Scrivener July 19th, 2008
Eldest explains death to Youngest: “You see, once you are born, you stay alive until you get too old or until you get hurt really badly or until you get seasick.”
(She later explained that she saw on the American Girl movie that you can get really sea sick on a ship and die.)
Scrivener July 13th, 2008
“Furnace Room Lullaby” - Neko Case, NPR Live Concert Series (4/9/06)
“Seven Swans” - Sufjan Stevens, Seven Swans
“Margaret vs. Pauline” - Neko Case, NPR Live Concert Series (4/9/06)
“Lover’s Spit” - Broken Social Scene, Bee Hives
“Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others” - The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead
“I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” - Aretha Franklin, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
“Your Feeling Shoulders” - Ray Lynch, Deep Breakfast
“Johnny 99″ - Bruce Springsteen, Brixton Night (Disc 3)
“Sit Down By The Fire” - The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God
“Brain Damage” - Pink Floyd, Dark Side Of The Moon
“The Wrong Band” - Tori Amos, Under the Pink
Scrivener July 11th, 2008
I haven’t done much politico-blogging for a long time, frankly because I just don’t have the energy these days to be properly enraged by all the sins of the current administration. And I don’t have the energy tonight to write a proper post on this article, either, but it i just such a perfect statement of how this administration operates:
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare — a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.The Supreme Court, in a decision 15 months ago that startled the government, ordered the EPA to decide whether human health and welfare are being harmed by greenhouse gas pollution from cars, power plants and other sources, or to provide a good explanation for not doing so. But the administration has opted to postpone action instead, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
To defer compliance with the Supreme Court’s demand, the White House has walked a tortured policy path, editing its officials’ congressional testimony, refusing to read documents prepared by career employees and approved by top appointees, requesting changes in computer models to lower estimates of the benefits of curbing carbon dioxide, and pushing narrowly drafted legislation on fuel-economy standards that officials said was meant to sap public interest in wider regulatory action. [...]
“They argued that this increase in regulation should be on the next president’s record,” not Bush’s, said a participant in the lengthy interagency debate. [...] “The administration didn’t want to show a high-dollar value for reducing carbon,” said one EPA official, adding that the administration cut dozens of pages from a draft that outlined cost-effective ways to reduce greenhouse gases.
Some officials said the administration has also minimized the benefits of tighter fuel-economy standards by assuming that oil will cost $58 a barrel in the future, compared with its current price of $141.65.
When historians look back on the record, assuming in the near future we take some extreme action to deal with global warming and there are historians left to look back on things like presidential records, they won’t believe that the problem started with Obama because he was the first one to act, but will note the current administration’s shameful 8 years of dodging and stalling.
The WaPo says it can’t discern exactly which White House official was responsible for overriding the EPA’s December 5th report, but reports that it was someone “more senior than the head of OMB.” Now, I admit that I haven’t fully memorized the whole executive branch organizational chart, but if it’s someone more senior than someone in a cabinet-level post, well, that would leave either the president or the vice president, wouldn’t it? Hmmmm, I wonder whether it was Dubya or Dick. Tough to figure out that one.
Scrivener July 1st, 2008
1. 6.1: A Van Dyck?, 2. 6.2: I’ve been seeking what I couldn’t find, 3. 6.3: X-wing, 4. 6.4: Press, 5. 6.5: No witty title, 6. 6.7: Just a portrait, 7. 6.6: I just want to have something to do, 8. 6.8: I still had legs and arms, 9. 6.9: I had not become a cephalopod, 10. 6.10: Got a haircut, 11. 6.11: Dali, 12. 6.12: Bonnaroo ticket & media wristband, 13. 6.13: A camera in each hand, 14. 6.14: Sam Beam and me, 15. 6.15: Waiting for Sigur Rós, 16. 6.16: Summertime, 17. 6.17: Summertime, 18. 6.18: You turned it on, you turned it out, it all felt off, that’s how it is, that’s how it was, 19. 6.19: Oh, and just when we thought we were no longer lost, 20. 6.20: rock climbing, 21. 6.21: R.E.M. After-Show, 22. 6.22: I’m the new blue blood, I’m the great white hope, 23. 6.23: Summertime, 24. 6.24: Freckles, 25. 6.25: Summertime, 26. 6.26: Self-portrait as Photoshopper, 27. 6.27: Bear Necessities, 28. 6.28: I’m hoping there’s a point that we’re all missing, 29. 6.29: Sometimes I feel quite CERTAIN, 30. 6.30: Self-portrait in the zoo
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
Once I upload July 1st’s picture, I will be exactly halfway done with my 366 days project. Right at the moment, it’s difficult to see how I’ll make it through another 183 days of this. I’m pretty well sick and tired of taking pictures of myself, to be honest. For most of this month it has been a daily struggle to get myself to take one and I think it shows in the pictures I’m posting. I mean, I have taken lots of photos that I like this month, just almost none of them are of myself.
Scrivener June 26th, 2008
I submitted this shot of Cat Power to JPG magazine, which is currently accepting submissions for issue #18, with the theme “On Stage.” It’s my first submission to JPG and I’m not sure exactly how it works, but if I get enough votes, my photo will appear in print in the magazine. I might submit a couple more from Bonnaroo too.
Scrivener June 25th, 2008
My friend Michael Elliott has a really great op-end in the LA Times today, the anniversary of Custer’s Last Stand, on the displays of patriotism among the American Indians at the reenactments of the battle in Montana:
In this, America’s season of intense patriotic display, those of us who are not Indians may be able to learn a few things about patriotism from the Little Bighorn celebration. The first is that American patriotism is not something that you simply have or do not. What that flag means to you will depend heavily on how you regard the history behind it. [...]
The other insight is that genuine patriotism can still take place amid divided loyalties. Americans are capable of more nuanced thinking about what it means to be an American than we usually give ourselves credit for. Non-Indians who attend celebrations like the Little Bighorn anniversary are often surprised by the exhibitions of U.S. patriotism. But for more than a century, American Indians on the Plains have understood that their love of country can contain both their struggles to achieve tribal autonomy and their deeply felt attachments to the United States.
Scrivener June 25th, 2008
A fantastic article by a couple of cool people about Bonnaroo has been published at Religion Dispatches. I understand that it’s the first of three.
