Getting a Little Political -- Part 1
2007-05-06 03:50:00
I happen to feel like breaking from my usual routine on the blog today and stepping from apolitical posts to political. I'll probably get it all out of my system in a few rapid-fire posts and then be done with it for a few more months. At least I hope so, as I really don't want this to become a political blog. My apologies for this break from my usual programming.First topic: Abstinence only sex education programs and "pro-life" rhetoric. Frankly, I don't want to hear it. And I don't want to hear about how RU-486 and abortions are wrong. I don't want to hear about how adoption is a wonderful option.Right now, in America, if your daughter (or your sister, or your niece, or any young woman who is dear to you) goes to college, her odds of being raped are very close to your odds of rolling a six on a single die roll. I don't want to hear the anti-abortion rhetoric until those odds are a lot closer to your odds of winning the lottery.And I also don't want to hear it until the backlog
Corbin Covered Bridge, Newport, NH -- a photo
2007-05-18 14:44:00
Here's my "picture postcard" view of the covered bridge that's just down the road from our home.
Read more: Corbin
, Covered
, Newport
Moose -- some vacation photos
2007-05-31 18:04:00
We took a vacation last week to a different part of our lovely state. We saw several moose, a fox, a couple of tom turkeys, and I spotted our first-ever live, non-captive porcupine. I only got photos
of moose.
Blog Reviews, a mixed bag
2007-06-07 19:57:00
In my ongoing attempts to increase the traffic to my blog, I got it into my head a few weeks ago to seek out free blog review sites. I found a few and submitted my blog to them. So far, three such sites have published their reviews of this blog.The first is the worst:http://www.theweblogreview.com/review/3333/...In which the reviewer was kind enough to spell my name incorrectly twice (in different ways) and correctly zero times.The second is considerably better:http://blogs.qoody.net/reviews/the-repeal-of-gravity-blog/...In which I got some good advice. I'm not sure whether it will truly influence my blogging habits, but at least it's food for thought.The third is my favorite:http://reviewmyblogforfree.blogspot.com/ This one is very brief (which is neither criticism nor praise, rather just observation), and complimentary (which is flattering). I scored pretty well on this one, which is nice.Unfortunately, none of these three reviews has resulted in a substantial increase in my traffi
This Morning's John McCain Town Hall Meeting, Claremont, NH
2007-07-14 21:41:00
We went to our first presidential campaign town hall meeting today. This time was an event for John McCain
at the American Legion hall in Claremont. I was surprised to get the phone invitation the other day from McCain's people. I guess he's courting the independent vote. As this will be our first presidential election cycle since moving to New Hampshire, I'm still not altogether certain of the process. From what I gather, we'll be allowed to choose which primary we want to cast our ballots in (assuming we wish to cast our ballots in either primary).If you've read my campaign web site, you'll probably already be aware that I am, on principle, opposed to the whole two-party system. By extension, I'm also of the opinion that there ought not to be a primary election cycle. I think we'd all be much better off if we just went straight to the general election. Stop playing this game of trying to determine which of our like-minded people would best represent all of our fellow like-min
Read more: Morning
, John McCain
, Town Hall
Back for more, finally
2007-07-14 20:05:00
Okay. So it's been well over a month since I've posted anything here. Very sad. Here's my list of excuses:1) I was saddened to see the drastic drop-off of traffic to the site, once Google did whatever it was that resulted in the majority of my photographs no longer bringing search engine users here. I still have no idea what happened or why. I know that several people on the web have placed links to my bleeding heart flower photograph elsewhere. But given that they've not copied the photograph to other locations, and instead just left the photo on my server and used a link to display it elsewhere, I'm baffled as to why Google would treat those sites as the home of the image, rather than treating this site as the home of the image.I suppose I could stamp my URL across all of my photographs, but frankly I don't like that sort of thing.2) Also related to that, I've been less interested in posting my photography here since all those photographs disappeared from Google. Maybe they'r
Bill Richardson in Claremont, a Campaign Event
2007-07-28 11:29:00
Well, Beth was working this morning, so I was left to my own devices. After taking the recycling to the local recycling center, I popped into Shirley's Restaurant in Claremont for a Bill Richardson
"Meet and Greet", which I knew from the local paper was scheduled for this morning.The owner of the restaurant, Dan Fillo, was quoted in the paper as having said, "We've been told by the campaign not to expect a question and answer format. He's probably just going to come in and speak, giving a brief 10- or 15-minute speech about his platforms."So I was quite pleasantly surprised when after giving his talk, Richardson did open the floor to questions. In my last blog post, I mentioned that Beth got in the last question from the floor at our session with John McCain. I didn't say anything about what she asked him, however. So here I'll mention that she asked him about Darfur. We were both bothered that it took until she got in (right under the wire) for Darfur to be mentioned. McCain did
Read more: Campaign
, Bill Richardson
Our Evolving Language?
2007-07-31 16:16:00
Last week (a phrase that I believe pretty much always means "the week before this one"), I was listening to the radio, as I do regularly while at work. The day was Wednesday, July 25, and I was reminded of something that's been bothering me (mildly) for quite a while now.The radio announcer mentioned the YouTube Debate that happened "last Monday". That debate had happened on Monday, July 23. That's a mere two days before the report I was listening to.When I'm speaking, if it's a Wednesday, and I say "last Monday", what I mean is "the Monday of the previous week". That is, "9 days ago".This is the idiomatic usage that I grew up with, and I believed that within the English speaking world, it was pretty much universal usage.On a Wednesday, if I want to speak about something that happened two days earlier, I am happy to say "two days ago" or "on Monday". (Using a past tense verb in conjunction with this phrase clarifies that I'm speaking about the most recent Monday, rather than the u
My First Mention in the Mainstream Press
2007-07-29 15:26:00
After Richardson was finished at yesterday's event, as we were filing out of the restaurant, I was stopped by a reporter for the Eagle Times, a fairly local daily newspaper. He asked what I thought and so I gave him some opinions. When he asked for my name, I handed him one of my business cards, mentioned that I'm running for president, and encouraged him to check out my web site. He expressed some interest and asked a couple of follow up questions. Well, in today's edition of the Eagle Times, the top story is about the Richardson event in Claremont yesterday. And guess who got mentioned at the end of the article. That's right...little old me.The following snippet is, of course, copyrighted material...and I encourage everyone to try to track down their own copy of the paper to read the full article. (Sadly, the Eagle Times' web site only includes the start of the article rather than the whole thing.) So here's the closing snippet, which amounts to my first mention in the mainstr
Read more: First
, Mainstream
, Press
Another Swig from the Linguistic Trough, and Another Poll
2007-08-03 06:00:00
I also happened to invite the Linguistic Mystic to have a look at my July 31 post. He did so and was kind enough to give me a nice credit as the inspiration for his latest post, an interesting discussion of the mysteries of whether "tomorrow" begins at midnight or at wakey-time. Thanks, Linguistic Mystic.Today's the third in my little series of linguistic discussions, again inspired by newscasters:Why would you say "an historic event"?I believe Peter Jennings used to do this. I always considered Peter Jennings to be the perfect exemplar of accent-free American English, despite his Canadian origins (Eh?). (Of course, it's all accents, really...and what I think of as "accent-free" is just as much an accent as is Apu-speak from The Simpsons. At the very least, however, Jennings didn't drop his R's or his H's and there was no chance of confusing the white race with the white rice.)So why Jennings (and others who don't drop their H's) would use "an historic event" always seemed an in
Linguistic Discussions
2007-08-01 22:37:00
This morning, I invited most of the authors of the Language Log blog to take a look at my last blog entry. (Most, not all, only because there were a few whose e-mail addresses I was unable to locate.) Anyway, what has ensued is a fairly fascinating discussion that's been carried on via an e-mail thread rather than as comments to my blog. Oh well. At least they all included me in the e-mails, which have been most edifying. (They're a bunch of professional linguists, and I certainly am not.)So here's the gist of what seems to be the consensus:Both usages are in common parlance.This does cause confusion when people of one camp converse with people of the other camp (especially when scheduling, as the "next Wednesday" issue is just as much a problem as is the "last Wednesday" issue).The rift does not seem to be a recent development.This has been previously studied from a linguistic perspective.Such divergent dialectical usages are probably more common than most of us think.In addition,
Some Insect Photography
2007-08-04 19:18:00
Today I spent a couple of hours in my kayak on Willard Pond in Antrim, NH. This was my second visit to this particular pond. It's not very large, but there's an island towards the east end. To the east of the island, there's a field (for lack of a better term) of these aquatic purple flowers. Being no botanist, I don't know what kind of flower they are. What I do know is that the bumblebees seem to love them. So there I sat, surrounded by hundreds or thousands of bumblebees (none of which made any effort to cause me any harm--way too busy going about their pollination activities), probably a few dozen dragonflies, a pretty good number of damselflies and a few lovely butterflies. I had brought my camera with my longest lens, which I set to Macro mode and fired off a bunch of shots. I think I got a few good ones, some of which I'll share here. I hope you enjoy!I also got to see a couple of fish jumping out of the water. If I had to guess, I'd probably guess perch. But it would be a
Meet the Donkephant! New T-Shirt Design
2007-08-07 17:02:00
Well, after many months, I've finally put a new design on my on-line store. If you like the design, and want it on a shirt (or even if you don't especially like the design but want to show that you're a free thinker), you're invited to go there and order.As always, comments are welcome.
Read more: Shirt
Having Original Ideas (even when other people had them first)
2007-08-25 12:35:00
I'm always disturbed by people
claiming that Columbus did not "discover" America, on the grounds that people were already here. (There are other grounds on which to argue with the Columbus discovery myth, like (a) where he landed and (b) that there seems no good reason to call him Columbus. (Cristóbal Colón seems more likely the guy's name.))Discovery does not require being the first to discover something. All it requires is finding something when you weren't already certain it was there. Although, even that requirement is a little sketchy. I think you can "discover" the truth, even though you were already aware of its existence. Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent even before I've started with the topic of this post.Today, I thought I'd mention some original thoughts I've had. They were original thoughts, because as far as I knew, nobody had previously had them. I've since discovered that I was not the first person to have them, however. Meaning that other people have had the
Read more: Having
, Original
You Can Say Anything With Words
2007-08-29 16:16:00
Of all the pithy sayings I've ever devised, the following is surely among my favorites:You can say anything with words.If one keeps in mind what I wrote a few days ago about original ideas, one might wonder whether I was the first to formulate this sentence. I'm quite certain the answer is no. A quick Google search shows that whether I was the first or not, I'm surely not the only, although the sentence does appear surprisingly infrequently in the Google database.I think the statement is true, although it may sometimes be difficult to find the appropriate words, and it may (on rare occasions) be necessary to invent new words to achieve the objective.An interesting side-effect of this ability to say anything with words is that it's possible to say things that make no sense. Even more exciting: It's extraordinarily easy to say things that nobody has ever said before. This, despite many people's claims that "there's nothing new under the sun" or that "everything's already been sai
Read more: Words
Hanging On For Dear Life (A New Photograph)
2007-08-28 16:21:00
I came home the other day and the sun was setting and there was a very bizarre light out there. I decided to wander out to the flower garden that's in our side yard. I don't go out there very often, which means that when I do go out there, I'm almost always pleasantly surprised by what I find. All summer long, something is blooming, and I never know what it will be. There were some flowers out there this time that were obviously past their prime, and I just found this shot to be irresistible:That last petal was just holding on for dear life. It was this incredibly vivid color, contrasting with this bizarre hub which used to contain so very many petals and had become so very barren. I think it's lovely. Let me know what you think of it.
Read more: Hanging
Orwell's 1984 -- A Book Review
2007-09-14 17:00:00
A few weeks ago, we were watching Jeopardy, and one of the questions was about George Orwell
's 1984. I said, "I really should read that one of these days." A few days later, we were at a tag sale and Beth spotted a paperback of the book for a buck. So she bought it for me. Now I've read it, finally, quite a lot of years after I should have done. I had read Animal Farm a long time ago, but I had just never gotten around to reading 1984. Now I'm sad that I let it wait for so long.So I provided one of my little capsule reviews to the book store on Wednesday. But since the blog allows me to spend as many words as I want, I'm going to publish a somewhat longer review here:Stylistically and structurally, Orwell's 1984 is a masterpiece. In addition, it is a triumph of imagination. Orwell imagined a world so thoroughly as to make it seem less a fictional setting than an alternate reality. His book, while fairly short, is as complete as could be hoped for. The novel is brutal, unpleasant,
Considerably Less Funny...
2007-09-27 21:12:00
Now, this is scary....A little later in the conversation, Brownback (a U.S. Senator) actually said, "We declared war," in relation to the invasion of Iraq.Unbelievable!Let's make this clear: WAR WAS NOT DECLARED!!!!!!!!!!!!When I was a kid, there was this word I sometimes heard: "Yutz".As in "What a yutz!"Well, I propose we bring it back, specifically for Brownback. Yutz!
Read more: Funny
Just Thought This Was Funny
2007-09-27 20:43:00
I tuned in the Republican presidential candidates' forum on PBS, in time to see Ray Suarez ask a question. Apparently, Sam Brownback thought the question came from someone named Race Juarez, as he said, "thank you, Race."I just thought it was funny.
Read more: Funny
I'm Back
2007-11-24 08:01:00
Well, it's been a very long while since I've posted, but I'm back now. I noticed that my tendency has been to not blog any time while work had me miserable. I was miserable at work recently. Well, as of this past Wednesday, I've left that job behind. I'm optimistic that I will be considerably more in a cheery mood in the future.Here are some things I've neglected to mention:1) This year, Beth and I became baseball fans. Strange, that. I think it means we're getting old and our brains are slowing down. When I was younger, I just couldn't understand how anyone could be a fan of such a slow and dull game (I still refuse to consider it a sport). But now I actually find that it's somehow exciting. There are things about it I despise. (For example this business about "checked swings". As I recall, when I was a kid, I never saw the "checked swing". Is it really a new innovation, or am I imagining things? As I recall, in the past, if the bat left the shoulder, it was a swing. None of
A Rant on Romney and Religious Fundamentalism
2007-12-05 12:19:00
I was listening to NPR's "All Things Considered" the other day when they aired part of an interview with presidential candidate Mitt Romney
. The interviewer (Robert Siegel) asked about Romney's belief in the literal truth of the Bible, and Romney very slickly evaded the question while trying to make Siegel feel somehow dirty for asking the question. What follows is the feedback I provided to NPR: Shame on Mitt Romney for trying to make Robert Siegel feel ashamed for asking a legitimate question and, by extension, trying to make NPR listeners feel ashamed for caring about the answer.Does it matter to me which specific book(s) of the Bible a candidate takes more literally than others? Nope. But does it matter to me whether my vote supports someone who believes in superstitious hokum, to the exclusion of reason, logic, science, sense, and critical thought? You bet!It's terrifying to me that Romney can, in one sentence, decry the "global jihad" that's threatening our way of life and i
Watching Hair Grow
2008-03-04 08:55:00
As I mentioned in a previous post, my New Year's Resolution for 02008 is as follows:To at least make a valiant attempt at resisting the urge to cut my hair, with the eventual goal of donating it to Locks of Love.In the last month, my hair has definitely crossed over into the silly range. I think it's hovering on the ridiculous precipice, but I don't think it's quite crossed over. Certainly, it will have done so a month from now.Here are the March 2, 02008 photos:The last time I shaved was on February 1. That has nothing to do with the resolution. It has more to do with its being winter, and my having gotten through the itchy time, which is what usually keeps me from not shaving. I fully expect to shave by the end of this month. That will, of course, serve to amplify the difference between
Read more: Watching
The Pledge of Allegiance--a Brief Recollection of Childhood
2008-02-18 17:27:00
For some reason, I've recently been thinking much more about my elementary school years. I had gone quite a lot of years without having thought much at all about them. Interesting that I should have recently started remembering bits of childhood that I thought were forgotten. Strange that I've actually been pondering them.I remember that we used to recite the Pledge
of Allegiance at the start of every school day. I participated with as much vigor as did each of my classmates. It was a recitation that was learned by rote. Participation was expected, and there was no question as to whether to participate or not. (That came later.)What strikes me as the most interesting aspect of this phenomenon is that, as far as I can recall (and I firmly believe this to be true), we were never taught what
Read more: Brief
, Childhood
Cornish-Windsor Bridge (A New Photograph)
2008-02-12 09:16:00
I went out yesterday for a little bit of photography. Here's a photograph of the Cornish-Windsor
Bridge. [I guess Vermonters call it the Windsor-Cornish Bridge, which actually has a nicer ring to my ear, but since I'm living in New Hampshire, I'll call it "Cornish-Windsor".]What you see is the Connecticut River, not nearly frozen over, but covered with a lot of floating ice. The long horizontal thing is the bridge: the longest wooden bridge in the U.S. and the longest two-span covered bridge in the world. There's snow on the roof. In the background, I believe that's Mt. Ascutney (VT), but I could be wrong about that. I have no idea of what mountain it would be if it's not Ascutney, though.As always, comments are welcomed and encouraged.
02008: A Nightmare Scenario
2008-02-08 08:40:00
Since my last political post, three noteworthy (from my perspective) things have happened in the U.S. presidential nominating process:John Edwards has dropped out of the race. That's OK with me. I'm sad it had to come to that, but the writing was on the wall, and it was obvious that the Democratic race was not available for him to win.Super Duper Tuesday has come and gone, seemingly establishing that the Democratic race is too close to call (note the great discrepancy between CNN's delegate tracker--currently showing Hillary ahead by 96--and Newsweek's delegate tracker--currently showing Obama ahead by 4), and that Huckabee is still alive on the Republican side--although he's still in third place in the delegate count.Most interesting of all is yesterday's announcement that Romney is out.W
Read more: Nightmare
New Year's Resolution, 02008
2008-02-02 09:37:00
Cracking a nut is not really an art, and therefore no one would ever dare to call together an audience and crack nuts in front of them in order to entertain them. If he does it anyway and he succeeds in his intention, then it can certainly not be a matter of nut-cracking alone. Or it is a matter of nut-cracking, but it becomes clear that we have ignored this art because we have mastered it too completely and this new nutcracker shows us its true nature for the first time, in which case it might even be useful for the effect if he were even less skilled at nut-cracking than most of us.-Franz Kafka, as translated by Kevin Blahutfrom the story Josephine, the SingerorThe Mouse PeopleI made a New Year
's Resolution
this year, and I actually did it at the start of the year. (I made last year's re
A Photo of Autumn! (just a few months late)
2008-02-01 09:41:00
Well, this past autumn was absolutely spectacular here in New Hampshire! (By far, the best we've seen since moving here.) However, I was largely lazy about taking my camera out to shoot it. Mostly, I just gazed in wonder, without any thought of my camera. I did take a few shots, though, and I think this one is the most interesting:This shot was taken at night, using a compact fluorescent light source. As always, I welcome any feedback.
Read more: Photo
, Autumn
, few months
Star Wars, Nothing But Star Wars....
2008-01-31 09:41:00
I recently watched all six of the Star Wars
movies, in the order that George Lucas prefers. That is, episodes I-VI, rather than in the chronological order of their production. Here's what I came away with, as far as opinions are concerned:1) The saga holds up very well, in terms of a narrative flow. To some degree, I think this is a bit of a feat. On the other hand, there was plenty of time between the production of Episodes VI and I, to ensure that the plot points were all ironed out in a way that keeps things consistent. I'm not really all that sure of just how much tinkering Lucas did to alter Episodes IV-VI to achieve that end. I did notice, with a bit of disgust, the insertion of the Christensen ghost and the appearance of celebratory Gungans at the end of Episode VI. Neither insertio
Read more: Nothing
Responding to Some Early Democratic Primaries
2008-01-27 21:20:00
Well, I must admit, I was fairly crushed by what the Democratic
primary voters in New Hampshire did. Michigan was an aberration (thanks to Obama and Edwards and others choosing to stay off the ballot). Nevada was surprising, inasmuch as Edwards got such a teensy slice of the pie--but at least Obama likely came away with more delegates than Clinton.I'm still supporting Edwards, in principle. However, it's become quite apparent that his chance of getting the nomination is approximately as good as is my chance of winning the general election. Which is to say, approximately nil.So, I've got to say that my political spirits are greatly buoyed by yesterday's results from South Carolina. Why? Because my preference for Edwards over Obama is only about the width of a dime. Whereas my preference for
Read more: Early
Am I Really the Enemy? (Politics, Morality, Miscellany)
2007-12-30 17:19:00
Okay, so it's been a while since my last post. This has had nothing to do with the unhappiness at work that had previously coincided with my absences from blogging. I'm between full-time jobs, and I've been working more hours at the book store in the meantime. I've actually been having a blast! Working in retail during the holiday season provides a bizarre sort of thrill, and I've enjoyed it immensely. The new job starts in about a week.I believe it was the day after my last post that Mitt Romney gave the world his fantastic speech about how his religion would or would not influence him as president. From what I heard, he really gave a stirring, impassioned, convincing, honest, and reassuring speech. Really great! Congratulations, Mitt.However, as magnificent as his speech was, he made it
Read more: Enemy
, Morality
, Miscellany
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