This morning my supervisor spent a few minutes with me this morning looking through my favorite clothing catalog to determine what tops are and aren’t work-appropriate; at lunch I attended a fun continuing education session (my company gives lots of them, and I’ve enjoyed them all); and I’m just generally feeling really good about things on this Administrative Professionals Secretaries Day. I’m even more grateful when I think back to this time last year when I was still unemployed and getting quite discouraged. This is a good day to remind ourselves not to take any of our privileges and good fortune for granted! Let’s see what I’ve bookmarked:
• Oh, today’s Marie Javins’ birthday. Hey Marie, need an emotional lift? Read this Best Post Ever About Susan Boyle from Elizabeth Tillinghast at HuffPo.
• It’s also Cara’s second blogiversary, and the self-titled Feminist Beatles Fan Extraordinaire has some interesting musings on Phil Spector, as does my other go-to Beatle-loving blogger, Richard Eskow, who I believed just coined a new term with “Madness Chic” (although the thing itself is of course nothing new in rock and roll circles).
• Last week saw the 100th anniversary of the Kewpies, and Colleen Doran celebrates with a comprehensive and compact history of Rose O’Neill.
• Also from last week, one of my favorite Waid Wednesdays ever, but that’s how I roll.
• Always good to see Cheryl Lynn talking about comics again, like this post talking about the unfortunately-marketed upcoming Marvel series Divas.
• Bully reminds us that the much-vaunted fannish sense of entitlement is nothing new.
• Melissa Krause gets her rant on about mermaids.
• Hannah Howard at Serious Eats examines tipping. I agree, it’d be really nice if U.S. restaurants paid their waitrons a living wage so tips were not necessary, but refusing to tip on that basis doesn’t send a message to any powers that be, it’s just being a dick.
• What dday at Hullabaloo Said, about some Republicans who only believe an election is fair when their side wins. It’s the same nonsense that produces “tea party” attendees claiming there shouldn’t be taxation without representation, not understanding (or refusing to admit) that “without representation” doesn’t mean “your duly-elected representative doesn’t happen to agree with your personal views.”
• When I’ve heard people go on about the “black swan” phenomenon, my first reaction is very similar to what Kevin Drum says here. Just because you personally didn’t see something coming doesn’t mean it wasn’t predictable by anyone else (or, in the case of the current economic collapse, a lot of anyone elses). One of the better bits of Elizabeth Warren’s recent appearance on the Daily Show was when she said
• What Nobel laureate Paul Krugman Said. Why this observation about U.S. torture isn’t blindingly obvious to everyone, I’ll never understand.
• Speaking of “up is down” thinking, I was so used to thinking of the internet as freewheeling I never realized how heavily and well-regulated it’s really been until I read this bit from Publius at Obsidian Wings. Some good points made!
• Like Virgo Tex at First Draft, I’m skeptical of Thor’s plans for Coney Island as well, but I like and trust Dick Zigun, a personal acquaintance from my Coney Island Hysterical Society days back when I lived in Brooklyn, so maybe it’ll turn out okay.
• Melissa McEwan sings the praises of Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness, who sound like a really nifty showbiz couple.
• Lastly, Sheila Lennon introduces her readers to Google Profiles; I’ve just created mine.
And once again, just like that, I’ve finished the internet!
• Oh, today’s Marie Javins’ birthday. Hey Marie, need an emotional lift? Read this Best Post Ever About Susan Boyle from Elizabeth Tillinghast at HuffPo.
• It’s also Cara’s second blogiversary, and the self-titled Feminist Beatles Fan Extraordinaire has some interesting musings on Phil Spector, as does my other go-to Beatle-loving blogger, Richard Eskow, who I believed just coined a new term with “Madness Chic” (although the thing itself is of course nothing new in rock and roll circles).
• Last week saw the 100th anniversary of the Kewpies, and Colleen Doran celebrates with a comprehensive and compact history of Rose O’Neill.
• Also from last week, one of my favorite Waid Wednesdays ever, but that’s how I roll.
• Always good to see Cheryl Lynn talking about comics again, like this post talking about the unfortunately-marketed upcoming Marvel series Divas.
• Bully reminds us that the much-vaunted fannish sense of entitlement is nothing new.
• Melissa Krause gets her rant on about mermaids.
• Hannah Howard at Serious Eats examines tipping. I agree, it’d be really nice if U.S. restaurants paid their waitrons a living wage so tips were not necessary, but refusing to tip on that basis doesn’t send a message to any powers that be, it’s just being a dick.
• What dday at Hullabaloo Said, about some Republicans who only believe an election is fair when their side wins. It’s the same nonsense that produces “tea party” attendees claiming there shouldn’t be taxation without representation, not understanding (or refusing to admit) that “without representation” doesn’t mean “your duly-elected representative doesn’t happen to agree with your personal views.”
• When I’ve heard people go on about the “black swan” phenomenon, my first reaction is very similar to what Kevin Drum says here. Just because you personally didn’t see something coming doesn’t mean it wasn’t predictable by anyone else (or, in the case of the current economic collapse, a lot of anyone elses). One of the better bits of Elizabeth Warren’s recent appearance on the Daily Show was when she said
There's a financial panic. Every 10 to 15 years, there's a financial panic in our history; you just look at it. And there's a big collapse, big trouble, people lose their farms, wiped out. Until we hit the Great Depression. We come out of the Great Depression, we say, You know, we can do better than this. We don't have to go back to this kind of boom-and-bust cycle. We come out of the Great Depression with three regulations:I don’t think enough blogs can spread that bit of history (I got this transcript here for the many, many history-impaired among us. On a related note, I don’t think there can be too many blogs passing along this NY Times article from 10 years ago quoting the late Paul Wellstone, as well as still-Senator Byron Dorgan, about the tragic mistake they clearly saw their colleagues about to make. Particularly Dorgan: “I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010. I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.” So, you know, don’t tell me this is a black swan, okay?
• FDIC Insurance — it's safe to put your money in banks.
• Glass-Steagall — banks won't do crazy things, and
• Some SEC regulations.
We go 50 years without a financial panic, without a crisis...
• What Nobel laureate Paul Krugman Said. Why this observation about U.S. torture isn’t blindingly obvious to everyone, I’ll never understand.
• Speaking of “up is down” thinking, I was so used to thinking of the internet as freewheeling I never realized how heavily and well-regulated it’s really been until I read this bit from Publius at Obsidian Wings. Some good points made!
• Like Virgo Tex at First Draft, I’m skeptical of Thor’s plans for Coney Island as well, but I like and trust Dick Zigun, a personal acquaintance from my Coney Island Hysterical Society days back when I lived in Brooklyn, so maybe it’ll turn out okay.
• Melissa McEwan sings the praises of Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness, who sound like a really nifty showbiz couple.
• Lastly, Sheila Lennon introduces her readers to Google Profiles; I’ve just created mine.
And once again, just like that, I’ve finished the internet!
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