It’s Furious Balancing

I was surfing the Innernets this morning, reading the news and minding my own business, when an article in Slate started an avalanche in my Wee Little Brain.  I don’t think I’m capable of crafting an honest-to-God blog post out of this yet, but I thought I could amuse someone out there with my notes on my train of thought.  My utterly derailed Train of Thought.

I did go back over this inchoate list of notes to make it look somewhat formatted, and I added in my links.  It’s not all off the cuff.  Hopefully, there is a gram of sense in it.  Somewhere.  All I know is that I need to go back to my World War II/German history books and do a lot of re-reading.

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Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
– George Santayana

William L. Shirer made these words the epigraph for his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959).

Note that I should finish Rise and Fall, former bedtime reading, having only made it up to the Anschluss.  I would read two pages before falling asleep, worry of breaking nose from hardcover book.

Don’t Ignore the Tea Party’s Toxic Take on History, Slate article by Ron Rosenbaum.

Tea Party movement = Ignorance of History.  Ignorance of meaning of the words socialism, Nazism, Communism, etc.

Rosenbaum is the author of Explaining Hitler, which is not a Hitler apologia apologist (determine noun, an historical apologist writes what?  Apologies, certainly, but there must be a better word, based on root apolog-.) My reading of that and of personal narratives of German citizens during the Hitler years has been met with unspoken condescension — usually from people unable to cope with anything that actually requires them to think about what they read.

These books are not a glorification or a rationalization of Hitler or of Nazi Germany, but stem from a need to understand; and I read them due to my own German descent and my interest in the complicated nature of human evil and in the lack of black/white dichotomies.

My fascination with shades of gray in the human psyche, how easy it is to push someone from sanity/rationality over the edge.  Incremental and unnoticed for the most part.  Similar to ease of losing humanity under extreme duress [lack of food, example of Primo Levi (?) -- or was it Elie Weisel (?) --in Auschwitz listening to father's death rattle in hopes of getting his stuff.  Boots?  Blanket?]; or not [1950's or 1960's psychological research study at U.S. college of prisoners vs. wardens - find link The Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971].

If it is that simple — simple as in “not complicated,” not “easy” — to become inhuman to others, how simple is it to manipulate the narrative to merely plant the seeds of a social movement that takes us backwards towards intolerance, racism, xenophobia, and worse.  A spiral into madness.

Weimar Republic, social history.  Analogous to today?  Tea Party, by their inability to understand history, is becoming a tool to lead us into a repeat of that not-understood history.

doxy (n) , pl. doxies.   1.  Floozy, prostitute.  2.  Mistress.  Etymology: perhaps modification of obsolete Dutch docke doll, from Middle Dutch.

I must admit that the socks from my prior post have been cast by the wayside like a used Kleenex.  I worked about 4 to 5 inches on the leg when I discovered that the yarn wasn’t up to my standards.  Oh, it had lovely stitch definition and was very soft, but the dye job was sloppy.  I encountered more than a few white spots where the dye didn’t take, or something.  If it was a less intense colorway, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but…   Life is too short to knit with substandard yarn.

I started another pair with the leftover Wollmeise I had from the Isadora Duncan Scarf.  Considering that the scarf used only 1/3 of the skein, I figured I could get a pair of socks out of the remainder.  The Wollmeise is far superior to the other stuff, let me tell you, but it does seem to attract more than the usual amount of cat hair.

The pattern, Hermione’s Everyday Socks, is easy to memorize; the texture is a mixture of knit and purl stitches only.

The Wollmeise socks are making me quite happy, but there are other sock projects preying upon my mind.  I’ve been working off and on on a pair of socks for Teh Husband, and I’m itching to start on a Stealth Sock Project that I want to finish by mid-August.  Teh Husband’s socks are a not-tremendously-exciting semi-solid gray, but the Stealth Socks will be Opal Sockenwolle self-striping goodness.

That’s sport weight sock yarn, mind you, and should knit up in no time at all.  I’ve promised myself not to cast on for them until the first Wollmeise sock is done.  Maybe.

I’ve been making all sorts of bargains with myself about what is a “normal” number of pairs of knitted socks to have in progress at the same time.  Three?  That could be pushing it a little.  I’m such a tramp.

1.  To those of you asking the question, “How much longer can Laiane put off finishing her taxes?” Not much longer.  In fact, about a week.  Maybe.  The thing that bogs me down every year is getting all the charitable deductions tallied up and documented.  Maybe I would be more motivated if we were getting money back, but that isn’t the case.  I have an issue with giving the government interest-free loans.

2.  I like to think that I could find common ground, or at least a conversational topic, with just about anyone, even with The Ultimate Source of Evil in the Universe.  You may refer to him as Dick Cheney.  What could we discuss?  How to shoot someone in the face and make it look like an accident. Then I thought about Sarah Palin, and I drew a complete blank.  Then I thought about what my Gramma Fran would have to say about Mrs. Palin, and I got completely derailed.

3.  I announced on Facebook, but didn’t announce here on Teh Blog, that I have finally paid off all my credit card debt.  It took about 2 years, all told.  Time to start that Emergency Fund that  you’re supposed to have, according to all the financial advisor types.  The problem is, my Emergency Fund is titled Laiane’s Emergency Fund To Get Her Butt to Europe When She Can No Longer Cope with the Lack of Substance in the United States.

4.  Look!  Another sock!

Eventually I’ll feel inclined to write longer paragraphs, or maybe I’ll just go back to posting LOLCats.

Big doesn’t necessarily mean better. Sunflowers aren’t better than violets. — Edna Ferber

I am particularly taken with sock knitting. Socks are practical, beautiful, and endlessly entertaining by their variety. Sock knitting is also very portable and easily stashed in a purse.  I can’t say the same for a sweater.

I’m a top-down, heel flap, DPN kind of sock knitter, which I strangely believe is “more traditional” even though there is a tradition of toe-up sock knitting in Eastern Europe. Or at least I think Eastern Europe is one of several places with a history of toe-up socks, and perhaps the Levantine. I’m a knitter, not a knitting historian.  /shrug

I intend to learn how to knit toe-up socks.  Eventually. I also intend to learn conversational French and Latin ballroom dancing, so there you go.

When I almost-finished the brown alpaca cardigan, I was looking about for an easy, soothing knitting project.   I decided that some German self-striping sock yarn and a k3p1 rib was the way to go.

Pattern: Sock Recipe: A Good Plain Sock in Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s Knitting Rules.   Not truly a pattern, but guidelines for knitting a sock with any yarn, any gauge, and any needle.  I worked k1p1 ribbing for about an inch, then switched to k3p1 ribbing.  Standard slip stitch heel and basic toe.

Yarn: Meilenweit Magdalena Neuner from Lana Grossa, color 8331.

Needles: US size 1 and 0.  I switched to the smaller needles about an inch before the heel flap to customize the fit.

Size: Small-ish.  Made for a person with gargantuan calves and dainty size 6½ feet.

Mods: I shortened the number of rows in the heel flap by 10-15% since I have “short” heels.

They fit perfectly and, more importantly, Emma approves.