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Click the on photo for larger view. Or see all my albums at http://imageevent.com/fredcritter.

( Explanation… )

Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy.

Al Franken and the Odd Politics of Minnesota
By DAVID CARR
Published: July 5, 2009

Al Franken’s hard-won victory raises the question: What is up with Minnesota politics, anyway?

A big  Thank YOU!  to guppiecat, soarhead, 90_percent_sure, holzman, laurel, and madtruk for your thoughtful replies to my earlier post seeking advice on a new Mac. Your thoughts were tremendously useful in helping me clarify my thinking, and I have now Done the Deed. I will tell you all about it as soon as I can put more than a couple of sentences together at one sitting.

Hey gang!

I'm hoping to purchase a new Mac before the end of the year, but I have a boatload of questions about configuration and hard disc storage, and so on that I could really use some expert help on.

Fundamental assumption/thought: I am currently using a B&W G3 which is something over 10-11 years old but is still quite useful (with some limitations of course—it's a bit too slow to handle streaming video or video files that aren't tiny, for example). I would like to think that the new box could be expected to serve a similarly-robust lifetime (assuming/allowing for increasing limitations as the technology advances and even more astonishing things than streaming video can be handled by a computer). So in cost/functionality/length-of-useful-service trade-offs, I want to put more weight on the latter than I might normally.

This leads us to the technical questions that I'm hoping that somebody (or some of you in tandem) can answer, since I seem to be unable to ferret out answers on my own … even with The Power of The Inter-Web Search Engines at my command.

( The Questions )

So I was reading the other day and came across this, which I thought interesting enough to pass along to you.

Some additional insight into the religious significance of the Jerusalem Temple … can be gleaned from ancient Jewish literature. The altar was believed to rest on a boulder, the so-called Foundation Store (Even Shiyya*), which served as a kind of cosmic plug preventing a resurgence of the Deluge, or which marked the point from which the solidification of the Earth had proceeded outward when the world was first created. The very cosmos therefore depended on this place for its origins and continued existence.
—The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume IV: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Steven T. Katz (ed), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2006, page 193.

*Or as below:

Even ha-Shetiyah

I just posted these links over on fb and I realized that I should also mention it here, where there’s room to explain that it took me a bit of digging to find the links so I reckon it’ll be a public service to pass ’em along. So: In case anybody else is curious, you can read a pdf of the Minnesota District Court’s final Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order for Judgment in Cullen Sheehan and Norm Colman v. Al Franken. You can also read the some information and analyzis on Election Law @ Moritz: 3-Judge Court Issues Final Ruling for Franken.

I didn’t mention it there but I’ve also just stumbled over what may be a better resource: the Minnesota Judicial Branch Second District page entitled Minnesota Senate Seat ’08 Election.

Drove down to Tucson with the family last week to drop off a dress form, pick up a pot, and visit with some folks. Susan is perfectly capable of driving but I was selfish and did it all myself.

Wednesday night (the 18th) we stayed in a motel on the edge of Oklahoma City, after a somewhat long day of driving. (The first hour or so of Kansas isn't that bad—the problem is that Kansas, not unlike diamonds, is forever. Even when you're not driving latitudinally.) The drive from Oklahoma City to Albuquerque took less time and was much more interesting—especially the last half of it. (I wonder now why I had made our room reservations at motels in towns rather than, say, 40 or 50 miles out, where the rooms are likely to be cheaper. Ah well. Live and learn.)

(More to follow…)

25 Random Things About Me
 

1. This list is not random. I neither doubt nor deny that randomness might be possible but I am certain that it’s not something I could attain when pressed to write 25 things about myself. Besides, when you come right down to it, I’m pretty sure that a truly random list of 25 things about me would not be the least bit interesting. I mean, c’mon: “I have type B Negative blood, my eyes are blue, I have a small scar on my…” Bor-ring.
    
2. Not only was I born at a very early age, my adoption had been prearranged before I made my grand entrance. Exit. You know what I mean.
    
3. Kindly Ma and Pa Haskell, the folks who found me laying in a tiny rocket ship crashed in a field … er … um … heh … That is to say, the people I mean when I say “my parents”, “my mother,” “my father” (may their memory be a blessing) are Joe & Ellamae Haskell. (I became a “Levy Haskell” on that happy, happy day when I married Susan.) I was truly fortunate to have been adopted by them, as they were wonderful, kind, loving, and giving people from whom I learned a lot about the world and especially about being a mensch.
    
( continued… )

In a recent post, The wisdom of Solomon, cakmpls says:
 Long before I became an adoptive parent …  I hated the story of Solomon and the two women with one baby. If the second woman wanted the baby enough to take him, why would she agree to have him killed? …  I'm taken aback by the common interpretation of this story, which is that the birth mother cares in a way the other woman does not. …  I wonder if there are any possible alternative translations to “During the night this woman's son died because she lay on him” (1 Kings 3:19). What if the “lying on him” was something more deliberate?

The post received a number of interesting replies but none of suggestions were entirely satisfactory. Indeed, calimac said:
 None of my translations, including the current Reform Jewish one, shed any further light on the verse in question.

I also found it an interesting question so Hot for Words I decided to investigate.

It seemed to me that a good place to start would be The Jewish Study Bible published by Oxford University Press, which uses as its basis the revised and corrected translation commissioned and published by the Jewish Publication Society (the NJPS Tanakh, second edition, ©1985, 1999). I believe this volume does indeed provide a reasonably good response to cakmpls’s concern, although it does so by considering shades of meaning elsewhere in the story rather than by addressing her specific question.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the traditional Jewish approach to scripture, I think it is best summed up by a sentance in the Talmud: “It is not in heaven!” (Bava Metzia 59b) However, knowing what that means requires rather a lot of contextual knowledge and a fairly long explanation. “Turn it over and turn it over again, for everything is in it” (Pirke Avot 5:25) is perhaps a little more transparent but still rather obscure. Therefore these passages from the introduction to The Jewish Study Bible are probably the most useful short explanation for our purposes:
 If anything marks Jewish biblical interpretation it is the diversity of approaches employed and the multiplicity of meaning produced. …  Just as there is no one Jewish interpretation, there is no authorized Jewish translation of the Bible into English. …  For Jews, the official Bible is the Hebrew Masoretic Text; it has never been replaced by an official translation.…  For contemporary English-speaking Jews, the best and most widely read Jewish translation is [the NJPS Tanakh]. —pgs. ix–x.

Since I don’t know the exact wording of other translations and this exegesis hinges on subtleties (heh. As if there were any that don’t!) I’ll start with the NJPS’s translation of the story:

First Kings

3 ¹⁶Later two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. ¹⁷The first woman said, “Please, my lord! This woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. ( Read more )

[Posted here because of its length and so it won’t be buried deep in the comments to the original post where only cakmpls is likely to see it.]

Something I've never understood and have always wondered about. Well, ever since I heard tell of it, anyway. Can anybody tell me why Willie killed pretty Peggy?

And just dropped off the film so as of yet have nothing to show for it. And even after I pick up the slides and negs, it'll probably take me a while to get them scanned in.

So I reckon I'll dip into the file and pull out one I took a while ago in a brazen and daring attempt to keep you (at least somewhat) amused until I can get some of the new stuff up. If any of the new stuff turns out to be worth posting.

Click the on photo for larger view. Or see all my albums at http://imageevent.com/fredcritter.

All set to head out for a couple of fun-filled days working with my favorite model to create photographs. I'm sure you will be amazed and delighted by at least some of the results, which I reckon I'll be posting here once they exist and stuff like that there. And you probably won't like some of them. Always a matter of taste, don'tchaknow. But I'll be rather surprised if no one likes any of them or if everybody likes all of them.

(Shut up and deal, Fred.)

ok

Famous saying:

<wordasword>cigar</wordasword>

As it says, I kinda think I like this one. And I think it may be the best of the various effects and styles I tried with this image, although I will think about that some more in the next week or two. Anyway, here it is for you to view.

Click the on photo for larger view. Or see all my albums at http://imageevent.com/fredcritter.