Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Knitting Friday

OK, I've been pretty bad about posting any knitting stuff, though I have been knitting. Apparently, not taking picture however.

We in NJ are in the throes of a major snow storm. Across the street from me, my neighbor has a 6 foot plus piles of snow removed from the roads and driveways. The guys who do our shoveling (Association fee) worked on the driveways first so now they have 5+ feet of snow on the sidewalks to remove. Poor guys.

Last night, my husband went to play pool and finally walked in the road when he realized he was making no headway trekking through 3 feet of snow which covered the path. (You realize your place in the universe when you have to transverse acres of snow.) One guy drove, not realizing the clubhouse parking lot was not plowed (that's last priority.) If you're in the area, his car is the one in the snowbanks in front of the clubhouse. I think they're going back for it when the thaw comes. What a Keystone Kop comedy!

So, that's what we've been occupied with this week; but back to knitting. Not much to report. I'm just finishing my Advent Calendar Shawl. (It's much to big for a scarf.) I'm sorry I had to eliminate a lot of patterns but it's pretty huge without blocking already. Now, I'm waiting for blocking wires from Knit Picks to arrive since I've abandoned my search for alternative blocking wires from a place like Home Depot. This "thinking off the box" was not not coming together and was just too time consuming.

Since free shipping is $50 at KP, I added the Vogue Knitting Book (a lot of people review it on Amazon as the best reference book and I'm just hoping they don't all work/have relatives who work for Vogue.) Plus, to get to $50.50, (that was cutting it close) I splurged on two skeins of lace weight alpaca. Most people wouldn't consider $3.57 a skein as splurging but I must be a cheap bastard.

For some reason, this is the first winter ever, I'm searching for warm tops. I remember the days of blouses covered by a big man's shirt for cooking, etc. Now, it's shirt, wool sweater, shawl - you can imagine me as the Pillsbury Dough Boy by the time I'm finished. So I'm spending a lot of time eying the wool yarn I have and devising warm, non-bulky tops. Non-bulky is the key word here. I just ripped out the front bands on a cardigan I made in prehistoric times. Obviously, back then, I thought that a double knit weight front band doubled over so that when both sides joined you would have four layers, was a cool idea. For the last 3 months, I'm been spending time putting the sweater on, putting a coat on and then staring in the mirror saying: Do I look pregnant? Finally, I ripped out both bands (thank goodness they were done last without any connections) and replaced them with single crochet bands. It works and I'm wearing the sweater w/o the baby bulge look. I did the same look with a beautiful Aran-like beige sweater but I would hate to unravel that one only to discover the bands are connected and I'm looking at some very serious modifications.

More on my adventures in sweater mods, next week. I'm going to leave you with a non-knitting web site today. Always coming late to the dance, I just discovered this no knead bread recipe:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

Apparently, the entire world is eating it. You do need yeast and an oven-ready heavy, covered pot but it rises without kneading. I think it tastes like beer bread (which is still one of my favorites.) Bread is funny and I don't know if you can use "good" flour and get the same results. But this bread is heaven. Eating for me in heaven would be good bread, cheese and grapes. Of course, I'm not making heaven so I'd better revise the menu.

Happy knitting and bread making.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Website Wednesday

http://gsi.berkeley.edu/teachingguide/tghome.html

I think my sites have been rather frivolous with my choices lately but frivolity does have its place. For a change of pace, this site is serious but so good if you are involved in teaching in any way. That is, if you're human because all of us, at some time(s) in our lives, teach. Little people, big people, genetically related people, strangers; it can be an endless list.

I've right in the middle of how kids learn/how kids should be taught since the boy has been preparing for a history/geography/social studies test on the Middle Atlantic and New England states since the start of the year. Now, remember he's in the 4th grade. Here are some of things he must learn (and spelling counts, this is not a multiple choice test):
1. All the appropriate states, their capitals and postal abbreviations
2. The chronological order of the modes of transportation in the area
3. The products, natural resources, and geographical features (ex. Hudson River) of the area
4. Why the Industrial Revolution began in the 1800's. (WTF!! I'm assuming this is short hand for why the IR flourished on the East Coast; particularly since the IR began in the 1700s.)
5. What and when was the Boston Tea Party and what were its causes
6. Why does this area have a service and not manufacturing economy now.
7. Describe the differences between the Puritans and the Pilgrims and when and why they came to America.

This is not the entire list but you get the idea. As a teacher, I'm livid. First, this is not a test for the grade level. It's designed to create a lot of angst in the kids, including the boy who has been studying diligently.Failure is written all over it. Split into separate tests, it would be fine. Looking at the study guide, I was reminded of my special ed class which I was preparing for a test the next day (I was subbing then.) They had to learn all about ancient Egypt - you know all the big words land their definitions like archeology. I thought then: These kids are not getting this. This is only something impressive to send down to the DOE in Trenton.

I think the same about the boy's study guide. WTF? However, this teacher is not working in a vacuum; we have a district curriculum director. Plus, the NJEA is locked in deadly battle with the NJ Gov (He wants to break the union and tenure and challenge them with private charter schools. Oh yeah, that will really solve everything! Private + profit = dedication +accountability.) and I think it's the kids who are caught in the cross hairs on this one. Districts can say: Hey Gov, look at this impressive junior high/high school level curriculum we're teaching in 4th grade.

That's way my site pick is so appealing to me. It shows me that schools are still teaching teachers about how kids learn and how they can help them to learn.

This site comes from the University of California, Berkeley and is prepared for graduate student instructors to be used with class lectures and assignments. But it is perfect as a professional teachers' resource and for dedicated parents. I say "dedicated" because this is not an easy read (The Flesch reading ease score ranges from 20 to 60; higher number = easier read) and it takes a chunk of time.

What I like is how it unpeels the levels of learning. It explains the importance of going beyond the facts. For example in the Critical Thinking in Social Sciences section, these are the topics which are discussed in length:
What is critical reading?
Overview of the Four-Step Approach
First Reading: Previewing
Second Reading: Annotating and Analyzing
Third Reading: Review
Fourth Step: Responding

This is a very easy site to digest in sections so don't be turned away because you're not a professional teacher. There's a lot here for everyone to learn. Give it a try.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Movie Monday - Adopt A Sailor review, well, sort of and the SOTU

My mother hates cursing Not the "damn" type so much but the line starts with "bitch" and, of course, all the juicy ones on the Legion of Decency's condemned list (does that even exist?) are verboten. I'm not a rabid fan of cursing. Most of the ones used by kid are either expletives of frustration or place savers, like used instead of "You know" or "and."

I get the expletives of frustration because I used to do deadline work. The "fucks" didn't speed the job to completion but they seemed to work like a steam-release valve.

This one night we were all sitting in the dining room at someone's birthday and the girl exclaimed "bitch" which I thought was a rather apt description of the person being described in the story being told. But immediately, mom went into her anti-expletive campaign (I know that mom needs to get out more if she thinks "bitch" qualifies) throwing in her usual canard: Cursing demeans you.

Now, almost-teen girls especially don't like beration (I think I made up a new word) but I don't believe in taking an issue to the mat in front of kids unless absolutely live-threatening. So when I got the girl aside later I told her, again: Words are just words. You'll find there are inappropriate places to say some of them but they're only words; not guns.

Which brings me to Obama's SOTU tomorrow night. I've read in so many places that's he going to stress civility. Civility! That's the best you can do after the gun packing no-necks and monkey-bearing Americans which appeared so frequently in your campaign; after the vicious allusions from political hacks that if someone is displeasing you just "lock and load'; after people were killed because they were in the wrong place when a deranged man was able to buy a massively destructive weapon and act out his killing fantasies? This is the best you can do? Civility!

That's when it struck me, remembering my mom's antithesis to cursing: Barack Obama is really just pining for the good, old days. When everyone was polite. I'm thinking this must be the 1950s, that decade when "In God We Trust" got on monies, when women, minorities, "others" had no control and communists, not other Americans, were our selected object of all hatred.

The world was on fire, even then but we didn't see the flames, we only caused them in far off countries.

Which brings me to Adopt A Sailor. I haven't checked but I'm assuming that this static movie started off as a play. It's really a one-set drama gussied up movie-style with some scenes of a ship, New York City, and falling from the sky (it fits.)

Simply, a New York liberal couple participate in an Adopt A Sailor program where you "adopt" a sailor ready to ship out and show him/her the town. This sailor turns out to be a polite, devoutly religious guy from Turkey Scratch, Arkansas. However, in typical crises and denouement which are essential in plays, he is really no more than the catalyst which provides the mirror to this crumbling marriage.

It's a trifle in its brevity but it's also a thinker and worth listening to and watching; notice watching came second. It's the dialogue between the wife and the sailor (when the husband is out buying dinner) which ties back into what I've said before.

She, politely, tells the sailor that New Yorkers from her crowd would consider him provincial. And he, just as politely, says that's the word he would use for her. Wisely, the screenwriter continues the dialogue to have them both define "provincial" and for her to discover, yes, this country boy knows exactly what it means.

Wow! Religious people look askance at liberals, not for their sophistication but their provincialism! Who would have thunk?

We are separate worlds in this country. We're thinkers; we're fools; we're loud-mouths; we're greedy; we're altruistic; we're peaceful; we're violent. Making us civil should be way down on the list of "Barry's List of What To Do Next."

Tomorrow night, tell us guns kill. And tell us greed kills. And tell us that obscene profit for the few is not goal of this country. Tell us providing for the general welfare does include caring for our health, caring for our jobs, caring for our quality of life.

We can have common goals. Bring us together.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Movie Monday: An Education

A short posting because we're going to be hosting a Bagel Bash at our clubhouse. We're both off today and this was going to be canceled if we didn't step forward. A lot of people like these in the winter months and this will be the community's first in over five years.

I've decided that I shouldn't worry about the stupidity of the American people, but my own. A year ago, when I watched the DVD of New Moon, I cried in the agony of having to do so. I remember thinking that outside of the two shots of Bella and then Bella and Edward reflected from the eye of Jacob when he had shape-shifted (Yes, they are not werewolves, they're shape shifters. Edward announces this fact in Breaking Dawn. And yes, I read that book. There's real horror!): This movie sucks.

Now, I have New Moon as part of my movie package and my opinion is becoming more positive. I know I have a problem; I just can't figure out which one it is yet.

On to An Education. I was really looking forward to this movie. I like Peter Sarsgaard though I think I only really remember him from Shattered Glass. The promos for the movie looked promising; that is, no CGI so maybe I would be seeing good actors playing real situations.

Well, it's only Hollywood real in that it's based on part of a memoir of the same name by Lynn Barber. This movie recounts her relationship with an associate of notorious Peter Rachman, a landlord who promoted the "white flight" of his rent protected tenants by moving in families of blacks in England in the 1960s.

The movie doesn't shy from this fact (though it's peripheral since boyfriend, David Goodman, is a scoundrel on so many levels), nor does it shy away from the fact that Goodman is Jewish, nor the expressions of bigotry from those days. Got all that? I think I mean, it gets the flavor of the period well.

(Interesting and useless side note: Since I knew nothing about this movie, at first I thought it was a depiction of the Profumo Affair [worth knowing about] which happened at this time in England. Well, it wasn't, but a quick Wiki look showed that Rachman had a very significant link to Profumo's mistresses. Call me psychic!)

Back to the movie. Let me play the curmudgeon and tell you what I didn't like:
1. The static, linear plot line. You know from the get-go that David has a secret and you spend the movie in "Wait for it" mode. Once you learn his secret, the balloon deflates and symbolically perhaps, David leaves the scene, for good.
2. The deux ex machina ending which is best summed up as: Hey kids, sleep around with a crook, drop out of high school when he gives you a ring, experience the angst of betrayal, and then........really wait for this one: study hard and Oxford will still accept you!
3. The absolute lack of character development. Is David just a pervert and attracted to 16 year girls? Did Jenny ever have any interest in higher education? This is an important point which is swept under the rug. Jenny is preparing for Oxford in the early 1960s and the beginning of that decade was still the time of June, moon, groom. I would assume that for Jenny to want college, and the most prestigious college in England, she would have an learning goal. But she's playing the cello because her father thinks it would good on her application. She's supposed to be the brightest in her English class but the only answer she provides in answer to a Mr. Rochester question from Jane Eyre with "Because he was blind." Boy, that was deep. Once Jenny enters her relationship with David she is not only flaunting the social mores of the times; she's the accomplice of a crook, and she knows it. Here's a kid who's looking at Oxford supposedly yet she skirting with a mug shot appointment. Good screen writing could have fleshed out so many interesting possibilities in this movie but it didn't. (I would even have liked some more interaction with Goodman's wife whom Sally Hawkins (I think it's she) plays with understanding, concern and tired acceptance in a much too brief scene.)

What I missed the most in this movie: All the unused possibilities.

An Education got an Oscar nod for best picture, best actress and best screenplay. Go figure.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Website Wednesday

A short blog today because the kids are home and there's snow out there! A lot of it!

Lately, my early morning game playing has gone from room escape games to spot the difference games. I'm a stickler though. I hate the timed games, the penalty-if-you-click-the-wrong-object games, and the either too dark games or "hidden objects are too light to see" games. As you can imagine, that really narrows the field.

There are some narrative-driven spot the difference games which are really strange; not the spotting the difference part but the story you follow. These games do give you a penalty for wrong clicks but if there's a time limit, it's extremely generous. I enjoy them but there are only a few of them.

But then I found this link:

http://www.spotthedifference.com/

You start out with spotting the difference in two photos. I think photos are sometimes the most difficult for differences. Then, as you advance through the levels, you get differences in books on shelves; dice, flowers, buttons.....the list keeps expanding. Also, the pictures become mirror images or they "jiggle" as you look at them (great for getting the arrow on the right spot.) If you make a mistake, a pop-up box tells you so. Right now, I'm on the Teal level and the teaser on the bottom asks: Can you get to the Black level?

I like playing these games because I also love word scrambles (you get an assortment of letters and you have to make words from them) but invariably with each set of scrambled letter, my brain fails to recognize certain possibilities, like letters that will form words starting with vowels. I'll find the "lawyer" but miss "awl."

So even knowing that visual and verbal skills are different, I play these difference games to toughen my brain.

Whatever. Take a look at Spot The Difference. I think you'll enjoy the challenge.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Knitting Friday

Finally, all knitting, all the blog.
First a fast shawl pattern. I was lying in bed on night thinking about a poncho/cape I had made eons ago and never wore. What a jerk!, I'm thinking so as my New Year's resolution, I decide to rip out the poncho and remake it as a shawl because as you all know, this place is freezing. So here's the pattern for a fast shawl from recycled wool. (You will have more possibilities in stitch patterns if your yarn is not an crinkly as mine was.)
Fast, warm, working shawl:
Equipment: US 13 needles; DK weight yarn (larger needles if you use bulky/smaller needles if you go the other way.)
Abbreviations: Kfb - K in the front and back loop of stitch (1 increase)
Sl1P - Slip stitch with yarn in front (as to purl); if next stitch is knit, move yarn to back of needle
CO - Cast on
CO 2 sts.
Row 1: K1FB, K1FB (4 sts)
Row 2: Sl1P, K1FB, K1FB, K1 (6)
Row 3: Sl1P, K1FB *K* K1FB, K1 (8)
Continue working Row 3. Remember to slip the first stitch as purl and increase the second stitch and the second to last stitch each row for a 2-stitch increase every row. This gives you a very curved and slightly triangle shape.
Now there are various ways you can knit this shawl. First, you can:
1. Just continue Row 3 until you run out of yarn for a modified curved triangle. Or:
2) Take your stitch count per inch and multiply to get the number needed for a length which will tie in the back. (For example: at 2.5 sts = 1", I need about 160 stitches for 65" - Take a tape measure over your shoulders and under your arms to "tie" in the back. Whatever the inches are for this, that's the gauge you need for a tie shawl.) When you get to that length, you can stop increasing and just knit straight (always with a beginning Sl1P) until you run out of yarn. If you keep increasing past the length for a simple back tie, you may wind up with an annoying back tied lump. Or:
3) Once you're close to your tie-in-the-back length, you can start decreasing NOT increasing every row for tapered ties. (Sl1P, K2tog, *K* K2tog, K1)
Finishing: because you slipped the first stitch as purl, you have a nice edge for any type of border. Or not, this edging looks good, as is.

And now, for a picture. Not of the above shawl but of the Lace Advent Scarf which is only on Day 11 (Advent has 24 days) and is one big momma. Now, I have to decide if I'm going to make this a 120" shawl (it's 27" width unblocked) or quit at scarf length (80"?) and finish up the patterns on a second shawl.

I would definitely recommend this pattern to anyone who loves lace but gets bored with the same repeats. You definitely get variety here. Plus, if you are not a chart reader, this is the pattern for you to make the change. These charts are sooooo well- written. And finally, be sure to goggle "How To Make Nupps With a Crochet Hook." By using this method after you make the nupp on the K side, you only P one stitch for the nupp on the wrong side instead of the regular P7 stitches together. The link again:

http://www.von-stroh-zu-gold.de/muster/?p

Also if you're a member of Ravelry, there's a great forum there, with errata listed.

Gotta go and start knitting. Looks like snow in my neck of NJ.

Happy knitting.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Website Wednesday

I have to say that I changed my picks for today after reading Krugman's Od-Ed piece in the NYT on Monday (1/3/11). He's still angry with the Obama administration for their economic policy and towards the middle of the piece he says:

We wouldn’t get to anything resembling full employment until late in Sarah Palin’s first presidential term.

Strong feelings and a very, very scary thought.

So I thought: Maybe some people will read me and link on the sites below. It really is past the time when Americans need a political (and historical) education. The rest of the industrialized world has been shuddering about our ignorance for years.

Hammer of the Blogs is an irreverent look at the USA. You'll find "offensive" words here but don't be shocked; they're only words. The latest entry is for the last day of 2010 but be sure to read this "Bastards of 2010" list. And, dwell and reflect on entry Number 3 for a while.

http://hammeroftheblogs.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately folks, it is later than you think and not everything is going to be fixed.

On a slightly lighter side, there's:

http://www.hoffstrizz.com/

Hoffstrizz has slightly more in its About section than Hammer.... (though not by much):

We like dancing on the beach, skipping on the beach, jumping on the beach, things like that. Singing and telling stories.
We're really sensitive deep down but we try to get along.
Who are you?
How are you?
Where are you?

A lot of Hoffstrizz is lists and you know I LOVE lists. Like:

Modern Art is Retarded, 32 Acclaimed Modernist Painters With Less Talent Than Your Children, or

The 7 Craziest Roman Emperors of All-Time and the 12 Best Monica Belluci Pictures I Found in Ten Minutes

I recognized the emperors and got to see a lot of Belluci, though she's still a mystery to me.

What drew me to Hoffstrizz was the link from Hammer re Sarah Palin's book: Hoffstrizz Reads Sarah Palin's Book...America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag

I guess you can say Hoffstrizz fell on the sword so you didn't have to. What a guy! Or gal?

So be sure to bookmark both websites for future visits. And, if time is short and it's only going to be a quick trip there for you today, be sure to stop at Number 3 on the list of Bastards of 2010 in Hammer.

For me, I going to start reading all those lovely lists on Hoffstrizz.

Enjoy.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

"In past economic crises, populist fervor has been for expanding the power of the national government to address America’s pressing needs. Pleas for making good the nation’s commitment to equality and welfare have been as loud as those for liberty.

“Now the many who are struggling have no progressive champion. The left have ceded the field to the Tea Party and, in doing so, allowed it to make history. It is building political power by selling the promise of a return to a mythic past.”

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149377/we%27re_headed_for_a_major_battle_with_the_tea_party_crowd_over_the_constitution_itself/

I don't look at moving into 2011 in the USA as a positive time for any but the rich and the politicians who serve them, which seems to be most of them based on the quote above. But I guess that's what happens when the pissing contest for collecting the most material goods becomes your country's meme.

Watch Bill Maher's Christmas message to Oprah video (The Huffington Post, 12-22-10 & You Tube) where he mocks Oprah's annual give-away show and basically says that if she wanted to use her influence for good, she would tell her audience that all this materialism is crap. Watch the shots of her audience and she unveils another give-away; their frenzy is akin to religious mania.

The world is absurd; but you do the best job you can.

Movie Monday: quick reviews

1. Percy Jackson and The Olympians - oh, soooooo painful to watch. The kids were horrible. The adults....... well, when Pierce Bronsan and Sean Bean (he was able to carry Boromir's long death scene) can't keep the picture from tanking, you know you are watching drek. But with the built-in audience from the book series, it will probably make zillions.

2. Dear John - Really only a re-make of Hollywood's golden age man-meets-girl, crisis arrives, man-loses-girl, crisis explained, man-gets-girl movie. This time with on-screen sex. But even though it's light, the movie shows the problems of men in the armed forces and the relationships they leave behind in the states. And sometimes a light touch works better than an in-your-face screed. Amanda Seyfried, who plays the girl, Savannah (who thinks up these names?), I consider a Jennifer Aniston type who can act. Channing Tatum, who plays John (and yes, he does get a Dear John letter) looks like a soldier because he doesn't look like the typical Hollywood pretty boy. He looks big, very, very slightly stupid, and puppy dog sweet. I guess that's my idea of the modern soldier.

3. The Bounty Hunter - and now we move to Jennifer Aniston. I never watched Friends, probably because all I watch on TV are non-commercial movies and CSPAN's weekend book and history programs. But I do know that TV acting is not movie acting. The best way to describe it is that TV acting is "smaller." Maybe that's why there have been so few critical successes in the movies for TV actors (Eastwood and Reynolds are commercial successes; there's a difference.) Aniston fits this bill. She has churned out a lot of movies since leaving Friends but they have been the same old, same old. Probably her two best (and that's not saying much) were: He's Just Not That Into You and Friends With Money; both of which had ensemble casts with multiple stories. Gerard Butler doesn't help a lousy script in this movie. How does a Hollywood script meeting go? Let's have a love angle and a car chase, and a break-up and a car chase, oh, and suspense and a car chase. Watching it and knitting didn't help. I doubt watching it and drinking would either.

4. The Father of my Children (French with subtitles. 2008) - A movie mogul with a very good track record is facing bankruptcy. We watch his descent into despair and a deus ex machina doesn't appear; shit happens. Watching this movie, I'm asking myself: Why is watching really just interesting paint dry (no car chases, one secret not resolved, only one death) so riveting? And then I realized: Because I don't know any of the actors. I'm just watching a good story. Hollywood insists on "names" to sell their ideas. (Director: I want to make the 23rd remake of The Nutty Professor. Hollywood Money: What stars do you have?) In this movie, although the plot revolves around movie production (something most of us will never be involved in) it's really just a mirror upon a family in crisis; how the crisis deepens and the damage it does and finally how those left must move on. Not flawlessly told, but worth a watch.