Quintessence

After a couple of less than perfect days I wasn't really sure if I was up for this week's journey down to my grad class. But, since Frank Moe (Minnesota House 4A candidate and all around good guy) was going down anyway I decided that even if my energy level went way down hill I could still be a passenger. It is always an enjoyable and stimulating cruise with Frank -- solving the world's problems and plotting strategy -- and sometimes we manage to stay on speaking terms all the way down! I am again staying with Jack, Cindy, and Rebecca and am writing this on Cindy and Rebecca's MacIntosh (I'd forgotten how quirky and strange Macs can feel to a Windows user -- or Windows victim depending on perspective).

I am so glad I made it to class. Tonight's session was especially interesting and really helped with the conceptual foundations of my dissertation. A big part of my work is descriptive and quantitative and I really want to get deeper than that -- more toward qualitative subtleties and nuance. Tonight's guest presenter Tim Lensmire, who like myself has been strongly influenced by Paolo Freire, led a provocative conversation about ethnographic research in the classroom that convinced me that such an approach can provide the as yet missing element in my dissertation. Thanks Tim!

On the home front our medical travails continue. James has been battling a nasty head and chest cold for the past few days and with my immune system about to bottom out we thought we should get on top of that so Lenore took him to the clinic first thing Monday morning. He has a tough time sleeping for more than a few hours at crack so that is cutting into our (actually mainly Lenore's) sleep as well. Hopefully he is over the worst of it and will be on the mend when I nadir. /dps

PS to previous post: I am not so naive as to believe that nitrates in the ground water caused my lymphoma in any direct sense -- but only that the correlation is very strong and that given the pervasiveness of nitrate pollution in ag areas and the emerging NHL epidemic we ought to be paying more attention to this matter. In Europe the safe level for nitrate in drinking water is regarded to be 4 ppm and there is even talk about further lowering that level. Here, under marked pressure from the ag chemical industry the current standard for public water supplies is 10 ppm; most private well aren't even tested. If you have a private well and live in an ag area, you may want to contact the Minnesota Department of Health to find out how to get your water tested (on the other hand, I suppose there is something to be said for blissful ignorance ;-)