Newsclipping of the Day :: Kurt Vonnegut is Dead

I read this online today, taken from a speech Vonnegut made at the Mark Twain house in Connecticut in May of 2003:

"I note that construction has stopped of a Mark Twain Museum here in Hartford -- behind the carriage house of the Mark Twain House at 351 Farmington Avenue.
Work persons have been sent home from that site because American "conservatives," as they call themselves, on Wall Street and at the head of so many of our corporations, have stolen a major fraction of our private savings, have ruined investors and employees by means of fraud and outright piracy.

Shock and awe.

And now, having installed themselves as our federal government, or taken control of it from outside, they have squandered our public treasury and then some. They have created a public debt of such appalling magnitude that our descendants, for whom we had such high hopes, will come into this world as poor as church mice.

Shock and awe.

What are the conservatives doing with all the money and power that used to belong to all of us? They are telling us to be absolutely terrified, and to run around in circles like chickens with their heads cut off. But they will save us. They are making us take off our shoes at airports. Can anybody here think of a more hilarious practical joke than that one?

Smile, America. You're on Candid Camera."

Maureen Stapleton has died

Okay, while finishing my Chivas, I just read that Maureen Stapleton has died at age 80. I really liked her in "Plaza Suite" and in Woody Allens "Interiors" she was super-fabulous. Well, obviously my blog has become a way for me to do an annotated photo album/scrapbook...I probably shouldn't get into the habit of covering obits. But somehow it is a loss to lose this lady, who apparently battled alcholism and mental illness...but channelled it all beautifully for our pleasure.