Mom’s gone home.
Big, boisterous, raucous family of eight now consists of three siblings.
Fourth of six children is now oldest of three remaining family members, by two years.
Not what I expected, growing up.
Quiet.
September 12, 2008
RIP MJT (1924 – 11 Sep 2008)
August 27, 2008
Well done, Hillary.
Amazing speech.
“No way. No how. No McCain.”
“Keep going. …”
Well done, Hillary.
August 26, 2008
Michelle Obama @ DNC
Took me a long time to get the vid for this, so if you’ve been having the same sorts of issues, here you go.
I don’t remember other political spouses doing their thing at conventions.
Michelle’s was … pretty good! I think.
… and I think, after labeling this “politics,” maybe I should have a “2008 elections” label, eh?
Update: I’ve added an election2008 label to the stasho’labels. I’ll fill it in over the next while.
Ted at the DNC
Towse’s True Confessions…
I have never been a Ted Kennedy fan, for various reasons I won’t go into here.
But this made me cry.
(Thought it was interesting that C-SPAN thought they had to identify Caroline Kennedy as “daughter of John F. Kennedy”.)
August 25, 2008
Joe Biden and smart women
Adele Stan @ Huffington Post (Careful, Joe! "Smart Woman" Jokes a Dicey Game) isn’t the only commentator to hear Biden’s crack about his wife Jill’s doctorate degree as a slam against smart women with too much education.
recap:
“Ladies and gentlemen, my wife Jill, who you’ll meet soon, is drop dead gorgeous. My wife Jill, who you’ll meet soon, she also has her doctorate degree, which is a problem.”
Call me naive or slow to take offense when none’s intended, but I interpreted that kidding to be aimed at her doctorate degree not on the fact she’s a woman with a doctorate degree.
Joe Biden has a law degree from Syracuse University. Jill Biden has a PhD in Education from the University of Delaware.
In the words of a famous person, “Lighten up, folks.”
August 20, 2008
"We become what we think about." Earl Nightingale
I grew up listening to short, inspirational spots on KCBS narrated by Earl Nightingale.
What a voice that man had.
Through some weird click to click to link to click, I stumbled across a free audio of Earl Nightingale’s classic The Strangest Secret today over at the Mark Victor Hansen site with added commentary by MVH, but … well, I stopped the audio to write down a thought and backtrack and had to start ALL OVER AGAIN!.
and again…
and again…
Yeeks. Can’t deal with that.
Go over to YouTube and find Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret, unfiltered and uncommented.
“We become what we think about.” — Earl Nightingale
“A man is what he thinks about all day long.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you want Mark Victor Hansen (he of CHICKEN SOUP fame) and his commentary and Earl Nightingale’s classic, here ’tis.
August 19, 2008
John Cleese — available 24/7
… A taste of Cleese. [via laughingsquid]
August 10, 2008
Orwell’s Diaries
The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog. From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.
Orwell’s ‘domestic’ diaries begin on 9th August 1938/2008; his ‘political’ diaries (which are further categorised as ‘Morocco’, ‘Pre-war’ and ‘Wartime’) begin on 7th September 1938/2008.
The diaries are exactly as Orwell wrote them. Where there are original spelling errors, they are indicated by a ° following the offending word.
[via Laughing Squid]
August 8, 2008
LawyerWorldLand: GOV. McGREEVY’S DIVORCE JUDGMENT IS POSTED ONLINE! OBOY!
LawyerWorldLand: GOV. McGREEVY'S DIVORCE JUDGMENT IS POSTED ONLINE! OBOY!
Archer gives a summary of the divorce judgment which is online (lengthy PDF) for all to peruse.
The summary is Classic Archer.
And, yes, I trundled off to read the PDF (well, not thoroughly and not all of it) and Archer did indeed capture the spirit of the Judge’s decision.
Yipes.
(I confess that I’d forgotten who McGreevy was and then it was, oh, yeah. New Jersey. That Governor. The long suffering wife. The confessions of homosexuality. The aide who swore there’d been Friday night threesomes for years. Now I remember. Lovely.)
July 25, 2008
RIP Randy Pausch
U.S. professor of inspirational “last lecture” dies
Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:46pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Randy Pausch, a university professor whose “last lecture” celebrating life in the face of terminal cancer became a book which made him a best-selling sensation, died on Friday at age 47.
Pausch died at home of complications from pancreatic cancer, Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught for 10 years, reported on its Web site.
The computer science professor was best known for his “last lecture,” entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” which he gave in September 2007 just weeks after learning he was suffering from terminal cancer.
Footage of the poignant and inspirational lecture became a hit on the Internet, viewed by millions of people.
A book based on the talk, “The Last Lecture,” was translated into 30 languages and became an international bestseller, Carnegie Mellon, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said on its Web site.
[...]
The server at Carnegie Mellon is swamped and not responding, but when it comes up for air, click here for more Randy Pausch information. (I’d checked in just yesterday to see how he was doing. … and was glad to see he was still with us. And, now, not.)