Historic Events

I hear it's the 91st anniversary of votes for women in the U.S.

Also, the 40th anniversary of WorldCat.

I'm off to catalog some women's suffrage materials to celebrate.

But only on the street in my mind, because in real life I don't have any women's suffrage materials or cataloging rules with me right at the moment. Also, sitting here with a glass of wine is just as celebratory.

I'll drink to votes and massive catalogs.

Words

What About Our Daughters has an "annual Martin Luther King overlooked YouTube video post," which is this little meditation on the word 'maladjusted.'





King talks about how this is (or was at the time) one of the most commonly used terms in psychology, but how being 'maladjusted' to an unjust society is the right way to be.

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Hot Days

Happy Juneteenth!

I'm fond of the name of this holiday (commemorating the arrival of news of the end of the Civil War and of slavery in Texas), as well as its celebration. Creative language is cool.

This site has history--and this one has recipes!

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Celebrate!

I always enjoy Got Medieval's updates on the calendar of saintly feast days. Today, for instance, we could be celebrating Saint Philip and Saint James the Less. If I may quote:

[D]epending on who you ask, James the Less might have been Jesus's brother, or alternately one of the six or so other Jameses who appear elsewhere in the New Testament.

...

Philip, too, is often confused with another Biblical figure, Philip the Evangelist, so May 1 is probably a good day to celebrate mistaken identities, confused recollections, and designer knockoffs.

I am so all over that.

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Peeking Over Walls

I was a callow youth 20 years ago, so while I remember the news when the Berlin Wall came down, I didn't really know what it meant. Berlin Wall?

What the hell is that, some kind of Wall in Berlin?

Jeff Fecke gives a nice summary of the historical background, and some personal perspective, on Blog of the Moderate Left.

I definitely remember the sense of unease he describes, of Us and Them dividing up the world, and what if They send bombs? It was no more than a vague backdrop for me, being callow and young and with no real understanding of history or politics, but it was there.

Interesting times. But then, all times are interesting, aren't they?

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Excuses to Celebrate

From Got Medieval, the important reminder that the feast day of St. Lawrence of Rome, patron of librarians, falls on the 10th of August.

The post recommends celebrating with a cookout, given that Lawrence was martyred on a gridiron, in the non-football sense of "A grated iron utensil for broiling flesh and fish over coals."

Not being well versed in saints, I was interested to learn that librarians have two other patrons: Jerome, and Catherine of Alexandria.

Good news! Since Jerome's feast day is September 30th, and Catherine of Alexandria's is November 25th, we still have time to celebrate all our patron saints this year!

I'll depend on Got Medieval to suggest further party themes for these upcoming events. I've got to be honest, the suggestion for The Decollation of St. John the Baptist on August 29th is much more interesting than St. Lawrence's cookout, so I've got high hopes for something really dramatic.

No New Information

I'm just back from a quick jaunt to the moon, in honor of the moon landing. Woohoo!

I mean Salt Lake City.

Either way, I was not checking up on the internet in my absence, so I hope it's been behaving.

Aw, Darn It

I missed a momentous occasion today, as noted on Alas! A Blog with the descriptively titled missive Posted at 12:34:56 07/08/09.

Maybe I can get it together to publish a post at 09:09:09 09/09/09. I haven't missed that one yet, and it's just as cool.

I have to admit I'm not very good with special dates, though. I'll probably think of it the next day.

But I'm also holding out for 11:11:11 11/11/11, which is arguably even more awesome since...only one can be the coolest date of all.

Hahahahaha!

Also, on a completely unrelated matter*, look at us here in Massachusetts, kicking up dust in federal court!

It was only a matter of time until DOMA got challenged from somewhere, and I reckon this state is a fitting candidate on account of our general fondness for riling things up on the marriage front.

I myself got married in another state, but I assure you it was riling-ly unconventional. My dress was blue! People were fainting all over. (You can trust my notoriously unreliable brain to remember this one correctly. I would never make something like that up for the sake of a feeble joke.)

Anyway, it will certainly be interesting to see how this shakes out.

*In terms of numbers. In terms of momentous occasions, we can just pretend I totally meant to have that connection in there rather than thinking of it minutes later.

Let Us Hold in Memory...

On this momentous day we commemorate the time when, as Got Medieval explains,

"Light from a star in the constellation Taurus going supernova reaches Earth. Arab and Chinese astronomers mark it down. Europeans, not so much. The remnants of that star come to be known as the Crab Nebula."

Also some sort of something to do with a British colony declaring freedom from tea or whatever. History was one of those subjects for which I could muster only desultory interest.

Heh. Happy 4th to my legions in the U.S.

Memorials

On this day set aside for the purpose, I think of the honorable dead.

Many places, faces, causes, names. Many people who would by now be dead by other means if not taken by war, but with longer lives behind them.

Many who might still be living.

I can say little, alone with my little keyboard, and nothing that adds any meaning to the sacrifice and the loss of those families left behind.

It seems almost better to be silent. To think quietly, and let the weight of those lost lives be felt.

Happy Darwin Day!

I shall say no more, except that I am ashamed to report that I forgot to make a cake. 

Or, as I have been advised is proper, to prepare an entire hatchling triceratops, with butter. What can I say--they were all out at the store. All they had was some overripe-looking trilobites, which I didn't fancy.

Another time.

Spooky Socializing

I have to love this Rough Type article for the title alone: Sharing is creepy. You know, it really is! (Hey, how come Nicholas Carr writes blog titles posts in sentence case, while I write them in title case? Am I horribly, horribly wrong?)

In addition to having an entertaining title, however, the post is also an interesting exploration of some of the odd aspects of social networking and web-habitation. It can be disconcerting to reflect on how much personal information we share, even when we've willingly chosen to do so in order to facilitate participation in online communities.

The post quotes a couple of other interesting pieces, including a Wired article I read a few days ago. Certainly we live in odd times.

In other news, it is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and is Blog for Choice Day in the pro-choice blogosphere. 

I think you can guess which quote sums up my feelings on this matter: "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!"

MLK Note

Here's to the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

A human being who got some important stuff done.

Rights of Humans

Feministing points out that today is the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Cool.

Unfortunately, I doubt anyone would say that universal human rights have been achieved in the 60 years since it was declared, but it was a good thought, and certainly remains something to work towards.