Loyalty Oaths

Monday I received the following People for the American Way call to action email.

Imagine losing your job because you took a principled stand.

Wendy Gonaver was hired to teach two courses last fall at Cal State Fullerton but was fired because she refused to sign a "loyalty oath" without being able to add a note explaining that her religious views as a Quaker and pacifist would prevent her from taking up arms.

That's not the American Way.

Ms. Gonaver was perfectly willing to sign the oath to uphold the Constitution as long as she could clarify that she wasn't committing herself to military action and that she had free speech concerns with a compelled "loyalty oath."

People For the American Way Foundation has sent a letter to Cal State on Ms. Gonaver's behalf urging the school to change its policy and allow employees who have religious or other objections to signing the "loyalty oath" to append an explanation of their views that would then allow them to sign the oath. The University of California already has such a policy in place in order to protect its employees' religious freedom and free speech rights.

Please join us by signing a petition urging Cal State to adopt a policy that doesn't violate religious liberty and freedom of speech.

We've included our suggested new policy below.

Please help us make sure Cal State does the right thing now by standing up for Wendy Gonaver's constitutional rights.

-- People For the American Way Foundation

Text of state "loyalty oath:"
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter."

Suggested new policy statement for Cal State University:
CSU recognizes that some of our employees may have religious or other objections to taking this oath. It is our policy to accommodate the religious and other beliefs of our employees by allowing an employee to append an explanatory statement to the employee's signed oath.

You can read the entire text of People For the American Way Foundation's letter here: http://media.pfaw.org/PDF/LtrtoCSF.pdf
Petition link:
http://www.kintera.org/site/apps/ka/ct/contactcustom.asp?c=feIJKQMEF&b=4119631

While it's bizarre and objectionable that California still has this type of loyalty oath for state employees, the particular concern raised in the PFAW call to action seems to have been addressed a few months ago, at least according to this article. Why PFAW is getting on it now, with a different Quaker, is not clear.

Now, maybe this Quaker has other issues, or Cal. State Fullerton is being much dumber and more annoying than they should be, or both. But this article indicates that this problem has an amicable resolution, and the topic of the loyalty oath has been brought up in public and condemned, at least by hippy journalists.


On their website PFAW refers to an L.A. Times article.

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

This call to action resonated with me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is my grandfather's involvement in Wieman v. Updegraff, 73 S.Ct. 215 (1952). My grandfather, a World War II Navy veteran, was a philosophy professor at a state college in Oklahoma at the start of the McCarthy Era. When Oklahoma, like many states at the time, instituted a loyalty oath for all state employees, my grandfather and a few other professors did not subscribe to the loyalty oath.

A group of "citizens and taxpayers" filed suit to enjoin officials of the State of Oklahoma from paying these professors for their failure to subscribe to the loyalty oath. The District Court of Oklahoma County enjoined the state officers from paying my grandfather and his fellow professors. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma agreed with the district court. My grandfather and his colleagues appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

As one of a series of cases considering legislation "aimed at safeguarding the public service from disloyalty," the Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Mr. Justice Clark, held that the statute requiring state officers and employees to take a loyalty oath that they are not and for five years immediately preceding the taking of the oath have not been affiliated with or members of organizations listed by the United States Attorney General or other authorized federal agencies as a communist front or subversive offends due process by reason of the indiscriminate classification of possibly innocent with knowing association or membership in such organizations.

Now, that may all sound well and good from the good guys win in the end perspective. But to put it in a little more context, my grandfather, who was supporting a wife and three children at the time, lost his job and was blacklisted. He went from teaching philosophy to being a migrant farm worker. In its opinion the court briefly touched on this, quoting Judge Learned Hand.

There can be no dispute about the consequences visited upon a person excluded from public employment on disloyalty grounds. In the view of the community, the stain is a deep one; indeed, it has become a badge of infamy. Especially is this so in time of cold war and hot emotions when "each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy"

My grandfather eventually returned to academe. Years later his badge of infamy took the form of skin cancer caused by his time laboring in the fields.

Update 6/3/2008:
The Chronicle of Higher Education (which has a subscription only site) reported today that Cal State-Fullerton and the lecturer reached an agreement over the state loyalty oath. The instructor and the university have negotiated the language in an explanatory statement that will allow her to sign the oath.

The words I wish I got to define

So, a little while ago I posted a query on Curmudgeon Gamer, namely What is Ludology? This was an honest question, but asked with ulterior motives (more on that later). And the answers I got were perfectly reasonable.

But then I had to get all fancy-pants and search the Web. As always, big mistake. Not accidental porn big, but big.

At this point, I will digress by explaining those ulterior motives.

When I was young and naive, I came across a brilliantly excitingly named branch of mathematics called "Game Theory". Naturally I said to myself, "holy crap! Pretty darn smart of me to become a mathematician -- now I'll get to play games for a living!"

In case you aren't aware, "Game Theory" is a bait-and-switch ruse right up there with "Greenland". Somehow they managed to take the field of strategic game-playing and restrict it only to games no one would ever want to play. (Apparently there was some analysis of actual games in there at the beginning, but that was swiftly excised, lest anyone actually enjoy themselves.) Even worse, it turns out Game Theory is actually useful in economics, so there are hundreds of books on super-boring "Game Theory" that are actually not about games at all, just taunting me.

Now, as time went on, my interest in games has actually increased, and I desperately want to make a living from analyzing and studying (and playing) games. Real games, that are fun. But I had learned that "Game Theory" was not that.

So while explicitly I was asking "What is ludology?", implicitly I was pleading "Ludology is the immensely fun and cool analysis and study (and play) of games, right? And someone will pay me to be a ludologist?" I mean, how could it not be? "Ludo" is from the Latin for game (ludus), and "-ology" means "study of", so ludology must mean study of games, which is what I desperately want an official legitimate-type word for, right? (Put your hands down, eager beavers -- we'll get to it!)

Now let's return to that horrible "search the Web" idea.

It turns out "ludology" is in fact a pretty widely used term in the field of "game studies", which is a catchall term which presumably includes analysis of the play of games, but also refers to things like game sociology, game criticism & history, game computer science, and pretty much anything that some academic wants to publish that refers to a game. (How game studies should relate to the design of actual games is a topic of some debate.)

But of course ludology doesn't mean what I want it to mean. Oh no. Ludology is both a field and an ideological position, in opposition to the field/ideological position of narratology. Narratology is meant to encompass the study of essentially anything with a story, abstracted from its medium (so movies and books and soap operas and arguably videogames all use narratives, and can all be understood under the narratology umbrella). Ludology pushes back, saying that games are fundamentally _not_ just narratives. Just like narratives occur in different media, so do games (board games, card games, tv game shows, videogames, etc.) and instead of just lumping them in with the narratives, the ludologists say, the play and rule elements of games set them apart and they should have their own umbrella field that discusses the nature of games (abstracted from the medium) the same way narratology treats narratives. And that field is ludology. (The perspectives with horrible -ology names doesn't necessarily stop there: here's an article promoting a "paradigmological" approach.)

While the five word definition of "ludology" is still "analysis and study of games", the meaning behind that is very different from what _I_ was talking about. It asserts a political standpoint (games aren't narratives), and because of that standpoint it is necessarily chiefly concerned with the ontology of games, which is a fancy way to say trying to answer the question "what is a game?" Furthermore, the conflict between ludology and narratology as disciplines pulls them both further away from usefully relating to actual games, which of course require both gameplay and story.)

I understand that any "-ology" needs to make some effort addressing what they're all about, but that's Chapter One of the Intro to -ology book. (Remember reading the "What is Life?" section of your biology book?) The rest is the interesting stuff. You don't take archaeology and spend the whole time learning about "what is old stuff? what makes this the old stuff we study and that the old stuff we don't study?"

Oh, and am I the only one who's annoyed by taking a random word and putting "-ology" at the end of it? "Narratology" is obviously made up, and the natural counterpart "gameology" is equally stupid (no offense intended). But who thought digging up a Latin word to put before the (Greek) -ology would make it more acceptable?

Thankfully, their failing is my last shot. Someone stole Game Theory, Ludology seemed like a good idea but someone stole that too. However, "pediology" would be more consistently Greek -- although people might think it has to do with studying children and/or feet ("paidia", I am told, means "a childish game or amusement"). Equally confusing would be "scholeology", but perhaps even more appropriate: according to footnote 7 on page 5 of this paper (PDF link), the Latin ludus might have been used as a conscious parallel to the Greek schole, which referred both to leisure time and to school.

So, I coined it, I get to define it: I'm a scholeologist, which means that I analyze and study forms of games and game rule systems, both in terms of objective strategies and results and in terms of entertainment value and human-game interaction. I don't study the role of games in society or the society of gamers (what I would call game anthropology), although we might have useful things to say to each other; and I don't study games solely as vehicles for learning and cognition, although that's exactly what I'll tell the funding bodies when I apply for grants, if they'll buy it.

There might be ludologists who would say what I do is ludology (certainly it's not narratology -- I plan to never use the word "Aristotelian" again, and they seem to like it), and maybe I'll come around, but for the moment it sounds too political and "the nature of game-ness" for me. If the hypothesis "the positive effects of rubber-banding such as in Mario Kart for casual players can be achieved with less negative impressions from competitive players if more information is hidden from the players" isn't ludology, then I'm happy to make it scholeology. (I don't know if it's a true hypothesis or not -- possible future paper? :) )

Just in case there aren't enough links in this post, and/or you got here because of a conjunction of search terms, you might want a summary bibliography of books from various sides of game studies. For that, check out this excerpt from yet another book.

Change is not an option, it is THE option.

(via Atrios)

This is horrific. Read it. Because you need to know.

Seriously, this the sort of scene science fiction writers put into stories to let you know it's set in a dystopia.

Oh, but there's more. (Here's a summary in case the NYT wants you to log in.)

You know, about 81.3% of the country think we're headed in the wrong direction. And 15% think we're headed in the right direction.

You 15% need to get on the freakin' bus.

It's broken. We need to fix it.

Really, always true

Another excellent rule from the blogosphere: when the media generates its description of you...

clipped from gofugyourself.typepad.com you don't want to add the word "incontinent" in there anywhere.

Indirect posting from Rebecca

(2:59:01 PM) me (Goog): Rebecca just sent me http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/
(3:01:21 PM) Sarah: LOL!
(3:01:32 PM) Sarah: She must post it to the blog. She must!!!
(3:01:38 PM) Sarah: I love ageism!

I don't care if Hillary drops out or not

(This is basically a comment I made to this post over at the Citizens. I figured it was long enough that I might as well post it here too.)

Unfortunately, it seems that the "electability" argument the Clinton campaign has emphasized is being interpreted as racism by some, and that seems to be a root of the deep division in the party.

Fortunately, I have a solution!

All the hootin' and hollerin' about Hillary needing to drop out is based on one fear: that she really is in contention. If it came down to near-even pledged delegates, and backroom wrangling of superdelegates, it would be unseemly, unDemocratic, and characteristic of the chaotic big-tent can't-get-it-together narrative associated with the Dems. Even if you think she can't win, you must think that she can make it close, or you wouldn't care whether she was running or not.

But if, as Dr. S indicates, you think Hillary has no chance, then it's no big deal. Jerry Brown ran all the way through on principle, as many others have done, and it didn't sunder the party because it didn't really matter. But he made his point, and I'm sure his supporters appreciated his continuing to the end.

Hillary's saying she appeals to the working-class whites that might otherwise vote for McCain? Okay, we should listen to what her appeal to them is, maybe even put something in the party platform from her policy proposals -- heck, offer her some appropriate cabinet position or blue-ribbon panel to chair. Because that's what you do with also-ran candidates to re-unify them and their constituency to the party.

The only people claiming that the Clinton campaign has a chance is the Clinton campaign. If the rest of the world (starting with the Obama campaign, since the media is physically unable to admit the horse race is over) just takes that with the salt it deserves, very quickly the statements of the Clinton campaign are filtered through that lens, and I think they appear very different and much less threatening.

Making Clothes Out of Loops of String

If you've been hiding under a rock for the last five years or so you may have missed the newsflash that knitting is all the rage. Kids knit. Teens knit. Punk rock girls knit. Grown up women who really do have better things to do knit. All the cool kids are doing it. And knitters are cool. They speak in code using words like "steek." They have their own swear word too: frog. For example, "I had a 'growing problem' with an acrylic yarn recently. I made a cardigan out of 'fitted knits', and it was fitting nicely, gauge was on. Then I washed it, and the whole sweater just, grew. Now it is much too big and I think I may have to frog it."
Yet, no matter how cool knitting may be, I shall never be a knitter.
I have a confession to make. I was one of the last students in my grade to learn how to tie my shoes. And it wasn't just because I came of shoe-tying age at the dawn of Velcro(tm) sneakers. I was just plain no good at tying shoes. I am still not very good at it. In fact, I only own one pair of shoes that requires tying, my hiking boots. My knot tying inability is not congenital. My brother is a knot tying fiend. Name a knot, he can tie it. My aunt and a cousin are both sailors and use knots for things for which the rest of us would break out the duct tape.
So when my cool knitting friends offer to teach me to knit I explain that I can barely tie my shoes, therefore I don't think I can make clothing out of knots. To which our favorite, nay, our only reader, Gentle Reader, a.k.a. Thalia, the purveyor of the fabulous blog Dogs and Laughter replied, "Actually, knitting is making clothes out of loops, not knots." Which instantly and completely BLEW MY MIND!
To illustrate what a rockstar knit mistress Gentle Reader is, I present to you the yoga sock. She heard my cries of, "My feet are SO cold during yoga class, but woolly socks on my toes are too slippery." Her response: she designed and executed these gorgeous yoga socks. Sun salutations in a Maryland direction! Thank you, Thalia!

A brilliant post update

"I thank the pernicious commentators for giving me an opportunity to shed more light on this issue."

From a brilliant post explaining that in fact Obama isn't a Muslim. Because extreme obtuseness is a very popular trend right now.

More on Harvard donations

You'd think I had a thing against Harvard, but really it started because Brad DeLong's a Harvard alum. And Harvard's the richest example, but of course the issue is private universities (and more broadly, all private schools, and the topic arises because of the high price of education generally).

Anyway, Matt's got some further discussion. This time, Jim Manzi suggests that viewed as a hedge fund with great tax shelter, Harvard's doing pretty good. Of course, this seems to target the tax status of universities, asking why they're so special. The same argument's been made regarding churches over at The Citizens some time ago.

I'm no high-finance guy, but I wonder if the hedge fund analogy makes sense. Surely I can get my money back from a hedge fund investment? I don't think Harvard'll give you your donation back with interest.

But it does remind me what I was mulling yesterday when I posted the first installment on this. The criteria for charitable donations is usually not simply a matter of the most good for the most people, or at the very least a donor uses extremely individual definitions to evaluate the "most good" part. I love my NPR, but it doesn't save very many lives. Many charitable donations, especially alumni donations, are personal in sentiment -- otherwise you'd give to the biggest college, or the college with the best graduate employment results, or something. But no, almost everyone gives to their college.

So coming back to the point, just because Harvard doesn't turn your donation into your profit, doesn't mean it doesn't pay dividends. (And again, Harvard is the shining example, but this is true of other fine institutions of higher learning also.) Maybe giving Harvard the richest endowment also ensures it stays on top of the prestige chart, which aggrandizes all those donating alums. Some crazy Marxist might go on to say that Harvard will then promulgate the advancement of the elites and so the "charitable donation" is maintaining the patrician system (or something like that -- I'm not a crazy Marxist, so I don't know what words they like to use to say "it's all about the Man keepin' the people down.")

I guess I'm saying that Matt seems to think that all those Harvard donors are mistakenly giving money to their alma mater when they probably meant to give it to deserving charitable causes. I suspect that they know what they're doing and what the effect of their donation will be: they did go to Harvard, after all. :)

Follow Up: Field Trips in Fiber Winnings

Last week you may recall my bloggy victory dance celebrating winning a give away contest at Field Trips in Fiber. Monday I received the much anticipated reward. My winnings arrived wrapped in robin's egg blue tissue paper. The sticker holding it shut was printed with one of Vicki's pictures of the birds nesting in her yard. You can just make out the open mouths of hungry baby birds in this picture. Along with the package was a lovely note on Vicki's super cute personalized stationery.


Enclosed in the tissue paper were four beautiful fat quarters of hand dyed and hand painted fabric made by the author of Field Trips in Fiber, Vicki Welsh.1

If you want to learn how to apply surface design like this to fabric yourself, Vicki's article about making these metallic painted fabrics will appear in the next issue of Fibre&Stitch.


















For more information about dyeing and painting fabric, Vicki's blog posts provide almost a comprehensive guide to both techniques. Check out the dyeing and painting fabric category on Field Trips in Fiber.

Any suggestions regarding what I should make out of it?

1.A "fat quarter" is a quilting term for a quarter yard of fabric, measuring 18" x 22". Its dimensions are "fat" compared to a standard quarter yard of fabric that measures 9" x 45".(back)

Videogames -- still not evil

Just a little link to direct your panicked parent friends to: in what must be a surprise to everyone, a big 'spensive study found no evidence that violent video games make kids violent. Who'da thunk it?

Assuming I had a can opener...

Sarah's brought up the issue of who to give your money to
before, and even though it's comparatively late, we should give credit to Brad DeLong for addressing the topic and arguing that Harvard doesn't actually need any more money.

Which I suppose raises a good point. Frankly, the two charities that have me wrapped around their finger are the local NPR station and PEA and I don't know why. I don't think those are the causes I care the most about. Are they the experiences I liked the most? Do they just run the better fundraising campaigns?

On a related note, my current employer is very keen on me donating money to them. As a cause, I'm somewhat sympathetic, but the whole scheme rankles greatly. What, my pay isn't paltry enough, I'm supposed to give some back? And then you can go to other donors and say "look what suckers our faculty are, we've exploited every atom of their generous nature" and that'll make them give you money too?

Bob's a syndicated columnist without the syndicate. Or the column.

It's been brought to my attention that not everyone knows the panoply of blogs out there that I occasionally post to. "Why aren't all those posts over here at Gnomicon, where you never post?" I was asked. "I didn't think you'd want to read those," I replied. "I'm like 50% of the Gnomicon readership and you bothered to mention it to me," I was rebuked.

So anyhow, there's several blogs in the Bob postiverse, and sometimes I cross-post to more than one, so don't let the deja vu overwhelm you. First there's Gnomicon, where I post stuff about books, politics, things I think Sarah's interested in, and other stuff that sounds smart. Then there's Halfwit On Blogs, which mostly is just cross-posts of stuff that comes from elsewhere on the web. So if I post something here about Brad DeLong's take on Harvard's endowment, it'll probably get posted over there too.

More interesting (to me) is Trollkien, where I post about Dungeons & Dragons (yes, I am 12, and yes, it is 1979) and other fantasy-geek stuff like that. (yes, I read comic books, and yes, it matters to me that Cap was right.) If that's not nearly enough D&D for you, then by all means check out the action at the dndblog, where I'm actually playing in a campaign.

There are some other blogs that I'm not the sole proprietor of: notably the related pair Curmudgeon Gamer and Game Journal, where people far more into videogames than I talk about the business of videogames and their game playing experiences, respectively. (I post both places occasionally, also -- you might actually be interested in my Game Journal post about playing Rock Band.)

There are elusive dreams of at some point sorting out a beautiful multifaceted blogsite, with an overarching sort of RSS feed collector for the brave few who want to read about everything, and specialty blogs that send those feeds to the big blog, maybe one about crafts and one about games and one about politics and so forth. But these are only wisps of fantasy at the moment.

Post-Mother's Day

I'm a firm believer in the conspiracy theory that Hallmark is behind most non-vacation holidays while the banking industry is behind most vacation holidays. Cynical, party of one, your table is ready. And until today I thought Mother's Day was just such a Hallmark fiction. But then I read a bit of the origin story of Mother's Day on a friend's blog. Did anyone else know it started as a protest for peace?

I find this particularly interesting because this year I felt like honoring a mom who isn't mine or my mother-in-law. She's a family friend whose son, who is my age, is currently serving in Iraq. One day awhile ago she received a call at work from his branch of the armed services. Imagine all the thoughts that ran through her head between being told who was calling for her and that long walk to the phone. Thankfully they were just calling to check on her and see if she needed anything. But phone call or not, those thoughts must be running through her head all the time. She puts a brave face on whenever she talks to her son. This Mother's Day I wanted to let her know that she's an amazing mom for supporting her son, even though she didn't choose for him to join the armed services. She's an amazing mom for waking up and going to work every day with all those thoughts running through her head. She's an amazing mom because at this stage in her life I bet she thought worrying about her son wouldn't be such intense work.

And she's just one of hundreds of thousands of moms worrying about children in the U.S. armed services. What if we took back Mother's Day from commercialism? What if we made it more than just a day to especially honor our own mom's, which should be every day? What if we honored its origins as a call to unite women against war?

While you ponder that for the 363 days until the next Mother's Day, read a Mother's Day greeting to Nancy Pelosi from Karen Meredith, the mother of Lt. Ken Ballard, who was killed in Najaf, Iraq four years ago.

Brita: Take Back the Filter

I subscribe to an e-newsletter from the Organic Consumers Association. The latest edition had the following call to action that I thought my gentle readers might find interesting.

You probably didn't know that Brita, America's #1 water filter, is owned by Clorox. Brita helps its customers feel good about filtering water without buying untold numbers of plastic bottles. Indeed, the Brita filter option is much better than purchasing bottled water. With that said, the U.S. version of the Brita filter is currently designed to be disposable. Hundreds of thousands of plastic Brita filters needlessly flow into U.S. landfills, while in Europe, the same company is providing those cartridges in a recyclable form. As a result, Brita is currently being pressured by consumers and TakeBacktheFilter.org to change its policies. Learn more about how you can send in your used Brita filters to pressure the company to make the green shift: http://www.takebackthefilter.org

The post sounds a little conflicted, like it sort of thinks that Brita filters are just a sham, but what if they're not? Like maybe they want to say the truly righteous path would be to take action to make your local water supply safe to drink straight from the tap for everyone including people who can't afford bottled water or Brita filters. Maybe while you're lobbying for safe water, you can also lobby for recyclable water filters.

Edited to Add 5/22/2008:
An update from the Organic Consumers Association:

READER'S QUESTION: A reader writes to us regarding our article calling on readers to pressure Brita to begin recycling their water filters, as they do in Europe: "I do happen to use the Brita filter system. It would be wonderful if the Brita company did do recycled water filters. However, I do not know of any other water filtration, or water filter systems who do have a recycled filter system in place. Are you aware of any? Frankly, I felt I was doing so well with water filter systems as opposed to packaged bottle water, that I did not really think about how the filters could be 'recycled manufactured'."

OCA RESPONSE: Yes, as noted in our article, using the Brita water filtration systems is a much better option, environmentally speaking, than buying bottled water. As for companies that offer home water filter recycling, you could check out http://www.terraflo.com & http://www.abundantearth.com/store/countertopfilter.html If you have a Brita system already, you can send those used filters to http://www.takebackthefilter.org

Follow Up: What Would Jesus Buy?

What Would Jesus Buy?, the best film at last year's Silverdocs film festival, releases on DVD May 27th.

From producer Morgan Spurlock (the creator of Super Size Me, another fabulously fun documentary) comes a serious docu-comedy about the new religion of rampant consumerism. The movie follows Reverend Billy and the "Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir" as they embark on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the destruction of humankind from consumerism, over-consumption, and the fires of eternal debt!

View the trailer and get the newly available DVD.
It's also available to add to your Netflix queue.

Beatrice Samols

At Bea's 93rd birthday brunch at the Ritz Carlton Buckhead, I gave her a courthouse steps pillow, which featured a yellow fabric with bees on it, in her honor.

BEATRICE SAMOLS, 93, of Sandy Springs died Tuesday, April 29, 2008. Graveside services were held April 30 at Greenwood Cemetery. Rabbi Neil Sandler of Ahavath Achim Synagogue, where Mrs. Samols was a lifetime member, officiated.
Born Beatrice Leonora Kolker in 1914, in New York City, Mrs. Samols grew up along the shores of Far Rockaway, Long Island. She was the oldest of four siblings. . . . She graduated from Brooklyn College during the Great Depression with a degree in music and education and pursued graduate studies in education at City College of New York.
She had a passion for cultural arts such as opera and the symphony, loved gardening, and was a voracious reader. The New York Times served as her daily source for world events, politics and the arts, and she was one of the longest subscribers to The New Yorker. She played bridge, golf and tennis.
During her graduate studies, she visited relatives in South Africa, where she met her husband, Reuben Samols, and lived for 37 years. She was an active member of the South African Association of University Women and served as president for many years. The group's mission during her tenure was to further the educational opportunities for black girls and women during apartheid. Mrs. Samols worked to raise money to purchase books and finance scholarships for black women. Mr. and Mrs. Samols moved to Atlanta in 1976 and remained here. . . . Survivors include daughters and son-in-law; grandchildren and their spouses; and great-granddaughters. Memorial donations may be made to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

This obituary originally appeared in the Atlanta Jewish Times. Her great-granddaughter Darcy has the pillow now.

How do I keep it positive when faced with this?

So I've been chatting with the Obama volunteers who have knocked on my door just about every day for the past week and they're all about keeping positive in the face of people wanting to get all negative about Clinton. Very impressive stuff. But how am I supposed to maintain my positivity when Clinton's campaign is connected with disenfranchising voters? If you've been following along, I'm big on three things: quilts, criminal justice reform, and meaningful voting rights, not necessarily in that order. I thought at least two of those three things were fundamental tenets of the Democratic Party. It seems Clinton disagrees with me.

Threadtastic!

Back at IQF/Chicago I took another fantabulous class with Sue Nickels. The class was about how to make a scalloped edge to finish a quilt (which is described in her book Stitched Raw Edge Appliqué). My first class with Sue Nickels was on machine quilting at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show. During that class she offered her collection of Superior Threads for sale. At the time I wasn't sure how into machine quilting I'd be (if you recall that was when my non-Bernina sewing machine up and died) and whether her threads were really the best threads for what I wanted to do.

After that class I took three more machine quilting classes. In every class every teacher stressed the importance of thread. And in every class every teacher recommended, among a few others, Superior Extra-Long Staple Egyptian Cotton Thread, and at least two of them mentioned Sue Nickels' collection by name. Sue Nickels' thread collection is Superior King Tut Extra-Long Staple Egyptian Cotton 40 weight (i.e., slightly heavier than what you'd think of as standard thread which is usually 50 weight), 3-ply thread.
And it comes in these neat tone-on-tone variegated colors which change color every inch, as opposed to some variegated thread which has longer color changes, which can make one area of quilting look way darker than another as opposed to giving the whole quilted area a sense of dimension and depth. So when I went to her class at IQF/Chicago, I bought her thread collection. Unfortunately she was all out of them at the show. So I received them in the mail today. I've got one baby quilt all basted and ready to quilt after my Bernina Mastery class covers how to use my Bernina Stitch Regulator tomorrow at Shiisa Quilts. I'll follow up with a full report.

Field Trips in Fiber is Made of Awesome

Many moons ago one of the quilty blogs I regularly read referred to another quilty blog: Field Trips in Fiber. I read through the older posts and immediately bookmarked it. It's written by a woman in Virginia who quilts, dyes, and does surface embellishment. Nine times out of ten she posts about those topics and when she doesn't it's gorgeous pictures, lately of the birds who nest in her yard. (I love that one of my criteria for a good blog is staying on topic for the most part . . . guess we don't fit my own criteria very well). Also, I haven't found another craft blogger who shares Consumer Reports-esque product/technique tests like Vicki does (e.g., she performed an in-depth analysis of curing fabric paint).

Well, I was out of town for most of last week so I had to catch up on all of the blogs that I normally check daily on Friday and Saturday (it's a lot of blogs, and I'd missed a weeks worth of posts). I came across a post offering a give away at Field Trips in Fiber. I looked at those boxes and thought about some of the boxes I've received from online quilt shops and thought, "These folks are guessing way too low." So I left a comment with a guess. I don't know how I feel about my first comment on her blog being a comment for a give away. I'd like to say I have insightful things to share about her posts every day. I certainly get inspired every day. She shares so much great knowledge and experience I guess as a novice I don't feel I have much to add (e.g., her curing time tests for fabric dye). And she explains things so clearly I don't have any questions (e.g., her fabric dyeing gradient test).

Long story longer, I got an email and check out today's post at Field Trips in Fiber. I won!