it was a draw. Both parties chose to walk away.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Photo Stream
I didn't think I'd be using another photo site. After taking the time to upload my photos, I would then find a fatal flaw to the site- the photos don't look good on the site, they don't make decent prints, I can't link to them indidually, I can't organize them in a way that works for me. So I'd given up. But Flickr has a great thing going - I should have gone there first. I wanted to submit one of yesterday's Graceland photos to the Chicago Public Radio photo of the day competition. So I took the time to put my best stuff on Flickr.
See what you think.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
History of Medicine Follow-Up
Two things - first, the vocabulary list. Again, don't forget - the test is using it in a sentence. If anyone requests definitions in the comments, I'll be glad to oblige in a future post - unlike my dad, who always made me look it up myself. I'm not sure that was such an effective strategy.
pathocenosis
shibboleth
concatenation
weltanschauung
meretricious
apotheosis
accoucheur
parturient
Second thing, Thursday we found out my professor was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. Very exciting. Her research will focus on “science and identity politics in the Internet age.” She intends to study highly publicized identity politics controversies involving academics and the response of marginalized groups when they feel the work of scientists injures their rights and reputations.
pathocenosis
shibboleth
concatenation
weltanschauung
meretricious
apotheosis
accoucheur
parturient
Second thing, Thursday we found out my professor was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. Very exciting. Her research will focus on “science and identity politics in the Internet age.” She intends to study highly publicized identity politics controversies involving academics and the response of marginalized groups when they feel the work of scientists injures their rights and reputations.
Friday, April 18, 2008
An Unusual Week
Two things that a "never" happen here happened this week.
First, on Monday a cougar was reported wandering in the Roscoe Village neighborhood, hiding under front porches. Police chased it around and finally shot it dead in an alley. It was quite sad to see the cougar trying to escape, so clearly lost and backed into a corner. And it must have been alarming for neighbors to first see a cougar tooling around their yard, and then to have Chicago police shooting at it like target practice. Today reports say the cougar might have been from the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Washington Post reports that, "Government protections on cougars (also called mountain lions and panthers) in the Upper Plains states have caused once-threatened populations to rebound to the point of saturation, forcing more of the big cats to migrate far afield."
Second, we had an earthquake last night. I slept through it but this morning working at my desk I definitely felt an aftershock.
Never say never.
First, on Monday a cougar was reported wandering in the Roscoe Village neighborhood, hiding under front porches. Police chased it around and finally shot it dead in an alley. It was quite sad to see the cougar trying to escape, so clearly lost and backed into a corner. And it must have been alarming for neighbors to first see a cougar tooling around their yard, and then to have Chicago police shooting at it like target practice. Today reports say the cougar might have been from the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Washington Post reports that, "Government protections on cougars (also called mountain lions and panthers) in the Upper Plains states have caused once-threatened populations to rebound to the point of saturation, forcing more of the big cats to migrate far afield."
Second, we had an earthquake last night. I slept through it but this morning working at my desk I definitely felt an aftershock.
Never say never.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Alice's New Website
A classmate brought it to my attention that Alice's old website is a mess. In an attempt to learn iWeb better, I created Alice's new website. It links primarily from her Sit Stay Read page and is still in "beta", so comments are welcome.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Grad School Update
It's new quarter time. Last night was my first "Medicine & The Law" class. I have high hopes. How can you not when your teacher is an improv comedienne?
Last quarter was, as you might have guessed from the summarizing cartoon, "History of Medicine." Not what I expected, in that we didn't study a timeline of great discoveries, but more and different. I learned about the importance of establishing context. Understanding history is not about dates, events or people. It's about context. I think that's going to come in handy. The other important lesson seems to be that history isn't something you learn, it's something you do.
Bottom line: I'm enjoying grad school way more than I think is advisable.
Last quarter was, as you might have guessed from the summarizing cartoon, "History of Medicine." Not what I expected, in that we didn't study a timeline of great discoveries, but more and different. I learned about the importance of establishing context. Understanding history is not about dates, events or people. It's about context. I think that's going to come in handy. The other important lesson seems to be that history isn't something you learn, it's something you do.
Bottom line: I'm enjoying grad school way more than I think is advisable.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Photos of the Week 15: April Lake Update
(Click photos to enlarge and see detail.)
The above-water sandbar of a few weeks ago has been reclaimed by the lake, so the shore is back to its expected appearance for this time of year. This morning the air and water were almost impossibly still.
The lake may have taken most of the sandbar, but it does give back. This time of year is phenomenal for beachcoming. Look at all the stuff along the shore - including an entire tree that begs the question as to how it got where it is.
Potential finds include: beachglass - blue is the most valuable. Much needs to be thrown back as it's not been worn to a milky finish yet. More elusive to me are crinoids - or as a friend of Maddie's calls them, "nature's cheerios". They are the remains of plants that lived, according to my sources, as recently as 359 billion years ago. It's also a great time to find rocks with holes left by crinoids, treasured because you can make all kinds of fun stuff with them.
The above-water sandbar of a few weeks ago has been reclaimed by the lake, so the shore is back to its expected appearance for this time of year. This morning the air and water were almost impossibly still.
The lake may have taken most of the sandbar, but it does give back. This time of year is phenomenal for beachcoming. Look at all the stuff along the shore - including an entire tree that begs the question as to how it got where it is.
Potential finds include: beachglass - blue is the most valuable. Much needs to be thrown back as it's not been worn to a milky finish yet. More elusive to me are crinoids - or as a friend of Maddie's calls them, "nature's cheerios". They are the remains of plants that lived, according to my sources, as recently as 359 billion years ago. It's also a great time to find rocks with holes left by crinoids, treasured because you can make all kinds of fun stuff with them.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Maddie's Artwork
My six-year-old niece Madeline is producing a startling amount (and quality) of artwork lately. She made my day last week when I came home to this piece in the mail. Her drawings are very specific and are becoming more and more so as she continues to focus on her drawing. So I spent quite a while interpreting this scene. I haven't had a chance to verify this with her (she has a nasty bout of the flu right now) but I think this piece is (left to right) her dad with money, Maddie and her two dogs (curiously, the brown one, Nike, died a few years ago) and Alice and me, the artist, at a show of mine. The sign is saying that it's five dollars to view the art, but relatives are free (conveniently!) I love the detail of the water bottles for the dogs. She's incredible. The most wonderful thing is that she tells people she wants to be an artist and a nurse when she grows up. I want to be as prolific of an artist as she is now when I grow up.
Postmortem of the LBJ Presidency
Monday was the 40th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's speech announcing a drastic change in his Vietnam policy and his plan to not run for another term as president. You can hear part of the speech, and the press reaction to it, in this NPR story.
I'm again reminded of the episode of PBS' American Experience about LBJ that riveted me this past summer. I discussed the period that lead up to this speech in this earlier blog entry. Now I'm turning to the rest of the story - Johnson's post-White House years.
He retired to his Texas ranch. Doris Kearns Goodwin, LBJ's biographer, said he tried to run his ranch like the White House - needing to have daily staff meetings with updates on the livestock like they were members of Congress or their problems were as critical as foreign relations issues. He couldn't let go. He didn't want to talk about the period before his retirement, only his early years on politics and his parents.
He grew his hair out. Historian Ronnie Dugger said, "He had this long white hair, it was curled in the back, he almost looked like a hippie. I think he chose to look like a hippie, because he contained everything. It looked like he was identifying with the kids who had demonstrated against him. Or maybe he was trying to say to them, hey, I understand. If I had been young, I'd have done the same thing." Oddly, I'm having trouble finding a photo online of Johnson with his long hair.
In May of 1971, LBJ spoke at the dedication of his Presidential Library. He ended his comments on the occasion by saying, "I do not know how this period will be regarded in years to come. But that is not the point. This Library will show the facts...not just the joy and triumphs, but the sorrow and failures, too."
The failures seemed to be foremost in his mind. Eliot Janeway, economist and LBJ friend said, "Only he, with all of his remarkable gifts and knowledge, could have had a realistic appreciation of the extent of his of his opportunity and of the extent of both his achievement and his failure."
He suffered from chest pain related to heart trouble that dated as far back as his first election to the Senate. Janeway said further, "He always said men in the Johnson family didn't live long. I think he just asked for it, and waited for it to happen."
In 1972, Johnson spoke in Austin about civil rights - according to Lady Bird, he got out of bed from a bad angina attack. In the video of this speech, you can see him put a nitroglycerin pill (used widely for angina at that time) in his mouth. As he continues to speak, it falls out. Lady Bird describes that day, "His heart was really hurting."
A line from that speech, the last he will give: "We know how much still needs to be done, and if our efforts continue, and if our will is strong, and if our hearts are right, and if courage remains our constant companion, then my fellow Americans, I am confident we shall overcome."
Johnson died January 22, 1973 - 64 years old, of heart failure. It was five days before Paris treaty ending the Vietnam war.
"What he wanted was people to love him. What he wanted to do was to solve everyone's problems himself. For Johnson he had no other vocabulary, no other way of thinking about how to help people but to have involvement of government in a big way: gIve 'em a lot of money, put your arms around 'em and love 'em. He was the last soldier in the New Deal war."
- Donald Malafronte
"The liberal impulse that went back to the New Deal is challenged, and what you get beginning with the election of Nixon is an era of conservatism. The irony is, Johnson presides over the extraordinary achievement of liberalism, reaching its zenith, reaching its heights, and then within three years time plunges to its depths from which it still hasn't recovered in the year 1990."
-- Robert Dallek, LBJ biographer
"He was just interesting as hell! You know, compared to most people who kinda just go through life banally making their dreadful moral points or condemning this or hoping for that, or scratching the back of their head, he really moved, he was moving all the time... he was just fun to be around. And you liked him, you liked him." - Ronnie Dugger, LBJ biographer
"My feelings were so mixed about the man... there was part of me that never stopped loving him, and part of me that hated him."
- Roger Wilkins, Johnson's assistant attorney general
"What you have is a man who is a thoroughly American President... this is a man who reflected moods and attitudes and contradictions and trends and when he failed, it was America's failure." -- Robert Dallek, LBJ biographer
I'm again reminded of the episode of PBS' American Experience about LBJ that riveted me this past summer. I discussed the period that lead up to this speech in this earlier blog entry. Now I'm turning to the rest of the story - Johnson's post-White House years.
He retired to his Texas ranch. Doris Kearns Goodwin, LBJ's biographer, said he tried to run his ranch like the White House - needing to have daily staff meetings with updates on the livestock like they were members of Congress or their problems were as critical as foreign relations issues. He couldn't let go. He didn't want to talk about the period before his retirement, only his early years on politics and his parents.
He grew his hair out. Historian Ronnie Dugger said, "He had this long white hair, it was curled in the back, he almost looked like a hippie. I think he chose to look like a hippie, because he contained everything. It looked like he was identifying with the kids who had demonstrated against him. Or maybe he was trying to say to them, hey, I understand. If I had been young, I'd have done the same thing." Oddly, I'm having trouble finding a photo online of Johnson with his long hair.
In May of 1971, LBJ spoke at the dedication of his Presidential Library. He ended his comments on the occasion by saying, "I do not know how this period will be regarded in years to come. But that is not the point. This Library will show the facts...not just the joy and triumphs, but the sorrow and failures, too."
The failures seemed to be foremost in his mind. Eliot Janeway, economist and LBJ friend said, "Only he, with all of his remarkable gifts and knowledge, could have had a realistic appreciation of the extent of his of his opportunity and of the extent of both his achievement and his failure."
He suffered from chest pain related to heart trouble that dated as far back as his first election to the Senate. Janeway said further, "He always said men in the Johnson family didn't live long. I think he just asked for it, and waited for it to happen."
In 1972, Johnson spoke in Austin about civil rights - according to Lady Bird, he got out of bed from a bad angina attack. In the video of this speech, you can see him put a nitroglycerin pill (used widely for angina at that time) in his mouth. As he continues to speak, it falls out. Lady Bird describes that day, "His heart was really hurting."
A line from that speech, the last he will give: "We know how much still needs to be done, and if our efforts continue, and if our will is strong, and if our hearts are right, and if courage remains our constant companion, then my fellow Americans, I am confident we shall overcome."
Johnson died January 22, 1973 - 64 years old, of heart failure. It was five days before Paris treaty ending the Vietnam war.
"What he wanted was people to love him. What he wanted to do was to solve everyone's problems himself. For Johnson he had no other vocabulary, no other way of thinking about how to help people but to have involvement of government in a big way: gIve 'em a lot of money, put your arms around 'em and love 'em. He was the last soldier in the New Deal war."
- Donald Malafronte
"The liberal impulse that went back to the New Deal is challenged, and what you get beginning with the election of Nixon is an era of conservatism. The irony is, Johnson presides over the extraordinary achievement of liberalism, reaching its zenith, reaching its heights, and then within three years time plunges to its depths from which it still hasn't recovered in the year 1990."
-- Robert Dallek, LBJ biographer
"He was just interesting as hell! You know, compared to most people who kinda just go through life banally making their dreadful moral points or condemning this or hoping for that, or scratching the back of their head, he really moved, he was moving all the time... he was just fun to be around. And you liked him, you liked him." - Ronnie Dugger, LBJ biographer
"My feelings were so mixed about the man... there was part of me that never stopped loving him, and part of me that hated him."
- Roger Wilkins, Johnson's assistant attorney general
"What you have is a man who is a thoroughly American President... this is a man who reflected moods and attitudes and contradictions and trends and when he failed, it was America's failure." -- Robert Dallek, LBJ biographer
Rockstar
Another cross-blog reference: MaryEllen over at Shandy's Blog has been talking about her love of playing Guitar Hero lately. Which made me look up the video to Nickelback's "Rockstar" to send her. Things I love about this video: the song (not my usual musical taste, but fun and catchy) the Chicago landmark cameos, all the world landmark cameos, and the regular folks lipsincing. Things I hate about this video: the bunnies and Ted Nugent.
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