In the old part of the library.
Read on »Archives: August 2010
Bad Romance on the Iowa State Carillon
Awesome. Hat tip to my friend MJ for this one.
Read on »links for 2010-08-31
Obesity: Drink till you drop | The Economist Drinking a pint of water before you eat apparently does help you lose weight. (tags: health diet nutrition fitness) Pictos Hand Crafted, Infinitely Scalable & Royalty-Free Icons for User Interface Designers – this is going to be fantastic to use for CSS3 (tags: illustration iconography webdesign ui
Read on »your stupid poll – I can help you with that.
MSNBC is running a poll asking why people believe President Obama is a Muslim. It has some flaws, so I fixed it for them.
Read on »John Cleese on creativity
John Cleese discussing writing, creativity, and getting in the zone for creative work. One of his main points is the importance of not being interrupted while writing – once you are distracted from your task, it’s very difficult to get back on the moving train of thought. So closing yourself off to disruptions is a
Read on »links for 2010-08-30
What Is It About 20-Somethings? – NYTimes.com Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up? This question pops up everywhere, underlying concerns about “failure to launch” and “boomerang kids.” Two new sitcoms feature grown children moving back in with their parents — “$#*! My Dad Says,” starring William Shatner
Read on »Indianapolis’ Unigov Disaster
The Evansville Courier and Press has an interesting article investigating the Republican political power grab that was Indianapolis’ “Unigov” consolidation of Indianapolis with Marion County in the 1970s. INDIANAPOLIS — Merging the city and county governments here helped improve what amounted to a scattershot set of public services, but it also diminished the political power
Read on »Party in the pope room
Dan’s birthday celebration
Read on »Women flipping omelets in the street
I so want to organize an event like this.
Read on »Disgrace – Obama’s position on marriage equality
Richard Just (Nation – “Disgrace: Obama’s increasingly absurd gay marriage position“) draws some interesting parallels between Woodrow Wilson’s weak stand on women’s suffrage and Obama’s weak position on same-sex marriage equality: In the fall of 1912, as his campaign for president entered its final stage, Woodrow Wilson was speaking in Brooklyn when he was asked
Read on »links for 2010-08-27
Mehlman ‘wasn’t ready to admit to anyone that he was a supporter of gay rights.’ | The New Civil Rights Movement Former Bush/Cheney campaign manager and RNC chair Ken Mehlman comes out as gay – something everyone knew but he didn't admit until now. The fucking asshole. (tags: homophobia lgbt republicans) The Online Photographer: Planned
Read on »Sapphic matchmaking
Apropo of nothing, on the way to the restroom at work, this notion popped into my head: “Hey, wasn’t Joan’s roommate Carol (played by Kate Norby in season 1 of Mad Men) a lesbian? They should write a scene where she meets Peggy’s new friend Joyce (played by Zosia Mamet, appearing in season 4) so
Read on »links for 2010-08-26
Step Up and Step Back: more on the role of men in feminist spaces at Hugo Schwyzer Hugo Schwyzer: "As I commented at Feministe, I have a simple formula I’ve developed over the years to describe my thinking about men in feminist spaces. (I am perplexed as to why I’ve never blogged about it before.)
Read on »links for 2010-08-25
Carlos A. Ball: Is It Possible to Be Against Same-Sex Marriage Without Being Homophobic? No, it isn't. If you're against me being married, you're homophobic. And you're an asshole. (tags: homophobia marriage equality) What will be your legacy? | Unclutterer "Everyone gets organized at some point, they just might not be around for it." –
Read on »links for 2010-08-24
Final Letter in Katakana Among those who sortied from Chiran, there were few fathers who volunteered to be kamikaze pilots. Captain Kuno was one of these men. On May 23, 1945, the eve of his sortie, he wrote his final letter all in katakana [1] to his 5-year-old son Masanori and his 2-year-old daughter Kiyoko
Read on »Weekend Update 2010-08-23
We spent a good chunk of Saturday at my mom’s helping her clean out her garage and get rid of stuff that needed to go to heavy trash. I’m pretty happy at what we were able to accomplish there. It seems much easier to help other people organize their stuff for some reason than it
Read on »Demolition Derby at the State Fair
Demolition Derby at the Indiana State Fair
Read on »links for 2010-08-22
t r u t h o u t | Troops Punished After Refusing to Attend Evangelical Concert Once outside the concert, Smith and the other trainees were finally given an option and told to split into two groups: those who wanted to attend, and those who did not. Smith and about 80 others decided not
Read on »Repaired Stair
The finished stair. Nice and sturdy. Eventually, we’ll have Carl come back and repaint all the stairs in a color more suited to our walls.
Read on »What’s under the stairs
Once Carl had opened up the stairs, I realized there was a hidden space under them that wasn’t really accessible from anywhere else. Cool! Sadly, there was no secret treasure there.
Read on »More stairs repair
This time we’re having a stair in the main staircase repaired; it tilted forward and caused guest to slip and fall on the stairs. We were used to it, but it was a problem when we had people over. To fix the stair, Carl had to pull out out pull it out and build up
Read on »links for 2010-08-19
On Distraction | Alain de Botton Allowing our brain to go on a diet – to step back from the endless swell of information – is critical to us being able to engage with people and ideas that are important. (tags: ideas concentration focus) The New Right-Wing Smear Machine | The Nation How bullshit travels
Read on »Broken basement stairs fixed – Carl Lenk
We had air conditioner repairman in today to work on our condenser unit – he replaced the fan motor and did some cleaning so the central air runs better. Since I was going to be home anyway for that, I scheduled a carpenter named Carl Lenk to come and rebuild the top two basement stairs
Read on »90 years of women’s suffrage
90 years ago today, The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women’s suffrage in the United States of America. Well done, Sister Suffragettes. Women have been able to vote throughout the US for less than 100 years. We still have a long way to go before women enjoy true equality. Some
Read on »Tails and Tales
Tim O’Brian In The Atlantic – discussing the sources of creativity and how to tell a well-imagined story: My sons, Timmy and Tad–both fans of Winnie the Pooh–have taken lately to wearing tails. At our local Wal-Mart, and occasionally at church, the boys sport lengths of clothesline dangling from their trousers. They prowl the neighborhood
Read on »links for 2010-08-18
The nitty-gritty of whittling down your possessions – Boing Boing Now every purchase I make comes with a second-guess: Do I really need this? Like really, really need this? In the past year, "impulse buy" has left my vocabulary. I found myself buying fewer things, but also nicer things. On the whole, it's led me
Read on »Organizing, etc.
I know – still no photos from the great organizing adventure – but it’s continuing. We now have our new china cabinet, and the boxes of china and various other breakable items made their way into it. All of the packing materials for those went into the recycling bin. I also cleaned out the pantry
Read on »Fashion timeline
Courtesy of Wikipedia: Laver’s Law was an attempt to compress the complex cycle of fashion change and the general attitude towards any certain style or period into a simple timeline. It first appeared in Taste and Fashion (1937) Indecent 10 years before its time Shameless 5 years before its time Outré (Daring) 1 year before
Read on »Some Thoughts on “Gang Leader for a Day”
Again cleaning out some old notes and writing, I came across some thoughts I had about the book “Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets” and the subsequent discussion we had about it in book club. I started to write this, but felt I needed to do some additional research
Read on »Stuff I’ve added to my “to read” list
Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang Wittgenstein’s Mistress by David Markson You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott UPDATE: I never acquired the first and second. I read the third book,
Read on »26 Things
Back in 1999, people on the internet were trading the meme called “100 Things” where you wrote 100 things that people might not know about you, and you posted them on your site. I started my list but never got beyond 26 items, so I never put it on my site. In cleaning out some
Read on »Friday the 13th
Queen Latifah, PDAs and Outing
I would never have noticed this story on Queen Latifah’s PDAs with her longtime “friend” except that I saw “Leave Queen Latifah Alone” stories on six different progressive/gay/feminist sites. If they’re trying not to out her, they’re doing a poor job of it. I’ve commented on the subject of outing several different times here on
Read on »links for 2010-08-13
Everything You Think You Know About Mike Tyson Is Wrong: News + Politics: Details After reading through this article – nope. Everything I know about him is right. Rapist and Criminal. This is telling: "I went back to Brownsville with my reality-TV-show crew, they're doing a segment about my childhood racing pigeons, and Brownsville's all
Read on »links for 2010-08-12
Catharsis « You Are Not So Smart The Misconception: Venting your anger is an effective way to reduce stress and prevent lashing out at friends and family. The Truth: Venting increases aggressive behavior over time. (tags: psychology anger) Sady Doyle – Authors – The Atlantic Feminist writer Sady Doyle (of Tiger Beatdown fame) has been
Read on »links for 2010-08-11
Austenized! Redrum Park and other horror classics improved – Juliet Waters – Open Salon Austen hated gothic/horror novels, and would have been offended at being Zombiefied. Juliet Waters suggest turning the tables on the recent trend and remaking horror stories into literary classics. (tags: literature Austen books) Cool Tools: The Best Magazine Articles Ever Lots
Read on »Question Gender Essentialism
17-month-old Roy Jones brutally murdered for acting like a girl Strong trigger warning for graphic description of abuse and murder. 17-month-old infant assigned male at birth, Roy Antonio Jones III, was killed by his mother’s boyfriend for acting too much like a girl. Pedro Jones was babysitting Roy Jones (no biological relation) at the Shinecock
Read on »links for 2010-08-10
Frenzy Universe – A retro-futuristic Steampunk world! (tags: steampunk clothes retro)
Read on »Monkey Sweater
One of my knitting projects.
Read on »Cake!
Cake!
Read on »Monster movies.
Destroy All Monsters
Gill boogies down to his new favorite music.
Read on »Old Northside, Caravelle Commons and political issues
I’m irritated right now at one of my neighbors. We live in Old Northside in Indianapolis, which is an historic neighborhood, but one with really large houses, and one that has been almost completely renovated in the 1970s and 1980s. So the first wave of renovators – the hippies and liberals and gays – has
Read on »China in the new cabinet
New china cabinet
links for 2010-08-07
Kurt Vonnegut's advice to young writers (tags: Vonnegut writing storytelling creativity) Tufts Journal: Corner: Simply Vonnegut (tags: literature Vonnegut writing) How to Use Twitter for Marketing and PR Awesome. (tags: awesome socialnetworking singleservingsite)
Read on »A Kite That Couldn’t Be Tied Down
This is beautiful: I swooned at the thought of her reading something undoubtedly wonderful in the adjoining compartment but forced myself to nod. We looked out the window: a herd of camels, for a flash of a second. We were in the Gobi Desert. Nights were hard. She was inevitably inches away, sleeping peacefully as
Read on »U.S. District Court Decision: Perry v. Schwarzenegger
The whole document it’s entirety, courtesy of the New York Times. There is some scrumptious reading here; things that just make me giddy with glee. “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more
Read on »Elena Kagan Confirmed as a Supreme
Sweet. The girls are thrilled; she’ll be joining them shortly.
Read on »Dragon Dictation for the iPhone
I’ve been playing with the Dragon Dictation for the iPhone to transcribe some blog ideas that occur to me when I drive to work in the morning. I have about a 20 minute drive and I usually have several ideas that I’d like to write about in that time, but in the hectic moments after
Read on »links for 2010-08-05
The Dangerous Art of the Right Question Insight questions can only be asked after you develop situation awareness. They are necessarily local and unique to the situation. When you are faced with a difficult situation, you will start as a prisoner of the unanswerable/too expensive formulaic questions, and your first job is to break out.
Read on »Prop 8 Overturned by Federal Court
According to MSNBC news services: SAN FRANCISCO — In a major victory for gay rights advocates, a federal judge on Wednesday struck down a California ban on same-sex marriage. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8, violates due process and equal-protection rights under the U.S. Constitution. …
Read on »links for 2010-08-04
Why Morning People Rule the World "Morning people are more proactive – and therefore more successful in their professional lives — according to new research." Thank you very much. (tags: habits productivity lifehacks sleep)
Read on »Barkley McBarkerson
Spike has turned up the volume on telling the neighbors to stay away from his yard lately. He’s making my “he’s so low maintenance” claims out to be false, the little goofball. I know he’s going to turn eight this month, but he’s too young to turn into a grouchy old man yelling at the
Read on »Big City Farms
Our very yummy half share of produce from Big City Farms Big City Farms is a Community Supported Agriculture farm on 8 city lots in downtown Indianapolis. We bought into a half-share this year, and get to swing by and pick up a box of veggies every week. Organic, local food with less that 1
Read on »Uncluttering projects
I haven’t stalled out on the de-cluttering and organizing projects, I just don’t have photos to put up quite yet – I’m still working on the great furniture shuffle. I purchased a new desk and new china cabinet at Ikea last week, and have put them both together. I unloaded and removed the old shelving
Read on »links for 2010-08-03
Disputed chemical bisphenol-A found in paper receipts The headline is misleading – there's nothing in dispute about BPA. It's toxic and unsafe. Since I first read about this, I started paying attention to where my receipts go. The ones that get dumped in my food bag at a fast food place are the most alarming,
Read on »