You are currently browsing the archives for June, 2010.
At Flickr, my 14th most popular picture, with 947 views, is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (2008).
My 13th most popular picture, with 949 views, is our daughter’s cat, Tabby (2007).
And my 12th most popular picture, with 982 views, is a jar of old Vaseline I noticed on a neighbor’s porch (2006).
And he was on LSD at the time, as remembered by Paul Krassner:
“Everybody has their own Laurel and Hardy,” [Groucho] mused. “A miniature Laurel and Hardy, one on each shoulder. Your little Oliver Hardy bawls you out-he says, ‘Well, this is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.’ And your little Stan Laurel gets all weepy -”Oh, Ollie, I couldn’t help it, I’m sorry, I did the best I could. . . ‘”
h/t boingboing
Him: You said ef me before I said ef you.
Her: You was thinking it, I just said it.
The Consumerist flags this WSJ piece about BP engaging in happy talk about the economic impact of the Macondo Gusher on affected communities:
But in Planet BP — a BP online, in-house magazine — a “BP reporter” dispatched to Louisiana managed to paint an even rosier picture of the disaster. “There is no reason to hate BP,” one local seafood entrepreneur is quoted as saying, as the region relies on the oil industry for work.
Indeed, the April 20 spill on the Deepwater Horizon is being reinvented in Planet BP as a strike of luck.
“Much of the region’s [nonfishing boat] businesses — particularly the hotels — have been prospering because so many people have come here from BP and other oil emergency response teams,” another report says. Indeed, one tourist official in a local town makes it clear that “BP has always been a very great partner of ours here…We have always valued the business that BP sent us.”
It’s heartening to see that the Blackhawks have accepted an invitation to attend this weekend’s Gay Pride Parade in Chicago. Could be the professional sports world is catching up to the rest of society …
There’s been talk for some time about Detroit shrinking its footprint, just as there was a lot of talk about the same with New Orleans after our federal levees breached. I like Matthew Yglesias’ non-starter of a solution:
There are clearly insurmountable logistical, legal, practical, constitutional, and political obstacles to doing this but I can’t help but think that with 165 million people around the world telling Gallup they’d like to permanently relocate to the United States that it would be possible to find 1.3 million people who’d be interested in permanently relocating to Detroit and bringing the city back up to its peak population level.
I believe he’s right when he says the obstacles to such an approach are “insurmountable.” However, what if we found a bunch of Americans to bring to Detroit? What if we had a reciprocal relationship with the good City of Detroit whereby we spent our summers up there and they spent their winters down here in New Orleans? We love their music; surely they love our music. We could escape the heat, they could escape the cold. See where I’m going?
During the down months the respective cities could simply rollback services from the areas where the populations have receded. Over time, we would fix dilapidated housing stock in Detroit and Detroiters would do the same here.
After all, it’s always easier to fix someone else’s problems than it is to fix one’s own.
Update: And to think that back during the Civil War a member of the military was convicted of “contemptuous speech” against the president (Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice) for saying:
Jeff Davis was as good a man as Abraham Lincoln
That’s Cairo trying to keep a Hubig’s wrapper he found alongside St. Charles Avenue. Since I started taking Cairo for walks I’ve tended to walk the Garden District side instead of the Central City side. Cairo snags all the trash he can–he keeps his nose at ground level, forever sniffing, forever nabbing detritus–and there’s far more of it, in much greater variety, on the Central City side. Until I personally clean the streets and sidewalks of Central City, you won’t hear me complaining. Instead, I just make like I’m a tourist. I grab my point and shoot camera and go to the streets with all of the historical plaques and exquisitely landscaped yards. Oh that’s the house Sandra Bullock bought! I’m an Illinoisan all over again. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is the array of home security companies providing services in the Garden District. It’s almost like there’s a different security outfit for each house. (More here.)
Another thing I’ve tried to pay more attention to is how people build with trees in mind–or don’t object when trees take over. The first example, incidentally, is from the Central City side of St. Charles:
