Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Rick Perry: Not as Crazy as the other guy


I never thought I'd say this, but I hope that Rick Perry sweeps the Republican primary. Courtesy of Pete, check out Perry's opponent Larry Kilgore. This man is apparently in favor of executing people for adultery, homosexuality and beastiality. NOTE: I found the images on the his page to be disturbing and graphic, but I'm also pretty sensitive to violence.








Perry, the less crazy Republican:

Monday, February 27, 2006

Student Elections = Yawn

... but I do quite like some of the "Super Mario Brothers'" Policies, namely:

Vince Young Statue
- The bronze will be acquired from the melting of the Confederate soldier statues that currently reside in the Main Mall to create one Super Vince statue

Whataburger
- Replace University Dining Halls with Whataburger restaurants, to meet the cravings of students 24/7

Lazy River
- Construction of Lazy River transportation system, because students shouldn't have to walk to class. We will utilize the same technology as Schlitterbahn

Mushrooms
- Free shrooms for all

Koopa Elimination
- Keep campus safe from the Koopas

Lazy River. I'm all for that one.

Trapped in a closet


So they found all these old civil rights era pictures in a closet at the Birmingham News, where they'd been sitting for however many years. They're amazing. This is a picture of some Freedom Riders trying to figure out what to do after they've been kicked off a Greyhound. You can see more here.

SASE?

Should you always send an SASE when submitting an article? I ask because the CFP I'm responding to didn't give any directions and the website for the journal was noncommittal on the issue. I don't want to pull a major faux pas by not including the SASE.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

A True Olympian


Who needs gold medals when you're double-fisting next to a double-d?

Saturday, February 25, 2006

hangings-out

hey, becky, or anybody else who wanted to get together tonight: call me on my phone - i'm going to be away from the computer (i know! how terrible) and studying.

Biel's notes

Here are some of the websites that Biel referenced. I especially like the letter from Gordon Wood and the Coors Light advertisement.

http://www.grantwoodstudio.org/
http://www.iowahistory.org/sites/gothic_house/gothic_house.html
http://www.newmansownorganics.com/
http://www.commercialcloset.org/cgi-bin/iowa/portrayals.html?record=246
http://www.commercialcloset.org/cgi-bin/iowa/index.html
http://www.dentaleditors.org/Article%20Library/curtis%20art3.htm
http://www.campsilos.org/mod2/students/wood_letter.htm

ricin beans

what the?

i seriously just cried

when i watched this video of that autistic bball player we were talking about last night.

also, thanks, john, for covering for me last night. yeah, i was a little drunk. but to pay me back, my nose just started bleeding again.

Friday, February 24, 2006

A Texas Complement to the Winter Olympics

This article on Texas skiers from Slate made me smile:

http://www.slate.com/id/2136807/nav/tap2/

Jobs I wish I could have

The person who painted this must have the best job ever. Imagine: "We've found this 164 million year old skeleton of a mammal that is a cross between a beaver, otter and platypus. Could you imagine what it would look like swimming and paint us a picture?" Awesome.

On a related note, how do you think creationists square mammals that lived 164 million years ago? Do they just deny these things?

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Check it out

So Pete has started a new blog dedicated to Texas politics and I thought it might be of interest to y'all. He's already gotten his first piece of hate mail from a conservative (and no John, it wasn't from me), I'm so proud.
Check it out here.

celebrities secretly have cellulite and skin

Despite the fact that this whole topic reminds me of my terrible post-paper conversation about body image at SW/TX PCA/ACA, this site, which was posted on Mannahatta, is a fascinating illustration of the majick of airbrushing.

You have to go to "portfolio," then go to "before and after," then click on the little link to the left of the picture that says "see this picture before."

free texas


here's the shirt for the texas independence day 5k
(i dont think i can post pics in comments, otherwise this would be under andy's 10k post)












the unadorned superior graphic
that originally sparked my attention was...

this one could clearly stand alone on the front of a shirt

A 10k run in April, anyone?

I'm also going to get my lard-arse off the couch and get running: the Texas Roundup 10k is coming up on April 29th and will (I'm thinking) be a good break from the hell-on-a-stick of essay time.

Anyone else game? There's a free signed certificate from Rick Perry as a reward!

Anyone up for some music tonight?

I think I'm going to go to see the Undertow Orchestra at the Parish on 6th tonight. The Underow Orchestra is comprised of recent American luminaries Vic Chestnutt and Mark Eitzel along with some dude from Cenrto-Matic and the guy from another famous alternative band I have completely forgotten the name of. Imagine a cerebral Travelling Willburies with a bit more spunk.

Tickets are $15, doors @9pm. Pyrotechnics and PBR optional. Give me a call/reply to this if you're up for it.

http://www.theparishroom.com/

Batter Up!

Is anyone else as psyched as I am about the softball team! I haven't played since I was nine and I can't wait.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

sick

sick!

so nerdy on so many levels

so, i used to love the rocky horror picture show, but when i loved it i was too young to understand the references to "american gothic" that are embedded in the church scene at the beginning. after reading part of (well, most of - god, that book goes down easy) the biel book for next week, i went to try to find a pic on the web of that RHPS scene, and i found the script to the movie.

here's the note for that scene:

JANET & BRAD linger outside the church. So do a strange FAMILY : An old man with a pitchfork and his wife and daughter. They resemble the Quaker family in "American Gothic", a painting.

quaker? biel's book is obviously deficient, because it does not explore this conflation. doesn't he have google?

Basketball boo

It turns out that the B'Ball game against Kansas is sold out for the time being- it looks like the game will be the Big XII decider and Kansas are a good side, to boot- probably one of the better games of the year.

That said, I was told that tickets "may become available" so I will keep trying and let you know.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

SXSW

i've got a topic!

who-all is going to stick around during spring break/sxsw? are people getting wristbands or badges or what have you?

i've got 2 (two) friends coming to stay. i want to intro them to all of you if you're going to be here. but we've decided not to buy those expensive-ass wristbands.

discuss.

blog? what blog?

over twelve hours without a new post (perhaps without comments...unclear), and we all know we weren't asleep

Black or Indian?

Interesting article about some african-americans who are suing to become Cherokee/Creek/Seminole tribesmen, on the basis of their ancestors' enslavement by those tribes...

Auden

His birthday, today. A poem of his:

Nonsense Song

My love is like a red red rose
Or concerts for the blind,
She's like a mutton-chop before
And a rifle-range behind.

Her hair is like a looking glass,
Her brow is like a bog,
Her eyes are like a flock of sheep
Seen through a London fog.

Her nose is like an Irish jig,
Her mouth is like a 'bus,
Her chin is like a bowl of soup
Shared between all of us.

Her form divine is like a map
Of the United States,
Her food is like a motor-car
Without its number-plates.

No steeple-jack shall part us now
Nor fireman in a frock;
True love could sink a Channel boat
Or knit a baby's sock.

Monday, February 20, 2006

"Field Guide to Sprawl" and Tax

A couple of things, namely:

1- Does anyone have a copy of Dolores Hayden's "A Field Guide to Sprawl" that I could borrow?

2- Would anyone care to join me at the Graduate Student Tax Seminar tomorrow? It starts at 9-9:30am in the Union and will hopefully reveal all the hidden tax breaks we can get as graduate students (or not, as may be the case).

There's a link to the flyer here.

Dastardly Netflix

Maybe everybody else but me already heard about this.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Plagiarism

Anyone else notice that Madge lifts word for word from the "Note on Method" section in Middletown? i.e. "when it was impossible to take notes at the time, the record was made immediately afterward from memory"(Madge, 137; Lynd 508). Other parts are very similar, if not exact in Madge's method section.

9:30 am? Am I crazy?

Anybody else going to that graduate grant writing workshop tomorrow morn? I am, but I'm debating whether it's worth it. I'll take notes for y'all.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Lazy Muncie

Following on from Lazy Sunday, I bring you this Mid-West rip-off which should segue well into our discussion of Middletown. Or not.

A footnote in my edition of _Middletown_

"The relation of climate to the elaborate equilibrium of activities that make up living is suggested by the late James J. Hill's motto to which he is said absolutely to have adhered: 'You can't interest me in any proposition in any place where it doesn't snow,' or, more picturesquely, 'No man on whom the snow does not fall ever amounts to a tinker's dam.' (Quoted in J Russell Smith's _North America_, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co, 1925, p. 8)."

henry adams' birthday

today. quote from guess who:

"[Adams] once wrote a 2,700-page book called History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison, and the way he saw it, things had only gone downhill from there. He said, 'The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.'"

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Meeting Up

So the problem I have with this board is that on-going conversations get pushed down to the bottom and I forget to check them. Is there still a plan/desire to meet up tomorrow evening and have a pow-wow about how the semester is going, as far as final papers etc.?

Depress the hell out of yourself

By reading this review of Erik Reece's new book about mountaintop removal mining in Kentucky...

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Anyone up for some hoops?

I have a voucher for two free tickets to next Saturday's Men's basketball game against Kansas (8pm) and thought that this might be a good opportunity for an AMS group outing.

If anyone is up for going, let me know and we can split the cost of any additional seats between us (i.e. if four people go, two people would buy $8 tix and we'd each pay $4 on account of the two free seats). We should all be able to sit together if I get the tickets all at once. I feel the need to represent at at least one B'Ball game before March Madness kicks in.

Hook 'em, and all of that... :-)


here's a snapshot from the campsite in joshua tree on sunday morning.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Television

We just put ours together and by god, it still works, plays DVDs and everything. Didn't hold three months in a dark shed against us.

Do you guys want still to come over to see Jazz tomorrow night, about 8? The invitation stands. We could get pizza from the Parlour and eat broccoli and debate Manet or something.

the concept of the windchill factor...

was invented by this guy paul siple, who was an eagle scout who went to antarctica with robert byrd in 1928, when he was only twenty years old.

a fun fact for a day when my friends on the east coast are sledding down hills...

why couldn't he just shoot himself?

has anybody ever read russell banks' affliction?

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Two things

1. Did anyone get a copy of Ken Burns' Jazz? If so, can we watch it together or can I borrow it?

2. Do we still want to meet up and discuss what's going on with the project for Mark's class? February is slowly slipping away, so does anyone feel like meeting up this week? I think Tuesday is out because of V-Day and Friday at 3 is the MA peep's meeting with Steve, other than that any thoughts.

Friday, February 10, 2006

yeah, but you went on big brother

germaine greer gets strangely bitchy.

again from the hyatt starbux i hit ye

from today's writer's almanac:

It was on this day in 1861 that Jefferson Davis learned that he had been selected as the president of the new Confederate States of America. Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Davis had been a senator for the state of Mississippi and in the lead up to the war he had traveled widely in the North and South urging compromise. Though he believed the constitution did give states the right to withdraw from the Union, he personally opposed secession and spoke out against it. But when Abraham Lincoln was elected president Davis knew that the Southern states would secede.

He didn't attend the Confederate Convention in Montgomery, Alabama, and so he was at home, pruning rose bushes with his wife on this day in 1861 when a messenger arrived to give him the news that he had been selected as the president of the new confederate states. His wife, Varina, later wrote that as he read the message his face grew pale. She said, "Reading that telegram he looked so grieved that I feared some evil had befallen our family. After a few minutes he told me like a man might speak of a sentence of death."

aw, poor jeff.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

why am i posting on this instead of socializing at the conference?

because i'm feeling antisocial after my disappointing and boring post-panel discussion this morning. look at this funny site i love. it was linked to the website of this guy kenneth kidd who writes about ecocriticism and children's lit...maybe only interesting to me? he's also a UT english alum.

Standardized Testing


If you haven't read it already, I really encourage y'all to read Panel Explores Standard Tests for Colleges in today's NY Times. The most disturbing part, aside from the role that the UT system is playing in it, is the fact that one of the commissioners in favor of standardized testing on the collegiate level is the CEO of Kaplan.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Gladwellmania

Becky, did you see Sunday's gigantic NYTBR review of Gladwell? Choice bit: "Translating academic work for a popular audience is 'very explicitly' his mission, Gladwell said, though it might not be what readers take away from his books. He said he owed 'enormous debts' to academia."

Monday, February 06, 2006

Roadside memorials

For those of you from Steve's landscape class - remember when we talked about how states are now trying to regulate roadside memorials? Apparently there was an NYT spy in the room...

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Photos from the Roadtrip



Click on the title of the post to see the photos from my Christmas roadtrip. I promise that they're not all photos of Jesus paraphernalia...

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Gateway community


From the restaurant next to the Gage Hotel in Marathon TX...

The cabin is everywhere

This story about the slave narrative behind UTC ran today on NPR. There's quite a bit of the actual narrative here.

R.I.P.

So I just read in the Times that Betty Friedan died today. Rarely, do I care when celebrities die, particularly when those who have lived long lives, but I have to say reading about Friedan really bummed me out. She was a large part of why I wanted to attend an all-women's college and influenced the tone of my personal statement. Strangely, my advisor at Smith also was fascinated by Friedan, spending the better part of the 1990s working on a biography of her life. Anyway, on less personal note, I thought it was interesting that the article mentioned: "Despite all of her later achievements, Ms. Friedan would be forever known as the suburban housewife who started a revolution with "The Feminine Mystique." Rarely has a single book been responsible for such sweeping, tumultuous and continuing social transformation." Definitely fit with our discussion of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Football time

Sent out an e-mail, but thought I'd try to utilize the board here. Superbowl watching tomorrow 5:oo, come eat, drink and be merry.

Last night = Urrrrrgh

Lone Star is a conspiracy against academics...

Danskin Triathlon Sprint


I've been toying with the idea of entering the Danskin triathlon sprint (Swim - 1/2 mile, Bike - 12 miles, Run - 3.1 miles). The race is June 11th. I'm much more likely to go through with this if someone else wants to do it. Anyway, registration isn't even up yet, but you can check out the info here. Oh and it's an all-female competition, sorry guys.

Friday, February 03, 2006


from harrisburg, il.

no fun, but henry clay!


i posted a little of this in a comment, but then i realized it was a comment to a post that happened long ago... i am clearly not in the habit of blog-checking frequently enough, as i just read the beerland posts (and this after i said to marvin earlier in the week "yeah! post the friday night plans on the blog!")... but i am attempting to squash my allergies tonight, so i should probably stay close to home anyhow... i do hope marvelous fun is had by all!

but here's a picture of henry clay carved out of a tree in smithland, ky.

Sometimes


Sometimes I feel like this.

Links on the sidebar

I am just putting up links I like. If anybody has any they like that they want to add (maybe if anybody has their own personal blogs or whatnot?), send them to me, lest the links section become Rebecca's Internet Favorites Corner.

Brokeback in Montana (Salon article)

Conservatives said "Brokeback Mountain" would bomb in cowboy country. But in red-state Montana, gay cowboys are a big draw. Plus: Christians against Britney! Oprah duped Talese?

Feb. 2, 2006 | For months now, a chorus of televised talking heads has been predicting that the vast majority of Americans wouldn't stand -- let alone stand in line -- for "Brokeback Mountain." Bill O'Reilly, who memorably promised that red-staters would stay home, predicted, "They're not going to go see the gay cowboys in Montana. I'm sorry. They're not going to do it."

But "Brokeback Mountain" isn't just playing in red states like Montana; it has been doing quite well, even before it became the Oscar front-runner this week.

In Missoula, Mont., a town of just under 60,000, the film has been a big hit since it opened at the cavernous Wilma Theater on Jan. 6, grossing $33,006, cumulatively, in its first four weekends there. A representative for Focus Features calls the movie's performance in Missoula "amazing." And Bill Emerson, who manages the 85-year-old theater, confirms that "Brokeback's" draw has been "one of our best starts for a movie we've ever had."

Of course, Missoula is a college town that has long served as a haven for Montana's liberals, hippies and artists. But "Brokeback" isn't doing well only in Missoula. In Kalispell, a stronghold of conservatism in the northwest part of the state, the film opened last Friday and took in $3,656 at the box office its first weekend, a draw Focus says it's "very happy" with. In the equally conservative ski town of Whitefish, where the film also opened on Friday, it was the weekend's top draw, taking in $2,312 and beating out "Big Momma's House 2," "Nanny McPhee" and "Underworld," the top three national box-office draws. And a rep for the company calls the film's performance in Billings, a traditional community in central Montana, where it has taken in $26,065 since opening on Jan. 13, "absolutely phenomenal." "Brokeback" is also doing well in Great Falls and Bozeman, and last weekend opened at No. 1 in Helena.

"I don't know where [the pundits] got the idea that we wouldn't want to see this movie," said Donna Frief, a 59-year-old school secretary from Lolo, Mont., who went to see "Brokeback" in Missoula last week with her daughter and granddaughter. Frief said she "could have done without" some of the more explicit love scenes, but added, "I thought it was just a really beautiful love story. And so sad. It really helped me understand more about the feelings that [gay people] go through."

Judging from the outcomes of the two most recent presidential elections, Montana might look pretty homogenous and conservative. Statewide, Montanans voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush in 2000 and again in 2004, by margins of 19 and 20 percentage points, respectively, proving themselves to be considerably more enthusiastic about Bush than much of the rest of the country. But those same Montana voters summarily ousted the Republican Party from the governor's office and majority power in both chambers of the state Legislature in 2004. Today, all but one of the major posts in Montana state government are held by Democrats.

One of the first people to step up to the box-office window to see "Brokeback Mountain" when it opened last Friday at the Strand, an old single-screen movie house in Kalispell, was a gray-haired man who would identify himself only as Fishbah.

"What the hell, a couple cowboys? They've got the choice of sheep, cows and cowboys -- which would you choose?" he mused.

The Blue Moon is a sprawling cowboy bar on a rural highway between Whitefish and Columbia Falls. One wall of the barroom is taken up by a glass display case containing two stuffed Kodiak bears and one polar bear, frozen in attack poses. A house band jangles through a series of country hits onstage, while men and women in Stetsons and crisp jeans swing-dance on the wooden dance floor.

Eight men and one woman sat quietly around a poker table. As I sat down, a waitress walked up and placed a single red rose on a chair near the dealer. A man at the far end of the table noticed it and picked it up. A grin flashed across his face, and he handed it to the man next to him.

"This is for you," said the man with the rose.

"Hey, isn't that cute -- it's like that 'Brokeback Mountain,'" interjected another man sitting at the table, who laughed heartily at his own joke. "That shit, what's up with the gay cowboy?" The others at the table grinned and shook their heads.

"Anybody planning to see the movie?" I ventured. One guy glanced up from his cards. Another guy shrugged, not committing either way.

Non-Mormons studying Mormons

The link is in the title, and the article is from the Chronicle of Higher Ed and is by a UChicago Div school student who's having trouble with the LDS church in the course of writing his dissertation. Reminded me of Marvin's Meikle essay.

If it's subscription-only, which it might be, & you want to see it, email me and I'll send you the whole thing.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Weegee

So while reading the Riis book last night I couldn't stop thinking about Weegee, this photographer from 30s and 40s who used to go out in nyc and take B&W pictures with a giant flash, all of sordid stuff (he used to follow announcements on a police scanner to find his subjects), some even of street kids. No word on whether he ever set any of his subjects' houses on fire.

The title of the posting is the link to his pictures...

Bernard-Henri Levy (SP?)

I didn't read that review, but I will now, and also, I hear that Andy is reading that book, and I expect a full review on this blog when he's done. I am sure it'll kick Garrison's to pieces.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The pink fish of the gods in Maine

An interesting article - well, maybe only interesting to those of us who took Steve's landscape class - about salmon in Maine and how they're dying out. Who knew there were salmon in Maine? I sure ditn't.

thursday breakfast

hi folks,

if any of you are up/awake/on campus before 9am, i will be making "live" pancakes tomorrow (thursday) morning in the co-op. you're welcome to come by laurel (the kitchen is at 1905 nueces st) between 7:45 and 9am, and i'll make you a tasty pancake.

this is, incidentially, in the spirit of the giant pancake feeds i used to do at willamette, but those were at midnight and for hundreds of people.

eat well.

Suggestion

How about a fancy-pants counter on the site so that we can keep track of the millions of hits we receive each day?

Just think of the nuanced statistical data that can be extrapolated from that!

Funny/bittersweet Katrina/NOLA photos

Here.

Langston Hughes' birthday

Is today. I get that Writers' Almanac email (I know, it's from Garrison Keillor...I just can't help liking him), and they said this about Hughes:

"He went to Columbia University for a year but then he decided that he wanted to learn from the world rather than books. He quit college, hopped a boat to Africa and as soon as the boat left New York Harbor he threw all his college books overboard."

It's all very transgressive, but I can't believe Hughes didn't think for a SECOND about all the nice sea creatures that would choke to death on An Essay Concerning Human Understanding or whatever. There goes another hero.