Yay for Skype

A video visit tonight, on Ethan's one-week birthday (he's not too excited about it):

The cute! It burns!

Like a Lion

I'm glad I didn't set the geraniums out on the deck over the weekend, as I was planning.

Rock Band...

...is fun to watch, although it's embarrassing when everybody says "you gotta know [fill in the blank any song in the last four decades]!" and I don't. I am a pop music moron despite having raised two serious musicians and some pretty involved amateurs.Mom Nicolle makes a hot bassist,
but Colette is a truly inspired torch singer, with her own lyrics and melodies (and an unhooked mic, but who cares):

Chris' Birthday Week

We went out to dinner Monday, John took him out again Tuesday, his friends took him to breakfast and lunch Wednesday, he went out with friends twice more to dinner and to a concert, and tonight we drove up to R&N's house for soupand cakeand to see Amy in from Chicago and the new baby (in from heaven).

John, who has been sick for weeks now with some kind of flu/ sinus/ bronchitis thinglooks happier once he gets to hold Ethan.

but he zonks out by the end of the evening.

If you're interested in politics...

...a critique and discussion of the conservative critique of the progressive utopian agenda, from one of my favorite sites (thanks to Dave for pointing out the blog to me). I especially like this description of the slippery slope. Of course I always knew us nanny-staters would be first ones up against the wall:

As you’ve probably noticed, conservatives tend to argue against liberalism/ progressivism by asserting (plausibly) that Robespierre, or Stalin, or Hitler did bad things; then asserting (considerably less plausibly) that liberalism/ progressivism somehow equals, or naturally tends to slide into, bad authoritarianism of a distinctively modern sort. Ever since Burke wrote his book about the French Revolution, some such slippery slope argument is the Ur-argument of conservatism as political philosophy.

Suppose we sketch out that thing that it is feared liberalism/ progressivism will slipperily slide into. See if you don’t agree that the one thing every conservative swears up and down that he hates in all its many works and deeds, is anything resembling the following:

Intellectuals cook up some abstract, scientistic, rationalistic System. Blinded by the light of Enlightenment hubris, they conclude that a very great transformation of society can be happily effected in relatively short order. A political revolution shall ascend atop some alleged social science breakthrough which, we are assured, is a sold extension of more fundamental advances in the natural sciences. Mostly, the engine of change is the force of changed minds themselves. First, some activist elite manages to get their heads on straight. Then the people will eventually be dragged (if necessary) into the light. It’s Politics of Meaning as the Rule of Reason. The job of government is to understand what the right values are, and make sure those values permeate the lives of the (potentially false-consciousness afflicted) masses. For their own good.

The elite summon the New Man onto the stage of history, by cramming ‘enlightened’ values down the throat of the Old Man. Which never works. And that’s if he’s lucky. (If he is unlucky, his head has been cut off.)

Auntie Amy Comes To Visit

The Red Chair

Baby on a chair:Making faces: Mom and baby:

Happy Birthday Chris

...(yesterday), 16 years old. Here's your 4th, in London:

Four Portraits

Warm Water

I need a bath.I don't know about this soap and scrub business.

As long as you don't get soap in my eyes:

Ah, a nice dry towel.
Hey, I thought we were done. We gotta do hair too?

Introducing...

Ethan Charles, 15 minutes old:7 lbs 7 oz, 20 inches long: Daddy grabs a kiss:

"and you're going to like guitars, and drums, and Ferraris, and Ducatis."

Baby, mom, and grandma:

B&B

Ethan Still In Process

She's in the "rest and descend" phase now, which may mean that Dr. Rose is busy at the clinic and can't come upstairs right yet. Dilated to 10, but not descended all the way yet. Wow, the epidural sure makes it easier to focus. Yay drugs! Despite my gripes about the drug companies. A scare earlier in the afternoon was when the U around Guardsman Way was evacuated due to a gas leak. The phone rang in the room, which was weird anyway, as B&B requested no calls. Brett listened to it in silence, then calmly got up and went out into the hall. As the door opened, we heard something about "Code Yellow," and the nurse came in to say "we're NOT evacuating!" (A few minutes ago the city called the room again to say we were clear). Good times.

PrinterCatz

Hero checks out the wiring behind the fax/printer/copier (mmm, tasty): Claudio's place is under my computer desk--can you see him? He has the stuffed lion, his latest toy appropriated from the babies. The lion scared him at first but now he carries it around and takes it with him for naps:

Advent of Ethan

So Betsy and Brett are off to the hospital. Updates as they happen.

Big Pharma/Big Med Research Protects Its Own...

...from someone disclosing the symbiotic relationship between drug companies and researchers (the Wall Street Journal via Crooked Timber):

The Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the world’s most influential medical journals … , says it is instituting a new policy for how it handles complaints about study authors who fail to disclose they have received payments from drug companies or others that pose a conflict: It will instruct anyone filing a complaint to remain silent about the allegation until the journal investigates the charge.

The JAMA editors said Dr. Leo was guilty of a “serious breach of confidentiality” by writing about the problems with the JAMA study while the medical journal was still investigating the matter.

[JAMA editor] “flat out” threatened him and attempted to bully him during the conversation....“He said, ‘Who do you think you are,’ ” Dr. Leo said. “He then said, ‘You are banned from JAMA for life. You will be sorry. Your school will be sorry. Your students will be sorry.”

As per Crooked Timber comments,

Biz is biz.

First Spring Flowers

The forsythia and apricot are in full bloom, and we even have daffodils in bloom in the shaded north garden. The rose leaves are budding out--help! It's time to prune and clean up the garden trash. Exactly one month until we're off again to the British Isles.

Fam

Drove with Mom and Dad to my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Lana's 50th Anniversary party. They had a cake that had their wedding photo on it, done in frosting (I think from Costco--it was pretty cool). I forgot I had my camera until the last minute, when the attending sibs posed for a photo:

Extreme Sheep Herding

So Dad, you used to do creative facial hair when you got bored out at the sheep herd. What do you think of this!

More UK stuff...

...on the other blog, if you're interested. I'm up to Stratford now.

Chris Choir Concert at THS

Hi From 2001

I was looking up old photos for the UK blog and came across this clip:

Birthday

I had my 51st birthday, with lots of presents and a two-day celebration with multiple parties. Chris made the chocolate birthday cake, which was so meltingly luscious that it couldn't hold together:

and we went out to eat with the SLC fam, including, of course, Colette and Johnathan. I had a long Skype visit with Amy and Jamison (Amy's coming to visit at the end of the month). Betsy went home after the SLC dinner and had another uptick in blood pressure--Brett was playing a show, so I went with her to the hospital, where the BP immediately came back down. She's officially full-term today, so anytime! The BP problem will disappear as soon as Ethan is born. I'm packing an overnight bag (for me, I'm assuming that Betsy has one already). Fun and exciting times.