Cutie

Have I mentioned I like being an aunt? She's looking like a little girl more than a baby every day ...

Come Sunday

Coming from a Sabbatarian background myself, I was interested to read The Atlantic's take on a new book titled The Sabbath World, by Judith Shulevitz. The idea is that a community-implemented, set-aside time of rest--not as a result of divine mandate but simply because it's a good thing civically--would have "social, pragmatic and spiritual utility" in today's harried, disconnected world.

My English 1010 students have been discussing an extended excerpt from Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, and many of them are convinced that Putnam is right in his assessment of America's civic health (he argues that it's on the decline). Individualism, most of my students believe, has completely overrun collective, communal concerns. I'll have to alert them to Shulevitz's book as one good idea for how to stem this trend. But, as the Atlantic review asks, how practical/feasible is it, really, to think of re-instituting Sabbath practices?

European societies appear less stressed and rat-race like. Afternoon naps, 30-or-so-hour work weeks, etc. Are these practices the result of workplace and community policies or something deeper in the cultural soul? My guess is that it's the latter.

Much more than a proofreader

I'd heard that President Obama writes at least some of his speeches, and this photo confirms his skills as a thinker, writer, editor and orator:

That's not proofreading. That's some expert wordsmithing there.

Getting there

So, I know there's no need whatsoever for a thesis project to have a cover, but I had some fun putting this together today. As I'm making final changes and additions to my novella-length essay, it's nice to imagine it with a cover of some sort. I have a printout of it sitting on the desk to inspire me to finish well.

(The picture is of Prim Point lighthouse on Prince Edward Island where I got to camp out for a week of thesis writing last fall. It's a beautiful place, full of sea, steeple, rock, wind. Go in the off season, when it's quiet and all your own. Just remember to bring a coat.)

Three writers in one evening

Tomorrow's Emerging Writers Symposium here in Laramie features Gaby Calvocoressi (poetry), Glen Pourciau (fiction) and Nicole Walker (nonfiction and poetry). I'm curious to ask Nicole if she prefers one genre to the other. Reading some of her poems and a couple essays this week, she seems to be a wiz with both. I'll be introducing her tomorrow night at the reading at Second Story Books.

My favorite lines of hers so far? From a prose poem in her book This Noisy Egg: "Both my grandmothers collect birds. The one, the one with the foil, collects the cardboard-sculpted, mantle-shaped polyester kind. My other grandma--stale bread folded in her pocket--and a long walk from her house to the park. She keeps birds inside her coat. She opens the bread sack and out come symphonies of ducks."

Loquacious sleeper

Zzz ... I'd heard people talk in their sleep now and then, but I'd never been privy to truly eloquent speech from a dreamer until this week, when Alisa (roomie) burst into the following monologue:

"Hahahahaha, that's awkward. Those used to happen to me all the time. Oh, who am I kidding?! That still happens to me."

Witnessing her rem-cycled conversation as I came in the bedroom, long after she'd already hit the sack, was an event I will cherish years from now.

Frustrating inertia on "don't ask, don't tell"

I wasn't aware just how many service members have been impacted by the law put in place in 1993 requiring gays in the military to hide their sexual orientation. More than 13,000 members have been discharged as a result of the law--11,000 of them since 1997 according to The Huffington Post. The law has yet to be repealed, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates just announced new rules that are a positive first step.

Gates said that the changes, which basically put higher-ranking officials in charge of cases and make it tougher to bring allegations against someone, will provide "a greater measure of common sense and common decency" for handling situations related to the gay ban. And it looks like a full repeal of the ban may be on the horizon. Yet many officials and politicians worry that a big change to the policy "might undermine military cohesion and effectiveness" even if they agree that "don't ask, don't tell" is problematic.

And I find that pretty frustrating. In a realm marked by sexism and sexual abuse, the military has bigger fish to fret over. One in three women in the military experience sexual assault. One in three. And the penalties for the few perpetrators caught are often ridiculously minor in comparison to the crimes.

What if we worked a little harder on minimizing violence and intimidation and things instead of accommodating homophobia?