Wolraich: Obama at the Gates of... Gates
Dr. C: In Praise of Writing Binges
Maiello: Gatsby Doesn't Grate
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Wolraich: Obama at the Gates of... Gates Dr. C: In Praise of Writing Binges Maiello: Gatsby Doesn't Grate |
Blowing |
How jealous are we of that lavish, over-the-top Royal Wedding the Brits got to celebrate this year? So pathetically jealous we had to pretend we're capable of having one of our own by latching onto the lavish, over-the-top Kim Kardashian-Kris Humphries wedding. (Whoever the hell they are.) The Big Event took place last weekend and every station in the nation went all barmy over it. The name "Kardashian" was out there so often, I figure it's just a matter of time before it appears in dictionaries all over the world as another striking example of "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"
[Celebrity] is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing." — With apologies to Macbeth
But my favorite part was a moment just before the nuptials when a CNN reporter was outside the compound talking about things most shallow and decidedly icky, like the fact that People Magazine paid more than a million dollars for the exclusive rights to the wedding photos, and a kid (looking and behaving like a certain grandson) gives the performance of his life on national TV. Watch it here.
Love Story #2: Moammar loves Condi. Who knew? The Libyan Rebels have taken over Gadhafi's (Kaddafi. Khadafy. Qaddafi. etc.) .compound and of course the first thing they did was to dig through the junk to find the juicy stuff. Imagine their joy when they found a photo album entirely devoted to portraits of Condoleeza Rice.
One might guess from the evidence that Moammar had a certain obsession with Condi, but all guessing ends with the heretofore ignored interview the smitten one gave to al Jazeera way back in 2007, in which he gushed:
"I support my darling black African woman [...] I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders. ... Leezza, Leezza, Leezza. ... I love her very much. I admire her, and I'm proud of her, because she's a black woman of African origin."
Well, yes, it's very bizarre, very creepy, but what I can't figure out is 2007? How did we miss this for so long??
Love Story #3:
Newlyweds Arthur Phillips and Brittany Lurch wanted very much to have a nice reception where their many friends could join them in celebrating their nuptials. Money was apparently tight (neither of them were Kardashians, you see) so it took the Centre Hall, PA couple a few days to figure out how they were going to do it, but when the plan finally took shape it was a doozy.
They headed to the local Wegmans and loaded up a cart with over $1,000 worth of reception-type food and then walked out the door without paying. Brilliant. It worked! The problem was, they had invited so many people to their special soiree one cart-load of hors d'oeuvres just wasn't going to do it. They had to go back and load up again. They were so tickled over the success of their first heist, they ordered a huge batch of seafood from the deli. But something felt amiss, apparently, because they left the deli counter without the goods and tried to get outside, landing smack into the arms of the police.
They will be spending their honeymoon in jail. No immediate plans for an actual marriage.
(That's Bonnie and Clyde. Click here for Arthur and Brittany's wedding portrait. The Centre Daily wants me to pay for the photo but I don't want to.)
That moment sublime: The flying scene from "Out of Africa". Pure romance:

Cartoon of the Week
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Joe Heller - Green Bay Press Gazette |
(Cross-posted at Ramona's Voices)
Even by the standards of the TED conference, Henry Markram’s 2009 TEDGlobal talk was a mind-bender. He took the stage of the Oxford Playhouse, clad in the requisite dress shirt and blue jeans, and announced a plan that—if it panned out—would deliver a fully sentient hologram within a decade. He dedicated himself to wiping out all mental disorders and creating a self-aware artificial intelligence. And the South African–born neuroscientist pronounced that he would accomplish all this through an insanely ambitious attempt to build a complete model of a human brain—from synapses to hemispheres—and simulate it on a supercomputer. Markram was proposing a project that has bedeviled AI researchers for decades, that most had presumed was impossible. He wanted...
This has to be David Bowie's proudest moment, pending the manned Mars expedition.
By Aamer Madhani, USA Today, May 19, 2013
President Obama on Sunday told the graduating class at Morehouse College, the country's pre-eminent historically black college, there is "no time for excuses" for this generation of African-American men and that it was time for their generation to step up professionally and in their personal lives.
[....] The president connected his own path to the White House to the work of King and other African-American leaders of that generation. But Obama also conceded that at times as a young man he wrongly blamed his own failings "as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down."
"We've got no time for excuses — not because the bitter legacies...
Prompted by Peggy Noonan's claim in The Wall Street Journal that "we are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate," Andrew Sullivan steps forward to defend Pres. Obama's honor. "Can she actually believe this?," he asks incredulously.
I am not sure where Moammar fits into the Hitler ratings relative to fellows like Amin; but I have been watching this batshite crazy guy for decades.
Did not Clinton come within meters of bombing him into kingdom come?
And like Sadaam, depending of course on who sat in our Oval Office, were not we giving Moammar weapons during some intervals in his reign?
America kind of loves and hates these villains who seem to come right out of a Batman comic book.
Every day it was Halloween for this mofo! I do not think that anyone in the history of mankind had so many costumes.
Absolute power seems to really have an effect upon the ego and certain areas of the brain.
Absolute power means they don't have to feign sanity. They can be as crazy as it comes and still be the leader of an entire country. That guy in North Korea probably had the most fun being nuts while 3/4 of the country starved. Chairman Mao was loony enough to think his country would do just fine if everyone just kept their noses to the grindstone and pretended the human spirit didn't need no damned culture.
Let's face it; most dictators are nuts. And we'll all be in the same boat if we don't stop having fun with the up and coming tea party wackos and begin to see them for the dangerous despots they want to -- and could -- become.
Be kind to
yourparentsQuaddafiThough
theyhe don't deserve itRemember
they're grownupshe's a dictatorA difficult stage of life.
They're apt to be nervous
And overexcited
Confused from the daily storm and strife
Just keep in mind (just keep in mind)
Though it sounds odd, I know
Those
parentstea partiers once werechildrensanelong ago
Incredible!
So treat them with patience
And sweet understanding
Some day you may wake up, and find you're a
parenttea partier too!.................................................................................
If you can't carry a tune you can hum along
Absolute power can and frequently does yield decisions which appear as qualitatively nuts.
When there are no constraints on behavior, morality and ethics are stricken from the human formula.
Conservative and progressive relaxation on various standards of conduct extend the range of permissible conduct into regions once thought to be outside the norm. Common to both is a granting of largesse to a unique constituency within either camp. We call this political cronyism or more precisely, corruption.