The Book I'm Not Not Reading

(The title reminds me of one of those GSOC union chants: "If we're not workers, then we're not not working," which was one of my favorites--and reminds me also that at least for a limited amount of time, being on the picket line was kind of fun. But I'm not going to get into all that here.)

Anyway--Linguistic Anthropology class is OVER! Woo hoo! Lots of great readings, but way too much work, and so I'm well shut of it. Now--only a few more classes, some reading, and a final project, and I'll be officially done with coursework!

Tomorrow some of us are off to the A2K (Access to Knowledge) conference at Yale--that should be fun. I've probably never sat around with that many lawyers, and I hope to have tales to tell.

Political Outrage: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Workplace safety has long been one of the issues I get really riled up about, perhaps from seeing Silkwood (1983) at an impressionable age--an era when the Three Mile Island (1979) disaster was a recent memory (especially for one whose mother worked for the company that built the reactor!)--not to mention Chernobyl (1986) and the poisonous gas leak in Bhopal, India (1984), that ultimately killed an estimated 20,000 people. And then, of course, are all the songs about coal mining disasters....

The main sticking point this article discusses is much smaller-scale, though no less cataclysmic for the people involved: fatal lung disease caused by exposure to diacetyl, a chemical used to flavor microwave popcorn and other products. I first heard about the problem in the Milwaukee newspaper while at the American Folklore Society conference last October--the article featured several workers who were trying to collect damages and who were calling for regulatory measures.

Here are a few quotations from the article in this morning's Times, "OSHA Leaves Worker Safety in Hands of Industry." Not surprisingly, Bush and his administration are doing yet more to line the pockets of the rich while fucking over the working classes even more.

Since George W. Bush became president, OSHA has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, public health experts say. It has imposed only one major safety rule. The only significant health standard it issued was ordered by a federal court.

The agency has killed dozens of existing and proposed regulations and delayed adopting others. For example, OSHA has repeatedly identified silica dust, which can cause lung cancer, and construction site noise as health hazards that warrant new safeguards for nearly three million workers, but it has yet to require them.

“The people at OSHA have no interest in running a regulatory agency,” said Dr. David Michaels, an occupational health expert at George Washington University who has written extensively about workplace safety. “If they ever knew how to issue regulations, they’ve forgotten. The concern about protecting workers has gone out the window.”

(snip)

Labor leaders and health experts say those numbers significantly undercount the problem, in part because the Bush administration has reduced the categories of recognized injuries and because many dangerous jobs are now performed by undocumented workers who do not report problems.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster vs. The Invisible Pink Unicorn

Last night, while looking for a translation of one of those pesky legal phrases lawyers use, I ran across a fun site about atheism. Linked to it is the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Pastafarianism) website, which is probably no news to anyone (but in case it is, check it out!) Apparently there's been some sort of contest on YouTube for the winning video of the battle of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (the deity of Pastafarianism) and the Invisible Pink Unicorn. As far as I can tell, this video is considered the winning entry. The singing, I warn you, is godawful--but bear with it....



Ramen!

A Pretty Nice Girl, But She Doesn't Have a Lot to Say

The word came down from on high--or rather, from down south: Queen Elizabeth II will be visiting William & Mary on her brief visit to the US next week. Her itinerary is here.

In a weird kind of way, I wish I could go. I have no explanation for this phenomenon.

But somehow, it seems particularly appropriate to present this video of the Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield doing "What Have I Done to Deserve This."

Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls Auction

Many of you know that I was a counselor at the first Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls here in NYC a couple of years ago. They're still going strong, although I haven't been able to work at camp for the past two summers (too much rovin'). This is the latest fundraising effort, and lots of very cool stuff on offer....

The “So You Wanna Be A Rockstar” Online Auction has begun!

This is your opportunity for you and yours to get the hottest rock star hook ups – all for a good cause! Awesome items are on the block, including a guitar signed by the Beastie Boys, a bag by Marc Jacobs, weekend getaways, recording studio time, and much much more.

The auction runs April 23 thru May 7. 100% of your winning bid will go straight to scholarships for girls.

Visit williemaerockcamp.cmarket.com. Let the bidding begin!

Because It's All About the Bottom Line

From this morning's New York Times:

Healing has been hastened in part by a spike in school spirit.

At the Campus Emporium on North Main Street here, workers struggled to handle the backlog of 400 orders for Virginia Tech coffee mugs, footballs, teddy bears, clothing and other gear. On campus, the University Bookstore sold a season’s supply of VT lapel pins in two days last week.

The chants, banners and slogans typically associated with Virginia Tech sports have gained a more emotional currency. At a convocation the day after the shootings, the rousing student chants filled Cassell Coliseum. The nickname for the university’s athletic teams, Hokies, has become a kind of shorthand for a unity that many students said they felt. “After what happened, we chanted, and at that moment, I really felt like I’m a Hokie,” said Ingrid Ngai, 19, a native of Hong Kong.

I don't know what to say.

The full article is here.

Perverse Longing

J & I watched Shackleton last night (my second time seeing it), and as much as I'm not keen on cold weather, the idea of someday going down to Antarctica is strangely compelling. Big Dead Place, a website some of the people stationed down at McMurdo keep up, only eggs me on--partly because it's so hilariously written (there's even a section called "Ask the Fucked-Up Summer Antarctican"/"Ask the Fucked-Up Winterover"). TCMTC.

And no, I don't want to do it for the penguins.

Various & Sundry

(Or--From the Ridiculous in One Way to the Ridiculous in Another)

First, I received a spam message this morning entitled "Big drops of rain fell among them making individual sounds when they struck." Hands down, this one wins the prize for Most Likely To Become a Haiku. Or something. Whatever they're advertising (I didn't check), it's a refreshing change from "Affordable Mortgage!" or "Meet HOT Christian Singles Here!" and all the creatively-spelled entreaties to enhance one's sexual performance with One Little Pill.

Come to think of it, "Big drops of rain fell among them making individual sounds when they struck" has the same sort of ring to it as "Her Golden Hair Hung Down In Ringlets." Maybe there's a tune in there someplace.

Next in this morning's Inanity Report, from this article in today's NYT:

A spokesman for the rifle association declined to comment Friday on the legislation, but Mr. Dingell said the measure could prevent future tragedies.

“It resolves some serious problems in terms of preventing the wrong people from getting firearms,” he said.

The article discusses how state and federal law about gun sales don't match up in letter, although they do in intent, and so some would-be ineligible gun buyers (like Cho) slip through the system and are allowed to purchase firearms. Because of course all guns in the country are registered and change hands legally. I don't even need to rehearse all the arguments here, but the point is--they've found a culprit to expend legislative energy on, and now can ignore the real problems:

1. The anti-gun control stance is outdated and dangerous, and attempts to keep gun out of unfit hands (which hands are fit?) are largely ineffective.

2. By pathologizing Cho as mentally imbalanced, we ignore the complaints he (and others) make about society. I'm not saying he was justified--far from it. For a more extended treatment of this than I can give at the moment, read this article (same one I pointed to yesterday via Rob's blog).

Now--time to go read before I head up to the CUNY grad student music conference (GSIM) and the Irish studies conference (ACIS). Too much stuff to do....

Tech article

Ok, y'all--or at least, those of y'all who aren't (a) Rob; or (b) Rob's readers--go to his blog to read what I think is the best article yet about the Virginia Tech shootings.

The Book I'm Not Reading (but must very soon): Elizabeth Povinelli's The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism. So far, I'm enjoying it--I just wish I didn't have to write a paper about it!

Googlicious

As y'all know, I had been expecting lots of hits from people searching "Virginia Tech" on Google Blogsearch--but have not, as far as I can tell, gotten a single one...yet the "P---y P--n" hits keep coming. I can only imagine that the sheer volume of Tech stuff out there is overwhelming, even to the most obsessed blogtrawler....

In other news, J and I have begun teasing Maddie that we're going to get her a kitten to play with. That could be a very good idea...or a very bad one--and it's impossible to figure out which without trying it. In any case, we won't follow up on that idea until after the summer.

WTF???

This, from this morning's New York Times...I don't take issue with the article, but with the pro-gun argument that if everyone had a gun, the shooting victims at VT could have fought back--that the problem is not with Virginia law's extremely lenient approach to gun sales, but with Tech's rule against firearms on campus. What?!?!?!?

The Pullet Surprise...

...is not one at all!

Or at least, the Letters, Drama, and Music Pulitzer Prize's outrageously skewed gender imbalance is no surprise. Out of eight winners and two special citations, only two were women--in, again, not surprisingly, biography and poetry. Men, of course, swept history, nonfiction, and fiction--although last year, women got both fiction and nonfiction (and poetry), for a total of 3 out of 9. In 2005, the number was a distressing 1 out of 7. The Pulitzer Prize website makes no mention of any of this.

I'm sure people of color are even less recognized, but of course figuring that out isn't as simple as noting gendered pronouns in the blurbs about each winner.

Luckily, the journalism prizes are much more balanced, at least by sex. Not sure why that is, but I'm glad to see it.

In other, better news--I'm a finalist for a fellowship that would put me at Cambridge for two months next winter! Woo hoo! Now I just have to prepare for the interview, which happens at the butt-crack of dawn on Monday.

(Nearly) Speechless.

By now, I imagine everyone reading this will have heard about the shootings at Virginia Tech, perhaps ad nauseam, as I'm sure CNN and such are giving nonstop coverage. J & I stayed away from the news channels tonight, opting instead for the 1974 Benji movie.

My cousin Blake is fine, although we don't know if he had any friends among the shooting victims; likewise my friend Jennifer's son and Claire's friends. Given Tech's proximity to Lynchburg and the number of kids who go to Tech from Lynchburg, Nelson County, and Charlottesville, it's altogether likely that someone I know lost a friend or a relative.

But that's not the only question here. I'm not the first to ask these, but they're worth asking ceaselessly and polyvocally.

First, how did the shooter get the gun? Or rather, we all know how he may have gotten the gun--he could very easily have walked into a gun shop in Virginia and bought the damn thing. Why is that possible? Why did he choose a shooting spree to express his anger, pain, frustration, or whatever emotions he needed to vent?

And why are college (and high school) campuses becoming places where angry gunmen regularly kill students and staff? Because it is a regular occurrence now.

Plenty will (and probably already are) blaming the gunman's youth, video games, heavy metal or rap music, violence on television, and all those usual things, and I'm sure Jerry Falwell is having a field day from his perch up there on Liberty Mountain, a mere two hours away. Y'all know I don't have any time for violence on film, and yes, in my mind violence on film is doing no good--but how about our government's own disregard for innocent Iraqis, sketchily charged detainees at Guantanamo, and immigrants within our own borders? There's a whole political rant to be had here, and I'll leave that to those with more details than I have--but I have two words: "preemptive strike."

In days to come, we'll hear plenty of words being shoved around like cold peas on a plate, mine among them. In the meantime, academia and the public sphere have a lot to think about--and I don't mean state-of-the-art metal detectors and security guards at every entrance.


P. S. I know I'm going to get a lot of Google hits about this in the next few days. Spare me the hate mail about my politics, please. Nobody needs that right now, and I'll just delete it.

More Than the Sum of Its Parts, Part 2

Last night I wasn't feeling too well, so I wound up not going to AE's concert. Sad, but in my under-weatheredness I did manage to replicate another University of Limerick lunchtime comfort food staple: vegetable soup.

It's so simple that it's almost ridiculous to post about it, except that it was divine.

One large leek, 4 smallish stalks of celery, one sizeable carrot, 5 small potatoes, and enough vegetable stock to give it a soupy consistency. A little dried oregano and thyme, but very little additional salt, because the bouillon cubes I use are fairly salty (Rapunzel brand--the best US cubes I've found for making soup). I sauteed everything in a bit of butter, boiled the hell out of it, and pureed it, and it definitely made me feel better. I considered fecking a little milk into it, but in the end decided it didn't need even that.

Whatever am I going to do in Donegal this summer without my little Cuisinart whooszhy thing?

Frenchy Sushi Lunch Victory, or, More Than the Sum of Its Parts

J & I are big omelet fans, but today I had an even better idea: on a whole wheat tortilla, an egg platform (the omelet, but not folded over), with nice parmesan cheese or soy gouda, depending on one's lactose tolerance. Then steamed asparagus, avocado, and a sprinkling of salt and paprika. Wrapped up, it looks kind of like the green fuji sushi rolls we get from our local Japanese takeout place (which contain tamago, inari, avo, and something brown and sweet-ish). I thought about taking a picture of it to post, but was way too hungry and excited about eating it to even take the time to do that.

In other news, tonight I'm going to see Anne Elise play qanun with a group in the East Village--should be fun, but that means I have to do my taxes this fine sunny afternoon. Time to gird my loins (or whatever body part one uses at tax time) and get to it.

Slow News Day

Not much going on--just more of the same, alas. So here are a couple of things I've been meaning to post for a while:

1. This site isn't news to most of you, but just for kicks, here's the South Park-esque cartoon-making site. This is me lately:



2. And I keep meaning to mention that J & I now live on the same block as the Lesbian Herstory Archives. TCMTC! They have the most fabulous book & funny old t-shirt sale during Brooklyn Pride, which alas, I think I'll miss this year (it's the second weekend in June).

New Element

I've been meaning to post this for a few days--a funny from Qwags:

NEW ELEMENT "W"

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science.

The new element has been named "Bushcronium. " Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311.

These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. The symbol for Bushcronium is "W". Bushcronium' s mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons in a Bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass".

When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

Make it work!

There's a fun article about Tim Gunn in this morning's Times. Can't wait for the fourth season of Project Runway!

Miracles *Can* Happen

...I am nearly finished writing my paper that's due tomorrow, which means I won't have to get up before 9 or so!* Glory hallelujah! As it turns out, I'm getting to go on about the controversy over Dingle's recent renaming--and un-renaming. Good fun.

In other news, I made the tough decision to pull my paper out of the Feminist Theory & Music 9 conference in Montreal in June so I can go to Ireland earlier. I'm bummed that I had to make that choice--it's such a fun conference!--but it will save me money and give me a bit more time in Ireland.

* that is, if Maddie doesn't wake us up AGAIN before the alarm. She's getting outrageous about doing that, and it makes me CRANKY to have to get up before I have to!

Musical fun of various sorts

I keep on accumulating a backlog of things I forget to write about in the excitement of posting silly quizzes and YouTube clips of shows lost in the static of time--but tonight, briefly, I'll talk about some of what I've managed to do when I haven't been stuck behind the computer screen or a book.

Friday night we went to Maeve Donnelly's concert at Ireland House, where Tony MacManus joined her on guitar. Lovely, lovely stuff. I think she was a bit nervous, and the house was full to bursting that by the time J & I arrived 15 minutes before the show (and after a sublime dinner at Veselka) the only seats available were in the back of the room, where I used to sit in Irish class (yes, I'm a back-of-the-room sitter when there's a choice).

Anyway, Maeve and Tony played some gorgeous music together, although they didn't play "Sailing Into Walpole's Marsh"--but Maeve did start with "The Humours of Drinagh," and was doing a zillion things with it she didn't do on the old LP. Way cool. As Don Meade pointed out in his emcee spiel, the album--one of my all-time favorites--is now available on iTunes, as is the whole old Green Linnet catalog. Now, if only Comhaltas would get all those old records and tapes up there...you'd think that with their smoochy relationship to IMRO that mightn't be impossible, but I'm not holding my breath.

The social craic was great at the concert, too, as it was at the Ceol session on Sunday, when I joined Don and Jason Cade for some lovely, kitchen-style tunes. The pub wasn't crowded--I think their Easter dinner rush had happened much earlier--but the people who were there were very appreciative. Anyway, we played a bunch of old favorites, including a little hero-worship set of Connie O'Connell's pet tunes. I hope we'll have another go at the tunes next week, which means I have to get my ass to work on my taxes--as if I didn't already have plenty to do!

And finally, today I worked out--at long last--how to make my Mac play streaming audio from Clare FM and WNRN (Charlottesville). Windows Media Player has some sort of Mac-ly snit about reading .asx files, but I found a patch for Quicktime that gave it the ability to read them. I managed to catch the last hour of Claire Keville's show on Clare FM, where she was playing a bunch of tracks from that great cd set "The Hills of Clare"--I tuned in as she put on Ollie Conway singing "The Banks of Sullane." So now ye know how I'll be distracting myself on Tuesday afternoons between 2 & 4pm...Sophie, will we play our old name-the-player game over text?

I didn't listen to much of WNRN, but it'll be nice to catch Anne Williams' show in the mornings sometimes, and the goth show that comes on on Sunday night, to which I used to listen on my drive home from the session in C-ville.

The Article I'm Not Reading: "Linguistic Syncretism and Lnguage Ideoloies: Transforming Sociolinguistic Hierarchy on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)" by Miki Makihara.

The Procrastinatrix

Yeah, that's me. All I meant to do was look up "calque"...and from there, I wound up taking this "Where Should You Live" quiz....

You Belong in London

A little old fashioned, and a little modern. A little traditional, and a little bit punk rock. A unique soul like you needs a city that offers everything. No wonder you and London will get along so well.

What City Do You Belong In?

Fish Tacos Ole!

It's been a while since J and I have gotten into any major cooking endeavors and I've had a chance to post while the memory is still fresh. Tonight, as a nice homely activity after a busy weekend and a long Monday, we made fish tacos. Very simple, but brilliant: J made the guacamole (hers is awesome) and a nicely-spiced black bean, onion, garlic, cilantro, roasted red pepper, and leftover rice concoction. In the meantime, I pan-fried some super-fresh and wonderful tilapia. I gave it a light coating of spiced flour, and managed to get it nice and golden but not too greasy. Fecked all that into tortillas with a little salsa (the weakest link--it was from a jar) and some sour cream for me, and we ate ourselves silly.

While I'm catching up on food blogging: last week I made some granola with cashews and dried mango, and we hoovered that up in record time. When I get a chance, this week's batch will involve dried banana and perhaps candied ginger.

In other news, Maddie the Kitty is getting more active and trimmer every day. Today J caught her on top of the fridge--someplace she had never been in this apartment, as far as we know--and I spotted her leaping in the air after a moth.

Bizarro!

Sophie, this one's for you. Bizarro!

No Luck is Good Luck?

Mr. Postman just brought me the SSRC notification--I didn't get the grant. Disappointed as I am about not "winning" it, I'm pretty relieved. Now I can figure out my summer plans, don't have to race to Ireland ASAP (going over is awesome, but having to leap from one thing to another without a break isn't!), and perhaps most importantly, am not bound to do the project I proposed. (In that grant proposal, I said that I would do a lot of research with refugees in Ireland, which would be fun enough, except that it would be WAY too much work to fit into an already sizeable topic--that of women in Irish traditional music.)

So--whew, and onward.

The Book I'm [Intermittently] Reading: Hirschkind's The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. Fascinating and a good read so far. I only wish I didn't have to write a paper on it!

Statistically....

My friend Rebecca in Scotland just sent me this:

INTERESTING STATISTIC...

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, here's a sobering statistic:

There has been a monthly average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths. That gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 persons for the same period.

That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. capitol than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington

Resurrection and Potatoes

For the macabre-minded, this strange marketing idea takes the Easterly idea of resurrection a bit too literally, if indirectly, since (so they say) Jesus was in a cave and not a grave, and potatoes probably weren't cultivated there and then. Anyway, I offer this photo I found, inspired by South Park's irreverent episode last week where the connection between the Easter Bunny & the Resurrection was explained (St. Peter was a rabbit and the Pope should therefore also be a rabbit, since rabbits don't have anything to say about how people should live).



What I was looking for when I found that photo was this cartoon:

There Be Dragons

Hmmmm...dinosaurs in Washington Square Park? I thought they sprayed for those!



This turned up when I logged out of my NYU account just now--I always get the tulips, but never a dinosaur. Gotta love a good prank, though it does make me wonder how safe my information is in the NYU system (I have a hard time believing anyone official okayed this--our administration seems particularly humorless).

Still waiting...

...to hear about the SSRC grant. Nnnnnnnnnnnnggggggghhh. They were supposed to notify people on April 2. It's not that I think I'll actually get the grant--just that I really need to make sure I haven't got it before I start making summer plans. In any case, I do know I have the grant to study Irish in Donegal this summer (more on that as I am able to make plans).

Poor Poony Poon, Revisited

So it turns out the kid is wildly popular on blog searches, the poor creature! Here the kid gets great press in the Times, and becomes the laughingstock of people on the Internet who procrastinate too much. Like The Television Show That Shall Not Be Named, I'm getting loads of hits from people searching for the precocious piano prodigy alliteratively appellated.... I do feel a little bad about adding to the snickering...but not too bad.

The Paper I'm Not Writing: about language ideology. I'm going to have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn to do it.

Eventually I'll write about the MACSEM conference this weekend....

My Sweet Jesus

J sent me the link to this article. What I wonder is, would there still be a fuss if he'd had on the loincloth, or does the sacrilege have to do with chocolate (which could conceivably melt during the time of the exhibition, if we were having seasonable April weather...never mind the color of the chocolate), or with the crucifixion pose. And more important, is he hollow like an Easter bunny?

News Flash!

Lots of successful classical musicians are Chinese! Who knew?!?!? The New York Times really has the scoop on that story! The full article is here in all its inanity, but what I can't get over is this:

One mother, Czrina Suen, stopped to chat with members of the parents association. A former flight attendant, she had moved from Hong Kong with her daughter Poony Poon, 10, to give her the chance to study piano at Juilliard, where she has a scholarship.

“They are the best in the world,” Ms. Suen said. “In Hong Kong she can’t find a suitable teacher.” Poony, a tiny girl in a fluffy white coat, plopped into a chair.

Poor kid. Poor, poor Poony Poon.



(picture comes from this website...a hoot on its own....)

Buh-weet!

Yes! It exists on YouTube, even if very briefly:



An old favorite from Twin Poplars days...J and I bought the Best of Saturday Night Live dvd featuring Eddie Murphy, but lent it to my adviser Suzanne, who still hasn't returned it (and doesn't read the blog, so this dig won't do any good to get it back). Anyway, here's a small dose.

Maeve's In Town!

A while back, I raved about Galway fiddler Maeve Donnelly. I'm now delighted to report that she's going to be in town this Friday, playing a concert at Glucksman Ireland House. Here's what their promotional materials have to say:

Maeve Donnelly is among the most accomplished and entertaining fiddlers in Irish music today. Though deeply rooted in the musical tradition of her native east County Galway, Maeve is a thoroughly modern player who electrifies audiences with a fiery and uninhibited performance style. Her partner for this concert is no mere accompanist. Scotsman Tony McManus has been widely hailed as one of the world’s most virtuosic and innovative acoustic guitarists. He is a renowned soloist in his own right and has made several acclaimed recordings of Irish, Scots, Cape Breton and Quebecois tunes.

It's sure to be a brilliant concert, but I don't need to tell most of ye that!

The concert is this Friday, April 6, at 9pm.