Looking a little thin but good — currently gulping gooshy food while I cry. Damn her. Gone for three weeks.

She’s back. My baby is back.

Maybe this was revenge for all the time I was away this summer.

Gabriel is home. Thank God.

DANCE: Maybe if your subject is choreography, a PhD dissertation dance seems quite normal. But this dance dissertation in biology shows how a small-molecule antagonist of an inflammatory cytokine enhances migration of mesenchymal stem cells. And it has a nice beat, too! Thanks to blessed_harlot for the link. (OK, so biology isn’t one of the humanities. But dance is.)

MUSIC: The Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. From dakiwiboid.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Baby panda. Because squeeing is also a humanity.

HISTORY and LITERATURE: What are your favorite historical novels/series. and why? Question lifted from jrittenhouse.

LIBRARIES are almost human: Look me up sometime

Excerpts from Lincoln’s second inaugural speech which has particular resonance now.

… Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully….

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

May our new president be kept safe to complete the work.

tgeller addresses the same issue:

But you can help me have hope for the future if you’ll do this: Pledge your support to use our newly gifted strength to build bridges with those with whom you disagree; to be kind and sympathetic to those you consider your political enemies; and to truly, sincerely, try to hear and understand their viewpoints, and even adopt those that make sense. Because, you know, sometimes they’re right.

Will you do that?

We have done something miraculous today. We’ve joined the civilized world.

Now let’s get to work.

(And I am still praying and hoping for Prop 8 to fail.)

Weddings from the NY Times:

Jewelle Gomez and Diane Sabin

Erik Hyman and Max Mutchnick

My family is real.

Marnanel, Prop 8, and Pulp Fiction: EQUALITY, MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?

Remember what voting means:

I know that voting may be difficult this year, with the crowding and possible long lines. But if you’re tempted to give it a miss, think of how much it would have meant to Jo March to be able to cast her own vote and to be able to vote for the candidate she found most qualified regardless of his color.

ETA A voting nightmare.

traditions