dropping in for like two seconds

am in paisley at the World Women's Curling Championships.  internet access v.v.v. expensive at hotel.  was directed to internet cafe by fellow-guest-and-curling-fan.  about to head back to ice for tiebreaker btw norway and russia.  remind me to tell you about various teams' cheers.  everyone seems to say "yes" when they want sweepers to sweep, apart from the russians, and everyone including the russians says "whoa" to make them stop.

more later.  possibly not until tomorrow.  love and miss everyone!  MWAH!

in which fox has a couple of things to say about terri schiavo

1.  the subject came up at dinner the other night; my parents have living wills, and my mother the law student pointed out that if i write such a thing in my own hand and sign it, it doesn't need to be witnessed or anything.  will probably do this soonish.  (pursuant on the fact that i had this conversation with my parents, in fact the three most important words in this whole mess are -- not "right to die", no, but -- next of kin.)

2.  here is mr. e. j. dionne, jr. on the big picture:

People who lack access to health care because they can't afford insurance often die earlier than they have to -- with absolutely no national publicity and with no members of Congress rising up at midnight to pass bills on their behalf.  What is the point of standing up for life in an individual case but not confronting the cost of choosing life for all who are threatened within the health care system or by their lack of access to it?

i am not unsympathetic to the positions of any of the parties to the schiavo thing, but i'm pretty unsympathetic to the lawyers (on both sides) and to the congress and the president, and i think dionne hit it on the head.

more curling

Russia (h)			1				1	X	X	X
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Norway	2			5	1	2		X	X	X

this morning, the games were:
D -- sweden-denmark.  sweden won; denmark couldn't get it together, but i was far away from that sheet and wasn't really watching.  the danish girls did yell "yes" for sweeping and "whoa" to stop.  (i'm aware that the danish for "yes" is something not unlike ja, but there was definitely an s at the end of what they were calling.)
C -- japan-finland.  12-1 or something after six ends; finland could get it even less together than denmark.  all four of the finns' names ended in -en.  parenthetically, since the people from finland are called finns, why isn't the place called finnland?
B -- scotland-russia.  a good game, which scotland won, forcing russia to a tiebreak with norway; if russia had won, they'd have gone straight through to the semis and both scotland and norway would have been out.  but the scottish girls deserved to win, being how they were playing better.
A -- china-switzerland.  i was right in amongst the fans of china, switzerland, and russia, and let me tell you, these are three crowds that (a) know how to yell, and (b) do it at three different pitches.  interestingly, i heard the chinese (players and fans) say "yes!  hard!" and the swiss (players) say "hurry!"  i do not make this stuff up.  china won this game; they were trading single points for a while until china took four in a late end and then ran switzerland out of rocks in the tenth.  there was one vice rock where the vice and the skip disagreed on the sweep call, and were both literally jumping up and down in frustration with each other.  (the sweepers listened to the skip, who was right, as it happened.)

this evening, i have the semifinals of the senior men's and also, i believe, the senior women's.  curling yay!