2000.10.24
Top 20 2000 College Slang Terms.
I read the Today's Papers column in Slate everyday.
Here are some factoids relevant to Madeleine Albright's meeting
in North Korea yesterday:
"... A recent famine [in North Korea] killed 2 million of
the country's 22 million people.
"Albright spent much of yesterday with Kim
at a mass outdoor performance at May Day
Stadium, and the NYT and the WP make
the most of the incongruities involved in an
American secretary of state having to sit
through it all, smiling. The NYT's Jane
Perlez writes that the `gargantuan spectacle
of about 100,000 performers ... celebrated
the cult of her host,' and that among the
`several images in the show that must have
unnerved Dr. Albright' was `one depicting
the launch of a long-range ballistic missile.'
And then there was the closing scene titled
`We will support our powerful nation with
rifles.' The Post has the missile launch, too,
plus a women's brass band playing a
toe-tapper called `The General and People
Are a Single Mind.'"
That is so bizarrely Orwellian that it gives me this weird "I've
been transported back to the 1940's" vertigo.
I also noticed this, two-thirds of the way into that Today's Papers
column:
"... births out of wedlock in America -- 31 percent of all
babies born..."
2000.10.23
Science News: Invisible Universe:
X-ray astronomy opens a new window on the most energetic cosmic
events.
"Supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies
weigh several million to several billion times the
mass of the sun....
"Says [Richard F.] Mushotzky [of NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md], `The big thing we've learned in
the last 2 years from the Hubble and the Keck
telescopes [in Hawaii], and now Chandra, is that
massive black holes and the galaxies [they reside
in] are intimately related to each other.' Exactly
how remains a mystery. `Does the galaxy come
first, or does the massive black hole become the
seed around which the galaxy will originate?'"
2000.10.22
Overtime experts:
LSU tops Mississippi St. in Baton Rouge tussle.
"LaBrandon Toefield scored on a 13-yard run on the first possession of overtime
to give LSU a 45-38 victory over Mississippi State (No. 14 ESPN/USA Today, No. 13
AP) on Saturday night."
My brother called tonight to gloat about his new DSL hook-up. Yeah, I'm envious.
I forgot to mention that my dad was released from the hospital Friday afternoon.
2000.10.14
My father had heart surgery yesterday in Lafayette, Louisiana. He's in the ICU at
Lafayette General Hospital today.
Yesterday I received an email advertisement from Travelocity which included the
following blurb:
"An entirely different holiday experience can be found in Jerusalem, a city held
sacred by followers of three major religions.... Jerusalem maintains an air of
dignity and solemnity it's had since King David walked its streets. Home to
such holy attractions as the birthplace of John the Baptist, the Via Dolorosa,
and the El Aksa Mosque, Jerusalem is a great place to get in touch with the
real meaning of the holidays."
*sigh*
A blurb includes a link to an article on the history of Jerusalem. It is so sad that
this little piece of Earth has been the focus of so much death and killing.
A couple of weeks ago, it seemed that the entire issue of peace in Israel had
been reduced to the problem of control of the Old City in Jerusalem. But no one
had a solution to the problem, and now whatever window to peace was open has
been closed.
2000.10.10
How cool! Jack Kilby won the Noble Prize for physics!
He used to hang out around HARC
a lot. Literally. He would stand outside the front
door, puffing on cigarettes with the other smokers. Then one day the weenies in
administration sent everyone a memo saying the smokers had to walk around to the
back of the building, because they weren't projecting a "professional appearance."
Anyway --
Jack Kilby is a very tall man. We called him "Lurch", after the character in "The Addam's Family" (not
to his face, of course). In spite his imposing physical stature, he always seemed
like a nice guy.
I say "seemed like" because I didn't hang out in the front of the building with the
smokers, so I never really got a chance to talk to him. We'd just nod and say "hi"
when we passed in the hall. Actually, I'd say "hi." He would just nod - and kind
of look at me - like that Lurch guy.
Another brush with greatness.
And you thought they were faking it. Here's proof, in the New York Times Sunday
Magazine, that Al
and Tipper will lip-lock anytime and anyplace - even in the Oval Office during
a meeting with Madeleine Albright.
[via Today's Papers.]
