July 2011
June 2011
“I should also point out that I have men with guns that surround them often, and a great incentive for running for reelection is that it means they never get in the car with a boy who had a beer, and that’s a pretty good thing”
—President Obama on teenage daughters (via zainyk)
“…We can tell our children that school is important until we’re blue in the face, they’re not stupid. They see the loudest applause is for the kids on the field. They know teachers are paid poorly and don’t drive fancy cars. They know people plan Super Bowl parties but mock the National Spelling Bee. In other words, they see the hypocrisy, and we can’t expect society to correct itself. If we want to have any lasting influence on the way our kids approach education — the way future generations approach education — then we have to grab our pom-poms and paint our faces and celebrate intellectual curiosity with the same vigor we do their athletic achievements.”
—
Why I’m raising my son to be a nerd - CNN.com
“Clarence doesn’t leave the E Street Band when he dies, he leaves when we die.”
—Bruce Springsteen, read his full eulogy to Clarence Clemons here (via soupsoup)
Play
Tom Petty wants Bachmann to lay off 'American Girl' →
politico.com
Republicans rejected yet again by Rockers.
‘American Girl’ belongs to Hillary Clinton, thank you very much.
“O’Donnell also reported that Petty asked George Bush not to use his song “I Won’t Back Down” in 2000, but apparently allowed Hillary Clinton to use “American Girl” during her 2008 campaign.” (via)
“I’m going to protect my stars. Amare, Carmelo, if someone’s getting rough with them, I’m going to protect them. I’m going to make my presence felt. They’ll know I’m there.”
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Josh Harrellson on what his role will be - The Knicks selected Harrellson with the 45th pick. Love the attitude. Welcome aboard Josh! (via knicksknotes)
I feel like such a proud mama.
oh my god, y'all
I’m catching up on everything I missed while I was off at my job today and I need to point out that there are WAY TOO MANY CLOWNS on my dashboard. Not cool, guys.
Thanks, Michele Bachmann. As if I needed yet another reason to dislike you.
“New York City is preparing for a surge in marriage license requests beginning in late July, when the newly-passed same-sex marriage law takes effect. Mayor Bloomberg said the city is readying for the influx. “We have 30 days to get ready… we will gear up for a larger number,” he told reporters on Monday. The mayor predicted the new law will bring extra tourism dollars to the city from couples who plan trips to specifically wed in the Big Apple. New York is the sixth state to legalize gay marriage.”
—Mayor: NYC Preps for Gay Wedding Surge | NBC New York (via vinegarwilliams)
“In the face of rising food prices there are but few alternatives for the housewife whose income is standing still. She can buy cheaper foods. Or she and her family can eat as well as usual by substituting work and intelligent planning for money. It is up to us to settle down to business, work a little harder, plan a little better and feed our families as well as possible without the outlay of extra cash. Where will we find the time to do all this extra work? Each woman must find her own solution. Mine is to let the cleaning slide. Clean clothes we must have so two days a week are spent in the laundry. But only one day is devoted to cleaning. When cutting corners in buying, omit the unessentials, the pickles, relishes, candy, ice-cream cones. Buy cheaper cuts of meat, seasonal vegetables and fruits. A large supply of home-canned fruits and vegetables is invaluable. Plan simpler meals. Anyone can toss off a dinner of beef steak, mashed potatoes, fresh-frozen limas, sliced tomatoes on watercress and pie from the baker. But it takes real planning, more time, but much less money to serve creamed dried limas, steamed brown bread, home-canned tomatoes and homemade apple pie. There is a budget trick that works. Home preparation of everything possible. This isn’t idle talk. This year I have spent less for food than the preceding year. It takes more than penny-pinching tricks to do it- one weak moment can toss away a week’s hard-earned gain.”
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The above is from a prize winning entry into a budget tricks contest held by Woman’s Day magazine in 1942.
“I always tell my writing students that every good piece of writing begins with both a mystery and a love story. And that every single sentence must be a poem. And that economy is the key to all good writing. And that every character has to have a secret.”
—Silas House
“At the same time that middle and upper middle class mothers were urged to pipe Mozart into their wombs when they’re pregnant so their kids would come out perfectly tuned, the government told poor mothers to get the hell out of the house and get to work—no more children’s aid for them. Mothers like us—with health care, laptops, and Cuisinarts—are supposed to replicate the immaculate bedrooms we see in Pottery Barn Kids catalogs, with their designer sheets and quilts, one toy and one stuffed animal atop a gleaming white dresser, and a white rug on the floor that has never been exposed to the shavings from hamster cages, Magic Markers accidentally dropped with their caps off, or Welch’s grape juice…. we’ve been encouraged to turn our backs on other mothers who pick their kids’ clothes out of other people’s trash and sometimes can’t buy a can of beans to feed them. How has it come to seem perfectly reasonable—even justified— that one class of mother is supposed to sew her baby’s diapers out of Egyptian cotton from that portion of the Nile blessed by the god Osiris while another class of mother can’t afford a single baby aspirin?”
—The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women by Susan Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels
“We send texts when she’s overseas or I’m overseas. Now that I said that, I can’t wait for somebody to pull them up. They’ll be boring but endearing I hope.”
—Bill Clinton, when asked if he and Secretary Clinton text each other
“Early on I had to decide if I was going to let Nikki in on the world before reading the books, or try to shield her from it until she read the books. I decided shielding her would be impossible, so she has seen all the movies and we talk the world of Potter all the time. Now, I’m constantly reminding her that the books are better and that she’ll get to learn new stuff when she reads them, but I was always worried she wouldn’t be motivated. UNTIL NOW. This is how SHE is going to read the books. Via Pottermore. And it will be interactive. How awesome is that? When she reads about Harry being sorted? She’ll get to be sorted too. And when Harry goes to Diagon Alley to buy school supplies? She’ll get money from Gringotts too and will get to spend it. She now has all the motivation in the world to read the books, because she gets to PARTICIPATE.”
—Why Moms Should Love Pottermore : misszoot.com
“If you would have told me a few years ago that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ would be repealed and about a billion jobs at General Motors and Chrysler would have been saved because the president was smart enough and strong enough and bold enough to do so, I would have said, ‘Wow. That’s a good president, I think I’ll vote for him again.”
—Tom Hanks: I’m voting for Obama again - POLITICO.com
“I believe it’s “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” But if that threatens you go outside, spit on the ground, shake your right right leg three times, set fire to a photo of George Michael then shout out “Sexarama, Hexarama. Queeriosis, Feariosis.” And if you do that 400,000 times, you will make all gay people disappear.”
—Alec Baldwin (AlecBaldwin) on Twitter
“This state, when it’s at its finest, is a beacon for social justice.”
—Gov. Cuomo, on NY becoming the sixth and largest state to approve gay marriage (via newsweek)
“The other states look to New York for the progressive direction. And what we said today is ‘You look to New York once again.’”
—Governor Andrew Cuomo (via pantslessprogressive)
Frank Sinatra - New York, NY (GOOD version)
Stop what you’re doing and listen.
That sound you hear?
That is the sound of traditional marriage not collapsing.
@DaveHolmes: “As we celebrate tonight, let’s spare a warm thought for our opponents, who lost absolutely nothing.”
“No friends or family were at her bedside when she died. But for someone who spent the greater years of her life alone, Clark seemed to seek company elsewhere. “She treated her dolls as children,” Harjung says of Clark’s vast doll collection. “She dressed her dolls and talked to them, according to my cousin. Yes,” he adds. “She was quirky.” She may have kept to herself, but Harjung says Clark used her wealth to reach out to others. “She was extremely generous, from what I understand,” he says. “Some people played up to her and told her a tale of woe, hoping she would give them something. She bought one of the nurses a condo. She would give away a $100,000 here or there.”
—Huguette Clark Dead: Who Was She?
“Mrs. Clark’s estate is worth about $400 million, and is made up of an art collection with works by Monet, Renoir, John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase; her real estate and financial investments; and a vast doll collection, from porcelains to Barbies, said John D. Dadakis, a lawyer at the firm Holland & Knight, who filed the will. Mrs. Clark’s nurse and close friend, Hadassah Peri, is the individual who will benefit most. She will get Mrs. Clark’s hundreds of dolls, potentially worth millions of dollars. Ms. Peri will also receive 60 percent of the various assets, worth about $40 million, including investments and much of her real estate holdings, not specifically bequeathed in the will. Most of Mrs. Clark’s assets will go into a foundation that will be established to promote the arts. It will be directed in part by the man who drafted the will, her New York lawyer, and her accountant, both of whom Manhattan prosecutors are investigating for how they handled Mrs. Clark’s money. The foundation, according to the will, will receive her Santa Barbara estate, most of her art collection, all of her musical instruments and her rare book collection. A 1907 original from Claude Monet’s Water Lilies series — kept from public view for more than eight decades — is given to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington.”
—Huguette Clark Left Wealth For Art Charity and to Nurse - NYTimes.com
