And, then I didn’t get around to picking it up until the following December.

And, then I put it down again in January and didn’t pick it up until the summer, at which point I decided that I needed to read at least five pages a day in order to not take a whole year in finishing the thing. The book starts out slow. Since it is an autobiography, Mandela starts at the beginning and, maybe this makes me a terrible person but I was looking for the action, the politics, the rebellion, the prison term which you don’t get to until at least 100 pages into the book. But, as I read further I was glad to have had all of that background. First of all, because I know nothing, less than nothing, about African history or family structure, unless you count the occasional paper on kinship terms one reads in Linguistics classes. I don’t know how the tribal system works (Mandela was originally brought up and trained to be an advisor to the King) and I certainly wasn’t aware of how bad it got in South Africa before apartheid was actually ended. The government opened fire on unarmed civilians non-violently protesting. And, in later years factions of the apartheid government covertly funded organizations opposed to unity that went out and slaughtered civilians. That is horrifying. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to live through that. And, to have been in prison for 27 years, missing the childhoods of your children, not being there to take care of your Mother before she died, not being able to go to family funerals, all because you wanted a government where every person, regardless of the color of their skin, has a vote. So, I guess the answer to the question is Nelson Mandela an amazing forgiving machine or is he a man is this: He is a man, a stubborn man, but a man who wanted the freedom that was his. But more than that, Mandela wanted freedom not just for himself but for every South African. As he says at the end of the book:

“It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.”

Freedom is something that must be protected and we must be mindful of all of the things that we do or say that can take that freedom away, from others and from ourselves. This was an amazing book and Nelson Mandela is a truly inspiring man.

O’Rourke’s book is laid out nicely.  It attacks Wealth a book at a time, distilling it down to the main points and delivering them to you Spark Notes style, if Spark Notes were occasionally sarcastic.  O’Rourke discusses Smith’s ideas on banks, regulations, banking regulations, public property, private property, the rise of the middle class (which was interesting and discussed a bunch of history I don’t think I’d been previously aware of), why we don’t need economists, and war.  There is also a chapter on Smith himself.  They are all distilled and tackled with the wit you’d expect from P.J. O’Rourke.  Additionally, O’Rourke provides you with a philosophical dictionary (in case you get lost in the jargon) and a long list of endnotes to the original work and a bibliography (in case you don’t feel nerdy enough after finishing the book.)

I feel like I know a little more about The Wealth of Nations now, but I’m not sure I know anymore about the economy.  I suspect that, if Adam Smith accidentally ended up here in 2011, he might feel the same way.

(I don’t work for NASA, but the process NASA goes through before they send astronauts into space is the same process we go through before sending an experiment to the lab.)

So, first, you identify the problem. For NASA, the problem was that two components on the Hubble telescope that had failed. They had to figure out how to repair/replace these parts. So, they came up with a way to fix things. And, then they tested it. Then, they fixed the problems that occurred in testing. And, on and on. Even with all this preparation, things still had to be MacGyver things during the mission.

The whole process is so awesome. You read something and you think, “I don’t think that’s right.” So, you come up with a process that will test it. Then, you think of all the problems that could occur with your testing. You account for those problems (by changing your experimental items, maybe). Then, when you finally run the experiment, you find that maybe you have an effect but its possible something crazy has happened that you didn’t forsee and you have to deal with that. It is glorious! What a fantastic process!

So, that’s my little Cooper kitten. I’ve decided this year that we need a tree. So, I invested in a cute little 4-foot fake tree that came pre-lit. I could hardly wait to take it home and get it out of its box. It is a precious little thing. So, now its up but its not decorated. I bought some little green and red glass balls to hang up on tree, but I’ve not gotten a chance to put it up. I also bought a little star on the top. I did put that on. Now, I’m just waiting for one of the cats to try to knock it off.

When Cooper was a kitten, I took him and his sister to my parents house. He shimmied up the tree and he was the only decorations we had on the tree that year because whenever you couldn’t find him, he’d no doubt be sitting in the tree. I think he may have tried to do that last night because when I got up this morning the tree was knocked over. Sadly, he’s about as long as the tree is tall so he doesn’t quite fit anymore. Poor little guy. But, he still gets to chew on it.

My cat, the beautiful one (instead of the adorable one) just threw up in the hall. I’m tired. I don’t want to get work done, but everything is due in the next 10 days (well, actually, the next 17 days). Two days ago I left the house without my phone. Yesterday, I left the house without my phone and my power cord for my laptop and when I got to my classroom to teach it turned out someone had made off with the cord that connects your laptop to the system. Boo.

But, the writers at Sports Night are right, the world only moves in the one direction. I will get back to work. I will answer emails. I will code and work and think and finish stuff up. But, every now and then you gotta just give up and chill out for awhile.

And, speaking of that, I thought, hey, I can finish that pair of socks I can see in my yarn stash. So, I pulled out the socks and then started rooting around for the pattern. I couldn’t find it, so I thought, okay, I’ll just redownload it from Ravelry since it was originally a free pattern that was part of a knit-a-long. Turns out it is not free anymore. So, now I have to decide if I want to buy the pattern so that I can finish up the pair of socks, change patterns in the middle of the second sock or try to sort out the pattern from looking at the pattern. I should probably just buy the pattern as its inexpensive and it is supporting an artist whose work I like. But, I hate paying for something I probably have somewhere in my possession.

Bill Moyers on truthout.org

and, the second in a video with some nice art:

I’ve not completely processed this, so I don’t have any comments at this time, but I think I will in the future. Until this year, I’d always made an effort to not “shop for charity” because more of your money actually gets where its going if you give straight to philanthropic organizations (and you target organizations that make an effort to keep their overhead costs low). But, starting in February with buying music for Haiti, I’ve made a few purchases from The Breast Cancer Site. But, these two things have given me some to think about in terms of charity and in terms of structure and politics.

Also, its disgustingly hot in my sister’s apartment building. Heat is part of her rent and she doesn’t have a way to control it besides opening her windows. How wasteful is that?

Her: I got tickets to Lombardi
Me: What’s it about?
Her: The football coach.
Me: We’re going to see a play about a football coach?
Her: Actually, we’re going to see a play about the football coach. They named the NFL Superbowl trophy after him.
Me: Oh. Cool.

So, we got all dressed up and headed out to have some deli food (potato knish!) and then headed to the Circle in the Square theater. It is a small theater, incredibly intimate. I was really impressed with the show. The actors all put in good performances. The dialects were amazing. And, consistent. I don’t know about you, but accents coming and going really pull me out of a story.

Everyone knows Vince Lombardi quotes, “Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.” or “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” or “If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score? ” or “Winning isn’t everything, its the only thing.” So, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve always thought that Vince Lombardi was just some bully who won a bunch of football games. (You know, like Bobby Knight.) This play humanized this man that was just stats and quotes to me. It showed me a portrait of a man who was dedicated to his team; a focused man who drove his players hard but only because he wanted to see him succeed. It was moving. It was funny. It was well worth going to see.

Dad, trying to magic a light on.

So, that is an image of my Father, a grown ass man, trying to make a light turn on by sheer force of will. Or, magic. This was after my sister and I, grown ass women, had the following conversation:
Me: Where did the sun go?
Her: Its winter?
Me: Well, make it come back.
Her: I don’t have that power.
Me: Boo! Go get that power.
Her: Why do I have to be the own to go get that power? Why can’t you have it?
Me: True. I could have it.

This is why Dad had to try to magic the light on.

We then played a game of Toes. You play Toes by wiggling your toes and saying over and over again the word “toes”. This ridiculous game was thought up by our friends Stephy and Anna (oh, ladies, remember when we were all neighbors? What great times we used to have!).

And, now we’re all sitting around watching Nadal and Djokovic play on the telly. Well, they’re watching tennis, I’m actually doing a breakpoint analysis on some corpus data I have collected. Don’t you envy me?

More than likely something silly will occur soon. But, right now, we’re quiet and in our respective corners.

So, its going on the list of things I’ve done in 2010. It might be a small thing. It might be a silly thing. But, it is still a thing that I am proud of. And, that feels really good, too.

That being said, you can stuff a curry squash with tasty goodness meant for a pumpkin, it will still turn out to be a lovely dinner.