Cool Archaeology Picture Time

When I'm too tired to think of anything to say, I'll just put up cool archaeology pictures. This is R.E.W. Adams in a Classic Maya tomb at Rio Azul, Guatemala. That's writing on the walls. Cool, huh?

Humbling Katrina
It looks like nature was just warming up when she decided to blast the United States with hurricanes. Both Central America and South Asia have suffered horrifying disasters this week. Although the Asian quake is much more terrible, my personal affinity for the Mesoamerican world I'm studying in Art History makes the pain of Guatemala and the surrounding region much more real.

"Panabaj will no longer exist," said Mayor Diego Esquina, referring to the Mayan lakeside hamlet in Guatemala covered by a half-mile-wide mudflow as much as 15 to 20 feet deep. "We are asking that it be declared a cemetery. We are tired. We no longer know where to dig."

Kind of makes the week of oily New Haven rain look like picnic weather.

Woman of the Hour
I'm afraid I don't understand the grumblings in the conservative community about Bush's choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. After all, this NYT feature describes her turn to the Dark Si -- er, Evangelical Christianity.


At least she's a woman. In fact, probably the ideal woman to some right-wingers. According to the office manager of her church, "She put herself in servant roles, making coffee every Sunday morning and putting doughnuts out." Just as a woman should.

Seems backward enough. So why the conservative unease? Are they afraid that, since she hasn't worn her views on her sleeve and was once a Democrat, she will let them down on critical social issues? Say, abortion? Check out this exchange with her fellow churchgoer Justice Hect:

"Yes, she goes to a pro-life church," Justice Hecht said, adding, "I know Harriet is, too." The two attended "two or three" anti-abortion fund-raising dinners in the early 1990's, he said, but added that she had not otherwise been active in the anti-abortion movement. "You can be just as pro-life as the day is long and can decide the Constitution requires Roe" to be upheld, he said.

So that's it: they're afraid Miers will choose what is Constitutional over what is Christian. In other words, they're worried she will be fair. Pardon my naivete, but shouldn't someone whose title is "Justice" embody fairness, regardless of political creed?

I'm not looking forward to seeing Miers installed on the court. In fact, I find her quite revolting. But as long as she's not, say Pat Robertson himself, we could be worse off.

It's sad that "we could be worse off" constitutes a positive attitude. 2008, where are you?

From the Too-Wierd-To-Make-Up Files...
Say, is that Anthrax on your tie?

Believe it or not, with"Infectious Awareables" your neckware can sport E. Coli, syphilis, and breast cancer among other miscrocopic horrors. See the full collection at their online store.

::shudder::

I mean, I like dark humor and all, but there's somthing about using giardia as a paisley motif that, well, turns my stomach.

Gee, I used to write good...
From last year's entry, 9/24/04:

There's something about Late September that sticks with you. It is almost a season unto itself, neither summer nor fall. Somewhere in the hardening green and the ripe sky and the dying goldenness of everything is a young heart in a young body, standing on the chilly precipice of a rapid aging and awakening, only looking. Looking and realizing that things are to be lost and that all journeyways run through death (though they do not all end there). It is a season of bittersweet begininings, of silent understanding, of held breath before resigned and wordless plunges. And yet the smile of summer remains, and every green moment left will be, if not innocent, sweeter for it.

It's that time again, folks...
As self-appointed Arbiter of All Things, I have decided once again to decimate the global poplation in hopes of saving the species from the ravages of its own idiocy. Yes, boys and girls, get ready for Round Two of elimination. This week's unfortunate losers are:

1. Relativists. Except Kate.
2. Terrorists, murderers, rapists, and just generally violent, dangerous, psychotic people.
3. People who don't vote. Ironic. You didn't vote when you had the chance. Sucks for you.
4. People who voted for Arnold in 2003. WTF??????????
5. People I just don't like, even if they don't fit into any of the aforementioned categories. You may not know who you are, but I do.
6. People who plaster all their worldly possessions with American flags.
7. People who drive Hummers just for kicks. Especially if said Hummers are plastered with American flags.
8. People who think it's fair that football players make more money than teachers.
9. The Yankees.
10. GESO.

Did you survive? Congrats! Enjoy your week.

Unfortunately, it is now too late to read the free online version of Louise Story's NYT report on how many women at elite universities are planning to put their careers on hold in order to be home with their children. I didn't need the YDN to tell me what a big controversy this was among campus women; everywhere from debates in the dining halls to irate mass emails, people have been talking. "I'm not planning to be a stay-at home mom! Maybe some of us are just here to get their Mrs., but nobody I know."

Some are outraged that the piece made the front page. Many feel personally offended, and some have written the author to question her survey methods.

The article adddressed many questions. Is it possible to balance a career and a family? Is it somehow the duty of Ivy League women to go out and conquer the world, and by being stay-at-home (or at least part-time) moms, are they wasting their education?

Personally, I think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. I admit I was surprised when I read Story's numbers. Nobody can plan that far ahead to know where in their careers they will be when they marry, or whom they will marry. Everyone who gets offended by this claims to have tremendous respect for stay-at-home mothers; yet apparently the thought of spending any time as one attacks their sense of self. It's true that traditional gender roles are not hard and fast, but there are reasons for them that go back to the dawn of time. I do hope to be able to take a little time off when my kids are very young, but I would hope that my husband would make comparable sacrifices.

This strikes me as a very personal decision that is being turned into an almost political issue on campus, fostering nothing but animosity. If I were one of those who had planned to stop working after childbirth, I would not feel comfortable admitting it to some of my fellow students, for fear they would feel I was "taking up someone else's valuable spot at Yale" for nothing.

I think motherhood is a career unto itself, and for those unprepared for it (as most of us students, still dependent on our own parents, are), it seems remote and foreign. Working hard to get ahead is all most Yalies have ever known. I think most of the ire this article stirred up is really due to the fact that it forced us to briefly question exactly what we've been working for.

A minor victory for justice and the left
New York Times: Delay Indicted and Forced to Step Down as Majority Leader

Moral: Enjoy undergrad status while you can!
The blogs Easily Distracted and Unfogged have posted warnings and tips for those about to go to grad school. They're amusing, if daunting, and certainly not to be ignored. I'm getting so old! It's scary.

The Real World
Now Playing: Bach cello suite number 1
Cindy Sheehan was arrested today at the antiwar protest in D.C. When Al Franken came to speak at the Law School on Friday, he said that, while it was stupid and immoral to go to war in the first place, he doesn't believe we should pull out now. He thinks that if we had our act together we could at least make things easier on the Iraqis. According to Franken, they have less electricity there than they did six months ago, and it's unacceptable to leave them in such a state. By invading, we comitted to the long haul -- the so-called Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it. But I think that an infrastructure can be rebuilt through multinational aid; it shouldn't require troops. And as for the insurgency, if we're gone, who will they fight? Yes, we do need to leave.

But Franken was otherwise brilliant on Friday. He pointed out, in one of the randomest analogies I've heard this year. "Asking whether mainstream media has a liberal or a conservative bias is like asking whether al Qaeda uses too much oil in their hummus: it's beside the point." Instead, Franken said, the problems with mainstream media are greed and laziness: glitx at the expense of substance, talking heads as a substitutes fro investigative journalism. Such a good point. But I think there's another component: the press being cowed by the administration. And this element seems to be fading of late; more and more news outlets are not shying away from attacking Bush on Katrina and the war, for example. Maybe this is a turnaround point.

A side note: who the hell gets to name the hurricanes??? It's really too bad we're stuck with a somewhat ditzy name like Katrina to forever signify this diaster. Rita's a little better, but not much. Why not something menacing, or at least regal sounding? Well, there's actually a pretty specific system for this, and there will never be another Katrina: especially destructive hurricanes have their names "retired."

I actually found a hurricane name list, which was entertaining. Some of the most appropriate, "stormy" names included: Isabel, Peter, Victor, Ivan, Arthur, Bertha, Josephine, Humberto. But more often than not the names were really funny. Some, like Lenny, Mindy, and Shary, are hopelessly wimpy, and therefore funny ("Jerry devastates city" sounds like a disappointing Seinfeld show). Then there are those where you know they were trying to choose exotic, random names: Beryl, Gert, Virginie, Ernesto, Fabian, Hermine, Wilma. WILMA! There is a hurricane Erika, too.

I don't know why people live in the south. I really don't. I got really sidetracked just now! Anyway...bring our troops home. Even if they live in Louisiana. And I think the Texans are getting their karma.

Franken also pointed out that Bush flubbed Katrina because he's been off his game for the past few months, due to the fact that Karl Rove "has other things on his mind...like prison." Let's hope.