The Plum
« January 2007 »
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31
You are not logged in. Log in
Entries by Topic
All topics  «
Cute
Firestorm 2003
Fun
News
Opinion
Personal
Review
Blog Tools
Edit your Blog
Build a Blog
View Profile
Wednesday, 3 January 2007
A little hike won't kill us... will it?
Topic: News
Hard-core hiking trail up a mountain in China:

http://mb14.scout.com/fvanderbiltfrm10.showMessage?topicID=3846.topic

Posted by conniechai at 7:34 AM PST
Post Comment | Permalink
Hah! I knew it, now there's proof.
Topic: News

Office queen bees hold back women’s careers

From the Article:

FORGET “jobs for the boys”. Women bosses are significantly more likely than men to discriminate against female employees, research has suggested.

...

The findings, based on experiments carried out among more than 700 people, suggest that the “queen bee syndrome” of female rivalry in the workplace may sometimes be as important as sexism in holding back women’s careers.

“Female and older participants showed more prejudice against the (idea of a) female leader than did male and younger participants,” said Rocio Garcia-Retamero, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and lead author of the report.

...

The study says: “Female participants had a stronger tendency than male participants to view the female candidates as less qualified than the male candidate . . . they also thought that the female candidate would fare worse in the future in her job than the male candidate.”

 

 


Posted by conniechai at 7:27 AM PST
Updated: Wednesday, 3 January 2007 7:37 AM PST
Post Comment | Permalink
Sunday, 31 December 2006
AP Polls have all bases covered
Topic: News
AP Poll: Americans see gloom, doom in 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061231/ap_on_re_us/2007_predictions_ap_poll?feck

AP Poll: Americans optimistic for 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061231/ap_on_re_us/optimism_ap_poll

Posted by conniechai at 5:59 PM PST
Post Comment | Permalink
Thursday, 28 December 2006

Topic: News

The son-in-law of the President of Taiwan have been convicted, along with his father, of insider trading. Going to jail for 6 and 8 years respectively. It's the most severe sentence for such crimes ever handed down.  The entire nation (and some expats) have been following this, as it's such a clear case of special-privilege and corruption that the only surprise is how long it took for the dirt to hit the fan. The judge in the case quoted chapter and verse from the Analects of Chuang Tzu, a Taoist scholar who lived in the 4th Century BCE, as part of his sentencing:

"Those who steal a fishhook are common criminals; those who steal a nation are rulers; such does the downfall of virtue and honesty from the doors of those who rule."

Expanding on this, the judge pointed out in his ruling that those in power have come to expect to escape the reach of the law, and it is no longer acceptable; he also implies in his writing that the defendants' abuse of power have contributed to further the unjust gap between the haves and the have-nots in society, to the detriment of the nation beyond simply a criminal act.  He further writes, quoting from classical sources, that the elite defendants have "purchased power with money, and extracted money using power" He called the defendants 'arch-typical elite criminals' who expect to be above the law.  The ruling document ran to 297 pages, over 230,000 words.

Sounds like the judge in this case had a Classical Education.  I mean, I totally agree with him and I feel a sincere respect for the classical scholarship, but jeezus, a 297-page ruling? Surely to read that is a sentence in itself.


Posted by conniechai at 10:52 PM PST
Updated: Thursday, 28 December 2006 11:29 PM PST
Post Comment | Permalink
Friday, 22 December 2006

Topic: Fun

"We will need to postpone the start of Christmas by at least two weeks due to changes made during the plan checking process. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. However, a proper design will ensure a successful project."

 

 


Posted by conniechai at 12:20 PM PST
Updated: Wednesday, 27 December 2006 12:35 PM PST
Post Comment | Permalink
Thursday, 7 December 2006

Topic: Cute
Pelican blown off course rescued in Vancouver

Will he survive, the poor pelican? You bet the helican!

You know why? He's a pelican, not a pelicant !

"The Pelican"
written in 1910 by Dixon Lanier Merritt

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

Posted by conniechai at 12:33 PM PST
Updated: Wednesday, 27 December 2006 12:36 PM PST
Post Comment | Permalink
Sunday, 26 November 2006

Topic: Personal
Getch and I got into a snowball fight when we came back from the bowling, but it wasn't a fair fight! I couldn't get the snow to form into tight enough balls - it was too powdery - so I just basically threw handfuls of loose snow at him, and he nailed me good several times with these tightly formed, non-breakaway ice-balls (they were too hard to qualify as snow-balls). Ow. I have no idea how he did it and he wouldn't tell me other than that he just knows more about snow.  I staggered into the kitchen with a ringing in my right ear from being hit, and he just complained that I snowed up his jacket.

You may ask what was Sheven and Milly doing all this time, they basically announced that they were not involved in this and did not want to be hit in the crossfire (Getch and I were attacking each other while walking up the driveway with the girls between us). I can't believe they won't back me up! Surely the three of us can take him down easily :-)


Posted by conniechai at 1:16 PM PST
Post Comment | Permalink
Saturday, 25 November 2006

Topic: Personal

Backyard of the Poole house



Milly, Sheven and Connie



 

The Pooles. From Left: Beverly, Steven, Sheven, Getch, Willy

 



Steve's Garden Cathedral. Can you believe that thing's supposed to be a storage shed? It's got a gabled roof and a skylight, for god's sake. He said that the view from the top of the shed is great and he's considering putting a deck on the roof. He was only half-kidding, too.




Posted by conniechai at 1:02 PM PST
Updated: Wednesday, 27 December 2006 1:30 PM PST
Post Comment | Permalink

Topic: Personal
We went out this morning for a long walkie around the Poole's neighborhood. Milly wanted to run, so Sheven drew her a map of a route, then we decided to follow her in a walk. Getch decided to come with us, so we all piled out of the house and went into the crisp early afternoon. Sheven and Getch took me through their town and showed me where they went to school, and where they went sledding in the snow and biking in the summer.  Getch hit me with a snowball twice (it was the same snowball but it was so packed that it survived two hits on me and one on Sheven until she stomped on it).  The first hit was a glancing blow on my right earI did start the snowfight though, I decided this would be a great place to live and raise children, with the added bonus that they'd be so bored that they'd run away from home as soon as they turn eighteen.

It started to snow again as we were walking back, and now everything is white again and the yard looks covered in confectioner's sugar.

Pullman really is such a neat town, it has the quaint characteristics of a country village, but with the university nearby, it hosts a highly diverse and educated population with a far more sophisticated world view than you'd expect in a country town. No hicks here. Sheven wanted me to add that this is the liberal bastion of Eastern Washington. The presence of the lifelong townspeople support the little local shops, and the students keep the funky coffee shops and bookstore in business. The town ordinance prevents big box stores from moving into downtown, and even the fast-food joints are only allowed on the edges.

And it snows, it snows!

Posted by conniechai at 1:01 PM PST
Updated: Wednesday, 27 December 2006 1:32 PM PST
Post Comment | Permalink
Friday, 24 November 2006

Topic: Personal
I tasted falling snow for the first time today. And walked on freshly fallen snow (it wasn't very much, I could still see the grass beneath it) and it's crunchy! 

All four kids were sitting in the living room eating chocolate and talking very animatedly about something (probably politics), which is great fun because as Sheven is passionate to the point of histrionics, her brother is dry to the point of laconic, yet they share the same world view and are perfect foils for each other. Suddenly their mom comes running down the stairs to tell us to look out the window - and it was white! Bare winter trees frosted with white, and when I slammed open the front door to run out, it was into a flurry of silence. Snowfall is silent. I never knew that.

Sheven's dad got such a kick out of my excitement over my first snow, that he took out the video camera and took footage of me running around their yard with my face to the sky, laughing and spinning with my hands out and trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue. Even their arthritic elderly cat came out to see what the fuss was all about. Sheven's mom threw a snowball at me and it went down my collar. When I came back inside, I couldn't feel my hands and my boots were wet.  I've never had such a good time while so bloody cold.

I never knew snow melted when it touched skin, but would stay in one's eyelashes, blurring the world beneath yellow streetlights into a series of prismatic halos.

Posted by conniechai at 11:58 PM PST
Updated: Wednesday, 27 December 2006 1:00 PM PST
Post Comment | Permalink

Newer | Latest | Older