http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog Just another WordPress weblog Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:13:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en My taxes since moving to MD are much higher than the other places I've lived. I knew this ahead of time. What I expected in return, though, is more services. Instead, I have have FEWER services that I'm used to any other place I've lived! Utilities -Electricity is deregulated ... http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1034 TIME's "Curious Capitalist" blog recently had an article about using median hourly wages to gauge the economic status of the US (as opposed to focusing on the rising minimum wage). The median hourly wage, for hourly workers, is $11.95 an hour. This is made into a Big Deal ... http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1023 Blocks of apartment complexes tower five stories and more over streets so crowded that delivery vehicles are allowed only at night. The walls are scribbled with graffiti, and people jostle in and out of bars and restaurants as people settle down to eat or clamor for takeout. Property ... http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1067 If you saw the latest "Lie To Me," the firefighters are tested for implicit racism to see who killed one of them. You can take the test here. My score was: "Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between African American and European American." Yeah, but if they reported the FULL ... http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1069 Courtesy of Inventor Spot. Oh, yeah. http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1010 Stinkerbell's name is now almost always Stinky, and I think this one is going to stick because not only is she, well, stinky a lot of the time, but she's also a total stinker, too. Inquisitive, pigheaded, temperamental, charming, engaging, and ridiculously cute--that's my girl! She spent quite a while ... http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1066 I have to say just how incredibly proud of the Bear I am. He's just turned six, and except for bad days, he is so exceptionally mature for his age. I was born an "old soul," but he's a kid's kid, so it's easy for me, from my ... http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1065 I'd assumed that most of them were either killed fighting the Normans or got turned into peasantry when their lands were overtaken. Turns out that more than 5,000 Anglo-Saxons and Danes--elites and their men--fled England in 1088 alone for Byzantium. There, they settled around the Black Sea or ... http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1064 If I've been talking more about Roman history than I usually do, that's because I'm constantly being reminded of it recently--in bad ways. The stimulus package reminds me uncomfortably of the standard response of Roman Emperors to bad economic times--that is, to invent money. (They devalued the currency. ... http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1063 Current (or semi-current) issues always make me think about their parallels in history. Immigration is one of them. One of the more interesting areas of study in ancient history is trying to understand the so-called barbarian invasions of Rome more fully. (They weren't called "barbarian invasions" as a recognized ... http://www.lydiajoyce.com/blog/?p=1062