Labor Day Links

In honor of labor day, I am going to be linking to other bloggers and posts that I think are relevant to what is going on in today's world (like Gustav, the Democratic convention last week, McCain's VP bomb) and just posts I thought might be of interest to readers of this blog.

Hopefully those of you reading this in the U.S. (where Labor Day is an official holiday) are enjoying a day of lazy respite from your normal work routine. Or if you are an academic type like myself, then perhaps you have a pile of reading on your desk that you hope to get through (a re-reading of Crevecoeur, a glimpse into Deleuze & Guattari, skimming over some racial melancholia, and for pleasure, my umpteenth re-reading of Persuasion for a grad seminar).

*I often feel like Tami of What Tami Said and I are separated at birth, sisters in the blogosphere. Her post "What we deserve (A Rant, I know)" summarizes much of how I feel about PUMAs (Party United My Ass), the splinter group formed out of disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters (whose numbers, I hope dropped radically after both Hillary's speech and McCain's announcement of Sarah Palin--more on that below). She wrote this before the roll call vote, which you can see in the post she wrote following the one above.

*Tenured Radical, a wonderful writer (and fine academic) has a great post that talks about the importance of Obama's acceptance speech, and is inspiring in its analysis of Obama and what he stands for as much as the actual speech itself. And she follows this up with two posts about McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his VP, asking "Is Sarah Palin Good for Women?" (and I know you might have a knee-jerk one-word response but take the time to read this post) and another on the conservative response to McCain's pick (click here).

*Another blog I like a lot, Poplicks, also has two posts about McCain's VP pick, Sarah Palin, with more links in their comments section to other sites dissecting the (il)logic/pandering/disastrousness of this selection. Miss AK-47 and this other post with an interesting comment thread by a PUMA member weighing in, Women: Putting the "Wild" in Wild Card, gives us a glimpse into what people (esp. liberal-progressive folks) are thinking about the choice of Sarah Palin (and yes, I'll be writing my own rant later in the week).

*Poplicks also has a post about the path of Gustav and the effect that this is having on the RNC and McCain--and speculating on the political opportunism of McCain delivering his acceptance speech in New Orleans in the wake of Gustav (sentiments that are echoed by Paul Krugman's Op-Ed in The New York Times).

*The LPGA recently issued a rule (should I add asinine?) that all players must be conversant in English to play on the tour--a ruling that seems to specifically target a single ethnic-national group: South Koreans. For more, see the Constructivist's take here, as well as my own length comment(s) and thoughts by Angry Asian Man here and here.

*Finally, for something to satisfy your appetites beyond the political, Land of the Not-So-Calm has posted a recipe for chop ch'ae, a Korean noodle dish that makes me salivate (and the photo she includes will make you salivate too). Her posting made me think that I should do some kind of recipe swap with readers/bloggers where we share tried and true meals with one another (because I'm always looking to expand my cooking repertoire).