Ann says

“

“Bernie, Bill, Fox, you don’t need to worry so much. What you are demonstrating is that health and vitality of America’s greatest tradition of fevered, frightened, ruling class lamenting the rise of an ethnically and religiously diverse new class. One that will destroy all that is virtuous and good, and will bring the american experiment crashing to the ground. Except you are forgetting one thing: that is the american experiment. An ethnic group arriving to america’s shores to be reviled and heisted living in squalor or, if they are lucky, squalor heights, working hard to give their children or grand-children the opportunity to f*** on the next group landing on our shores.

So enough! Relax! Enough with the lamentation. Unless your name is “Sitting-Bill”, you’ve got nothing to complain about.”

Jon Stewart on Bill O’Reilly’s comments about the end of the white establishment and the traditional america. 15.11.2012

Watch the full episode here:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-november-15-2012-andrew-napolitano

(via hernanvillamizar)

November 4

Poutine

I knew this ought to exist. I did not know it would be so perfect.

November 22

Material World.

Things. I live in a material world, and I am attached to things. I live in a house that is drowning in things. I’m trying to let go of some. I had a revelation, once: though I grew up with Depression-era parents and internalized the notion that anything perfectly good should never be thrown out if it has any use left in it, my revelation, after one more move between apartments, was this: that something has some use left in it doesn’t mean *I* have to use it. Let it go, throw it back into the stream of usable things, remember that “reduce/re-use/recycle” means it can have a new life with someone else…. Still, things hold memories for me. I pick up an object and the memories flood back into my mind, of people, or a moment, a place.

I’d like to try letting go by hanging on to the memory and disposing of the things. Today’s item: a towel. Melissa Henchen, who runs a dog-rescue operation, sent out a call for old towels and sheets. I have never been able to get myself to dispose of old towels and sheets: they *clearly* have some use left in them, however torn, worn, or ragged: they can be a banner, a rag, something to mop up a flood in the house. But this is my chance to get rid of some, for a good cause.

Here’s a towel I pulled out. Nothing special about it, just an old white towel, serviceable but somewhat thin. We have plenty newer, thicker, prettier, better towels we use more often. So I can let it go. But then I noticed the writing. Someone has written something on the edge. It looks to me like the letters “HC”.

I don’t know where the towel came from. It could have been an auction, or it could have been in the house since my father lived here with his first wife. But if the letters are the initials “H. C.”, they could stand for Henry Carmichael. That would be my father’s step-father, our Grandfather Henry, whom I don’t think we ever met before his death in the early 1980s, but who sent us things like coins and good wishes. After his death, we received a few things: a television set that settled in the front room, a chair from a dining set my father remembered, coins. And maybe this towel.

Without knowing Henry, without having been close, there are no strong memories here. And perhaps this wasn’t his towel. But it may have been. And now, as I pass it on, it loses any tenuous connection it had to him, to my family. Any lingering memories are severed, meaning, if there were any, lost. So it is. The dogs need it.

One Thing down.

(Source: flickr.com)

March 13

the new blog.

here we go. jason wants to do a joint blog, and tumblr seems to fit the bill - we can share a blog, and we can include different media: our writing, photography, and links to things we find interesting. it seems the right place, and all the cool kids are doing it.

so how do i start? with *me*me*me*, naturally. yesterday was my 47th birthday, and we celebrated it, including the 47-ness of it (a prime! a safe prime! a prime that’s been an in-joke for pomona college and star trek and other SF tv shows since 1964, 47 years ago and my birthyear! how cool is that?)

and here’s a photo of *me*me*me. i took it for a flick.com group i’m in, the challenge factory, for a weekly challenge topic of “evolution”. it’s the only subject i could think of, and i took the photo without much prep or technical care, wobbling the camera around to get myself, and the self-portrait i took while living in cleveland, in focus and in the frame all at once. maybe i’ll re-take it with more care (the other one i did with a tripod for a black-and-white film photography class, not that was something one used to have to spell out). i take a lot of photos, which i have the bad habit of leaving on my laptop, not uploaded, not sorted, not labelled, and not printed. the challenge factory is one way to make myself both take more photos and get them out where people can see them. photography is one of my creative outlets. i take photos for fun, for practice, for documenting my interests, doings, and the places where i am. sometimes i even do it for art, trying to capture light and color and their infinite changes.

so here we go. day one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35702024@N00/5483473277/

selfolution