some velvet morning

Erm, haven't been around IJ much recently. Crossposting from 50bookchallenge, a list of books read in 2008. I can barely type today, let alone say anything pithy, so the list will have to do.

( here's the list )

Perfect weather for gardening the past few days with the soil warming up. Planted a Marvel tomato (heirloom variety), some Silver Princess corn, pole beans, strawberries, and a pink "Rosalie" Abutilon right beside the front steps. Have some other bare spots to fill in the front so may need to make another trip to the nursery. Also potted up an herb pot (below) with golden sage, rosemary, tarragon, marjoram and an orange scented geranium.

Spare a thought for the late Mr. Alvin Thomas of New Orleans.

Frontline has done a lot of in-depth pieces on the Iraq War and this week on PBS they've put together a 4-1/2 hour overview called "Bush's War" beginning with 9/11 and running on through to the announcement of the surge in Iraq.

Part 1 was on last night and can now be watched online. Tonight is Part 2 which picks up with the beginning of operations in Iraq and will be posted online later.

It's absolutely worth watching and there are many excellent interviews included. I have to say that after seeing the run up to the war in Pt. 1, I came away feeling that Cheney and Rumsfeld were so determined to pursue striking Iraq that I wonder what, if anything, could have significantly changed their course. The intelligence community, the State Department, the UN, Congress, let alone the opinion of the American people, were effectively rendered irrelevant. A less obeisant press might have made some difference, but we'll never know.

March may or may not come in like a lion but Spring has come to the UK with snow! Note to the weather: you're doing it wrong.




More UK photos here.

I don't have snow to use as an excuse for not getting gardening done, so I'm headed outside to plant out a few things. I already planted a shade container for a corner of the porch with a dark green button fern, a bright green Blechnum fern and a dark purple-leaved sweet potato vine. The shapes of the foliage make a decent contrast too. Probably should take a photo of it soon before it starts looking as sad as some of my other potted ventures.

My mother did an incredibly sweet thing and surprised me this week by sending one of those foldable garden kneeling seats. She said she feels guilty about passing on her arthritic knees to me.

Not a particularly interesting video, but "Heat Dies Down" is one of the best songs from last year's Yours Truly, Angry Mob, one of those albums where the second half picks up steam instead of losing it. Very solid. Kaiser Chiefs certainly give The Jam a nod in their music, but there's a hint of Madness there too.

UPDATED 2: "darkrosetiger" at LJ has a rough translation from Russian of an interview with Sup's Anton Nosik. She also links to a less inflammatory translation here. Even with the difference, and a quick read, I find Nosik to be more than a little dismissive.

UPDATED: With link to original boycott post.

Crossposted as is from LJ and a hat tip to "dargie" at LJ for letting me know about this.

On Friday, March 21, from midnight to midnight GMT, there's a one day LJ boycott. Which for me works out to 5 p.m. Thursday to 5 p.m. Friday allowing for PDT.

I don't know that even if LJ takes note they would care and I'm a little skeptical if one day will make a difference or how the effectiveness will be measured. Not posting isn't going to work if people still reply to comments, etc. A page click is still going to be site traffic.

That said, I'm still going to honor the boycott and anything of pith I might think of to say will be posted at InsaneJournal, Some Velvet Morning where I'm pretty much crossposting everything these days anyway and pouting because I don't see many people there.

Also, "stewardess" at InsaneJournal has been noting some interesting omissions/removals in what LiveJournal was listing as top interests and did a bit of digging via caches. E.g. at one point "fanfiction" was disappeared as a top interest but "slash" remained, probably because they didn't know wtf it meant. Check out her timeline post. As of Monday, March 17, the top interests appeared to be back to what they had been previously. There's been lots of not so tinfoil-y speculation in the past about LJ's wish to have a clean shiny market to present to advertisers, so this tinkering could be related to that.

Andrew Pulver at The Guardian's film blog offers Anthony Minghella's greatest clips.

I love Anthony Minghella's films, though there are a few I haven't seen. Among his fine adaptations of novels, The Talented Mr. Ripley stands out for having made Tom Ripley into a more compelling, but no less troubling character than he was in Patricia Highsmith's book. When it came out I remember talking to a friend who was outraged that someone should have somehow "gotten away with it" when it was abundantly clear to me that some punishments for our crimes are emphatically of our own making.

Minghella most recently appeared as Briony's interviewer at the end of Atonement which I thought in its type of film very much followed in the tracks of The English Patient. A nifty bit of casting for a director who probed so deeply into his characters.

Then there's Minghella's first film Truly, Madly, Deeply, about which I've nothing to say, because it's simply the joy and ache that it is.

A long-time favorite poem from an Irish poet that has supplied a few phrases and metaphors to the ME writers in the past. Note to 21st century: Not to be used as an apocalyptic how-to manual.

The Second Coming (1919)
W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Serenity (Firefly) You like to live your own way and don't enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you. Serenity (Firefly) 88% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 81% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 81% Moya (Farscape) 75% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 69% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 69% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 63% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 56% SG-1 (Stargate) 50% Heart of Gold (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) 50% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 50% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 50% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 38%

Didn't try to game the results, but I'm not surprised. That Whedon fellow warped my fragile little mind.

I need some music, rly rly need it. The single from one of my few rock/pop CD purchases last year:

CNews covers No free accounts on LiveJournal. I've yet to "parse" the Sup position and any changes to LJ these days require a fair amount of figuring what they're up to in the long run. Though the last paragraph might hold a clue.

No free accounts on LiveJournal

One of the most popular subjects discussed by LiveJournal’s subscribers is closing the option to register new basic accounts. That is the first type of accounts at LiveJournal, whose owners do not pay for the services and no advertising is posted in their blogs. An alternative to such blogs are paid accounts (for $25 a year a user is provided with a full range of additional services, no advertising posted in his blog) and improved accounts that were launched two year ago (some additional service… full text

Source: CNews

Holy crap! As of yesterday, all new Basic LJ accounts will have to be Paid or have ads. Bad news here

Basic Accounts
Basic Account is an option available to accounts which were created before March 12, 2008. No account created after this date can be turned into a Basic Account. Basic Accounts will not have any advertising displayed on their accounts, but will have fewer benefits and features. A Basic Account includes the following:

* Upload up to 6 userpics

* 25 subscriptions for notification of new posts, friends, comments, or events

Brad Fitzpatrick doesn't sound happy about it. Hmmm, wasn't he welcoming SUP as our new overlords a few months back? Indeed.

Crossposted from my LJ where I'm trying to switch over to Firefox with Rich Text and making a hash of it

We watched Margot at the Wedding last night which hit the spot for quirky and appealing in an alienated kind of way. Erm, which is good, I think, because it's not an easy movie to write about.

( Margot at the Wedding )

Lambert at correntewire.com has a good post up about FISA with links to WaPo and Wired pieces as well: The Real Problem With FISA: They've Got All Our Email.

Appendix I
For your reference, here is the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution that we used to be governed by:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It’s as plain as day to anyone [...] that email is precisely a 20th Century version of what the Founders called “papers.”

The failure of Congress, more particularly the Senate, to reign in the Administration on this issue is absolutely embittering. If they can't stand up for the 4th Amendment, what would they stand up for?

So 7,219,032 people have already seen this on youtube, but I catch up eventually. Go little Sparta!

sometimez I furgets when itz caturday.



03.02 at 0230 - had to fix the embed, not sure why it quit working.

“Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.”
--Shirley Chisholm,
Congresswoman and candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination ... in 1972.

Yeah, it was a few days ago and I managed to hit mute or run out of the room for all the nominated songs except the one from Once which was actually worth hearing....

Surprises are always nice, including Tilda Swinton's Best Supporting Actress win, since she's been sinking her teeth into some terrific performances for a while now. My favorite of her movies still remains Orlando, Sally Potter's 1992 gender bending (remember those?) film adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel.

And while I'm late getting around to plugging movies, I have to mention this year's BAFTA and last year's Oscar Best Foreign Language film, Germany's The Lives of Others. It was one of the best and most haunting movies we rented last year, in large part because of Ulrich Muehe's performance as a hardline Stasi officer who's set to spy on a popular but "questionable" East German playwright and his actress girlfriend and finds the observer can't remain unaffected by what he observes. Muehe, who died last summer, discovered after the fall of the Berlin Wall that he himself was the subject of a secret police file.

moar humorous pics

On an almost daily basis there's some bit of egregious wankery, nastiness, excess, or stupidity in the news that beggars description. Something that might have led Spike to inquire "Are you people very stoned?"

I think these items are best treated by giving them exactly the consideration they richly deserve. After years of outrage fatigue, now I just yell "Oh, For Fuck's Sake!" Hence, I'm beginning the *OFFS* file. If that name also carries hints of piss-off, sod-off, seriously off kilter or off one's noodle, or ewww, get this abominable PoS off me, then ... damn straight skippy.

Today's item comes from the real motherlode of OFFS, the Bush Administration, whose latest bright idea is outlined in a Guardian article, Bush orders clampdown on flights to US.

No, he isn't making sure the luggage doesn't shift around. This plan involves:

-- armed air marshals on transatlantic flights.

-- requiring Europeans travelling to the US to apply online for permission days before buying a ticket.

-- personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US.

-- personal data on anyone accompanying older, disabled or younger passengers into boarding areas even if they're not flying.

If the Dear Leader doesn't get his way? Long standing visa-waivers with EU countries could become a thing of the past. Of course the Administration is using the thin end of the wedge by putting pressure on some EU countries like the Czech Republic who don't currently but would like to have visa-waivers. Frankly I hope the EU sticks together on this and tells Bush where to get off, maybe with a loud if undiplomatic declaration of "Oh, for fuck's sake!"

Sheesh, it's bad enough coming back into the country as an American that you wonder if you should turn back while you still can. The hassles for foreign travellers have increased to the point where tourism from the EU to the US is down. This will just do wonders for international goodwill and tourism.

(Haven't been doing so well with either updating or kicking the LJ habit.)

Joss Whedon speaking at WGA rally in Boston

Found a Slogan Generator and in honor of/total contempt for LJ's peculiar interest filtering decided to use filter. Heh, it fits.

My lj friend dargie posted a really terrific meme that I had to gack.

Go to the Wikipedia home page and click random article. That is your band's name.
Click random article again; that is your album name.
Click random article 15 more times; those are the tracks on your album.

Since I'm prone to looking for connections where none exist, I felt compelled to bang out a quick made-up review to tie things together. Rolling Stone won't be hiring me any time soon, but I had fun. Here's mine:

John Edward Mack
Mount Laguna Observatory

1. Hurmizgan
2. Carn Dum
3. The Pinhoe Egg
4. Manela Bustamante
5. Fog of War
6. Null
7. Cheyenne Language
8. Delphic Fraternity
9. Danielle Darrieux
10. Low-point beer
11. Kubanskaya
12. Dobroslava
13. Pitchout
14. Cryptologic Technician
15. Underdog

As the follow-up to their 2006 introspective eponymous debut, Mount Laguna Observatory finds John Edward Mack (all five of him) taking a broader outlook with the strong opener "Hurmizgan," (based on a Kurdish poem, Baker practically keens out the lines "They enslaved girls and women, brave men dived into their blood".) Foreign actresses are the inspiration for two other tracks as well as fantasy novels, languages, hacking and the topical "Fog of War." They've expanded their sound too with some judicious samplings of jazz trumpet ("Null") and more emphasis on percussion ("Cheyenne Language") which serves the stew of influences they're cooking.

After the splendid and haunting "Danielle Darrieux" they come close to falling into prog-rock self-indulgence with "Low Point Beer" and "Kubanskaya" (yes, there's now a song about lemon-flavored vodka) and nearly derail what's come before. But they've recovered themselves by the time they hit the infectious thrum of Pomeroy's bass lines on "Pitchout" and finish strongly with the glam-kissed "Underdog."

John Edward Mack has been dismissed as being a little too clever for their own good. Fair point for a band that takes its name from an academic who wrote about the transforming effects of so-called alien abductions. They're drawn to subject matter that makes you wish they'd included footnotes. But they have enough exuberant playing talent and musical smarts to negotiate between their own quirky personal concerns and making you want to hit the replay button. JEM is still atop their lofty perch, but as this album's title indicates, they've begun to look around.

3 1/2 out of five stars.

Took Luna to the vet today for her regular check-up. She's 14 and, as they keep reminding us over and over again, elderly. I try not to be denial-y about their ages, but she and her brother Freddie are still ittle sweetie kittens to me. Her weight over the course of a year went from 13.1 to 10.8 which we'd sort of thought was a good thing having changed her kibbles to Innova which has less filler. She's been more playful since losing weight (especially at 3 or 4 a.m.), but still she had to have some tests done to make sure the weight loss wasn't attributable to some problem instead. She was so good, not even very peevish and grumbly on the way there and during the appointment. Now if we can just get through her asthma prone winter months by giving her pills instead of having to go for the steroid shot.

This has been an update from a neurotic fur mother. ;)