today is being a very frustrating day. very very frustrating. there are only a small number of people whose ankles i would not like to rip at with my teeth. your ankles may not be safe.

however, i am going over to sigrid's tonight to be drooled on by babies. baby drool in small quantities is very cheering.

i just started a post about the family wedding in new york city this past weekend.

it went and got et.

arrrgh. arrrgh!

Just a Bump in the Beltway: December 20, 2003 Archives. The Serf Society.

What Brooks is endorsing is government sponsorship for the race to the bottom, codifying trends in employment which have emerged in the last 20 years. This is government-sanctioned freelancing: you don't really think that the government will ever adequately fund this benefit, do you? Who is going to pay for it? You will. Here's the key: could spend on training, child care, a car, a move to a place with more jobs, or whatever else they think would benefit them. If you are unemployed, particularly if you have been for a while, and, particularly if you have children, chances are that you are going to need retraining AND childcare AND an income AND medical insurance AND may need to move. Having a choice between a bunch of inadequately funded benefits is no choice at all.

If Brooks is representing the administration correctly, this represents a final break in the social contract which has been unraveling for a while now. It treats workers as nothing more than fungible widgets and removes from employers any sense of responsibility for the people they employ and the communities in which they live. For some people, freelancing and self-employment are just great, but this is not something which works for everyone. As employment trends have changed in the last generation, the idea of home/community/work as all part of a continuum of "public commons" in which the well-being of each sphere of life enhances the well-being of the others, has been replaced by a Darwinian competition between these spheres of life. 24/7 is now a zero sum game between them.

grrr is not an adequate thing to say here.

my dad was on teeeeeveeeee on saturday night. talking about the christmas shopping season.

my birthday star at the Joint Astronomy Centre.

on a more cheery note, yesterday was the birthday of my fine fine sister, m. socks.

happy birthday!

(if a person wanted to email her and wish her a happy birthday, they could do such a thing at stjarna at yuck dot net.)

i am having a minor attack of "what the hell was i thinking?!?!?"

it'll go away soon.

CBS News | 9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable | December 18, 2003 07:38:02:

(CBS) For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.

'This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right,' said Thomas Kean.

'As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done,' he said. 'This was not something that had to happen.'

that would be thomas kean, former republican governor of new jersey.

For anyone interested in helping to plan the WisCon program for this year,
we are now in the early states of gathering program ideas. Is there a
panel you've always wanted to see at WisCon? Did you attend one at another
convention that struck you as especially well-suited to WisCon?

If you are interested in contributing ideas for this year's program,
please check out our planning page at:
http://216.39.144.179/WisConWeb/ProgramIdea.aspx

Thank you!

Betsy Lundsten
WisCon 28 Program Chair.


(yes, that's me. any and all ideas appreciated. yay!)

Hard Copies and Chmod

And everyone thinks computers are impersonal
cold diskdrives hardware monitors
user-hostile software

of course they're only bits and bytes
and characters and strings
and files

just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend
telling me he loves me and
he'll take care of me

simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory
deep intimate secrets and
how he doesn't trust me

couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould
on personal stationery
-- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu

ow. ow ow ow ow ow.

hasn't happened to me recently, but i know that feeling.

My LiveJournal 12 Days
My True Love gave to me...
12 augeas a-swallowing.
11 bardas a-hacking.
10 buccaneers a-wiggling.
9 chungas a-dialing.
8 clstals a-spamming.
7 firecats a-calling.
6 jinians a-kissing.
5 platinum kalikanzeross.
4 hollering lcohens.
3 Haitian littlestllamas.
2 dog mittelschmertzs.
And a monstersocks in a banana tree.
Get gifts! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

i knew that m.socks liked bananas, but i thought she had the monkeys bring them directly to her!

since i'm on the methotrexate again, i'm having vivid vivid dreams. they haven't particularly been bad dreams, but i got used to not having them, and it's disconcerting. i am not a fan of this.

i bought pants off of ebay. not just any pants, but pants with fancy fancy ankles.

i'm pleased about this, although a little shy, because for years i haven't particularly liked my ankles. but these are cute cute cute pants.

um. wow that sounds dorky. oh, well.

fair warning:

in the next month, anyone who explains to me about how they're a direct communicator and anyone who isn't is a manipulative pain in the ass is likely to get popped in the snoot.

your snoot is also in danger if you explain to me how you're a direct communicator and then you say something to me that is hugely unclear or open to interpretation. the saving throw for your snoot goes up in proportion to how many of the possible interpretations involve guilt or trying to get me to do something.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU MEET A SIGHTED PERSON

HOW CAN I SUPPORT A SIGHTED PERSON?

People who are sighted do not want your charity. They want to live, work and play along with you. The best thing you can do to support sighted people in your community is to open yourself to their world. These citizens are vital, contributing members of society. Take a sighted person to lunch today!

well, it's a darn good thing i didn't sign up for holidailies, now isn't it?

i am having a small amount of job frustration, about which please ask me in person if you want to know. ah, well-- it'll get better eventually.

i think i am going to go out for lunch. it'll be good. honest.

this afternoon, i am starting to edit the pictures from m's welcome home baby party. this is a particular trial because about half of them need to be rotated. for those of you who have which is left and which is right memorized, this isn't an issue. for those of us who have to check every time, it's slightly tedious.

i am feeling much less sick today. go me!

sadly, i seem to have given the crud to nathan, for which i am heartily sorry.

um. still no brain. no brain, me! also, all tired.

NathanNewman.org - News and Views: A Really Shitty Court Decision

Apparently, demanding that a toilet be available within a quarter mile of where you labor in the fields is too much decency to ask.

World AIDS Day - December 1st:

According to UNAIDS estimates there were 38.6 million adults and 3.2 million children living with HIV at the end of 2002, and during the year 5 million new people became infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35. 95% of the total number of people with HIV live in the developing world. But HIV still remains a threat to people of all ages and nationalities.

lucky for me, the virus i'm fighting this week is stomach flu.

if you're having sex, use condoms, okay?