Courtesy of Weird Al:

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So this week was my turn for the Spyvella chapter, but I have been dealing with some major issues at work (hence the dearth of posting this week). I'll try to get it together and post it soon. Promise!

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Ok, so I got tagged and it's Friday. Here we go:
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if theyÂ’re not any good, but they must be songs youÂ’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what theyÂ’re listening to.

This I can do.  They're not really  "new" by any stretch, but they are the ones I've been listening to and thinking about...

1. "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" -- Barenaked Ladies

Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by
You never get to stop and open our eyes
One minute you're waiting for the sky to fall
The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all
Lovers in a dangerous time

These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This fragrant skin this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste
Lovers in a dangerous time

Find me and follow me through corridors
Refectories and files you must follow
Leave this academic factory
You will find me in the matinee, the dark of the matinee
It's better in the matinee
The dark of the matinee is mine, yes it's mine

One, two boys by the river
Down by the water
Tellin' riddles in the dark
With fireflies under the moonlight
Carvin' the insides of a tree with a knife
Ever hear the one about the boy's big sister
His best friend come along
He tried to kiss her
The only difference
That I see
Is you are exactly the same
As you used to be..

We would stand in the wind
We were free like water
Flowing down
Under the warmth of the sun
Now it's cold and we're scared
And we've both been shaken
Look at us
Man, this doesn't need to be the end

Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you so we both fall down

Fall on me tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you
Forever in me
Ever the same

Where does the heart reside
If not where I lay my head?
I could run but I'm petrified
And choose this instead
Again and again

Destruction leads to a very rough road
But it also breeds creation
And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar
They're just another good vibration
And tidal waves couldn't save the world
From Californication

I was so high I did not recognize
The fire burning in her eyes
The chaos that controlled my mind
Whispered goodbye and she got on a plane
Never to return again
But always in my heart

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:39 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Someone's been drinking the Kool Aid. In fact, a couple of someones.

Let's start with Charlie Rangel, who once slammed President Bush by saying"[H]e has shattered the myth of white supremacy once and for all."

And then there's Nancy "Botox Babe" Pelosi, who once called him "...a man ... who [has] consistently failed to lead our country on the most pressing issues."

Well, today Rep. Rangel blasted Hugo Chavez of Venezuela for attacking President Bush and calling him the "devil". Hot Air has the video.

This from the man who openly supports Hugo Chavez' best amigo, fidel castro (begins halfway through the clip):

Interestingly, Rangel has backpedaled, issuing a statement that what he takes issue with is merely Chavez' "personal" attack on the President. Yeah, right, Charlie. Keep digging. See quote above.

Or how about this one from Nancy herself: "[his] capacity to lead has never been there. In order to lead, you have to have judgment. In order to have judgment, you have to have knowledge and experience. He has none,'' Where was Charlie for this one?

Rep. Pelosi joined in the fun too. Calling Chavez a "thug", she blasted Chavez for "abusing the privilege" of speaking at the U.N. Ha! She's defending a man she believes is "an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader, he's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.'"

Hypocrite much?

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:48 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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This study came out recently, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Ok, that's wrong.  On the face, without having read the actual text yet, I disagree with [the media's presentation of] it ENTIRELY.

You see, there's a very important factor that either they've overlooked or the media has chosen not to report....

Let me explain:

First of all, I want to make it clear that I've never experienced that kind of discrimination personally.  As an undergrad, while Caltech had 4 times as many males on campus as females, the Bio department was almost 50-50.  In graduate school, out of about 30 students in my program, 6 were guys.  My advisor was female, too.  So was her postdoctoral advisor.

Here, half of my department is female, including our chair.

But on to my main point:

One thing the study doesn't seem to consider is that women often PREFER to opt out of the higher academic jobs because of the demanding schedule.  We CHOOSE to remain in a comfortable lab, where our schedule is more flexible, we can work with the people we choose to work with, and we have time to be ourselves and actually SEE our families.

This is the elephant in the living room.  Academic Science has many of them.

Sure, a lot of women who are Dr. Shalala's age and even up to 20 years younger had to deal with chauvinist pigs and glass ceilings and all that.  They had to CHOOSE between a career and a family.  Women scientists of MY generation can have both, and are frequently choosing personal fulfillment over professional, in many cases.  I did.  That's why I teach, rather than pursuing a traditional academic career track.

What these older chickies can't stand is the rearrangement of priorities in younger female scientists.  They hate it that we wouldn't follow them blindly through the glass ceiling, that we can stop about a foot lower and say "Thanks, I'm good."  That we refuse to blaze their trail just because it's there.

I'm not naive enough to say that discrimination DOESN'T exist. However, that doesn't mean that gender-based discrimination is the ONLY reason why women don't get the highest jobs in academic science and engineering. And it's naive of THEM to say otherwise.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:27 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Arrrgh!  It be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

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As some of you may know, I felt like shit last night.  On top of
whacking my head sunday night, the sinuses on the other side decided it
was time to play catch-up, including a sore throat.  Well, nothing
worked, and even the damn chloraseptic wore off too soon, so I asked hubby
to go out and get us milkshakes to fix my throat.  He got back about 10, just
in time to put on the news, right?


I get about halfway through my milkshake, look up, and there's
John Fucking FlipFlopper KetchupBoy spewing about how his religion
makes him who he is and how that should be important to everyone at
some speech he gave at Pepperdine (he was really in town to raise $$
for Angelides....)


I DID NOT throw my milkshake at the TV.  It was hard.  I DID
manage to grab the remote and change the channel, though.  But my hands
were shaking and I had to actually tell myself to put down the cup and
get the remote.


Hubby said he was proud of me.  Probably because he would have had to clean it up.....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:22 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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To BlogSis Mrs_Who!

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I think I've got a concussion.

I was sitting at the base of our stairs because it's a good place to watch TV and talk on the phone (to this lovely lady, my homeboy, and then my Mom last night, actually).  It's far enough away from the TV that it's not blaring into the phone, but directly across from the screen.  Plus the carpet is pretty nice.  Nicest carpet we've ever had, in fact.

So I was chatting away with Mom and the Princess decided to favor me with one of her toys.  Not thinking clearly, I leaned over to pick it up, and then sat up to toss it for her.

When I sat up, I brought the top of my head into direct contact with the bottom end of the handrail of the stairs at full speed.

You know the little birdies on the Warner Brothers' cartoons?  Yeah, I saw those.

Anyway, after about 30 minutes of ice and two Advil, I was ok, but this morning I'm sore all over and the headache?  She refuses the Advil and caffeine treatment.  I've had post concussion syndrome before (dropped on my head in college), so I know the drill.  At least it's just a regular headache, not a migraine, although even my damn teeth hurt.

Now it's just a matter of sitting here two hours and then driving home.  Yay, home.  Maybe I'll bugger off early.  I do have things I need to work on at home....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:45 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Hubby and I were doing some shopping today, and we went into a local home and decorating store.  I was looking for a large casserole dish, so we went over to the kitchen section.

As we browsed the Clearance section, I noticed what clearly HAD to be a Wilton Armetale tray.  These things just don't hang around long enough to make it to clearance, you know?  I was intrigued to say the least.

So I asked him to pick it up:

The pattern on the edge was a bit unusual, so I looked at it more closely:

Yep, that's the Baltimore Ravens' logo.  When we turned the tray over, it indeed said Wilton Armetale, but it also said "manufactured for Smyth and Co, Official Jewelers of the Baltimore Ravens".

So if you're a Ravens fan stuck in SoCal, and you'd like to have a fancy tailgate party, let me know and I'll tell you where you can find a nice serving tray for cheap.

BTW, nice pics for a camera phone, huh?

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Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:59 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I just got FLOOR TICKETS to the Barenaked Ladies.

Tickets don't go on sale for another week, but Ladies Room members got first dibs today!

Yay!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 04:42 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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The Baldwin Online Children's Literature Project.

Making a virtual archive of classic children's literature in the public domain.

h/t the venomous (and sniffly) one

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SMASH has the definitive, straight from the horses' mouths.  Including Code Pink's reaction to ACTUAL soldiers.

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Have y'all seen Dancing With the Stars this season?

Joey Lawrence:

             
then....                                      and now

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:13 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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h/t Denny

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:02 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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So much so that I ran out and picked these up before work today to be sure they wouldn't be sold out:

The ORIGINAL THEATRICAL VERSIONS.  You know, where Han shoots first.

I am so freaking excited!  I bought these on VHS (on a whim) the last time they were released in 1996 or 1997, shortly before the "Special Edition" movies were released, and I watch them only rarely for fear of destroying the tapes.  Now I have them in a much more durable format.  Yay!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:05 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The 2996 site is down. Mirrors can be found here and here

The company hosting their domain basically told them, sorry, you're SOL.

Today of all days. When the site traffic spiked, the hosting company basically told them that they would not increase their bandwidth allowance and they should look elsewhere for services.

In case you want to make sure you DONT ever do business with such an unreliable host, the group to avoid is ehostpros.com

No I will not link them.

I will, however, give you all of their contact addresses so that you may email them and tell them what a crock of shit it is to shut down the 2996 page on 9/11:

sales@ehostpros.com
billing@ehostpros.com
abuse@ehostpros.com
info@ehostpros.com

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:07 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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10:29 am:

Cox and Forkum Sum it Up (with a good link round up, below, as well)

This post stays on top today. Scroll down for more content.

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When I was 17 years old, in the summer of 1994, I was part of a summer program that invited science students to New York for two week to study and be a part of "real" high level research. Among the amazing and wonderful things we did that summer was a tour of New York City. After taking the Circle line out to the Statue of Liberty and back, we boarded the bus and went into downtown. We stopped at the foot of the World Trade Center.

I remember looking up and up and up, unable to see the top. Wondering at the immense feat of engineering standing before me. Face to face with these twin giants, my friend and I laughed at the presumption of a handful of terrorists who tried to bring it down with a truck bomb. My friend J said, "You know, they built the towers to withstand a hit by a 747." We were all duly impressed. It seemed like overkill.

And it became a joke amongst us.

Fast forward 7 years.

September 11, 2001. 9 am.
I was sleeping in. It had been a late night Monday night, as a friend who had been staying with us in NC was set to fly back to CA that afternoon. Also, I was supposed to teach that afternoon after taking her to the airport.

The phone rang. It was my husband, stationed in TX in the army. "Turn on the TV." he said. "Any channel".

I fumbled for the remote, half awake, and turned on the TV to see the WTC, one tower standing, the other on fire from a gaping hole near the top. The morning show people were just beginning to realize that it wasn't a cessna that hit the building, but a fully loaded jumbo jetliner.

Before I could comprehend that, another jet hit the other tower. And I knew.

My heart stood still. But still, I thought, the buildings will stand. The people can get out, or be rescued from the roof, right?

I called my parents and Ben, woke up my friends, and crawled to the big TV in the den. What next? Were there more planes? Were any of my friends there?

The rest of the day is a blur of images: People jumping from the buildings, the towers collapsing in a cloud of ash, that video of the asian woman running in high heels and nearly being run down as the towers collapsed behind her. I remember screaming "just take your damn shoes off so you can run..."

I don't remember eating, and I don't think I slept. I just sat in front of the tv. The towers came down. They were supposed to withstand the unthinkable, that kind of hit, but they came down anyway.

I spoke to my friend a few days later. We reminisced about that day at the towers, and how we all believed them to be invincible. And how that came to stand for a lot of things. And now those things were gone.

I think we grew up a lot on September 11, 2001. But it's easy to forget. It's easy to over analyze and twist the facts to fit your own mindset instead of facing the difficult facts:

+Nineteen Islamofascist fuckheads hijacked four planes
+They deliberately chose flights that would be the fullest and carry the most fuel
+They succeeded in crashing three of those planes into pre-selected targets
+It was NOT a government conspiracy. Unless you mean the governments of Iran, Syria, etc.
+2,996 innocent people died. Many of them heroes who died trying to save the lives of others
+Unless we wipe jihadist thinking from the face of this planet, something like 9/11 WILL happen again

And if you don't believe that with even some small part of your soul, then you need to get your head out of your ass.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 08:29 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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