Mukta in concert

Hijo de la luna, Mario Frangoulis

Wonderful Wizard, The Guggenheim Grotto

Story of Po's childhood, Kung Fu Panda 2

On the eve of his second anniversary Roman cried for the first time during a movie after watching this story of a baby panda. I can see why he related to the little one crying for his mommy because he also shed some tears this morning because I had to leave him at the crèche to go to work. It's not surprising that this week was more difficult for him because we just got back from holidays and his father is away on a business trip. I had to improvise an alternative ending for the story to make him feel better, so you will be happy to know that momma panda had to put the baby down because he was too heavy and her arms were hurting but she came right back for him after she chased away the wolfs. She gave him lots of hugs, stroke his hair and kissed his forehead and the baby panda got to nurse in her arms for as long as he wanted.

STEM STEAMS ME, James Paul Gee

Submitted by Jim on Sat, 2013-05-04 10:30

America has a STEM mania.
We want our schools and colleges to focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This is where all the funding is. A blue-ribbon commission in Texas even suggested we should charge more tuition for courses in the Humanities, since they don’t lead to jobs and should not be subsidized by taxpayers.
All this in country where:
1.  The majority of people do not believe in evolution.
 2.  A good percentage of people think the earth is less than 10,000 years old and that dinosaurs and humans lived on earth at the same time.
 3.  The media treats the truth of global warming as a 50/50 deal when 35,000 scientific papers argue for it and less than 30 argue against it.
 4.  We push “evidence-based education” but not “evidence-based going to war”.
 5.  People are sick and dying from fracking, but it is illegal to expose what chemicals are in fracking water and waste.
 6.  Congress, politicians, and CEOs distain evidence in the name of greed and short-term profit.
 7.  We use technology and engineering to make drones to kill even our own  citizens, but not to solve the problems of oil and global warming.
 8.  The 2008 recession was caused by experts in economics (like Alan  Greenspan) and by politicians, economists, and CEO’s ignoring “moral  hazard” (i.e., ignoring ethics, human nature, and simple rationality).
 9.  A great many people think a single-celled embryo is a living human being.
 10.  Businesses disdain government regulation but run to government for  handouts, subsidies, and protection from market forces
 11.  We say we believe in free markets and virtually have none amidst monopolies, price fixing, lobbyists, and government subsidies.
 12.  We allow hospitals to keep data they collect on surgeries from  consumers so these consumers cannot make intelligent choices.
 13.  States continue to slash universities budgets.
 14.  We use so many poorly regulated toxic chemicals in our environment that Americans have more toxic waste in their blood than other people  on earth.
 15.  We are the fattest people on earth but lard our stores with processed food that barely counts as food in any nutritional sense and is  created by “food scientists”.
 16.  We have the highest inequality in the world when the evidence shows clearly that such a high level of inequality is bad for the economy and for  everyone’s health in the society.
 17.  We have many rich CEOs who want to balance the budget by cutting food stamps for the poor.
18. We have close to the worst health statistics in the developed world, but keep claiming we have the best health system in the world and spend a  good deal more on health than do most other developed countries.
19.  We keep saying America is the land of social opportunity when social mobilty is now lower in America than in many countries in Europe ("the old country").,
20  We say anyone can make it in Amerca if they work hard enough,then give poor schools to poor children and ensure our children are not in them
21.  We treat our teachers and college faculty with disdain.

Some will say “But this is why we need STEM.”
I will say, “No, this is why we do not have it and why we cannot take the push for STEM at face value”.
Imagine what a society would be like that said it liked science, but disdained it in the name of greed, and thought humanities and ethics were a waste of taxpayer money.
You do not have to imagine that society.
You live in it.

Lujon, Henry Mancini

Petite fleur, Victor Goines

Over organisation

After living 26 years in Romania and 8 years in Ireland I was never faced with the idea that there might be such a thing as too much organisation. In the Far East of Europe chaos and entropy still seem to make the rule and on a small green island you can keep things flexible enough because people can rely on common sense and it will be grand in the end. After living almost two years in France I understand a bit better that rigid schedules for lunch and holidays come from a sometimes unreasonable love of order and organisation. Regardless if tourists go hungry after 2pm, if families spend full days queueing on highways trying to reach their destination, or if fridges get broken during August. The common belief is that people require more organisation although some amount of randomisation would solve the problem just as well. 

Strict rules and schedules are seen to have value in and of themself and religiously adhering to them builds character and cultivates patience and persistence if nothing else. But keeping a full country close to boiling point is not without its perils and it is not a rare occurence to see a lady throwing her shopping bag, running and cursing after a driver refused to stop at the street light.

The greatest loss for a European Union without Great Britain might be not having a small dose of British pragmatism in the mix.

Lucas the spider

Rain, Simply Three

Hi there T., I hear you.

Margaret Atwood, BBC Documentary

A year of pumping at work

I pumped at work for about a year now and this week I finally took the pump back home. I will keep it around for a few more weeks just in case there is any trouble but everything went well so far even though I breastfeed only when I am with my baby. This weekend we probably had our last flight without an assigned seat and the flight attendant was very surprised to hear he has less than two years. The amount of milk I was extracting slowly decreased over time, probably because he is eating much less during the night although he still wakes up frequently for comfort especially towards the morning. I never got to use the designated room for pumping at work because it was on a different floor and I was always tight on time. We are still dreadfully late in the morning and I like to leave work early so R. gets shorter days at the crèche.

There were a few moments when I was pulling my hairs because of pumping. I found a large scarf gave me enough privacy to save some time by pumping at my desk but I am fortunate to share the office with another parent that was always very gracious and understanding even when pumping got noisy. Occasionally things were less convenient when somebody was coming in the office to have a chat or when the cleaning lady was washing the floor during my pumping break. I adjusted my schedule and I managed to avoid putting up a "pumping in progress" sign. Things you do repeatedly wear you down more than a bad day from time to time. This only increased my respect for people that mow the grass or lay a brick on top of another day after day. Cleaning all the small parts took longer than I was expecting so each pumping session took at least half an hour. The plastic parts got mouldy after the first few weeks because I was not thorough enough and everything had to be replaced. It gave me nightmares just to think that I was feeding that to my little one.

I cut short my lunch breaks and somehow I managed to supervise two interns, teach a class on deep learning, give two talks for our group, advance a research project, get two articles published, qualify as a lecturer in France and receive a Marie Curie research grant for the next two years. All this got me back to my highschool weight but not without some more gray in my hair. On the plus size by now so many people have seen my breasts in parks, shops, airports, planes, and on the street that I find it hard to believe that at some point I was considering being in a relationship without showing my breasts because I was too insecure about my bra size.

Anuca

 În conia de pământ miroase a ciorbă de fasole verde, bunica face rântașul și mai are nevoie doar de frunze de pătrunjel din grădină. Asta e treabă mea, alerg repede să adun un mănunchi de frunze, trec prin târnaț, cobor trepții, și în trecere strivesc cu tălpile goale câteva fragi negre căzute din frăgar. Oricum nu mai sunt la fel de bune de pe jos după ce le-a încălzit soarele. În grădină sunt multe de văzut și adun cu grijă fiecare frunză, așa că bunica o să mă mai aștepte ceva vreme. După ce termină ciorba îmi clătește tigaia de rântaș cu un polonic de ciorbă pe care o să îl mănânc eu prima înainte să vina toată lumea pentru prânz. Primul polonic e cel mai gustos și nimeni nu face o ciorbă mai bună ca bunica.   

 

 După ce toată lumea a terminat de mâncat copiii merg obligatoriu la somn în casa din sus unde nu sunt muște și e întuneric și răcoare ca să nu ne mai aibă în picioare toată ziua. Dacă ajunge bunicul de la spital cu cursa și nu dorm toți copiii o să fie mare prăpăd, știe dacă dormim sau nu din vârful dealului. Mi-e frică să-l supăr dar nu știu ce s-ar putea întâmpla. Până acum cel mai rău lucru a fost să mă trimită după buruieni și frunze de napi pentru rațe. Mă revolt. Acasă nu ne pune nimeni să dormim și nici la bunica de la Vidra, tare aș mai fugi încă un pic prin curte după rațe. Azi o să mă prefac doar că dorm cu cearceaful tras pe cap și nu o să știe nimeni. Poarta de la grădină se trântește cu zgomot metalic pentru că bunica aleargă prin curte după o treabă sau alta. O data, de două ori, de trei ori...

 

 Acum conia e bucătărie de vară cu geamuri termopan, frăgarul a fost tăiat pentru că era mult prea înclinat și cineva a dat cu capul (nu destul), alți copii aleargă prin curte și altcineva pune ciorba în farfurie (niciodată la fel de bună). 

 

 S-a dus Anuca.

Doina din Maramureș, Roots Revival

HUMAN's Musics, Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Les gens qui doutent, Anne Sylvestre