A friend sent me a pumpkin to decorate - and you can do it, too! Click on the pumpkin and go to town! Just press the left mouse to activiate the "pen" and then draw with the left mouse pressed down to cut out whatever you want. Click "done" and you get a shiny jack-o-lantern! Nifty.

Labels: fun, holidays

I can't say anything more or better than this about the finish line at the debate.

Labels: 2008 election, politics

No way. Grace Slick is 68 today. Surely not. She'll always be a rambunctious kid. Happy birthday, Gracie!!!!

Labels: anniversaries, celebrities

It's slightly more than one week from the starting moment on the Verrazzano Bridge and it's pouring rain here on the East coast. The NYC Marathon is that astonishing moment when a small town's worth of people don scant clothes and water bottles and supportive shoes, and choose to run through New York City's five boroughs under the steam of their feet instead of just going for a nice forty-minute drive. I give them all tons of credit for creativity and determination, but I am reminded of Bob Newhart's routine as Sir Walter Raleigh calling Queen Elizabeth I to tell her about the colonists engaging in a new activity they're calling, er, tennis. No, he says, he doesn't know what the word is meant to suggest. How does it work?, he seems to answer, well, they take a piece of wood and bend it into an oval shape and wire it with cat's intestines stretched really tight across the center; then they take a small bright yellow and fuzzy ball (yes, he messed with historical accuracy for the sake of humor) and they toss this little ball back and forth, whacking it with the wooden contraptions. After a pause when QEI is presumably digesting what he's said, he answers, no, he has no idea why they do it, but they say they enjoy it.... Exactly.

To those who are training and preparing for November 4th, I wish them all kinds of good luck . . . and a whole lot less rain.

Labels: family, friends, modern culture, sports

There's a new book out called Deceptively Delicious. Its raison d'être is to get kids to eat vegetables but without them knowing (the kids, not the veggies, heh). Written by Jerry Seinfeld's wife, the book's underlying assumption is that many kids don't like vegetables and won't eat them even if they should and even if Mom and Pop like them and try to be even-handed about presenting them as just as yummy as other foods. I know several kids who actually like vegetables, so I'm not sure about the premise, but maybe my small sample doesn't count. Anyway, I'd be curious to know what any CRRs think about it all.

Labels: books, headlines, silliness

He's absolutely loathesome in many ways and I don't find him one bit funny, but if Don Imus lost his job because of making racial "jokes" about hair, then how come Halle Berry isn't being excoriated by the press for her "joke" about noses? Just cuz she's pretty??? If someone makes such a "joke" who'd been all high fallutin and holier than all the rest of us mere mortals when she won the Oscar, I'm sorry but it seems much worse than when someone says something idiotic who's been a crass idiot all along.

Labels: headlines, silliness

The fires continue to rage and it's awfully sad. I just saw an interview with a woman who was ordered to leave her house just in time to watch it burn to the ground. Only a chimney is left. She has no more photos of her son as a baby and young child. And there was the family whose horses and dogs had to be put down because they were so burned. Yes, I know about optimism because where there's life there's hope, but it's heart-breaking to think about what it must be like to have absolutely everything vanish from your physical world. The basement flooding that we had in the spring was scary and hard to cope with - and wasn't even close to this kind of devastation. The fire is gorgeous and so are the communities, but it's like watching a famished monster march through the countryside.

It's hard to understand the unbelievable inhumanity and brutality of whoever set (at least one of) the fires. What kind of destructive and dreadfully unkind person must it be?

Labels: headlines, reflections

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC has (re)opened its education center, all 25 thousand feet of it, and it sounds fantastic. Back when I was a sweet young thing, about two or three millenia ago, I went there on Saturday mornings for various and sundry art and sculpture classes. Now Tony Bennett, among others, can avail himself of the education center's offerings and opportunities. The education programs include all kinds of things from workshops for children and teachers, family programs, drawing classes and independent study for teenagers (that must be fantastic!). There are also programs for adults, from lectures and drawing classes to "Touch Tours" for those who are blind or partially sighted (which I suppose is different from those of us did who've snuck a quick feel of a Michelangelo or a Rodin, risking banishment from the kingdom just to get a sense of what it's really all about). When I was a kiddie, it was called the Junior Museum, the place where we went to learn; it had exhibits geared to us not-quite-whole people. Now it's inclusive and bigger and better, of course. It sounds wonderful and I can't wait to go!

Labels: headlines, modern culture

I always enjoy Music and Cats for its charm and its photos, but Friday's post ranks especially high. The intense stare of the gorgeous black cat is nothing short of marvelous.

Labels: blogs (others'), cats, photos

One must give praise where it's due. Let's pay respect and acknowledge awe at the sheer power and strength of the man (GWB). He wreaked all that havoc in New Orleans and now, so soon thereafter, turns around and demonstrates anew his command over air and fire in California. It *is* all his doing, right? I wonder if he takes requests?

Labels: gwb, headlines, huh?, silliness

In case any CRRs thought my rant about Curtis and Kuby was chiefly my own opinion, check this out, from last week's generally reliable (about New York City, anyway) Daily News:

The morning slot at WABC is currently occupied by Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby, who have been one of program director Phil Boyce's best success stories.

So the good news is that a deal may not actually be signed and sealed about Imus' taking the morning radio show at ABC. Plus, this morning Curtis was razzing Kuby about taking gossip as fact because apparently Kuby saw the same story I did yesterday and went into surprised farewell speech mode. (By the way, imagine a world in which you get information about your own career by reading news reports. Must be fun. Not.) Anyway, the implications of the tease were obvious: it's not a done deal yet. So I searched online this morning and although it is heavily rumored that Imus will take the morning slot at ABC, it's not definite, particularly since, as everyone points out, Curtis and Kuby are ABC radio's pre-eminent locally focused show and "their ratings have been higher than Imus' for several years." On the other hand, "Imus would [probably] be syndicated, which increases his worth [and] could also, in theory, draw a more elusive and potentially more valuable audience in the city itself: the higher levels of the political, corporate, publishing and media worlds." But - as I said yesterday - this assumes advertisers would come and/or return to Imus, not to mention that "his ongoing appeal also could depend to an extent on how many of his regular guests would return, since some indicated during the Rutgers furor that they would be hesitant." Hesitant??? How about sooner slit their wrists, if they have brains or hearts or measurable i.q.'s?

Since the current program director at ABC is the same guy who has won kudos for putting C&K together, maybe he doesn't want to silence that success story now, or be the one to sell out two wonderful guys and their listeners and fans in order to hire one disgusting one, just for the chance of bigger bucks. Here's hoping.

Labels: about me, disappointments, headlines, ranting, reflections

It's official: Imus will be on WABC radio in early December. I am furious and sad and very angry. ABC is tossing one of the best shows on radio and replacing it with an unpleasant nasty old man. Sometimes it's awfully hard to resist thinking the world is a mess. Kids are fined for drawing flowers on sidewalks with chalk and two energetic, smart, engaged personalities are being replaced by an argumentative, racist, disagreeable, mean-spirited and not at all funny nincompoop.

Curtis & Kuby are fantastic. Theirs is one of the liveliest and most interesting shows on radio, without being one of those shouting talk-radio things, on the one hand, or a how-many-people-can-we-insult morning drive show, on the other. And you'd never have expected it to work. Ron Kuby's background and appearance suggest he'd be doctrinaire and completely impossible to argue with - let alone engage thoughtfully in conversations about headline topics with someone with a different philosophy and outlook. And everything about Curtis Sliwa is the essence of a belligerent New Yorker, from his Guardian Angels to his sports loyalties. Yet they never rant or rave or hurl angry insults at each other. They are entertaining and informed about current topics, and they're nice to each other. There's never a whiff of mean-spiritedness between them and I often have marveled at how well they maintain gentility and grace even when intensely disagreeing. They provide a model for how to discuss important and charged topics while keeping a sense of humor and decorum, even when strongly disagreeing.

C&K have been together since 1996 and in the morning slot since 2000. Listening to them has been a joy. They share intense concern for people and society, as well as respect for each other, intelligence and wit. Their points of view are politically divergent, to say the least, but they apparently like each other enough or are professional enough so their conversations are always interesting and amusing. They each have enormous personal warmth and style which is telegraphed in each of their amazingly distinctive and mellifluous voices. Yes, somehow, despite the strength of their differences, they have always been entertaining as well as informative.

It is absolutely ludicrous that ABC thinks it makes sense - or will make them any money rather than lose them advertisers and listeners - to have that nasty vitriolic blowhard on the air for the election year, when they could have had Ron and Curtis discussing things with their customarily well-expressed and interesting opinions. There's nothing for it but to boycott ABC radio and, perhaps, ABC-tv as well.

Labels: about me, disappointments, headlines, ranting

Fox News just won't give up with Courtney Friel, no matter how many times she flubs lines or forgets them or reads them inappropriately. She reminds me of kids in school when we had to read out loud, kids who couldn't see far enough ahead at the same time they were reading, so the inflections sounded as if they were new to English and/or the whole concept of reading with expression. They didn't have half as much make-up on, nor skirts as short, though. I suppose it's obvious but - although the other Fox women, while overly made-up and short-skirted, are intelligent and well spoken - it's awfully hard to understand why Fox is so determined to hang on to her.

Labels: ranting, silliness, tv

Okay, everybody. In aid of my continuing quest to determine whether astrology has even a toe to stand on, please tell me what, other than their birthday (today), what Margaret Thatcher, Marie Osmond, Lady Jane Grey, Pierre Bonnard, Lenny Bruce, Laraine Day, Summer Sanders, and Paul Simon have in common?

Labels: juxtapositions, people, silliness

I live in a fairly small (~65,000) halfway upstate city in New York State where the current mayor was defeated in the recent primary election. This morning, what to our wondering eyes should appear on the local newspaper's front page but a blaring headline announcing that said defeated incumbent is urging a property tax raise of slightly less than 9%, to be effectuated before the death knell stops knelling for the regime and the term actually comes to an end. Given the timing, one assumes the motivation is either red-angry fury or simple vengeance, neither of which are reasoned or good for anything except the city's coffers. In any case, I heard a voice in my head saying "anyone wonder why she lost the primary?!" You know, I must say that I'm beginning to think politicians really are the relatively scummy entities some people (whom heretofore I thought were mostly raving lunatics) have been saying. I hate to think so, but it's hard to avoid or resist.

Labels: headlines, politics, ranting, silliness

Putting aside for the moment whatever one thinks of Al Gore and his theories of human causes of climate change, please tell me what does it have to do with peace?? The core of his message - and please note that all he has done is send a message - is that humans caused climate changes that are violently dangerous. He dismisses any other cause for climate change such as geological cycling or solar aging. Why is that so meritorious as to earn him international acclaim, adulation, money and the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize? Genuine peace-seekers who did or did not win the award must be spinning and frowning a lot. On the other hand, it is also true that the namesake of the prize was a chemist who invented dynamite, so perhaps I'm missing the point. Yes, I know: inventions aren't good or bad, they're just used for good; or not. Anything good can be used for bad things and vice versa. Blah blah.

Gore's message is that good people have done a bad thing but what is peace-ful or peace-engendering about either the message or the blaming? Longer growing seasons and more rain might actually help some countries gain economic and health footholds, and money spent on what may well be unavoidable planetary and solar system cycling would more effectively be spent on public health and population issues. But again, I am undoubtedly missing the point.

Alan Sullivan at Fresh Bilge puts the case strongly and aptly, that if Gore's "fixes" are implemented, there will be more poverty and disease, and less food, globally: "The victims won’t be blown to bits [by Nobel's dynamite]; they will die early of malnutrition, disease, and the strife endemic in many poor lands, which will get poorer under the global government our international elite is attempting semi-consciously to create."

But I ask again: where's the peace? It's a puzzling, difficult world, Virginia. Santa or no Santa.

Labels: headlines, pcness, people, reflections, warming

Oh boy, it's Eleanor Roosevelt's birthday today. I wonder whether Billary will have some big séance or declaration or anything. I'm sorry, am I getting too constantly and publicly sarcastic about her? It just makes me crazy that someone so visibly and blatantly manipulative and phony is doing so well. The emperor has no clothes (ick, what a ghastly image) and isn't even an emperor, come to think of it.

'Course, it's also Claes Tulip's birthday (in 1593), the mayor of Amsterdam from 1654 to 1671 and he for whom the gorgeous flower was named. Also Francois Mauriac's, Jerome Robbins', Elmore Leonard's, Luke Perry's, and Kellie Martin's, among many other stalwarts. HB, all.

Labels: juxtapositions, people, politics, ranting

In the medium old days on only-network television, it was "must-see Thursday." FOr me, these days of cable-and-network shows, it's Tuesday that rocks. And I'm awfully glad for Tivo since they're all on opposite each other and a person couldn't very well watch them all at once anyway:
   --Dancing with the Stars - its appeal is waning for me after three seasons but I still enjoy it
   --NCIS - a guilty pleasure because it has no especially redeeming social value or plots,
   --The Unit - thoughtful and well acted, never pretentious or patting itself on a smug back, wonderfully acted by Dennis Haysbert and a slew of others; each show tops the last one, somehow, as did last night's episode
   --House - one of the best shows on networks or cable thanks in large part to awesome acting by Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard and its slew of others,
   --Damages - originally a summer show but extending into late October, I'm happy to say, and renewed for next year (!); it's got more plot twists and turns, and apparently evil but maybe good (and apparently good but maybe evil) characters than anything I've ever watched; it's nothing less than fabulous

And people mourn the days of good tv. Where are they on Tuesdays?

Labels: tv, writing

Stunning photo of Jupiter and a moon, today at Fresh Bilge.

Labels: blogs (others'), photos

Republicans - I doubt I'll be able to make myself watch the debate tonight. Between finding some of the participants almost impossible to watch, ever, I really find Chris Matthews intolerable. The idea that he's being the supposedly impartial and modifying voice of the moderator is laughable, not to mention ridiculous. His shrieky voice is dreadful and the way he frames questions is always loaded.

Democrats - Sandy ("Socks") Berger is now working for Hillary. I wouldn't have thought she would want her negatives to stay high and unchanging. From one point of view, this is good news. From the point of view that she would be Clinton2 and therefore as smarmy and dishonest as Clinton1, it's really bad news.

Other - Words cannot express how much I wish there were an "other."

Labels: politics

Documentary crime shows on tv are usually dreadful. But there was a terrific edition of Kimberly Gilfoyle's show on Sunday. She emphasized positive action and what people did who lived through and survived some horrific things. At least this time, the emphasis was upbeat and strong. None of these survivors of dreadful events recommend living fearfully or with trepidation. Here's what they agreed on:

   1. don't trust people blindly,
   2. tell people where you are and where you will be,
   3. trust your instincts especially if you're feeling paranoid; bad things can happen,
   4. be strong,
   5. choose awareness,
   6. don't be quiet or feel "less than".

And three invaluable websites:
   -- http://www.girlsfightback.org/ -- how to defend and stand up for oneself, physically and emotionally; it lists where to take self-defense classes.
   -- http://www.anordinaryjourney.com/-- the author talks about her astonishing life and fantastic attitude of joy, along with many links and resources.
   -- http://www.sboard.org/resources.htm -- a wonderful resource itself that lists safe places in every state.

No one's alone or defenseless. We don't need to be attacked or injured, physically or emotionally. We do need to believe in and protect ourselves.

Labels: crime, good ideas, headlines, people

Several current news stories puzzle me.

Gotbaum - Carole Anne Gotbaum may indeed have been a "wonderful woman" and a good mother and her death is horrifying, to say the least. One expects police and security guards to safeguard people, not endanger them. BUT. She was en route to rehabilitation and was alone. Why on earth was she alone? If she was in the delicate mental condition that her husband maintains, and if she was "plagued by a history of drinking and depression," because of which he says he made several calls to the police who were holding her, how could they have let her travel across the country by herself? Since irresponsibility and emotional imbalance are famous hallmarks of both alcoholism and depression, it seems unbelievable that she was traveling so far and so importantly, alone. Not that it's any of our business and I don't even particularly want to know, but there is more to this story than we are hearing. The people I really feel miserable for are her children who have to have dealt with her, leading up to this, and now have to deal with their mother's death as well as the weird stories.

Madeleine - The disappearance or abduction of Madeleine Mann is another horrifying event in recent news. Her kidnapper(s) should be imprisoned for decades. BUT. It is difficult to get beyond the parents' strange affect of self-righteous indignation, not to mention the mother's remarks in her diary that the children were driving her nuts. Or why on earth the parents had gone to dinner out of the building in which the children were sleeping. I understand that Europe feels more homey and less ominous than America, although I doubt that feeling is based on facts. In any case, children as young as 3 and 2 cannot possibly guard their own safety and there is no way it made sense to leave them alone even if one assumed a maid or front desk person was attentive and helpful. Babysitting at long distance is simply not babysitting. So I conclude that kidnapping is possible, although unlikely since there would have been physical evidence in the room and hallways, but that it's far more likely, most unfortunately and sadly, that the parents were complicit whether on purpose or by accident. Which goes back to my first point about their affect. And, by the way, which is a better conclusion? her parent killed her or she's in child slavery? How incredibly sad, either way.

Interesting that both of these stories deal with guarding physical safety and leaving people alone who should not, under any way of making such decisions, be left alone.

Rudy - Much much much less important in terms of personal safety, but I'm baffled that Rudy could have thought there was any logic whatsoever to answering his cellphone during his speech the other day. Sure, this is a non-story in many ways. But I can't imagine what I'd think if I was listening to a speech and the speaker's phone rang and he answered it!! First, I'd assume the person's children and spouse had been in an accident and needed his immediate attention. When that turned out to be clearly not true, and if it turned out to be some kind of weird joke, I'd be appalled and think the guy was mildly insane. Maybe, like many candidates before him, Rudy is shooting himself in the foot, but I'd hate to seem him lose the election by stupidity or foolishness.

Larry Craig - In one of the most absurd news item of the day, apparently Larry Craig has been chosen for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame. Although the nomination was made in March, before all the broohaha of his mens room escapade, he was already more than dubious for such an honor since his voting record is doctrinaire and judgmental, and the rumors of his personal hypocrisy and unkindness to his family have long abounded in Idaho, if not nationally until recently. Hardly the stuff which any hall of fame might honor, seems to me. Which leads me to the conclusion that hardly anyyhing makes any sense any more.

Which, in turn, leads me to recommend Laura's recent post and conclusion that we're cracking up.

Labels: headlines, reading

Not that it matters, but I'm curious. In the "ecosystem" that tallies visitors to blogs, I have pretty securely moved up the ladder two notches from where I used to be. I've assumed it had at least partly to do with quantity of visitors. What puzzles me is that the quantity has dropped about a third since the heyday of 3500-4000 a month and yet my category of visitorship has risen.

Labels: blogs (mine), huh?

Two - not one but two - movies are on TCM today with William Warren as the Lone Wolf. These are simply wonderful black & white films that are stylish, a bit mysterious, fairly well written, and just plain lots of fun. They're good enough in so many ways that they bear being watched and rewatched many times. As I have done to my great good fortune. If you've never seen Warren, he's an oddly unknown gem who made nearly 70 films and was both a terrific villain and a dashing leading man. How many actors can do all that? I can't figure out why people like George Clooney and Sean Penn are famous and Warren is not. Little of the Warren oeuvre (must use "oeuvre" when I can since it's so pretentious and so rarely the right word) is on DVD but it's often shown on TCM.

Labels: movies, people, writing

Hill and Billary are utterly shameless in their assumption that they know the way of the world, the whole world. Heaven help us - well, some of us, at any rate - if she gets elected.

Labels: people, politics

I've read the Daily Mail and Sun reports on the first two days of the inquest about Diana's death. The question apparently is whether she died accidentally or by someone's hand or directive. It's all very puzzling, admittedly, since one thinks special people are outside the reach of ordinary horrible events.

The photos of Diana and Dodi going in and about the Ritz in the afternoon of August 30th are interesting because they're less posed, less subjects of being photographed than usual. Just walking where they're going. The later photos are familiar, the ones we've all come to recognize, when she's in the black blazer and khaki slacks.

I have to say I disagree with the papers' characterizations of the principals' facial expressions. In one, Diana doesn't look "uneasy" but simply unsmiling about anything in particular. And in the newly-released photo of the bodyguard and driver reacting to a bright light, it's curious to try and determine what's going on. Some say the photo is not taken moments before the crash while the Conspirtadors say it is. Indeed, to me, Henri Paul doesn't seem to be "grinning" unless that means something different in British tabloids than to me. I'm afraid I think his expression lends credence to the conspiracy theory because he looks startled, presumably by the bright light that Burrell is trying to block with the visor. But as for when the photo was taken . . . either it wasn't that night or it isn't Diana. The inside-car photos just don't look right as far as Diana is concerned. In all the previous photos that day, her hair is short, almost straight and ash blond. In the inside-car photos, the woman in back has nearly-shoulder-length, curly and yellow-blond hair. The jacket and head on the man on the right do look like Dodi in pictures from that day but the hair and height of the woman on the left do not look at all like the pictures of Diana that day.

Shall I start my own conspiracy theory and wonder aloud whether it wasn't even Diana in the car? Wow, that would be a peachy thing to add to all this mess, wouldn't it, if they'd killed someone but not Diana. Hmm, maybe she faked an accident so she could escape the royal craziness and go off on her own. Although that supposes that she really didn't like the glitz and celebrity and not a love/hate feeling about it. Anyway, deciding on orchestrating a fake accident would explain why she looks so cheery in the elevator photos. And why the princes have grown up so apparently calmly - because she's been there all along, just in utter disguise. Hey, why not?

So my conclusion is that, whatever else may be as to accident or murder by MI6 or 5 or Prince Philip or no one, either that photo isn't from that night or that woman isn't Diana.

Labels: headlines, reflections

Not sure what motivates me to write but since last week I haven't felt I had any observations to make that were interesting enough to write here. I don't especially want this to be a diary or journal. With luck, I will write fascinating things momentarily. I think part of the idea is to write about essentially uninteresting things in such a way as to make them both not diary entries and quite amusing or interesting.

Labels: blogs (mine), writing