Quote of the day

Beach cautioned that people shouldn't panic about the dangers of the brain-eating bug.

I think, if you really don't want people to panic about the *brain eating bugs,* you should find a euphemism for *brain-eating bugs.*

But seriously, only 6 (6!) people have died of it this year, and that's considered a "spike." I'm assuming that I have a better chance of being killed by a wayward para glider.

Global Gag Rule

I got this email from NARAL:

Legislation repealing Bush's global gag rule has been added to the FY '08 Foreign Operations spending bill. Your support right now could help pass the important bill and reinstate healthcare to millions of women

I remember first hearing about the global gag rule, but it was probably in those early days of the Bush presidency (in between his vacations and not paying attention to 9/11 warning memos) when I was a tender high school senior trying to get out of Oregon. And from what I've read since, I could say that it has something to do with family planning and not mentioning/ providing abortion overseas, and that it probably made no sense to me (being pro-women making their own choices). Since I don't know much about the policy, I especially wanted to link to this over at Pandagon. I love Amanda. She cuts through all the bullsh*t.

There are a number of things wrong with this argument, which is why I think more blogging would be helpful, just to get the truth out there.

1. C’mon! If it was true that we should ban every government program every nutjob has a moral issue with, we’d have no government programs. Plus, reasonable people have much more reasonable moral issues with things like war, and we’re not banning that any time soon. Why should be pander to crazies when reasonable people don’t even have a say in moral funding issues?

2. Withholding or opposing abortion is the immoral stance, taken out of a hostility to women’s health and women’s rights. Anti-choicers shouldn’t have the moral high ground, because they are wicked, petty assholes who want to increase the amount of suffering in the world to satisfy their misogyny. To be a truly moral person, you can’t exclude half the human race from your consideration.

3. The global gag rule isn’t just about abortion. That’s basically, in any realistic sense, a lie. It’s about withholding medical care and contraception. Even without it, the U.S. simply doesn’t fund abortions (though I think they should). It’s a backdoor way to deprive women worldwide of contraception and basic health care, since the people who provide those things pretty much by definition are good-hearted non-misogynists, and thus mostly believe as the logical and good-hearted generally do that abortion is a moral good.* The global gag rule is about giving the U.S. power to root through clinics worldwide looking for evidence of appalling levels of human feeling towards women and depriving them of funding if they find that someone’s committed the thought crime of believing that women should have full rights and options.

The last is the killer point: The global gag rule is about depriving peope of contraception, STD prevention, well baby care, after-abortion care, post-partum care, prenatal care, and gynecological care, all by pretending it’s about abortion... NARAL sent me a list of ways the global gag rule has been used to deprive people of basic health care.

* In Nepal, the government threw a 13-year-old rape victim in jail for having an illegal abortion. The Family Planning Association of Nepal used her case and others to advocate for the release of women in jail for having abortions. For this, they were deemed thought criminals in violation of the global gag rule and funding was terminated.
* In Kenya, funding is lean and mean, so having entirely separate facilities for abortion is pretty much impossible. Under the global gag rule, though, you can’t even have abortions under your roof, even if not a U.S. dollar goes for them. This rule has meant that the Family Planning Association of Kenya has cut its staff in half and closed down 3 clinics, one that had a huge well baby program and post-partum care. Depriving babies of medical care is another sign that pro-lifers don’t actually love babies. They just hate women.
* Planned Parenthood of Zambia was deprived of enough funding under this that they shut down 3 of 9 rural clinics, depriving all the people in that area of one of their few, in any, sources for affordable condoms.
* The Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia can’t refer women to abortion services or perform abortions, since abortion is illegal in Ethiopia. Still, they have lost half a million dollars that went pretty much strictly to providing condoms and contraceptives, because they have participated in educating the government in how illegal abortions contribute significantly to their high maternal mortality rate.

I hope this bill passes. I don't think the world really needs someone like Bush trying to push his brand of "morality" on those seeking basic reproductive services. Considering the world population and current AIDs rates, who the hell is against education and condoms, anyways?

Back in the USA

It's a rainy day in the valley, and they come so rarely, that I'm marking the occasion by taking a nap, reading, and marking things off my to do list. One of which was, update the blog.

I was home in Oregon for two days to recover from being abroad. I divvied out massive amounts of chocolate for the family, visited with everyone, and went on a hike up Chinidere Mt. with Mom. It was a lovely hike -- and luckily we ran into a friendly park ranger who could direct us on the right trails. From the summit (which is covered in small flat rocks) we could see all the surrounding mountains (from Jefferson to Rainier), which revived again my appreciation of our local scenes. And we found the seal of the Menlo Park Geological Survey up there -- strange. I ate many a wild blueberry/huckleberry. Waded a bit back at the lake. At home, I walked the ditch. Picked blackberries. Climbed the little hill above Aubert's bridge. Ate venison roast. Ate out of the garden.

















Mom and I spent a day (unintentionally) in Portland, at the Olive Garden for lunch, along the scenic highway for views and coffee, to Ikea for wandering and dinner (chocolate cake...). I missed Merrie's arrival from Namibia by, literally, minutes. My flight took off at 7:25, hers landed at 7:26. I don't want to talk about it. Delta can go to the devil.

I had an *interesting* trip back from SFO. I got in the Super Shuttle, and noticed a couple of dachshunds up on the front seat floor. The driver assured us that he'd gone to a leash free park earlier, so they were good to go. And then I listened to him talk for *twenty minutes* about the whole food diet he feeds the damn dogs. I felt like mentioning that many Americans, and their children, can't afford grain-fed meat from Whole Foods for themselves, let alone for their pets. He punctuated every sentence with "you know?" "Dogs can tell the difference between grain fed, you know?" "Dogs need vitamin D, you know?" Etc. etc. When he let me off in Escondido Village, he told me that I should eat vegetables with vitamin K, some fat, butter, olive oil. And that he was telling me this because I'm a student. I thanked him, was thankful to be in my quiet studio. Only in California.

The next morning I had CA training. Then I had to repack for our weekend beach retreat at Pajaro Dunes. Which was awesome -- the training gets so much better when we escape the Stanford-enforced training (fire lady, party rules, etc.) and spend more time with the CA program, planning events. Our neighborhood committee is perfect. During free time, I walked with Dinah along the beach... and we discovered that we were both reading Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, and were within 50 pages of each other. It was incredibly creepy. We read on the beach a while, then retreated to the main beach house's turret room. Then I hung out in my own house for a bit. Dinner, then a bonfire on the beach (yay for getting to stick around for tons of s'mores and beer and wine this year). Then I slept in the living room of this basically beach front house, listening to the ocean. We had a beautiful view from the living room windows, from which I saw two dolphins the first morning, rolling down the coastline. On the way home, we got a tad bit lost and took the scenic route. Stopped at a random gas station for Mexican food, and I had some of their fresh squeezed carrot juice. Again, only in California.








Finally went grocery shopping. Always makes me feel like I'm back home.

Monday & Tuesday I helped with practice exams for the (newly!) second years. Spent Monday evening with my committee, going to Costco, stuffing welcome bags for our residents, and eating tons of lasagna.

Weds. I brought sunflowers to the TA lounge for the quals survivors. Celebrated with Meredith at 11 am. Went for lunch & shopping with M. & Whitney. Went to the grad student bbq with the studio crew. So windy! Then back home to greet Sarah, hang out with her, Jill, and Sara over tea and peanut butter cups.

Thurs. we had a dept. memorial service, followed (strangely) by my neighborhood's Psycho movie night.

Friday was errand day on campus, followed by a lovely lunch at Brioche with Sarah & Jill. Then BevMo shopping for the Garden Party on Sunday.

Then unexpected evening plans (the best kind) with Meredith -- we saw LCD Soundsystem & Arcade Fire at the Shoreline Amp., then hung out till midnight at In & Out.

But here's the thing about concerts, that I re-realize at *every* concert. If they lowered the volume a tad (I'm not arguing for anything revolutionary, just take it down a couple notches), we might actually be able to hear the different instruments, distinguish between different elements, decipher the lyrics, and, in general, hear something more complex than Noise. Or at *least* venues should offer ear plugs to those of us who haven't ruined our hearing yet to the extent of needing the volume up that high. At least. At one point during LCD Soundsystem, I swear I could feel my cheeks vibrate with the base.

Enjoyed it, nonetheless.

Nurture wins again

I've always hated it when people, pretending to be relying upon "evolutionary science," start hypothesizing that the "differences" they've supposedly noticed (or made up, looked for, etc.) between men and women are innate. Hunters and gatherers (or gatherers and hunters, if you're into feminist revisions) seem to be the reason for *everything*, from how women and men carry books, to spatial/mathematical reasoning, to dating trends. Whenever I hear someone start with "caveman days" stories, I translate it into "I like to tell myself this story about human history for entirely personal and arbitrary reasons." It's nice to see my own take reinforced by a study... I just stumbled across this article (via Feministe) at Group News from Economist.com:

Writing in Psychological Science, a team led by Ian Spence of the University of Toronto describes a test performed on people's ability to spot unusual objects that appear in their field of vision. Success at spatial tasks like this often differs between the sexes (men are better at remembering and locating general landmarks; women are better at remembering and locating food), so the researchers were not surprised to discover a discrepancy between the two. The test asked people to identify an “odd man out” object in a briefly displayed field of two dozen otherwise identical objects. Men had a 68% success rate. Women had a 55% success rate.

Had they left it at that, Dr Spence and his colleagues might have concluded that they had uncovered yet another evolved difference between the sexes, come up with a “Just So” story to explain it in terms of division of labour on the African savannah, and moved on. However, they did not leave it at that. Instead, they asked some of their volunteers to spend ten hours playing an action-packed, shoot-'em-up video game, called “Medal of Honour: Pacific Assault”. As a control, other volunteers were asked to play a decidedly non-action-packed puzzle game, called “Ballance”, for a similar time. Both sets were then asked to do the odd-man-out test again.

Among the Ballancers, there was no change in the ability to pick out the unusual. Among those who had played “Medal of Honour”, both sexes improved their performances.

That is not surprising, given the different natures of the games. However, the improvement in the women was greater than the improvement in the men—so much so that there was no longer a significant difference between the two. Moreover, that absence of difference was long-lived. When the volunteers were tested again after five months, both the improvement and the lack of difference between the sexes remained. Though it is too early to be sure, it looks likely that the change in spatial acuity—and the abolition of any sex difference in that acuity—induced by playing “Medal of Honour” is permanent.

Guess I should take up playing Doom again.

Switzerland, week 2

The second week...

After my first update, I had a dramatic night -- my host madame (who is 77 years old) had a fall, dropping left over plum tart and water all over the floor. Luckily she wasn't hurt badly -- I had a panicked moment in which I realized I didn't actually know the Swiss equivalent to calling 911. So from Monday onwards, I was sure to be more helpful with carrying things to and from the kitchen, and with walking the dog.

Tuesday, after class, I had lunch on my own lakeside -- and then met up with Leslie for an extended walk in the other direction (toward Clarens). We tried to make our way up to this beautiful castle like building, but it didn't seem to be open to the public. Instead, we sat and talked by the lake until my "curfew." For a particularly lackluster dinner of pasta with leftover mushroom sauce, tomatoes, and the everlasting pudding.

Weds. I hurried out after class to get on the Rochers de Naye mountain top train. Which was (of course) beautiful... the train wasn't crowded on the way up, and we climbed above the lake, the hills, through tunnels, past pastures...Ate my lunch of bread, cheese, tomato, and chocolate on the train. We went up past where Leslie and I had walked, so past Caux it was all new territory. Very cold at the top though! And I was wearing shorts and sandals! I explored the top of the hill -- I had a 180 degree view of snowy peaked mountains, with hills and lakes in the foreground. I took a brief walk through the alpine garden, visited the "marmot paradise," soaked in the view (and the bit of sun between fantastic airy clouds), and then hopped on the next train down.



At the peak.



Marmot at lunch.

Back in Montreux, I serendipitously ran into Leslie -- we headed into the mall, and she helped me make the very time consuming decision to buy a blue scarf.

Dinner -- cheese and tomatoes heated (strange?), potatoes, and plums for dessert.

Thursday Leslie and I had our usual lunch on the dock, after I made another incredibly time consuming decision to buy shoes (they were only 20 francs). Then we took the bus to Vevey -- which had a far cuter, quainter downtown than Montreux. We went to the lake, got pictures of the fork sculpture in the water, and then headed into the Alimentarium museum. Best museum ever. Displays on seasonal, cultural foods... food trends from the past to present... the old Nestle boardroom... an interactive area with chocolate and cookie samples... kitchen cooking lesson on making baklava... ate mine out on the picnic table (we made a mess).

Dinner -- risotto and salad, followed by the strangest dessert... it looked like a bowl of spaghetti with whipped cream on top. In actuality, it was a layer of meringue, followed by a layer of what seemed to be cinnamony dough shaped into noodles, and topped with whipped cream. It wasn't particularly tempting. Especially after my baklava and the chocolate samples.

Friday: Final day of school! Thank God. Although it was the most fun activity we'd done so far... "mystery interview guest" game. Leslie and I had our final lakeside lunch... I had my last walk to the chateau... then I bought a ton of chocolate to give to family upon my return... just in time for dinner (fish bake, salad, potatoes, almond cream bread).

Saturday: Chamonix adventure day! I got on the 9:05 to Martigny and then took the Mont Blanc Express. Fantastic ride up... villages, deep gorges, waterfalls, mountains, snow capped ranges. And a crazy Scottish fellow going by the name of Twig livened up the journey -- he was tipsy, and just opening his next bottle of wine. Headed to Annecy to (and I quote) "score some heroin." I had to turn him down on going with and catching dinner together. In Chamonix I wandered through the town, got advice at the tourist office, walked to the Pierre de Ruskin for my picnic lunch, and then took the Petite Balcon Sud trail for views of the mountain. I enjoyed just taking whatever paths looked interesting, turning back when I felt like it, watching the para gliders...



The view from Ruskin's rock.



The prospect from further up the trail.


Then I proceeded to get lost in the process of buying dinner, returning to the train station, and using up my euros. Made it in plenty of time to the train though, which was just as fantastic on the return trip (and quieter). I watched the sunset on the lake back in Montreux, ate some Movepick ice cream...

Sunday: Final day! I had a pastry on the train (after being so delighted to understand the lady at the bakery: c'est tres dificil choisir), and caught the 7:45 train to Interlaken... it was the Goldenpass tour through Gstaad and Zeissimen (sp?), and it was a lovely morning ride up the hillside past Montreux, vineyards, forests, a misty lake (hazy with the sun coming up), and cows. Interlaken reminded me of the Columbia River Gorge. Also: very cold and cloudy. I hopped on the next train toward Bern, on which I met this delightful couple from Atlanta, who gave me some tips. In Bern I visited the tourism office, went to the fine arts museum (yay for a free, clean bathroom, and a cafe). Then I walked through the old town to the bear pit, had my picnic lunch, and turned back... visited an internet cafe, and still had plenty of time to make the next train back to Montreux in time for dinner. Had my last walk by the lake after packing... and was so looking forward to returning home! I had had enough adventures for two weeks.

The return trip meant about 26 hours of travel... the train to Geneva, the flight to London, the 9.5 hour flight to Seattle (watched Becoming Jane, The Hoax, bits of Walk the Line again, most of Waitress...), the series of lines that is customs, the flight to PDX (yay for making an earlier flight! and free wine (again)! and the sunset over Mt. Rainier, St. Helens, Adams, and Hood!), the trip home with Mom and Tim. One thing I'll say for international flights: despite being stuck in the middle seat (damn you, British Airways, and your bizarre seating policies), the in flight entertainment was pretty good, and the food, not bad at all. Cherry tomato and asparagus risotto, and some *good* strawberry cheesecake.

Unfortunately, I think I'm paying for all the traveling with a small cold.

And I *so appreciate* everything that I missed while I was gone. Like my shower. And choosing what to eat. And being able to talk in English and understand signs. And find water fountains. And use cash without worrying about ATM fees.

Things I've noticed

- Every toilet has a different flushing mechanism. Whether you press a lever on the upper side, lift a rod out of the top, or push a button mounted on the wall above. And the train bathrooms kick it up a notch: do you push a button mounted over the sink, press a button on the floor with your foot, or use a lever?

- The juice & bread I've bought *actually tell you how long it's safe to eat after opening.* Let's get with that program.

- Chocolate is a meal in and of itself.

- Payphones do not exist as I know them. Swisscom rules all, and will require your credit card.

Bonjour, from Montreux

It's a day of recuperating after a busy weekend, so I thought I'd update after my first week in Switzerland.

My flights over were tolerable -- from PDX to Chicago, where I had to switch into the international terminal (which felt like another world in and of itself). I pestered the British Airways attendant at the gate with tons of questions (he was entertained by it) -- what would happen at customs, would I make my flight connection in London despite our delay, could I have a window seat, etc. My seat, unfortunately, was toward the back of the plane, and in the aisle. But on the bright side, my seat mate was a cool young woman from I think Italy, and she had all sorts of advice about how to get a window seat (apparently, check in online, or get there really early). And we were tres excited when no one sat in the middle seat! And both being small people, we had plenty of space to move around in during the overnight flight. I did get some sleep, but I can't say it was very comfortable. As the attendant had promised, there was plenty of food onboard. Some sort of cheese pasta for me (the veg. option), with a microscopic iceberg salad (why bother?), bread, chocolate cheesecake, etc. Also, thankfully, a light breakfast... because I had to book it once we reached London. As soon as we hit the gate, I followed some guy who definitely knew how to make his way through a crowd, all the way up to the front. There seemed to be some disagreement between the attendants as to whether or not I'd make my flight -- I decided that with 40 mins - an hour, I could do it. I had to quickly get down a never ending hallway, reenter through security, and then make my way to the departure terminal. Heathrow is like a mall. Anyways, I made it, and then we were freaking *bussed* to the plane. Short flight into Geneva, and definitely prettier than the parts of England we flew over earlier -- rolling green hills, farmland, etc. Arrivals moving walkway had a series of stills from Gone With the Wind, of Rhett Butler kissing the widowed Scarlet O'Hara (you know, the you should be kissed well, and often, scene). Then to baggage claim, where I knew I wouldn't be seeing my bags -- if I had to run to make my connection, you know that my bag is still in London. Thank God I packed extra clothes in my backpack. So I wandered around in the stores outside the airport, to get essential items that were in my checked luggage (soap, deoderant), and just in time caught the train through Lausanne to Montreux. Got some tea in Lausanne with my newly changed Swiss francs, and then got off in Clarens... where my host Madame literally lives like a two minute walk away from. We quickly realized that we have no languages in common--- she was frustrated. And in my tired, jet lagged, sleep and food deprived state, we ended up checking at the train station about my luggage, meeting with her upstairs neighbor who knows a touch of English, etc., before *finally* I could eat. Oh, and the First Step World program conveniently forgot to mention that I said I was a vegetarian (I didn't get into the more complicated ins and outs of my food processes -- easier to use the label), so my madame gave me a pork sausage, some sort of mushy mustard-potato mixture, and dry bread. I was having second thoughts at that point. I could taste that sausage the rest of the night, which I choked down some of just to avoid trouble. Oh, and THEN I didn't get sleep -- I couldn't sleep more than a couple of hours, despite being exhausted.

Luckily, the first day went well. We got the food thing straightened out. During class, I met Leslie, who's also from the bay area. And during our first exercise, I mentioned that I like to hike, so we immediately started planning trips!

My first lunch in Montreux was a sad affair. I couldn't figure out where to go, and I refused to enter the McDonald's (speaking of which, they're *everywhere*, even in the car-less town of Zermatt, at the Matterhorn). So I ended up with trail mix and dried apples from the pharmacie. I walked around quite a bit, and was thankful for the pasta and salad for dinner. Another sleepless night.

The second day was awesome -- Leslie and I got lunch after class at the mall, and then changed into hiking clothes at her host d'acceuil's place. We hiked up this old staircase and trail into the hills of Glion and Caux, passing gorgeous hotels and schools and churches along the way. So exhausted afterwards! Dinner: yummy artichoke bake with potatoes, and a strawberry cream tart for dessert.

Third day: Rainy! After a sleepy class, I hung around using the internet with Leslie. To the mall: ate in the 'boat' restaurant... salad, bread, hot chocolate... yum. Clouds were rolling over the lake, making it seem like we were moving at sea. We explored the pharmacy, trying to read labels... Then I had a walk home in the rain. Pizza, salad, pudding for dinner. Oh, and I finally finished Persuasion. Speaking of which, I think I liked Mansfield Park better...

Thursday: More rain! School, C. distracted everyone from the lesson. After: market and lunch on the dock with Leslie and Christine. Then back to school with Leslie to plan our weekend adventures. After, we took a walk thru downtown Montreux and past Clarens. Dinner good: quiche and tomato salad and caramel pudding.

Friday: After school, another lunch on the dock. Passed through street vendors, visited the train station for my Swiss Flexi Pass, and then we took a *long* walk to the Chateau de Chillon (13th century, made famous by Lord Byron), which was gorgeous. I wandered through the prison, the beautiful lakeside rooms with window seats, the courtyards... Then we continued on to the tiny village of Villanueve (little cobblestone streets, with adorable buildings all matching with wooden shutters). Then the long walk home. Fish sticks, salad, potatoes, and some sort of cream-wafer cake for dinner.



I love me some castles.

Saturday: Up before 7 am, walked to the train station in Montreux. Leslie and I took the train to Domodossola, and then switched into a scenic panoramic car for the ride to the Italian lake district (Locarno). Beautiful! Stone houses with slate roofs. Valleys, sheer cliffs, tiny villages, churches, rivers. Once we arrived, we had a light lunch at the lakeside cfe... salad, fries, amazing macchiatos. We wandered around the lake, through some sort of cycling meet and a busy beach. Luckily we stumbled upon a quieter spot, where I went swimming in Lake Maggiore (swans, the hills around, perfect).

Back in Domodossola, we saw deer in a field (closest: two does and a buck), & we had gelato while waiting for the train. I slept most of the way home.



Swimmin' with the swans.

Sunday: Up at 7 again to catch the same train with Leslie. This time we transfered at Visp for the scenic Zermatt train. Lovely ride up through the mountains, with waterfalls and gorges. Zermatt was fascinating -- they don't allow cars, so there were little electric buses and horse-drawn carriages in the narrow streets. We wandered through, and came upon a trail... the map we got was tres insupportable, so we just headed up the trail. We walked past more little stone houses, cows with huge bells around their necks, a hilltop restaurant, and then onto a less frequented trail up through the hills, letting us out into a better area for viewing the Matterhorn. So many pictures. We stopped on a rock in the sun for a chocolate-eating and mountain-viewing break. We tried to identify all the highest peaks, and think we located Mt. Rosa. The way back downhill was much quicker! We stopped at a cafe with a view of the Matterhorn for beer, me for goulash and a salad, Leslie for apple streudel (yum!). And I couldn't resist the dark chocolate mousse from the bakery on the way to the train station. Only here once, may as well! On the train home, we seemed in the middle of a party... a group of kids came on with wine glasses and promptly uncorked what must have been the latest in a very long series of bottles. Leslie and I moved soon after.



The Matterhorn.

Beautiful trip home though -- we caught the tail end of the sunset over the lake... blue hills, clouds lit up pinkish.

And that brings us up to today! I'm in a different class now, where I'm learning much more. Lunch on the dock again, and catching up on emails, planning with Leslie what we should do this week, etc. Some rest after a very busy weekend!

Oh, and with lunch I had chocolate milk: the brand? Heidi's.

Camping

Near Zumwalt Meadows, where we paused our hike for a picnic lunch


Last week Andrew & I went on our summer vacation together to King's Canyon & Sequoia National Parks. It was amazing. Four nights, lots of hikes, lots of deer (bucks with antlers), and one bear sighting.

The drive out was quite long, through Gilroy, Los Banos, and Fresno. We stopped at a beautiful reservoir before entering the truly desolate wastelands that are Los Banos and Fresno. We might be biased -- it was like entering an oven when we stopped in Fresno for last minute items and Jamba Juice.

As we got nearer the Sierras, the land entered more dry hills, and we passed things like this:



Then we climbed up into the Sierras, and suddenly it was lush, cool forest. We had to drive quite a ways before getting to our campsite, which was a short walk up a hill. Everything had to be in bear boxes at all times, which really complicates your life. It's as if you had to enter a locked fridge not only for milk, but also for tea, toothpaste, and soap. The first night we settled in, took an evening walk, and ate tofu dogs, vegetarian baked beans, corn, and zucchini. Stuffed. And of course, the evening campfire with s'mores.

Tuesday, our first full day: Started with a trip to Lodgepole village, from which we went on a hike to Tokopah Falls (which was down to a trickle), ate lunch, drove to King's Canyon & waded in Hume Lake, walked through the giant Sequoias (including the widest, General Grant), and returned home for dinner. The fire didn't go well, which put me in a bad mood -- missing my stove and shower.

Wednesday was dedicated to Cedar Grove in King's Canyon. We got an early start for the 1.5 hour drive (complete with tea and coffee) and hiked from Roaring River Falls to Zumwalt Meadow (4+ miles). Saw a deer, and then, when Andrew was a bit behind me, I spotted a bear walking about 150 feet away from me. I gestured to Andrew to hurry over, and he caught a quick glimpse. We *needed* to see a bear after all the hassle of using the bear boxes.

The river and meadow were beautiful, and we made trail-side tuna fish sandwiches before making the meadow loop. No more bears on the way back to the car. We then drove to Cedar Grove village, drank water/tea and shared a double chocolate haagan dazs ice cream bar while sitting on the porch. We'd been wanting to get in the water, so we explored some areas along King's River. Finally, we stumbled upon a deserted spot with a deep little pool. I decided to swim in my underwear and top, and then convinced Andrew he needed to go swimming, too. Lovely little spot.

Then we were ready for a shower... so we returned to the village, and then made our way home up the canyon (with plenty of stops to enjoy the views). Luckily we had an easy dinner -- a pre-made jambalaya mix that we just had to heat over the fire and put over avocado. With more of the ever-plentiful zucchini on the side.

Thursday was our last full day, and we decided we were in the mood to take a longer hike. We again went toward Lodgepole, and did the Lakes Trail to Heather Lake. It was 4.1 miles one way -- and mostly uphill. The trail meandered through forest, up to stark cliffs overlooking the Tokopah Falls area from the Watchtower, and ended in an alpine lake setting. A number of European couples/ families were hiking the same path, but we had the lake to ourselves for awhile. More trail side sandwiches, and then I gradually forced myself into the water (it wasn't so much a problem of the lake being cold, as the weather not being all that hot). It was the perfect setting, from the rocks into a drop off in the lake -- I didn't have to deal with any mysterious muddy lake bottoms (which kind of freak me out). Andrew napped in the shade, while I swam about and then sunned off. Then we explored a new way out from our rocky lake-overhang, as the way in required walking and balancing on a log over a muddy marsh.




The way back down was still long, but we made much better time as we were going downhill for so much of it. And we ran into a marmot, which didn't hurt anything.

After all that, we wanted another shower... and then we went home, changed for dinner, and after quite a bit of driving around looking for food (and at the lights from towns down below the Sierras, and the stars up above), we ended up at the beautiful lodge: where we were able to have spicy sweet potato soup, Asian salad, and seared mahi mahi. Ahh, it's nice not to cook over a wood fire!

Friday morning we packed up camp, took one last hike to the Buena Vista bluff (awesome 360 views of the area), and started our descent. We stopped for a tour of the Sierra Cat Haven, where we saw about 10-15 different species of cats, many endangered. Reminded me of what Mer's doing this summer, and it was cool to get some more perspective on it.

Then we had to get to Fresno. Returned the crappy knife/ saw I'd bought there that definitely *did not* cut kindling. Had the ever-faithful Subway veggie delite for lunch, and jamba juice for dessert. Well, and a cookie.

Then it was back through Los Banos & Gilroy... where we stopped at the bizarre Casa de Fruta, and realized we were very lucky *not* to be going the opposite direction. We breezed past the outgoing traffic, saw one very confused coyote on a hill overlooking the highway, and made it back to Palo Alto in time to pick up food at the market & make dinner (after unloading all the crap from the car, putting it away, and showering). Lemon basil rice mix w/ tomato & eggplant saute.

It was kind of nice to have my own clean shower & kitchen back, but very sad to see our camping extravaganza over, and the summer together that much closer to over.

But we made the most of the last weekend -- returning the rental car on Saturday, biking to the farmer's market, doing about ten loads of laundry in the afternoon... Made a more elaborate dinner of falafel, salad, and a yogurt dill dressing. And then in the evening, Andrew's retro date: Dial M for Murder at the old Stanford Theater, and dessert (ice cream & a chocolate malt shake) at the Creamery. Yum!

Sunday we had a day in the city, as we hadn't gone there since Andrew's Dad visited us. Wandered around in Golden Gate Park (Shakespeare's Garden, which I loved; the "lake" that's really a moat around a little island/ hill; the botanical gardens; the rose garden), ate lunch at the Museum cafe (quinoa salad with figs, but I had a bite of Andrew's grassfed sustainable burger) and returned for chocolate cake after wandering, and walked through the Haight (around the McDonald's is a scary place), where I found one CD, but not a single pair of jeans.

On the way home, stopped for coffee, last minute items from TJ's... made pasta, garlic bread, and a pepper/spinach saute for dinner. Followed by our version of homemade s'mores (marshmallows over the range, chocolate fondou) and watching the rest of our Degrassi DVD.

Monday was mostly dedicated to packing and last minute errands... with a trip up to the top of Hoover Tower (where you can see everything: the bay and the city, the campus, the foothills...), and dinner out (yummy burritos).

And Tuesday we got up at 3:30 am to go to SFO together... Andrew off to Wisconsin, and I to Oregon. I slept the whole time. Went blackberrying in Washington with Mum... settling in at home... making two batches of jam... a walk along the ditch... a much needed nap... dinner on the porch, with the mountain and the sunset... talking till it was dark.

And somehow I'm going abroad on Saturday.

Back from the wilderness

Andrew & I just got back from four nights camping in King's Canyon/ Sequoia... amazing. But I'll update that in a separate post... I'm still trying to remember what we did *before* we left.

Our final weekend cat-sitting made up for some of the kitty troubles. Saturday we spent at Google, reading and then exploring in the hills. We ran into some burrowing owls (I'll have to post pictures later), and then wandered down to this little lake. For dinner, we went to this awesome vegetarian Chinese restaurant that Andrew found: yum! All vegetarian, every dish. Which means you can actually get General Tso's chicken. And brown rice. Sunday we walked to the Mt. View farmer's market, worked at Google, and then headed with picnic dinners to see the SF Shakespeare festival's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Incredible. Intriguing costumes (the fairies wore red tutus, blond wigs, and black umbrellas), cool interludes with a large lit yoga ball (like the moon), and a simple set that cleverly repositioned the head/foot of a bed (as if all the stage were in a bed, or as if the posts were fences, etc.) Oh, *and* good music -- from Mad World to Ludicris's Go to Sleep to Mozart.

Andrew's final week at Google was kind of sad -- I kept fairly busy here with sitting in on a quals meeting and eating out with S. & F. & M. at the museum cafe and walking the dish at like 7:30 in the morning.

This past weekend saw us at Target every day, as we kept stocking up for camping, or returning something, or forgetting something. We did manage to take a short hike in the Portola Redwoods on Saturday, and to visit the beach on Sunday. Found campfire wood (which didn't burn well) on the way to Half Moon Bay... ate at another awesome restaurant, using local/ organic/ sustainable food (yay for organic chicken enchiladas). And trekked down to the beach at sunset, where we waded and walked till we were the last ones there.

Monday we went off camping... but that must wait till another post.

Is it bad...

...that I feel like I need this?

Not going to the movies

I saw an ad for "Becoming Jane" last week, and for a moment, I thought, yes! a movie *about* Austen.

But it sounds like it all went terribly wrong. Instead of the independent, witty, and innovative writer Austen, we apparently get Jane, who has to be informed/shaped by her love interest in order to write with the big dogs. It looks like someone read a couple of her novels, thought they were love romances and not social satires, and then followed every stereotype about women's genius/creativity. Maybe they read Mansfield Park and took Fanny's character in deadly earnest, without realizing that she's also kind of an insufferable goody-goody. Or maybe they didn't get that Mr. Darcy becomes so attractive to Elizabeth only after she's seen his estate (huge!) how he treats the servants (not too bad!). Or maybe they found the marriages in Sense and Sensibility high romance. Whatever they did, they seem to have misread Austen. And her biography. Her juvenilia was well on its way to her mature novels, without the help of any imagined love interest. She started in 1787 -- at the age of 12. She had written the epistolary novel that would become Sense and Sensibility by the age of 20. Why the film makers felt they needed to downplay her self-education and development is beyond me.

As Amanda at Pandagon put it:

And, like Violet says, the huge reach of movies makes this whole made-up biography of Austen even more troubling, since it will mean that huge percentages, probably the majority, of film-goers will see this and not do the research to find out what bullshit it is. Think about that for a minute—I can see a lot of parents encouraging teenage girls to see this movie because Austen is such a fabulous role model, a woman who cherished her own talents and seems to have avoided marriage in part because it was a very real danger to intellectual independence at the time, even if you had a relatively progressive husband. And instead your daughter gets the message that a) life isn’t complete without a man and b) a woman’s creativity and taste can no more exist without a man to have really created it on some level, even if said woman was one of the great geniuses of literature who basically taught the next two centuries of writers how to tell stories.

Between her love interest telling Austen how to write (and giving her Tom Jones, which Pandagon commentators noted she had read much earlier on her own) and the film's portrayal of Austen copying down conversations taking place around her to be placed in her novels, the film makers seem to suggest Austen hadn't an idea of her own.

It's interesting that this film has been compared to Shakespeare in Love, which Stoppard worked on... as this film seems neither witty nor able to take a creative approach to Austen's life. Instead we get Jane Austen inserted into a stock Hollywood romance. But then again, maybe we were supposed to gather all this from the title "Becoming Jane." No one who takes literature seriously refers to female authors by their first names, while still using the last names of male authors (I saw someone in Pandagon's comments compare it to "Becoming Mark" for Mark Twain: you simply wouldn't).

Couldn't they have gotten D.A. Miller on board with this film, and made something in the tradition of Shakespeare in Love? Now for *that* I would go to the movies.

Weekends & cat sitting

Somehow, even when I'm in the midst of a relaxing summer, I don't update any more often than when I'm in the throes of the quarter system.

This past weekend was... eventful. It had its ups and downs.

Saturday morning we met up with the person we're cat sitting for, went over the routine, and had lunch together. Andrew had reading to do, but in the evening we ended up going to a nearby drive-in movie theater. Which was so *incredibly* unlike the Wisconsin Delles drive-in. It was terribly crowded, with six different out-door screens, incredibly sketchy (read: drugs, patrolling cops), and incredibly dirty (flooded women's bathroom, dirty concessions area serving remarkably few snacks). It reinforced my conviction that overpopulation is a problem, particularly in the Bay area. On the upside: Many, many cool old cars ('50's and earlier), one of which was playing oldies before the shows started. Andrew & I agreed that the new Adam Sandler film was surprisingly funny (I was initially worried it was going to become overly reliant on homophobic jokes), and better than Evan Almighty (although this might also have been a function of our watching Evan Almighty VERY late at night). The latter seemed to lose its humor at some point, since the premise (Noah in our modern day) IS the absurd joke. It was fun to spot Biblical references. Both wrapped up in tidy easy take-home morals.

Sunday we got a late start to the beach... got stuck in traffic (due in large part to both a Garlic Fest and an Antique Market), had lunch at a cute mainly vegetarian restaurant, explored rocky beaches, walked along the very fine sand at Carmel, and discovered where the wealthiest 10% have vacation homes and shop (where, if you wear beach combing clothes, you WILL be scrutinized up and down by the young woman working at Anthropologie). Then we shared a decadent piece of chocolate cake and prepared for the ride home.

Cat sitting, we've discovered, would be easier if said cats were not on medication. The friendly, tiger-striped Harpo has two doses daily -- I initially mixed it in his food, but he wouldn't finish it. So now I hunt him down, corner his butt so he can't wriggle away (he's like a fish), gently raise his head, and coax his mouth open/ position the dropper. The irony of all this? He *likes* how his medicine tastes. One time I actually got him to lap it directly out of the dropper. So you can imagine how much fun it is to feed 1/4 a prozac pill every other day to the cat that hates us (he's hissed at us coming in, TWICE; he's a one-person cat). I've tried every combination: burying the pill in wet food, pulverizing the pill and mixing with wet food, inserting in a cat treat and covering with wet/dry food... NOTHING WORKS! I tried chasing him down, which takes FOREVER, results in my getting mad, and him getting *further* freaked... only to be unsuccessful at using the pill popper. And then I feel bad for lunging after him. Finally, with Andrew's help, I got him immobilized, tilted his head back, coaxed open his mouth, and massaged his throat after Andrew popped the pill. Jesus, it would be easier if you could explain to the cat what you''re doing.

Oh, the *other* highlight of cat sitting. Harpo (who is the speaker for the two) has decided that breakfast must be served at 5:40 in the morning. Which, for the record, is *long* before the sun is up. He meows at our door (we shut it after realized he *will* crawl all over us) until one of us responds. Every morning it sounds as though we have a baby. "Are you going to feed him?" "I'm tired." "I did it yesterday." "Maybe I should." "I'll do it." And we discuss the evening before whose "turn" it is (though I decided I'd do it again today, as Andrew had a sore throat last night and gets only 6 hours of sleep as it is). Then they seem to want a tad more around 6:30 am. And then they're angels until about 5 pm. It's inexplicable.

Luckily for Harpo, he is both hilarious (as in, chasing own tail) and adorable (always wants his face scratched, cute stripes).

This week has flown by... Monday I explored Steven's Creek Trail (which in so convenient for getting to the train and Google), and then we made dinner at Stanford. Tuesday I hurriedly walked to the train station (still missed the train I wanted), quickly walked to my apt. and changed, biked onto campus, and found that the quals meeting I was rushing to wouldn't start for another 15 minutes. Thank goodness Steve got the time wrong when he emailed me. I wish people would regularly do this for me, because it's so nice to realize you're early when you worried that you were late. Anyways, I *loved* sitting in, as I missed out on most of my cohort's meetings last summer, and I hadn't seen everyone in one place for ages. We grabbed lunch, and then talked from noon till after 3.

Strange to spend time in my apartment while "living" somewhere else. I visited Henrietta for the final time before Meredith's return. And then headed back "home" only to discover that someone (ie, one of the cats) had vomited all over the carpet. Yuck. Luckily it seems to have been a fluke. (Not an actual, living fluke, but a one-time-only fluke.)

Wednesday I got quite a bit of reading done... finished The Red and the Black, a bit more Williams, and started Ivanhoe. I walked to Google in the evening to meet up with Andrew for dinner at the "Five" cafe (five ingredients or less in each dish). Lovely. Squash w/ pepper, pecan-crusted cod, beets, and fig salad w/ balsamic dressing for dinner, creamy chocolate cake for dessert.

Yesterday I mainly hung out around the apartment, with one quick walk along the trail for a little exercise. Andrew brought me dinner: more figs!

Today I visited Google for the final time: I walked the trail and met up with Andrew for lunch. We went to the cafe nearest the trail, which Andrew had never gone to before. Salmon & halibut cakes, salad with heirloom tomato dressing, barley salad with pecans, fruit salad, pineapple upside down cheesecake, and eggless custard w/ thyme and topped with raspberry syrup and flowers. Somehow I really need to work at Google.

On the walk back, I saw one of the white herons in the stream, & another hummingbird. After all that walking in the sun, it's nice to sit in doors and read...

Substance

I was intrigued to read Elle magazine's coverage of the Gonzales decision. It was encouraging to find some actual substance in a fashion magazine.

A few favorite snippets (although I found all of it worth a read):

From Gloria Feldt:

The fierce antichoice backlash that erupted when Roe was decided crested with the recent Gonzales decision. The ruling's language drips with such disrespect for women that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg charged it "reflects ancient notions about women's place."

Yet in the 34 years since Roe, I've been shocked to observe that some of these ancient notions still remain. As president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America for nearly a decade until 2005, I repeatedly saw how men's and women's support of the right to a safe, legal abortion wavered according to the extent to which they considered a woman to be in control of her own life. If she's a victim of rape or incest, about 75 percent approve of the procedure, according to Gallup. But only a little more than one third approve when the woman or family say they can't afford to raise the child. Ask if the decision should be between a woman and her doctor, and around 60 percent agree; ask whether the woman alone merits the freedom to make that choice, and far fewer do.

At first I thought: How little trust people have in women's moral capacity to make decisions! Then I realized the idea of women having the power to decide is what sticks in craws. When women are victims, "ancient notions" aren't disrupted. When we exercise our volitional powers over procreation and thus our own lives, we profoundly upset the ancient gender applecart.

And from Ann Crittenden, an excellent critique of Kennedy's "reasoning":

So, he rules, we'll spare you all that grief and sorrow by deciding you can't have a partial-birth abortion (if your state so decides), even though there was substantial testimony from medical experts and groups, such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, that this now potentially criminal form of second-trimester abortion is sometimes safer for women than other forms. This is for your own good, of course.

Where have we heard this before? You are too mentally challenged to master the rigors of a higher education, so we'll keep you out of universities for your own good. You are too gentle for the rough-and-tumble world of business, so we'll keep you out of the high-paying professions for your own good. You don't understand complicated political issues, so we'll spare you the confusion of voting, for your own good. You are too frail for competitive sports, so we'll keep you from running or swimming or discovering your body's capabilities, for your own good. And now paternalism's last stand is over motherhood. You don't know when you are ready to become a mother; whether you are suited to become a mother; what to do when something has gone dreadfully wrong with your pregnancy. So you can't decide.

When your parents tell you something is for your own good, it usually means something unpleasant, like eating your spinach or getting a shot. When grown men tell grown women something is for their own good, it's usually something imprisoning. As Justice Ginsburg put it in her magnificent dissent, "[T]he Court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety."

And from Francine Prose, aptly named, as she brings some *much needed* attention to the rhetoric of the anti-choice decision:

If the language of Roe v. Wade is emotionally sympathetic and articulate, the language of Gonzales v. Carhart, the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the federal ban of partial-birth abortion, can be as crude and bloody-minded as that of a slasher film. Tellingly, the first "woman" we hear about in the ruling is not consciously facing the difficult dilemma of whether to terminate a pregnancy. In fact, she is unconscious, anesthetized so that the doctor (there are no "obstetricians" here, but only "doctors" and "abortion doctors") can perform a cruel and terrifying procedure. "The friction causes the fetus to tear apart....a leg might be ripped off the fetus…."

The appalling clinical descriptions and gross details go on for pages. "'The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping….'" The language, the terminology, and the focus are so inflammatory and mercilessly sensational that, at times, you almost feel that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the majority decision, is taking a perverse pleasure in the horrors he is describing. We hear about "the life of the unborn" and "the life within the woman," but not once about the life of the woman. Indeed, the most important—the only important—thing about her life is its potential for motherhood. ("Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child.") Her cervix and uterus are mentioned, but never her brain, which can make an informed choice...

The great irony is that this new ruling, so perfectly in accord with the "right-to-life" position, is so intensely focused on and written entirely in the language of violent death; whereas Roe v. Wade is all about life: its complexities and quandaries, its hardships and hopes, the rocks and the hard places that any of us may be caught between when we find ourselves at the raw edges of human existence.

New routines

The big news of the last week and a half: I've moved! Just down the hall. But I have twice as many windows and (finally) room for a papasan chair. I moved nearly the entire studio myself while Andrew was working -- took a day and a half, wheeling everything back and forth on my desk chair. And then cleaning the old apartment (which apparently *still* wasn't good enough for EV, they're charging me for cleaning... which isn't I suppose *that* bad considering I would have been charged twice as much to move if I wasn't a CA. That is, if I were allowed to move at all). The bad news about the cleaning fees spurred me to action today: I bought Mrs. Meyer geranium scrubbing powder, and a daily "shower spray" to maintain it. While I was pondering the various products at Mollie Stone's, this old, grandfatherly gentleman got into a conversation with me. And I decided to go with it -- he clearly wanted to chat, and it was nice to feel like I did something, well, at the risk of being redundant, nice. He was concerned about my catching the sales on bananas, not spending too much while I'm in school, finding Jesus (which for me translated into, having faith in the world), and staying in the graduate program. Back home, I scrubbed the already quite clean new tub, rinsed, and spritzed, just to smell the geranium. It kind of makes me *want* to clean.

Other news... A week ago (Monday) Rachel & I met up with Andrew for lunch. Such good, creative vegetarian food. Black quinoa, blueberries in balsamic vinagrette, salad with nectarine, etc. And oatmeal chocolate bars to die for. Which I later recreated at home after finally finding a recipe online that called for "only" two sticks of butter (well, and a bag of chocolate chips. And a can of condensed milk...). But so good!

Invited people over for a "studio warming" over the weekend -- we had said chocolate oatmeal bars & fruit for dessert, and Andrew made our drink-of-the-evening, cherry lime rickys (gin, muddled cherries and sugar, lime juice, ice, and mint). After spending so much time moving, shopping for food, and generally spending time by myself, it was lovely to see everyone and catch up.

I've been keeping up with my reading better than with my Rosetta Stone French. I finished New Grub Street, read The Handmaid of Desire for fun (Ryan's recommendation: it's a "wickedly" hilarious fictionalized account of the Stanford English dept), and today started The Red and the Black. So far, so good.

I'll have to post pictures of the apartment... For now, back to The U.S. vs John Lennon.

Saturday morning cartoons

By Tony Auth.

Out of touch like its 1789

Bush on health care:

"The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."

Yes. You just go to an emergency room. The most inefficient health care in terms of both time and cost.

And I was thinking, this kind of reminds me of... and then I stumbled upon it in the comments at Pandagon:

"Let them eat cake."

Summer days

It's been a while since my last update -- mostly because it seems like all the days start to flow into one another. I've been doing a bit of Rosetta Stone, a bit of reading, a bit of watching Degrassi with Andrew (his new favorite show), etc. I tried a couple of podcast yoga workouts, and am thinking about getting a mat and getting back into it. I've read Mansfield Park -- which I think is the most useful (for me) of Austen's novels. And I've started some of the reading I didn't have time for last summer -- Raymond William's Country and the City, and Gissing's New Grub Street. And I've booked my first trip abroad *ever*: I'll be doing a language study program in Montreux, Switzerland, from August 26th to Sept. 10th. Exciting!

So that's what I've been up to, in a nutshell.

Except for last weekend, which deserves its own paragraph. Andrew's father came out to visit us on the Fourth, and we gave him the tour of campus and downtown Palo Alto (which was complicated by the recent fire, which made a building unstable, thus rerouting all of traffic, both vehicles and pedestrians). We ended up at this random Thai restaurant on the Fourth, hung out at my new favorite coffee shop, and then took a Whole Foods picnic dinner to the Googleplex to wait for fireworks. We waited for hours for a 10-15 minute display -- which was nice, but after seeing the Boston display, it's hard to be impressed. Thursday morning I met up with Andrew's father for tea & breakfast at the Stanford bookstore, then we wandered around campus until it was time to have lunch with Andrew. In the afternoon, we read in the Bender Room of the library, and then met up with Andrew for dinner -- falafel followed by the movie "Once" at the Aquarius. Recommended. Friday I had some free time to do my thing -- Farmer's market, groceries, reading, etc... Then we all went to Three Seasons for a huge dinner (I tried to warn them, but they just kept ordering more). Saturday we headed into the city and took the ferry to Tiburon (it passes by Alcatraz & stops at Angel Island on the way), where we met up with Rachel, Josh, and the baby. Yummy lunch at Sam's, wandering around downtown, ferrying back... then Andrew's sporadic complaints of not feeling well solidified into downright sickness. I made a batch of soup, while he slept... he had a headache and fever, so we assumed a flu-like virus... Sunday he and his father still insisted on the Santa Cruz trip, so Andrew huddled in the backseat, cringing with every bump, and feverish in the sun. It wasn't until Monday, when he was too incapacitated to go to work and called a nurse, that we realized he had been suffering from food poisoning. After this diagnosis, we were able to actually start treating the problem. He's still on a "version" of the BRAT diet. His personal interpretation thereof.

Luckily he's much better now.

Pleasure reading

So my first pleasure read that has nothing explicitly to do with my studies/research: The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. And I *loved* it. A logical & humorous look at the arguments for and against the presence of a higher power, with a sampling of various approaches (physics, morality, history, theology, literature, etc.). I kept reading parts aloud to Andrew (often much to his annoyance). Dawkins just confirmed everything I suspected, but never articulated...

Some of my favorite bits:

"I am not in favour of offending or hurting anyone just for the sake of it. But I am intrigued and mystified by the disproportionate privileging of religion in our otherwise secular societies. All politicians must get used to disrespectful cartoons of their faces, and nobody riots in their defence. What is so special about religion that we grant it such uniqely privileged respect? As H. L. Mencken said: 'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.'" - 27

"How many literalists have read enough of the Bible to know that the death penalty is prescribed for adultery, for gathering sticks on the sabbath and for cheeking your parents? If we reject Deuteronomy and Leviticus (as all enlightened moderns do), by what criteria do we then decide which of religion's moral values to *accept*? Or should we pick and choose among all the world's religions until we find one whose moral teaching suits us? If so, again we must ask, by what criterion do we choose? And if we have independent criteria for choosing among relgious moralities, why not cut out the middle man and go straight for the moral choice without the religion?" - 57

Not Dawkins, but quoting Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation, which I *clearly* need to read: "It should be blindingly obvious that beliefs of this sort [that the second coming will occur with a disaster] will do little to help us create a durable future for ourselves -- socially, economically, environmentally, or geopolitically. Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be *glorious.* The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogma, should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency." - 302

"As long ago as 1954, according to Robert Hinde in his thoughtful book Why Gods Persist, a Gallup Poll in the U.S. found the following. Three-quarters of Catholics and Protestants could not name a single Old Testament prophet. More than two-thirds didn't know who preached the Sermon on the Mount. A substantial number thought that Moses was one of Jesus's twelve apostles. That, to repeat, was in the U.S., which is dramatically more religious than other parts of the developed world." - 341

In total agreement: "The King James Bible of 1611 -- the Authorized Version -- includes passages of outstanding literary merit in its own right, for example the Song of Songs, and the sublime Ecclesiastes... But the main reason the English Bible needs to be part of our education is that it is a major source book for literary culture." - 341

"Does religion fill a much needed gap? It is often said that there is a God-shaped gap in the brain which needs to be filled: we have a psychological need for God -- imaginary friend, father, big brother, confessor, confidant -- and the need has to be satisifed whether God really exists or not. But could it be that God clutters up a gap that we'd be better off filling with something else? Science, perhaps? Art? Human friendship? Humanism? Love of this life in the real world, giving no credence to other lives beyond the grave? A love of nature, or what the great entomologist E. O. Wilson has called Biophilia?" - 347

" 'Tell me,' the great twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once asked a friend, 'why do people always say it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the Earth rather than that the Earth was rotating?' His friend replied, 'Well, obviously because it just *looks* as though the Sun is going round the Earth.' Wittgenstein responded, 'Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?' I sometimes quote this remark of W. in lectures, expecting the audience to laugh. Instead, they seem stunned into silence." - 367

Oregon Recap

I've been back in California for three days now, with no clear schedule/agenda, and since I find myself in my room with nothing terribly pressing to do, I thought it was as good a time as any to update.

I flew up to Oregon on the 16th (after an hour of sitting in a hot plane, waiting for a mysterious "mechanical problem" to resolve itself), met with the family, and had a nostalgic dinner at Shari's. I was almost in a student-produced play about Shari's in high school. Almost. It was never actually performed. But that's another story.

Spent the first couple of days catching up, visiting at Grammy's, & grading papers. The first night we had the grand "weigh in" -- in which the whole family ends up on the scale, in order (I think) to reconcile our sense of everyone having changed since the last visit, by finding tangible, concrete numbers. Seriously, this isn't the first time. I'd lost weight while teaching PWR, and Mer gained some as she took a weight training class. Always hilarious. But Mer is still trying to steal my clothes.

Monday we headed into Portland for dinner at Old Town Pizza with Dad & Mer's friend, Charlie. Good beer, good pizza, and good conversation. Charlie and Dad got along... perfectly. We had quite a bit of time to kill after dinner, as a concert that Charlie was into didn't actually start till 10 pm. So we wandered around a shady park, window shopped, visited Powell's (yay Gissing novels!), and ate cake in the car (almost like tailgating). The concert, as Mer aptly describes it, was experimental -- Nintendo controllers were used. And a very smelly fog machine (boo).

Tuesday Mom, Mer, & I went hiking on Lookout Mt. Unfortunately Merrie made off with all the photos and is now in Africa, so I won't be able to post any visual evidence till Sept. But it was beautiful -- 360 degree view, easy to see the lay of the land and the mountains: Hood (of course), Adams, Rainier, Jefferson, St. Helen, the Three Sisters, etc... Bugs out in force, but not mosquitoes, luckily. After mountain goating it up to the peak, it was a pretty easy descent. Made it into town almost in time for Mer's appointment. I bought hiking/jogging shoes & comfy flip flops, finally. Then we were off to the DMV for new licenses: Mer because hers was horribly outdated (it still listed her weight as like, 75 pounds). And mine needed an update after expiring on my birthday while I was at Stanford -- so I'd been using the "Valid without photo" license that I requested, in conjunction with my older one. And which always gets me stopped at the airport, bars, etc. In fact, at the Someday Lounge on Monday night, the woman checking ID's disappeared with both my ID's for a full 5-10 minutes, after which I showed her my college ID, bank card, credit cards, etc., -- and her response? "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." WTF?! Oh, and I'm now an organ donor. On the spot, I said yes. But just for the record: I'm fine with my organs going to others if they can be harvested, but *don't let them take the top layer of my skin, or my corneas* -- it's illogical, but I have an extreme aversion to thinking of my body being literally peeled (even if I can't feel it). So just in case it comes up, organs yes, skin/eyes, no.

Anyway, after the DMV experience, we got iced mochas at Dog River. Best things ever. Especially with whipped cream. Quick stop home for dinner, then cleaning with Mum & stopping at the Mid Valley Market for candy (old times).

Weds. we took a Lost Lake trip -- picnicked on sandwiches from The Good Deli lakeside, and Mum and I hiked up the I think Blueberry Ridge trail -- basically the connector between Lost Lake & the Pacific Crest Trail. Beautiful -- avalanche lilies everywhere. Made me want to do the Pacific Crest (at least parts of it). Mer started out with us, but turned back at some point.

Thursday was another town day -- last minute errands for Mer (including a health clinic stop at which I become increasingly frustrated: people are so wrapped up in their own red tape), and meeting up with Dad & Uncle Scott for a yummy dinner at The Crazy Pepper. They now have veggie tamales (yum), but Mer and I agreed that we should have gone for veggie burritos instead of cheese enchiladas: seriously, gross. Just tortillas, filled with tons of cheddar cheese, topped with sauce, and, you guessed it, MORE CHEESE.

Friday involved more hiking: this time exploring a trail off of Laurence Lake, that connects to the around the mountain trail. Forested, pretty, and still snowed in at points. Which is why we turned back before reaching the trail junction: cold, melting drifts of icy snow that made it difficult to pick up the trail. I was not dressed warmly enough. Ended up huddling on a log, eating sunflower seeds, prunes, and rhubarb pie.

Saturday: Mer & I took a walk along the ditch and ran into a nasty old pitbull mix. Someone had the bright idea to leave an aggressive, unneutered, violence-prone breed dog uncontained, unleashed, and with access to a trail frequented by local folks of all ages. Seriously, before it maims a child, someone needs to get said dog neutered, tethered, and trained. That experience more than anything else makes me want to start carrying a hunting knife or something.

One more trip into town, visit with Dad, last minute errands, and then home for dinner (venison pot roast: which was excellent) & cake. Lindsey visited, and I so loved catching up finally! Now I just need to get back in the habit of writing real letters.

Sunday was busy, with Mer packing, me taking a jog along the ditch for old time's sake, and Mum & I visiting the Punch Bowl briefly for one last dose of Oregon natural beauty (and quiet, and solitude -- things lacking here in the Bay Area). Then we were off to Portland, with a stop at the NY Sub place for dinner (favorite). Had fun at the hotel -- Mum & I swam, I hung out listening to music and eating cake, and Mer visited with Charlie. Unfortunately we didn't sleep well -- too many people in one room, with a noisy dog, and an out of control thermostat.

I had a nice flight home, despite getting up at 3:45 am. Above the clouds, Mt. Hood was peaking out, and I was able to see other neighboring mountains/lakes clearly along our route. Made it back without trouble... unpacked, napped, etc.

Since then, I've been catching up on cleaning, watching Degrassi (thanks to Mer lending me her DVDs of Season 4), and spending time with Andrew. Tuesday we went to Trivia Night at the Rose and Crown bar, and had the chance to catch up with Wisconsin folks who were in the area for a conference. Last night we had an Ikea/ Trader Joe's night -- I now have glass storage jars so that my bread/dough/biscuit creations will *stop* tasting like my cupboards.

That's the update --

The Rhetoric of: Thompson

Shorter Thompson:

Look, here's my wife & little kids! Aren't they cute? Ok, scoot off, I've got *business* now (which y'all know women don't need to be a part of, it's not like we're going to talk about *them* at all).

I'm against abortion [no reason given besides something about "life" that apparently doesn't include women's lives]. I'm against partial-birth abortion [even though I *clearly* don't understand that this procedure saves women's lives when a pregnancy goes wrong].

I'm against embryonic stem cell research [because of "life"? apparently not the lives of people with diseases. but let's ignore that those embryos will get thrown out anyway! let's call them "unborn children" instead of freezer burnt embryos!]

I care about children! [because my opponents don't? And I bet you were waiting for something about the millions of uninsured children? Like I'd even think of that, much less *mention* it.]

I'm worried about government spending! [and you all should trust a former lobbyist to cut government spending while actually caring about public programs?]

LOOK, TERRORISTS! [Had to fit that in somewhere]