text:
On Two Wheels

I’ve been watching and listening to videos on YouTube since Wong Fu Productions first started uploading content there in the early 2000s.  I remember those days of cat videos, dog videos, wildlife videos, stupid human tricks, fishing videos, and other miscellanea before brands of every industry started posting their content too.  As time went by, I developed a taste for vlogging and comedy channels, independent artists, educational videos (DIY, history, cultural criticism, language lessons).  In more recent years, food challenges, pet-solider reunions, trying new coffee shops, and motovlogging have become my favorite non-guilty pleasure videos on YouTube.

© Tim Cook, unsplash

I’m pretty sure I discovered the world of motovlogging after I did a search of “deer vs. biker” because I was curious about how a motorcyclist might react in such a scenario; and later YT recommended a compilation video of bikers helping people/being awesome.  I soon became hooked on the momentum and first-person POV that these hobbyist cinematographers were capturing.  Many of these content creators used GoPro cameras.  According to Tom Foster in an article for Inc.com, the camera “really started to take off in the early years of [the 2010s]. Point-of-view videos shot by GoPro cameras attached to surfboards, ski helmets, bike frames, and pets suddenly became ubiquitous on YouTube. Nobody had ever seen footage like this; it was a new, dizzyingly personal, and mesmerizing art form.”

And it certainly was mesmerizing to me.  What I relished the most about the motovlogs I had seen was the glimpse into the lives of people I’d previously never knew existed.  As they rode for the sake of making the video or while they were on their way to work, to run errands, or to a meetup (sometimes riding solo, other times in group), I got an ideal vantage point in what they saw on a daily basis.  It didn’t matter that many of them didn’t show their faces (ever or until they’d reached a specific number of subscribers).  On occasion, I’d fall into a rabbit hole of watching accident videos, road rage videos, and running from the police videos featuring bikers all over the world.  Motovlogging for fun or professional YouTubing had become so popular that there are thorough instructional guides on how to do it.

I learned about the existence of this channel called Stories of Bike today via this video:

Even with all of the motorcycle videos I’ve watched on YT over the years, their video recommendation algorithm never suggested this channel, which was started in 2013.  I’m baffled but happy that I know about it now.  There are different series of videos.  The Riders type are not vlogs — they are audiovisual portraits, combining still imagery, ambient noise, and voice-overs to introduce a particular biker to the audience.  They’re pithy, profound, and all the more memorable because you don’t see the subjects of the videos ride.  Their voices are paired with images of their bikes, of themselves, and of the objects of their life.

There’s a Short Films type as well.

If you’re into bikes as a participant or a voyeur (or both), definitely check out their channel.

Impressions of Bull Durham

Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) worships at the church of baseball. When she isn’t teaching English 101 and Beginning Composition part-time at Alamance Junior College, she’s mentoring a chosen minor league player with the Durham Bulls via the recitation of poetry and the exchange of bedchamber intimacy.  She also carries an enormous handbag that must be filled with hair and makeup tools and quite possibly started that fashion trend in the late 80s and early 90s of women wearing a bazillion dangly bracelets (which calls to mind the Brighton Jewelry version of the Desperately Seeking Susan look).

In Ron Shelton‘s 1988 part-drama, part-comedy Bull Durham, Annie takes pitcher Ebby Calvin ‘Nuke’ LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) under her tutelage.  He has a great throwing arm but not enough game-smarts to really shine, so catcher Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) is assigned essentially “technical adviser” duties (such as telling him not to let his shower shoes get moldy).  Even though it’s clear that Annie and Crash have chemistry, she sticks by her rule of mentoring one player per season.

I remember watching Bull Durham on television when I was a kid but all I could recall of it was Susan Sarandon and Kevin Costner.  It received the Criterion treatment in 2018 and I recently picked it up on DVD on impulse when I was at Barnes & Noble (50% off Criterion sale).  One of the reasons I really like Bull Durham is that it’s about baseball — actually about baseball.  It’s not a generic sports film.  Yes, it follows three characters heavily invested in minor league baseball and incorporates some cliches (pre-game rituals, unintelligible play-calling/pep-talking by the coach, insecurity, what happens once you make it to the majors), but the sport itself is not a stand-in for something else.  In a more traditional sports film that’s executed well thematically and narratively, the sport depicted could be switched with a different one (keeping the solo sport or team sport factor the same) and the film wouldn’t change that much.

The cover art for the Criterion edition speaks to its baseball-at-the-core quality.  It’s nearly all sports paraphernalia…and one wrist tied to a bedpost, hinting at some of the plot points that will unfold.

Another reason why Bull Durham may be one of my favorite sports films is Susan Sarandon name-dropping Susan Sontag while hitting balls in a cage, Tim Robbins’s heavy metal t-shirts, and the bit about William Blake:

Crash: Wait a second.  Who dresses you?
Annie: What?
Crash: Who dresses you?  I mean, don’t you think this is a little excessive for the Carolina League?
Annie: ‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.’ — William Blake.
Crash: William Blake?
Annie: William Blake.
Crash: William Blake?
Annie: William Blake!
Crash: What do you mean, William Blake?
Annie: I mean William Blake!

The special features on the Criterion edition of Bull Durham are fantastic.  Apparently, Ron Shelton used to play baseball in the minor leagues and he’s felt that most sports films are made from the POV of the fan and not the player.  Maybe that’s why I liked this one so much.

Here’s one such gem:

Pic creds: imdb and Criterion Collection

Seeing Double in A Stolen Life The Pretty One

When there’s someone else who looks like you and sounds like you to the untrained eyes and ears, it might not take much for the world to believe there’s only one of you.  But, when everyone knows there are two of you, persuading anyone (including yourself) that you are who you say you are necessitates mastering the art and craft of playing twins.  Cinema has an expansive track record in this department.

The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak, 1946)

Dead Ringer (Paul Henreid, 1964)

The Parent Trap (David Swift, 1961)

The Parent Trap (Nancy Meyers, 1998)

Along with all the films on this list.

It’s easy to play twins when each one has a different hairstyle, fashion sense, food preferences, and body language.  It’s easier for the viewer to distinguish between the two as well, such as the twins in the story of The Pretty One (Jenee LaMarque, 2013).

But when the twins have very similar hair and clothing choices, the demarcation lines lie
in much more subtle factors like facial expressions and demeanor.  If one twin were to pretend to be the other, while still displaying their own personality traits occasionally, she can’t forget own her identity.  Bette Davis nails it in A Stolen Life (Curtis Bernhardt), 1946).  Zoe Kazan does it pretty well in The Pretty One.

The audience sees so much more of both sisters in A Stolen Life, therefore it highlights more of Bette’s skill in portraying two different people in and between scenes.

The Pretty One focuses mostly on one sister and explores the journey that she embarks on to figure out who she is without her twin…while everyone else thinks she is her twin.

Zoe Kazan as Audrey and Laurel in The Pretty One

The corollaries between the films:
~ The good-natured sister is a painter.
~ There’s an accident and the rebellious sister dies.
~ Complications arise with the incidental/deliberate mistaken identity.
~ When to reveal the charade of being someone you’re not.

Beyond those plot points, the two films delve into different aspects of self-identity and second chances.  A Stolen Life follows Katie Bosworth (Davis), a woman with fine arts aspirations, who falls in love with a lighthouse keeper (Glenn Ford) but loses her chance at his romantic affections when her twin sister Pat charms him away.

Bette Davis as Pat Bosworth and Glenn Ford as Bill Emerson in A Stolen Life

When a sailing accident claims Pat’s life, Katie pretends to be her so she can have a chance at a life with Bill.  Little does she know, though, that Pat did not try hard enough to deserve his love in the year they were married.  Katie must decide how and if she can move on with her life.

Glenn Ford as Bill Emerson and Bette Davis as Kate Bosworth in A Stolen Life

The Pretty One centers on Laurel (Kazan), a painter who helps her dad make copies of famous paintings while her twin sister, Audrey, lives a more exciting life as a real estate agent.  When a traffic accident claims Audrey’s life, Laurel doesn’t correct people’s assumption that she was the one who died.  Laurel may not be going into the name-switch with a concrete goal like Katie, but what she experiences and accomplishes in the end is definitely worth the medium-sized con.

Watch Bette Davis in action:

Trailer for The Pretty One:

Pic creds: imdb

Spaces Beneath Holy Healing Melodies

They aren’t always that healing if they don’t welcome everyone, including their lifestyle choices.  A person is the culmination of every facet of their thoughts, words, and actions…for chaos or disorder, for better or for worse.  One can reprimand and reward based on one’s own value system, but to pretend it’s fine for the ecosystem underpinning the monetizing of this kind of non-mainstream music to reject the full potential of spiritual artistry….c’est dommage.

I’ve written about contemporary Christian music a few times over the years from Jars of Clay to Royal Tailor and Third Day to Chris Tomlin (not once, but twice).  In some ways, I considered this genre to be a guilty pleasure so I didn’t think about it too critically, not the songs themselves and certainly not the industry.

This Refinery29 piece opened my mind to issues I wish I had already considered.  Props to Dan Haseltine for asking the questions that many people didn’t want to entertain.

Consider this video as well.

Let Me Lead You

You can lead me to water
but you can’t make me drink,
You can lead me to higher earnings
but you can’t make me believe
I have what it takes
to turn your paper crane
into a 3-D printed one
or the solution
to your predecessor’s mistakes.

You can teach me to fish
but you can’t make me eat,
You can teach me the virtues
of patience and reverence,
but you can’t make me believe
I have what you think it takes
to turn my playbook sketches
into a game-saving use case
or the antidote to my predecessor’s biases.

Let me lead you to water
I won’t force you to drink,
unless you’re thirsty
Let me lead you to higher earnings
I won’t force you to believe,
in your own potential.

Let me teach you to fish
I won’t force you to eat,
unless you’re hungry
Let me teach you the virtues
of slowing-down and kindness,
I won’t force you to believe
if you’re not ready.

Let me lead you,
if you’re willing
to try something new.

— yiqi 23 July 2020 3:44 pm

© Soledad Lorieto

The above poem was inspired by a musing on transferable skills and leadership that I read the other day.   The post begins by noting that “the problem with hiring (not recruiting) is this: Those who tend to get hired are those with the most direct experience…’Those who have will get even more while those without will have even less.  [Therein] lies the reason for lack of representation and diversity.“*

It makes sense.  If considering resume criteria alone, a violin player with five years’ experience in the city symphony will likely be chosen to play for a film score over the violin player with one year of high school experience.  The latter will likely be chosen over the music enthusiast with some childhood piano lesson memories but zero violin time.  If budget is a concern, however, the high school violinist probably has the best shot because not only will they be the least expensive, but they already have basic violin-playing skills.  (Whether or not they still remember how to sight read is a whole other issue).

The post then addresses the idea of transferable skills and that “it is still a seemingly far fetched [one] as hiring managers want people who can do the job on day 1.”  The pace at and the way in which technology, consumer/client habits, and marketing trends change across industries necessitate potential new hires to possess the knowledge and skills to enter a new organization with minimal instruction AKA “we’ll show you how to reserve a meeting room, how to navigate the employee resources portal, and someone will probably tell you which bathrooms and parking spaces to avoid**, but we’d prefer you already know how to use all of the productivity tools, relevant software and web applications, and social media platforms ever made because time is money and we have very little time and just enough money to justify hiring someone who can do everything we require.”  Consequently, companies find themselves in “the recycling of talent” or “hiring from the same pool over and over again.”

Sticking with our stringed instrument hypothetical scenario, the recycling of talent would consist of the same half-dozen violinists hired for any number of jobs where the employer does not want or cannot afford to (or both) teach anyone how to play said instrument.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with making hiring decisions based on time and money constraints, and yet, as more employers keep maintaining this type of status quo, the breadth of talent and skill potential serving those employers stagnates.

The post ends with a suggestion for the implementation of “development programs,” “[taking] a home-grown approach,” for “[leaders…to become teachers,” “[and for] companies… to transform and become learning institutions.”  The follow-up comments touch on examples of when transferable skills work (made by yours truly), how to diversify potential employee pools and re-evaluating job descriptions, and what good leadership entails.

© KOBU Agency, Faro, Portugal

What does effective leadership entail? Even if a company were eager to go beyond its modus operandi comfort zones and take a risk in hiring someone who doesn’t check off all of its “must have” boxes, how should it hire?

Perhaps one can begin by knowing who not to consider?

Rethink company priorities, thereby allowing for a wider range of leadership styles and dispositions? ***

Effective leaders should trust employees and not tell them how to work (within reason) or make unfounded assumptions about their motivations (or lack thereof)?

At the very minimum, balance the ratio of extrovert-to-introvert leaders or consider more ambiverts? ****

The consensus among these videos is that effective leaders are good listeners and mentors.  They don’t pretend to know everything and don’t belittle nor patronize their staff.  When the companies they own, the departments they oversee, or the teams they manage reach or exceed business objectives, are they automatically congratulated with such achievements or do they acknowledge credit where credit is due?  Likewise, when the companies they own, the departments they oversee, or the teams they manage not only fail to reach those goals but also bring external negative publicity or internal criticism and shame, are these leaders unequivocally held accountable for whatever happened to incur the wrath of public opinion or workplace disappointment?

In thinking about these matters, I was reminded of an entry I wrote a few years ago where a friend and I discussed the role of football coaches and the degree to which the numbers on a scoreboard is more or less attributed to the coach rather than the players.  Spectator sports are greatly affected financially by the number of wins and losses incurred over a season or series of seasons (depending on a team’s reputation).  As often as the roster changes to reflect a dire need for better athletic skills, better chemistry between teammates, or simply to put backup players on the active list to compensate for injured starters, coaches come and go with comparable levels of frustration and hope on the part of athletic departments, booster clubs, fans, and team owners.

Whether it’s the college game or the professional game, a lot of people have invested money and faith in a particular team’s ability to win.  Coaches are entrusted with the expertise to break out of losing streaks and maintain winning streaks.  They do their best with what the players and assistant coaches offer, nevertheless, the best data available is no guarantee of victory.  And as more reported stories of student-athletes or professional athletes misbehaving on or off the field circulate through media outlets and social media platforms, coaches may be unfairly blamed.  Furthermore, when a head coach is new to a team and isn’t experiencing a real-life redemption narrative, he can apply the same strategies from his last coaching job and not be sure that the players will perform as expected.  What brought accolades before won’t necessarily bring accolades again, but as long as they are good listeners and mentors, and don’t pretend to know everything, they’ll have more chances to prove themselves.

Hiring the right coach to turn a losing team around certainly involves a unique set of criteria that isn’t immediately analogous to finding an effective Senior Director, Team Lead, or CEO.  No combination of characteristics fits all, and for a company to make the correct hiring decision, it has to know both its end goals and the idiosyncrasies of the journey.  If Company A needs a charismatic leader in its sales or employee engagement departments, why shouldn’t it hire one?  If Company B has a global presence and needs guidance on making eleventh-hour decisions without resorting to rousing people from deep sleep, why not hire a centrally located night-owl or two (one near the Prime Meridian, the other on the west coast of the continental United States)?

* “Lack of representation and diversity” doesn’t have to be limited to visual differences between people (skin color, wardrobe choices, hairstyles, mode of transportation, body language, gait, et al) and protected classes (religious affiliation [or lack thereof], physical or cognitive disabilities, gender identification, sexual orientation).  Differences between people and their life experiences also involve pop-cultural tastes, dietary choices, philosophical beliefs, coping mechanisms, vices, sources of joy, sources of duress, and all the other characteristics that make no two people alike.

** In a pre-coronavirus world certainly, but in the current state of the world, the equivalent would probably be a note about which types of backgrounds to avoid using in virtual video conference calls.

*** As idealistic as this proposition might be that prioritizing kindness and treating employees well positively correlates to business success and a happy sales/finance department, if a company can monetarily afford to try it, why not then?

**** Is it “extravert” or “extrovert” and what is an “ambivert?”

I came across this article about financial scandals in pro sports.  Fascinating stuff.

Pic creds: Unsplash


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This is a copy of a painting by James Gurney which he made while waiting for his breakfast to arrive. He painted the man at the bar in about 10 minutes with the rest of the scene completed later.

It took me over an hour to do this pencil copy, sat on a sofa in the evening with the TV on in the background, enough time for half a dozen Gurney paintings. But I think I need to stop being so concerned about speed as I think that comes naturally with regular practice and knowledge of materials.

I do find myself falling back to pencil much of the time as it’s the only medium where I can quickly render large areas of tone together with areas of precision. If only it didn’t look like pencil! For a painting I still need (for now) a table, a couple of tubs of water with access to a tap for refills, kitchen roll, space for the paper, brushes and materials, and lots of time.

2 thoughts on “speed

  1. Ed Mostly

    Ambassador, with these three posts you are spoiling us! I like the sketchiness of the oiled bookshelves, the calm focus of the jug (the ‘mistakes’ with the handle/spout angles are also in the original?), and the range of tones you’ve achieved in the pencil drawing. For speedy and accurate areas of tone I find dilute ink in a water-brush the best, but my sketching’s over-focussed on speed and portability so this might not work for you? Ed

  2. Jim Post author

    Dilute Lexington Gray in a waterbrush is a wonderful thing, but I’m mindful of our white Ikea sofa covers!
    P.S. Thanks again for the Staniland on the bookshelves.

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text:
First Free Story (1 of 3)

More travel executives get their mission-critical industry news from Skift than any other source on the planet.

Already a member?

U.S. travel e-commerce spending in 2012 broke through the $100 billion barrier for the first as airlines’ beat out hotels websites in the growth race.

And, on the company level, InterContinental Hotels Group, VRBO, TripAdvisor’s BookingBuddy sites, and Kayak outpaced the rest of the pack in page views, while Expedia, Choice Hotels and Travelocity posted some of the largest declines.

2012 Travel Spending by Sub-Category,2012 vs. 2011

Total U.S. – Home & Work Computers

Spending ($ Millions)Share of Travel SpendingY/Y % Chg
Total Travel E-Commerce$102,951100%9%
Air Travel$66,52965%10%
Hotel Reservations$19,38419%7%
Car Rental$9,6989%6%
Travel Packages$5,1405%10%
Other Travel$2,2002%10%

Among airlines, United Airlines recorded the largest gain (4.9%) in page views, but this was mostly due to its merger with Continental, as the latter directed travelers looking for airline tickets to

The assessments of winners and losers, and the U.S. travel e-commerce sales estimates come from comScore as it released its 2012 numbers, with the category growing 10% to $103 billion, topping the magic $100 billion mark for the first time.

Air travel dominated e-commerce spending with a 65% share of the nearly $103 billion in spending. Air travel grew 10% to $66.5 billion, besting the next largest sector, hotels (19% share), which saw spending increase at a 7% pace to nearly $19.4 billion.

Top Airline Properties by Share of Page Views, 2012 vs 2011

Total U.S. – Home & Work Computers

Share (%) of Category Page Views
20112012Pt Chg
 Travel Category – Airlines100.0%100.0%0.0
1Southwest Airlines Co.19.8%20.0%0.2
2Delta Airlines15.9%15.5%-0.4
3United Airlines*9.8%14.7%4.9
4American Airlines13.8%13.2%-0.6
5US Airways Group, Inc.3.4%3.4%0.0
6Continental Airlines Sites*6.4%2.7%-3.7
7JetBlue Airways2.6%2.5%-0.1
8Alaska Airlines.com3.1%2.5%-0.6
9Allegiant Air.com2.6%2.1%-0.6
10AirTran Airways2.6%2.0%-0.6

Car rentals (9% share of the market) grew a tad slower than hotels and were considerably more sluggish than airlines, with car rental e-commerce sales in the U.S. rising 6% to nearly $9.7 billion, according to comScore.

Two smaller categories, travel packages (5% share) and “other travel” (2% share), grew on par with airlines at a 10% pace. comScore estimate consumer spending on travel packages at $5.1 billion, and other travel, which could include a bit of cruise, as well as tours and activities, at $2.2 billion.

Putting aside the impact of United’s merger with Continental, individual airlines didn’t take much market share in page views as Southwest (20%), Delta (15.5%), and United (14.7%) dominated consumers’ page views.

In the U.S. online travel agency category in 2012, Expedia was the biggest loser, with its share of page views declining 6 points to 31.6%. There appears to be a deliberate reason for Expedia giving ground, however.

Expedia’s CFO Mark Okerstrom said recently that the company got “more conservative on marketing spend” in the first half of 2012 as the company worked on improving the operation of Expedia-branded sites, in particular.

Travelocity also came up short in page views in 2012, with its share of page views falling 2.4 points to 7.6%, comScore states.

The largest winners in the online travel agency category were TripAdvisor’s BookingBuddy sites (which include SniqueAway and Tingo ), and Kayak, which saw their page view share climb 2.3 points and 2.2 points, respectively.

Top Online Travel Agent Properties by Share of Page Views, 2012 vs 2011

Total U.S. – Home & Work Computers

Share (%) of Category Page Views
20112012Pt Chg
Travel Category – Online Travel Agents100.0%100.0%0.0
1Expedia Inc37.6%31.6%-6.0 Inc15.7%17.3%1.6
3Orbitz Worldwide12.9%12.9%-0.1
4Fareportal Media Group8.5%9.2%0.7
5Travelocity10.0%7.6%-2.4 Network4.7%6.9%2.2
7BookingBuddy Sites0.0%2.3%2.3

On the hotel front, InterContinental Hotels Group was the biggest gainer, rising 3.5 points to a 7.9% share while still trailing Marriott, which leads all the major brands with a 11.7% share.

HomeAway’s VRBO shot up 3.3 points to an astounding 6.5% share of page views when you consider it has a larger share that Disney Parks, Choice and Best Western.

Choice Hotels saw the largest decline, 2.6 points to 5.4% share.

Top Hotel & Resort Properties by Share of Page Views, 2012 vs 2011

Total U.S. – Home & Work Computers

Share (%) of Category Page Views
20112012Pt Chg
Travel  Category – Hotels/Resorts100.0%100.0%0.0
2InterContinental Hotels Group4.4%7.9%3.5
3Wyndham Worldwide7.9%7.5%-0.4
4Hilton Hotels9.0%7.0%-2.0
6Disney Parks & Travel6.0%5.7%-0.3
7Choice Hotels International8.0%5.4%-2.6
9Expedia HotelsN/A3.1%N/A
10BestWestern Hotels2.7%2.8%0.2


text:
General Meeting Tuesday April 17 2012 : A Call for New Leadership and Viewing of Tableland

PLEASE MARK THE DATE AND TIME (6:30pm) on your calendar

TABLELAND is a culinary expedition in search of the people, place and taste of North American small-scale, sustainable food production. Director Craig Noble argues for the re-localization of North American food systems, and a return to a fresher, healthier way of feeding ourselves. From the orchards of BC, the inner city gardens of Chicago to the Napa Highlands and everywhere in between, TABLELAND showcases the successful production of tasty, local, and seasonal food from field to plate. (Slow Food Canada’s own Mara Jenrigan and Sinclair Phillips are in this film.)

We would love to see you out: Great opportunity to meet new members!

Please indicate below in the comments section if you will be coming to our general meeting in April! We need to show support to our new President and Secretary – and if you believe you have the skills and could commit to the responsibilities of either position, please e-mail by March 30, 2012.

This evening will include food, conviviality and an opportunity to vote in new leadership for our Slow Food Edmonton Convivium.

 Slow Food Edmonton General Meeting Tuesday April 17 2012 6:30 to 9pm

Who: All members of Edmonton Slow Food
Slow Food Edmonton General Meeting
Tuesday April 17 2012 6:30 to 9pm
Where:Edmonton Public Library, Idylwylde Branch, 8310 88 Avenue, T6C 1L1
Why: Voting in of Slow Food Edmonton Executive Positions: President and Secretary, as well as the Screening of Tableland (information here)
How: The purpose of this General meeting is to vote in a new President and Secretary for Slow Food Edmonton; we will share in the conviviality of some local treats as we watch the screening of this very special movie after the business of the meeting has concluded

SFE Leader Roles and Responsibilities

Is elected at each AGM and shall be in office until the following AGM.

The President shall:

  • devote approximately 90 minutes a week to SFE business, not including meeting time
  • be the sole spokesperson for the SFE
  • preside over all board and  meetings of the members of SFE
  • prepare the meeting agendas
  • ensure all meetings are conducted in an orderly, fair and respectful manner
  • ensure that the organizational business is carried out in accordance with the bylaws of Slow Food Edmonton and the tenets of Slow Food International
  • allow each member to express themselves appropriately
  • ensure the accountability of all projects, initiatives and activities of Slow Food Edmonton
  • convey information from Slow Food Canada and Slow Food International to members at large as well as convey information from Slow Food Edmonton to Slow Food Canada and Slow Food International as necessary

Is elected at each AGM and shall be in office until the following AGM.

The Secretary shall:

  • devote approximately 90 minutes a month to SFE business, not including meeting time.
  • create and keep all records and archives for SFE
  • record minutes for all board and other meetings
  • find a replacement to record minutes in the event that s/he is unable to attend the meeting
  • assist the president with all responsibilities assigned to or by the president
  • circulate draft minutes to all members in attendance within ten days from the meeting date
  • circulate approved minutes to members at large within ten days of such approval
  • ensure members at large have access to approved meeting minutes
  • maintain a hard copy of all minutes and essential documents of SFE for prosperity and security

Cynthia Fawcett has offered her name up for the position of President
Cynthia Strawson has been a passionate advocate of Alberta’s food, agriculture and nutrition education communities for more than 20 years; growing up on a beef farm in west-central Alberta, as member’s representative on the Federal Agriculture Caucus (1992-93), as an employee of Alberta Agriculture’s Ag In The Classroom program (1993-95), as a member of the Growing Alberta Board of Directors (2005-2008), as provincial agriculture education volunteer with Northlands Park (2001-2007), and as communications manager in the U of A’s Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics (1997-2007).

Since 2002, Cynthia has studied and taught Italian Food Culture and the Mediterranean Diet between Italy and her home province of Alberta, including a lecture on the history, development and implications of the Slow Food movement.

She has been a member of the Slow Food Edmonton convivium for just over a year and an active member of the food social media community, particularly on twitter, facebook and LinkedIn.

Currently, Cynthia is Director of Marketing, Communications and Affinity Relationships at the U of A’s Office of Alumni Affairs.  She is also completing a Master’s of Science in Nutrition and Metabolism at the University of Alberta, researching dietary patterns of Alberta’s future dietitians to determine if they’re following Canada’ Food Guide or the Mediterranean Diet and identifying ways Albertans can eat in the same healthy way the people of the Mediterranean traditionally have.

Addie Raghavan has offered his name up for the position of Secretary
Aditya Raghavan is a relatively recent transplant in the Edmonton community.  After completing his PhD in Los Angeles, he moved to Edmonton in the fall of 2009 to pursue further research in Mathematics and Physics.  Over the last couple of years, he’s immersed myself in the local food scene, through connections on twitter and attending social events.  My interests lie in garnering more support for local food sources, grocery stores that support local farms and restaurants that use local sources as best they can.Growing up in India, local food was a given for us.  My mother would go down to the market where she’d buy fresh vegetables, eggs and bread from farmers who would travel from their farm everyday to sell it.  That was the most accessible way of getting produce. When I first moved to North America, I was surprised by how little flavor vegetables in the supermarkets had.  That got me to learn about how most produce came from industrial farms.  Of course, in California, one could get local oranges around the year, so my worries were soon to go away.


text:
How to Install Hitachi Microdrive Disk Drivers

The Hitachi Microdrive line of storage drives use the CF+ (Compact Flash Plus) interface to connect to computers. For a computer to recognize and access a CF+ drive, the proper drivers must first be installed to the computer. Despite being an older drive, Hitachi Microdrives are compatible with newer computers, so if you have one or two laying around at your business, you should put them to use. Older Hitachi storage drives, including CF+ Microdrives, come with driver disks for driver installation.

Insert the driver disk that came with your Hitachi Microdrive. If an auto-run window appears, follow the prompts to install the drivers. If not, install the drivers manually using the Windows Device Manager.

Go to the Start menu and type "devmgmt.msc" in the "Search programs and files" box. Press "Enter" and confirm the operation, if prompted. The Device Manager window will open.

Double-click on the "Disk drives" hardware category and right-click on the drive labeled "Hitachi Microdrive." Select the "Update Driver Software" option from the context menu.

Click "Browse my computer for driver software," click "Browse" and then select your DVD/CD disk drive from the "Computer" folder. Click "OK," click "Next" and follow the prompts to finish the installation.

  • Information in this article applies to Windows 7. It may vary slightly or significantly with other versions or products.

Photo Credits

  • Medioimages/Photodisc/Photodisc/Getty Images

About the Author

Daniel Hatter began writing professionally in 2008. His writing focuses on topics in computers, Web design, software development and technology. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in media and game development and information technology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.


text:
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Castrol Antifreeze Coolant: Radicool NF Premix -1Litre. – BA AutoParts

BA AutoParts has all parts for all vehicles. BA AutoParts is your source for quality original automotive parts. Cavitation erosion is caused by the implosion of air bubbles present in the coolant and which are attracted to the liner outer surface.

Castrol Anti-freeze NF is a nitrite, phosphate and amine-free coolant containing ethylene glycol. Reviews There are no reviews yet.

  ASTM D3689-90 PDF

OEM approvals Protects for up to 3 years Excellent low temperature protection Provides excellent protection against corrosion Efficient lubrication of water pumps Compatible with conventional seal and hose materials used in engine cooling systems Contains bittering agent.

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Castrol Antifreeze NF – Antifreeze – 1735

Castrol Antifreeze NF – Antifreeze – Aqueous solutions of Castrol Anti-freeze NF act as both an antifreeze and coolant and impart very good anti-corrosion protection to all metal parts found in the cooling systems of internal combustion engines. It has been developed to meet the growing demand from manufacturers for a higher performance coolant that minimises environmental impact.

Recent reviews Denso Alternator: Address Adade last stop Kasoa Digital Address: Your email address will not be published. Castrol Anti-freeze NF is a balanced formulation of mono ethylene glycol and corrosion inhibitors.

Radicool NF Premix -1Litre.

In addition to providing excellent corrosion and low temperature protection, the use of the recommended level of anti-freeze will significantly reduce the likelihood of wet cylinder liner pitting due to ” cavitation erosion”. Notify me of new posts by email. This product requires no customer dilution therefore ensures the correct concentration is always used.

Castrol Radicool NF Antifreeze Concentrate. Opie Commercial Oils

It uses hybrid technology for the modern performance engines of cars and trucks. These bubbles implode, resulting in the removal of minute amounts of liner material – this, if allowed to continue unchecked, will result in liner porosity and severe engine damage.

Call Main Warehouse and Store: Castrol Radicool NF premix is designed to meet and generally exceed the requirements of most major European engine manufacturers. The product is already in the wishlist!


text:
Cleaning Lady: Suck it up

So today we’re gonna talk about one of the most important tools in cleaning, the vacuum cleaner. Frankly I’m not sure I’d have ever become a house cleaner if it weren’t for vacuums. I get asked about vacuum cleaners probably more than any other topic besides “do you think you can get that out? Or at least make it look not as bad?”

Well, I suppose I’m going to disappoint a lot of people with this essay. Because I’ve got no recommendations and I’m about to make vacuum cleaners a very intricate subject.

What do I use? I use a Bissell Powerforce bagged vacuum. Retails for around $50 at any Wally world or Tarjay or whatever. Its exactly what I need and its easy to maintain. I love my current vacuum but I wouldn’t recommend it to most people. It’s perfect for my uses, but it has many issues that most people wouldn’t be able to handle. That’s how it is though: vacuum cleaners don’t have a “best” (so stop asking me)

First, let’s go over how a vacuum cleaner works.
Here’s a pretty good overview but if you don’t feel like reading all that, I can sum it up for you: there’s a fan inside that whirls around sooper fast, creating suction which is funnelled via tubes (kind of like the internet) through an area that catches debris (unlike the internet) either via a bag or a series of filters into a cup, and ejects the air all while rolling a brush over the surface to loosen and fling the debris towards the tube where the suction is coming from. That’s pretty much it. The roller has a belt which needs to be replaced every now and then and the cup or bag that needs to be emptied/replaced when its full. All vacuums have filters on them in various places as well.

So, to summarize:

1. Suction power is what makes a vacuum cleaner a vacuum cleaner.
2. The rolling brush is what makes a vacuum cleaner clean carpets and upholstery.
3. Filters are what prevent the vacuum cleaner from ejecting fine particles of dust right back into the atmosphere.

When you are choosing a vacuum cleaner, these are the main issues you need to address. They all have these aspects, but some will have more on one end than another.Obviously the main aspect is suction power. So let’s talk a bit about suction power. Suction power isn’t something you can determine by price or name. Suction power is actually a sum of the fan’s power, the type of cleaner it is and the seal on the cleaner. Within any type and brand you will have variations on both. Some are more powerful than others and some are less powerful but better sealed. “Wait, what’s that?” you say. Well part of the way a vacuum cleaner works is because it is a closed system. Air is sucked into the bag/cup and then emitted out. If there was no seal around the system, it would not be able to create enough power to suction up the dirt. You have no doubt noticed that the smaller the opening for the cleaner, the harder it will suck. This is physics actually. So those ads about cyclone cleaners “never lose their suction” is bunk. They do not lose suction any more or less than a bagged cleaner. What happens is that as the bag/cup gets full, the motor has to work harder because there is more resistance. So you will see that your cleaner is picking up less and harder to maneuver. But the motor cannot create a vacuum without an enclosed system. This is created by the hoses (which gets smaller) and the seal around whatever area holds the debris reservoir. When you open the compartment to retrieve the cup/bag, you are unsealing the cleaner. Some cleaners, especially bagged, seal through the entire front panel. This means that its easy for the cleaner to get less seal over time as the rubber around the panel begins to degrade. Some cleaners, like shop or wet-dry vacs seal around the top of the reservoir which due to the weight of the motor that sits on top creates a very solid seal. If you’re curious about your own machine’s seal, turn it on and then hold a piece of paper around it. Where the seal is, will probably pulls at the paper a little bit. If it pulls a lot, you have a bad or degrading seal.
Now let’s talk about the brush. All I’m going to tell you is, it should roll easily. If it doesn’t roll easily you will be sorry you bought this machine. No one should have to fight their cleaner to clean. Some vacuums are self-propelled (which is seriously nice, I swear its like the cadillac of vacuums) but most are not. IF the brush does not roll easily, if you have to lean on your vacuum to get it to move, either it needs to be cleaned or its for Arnold Schwarzenegger, not you.
So filters. All vacuums have filters. Read your manual. Even bagless have filters both disposible and reusable. You really will be happier with disposible paper filters. Washing a filter is just NOT what you want to be doing when its time to clean the house. If you have allergies, get HEPA filters and a machine that advertises as being HEPA. Hell, get it if you don’t. HEPA filters are very nice.

Now, after suction, brush and filters, there are three more aspects to look at in order to determine which vacuum cleaner you want.

1. The retrieval system (cup, bag) is what determines how much you can do before needing to empty it out.

Cups generally don’t hold a lot but the size of the cleaner is a good indicator of the size of the cup – the bigger the cleaner the bigger the cup. Still, I’ve never used a cup cleaner yet that didn’t need to be emptied at least once during a job. Most times its a constant trip back and forth to the garbage can. This is why I bring my bagged cleaner to cleaning jobs. Bags can hold far more than a cup. If you have allergies, bagged will also be kinder to you. Cups create a huge dust blowback when you are emptying them unless you are supercareful to do it with a plastic bag tightly wrapped around it. Even so, I’ve always had issues with dust blowback using a cup. If you have a really small place, no pets and very little mess, a cup cleaner is fine. If you like having more than one cleaner then a cup cleaner can be fine as well for specific jobs like non-pet hair jobs. But if you have pets and/or several humans living in your space, I suggest you will not want a cup cleaner. Skin detritus is a difficult thing for cup cleaners to handle. Cyclone cleaners advertise that they don’t have disposible filters but the problem with that is that people tend to think the filters they are are forever. I am sorry but if you have a cyclone cleaner, you will need to occasionally open it up, take it apart and clean the filtration system. And let me tell you it is a nasty messy business. The main filters are foam rubber so they must be washed with detergent and water. The rest of the filtration system consists of plastic cones and tubes punctured with tiny holes. Those holes get clogged (REALLY CLOGGED) with detritus that contains sebum and oils. Which means it sticks. I’ve had to use scrub brushes to clean those things out. Overall, cup cleaners are far more hassle than they are worth if you use your cleaner on a regular basis. If you have a one-bedroom apartment that you share with no one, a cup cleaner could last you a long time before you have to clean it out. By then you’ll probably be ready for a new cleaner anyway. I, however, will stick with bagged.

2. The style (cannister, upright, wet-dry, stick, handheld) is what determines how you can maneuver the cleaner around and to some extent, how much suction power you will get.

I hesitate to say the style will definitely determine the suction power because really there are plenty of exceptions to that rule. The fact is, the fan, motor and sealing determine your suction power and you cannot know any of those things until you try it out. An expensive model can have a lousy seal and a cheap model can have a powerful motor. So don’t go by price alone. Expensive models do tend to be better but I am talking about the REALLY expensive models like Oreck and Electrolux and Sanitaire. They are considered to be commercial or industrial cleaners and their price reflects that. The problem is in the middle ground. I have used many many different vacuum cleaners and aside from the high-end ones mentioned, I have not found any consistant quality within any one brand or model.
However, the *type* of cleaner can really make a difference. As mentioned, wet-dry vacs have a heavy-duty motor (for suctioning water) and a very tight seal. But wet-dry vacs are cumbersome to manuever and loud as holy hell. If you seriously need the most massive suction power and don’t care about anything else, a wet-dry vac is the way to go. If you have back issues, a lot of furniture, and stairs, keep your wet-dry in the garage and get a cannister or upright.
Cannister cleaners are nice for low or no carpet. This is because most of them do not have a separately powered head for carpets. So shag or deep pile will essentially clog up the head and get very little done. That is the biggest flaw behind cannisters. Otherwise they are probably my favorite type of vacuum – they maneuver easily, they suction just awesome and the bag is plenty big enough and easy to dispose of. What’s not to like? Sadly, I have deep carpet. So no cannister for me.
One type of upright is the stick or “electric broom”. Its the weakest, most basic vacuum ever. Get one and keep it in your kitchen. Its nice for quick spills that aren’t very big. Much like a handheld. dont’ think you can use it to vacuum anything larger than a 2×2′ area because the receptible for debris is very very tiny. And it wont’ work on dust; the motor simply isn’t powerful enough. Dust clings. Not many vacs can suck up dust actually. Not unless you are wading around in it. I don’t have one because I use a broom. I’m just weird like that. My biggest beef with “quicksticks” is that they start looking grungy over time. I guess its because they’re kept in the kitchen. Nobody cares if a broom looks grungy. But quicksticks kind of look nasty after a while, as do handhelds. I’ve cleaned a lot of handhelds.
Uprights are what most people have whether its bagged or cup. It is easier on your back than a vac with only a hose because even lovely little cannisters will get stuck on the carpet and you’ll be wrenching the head free. Wet-dry’s have no roller brush attachment that is worth a damned so forget those.
I have to tell you, there is no one upright that is “the best”. MY $50 Bissell is fine. The seal around the front panel degrades quickly and the motor isn’t the most powerful BUT its cheap and light to carry. Which is important to me since I carry it a lot in my jobs.
I will give you a secret though: I am a meticulous vacuumer so I do not need a machine with the mostest suction evar.
I bet you remember those commercials where they would “compare” two vacs? THey’d both vacuum up something then show how much was left behind? Then they’d use the advertised vac to suck up whatever the first vac left behind? Those commercials make me laugh. ALL vacuum cleaners leave something behind. ALL vacuum cleaners will suck up whatever they left behind when you pass them a second time. ITs a matter of timing. Some cleaners suction hard enough you can move quickly (but you’ll be fighting the head more) but others suction lighter so you can move slower and with less work. If you adjust to your vacuum, you’ll get pretty much the same performance.
Lastly, there is teh Roomba. Those things are great. So long as you don’t have carpet and you don’t have more than one floor, they are wonderful little machines. They will not substitute for a good washing though and thats the one beef I have with Roombas – people who own them seem to think they don’t ever have to clean their floor again. A Roomba is a tiny vacuum, not a maid.

So far as choosing a vacuum cleaner, that’s all there is to it.
Do you have deep shag carpet? A large brush roller and extra suction is what you’ll look for. Do you have pets? Attachments will be your friend. Do you have allergies? You need to be careful about your filters. Large house? Bagged. Small apartment? Bagless. Do you vacuum water? wet-dry vac. Fine particles? Hepa-equipped. No or low carpet but lots of tracked debris? Cannister. Wood floors only with no stairs? Roomba

Which leads me to the last but probably most important subject about vacuum cleaners and actually the whole reason I wanted to write this piece.
Your vacuum has hoses (they et clogged), roller brush (it gets gummed) and filters (they get nasty). You cannot simply ignore all those parts. ESPECIALLY the roller brush.
Let me share something with you:

2014-06-06 17.45.20

2014-06-06 17.45.48

2014-06-06 17.46.20

See that? that was only two weeks of debris. TWO WEEKS. Imagine what is wrapped around your roller brush. You might have to use scissors. I did. You might have to take the head apart and remove the roller brush (I’ve done this many times for clients)

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text:
Lindsey Atkinson Go To Hell

Just because something looks beautiful to you, does not make it a good thing. Using butchered ASL to make a music video is not a good thing. Telling people that you are using ASL when you are actually transliterating from a dictionary is not a good thing. Discounting and dismissing when Deaf people themselves tell you you are being disrespectful is not a good thing. I don’t give a flying fuck how “beautiful” her videos are, she’s butchering a beautiful language and passing it off as expertise. Her videos aren’t even Pidgin or baby signs level, its BULLSHIT.

Example: she signs “hard to fall asleep” as
“rock-solid to trip (I)sleep” because apparently she is unaware (or doesn’t care) that some words which have many meanings in English do not have the same range of meaning in ASL. Like the word “fall” – it has three main meanings but one word is used in English. Well in ASL you don’t use the same sign for those three meanings. Even Signed Exact English doesn’t butcher the language like that, SEE has a specific sign for every English word so “fall” will not transliterate three ways. Because SEE isn’t a language, its a code. At least its a proper code, what she’s doing isn’t even that. Fuck me.

I commented on one of her vids as blandly as I could that she isn’t using ASL. SO of course her adoring (ignorant) masses jump up to defend her. She, wisely, says nothing because she knows full well what she’s doing and she doesn’t care. I google her and find several blogs and other mentions by Deaf people who despise her because they’ve told her straight up what she’s doing is wrong but apparently she either doesn’t answer them or blows it off like its no big deal with “well everyone signs differently”

Let me ask you something, if you heard someone say

Book blue me he give what to read
and everyone around said “OMG what beautiful English Poetry!!”

wouldn’t you be a bit peeved? Now imagine you tell them “um, that’s not English, that’s English words used in Spanish syntax. You can’t do that, its not the same” only to be called a naysayer with no heart because you can’t see the beauty in it? Fuck me. You can say “look, people who speak English don’t USE it that way” and some jackass tells you “oh everyone speaks English differently”

There are RULES in language. Ignoring those rules means you don’t respect the language.

I know why she’s doing this, because she doesn’t take ASL as a real language and neither do any of her adoring fans. They just think its gestured English. Christ that really riles me.

So, hearing people? Don’t fucking do that. ASL is not gestured ENglish or even signed English. Its a fucking LANGUAGE and it has RULES. Either learn the rules or put your hands down.

We Interrupt This Awesome Train of Thought

I’ma be honest with ya’ll; I was all FIRED up to continue my writing on the previous topic.

Then I came home in pain and exhausted. So I took a pill and cuddled with Lil Miss for a nap.

An hour or so later I stumble out of the bed because I’m only dozing, not sleeping and I really want to clear my head and maybe at least get some stuff started. See I have class websites I have to check too so its gonna be a packed night if I want to write. And I do, with a burning passion (well what’s left of my passion burning through my pain pill haze)

But then Lil Miss got up and after about an hour of trying to fend of her natural grumpies, it became obvious that she’s seriously cycling UP.

In some ways that really fun because she’s really charming and fun when she’s UP. In other ways, not so much because all that charm? Never shuts off. There’s no respite from the constant chatter and questions and topic-flitting. It kind of takes all my attention and energy.

So we’ve been trying to keep her low-key and reminding her that mommy is not feeling 100% please stop asking her to go downstairs. That’s kind of tiring too.

And now its almost bedtime and I’m still feeling tired and  worn out. But I still have my class websites to look at and my schedule to copy and oh whatever hellacious else I need to square away before bedtime because, hey-HO! I’ve got two more classes to start tomorrow except I can’t because I’m going to the doctor to get my stitches out and have a follow-up exam so oh yeah I also have to send emails to my new teachers I haven’t met yet and let them know I won’t be there tomorrow but I got the material blah blah blah

oy I’m tired just typing all that out.

So I’m just sayin’… the continuation probably ain’t happening tonight.

BUT it is one of my primary goals of 2013 to write consistently in this blog. Like every other night. I’m hoping to be there by Feb.

Please excuse us. We are having momentary technical difficulties and will return you to our regularly schedule hot sizzling story as soon as possible. Like tomorrow.

Thank you.

might be premature but…

what good is a journal if you wait for issues to resolve before you write about them? that’d be a pretty obvious excuse for never writing, actually.

So, with that in mind…

Recall my last entry. Very important, very amazing, very emotional for me… finding out what direction your life has been pointing you in is a big fuckin deal for sure. So… here I am, figuring “holy moses, I finally know what i want to do with all this education I’ve been getting! I finally know what I’m “supposed’ to be doing!” – as I said, big fuckin deal for sure.

So, practically speaking I have about 60-70 credit hours total. THe problem is that about half of those is out-of-state. So here’s what I’ve learned… in order for credits to transfer they need to

1) correspond to the major i.e be the same credit hours as what is required of your major OR be part of a core curriculum i.e. English 101, American Lit, a foreign language

2) be from an accredited college

3) be from a class/subject that carries  the same credit with the college you enrolled in i.e. most colleges won’t accept ASL as a foreign language credit

So I have a bunch of credits from a college in Pennsylvania. They are from nearly 20 years ago. Shouldn’t matter since it still an accredited college BUT many of the courses I took for core curriculum? Use a different ID system than the colleges down here. So when their system went looking at my transcript  it didn’t “recognize” most of my classes from up there. Oh joy. Now, becuase I’m enrolled in a certificate program, it didn’t matter: I don’t need a core curriculum anyway, I just need to take the classes to get through the program. But because they announced the bachelor’s program, I needed all my credits to be brought here. I talked with the program director and she explained why my credits for core curriculum haven’t transferred assuring me “when we switch to the bachelor’s program, a counselor will have to go over your transcript manually and put all those hours in by hand. don’t worry about it”  So I was going to be put into the bachelor’s program, have all my credits transferred then completing the 5 (or less) semester program I’d have a bachelors! I was expecting to just take these ASL classes and not need anything else. Concentrate on the ASL and get a degree then go straight into a master’s program. Fuckin awesome!

Well guess what? My college was denied creating their Bachelor’s program. Which means I can get an associate (I have enough credit hours for more than one AA) then transfer to a 4yr program. Except I don’t have most of my “core curriculum”  credits here. Which means if I can’t convince a counselor to do this for me, i’ll be expected to redo those fuckin classes in order to graduate.  In any case, the cert program is 5 semesters (2.5yrs) so if I want to finish the program, I am committed to another 2years here. When I thought those 2yrs were gonna net me a bachelor’s that was fine because I could go right into a master’s program after 2 years. Now,when I go to another college, I won’t be going in two years to go into a master’s program, I’ll be going in to do another two years towards a bachelors. Geeziz wept.

As you have read from the previous entry, I have been going to college for about twenty years. Its nobody’s fault (and really, who cares about Fault?)  but honestly I’d really like to FINISH.  Here I finally figured out exactly what I want to do and how to go about doing it… and now I have to change that plan YET AGAIN.

Then my beloved volvo died. The upshot is that I broke it without meaning to. Shoulda woulda coulda but doesn’t matter cuz the volvo probably has to be scrapped. Ugh. I should be glad since we have a second vehicle but that was whole POINT of buying the volvo was that we could retire the gas-guzzling about-to-die-any-day-now van.  I didn’t even get a year out of it!

*le sigh*

my life leads to a conference

Background, first.

I am a student at my local community college. I am in a program to get a bachelor’s degree in American Sign Language Interpreting. The reason I am in this program is a little odd and my history of college attendance doesn’t at all match up with what I’m doing now. So this story, which begins way back in 1990, weaves through several pregnancies, two marriages and four different colleges before it gets to the end of the beginning.

I began college in 1989 when I was pregnant with my first child. I assumed giving birth was going to necessitate a break from schooling so I decided to take the semester off before I went back to school. Well that turned out to be a decision I regretted because in less than two days after giving birth, I was ready to get back to a solid daily schedule and within two weeks I realized I missed school. But I did enjoy being with my son every day. I just knew that taking one or two classes wouldn’t have interfered with being a mother and being a mother certainly wouldn’t have interfered with taking one or two classes. Mind you, I was a freshman. My classes consisted of core curriculum which was frankly beneath my intellectual capabilities. In less than a semester I learned why community college was snickered at by other university students . The depth of ignorance and lack of knowledge amongst my “peers” was astounding to me. Granted, I went to excellent private schools (on scholarship) and I was a voracious reader (especially of non-fiction) yet the dearth of stimulation within my first year of college was almost depressing.

When I enrolled, I didn’t have any clue what I wanted to do. I assumed I’d do a liberal arts major – probably sociology since I read a LOT of that kind of thing – or perhaps I’d look into engineering since I loved science so much (but not in a research kind of way). After one semester, I was seized by the urge to look into film and photography. Mind you, I’d never snapped a picture before and the only exposure I’d had to film was in junior high when we all did a two minute animation short in art class. So I convinced my parents to buy me a really nice used Nikon SLR and I  went to my counselor and made photography/film my first major.

I loved all of it. However, it didn’t take more than one semester to figure out that once I had learned the basic mechanics of film-making/photography, I didn’t need to get a degree to do it. So after two semesters, I changed my major. To general engineering.

In order to major in engineering (or any science) you have to have a core of science basics. So I signed up for my science basics. I was told if I wanted to go into physics, I’d need more math. A lot of higher math. So I signed up for pre-calculus classes to ready myself for that higher math. Most of my liberal arts friends had done their requisite 4 credit hours of math and were happy to be done. But I was determined. I loved physics as much as my father did (he has his engineering degree in applied physics) and physics uses a lot of “heavy” math.  So I was going to put my nose to the grindstone and learn all that math. It was hella hard and there were times I really questioned whether I could make it but I finally made into the calculus class that was part of the physics requirements.

It was near the end of my first calculus class when I had “the moment”. That point in time when everything slows down, your brain hones in on what you’re trying to grasp and suddenly the gates of understanding open  up and knowledge just pours right on in, clicking into all the right places. It’s a mentally orgasmic experience. What gave me that moment? Proving the second fundamental theorem of calculus: Riemann sums. Wow. I still get shivers remembering it. My professor, who was staying after class to help me get through this very crucial part of the course, saw my face and he must have known what was happening. He smiled a little bit and almost shyly said “so, you see it?” and I knew what he meant and I whispered “yeah, I see it, I really do”

Walking home, I knew what I was doing the next day: I was changing my major to math.

So, jump-forward in time and I’m pregnant again. My attendance at school had been spotty – semester on, semester off – because my husband and I were trading working. He’d work for a while and I could go to school then I’d work for a while and he’d stay at home with the baby. Well I was in class while pregnant with my second and I decided I’d just take a week off. Told my teachers, they were fine with it, willing to give me make-up work and all that. At that time I was trying to play “catch up” on my pre-reqs still and not taking anything “fun”. Well my second son was born via c-section. I wasn’t going back to classes in week’s time. I had to withdraw formally for a while.

Fast-forward again and we’ve moved down South and I’m pregnant with our third child and I know in my bones our marriage is on its last legs. I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage things but I knew we were going to be split before that baby was ready for school. I enrolled in the main city community college and got my credits transferred. Some, of course, wouldn’t transfer. SO I was taking some of the same pre-reqs I had taken up North. I was still majoring in Math but starting to wonder if perhaps I should pick something more… marketable. I was eyeing statistics but thinking perhaps actuarial.

Then the marriage fell completely apart and I told my husband to get out. I had stopped college yet again, because he had stopped working in favor of staying at home getting drunk (when he WAS home at all) so I had started working for temp agencies. I realized I surely didn’t need his money, since he wasn’t making any and I definitely didn’t love him anymore so what were we doing? There was a lot I wanted to do with my life but taking care of a drunk adult was not one of those things. So I basically told him to pack up and leave.  I wasn’t sure how I’d make things work but my parents had offered me one of their rental houses and I knew people who needed roommate situations.

So after many fits and starts, I decided to go back to school again. This time, I was going to be pragmatic about it. I enrolled in a nationally-known chain voc-tech school famous for its geek-appeal. I enrolled as a computer programmer since I remembered enjoying that in high school. I was able to get in the accelerated program – classes were only on the weekends (so I could keep my job) or evenings but they were ALL DAY on the weekends. and they were accelerated so most of the work I’d be doing was on my own. It was very intense but I did enjoy it.

But then the ex started ditching his responsibility of taking the kids on the weekends. I started having to miss class. it didn’t take long (about a year) til I had to drop the whole thing. $20K in debt and nothing but 30 credit hours to show for it.

Fast forward again to almost a year ago. My best friend at the time was taking classes at the local state community college here. She for whatever reason decided to take a class in American Sign Language. I think she did it because I am vaguely familiar with Sign Language and I had a couple of Deaf friends. She felt somewhat “behind” when we all hung out because she didn’t know ANY signing. Well, one class and she was hooked. Decided she was going to get into the interpreters program. Next thing you know, she’s convinced ME to take some classes in Sign Language. Next thing you know, I’m taking the entrance exams for the Interpreter’s program and I get accepted. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do with an interpreter’s degree. Being an interpreter sounded okay to me and I surely enjoyed learning ASL (like I had enjoyed learning Spanish, French, Latin and Italian when I was in high school) but it wasn’t something I had ever considered to be a life goal for myself. I started looking into the other career applications of being certified as an interpreter. Seemed like education was a good start.

Now, mind you, I’ve never been terrifically attracted to the idea of being  a teacher. Many people close to me have been surprised to find that out but I maintain I am not really teacher material. I am tutor material. I have enjoyed teaching adults in a one-on-one environment or even in intensive five-to-one lectures, but the idea of a room full of children for 6-8hrs makes my stomach churn. no thanks.

But special education has held some interest for me. Because my life has been steeped in it since i was 13, I probably learned more about special education by the time I was 15 (and running away from home) than most people learn in a lifetime. Of course, the learning certainly didn’t end there, as most of you know. Having a brother with multiple disabilities (including deafness) may have begun me on the trail but having my own children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum disorder kept me on the trail with an insatiable curiosity  The more I learned about my sons’ disabilities and differences, the more interested I became. And I don’t mean that as just a mother, I mean that as a life-student. Many subjects involving humans directly interest  me but studying how the mind develops? how development all over works? whether from a historical point of view (eg anthropology) or a scientific point of view (eg evolutionary psychology) it was ALL fascinating to me. I still had a love of math (I still miss it) but special education just burns me with curiosity. Quite possibly because so much of it IS new and mysterious to us.

So in answer to the  constant question of “what are you going to do? Be an interpreter?”  I started saying “I dunno, I’ll probably go into Deaf Education.”

It wasn’t really THE answer, it was just AN answer.

As a good friend of mine said “the problem is I love EVERYTHING. I want to do it ALL” – which is pretty much true for me too. (with the exception of chemistry and basic history, I learned about those things under much protest)

So we fast-forward again to a night when I am meeting up with some fellow students from my Deaf History/Culture class. We have a project together and need to start hammering out the details of what we’re going to do.

Now, understand, I already feel somewhat self-conscious and alienated in classes because mostly I’m surrounded by people much younger than myself. While the vast majority of my friends are younger than me, it’s not by much and we all share the same geek-loves. When I reference a movie or song, most of my friends know what I’m talking about. Being socially insulated like that is nice but it does make one terribly self-aware of how sheltered you have been once you venture out of your circle of “normality”. I was also painfully aware of how slowly I was learning ASL. I know there were some students who were worse than me but I also knew there were plenty of student who were far better than I was. It bothered me some and I tried not to get down about it but there were times when I really wondered what I was doing… after all I wasn’t “in love” with the idea of being an interpreter and I didn’t really know what I was doing and here I was trying to slog through something that maybe I just didn’t have an aptitude for… that bothered me too since…

well okay look, when I was in High school, I studied Spanish as my language requirement but came to realize I loved learning language and I was good at it. I had an aptitude for it. It came easily and it was fun. I had dreams of being multi-lingual and all of my hs Spanish teachers thought so too. One of them began teaching me French, Latin and a little bit of Persian too. I loved it. We only covered a little bit of each but I discovered that Italian wasn’t hard to muddle through either!

Yeah all that was great until my hearing “issue” started interfering.

Up until I was about 14 or 15, I never gave much thought to my hearing issue. I’d had hearing checks and aside from some quirkiness, I passed. Tonally, and volume wise (which is what they test) I could hear just fine. My constant misunderstanding people was always believed to be part of my silly spontaneous personality.Everyone just accepted it as part of me; I was considered to be ditzy and child-like. (I can hear my friends laughing from here) Well that wasn’t what it really was. It was my hearing problem that I didn’t realize I had.

Now, when I was learning Spanish in high school,  it wasn’t much of an issue at first because most of what you do receptively, when learning a foreign language, is listen on headphones to someone speaking the most basic standard form of the language possible.

It was when I tried to decipher Spanish in a “normal” conversation that things became arduous and embarrassingly difficult. People would have to repeat the same simplistic sentence several times while I tried desperately to “hear” what they had said. If they wrote their words down on paper, bang, no problem, I knew it all but the second words left their lips in a “normal” environment I was likely to be left in the dust. It made me look far less competent in the language than I really was. It seemed to baffle people as well because I could SPEAK the language beautifully. I was often praised by natives for my exceptionally accurate accent. Part what I loved about Spanish (and the other romance languages) was its predictability in sound. That was why my difficulty in hearing it spoken in natural settings was so peculiar. I certainly understood how Spanish sounded. Testing showed I knew my vocabulary and grammar very well. I definitely knew how it was supposed to be spoken. So why did I fall apart when it was spoken to me?

Discovering I had the same difficulty with the other languages (at one point I tried to teach myself German and Japanese and did surprisingly well until I tried to hear it spoken) made me realize that this was not a language problem for me. Because when I truly thought about it, I knew I had had the same issues dealing in my native language of English. Clearly, there was a “hearing” problem.

Which meant I could never truly be a multi-lingual interpreter.

I abandoned learning other languages but kept up with my Spanish as it was handy to know even if functionally I was painfully slow with using it. I’d say learning foreign languages was probably the first academic dream I had had and giving it up was somewhat sad but I was young and there were many things I could learn that didn’t require perfect hearing.

So here I was, in a meeting with two other students from my Deaf History/Culture class in a restaurant. A nice noisy restaurant. With lots of ambient crashing sounds to obscure most of what I hear. But its fine because we’re not talking, we’re signing. Well I’m trying to sign anyway. By the time we got to the restaurant, I was already demoralized. We had previously been in a coffeeshop and one of my classmates had asked me to explain something to her. She’s Deaf so we have to sign yet the explanation I was trying to give was far more esoteric and unformed than I was capable of signing. So at one point, she used VRS (video relay service) as an interpreter (which is actually against the rules but we fudged it for a few minutes) because she simply could not understand what I was trying to say. All using VRS did was highlight the fact that my signing is woefully inadequate. So by the time we were in the restaurant with the other student I already felt like a dumbass.

Then the Deaf student turns to us both and asks each of us about our prior schooling. The other student’s story is fairly straightforward and simple. Mine is not. I start telling her what I’ve told you, in bullet-point style. Her eyes got bigger and bigger as I whipped through my geeky game of musical majors. “wait,” she signs “if you’re such a geek, and you ARE such a geek, then what in the world are you doing in the program? Why aren’t you studying calculus five or science or whatever”

I was a bit stunned. I mean I’ve been trying to really pinpoint the answer to that question myself and not really coming up with an exact answer. Here she was accosting me with a blunt manner that made me feel defensive. I felt like she was saying I had to justify learning ASL at all.

“I don’t know exactly” I signed, “I’m not sure but why not?”

“okay, let me ask you something” she signed ” Do you spend any time with Deaf people at all?”

“yeah, I do, I go to events but I also have a few Deaf friends one of whom I hang out with regularly”

She looked like she didn’t believe me. Those of you who know me know that is a button of mine… not being believed. But I tried to just drink it in and wait for whatever point she was going to make. I figured she had something constructive to tell me. “who is this friend?”  I told her my friends name. SHe didn’t know her (in the Deaf community its not unusual for Deaf people to know each other at least through two degrees of separation. Its a tight community) she started quizzing me on my friends ASL ability. Now I’m not about to get into a critique of my Deaf friends signing ability. That just seemed heinous to me.

“The point is,” the student signed ” is that you’re not very good. I mean sometimes I can understand you but other times you just don’t make any sense. Your signing is way behind. So if you’re so brilliant at math and science and this is so hard for you, why are you here? If you don’t LOVE the idea of being an interpreter, if you aren’t EXCITED by this, then what are you doing in the program?”

“hey look,” I interrupted, ” how old are you?”

“23” she signed

“And you?” I asked the other student

“25” he said

“okay look, I’m 46. I’m twice your age. It is harder for my brain to learn than it is for yours-”

“bullshit” she signed interrupting me forcefully

“excuse me?”

“bullshit” she signed again ” you’re making excuses. its sounds like you’re just avoiding responsibility”

“now wait a minute, I didn’t say it was IMPOSSIBLE. I said it was harder and it is-”

“no it IS, okay? its science. But look I’m HERE and I’m DOING IT. So obviously I’m not making excuses. I’m telling you reality.”

She was still shaking her head. I looked at the other student, he just shrugged his shoulders in agreement with her.

“okay, well I’m sorry you think it’s that simple. You’ll find out the hard way when you get older I guess.”

Then I got up and found our waitress. I told her I needed my food to go. Then I paid and I said good bye and I left.

That conversation haunted me. I cried out of frustration on the way home. I approached one of my teachers after class. I asked my Deaf friends (some of whom had watched a video or two of mine) and I talked to my hearing friends who have also watched my videos. Everyone tried to make me feel better and told me not to worry about it. I actually thought “maybe she’s right and I don’t belong here. I should just quit and do what I know i’m good at. Go back to math and hide behind numbers for the rest of my life” But it bothered me even more that I was thinking like that. That I was taking the criticism so hard. It was strange because it didn’t actually hurt my feelings, it undercut my confidence and made me question my ability to do what I love most: learn.

But I would not allow myself to give up from one criticism. I once was criticized so harshly during sailing lessons that I was depressed for days afterwards. I wondered if I should ever bother to get on a boat again. Whether I was “worthy” of sailing anymore. But eventually, the lure of doing what I loved was more powerful than one person’s undermining my sense of self. I’m just a little bit stronger than that. So I persevered. Both times. As always.

But it still nagged at me: what was I doing in this program? I couldn’t shake the feeling that I did have a reason for being there. That I hadn’t just stumbled into it like it appeared. Sure, I had Deaf friends and I knew some SEE before the classes but I didn’t go through three semesters of pre-lim ASL classes with a 3.7 GPA then pass my GEARS test and entrance exams just for shi-gizzles.

I knew I had a purpose, a goal… I just didn’t know what it was. Before I had that unsettling conversation with that student, I had kind of assumed the goal would come to me, over time, as I learned more and more about the world of ASL interpreting. My loose aim was to be certified in order to go into the field of education. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have that kind of extra knowledge under my belt and the sad fact is that many deaf children have  disabilities that qualify them for special ed. Plus had some murky ideas about teaching ASL in special ed classes regardless of whether the students were deaf or not.

So… last month, I went to a conference for interpreters in my region. No, I’m not one but us students were welcome to the conference. It was going to be a good chance to see people in the field discussing what it was like to be in the field in different capacities. The days were divided up into three main workshop times. Legal, entertainment, religious  and educational interpreting were all going to be covered over the course of three days. We were encouraged to go to all of them briefly “float around” as one of the organizers said. I planned to peek in on legal interpreting (I love legalese) and check out educational interpreting. Someone told me the legal workshop was ALL ASL with no interpreting or captioning. Well I wasn’t sure I was ready for that since I don’t know much legal vocab. I imagined the workshop really being geared towards interpreters who already work in legal who are looking to be better. SO I decided I’d start with the educational workshop then maybe move around. I wasn’t much interested in entertainment interpreting (probably because of my background in theater and musci – if I’m going to be involved in entertainment, its not going to be standing on the side!) and lord knows I had zero interest in religious interpreting (I’m amazed at how many get into the program specifically for religious interpreting) so legal and educational was pretty much all i was going to get anyway. I was a little bummed out – I had hoped there would be more than just those four represented.

So I started out in the room for educational interpreting.

Dear lord.

Within five minutes I knew I wasn’t going to any other workshop.

Within fifteen minutes I taking notes of everything

By the break I was walking around the room, talking with educational interpreters about their jobs as if I’d known them all their lives. I felt energized and excited. I was learning! Not just parceling out bits and pieces of information and struggling to put them together but zipping along taking everything that was thrown and out and stashing everything away into “the big picture”

It was heady stuff.

Then, at the end of the workshop, I was talking to another student from one of my classes about some of what we had gone over in the workshop. She asked me about some terminology that had been used. Initializations I’d been hearing and using for the last twenty years, since before my children had entered the larger world of education. She goggled at me as I explained the terms and quickly segued into the importance of certain specific regulations then to some of the changes in laws during the last few years as pertains to the ADA and how one should be aware of certain aspects of different types of regulatory categories and what they entail and how exciting it was to learn all this but more importantly how this kind of knowledge needed to be more widespread and you know when I got out of the program and started on my masters in education perhaps this was the angle I really needed to focus on because from everything I’d learned in my years of being the parent of a special needs kids-

“wow,” she interrupted, eyes wide with amazement, “you really know what direction you’re going in”

***** pause *****

I looked right at her and I could feel the wonder she had, as if she wished that she too knew exactly what direction she was going in, I knew that look because up until that very moment, I’d seen that look on my own face every time I asked myself what I was doing in this program.

Suddenly, I saw it all.. my future the way I want it to be.

I want to get a masters in special education, yes, but I want to go into administration. I want to be one of the people who has influence enough to make special education change and progress. I wouldn’t mind teaching and I’ll probably do it at first but what I want to do is be …an organizer. Because ever since I was a 13 year old girl listening to my mother cry after she’d been told her second son would never hear her say “I love you” never read a book to her, never look her in the eyes and never even sign “please” I’ve been fighting against this system that has tried so hard to ignore and shun every single child who doesn’t fit into the mold. And though I understand how that would work to keep the health of a system intact, our children aren’t here to support the system, the system is supposed to support our children. I’ve been fighting the education system since I first sat in an SST meeting and told the whole staff of a school off for trying pass the buck on my son’s education. I’ve been fighting and fighting the system sometimes as an ally, sometimes as an advocate, but mostly as a mother.

I don’t want to fight anymore. Not like this. I want to fight and know that I can win something. Because I don’t want to keep fighting against the system for the sake of one child, I want to start pushing within the system for the sake of all children.

I saw myself in that instant graduating, enrolling in grad school, working as an educational interpreter in the meantime, being able to see firsthand how things work (and how they don’t work)  I saw myself getting positions of influence in public education and pushing people to start noticing and stop ignoring the “special” kids. I saw myself doing this with joy and verve because I knew I was finally where my whole life has been leading me. This was the vision, the goal I’d had all along, I just didn’t know, couldn’t see it until now.

Dream big, baby, right?

yeah,” I said to her, ” I do know what direction I’m going in

and with that knowledge, I stumbled to my hotel room  and spent the next few days battling tears every time I remembered that conversation.

I can’t say my whole life changed.

My whole understanding of my life changed.

Mountain Folk

first, look at this:

I’ll tell you my story:

When I stayed at the Salvation Army as a young runaway, there was a wild girl who stayed there too who LOVED drugs. Now mind you, I was no innocent; I’d done a few inebrients myself. A little acid, a little speed. Tried marijuana but wasn’t my thing (it makes me terribly paranoid and upset and nauseated) This girl, though, she was one of those types you figure will either be dead or paralyzed within the next decade. Or she’ll “find jesus” or something like that. You knwo what I’m talking about… if you don’t, let me assure people like that really do exist. She was once observe at a party hiding in the bathroom plunging a huge hypodermic into her thigh. WHen asked what the substance was she injected she replied “speed.. I think”

So one night, a male friend of mine drove up to the youth lodge to take us all out. All mean me and her. He had a nice car. Well she decided she needed to get some specific type of drug. I can’t even remember what it was, some pharmaceutical or another. I didn’t really truck much with pill-popping because it just seemed too risky to get the good stuff. Every now and then someone would hand me a pill and say “its black beauties!” or “it Praaludes!” and I’d pop it (I liked uppers) but if I didn’t know the pill I wasn’t popping it. I didn’t know a lot of pills so i declined most. And I was young enough, and cute enough that I pretty much never paid for my own drugs when I did them. People were always handing them to me. I was barely 4 feet tall and I think people thought it was funny to give the “little one” wacky stuff.

Anyway, I’ll call her Liza cuz frankly I can’t remember her name and she probably gave us a fake one anyway. Liza insisted on taking us all on a crazy drive out to get drugs from some distant relative of hers. We drove forever. We were in the STICKS. As in the frickin mountains upon mountains that blot out all city lights and not in a good way. Like you could hear “Deliverence” playin in the wind behind the mountain.
We drove through the woods for about ten minutes once we left the last dirt road behind and we finally came upon what I thought was a deadfall blocking the way. But she insisted we get out so I rolled up my sleeves thinking we’re going to have to clear the debris to continue on. I thought, wow we are so fucking far out that we have to pick up goddamn rotten trees to get to our destination.
It was actually her relative’s abode. There was actually an “inside” to this place. There was also uh.. furniature? I guess you could call it? It was hard to tell.

Now, I’ve been scared a few times in my life but never quite so bizarrely as walking through that pile of rotting wood with chickens everywhere. I could not wrap my mind around the idea that someone actually lived there, called this place “home”. Truth be told, it was impossible to really think of this place as anything even resembling a “home” -even to the chickens- what with the “walls” not actually shutting out the elements and the “roof” not actually sheltering us from anything above, including an occasional hawk that dove down trying to catch one of the lazy chickens. There was, of course, a nice fat layer of trash from bygone days and I actually found myself slightly interested when i realized some “junk mail” was from the forties but I lost all positive feelings whatsoever when she walked around calling her relative’s name and got no answer. I had a brief feeling of impending doom when it became clear that no one was going to give a “normal” answer of any type and it occured to me that said relative might, in fact, not be pleased as punch to see her there. Especially with a couple of strangers.

I grew up in the south and I know rednecks but I have to be honest when I say I’d had very little experience with… what we called “mountain people” and of course everything I’d heard was pretty damned bad. You didn’t mess with Mountain people. Basically my family made it clear that you pretty much didn’t have anything to DO with mountain people. If they showed up you humored them and waited for them to be on their way. Under no circumstances make fun of them and talk very simply to them, lest they take offense. They were known to be violent with a hair-trigger. The thing was that my family feared Mountain people, yes, but we felt a certain kind of patronizing kinship with them too. My father’s people were a long line of merchants, So we were never “down there” with mountain folk, but we certainly knew about them. Except me, of course, and i was terrified of them.

While I was busy figuring out that I was probably in the worst possible place I had ever been in my short life and how in hell was my family going to handle the notion that not only did I get killed but I was killed by a mountain person after all their warnings and sheltering, Liza was rifling through one of her relative’s medicine cabinets. He had six afixed to the walls. The reason she had decided to violate his uh, personal abode, was because her relative had apparently passed out on the floor and was lying in apuddle of his own refuse. I noticed the staining before I noticed the smell. I asked her if maybe we should check on him.
“him?” she sniffed, “no, he’ll wake up whenever”
Liza didn’t find whatever in blazes she was looking for and she seemed pretty convinced that cousin whosis had scads and scads of her drug-of-choice (who knew Mountain people could be so darned picky about their inebrients?) she just needed to find the right medicine cabinet. I did think it was odd that in a place so full of… chaos, her great-nephew had adhered to some semblence of order by using actual medicine cabinets to house his pill bottles. Maybe it made them easier to find than letting them lie around in chicken shit.
In any case, she was starting to get kind of pissy about it, making noise and all which alarmed me enough to realize exaclty how scared I really was – as was our driver, Tom who at that moment said “really, Liza, can’t we just uh, come back later?”
She looked at him like he’d lost his mind “and spend another four hours driving?!” well okay I guess that did seem a little nuts if you assumed he was telling the truth and was actually willing to come back.

At that point I decided I needed a cigarette and told her I’d be outside. As I turned to go (and began wondering if i’d make it outside as frankly every angle I turned the place looked like the same ungodly jumble of old papers, sections of sawed-off furntiature, chicken remnants and I-don’t-know-what-that-is-and-I-don’t-want-to…when suddenly someone appeared out of.. the back? of somewhere?

I will not bother to accurately describe It is sufficient that you imagine the basic Mountain person stereotype. Battered brimmed hat, huge white beard, gaping toothless maw, grey clothes of an indeterminate nature… you get the idea.

Liza turned and said “Cousin Drew?!”
Drew opened his maw a little wider and said the words I was hoping he would not say “Who are you?!”
Liza opened her arms and walked towards him “DREW! ITS ME!!”
“damn, Liza, tell him your fucking name” I thought, “He probably doesn’t remember!”
“Liza??” he finally said
then he dropped the gun and they hugged.

That was enough for me. Nobody was getting shot. I was going outside. I waited until she was ready to go. Tom came out with her, pale as a sheet.
“are you okay? what happened?”
“nothing… he wanted to share his moonshine with me”
“did you?”
“are you NUTS? Don’t you know mountain shine can kill you if you aren’t used to it?!”
“oh okay so was he offended?”
“no, thank god”
“great, let’s go”
“yeah” said Tom

So we left.


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Media believing their own hype

Can anyone recall an inauguration that was more relentlessly hyped? Having hyped it up to the status of a world-historical event — the French Revolution can’t hold a candle to it — now the media have begun inhaling their own inaugural hype:

CNN’s Washington bureau chief David Bohrman, for one, issued a “news emergency” of his own. While Bush freed up federal funds, Bohrman made available satellite phones in the event of rolling cell phone blackouts. There will be cots and air mattresses for staffers camping out in the newsroom on Monday night, along with shower arrangements at a nearby health club. Staffers will be treated to a pancake breakfast prior to braving the bitter cold and bulging crowds. “It’s the biggest event any of us have ever had to cover,” Bohrman said.

Biggest. Event. Ever.

War in Iraq, tsumani in Indonesia, space shuttle explosions, the fall of the Berlin Wall — all child’s play, compared to orchestrating the thoroughly scripted coverage of a thoroughly scripted ceremonial pageant.

Excuse any typos. I’m writing this blind, my eyes having rolled out of my head about 10 minutes ago.

UPDATE: In an unusual variation on the theme, columnist Leonard Pitts writes:

[W]hen Obama was elected in November, every third political cartoonist seemed to use an image of a celebrating Lincoln to comment upon the milestone that had occurred. Lincoln, they told us, would have been overjoyed.
Actually, Lincoln likely would have been appalled. How could he not? He was a 19th century white man who famously said in 1858 that “there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which . . . will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality.”
How do you reconcile that with all those cartoons of Lincoln congratulating Obama? You don’t. You simply recognize it for what it is: yet another illustration of how shallow our comprehension of history is, yet another instance where myth supersedes reality.

Of course, were I to make an issue of the contradictions between the historical reality and the posthumous legend of Lincoln, this would be met with denunciation of “neo-Confederate racism.” Leonard Pitts points out the same contradictions without fear of denunciation. In fact, anyone who criticizes Leonard Pitts risks denunciation as a neo-Confederate racist. Sigh . . .

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