Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 92

*Must Be Nice

The ex-president (that's right ex, former, past) of York University, Lorna Marsden, earned just under $395,000 from the university last year. Please understand that wasn't while she was president, but in her "job" as ex-president. She earned $410,000 in the same scam capacity the year before. She was a President Emerita (what they call ex's). Well, it's the business model. These are tough times. A third of a million bucks is well worth it for a has-been university president, especially when y...

Monday June 7/10

Friendship:

Les Inséparables, Yoko & Bambou / Cat and dog, originally uploaded by yokviv.


Filed under: A Monday Moment, Art & Photography Tagged: cat and dog

Monday June 7/10

Les Inséparables, Yoko & Bambou / Cat and dog, originally uploaded by yokviv.


Filed under: Uncategorized

*The Golden Mean

The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon is terrific. I'll start with that and recommend that you go out and buy it.

This is a novel about Aristotle before he became Aristotle. He isn't a young man when the book begins. He is 37 years old and is inspecting his wife's vulva and vagina out of intellectual curiosity. His curiosity is great and he covets knowledge of all things.

The story follows his experiences for the next 7 years or so, while he is the tutor of Alexander the Great before he became the ...

*Leviticus, Homosexuality, Dr. Laura, and the Fields

"Dr." (of nothing) Laura Schlesinger is noted for her anti-gay sentiments. At some point she was an Orthodox Jew, and the statement circulated that she had said that as homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, it cannot be condoned under any circumstance. Whether or not she actually ever said those words (see Snopes), they express her position and that of a number of other people of faith who take that particular page of the bible to heart. Consequently, the following...

*Oil

It isn't that I don't care about the oil spill in the gulf–it's that I have been finding it too appalling and scary to write about. Maybe if it goes on long enough, we'll start realizing that something has to change and it has to change on a regulation and policy level. I hope it will be substantive and not just window dressing. Individual action is important but it isn't enough. We need institutional changes to reduce energy use. It's going to come one way or another, either in the manner...

*The Best Diseases

Doctors think heart attacks are hot, and fibromyalgia is lame; colon cancer rates better than ovarian cancer; and let's not even talk about a hernia. Among medical specialties, neurosurgery and thoracic surgery were seen as tops, while geriatrics and dermatovenerology (skin things to do with std's) were at the bottom. These are the results of a study recently conducted in Norway.

D. Album and S. Westin of the University of Oslo surveyed senior doctors, GP's, and medical students, asking them ...

Monday May 31/10

Dialogue:

friends 4ever…♫ well, don'cha?^o^ palm cockatoo from bali bird park ♫, originally uploaded by bocavermelha-l.b..


Filed under: A Monday Moment, Art & Photography Tagged: nature photography, palm cockatoo

Monday May 31/10

friends 4ever…♫ well, don'cha?^o^ palm cockatoo from bali bird park ♫, originally uploaded by bocavermelha-l.b..


Filed under: Uncategorized

*Tick Bites

One of my children got a tick bite this week right here in the city–just walking in a ravine. If I didn't have a friend who had tried to get a Lyme's diagnosis, I wouldn't ever have given my daughters' rash a thought. I'd have just tossed it off as one of those weird skin things that come up all the time. Kids get rashes. But I know better and I want everyone else to know better, too.

My d complained of an itch and a sting, but it didn't look out of the ordinary at first. The morning after...