Completely Unnecessary

How great are figs? I’ve been tentatively eating them more and more. At the store the other night, I selected them over dried apples to feed my fiendish need for carbohydrates these days. My father would be proud.

I am about to tell you a charming family story:

My family used to have part of a timeshare in Palm Springs, and we’d go there when work called my father out to LA. When I was four, my father spent a good part of his vacay concerned (my mother might use the term ‘obsessed’) about the apparent constipation of his young (and adorable) progeny.

That’s me.

To the head-shaking bemusement of my mother, my father became convinced that feeding me lots and lots of figs was the only way to solve this pressing problem. (Again, my mother might dispute the severity of the problem, and perhaps also the use of the word ‘problem’ to describe the situation.) My father, however, was not to be dissuaded, and I was handed fig after fig after fig.

I really did not like figs. It was not a fun couple days.

My father’s consternation grew as my system seemed wholly unaffected by the absurd amount of fibre he was pumping into it.

Only when we started cleaning the apartment in preparation for leaving did my continued constipation become clear: they began finding figs everywhere.

I had hidden them in plants, behind the phonebook, between couch cushions - they’d gone pretty much everywhere except my mouth.

My parents were shocked - my father by the subterfuge, my mother by the number of figs I’d been given (and she didn’t know the half of it; in my memory, I chucked a good number of them off the balcony).

My parents spent the next half an hour attempting to get their young (and somewhat less-adorable-seeming) progeny to detail the locations of quietly rotting figs.

It was the most food/father-related head shaking I’ve ever seen out of my mother. (Aside, of course, from the night she went to Springfield and my father fed me so much red cabbage and mayonnaise that I vomited. That, however, is a story for a different day.)

Despite this background, I’ve found in recent years that I quite like my Palm Springs nemeses. And, on occasion, my father - provided he’s not on a mission.

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I’m doing some research at the moment on a beating death of a Sudanese refugee in Melbourne. Though an Australian citizen, the framing by the press largely concerned the ‘refugee problem’ in Australia, etc., etc.

Now firmly behind the 8-ball, I’ve been doing journal research for about the last three hours. Just as I was about to call it a day (or, rather, call it a dinner and then study more at the Standard), I saw an article by S. Brownback.

And wouldn’t you know it, the Senator from Kansas wrote an article for Mediterranean Quarterly in 1999 condemning the situation in Sudan, calling it a ‘genocide’:

If I bring anything to the debate on Sudan, I hope it is the ability to sound the alarm regarding the crimes against humanity and the genocide practiced by the government of Sudan. Please note my lack of polite phrasing–this is deliberate. Our failure to use the word genocide against Rwanda in 1994 helped facilitate the deaths of a reported eight hundred thousand people within a short, three-month period, even as we watched these events unfold on CNN. We should not make this mistake again.

It’s almost as if he isn’t evil just because I disagree with most of what he says. I know rationally this can’t be the case but… maybe I’m just hungry. Yesterday I had laksa with a side of mild food poisoning. Here’s hoping food w/o sickness will put my head back on straight.

* - In fairness, Brownback wrote an op-ed for the NYT explaining his stance on evolution and creation, lamenting the that in our ’sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves.’ I don’t agree with his views, but his justified lament gets the link.

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Re: my previous post. He definitely walks outside to blow his nose.

It is 12:30 at night and I just heard the telltale sounds of my neighbor attempting, once and for all, to burst every single one of his aveoli.

Godspeed, mate.  Also, ew.

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Someone searched for ‘punchy bright beautiful intelligent’ and linked thru to my blog.

Thanks, guys!

Then again, someone also linked through from ‘gay rubber “dog suit”‘.

So a mixed bag, really.

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This is the current weather for Melbourne:

‘Blowing dust’? Where the hell are we?

And how soon does ‘blowing dust’ turn into ‘tornado,’ because that’s what it looks like out there. I am from the Midwest; I am dubious about this sky.

So that’s a little scary, but not as scary as this morning.

I was walking downstairs to eat breakfast when there was a pounding on the door. It wasn’t a knock, but angry-sounding pounding. An ‘I’m not answering that’-style pounding. It was shortly after nine am, a strange time for someone to be coming by.

I hesitated on the steps. I couldn’t see who it was, but I also couldn’t walk past the front door. We have a frosted window and whoever it was would know that someone was home.

Suddenly, the door rattled like someone was trying it to see if it was unlocked. And then the sound of someone trying to put something in the lock. I was motivated enough to reach down and grab the phone.

I sat there, phone in hand, unsure if I should dial the police or run and grab a knife. He pounded at the door again. I saw a yellow fluro jacket through the window, but all I could think about was all those cases in the 90s where women were being raped by fake utility inspectors.

After an eternity, the mailbox rattled and moments later I heard a car door open and shut.

Only then did I think that it might be the postman delivering a package from my mother.

The postcard in my letter box confirmed this. And now I have to drop by after 4:30 to collect my hard shoes.

Also confirmed, we have the most angry/terrifying postman ever. Why was he trying my door? I was like four feet away - that is definitely what was going on.

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I was beating myself up earlier today because I promised myself that I would stop looking for references for my thesis and, you know, actually read them. And then I added at least six more…

I’m currently cruising at over 60 references, and will probably only need about 30 of them.

So what about this feels good?

I just started reading this woman’s Masters thesis that I found via Google Scholar, and I totally caught her plagiarizing! Plagiarizing, in fact, one of the other references I read tonight, Devitt (1999)!

It was a hard to locate reference, I know, but she could have at least changed the wording a wee bit more.

Busted!

Luckily, she’s graduated, and I don’t really care that much.

And really, her writing is more shocking than the stealing. If her uni let her pass, a little bit of plagiarism clearly wasn’t going to make the difference.

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Dith Pran died today of pancreatic cancer at the age of 65.

Dith is most famous for his partnership with NYT journalist Sydney Schanberg. The two covered Cambodia during the rise of the Khmer Rouge.

Unlike Schanberg, who had an American passport, Dith was unable to escape Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime. He lived through a time in his country’s history that remains nearly unspeakable to this day.

It seems impossible to believe that he survived so much, only to be felled by his own cells. It is tragic that his life (as well as the lives of all who died as a result of the KR regime) was cut so short.

If you haven’t read The Death and Life of Dith Pran, I highly recommend it. Dith and Schanberg were also the subjects of the Academy Award-winning film, The Killing Fields. The film is good, but I recommend the book. If you get interested in the Khmer Rouge period, I also recommend, Stay Alive, My Son.

The NYT also has a photo gallery of Dith, including some of his work with the paper after his escape.

Link:
Dith Pran, ‘Killing Fields’ Photographer, Dies at 65 [NYT]

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After a year, I finally found an Irish dance class in Melbourne. So, Thursday night I went out in the pouring, freezing rain and danced my little heart out.

It is now Saturday, and I am still just in remarkable amounts of pain. I walk down stairs like I’ve been hit by a bus. I’ve chosen to sit on the floor to compose this entry, and it’s unclear to me if I’m going to be able to get back up afterwards.

It was awesome, obviously. I think we did more lunges that night than I’ve done collectively in my entire life. I just hope I’m fixed up enough to be able to dance the Monday night class.

Anyway, some of the pain was offset by a night on the town last night, which yielded Violeta and I drinking with post-conference archaeologists. Given the amount of pain I was in, I don’t feel I was given enough credit for the following interaction after last drinks were called:

Dave: So, how was hanging out with archaeologists?
Me: It was good. I dug it.

I only got a low five for that.

And only after I asked.

They’ve probably had years to come up with archeology puns, but that was right off the cuff! I am unappreciated in my time.

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I thought a great deal yesterday about how the media would respond to Obama’s speech. They’d clearly been chomping on the race bit for some time; would this event put more food in the trough or would they rise above their most base instincts and cover this story with the nuanced tone it deserves?

(I also thought about mixed metaphors and how I deploy them in an obscenely casual manner.)

Here’s what the LA Times’ politics blog, Top of the Ticket added to the national discussion:

Barack Obama thought O.J. did it

Less noticed was the elaboration he provided in an interview aired Monday night on ABC’s “Nightline” on the question that once so divided many whites and blacks: did Simpson butcher his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her wrong-place, wrong-time friend, Ron Goldman?

They ran it with the biggest goddamn picture I’ve seen of OJ in years.

I linked to that through GoogleNews, which is my homepage. What else did we aggregate this morning? ABC news’ Brian Ross:

Hillary Was in White House on ‘Stained Blue Dress’ Day

Schedules Reviewed by ABC Show Hillary May Have Been in the White House When the Fateful Act Was Committed

Hillary Clinton spent the night in the White House on the day her husband had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky, and may have actually been there when it happened, according to records of her schedule released today by the National Archives.

Not only does the subhead nearly contradict the headline, but the lede is vague enough for a reading that HRC was in the room when her husband had sex with Lewinsky.

Oh my hell. I need to go find Jurgen Habermas. He and I are going to have a drink and a cry.

Screenshot of the first thing I saw this morning (more…)

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What’s that old adage about a seed of truth in every joke?

Joe Scarborough manages to grow an entire tree in this video.

[I'm shamelessly just copying Wonkette posts at this point because I has no teevees for watching...]

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