This is absolutely one of the most incredible card trick/magic performances I have ever seen. Watch this guy very carefully…
Smoking Magic
Tom Mullica | YouTube | 1 Nov 10
____________________________________________________________________________ Tom Mullica has entertained audiences with his phenomenal magic for 50 years. The latest info says he is dying of leukemia. Hope it’s not from cigarettes.
Michele Bachmann is a perfect example of how a demagogic, loud-mouthed ideologue can squeal her way into the national consciousness and position herself in the media as a presidential candidate. Sarah Palin would not have dreamed she could occupy a similar position were it not for the stupidity of John McCain and his feckless handlers. And now these two squawking ravens vie for national attention posing as candidates for the highest elective office in the land. Preposterous! Will they get elected? No. Will they pose a distraction (remember Wiener) that will prevent a serious public dialog about issues that really matter in this country? You betcha!
Michele Bachmann’s Holy War
The Tea Party contender may seem like a goofball, but be warned: Her presidential campaign is no laughing matter
Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone | 22 June 11
Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and, as you consider the career and future presidential prospects of an incredible American phenomenon named Michele Bachmann, do one more thing. Don’t laugh.
It may be the hardest thing you ever do, for Michele Bachmann is almost certainly the funniest thing that has ever happened to American presidential politics. Fans of obscure 1970s television may remember a short-lived children’s show called Far Out Space Nuts, in which a pair of dimwitted NASA repairmen, one of whom is played by Bob (Gilligan) Denver, accidentally send themselves into space by pressing “launch” instead of “lunch” inside a capsule they were fixing at Cape Canaveral. This plot device roughly approximates the political and cultural mechanism that is sending Michele Bachmann hurtling in the direction of the Oval Office.
The following article appears in this month’s Rolling Stone Magazine…
The Climate of Denial
Al Gore | Rolling Stone | 22 June 11
The first time I remember hearing the question “is it real?” was when I went as a young boy to see a traveling show put on by “professional wrestlers” one summer evening in the gym of the Forks River Elementary School in Elmwood, Tennessee.
The evidence that it was real was palpable: “They’re really hurting each other! That’s real blood! Look a’there! They can’t fake that!” On the other hand, there was clearly a script (or in today’s language, a “narrative”), with good guys to cheer and bad guys to boo.
But the most unusual and in some ways most interesting character in these dramas was the referee: Whenever the bad guy committed a gross and obvious violation of the “rules” — such as they were — like using a metal folding chair to smack the good guy in the head, the referee always seemed to be preoccupied with one of the cornermen, or looking the other way. Yet whenever the good guy — after absorbing more abuse and unfairness than any reasonable person could tolerate — committed the slightest infraction, the referee was all over him. The answer to the question “Is it real?” seemed connected to the question of whether the referee was somehow confused about his role: Was he too an entertainer?
This is a good clip from Chris Matthews program last night. The topic is the recent Rolling Stone article by Al Gore on the successful campaign by right-wing media elements to effectively kill any meaningful action on climate change (I will post the article here in separately). I enjoy Matthews for his candor and sincerity. With Keith Olbermann effectively silenced and most other commentators hedging their bets, about the only guy calling it the way it really is is Matthews. Listen to what he says about Limbaugh and Beck… (Note – the best part of this segment is toward the end)
I’m not sure all my viewers will want to watch this in it’s entirety but I found it hilarious. Remember George Carlin’s classic bit on cuss words. This is the cinematic equivalent. Amazingly, you can actually watch the entire movie and get the drift of it without all the intervening dialog…
Aside from the fascinating range of this speaker’s discussion I was taken by her impressive breadth of knowledge and her ability to easily bridge the span between sex differences on the molecular level and the principles of Colonial democracy and the rights of people born three months apart. It such fun to listen to a brilliant mind in action…
Is anatomy destiny?
Alice Dreger | TED | Dec 2010
____________________________________________________________________________ Alice Dreger is a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago. She describes her focus as “social justice work in medicine and science” through research, writing, speaking and advocacy. She’s written several books that study subjects on the edge of norm-challenging bodies, including One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal and Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex and Intersex in the Age of Ethics. She says: “The question that has motivated many of my projects is this: Why not change minds instead of bodies?”
Years ago I worked on 53rd St in New York and lived in the Village. Many days I rode a bike to work. It was usually a pleasant diversion. A chance to see the city and get a little exercise on the way to work. It was, on reflection, a little risky as I discovered many times. No broken bones but many close calls. I’m not sure I would try it today…
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