Argh

Dear College Administration,

1. Seriously, you send a flier about a ski trip as an attached file? Annoying, I'd prefer you just put it in the body of the message, but fine. You send a flier about a ski trip attached as a .ppt? Really? Is something suddenly wrong with .doc or .pdf? Powerpoint? Really?

2. See, here's the thing about campus email. Do you remember that time I think last spring when you sent out an announcement saying that email is now considered an official means of communication from the administration, in the interest of reducing the amount of paper? Well, I was apparently silly in assuming that meant that if you sent out a notice through email, you would not then print out four hundred copies of the exact same letter and put it in our campus mailboxes. Because...do I need to spell it out for you? Please say no.

Tonight's speech

I don't know if it's just because I've spent the past 8 years listening to a barely-literate doofus stammering through monosyllabic words, but goddamn can President Obama give a speech.

Seriously light on actual policy, of course, but you know what? He didn't spent thirty minutes talking about the terr'rsts and how we've gotta go get 'em, so I'm pretty happy.

Bonus points for "No one messes with Joe" (just pure awesome), listing community service/volunteering as exactly equal with military service, and pointing out that our military needs aren't the same as they were fifty years ago and maybe we should stop funding retarded Cold War era projects that don't work (*cough*missiledefence*cough*).

Further

I'm increasingly convinced that the absolute only reason that anyone took Marx's economic and political theories remotely seriously were twofold:
1. Fear over the changes that the industrial revolution brought. Humans, being the stupidest successful species ever, tend to have a demented fear of Change. Marx said, "No, you're totally right, you're not being fulfilled as a person if you're not out farming and growing your own food." He did everything he could to legitimize the ridiculous discontent at the changes in society.
2. That argument nicely set up, he just pointed and said, "Look! The Capitalist! You're not happy? It's because of him!"

Et voila - not only do people have their baseless dissatisfaction justified, but they have what everyone really wants, a scapegoat. He's brilliant with his language, but Marx isn't anything more than a talented sophist.

In other news, after having gotten a rejection letter from Grad School A yesterday, I was really pissed when I got a skinny letter from Grad School B (by far my top choice) today. "I was fine yesterday, but I don't think I can handle two rejections in a row, so I'm not going to open this until this evening, after seminar," says I.

Turns out it was just a note saying they have my complete application and I should get an acceptance or rejection within a month.

Also in the mail was a letter to all the seniors from the Dean which began along the lines of "Now that you've been notified that your senior essay has been accepted..." Which would be great. If we'd gotten notice about whether our essays have been accepted or not yet, but we haven't. So, as always, good job college administration!

Dear Mr. Marx: WTF?

"The sum of values in circulation can clearly not be augmented by any change in their distribution, any more than a Jew can increase the quantity of the precious metals ina country by selling a farthing from the time of Queen Anne for a guinea."

What about a gentile?

Faulkner

Maybe it's because I spent all of last week playing with grammar and trying to make everything right in my paper, but I have the overwhelming urge to bring Mr. William Faulkner back to life, bitch-slap him, tie him to a chair, and make him edit "Was" from Go Down, Moses until it's nicely structured, has commas used in appropriate places, and doesn't sound like an 8-year-old with Downs Syndrome.

My internal clock needs resetting

I'm incredibly off-schedule, because - in addition to resuming class - I slept for about five hours on Sunday afternoon. I was exhausted - Saturday was in no way an early night but I managed to make it to work on Sunday morning regardless. Then I slept from about 12:30 to 5:30 or so, which meant that when the time when sane people who have class at 9 AM go to bed rolled around, I was wide awake.

Off to bed soon with me tonight, then.

Also, it's done. 100%, revised-edited-proofed, printed, bound in a report cover, ready to turn in tonight, DONE.

I have strangely mixed feelings about that.

Why that final proofread is important

"...the Constitution establishes a social order, then builds upon that social order to find the general will, and ultimately the document itself functions as a Constitution."

...apparently while writing, at some point my brain decided that since I'm writing about how the Constitution functions as a social contract, the two terms are completely interchangeable. The rare case of a typo not being factually wrong - the Constitution does indeed function as a constitution - but still very, very wrong.

Oh, really?

Apparently there's some idiocy going on in Georgia, where state congresscritters are basically on a witch hunt to get rid of (I'm guessing sociology) courses at state universities, the ones that are on things like sexuality and I'm sure gender studies. I have little doubt that it's based in "OMG teh gay!!1" nonsense. While I'm dubious about the value of stuff like that*, I don't think it's the state legislature's place to say whether or not it should be taught. I also think that the budgetary excuse is grade-A bullshit; education at any level should be the absolute last thing to have it's budget cut, and I don't care if we're talking about Head Start or graduate programs at Big State U.

But here's the best part of the article:

"Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math," said Hill, a vice chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee. He said professors aren't going to meet those needs "by teaching a class in queer theory."

Did you catch that? The part that pisses me the hell off?

"Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math," said Hill, a vice chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee.

Oh, really? Reeeeaaaaally? Sciences - presumably he means only the hard sciences such physics and biology - and business and math? That's all?

I'm sorry, but what an idiotic jackass. How about grammar? How about composition and rhetoric? Logic? Obviously I'm a bit biased, but I also acknowledge that a curriculum based solely on the classical liberal arts is not for everyone. To even imply that, say, language for the sake of language isn't an important part of higher education is reprehensible. What about history? Philosophy? Poli Sci 101?

The point of education is to educate. If you have a problem with that, well, tough shit - that's the way it is. It's not to prep the businessmen of tomorrow to make money at any costs and it's not train the next generation of engineers so they can come up with the next superweapon to use against whatever nation we decide to bomb next. The purpose of education is to educate, to teach students how to think critically and understand the world around them.

And for what it's worth, Rep. Hill graduated from either Arizona State or University of with a degree in business. I'm shocked. (Hint: never vote for a businessman. Government is not a business.)

*I hear the angry womyn coming now to revoke my feminist ID card....

Worth celebrating

Happy birthday, Mr. Darwin.

Sorry so many people are spitting in your face recently.

Also, Los Alamos?

Stop doing crap like losing computers. (How do you even lose a computer? I've owned three in my life and never managed to lose one, nor has anyone I know. Spent three bucks and get a lock for each laptop, and stop hiring idiots.)

And dumping plutonium in the water supply is another thing I'd prefer you stop doing.

Feeling unfulfilled

Dear admissions offices of universities I applied to,

PLEASE stop sending me emails that do not, in fact, reveal whether I have been accepted or not. I'm sure the open houses you're hosting are very interesting and I would love to attend - especially you, UCL - but I lack the means to do so. All that's coming from those emails is I see an email from someplace I applied, and get very excited, and open it, and discover it is not that exciting.

Yours,

A slightly high-strung applicant

Two scenes

Last night I got on an editing kick. My adviser has this thing about using the verb "to be" and I'm pretty sure he'd like it if I didn't use it at all, ever. I'm not quite good enough to do that, but I was making a good-faith attempt to reduce it, because in many places the language was a bit sloppy. That, plus various other editorial things, were kind of....well. You know how some people can get totally sucked into a video game, or TV series (fine, I do that too with DVDs), or puzzles, or whatever, and you say, aah, it's evening, I'm just going to do this for a bit, and then the next thing you know it's some ungodly hour?

Right.

So I give up on my staring contest with the English language and go to bed way, way later than I should.

My alarm goes off at about 7:15, which leaves me more than enough time to get ready for work, where I belong by 8:30.

Apparently, I woke up enough to turn my alarm off, and then rolled over and went right back to sleep. Something in my brain was still up, though, because I recall then, after some vague amount of time, thinking that maybe I should get up. So I decide to start slow and open my eyes, and then I look at the clock. Which is telling me it's now 8:29.

Anyway, ultimately it wasn't a big deal, because A) work is about thirty seconds out the door and B) my boss really didn't care. But the point is that I was late to my job at a library because I overslept because I stayed up too late playing with grammar, and I think that little vignette serves as my entry into the League of Pathetically Geeky.

Lay off the grass!

Lately here in Santa Fe there's been this issue being argued relentlessly about concerning grass. Namely, the grass on the plaza, which apparently has been referred to as "historic" (okay...). The main issue is whether or not to allow vendor booths and picnic tables and such on it. Those in favor of say that that's what the grass in a public plaza is for. Those against, as far as I can tell, say it takes too much of a toll on the grass.

Now, here's my thing: we're in Santa Fe. That's high desert. You know what does not naturally grow in very dry climates at high altitudes? Did you guess grass? You're correct! Grass likes lots and lots of water. By definition the desert does not have lots and lots of water.

So here is my suggestion: don't just shut the hell up about it, but forget about having grass. It's stupidly expensive in every way to try to maintain grass here. It can be done, sure, but not terribly easily. That's part of living in the desert. You get 300 days of sun a year, you get beautiful sunsets, you get mountains, you get great hiking. On the other side of the coin are the potential opportunities to contract hantavirus or the plague, and the fact that grass really doesn't want to be here.

Seriously. Please stop whining about the grass dying. If you want to have green grass in a climate like this, it will inevitably be a look-but-don't-touch thing, because it wants to die to begin with.

Somehow, I have no problem understanding this, but people who have been here for far longer than I seem not to.

Australia :-(

The body count is now over 125.

The fires are still burning and they're expecting an even higher toll by the time this is over with.

Over 1,200 square miles have been affected. Some towns have apparently been completely leveled.

Australian Red Cross

Australian Salvation Army

Thesis thought of the night

Occasionally I feel that my trying to write academically about the Constitution is pretty much the same task as a 12-year-old girl writing academically about the Jonas Brothers.

We're all nature's bitches...

I love it when the National Weather Service sums up New Mexico weather so nicely:

A LINE OF STRONG WINDS AND THUNDERSTORMS STRETCHING FROM MORIARTY NORTH TO SANTA FE... ESPANOLA... AND EMBUDO WILL MOVE NORTHEAST AT 20 MPH THROUGH 300 PM. EXPECT A SUDDEN WIND SHIFT TO THE WEST AT 30 TO 40 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 50 MPH. THUNDERSTORMS WILL CONTAIN RAIN... SNOW... SNOW PELLETS... AND SMALL HAIL. VISIBILITIES MAY BE REDUCED BELOW ONE HALF MILE AT TIMES IN PRECIPITATION AND BLOWING DUST. THIS AREA OF THUNDERSTORMS WILL MOVE EAST INTO THE SANGRE DE CRISTO MOUNTAINS AND PRODUCE VERY HEAVY SNOW WITH NEAR ZERO VISIBILITIES IN THE HIGHER TERRAIN.

Let me repeat that in case you missed it: wind gusts up to 50 mph and thunderstorms with rain, snow, snow pellets, hail, blowing dust, very heavy snow, near zero visibility. I've been glancing out my window for the past ten minutes (since the thunder and lightning started) trying to tell exactly which form of precipitation is predominant and I can't even guess.

Meanwhile....

The apocalypse has begun in Australia; nearly a hundred dead from wildfires, probably started by arsonists.

How awful.

Yeah.

Because sometimes there's just too much love and happiness in the world, and we need to do something about it.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

On writing and stress

We're now in the tail-end of our class-free writing period (class-free being that we don't meet for seminar or tutorials, not that we're becoming white trash). Papers are due on the 14th.

On Tuesday I met with my adviser to go over a draft, a meeting in which we said, "Yes, this sucks. Good. Now what do you want to write?" "Well, I think that actually I'm trying to write about how the Constitution is a social contract; I had to talk about freedom at first to get my brain there." "Good. Go write it."

So I did. I did a bit of work on Tuesday, and then pretty much sat down yesterday and said, "I am going to write this." And I did. And it turned out the paper I want to write isn't too similar to what I actually already wrote, so it wasn't so much 'copy/paste/rearrange' but just 'write'. I'd told my adviser I would email it to him Thursday morning, which is today. So I sat and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, and I thought and thought and thought and then wrote more. 21 pages, almost all new, in about the space of 24 hours.

Now I have emailed that off, and now I'm sitting here like, 'huh. no writing to be done. odd.'

I can't imagine how I'm going to feel not just once I've turned in the paper (my guess, though, is relieved and very drunk), but once I finish my oral and am truly and honestly done with this paper. It occupies such a huge part of my mind I'm having a hard time imagining not having it to work on.

He started it!

I agree with a lot of this opinion piece overall; Obama's immediate attempt to reach out to the Muslim and Arab communities around the world is a good thing, and there's still lots of work to be done in stabilizing the middle east. He also gets bonus points for mentioning that much of the instability is a direct effect of Western imperialism, which is undeniably true.

But there's also this:

Let's be clear: Americans did not initiate the conflict with al-Qaeda and other Muslim extremists, and Americans will not be the ones to declare an end to the struggle against violent extremism practiced in the name of jihad.

That is a task that falls to Muslims themselves. At its core, this struggle is over the future of Islam. Obama must work hard to make sure that his well-intentioned gestures of comity do not obscure this reality -- and do not provoke a new whiplash of resentment and doubt if they do not bring the results he wants.

Which to me just reeks of "Yeah, but he started it!"

At this point it doesn't matter who initiated the conflict - though I do think that there's far more debate there than is often acknowledged (see above re: western imperialism) - because it doesn't fall to either 'side' to stop it. It falls to both. In order to find peace, all involved parties need to find a tolerable compromise. Fights end when either one opponent is incapacitated - which no moderately sane person can possibly advocate in a large-scale ideological conflict like this - or when they both agree to stop shooting at each other, sit down, and figure out a way to continue to get along without shooting at each other.

An agreement of peace needs to have more than one signature on it, and you can't point fingers saying that it's up to one side or the other to write it. It needs to be a joint project.