cuteness

justice

Yesterday a judge in Iowa ruled that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Today the first same-sex couples in the state was married.

katrina

two years ago today, a great american city was destroyed----

goddamn republicans

this pisses me off; it oughta piss everybody off---they've done more or less the same thing here in atlanta with now nearly all of the old New Deal public housing demolished----well-built, well-designed buildings, simple but attractive buildings, built with concrete, brick, slate roofing, and copper gutters that meant they would last----now all wasted---

"They wanted them poor niggers out of there and they ain't had no intention
to allow it to be reopened to no poor niggers, you know? And that's just the
bottom line."

damp, too

new air

immature?

or just totally fukd up---

“What I did was totally immature and so that means I need to grow up....
Dogfighting is a terrible thing. Through this situation, I found Jesus. I ask
him for forgiveness and turn myself over to God…I offer my deepest apologies to
everyone in the world who was affected by this…”

michael vick

republican perv of the month

this time it's idaho's sen. craig---

his record?

*voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
*Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
*Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
*Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
*Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)

all of which led the human rights campaign to give him a rating of 0%---

glass houses

this one is in paris, built 1928-----it captures the light but not the view---

mt. dooom

some of those crazy japanese are proposing to build a 13,000-ft tall building, housing over a million people, called x seed 4000---(for comparison, taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world, is only 1,671 ft tall)---that would be one helluva penthouse----

the projects

the new roof is really quite lovely---but now the old gutters really look like shit---maybe that will get done next week----meanwhile they are working away on the interior---that's michael, our contractor, working in the entrance hall----

meanwhile the defoliation work is proceeding, as the image below will attest----a nice little fence has

emerged, and there are not as many places for the boogers to hide---

dark night of the soul

On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, the "Saint of the Gutters," went to Oslo.
Dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals despite
below-zero temperatures, the former Agnes Bojaxhiu received that ultimate
worldly accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance lecture, Teresa,
whose Missionaries of Charity had grown from a one-woman folly in Calcutta in
1948 into a global beacon of self-abnegating care, delivered the kind of message
the world had come to expect from her. "It is not enough for us to say, 'I love
God, but I do not love my neighbor,'" she said, since in dying on the Cross, God
had "[made] himself the hungry one — the naked one — the homeless one." Jesus'
hunger, she said, is what "you and I must find" and alleviate. She condemned
abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she
suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world "that
radiating joy is real" because Christ is everywhere — "Christ in our hearts,
Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we
receive."

Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual
confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public,
she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "Jesus
has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[But] as for me,
the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen
and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you
to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

The two statements, 11 weeks apart, are extravagantly dissonant.
The first is typical of the woman the world thought it knew. The second sounds
as though it had wandered in from some 1950s existentialist drama. Together they
suggest a startling portrait in self-contradiction — that one of the great human
icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably
connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and
seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera,
was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape
from which the deity had disappeared.

And in fact, that appears to be the case. A new, innocuously titled
book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of
correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of
66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its
works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested
that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the
last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever —
or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes,
"neither in her heart or in the eucharist.

roofing and rain

it's raining here---first time in a while---they were supposed to finish up the roofing on main street today---john says they were working on the porches last he looked.

barack and roll

from his 2004 illinois senate race against alan keyes, who is arguably one of the craziest people alive today----

more good eats

aunt charlotte, who with 7 children routinely cooked for a crowd, sometimes did a tuna fish/potato chip casserole, which is the sort of abuse of perfectly good sea food for which there is no excuse----still it's a great, easy dish, and even julia child had a recipe---i made this the other night:

TUNA CASSEROLE

2 cups of drained canned tuna in a bowl (i used solid white, but any type would do, i think)
2 or 3 cups cream sauce (a bernaise sauce from joy of cooking)
3 hard-boiled eggs (cooked precisely 11 minutes as per julia's instruction)
swiss cheese

Flake the fish; fold in 2/3 of cream sauce; fold in 2or 3 sliced hard-boiled eggs; fold in 1/3 cup coarsely grated Swiss cheese.

Correct seasoning. [i love that; she uses it where other cooks just say "salt and pepper to taste"] Spread seasoned and buttered cooked rice or noodles [i did jasmin rice] in the bottom of a 2-1/2 qt. casserole, turn the sauced fish over it, and cover with the remaining sauce. [mine turned out a little dry because i didn't use quite enough sauce] Sprinkle with 2 or 3 tblspoons of grated Swiss cheese and a tablesppon of butter cut into dots. Half an hour before you are ready to serve, set the casserole in a pre-heated 375-degree oven until bubbling hot and the top as browned.

half moon and then some

roofing

it's still a dumb name

i can't actually see viewpoint from my place, so here's an update on its construction---i like the little mockups they do to show the building finishes (they did a similar one, in the same place in the parking lot behind bulldogs, for 909 juniper)---the designer people have decided that the raw concrete look needs a little fru-fru, in the shape of fake-stone facades at the first and second floor level----the white here looks a little wierd with the concrete---at 1010, they're using something that looks like sandstone at the first and second floors

roofing

and the roofer is supposed to start tomorrow----going to tear off all four layers of roofing, repair decking as necessary, and reroof with "certain teed x25," three-tab, asphalt shingles, which consumer reports recommended as a best buy---have settled on a lovely nickle grey shingle---

the projects

continued my defoliation of the main street property today, generating a second enormous pile of brush and what not----

a new start

looks like they have started site work for construction of the hotel palomar, (above right), at northwest corner w. peachtree and sixth---a welcome change to the design originally proposed after dropping the condo portion of the project in favor of more hotel---and a view of 1010 peachtree as the tower portion starts to rise

good eats

inspired by the bio of julia child that i just finished, i cooked dinner for the 106+robert club last night---turned out pretty good, i think---except i didn't have any fresh ginger for the melon soup----

couture

http://www.uglydress.com/

another benefit of tax cuts for the rich

failed levees, dead pets, falling bridges, poisonous toys---had the consumer product safety commission not been gutted as a result of tax cuts for the rich, this would have been caught much sooner—one consumer advocacy group said that cpsc staff was down 59%—all the stupid cpsc director could whine was, but it wasn’t our biggest recall—

The CPSC doesn't have the authority to test products before they go on the
market nor the staff to conduct extensive inspections. Instead, it relies mostly
on manufacturers to report problems with their own products.

failed levees, falling bridges, poisonous toys and food, cheap-ass tiles on the shuttle that are always getting damaged by something falling off during lift-off—that’s just some of what you get when you do govt. on the cheap—

s. r. young

we lived on temple avenue 3 or 4 blocks southeast of the new house in 1954-55, during which time gary went to s.r. young elementary school, 5 or 6 blocks east of the new house--the new house was apparently first occupied, if not actually built, by the school's namesake samuel r. young---he lived there, or at least owned the house until his death in 1979, when the house was sold---

i found the family in the 1920 and 1930 censuses at 423 main---he was a civil engineer with the railroad, native of pennsylvannia, as were his wife, sidney, both of them born in 1886---with them were their sons samuel, jr. (born 1916) and robert g. (born 1923) and samuel, sr.'s widowed mother laura----according to the census, the house was valued at $10,000 in 1930---

oddly enough, sameul r. young, jr., died last saturday, two days before we closed on the sale--i can't decide what sort of omen that would be, if i believed in omens, but this is the obit that the family ran in the ajc:

Samuel R. Young, Colonel (Ret.) USAF, age 91, died peacefully at his home
on August 4, 2007. Sam was born on March 29, 1916 in Coatesville, Pennsylvania
to parents, Cydney Alta Young and Samuel Rollo Young. As an infant, he traveled
with his parents to College Park, Georgia, where his father was senior executive
for three railroads. He graduated from Georgia Military Academy (now Woodruff
Academy) and received his Civil Engineering degree from Georgia Institute of
Technology in 1937. At Georgia Tech, he was a member of Alpha Tau Omega
fraternity, served as captain of the Ga. Tech Football and Military Bands, and
enjoyed many weekends playing at the Fox theatre with his band, the Tech
Ramblers. In 1968, sent by the USAF, he completed the Harvard Advanced
Management School. He worked for a short time with Robert & Company
Engineers in Atlanta until his love of flying and world events of the 40's led
him into service to his country. His military career began in the Army Air Corps
as a pilot instructor during World War II. After the war, Sam served proudly
another thirty-three years in the United States Air Force stationed around the
world until his retirement in 1970. He was able to combine his love of flying
with engineering skills in the Air Force - maintaining his flight status in
training jets for twenty- plus years and holding senior positions responsible
for building the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) headquarters at
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, and landing bases in Northern Thailand during the
Viet Nam War. Following his military retirement, Sam returned to Atlanta and
Robert & Company to work with the Atlanta Airport Engineers Expansion Plan
for Hartsfield Airport. Sam was instrumental in the production of the airport
basic securities manual - an FAA requirement in order for the City of Atlanta to
receive federal funds. Sam was preceded in death by his wife of fifty-seven
years, Elizabeth Rawlings Young, of Montgomery, Alabama. He is mourned by his
three children: sons, Samuel R. Young, Jr. (wife, Suzanne) of Edenton, North
Carolina and Michael M. Young of Los Angeles, California; daughter, Laura Young
Palmer of Atlanta; granddaughter, Emily Young Auer (husband, Kris) and grandsons Samuel Aaron Young (wife, Amy) and Dacklin R. Young. He was preceded in death by his brother, Robert G. Young of Atlanta and is survived by a number of Rawlings
and Young nieces and nephews. The family expresses sincere appreciation to
caregivers Eleanor Bryan and Ida Barrow for the dedicated care given to their
father during his last years and for the many years of special care and service
of Mary Pettway. A service celebrating Sam's life will be held at Peachtree Road
United Methodist Church at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday August 14th. The family will
greet visitors at 1:00 p.m. at the church. In lieu of flowers contributions may
be made to Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, 3180 Peachtree Road, NE,
Atlanta, GA, 30305, to Hospice Atlanta at 1244 Park Vista Drive, Atlanta, GA
30319 or to a charity of your choice.

a new project

so john and i have embarked on another joint venture, and this one i'm really excited about---it's a 1916 house in college park that i've always admired---sort of a distress sale, so we got a good deal i think---rent it for a while and if i ever get sick of the concrete jungle, i can retire to college park---

the house was well-built and nicely-detailed from the beginning, it had the good fortune of having been relatively well-maintained since that time---there was a fairly significant fire at some point, but repairs were also solid and restored the original design it seems---in recent years, it has been somewhat neglected, especially over the last couple of years---but it's gonna be a great house----

tonight we met with the contractor, michael, who did some of the work on our wells drive project---there is a large amount of overgrown this and that---saturday i start chopping---

keeping up with brian

update your bookmarks, y'all---
http://tancred62.wordpress.com/

the war on terra

everybody got all freaked out about the unidentified vessel floating in the east river within yards of the queen mary II---turns out it was some fool in a his replica of an 18th-century submersible----it just goes to show you. . . . .

A man in a Revolutionary War-era submarine was cited by the U.S. Coast Guard for drifting into a security zone, and for unsafe sailing in New York's East River near the Queen Mary 2 luxury liner, the Coast Guard and New York City Police Department said Friday.

plus there are claims that some major terrarist attack will occur in the next 6 weeks----