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hermionesviolinI actually don't have much to say in terms of actual life update.
* Wednesday, Allie and I went to see a Japanese film at the MFA and had dinner at Qdoba afterward.
* Thursday, Cate came and had lunch with me at work (and took back the UK cell phone she'd loaned me last summer, in preparation for her own return trip to Scotland).
* Talking to CAUMC!Ian (not to be confused with "my" Ian -- i.e., my coworker Ian) on Thursday night, I realized that a major source of my work stress recently has been that there's been stuff (Prof.B's trip to the MidEast primarily) that I haven't been fully looped in on, have been only partially coordinating, and that makes me feel out of control and anxious.
* I've been unimpressed with the food at work recently, which is sad. I feel like I've been living on pasta and burritos.
* Friday was the last day of teaching, so there was much drinking and celebrating.
* I feel sort of like a bad friend that I'm not going to Smith College Commencement this year, but everyone I know who's graduating is so busy that I wouldn't really see them much.
***
Wednesday: elliptical, interval program:
1mi @ 11:39min
2mi @ 23:20min
2.55mi @ 30min
Thursday: ~20min in the weight room
When you get to the front desk, they swipe your ID card, if they know that you're getting a locker they'll often just hold onto your card since you're just gonna give it back to them when you get through the doors (they give you a day locker key, and as collateral/ID they hold on to your ID card). Well on Thursday the guy at the desk was busy with someone else, and he handed me my ID back, but when I got through the doors Julian already had a locker key out for me.
Friday elliptical, interval program:
1mi @ 11:30min
2mi @ 23:00min
2.60mi @ 30min
***
At the gym Wednesday morning, on CNN I heard Hillary say in her WVa speech, "I will work my heart out for the Democratic nominee."
Recently, a friend of mine said, "I fully expect Hillary and Bill to come out full guns blazing for Obama, once Hillary concedes, which she will. If they don't come out with all their energy, not just with lip service, but with all the passion they can bring, I will absolutely concede I was fundamentally wrong in my support of Hillary." I was skeptical (not that she would eventually concede, but that she would turn around and really stump for Obama, given some of the attacks she'd been making on him recently) but this really comforted me.
It was actually a challenge to find a full-text version of the speech.
CNN that morning had Lawrence O'Donnell from the Huffington Post, saying as I had seen him say the previous week, that Clinton will bow out around June 15. Both times he's talked about her getting her supporters used to the idea, which I'm really not seeing.
I do see her not being able to gracefully bow out now given all her emphasis on all voices being heard. And given that it's only a few weeks until all the primary elections are over, I think it's okay for her to hold on that long. Going all the way to the convention... that seems more problematic to me, but "I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign …until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard" only requires her to stay in until June 3. And I hear that May 31 there'll be a decision made as to the Florida and Michigan delegations for the Convention.
***
Someone on friendsfriends linked to "Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Audacity of Truth" by Tim Wise
I was strongly tempted to send a copy to JoeF (he wrote an editorial after the first round of furor over Wright, and I just couldn't bring myself to engage with the piece sufficient to write him a critical response), though at times I kind of winced at the tone. And yes, as soon as I thought that I recalled how that comes up in LJ a lot and how it's problematic -- and I realized that I didn't pay enough attention to those discussions to be able to re-articulate them myself, which is unfortunate. (I can probably skim back through![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom.)
I read a Megan McArdle blogpost which surprised me.
She excerpts C. S. Lewis on the commandment to "love your neighbour as yourself" and then comments:
I think her entire post is interesting and thought-provoking.
***
Thursday I watched some of "Breakfast with the Sox" on NESN HD on the tv in the weight room. I got to watch Manny Ramirez high-fiving the fan, and giving a one-handed neckrub to the guy he was sitting next to (Jacoby Ellsbury?) in the dugout.
***
Tiffany learned that Old South (645 Boylston St. -- right by Copley) is having a service the morning of Pride (10am); she made a facebook event listing for it.
CWM will host the Somerville area coalition Interfaith Service the preceding Sunday (June 8, 5pm). Tiffany said, "Folks who are participating in the Somerville service include CWM, CAUMC, First Congo, Unity and Clarendon Presby. We have also invited the Temple and the Hav."
***
Thursday: California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban (NYT link via![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oyceter) Excerpt:samfeasor recently wrote, "haha, four years of same-sex!marriage and there have been two Red Sox WS titles... someone make the Hell joke." (Mostly for my own reference... Eugene Volokh lawblogging on the California decision.)
***
Friday links from soundingsea:
* Stuff That White People Like
* XKCD
***
I can barely bring myself to read the_red_shoes' twlight_spork posts in their entirety, but omg, I was dying laughing Thursday morning:
The link I had to the Dolhouse Upfront video has been taking down due to copyright concerns, but I took notes when I watched it on Friday.
British woman: "I know you've heard the rumors about Actives. Robots. Zombie slaves. They are of course quite the opposite. An Active is the truest soul among us." This is followed by text of "They will be anyone you want." and "They will do anything you need."
"Dr. Saunders is working on the radical theory that these people are still people." "People who volunteered for this." "So we're told."
Text: "You can wipe away a memory, but can you wipe away a soul?"
guy: "Are you saying they remember each other?" British woman: "Well this is spectacularly unacceptable." This feels like a fakeout splice, but on the other hand, I think the fact that Echo (and others?) retain some sense of who they are has been established as a primary plotpoint.
Eliza Dushku (Echo) holding a gun: "I'm not nobody." Okay, that kinda sold me. I'm still really skeptical about how this premise is gonna play out, but if this implication that Echo routinely gets to be powerful pans out (though yes, she may just be people's hired gun, with little to no real agency of her own) then I feel better. Unless there's a serious timeslot conflict, I'll probably watch the show because I'm really interested to see how it actually plays out -- and I expect there will be plenty of fannish discussion, and I would like to be able to participate in that with firsthand knowledge of the source text.
I first saw the video on carlyinrome's LJ, and commenters pointed out a shot of Faith punching Buffy in "Graduation Day Pt. 1" at 1:04. I extra enjoyed this because "Who are you" is the name of the second part of the S4 Buffy/Faith bodyswap episode.
***
saeva argues against the colloquial fannish use of the verb "pimp." [Edit: Alternatives to "Pimp" Poll -- link via metafandom]
* Wednesday, Allie and I went to see a Japanese film at the MFA and had dinner at Qdoba afterward.
* Thursday, Cate came and had lunch with me at work (and took back the UK cell phone she'd loaned me last summer, in preparation for her own return trip to Scotland).
* Talking to CAUMC!Ian (not to be confused with "my" Ian -- i.e., my coworker Ian) on Thursday night, I realized that a major source of my work stress recently has been that there's been stuff (Prof.B's trip to the MidEast primarily) that I haven't been fully looped in on, have been only partially coordinating, and that makes me feel out of control and anxious.
* I've been unimpressed with the food at work recently, which is sad. I feel like I've been living on pasta and burritos.
* Friday was the last day of teaching, so there was much drinking and celebrating.
* I feel sort of like a bad friend that I'm not going to Smith College Commencement this year, but everyone I know who's graduating is so busy that I wouldn't really see them much.
***
Wednesday: elliptical, interval program:
1mi @ 11:39min
2mi @ 23:20min
2.55mi @ 30min
Thursday: ~20min in the weight room
When you get to the front desk, they swipe your ID card, if they know that you're getting a locker they'll often just hold onto your card since you're just gonna give it back to them when you get through the doors (they give you a day locker key, and as collateral/ID they hold on to your ID card). Well on Thursday the guy at the desk was busy with someone else, and he handed me my ID back, but when I got through the doors Julian already had a locker key out for me.
Friday elliptical, interval program:
1mi @ 11:30min
2mi @ 23:00min
2.60mi @ 30min
***
At the gym Wednesday morning, on CNN I heard Hillary say in her WVa speech, "I will work my heart out for the Democratic nominee."
Recently, a friend of mine said, "I fully expect Hillary and Bill to come out full guns blazing for Obama, once Hillary concedes, which she will. If they don't come out with all their energy, not just with lip service, but with all the passion they can bring, I will absolutely concede I was fundamentally wrong in my support of Hillary." I was skeptical (not that she would eventually concede, but that she would turn around and really stump for Obama, given some of the attacks she'd been making on him recently) but this really comforted me.
It was actually a challenge to find a full-text version of the speech.
CNN that morning had Lawrence O'Donnell from the Huffington Post, saying as I had seen him say the previous week, that Clinton will bow out around June 15. Both times he's talked about her getting her supporters used to the idea, which I'm really not seeing.
I do see her not being able to gracefully bow out now given all her emphasis on all voices being heard. And given that it's only a few weeks until all the primary elections are over, I think it's okay for her to hold on that long. Going all the way to the convention... that seems more problematic to me, but "I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign …until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard" only requires her to stay in until June 3. And I hear that May 31 there'll be a decision made as to the Florida and Michigan delegations for the Convention.
***
Someone on friendsfriends linked to "Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Audacity of Truth" by Tim Wise
I was strongly tempted to send a copy to JoeF (he wrote an editorial after the first round of furor over Wright, and I just couldn't bring myself to engage with the piece sufficient to write him a critical response), though at times I kind of winced at the tone. And yes, as soon as I thought that I recalled how that comes up in LJ a lot and how it's problematic -- and I realized that I didn't pay enough attention to those discussions to be able to re-articulate them myself, which is unfortunate. (I can probably skim back through
metafandom.)I read a Megan McArdle blogpost which surprised me.
That's why I'm willing to cut Reverend Jeremiah Wright really quite a lot of slack: because my perception of the level of racism in America is considerably affected by the fact that it mostly doesn't happen around me. When my friend and I went into a store, she was protected by my halo of whiteness--she's with a white woman, so she's probably not a thief. In the company of white people, blacks aren't treated like they don't belong somewhere.I happen to agree with her, and I think her chain of logic makes sense, but I wasn't expecting her to cut Wright any slack.
She excerpts C. S. Lewis on the commandment to "love your neighbour as yourself" and then comments:
I see the two communities looking suspiciously at each other and saying "Once you have perfected yourself, then I will love you as myself." But this will not work. The very act of watching the other, at a distance, for signs of change creates the problem we want to solve. And I saw Obama's speech as trying to bridge that divide--to say, as someone who had one foot in each community, "This is why the way they do things you don't like--not because they're different, but because they're very much like you." To be sure, he did it in a hamfisted way. But the grandmother example was, I thought, less an attempt to throw Grandma under the bus then to say that "racism is not the same thing as being an evil person".When that speech first came out, I saw a number of conservatives pulling out his bit about his grandmother and saying he was throwing her under the bus, and I was frustrated because I didn't interpret it that way at all.
I think her entire post is interesting and thought-provoking.
***
Thursday I watched some of "Breakfast with the Sox" on NESN HD on the tv in the weight room. I got to watch Manny Ramirez high-fiving the fan, and giving a one-handed neckrub to the guy he was sitting next to (Jacoby Ellsbury?) in the dugout.
***
Tiffany learned that Old South (645 Boylston St. -- right by Copley) is having a service the morning of Pride (10am); she made a facebook event listing for it.
CWM will host the Somerville area coalition Interfaith Service the preceding Sunday (June 8, 5pm). Tiffany said, "Folks who are participating in the Somerville service include CWM, CAUMC, First Congo, Unity and Clarendon Presby. We have also invited the Temple and the Hav."
***
Thursday: California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban (NYT link via
oyceter) Excerpt:the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation's biggest state to tie the knot. Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George.From SFGate (via friendsfriends):
The decision takes effect in 30 days [...]I, of course, recalled the Massachusetts court decision and my father's concern that it was too much too soon, that doing it through the judiciary rather than through the legislature causes a greater backlash.
The court's decision could be overturned in November, when Californians are likely to vote on a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. Conservative religious organizations have submitted more than 1.1 million signatures on initiative petitions, and officials are working to determine if at least 694,354 of them are valid.
If the measure qualifies for the ballot and voters approve it, it will supersede today's ruling. The initiative does not say whether it would apply retroactively to annul marriages performed before November, an omission that would wind up before the courts.
samfeasor recently wrote, "haha, four years of same-sex!marriage and there have been two Red Sox WS titles... someone make the Hell joke." (Mostly for my own reference... Eugene Volokh lawblogging on the California decision.)***
Friday links from soundingsea:
* Stuff That White People Like
* XKCD
***
I can barely bring myself to read the_red_shoes' twlight_spork posts in their entirety, but omg, I was dying laughing Thursday morning:
Sooo, when Carlisle theOn a more serious note:CatholicVampyrSlayerTorcher realized what had happened to him, when he knew WHAT HORRID THING HE HAD BECOME, he REBELLED. He tried to DESTROY HIMSELF, which is NOT EASY when you are WAMPYR. ahem. Sorry. Apparently he leapt from great heights (like Claire Bennett! SORRY). He tried to drown himself. Hewalked through fire and didn't get burnedwas still young and strong! It was amazing he was unable to resist....feeding (God Edward cowboy up and say EATING PEOPLE) because the instinct is oh so powerful then and takes over everything yadayada but Carlisle was so repelled by the THING HE HAD BECOME he had the WILLPOWER to try to STARVE TO DEATH.
PS IT DIDN'T WORK.
THERE ARE VERY FEW WAYS WE CAN BE KILLED, Edward tells Bella gravely, AND SADLY, DOES NOT ENUMERATE THEM. Which means I spend a pleasant quarter of an hour envisioning some. Okay, a lot.
-http://the-red-shoes.livejournal.com/1285626.html?style=mine
if you put yourself, repeatedly, at the mercy of someone who WANTS TO KILL YOU, no matter how well-behaved he may be, that is a BAD SITUATION. And honestly I really do not think "But I love him! But he loves me! We can work it out!" is a good message to send to young girls. Or young boys. Young Plutonians. Anyone. Love can do a lot of things. Love can save us, heal us, love can destroy us, love can burn us. But love is not some kind of KrazyGlue dessert-wax-AND-a-floor-topping supercaulk you can use to plug up the black holes that exist in human nature.***
-http://the-red-shoes.livejournal.com/1285370.html?style=mine
The link I had to the Dolhouse Upfront video has been taking down due to copyright concerns, but I took notes when I watched it on Friday.
FOX
Dollhouse Upfront
"Who are you"
v6
VRT
2:27
5/12/08
Storm Studios
British woman: "I know you've heard the rumors about Actives. Robots. Zombie slaves. They are of course quite the opposite. An Active is the truest soul among us." This is followed by text of "They will be anyone you want." and "They will do anything you need."
"Dr. Saunders is working on the radical theory that these people are still people." "People who volunteered for this." "So we're told."
Text: "You can wipe away a memory, but can you wipe away a soul?"
guy: "Are you saying they remember each other?" British woman: "Well this is spectacularly unacceptable." This feels like a fakeout splice, but on the other hand, I think the fact that Echo (and others?) retain some sense of who they are has been established as a primary plotpoint.
Eliza Dushku (Echo) holding a gun: "I'm not nobody." Okay, that kinda sold me. I'm still really skeptical about how this premise is gonna play out, but if this implication that Echo routinely gets to be powerful pans out (though yes, she may just be people's hired gun, with little to no real agency of her own) then I feel better. Unless there's a serious timeslot conflict, I'll probably watch the show because I'm really interested to see how it actually plays out -- and I expect there will be plenty of fannish discussion, and I would like to be able to participate in that with firsthand knowledge of the source text.
I first saw the video on carlyinrome's LJ, and commenters pointed out a shot of Faith punching Buffy in "Graduation Day Pt. 1" at 1:04. I extra enjoyed this because "Who are you" is the name of the second part of the S4 Buffy/Faith bodyswap episode.
***
saeva argues against the colloquial fannish use of the verb "pimp." [Edit: Alternatives to "Pimp" Poll -- link via metafandom]