The big day

Put the weight down, see what it feels like to walk unburdened

Any strength athlete can tell you that the best part of the farmer's walk is the feeling of lightness for the first few steps after you put the weight down.  Eight years is a long time to carry such a heavy load of stupidity and craziness.  Tomorrow, I will be at least two centimeters taller.  

We had a nice small party at our house in Leiden, I'm glad we did something to commemorate the moment.  

BHO is the first openly intellectual president since Wilson

OK, he's African-American, and yes, it's a big first.  I think that it is at least as improbable and more important in the long run that he is an uncloseted, openly-practicing, proud intellectual.  I really don't think we've seen that since Wilson.  Even FDR was not much of an intellectual.  Clinton was, but he hid it (perhaps wisely) behind the veneer of the Bubba persona.  Hoover might have been, but he was such a failure, nobody really wants to think about him.  So, I too feel like at last I have somebody who represents me in my little subgroup.  He's one of us, one of the academy.  The promised land indeed.

I hope the American people are reconnecting with the idea that important leadership positions should be held by well-qualified people.  You know, people who know stuff and like to think and reason and learn new things.  The incurious guy down the street with drug and alcohol induced neurological disorders impeding his language faculties, his gait, and his facial expressions might not be the preferred choice anymore.  

Word of the day

Overmorgen.  The day after tomorrow.  Most things in Dutch are longer to write or say than their English counterparts.  This is a nice exception.  One word for four.  Ik ga berijden mijn fiets morgen en overmorgen.  I am going to ride my bike tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.  

I think we should invent a new english word, overmorrow, to mean this.  Ethan reinvented a new english word himself recently: yesternight.  It's a real word already and he uses it correctly, but I really don't think he heard it anywhere, he just constructed it on the false assumption that language is rational.