Pregnant Pause

What, can they not afford Photoshop in Alaska? For shame. Anyway, this should be hilarious for everyone but Governor Palin's teenage daughter.

Sweet!

This is pretty great news, even if it's only a temporary situation given the election speculation. (Hat tip to Calgary Grit.)

Politics Nerd Time: Sarah Palin

Nerd time! A Sarah Palin bio packet for interested parties as surprised as I was by the selection:

1. She has threatened that Alaska will sue over the addition of polar bears to the endangered species list.

2. She has come out in support of the teaching of creationism in schools: ('The Republican Party of Alaska platform says, in its section on education: "We support giving Creation Science equal representation with other theories of the origin of life. If evolution is taught, it should be presented as only a theory."' Commence wailing, gnashing of teeth.)

3. Palin supports drilling in ANWR. Also, this cached Google page demonstrates that she issued a press release supporting Obama's energy plan before being nominated for VP, so it will be interesting to see how they get around that one.

4. She is staunchly pro-life, and has put her money where her mouth is by electing to keep and raise her fifth child, born with Down's syndrome (just for interest, her kids' names are kind of hilarious: Track, Bristol, Piper, Willow, and Trig).

5. Like McCain, she has a son serving in Iraq.

6. She resigned from Alaska's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission due to a "lack of ethics" on the part of Republican members; she also exposed the party's state chair for corruption.

7. She has only been governor for two years; all of the criticisms about "lack of experience" that have been directed at Obama also apply to Palin. The Detroit Free Press has a stunningly snarky editorial on that matter.

According to a senior Clinton advisor, the idea is that Palin will energize independent and Republican women who weren't enthused about McCain and would have stayed home from the polls. All in all, I think she's an interesting choice. She has solid conservative credentials, and certainly seems to have the upstanding character that matters in American politics (note: she speaks openly about having done marijuana in her youth. I think that's becoming a non-issue now that the baby boomers are holding public office, because everybody and their roommate has done ganja). Even her one scandal is sort of badass, honestly: she tried to fire a state official who refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law from his state trooper job, ostensibly as revenge for having left her sister. Hell hath no fury! She also doesn't have the same plutocracy problem as McCain - I'd bet this lady knows how many houses she owns.

However, she's even more inexperienced than "new kid" Obama. At three years younger than Obama, Palin's youth will make McCain look even older in comparison. He's more than old enough to be her father. It's also a blatant pander. If McCain thinks moderate and liberal women are going to overlook the threat this ticket poses to their rights, I certainly hope he's mistaken. In any case, it makes the race more interesting - this election could get fun again!

DNCC

I thought Obama's speech killed - a good balance between the necessary nuts-and-bolts policy stuff and the broader ideological or post-ideological themes that give his candidacy such appeal. But was I the only one having a moderate internal freak-out after it was all done? Once his speech was over, every minute he was standing around on-stage with his family watching the fireworks made me a little more nervous, because I'm paranoid about assassination attempts. It was probably just the super-dramatic music they chose to employ as a backdrop for the loud banging noises of the fireworks. Fortunately the security was as good as it ought to have been. Jezebel's on-site liveblogger said she had to go through three metal detectors just to get inside.

One other thing that caught my attention was the "American Voices" series on Day 4. They had several military or ex-military personnel up to speak briefly on why they are supporting Obama. One was Capt. Nathaniel Fick, one of the subjects of an extremely interesting book I read recently. Generation Kill has an embedded reporter following a platoon of Reconnaissance Marines into Iraq in Spring 2003. If you have talked to me lately, I've probably yammered at you about the unmitigated fantasticness of the miniseries HBO made out of the book, though it is uncomfortably postmodern (a TV show of a book put together from magazine articles about real events?). The Reconnaissance Marines were not sent to Iraq to do their usual job, which is usually to act in small, dispersed, highly mobile units travelling under the radar to gather intelligence in hostile environments. Instead, they roared around in Humvees being ambush-bait for the fedayeen and the last of the Republican Guard. It was, one Marine says, like putting a Ferrari in a demolition derby. Reading it has really made me think about the nature of the armed forces. It has given me greater respect for the people who sign up for these extremely difficult jobs.

Most of the Marines didn't particularly care whether the rationale for the war in Iraq was just - you can't care, can you, when your job is to do go where you are sent? - but they all had obvious interest in seeing the invasion executed well. Nobody had the troops' back on that one. Instead, their command structure in Iraq told the higher-ups what they wanted to hear. Nearly everyone back home was so concerned about showing Patriotism(tm) that the basic questions about how to deal with the invasion were never asked until the situation had escaped control. Everyone with power ignored the early indications on the ground that foreign fighters were coming in to fight the Americans and that initial unrest would become explosive. Not only did Iraqis deserve better, but the soldiers deserved better. I don't know how a human being can process that: the country you signed up to defend is making seriously questionable decisions, then carrying out those decisions in a manner that will endanger you and those serving with you. Suppose someone gave you an order that you thought would make things worse, and that was likely to get you killed. Would you follow it? If so, would you call it honour? I would imagine you'd have to shut down the part of your brain that asks questions like that in order to avoid going absolutely insane.

Fick told the crowd that at 18 he registered Republican and voted for McCain in the 2000 primaries. He said,

It took seven years of hard experience to get me on this stage. But we cannot afford more of the same. That’s why we need Barack Obama and Joe Biden to lead us beyond the tired divisions of the past. They have the judgment to make the right decisions, leading our military, and uphold our highest ideals.

I'm looking forward to an America with good judgment and high ideals.

If you missed out on being there in person, but still want to catch one of the acceptance speeches, fear not! Apparently there are still 10 000 tickets left to John McCain's. This is in a 12 000 seat venue. Ha ha ha.

Handed In: One Mini-Thesis

The Madness Continues: Phelps!

What the heck?! The guys on my local Stupid Classic Rock station (I love it, really) are talking about an experiment they conducted on their intern. They made him eat a Michael Phelps breakfast and then run 200m. What madness has overtaken the human race that people keep wanting to do that? Eating five pancakes, three slices of French toast, a five-egg omelette, a bowl of oatmeal/grits, and a heifer and then jumping around being vigourous does not sound like a good time to me. But then, I'm not in charge of getting radio station ratings.

T-Dot Trip

The traffic on the 401 was pretty horrendous today. You’d think by the time you got to Oshawa things would have cleared up a little, but you would be mistaken. We’d been on the road for an hour and fifteen minutes of stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper fun by the time the bus pulled past the Oshawa exit. But since I was working on my thesis I didn’t mind so much – anything that gave me a little time to sit and think was just fine.

The reason I was on the bus was that I was paying Miss Colleen a visit in Toronto. Monday after work I trucked out on the Greyhound. It was a very soggy trip, because the rain gods hate me and punished me with a torrential downpour the instant I stuck my head out to go to the bus station. Anyway, the weather was better in Toronto and very good indeed on Tuesday. Good weather was important because we were outside all day at Canada’s Wonderland, punishing our adrenal glands on the roller coasters and other such suicidal attractions. The Behemoth, the Bat, the Vortex twice, the Stand Up, the Wild Beast, the Sledgehammer… and a final spin on the teacup ride at the end of the day. We also stopped to watch an acrobat show set up on a platform in the middle of a pond. The acrobats used trampolines to leap up and alight on a wall before tumbling gracefully back down. At the same time, divers were clambering up the other tower and plunging into the water. The music was just right for the act, definitely better than the questionably choreographed ice show we had seen before the acrobats.

The amusement park trip and ensuing barbeque had the corollary benefit of letting me meet a bunch of Colleen’s friends and/or roommates who I hadn’t met before. They are a wacky and wonderful bunch! It was kind of a nice change of pace to hang out with people who don’t have the 9-to-5 thing going like most of my friends do now. Additionally, they are totally devoted to singing in public, which makes the world a much better place.

The next two weeks of my life are looking very good indeed. I get to see Boopsie and Mom, and I have a to-do list of pleasantly mind-numbing little chores, as well as some free time (finally!). My biggest worry, essentially, is that I’ll get so zoned out with walks in the park and trips to buy vegetables in the Market and generalized relaxation that I’ll forget to go to work.

The Amazing Fish-Man, Destroyer of Worlds

Although Michael Phelps' Olympic accomplishments are jaw-dropping in and of themselves, I can't help but be amused by the multitude of articles devoted to his equally staggering caloric intake. Granted, I could live on what he eats in one day for an entire week so that's legitimately terrifying, but this little media trend is nevertheless totally cracking me up. A little swarm of articles with breathless exclamations about "Twelve thousand calories! Whole jars of mayonnaise and containers of eggs! Normal men would gain 3 lbs daily from eating this insane quantity of food!" All of the articles mention in a sort of surprised tone that if you eat like this, your body will probably not start to look like Phelps', i.e. "6ft 4in and 192 lbs of pure joy. From a female perspective, obviously. Though I probably shouldn't say that." That quote is from a Guardian feature where one of their more expendable reporters attempted to ingest the Kilimanjaro of victuals this guy gets through in a day. The video of the events is pretty hilarious.

From this we can conclude that Michael Phelps is responsible for the depletion of world grain reserves and the untimely death from cardiovascular disease of foolhardy journalists. He must be stopped.

Update: TWO of these idiots have tried it! The Times had to get in on the action. What is wrong with these dudes?

A Four-Year Life Index

For the past little while, I've been doing some accounting for the past four years. I am on a study break now, so it seems like a good time for some navel-gazing distraction. Here's what I've come up with: a little silly, and a little serious. I'd tell you to enjoy it, but really it's for my own thinky-thinking.

Academic and Professional

Majors: +1

Minors: +1

Pages of readings: eleventy billion

Depressing thoughts about human species as result of course work: eleventy billion

Hours spent wishing that guy/that girl in my lecture would shut up already: seemingly limitless

GPA: Half-decent!

Jobs: +4, -3

Socialization

Prospective lifelong friends: +10 (minimum)

Quality acquaintances: ~150

Appreciation of family: ~+60%

Persons of the boyfriend type: +5, -5

Economic

I am now poor with more money than I had ever owned before.

Political

Major parties supported: -1

Candidates sincerely supported: +2

Fringe ideas held: + many, but - a few as well

Moments of schadenfreude as result of bizarre GOP sex scandals: many

Favourite political blogs: +6

Health and Athletics

Pounds: ~+15, but I don't actually care all that much due to a healthier attitude about myself than in days of yore

Mental health: ~+50%

Time devoted to self-loathing/self-recrimination: -90% (from May 2004 baseline)

Incidences of persistent colds/pneumonia: +4

Sporting pursuits attempted/pursued: +5.5 (capoeira, half marathon & 5-km road races, cross-country ski, climbing, sort-of wakeboarding)

Snowboarding trips: +10

Snowboarding tricks: +0.5

Sports injuries: +1 (also many bruises and scrapes)

Arts, Entertainment, and Other Life Experiences

Choirs: +2, -1

Hours wasted on YouTube and similar digital media: Oh jeez

Hours spent dancing: Approx +300

Live showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show: +2

Dwelling-places experienced: +3

New countries visited: 0

Hours in airport lounges: +37

Favourite bands: +15 (approx)

Favourite TV shows: +7, plus Dr. Horrible

Rock/pop/country concerts: +13 (approx.), plus Folkfest and Bluesfest

Rock/country stars forced into taking photographs with self or friends: +9

It's been pretty good, all things considered. Lots of learning and growth, when I think about who and how I was four years ago, I hardly recognize myself. Many of the changes have been positive, and I think that's about the best anyone can say for herself.

One more thing: if the fire alarm in this building goes off one more g-ddamn time tonight, somebody's gonna get capped. I have an exam in the morning.

Long Weekend

This weekend, Emily and Nate got married. I give the event four stars - the ceremony reflected their personalities and relationship perfectly, and the reception was a blast. The speeches weren't too long, and Emily's dress was absolutely stunning. This summer people my age started to get married; the next few years are going to be extremely weddingy. Free cake and booze for all!

For two nights before the wedding, I stayed with Colleen. She's doing the T-dot thing, waitressing and having a pretty cool time. Her house rocks - it's in a location convenient for downtown but not right in the thick of it, and her roommates are nice. Even better, there is no longer a cat there so I did not have to load up on allergy meds. Sadly, Colleen had to work on Saturday so we hung out Friday night for a bit, watching Deja Vu (not bad, really), then grabbed a nice breakfast at the charming morning glory cafe. I met Diane at Union Station and we were off to the Harbourfront for a little Caribana parade-watching. The crazy afternoon thundershower didn't dampen our spirits too much, thanks to Diane's umbrella - although they did give D-rock occasion to turn to me and say dejectedly, "it is literally raining on our parade." Too sad! Eventually the skies cleared, but by this point we'd seen enough glitter and feathers. We left the parade to do some dress shopping, clean out the Blue Jays store with Diane's gift certificates, eat and drink at the brilliantly named Overdraught Irish Pub, and report punctually to Evil Dead: The Musical. It is just an unbelievably awesome show. It is devoid of any subtlety whatsoever, and that is what makes it great, although I am sort of glad we did not sit in the Splatter Zone to get sprayed with fake demon blood. The ladies' room afterwards was a mob scene of women washing fake blood out of their clothes and off their arms and faces.

Monday I hitched a ride back to Ottawa with Katherine and Jordan. We had a pleasant drive back with Janet and Wulfric. The guys regaled us with tales of a former roommate, and we laughed our faces off. It was a good weekend.

Wordle

Wordle is everything the construction outside my window is not: fun and quiet. This is the word cloud it generated from an e-mail exchange I had with Boopsie (click the image for a legible size):

As a bonus, here is a song. You will not impress me by guessing what it is.

OK So I Lied: Hyperlink-Sassy Comment Ahead

Man, Reagan is so hot this year. There he is again at 0:25, averting his eyes from John McCain. Can we talk about the number of other ways in which this ad is super-awkward? How about the HORRENDOUSLY AWKWARD segue in the second sentence of the voiceover: "Half a world away, another kind of love... of country." How Lifetime of you, Senator. "He believes our world is dangerous, our economy in shambles." Inspiring stuff indeed. "Beautiful words cannot make our lives better." Oh, holy hell:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...." "?

Fish in a barrel, maybe, and it is the summer silly season. But this ad could be a look at how the McCain campaign is going to try to work around Obama's mad rhetorical skills and turn having the more cantankerous candidate into an advantage of a kind.

Blogging About Blogging

One of the things I have noticed about Mike's blog is that he doesn't just blog about personal "what I had for breakfast" material. He writes posts about technology, defence, fuel efficiency, all kinds of content that could, in fact, be interesting to people who know nothing about him and may not care to. He also does more "essay-style" posts where he takes on a subject at a bit of length rather than the time-honoured hyperlink-sassy comment combination. This is pretty cool, methinks. Of course, our blogs aren't the same animal at all; much of the purpose of Capital, Capital is to help keep in touch with people I love who are far away - in conversations with my aunts and uncles and with my friends from home, the stuff I write about here gets brought up a lot. But it's also an exercise for me, the unexamined life not being worth living and all. Right now I get access to a great variety of things to talk and think about just through my classes, but once I graduate in December, it will be important for me to make an effort to maintain varied interests in hopes of continuing to be (I flatter myself) an interesting person. So from here on out I'm going to try to do an increased amount of editorializing and wee research bits about current events and developments other than my breakfast choices. That could cover anything from gardening and cooking to music to the latest grindings of the political machine. We'll see how it turns out, but I'm looking forward to challenging myself a bit. Though if I've had a particularly good breakfast, I will obviously write about that!

To that end, gardening: I've recently invested in some cherry tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum), basil (ocimum basilum), and tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus). Ottawa gardening is much different than Edmonton gardening because we get actual heat and sun in the summer - Ottawa is in Hardiness Zone 5a rather than Edmonton's 3a (the harshest zone is 0, the mildest is 8, and NRCan's Atlas of Canada has a cool map up here). So I am looking forward to having fresh, delicious cherry tomatoes, possibly sliced up with some basil and bocconcini and drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Highly recommended. The plants already have a bunch of little green tomatoes on them, so with continued hot weather we should be rolling. Becca's dad tells me that Tumbler cherry tomatoes are great, but I've heard good things about the yield of Tiny Tims. It would have been nice to have the "draping" effect of a Tumbler tomato, but that's not what they had in the Market. We'll see how they go; I tend to get impatient and neglectful with plants, and Katherine and I managed to kill several rounds of basil when we lived together. However, basil is a bit finicky and trying to keep it going indoors through the winter didn't do it any favours. If anyone has fertiliser recommendations, though, I'd love to hear 'em. I'd like to go for something organic if possible, and would love to do a bit of balcony composting if my balcony were not slightly too small to allow for that - although really, one person's waste stream isn't going to amount to much useful compost anyway.

Back to the personal for a moment: Jesus, my street is noisy sometimes. All the windows are constantly thrown wide open now that it's summer, and the buses that go past are of the special Old-School Awoogah Vroom Vroom variety that make crazy amounts of noise as they decelerate to go round the corner. Alex and Becca told me that last week in the early mornings they amused themselves by playing "Garbage Truck Or Bus?" until I woke up.

Hola, Internet

It has been a busy, busy month. My project for Environment finished up with what I think was a fairly well-received presentation, covering my many hours of research. On the whole, good times.

There was a little time, also, for fun. Jamie threw a solstice party (only one day late!), which was very entertaining. I have been for some good runs with Katie, both around the neighbourhood and through the river valley. The family attended kd lang's concert, and we were all very impressed by her voice and the absolute ease she has onstage - she just looks so happy to be there that you can't help but be happy as well.

I also climbed Grizzly Peak in Kananaskis with Mike, Keith, and our high school classmate Jenna. Some big-horned sheep stared at us in a vaguely threatening manner. The climb was pretty exhausting, but it was very gratifying to make it to the top and peer over the cliff back down to our car parked on the lonely shoulder of Highway 40. The views of the Kananaskis Lakes were unclouded and the temperature was just right for hauling yourself up a mid-sized mountain. A shortcut on the way down led us into a fairly challenging jumble of scree and rock outcrops, but we scrambled down in good order. The next day I was just about as sore as I had been the day after the Calgary half-marathon three years ago, but it was absolutely worth it on both occasions.

The other highlight of the trip was Boopsie's graduation. She is a Yunk Ladee now and looked beautiful with her blonde curls and her pale blue cocktail dress. I also applaud her for having chosen a grad dress that she can actually, like, wear to other stuff later in life. This is in contrast to my own choice of a floor-length lavender gown slashed on one side to reveal a white underlay. Anyway, the ceremony was expedient yet entertaining, and the banquet had an Under The Sea theme that turned out to be pretty cool.

This week I am doing a few things: back to work for the gummint, back to school, and Becca and Alex's visit. The first has been a bit "aaah!" so far, because people had the temerity to do work during my absence and so now I have a lot of catchup to do. The second has yet to start, but both of my classes that both look pretty cool. The third is pretty awesome. Diane came up for a night, too, and it was great to see her, though she had to go back to Toronto after only a day here. So now it is just we three. After Mass this afternoon we went to the beach out in Ottawa's west end in hopes of evading death by broiling. Of course, this ensured that big old thunderclouds rolled in about an hour after we arrived at the beach, so we went home a little early for lemon-pepper salmon with herbed pasta and a green salad. Currently we are all bumming around with books and computers, thinking of watching Rocky Horror. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday evening. I think I'll get back to it.