Escapism

Escapism 9 January 2011

Posted by marisacat in California / Pacific Coast, Culture of Death, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
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The Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. Sitting on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood, the observatory – a popular tourist attraction in its own right – gives an amazing view of the Los Angeles basin, from downtown LA in the east to the Pacific ocean in the west. It featured in two major sequences of the James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause; a bust of Dean was subsequently placed in the grounds of the observatory.

[Vitto Sciosia/photolibrary.com]

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oh, I drifted thru a little gallery at the Guardian, photos of sites in Cali that have figured heavily in movies…

An unusual shot of Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park – – with Los Angeles, that strange dark dream land, appearing to be in the distance…

I always loved the old quote which, iirc, is attributed to Cecil B de Mille:

A tree’s a tree, a rock’s a rock, we shoot in Griffith Park – or we don’t shoot at all.

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1. ms_xeno - 9 January 2011: This came to mind, because of Mcat’s title:

“What’s The Deal With The Pina Colada Song”?

(a YouTube-d MST3K classic)

I figure we could all use a little escape today…

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2. lucid - 10 January 2011: Just a note on Giffords – she’s the Congressperson from my parents’ district. I’ll be talking to them on Tues. and will ask about the climate down there…

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marisacat - 10 January 2011: Oh I look forward to hearing what they have to say…

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3. catnip - 10 January 2011: Judge sentences Tom DeLay to 3 years in prison

w00t

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BooHooHooMan - 10 January 2011: It’s all such shit. Freed while pending appeal.

DeLay was immediately taken into custody, :sjock:

Not so Fast! Your side door exit, Mr. DELAY.

but Priest granted a request from his attorneys that he be released on a $10,000 bond pending appeal once he is processed at the county jail. Prosecutors said it could mean DeLay will be free for months or even years as his appeal makes it through the Texas court system.

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catnip - 10 January 2011: The Bug Man escapes!

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diane - 10 January 2011: not to worry though, …as we all know, his ‘copatriots’ will squash his guts out, quicker than a snake’s smile on a frighteningly hot day,…once his obsolescence is discussed among his masters and those he still insanely considers his ‘equal peers’ ………..

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marisacat - 10 January 2011: I think it was always slated to die in the appeal routine…

Just my two cents on the Man From Sugarland Tezas….

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Madman in the Marketplace - 10 January 2011: well, it’s not like he was an accused lookout for a mugger taking $11 or anything serious.

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marisacat - 10 January 2011: Double life time and forced surrender of a kidney.

Geesh.

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4. diane - 10 January 2011: I’ve got a ‘crush’ (among so many ‘crushes’) on tarheel-leftist85:

I agree that we must have a discourse on NV…

including the idea that the people who instigate the violence are doing so to undermine the efficacy of popular movements (i.e., the cop is the first one to advocate for violence).

However, another discourse that needs to take place is how such violence is inspired by lack of choice. And we get? All we get is strategic hate management channeled into complementary cultural niche markets. While we’re calling out the culture of violence from one cultural complement, shouldn’t we also call out the other complement that will surely use this tragedy (opportunity, in their eyes) to go ahead with their Unity agenda–namely to shuffle guaranteed retirement to the FIRE sector? Because the parties are part of one unit, it’s vital IMO, that we identify the cultural of violence as being so–the strategic hate serves as an illusion of choice between different policy outcomes, particularly when we’d literally get the same shit sandwich policies–whether Lightbringer, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, or any legacy party politician.

UPDATE – The D complement is also violent as some have noted. It’s more difficult to see the blood on their hands. They use the police state and mercenaries to perpetrate their violence. The Rs use individuals to propagate personal narratives (which, of course, crowds out the social contexts of violence).

It’s all about rents and rent-seeking.

…oh, thanks so much for the laughter deep from the core about that “lightbringer” slapdown tarheel,…. ……yeah, not a fuckin dime’s worth of difference ……

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diane - 10 January 2011: this comment, from eureka springs, was equally ‘crush’ inspiring, to my wee mind:

….

…why be civil when we are not shown the true effects of everything from banksters looting us, pharma and insurance corporations, government, leaving a pile of American corpses worthy of an entire Vietnam Memorial each and every year, our wars on millions of innocents, even the largest oil spills, their effects, and whether or not that seafood origination is labeled in our own Gulf are hidden from us… to this very day?

I am not a violent man, nor do i generally have a proclivity for the glass half empty outlook… perhaps to a fault… but i will be damned if i will be civil (at all times) in the face of liars, thieves, torturers, murderers, and bullies in leadership positions. Civility! Don’t tell me to calm down! semi /s

….

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5. BooHooHooMan - 10 January 2011: Ex- Gephardt aide, current Energy Lobbyist, and ahem wife of deputy dog at Obbies White House Congressional Lobbying Office….
found dead in burning car

Shoulda walked, apparently.

Ashley Turton, ex-Congressional aide, found dead in burning car

JOSH GERSTEIN & JOHN BRESNAHAN | 1/10/11 10:49 AM EST Updated: 1/10/11 3:42 PM EST

A veteran Congressional aide who worked most recently as a lobbyist and was married to White House legislative affairs senior official was found dead in her car Monday behind the couple’s Capitol Hill home following a low-speed car crash and subsequent fire.

Ashley Turton, whose husband, Dan, is the White House’s deputy director of legislative affairs for the U.S. House, died in the early-morning incident in the garage behind 800 A Street, NE, friends, her employer and Congressional leadership aides said. City fire and police units responded to the vicinity of the home at about 5 A.M. Monday, according to fire department spokesman Pete Piringer.

Not lookin good.

“It had heavy smoke and fire conditions in a garage—an attached garage of a 2 and ½ story rowhouse,” Piringer said. “The homeowner initially indicated that everyone in the house was accounted for. Firefighters were able to quickly knock down the bulk of the fire during the firefighting operation, but they did find an adult occupant of the vehicle [in the garage] deceased.”

The victim’s husband, Dan Turton, is the White House’s deputy director of legislative affairs for the House of Representatives. A White House spokesman declined to comment on the incident Monday. However, Congressional leadership aides and Progress Energy Inc., the company where she worked, confirmed to POLITICO that Ashley Turton was the victim.

Ashley Turton worked as an aide to former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) and then as chief of staff to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). She later became a lobbyist for Progress Energy, a North Carolina-based utility company. Dan Turton spent about 10 years as an aide to Gephardt before working for a few years as a lobbyist and then joining the House Rules Committee staff of Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) He took the White House job when President Barack Obama came into office in 2009.

“She is just a wonderful person,” said Steve Elmendorf, who worked with Ashley Turton in Gephardt’s office. “She loved her children and Dan. This is unfathomable.”

“Ashley Turton was simply one of the best people I’ve worked with in my couple of decades in DC,” said Scott Segal, an energy lobbyist at Bracewell & Giuliani. “She was smart, caring, funny, easy to get along with, talented, and very well respected on both sides of the aisle. Our hearts go out to her family. This is a tragic loss.”

Authorities have not determined the exact cause of the crash or why the car caught fire. Neighbors say Ashley Turton was heading to airport for an early flight.

“The leading theory is accidental [that] the car crashed through the garage doors and…was found on fire in the garage area,” Piringer said, adding that the incident is under joint investigation by the fire and police departments. “There were some unusual circumstances – just the way the car was, low-speed, significant fire, things like that….For the most part, the fire was confined to the area of origin.”

Mike Hughes, spokesman for North Carolina utility giant Progress Energy, told POLITICO the company is “devastated” by the news.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with her husband and family,” he said. “Ashley was just an extremely knowledgeable person and a friend to many people. She will be sorely missed.”

Progress Energy on Monday announced a merger with Duke Energy that would create the country’s largest utility company, Hughes said. Turton would have played a key role on Capitol Hill discussing the merger,

“She certainly would have had a role in notifying legislative staff,” Hughes said. “She was a regular liaison with staff members.”

Turton has three young children, four-year old twins and a two-year old. Her family also has been dealing with a brother, Blair Westbrook, who suffered severe brain injury last summer in a motorcycle accident.

Brian Wolff, a close friend, said he spoke Sunday with Turton about how her brother’s therapy was being cut off. “I was telling her we should set up a foundation,” said Wolff, a senior vice president at the Edison Electric Institute and a former top political House Democratic adviser to Nancy Pelosi. “It’s just horrific. She’s so close to her family. She took such great responsibility.”

Brother clipped in the motorcycle accident needed a Foundation set up.

O k a y

Car crashes through the attached garage, catches on fire, which is contained to said garage and everyone is accounted for…

‘cept – oops – the femme fatale in the car.

O k a y
She was also CoS to DeLAuro.

O k a y

Other shtuff via Roll Call.

O k a y
Bad Luck.

More via Roll Call.

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marisacat - 10 January 2011: I read that earlier and frankly it seems to have big holes. I really don’t understand what the hell happened.

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BooHooHooMan - 10 January 2011: You got that right.
Quite aside for the rounders jobs.

Yep, Big Hole in the Story,
Big Hole in the House. On fire.
In which the “owner” is said to have all accounted for.

Lot of it going around these days.

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marisacat - 10 January 2011: Well one thing i read, I think at People Mag, tried to say the car “crash” was her and the car crashing thru (or back thru?) the garage doors, somehow igniting and burning to death.

That does not make sense…

Supposedly she was leaving early to catch a plane somewhere…

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diane - 10 January 2011: Nothing at all to see here, as she:

…was heading to airport for an early flight….

when she, fell asleep at the wheel, decelerated, as she was ‘sleep riding,’ …. then made a sharp left or right onto a cul-de-sac, while still ‘sleep riding,’ then drove straight through a garage door in slow motion, into a can of gasoline for the lawnmower , which blew up …..fortunately, the homeowners were personal responsibility folks, who prepared beforehand for just such an instance, spending at least $200k to bunkerize their home, fortifying their living area from unexpected, lobbyist, garage fires.

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BooHooHooMan - 10 January 2011: Happens all the time! 😉

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diane - 10 January 2011: of course it does …so exhausted by all of that tinfoil …..

Why, just the other day, I sleep rode into someone’s garage, on a cul de sac, just after I headed down Highway 101 towards the San Francisco Airport,….lucky for me, they had a Seylor rubber raft leaning up against the wall, and I escaped that fate.

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marisacat - 10 January 2011: There are too many cul de sacs. No escape hatch….
diane - 10 January 2011: yup

;0(
BooHooHooMan - 10 January 2011: Oh I dunno, when in a rush , I always used to leave the car in the garage on fire when leaving early morning for a flight.

Doesn’t everybody?

I mean, not a bad way to warm the vehicle up, but when it takes a while, and ya gotta go, ya gotta go.

And it was always like,
Well everyone wave, there goes Daddy, having left the car in the garage on fire to ignite the house again. Someone speak up before it spreads to kitchen…

ETC….

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Madman in the Marketplace - 10 January 2011: Vince Foster did it!

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marisacat - 10 January 2011: Yeah the whole Vince Foster imbroglio is one of the things I think about when O apologists start in on how abused he is. That was the most tangled story … you could not write the suicide, the aftermath, the propaganda – the back and forth, both “sides”, in a book and it be accepted as possible.

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6. BooHooHooMan - 10 January 2011: Pretty clear they’re really comin down on this guy Loechner at the Safeway for tryin to run more than 1O public officials through the Express Checkout line.

Such poor form, I know.

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7. marisacat - 10 January 2011: Ugh I don’t even want to think about it, but a headline at People Mag says Ob “thinking” about going to AZ.

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BooHooHooMan - 10 January 2011: Maybe they can tie it in with a Fresh Fruits and Vegetables promo.

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marisacat - 10 January 2011: O B A M A… your personal greeter today in the Safeway Parking Lot of Tragedeeee

I bet anything you can get a flu shot at the same time. (I saw a sign advertising flu shots at the lot)

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diane - 10 January 2011: hmmmm… better yet:

…Fresh dead fish, from the GULF, mercury free!,…don’t care for saltwater fish? …we’ve got Lamprey and Carp from the Great Lakes, …thanks to our benefactors from the Dem party joining their Republican Brethren, in a “tear” inspiring, BIPARTISAN, US, UNION, there’s been a heartening resurgance of Lamprey, and Carp

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diane - 10 January 2011: but what do I know? ..and, must go get scrubbed up (perhaps “make up my face” ? ….does that really matter? ….and why does that sound so hideous?) and put on my teeny peepser shoesies, …have been invited to a midnight beach walk by two parental seeming figures, …Misters Walrus and Carpenter …..shall I bring a linen hanky for their tearzies?

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diane - 10 January 2011: The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright–
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done–
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“To come and spoil the fun!”

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead–
There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
“If this were only cleared away,”
They said, “it would be grand!”

“If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

“O Oysters, come and walk with us!”
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.”

The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head–
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat–
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn’t any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more–
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed–
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.”

“But not on us!” the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
“After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!”
“The night is fine,” the Walrus said.
“Do you admire the view?

“It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf–
I’ve had to ask you twice!”

“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,
“To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“The butter’s spread too thick!”

“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
“I deeply sympathize.”
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none–
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.

’Manually’ written (how horrifyingly ‘quaint’ and ‘obsolete’ sounding I imagine those words to be to some who know no better) by Lewis Carroll

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8. marisacat - 10 January 2011: Riding at the top of IOZ

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/

Monday, January 10, 2011

Andrew Jackson

Is there a bigger, more sanctimonious boob in the whole blessed world than Keith Olberman?

“Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in democracy”? Um, uh, what? Tell it to the Cherokee. Tell it to the Iraqis. Tell it to Baltimore [think THAT shooter got 5, 2 dead, one a cop, over the weekend — Mcat] and Washington South of the Capitol. Tell it to all the college kids who got their heads busted for rubbernecking around a G20 protest in Pittsburgh last year. We are surrounded by violence, swaddled in it. It is the pulse of our civilization.

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9. marisacat - 10 January 2011: Whoops

FBI: Family of suspect in Giffords shooting blocking access to house

Jan. 10, 2011 12:53 PM

The Arizona Republic .

Family members of the suspect in the Gabrielle Giffords shooting on Monday blockaded themselves into their home north of Tucson and were refusing FBI agents’ entry.

At about 12:25 p.m., agents began banging on the blockade built with 4-by-4 double-thick plywood, yelling, “This is the FBI. Let us in.” The blockade is preventing access to the front porch of the home.

Some agents were sent behind the house, and media representatives could hear the agents talking with someone from inside the house.

It’s not immediately clear why the family of Jared Loughner were preventing law enforcement entry. Loughner remains in custody and has an appearance in federal court later Monday.

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diane - 10 January 2011: ..meanwhile, how many seconds, till one of OUR????? drones …. blows relatively innocent lives to smithereens, …in the name of oil/lithium, …‘gold in them thar hills,’ …. et al, reserves …

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10. marisacat - 10 January 2011: Gnu

LINK

………………………… 8)

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