THIS is incredible.  It might be a fluke, it might be only delayed, but if it's real...


*hopes*

So far, I've mainly just been trying to parse all the really bad news about the economy.  I've been trying to understand how it went so bad so quickly, what the ramifications are, and how long it will take to fix it, if it is even fixable at all.

( Pardon my meandering )

Jack Cafferty of CNN asked today what his viewers will miss the most about President Bush.

My initial gut reaction was to shriek, "Nothing!!!"  Any way you look at it, even if you look at it charitably, he's been a humiliation for America as her president.  But then I thought for a minute.  And I will miss something.

I will miss the way the mess he made galvanized a nation.  I am so proud of my fellow "young" voters, who turned out in droves and delivered for President-elect Obama.  I am so proud of the people who never voted because their voices seemingly never mattered, but they came out anyhow and let themselves be heard.  I am so proud of the older voters in this country who took a chance on a young candidate and a new sort of politics in this country.  It can't have been easy to take that leap, and I respect them for doing so.  I'm proud of us, as a country and as a collective citizen of the world.  I just hope that I will continue to be proud of us as we travel the difficult road ahead.

We did it.  I can't believe we did it!  How wonderful to stand witness to the first African-American elected to lead this country.

Whatever your politics, however you voted, it was amazing to see everyone from hardened news anchors to iconic Civil Rights movement figures to famous celebrities in stunned, often emotional, disbelief that we have come so far.

I watched his speech last night, and I'll admit I was a mess on my living room couch.  I managed not to cry when I said my wedding vows to the man I love more than anything, but hearing Pres.-elect Obama speak made me bawl. 

I've had my misgivings about his inexperience and wondered if his approach to governance would be a bit too cerebral and not quite enough pragmatic.  I think those concerns are largely allayed, not because of Obama's innate talents (which are considerable), but because he has shown that he's bright enough to surround himself with competent and knowledgeable people.  He's also shown, and this is key, that he's not going to govern this country by dragging everybody along behind him, but by inspiring everyone to carry the country forward themselves.  Maybe (probably?) this was all just calculated election night inspiration-mongering, but I heard in his voice and his words that he doesn't view his victory as HIS victory.  He recognizes that this was a victory for the American people. 

Our future is fraught with many dangers, dangers that this election cannot erase.  The first is that we call the election a fait accompli and wait for our new President to rescue us and make our difficulties magically disappear.  The expectations of him, both here and around the world, are so SO high that we risk destroying him before he has a chance to really get to work - to turn him into the summer king who is also royal victim.  We also must be careful that we don't spend so much time bickering about what ought to be done, by whom, and to what extent that nothing ever gets done.  I hope we make it.  And I'll be honest, that's more of a desperate hope than a hope born of certainty and confidence.

For tonight, however, I'm overjoyed.  And so proud.

Well there.  I've done my civic duty as an American citizen and cast a ballot in today's General Election.  It's the first time I've ever voted at a polling place.  For the previous general elections, I was still a student, so my official residency and voter registration was in my home state.  I've always voted by absentee ballot.

( Election Day impressions )

This. This is one of the reasons this election is so important. I've always been of the opinion that our judiciary, our Supreme Court in particular, is most useful to the country when it is fairly evenly balanced, ideologically speaking. In the case of the Supreme Court, it works best when there are 4 justices who lean left, 4 who lean right, and 1 who can go either way. That setup forces honest and rigorous discussion of the issues before the court, both within the judiciary and in the general public. A rubber-stamp judicial system in which one or the other social ideology wins simply on the weight of numbers does not help anyone. Well, I suppose it helps people who share that ideology, but it marginalizes everybody else, which is not what a judiciary is supposed to do.

( cut for length )

Okay, this one made me chuckle.  Sorry for the political cartoon.  Carry on.

ETA: Whoops, my source apparently doesn't use static links. The original cartoon showed two campaign buttons, one with Sen. Obama's signature "O" logo, and one with Sen. McCain's yellow horizontal line and star through the middle of the text. Obama's button read "Robin Hood", and McCain's button read "Sherrif of Nottingham." Tickled my funny bone, especially as I am a fan of the Robin Hood story.

Edit of the edit: Fixed! I found the fixed link.

I have discovered a truly divine breakfast.  To reproduce the effect would take some doing, but is possible.

Ingredients

1 Eggo NutriGrain waffle
1.5 Tbsp Maple Apple Drizzle
1 c tea, prepared to taste


Brew tea to taste.  Allow to cool slightly while assembling the waffle.  Prepare waffle according to package directions, or make waffles from scratch if you're feeling ambitious.  Top warm waffle with Drizzle.  Enjoy.  Try not to swoon.

The Maple Apple Drizzle is a jarred fruit topping that I picked up at Morse Sugar Farm outside Montpelier, VT while I was on my honeymoon.  It's produced by Side Hill Farm of VT.  On the jar label, they have a little byline printed, "The Apple Pie in a Jar."  I kind of chuckled at that, automatically filing it in the quaint-backwoodsy-marketing folder, but wow.  Completely accurate.  And absolutely, outrageously delicious.  Even better?  Completely all natural.  Here are the ingredients:  MacIntosh apples grown and picked in New England, Sugar, pure Vermont maple syrup, granulated maple sugar, spices.  That's all.  Nothing I need my chemistry degree to identify.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

And now, I must hide it from myself so I don't succumb to the temptation to never mind the waffles and eat the stuff with a spoon.

Stephen Hawking will apparently be retiring at the close of this academic year. I didn't realize that Prof. Hawking is older (by a smidge) than my father. He's always seemed to me to be one of those great bastions of science that's always been there and will always be there. But the long count of days marches ever on, I suppose, and all things must pass in time.

I credit Hawking and Carl Sagan for my interest in astronomy and cosmology. Them and my father, who saw how bored I was in school at age 15 and handed me copies of Cosmos and a couple of Hawking's books to read. Hm. Perhaps A Brief History of Time is due for a re-read.

A couple of months ago, my mother and father came out to visit me so that Mom could do the alterations on my wedding dress. She did a fabulous job, by the way, and Yes Dear and I could never have pulled off the wedding without her.

However, she brought a monster with her, and she left it in my apartment. It now resides on top of my refrigerator, and something will have to be done about it very soon. I regard it with dread every time I venture into my kitchen. It looks perfectly harmless, a plain red gift bag with unassumingly boxed contents sitting benignly atop my largest appliance.

But this bag, you see, contains the single most terrible piece of fallout from my very recent wedding. The apparently harmless contents of the bag are in fact 100 blank thank-you notes (and envelopes and address labels) that I'm going to have to fill with carefully hand-written text.

*cue ominous music*

Oh, how I cringe at the thought. Save me from having to pen line after line of bland, generic sentiments of gratitude! I have a notebook in which I have kept track of all things weddingish, and the most recent entry is the list of wedding gifts and who they are from. It goes on for pages. Don't get me wrong, we're extremely blessed to have such generous friends and family, but yikes, I will be writing thank-you notes until our first wedding anniversary, I think. And then there's the matter of Yes Dear's family. They are quite traditional, and will be watching me to see if I do everything properly. One of the dangers of marrying into an entirely different ethnic group is the plethora of ways you could go wrong dealing with the new relations and have no idea you've misstepped.

One of the last things Yes Dear and I talked about before flying back to our respective residences was thank-you notes. He, bless him, offered to help write them, but it seems silly to pay the postage to send some of them to him and then pay the postage again to send them to their recipients. So I guess I'll be doing the writing, but you can bet I'll have him on the phone to make sure I've said everything right and that I have the addresses correct.

First, though, I'll have to screw up the courage to brave the monster on the fridge and muster my resolve to plunge in and get started. I'm not even going to think about finishing yet - that's way too big a mountain to consider. First, I have to start, and that's on the agenda for this evening. I hope.

Oh help.

And here's another splendid piece of news:

The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

Boggles the mind. The economy is in crisis, and the GOP spends more money than my labmate's house is worth on clothes for the Veep candidate? Riiiiiiiiight. So glad they keep saying they're running on a platform of fiscal responsibility, otherwise I might have been confused.

I just got married, and there's nothing like getting married for blowing a lot of cash on clothes you'll never wear again. Even so, the ENTIRE expenditure for wedding attire for ALL members of the wedding party came in well under $2000. That includes my dress, undergarments, shoes, handbag, jewelry, and hairpieces, 3 bridesmaid dresses, 2 junior bridesmaid dresses, a flower girl dress, jewelry, totes, and slippers for all the girls, and 6 rented tuxes for the groom, best man, groomsman, ringbearer, and both fathers. Yep, I dressed an entire wedding for 1.3% the cost of Sarah Palin's campaign wardrobe.

Staggering.

Isn't this lovely:

Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.) has conceded that he did tell a North Carolina crowd that "liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God," even though he initially denied making such a statement.

For the record, I am not a member of any political party, nor do I uniformly support any political party. But nonsense like that spouted by Rep. Hayes is a large part of the reason I find myself leaning left more often than not. How completely offensive!

Let's see. I work - I'm a full-time research chemist. I like to think I've accomplished something - I have a graduate degree in chemistry, and I'm working on making plastics from sustainable (agricultural) sources. I just married my best friend and high school sweetheart (we didn't want to rush into anything, so we dated for 13 years before taking the plunge). I've achieved plenty in my life, though I may have fallen a bit short on that Nobel Prize in chemistry. I do believe in God - I'm a devout practicing Roman Catholic Christian, though I suppose that makes me "worse" than someone who doesn't believe in God.

I guess I don't qualify as a "real American" because of my political leanings, then. Thank you, Rep. Hayes, for clearing that up for me. I've been living in the wrong place for the last 30 years! I've been paying taxes to the wrong government and supporting the wrong armed forces and celebrating the wrong holiday on July 4.

When I see remarks like this, I'm reminded of a catchy slogan I once read:

"The Christian Right... IS NEITHER."

So.  I've had some big changes in my life lately, and I needed a place to yammer about them.  Tried blogger, just to see, but I kept trying to make it more like an LJ without much success.  So.  Here we are again after a long silence.  Why?  Well!

I'm thirtysomething, and very recently married - coming up on two weeks. Because I prefer to keep my RL and online identities pretty well separated, I won't refer to myself or any of my family/friends by name, so you'll see me refer to my husband as Yes Dear, something he is getting a lot better at saying. (grin)

I met Yes Dear in junior high school. We initially hated each other and competed for the top grades in our class. That rivalry eventually evolved into study groups, friendship, *best* friendship, and finally the realization that there really wasn't anybody else that either of us would care to share our lives with. We were a committed couple for 13 years prior to our marriage, largely because we both wanted to be "done with school" before getting married. For me, "school" was relatively reasonable. I stopped with an MS in organic chemistry. He's a PhD mechanical engineer who is just finishing up a postdoc. Hence the 13 year wait.

By occupation, I'm a research chemist. My formal training is in small molecule organic synthesis, but I've been turned into a polymer chemist courtesy of my current job. Without going into detail, I'm working on making plastic out of things we can grow or ferment. Neat project.

Problem: My job is in the Midwest. Yes Dear's postdoc has been in the Northeast, and he's been offered an excellent job in the same city. Ergo, I will be moving out east to be with him. This, in itself, is fine. Splendid, even. I've always loved the northeast US. The problem is that I will be leaving my job. Voluntarily. At a time when NOBODY in their right mind is volunatrily leaving a job because it would be LUNACY for them to do so. Honestly, I'm terrified. I'm a good chemist, competent and reasonably talented at it. But I only have a Master's degree, and I'm worried that there won't be any jobs available for me or anyone of my level of qualifications. My husband's job is good, good enough for us both to live on, but not good enough for us to save a whole lot on top of that. I need to find a job once I get there, and I worry that it'll be shift work in quality control. I desperately do not want to do that again - I did it once while looking for a job in my field, and I really hope I don't end up in that kind of position again.

Testing to see if an RSS experiment worked...

Go to Google.com
--Click on Maps.
--Click on "get Directions".
--From New York
--To Oslo

--And read line # 23.

Repost this if it makes you laugh.

Too funny!  Sorry I've been gone so long.  I've been busy.  Doing what?

I'm getting married.

eep.

Wow, it has been an age and a half since I updated here.  I'll try to remember to post here more often.  Anyway, here's what's new.

So, I'm finally getting round to posting about my relocation.  To briefly recap:  Almost two months ago, I (FINALLY!) got a job offer in my field, which rescued me from the wonderful (hah!) world of bottled water QC.  The pros:  IN MY FIELD, interesting research, great people, great salary, good company, etc.  The cons:  50-mile commute each way from where I was living, not in Boston, where my bf has a postdoctoral research position lined up and which is considerably closer to my family.

In sum, I was going to have to relocate to be closer to my job, doubly so because the bf will be leaving the area in another couple of months, and no way was I going to keep paying nearly $800/month rent on a 2br apartment WAY too big for just me AND keep commuting 100 miles a day with gas prices as high as they are.  And so I have.

I now live in a very nice 1br apt in a secure building in the town where I work.  It came equipped with all the major appliances, including washer, dryer, and even a microwave oven, and it has a gas fireplace, sunken tub, electric heat, central air conditioning, water and garbage paid by the landlord, and a covered parking space.  And all that for $465/month!!  Sometimes I love living in the Midwest.

And this brings me back to my vacuum cleaner!  My mother was exceedingly generous and bought me a vacuum when I moved, since the one at the old place belongs to the bf.  She got me the same model, just an upgraded version.  It's a small upright with a fold-down handle that's great for fitting in small closets.  I used it for the first time this evening.

Wow.

The little monster generated a windstorm that I had to squint through, and it was so determined to suck up my entire kitchen rug that I had to unplug the ridiculous thing to get it to let go.

Just let anybody try to break into this place - my vacuum will have them taken care of in no time.

*eyes vacuum closet nervously*

I was listening to NPR at my desk today, and I caught the tail end of a report about a law in the works somewhere that forbids all homosexuals and unmarried heterosexuals from using artificial insemination and/or all fertility treatments in an attempt to conceive a child.

Before I go into my reaction to what I heard (which, admittedly, was not the whole story), let me say that when I heard this, I was immediately reminded of the woman who taught the only psychology class I took in college (which I thought was generally a load of malarkey, but that's another story). She was an unmarried woman, in her late thirties or early forties, tenured professor, financially stable, etc, etc. The class that I took from her was Psychology of Women, and that was her field of specialization. She realized, about a year or two before I took the class, that she was missing out on a HUGE aspect of women's lives that compromised her ability to really connect with her chosen avocation. She had no idea what motherhood was like except on a vicarious level. She also had no handily available man to help her remedy that situation, and she was unwilling to settle for a Mr. Convenient when she felt she deserved Mr. Right. So what did she do? She got herself artificially inseminated and had a beautiful, healthy baby girl. The Psychology department was delighted. Not only did one of their colleagues and friends become a new mom, but they had their very own pet project for 9 months, AND they all became aunts and uncles to the wee girl after her birth (three cheers to the prof for recruiting such a well-educated cadre of babysitters).

Anyway, my point in relaying that story is to demonstrate that unwed people who seek reproductive assistance are not bad people, nor are they bad parents (which is what the law implies). Most of them are well-adjusted, responsible, mature adults who haven't met their someone special and don't want to wait around forever and possibly miss the chance to be a parent. That being the case, I think the proposed law is exceedingly unfair.

And! My point in making the previous point is this: the law that I heard described today is not at all about protecting children, since there are plenty of unmarried people who are excellent parents. It is a law about preventing gay people from being parents. And while there are certainly some gay people out there who have no business being parents, there are plenty of gay people out there who would make wonderful parents! There are tons of straight people who are horrible parents, but the government is not allowed to keep THEM from having children. That lawmakers are apparently willing to also go after straight, single people in this misguided bill simply highlights the lengths to which most some conservatives are willing to go in order to keep gay people from having the same rights as straight people.

Did you know that in some states in the USA today, one valid justification for killing another human being is the so-called "gay panic defense?" It can be justifiable homicide if someone of your gender makes a pass at you and you kill them for it. I don't believe this defense has yet gotten an accused person acquitted of assault or murder, but it has significantly reduced some sentences for such crimes when they are committed against gay people.

It's this kind of thing that makes me want to bash my head against a handy brick wall. The current administration and its cronies in Congress are fond of saying that "the people" should decide whether equal rights are given to gay people. They seem to have forgotten that responsible lawmaking in any democracy is not only carried out by majority rule; it must also be mindful of minority rights, whether the majority likes it or not. If this country ONLY focused on majority rule in its past, women and people of color would never have won the right to vote. Let's face it - how many white men do you think would've voted to extend suffrage to either of these groups if they'd had the final say in the matter? Both measures would surely have been defeated in referendum.

The trouble with the "let the people decide" approach is that the majority of "the people" are not REALLY affected by the issue. Opponents of equal rights for gay people have gotten very good at convincing folks that gay people are out to gain equal rights and then somehow take them away from straight people; that equal rights for gay people somehow threatens straight peoples' rights.

I'm sure Susan B. Anthony and her fellow crusaders were met with the same sort of opposition -- that giving women the vote would make a mockery of our electoral process and send the government into chaos because women weren't smart enough to vote wisely. I'm sure some folks tried to make the argument that giving women the right to vote would ultimately deprive men of their rights. And has it? Of course not.

About a month ago, a bill was introduced into the Massachusetts state legislature that would've defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and it would've nullified all same-sex marriages that have taken place in the last year that they have been legal. A year ago, the measure would've passed by a landslide. Last month, it was trounced 157-39. One hundred and five of the lawmakers that voted against the law this year would have voted for it last year. Do you know why they changed their minds? Because equal marriage rights have been the law in Massachusetts for a whole year, and the world has not ended.

Heterosexual marriages have been COMPLETELY unaffected by the legalization of homosexual marriage in Massachusetts. There have been no mass heterosexual divorces out of despair that their marriages "don't mean anything anymore." For the last year, homosexual married couples have enjoyed the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples, and society has not come crashing to the ground. There are no hordes of weeping, terribly confused children who no longer have any idea what a loving relationship looks like because gay couples have become just as valid as straight couples. Religious institutions have not been legally required to extend sacramental/religious marriage to homosexuals contrary to their beliefs. The insurance industry in Massachusetts has not gone bankrupt because companies are now required to extend medical coverage to the spouses of homosexuals. In Massachusetts hospitals, homosexual spouses have been allowed to be at their terminally ill spouses' bedsides at the end of life and have some say in what happens to them, and the world is still standing. They have been allowed to inherit shared property. They have had legal custody rights to children that they have helped raise. They have been able to talk to their spouses without fear that their words can be used against them or their spouses in a court of law. For a whole year, people in the state of Massachusetts have been equal, regardless of their sexual orientation. And life has gone on as scheduled.

Imagine that.

This is brilliant.  BRILLIANT!  And it sums up in a perfectly hilarious way why creationism and intelligent design should never ever ever be taught in science class!!!

AND I AM UNANIMOUS IN THAT!

Ahem.

I'm fine with these sorts of things being taught in social studies class, because they are culturally important ideas in our society.  But scientific theories they are most emphatically not.

Hey, toastandt!!  Something just occurred to me.  I have Sunday AND Monday off this weekend.  If you're not busy, you want to get together for crafty stuff and whatever?  Drop me a line or call my cell or something if you're amenable.  ;-)