I'm curious...

Because I never understood this.

What's the big deal about national id card = evil? Why do people think that? How is it different from combining a state ID and a social security card? Don't many countries in Europe have a national ID (I don't know, actually...)?

More about my quest to teach Sethy some simple signs...

Honestly, I don't know why I bothered searching for resources, it's not like we want him to be fluent, we could just make this stuff up. All we want is for him to have a way to communicate until he's more willing to speak with us.

But anyway! I found something interesting, namely British Sign Language's alphabet. Wow. Very different from the ASL version - mostly in that almost all the letters seem to be two handed, while ASL, as far as I know, uses one handed letters.

Still, was cool. I was duly impressed at the differences.

Ooh, I just remembered!

I should've mentioned this in my sociolinguistics class, and the professor won't be back until MONDAY...

We were talking about (among other things) backchannel support (saying stuff like "yeah" or "uh-huh" in a conversation) and I forgot all about it, people learn that early. Ana's been able to hold her own in a conversation for months now, all on the strength of yeah-nod-smile.

Well. Maybe he won't care to hear that. It's not that interesting unless you've got THE smartest niece and nephew in the world, after all :)

(no subject)

As a maternity social worker at a Catholic hospital, I work with low-to-middle-income mothers, mostly working, who are struggling with an unplanned pregnancy. Programs like Section 8 housing, food stamps and subsidized day care convince many of our moms that they can continue their pregnancies and still manage a decent life.

The Bush administration has tried to weaken all of these, while calling itself pro-life. It argues that adoption is the answer for unwanted pregnancies. But when a poor mom sees her baby for the first time, she loves it no less than a wealthy mom. Why should these mothers be told that adoption is the only option, while well-to-do mothers can easily keep their babies?

John Kerry is the true pro-life candidate. Affordable housing, day care and health insurance will prevent many more abortions than the punitive policies of the Bush administration.

Sometimes, I just love the letters in the Times.