Today I took the day off and went to an interesting lecture in the morning, got some terrific beading instruction (and supplies) in the afternoon, ate dinner with friends and watched the hilarious and delightfully written Music & Lyrics in the evening. Now I'm off to spend several days with one of t2cgitw and her parents. Might not have computer access so hope to avoid blogging withdrawal by doing lots of beaded crochet. And also hope any wandering-by CRR* can stave off JMBM withdrawal by doing something utterly fascinating and leaving a note about what it was and how much fun was had by all. Finally, as my father liked to say, plant you now ~ dig you later.

Labels: blogs (mine)

So apparently Mrs. Edwards is going to "sacrifice" herself by not eating (nor, presumably, buying) tangerines in order to avoid not-local fruit and therefore save carbon emissions excess that would result from transporting fruit (presumably from far, far away). Are there no locally grown tangerines? And what if zillions of us harkened onto the same idea? What would happen to the income for the people in the country/ies that export tangerines? Does the well-being of second, third and fourth world people matter less than wooing global warming voters? And does she (or even we as a whole entire nation) consume so many tangerines that it would make a carbon emission difference?

Laura's post on this mentions a couple of other points worth mentioning, ideas that lurk behind the whole eat-locally-grown-food topic, such as ever-encroaching nannyism and increasing taxes on various food items to cover carbon emissions costs. Who determines where those tax revenues go, however? I bet the go-ahead-and-increase-taxes-on-carbon-intensive-foods people wouldn't like their added monies to pay for things like the war in Iraq, now would they?!

Labels: headlines, huh?

The whole idea of carbon offsets strikes me as hokus-pokus. There may possibly be some logic to the "one earth" conviction behind it, in that all emissions of carbon dioxide into the air will effect everyone, everywhere on the planet. But the idea that an emitter can pay money to 'offset' emissions just seems to me like the tooth fairy in energy industry disguise.

The theory is that if you send out thousands of tons of the stuff but pay some specifically designated per-ton amount of money to a company whose mission is to do wonderful things to the earth's atmosphere, then the evilness of your emissions will be, if not exactly neutralized, then at least somewhat compensated for. Almost sounds plausible, right? But at the very beginning there seem to me to be two fundamental probelms: (a) how can you realistically and accurately measure carbon dioxide tonnage, (b) how can you realistically and accurately assess exchange rates for carbon dioxide and efforts to reduce CO2 emissions or produce wind power or whatever? Not to mention (c) how do you assure accountability of companies engaging in so-called offsetting and (d) how do you measure the efficacy of the so-called offsetting? None of this happened overnight and the atmosphere isn't just three or four cubic feet big, so it's not as if you can look in a can of air and see that it's ever so much cleaner once it's been wind-powered clean or whatever. Academy Awards presenters this year were given carbon offset credits, by the way, so they could fly gas-guzzling-and-CO2-emitting jets or produce movies and yet sending conscience-assuaging-CO2-offsetting funds to small towns in Africa. It's appallingly first-vs-fourth world, isn't it?

You could, of course, simply hook-line-and-sinker believe a company called NativeEnergy, one of the Gore-approved (and invested in, hmmm....) companies. They sell offsets at $12 per ton and claim they'll use offset income to generate wind-powered electricity in Alaska for 52 Alaskan villages (not 53 or 51 villages, you understand; 52; too darn bad about any others). If, like me, the whole idea of carbon offsets sounds really sketchy to you, read Steven Milloy's article, Carbon Offsets : Buyer Beware. Among other things he mentions is that Congress has begun investigating the carbon offset industry. Which seems astonishes me since I assume this Congress is jam-packed with offset believers. And even if the investigation is merely pro forma, some inconvenient (heh) facts are bound to come out. You don't suppose the carbon offset industry is so utterly ridiculous that even Congress realized it had to be publicly and officially examined before it got completely out of hand?

Labels: economics, huh?, politics, reflections

Norm at Norm's Blog interviewed himself, I learned from the ever-wonderful ligneus' post on the interview. Norm is a terrific writer, often full of exciting and unexpected perceptions. But he can be didactic, self-satisfied, arch and dismissive of points of view with which he disagrees (on those occasions when he allows them to sully his paragraphs). Sometimes I find it hard to read him without fury and wanting to get away. Which certainly won't diminish or bother his world at all, though it does definitely jostle mine. Anyway, he's a Jane Austen fan.

Labels: blogs (others'), reflections, writing

TCM is showing The Importance of Being Earnest at the moment and I must say that it has always impressed me that decorous wit and conversation are among the finest things in life, literary or otherwise.

Labels: movies, silliness, writing

Nice use of fact and irony in this germane and funny list of real news stories and comments from the past week. Surber sure uses words to superb effect. I think my favorite (although it's hard to pick just one) is:

Harry “Tara” Reid decided to hold an all-night session of the Senate to show those Republicans up. Congressional job approval hit 14%, so low that Bush may impeach Reid.

Labels: blogs (others'), fun, writing

Another day, another movie. It took us two days to watch it on the train because Babel, the Brad Pitt / Kate Blanchett vehicle, is two and a half hours long (whew). For two very positive things, let me say that it was never boring and that the cinematography is simply stunning. The score is a bit intrusive and harsh, but I think that was intentional, almost part of the film's landscape. It is directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga with a complex narrative that's really the most interesting part of the film for me.

I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say what we know at the outset. There are four groups of people in four parts of the world, all of whom will effect each other in some way before the movie ends. There's a white-bread California couple with two ultra-blond perfect little children; there's their attentive Latina housekeeper/nanny and, eventually, her boisterous family; there's a handsome Japanese businessman and his wildly hormonal adolescent daughter; and there's a Moroccan herder family with two young and obstreperous sons. I've heard it said that Iñárritu's 'cause' is exploring families and the relationships in them, which is certainly the pivotal aspect of this film, perhaps more so than the talked-about cultural and political issues.

It helps to know that the storyline is not told entirely linearly. Some events happen as you see them but some turn out to have happened before and/or after others, and it's a bit confusing until you sort it out. What is kind of cool is that a rifle connects all these disparate people in their very far-apart places. This conceit is often used to good effect (The Red Violin was a good recent example) but I think Babel gets a bit carried away with it. I mean, why not track down the manufacturer of the bullets or the steel, or the woodsmen who chopped down the trees whose wood was used on the rifle's back?

The efficient and basically kind Moroccan doctor seems the only character who embodies what I would like to think was the whole point. He almost managed to make me overlook plot inconsistencies, visible boom-mikes, star-turn camera shots of Pitt and Blanchett, insanely bad judgment decisions by many (most) of the characters, and the oddly unfinished endings of at least three plot lines (to be discussed in comments if anyone who's seen it wants to). Babel burbles with too much anger at authority figures and is too willing to engage in and display both cruelty and egotism to do it, but there IS an effective case to made that the globe has become very small and that we should work on maintaining our cultural differences without allowing them to interfere with our human and humane needs and feelings.

Labels: movies, reflections

Following up on my "GWB" post the other day as well as its germane comments, take a look at "Protection from the tyranny of democracy and republicanism," written the same day as mine, amazingly (must've been something in the air that day, eh?) (grateful h/t CRR* Tatyana). That blog is a terrific addition to my must-reads, for one thing, and, for another, the article makes good points about democracies and republics (both upper- and lower-case) and, in particular, about the American constitution.

Labels: america, great link(s), reflections

Between Tivo and Netflix and TCM and a friend who sometimes brings a portable DVD player on the train, I've been seeing lots and lots of movies. The other morning we watched Copying Beethoven. This is another Ed Harris tour de force along the lines of Pollack in that he more or less channels a well-known ultra-tempestuous visionary artist, hook line and sinker. Do you suppose Harris subsumes himself in such roles because his own personality needs to work through anger and abusiveness that he feels is inappropriate to express himself? That aside, his make-up (or whatever you call it when they change the contours of a person's face) is so good that it's pretty hard to recognize Harris in there, yet it isn't incredibly obtrusive. You rarely spend time thinking what a great make-up job it is.

Diane Kruger plays Anna Holz, a calm character who is a counterpoint to Beethoven, in several ways. She is not an actual person although someone like her certainly could have been from what I know of his life. Some famous works are there, principally the 9th Symphony, though the orchestra and chorus aren't quite up to the emotional weight they are given. The story of the Grosse Fugue is retold wonderfully, and I loved the way the film showed him as a feeling person as well as a brute because I'm really really sick of the brute and crazy schtick about him. The director, Agnieszka Holland, has a great reputation for artistic, genteel, pretty movies and this is no exception.

My main objection to the movie is that it spends too much time showing the wild man and too little showing the musical splendor. Leonard Bernstein famously wrote that "Beethoven broke all the rules, and turned out pieces of breath-taking rightness [where] you get the feeling that whatever note succeeds the last is the only possible note that can rightly happen at that instant, in that context" adding that he had "the power to make you feel . . . [s]omething is right in the world . . . ." The magnificent power, the thundering, stunning, earth-shaking beauty all seem to demand a bit that we take them on faith. (A faith that the film fairly inexplicably requires us to take with little to back it up, considering that Beethoven never wrote a requiem and rarely wrote religious music.) And although I appreciated the characters' discussion/argument of musical movements without detectable ends and beginnings, it have been nice to learn vividly why and how his work broke traditions and cleared the way for new sounds and forms.

Unfortunately, the movie just seems too light-weight in ways I can't entirely or totally identify. There's something missing or perhaps it's too television-y, although it is worth seeing and hearing since no movie has to be all things at all times. I think Copying Beethoven would seem serious and intellectual if broadcast on Lifetime but it seems romantic and inconsequential on its own.

Labels: movies, reflections

Do you ever find yourself having so much to say that you have nothing to say? I've been feeling over/underwhelmed for the last couple of days because there have been about two million little things I wanted to write about so it's ended up that I haven't known where to start. From the ridiculous report on swimming at the North Pole to people trying to make rational assessments of an election that's fifteen months away to Victoria Beckham (née Spice) ragging on American housewives to one notable wife of one hopeful candidate pontificating on "correct" womanly behavior, on and on and on. (Note to the oh-so-righteous Mrs. Edwards: whatever came of that "judge not lest ye be judged"? As if your (or anyone else's) behavior is always totally beyond reproach.) Help! I'm sort of defending Hillbilly. I'd better go now before I make it worse.

Labels: blogs (mine), reflections

Post by Don Surber not to be missed. On Hillary, feminism, winning and standing tall.

Labels: 2008 election, blogs (others')

A writer I quite admire, John Baker, has a blog I love to visit, almost daily. The two of his novels I've read are engaging and absorbing, and his blog observations often let me see something in an interesting way. Recently, however, he wrote a post, "Can the President Pardon Himself?", whose title caught my attention and got my goat since Bush didn't in fact pardon Libby but commuted the sentence - an important distinction which someone as detailed and erudite as Baker should have worked with. Furthermore, I would not allow myself to publicly critique U.K. leaders as personally as he critiques Bush now and then, since I'm not British and therefore inevitably unaware of U.K. governmental minutiae no matter how much I have studied and read about it, but each to his own, right? In this case, the post was basically inoffensive, though mildly annoying, as he quoted something from Yahoo about the Libby commutation. What stuck in my throat, however, were the comments and his replies. At which point I had to say something so I wrote my own (possibly over-long) comment, which I reprint here. Perhaps any CRRs* can tell me if they think I went overboard and/or what they might have said instead, or in addition.

I hope I don’t lose whatever good grace I may have had so far with you but I have to say that the idea of broad-brushing over 63 million Americans as “insane” and rabidly Christian is itself insane (heh) and also quite offensive. Isn’t it the essence of Democracy that sometimes choices are made that are unpopular to lots and lots of people?? Many non-religious and apparently sane people voted for (and still support) Bush because he is consistent and determined, has strong convictions, does not change his plans every time a “man in the street” speaks up, uses the strength of his position to carry out his convictions, and is a focused and centered person whose self-respect doesn’t depend on opinion polls. No one expects to agree with one’s elected officials all the time but some people prefer officials to act more like leaders than celebrities. Kennedy and Clinton were cool and hip but many people felt they were dangerous for the U.S. in various ways, and many disliked them both; yet no one flung character aspersions at those who supported them. On the other hand, it has become a popular blood sport to attack Bush, his ideas, and his supporters. Which is ridiculous and pointless, and demeans those who participate. Wouldn’t it be more helpful and useful to stir up rational debate so as to work on convincing bunches of the 63 million to change their minds?

P.S. It seems I'm not the only one out here willing to voice approbation for Bush. Read William Kristol's "Why Bush Will Be A Winner" from yesterday's Washington Post. (Thanks to ligneus for mentioning it.)

Labels: blogs (mine), blogs (others'), gwb, reflections

I love, love, love the new series (well, new to U.S. viewers) airing at 8:00 pm on Friday nights on Sci-Fi (check your local listings for airtime and repeats). Happily there are 11 more episodes in this season (#3). David Tennant is awesome and Martha is growing on me. I'd wax sonnet-like and rhapsodic (that's a hip, inside reference to episode 3 if you're paying attention) but instead, read this and think of me. And do watch for some rolicking good fun.

Labels: blogs (others'), tv

Aside from the fact that I hate the plastic, pre-chewed news reports on many networks (including and especially CNN's smoooooooth news readers), there's another reason I like Fox's morning show (Fox and Friends, especially the early one). I don't know if the on-air people assemble the news items themselves, but they're aware of what they're talking about. They have actual conversations with each other about what they're covering - sometimes making unexpectedly interesting and clearly unscripted remarks. And they cover good news (yes, there is some good news in this crazy world) like schools reopening in Afghanistan and Iraq, that huge tip paid by a generous customer to a Pizza Hut waitress, Chris Gardner, and so on. Its anchors aren't the most intellectual people on earth, although some are, but they're smart, lively and very verbal (with the exception of the very blond blonde who's been relegated to promo detail). If anyone with BDS** chances by, I'm sure the lack of alarm and doom-and-gloom is distressing, but I love it and am appreciative.

Labels: fun, good ideas, tv

Since I'm very willing to whine about Blogger when things go wrong, I should mention that the problems I was having the other day are fixed. One of my CRRs* would like me to switch because of the difficulties non-Blogger bloggers have when they want to make comments. It may happen one day.

Labels: blogs (mine), web design

Laura who muses reports on an Australian news service article that says Winston Churchill is being dropped from basic history courses about World War II for ages 11-14 in the U.K. The news item says that "traditionalists" will be "aghast" but, to me, it's appalling to read that "Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Martin Luther King have also been dropped from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum." Please tell me how one learns about the twentieth century without these figures??

A few years ago I read an article in my local (fairly small town) newspaper about D-Day that included the phrase "Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany during World War II." I remember thinking that was absolutely absurd. I went around for several days saying things like "Adolf Hitler? Would that be the dry cleaner or the ice cream truck driver or the programmer or the Chancellor of Germany" and cracking myself up because of course one needn't explain who HE is. Shows what I know, apparently. I guess the world should expect a whole generation, soon, who don't know fundamental facts. So what IS taught about the twentieth century if it doesn't include major figures? It happened. That's that. Quick and easy.

Labels: history, huh?, schooling

Bless Missyisms. She reports here that there *will* be one more season of Foyle's War (despite some friends' insistence that this was the last). As she says, however, that's the good news, to which the bad news is that our PBS stations may not air it (why?!). Anyway, there are 10-15 minutes chopped out of each episode for us (why?), we've been missing over an hour of each season. As if we need more reason to dislike PBS's decisions and choices. I guess we'd just better make do with a good DVD source and a Region 2 player.

Labels: tv

Back on June 25th, I responded to a tag and, in turn, tagged three others to play the "8 things about me" silliness (which is also interesting). Sixty-six percent response isn't bad:

- Mutterings and Meanderings apparently gets tagged often. She responded to one at the same time I tagged her (and will not respond to more until Fall so I'm greedily including it (here)).

- Ligneus graciously accepted my tag (here) and even penned a poem for the occasion. I always *knew* he was intriguing!

Labels: blogs (others')

Nope, not he of chanting fame, but she of highway beautification. Lady Bird Johnson has died at a fairly robust 94. The NYTimes printed a photo of her from the early 90's (ours, not hers) and she looked almost identical to herself forty years earlier. Maybe being around all those flowers and trees was good for her. (Note to self: check out flower extracts.) I am quite curious about what The Texas Scribbler implied in his post but anything else to the contrary notwithstanding, as we traverse our often stunningly beautiful country, we should gratefully remember her devotion to adorning the roadways with wildflowers and trees.

Labels: america, celebrities

As the proprietor of Paris Daily Photo said, this is a photo (which I've copied) of dinner at a new French restaurant. It's called "Dans le noir" (In the Dark) and is located 51, rue Quincampoix - near Les Halles. Apparently you have dinner in complete darkness and the waiters are blind. I have to assume there's a hint of light so people don't crash into each other nor tumble all the food and dinnerware all over, but maybe not. Anyway, Eric says that the idea is that non blind people can experience what it is to be blind and also taste the food differently. I'm sure it's an amazing experience and wish I had a spare cache of cash to jump on a plane and go right now. Oh, and apparently there is also an "in the dark" restaurant in London and in Moscow. Come on, New York, don't let London, Paris and Moscow show you up!!

Labels: blogs (others'), food

It's been frustrating trying to post and track comments and all, for over a week.

Blogger baffles me. They provide a fantastic service and millions of people like and use it. Once Google bought it, however, it has failed to apply the gusto or thoroughness of support that they devote to their search facility or anything else. I know it's hard and probably really annoying when something happens that they have to spend tons of staff time figuring out. But no one forced them to take it on. Anyway, I'm seriously considering switching to another host, but I resent spending money on it so I'm dithering. Have any of you other Blogger bloggers thought about this?

Labels: blogs (mine)

Quite a week, people-wise. July 4th was the birthday of the U.S. (Wednesday) and yesterday (Thursday) was the birthday of two work friends AND the younger of t2cgitw and today is the birthday of the Dalai Lama, Nancy Reagan and George W. Bush. Therefore:

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!!!!!

Labels: anniversaries, family, gwb

Apparently Bush is going to commute Libby's sentence. Regardless of the rightness or wrongness, I say good for him. People have made their minds up about Bush (and Libby, for that matter) so he's simply following his own logic and convictions. Good for him. It's not as if anyone will hate him more or not elect him again, right?

Labels: gwb, headlines

Alan Sullivan posted something so "spot on" as they say in the U.K. that I am simply going to reprint it:

After the Boxing Day [day after Christmas] tsunami struck the Indonesian province of Aceh, we heard that local Muslim elders had pronounced the disaster a judgment of Allah on Muslims who failed to get their butts in the air five times daily. Now some Anglican bishops have arrived at similar wisdom regarding the current floods in England. The deity is displeased with gay marriage, they opine, and also with SUV’s. It’s good to know that stupidity is uniformly distributed among the nations and faiths of our little blue world.

What is wrong with people? We've come quite far since the 50's and 60's harsh, rigid and narrow-minded attitudes but some still seem so ridiculous. If there even is a deity, surely he/she cares a bit of a hoot more about illness and poverty than SUV's and cohabitation nomenclature.

Labels: blogs (others'), headlines, reflections

No posts this weekend due to a frenzy of making things and running errands. I haven't mentioned it here, yet, but I've started learning how to make silver and beaded jewelry and it's really really really addictive. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can get them to come out looking like anything other than splotches of light. I made two bracelets yesterday and began a necklace, for example. Plus, the weather was divine here in the Northeast, so spare moments were spent outside absorbing vitamin D and lovely breezes. I hope you had a good weekend, too.

Labels: about me, jewelry