Attenzione! 12 Feb 2020|12:00pm The contents of this little black box are friends-only (except for the science and epicurean stuff) Because we all have secrets, and apparently my grandmother is on the internet these days. Comment here if you'd like access to the Black Box's good stuff. 32 monkeys sitting in a tree

This is so gay. 19 Jun 2009|10:04am mood | argh. I'm outraged. Furious. For those of you who haven't been following the nonsense in Washington, Lt. Col. Fehrenbach was discharged from the military despite a brave and long-standing military career. Because he's gay. As much as I complain about how we shouldn't be in the middle east and how much I hate the macho-man sentimentality of our militia these days, I think it's ridiculous, backward and downright shameful that we remove a man who has spent two decades putting his life in danger just because he doesn't like pussy. Really, America??? Aren't there a thousand better things we should be concerning ourselves with, than the gender orientation of our soldiers? Are the homophobes in the army and navy worried they're going to get ass-raped while they sleep? Do they feel threatened by gay and lesbian persons serving alongside them? It's the military, not a dating service. The only thing should matter is how good you do your job, not how you like to get your rocks off. I am so ashamed of my country right now. I want to move back to Italy. Screw this. 8 monkeys sitting in a tree

Memories: notes from the field in Suriname 08 Mar 2009|07:12pm mood | Urban, no monketys music | Aerosmith - Monkey on my Back This recent peanut butter recall brought to mind today how unlucky peanut butter has been to me in the past. Not that I'd stop eating it (especially now that I grind my own organic butter at the food co-operative), but sometimes seeing a jar full of the gloppy brown stuff sends me into post-traumatic stress paroxysms. The only time I was ever bitten by a primate, a young female capuchin decided to maul a chunk out of my arm. Over peanut butter. Seriously. I'd been eating lunch, sadly with a half-consumed container of Skippy (cheaper than JIF, almost as good as Peter Pan) on the wooden table beside my notebook and my sandwich. A knife lay over the lid, half-screwed-on as it was, and the blade coated with fragrant, sticky goodness. Monkeys love peanut butter in the same way dogs love cheese and cats love dead insects. I probably should have licked the knife (botflies and phorids be damned!) or wiped it on a paper towel, but alas -- I let it sit, wafting its sweet and peanut-y fragrance into the bamboo and palms above me. Such a wonderful smell, I remember thinking, that of peanut butter... ...until a madass hungry seven-pound ball of fur came hurling down onto the table, noticed me (the hundred-thirty-pound ball of screaming) sitting six inches from its peanut prey, and grabbed my arm and bit down like I was going to fight her for it. Right below my elbow, and directly into the fleshy muscle of my forearm. And she clung, clung like a heroin addict onto a car speeding away with her next fix. Like an obese housewife fighting for the last half-off Fryolator in the Ross outlet store. She was magnificent in her screeching, clawing fury. Although at the time, I was too busy thinking holySHITI'mgoingtobleedtodeath to appreciate the mighty rage of Cebus capuchinus. Not my best moment, tripping and falling over the bench and rolling around flailing on the dirt as the female scampered away, the knife having flown a good ten feet into the underbrush, my face and shirt covered in blood. Later, one of my classmates told me I had mucus running over my face, and I was sobbing so hard I had hiccups for ten or fifteen minutes. I can imagine Steve Irwin standing over me. "Gosh, look at 'er! What a beaut! See how she defends 'er spoils from the larger predator, even as -- ooooh, the sheila drew blood!!! Just shake 'er off; she's just playin'!" He will haunt your dreams My arm looked like it had been caught in a blender and then painted purple for about six weeks, and it was two months before I could use it fully again. I did not eat peanut butter for a while -- nay, I did not eat ANYTHING when I got back to Florida and was around live primates (except for the one time archiedavis and I were at the monkey sanctuary and yet another capuchin scalped me for a piece of produce). I'd learned my lesson. The moral of this story is twofold, my friends: One; primates, especially the more intelligent ones, can and will kill you for food; and Two; when in the wilderness, remember that good-smelling food shall be smelled by animals with much better noses than you... and you don't want to repeat my adventure with a lion while making beanie-weenies or soydogs on the African savanna. Stick to dry nutrition bars. My next entry will be about poop. Be warned. 22 monkeys sitting in a tree

Tuesday 06 Jan 2009|02:42pm mood | sleepy music | Rolling Stones - Ruby Tuesday I've spent, collectively, a solid hour at work today playing with this website an entomologist sent me. For maximum fun, place a bunch of dead flies in random spots around the map and watch him gorge. Say hello to my leetle friend. I am so easily distracted these days. 15 monkeys sitting in a tree

Reasons why I hate Thanksgiving (this is not a bitter entry; promise) 27 Nov 2008|12:04pm mood | hungry I think it's an awesome idea to set aside a day to be thankful and to spend with friends, family and/or the less fortunate (hey; I used to spend Thanksgivings in a soup kitchen with people a lot more sane than my mother). But seriously, folks, let's get the record straight: 1.The Europeans who landed in North America and colonized this country ended up giving the natives syphilis and smallpox and taking all their land to eventually become Paneras and Neiman Marcuses (Marci?). And what do they get in return? A few casinos on worthless sandy reservation land. And Pocahontas. 2.The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is, by my estimate, 40% Christmas stuff. I celebrate Christmas, so I'm not coming from a disenfranchised group when I say HEY, WHERE'S THE CHANUKAH STUFF? What about Ramadan? Kwanzaa even? Given that probably 80% of the financiers of that damn waste of balloon material and Miley Cyrus booking fees are Jewish -- and hey! we have an African American president finally!! -- we'd have some more variety. Or, you know, just stick with Thanksgiving stuff. 'Cause they call it a Thanksgiving parade. 3.It seems kind of sick and a bit Old Testament to rear a bunch of one type of animal (i.e., turkeys), and then ritually slaughter said animals for one day of gluttonous feeding (note: I actually like the eating part of these holidays, and don't fault people for loving turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie and stuff). 4.MASSIVE CONSUMERISM AS ANGRY HOUSEWIVES RAID THE SUPERMARKETS. Gluttony is not love. That's Hallmark, McDonalds, and the Wall Street assholes telling you that spending $300 to not fit in your pants (and then spend $50 bucks a month after New Year's to lose the holiday weight) is love. That's all, I think. And all this being said, I hope that all of you (even those of you not in the States who aren't celebrating today) have a wonderful day, full of people you love and care about, and have enough food to eat and something warm to wear if it's cold. And if you want to make me really, really happy -- donate your extra cans to a soup kitchen, or spend a couple hours today passing out blankets at a homeless shelter. Or instead of gathering up your credit cards to raid Black Friday like a viking domestique, go for a walk and get your presents at a thrift store because really, a used GI Joe works just as well as a brand new one, and doesn't have all that nonrecyclable plastic. But you guys know that already, because you're all awesome. :) Remember, these guys were so uptight and prejudiced even the Anglicans didn't want 'em. And they killed these nice, peaceful guys and took their land. But hey -- we got this! Happy Thanksgiving! 12 monkeys sitting in a tree

Poisoned apples. 05 Nov 2008|05:26pm mood | surprised music | Duran Duran - Hungry like the Wolf Now that the election's over and sanity has returned to the world (and I no longer have to look at Sarah Palin's bigoted face all over the news), we can talk about more interesting things. Like: your kids are probably eating garbage at school. It all started when I caught this interesting Times article at work this morning. Then I found myself singing along to REM on the way to a legal consultation (again, work-related). Well, sort of singing along. What I was butchering sounded kind of like loooosing my nutrition Trying to keep up with food And I dont know if I can do it Oh no Ive had too much I havent fed enough... Because, you see, right now I work for the county health department (please oh please let this get me into a good doctoral program) as an environmental specialist. My specialty is epidemiology of insect-vectored diseases, but being the new kid on the governmental block, I get to tag along on all kinds of cool health-department-related issues. Like the time I met the mayor to help bust a drug house that also contained a dog-fighting setup. Or the time I helped get a woman out of her house who was in such bad shape that her legs were gangrenous and weighed forty pounds apiece due to the fluid and infection. Or today, when I got called on to be the official voice in a case that will probably make local news, about a school feeding its children expired, moldy food. But. That wasn't what upset me. The thing that upset me was, rather than bruised apples and moldy whole-wheat bread, these kids were getting old and grody junk food. And this wasn't the ghetto either, folks. ( So, would you eat this? ) 37 monkeys sitting in a tree

I feel like throwing peanuts at the RNC stage 03 Sep 2008|10:37pm mood | Barnum and Bailey Is it just me, or does Ms. Palin sound like a PTA mom hyped up on Xanax and Red Bull? "...where every woman can walk through every door of opportunity..." [liberal sitting next to me: "except an abortion clinic!"] 44 monkeys sitting in a tree

Bitchy rant; move along 03 Jul 2008|01:46am mood | aggravated music | migraine To Ms. Michelle Malkin; (this woman) who made the incredible suggestion that Rachel Ray's black-and-white paisley scarf (worn during a Dunkin Donuts commercial which was pulled from broadcasting) was reminiscent of "the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad," and further wrote in her column: It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists. Too many of them bend over backward in the direction of anti-American political correctness.... You stupid slack-jawed bitch whelp of a cuntwhore, I hope an irate schizophrenic jihad extremist plows a Cessna into your bathroom while you're sitting on the toilet. Sincerely, Jenarael PS. If I had to decide between pushing you or Ann Coulter off a boat into shark-infested waters, I'd probably push you. And beat off the rest of the sharks with Coulter's boney louse-infested lysozyme sack. I'm in a bad mood tonight. Also, when the hell did America become a country where 55% of adults DON'T believe in teaching evolution in schools? Maybe those same people think the earth is flat and the lunar landing was a hoax. I'll be hiding under the bedcovers if anyone needs me. 16 monkeys sitting in a tree

Papa. 16 May 2008|05:35pm mood | aeroplane over the sea If I try [not very hard -- eyes open; can't close them] I still remember how his face felt all those years I was growing up, unshaven and softly cool and framed in a white coat, as I hugged him when he came home from the hospital, smelling like sickness and dying even though he was healthy. I didn't get to say goodbye. He smelled like soap and chocolate milkshakes, not death, the last time I saw him alive. I don't even care about this stupid PhD/MD decision. I just want to go to a house that doesn't exist anymore, back in Italy, and fall asleep and have my father wake me up because it's summer vacation and I'm eight years old and my nonna is making polenta for breakfast. I hope you don't think I'm crazy, or neglectful and a bad friend because I haven't been posting or commenting. I just don't know where I am lately. 14 monkeys sitting in a tree

Sometimes grad school makes me feel like this... 13 Jan 2008|10:58pm mood | sick with cold music | Red Hot Chili Peppers - Can't Stop [my PI, on phone] "I'll have my graduate student find someone who can fix it." [me, staring blankly] "Sir?" [him, now off phone] "I'm leaving for Kenya on Tuesday. If it starts smoking, just unplug it. Use the broom to pry it from the wall outlet if you have to." [me, continuing to stare blankly] 9 monkeys sitting in a tree

I got you, baby 24 Nov 2007|12:15am mood | babies music | Sir Mix-a-Lot - Baby Got Back [while looking at infant and pet costumes online tonight, something that amazes me every Halloween and is thusly a "tradition", we came across something strange] M: Oh my god; that's so cute. me: No it's not! It's horrible! M: Huh? me: The poor baby can't move! It's all bundled up... M: We'll just break its legs. me: [shakes head] Runners-up for strange baby costumage here, here, and especially here. 20 monkeys sitting in a tree

Books and the future of this planet 02 Oct 2007|05:12pm Dear shipping companies, Rather than exploiting the shrinking Arctic ice as a means to send your dirty, polluting ships and their made-in-a-sweat-shop goods across the globe just a little bit faster, perhaps you should consider the species (like polar bears) that will be extinct by the time your children are in college and will only be able to learn about polar bears from textbooks and Discovery Channel reruns. Sincerely, if not at all cordially, A very disgruntled scientist Also, satiricpacifist posted an awesome entry about the 106 least-read books (as determined by LibraryThing), and I thought I'd post the same list here, since it got me thinking about what books I'm able to share and discuss with my friends and colleagues. Books I marked with asterisks are ones I've read; those with several asterisks are those I've read many times, not just once or twice. How many of these have found their way into your hands? I'd love to know (and also any recommendations for the books I haven't yet read on this list). Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ***Anna Karenina *Crime and Punishment ***Catch-22 *One Hundred Years of Solitude *Wuthering Heights ***The Silmarillion *Life of Pi : a novel *The Name of the Rose *Don Quixote* *Moby Dick *Ulysses *Madame Bovary *The Odyssey *Pride and Prejudice *Jane Eyre *A Tale of Two Cities ***The Brothers Karamazov Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies *War and Peace ***Vanity Fair The Time Traveler's Wife *The Iliad *Emma The Blind Assassin The Kite Runner *Mrs. Dalloway ***Great Expectations American Gods A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius ***Atlas Shrugged *Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books *Memoirs of a Geisha Middlesex Quicksilver *Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West *The Canterbury Tales The Historian : a novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ***Love in the Time of Cholera ***Brave New World ***The Fountainhead Foucault's Pendulum *Middlemarch *Frankenstein *The Count of Monte Cristo ***Dracula *A Clockwork Orange Anansi Boys *The Once and Future King *The Grapes of Wrath *The Poisonwood Bible : a novel ***1984 The Angels & Demons The Inferno The Satanic Verses *Sense and Sensibility *The Picture of Dorian Gray *Mansfield Park *One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest To the Lighthouse Tess of the D'Urbervilles *Oliver Twist *Gulliver's Travels ***Les Misérables The Corrections The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time *Dune *The Prince *The Sound and the Fury *Angela's Ashes : a memoir The God of Small Things A People's History of the United States : 1492-present Cryptonomicon Neverwhere A Confederacy of Dunces A Short History of Nearly Everything Dubliners *The Unbearable Lightness of Being *Beloved *Slaughterhouse-five ***The Scarlet Letter *Eats, Shoots & Leaves *The Mists of Avalon Oryx and Crake : a novel Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed Cloud Atlas The Confusion *Lolita Persuasion Northanger Abbey ***The Catcher in the Rye On the Road ***The Hunchback of Notre Dame Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything *Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values *The Aeneid *Watership Down Gravity's Rainbow ***The Hobbit In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences White Teeth ***Treasure Island *David Copperfield ***The Three Musketeers ...Anybody else ever get the feeling that we are so totally screwed? 37 monkeys sitting in a tree

Electrifying 19 Sep 2007|11:08am mood | musing music | the Zapatista anthem, obviously I would just like to say, on the record (QUOTE ME HERE PEOPLE), that our university's president is a pompous, out-of-touch jerk who treats the student body like a group of whiny brats who make money for the university. We are an intellectual institution, not an economic one. Or at least, we should be in a normal very ideal world. I'd never vote for you if I had any say, Bernie Machen. Now for other news. The little town I go to school in has made big news -- not for the awesome medical school or particle accelerator or talented college of fine arts, but because a student was tasered (tased? I don't know what the verb is when someone uses a taser on you) by University police officers for refusing to quiet down and relinquish the podium during a speech by Sen. John Kerry. Photo courtesy A. Stanfill/Alligator staff (Original story here, slide show of events here) Specifically, four police officers dragged the student offstage and utilized a taser; they arrested him and charged him with a third-degree felony (resisting arrest with violence) outside of the campus auditorium while Kerry finished his speech inside. The student, Andrew Meyer, had been in the process of asking Kerry questions when his time ran out, and the police officers turned off his microphone. Meyer continued to shout into the microphone, demanding that Kerry answer his questions before he would sit down. Commence SWAT maneuver. Viewpoints and offered tidbits of information which have been discussed ad nauseam in my lab in the two days since the event (and which do not necessarily reflect any of my own) include: 1) The student was not violent, and was in fact leaving the stage and podium when officers grabbed him and used the taser 2) Tasers are not, by law, to be used as submission tools; they were ogirinally meant as tools to protect officers from violent criminals and offenders 3) Despite not breaking any rules, this kid has a history (as a journalism major and writer of our school paper) of inciting controversy and making people angry. Kind of like a liberal Ann Coulter. Without, you know, a soul of pure evil like hers. 4) Sen. Kerry is an important political figure and, as such, will be subjected to higher levels of personal protection than less-important speakers. It was expected that any conceived threat be met with a miniature cattle-prod. How do I feel about this? I'm not sure. I know that the idea of free speech being met with a taser because someone didn't relinquish the microphone in a timely manner makes me angry, and concerned about the importance of airing our opinions in a university system. I also don't particularly like the idea of a student doing this as a joke, especially when University of Florida students organized a protest the following day in an attempt to uphold Meyer's rights, and the idea of student safety. Also, I wonder if Kerry should have done something else (like, ah, get upset or disturbed that an unarmed 150-pound skinny kid with glasses had an electric weapon used on him for trying to get a question answered), rather than just continue with this event? Is it more diplomatic to continue, or to stop and make sure the student is all right? I know that if I were onstage, the kid screaming "Oh my god!" while pinned down by officers would kind of end my spiel and anything I might have to say. But seriously, I don't have enough information to say something decisive about this whole event except "wow". Although... I do kind of wish that presidential candidates would get a cattle prod to their asses when they take too long at the podium during the presidential debates. Now that would inspire more people to watch. 27 monkeys sitting in a tree

Hello everyone! 28 Aug 2007|05:17pm mood | Quasimodesque music | PCR blips I haven't died or fallen off the face of the earth, really. But I did have seven chapters of my now ALMOST COMPLETELY FINISHED THESIS to finish. And the only way to finish it in time was to swear off the internet. I played a lot of solitaire (I know, I know) in between data crunching and writing. But I was a good girl, and didn't try to install WoW on my super-powered lab machine, or auction off signed posters of exotic insects. I didn't even check my email, except for university business. So now. Time to wrap up, format, reformat, convert to a .pdf file (I have not yet figured this out, I'm ashamed to say), submit my opus primus to The Higher Powers of the University, weep a little bit... ...and then back to our regularly scheduled extraordinary anthropologist journal posts. Feel free to bring me food and news of the outside world, too. News of your lives, if you'd like. And possibly some anti-itch cream for my shackles. I've missed you guys. 43 monkeys sitting in a tree

Zoo-ropa and Mad Fax 10 May 2007|12:49pm music | U2 - Dirty Day My PI bought me a printer because I rather needed a new one in my office, and it's a haul to the next building over to print stuff in my lab. Unfortunately, I think (despite switching from Mac to PC repeatedly in the course of a day, writing my own statistical analysis programs for my research, and even programming a DVD player) that I have fallen below the learning curve for new technology. Granted, rather than simply bring me a compact inkjet printer, or something comparable, I am now the proud owner of a printer/copier/fax/photo-editor/satellite launcher. The object (I've had it 24 hours and have yet to touch or use it) takes up roughly a quarter of my rather large desk space. It auto-cleans. Auto-aligns. Auto-updates. I think it automatically makes me coffee by reading my mind. It will eat your soul while you work. But, you know, my new office pet is the least of the news in my life. ( Update on the extraordinary anthropologist ) -The Extra(o) A. 55 monkeys sitting in a tree

She's so high (above me) -- Women in Space 27 Dec 2006|10:47am mood | XX chromosomes music | Aerosmith - Janey's got a gun (and a space helmet, too) Here's a good one for the history books: Did you know that John Glenn strongly opposed the concept of female astronauts, and women in NASA's space program, back in the sixties? I mean, to the point where he testified in front of the House of Reps' Committee on Science "...that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order" ??? I don't care if he was on the cover of TIME magazine (twice). He pretty much screwed the Mercury 13 program. He prevented two of our brightest female scientists from taking part in the budding space program. He was an elitist -- and sexist -- bastard of the worst kind: one who excludes others just because he can, and because he views women as a threat. Glenn's attitude angers me particularly this morning because I realized (after a patronizing good-morning from a senior male scientist I work with: if I passed any man at random while walking down the street, chances are very good that I am better-educated than he would be. I can shoot a weapon better. I most likely can drive better, fly a plane better, survive in the wilderness better. It is likely that I speak more languages than he could, have visited more countries, have seen (and held) more dead and dying people than he ever will. And yet, because I look like a woman and not a man, I am judged as less and have to work harder than a less-educated, less-talented prick to be seen as half as worthy. I grew up admiring male scientists because I wanted to be like them; I didn't expect to grow up and realize that some of my role models didn't believe I could be as good simply because I was (am) female. Why did it take twenty years for us to allow Sally Ride ('83) to do what the Russians knew Valentina Tereshkova ('63) could? Can you believe that the first female shuttle commander only got to lead a mission in 1999? Other societies had women run entire governments three thousand years ago, let alone a piece of high-powered machinery. It's not like we pilot spacecraft with our genitals and think with our gonads. Give me a break, gentlemen. You are lucky to know women like us. Remember that. 176 monkeys sitting in a tree

My achy breaky part 31 Oct 2006|08:28pm Scanning electron microscope: $500,000 Room for SEM: $45,000 Repair costs for Eric breaking the microscope: $4,000 (potentially up to $10,000) The look on Dr. Heinz' face when I had to hand him the repair estimate: priceless. There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there's my government-issue credit card. 41 monkeys sitting in a tree

In defense of non-vegetarians: it's all dead. 20 Oct 2006|02:04pm mood | ravenous. music | Duran Duran - Hungry like the wolf (courtesy my PI) This got me thinking today about the food we eat. I am the only graduate student working in my lab right now; my cohorts are an elderly scientist who eats nothing but meat ("the redder the better" he claims), and a vegetarian postdoc who makes their own hemp clothing. Currently, I fall somewhere in the middle of this extremist spectrum. I'd like to point out that militant vegetarianism is, in a word, ridiculous. You are all as ridiculous as a group of people who eat nothing but meat and tout herbivore lifestyles as "cruel". ( Eat me. ) 35 monkeys sitting in a tree

Vroom. 18 Oct 2006|03:02pm mood | VROOOOM music | Vroom To whoever can buy me a 2007 Lamborghini Murciélago LP640: I will marry you, cook for you, love your mother, and bear your children. If you make it black leather interior, I will also consider doing your laundry. Age, gender, political standing and marital status unimportant. I'll leave Brad Pitt for you and your car. 57 monkeys sitting in a tree

Thoughts on my way home from a battered women's shelter 12 Oct 2006|11:24am mood | blue music | Nancy Sinatra - Bang bang (my baby shot me down) Am I the only person who believes we should get rid of capital punishment but begin caning our criminals and sending them to labor camps? Something between the Singaporean judicial system and Russia circa 1942. We spend far too much money making the lives of prisoners comfortable. You don't see too many repeat offenders after they get the skin torn off their backs in Singapore, and there's a reason for that: negative behavioral feedback. It works, I'm telling you, as a scientist. Also: more innocent people than you'd like to think are executed. I'm not big into people having the right to kill other people -- it's far too right-wing self-righteous for my taste. Of course, I'll make an exception for wife beaters and child abusers. They deserve a death fitting such scum. Like tetanus, contracted from having rusty nails hammered into their testicles. Unanaesthetized. Don't think me cruel; I'm really quite a rational woman. 61 monkeys sitting in a tree

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