Eat vitamins and die. Eat low-fat dairy and be sterile.

Snort.

Whatever happens, try not to go insane from reading dietary recommendations.

Science!

My friend Aly (Alyson, first article) is getting national press, most recently in today's NYTimes.

Oh, one more...

We went to the New Bolton Center and drew on a cow. That triangle is the paralumbar fossa. I can't make out the rest of the drawings...

More...

There's that horse again. They were cut sagitally (down the middle) so we could see all the inner structures. Note the large tongue, and the brain!One of the most recent foster kittens, Moses.
Moses fighting with his brother, Noah:
Sheba's getting nicer:

Some pictures

Not a lot of time to caption each of them (vet school has us in the middle of a long two weeks of midterms and finals before spring break), but here they are anyway:

Pam came to visit (in November). We went to the art museum and the independence center:

We signed the Constitution:

We dissected a horse head in anatomy:

Kate and I went skiing. This is the only picture i took:

Regional OM scores are up

here.

Panda, Adams Farm, and me

Since the big snow, the only people to have x-country skied at Adams Farm have been Murphys. Unless you count the person who strapped on his skis on the second day after the storm, went twenty feet from his vehicle and said, "Whoops! Too deep!" Four snowshoers were there over the weekend. Other than that, the only outsiders to have used the trails are Murphys.

On Friday, as Panda and I were leaving, a Ford Expedition with a Triton v8 and department of Environmental Conservation sticker on the side from the Roger's environmental Education Center showed up with three people in it who I've seen there before recreating. The driver wanted to know if he could make it if he drove down the road to the ponds. I pointed out the barrier of snow left by the plow and he said, "what if i got a running start?" I told him I didn't think he'd make it and besides he'd destroy my hard-earned trail and, anyway, doesn't that sticker say something about environmental conservation and shouldn't you be walking?

Panda and I broke the trail down the road two days after the storm and it was torture. Mom,. Panda and I broke the woods trail two days later. Not so bad. Tomorrow, Panda and I will break the River trail. I hope I can keep the environmental conservationists from stomping on my handiwork.

globalonily phony

http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=367

"Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service."

Was Al Gore's private jet one of the 80 that flew Oscar attendees to the "first green academy awards"? Like "sustainability" and "appropriate technology", global warming is an attempt to keep lesser human beings from prospering so that the limousine liberals can maintain their lifestyles.

Or try This.

"So let’s all welcome the first Green Oscars. Nobody is as concerned about climate change as we are here in southern California. You know why? Because we pay top dollar for our houses in Malibu and Beverly Hills, and the thought that the climate, which never changes, could actually, you know, change, makes us crazy. And we’re determined to do something about it — even if it means the rest of you take the D train for the rest of your lives."

Johnny Can't Let Go

Here.

SE Basketball

Here's Wilson Rose (University of Rochester, Class of 2011) going for the basket during last night's sectional game against Jordan-Elbridge, and here's a very brief article about it in today's Evening Sun. The final score, if I correctly remember, was 69-41, making S-E 21-0. I went to the game and had a good time watching them play -- Wilson and John Pinney make quite the duo. We'll see what happens next. Friday night they play . . . (dunh dunh DUNH) . . . Marcellus.

Off to the Dentist

Thought you should know.

Large Animal Vet Shortage

Here.

A joke

I suspect this joke originally was about a Jewish mother. Mustn't slur any ethnics, ya know.


A son calls his mother and asks how she is.
Mom replies. Not too good. I haven't eaten in 38 days.
Replying with concern, the son asks "what's the matter mom, are you not feeling well, have you been to the doctor?"
Mom replies, it's not that, "I didn't want to have my mouth full of food when you called."

Cool!

7 below when I got up this morning. 10 below when I went to the barn. 17 below at 0700.

Northern Hemisphere Warming

Means the Red Sox truck heads south! If I were granted three wishes,one of them would be to drive the RS truck south in the middle of February. I got goosebumps.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/gallery/02_12_07_truck_day

Blizzard Blogging

Dad and I went for a very cold, snowy, and brief ski this afternoon. Here's the proof.

Wasn't there a swimming pool back here someplace?

Blizzard Calves:


Blizzard Dog:


Blizzard Man:


Skiing into the snow . . . (and as of 5:13 p.m., it is still snowing hard.)

The Weather Channel talks about Upstate New York

Here.

A Snowy Valentine

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.
-- Amy Bloom

It's usually Dad who posts something romantic on this blog, although I am supposed to be the wordier person in this marriage. Some people might have imagined that I would be the more romantic person in this marriage, too, but I will tell you a secret -- though it's not much of a secret, really, to regular readers of this blog: that's not true. Dad is one deeply romantic guy, and I am one profoundly lucky woman. Today, it's my turn to say so.

Thirty years ago today, just a few weeks after moving into our first apartment on Washington Street in Greenwich Village, we celebrated our first Valentine's Day by independently buying each other the same gift -- a bottle of Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry. (Somebody must have told the Harvey's people about that, because much later on, I believe they made a commercial with that plot. Furthermore, Wal-Mart apparently has a blog somewhere about a couple who drive cross-country visiting Wal-Marts along the way. Dad and I have somehow become the model for corporate American marketing schemes!)

Anyway. Thirty years later, I'd like to go out and buy a commemorative bottle of Valentine's Day Harvey's, but we already have some, and anyway, there's a blizzard out there today. So instead, let me just say this: Tom, for thirty years, you've been my Valentine, my rock, my sweetheart, and my friend. You fix my car, you put up with my checkbook, you make me popcorn, and lately, you even cook my dinner! You are endlessly surprising, endlessly interesting, and better yet, after all these years, you are still the funniest person I know.

As people do, the kids who bought the Harvey's in New York City soon changed into different people, who soon changed again, and then again, and again, and again. You remember me in each of those incarnations, and I remember you, and it's the great miracle of my life that we have managed to love one another through them all. We have built a family and a history together. I can't wait to find out what we are going to build together next. Happy Valentine's Day, honey. I love you.

A truly inconvenient truth

I love this guy, Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic. I've accumulated dozens of links to scientists of merit who question all the global warming foofaw, and I will post them sometime, but this guy nails it. I love the reporters question, "Don't you believe we're ruining the planet?" Read: "How can you not believe it? EVERYBODY believes it! We MUST be ruining the planet." White is black. Black is white.

• Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?

• A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite.• Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear.

Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?

•A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you represent the economic media so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It's clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.• It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.• That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers, am I not? It is more likely that you actually believe what you say.

Be warned!

I am switching the blog over to the new version of Blogger today. Apparently I have to because Dad is getting messages that he can't post anymore until I do. (I have to do the moving because I set up the blog.) This will mean, I think, that you will all have to change over too before you can post, although I think I can also re-invite you to join the new version by e-mail, the way we did it before. I'm not really sure how it will work out. But here goes!

Morphymas

Judy. Michelle, ma belle, with picture of her grandfather and a Holstein calf in a handmade frame.
Art, admiring the girls in a calendar.
What happens when you get old.
Michelle. Not a dry Eye in the house.

Murphymas

The Newbold Boys.
Alison, Michael, Grandma.
The best, and worst, brother-in-law ever. Another Grandma.
Samantha is pooped.

The Youth of America...

are smiling at you. I borrowed Mom's camera and found this great picture on it.

You guys are awesome.

A Bird in the Bush...

is worth how many in the hand? This pheasant took up residence in the briars alongside the driveway yesterday. I took these pictures (click to enlarge, but they don't do justice to the amazing colors on this bird's dorsum.) on my way out to the store. I brought back some bird food (not the same as duck food) and the boid was gone.

Panda

Happy Birthday, Laura!

Panda thinks this is funny

and so will you. Check it out, but make sure your sound is on, first.

Jesse Hoff in Kenya!

Jesse sent me these two emails from Kenya and had some interesting stuff to say. Apparently the Kenyan's didn't even know about slavery in America and some other things like that. Pretty interesting really, seems like a whole different planet:

Hatujambo to all,

I am finally back in contact with the outside world after the first week in our little village of shichingi. Everything is going extremely well, but there will be a lot of challenges over the next two months. None of them will be winter time (how did the groundhog report), but that doesn't stop my host family from asking me i am cold when the temperature drops below 70. Kenyan hosts are very gracious, but also perhaps gratuitous. They always play the little battery radio at dinner with the mix of kenyan and american music, or sometimes the BBC, when I would much rather talk. However, dining is a personal event apparently. We'll see, I quickly got a lot more out of my sisters by night 3 and 4. In fact we've had good discussions. Everything you talk to anyone about is bringing entirely different ways of seeing the world into collission, so you can imagine the reaction when my sister asked me why there were so many africans living in my country. For one thing the concept that America is sort of a newly settled entity is a tough one for many. My father was curious if i was from the chicago clan, or maybe boston. But she didn't believe me about slavery! I felt terrible trying to explain this tragedy to her and having her doubt me entirely. Eventually I think she realized that I wouldn't lie to her about something that people are ashamed of. It was the same way when the business teacher suggested that Koreans had invented the atomic bomb and americans are trying to steal it from them. He and Jordan and I have had some very colorful discussions.
Which brings me to teaching, because I can't really talk about everything, but thats the major focus I suppose. Classes have been great so far. After two days of observing on wednesday jordan and I split the 11th grade(not the name but I translate these things both ways. They are called forms here) into two classes of 15 instead of 30. It was really easy to talk to the kids and they had plenty of questions at first, though they need to be asked once or twice to talk loudly. Then they had a break between the first and second class and I asked them to write down a dream they had, which is pretty cheesy because we were going to read Harlem (What happens to a dream deferred, does it dry up like a raisin in the sun ect.) I am sure that has been done a million times in underprivleged black classes. I was impressed at what they wrote down, but everyone thought I was talking about sleep dreams, though their english was good. I explained to them the real meaning I was looking for and then I think really successfully explained to them the metaphors in the poem. The second homework round 75% gave me a real aspiration as oppossed to a sleep dream. Progress. Now we are reading an assigned novel that the exit exams for college will be on. They also have to read Merchant of Venice (Oy vey) in 12th grade, but luckily someone else is teaching that. This book is about Kenyan independence and is called "Coming To Birth" Its written by an english expat and is fairly good. There is a lot of Vocab to explain and the students don't learn the history of independence till later this year, so I am explaining to them all of the events, which is really silly and useless. I also have a business Class, which has only met once because of a church event (the Jubilee year, my torah portion! I explained to a few people that they were pronouncing shofar wrong). But I started off with questions and then doing the best lesson I could think of: Marxist representation of Value! Their assignment for the weekend is to explain why money is valuable. That will be a lot better than their text book, which is full of simple descriptions of markets and trade areas and simple business descriptions. We're going to work on understanding how business works first, then how to run a business because they come from an agrarian society where 60 percent of the population is unemployed by a traditional business and the same number farms some or all of their sustinence. They couldn't believe I had so many cows or that we didn't drink any of their milk, or that there are only 4 workers on the farm or that anything about how capital has replaced parts of their society work. So that has to be explained. Most of those kids will never run a business, let alone work for one. Division of labor and value theory are essential. Then we'll get into the boring stuff.

I could probably write for a really long time. I'm still exploring opening a micro finance bank in my village. For example there was a farmer who saved money, planted his field with cane, and then ran out of money before the harvest, and has let the field go untamed and might not get to harvest it. These sorts of things require the availability of accessible, relatively cheap cash flow. I have to be careful though, this is a nation where the children read the merchant of venice! Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well, mom and dad to let you know, Letters take about 2 weeks. There may be some in the pipeline or not. I won't say. Please write me and let me know of the daily events in your life. There is a lot more I didn't correspond, but I am taking a diary so these things will not be forgotten.

Love,
Jesse


On 1/26/07, Jesse Hoff wrote:
Habari gani to everyone. I am having a really amazing time thus far. My group mates are exciting kids, Alex is a wonderful leader, Safari has been amazing, we're settling down in kakamega for the weekend then sunday we go to our villages finally. Wednesday we start teaching! It turns out that without a serious amount of work I won't be learning kiswahili on my own, the English is too good and widespread here. We spent the first few days traveling to parks and working on swahili (not so much though) and teacher training. I can't believe how excited I am for teaching. We saw some enormous mountains and craters, went on some driving and walking safaris, camped out at a kind of muzungo (westerner) campground. I have now seen most of the cool wildlife in their native areas. It was good to get out of touristy areas though; it was an uncomfortable relationship with the drivers and guides and everyone responsible for the tourist industry and the tourists. They are extremely forceful about certain things and won't accept help or our desire to operate independently , but now that we are in the western province that has changed. People actually desire befriending you and are curious as opposed to opportunistic. The caretaker and cook for alex's farmhouse is also our swahili teacher in kakamega, and is a really great guy. We've been playing soccer and talking with him, and he's allows the girls to help him cook and doesn't keep us from taking care of things like bags and tents ourselves. We've talked to embassy officials (sort of out of touch frankly), aid workers, ngo employees, kenyans, everyone. I really want to be an economist now (and by the way sash, congrats on LSE, i'm really jealous), and study the way these things work. 60-70 percent of all employment is unofficial and most people really survive off of backyard plots. The population has increased five fold since 1968's independence, when it was about 3-4 million and is now 30-40 million, so the success of these backyard plots is running its course. I had a vigorous debate with alex's girlfriend (an ngo worker for womens rights) as to whether consolidation and modern farming techniques would make a more sustainable, productive agricultural environment. These are all questions I will be trying to answer. It looks like in addition to english I will teach either physics or Bio. Sorry about the phone call by the way dad, Skype is too slow here to work. I will use a landline soon. More updates later, probably next weekend, but maybe sunday before I go to the village, Take care everyone and good luck (I read your emails, you sound well)

Love,
Jesse

Prince

Anybody ever see a more monumental display of one "man's" vanity than Prince's performance at the Super Bowl last night?

Harry Potter!!!

Mark your calendars, the 7th Harry Potter comes out July 21!!