7.06.2006
And at the opposite end of the appealing/disgusting continuum:
I just had the best dish of ice cream of the summer.
I took the dregs of a quart of strawberries - the ones that went untouched because they were half-white, or were looking a little mummified - and I folded tinfoil around the base of their clamshell package and set them in the sun for an hour.
I brought them back inside and mmm the house was filled with sun-ripe berry decadence. They didn't look like much, but they smelled fabulous.
I wasn't hungry tho, so I sliced them and gave them a tiny bit of sugar and stuck them in the freezer for later.
Today was later. I put the frozen berries in the fridge, and when they were runny and perfect I put them in a bowl with vanilla ice cream. mmm! Perfect sundae. Not too sweet. Very real berry-ness.
It almost makes me forget that mulberries-straight-from-branch-to-mouth season is over, and that I won't have access to grapes this year. Almost.
I took the dregs of a quart of strawberries - the ones that went untouched because they were half-white, or were looking a little mummified - and I folded tinfoil around the base of their clamshell package and set them in the sun for an hour.
I brought them back inside and mmm the house was filled with sun-ripe berry decadence. They didn't look like much, but they smelled fabulous.
I wasn't hungry tho, so I sliced them and gave them a tiny bit of sugar and stuck them in the freezer for later.
Today was later. I put the frozen berries in the fridge, and when they were runny and perfect I put them in a bowl with vanilla ice cream. mmm! Perfect sundae. Not too sweet. Very real berry-ness.
It almost makes me forget that mulberries-straight-from-branch-to-mouth season is over, and that I won't have access to grapes this year. Almost.
7.05.2006
The news, such as it is
From the local family daily: Republicans will lose credibility if they don't find a solution for immigration! (That's giving Joe Public a lot of credit - will enough people remember the immigration straw man when we're imbroiled in the next hot non-issue?)
Is Nebraska's initiative process broken? Promising headline, too bold for anyone but a weekend headline-writer. Too bad the article is waffle. Yes the initiative process is broken. In theory it allows the people to make a case for the issues that mean a lot to them and are ignored by the representatives. In practice, it's a back door for anyone in the world to walk into Nebraska and hire signature-takers to get their pet policy onto the ballot. Since our state constitution is easily altered, many initiatives are constitutional amendments. Since we passed ballot initiative 418 in 2004 (no one noticed - the ballot also held a presidential contest and an initiative to legalize gambling) it takes a two-thirds supermajority of the legislature to overturn a law created by the initiative process.
Initiatives scare the shit out of me. I am in the political minority most of the time, and I need all the protection from tyranny of the majority that I can get. I need to march myself to the library and see if I can increase my ability to verbalize this gut-level response. If there's a headline like that, it's a great time for a letter to the editor.
Is Nebraska's initiative process broken? Promising headline, too bold for anyone but a weekend headline-writer. Too bad the article is waffle. Yes the initiative process is broken. In theory it allows the people to make a case for the issues that mean a lot to them and are ignored by the representatives. In practice, it's a back door for anyone in the world to walk into Nebraska and hire signature-takers to get their pet policy onto the ballot. Since our state constitution is easily altered, many initiatives are constitutional amendments. Since we passed ballot initiative 418 in 2004 (no one noticed - the ballot also held a presidential contest and an initiative to legalize gambling) it takes a two-thirds supermajority of the legislature to overturn a law created by the initiative process.
Initiatives scare the shit out of me. I am in the political minority most of the time, and I need all the protection from tyranny of the majority that I can get. I need to march myself to the library and see if I can increase my ability to verbalize this gut-level response. If there's a headline like that, it's a great time for a letter to the editor.
Brain regeneration
MIT Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact
On Terry Wallis's recovery of full consciousness and speech (it took some digging to find a non-newsmagazine article, so I'm sharing).
On Terry Wallis's recovery of full consciousness and speech (it took some digging to find a non-newsmagazine article, so I'm sharing).
