first real snow of the season, a little later than normal. Photo better when viewed in Lightbox.
Winter finally arrived in Chicago (today’s high is below freezing, so the snow is still visible in most places.)
Author: swanksalot
Always good to have a second user look at things
Extended Reach
Tree in Belgium, WI, photographed with a Hipstamatic 180, modified with ShockMyPic.
sort of looks like a woodcut, doesn’t it?
Six Hands Table at Zilker
Zilker Park, Austin, TX
street art in Austin is fairly prosaic compared to the sometimes elaborately constructed Chicago street art.
links for 2010-12-01
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I think it was Michael Eisner, the head of Disney at the time, who was quoted as saying, ‘He’s ruining the movie.’ Upper-echelon Disney-ites, going, What’s wrong with him? Is he, you know, like some kind of weird simpleton? Is he drunk? By the way, is he gay? … And so I actually told this woman who was the Disney-ite … ‘But didn’t you know that all my characters are gay?’ Which really made her nervous.”
Bored at Midway
Figures, the first time I actually left for the airport early, traffic to Midway was virtually nil, security lines were nearly microscopic, and since there aren’t backscatter machines at Midway1 there wasn’t any TSA gropefests, and thus I am here at the gate, way, way too early.
- probably because the security checkin is on the second floor, and the new machines are too heavy [↩]
In need of a haircut
Seems like I just got one of the damned things…
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: DreamCanvas
Didn’t manage to rectify this before my sojourn south to the Republic of Texas. Hope Rick Perry’s security goons let me cross the border…
links for 2010-11-22
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Just because the Ninth Circuit ruled that 1973 airport screening procedures were legal administrative searches does not mean that the TSA is not currently violating the Fourth Amendment. In fact, the same court addressed secondary screenings only three years ago.
In Aukai, the Ninth Circuit stated TSA screening procedures are “well-tailored to protect personal privacy escalating in invasiveness only after a lower level of screening disclosed a reason to conduct a more probing search.” (United States v. Aukai, 497 F.3d 955 (2007)).
Employing AIT and enhanced pat-downs as primary screening mechanisms hardly seems to comport to that ruling.
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While the new TSA enhanced pat downs may violate the Fourth Amendment on the surface, what most people are not aware of is that the 9th Circuit Court of the United States ruled on the search of passengers in airports back in 1973, which effectively suspends limited aspects of the Fourth Amendment while undergoing airport security screening.
In 1973 the 9th Circuit Court rules on U.S. vs Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 908, there are key pieces of wording that give the TSA its power to search essentially any way they choose to. The key wording in this ruling includes “noting that airport screenings are considered to be administrative searches because they are conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme, where the essential administrative purpose is to prevent the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft.” -
a Lao Tzu story: 2500 years ago, if you wanted to cross a river your bridge was basically a rope slung between the banks. You hauled yourself over, using the rope to counter the drift of the current. Imagine that upstream a man was in a boat and he lost his oar. He is out of control as the current bears him towards you. When he hits you, or comes close, you shake your fist at him. But what if the boat was empty? To be hit by en empty boat is an act of fate, an accident. It’s a story to tell. To act in the way of Tao, essentially, is to act as an empty boat.
Urban Talisman – Polapan Blues
Franklin or Wells, I always forget. Wells most likely, near Wacker.
Embiggen:
decluttr
From last year
Murdered
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: Kodot XGrizzled
If it hadn’t been raining, I might have tried to save this tree, but it was, so this tree shall soon die. I do feel guilty.
links for 2010-11-08
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Jim DeMint says he’d be willing to shut down the government, the country to go into default on our debt and probably throw us into a world wide great depression by refusing to raise the debt ceiling if we don’t do something to get the budget balanced. When asked by David Gregory on this weekend’s Meet the Press to name specifically what he’d cut DeMint can’t name any specifics other than earmarks. He does also cite Paul Ryan’s plan which includes privatizing Social Security and Medicare so Wall Street can get their hands on the Social Security Trust Fund.
links for 2010-11-06
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A murder costs society $17.25 million, or about 50 times an armed robbery, according to a research team from Iowa State University. A paper from Spain put the average "price" of a pack of cigarettes for men at about $150. And a group of U.K. health experts considered a range of social, economic and health costs when trying to determine which recreational drug was most harmful. Alcohol won.
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Guthrie’s Jewish lyrics can be traced to the unusual collaborative relationship he had with his mother-in-law, Aliza Greenblatt, a prominent Yiddish poet who lived across from Guthrie and his family in Brooklyn in the 1940s. Guthrie – the Oklahoma troubadour – and Greenblatt – the Jewish wordsmith – often discussed their artistic projects and critiqued each other’s works, finding common ground in their shared love of culture and social justice, despite very different backgrounds. Their collaboration flourished in 1940s Brooklyn, where Jewish culture was interwoven with music, modern dance, poetry and anti-fascist, pro-labor activism.
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Those progressives are angry at the Senate for, in their view, bumbling the legislation Democrats passed in the House, and making it less popular. They have polling proving that the public option was more popular than the health care mandate. This is yet another reason that the "listen to the Blue Dogs" argument falls flat with them — if they'd listened to the Blue Dogs, they'd have had even less to show voters. In terms of progressive legislation, Pelosi was the most successful Democratic speaker since Sam Rayburn.
links for 2010-11-02
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AutoZone wants to own the creative, all of it, regardless of who wins the account. That demand, becoming more common, has prompted at least one finalist — Havas’ Arnold in Boston — to bail two weeks ago. Interpublic Group’s McCann Erickson in Troy, Mich., remains in, though it told AutoZone that it won’t pitch on those terms, said sources.
New expensive cheese grater
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: Ina’s 1935
Really a new desktop, replacing my Mac Pro circa 2006 with a Mac Pro 2010. Four years is good service, and I will still find a use for the older machine as it still runs well. I’m thinking maybe a media server and a dedicated Garageband recording studio perhaps.
Haven’t been able to use the new Mac yet, data is still being poured into the new container1. After that is done, I’ll clone a couple of the internal hard drives, and physically move a couple of others.
Since this computer is used as our office file server, I do need to finish setting it up before tomorrow, we have some work that is due at our client on Monday.
Footnotes:- I started yesterday at 5 pm, and it is nearly 10 am now, so that’s 15 hours and counting – with an estimated time of another 3 hours and 20 minutes remaining [↩]
links for 2010-10-27
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Originally set to open at the Maxine Elliott Theatre with elaborate sets and a full orchestra, the production was shut down due to "budget cuts" within the Federal Theatre Project—though it was widely believed that this was instead because of accusations that it was pro-communist. The theatre was padlocked and surrounded by armed servicemen, ostensibly to prevent anyone from stealing props or costumes, as all of this was considered U. S. Government property. They even impounded leading man Howard Da Silva's toupee.
On the spur of the moment, Welles, Houseman, and Blitzstein rented the much larger Venice Theatre and a piano, and planned for Blitzstein to sing/play/read the entire musical to the sold out house which had grown larger by inviting people off the street to attend for free. Orson Welles encouraged cast members to say their lines from the audience, to exercise their right of free speech. -
my photo here.
Toxie — Planet Money's mortgage-backed toxic asset — is in a coma.
links for 2010-10-26
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Lillian Hellman's 1931 play will pair the two actresses as headmistresses whose lives are destroyed when a pupil accuses the two of being lesbians. You will intuit that this is a period piece by the fact that the combination of the phrases "Keira Knightley," "Elisabeth Moss," and "lesbian lovers" results in despair and suicide instead of ultralucrative search-engine optimization.