scottahill

The Inauguration got me thinking about being a "witness of history", and it made me wonder when I started becoming such a witness. That is, I was alive for the second half of the 70's, but I don't remember anything from it. I remember a lot from the 80's, but outside of the television shows and movies and the toys and whatnot, I wasn't really paying a lot of attention to current events. I knew Reagan was President, but I don't have a lot of insight into his Presidency just because I was alive at the time. When I am old and people want to know what it was like to live through the 1980s, what would I be able to say?

Three things come to mind. The first is that I can remember the Soviet Union. I remember what it was like for the U.S. to have an archenemy. I don't think we were as scared of them as Americans were in the 50s and 60s, when kids had "Duck and Cover" drills and many people expected nuclear holocaust before the end of the century. I specifically remembering seeing a photograph of ordinary Russians in an ordinary room doing something or other, and being somewhat surprised that they looked remarkably ordinary. I thought it might do Americans good to see more pictures of regular Russian people, that maybe we wouldn't hate them so much. (I was a peacenik even then.) I do remember the Berlin Wall coming down (in 1989), and that it was such a big surprise-- it felt like no one had expected it.

The second thing I remember was the start of the AIDS epidemic. When I was in 5th grade, I was terrified of AIDS. Being a nerd, to make myself feel better I actually did some research and wrote a report on it; once I realized it wasn't so easily catchable I felt better. I know that AIDS is still a terrible problem in Africa, and certainly no picnic for people in the United States who have it either, but it was so much scarier back then, when no one really knew what was going on. I remember when Magic Johnson "came out" as having AIDS (that was in 1991); I would never have expected him to be alive 17 years later.

And the last thing I remember that might interest my great-grandchildren was the Challenger explosion. I was in 5th grade, in class, when my friend Kyle Keller (who had been down at the nurse to get some medicine) ran in and said "The Space Shuttle blew up!" I remember all the bad jokes ("Need Another Seven Astronauts", "One blue this way and one blue that way", etc.) Maybe it wasn't JFK, but it was probably our defining childhood tragedy.

So I know all my flisters [sic] are the same age as I, more or less. What do you remember of history that might be interesting to the future?

From stealthmuffin and sigerson:
Put your media player on shuffle, and write down the first line of the first twenty songs. Post the poem that results. The first line of the twenty-first is the title.

I saw it again this evening

Listen boy, I don't want to see you
Under the dog star sail,
Groovin' on a Sunday afternoon.
Nobody noticed the touch of your hand.

Time, time, time to see what's become of me---
I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah---
You fill up my senses like a night in a forest.

My life spins like a hurricane.
You'll remember me when the West Wind moves.
Can't you see it coming?
I ain't got time to think about money walking by;
The palace guards are sleeping.

There's a train, there's a train we got to catch
The streets are wet, the lights have yet to shed their darkened luster on the scene.
Pardon me, but I couldn't help but see
There's travel in your future when your tongue freezes to the back of a speeding bus.
The last train is nearly due.

When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide.
How can I just let you walk away?
We walked on the beach beside that old hotel.

(So is it a guessing game now, or what?)

Haven't done a Miriam update in a while. She has done a good job at mastering walking in the past 2 months: she moves pretty fast, and recovers from wobbles which would have knocked her down a month ago. She loves to go exploring, having no qualms about leaving the room or walking way down the sidewalk away from Daddy when she's in the mood. (Although it's different if Daddy leaves the room, of course.) A tree in our yard has some sort of fungal infection which results in little orange fluffy balls on the leaves, which Miriam has always been interested in (she doesn't try to put them in her mouth anymore, thank goodness-- SHUDDER), so Jen decided to buy her little cotton balls of assorted colors, as a substitute. Miriam loves to carry these around with her, one in each hand, and when she goes to pick something up she tries just to use the tips of her fingers so she can continue to hold the cotton ball. Maybe that's improving her fine motor control? :)

She loves keys and locks. If I give her my keys when we're outside, she'll immediately select the key for the car (I have no idea how she figured that out), go over to the car, put the key up near the lock, and try to insert it. She hasn't managed to get it in yet, but then again she is rather short. :)

Her hair is getting very long, particularly in the front. We would trim it, but we're not sure what we're doing with it. I lean towards being practical and giving her bangs, but Jen (who actually has long hair) thinks maybe she shouldn't have bangs, but keep the hair pushed out of her face. While we decide, we leave the hair alone as it grows. ;) We put a barrette in her hair from time to time, and she likes having the barrette there, but hates having it put in, and of course it doesn't last very long.

She tends to go to sleep about 7:30 or so when we're home, depending on how fast we are. She isn't nursed to sleep, so I've been able to put her to sleep without too much difficulty: rock her for 15 minutes, put her in the crib and turn on the music, she cries for a minute, and then she's asleep until 5:30 or so. We have our spare mattress on the floor in Miriam's room (in addition to the crib), so when Jen's home, she'll take Miriam down onto the mattress and nurse her back to asleep until 7am or so. Not having functional breasts, I haven't been able to get her back to sleep so she's been up earlier while Jen's been away (she's at a conference right now, did I mention that? Back tomorrow.) Her napping is ridiculously variable: from one 15-minute nap all day to a pair of 1-hour naps to a 2.5-hour nap at one time. When I want her to fall asleep, I've pretty much settled on walking her around in the stroller, which doesn't always work. When it does work, I have been known to reward myself by walking over to the nearby Sonic and having a drink or french fries (easier to do than hauling the stroller inside when I get home).

Oop, babysitter's here: free time starts now! Yay! More later.

EDIT: Miriam was NOT happy for her babysitter, crying most of the time (it's her usual babysitter, but not her usual time). When I got home, Miriam immediately went to me, started waving her hand, and said "Ba!" (as in "Bye!") to Dani in a sulky manner. It seemed awfully 2-year-old of her: my little girl's growing up! :P

She might not have been happy, but I was ecstatic to have the time off. I'm so much happier to see Miriam now, than I was a few hours ago. She's also pretty mellow now that she has me back, lying around on the couch playing with a pencil, a ball, and her toes (although she's showing signs of movement now...gotta go. :)

1. Yay!

2. I've read somewhere that Obama will not just be the first African-American President, but will be the first person of African descent to head any of the "Western" countries. Think Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, what have you. Ethnic minorities don't generally get to run the countries they live in (former Peruvian President Fujimori is one exception that comes to mind). So for all the deserved flak America gets for its social conservatism, Obama's election gives us a bit of bragging rights in the world.

3. Obama's children are 7 and 10, the first pre-teens to live in the White House since Amy Lynn Carter. Can't help but picture them running around in the White House. :)

4. Proposition 8 in California breaks my heart. California is such a messed-up state in so many ways; I'd almost say it's too big and propose splitting it up (North and South), but that might split up those 55EV too, and I've gotten used to them. If I had to choose, though, I'd take an Obama victory over Prop. 8's defeat.

5. Still have my fingers crossed about Al Franken in Minnesota-- looks like it will go to a recount, and we might not know until December. Norm Coleman took progressive icon Paul Wellstone's seat after Wellstone died in an accident, and the GOP made a big stink about the wake Democrats had for him. I'd like to see him flushed.

6. Speaking of Senators I'd like to see flushed: Saxby Chambliss won HIS seat in Georgia by questioning the patriotism of Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm while serving in the military. Chambliss is up in Georgia but there's a good chance he'll end up he's below 50% in a three-way race, which would mandates a run-off. Dems are optimistic that a run-off would favor them, as the GOP is dispirited. I'm not so sure-- they won't be able to rely directly on Obama voters, and Republican voters may be terrified of a filibuster-proof Senate-- but one can hope.

7. The next major question: how will Obama choose to govern? There's no (OK, little) question that he will restore a sense of ethics to the White House. I have no doubt he will run a more open government. With the prodding of Republicans now terrified of being out of power, he will probably reverse the abuses of executive power we've seen in the past eight years. But will he go far enough? I know that his instincts towards unity and bipartisanship will frustrate a lot of progressives (including myself), who will want to yank the country drastically towards the left. Despite that anticipated frustration, I think a more cautious approach will be better in the long run, particularly if it helps the GOP recover from having been taken over by the fringe. But Democrats can be TOO good at compromise sometimes: witness Congress the past two years. When you're trying to compromise with someone who never gives you an inch, you end up giving the whole game away. Give the Republicans a voice, but it must be made clear that the agenda has changed.

8. Another next question: do I ever have to hear Sarah Palin's voice again? I'm hoping not.

9. Speaking of Alaska, Stevens is actually UP in that race? Alaskans are idiots. Apparently there is a reverse Bradley effect for convicted felons in Alaska: people aren't willing to admit to pollsters that they are going to vote for the felon. Reid has promised to initiate expulsion proceedings for Stevens if re-elected (which is saying something; Reid doesn't usually have such cojones).

[more as I think of it-- must go to Miriam now]

This video concerns an anti-abortion ballot measure in South Dakota, but parts of it are relevant to anyone arguing the pro-choice case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztfn-kayOps

Most of my contact with anti-abortionists is through the Catholic Church, and one of these days I want to make two posters one of these days on the subject. The first will say "Choose Life", below which will be pictured cockroaches, maggots, and all sorts of other examples of life-- Catholics are not even known for being vegetarians (heck, we don't even count fish as "meat"), let alone being particularly respectful of life in general. They mean "human life", so they should say so.

The second poster would show an eight-cell human embryo, with the message that THIS is the issue. The question isn't whether we should kill innocent human beings, the question is whether THIS is a human being. And the answer is that no one knows. There isn't any scriptural basis for assuming that an embryo is human; it's something that the church made up a hundred years ago based on the principle of "better safe than sorry"...except that it's not safer this way, as explained in the video above.

Perhaps my second poster will say [EMBRYO] = [MOTHER], or perhaps even [EMBRYO] > [INJURED IRAQI CHILD], since these so-called "pro-life" people have no problem whatsoever with pre-emptive war. The Catholic Church likes to talk about voting one's conscience, and their official pro-life position includes opposition to execution and pre-emptive war and all of that, but on the pulpit, somehow the only issues that get mentioned are the ones supported by Republicans. Absurd.

Grr.

I recognize that you are desperately trying to save a failing campaign, and a certain measure of desperation on your part is understandable. I have no problem with you going negative on Barack Obama (well I do, but I know that that's how politics works). Call him naive, call him misguided, call him inexperienced, call his ideas foolish, call him an empty suit or a celebrity. All par for the course.

But your campaign is beginning to cross the line from politics as usual into dangerous waters: you are trying to paint Senator Obama as a terrorist sympathizer and a traitor. This is maliciousness taken to a higher level. Do you truly believe that Senator Obama would welcome attacks on Americans, on American soil? Do you believe he would actively support such attacks? If you do believe this, then you should come out and say so, repeatedly, at every opportunity, because such a person should not be President. This Ayres connection is not news, it was brought up during the primaries: if this is enough to convince you that Obama is a traitor, why have you waited until now to bring it up?

If you do not believe this to be true, then be aware that you are toying with Obama's life, not just his career. You are trying to paint your opponent as an Enemy of the State, and sadly, there are a number of right-wing militias in this country, whose members may see assassination as the only way to save this country from such an Enemy. Should any of these loathsome individuals succeed, the guilt will lay partly with you and your campaign. Every time you hear a voice at a rally call out "Terrorist!" or "Traitor!", think about Senator Obama's two daughters, and do not let those calls go by sans refutation. If you are indeed an honorable man, please demonstrate it now.

Sincerely yours,

scottahill

EDIT: Tonight McCain corrected two of his more extreme supporters by saying: "[Barack Obama] is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared about as President of the United States....He's a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about." There's more here. The article I linked to thinks McCain's defense of Obama is too little too late, but I give him credit for trying to give a sense of proportion to his supporters.

Over-the-top rhetoric is common for supporters of a losing side (cf Hillary supporters who vowed to vote for McCain-- most of them are back in the fold; also see all of us Democrats who didn't move to Canada in 2004 :) ), but there is a certain baseline of decency that should be adhered to, and the candidates themselves should lead the calls for decency in the face of defeat.

* According to the questionnaire we filled out for the pediatrician, Miriam lags a bit in her linguistic development. She only infrequently says "Mum-mum" (and only if she's upset), and while she says "Dada" all the time it doesn't seem to mean "Daddy", but instead "I want that!" or "Look at that!" (Maybe she's saying "Dada give it to me!") Her first word was in fact "daw" for dog; if she sees or hears a dog she repeatedly says "daw! daw!" There's a dog who lives next door to us now, and even though she (the dog) is normally in the house, Miriam still points at her gate and says "daw!" everytime she sees it, whether the daw is there or not. In the past week, I've noticed that she's been alternating "daw!" with an outburst of air which I realized was her way of saying "woof!" (her mouth is almost closed when she does it, with only a hint of F). Does that count as a separate word? :)
I'm not at all concerned about her linguistic development, as she has clearly focused on other areas (motor control, for instance) and will catch up here later. But I do wonder if the problem of language isn't as much ours as hers: she may be saying a lot of her own words which we just don't understand. I THINK she's started to say "Wa" for water, but I need to listen more to double-check. I also think she's saying "dah!" for down, but of course that sounds a lot like "dada!" and "daw" so it's hard to be sure. :)

* Regarding her motor skills, she's walking faster now, although still with a stiff sort of gait. She loves to kick her little soccer ball around the room which she does rather successfully. (She loves to watch it roll down hills. In fact, anything sliding or rolling downward amuses her-- she is a big fan of gravity, when it's not affecting her.) She has almost figured out how keys work: she will take my keyring, pick a key (eerily enough, it's often the correct one), and try to put it into the lock of the car door. She can't manage to align it right (the lock is above her head after all), but she's got the basic idea down pat. She also hates it if we do it for her. :)

* I've updated my composition site with some more pieces: http://sahill.nfshost.com/Music/ . I'm focusing on putting up pieces that I know my readers might be able to use: choral and vocal pieces, and an organ piece for thomascantor. Again, I'd be thrilled to hear any of these performed and to have a recording of said performance, should anyone be inspired. I may try to run O Come Emmanuel by the UDallas music department to see if they're interested ("it's from a real live professor!")

* Working hard on my research for once. After a few tweaks to my program I'm getting very pretty, consistent, understandable data, which is wonderful. I need to make a set of publishable figures, and send them off to my contact in Boston who is more knowledgable about the field: he is impressed by the work and has been throwing journal names around like "Nature" and "Science", which are very hard to get into. I'll be content with a publication anywhere, though I won't turn down a chance for a big splash.

* The gospel in church today started with "Do unto others as you would have them do to you" and then progressed to "Love your enemies." As the priese pointed out, the Golden Rule is hardly new to Jesus, but the second is the surprise. It's part of a whole series, of course: "turn the other cheek", "sell all yu have and follow me", "you commit adultery if you lust after someone in your heart", etc. I think the overarching message is: don't be too complacent in your holiness, because there's always more to be done. Still, it seems that Jesus piles criterion upon criterion on us, leading to one of my favorite passages (Mk 10:25-27):
"'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.' And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, 'Then who can be saved?' Jesus looked at them and said, 'With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.'"
It seems that this sums up all of these sayings: you're right, according to my rules it is impossible for you to be saved on your own merits-- you'll never be perfect. But it's not up to you. SO do your best, and We will save you in the end.

The priest brushed by "Do unto others" in the course of his homily-- he did bring up an interesting example of that annoying person you know, whom you might ignore in hopes that he will in turn ignore you! But "Do unto others" is hard enough by itself. Too often, for me, it's become "Do unto others before they do unto you" or "Do unto others what you expect them to do to you." I expect people to look at me with a critical eye, and so I am defensively critical in turn, always ready with a comeback. I expect them to grab that last seat on the bus, to demand their share of personal space, to take take take, so I take first lest I be left with nothing.

An example occurred to me in church: I've been going off an on to a local Byzantine-rite Catholic church, because it's closest to my house, and the liturgy involves a lot of standing, which does a number on my lower back. Towards the end of the service, I sat down a few times to stretch my back and relieve the tension and pain, and I hoped that people would not be offended by my doing so, that they might realize that it was because of discomfort and not disrespect or laziness. But would I do the same? When I'm in my own Roman rite I am Mr. Liturgical Correctness: hey, this prayer should be spoken, not sung! Hey, those are the wrong words! Hey, you're not supposed to be sitting during the consecration! Hey, you're not supposed to be walking around during the Gospel! Etc. Very little compassion. I have a lot of disagreements with the Catholic church, but I have been seriously thinking about leaving it recently, not so much because of politics, but because I am too much in love with the liturgy as I know it, and much too upset when people don't do it the Right Way. It's so distracting that it drains the spirit out of weekly Mass for me. The Byzantine rite might not be the right choice for me, but I do need to spend some more time in a scenario where I don't know what's going on, where I don't have strong emotional opinions about every little detail, and so can learn some humility.

* I've mentioned my wanting to keep pink out of Miriam's wardrobe, and I'm also rather anti-dress as well. I like to frame it in my mind as feminism and equality, but I need to be honest: it's just my own personal bias, maybe because I'm male, or maybe just due to my own personal taste. I like a girl (and I mean a child; I'm not talking romantically or anything) who is active and tough, who eschews the feminine stereotypes of dolls and frilliness and whatnot. Maybe most girls are like that anymore, I don't know. Maybe I'm fighting against stereotypes that aren't so relevant anymore. And of course, once Miriam is a few years older she will have her own ideas about what sort of girl she's going to be, and I hope that when that happens I'll have the grace to let her be herself, albeit with our moral guidance.

* I mentioned earlier that I was in Williamstown to give a talk to the Physics department. It was a very short visit, and because I hadn't finished my slides before I got there, I wasted too much time on Friday morning working on the talk instead of socializing with the faculty. Still, I talked to Bill a while which was good, and I talked to new professor Ward Lopes, whom I knew in graduate school. I have very little to do with the University of Chicago anymore, so it was interesting to chat with someone who had been there and knew everyone. I wanted to enjoy a bit of autumn as an escape from Dallas, but alas it was too early for more than a few leaves to have turned, and it rained all day Friday to boot. Ah well.

We've gotten Miriam to fall and stay asleep by herself the past couple of nights by just putting her in her crib and leaving the room-- she howls for a minute or two, and then silence. Well, I just tried it for her nap...and it works during the day too! Wow!

I've always been reluctant to embrace the tough love approach to sleeping, but now that we've tried it a bit, it reminds me of when I'd leave her with the babysitter the first few times: she'd cry and cry while I was still there, but then stop the moment I left. And now she loves her babysitter, and sometimes would rather have her here than me. :) Sleeping is the same thing, I hope.

So now I am in the unusual position of being able to do whatever I want. Spooky. I could even do (GASP) WORK? (I will miss Miriam's sleeping on me because it was a perfect excuse to watch television. Ah well. :)

* I have now successfully changed a car battery. Yay for me! Our car's battery died Sunday morning; we got a jump from the neighbor and it seemed fine. Well, yesterday evening we were headed out and...again, no start. No lights were left on or anything. This was 7:30 and I had a homework session to run at 8, so I ended up walking to campus (2 miles)-- I tried catching a bus, but because of a local construction project the bus routes are all messed up and seem to change based on the whim of the driver, so I ended up standing on the wrong corner. Oops. I ended up doing the 2 miles in 30 minutes, a pretty good walking speed, but the fronts of my ankles are still sore. Jen called AAA for a jump (our neighbor's car couldn't do it, not strong enough) but the AAA guy took one look and said we needed a new battery because of a battery acid leak. AAA was going to have a truck come by with a new battery which we could buy from them, but first the truck didn't come last night because of a snafu, then the truck couldn't come this morning because they didn't have the right battery. They wanted to come tomorrow morning, but I thought we might try to do it ourselves. So before class this morning, I figured out how to take the battery out of the car, then while I was at class Jen and Miriam walked 2 miles to Autozone to buy the new battery (she pushed it back in Miriam's stroller while carrying Miriam), and then I put the battery in when I got home.

I don't think of myself as being particularly handy, and Jen and I don't normally follow stereotypical gender roles, but I do seem to find myself doing these sorts of things. It's certainly very satisfying.

* Speaking of gender stereotypes, it's my goal to raise Miriam (and any other children we may have) with a minimum of emphasis on gender, for as long as possible. I know that eventually she'll have her own opinions and may disagree with this plan, but meanwhile we try to keep pink to a minimum, I tend to shy away from dresses and "dainty clothing" for her, going with more rugged clothing instead. She only has two toys which might be classified as dolls. I wonder sometimes, though, if my idea of "gender-neutral" is actually "like a boy". Maybe so. Maybe it's even good to err on the side of the opposite gender, to counterbalance the inevitable cues she'll get when she's older.
But this is all relatively easy for a girl. Thanks to feminism, there's nothing a girl can do or wear which is so masculine that it triggers a feeling of "wrong" in most people. The lack of pink throws people a little bit, but that's it. It seems to me, though, that raising a boy in a gender-neutral way would be much tougher. Would we go so far as to dress our infant son in frilly pink? In a dress? I'm not sure I'd be brave enough; it would not be met well by other people. If Miriam dresses up as Superman one day, it would be cute; if our putative son dressed up as Wonder Woman, people would worry. This does stem from a leftover feeling that the feminine role is inferior to the masculine, so that pink on a boy is emasculating while a girl with construction toys is empowered. I know that's true. And yet, it seems like the boy is the one who is at a disadvantage due to this prejudice, not free to do whatever he wants to do or be whatever he wants to be, lest it be seen as demeaning.

* I promised myself that I would only spend 5 days on Optics this semester, because my colleague suggested that, if I moved Optics to the beginning of the course (instead of the traditional end position), I would spend half the semester on the subject (because I move slowly) and not have time to cover the more complicated electricity and magnetism material. Well, I did in fact spend too much time on interference and diffraction (partly because I had never taught it before seriously, so I was learning as I went), and so I have one class left to teach images and lenses. It seems much too short a time, and I may have to be ruthless about what I cut in order to make it fit. Don't know if I'll make it, but I'm reluctant to give in on my pledge. Things will hopefully go more smoothly once I get to electricity; I've taught that more often and so am more comfortable with it. I do need to be a little more ruthless there too, though: do I really need to belabor Gauss' Law? Finding the electric field by integration? I don't know. One might try to ask "What is really important for the students to know?" but the problem is that these aren't physics majors for the most part, so that question is rather deep. What physics topics are most important for an economics major to learn? Does it matter, so long as they are exposed to the scientific method? Unfortunately, the feeling I get from the department is that I should just teach faster, and I don't feel comfortable talking about these things. Hopefully I will find a department which is comfortable with a slower, more in-depth approach, and these discussions can be had.