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Still… 12 February 2012

Posted by marisacat in Greece, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Viva La Revolucion!.
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Petrol bombs explode in front of police. | Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

It’s been clear for years: the Greeks are not leaving the streets any time soon. NOT a stupid people.

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1. Madman in the Marketplace - 12 February 2012
marisacat - 12 February 2012

I just looked at those… Loved the one at the top of the fire in the distance and an entire street on fire as well…

I found the one I used earlier, at the Guardian…

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2. Madman in the Marketplace - 12 February 2012

This Is Why The Austerity Votes Always End Up Passing…

The Greek parliament just passed its latest austerity vote, but not without significant internal disagreement.

As such, the main parties have just culled several MPs from their ranks.

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marisacat - 12 February 2012

yes apparenlty if you voted your conscience (cough choke strangle but of course it means something different there).. you get pushed out.

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3. marisacat - 13 February 2012

I think the entertainment for the day is to watch how fast – in motion already – the Israeli generated headlines of

THREE EMBASSIES ATTACKED!!!!!!!!!! WE BLAME IRAN!!!!!!!!

(Tblisi, New Delhi and supposedly Amsterdam) all falls apart and crumble in front of our eyes.

Pare it away and it amounts to a single burning car in Delhi… supposedly belonging ot the wife of an Israeli diplo and her driver. Tblisi is a single Georgian worker at the Isr Embassy who was alerted by an odd sound in his car and FER SURE a bomb was found!!

Wash Po won’t even credit the claims for Amsterdam in their headlines.

Falling apart.

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4. marisacat - 13 February 2012

Endlessly endless war…

The Pentagon’s Afghan Basing Plans for Prisons, Drones, and Black Ops

405 Bases and It’s Not Over Yet

by NICK TURSE

In late December, the lot was just a big blank: a few burgundy metal shipping containers sitting in an expanse of crushed eggshell-colored gravel inside a razor-wire-topped fence. The American military in Afghanistan doesn’t want to talk about it, but one day soon, it will be a new hub for the American drone war in the Greater Middle East.

Next year, that empty lot will be a two-story concrete intelligence facility for America’s drone war, brightly lit and filled with powerful computers kept in climate-controlled comfort in a country where most of the population has no access to electricity. It will boast almost 7,000 square feet of offices, briefing and conference rooms, and a large “processing, exploitation, and dissemination” operations center — and, of course, it will be built with American tax dollars.

Nor is it an anomaly. Despite all the talk of drawdowns and withdrawals, there has been a years-long building boom in Afghanistan that shows little sign of abating. In early 2010, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had nearly 400 bases in Afghanistan. Today, Lieutenant Lauren Rago of ISAF public affairs tells TomDispatch, the number tops 450.

The hush-hush, high-tech, super-secure facility at the massive air base in Kandahar is just one of many building projects the U.S. military currently has planned or underway in Afghanistan. While some U.S. bases are indeed closing up shop or being transferred to the Afghan government, and there’s talk of combat operations slowing or ending next year, as well as a withdrawal of American combat forces from Afghanistan by 2014, the U.S. military is still preparing for a much longer haul at mega-bases like Kandahar and Bagram airfields. The same is true even of some smaller camps, forward operating bases (FOBs), and combat outposts (COPs) scattered through the country’s backlands.

“Bagram is going through a significant transition during the next year to two years,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Gerdes of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Bagram Office recently told Freedom Builder, a Corps of Engineers publication. “We’re transitioning… into a long-term, five-year, 10-year vision for the base.” . . . . .

We’re building a brand new prison there too.

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diane - 13 February 2012

I guess the ultimate plan is do away with the military grunts altogether, replacing them with droids, drones, other high tech Death Toys, and CorpGov mercenaries ….

Sometimes I hope for a massive Solar Storm that would destroy all of their communications and Death Machines.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 13 February 2012

garrisons everywhere

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

No federal oversight either…. I mean, its not much bt it is a little.

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5. diane - 13 February 2012
diane - 13 February 2012

(jeesh, Moritz Kraemer, not “Michael” .(well at least I got the link right) ..sighhhhhhh … )

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6. marisacat - 13 February 2012

I dropped out most of today, but I see Justice Breyer – and wife and guests – was robbed in his vaca home in Nevis… by an intruder armed with a machete…

Security? Maybe just one or two at the exterior of the house? A car outside of the house?

No? Nothing?

Sounds like there was no security detail.

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BooHooHooMan - 13 February 2012

Well that’s an upgrade from the basic tax shelter.

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

I noticed some commentary around that he’ll be involved in the Nevis thing for a while. I find that hard to believe. I bet he knows as well as anyone these things are hard to solve… Even the high profile cases down in the Carib…

What it does raise is assassnation issues.

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BooHooHooMan - 13 February 2012

Such as it is, out of our awful SCOTUS, I have to say the only two I do *like* ( you know, 🙄 ) are Breyer and RBG. I understood they had 24/7 SS. Which raises all sorts of questions in my mind, the least being the Justice mixed up in something. To me, for a lawyer, LOL, he seems pretty straight, the other thing, not following the court closely and with so much stuff crammed into the judicial footsie locker over the years, it’s the kind of thing out here in Littlepictureville that so much seems to whiz on by…

It’d be very interesting tho to find out who owns the property as Nevis and St Kitts, among the various island tax havens, is said to be really packing it away enjoying a lower profile than than Caymans to the west, and, among it’s neaighbors, the BVI…

Hell maybe the security detail was out on-or-off-loading money of their own. Pretty sure they have 24/7 where and whenever…

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

it sounded like he owns it, or media is assuming initially that he owns it.

One report I heard said Souter had been robbed, which I vaguely remember but not the details… and that Ruth Bader had been purse snatched at WTC.

This seems highly invasive… I’ve not poked around to see if there is anything to read between the lines…

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BooHooHooMan - 13 February 2012

Hey – Don’t laugh too hard – you know,
me being a goddam fool.

So get this on Breyer and Ginsburg…

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/09/ruth-bader-ginsburg-steven-breyer.html

It is CRP but still..I must have filed them away in the under $100 million. folder or whatever.. LOL

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

wow she is the richest by far….

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

All of the reports indicate he owns it…

Oddly the first of the AP reports is no longer accessible.

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BooHooHooMan - 13 February 2012

What an asshole. Here, he could get a nice flop-house condo conversion at the Jersey Shore with new countertops, trak lighting and everything all classy and all.
Besides, there’s people busting in with machetes all the time! LOL.

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7. BooHooHooMan - 13 February 2012

😉
And to add to Marisacat’s now famous
Groomed Pooches Resembling Democrats Collection,
(of course the Poodles are always formidable contenders)
(the dog: not the Dems LOL) ,
it’s that time again folks,
for the Westminster Dog Show.
(the show – really! – not the election year!) Enjoy!

Fucking amazing what they did with Waxman this year.

😆

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BooHooHooMan - 13 February 2012

Frankly, they should just merge this event with the
Democratic National Convention. LOL

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

oh thank you! I will enjoy that…

I admit that one day in the last couple fo weeks I stayed rather a long time at a series of photos of well dressed dogs on the streets of Manhattan… they’re a lot prettier than pols are…

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BooHooHooMan - 13 February 2012

😆

Chicago voter registration lowest since 1942

The number of registered voters in Chicago, about 1.28 million, is at its lowest level since at least 1942, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners said today.

Well ya know, Good Luck!
How’s that Kleptocracy goin?
How’s them incarceration rates werkin’ out fer ya?
Has “Strategic” closing of schools to benefit ponsi schemed real estate crooks, banksters, and pols with plans to super-warehouse kids year round got ya down??? (Same with Bloomberg in NY, the shit).
ANYWAYS – Don’t worry Dems!
Rahm’s Front Organization for the Uncle Tom Ministry has yer back!

Pro-Emanuel education groups organized by mayoral ally
Resolute Consulting CEO Greg Goldner 😆 says mayor, CPS have not asked for his involvement to organize community groups, faith leaders in support of longer school day, charter schools.

By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah and Kristen Mack, Chicago Tribune reporters

February 13, 2012
A political consulting firm with close ties to Mayor Rahm Emanuel has funded and helped organize community groups and faith leaders on behalf of the mayor’s contentious education agenda as a counterweight to fierce opposition from the Chicago Teachers Union.

Greg Goldner, who ran Emanuel’s successful 2002 bid for Congress, dedicated the skills of Resolute Consulting to write press releases for pastors, produce a video presentation and help plan events. The effort supports Emanuel’s attempts to lengthen the school day, bolster charter schools and close underperforming schools.

The issue of who is generating grass-roots support and whether it’s real or the faux kind political types call AstroTurf took a turn recently when the Chicago Public Schools inspector general started looking at the Rev. Roosevelt Watkins, who is under scrutiny for paying people to attend hearings and speak on behalf of school closings.

Watkins said he has received money from Resolute. His organization also holds city school contracts. But Watkins said he didn’t use public funds or the firm’s money to pay the protesters.

😆

Goldner acknowledged giving money to Watkins and other groups, but declined to say to whom or how much.

😆

“No one at the mayor’s office, no one at CPS has asked us to do this,” Goldner said. “We were doing this before this administration was in City Hall, and before the leadership at CPS now was in CPS. So our involvement predates this administration.”

😆

Goldner said he started dedicating the resources of his consulting firm to education issues in December 2010. Emanuel’s mayoral campaign already was in full force, and he was advocating for a longer school day and school year.

The mayor’s office declined to weigh in on Goldner’s involvement organizing ministers, instead restating its previous defense of support from faith groups.

“The ministers have a voice that carries beyond their congregation — to the children of their congregation,” Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said. “They have historically played a role in education and school reform, and they will and should continue to play a role to fight for a better education system for our children.”

🙄

It’s not the first time Goldner’s and Emanuel’s interests have aligned. During last year’s city elections, Goldner created a secretly funded campaign committee that supported Emanuel-backed politicians in aldermanic runoffs. He refused to disclose donors, even when called on to do so by the mayor.

Last week, Goldner declined to say how much money his firm has handed out to community groups. His work on education, which he called his public policy passion, 🙄 is not on behalf of any clients, 😆 Goldner said.

“I can’t write big checks. But what we do and have are good folks who know community organizing,” Goldner said. “So if we can offer advice … if we can meet with a group and talk about what community organizing is, and how to get engaged and what the different bureaucracies mean, and where there are opportunities to participate, that’s stuff that we can afford to do.”

At the same time, Goldner said he has directed money from wealthy donors to community groups supporting an education reform agenda. The admission comes at a time when the teachers union and community groups opposed to neighborhood school closings have noted that deep-pocketed Chicago civic and business leaders are bankrolling reform efforts such as promoting more charter schools, shuttering failing schools, extending the school day and making it harder for Chicago teachers to strike.

Goldner again declined to identify the donors and organizations he has connected.

“What (community groups) use the money for and how they do it is their business, not ours,” Goldner said.

More and Better Dems!
Someday Your Prince Will Come! 😆

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BooHooHooMan - 13 February 2012

Oops wrong place.

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

Astro turf fakery and religion fakery. Two of our biggest problmes…

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diane - 15 February 2012

Poor WaxMan, a sinister looking bad hair issue, and even looks like Henry A. may have some toenail fungus goin’ on. ….. As he’s an Elder States Man™, I think it advisable he have a stay at one of Cali’s Own ™ Country Villas, he so lauds, … for Skilled Rehab ™.

I mean, after all 50 [plus one or two decades in his case] is the new 30!!!!!!!! Why should he have to be embarrassed by his hair and fungi? (Just be careful about checking off that box about feeding tubes Henry, ….jus sayin ……).

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diane - 15 February 2012

(Oh and look, there she is! Our Girl ™, … showing off again! ….You go Janet! )

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8. Madman in the Marketplace - 13 February 2012

A Celebrity’s Death Really Brings Out the Jerks

Why are people sad when a famous imperfect person dies? You can ask the people who are posting the RIPs, and they each may have their own unique response as to why they are sad; perhaps they have a great memory associated with one of the creations of that imperfect person. Maybe they really are that person’s Number One Fan. Or maybe, they’re like me. Every time I’ve felt sadness over a famous imperfect person’s passing, it’s because I feel they’ve been robbed of the life arc I wish everyone could have but few are lucky enough to receive. On the final curve of this life arc, we overcome our demons, find peace and joy, create more beautiful things with our inner strength and wisdom guiding us, and we die peacefully in our sleep when we are old and grey.

I think of how talented and lovely Whitney Houston was in the “How Will I Know” video. When I watched that video today, I thought about how the young, vibrant person in that video had no idea what was coming in her life –- I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have predicted her future would bring years of substance abuse and a publicly tumultuous marriage. I’m sure she didn’t predict her final moments would involve drowning in a hotel bathtub, leaving behind a slew of rumors about her addiction and a beautiful young daughter who she didn’t say goodbye to. I’ll admit, while I have always felt her vocals were about as close to perfection as you can see in pop music, I was never really a fan of her music. Yet, I’m sad for her, and I am sad that yet another person didn’t have a beautiful and graceful final curve to their life arc. I’m sad that the world still looks at addiction and other mental illnesses as stigmas. I’m sad every time I read or hear someone state “fuck them” when they see a person falling hard. I then get angry, because everyone who says “fuck them” is creating a barrier between those in need of help and the resources they desperately need. “Fuck them” prevents people from admitting they can’t fix their life on their own. “Fuck them” is what causes governments to cut funding to mental health facilities and programs. “Fuck them” is what causes families to be afraid to seek help in the community, or to give up after the first few backs have been turned.

The person who passes may “just” be an imperfect celebrity, but to me? Their passing reminds me of all of our failures and all of the beautiful things that could have been created by those who left us far too young.

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

Even tho pop isn’t really my thing, I fully accept that it defines time and eras. For me the thing about her voice was sheeer strength… like Joan Sutherland, you never fretted she’d miss the note or the even higher note or not be able to hold her breath and thus the song.

Oh some people have been cruel… and what ever the failings of liquor she did not strike me as a mean person, nor a whiner. Helll I new little o their marraige, but I’d toss s o m e blame in the dirction of an abusive husband, and she refrained from that….

Further people are making enormous assumptions whne there is no toxicology report for the general public to read…

And I think the government wants to put Xanax on duplicate or even triplicate Fed forms, I really do. Lorazepam, diazepam, alprazolam, etc., and so on. They just freak out.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 13 February 2012

I was never a fan of her music or song choices, but she did have a pretty powerful voice.

Mostly I’m just sad and tired of the joy people take in other people’s pain and failures.

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

I heard that in contrast to all the stories of her very last days, none of which is conclusive, she also was seen swimming laps, not splashing about, but laps, in the hotel pool that morning. Doesn’t sound like a hard core drunk, exactly.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 13 February 2012

the whole thing just sounds strange, and sad.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 13 February 2012

Whitney Houston’s Death is Probably Not What You Think It Is

I’m grieving, like many.

Whitney was thrilled to be alive and didn’t want to go this soon.

People talk about how much pleasure her music gave them; but really, she got the most out of it. That glow you saw inside Whitney when she sang was unadulterated passion.

Imagine feeling like that every time you opened your mouth.

I don’t know anything about Whitney’s cause of death. We may never know. Unlike the media, however, I wouldn’t presume to festoon a “drug-addict-tragedy” to her memory. I find this treament sexist, disrespectful— and medically, clueless. Easy prejudices are driving this story.

Statistically, the number one reason that a woman like Whitney, of her age and background, would die at this age is: heart disease. Plain, old fashioned, anyone-coulda-been-affected, HEART DISEASE.

Cause of death is certainly NOT “heavy marijuana use” which I’ve read repeatedly. Absurd.

But what about the cocaine, you ask? Isn’t that the culprit?

Well, sure, there’s a statistically-unlikely chance that Whitney OD’ed on the spot with a needle in her arm. But that is a far less likely scenario than a middle-aged woman simply having a heart attack.

“But it was the cumulative use!” you say, stressing your National Enquirer disapproval.

Okay, cocaine, like any speedy substance, is a strain on the heart. But SO MANY people have done way more coke than Whitney Houston, and yet did NOT drop dead at 48.

So, back to your drawing board. Why is it important for Whitney to die young because she wasn’t a “good girl”? Because we want prima donnas to bleed?

I’ve done all kinds of recreational drugs— I bet you have too, Amerika. But the actuarial table of why ‘Susie Bright is going to die” will not point to my drug use as cause of death. My fatal risk for heart disease, cancer, and pulmonary issues is far greater, and it has little do with anything except my childhood and hereditary factors— hedonism barely figures into it.

It’s the same for any of us. Our death is ordained by our natal DNA, by childhood and formative exposures. Our vulnerability to pollutants in our air, water, and food supply is a thousand times more dangerous than the fact that we snorted cocaine off the kitchen table in the 80s. Jesus! Get off the fucking drug-scare-pulpit.

How about other causes of death that aren’t as sexy as getting high? Houston showed signs, from a young age, of eating disorder. She was groomed as a child to be a model— need I say more? Her anorexia/bulemia would’ve had a bigger effect on heart problems than anything else she did, besides genetics. She also smoked cigarettes; she had a serious habit. Nicotine would’ve loomed large in heart disease. But it doesn’t sound titillating for the tabloids.

Or— forget heart disease for a moment. Of all the recreational drugs Houston ingested, surely alcohol leaves the most lasting damage. Busy-bodies, according to the gossip wags, saw Whitney DRINKING the night before she died, shock of shocks. Everyone in Hollywood who’s attending the Grammies is having a rather grand time this weekend.

Sorry for the double dead celebrity posts, but I found the two links by far more sensible than most.

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marisacat - 13 February 2012

A lot fo doctors who actually pay attention will say that alcohol does the most damaage…

and people ignore the rates of heart disease in women from the late 40s on. Cuz everyone is told to fixate on the lumps on the lumps (as I call breast cancer).

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lucid - 13 February 2012

Eating disorders+alcohol+cigarettes is not good for the heart…

What I saw reported though is that she was on Xanax. The possibility that she had some drinks and the interaction caused her to fall asleep in the bathtub does not seem terribly unlikely to me. It sounds like it was just a sad accident.

marisacat - 14 February 2012

Too bad she wasn’t a soldier on one of our battlefields, the official far flung war fronts. She’d be handed Xanax and antidepressants by the fist ful.

9. Madman in the Marketplace - 13 February 2012
10. BooHooHooMan - 14 February 2012

Fourth NYPD suicide

A cop killed himself yesterday on his way home after finishing his shift in Queens — becoming the fourth NYPD officer to die by his own hand in less than a month.

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marisacat - 14 February 2012

When you gotta go you gotta go. I assume most, all have gone out using their service revolver.

What an interesting tidbit… thanks for that…

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marisacat - 14 February 2012

ooo not just 4 in a month but 2 in the 8 days.

Does feel like something is up. They appeared t just hit a wall, and immediately check out.

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diane - 14 February 2012

When Connecticut was recently in the news for four police suicides within 3 months I found myself wondering if it was at least partially due to the increasing militarization against citizens, particularly in urban communities (such as Urban Shield, for one) …which may well send a handful of whatever remaining decent cops there are …into a bottomless despair.

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11. marisacat - 14 February 2012

Did domeone suggest combining th Dem National Convention and the Westminister Dog Sho?

It may be in the works!

PAGING GAIL COLLINS — Boston Globe, “‘Dogs Against Romney’ protest planned for Dog Show in New York,” by Shira Schoenberg:

“A group of ‘Dogs against Romney’ plan to gather outside the Westminster dog show at Madison Square Garden tomorrow. …

[The group] is the brainchild of Scott Crider, an Alabama online marketing and social media specialist and lifelong dog owner, who was shocked to read about Seamus in 2007. ‘I started Dogs Against Romney as a free blog the next day,’ Crider said. ‘I was just mortified that somebody would put a live animal on top of their car and drive for 12 hours.'” http ://b.globe.com/yB 4Azp

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marisacat - 14 February 2012

BTW, I jsut read that Slob has taken a campaign ad at the Westminster Dog Show.

🙄

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12. diane - 14 February 2012

loved this “corvid mischief:”

Smear the Queer

The girly, that [bloodied …battered] bitch!!!!!!!!!!! ….the receptive nurturing part of the ‘feminine energy’ display.

…. Our Hero/Sniper Leaders Czars and Educators ™….. will have nothing whatsoever to do with ‘women,’ let alone ‘men’ who admire and exhibit those ‘female qualities,’ ……qualities which don’t encompass being a TOPPER, ….is my knee jerk …….

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13. Madman in the Marketplace - 14 February 2012

FBI says paying cash for coffee is a sign of terrorist intent

Using cash for small purchases like a cup of coffee, gum and other items is a good indication that a person is trying to pass for normal without leaving the kind of paper trail created using a debit or credit card for small purchases.

The most recent update asks coffee shop owners, baristas and other customer-service specialists to be on the lookout for the enemy who walks among us (who evidently has been reanimated from the graves of the 1950s Red Scare era of blacklisting and Communist-baiting or the KGB’s constant witch hunt for capitalist sympathizers or people who resent being witch-hunted for their political beliefs).

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marisacat - 14 February 2012

I am so guilty.

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diane - 14 February 2012

from what I’ve seen lately, apparently using cash for anything is suspect …. never mind how our dear leaders slammmed people for so very very long … for using credit cards, now they are forcing bank cards, Pay Pal, smart phones etc. … anything that can track “behaviour,” and charge insane fees and ‘interest’……

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marisacat - 14 February 2012

well I scarcely go out but when I do I see people using cash. At Molly Stone and Walgreen’s which is where I manage to get to… I’d use my cash card when it doesn’t require using the PIN, but, in any case, I forgot the PIN years ago. And you have to enter the PIN in public, essentially, after the big mess at ….Lucky’s several different locations even, I think it was right before xmas… I don’t think it is a very good idea frankly. Those people who lost money from their accts were screwed up, right before xmas.

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diane - 14 February 2012

Outside of a few checks, I always use cash. Whenever I’m in the South Bay though (Santa Cruz being an exception), I seem to be one of a few doing it, especially at gas stations.

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marisacat - 14 February 2012

well gas stations are exceptionally well set up for card use, cash debit, where you get an itemizaation of your monthly statement on the acct or credit and so many people track gas usage and either submit recepts to their firms or take deductions on taxes or both. All of that argues for not using cash at the gas station, seems to me.

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14. Madman in the Marketplace - 14 February 2012

To mark its 60th anniversary, the Frye Art Museum is staging three new shows, one of them co-curated by a 90-year-old woman who visits the Frye every day.

“Remember how it started?” Birnie Danzker said. “You were complaining. … ”

“I just opened my big mouth,” Sondland said. “I said, ‘Where are the Fryes?’ They told me, ‘They’re in storage.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you clean out your storage?’ ”

The very traditional full-length portraits of founders Charles and Emma Frye had been put away. Sondland insisted that the portraits come back.

That gave Birnie Danzker an idea. Frieda Sondland had such strong ideas about art, and such clear likes and dislikes — why not let her pick the paintings for the next show?

Sondland jumped at the chance. “They gave me a catalog,” she said, “and I said, ‘I like this, this, this.’ I knew them all.” She chose 23 of the 232 paintings in the founders’ original collection.

It is actually a bit harder to curate a show than that, of course; the two women spent many long hours talking about which paintings to exhibit and how to group them, settling on three themes: religion, landscapes and portraits. They first went through photos of the paintings, then looked at them in person.

Sondland’s selections are all very personal, and many reference her life in Berlin before her family fled in 1938 to escape Jewish persecution at the hands of the Nazis.

For example, she chose a portrait of Otto von Bismarck because she considers him a great statesman.

She loved the portrait of Jacob Stern, a Berlin Jew whose expressive face made him such a “remarkable subject” that painter Ludwig Knaus stopped Stern on the street and asked if he could paint him, Birnie Danzker said.

The show’s paintings are all labeled in conventional museum style, with the name of the artist, an explanation of the subject and a little bit about the painter. But the labels for some of the paintings also include a separate commentary from Sondland.

For example, on Franz von Lenbach’s “Voluptas” — a painting of the face and torso of a long-haired woman from 1897 — Sondland wrote: “I don’t see this woman’s nudity as being an invitation. She is just happy and free in her own voluptuous nakedness.”

Or William Adolphe Bouguereau’s “Gardeuse de Moutons,” the painting of a wistful-looking little girl who is guarding the sheep: “This work seems to have been painted lovingly.”

Sondland loves the realism of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“You look at these paintings, and you think they are photographs because they are so true to life,” she said.

She said the chance to pick her favorites from the museum’s collection was an amazing experience.

“I am so thankful to Jo-Anne,” Sondland said. “She gave me this opportunity. It is a great joy, to do this.”

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15. marisacat - 14 February 2012

I HAVE to try to remember to listen to Rush tomorrow. The prospective next pretzel of China, Xi Jinging I think is the name, is going to Muscatine, in our hinterlands, where he visited on a …. I guess a trade delegation, years ago.

To hog and corn land. Where imo people can get along because farm issues have some common conversations.

And LOL I understand why Slob looked so uncomfortable in his Man Cave Oval today (I am sorry, the redo is just ugly). He has no conversation for the hinterlands.

Of the US or China.

And people are just thrilled he is coming back, CBS news talked to the woman whose home he stayed in when he visited, in her son’s old bedroom with Star Wars wall paper (her living room was very handsome, just as an aside) and the town had painted, back then, a wall mural to commemorate the visit by the Chi Coms (as Rush calls them)…. which they were delighted to show to CBS.

America can always surprise.

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wu ming - 14 February 2012

xi jinping has an interesting history. he was about 10 when he was sent down to the countryside during the cultural revolution, after his dad was jailed for being on the wrong side of a factional dispute, so he knows farm life at a pretty basic level.

north china is as relentlessly flat as the midwest, so he might have felt sort of at home.

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marisacat - 14 February 2012

That makes sense…

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16. marisacat - 15 February 2012

LOL As if they did not know.

TOP TALKER – “Ethan Bronner out as NYT Jerusalem chief” – Dylan Byers:

“[T]he Times announced that Education editor Jodi Rudoren has been named Jerusalem bureau chief. Bronner will become the legal affairs reporter at the National desk. … Bronner’s 22-year-old son was a member of the Israeli Defense Forces, a conflict of interest first raised by the website Electronic Intifada. … [F]ormer public editor Clark Hoyt … found that … Bronner’s son’s [now former] assignment put the bureau chief in a problematic position.” http://politi.co/yMUm2C

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BooHooHooMan - 15 February 2012

So what dual will get the IDF’s NYT desk next?

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marisacat - 15 February 2012

LOL they should just go the “Foreign Correspondent” route… go for a full time citizen of The Holy State of Israel.

If there is one that is…

🙄

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17. BooHooHooMan - 15 February 2012

Speaking of musical chairs…

World Bank President Zoellick is out after this next quarter.
Parachute on in the bomber door and all that.

Zoellick to leave World Bank
Departure will start battle for prized position

And the fresh meat recommended out of the Obama Deli???
LOL – wait for it – Hillary or Larry Summers.
Oh BeeHihhyHawHaw! 😆 How Original!
Why not appoint Greenspan? LOL
Or reappoint Wolfowitz! Maybe Dig up Milton Freidman!
Obama is so fuckin owned its ridiculous.

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marisacat - 15 February 2012

It will be someone awful… we know that.

“the Obama Deli” good one!!

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18. marisacat - 15 February 2012

Niewe

LINK

…………… 😯

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