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September 30, 2007
The Wedding Gown Project
This all started at some point this summer when I ran upon this article in Salon.com. It's all about brides who take "trash the dress" pictures after their ridiculously expensive weddings (and sometimes wearing unbelievably expensive designer dresses). I really enjoyed the photography (there's a blog at trashthedress.wordpress.com), and shared the article and info with Dear Daughter. Well, over the summer, we got to thinking... why wait for a wedding? Why not just get a throwaway dress and have fun with the photography right away?
So, we paid a visit to Goodwill, and found a really cool wedding dress for only $50 (small price to pay for a fun photography project!). And our plan was to go scout out cool locations and take some photos, maybe even taking turns wearing the dress and being photographer. But (the plot thickens) on that very evening, a friend (who I'd told about the project) called to tell me that she'd found a wedding dress in her closet -- she thought she'd given it to Goodwill, but there it was, and I could have it. So, all of a sudden, we had two wedding dresses (think of the possibilities!)!
Ah, but then if we're both wearing the dresses, who's going to take the photos? This is where Fletch enters the picture. He brings another camera, and lots of enthusiasm and energy to the project. We all got together this afternoon for our inaugural photo shoot and had tons of fun and a hilarious time playing with our two gowns and three cameras (with a dog thrown in on occasion!).
(btw, if anyone out there would like to join in the project, or if you have old wedding attire that you'd like to contribute (we only have one veil at this point, and it might be fun to throw a tux into the mix...), please feel free to contact me!)
UPDATE: more here!
(Photos by Fletch)
Posted by alice at 5:45 PM | Comments (7)
Culture Fest
Well, I made it out to Chattanooga's Culture Fest on Saturday afternoon (so did DD and Fletch). It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so I rode my bike over to Coolidge Park instead of driving (it's too hard to find a parking space over there these days anyway). And being on just two wheels gave me the opportunity to take a ride over the Walnut Street Bridge, which is where I took this first photo, looking over the Tennessee River toward the bluff.
There were lots of performances all afternoon. Here are some belly dancers flouncing their ruffles.
And can you believe that here we are, the last Saturday in September, almost a week since the autumnal equinox, and just two days from October, and it was still hot enough to play in the water?
Posted by alice at 12:39 AM | Comments (2)
Bruuuuce!
Posted by alice at 12:02 AM | Comments (1)
September 29, 2007
Still waiting for Apple to do the right thing...
It looks like it's going to be a very long wait.
{{sigh}} I miss the days when Apple was a cool company.
But this week something dramatic occurred in the war for consumers' "freedom to tinker." Apple, a company highly regarded by its customers, staked out its position in the fight. The wrong position: Apple adopted a draconian policy against people who dared to do something perfectly legal with their iPhones, and thus came out in support of the wireless industry -- and against its own customers' rights. [...]
It's only in the cellphone business that anyone would tolerate such behavior. If a company tried this in any other industry, people would howl to the heavens. Imagine the outrage if Apple or Microsoft sold desktop PCs that allowed you to connect to the Internet only through Comcast -- and then, if you tried to use Earthlink instead, the company would shut down your machine. Or what if Ford allowed you to drive your new Explorer only to Wal-Mart to buy your groceries; if you went instead to Whole Foods, a company official would come by and slash your tires. [...]
Apple has now made it plain that anybody who buys the iPhone is not really buying it. What we're doing instead is more like renting it -- Apple remains your landlord, stern, controlling, and allowed to evict you at will. At whatever price -- $600, $400, $200 -- that's a very high cost to bear. If you care about your rights, don't buy an iPhone.
UPDATE: more from the NYTimes
Posted by alice at 10:35 AM | Comments (18)
September 28, 2007
Friday Creature
This week's creature is a sea nettle from the jellyfish exhibit at the Tennessee Aquarium.
TGIF! Have a great weekend, everyone. Take it easy and have some fun! As always, you're welcome to watch the boardings on the ark!
Posted by alice at 10:37 AM
Mychal Bell released
He's out but he still faces charges.
Posted by alice at 9:56 AM
September 27, 2007
Random Food Photo
This is the roasted quail stuffed with zucchini, mushrooms and bacon, served with gouda grits at St. John's Meeting Place (I took this picture when we were there last weekend as part of DH's birthday celebration).
Posted by alice at 1:21 PM | Comments (3)
O'Reilly Not Racist!
It's just that he doesn't know any black people besides Sharpton (and it gets worse)!
Here's some great coverage from (who else?) Keith Olbermann.
I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship. [...] There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, "M-Fer, I want more iced tea." You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all.
Posted by alice at 12:42 AM
September 26, 2007
About the New Hampshire Debate Tonight...
After listening to Hillary say for over a year now that if she knew then what she knows now, she would not have voted to give Bush the authorization to go into Iraq, I am shocked -- seriously stunned -- to hear that she voted in favor of the Lieberman-Kyl Iran vote.
WTF, mate?
I'd love to see a woman become president, but this is not the woman.
(Come on, Al -- you're the only one who can stop her!)
UPDATE: more on the Lieberman-Kyl amendment here (along with some information about Tennessee's embarrassing senatorial delegation). And you can read the text of the amendment here.
Posted by alice at 11:16 PM | Comments (3)
The Mystery of German Exploding Toads
UPDATE: mystery solved!
Posted by alice at 11:12 PM
Go away, Marti (and Comcast)!
That appears to be the consensus.
... are any of these people from her supposed district?
UPDATE: Yeah, what he said! And what the hell is going on (have you read the suit?)?
Posted by alice at 7:34 PM
Wordless Wednesday
Posted by alice at 8:56 AM | Comments (7)
Quick Links
Here's are just a few things I've run across recently:
Apparently Shrub is enrolled some sort of remedial speech reading for dummies.
The Episcopalians don't want to be out in front quite that far!
And here's an interesting video of one of Jack Cafferty's many cogent commentaries. It apparently was just uploaded to YouTube, because even though it's quite dated, it's only just suddenly got legs all across the internet.
Posted by alice at 8:44 AM
September 25, 2007
EPB Fiber to the Home Approved!
At this evening's city council meeting. Passed unanimously.
woot! Take that, Comcast.
(What's FTTH?)
UPDATE: More here.
Posted by alice at 6:09 PM | Comments (3)
City Attorney Goes After Rutherford
That's the word from inside the city council meeting...
Posted by alice at 4:42 PM | Comments (6)
Nader To Try Again?
He appears to be looking for campaign workers in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Posted by alice at 1:41 PM
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) Rebuked
The Congresswoman sure can spew the babble when she's backed into a corner. She also provides a beautiful example of this Congress's tendency to waste their (our) time and energy on ridiculously trivial matters, while completely ignoring the great issues (and dead and wounded soldiers) of our day.
Posted by alice at 10:12 AM | Comments (3)
September 24, 2007
There are no homosexuals in Iran!
I know! Let's send Pat Robertson to live there! Then he'd be out of harm's way! After all, if there are no homosexuals, then the country will be safe from things like earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombings and meteors!
Seriously, though, I hope James Dobson was watching, because now he knows what kind of government and national culture are necessary to "eliminate" homosexuality. And then he can ask himself if that's what he really wants (and can he be proud of the work he's done so far?).
Posted by alice at 5:15 PM
Nebraska State Senator Sues God
I guess it's old news by now, but I just ran across the story. Apparently in the case of Chambers v. God, the defendant denies that the court has jurisdiction.
Posted by alice at 4:26 PM
Alice Ghostley
Alice Ghostly, of Bewitched, Designing Women, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Grease fame, died at the end of last week. Of course, she had a lot more credits that just those, but they're some of my favorites. I think she played ditz better than any other actress, ever.
Posted by alice at 4:10 PM | Comments (1)
September 23, 2007
Five Brothers
Posted by alice at 11:21 AM | Comments (1)
September 21, 2007
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
Posted by alice at 9:25 PM | Comments (1)
EPB, cable and cops!
The EPB board approved Fiber to the Home today, and the cable TV industry is panicking (are you surprised?).
Also, there are TONS of cops swarming my neighborhood this evening (is five ounces of marijuana really worth $25,000 these days!?! I hope that was a typo!).
Posted by alice at 8:21 PM
Quote of the Day
"I heard somebody say, 'Where's (Nelson) Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead. Because Saddam killed all the Mandelas." -- George W. Bush, on the former South African president, who is still very much alive, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007 (reuters)
Posted by alice at 7:48 PM | Comments (1)
So much stupidity, so little time!
I don't know if these things actually clump up or if I think I'm noticing a pattern that's just not there, but it seems like the bloggers are reporting on an unusual number of clueless people today.
First there are the these goobers, who were so freaked out by Kathy Griffin's Emmy speech that they threw a $90,000 fit (and how much you want to bet these are some of the same people who are freaking out over MoveOn's Petraeus ad?).
Then we have the increasing visibility of willfully ignorant flat-earthers -- they've now got one on The View, which is apparently a very popular daytime TV show. Never mind taking her kid to the library, this girl needs to visit a library herself!
Of course, we've also got men vying for the presidency who are just as proudly ill-informed, and now another presidential candidate has left his audience scratching their heads. Perhaps someone needs to let Rudy know that George Bush got where he is in life, not because he is stupid, but in spite of that fact. Emulate someone else, Rudy!
But then this takes the cake. Check out the tidbit Mark Morford found about the evangelical Christian right:
Apparently, Bush's GOP has let them down. They have not been content with BushCo's anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-sex, pro-abstinence, anti-women, anti-science, pro-war, God-hates-Islam stance, nor have they been content with having their trembling hands around the throat of the preceding Republican Congress for half a decade and clearly they have been insufficiently humiliated by the happy slew of right-wing preachers and politicians who've been revealed as meth-loving, restroom-lurking, boy-fetishizing gay hypocrites.
According to the new plan, any current GOP candidate who now wants the valuable evangelical vote will have to prove himself not merely guided by conformist religious zealotry in all things (Hi, Mitt!), but will have to prove his unflappable support for the GOP stance in key issues across the evangelical board, primarily regarding the Big Duo: abortion rights and gay rights. Or, more specifically, the total annihilation of both.
Of course, as Morford points out, the good news is that these people are in the process of rendering themselves irrelevant.
May they do so sooner, rather than later.
UPDATE: add this to the list.
Posted by alice at 6:41 PM
Leave General Petraeus Alone!
(yet another Chris Crocker impersonator!)
Posted by alice at 10:30 AM | Comments (2)
Friday Creature
Yet another butterfly from the Tennessee Aquarium's butterfly exhibit.
It's a busy morning, folks! I'm back on by feet (after being felled by a bug earlier in the week! no kidding!), so I've got tons of stuff to catch up on! Have a fantastic weekend and don't forget the Modulator's Ark!
Posted by alice at 10:11 AM | Comments (1)
September 20, 2007
Free the Jena 6
Today is the day of action in Jena, LA. I've seen a bit of coverage on today's cable news (well, it was more coverage of Al Sharpton than the kids), but largely, I think that Pam is right about this story being ignored -- I haven't seen any discussion of it outside of Facebook. I can't pretend to have any idea why the story is being ignored -- it involves a shocking level of racism by even Southern standards -- but I think it would be appropriate to spend a little less time obsessing over Britney's latest meltdown and a little more trying to make sure the Jena 6 get fair treatment under the law.
Update: here's an interesting look at the story.
Posted by alice at 2:34 PM | Comments (4)
September 19, 2007
Yikes! A plane just crashed on Brainerd Road!
That's why I've been hearing a steady stream of sirens for the past half hour.
UPDATE: Joe is keeping track of the coverage.
UPDATE: here's the story (with pictures, audio and video) from the TFP.
UPDATE: everyone's going to be okay.
Posted by alice at 8:45 PM
Buses Getting WiFi
CARTA has a bunch of upgrades in store for Chattanooga bus riders.
Posted by alice at 8:08 PM
Wordless Wednesday
Posted by alice at 8:06 AM | Comments (5)
Yarrrrr, Matey!
Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day! Shiver me timbers!
Posted by alice at 12:08 AM
September 18, 2007
Soup's on
There's a bug going around town -- an upper respiratory thing. DD was dragging herself around with it this weekend and I'm hearing reports of others getting knocked out by it as well. So, Sunday afternoon I made a huge batch of chicken soup (curative for DD, prophylactic for DH and I). And as always, it's good stuff (if I do say so myself)!
Unfortunately, it doesn't work for insect bites, and some evil bug (fire ant?) bit me a few times under the strap of my teva when I was out bike riding yesterday -- the itching kept me up during the night and despite lots of ice, by morning my foot was swelled up to a pretty impressive size. Now if only I could come up with a soup for that...
Posted by alice at 8:10 AM | Comments (2)
September 17, 2007
Pancake death not a homicide
Beauty pageant/golf tournament dad Bruce Pancake was not murdered.
Posted by alice at 6:45 PM
Marti Lives Here!
Marti Lives Here signs are popping up all over Brainerd! (see photos on chattanoogan.com and the story at the TFP.)
Posted by alice at 1:20 PM
Dear OJ,
Please go away.
Thanks,
Alice
Former (quasi)Buffalonian
Posted by alice at 12:33 AM | Comments (2)
September 16, 2007
What's up with Condi?
She's in the crosshairs and the blogosphere is buzzing.
Posted by alice at 11:20 AM | Comments (1)
Alan Keyes for President!
Just when you think the Republican candidate pool couldn't get any loonier (or more senile), along comes Alan Keyes, to bring us a dose of comic relief!
Posted by alice at 11:10 AM
Will the Democrats Betray Us?
Here's an excerpt from Frank Rich's column. You'll find the whole thing after the jump.
You can't blame the public for changing the channel. People realize that the president's real "plan for victory" is to let his successor clean up the mess. They don't want to see American troops dying for that cause, but what can be done? Americans voted the G.O.P. out of power in Congress; a clear majority consistently tell pollsters they want out of Iraq. And still every day is Groundhog Day. Our America, unlike Vietnam-era America, is more often resigned than angry. Though the latest New York Times-CBS News poll finds that only 5 percent trust the president to wrap up the war, the figure for the (barely) Democratic-controlled Congress, 21 percent, is an almost-as-resounding vote of no confidence.
Last week Democrats often earned that rating, especially those running for president. It is true that they do not have the votes to overcome a Bush veto of any war legislation. But that doesn't mean the Democrats have to go on holiday. Few used their time to cross-examine General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on their disingenuous talking points, choosing instead to regurgitate stump sentiments or ask uncoordinated, redundant questions. It's telling that the one question that drew blood are we safer? was asked by a Republican, John Warner, who is retiring from the Senate.
Will the Democrats Betray Us?
Frank Rich (reprinted from Free Democracy)
SIR, I don't know, actually": The fact that America's surrogate commander in chief, David Petraeus, could not say whether the war in Iraq is making America safer was all you needed to take away from last week's festivities in Washington. Everything else was a verbal quagmire, as administration spin and senatorial preening fought to a numbing standoff.
Not that many Americans were watching. The country knew going in that the White House would win its latest campaign to stay its course of indefinitely shoveling our troops and treasure into the bottomless pit of Iraq. The only troops coming home alive or with their limbs intact in President Bush's troop "reduction" are those who were scheduled to be withdrawn by April anyway. Otherwise the president would have had to extend combat tours yet again, mobilize more reserves or bring back the draft.
On the sixth anniversary of the day that did not change everything, General Petraeus couldn't say we are safer because he knows we are not. Last Sunday, Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the C.I.A.'s Osama bin Laden unit, explained why. He wrote in The Daily News that Al Qaeda, under the de facto protection of Pervez Musharraf, is "on balance" more threatening today that it was on 9/11. And as goes Pakistan, so goes Afghanistan. On Tuesday, just as the Senate hearings began, Lisa Myers of NBC News reported on a Taliban camp near Kabul in an area nominally controlled by the Afghan government we installed. It is training bomb makers to attack America.
Little of this registered in or beyond the Beltway. New bin Laden tapes and the latest 9/11 memorial rites notwithstanding, we're back in a 9/10 mind-set. Bin Laden, said Frances Townsend, the top White House homeland security official, "is virtually impotent." Karen Hughes, the Bush crony in charge of America's P.R. in the jihadists' world, recently held a press conference anointing Cal Ripken Jr. our international "special sports envoy." We are once more sleepwalking through history, fiddling while the Qaeda not in Iraq prepares to burn.
This is why the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, including those more accurate than Mr. Bush's recent false analogies, can take us only so far. Our situation is graver than it was during Vietnam.
Certainly there were some eerie symmetries between General Petraeus's sales pitch last week and its often-noted historical antecedent: Gen. William Westmoreland's similar mission for L.B.J. before Congress on April 28, 1967. Westmoreland, too, refused to acknowledge that our troops were caught in a civil war. He spoke as well of the "repeated successes" of the American-trained South Vietnamese military and ticked off its growing number of combat-ready battalions. "The strategy we're following at this time is the proper one," the general assured America, and "is producing results."
Those fabulous results delayed our final departure from Vietnam for another eight years just short of the nine to 10 years General Petraeus has said may be needed for a counterinsurgency in Iraq. But there's a crucial difference between the Westmoreland show of 1967 and the 2007 revival by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Westmoreland played to a full and largely enthusiastic house. Most Americans still supported the war in Vietnam and trusted him; so did all but a few members of Congress, regardless of party. All three networks pre-empted their midday programming for Westmoreland's Congressional appearance.
Our Iraq commander, by contrast, appeared before a divided and stalemated Congress just as an ABC News-Washington Post poll found that most Americans believed he would overhype progress in Iraq. No network interrupted a soap opera for his testimony. On cable the hearings fought for coverage with Britney Spears's latest self-immolation and the fate of Madeleine McCann, our latest JonBenet Ramsey stand-in.
General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker could grab an hour of prime television time only by slinking into the safe foxhole of Fox News, where Brit Hume chaperoned them on a gloomy, bunkerlike set before an audience of merely 1.5 million true believers. Their "Briefing for America," as Fox titled it, was all too fittingly interrupted early on for a commercial promising pharmaceutical relief from erectile dysfunction.
Even if military "victory" were achievable in Iraq, America could not win a war abandoned by its own citizens. The evaporation of that support was ratified by voters last November. For that, they were rewarded with the "surge." Now their mood has turned darker. Americans have not merely abandoned the war; they don't want to hear anything that might remind them of it, or of war in general. Katie Couric's much-promoted weeklong visit to the front produced ratings matching the CBS newscast's all-time low. Angelina Jolie's movie about Daniel Pearl sank without a trace. Even Clint Eastwood's wildly acclaimed movies about World War II went begging. Over its latest season, "24" lost a third of its viewers, just as Mr. Bush did between January's prime-time address and last week's.
You can't blame the public for changing the channel. People realize that the president's real "plan for victory" is to let his successor clean up the mess. They don't want to see American troops dying for that cause, but what can be done? Americans voted the G.O.P. out of power in Congress; a clear majority consistently tell pollsters they want out of Iraq. And still every day is Groundhog Day. Our America, unlike Vietnam-era America, is more often resigned than angry. Though the latest New York Times-CBS News poll finds that only 5 percent trust the president to wrap up the war, the figure for the (barely) Democratic-controlled Congress, 21 percent, is an almost-as-resounding vote of no confidence.
Last week Democrats often earned that rating, especially those running for president. It is true that they do not have the votes to overcome a Bush veto of any war legislation. But that doesn't mean the Democrats have to go on holiday. Few used their time to cross-examine General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on their disingenuous talking points, choosing instead to regurgitate stump sentiments or ask uncoordinated, redundant questions. It's telling that the one question that drew blood are we safer? was asked by a Republican, John Warner, who is retiring from the Senate.
Americans are looking for leadership, somewhere, anywhere. At least one of the Democratic presidential contenders might have shown the guts to soundly slap the "General Betray-Us" headline on the ad placed by MoveOn.org in The Times, if only to deflate a counterproductive distraction. This left-wing brand of juvenile name-calling is as witless as the "Defeatocrats" and "cut and run" McCarthyism from the right; it at once undermined the serious charges against the data in the Petraeus progress report (including those charges in the same MoveOn ad) and allowed the war's cheerleaders to hyperventilate about a sideshow. "General Betray-Us" gave Republicans a furlough to avoid ownership of an Iraq policy that now has us supporting both sides of the Shiite-vs.-Sunni blood bath while simultaneously shutting America's doors on the millions of Iraqi refugees the blood bath has so far created.
It's also past time for the Democratic presidential candidates to stop getting bogged down in bickering about who has the faster timeline for withdrawal or the more enforceable deadline. Every one of these plans is academic anyway as long as Mr. Bush has a veto pen. The security of America is more important dare one say it? than trying to outpander one another in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate need all the unity and focus they can muster to move this story forward, and that starts with the two marquee draws, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It's essential to turn up the heat full time in Washington for any and every legislative roadblock to administration policy that they and their peers can induce principled or frightened Republicans to endorse.
They should summon the new chief of central command (and General Petraeus's boss), Adm. William Fallon, for tough questioning; he is reportedly concerned about our lapsed military readiness should trouble strike beyond Iraq. And why not grill the Joint Chiefs and those half-dozen or so generals who turned down the White House post of "war czar" last fall? The war should be front and center in Congress every day.
Mr. Bush, confident that he got away with repackaging the same bankrupt policies with a nonsensical new slogan ("Return on Success") Thursday night, is counting on the public's continued apathy as he kicks the can down the road and bides his time until Jan. 20, 2009; he, after all, has nothing more to lose. The job for real leaders is to wake up America to the urgent reality. We can't afford to punt until Inauguration Day in a war that each day drains America of resources and will. Our national security can't be held hostage indefinitely to a president's narcissistic need to compound his errors rather than admit them.
The enemy votes, too. Cataclysmic events on the ground in Iraq, including Thursday's murder of the Sunni tribal leader Mr. Bush embraced two weeks ago as a symbol of hope, have never arrived according to this administration's optimistic timetable. Nor have major Qaeda attacks in the West. It's national suicide to entertain the daydream that they will start doing so now.
Posted by alice at 10:59 AM
EPB Fiber to the Home Vote Soon!
The EPB Board votes on the plan next Friday, and then the City Council will take it up the following Tuesday. There is still time to contact your council person if you haven't done so already!
UPDATE: more here.
Posted by alice at 10:31 AM | Comments (2)
September 14, 2007
Friday Creature
This is a crested wood partridge, quite the showoff of a bird.
The female was a bit camera shy, though, so I wasn't able to get a really good shot of her, but here she is, trying to hide behind her partner.
These birds live in the butterfly exhibit at the Tennessee Aquarium.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! It's rainy and cool here, and I'm loving it! Get your creature fix over at the Modulator's Ark, which will be welcoming boarders all weekend!
Posted by alice at 10:03 AM
Kathy Griffin
If you're at all caught up in the silly controversy that's risen since Ms. Griffin accepted her Emmy the other night, you really have to read this. It's chock full of good stuff, all the way through the comments.
[W]e Americans have way too much faux moral outrage. I mean, c'mon, you believe that the Creator of all time, space, physics, and energy, who went to the trouble of engineering a Big Bang and shepherded tens of billions of years worth of cosmic thermonuclear reactions in order to create a life sustaining planet upon which He could create bodies to house souls and send His son to death by torture so you could go to Heaven forever even though you're a sinner by virtue of a fraud perpetrated by [a] talking snake who offered a magical apple to a rib-woman, and you want to base our nation upon those principles and overturn 231 years of secular Constitutional rule, and YOU'RE offended by a D-list comedian saying "suck it, Jesus"?
Gee, I kinda thought that when an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, infinite sky wizard has your back, a silly comedic remark would be a tiny concern not even worthy of note.
By the way, do I really need to point out that this woman is a comedian?!? Why is she being taken so seriously?
Posted by alice at 12:08 AM
September 13, 2007
Run, Al! Run!
Posted by alice at 10:36 AM | Comments (1)
Briley arrest goes national
MSNBC is running caught-on-tape clips from Democratic State Representative Rob Briley's recent DUI arrest (you can watch the videos here: part 1 - part 2).
Tennessee Guerilla Women has been covering the story since it broke:
Briley Busted
Vultures Circle
UPDATE: Should Briley Resign?
Posted by alice at 10:17 AM | Comments (1)
Couric on Script?
I thought this tidbit was amusing, especially given that I only just spent some of my Tuesday morning watching the NBC coverage from 9/11:
CBS would like to think that Katie's shitty ratings are because the audience doesn't get it. [Think Progress]
You know, Matt Lauer doesn't always come off as the sharpest knife in the drawer (he can be something of a himbo), but put him down next to Katie Couric, and he's transformed into a rocket scientist. During the 9/11 coverage, moments after the second plane hit the second tower, Katie was mumbling something about not knowing what was going on, and Matt cogently offered, "clearly the United States is under attack" (or some such observation).
I'm still trying to figure out why anyone thought she would be a credible news anchor. But maybe it is because she's willing to follow the script.
Posted by alice at 10:08 AM
September 12, 2007
Wordless Wednesday
Posted by alice at 10:01 AM | Comments (9)
Brides Decide!
OK, this is just a little too weird.
Posted by alice at 9:38 AM | Comments (5)
September 11, 2007
I got to see Madeline Albright!
It's been a big day, all day long.
Just as it was beginning, I reflexively turned on MSNBC as I made my breakfast this morning (it's all so much muscle memory now -- throw a half a bagel into the toaster oven and flip on the TV to hear the day's headlines as I cut thin slices of onion and tomato to put on the bagel with the cream cheese). I'd forgotten that MSNBC would be rerunning the NBC coverage of the 9/11 attacks from 6 years ago, but as soon as I heard Katie Couric's voice, it came back to me, and I reached for the remote. It was bad enough to live through it all the first time, so I had no intention of watching it again. But I didn't get to the remote right away and in that moment, something pinged me and I started listening. I didn't sit down and watch, as I really needed to hurry up and enter into the day, but I left it on and caught tidbits here and there each time I passed the TV all morning -- on my way out for a quick bike ride, while I dripped off after a shower, as I checked my email, and so on.
It was engaging in a way I didn't expect to be listening to coverage from that day, knowing now, as I do, things that I could not even imagine six years ago.
This comment from one of the talking heads really struck me: "This is a declaration of war by terrorists against America."
Who (besides Dick Cheney), could have imagined that we would respond to that declaration, not by attacking the terrorists who made it, but by wagging our finger at Osama bin Laden and then utterly destroying a country that had nothing to do with 9/11?
I saw a headline on Slate.com today that said "Six years after 9/11, we're still not thinking strategically." I think this is true. We're still, perhaps even more than ever, thinking politically. My post from earlier today highlights exactly this problem -- even while this country has been dealing with such serious matters as terrorism, the escalating health care crisis, funding of education, and other such issues, the Republican party chose to focus on homosexuality in the last big election year.
And the Democrats haven't been faring any better. Those of us down here in the precincts put our blood, sweat and tears into taking back the Congress in the last election, and we delivered. What did we get in return? Capitulation.
Both the House and Senate have passed bills to provide health insurance to our nation's children. The Decider has vowed to veto the legislation. And how did the Democratic leadership respond? As usual, we're still waiting for them to do do something. Anything.
We wait, and we wait and wait and these gilded leaders play silly political games. And they're doing it very badly because time and time again, they some up short. And that maybe isn't a big deal for them, because at the end of the day, they get to go to their warm homes, which have electricity and probably won't get bombed, and by and large, their children haven't been sent off to fight the unnecessary war they got us into, and if they get sick they can see a doctor because members of Congress get really awesome health care. So maybe they manage not to think about the fact that while they're playing their silly games, men and women and children are dying as a result of their failures.
But back to my busy day. It featured a physician, a politician and a diplomat.
First, at the JFK luncheon, Brent Staton, M.D. led a very engaging discussion about the S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program ), urging us to support the program, and arming us with information to counter the misinformation our local press has been promoting.
Then, in the afternoon, I went to a Berke campaign event at the Bessie Smith Hall, where I took a lot of photos, got to chat with a some people I haven't seen much of lately, and ate some yummy BBQ. The turnout was impressive and the energy was high.
And then I raced over to the UTC Fine Arts Center just in time to catch Madeline Albright at the George T. Hunter Lecture Series (sorry, no photo -- cameras were not allowed!). She was brilliant, and at times funny (at one point she claimed the Serbs called her "elderly, but dangerous") and serious (the real axis of evil? Poverty, Ignorance and Disease).* In the Q&A after her prepared remarks, she was asked about the Iraq War, and how she would handle the current situation. She started her response by saying, "first, let me make very clear that if I had been Secretary of State at the time, we would not have gone to war with Iraq." She went on to acknowledge that the problems we are now trying to fix in Iraq are all of our own making, and that we need to figure out a way of extricating ourselves without leaving the country in chaos, which unfortunately probably means a slow exit.
And with that, I felt that my day had somehow morphed into one of those old movie devices to show the passage of time by quickly moving through the pages of a calendar (old fashioned fX!). I started out the morning six years back, but somehow by the end of the day, I found myself back in the present, only this time, I had a brilliant diplomat to help make some sense of all that's transpired. And really, if we could find a few Madeline Albright-types and send them to Washington in place of the zeros we've got running things now, we might manage to find a way out of the mess we've gotten ourselves into.
Maybe that should be our focus in the upcoming elections -- not hating homosexuals or seeing who can act the toughest when talking about bin Laden, or who hates abortion the most -- but who is the smartest candidate, the one most capable of practicing what Albright called "international civics" -- someone who can bring intelligence, curiosity and multi-dimensional thinking back into the process, along with the diplomatic skills that might put America back into a conversation with the world's other leaders.
UPDATE: more on Ms. Albright's visit here
*Really, it's just a coincidence that my daughter and I happened to comment on the same two features in her speech. It kind of spooked me, after I wrote this, to go there and see what she wrote. GMTA!
Posted by alice at 9:58 PM | Comments (1)
A Republican Sex Scandal Per Day?
(And more on the way.) Seriously. How quickly can this party implode? The really sad thing is that the people making news lately are so incredibly pathetic.
First, there's yet another self-hating homosexual Republican party operative, involved in an apparent double murder-suicide. You know, you Republicans may win a few elections with your gay-baiting and homosexual-hating, but you're also ruining actual lives in the process. People are so brainwashed by your homophobia that they will never be able to accept who they really are, and end up humiliating themselves in public bathroom stalls, by preying on kids, with hookers and drugs, in public parks, and by sexually assaulting sleeping men -- when they might instead be forming healthy relationships. Do you really think a few elections are worth all that pain and hate?
And second, yet another Republican operative has been found to be a pervert who abused little girls, and his fellow Republicans did nothing to stop him. He finally stopped himself, after being caught, by eating some CO2.
How many more souls have to suffer and die before more people question the values promoted by the Republican party -- both explicitly and implicitly?
Posted by alice at 7:50 AM | Comments (1)
September 10, 2007
The Worst Cars Ever!
This week Time Magazine is featuring the The 50 Worst Cars of All Time (via Pam Spaulding). Have you driven one of these lemons/classics?
Posted by alice at 1:16 PM | Comments (6)
Advice on posting music?
I've been wanting to start a feature here on the ole blog for a while -- one that involves sharing and discussing music. I would see it as something of a public service, as so many of you young'ens have no idea what you missed back in the day, when all us old people were hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock (sometimes the old music does come back to haunt us, but it seems like whenever people go digging around in the latter part of the 20th Century looking for some good tunes, they always end up coming back with stuff I didn't want to listen to the first time around).
Anyway, I've been looking around for a way to share some songs and I can't find a solution that would do justice to the feature I have in mind. Of course, a number of good web sites offer clips of many songs (allmusic.com is a good example), but I don't think 30 seconds can always give you a good feel for a song (especially if I can't pick which 30 seconds!). What I'd really like to do is find a place where I could stream a song without making the selection downloadable -- I want to share the music, not pirate it. I looked into a few media-sharing services, like multiply.com, but I don't think it would take long for the soulless bastards at RIAA to suck all the fun out of that.
I would think that what I'm wanting to do would be a good thing for the artists themselves -- I'll pluck a few songs out of the past, perhaps on the obscure side, and remind people that they're there. And if people like what they hear, maybe they'll pick up a copy for themselves (and maybe they'll even pay for it!). But first I have to figure out how to do this so that I'm not just giving away someone else's work.
Any suggestions?
UPDATE: the more time I spend looking into this, the more I think the record company execs are being hardheadedly stupid. Here I am, ready, willing, able and eager to give their artists free promotion, and instead of making that easy for me, they are making it impossible. I thought I found a solution in imeem, which has streaming audio and pretty good sound, but unless you're working with an approved artist, you're back to dealing with the dreaded 30-second clip... ::sigh::
Posted by alice at 1:12 PM | Comments (7)
September 9, 2007
The Week Ahead, and Freddie on Abortion
Well, here's what I've found to read this weekend (which didn't involve too much time spent reading as Crabtree Farms had their fall plant sale, so I spent most of Saturday out in the yard, playing in the dirt).
Extensive reports from the people on the ground in Iraq and on the people playing politics in DC give us some sense of where we are as Bush's promised moment of reckoning approaches.
And in related news (at least in that it involves a presidential candidate), it turns out that Freddie Thompson can't decide whether or not abortion should be considered a crime.
Posted by alice at 9:57 PM
September 8, 2007
Is Apple the New Microsoft?
The newest big bully on the block?
Posted by alice at 3:56 PM | Comments (7)
Madeleine L'Engle, 88
I have no idea how many hours my daughter and I spent in the evenings of her youth reading so many different Madeleine L'Engle books. When I heard that the author died this past week, I went to find a copy of A Wrinkle in Time, so that I might retrieve a quote for this post, and I discovered that the entire section of L'Engle books was gone. Apparently my daughter, who is no longer even in her teens, can't let go of them yet.
And that right there is quite an amazing tribute to a wonderful writer.
Posted by alice at 9:55 AM | Comments (2)
September 7, 2007
Library Task Force Holds First Meeting!
This is shocking news! It's all in the Chattanoogan:
Mayor Ron Littlefield announced the members of the newly appointed Library Task Force after their initial meeting on Thursday.
Mayor Littlefield, in his State of the City address earlier this year, said that he was creating a task force to look at the current library system and "explore ways to make it one which is worthy of a great city for now and into the future."
Bicentennial Library officials say they are facing a funding crisis and have appealed to the city and county for additional funds.
Louis Wright, county finance director, said county officials have been awaiting the report of the task force. The county for this fiscal year gave the library the same amount as the previous year, Mr. Wright said.
The task force issued a statement "urging the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County to provide the additional $300,000 to address short-term budget needs as we continue to consider long-term opportunities for our library system."
The task force members are:
Jim Kennedy III - Kenco Group Task force Chairman
Eleanor M. Cooper
Tom Griscom - Chattanooga Times Free Press
Ruth Holmberg
Mai Bell Hurley
Mary Knaff Chattanooga State
Theresa Liedtka - UTC
Brian May Maycreate
Elaine Swafford Hamilton County Dept. of Education
Others may be added as work progresses, officials said.
At their first meeting on Thursday, the group announced that they will spend the next several months studying the current library system and then look at library systems throughout the country for inspiration and ideas.
Committee chairman Jim Kennedy said, The task force hopes to visit libraries in other areas as well as bring noted experts into Chattanooga to help raise the level of our thinking to challenge ourselves to 'think outside the box.'
The task force will provide an opportunity for public input before issuing a final report, it was stated.
Mayor Littlefield praised the task force "for their plans to look beyond the current difficulties of our library system, and make bold plans, creating an exciting vision for a library system which will serve our community for many years to come."
One hopes now that the cat is out of the bag, Littlefield will keep the public informed of his activities. One also hopes that this "task force" isn't like the recycling "task force," which was apparently conceived only to give cover to the plan Littlefield had already decided on.
Posted by alice at 7:51 PM
Friday Creature
I got to visit the Tennessee Aquarium several times this summer and I have lots of photos. This one is from the butterfly exhibit. As always, have a great weekend, including a peak into the Modulator's Ark!
Posted by alice at 9:43 AM | Comments (2)
What if Bush lied to Congress?
Would that matter to you? Is lying to Congress a partisan issue? Joe shared some thoughts this morning.
Posted by alice at 9:10 AM | Comments (1)
September 6, 2007
I know what I want for Christmahanakwanzaka!
From TV Shows on DVD:
Our hip friends in the retail world are stickin' it to the man, and sending us an exclusive first look at the DVD box art for CBS/Paramount's December 18th release of The Mod Squad: The 1st Season, Volume 1. It's still subject to change, which would be bogus 'cuz this is totally awesome. They've also got the skinny that this 4-disc set will for-sure have 13 episodes, from the first half of the first season. Here's the totally tubular pic:
DH is worried that I will be disappointed because "I've forgotten how much it sucks," but I think it will be completely happenin'! It just doesn't get any more groovy than this, man! I've got just four words for you: Clarence Williams the Third. The real Linc, Julie and Pete back together again (and not those posers from the movie)! Solid!
Posted by alice at 11:16 PM | Comments (1)
Michael Jackson is dead
No, not the crazy one who sliced off his own face, but the one who liked beer (via ALOTT5MA).
We also lost Luciano Pavarotti. Bummer.
Posted by alice at 6:14 PM
Meeting updates
There was a huge turnout last night for a meeting at EPB about Fiber to the Home. The crowd was overwhelmingly positive, with encouraging commentary from the health care industry, the business community and many individuals. Some issues still need to be resolved, but the EPB members I spoke with assured me that they would be developing a written policy with regards to these concerns in the months ahead, as the project moves forward.
In the meantime, everyone needs to contact their representatives on the City Council and encourage them to support not only the proposal, but also its immediate implementation.
In other news, I haven't heard any reports from the lunchtime meeting the mayor held today to discuss the future of Chattanooga's library, but I've got my ear to the ground...
Posted by alice at 11:16 AM
September 5, 2007
Eternal Sunset
Here's the scoop from eternalsunset.net (where the first sunset I encountered was from Haugesund, Norway):
Eternal Sunset endeavours to ensure you can enjoy the sunset live from any location, at any time. As the sunset moves westward, Eternal Sunset continuously tunes into different webcams, chasing the sunset around the globe. This service is currently provided through the use of 252 west-facing webcams across 47 countries.
(via halfpintpixie)
Posted by alice at 2:11 PM | Comments (4)
Wordless Wednesday
Posted by alice at 12:25 PM | Comments (4)
September 4, 2007
Littlefield's secret plan to do for literacy what's he's done for recycling?
Now that Ron Littlefield has lost interest in dismantling Chattanooga's recycling program, has he turned his sights on a secret effort to get out of the library business?
An article in Monday's paper let slip a little tidbit that I found rather interesting:
Karen McMahon, a city employee who has been working on the task force, said officials waited to appoint members to determine the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's plans for its new library.
Theresa Liedtka is the dean of Lupton Library at UTC, where a new $48 million library is scheduled to open in 2011. She is unsure if the university and the city-county library will collaborate in respect to building infrastructure.
Now, why would the city need to wait to hear about the University's library plans when the public library already has its own facilities? "[C]ollaborate in respect to building infrastructure"?!? What does that mean? Clearly, since the funding for the University comes from the state, the mayor would not be so bold as to expect to get out from under his own budget item by just foisting off the responsibility onto someone else. Not only is it a silly suggestion (where would people park when visiting a library in the middle of a busy campus? would all citizens have to pay for library materials, many of which are currently financed not by the taxpayer, but with student fees?), but anyone who has visited both a municipal and an academic library knows that it's not a workable idea. A university library and a public library have completely different collections of books, serving entirely different purposes. Paul Public won't care about having 25 different texts on particle physics, any more than Stella Student will need 40 copies of the latest Dan Brown novel.
But word on the street is that this is exactly what our Mayor has in mind for Chattanooga's libraries. And further, that he doesn't believe in transparency of government any more than our nation's Decider, since he's scheduled a secret meeting for Thursday lunch to debate the future of the city's library system. And it's by invitation only. Only handpicked citizens will be asked for their input.
Or at least, that's what I hear. Can anyone confirm or deny? So far, none of this has managed to find its way onto the record, which is perhaps just what Littlefield had in mind.
Posted by alice at 10:06 PM
EPB Fiber to the Home
I opened my power bill today and found a letter to EPB customers about their Fiber to the Home plan. Now that the EPB board has voted on the plan, the next big step is going to be to take it to the Chattanooga City Council, which will happen soon.
As I understand the process, the City Council will either vote to go ahead and do it, or they will put it to a referendum. If they push it off to a referendum, it will take at least two years for this to happen -- which means that everyone needs to get out in front of this issue and talk to your representatives on the City Council right away.
Fiber to the Home is going to be good for Chattanooga in a lot of ways -- it will bring much needed competition to Chattanooga's broadband market, and could potentially bring a LOT of jobs to the area. We need this to happen ASAP, so get busy, kids!
Posted by alice at 4:50 PM
Spot the typo!
This billboard caught my eye this afternoon. It's over at Holtzclaw and Union, right across from the National Cemetery.
Posted by alice at 3:41 PM | Comments (3)
September 3, 2007
Things I have learned this summer
I'm not going to tag anyone with this, since a lot of people may be off having wild holiday weekend fun, but feel free to post a "things I have learned this summer" on your own blog!
1. Baths are awesome. I got one of those book stands made for a bathtub which also holds a candle and a glass of wine. Add a bit of bubble bath, and wow! I'm not getting out unless the house is on fire.
2. The Atlanta airport should be avoided at all costs, especially when you're flying international. I flew out of Atlanta early this summer and as I was standing in an unbelievably long line to get through security, I saw this headline in that day's Atlanta paper: Atlanta too busy for just one airport? The short answer: YES -- they just can't handle the number of people who go through there every day, and passengers are being tortured as a result. It gets a little bit worse with each passing year. These days, upon arriving at the airport on an international flight, you must first go though immigration (and stand in a line), then hang around the luggage claim area to pick up your bags. Then you go through customs (and stand in a line). Then you have to recheck your bags for the trip over to the main terminal. And then for some reason, you have to go through security all over again (and stand in a line), even though you just got off a plane. At this point, you get to take a tram to the main terminal, hang around yet another luggage claim area and pick up your bags again, and then, at last, once you start to despair of ever escaping, you finally get to leave the freakin' airport. It's a nightmare. And before returning to the states, I had purchased a few bottles of wine at the duty-free store in Barcelona, forgetting that I'd have to jump through all these crazy hoops in Atlanta. When I had to recheck my bags, I was forced to stuff my wine bottles into my soft-sided luggage to avoid having them confiscated because I was about to have to go through security again and, of course, fluids are all verboten, even if they're sealed in a duty-free shop bag and even if your only remaining destination is outside. Then I got to watch as some guy flung my bag into a pile under the luggage of all the other passengers, all the while imagining my clothes turning a nice rioja-shade of pink. We moved on and later, as we were riding on an overloaded escalator, a guy suddenly turned to my husband and purged: "I have to make a confession. I am an engineer and back in the 70s, I helped design this airport. [pause] I am so sorry." Indeed.
3. People need to move around more, especially as they get older. I spent some time hanging around a lot of retired people this summer and it was quite the eye-opening experience. Almost without exception, the active people -- even those with physical limitations -- enjoy vigorous health, while those who don't move around much all have long lists of health complaints. I also got to spend some time this summer with my father, who in his mid-seventies is proof that as long as you figure out a way to keep moving, you'll be able to keep moving. He still plays tennis (singles) several times a week and rides his bike to work every day. So please, after you're done reading this, go for a bike ride or take a walk or sign up for a water aerobics class -- just be sure to do something.
4. The family car trip is apparently a thing of the past, which makes me sad. I have such fond memories of covering long distances during those vacations of my youth -- washing down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with those little bottles of welch's grape juice, singing stupid songs, fighting over who was invading whose personal space, trying to complete a list of all fifty state license tags... we spent hours and days going from place to place, and even though the time wasn't all filled with magical Brady Bunch moments, I love thinking back on those journeys. And then when my daughter was very young we had the some of our own epic journeys, and we got through them all with lots of books, crayons, paper and travel games. But these days, people travel with so much electronic equipment that they don't interact at all -- they put on their earphones and watch movies, listen to music, play video games... and the journey is lost on them. Or even worse, their parents drug them, so that they don't have to deal with them at all (this is true -- I've seen people confess to it on their blogs and the NYTimes did a story about it). I just don't understand how this happened. When did being a kid become a disease?
5. I hate Harry Potter. Not that I have anything against hearing a well-told tale, and I gather the HP books contain some good story telling. But between the last book coming out and the (presumably) next-to-the-last movie release, for a good part of the summer you people just wouldn't shut up about Harry Potter! It may be good reading, but it's not the only damn book in the universe. And all your nattering about it got kind of old after a while.
6. Maybe this is old news to the rest of you, but I just found out that college students use Febreze like some sort of a magic wand that they wield over their dirty clothes in an effort to avoid doing laundry. This news came to me via DH (dear husband -- whose job puts him in contact with college students on quite a regular basis) when he saw that I bought some febreze and jokingly asked if I was going to give up doing laundry.
7. The American Medical establishment has gone completely off the rails. American physicians have become addicted to pharmaceutical drugs -- they are writing prescriptions instead of doing diagnostic testing, telling parents of toddlers that it's ok to give them unnecessary drugs to quiet them during long car rides or flights, and prescribing hard-core anti-depressants to kids with normal teenage angst. I understand that the never-ending cycle of ads and commercials encouraging people to "ask their doctor" for certain medications (which, btw, might turn them into gambling addicts) is partly responsible for pressure many doctors feel to give their patients a magic pill, but part of their job is to educate their patients, not just give them what Big Pharma has brainwashed them into thinking they need. If I come in with allergy symptoms, but test negative for both allergies and asthma, it's ok to skip the prescription pad and tell me that what I really need is a neti pot and a yoga class -- it would, in fact, be refreshing to hear.
8. Shopping at Wal-Mart does have its price. I haven't shopped there in years because I don't believe it's the fairy tale paradise that the corporation wants us to believe in, and this summer I started to feel vindicated. Train sets and other toys covered in lead paint. Tainted pet treats. Poisoned toothpaste. After the all the summer's controversies, perhaps it should now qualify as child abuse to buy anything for your family at Wal-Mart. How do you know you're not feeding your children poison or dressing them in lead-flecked hairshirts? After all, the majority of Wal-Mart products come from China, where they clearly haven't yet instituted any sort of quality control measures. It's just a matter of time before more toxins are discovered on Wal-Mart's shelves. Think you don't pay a price for low prices? Think again.
9. If people got to spend more time at the beach, we wouldn't need so many spas. I spent two weeks on the Gulf coast this summer, and took advantage of the opportunity to run on the beach every morning. Within a few days, my feet looked like I'd had a pedicure. And the humid salt air had my normally dry skin feeling so soft and wonderful, you'd think I'd had a facial!
Posted by alice at 9:57 AM | Comments (1)
September 2, 2007
Quote of the Day
"I only have seven hundred and eighty two pages left!"
--DD (dear daughter) as she worked her way through David Copperfield during her Labor Day break
Posted by alice at 6:18 PM | Comments (2)
The Waybacks Return to Chattanooga
It's been a while, but I got to see the Waybacks last night, for the first time since they were in Chattanooga for Nightfall two years ago.
It was a great show -- a little on the short side, since they were sharing the bill with five other bands, but definitely a lot of fun with some good jammin' (the food was yummy too!).
Posted by alice at 6:11 PM
September 1, 2007
It's official
August was really hot in Chattanooga (the heat peaked on the 23rd).
With temperatures 100 degrees or higher on nine days, last month was the warmest August ever recorded here.
"The average high was 98 degrees," said Mary Black, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Morristown, Tenn. "That is about 11 degrees above normal."
All but one day in August recorded daytime highs of 90 degrees or greater...
Posted by alice at 5:23 PM | Comments (2)