new years eve

all fogged in

the driving lifestyle

not me:

The generation that gave birth to suburbia and the two-car garage is reaching the age at which driving, for many, no longer seems like such a swell option. As Americans grow older -- one in five will be 65 or older by 2030 -- many are finding that the world that lured them away from city life is losing some of its appeal. "The concern is that when they no longer can drive, they will find themselves trapped in their homes in suburban neighborhoods where there are no sidewalks, or, if there are sidewalks, there's no place to walk to," said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

bamboo architecture

in vietnam

ain't that cute?

from the vanishing-[thank god]-georgia collection

wonderland

tim burton's alice in wonderland oughta be great:



thnx robt

assessing the decade

The End of the 00s: Horrible Decade of Constant Terror Doesn't Officially End Until the World Does, In 2012, by Ken Layne

 

the loyal opposition

they will campaign next year calling for the repeal of whatever health-care legislation gets passed

i have a morbid fascination with that face

has the 1979 revolution run its course?

if you are not keeping up with the "green revolution" in iran, which has been ongoing in fits and starts since june, you should check out andrew sullivan, who has been following it closer than anybody i know about---the mainstream media has hardly covered it at all

things that shouldn't be there

The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery.

30 years now voyager has been going on

obsolete in the 21st century

fax machines, land-line phones, the yellow pages . . . .

the return of airport hell

flying had actually gotten fairly bearable with few endless delays or security-check lines out the doors, but no more, i'm sure----

Among other steps being imposed, passengers on international flights coming to the United States will apparently have to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight without any personal items on their laps. Overseas passengers will be restricted to only one carry-on item aboard the plane, and domestic passengers will probably face longer security lines.

happy kwanza/boxing day

architecture of excess

a 2.3 gigapixel image of burj dubai, the tallest building in the world, opening in a few days---

merry christmas everybody

madison square, nyc, 1913

all is definitely calm

i wonder who's riding the martha bus up peachtree this christmas eve

dayum

she done took down her xmas lights on account of them passing socialized medicine

real leaders

it is sometimes very hard to maintain this perspective, but . . . :

I think of Obama that way. Great change comes at glacial speed. George Washington didn't become a king but he still owned black slaves. So did Jefferson yet that didn't stop him from expanding democracy with the Louisiana Purchase. Lincoln waited two years to free the slaves and did so only in the South, exempting the border states still fighting for the Union. Even the New Deal, arguably the most significant change in our government since the revolution, didn't include healthcare, didn't desegregate the schools, etc. Only a George Bush thinks that the one-man "decider" gets to change things at once, at his whim. What a fool. Obama understands what the Bush's of the world and even Bill Clinton fail to grasp. A leader is only as great as her or his contributions to the flow of historical progress.

can't have nothin' nice

it's a traditional straw "yule goat" in gävle, sweden --- but almost every year, vandals torch it

¡hurra por los gays

MEXICO CITY — Mexico City lawmakers on Monday made the city the first in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage, a change that will give homosexual couples more rights, including allowing them to adopt children.

roswell

saw barrington hall and smith plantation today for the first time---interesting architecture but covered up with christmas doo-dah---typical tour guides that you just wished would shut up and let you walk around and look, which i did, which they didn't like---thnx cathi