A life in words

  • Amigote vuelve a levantarse la cabeza fea

    Ahhhhrrhrhrhrhhaarrrrhhhhhh! That’s the sound of a thousand joints popping and creaking as I stretch out my blogging muscles. Faithful reader (how can you be a faithful reader of a blog that never posts!?), surely you have observed that a burning VW van no longer graces the top of our beloved peasant kingdom. I did love…

  • TA and Publishing

    Guess what! I just got hired on as a teaching assistant for Dr. Alan Manning’€™s Linguistics 430 “Theoretical Syntax”€ starting this fall. The fact that I got the high score on the final was probably a big help. I’m really excited because it’€™ll give me some great experience, and help me to keep everything I…

  • The World According To Me

    Okay, I just took the “Are you a neoconservative?” quiz at the Christian Science Monitor website and it tells me that I’m a liberal. Okay, so I disagree with President Bush on a lot of things, but I don’t think that’s quite right. I want to explain my position, just to help myself be more…

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves… to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection [and] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption….George Washington, Farewell Address