Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

Yup, I’m putting it in print so you (and he) can hold me to it later on.

Our hammock has been sitting out on the lawn for all the world to see.  We generally take the hammock itself inside, and, wow, does the frame get a few funny looks!  Even the internet repair guy ventured, “What is that?”

Fun as this was to watch, and nice as it was to fall down our front steps into a hammock, we thought we might like to have it in a slightly more secluded spot.  So Sydney took pruning shears and a hand saw to the brush around our house, and created a little cove for the hammock amidst some young trees.  Lying in the hammock there is about as peaceful and relaxed as I’ll ever get.  Truly lovely.

In addition to this feat, Sydney’s also planning to take me away Wednesday and Thursday to celebrate our anniversary.  Yes, the two-week proximity of our anniversary to my birthday, plus the happy thought of school returning (I’m such a nerd), all contrive to make August my favorite month of the year.  I have no idea where we’re going on Wednesday or what we’re doing, and both Sydney and I like it that way: I can’t fret about it and he can surprise me.  It’s been two years since we were married, and you know what’s funny?  Both Sydney and I think, “Only two years?”  Before you get worried, I think our reaction may have something to do with the number of life changes that have occurred since then.  We now live in Ithaca, we know how to cook, we have dissertation topics in mind, we have a garden and a hammock, we have a cat, etc.  I don’t think it’s “Oh my goodness, if I have to endure this suffering forever, then . . .”  Sydney may come from a tradition of martyrs, but I don’t 🙂

Erin

Sydney and I set up and tore down for church yesterday.  All was going well until we were ready to lock the doors and realized there was a wheelchair-bound elderly woman still sitting in the front lobby.  After a bit of conversation I learned that she was expecting the Gadabout to come along, but she didn’t remember when it was to come.  We’re always afraid of having something left behind (sippy cups, toys, books, keys) for us to discover when we’re shutting the building down, but this was a new one!  Thankfully, after a short while the Gadabout pulled up to the curb.

Later that afternoon we picked blueberries, most of which actually made it to the freezer only because we also picked peaches.  I’ve been going through peaches at an insane rate recently, so I think Sydney was eager to buy enough to keep me satisfied for once.  Well, we definitely did that, but now we have more than five large serving bowls filled with peaches, sitting around our house.  I thought they looked a bit green when we picked them, but they now seem to be plenty ripe–and all of them at once!  You can guess what kind of meals we’ll be having at our house in the near future . . .

Overall, a lovely day, and all without even a peek at our schoolwork.  Sometimes it’s nice to take a break, even it’s the kind of break that makes you pretty tired by the end of the day!

Erin

I’ve long liked to read newspapers, though recently my reading has been online rather than on paper. But I’m starting to wonder why I bother reading them. I became increasingly suspicious of their science reporting several years ago. The suspicion was warranted. I have yet to find a single case where, when I actually bother to go look at the researchers’ own report, it doesn’t turn out that the newspaper (or perhaps the writers of the news release) got something wrong. At best, they’re just misleading thanks to the omission of critical details; at worst, they mangle the data so badly that one wonders whether they’re literate enough to read science journal articles. I suppose I should note that my reading tends to be in the NYTimes. Perhaps it is only our ‘newspaper of record’ that is so appalling in its science reporting. At any rate, until convincingly shown reason to revise my attitudes, I shall not trust any science reporting in newspapers.

But there is still the news. Maybe newspapers can at least get that right. At least the news where liberal or conservative biases don’t override journalistic integrity.

Here’s a quotation from the NYTimes in which they quote President Bush: Continue reading →

I suppose by now it is old news that there is a correlation between children watching television and various ills such as more aggressive behaviour, lower reading skills, attention-deficit disorders, obesity, and so forth. But that’s from the standard televised garbage. It is still widely thought, though, that educational programs are good for children, a belief that has nicely lined the pockets of numerous makers of educational videos. But a recent study of one segment of this market, i.e., videos for infants and toddlers, challenges the claims that the videos do some good. In fact, there was a significant negative correlation between watching videos like Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby and language ability. How significant? A 17% drop in vocabulary for every hour watched per day, after controlling for variables like socioeconomic status, race, and parental education. The study was based on interviews, so the researchers aren’t making any claims about causality. Still, it’s interesting stuff. Though I don’t see much reason to be surprised by the results. For those interested, the study is in the Aug. 7, 2007 issue of The Journal of Pediatrics.

Sydney

One of the things one soon soon discovers when one starts studying some period in history is that half of the things popularly ‘known’ about that period are manifestly false. Often as not, these myths arise because polemicists can safely appeal to false historical ‘facts’ in support of whatever view they are promulgating, since historical literacy is so dismally low that most of their audience will never suspect them.

Anyway, here’s one myth that I have encountered a few too many times, including in more or less respectable places: An early council of bishops seriously debated the question of whether women have souls. If the parrot of this piece of historical nonsense happens to be particularly well-informed, he or she may also name the council in question as the ‘Council of Macon’, which was held in a.d. 585. Even more learned parrots may report that the vote was 32 to 31 in favour of women having souls (as does this website). Continue reading →

It’s a funny thing about being a grad student.  I feel that I work for a living (yes, I think reading and writing, not just teaching, count as earning my keep).  But when I’m going off to do work at the college I think and say, “I’m going off to school.”  I’m realizing that for many people that calls to mind lockers, lunchboxes, and third grade.  For me, it calls to mind an office, a library, and college classrooms.  Most of the time I don’t really think about it: everyone here knows Sydney and I are grad students, and many of our friends are, as well.  But when I was home visiting my parents, and I interacted with my extended family, I realized it sounded a little funny to talk about school when they talked about work, and I was afraid of the images they called to mind.

On a related note, I realized that for many people work is related to a particular place.  A professor friend of mine works in the sciences, so her work is closely tied to her time in the lab.  Work means doing experiments in the lab.  When I mentioned that I spent most of my summer at home, I saw this befuddled look cross her face, and realized she took me to mean I hadn’t done any work all summer.  When I added that I had more than enough books at home to keep me working not only through the summer, but also through the next several years, she laughed a bit nervously.

Erin

1) I love my cat. I’ve been curled up for the last two days, going through roll after roll of toilet paper (yes, I know, the one time I don’t have any tissues) as I suffered through a nasty cold. And Arwyn’s been curled up far closer to me than she would usually get in such muggy weather, offering comfort. It’s nice having a cat who cares. It’s also really nice to be able to smell again. Of course, if my casseroles always tasted like cardboard maybe our grocery bills wouldn’t be so high.

2) Today I started a new job. No, no, I haven’t left academia, but I answered the rare-books librarian’s call for temporary help; apparently they have a small collection of Mark Twain (letters, first editions, criticism) that need cataloging and typed descriptions. Faced with a lot of unstructured time in the upcoming year, I liked the idea of having something to make me feel like I was going to work each day, and I had an itch to be back at work in a library again. So I’ll be spending some time deep in the bowels of the earth (seriously, it’s a few floors underground) for the next couple of months. Today I cracked the books and was delighted to be faced with Mark Twain’s handwriting. Much fun!

3) Sydney’s gotten wrapped up in Latin translation and logic homework, which means that rather than have a cleaner desk than during the school year, it’s gotten worse. He’s now taken up several surfaces: more than his side of the desk, the kitchen table, three chairs, the windowsill, a filing cabinet or two, and a chunk of the floor. I think he’s trying to barricade himself away from me, keeping my cold at bay. Good luck!

Erin

For the past year I’ve calculated my students’ grades by hand, culminating each semester in a night of much anxiety and a very tired (and much scribbled-on) piece of paper.  Probably in the hopes that he won’t have to comfort me through another night like that, Sydney recommended I figure out how to do grades in Excel.

Whoah, momma, is it ever scary what you can do with a few formulas.  I now have things ready to go, so that if I put in letter grades, they’re instantly converted into numbers, weighted, and the end grades are tallied.  Amazing things go on.  I just have to be careful which keys I press . . .

Erin

I wasn’t too impressed with Michael Ignatieff’s recent campaign for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada—there was a bit too much of the I’m-a-brilliant-professor-from-Harvard-so-I-know- all-about-the-problems-in-Canada-and-about-how-to-fix-them- even-though-I’ve-been-out-of-the-country-for-almost-thirty- years attitude, in my opinion—but I do find his recent piece in The New York Times on being wrong about Iraq quite thoughtful and sensible. For example:

In private life, we pay the price of our own mistakes. In public life, a politician’s mistakes are first paid by others. Good judgment means understanding how to be responsible to those who pay the price of your decisions. Edmund Burke, when first elected to the House of Commons, told the voters of Bristol that he would never sacrifice his judgment to the pressure of their opinion. I’m not sure my constituents would be happy to hear this. Sometimes sacrificing my judgment to theirs is the essence of my job. Provided, of course, that I don’t sacrifice my principles….

In my political-science classes, I used to teach that exercising good judgment meant making good public policy. In the real world, bad public policy can often turn out to be very popular politics indeed. Resisting the popular isn’t easy, because resisting the popular isn’t always wise. Good judgment in politics is messy. It means balancing policy and politics in imperfect compromises that always leave someone unhappy — often yourself.

I often find it interesting how the same people will alternately criticize politicians for not sticking to principles and for not doing what their constituents want them to do. Which is it? Are politicians supposed to do what they think is right or what their constituents think is right?

Ignatieff doesn’t succeed, though, in avoiding throwing in a few jabs at current politicians:

In politics, learning from failure matters as much as exploiting success. Samuel Beckett’s “Fail again. Fail better” captures the inner obstinacy necessary to the political art. Churchill and De Gaulle kept faith with their own judgment when smart opinion believed them to be mistaken. Their willingness to wait for historical validation, even if far off, looks now like greatness. In the current president the same faith that history will judge him kindly seems like brute stubbornness.

That last sentence doesn’t befit the reflective nature of the rest of the piece. Or the previous part of the paragraph. It may well turn out that the current president’s faith is brute stubbornness. But presumably smart opinion in the days of Churchill and De Gaulle would also have recognized that leaders prior to them displayed virtuous obstinacy while thinking that Churchill and De Gaulle were merely stubborn brutes. Stubbornness on behalf of the good and stubborness on behalf of the bad will both look like brute stubbornness to its opponents and a virtuous standing firm to its advocates. So I don’t see what the point is of accusing the president of brute stubbornness. The problem is that his judgement is wrong, not that he is sticking to his judgement in the face of opposition.

Anyway, immature, silly barbs aside, there is some good stuff in Ignatieff’s piece.

Sydney

It’s been like Christmas around here recently.  Sydney got a couple of woodworking tools because when I oohed and aahed over wooden bowls at the artists’ market he told me he could make something like that . . . with a couple of new tools 🙂  Well, then, of course!  I also got the rest of the Harry Potter books.  It’s so fun to see their colorful covers sharing shelf space with our academic books!  Speaking of which, Sydney and I both met with our advisors recently and received hefty reading lists to start us in dissertation directions.  That necessitated more book acquisition!

But then I got something I didn’t expect.  My birthday isn’t until the end of the month, but Sydney got me a present early so that I could use it while the weather’s nice.  It was a hammock!  And, very smart on Sydney’s part, it’s a two-person hammock, so we can read (okay, okay, nap) outside in the hammock together and enjoy what remains of our free time.  When I asked where we were going to put the hammock Sydney told me he was going to build me a stand, and he did–the very next day.  What an amazing, extravagant, and, might I add, gigantic present!

It’s wonderful to feel the breeze coming from all directions.  And it didn’t take the birds long to get used to us.  After an entire day of Sydney hammering 2×4’s together, the chickadees came whizzing by just moments after we tried it out the finished product.  This afternoon Sydney had a rabbit munch on clover just under the hammock while he was reading in it today.  Always nice to have nature come to you, rather than go to the effort of seeking it out.

Erin