We're leaving for our vacation tonight, but look what we did this afternoon...

When we get back, we will choose one that's right for us. The cuteness went to eleven today.

We'll be gone for two weeks, as if I could get any further outside of the blogging loop. It's been 16 months since we've been in the US, and we're jumping out of our skin. I'm sure I will have stories when I return.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:19 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Man, I wish I could punch Saddam in the face!

Posted by: Sarah at 02:14 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I woke up at 0400, fidgety and anxious. You see, two 7th graders had gone on vacation and hadn't turned in their make-up work and they were now failing. Boring stuff, huh? But it kept me awake fretting, and I'm not even their teacher anymore. Theoretically I left all of that behind me yesterday, but I lay in bed last night wondering about certain kids: what they'd be like in ten years, how they'll do on their quiz today, if I'll ever see them again. As much as I despised a handful of them, a different handful became very dear to me. I was their teacher for two months, which is a good chunk of the school year; it's funny to think they're not my students anymore. Moving on is more bittersweet than I thought it would be.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:11 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Shoelaces arrived in the mail yesterday; they're perfect. My friend came over and reinstalled Windows last night, so we're rid of the crap. Today's my last day of school too...

Posted by: Sarah at 01:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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My first instinct is to say something extremely rude to Ms. Gyllenhaal. All I can think of saying after reading this disgusting article are some pretty choice insults. I'll leave them to your imagination...

Posted by: Sarah at 08:45 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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1 I know, I felt the same way. Then I got to this sentence: "The 27-year-old vaulted to stardom after appearing in "Secretary" as a mousy assistant." HAHAHAHAHA! Vaulted to stardom in "Secretary" - what a crack-up. Clearly a not-too-well thought out publicity plan. What a dolt. Hey, and wasn't she in that other runaway hit, "Mona Lisa Smile?" Yep, a rip roarin' career on the horizon for this little airhead.

Posted by: Oda Mae at April 25, 2005 09:41 AM (FmIVz)

2 Oda Mae, You've got to stop thinking like one of them right-wingers. Success in Hollywood is not measured by (snort) money. Heavens, no. Oh no, did I say something r-religious? Seriously, I suspect that line about vaulting to "stardom" (hah!) is taken straight from her publicist's press release. The idea, I suppose, is that if one keeps saying one is a star, others will eventually believe it. Hey, it worked for Angelyne: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelyne "Angelyne is an icon of Hollywood and Los Angeles best known for purchasing billboards advertising herself." A look at Gyllenhaal's bio allows one to speculate about the "root causes" of her ... views: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0350454/bio "Niece of Eric Foner." Search on Foner's name at frontpagemag.com and you'll get hits like this: Ronald Radosh: "And Eric Foner, Columbia University’s most prominent historian and President of the American Historical Association, writes that he is 'not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House.' Evidently President Bush’s admonition that we 'rid the world of evil-doers' is seen as equally dangerous by Foner as the terrorist attack that killed nearly 7000 of our countrymen [Sexist™!]. The pen might be mightier than the sword; but this time, the sword was a domestic airliner turned into a lethal explosive weapon. Yet Foner is worried about our response. Perhaps he thinks that a world of 'evil-doers' is to be taken lightly, and that if we only address their legitimate concerns, all will be well. No wonder Foner hopes that our 'allies …impose some restraint on the White House.'" Back to her IMDb bio: "grew up in Los Angeles where she and her brother attended the prestigious Harvard-Westlake prep school." "Earned a B.A. in English from Columbia University (1999)" She must have been a GOOD student. She still participates in the small-r right extracurricular activities: "During the 2003 Academy Awards, she wore a peace sign pin in support of the organization Artists United to Win Without War." And she is clearly a product of meritocracy: "The first six movies she made ... were all directed by her father." "To promote her film, Secretary (2002), she posed for Playboy." She lives up to this quote of hers: "There is a need, especially right now in America, to be a bit provocative."

Posted by: Amritas at April 25, 2005 11:51 AM (+nV09)

3 James Hudnall says Gyllenhaal has "the intellectual prowess of a lobotomized chimp." http://jameshudnall.com/blog.php?/weblog/imbecile_ahoy/ Ah, no wonder Bush's enemies compare him to a chimp. It's projection!

Posted by: Amritas at April 25, 2005 02:38 PM (+nV09)

4 Ya know I don't see what the big deal is, she is after-all entitled to her opinion. Besides which, she does have a bit of a point, our history ain't all that squeaky clean, and filled with only good deeds. Oh oops I forgot that is relativism, and that makes me a "traitor", even though I served six years in the United States Air Force...... Yeahhhh riiiight. Makes me all the more aware of how poorly we teach history, especially our own.

Posted by: Bubba Bo Bob Brain at April 25, 2005 08:07 PM (aHbua)

5 Yeah, Bubba, thousands of innocent people should be killed by Islamo-Fascists because of George Custer! Right on, Duuuude!!! Tell it to the man! Speaking of education, you aren't going to get a gold star until you finish coloring all those books you read.

Posted by: James Hudnall at April 26, 2005 02:49 PM (FV8Tp)

6 No one has said she was not entitled to her opinion, just that her opinion, like your opinion, was a drizzling shit piece of stupidity.

Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at April 26, 2005 04:48 PM (MBCZx)

7 Well well, I offer a rather neutral stance and I still get excoriated by a couple right wing no-nothing asshats. Look at our recent history you two buffoons, and tell me again why the third world should look on us as this benevolent nation. We are hated for a frigging reason, and whether or not you think the reasons valid, we need to address those reasons before we continue. Then again, these thoughts make me a "treasonous-liberal". Shame your both too stupid to recognize sarcasm, when presented.

Posted by: B at April 26, 2005 08:08 PM (aHbua)

8 So you think you're a treasonous liberal? I never said you were, neither did anyone else in this thread. "Shame your both too stupid to recognize sarcasm, when presented." Talking to yourself is the first sight of dementia.

Posted by: James Hudnall at April 26, 2005 11:14 PM (FV8Tp)

9 I have made a new practice out of MSM, celebruty etc.....who?

Posted by: ArmyWifeToddlerMom at April 27, 2005 05:08 PM (1EA2I)

10 The thing that most annoys me is that some empty-headed micro-celeb, who likely will be referred to as "Maggie Who?" five years from now, can use the bully pulpit of that momentary celebrity to bray whatever mindless pap they wish, and it will be accorded some small measure of weight merely because it came from the lips of a famous person. Idiocy from Hollywood faces is a long and distinguished tradition. Feh.

Posted by: bigTom at May 04, 2005 02:55 AM (RwC3v)

11 you now how to make a celebrity mad......Who.... simply ignore them....

Posted by: ArmyWifeToddlerMom at May 05, 2005 04:18 PM (Lh1NL)

12 Hmm... nice site but be more informative!

Posted by: Cari at July 15, 2005 08:52 AM (+/Int)

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This Amritas post about translating reminded me of a class I took in France. I signed up for it because it was called "Communication et Langage", but I didn't realize until I was weeks into the class that it was under the science dicipline and was a course about animal communication (I kept thinking we'd do a bit on animals and then make it to humans: we made it as far as gorillas.) One exciting aspect of the class was that my animal knowledge was pretty poor. I found that I could understand everything in the class except for the names of the animals. So I would write down what I thought I was hearing and then try to guess what animal it was by the description of how they communicate! And then I'd get home and look in a dictionary and go, "Oh, badgers!" It was a funny language learning experience because I knew everything in the sentences except for the key word!

Translating is hard, by the way. When I lived in France, my mother and uncle came to visit me, and we all went to visit my relatives. One elderly relative was very witty and was always making jokes and references to things that happened hours prior, and my mom and uncle always wanted to know why everyone was laughing. Then all the French relatives wanted to know why it took me three paragraphs to explain a one-liner...usually because I had to explain something that had happened two days before that I hadn't translated back then because I didn't think it was important. My brain was so tired at the end of that week.

When we first moved here to Germany, I was hard at work translating a Swedish play. I got twenty typed pages done before I got my job, and I haven't touched it since. I want to finish it after we get home from our vacation; I enjoy translating as a hobby, though I doubt I'm that good at it. I started translating this play because it's so good that I want others to be able to read it, and I can't even find an original Swedish copy, much less one in English translation. So I decided to make my own. I wish I could translate my favorite Swedish book too.

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Today my husband has 24-hour duty, so I've gotten a lot of stuff done around the house, stuff that I normally put off because I'd rather be hanging out with him. Like his sewing...he asked me to start getting his BDUs ready when he was still in Iraq, and once I finally found green thread, I had no desire to sew. Then he came home and started studying for the GMAT on my sewing machine (it's one of those old antique ones that folds into a desk), so any time he was busy, he was always blocking the machine. I finally got to work today and spent a couple of hours changing rank and insignia and also adding the combat patch and the flag. It was quite a job, but they're lookin' good now.

Tomorrow my friend is coming over and we're finally getting rid of this awful virus once and for all. That is, we're reloading windows and starting over. I'm looking forward to using the computer and not having it ask me repeatedly if I'd like to meet hot German singles.

More after school ends on Tuesday...

(P.S. The litter of Tibetan Terriers was born last week; we are going on Saturday to see them and maybe pick one out. I don't care which color we get, as long as we get something that looks as cute as this!)

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I found this dialect quiz via Amritas, and my results were just as I would expect:

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

25% Dixie

5% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

This makes perfect sense, since I basically spent the first half my life in Texas and the other half in Illinois/Missouri.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:02 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I'm stuck here at school on parent-teacher conference day, and no one wants to talk to me. I've been here two and a half hours and I've talked to one parent. So I've been catching up on my reading, and I came across a wonderful Varifrank post.

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My husband is officially sick of being a house-husband. He can't wait for me to stop working so I can take care of him again. He said he'll pay me to stay home and square away the house, which I thought was cute. It's true that this job seems to have taken more of my energy from me; I'm not devoting nearly as much time to wifeing as I did before. Today I realized I forgot to pay the credit card this month, which means that I made $87.50 today and I just blew $35 of it on the late fee. Sheesh, where's my head?

Just a few more days and it's back to wifeing...and hopefully puppy training...

Posted by: Sarah at 08:26 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Last night I ruined one of my favorite shirts while I was making enchilladas. I was bummed all night about it.

At one point during the deployment, a friend and I briefly ventured into what we would do if our husbands didn't come home from Iraq. My friend said that she could leave in a minute and never look back, that someone could come and loot her house for all she cared because she wouldn't want anything from her house. She wouldn't want to take her old life with her to the next. I remember thinking that I could never do that because I love things too much.

I love stuff. I bet if I really tried, I could catalog nearly everything we own. I don't like to borrow books because I want to own them myself. I never really got into the Napster craze because I like owning the CDs and seeing them lined up (alphabetically, naturally) on the shelf. I get very attached to material things, and I always thought the worst thing that could happen to me would be a fire. (In fact, I went through this phase where I kept a bag full of the most important things I owned so I could grab the bag as I ran out of the burning house.)

The comical part about all of this is that I hate spending money. I love owning things, but I am the stingiest person I know. Sure I want to own the book, but I will wait and wait for it to get a dollar cheaper online before I buy it. I'm still waiting to buy From the Earth to the Moon until I can find it a little cheaper. One of my friends always teases me about my "card" because I have this index card where I write every book, movie, or CD that I want to buy. Some things have been on that card for two years, because the test of knowing how much you want something is how long you keep it on the card. If I still want it after a year, I probably will shell out the money for it.

So when I ruin a shirt, it hurts me. I ruined something that I can't replace, and I feel angry. It will take me years to find a blue shirt I like as much as that one.

Posted by: Sarah at 07:49 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So how shocked was I today when one of the 7th graders quoted my blog to me?

Apparently at least one of my students' parents reads my blog. And may I say, Mr. H, that your son is a dear. He's one of my favorites, and I actually joke with my husband that I want to "keep" him when I leave the school because he looks enough like my husband to be his child. If my son is as polite and cool as yours, I will have done well. One bad apple may spoil the bunch, but all I cling to at the end of the day is the memory of the good ones.

But it never ceases to weird me out when people in my real life cite my online life.

Like I've had much of an online life lately anyway. I just don't have much to say, and I find that the more I write, the more I get uncomfortable in my real life. I find myself wanting to comment on stuff like releasing illegal aliens, but all I can think to say is "that's messed up", which doesn't make for a very interesting blog entry. I just don't spend any time online anymore. (Part of the reason is that my chore load has gone through the roof: I'm back to doing triple the laundry! If I had the time, I would love to talk about this Amritas post too.) But my last day of 7th grade is next Tuesday, so I'll be back on Wednesday.

And can I take your kid with me, Mr. H?

Posted by: Sarah at 10:53 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 "your son is a dear" Whew, I was worried that the one kid who mentioned your blog was a Mike al-Moor in the making. "releasing illegal aliens" I guess you're not with the libertarian program (not necessarily a bad thing). I've had a multi-part series about immigration outlined for weeks with links already chosen to write around, but I don't know when I'll get around to even starting it. Fortunately (well, not so fortunately for America) the topic remains timely. I am going to write a sequel to that post you linked it adding a few more thoughts about women in the military. I find it very difficult to see anything wrong with imagining, say, you in a tank, though I've found at least one counterargument that may be better than "intuition" or "solidarity." I was kind of surprised by learning that DOONESBURY is in STARS AND STRIPES. Who says the military is a Rightist-only institution? Last week's storyline deals with a military recruiter. I have no idea how accurate it is, and I'll leave that for others to judge.

Posted by: Amritas at April 18, 2005 12:19 PM (+nV09)

2 Sarah, We'll all patiently wait for you to post whenever you can. We understand that life goes on, and its time to recharge those life batteries. Just keep living it and post when you have something you want to say. We can be very patient when we have to. Subsunk

Posted by: Subsunk at April 18, 2005 10:13 PM (adHXR)

3 You think it's bad now, wait till you have kids! Not that I'm complaining.

Posted by: David Boxenhorn at April 19, 2005 11:44 AM (7In5N)

4 Not that I'm complaining. Yeah, but that's because you're too tired.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 21, 2005 03:49 AM (AIaDY)

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Ali says that what he wrote isn't a poem, but I disagree. It's wonderful.

I re-read what I wrote after the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam's statue. Funnily enough, we have one of those posters in our house: I like to think of it as how far we've come.

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Teaching 7th grade has made me think a lot lately about parenthood. It scares the bejesus out of me, to be honest. I look at all these kids all day long, and I worry that my kid could be a jerk. I honestly think some aspects of it are luck-of-the-draw. Sergents' kids are jerks and captains' kids are jerks. White kids are jerks and black kids are jerks. Boys are jerks and girls are jerks. I really don't know what it is that makes a kid act like a complete fool, but I am scared to death that my own kid will be a jerk someday. 7th grade has really shut down my maternal instinct.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:53 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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You know what I want more than anything in the world? Shoelaces.

I've had this pair of brown shoes for many, many years, and the laces finally wore out and broke. I checked all over post, and all I could find was black and white laces. I tried to hit some German stores, but I could never figure out where to get shoelaces. I gave up and sent the broken lace to my mother, hoping she could find something similar to what I need. And every day I open my closet, wishing I could wear that freaking pair of shoes.

I'd kill to go to Walmart right now.

So many friends and family have been emailing us, wondering when we're moving back. I guess since the husband is home from Iraq, they assume we'll be moving soon, but we still have over a year left at this duty station. What's even worse is that now that deployment is over and stop move will be lifted in about a month, all of our friends are getting orders to leave. Nearly everyone we are friends with will be leaving this year, and some are leaving as soon as May. One close friend was telling me about everything that will be near her new home at Fort Shelby, including two Walmarts and a big mall. I am getting so anxious to go home.

We leave for our vacation on 1 May, with a week in Florida and a week on a cruise. It will be the first time in the States for both of us since Christmas 2002, and we're both getting quite antsy. I'm just ready to go somewhere where we know what everything is. We know what food is at the restaurants, what stuff is in the stores, and how far it is to our next destination on the map.

And maybe I can get some freaking brown shoelaces.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:49 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 It figures you come to Florida for a visit as I'm moving away - damn, I'd love to have bought you both dinner...... Soon, Sarah, soon you will have all the mass merchandisers you could ever hope for. Soon....all those wonderful American "thingys" will be available at your whim. Soon..... Meanwhile - enjoy your vacation!

Posted by: Tammi at April 13, 2005 11:16 AM (7K6EQ)

2 I'll look for your brown shoelaces. I live across the street from a Wal-Mart and a Kmart is next door. And a mall is only a 20 minute walk away. Could you send me a photo, if you have any? I don't want to buy the wrong shade or something ...

Posted by: Amritas at April 13, 2005 01:38 PM (+nV09)

3 Dear Daughter, I have been searching for tan shoelaces. I can find dark brown, white, off-white, black, etc., but no tan. A pair of tan 36" laces are on their way to you; they did not come in a longer length. If they don't work, I'll keep searching! I've gone EVERYWHERE I can think of to go! Still searching, Your mama

Posted by: nancy at April 14, 2005 01:01 AM (YuW6k)

4 It's funny, all those years we spent in Germany and after a few years all we could talk about was how much we wanted to go back to the States, where there weren't all these freakin' rules about not washing your car on Sundays, stores stayed open on Saturdays past noon, things were open on Sundays, and yes, finding shoelaces wasn't so much like a search for the Holy Grail. We've been back in the States for 13 years now (although I took a year break to go to Korea), and oh how I miss Germany, the food, the scenery, the houses with their tile roofs, the castles.... Human nature, maybe, always to want what you don't have.

Posted by: oldcontroller at April 15, 2005 01:17 PM (hhiiF)

5 ...and a big panama with a purple hat band!

Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at April 16, 2005 02:48 PM (MBCZx)

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Oda Mae has been a long-time commenter and a good friend to me here in our community. Her husband leaves for Iraq today with the British Army, so drop her a line in the comments section and say hi...

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1 Thanks, Sarah! He called last night and his flight is changed to Wednesday morning. I can now see why spouses, even though they love the soldier, at some point say "Ah! Get on the plane already!" It's too much sometimes.

Posted by: Oda Mae at April 12, 2005 02:20 AM (qGwdI)

2 I'm new to your site, but am not new to supporting a deployed soldier. Well, not that it's old hat... All I can say is the support I get from the blogosphere has helped me through many a long day. I really wonder how I could do it without the many helping and supportive hands that hold me up when I'm feeling down. Every day though makes you so appreciative for the little things in life. A 5 min. phone call can have me smiling for days. Gifts? Flowers? Forget 'em...as long I can hear my loved one's voice I'm good.

Posted by: Sue at April 12, 2005 02:57 AM (lRLpG)

3 Oda Mae - today will be rough and sad and filled with pride - thank you for sharing your boy with us for a little while. Although we may never meet and I may never be able to thank you or Sarah or your husbands properly for what you've done so bravely - please know that we appreciate your sacrifice to our freedom and the Iraqi people appreciate it too. I'm glad you have friends like Sarah who have been there and who will be there for you. The families of our soldiers (British, American and all the others) have the difficult jobs that most of us could not hack. Thank you a million times. I'm proud to say I know a British soldier and his brave wife through an American wife of an American soldier through my computer! How whacko is that?

Posted by: Kathleen A at April 12, 2005 08:19 AM (vnAYT)

4 To one of my very favorite people in Germany--Oda Mae, Having met you, I know you will be a real trooper while Husband is gone. Your great sense of humor will get you through alot of tough times, and I know how much you mean to Sarah so you'll be able to count on her for support. You and Husband will be in my thoughts and prayers. Love, Sarah's mom

Posted by: Nancy at April 13, 2005 01:22 AM (YuW6k)

5 Oda Mae, You made me laugh Been there, done that, and everyone thought I was nuts. Hubs had FIVE sets of orders cancelled before he finally deployed. By the time he left we had been on the deployment roller coaster for more than a year. By that point I was ready to wring someone's neck. If you are going to deploy them, do it already so we can get it over with! My prayers are with you and your husband. Thank you for all that BOTH of you are doing.

Posted by: Tink at April 13, 2005 03:41 AM (S6VXg)

6 Oda Mae - Wish him the best from Tim and CPT Patti. The Lord will know we include him everytime we pray for "our soldiers". You too! Tim

Posted by: Tim at April 13, 2005 11:25 AM (UPI1q)

7 When I first saw the title of this post and the first two words, I thought, "Oda Mae's leaving? No!" But leaving is not a bad thing. First, fighting in Iraq (metaphorically or literally) is not a bad thing. (Not a controversial opinion on this blog - I hope!) Second, being Iraq doesn't mean being cut off from the rest of the world. It's possible to comment and even blog from there. There's a lot of WWII romanticism out there, but one downside to that period was the paucity of real-time communication. As I write this, your husband's plane has already left. But I am thinking of him ... and you.

Posted by: Amritas at April 13, 2005 02:14 PM (+nV09)

8 "your" and "you" referred to Oda Mae, of course. Sorry for the ambiguity.

Posted by: Amritas at April 13, 2005 02:15 PM (+nV09)

9 Welcome back, Amritas. I've missed your comments and words wisdom! Sarah's mom

Posted by: nancy at April 14, 2005 01:05 AM (YuW6k)

10 Thanks for the kind words. It's an honor to hear from you - and to post on your daughter's blog. I'm a little embarrassed, because this comments section should really be about Oda Mae and her husband.

Posted by: Amritas at April 14, 2005 03:15 AM (WnSrS)

11 Amritas, you can post anywhere about anything, I just like to read your thoughts! As to real time communication - well the British Army is a tad different. My husband is entitled to a 20 minute phone call a week. (We can get more time if we pay for extra minutes with his credit card, but he put me on a budget as to that expense before he left.) Their computers are on an internal Ministry of Defense LAN - except for the welfare ones for the soldiers, where he can check his e-mail. Even more frustrating, he's an officer like Sarah's husband. If he has one soldier waiting in line behind him, he will step aside to let his soldier get to the phone. AGGHH!! Looks like many 0200 phone calls to come. Thanks so much, Sarah, for eliciting the nice comments. My deployment won't be nearly as bad as everyone else's - knock wood. He's only gone for six months, and he gets two weeks leave in the middle.

Posted by: Oda Mae at April 14, 2005 08:17 AM (FmIVz)

12 Oda Mae, Thanks for the details on your situation. When I wrote my comment the autobiography of a WWII vet* was fresh in my memory (I finished reading it a few days ago). I'm not saying that you will have it easy, but that poor guy didn't get to see home for two years. No phones (I think), and of course no e-mail. And he came home only to find that he and his girlfriend weren't meant to be. I don't know how much contact my father had with my mother during the Vietnam War. My guess is not much. And after he got out of Vietnam, he went to college in Nebraska while my mother stayed behind in Hawaii for years. They weren't reunited for good until I was three. I'm not even sure if my father was around when I was born! *The memoir is in comic book form (the author has drawn comics professionally for almost 60 years). You can see (and buy) it here: http://www.meccacomics.com/issue-gallery.cfm?ID=12

Posted by: Amritas at April 15, 2005 04:35 AM (WnSrS)

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Yesterday morning, my husband asked me what the date was: it was the first of the big three anniversaries this week, the days when my husband saw his heaviest fighting and for which he earned a pretty green ribbon to wear on his dress blues. Last night we went to his former company commander's house and had a Baqubah Bash to celebrate the event, complete with the most hooah American movie we could think of: Rocky IV. I checked what I was doing a year ago, and sure enough I was blogging about troop movements and nervousness. I also posted one of my favorite photos from Iraq.

Last night we had a talk about Adrian Balboa; I don't really like her. My husband said he kind of understands that she just wants what's best for Rocky, but I say that if you marry a fighter, you can't force him to change. And in Rocky IV, he fought for a principle, not for a title. You have to stand by someone who fights for what he believes in. My husband asked if I would still be proud of him if he were a civilian working for some company, and I said that of course I would. But it's different. Am I more proud of my husband for being a soldier and fighting for something he believes in? Of course. But only incrementally; he would still believe in the same things even if he didn't have the opportunity to fight for them. Adrian told Rocky that lots of people live with pain, to which he replied that not everyone has the opportunity to do something about it.

I can't believe it's been one year since some of the most important events in my husband's life. I'm glad that he had the opportunity to fight for something he believes in, and I'm glad that he came home safe to me when he was done.

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I have been thoroughly enjoying the book The Skeptical Environmentalist. It's amazing how things that we've been told our whole lives -- the "litany", as Lomborg calls it -- are not exactly true, or at least not exactly testable. Acid rain? Didn't happen. Exxon Valdez? Not as bad as everyone claimed. 40,000 species extinct every year? Ha. Global warming? Well, I'm just starting that chapter, but so far it's pretty untestable. It's an amazing read because one-third of the book is references and endnotes; Lomborg did his research. I'm disgusted by what makes it into science without sources.

Much of what Lomborg points out is the cost-benefit analysis of environmental issues. Sure we could save ocean-dwelling amoebas by banning fertilizer, but at what cost? Recycling paper might seem like you're helping the environment, but for the cost and effort, it's apparently better to burn the paper and plant new trees. I like Lomborg's approach of balancing nature and cost.

If you're interested, the introduction chapter is available on Lomborg's website. It's a good read.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:34 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 Sarah, I bought the book when it first came out and I love it. My husband is a marine biologist and has checked many of Lomborg's references, they are right on, yet Lomborg was castigated by his profession and is still hit with slime from time to time. Truth hurts. If you know who Semmelweis was, you can understand why I bring him up. The truth will out but it may take a century. Do a google on my name and you will find my husband's book, his brother's books, (from Australia) and my son's book, a children's book. Only the last one is good reading for the masses, the first are reference.

Posted by: Ruth H at April 09, 2005 11:15 AM (po2/z)

2 Reading Lomberg puts a different perspective on Kyoto doesn't it. Check out junkscience.com it's a website that tracks bogus stories. The primary thing that bugs me about environmentalists is the brainwashing of the youth. When I make comments about the religion of environmentalism and what a crock it is there are people who I think would like to burn me at the stake.

Posted by: Toni at April 10, 2005 08:48 AM (OZMKs)

3 Sarah, You have just identified another area that goes under-reported / mis-represented... A lot like the military and the war in Iraq. Apparently balanced (not just good) news is just not sexy enough to sell. At the least, I wish the media would consider reporting on both sides of the issues. Anyway, the book is also one of my favorites. And Toni says it well... When you try to discuss these issues, people focus on what they hear, without a healthy skepticism. Oh well.

Posted by: Jean at April 11, 2005 08:51 PM (7jvO1)

4 I would take him more seriously if he were a scientist rather than a statistician with an axe to grind. The fact that he doesn't post any perr reviewed articles is a bright red flag screaming "hack alert!" as well. SciAm tore him a new one, though they went close to an hominem in some of their critiques. If you read the analysis of his work in Nature, though, you'll see that he is clearly dishonest. Go the the library and find a copy of that critique/review and you will see that the book is about as honest and insightful as those books written in '99 saying that the Dow was going to keep growing steadily to 30,000 with no hiccups. His most interesting stats are always from non-peer reviwed sources (some "facts" were even from works produced by industry lobbyists!). The way he skewed statistics looks more like deliberate misleading rather than sloppiness, though neither is really forgivable. If you want to make yourself feel good and pretend that we are not having a negative impact on the environment then it is a really great book. If you want to take an honest and unbiased look at the scientific data as presented by actual scientists then it is worthless. It is also valuable as a case study in how to abuse statistics and non-peer reviewed sources to decieve people.

Posted by: VOT at April 12, 2005 12:42 AM (k7PQl)

5 Hmm. Aren't we the little elitist, VOT? Peer-reviewed articles are highly overrated. The fact is, statistically speaking, Lomborg tears so-called "established" environmental science to shreds -- and he's a lot more honestly than the "scientists" you speak so highly of. Kyoto has been unmasked as a very expensive way to do little more than bankrupt the developed nations of the world while doing little or nothing at all for the undeveloped or developing nations. Frankly speaking, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq has done more for the "have-nots" of the world than any amount of money "have" nations will pour into bad jokes like Kyoto.

Posted by: Nathan at April 12, 2005 11:04 AM (Fj//k)

6 Sarah, I'd be wary of Lomborg's claims. Look at some actual data at:- www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Annual/HadCRUG.gif (The raw figures are also available there.) I've worked at Met Office, and they're good guys; if they say it, then there IS warming, world-wide. While you may doubt the causes, but be planning to cope with the results - which is called Global Climate Change, and includes changes in winds, temperatures, amount and timing of rainfall and cloud cover.

Posted by: Terry V. at April 14, 2005 06:49 AM (YawHj)

7 Terry, Lomborg doesn't say that warming won't happen, he only says that 1) current models fall short in being able to predict the extent of warming and 2) Kyoto is not a solution we need to entertain. If you could pick up the book, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the global warming chapter.

Posted by: Sarah at April 14, 2005 07:41 AM (MOoZ+)

8 Dang, I was out for a while in a conference. "Hmm. Aren't we the little elitist, VOT?" No. I'm quite down to Earth. I do believe that scientists are the experts whose positions on topics that they specialize in are more likely to be correct than the views of various yahoos spouting propaganda. The truth is that those spouting 'elitism' are usually dangeruosly close to relativism. Sadly relativism used to just be the sloppy minded thinking of the left, but these days our side is polluting ourselves with it. "Peer-reviewed articles are highly overrated." Perr review is one of the fundamental mechanisms for assuring scientific credibility. If you want to reject it, feel free, but it buts you outside the pale of current scientific method. See also remarks about relativism above. "The fact is, statistically speaking, Lomborg tears so-called "established" environmental science to shreds -- and he's a lot more honestly than the "scientists" you speak so highly of." The fact is that it makes you feel good to believe that. If you actually look at the critiques in Nature, you will see that not only was Lomberg using bad science, but he got his math wrong on fundamental points. When you correct his math errors, his argument falls apart. Bad science is not so surprising since he isn't a scientist. Bad math is unconscionable, as math is the thing Lomborg is supposed to be good at. "Kyoto has been unmasked as a very expensive way to do little more than bankrupt the developed nations of the world while doing little or nothing at all for the undeveloped or developing nations." I don't support Kyoto, I think it is both extreme and poorly conceived. That doesn't mean that I am going to ignore the reality that climate change and other significant environmental impact caused by humans are very real and that we continue to contribute to it. Lomborg wrote a book that lets the credulous pretend that unconfortable facts are not there. The fact is that we should be looking at reality objectively and not let political prejudices let us get sloppy in our thinking and pursuing the truth.

Posted by: VOT at April 16, 2005 07:31 PM (/FAAp)

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Dear Deskmerc,

I know, I know. I'm sorry I haven't been around much. I now have a job where I can't blog. Hell, I can't even stop talking for more than 10 seconds before the whole room erupts into roars and highlighter fights. And I don't get paid for a second after 1500, so I try to get everything done during lunch and my planning period so I don't have to take anything home. Because when I get home, I tear my husband away from his GMAT studies to just sit on the sofa and, well, sit. That's all I want to do. And we get in bed at 2100. The days are flying by, and I find myself further and further from the computer. Dang, Mitch Hedberg died a week ago and I just found out. I'm out of touch, what can I say. The only thing I really have to blog about is something that happened at school, something big, but it's really too sensitive to blog about. I wish I could though. God help the state of our public schools.

So I haven't been around. But I still think of you guys all the time. And instead of missing me, go ahead and read Notes from the Olive Garden again: even after the tenth reading, it's still better than anything I could say.

Talk to you soon,
Sarah

Posted by: Sarah at 08:13 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Please keep CaliValleyGirl in mind today: the Chinook that crashed in Afghanistan was from her soldier's unit. Say a prayer or visit her and give her strength as she lives through casualty notification day.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:56 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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