149822002-04-12T01:23:00.000-04:002002-04-12T02:53:07.000-04:00I SUPPOSE I SHOULD TALK ABOUT ISRAEL.
For the record: I am absolutely in favor of a State of Palestine. I do not wish any anti-Zionist to misunderstand me on this point. The ideals of self-governance and the ancestral homeland are as important to the Palestinians as they are to the Israelis, and I believe that some sort of co-existence is the right solution.
The trouble is that the damn PLO mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-752959072002-04-11T15:54:00.000-04:002002-04-11T17:59:12.000-04:00OPEN LETTER TO OLD BATS ON METRO THIS A.M.
Three different people offered their seats to the woman with the four-footed cane, and she politely declined each. Mind your own damned business. Sincerely, your fellow-commuters.
Age of woman with four-footed cane: probably early 40's.
Age of people in seats designated "Priority seating for elderly and passengers with disabilities: various, from mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3443548.post-752774062002-04-11T02:35:00.000-04:002002-04-11T03:02:36.000-04:00GOOD MORNING.
This is my inaugural post. In the future, I'll have more to say. (I'm more of a thinker than a linker, but who knows -- that could change.) Sit tight. I'll be back.
mkfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18308208688529170826noreply@blogger.com0