I don't have to agree with someone ...

... in order to admire them.

Mary Ann Glendon, a conservative Harvard law professor who was U.S. ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush, has announced that she will not be accepting the Laetare Medal at the University of Notre Dame’s commencement ceremony on May 17. In her letter to Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins, Glendon stated that she would no longer be accepting, citing the conflict with President Barack Obama’s presence as both a commencement speaker and a recipient of an honorary degree.

Glendon is staunchly anti-abortion, and she expressed disappointment that Notre Dame was awarding someone -- in this case the president of the United States -- whose position on abortion is so starkly different from Catholic Church's and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops'.

Abortion Foe Declines Notre Dame Award

I hold a completely opposite position than Dr.[?] (Ms[?]) Glendon, but I can admire her for standing up for the things she believes in. She is not trying to influence legislation or chance Obama's position. She is in a position to make her opinion known, so she's doing it. It would have been easier not to say anything.

The president's response?

“President Obama is disappointed by former Ambassador Mary Glendon’s decision," Spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, "but he looks forward to delivering an inclusive and respectful speech at the Notre Dame graduation, a school with a rich history of fostering the exchange of ideas. While he is honored to have the support of millions of people of all faiths, he does not govern with the expectation that everyone sees eye to eye with him on every position, and the spirit of debate and healthy disagreement on important issues is part of what he loves about this country.”

Once again, I am glad that I voted for him.

I'm meming too.

So much for my grandiose plans. They sort of fizzled.

In the meantime (memetime?) I'll do the high school meme that Steph did today.

1. Did you date someone from your school senior year?
No. I didn't have even one date my senior year. In fact, I really didn't have any dates at all during high school. I had a boyfriend who was in the Air Force, starting as a freshman and going halfway through senior year, but there was never any calling-up-on-the-phone "Are you busy Friday night?" sort of dates. Oh, yeah. There was one of those dates, early in my freshman year. It was an older guy (18!) from our church. That's the only real date I had until I was 30, and Jim called me up to ask me out to dinner.

2. Did you marry someone from your high school?
No.

3. Did you car pool to school?
I rode the bus. Both high schools were too far to walk and nobody had their own cars.

4. What kind of car did you drive?
Didn't have one until after high school. I got a 1968 VW Beetle -- Wooflie -- when I was in community college.

5. What kind of car do you have now?
Jim and I share a '95 Ford Aspire. Cute little thing.

6. It's Friday night... where were you (in high school)?
Usually at home. When my boyfriend was around, sometimes we would go out, but more often we'd just be home.

7. It is Friday night... where are you (now)?
At home.

8. What kind of job did you have in high school?
My senior year I had a steady baby-sitting job where I was the one at home when two little girls came home from school.

9. What kind of job do you do now?
I'm a professional slacker.

10. Were you a party animal?
No.

11. Were you considered a flirt?
No.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
Not in high school. I played the flute in my elementary school band.

13. Were you a nerd?
Not really. I was probably thought of as "a brain," if I was thought of at all. I don't think very many people even knew I existed.

14. Did you get suspended or expelled?
Nope. One detention in freshman year for something I don't remember. It seems that it was something that I didn't have any control over, but nevertheless was a breach of the rules so I had to be punished.

15. Can you sing the fight song?
I can sing both the fight song and the Alma Mater from the first high school. We had to go to Friday afternoon pep rallies and I have a very good memory for songs.

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)?
It's really hard to say. Probably my favorites were Mr. Jolosky (junior year German) and Mr. Basansky (senior year Russian). I don't think I thought enough of any of my teachers during my freshman or sophomore years to call any of them favorites. The best I could hope for was to have a teacher who wasn't an idiot.

17. Where did you sit during lunch?
Outside always. I hated being in the cafeteria, even when it was cold and rainy. I really don't remember freshman or sophomore year enough to be able to say, except that I know it wasn't inside. Junior year I remember being outside on the picnic tables with a bunch of people. Senior year I only went to four classes a day and left at lunch time. So lunch was at home or in the car while my mom was driving me to my college classes.

18. What was your school's full name?
Freshman-Junior: Atwater High School
Senior Year: Adolfo Camarillo High School

19. When did you graduate?
1969.

20. What was your school mascot?
Atwater: A falcon
Camarillo: A scorpion

21. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
If I could have a bit of insight so that I could make different choices, in a heartbeat. If it would just to relive the misery, no thanks.

22. Did you have fun at Prom?
No proms. The only high school dance sort of thing I went to was either freshman or sophomore year. Some semi-formal event that I got my boyfriend to take me to. It was okay. I got a nice dress to wear.

23. Do you still talk to your prom date?
No proms.

24. Who was your best friend?
Kathy Seeley in Atwater, but I hardly spent time with her after getting the boyfriend. At school in Atwater, I spent time with Grace and Richard. Then I moved and my friend was Kaye. (Steph)

25. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I was thinking about either a psychologist or a diplomat.

26. Any regrets?
Oh, yeah. Lots and lots.

27. Biggest fashion mistake?
Probably the flannel paisley/flowered Nehru jacket/bell-bottomed pants suit that my mother made for me from fabric sent by my boyfriend who was in Turkey. I still have it. (When she was in high school, I suggested that Nicki wear it for Halloween, as a hippie. She wouldn't even consider it.) Oh, and the culotte jumpsuit-y sort of thing that meant I had to get completely undressed in order to go to the loo. I wore it once.

28. Favorite fashion trend?
I liked bell bottoms. Still do. All the British mod stuff and the hippie stuff was nice.

29. Are you going to your next reunion?
I went to the twentieth, but I won't go again. It was interesting to see that the ones of us who had the most fun had been the outcasts in high school. The "soashes" (maybe that will get across the long "o" sound) and cheerleaders just sat around gossiping. The people I hung out with were people I knew from elementary school, though.

30. Who did you have a secret crush on?
Nobody. I think there may have been some crushes on me, but there wasn't anybody I was interested in who was in high school.

31. Did you go on spring break?
We had a week off school before Easter, but it was always just at home. The only one I remember is the one my senior year that was spent with Steph and Cher, with the three of us going back and forth between Steph's house and mine. Two whole blocks! (Steph, remember transcribing the words to "Atlantis"?)

Looking ahead

I've been thinking about what this blog should be. I'm not one to talk about the daily ins and outs of my life. There's nothing wrong with doing that and I often like to read what other people write, but it's just not me. So what's the point?

About 9pm every night, I am wiped out, falling asleep on the couch. I often have difficulty just getting through my brief bedtime routine. I drag myself into bed, turn out the light and suddenly I'm wide awake. Jim falls asleep pretty quickly, but I lie there in the dark for sometimes two or three hours, just thinking. My brain really starts working overtime about then and I get really philosophical.

I was thinking last night that I might just start writing out some of those thoughts. They're not fun, chatty things and it's likely that not very many people would like to read them. (Not that very many people come here anyway.) I think a lot about religion and politics and philosophy. Deep shit. ;-) But maybe if I write it out here I won't be thinking about it when I'm trying to sleep.

We'll see what happens. Maybe this'll end up just to be my own private diary, which is fine, too. I've never been one to keep a diary. I tried a number of times when I was a kid, but I just didn't have the discipline. And I won't do this every day either, but it's more likely that I'll make entries if I am willing to write about what I'm actually thinking about.

You have been warned. ;-)

A tempest in an iPod

I have been agog at the hullabaloo over the fact that President and Mrs. Obama included in iPod in the gifts that they took with them to London last week. You'd think that they gave Her Majesty a pile of dog poo or something. I got myself involved in a discussion of it on the politics mailing list I belong to and the insanity goes on and on.

Aside from the particulars of this gift-giving, which I'll get to in a moment, I have been informed that if someone gives two objects, no matter how unrelated those object might be, it is one "two-part" gift and not two gifts. And the gift that is lesser than the two is the one by which both are judged. Really. You don't believe me, do you? Well, this is a quote from a post to the list:

Or, you select a well-thought out wedding gift, say a silver bowl with a
particular pattern. Your husband thinks that's not enough and on the way to the wedding, buys a set of three dish towels. And leaves the tag on. Bowl, OK. Bowl and towels, cheesy.

The existence of the towels negates the OK-ness of the silver bowl. O-kay.

This all came up because, of course, the iPod was supposedly a cheesy gift. The fact that the Obamas also gave Her Majesty a rare autographed Richard Rodgers songbook didn't matter. The existence of the iPod made "the gift" (remember, even though there were two objects, there was only one gift) "cheesy."

Except for several things that have been ignored. Well, the fact that there was a Richard Rodgers songbook was ignored in most news reports, but there are still other other things. First, Her Majesty requested the iPod. Yes, that's right. She already had an audio iPod, which she seems to use quite a bit, but she wanted a video iPod, so someone from Buckingham Palace let it be known that Her Majesty would appreciate an upgrade. Second, while it was mentioned that there were a couple of speeches by Obama on the iPod, few reports mentioned that there was also video of Her Majesty's trip to the US in 2007 and even more video of a trip that she made to the US in 1957. It's nice to have film of one's travels.

Finally, there is the reaction from Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty wouldn't be likely to say that she didn't like the gift(s) she was given, but she could just not say anything, or say something noncommittal. A spokesman for the Queen said, "The Obamas, they scored a hit, particularly with the iPod, loaded with footage of the state visit from two years ago." That sounds like a successful gift to me.

Above all, though, is the focus on minutia like this in the midst of truly severe problems in our country and the world. I know that the conservatives are just trying to pretend that Obama is the oaf that his predecessor was, but it ain't gonna work.

An open letter to whoever is supposedly in charge of things

Dear Powers that Be-–

You really suck.

See, there was this extremely nice young man named Andy. He was bright, intelligent, witty, funny, caring, giving –- everything that is the absolute best that a young man should be and whole lot better than a whole lot of other people in this world.

He got a cavity in a tooth when he was in his late 20s and, like a whole lot of other young men of that age, blew it off for a while. It got infected and then he couldn’t blow it off any more, so he went to get it taken care of. This is something that most everybody does at some point in their life and, once the hassle of dealing with the infection is over with, should be just a mildly unpleasant memory after a while.

But you, PtB, decided that for this particular young man, this minor lapse in judgement would not end there. Oh, no. You had to make the infection travel to his heart muscle and put him in the hospital. But you wouldn’t even let it rest there. Once the immediate effect was over, this infection kept doing its nasty work over the course of five years or so. And now he’s dead. Because of a fragging cavity in his tooth.

I didn’t know him well. I only chatted with him a couple of times. But he touched me and charmed me like he did every other person that he came in contact with. He went out of his way to do things for people. This week, since he’s been gone, I’ve found out even more of the things he did. When he was just a kid in high school, a friend’s brother died. Andy took it upon himself to help his friend through his grief, to the point of sleeping on the friend’s floor so he could be there if he was needed in the night and starting up a memorial scholarship in honor of the lost brother. Even now, his family has asked that donations be made to this scholarship fund that is in the name of someone else, rather than setting up one in Andy’s memory, because that’s what Andy would want.

PtB, there are a whole lot of people walking around that this world could much more easily do without and who have done much more unwise things than letting a cavity go for a bit too long. I can even give you a list of ones that I know personally, if you'd like. But did you take them instead? No-o-o-o-o. You took Andy’s parents’ only child. We’ll never know the people who won’t be helped now because he’s gone. I know that the world as a whole is a whole lot dimmer place because this light is now gone.

So, PtB, you truly suck.

Signed,
Someone who wishes she could see him one more time

Extreme knitting

I am amazed at the different things that truly creative people have come up with, using knitting as a basis. The mind boggles.

This is a piece knitted out of surgical tubing (must be pretty rigid stuff so it doesn't kink) and then colored water is pumped through. Beautiful!

Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.

If the video takes too long to load, you can see it here.

I just don't get it

I got my weekly copy of the online newsletter from a genealogy organization I belong to and there was a section about Facebook. The newsletter says, "Social networking sites allow users to interact with each other." Um, well, I think I'm able to interact with people without using Facebook or any other social networking site. I chat online, I write emails, I'm on several email discussion lists and I frequent a number of online forums.

Is there anybody that uses a social networking site who could give me a reason that they are any different than what I already do?