Now Here is a Beach House I Could Really Enjoy!

My friend Scott in Atlanta sent a link to this beautiful place this morning. Apparently, it is being moved a more appropos distance from the beach (for 2006 Global Warming standards), and being made into a tiny museum of Architecture & Design. Cool. We may go after a project at work on the topic of SUBURBIA and i am just beside myself considering the possibility of that. My mind is reeling and i'm finding it hard to focus on this old Weapons Museum i'm currently working on. Oh sculpted shag carpetting and cul-de-sacs and hifis and strip malls for major storytelling materials, instead of artifact cases full of guns! Ok, focus. FOCUS. F. O. C. U. S.

Now That We Are Country Folk

Well, sort of anyway. We live in the country. This is so hilarious, from Helen at the office:
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Do You Really Want To Make Me Cry?

Poor Boy George. It seems he's maybe sunk to a new low. Sure wish I lived in the Big Apple... I bet his fans are going to turn out in droves to have him take away their avocado peels, junk mail, empty milk cartons, used condom boxes, etc.
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Boy George ordered to Sanitation Dept.
Tue Jun 27, 5:21 PM ET
NEW YORK - Boy George, garbage man. The one-time Culture Club singer will do five days of court-ordered community service as an employee of the Department of Sanitation, a spokesman for the city agency confirmed Tuesday.

"He will be part of our team," said sanitation spokesman Keith Mellis. "We won't know exactly what he will be doing for several weeks, though."

The singer born George O'Dowd, who has struggled with drug problems for years, was ordered to do community service after pleading guilty in March to false reporting of an incident. He called police with a bogus report of a burglary at his lower Manhattan apartment last October, and the responding officers found cocaine inside.

O'Dowd, 45, became an '80s icon with his androgynous appearance and vocals on hits like "Karma Chameleon" and "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Anthony Ferrara threatened the singer with jail time if he failed to complete his five days with "New York's Strongest" before Aug. 28.

More on "An Inconvenient Truth"

Steven just sent me a link to this article from the news today, which i'm pasting in in it's entirety here. Seems noone will be able to make the "exaggerator" label stick to Gore on this one.

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Scientists OK Gore's movie for accuracy
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON - The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy.

The former vice president's movie — replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets — mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.

The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is in limited release, or read the book.

But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

"Excellent," said William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. "He got all the important material and got it right."

Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group of scientists, read the book and saw Gore give the slideshow presentation that is woven throughout the documentary.

"I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate," Corell said. "After the presentation I said, `Al, I'm absolutely blown away. There's a lot of details you could get wrong.' ... I could find no error."

Gore, in an interview with the AP, said he wasn't surprised "because I took a lot of care to try to make sure the science was right."

The tiny errors scientists found weren't a big deal, "far, far fewer and less significant than the shortcoming in speeches by the typical politician explaining an issue," said Michael MacCracken, who used to be in charge of the nation's global warming effects program and is now chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.

One concern was about the connection between hurricanes and global warming. That is a subject of a heated debate in the science community. Gore cited five recent scientific studies to support his view.

"I thought the use of imagery from Hurricane Katrina was inappropriate and unnecessary in this regard, as there are plenty of disturbing impacts associated with global warming for which there is much greater scientific consensus," said Brian Soden, a University of Miami professor of meteorology and oceanography.

Some scientists said Gore confused his ice sheets when he said the effect of the Clean Air Act is noticeable in the Antarctic ice core; it is the Greenland ice core. Others thought Gore oversimplified the causal-link between the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and rising temperatures.

While some nonscientists could be depressed by the dire disaster-laden warmer world scenario that Gore laid out, one top researcher thought it was too optimistic. Tom Wigley, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, thought the former vice president sugarcoated the problem by saying that with already-available technologies and changes in habit — such as changing light bulbs — the world could help slow or stop global warming.

While more than 1 million people have seen the movie since it opened in May, that does not include Washington's top science decision makers. President Bush said he won't see it. The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA haven't seen it, and the president's science adviser said the movie is on his to-see list.

"They are quite literally afraid to know the truth," Gore said. "Because if you accept the truth of what the scientific community is saying, it gives you a moral imperative to start to rein in the 70 million tons of global warming pollution that human civilization is putting into the atmosphere every day."

As far as the movie's entertainment value, Scripps Institution geosciences professor Jeff Severinghaus summed it up: "My wife fell asleep. Of course, I was on the edge of my chair."

Current

Are any of you watching Al Gore's Current TV? Here in Athens it is on TimeWarner Cable channel 115. For the past couple of weekends, i've had it on in the background while i'm reading, writing, and working. I started watching in April when it debutted, but lost track again until now. It really is interesting if you've never seen it. It's worth a view just to see what the hell commercial-free programming looks like (isn't that what pay-for-TV was supposed to be, commercial-free??). Well, it's not totally commercial-free, but compared to CNN, it certainly seems so. Anyhoo, i've seen the coolest stream of segments tonight. Check it out if you haven't, and let me know whatcha think.

Remember

The Drive: New Orleans Lower 9th Ward & Lakeview Preview
We all know what went on in New Orleans nearly a year ago. Last November, I went with a couple of friends west to Biloxi from Mobile, where i was attending a conference. It still makes me so sad to know how abandoned those people and that city are by us all. While nearly 60 cents of every $1 of OUR tax money, of MY tax money, go to support the Military-Industrial complex--the same one that Dwight Eisenhower warned all Americans to keep an eye on 45 years ago--while all that money is wasted, New Orleans is left to die. Sure the French Quarter will make its comeback, and all the crap that tourists want will make it...but all those beautiful neighborhoods surrounding I think are all lost forever. We all need to remember those people and that city, and remind ourselves that so many are unaccounted for or missing, that tens of thousands were uprooted and moved to countless surrounding cities, and that miles upon square miles are just gone forever. Will those people ever be able to come back? Are they being deliberately blocked from coming back? Should those low areas not be redeveloped? Will the levees ever be adequate to prevent future nightmares for New Orleans? Is this just the tip of the iceberg, considering the ice in our glass called earth is rapidly melting away? So many unanswerable questions, so many distractions, and so many unconcerned people in power.

Pride: A Process

This guy Kelly has issued a challenge to Queerdom to post this pic for pride. What a great idea. Lest any of you gays out there reading this forget, i'll remind you: Coming out is a PROCESS. You'll have to do it over and over and over again, thousands of times probably. So you might as well enjoy it!

A Period of Consequences

Run, don't walk, to see Al Gore's new An Inconvenient Truth, opening today. We just returned from seeing it, and it has my mind spinning about the challenges we in FACT face. I am so sick to death of the spin meisters trying to repackage global warming as theory, rather than scientific fact... and i'm more sick of the people that actually fall for it, hook, line, and sinker. It is startling folks--startling what changes we WILL see in our lifetimes; startling the changes that have already happened, but are obfuscated and buried; startling what a huge opportunity the challenges present. Most of all, it is startling how far we will go to deliberatly NOT take care of one another. Even as we watch skyscrapers tumble to the ground, and witness the polar ice shelves crumble into nothing... is nothing cataclysmic enough to seriously MAKE us make sure things are changing?

Joseph actually thought the film seemed like a splashy, i've-just-launched-a-new-media-empire kind of Presidential ambition announcement. And he also commented that he didn't really appreciate the big role the slide show played in the film... which was exactly what I liked the most. It was like Powerpoint on steroids or something.

Steven found this great piece today on CNN about Bill Maher and his quiet adoration of Gore. Poor guy, wonder if he could possibly be really considering another bid against the Republican Crime Family Juggernaut?

Ok, enough fun with links now! Can you tell i just learned how to use them??

Climb Every Mountain

My friend Larisa has a blog! She is about to go to Switzerland for part of her education as a chef. Swing by and check her out, she is LOVELY!!

Between Coolville and Guysville!

We had a great dinner last night with Matt and Robin Dewey, and Ken and Tom, the two--rather eccentric--proprietors of GlassHouseWorks, the crazy garden place we visited a couple weeks ago in Stewart. Ken and Tom are FULL of stories, and we got an earful. What a bunch of fun. They both taught something or other at Ohio University long ago, before they got sucked full time into their garden. Their place now spills over several blocks in Stewart, with assorted houses (and an old hotel), paths, greenhouses, and bamboo groves connecting it all. Their business is mostly thriving mail order stuff to other nurseries and people far away, and they have about a dozen people who help them with it all. They love to tell people via long distance how much they like being between Coolville and Guysville (really). Oh my.

How Evil Are You?

I'm 58% Evil. Quite Respectable.

From Chad Fox at Stop Touching My Food:

You Are 58% Evil

You are evil, but you haven't yet mastered the dark side. Fear not though - you are on your way to world domination.

How Evil Are You?

Remember that Crazy Floor Sweeper?

Speaking of Doris Day, the boat used in her '66 film, the Glass Bottom Boat, sank today near Santa Monica. Bummer. In many respects, even though i adore the 3 Rock Hudson films, i think GBB was her best. It is madcap and goofy, and that is totally what she does best. Click on the title of this post to link to the ABC news article. Remember the crazy sixities-style aggressive roomba that Rod Taylor had in his space-age kitchen?

Que Sera Sera!

We've had the best time all weekend being couch potatos and having a Doris Day Show marathon. Season 3 came out on video last week. And Season 4 will be out sometime soon, I hope (they already have the artwork done, as you can see). I barely remember this from my childhood, but i LOVED it, especially the beginning, when she spins down her spiral staircase in the yellow pantsuit, with the trippy camera tricks keeping time with the Partridge Family organ in the background playing Que Sera Sera behind her vocals. Seeing it again now, 35 years later... i just can't believe my eyes and ears... She said the word "groovy" a total of 9 times (I think) just on the first of 4 dvds! Of course, i had no idea what cool was at 5, and didn't notice any of the cool stuff back then. Like her single male ascot-wearing obsessive-compulsive disordered neighbor (it is set in San Francisco, just like Rock Hudson's similarly seventies sited--and fabulous--McMillan & Wife). Or all the sexual innuendos. Or all of those FABULOUS polyester outfits. Now i see where Brini Maxwell got most of her ideas: from the Doris Day Show! Doris is so much more of a lovable star to me than anybody around today (J Lo? gimme a break. Jennifer Anniston? gag. Debra Messing? whatever) and i'm so glad i get to go down memory lane. Enough of this pesky computer, time for DVD 3!

You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in trouble

"The lone news anchor who seriously questioned the integrity of the 2004 election was Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. I asked him why he stood against the tide. ''I was a sports reporter, so I was used to dealing with numbers,'' he said. ''And the numbers made no sense. Kerry had an insurmountable lead in the exit polls on Election Night -- and then everything flipped.'' Olbermann believes that his journalistic colleagues fell down on the job. ''I was stunned by the lack of interest by investigative reporters,'' he said. ''The Republicans shut down Warren County, allegedly for national security purposes -- and no one covered it. Shouldn't someone have sent a camera and a few reporters out there?''

Olbermann attributes the lack of coverage to self-censorship by journalists. ''You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in trouble,'' he said. ''You cannot say: By the way, there's something wrong with our electoral system.''

--excerpted from "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in the current issue of Rolling Stone.

Click on the title of this post to link to the entire article.