botany, shoes, books, and justice
From The Life of the Cosmos by Lee Smolin.
[T]he fact that general relativity and the quantum are not yet united means that we have no single picture of what the world is that we can believe in. When a child asks, What is the world, we literally have nothing to tell her.
From Helen Boyd‘s She’s Not the Man I Married
the first time it occurred to me that my mother wasn’t just my mom or Mrs. My Dad, but actually had a first name, astonished me. I remember feeling shocked by the realization that my mother was a person, like me, and not just someone who’d been invented or come into being as a result of my father’s need for a wife or my and my siblings’ need for a mother.
I went to a conference where I needed to look somewhat professional, but I needed to be able to walk several miles and stand for several hours. So, I went shopping for a pair of black flats. I tried three brands of shoes that were relatively cheap – $30 to $60. Even though they all had reviews praising their comfort, I was uncomfortable in all of them. Then I found these. More expensive, but worth every penny. They were so comfortable that I wore them even when I didn’t have to look nice.
My housemate, Jane, is a wonderful artist and has this strange idea that everyone around her is some sort of artist, too. She hung up a large piece of paper in our kitchen and insists that visitors add something. I showed it to my brother who is staying with us this week:
Me: I added the elephant.
My brother: What elephant?
Me: THIS elephant.
My brother: Oh. I thought that was a spaceship.
Abortionclinicdays proposes that a special notice to patients be displayed in places where caregivers are allowed to refuse reproductive care to women if it interferes with their religious rights. It begins”I follow my own religious beliefs ahead of your medical needs. Therefore, I will not support, offer, or approve any of the following checked off below.”
Fears of skin cancer may be leading to vitamin D deficiencies. My grandmother is definitely on to something with her strategy of “everything in moderation.” Though this rule doesn’t seem to apply to chocolate.
Helen Boyd has a link to a leaked Bush administration memo that defines the pill as abortion.
The most damning political attack ad I’ve ever seen. Via The Edge of the American West.
Swing Kids
The Dark Knight
Lars and the Real Girl
The Man Who Planted Trees
I took a course this summer that required quite a bit of fieldwork. Toward the end of the class, we split into small groups and planned our own projects. My group wanted to ask about forest succession. We went on an exploratory jaunt through the Michigan State University’s Experimental Forest the first day of the project. It was not very successful.
First of all there were MOSQUITOES. I put that in all caps because I have never seen such a high density of such hungry insects. I would have eaten DEET to keep them away. Jenny was stung by a bee and was quietly disgruntled about having been “bitten on her bum” for the rest of the afternoon. Joanna made the mistake of sitting down and was treated to a large number of very irritated bug bites in awkward places. I ended up bleeding from a briar with my face in poison ivy.
Overall it was kind of terrible, but we bonded over the experience and were better prepared the next time we went out.
