We’re going to Glasgow today, hoping to have lunch with Alexander and Ketki. So I must be relatively brief. The gansey has been divided for the shaped neck, and if I’m not too tired, I ought to be able to finish the front tonight. I mustn't be too tired, because tonight is a big one, and Obama needs me.
You will have noticed novelty in the sidebar. It doesn’t reflect any skill on my part – it links to the LeCompte Family donation-page: you’ll see the identical thermometer on their blog. Theo sent me some code and I bunged it in. If you feel like donating, please say that you have done so in a comment or more modestly, if you wish, in an email to me (address in sidebar), and I will match you. The initial fifty smackeroos came from Theo himself.
However, my own endeavours were not entirely feeble, either. I mastered buttons! I even had one of my own engineering there for a while – Kathy in Juneau saw it, for one. (Do, please, follow the link in her comment yesterday: it’s a riot!) But I was worried that I wasn’t entitled to the image I was using, and Theo suggested doing it this way. The Obama campaign is so well-organised and so internet-friendly that you’d think they’d have a little corner of their website headed Buttons for Your Blog, but they don’t seem to.
Maybe tomorrow, after we’ve recovered from Glasgow, I’ll put up a Knit From Stash ’07 button just to prove I can.
Emily, that’s an interesting point, about how prominent women are referred to. Literary critics offend all the time by referring to Jane Austen (for example) as “Jane” while they’d never dream of calling Chaucer “Geoffrey”.
In this case, though, I would defend general usage:
a) because a straight “Clinton” is potentially confusing, as Tamar says. It’s sort of like the way we sometimes refer to the present unpopular incumbent as “W"; and
b) because she does it herself. All the pictures I see of her rallies are populated with people waving placards which say “Hillary”, never “Clinton”. Whereas Obama’s placards call him “Obama”.
If we’re still feeling happy this time tomorrow, I think we may be on a roll.
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I took the girl out of school early yesterday to go downtown to see Obama. We've had a string of senseless attacks here in Baltimore by rowdy high school children on MTA riders, so my guard was up when a loud group walked passed us on the way to the light rail. When we boarded the train, though, it turned out that they were loudly discussing which politicians they liked!
ReplyDeleteThey were also on their way to the arena, where there was a pretty long wait, both outside and in, but I was not at all disappointed in the speech. It was a bit short on details, and as a friend who was also there and with whom I compared notes said, there were a few unsustainable promises that should have been under the "hopes" or "we'll work for" category. On the whole, he said everything I would say if I were running for President. I don't believe I've ever been able to say that before about any viable candidate.
He also mentioned several points made by the AFSC national campaign about the finances of Iraq. I'll send a link if I can find it. I loved the McCain clip, by the way.
There wer 13,000 in the arena, and 22,000 earlier at the Comcast center in College Park. I believe Maryland is ready to deliver in the primary today.
Of course, afsc.org links directly to the video One Day = $720 million.
ReplyDeleteSilly me.
Dear Jean,
ReplyDeleteFrom reading several on-line forums for a chronic illness, that had many US members, I was beyond appalled at the hoops people went through to get essential meds and lab tests.
Still, many of these people had a negative gut reaction to 'social medicine' i.e. the systems of UK or Canada. Some serious brainwashing has gone on there.
I was also disturbed by the number of women in their 70s that were still working because they couldn't afford not to.
Definitely time for a caring Dem president.
Regards, Dawn
Thanks for your generosity with the matching and your technical perseverance in getting that button up. I'd given a few weeks ago and then heard about the matching.
ReplyDeleteI usually lurk, to my immense enjoyment.
Gerrie in MN
OK Jean, you made it easy. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteFair dos, Jean, on the 'Hillary' versus 'Clinton' front - (the argument that she is doing it herself). I'm less convinced by the other argument, as I think if Clinton were used it would have become unconfusingover a short time. Also, although 'W' is used, I don't remember (from my UK perspective) it being used all the time instead of Bush, but rather as an explicitly demeaning/teasing/joking term.
ReplyDeleteIt is the whole 'Jane' for Austen type thing that sets my spikes up on this, as you say!
You're ahead of me on the button+link thingy - I've been trying this morning to add one for Annie Lennox's 'Sing!' campaign (re: Women and HIV/AIDS). Totally failed thus far.
W, or "Dubya," specifically asked that people not use that nickname for him because of the implications. So in certain areas people have switched to calling him "the shrub."
ReplyDelete