reports from the land of betwixt and between
Published on February 18, 2010
FAIL:
The Tea Party’s choice in the Florida Republican primary, Marco Rubio, began his address to a crowd of conservative conventioneers by taking a shot at President Obama for reading from a teleprompter. He did it while standing in front of two easily visible teleprompters. Rubio Slams Obama’s Teleprompter While In Front Of Telemprompters At CPAC
The reality blinders on these people are astounding.
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Published on February 17, 2010
I’ve been a fan of H. Jon Benjamin since Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist and have loved his work in Home Movies and Lucy, Daughter of the Devil. He is on FX’s new show Archer playing the title role, and if you don’t mind a bit of off-color ribaldry, you should definitely check it out. Benjamin has an amazing voice and a brilliant sense of comic timing and his buffoonish secret agent is a perfect parody of the spy genre. Silly, crude, and clever, Archer is definitely worth watching.
“I’m not sure that’s technically irony.”
“What? This is like O. Henry and Alanis Morrisette had a baby and named it this exact situation!”
So far, Hulu has the first two episodes and I hope they’ll post more soon.
Published on February 16, 2010
What is there to say about these political pustules? They are hypocritical and don’t give a damn about the American people or about good governance or about doing what is right for the country.
For Republicans, the idea of requiring every American to have health insurance is one of the most abhorrent provisions of the Democrats’ health overhaul bills. “Congress has never crossed the line between regulating what people choose to do and ordering them to do it,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). “The difference between regulating and requiring is liberty.” But Hatch’s opposition is ironic, or some would say, politically motivated. The last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, Hatch and several other senators who now oppose the so-called individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it. wbur.org » News » Republicans Spurn Once-Favored Health Mandate
Don’t get me wrong, the Democrats aren’t much better and have enabled this kind of obstructionist hypocrisy every step of the way. But the GOP is really quite special when it comes to being lying sacks of shit who want to ensure that 1% of Americans can continually benefit at the expense of the rest of us.
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Published on February 16, 2010
Light Painting:
Light painting, also known as light drawing or light graffiti is a photographic technique in which exposures are made usually at night or in a darkened room by moving a hand-held light source or by moving the camera. In many cases the light source itself does not have to appear in the image. The term light painting also encompasses images lit from outside the frame with hand-held light sources. The first known photographer to use this technique was Man Ray in his series “Space Writing”. Link
Francesco Mugnai has a great collection of light painting images that ought to bring a smile and a little bit of wonder to your day. After looking at these, I’m curious to try and do some light painting myself. Have you tried it? Feel free to share links to images if you have, or thoughts on what techniques have worked for you.
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Published on February 15, 2010
Silent film of a vaudeville act:
Watching this, I wondered if YouTube satisfies some of the same or similar entertainment needs now that vaudeville did then. What do you think?
h/t BoingBoing
Published on February 12, 2010
For those who might want to be caught up on my liminal status:
Job
I am currently temping at the Rhode Island Hospital where I’m covering for the secretary/admin assistant for six doctors in the Pediatric Critical Care department. The hours are 8:00 – 4:30. I’m mostly taking the bus these days, though I have walked the 2.4 miles a couple of times and would do so more often if the weather was warmer. The job will last until the middle of April for a total of 10 weeks and is paying decently at $17/hour. Of course, I need to get caught up on bills and such and can’t let this income go to me head or get very frivolous with my money. Still, it’s so nice to be able to depend on a check coming in every week.
Theatre
I recently helped with some sound for the Brown University Writing is Live program, providing assistance to the show Encyclopedia by Rachel Jendrzejewski and directed by Shana Gozansky. I would love to work with either of them again in the future.
PhD Applications
I applied to Brown, Cornell, UC Davis, University of Pittsburgh, University of Hawaii, and University of Colorado, Boulder. I don’t want to say too much about what’s going on with my applications, but I do want to share that UC Davis has reached out to me and I have spoken to two of their faculty members about my work and how I see myself fitting into their department (and they certainly wouldn’t take the time to talk if they weren’t seriously interested, even though there is still no guarantee that they will make me an offer), and another of the departments has nominated me for a quite prestigious fellowship, which is both exciting and humbling and makes me happy to know that they value my work as a thinker, student, and scholar enough to put me forward for such an honor. I haven’t heard anything yet from the others, so there are still a lot of variables that are, as yet, unsolvable, but I expect to begin hearing within the next 3 – 4 weeks.
Writing
I started a 30 day challenge, but broke it (the first time I’ve done so since I started putting these challenges to myself last July). I haven’t started a new one, even though I’ve been trying to write. I’m not quite writing every day but am managing around 4 days per week. Mostly short story or writing exercise stuff, however, I do want to get back to a play that I’ve been working on called Angel Dust, Rust, and Respite and plan to start more work on that next week. Oh, and I gave an artist friend the first part of the script and she used it as inspiration to create a really cool piece of visual art. I haven’t worked on my novel in quite a while, though will probably try to finish the play first before going back to Devious Astrolabe. Although, I’ve also just found out that Big Finish, the company that produces audio plays and books based on the classic Doctors of Doctor Who, has an open call for short stories and I definitely plan on writing something for that. (For my previous attempt at a Doctor Who story for Big Finish, go here.)
Music
I am currently writing a series of songs (not quite a musical) that create a fictional origin story of the Blood from a Turnip program at Perishable Theatre. For those of you who don’t know, Blood from a Turnip is a late night puppet salon that blows away what you think you know about puppetry. Always entertaining, sometimes hysterical, occasionally deeply moving, BfaT happens every two months and generally includes musical interludes. This past fall, after attending a show, I decided that it would be fun to give the program an origin story and so I’m five songs into a seven song cycle that will explain just how BfaT came about. There’s love, puppets, tragedy, and magic curses involved. I hope to put up some demos within the next two or three weeks and the show, Paradise Falls: the Legend of Steve will be performed at the final BfaT of the season in May. Keep an eye out for more information here or at the Perishable website.
That’s about it for this update. Overall, things are going well and I’m content with my current situation and excited for the future.
Be well.
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Published on February 11, 2010
Amy Tuteur has an important post over at Science-Based Medicine that you really should take the time to read. In a nutshell, she points out the problems with accepting the LATEST AND GREATEST SCIENCE DISCOVERY OF ALL TIME headlines that media organizations and (some) journalists love to put out there as a way to get attention.
Very much worth the read. And the next time someone tells you that red wine will make you live forever or that some breakthrough new drug is going to cure all of our metaphysical ills with a small pill, you owe yourself some followup to determine if there is actual science behind the claim or if it’s all just bread and circuses.
Most people are unaware that scientists issue press releases about their work and they are certainly unaware that medical journalists often copy them word for word. Instead of presenting an accurate representation of medical research, medical journalists have become complicit in transmitting inaccurate or deceptive “puff pieces” designed to hype the supposed discovery and hide any deficiencies in the research.
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Published on February 10, 2010
Now this is a wedding cake:
Make: Online : HR Giger wedding cake
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Published on February 9, 2010
For a country that prides itself on democracy and freedom, the U.S. has a long history of blind and unthinking allegiance to scapegoating whoever the government wants scapegoated. What is amusing is that this blind, unthinking, slack-jawed version of democracy, while not a product of any one political party, is particularly apparent in the conservative love of authoritarianism that is in marked opposition to the rhetoric they often spew about freedom and liberty and the rule of law.
From Glenn Greenwald:
All throughout the Bush years, no matter what one objected to — illegal eavesdropping, torture, rendition, indefinite detention, denial of civilian trials — the response from Bush followers was the same: “But these are Terrorists, and Terrorists have no rights, so who cares what is done to them?” What they actually meant was: “the Government has claimed they are Terrorists,” but in their minds, that was the same thing as: “they are Terrorists.” They recognized no distinction between “a government accusation” and “unchallengeable truth”; in the authoritarian’s mind, by definition, those are synonymous. The whole point of the Bush-era controversies was that — away from an actual battlefield and where the Constitution applies (on U.S. soil and/or towards American citizens wherever they are) — the Government should have to demonstrate someone’s guilt before it’s assumed (e.g., they should have to show probable cause to a court and obtain warrants before eavesdropping; they should have to offer evidence that a person engaged in Terrorism before locking them in a cage, etc.). But to someone who equates unproven government accusations with proof, those processes are entirely unnecessary. Even in the absence of those processes, they already know that these persons are Terrorists. How do they know that? Because the Government said so. Even when it comes to their fellow citizens, that’s all the “proof” that is needed. (Link)
And just to go on to prove that this attitude is not limited to the conservative idiocy of GOP supporters, Greenwald points to a disturbing trend in Obama supporters and liberals who are reacting in exactly the same way when the Government points its finger and says, “that one is a TERRORIST.” Idiocy and stupidity and fear and knee-jerk reactions and the desire for vengeance and scapegoating are human traits and not solely owned and operated by tea-partiers, GOP supporters, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-nazis, etc. The Red Scare and the Communist witch hunts of the 50s were made possible by liberals who allowed and bought into the fears that the Government was peddling. Obama, for whatever reasons, has decided to continue using the same mechanism of scapegoating that Bush put into place.
Without the rule of law, we have lost.
Without the a system of justice that depends on proof and judicial process and the ability to defend oneself against one’s accuser, our experiment in democracy is nearing an end. Like it or not, civilization needs to do its level best to keep emotions and personal feelings out of our justice system and depend as much as possible on the rule of law. Even for the most brutal killer. Even for the most guilty of terrorists. Even, and especially, for anyone accused and not yet proven guilty of any damn thing.
One would think that, as American’s, we might all be able to get behind the rule of law instead of mob mentality. Sure, each and every one of us has felt the siren song of vengeance and blood-for-blood. As a nation, we should be better than our basest selves, otherwise we are no better than those who blow up innocent people to make a point.
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Remarkable Essay about Haiti
Published on February 11, 2010
I have no words after reading this other than to say that you should read it as well.
h/t Driftglass
Filed in Links, Politics, Ruminations, Social Commentary | No replies