December 2008
5 great New Year's resolutions for amateur travel photographers - Gadling →
gadling.com
A lot of really good advice! I’m thinking about starting a photoblog just for my pictures…and trying to take a picture every single day.
Love Karen, Chookooloonks is one of my favorite photo blogs.
Old Louisville, Kentucky will surprise you →
travel.latimes.com
We had just driven into downtown Louisville when this quirky little car zipped by — a blue Honda Civic with vinyl decals and a bumper sticker reading, “Keep Louisville Wild and Woolly.” The driver had a thick beard that indeed looked wild and woolly, like Garth Hudson’s on the cover of “The Band” album.
The moment seemed unusual and, well, hip — a scene more fitting for Austin, Texas, or Portland, Ore. — than for an older city that is mainly known to outsiders for its traditionalism, symbolized by the illustriously unchanging Kentucky Derby.
I wrote down the information advertised on that little car, about a video store called Wild and Woolly specializing in hard-to-find, obscure and “just too weird” films. A good place to visit, I thought. Louisville has some surprises in store, my wife and I surmised.
Overall, I discovered an intriguing, funky scene and a good-humored, pop-culture-savvy populace … plus more. Louisville has an avant-garde, contemporary-art edge. In 2003, the city and county governments merged, increasing Louisville’s population to 694,000 from 256,000. Now there seems to be a fresh, invigorating self-image — the “Possibility City,” it calls itself.
I love when I read articles that acknowledge that Louisville is not some hicktown, like most people think when they hear Kentucky. Or someplace where we wear big hats and sip mint juleps all year long (for the record, just the 2 weeks leading up to Derby.) ;)
“As soon as I arrived home and opened the door, my kids rushed toward me. They covered me with kisses. My 10-year-old, Abdullah, described how he dove to the floor with his classmates at school after hearing the blasts. My 12-year-old daughter, Aseel, was embarrassed because in the rush to leave her classroom, she had lost some of her textbooks. When she passed the smoking police station on the way home, she said she thought she was going to die. The experience seems to have been hardest on my oldest son, Hosam, who is 14. He just sat in front of the television all day, glued to the news reports. He refused even to come to dinner. My wife and I have tried to talk to him about what he saw, but he stops after only a few words. I’m thinking about taking him to a mental-health clinic. But frankly we all need psychiatrists.
I tried to do some reporting, but couldn’t help thinking about what we might do in the event of a ground invasion. What would happen if militants launched a rocket from nearby our home? I went over in my mind how we might stockpile food, water and other necessities. I thanked God when the electricity failed. At least we didn’t have to watch any more TV. We sat in the dark, telling the children stories about their childhood to distract them. It worked—for a couple of hours. Eventually, we got tired and went to bed, but my kids insisted on sleeping in our room.
My wife and I stayed up talking about the situation. It had never been like this before. We are paying a price in this crazy war, and nobody in the civilized world cares. But at least the chaos has finally motivated my family to do one thing. As the bombs sounded in the distance, I finally convinced my wife to leave Gaza.” —Gaza Family Considers Emigration After Attacks | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com (via robot-heart-politics)
I tried to do some reporting, but couldn’t help thinking about what we might do in the event of a ground invasion. What would happen if militants launched a rocket from nearby our home? I went over in my mind how we might stockpile food, water and other necessities. I thanked God when the electricity failed. At least we didn’t have to watch any more TV. We sat in the dark, telling the children stories about their childhood to distract them. It worked—for a couple of hours. Eventually, we got tired and went to bed, but my kids insisted on sleeping in our room.
My wife and I stayed up talking about the situation. It had never been like this before. We are paying a price in this crazy war, and nobody in the civilized world cares. But at least the chaos has finally motivated my family to do one thing. As the bombs sounded in the distance, I finally convinced my wife to leave Gaza.” —Gaza Family Considers Emigration After Attacks | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com (via robot-heart-politics)
“That night, on 9/11, Rumsfeld came over and the others, and the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, You know, we’ve got to do Iraq, and everyone looked at him—at least I looked at him and Powell looked at him—like, What the hell are you talking about? And he said—I’ll never forget this—There just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan. We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks.”
— Richard Clarke, chief White House counterterrorism adviser. Vanity Fair Magazine.
Bill & Hill Ring in the New Year →
politico.com
Hillary (and Bill) Clinton had quite a year: A presidential campaign that produced 18 million votes, a Secretary of State nomination… yada yada.
Now the duo will help kick off 2009 by helping to lower the 12,000-pound Waterford crystal ball in Times Square tonight. Also joining the Clintons: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The Jesus Landing Pad: : Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move →
villagevoice.com
vruz:
By Rick Perlstein, Village Voice
Dateline Spring 2004
—via unburyingthelead:jhnbrssndn:retropolitics:
It was an e-mail we weren’t meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that “the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level”—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we’re not supposed to know the National Security Council’s top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.But now we know.
3 Rules for Political Leaders in 2009 and Beyond
1. Remember that you are elected to represent all your constituents: those who voted for you, against you and who didn’t bother to vote. The ordinary citizen working every day for less pay and almost no benefits should be valued more highly than the lobbyists and corporate CEOs who filled your campaign coffers.
2. Promote ethics in public service. This should be simple enough. Thou shall abide by the laws of the land. Thou shall not do anything to shame your office or embarrass your family. Thou shall behave at all times as if a special prosecutor is building a case against you, or as if the words you often utter in private might some day make the national headlines.
3. Improve the nature and civility of political discourse. With a country in crisis, it’s time to get beyond the petty recriminations of the past. Work together with your political opponents. We are one nation, one people. If you do something like Chip Saltsman, a candidate running for chairman of the Republican National Committee, have the good grace to be embarrassed and offer an apology when your Christmas message CD to members of your party includes a song called “Barack, the Magic Negro.”
“I think what we really need right now is to embody the courage, calm and focus that Barack Obama used in becoming President Elect. He endured ridiculous circumstances and ignorance with dignity. He never complained. He never cried. He never seemed angry enough to smack John McCain in their debates. I would have. I could never be president. I would definitely let my rage spill out. I did. Every time I heard “my friends,” I would swear and sweat and seethe. But Obama didn’t do that. He just smiled and looked into our eyes all across America and beyond, assuring us he would, he could. And he did.”
—Tegan Quin (via allisonweiss) (via frecklesmakemestrong)
“No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won’t hurt.”
—
Hunter S. Thompson’s suicide letter to his wife. (via poortaste)
the weight of words…
(via theduty)
(via somuchsass)
(via vaughnshirley)
Blagojevich makes me nervous... why is he so cocky?!?
Does he know something I don’t? I find it super hard to believe he actually thinks he’s untouchable.
Same here. I do think part of him believes it though, you know…the part that’s mentally unstable.
Blagojevich to name Burris to Senate →
chicagobreakingnews.com
Why the fuck are we letting him appoint anyone? Sometimes this state can suck it. I do not care how well liked and respectable the person he picked is, I hope the Senate blocks the appointment. The Illinois legislature needs to hurry up and impeach Blago, since he does not have the decency to step down.
Bristol Palin Reportedly Offered $300,000 for Baby Pics →
huffingtonpost.com
MSNBC is reporting that the Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston may receive up to $300,000 for the first pictures of their son Tripp.
The price didn’t soar immediately, according to the sources, because Sarah Palin stories just didn’t sell all that well for the weeklies on newsstands.
…The drug-related arrest of Johnston’s mother, however, caused the price tag for the photos to go up.
“My relationship with my father had been on the proverbial fritz since the time I was fifteen and called the police to report him for child molesting. He had never molested me, but I wanted to have a party that weekend and needed him out of the house.”
—Chelsea Handler, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands (via haleyleigh) (via carleighholley)
“It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin-like president, because, let’s face it, that’s what he was, was going to be protected by this national-security elite, tested in the cauldrons of fire. He became vice president well before George Bush picked him. And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush—personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum.”
—Lawrence Wilkerson, top aide and later chief of staff to Colin Powell, on Dick Cheney and George W. Bush
“Katrina to me was the tipping point. The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn’t matter. Legislative initiatives? It didn’t matter. P.R.? It didn’t matter. Travel? It didn’t matter.”
—Matthew Dowd, Bush’s pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign.
“I don’t exist in that (Hollywood) world. I observe it, but there’s so much else to be thinking about. Maybe it’s because I’m with someone who’s not with me because of that; I’m not a trophy. He likes the vessel, but he also wants to make sure the vessel is full. The world of film can be so noisy, but the other aspects of my life are actually the noisiest parts of my life. My best friends are a social worker and a visual artist.
I didn’t set out to get somewhere. I thought it might be nice to work. But you just have to have a very accurate internal barometer with your own finger as the dial pointing to success and failure. The film industry is so noisy you have to find little quiet places to keep experimenting—otherwise, exit stage left. But the noise doesn’t interest me; the work does.” —Cate Blanchett
I didn’t set out to get somewhere. I thought it might be nice to work. But you just have to have a very accurate internal barometer with your own finger as the dial pointing to success and failure. The film industry is so noisy you have to find little quiet places to keep experimenting—otherwise, exit stage left. But the noise doesn’t interest me; the work does.” —Cate Blanchett
Kucinich criticizes Israel; wants U.N. probe →
thehill.com
Kucinich said the perpetrators of attacks against Israel should be brought to justice, but that Israel “cannot create a war against an entire people in order to attempt to bring to justice the few who are responsible.” “All this was, and is, disproportionate, indiscriminate mass violence in violation of international law,” Kucinich said in a statement. “Israel is not exempt from international law and must be held accountable.”
“When a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born—and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.”
—Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (via isopod) (via inothernews) (via shiningstar)
Day 5,840 of Drama on the Internet Crisis: Peace Talks Break Down After Disagreement over Cuteness of Kitten
(via whatthefuckdoineedtoknow)
Many Teens Don't Keep Virginity Pledges →
news.yahoo.com
NO!? You don’t say? I’m shocked and appalled I tell you, shocked and appalled.
“I’m scared that I’m going to end up alone. I’m scared that I’m always going to be somebody’s friend, or sister, or confidant, never quite somebody’s everything.”
—
(via boredintheburbs) (via notthatkindagay) (via onemoretimewithfeeling)
This is probably my #1 fear in life.
Man who campaigned to protect sharks is snatched by a Great White →
guardian.co.uk
Brian Guest wrote on the Western Angler website forum in 2004: “I have always had an understanding with my wife that if a shark or ocean accident caused my death then so be it, at least it was doing what I wanted. Every surfer, fisherman and diver has far more chance of being killed by bees, drunk drivers, teenage car thieves and lightning. Every death is a tragedy – regardless of the cause – but we have no greater claim to use of this earth than any of the other creatures [we] share it with.”
“I start to think there really is no cure for depression, that happiness is an ongoing battle, and I wonder if it isn’t one I’ll have to fight for as long as I live. I wonder if it’s worth it.”
—Elizabeth Wurtzel (via rainier)
PLEASE DISSEMINATE
In talking to a few other tumblr people (okay, why do I lie, just one!) we realized we didn’t know many of the blogs listed on Tumblr Awards. So what to do? Since I have had 3 glasses of chardonnay and just watched a very inspiring What Not To Wear (US) (YES I AM A LIFETIME MOVIE. Fuck off, I love cold wine and being inspired!.) I am going to spearhead an Independent Spirit of Tumblr Awards. Not affiliated with Tumblr. Just by the people, for the people.
RULES
No one who is nominated for a Tumblr award can be nominated for a Tumblr indy spirit award.
There are no other rules.
CATEGORIES
Best Original Writing
Best Snark Tumblr
Best Original Photos
Most Creative Use of Tumblr
Most Underrated Tumblr
Best Use of Cute Animal Photos
Best Smut Tumblr
PRIZES
I don’t know yet. But they will exist.
Email nominations to ME at dancethis@gmail.com
FOLLOWERS… ARE YOU READING THIS?! Pretty please, it would be awesome. I’ll totally exchange sexual favours for votes, should you so wish. Sucky sucky $10.
LOL, britches.
Independent Spirit of Tumblr Awards?! HAHA, that’s genius!
“I want to live in the West Village,” Lola said.
But why honey?” Cem asked. “It’s all Manhattan. It’s all the same, isn’t it?
“Some people might look at it that way,” Brenda said. She waited.
Lola crossed her arms and stood with her back to her parents, looking out at the street. “Carrie Bradshaw lived in the West Village,” she said.” —Candace Bushnell, One Fifth Avenue (the first of my winter break reads)
But why honey?” Cem asked. “It’s all Manhattan. It’s all the same, isn’t it?
“Some people might look at it that way,” Brenda said. She waited.
Lola crossed her arms and stood with her back to her parents, looking out at the street. “Carrie Bradshaw lived in the West Village,” she said.” —Candace Bushnell, One Fifth Avenue (the first of my winter break reads)
politics on tumblr
i had a feeling when i posted today about the Israeli attacks on Gaza that i might lose some followers. sure enough, i’ve already lost one. i know who it was. and i know that i was unfollowed because what i was posting seemed ‘unsympathetic’ to Israel.
i don’t care what country you are. what religion you are. who you are: this type of attack is terrorism. it’s terrorism when the U.S. does it. it’s terrorism when Israel does it. it’s terrorism when anybody does it. you can call it whatever you like. that’s what it is.
you can unfollow me because you don’t care for my feelings on the Israeli/Palestine conflict. however, i will never unfollow someone for expressing their political beliefs. and to prove it, i am now following you, unfollower.
Bravo. I’ve appreciated each of your posts on the situation in Gaza, because I’d honestly had no clue what was going on until you posted them. So thank you, while some might not appreciate it, you deserve to know others do.
“John Kennedy led us on a journey to discover the moon. Obama needs to lead us on a journey to rediscover, rebuild and reinvent our own backyard.”
—
Thomas Friedman - Time to Reboot America
This is one of those columns where you want to quote each line, each graph. I leave you with the close, but I promise it’s not a spoiler.
(via adamiss)(via winstonwolfe)(via lizlemon)
“End of December and today is supposed to be 65 degrees in Indiana.”
—
Ditto in Fort Wayne!! That’s a 65 degree swing from earlier this week!!
(via lovepuppy)
it’s 70 degrees here in Lexington today…and it was about 4 degrees less than a week ago. i don’t even try to understand it anymore!
(via smartblonde)
I wore FLIP FLOPS to check the mail! Which would excite me if I didn’t know that the temps are just going to swing again and I’ll continue being miserable in the cold.
“Sarah Palin, has one-sixteenth of Clinton’s experience, intellect and national security knowledge. Palin being mainly a cultural gift to anyone still moored in the 19th century. A woman who was picked for her looks and gender, with her intellect not having anything to do with it. If you want to know the biggest difference between Republican and Democratic ideals where equality is concerned, all you have to do is look at the criteria for women succeeding on the national ticket level. Republicans still believing in appearances for women, as if the presidency is still some beauty pageant for females, vs. Democrats who insist on qualifications for the job.”
—Taylor Marsh, on the difference between the most admired woman in America (Clinton) and the 2nd most admired (Palin)
“Many people remember that spirit that President Kennedy summoned forth. Many people look to me as somebody who embodies that sense of possibility. I’m not saying that I am anything like him, I’m just saying there’s a spirit that I think I’ve grown up with that is something that means a tremendous amount to me. I think my mother … made it clear that you have to live life by your own terms and you have to not worry about what other people think and you have to have the courage to do the unexpected. Going into politics is something people have asked me about forever. When this opportunity came along, which was sort of unexpected, I thought, `Well, maybe now. How about now?’ We’re starting to see there are many ways into public life and public service.”
—Caroline Kennedy, in her first interview since expressing interest in Hillary’s seat
