The Wife's Journal

5:19PM - This is how lazy I can be

I haven't posted or commented in an age because I forgot my password and was too lame to go look it up. Today I absolutely had to look up another password, and found my LJ info with it. So here I am.

1:59PM - Because it's important to get the right people in the right job.

"Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA. "

"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."

And the truly special moment:

"Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.
But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas. "

We wouldn't want anything to interfere with a good photo-op, would we?

The Salt Lake Tribune

8:25PM - Crazy People

Though nine women will be ordained priests on a boat in the St. Lawrence River in July, Canadian Archbishop Anthony Meagher of Kingston said the ceremony will be neither Catholic nor an ordination.

"To attempt an ordination this way is to step outside the church. If someone decides they don't want to be Catholic, there is nothing we can do. There is no need for me to get out into a row boat and announce that what they are doing is wrong," he said June 7.

Among the nearly 500 seats available, 220 already have been purchased at a cost of US$85 each.

Who pays to watch a bunch of goofy women make idiots of themselves in the middle of the St. Lawerence River? For $85, no less

link Catholic News Service

8:27AM - Local News

Local news isn't usually very interesting, but this story has it all. It's practically Greek Drama.
from The State

8:45AM - Higglytown Heroes

This is an odd little show my youngest (a two year old) is rather fascinated by. The first thing one notices is that all the characters are weebles. They even walk around by rocking back and forth on their flat bases, wierd. They are also hollow and can bisect themselves. This becomes particularly disturbing when a smaller one jumps inside a larger one, like those Russian dolls.

All this is freaky enough, but after seeing several episodes I have come to realize that all this bizarre imagery is just a front for -

COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA!!!!!!

During their daily lives, these weeble children encounter insurmountable difficulties such as locked doors, wilted flowers and blown fuses. Utterly unable to come to terms with these tragedies, the weebles need "Heroes" to help them. The heroes turn out to be perfectly ordinary servicepeople who come to solve the problem while singing a catchy tune about how heroic they are. The child-weebles join in at the chorus to pledge to work hard and be "heroes" too.

So, everyone is a hero, no one gets paid (not even the pizza guy) and serving the town is the greatest thing there is to do.

Uh-huh.

go to Higglytown Heroes

6:26PM - Peeps!

A shrine to Peeps, made of Peeps.

7:53AM

I recently read this excellent book and would like to recommend it to pretty much everyone. The author examines several societies, past and present, and analyzes the ultimate reasons for their collapses. Societies include Easter Island, Rwanda, Norse Greenland and the Maya.

Very readable summaries of their histories and the factors that destroyed them. Obviously, much detail is left out, (it is a survey book), but I found it compelling.

My favorite tidbit of knowledge comes from the Greenland Norse society. Some Vikings lived in Greenland for about 500 years before they all died out. While there, they hunted polar bears to trade the pelts with Europe. Occasionally, they also shipped live bears as curiosities to the courts of Europe.
The thing is, to get to the polar bears, the hunters spent about two weeks in an open six-man boat in Arctic water. Then they got out on the ice and killed or captured a polar bear with fairly primitive weapons. Then (and this is the part I love) they got back in an open six-man boat for two weeks with A LIVE POLAR BEAR TIED UP IN THE BACK. The hunters themselves got almost none of the income from this activity, they did it for the prestige. This behavior may have contributed to the decline of their settlement.

Anyway, it's a good book, read it!

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

4:13PM - For those who don't know

I had thought this was as old news as the Wikipedia thing, but eleventoes has never heard of it. He insisted I blog it because (he thinks), if he hasn't heard of it, no one else has either.

Perseus is an evolving digital library, engineering interactions through time, space, and language. Our primary goal is to bring a wide range of source materials to as large an audience as possible.

Most of their stuff is ancinet Greek and Latin, but there are a number of interesting maps and other historical resources.

Perseus.tufts.edu

8:19AM - Outrage over rapist's lottery win

Home Secretary David Blunkett said Thursday he plans to bar convicted felons from benefiting from financial windfalls while behind bars after a jailed rapist won £7 million ($12.6 million) on the national lottery.

Blunkett said that proposed legislation before parliament would force offenders who won the lottery or other wealthy criminals to contribute to a compensation fund for victims of crime.

"We can't stop a prisoner or their family from buying a ticket, but we can look closely at making sure they don't benefit from a single penny while in prison," he added.

Full article here

8:44AM

Signed by the first President George Bush in 1990, NAGPRA requires federal agencies, and institutions that receive federal money, to inventory any bodily remains or important cultural artifacts of Indians, native Alaskans, or Hawaiian peoples in their collections -- and to return those items, on request, to "culturally affiliated" tribes or descendants. In addition, the statute restricts commercial trade in those objects. Exempt from the law are objects held by the Smithsonian Institution (a separate statute, the 1989 National Museum of the American Indian Act, covers those) or objects found after 1990 on state-owned lands (most states have their own repatriation laws). Nor does NAGPRA apply to items amassed in private collections before 1990 or discovered on private land.

The issue came to a head with Kennewick Man. In this much-publicized case, the chance discovery of a skull along the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, in 1996, led to the finding of 9,000-year-old skeletal remains. Although scientists believed the bones originated from a Caucasian man, a coalition of Indian groups claimed the remains, asserting that the skeleton lay in territory that has traditionally belonged to their people. Or, as one tribal leader stated, "From our oral histories, we know that our people have been part of this land since the dawn of time." The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- which has jurisdiction over the Columbia River -- accepted this argument and announced it would repatriate the skeleton.

Reason Online

The full essay is well worth reading. The solution to a serious problem causes another serious problem.

9:02AM - Pablo!

Philosophically I am certain on Buddhist premises that they are right in saying the rebirth has to be a different person from the one that died. Consider the following: Imagine that I die and am reborn (as I might be) as a cockroach in South America. For our present purposes let us understand by 'person' (as does the Buddhist) any conscious subject of experience. Thus the cockroach is a 'person' in this context. Now, it is clear that the cockroach in South America is not the same person as me, Williams, professor in England. But I can also make absolutely no sense of any claim that the cockroach is also not a different person from Williams. Clearly the cockroach is indeed a different person. What follows from this is that the person Williams is has actually ceased to exist. There is now a cockroach called Pablo. In terms of what it is to be me, the ongoing lived life that it is to be me, it has come to an end. A cockroach is now having an ongoing lived life that is indeed a cockroach life, the life of Pablo the cockroach. It seems to me that it is sheer confusion to think that somehow Williams continues in, or within, or underlying, Pablo. It makes no sense for me to look forward to my life as Pablo. It also makes no sense for me to carry out actions aimed at benefiting my future life as Pablo. If this story is not one of Williams ceasing to exist, I do not know what would be.

Thus notwithstanding the Buddhist position on rebirth, I want to claim that in fact given the Buddhist premises when I die I simply cease. The fact that there will be a cockroach then existing bearing a causal relationship to me is, in terms of personal survival and thus in terms of specifically my interests, irrelevant. If I were told I was to be shot at dawn I would be terrified. If I were told not to worry because after I had been shot there would be born a cockroach in South America bearing a particular (even close) causal relationship to me, I think I should still be terrified. And I would be terrified not because I do not want to be a cockroach. I would be terrified because whether of not there is a cockroach there would not be me at all. What is that cockroach to me? If I am told I am to be shot at dawn I should plead for survival, not a lesson in entomology.

I don't really have a reason for posting this except I liked his analogy.

full essay here

10:44AM - Diseased cattle and tile makers?

Also known as
Rock; Rocco; Rollox; Roque; Rochus
Memorial
16 August
Profile
French noble who early developed a sympathy for the poor and sick. While on pilgrimage Roch encountered an area afflicted with plague. He stayed to minister to the sick, and affected several miraculous cures, but contracted the plague himself. He walked into a forest to die, but was befriended by a dog. The dog fed him with food stolen from his master's table, and Roch eventually recovered.

When Roch returned to France, he was charged with spying. He languished in jail for five years, never mentioning his noble conections, cared for by an angel until his death.
Born
1295 at Montpelier, France
Died
1327 at Montpelier or Angleria, France
Patronage
bachelors, Barano, Italy, Castropignano, Italy, cholera, Constantinople, diseased cattle, dogs, epidemics, falsely accused people, invalids, Istanbul, knee problems, Orsogna Italy, Patricia Italy, plague, relief from pestilence, skin diseases, skin rashes, surgeons, tile makers

7:43AM - Degree Confluence Project

The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures and stories will then be posted here.

overview
The project is an organized sampling of the world. There is a confluence within 49 miles (79 km) of you if you're on the surface of Earth. We've discounted confluences in the oceans and some near the poles, but there are still 12,888 to be found.

Check out the site. They have pictures for more than 3,000 sites. If aliens decide to survey the planet by looking at these places, they will think that nobody lives here. Neat.

8:28AM - What is there to say, really?

When One Is Enough
By AMY RICHARDS as told to AMY BARRETT

Published: July 18, 2004


I grew up in a working-class family in Pennsylvania not knowing my father. I have never missed not having him. I firmly believe that, but for much of my life I felt that what I probably would have gained was economic security and with that societal security. Growing up with a single mother, I was always buying into the myth that I was going to be seduced in the back of a pickup truck and become pregnant when I was 16. I had friends when I was in school who were helping to rear nieces and nephews, because their siblings, who were not much older, were having babies. I had friends from all over the class spectrum: I saw the nieces and nephews on the one hand and country-club memberships and station wagons on the other. I felt I was in the middle. I had this fear: What would it take for me to just slip?

Now I'm 34. My boyfriend, Peter, and I have been together three years. I'm old enough to presume that I wasn't going to have an easy time becoming pregnant. I was tired of being on the pill, because it made me moody. Before I went off it, Peter and I talked about what would happen if I became pregnant, and we both agreed that we would have the child.

I found out I was having triplets when I went to my obstetrician. The doctor had just finished telling me I was going to have a low-risk pregnancy. She turned on the sonogram machine. There was a long pause, then she said, ''Are you sure you didn't take fertility drugs?'' I said, ''I'm positive.'' Peter and I were very shocked when she said there were three. ''You know, this changes everything,'' she said. ''You'll have to see a specialist.''

My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to?

I looked at Peter and asked the doctor: ''Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?'' The obstetrician wasn't an expert in selective reduction, but she knew that with a shot of potassium chloride you could eliminate one or more.

Having felt physically fine up to this point, I got on the subway afterward, and all of a sudden, I felt ill. I didn't want to eat anything. What I was going through seemed like a very unnatural experience. On the subway, Peter asked, ''Shouldn't we consider having triplets?'' And I had this adverse reaction: ''This is why they say it's the woman's choice, because you think I could just carry triplets. That's easy for you to say, but I'd have to give up my life.'' Not only would I have to be on bed rest at 20 weeks, I wouldn't be able to fly after 15. I was already at eight weeks. When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It's not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.

The specialist called me back at 10 p.m. I had just finished watching a Boston Pops concert at Symphony Hall. As everybody burst into applause, I watched my cellphone vibrating, grabbed it and ran into the lobby. He told me that he does a detailed sonogram before doing a selective reduction to see if one fetus appears to be struggling. The procedure involves a shot of potassium chloride to the heart of the fetus. There are a lot more complications when a woman carries multiples. And so, from the doctor's perspective, it's a matter of trying to save the woman this trauma. After I talked to the specialist, I told Peter, ''That's what I'm going to do.'' He replied, ''What we're going to do.'' He respected what I was going through, but at a certain point, he felt that this was a decision we were making. I agreed.

When we saw the specialist, we found out that I was carrying identical twins and a stand alone. My doctors thought the stand alone was three days older. There was something psychologically comforting about that, since I wanted to have just one. Before the procedure, I was focused on relaxing. But Peter was staring at the sonogram screen thinking: Oh, my gosh, there are three heartbeats. I can't believe we're about to make two disappear. The doctor came in, and then Peter was asked to leave. I said, ''Can Peter stay?'' The doctor said no. I know Peter was offended by that.

Two days after the procedure, smells no longer set me off and I no longer wanted to eat nothing but sour-apple gum. I went on to have a pretty seamless pregnancy. But I had a recurring feeling that this was going to come back and haunt me. Was I going to have a stillbirth or miscarry late in my pregnancy?

I had a boy, and everything is fine. But thinking about becoming pregnant again is terrifying. Am I going to have quintuplets? I would do the same thing if I had triplets again, but if I had twins, I would probably have twins. Then again, I don't know.


New York Times

7:41AM

'Rogue waves' reported by mariners get scientific backing

European satellites have given confirmation to terrified mariners who describe seeing freak waves as tall as 10-storey buildings, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.
"Rogue waves" have been the anecdotal cause behind scores of sinkings of vessels as large as container ships and supertankers over the past two decades.


But evidence to support this has been sketchy, and many marine scientists have clung to statistical models that say monstrous deviations from the normal sea state only occur once every thousand years.

Once every thousand years, or every two days?
I am always interested to find out that we have a flawed understanding of basic, everyday events on this planet. At a fundamental level we have not a clue what is happening around us.

full story here

6:39AM - Who thinks up these things?

Ashes to ashes, dust to diamonds
Funeral home offers conversion of cremains to gem stones

For creation of a gem, the funeral home needs to send 8 ounces of cremains to LifeGem in Illinois, which then will extract the carbon in a lab, said Samantha Nienberg, Caughman-Harman funeral director, embalmer and family service counselor. LifeGem uses the entire 8 ounces in the process, she said.

The finished gem will be a diamond in shades of yellow with hues of pink and orange, costing anywhere from $2,500 to about $14,000. Cuts are round, radiant or princess.

found at theState.com

8:04AM

iron. age.
The Aga doesn't just look different, it's also built different. In fact, it's probably the only state-of-the-art kitchen appliance deliberately made of cast iron. How state of the art? Well, you never have to turn it on or off, or set the temperature. It's always on and ready to use. It does that by transferring heat efficiently from its core element to the built-in cast iron ovens. It seems that good old cast iron (surrounded by vermiculite) is so heat efficient, you can build an oven out of it that you never need to turn off. Who knew?


eleventoestold me to blog this because he'd never heard of an Aga. These are not new, folks. I've seen ads for these for about 20 years. BTW, they are insanely expensive.

11:56AM - Aargghh!

Pirates of the Caribbean!


What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla

10:47AM

Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?


What Monty Python Character are you?
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9:21AM - I likes me some homicide