Given that we are approaching finals, and I have to take ’em, posting will be sporadic.

Right now I’m tired, can’t study, and can’t concentrate, so that doesn’t bode well for intelligible posts.

If you’re looking for something to read in the interm, I have several suggestions:
This post on politics and the Catholic church, from Jeanne at Body and Soul.
A beautiful essay, Old Man Cedar, from Real Live Preacher.
Some lovely pictures from pericat at Unlocking the Air.
And anything you care to read over at languagehat.

Enjoy.

I made it to last night’s final Festival of Ideas speaker, Ken Auletta, who talked about media bias.

Unfortunately, I was incredibly tired (still am actually) so I didn’t take notes or write anything when I got home. That leaves you an article in the DP (you’ll notice that the DP article talks about him, but gives very little substance of the talk. Considering the quality of the DP, this is unsurprising, but somewhat appropriate, given the subject) or the article in the Daily Athenaeum. Sorry.

He did mention the four things he believed were most wrong with today’s media: Synergy, lack of humility, hubris, and bias. I think he’s right on as far as that goes. Synergy covered one of the biggest problems (at least to me) and that is the fact that news stories are written to sell copy, not to inform the reader. I was reminded of the summer of 2001 when the story that dominated the news was Shark Attacks! (do you remember that?) All you heard about were shark attacks, and the dangers of sharks, despite the fact that there really had not been an increase in shark attacks that year.

My point is that it seems as if the media often manufactures a crisis that they think will see papers, because the real crises today aren’t sexy and glamorous. Homelessness and unemployment aren’t glamorous. Lack of quality housing and health care aren’t sexy. So the real crises in America go unaddressed while there is a media circus around spectacles that are unimportant.

Anyway, that was the gist of last night’s talk.

:: how jedi are you? ::

Ha! I get Princess Leia!

We had to take the car to the dealdership, because the check engine light came on. Michael just called to tell me what was wrong.

The gas cap was loose.

No excuse voting for the WV primary begins Wednesday the 21st. For statewide information, see the Secretary of State webpage. (Warning: the website was redesigned after Manchin took office, and has some serious issues. Be forwarned that if you’re using anything other than IE, you may run into difficulty. [And this may be a reason I won’t vote for Manchin for governor. No state official should have a website that is inaccessible to anyone, or that works poorly. The secretary of state’s website provides information about voting to the entire state, and as such should be accessible to the entire population. (But I rant.)])

Call your county courthouse to find out where early voting will be held in your area. (Last primary in Monongalia county it was in a building across the way from the Mon County Courthouse.)

For more information in candidates in your area, see: Project Vote Smart.

Remember: VOTE! It’s your true patriotic duty.

We went to dinner with Kim and Mike Saturday, and one of the discussions reminded me of a theory I heard several years ago, about creature phobias. The details are foggy, I just remember that it was a biologist of some sort who worked with creepy crawlies, and he said that he’d noticed that people tended to have a fear of snakes, or a fear of spiders, but typically not both.

Oddly enough, I’ve found this to be true. People seem to be disturbed by creatures with either too many legs, or not enough legs. I don’t mind snakes, but I have an absolute horror of centipedes. I don’t mind spiders too much, but then spiders kill things like roaches and ants and other nasty bugs that creep me out.

So as part of our after dinner discussion (Lesson: Don’t have dinner with a group of people who like biology), we discovered that Mike and I were both grossed out by the mere thought of centipedes, while Kim completely flips out when we talk about snakes and slugs (Mike joked about getting her a UCSC Banana Slugs T-shirt, to which Kim replied that if he did, she’d put spiders in his bed.) Michael had little to say about the whole subject. He tends to sit back and listen, thinking whatever deep thoughts he thinks at times like that. Either that or he’s secretly laughing at us.

So I’m curious as to whether this is something tends to be true for a larger part of the population—whether we have in some built in fear of either too many legs, or not enough legs, but typically not both.

Busy weekend. Saturday morning Michael went up on the roof, while I prepared the door trim and attempted to replace the light.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to try these projects, except as a reaffirmation of Murphy’s Law. As I worked with the light, I was reminded of several years ago and the first time I put together a computer.

Various friends had for years been showing me the ins and outs of tearing apart computers, and I had a pretty good grasp of how things went. So when my new case and motherboard arrived, I decided not to wait for Michael to come home, but to transfer everything myself. I pulled all the various parts and pieces out into the middle of the floor where there was plenty of open space, struggled but eventually managed to get the new motherboard into the new case, and then began moving parts from the old case into the new case. I got everything seated properly, and then got it all hooked back up without major incident. I plugged it in, hit the power button, and….

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

You can not imagine how disappointed I was. All that work and I’d obviously made some stupid mistake and hooked something up improperly. So I took the case back off, took everything out, and put it back together, checked to make sure I did it correctly. I plugged it back in. Still nothing.

I was convinced that I was a complete idiot who thought she knew what she was doing but was obviously totally clueless and should be kept away from anything more difficult than say, a manual toothbrush, and went off to sulk.

When Michael came home he quickly determined that the power supply was bad and had to be sent back to the company for a replacement.

Changing the light Saturday was a similar exercise in futility. The thing was obviously rusted together, so I liberally applied WD-40 before getting started. After about an hour and a half, multiple trips up the ladder to get suggestions from Michael, and finally completely dismantling the entire fixture, I got the horrid thing off the wall. I then pulled out the new lamp, and attempted to attach the brace to the box. The screws were too large.

No big deal, I could just use the screws from the old brace. Except that I could only find one screw. I went through the entire trash bag only to find that the second crew had completely disappeared. Off to the basement to find a replacement. Replacement found. I put up the new brace, attached the wires, and then went to the basement to turn the electricity back on (notice that I was smart enough not to screw the fixture to the wall. I do learn eventually.) Come upstairs, pull out the power sensor—nothing. Doesn’t work.

I climb the ladder to tell Michael this, and he tells me to try a bulb anyway. This, of course, fails to work. Back up the ladder. I suggest that perhaps when they replaced the outlet where the switch is with a GFCI outlet, they’d messed something up. Michael agreed that this was not only possible, but highly probably. Back downstairs to turn off the power.

Now I have to explain about this box. It contained three switches and one outlet, all jammed into the space where one normally has a double light switch. (You know the kind I mean—where you have two light switches in a single place, and the plate and whole thing is pretty much square.) So I unscrew the face plate, and then unscrew the switches and the plug. I go to pull out the two switches, when POP! there’s a spark that scares the crap out of me.

I climb back up the ladder to tell Michael that I’m okay, the yell was nothing, but that I’m an idiot. The third switch was for the overhead light, which I knew was on a different breaker. (I know this because we are slowly but thoroughly labeling all the breakers in the box, so when we go to replace something, we don’t always have to go through the Click. NO! Click. Click. NO! Click. Click. NO! Click. Click! Got It! game. (This is not a fun game, but when the breaker box has three switches all helpfully named “kitchen” there’s not much else to do.)

So back downstairs to see that yes, the breaker for overhead lights was tripped. I leave it off and finish pulling out the switches. To say that behind those switches was a mess of wires would be a complete understatement. It reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of garter snake mating season.

So, I gave the whole thing up as bad luck, and wandered off to do some more gardening.

The only thing that made me feel better, was that it took Michael a quite a long time to figure out what they’d done, the short answer of which was: lots, including messing up the three way switch for the overhead light. But of course he didn’t realize the wiring was messed up until we’d already gone back to Lowe’s to get a replacement switch, assuming that I’d toasted that switch when I’d forgotten to turn the power off. I hadn’t. Someone just royally messed up the wiring, but Michael wasn’t about to fix it, since a simple 30 minute project had already spiraled out of control.

I’m thinking that in the future, I may just stick to gardening.

This is absolutely fascinating:

During Tuesday’s Good Morning America, a representative of Tyco Fire and Security displayed the amazing properties of the chemical that’s called “Sapphire.”

The chemical has all the firefighting properties of water, yet it will not cause the damage to items that is usually associated with water.

Tha material is god, obviously for libraries and museums, but the business applications are there as well. Think about the damage done when a sprinkler system leaks, or malfunctions, which could be avoided with the use of non-wet water.

It reminds me of the breathable water that I saw a few years ago, that applications for helping premature infants with repiratory problems.

Science continues to amaze me.
(via Monkeys In My Pants)

Here is an entire collection of candidates for the Darwin Award. The Naval Safety Center has a photo of the week, of people doing really stupid things, like tying ladders together so they can reach high places.

I immediately sent this off to my dad, who will now have a whole variety of pictures to use in his afety classes.

I’m sure his students will thank me.
(via Iron Monkey)

When is it appropriate to sing the Smurf Song at work?

Today’s random facts:

Caesar crossed the Rubicon.

Napoleon was exiled to Elba and defeated at Waterloo.

There’s lots of stuff I never learned in history class.

It’s obvious he means well, but this post by Old Oligarch epitomises everything that I cannot stand about the right-to-life movement. Mind you, I believe that abortion is a wrong that society should fix, but as far as I’m concerned, the so called “pro-life” movement doesn’t care about life at all, it cares only about fetuses and doesn’t give a damn about those children once they are born.

He talks about all the people entering the clinic, and goes on about the workers and the patients, and a huge dialogue about how he felt about the entire thing, but just like almost every other pro-life person I’ve heard, ends it there. As if ending abortion is the only consideration and all will be well once that goal is achieved.

There is no discussion of what will happen to these pregnant women and their babies. As always, it as if once abortion is stopped, there will no longer be a problem. There is no discussion of helping pregnant women, and helping those women then care for their babies. There is no mention of groups like Birthright, that provide maternity clothes, baby clothes, arranges for baby supplies and toys, and most importantly provides someone to listen. There is no mention of these groups and how they need support, through cash donations (which can be made through the United Way), donations of maternity clothes or baby clothes and items, or even through donations of time.

There is no mention of the evil of parents who throw their daughters out onto the street when they discover the pregnancy. Or of parents who tell their daughters that out on the street is precisely where those girls will end up if they do become pregnant.

Nothing about supporting rape and domestic abuse crisis agencies.

No support of adoption agencies, or information about how to become a foster parent.

Nothing about the need to support families with children; no concern for those unborn once they become children.

Just a strong sense of good versus evil, and of self-righteoutness, with no sense of the gray areas, and no consideration of any of the support structures that exist (or in so many cases don’t exist) for pregnant women, infants, and children.

There is also no consideration of how to keep women from getting pregnant in the first place. No discussion of making birth control cheaply available or free. No support of sex education programs, or for day care programs that allow pregnant teens to remain in school.

It is this blindness that I find so maddening about “right-to-life” groups. It is as if the only life they value is the life of the unborn child, and once the child is born their work is done, and they could care less what happens to the child. No interest in affordable day care for the poor. No interest in health care for and and children. No interest in clean and safe housing for children. No interest in providing these children quality education so that they can keep from making the mistakes their parents made, and our generation is making.

You want to impress me with your right-to-life idealism, then start showing some support for the world these children will enter once they are born.

So I had to talk to this jerk today who almost made me burst into tears. In public. At work.

I don’t feel like censoring myself, so be warned if you choose to read on.
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