no_more_cookies

Manifesto for Apes and Nature

2008-04-18T15:13:45Z

A group of primatologists got together and wrote up a manifesto to encourage governments to support conservation and economic development efforts in habitat countries so that wild apes do not disappear completely in the next 50 years (only 20 for orangutans). The authors and signatories, of course, support conservation not only because it will save the great apes but also the other species that live in threatened forests. They recognize that appealing to the public for support saving our closest relatives, who happen to be large, charasmatic animals, is more likely to spur action than saving a lot frogs or plants or insects.

In case anyone is interested, click here for more information and an opportunity to sign.

Tropical forests are disappearing at an accelerating pace and with them go the last populations of great apes. Knowledgeable specialists working with great apes and/or nature conservation are unanimous in their thinking: if we do nothing, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos will have disappeared by the middle of the 21st century. For orang-utans, the situation is even more dramatic: in twenty years time, they may exist only in zoos.

Today, urgent action is needed in order to stop this Ecocide! To save the great apes we must save the tropical forests, ecosystems which are essential to our planet. The wide-spread disappearance of these forests is the result of excessive and unmonitored exploitation, which endangers not only the survival of the ecosystem but also the associated biodiversity as well as the indigenous populations depending on it, creating enormous environmental problems: deforestation is one of the major causes of greenhouse gas emissions and therefore of global warming. The disappearance of the tropical forests endangers the very survival of Homo sapiens sapiens: modern humanity. It is time to act and to react, before it is too late!

We, citizens of the Earth, ask our governments and international authorities to accept as their supreme duty to save and to protect non-human primates and to do the utmost in order to:

Enforce programs of sustainable management which will in return be respectful of the tropical forest environment, the habitats of the great apes (and other non-human primates as well as other valuable wildlife)
Ban the import of tropical wood which is not recognized as sustainable commerce and therefore not respectful towards the environment. All exportable woods must meet the criteria established by FSC certification
Contribute to the enforcement of regulations for mineral resource exploitation (to include petroleum, diamonds, coltan, iron, etc.) that is respectful of the environment and of local populations
Stop the poaching of great apes, the associated trading of “bush meat” and the sale of young individuals as “companion animals”
Implement strict controls on companies working in tropical regions, especially those whose headquarters are in industrialized countries, in order to verify whether or not they adhere to points 1, 2, 3 and 4 of this manifesto
Invest crucial financial support to enforce clauses 1 through 5 and in particular, to use said support to develop sustainable management projects with local people.

Buffy Bonanza This Weekend

2008-03-28T03:48:58Z

This weekend I am going to have an all Buffy, all the time kind of Saturday. The San Diego Indie Music Festival is in North Park (basically my neighborhood) and Amber Benson's new movie Lovers, Liars, and Lunatics will be screening in the afternoon, followed by a Q&A with none other than Amber Benson. Then, just a couple of short hours later James Marsters will be performing on the main music stage. I am attending this event with two of my school friends, Kyleb and Alyssa, Lea, and her friend Allana. All of whom like Buffy. But, even cooler is that Kyleb, Alyssa, and I had already planned a Buffy nite for that night before we even knew about the Buffyverse fun at the festival. So, we will leave the festival to watch Buffy at my house. I believe it will be quite enjoyable.

This will be only the second actual social outing I have had with Alyssa and Kyleb. All three of us tend to be anti-social so it nice to attempt socializing outside of our offices on campus.

mcookies @ 2008-03-22T16:42:00

2008-03-22T23:42:10Z

I am done grading. I am done calculating grades. I just need to fill in the little bubbles on the grade sheet. This is very good. I shall commence relaxing.

mcookies @ 2008-02-27T21:07:00

2008-02-28T05:11:32Z

My birthday was very good this year. Well, except for the grading papers. That always sucks. But Lea and I left my school/her work early and went to dinner at Sipz. It is a vegetarian Asian fusion restaurant right by the comic book store. How convenient. I had the "beef" and broccoli but instead of the fake beef, I had tofu. Lea had the Bun Chay Tofu. It was all very good. Then we went to the comic book store and I got the new Runaways and the most recent Angel: After the Fall. Then we went to the new Korean frozen yogurt place and I got peanut butter and chocolate. That is my favorite. There weren't any open tables outside so we moved the car to a parking spot in the sun and sat in the trunk. Very funny.

Then I got to open my presents. Lea is very good at buying presents for me. She got me a Ravenclaw tie, the Serenity wave cards, Veronica Mars season 3, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer hat, and earlier I had already gotten the Serenity blueprints reference pack. All very cool stuff. There are also a few items that are on pre-order that I will get soon. The new Starbuck action figure!!!!! The fruity oaty bar lunch box from Serenity and a new Serenity t-shirt.

Very good. She is a great lady. It was fun. Then I went home and graded and she went to class. Very good, though.

A Day in the Life of a Dog and a Cat

2008-02-21T02:35:09Z

Look behind the cut for very funny diary entries by a dog and a cat. I read it several times a day and laugh. Those are totally my dogs.

DOG DIARY:

  8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!

  9:30 am- A car ride! My favorite thing!

  9:40 am- A walk in the park! My favorite thing!

  10:30 am- Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!

  12:00 pm- Lunch! My favorite thing!

  1:00 pm- Played in the yard! My favorite thing!

  3:00 pm- Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!

  5:00 pm- Milk bones! My favorite thing!

  7:00 pm- Got to play ball! My favorite thing!

  8:00 pm- Wow! Watched TV with my people! My favorite thing!

  11:00 pm- Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!



  CAT DIARY:

  Day 983 of my captivity.

  My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.
  They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are
  fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for
  the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in
  order to keep up my strength.

  The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.

  In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

  Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their
  feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it
  clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made
  condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am.

  Bastards!

  There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was
  placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event.
  However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard
  that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn
  what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.

  Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my
  tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try
  this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.

  I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches.

  The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and
  seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

  The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with
  the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My
  captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell,
  so he is safe.

  For now...

The Semicolon Makes a statement in NYC

2008-02-18T17:10:21Z

Please put it in a trash can; that's good news for everyone.

A brief article in the NY Times about a semicolon in a sentence on a sign on the subway encouraging people to throw trash away.

I love the semicolon; it is a great piece of punctuation.

Vaginas

2008-02-17T18:43:12Z

We went to the Vagina Monologues at UCSD last night and it was kind of strange. Our primary motivation was that a student intern at Lea's job was performing and we went to see her. The last time we saw the VM at KU, I was pretty sure it would be the last time. Not because they are not great and powerful and all that but because it seemed to be getting a little old as each year went by. A little burnout. So, it has been 4 years since I last saw them and absence makes the heart grow fonder. It was really fun and these ladies did a great job. It was more dramatic and they were more theatrical, adding great physicality to it that I don't recall in the KU productions. But I have to admit it was also strange. No one I have taught was actually on stage, although one of my current students was a stage hand, but I see these folks very differently now.

At KU, even though I was older than most undergraduates having taken the scenic route through college, I was one of them even if I did not perform I took part in the event. Now I teach people their age and see them as so young. But they are adults and can talk about vaginas all they want. So it was a little weird. But good. It was also neat to be reminded of the fact that even though it is something "old" for me, this is their first opportunity to take part like this. It is a radical event and probably very life changing. It is always important to be reminded of that and it made me appreciate it even more.

There were these two young guys sitting in front of us and they appeared to get more and more uncomfortable as the show went on. My first response was to think, why be here if you cannot handle it and that they didn't need to be there if they were going to be so easily embarrassed. Then I realized that, almost as much as the young women, young men need to be there. They need to see it. They need to learn about how awesome vaginas are and how so many women suffer sexual violence in our world. These two guys were very shocked when at the beginning the emcee asked people to stand up if they had been or knew someone who had been a victim of sexual violence. Almost all of the women stood up. Men need to know that women's vaginas are a source of great pain and pleasure and that they are not just penis recepticles, even if a woman engages in heterosexual sex. Even though they were embarrassed, I hope that the experience helps them understand the women in their lives better, that they become better lovers and better human beings.

At KU we always had a Vagina Festival go along with the monologues complete with vagina cookies. I believe that these students should also have vagina cookies. Perhaps Lea can suggest it to the student she knows. My favorite little bit is the part where a lady talks about the clitoris as the ONLY organ in the human body designed purely for pleasure and that it has 8000 nerve endings in this little tiny bundle, fully 2x as many as the head of a penis, which is way bigger, too. So the absolute and relative number is bigger. Excellent.

Good times.

Some days are good, others...

2008-02-10T16:53:17Z

are SPECTACULAR!

Yesterday was one of the spectacular kind. We have been having seriously crazy and expensive car trouble as of late and have finally given up on the big car. It is a Honda CR-V. It was always a wonderful car to have, particularly with the dogs, but I must admit to always disliking the near SVU nature of it. Now, we got it because the car we drove out here with, a Honda Civic, did a wonderful job getting us out here but we traded cars with my mom, she had the CR-V, for a reason. I do not currently remember that reason but I am sure there was one. Then, my mom drove the Civic back to KC and gave the car to a family friend who was in need of such a vehicle. The CR-V served us well for 3 and half years but recently began eating money. Chomp chomp chomp.

So, yesterday, as the fuel gauge reached empty we pulled up to the Honda dealership in Huntington Beach and left 2 hours later in this:

This is Starbuck, our new car. She is a 2008! Honda Fit. They are apparently one of the most popular cars worldwide but were never sold in the US until now. It is a reasonable car and was actually cheaper than many of the used Civics. Very nice. It even has an mp3 jack. I like that.

Ariana Huffington is Hilarious

2008-02-05T04:57:21Z

On last week's Left, Right, and Center from KCRW out of Santa Monica, Ariana Huffington mentioned her website and the Huffpollstrology posts. Ariana Huffington, the voice from beyond (progressive independent) on the show, hates pollsters and political opinion polls and I guess now posts results from polls for the presidential candidates plus their horoscopes and online political betting pools. That is one of the funniest things I have ever heard. She cracks me up. Here is the intro:

"Polls have come to dominate the media's horse race coverage of political campaigns. Pundits and reporters constantly use them to tell us who's hot and who's not -- but skip over the fact that plummeting response rates and variables like undecided voters and margins of error and often render these polls useless as anything other than lightweight diversions on par with horoscopes and political betting lines. Our HuffPollstrology chart helps keep you up to date on the latest poll results, along with the latest horoscope predictions, and the latest online political betting lines - and will hopefully help the polling junkies in the media keep polls in the proper perspective."

If you haven't listened to this show you should if you like politics. It is a roundtable discussion with the left, right, center, and Huffington discussing the political news of the week. It is totally great and usually pretty funny. Tony Blankley, the conservative, often says things that make me want to throw things and vomit but it is still fun.

A little BSG and Some HP

2008-01-31T06:28:16Z

Battlestar Galactica comes back to the airwaves Friday April 4th. If you have never watched it or perhaps you watched the first season but never got the second one, you could take this opportunity to watch it now. It is going to air on Friday so I wonder if that means that SciFi will bring back SciFi Fridays. I miss those. Although Stargate:Atlantis is still coming out with new episodes and SG-1 is gone so I am not sure what they would show with it. Oh, Flash Gordon maybe. I have not watched it but I have not heard good things about it. Maybe Eureka. I have not watched that either but it sure does sound interesting.

I cannot wait for the new Galactica episodes. What will happen to Starbuck? Who is the fifth Cylon? Will President Roslin live? What is this crazy dream thing going on with Athena, Six, and Roslin? I am getting a Starbuck action figure for my birthday. I am also going to get Veronica Mars season 3 and a Ravenclaw tie. I always get sorted into Ravenclaw, which is fine with me as long as I do not have to be friends with the snooty Ravenclaws. Luna Lovegood will be my Ravenclaw friend.

I know what I am getting for my birthday because Lea ordered them from eBay and her account is the same as mine. So I got the e-mails about them. But that is okay. I do not need to be surprised to be totally excited. I mean, really, you ask the pretty lady for 3 very specific things, you know there isn't much surprise there. I am excited about all three things. I almost asked for a Gryffindor tie because I always wish I could be in Gryffindor, but I never am.

How does the US electoral system work? Kind of like this.

2008-01-30T18:12:36Z

A response to a question from

ethel_aardvark who lives in New Zealand where electoral politics maybe make more sense.

I think this is correct. I hope so. I will try to look it up later and make sure but I think the basic idea is in there. The part about money and possible disenfranchisement of millions of people because of the electoral college. I so got that right.

The first thing to discuss is money. You have to have a lot of it. That's really all there is to say about money. Now, the electoral college.

In the early days of the United States, every state was designated a certain number of delegates to the electoral college. The number of delegates a state was given was based on the population so that they were distributed proportionally. When citizens (at the time, white, male landowners) voted in the Presidential Primary, they would not actually be voting for a candidate, they would be voting for one of the delegates that supported the candidate they chose. So, the people voting would get together and caucus or later actually cast ballots. For delegates. Not candidates.

After each state had its Primary, all of the delegates would attend the party national convention. At the convention is where the real voting took place. The idea was that the candidate who had the most delegates at the convention would be the one the party nominated to run for president. But, delegates also had a little bit of leeway. They could change their votes and often these conventions could get quite heated.

Ultimately, it just meant that the popular vote was not always the way that the candidates were chosen. If the votes of the delegates diverged from the popular vote, then the delegates decided the candidate not the people.

Then we go to the national general election where the president was actually elected. Again, people would "cast a vote" for a candidate but again, they would really be voting for delegates in the electoral college. The electoral college would then get together and the number of members of the electoral college each candidate got would determine who won the presidency. Again, not the popular vote. Typically, the electoral college votes matched the popular vote but not always. Such as the 2000 presidential election where Al Gore won the popular vote but the Secretary of State of Florida (a Bush family friend) decided the state's very close election was in favor of Bush and the Supreme Court agreed.

In the 19th century, this form of voting made sense. Votes were tallied by hand, communication between states took a long time because it had to be delivered by hand and of course there weren't cars or planes or the internet. So, for a large nation with lots of states it made sense to do things this way. Well, since the beginning of the 20th century, or at least the mid-20th century, this does not make sense any more. Communication is instant and there is no reason to not have the popular vote stand as, well, the will of the people.

For some odd reason we have not abolished the electoral college and moved to a national primary election day where everyone votes on their party's candidate the same day and the person who get the most votes wins. Then that person runs against the other party's person and the popular vote again determines the winner. There are also these people called "Super-delegates" who are party big wigs in each state who have a vote as a delegate to the party convention that weighs as much as the other delegates'. The other delegates, however, represent a proportion of the population of the state who actually voted for someone. These "Super-delegates" do not. One person, a shitload of votes. Their voice counts more that the rest of us. Pretty much that disenfranchises a whole bunch of people. In the land of the free and all that.

Now, I am not so naive as to think that one person, one vote is actually the way this thing works. The electoral college keeps party influence in the hands of entrenched, establishment interests and you have to be absurdly wealthy or sell yourself to the absurdly wealthy to even get a voice in this thing. The people get to choose between the candidates that the establishment decides to allow to run. None of these people are the Puppet Master but the forces at work all tend to favor establishment candidates. I am trying to make myself sound less like a conspiracy theorist.

I hope this makes sense. I think it is pretty accurate, although it has been a while since I had a government class. Some of the details might be a little funky but the general idea is right. If anyone has corrections, please let me know. I will try to look this up later and make sure it is accurate.

The Bush State of the Union--responding as we go...

2008-01-29T02:48:09Z

What he's said so far and what I think about it (these are not direct quotes, they are paraphrases, except for the first sentence of #3):

1. Trust the government.
This president has probably done more to damage faith in the government than any president since Nixon. Trust the government to do the people's work. Like lie to them about the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. And the imminent threat that Iraq under Saddam Hussein presented. And how quickly the war would be over. And how we are not setting up a permanent military presence.

2. Not making the bush tax cuts permanent means raising taxes. No new taxes! American families have to balance their budgets, so should the federal government.
$720 million dollars a day for the war he lied about. $720,000,000 per day. $262,800,000,000 a year. Not all of this went into the budget. Lower taxes, $262.8 BILLION in military spending every year. Can he do math?

3. Decisions about medical care should be made in the privacy of your doctor's office, not in the halls of congress.
The government should not get involved in health care decisions, like providing affordable health care for every American. But, your decision about whether or not to have a child should probably be made by the president's God and the congress.

4. The oil man says, use less oil.
No comment.

5. Our foreign policy is based on the idea that people, when given the chance, will choose democracy and freedom.
As long as you define "choose" as unilateral invasion and the advent of horrible poverty and violence, the slaughter of innocent human beings, and the destruction of thousands year old buildings and art that were the cradle of human civilization. I am sorry, it's not unilateral invasion. It is the "Coalition of the Willing".

6. Just commenting--this very bad man has no sense of history. Many struggles similar to the one between "LIBERTY" and "EVIL" that we are engaged in currently have occurred in the past. Perhaps if he had read a history book he would know that economic and political problems are often embedded in religious symbolism and discourse. Perhaps he should look into the division between the Shia and Suni in the first hundred years after the death of Muhammad. Maybe then he would learn a little something about the world in which he has so forcefully inserted himself. Or what about the Protestant Reformation? (Did you know that the Catholic Church declared that forks were the instrument of the devil when they first came about in Western Europe?)

$720 million dollars a day.

ETA: So very angry that I am going to go ahead and fill out my absentee ballot to vote in the California Primary. This is the first time I have done absentee and I think I am okay with it. I am still disappointed about not going to the polls. I love election days and atmosphere of polling places. The democracy of it all just gets me. And the sticker. Last year I got stickers in Spanish, English and Vietnamese. As one of those "libery-loving Americans" the president is so fond of invoking, I am going to enjoy exercising my right to vote for someone to replace him.

Oh, and the link on the $720 million dollars a day above is to a great YouTube video about what else we could buy with $720 million dollars a day. Really cool stuff like affordable housing, health care, education improvements, school lunches. And lots of those things.

Clinton Cries and the Media Give In To Their Baser Biases

2008-01-19T23:08:54Z

So Hillary Clinton's eyes mist over while discussing how hard it is to run for president and how exhausted she is. The mainstream media respond with more overt misogyny than we usually get from them. The majority of critical coverage and insightful punditry typically chastises her for being too stiff, unemotional and coming off cold. Because women are not supposed to be cold, calculating leaders. Do we ever hear about how cold Dick Cheney is? About how unemotional and unfeeling his public presence is? The man is the true incarnation of evil but his stoic demeanor is indicative of his seriousnes and his ability to "make the tough decisions". There are countless other examples of male politicians being cold and unfeeling and not necessarily praised for it, but it simply doesn't figure into the equation. I mentioned Cheney just because he seems to be the prototypical example. But it works with most of them.

So then she cries and she doesn't have the...balls...to be president. John Edwards, the leading progressive-populist democratic candidate, talks about how it takes strength to be commander-in-chief--clearly making the point that Clinton does not possess that strength. Not only, apparently, is there no crying in baseball but there is no crying in national politics. The constant coverage and talking-head idiocy that took over the news for the days surrounding the New Hampshire primary and even into this week is making me sick. I am just now writing about this because I can finally do more than say, "Stupid fucking misogynistic heteropatriarchial fuckers". But then I realized that Katha Pollitt said it much better in her recent blog entry for The Nation. I love Katha Pollitt. She is freaking awesome.

Mitt Romney doesn't know what the Violence Against Women Act is and nobody seems to notice. Would anyone like some double-standard with their media misogyny?

And everyone is really enjoying saying Hillary, Obama, and Edwards. Which of these things is not like the other? Why is she, a sitting member of the United States senate, referred to by the media by her first name and not her last? NPR does this, RadioNation does this, and of course, Fox and the mainstream media do this, too. But, NPR's Bob Garfield recently did a great story about this on On the Media, one of the greatest shows ever, and offerred a great discussion of the use of Hillary's first name but not John or Barack's. There are certainly instances of the use of male politicians' first names in campaigns or disparaging nicknames (Slick Willie comes to mind) but news outlets tend to refer to them by their last names which in our society connotes respect and possession of authority.

Rodents of Unusual Size

2008-01-17T02:24:22Z

Giant extinct rodent was guinea pig relative.

I think that link might require an account so here is a story from the NY Times.

1500 pound extinct rodents that were herbivores. Phoberomys pattersoni. Totally cool.

Best. Marketplace. Story. Ever.

2008-01-17T02:19:01Z

This evening on Marketplace there was a great story about marketing clothing to big and tall men. Why would that be interesting, you ask?

This company, Colossus, was having trouble marketing its clothing line until they tapped into the Bear market. That's right. Bears. They even had audio of a photo shoot with Bears where the photographer said, "Okay, guys. Say grrr". Freaking awesome. The photo shoot was for A Bear's Life magazine that "is only slightly more risque than O magazine".How often do you hear about Bears on anything that is not decidedly queer?

I love Marketplace but right now? Love it even more.

Listen or read the transcript here.

What Battlestar Galactica character am I? Not Starbuck.

2008-01-10T05:29:43Z

There was this whole quiz thing here previously but apparenty I still have not really figured out html and whatnot so I will just say that it said I was 69% Chief Tyrol, 63% Apollo, and 61% Laura Roslin.

I am pretty okay with that. I like those folks and no matter how much I might like to fantasize about being Starbuck, I know I am nothing like Starbuck. That's okay. I would really rather fantasize about Starbuck in a different way.

Perhaps you can guess what way that happens to be.

Not that big of a nerd, gorramit!

2008-01-10T05:20:38Z

You Are 68% Nerdy

You are a pretty big nerd, and you're getting nerdier every day.
Don't worry if you don't have friends... there's always robots.

How Nerdy Are You?

I am a geek but not a General Geek

2008-01-10T05:19:01Z

Your Geek Profile:

Academic Geekiness: Highest
Fashion Geekiness: Highest
SciFi Geekiness: Highest
Movie Geekiness: High
Music Geekiness: Moderate
Geekiness in Love: Low
Gamer Geekiness: None
General Geekiness: None
Internet Geekiness: None

How Geeky Are You?

Apparently, taking online quizzes instead of writing my proposal does not make me a slacker

2008-01-10T05:15:47Z

You Are 16% Slacker

You are anything but a slacker. You're truly a go getter.
You never let laziness get in the way of living your life - and you can't stand to see it in others.

Are You a Slacker?

I am not homophobic--big surprise

2008-01-10T05:12:20Z

You Are 0% Homophobic

You're open minded, tolerant, and accepting.
And you're not homophobic in the least :-)

Are You Homophobic?

I feel so young at heart...

2008-01-10T05:09:22Z

You Act Like You Are 28 Years Old

You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel like an adult, and you're optimistic about life.
You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

You're still figuring out your place in the world and how you want your life to shape up.
The world is full of possibilities, and you can't wait to explore many of them.

What Age Do You Act?

Not very accurate but quite agreeable IQ Test

2008-01-10T04:59:04Z

Your IQ Is 130

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average

Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius

Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius

Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Very funny Harry Potter Filk

2008-01-02T17:54:26Z

Listen to this song. It is a Harry Potter filk based on Avril Lavigne's song "Girlfriend". It is really funny. I don't really know the original song but this is totally hilarious.

I love Harry Potter

2008-01-01T18:36:57Z

Harry Potter is so amazing. I just started listening to PotterCast, the official podcast of the Leaky Cauldron, and I love it. The majority of my entertainment these days is through podcasts and since school is out and I am just writing lectures throughout the day I can listen to podcasts while I work. Usually, when I am writing a paper or grading or doing just about anything related to school I cannot listen to talking or music with words. I tend to rely on the Serenity and Battlestar Galactica soundtracks. So, I have been going through them like crazy and looking for other ones to listen to. I downloaded PotterCast just to listen to the interview with JK Rowling and have decided that I love it.

The interview with JK Rowling was amazing. That woman is simply phenomenal. I am so impressed with her, her ideas, and all of the symbolism embedded in these books. The books really captivated me and continue to captivate me and Rowling is simply incredible. She is so well-spoken and so open and has such an amazing perspective. If you love Harry Potter you should listen to this podcast. Now I am catching up with it and really enjoying it. The hosts are hilarious and have great insights into the books. They have one segment called "Canon Conundrum" where they try to figure out bits of canon that just aren't totally clear. One episode they talked about the Deathly Hallows and what would happen if all 3 came together, like would there be a big flash of light and the possesor would become 20 feet tall? Or is the importance of them coming together just magnified through myth? It was really fun. You should listen to it if you like Harry Potter.

Rowling just has such great insights and constructed such a wonderful and complex mythology and a complete world. I wish I were a literary critic and then I would have big fancy words to say she rocks. But she really rocks.

Preliminary Safety Inspection Report

2007-12-16T16:58:05Z

So, a few days ago our paleo-diet post-doc asked me to let the safety office guy into her lab so he could do the safety audit since she wasn't going to be here. I, of course, was happy to do so. In the process of the safety inspection, I realized that I would need to e-mail her a few things he said to me about the lab and safety. Here I have posted the e-mail. Names have been changed to protect me from accusations of unprofessionality and disdain for safety regulations. I wrote the report while proctoring a final and when I returned to the lab, my next door neighbor (known as Alice M. Crichton in the e-mail) had printed it out and taped it to the wall between our offices. I found that highly amusing. Please enjoy.

Dr. Keller,

I hope this e-mail finds you well and in a location where there are at least 44 inches of open, navigable space in nearby hallways and that any and all hallway furniture is securely secured to the wall and that any combustibles stored on said hallway furniture (e.g., “books”) are safely contained behind a fireproof door or covering. The very excellent Kevin Jacobs and I just completed our safety audit of your lab in the Chemistry Research Building Lacking Chemistry and I thought I would pass on a few notes in anticipation of the completed and in triplicate report you are no doubt expecting from Kevin.

First, let me applaud you for not having heavy items stored high off of the ground. As you know, in the event of an earthquake emergency, these items may experience jostling and fall off of their appointed shelves, impacting the crania of bystanders or perhaps the cranium of a single bystander. Your lab, as I am sure you are aware, does not contain any serious hazardous chemicals nor does it produce significant quantities of hazardous waste. There are however a few potential safety issues in your lab at the present time. The fire extinguisher near the southern door has been studiously checked by someone signing their name “Eris” through the month of October. Perhaps this “Eris” could also write her name on the lines next to November and December in order to indicate that the preparedness of the fire extinguisher is fully realized. The fire extinguisher by the north door, however, has not received such wonderful attention from this “Eris” or anyone else. It may be to your advantage to have “Eris” or someone else in the lab write their name on some lines there, as well.

Under the hood are stored some chemicals that may, upon leakage, react with one another to create heat. Now, hydrochloric acid, acetic acid and acetone are not the most hazardous of chemicals we find on this campus but they do have the potential to be near combustible. If the hydrochloric acid and acetone were to mix they might get warm. And while they are stored under the hood, if they were to mix outside of the hood, perhaps there would be some noxious fumes that apparently can cause a person to want to jump out the window of the Peabody Museum*. It is recommended that those chemicals either be stored in sealed secondary containers or in the cabinets under the hood in their appropriate storage areas. It is also recommended that you stop using the acetic acid for salad dressing, you should really just buy oil and vinegar at the grocery store. And, while you and your lab staff may find it amusing to make s’mores on the Bunsen burner and mix margaritas in the graduated cylinders, it is not an appropriate use of the equipment and may lead to getting marshmallow in your bone fragments. And that could really be messy!

Please take note of the new Safety/Emergency Quick-Reference Guide on the wall inside the southern door, above the water cooler that if you had more chemicals would not be in a good place in order to ensure safe drinking water. The Guide is now orange having been changed in color from the previous blue. While some are sad to see the blue go, the Committee for the Selection of Cover Coloring for Safety Guides and Birthday Celebration Streamers voted 45 to 30 to switch to orange this year. Complaints should be addressed, in writing, to the Ombudsman for Paper Color Choices. The new booklet also contains a section on “Violent Incidents” which I believe you will find most illuminating. Perhaps it will inspire you to enroll in a Krav Maga class (see below for more).

It is also recommended that you not eat or store food under the hood.

In the event of an emergency, you should assemble in the parking lot behind CRBLC as noted on the emergency evacuation card located near the stairs. If you have seen The Bourne Identity you will recall the scene in which Jason Bourne is in the US Embassy and the embassy officials find out he is a fugitive and as he is escaping the guards, grabs a building schematic off the wall. Our emergency exit plan is similar. Although our building is not guarded by Marines, nor do I ever expect Franka Potente to come through the building. Disappointing as that may be, we still need to be aware of safety and our evacuation point. I also think that that nice young man, Matt Damon, should be commended for his great dedication in learning Krav Maga for the fight sequences in the film. I believe he also trained in Muay Thai. That was a good movie. Run Lola Run, starring Franka Potente was also a good movie and the source of my dog Lola’s name.

All lab workers must complete the lab safety training seminar. If they have not been trained yet, please contact Kevin as soon as possible. It is also recommended that all staff, in or out of the lab, take the safety training just in case.

Remember, safe carbon or nitrogen isotope analysis is fun carbon or nitrogen isotope analysis.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact someone**. Of course, many of these issues will not be pertinent to you since you will be leaving us shortly to take a big fancy job at Arkansas State University in Flint (just in case you forgot the name, I thought I would remind you). In that case, let us just pretend this did not happen. I will deny the existence of this e-mail.

Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter,

Beth, interim safety consultant

Notes:

*For a full account of said incident, please consult Alice M. Crichton of the Office Two Doors Down From Yours, you will find it appropriately labeled with her name in letters no bigger nor smaller than those of her office mate, one Andre Summers.

**But perhaps not Alice M. Crichton. After all, she mixed hydrochloric acid with acetone and then breathed it in. She also made a phone call to the lab this morning from her cell phone while on the freeway, further demonstrating her disdain for safety. You might also want to avoid asking Kyle Wilde because one time he purposely let a really big bug lay an egg in his arm and then allowed his arm to be the womb for gestation of the larva. You probably do not want to ask me either because I have been known to start fires and I once cut a big chunk out of my thumb on the slicer at work while slicing tomatoes for the sandwich bar. Maybe Kevin would be a good choice. We did not use the tomatoes that the chunk of my thumb fell into. They were recorded on the waste sheet.