Monthly Archives: August 2005

Like I Need To Know This

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Tiny chemical differences in how our skin reacts to ultraviolet light could explain why redheads are more likely to suffer skin cancer, say US scientists.

The answer lies in the skin and hair pigment melanin, the team from Duke University, North Carolina, believe.

People with ginger hair have pigment that is chemically different from that of people with darker hair, they found.

This difference might explain why people with red hair burn easily and are prone to sun damage.

🙄 I know, I know, I know. But the science is interesting.

When Did I Grow A Spine?!?

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I’m not known for having one – a spine – and it’s a long time since I checked my standings at ,
but apparently I finally made it on to dry land in TTLB Ecosystem, after languishing as either a flippery fish or a crawly amphibians for about forever.

Last year some time, a Blog Personage linked to my blog for a while, which catapulted me into Flappy Bird status, but it didn’t last and I bumped long with the other slimy molluscs for a while.

Just once, it would be nice to be a cute, cuddly l’il mammal. We’ll see.

Every Three Seconds

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Nearly 1,600 children under the age of six have died in India’s Maharashtra state, many from malnutrition, in the past four months, officials say.

Let’s see: that’s approximately 400 children a month, 13 children a day, or 1 child every two hours, in just one state of one country battling poverty.

It’s time I gave somebody a piece of my mind. God knows, he could use one.

Small World Etc.

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Annie at London Underground Tube Diary – Going Underground’s Blog reports that New Orleans Police captain Tami Brisset is stranded in London awaiting word from her family – she had originally gone to London to take part in the Tube Relief charity Tube challenge, and had been photographed taking part in the challenge and shown in a previous entry at Going Underground. She’s been interviewed by the Beeb and Virgin Radio, and still hasn’t spoken to her husband, who is supposed to have driven to Florida with their family.

In the meantime, the good folks who came together for the Tube Relief challenge are making sure that she’s got someplace to stay, a phone to use, and has good company to keep her entertained and occupied.

It’s a small world after all, and one way to win a small victory against terror.

Not Going To Flail Helplessly

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No, no, no, no, no.

I’m not really tinkering around with the blog. I’m not considering a complete re-design so soon. I’m not really tired of the wacky display issues inherent in a 3-column design.

I am, however, embarassed at the tacky kludge that be my CSS and “main template” files.

Of course, one way to improve on them and make a fresh start is to upgrade to the latest version of MT and fool around with their new templates and styles, but then I’d have to do some other tinkering with templates to get comments looking right and the smiley doodads to show up.

So maybe not flailing helplessly soon, or at least not until after the weekend. 😉

Essential Survival Gear

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Flickr

This guy documented all of his bad-weather survival gear. For pure entertainment value: a potato cannon. Click the picture to view the notes within Flickr.

Come to think of it, the potato cannon may come in handy as a defensive weapon.

This image was sent from Flickr as a blog entry, email or cameraphone image.

Via: Flickr
Title: some of the supplies

By: ratterrell
here are some of the supplies we have set up for hurricane katrina. i’m placing notes on the photo to label what is what.

Originally uploaded: 29 Aug ’05, 3.57am PST

Katrina

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I don’t really have words to describe my reaction to the images and stories coming from New Orleans and the other places where the hurricane laid waste to the puny works of man. I am a little worried, however, for a client who called yesterday. He started off by inquiring about corporate/temporary housing, because it turns out he thinks his house in a small Louisiana town is “gone.”

Then he told me that he hasn’t heard from his son since the day of the storm, and the last piece of advice that he gave him was to take the chainsaw to the attic. Some of the neighbors were sheltering in the house with him because he had the only 2 story house on the block, and they were getting ready to move upstairs and wait it out.

I hope he and the neighbors are okay. Sadly, a lot of pets and farm animals have very little chance of survival; I heard a man on NPR this morning talking about how they’d had to leave their 3 cats behind.

In addition to the American Red Cross and other relief organizations like Episcopal Relief and Development, the Humane Society of the US is gearing up to rescue animals, and so is a charity called Noah’s Wish.

And if anyone thinks “screw the pets” or “save what’s left of the cats and dogs next week” like a couple of posters did on a Flickr forum, I don’t want to know about it. Do not mention it in my hearing or be prepared to deal with the consequences…

Ketchup

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So here's what's going on this week around here:

  • Busy at work, but not as crazed as last week.
  • Thinking about sick friends and considering how best to help
  • Keeping only half an eye on the news
  • Fooling around with iPod more (David got me a dock!)
  • Putting off on uploading more photos to Flickr
  • Getting ready to travel again Real Soon (just a weekender)
  • Realizing that there's not a lot of time left
  • Playing catch-up in nearly every area of my life

Now that the Weekend of Crazed Running Around is over, I can finally say something about what was going on. Saturday, we had a bat mitzvah to go to for a cousin of my husband David's. I'd also committed us to volunteer at St Columba's rummage sale. Wow, how ecumenical of us! I should explain that the side of the family with all the cousins (they are only 1/3 way through all the bar/bat mitzvah celebrations, with at least 5 more in years to come). Then we'd also committed (or should have been committed for committing ourselves) to going back to the North Shore and working on a service project that was the "party" part of the bat mitzvah celebration. There was no guarantee that this was actually going to work, but now the timetable can be laid out with reasonable accuracy.

Saturday

9:30am: Drive 1 hour to bat mitzvah in Highland Park (on time) 1:30pm: Drive 1 hour back home, change, go to St Columba (ran late) 3:30pm: Drive 1 hour, this time to Waukegan to volunteer party (on time) 8:00pm: Drive 1 hour back home again, home again, jiggity jog The discerning, non-spamming reader (that will be Mitch. Hi, Mitch!) will note that we spent 4 hours on the road. And we wondered why we were so tired and wiped out at 9 o'clock at night. Then I had to do some important quaffling and wittering and stressing and worrying about the next day's events. The bat mitzvah service was interesting because it was in a different synagogue from the one most of that side of the family attend, and they use a new, gender-neutral prayer book that made for enjoyable browsing while we were either waiting for something to happen or for a song to finish. Some of the incidental prayers toward the back were very beautiful and poetic. The work party, incidentally, was AWESOME though daunting. Basically, the parents put on a volunteer event at an alternative education center in an economically depressed part of Waukegan. Because of who they are and their huge social circle, there were about 400-500 adults and teens there, all put to work on carefully designed, easily completed painting projects. David and our niece Melissa and I worked on a wall mural with some young girls that were friends of our cousin's from camp. We managed, but I'm afraid that we had some problems with the detail work. In the end, we went for a kind of "WAY outsider art" look that worked. I just wish I'd been keeping more of an eye on helping Melissa rather than fussing over the crappy brush I was trying to use for lettering. The middle of the mural had a kind of unique mood, but by the end I'd figured out how to see the art that Melissa was able to produce and not worry about boring old color-within-the-lines conventionalities. And then we cleaned up the boo-boos and sharpened up the edges of the lines and letters and it really did look pretty good when we were done. Then we all cleaned up, scrubbed paint off the floor (even Melissa's dad, who was just there to pick her up, pitched in) and trooped into the gym for a ginormous pizza party. They brought in at least 40 boxes of Lou Malnati's pizza, plus big aluminum tubs of salad and mostaccioli. All very well, and everyone was in their painty duds and no one was all putting-on-the-dog dressed up as is the normal practice at these events. I was really enjoying the people-watching (and the pizza) until the DJ started up. About then, David got a headache (no coincidence there), and it was time to go.

Sunday

8:30am-9:25am Drink coffee, worry, pack "concert MC" clothes
9:30am Rush off, late, to choir practice
10:30am Church stuff (sit stand sit kneel stand sing pray etc.)
12:00pm-12:10pm 10 minutes to just PLAY like a little kid with Noah.
12:10pm-1:30pm Clean cobwebs while others clean floors
1:30pm Greet artists with great affection and warmth (love the boys)
1:40pm Run downstairs and upstairs a few times on errands, panic, etc.
1:50pm Assist other church ladies in arranging dessert tables
2:00pm Run around outside with Fr. Ted putting up banner and posters
2:20pm Run to da Jool for some needed items and lunch
3:00pm send Fr. Ted to da Jool for some other needed items, eat lunch, change
3:20pm Arrange flowers in bud vases for dessert tables in sanctuary
3:30pm Sell tickets at the door (sadly, none to "unknowns")
4:10pm Introduce "the boys" and enjoy concert
5:10pm Intermission. Church ladies run downstairs to fetch dessert
5:40pm Curtain call. Standing ovation. Dessert and coffee at hand.
5:41pm-6:39pm 6:40pm Uncomfortable realization that "fundraiser" was close, but no cigar
7:00pmish Mostly done with clearing up. Wave goodbye to artists. Bye, boys!
7:30pm Home. Collapse on couch. Vow never to run another "fundraiser." 🙄

Honestly, the concert itself was a smash. It was great visiting with everyone and laughing at their patter during the concert. Apparently, when they do school concerts there's more joking around than for their "serious" concerts, and they felt relaxed enough with us to kid around a little more than last time. Jon, the French horn player, demonstrated why he often puts his hand in the bell of the instrument for some pieces. Rather than changing the sound or anything technical like that, it's where he keeps…his…squirt gun! And squirt us he did. Kind of risky for a concert in a church, but it got a big laugh (it was still quite a warm day).

I just wish it had been better attended (and more successful). That's a major disappointment, and I had been beating myself up for weeks over things done and left undone in the publicizing of it. But I think that turnout would have been light even if I had literally papered the town with flyers. It was just… not a good weekend to expect people to be in town for an afternoon, indoor concert. Damn. At least the people who were there really enjoyed it, and a lot of people lingered quite a while afterwards, chatting. They seemed to really enjoy themselves, which was one goal achieved, I guess. And as someone pointed out, it's asking a lot of people to attend any event in a church that's not a wedding or a funeral. Still, it's hard not to compare the family mega-event on Saturday to our mini-event on Sunday and feel… like a lamer. Ironically, even I realize that we are far better off than people who live in poverty. Somehow we have to figure out a way to help them, if we're to help ourselves out of this "we're too small to do anything" funk.

[tags]Synergy Brass Quintet[/tags] 

The U.S. Declines (in more ways than one)

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Anglican Communion News Service>[ENS] In response to the United States’ proposed revisions to UN poverty-reduction strategies – as reported in today’s

More info: Accessing the NY Times archive through their RSS feeds.New York Times and Washington Post – the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church, issued the following statement:

“I am deeply troubled by reports today that the United States has proposed revisions to UN global-poverty-reduction strategies that would undermine international commitments and partnerships already at work in the developing world. The Administration’s sudden opposition to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the international target for rich nations to contribute 0.7% of GNP toward poverty reduction places an unwelcome obstacle in the path toward a more stable and secure world.

Guess who? It’s our newly “appointed” ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton. He’s raising all the old righty-tighty objections, and more than a few hackles. The work of hundreds of middle- and higher- level functionaries from dozens and dozens of countries could totally “unravel”, because if we stomp into the sandbox with a laundry list of objections, other countries may bring their laundry lists back with them to an upcoming meeting:

Mr. Bolton, who was appointed by the White House three weeks ago while Congress was in recess after he failed to gain Senate approval, was championed by President Bush as the best man to bring about needed reform at the United Nations.

Among the changes under consideration are the substitution of the Human Rights Commission with a more powerful Human Rights Council that would no longer allow rights violators onto the panel; the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission to help countries emerging from conflict; the defining of terrorism to exclude its justification as a national resistance or liberation tool; and the empowerment of the international community to intervene in countries that fail to protect their people from genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The American objections center on parts of the document that approve measures and offices that the United States has opposed in other forums.

Among them are the International Criminal Court, which the United States says could hear frivolous actions against Americans abroad; the Kyoto Protocol on global warming; the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and a pledge to devote 0.7 percent of gross national product to development.

The United States also objects to the document’s stress on disarmament rather than nonproliferation and says it lacks clarity in assigning responsibility to a management oversight committee and fails to make clear the needs for developing nations to provide better governance so that aid can be properly directed to the needy.

Dammit. DAMMIT. We’re supposed to be the leaders of the free world. We’re supposed to be leaders. And we’re backpedaling furiously. How the hell can we MakePovertyHistory with an administration of cold-hearted bullies whose only “concern” is for big business and imposing their “my way or the highway” politics on the world?

These bastards are not leaders, unless it’s to lead the rest of the sheep bass-ackwards into the 19th century.