1. What do you like most about libraries?
2. If you could meet any fictional character (not created by you), who would it be, and why?
"...education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic changes. Schools should be palaces; the competition for the best teachers should be fierce, they should be making six figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet."--Sam, "Six Meetings Before Lunch."
"If our jobs teach us anything it's that we don't know what the next President's gonna face. If we choose someone with vision, someone with guts, someone with gravitas who's connected to other people's lives and cares about making them better, if we choose someone to inspire us, then we'll be able to face what comes our way and achieve things we can't imagine yet." --Toby, "20 Hours in America."
3. What was your favourite board game when you were a kid?
4. Your favourite nickname for you?
5. Which is better: to have loved and lost, or never to have loved at all?
You and I won't lose our heads the way some lovers do
Saying "This will last forever" when it's just a year or two
You and I won't be the fools that other lovers are
Thinking every silver bottle top potentially a star
still...
All the world loves lovers.
All the world loves people in love
Don't forget it.- LOVE
Don't forget it. - LOVE
Love whatever the price.
Terror suspect’s online posts detail ‘loneliness’
The 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner apparently turned to the Internet for counseling and companionship
Mary Matalin claims President Bush ‘inherited’ the September 11th terror attacksNow, I've heard how when gals spend a lot of time together, their periods tend to synch up.
Until recently, the Build-A-Bearville website (part of the Build-A-Bear Workshop) featured online videos telling children about manmade global warming and the dangers it holds for the North Pole. In the videos, little animals learn about the problem and teach Santa Claus about it. The right wing has been outraged over the antics of these bears and penguins. One conservative called for a boycott of Build-A-Bear, and another said the the videos amount to “indoctrination.” In response to this right-wing pressure, Build-A-Bear has taken down the educational videos.
The scientific consensus remains as strong as ever that manmade global warming is real. In the past, conservatives have also attacked the popular movie “Wall-E,” saying that it was filled with “leftist propaganda” and taught children that “human beings are bad for planet earth.”
1. Who would you change places with in this world if you could?
2. With the love you show for all the ladies, who would you most like to be attached to on a daily basis.
3. What would you design as a saw trap for you most hated enemy. Who would that enemy be and why so specific at death?
In the second test, Jigsaw's puppet informs William that he must choose to save either his file clerk or secretary, named Allen and Addy (Shawn Ahmed and Janelle Hutchison) respectively, and let the other die. In the end, William chooses to save Addy, and Allen is hanged by a barbed wire noose when his platform retracts.
4. What moment in your life, knowing what you do now would you most like to redo? and why?
5. Who would you most like to have lunch with that is living today? What would you ask them?
Senate Republicans have agreed to end their filibuster of health care reform “early Christmas Eve morning, allowing for a vote on the package at 8 a.m.” Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) told the Oklahoman that “the vast majority” of Senate Republicans supported ending the filibuster in order to go home for the holiday. “We’ve had all the fun we’re going to have” debating the bill, said Inhofe.
See? (1987)
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once I see it.Saw; including all sequels.
I am a fairly unabashed lover of most things Saw, because at their best they've asked more of their writers, actors and audience than any other comparable series.
They did this (among other ways) by giving their central character John Kramer, sometimes known as Jigsaw, just that: Actual character. As opposed to, say, the vicious dog on two legs that is Jason Vorhees.
What's weird is, by the filmmakers own admission, a lot of that has been luck. Actors like Shawnee Smith and Tobin Bell, who have become important to the series (in Bell's case, damn near indispensible--he plays John Kramer), were cast before anybody had any idea what would be asked of them in the sequels.
These movies, when they're written by writers and played by actors who take their work and their craft seriously, have actually let us see the effect that the Jigsaw character has on others.
Some of this is arguably for good, most of it for evil, but they let us see it--and they let him see, and be affected by that as well.
For these and other reasons, at their best, the sequels have actually built on each other rather than just turning into bloodier and bloodier rehashes. Even the least of them.
Although, this--along with a lot of what I've praised above-did start to slip a little by Saw IV. And a lot in Saw V, which is the least creatively succesful film in the series to date (good start, good ending, one good scene in the middle--whooooole lotta filler).
VI was a much better, even choice in many ways, film; as I've noted previously, it received the best reviews since the original. Still, I'm not exactly sorry to say that word is next years Saw VII will be the end.
BTW...this is another place where you could question the status of these movies as "American" films. Saw was created by a couple of Australians, and after the first movie (which filmed in LA), all the sequels have been filmed and co-financed in Canada.
(until VI, which actually split its money between four countries...which might explain why VII was fast-tracked: Less risk, to more financers...plus the fact that no film in the series has been unprofitable)
Moving on (I heard those of you who said, "Thank god...")
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Okay. I granted up front, including this as a contemporary American film is arguable--roughly half of the stars are from England or Australia, the director and co-writers are from New Zealand, where it was also shot.
But, it was co-financed with American money. And come on, what was I going to do, leave it out?
This is a movie that schooled Lucas--or should have--on how to make an epic without sacrificing storytelling. (I've regained much of my interest in Lucas' contemporary films-the prequel trilogy-thanks to seeing them again through my nephew's eyes. But, you'll notice that none appear in this list.)
I gotta give Fellowship mad props.
Now I want to talk about my two "animation directors of the decade-plus," Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton. Bird made The Iron Giant, Ratatouille and The Incredibles. I like The Incredibles and love Ratatouille, but Iron Giant is better than either of them.
It's a film about which I always tell people: If you read comic books when you were 10...you're gonna cry when you reach the end of this movie.
Andrew Stanton made Finding Nemo and Wall-E (as well as co-writing the Toy Story films and Monsters, Inc).
Nemo is still, for me, the high-water mark (tee hee) against which all other are judged, and Wall-E made confident strides in animated storytelling whilst (and at the same time) never, ever losing heart.
(Strange to say, I didn't realize until just when I was writing this draft of this long-in-the-works post how much the broad strokes of Stanton's Wall-E resembles Bird's The Iron Giant, another fun movie about a robot, with heart.)
As I say, I liked both The Incredibles and Ratatouille when I first saw them in the theater, but on subsuquent viewings I've cooled on The Incredibles while my affection for Ratatouille has only grown.
It's some kind of genius.
Animation is one of the few things in which I actually have a lot of national pride. I feel the best animated cartoons are and have always been made right here in America.
For the past 10-15 years or more, all the best American animated cartoons with but one exception have been made at Pixar.
As for that exception, it was Iron Giant (good guess) and Pixar themselves liked it and Bird's other work enough to bring him over to work there. It's top of the list; I consider it the last great "2D" animated film. (I hear good things about Princess & the Frog, but I haven't seen it)
Gone Baby Gone
For the love of god, see this movie.
It is the story of one man's struggle to do what he thinks is right, within a moral nightmare, and it is a good fucking movie about people, including us, who have lost their way.
I hate to think people didn't see it because Ben Affleck directed it.
He made a heartbreaking film that's at least as good as Mystic River and even better (yes, better) than The Departed.
Sideways.
I think Sideways is a good movie despite (because of?) the fact that it is at times a very uncomfortable film for me to watch. It's uncomfortable because, like Paul Giamatti in the movie, I like to close my eyes to reality.
My standard line, tho, is that it could've been made for me: I'm a frustrated writer who's been in love with Virginia Madsen since 1985.
And she's wonderful in it.
As an aside: Madsen is one of I don't know how many actresses, but it can't be more than a few, to succesfully "graduate" from the sexpot roles she was doing 20 years ago.
Not that she's not still hot (look down). Actually, she should be a role model in how to use things like Botox sensibly.
But in the mid-'90s, you could've been forgiven for thinking she was going to have-well, the career that Sharon Stone's had in the past decade....
Avatar plunges into the Uncanny (Unimaginative) Valley
Let's dispense with the story, the characters and the dialog. Cameron certainly does...
The CGI canvas is larger, but there's little you haven't already seen in better Cameron movies.
CNN: Who is Dr. Parnassus?
Terry Gilliam: ...he's there to enlighten the world nobody's paying attention to.
Now I have to go around and tell the world to treat my child kindly. Learn to love it.
I'm depressed most of the time. Despair is a whole different animal.
I'm pretty good at making films, and if I wasn't making films, what should I do? I think the film is beautiful and I think it's wonderful.
It's a combination of a lot of people responding to tragedy and not letting the tragedy win.
Did you know that in the Far East, people pay their doctors when they're healthy. When they're sick, they don't have to pay. So basically, they end up paying for what they want, not what they don't want. We've got it all ass-backwards, here. These politicians, they say the same thing, over and over and over again. Healthcare decisions should be made by doctors and their patients, not by the government. Oh, now I know they're not made by doctors and their patients or the government. They're made by the fuckin' insurance companies.
she looks like helen hunt
"I've never been to a White House party before, so I'm not sure about protocol," she said, "but I'm guessing it's a breach of that protocol to kiss and tell."
BIDEN: ...I think Joe [Lieberman]’s judgment is wrong on this. But you’ve seen it across the board. You know Joe [Scarborough], you and I both served in the Congress. Great big bill coming up, everybody figures their maximum point of leverage is right before the deal’s made. So, you’ve got everybody lining up out there saying, “if I just am willing to hold out now, I’ll get everything I want.”
Asked about Lieberman’s flip-flop, Biden quipped that “if we held flip-flops against everybody in Congress, we probably wouldn’t have many people there.” He added that he was “confident” Lieberman would ultimately vote for the bill.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “in a face-to-face meeting” yesterday “that he will vote against a health care bill that includes a public option or a provision that would expand Medicare.” Democrats had “thought they had secured Mr. Lieberman’s agreement to go along” with a compromise, leading a Senate Democratic aide to call Lieberman’s announcement “a total flip-flop.”
More than 80 percent of Democrats say they believe Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn) should be stripped of his powerful chairmanship in the Senate if he ends up supporting a Republican filibuster of health care reform, according to a new poll.
I think one answer here is that Lieberman isn't actually all that smart.Two, the only reason anybody thinks that he's not a boob:
I suspect that Lieberman is the beneficiary, or possibly the victim, of a cultural stereotype that Jews are smart and good with numbers.
...an insurance industry insider who has been deeply involved in the health care fight emails to declare victory.I think about how this thing, instead of starting out great and ending up good, now seems to have started out good and ended up...absolutely nowhere.
"We WIN," the insider writes. "Administered by private insurance companies...
Did you know that in the Far East, people pay their doctors when they're healthy. When they're sick, they don't have to pay. So basically, they end up paying for what they want, not what they don't want. We've got it all ass-backwards, here. These politicians, they say the same thing, over and over and over again. Healthcare decisions should be made by doctors and their patients, not by the government. Oh, now I know they're not made by doctors and their patients or the government. They're made by the fuckin' insurance companies.
"...The things she says she doesn’t like are contrary to the beliefs of 90 percent of the people in America.”
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) stepped up and drew a parallel to help the amendment’s male co-sponsors better understand its repercussions. Since Nelson’s measure forces women to purchase special abortion riders — which require women to plan for unplanned pregnancies — Boxer challenged “the men who have brought us this” to “single out a procedure that’s used by a man or a drug that is used by a man that involves his reproductive health care and say they have to get a special rider”:BOXER: There’s nothing in this amendment that says if a man some day wants to buy Viagra, for example, that his pharmaceutical coverage cannot cover it, that he has to buy a rider. I wouldn’t support that. And they shouldn’t support going after a woman using her own private funds for her reproductive health care. Is it fair to say to a man you’re going to have to buy a rider to buy Viagra and this will be public information that could be accessed? No, I don’t support that. I support a man’s privacy, just as I support a woman’s privacy.
The White House this morning released a long-awaited Open Government Directive that follows up on the President's promise - memorialized on his first full day of office - to usher in a new era of transparent, participatory governance.
The Directive, issued over the signature of OMB Director Peter Orszag, explains: "Transparency promotes accountability by providing the public with information about what the Government is doing. ... Collaboration improves the effectiveness of Government by encouraging partnerships and cooperation within the Federal Government, across levels of government, and between the Government and private institutions."
If transparency is truly to promote accountability, then the public needs journalists to help discover, gather, compare, contextualize, and share the new information becoming available.
These journalists may be citizen journalists.
It is skillful engagement with information that turns greater transparency into deeper democracy.
Obviously, I exaggerated the 80's clothes and dancing. This is not a serious video and I'm not trying to dance well nor am I trying to look attractive.
Sam Tanenhaus' New Yorker review of Sarah Palin's book, as well as another book about the former governor, contains this nugget:Palin, though notoriously ill-travelled outside the United States, did journey far to the first of the four colleges she attended, in Hawaii. She and a friend who went with her lasted only one semester. “Hawaii was a little too perfect,” Palin writes. “Perpetual sunshine isn’t necessarily conducive to serious academics for eighteen-year-old Alaska girls.” Perhaps not. But Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, gave a different account to [Scott] Conroy and [Shushannah] Walshe [authors of 'Sarah From Alaska']. According to him, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: “They were a minority type thing and it wasn’t glamorous, so she came home.”
The Affordable Health Care for America Act was approved by the U.S. House Saturday night with overwhelming support from progressive Democrats who serve in the chamber and from a president who was nominated and elected with the enthusiastic support of progressive voters.
But that does not mean that informed and engaged progressives are entirely enthusiastic about the measure.
1. "This Bill Will Enshrine in Law the Monopolistic Powers of the Private Health Insurance Industry"
2. This Bill Fails to Control Costs
3. "This Bill Obliterates Women's Fundamental Right to Choose"
4. This Bill Embraces Religious-Right Extremes
5. This Bill Worries About the Health of Wall Street, Not America
6. The Bill Does Not Cure What Ails Us
I regret all the tragedy that has surrounded Phil [Spector] in recent years.
Orrin Hatch: If Republicans Controlled Government, We Would ‘Get This Country Under Control’
| Which character from Alice in Wonderland Are You? Caterpillar The Caterpillar is very laid-back and calm. ...How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail. And pour the waters of the Nile, on every golden scale. How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws. And welcomes little fishes in, with gently smiling jaws!
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The details of the update are being kept secret, though the take does involve grounding the story in the science of a black hole, much more so than in the original.
Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman posted a racist rant on his Facebook page about President Obama -- apparently triggered by President Obama's Afghanistan speech interfering with the annual broadcast of the "Peanuts" Christmas Special.
, when I could've had a third season of Life.)
undeniable is that she was cute as a button with a curvy bod of the kind that makes men want to father children. 
Former Bush administration spokesperson and current Fox analyst Dana Perino ...made this astonishing statement:
"...we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term."
Can we have 1980-1990 soon please Mike?
As it happens, in this case political reality actually diverges quite markedly from public opinion. The public overwhelmingly opposes the war -- 57 percent to 39 percent, according to the latest Associated Press poll. And disengagement from Afghanistan -- even though it's not even being discussed as a serious option in political circles -- is considerably more popular with the American public than escalation, which is almost all anyone in Washington can talk about. The latest CNN poll found that 49 percent of Americans favored reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan -- with 28 percent saying they should all be withdrawn immediately -- compared to less than 40 percent who want to send more.
And while our nation's most predictably superficial media figures are jumping all over Obama for taking too long to make up his mind, the quality of the debate -- not to mention the existence of the debate itself -- is a tremendous improvement over the heedless rush to war in Iraq by the Bush administration.
The former Miss California said she learned a lot while doing pageants, and described her introduction to Donald Trump:He meeted us!
