Way better than Pikachu

Was at the bookstore today (yay Chaucer’s!), found this book. I am officially bestowing my “Favorite Artist of the Moment” award on Slinkachu. Well done, well done.

They're not pets, Susan.

- suse

That Dude is Smart

Fun factoid. I just started reading Laurence Tribe’s book On Reading the Constitution. Perusing through the Acknowledgments section I came upon this: “We are grateful for the outstanding efforts of several very talented people…Robert Fisher and Barrack Obama have influenced our thinking on virtually every subject discussed in these pages.”

And then in the Notes section (yes, I read the Notes section): “We are grateful to Robert Fisher and Barck Obama for the metaphor of constitutional interpretation as conversation.”

This book was published in 1991. Obama graduated from Harvard Law (where Tribe was and is a professor) in 1991. He was 29. Awesome.

I just had my 28th birthday, I’m feeling a bit behind.

- suse

P.S. I have had no luck trying to figure out who Robert Fisher is, anyone? Searching for Bobby Fis(c)her II: The Law Years.

Welcome to Independence!

Unreturned library book leads to woman’s arrest, really? I’m not quite sure if this falls under the category of irony as the book this lady kept is about getting people to write. If it was about getting people to read, then most definitely call it ironic, in this situation, I dunno. But it is definitely not a good way to encourage people to use your local library and read books (which for you bibliophiles and bookworms is a great way to save some big bucks in the current economic situation, library cards are the best!). Can you imagine being the arresting officer for this?

- suse

Well, it isn’t the Olympics…

I just finished watching The China Syndrome (which you can do at three in the afternoon when you are unemployed), I have to say, I liked it. What’s not to love? It has Jane Fonda as a good girl reporter dealing with being a woman in a man’s world, but she also owns a large turtle and a very large answering machine. It covers some good things around gender issues and the media and public safety. Following are my thoughts, which happen to be some real critiques and really just some observations.
Please bare with me through the randomness (WARNING: SPOILER ALERT)…

- Nice back story of greed and power overshadowing human safety.

- Isn’t totally anti-nuclear, which gives it an interesting perspective, focusing more on the stuff going on around the plant. If Jack Lemmon is for it, how can it be bad?

- I like how the China Syndrome refers to the nuclear material getting all the way through the Earth over to China. Guess that’s one more thing the Olympic athletes this year should be worried about.

- Some keen lines from Fonda’s top boss character guy, particularly the one about her ‘certainly not getting the job for her investigative skills’.

- Fonda’s shoes for the majority of the movie are AMAZING! Brown platform sandal things. Well done Jane, well done.

Cover of creepy book you should read.

- I love the scene with Lemmon and the Geiger Counter. It reminded me of one of the books I loved when I was in about 7th grade, Z for Zachariah. I had to call up the bookstore I used to work at to figure out the name, thanks Summers!! Everyone should read that book, no seriously, it is really good, pretty creepy, but really good.

- End of the movie shows how depending on who is talking, and which news station you may be watching, one event can be told in multiple ways.

- At about 1:04 check out the signs on the wall of the nuclear reactor stairwell. Payroll, Personnel, Conference Room and Ladies Lounge. I’m not quite sure what the prop/set guys were thinking when they did that.

- At about 1:10 in you can see my friend D. Monico driving his blue VW bug. At least that’s what I’m telling people.

- Check out the cop with the bowtie close to the end of the movie at the crash scene, super fantastic!

- Anyone who shoots Jack Lemmon is obviously a bad guy.

- There isn’t a soundtrack. I really like movies that don’t have soundtracks, well, when they are well done. Great use of switching between scenes of the reactor with tons of noise and the control room with complete silence. Amps up the tension.

- Also, Michael Douglas is in it. I think we need to make his name a tag now, don’t we?

Only 28 more movies to go on AFI’s 100 Years…100Thrills list, woo-hoo!

South End Press Needs You

South End Press Knows

So, South End Press is a wonderful non-profit publishing company that is struggling to survive.  Based in Cambridge, MA, they’ve been fighting the good fight since 1977, putting out titles by Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Vandana Shiva, Paul Farmer, bell hooks, basically everyone you ever loved.  But, they are in trouble.  Books are difficult to make and pay for, especially in the current environment of consolidated publishing and media.

South End Press needs your help to stay open and active.  Here are three things that you can do:

1) Vote for them at Idea Blob, so that they can win a $20,000 grant to start up their Community Supported Publishing program. (NB: You have to register first.  Please register and vote.)

2) Buy a book from them!  It’s a lot different from buying one from Barnes & Noble, etc. and you’ll learn something great.  Here are the new releases.  Just tell me that you don’t like at least five of them.  Tell me!

3) Give them some money!  Like, your latte or Slurpee money.  Or, your yacht money, if that’s where you’re at.  Fund the revolution, people.

Ok, serious.  I promise to write about girl-on-song action soon.

- Ferrrosha

For the Nerds

Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey

Professor David Harvey has been teaching Marx’s Capital Volume I for
nearly 40 years. Now, for the first time, his entire course is being
made available online at:
http://davidharvey.org

This free online course consists of 13 video lectures by David Harvey,
sharing his close reading of the text of Marx’s Capital, Volume I. You
can watch the videos online, or subscribe to the podcast. The first
four classes are already available, and a new class is being posted
each week.

David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City
University of New York (CUNY) and author of various books, including
The Condition of Postmodernity, The Limits to Capital, and A Brief
History of Neoliberalism.