It's a JGL ("Call me Joe") goof around site. www.hitREDord.org
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Just Cuz
Two young female goats stand on a railroad bridge south of Roundup, Mont., Wednesday. The goats, who may have wandered onto the narrow ledge in the dark of night, were stranded for two days before they were rescued with the aid of a crane. They were unharmed.Friday, September 03, 2010
Dumb Response to Killings
So as the Peace Talks started, Hamas killed 4 settlers on the West bank. It was a preemtive attack to derail the peace talks.
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It isn't much my business, but I think this is a really bad response to a killing. You live in a tit for tat area, why would you respond by building a new targer full of kids. If you insist on building a
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Jewish settlers hold Israeli national flags as they take part in an activity to put a corner stone for a new kindergarten building in what they say is a response to Tuesday night's shooting attack which killed four Israelis near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, at the Jewish West Bank settlement of Kdumim September 1, 2010.
REUTERS/Nir Elias
.It isn't much my business, but I think this is a really bad response to a killing. You live in a tit for tat area, why would you respond by building a new targer full of kids. If you insist on building a
New Quote and the Hawkins Debate
So the updated quote is from Stephen Hawking - via the New York Subway - via a New York Public Library Quote.
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The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. Stephen Hawking
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I love that quote. It helps to explain "Science" and neither promotes nor rejects a faith in God.
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I bring this up because Stephen Hawking, "courtesy" of the DrugeReport, has been in the middle of a recent firestorm about God. He said - reading his words and paraphrasing here - that the Universe could be explained without God. He did NOT say that the Universe WAS explained without God. NOR did he say the Universe could NOT be explained WITH God.
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He simply said that one was not necessarily dependent on the other. I think this makes a lot of sense.
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The Universe is a beautiful amazing awe-inspiring creation. If you believe in God, it is easy to see the wonder, power and love that God would have in creating this and blessing us with it. If you don't believe in God, it is easy to see the wonder and joy in the Universe and want to protect it.
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If you are Drudge, it is easy to see how to create an artificial argument that will drive viewers to your site and make money from everyone else while whipping up a little anger.
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The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. Stephen Hawking
.
I love that quote. It helps to explain "Science" and neither promotes nor rejects a faith in God.
.
I bring this up because Stephen Hawking, "courtesy" of the DrugeReport, has been in the middle of a recent firestorm about God. He said - reading his words and paraphrasing here - that the Universe could be explained without God. He did NOT say that the Universe WAS explained without God. NOR did he say the Universe could NOT be explained WITH God.
.
He simply said that one was not necessarily dependent on the other. I think this makes a lot of sense.
.
The Universe is a beautiful amazing awe-inspiring creation. If you believe in God, it is easy to see the wonder, power and love that God would have in creating this and blessing us with it. If you don't believe in God, it is easy to see the wonder and joy in the Universe and want to protect it.
.
If you are Drudge, it is easy to see how to create an artificial argument that will drive viewers to your site and make money from everyone else while whipping up a little anger.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
The Many Faces of Elizabeth Ashley
So tonight I saw "Me, Myself and I" with the cast below (Edward Albee's new show at the Playwright's Horizon). The woman in Black is Elizabeth Ashley.
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I love me some Elizabeth Ashley. Now, in this show she overacts with abandon. On purpose. She is larger than life in a role that is not only larger than life, but that often breaks the fourth wall. Well that isn't as true because they don't really acknowledge a fourth wall whatsoever.
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But I love her!
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She was, in her day, quite the thang. She won a Tony for Barefoot in the Park with Robert Redford (although Jane Fonda got the role int he movie).
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Funny enough - true story - I saw her in a play the very first time I EVER came to New York. I saw her in Agnes of God a million years ago. With Carrie Fisher on her opening night (Carrie took over the role from someone).
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You all might remember her most from Evening Shade. On the box picture she is leaning on Burt Reynolds.
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I love me some Elizabeth Ashley. Now, in this show she overacts with abandon. On purpose. She is larger than life in a role that is not only larger than life, but that often breaks the fourth wall. Well that isn't as true because they don't really acknowledge a fourth wall whatsoever.
.
But I love her!
.
She was, in her day, quite the thang. She won a Tony for Barefoot in the Park with Robert Redford (although Jane Fonda got the role int he movie).
.
Funny enough - true story - I saw her in a play the very first time I EVER came to New York. I saw her in Agnes of God a million years ago. With Carrie Fisher on her opening night (Carrie took over the role from someone).
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You all might remember her most from Evening Shade. On the box picture she is leaning on Burt Reynolds.
Sometimes things are just funny because they are obvious
Salon was writing about the gunman yesterday at the Discovery Channel and his whole "Save The Planet and By The Way Take The Baby Shows Off The Air!" today. And, I loved the way they start (italics in the original). 
Quoteth Salon:
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Quoteth Salon: .
"Yesterday, a crazed gunman wearing explosives took control of the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, Md. Online, you can read his manifesto, as well as dozens of message board posts, especially here, in which he rants about Discovery's programming. Why did he single out Discovery, of all the innocuous cable channels? Who knows: He's a crazed gunman! "
It May Be Sept 2, 2010 - but it will alwasy be 90210 to Me
I know, I know - there is a new 90210 and it even has a cute blond homo... But 90210 is alwasy Shannon Dorety and Luke Perry to me.Wednesday, September 01, 2010
New Reviews Off Broadway Site
Heylo all. I have a new Reviews Off-Broadway site up. It now allows for better posting, tagging and scheduling of posts.
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.The Header is from the Woolworth Building Elevators...
Mascot of the Month: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
There is something amazing about Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He is a chamelon type of actor. In almost everything he is totally believable.
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After 30 Rock, he stopped acting to go to school at Colombia. He is a nice boy from the Valley (Sherman Oaks) who now lives in the Lower East Side of New York. He loved Colombia and now makes only movies that challenge him.
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The picture below is from Mysterious Skin - which I never saw because it deals with child abuse and I have a problem with that.
The picture below is from 500 Days of Summer. I am watching it right now (as I write this). Funny enough, this isn't what made me think of making him Mascot of the Month.
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The picture below is from Brick. Brick is a total Film Noir picture set in High School. It was interesting and fun.
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After 30 Rock, he stopped acting to go to school at Colombia. He is a nice boy from the Valley (Sherman Oaks) who now lives in the Lower East Side of New York. He loved Colombia and now makes only movies that challenge him..
The picture below is from Mysterious Skin - which I never saw because it deals with child abuse and I have a problem with that.
The picture below is from 500 Days of Summer. I am watching it right now (as I write this). Funny enough, this isn't what made me think of making him Mascot of the Month..
.The picture below is from Brick. Brick is a total Film Noir picture set in High School. It was interesting and fun.
.But the best... the BEST is the fact he loves UCLA. Want proof?
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Evolution: Not as Stupid as we sound
So there was a big report that something like 60% of Americans don't believe in Evolution. That is probably not really true.
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Like everything else in America right now, the question "Do You Believe In Evolution" has loaded political overtones - otherwise they wouldn't ask the question in polling.
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The question "do you believe in evolution" to many people doesn't mean, "Do you believe that animals, insects and other organisms physically change over time to respond to external conditions?" Most Americas would easily ascribe to that theory.
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In America the question very often means to people, "Do you believe God created man (or are you an atheist)?" It has been framed this way by both sides.
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The framing of the question is why we have such fights in schools over Evolution versus creationism. It is perfectly possible to believe in both God and Evolution, but it isn't usually framed in that manner.
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So we are dumb, but not that dumb.
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Like everything else in America right now, the question "Do You Believe In Evolution" has loaded political overtones - otherwise they wouldn't ask the question in polling.
.
The question "do you believe in evolution" to many people doesn't mean, "Do you believe that animals, insects and other organisms physically change over time to respond to external conditions?" Most Americas would easily ascribe to that theory.
.
In America the question very often means to people, "Do you believe God created man (or are you an atheist)?" It has been framed this way by both sides.
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The framing of the question is why we have such fights in schools over Evolution versus creationism. It is perfectly possible to believe in both God and Evolution, but it isn't usually framed in that manner.
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So we are dumb, but not that dumb.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
A Speculative Future that is all too real....
A Salon writer postulates how our democracy dies (and turns into a "Cesar" type Presidential government). I don't usually cut stuff this long - but I find myself worrying about the future and this writer sums up my fears so succinctly.
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But the biggest casualty of the Great Recession and the generation of slow growth and political turmoil that followed was representative democracy. In the face of persistent high unemployment and slow growth, Congress consistently did too little, too late. The American people voted in first one party and then the other. Gradually they realized that their national legislature was no longer responding to popular needs or values, no matter which party was nominally in charge.
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The thoroughly corrupt House of Representatives was populated by career politicians who responded to out-of-district corporate and financial industry contributions more than to the citizens of their districts. Thanks to the success of partisan majorities in state legislatures in drawing the lines of congressional districts to benefit members of their parties, an ever-growing majority of U.S. representatives enjoyed safe seats. The number of competitive elections in swing districts declined with each census.
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Meanwhile, the malapportionment of the Senate grew ever more extreme, because of the predominance of low-population states. The percentage of the American people who could elect a majority in the U.S. Senate declined from 15 to 10 percent. Senators from the low-population states of the American West and New England competed to be lobbyists within the Senate for American and multinational corporate interests, who took care of them generously upon their retirement from public office.
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To make matters worse, the filibuster -- an extra-constitutional custom that had no place in the scheme of American government -- gave the minority party in the Senate a veto over any activity at all and added a de facto supermajority requirement for Senate votes unknown to the Founders.
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Frustrated by the unresponsiveness of the corrupt U.S. Congress in one crisis after another, the American people looked elsewhere for leadership. Anti-system demagogues emerged, only to fade away as soon as the novelty wore off. But the passion tapped by the populist outsiders made it clear that the American people wanted action.
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And if Congress would not act, the executive branch would. Presidents of both major parties, frustrated with the paralysis of Congress, began to circumvent the process of legislation altogether and to achieve their goals by executive orders. Critics claimed that the presidency was usurping Congress's powers. Defenders replied that the paralyzed Congress had effectively thrown its powers away. The presidency was simply picking them up.
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By the fourth decade of the 21st century, the new system was in place. Caesarism had come to America. Congress, with its own consent, had been relegated to the status of a marginal debating society. Most laws were mere enabling acts, delegating the executive branch the power to fill in the details. In practice the American Constitution of checks and balances among separate branches of government had been replaced by a new system of plebiscitary presidentialism -- a system of elective dictatorship, with free elections for the dictator every four years. Real power lay with the executive branch, not with the speaker of the House or the Senate majority leader.
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And within the executive branch, real power lay with operatives of the White House staff appointed by the president and answerable only to him or her, not with Cabinet officials and agency heads confirmed by the Senate and supervised by both houses of Congress. The degradation of the Cabinet secretaries had begun during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt and continued until, in the Nixon years, Nixon’s personal staff had more influence than most Cabinet secretaries. In the late 20th century, presidents created a new layer of policy "czars," above the Cabinet departments and independent agencies and below the White House court. The original constitutional scheme of Cabinet departments answerable to Cabinet secretaries was now choked and hidden beneath layers of czars and other presidential flunkies. The lack of clear responsibility meant that intrigue and factionalism flourished in an executive branch that increasingly resembled the Borgia court superimposed on the Byzantine empire.
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.(more in article).
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By the middle of the 21st century the American republic had gradually been replaced by an American Principate. Few mourned the old system in which urgently needed policies died in Congress or were diluted beyond recognition. Things needed to be done, and now they were done, by fiat rather than by law.
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The Americans who were most pleased by post-congressional government were members of Congress themselves. Governing was hard and divisive, while posturing and pontificating were easy. Now if anything went wrong, it was the president’s fault. And nobody would bother to try to assassinate the Senate majority leader or the speaker of the House. Hardly anybody knew who they were.
(full story here)
.But the biggest casualty of the Great Recession and the generation of slow growth and political turmoil that followed was representative democracy. In the face of persistent high unemployment and slow growth, Congress consistently did too little, too late. The American people voted in first one party and then the other. Gradually they realized that their national legislature was no longer responding to popular needs or values, no matter which party was nominally in charge.
.
The thoroughly corrupt House of Representatives was populated by career politicians who responded to out-of-district corporate and financial industry contributions more than to the citizens of their districts. Thanks to the success of partisan majorities in state legislatures in drawing the lines of congressional districts to benefit members of their parties, an ever-growing majority of U.S. representatives enjoyed safe seats. The number of competitive elections in swing districts declined with each census.
.
Meanwhile, the malapportionment of the Senate grew ever more extreme, because of the predominance of low-population states. The percentage of the American people who could elect a majority in the U.S. Senate declined from 15 to 10 percent. Senators from the low-population states of the American West and New England competed to be lobbyists within the Senate for American and multinational corporate interests, who took care of them generously upon their retirement from public office.
.
To make matters worse, the filibuster -- an extra-constitutional custom that had no place in the scheme of American government -- gave the minority party in the Senate a veto over any activity at all and added a de facto supermajority requirement for Senate votes unknown to the Founders.
.
Frustrated by the unresponsiveness of the corrupt U.S. Congress in one crisis after another, the American people looked elsewhere for leadership. Anti-system demagogues emerged, only to fade away as soon as the novelty wore off. But the passion tapped by the populist outsiders made it clear that the American people wanted action.
.
And if Congress would not act, the executive branch would. Presidents of both major parties, frustrated with the paralysis of Congress, began to circumvent the process of legislation altogether and to achieve their goals by executive orders. Critics claimed that the presidency was usurping Congress's powers. Defenders replied that the paralyzed Congress had effectively thrown its powers away. The presidency was simply picking them up.
.
By the fourth decade of the 21st century, the new system was in place. Caesarism had come to America. Congress, with its own consent, had been relegated to the status of a marginal debating society. Most laws were mere enabling acts, delegating the executive branch the power to fill in the details. In practice the American Constitution of checks and balances among separate branches of government had been replaced by a new system of plebiscitary presidentialism -- a system of elective dictatorship, with free elections for the dictator every four years. Real power lay with the executive branch, not with the speaker of the House or the Senate majority leader.
.
And within the executive branch, real power lay with operatives of the White House staff appointed by the president and answerable only to him or her, not with Cabinet officials and agency heads confirmed by the Senate and supervised by both houses of Congress. The degradation of the Cabinet secretaries had begun during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt and continued until, in the Nixon years, Nixon’s personal staff had more influence than most Cabinet secretaries. In the late 20th century, presidents created a new layer of policy "czars," above the Cabinet departments and independent agencies and below the White House court. The original constitutional scheme of Cabinet departments answerable to Cabinet secretaries was now choked and hidden beneath layers of czars and other presidential flunkies. The lack of clear responsibility meant that intrigue and factionalism flourished in an executive branch that increasingly resembled the Borgia court superimposed on the Byzantine empire.
.
.(more in article).
.
By the middle of the 21st century the American republic had gradually been replaced by an American Principate. Few mourned the old system in which urgently needed policies died in Congress or were diluted beyond recognition. Things needed to be done, and now they were done, by fiat rather than by law.
.
The Americans who were most pleased by post-congressional government were members of Congress themselves. Governing was hard and divisive, while posturing and pontificating were easy. Now if anything went wrong, it was the president’s fault. And nobody would bother to try to assassinate the Senate majority leader or the speaker of the House. Hardly anybody knew who they were.
(full story here)
Sunday, August 29, 2010
A Day At the Cloisters
Yesterday we went to the "Cloisters". It is a beautiful museum / gallery donated to the city by J.D.Rockefeller.
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It houses his medieval European Art - primarily church art.
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It is a beautiful setting. He purchased a lot of architecture that had been repurposed into farm houses after the French Revolution.
This is the Fuentiduena Chapel - a mid-12th century apse from the church of San Martin at Fuentiduena (Segovia).
The hanging cross is from the same period, but from Austria. It was amazingly pretty inside.
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It houses his medieval European Art - primarily church art.
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It is a beautiful setting. He purchased a lot of architecture that had been repurposed into farm houses after the French Revolution.
This is the Fuentiduena Chapel - a mid-12th century apse from the church of San Martin at Fuentiduena (Segovia).
The hanging cross is from the same period, but from Austria. It was amazingly pretty inside.
It is called "The Cloisters" because he actually took many cloister columns and used them to surround the gardens. Here is a picture of various types of columns from different cloisters around Europe.
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If you come and like this type of Architecture, Art or Gardens - you should go. It was spectacular.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
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