A note about the baptist church picket George "the profane atheist" Carlin's funeral via the New Humanist.
A reminder that Angle Season 1 is now on Hulu.com.
A note about the Hartford Courant (America's oldest continuously published daily paper) cutting newsroom staff and number of pages devoted to news.
A clip about the guy from the underappreciated "New Amsterdam" moving on to a new show that is apparently going to be a series of something's-gone-wrong-on-the-holodeck episodes of TNG via Sci-Fi News.
And a nice little clip of one of Obama's advisors reducing Laura Ingraham to a demented harpy. Well, even more of a demented harpy than she normally is via News Hounds.
And on a personal note, I've got a bunch of pictures up at flickr of our day trip to Carver, MA where the littl'uns got to meet their favorite train.
Nutmeg News The All-Bad Edition So everyone has probably seen the video of the hit and run in Hartford of Angel Torres. If you type "Hartford" into YouTube search, about four of the suggestions lead you to it. Nothing else you'd want to see in Hartford, I guess. Or you probably saw it on your local news. (So no, I don't feel like linking to it.) What's shocking is after two cars race into the wrong lane and one of them hits the 78 year old nobody does much of anything for forty seconds or so. None of the bystanders reach him and not one of the ten passing cars stop. Of course it's the existence of video that turned Hartford into the latest example of man's inhumanity to man.
Colin McEnroe, as usual, has the thing worth reading about this. Sometimes, we want to believe the worst about ourselves. Or hey, not ourselves, we're good people. I'm talking the worst about people who live in cities. There's a reason the legend of Kitty Genovese (referenced by Colin) has lasted for so long. Ånd if you think none of this has anything to do with race, you're welcome to visit the Hartford Courant's reader forums, which have gotten pretty ugly, even by Internet standards. So ugly that Mayor Perez has complained to the Courant. Meanwhile, the police chief has complained about our "toxic relationship with ourselves." Okay guys, maybe you could do something better with your time, like catch a hit and run driver or something.
I won't excuse the people in the video who do nothing except to point out that four people called 911 within a minute, a fact being dropped from almost all reports.
Forgive me for thinking this is mostly an excuse to call blacks and Hispanics "sub-human" and "savages." I don't remember this rhetoric being quite this heated for the college students responsible for the fatal hit and run of a 19 year old. Heck, the parents chipped in after the fact to help cover it up so you have some man's inhumanity to man there too and for longer than 40 seconds.
Meanwhile, the Mark Twain House and Museum is in financial trouble, despite some recent state grant help. The Twain house is much more than just a house he happened to live in. Twain designed it and the house remains imbued with his personality and life story. It's a literary and architectural landmark. I've taken the tour three times now and each one was different (except for the "tainted money" line, which was included on all three). Most of the trouble comes from a visitor's center built a few years ago. It is impressive, but seems in size and design better suited to a convention center and it's probably a monster to heat, even in reasonable times.
There are also layoffs and news page reductions coming at the Hartford Courant, which does not currently exactly overflow with news coverage.
Also, what the Courant calls "possibly the state's single most recognizable product" (Hey, not an insurance form!), the United Technology spacesuit, will now be made in Texas by a deep sea company with no space experience. Thanks for forty years of problem-free performance, too bad you HQ in a blue state. At least the company that won the bid isn't named Halliburton Space & Sea.
Also making us sad around here is the news that UConn recruit and national player of the year Elena Delle Donne has left the summer program after two days to return home. I take the statements at face value that this has nothing to do with UConn or her teammates. I'd guess that if she plays basketball it will probably be for UConn. While it would be a shame for someone so talented to give up the sport, you just have to wish her the best and hope things work out for her.
Meanwhile, Dodd looked like he wouldn't be a VP candidate, now maybe he will be. I like Dodd and he certainly didn't get a chance to shaw what a good campaigner he can be during his bid, still I'm not sure what he adds politically to the Obama ticket. Connecticut is certainly in Obama's column and Dodd is nothing if not a Beltway insider. Still, I think he'd be a far better campaigner than the miserable performance turned in by our other senator in 2000. I was rooting for Webb, but that's not to be.
I will be posting even less than usual around here because I'm going on vacation for the week. Any wonder why?
There Is Sir, the Small Matter of the Bill ... It's that time again. The triptychcryptic domain name is up for renewal in August. It's $15/year to renew. I think Primetime covered some or all the expense last time around. Any cryptonauts feeling flush and willing to shuffle a few clams my way to cover?
I'm rooting for Stephanie, interviewed here, and I can't see how anyone would do otherwise. If Lisa wins, there will be riots in the streets, or at least on message boards. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you have healthier habits than me.
Following c-dog's advice, I've been keeping track of my books this year on LibraryThing. I like seeing the covers collected together on my page. It also shatters any idea I may have had about having a highbrow reading list this year. This year I've been trying to concentrate on poker, pulp, crime, books written over 25 years ago and books I've been avoiding, which makes Lawrence Block's Lucky at Cards the near-perfect book for early 2008. ("He could handle cards like a master, but could he handle her?")
I recommend LibraryThing if you're getting to the age where maybe you can't remember the name, author or plot of a book you read two months ago but know that maybe it was good. For the second half of 2008, I'm thinking about reading some history, memoirs, and books about movies and would love to hear any suggestions.
My daughter has moray eels for her second grade research project and I am totally restraining myself from convincing her to put sequential and synchronous hermaphroditism in her report. Eventually she'll learn that hermaphrodites always get a laugh.
This Is Our Time Maybe you missed Obama's speech last night. Obviously, suspense over who the nominee would be has been gone for weeks. You might want to check it out. It's a good one. Also eye-opening, refreshing and joyous is the fact that 17,500 people were there to hear it with another 15,000 waiting outside. I've faced the mocking "Oh, Obama's just a good speaker. That's it, and you get to be President. Talking!" As if it would be bad to have a President who can complete a sentence. As if speaking isn't a component of leading. The sentiment behind the mocking is fear. Fear that our country is changing.
Years from now, we will look back on Obama's nomination with pride except ....
Look, It Just Isn't Your Time Um, Hillary's gone off the deep end. Her speech has been parsed elsewhere so I'll just add a couple of thoughts. 1) Look, even W. congratulated Obama. It was his night. 2) At some point in the past few weeks - and even last night - Hillary could have given a good speech, saying she wanted to carry her campaign the distance because of her passionate supporters, endorsing Obama, highlighting the historic nature of her campaign and then returned to the Senate as its most powerful member. Why on earth would you give that up for miniscule leverage on a bid to be Vice President in an administration that wouldn't let you do anything under any cirumstances? 3) Mrs. BoneDaddy and I are really baffled by this repeated explanation offered by her supporters that "Hillary has been campaigning for a long time. You can't expect her to just suddenly concede." Doesn't every politician have to suddenly concede when they lose? Hundreds of them do it every November. Isn't this exactly the kind of patronizing, sexist crap her supporters have been complaining about? And if she can't psychologically adjust to a reality that I could spot months ago, why would I want her anywhere near the White House? Until the Last Dog Dies, indeed.
Ritchie I think is perfect for a Sherlock Holmes reimagining. I can't think of a better Holmes for this purpose than Jason Statham. That would so rock. Heck, the fella what played Turkish's little brother in Snatch could be his Watson. Keep it in the Ritchie stable. Crossposted from my Google Reader Shared page.
