The Joy of Living Is In the Giving

Or, to put it in another way, we probably need to up our joy around here...
I mean, sure, it's pretty joyous looking at this enthusiastic young man every day:

But that line from that catchy Toys For Tots song kind of haunts me.

For a while now I've been considering a post about this sort of issue, but the article on giving in today's New York Times—which even included quotes from a philosopher (huzzah!)—sealed, as they say, the deal.

So, for one thing, the author mentions making an actual pie chart, which I agree seems helpful. Here's ours (UPDATED & improved):

(Slightly bigger version here.)

Okay, there's some data, but what does it mean? Well, for one thing, we give to three radio stations, which are definitely among Peter Singer's "morally dubious" cultural institutions. Look, KEXP and KUOW are basically non-negotiable. And come on, how can we not give to Kansas Public Radio when they keep making (and we keeping playing) episode after awesome episode of the Retro Cocktail Hour?

And who knows whether campaign donations really even belong on this list? But there we are. (Most dubious from my point of view? Boy Scouts. (Why? Mostly this.) But who can say No to a charmer like Braxton?)

Interesting to note that whereas most Americans apparently give mostly to schools and churches, we basically ignore both, and give the major chunk to human services groups at home (United Way of King County) and abroad (Oxfam).

But okay, here's the real reckoning: what do all of these numbers have to do with our actual income? I've been known to puff up a bit when recalling that we give $1200 a year to Oxfam, but all of this giving—ALL—doesn't even add up to 5% of our total gross income.

UPDATE: And just where does that put us, I wondered, with respect to the rest of the country? Well, fortunately there's a super fun website run by the Chronicle of Philanthropy that has all kinds of interesting info on giving (though they're focused on charitable giving, which may skew things a bit since I'm thinking about giving in a more general way...). And it looks like although the dollar amount we're giving is on the high end, when it comes to percentage of income we're barely average.

So, yeah, I guess I'd say things are looking morally dubious after all. How about this: we can call it a start, and do our best to seek a little more joy next year. But how about you, reader? What's your take on all of this? How much is enough? Where should it go?

In the meantime, here's one more look at Franklin, doing his part to spread some joy this season:

Woo!

UPDATE: How about that victory speech? Oh, you weren't still up at like 2am Eastern? Guess that's one nice thing about living on the west coast... Anyway, here you go:


Great night for the US!

All kinds of interesting statewide results here in Washington and beyond, but for now, how about a shot of the cupcakes we took to the election party:

Yum!

and Yay!

Smiles All Around

Of course the biggest thing to bring the biggest smile to my face came from the other Washington this morning. Who knew that I'd be here today saying Way to go, Supreme Court!? But hey, I'll take it. Huzzah!

But if you're looking for something else to smile about, how about Franklin's second (maybe it was third) real laugh:

He sure seems to like that zipper!

Also worth a smile or two: colorful produce from the Farmers Market!
Potatoes:


And some rainbow chard, appropriately purchased and eaten after the Pride Parade:


Speaking of Pride, Bria took some great photos, including a few of a handsome young man named Franklin: take a look.

There should also be one parade pic in this slideshow of some recent photos of said Franklin:

Naps and Taps

I know I've been a little quiet lately... trying to get out from under a mountain of grading as Winter Quarter draws to a close. Thankfully I've also been able to take time to do things like watch this amazing guy nap:


And he and his mom have had some nice walks while I've been in class. Here they are getting ready to go:


Franklin also has strong feelings about politics, so he was thrilled to see President Obama get this endorsement:

And if hearing that little bit of Tightrope has you wanting more, well, I did post it on this blog a while ago...

All right, back to Plato and Aristotle for now. Cheers!

Advent Is Upon Us

I just love this time of year!

Sure, there are people out there who really get the wrong idea about what this holiday means...

And sure, I'm firmly on Jon Stewart's side...

But trees, lights, songs? What's not to love?

Speaking of songs, here's a favorite:


And speaking of advent, how about one more beautiful photo?

Amazed

You're probably not checking my blog for the latest updates on Egypt...

But just in case, here's live video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

http://www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish is also excellent, but I don't think I can embed it.

And here are Obama's remarks:


New York Times live blog also very good.

Our Children's Expectations

Words can't make things right, but these words certainly help.

Text of the speech.

As David Remnick put it, a speech that ought to "remind a lot of people why they voted for him."

I'm Sad

Seems like a time for saying less. Yesterday's moment of silence:

Obama's remarks from the day of the tragedy are worth a look.

If you haven't seen it yet, it's also worth watching the interview with Rep. Giffords herself from last year, in which she discusses violent rhetoric in politics.

Paul Krugman make a nice point in arguing that lack of "civility" is not the problem: "Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement."

He's probably right about a lot of that, and he's probably right to worry for our future. I certainly feel worried right now.

George Packer made a similar case on the New Yorker site; now he's responding to commenters who disagree with him.

And thankfully Gail Collins addresses the other major issue--guys like this should not have access to semiautomatic weapons.

If you're in the Seattle area, there's a vigil Thursday evening at Westlake.

Pretty Pictures

Guess the start of the school year's got me a bit distracted from the blog. But here are two quick things to savor...

Some very encouraging numbers from Charles M. Blow's recent column about Obama's slow and steady pace on health care:


And Chris pointed us to this great video of Al Franken on Letterman many years ago:

All quite entertaining, but as I mentioned on Twitter, the real fun starts at about 6:30.

Cheers!

Slow Blog Day

But maybe this is a good time to catch you up on the doings at our place...

Remember this phone? Turns out it's been sitting in a box unused for, let's say the last three years. Fortunately, I finally got around to doing something about that: sent all four (yikes!) of our old cell phones to www.collectivegood.com, where they'll donate what's reusable and recycle the rest. They even pay for the shipping!

Also sold an old iPod by using the CHS classifieds. Nice.

Where is this post going? Not sure, but I saw this on a walk the other day:

Love it.



And finally, back to home-improvement, we took advantage of the holiday weekend to finally organize our books, which we hadn't really done since we left Kansas three years ago (!). Raised some interesting questions--for example, is President Obama's memoir best placed with the biographies? Or creative non-fiction? What about his second book? And do three Gabriel García Márquez books justify a Colombian section?

We ended up with quite a range of subject areas, but it's maybe no surprise that philosophy had the most titles (somewhere around 160), followed pretty closely by American literature. So, there you have it.

Cheers, reader!

That Good Old New Frontier

Had a great visit with Fran & Dave, but don't have the photos for you yet, so in the meantime, how about this photo attached to Maureen Dowd's column from last week:

photo by the Times


Also read a nice piece in Newsweek about our Trekkie age...

Hope plus Obama plus Star Trek = yancies like it!

(Oh, and the movie was pretty good too, especially the main actors, who did a great job of capturing the essentials of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Will have to see it at least one more time before making further judgments.)

Gardens and Shadows

You probably heard about it already, but I just loved this Times story about the Obama's planting a vegetable garden at the White House.

Some local children helping Michelle start the garden.

Such a great idea! Fresh, local food. So jealous! We signed up for a plot in the community garden around the corner from our apartment building, but the wait is 4-5 years . . . guess now I'll really have to find a way to hang onto this job!

Curious about the details of the presidential pea patch? The White House blog post about the garden offers a pdf file of the planned layout. Looks delicious!
Love those Obama's!


On a totally unrelated note, I think I've figured out the copyright situation on my forthcoming paper on Plato (and I think I've caught all the typos!), so if you wanted to read it, there's a link up on my Seattle U page.

Enjoy! And please feel free to share any thoughts or ask any questions that come up!


Speaking of Plato, I should probably get going & try to do a little reading before Emily gets home & our 4.5-day Spring Break begins. (Yay!)

Cheers!

My Food and My President

Okay, I really need to run--I have a reading group this morning, and I haven't done the reading yet! And it's Plato, so, you know, people are going to expect that I read it!

Before I go, I'll just let you know that I am still working (?) on a post about newspapers, those wonderful, troubled things . . .

But for today, how about a shot of the best paper's crossword puzzle from Tuesday:

Isn't it fun? I included the key clue, but if you look around you'll see other relevant answers . . .

(Oh, and sorry about spoiling this one for you, Mom; maybe by the time it's in the Herald you'll have forgotten?)



In other news, I heard Mark Bittman on a local radio show the other day. So he's got a book about--for lack of a better term--conscious eating. In the spirit of that sort of thing, I've started a food journal.

And in the spirit of our weird, confessional, online culture, I've been publishing that journal on the web. Take a look, if you're interested:



So far (one day!) it's been fun and interesting, but I've already been told that my format is less than ideal.

(If you have suggestions for standardizing or otherwise improving it, feel free to share!)

[Update 17:30 24 January 2009]
What about a table?


And why push-ups? Aside from obvious answers, it's really because of an article we read in a newspaper a few months ago. Now we're both hooked on push-ups (and on newspapers).


Okay, better get back to work! Have a great weekend!

President Barack Obama!

Happy Inauguration Day!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Wow.

(Transcript)

Hope you have a wonderful day, reader!

Woo!

Happy Weekend, Reader!

I'm already behind with work, it seems like, even though this is only week two of the quarter.

I am working on a post, but here's something in the meantime:


Two conveniences at once! A countdown clock, and a way for you to watch online on Tuesday.

In case, you know, you want to spend this incredible historic moment with your computer, looking at my blog . . .

What I Believe In

Get your sticker here!


Among the cutest reactions from the other night:

REM, in Sangiago, Chile


A bit from the Times Op-ed pages:

Bob Herbert, from Saturday:
We still have two wars to deal with and an economic crisis as severe as any in decades. But we should take a moment to recognize the stunning significance of this moment in history. It’s worth a smile, a toast, a sigh, a tear.

America should be proud.

And Nicholas Kristof:
Considering that past, perhaps the most incisive comment on Mr. Obama’s election actually came long ago. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the Hawaii Legislature in 1959, two years before Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu, and declared that the civil rights movement aimed not just to free blacks but “to free the soul of America.”

Mr. King ended his Hawaii speech by quoting a prayer from a preacher who had once been a slave, and it’s an apt description of the idea of America today: “Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be, but, thank God, we ain’t what we was.”

And of course Paul Krugman:
If the election of our first African-American president didn’t stir you, if it didn’t leave you teary-eyed and proud of your country, there’s something wrong with you.



It's going to start sounding clichéd soon, but for me, Tuesday was a chance to see this country the way I used to see it. I used to believe that the US was a good--no, a great--place, a place where ideas like equality and justice meant something, and where government derived its power from the consent of all the people. As I grew and read more, that belief began to fade into a hope.

I don't want to suggest that that hope has now been fulfilled, or that we've become somehow perfect overnight. Indeed, results in places like California suggest that much still needs to change. Nevertheless, on Tuesday our great country moved a little closer to becoming the country that would so much like to believe in. It is a night I will never forget, and I thank you all for sharing in it with me.



And we weren't the only ones: across the country, 88% of the country tilted toward the Democrats as compared to 2004. The entire state of Montana, for example, voted more for the Dems (even though the state still went for McCain, the margin was significantly narrower than in '04).

What a thing to see!


Video report? Sure:




[Update 08:33 Saturday 8 November]
What's Marisa's favorite celebratory image look like?

From this selection of Yes We Did merchandise

Brilliant.

Have a great weekend, reader!

Tears of Joy

Just the right words, Marisa.


We saw CNN call it live last night, but I really like this clip (which I didn't see until like 2am) of Jon Stewart making the call:



And where did we watch CNN? Well, the Showbox was full to capacity (!), so we watched at Neumos. Also full to capacity. That's right, we were in a packed rock & roll club watching CNN. What an incredible night!

Anyway, here's a blurry shot of the crowd:



Speaking of crowds, the party went pretty late into the night. I guess some of the Neumos folk marched downtown to join in the celebration near Pike Place. We ate a crazy late dinner and went home to look at the web, but here's a taste of what was going on downtown:



What about our neighborhood? Can't find embed code, but try this clip from King 5.

[Update 10:28]
Here are a couple of videos of Capitol Hill, courtesy of jseattle at capitolhillseattle.com:







Speaking of partying in the streets, how cool is it that downtown Lawrence was almost as wild after the election as after the Championship? Woo!


But as I said, we went home to see what was happening online. Here are some screen-grabs I especially liked:

Click to enlarge. (Will open in a new window.)



And then they called Indiana for Obama! Incredible.


Also celebrating: here's Wilco's page from this morning:

Thanks, Rodrigo, for pointing that one out to me!


All right, one more from the Times:

The words at the end of the night



But my own personal favorite? Hands down, it's the Stranger home page:

President-Elect Barack Obama

Just beautiful.


Thanks, all. More soon, once I dry my eyes and get some sleep.


What a wonderful county we live in, reader!

VOTE

Please vote. Please vote.

I'm an emotional wreck, reader. His grandmother; his candidacy; his vision. I can hardly contain my excitement, enthusiasm, fear, and hope. Hope.

As far as I can tell, I've mentioned this video only once, and that was a while ago. You should watch it one more time, though, even if you've seen it before:


I love you, and I thank you for reading, and I do so hope that if you haven't already done so you will join me in reaching for the best in these United States by voting for Barack Obama.

Weekend Roundup: Cute Kids, Canvassers, Cross-Canal Character, and Colbert

Too much for one post? You be the judge:

Iwanski kids sleeping cute. And notice that little bison there: from our visit to the National Bison Range!


Halloween costumes:




Hey, that cape looks familiar . . .

---

Spent part of Saturday at the local Obama headquarters, where they were "inundated" with volunteers.

Cool to see just how much inundating was going on. We saw this room empty and fill three times in the half-hour we spent getting trained/orientated . . .

(Oh yeah, in case you forgot, please vote!)



Waiting to hit the streets


Speaking of, if you noticed the other day my embed of Obama's informercial didn't include the live bit from Florida. Here's the whole thing, cued to that closing moment:

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In the past, I've been accused of following too closely the advice of a certain newspaper. Now the tables have turned at last!

Photo: Michael Hanson for The New York Times

The Times is only a few months behind me in covering some of the fun to be had in Fremont and Ballard. They, like me, mentioned the Chittenden Locks and the fish ladder.


Photo: Michael Hanson for The New York Times


Even that Lenin statue:

Photo: Michael Hanson for The New York Times

Okay, yes, there photos are arguably better than mine. But I did the Lenin statue like a year ago! Scooped!

Great read, though. And I guess now I'll have to check out some of those other places they mentioned . . .

---

Just one brief Wilco note: nice interview on Colbert the other day. And catchy new song:



Bonus Sunglasses Update
So we hit the farmers market today (yay for winter squash season!).
Anyway, I thought that some of you might enjoy hearing that one of the women selling produce there now recognizes Emily and I, all because of those sunglasses.

"Hey, it's red sunglasses guy": that's more or less a direct quote. And, yeah, it more or less made my morning.


Have a great week!
Please vote!