Looking for ways out of this gesticulating scream fest, I find it helpful to see what Patricia Roberts Miller has to say. She’s compiled a useful list for times when reasoned argument is possible.
Category Archives: Life
Devil Onboard
I am thinking of a conversation in Candide:
“The enormous riches which this rascal had stolen were sunk beside him in the sea, and nothing was saved but a single sheep. —You see, said Candide to Martin, crime is punished sometimes; this scoundrel of a Dutch merchant has met the fate he deserved. —Yes, said Martin; but did the passengers aboard his ship have to perish too? God punished the scoundrel, the devil drowned the others.”
Bitten Nails
How am I feeling today about the state of things near and far? Check my fingernails.
Speaking: Let There Be Light
Several students were missing from my Introduction to Public Speaking class yesterday, and the ones who were present asked if I would scrap the lesson plan so we could watch a speech by Trump “to figure out how he got elected.”
The students pick a speech Trump gave in Florida not long before the election, we watch 10 minutes of it, and then they talk.
Student from China: “Why is everyone so upset?”
Someone asks if we can watch “a good speech to compare.” I suggest Obama’s “A More Perfect Union,” his speech about race from the 2008 campaign, we watch ten minutes of that, and then the students talk.
Someone asks for another suggestion, something different in style. We watch the last few minutes of Martin Luther King’s “I Have Been to the Mountaintop”, and then the students talk some more.
Obama and King appeal to our better angels, to history and education and inclusivity and progress. Trump, to anger and hate.
Student from California: “Other nations are laughing at us.”
Student from Russia, who is watching one of Hitler’s speeches on her laptop: “No one is laughing.”
I am exhausted. I end class early, and as I leave the room, I realize the lights are off.
We have been discussing in the dark.
Obama’s “A More Perfect Union”
Conclusion of Martin Luther King’s “I Have Been to the Mountaintop”
Tagged election, hate, Martin Luther King, Obama, public speaking, racism, Trump
Aftermath: State of the Student
One of my diligent students sent me the following email yesterday.
I apologize in advance. I am not in the state where I am comfortable or able to speak without breaking down in tears. I tried attending my classes today but didn’t stay in any one of them for the full duration. I asked to leave mid-way. As a Muslim immigrant from the Middle East who has experienced hate comments, this election puts me in so much unease and I am completely disheartened. I don’t feel entirely safe as well.
If it is possible, with your mercy, I would like to request approval for my absence tomorrow.
This breaks my heart.
WTF?
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Worse than Daylight Savings.
Cosmological If
If the universe has pockets, what do you suppose she keeps in them? Something that fell down a black hole and got stretched all out of recognition, then had to be rescued from the cat?
Posted in Cool stuff, Life, Questions
Cheery? Not.
We have no one to turn to for comfort, burn victims bearing flaming torches.
Test post
I’m trying, without luck, to troubleshoot a WordPress problem on my MacBook Pro.
I can’t insert an image. I can’t add a new category or a new tag. The admin screens for my three WordPress sites don’t load properly, nor do the posts or the pages for the sites, in any of the browsers on my MacBook Pro.
The loading problem occurs on all three of my WordPress sites and when I’m viewing at least one other WordPress site (Geek Girl in Love). It doesn’t occur when I’m viewing yet another WordPress site (the Accidental Antenna). The problem doesn’t occur on any nonWordPress site. It also doesn’t occur on an older MacBook Pro, nor on my desktop at work.
The problem doesn’t go away when I switch between browsers: Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all have the same problems displaying the WordPress sites. The problem doesn’t go away permanently if I clear the caches or all the history or view the sites in incognito mode, although sometimes it seems as if these procedures momentarily make a site load properly.
Sometimes the “Edit Post” screen won’t load (e.g., when I click the “edit” button beneath the post as it displays on the site). Sometimes it will (e.g., when I access the “All Posts” display on the Dashboard–when I can get the Dashboard to display properly). Once the “Edit Post” screen loads, I can edit an existing post, but, as noted above, I can’t add media or new categories, etc., although I can successfully click an existing category for display.
One clue to the problem might be the “Like” function. A small “loading” message displays at that point on any page that should display the WordPress “Like” button (and, sometimes, the Follow button, although removing the Follow button from my carolynhill.com site didn’t solve the problem).
Another clue is what displays below the “loading” message for the “Like” function: a bunch of links that belong to the admin dashboard. When I go to the bottom of the page that’s not loading and click the link to log out as an admin, the page loads properly. That means there is a correlation between being logged in as an admin and the page not loading properly.
Wait! I have been droning on and on, going back and forth between Updating this post and viewing it, then coming back to the Dashboard in order to edit it further, clicking the Add Media button every once in a while in forlorn hope . . . and just now, when I clicked it one final time, my media library loaded.
And a froggy image inserted successfully.
And now I will try adding two new tags to my list of tags: “tech problem” and “WordPress.” Yes, the tags seem to be inserting into the list successfully. So I will click update. And yes, there they are when I view the post.
I wonder: is everything just loading with glacial slowness? After thirty minutes, things work . . . . Does that explain all the symptoms? If so, what the heck can be causing this slowdown only on the WordPress sites and, seemingly, only/primarily in admin mode?
I Miss Him
I miss my little brother. He died seven years ago of ALS. All that bright light, gone.