August 2006 Archives

I completely missed the highly objectionable line in question when I read this NYT article about the new female Sesame Street character, but my friend (from the Yaxuna trip) Hilarie was right on top of it and sent the following to The Times:

August 20, 2006
Letters: Cherry Jones; Jay Greenberg; Early Music; Abby Cadabby

ABBY CADABBY
The Muppet Gap

To the Editor:

Re "A Girly-Girl Joins the 'Sesame' Boys" by Susan Dominus [Aug. 6]:

How disheartening that as the Sesame Workshop makes a much-needed improvement in its show's gender representation — by introducing a new female Muppet, Abby Cadabby — one of its executives would disparage Lulu, an earlier attempt at a female character, by saying, "She wasn't that attractive." As unintentional as this counterpoint may have been, it indicates that the continued use of physical attractiveness as a measure of girls' personal worth is still too prevalent in American society.

Hilarie Ashton
Manhattan

Double congrats to Hilarie for both being published and for crossing off an item on your life to-do list :)

Apologies for the lack of blogging, but I finally realized how much I procrastinated all summer and finally got down to work. You'll be able to see the fruit of said labor in about a week when I announce the beta release of a campaign tool I've been coding up. The "proof of concept" version is out now, and I hope to have the alpha done on Sunday.

Another apology goes to Jamil Walker. He used to be my least favorite DC United player, but the events of the past two weeks compel a change in status. Last week, I attended United's game against the Red Bulls in the Meadowlands, and Walker came on as a sub. As background, he has had two poor years at United (only one goal this year in MLS play), and rarely starts. So when, last week, Walker blew an injury-time, open-net goal that would have been the game-winner I got up out of my seat and yelled very loudly (though without expletives) that he should stay on the bench.

Fast forward a few days, and I'm in DC visiting the West Wing crew. Sara begins to tell a story about this group of guys who were dressed similarly and walked into the bar/club she was in. They turned out to be DC United! And, though she reports that Bobby Boswell is skeezy, Jamil Walker happens to be the nicest one of the bunch. So I felt bad dissing him at the game.

A couple days later I'm back in DC for three bridge-upkeep/building meetings and, of course, a DC United game. Since this game was an Open Cup game (rather than an MLS game), Walker got the rare start, along with four other usual bench-warmers. And yet again, as the Washington Post explained, Walker had several opportunities but was unable to capitalize. Once more, I found myself out of my seat yelling in frustration.

Until the 60th minute, that is. At that point Eskandarian sends a free kick into the box, Boswell deflects it, and it goes right to Walker, who hand-balls it, and puts the ball into the back of the net. Everyone is cheering and screaming as if we scored, but I'm looking for the ref to call a hand ball. But he doesn't! And the goal counts! Walker scores!

My friends at the game didn't see the hand ball, so they thought I was being quite ungenerous to Walker, and still showing my bias toward the man, even after he did his job as a forward and scored. WaPo quotes Walker as saying about the potential handling,

"It was somewhere around this region," Walker said, gesturing in a circle near his head, neck and shoulder.

That's not very reassuring, but perhaps I am letting my preconceptions get the best of me. So, in the words of Warner Wolf, let's go to the video tape:

Oh look, there's Walker's hand, and there's the ball hitting it.....

However, Walker then went on to score a second goal, this time earned with a perfect shot into the lower-left corner of the net. So I say this: Jamil Walker, I apologize to you for all the mean words that have emanated from my mouth in recent weeks. You are a great guy and deserved more from a loyal DC fan.

(If only our Senator had learned to eat his pride so quickly...)

Democratic voters flexed their muscles today, and the results were positive. Lamont upended Lieberman 52-48 (I was a bit too optimistic in my prediction), but the Senator has decided that keeping his job is more important than either the Democratic party or respecting the voters -- he will run as an Indie. It's still unclear whether he has enough signatures (we'll find out soon), though I'm guessing a big push tomorrow could put him over the top. Very unclear is what the DC Dems will say...does Reid strip Lieberman of his committee assignments? ... does the vast majority of the caucus back Lamont? ... can Lieberman still raise sufficient funds? I guess we'll find out soon enough. (Here's to hoping that this whole drama ends by Labor Day.)

Down south, my Johnson 59 - McKinney 41 prediction was spot on. At least this result removes potential distractions from the Democratic side.

Last weekend I partook in the quintessential New Jersey experience: using its highways to travel to Philadelphia and New York City. On Saturday, Gayle and I decided to be tourists in Philly (since my previous experiences with the city of brotherly love have been less than ideal). First stop was the Constitution Center. This relatively new museum was quite interactive (in fact, the first exhibit is a historical high-tech, 360º video show with a live actor narrating). The rest of the museum is in the shape of a donut, with the general idea being that you move forward in time, learning how the constitution has evolved. The problem is that they have so little space, that information on modern-day politics gets mixed in with the Jeffersonian artifacts. So, it's a bit discombobulated.

The most interesting interactive device was the "Can you vote?" machine. At each time period, you picked a state, and answered questions about yourself (age, race, gender, etc.). And when you answered a question in such a way to disenfranchise you, the machine made a loud buzz and displayed a red "DENIED" on the screen. A good wake-up call for what "democracy" really meant in the first two-thirds of our country's history. (Go late 1700's New Jersey, though!)

We had an early all-you-can-eat dim sum dinner before playing Philadelphia mini-golf. Franklin square had a course set up with all the sites of Philly as holes: Love park, boat house row, art museum, Ben Franklin bridge, etc. So I got to see all those sites, without actually having to go to the sites :) We finished off the evening with the "Lights of Liberty," a video show that is projected on historic buildings in the historic district. The content was a bit less informative than I had hoped, but it was an appropriate ending to an educational day.

My New York City experience, on Sunday, was more social than enlightening. I hung out with Alissa, as we enjoyed the weather and gossiped about politics. Then I saw lots of old MIT Hillel folk at Andy & Bracha's engagement party. Quite the amount of yummy food.

On an entirely different topic, today I hope my party comrades in Connecticut and Georgia can knock off two of my least favorite Democrats. For predictions, I'm going with Lamont 56 - Lieberman 44 in the CT-Sen primary and Johnson 59 - McKinney 41 in the GA-4 run-off election.

If Lamont does win, I hope the pundits can move past the war issue and see, as Rahm Emanuel does, that:

"What's playing out here is that being a rubber stamp for George Bush is politically dangerous to life-threatening."

Progressive Dems want their party to be an opposition party, and if you represent a state or district filled with progressive Dems (see: CT), don't enable GW Bush and the Republicans.

Update to previous post: I forgot to post the question I submitted. Needless to say, I wasn't picked:

Ms. Rowling: You've said the first characters you thought of were: Harry, Ron, Hagrid, Nearly Headless Nick, and Peeves -- all male. From the Order to the Marauders, women seem to be in the minority when it comes to important roles in the books. And while I find Hermione's blurring of gender lines positive, it seems that the characters with feminine traits are either mean (Umbridge) or trivial (the twins). I would love your thoughts on feminine role models in your books.

Thanks to Chicklet for the general idea of the question. Taren brought up Mrs. Weasley, but it doesn't seem that she does much for the Order and Dumbledore even makes fun of her motherly instincts in HBP. Janeite thinks Ginny exhibits feminine qualities, though I'm not so sure (Quidditch team star and all). I think Tonks might be a good exception...other thoughts?

Well, my softball team lost, but I had a grand time in NYC at the JK Rowling, John Irving, and Stephen King event. My brother came down from Boston to join me for the event since he's a huge Stephen King fan. I'll give a rundown of the event here, but I think there are videos available at fan sites.

First, Whoopi Goldberg introduced the whole event. She was moderately funny, and some of her side comments made it clear that she hadn't actually written the material in front of her (she skipped whole paragraph-jokes at one point). She let us know that we were going to see lots of famous people tonight -- more than just the highly successful authors, and welcomed Kathy Bates onto the stage so that she could intro Stephen King. Each author got their own mini-stage with a seat to read from. King's looked very rural (true to his Maine roots) and he read a story about a kid that throws up at a pie eating contest and makes everyone else vomit.

Next came the guy from Homicide: Life on the Street to introduce John Irving. Irving sat in a high-brow, leather chair befitting of the academic that he is. Irving read from Owen Meany -- the part where Owen convinces Barb and Rev Wiggin to change the Christmas pageant. Marc and I agreed that the Volkswagen scene would have been funnier, but as the WaPo pointed out, the chosen scene was more kid-friendly.

Next, Jon Stewart came out to introduce Jo. He received the second loudest applause of the evening. Jon cracked jokes about Mel Gibson, his kids being Potter maniacs (funnier since his youngest if 5 months old), and how books are killing his television career. The audience corrected him on his pronunciation of Rowling (rhymes with bowling). At long last, Rowling was welcomed on stage, to a half-standing-ovation. She read from Half-Blood Prince -- the scene where Albus tells Tom Riddle that he is a wizard.

JK, as well as the others, answered questions. Alas, we couldn't torture any information out of her that pertains to Book 7. We found out that all potions have a magical element to them (thus a Muggle can't brew a potion), and that Ollivander has chosen his wand cores because of the magical creatures indigenous to the UK -- and because Phoenix, Dragon, and Unicorn were JK's favorite :) Stephen King admitted that he gets scared of everything and intimated that he once got a good story idea while having sex.

The Tuesday crowd apparently got JK to reveal that Dumbledore is actually dead.

I took some pics on my cell phone but they turned out terribly: better ones are here.

Update: I forgot to post the question I submitted. Nedless to say, I wasn't picked:

You've said the first characters you thought of were: Harry, Ron, Hagrid, Nearly Headless Nick, and Peeves -- all male. From the Order to the Marauders, women seem to be in the minority when it comes to important roles in the books. And while I find Hermione's blurring of gender lines positive, it seems that the characters with feminine traits are either mean (Umbridge) or trivial (the twins). I would love your thoughts on feminine role models in your books.