Stephen Colbert was interviewed on Fresh Air today. I did not know of his singing talent.
Witness this duet with John Ledger:
Also there is a Christmas special airing on Sunday called A Colbert Christmas in which he also sings, and quite well. I must remember to set my DVR.
Something dawned on me after I wrote about Obama’s interview regarding faith: I am so proud to have a president who is quotable. And not just for gaffes.
Link to transcript of interview with Obama on faith.
Several interesting quotes here.
In response to being “born again:”
…I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I’m not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I’ve got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others.
I’m a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it’s [sic] best comes with a big dose of doubt. I’m suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.
I think that, particularly as somebody who’s now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, there’s an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.
On faith’s role in policy decisions:
…you generally will not see me spending a lot of time talking about it [faith] on the stump.
Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I’m a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root ion this country.
As I said before, in my own public policy, I’m very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.
Now, that’s different form [sic] a belief that values have to inform our public policy. I think it’s perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values that inform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.
A standard line in my stump speech during this campaign is that my politics are informed by a belief that we’re all connected. That if there’s a child on the South Side of Chicago that can’t read, that makes a difference in my life even if it’s not my own child. If there’s a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that’s struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it’s not my grandparent. And if there’s an Arab American family that’s being rounded up by John Ashcroft without the benefit of due process, that threatens my civil liberties.
I can give religious expression to that. I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper, we are all children of God. Or I can express it in secular terms. But the basic premise remains the same. I think sometimes Democrats have made the mistake of shying away from a conversation about values for fear that they sacrifice the important value of tolerance. And I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive.
Ok so these are pretty old but after watching them again I thought they deserved a spot here in case any of y’alls have not seen them*, or maybe you’ve seen them and need to be reminded of their comic awesomeness.
Dramatic Chipmunk (I believe it has since been taxonimerized as a prairie dog):
* granted, that’s a grammatical nightmare but I must pose the question: which of the following, while not being correct, is more correct?
Please leave your answer and justification in the comments.
I have a folder in my browser’s bookmarks menu to house links to the webcomics that I follow. I can’t say that I have a favorite since I like them all for different reasons.
And so you have it. I’m not mentioning Penny Arcade or xkcd. They never really got me, or I never really got them, but I hear they’re considered pretty good by folks who know.
Obama’s win has filled me with a sense of optimism that I have never in my life felt from politics. And so I present to you a link to some wonderful photos of our next president: The Big Picture - Obama (thanks boingBoing!)
And Brilliant at Breakfast shares some photos “that seem to capture an entire era in a moment” (thanks grow-a-brain!) (warning: a couple of famous and disturbing photos from the 60s in there — if you just want to see the Obama photo, head on over to Yes we can (hold babies)). If anyone has a source for that Obama picture, I’d love to know and give proper credit. Edit: Photo thanks to Chris Carlson, AP (more from that day here).
…Lewis Hamilton became the first black person to win a Formula One Championship.
…Barack Obama became the first black person to win the United States presidency.
…I capped 6,000 miles on my bicycle this year during the first rain-sodden commute of the rainy season.
This last weekend, I participated in Shadow Tour’s 2008 Salton Sea Century. This was a desert ride originating in Borrego Springs and consisting of 3 distinct laps that began and ended at Christmas Circle. Each lap took a different route. The first lap contained a nice climb up Yaqui Pass and turned around for the descent, where I garnered my 44 mph maximum speed for the day. The second lap was a flat course around the city of Borrego Springs. The third lap was the kicker: a 28-mile out-and-back to Salton Sea; by then, the sun was in full scorch mode with the day’s high peaking at 97.
My sincere thanks to the Shadow Tour organizers and the fine folks out in the desert who volunteered at the SAG stations.
Many cyclists, including me, struggled with the heat coming back from Salton Sea. There were some stretches of moderate uphill climbs that, on their own, would have been no problem, but with the sun bearing down were pretty brutal. I made sure that my water bottles were topped off at each rest stop, but I have to admit feeling a little bit of panic set in as I came close to draining them during the Salton Sea lap. Fortunately, the SAG stops seemed to appear just in time.
The low points of the weekend: pretty much everything, which I can’t really elaborate on; culminating in the fact that I lost my cycle computer somewhere between the hotel room and the drive home. I really don’t feel much sense of accomplishment from this event, and I should, but too much “other stuff” has completely drained me of any optimism.
The high points: careering down Yaqui pass; a moonless, clear, ultra-starry night where I saw the milky way for the first time since I can remember; finishing the century, asking the DJ if he had any Rush, and hearing The Spirit of Radio while I munched on a post-ride BBQ meal.
Throughout the ride, my thoughts occasionally turned to memories of my father, as the ride occurred on the day following the anniversary of his passing. I think he would have been proud, and I thought maybe he might have enjoyed participating in this event in his more sprightly days. He used to run in endurance events such as the Bay to Breakers.
I also thought about Barbara Warren, a lady that I never met, but whose story is inspirational.
I did have enough sense to memorize my time as my cycle computer turned over 100 miles, so that’s the data I’m presenting here:
| 2008 SALTON SEA CENTURY | |
| Miles: | 100 |
| Riding Time: | 5 hours, 39 minutes, 50 seconds |
| Average Speed: | 17.7 mph |
| Max Speed: | 44 mph |
Earlier this year, I participated in my first organized bicycle ride. I was impressed with organization of the event and I wholeheartedly recommend participation in any of the events held by Shadow Tour.
Next Saturday is their Salton Sea Century, which I’m eagerly looking forward to.
Today, as I combed through their site looking for information about the event, I read their tribute to Barbara Warren and was touched by this amazing story of an extraordinary woman.
Since I was not aware of the tribute at the time, I will dedicate my Salton Sea century ride to her memory.
Here is a blog that’s just pictures of Obama holding babies:
I like that he lets his defenses down in these pictures. He’s a real person.
(courtesy of Miss Cellania)
If you watched MTV in the 1980s then you are most certainly aware of one of the greatest stateside one-hit wonders: A-Ha, whose video for Take On Me was absolutely brilliant.
Well, someone did it up one better by giving the song new lyrics that literally match what’s going on in the video. My head asplode.
(link courtesy of neatorama)
Here’s a nice perspective about John McCain’s recent self-titlement:
(courtesy of [who else?] boingBoing.net)
This caught me by surprise. I LOL’d all over myself.
A reference, of course, to one of the best sci-fi novels ever penned: Dune.
On today’s bike ride I flushed out what I believe to be a Northern Harrier. This one was really impressive; usually they seem kind of scruffy, commonly seen perched atop the street lights around here, but this one seemed well primped and groomed. It was in a tree to my right and took flight right over me, affording me a great look at the white and brown spots under its wingspan. It was big, too; it seemed like it had its own gravity, like I could almost feel the air disturbed by its flight.
And so, naturally, my mind turned to the metaphysical, and I contemplated the apparent discourse between religion and science. And this is what I thought:
The gifts of reason and science allow humanity to understand the mechanics of creation.
God is what makes creation beautiful.
Remember The NeverEnding Story? The movie about a boy who must save a mysterious kingdom of imagination from The Nothing? Sadly, I think the premise of that movie applies more and more to the world our children grow up in today.
The United States is entering a crisis of imagination. The risk is very real: if we don’t encourage imaginative play in our children, we’ll get a generation of adults without creative problem-solving skills. The ability to invent is possibly our greatest economic advantage in the global economy, and the problems we face today are in desperate need of creative solutions.
There are a couple of things I see today that are contributing to the erosion of imaginative play in children. The first is that their geographical roaming areas are shrinking. The second is the increasingly strict (micro-)management of our children’s time: more homework and more structured extra-curricular activities. A creative, imaginative, healthy mind is being crippled by over-emphasizing the role of rote memorization in the process of learning.
The following are some links* to articles that demonstrate what I’m talking about:
EDIT: Today I see another related post on BoingBoing: How Children Learn. Talks about the classic series of 2 anecdotal books by John Holt describing how children do and don’t learn.
* Note: credit to BoingBoing for originally finding and blogging the links. I just assembled them here cuz, y’know, they’re kinda related and all
One of the Republican’s planks in their platform is to reduce government size.
Yet, whenever any kind of crisis occurs, their solution is to create a new government agency. After 9/11, we got the [useless] Department of Homeland Security. Nevermind that we already had the FBI, CIA, and NSA.
In response to our current mortgage and financial crisis, John McCain has proposed a new agency, the Mortgage and Financial Institutions trust (MFI). He argues that it will proactively spot institutions in danger and save them before they fail.
I argue that creating this agency is extremely reactionary. The major financial institutions that have failed or are failing (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG) have been around for a very long time and have weathered the economic crises of the past. What brought them down was their own hubris, leveraging 30x or more of their assets against extremely risky mortgages during an obvious economic bubble.
What could the MFI have possibly done to stem the bleeding without the benefit of hindsight?
If a mortgage crisis like this happens again, maybe the MFI will recognize the signs and take steps to avert it. But what is more likely is that a new bubble will form in a different market and unethical business people will create new types of volatile, vaguely legal securities, and the MFI will be powerless to stop it. And our Republican Overlords will create another new agency to deal with the latest flavor-of-the-month economic disaster.
There is a patch of my front yard that’s been bugging me for a while. And by a while, I mean since we moved in. There was a shrub that grew to a great height, but I had always considered it to be one of those “freeway” shrubs. Nothing pretty to look at, but grows quickly and serves a purpose. The wife liked the privacy but I’ve always hated it for its attempts at my life while hanging Christmas lights and for generally being in the way while mowing the lawn. I removed it during a weekend of great marital strife.
I wanted to replace it with something that would give us privacy, be attractive, and generally be out of the way. I looked online for small shade trees and found a dwarf crape myrtle that looked promising. The particular cultivar was called tonto, and since there was very little chance of finding one locally, I went online and found one from a grower in North Carolina. Excited by my find, I skirted my usual background check of online companies and ordered immediately from fast-growing-trees.com. Of course, after I placed my order, I started researching the company and became dubious about their reputation.
The tree arrived about two weeks later, and I am more than happy with its condition. They sent a FedEx tracking number as soon as they had packed it, which was about a week after placing the order (well within their 1-3 week estimate). I received it a week later. It was very well packaged and had survived the long journey across the States to California. It had lots of leaves and there were four separate trunks. It was easily 3 feet tall (it was advertised as 3-4 feet). I was very pleasantly surprised. Here’s a picture:
Yesterday, I planted it. Here’s a picture of it in its now-natural habitat (pic was taken near sunset, so the top of the plant is bathed in sunlight and looks a different color. Also note the new Italian cypress [juniper] to the rear):
After reading some of the horror stories about ordering online from this company, I was expecting no more than a dry broken twig rattling inside the FedEx box. Instead, I received a professionally packaged, healthy tree, with several flyers containing planting instructions and tips for caring for the tree after its traumatic shipping journey. While it is possible that the complaints against this company on the internet are valid, I suspect that they are simply the competition’s attempts at defaming fast-growing-trees.com. If you read between the lines, the complainants make very little effort to resolve their issues with the company before blasting them on the internet.
I probably would not have blogged about this experience but for the fact that I wanted to share my positive experience with Fast Growing Trees Nursery. I would order from them again.
Today the tree looks very happy in its new home. I am looking forward to many years of growth, flowers, and marital bliss. Kudos to Fast Growing Trees for supplying me with this very attractive specimen!
If you have known me for any time, you will know that I cringe whenever I see the contraction “it’s” used in place of the possessive pronoun “its.” To a lesser extent, the same nails-on-chalkboard feeling is evoked when I encounter similar mistakes with their/they’re, your/you’re, and others. It’s only a matter of time before people start thinking her’s is correct, or even hi’s. But for whatever reason, the proper use of its/it’s occupies a special place in my heart. And I’ll explain why.
In geometry, I learned about asymptotes: lines that functions will never touch except at the point of infinity. I have always felt that language is a tool, much like a geometric function, and that the description of absolute truth is akin to an asymptote. Mastery of language will get you close to the asymptote, but not even the greatest of poets can quite reach it.
Difficulty with language comprehension is a major indicator of someone on the autism spectrum. I have huge problems with spoken word. I have always felt that there is a strange disconnect between my thoughts and my mouth which makes it virtually impossible to articulate my opinions and feelings by talking. Likewise, I have problems understanding others when they speak, which sometimes makes meetings at work agonizing. It takes a huge amount of brain cycles for me to process what others say, and when you start throwing in corporate business-speak, I find it tiring to the point of mental exhaustion.
However, I have always felt very comfortable with the written word since it allows me to sculpt and craft my thoughts in a way that is otherwise impossible. Sure, I don’t always get it right, but I enjoy the rules of language and the possibility that I can use it to clearly articulate my points.
And that’s where I have a problem with the misuse of it’s. Consider this sentence:
The dog’s head slowly turned on it’s massive, mangy neck.
I’m reading along, and suddenly I’m stopped dead in my tracks. I simply don’t understand what the sentence means. It could mean any of the following:
I have to go back, undo the rules of language, and attempt to decipher what the author meant to say. Which then puts doubt on everything else that I’ve read up until then. Not only is the flow of language completely disrupted, I don’t even know whether I can trust my comprehension anymore.
I know I’m nitpicking, that I need to just get over it. But it’s language, and there are rules, and the reason for those rules is that language means stuff. Without the rules, there is no meaning, and no understanding of one another.
Last week I saw a big black tarantula hanging out in the bike lane.
A couple days ago, I high-tailed it past a large rattlesnake moseying along in my direction in the bike lane. It was at least 3 feet long and quite meaty. I figured it wasn’t coiled so it wouldn’t have time to strike, right? Needless to say I gave it a few feet of berth and gunned the engine to overtake with speed.