I've been keeping a secret.....

It's not MY secret, so I don't feel so bad.  And in fact, in some ways it may be among the worst-kept secrets in blogdom.... 

Even so I feel pretty honored to have been trusted with it for so long, but now the proverbial cat's officially out of the bag, and I can share it with y'all.

My darling girl Helen is up the duff!  (that's p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t for you yanks!)

After many ups and downs, failed rounds of IVF, and many other difficulties, it seems Helen and her man Angus are about to become parents.  To twins!

I wish you both (publicly for the first time!!!) all the joy and happiness in the world over the next few months and the double blessing of two healthy babies in October!

These two little angels couldn't have picked a better mum and dad, who are thoughtful, and caring, and deeply committed to each other, and of course, already completely besotted with their very-much-wanted pair of babies.

If you're so inclined, drop by and share in their joy!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:30 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 180 words, total size 1 kb.

Keeping up with the Memers

Velocidude recently posted a cartoon short that was one of his favorites as a kid.

So I tried to find mine, but alas, it is NOT available on the web.  Ugh.

You see, I was always a Merrie Melodies gal.  Not so big on the Bugs Bunny and pals, but I loved the Mel Blanc shorts.  My all time favorite is a bit from 1953 called "A Sheep in the Deep" starring Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf, who many of you will recognize a an early version of Foghorn Leghorn's nemesis George P. Dog and Wile E. Coyote.

If you have never seen any of the series, the premise is that Sam and Ralph are buddies, except at work, where the sheepdog's job is to keep the wolf away from the sheep, and the wolf's job is to catch them.  Sam and Ralph clock in and clock out every day.

And to appease those of you who MUST have a video, my favorite of the modern Warner Bros. cartoons. Pinky and the Brain present "The Parts of the Brain:"

For the curious, this little ditty was actually part of my PhD thesis talk. No, really.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:38 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 211 words, total size 2 kb.

Armenian Martyrs' Day

April 24th is the day we remember the victims of a forgotten genocide.

On April 24, 1915, turkish soldiers arrested 250 Armenians in the first of hundreds of raids designed to wipe out the Armenian population of turkey.

Armenian villages were rousted one by one, and the men ordered to leave at once and serve the turkish army.  Boys as young as 9 or 10, and men as old as 70.  Many never made that far, as turkish soldiers often took these "new recruits" not to the army camps but out to the woods, where they were summarily executed.  The women and girls, thus undefended, were easy prey for the turkish soldiers.


Those who remained behind were forced from their lands, homes, and belongings, and force-marched to "settlement camps" in remote areas.  Many died along the way from exhaustion, starvation, and exposure to the elements.  According to French scholars Joel Kotek and Pierre Rigoulot, there were up to 25 such camps.


But the Armenian's plight was nowhere near as unknown, even in that day, as it is now.  Despite the lack of internet, video cameras, and TV screens, in 1915 the plight of the Armenians was a worldwide topic of discussion.  US Consular officials, as early as July of 1915, were concerned enough to beg the US government to step in. 

No less than Winston Churchill, then Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty noted, "the clearance of race from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act could be...There is no reason to doubt that that this crime was planned and executed for political reasons. The opportunity presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race opposed to all Turkish ambitions."  And he was then in the midst of the "war to end all wars" against Germany!


During 1915, the New York Times paper published 145 articles about the mass murder of the Armenian people, describing the massacre as "systematic, "authorized" and "organized by the government." In 1918, Theodore Roosevelt called it "the greatest crime of the war."

But today, no one even knows it happened

Denialists of all stripes, from US and EU officials who find turkey's past "annoying", to the turks themselves who believe such raids were justified to "pick up deserters" (yeah, little old men, deserters.  right.) have managed to decrease the general public's awareness of these atrocities.  But they happened.  There was no Photoshop in 1915.  All of the horrible pictures you see here are real.


Despite missions from the US and UK, Austria, France, and others, the plight of the Armenians faded off the radar screen as war in Europe intensified.

Looks a lot like Germany around 1942, huh? 

In fact,  Adolf Hitler said of the Armenian Genocide: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"as his justification for the atrocities carried out on the Jews and others during the Nazi's reign over Germany.

We did not forget.  We do not forget.  We will always remember.

My previous remembrances here.  This stays on top all day.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 09:50 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 504 words, total size 5 kb.

F*cking Turkish Pigs

No Armenian genocide, huh?

Tell that to my grandparents.  Tell that to my Dad's stepmother, who saved her seven children by WALKING from the mountains of Turkey all the way to Beirut, dressed as an Arab widow.  WALKING.  With seven children.  Hundreds of miles on dirt roads with no shoes, cutting across country to avoid the soldiers.  Stopping and doing sewing jobs for money whenever they could.

You pigs say that 4 million Turks died?  Could that be because you're counting the Armenians born in Turkey?

Whole villages, rousted from their beds in the middle of the night. All of the men and boys made to line up in the town square, and then SHOT one by one.  The women and girls raped by turkish soldiers.  The survivors starved to death slowly.

I'll have more on this on April 24, Armenian Martyr's day.  Until then I leave you with the words Adolf Hitler used to justify the holocaust:

"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

h/t Kyle

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:48 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 171 words, total size 1 kb.

Happy Freakin' Birthday, Sneaky

Yesterday was the V-Man's big 5-0.

All the best, you skinny bastid.

What Ellison said.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 22 words, total size 1 kb.