... you can say all the things you want.
September 12, 2009
"Up to two million people marched to the U.S. Capitol today... as they protested the president's health care plan and what they say is out-of-control spending."
"People were chanting 'enough, enough' and 'We the People.' Others yelled 'You lie, you lie!' and 'Pelosi has to go' ... Demonstrators waved U.S. flags and held signs reading 'Go Green Recycle Congress' and 'I'm Not Your ATM.' Men wore colonial costumes as they listened to speakers who warned of 'judgment day' - Election Day 2010.... Organizers say they built on momentum from the April 'tea party' demonstrations held nationwide to protest tax policies, along with growing resentment over the economic stimulus packages and bank bailouts."
An impressive showing. Isn't that more than came to the 2009 Inauguration? Yes:
UPDATE: Questions about the actual size of the admittedly huge crowd.
An impressive showing. Isn't that more than came to the 2009 Inauguration? Yes:
The National Park Service says it will rely on a media report that says 1.8 million people attended President Obama's inauguration.So then, today's event was the biggest ever in Washington?
David Barna, a Park Service spokesman, said the agency did not conduct its own count. Instead, it will use a Washington Post account that said 1.8 million people gathered on the US Capitol grounds, National Mall, and parade route.
"It is a record," Barna said. "We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."
UPDATE: Questions about the actual size of the admittedly huge crowd.
"Readers well know that I have never failed to address even personal matters on this blog..."
"... which is why I hope you understand that it's clear and binding legal advice that prevents me from commenting," says Andrew Sullivan. Of course, his failure to speak shouldn't be construed to mean anything but that he's following the obvious legal advice.
That doesn't mean we can't talk about it, though.
That doesn't mean we can't talk about it, though.
I throw some movie-related red meat to the lefties, and then to the righties.
I've got to tell you, I laughed like mad at the trailer for the new Michael Moore movie "Capitalism: A Love Story":
I will definitely see this movie. Annoying as I've found Michael Moore at times in the past, I love the light but stinging touch. Quite charming, if the trailer is accurate.
Okay, see? Sometimes I throw out red meat for the liberals.
Now, here's red meat for you righties. In the trailer at 1:40, we hear and then see George W. Bush and — even though I was in a theater in the lefty hotbed of Madison, Wisconsin — I leaned over to my seatmate (the estimable Meade) and said (loud enough to be heard): "I miss that guy."
The movie we were seeing was — as the previous post hints — "Inglourious Basterds." In "Chapter 2" of that film, when Brad Pitt first appeared, Meade now says — if he hadn't needed to maintain Hoosierly etiquette — he wanted to lean over to me and whisper "George W."
And it's true. Brad Pitt is kind of doing a George Bush impersonation. (Meade points to 0:30 in this trailer, when the character says "killin' Nazis.") Now, it's an awful accent, really. And I don't think it's a Tennessee accent, which is what we're told it is. Oddly, later in the movie, there's a whole thing about speaking Italian with a bad accent, and Pitt's is the worst of the bad accents, so maybe there — and throughout the movie — Quentin Tarantino intended to treat us to layer upon layer of joking.
I will definitely see this movie. Annoying as I've found Michael Moore at times in the past, I love the light but stinging touch. Quite charming, if the trailer is accurate.
Okay, see? Sometimes I throw out red meat for the liberals.
Now, here's red meat for you righties. In the trailer at 1:40, we hear and then see George W. Bush and — even though I was in a theater in the lefty hotbed of Madison, Wisconsin — I leaned over to my seatmate (the estimable Meade) and said (loud enough to be heard): "I miss that guy."
***
The movie we were seeing was — as the previous post hints — "Inglourious Basterds." In "Chapter 2" of that film, when Brad Pitt first appeared, Meade now says — if he hadn't needed to maintain Hoosierly etiquette — he wanted to lean over to me and whisper "George W."
And it's true. Brad Pitt is kind of doing a George Bush impersonation. (Meade points to 0:30 in this trailer, when the character says "killin' Nazis.") Now, it's an awful accent, really. And I don't think it's a Tennessee accent, which is what we're told it is. Oddly, later in the movie, there's a whole thing about speaking Italian with a bad accent, and Pitt's is the worst of the bad accents, so maybe there — and throughout the movie — Quentin Tarantino intended to treat us to layer upon layer of joking.
"['Inglourious Basterds'] is a movie that thinks cold-blooded brutality and torture are not necessary evils, or excesses spawned in the heat of battle, but the very epitome of cool."
"It's a celebration of the most bestial kind of toughness in the name of us-vs-them entitlement. You keep thinking you'll find Dick Cheney's name in the credits."
Ah, but why does Hollywood make such films? These people who are most ready to denounce what Dick Cheney would call "enhanced interrogation techniques" — aren't they the ones who make and consume popular entertainment that revels in torture and humiliation?
The theory could be that the people who are most sensitive to torture are the ones who find it titillating and are ashamed of themselves. They dare to take their pleasure in the movie theater and yet are horrified to see anything in real life that reminds them of their shameful feelings.
Dick Cheney, on the other hand, is pragmatic and cool (the epitome of cool?). I'll bet he doesn't sit around at Quentin Tarantino movies.
Ah, but why does Hollywood make such films? These people who are most ready to denounce what Dick Cheney would call "enhanced interrogation techniques" — aren't they the ones who make and consume popular entertainment that revels in torture and humiliation?
The theory could be that the people who are most sensitive to torture are the ones who find it titillating and are ashamed of themselves. They dare to take their pleasure in the movie theater and yet are horrified to see anything in real life that reminds them of their shameful feelings.
Dick Cheney, on the other hand, is pragmatic and cool (the epitome of cool?). I'll bet he doesn't sit around at Quentin Tarantino movies.
Copulating corpses.
The science exhibit.
It is one thing to ask whether dead bodies should be plastinated and dissected to various levels and posed and displayed for the public and another to ask whether the parts to be displayed and the poses can be sexual. But...
It is one thing to ask whether dead bodies should be plastinated and dissected to various levels and posed and displayed for the public and another to ask whether the parts to be displayed and the poses can be sexual. But...
The way a plastinate is exhibited can vary from country to country to reflect local sensibilities. A vote of local employees decided that one of the copulating female cadavers should wear fewer clothes in Zurich than was the case in Berlin.... it is quite another matter to conform the display to local preferences and prejudices that require different degrees of exposure for the male and the female and restrictions about different kinds of sexual activity. Just because something is a "delicate subject" doesn't mean you have to track local taste — especially when your whole enterprise challenges convention.
"Switzerland is the first country that already said from the outset that we could show whatever we wanted," said [Gunther] von Hagens.
"Zurich is ready ... but it's maybe not so easy in every other town," he said. "We have discussed whether it is proper to show homosexuality and in what way. This is a very delicate subject."
Should Joe Wilson, on pain of admonishment, apologize on the floor of the House? I say yes.
That's the proposal. And I say yes, but with an important condition. What Wilson did was to appropriate a solemn occasion — a presidential address to a joint session of Congress — to insert his own partisan political statement. He should apologize, but what I want in addition is an apology for the masses of presidential supporters who repeatedly interrupted the speech with partisan applause, cheering, and standing ovations.
Either it is a solemn occasion not to be interrupted by partisan distractions or it is not. As a citizen TV-watcher, I was willing to listen to the President lay out his argument for us, but I would not watch a political rally. The Democrats who took advantage of the occasion to cheer the President on created an atmosphere that made Joe Wilson's 2 syllables of dissent a welcome pushback. If they had been decorous throughout, what Wilson did would have been appalling. But his behavior seen apart from that context is unacceptable. Let him then apologize, if all the others who wrecked the solemnity also apologize, and let us have future Presidents' visits to Congress be polite, respectful affairs.
If that can't be done, then let the President drop the pomposity and submit to Question Time:
According to the article linked above, Wilson is accused of violating House rules:
It has been found impermissible to call the president a liar.
What a crazy thing to say! Step up and defend it if you dare.
Either it is a solemn occasion not to be interrupted by partisan distractions or it is not. As a citizen TV-watcher, I was willing to listen to the President lay out his argument for us, but I would not watch a political rally. The Democrats who took advantage of the occasion to cheer the President on created an atmosphere that made Joe Wilson's 2 syllables of dissent a welcome pushback. If they had been decorous throughout, what Wilson did would have been appalling. But his behavior seen apart from that context is unacceptable. Let him then apologize, if all the others who wrecked the solemnity also apologize, and let us have future Presidents' visits to Congress be polite, respectful affairs.
If that can't be done, then let the President drop the pomposity and submit to Question Time:
***
According to the article linked above, Wilson is accused of violating House rules:
House rules and precedents provide substantial guidance on how a House member can and cannot refer to the president while speaking on the floor, and the guidelines state that it has been found impermissible to call the president a liar. The House was in formal session at the time of the speech.This sort of viewpoint discrimination is unAmerican. Can members yell out "You're the One" and "I love you, Barack" and "Amen!"? It's fine to have rules, but I want to attack them for having a rule like that.
It has been found impermissible to call the president a liar.
What a crazy thing to say! Step up and defend it if you dare.
"Wilson hires professional Tweeter."
Headline.
So there's a whole profession now. Professional tweeter. Put that on your resume.
But you know, tweeters have been around for a long time. And they are funky.
Maybe Urban Dictionary can help.... Ooh! Maybe you don't want to be a professional tweeter.... Is that something ACORN can help with?
So there's a whole profession now. Professional tweeter. Put that on your resume.
But you know, tweeters have been around for a long time. And they are funky.
Maybe Urban Dictionary can help.... Ooh! Maybe you don't want to be a professional tweeter.... Is that something ACORN can help with?
Am I allowed to hate the UW Marching Band?
They started practicing this morning — Saturday — at 6:30 a.m.
The sound — which I rather love when I hear it wafting in from a distance in the late afternoon — is loud and sleep-annihilating in the morning.
The sound — which I rather love when I hear it wafting in from a distance in the late afternoon — is loud and sleep-annihilating in the morning.
Yangtze River Number Two.
The world's most expensive dog. Only $582,000. Really, why aren't the very best dogs more expensive?
[A] motorcade of 30 cars escorted the dog from the airport in Xi'an to his new home. A crowd also gathered to celebrate its new resident.Now, a motorcade... that impresses me.
"Yellow Submarine" — the remake!
By Disney. Seriously.
And "Yellow Submarine" means so much to me. It came out in 1968, when I was in my last year of high school, and if someone had given me the information on how to dedicate my life to making animated films like that, I would have gone there (and lived a completely different life).
It was so much harder back then to figure out such things. So I ended up, the following year, entering a hippie college experience at the University of Michigan called the Residential College and then tripping across the street to the art school. But life is so much easier now — with the internet. For example, I just had a major flashback brought on by Googling my way to the Facebook group " UM Residential College-East Quad ("Where East Quadies and RC students of past meet").
But perhaps life was better when it was hard to find things.... and cartoons needed to be drawn ....
Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook said the new "Yellow Submarine" will be directed by Robert Zemeckis using the same motion-capture effects employed in "Polar Express."Oh, no. We will encounter the Beatles in the "uncanny valley." The original visual aspect of "Yellow Submarine" is all about clear, crisp, flat color. Now, I admit, looking at some clips on YouTube, that the old film looks sketchy and cheap by current animation standards. I'd love to see a new 2D version of the film — or a new 2D animated film using Beatles songs. I just hate 3D animation. It makes me feel bad on a deep physical, animal level.
And "Yellow Submarine" means so much to me. It came out in 1968, when I was in my last year of high school, and if someone had given me the information on how to dedicate my life to making animated films like that, I would have gone there (and lived a completely different life).
It was so much harder back then to figure out such things. So I ended up, the following year, entering a hippie college experience at the University of Michigan called the Residential College and then tripping across the street to the art school. But life is so much easier now — with the internet. For example, I just had a major flashback brought on by Googling my way to the Facebook group " UM Residential College-East Quad ("Where East Quadies and RC students of past meet").
But perhaps life was better when it was hard to find things.... and cartoons needed to be drawn ....
A zoo tiger leapt over a 16' fence and mauled a man to death.
It happened in Hanoi.
Are you surprised? Consider this:
Jabari — who was shot to death — had been taunted. Who knows what moved the tiger?
Are you surprised? Consider this:
[Zoo] animals do not escape to somewhere but from something. Something within their territory has frightened them ... and set off a flight reaction. The animal flees, or tries to. I was surprised to read at the Toronto Zoo ... that leopards can jump up to eighteen feet straight up. Our leopard enclosure in Pondicherry was sixteen feet high at the back. I surmise that Rosie and Copycat never jumped out was not because of constitutional weakness but simply because they had no reason to. Animals that escape go from the known to the unknown--and if there is one thing an animal hates above all else, it is the unknown.That's a passage many will recognize, from "The Life of Pi." I copied it out once before, in a post called "Jabari was wronged," about a gorilla who managed to climb the 15' concave wall of his enclosure.
Jabari — who was shot to death — had been taunted. Who knows what moved the tiger?
September 11, 2009
"Hi I'm just like you I worry about getting fat and finding the right man to validate my pointless existence where all I do is worry about getting fat and finding the right man to validate my pointless existence..."
"... but also the difference is that I invariably live in New York (or London if I must) where I am a struggling intern/PR lackey/copywriter/journalist and I live in a small apartment with either a cat or a hilarious gay man or a hilarious gay cat and it's ever so cosmopolitan and fun and just when I think I will always be dating a series of Mr. Wrongs for the rest of my life I meet BRAD/JULIO/LAWRENCE/SEPHIROTH depending on if I am from Oklahoma, Florida, Georgia, or Final Fantasy fanfic and then after that we have some fun misunderstandings and then my bitch of a boss (because female bosses are always bitches) steals my man (never trust a woman in a position of power, you see, is the moral here) and I have to do some CRAZY THINGS to have my revenge and then I level up and I get the boss bitch's job and my man back all at once and THE END i high-five my gay cat and off we go to the sequel where we are sexy ore miners on a distant asteroid (but we still love shoes!!!!!)"
No, that's the joke. Here's the real:
No, that's the joke. Here's the real:
While the kids are fed and then wiped down and diverted with Play-Doh, I load the washing machine with armloads of my new clothes. As I stuff in a size 4 blouse, my iPhone beeps to tell me someone I know has just updated their Facebook status.
"It is quite apparent that [Andrew] Sullivan is being treated differently from others who have been charged with the same crime in similar circumstances."
Disturbing:
Political commentator, author and writer for The Atlantic magazine Andrew M. Sullivan won’t have to face charges stemming from a recent pot bust at the Cape Cod National Seashore — but a federal judge isn’t happy about it....
[T]he U.S. Attorney’s Office sought to dismiss the case. Both the federal prosecutor and Sullivan’s attorney said it would have resulted in an “adverse effect” on an unspecified “immigration status” that Sullivan, a British citizen, is applying for....
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