I used to think that articles such as If I Had My Life To Live Over by Erma Bombeck are really corny -- and maybe Bombeck's piece still is -- but I derived substantial solace from reading her piece last week when feeling overwhelmed by the grind of the daily stresses brought on writing a book on a tight deadline.
It's nice to see an implicit mention of Westminster House, a Presbyterian campus ministry on whose board I served for six year, in Matters of Faith Find a New Prominence on Campus - New York Times:
Overpass Near Oakland Collapses After Truck Explodes - New York Times:
Note THE MAZE MELTDOWN / First commute day: Free rides as transit leaders work on plan:
Useful links:
My friend and former colleague Annie Yeh is a cellist with a new jazz album, "Something New," featuring Tony Orbasido on guitar, Matthew Swindells on drums and Annie on cello. Congratulations, Annie!!
I'm giving my personal weblog to a new domain (hypotyposis.net) and setting it to run with WordPress software rather than Movable Type. The new address is https://hypotyposis.net/blog I hope to redirect links aimed at the old weblog to the corresponding entry.
I moved my entries from MT to WP by using the export feature of MT and the import feature of WP. The translation wasn't perfect; for instance, a lot of formatting was not done correctly. However, it's good enough to move ahead with.
One thing that excites me about moving to WordPress (on dreamhost.com, where I'm hosting a bunch of my sites) is that I can easily keep up with the latest versions of WordPress through a one-click install and update process. In theory, I should be able to keep my software up-to-date; in practice, doing so was never high enough priority to go through the steps needed. A simple process makes all the difference. Keeping up with the latest software also enables me to enable commenting on my blogs without getting overrun by spammers. So far at least, I've been impressed with the ability of Akismet at blocking spam through its WP plugin.
Remedies: Dark Chocolate Similar to Blood Pressure Drugs - New York Times:
Such news, of course, will not stop me from continue my tea-drinking
habit. It does he me and Laura justify our newly revitalized eating of
dark chocolate after dinner!
My friend Richard Hyde has started a weblog In Search of a Sense of Place.
I've always enjoyed reading the email reports he would send out and
encouraged him to share them with the larger public. Here's a sample of
one of Richard's entries from February 2, 2007:
BBC NEWS | Africa | Google Earth turns spotlight on Darfur. (More coverage of the use of Google Earth at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth, Google Earth Blog: Crisis in Darfur - The Google Effect, Ogle Earth: Darfur)
I finally got to take a look at the "Crisis in Darfur" layer in Google
Earth. I'm reminded once more of the need for prayer and advocacy on my
part and the part of those around me. Following the list at What Can I Do to Help Prevent Genocide? is a start; engaging with | Save Darfur is another.
I'm pondering Nicholas Kristof's words in Driving Up the Price of Blood - New York Times:
I find President Bashir’s ruthlessness pretty easy to understand. What
is harder to fathom is President Bush’s refusal to stand up to the
genocide for four years. Why not impose a no-fly zone, why not hold an
international conference on Darfur, why not invite survivors to the
White House for a photo-op, why not give a prime-time speech about
Darfur?
Perhaps the explanation for Mr. Bush’s passivity is the same as the
explanation for Mr. Bashir’s brutality. Maybe Mr. Bush has made his
calculations, looked at the number of calls and letters he gets about
Darfur, weighed the pros and cons, and decided that Americans really
don’t care enough about genocide to make him pay a major price for
allowing it to continue.
Laura and I learned about Slings and Arrows from reading Fire up Netflix; you need to see the first two seasons of 'Slings and Arrows' before third starts.
We took up Tim Goodman's advice and have been working ourselves through
seasons 1 and 2. Watching the actors recite Shakespeare makes me want
to commit more texts to memory.
BTW, how does one link to a specific spot in Shakespeare's plays? I see
the use of an Act/Scene/line number reference system. Is that
prevalent? For instance, I see from Hamlet
that the beginning of Hamlet's "To be, or not to be: that is the
question:" is Act III, Scene i, line 64. What versions of Shakespeare's
text are in use? (In looking for ways to link directly to Hamlet, I
found main, which an image of the 2nd Folio of Hamlet, III.i.)
moleskines and other writing implements
Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.
For Christmas, Laura's folks gave me a large plain Moleskine notebook. Although I quickly took to writing in it sporadically, it is only during this last week that I've been writing many times a day in it. The notebook is, of course, not the only instrument for recording my thoughts. It has, however, become a guiding one as I sort through the jumble of thoughts that buzz around in my brain. Forcing myself to write my thoughts in a linear narrative often helps make sense of the nonlinear, illogical scramble of notions, emotions, questions, and conjectures.