Oh, my goodness, that was funny. Once again, I managed to study for my legal writing paper (on parody as fair use of copyrighted material) and laugh my ass off at the same time.
Longmire does Romance Novels -- "re-imagined" romance novel covers.
sporadically produced odds, ends, and essaylets on any number of topics from programming to politics, paramecia to puff pastries.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
How To Talk to a Christian, Parts I-IV
Why should a rational person use religious symbolism? For the same reason an American ought to learn Spanish. It makes it easier to communicate with someone who doesn't speak your language.[Emphasis added.]
How to talk to a Christian, Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Friday, February 25, 2005
Having Fun with Photo-ops
I managed to amuse the hell out of myself, and indirectly work on my paper for legal writing, by committing social criticism in an amusing way, over in the comments section at Shakespeare's Sister.
I'm not going to repost here, because today, I'm pushing Shakespeare's Sister.
I'm not going to repost here, because today, I'm pushing Shakespeare's Sister.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Gee, Where Are All the Women Bloggers?
WOMEN'S OPINIONS
Kevin, good grief. You've been online for how long? And it only occurs to you *now* to turn around and say, "wow, we've got some gender inequity going on here in cyberspace, how about that?"
The only reason you get to ignore the glass ceiling, the omnipresent media messages of Not Being Good Enough (as woman, as wife, as mommy, as whatever), the slow, grinding, pressure to avoid technical careers, the near-complete lack of old girls networks in comparison to the depth and breadth of the old boys networks that have run and continue to run our government, our businesses, and our society since before the Union's founding - is because you're in the "right" section of the gene pool. The white XY section.
It takes generations to catch up from this kind of bullshit, this heavily-weighted-against-a-minority system. It ain't gonna happen just because Tim Berners-Lee had a really cool idea*, and the nice folks behind Blogger had another one.
Don't be surprised if women bloggers - or whatever other minority is catching your eye - fail to be impressed that you've noticed our unequal numbers, noticed that women, gays, the disabled, whatever, are maybe, you know, oppressed by society or something; don't be suprised if we fail to jump up and down with glee over the removal of your blinders for one brief, shining moment.
Keep them off, then we might be impressed.
Women's Opinions
Women and Blogging
*Ah, for my readers who aren't familiar with the references: if you're reading this web page, if you're reading any web page, you have Tim to thank for it. The folks behind Blogger, are...the folks behind blogger.
Oh, and while you're at it, go learn about Admiral Grace Hopper, who coined the programming term "bug" and invented the compiler, and Ada Lovelace, who gave the world its very first computer program. A little women's history is good for you. It'll build character.
One final note of disclosure: the comments thread in the second article linked here refers to the University of California at Irvine, my alma mater, with respect to the availability or lack thereof of non-stereotypical women. As a woman with a B.S. in physics from that university, I probably fall in this category. I became aware of Kevin online back in those halcyon days when he was CalPundit. I don't *believe* we've met in person, but I could simply be failing to make a necessary connection between face and online presence.
Kevin, good grief. You've been online for how long? And it only occurs to you *now* to turn around and say, "wow, we've got some gender inequity going on here in cyberspace, how about that?"
The only reason you get to ignore the glass ceiling, the omnipresent media messages of Not Being Good Enough (as woman, as wife, as mommy, as whatever), the slow, grinding, pressure to avoid technical careers, the near-complete lack of old girls networks in comparison to the depth and breadth of the old boys networks that have run and continue to run our government, our businesses, and our society since before the Union's founding - is because you're in the "right" section of the gene pool. The white XY section.
It takes generations to catch up from this kind of bullshit, this heavily-weighted-against-a-minority system. It ain't gonna happen just because Tim Berners-Lee had a really cool idea*, and the nice folks behind Blogger had another one.
Don't be surprised if women bloggers - or whatever other minority is catching your eye - fail to be impressed that you've noticed our unequal numbers, noticed that women, gays, the disabled, whatever, are maybe, you know, oppressed by society or something; don't be suprised if we fail to jump up and down with glee over the removal of your blinders for one brief, shining moment.
Keep them off, then we might be impressed.
Women's Opinions
Women and Blogging
*Ah, for my readers who aren't familiar with the references: if you're reading this web page, if you're reading any web page, you have Tim to thank for it. The folks behind Blogger, are...the folks behind blogger.
Oh, and while you're at it, go learn about Admiral Grace Hopper, who coined the programming term "bug" and invented the compiler, and Ada Lovelace, who gave the world its very first computer program. A little women's history is good for you. It'll build character.
One final note of disclosure: the comments thread in the second article linked here refers to the University of California at Irvine, my alma mater, with respect to the availability or lack thereof of non-stereotypical women. As a woman with a B.S. in physics from that university, I probably fall in this category. I became aware of Kevin online back in those halcyon days when he was CalPundit. I don't *believe* we've met in person, but I could simply be failing to make a necessary connection between face and online presence.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
I am sheep. Hear me baa.
As any regular reader of Parenthetically Speaking may know, I avoid memes. There's one going around Livejournal about 10 Things I've Done You Probably Haven't, that is rather amusing, but there are a great many things I've done you probably haven't. Some of them are really weird (Sled dogs! Theater stuff! Sleeping in trees!), and some are entirely mundane, as one blogger pointed out, but unique because I am the one doing them, at the precise moment I did them. I like that.
So, a meme approacheth, and I say, 'bah, humbug', and then over at Alas, A Blog, I find out Bean has a new blog, and I surf on over, and durned if there's not another meme-like object there.
My brain is trying to say "bah". But it sounds more like "baaaaa".
Cribbed from Bean:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
The book within most obvious visual range is a Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary, but I've actually used it for a meme like this before, so I'm letting it off the hook. Plus, it's a dictionary.
The book within easiest reach (a whole five inches closer than the dictionary, literally just barely not touching my forearm, it does qualify as "nearest") doesn't have 123 pages. So, I cheated and went for page 61 - that's half of 123, accurate to within an order of magnitude. Naturally, p. 61 has an illustration: Lactuca sativa.
That's from p. 60 of A Pompeiian Herbal, which I like to keep near the computer or the bed and thumb through idly as the mood strikes.
The book underneath A Pompeiian Herbal is one I hauled out recently in response to a law-school-related tragedy: C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed. No page 123 either.
Next closest book is either the 2004 Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or a block of books including my ALWD (legal citation) manual, another book on legal writing, law dictionary, Gannon's book on Civil Procedure, and then The Anti-Federalist Papers (The Federalist Papers are in the other room) cradling gently on top of it The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and other stories, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
So, a meme approacheth, and I say, 'bah, humbug', and then over at Alas, A Blog, I find out Bean has a new blog, and I surf on over, and durned if there's not another meme-like object there.
My brain is trying to say "bah". But it sounds more like "baaaaa".
Cribbed from Bean:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
The book within most obvious visual range is a Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary, but I've actually used it for a meme like this before, so I'm letting it off the hook. Plus, it's a dictionary.
The book within easiest reach (a whole five inches closer than the dictionary, literally just barely not touching my forearm, it does qualify as "nearest") doesn't have 123 pages. So, I cheated and went for page 61 - that's half of 123, accurate to within an order of magnitude. Naturally, p. 61 has an illustration: Lactuca sativa.
Pliny has many references to lactuca, but he applies the name to many plants that are not lettuce.
That's from p. 60 of A Pompeiian Herbal, which I like to keep near the computer or the bed and thumb through idly as the mood strikes.
The book underneath A Pompeiian Herbal is one I hauled out recently in response to a law-school-related tragedy: C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed. No page 123 either.
Next closest book is either the 2004 Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or a block of books including my ALWD (legal citation) manual, another book on legal writing, law dictionary, Gannon's book on Civil Procedure, and then The Anti-Federalist Papers (The Federalist Papers are in the other room) cradling gently on top of it The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and other stories, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
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