Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:30 PM

Two more political comments that just occurred to me:

1) From Slate's Bushisms, the President said: "[T]his country has gone through tough times before, and we're going to do it again." I understand what he was trying to say -- that we've come through tough times -- but... ouch!

2) I just heard on NPR that the state treasurer is being criticized for losing money in the pension fund because she invested too heavily in the stock market. But this seems like an unfair criticism. If the treasury hadn't put money in the stock market, they would've been criticized during the boom times for losing money by being too conservative.
There are four possible scenarios:

So, the same behavior can be praiseworthy or condemnable solely because the stock market's behavior is out of her control.

I'm not supporting Shannon O'Brien's campaign, but this just seems like an unfair reason to attack her.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:50 AM

First of all, I really love my husband. This morning he made me poached eggs with hollandaise sauce for breakfast, one of my favorites.

Secondly, I've wanted to mention a number of things recently that I simply haven't had the time to write about.

• Last night, we went to the wedding of some friends of ours. Absolutely wonderful. The bride's entire outfit was gorgeous and so well-suited to her. The DJ was amazing. [Hint for anyone planning music for an event of our group of friends: nothing gets people out on the dance floor like 1980s New Wave]
    For those who were asking before the ceremony, I looked up "usher" in the OED. Ush comes from a French pronunciation (huis) of the Latin root ost meaning door. So "usher" comes from doorman. Usher is also a verb ("usher him in") and ush is also a noun and verb -- the noun an obsolete 15th century word for egress; the verb a 19th century back-formation from usher (noun). So, ushers really do ush!
    At the end of the evening, I had a fascinating conversation with a woman who works with/advocates for education of gifted children. This provoked further discussion between Ian and me on the drive home, which I may post later on after I've had more time to cogitate.
• This may be old news (I've been meaning to post about this since AICN's article last month), but if you haven't seen the latest video from the band Weezer, "Keep fishin'" check it out on their website. Unfortunately, the song itself is entirely forgettable, but really cool concept. I think they just won the admiration and envy of millions of Americans of my age.
• I've seen more dragonflies this summer than I can recall. They're all over the place. And not just the usual black ones, but some brilliant red dragonflies, and some that are golden brown. At my in-laws place, I've held out my hand and some have actually landed on my finger. They're so beautiful up close...
• Also at my in-laws, I flipped through a few issues of Real Simple magazine. I started wondering whether any of the women's magazines might be interested in an article about of my experiences with blue hair. It wouldn't work for Ms. or a magazine whose readership is frequented by punk-haired-types, but as a story of personal transformation, it might work in Working Woman... If anybody has ideas on markets for something like this, please share them with me.
• One thing I like about America is that there's so much diversity within the country. Different states run things in different ways, and people can choose to move to communities that match their values. For example, some states have a low tax/low service philosophy. Other states have higher taxes, but provide much more for their citizens. One of the reasons I chose to move from Florida to Massachusetts was because I preferred the latter system. But, I had a choice. Unfortunately, the libertarians have managed to put an issue on the ballot repealing the state income tax. How would the state meet people's needs with barely half its funding? As Ian puts it, "Oh, look! A monkey!" They don't appear to have a plan, so are frantically handwaving to distract us from that. It would be a disaster for the state, cutting off programs cold-turkey like that without any time or plans for transition. People who like New England but don't like the way Massachusetts provides so much for its citizens can move to New Hampshire. But respect our desire for diversity; don't try to homogenize the entire country to one standard of governance.

There's more I want to say, including my still-pending review of Minority report, which we saw last weekend (BTW, my Wednesday entry is not blank -- it's a test of white-on-white text so I can write about spoilers without accidentally ruining the film for those who haven't seen it.), but I've been writing for a while, so will post more later.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:06 AM

I know there tends to be some... contention... about the posting of diet updates on public journals. Some people do it as a form of accountability; others dislike it because it perpetuates sizism. Personally, I tend to find it just boring, but I'll make an exception to crow about something I'm personally proud of.

We took our cat to the vet yesterday, and she weighed 9.4 lbs.

This is a good thing, because at her peak, she weighed just over 15 lbs, which was definitely a health risk. It took years, but she's finally reached a healthy weight. I'm so happy.

For those who haven't met Boopsie (officially named Lady Bubastis Underfoot), she's a sweetheart. We met in late June 1991, just after I graduated from college. She literally followed me home one day, when she was about six months old. We took her to the vet to make sure she was healthy, shut the door behind her to make her an indoor cat (not that she objected), and less than one week later, she went into heat.

That September, within the space of about two weeks, I started working full-time, I moved apartments, and had her spayed (and the incision got infected). So, she was sick, in a new location, and I was no longer around. Like any Jewish mother, I gave her food as a sign of my love. And, like any former alley-cat, she ate like there was no tomorrow. [She also developed neuroses, and began to inflict injuries on herself (licking patches of skin raw) as a cry for attention.]

When Ian moved in, and there were more people around to lavish attention upon her, her emotional issues cleared up. We've had her on prescription cat food for years to manage the weight issues.

And it's finally succeeded. In many respects, Boopsie's been more like a housemate than a pet. She's not a lapcat, or demonstratively affectionate, but I know she loves me. And I love her. She's my baby. And I'm glad, with her weight now under control, that I can look forward to many more years living with her.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:45 PM

Oh my...

This just in from CNN Warner Bros. pictures has just inked a deal with This American Life, the NPR series. They may make movies from some of the radio segments.

I so want to see on film Peter Pan, Squirrel Cop, or maybe Christina Ricci playing Sarah Vowell as American Goth.

These could be really good, or fiascos, but either way should be further fun fodder for the radio show.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:51 AM

This text should be white against a white background. If you can read this without making any adjustments to your browser, please let me know by posting in the comments box. I saw Minority Report over the weekend and would like to write a review that contains spoilers for the ending. I've seen this method used on other sites for posting spoilers, but I want to make sure I won't ruin the experience for anyone else before I do it here. Thanks!

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:50 AM

Further rants against the bird-brained (strong language ahead):

Following up to something I wrote last week; I also e-mailed my complaint about the pigeon/pidgin error to Jim Romenesko's MediaNews, a blog read by the journalistic movers and shakers. [I couldn't find any place on the Herald itself to send comments.]

Cosmo Macero Jr., of the Boston Herald replied:

If what he's describing is truly the case, then I have to shake my head sadly and say yes, higher education has deteriorated. But I still don't feel that's sufficient reason to accept the further dilution of the English language. I'm really sick of reading about something "peaking somebody's curiousity" (the word is spelled pique) or somebody "pouring over papers" (unless something has spilled, it should be poring).

Why is it important? Because we're losing linguistic clarity.

Once, unique meant "one of a kind." However, with advertisers and marketing referring to things as "very unique" or "most unique", the word has taken on the meaning of "special or rare." So now there's no succinct word left meaning "one of a kind." If I say something is "unique" today, most readers won't think it's "one of a kind" because the new meanings have supplanted the old, and we've lost a valuable word.

Similarly, my husband once wrote:

I could go on, but hopefully you get the point I'm trying to make.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:35 PM

Whew...
or
If you can read this, you're on the right track.

Well, it took nearly five hours of tweaking:

• first of FTP settings on the server to ensure a secure connection,
• then I had to adjust all the settings on Blogger itself,
• then I went back into all my web pages (in the journal and on my main site) to update any links.

But, I think I've finally got everything moved over here.

It was a long and tiresome process, but I'm pleased to have achieved my goal. I always wanted to have my entire site in one location. I didn't like having some items on Blogspot and others on Osmond-Riba. Now, it's one-stop-shopping for all my web-based content.

If I had more time or energy, I'd implement a counter on all my pages, but that's going to wait. I was just looking at server-side statistics for my site (which were also inaccessible for a while). My USA Patriot paper has garnered 247 hits in the month of August -- I'm really pleased by that. I had hoped, in choosing that subject for my paper, that I could write something useful and give back to the community, as it were. I'm just glad to be helpful.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:50 PM

Please note: My journal has moved

I have just moved my journal off of Blog*Spot and into http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/journal/, a subdirectory of my main website.

This means that you should no longer need to bookmark any sites for me except ones on or under http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/.

Please update your bookmarks/links/hotlist accordingly.

Thank you.