I voted this morning.

I always vote. I think I’ve only missed one election in my adult life. So it’s not like a first time thing or anything like that.

But there is this crazy little moment of excitement in voting, pulling that lever back to open the curtains and record the choices made with the little flippers, hearing the grind of that mechanical device and knowing that I didn’t take my citizenship in this country for granted, knowing that I had a say in what comes out of today, knowing that people still fight and die around the world for the right to do what I so simply did.

I voted. I hope you do too.

Several folks who are in the part of the blogosphere I regularly browse will be familiar with Lawrence Lessig. But even if you’re not, you should be sure to visit this video or this transcript of his explanation for endorsing Barack Obama.

The interesting thing about these posts is that I found them because a colleague posted them on an all-campus list, and then wrote later to apologize for not realizing politics weren’t allowed on the list - suggesting that she had gotten flamed by someone for posting these links.

All the more reason to go visit them. That, and, well, Lessig is who he is.

I’m sitting in the local Temple of Capitalism, recently renamed for its supposed ability to, after a massive expansion whose funding is somewhat unclear still, attract visitors from all over the world as if it were some sort of Las Vegas resort. Shameless self-promotion of this marvel of capitalistic wonder lines just about every available surface, hangs from every rafter and fills centers of aisles, perhpas as a way of disguising the spaces abandoned by purveryors who found the cost of tenancy too high and the consuming traffic too low. Never fear. The magic of growth, build-out and sheer unmitigated belief in the consumer ethic will prevail.

In the meantime, however, there are some delights to be had here. One of them is FREE wi-fi. I’ve gotten to the place where I celebrate any public free wi-fi. I’ve grown way weary of the appropriation of the airways for profit and the therefore restriction on the freedom of communication and access that the internet and its relations offer. More on that another time.

The second delight is to be sitting here before the official opening hour of the stores, and watching all the birds flying around the food court sitting area. Some are plump and some not so much, so swoop and dive and others scurry along the floor, looking for the crumbs the cleaning crew missed. Occasionally, the gather around where I’m sitting - on all sides, as if this little laptop will somehow begin dispensing morning nourishment.

I wonder about these indoor birds. How many of them were hatched inside this building? How many never make it to the outside air? What keeps them from multiplying to the point they take over the whole mall?

But for now, I am happy just to enjoy the happy sound of their chirping, and the tilts of their little heads as they look at me, and taking the moment to freely post these comments before moving on to the crop shop to civilize my appearance.

Take some advice from rickydoc and ping this site:

http://www.panafricanliteraryforum.com/

Enough of us do it, we can make the needed difference.

I added my own blog to Bloglines, so I could see how my posts look to others. Wow.

If I’m gonna keep up with these long entries, I gotta figure out how to make the except feature and that whole “extended entry” part work so that only the short part shows up on the aggregator. I use the Extended entry feature all the time for these longer posts, but don’t know how to make the break work the aggregator. I tried doing an excerpt too, but that didn’t work either.

Help, blogging friends, please?

Why is it that my friends and colleagues can’t post comment to mine or other SU based blogs, but the spam-bots seem to have no trouble at all filling them up with crap?

Why is that?

I picked this up over at Clancy’s place. A fun little meme for us English lit/history fans:

Katherine Parr spent nearly her whole life married to crotchety old men: Henry was the THIRD old fart she was forced to marry. Is it any wonder she turned to books and religion to occupy her time?

Katherine wasn’t just smart, she was a tiny bit uppity, too: she almost got herself thrown in jail for arguing with His Royal Fatness about some theological issues. After Henry croaked, Katherine dropped the prim and proper act and married Thomas Seymour, a handsome, dashing pirate kind of guy who was also as dumb as a post.

Which goes to show you that even bookworms know how to get it on.

Which of Henry VIII’s wives are you?
this quiz was made by Lori Fury

I’m in Phoenix (Arizona). After traveling nearly 12 total hours yesterday, I crashed at what was equivalently 2:30 a.m. in New York. By 7:00 a.m. local time, I had already had two cups of freshly made Melitta drip coffee, read a dated issued of National Geographic featuring an article and pull-out map about the sun, it’s composition, it’s behavior, temperatures, and flares, and the several earthbound devices in place to measure same (from a variety of countries, possibly the most interesting feature of the story being the compilation of information from these several sources), and an article about the cocaine growing trade/regions of Columbia (which merits a separate post), showered, dressed, checked e-mail and was ready for next activity.

Had lunch in Mexico (the country. Shopped along the local tourist strip, with its relentless assault of hawkers, including small children selling 4-piece mini-paks of chiclets and the gaudy bracelets their parent trusted them out the door of the touristy “jewelry” shop with. Ventured off the tourist square in search of a local grocer. Found same, where a very pleasant middle-aged woman who spoke not a word of English graciously worked through my gesturing and VERY limited Spanish to sell me a small block of fresh farmer-style cheese (for which I’m certain there is a name and if you know what it is, please post it here….), for all of $1.10 American. Wandered through the sidewalk vendors and happened on a PURPLE gauzy skirt/top combination for which I am certain the vendor got the better of the bargaining (which is to say, I didn’t bargain much - I just wanted it), and then ventured back to another stall with many hanging leather purses where I bought a black leather hobo purse, nearly identical to the tan one that is my favorite that I acquired in the Mexico pavillion in the World Showcase at Disney World about 21 years ago (did better on this one - got the vendor to knock off a whole $4. whoo-hoo.) Accompanied my mother to the pharmacy where she acquired about $1,000 (retail) worth of medications for about $230, skipped across the border where customs guy scanned my passport through this slick little counter-top reader but looked not once at my several bags or asked about their contents (damn - I knew I should have bought that tequila!).

Came home and contemplated the re-arrangement of the two main living spaces in my mom’s house, did some of the moving, made a very cool salad using the fresh cheese we bought, along with some of the asparagus we bought from a corner vendor in the same little town in Mexico, watched a bit of TV, and crash-o.

I don’t know whether it’s because I spent so much of my life in this time zone, or whether it’s the occasions that bring me here, but I am more awake and vibrant at 5 am here on less than 6 hours sleep than I ever am in NY after it doesn’t matter how many hours sleep. Somethin’s up there.

But for now, it is so wonderful to feel energetic and productive, and to feel at the end of the day that its beginning was a lifetime ago.

yeah. that’s a good day.

I’m doing it wrong. That’s what I’ve decided. Here’s the job I want next time: get hired, fail, get fired after 1 year. In the firing, receive $4.5 mil, plus have my house bought by the company, plus get reimbursed for $3.6 million in “remodeling” costs.

This is what Nike Chairman Phil Knight is paying outgoing Nike CEO William Perez.

$3.6 in remodeling? What’d he do? Buy the Pittock Mansion and try a little facelift?

Geez…..

We have a new baby boy in town - a 345 lb. baby boy named Kedar. He’s one of two baby elephants expected at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo this year. That’s right - two baby elephants in one year! The Rosamond Gifford Zoo here in Syracuse in internationally known for its elephant breeding program, due largely to Kedar’s father, a 33 year old bull named Indi. “Indi has become a key player in the international Species Survival Plan for the endangered Asian elephant,” according to the story in the Post-Standard. Kedar is his 9th offspring. The baby to come will be his 10th.

The baby is adorable. You can see pictures at the News Photo page. Select the entry for August 1, “Kedar the Baby Elephant”.

Other new cuties at the zoo are the Humboldt penguins. Their photo gallery is on the same page, the entry for June 28, 2005, “Penguins at the Zoo”.

Zoo, anyone?