Happy birthday to hellpossum, lisa_bee, and a_dodecahedron! Happy Megalesia to all of you - the festival of Cybele, the Magna Mater! May there be music and yummy food awaiting you, but hopefully not the ritual sacrifice of male genitalia on an altar.

And for those who celebrate it, have a wonderful first Seder of Pesach today, full of yummy food and stories.

Me: "So tonight, we get to have a special meal and hear a special story, which it's important that we remember."
Mac: "Can Thomas be in the story?"
Me: "I don't really think Thomas the Tank Engine was ever a slave in Egypt."
Mac: "Thomas or a spaceship is in the story."

That of course, made me think of _The Life of Brian._ :)

Yay for the first state legislature to pass marriage equality! I'm especially pleased about this because, as I said to CP, it proves that incrementalism works. 9 years ago, the majority of the people and legislators of Vermont were extremely unhappy with their Supreme Court's decision to mandate civil unions. Now well, the state hasn't collapsed morally, it's gotten a lot of extra tourism (some of it from our wedding, _because_ of being a civil-union state), and folks have gotten used to their married gay and lesbian neighbors. And so now the last step can be taken - and it's really hard to complain about "a few activist judges" when the legislature passed it by votes of 25-3 and 100-49.

In largely random celebration, here's a crossover fanfic that shouldn't work nearly as well as it does: "A Death in Bohemia": Sayers/Buffyverse crossover. Rest assured, there are no inappropriate or bizarre relationships, but some quite good and appropriate dialogue - and you could see this happening so very easily. This is especially for hca, whose game last weekend I was sorry to have missed.

And here is a joyously happy Youtube video featuring the Antwerp train station, and, um, music. Totally SFW, although requires sound - make sure to watch past 2:18.

Also, in More Reasons Why I Love Our President, he made the following comment yesterday in Turkey: "One of the great strengths of the United States," "is that while we have a very large Christian population -- we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."

I want to have American ideals again!

Jamie Oliver, the "Naked Chef" of tv fame, had his third child today. "Petal Blossom Rainbow Oliver" joins his older daughters, Poppy Honey and Daisy Boo.

Mr. Oliver, there is a difference between _nicknames_ and legal names the child will have to deal with permanently.

Iowa will be an interesting case study for gay marriage tourism, I suspect, as unlike Massachusetts or Connecticut or Vermont it's not normally a major wedding destination.

Random things for a Friday:

I attended an awesome lecture by Anthony Grafton, a Princeton history, professor yesterday, hearkening back to an LJ debate of a few weeks ago. It was about how the Protestant Reformation (mid-late 1500s) humanists Isaac Casaubon (who went to my father's high school!) and Joseph Scaliger researched and were strongly influenced by Hebrew texts and scholarly traditions. Casaubon, in particular, became fascinated with using a greater knowledge of Jewish ritual in order to better understand the New Testament. For instance, he translated and provided the first extensive Christian criticism on a copy of the Passover Haggadah, because he wanted to figure out which parts of the Seder service (since the Haggadah was compiled after the destruction of the 2nd Temple) Jesus would have used in the Last Supper, and which were later additions.

Casaubon is also famous for having written possibly the nastiest and most influential book review in Western history: 800 pages of detailed scholarly takedown of the first 173 pages of the Annals of the Venerable Cardinal Caesar Baronius, the Vatican librarian who tried to prove that Christianity was unchanging from the time of Jesus (complete with bishops, ecclesiastical hierarchy, and all seven sacraments) to his own time (1600 or so). Casaubon claimed he couldn't even stand to finish reading the work, and so focused his ire in his review on just the first 173 pages. My medievalist friends should be especially pleased by this takedown, as Baronius is the inventor of the term "Dark Ages."

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In the Bodleian today you can see Casaubon's edition of Maimonides, covered with commentary and marginal notes in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin.

So, that was nifty. In other news, prenatal appointments the second time around are (at least if all is going well), ridiculously boring. Pee into a cup, get weighed, get blood pressure, get your belly measured, hear the heart beat, nope, no questions. Things that remained exciting and like measures of progress the first time around are just kinda dull now, especially since I know I _don't_ (thankfully) have gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia.

Amusingly, though, apparently 2.5-3 year olds of both genders reacting to a mom's pregnancy by inventing the baby in _their_ tummy is common enough to be in the standard ob/gyn textbooks. My doctor advised me that it sometimes lasts for 3-5 months after the actual baby is born, and that we should get Mac a doll for right after the birth, so he can take care of "his" baby while we take care of the Manticore.

This is a terrific post about how photos in newspapers unconsciously shape and structure our opinions of other nations and other cultures. If I was teaching something at all relevant, I'd make my students look at it. As it is, I highly encourage you to take a glance at these two photos of the same cultural event.

Oh, we're back from PV; things are good, and Mac seems to only have noticed our absence in that he didn't throw any temper tantrums till we got back. But he likes his new helicopter puzzle from Mexico.

It seems remarkably appropriate to also wish you Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Yay for women scientists and mathematicians! MAy the next year bring you a smoother road and renewed clarity.

I took Mac to get a haircut this morning. I had been a bit nervous about this, because the last time, he squirmed and whined and I had to basically hold him down in the chair by force while the stylist went to work. So this time, I built it up with talking about how his Dad had just gotten a haircut, and how he'd get to sit in one of the special chairs (he chose the John Deere tractor, ultimately) and watch Dora, and so forth.

We get there; he's clearly a bit unhappy about water being spritzed on him and hair falling all around him, but puts up with it very calmly, focused on driving his tractor. He gets a very nice 21st century layered haircut which eliminates the Dickensian street urchin look he was sporting (helped by his 18th century face). I pay while he rides the giant Thomas the Tank Engine around the waiting room, and we walk out and get back in the car.

From the back seat, I hear, "Mommy, I want haircut! I want to try it again!"

Explaining that this is not a frequently repeated experience, now that took the rest of the drive to school.

Some non-spoilery reviews, which I haven't done lately, of works that might interest some of you: (And one random comment about BSG's "Islanded in a Stream of Stars,": Mr. Olmos, "beating your head against the wall" is intended to be understood _metaphorically._ Darn method actors. ) I got both of the books free via Stanford, as they were among the books handed out to froshlings. ( Read more... )

There's a column in the NYTimes today about how frequently doctors abandon their patients at the end of life. In the comments section, this is repeatedly contrasted with the behavior of vets, who make a point being there with the pet's human family when it is put to sleep, send sympathy cards, or arrange for rides home.

This makes me wonder why veterinarians would be more present and compassionate at such a time. One possible answer is that I suspect end-of-life care forms a larger part of veterinarians' practice than most human doctors, especially since dogs and cats simply don't live as long. This may cause vets to see the death of a patient as less a "failure" on their part, to be avoided in shame and remorse, and more a natural part of their relationship to a patient.

The other thought is that, because of the nature of the patient, vets spend a lot more time interacting with their family than human doctors necessarily do. So there's always more of an awareness on the effects of the death on the patient's loved ones.