Oh, the irony

My “junk mail” report ended up being flagged as junk.

Sitting to pee is clearly fiddling with God’s work

In Norway, the head of one of the political parties is all up-in-arms that schoolboys have to sit to pee (Urination will go to committee)

“It is a human right not to have to sit down like a girl,” Kleppe said.

Err. Right. I’ve been in a unisex bathroom, and I’ve avioded them ever since. Why? Because men can’t aim. I can’t imagine that boys are any better. Making them sit down will reduce the work for the janitorial staff, clearly, and make the restroom much, much more sanitary.

But, of course, FSM knows what might happen to these boys if they have to sit down “like girls” to pee. Maybe they’ll grow up to be gay. Or worse, sensitive.

Give me a f—ing break. Don’t these people in Norway have better things to do with taxpayers’ time than this? The sad thing is that I could totally see this happening here in the US, too.

[via Bitch PhD]

Tags: rant

Oh, boo-hoo

“Pro-Family” groups^* are upset^** with the American Library Association for Banned Books Week:

“What people need to understand is that this is the American Library Association’s way of trying to censor those who exercise their free speech rights and say that there are books in the library that should not be available to children.”

Huh? First amendment right to censor? Can anyone take these people seriously?

Their main problem seems to be that none of the books were actually banned across the nation. No, but books have been challenged, and groups like these so-called pro-family people would be perfectly happy if many of these challenged books were, in fact, banned.

Boo-hoo “pro-family” groups who have a problem with banned books week because it shines a big spotlight on your intolerance. Perhaps the place for discussions on books you feel are inappropriate for you children is in your household, since not every parent shares your narrow-minded views. Indeed, the first amendment is alive and well in public libraries and schools, and those of us who celebrate banned books week intend to keep it that way.

^*Because, of course, if you don’t support their view that we should censor books, then clearly you aren’t pro-family.

^**I’m a little ashamed to be linking to a “focus on the family” site, but there it is. Please don’t think any less of me.

Tags: rant

Cat velcro

Ares and Artemis have been very clingy since my busy, busy two weeks has wound down. Today I was trying to write in my thesis, and they had to “help”.

Tags: pets

Elementary my dear

I finally finished Andrew’s Sherlock Holmes cloak. I’m very happy with how it turned it – it is the first time I’ve had a collar on a piece of clothing turn out well. Here’s the cloak and Andrew modelling it:

Actually, this cloak was relatively easy to make. The hardest part was just dealing with the sheer volume of fabric.

What’s next? My costume. (Eeep!)

Tags: my man, sewing

All work and no weekend makes Barb something something

Here’s my life for the past week-plus:

• Tuesday (9/12): Lobby-day orientation
• Wednesday (9/13): Lobby-day (sorry the blog entries for that are so far behind…will post them over the weekend)
• Thursday (9/14): Regular work day
• Friday (9/15): Thesis day, then drove to Baltimore for welcome reception for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s annual meeting
• Saturday – Monday (9/16-9/18): ASP meeting in Baltimore (I stayed up there rather than driving the 60 miles each way in the morning and evening).
• Tuesday (9/19): Our Anniversary – I stayed home, finished Andrew’s costume (almost), and celebrated our anniversary
• Wednesday (9/20): Rode up to Philadelphia for a 3-hour teacher workshop, then drove home (2.5 hour drive each way from Goddard, then, of course, the 40-minute drive from home to Goddard and back)

I have to say that I’m tired. Just tired. I need some time to just chill, but I also need some time to work on my thesis. Right now, though, I’m too tired to think on that level. I’m stealing back some of my time this week, and hopefully next week I’ll be able to get back on my thesis.

Tags: suckitude

Two years!

That’s right, Andrew has put up with me as my husband for two years now. I can hardly believe it. This has been a great year for us, and hard to believe that our wedding was already two years ago. I still remember it as though it were yesterday.

I love you, Andrew, and look forward to growing together in the coming years.

Tags: my man

Dressing up

Let’s just say I don’t dress up. At least not often, and usually when I “dress up”, it’s not business dress-up, but a more casual skirt and top or slacks and top. Today, for our visits on the hill, I dressed up in business clothes, complete with nylons and dress shoes.

I have to say that it’s amazing the difference in my attitude when I’m wearing professional clothes. I felt important, like I had something to say, something to contribute. And the “clump” of my shoes added to my feelings.

Having said that, I must point out that nylons are made of pure evil. To get them on in the first place, much grunting, hopping and dancing must occur. Then, of course, they have to come off part-way at times during the day as I…um…relieved my bladder. But they never go on the same way they did when I was at home. No, of course not. They are slightly twisted, or the crotch is lower than it should be.

In addition to nylons, I wore a body-constricting undergarment to make me smoother under the dress. I was smart this time (unlike last time), and wore the undergarment over the nylons. However, I discovered new adventures with the undergarment. It has snaps in the crotch to make going to the bathroom easy. I don’t actually use them, but today they came undone in the middle of the day. While I was standing in the hall. Waiting for a meeting. To make matters worse, shortly after the snaps came undone, the bottom edges of the garment started to creep up, eventually forming a constricting belt at my waist. And there was nothing I could do about it except keep my face neutral, go into the next meeting, and wait until I could get into the ladies’ room.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the shoes

Tags: rant

A Day on The Hill

Our group met in the cafeteria of the Rayburn representative office building. Let’s just say it’s a far cry from the Goddard cafeteria. We went over our strategy again before our first visit, and worried about the couple of people who did show up (one turned up in front of the office of our first visit, the other turned up later in the day).

The day was mostly low-key with mere moments of action puctuated with hours of waiting. I made 5 visits &#150 4 representative’s offices and 1 senator. Members of our group make a total of 8 visits, but when the schedule between visits was tight (30 minutes), we split the group to make both.

Each meeting went very well. The basic structure of each meeting was: introductions, a few talking points, a few anecdotes relating the NSF to our home institutions or institutions in the congress-person’s district, thank yous and a quick exit. Since the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget has already been through the full House and the Senate appropriations committee, we were basically sending a message of thanks to the congressional offices we visited. In fact, the NSF budget has seen a 7.5% increase in the House, and nearly that in the Senate. The one thing we were requesting was that congress keep the increase through the conference or omnibus bill.

Each meeting went very well. Since most of the VA legislators were in favor of increasing the NSF funding, we were mostly preaching to the choir. In fact, one of our visits was to the chair of the House’s science appropriations committe, in which case we were preaching to the preacher.

I ended up leading our first meeting of the day. It went very well, though I didn’t bring up a few of the points I would have liked to – so much for 20/20 hindsight. As the day wore on, though, our group started to get a good rhythm going, and were able to pick up slack in the conversation when things lagged.

Having said that, there was one member of our group who really brought things down. He was from my district, and was originally supposed to lead the meeting for my representative. Thank FSM he got caught in traffic. He didn’t show up to the orientation last night, so he didn’t know how these meetings were supposed to go. One thing about the meetings is to make a quick exit. So, when things were winding down and we had the staffer on our side, someone would ask what we as scientists could do to help in the future – this was our cue that we were going to cut and run after the answer. This guy, though, just didn’t get that. In at least two meetings that I was in with him, after we had asked the “what can we do for you” question, he would bring up something completely unrelated to what we were talking about and certainly not in the spirit of getting out of there quickly. Ah well. We survived despite this guy.

One thing several people have asked me is whether or not this sort of thing really helps. I have to say that I wondered the same thing going into this project. The answer came when we asked the staffers what we could do for them in the future. Every single one of them said to keep up what we’re doing – contact our congress people, visit our congress people, and have these kinds of lobby days. In fact, the staffer in the House science appropriations committee chair made the point that up until just a few years ago, the math and science lobby seemed to disappear. It took the US’s competitiveness crisis (i.e. that we are not turning out the numbers of scientists and technical graduates that we’re going to need to compete in the global market) for the math and science lobby to return. So, we really need to lobby through letters and visits and make ourselves available as experts on these topics, and we really need to look at this as a long-haul thing, not just something to do until the crisis has passed.

And just one more note: I mentioned that much of the day was waiting. Well, while one of the team members and I were waiting for our final visit, getting a cup of coffee (him) and chai (me) in the Senate coffee shop we saw Jenna Elfman. Who’d ‘a’ thunk?

Tags: politics

Orientation and Reception for our Lobby Day

This afternoon we had the orientation for the lobby day tomorrow. I was struck at how easy it was to get into the House office buildings. Somehow, with all that’s been going on in the world, I expected that there would be security up the gazoo with only people with an appointment allowed in. Nope. I just had to have my bags X-rayed and walk through a metal detector, and there I was.

Our meeting was in the Science Committee’s main hearing room. The walls were adorned with portraits of all of the former committee chairs, and looked much as the hearing rooms do on TV. We spent about an hour and a half listening to people talk at us, going over our talking points and discussing how our congressional visits would go the next day.

Then we broke up into our teams. My team had five members, plus our leader who was to shuffle us around the next day. We went over our schedule for the next day, talked a bit about our respective backgrounds, and went over the general outline of each meeting yet one more time. The other person from my district didn’t show, so suddenly I was assigned to be the lead for the first meeting tomorrow. Yikes!

Afterward there was a reception for us with food and drinks. This one was held in another of the science committee’s hearing rooms &#150 this time the one where most of the NASA and space appropriations committee meetings are. The walls were covered with Hubble Telescope pictures. I didn’t end up staying too long, but did chat for a while with one of my team members and a neurologist from Arkansas.

Oh, and to the three people who sat near me in the orientation meeting #150; if you don’t feel like you need to be in the meeting, then don’t show up. I don’t want to hear you clacking away on your blackberry the whole time or to listen to your under-your-breath comments (which, by the way, weren’t really under your breath).

Tags: politics