Do the Yak

As I entered the building into work one recent morning, I noticed a substantially overweight fellow employee out of the corner of my eye coming in behind me. Both of us work several floors above the floor of the building entrance, which opens onto a half-flight of stairs, so you have to walk either up or down a few steps to get the elevator. I went in, walked up as usual, and pressed the elevator button. After a longer-then-usual time, it arrived, already bearing said fellow employee, who had walked DOWN the entry stairs, thus avoiding any uphill walking and necessitating an additional floor of elevator ride. SOFE (cheerfully): "Hi! I didn't expect to see you in here!" Me: Something vague and unintelligible MOFE: "Did you know that Cadbury has a new Easter egg flavor? Orange whip! And it wasn't all that bad!" Me: Now totally unable to respond due acid-like flashback to another SOFE from years ago who squealed with delight in the run-up to Easter because now ...

I just read an interesting Washington Post column titled " The Dumbing of America " by Susan Jacoby plugging her latest book, " The Age of American Unreason " -- and even more interesting are her responses to online reader comments . Jacoby's premise is that despite (or perhaps partly because of) the easy access to all sorts of information of varying quality, Americans are actually dumber than ever about things including basic geography and math. But more to the point, they don't care that they're dumber. Ignorance, disdain for so-called arrogant intellectuals, and outright of knowledge about certain things (e.g., evolution and nonliteral interpretations of religious texts) are a matter of pride for some people. At the root of the problem are, of course, the increased religiosity of the world and the failure to teach children how to think critically and evaluate evidence. Some of her other targets: The media, "which frequently take the position that...

Just had to pass along this post with some important dos and don'ts for expectant parents . We've all been guilty of a few errors in judgment, especially in those massively sleep-deprived first few weeks. Myself included: see the "Drying Baby" entry. I mean, I'd always read that dryers are very soothing to colicky babies. I don't know who made these up, but whoever it is deserves some kind of award. And as for "Calming Baby," well, it worked great for me and Ben as new parents, so what's the problem?

Sunday night: Yes, I watched the Oscars, but only a tiny fraction thereof, due to cleanup of massive dinenr party involving relatives for Becky's 6th birthday, and later sleeping with Becky as she had developed croup (cough = bark like a seal) and was very unhappy. The one major award I saw was Ms. Cotillard winsomely winning Best Actress for "La Vie en Rose" which I didn't see. I loved her totally unfaked joy and unscripted thanks, as well as her gorgeous hair and fish dress . In fact I saw none of the major nominees (unless you count "Ratatouille" en famille) except "Away From Her," which I didn't think deserved Best Actress. The highlight of the evening was catching up by phone with my cousin K. We're very close -- we talk every year on Oscar night, though in younger days I watched the show with her wherever she was living in Florida or Georgia. And went to the beach, of course. Monday: At home with Becky, both of us exhausted. Mother-da...

Ellen Goodman had a spot-on column today that zeroed in on the ironic nature of the Hillary-vs.-Obama race: as a man, Obama is "allowed" to act more conciliatory without losing the aura of leadership (read: masculinity), while as a woman, Hilary has to show she's tough , but in so doing she loses some perceived sensitivity (read: femininity). Goodman quotes a female political scientist who notes that "He's being more feminine than she can be. She is in a much tighter box" and that research shows "how hard it still is for a woman to be seen as both competent and likable." Goodman concludes: "Now we see a woman running as the fighter and a man modeling a 'woman's way' of leading. We see a younger generation in particular inspired by ideas nurtured by women, as long as they are delivered in a baritone. So, has the women's movement made life easier? For another man?" If she's right, does this mean sexism is alive and well...

Yes, that's the Empire State Building. Click here for more beautiful photos of last night's total lunar eclipse. Whenever there's an eclipse, I remember my paternal grandfather, who was an economist by profession but also an accomplished astronomer and sundial designer as well as photographer (though I think he enjoyed printing more than actually taking photos, which tended to be strained posed shots of family). However, another of his favorite photographic subjects was solar eclipses, and he used to travel around the country to be wherever a solar eclipse would be total so he could photograph it. I think he shot five of them because I remember a reference to in my childhood about an eclipse, most likely the total eclipse in 1970, as being "my fifth and last eclipse" (because of course he knew exactly when and where they would occur). Here's a map of recent eclipse paths. I vaguely remember that 1970 eclipse -- I was nine, and we used cardboard pieces in the...

We went to Mass. Eye and Ear last Wednesday so an ENT could have another look at Sarah's humongous tonsils. Her dentist had recommended getting them out, not because she's getting sick a lot, but because they're so big that they sometimes bother her with the feeling that she's about to choke on something. But the main reason is because they cause her to breathe through her mouth a lot, which is somehow messing up the developing shape of her palate, necessitating earlier (and undoubtedly more expensive) orthodontic stuff. She's gonna need braces anyway as she inherited my overbite, not helped by the fact that she sucked her thumb until the dentist told her a couple of months ago to stop -- and lo, she did! But the damage has been done. So Sarah gets to have an unbearably sore throat starting March 18. Side note: when I checked in at the main desk for our appointment, we were aided by a nicely dressed and coiffed middle-aged woman. I couldn't help stare a bit, tho...

A friend forwarded me a Salon column which I won't reprint here because you're supposed to be a subscriber. The piece, titled "Clinton gets her party started," was a writeup of her campaign party on the night of Super Tuesday, when she won Calif. and Mass. despite some Kennedy endorsements of Obama. One interesting quote from the party: Nearby, writer Honor Moore was looking mildly stricken. The Clinton supporter said that she had been "nervous for a week" about reports of Clinton's foundering campaign, in part because she knows so many Obama converts. "They are a lot of writers and young people, a certain kind of '60s liberal, who just love him," she said. When asked what kind of '60s liberal she was describing, Moore gave an explanation simultaneously oblique and damning. "I think things are so complicated and unpleasant that the idea of an inspiring leader who can erase all these conflicts, rather than go through and deal with ...

So nice to see the GOP eating their young instead of the Dems. In an interesting twist, the far right is so disgusted with McCain that some are advocating voting for the Democrat in the general election as a long-term strategy to save America. The "thinking" is that Clinton or Obama will fuck things up so badly that we will be in for decades of GOP rule. Whereas if they vote for McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, he will co-opt the party and destroy life as we know it for decades if not centuries. Ann Coulter, the rabid dog of the right who frequently uses the word "hysterically" with no apparent irony, said in her February 6 web rant : If Hillary is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster, with Republicans ferociously opposing her, followed by Republicans zooming back into power, as we did in 1980 and 1994, and 2000. (I also predict more Oval Office incidents with female interns.) If McCain is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster,...

If you don't read Finslippy every day (and you should), I have to highlight two recent posts that cracked me up. A lot. One was about what not to cook . The other was Finslippy's summary (with editorial comment of course) after receiving stories from her readers about unfortunate parenting choices they kind of regret, like not realizing they had leprosy before sending them off to summer camp. * * * Every so often you come across a news story about people who, to use a couple of apt cliches, really think outside the box and make an extra effort to get something done -- something that most people wouldn't even think of attempting. Here are two that made me nod in admiration, sort of: Doing whatever it takes to cash a check Creating the perfect final resting place

Interesting analysis on ElectoralVote.com yesterday: Obama did especially well in "white" states like Idaho and Kansas -- but this doesn't necessarily mean he's crossed the racial divide; it's because most of the states in which he did are caucus states, which compared to primary states have low overall turnout but favor candidates like Obama with a "smaller, but extremely active and loyal following." McCain achieved a majority of the votes in only three states: New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York, none of which he has a prayer of winning in November, no matter who the Democrat is. So although he may yet get the nomination, he will be largely campaigning in states where the Republicans actually wanted somebody else. Huckabee won the South and is staying in the race hoping to be named VP on the ticket, which might unify the GOP. But Huckabee is very unpopular with independents and Democrats, so the Dems will insinuate that "McCain is an old guy w...

Thank God for YouTube -- now we have more than one chance to watch the Super Bowl ads. As everyone knows, the commercials are the best reason for tuning in to the game, which is often kind of dull because it's either a blowout or we don't care about the teams involved. OK, this year's game was exciting even though it didn't have the hoped-for result in these parts. Without further ado, here are my personal favorites in approximate order of favorite-ness. "Thriller" lizards (SoBe water) "The scream" (Bridgestone tires) Jason Timberlake gets unmanned by a mailbox post (Pepsi) Face-eating badgers (Toyota) Carrier pigeons (FedEx) Planter's nuts will make you a hottie! The eTrade baby Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell) endorses Budweiser Napoleon using the Garmin GPS device Coke heals even the deepest differences (Frist and Carville)

OK, so I sort of fell out of the habit of updating my blog -- but that doesn't mean my life hasn't been as fascinating as always. And I have been jotting down ideas for posts (some of which are now hopelessly obsolete). Might as well start with the most current: the primaries. This is certainly the most interesting primary season in memory (mine, at least). Lots of people, including me, were on the fence for quite a while or still are. This site, though now outdated because some of the candidates have dropped out, is actually pretty good at figuring out who you ought to vote for. For a while, I wasn't sure whom to vote for between Hillary and Barack but I'm going with my original slight preference for Hillary. In a nutshell: more knowledge, more experience, more connections, more know-how about political battles against the GOP. All of which I hope will outweigh the possibility that she would lose to McCain whereas Obama might beat him narrowly, according to recent he...