lookin

Despite what some others may think, My liver's accustomed to drink. Late one night I was toasted And had the thing broasted, Though I still can't get over the stink.

Perhaps when he's finished in Hong Kong, he could come over here and help us get some candidates who aren't hand-picked.

] Andre? Any further thoughts about bottoming?

I'd knock on doors for charity, I'd phone bank, and I'd beg. I'd stand in snow and ring a bell, And do it on one leg. But if I had to wax my nuts To help the down and out, They'd all just have to find a job, or starve, without a doubt.

Please, I'm begging you, use the spray!

Too bad you won't be around next week. My twin brother is coming from Recife.

The good news is, what lung tissue you have left should be tough as Kevlar® and let you work without a mask under any earthly conditions.

Haven't smoked a ciggie for forty-plus years but, if I did, it would have to be one of these. First heard of them a couple evenings ago while watching a biography of Princess Alice of Battenberg, Prince Philip's late mother, heavy smoker, and part-time resident of Buckingham Palace. One fellow remarked that you could tell when she was in residence by the smell of Woodbines along the palace corridors. Apparently, these smokes were also known as "gaspers" owing to their high tar, absence of filters, and the inability of novice smokers to handle them. They sound like the British equivalent of Gitanes or perhaps U. S. war-time Chesterfields. The harshest thing I ever smoked though were Indian bidis, their only redeeming feature being the low price. They say there was no cow dung in them, but I was never fully convinced.

And in his spare time, Dr. Emanuel likes to climb mountains and think up ways to keep old people from using up the health care budget. Personally, I was hoping my friends would take me out for a nice drink on my seventy-fifth, instead of trying to suffocate me. I guess time will tell. Worth noting that the author is one of the architects of Obamacare and was the guy Sarah Palin had in mind when she rattled on about 'death panels'. He's also the older brother of Rahm Emmanuel. I sure don't see him coming anywhere close to supporting treatment choices being taken away from older folks by anyone, either insurers or the government, although I do think his 'personal' reflections are meant for a wider audience both within and outside the NIH and could enter into public discussion about eventual policy. It seems a bit disingenuous, if not silly, for an intelligent fifty-seven year old man to be putting stakes in the ground about what he'll do when he's seventy-five. Makes it sound like he's not expecting to learn anything new in the meantime. In his favor, he left himself an exit strategy the size of Uranus. He does make some interesting points, but then so did that guy selling aluminum siding.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been? I've been to London to look at the Queen. Pussy cat, pussy cat, did Her Majesty purr? Decidedly not, and her mouse pulled my fur.

Fascinating story, AdamSmith! Hadn't heard that one. Dunno how Burns decided what to put in and what to leave out. As mentioned before, the series covered a lot of history but the focus was definitely tilted toward the personal. The full title was The Roosevelts, An Intimate History, and there was a lot on the various Roosevelts themselves. Perhaps the Sumner Welles story didn't make the cut. He didn't show Eleanor in flagrante delicto, that's for sure, but it wasn't apparent to me anyway that he was "whitewashing" her relationships with other women. CharliePS, I'd be interested in your take after you've had a chance to watch the program. I could easily see a whole thread on attitudes toward gays throughout U. S. history. My own peccadillos began almost two decades after FDR's death and, even then, I don't recall anyone who was bringing the issue into the public discourse, let along taking a public stand on it. It wasn't until the Walter Jenkins story that I remember hearing anything in the media about it. It would have taken a rare politician to support gay rights in those days. In fact, I don't recall the word even being used then. One of these days I might sneak off to the Hormel Center and see what I can find.

Regrettably short notice but just saw that "A Piece of Work" is on PBS' American Masters series tonight at 10:30. Went to see it when it came out and I think I'll watch it again.

They probably don't know many vegans. Here's a little Bowels of the Earth video that will tell you where in the world this technology could really take off. (hint: it's not New York)

And you knew about the Depression, right? What's especially nice about this series for me is that, even if you know all the history, the personal insights enlighten the events. I could feel the despair and the triumphs that everyone was going through. A man watching FDR's funeral was weeping. When someone asked him if he knew the president, he said "No, but he knew me." I bet you're going to like the series more and more as you go along. PS: Keep an eye out fot the hardbodies in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Well, lookie here! Paul Krugman, only yesterday, called out the mean-spirited folks who have succeeded in cutting unemployment benefits while the rich are getting richer. Not as surprising that the politicians are pulling this shit as it is that we're letting them get away with it. Better wind down my rant here, before I get run off to the Politics Forum.

Probably should have put this in the Politics Forum, but there has been so much more than politics in this series. I've never been much of a history buff, but then something like The Roosevelts comes along and makes me realize what I've missed. I hope that MsGuy, and others, will come along and put this incredible family in better context. So much is different between then and now but, in my opinion, the similarities and differences are pretty equally weighted. What really seems different though is how much our political discourse has changed. F'rinstance, one blurb from Franklin Roosevelt's second inaugural address was amazing for its simplicity, directness, and honesty, but mostly for the fact that a president could nearly get booed from the platform for making it today: The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. He was warmly cheered for saying that we should be concerned for the less fortunate among us. Today, there would be millions of selfish voices swearing that the only path forward is to cut taxes on the wealthy and cut benefits to the poor. They believe, or so they say, that we will be a much better nation if we let the poorly paid and unemployed just suck it up and put as much money as we can into the pockets of the rich. Such a position would be shameful to FDR and, personally, it's counter to all the values I learned growing up. How can our national values have changed so much? Something else I learned in the program, or rather unlearned, was the role that World War II spending, in advance of and during the war, was the reason the economy improved so much. In fact, the programs that FDR put in place during his first term, while WWII was still a ways away, had an immediate impact in improving wages and cutting unemployment. Moreover, when he cut back the programs after a few years to 'balance the budget', another mini-depression followed immediately, and most of the programs were restored. And, once again, direct federal intervention worked wonders. Another learning experience, for me anyway, was how active Theodore Roosevelt was in shifting the balance of power away from the wealthy industrialists and toward workers. Even as a Republican, he was not shy about spreading the country's wealth around more equitably. Also, I hadn't realized how eager he was to go to war, any war, and it was surprising to see how much he cared for the common man, as long as the common man was born in the United States. I'd known about Eleanor Roosevelt's lifetime connections to active, involved, and powerful women, many of whom were likely gay, but I hadn't been aware of how completely these women were integrated into the Roosevelt family and how much influence they had on FDR himself. This is the first time I ever stayed glued to two hours of TV, seven nights in a row, and was focused the whole time. All in all, an incredible bit of storytelling by Ken Burns and I'm likely to watch the series again. Looks like they're all on the PBS website for anyone who's interested. I do tend to get doe-eyed when enveloped by compassionate folks who put their beliefs into action and I'm sure I've missed plenty of nuances in how this powerful family affected our country and the world and millions of hearts in the bargain. So I hope those who are more knowledgeable and informed will rein me in before I become too worshipful.

I thought that thing tasted like hot sauce!

That is one great post, Lurkerspeaks! I am speechless. Congrats to all the carpet-munchers and many thanks for the fun.

Marvelous, on so many levels. Thanks for posting.

Not sure if those like moi who nominated folks last week are supposed to vote again, so I decided to consult with Hanging Chad, my Statistically Significant Other. He suggested sending some more votes to Lurkerspeaks who can use 'em if he likes and toss 'em if he don't. Naturally, I'm prostrate with gratitude for the advice and other assorted kindnesses.

Very well then, don't think carefully about the future. Sheesh!

Thanks! Like you, I'm all Apple, all the time. But I keep having weird experiences trying to stay away from Apple's cloud. I thought I had severed all ties but then, just a couple of days ago, I discovered some cover art had been installed on some of my iTunes albums which I had manually loaded from my own CD's. I know I didn't load the cover art and I can't figure out who the hell did. And what, if anything, they grabbed of mine while they were visiting. I know I'm a Luddite when it comes to folks having unfettered access to my computer. If it's something that's important to me, like my bank account and 401k, and Amazon, I'll happily hook into their systems. But if it's something important to them, like my emails and music and graphic files, I try to keep a wall up. But, these days, there are so many folks trying to get their mitts on everything, and not being very forthcoming about what they're grabbing, that I'm always looking over my shoulder. I guess, one of these days, I'll just give up any illusion of privacy and dump a disk image onto Weibo and Facebook, but that day is not today. Thanks again for the info.

No time like the present: The Man with Two Left Feet (1917): At five minutes to eleven on the morning named he was at the station, a false beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye. If you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch business man. As a matter of fact, he looked far more like a motor-car coming through a haystack. The Inimitable Jeeves (1923): It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought. I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back. Jeeves lugged my purple socks out of the drawer as if he were a vegetarian fishing a caterpillar out of his salad. I once got engaged to his daughter Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast. Very Good Jeeves (1930): The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say `When!' My Aunt Dahlia has a carrying voice... If all other sources of income failed, she could make a good living calling the cattle home across the Sands of Dee. She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that season. Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove. Ring for Jeeves (1953): It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't. A Few Quick Ones (1959): Attila the Hun might have broken off his engagement to her, but nobody except Attila the Hun, and he only on one of his best mornings. Oofy, thinking of the tenner he had given Freddie, writhed like an electric fan. If you're not laughing by now, then by all means don't head down to the library this afternoon. Otherwise . . .

I've got the iPhone 5 and my contract is just about to expire. So, like markgordon, I'm planning to stop by the Apple store and see what the iPhone 6 looks and feels like. The gating factor for me will be backup options. Seems to me I read a year ago that the new iOS and/or the new Mac OS and/or the new iTunes requires me to backup to the iCloud. Then I think I read a few weeks later that I still have the option to back up to my computer. I have no intention of backing up to the cloud, no way, no how. As a result, and for the first time in thirty years, I have not upgraded to the newest Mac software. My plan is to stand there in the Apple store and have them swear to me that I can continue with local backups. That done, I'll probably get the iPhone 6 and upgrade all around.