quote of the week

"The fact that I am making a mess of things is a sign that I am truly here."

don't forget

Have you registered to vote at your current address?

Your vote DOES matter, and it's easy, and deep down you still care, and you don't take democracy for granted. Right??

sunday

in a frame

Terri said something really kind of crazy and funny at the Torch Club the other night. I immediately asked Donnie for a pen and insisted on writing it down. The next morning while getting ready to head out for work, I pull a scrap of paper out of my clutch with my happy, drunken handwriting on it. It was a moment that now I know I won't forget. And that paper is now in a little corner on my wall. It is things like this that make life worth living, in my estimation. Those things that are inexplicably funny or poignant - the little things - which are then scooped out of the bucket of everyday nonsense and framed somehow. That is what art is, and it can be anything.

So it is to my utter delight that I've just discovered Found Magazine. To wit:

It's a collection of notes and pictures and stuff from all over that people find. In the street, in an old book, wherever. Some of the commentary is really great too.

I just love this so much. I love to imagine the situations that produced these things. And I love the new humor or sadness that comes from seeing things out of their original context. The world is so fucking crazy. This site reminds me that we can let go and learn to love said crazy.

anjos e serafins

This photo blog is crazy beautiful, never quite seen anything like it.



It's micro-beauty!

a simple presidential debate drinking game

McCain's jowels start shaking: take a shot

Sparkly rainbows come pouring out of Obama's mouth: take a shot

He's vetting her for treasurer of his Future War Criminals of America Club.

Trust. And now back to the Sarah embargo.

"Turns out that there's a lot of interlinks within our financial system."

- George W. Bush

(Daily Show)

the image

I finally put my finger on why this election is so disturbing to me. (I consider this a coup for the day.) It's that old and brilliant idea put forth by Walter Benjamin regarding the "aestheticization of politics." As ideas and principles become upstaged by images, as images become the political experience, we enter a dangerous arena that can be a precursor to Fascism.

I hate to sound all paranoid. But nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, as they say.

Seems like Eliot Spitzer's kinda been coming out of his cave this week.

I'm still so mad about that shit. I get it: hooker = resignation. But it seems to me he was brought down intentionally. Not to sound all conspiratorial, but the man was an enemy of shitty financial firms for years, and could have been even more so had he stayed in office as Governor of New York.

READ this.

hope for the flyover states

Dane County, Wisconsin is requiring contracted companies to offer health benefits to the domestic partners of their employees.

(Locher's)

this american life

Well, we've gone and made a big mess, haven't we.

It's slightly old but I think The Atlantic gives a great economic point of view here. It could be a good touchstone when thinking about how we got here. Which tends to be the question on everyone's mind.

I am not at all shocked by what is going on in the financial markets. But I don't gloat at Wall Street money whores losing their shirts because it affects us all. I do in large part blame Congress for the de-regulation of finance — and particularly looking the other way while hedge funders did just about whatever they wanted.

There is no such thing as a (sustainable) truly free market. This is what the uber-capitalists have wrought. The US is not an unshakable empire led by Jesus to rid the world of non-believers and make them all produce the stuff we toss into our garages. I guess it must have looked that way for a while.

We have to start producing something. We have to re-focus on education and teach the younglings about giving something of themselves to their communities.

I think people are going to slowly start to get it. They're gonna have to.

john mccain doesn't know what a "spain" is

It appears that he thinks Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain is some sort of drug lord or leader of a commie-fascist South American country?

Well, they're all brown, right? Those are the ones we fight, yes?

In summary: John McCain will make a very fine president who is white and old and has a great deal of expensive dental work. He has proven that he will not let the Browns beat us, and every American will have a brand-new Cadillac Escalade delivered to their driveway (or down by the river) on his Inauguration Day. John McCain is the President for us.

a public service

I would just like to assert, for the three people reading, that this blog is and will remain a S*r*h P*l*n-free zone.

thoughts

I saw my uncle today who is visiting from Minnesota. He can taste any corn and tell you where it's from. I am not in any way making that up.

After taking the quiz in the Special Features section of the DVD of Quadrophenia, it was revealed that I am neither a rocker nor a mod. I feel pretty good about that.

Just how many facets are there to life, anyway?

Sushi is spiritually good for you. I have no facts to back this up.

My mom has commenced a campaign to convince me that fresh beets are little presents from god, and in no way resemble canned beets. Also they make a very good dye.

I've started writing poems again.

Some things should be messy.

I can't decide whether a 33-year-old woman is allowed to have more than one stuffed animal.

I really really loooove my new house.