Sep 04 2008
Flagstaff has interesting summer weather. After this hailstorm on August 25th, there was snow on the mountain, and I changed into a sweater. My poor housemate came home looking like she’d jumped in the shower fully clothed.
May 31 2008
Every Friday night in Flagstaff in the summer, they show a movie in the square. Beforehand there’s usually a small performance. Last night it was the dance troupe from the community college. They were not very good and asked the audience for money to go to a competition in Italy.
Even though Shrek the Third
was funny last night.May 23 2008
What happens in the brain when people orgasm. I thought it was especially interesting that different types of female orgasms look incredibly different in the brain. With clitoral orgasms, the brain gets very very quiet - the article describes it as “widespread neural power failures,” but at least some non clitoral orgasms actually activate the emotional part of the brain.
Eugene Debs’ 1918 court speech.
Illdoctrine on the “gay rapper” question.
Because when we find ourselves believing killing a man makes us more of a man but loving a man makes us less of a man, it’s probably time to re-examine our criteria for manhood.
Fat discrimination in the medical world.
Cocaine and Thorazine - recommended for children.
Childhood obesity isn’t really an issue. But hungry children are. I found this statistic particularly depressing:
two-thirds of all children growing up in poverty have one or more working parents, and one-third have a parent working full-time, year round
It’s unacceptable that people who work hard every day can’t feed themselves and their families.
Flagstaff passed 5 resolutions to keep the bus system up and running and make it even better. Hooray!
Most anti-immigration stances aren’t about making America better, they’re about ignorance and hate.
May 19 2008
I drove down to Phoenix yesterday with a friend. The landscape is otherworldly most of the way - I’m still not used to living in a volcanic region. Even more interesting though, are the changes caused by the elevation drop - Phoenix is 6000 feet lower than Flagstaff. The flora changes dramatically. We started in ponderosa pine and aspen, dropped into the pinyon-juniper woodlands, and ended up in desert scrub.
While the elevation change induced a much worse migraine than normal, the trip was worth it. Not only did I get to see the cool flora changes, I got to see someone I’ve been missing, which was very wonderful.
Sep 16 2007
I pretended I didn’t have any work to do and went to Red Mountain yesterday. Red Mountain is an old and oddly shaped cinder cone.
I’m helping with some research on pinyon pine, which I’d read were dying quite quickly in great numbers. There were many, many dead pinyon along the trail.
I took lots of pictures, mostly of plants, because that’s just what I notice the most. However, there are a few pictures of the absolutely bizarre rock formations. They are called “hoodoos,” which I think is a fantastic name for such strange things. I was also very pleased with myself for managing to climb up some rocks. Unfortunately, I did not realize going down is much harder than going up.
