Roses Supposes

For all of you who don’t follow Twitter obsessively, let me share Stephen Fry’s New Years’ Eve wish:

Utter sodden happy lunatic inebriated madness hug to everyone xxx

A little bit ago, I had a conversation on the blog with a vegan about the treatment of animals. This recent NY Times piece about the way plants sense and respond to the world is an interesting challenge to the vegan critique of killing animals.

I really like this quote from a NY Times Magazine article entitled “Married (Happily) With Issues”

The goal is mental health, defined as the fortitude and flexibility to live one’s own life — not happiness. This is a crucial distinction. Similarly the “good-enough marriage” is characterized by its capacity to allow spouses to keep growing, to afford them the strength and bravery required to face the world.

I just posted this on FB in response to a friend’s comment that

“There is a disappearance of the faces of the animals when we buy the meat in the stores. The consumer does not know the name of the animal, its family or if it had one, and if it had feelings.”

and thought you might be interested:

Personally, I don’t think that killing and eating animals is the problem, in part because we all die and our bodies feed the earth (especially if we don’t embalm ourselves into the next millennium). The problem for me is when animals are treated so cruelly during the few years that they do live. I don’t know what the solution is, b/c right now we … See Moredon’t have the resources to feed people on free range chickens and cows.

I try to “eat food, mostly vegetables, not too much.” I only eat meat once every few meals, and then if I’m making it (which is much of the time) try to get free range and organic (and usually chicken)…it’s a tiny drop in the bucket and doesn’t seem like enough (esp when we lost income and I dropped the organic milk, though not the free range chicken and eggs).

The latest Radio Lab is awesome. An hour devoted to number–how we come to understand integers (we are naturally logarithmic, they argue), the importance of numbers, and how numbers can relate to relationships.

My friend group and I have discussed the Pirahã, an Amazon tribe that does not have numbers, nor the past tense, nor subordinate clauses. They make a brief showing in the podcast towards the beginning, if you’re interested.

Updated: I added the link the New Yorker story that originally got us interested in the Pirahã. I didn’t realize how much attention this post would get after a link appeared on the Radio Lab blog. I wish some of those visiting would leave their impressions of the show in the comments. Especially if anybody has their own Paul Erdisch number.

Check out this sweet description of how a mother learned from her son about self confidence.

At that morning’s drop-off, my confidence in Sam moved up a notch when he announced to his teacher, “Look at my pretty dress! No one is allowed to make fun of me.”

After school, Sam beamed as he reported that his teachers had said they liked his dress, and the other 4-year-olds had said he looked pretty. But the kids in the 5-year-old class had teased him and told him that he was “girly,” that “boys can’t wear dresses,” and that he “must not be a boy.”

“What did you say back?” I asked, hiding my trepidation behind an encouraging smile.

“I said, ‘Don’t make fun of me! I can be a boy and wear a dress, because it is my choice!’”

AND the way another parent reacted:

And how did I feel about the experiment? Well, next week is tie-dye week at school. The class parent in charge of ordering the clothes (T-shirts for the boys, dresses for the girls) called to ask if I wanted a T-shirt or a dress for Sam. Touched by her thoughtfulness, I thought I would give Sam the same consideration she had, so I let him decide.

It looks like there will soon be two dresses in Sam’s closet.

Exhausted, but ready to print out draft tomorrow. There are many sections I didn’t re-read, but it’s the principle of the thing. I finished the draft by the middle of October. Of course I will have a ton of edits to do, but right now I’m going to enjoy this feeling of accomplishment. Well, really all I’m feeling right now is exhausted.

This is a really thought-provoking criticism of current network tv patterns. We watch a lot of network tv in our house–because it’s on the internet and we don’t have cable, so I’ve seen all these shows. The current ouvre of geeky-smart male leads with quirky humor attracts E, and sometimes me. And some thing’s twitched in the back of my mind about the gender dynamic, but I hadn’t thought it through. This post does an excellent job. A taste:

In effect, father and daughter replace husband and wife, offering a new couple that gets rids of the sort of things that make trouble in a real heterosexual marriage, particularly in the wake of feminism   Without a female authority figure at home (Mom), we get a family that boils down to the big sexy in-control male figure and amusingly willful yet ultimately sweet subordinate female figure.

…

For one thing, both Lie to Me and Castle belong to a larger pattern of shows that pair men who possess almost supernatural powers with feisty, street-smart professional women who are never quite able to best them.

…

we can now enjoy the sight of an ass-kicking woman (it helps if she’s beautiful, of course) without there being any real threat to male supremacy.

Read the original post. The argument works best in whole.

The summer is over and the fall begins. I finally got to talk to my prof yesterday and we talked about timeline. What it breaks down to is one hell of a September:

–finish draft (I have three more chapters planned)

–write conference paper (end of September)

–start job apps (at least one is due mid-September)

–finish Michelle Obama encyclopedia article

I’ve been having computer and internet problems, so I haven’t posted much. Yesterday I thought about posting a dark comment about how the depression never seems to go away. But the internet was done.

Then good friends came over and we had a picnic outside in perfect weather, talked for a long time, played volleyball, and watched an episode of my new favorite tv show. I feel so refreshed today, like a load has been lightened. Thank you!

Also, I got a notice today that my computer has been repaired and is heading back. As much fun as a new laptop would be, I really think this is the better option. I won’t have to reset everything the way I like it. And all my materials will still be there–as long as the repair didn’t damage it all.