pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOSTILE TAKEOVER Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks are full of one sentence, repeated again and again. Scholars believe that he wrote it whenever he was testing a newly cut pen:
That sentence summarizes how my work week is going. I am buried in obligations and last-minute projects and am typesetting a book right now because the designers are so slammed. And did I mention that we sold over 10,000 books for the second month straight? We need the revenue but lawsie a little break would be welcome! I get rusty when I haven't typeset for a while. Can't don't remember all of the keyboard shortcuts either, and anyone who knows me knows that I have to do everything as efficiently as possible. Am working on a book that should be at the printer by now, but the author doesn't understand the implications of inserting new sections in fifth proof. My director commitments are also burying me: Twenty-two hours of (mostly steering committee) meetings this week, one staff member out for two or more weeks because she has to have emergency surgery, another out handling a family crisis involving her elderly mother, and another out because of a death in the family, so the division is short staffed. Meanwhile, I've been thinking about this whole hostile takeover by Christian fundamentalists, who are attacking our democracy and judicial system. Politicians routinely pepper their sentences with references to liberal judges too, I guess in an attempt to turn our democracy into a theocracy. Or was that a plutocracy? There doesn't seem to be much difference anymore. In some ways, these fundamentalists remind me of objectivists, only they actually believe that an ethics of self-interest is divinely guided. Will write more on that in a bit, but must ponder this more next time I walk or zone out on the elliptical cross-trainer. Meanwhile, Filmgrrl and I are talking a lot. She's worried about me, but I told her that I am okay most of the time now. 7:36 p.m. - 2005-04-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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