@3: Unfortunately, that's not the case. Vermont Governor Jim Douglas has stated his intention to veto the bill. See Towleroad for video.
Congratulations to New Hampshire, though! How wonderful!
My sophomore year in college, on the Altoz/Bonz bus during LA RoadTrip with the Stanford Band: a random comment about how California's age of consent laws had been recently revised led to my future (and still) best friend and I having our first real conversation.
Fourteen years (and going!) of blessings have been the result of that laughter-filled discussion.
I tried to have breakfast at the Blue Benn on my post-VP XII tour of New England, but they were closed. My friend and I wound up going to the Vermont Cider Mill restaurant, just across the highway from the Vermont Confectionery.
Omigosh, the food was yummy, as was the hot cider. And then, later, the candies from the Confectionery? Oh, yes, please, thank you. I heartily echo Melissa's recommendation.
tule fog:
I grew up in California's Central Valley in a tiny rural town. Our place is at the edge of town, so the country basically starts in the backyard and keeps going from there until you hit real wilderness in the Sierra.
Anyway, as children we used to play hide-and-go-seek (what did you call it, btw?) on the foggiest days. The visibility could close down to only a couple of feet, and the world absolutely ended in a blanket of grey fog at five feet. We used to "hide" by standing still in the fog, or just crouching down. Whoever was it would have to run and cover as much of the yard as possible, trying to run into the rest of us, because there was no real way of finding us, otherwise.
The most fun part would be trying to walk as slowly as possible to base in order not to be heard or seen as motion against the grey backdrop.
unexpected singing:
One of my quintessential San Francisco moments--
A few months ago, friends and I went to go see a touring Indian production A Midsummer Night's Dream, performed in a half-dozen South Asian languages, plus English. It was lovely, even if the acting could have been stronger. Anyway, after that slightly hallucinatory experience, we headed over to the Mission to have mojitos and eats on Valencia Street. We had a lovely time and waltzed out of the restaurant and started walking back up the street to reach the BART station.
Behind us, we could hear someone loudly playing Journey on their stereo coming up the street. We turned around, looking to see who was making all the noise and realized that it was a trio of bicyclists, who had mounted large house speakers onto their bikes, blasting their music.
The light turns red, so we're all stopped at the intersection of 17th and Valencia. All of us three dozen-or-so pedestrians on the street turn to the trio and start smiling, and then we all break out into song, following along to "Don't Stop Believing."
Eventually, the light turns green, and the trio bikes away, leaving random happiness in their wake.
My thoughts and best wishes for a speedy recover, and laughter for all of you.
Since no one seems to have mentioned it yet, there's always Of Saints and Shadows by Christopher Golden:
Carnage!
Mulkerrin loved the carnage, loved the absolute destruction of a human life. His passion for the massacre was unmatched by any other emotion he had experienced. In many ways, it made the fact of his celibacy a moot point.
Yes, he had a gift.
You know, sometimes I like to read schlock. But then, there's just some schlock that makes you want to scrub your eyes, your brain, and your hands, and tempts you to swear, Never again.
Unfortunately, the memory of "Carnage!" has proved indelible, and Amazon's Search Inside this Book feature is easy to use...
Maybe this'll be an act of exorcism?
abi: ¡Feliz aniversario!
Dave Bell @ 986: Good luck and a swift recovery to your mother.
Paula @ 6: Yeah, I love that video, too. It's a wonderful response to the hate it answers.
And I'm happy for him and his partner, too.
But, no--no more circumlocutions! Fiancé, his husband-to-be. We can say that now. How very glad I am that we can say that now!
(Well, here in California, anyway. And Massachusetts, of course.)
Rikibeth @ 159: There are several varieties of Mexican Spanish where that is also the case. (Heck, you should hear me when I've been dealing with our users or our engineers for too long!)
heresiarch @ 153: The norteño accent kind of maps on to something like, hm, Texann (hence hick), with an overlay of some very good manners (hence uppity). The northern Mexicans, especially from Monterrey (Mexico's third-largest city and the industrial heart of the region) have a reputation for being stingy, but in actuality are incredibly open-hearted and warmly generous as a rule.
As for the Cuban thing, it's not shudders at the sound--which I think is the least odd of the Islanders to Mexican ears, since it's similar to that on the Gulf coast of Mexico but more musical, but at the familiarity in the language. I'm Mexican (and a provincial one, at that)--my instinctive cultural reaction to most things is warm but strict formality until permission (or enough time, maybe) allows for familiarity. I've had some experiences with non-Mexican hispanophones who got upset at my use of usted until they realized that I was Mexican. Then they insisted that I use tu and all was right in the world. Ah, the power of social conditioning.
Rikibeth @ 157: "I know just enough of other languages to sound like a complete idiot in several."
Yes, exactly! I was able to manage a basic competence when I was in France last year, based purely on my Spanish and English skills and the willingness to sound a complete idiot. Also, I never underestimated the power of a smiled "bonjour." With Hebrew I got really lucky--my teacher was a wonderfully practical Israeli woman who worked on giving us passable accents. Even today, Israelis will ask where I learned to get my reshes right. Truth to tell, I couldn't pronounce the French R correctly until after I began learning Hebrew.
heresiarch @ #136
1. Which is your favorite Spanish accent that you have heard?
Upper bourgeois Guatemalan from Antigua and Guatemala City. Absolutely gorgeous. I had a coworker whose background was such, and her Spanish was amongst the most mellifluous I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. Of course, that could have just been Lucía's idiolect. Still, that sets the gold standard for me.
Beyond that, I love the high formalism of some of the Colombians. Another former colleague always used the formal register with everyone, she spoke to her brother as "usted" and when she spoke to her grandmother, it was as "vuestra merced"--"your mercy" (the equivalent of addressing an Englishwoman as "Your Grace").
My family's own accent and dialect is old high provincial Mexican, from the region of Cotija, Michoacan (where the cheese comes from). It's got some archaisms, like most Mexican Spanish, but I love the way my mother, and especially my eldest sister, speak it. It's a clear and oddly educated-sounding sort of speech for ranchers and farmers, you know?
My accent is a bit... muddier... than that, having been raised in the Central Valley in California. But it gets much clearer when I've been home for a while (I live in SF now). However, when I haven't been, it's sometimes hard for other Spanish-speakers to place with any certainty. They're certain that I'm a native, they just can't say a native of where. (Which caused much fun in a job interview with that Colombian colleague of mine I mentioned above. Since she'd been in the States since her teens, her accent was also... ambiguous. After the interview, we quizzed each other as to where our people where from.)
2. The only diaspora language* with which I'm very familiar is English, and I'm quite amused at the different...personalities? stereotypes? associated with its various accents. So, are there similar accent associations with various Spanish-speaking areas?
Oh, yes! In Mexico, the northerners talk like uppity hicks, chilangos (folks from Mexico City) either speak well (if they're bourgeois), or have dreadful naco accents (think Poor Brown Trash, and you're most of the way there), and the east coasters sound almost like Cubans, god forbid. Argentines sound snobbish, but not as bad as those arrogant lisping Spaniards, who can be cursed hard to understand! Chileans put the accent in the strangest places. Boricuas (Puerto Ricans) talk so fast that they drop half their syllables and replace all their Rs with Ls, so it's a wonder the rest of us understand a word they say at all... And the Caribbean islanders in general have no sense of decorum at all--addressing people as "tu" at the drop of a hat, never mind being called "mi amor" (my love) and "cariño" (darling) by people I'd just met! The effrontery of it, I tell you (oh my poor overly-formal Mexican soul).
And those, my dear, are just a few of the stereotypical impressions I've heard/picked up growing up as a native Spanish-speaker. YMMV.
albatross @ #149:
Yes, definitely. I'm a native bilingual, really, having learned both Spanish and English at the same time. They're tucked into the same meta-box in my head that says "primary language" (although all of my formal education is in English). I've learned that every other language I've picked up get shoved into the same "foreign language" box. Which makes it interesting when I want to say something in French and reach for a Hebrew word instead: "Slichah, où est ha'bibliothèque?" isn't the most helpful phrase in the world, ya know?
Additionally, there are just some things that don't translate. They just don't. And it was great learning Hebrew, especially, because it's so radically different in structure/concept to my native languages. It really opened up a new way of looking at language (and therefore, the world) for me. Even if it get tossed into the box with French.
Fragano @ #130:
Clearly. Juice is jugo and the wonderful volatile essential oils that spray out everywhere when you peel an orange (or what have you) is zumo. At least, that's what I learned in my house. Being provincial Mexicans, and all.
Took me by surprise when I was offered a glass of zumo de naranja when I was in Madrid last year. But that got sorted out right quick.
All I got on my own were I and III.
That's what I get for taking Attic Greek instead of classical Latin. (Not that it would have helped me, sadly--it's been so long.)
Here's my tally for 2007, not counting things I reread or put down (for whatever reasons):
White Night, Jim Butcher
Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Cherie Priest
Lamb, Christopher Moore
His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik
Point of Honour, Madeleine E. Robins
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett
Going Postal, Terry Pratchett
Thud!, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
Day Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
Snake Agent, Liz Williams
Soldier of Arete, Gene Wolfe
Ysabel, Guy Gavriel Kay
The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner
Cabal, Clive Barker
Magic Lessons, Justine Larbalestier
Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
Mistral's Kiss, Laurell K. Hamilton
Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik
Black Powder War, Naomi Novik
Blindsight, Peter Watts
Kushiel's Justice, Jacqueline Carey
Farthing, Jo Walton
Mélusine, Sarah Monette
The Virtu, Sarah Monette
The Harlequin, Laurell K. Hamilton
A Dirty Job, Christopher Moore
Twilight Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
Petty Treason, Madeleine E. Robins
Expendable, James Alan Gardner
Hellblazer: All His Engines, Mike Carey
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling
The Clan Corporate, Charles Stross
The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. LeGuin
The Bird in the Owl Suit, Meredith Broome
The Mirador, Sarah Monette
The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross
Vincalis the Agitator, Holly Lisle
Spin, Robert Charles Wilson
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
Lean Mean Thirteen, Janet Evanovich
The Jennifer Morgue, Charles Stross
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
Butcher Bird, Richard Kadrey
Promises to Keep, Charles de Lint
Vellum, by Hal Duncan
The Bone Key, Sarah Monette
A Lick of Frost, Laurell K. Hamilton
Land of Mist and Snow, Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
Dragonhaven, Robin McKinley
The Death of the Necromancer, Martha Wells
The Wizard Hunters, Martha Wells
The Ships of Air, Martha Wells
The Gate of Gods, Martha Wells
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, Joss Whedon
Transmetropolitan: Word on the Street, Warren Ellis
Transmetropolitan: Lust for Life, Warren Ellis
Empire of Ivory, Naomi Novik
Actually, I'm not sure that the signers of the declaration have the standing in the tribe to make such a declaration, but by God, it still leaves me breathless.
At the very least, I hope it brings attention to the way people are suffering and living in brutal misery on the reservations, and some remedy to it.
I'm floored and at a loss for words. Have you seen this?
The Lakota have seceded.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 3 |
| 2008 | 14 |
| 2007 | 8 |
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