Getting some traction on taking the church blog and turning it into the main website for St Nick’s. It’s quite difficult to migrate a domain from Yahoo.com to GoDaddy.com as it is, but the former web admin (who’s moving on to be ordained as a deacon soon) struggled with the Yahoo side. Finally, finally he was able to call us so David could try to walk him through it. Whew. Found a great theme, though: Shadowbox.
While my husband David was out of town, I had a chance to get caught up on a few shows that were spooled up in TiVo, ready to watch. One of these was HBO’s Treme, and I had the chance to watch the first three episodes all at once.
When I came up for air, I felt like I’d been dunked in the floodwaters and come up a new person. Treme is densely layered, and cultural associations are thrown out offhandedly in practially every line, every scene. What did the comments about the different kinds of music mean? What was the deep significance of a grown man dressing up in a wildly colored feathered suit? What’s the big deal about clapping on 2 and 4? And hadn’t I vaguely heard something before about a rant with “Fuck you, you fucking fucks?” at about the time that it became clear in 2005 that the US government wasn’t doing a very good job in rescuing the people of one of its great cities? Wasn’t it something to do with white Republicans not being terribly interested in helping a historically black and Democratic Party-dominated city?
Yeah, all of that and more. I’ve had to bone up on the ‘bone, I’ve had to jazz up my knowledge of jazz, I’ve had to spice up my view of Creole cuisine, I’ve had to learn to parse the nuances of the “YAT dialect” all over again (it helps to have read “A Confederacy of Dunces, but that book is pretty outdated).
I’ve had to discover a wonderful blogger, only to find that he died a few years ago and had to miss the adulation that he deserves; fortunately the series literally calls him out and puts him on display (although if you blinked, you missed it).
I had the day off yesterday and re-watched last Sunday’s episode after reading some of the excellent backgrounders that NPR and the New Orleans Times-Picayune have been running, along with some of the liveliest and most personal comments sections I’ve encountered in a while.
If you’ve been watching and not really getting Treme, other than enjoying the music and the ensemble cast, here are a few places that you really need to spend some time reading.
Some of the most helpful posts, from a musical standpoint, are at the NPR “A Blog Supreme” site. Not only is every cameo appearance by a musician (whether playing a musical part or a theatrical part) explained, but every song playing on the radio in the background is named, its musicians noted, and sometimes they’re on the show. There are plenty of other great cameos, too, like Tim Reid as the judge, and Elizabeth Ashley as the inestimable Aunt Mimi.
Lotsa good stuff to watch, lotsa good stuff to hear, lotsa good stuff to eat.
All my adult life I’ve heard about New Orleans and what a party town it is – one of my college acquaintances was from there, and she used to give THE most epic parties I’d ever seen. Most college parties in the Northwest tended to be of the “hey, those guys have a keg, let’s follow ’em and see where the party is” variety. This woman (sadly, I’ve forgotten her name) used to have actual themes, epic amounts of food in that theme, and of course epic amounts of drink in that theme. She used to tell a story about how they celebrated Christmas where she was from: decorate a tree beautifully, or better yet pay someone else to decorate it beautifully, set it up in the living room, then attatch a rope to the bottom and haul it upside-down up to a hook in the ceiling, where it should be nailed in place.
She said the best part was when all the garlands (which she pronounced GAW-linds) and glass balls and tinsel “and shit” fell in a glorious, glittering heap to the floor, with strands of Christmas lights hanging off and the whole thing swaying and tinkling merrily. That was the moment to break out the cocktails in her household.
I’d love to know if she’s still in New Orleans, or whatever happened to her. She struck me then (in the 70’s) as a young Aunt Mimi-to-be: awesome, a little devastating, a little wrecked but still proudly flying the freak flag.
Check out the many videos at YouTube tagged Mardi Gras Indians…. these are some serious damn Indians, and they’re very very VERY fiercely pretty. New Orleans is the kind of town that threw a funeral dirge march for a favorite local music joint that closed down recently… sadly, it’s one that was mentioned in the series, and the real Treme brass band plays this sad, yet heartening lament.
There’s an awful lot to this series – much of it culled from real people’s lives and experiences. Even the title, an offhand comment about a trombone teacher that I saw in a comment from years ago, became a line in the show and a title of the latest episode.
If you just read pretty much all of Ashley Morris’ site, starting from the very beginning until, well, the end really, after he died and his wife Hana carried on with updates, you’ll start to “get it” about New Orleans, and what “Treme” is trying to depict.
Go on, now. Read. Watch. Inhale. Imbibe. I’m going to figure out when we might be able to get down to New Orleans f’sho.
Just bought these at Lowe’s, after trying them on with socks. Without
socks, every step makes a fart sound.
Time to go fart around in the garden!
Fartfartfartfartfartfartfartfartfartfartfart
UPDATE: And so, I have finally committed shoe crime, not with ugly, yet trendy Crocs, but with ugly, unfashionable flatulent Sloggers ™.
The really irritating thing is that there are actually some cute gardening clogs and rain boots at that site, but the cheapo “Nautica Blue” ones Lowe’s sells are the farty ones. I’ll have to drill or melt some decorative little ventilation holes to try to cut down on the flatulence, which I admit is pretty damn entertaining but also kind of distracting.
I should have gotten an earlier start on the garden stuff today, when it was foggy and cool, but I was too busy drinking coffee and listening to NPR on WBEZ. And then I spent some time watching the family of polyandrous ducks that seem to have decided our backyard pond is a nice place to hang out (Riley was very intrigued). Too bad the pond will go away as soon as the draintile project is done, sorry Mr and Mrs and Mr Duck.
I spent some time hoeing out weeds in the front beds and spreading a little mulch, but it soon got hot enough that I decided I’d gotten enough vitamin D for the day (no sunscreen) and went inside. That’s when I realized that there were omens telling me it was really a good time to stop:
Quitting time, or “Time to quit slogging and start blogging.”
Via: Flickr
Title: Behold, The Incredible Farting Clogs!
By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 22 May ’10, 1.09pm CDT PST
The disgusting “anchor baby” argument raises its ugly, badly supported head in the Utah runoff campaign between the two Republicans. Constitution be damned! That pesky 14th amendment was really about establishing the citizenship of former slaves, after all.
Apparently the Constitution was framed by our Founders for whites only, according to these yobbos.
I can only hope that the Utah electorate is smart enough to figure this out but… What am I thinking? With a dominant culture that discourages critical thinking, and an educational system that is very much a product of the culture, it’s likely that the next senator from Utah will be a complete Neanderthal.
SLTrib.com : Senate candidates urge end to automatic citizenship.
Stemming the tide of illegal immigration — and plugging the so-called “anchor-baby loophole” — came up as top priorities during a radio debate Friday between Republican Senate candidates Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee.
The on-air Q&A was the first head-to-head event since the two men emerged from the May 8 GOP convention, having defeated three-term Sen. Bob Bennett. The two now face off in a June 22 primary.
Both Bridgewater and Lee agree that children born to parents who are in the country illegally should not get instant citizenship, even though the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — ratified in 1868 as part of post-Civil War reconstruction — says as much.
“Just because you were born here, you are not automatically a citizen,” said Lee, an attorney who campaigns on the theme of returning the country to its constitutional roots.
“For someone to be entitled to that citizenship they need to be born to citizens or lawful residents or aliens involved in active U.S. military service,” Lee said.
He voiced support for HR 1868, proposed federal legislation that seeks to alter the present interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
Sponsored by former Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., HR 1868 was first introduced in April 2009 and has not been acted upon.Stemming the tide of illegal immigration — and plugging the so-called “anchor-baby loophole” — came up as top priorities during a radio debate Friday between Republican Senate candidates Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee.
The on-air Q&A was the first head-to-head event since the two men emerged from the May 8 GOP convention, having defeated three-term Sen. Bob Bennett. The two now face off in a June 22 primary.
Both Bridgewater and Lee agree that children born to parents who are in the country illegally should not get instant citizenship, even though the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — ratified in 1868 as part of post-Civil War reconstruction — says as much.
“Just because you were born here, you are not automatically a citizen,” said Lee, an attorney who campaigns on the theme of returning the country to its constitutional roots.
“For someone to be entitled to that citizenship they need to be born to citizens or lawful residents or aliens involved in active U.S. military service,” Lee said.
He voiced support for HR 1868, proposed federal legislation that seeks to alter the present interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
Sponsored by former Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., HR 1868 was first introduced in April 2009 and has not been acted upon.
@SarahPalinUSA needs to read this letter to the editor of the White River Junction (VT) Valley Times to see how a REAL mama grizzly defended her young in 2000. So good, I quoted the whole thing. h/t MadPriest Of Course, I Could Be Wrong…: ANSWER THAT!.
Sent in to MadPriest Towers by THEMETHATISME:
A letter from SHARON UNDERWOOD
published by The Valley News
(White River Junction, VT)
Sunday, April 30, 2000Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.
I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.
My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.
He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.
In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life without dignity.
You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.
At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.
If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?
A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.
He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.
You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.
How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.
You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.
The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?”
Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?
Somebody rides this beast to work at my building; the seat is well
worn latigo leather with an intruging motto.
It says "Death or Glory."
Via: Flickr
Title: Death or Glory
By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 14 May ’10, 6.49pm CDT PST
President Obama rips BP, Transocean, Halliburton execs a new one.
‘Ridiculous spectacle’: Obama slams BP, Transocean over Gulf oil spill | McClatchy
As for Tuesday’s testimony in which companies involved passed the blame for the spill, the president said, “I did not appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearings into this matter. You had executives of B.P. and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else. The
American people could not have been impressed with that display, and I certainly wasn’t.â€
Clarkson is an ass and on a future trip I'd like to walk on on of these footpaths.