Good Morning, O World on Fire

This morning during a very special treat for myself at Starbucks, I happened to look at the front page of the New York Times. There was a photo of, basically, Lebanon on fire. Now, last night I ate at Lebanese Taverna (with two random people I met who were from out of town - they convinced me to eat with them rather than do takeout!) and I kept thinking, how do the people who own this restaurant feel about what's happening in their country? I mean, there's a reason they're not there, but still - ties to your native land can be strong.

I'm terrified, honestly, about what's happening. It seems as if there is no forethought, merely knee-jerk reactions.

In any case, I was late to work this morning (this morning? no, wait, every morning) because I was listening to a story on NPR about how the Department of Defense is paying for students as young as kindergarten to take "critical language" classes. You can listen to it here.

Oh, and there was an interesting story in the WSJ yesterday about a scientist (did you immediately think man? bet you did!) who used to be a woman and then had a sex-change and became a man. He has some interesting observations on how different it is to be a woman in science; my favorite came at the end: "People who do not know I am transgendered treat me with much more respect," he says. "I can even complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man."

I thought about his quote this morning, when I was listening to a "tiff" during the G8 meeting of foreign ministers between Condoleeza Rice and Sergei Lavrov. At one point he completely cuts her off and starts talking. It's interesting that in this Washington Post article, they don't mention that but DO mention when Condi cuts Lavrov off. Because, I guess, it's inappropriate for women to interrupt, but completely acceptable for men.

Which leads me to that "checklist" I talked about but never had a link to. It mentions the fact that women are more likely to be interrupted than men. There's also a white privilege checklist, but as it was in Comic Sans font which I hate, I chose to not have a link to it. Google it yourself, you lazy so-and-so!

"Pentagon Pays for Students to Learn Foreign Langauges." (NPR, Morning Edition, July 14th, 2006)

"He, Once a She, Offers Own View On Science Spat" (Wall Street Journal, by Sharon Begley, July 13th, 2006; Page B1)

"A Spat Over Iraq Revealed on Tape" (Washington Post, by Glenn Kessler, June 30th, 2006; Page A20)