38 strokes

Slowly

I asked some students what things they did slowly -- it was an exercise in using adverbs.  One student told me she wrote her name slowly because her parents had given her name that was complicated to write.  How many characters in your name?  I asked.  She told me thirty eight.

Writing my full name (Andis Kaulins) takes, by my calculations, 17 strokes.  I don't even think Tony's long name (Anthony Arnis Peng Kaulins) has that many strokes.

Fort Hood Massacre

What to make of the Fort Hood incident?  What I have heard about it so far begs a lot of questions, so there really isn't much I can say except I hope the victims R.I.P.  America's military is a force for good in the world and so they died for a good cause.

The incident was on the bus video this morning.

I found out about it when I was checking my email late Friday evening.  The Globe and Mail, a left wing Canadian newspaper, said a man of middle-eastern descent did it.

I saw the incident had made the front page of the newspapers here.