I have a cherry/olive pitter of which I am extremely fond.
I liked the electric cherry-pitter in Robin McKinley's Sunshine. Or rather, I liked the narrator's reaction to it: instant glee mixed with mistrust, followed by perfect cherry pies... in the culinary sense. Baking and vampires, what could be better?
||
Anyone care to speculate on how much Tehran is going to play out like Tienanmen? My interest isn't in whether the loss of life will be comparable. The Tienanmen Massacre was tragic, and we can only pray that nothing like that happens in Iran.
Here's my worry, though: in Tienanmen, a violent government crackdown succeeded in squelching reform for 20 years and counting. We are now seeing the violent crackdown by an intransigent government in Iran. Can that also kill any chance of change for decades? Sam Crane at The Useless Tree has some musings. In the follow up post, he points out that the leadership of the movement in Iran is much more powerful and experienced than the students in Tienanmen. There are other things that could make a difference. Iran has a larger middle class and the Iranian government has more democratic elements. The NYTimes is speculating that the reform movement is considering switching from street protests to a general strike, which is something you can do if you have experienced leadership and a large middle class.
Cultural experience may also play a role here. Iran has seen upheaval, but they have nothing like the trauma of the Cultural Revolution lurking in the background to scare people into clinging to any stability. Also, I have the sense that the reputation Chinese people have for being conformist and nonconfrontational is grounded in fact, and I've never heard anything similar said about Persians.
|>
3. Meh. We're in uncharted waters here. More to the point, so are the Iranians. When this started nobody, Mousavi least of all, wanted to change the structure of the state. Now Mousavi is offering himself for martyrdom if necessary.
Somebody I read earlier argued that the people behind Ahmadinejad want to neutralise the old guard of the revolution, to impose a more rigid dictatorship than Khomeini wanted. Dunno. But it looks like Mousavi agrees.
The BBC man in Tehran has been thrown out. Bad sign.
We'll see. Soon enough.
My cherry pie yesterday came out just fine and the cherries were pitted with a paper clip. Small kitchens make for improvisation.
3 - The fact that there's an alternative source of governmental legitimacy in Qum also makes a difference, yeah? The best explanation that I've seen for why the vote theft was so spectacularly unconvincing and why Khatami is risking his authority by yoking himself so firmly to Ahmadenijad is that it's the first or second step in a power struggle within the government. The players are Khatami, the military, and the hard-line mullahs on one side and Rafsanjani and both the reformist and the more separatist (in the sense of preferring less clerical interweavings with the government) wings of the ayatollahs of Qum.
Rafsanjani and both the reformist and the more separatist
Also on this side are some of the biggest entrenched money interests in the country, with many of the poorest on the gov't side (or so I read, anyhow). It seems to be an awfully complicated narrative.
Is this post like a haiku?
"A woman who occasionally mans?"
Sorry, been looking at "an octopus".
Isn't "the house being opened" idiomatic? I don't understand "house's."
For 30 years it had been Pound's Sisyphean lot to read and misread newspaper facts in 'the light of the archetypes with which his mind vibrated, never willing to concede a shift of dimension between crystalline myth and the polymorphous immediate. Kenner
"Cherry trees themselves are often seen as symbols of sadness or regret at the passing away of a certain situation or of the times in general."
Wiki, "The Cherry Orchard" (Ckekhov)
The players are Khatami, the military, and the hard-line mullahs on one side
6: snarkout: Do you mean Ayatollah Khamenei and not Former President Khatami, who, as far as I know, is backing Mousavi, if not particularly vocally? Perhaps I've missed something.
10: no. There was no waiting prior to the house, being opened; one doesn't do things prior to houses, houses not being events which occur at points in time but rather substances that persist through time. We were waiting prior to an opening—which opening?—the house's—indeed prior to its being opened.
13: Are you not familiar with the term "idiomatic", neb?
13: Are you not familiar with the term "idiomatic", neb?
Are you not familiar with the term "redundant", neb?
If you're suggesting that to use a possessive with a gerund is somehow not idiomatic, ham-love, you're off your rocker. Furthermore, "prior to the house being opened" isn't idiomatic in any idiom I recognize.
12 - Der. Yes. Dumb mistake, and I don't think Khatami's support is worth much at this point. (Rafsanjani is deservedly unpopular, but has significant institutional weight.)
My point is that bob asked if a phrase wasn't idiomatic, and your analysis attacked the grammar of his phrase, which isn't relevant if it's idiomatic.
I inhabit a higher plane in which the idiomatic and the grammatical coincide.
Which explains rather a lot.
The wikipedia article on The Clouds seems pretty good.
6: My impression is that the Grand Ayatollahs like Montazeri and Sanei who have been reported as issuing anti-Ahmadinejad opinions after the election don't actually have much political power, and I've also seen reports that they have been placed under house arrest. (It's hard for me to tell which sources of information are accurate, though.) I didn't think they played much of a role in the power structure or in any struggles that are happening.
13,17:Maybe I need to study grammar, and maybe I don't care.
"prior to the dog's being walked" sucks
"prior to the dog's walking" sounds ok, though it adds ambiguity to agency
"prior to the door's being closed" vs "prior to the door's closing" or "prior to the door being closed".
"baby being fed"is the event..."being fed" is not an event that belongs to the baby, as with the dog, I think there is created an agency problem
I think common usage or idiom is "prior to the baby being fed' or "prior to the baby's feeding"
No, "baby's being fed" is an event. "baby being fed" a noun followed by an adjectival phrase. It is parallel to "the man sitting over there".
"the baby's feeding" and "the baby's being fed" are identical except in regard to voice.
Searching in Yahoo for "prior to the"
(added being)
"prior to the ball being thrown"
"prior to the work being started"
"prior to the propery being foreclosed"
"prior to the subscription being approved"
"prior to the horse being handed to a trainer"
"prior to the release being official" ???
"prior to the drug being available"
"prior to the extinguisher being discharged"
"prior to the baby being born"
"prior to the dogs being adopted"
"Prior to the record being verified"
"prior to the event being swum"
"prior to the pet being started on product"
"prior to the New Years Eve ball being dropped"
"prior to the Wicked being revealed"
"prior to the invocation being serialized"
"prior to the railcar being released"
I have to get to the 7th page of Google results for "prior to the * being" to find one that uses the possessive. In other words, nosflow is being a prescriptivist dick.
Oddly, I have a possessive result on the first page: "prior to the prisoner's being returned to the original place of …".
Fourth result. And it's the first instance of a formal document.
The next result with a possessive is the eleventh: "prior to the hysterectomy's being performed".
Of course, it should be borne in mind, really, that "prior to the hysterectomy being performed" could also be correct—if the whole sentence were something like "prior to the hysterectomy being performed's completion, …" (or even, hotness of hottness, "prior to the hysterectomy being performed's being completed …"!).
31: Oops, overlooked "prior to the prisoner's being", but it's #15 for me. The ways of Google are mysterious.
Maybe I need to study grammar, and maybe I don't care.
As a Texan of my acquaintance used to say: "Fuck speeling."
And on the other topic: Goddamn John McCain for practically begging for a war on Iran on this morning's talkies (Face the Nation, I think). When will that fucker learn that politics isn't an endless loop of Top Gun and that he isn't Tom Cruise?
35: And on the other topic: Goddamn John McCain for practically begging for a war on Iran on this morning's talkies (Face the Nation, I think). When will that fucker learn that politics isn't an endless loop of Top Gun and that he isn't Tom Cruise?
Well, given that last August he helped get us into a situation wherein we were less than 2 weeks away from a full-scale thermonuclear exchange, I'm thinking that maybe responsible behaviour involving foreign policy is not his long suit.
The relevant issue, is why can't the Sunday TV political people, who ostensibly profess faith in moderation and High Broderism, refuse to give a platform to lunatics, moral monsters and clueless halfwits?
max
['I ask you.']
They look out for their own, max.
38: refuse to give a platform to lunatics, moral monsters and clueless halfwits?
BO-ring.
Well, given that last August he helped get us into a situation wherein we were less than 2 weeks away from a full-scale thermonuclear exchange
Wha?
41: I assume this is a reference to the Georgia/Russia stuff.
Yes; it's referring to Comrade McCain and his wonderful idea of supporting some con artist in starting a war with a major power so he can slaughter some annoying ethnic dissidents.
max
['Damndest thing I ever seen.']
13: There was no waiting prior to the house, being opened;
The comma is wrong. (Or, to be pedantic, neb is wrong to use this comma.)