The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Margaret Organ-Kean:

Ever since that fall, I've known that the world can change overnight and that sometimes, it's for the better.

Heh. I had the same treatment at a Home Depot about ten years ago. The next day I mentioned it to my co-worker as an example of a place that "didn't speak girl", but he swore it was a case of didn't speak customer as he'd had much the same experience several times.

("Doesn't speak girl" is our family shorthand for this sort of treatment, dating from a cab driver who I'd assumed just didn't speak English.)

San Diego Comic Con is pretty much a bastion of doesn't speak girl, although the NewTek guy was exceptional.

So for that matter are many computer stores (yes, I'm including Apple stores) and car dealerships. We deal with that. If a sales rep only talks to Bruce, I wander off. All that sales rep gets to do is talk to Bruce, 'cause no sales are made until my questions are answered and I don't like talking to people who don't want to talk to me.

It strikes me that this person was wielding very powerful tools without having a clue what he was doing with them.

I am wondering if part of his willingness to do this, as well as his client's willingness to follow him, is related to, well, a lack of education about/knowledge of spiritual things?

As a culture we can be pretty aggressive about freedom from and of religion, but perhaps learning about belief is not the same as believing?

This is not a really well-formed idea right now, and it's late here on the left coast and I don't think I can make it make more sense right now. Perhaps someone else can try?

I _know_ why President Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize.

Remember the campaign ad (I think someone referenced it above) about the 3:00 AM phone call?

I just know that some of the committee saw that ad and one said, "Who'd call the President at 3:00 AM?" and the other said, "We could...."

Raven @ 18

You're right, of course.

I expect it's as blatant as when the President appointed his brother as Attorney General, and their family leaned on the governor to appoint a family friend to the suddenly empty Senate seat so that it could be 'held' for the youngest brother.

Or when the ex-President's wife is elected Senator and then appointed Secretary of State. I have no problems with Ms. Clinton, btw. But I bet that it was easier for her on some levels than it would have been for someone not named Clinton.

In other words, this sort of thing happens and I don't think you could stop it from happening short of re-wiring humans. I think what's needed is to make sure it's not automatic; that it's not enshrined by law.

I think the interesting difference here and now, is that girls can play too.

It's not good, but it also hasn't been news since John Quincy Adams.

In almost any given field, being on close terms either through kinship or friendship, with someone on the inside will give you a leg up.

It's because of things as everyday as chosen subjects of dinner table conversation. Or introductions. Or who your parents hang out with. Or what your parents feel comfortable with.

My family worried about my choice of career. They didn't know anyone who'd made a living as an artist. Even so, if you go back through my resume, there's an appalling number of jobs that although I was really good at them, I got a little 'lift' through who I knew. The people who hired me had met me other places, or worked with me somewhere else, and felt comfortable with me.

I expect that some of what went into some of those hirings was also an expectation of future favors - higher ratings for Today from people who liked Bush, for instance. Someone to point at and say, "See, we're not just a bunch of liberals."

I think it would be good if merit were more of a weight when someone was hired. But I also think humans will keep on being human.

Would this have anything to do with a tube furnace? I think I have one (a tube furnace) and I'd like to make it go away, preferably for money.

If this is the Republicans' plot, it's not doing them a lot of good. Cuo bono?

The cheese salad sandwich is not Irish; it's Cornish. I have been to Cornwall and had cheese salad in pubs.

The family history sources them to my Manx-Cornish grandmother.

Church of England nuns started showing up in 1841. Not thick on the ground; not unknown either. It was part of the Oxford movement; a trend towards some of the attributes of the Roman Catholic church.

I always thought there was black ice tea in it. Well...

Serge at 10

Dr. Stan Lee is one of my doctors, and my plumber is Chuck Jones.

Sometimes life is just surreal.

A picture on a postcard that my mother's friend sent to her when I was fifteen.

It truly was the butterfly's wings in my life.

Earl @ 428

Oh, yes, Furbies in general are historically interesting. But not a Furby in particular. The puppet is interesting in the particular, as a unique item.

The Christmas Furbies first came out, my husband and I took one of the local puddle jumpers to see my folks. The stewardess very carefully made sure that we turned off all our electronic gear - and left the Furby on!

I was bemused by her assumption that serious electronics didn't come covered in plush.

Earl at #424 (and Avram, a little)

Furby dissection sites aren't the same; what Bruce is objecting to is the destruction of primary source material, i.e. the puppet. Furbies aren't historically significant.

I myself wonder about whether anyone's tracking provenance. Not a whole lot - but I'm not a movie buff.

debcha @ 187

The sleigh is drawn by reindeer so I think up north/northwest of Ballard is your best bet. Try Swanson's or Woodland Park.

Mike @ 60

"3. Eisner's Silken Floss was sexy, and she cried when the Spirit moved on."

Oddly, you aren't required to get an emotionectomy when you get your PhD. Not even when you get your second PhD. You're even allowed to wear makeup and get your hair cut at a good salon.

In short, the reasons you cite are not good reasons for changing her profession.

" She wasn't a champion of women in comics. This doesn't seem to be Miller's fault either."

Taken together, these two sentences give new life to the term Freudian slip, I think.

The song with all the saints -

I Sing a Song of the Saints of God
lyrics by Lesbia Scott

You can hear the music Episcopalians grew up with here (not work safe - makes a lot of noise)-

http://www.hymnsite.com/lyrics/umh712.sht

For an additional image of Mary as the burning bush -
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=1851

And, does anyone know the date on this piece? Harry Clarke was a well-known Irish artist, but his studio continued after his death (c. 1931) until the early 1970s. I can't find this church in a list of glass he personally oversaw or worked on, so I'm curious as to the date. His studio did continue work in his style - but I'm betting this is a later piece, for no other reason than that the drawing isn't as tight as the pieces I'm familiar with.

The Life and Work of Harry Clarke, by Nicola Gordon Bowe, published by the Irish Academic Press in 1984 is a good biography of Clarke.

The guess (somewhere) that the item at the foot of the window is the Ark of the Covenant is correct - it answers the description of the Ark, and the Ark is a Marian symbol inasmuch as both contained the Word of God. That ties it in with the Burning Bush and the manger as well.

My best guess for the five bearded heads surmounted by a crown would be Queen of Prophets. That's a guess, based on considering the number five to be significant. If it is, there are five major Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, Ezekiel and Daniel and that's the only group of five that Mary is Queen of according to the Litany of Loretto. I also like this interpretation because they're in the same tier as the Sibyls and Prophets - although the repeating of the prophets theme is something I don't like about it.

The other picture on this tier, the dove over the altar is the Holy Ghost, the inspirer of prophecy, as I read it.

One of the things that bothers me somewhat is that I am having trouble deriving a strict reading of the Litany from this window. If I were working on this project, I would ask to see the Parish archives, especially documentation relating to the commissioning of the windows. Patrons have been known to dictate a work's schema, without close adherence to a particular theme or literary work.

We canned/preserved a lot of stuff when I was growing up. As I recall, canning fruit does take sugar to make the syrup the fruit is canned in.

But the other way we preserved things was in the freezer - and that meant that green beans, peas, etc., didn't have extra salt or sugar.

And speaking from personal and recent experience - when I make jam, I control how much and what king of sugar goes in - and it is possible to make completely sugar-free jam.

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