Moving mathematically
Nov. 2nd, 2010 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoOr at least cataloging. A substantial gift of recent books on mathematics and physics. At first glance, these seemed much too scholarly and we thought we should offer them to one of the nearby colleges. But when I looked more closely I realized that they were mostly popular works. I have started through them one by one, adding about half to the collection as I go. We are supposed to have a focus on math, astronomy, and physics according to a collection development plan we made up in cooperation with other nearby libraries some years ago. We also got military history and science, and history and travel for Oceania out of that. I think everyone has forgotten it but me at this point.
Polls are closed, the incessant robocalls have stopped. I'm really sour about the idea that democracy does anything functional in the US any more. As someone pointed out earlier today, so folks are dissatisfied with the performance of the firemen they brought in. That's understandable. But why do they think matters will improve if they put the arsonists who started the problem back into control? Why do Americans persist so stubbornly in believing that there can only be two choices, both of them bad, with no alternatives at all? Every election we end up voting AGAINST people rather than FOR anyone. I predict that this one will end in a gridlock situation very much like what we had in 1994, with a right wing-dominated Congress whose leaders simply scream "No, No, No!" at every suggestion, regardless of what it may be, and a harried and hog-tied executive branch that can only veto the reactionary attempts of Congress to move us backward to the post-World War 2 status quo. Why do people ask for these things? Can't they understand what they are actually doing? Apparently not.
Anyway, on the good news side, progress continues apace.
Nanowrimo word count: 3576 (1820 today)
Sponsor me!
Story draft available here.
Polls are closed, the incessant robocalls have stopped. I'm really sour about the idea that democracy does anything functional in the US any more. As someone pointed out earlier today, so folks are dissatisfied with the performance of the firemen they brought in. That's understandable. But why do they think matters will improve if they put the arsonists who started the problem back into control? Why do Americans persist so stubbornly in believing that there can only be two choices, both of them bad, with no alternatives at all? Every election we end up voting AGAINST people rather than FOR anyone. I predict that this one will end in a gridlock situation very much like what we had in 1994, with a right wing-dominated Congress whose leaders simply scream "No, No, No!" at every suggestion, regardless of what it may be, and a harried and hog-tied executive branch that can only veto the reactionary attempts of Congress to move us backward to the post-World War 2 status quo. Why do people ask for these things? Can't they understand what they are actually doing? Apparently not.
Anyway, on the good news side, progress continues apace.
Nanowrimo word count: 3576 (1820 today)
Sponsor me!Story draft available here.
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Date: 2010-11-04 11:46 am (UTC)Imitating Chaucer? Now there's an ambitious sort of project I might actually be stupid enough to try. But not in this story. Getting it rolling the way I want is difficult enough without adding versification. ;D