probably all too silly

I was thinking about an ex-mathematician friend the other morning as I walked my dog. Actually, I was kind of thinking about math and, more specifically, Number. For a long time I have accepted the notion that abstract concepts Exist, I guess in the Platonic way, and as such, Number is Real in some way [...]

food, conspiracy

Most of my friends know that I have a mostly suppressed but lingering tendency toward conspiratorial thinking. I think of myself also as a pretty rational person, so I try to keep this cogitation at bay and avoid sharing it with others. But, one thing that always gets me going down this pot-hole filled path [...]

first in months

I got a comment from an old high-school friend, which reminded me that I hadn’t written a thing here in oh-so-many months. I’m inspired.
I’m inspired about what happened last night, and grateful, and proud. Proud not only of the first Democratic popular majority since Jimmy Carter, but also the sense that many many people are [...]

stuff on stuff

Haven’t written in a long long while. Shame on me. But today I was thinking….
My Grandmother recently decided to sell her house and her stuff and move into an assisted living situation. I got a self-portrait my father painted some many years ago in the mail as a result of this purge. I was looking [...]

stereotype

I was reading Maura Seale’s article, “Old Maids, Policeman, and Social Rejects: Mass Media Representations and Public Perceptions of Librarians” today and thought that maybe a quick weigh-in on the librarian stereotype ‘issue’ would be a nice way to get back into the blog groove.
I’ll say first that I think Seale has the right idea [...]

racing

I’m very hungry, but I think I have to post something if for no other reason than that I didn’t yesterday.
Yesterday I spent some hours reading a couple of criminology-related articles that deal specifically with ethics in randomized trials. In one article Weisburd argues that randomized treatments in crime and justice are a moral [...]

ethics smethics!

A friend of mine and I are hammering out the beginnings of some work about ethics in social science research. I am trying to get a handle on the basics of what kinds of questions I can ask and fruitfully write about in this field. Something will come of this, I’m sure, but trying [...]

my first knitting post

I have been doing needle crafts since I was pretty young. I think I did my first cross-stitch project before third grade. I am not one of those truly crafty chicks, who are constantly doing new projects thinking up new projects selling their work and doing five more projects. But I have pretty consistently had [...]

puzzled

I’m having a terrible time coming up with a post today. As if to prove yesterday’s statement that one day can make all the difference, I’m fuzzy-headed, cold, low energy. It’s raining now, too. And Hard.
Every time I spend a little time following links on the internet I end up both amazed and overwhelmed. There’s [...]

brief spring post

I post today only in the belief self-discipline being something I have to practice, practice, practice. Self-evident, perhaps, but getting over the hump is NO. SMALL. THING.
I was walking along the Monogahela River yesterday looking across the water and thinking that Spring always seems to just EXPLODE one day. No amount of careful daily watching [...]