Grove St Cemetery

I stopped by the grove st cemetery for the first time (sad, I know) after going to the gym today. Walking around, on this beautiful sunny afternoon, I couldn't help but sense this poignant, almost tangible aura of history. We forget about these people, most of them, anyhow, and yet their lives were as meaningful and pressing and full as my own. Life is precious, of course, that's not really what I mean, though - more that I should enjoy life with some perspective, realizing that I should do everything to the fullest for my own sake, perhaps, so

I'm not sure exactly, but it made me know that I'm not afraid of dying, it's not such a sad thing, especially if your name is carved somewhere; and in the mean time, I was reminded of how lovely it is to be alive and still have this sense of urgency and worry and joy, to not yet have any sense of resignation to death, to continue to feel young and invincible! what a gift.

I kept on noticing how couples often die within months of each other. One guy had two wives, both named Sarah, both buried next to him. The first died at age 35, the second at 70-something.

My Favorite Friends

They're good for something after all, I guess...

How Liberal Arts Saved the World

From Harvard's Drew Faust's commencement speech:

A liberal education demands that you live self-consciously. It prepares you to seek and define the meaning inherent in all you do. It has made you an analyst and critic of yourself, a person in this way supremely equipped to take charge of your life and how it unfolds. It is in this sense that the liberal arts are liberal — as in liberare — to free. They empower you with the possibility of exercising agency, of discovering meaning, of making choices. The surest way to have a meaningful, happy life is to commit yourself to striving for it. Don’t settle. Be prepared to change routes. Remember the impossible expectations we have of you, and even as you recognize they are impossible, remember how important they are as a lodestar guiding you toward something that matters to you and to the world. The meaning of your life is for you to make.

Also, JK Rowling gave a great speech about imagination - not creativity, but the ability to empathize, to imagine the lives of others and take action using the great privelege and resources afforded Ivy Leaguers.

Huh. Democrats aren't as divided as I thought

Recent NYT Op-Ed, on whether Clinton supporters are defecting to McCain:

"Now, there’s no question that men played a big role in Mrs. Clinton’s narrow loss, starting with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Mark Penn. And the evidence of misogyny in the press and elsewhere is irrefutable, even if it was not the determinative factor in the race. But the notion that all female Clinton supporters became “angry white women” once their candidate lost — to the hysterical extreme where even lifelong Democrats would desert their own party en masse — is itself a sexist stereotype. That’s why some of the same talking heads and Republican operatives who gleefully insulted Mrs. Clinton are now peddling this fable on such flimsy anecdotal evidence."

"...the myth of Democratic disarray is so pervasive that when “NBC Nightly News” and The Wall Street Journal presented their new poll results last week (Obama, 47 percent; McCain, 41 percent) they ignored their own survey’s findings to stick to the clichéd script. Both news organizations (and NBC’s sibling, MSNBC) dwelled darkly on Mr. Obama’s “problems with two key groups” (as NBC put it): white men, where he is behind 20 percentage points to Mr. McCain, and white suburban women, where he is behind 6 points.

"Since that poll gives Mr. Obama not just a 19-point lead among all women but also a 7-point lead among white women, a 6-point deficit in one sliver of the female pie is hardly a heart-stopper. Nor is Mr. Obama’s showing among white men shocking news. No Democratic presidential candidate, including Bill Clinton, has won a majority of that declining demographic since 1964. Mr. Kerry lost white men by 25 points, and Mr. Gore did by 24 points (even as he won the popular vote)."

Tape Measure

Found this on xkcd. I love this idea.