Politics and the Letter B

I have a very specific image in mind for the letter B for the ABC-Along, but the weather isn’t cooperating, and I doubt I’ll be able to pull it off.

I have been toying with the idea of a collage of books because of the thousands of books we live amongst everyday:

General reading/fiction/non-fiction/film and lit theory:

Some knitting that have managed to keep their place on the shelf (others are stacked in various places throughout the house, much to my DH’s chagrin):


A few craft that have made it out of the closet boxes; the rest remain hidden and forgotten in boxes somewhere like so much dirty laundry:

Cooking that have made it back to the cooking shelf (those that aren't on the shelf ~ and there are many ~ can be blamed on DH M because he is the chef and the reader of cookbooks):

Some composition theory along with some fiction that lurk behind my desk chair, unlike the others precariously piled in wobbly stacks next to my feet that I won't bother to show:

And you thought you had stash problems! Thank goodness we are on a serious book diet and dedicated to utilizing the wonderful concept Ben Franklin came up with lo those many years ago ~ the lending library.

For the most part I have left all talk of politics off this blog even though politics informs just about everything in my life, from the banal everyday nothings to the larger issues. When I finally converted to the new blogger templates, I even left off my GW out of office countdown because it was too hard to get into the sidebar. But this has been an intensely political year with the pre-election rigmarole, and yesterday I heard the most ridiculous thing I could imagine.

I was a child during the Cold War and grew up amidst the ever-present anxiety about the “bomb.” Like all schoolchildren in those days, we practiced the ridiculously ineffective “duck and cover” drills, assembling in the interior hallways of the school building, kneeling down so our rumps touched our heels, pressing our chests against our knees all the while our hands grasped behind our necks, fingers interlocked. This last crucial element was going to “save us” from a nuclear attack on our school and leave us with a spring in our step and a smile on our faces once we survived the bomb. (Please feel free to laugh in horror, shudder in repulsion or cry; I don’t know which is more appropriate.)

Even though I went to a Catholic school, we were also indoctrinated on a bi-monthly basis through government-sponsored film reels to fear and loathe the Communist ideal, and indeed, anyone whose viewpoints were socialist or further left. I think we were uneasy and anxious all the time.

That same feeling of unease lurking in the back of my mind happens now with environmental concerns, especially Global Warming. I am afraid to see the film An Inconvenient Truth because I know it will cause me sleepless nights and a greater contempt for big business and politics.

Yesterday when I was driving home from work, I heard the most absurd newscast on NPR about China’s ongoing efforts to *temporarily* clean up its air pollution in advance of the Olympic Games this August. The city of Beijing has been practicing its own drills ~ equivalent to duck and cover ~ manufacturing stoppages and moratoriums on driving in the city in an attempt to eliminate the dense particulate and engine emissions fog that is ever increasing because of their newfound embrace of capitalism and the recent phenomenal growth of car purchases.

The air quality is now equivalent to that of Mexico City ~ some of the worst air in the world, and will soon surpass it, if it hasn’t already. Both cities are located at the bottoms of hilly/mountainous regions and are densely populated, and those populations rely on the combustion engine to move its people around. The only reason Beijing’s air quality wasn’t as overwhelmingly awful as Mexico City’s earlier in the 20th Century was due to poverty and the lack of automobiles. Now that the greedy hand of consumer-driven capitalism has wormed its way into China’s proletariat, the heavily populated capitol city is trading bicycles and rickshaws for Subarus and Isuzus, thus recreating the air quality problems we have managed to perfect in Santa Ana, California. (Yes, that was biting sarcasm.)

The geographical locations of Santa Ana, Mexico City, and Beijing are part of the problem, and the locations conspire with the combustion engine and any manufacturing to create an impossible situation where skank air is trapped by the surrounding mountains.

Beijing’s ostrich-like decision is not to work to eliminate the sources of the problem but to temporarily enforce mandatory *vacations* for manufacturing processes as much as 90 days before the Games rather than require scrubbers on all crap that is dumped into the air (I wonder how this *solution* affects their economy?) and to stop traffic on the streets rather than put tighter emission requirements into effect.

City officials stated concern is for the athletes. I guess foreign athletes are more important than citizens or residents of Beijing who breathe in this shit on a daily basis and become asthmatic and get emphysema, respiratory illness, and lung cancer, especially since some of the foreign athletes will bring big money to the area.

I wonder also about the *losing face* that will occur, especially when the western reporters take to the air with their high-tech video and those reporters show and comment on the dark clouds of skank that hang over the city and the track and field complex. (It’s pretty unlikely the ever socially respectful and tactful Asian press won’t mention such problems, but I’ll bet the Americans will bring this to everyone’s attention.)

What do you suppose is the motivating factor?

Select one:
The health of the athletes
The potential loss in non-eastern investment
The likely bad press and bashing they will receive from the west regarding the skank air?
Or
The health of their citizens and residents, which by the way, isn’t even mentioned by any of the officials being interviewed?

Listen to the absurdity here: NPR>All Things Considered>January 30, 2008>Beijing Races to Clear Its Skies Before the Olympics.

Rest assured, this is a political issue as well as a socioeconomic, environmental issue.

L. L. Bean Task Lighting

Check out my groovy little new toy that I just got to help solve my poor task-lighting conditions at night:

This is a “headlamp,” or to be exact, the Trailblazer II Headlamp by L.L. Bean, a lightweight, relatively inexpensive lamp likely modeled off of the lamps used by miners. This little babe was advertised on TV before the holidays ~ you might remember the commercial: a group of kids in their jammies with lights on their heads *spying* out the window for Santa.

I thought it might work to give me more light to knit by, but didn’t get around to ordering it till Monday, and it’s here already (FAST service!).

It is engineered quite smartly. The headstrap is threaded through a moveable piece that scooches back to insert the three AAA batteries:

One part of the adjustable (and elastic) headstrap is used to unscrew the screw that opens the battery unit, so you will not need to find a screwdriver or other such tool. The whole unit is self-functional.

I totally dig it! But I won't be able to test drive it until later tonight.

Even though yesterday I had a bunch of extra work dumped on me for the remainder of the semester, and really for three years to come, I might be able to get some knitting in at night and therefore some progress on some winter socks.

Here is the current state of the Pomatomus, and quite by accident, and with a bit of imagination, it DOES look like a fish, doesn’t it? (Notice the stitch marker that could pass for an eye and the angle of the needles and open-end of the toe that could pass for an open mouth ~ cute, no?)

Okay, a closer look (use your imagination and think *fish*):

I just got past the dreaded first complete Chart B, and quite frankly, Chart B was much more intuitive for me than Chart A, which was a pain in the arse in several places. Especially when the directions clearly stated begin with row 2 of Chart A, and I naturally took this to mean follow row 1 of Chart A when I looked at the chart page and started knitting. I can’t tell you how many times I frogged the friggin’ thing. Plus I didn’t, and still don’t, like the way my yo’s look through Chart A territory ~ inconsistent and crappy.

The best thing is that I am really beginning to doubt I will have enough yarn to make two socks from this skein, and contrary to my initial planning, I did not switch to the Shibui for the heel to save on yarn. Double arse!

I had planned to buy a yarn (food) scale just around Christmas time because Williams-Sonoma had a very good one on sale right after the holiday, and I figured procuring said scale would help me out in the yardage estimating department, but I completely forgot about it, and now the scale is back to regular price.

Of course as everyone knows who is not a blundering idiot like I am, Fleece Artist sock yarn is one-of-a-kind in terms of dye lot, so I’ll never be able to match this. I’m looking forward to a two-tone second sock here. Big time suckage!

Super Bowl 42 Playoffs

Green Bay Packers vs. NY Giants

As always at the beginning of the semester, I am swamped with work, especially email, so here is my Saturday Sky albeit a day late:

We are in the middle of a cold-spell, morning and evening temps are zero (0) F, with daytime highs at 6F. After dark, we are well below zero with windchills anywhere from -15 to -20F.

Today was the final NFL Playoff Game between the Green Bay Packers, one of my all-time favorite teams, and the NY Giants. Wisconsin is our neighboring state, and Green Bay is pretty far north of here (Southeast Michigan), and it sits along the western shore of Lake Michigan. Not quite Canada, but not far from it.

I’m not really a fan of American football, preferring instead the much more sensible game of basketball and the NBA, and I haven’t watched much of it since Joe Montana retired from the 49ers all those years back. In fact, the last Super Bowl I watched (or rather fell asleep during) was the 49ers against Denver when the match up was Montana and Rice against John Elway and his running back during Super Bowl 24. The ill-fated game was a snoozer because the 49ers mercilessly stomped the Broncos 55-10, and even though I was a 49ers fan, it was dismal to watch such a spanking.

Anyway, today’s game was played in Green Bay, which meant their temps were even colder than ours, game time was zero F. By the third quarter, the temps were down to -4F with windchill factor equaling -24F, and it was miserable watching those guys play. Some didn’t even have long sleeves on, which is mind blowing to say the least. I was sitting at home, wrapped in a toasty afghan, uber-warm L.L. Bean slippers on, legwarmers, silk long underwear, long jammies, and I was shivering just watching the frozen breath escape from each player's mouth.

Here are some highlights of the last two and one-half minutes taken from the toasty TV-side arena:

Penalty:

Some running action:

A tackle:

Famous announcer guys ex-Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman and Joe Buck:

Tied game at the end of regulation play ~ 20 - 20:

Green Bay wins the OT toss:

A quick change of possession puts the ball into the Giants' hands and a couple of quick plays later the winning field goal kick:


A bit of knitting occurred but not during the game cuz hubby doesn't like the high intensity of the overhead living room lights during serious TV events. No progress to speak of, so I'll leave that post for another day.

Suffice it to say, the Giants won in overtime, only the second overtime in playoff history, and I doubt I’ll watch the big one because the other team is the New England Patriots, and even though they’ve been going to the bowl for several years running, I could take ‘em or leave ‘em.

Saving Place

Space holder

Weather Advisory

The new semester starts this week, and with preparations last week, I haven’t had much energy to knit ~ therefore, very little progress on the Pomatomus socks.

It certainly looks like some pooling is occurring:

Today I began the heel flap: purling through the back loops on the flap ~ what could be more annoying pleasurable than that? And what could slow you down more than p tbl over 35 stitches of heel flap on shortish needles?

Reinforcements were called for in the form of orangey chocolate:

Weird and unusual weather abounds. Twice over the past month we have had significant snow storms, between 12 inches and 3 feet each time during a 24 hour period ~ once just before Christmas, and once just before New Year’s ~ perfect timing. Each time the temperatures got very cold, 8F during the day, and each time the temps got very warm within three or four days, to around 40 or 55F during the day.

Once the high temps began, it meant that the snow melted almost as quickly as it fell a few days prior.

Today we saw temps top out almost at 56F, so our beautiful holiday snow is almost gone; plus, it is so windy, it feels more like March than the beginning of January.

My desktop Firefox weather forecaster keeps popping up severe weather warnings. Here is what I get to look forward to during the first week of classes:

Monday: Heavy rainfall and severe thunderstorms on top of snowmelt will lead to the possibility of flooding, especially streams, creeks, roadways, low-lying and poor draining areas.

Tuesday afternoon: A cold front will sweep across lower Michigan; strong winds expected to develop ahead of this front, with sustained winds of 25 to 35 MPH and gusts to 60 MPH.

Well, those winds are here. We’ll be lucky to keep the power on.

In honor of Jared's (brooklyntweed) beautiful Cobblestone Pullover in last Fall's IK, Knitting Daily is conducting a survey asking what men want in a sweater. As soon as I locate hubby, I'm going over to Knitting Daily to take said survey about knitting for men. Although I love the pullover, I doubt hubby would like it much; he doesn't like pullovers (just told me), and in his mind, the yoke detail would make his already broad and manly shoulders more broad. Too bad :-(

I think the EZ-influenced Big Blue that Jared is currently showcasing might be more his style, so I hope Jared writes that pattern up and sends it in to IK. Let's try to influence both J and IK to that end. Perhaps suggestions in the survey fill-in-the-blanks might help!

ABC-Along 2008

Two of my many favorite pastimes are knitting and taking pictures. My knitting skills are passable, and I am pretty good with cameras that aren’t digital. I recently joined the ABC-Along 2008, a groovy *along* hosted by Vicki of knitorious that combines photography with fiber arts, or according to the rules, photography about anything, as long as that anything is related to letters of the alphabet.

There are 52 weeks in the year, and the English alphabet has 26 letters, so over the course of one year, I am to post images bi-weekly that represent my thoughts on the corresponding letter of the alphabet. See knitorious for a better explanation of the rules and how to join.

Here are a few that I have been considering for A:

For the end of holiday celebrations, especially New Year’s parties, or the aches and pains of cold and flu season:

For more help with the aches and pains of cold and flu season and in keeping with the old bromide "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," which has nothing to do with cold or flu:

For my most favorite, but no longer engaged in, pastime, flying or airplanes:

For my family or ancestors:

So far, I am undecided ~ but am leaning towards ancestors. The two young people are my maternal grandparents on their wedding day, and the photo is at least 75 years old. The little ceramic people on the mantel are actually called *ancients,* and notice the woman has a large needle in her hand. Being the crafty person that I am, I put some wine-colored yarn through the large eye of the needle and let it dangle. In her lap is a ceramic ball of yarn and some sort of pretty Asian sewing box. The man is holding a tool for making sandals and a completed sandal (flip-flop to mainlanders) although it is impossible to tell from this picture. So I have fiber content and the letter A with this one :-)