Below are the most recent 8 friends' journal entries.

Saturday, December 26th, 2009
kateelliott	11:41a	2009: "I think he's done as well in the situation as anyone could have done." My year end political post starts with a question I just asked my father. I note here, for those who don't know, that my father is a retired educator, whose field is American History, and frankly he knows as much as anyone I've ever met about American history and has a very clear sighted view of the past, present, and future. So I asked him (while he was cooking eggs for breakfast for me, my spouse, and three grandchildren--two mine and one my strangely tall nephew): "What grade you would give Obama for his first year in office?" He replied, [the rest of this post are my dad's words, taken from a more expanded conversation at the breakfast table; my interpolated comments to you, my faithful readers, are in brackets] "I wouldn't give a grade. [My note: by which he meant, I think, that giving 'a grade' is kind of a pointless, artificial exercise.] I think he's done as well in the situation as anyone could have done. Can you imagine if George Bush was just starting his presidency now, as Barack Obama just did? You just can't help but say that men* do influence history. What they don't do, also influences history. What people sometimes forget is that Barack Obama -- what he believes in is not the ideal world, where there is right and wrong -- but rather a little better world than the one there is now. What he believes, along with more orthodox and institutional churches, is that the world is an imperfect place and that human beings are, to put it mildly, imperfect, and that sometimes people are very very bad. What he believes in is a society governed by a constitution, like the United States. With checks and balances and limitations on power. He clearly believes that power can corrupt, and knowing that's a possibility, has a pretty healthy attitude toward himself and power. A good example is the health care plan. The true believers believe there is one right option, a single payer option. What Barack Obama believes, as far as I am concerned, is that there should be some reform in national health care insurance. He would probably like to have single payer option. But being pragmatic, anything that moves in the right direction is something he can approve, and will. And the other thing that Americans don't understand is that the Constitution is almost as much a limit on democracy as an encouragement of democracy. The indirect election of Senators, now changed, for example. The president's power is limited by requiring that the Senate approve things like treaties. That's why we have two houses, for one (except Nebraska). And also, that's one reason -- because he knows the Constitution and recognizes that it is a marvelous document to govern by -- he didn't make the mistake the Clintons made, saying that this is the health care plan we want you to pass. The existing fact on the ground is that corporations have enormous power, and the only way to do it [health care reform] is to take them on within the existing situation. Obama very wisely said, this is up to the Congress, knowing full well it was a gamble. Given the situation, and especially the terrible handicap of having to govern in a democratic society that is at war -- George Marshall once said that no democracy would sustain a war for more than 7 years, give or take one -- You know he is a pragmatic man when he is open enough to face the human condition and say that there are such things as just wars and such things as unjust wars**. The profound thinkers are existentialists [I note here that my dad has recently been reading, or re-reading, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Reinhold Niebuhr]. They deal with the existing situation, not what they would like it to be." * [The use of the word "men" here was in response to a comment my spouse made during this conversation, about how he (the spouse) is 'not a believer in the Great Man Theory of history' but does see in times such as these how much influence individual men as rulers/governors can have; thus the use of the gender specific word 'men' in this context.] ** [My dad's opinion is that we should not have gone into Iraq in 2003. He never supported the Iraq War, although he did support HW's war to liberate Kuwait and now in retrospect he believes HW did it the right way, although he was critical of HW at the time for not taking out Saddam. He also says that he thinks the reason Obama was awarded the Peace Prize was for the statement he made some months ago when he said that he would go anywhere and talk to anyone with no preconditions -- I'm not sure of the exact quote.] (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 25th, 2009
kateelliott	12:43a	Scrabble: the other version We played Scrabble in the regular fashion. But then, for a final game, we played my sister's preferred version: in which you use the letters to form a word that sounds like it should be word, but you must play it together with its definition. My favorites from the evening: weetle: to annoy somniad: the heroic tale of an epic sleeper anjoupe: a small car in the form of a pear (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
kateelliott	7:23p	And to those who celebrate it: Merry Christmas. To those who celebrate other holidays at this season: Happy Holidays! To those who enjoy the time off, then have a great time. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
kateelliott	7:18p	Avatar Okay, I haven't seen it yet, although I may or may not, mostly depending on if I can ever find time. Anyway, Twin A and Daughter went to see it for a second time, this time in 3-D (first time in 2-D). Twin A, on returning, announced, "After seeing this a second time, Mom, I feel I can be pretty sure in saying that you will not like it." (due, he meant, to high cliche quotient in the script as well as the noble savage motif) What I did find was an interesting discussion by anthropologists, from the always interesting blog Savage Minds. One of the more interesting stories that fall into the Dude Going Over is the story of Gonzalo Guerrero--Spanish sailor is shipwrecked, captured by a local Yucatec Maya group, eventually marries a chief's daughter and becomes part of the tribe and fights against the Spanish; his sons fight the Spanish, too). But the big difference with the story of Gonzalo Guerrero is that the Maya are not noble savages. They are people, with a civilization, with points of similarity and dissimilarity to other cultures, with their own wars and disputes, their own sense of humor and ways of doing things, upsides and downsides (and of course the Classic Maya civilization, further south, collapsed for various reasons one of which may be ecological mismanagement some hundreds of years earlier). They're not "better than us" or "worse than us." That's what I get tired of (a point, I might add, apropos of nothing in regard to the film, which I have not seen). (8 Comments |Comment on this)
kateelliott	12:58a	Two Things 1) am too busy to attempt any writing anything, or reading, or anything except a quick check once a day of email, certainly not all my fine plans to write 1000 words a day or anything like that 2) my gosh, I am eating too much, and actually more than I want to (and far more than I usually do), and yet IT IS ALL SO TASTY AND GOOD that I keep eating more. I'm glad the dayafterdayofeating holidays come only once a year. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
kateelliott	9:51p	Happy Holidays + Book News The response on the SFNovelists post has been great. Meanwhile, although I realize I have not been posting here much at all this month due to Life, Deadlines, and Life and Deadlines, I will be scarce yet again, probably even more so. Happy New Year! BOOK NEWS (addendum): The paperback of Traitors' Gate is due out in March 2010. w00t! And I feel relatively safe in announcing that I am currently being told that COLD MAGIC will be published in Sept 2010. So, mark your calendars. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 18th, 2009
kateelliott	8:38a	When what we think we know is right is actually wrong I posted over on SFFNovelists. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 14th, 2009
kateelliott	2:25p	I am working hard. Thus, posting has fallen by the wayside. Herewith a few links. David B. Coe posts about The Ideal Writer. 1. The Ideal Writer hits his deadlines. Ulp. Anyway, very good post. via rwglaub: Back from combat, women struggle for acceptance. (I note that this article is in the Marine Corps Times, so this is coming from within.) “We just want to know that when we come home, America has our back,” Chase said. “That’s the biggest thing. Women are over there. You want to feel like you’re coming home to open arms, rather than to a public that doesn’t acknowledge you for what you’ve just done and what you just sacrificed.” On a more triumphant note, the Honolulu Marathon was run yesterday, with 20,609 starting and 20,321 finishing (pretty good, eh?). A long article on the male race, but also a long article on the female race, won by Svetlana Zakharova, which I was pleased to see. The top female finisher came in 10th overall (amazing, yeah?). But even better, the level of camaraderie among marathoners, the particulars and details of how one runs a race, and how people help each other out--and, in this case, the respect being shown by elite male athletes to the elite female athletes, really struck me: While most marathon drama happens late in the race, this one developed early in the dark. Yuko Manabe, the Japanese pacesetter, winced and grabbed her sides, and dropped out three miles into the race that started at 5 a.m. Manabe, who led the pack of five female runners, was to set the pace for Shimahara. Her premature departure forced Shimahara to temporarily lead the pack, but a group of male runners took turns running with the group and set the pace for them. Ironically, the pace increased after Manabe dropped out, and Shimahara said she was able to key off the men. "She fell off so quickly at 5k, (I) had to then switch over and just run (my) own pace rather than that of a pacemaker," Shimahara said. . . . . Shimahara said she knew Zakharova's move at 30k was coming, but couldn't go with her. Coming into the race, the biggest question surrounding Shimahara was her condition. Yesterday was her fourth marathon of the year and third since August. She said she was not fatigued from all the racing, but just wasn't strong enough to move with Zakharova. "I just had a marathon one month ago and this felt more like it was going to be a challenge," Shimahara said. "I did come here aiming to win the race, but I consider it more of a challenge. It's the shortest gap I've ever had between two marathons." Zakharova continued to push alongside Yasukazu Miyazato of Japan, one of the male runners who had been running with the women's group earlier. By the time she was running through Kahala in mile 22, her lead over Shimahara increased to about 200 meters. Zakharova had 5:40 splits for the next few miles, running alongside Miyazato. He even offered her a sponge at the 24th-mile water station. Miyazato also finished in 2:28:34. (13 Comments |Comment on this)