AdamSmith

A man and his dog wash up on an island inhabited only by a flock of sheep. Time passes and eventually the man starts thinking about the sheep in a certain way but whenever he tries to approach them, the dog scares them off. After months of this, a beautiful woman washes up onto shore. The man meets her and says: "Could you watch my dog for an hour?"

My favorite living artist, after Johns. Robert Gober opens at MoMA: sober, haunting and genuinely affecting One of the most powerful and puzzling US artists of the 1980s finally receives a retrospective worthy of his intimate work http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/03/robert-gober-moma-retrospective-review-sculpture-art

Too true! (Actually been getting AARP crap mail for several years now, but still.)

Despite being all the way over at the left-hand end of your state you might just find me settin' on your doorbell at this invite one of these days.

Missouri ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, state judge rules http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/03/missouri-ban-same-sex-marriage-unconstitutional-state-judge-rules

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XKRj-T4l-e8

Thank you!

Just an update on the above-referenced Black & Decker contraption... It continues to pay for itself. Haven't had to use the big range oven more than 4 times since buying this wondrous thing -- just for a couple of holiday turkeys and a couple of pound cakes in a big tube pan too tall for the countertop oven. At this minute a luscious-smelling pork roast is a-roasting for dinner in said device. Mmmm.

Guantánamo Bay force-feeding videos to be released – read the judge's orderJudge Gladys Kessler of the Washington DC district court has ordered the US government to prepare public versions of videos showing a Syrian detainee, Abu Wa'el Dhiab, being force-fed at the Cuban detention centre http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/interactive/2014/oct/03/judge-order-release-video-guantanamo-bay-force-feeding

Better-than-usual profile of these guys, this phenomenon, and why they do it. Don't look down: Russia's urban daredevils Moscow's death-defying roofers have become an internet sensation and unlikely tourist attraction. Now, a series of arrests threatens to bring their fun to an end. Maryam Omidi heads up a ladder to meet them for The Calvert Journal http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/03/sp-russia-daredevil-urban-climbers-viral-roofers

Julia Pierson Wanted To Run Secret Service 'Like Disney World' Washington Post Benjamin Hart The Huffington Post 10/02/14 09:19 AM ET Julia Pierson resigned as the head of the scandal-ridden Secret Service on Wednesday, but details about her shaky tenure at the agency keep emerging. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5920468

I apologize in advance.

But only $15 for Mexicans, it said. What a deal!

"...Loss of the sense of smell predicted death more accurately than did a diagnosis of cancer, heart failure or lung disease, the only other common cause of predicting it more accurately being severe liver damage." There is a sick joke somewhere in there about my not being able to tolerate the smell of liver cooking.

Joshua Wong: the teenager who is the public face of the Hong Kong protestsCo-founder of Scholarism, which kickstarted protests, has been campaigning since he was 15 but plays down talk of being hero Tania Branigan in Hong Kong The Guardian, Wednesday 1 October 2014 03.59 EDT Joshua Wong during a protest in Hong Kong's financial district. T Photograph: Anthony Kwan/Getty Images With his floppy hair, baggy shorts and stripy T-shirt, accessorised with a yellow ribbon around each skinny wrist, the only thing distinguishing the 17-year-old from the other teenagers on Wednesday was the bank of television cameras facing him. Joshua Wong is too young to drive or buy a drink in a bar – let alone vote – yet has become the face of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and an inspiration to citizens three times his age. The co-founder of Scholarism, the student movement which kickstarted the demonstrations, is already a veteran activist. At 15, he battled against plans to introduce “national education”, which critics attacked as pro-Beijing “brainwashing”. Scholarism’s campaign brought more than 100,000 people on to the streets in protest; the proposals were duly shelved and Wong became something of a celebrity. He is probably the first mass protest leader who has had to call a press conference to discuss his exam results (he met university entrance requirements, though he has said in the past: “Teachers have always said my only strength is talking and that I talk very fast.”) But his 40-hour detention from Friday, along with others who stormed into the blocked-off government complex at Admiralty, kickstarted large-scale protests and catapulted him to global attention. The arrests galvanised those previously indifferent to last week’s student protests and sparked the wider civil disobedience movement that has paralysed a large part of downtown Hong Kong. The sudden fascination with Wong’s role is not entirely to his satisfaction. “If a mass movement turns into worshipping a particular person, that’s a great problem,” he warned in 2012, after the campaign against national education. More recently, asked about his own heroes, he stressed: “You don’t need role models to be part of a social movement as long as you care about the issues.” Joshua Wong speaks to fellow students on the street outside the Hong Kong Government Complex. Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty Images Since his release on Sunday – ordered by a judge who said police had held him for an unreasonably long time – he has declined to discuss what happened in detention or to be drawn into discussing his career as an activist. On Wednesday he parried such queries politely but firmly: “These personal interview questions we can ask later.” Chinese state media have attacked Scholarism as extremists and a pro-Beijing Hong Kong-based paper claimed that “US forces” had worked to cultivate Wong as a “political superstar” – accusations Wong has dismissed. Despite his ardour and bluntness he is not a rabble-rouser. “He’s passionate but measured; measured beyond his years,” said Michael Vidler, the human rights lawyer who acted for Wong following his detention. “He’s so young but so wise that you can’t help but have a lot of time for him … He is every mother’s son – filial, polite, principled, hard-working.” Vidler described Wong’s parents, Grace and Roger, as “a very quiet, middle-class, ordinary family”, rather than activists. Wong has said: “They are not helicopter parents and do not spoil me … They have given me freedom, which has shaped Joshua Wong as he is now.” But they have taken part in protests in the past and in a blog post a few years ago, Wong said his father had started taking him to visit the poor and suffering when he was a child: “He told me that I should care for the abandoned in the city. They had not heard of the gospel, and were living solitary and hard lives.” The couple have described their son’s detention as political persecution, adding in their statement: “We have always brought up Joshua to be compassionate, caring, principled and loyal and we are very proud of all that he is doing to make Hong Kong a better place for his generation and our generation.” While he has focused on the battle for democracy, Wong has also sought to bring more citizens into the fold by spreading the message that politics is about ordinary life, not a disruption to or distraction from it. “Why does a tofu roast pork belly lunchbox cost HK$50 [£4], and $8 more for a drink? Why does the eastern rail line break down weekly, but fares never stop rising? ... Many issues are closely related to politics and I think Hong Kongers should pay more attention to politics,” he told the South China Morning Post. Joshua Wong with activists outside the National Day flag-raising ceremony. Photograph: Eyepress/SIPA/Rex On another occasion he compared the need for public nomination to picking lunch, saying that imposing tight controls on candidates for the role of chief executive was like offering people the chance to eat at one of two shopping centres. “Is it a real choice? The inside is very similar: you end up eating Pepper Lunch anyway,” he said. That such a young figure should emerge as the symbol of the protests is apt, if surprising: crowds have been overwhelmingly youthful – a reflection of the organisational work done by Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students over recent years, but also of a generational shift in identity. “Hong Kong has a bright future because of our youth; I feel so proud of them,” said Martin Lee, the 76-year-old sometimes referred to as the region’s “father of democracy”. “It’s their Hong Kong – it’s their future.” Wong has said that matters are already out of his hands, and those of other activists. “I can’t predict what will be the outcome and how long we can continue with this action. Actually, this decision should be for the citizens, not Scholarism, Occupy Central with Love and Peace or others,” he said on Wednesday. The spontaneous nature of the civil disobedience put more pressure on the government and made it harder for them to target individual leaders, he said. He has faced unwanted attention: he believes his phone is tapped and has said that on his graduation break in Taiwan he was followed by a man who said he had been “commissioned by a company to watch me”. Such “inconveniences” have not put him off, but he acknowledges that even he gets tired of discussing political reform at times, and insists he has a life outside activism. His greatest success as a campaigner may have been to prove that his role has its limits, because so many more people have been drawn in. “Many citizens have said to me that ‘Hong Kong relies on you’ and some even called me a hero,” he wrote in an essay posted on his Facebook page on Wednesday. “I feel uncomfortable and even irritated when I hear this praise. When you were suffering pepper spray and teargas but decided to stay for the protest despite the repression from the government, I was not able to do anything other than stare at a meal box and the blank walls of the detention room and feel powerless. “The hero of the movement is every single Hong Kong citizen.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/01/joshua-wong-teenager-public-face-hong-kong-protests