Weather: Cold with a gorgeous red sky this morning -- snow is predicted this weekend.
Wildlife: The two Bald Eagles sure had wet feet standing on the lake -- there was a layer of water at least an inch deep (2.5 cm) over everything. There going to be ice skating when it freezes solid again.
Charity Alert: Breast Cancer Site -- The related Children's Health Site is doubling it's contribution for each "click" in February!
In the Community: We display ceramics like we display sculpture at the Hockaday Museum of Art, but they are only related art forms -- this new show has ceramics of all kinds, from practical pottery to hang-on-the wall decorative art. My favorites so far are Sue Abbrescia's beautiful hand-built vessels: Scroll down to see an example of Sue's artistry
Eric Kaplan's photography show was hung by Prof. John Rawlings M.F.A. at Flathead Valley Community College, under the sponsorship of Prof. Gerda Reeb Ph.D, Multicultural Coordinator. (Eric's responsible for taking them home afterward.)
Media Watch: We like the silly BBC comedy series The Kumars at Number 42. "Boy George" O'Dowd was one of their guests last night -- dressed in a very spooky black outfit with a polychrome-painted face and an earring-to-nose chain. The overall wackiness seemed to bring him out from behind his mask, and he eventually talked like the Irish Londoner he really is.
That's what I like about The Kumars -- the guests start enjoying the experience of "taking the piss out of" these endless celebrity interview shows.
Yep, still reading P.D. James at bedtime.
(England is looking pretty good nowadays.)
What "State of the Union?" -- Divided, angry, with a government in the hands of theives. Why subject myself to confirmation of the worst of human nature?
For some reason I had an old crime movie called Heat running during my chores -- a waste of talent (Robert DeNiro, Al Paccino, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd etc.), and as much a fantasy as Shrub's ugly worldview.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Weather: Good -- TOO good!
Wildlife: The eagles sit by the aereator pond until it's nearly dark. I shouldn't have sprinkled suet onto my deck rails during the snowfalls -- the gooey stuff is smelly, gross and hard to remove when the air is above 40 (F).
Charity Alert: The Child Health Site A few clicks will do a lot of good.
In the Community: We are setting up yet another ceramics exhibit at the Hockaday Museum of Art -- see the latest: Current Exhibits at the Hockaday Museum
Theatrical Update: My ol' pals in Footsbarn Theatre are NOT coming to the Guthrie Theater in Minnesota anymore -- sponsors for Footsbarn's appearence at "World Stage" pulled-out sometime in early January.
I only found out because I bothered everybody in the company who had an email address until John Kilby wrote back to me, Nina, and Jacob to explain why we hadn't recieved any communications for a month.
(John had India to deal with, for sure, but we should have been clued-in sooner, I think.)
I've been out of that field for 25 years, and I forgot that things like this happen all the time. There's no business like show business!
Check out Footsbarn's tour of India and the Far East: Navigate to TOUR
Give some applause to Nina Cheney and Jacob Mills: Human Cartoons and Juggling Theatricks
Media Watch: Shouldn't outright lying in the State of the Union address be an impeachable offense? Yeah, it should qualify under "high crimes...!" What about claiming you didn't know what you said were actually lies? Negligence under "...and misdomeaners" will work. What we need is a propaganda tax -- then there will NEVER be a national debt.
Last night we saw another Queer Eye for the British Guy. The Fab Five's clients were an American couple. Thom said they lived in Colchester, which is a big hour or so east-northeast of London.
My guess is that the husband is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Essex.
(They never mentioned nearby Cambridge.)
Speaking of England, I'm reading The Murder Room by P.D. James. She is one heck of a good writer -- I can usually do without mystery novels, but her work possesses the qualities of well-drawn characters, and vivid details of real places around the British Isles.
Wildlife: The eagles sit by the aereator pond until it's nearly dark. I shouldn't have sprinkled suet onto my deck rails during the snowfalls -- the gooey stuff is smelly, gross and hard to remove when the air is above 40 (F).
Charity Alert: The Child Health Site A few clicks will do a lot of good.
In the Community: We are setting up yet another ceramics exhibit at the Hockaday Museum of Art -- see the latest: Current Exhibits at the Hockaday Museum
Theatrical Update: My ol' pals in Footsbarn Theatre are NOT coming to the Guthrie Theater in Minnesota anymore -- sponsors for Footsbarn's appearence at "World Stage" pulled-out sometime in early January.
I only found out because I bothered everybody in the company who had an email address until John Kilby wrote back to me, Nina, and Jacob to explain why we hadn't recieved any communications for a month.
(John had India to deal with, for sure, but we should have been clued-in sooner, I think.)
I've been out of that field for 25 years, and I forgot that things like this happen all the time. There's no business like show business!
Check out Footsbarn's tour of India and the Far East: Navigate to TOUR
Give some applause to Nina Cheney and Jacob Mills: Human Cartoons and Juggling Theatricks
Media Watch: Shouldn't outright lying in the State of the Union address be an impeachable offense? Yeah, it should qualify under "high crimes...!" What about claiming you didn't know what you said were actually lies? Negligence under "...and misdomeaners" will work. What we need is a propaganda tax -- then there will NEVER be a national debt.
Last night we saw another Queer Eye for the British Guy. The Fab Five's clients were an American couple. Thom said they lived in Colchester, which is a big hour or so east-northeast of London.
My guess is that the husband is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Essex.
(They never mentioned nearby Cambridge.)
Speaking of England, I'm reading The Murder Room by P.D. James. She is one heck of a good writer -- I can usually do without mystery novels, but her work possesses the qualities of well-drawn characters, and vivid details of real places around the British Isles.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Wildlife: An immature Bald Eagle joined our mature pair on Middle Foy's lake yesterday. -- not their baby, just a migrating adolescent.
Weather: Blue skies, sunshine, plee-ease just GO ... Oh how I wish that it would SNOW!
Sorry, I just had a "Temptation" to misquote those lines.
Charity Alert: The Literacy Site ... and more! Maybe the ability to read isn't enough, nowadays, but it's a better situation than illiteracy. (See emotional manipulation issues below.)
When I was at the Red Cross giving blood yesterday, one of the staff was bemoaning "too many donations" to Tsunami Relief. Send your money to Oxfam and others who want to stick around and help the people who have to rebuild their lives in Sri Lanka, Sumatra, etc.
Media Watch: I watched a TV movie called Not In This Town, based on an outbreak of hate crimes in Billings, Montana which were especially directed at Jewish people. The movie was typically manipilative, and necessarily fictional in it's conversational details, but that's TV -- very minimal content, and lots of broad-brush emotions.
My friends at The Working Group made a rather more sober PBS documentary about those events, and the community's response, called Not In Our Town.
Here's their Website: Working Group tapes
Not In Our Town ... tells the uplifting story of how the residents of Billings, Montana, joined together when their neighbors were threatened by white supremacists. Townspeople of all races and religions swiftly moved into action. Religious and community leaders, labor union volunteers, law enforcement, the local newspapers and concerned individuals stood united and spoke loudly for a hate-free community, proclaiming in no uncertain terms "Not In Our Town!" This critically acclaimed PBS special sparked a national campaign against hate crimes that continues to grow each year.
Not In Our Town II ... briefly recaps the Billings story and tells six compelling new stories about people working to create hate-free towns, cities, workplaces and schools. A Klan rally is countered with a diversity celebration; citizens work with police to address hate crimes; young people discuss how hate crimes affect their lives; office workers discover that improved communication skills can ease racial tensions and create a more harmonious workplace; people come together to rebuild burnt churches in the South; and a town finds that preventing hate before it starts is the best solution.
Not In Our Town Study Guide (.pdf)
I just finished a book about newspaper comic strips, published about 1995, when there was some hype about "100 years of comic strips." The medium actually predates Hearst's Yellow Kid by generations. Robert Beerbohm, Michael Feldman, and others are doing the long-overdue scholarship.
That being said, there were some interesting stories, insights, and illustrations in the oversized paperback, but damn, it was hard to read -- some of the most fractured editing I've ever seen. The title isn't really important.
Then is then, now is now, but it's good to remember mistakes, and know what propaganda looks like -- Here's an item that's sweeping the Blogoshere:
Daily Kos: U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote: Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.
The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.
Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.
A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu...
Weather: Blue skies, sunshine, plee-ease just GO ... Oh how I wish that it would SNOW!
Sorry, I just had a "Temptation" to misquote those lines.
Charity Alert: The Literacy Site ... and more! Maybe the ability to read isn't enough, nowadays, but it's a better situation than illiteracy. (See emotional manipulation issues below.)
When I was at the Red Cross giving blood yesterday, one of the staff was bemoaning "too many donations" to Tsunami Relief. Send your money to Oxfam and others who want to stick around and help the people who have to rebuild their lives in Sri Lanka, Sumatra, etc.
Media Watch: I watched a TV movie called Not In This Town, based on an outbreak of hate crimes in Billings, Montana which were especially directed at Jewish people. The movie was typically manipilative, and necessarily fictional in it's conversational details, but that's TV -- very minimal content, and lots of broad-brush emotions.
My friends at The Working Group made a rather more sober PBS documentary about those events, and the community's response, called Not In Our Town.
Here's their Website: Working Group tapes
Not In Our Town ... tells the uplifting story of how the residents of Billings, Montana, joined together when their neighbors were threatened by white supremacists. Townspeople of all races and religions swiftly moved into action. Religious and community leaders, labor union volunteers, law enforcement, the local newspapers and concerned individuals stood united and spoke loudly for a hate-free community, proclaiming in no uncertain terms "Not In Our Town!" This critically acclaimed PBS special sparked a national campaign against hate crimes that continues to grow each year.
Not In Our Town II ... briefly recaps the Billings story and tells six compelling new stories about people working to create hate-free towns, cities, workplaces and schools. A Klan rally is countered with a diversity celebration; citizens work with police to address hate crimes; young people discuss how hate crimes affect their lives; office workers discover that improved communication skills can ease racial tensions and create a more harmonious workplace; people come together to rebuild burnt churches in the South; and a town finds that preventing hate before it starts is the best solution.
Not In Our Town Study Guide (.pdf)
I just finished a book about newspaper comic strips, published about 1995, when there was some hype about "100 years of comic strips." The medium actually predates Hearst's Yellow Kid by generations. Robert Beerbohm, Michael Feldman, and others are doing the long-overdue scholarship.
That being said, there were some interesting stories, insights, and illustrations in the oversized paperback, but damn, it was hard to read -- some of the most fractured editing I've ever seen. The title isn't really important.
Then is then, now is now, but it's good to remember mistakes, and know what propaganda looks like -- Here's an item that's sweeping the Blogoshere:
Daily Kos: U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote: Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.
The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.
Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.
A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu...
Monday, January 31, 2005
Charity Alert: Remember, there's six good organizations linked to this URL: Animal Rescue Site
Wildlife: One small dead deer on the Foy's Lake Road this morning, in the westbound lane. Drive carefully, dammit -- deer collisions cost hundreds of human lives and millions of dollars every year, plus most of them are preventable.
Weather: 50 degrees (F) almost daily -- pleasant, but potentially destructive at this time of the year.
In the Community: I found a solution to our "icy breath" problem from last Friday. We videotaped our Current Events footage on a nearby hill, overlooking the Stillwater River, in a wooded area recently donated to the college. There's a house, stable, and barn there, and the weather was just a tad bit nicer!
We will be moving Eric Kaplan's photographs from the Hockaday's vaults to the walls of Flathead Valley Community College tomorrow. It took me two hours to wrap them all in bubble-wrap last Saturday. No, it's not a travelling show, either -- Eric's gotta pick 'em up when this exhibit is over.
See the archive: Hockaday Exhibits -- Centennial; Autumn/Winter 2004
Theater Update: I had to whip up a brochure for Footsbarn so that Cheney and Mills had something to show prospective promoters. Footsbarn will still be at the Guthrie Theater in mid-June, but whether they'll be able to stick around the States for awhile is unclear at the moment.
Footsbarn Traveling Theatre's website: Footsbarn Theatre
Good Guys: Cheney and Mills -- Maskapades etc.
Guthrie Theater: New building on the Mississippi I'm wondering if/where Footsbarn will be setting up their tent?
Media Watch: The Merry Widow (not the Strauss opera) on TCM -- with young Maurice Chevalier, Edward Everett Horton, Sterling Holloway, and Jeanette MacDonald -- delightful!
Book TV -- Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe January 29, 2005
Simon Singh discusses his book, "Big Bang," at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Mr. Singh talks about the development of the theory of the Big Bang and describes the early disagreements over the theory that emerged within the scientific community.
Witty and fun -- he even plays a segment of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven backwards, "Satanic messages" and all, to demonstrate how we percieve what we want to percieve, even when the things we want to percieve aren't there.
The Iraqi elections -- I have to be hyper-skeptical about everything I've seen, heard, and read about this event. Why? Because that whole hideous war has been driven by lies and deception. If things actually went better than anyone expected -- I'll be truly happy.
The true importance of yesterday's acts of bravery, murder, and tragedy will be determined by grim reality, not by hyper-saturated news media or corrupt politicians.
An example -- Morning Edition on National Public Radio was completly devoted to this subject, which meant that a lot of simpering propaganda was mixed with whatever real news came from Iraq, and nothing else was covered -- shamefully cringing journalism.
Wildlife: One small dead deer on the Foy's Lake Road this morning, in the westbound lane. Drive carefully, dammit -- deer collisions cost hundreds of human lives and millions of dollars every year, plus most of them are preventable.
Weather: 50 degrees (F) almost daily -- pleasant, but potentially destructive at this time of the year.
In the Community: I found a solution to our "icy breath" problem from last Friday. We videotaped our Current Events footage on a nearby hill, overlooking the Stillwater River, in a wooded area recently donated to the college. There's a house, stable, and barn there, and the weather was just a tad bit nicer!
We will be moving Eric Kaplan's photographs from the Hockaday's vaults to the walls of Flathead Valley Community College tomorrow. It took me two hours to wrap them all in bubble-wrap last Saturday. No, it's not a travelling show, either -- Eric's gotta pick 'em up when this exhibit is over.
See the archive: Hockaday Exhibits -- Centennial; Autumn/Winter 2004
Theater Update: I had to whip up a brochure for Footsbarn so that Cheney and Mills had something to show prospective promoters. Footsbarn will still be at the Guthrie Theater in mid-June, but whether they'll be able to stick around the States for awhile is unclear at the moment.
Footsbarn Traveling Theatre's website: Footsbarn Theatre
Good Guys: Cheney and Mills -- Maskapades etc.
Guthrie Theater: New building on the Mississippi I'm wondering if/where Footsbarn will be setting up their tent?
Media Watch: The Merry Widow (not the Strauss opera) on TCM -- with young Maurice Chevalier, Edward Everett Horton, Sterling Holloway, and Jeanette MacDonald -- delightful!
Book TV -- Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe January 29, 2005
Simon Singh discusses his book, "Big Bang," at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Mr. Singh talks about the development of the theory of the Big Bang and describes the early disagreements over the theory that emerged within the scientific community.
Witty and fun -- he even plays a segment of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven backwards, "Satanic messages" and all, to demonstrate how we percieve what we want to percieve, even when the things we want to percieve aren't there.
The Iraqi elections -- I have to be hyper-skeptical about everything I've seen, heard, and read about this event. Why? Because that whole hideous war has been driven by lies and deception. If things actually went better than anyone expected -- I'll be truly happy.
The true importance of yesterday's acts of bravery, murder, and tragedy will be determined by grim reality, not by hyper-saturated news media or corrupt politicians.
An example -- Morning Edition on National Public Radio was completly devoted to this subject, which meant that a lot of simpering propaganda was mixed with whatever real news came from Iraq, and nothing else was covered -- shamefully cringing journalism.
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