Polyamorous cows, Paris Hilton, and the OED

Now that I have your attention... check out the latest additions to the OED:
http://dictionary.oed.com/help/updates/pleb-Pomak.html

Some of these terms have been around awhile (like polyamorous and cow-tipping) but are just now being added, while others are fairly recent (e.g. celebutante -- thanks, Paris Hilton). I'd love to know how they decide when a word is sufficiently ingrained in the language to warrant an entry.

Survival of the Harmonious: Why do we respond to music?

In Survival of the Harmonious, the Boston Globe reports on recent research into the origins of music and what, if any, evolutionary advantage it provided to early humans.

According to the article, neuroscientists "have scanned musicians' brains and found that the 'chills' that they feel when they hear stirring passages of music result from activity in the same parts of the brain stimulated by food and sex." No comment :-)

Apparently researchers have four competing theories for the origin of music:

• "Music originated as a way for males to impress and attract females" - we'll call that the rock star theory
• "Others see its roots in the relationship between mother and child" - the lullaby theory
• "Music was a social adhesive, helping to forge common identity in early human communities" - maybe the national anthem theory?
• "And a few leading evolutionary psychologists argue that music has no adaptive purpose at all, but simply manages, as the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has written, to `tickle the sensitive spots' in areas of the brain that evolved for other purposes." - the not-everything-that-feels-good-has-to-have-a-purpose theory

Since I'm not an evolutionary psychologist, I don't have a theory of my own, but all of these make some sense to me, as does a fifth: Music fills a spiritual need in humans. Yeah, I know -- that opens a whole new, not-necessarily-scientific can of worms, but there you are.

I'm off to tickle my brain's sensitive spots with a little Def Leppard ;-)

In Search of Courage

I just stumbled across an essay by John McCain called In Search of Courage. Interestingly, it was written in September, 2004, just prior to the 2004 elections, when McCain was campaigning for Bush. Here are a few nuggets:

Courage is like a muscle. The more we exercise it, the stronger it gets. I sometimes worry that our collective courage is growing weaker from disuse. We don't demand it from our leaders, and our leaders don't demand it from us.

We may have learned important lessons from the intelligence failures that preceded the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But I'm not sure we set a reassuring example to the rest of the country by declining to punish anyone involved in those failures. Not one person was fired or was moved by his or her conscience to resign.

When there's an absence of courage, greed and selfishness take over.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act despite our fears.

Even dyed-in-the-wool Democrats like me can find value in this piece. If, as I suspect, McCain turns out to be our next president, I hope he practices what he so wisely preaches in this essay.

How To Make Your Work Easy

And one more thing from Guideposts -- Norman Vincent Peale's advice on how to make work easy. It's a cool combination of the practical ("Plan your work") and the spiritual ("At the start of each day pray about your work").

If I Were Starting My Life Again

The Guideposts site has reprinted a wonderful essay from 1979, in which a father describes what he would do differently if he had his life to live over again. His words are wise, a wonderful reminder to harried parents like me to cherish the joy of our children instead of correcting or ignoring them. He ends with an image I hope to carry with me as a parent -- to be "God's love with skin on."

"Why Conservatives Can't Govern" by Alan Wolfe

Check out this article from Washington Monthly: "Why Conservatives Can't Govern" by Alan Wolfe. This quote summarizes the key idea: "Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well." So Bush et al. have created bigger -- yet more incompetent -- government. That explains a lot.

Librarians, Almost Live, and the Joys of YouTube

I discovered YouTube (http://youtube.com) a couple of months ago -- kind of like the old Napster but for video. There's everything from some dude in his underwear doing bad karaoke to music videos, bootleg concert videos, old TV shows, and lots more. What's especially cool are clips of old local TV shows that will likely never be released on DVD but which bring back lots of fond memories. Which brings me to Almost Live, Seattle's sketch comedy show from the 80's and 90's. When I was a starving grad student, hubby and I would go to tapings on Saturday night because a) it was fun, and b) it was free. So I have a soft spot for the show. There are a bunch of Almost Live clips on YouTube, including one I never saw back in the day: a parody of Cops called Librarians. Check it out (no pun intended) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIUC9NPo3W4.

A Commencement Speech by Stephen Colbert

I haven't spent as much time online lately, so it's been awhile since I found something worth posting here. But I finally found something blog-worthy (the 21st century version of sponge-worthy??) -- Stephen Colbert's commencement address at Knox College last weekend. You can find the text of the speech at http://www.knox.edu.nyud.net:8090/x12547.xml

How can you not love a graduation speech that includes a Lincoln-Douglas drinking game, an umm... creative solution to illegal immigration, and padded mortar boards? I'm jealous. At my college graduation, the speaker was a minor member of Reagan's cabinet, and the sound system was so bad you couldn't hear him. And did I mention it was about 95 degrees outside? During allergy season? Whine, whine, whine...

12 Things a Klingon Programmer Would Say

I just received the following bit from a friend, and it's too good to keep to myself.  Enjoy!

 

12 Things A Klingon Programmer Would Say

1. Specifications are for the weak and timid!

2. This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual Pentium processors if I am to do battle with this code!

3. You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.

4. Indentation?! -- I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!

5. What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software' releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers

and quality assurance people in its wake.

6. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- they have 'arguments' -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.

7. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.

8. I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a bat'leth contest. They will not concern us again.

9. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!

10. By filing this SPR you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!

11. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!

12. Our users will know fear, and cower before our software.

13. Ship it! Ship it, and let them flee like the dogs they are!

A good death

CNN just posted a great article about Art Buchwald's final days:
CNN.com - Laughing through his final days - Apr 5, 2006 Having decided to forego dialysis for kidney failure, Buchwald is enjoying time with family and friends, eating whatever he wants, and writing columns from his hospice room. Wouldn't it be wonderful if more people could leave this world in such fine style?

Rands In Repose: N.A.D.D.

OK, I've just learned I have a new disorder: NADD (Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder. Details about this tragic-but-highly-entertaining condition can be found at Rands In Repose: N.A.D.D.
Compared to the poster, though, I have a relatively mild case. For example, at the moment I'm only:
1. Backing up my computer
2. Typing this blog post
3. Monitoring my work email
4. Monitoring whatever new stuff comes up on my Google Sidebar
5. Monitoring my personal email
6. Listening to Morning Edition on NPR

Wait... OK... maybe I do have a severe case. Oh, well... Let's hear it for drinking from the information firehose!

thingoid » Stumble your way around the web

I've found a new online time-waster (as if I needed another one): StumbleUpon. Rather than spend lots of time describing, I'll just point to an excellent description at thingoid:
thingoid » Stumble your way around the web

Thanks to StumbleUpon, I have created my own South Park character, found new ways to insult people in Latin... and found some useful reference sites. Let's hear it for serendipity!

Unseen. Unforgotten.

From the Birmingham (AL) News site, Unseen. Unforgotten:

In November 2004, [Alexander] Cohn went through an equipment closet at the newspaper in search of a lens and saw a cardboard box full of negatives marked, "Keep. Do Not Sell."

 

What had Cohn found?  5000 images documenting the Civil Rights Movement from 1950-1965, many of which had never been published.  The Birmingham News has put together a wonderful web site to showcase the photos: http://www.al.com/unseen/  If you ever needed evidence of a picture being worth a thousand words, you'll find that evidence here.

"The Framers and the Faithful" by Steven Waldman

"The Framers and the Faithful" is a lengthy essay by Steven Waldman, editor in chief of Beliefnet, published in the Washington Monthly. In it, Waldman argues that evangelical Christian leaders at the time of our nation's founding argued adamently in favor of separating church and state, in contrast to their spiritual descendents in the modern evangelical movement. Those early evangelicals were members of a minority movement persecuted by the established churches of their day. As such, they viewed a state-established church, along with any other government-supported religious activity, as a threat to their survival. They also saw state-sponsored religion as leading to the moral decay of both clergy and laity.

So, what has changed in the evangelical movement to cause such an about-face today? Waldman doesn't directly address that question. IMHO, the difference is simple: today's evangelicals have much more political power and social influence than their brethren of yesteryear, so any state-sponsored religious activity would likely be in line with their beliefs. What too many of us Christians forget, however, is that political winds change. Once government becomes excessively entangled with religion, it will be difficult to disentangle it when different political views predominate. In the long run, the separation of church and state is most important for protecting churches from excessive government influence rather than the other way around.

Need to update lots of blogs? Try Qumana

This is my first blog post written with Qumana, a free blog editor. According to the Qumana site (http://www.qumana.com), Qumana provides more sophisticated blog authoring tools than most blog sites. It also allows you to post the same content to multiple blogs. The software is available for Windows and Mac. I'll experiment with it over the next few weeks and (if I remember) post an update on how it works.

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Out of Context Quote of the Day

"It's good to see cannibalistic maniacs are taking culinary advice from Ozzy Osbourne."

To read the source of this wonderful sentence, check out the Chicago Tribune's review of The Hills Have Eyes: Metromix. Fast-Paised review: ‘The Hills Have Eyes'

Bottled Water Isn't Healthier Than Tap, Report Reveals

From National Geographic News comes a short article on the environmental impact of bottled water:
Bottled Water Isn't Healthier Than Tap, Report Reveals

I never did understand why people want to pay soft drink prices for water, but this article points out that the demand for bottled water wastes more than money.

Zillow.com - Your Edge in Real Estate

Wanna know what your home is worth? How about your neighbor's home? Or anyone else's? Check out Zillow. You don't have to enter any personal information, either.

Zillow also offers tools to calculate the value of home improvements, so you can see how much return on investment you'll get from adding an extra room or remodeling.

4things Meme

meme (n) - an idea or concept that gets replicated through a culture, especially via the internet. For more than you ever wanted to know about memes, see the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

Here's my take on the 4things meme making its way through the blogosphere:

Four jobs I've had in my life
Disc jockey at Chuck E. Cheese (really!), archives assistant (worked with the John Muir Papers and a bunch of other collections in two different archives), high school English teacher, librarian

Four movies I could watch over and over
Any of the original Star Wars trilogy, most James Bond movies (especially Goldeneye), Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Princess Bride

Four places I've lived
Tracy, CA; Seattle, WA; Dalton, GA; Portland, OR

Four TV shows I love to watch
The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, documentaries about history or interesting animals, Behind the Music

Four web sites I visit daily
Google, Yahoo News, Bloglines (gotta have my RSS feeds), OHSU Library web site

Four places I have been on vacation
Yellowstone National Park; Vancouver, BC; Santa Cruz, CA; Caribbean cruise

Four of my favorite foods
Mongolian grill, pizza, cheese enchiladas, panang curry with chicken

Four places I'd rather be
Just about any tropical island with sandy beaches, Australia, Arizona (hey, it's winter in Oregon - I need sun!), curled up under a blanket in front of a roaring fire with a good book

Four albums I can't live without
Def Leppard's greatest hits is probably the only album. Otherwise I'll take my satellite radio. That should supply the rest of my musical needs.

Four vehicles I've owned
'75 Ford Maverick; '85 Dodge Daytona; '92 Geo Metro; '99 Toyota Tacoma

Holocaust Survivor, 76, Is Bar Mitzvah

I don't know how long this story will be posted, so read it while you can at http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1160172&tw=wn_wire_story The coolest part IMHO is how the man and his wife met - as children in a concentration camp - and then met again years later on a blind date. God sometimes makes miracles out of tragedy. The rabbi's comment after the bar mitzvah sums things up nicely:

"We live in a time where we need hope and a positive outlook in life, and Herman's story reminds us that goodness will always overcome badness, and light will overcome darkness."