talking like a democrat

he also got the leadership to agree to a floor vote on a single-payer system

nice evening

just loving the rain

70 years together

politics of race

the late lee atwater, another proud son of the big A, major Republican in the 1980s, on the evolution of american politics:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

follow the link to an interesting analysis of where we are now

birthers, nirthers, and dumb

Authorities are investigating two Atlanta-area police officers accused of using government computers to run a criminal background check on President Barack Obama.

dekalb county, no less----probably just two guys being dumasses, which happens a lot, don't you know

reconstructing history

there wasn't just a gap in nixon's tape

Mellinger, who has been applying his forensic investigative skills to the Watergate scandal for years, discovered that there is a gap in the National Archives’ record of Haldeman’s notes of that meeting — and those pages correspond to the “accidentally” erased 18 minutes.

a health care initiative

major stupid

what an idiot - - - but we already knew that

rhetoric as poetry

if you missed shatner's rendition of palin's speech on conan last nite, here it is---a choice piece of work:

kennesaw mountain

me and dog went back out to kennesaw and this time it wasn't all covered up with people --- atlanner in the summer haze all across the southern horizon --- the lower end of the blue ridge to the north --- it was the union army's first view of the city, too --- some of the confederate gun emplacements are still there and at least one is getting a face lift or something --- even if you're not all that interested in civil war military campaigns, all the trees and meadows are a large relief from the surrounding area

oh and the flock of giant swallowtails near the top of the mountain was wonderful

performance art

the great katherine kuhlman in 1974, two years before she died --- she and ernest angley were in a class by themselves

sunrise

from the space station, last friday

cognitive dissonance in iran

so they will kill you if you are gay, but wanna change your sex? fine---the government will even help pay for it



in addition, islamic law prohibits execution of a virgin---but they have a work around for that: they get somebody to rape her first, which is just about the most twisted thing i've ever heard
iran is a very wierd place

"crazy never sleeps"

there is no finer summation of our current political situation:

On issue after issue, the reason things get and stay so completely broken in this country is that Republicans can only get ahead in the Modern GOP by doing the political equivalent of standing on our cultural overpasses and lobbing cinderblocks into rush hour traffic.

it is just unbelievable that even cnn is still reporting on the insane birther crowd ---

streetcars on p'tree?

The Atlanta City Council overwhelmingly approved a plan Monday to seek federal stimulus funds to run a streetcar along portions of the Peachtree Street corridor.

recreating

me and dog were gonna go climb kennesaw mountain today, but we got out there around 10 to find it absolutely packed, no place to park, not even along side of the road---we drove all the way around the perimeter of the park (which is not a short distance), before heading back down to the river --- which was nice and calm --- but depressingly run-down and ill-kempt at the paces mill/west palisades unit where u.s. 41 crosses the river --- trash cans overflowing --- restroom all messed up, missing fixtures --- we've got a long way to go to make the parks what they used to be

nice night for a soirée

r.ip. redux

walter cronkite (1916 - 2009) ---- he ended the war in vietnam --- "and that's the way it is . . . "

r.i.p.

One of Mr. Shulman’s most widely reproduced images, a 1960 view of Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 22, shows two well-dressed women in seemingly casual conversation in a living room that appears to float precariously above the Los Angeles basin. The vertiginous point of view contrasts sharply with the relaxed atmosphere of the house’s interior, testifying to the ability of the Modernist architect to transcend the limits of the natural world.

shulman died wednesday --- this may be my favorite image of all time ---

diversity

i thought the gay daddies in the south tower penthouse were moving out --- but they were just re-arranging the furniture---their daughter now has twin siblings!

thieves

there are some amazing admissions from this ex-insurance exec

The industry has always tried to make Americans think that government-run systems are the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, that if you even consider that you're heading down the slippery slope towards socialism... I think that people who are strong advocates of our health care system remaining as it is, very much a free market health care system, fail to realize that we're really talking about human beings here, and it doesn't work as well as they would like it to... They are trying to make you worry and fear a government bureaucrat being between you and your doctor. What you have now is a corporate bureaucrat between you and your doctor... The public plan would do a lot to keep [health insurance companies] honest, because it would have to offer a standard benefit plan. It would have to operate more efficiently, as does the Medicare program. It would be structured, I'm certain, on a level playing field so that it wouldn't [have an] unfair advantage [over] the private insurance companies. Because it could be administered more efficiently, the private insurers would have to operate more efficiently.

rankings

how come those yankees are always trying to make us feel bad?

So the debate over health care has predictably resulted in right-wing guffawing at my home state of Massachusetts. Noted intellectual giants such as Le Pantload de Dough are posting smarmy videos besmirching my home state as a socialist craphole where we make old people wait a billion-gajillion years to get hip replacements. Ridiculing Massachusetts is, of course, nothing new for the modern right — after all, Mitt Romney seemingly based his entire presidential campaign on the fact that he hated the state that elected him governor.

i bet we got more god-fearing people than they do, but they didn't ask that, did they?

bigotry and the sclc

another old-school civil-rights organization proves its irrelevancy:
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) — the civil rights group founded by Dr. Martin Luther King — is “seeking to remove the president of its Los Angeles chapter,” Rev. Eric P. Lee, in response to his role in organizing opposition to California’s same-sex marriage ban, Prop. 8, last fall.
martin and coretta would not approve

pdc

the driving club is really improving the view in that corner of piedmont park --- the piedmont avenue perspective remains more-or-less the same, but the rest of it has been essentially reconstructed --- it's a long way from walker's farm and the driving club's first race track, now at the park's center

puesta del sol

burying the a-list

check out the celebrity funeralizations----did you know that valentino, judy garland and the notorious b.i.g. were all funeralized at the same funeral home on the upper east side of nuevo york? it is true. i read it on the internets.

the housing bust

in guinea, no less
For centuries, Nionsomoridou faced no risk of a housing-market crash, because it didn't have a housing market. There were no unused houses. If a son married and needed room for children, his relatives put up a new hut next door, on village land that is communally owned.

shorpy.com

go waste some time

ruins

what a great park this must be --- in minneapolis no less

traveling dog

guinness is generally an excellent travel companion---especially on the way back when he was kinda tuckered out --- the scenic shot is from santeetlah gap, elev. 2660--- and below that is an image of one of the several really fine corn fields up that way

big trees

me and the dog drove up to n.c. today to see one of the only old-growth forests left in the east, part of the joyce kilmer-slick rock wilderness---400 yr old poplars were worth the drive---there are huge eastern hemlock, too, but nearly all of them were dead or dying from wooly adelgid---

failed structures

according to the ajc, the parking garage, the center bay of which fell down, was only 7 yrs old --- built by the same construction company that was trying to build the botanical garden's "canopy walk," which also fell down, killing one person, injuring 18, last december --- they were fined for that

the race is on

40th running of the peachtree road race, back in piedmont park --- 55k tired sweaty people --- the last of them will straggle through in early afternoon --- but it's a fine day to run, if you like that sort of thing

war of the holes

"i guess i'm just a b-hole kinda guy"??????

spring street

collapsing concrete parking decks squash cars --- even though it was just one out of seven bays that fell down, it's still fairly amazing that nobody was hurt---they weren't able to start retrieving cars until today, including all of those in the rest of the garage that didn't collapse which nobody had been able to yet get at

old structures

we also stopped off to gawk at the covered bridge over red oak creek in meriwether county --- built in the 1840s by horace king (1807-1885), a freed slave who built a bunch of bridges in west georgia, although this is the only one that still exists --- it's also the oldest and longest covered bridge left in the state --- you just gotta hate younguns with spray paint, but better that than matches i guess

endangered spaces

me and dog went down to see spruill bluff state park this morning --- the army corps has wanted to put a dam there for a long time --- the shoals and bluffs west and northwest of thomaston mark the fall line for the flint river as it breaks into the coastal plain --- gov. carter stopped the project in 1974, but once the engineers get an idea like that in their heads, it'll have nine lives at least

self-watering plants

The Desert Rhubarb can hold 16 times more water than its rivals and has developed a unique ability to effectively water itself in its barren habitat. Researchers were confounded by the metre-wide plant's giant leaves, compared to its desert counterparts, whose tiny leaves stop dangerous moisture loss. But they found the plant's large leaves are the key to its success, because they are covered in microscopic streams through which water can be channeled.