Ron Edmonds, an AP photographer who covers the White House, took these amazing pictures of a nest of baby robins being born. They live right outside the White House press briefing room.
The pictures remind me of baby dragon impressions in Pern . . .
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Mr. Mallard, Slacker Dad?
Is Mr. Mallard a slacker dad? Surely not! But on the subject of Amelia Bedelia, I am not so sure. The children I have read her antics to never quite get it, and I sometimes think I spoil it for them by explaining it. I found her funny as a child but maybe now she *is* annoying...
Sunday, April 19, 2009
A Study in Social Mores From the Pages of Edith Wharton
I love Miss Manners, and here she found a reader almost worthy of her!
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Obama at Notre Dame
E.J. Dionne has a good column on the controversy at Notre Dame - not about poor Charlie Weis but about the speaking invitation to Obama.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
To Do
I always have a long "to do" list, and credit Jay Hyde and Mike Ferrari, then Waldenbooks buyers, who impressed me years ago with their Franklin Planners and effective use thereof (see, I talk like a lawyer now). I got one myself and found it very helpful, although my mother said it was like a Barbie doll in the way it demanded accessories such as cute little hole punch, cute little pouch for stamps or pens, cute color paper for lists, etc.
Once I was at IDG, surrounded by people with PalmPilots, I was mesmerized by them, and still love my Palm (I think I am on my third since 1999 when Katie McGowan and I bought them online simultaneously while we talked on the phone) despite the fact that there are much fancier gadgets around. In its prime, my Palm's best feature was that I could access a spreadsheet listing all the books I own so that I wouldn't purchase duplicates. Now the annoying thing crashes whenever I try to open a spreadsheet. Palm - or at least its agent, Circuit City - blamed this on Documents-to-Go (software) so refused to honor the warranty (hardware). By then I had a BlackBerry, so I decided it was silly to waste my energy fighting (and Circuit City has gone bankrupt when clearly I would have been spending millions in their store if not miffed).
Still, the "to do" list on the Palm is MUCH better than on the BlackBerry. The only challenge is when one scribbles an item quickly and later on cannot figure out what it was meant to be! For example, on May 17th, I have a note for myself: "Check Maria Holt."
The logical meaning would be that Holt is publishing a book in May called Maria which I should either order or read or both. Yet a quick search on Amazon yielded no such book. There is a Macmillan author named Maria Holt who writes on the Middle East but that is not my thing. There are a few random people on Facebook by that name but no one I know. I suppose the meaning may come back to me in the middle of the night but in the meantime I will move it to the bottom of the list, along with:
* San Diego, Fall 2011 (so I won't forget to go!)
* Quilt Museum, Lowell (before 2011, I hope)
* Frame diplomas (for a long time I had misplaced my college diploma, now I can't find my law school diploma)
and so on . . .
Once I was at IDG, surrounded by people with PalmPilots, I was mesmerized by them, and still love my Palm (I think I am on my third since 1999 when Katie McGowan and I bought them online simultaneously while we talked on the phone) despite the fact that there are much fancier gadgets around. In its prime, my Palm's best feature was that I could access a spreadsheet listing all the books I own so that I wouldn't purchase duplicates. Now the annoying thing crashes whenever I try to open a spreadsheet. Palm - or at least its agent, Circuit City - blamed this on Documents-to-Go (software) so refused to honor the warranty (hardware). By then I had a BlackBerry, so I decided it was silly to waste my energy fighting (and Circuit City has gone bankrupt when clearly I would have been spending millions in their store if not miffed).
Still, the "to do" list on the Palm is MUCH better than on the BlackBerry. The only challenge is when one scribbles an item quickly and later on cannot figure out what it was meant to be! For example, on May 17th, I have a note for myself: "Check Maria Holt."
The logical meaning would be that Holt is publishing a book in May called Maria which I should either order or read or both. Yet a quick search on Amazon yielded no such book. There is a Macmillan author named Maria Holt who writes on the Middle East but that is not my thing. There are a few random people on Facebook by that name but no one I know. I suppose the meaning may come back to me in the middle of the night but in the meantime I will move it to the bottom of the list, along with:
* San Diego, Fall 2011 (so I won't forget to go!)
* Quilt Museum, Lowell (before 2011, I hope)
* Frame diplomas (for a long time I had misplaced my college diploma, now I can't find my law school diploma)
and so on . . .
Friday, March 27, 2009
Woe is Me
It's always so sad when the basketball season ends but to watch my cherished Blue Devils get blown out by Villanova was agony. Jon Scheyer kept doggedly trying to get the offense going but the magic he had during the ACC Tournament was mysteriously gone. It also seemed all wrong to be up in section 303 when I am so used to sitting in great seats at the Garden for the Beanpot. Really, I would have seen better on TV. It felt very odd for the Blue Devils to be at the Garden at all!
Can it be true that my players are too nice to be sufficiently aggressive? Where is Christian Laettner when you need him? Making a very cute commercial with Rick Pitino . . .
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Quote of the Day
The Detroit Tigers are opening their season on Good Friday at 1:05 pm. Many Catholics are concerned about having to choose between church and baseball, and clearly some of the churches are afraid their parishioners may go for the baseball. However, I am not sure why the game couldn't be at 4 pm, thus avoiding the sacred hours of noon to three. Not to mention, many people attend evening services.
"Nobody is saying baseball isn't big, but Good Friday is really big," [Father] Vilkauskas told The Detroit News. "It's 2,000 years old."
"Nobody is saying baseball isn't big, but Good Friday is really big," [Father] Vilkauskas told The Detroit News. "It's 2,000 years old."
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