The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by ebear:

Show all comments by ebear.

Posted on entry Scraps. Bad. [Update: Doing better. See below.] ::: November 15, 2009, 02:08 AM:
Prayers, check. I don't believe in them, but I hear they work anyway, so I send 'em.
Posted on entry Chili-Dog Casserole ::: October 30, 2009, 01:03 PM:
All right. As threatened, I made this (sans pepper rings) and I photoblogged it.

Fear the Casserole.

Posted on entry Chili-Dog Casserole ::: October 17, 2009, 06:17 PM:
I'm pretty sure this recipe is in fact vegan, as--having eaten and enjoyed it--I cannot vouch that there is any actual FOOD in it, and meat (last I checked) was a FOOD.
Posted on entry Flu Redux ::: April 28, 2009, 08:08 AM:
As of this morning, NPR is reporting that the alert level has been raised to four: confirmed ready human-to-human transmission.

And it appears that Mexico may have had milder cases for a while, which got lost in its usual winter flu load.

I am officially updating my own personal alert status to "concerned."
Posted on entry A parable of editors ::: April 19, 2009, 06:58 AM:
If that's a poker face, it's the worst poker face ever. I'd call it rapt attention and delight--and maybe a little not-wanting-to-breathe-in-case-you-wake-up.

I've had the same experience, reading slush. You get in a rut of "Oh god, how is this one going to disappoint me?" And when you make it to the bottom of page three on one, you start leaning forward, rooting for the writer, but also being terrified that it's going to fall apart on you if you trust it.

Posted on entry Amazon's very bad day ::: April 13, 2009, 09:37 AM:
This pretty much jibes with what I think is probably going on, yeah. Some combination of algorithm issues, thoughtlessness, lack of foresight, and lulzers, in varying percentages.

Shake and add internets.
Posted on entry Either a heart attack, or a Greek of the same name ::: September 14, 2008, 09:43 AM:
Thank you, Patrick. Teresa, if you are reading this, get well soon. And darn those lifestyle changes. :-P
Posted on entry Mighty Day ::: September 12, 2008, 10:06 PM:
Jeff Masters' blog has already been mentioned above; I offer the link here.

The worst news so far? That epic storm surge?

Ike's center makes landfall in ~5 hours, which is 2 am Central time, tomorrow morning.

Next high tide in Galveston Bay is 2 am central time. Tomorrow morning.
Posted on entry Darn, these gnats are hard to swallow. Please pass the camels. ::: July 10, 2008, 09:36 AM:
Anna @34, well-said.

As a token recovering anthropologist, let me agree that it is perfectly possible to have racism when there are, objectively speaking, no human "races." Because as Anna says, race is in the eye of the beholder. It's whatever criteria you use to establish an Us vs. Them mentality.

Yer average modern pale-skinned American might assume that a Pequot and a Mohawk were the same "race," but the Pequot and the Mohawk would beg to differ. Likewise, your white northern European might think everybody in all the nations of subSaharan Africa is the same "race," but again, if you were to ask a primary source, you'd get a very different answer. (Incidentally, some ridiculously high percentage of all human variation is present in the indigenous populations of Africa; the fact that most Africans have dark skin adapted to a massive UV exposure does not make them genetically any more alike than, say, those Mohawks and the English settlers in Massachusetts.)

"Race" does not exist as an objective quality. It is assigned from the outside, by the observer.

I could arbitrarily say that all blue-eyed people are one race and all brown-eyed people are another, that hazel-eyed people are the result of miscegenation and to be shunned, that gray-eyed people are assigned to the blue-eyed group, and that green-eyed people will be shot as witches, and it would make about as much sense as our cultural preconceptions about race.

In my opinion, it's much more productive to talk about culture, religion, and ethnicity, which is often what we really mean when we say "race," but to handle the conversation that way requires that we pause for a moment and think with nuance rather than reacting on a gut level.

But when we call somebody on racism, what we are reacting to is their othering (assigning of "race") to another group of human beings. "Racism" occurs when some person(s) wishes to be able to say "those people, not like us people" as a categorical statement and have it go unchallenged.

(Like William Sanders, I'm part Cherokee too. You sure wouldn't know it to look at me, and culturally, that influence is all gone from my family. If it ever had much of a foothold to begin with. Does that mean I can't be a racist? Does my understanding of the fact that race as we use the term does not objectively exist, and that it's a holdover from some rather obscene Victorian and pre-Victorian ideas about God's intentions for the human species mean that I can't be a racist? Well, alas. No. Because the English language mocks prescriptivists, and words mean what people use them to mean, and the fact that "corn" originated as a catchall term for grains does not make it any less plain what an Indianan means when he says "sweet corn.")
Posted on entry Nothing Better Has Happened Since ::: July 07, 2008, 10:33 PM:
Jon @#5:

Whisk(e)y.
Posted on entry I Can Has Cheezburger ::: June 30, 2008, 11:50 AM:
Spatula-flattening makes for dry burgers. Just saying.
Posted on entry If I Had Another Penny ::: June 30, 2008, 07:50 AM:
This made me exceptionally happy as a thing to read first thing in the morning.

Actually, it very much reminds me of where story ideas come from.

In response to Jim at #11, it's also how Kit's dad, John Marley, spelled his name (we have signatures of both men, though only one of Kit's.) However, suspicion runs high that Master Marley has a strong regional accent (He was Kentish, which is not very much like being Entish), which probably contributed to everybody else who met him spelling his name "Marlowe," "Marlow," "Marloe," or in a few notable cases, "Merlin."

He also spelled his own first name Christofer, which I rather like, and not only for the infernal pun at the end.
Posted on entry Cold Weather Drinks ::: February 26, 2008, 04:14 PM:
flowery tops @ 40:

That stuff with the convulsions of happiness is the one true cider, which must be the stuff that's meant in Jim's recipe. I'm pretty sure of this, because like me, he lives in Yankeeland.

You can tell the difference because our kind of cider is regionally pronounced "cidah," and may be referred to as "sweet cider" to differentiate it from "hard cider," which is the fermented stuff.
Posted on entry Cold Weather Drinks ::: February 26, 2008, 09:54 AM:
Ryan, you're on.

Eve @ 20, I do the juicer trick too, and it works very well. Also, one can buy ginger juice in some grocery stores, and it keeps indefinitely in the fridge in its little shaker bottle. I think microbes are scared of it.
Posted on entry Cold Weather Drinks ::: February 26, 2008, 09:30 AM:
Ryan at #14, you owe me a beer.
Posted on entry Cold Weather Drinks ::: February 26, 2008, 09:17 AM:
Dave Bell at #13, so what you're saying is that they're... super-spicy Bell peppers?
Posted on entry Cold Weather Drinks ::: February 26, 2008, 08:32 AM:
SeanH at #8, the key thing about American sweet cider is that it's not pasteurized (well, in some parts of the country it is, but that's just unfiltered apple juice). Which means that it "works," -- it is in the process of fermenting from the natural yeast on the skins of the apples. Also, the apples used for cider are traditionally at least partially windfalls, so they're a bit pungent by the time they go in.

As a result, it has a complex flavor and sometimes a bit of natural carbonation not adequately comparable to either British-style bottled hard cider or unfiltered apple juice. It's essentially very, very young apple wine.

As such, it has a short season, generally only being available in apple-growing regions and only for as long as the ripe apples are on the trees. There's something of a religion surrounding it, because when you get it from the farm stand at your local apple orchard, it really is that good. (Supermarket cider is almost always pasteurized, and thus a loss. It's like yogurt made with gelatin or soy sauce made with caramel. Why bother? EAT THE HEALTHY MICROBES, PEOPLE! They taste good!)

***

Another excellent addition to hot lemonade, which is also a tradition here, is a couple of bruised cloves. They are tasty and aromatic, and contain an antiseptic, analgesic oil--if you happen to have a sore throat.

Also, we like salabat, which is made by simmering grated fresh ginger in water and then doctoring the resulting fluid with sugar or honey and lemon juice.

mmmm. Winter. More weather today!
Posted on entry Birth announcement ::: February 03, 2008, 09:54 AM:
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The only problem with this is that my plan to breed an SFnal master-race from the offspring of my friends is suffering a setback, as most of them seem to be girls.

...Hm. Actually, maybe that's not so bad.

*ducks and runs*
Posted on entry Why, this is the whale, nor are we out of it ::: January 20, 2008, 11:11 AM:
Hybrid vigor in the arts.

make it so.
Posted on entry Keep Your Head Down ::: December 06, 2007, 12:37 AM:
According to my recent research, the FBI's current recommendation in school shootings is *against* shelter-in-place, FWIW.

The word from the Bureau these days is get the hell out, any way you can. They call them "sitting ducks" for a reason.

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