07/05/2008
Happy 70s birthday dad!
My dad’s bday is on the fourth of July. He turned 70 today. Yes. 70. I remember clearly many summers as a kid traveling from Venezuela to Orlando in July. On the fourth we would sit and watch the Disney fireworks. And my mother would tell me they were for dad. I was always amazed. I knew my dad was cool. But I didn’t know he was so unbelievably cool that Disney would put up a show just for him.
jesse helms is dead dead dead
[via JoeMyGod:]
Former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), the most notoriously racist and homophobic politician in the history of the United States, has died at the age of 86. Happy Independence Day!!!
And now for some choice quotes from DEAD Jesse Helms, the greatest embarrassment to North Carolina and the nation:
- On threatening the life of a sitting president: “Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He’d better have a bodyguard.”
- On gays and AIDS: “It’s their deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct that is responsible for the disease”
- On equality: “I’ve been portrayed as a caveman by some. That’s not true. I’m a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men are equal, be they slants, beaners, or niggers.”
- On education: “Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade-school classes that teach our children that cannibalism, wife-swapping and murder of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior.”
- On civil rights: “The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that’s thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men’s rights.”
- On journalists: “The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian.”
- On the Duke University students upset by Martin Luther King’s assassination: “They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro.”
To paraphrase Bette Davis: “You’re only supposed to say good things about the dead. Jesse Helms is dead. Good.”
The world is just a tinny bit better today.
07/02/2008
Boston
I’m already in bed trying to go to sleep. I’ll be driving to Boston in about 6 hours. 4th of July with my parents and sister. It will be the first 4th without her in 7 years. Last year, back in NY, we took a walk to nearby park. We sat on the grass and watched the fireworks. I remember it very peacefull. Silent. I think we knew then.07/01/2008
A MUST WATCH: Where the Hell is Matt?
I’ve been down all day and I just came back from a run and played this video for the first time. And I have no idea what happened but 1/2 way into it I lost it and started crying, but with a big smile on my face.
update: Holy shit! It’s at minute 1, when the music changes — I lose it every time!
06/30/2008
“…President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb .”
WTF? Do you remember what happened the last time Bush and Cheney rejected the opinion of the intelligence community on the presence of mass destruction weapons in Iraq? And why the fuck do you have an intelligence community if each time they present their findings you simply ignore them and march on with weapons drawn?
06/29/2008
Overdue
I’m overdue for a real thought. It’s been 15 posts of fluff. Empty. Plastic. What alarmed me today was that the superficiality of the posts likely reflects this phase. My slow transition from desperately mourning that loss, to frantically trying to make sense of what is left. Left… Single, post-divorce, liberated, all too hastily ready to enjoy today’s 8am drive
06/28/2008
06/26/2008
(via sarahchristine): One of the first academic studies to investigate positive and negative emotions felt after casual sex has revealed that evolution has not adapted women to having casual sex. Otherwise, they conclude, women would feel better about a one-night sexual partner, instead of feeling used and regretful.
An internet survey of 1,743 men and women who have had one-night stands found that 80 per cent of the men had positive feelings about it, feeling greater sexual satisfaction and contentment, plus a greater sense of well-being. Only 54 per cent of women felt the same way.
"From here (via gauntlet) (via sarahchristine)
ME: Academic studies about sexual behavior, including casual sex, have been going on for decades. Amazing that this “science editor” used the words “scientific fact” to then refer to an internet survey. For decades sex researchers and evolutionary psychologists thought that there was no evolutionary need for females to have multiple partners, but that changed after a series of studies showing an increase in casual sex during ovulation among females, leading to the theory of sperm competition. Remember the picture of millions of sperms swimming with the most fit one winning? This theory was then advanced by Dr. Gallup at the University at Albany, who very elegantly showed how the male reproductive organ is shaped precisely to combat sperm competition.
So back to casual sex. So evolutionarily, males benefit from having multiple partners at all times, and females benefit from having multiple partners during ovulation. So, If we set aside socialization, females should report equal satisfaction with casual sex as males if asked about sexual encounters during ovulation.
And this discussion is about sex… not about the additional evolutionary benefits for both males and females of stable partnerships.
KT Tunstall
I work with Pandora.com Radio on all day. About 4-5 times, a song catches my attention and I take a look at who it is. And about 90% of the time, it’s KT Tunstall. I just realized I love that girl.06/25/2008
Carla Bruni, singing Promises Like Pie-Crust, a poem by C. Rosetti
Promise me no promises,
So will I not promise you:
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast,
Free to come as free to go:
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?
You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one:
I, so cold, may once have seen
Sunlight, once have felt the sun:
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass,
And the fortune is not told.
If you promised, you might grieve
For lost liberty again:
If I promised, I believe
I should fret to break the chain.
Let us be the friends we were,
Nothing more but nothing less:
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess.
