September 28
revivification
Hmm… perhaps it’s time to use this space again. It’s been slightly over a year since its moribundification. ;p
net.casting
September 24
Let’s Play “WALLSTREET BAILOUT” The Rules Are… Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-OH (via CSPANJUNKIEdotORG)
Hmmm… let’s hope Rep. Kaptur helps swing OH for Obama.
September 23
“ What we are seeing is the stuff of a novel, the public corruption of an American war hero. It is painful. First, there was his exploitation of a symbolic woman, an eager zealot who is so far out of her depth that it isn’t funny anymore. Anyone with a heart has to hurt for how Mr. McCain has made a fool of her. Never mind the persistent cheesiness of his attack ads. And now this chasm of debt and loss and the gentleman pretends to be shocked. He was there. He turned out the lights. He sent the regulators home.
—Garrison Keillor, Where is the outrage? | Salon
—Garrison Keillor, Where is the outrage? | Salon
September 3
A book-burner?
Whatever else she is, the thing that really disturbs me about Sarah Palin is that she reportedly wanted her city librarian to ban books from the library, when she was mayor of Wasilla.
A Rough Record, fr. TIME magazine.
February 28
“ We’re at that moment in the campaign that reminds me of a horror movie. There’s a kind of relief that the worst cannot happen, that the Clintons are politically dead, that our long national nightmare is over. The screen falls silent. We look at pleasant images: green grass, or a kitchen table scene, or a calm lovers’ embrace. But you know they have something left. They could come suddenly screaming back, like that hand out of the grave in Carrie or Glenn Close in the bathtub in Fatal Attraction. An Edwards endorsement? A March surprise?
Like Freddy or Jason, they still lurk, ready to pounce again. And the credits are yet to roll. Gulp.
—The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
Like Freddy or Jason, they still lurk, ready to pounce again. And the credits are yet to roll. Gulp.
—The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
February 26
“ For the generations that came of age as Radiohead got huge, patterns of life seem to have emerged that mutually reinforce and confirm a downward revision of expectations. The band’s catalog tracks the increasing acceptance of a newly fundamental degree of contingency, incompleteness, and transience. It extends across careers and love lives, shaping attitudes reaching from domestic politics to cosmic fate. Many now seem happy just to find or help create the passages of experience that permit momentary and communal escapes. Immanent and transcendent, such fugitive moments of therapeutic authenticity ameliorate the painful costs of being comprehensively compromised.
—James Poulos :: Fugitive Hopes:The Radiohead Decade
—James Poulos :: Fugitive Hopes:The Radiohead Decade
+
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, in the Norwegian Arctic. “After several years of planning and digging, the world has its first secure, deep-frozen repository for backup supplies of seeds from hundreds of thousands of plant varieties that underpin agriculture.”
February 25
“ Raising enough money from a million people to swamp the bundler-driven campaigns of your opponents is the motherf*cking campaign finance reform! How do you like that, motherf*ucker?
—The Reality-Based Community: 985,360
—The Reality-Based Community: 985,360
February 21
“ Even Iran’s arch-conservatives have realized that Iran’s chronic economic problems as well as its long-term growth, political stability and national security will be better addressed by a thaw and gradual normalization of relations with the world’s leading superpower. With Obama as president, the “Great Satan” would surely have to be renamed anyway; Satan, after all, could not have the middle name of Hussein.
—Barack Obama, a new face for American diplomacy | Salon
—Barack Obama, a new face for American diplomacy | Salon
February 20
“ It’s sad, really. As I’ve said before, I have no animus against Hillary Clinton, and I don’t believe that Barack Obama is the chosen one who can bring balance to the Force, end the war with the machines, and destroy all of Voldemort’s horcruxes. But Hillary really is surrounded by the gang that can’t shoot straight, and for some reason I’ve grown leery of politicians who don’t fire incompetents.
—TPM Cafe | Michael Bérubé at Talking Points Memo | A Clinton Attack Plan?
—TPM Cafe | Michael Bérubé at Talking Points Memo | A Clinton Attack Plan?
February 17
February 15
“ As much as he was a hard-nosed scientist, he was also an unreformed romantic, and it made sense that truffles would attract such a man. Only the most hopeful of people could spend years growing a thing that cannot be seen, and that might never consent to appear.
—The truffles are coming | Salon Life
—The truffles are coming | Salon Life
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“ Behind every revolting and pathetic little sex goblin is a derelict dad.
—James Poulos, on Brittney Spears
—James Poulos, on Brittney Spears
December 7
“ A nation that sits silently and allows this to transpire demonstrates complicity. The oversight committees need to start doing their job. And we need a Department of Justice that enforces the law rather than suborning serious official criminality. As John McCain very aptly said in the last presidential debate, this is the defining issue for our country–whether the country continues on the path that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln set for it, or whether it adopts the mentality and practices, the unbridled authoritarianism and official cruelty, of Kaiser Wilhelm and similar autocrats. The choice couldn’t be clearer, nor the moral implications of the decision.
—Scott Horton in Harpers.org: “Obstruction of Justice at the CIA”
—Scott Horton in Harpers.org: “Obstruction of Justice at the CIA”
December 3
Every first of December is world AIDS awareness day. The scourge affects developing and poor nations disproportionately. This photo by Paolo Pellegrini of Magnum Photos shows a young man dying of AIDS in a Zimbabwean slum. In that country, 2000 people die of AIDS or an AIDS-related illness… each week. That’s about 2 9/11s every single month.
