tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-99845912011-08-02T10:03:13.648-07:00Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.comBlogger271100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-69204294244716565882009-02-12T19:47:00.000-08:002009-02-12T19:52:46.461-08:00

When Obama did his two-sentence no-segue mention of Darwin's birthday during his Lincoln speech just now, I immediately said to my television, "There was supposed to be something else after that, wasn't there? You did a thing with your face."

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-35515980028272796892008-12-31T14:32:00.000-08:002008-12-31T14:43:29.645-08:00

Blood Roadby Katharine Lee BatesThe Old Year groaned as he trudged away,His guilty shadow black on the snow,And the heart of the glad New Year turned greyAt the road Time bade him go."O Gaffer Time, is it blood-road still?Is the noontide dark as the stormy morn?Is man's will yet as a wild beast's will?When shall the Christ be born?"He laughed as he answered, grim Gaffer Time,Whose laugh is sadder

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-19732822101754336912008-12-22T13:16:00.000-08:002008-12-22T13:18:39.910-08:00

Rick Warren is extremely controversial, and Reverend Joseph E. Lowery is not.Now, I knew that already, but suddenly the conventional wisdom seems to bear some resemblance to my own experience of reality. It's very strange.

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-83736040884208384592008-10-28T21:22:00.000-07:002008-10-28T21:29:36.666-07:00

I just got this email, sent to the ACLU mailing list by Executive Director Anthony D. Romero; the subject line is "Favor to Ask from Your Gay Friend at the ACLU". It's not up on their website, and I think it's worth reproducing in full.(Short version: Stop Prop 8. You can use the ACLU's web tools to tell your friends and family.)Dear ACLU Supporter,I'm angry and heartsick about what may happen

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-9904164438354599522008-10-25T13:21:00.000-07:002008-10-25T13:46:54.073-07:00

(tiny spoilers)My favorite thing about In Bruges was the part where somebody gets permanently disabled by a gun that's firing blanks. (In context this was funnier than it sounds.) Unlike a lot of the other WACKY TWISTS in that movie[1], that was something I haven't seen before, and it was a pretty entertaining illustration of one of my pet issues as a performing-arts person.Oh, and Ralph

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-22515795524898809812008-09-16T11:48:00.000-07:002008-09-16T11:51:14.437-07:00

"No wonder they cannot appreciate the central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home."Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-81643818308171105212008-08-13T16:57:00.000-07:002008-08-13T16:58:34.447-07:00

Bill Gwatney, the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, was shot and killed at the state party HQ today. The gunman, who hasn't been officially identified, was also shot by police in an exchange of gunfire at the end of a 30-mile chase; he, like Gwatney, died of his injuries later in the day. There is a more detailed article at the Arkansas Times blog (DON'T READ THE COMMENTS SECTION).For

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-38270758713969379992008-07-17T00:45:00.000-07:002008-07-17T00:55:54.536-07:00

Shakesville: "The Market kicks teenagers out of an operating room because it refuses to cover the surgery."The destructive condition will rob her 19-year-old daughter of motor skills, memory and possibly one day, her life. For now, Caitlin has excruciating headaches and dangerous fainting spells. Her life as she knows it has come to a standstill."I constantly have to have somebody around me. I

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-23082511882361154472008-07-12T14:34:00.000-07:002008-07-12T15:01:12.775-07:00

hilzoy has a post called Diplomacy 101 that is very very good and makes me very very sad, since nothing she says is going to reach the people who actually need to hear it.I've been trying all my life to get at the problem of explaining the fact that you shouldn't be a giant asshole on purpose for fun to people who respond to any such argument with a giant grin and a "Sure you should!" In this

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-7688815695768923772008-07-09T18:33:00.000-07:002008-07-09T18:36:08.861-07:00

Congress votes to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, legalize warrantless eavesdropping.Obama, like almost half the Senate Democrats and all the Republicans, voted for cloture (i.e., against a filibuster of the bill) and for the final bill.The ACLU and the EFF will be fighting this in the courts. (I just renewed my ACLU membership; they're going to have a hell of a lot of work to do when Obama's the

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-76884297420042327812008-07-04T18:01:00.000-07:002008-07-04T18:05:05.544-07:00

I don't have a Fourth of July post, but I liked the Rude Pundit's.

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-43885147368167936872008-07-03T10:55:00.000-07:002008-07-03T11:19:44.224-07:00

Please read:Nuts & Bolts: How U.S. Organized Torture Program.It's a post from last week that goes into appalling detail on the SERE/coercion tactics story and the declassified documents thereunto appertaining that appeared in yesterday's NYT. An Yglesias commenter pointed to it, and two others soon pointed to news stories from 2005 and 2006 that covered similar ground.[B]y testimony of Lt. Col.

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-79352041823830322632008-07-02T15:00:00.000-07:002008-07-02T15:33:21.184-07:00

WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-91416242289608069522008-07-01T13:59:00.000-07:002008-07-01T14:03:19.433-07:00

Happy natural selection day!(If you're in Toronto before August 4, doooo treat yourself to the Darwin special exhibit at the ROM ROM ROM--it's amazing.)

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-18392548772308369982008-07-01T11:51:00.000-07:002008-07-01T13:50:52.327-07:00

Dear everybody:Never never never never never point a gun that is "loaded with blanks" at anybody.A French soldier wounded 17 people—including a 3-year-old child—when he accidentally loaded his gun with live ammunition during a hostage-taking simulation in the southern city of Carcassonne. What on earth was a 3-year-old doing in a military training scenario?Enjoying the spectacle. According to

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-43003560916890926892008-06-28T18:47:00.000-07:002008-06-28T23:30:46.292-07:00

The Iraq refugee crisis is a disaster of astounding scale--a disaster in which our government has fallen pathetically short in its moral imperative to protect the people whom it once said the invasion would "liberate". One in five Iraqis had been displaced in 2007, according to Refugees International, with some 2 million now in flight outside Iraq and 2 million displaced internally. Late last

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-8754418132347202352008-03-15T15:39:00.000-07:002008-03-15T16:05:16.376-07:00

If the entire gay population of Iran turned up in the UK, then I would allow the entire gay population of Iran to stay here. If that cost us so much money that we had to have fewer Olympic Games, Millennium Domes and Trident Missiles, then I think I could probably live with that. I believe in the 1940s, the Daily Mail took the view that the Jews were probably exaggerating the situation in Germany

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-80510554944203179932008-02-07T11:02:00.000-08:002008-02-07T11:21:17.490-08:00

I've been saying it for the past year and I want to say it one more time, real loud:We Democrats are looking at an embarrassment of riches in the presidential race. A month ago I was bragging that we were down to a field of three whip-smart, hard-working, highly educated wonks with actual ideas. Now we're down to two, and it seems guaranteed that our nominee (god finally oh lord how long oh

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-71783015549994682502008-02-07T10:17:00.000-08:002008-02-07T11:09:04.432-08:00

SCOOP: Why do you cover your mouth when you talk about sex?HEIDI: Hygiene.Watched the January 31 CNN debate on YouTube the night before Super Tuesday. It provided me with several opportunities to listen to "the cackle," you know, Hillary Clinton's famous horrible grating laugh.It's...a laugh. It sounds like a woman, laughing.I know my opinions will always be hopelessly unpopular; still, I wish

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-10289810068521992662008-01-16T13:34:00.000-08:002008-01-19T15:49:40.969-08:00

It's difficult to know what to say about a lost comrade, and I've already talked about the death of my great-uncle Milt Wolff in more private fora. But I see his loss reverberating in other areas of the internet, and I want to pay tribute to him here as well.I left a comment on his editor's blog that went on longer than I expected, and I'll repeat it:Milt was my great-uncle (by marriage to my

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-66105964464553901712008-01-13T12:30:00.000-08:002008-01-13T12:47:23.941-08:00

Shakespeare's Sister reports:Mr. Shakes (by email): Since I signed up on the Obama site I've received 2 emails from him. The first was titled 'We knew it would be hard' and the second was titled 'Something Big.' I am hesitant to open these at work.Me: I'm so posting that.I'm a longtime Breck Girl supporter of John Edwards myself, but I get spammed by a lot of Democratic politicians' mailing lists

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-42383140317199948112008-01-12T21:45:00.000-08:002008-01-12T23:33:24.047-08:00

It took several days for non-local media to pick up this story back in December, and I doubt it would have made it to news outlets outside Detroit had it not been for the noise made by the African-American and feminist blogosphere. Alexis Goggins, a seven-year-old special-needs child, was shot six times trying to protect her mother from the mother's abusive ex-boyfriend (against whom the mother,

Sylviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07359485052731542810noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-763660893085273682007-09-01T12:28:00.000-07:002007-09-01T12:40:30.967-07:00

Dear Mr. Brooks,A woman being raped by her captor, even--nay, especially--if that woman has been comically established as a tease and/or slut, and even--nay, especially--if she ends up enjoying it, is not the comedy goldmine of a situation on a Broadway stage in 2007 that it may have been in a monster-movie sendup in 1974.Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sylvia Drakenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-62650375686025176402007-08-17T21:48:00.000-07:002007-08-17T22:56:45.013-07:00

Yours truly is, of course, not the only one feeling this way. My friend Chris Phan also offered the following in response to my words on the subject:We need to change the discourse. We need to get Americans to understand: 1. We are at war with al-Queda, not with "terror". 2. For the foreseeable future, we cannot completely eliminate terrorist attacks, no more than we can completely eliminate

Sylvia Drakenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-10614348514667796942007-08-13T17:06:00.000-07:002008-07-09T18:36:57.619-07:00

On the subject of the FISA bill: As is so often the case, digby finds the words that the rest of us wish we had.I am not by philosophy or temperament a "bring down the state" kind of person and that tends to make me look for reason in unreasonable actions and try to affect change through the political channels that currently exist. Persuasion, education, discussion, blah, blah, blah. And I'm not

Sylvia Drakenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-3545688167102399882007-08-13T11:26:00.000-07:002007-08-17T22:49:48.550-07:00

I don't know how many American readers have even heard of Maher Arar, a Canadian software engineer who was detained by U.S. authorities at a layover in JFK, accused of al-Qaeda links and "rendered" to Syria where he was held for ten months and tortured into giving a false confession. The first link will send you to coverage of the case at Obsidian Wings, if you need to catch up.The news this

Sylvia Drakenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9984591.post-36516716480367924862007-08-12T15:05:00.000-07:002007-08-17T22:50:15.138-07:00

Zubaydah told the Red Cross that he was not only waterboarded, as has been previously reported; he was also kept for a prolonged period in a cage, known as a “dog box,” which was so small that he could not stand. According to an eyewitness, one psychologist advising on the treatment of Zubaydah, James Mitchell, argued that he needed to be reduced to a state of “learned helplessness.” (Mitchell

Sylvia Drakenoreply@blogger.com0