So many frivolities, so little time

This is 'fun'. Before and after, without the in-between. I believe you say Fresh!

And just to counter the rabid intellectual freedom lovin, library geeks in the house:

OPEN ACCESS

Get it while it is!

The internet's quite a thing! And while we're looking at pictures, here are some good ones I've enjoyed of late......

Landscapes

Nature's Creep

What you don't know can't hurt ya

Unless it clubs you over the head, and takes your mocha latte.

NYT: "In Haiti, where three-quarters of the population earns less than $2 a day and one in five children is chronically malnourished, the one business booming amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil and sugar, typically consumed only by the most destitute.

“It’s salty and it has butter and you don’t know you’re eating dirt,” said Olwich Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating them more often in recent months. “It makes your stomach quiet down.” "

And in the most densely populated areas of the world (China, Indonesia, India), New Zealand is brokering unprecedented trade agreements.

And also from the NYT:
“It is unprecedented,” Mr. Holle said. “Nobody saw these kind of market prices coming.”

No one my arse. The bulk of the United States, maybe. Where (for instance) despite journalism for once covering the effects of the corn boom and biofuels, people still are warming to ethanol as fuel! This in a nation where it is not daily survival, but health insurance and retirement that is worth our attention. {"Sicko, this is Whatever Happened to the Electric Car?; I believe you two have some things in common"} By the time Americans get used to (the outrage!) $4 gas, people in nations where it's seven dollars have already moved on with their blessed lives.

The "bitter" thing. Sidestepping the grandstanding press...So there's some good dialogue going now surrounding the 'bitter comments'--and none of it positively inspired by ABC and their debacle--I mean debate. Let's face it--there are a number of words that are off limits in certain political frames. This is one of them (denial, extinction, paradigm, evolve also come to mind--the use of them more strictly governed than we'd like to admit). Our collective lexicon is a more 'vaccum sealed' environment than it seems. O for shame a black man speak of a nation's prevailing reality--which the media have refused to acknowledge since they traded their best intentions for political favors and advertising dollars. Bitter? Well I miss decent television, good journalism and many of the values found outside DC, Vegas and Walt Disneyville. Is that so wrong?

What do Fido and Charlie the Tuna have in common?

And from the Wild North country, where freedom's still free and (Police)"do what police do"...(clues: transit fare + taser)

At least they're talking about the difference between BE-ING citizens, and consumers.

If you're feeling really brave.....ArtVoice. It ain't all cubists and nudes....

Many years ago Winston Churchill said: "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities."

Convergence

If you've got a half an hour, Al's at it again. Laying it out there for anyone not yet 'embedded' with official truththink. I highly recommend it.

O, if instead I was paid to blog I'd spend hours fruitlessly casting stones at the zeppelin of fantasy that's replaced living. Beam us some sunshine, Today!

Upon the adding of another cell phone to the household:
Toys that make adults act like children and children feel like adults: Cellphones! Not just convenient! Cancerous! WooHoo--I'm modern!

Scrawled on the Wall

Now math was never my strong suit, but the language in this seems pretty clear.
"98.2 percent assessed the presidency of Mr. Bush to be a failure while 1.8 percent classified it as a success."
Bushwhacked

Mike Wallace

So sure, Mike lobbed softballs (whiffle balls actually) at Roger Clemmens this year in an interview. But at least history has all of this

Not sure what Americans are concerned with

Anymore, but I know John McCain hasn't any clue

The Big Dipper

takes a nap

Time, time, time.