Today in the office it came up, though I can’t at the moment remember how, that I happened to be in broad—though qualified—agreement with an idea that is apparently considered common sense among a certain faction of liberals in America: that sports generally serve as a distraction from things that matter in one’s life. Chomsky has outright said this (stated it, for example, in an interview included in the documentary Manufacturing Consent), but of course Chomsky is one of those people I both admire and have issues with. In any case, I knew in stating my belief that there is …
Month: November 2004
Prayer Affects Rate of Conception?
On The Trustworthiness of Liars and Ethics Guidelines-Violators, or,
Do You Religious People Really Want Idiots Like These On Your Side?
Regardless of what reporters publish in their employers’ pages, it’s not been scientifically demonstrated that prayer by third parties has any effect on one’s ability to conceive a child (or recover from illness, succeed in a war, or anything else, for that matter). Look! An American criminal was one of the authors of the study! What am I not surprised? I do find it saddening that Columbia University was dumb enough to let it be publicized, and that the general press establishment didn’t attack it once enough time had passed for the embarassment to be minimal. It seems religious nuts …
Catch-up
With my story sitting waiting for more, more, more (it’s like a plant whispering, “Feed me, Harvey!” from the depths of my hard drive), reams of wonderful photos to post to my photoblog, clothes to fold and put away, comments on my blog waiting for responses, and my head groggy from a short but much-needed nap, I sat down with my evening’s dinner—an immense bowl of salad, and that is all—and set about catching up on all the wonderful articles I’ve missed over at Arts & Letters Daily. I feel the same urge to catch up on missed posts on …
Whew…
After a brief outburst of worry at discovering that one of the previously involved departments—the one holding most of the prepared materials we used in summer camp—was refusing to pass on the materials because they were not being allowed to participate in the next camp… it was discovered that most of the needed materials were already included in the compiled “textbooks” teachers had been given (but had rarely consulted). So it looked as if we’d be horribly busy planning a whole new camp from the ground up. But it turned out that we don’t need to do this, and probably …
Pathetic
Today I decided to do something with the quinces I bought. I seem to have forgotten Lime’s advice, so instead of just chopping them and putting them with sugar in a jar to ripen, I boiled them down in water with some sugar added. This, for some reason, was what I thought would make it ripen more quickly and become nice gooey tea base. We’ll see what happens in a month or two, I suppose. Anyway, as I was peeling and chopping the fruit, I watched an episode of the TV show Dead Like Me, which I rather enjoy when …