Wednesday Reads: Have a pizza and a smile…or Ex Libris and the Sea.
Posted: February 19, 2014 Filed under: 2014 elections, abortion rights, Art, Barack Obama, Big Pharma, energy, Environment, Environmental Protection, fracking, GLBT Rights, History, homophobia, Human Rights, India, jobs, legislation, morning reads, nature, Psychopaths in charge, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, Russia, Tea Party activists, the GOP, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: Bill Cosby, Nuclear Power, Olympics, Sochi 2014, Vladimir Putin 43 Comments
Good Morning
This should be interesting, I am sitting here trying to write today’s post with a pounding sinus headache, while North by Northwest is on the telly.
If my brain is not fully functional because of the sinus…my fingers and my thoughts may be will be forced to wander off into the film as Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint travel by train across the country towards the monument carve out on the mountain, you know the one…with those big ugly men’s faces on it.
The thread will feature plenty of ex libris artwork from various time periods and artist and countries as found on Pinterest…so enjoy them.
I will start with this first link, a story that I found from a couple of weeks ago, perhaps you have seen it already: Barbara Bowman Speaks About Bill Cosby Sexual Abuse Allegations
Last week, Newsweek interviewed Tamara Green, one of 13 women who accused Bill Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them in a civil lawsuit brought by Andrea Constand in 2004, and settled under undisclosed terms in 2006. Now, a second woman is speaking out: Barbara Bowman, a 46-year-old artist who says Cosby took her under his wing in the late ‘80s, when she was a teenager — and repeatedly emotionally and physically abused her.
Both Bowman and Green joined the 2004 lawsuit as witnesses after hearing about it on television; neither had anything to gain financially, as the statute of limitations had expired for both of them.
Read the interview at the link, it is something else…then take a few minutes to peek at the comments. Oh they are all the usual shits you would expect, but I thought it was a very believable story.
Next up, some fun…I must tell you, a lot of today’s links are not “trending” news items. Y’all remember that article about how you say the word youse, you, you all, you guys and what was the other one? What We Mean When We Say Hello – Deborah Fallows – The Atlantic
The curious geography of American greetings
Last week I wrote about conversation starters that follow “Hello” and “How do you do.” Many dozens of you have
written in and generously included your comments and interpretations of what you think people actually mean when they say something like “Where do you live?” or “Where are you from?”
Here is what you’ve said so far:
Check it out, I would love to see what this article’s author would think of places like Tampa, that has an influx of different people…from all over.
With all the cold weather, it can suck ass…but look at what beautiful things it can bring: Ice caves in northern Wisconsin are dazzling winter phenomena
Explorers drawn to ice show
( Brian Peterson / Associated Press / February 2, 2014 )Mother Nature has become a Chihuly-like sculptress in sea caves along Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin. Icicles hang by the thousands in caves at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. In warmer weather, the caves would be accessible only by water, but during this consistently cold winter, they are accessible by frozen lakeshore.
Lots more pictures at the link.
More “neat” stuff to see: Geologists Glimpse a Heaven Below – NYTimes.com
Imagine the frustration faced for so many years by Eric W. Jordan and his colleagues. They could take a pretty good guess at what lay hundreds of feet beneath the macadam-sealed surface of New York City’s streets. They just had no way of knowing for sure.
But the last 10 years or so have been a boon to Mr. Jordan and his fellow geologists; mammoth subterranean excavations for the city’s Third Water Tunnel, the Second Avenue Subway and the Long Island Rail Road’s East Side Access Project have enabled them to see for themselves the rock formations and faults that they had only been able to imagine, undergirding Manhattan.
There is this amazing picture at that link, a massive space within one of the underground tunnels…shitfire! It does not look real but it is…
I’ve got another thing for you that is real, but seems surreal. Like a film that should have been directed by David Lynch, Inside the mind of a mass murderer, in drag – Amanpour – CNN.com Blogs
How do we know what is in the mind of a mass murderer? How about getting them to re-enact those crimes?
That is exactly what documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer did with several men who participated in mass killings in Indonesia decades ago.
“It’s tempting to look at them through the lens of sort of fiction storytelling, where you have good guys and bad guys, good guys and then cackling villains,” Oppenheimer told CNN’s Hala Gorani, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour, on Monday.
“When you’re a non-fiction filmmaker, you have to look at the real people you meet.”
Just look at this image from the movie:
To his surprise and horror, they were enthusiastic. They agreed to make a movie about how they killed and allowed him to film the process.
The result is a mind-bending movie within a documentary, by turns emotionally revolting, beautiful, and bizarre – one of the mass killers appears, as often as not, in drag. It is rarely entirely clear what is ‘acting’ and what is genuine.
Alright. Moving on.
While on the subject of film, here is a reminder. Watch Pygmalion (1939) – staring Leslie Howard on Sunday, February 23rd at 12:15 am EST. It is fantastic!
Decades before the 1964 musical My Fair Lady swept the Academy Awards®, the author of Pygmalion, the play on which it was based, became a most unlikely Oscar® winner for the original’s 1938 screen adaptation. Possibly the most intelligent person to win the award (he might have claimed to be the only intelligent man to do so), Shaw holds the distinction of being the only individual to win both an Academy Award® and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Given his disdain for the movies, particularly those adapted from his own plays, it’s a minor miracle the film even got made and turned out to be a brilliant adaptation.
[…]
The story of a phonetics professor (modeled on real-life phonetician Henry Sweet) who turns a Cockney flower girl into a lady by teaching her to speak properly touched a chord with audiences, who viewed it as one of the writer’s most romantic plays. It had already been filmed twice, in Germany in 1935 and in the Netherlands in 1937. Shaw had disliked those versions so much that when producer Gabriel Pascal first approached him about filming an English version, the writer turned him down. Only when Pascal promised not to change a word and agreed to cast Wendy Hiller, whom Shaw had admired in stage productions of Pygmalion and St. Joan, did the great writer accede. Although she had already made one film, the low-budget 1937 comedy Lancashire Luck, Pascal gave her introductory billing in Pygmalion at Shaw’s request.
The author did not get his way in casting the male lead, however. His first choice for Henry Higgins was Charles Laughton, but Pascal convinced him that Leslie Howard would make the film more marketable in the U.S. That choice may not have been based solely on the stars’ box-office appeal. In the mid-’30s, Laughton was riding high on a series of popular films, including Ruggles of Red Gap and Mutiny on the Bounty (both 1935). Rather, Pascal may have been appealing to the popular notion that the leading characters eventually married. Shaw had resisted the notion and even wrote a 1916 essay describing Eliza’s life after parting ways with Higgins and decrying the more sentimental interpretations as “lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of ‘happy endings’ to misfit all stories.” With the more romantic Howard cast as Higgins, however, Pascal may have hoped to weight the story towards a more romantic interpretation that would have sold more tickets.
One way Pascal got around Shaw’s insistence on a word-for-word filming of the play was by hiring him to write the screenplay. That gave the author a chance to incorporate scenes cut from most stage productions because they would have added too many sets (Shaw even had said such scenes were best suited to a film version). The writer also got to expand the scene at the Embassy Ball, where Higgins wins his bet to pass Eliza off as a lady. As a result, Shaw agreed to cut some of the play’s more philosophical speeches, including several of the longer speeches delivered by Eliza’s father. He also grudgingly agreed to include a final scene in which Eliza returns to Higgins, who, unable to express his love for her, demands “Where the devil are my slippers, Eliza?” Shaw would later disavow this ending, insisting that Eliza instead married her high society admirer, Freddie Eynsford-Hill.
Bottom line is Shaw loved this film version.
At year’s end, it was nominated for four Academy Awards® — including Best Picture, Best Actor (Howard) and Best Actress (Hiller) — years before foreign films were regularly honored at the Oscars®. It won for Shaw’s screenplay, but the author was hardly grateful. Instead, he announced, “It’s an insult for them to offer me any honor, as if they had never heard of me — and it’s very likely they never have. They might as well send an honor to George for being King of England.” His private views may have been more appreciative. Mary Pickford would later report that when she visited Shaw the award was prominently displayed on his mantelpiece.
When novelist Lloyd C. Douglas announced Pygmalion had won Best Screenplay, he quipped, “Mr. Shaw’s story now is as original as it was three
thousand years ago.” But though Shaw had, indeed, been inspired by the Greek myth about a sculptor who falls in love with his female statue, his version of the story became as much a part of popular culture as the original legend.
Please stay up and watch it, you will not be disappointed.
Okay, now a quick link to some eye-candy: Anna Sui Fall 2014 Collection | Tom & Lorenzo Fabulous & Opinionated
A sad farewell to actor Christopher Malcolm, Rocky Horror’s Brad, dies aged 67
Tributes are being paid to actor and theatre producer Christopher Malcolm, whose roles included the original Brad Majors in the Rocky Horror Show and Saffy’s gay dad in Absolutely Fabulous.
Christopher Malcolm starred in 1979 drama The Great Riviera Bank Robbery alongside Ian McShaneHis death, aged 67, was confirmed by his daughter Morgan Lloyd Malcolm on Twitter, who wrote: “Today the world lost a beautiful, brilliant man.”
She added he “left peacefully and with dignity. He will always be my hero.”
His starred in films such as The Empire Strikes Back, Labyrinth and Highlander.
Having played Brad Majors in the original production of The Rocky Horror Show in 1974 and co-produced the 1990 West End revival, he then took charge of producing all productions of Richard O’Brien’s much-loved musical around the world.
Since I have been sick, and totally out of the loop, I missed this nugget of news: President Obama Apologizes for Dissing Art History Degrees | Mediaite
If you got a degree in art history, your eye might have twitched a bit when President Obama said a few weeks ago that Americans would be more well off in the manufacturing industry as opposed to, say, having an art history degree. Well, there is literally nothing these days that doesn’t warrant an apology, and now Obama has apologized for that remark.
Well at least he has made an apology. I guess.
Then you have the other extreme, a president of a country who is completely off base. I am speaking of Putin of course, and his position on gays. Did y’all see this? Members of Pussy Riot released in Sochi – CNN.com (I thought that Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were no longer “band members.”)
Two members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot were detained briefly Tuesday in central Sochi, after apparently being considered suspects in a theft at their hotel, and then released.
“A survey in connection with the theft at the Hotel Adler is completed, there is no claim against those questioned,” police said in a prepared statement.
Earlier in the day, band members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were meeting with journalists when police detained them, according to Tolokonnikova’s husband, Petr Verzilov. Russian media corroborated the report.
“They were put to the floor and beaten and physical force was used to them when they refused to be questioned without the presence of their lawyer, who was on his way to the police department,” Verzilov told reporters.
The stories I have read about arrest out of Sochi are scary, what a disgusting display to the world.
Olympic police today re-arrested former Italian member of parliament Vladimir Luxuria for wearing an outfit that was deemed a bit too “gay” for the Sochi Olympics.
Luxuria was wearing rainbow-colored clothing, and a rainbow wig. She was arrested while walking to her seat at an Olympic hockey game.
The rainbow is now legally suspect in Russia since the passage last year of a draconian anti-gay law that bans what the Russians call “gay propaganda.” In reality, the law bans anything – speech, clothing or actions – that might give the impression that being gay is okay.
For example, the flag of Russia’s autonomous Jewish region came under scrutiny from Moscow because it contains a rainbow. And a newspaper editor was recently fined three-month’s pay for quoting a gay person in a news story in which the gay person defended themselves for having been fired based on their sexual orientation. And under similar legislation in St. Petersburg, a man was arrested for wearing rainbow suspenders.
Damn…better not be caught eating Skittles or Lucky Charms in Sochi eh?
This post is getting long so real quick like:
U.S. regulator on India visit calls for greater drug safety collaboration | Reuters
3 peace activists sentenced for breaking into nuclear site – The Washington Post
Official who raised safety concerns at Hanford nuclear site is fired – latimes.com
AP sources: DOE to OK $6.5B for Georgia nuke plant | AccessNorthGa -That is for a new nuke plant south of Augusta, it was approved in 2010 under Obama’s watch. Doesn’t make me too happy considering there was an 4.1 earthquake not far from there just a few days ago.
A trunk to cry on? Elephants console distressed pals, study says – For such a smart and sympathetic animal to have as a “symbol” of the GOP party? Oh the irony.
The 5 most egregious antiabortion proposals of 2014 (so far) – Salon.com
CHARLOTTE: After comment to Gov. McCrory, food store cook fired in Charlotte | State Politics | NewsObserver.com
One observation, isn’t the Gov a public servant and does he not work for the people aka the food clerk whom he got fired?
Unbelievable: Chevron apologizes for fracking well explosion with coupons for free pizza – Salon.com
Here’s a photo of the letter and coupon obtained by No Fracking Way. Unlike the long-term health and environment effects of fracking, this special offer expires soon:
All that shit makes this real estate look good, remember that Sky Dancing commune?
Medieval Castle and Hamlet for Sale in Italy: Castello Izzalini
This medieval hamlet for sale in Umbria, Italy, dates back to the 12th century, as witnessed by the Todi’s Liber Focolarium,
that is the book of the local families. It was then inhabited by 32 families, more or less 150 people.
Somebody get me the phone!
Placed on a hilltop overlooking the Tiber River valley, Izzalini is surrounded by a large proprietary 16,000 sqm forest. You can find there ancient trees, witnessing the history of the place, olive groves, whose fruits’ nectar is the renowned exquisite Umbrian Extra Virgin Oil, pasture for herds, whose milk is used to make the delicious Umbrian cheeses on site and woodland, suitable for different purposes: activities, garden, cultivation (e.g.: vineyard, olives, truffles), etc.
Oh you got to go and check the place out. More at the link and since it is a history blog link, it will have plenty of historical background to go with it. Yeah, history majors kick ass!
Finally, this is real cool: SEE IT: California scuba divers interact with octopus who tries to take camera – NY Daily News
Innit nature wonderful!
That is all I’ve got today, share your thoughts and links below.
Sunday Links: In dump fashion
Posted: January 26, 2014 Filed under: Cuba, Diplomacy Nightmares, Discrimination against women, Economy, Environment, Feminists, Foreign Affairs, GLBT Rights, History, morning reads, Philippines, poverty, Republican politics, Russia, sports, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: american girl dolls, Sochi 2014, women in aviation 48 Comments
Good Morning
Wow, last night I watched this cult movie called The Baby…oh boy…I kept asking myself, wtf? But like some sort of twisted train wreck, I could not look away. Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies: The Baby (1973): or, You Oughta Wean Him, He’s Old Enough
That link will give you an excellent review of this “Horrible Old Movie” as Dr. Paul Bearer would say…holy shit. That was disturbing. One thing however, I bet it is David Vitter‘s favorite flick!
Reading synopses, reviews, and open-mouthed shock reactions for Ted Post‘s 1973 weirdo exploitation romp The Baby, I had somehow got the idea that at least part of the movie’s shock value was inherent in the reveal of its premise–a social worker goes to the house of an eccentric family to assess the needs of their “special” youngest member, only to discover that the “baby” she thought she’d be caring for is in fact a thirty-year old man in an oversized crib and diapers. Therefore I worried that, since I knew the premise going in, much of the effectiveness of that shock reveal would be diffused.
Parishioners, I was happily misinformed–not only about how much the flick’s effectiveness relies on that shock reveal (hint: it doesn’t), but about that knockout premise’s centrality to the plot as a whole. Yes, there’s a thirty-year-old man with the brain of a pre-verbal infant who sleeps in a gigantic crib and occasionally needs his nappy changed, but surprisingly that’s just a small part of what makes the movie tick. It’s merely the soup base, if you will, to which Post and writer Abe Polsky add a variety of savory exploitation ingredients–some diced, some chunky, some pureed–to arrive at a delicious Mad Movie stew.
Anyway, that just blew me away. So much that I am only able to give you a dump of my own this morning. A link dump that is…
A lot of these links are things I have saved up over the last few weeks, so you may have seen them already. They are in no particular order, honestly I am too “weirded” out to get them organized in a decent way.
I thought this is kind of cool, especially for those of you who..like me…get a kick out of letters and words: Artist Transforms The City Of Chicago Into A Giant Typography Playground
It’s strange to think that although we encounter letters and numbers all the time, the little guys are normally confined to a page or a screen. That is, until one bold MFA student dared to take her ABCs out of the two-dimensional world and into her environment — the urban playground of Chicago.
In the “no shit” department: Dollar Stores Are Getting Too Expensive For Many Americans I won’t quote from that article, it’s all been said here before.
This next link is awesome: ‘Aviatrix’ Is My New Word | Dr. Mae Jemison
Tenacity. Daring. Talent. Courage.
Aviatrix Amelia Earhart had these qualities in abundance. Aviatrix was the term for women who flew “flying machines” at the beginning of powered flight. The word bothered me greatly years ago, as aviatrix, a feminization of aviator, seemed to make their accomplishments parenthetical. But I think of it differently these days as I understand the women of that era were different than the men — they had to be “more” and overcome extraordinary barriers to participate in this new adventure.Amelia Earhart is perhaps the most well known of a genre of incredible women whose life stories offer inspiration, vital insight and critical lessons for us today. (I am a bit chagrined that I did not recognize much of this until after becoming a NASA astronaut and the world’s first woman of color in space.) Earhart learned to fly at a time when flying was dangerous and society considered women less capable than men in almost every sphere of life. Earhart became an international sensation as she set flying records solo and as part of a team. And she continued to strive for more until the last.
Similar elements mark the career of black aviatrix Bessie Coleman, while other aspects diverge due to racial discrimination rampant during the era. Coleman is the first American of any gender or ethnicity to receive an international license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in 1921. Coleman traveled to France to learn to fly because no one in the United States would teach her — no one white, and not even black men! Earhart was the 16th woman to get FAI license in 1923. While Coleman had to learn French and travel to France, Earhart rode to the end of the bus line and then walked four miles to lessons. Working as a manicurist, Coleman saved money and gained sponsorship to pay for lessons and travel. Earhart worked to save money for lessons while getting some help from her mother. They were both tenacious just to get the opportunity.
From Aviatrix to crazy-ass holidays: What crazy national day falls on your birthday?| studentbeans.com
Christmas is great and all but it’s so boring – EVERYONE celebrates Christmas. So we decided to have a look at some unconventional & weird days we could fill the calendar with. First stop, the internet. Unsurprisingly we were not disappointed. Though some of these may be a little obscure (give them a quick Google if you’re unsure), they are all genuine national days somewhere in the world.
My birthday “national day” of April 13… Blame Somebody Else Day…hot damn, that is a great birthday present if you ask me!
As you can see, the artwork for today’s post features winter sports, only a couple of weeks til the winter games in Sochi. Did y’all see this: IOC’s Mario Pescante Rips U.S. For Including Openly Gay Athletes In Official Delegation To Sochi
Here are a few other news stories on the Olympic Games:
Few Americans heading to Sochi Olympics | Travel | The Seattle Times
U.S. ready to ‘extract’ citizens from Sochi Olympics: Hagel – World News
Warning to U.S. athletes: No Olympic uniform outside Sochi venues – CNN.com
And…an update of sorts on the Philippine Heroes of the Night | Dr. Laura Stachel
Moving from Russia, to the Philippines to Cuba: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Havana’s Remarkable Architecture
Okay, what makes this next link so funny is that Boston Boomer had a similar link in her post yesterday. It is a quiz…and no, I did not put mine in here because she did. Like I said up top, I have had these things saved for a while. LOL
Which American Girl Doll Are You
I took the quiz and got Samantha. But who the fuck is Samantha?
Samantha is basically the Samantha of the American Girls: you’re fabulous and you don’t give a damn about what anyone thinks of your life and who you spend your time with. But that doesn’t mean that you’re clueless, and not generous, oh no. You know that with great power comes responsibility.
So I went and looked up who this chick is…List of American Girl characters – Wikipedia
Samantha Parkington, 1904
Samantha is an only child growing up during the Edwardian period (although American Girl designated her as Victorian). Orphaned at age five and raised by her wealthy Victorian-era grandmother in fictional Mount Bedford, New York, Samantha befriends a poor servant girl named Nellie O’Malley. Eventually Samantha, Nellie and Nellie’s young sisters are adopted by Samantha’s uncle and aunt. The themes of Samantha’s books include women’s suffrage, child labor, and classism.
What Your American Girl Doll Says About the Rest of Your Life | The Hairpin
I never had one of these, they weren’t around in the 70’s, but then…neither did my daughter.
Check out what these American Girl shits are all about now: How American Girl Dolls Have Changed Since the ’90s:entertainment:glamour.com
American Girl dolls ain’t what they used to be, guys. I fell into an AG hole this morning while investigating the latest doll of the year (yes, “investigating”—I’m suspicious of her), and what I found was shocking, just shocking. Kiss the days of historical paperbacks in burgundy plastic goodbye, because the American Girl dolls/fans of today have other kinds of fun in mind. I officially now have a beef with the following:
Isabelle, the Girl of the Year, has ombre hair.
Except it’s not ombre hair (which is already kinda done—make her a teen vampire while you’re at it, AG). It’s just pink streaks. So: You’re welcome, moms everywhere, whose daughters will be dipping their ponytails in various colored substances this year.Isabelle also sounds like she might be terrible when she grows up.
Not to stomp on any dreams, but Isabelle’s collection includes a studio where she can “design and dance.” She’s a designer and a dancer. I’m sorry, but I don’t think we should be teaching girls to grow up and go to parties calling themselves “designers slash dancers.” That’s how people end up on The Bachelor. In my day, American Girls were either stable hands or blacksmiths! (At least, that’s how I remember it.)And yet, you know, don’t aim too low either.
Nothing says “We’ve decided to spend all the college money on your brother” like buying your daughter a snack cart they can play-pretend they work at!
I wonder if that hot dog cart comes with a bikini thong uniform…well, my guess is the bikini is extra. (Y’all remember this: Thong-clad Hot Dog Vendor Blasts Critics – Sun Sentinel December 19, 1990)
More map goodness for you: POLL: How Americans Feel About The States – Business Insider
After seeing an excellent poll that asked Europeans what they thought of other European countries, we talked to our polling partner SurveyMonkey Audience to expand the questions and try it on Americans, to see how they felt about other states.
The results were hilarious, informative and tell you everything you need to know about the dynamic between the states.
We asked respondents — 1603 of them — to answer each question with a state that wasn’t their own. The poll was carried out using SurveyMonkey’s Audience feature, which was more accurate predicting the 2012 election than numerous traditional pollsters.
The following maps show that data. Look under each map for details when it comes to the color scale. The darkest color had the highest number of votes, the whitest color had next to none.
The Oscars are coming up…moviemorlocks.com – Stunning Visuals, Editing and Sound!
The Oscar nominations for 2013 came out recently and I was once again put in mind of the different technical categories and how misunderstood they are because when most craftsmen and artists do their job and do it well, the result is a seamless vision. If it’s not, it’s jarring and there’s a problem. As a result, we often associate great technical work with what we can see as obvious: Great cinematography is often interpreted as great, sweeping visuals; Great editing as lots of intricate cuts; Great Sound as the sounds of explosions or music. But, honestly, it’s about so much more.
One of the best authors, I think, has a new book out: Roddy Doyle, Master of Working-Class Family Drama – D.B. Grady – The Atlantic I love his Barrytown Trilogy, and this is yet another book about the Rabbitte family. (The Snapper is my favorite.)
I know you all saw this news headline: As Seen in ‘Goodfellas’: Arrest Is Made in ’78 Lufthansa Robbery – NYTimes.com Know what the defense said about Vincent Asaro, this is funny…they said the fact that he was still alive proves he had nothing to do with the crime. Wow.
More art, this is some cool ass ink: The world’s most spectacular tattoos revealed | Mail Online
Then you have the latest news out of lower Manhattan, oh this pisses me off: 9/11 Museum Admission Fee – The 9/11 Museum’s New Pricing Plan – Esquire
So you want to take your family of four to the 9/11 memorial? You want to mourn or talk to your young kids about what happened at the site? That will now be $96, please.
Late yesterday, the foundation behind the 9/11 memorial quietly voted to charge a $24 admission fee to the soon-to-be-open underground museum at the site. The above ground memorial will continue to be free, victims’ families will not pay, and there will be discounts and three free hours a week.
Sure, the admission fee is in line with other museums in the city (the MoMA is $25 for adults, for example), but you’re certainly not paying to look at art. You’re paying to grieve and learn about the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Ground Zero is already a dark tourism site. Now someone’s just making a buck off that fact.
Assholes…so not only did they make the memorial an underground ridiculously damp embarrassment of remembrance to the dead, a design that the families and most of NYC did not like…but now they are charging folks to go and see it? Yeah, assholes is to nice a name to call them.
I’ll end this post with another gallery…The week in wildlife – in pictures | Environment | theguardian.com
Strange weather has confused many species in this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Divers swim with dozens of West Indian manatees as the animals congregate around a freshwater spring north of Tampa, Florida. Local temperatures dropped below freezing, redirecting the animals to the warm springs at the Crystal River national wildlife refuge
I’ve never seen so many manatees in one place before…
Enjoy your day and stay warm, what are you reading about today?
Friday Nite Lite: Women’s Rights Needs a SuperShero!
Posted: January 17, 2014 Filed under: abortion rights, American Gun Fetish, Environmental Protection, Foreign Affairs, Political and Editorial Cartoons, Republican politics, Russia, SDB Evening News Reads, Women's Rights | Tags: Elk River, Sochi 2014, West Virginia 28 CommentsWe all need a SuperShero!!!!!
I got a little creative late last night, well…early this morning….anyway, hope you enjoy my little twitter story below:
There was once a comic book character named Woman in Red, its a shame she isn’t still around, kicking right-wing ass around Washington DC. It even sounds like she may be needed in the halls of the Supreme Court! Anyway, here…take a look at a little history of:
The Woman in Red is a fictional character who first appeared in the period known to comic book historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books. Created by writer Richard E. Hughes and artist George Mandel, she first appeared in Thrilling Comics #2 (March 1940), published by Nedor Comics. The character was later revived by writer Alan Moore for America’s Best Comics.
The Woman in Red is the secret identity of policewoman Peggy Allen. Frustrated by the limitations of her job, Peggy creates a secret identity. As the Woman in Red, she wears a red, floor-length coat, hood, and mask.
The Woman in Red made her debut in Thrilling Comics #2 (March 1940). Comics historian Trina Robbins has identified the Woman in Red as the first masked female crime fighter, preceding such better known characters as Wonder Woman, Phantom Lady, and Mary Marvel,[1] with Fantomah, who debuted one month earlier, being the first female superheroine.[2] While the Woman in Red never made a cover appearance, she continued to appear regularly in issues of Thrilling Comics. Her last Golden Age appearance was in issue #46 (February 1945).[3]
Now for the cartoons.
AAEC – Political Cartoon by Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader – 01/14/2014
Poverty War – Political Cartoon by Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – 01/14/2014
Bridgegate – Political Cartoon by Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – 01/16/2014
AAEC – Political Cartoon by David Horsey, Los Angeles Times – 01/15/2014
Inventor of the Internet by Political Cartoonist Pat Bagley
AAEC – Political Cartoon by Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle – 01/15/2014
Signe Wilkinson: Water Contamination – Signe Wilkinson – Truthdig
kid viiolence by Political Cartoonist Bill Schorr
Justin Bieber egg raid by Political Cartoonist Dave Granlund
Shooting by Political Cartoonist Milt Priggee
Wrong Airport by Political Cartoonist Steve Kelley
Lazier Congress by Political Cartoonist John Darkow
Unaided Unemployed by Political Cartoonist Steve Sack
Mission to Mars by Political Cartoonist Pat Bagley
Got Water by Political Cartoonist Steve Sack
This is a little op-ed on Winter Olympics: The Untold Story by Danny Tyree
Hundreds of millions of people will be following the 2014 Winter Olympics, even though the underwhelming motto (“Hot. Cool. Yours.”) sounds less like a paean to athletic excellence than the sort of progression that accompanies a court-ordered paternity suit.
Sochi curling by Political Cartoonist Hajo de Reijger
Mike Luckovich: Another Bridge Scandal – Mike Luckovich – Truthdig
Tip by Political Cartoonist David Fitzsimmons
This is an open thread!
Friday Nite Lite: Russia and Baby New Year
Posted: January 3, 2014 Filed under: Political and Editorial Cartoons | Tags: Duck Dynasty, putin, Sochi 2014 23 CommentsGood Evening
It is freezing in most of the country, a few days from now Banjoville will only have a high of 20 and a low of 2…
Just few cartoons to select from this week, so here they are…
12/31 Luckovich cartoon: Welcome, 2014 | Mike Luckovich
ADO POT by Political Cartoonist Randy Bish
Russia Olympics by Political Cartoonist Jeff Koterba
Terror in Russia by Political Cartoonist Bruce Plante
A&E Worship by Political Cartoonist Randall Enos
2014 LIST by Political Cartoonist Bill Day
That is all folks!
It’s an open thread, don’t ya know…
Wednesday Reads: Back in the saddle again…
Posted: September 4, 2013 Filed under: Environment, Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Injustice system, Japan, morning reads, Water | Tags: 2020 Olympics, Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, Florida, Fukushim Dai-Ichi, IOC, Persons with Disabilities, Robert Ethan Saylor, Sochi 2014, TCM, TEPCO, Texas, Utah 47 Comments
Good Morning!
Hey, it’s been nice to have a week off…I haven’t read much news items lately, in fact I don’t really have any idea what’s going on in the world outside of Banjoville. (Just this last weekend we had a murder, involving an 80-year-old former cop from Florida who killed his daughter, shot his great-grandson in the leg, and kept two county swat teams busy in a stand-off for three hours before they threw a flash bomb and finally got him in custody…you should see the list of weapons he had in his house.)
Other news from Banjoville (good news), my son played his first varsity football game and kicked five for five, scoring four extra points and one field goal in the season’s game opener. My daughter also cheered in her first varsity game as well…it was quite a Friday Night!
Little Luther
This weekend I added a little furry bugger to the family too. He is a tiny little thing, at three months he weighs just over a pound.
So as you can see, it has been a busy week…but since I am clueless about the latest debates on Syria, in the dark on the fire in Yellowstone, unsure of new draconian laws against women’s rights that have passed in state houses over the past week…I will just stick with a few links that I have saved from some days back.
Here is one article that is recent however, Fukushima Disaster: Japan To Build Costly Subterranean Ice Wall To Stop Nuclear Reactor Leaks:
The Japanese government announced Tuesday that it will spend $470 million on a subterranean ice wall and other steps in a desperate bid to stop leaks of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant after repeated failures by the plant’s operator.
The decision is widely seen as an attempt to show that the nuclear accident won’t be a safety concern just days before the International Olympic Committee chooses among Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid as the host of the 2020 Olympics.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has been leaking hundreds of tons of contaminated underground water into the sea since shortly after a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami damaged the complex. Several leaks from tanks storing radioactive water in recent weeks have heightened the sense of crisis that the plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., isn’t able to contain the problem.
“Instead of leaving this up to TEPCO, the government will step forward and take charge,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after adopting the outline. “The world is watching if we can properly handle the contaminated water but also the entire decommissioning of the plant.”
I don’t know how negative an impact the radioactive disaster will have on the IOC’s decision on Tokyo hosting the 2020 Olympics, I mean… look at the nuclear bomb getting ready to explode in Sochi. I get the feeling the IOC would prefer a radioactive leak of Godzilla proportions than to stand up and do what’s right in Sochi.
Down in Florida they are digging up some graves of a terrible past. Human remains believed uncovered in search at Florida boys school
The first of many to die at a Florida reform school infamous for inflicting beatings and abuse is identified in official records only as “Unknown colored boy.”
Researchers say he died in 1911. But his name, final resting place, and the reason for his early death remain a mystery.
He’s not alone.
The whereabouts of nearly two dozen others who died at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys are also unknown, researchers said.
Those who once stayed at the reform school — and were subjected to regular lashings by school officials — say many more could be buried on the property of the now-shuttered state-run school, located in Marianna, a small town in Florida’s panhandle.
“I think there’s at least 100 more bodies,” Robert Straley, who was at the school for 10 months starting in 1963, said in a telephone interview.
“From 1900 to 1940 were the most brutal years in that place. Back then, a white boy’s life wasn’t worth much and a black boy’s life wasn’t worth anything.”
A clearer view of who died at the school, and why, may soon surface. On Saturday, a team of researchers began a year-long exhumation of burial sites on the school’s property.
But the abuse and suspicious deaths did not end in the 1960s,
Former residents at the school, including Straley, have led the push for setting the record straight about the school’s treatment of its young inmates, which came to light in a 2008 expose in the Miami Herald.
An investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded in 2010 that, although it found dozens of graves, there was not enough evidence to pursue criminal charges related to allegations of physical and sexual abuse of boys at the school.
The state’s Department of Juvenile Justice closed the school in 2011 as the federal government was investigating allegations of maltreatment and abuse. The federal government ultimately faulted the state for poor oversight and violating the rights of the inmates.
Take a look at the link to that LA Times article to read more about the project being carried out by my alma mater, University of South Florida.
Now I will give you a few updates on some stories from earlier in the year.
Check it out…they are calling bullshit on the stories that there were bottles full of shit at the Texas Capitol during the Special Session back in July: Still No Evidence Abortion Rights Protesters Had Excrement In Texas Capitol Ahead Of Bill Debate
And in Utah, Welfare Drug Testing Catches Only 12 Users
From August 2012 through July 2013, the state prescreened 4,730 applicants to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program with a written test. The state followed up with an actual drug test for the 466 of those whose written answers suggested a likelihood of drug use.
The 466 tests turned out 12 positive results, as the Associated Press first reported. The results were similar when Florida launched welfare drug testing in 2011 and just 2.6 percent of applicants tested positive. National surveys usually find that about 8 percent of respondents used drugs in the previous month.
Utah’s drug screening cost the state about $31,000. But state Rep. Brad Wilson (R-Kaysville) told HuffPost he thinks the bill saved more than it cost. He said an additional 247 Utahns dropped out of the TANF application process after they were told to expect a drug test.
“We had 247 who once we told them, ‘our test shows that you are likely using controlled substances, we need you to take a drug test,’ they refused to move forward with the process,” said Wilson, who sponsored the new law. “The Department of Workforce Services here in Utah estimates the benefits of those folks would have received would have been approximately $369,000 of, basically, benefits we didn’t pay to people who were most likely using controlled substances. We spent $31,000 on this program over the last year but we think we’ve saved at least $370,000, if not more.”
[…]
Utah’s law differs from Florida’s in that it first subjects TANF applicants to a questionnaire and only tests those whose answers give the state a reasonable suspicion of drug use. The reasonable suspicion standard makes the law less vulnerable to a civil liberties lawsuit alleging the tests violate the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable search. Florida’s law called for blanket testing and was halted by federal courts after only a few months.
The Florida law also denied benefits to anyone who failed a test. Utah’s law asks applicants to enroll in drug treatment. Wilson said the 12 people who tested positive for drugs are still receiving benefits.
The article states that the twelve are currently in treatment.
One last update, this one is something that hits home for me, y’all know that my brother Denny has Down Syndrome…so please read this one in full…and then, take some time to read the comments. Opinion: Justice for Down syndrome man who died in movie theater – CNN.com
Robert Ethan Saylor died on January 12 after three sheriff’s deputies tried to forcibly remove him from a movie theater.
One day last January, Robert Ethan Saylor, a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome, went to see the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.” When it was over, Saylor briefly left the theater, then decided to return and see it again. The manager called security because Saylor didn’t pay, and three off-duty deputies, moonlighting at the mall, came in to confront him.
According to Frederick County, Maryland, police statements, he swore at them and refused to leave. The deputies tried to remove him, despite Saylor’s caretaker’s warnings and pleas for them to wait and let her take care of it. What happened next is a little unclear, but witnesses say the deputies put Saylor on the floor, held him down and handcuffed him. Saylor, called Ethan by his family, suffered a fracture in his throat cartilage. He died of asphyxiation.
The death was ruled a homicide, but a grand jury failed to indict the deputies and they returned to work without charges.
My son has Down syndrome, so I have been following this case closely. But for months, it seemed as if only people in the disability community cared about it.
Petitions for independent investigations sputtered out with just a few hundred votes. Local reporting on the case never made a splash in national media. Meanwhile, the Frederick County sheriff investigated his men’s conduct, ruled they had followed procedure correctly, and tried to move on.
Police violence against people with disabilities is not uncommon, but the cases don’t seem to get a lot of publicity. Most people see the disabled as, at best, passive victims, objects to care for, perhaps to love, but not people with whom we automatically identify.
This is a mistake. We are all only temporarily able-bodied. Accidents, illness, and age wait for us all. What happened to Ethan Saylor could happen to you.
In July, his death began to get more attention. Heather Mizeur, a member of the Maryland House of Representatives and candidate for governor, seized on Saylor’s story and called for new training for law enforcement. Debra Alfarone, an investigative journalist in Washington, began to broadcast and write about the case. A petition asking Gov. Martin O’Malley to investigate went viral in mid-August, garnering 300,000 signatures in just a week. This petition fueled a renewed, suddenly national, media narrative. Ethan Saylor and #JusticeForEthan are now an official cause.
It is heartbreaking to know that the cops who killed Ethan are walking about…back at work, without being charged. Where is the outrage? Perhaps Ethan should have worn a hoodie? Maybe this injustice would have gotten more attention.
It is sickening.
Like I said, read the whole piece, it moves on to focus on people with disabilities…and what rights they have…or in the case of Ethan, what rights he was denied that invariably caused his “homicide” and allowed the men who killed him to walk free.
Okay, one last nugget or link for you today. Over at TCM they are presenting a special series that will be on every Monday and Tuesday for the next 15 weeks! .: The Story of Film :.
TCM IS PROUD to present the U.S. television premiere of The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011), a 15-episode documentary directed and narrated by Mark Cousins, adapted from his 2004 book The Story of Film. Beginning in September and continuing through early December, one new episode, or “chapter,” will be introduced each Monday on TCM, with a lineup of related films. Tuesday evenings the thematic programming continues, and includes a re-airing of the previous night’s episode. By December, the entire festival will include 119 feature films and dozens of short subjects from 29 countries.
Cousins, a film critic from Northern Ireland, will appear as co-host with Robert Osborne in introducing the documentary, which uses film clips, interviews with filmmakers and location footage around the world to take viewers through filmmaking history from the late 19th century to today.
Here is the schedule in PDF format and you can find the Episode Guide is here.
The first episode was shown this week, and it was so damn interesting, be sure to catch the rest of the series if you can.
So…it is good to be back, guess I need to get caught up on current events. Seriously, I don’t know if I can do that just yet. Y’all have a good morning and I’ll see you around in the comments.
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