The Phantom Tollbooth

Suddenly, I was reminded of a movie I used to watch, as a kid, called the Phantom Tollbooth. I'm told it's also a book...anyway, fortunately for me, youtube exists so I could remember the many details of this movie I so loved. As I was viewing, I came across this most fantastic-ly applicable section regarding one of the "Demons of Ignorance," the "Terrible Trivium."



This is so so representative of my life as a PhD student that I followed up on the demons of ignorance. Here they are, according to wikipedia:

The Demons of Ignorance

* The Terrible Trivium, a humanoid demon whose face lacks features and who seduces passers-by with mindlessly easy but pointless tasks that take an incredibly long time to accomplish.
* The Demon of Insincerity, a rabbit/kangaroo like demon. Its only purpose is to mislead anything or anybody that comes nearby.
* The Gelatinous Giant, a giant hidden in the mountains of Ignorance.Shaped like a large mountain. Extremely cowardly and especially afraid of ideas.
* The Triple Demons of Compromise, a demonic team of three negotiators; one is short and fat, one is tall and thin, and the third looks "exactly like the other two". They can never truly go anywhere because, rather than reach agreements, they constantly compromise.
* The Horrible Hopping Hindsight, a demon which has its eyes on its rear end. It never sees where it is going, only where it has been, and always thinks that each movement could have been better.
* The Everpresent Wordsnatcher, a monstrous filthy bird who deliberately misinterprets whatever a person says. He has ambitions of being a demon, but is said to be only a nuisance, and is suggested to have previously met the Humbug.
* The Senses Taker, a demon who distracts passers-by by supplying them with illusions of things they would rather be perceiving. His name may be a play on "census taker".
* The Overbearing Know-it-All, a spherical demon with spindly legs. He constantly talks, offering his own incorrect opinions to anyone nearby, and all are in danger of being crushed under him. He is often accompanied by the Gross Exaggeration.
* The Gross Exaggeration, an especially ugly demon, "whose rows of wicked teeth were made only to mangle the truth". A frequent companion of the Know-It-All.
* The Threadbare Excuse, a humanoid demon that clings to anyone who will give him a ride. He is always heard murmuring weak reasons for not doing things, and also has a vice-like grip on anyone who holds him.
* The Gorgons of Hate and Malice, two disgusting slug-like demons that leave oozing trails behind them.
* The ugly Dilemma, a horned demon whose name implies his purpose. He is said to blow clouds of steam from his nostrils.

I need to get this book...I find it sympathetic to my life so far.

To cheer me up!

I told my facebook friends to help me with music that would cheer me up/keep me awake while I write. I got a lot of good recommendations but this video is the best thing that's ever happened to me:


Tilly & the Wall on SESAME STREET from Team Love on Vimeo.

I love it with my whole heart. It turns out that this band (Tilly and the Wall) actually always does music that has, as the only percussion, the tapdancing.



So, I love that. Also, I want to wear big poofy skirts with crazy-colored tights and tap shoes. If I could do that, I can't imagine ever having any unhappiness in my life.

Bail-out schmail-out

My poor husband has had to deal with a very grumpy version of my normally sunshine-y self for the past few days. Probably it's brain chemistry but the object of my anger has been the economic bail-out and surrounding hubbub. So, I'm going to share with you the opinion I've developed. If you don't feel like reading to the bottom, here's the synopsis: I hate the bail-out, I dislike Nancy Pulosi, and I feel consternation towards my beloved Barack Obama. Also, I dis-like being blamed (as a democrat) for things that everybody first hated and then reluctantly voted for. Finally, I think Paulson is a crook.

Now, here's my rant. I am responding to a question about why the "democrats want to bail out GM" and an assertion that, if you want to know, you should ask John Lewis.

First of all, this is the same $700 billion that we're talking about, the $700 billion that everyone agreed should be used to "save the economy". And, for the record, John Lewis voted against the bail-out initially, before everyone got bullied into it with the whole "financial armagedon" argument. There was no real plan for the $700 bilion. It was just a number pulled out of a hat. So now it's up for grabs. It was $700 billion that never existed but now it's a giant number that can be used to bail out whomever.

Clearly, this is a situation like the weapons of mass destruction, wherein we realize we've had our chain yanked and then we can't figure out how to get out of it. I'm not sure that it's a great idea to have a banker (i.e., Paulson) in charge of deciding that some infinite amount of money should be allocated exclusively to bailing out banks. I also think that if we have a giant pile of money available to bail people out, particularly people who have behaved quite badly (i.e., subprime lenders and leveragers), why not preserve the jobs of hardworking wage earners. I mean, bailing out GM seems dumb but, seriously? The leveraging and the subprime mortgages is, you know, unethical, as opposed to just bad management.

So, then, my friend said: Good point, Sara. [that's my favorite part]

Not in favor of the $$ going to AIG either, but I guess I just assumed that if the people in the know say it was necessary to prevent the financial collapse of our entire economic system, I believed they knew better than I. Now I'm hearing things like the artificial propping up will, in the long run, make things worse. I don't want half a million hard working folks to lose their jobs, but I wonder what happens if there's no bailout? Will someone buy those factories? Does another automaker move into that gap in the market and potentially make use of that workforce? Where do the people who are owed pensions fall in line when GM's debtors line up during bankruptcy?

I think that these are all excellent points that my friend made and Kevin made similar ones last night when I was screaming at him in the car. He was sort of whispering...I wonder if I should apologize... Anyway, another thing that Kevin said is that he doesn't just want to give them more money to buy more steel so that they can make more Chevy Tahoes that nobody wants. And this is an excellent point. But my Barack Obama is in favor of the GM bailout! I suggested that maybe this is a good opportunity for him to start implementing one of his stated goals, which is to get American automakers in the green business. To create jobs while also putting more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. When you give out money, you get to make all sorts of conditions, right? I hope?

Finally, I promised that I would discuss Nancy Pelosi. I find that I don't like her. I don't like agreeing with Republicans if I can help it but I do find her to be sort of combative and partisan and I find that when she talks, whatever she's talking about sounds like a bad idea. She has this sort of textbook "bleeding heart liberal" tone that really gets under my skin. Like she's constantly saying, "Has anybody considered the downy moth?" in the face of an argument about a labor dispute. I realize that, in this case, she's on the side of the workers but, somehow, I get that overly-liberal vibe. I get the feeling that she thinks that giant piles of money are the best solution to any problem and that this money is being withheld from her and her cause out of hatefulness and greed, rather than that money is a finite resource that needs to be parsed out with careful consideration. The problem that I've noticed is that now no one is considering money as a finite resource. Everyone is just making up giant numbers and saying that anyone who wants to withhold the money is trying to bring down catastrophe on all our heads. So, I find it hard to pick a side.

Pitch it in here, sir.

I was just explaining to Kevin that Obama thanked me in his victory speech, since I gave money and told my friends about how much I like him. Also, I blogged about him. Then the following opinion piece came on NPR (I copied the whole thing because, personally, I don't really click links in blogs).

Opinion
Get Our Help While You Can, Obama

by Paula Poundstone
(from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96890409)

Morning Edition, November 12, 2008 · People still seem full of hope after the historic election of Barack Obama. This is America, though, it can't last. Pleased and proud as we are, Obama hasn't been on American Idol, so we're bound to lose interest soon.

That's why President-elect Obama needs to waste no time in harnessing this feeling and ask something of us. We'll spend. We'll save. We'll do laps. We'll wear sweaters.

My parents are a part of the "Greatest Generation." They pulled our nation through the Depression and World War II, and when they heard the call, they collected rubber.

My generation rode out the Beanie Baby crash, ran up both credit card debt and the nation's weight, and brought us reality TV and the SUV, but it's not all we can do. We've grown up collecting box tops and shoes. We've earned free doughnuts by getting our cards punched with every dozen purchased. We're the "a-thon" generation. We've jogged, walked and pedaled thousands of miles because someone said it would cure cancer.

It's our turn now. Just ask us. We've adopted freeways and been up all night with night feedings. We'll bring an unwrapped gift. We'll bring canned goods. We'll collect flip-tops. Yes, we will.

What do you need us to do, President-elect Obama? We could form a bucket brigade to bail out the banks. We could collect Band-Aids, not the useless little ones, for the health care system. We could take shifts forming human pyramids to hold up our crumbling bridges.

The entire country could hold a progressive dinner party to feed the homeless. We could all commit to wearing the same clothes two days in a row to save water, energy and time. I'll go three, because I care more than the others. We can carry road-mending materials in our cars and fill pot holes during traffic jams. We can put a wishing well on Wall Street.

Our leadership has told us that we have a long, hard climb before us, which I would welcome, because I love the outdoors, and I could use the weight loss, but I have a bad feeling it has nothing to do with climbing.

I'm waiting. I'm punching my glove. It's oiled and ready. Pitch it in here, sir.

Commentator and comedian Paula Poundstone is a regular on NPR's game show Wait Wait Don't ... Tell Me!

A little comic relief...

I hadn't heard of these people before but these songs are quite funny.

I [heart] my future president

I think that Reagan and Bush supporters have felt this way before. Clinton did some things that I approved of, politically speaking, but, personally, I just would like to say, "Ick ick ick." So, really this is a new feeling for me. I love this man. I watch his face when he speaks and remember fondly the little way that he flinches when he gets hit by a raindrop or the way he held back tears talking about his grandmother or the way he smiled when the crowd started chanting, "Yes we can!" I love him and now I'm so concerned for his safety. I can imagine now, for the first time, why people threw themselves down and sobbed when JFK was assassinated. He holds all my hopes and dreams, sure, but also, I think I have grown to actually love him. Is that possible?

Tonight is your answer

I'm without words of my own so I'm using a quote from last night's speech:

It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to by cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day. It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

I am at once so grateful and hopeful and fearful and amazed by these events. The clips from people who voted for the first time in their lives and civil rights leaders who never thought they'd see the day have left me stunned. Maybe tomorrow I'll be exuberant but today I'm just stunned.

Happy Halloween/Birthday

Here are a few of my favorite things: costumes, presents, puppet shows, friends and family, getting lots of attention, steaks with bleu cheese, legos, memory foam, bookstore gift cards, Flight of the Conchords, ice cream, craft projects, nice fall weather, days off...

It is for these reasons, and many others, that my birthday weekend, so far, has been an absolute dream. On Friday, I worked from home and completed two thesis chapters without having to interact with a very grumpy advisor. Then, at 4:30, my husband came home early and my dad arrived from Tennessee. We walked to dinner in shirt sleeves with the sun warming us on the way and then we came home and drove to the puppet show (see above link). The show was fun, I saw a friend there, and we all returned home and went to sleep, after polishing off what the kids had left of the halloween candy (which we had left out on the steps). The next day, we all got up and drank coffee. Then Dad and I constructed an Ebenezer/bell banner for his church service on Sunday while Kevin grilled steaks, which he served with bleu cheese, sauteed mushrooms, and caramelized onions. Also asparagus and spaghetti squash. Then, caramel praline crunch ice cream and presents. My camera is lost so I don't have pictures of mine but I got the lego dwarves' mine. yay! Also, the first season of Flight of the Conchords, the CD of the Flight of the Conchords songs, a memory foam pillow, and a Barnes and Noble gift card. Also, a pillow with stitching on it that my mom had started and my sister finished. Good times. Very good times. Then, today, I get an extra hour! It's still only 10:30 and I've been awake, finishing my dwarves' mine, for hours!