Someone on my Facebook friends just posted this video, a clip of a speech this summer from the Secretary Treasurer of the AFL-CIO to the Steelworkers Union on Obama and race.

[link]

After all the ugliness that's been going around the past week or so and the truly scary and disgusting turn things have taken in some quarters, this should be required viewing. Fantastic.

So last week I discovered my vcr remote died, and I can't get the universal to program it. Tonight, I discovered my vcr is dying. Squealing and fried picture.

I'll have to decide what to replace it with. I'm not going tivo route, something cheaper.

Sara, I'd look on your local freecycle or craigslist. I have seen free vcrs and cheap dvd players. I got my tivo for free, but then you have to pay for the service.

Latin??? Seriously??? FAIL.

My mother loved Latin.

I should clarify; I wasn't dissing Latin, or the study of same; I just think that if the NYT wants to hang on to any illusion it has about being The Paper of Record, it should be accessible to a lot more people, and I just don't think pretentious, self-congratulatory op-eds partially in Latin are the way to do that.

It was a new type of tl;dr for me.

Too Latin, didn't read?

Happy birthday, Matt!

Happy birthday, Cashmere!

Happy birthday, megan walker!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

My mother tried to get my two older sisters and I to do a puppet show version of the Latin Pooh. I was Christopher Robin. I don't remember too much except it was one of Mom's weirder tangents.

I should clarify; I wasn't dissing Latin, or the study of same; I just think that if the NYT wants to hang on to any illusion it has about being The Paper of Record, it should be accessible to a lot more people, and I just don't think pretentious, self-congratulatory op-eds partially in Latin are the way to do that.

That reminds me, there was an article on the CNN website about why Obama isn't hurting in the polls despite being a giant nerd. [link]

Happy Birthday megan!

Happy Birthday Cashmere!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, everybody.

If anyone's a fan of blues, I cannot sing the praises of Roaring Forties highly enough. I mean, we're talking "Nessun Dorma" quality singing.

They use magic in making that cheese. It tastes just as good as cabrales without the overpowering smell of wet feet.

Shitfucker. Mister Kitty's always had a wheeze, but now he is gagging when he eats tonight after a puking episode this morning (sometimes happen.) Not sure if it is related or not. Anyway. He's a 15+ year old cat, these things worry the fuck out of me. He'll eat treats, but still gags after, though has so far kept them down. He got a lot because with the insulin, he can't afford not eating. Damnit. Doesn't help that I was just reading about pet cremation options. NOT ANYTIME SOON GODDAMNIT.

msbelle, that's one option.

In high school, I translated swatches of Julius Caesar’s “The Battle for Gaul” from Latin to English while nibbling cheese crackers.

I took four years of Latin in high school and belonged to the Junior Classical League; I translated Catullus in my spare time while crunching on Cool Ranch Doritos and sipping a cold Mountain Dew, but only because it was homework and some of those poems were dirty.