Friday, February 19, 2010
Mens figure skating
posted at 4:51 PM | Permalink | 25 comment(s)
A kind of answer to the article I mentioned yesterday is here, the point being that if jumps are to be the defining action in mens skating, it would be like asking international pianists to play only Chopin instead of excelling in several kinds of playing. Just because human beings can train themselves to do wildly acrobatic stunts on ice doesn't mean that's the only thing they should do or for which they should earn approbation. Any more than a "merely" graceful skater would be sufficient. Skating, like gymnastics, is a mixture of two quite different approaches and it is exactly that juxtaposition which makes it both challenging and interesting.

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Obama, commencement speaker
posted at 8:53 AM | Permalink | 1 comment(s)
Imagine. Wouldn't that be something to remember?! According to a CNN news report, the White House is accepting suggestions for high schools that are working toward Obama's educational goals as indicated in this statement:
Public schools that encourage systemic reform and embrace effective approaches to teaching and learning help prepare America's students to graduate ready for college and a career, and enable them to out-compete any worker, anywhere on the world. . . . This is your opportunity to show me why your school exemplifies the best that our education system has to offer.
Applications are due by the Ides of March and public voting will narrow the field to three, from which the White House and the Education Department will choose the winner. Awesome idea except that schools can't very well be demonstrating effective systemic reform in only the year since Obama took office so it will partly be based on previous performance. And since far too many schools do not do well at creative out-of-the-box learning or developing and encouraging individual strengths and talents, it will be fascinating to see which schools are mentioned, let alone which ones are finalists and which one wins.

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Thursday, February 18, 2010
2-18
posted at 11:50 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
What a shame that there has to be this kind of nonsensical discussion about figure skating and that the silver medalist was such a poor sport that he felt he had to denigrate the gold medalist because - sneer, sneer - he's too artistic and not gung-ho athletic enough to attempt a quadruple jump (although he did seven triples and landed them all smoothly, more smoothly than the silver guy landed most of his doubles, triples and the revered quad), when it's patently self-evident that figure skating is hugely athletic (imagine the strength and endurance required to do axels and triples and doubles and spread-eagles, etc., etc.) as well as artistic (. . . and where on earth does anyone get off suggesting that artistry minimizes athleticism or do they want to make the same argument about gymnastics and synchronized swimming and even, in a way, dressage, because artistic expression in athletics in simply displaying prowess differently than less flat-out but no less actually).

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
2-16
posted at 10:04 PM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)
The twenty-something daughter of one of my friends jetted off yesterday to spend a year in Taiwan teaching English and although of course it's hard for the family to have her half a globe away, and hard for her to be so far away, I'm sure, I'm so glad for her because it will be an exciting adventure as well as fascinating because it's such a different culture and useful because of the people and knowledge of people she will accumulate for whatever she'll decide to do afterwards, as travel and unpredictable experiences almost always are.

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Monday, February 15, 2010
2-15
posted at 11:00 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Bright and sunny pleasant and fun day off in which I got a lot of knitting and neatening done and watched/played Jeopoardy at the laundromat with the two teenage sons of the owner.

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Sunday, February 14, 2010
2-14
posted at 7:45 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
I want to wish a Happy Valentine's Day to everyone even though I know it's a greeting card holiday and not "real" the way Thanksgiving is . . . but wait . . . all the holidays that aren't celebrating a specific event are contructs and not anniversaries so what's the fuss all about anyway so I hope everyone has a wonderful loving friendly smiling day.

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Saturday, February 13, 2010
Knitting Olympics redux
posted at 10:53 PM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)
I am happy to hear that Yarn Harlot is hosting its knitting olympics this year (hat tip to The Village Sheep)!

Ravelry is hosting Ravelympics, but in my opinion it's rude for them to set up a competitive game vs. the founder. There is a point of view that says the world can handle more than one but wouldn't it have been far more gracious for Ravelry to work with YH and have a joint enterprise? I mean, other areas of the world don't set up games to compete with the athletic Olympics? They sometimes put on different games but they don't call them olympics and they don't compete. Why didn't Ravelry just joined forces with YH?

Anyway, here's the YH Knitting Olympics form and there's still just time since the opening ceremonies were yesterday. I'll post a photo of the finished project and the medal, when it's done. Happy knitting!!

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Blogs <=> Coffeehouses
posted at 3:19 PM | Permalink | 6 comment(s)
Blog friend Ligneus commented, at a post at blog friend Alan Sullivan's, that
Isn’t it amazing how personal it gets and how close you can feel via the net and blogs to people who are otherwise strangers?
I’ve seen the internet compared to the eighteenth century coffee houses where people would meet to discuss the events and ideas of the time. So we miss the coffee, ambiance and physical presence of our companions, but we have a vastly increased number of people and exchange of ideas, on balance we win I think.
I agree, for one thing, but also am heartened to have an explanation that makes it seem acceptable to enjoy reading and contributing to blogs that are not simply rants and raves. I love the analogy to olden day coffeehouses especially since even modern day coffeehouses are some of my favorite places in the world, particularly if there are people willing to ponder, aloud. It's a relief to have a socially and intellectually acceptable reason for liking blogs!!

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2-13
posted at 9:07 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Pleasantly busy and very enjoyable Saturday with some work, some errands, some hanging out with friends, a fantastic conversation with a young reader (we exchanged recommendations for books, including The Phantom Tollbooth and The Mysterious Benedict Society (me to her) and The Book Whisperer and Walk Two Moons (her to me), among others), dinner at a bookstore, browsing through a bunch of books and magazines, wonderful phone calls with t3tccitw, my sister, and a long many-subject conversation with my brother and sister-in-law, and lots of knitting.

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Friday, February 12, 2010
2-12
posted at 11:44 PM | Permalink | 3 comment(s)
Since at the moment there are hardly any subjects of interest other than snow and weather, I want to mention that at this moment, this year, early in 2010, there is visible snow on the ground in all fifty states - even Hawaii which has snow atop two volcanoes - and I think that is awesome although I'm wondering if someone misread something about "global cooling" and thought it said "global cooking" and, in order not to plagerize plagiarize, said "global warming" by mistake. . . .

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Thursday, February 11, 2010
2-11
posted at 11:21 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Alas they charge $15 for 24 hours of wifi in the hotel and they don't have a shorter or hourly fee so I did not log on this morning to begin the day with a diary sentence and it was too busy to do so during the day; the snow was minimal in NYC and north, I am personally happy to say and when I got home after the previous two days in the City, my lovely neighbor had snowblowed my driveway so I needed only to park and go into my house!

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
2-10
posted at 11:16 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Spent last night and will again spend tonight at a pleasant boutique hotel in NYC and enjoyed last night and expect to enjoy tonight despite our rooms not being ready for almost an hour after we got there seven hours after check-out and then there being no hair conditioner or mouthwash or free wifi (hand to forehead and deep melodramatic Sarah Bernhardt sigh) - the enjoyment being partly because of the good company for our snow-bound pajama party and partly because dinner was delicious (watercress and light cheese on a turkey burger) and partly because the rooms are spacious and clean and smell nice and the tv worked (although I had to watch in real-time - I miss TiVo!) and the bed was very very comfy indeed....

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Charlie Wilson
posted at 4:33 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
I don't mean to make light of it but teasing about it feels better than talking about being annoyed when it's not about me and not very polite to say my reactions matter at all. But I am tired of feeling slapped every few days recently and very sad that another person has died who was a compelling, complex, interesting character, a person who added so much in so many unpredictable ways to various corners and aspects of the world. More to the (self-centered) point, another person who profoundly influenced my awareness that grays are very important to see in people - as opposed to blacks and whites.

Charlie Wilson has died and the world is a quieter and less amusing (read: wild and crazy) and less intriguing (in all the meanings of that word) place as a result.

Charlie Wilson's Peace - Washington Post article, 8/2008

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Birthdays
posted at 11:02 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Bertholdt Brecht and Jimmy Durante would be 112 and 107 today, respectively. A pairing only a very detailed astrologer could love.

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Knitting olympics
posted at 6:39 AM | Permalink | 1 comment(s)
I'd really like to do the knitting olympics this year, as in 2008, but Ravelry co-opted it from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and that seems downright mean so I'm not sure I'll do it. I'm curious as to how that came about since I didn't think the upper echelons of the knitting world were particularly known for back stabbing or anything similarly nefarious and since it's kind of sad actually.

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Tuesday, February 9, 2010
2-9
posted at 5:45 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Will be spending tonight and tomorrow at nearby hotel on account of the rumored snow emergency and because my firm wants to be sure of a staff to cover the most intense of any needs (we operate 24/7/366 as they say); it certainly is a generous way to assure themselves and give us a treat in the process.

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Blizzard of '10, continued
posted at 9:44 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
There may be quite a snowstorm in the so-called northeast corridor, tonight and tomorrow. My blogger friend, Allan, is well-versed weather aficionado and he says (here), that this storm has the potential to be a real humdinger, possibly adding a foot or more to the DC area and contributing a foot or a foot and a half to NYC. It will be amazing, if true. I'm not sure if the snow managers in DC know how to make those interesting walls of snow that they used to make in Maine and Vermont in the winter. Meanwhile, it looks as if the middle part of the state will again get the least amounts. Funny weather year, this.

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Sudden sleepiness
posted at 8:57 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Do you ever just -poof- go out like a light? I find that, fairly often, after about 15 minutes at my desk in the morning, I could put my head down and go to total sleep. It doesn't happen at home or on the train or in bookstores . . . only at my desk. Since I love and enjoy my work, it's not a question of disliking being there. I can see the screen perfectly well so it isn't a question of eyesight. I get enough sleep to be alert (everywhere else) so it's not sleep deprivation. Also it seems connected to a recent change in the air conditioning/heat which is a bit higher than it used to be (a/k/a warmer) so I wonder if there's something less than ideal in the air. Food helps, too, so I must remember to eat more! (Ha ha, just kidding.)

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Monday, February 8, 2010
2-8
posted at 11:50 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
I want to sing the praises of a thoughtful and generous friend of mine who had bought some yarn that she wanted to use for a skirt but she didn't like the way it knitted up - a bit holey and not as pretty as she'd anticipated - so she tried a couple of alternatives (smaller needles, tighter knitting, etc.) but to no satisfactory avail - so, rather than trying to sell it on eBay or Ravelry, she gave it to someone who quite liked it and will enjoy making something with it.

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Sunday, February 7, 2010
2-7
posted at 11:15 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Spent a couple of hours about an hour away from home having a quick bite and afternoon tea and, as always, absolutely loved the vittles but I do have to wonder what they're thinking of with their early hours on a weekend and their unwelcoming and slightly surly attitude about "we're closing soon so the kitchen is closing so let's hurry it up," when you consider that staying in business is, presumably, their goal.

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Birthdays
posted at 11:12 AM | Permalink | 1 comment(s)
It's astonishing that Charles Dickens would be 200 years old today. (And that Jane Austen's first book was published 199 years ago, but it's not her birthday today so she's a subject for some other time.) One does rather hope for some kind of eternal consciousness, in general and personally, of course, but specifically so that people like Dickens know the hugeness of their impact and the many many generations of very different and changing people who have read and enjoyed their work. May we all be living in the best of times even if it occasionally feels like the worst of times - which he would say was appropriately balanced, I think - and may our houses not be bleak yet our expectations always great.

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Blizzard of '10
posted at 11:08 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Where I live there is nothing to show for the Blizzard of '10, not a drop, not a flake. But 300 miles south, round about Washington DC, they got 20-30 inches, hard though it is to imagine. The Washington Post has a terrific slide show of scenes from all over the area. I especially like the shot of M Street in Georgetown....

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Saturday, February 6, 2010
2-6
posted at 7:05 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Thanks to free wifi at a Borders bookstore, I spent the better part of the afternoon with a huge cappuchino and a bagel, doing work remotely on my (new and fantastic) netbook (thank you, Santa), headphones plugged in and listening to the opera streamed on WQXR, and switching off to exchange emails with friends and a relative getting ever-more inches of snow in Maryland (at last count it was over thirty inches, astonishingly); awesome afternoon.

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Friday, February 5, 2010
2-5
posted at 11:50 PM | Permalink | 3 comment(s)
Having majored in philosophy and studied religious philosophy, I must say I find it heartening that Obama is a fan (for want of a better word) of Reinhold Niebuhr, author of the so-called Serenity Prayer, at least according to this CNN article.

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Snow
posted at 11:27 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Hoping the DC/Maryland/Virginia area gets through the deluge of snow (can you have a deluge of snow or only of rain?) without too much anxiety or difficulty. If they really get 30" in places, it will be record-setting which will make it good to have endured but I hope everyone is all right. And how odd is it that in NY we are getting nothing, this time?

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Thursday, February 4, 2010
2-4
posted at 6:47 PM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)
Two dreadful news items, for very different reasons: one, that ten missionaries - if that's really what they are - have been charged with kidnapping Haitian children in the midst of the worst catastrophe that country has ever known and that's saying something in their case - which inevitably makes me wonder if the Haitian government is simply taking advantage of a juicy newsy item (children + orphans + parents *are* alive . . .) to keep itself on the front page or if a group of creepy people were making financial and personal hay out of the situation and operating a child trafficking enterprise cloaked in the almost untouchable cape of religious do-gooders; and two, that the MTA may raise fares despite having duplicate books (not according to rumor but according to a judge's finding) in an economic time when lots of people who need public transportation are out of work or unable to work overtime because it's been cut back and there are few if any raises even of the cost-of-living kind and there was a not-inconsequentially large fare hike only a year ago.

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010
2-3
posted at 11:55 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
It's one of those sentence-a-day moments when I don't have a clue what to say but I vowed to do this so I have to say something so I guess I'll mention that I'm enjoying "Little Couple" on TV even though it made me cringe that they even had it on because it seemed exploitive but it turns out that Jen and Bill are interesting and smart enough and compelling enough personalities, that it works in that you completely forget the initial reason for it being a show in the first place and just become involved in what they're doing and thinking.

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010
2-2
posted at 10:32 PM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)
The evening train was quite crowded tonight which makes me wonder if the economy is inching back to something approximating where it was in recenet heydeys (sp?) which would be nice considering that the undercrowding made me think a lot of people had quit or been laid off when I think it maybe just mean there was a cutback on overtime.

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Oscars
posted at 9:01 AM | Permalink | 1 comment(s)
The televised ceremony will be on March 7th. The story and headline nominees are here.  Why did they expand the best picture list to 10, I wonder?  And will box office success once again dominate the winners?  And do you think the Oscars should award quality of performance or box office appeal - as in, is it meant to honor the business or the art?

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Monday, February 1, 2010
2-1
posted at 11:03 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
One gripe, one observation; gripe: wheeling bags are absolutely a boon to the health of the people wheeling them along who no longer need to lug pounds and pounds of stuff and hurt their backs and joints . . . but they are a true menace to people trying to walk anywhere nearby; observation: on account of the place that the earth is in its yearly traverse around the sun, the full moon yesterday and today is at its lowest in the sky and therefore is surprisingly and extraordinarily huge, mesmerizing and lovely.

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Good question
posted at 8:56 AM | Permalink | 3 comment(s)
A train friend was musing and thinking out loud. He asked me a question for which I have no better answer than to say that I have observed the same thing. This is the question: why is it that if a relationship starts to sour, it is precisely the personality traits that attracted the two people to each other that make them want to beat their heads on the wall and plead, "Stop!!" This guy's current significant other was charmingly outgoing, smart, chatty, inquisitive, always in motion (his words) but now he reluctantly describes her as pushy, bossy, noisy, nosey and never calms down. It's an intriguing and interesting point partly from seeing opposite nuances of adjectives and partly from the personality and relationship points of view.

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