Caturday Heroines

Posted: June 30, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , | 30 Comments

1950’s Jean Patchett

Morning, news junkies! Okay so not a cat picture, but Jean Patchett qualifies as pretty darn feline in my books… heh. Also, I can’t get this pic to post because it’s copyrighted, but here’s a photo of Hemingway and Patchett in tow with kitties.

Well that’s it in the way of an intro for today. Let’s get right to the links.

First up… by now I’m sure you’ve all read quite a few of the “Hillary makes history” items in the headlines lately, so I won’t reinvent that news wheel. But, in case you missed it…here’s a neat profile on Hillary Rodham Clinton at makers.com, entitled “The Lesson of ‘Hillarycare'”. Includes several video interview clips of Hillary reflecting on her life. Snippet from the write-up:

Wellesley College seniors had never before chosen a commencement speaker from their own ranks when Hillary Rodham stepped to the podium on the last day of May in 1969. Education, she said, must grant “the courage to be whole” and permit people to live “in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence.” The speech received national attention and marked Rodham as a leading light for the young women of her generation.

By now, it’s safe to say that the early promise has been borne out; had Hillary Rodham Clinton “merely” attended Yale Law, served on the staff of the Senate Watergate Committee, become a respected children’s rights advocate, been the first female partner at her law firm, been a mother, and served as First Lady of Arkansas, we would think of her as a leader. And yet she has by now spent two additional decades at the very heart of the national consciousness—as a sometimes-embattled First Lady, as a distinguished senator from New York, as a groundbreaking 2008 Presidential candidate, and now as the 67th Secretary of State. Clinton has outlasted the smears to top Gallup’s “most admired woman in America” a record 16 times since 1993. “The courage to be whole,” indeed.

Next, from the New Yorker’s Amy Davidson… Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Hero:

I am glad that John Roberts, the Chief Justice, voted to uphold almost all of the Affordable Care Act. But the stance of humble gratitude toward Roberts that’s been assumed by many in the past day is beginning to be a bit much. This is especially true since the real hero of the day is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

On the front page of the late edition of the Times Friday morning, there were four stories on the Supreme Court decision. One talked about Roberts’s “exquisite delicacy,” and how he “considers himself the custodian of the Supreme Court’s prestige, authority and legitimacy.” Ginsburg’s name didn’t appear before the jump in any of them; she only ever appeared in one, seventeen paragraphs in. Her picture and surname were in the infographic—all the Justices were there. There were four pull-quotes: two from Roberts, and two from the joint dissent from Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy.

And yet Ginsburg wrote what would have been the dissent—and a strong one—if Roberts had voted with the four conservatives to throw out the entire health-care law.

Read the rest. It’s worth the click and it’s news you won’t find out from the Dewey Defeats Truman newsrooms of America!

Historiann on Nora Ephron…. I highly recommend clicking on the first link in her post, which I’ve linked here too for your convenience:

Now I will really miss her.

From the New York Times obit:

The producer Scott Rudin recalled that less than two weeks before her death, he had a long phone session with her from the hospital while she was undergoing treatment, going over notes for a pilot she was writing for a TV series about a bank compliance officer. Afterward she told him, “If I could just get a hairdresser in here, we could have a meeting.”

Ms. Ephron’s collection “I Remember Nothing” concludes with two lists, one of things she says she won’t miss and one of things she will. Among the “won’t miss” items are dry skin, Clarence Thomas, the sound of the vacuum cleaner, and panels on “Women in Film.” The other list, of the things she will miss, begins with “my kids” and “Nick” and ends this way:

“Taking a bath

Coming over the bridge to Manhattan

Pie.”

And, on that note. I’m gonna go draw a nice soothing bath and bake something yummy this Saturday. You know what to do in the comments, Sky Dancers… Have a lovely weekend!

TBIF Reads

Posted: June 29, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable Care Act (ACA), Hillary Clinton, morning reads | Tags: , , , , , | 67 Comments

Good Morning!!

Here’s some reads to get you started today!

Hillary Clinton was asked about the SCOTUS ruling yesterday in St. Petersburg, Russia.  She said she was “obviously quite excited”.

“I haven’t had a chance to read the decision. I literally just heard as we landed that the Supreme Court has upheld the healthcare law. Obviously I want to get into the details, but I’m very pleased. That’s how I hoped it would turn out,” Clinton said in video posted by PSB’s “NewsHour” and reported by Agence France Presse.

The high court ruled to uphold the healthcare law in 5-4 decision that prompted calls for repeal from Republicans and daylong praise by Democrats.

“I think it’s a great moment to just think about what this will mean for the millions and millions of Americans who have already benefited from the Affordable Care Act and some many more who will continue to do so,” Clinton added.

She noted that although there is still a lot of work to do implementing the healthcare law, she was “obviously quite exited to hear the results.”

Most right-wing hacks responded in their normal over-the top way.  Rush Limbaugh–why is he still relevant?–said that SCOTUS was a “death panel”.   The Aqua Buddha doesn’t understand the role of the Supreme Court in the constitution.  He said that just because SCOTUS says it’s constitutional doesn’t mean it is constitutional.   Representative “Mean Jean” Schmidt gives all women a bad name with this show of hysteria.  (Let’s not even mention Quitterella or “I married a closet case” Michelle Bachmann.)  Let’s just say the Teabots are on a rampage.

I’m sure we will find more realistic assessments of the ruling in a few days when constitutional law scholars sift through the thing.

Nobel Prize winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz is out on the interview circuit in support of his new book.   Here’s an interesting interview with Stiglitz on the terrible consequences of income inequality.

One of the myths that I try to destroy is the myth that if we do anything about inequality it will weaken our economy. And that’s why the title of my book is The Price of Inequality. What I argue is that if we did attack these sources of inequality, we would actually have a stronger economy. We’re paying a high price for this inequality. Now, one of the mischaracterizations of those of us who want a more equal or fairer society, is that we’re in favor of total equality, and that would mean that there would be no incentives. That’s not the issue. The question is whether we could ameliorate some of the inequality — reduce some of the inequality by, for instance, curtailing monopoly power, curtailing predatory lending, curtailing abusive credit card practices, curtailing the abuses of CEO pay. All of those kinds of things, what I generically call “rent seeking,” are things that distort and destroy our economy.

So in fact, part of the problem of low taxes at the top is that since so much of the income at the very top is a result of rent seeking, when we lower the taxes, we’re effectively lowering the taxes on rent seeking, and we’re encouraging rent-seeking activities. When we have special provisions for capital gains that allow speculations to be taxed at a lower rate than people who work for a living, we encourage speculation. So that if you look at the design bit of our tax structure, it does create incentives for doing the wrong thing.

Basically this means that lowering taxes for the hyper-rich doesn’t create jobs.  It creates gambling and influence peddling.

Here’s “Eight Great Lines Written by the Late Nora Ephron” from truthdig.

Even people who don’t like Nora Ephron movies have to concede that she broadened things for women, both the female professionals following in her wake and the female audience members soaking in her stories. She was no bleeding-edge feminist, but in a culture that produces one vapid Prince Charming chick flick after another, Ephron generally focused on characters—Julia Child among them—who had their own force of personality, their own reasons for being.

Truthdig contributor Carrie Rickey remembers on her own blog eight of her favorite Ephron lines. Here are three:

“When your children are teenagers it’s important to have a dog so someone in the house is happy to see you when you get home.” — from the book “I Feel Bad About My Neck”

“Harry, you have to find a way of not expressing every feeling you have, every moment you have them.” — spoken by Meg Ryan in “When Harry Met Sally … ”

“She makes coffee nervous” — spoken by Tom Hanks (of Parker Posey) in “You’ve Got Mail”

I guess I’m going multimedia these days.  I have another Youtube for you.  This one is kinda kewl.  It’s on “mathematics made visible and the art of M.C. Escher. Who hasn’t had at least one of his posters hanging on your dorm or bedroom wall as a kid?

His cool, analytic tendency was apparent from the start. “Maurits Escher is a good graphic artist,” wrote the headmaster of the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts in 1922, the year of Escher’s graduation, “but he lacks the right artistic temperament. His work is to too cerebral–neither emotional nor lyrical enough.” Escher’s work became even more cerebral over time, as it grew in geometric sophistication.

There’s a great 1 hour long documentary available too.  Follow the link above when you have the time.  It’s well worth it.

I also recommend that you read the FT and “A manifesto for economic sense” by Paul Krugman and Richard Layard.

As a result of their mistaken ideas, many western policy makers are inflicting massive suffering on their peoples. But the ideas they espouse about how to handle recessions were rejected by nearly all economists after the disasters of the 1930s. It is tragic that in recent years the old ideas have again taken root.

The best policies will differ between countries and will require debate. But they must be based on a correct analysis of the problem. We therefore urge all economists and others who agree with the broad thrust of this manifesto for economic sense to register their agreement online and to publicly argue the case for a sounder approach. The whole world suffers when men and women are silent about what they know is wrong.

Here’s an interesting archaeological find from the UK. A woman and a cow were found buried together in Cambridgeshire.

The grave was uncovered in Oakington by students from Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Central Lancashire.

At first it was thought the animal skeleton was a horse.

Student Jake Nuttall said: “Male warriors might be buried with horses, but a woman and a cow is new to us.”

He added: “We were excited when we thought we had a horse, but realising it was a cow made it even more bizarre.”

Co-director of the excavation, Dr Duncan Sayer, from the University of Central Lancashire, said: “Animal burials are extremely rare, anyway.

Skeleton of a woman found in Anglo-Saxon grave Grave goods including brooches indicated the woman was of high status

“There are only 31 horse burials in Britain and they are all with men.

“This is the first animal to be discovered with a woman from this period – the late 5th Century – and it’s really interesting that it’s a cow, a symbol of economic and domestic wealth and power.

“It’s also incredibly early to find any grave of a woman buried with such obvious wealth.”

One more totally bizarre dig story.  I know.  I wanted to be an archaeologist as a kid. I’m still fascinated with it all. This one is from Philadelphia: “How Thousands of Headstones Ended Up Under a Philadelphia Bridge”.  Go look at the pictures.  They are very haunting and macabre.

The Betsy Ross Bridge in Philadelphia seems like any other. It doesn’t have the grace of the Golden Gate or the history of the Brooklyn Bridge, nor does it draw any acolytes wanting to make the trek across. The structure exists primarily to move people, and this it does well, helping connect Pennsylvania to New Jersey. Most commuters, however, are surely unaware of what the bridge’s foundation is actually built on: a cemetery.

The bridge springs from the headstones of a forsaken graveyard, dumped unceremoniously into the Delaware River. The sunken stones at the base of the bridge came from Monument Cemetery, once located two miles from City Hall. Monument Cemetery, established in 1839, was the second Victorian garden style cemetery in Philadelphia, after Laurel Hill, now a protected historic landmark. Monument was modeled after the Pere Lachaise in Paris, and was created to function both as a final resting place for the dead as well as a green respite from the surrounding urban environment.

That’s my offerings today!  Thank Buddha it’s Friday!  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Novelist, Screenwriter, and Humorist Nora Ephron has Died

Posted: June 26, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , | 13 Comments

This is very sad news.

Nora Ephron, who gained a devoted following for her perceptive, deeply personal essays and parlayed that renown into a screenwriting career of wistful romantic comedies such as “When Harry Met Sally” and “You’ve Got Mail,” the marital exposé “Heartburn” and the whistleblower drama “Silkwood,” died June 26 at a hospital in New York. She was 71.

The death was confirmed by her friend Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist. She died of complications from the blood disorder myelodysplasia, with which she was diagnosed six years ago.

As a young woman, Ms. Ephron modeled her self-deprecating and deadpan writing style on Dorothy Parker, part of the Algonquin Round Table of sophisticated New York writers and humorists that also included Robert Benchley and S.J. Perelman. Of the philandering husband in her 1983 novel “Heartburn” — modeled on her marriage to former Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein — Ms. Ephron wrote he was “capable of having sex with a Venetian blind.”

In time, Ms. Ephron became a social confederate of New York playwrights, filmmakers and wits, including Mike Nichols, Woody Allen and Calvin Trillin; Washington journalists including former Post executive editor Benjamin Bradlee and his journalist wife, Sally Quinn; and a Hollywood coterie that included Rob Reiner, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin and Steven Spielberg.

The New York Times calls her a “woman of letters.”

She was a journalist, a blogger, an essayist, a novelist, a playwright, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a movie director — a rarity in a film industry whose directorial ranks were and continue to be dominated by men. More box-office success arrived with “You’ve Got Mail” and “Julie & Julia.” By the end of her life, though remaining remarkably youthful looking, she had even become something of a philosopher about age and its indignities.

“Why do people write books that say it’s better to be older than to be younger?” she wrote in “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” her 2006 best-selling collection of essays. “It’s not better. Even if you have all your marbles, you’re constantly reaching for the name of the person you met the day before yesterday.”

Nora Ephron was born on May 19, 1941, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the eldest of four sisters, all of whom became writers. That was no surprise; writing was the family business. Her father, Henry, and her mother, the former Phoebe Wolkind, were Hollywood screenwriters who wrote, among other films, “Carousel,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Captain Newman, M.D.”

“Everything is copy,” her mother once said, and she and her husband proved it by turning the college-age Nora into a character in a play, later a movie, “Take Her, She’s Mine.” The lesson was not lost on Ms. Ephron, who seldom wrote about her children but could make sparkling copy out of almost anything else: the wrinkles on her neck, her apartment, cabbage strudel, Teflon pans and the tastelessness of egg-white omelets.

Ephron married three times.

Ephron’s first marriage, to writer Dan Greenburg, ended after nine years. In 1976 she married Bernstein, who along with Bob Woodward had broken the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post a few years earlier. “Heartburn,” her 1996 novel, found humor in the ruins of her marriage to Bernstein, who, she said, had an affair while she was pregnant with their second son. The Bernstein-based character was played by Jack Nicholson, the Ephron-based character by Meryl Streep, in the 1986 film version.

Streep had also starred three years earlier in the Mike Nichols-directed “Silkwood,” a drama based on the real-life story of a labor organizer at a nuclear-processing plant whose whistle-blowing was abruptly ended when she died in a car accident.

Ephron’s third marriage was to journalist Nicholas Pileggi, who adapted his 1985 book “Wiseguy” into the movie “Goodfellas” (1990), directed by Martin Scorsese.

Pileggi survives her, as do her two sons from her marriage to Bernstein, Max and Jacob.

I loved Ephron’s humorous essays, and her novel Heartburn was absolutely hilarious. I had no idea she was the model for the Sandra Dee role in Take Her, She’s Mine–a romantic comedy starring Jimmy Stewart as the worried father of an attractive teenager. I wasn’t wild about some of Ephron’s sappy movies like You’ve Got Mail, but Silkwood is one of my all-time favorites. As an aside, I don’t think most people really believe Karen Silkwood’s “accident” was anything other than murder.

Rest in peace, Nora. You’ve left us far too soon.