the digital family

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family.jpg
As I walk out of their little “office,” where I had been using their desktop to do some late-night catching up on the Scramble games that I play with my friend in Saratoga, I come upon my daughter and son-in-law engrossed in their laptops. He’s checking up on the latest presidential campaign issues, and she’s going through her photos to find images that match the series of nature-based poems her father wrote. The television remotes lay on the couch where they were tossed. The only sound is the rustling of pages and the tapping of keyboards.
It’s a telling scene for me. We have, as a family, embraced this technology for all that it offers our hungry minds. We are constant learners, thoughtful and curious. The Internet is our classroom.
And it is becoming so for my grandson, who is being home-schooled. He not only has his own XO Laptop; with his mom’s help, he uses their desktop to look for and print out images for learning projects, such as identifying animals and their habitats. The world map that hangs from the mantle in their living room is a constant source of questions on his part that he knows have answers somewhere in the great net-out-there.
At the moment, I am without a laptop, and I find it a great inconvenience. My old one has a major problem with the port the power cord goes into so that the machine turns off as soon as it is turned on. Now it doesn’t even start because I fiddled with it once too often.
I also recently caused the crash of the brand new laptop that I inherited from my once-husband. I guess I got too impatient with Vista, and I am convinced I want to stay as far away from that OS as I can. My plans are to have Vista uninstalled and have a different operating system put in. I’m even thinking about Linux.
It’s interesting how quickly we have all adapted to this technology. I’m planning to have my laptop repaired before I move into my digs at my daughter’s and son-in-law’s, where wifi rules.

What? Me biased?

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For the last year and a half, a team of psychology professors has been conducting remarkable experiments on how Americans view Barack Obama through the prism of race.

That’s the first line of an article in the New York Times that links to online tests that you can take to assess your attitudes about race and skin color, particularly in relation to the presidential race between McCain and Obama.
The article goes on to say:

A flood of recent research has shown that most Americans, including Latinos and Asian-Americans, associate the idea of “American” with white skin. One study found that although people realize that Lucy Liu is American and that Kate Winslet is British, their minds automatically process an Asian face as foreign and a white face as American — hence this title in an academic journal: “Is Kate Winslet More American Than Lucy Liu?”

After you read the article, you might want to test yourself here or here.
I took one of the tests on the first link above. The results said that I prefer black people to white people and that I prefer McCain over Obama. I am positive that neither statement about me is true. And the two results are conflicting anyway. So, I’m skeptical about that series of tests, but I plan to try out the rest of them anyway.
The second test is a whole other approach, and I think I’m just not quick enough to connect what I’m seeing with the right key.
Nevertheless, I’m going to go back to both sites and try more of the tests. As the Times article states:

….with race an undercurrent in the national debate, that also makes this a teachable moment. Partly that’s because of new findings both in neurology, using brain scans to understand how we respond to people of different races, and social psychology, examining the gulf between our conscious ideals of equality and our unconscious proclivity to discriminate.

Incidentally, such discrimination is not only racial. We also have unconscious biases against the elderly and against women seeking powerful positions — biases that affect the Republican ticket.

As the article goes on to explain, our attitudes and biases probably are formed by some combination of “nature” and “nurture.” Understanding that can, indeed, make this a very “teachable moment” for a great many Americans.
While I don’t have a bias against McCain’s age or against Obama’s race, I admit that I do have a bias. And it’s in favor of a liberal policy agenda. Whoever has that has my vote.

I miss Halloween

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More to the point, I miss getting costumed up on Halloween.
At my last job (which lasted 20 years, and there’s lots of reasons why), my boss loved Halloween, and every year we all dressed up and made the rounds of all the offices.
snowwhite.jpg
This is some of us as Snow White and some of her dwarfs. That’s me on your bottom left, and that’s my boss behind me. Other years we dressed as the Seven Deadly Sins, Hogwart faculty (I wish I knew what happed to my costume for that; I wonder if I loaned it to someone), gangsters, and, of course witches. I’ve forgotten some of the other themes we used. There are photos, somewhere, but it was all before any of us had digital cameras, and they were never scanned in.
Two years ago, when my boss retired, she chose Halloween as the day for her farewell party, and she urged people to dress in costume. Of course, I did.
About six years ago, I went to a few dance parties as Medusa.
I guess that’s where my grandson gets his love of costumes. You sort of become whatever you wear.

in between worlds

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I’m blogging today from my daughter’s computer, sitting in her comfy desk chair and lumbar-wrapped in an ACE bandage, while my grandson is upstairs in bed, fighting what looks like the flu (poor little guy).
He seemed fine yesterday, when we all went out and picked out a bed and mattress for me to buy for my new digs.
Today I’m feeling in between worlds as I mentally begin my re-entry into the world I have to leave. I have set a “move” date of November 13 — an arbitrary date, but I like the number 13 since most people don’t.
But for the moment, I’m enjoying the quiet, the peacefulness, the loving acceptance that suffuses this home of my daughter and son-in-law and grandson. This home that will soon be mine as well.
Before I leave, I will listen again to the video below — a rousing reminder of the freedom to come. Listen to “Les Misbarack.”

letter to the Red States

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Got this in an email. Don’t know who the author is, but it’s a great piece, so I’m sharing it here.
Dear Red States:
We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren’t aware,that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss. We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
Finally, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.
Peace out,
Blue States

listings

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Over the years, I’ve accumulated a following of various catalogs. Clothes, especially, but there are other kinds as well.
But the catalog I got in the mail today is one of a kind in my long list of order offers. And I don’t know how or why they got my name. I can’t help wondering if someone put my name on their mailing list just to annoy me.
I mean, this is what this slick catalog is selling:
— a 20 CD set of lectures entitled “The Hand of God in the History of the World.”
— a read-aloud series for children: “How God Sent a Dog, Stopped Pirates, ande Used a Thunderstorm to Change the World.”
— a book: “Passionate Housewives Desperate for God.”
WTF!!! I guess their marketing guru never got a look at the sidebar of this blog.
Oh, and then there’s “The Wise Woman’s Guide to Blessing Her Husband’s Vision.”
Now I’m grinding my teeth!
In between all of this, pages of miltary, detective, construction, outdoor, and battle costumes and tools for boys. And what do the girls get? Equal pages of cutsy dresses and dolls, baking sets and aprons, tea sets and crochet gloves AND a book on “How to Be a Lady.”
Groan. Nausea. Twitches.
And. AND. This, and I quote from the blurb on “Return of the Daughters”:

For the first time in America’s history, young ladies can expect to encounter a large gap between their years of basic training and the time when they marry…if they marry. Now Christian girls all throughout our country are seriously asking: What’s a girl to do with her single years?

This documentary takes

… viewers into the homes of several young women who have dared to defy today’s anti-family culture in pursuit of a biblical approach to daughterhood, using their in-between years to pioneer a new culture of strength and dignity — and to rebuild Western Civilization, starting with the culture of the home.

I have to admit, the writing in this catalog is good, the presentation skilled. And that even makes it more scary. I am not linking to its website because I don’t want to give it any additional visibility.
Finally, the back cover:

A Creation Celebration. … each episode will build your appreciation for the brilliance of God’s design and will teach you how to dispel evolutionary myths…

Evolutionary myths!!!
This is one catalog that I’m going to feel great pleasure in throwing into the recycle pile. That is, after I rip off the address label and stick it in the mail with an order to take my name off their !@#$% list.

Myrln Monday: Last Day

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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.

Last Day
Last day means overs
(but not the do-overs of child games)
Mother ocean left soon behind
return to land’s hard facts
imminent.
Overs
hang in the air
like haze
hiding blue sky
and eyes.

a buncha backs

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Back #1: It was just a matter of time, I guess. Several nights ago, as I tried to lift my mother’s legs back onto her bed, I felt as though someone shoved a knife into the right side of the lower spine. It was a long night for me, as I painfully made my way to a chair, only to find it hurt too much to try and sit. Lots of Excedrin Back and Body later, I’m relatively OK as long as I don’t twist sideways or make a sudden move. I have a long history of problems with the right side of my body, including developing “drop foot” on my way to Harvard’s first BloggerCon five years ago. And it’s been all downhill from there.
Back #2: Despite the above, I wrapped an Ace lumbar support belt around myself, put on the cruise control, and drove out to see my daughter and family, who, I knew, would give me some TLC — which I needed for more reasons than my out of whack back. Luckily, I had left my new quarterstaff there, and that surely came in handy for limping around the yard.
staff.jpg
[Side note: Ronni Bennett has a section of her blog dedicated to the “Quarterstaff Revolution,” and I will be sending my photo to add to the growing collection.]
Back #3: Last week, I took a little trip back in time and finally got together with my college roommate and her husband, who live about a half-hour’s ride from here. Both she and her husband were good friends of mine all through college. She and I were the same size and coloring We shared a room and later an apartment right through grad school, and we also shared our wardrobes. She is still slim.. Our lives are about as opposite as possible these days, but the memories of all of the crazy college experiences we shared (including driving down to Daytona Beach for Spring break with three of our male classmates) are still ties that bind.
Back #4: Thanks to the Bush regime, this country is so democratically backward that we can only hope that the new president will have the strength and stamina to haul us back to where we belong. The latest indignity is PBS stalling about widely airing Torturing Democracy. It is, however, being aired by individual public stations, and you can watch it online.

red-faced redneck

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Caught in the act of being an a**hole.

Documented by CBS News:

After Palin finished her remarks this morning, the man holding the stuffed monkey seemed to notice that a video camera was pointed at him, at which point he removed the Obama sticker from the doll’s head and crumpling it up in his hand. He then handed the doll to a young boy who was watching the rally from his father’s shoulders. The boy’s parents later told CBS News that they weren’t acquainted with the man who gave their son the stuffed monkey.


If you’re embarrassed by the way you protest, there must be something wrong about the way you protest.
This guy deserves all the ridicule he gets. Pass it along.