Spooky Silly Site o' the Day

I feel like I got nothing done Saturday. Okay, some house-straightening and banking and a little shopping and dry cleaning, and Robin shelved the first of the 16 Marvel boxes, and we activated our new cell phones and played around with them awhile and I made Sloppy Joes for dinner which you should always always eat on toast I've discovered... but I can't shake this lethargy. I think it's because it's almost 60 degrees at midnight on October 31, and that feels kind of wrong. Add to that Daylight Savings Time is about to kick in, which means I lose yet an hour today and it's not even my fault. (Update: Upon waking up again, I realized my error and thank y'all for your correction; now you see how tired I was that I didn't even realize I was gaining an hour!) But none of this is scary. Anticipating Tuesday, now that's scary. And so, via Hanan Levin, it's come to Kafka-Orwell 2004. Great, just what I need now, paranoia and ennui...

Silly Sites o' the Day

I can't figure out whether I'm lazy or exhausted today. Probably the latter; all my energy seemed to drain out of me around twilight yesterday. We hope to spend the weekend getting all the Marvel comics shelved, which Robin will have to do during breaks from work, and then I can start on the DC morass. Meantime, may as well clean out my in box. Today is a "nobody's monkey" day so I've just deleted all the appeals to vote, or to tell others to vote, or to encourage me to call other people and bother them at home urging them to vote. So just, you know, vote, okay? That said, NoMind e-mails me to let me know he's opened his website with all his Fighting Words political comic strips, so I have no trouble plugging that. And in my home in-box there's one from Firesign chat buddy Ken leading me to this clever movie clip vignette featuring the actor who would have been best suited to playing Dubya in the inevitable bio. Lastly, it's nice to know I'm on the Yes Bush Can mailing list; these folks are far too smart for their own good, and play things completely deadpan.

On The Record

Via Xeni at BoingBoing, a group entitled Internet Veterans for Truth has gathered some terrific video clips all in one convenient place, including Bush's 9-11 Pet Goat reading, some cherce Daily Show clips, and Eminem's brilliant new "Mosh" video which you owe it to yourself to see even if, like me, your hip-hop tolerance tends to be fairly low. (Although whoever transcribed the lyrics probably should have used some sort of spell checker...)

Silly Site o' the Day

Via an e-mail from the writer-director himself, it's Vincent Cross' W: The Lost Years.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Hallowe'en is coming up, and that's the date we choose to celebrate Datsa's birthday, for obvious reasons:

We think he'll be somewhere around 14 years old this year.

Silly Site o' the Day

Ah, autumn, where the stunning-looking foliage around our place (update: see Robin's pictures) and on my commute is offset by the bright morning sun completely in my eyes when I try to look out of our long private road/driveway and can't see oncoming cars because other cars park too close to the edge of the exit and I almost get in an accident... Too many maintenance job calls are still coming in on my office phone line, but it's slightly less hectic than yesterday so I'm hoping the resulting headache allows me to catch up on things again. (Update again: Hah; my boss wound up coming in... the best-laid plans...) Congrats to Boston, I'm very pleased for my ex, and I too wish my former dad-in-law had lived to see their victory. I'm a bit less pleased with Blogger, as my edit page refuses to load, but I seem to be getting by on my meager coding knowledge. (Update once more, sorry, sorry: Seems fixed for now.) So let's see if I can do this right: via both Top Six'ers Mark Evanier and Tom Tomorrow, it's Peter Kuper's Richie Bush!

Silly Site o' the Day

So I came into work to find out that my phone extension was given as the contact number for a maintenance position in our building, and I'm positively inundated with job-seekers. It would have been nice to have been informed and, you know, given the information I needed to ask these folks, particularly as I've never interviewed anyone before in my 25+ year career. At this point I've given up and sent all calls to my voice mail, after recording a new message aimed at the applicants; as I'm fairly Pavlovian it's been hard not to pick up the phone each time it rings, but it would be far harder to concentrate on getting things done with the constant interruption. Wish I were one of the Live Girls; they don't seem to have any phone problems, but of course they could be lying about that! Link via pretty much everyone, but I got it e-mailed personally from the still-unsyndicated Eva Whitley so that always counts more with me.

Speaking Out, Yesterday and Tomorrow

Yesterday was "Can You Feel a Draft?" Day, organized by the Freeway Blogger. Click on the picture below to see more like it:

And next week, if all doesn't go well, there are a number of people pledging not to get run over roughshod again; they've taken the Pledge of Action to Stop A Stolen Election. Via Morgaine the Goddess.

Silly Site o' the Day

Paper or Plastic goes out to my brother and friends in California. I love the rinky-tink music. Via Cory at BoingBoing.

Mr. Pax Goes to Washington

Many progressive bloggers get a little anxious whenever our Baghdad-based blogging "buddies" don't check in for awhile, and I'd been wondering where Salam Pax had been. Turns out he was in Washington D.C. a couple weeks back. Read his adventures here.

Milestone Note

Didn't do a lot of blogging this past weekend, so I hope my other "blogchild" will forgive me being a little late. Happy belated 2nd blogiversary, Johnny Bacardi!

Silly Site o' the Day

Via N. Todd Pritsky, it's Leave it to Bush, featuring Gary Busey and ferrets! Actual voices of Bush and Busey.

Silly Site o' the Day

By now most people have seen the Bush campaign's latest Chicken Little attempt (hope it makes Roxanne's scorecard!). As Glenn Hauman puts it, "Who in heaven's name thought it was a good idea for George W. Bush... to run a campaign ad where he's quite literally crying wolf?" Not only that but, via Atrios and a whole bunch of others, the campaign has upset the wolves themselves, who have formed Wolfpacks for Truth... Update: Andrew at The Poor Man also cries wolf, and Lynda at Available Light points out that it's actually been National Wolf Awareness Week...

Uniform Code of Military Toughness

This NY Times article on the setting up of Guantanamo Bay is Robin's Reading Recommendation for the day. It's called After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law, and it's pretty long and comprehensive but, judging by the excerpts Robin's been reading me, well worth it and very frightening. If you have trouble with BugMeNot's logins, there's a truncated version here.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Pam Martin at Beancounters, it's the Presidential Horror Picture Show, another animated bit featuring Leno-level stereotyping instead of the candidates' actual shortcomings. Yow, those "Clutch Cargo lips" still freak me out...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

I love how sometimes both Datsa and Amy assume the same sort of position in repose...

Although I wouldn't look too closely, the radiator in the background can make you a bit dizzy...

Quote of the Day

"Mary Cheney IS gay which is pretty important when you stop thinkin about it."

- The inimitable Fafblog

"Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will."

The good Doctor Hunter S. Thompson takes a look at Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004. Via Zed at MemeMachineGo. One of Thompsons's theories is that the election will go to whoever wants it more, which I think ties in nicely with what John Zogby was saying on Morning Sedition today. Essentially, he observed, the undecided voters aren't necessarily undecided between Bush and Kerry, they have no intention of voting for Bush. The indecision is whether to vote for Kerry or for someone else or just stay home, because Kerry (or perhaps the political process itself) hasn't shown them whatever they're looking for in a reason to vote for someone, not just against someone else. Maybe that "whatever they're looking for" is an obvious desire to "want it more."

Milestone Notes

Happy second blogiversary to my friend, "blogchild" and Pen-Elayne techie guru Laura Gjovaag! And get well soon, Laura! Also, via Trevor Blake, at 1 PM Greenwich time today a bunch of high-falutin' scientists toasted the precise date and moment of creation 6000 years ago according to the Biblical chronology and calculations of the Archbishop of Armagh. Who says religion and science can't mix?

Silly Site o' the Day

This one's for Robin, who bought the Queen DVD-A the other day so I finally got to see the entire video of Bohemian Rhapsody for the first time. I think I saw this on another blog before, but I can't find it so I'll credit Hanan Levin. It's a JibJab-like parody (even in sensibility, meaning it plays on Leno-level stereotyping rather than the candidates' true shortcomings) called Political Bohemian Rhapsody.

Safe Outside the City?

Yeah, moving the office up to New Rochelle has certainly gotten us away from all that crime in New York...

Well, That Didn't Take Long

Midnight - Yankees/Red Sox game ends

12:30 AM - Lots of banging from basement apartment interrupts any plans we might have had to get to sleep

1:00 AM - Banging seems to have abated, finally drift off fitfully

7:30 AM - Alarm goes off, a very tough wake-up for us both

8:05 AM - Out of the house

8:07 AM - Morning Sedition talking about whether Boston winning last night was a karmic harbinger, particularly if the Astros win tonight

Silly Site o' the Day

Here's today's Bible lesson via JC Christian, entitled Elisha the Cruel.

Congrats, Red Sox

And that's from a Yankees fan. I know my ex-husband must be smiling now.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

David Niewert continues his exhaustive look at The Rise of Pseudo Fascism on the American Street as well as his own blog. Here's part five, which deals with 9/11 survival mentality, world domination, apocalypticism and propaganda.

Silly Site o' the Day

Speaking (as we were below) of Doctorows, Cory from BoingBoing passes along an absolute gem of an animation called Pirates & Emperors - a letter-perfect take on the old Schoolhouse Rock shorts many of us remember so fondly.

One From the 'Rents

Mom and/or Dad just e-mailed me this essay from E.L. Doctorow entitled The Unfeeling President. I haven't seen it linked to anywhere else (although granted, I've fallen way behind in blog reading again), so I'm passing it along now. I think it makes a nice companion piece to the Suskind Without A Doubt essay; when you're no longer living a "reality-based" existence it makes sense that you don't have a feeling of gravitas for death. Update: And, as if on cue, we now learn that Bush told his buddy Pat Robertson that there weren't going to be any casualties in Iraq. Not being able to feel death, indeed...

I Am, However, Their Monkey

Given the time I actually don't mind passing along mass-emails that want me to use the "power" and "influence" of this pissy little blog to inform folks of, well, whatever product or news event has gotten the mailers inspired and/or riled up. (And hey, anyone else notice the new crop of spams lately urging folks to vote for Bush? My "favorite" comes from the pseudonym Arnold Says, with the subject Don't Be A Girlieman! Vote For Bush!, just in case, you know, your filter auto-deletes "girlyman" I guess.)

So today I have one from Column A and one from Column B (sorry, I always think about Chinese food when it rains). First, from John Crimmings, who "work(s) for MessageCast, Inc. and we’re partnering with Microsoft to offer free real-time blog alerts and we want you to help us beta test" a new service called LiveMessage, which "helps drive traffic to your blog. We instantly update your readers whenever you post an update to your blog, but we do so in a very innovative way. LiveMessage detects if your readers are online, and intelligently delivers an update the way your readers want, via desktop alert, cell, PDA, or email." My trepidation at how they seem to be skirting privacy issues precluded me from signing up, as in order to register you need to give them your home address and such, but I did promise to pass his ad along, and so I have.

The other mass e-mail is from Doug Powell of "Band of Citizens, a new internet-based citizen’s advocacy group featuring a web video campaign that delivers positive messages about voting, and gives swing voters compelling reasons for supporting John Kerry. What makes this video campaign different? While similar in format to the 'Jib-Jab' web commercial, these web videos (called “Citizenflicks”) feature only positive messages about voting and John Kerry. The site is designed for forwarding web videos to undecided friends and family members in these final weeks." So not, you know, bipartisan but certainly optimistic. But I hasten to add that they're not similar in format to JibJab at all, as the latter pretty much features animation and the "citizenflicks" all appear to be live-action.

Silly Site o' the Day

Not a good day so far. Stupid row with Robin (since resolved, we don't do rows that well), followed by driving to work in the rain (it having rained all night there are lots of little floody patches through which to hydroplane), followed by having to go to the basement again to turn the boiler on only I couldn't because I threw my shoulder out yesterday turning the valve and the COO was "infuriated" at me because she had to delegate it to someone else (Jon Stewart's "I'm not your monkey" line springs to mind), followed by another leak upstairs and my boss-the-landlord isn't even in yet... I think we could all use a Silly Site by now, and Steven Chalker e-mails me this one, Bush Removal. Maybe those hardhats can come over and turn the valve to the off position in an hour or so when it gets too hot?...

A Place For Our Stuff

Robin has been moving the comics boxes from the third bedroom out into the living room for my Big Sort before we finally shelve them and have a proper comics library/reference room. He also covered empty corners where the bookcases meet on the top with wood panels, and when I looked at all the empty space up top where I thought the cats (especially Amy) might roam, I said "oh, maybe I can put some of my stuffed animals and lobster-tchatchke collection up there." Whereupon he said "Or...or..." followed by a look that had me searching for the bulb that had just lit over his head. He proceeded to carry out his plan, and this is what resulted:

We had been dreading putting our 16+ magazine boxes up in the loft, but we knew we couldn't leave them in the living room. As it 'appens, they fit very nicely atop the shelves. We have 7 across the right two shelves and 9 (so far) across the left three; at the other corner one more shelf meets the left-most one you can't see in this picture, and that's where we'll continue the 3 other boxes I ordered today (we'd packed more magazines than mag boxes so we used 3 regular moving boxes for the rest), and while I was at it I ordered 20 more comics longboxes for future storage and to aid in sorting (we currently have 17 small moving boxes worth of comics in addition to the loose ones we've accumulated since the move, so I wanted to be proactive so we can transfer everything into the longboxes next time we need to go through this). I feel like this room is finally going to start taking shape.

One more picture before I return to the baseball game: I'm a bit behind in blog reading again, between my boss' return, watching the playoffs and reading The Book during the evenings, and going for a bit of a drive yesterday up to Tarrytown. We wanted to scope out where we could catch the NY Waterway ferry that does the North Hudson cruise in case the weather's nice next weekend, and it was a good thing we did as it's fairly tucked-away and complicated. I may share a couple photos tomorrow; meantime I did want to post this one from our trip to the Hudson River Museum on the way home:

Yes, it's a giant chicken made from matchsticks. Don't ask. And don't get all excited, Glovefox, it's not a robot (and where are those pictures you promised to send?)...

Bumper Sticker Hell

I've really started to get annoyed lately by all those mass-produced fish-shaped yellow ribbons on the backs of cars, and Astarte hits the nail on the head as to why. To me it's part and parcel with the "God Bless America" crap mentioned below. If you feel this intense need to display your faith to any and all disinterested strangers, it's more like you're trying to convince yourself of your piety or devotion. (I find it interesting that many of the yellow ribbons I've seen say "God Bless The Troops" rather than "Support The Troops," and a good many of the yellow-beribboned vehicles also have red-white-&-blue "God Bless America" ribbons.) Some of us are much more secure in our faithhood, thank you very much.

The Day We Know Things Are "Normal" Again...

...is the day when the song performed at the seventh-inning stretch goes back to being "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" instead of "God Bless America (Or Else)." Whilst watching the playoffs I've taken to muting this without changing the channel, and Saturday's Sox/Yankees one freaked us both out a little. Robin's like "What's with all the insignia? he looks like a Nazi stormtrooper," and I responded, "Hey, didn't he just do a 'Heil Hitler' salute?" Well, as Bob Harris shows, we weren't the only ones looking askance at this gentleman, and he was brave enough to keep the audio on! (By the way: yes, I'm bleary as hell this morning, even though I turned off Game 4 when the Sox tied it in the bottom of the 9th, figuring they'd probably win it...)

Silly Site o' the Day

Hey! You Forgot Poland! Via Trish Wilson.

Silly Site o' the Day

I've decided, Bollywood is just too weird for me. Have some election year dishoom, via Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing.

Fire-Heads Up

As some of you know, I edited and published The Firesign Theatre's fan newsletter Four-Alarm FIRESIGNal for about ten years in the '80s and '90s, slightly before the advent of the World Weird Web. And of course I still keep in touch with other Fireheads via our Thursday chats and e-mail. As far as I'm concerned, after umpteen albums over 30+ years they're more relevant and prescient than ever. And sure enough, I just got an e-mail alert that Peter Bergman (yes! he coined the phrase "love-in," not skippy!) has been asked to step down as the producer of Laugh L.A., told by the L.A. County Natural History Museum's VP of Public Programs that "the museum doesn't trust you anymore." She claims "the decision was to just change course. And try something different... Just for this particular time of where we are in the trial process, he doesn't quite fit," but that sort of decision doesn't usually engender comments about trust. What is she so afraid of? It's not like California's a swing state...

Jon Stewart Overload?

Nah, I don't think you can ever have too much. The Crossfire segment (thanks for the video link, Mark!) was the highlight of my drive home yesterday (Randi Rhodes played it in its entirety), and of course I'm deep into The Book. But what I'd really like is a link to the text of Stewart's remarks at the New Yorker event last Thursday at the Bryant Park Grill breakfast (and, by the way? yummy). Anyone out there have it?

Update 1: Nothing yet, but the best response I've read so far to the Crossfire show is Jeanne's Tuck Soup, wherein she compares Stewart to Groucho Marx.

Update 2: C-Span taped Stewart's interview; here it is. I don't know if this is the same thing or not; at present I can't get it to play.

Silly Site o' the Day

This one's a little inside-joke'y in places but, you know, every now and then I try to do a little comics-related blogging. :) Via Robin, and possibly from the same sick people who brought you this Identity Crisis parody of a Hostess ad, it's Avengers Decompressed! Possibly you Had To Be There...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Sorry, blogging is suspended for the moment, my new book came in...

Amy doesn't seem all that impressed.

The Edumacation President

So Bush is so big on education that in the third debate he kept mentioning it as a method of steering away from questions he couldn't or wouldn't answer. But it's like that line in The Princess Bride, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I think he means indoctrination. 'Cause, you know, even "pro-life" folks have now concluded that a populace that's actually educated (and more financially stable) has fewer abortions. As Ampersand points out,

the Bush administration has used the "bully pulpit" to argue against birth control, and has encouraged abstinence-only education. Abstinence is indeed the most effective birth control (although "abstinence," from a pregnancy-prevention point of view, can also include having lots of oral sex and homosexual sex); but it doesn't follow that abstinence-only education is the most effective pregnancy-prevention education.

Just as highly-skilled people don't need to be told "get job training" if the jobs they've lost are already on a higher level than anything a "community college" education could possibly train them for, sexually-active women don't need abstinence-only "education" when they could be given actual helpful information on birth control, abortion, etc. But I suppose it's too much to expect a C+ student who was only passed through due to legacy admission to understand anything about actual education.

Maintenance Note

Well, as threatened promised, I finally created a separate category for two-person News+Views blogs, Dynamic Duos, to bring the sidebar a bit more in line with my Bloglines subs. Now, the big difference between the subs and the sidebar is that the latter doesn't list any of my "blogs in waiting" yet (those are the blogs I read when I'm caught up with my regular ones), but given my long periods of low posting I'm not eager to stretch the sidebar links too far below the actual content...

Ramadan Mubarek

Naturally, our military commemorates this holy Muslim month of fasting by bombing the hell out of Iraq again. And they're beefing up security in a country that's already as security-beefy as it gets. Here's more beef. And look, in Afghanistan they're marking the start of Ramadan by suspending vote-counting.

Silly Site o' the Day

Bubbie versus the GOP has been making the rounds of the blogosphere; I first saw it a few days ago on Hoffmania.

From the Author of Sisters...

Ladies and gentlemen, my Lynne Cheney impression:

"Cheap and tawdry, cheap and tawdry, braak braak!"

Pick a little, talk a little / Pick a little, talk a little /
Cheep cheep cheep / Talk a lot, pick a little more...

Watergate Redux

Good recap of recent Republisleaze from Frank Rich (via Mark Evanier). And the hits just keep on comin', like the latest "third-rate burglary" in Ohio (via Cynical at Fresh Paint, who also reports on her first-hand experience with ballot shenanigans).

Holy Hummus, Batman!

I just want to say, I may never eat falafel again. Update: Okay, at least some good has come out of this all...

Post-Debate Confab?

Well, as expected, "Dr. Hurricane" (aka my boss) blew in and blew out today, and my nervousness at "what will he hit me that I haven't thought of?" is totally gone. Honestly, you'd think I'd have a bit more self-confidence after 7+ years. I was at my Radar O'Reilly best this morning, catching things before he thought of or said them, etc. Except I hadn't anticipated he'd need his cell phone recharger, and it's a good thing the Amtrak to Boston was late which allowed me to hustle across the street to the train station whilst he was still on the platform. So I can now relax, at least until Mrs.-Dr. Hurricane blows in to sign some papers and retrieve his car from our parking lot. Workload still minimal for the moment, building matters re-relegated to my-boss-the-landlord where they belong, and all's bloggy with my world again. So I'm reading Jude at Iddybud, and she passes along this weird conversation snippet from the Daily Kos comments, and even though some of the responses to Kevin Drum's take on this make sense, I find myself agreeing with the speculation that maybe this has something to do with Bush's health... and maybe it's related not only to him deferring his annual physical (no, not the one in 1972, the one this year that Google News doesn't even seem to mention) but to the whole "what's that on his back?" kerfuffle... Meanwhile, it turns out we're all wired for sound, so there, Mr. Smarty-Pants Communist, Mr. Beatnik, Mr. Hippy, Mr... Liberal!

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Ezra Klein at Pandagon, Cameron Travelli has been doing some nice 3D modeling work.

God's Mouthpiece

Okay, here's my question: If Bush's his inner circle keeps him so out of touch with reality (as Ron Suskind claimed on Morning Sedition today) that they encourage his contention that God speaks to him and/or through him (which is why, by the way, he can't admit to ever making mistakes, because if he's God's messenger and God's infallible then how could any decision he makes ever be wrong?), then why does he need the transmitter?

Milestone Note

Happy blogiversary to Michele at You Will Anyway (beware TBlog popups!), who marks the occasion by noting what other events make October 13 special.

Moving Up in the October Surprise Sweepstakes...

...is the possibility of another terrorist attack. Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing summarizes the high-level chatter going on in law enforcement and congressional circles - which of course was never intended to filter down to actual citizens - and Jon Mandle at Crooked Timber notes the Human Rights Watch report on disappearing Al-Qaeda suspects. Are the two stories related? As Teresa is fond of saying, I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist.

The Heat Is On

It's like a sauna in my office today, which I could have predicted based on everyone whining at me to turn the heat on yesterday. I had a feeling the heat controls weren't set up yet, and I was right. Once activated, the boiler started going full blast, just as the heating company had warned us. Glad my boss is back tomorrow so I can finally relinquish this "building manager" title thrust upon me against my will (with no commensurate pay rise, naturally)... Sorry, just needed to let off a little steam...

Keep Watching the Highways

Today is National Freeway Free Speech Day. I'll report on whether I see any signs on my way to work. Update: Nope, nothing on the eastbound Cross County, but considering that Westchester County is fairly conservative and it's hard to see when the sun's in your eyes (yes, I drive east in the mornings and west in the afternoons), I'm not that surprised. Update: The pictures are up!

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Eszter at Crooked Timber, an only-slightly-exaggerated Flash movie, Debating for Ratings, presented by FreePress.net.

Work Perks

Every now and then I really like my job. My workload is managaeble at the moment, whilst waiting for my boss' return on Thursday. The grandmothers (my boss' mother-in-law and her two visiting sisters) made us all biryani and brownies today, in addition to bringing in the leftovers of an amazing mousse-y pie with lots of berries on top. And since I couldn't do the office banking at my local branch on Sunday I took a drive up The Road Where Construction Never Stops this morning to hit the branch 5 miles from our building. Which would ordinarily be a pain, except that it's autumn and the leaves are just coming to the fore. I wait all year for this. As I was driving I didn't get pictures of most of the real magnificent trees, with their intense oranges and reds, but here are a few I was able to take whilst stopped:

This is from the bank's parking lot. The colors almost look more springlike than autumnal..

A shot of the trees across the street from the bank, next to a strip mall, taken whilst waiting for the light to change. There's that gorgeous intense orange-red in the background, probably my favorite fall color.

In the parking lot in back of my building, between our property and the railroad tracks, there's just one tree that's changed so far, but it's pretty striking.

So, pretty much a nice day for me. Now if only I could catch up on all my reading, get enough energy to do the garbage haul now that the landlord has moved all the cans in back of the house next door (so I can no longer drop off the trash on my way to the car), start that comics filing, help Robin update his portfolio... *sigh*

Silly Site o' the Day

Brr, it's kinda chilly this morning. Looks like we'll all be needing those tampon socks soon. (Via Hanan Levin.)

Peevish No More

I'll miss the hell out of you, Anne.

Meanwhile, Up North...

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and readers!

Columbus Day Commemmoration

Holiday? Not from where I sit, although it's quiet enough here at the office to allow me to catch up on blog reading. In Washington, at the National Museum of the American Indian people are reflecting on how, "despite some of the things that were put into motion with Columbus reaching the Americas, native people still persevered." And United Native America has an interesting petition drive to make the second day Monday in October a federal holiday honoring Native Americans, and relegate Columbus Day "back to its original day the second Wednesday of October and not be a tax paid holiday as is St. Patrick's Day and Octoberfest," other holidays honoring ethnic groups that have resettled in this country over the centuries.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Matt Stoller at the Blogging of the President, a pretty nifty Spanish language political ad.

RIP Christopher Reeve

Damn.

"We're Not Switching Partners Any More"

That quote was from Myra Rubenstein, mother of Ariel David, whose bas mitzvah (yes, as an Ashkenazi I pronounce the Hebrew letter "tof/sof" traditionally as an "s" rather than a "t" sound) Robin and I were privileged to be invited to attend yesterday. (It came during one of the reception dances where the DJs were urging folks to switch partners, and was accompanied by a high-five.) It was indicative not only of families weathering everything that's come before in our lives and coming through okay enough to actually celebrate together now, but of being pleased all around with new beginnings (Myra and her husband are moving to Arizona soon, for instance).

I remember Ariel's father Peter announcing her birth in one of his But I Digress columns, and I've watched through the years as she's turned into a lively and poised young lady with a terrific sense of humor (if you're Peter's kid you pretty much have to have one!), holding her own against two older sisters with strong and vibrant personalities of their own, and now a younger sister who tends to be a bit of a spotlight-stealer as well. As I watched her yesterday I couldn't help but think back to my own bas mitzvah which was technically a "group confirmation" since we belonged to an Orthodox temple which frowned on marking this milestone publicly (and the celebration thereafter was muted because my paternal grandmother had died not long before and so there couldn't be any music). I don't think I'll ever get used to a Reformed service totally (all that English! and the siddurim paginated left to right!) but there are aspects of it that I wish I'd experienced when I was Ariel's age. I would've loved to have been up there on the altar by myself, actually touching the Torah, with my parents' hands at my back and the rabbi giving me his blessing, with kids throwing candy at me and singing Mazel Tov at the end of it (although I talked to Mom today and she believes they did do that last bit at our confirmation)...

I think I lost it about three or four times, especially when all of Ariel's grandparents were all up at the altar with her. I only had one grandparent alive at my pseudo-bas-mitzvah, my maternal grandmother who had already been felled by several strokes. And one of her grandfathers has the Hebrew name of Menachem Mendel, the same as my Uncle Max. And she's a bas-Levi, just like me! And just overall, Ariel has such a wonderful and confident body image, she looked so beautiful and she knew it, not like me at that age...

But I digress. This day was about Ariel, not my reactions to her celebration. And so I present some pictures, most of which are not of Ariel (we e-mailed all of those to Kath) but of Robin posing with various celebrants, 'cause those are the ones that came out best:


Rob with Steve Saffel; it's always lovely seeing Steve and Dana.


Rob and Glenn Hauman talking shop; it was great meeting Glenn and his immensely vivacious wife Brandy for the first time! And no, I'm afraid I still can't believe either the "Hands Up" thing or the "Chicken Dance" thing were real songs, despite mounds of proof to the contrary...


The two amigos Rob and Bob Greenberger (three counting Bob's Superman tie)... um, don't ask... Sorry I didn't get to talk more with Bob and Deb and family, but, er, Bob's wit and intelligence intimidate me. :)


Peter "conducting" Bohemian Rhapsody. This is one of the shots I wish had come out better; I was having problems taking pictures properly from a seated position... [Update: Thanks for cleaning it up a bit, Kathy!]


There ya go, one of the bas mitzvah girl herself in the middle there, with stepmom Kath in the background and baby sister Caroline in the fore...

It had taken us almost two hours to get to eastern Long Island via the directions given on the invite and double-checked on MapBlast, mostly because I'd decided to experiment with the Mosholu Parkway (big mistake; it's actually Traffic Light Parkway on Which Dangerous Drivers with Boom Cars Play Chicken) and the Long Island Expressway was riddled with construction and we took a couple wrong turns besides. So I was nervous about the drive home and we left a bit early, about 7:30, but someone - I think it was Glenn - had suggested we avoid the LIE entirely by taking the Southern State Parkway back to the Cross Island (then over the Throgs Neck Bridge to the Cross Bronx Expressway to the Deegan), and we were home in just over an hour! Good to know for the next time we visit the David family, and I'd highly recommend the Southern to anyone travelling in that section of Lawn Guylan...

You can find other write-ups of the bas mitzvah from Peter, Kath and Bob... thanks again for inviting us, Peter and Kath!! We had, as if you couldn't tell by now, a wonderful time.

Silly Site o' the Day

Much more wiped from yesterday than I thought I'd be. And my weekly bus ride to the bank today to make office deposits was for naught, as they're closed for Columbus Day (which, um, is tomorrow, not today!), so I'm in a grumpy mood and need sleep. Anyway, via Shaula Evans at C101, it's Karl Rove Satan for Bush.

Mazel Tov, Ariel!

It was a lovely bat mitzvah, but I'm too tired to do a write-up now. That'll be tomorrow, complete with a few incriminating photos (mostly of Robin and other guests). Thank you so much for inviting us, Peter and Kath!

The Saddest are These, What Might Have Been

Johnny Bacardi says it all. I still miss Lennon after all these years, and still maintain that his murder and Reagan's election were the dual downhill turning points of our modern era.

Silly Site o' the Day

Off to the bat mitzvah shortly, but before we go I wanted to hop on the bandwagon touting JibJab's latest, Good To Be in D.C. - enjoy, enjoy!

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

We got a cool printer cover this week.

With Datsa around it, we'll need it.

Obligatory LC Apology

In addition to having fallen behind in my print reading, my participation on message boards and mailing lists has fallen by the wayside these past few months. Just not enough hours in the day for it all! So I was pleasantly surprised and more than a little chagrined to find out that the Liberal Coalition, of which I'm ostensibly still a member even though I haven't posted to their mailing list in ages, just welcomed a new participant, a blog by the name of Scrutiny Hooligans. They've been added to my LC blogroll both on this blog and via my Bloglines subs, so at least I'll be able to read their posts whenever I can catch up (reminder to self: when you get a chance peruse NTodd's Autumn in Vermont photo album)...

When Skyscrapers Attack


Fafblog goes a'huntin'... (Photo by Peter B. Kaplan)

Obligatory Canadian Comics Content

I haven't been doing as many comic book-related posts as I'd originally planned, but if you had two very full boxes of unread comics (not counting the stack of graphic novels), three issues of Previews yet to leaf through, and over 20,000 comics that still need to be organized and put on the bookcases in the library, you'd probably be reluctant to blog about the subject too. :) In any case, this is more of a social note, to let any folks in the area who might be looking for us at tonight's MoCCA "Toon Town" opening night party know that we probably won't be there. Not for lack of desire - the exhibition looks very nifty indeed - but mostly out of self-preservation. We were out late last night shopping for clothes for Robin to wear at a bat mitzvah we're attending this weekend, followed by a much-too-late fairly heavy dinner, followed in turn by a restless sleep, and I have a bit of a drive tomorrow (to and from Lawn Guylan' to attend the aforementioned bat mitzvah), so I think I'll just relax and watch the Yanks tonight...

You're Not The Only Cuddly Toy...

This is enough to make me rethink wanting to get another Motorola, since I don't think the covers would fit Motos properly. Via Scaramouche, who highlights the one I'd like to have...

Fun with Collective Nouns

Head on over to Left I on the News and give your suggestions to Eli on the most appropriate collective noun for "bloggers." Mine was "a self-proctology of bloggers" since I'm better at snarky input than serious...

Where Your Money Goes

A few minutes ago, I was in a coworker's office as he gave another coworker some cash to place yet another group lunch order in which I wasn't included (I've taken to bringing my own lunch when I'm awake enough to remember, so I don't wind up starving at 3 PM and unable to leave the office; today it's the ratatouille that Mom and Dad gave me when I visited a couple weeks ago... but I digress), and they both noticed that one bill had a stamp on it for a site called Where's George?. Nah, I know what you're thinking and that's too easy (answer: "He's on vacation!"); this is all about tracking dead presidents, in this case George Washington, to see how dollar bills circulate. Didn't they make a movie about this? Anyway, it's a cute idea and by now my coworker has doubtless punched in the serial number...

Troubled in Bambiland

Austrian novelist and playwright Elfriede Jelinek, upon learning that she'd won the Nobel Prize for literature yesterday, said she felt "more despair than peace" at the news, and will not travel to Stockholm to retrieve her award due to social phobia. I'd probably have social phobia too if a large percentage of my fellow citizens shunned me because of my vehement opposition to radical right-wingers coming to power in my governme-- oh no, wait... Anyway, it's a shame when one's talent makes one an unwilling celebrity, but such is the risk that top writers take. Better the prize should have gone to Bob Dylan (via Tristero)? Meanwhile, "Where go the Peace Prize? / Only in Kenya," to activist and environmentalist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to be so honored. (Apparently both of these awards have somewhat stunned the male blogosphere...)

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Atrios, it's Brennan Houlihan's brilliant video editing of RepubliCon, How do you run a convention on a record of failure? Am I the only one who kept thinking of Stubby Kay in Guys & Dolls during the "Saddam Saddam Saddam" repetition?

Emptying the In-Box

Okay, my workload has diminished for the day, my boss and his wife both have their airline tickets now, and I'm slowly but surely getting through both my blog subscriptions and my in-box, so time to see what's in the old mailbag...

Marie swears she's not spamming me about her daughter Megan needing treatment "abroad from a Neurologist and the Human Dolphin Therapy Centre" but I've forwarded the Hope for Megan e-mail on to Snopes just in case. I hope it's legit, she's a cute kid and deserves health and happiness.

Kai Heller from the Women's Edge Coalition says, "we’ve been reading your blog with great interest." (I'll bet you say that to all the blogs!) She continues,

With the upcoming elections gearing up, I thought you might be interested in writing about a citizen’s action campaign recently-launched by Women’s Edge Coalition that is challenging one million American women to urge U.S. elected officials and candidates in the upcoming elections to make women's issues a priority in national and international policies. The campaign is highlighting issues ranging from women’s role in rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq to girls’ education.

In making the case for the Afghan war, for example, President Bush promised to make women a centerpiece of U.S. actions in the country after the ouster of the Taliban. He pledged to get girls into schools and to bolster the health of Afghan women, who have the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. He also promised to return rights and dignity to Afghan women.

The truth today is that Afghan women are in danger of slipping into a sink-hole being created by ongoing violence and lack of funding. We've seen a surge in sexual violence against Afghan women and have received reportsthat women and girls are being subjected to rapes, beatings, kidnappings and other forms of intimidation.

In just a few days, on October 9, Afghan women and men will head to the polls to vote - most for the first time in their lives. October 7 is the third anniversary of when U.S. forces first dropped bombs in Afghanistan. President Bush is touting the great strides of Afghan women and girls. He continues to talk about America's commitment to Afghan women, when in reality less than 3 percent of U.S. assistance to the country has been spent on women's programs. While we have seen some gains, Afghan women are not doing as well as many want to believe. Women in states across the country are writing letters and meeting with candidates and policymakers to urge them to fulfill America’s promises to Afghan women and to hear their plans to ensure women are fully tapped in the reconstruction efforts in their country.

The Washington-based Women's Edge Coalition is a coalition of 40 nongovernmental organizations and 15,000 individuals that advocates for international policies and human rights that support women worldwide inending poverty. Our broad range of members includes Amnesty International, Save the Children, CARE, Bread for the World and United Methodist Women.

Thanks for your consideration. Since Americans are focusing more and more on foreign policy, we think it’s important to keep international women's issues in the forefront of these discussions and debates. More info on the campaign can be found at our website.

Wow, three years ago today. I'll bet they're tense, not to mention precarious. Maybe the Adminsitration can send over the IWF when they're finished with Iraq...

Speaking of Iraq, Jo Fish writes, "I found this video on Buzzflash and posted this on DemVet. I think its worth some pretty wide dissemination, it's disturbing and certainly the other side of the happy face that the 1600 Crew has put on the War on Terra. Here's the vide link: I had never seen it before today, and it upset me greatly...as you can tell if you look at my post." I think of the video as "Dude, Where's My Humanity?"

Lastly, Mitch Arnowitz says,

Vote Kids, a progressive organization that I am working with, has a mission that makes children's needs a political priority. This past week, Vote Kids introduced several leading pediatricians in a Washington DC press conference to make a joint statement about children's health care in America and where thecandidates for President stand. Prominent pediatricians from across the country, including T. Berry Brazelton and six past presidents of the American Academy of Pediatrics, support John Kerry's effort to provide every child in America with affordable health care coverage.

HHS Secretary Thompson responded to this week's activity by calling America's leading pediatricians "demagogues" and said: "It is absurd and despicable that doctors are playing politics with children's lives". As you probably know, 8 million children and youth don't have health insurance. We think that the present administration does not have a plan to provide health coverage to America's children, and that their current tax and budget priorities are eroding hard won health care gains for children.

As part of the pediatricians effort, Vote Kids is working hard to put this important statement by America's leading pediatricians in front of parents, community leaders, and voters in several important states.Unfortunately, free speech is anything but free and to get-the-word-out is remarkably expensive. Our goal is to reach 200,000 individual voters and to purchase ads in 9 influential newspapers, reaching small and mid-sized cities in 4 states... full-page ads in even the smallest of these papers costs in excess of $5,000.

We're asking leading bloggers to help us get the word out. Can you lend a hand by letting Pen-Elayne on the Web readers know about the Vote Kids Pediatricians Campaign? It would be great if we can raise enough money to buy even one newspaper ad! A special page has been set up for supporters to donate and spread the word.

So if (unlike me) you have a little extra pocket change after all the political begathons going around, it sounds to me like the folks "playing politics with children's lives" are the ones currently in power, and therefore deserve to be put out of power. (And it just tickles my ego to be called a "leading blogger," even in an mass e-mail that's gone out to hundreds of others...)

And that does it for today's mail bag! Now back to blog reading...

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Kevin at The American Street, it appears something is getting lost in non-translation over in Iraq.

Fun with Sound Files

Mr. Cheney, please answer your cell phone!

Silly Site o' the Day

Do you have what it takes to pass the Global Test? Via Shaula Evans at tsuredzuregusa.

Ambassadors of Change

Via Michelle at You Will Anyway, more than 180 former United States Ambassadors who have served under Republican and Democratic presidents endorsed John Kerry for president yesterday.

Paying Respects

RIP Rodney Dangerfield and Janet Leigh.

Dreier Strikes Again

Remember David Dreier? The Congressman and co-chair of Californians for Bush outed by Mike Rogers at blogACTIVE due to his homophobic voting record? Well, he's at the forefront of the techie revolution as well, only naturally on the wrong end of it. He's pushing to force all Americans to carry a national ID card around with them.

Dreier's legislation would prohibit employers from hiring people unless the job applicants first obtain new federal ID cards with their photograph, Social Security number and an "encrypted electronic strip" with additional information. Any employer who fails to comply faces hefty fines and prison terms of up to five years.

Time to start donating to the Fire Dreier people, methinks...

Gameday

Thank goodness I have something to watch besides the debate tonight. The baseball post-season has begun! If you're at work during a day game and you can't listen to the radio and you haven't forked out the dough to follow the streaming video or audio live, you'll want to go to the Major League Baseball website and click the little baseball diamond next to whatever game is on. That takes you to MLB's Gameday, which gives you all the information you need in close to real time without the annoying announcers. At the moment the first Cardinals-Dodgers divisional playoff has just resumed from the 7th inning stretch...

Silly Site o' the Day

With the office temperature finally regulated (all appropriate digits crossed), maybe I'll feel well enough today to get through more of my blogroll and perhaps even post some. I've fallen quite behind again! Then again, maybe I should go in expecting the worst, as usual, rather than wearing these Rove-tinted glasses that Atrios found...

Silly Site o' the Day

Kerry cheating? Drudge must have pulled that from the posterior of a Bush Focus Group member. Via Susie Madrak.

Fall Foliage in Queens

Thanks for the invite to the lovely BBQ, Julia! Your trees are always so lovely, and it was great to see you, your hubby and Her Majesty, Seth and his wife and of course the Loquacious Pup, and all your lovely friends and neighbors of all ages! I'm glad Robin could make it this time, and it only took us 45 minutes door-to-door to get home; have I mentioned yet how much I love my car in situations like this?

NY(U) Is Book Country

I'm inclined to agree with Roxanne, who expressed the same sentiment about yesterday's NY Is Book Country that she'd had about the Ninth Avenue Food Fest, my other favorite street fair: is that all there is? Maybe it was the humid and gloomy weather, maybe we were all just tired, maybe I'm just getting old and cranky but I dunno, these festivals just aren't as interesting to me as they were a half dozen years ago. Still, it's good exercise and a nice excuse to get together with friends. And as Roxanne was in town yesterday and my ex-husband Steve always attends these things (as he's a librarian I think it's in his blood), we all arranged to meet at Japonica (which wound up being open after all) for lunch and good conversation, and the food was as great as ever - it even passed Roxanne's rather high-from-having-lived-in-Japan standards!

We then headed down to Washington Square Park to check things out. I got a $15 poster and looked around, but there really wasn't that much to interest me, so I decided to have fun with my digital camera instread. Here's Roxanne and Steve with the WSP Arch in the background. Roxanne asked me not to publish her picture on my blog, so I took a head shot of Elizabeth Edwards from her college days and pasted it on top of Roxanne's head because she reminds me a little of our next Second Lady:

Steve decided to wander off in one direction, and Roxanne and I went to see if any tickets were still available for the Daily Show writers Humor panel - fat chance:

We headed back to the next side street over, where the "graphic novels pavilion" was, and I took a snapshot of Neal Adams which didn't come out well (the bag in my hand blocked the shot), but we did run into Peter and Kath David and daughters Ariel and Caroline (Kath's blog post isn't kidding about Caroline being an energy ball; the conversation was fairly brief and mostly consisted of plans for Ariel's upcoming bat mitzvah). We wandered a bit more so I could get goofy shots like this:

Yeah, I know the shot itself isn't goofy but I got a real kick out of the booth name. Anyway, we'd both had about enough so Roxanne went yarn-store shopping whilst I strolled across 4th Street toward 7th Avenue, past the [insert clever collective noun here] of sex shops, and subway'ed it back up to the Bronx, where I rested and, as y'all know, finished up the fifth Harry Potter book which has now taken its place on my bedroom bookshelf beside the others:

Today we head out to Julia's place in a couple hours, but since that's just driving (on a drop-dead gorgeous day) and sitting around, I don't think I'll wind up quite as tired. Then again, we have to drive past two airports, so one never knows...

Silly Site o' the Day

Whew, just finished reading the fifth Harry Potter book. Definitely not put-downable for the last 150 pages or so. A bit of a melancholy ending compared with the previous ones, but most everything was pretty nicely set up and resolved. I was surprised that one of the characters I thought villainous turned out to be merely rather wrongheaded and self-deluded. Anyway, having finally accomplished that somewhat time-consuming goal (750+ pages) I can now get back to blog catch-up and the two very full boxes of comics sitting by my bedside thanks to about a month and a half of DC stuff arriving in our comp box earlier this week. Not to mention a large pile of magazines, graphic novels and freebie-for-review books, but I didn't mention those. But first, to bed. No, I misspeak - first, to the Bush Soundboard (via South Knox Bubba).

Bushisms

Adrian Loudermilk e-mails me (and probably dozens of others) to say "I think your blog is just terrific." (I bet you say that to all the blogs, Adrian!) "We all know how important smart and informative blogs have become during this election and I’m writing in the hopes that you will let your readers know about our new BUSHISMS ON DVD. Al Franken and Brian Unger comment on over 50 of Dubya’s nucular-sized malapropisms. Doonesbury cartoons and music videos from the George W. Bush singers round out the DVD. On free 3 minute trailer which is definitely worth a look. Will you tell your readers about our DVD? It would really mean a lot. Also, if you’d like, we can link to your site." Consider it done. Robin laughed at the trailer which probably means we'll be getting it soon. (Do bloggers get free copies for promoting it?)

When Fake News Gets Real, Real News Gets Faker

Do follow the unfolding (as Jesse Taylor puts it) "Cuticlegate" story at Josh Marshall's website, wherein Carl Cameron made up fake quotes attributed to Kerry which were posted on Fox News' website. Then there's the AP photo of Bush and Kerry shaking hands at Thursday's debate which was supposedly taken at an angle that makes Bush look suspiciously taller than he is (Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing compared it with this one from AFP); the media is swearing the AP pic wasn't doctored. And Brian Westley sends me this e-mail concerning the debate:

Wall Street Journal Online Poll Uses Fraudulent Bar Graph

The Wall Street Journal, which ought to know how to draw something as business-related as a simple bar graph, is either colossally inept or committing a transparent fraud. Go ahead and plug this if you want, their "poll" page is still drawing ridiculous bars. It's possible it's the result of something not being zeroed out, but the bars don't match the totals in any case.

Here's a jpg of what the WSJ drew for the "current results" of 1730 for Bush, 5329 for Kerry, and 389 for Tie when I voted. Kerry's bar graph, which should be three times the height of Bush's bar, is just 84 pixels compared to 60!! What the graph dishonestly shows you is Bush barely behind Kerry, with a huge number of people voting it a tie (and people don't look at numbers, they look at the bar graph). This is utter, incompetent fraud by the Wall Street Journal.

While the Cameron fiasco is certainly disturbing, I think many folks are far more influenced by visual subliminals like those perpetrated by the "Bush not short" picture and the abovementioned graph. Just something we should all be watching for.

Silly Site o' the Day

In honor of Banned Books Week (which I'm also celebrating by attending NY Is Book Country this afternoon in, no doubt, the rain) and the fight against censorship, via Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing it's the Victorian Sex Cry Generator! All part of Hoot Island, Silly Sex for Silly People...

RIP Scott Muni

Via Neil Ottenstein, here's the link to The Professor's site. He left us last Tuesday at the age of 74, and will be missed as greatly as many of the other icons of my youth.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Amy enjoys helping Robin work...

And here I thought having a cat on one's lap whilst at a drawing board might be a bit distracting.

Silly Site o' the Day

White Rabbits! Via Renee again, observe these marshmallow bunny survival tests.