I'm at school today, teaching. The entire student body and faculty will be assembling a little before noon to watch the inauguration together. They'll be projecting from www.pic2009.org, probably. Hulu's got a stream up, (I saw at Pandagon) but the last time I checked, it was Fox News.
Posting in epic victory thread! Yay!
I was also impressed with McCain's speech, and the way CNN's analysts went into appreciation mode as soon as the race was called. I'm so optimistic that the hope this election has inspired spreads like a virus across the nation and we can really be as good as we know we can be. All of us.
Okay, voting's done. In my tiny town in the Berkshires, MA, it was busy but no wait.
I'm somewhat lucky in that Tuesdays are very busy days for me as a rule-- I teach until noon (though we're in a study hall right now, and obviously I'm looking at the computer...), then I'm off to vote and class, then a staff meeting and then class again. I'm hoping that minimizes my spazzing out. I'm commuting an hour each way to my evening class, and will be listening to NPR the whole way there and back. By the time I'm home, it will be about 10pm and I'm looking forward to some celebratory wine at that point. *hopes*
I was recently linked to Sojourner.net from another blog I read, and I'm finding it a balm for the craziness at the moment, as well as a way to remind myself that not all, in fact probably a very small minority of, Christians in the U.S. are this irrational and fruitbattery. (Yum! fruitbatter!)
Epacris @ 175: You're right of course, but he's already pretty stiff. I suppose I haven't watched his other debates as closely as these past three, so I can't say whether the blinking and the lizard tongue are habits, but sticking your tongue out and making a silly face when you are faced with a walking traffic jam is definitely something under your control, yes?
To piggy-back on the last two comments, even though the conversation is close to done, it seems: my feeling about this picture isn't that it's necessarily mocking--it's evidence, to me, that John McCain is out of touch with the culture of the 21st century. Internet culture, especially. He should know by now that there are many people willing to take his silly faces and eye-rolls and tongue-flicks and blinks and mash them up and put them on YouTube. The fact that he leaves himself open to this implies that either he has no idea about internet culture, or his staff has no idea about internet culture, or they don't think it's got enough of an impact to matter. They're wrong. The viral videos, both YouTube made and SNL made, are flying around the 'net in all the places I hang out. They're a big part of the discourse in this election cycle, and to ignore it is to reveal a lack of political savvy that I expect our president to have in the 21st century.
Oh, my. I live in Adams, MA (and also went to Williams; Hi mimi!), my husband grew up in Bennington--and yet we haven't been to the Blue Benn yet. I'm taking this as a sign. We've heard so many good things prior to this post, it must be time to go.
For those of you who are fans of Bible translation, and for those of you who are fans of verse--but especially for those of you who are both--my friend Seth has been working on translating the Torah into verse for about 10 years(?) now, and is putting it up on his website as he searches for a publisher. Check it out.
Done, last night. I'll also pass the message along to folks who may not know Scraps but are charitably inclined, if that's all right.
The sudden move across country we made when I was 10 means I don't have a whole lot of belongings that I've carried all the way through life. A couple, though:
The diamond-chip earrings my father sent for my 10th birthday after we left him behind.
The larger diamond engagement ring and wedding band my husband gave me.
My cell phone, which doubles as an mp3 player. It's adorable and very useful.
Fortunately, all three of these things are always on my person, so I won't lose them in case of any major moving emergency.
"Are The Corner, Powerline, and Politically Drunk on Power screaming about that sort of socialism? They are not."
The Free Republicans are, though. (Link goes to Pam's post about it at Pandagon, since I can't bring myself to link directly to the Freepers.) Like Fragano says, it's fascinating to watch.
When the time comes, I can help with music gathering. I have a number of those albums on his list.
Just heard about this. My thoughts are with Scraps and all who love him.
albatross: Indeed! And it's often the basis for interesting analysis of translations, to reevaluate how appropriate that first translation was, and what impact it had on later versions. I think my project for that class, actually, is going to be a close look at Jane Lumley's first translation of Iphegenia at Aulis into English in that same era. She was a Catholic in a dangerous time and made translation decisions that elevated the sacrifice of Iphegenia to saintly matryrdom.
Ooh, an open thread where I can tell you all what classes I'm taking this semester and it's on topic too! I've started my PhD work officially this Fall, and I'm taking 16th century British Lit, Old Irish (the language, but also the literature), and auditing a Latin class on Cicero and Caesar. (We're reading the Gallic Wars right now, and let me tell you how odd that is against the Old Irish.)
Anyway, one of our readings for 16th c Brit Lit this week was a side-by-side presentation of a few passages of the Bible: Tyndale's translation (which got him executed, of course), the KJV, the Geneva Bible and the Douay-Rheims Bible. Translation theory is one of my interests, and for these four, what was most interesting to me about them was how the later 3 all took their lead from Tyndale. Certain choices he made have persisted through most English translations. My favorite would be the word "firmament."
Alan Braggins @5: My husband is a CFA, and a huge fan of Bill Gross. He had just been saying to a colleague yesterday that Bill Gross would be a great person to ask to manage the bailout (since he thinks there's a way to do it and still increase the funds) when apparently Gross volunteered to do it without a fee.
While I have issues on and off with my mother (she seems to be most like Nicole's--sincerely unable to understand that her perspective is not the only valid one), it's nothing compared to her family and to her own mother's. The abuse and dysfunction seemed to be traveling down the generations until this past one, and even still, my cousin was molested by the father of her friend at a sleepover when she was nine, so my aunt is terrified that it's a shadow over our family at every stage. She refuses to let her own kids go to sleepover parties for that reason. And only recently have one of my aunts and one of my uncles been at the same place at the same time, though they still don't talk, due to the abuse they both shared, one directly and the other then indirectly, at the hands of a cousin. My own father's anger management issues frightened me as a child (holes in walls and chasing after someone who cut him off in traffic while he had his two young children in the car?), but my mother got the courage to leave him and moved us, suddenly, across the country when I was 10. I've mentioned this part of the story before. I saw him once more before he killed himself.
I love my family. I do. But dysfunction, it is there. So I do the best I can to be in loco parentis for my students when it's called for, and I offer my hugs and love to all in this thread.
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| 2008 | 76 |
| 2007 | 92 |
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