Towse: views from the hill

September 28, 2010

October 6th! A celebration!

Can you see this?

Can you see what I'm seeing?

Now can you see what I'm seeing?

Found on the Port site — when I was checking to see what line sailed the Zuiderdam, currently docked at P27, down the hill — was this announcement:

San Francisco will celebrate the inaugural connection of a cruise ship to shoreside electrical power on Wednesday, October 6, 2010, at 11:00 AM, at Pier 27.

Please mark your calendars.

… which means that cruise ships docked at P27 will no longer have to keep their engines running, and spewing crap into our air, to have electricity while they’re in port. Hooray!

(The Zuiderdam, for those interested, is a Holland America Line ship.)

September 22, 2010

Why support libraries with taxpayer monies?

Filed under: libraries — Towse @ 6:22 pm

Brilliant response to the question, why support libraries with taxpayer monies?
Kudos to Chicago PL Commissioner Mary A. Dempsey!

(Link lifted fr a comment on my son’s post about Karin Slaughter’s defense of libraries.)

n.b. When I tried to add the webcache.googleusercontent link used above to my existing Facebook comment on this letter (after I discovered that the original link has — since this morning — been redirected to FOX Chicago’s Facebook page), I was told I couldn’t reference that webcache.googleusercontent link because *someone* or *some organization* has reported it as “abusive.” I’ve sent a counter-claim to Facebook.

Dan Savage to gay kids: ‘It gets better’

Filed under: causes,life,video — Towse @ 6:08 pm

A new project on YouTube. Dan Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, post the kickoff video.
Dan Savage to gay kids: ‘It gets better’

Billy Lucas, 15 and different in Greensburg, Indiana, killed himself this month after other kids taunted him for seeming gay.

This is not a new kind of story, but it’s getting a new kind of response. Sex columnist Dan Savage says what everyone who grew up different, in whatever way, knows is true: Life gets better. Savage and his husband tell their story in the video above. They invite other gay couples to record theirs and send them in for the new It Gets Better project.

[via the Rachel Maddow Show]

September 18, 2010

A note on libraries from my pal, Karin Slaughter

Filed under: commentary,libraries — Towse @ 3:47 pm

A note on libraries from my pal, Karin Slaughter.

The commentary ends with,

Kids who read become students who do well in school. Students who do well in school go to college. College students graduate to good jobs and pay higher taxes. Libraries don’t service only Democrats or Republicans. They don’t judge by class, race or religion. They service everyone in their community, no matter their circumstances. Rich or poor; no one is denied. Libraries are not simply part of our guarantee to the pursuit of happiness. They are a civil right, the foundation upon which time and time again the American dream has been built. If we lose our libraries, we risk losing our communities, our families and ourselves.

Karin speaks the truth about libraries. They are =not= a frill, people.

Back from a roadtrip through the cornfields and badlands of mid-America

Filed under: photographs,travel,wordstuff — Tags: — Towse @ 9:00 am

Spotted while waiting for the Anacortes ferry to Sidney (Vancouver Island) to visit old friends.

misplaced apostrophe

“[tap tap] Did you know you have a misplaced apostrophe?”

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