Diversions

I'm leaving for the conference in Vancouver on Monday, so have been working like mad to get my paper and presentation ready. Hasn't left much time for blogging, unfortunately, but I do enjoy seeing what people that have extra time on their hands come up with:

Bank Swirled is an utterly brilliant parody website, apparently the creation of disaffected World Bank staffers. (I came across it doing research on the World Bank.) Don't stop with the first page, enter the site, and don't worry about not having a password - click on any link and you'll access the "Dept of Institutional Integrity."

"Every Change of Rate" is a hilarious parody of the Police video "Every Breath You Take," as done by some Columbia Biz School students. (I'd guess the back story is speculation that CBS Dean Hubbard hoped/expected to get the job as Fed Chief.) This one, like the cartoon above, are Ali's finds.

Liz Hickok is a Bay Area artist who works in - jello! I couldn't play the video, but the pictures of San Francisco rendered in jewel-toned gelatin are wonderful.

I'll try to to blog my trip, otherwise I'll follow up when I'm back in NZ (in two weeks).

Cheers,
Sandie

"Tools That Are No Good Need More Skill"

Think opera's junk? You don't know the half of it. For great stuff from NPR, click here, for a story that's a really fun (8 minute) listen.

Cheers,
Sandie

A Good Friday

I’ve had a nasty cold all week. (I got an email from my aunt that she had the flu, so I must've caught a 'computer virus.') Stopped up sinuses, itchy eyes, runny nose -- yuck. On the bright side, my research has been coming along nicely: I found a big, fat, juicy new international treaty about maritime labor that nobody’s written much about yet. The exciting life of a budding academic.

Seasonal change is in the air. The poplar trees are turning yellow. A couple evenings this week, walking home in sandals left my feet uncomfortably chilly. We’ve had rain most nights, and some days, for the past two weeks.

A few days ago the wind blew so hard that we lost the signal from the TV station that broadcasts the Lehrer News Hour. Which is a shame, because lately it’s been fascinating to see how far this Administration is able to stick its foot in its mouth - on everything from misrepresenting what they knew about the (lack of) WMDs in Iraq, to the admission that Bush himself authorized the “declassification,” i.e., leak, of information about CIA operative Valerie Plame, to their backpedaling away from plans to nuke Iran. Last night, in all seriousness, a local news anchor asked her colleague, who was in New York, if Americans actually believe anything the U.S. government tells them anymore. Polls shows about 40% of them still find Bush credible, which the rest of the world finds incredible. But the Democrats are starting to feel more than a little hopeful.

Back here in Middle Earth, the Harvest Moon has been peeking out between the clouds at night, and a candy-laden holiday is right around the corner. Last week the team on Boston Legal was representing a Wiccan couple and a Christian couple that agreed on only one thing in this world: their children's school should be stopped from celebrating Halloween. (It was a rare episode where they not only lost the case, but we were clearly meant to be glad the judge ruled for the other side.)

But in this antipodean land, instead of trick-or-treating, kids are salivating over chocolate bunnies and creme-filled eggs. And both today and Sunday no one is supposed to be working. In fact, shopkeepers are prohibited by law from trading; they can be fined $1,000 if they’re caught doing business. Many - especially garden centers - choose to flout the law and eat the fine.

Since it was such a beautiful day, I put my books and papers aside and went hiking with Ali. These pictures are from the Hunua Range, about 50 km south of the city.

Happy Easter!
Sandie

The Final Four

I know this graphic will be too small to read as is, but you can view it on today's NYT Op-Ed page, or save it on your computer and enlarge it to view from there. It's wickedly brilliant.

Also, fyi, I just added another picture to a previous post. Click Turning Back Time to see our picnic.

Cheers,
Sandie

No Foolin’

The other day there was a lovely story on NPR about a wild coffee plant on Rodrigues that everyone thought was extinct. In 1979 someone found the lone survivor. Botanists tried for more than twenty years, but failed to get it to produce seeds. In 2003, cuttings were sent to plant researchers at Kew Gardens, who grew them into full size plants and when those didn’t seed either, they gave them, in essence, fertility drugs. The treatment worked: they produced viable seeds which have grown into about 20 new plants. The crazy thing is, after all these years, the original plant back in Rodrigues has also started producing seeds.

I was listening to the story on my way to my Thursday Tuakana workshop. Their first exam, worth 30% of their grade, was this Friday. Joshua, a nice, bright kid was feeling nervous because he’d missed some lectures; his father just had a liver transplant. He’d been waiting for 9 months when they got the call. But someone in the clinic must have tipped off another family about the liver, because Joshua's father was met at the hospital by a man who asked if he could have the liver for his son - 10 years old, very sick, and likely to die before his turn came.

Josh said his mother was furious when she found out his father gave up his chance. As it turns out, there were concerns the liver was too small for Joshua’s father, a large Pacific Islander. But it was plenty big for the doctors to split and give half to another child. So his sacrifice actually saved two kids’ lives. And Joshua’s father? He’s doing ok. They got another call the next day: there’d been an accident in Christchurch. The donor was another Tongan, about the same age and size as Joshua’s father. A perfect match.

Instead of the workshop I’d prepared, everyone agreed we should go over the material from the lectures Joshua missed. I stayed an extra half hour past my scheduled quitting time, and Joshua skipped an Accounting class, so we could get through the whole thing. We won’t know until the grade comes out, but I have a feeling he did all right.

A couple weeks ago I applied to a conference for post-graduate students at University of British Columbia. When I first heard about it, I didn’t think I had a chance. Then I realized if I tweaked my “globalization” paper a bit, maybe spliced in some additional material from the other paper I wrote last term, it might actually be a good match for the conference theme, Whose Law? Why Law?

Friday morning I got an email inviting me to be a presenter. In just over a month I’m heading to Vancouver to attend my first academic conference. No fooling.

Cheers,
Sandie