Walk on the Stone Arch Bridge

An LJ stat that just caught my eye on this account's history

39,874 comments received, 9,249 comments posted

Betcha I pass 40,000 before the end of the month.

On the rhetoric of the Inaugural speech

Fascinating article on the subject from 2005, here. The author had re-read all the inaugural speeches and talks about what the history of presidential inaugural addresses tell us about the American story. I was amused by the following:

The kabuki of the typical inaugural can be broken down into specific set pieces; the thoughts arranged in a comforting sequence that would have been instantly familiar one hundred, even two hundred, years ago.

1. I am not worthy of this great honor.
2. But I congratulate the people that they elected me.
3. Now we must all come together, even those of us who really hate each other.
4. I love the Constitution, the Union, and George Washington.
5. I will work against bad threats.
6. I will work for good things.
7. We must avoid entangling alliances.
8. America’s strength = democracy.
9. Democracy’s strength = America.
10. Thanks, God.

Interesting to compare this list to Obama's speech.

The Obamameter and Truth-o-meter

The St. Petersburg Times has launched an interesting project:

PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters and editors from the Times fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups and rate them on our Truth-o-meter. We’re also tracking more than 500 of Barack Obama’s campaign promises and are rating their progress on our new Obameter.

Follow Politifact on Twitter here.

Back to karate - sort of

After feeding the girls and dropping them off at the dojo for their class, I dashed to Fiona's school to take in a lecture about the financial aid process for college, which I am sure made a bunch of my hairs *sprung* turn gray, and cut out partway through to hightail it back in time (barely) for my own class. This was the first time I've gone back to karate since the first week of the month.

It was a mixed success. I could do the karate marching basics pretty well. We did slow kicks, and that was fine; I just started from the pivot position when standing on my right leg, rather than pivoting when I raised my leg.

But then we moved on to combinations (i.e., back fist, back leg round kick, turn side kick, turn, repeat on the other side), that hurt. I tried moving through them slowly, not kicking at full power. But the pain continued, and finally I stopped, most unwillingly.

This is frustrating. We'll see how the knee feels tomorrow. I felt I was pretty cautious. I hope trying to go back to class won't lead to a setback. It's going to be a balancing act, to figure out how much of "dealing with an injury" means doing nothing so that it can hopefully heal versus trying to do as much as I can in class and just coping as best I can with the pain. I certainly don't want to cause permanent damage. This is really the first time I've had to balance the demands of my training with a long term injury.

( What I did today to make the world a better place )