Geoff Halber, one of Dwell magazine's senior designers spoke at the AIGA's 2007 design conference in Denver recently. Given only 60 seconds to present, and working under this year's theme, "Next," Geoff decided to put out a call to designer friends and friends-of-friends to make an '08 symbol. Geoff turned 60 designs into 60 frames. (Sorry about the ads at the end.)
Attorney Wayne Bennett is representative of the growing group of black bloggers who speak a truth that may singe your white or, even, black ego. His blog The Field Negro is tough and honest. In today's post he is articulating his thoughts about the failure to override SCHIP. On Wednesday he gathered his thoughts about conservative blacks, "The Talented Tenth Wannabes."
"You can't be against a minimum wage increase or a fair living wage for workers. Not when some poor single mother is working at Wal Mart and earning $6 an hour, and Sam Walton's fucking daughter bought a 30 million dollar painting at some art auction in New York. You can't just blindly follow the NRA and their strict interpretation of the second amendment when kids are getting slaughtered in our streets on a regular basis. You can't support free enterprise and a total deregulation of businesses when environmental racism is killing your people in places like South Texas, and Mississippi. You can't oppose affirmative action programs, and minority business set asides, but turn around and rip black folks for not starting businesses in their own neighborhoods. ( You benefited from the same affirmative action programs that you now conveniently want to get rid of. I know I know, you guys are the smart ones, you didn't need affirmative action.) You can't oppose strong voting rights enforcement, but rip your own people for not being involved enough in the political process. And finally, you can't support the death penalty when you know that more than one innocent person has been put to death by the state because of a fucked up justice system."
At other times he addresses everyday quandaries and insult.
"Black people can we talk?" he wrote in May. "Why the. . . do you all talk so loud during movies? Seriously! If I drop 30$ to see a movie (I am adding the concessions in the mix) I want to watch that. . . in peace. I really don't want to hear your kids crying, your cellphones ringing, and exactly what you will be cooking for dinner when you get home."
-or-
"I swear, white people love their pets more than they love people. Seriously, they have clothes for their pets, gourmet food for their pets, exercise schools for their pets, they take their pets in their cars with them, they have pet hotels. . . . Ten people were shot to death this past weekend in Philadelphia, but that was still page two news here. Now I guarantee you, that if there were ten dogs shot all across the city, white people would be losing their. . . minds."
It is worth reading this LA Times article if you're interested in diversity on the web.
I picked up this quote from T.H White's Once and Future King. It is the wizard Merlin, who is speaking to "Wart", the future King Arthur, about what to do with his sadness.
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn--pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics--why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until is it is time to learn to plough."
Secretary of State in a pensive moment w/flags.She has "told the Russians that." Do they care?
This McClatchy Report quotes Michael McFaul, of Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, a center for international studies, that is consistently conservative (Richard M. Schaife, a billionaire, Clinton tormentor, sits on the Executive Committee): "Bush and his aides grossly misjudged Putin..." One of Bush's aides is none other than Condi Rice, known academically as a "Russian expert." Being criticized by her own University must be painful. You have to wonder, though, how can they get everything so wrong?
Remember 2001 after his first meeting with Putin? Bush famously said he'd looked in the Russian leader's eyes, found him "trustworthy" and "was able to get a sense of his soul." If this omniscient insight weren't so gravely in error, it could be funny, instead it is just recklessly psychotic.
Tanks in the streets, Thailand Military Coup
Milan - Gucci - 2006
Relatives and loved ones of 12 U.S. soldiers attend a group burial with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The 11 men and one woman died in a helicopter crash in Iraq. (Getty Images / October 12, 2007)
Jim Holt, a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker, has written a piece in the London Review of Books. It nails the Iraq oil theory nicely (he must have been reading my blog!). Holt cogently lays out the middle east stew pot. He sums up why the administration must feel, behind closed doors, that it has been wildly successful. The US now sits on one quarter of the world's oil reserves. Now, if only everyone would cooperate. A worthwhile quote that sums it up:
"Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in the United States. And, because of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world’s oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; in Texas alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one quarter of the world’s oil resources. The value of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today’s prices. For purposes of comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion.
Who will get Iraq’s oil? One of the Bush administration’s ‘benchmarks’ for the Iraqi government is the passage of a law to distribute oil revenues. The draft law that the US has written for the Iraqi congress would cede nearly all the oil to Western companies. The Iraq National Oil Company would retain control of 17 of Iraq’s 80 existing oilfields, leaving the rest – including all yet to be discovered oil – under foreign corporate control for 30 years. ‘The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy,’ the analyst Antonia Juhasz wrote in the New York Times in March, after the draft law was leaked. ‘They could even ride out Iraq’s current “instability” by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country.’ As negotiations over the oil law stalled in September, the provincial government in Kurdistan simply signed a separate deal with the Dallas-based Hunt Oil Company, headed by a close political ally of President Bush."
Chinese police train at a military base in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province August 30, 2005.
The kiss of death
I am trying to catch up with some things I found interesting. This post by Audrey Tempelsman over at Dwell blog---always a great place to visit---is a few days old, but who cares?
Tempelsman's post concerns an exhibition that opened in London called Psychic Vacuum. The artist is Mike Nelson, a British sculpture. Sculptors do the damnedest things lately! It might just shake you up, and, as Tempelsman suggests, isn't that what modern art is all about? Sometimes I wonder.
Don't miss the slide show of eerie spaces in the exhibition. You'll have to cursor down the page to find the link. It is an amazing and deft construction.
Herbert Muschamp, architecture critic for the New York Times, died October 3, at the age of 59 of lung cancer. He was an erudite man and an inspired writer and thinker. Here is the obituary providing some insight into Muschamp and quotes from his writing. I found his comments, included in the obituary, on his visit to the concentration camp in Dachau, uniquely evocative and moving. Here, also, is an Op Ed piece by Verlyn Klinkenborg offering appreciation for Muschamp. A quote from the Klinkenborg Op Ed:
I just found this list in my sticky notes. I can't remember where they came from. Perhaps someone else saw these and will remind me from whence they came. Until then, despite their occasional sentimental quality, I think they can help to refocus the wandering mind---the one that likes to get lost in trivial pursuits and those meandering narratives. Questions 16, 17 and 18 were probably submitted by Sally Fields, don't go there. Some are a little redundant. So OK some suck. Just pick one and work with it. Focusing, matters. Paying attention, matters. I'm just tellin' ya.
Questions:
1. What do I want to accomplish today?
2. What is the most important thing I need to do today? (Do it first!)
3. Is this the best use of my time right now?
4. What am I trying to accomplish right now?
5. What can I cross off my list by deleting or delegating? What is not important?
6. What can I do right now to take the next leap instead of the next step?
7. Who can I learn from today?
8. Who can I thank today?
9. What am I grateful for?
10. How can I eliminate distractions right now?
11. What are my top 3 current goals?
12. What is most important to me in life?
13. If the my world was going to end within one year, what would I be doing right now?
14. What will I do today towards my major goals?
15. What action can I take instead of worry right now?
16. Who should I thank today?
17. Who needs some love today?
18. How can I be a kinder person today?
19. How can I have more compassion today?
20. What can I do right now to release negative energy in a positive way?
21. What can I do to let go of my anger?
22. How can I put worry on hold right now?
23. How can I choose happiness right now?
24. What can I do to slow down today?
25. What am I learning right now?
26. What beneficial routines can I start today?
27. What will I do, see, explore, or experience today that is new?
28. How and with whom can I partner today to make 1+1=3?
29. How can I be more compassionate today?
30. What will I celebrate today?
31. Where did I find Joy today?
32. What did I learn today?
33. How will I “pay it forward” today?
34. How will I make today great? How do I define great?
35. What can I stop holding/clinging to help me break free?
36. How can I let go with peace?
37. Who can I help today?
38. How can I add Peace to the world today?
39. What’s the most powerful thing I can do right now, today to increase my business?
40. What have I been avoiding that I can do today?
Marion Jones confesses. After lying to her public and to federal investigators for over three years, Jones tells the truth, sort of. She still insists that she didn't know her trainer was giving her banned performance enhancing drugs. She thought it was "flax seed oil." Jones faces a jail term of six months. One could assume that she probably, finally, confessed because to continue to insist she is innocent in the face of overwhelming evidence, would mean a longer jail sentence. There seems to be little redemption in this one.
It is hard to sympathize given the scope of her fabrications. She even sued Victor Conte, founder of Blanco, the performance enhancing drug company, for millions of dollars, claiming slander and defamation. He testified that he saw here inject herself with the drugs. She has now dropped the suit. But, how devious of her.
It is hard not to feel sorry for her. However, I am afraid that four years of denial, when it was pretty clear there was a serious problem, stretched everyone's trust. She has few supporters remaining. It is very bad and sad.
Can someone please tell me how an athlete can be a doper and NOT get caught? Why does an Olympic athlete take these drugs? Aren't they always tested and found out? It seems to be a gamble with zero chance of success. I continue to be baffled.
Just this video will give you some sense of Glenn Gould's amazingly touching understanding of the music he performs. There he is, bent over the piano, murmuring to himself in a state of wonder. He is playing Bach BWV 828 - 3 - Courante. Go to YouTube and play everything Gould. Buy his Goldberg Variations. Listen religiously.
Glenn Gould died 25 years ago at the age of 50. He remains the classical genius of the century. Here is a wonderful piece by jazz pianist Jessica Williams on Gould along with her thoughts on "dead music." Her appreciation of Gould helps to illuminate the broader understanding of his importance and gift.
Then there is this from Toronto, Gould's home town. "Could there ever be another Glenn Gould?" It is hard to imagine. And then, I offer again my own April post on Gould and that adorable picture of him at the piano with his teacher. This post helps to explain some of the techniques Gould used.
Recent conjecture that Gould had Asperger Syndrome, explaining some of conditions that might relate to his curious eccentricities, does nothing, in my judgment, to diminish the full wonder of his talent. Genius is funny stuff. Try as we might, there is no way to fully understand it. I have to believe that genius does not arise from the norm, but, rather, from the ability to escape the norm. Most of us are trying so hard to be normal, we haven't a chance at being a genius. It may be that an innate disregard, for whatever reason, of the worth of being normal holds the most promise for a stab at genius. Gould had no fear of his oddness, but neither did he champion it in any way. He just was who he was.
All of this is not to say that the mystery of genius or Gould is simple. It is baffling. But when genius is manifest, one doesn't think about its origins, just its presence and astounding poise.
Yesterday in the Washington Post Anne Applebaum offered an interesting conclusion as to why USA prestige in the world has declined. Hint: it has nothing to do with our bully tactics and arrogance.
"If you're really worried about Iran, do you want to put your faith in the United States, the country that bungled Iraq? If you really care about Islamic fundamentalism, do you want to be led by the country that, distracted by Iraq, failed to predict the return of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan?
There are other factors, of course: As I (and many others) have written before, we've been bad at looking after our allies over the past five years, bad at thanking them or compensating them for military contributions to Iraq, bad at maintaining very basic aspects of public diplomacy, such as student-exchange programs. Still, NATO will not fall apart because our president has been rude to his German counterpart or a few Britons don't get scholarships. NATO will fall apart, however, if its American leaders are perceived as inept. And even if the surge works, even if the roadside bombs vanish, "inept" is a word that will always be used about the Iraq invasion."
The word for this American decade: inept. Which is putting it mildly!
The United States of America, bringing peace to the world, one gun at a time.
A closer inspection of this map here spurs many interesting thoughts. Primary among them, for me, was the realization that Iran's GDP is equivalent to the economy of Alabama! Alabama! Not to disparage Alabama, and for god's sake the Clemson Tigers, but, Alabama?
Isn't Iran the country that is going to become an unstoppable military power that is about to devour the Middle East? Isn't this the terrifyingly, powerful force that the administration feels it must carpet and fire bomb, now, before it becomes the new Germany/Hitler state of no mercy? How will Iran define the new world order with the budget of Alabama?!
Just imagine those 'Bama boys producing a massive armament program destined to change the world order on the back of their State economy. Evidently, Governor Bob Riley, who just announced that October is "Alabama Food Products Month," is unaware that October should be "Militarize Alabama Month." If he tried to militarize his state, according to the Bush/Cheney Better Business Evaluation Institute, Riley has the funds and brain power to do it. I guess he just lacks the Ahmadinejad chutzpah. If Riley dared to get that hairy-cheeked, Bush/Cheney Co would bomb Alabama back into the stone ages, which is where everyone thought Alabama damn well was.
Remember what we found in the Soviet Union once the walls came tumbling down? Nothing. That big fearsome RED giant, the communist terror that threatened our very existence, day after day, was impotent...a big bag of wind. The Soviet Union turned out to be a mediocre, blustering idiot.
How can we ever get to a reality-based world perspective? There are so many political purposes obscuring reason. Alabama? Oh, for gods sake.
The NYT provides a glowing review for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Marin Alsop conducted the BSO for the first time this weekend in her role as Music Director. This review from the Times puts Baltimore even more assuredly in the upper tier of wonderful cities to live in.
Ms. Alsop has lived to survive the denigration and icy welcome from the BSO musicians, who wanted someone of higher caliber (male?) to lead them. What a joke. What chutzpah!
Baltimore is witnessing the rise of one of the great world conductors. I thank the gods for this magnificent, musical blessing for this dear city. Welcome Ms. Alsop!
My west coast stringer sends me this east coast lead. The Sackler Museum in DC has opened and interesting exhibition entitled "Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity." I have often heard that classical architecture and sculpture was vividly painted and breathtaking. Finally, two scholars have managed through UV light technology to recreate some of those classic pieces in their original colors. The sculpture of character Paris above is pretty dazzling. No?
"The sculpture and architecture of the ancient world was, in fact, brightly and elaborately painted. The only reason it appears white to us is that centuries of weathering have worn off most of the paint.
So entrenched has the association become between classical art and the look of white, unblemished marble, that the idea of an Athenian acropolis as colorfully painted as a circus wagon is difficult to imagine if not downright blasphemous. But now an exhibition at the Sackler Museum can help us envision what a color-drenched classical world might have looked like."
I think we moderns are going to look, by comparison, rather drab. The exhibition is opened until January 20, 2008. Go forth, colorfully.
Here is some background from the BBC and a biographical timeline from nobelprize.org, on Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced "sue chee"), the leader of the Democracy Movement in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi has been held in prison or under house detention for 11 of the past 14 years for her part in leading the Democracy Movement. She was winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Her story is compelling. Her equanimity, powerful.
This from Burma.
"Security forces there have restricted the movement of Buddhist monks and locked most of the monasteries, "effectively barring the Buddhist clergy from marching on the streets in protest, the report said... In response, monks chanted words of "loving kindness," the report said." (Emphasis added.)
Loving kindness, metta, is the Buddhist's response to suffering.
Here are some photos from demonstrations around the world in support of Burma's Democracy movement.
If Burma had oil, the US would be in there in 24 hours. These people organically and spiritually identify with democratic governance, but we offer only words in their defense. We have not protected people who democratically elected a government that was subsequently imprisoned or murdered by the military junta. Instead, we are in Iraq where democracy is anathema, but oil is the prize. The hypocrisy of Bush's intention to spread democracy and freedom is heartbreakingly clear. For this administration, blood is shed only for a good capitalistic cause.
In the event you want to prove your worthiness for citizenship, here in the left-hand column are ten of the most challenging questions on the redesigned naturalization questionnaire. Try them first. No cheating. After that encounter, look at the third choice in the left column. It is the full "Civics Test" with all the questions and answers. No yawning.
I was elated to see these words in this Burma photo today, and in English, no less. Monks, nuns and followers of Buddhist teachings repeat these words, or some version of them, throughout their day, throughout their lives. It is called metta. The closest definition of this word is "loving kindness." (See the link for a more thorough explanation.)
An important point is that no one is excluded from this idea, this giving. It is unconditional. All living beings and creatures are included. What I also appreciate about metta is that at anytime of the day or night there is some Buddhist somewhere in the world repeating some form of this simple phrase, sending out metta to everyone. I find this comforting and hopeful.
The practice of repeating the metta phrase also brings calm to the one saying it. Its repetition is intended to open one's heart to the suffering inherent in being human and bring the heart to peace. It is a hard practice, metta, simply because no one is excluded. Even your enemy, or maybe, especially your enemy, is offered metta. Offering loved ones and friends metta is easier. Picturing someone who is difficult for you and offering them this powerful "wish" takes practice. This simple way of being loving can actually be pretty arduous. Think about it the next time someone cuts you off on the highway and offer them these thoughts: "May you be well and happy. May you be free from harm and anger. May you be peaceful."
So the Monks, revered and loved, walked and repeated this phrase as they walked. They offered these words for everyone, including their hate-filled junta. As they were beaten, they were also repeating these words for those who were striking them. They offered these words because there is little else of importance. This kind of humility is hard for us to imagine, let alone accept.
This is Krystian Zimerman playing two Gershwin preludes for an audience in Japan. I picked this up at Jessica Duchen's UK classical music blog. The blog is pretty wonderful.
Evidently, before KZ played Gershwin, he had a few words to say about the US and Iraq. We are doing so well internationally. Always referenced.
It is hard for me to write about the monks in Burma who are confronting the insane military junta. They are spiritual heroes to me and to all who follow Buddhist teachings. It is unimaginable that anyone would harm a Buddhist monk or nun. They practice only compassion. Here is a first person report on what is happening.
For me the monks are the epitome of gentleness and honesty. To imagine that they are threatened by the perversity of the junta is too, too difficult to imagine. That they are leading the Resistance movement means so much. They, like the monks in Vietnam in the 60s, are willing to sacrifice their lives for the well being of others.
The western world cannot begin to understand the purity of this commitment to others.
This strange and creepy article featured in the NYT Travel section gave me a case of hee-bee-gee-bee, hilarious, nausea. Attached to this article is this multimedia show illuminating the most outrageously priced clothing a person could wear in any city. The clothing is worn by surreal models who truly capture the look of this stiff, humorless, deathly administration. Washington, the article coos, is now "hip." Read Bush RICH. (By the way, what's with the Louboutin shoes? Is there no end to the obscenity of luxury items? $1,245 for the "Bling-Bling Peep-toe shoes"?) With Bush, shopping is patriotic. And big shopping is very patriotic. I think this article, coupled with the multimedia show is an effective slam on the whole Washington aristocracy of Bush/Cheney Co. War fashion. The fashion of War.
Put this together with Glenn Greenwald's excoriation of Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and you have the full flavor of the loss effected by the slide into the sludge of privilege. Have I said enough? Enough.
Captioned: "Blink and Miss it" from MIMOA
OK, this video has partisan overtones. OK, it is a little dumb with the hip-hop sound bite. OK, using the same footage at least three times weakens its effect. OK. But, when you get to the end of the video and learn that Blackwater mercenary troops were disbursed to New Orleans to "fight crime" in the aftermath of Katrina (take note that this seems to be the only thing immediately and effectively organized before, during or after Katrina), you begin to think about this a little differently. Blackwater troops are being disbursed in American cities? Shout this question out your windows!! By Whom? Under what laws? Folks this is serious.
This administration came into office with a fierce agenda for privatization---schools, prisons, hospitals, highways, social security, health care, etc. If corporations are in charge in the privatized world, who is in charge of this privatized military? Apparently not our military. Put it all together and things look a little scarier...even.
I have found two definitions of "blackwater:" 1) any of several human or animal diseases characterized by dark urine resulting from rapid breakdown of red blood cells and 2) domestic wastewater containing human wastes. I'll leave you with that.
"Bavaria's conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) rebel Gabriele Pauli arrives for the New Year reception of the Bavarian government in Munich January 12, 2007. Bavaria's most glamorous politician -- a flame-haired motorcyclist who helped bring down state premier Edmund Stoiber -- has shocked the Catholic state in Germany by suggesting marriage should last just 7 years. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle."
Here's the article about this jazzy dame.
(image: Elaine Thompson/AP. Via YahooNews.)I hadn't seen this photo anywhere. Here's the caption:
This YouTube video of The Byrds singing "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better (When You're Gone)" on Hullabaloo in 1965, is a swift reminder of just how much the world has changed. Or maybe it's a good reminder that one cannot know when great change waits just ahead, when you are about to go over the brink into the unimaginable.
Look at those Go Go Dancers! Look at that choreography! Look at the whole stage set shaking! Look at them doing The Pony! Finally, I can say it: I do not miss this!
But, I must admit this period was one, wonderful, wild step into a new creative exuberance. Nothing compares to that brief, window of creative and optimistic energy. It was so unsophisticated, so unselfconscious in a surprising way. Look at it...the beaming, goofy energy of those dancers on black and white TV. They almost glow. The following year President Kennedy will be assassinated and the innocence will ebb from all those bobbing bodies. Then MLK. Then JFK. Then Vietnam. And worse. So when I think of that era, it is in comparison to where it all went. How dark it would get. How changed we would all be. Where we would arrive, today.
The Byrds biggest hits: Pete Seeger's Turn,Turn, Turn and Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man. Then there was the, at the time, controversial Eight Miles High. The Eight Miles High psychedelic video is hysterical. I believe you can select it from the thumbnails after the above video concludes.
OK. Already there are reports of seizures and vomiting when this design was unveiled. Here it is, yet another hideous design catastrophe: the London 2012 Olympics logo. I would have thought we could have trusted the British, the home of Pentagram Design and all. But, no. A disaster of this sort, causing not only seizures, but stink, comes too late in the history of design to be acceptable, or forgiven. If design were a government project, this would be the result. However, this design is not of the civil service. It is of commerce. May it rot.
Interview Room, Secret Service Headquarters, Los Angeles
It use to be that reporters called up government sources and asked questions of them and received answers. Here's the new way, in La Plata, Maryland:
"1. Submit your questions, in writing, preferably via e-mail, to Judith Frazier, La Plata's town clerk.
2. Frazier will forward your questions to the appropriate town official. She also will notify the mayor and all council members of the media inquiry.
3. By the next business day, Frazier will send the official's prepared response via e-mail.
If your question is prompted by something discussed during a Town Council meeting, don't think about asking an official when the meeting ends. Instead, send an e-mail to Frazier, and she will "strive to send the responses the following business day."
I guess this is the state of journalism in the Republican Age. Heaven forbid that an elected government representative would have to answer questions on the phone, or worse,directly at a Town Council Meeting. For this town in Charles County, Maryland with 8,500 residents to have a pompous little press policy of this nature is baffling. Maybe the city officials are just incompetents, unaware of or unable to communicate exactly what it is they are doing. They have to put their heads together with every question and come up with an answer! Tough work.
Haleh Esfandiari at Evin prison, in Iran, shortly after her release.
My "Stringer," on the west coast alerted me to this recent travesty. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is supposedly selling 50 of its assets to cover the recently announced $660 million settlement to resolve the sex abuses of their pedophile priests.
For 43 years, the Sisters of Bethany convent has served the many poor and undocumented residents of their parish. The Sisters received a letter from their archdiocese (because a personal visit would have been a lot of trouble) informing them that they are being evicted from the small convent house because the convent house is one of the archdiocese assets that is being sold to raise funds to cover the multi-million dollar settlement.
The nuns, not being fools, realize what their work and their home are being forfeited for:
"We're just so hurt by this," Escalera, the order's local superior, said this week. "And what hurts the most is what the money will be used for, to help pay for the pedophile priests. We have to sacrifice our home for that?"
The three nuns have four months to move out. WWJD?!
Isn't this just the strangest photo. Ok, it is nighttime and the three are being illumined by probably huge klieg lights. They have landed in Anbar province at the hugely fortified air base; it is, perhaps, the only place they could set down where they would not have to wear flack vests during their photo op.
There are the three of them, disconnected from each other, Condi and Gates staring at the ground. They look very unhappy to be there. Condi is wearing spiked heels for god's sakes, in the desert, among soldiers. Bush is in his Kennebunkport sport coat, his hands hanging like dead hams. Gates is in his usual funereal black suit, white shirt and tie. And, there's those Hummers all set up in the background. Bee-u-tee-ful.
I feel they are about to enter the Disneyland of Iraq, where Sunnis are now the best friends of the USA. The best pals of violence and terror, of its own virulent Iraqi nature. How do these three people go on with there lives knowing all they know? All those secrets. All that falsehood. All that death on their hands, their minds. The sheer magnitude of the disaster.
American scholar, Haleh Esfandiari has been released by the Iranians after seven months in solitary confinement, followed by uncertain weeks of house arrest. The "bail" to get out of prison was the mortgage on her 93 year old mother's home in Tehran. This post from last month fills out the story.
It turns out that it may have been Lee Hamilton, President of the Wilson Center, former Democratic Congressman and co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, who helped liberate Esfandiari. His plea to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei received a response and Khamenei's pledge of commitment to try to resolve Esfandiari's case. One wonders why a plea becomes THE plea that facilitates action. Her story when she returns will be fascinating. Although, I believe that she will not embellish the narrative, to insure her mother's continued safety in Tehran.
AA Gill, the London Times food critic, is the best writer. He is out of control and precise at the same time. I wish I could say as much for myself. This recent column is a great read, especially the letter from the Smith family on dining at La Fourchette Folle, in Rubia, France, on their summer vacation. "Roubia has a population of 500 during the holiday season, falling to a population of two old ladies and a stray dog in the winter."
But before you go to the Gill's column, here is Gill on fungi:
"The best things I ate this summer were cooked in a truck-driver’s home in Tuscany. The first was a mushroom soup: glossy and thick as a mink muff, and darkly cunning with the mulchy, crepuscular flavours of the wood. Fungi have the most complex and dissembling tastes. Born of corruption, they are smooth and pale and pristine, but always a hair’s breadth away from gut-twisting murder. These ones were wild ceps, gathered from secret places and damp clefts."
This description is bettered by the review of Yakitori, the Japanese equivalent of tapas. Food lovers rejoice, rejoice.
In the 90s I worked on a Senate staff. It was a tremendous, reality-based experience that I won't belabor here. My thoughts, over the impending Craig resignation, among other things, go to the junior staff. Junior staffers don't get paid much, so they struggle to get by while doing the work of their Member's bidding which ranges from significant (replying to constituent mail and requests) to embarrassing (picking up your Senator's cloths at the cleaners).
The young, junior staff, tend to live shoe-horned into apartments with four or five other people because the living space is so expensive in the District. The junior staff work ten to fourteen hour days with little recognition. Because of their schedules and poverty, they tend to eat poorly. Many meals are grabbed at evening social affairs thrown by lobbyists where food and drink is free. Juniors haunt these events in search of food, some of which goes into purses and pockets for the next day. It is a somewhat ridiculous life lived for the glory of being close to the power of politics.
To wake up to find that you will soon be jobless because your (now powerless) Senator has been arrested in a gay sex sting in an airport men's room is the final insult, not to mention, shock. Some staffers will stay to transition the next Idaho Senator into office. Their tenure is iffy, at best, as new Senators want their own staff at their side. Some will segue to a barista position at Starbucks, some will luck out and win a position on another Senate staff, some will head back to mom and dad's house to recoup.
There are thousands of these college grads working in Congress. They are the flotsam and jetsam of a Senator's or Congress person's entourage. They are as disposable as paper cups. They are as resilient as Styrofoam peanuts. They will all be fine, but it is a god-awful spot to be put in.
No doubt, the Secret Service et al. thought that might mean some sort of threat on the ground as well. The caption reads "protesters" but they are not shown.
YouTube has a number of videos, and this one by AuntBee09 captures the variety of law enforcement groups as well as protesters. Midway through it, as the Presidential motorcade speeds by, the police dispatcher says "The package is en route" several times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iQCQuCF9Wk&mode=related&search="