Patching holes in the cabin roof today. Talk to you tomorrow.
Have a great day, starting with a great day in the mornin’!
Three data points to keep you occupied:
How happy is your language?
Headline of the day
Driver of allegedly stolen car that
crashed in stable condition
[here]
Don’t you hate it when unstable [allegedly] stolen cars crash? And what happened to the driver?
One more for the road…
Molding a Character out of Molten Glass
I remember the first piece that grabbed my attention. Thick. Heavy.
Ever had a tumbler or paperweight that felt solid? 1 kg or more?
Stripes that ran through it…sigh…
But I lost it in a divorce.
“How did I lose something so precious to me?” Oh…never mind…if you haven’t been there, you wouldn’t understand…even the important things are worth letting go in a divorce.
It’s standing here, the heat in my face as I gather, where I feel truly at home.
My first glassblowing class, unlike yours, was almost a joke. No help from the instructors, as if they wanted to get a good laugh watching us fail. Nothing to take home with me, either.
That’s why you’ve got the molten ball, the flowers, the paperweight and the tumbler.
I want you to remember this day, cherish it, even.
Quiet. There’s a chopper coming in.
I thought we had promises of no warzones anymore. Oh well…
Where was I?
Hmm…I left my job, my “real” job, a while back…’95, I believe.
I got here in 2003.
In between, well, let’s say it was an adventure…renting time in other glassblowers’ studios. Studying under people who had no idea what they were doing and some who were very nearly the best of the best.
Sure, I could have apprenticed at a glass factory but I didn’t want to spend five years learning and relearning the fine art of one single activity, perfecting it before moving on to the next.
I like to experiment, see where the glass is taking me, understanding what the colours and the minerals do in extreme heat.
Yes, I’m married but my husband is the exact opposite of me. Very quiet. A homebody.
That’s okay, though, because we get along.
Besides, he doesn’t mind if I work late.
After all, this is my job and my hobby.
That’s the thing about owning your own business — you never get a day off — if you love what you do you never want to take a day off.
I have my apprentices here, as you can see. I love them all in different measure, just like children, who require various levels of attention, care and guidance because every personality is different.
After you’ve gathered and gathered and gathered, you get a feel for when gravity is pulling, so that’s why you see me absent-mindedly rolling the pipe in my hand. Ask my husband. If I’m standing with a broom, I’ll roll it around, too.
I’ve worked in this business long enough that I’m used to being seen as one of the guys. You don’t get a lot of female glassblowers, especially when I started, so I’m pretty thick-skinned.
That twisted piece down there was going to be a Christmas chandelier or tree topper but I didn’t like so I broke it. I think this piece could be a horn or a party hat. What do you think?
Stop by again soon and I’ll talk with you in more detail. I really think there’s a good story you could make with my character.
I don’t mean I have some sob story that’ll break your heart. I know there are a lot of good people in this town that a story’s begging to be told about us in one of those intersecting storyline/character sketch sort of things.
A small cotton town growing into the Rocket City. Where do we go from here?
When will the first glassblower open a shop on the Moon or Mars? Hey, it’s just a matter of time, right?
This and That
So, how do we solve the Syrian crisis? How do we send in people from other countries who will be welcomed by both pro- and anti-Assad Syrian citizens to prevent more killing?
A friend asked why poetry is not as popular as other written art forms (non/fiction novels, for instance).
My response:
In general, books can put us into the complete narrative of other people’s lives — fictional and nonfictional — with excruciatingly drawnout detail, which some crave for its complete escapist fantasy (pick your favourite genre), while poetry is often a snapshot or sketch of a single moment or idea, requiring the reader to use imagination to fill in the blanks.
In my youth, a pop poet named Rod McKuen both attracted people to the power of poetry and alienated those who consider poetry a higher art form.
Most people, if they think of poetry at all, hear what you call “does so much more, it says so much more, it’s so much cleverer, it requires so much more, it’s simply brilliant,” in song lyrics, which is not such a bad thing.
Another friend explains why it’s more fun in the Philippines.
DARPA wants to know your biometric habits.
And finally, have you ever wanted your personal bobblehead nodding back to you every day?
BONUS: Where’s Emma Peel when you need an appealing car model named PEEL?
Quick! Someone just killed your family. How do you seek “justice?”
from the Washington Post:
10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free
By Jonathan Turley, Published: January 13
Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?
These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.
The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.
Assassination of U.S. citizens
President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)
Indefinite detention
Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)
Arbitrary justice
The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)
The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party. (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan operate under laws that allow the government to engage in widespread discretionary surveillance.)
Secret evidence
The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.
War crimes
The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries. (Various nations have resisted investigations of officials accused of war crimes and torture. Some, such as Serbia and Chile, eventually relented to comply with international law; countries that have denied independent investigations include Iran, Syria and China.)
Secret court
The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance. (Pakistan places national security surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services.)
Immunity from judicial review
Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy. (Similarly, China has maintained sweeping immunity claims both inside and outside the country and routinely blocks lawsuits against private companies.)
The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. (Saudi Arabia has installed massive public surveillance systems, while Cuba is notorious for active monitoring of selected citizens.)
Extraordinary renditions
The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.
These new laws have come with an infusion of money into an expanded security system on the state and federal levels, including more public surveillance cameras, tens of thousands of security personnel and a massive expansion of a terrorist-chasing bureaucracy.
Some politicians shrug and say these increased powers are merely a response to the times we live in. Thus, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) could declare in an interview last spring without objection that “free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.” Of course, terrorism will never “surrender” and end this particular “war.”
Other politicians rationalize that, while such powers may exist, it really comes down to how they are used. This is a common response by liberals who cannot bring themselves to denounce Obama as they did Bush. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), for instance, has insisted that Congress is not making any decision on indefinite detention: “That is a decision which we leave where it belongs — in the executive branch.”
And in a signing statement with the defense authorization bill, Obama said he does not intend to use the latest power to indefinitely imprison citizens. Yet, he still accepted the power as a sort of regretful autocrat.
An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.
The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that we needed a system that did not depend on the good intentions or motivations of our rulers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
Benjamin Franklin was more direct. In 1787, a Mrs. Powel confronted Franklin after the signing of the Constitution and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His response was a bit chilling: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”
Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.
The indefinite-detention provision in the defense authorization bill seemed to many civil libertarians like a betrayal by Obama. While the president had promised to veto the law over that provision, Levin, a sponsor of the bill, disclosed on the Senate floor that it was in fact the White House that approved the removal of any exception for citizens from indefinite detention.
Dishonesty from politicians is nothing new for Americans. The real question is whether we are lying to ourselves when we call this country the land of the free.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University.
Read more from Outlook, including:
“Imagining a world without Gitmo,” by Karen J. Greenberg.
“A world without 9/11: No President Obama, more China trouble, same debt crisis,” by Michael Lind.
“Five myths about Dick Cheney,” by Stephen F. Hayes.
A Guinea Pig for Chemistry
Even behind-the-scenes writers and not-so-fortunate fortunetellers need a break every now and then.
All afternoon, I sat in a chair at the Salon Professional Academy while a friend, Tammie, coloured and cut my hair, changing me from a white-haired guy to a ginger-haired professorial type.
Thanks, Tammie, and to your colleagues, for the fun, friendship and new hairstyle.
Now, back to the story you know will keep you in your seats…
= = =
Thanks to MailPro; Richard, Ray and Julie at Lowe’s; USPS; B&N; Jonathan at Anaheim Chili.
Congrats to the NY Giants.
A Project I Chose to Support Financially…
from email:
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To think, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, GI, GI Joe
The 1% of 1%, we don’t see the world in geographic political boundaries.
Of course, as you know, we pretend the boundaries exist, telling you stuff like “Look out for that country over there — it’s against us this year,” and “Our strategic partnership with these countries is the only thing keeping your economic livelihood stable.”
Now that more than 50% of our species lives in sub/urban areas, “free” of the bind to land-based [subsistence] living, you are all our virtual slaves, depending on our virtual chess game results to tell you what to do next.
Two steps forward, one step to the left/right, please.
And then, as previous chapters have told you, there is the Committee, which also manages the lives of the 1% of the 1%.
Finally, there is the universe itself, spinning off little eddies of atoms and molecules that collect and replicate their patterns.
You should have in your thought patterns by now the full understanding that the universe as we know it is simply revealed by a 360-degree searchlight from the point of our planet/solar system, reaching a finite boundary and creating the illusion of a symmetrical sphere in which we are the center.
Feel free to comprehend our ignorance, vast as it is and will continue to be, ad infinitum.
There is just so much that I, the individual, can bother to talk about here while supervising the construction of the interwebs of interwebs tying you to your personal supercomputers tied to everyone else’s supercomputers tied, as if all of that is a single node, to the Internet of the Next Big Things to Come.
So, to me, all military actions, no matter how we label them in nationalistic or terror group or lone wolf terms, are all one.
For instance, I don’t see an Iranian nuclear scientist killed by the CIA or Mossad. I see us managing to control ourselves by killing ourselves.
Same for sports and other categories of diverting ourselves from our primary tasks of eating and breathing.
Let us move on to more important matters.
Details in the next chapter of the story of our lives seen from the vantage point of 1000 years from now.
Happiness and humour — share them endlessly.
treetrunkdings 