If all goes as planned, any photos I post from now on will be clickable, expanding into a lightbox. Like this one:
Worried that the sizing may be a bit too big.
Category: Personal Page 21 of 59
The first daffodil of the season opened up, this morning:
Came across this nifty little Philip Greenspun article on tourists as photo subjects. If you’ve ever stood in a crowd of people waiting to get a fanny-pack free shot of a landmark, you’ll probably enjoy it.
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Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.
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Really enjoyed Annie Kevan’s All The Presidents Girls, a collection of watercolors of the mistresses of US presidents. When you’re done with that, click on “Paintings” and then “Boys”.
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Also rather clever – Replacing World Landmarks with Cheap Souvenirs.
Today is the beginning of NoRuz. What’s that? Here’s a short cut and paste:
[NoRuz] is the traditional Iranian new year holiday celebrated by Iranian peoples, having its roots in Ancient Iran. Apart from the Iranian cultural continent (Greater Iran), the celebration has spread in many other parts of the world, including parts of Central Asia, South Asia, Northwestern China, the Crimea, and some ethnic groups in Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia.
Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the Iranian year and is a secular holiday. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed. As well as being a Zoroastrian holiday and having significance amongst the Zoroastrian ancestors of modern Iranians. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the Jewish festival of Purim, is probably adopted from the Persian New Year. It is also a holy day for Ismailis, Alawites, Alevis, and adherents of the Bahá’à Faith.
Now, I’m not one for holidays (religious or otherwise), but I can really appreciate a celebration of the Spring Equinox.
(Something tells me that I’ll be getting corrections, shortly . . . )
Vivian Paige, in the context of some shameful personal attacks on a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, says:
The people have been lulled – by their own inaction – into a sense that politics is dirty and that’s just the way it is. But it doesn’t have to be. There are a lot more of us than there are of them. If we wanted to, we could change the way politics is done. But far too many are “too busy†to get involved, the result being the kind of attacks that Pat Edmonson and others experience, attacks that divert the candidate’s attention away from the real issues of jobs, healthcare, education and others.
People like to blame the candidates for the state of politics, but the candidates do it for a reason – it works with voters. And it takes the focus away from things that are hard: jobs, healthcare, education; and onto things that are easy: playground insults and identity politics.  Now, as a fan of the occasional playground insult, I’m hardly hoping for some idealized world of policy debates (although if it could keep me from ever having to endure another pearl-clutching kabuki dance about how shocked and offended a Virginian was by language, all the while gliding over the ugliness of their ideas, I might sign up). Rather, I’d like us all to be a little more conscious of our own tolerance for the form-over-substance approach to politics.
Because I need to spread this around:
The BBC is reporting that a new study suggests that our mental abilities start to dwindle at 27 after peaking at 22, and 27 could be seen as the ‘start of old age.’ The seven-year study, by Professor Timothy Salthouse of the University of Virginia, looked at 2,000 healthy people aged 18-60, and used a number of mental agility tests already used to spot signs of dementia. ‘The first age at which there was any marked decline was at 27 in tests of brain speed, reasoning and visual puzzle-solving ability. Things like memory stayed intact until the age of 37, on average, while abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until the age of 60.’
Some of you may appreciate the tags on the linked Slashdot story.
Living Colour’s Open Letter (to a Landlord):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Cf-UOBeN8[/youtube]
Now you can tear a building down
But you can’t erase a memory
These houses may look all run down
But they have a value you can’t see . . .
Trying to regain my sense of place today. Heard the track below during the trip – it’s Joanna Newsom’s Peach, Plum, Pear (2006). You’ll either cringe or love it.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcHjAUhtSrk[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efdfGeUKXuU[/youtube]
Last time I was here, this was a brand new hit, played in bars up and down the beach.
Please forgive the sporadic posting of late. This space deserves better than its gotten from me lately, and I’m planning to right that. Soon.