Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

Liberal hypocrisy is hardly news, of course, but this comparison of the Bush and Gore residences is interesting anyway. In brief, the Al & Tipper Gore residence apparently consumes about twenty times as much energy as the average American home, while the George & Laura Bush residence consumes one-quarter of the average.

One of the things I’ve found interesting recently is how my fellow Canadians are all incensed about the American refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol. But, curiously enough, as they go about spluttering in rage, Canadian greenhouse gas emission levels have risen almost twice as fast as American levels (and never mind actually reducing emissions).

Wealthy, high-consuming progressives preaching the virtues of saving the planet to the rest of the world are really getting to me — any chance that we could have some more environmentalists around who actually bother living what they preach?

Sydney

No, this is not a repeat post from December.   It really is snowing in mid-April.  Looks like Easter weekend is going to be lilies, tulips, crocuses, and . . . snow.  If I’d known it was going to be this long of a winter, I would have stocked up on sweaters!  As it is, my students are probably wondering if I only have two shirts to wear . . . hmm, pity from college freshman, that’s pretty sad.

Erin

“Nam et legentibus euenit et mihi saepissime ut perlecta pagina uel epistula nesciam quid legerim et repetam.”

Or, for the barbarians among us: “It also happens to people reading, extremely often at any rate to me, that I find I have read a page or a letter and have not the slightest idea what I have read, and have to repeat it.” – Augustine, De Trinitate XI.15.
– Sydney

Our professor is out of town, and I have to say, he couldn’t have picked a better day to cancel class! It was beautiful weather today, and Sydney and I got to enjoy it at home. I finally loaded up on groceries, so our house is brimming with good things. I think I ate too many evening meals last week from whatever happened to be hiding in my desk drawer (pretzels, raisins, etc.). So today I came home with strawberries!

Friends from New Haven, Jon and Jean Bonk, stopped in for lunch and we had a great visit. On our past two New Haven visits we have missed them, so it was great to remedy those missed connections. I think they were amused by the ways that these two recent dorm-dwellers have graduated to a place of our own and the world of cooking. Our wall of books didn’t pass without comment!

Easter weekend looks to be somewhat interesting: it’s now equated in my mind with lots of singing. I’ve been roped into singing on Maundy Thursday (now I need to go look up what that is), and then we’re going to rehearse a good while on Saturday for the piece we’ll be singing Sunday morning. Oh yes, and we’re setting up for church on Sunday (don’t faint at the news, Sydney), so it looks to be an early morning, as well as a singing one and Easter. Time to start downing the water and lemon-and-honey tea.

Erin

“Martyrdom in the key of F”

It’s nice to be back. Apparently very few of you read our blog over the weekend (congratulations on having better things to do), so we were hardly missed!

It was a really good weekend. Sydney very nicely played spouse at a luncheon for me, and as a result he met a lot of lawyers within an hour. I should give him a quiz on all their names . . .

But then we unspoused for the rest of the day, and only met up around midnight for a big mug of tea in a Koffee Too and to swap stories. Between the two of us, I think we got our people time in for the month!

We were, admittedly, really, really tired all weekend, however. The early start Saturday morning would have been fine, except that we were running pretty low on energy all that week . . . and month. So though adrenaline helped when we were around friends, we’re glad to be home and hope to get to sleep very shortly.

Oh, and I learned some interesting things about my political views. When I was in college I was just interested in the debate aspect of my political group. I wasn’t a Poli Sci major, and I didn’t have settled views on a lot of topics. I tend to be moderate on a lot of issues, and as I wasn’t foaming at the mouth like the rest of the cohort, I felt wishy-washy. But now that I go back, just two years later, I have a much larger system of thought into which various issues fit, so I find myself developing a political persona. I still love to argue whatever position seems least well-defended at any given moment, but it’s nice to see some change in my thought since college. Why do I think that a lot of that has to do with my conversations with Sydney? We don’t always agree, but he certainly gets me thinking.

Erin

This morning I desperately tried to get ready to teach a PHIL 101 section where I was going to tell my students what sorts of things they needed to improve in their papers and try to get them to understand Descartes’ modal argument for dualism. I got to section a minute or two late, but I think I more or less succeeded in my first task and probably failed in the second. As soon as section was out, I rushed to lunch with Allen Wood, a visiting professor from Stanford. Then back to campus for a philosophy grad student meeting where I was appointed coordinator for a series of colloquia by visiting speakers that we hope to organize for next year. Then immediately headed over to Allen’s talk. Then the reception. Then went to get my car so that I could take him and one of our faculty members to dinner. (My best moment was when a bunch of people were talking about going out for drinks after dinner and Andrew Chignell asked Allen if he had a favourite bar in town and Allen said that that was like asking him what his favourite cell in Abu Ghraib is. I’m glad to know that I’m not the only philosopher in the world who doesn’t care for bars.) Anyway, dinner took ages (though it was a lot of fun) and so we only got home from campus after 11pm.

And tomorrow we plan to leave at 6:30am for New Haven. Wait, why am I spending time writing a blog post?

Sydney

Sydney and I have been working long days this week in preparation for our upcoming weekend away. Lest you think it’s a relaxing vacation that I’m talking about, let me explain. My political debate group from college is having its annual reunion, and Sydney’s glee club also happens to have their annual “Singing Dinner” the same day, so we thought it was a chance not to miss! Old hunting grounds need to be revisited occasionally, both to give you a chance to get away from the work that awaits you at home, and to remind you how nice home really is.

Last year when we tried to attend my alumni luncheon, our car was broken into at a rest stop on the way there, and we had to turn around and go home. This year I intend to refrain from taking any bathroom breaks near the NY/CT border, just in case that creep is still around.

On Saturday Sydney has promised to play spouse at the luncheon. I think he’s got the “look pretty” part down quite well: pink shirt, blue jacket, nice slacks, and pretty hair. But I’m not sure that the “be sociable” part is quite his game. That’s okay: none of my political friends is particularly reticent; like me, they can usually do the talking for both sides of the conversation.

After that we part ways: Sydney goes to his dinner, I go to mine. We’ll be spouseless, but just down the street from one another!

Despite all the scheduled stuff, I am also planning to get in some time with Sarah, my college roommate. For those of you who were at the wedding, Sarah would be my blond roommate; Lisa would be the brunette. Yes, yes, I know it’s terrible to identify by hair color, but it works! (And since you two were flitting about the wedding in matching purple dresses, I don’t have much else to go on.)

It’s been quite awhile since Sarah last burst into my room with a theology lecture ready to let loose, and I’m more than ready for the lecture series to continue. We functioned as perfectly adequate and happy roommates for two years before we realized we really liked sharing with each other ideas about what we were working on. Sarah suffered through my Faulkner fascination (“Wow, did you know that Faulkner wrote something like 50 books? Let me tell you all about them . . .”), and she frequently came home full of some new problem concerning Augustine’s works. I learned all about the pear tree incident in the Confessions years before I got around to reading it!

Another strange tidbit about the weekend: I think I have my political group to blame/praise for getting back into wearing skirts. I grew up much in love with the heels and dress pants; I hated tights, and I couldn’t sit cross-legged in skirts. Besides, the only skirts I was seeing were those the size of a handkerchief – no thanks! But when I joined a political party that was mostly male, I realized that I had access to far more flexibility in wardrobe than they did, and I finally decided to use it. Sheer perversity got me into girly clothing; yup, that pretty much sums up how I work.

Erin

That same Beebe Lake near our offices is also the view outside gym that I frequent. Today as I was at the gym, trudging along on the treadmill, I saw a gigantic hawk circling high above the lake. As I was following him, I caught a second hawk, lower down, out of the corner of my eye. That pair circled for almost ten minutes around the lake, flashing me different view of them as they moved high and low.

As soon as they moved off, the Nuthatch that I had been watching before the hawks stole the scene bolted away from the direction in which the hawks were moving. It had remained high in the top of a naked tree all that time, hoping not to be noticed.

Just a few minutes later, the hawks reappeared, each one chased by a crow, who was announcing to all the world that the hawks were in the area. I don’t understand how the crows do it. I’m quite a bit larger than the hawks (which the crows are not), but I wouldn’t be attacking them! I’m not sure the pair was thrilled about this attention, so the hawks once again moved away.

I got my miles walked, I got a great view of some elusive raptors (what a great wingspan!), and both my legs and my birdwatching self were happy. So much for that hiking/birdwatching dichotomy I mentioned a few weeks ago!

Erin

One of the best features of Ithaca is the great scenery all around us: lakes, gorges, waterfalls, and so on. We even get to enjoy this every day at Cornell, since we park on one side of the Fall Creek gorge and go to classes on the other side. There is also a little lake a little upstream of where we normally cross the gorge to get to classes. Since I had gotten several email postings about the migratory birds making stops at this lake, Erin and I took a little time off from this week’s insane schedules and spent an hour walking around the lake around lunchtime. Among the birding highlights were the best views we’ve ever had of Golden-crowned Kinglets. They’re delightful birds but there are two difficulties in trying to enjoy them: no kinglet that wasn’t dead has ever held still for more than one or two seconds and their preferred habitat is the tops of tall conifers. It’s a tad difficult to see the crown of a 4″ bird that is ceaselessly flitting about fifty feet above you in dense spruce branches. But they were very cooperative today: they frequently came down to ten to twenty feet above the ground and they spent a lot of time in leafless deciduous trees. They didn’t pause in their flitting about, though. Here’s a pilfered image of a pair of them:

Another highlight was seeing two pairs of Hooded Mergansers. Here’s another stolen image:

I think I should spend more time not doing my work.

Sydney