Who I am…
I am a lawyer, former mother of teenagers, and a quixotic seeker after and champion of factual truth.
I make the best damn brownies you have ever had that are not regulated by the federal government.
I love movies, Broadway, and intelligent conversation.
I think in song lyrics and movie and television quotes.
I believe in the use of proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar even in text messages. I am willing to debate the use of the Oxford comma, if you know what the Oxford comma is. It also makes me very happy if people use the subjunctive mood when appropriate.
I have been told I intimidate people. I am really just a fluffy-centered teddy bear. Really.
- It's all my fault. No, really. The views expressed in this blog are mine and mine alone and in no way whatsoever represent the views of anyone else, including any past, present, or future employer.
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Words to live by ….
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8.
“Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living.” Mary Harris (“Mother Jones”).
“Don’t boo. Vote.” Barack Obama.
“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Reinhold Niebuhr.
“No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.” Sir Terry Pratchett.
“Damning facts are still facts.” Steven C. Holtzman.
“If you don’t stick to your values when they’re tested, they’re not values — they’re hobbies.” Jon Stewart.
“Darkness never sustains, even though it sometimes seems it will.” Doctor Who.
“Writing is a form of mischief.” Stephen Sondheim.
“An idea is not responsible for the people who believe it.” Don Marquis.
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” Joseph Campbell.
“Truth is our strongest ally, our biggest weapon, and our best defense.” Me.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Stephen Colbert.
“The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.” Jonathan Larson.
“We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall, and light from dying embers
Remembrances that hope and love last longer.
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love;
Cannot be killed or swept aside.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda.“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Emma Goldman.
“No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett.
“I believe that the God who made (among other things) light, and space, and number, and time, and the spiral curve of Fibonacci numbers, must be acknowledged to understand more than I do about why there’s pain in the world.” Teresa Neilsen Hayden.
“No, it’s not fair. You’re in the wrong universe for fair.” John Scalzi.
“Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.” Lawrence O’Donnell
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.” Molly Ivins.
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Category Archives: Art
Vincent
During quarantine, I have started an “Art of the Day” project on my Facebook. I think people enjoy it, and it makes me happy. I find myself spending a lot of time trawling through museum websites to get art. My … Continue reading
Communication.
This is one of my favorite paintings, the portrait of George Harley Drummond by Sir Henry Raeburn. It’s not a significant painting. I’m sure if you drew up a list of the top hundred paintings in the world, it wouldn’t … Continue reading
Notes from our foreign correspondent*
This year: South America. One advantage that having a scientist spouse who goes to conferences in interesting places is that sometimes I get to tag along, which is why I am on Tierra del Fuego. Ushuaia, the small town I … Continue reading
Notre Dame.
Notre Dame is burning. To quote the CNN commentator, “It was a reminder that there is still beauty in the world…. We all need beautiful things right now…. It is a reminder that there is something bigger in the world … Continue reading
“What do you want, a bloody photograph?”
While Railfan* and I were discussing the Inquisition, I remembered my favorite document of that era, the transcript of Poalo Veronese’s trial for heresy for a painting of the Last Supper. It strongly resembles a Monty Python sketch.** The very … Continue reading
In October, I saw an exhibit of Rene Magritte’s work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It was a lovely and thought-provoking show, and as is my wont I bought a mug. (Note to family: yes, I know … Continue reading
Art: silly v. interesting.
I am not an artist, nor an art historian, but I do have my opinions. Among them: Jeff Koons annoys me. More accurately, the art of Jeff Koons annoys me. It seems to have an arrogance, a brattiness. It isn’t … Continue reading
If you have seen the movie The Monuments Men (which I loved, although the critics didn’t), you know that the Nazis seized the Ghent altarpiece from St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. The movie showed this as evidence of the evil … Continue reading
Why bother?
I hate Barnett Newman. Actually, to be specific, I hate Barnett Newman’s work. (And do not get me started on Rothko.) I once sat for fifteen minutes in the Museum of Modern Art glaring at Vir Heroicus Sublimis, muttering and … Continue reading
Eight.
Eight. Eight black and white paintings of young women with smooth and airbrushed skin, drawn from the pages of their school yearbook. Pretty young women, smiling, with the bouffant hairdos so common in the late sixties. I was confronted by … Continue reading
Art matters. I know how much art matters because, while still recovering from pneumonia, I stupidly spent hours wandering around the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It began when the Rocket Scientist and I spent Sunday in SF to … Continue reading
Barcelona
Traveling in Europe has challenges for someone like me who has an impossibly hard time with languages other than English. And in Barcelona, I not only don’t know one language, I don’t know two. When I was growing up, I … Continue reading
Fin.
The Hermitage, Louvre, and Orsay: 1997. The Metropolitan (NYC): 2003. The Prado* and the Getty: 2004. The Art Institute of Chicago: 2006. The Uffizi and the Vatican: 2012. The Tate Modern: 2015. This was my list of the Top Ten … Continue reading
Hola!
Back from Spain. Great trip. Too much to write about. Saw three museums in Madrid. Ate too much jamon. Fell down a small staircase. Discovered the limits of my mobility. Good times.
New shoes.
I have never thought much about shoes. I am of the “sensible flats” school of women’s footwear, and not solely because it reflects my personality. (Okay, you can stop with the eye-rolling, now. You know who you are.) When I … Continue reading
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