Global Warming and the Tards

I was going to vent on this a bit ago and never did. Quite honestly science isn’t my strong suit. Normally my brother leaves the politics to me, other than to get me cranked, and I leave the science to him. But global warming seems to be one of those things that covers both sides of that line.

I got cranked in the first place during big snows last week. Over how these morons use snow and cold weather to spew their asinine rhetoric. Come on it is winter after all! Just a couple quotes …

• Glenn Beck - The snow is hammering Washington, D.C., again. I believe God is just saying, "I got your global warming here, eh? You want a piece of global warming?"
• Rush Limbaugh - It`s just another nail in the coffin of the whole global warming thing. And each -- you know, every day like this, where is Al Gore? Where is the media asking Al Gore what`s going on with this?
• Senator Jim DeMint (R,SC) - It is going to keep snowing until Al Gore cries ‘uncle’
• I'm not even going to give Sara Palin the honor of a line here.
  

I always liked Al Gore. I sometimes wonder how different the world would be today if, but for a stolen election, he had become president instead of dubya. So that wonderful group of dimwitted minds above just irritated me.

Than I got all wound up again reading Thomas Friedman’s column (Global Weirding Is Here) in yesterdays Times. I always like his columns and this was good. In part of it he echoes Keith Olbermann. In their own words both say that the term ‘global warming’ was the worst choice of words. Olbermann saying ‘climate change’ and Friedman saying ‘global weirding’ would have been better choices. That way these morons wouldn’t be able to use snowstorms and record cold to argue against the scientific fact that the earth is warming.

I wont even try and explain why we get the snow and cold when the earth is warming but these two links might help ….

Cafe Sentido
truthout

My brother told me once the day will come when I won’t have to drive to the shore. The shore will come to me.

This past January was the hottest on record.

tuneage in honor of the winter games

Mardi Gras

Visions of gurls wearing beads and trinkets and little else dancing in my head. Fat Tuesday. Back home ‘Fastnacht Day’. Really just a reason to eat fried dough. A time to party.

Just a wee little drink before work to start out.

Where did it all go wrong? It ended in, of all things, a political discussion.

A simple question. What do republicans stand for? Do they stand for anything or are they really just the party of no, anything but that, or no you won’t?

How can you as a block vote against the PAYGO bill? If there was ever a conservative bill this was it. All it means is that if you have a bill with increased spending it also has to include equivalent revenue increases or spending cuts. It was the law in the Clinton era and revoked in the W. Funny how the budget is no longer balanced.

It moved on to the W stocked Supreme Court, in the Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission decision, saying corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money in election campaigns. Its called free speech they say. Seems more like somebody put up a ‘for sale’ sign on capital hill.

Finally it ended with health care reform. I guess it does all tie together. I have a pretty good idea where all those record drug and insurance company profits are going to go. Really this country will be bankrupt soon. And it won’t be wars, or environmental laws, social security, or the national debt that does it. It will be because of health care. It will be because the richest nation on earth doesn’t know what the hell it is doing. Anywhere between 15 and 40 million Americans don’t have health insurance. No matter what the number it’s just wrong.

Sadly I think Washington is morally bankrupt already.

In the end i was called too damn radical. But at least I got a free drink out of it.

But what happened to my bead clad gurls …..

tuneage

Observations from the Gallery

So here you have a hybrid post. It was written the old fashioned way with a pen and paper than posted with a borrowed netbook. From a bar no less!

Valentine’s Day eve and the streets are full of peeps. Just running all over like they were finally let loose after a couple days trapped with somebody they just had enough of. It would be nice to make some money today. Maybe start a new tradition of giving art as a Valentine’s gift. So screw those flowers and chocolates.

I really need to bring in my ipod and hijack the sound system in here. This nu-jazz, hyper-funk, Lady GaGa bullshit is driving me to the brink. And why do guys keep hitting on me? Why? Why? Why? Maybe I need to get tattoos.

I still miss ‘Foxy’. I totally need to find a way to get her here for the spring and summer. As of now I have no idea what that is. Than again maybe I should worry about health insurance first.

The snow looks like piles of gray crap now. I have a better description but I’ll refrain from using it. Well it has a little to do with deer and interstates. I’ll leave it at that.

Danica Patrrick crashed in her NASCAR debut in Daytona. Hopefully she has better days to come.

I never did sell anything today.

tuneage

Observations from the Gallery

The day after snowmageddon ….

The day after a big snowstorm hits New York everything becomes a bit more treacherous. Street corners turn into snow filled slushy pits. Sidewalks on side streets were actually clearer yesterday. Nobody seems to think you have to shovel more than one time. Washington Square Park, a pristine white yesterday, is grey and dreary. And everybody on the street is cold and bitchy.

If you have to work during a blizzard it’s best to do it with red wine, kahlua, and coffee.

Best moment of the storm. Taking pics in Central Park, the best moment and the quietest rolled into one. I just stood there for awhile and listened to the snow fall. I closed my eyes and at that moment I wasn’t in New York. I was back in the mountains.

I’m watching the news and have to feel bad for spots farther south. I don’t remember storms like that, one on top of another, even in the mountains. But if the federal government gets a snow day for an inch of snow, well, does that mean they will have three weeks off now? Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Sadly designer Alexander McQueen was found dead in London today. He was only 40 years old. I’m not big into fashion but it’s the talk of the Village today. Well I’m not big into non-black fashion anyway.

The far right loonies seem to be using snow as proof that global warming is a farce. What a bunch of tards. Limbaugh says we should all ask Al Gore what is going on. As Keith Olbermann answered “It’s snowing, moron!”

But that’s all science to me. Ill have to take that up some other day.

tuneage

Observations from the Window

So I’m sitting in my window watching my first snow in the Village. As always people fill the street as cabs slide around as they make their turns. I just have to wonder how a cabbie, just in from India or some such place, deal with their first snow?

Funny things begin to happen as the impending doom falls from the sky. As he closed schools Mayor Bloomberg made a speech as if the world was about to come to an end. He said the city would deploy an army of 5000 people and 1600 plows to ‘fight the storm’. How does one fight a storm?

Yet, at the same time, NYU announced classes would begin at 9am.

Buildings in the city are responsible for snow removal. I’m just wondering who does the shoveling at the gallery. I mean does the lowly peon have to do it? And I’ve been told people bring in booze and hangout when it snows. So, if I’m the one shoveling, does somebody bring me a drink? I miss my coffee bitches more and more.

Now one of the funniest things I ever saw. Across the street is a man selling snow shovels on the corner. He is standing right in front of a shop that has containers of fresh flowers in the window. So where does one find a case of snow shovels on short notice. Now I have to wonder, do I have a snow shovel? And how much are this dude’s?

The Daily News has but a small headline on the cover, ‘Brace For the Blizzard Of 2010’, but the sports section. Oh the sports section.

Stay tuned as snowmageddon continues.

tuneage

Update before i head to the gallery. If I hear one more person say something 'hey isn't this global warming great' I'm going to hurl. And the best line I have heard on TV coverage of the storm 'the wimpification of america continues'.

I'm off to be a wimp !!

Don't Ask Don't Tell

The US Senate is conducting hearings on the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) policy in which gays and lesbians serve in the military. Basically the military doesn’t ask and they don’t tell.

"It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do, No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens” said Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen to a Senate committee.

What is little publicized in this is the effect on would have on women in the military. According to the Palm Center women are affected more by DADT than men. CNN reports that in 2008, 36 % of those discharged by the army under DADT were women. This even though they made up only 14% of the army at the time. While the debate rages in the capital gays and lesbians continue to be discharged. 644 so far since Obama became president. This at a cost of $43,000 per discharge.

Senator Chambliss of Georgia recently expressed concern that repealing DADT would pave the way for allowing “alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art” in the military. Let me get this straight. If we allow gays to openly serve in the military other military members will get tattoos? I thought that they, along with musicians and athletes, had cornered the market on tattoos. And adultery? I think that is best left to the politicians themselves.

Maybe this is what they are really afraid of but are afraid to say ….

• Private Smith and Private Johnson are in a foxhole together. They are very close together. Private Smith would normally be aroused, but because of DADT he is able to suppress his urge to tear Private Johnson’s cloths off. If DADT is repealed he will be unable to suppress this urge and they will have sex right there.

• Private Smith and Private Johnson are going about their normal daily grind. All is well because of DADT. If it were to be repealed the heavens themselves would open up and the hand of god would destroy us all for pandering to homosexuals. Just like she did to Haiti.

If you believe anything like that you are crazier than they are.

tuneage

Violence Against Women

Sitting in my window catching up on my reading and I find myself so totally, so utterly disgusted, that I could sit here and cry. I’m reading the Huffington Post and found this column about a sixteen year old gurl in Turkey buried alive for talking to boys. She was literally buried alive by her father. Her hands were tied behind her back and soil was found in her lungs. Buried alive in the family garden under a chicken pen. What kind of pathetic monster called a human being could do something like that? Bury your own daughter alive. An 'honor killing'. Its nice to know there is a term for anything in this world we live in. Words just can’t describe the revulsion I feel right now.

HuffingtonPost

The International Violence Against Women Act, a bipartisan effort by the United States to address violence against women globally, was introduced in the US Senate last week. It is sponsored by John Kerry along with three other democrats and three republicans. For the first time violence against women would become an official part of US foreign policy. Polls show 82% of those polled support the bill. One has to wonder about the other 18%. Maybe something good can get done in Washington for a change. Change.org has an online petition to sign to show congress your support for the bill.

Change.org

Suddenly, in a city of millions, I need to be alone. I need a walk.

tuneage

[Statistics from a World Bank, United Nations, and World Health Organization studies

• Violence causes more death and disability worldwide amongst women aged 15-44 than war, cancer, malaria or traffic accident.

• At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.

• It is estimated that one in every five women faces some form of violence during her lifetime.

• The victims in today’s armed conflicts are far more likely to be civilians than soldiers. Some 70% of the casualties in recent conflicts have been non-combatants most of them women and children.

• At least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to be alive are "missing" from various populations, mostly in Asia, as a result of sex-selective abortions, infanticide or neglect

• So-called "honour killings" take the lives of thousands of young women every year, mainly in North Africa, Western Asia and parts of South Asia.]

the List

A rebuttal to mizz zzP's ten fav song list (Ta-Da). I did some thinking last night and came up with this list. I don't know if i'd call it my ten fav, well there is more than ten, but its a batch of songs id need on my ipod if i ever ended up on that proverbial desert island. Some have memories, some are good to get high to, and one owns me. Ill leave it to you to figure out which to get high to. Trial and error ....

The ten plus in no particular order

Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon
One - U2
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Creep - Radiohead
Khasmir - Led Zeppelin
London Calling - The Clash
Cocaine - Eric Clapton
Hey Pretty - Poe
Tiny Dancer - Elton John
Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
Numb - Linkin Park
Celebrity Skin - Hole
Best of You - Foo Fighters
Crime of the Century - Supertramp

And the song that owns my soul. One of these days Ill write just about this song and what it means to me.

My Immortal - Evanescence

For the record Zu I give you 9,7, and 3. But if you ever, ever, play Jethro Tull around me I wont be responsible for the consequences.

Observations from the Gallery

A little over a month into this grand experiment I feel comfortable enough to sit at the desk with sweet black boots propped up. Some thoughts ….

Things I miss

Seeing my brother everyday, the mountains always the mountains, deer by the side of the road, ‘Foxy’, geeking from the tavern, the whole college atmosphere, seeing JoePa now and than, and seeing the sky.
Being able to drive thirty minutes in any direction and be alone, totally alone, with my thoughts.
Sitting in my office looking at my paintings on the wall and having my coffee bitches do my bidding.
Court’s scratch made waffles for breakfast and her media chats.

Things I would miss if I went back now

The pure adrenaline rush I get getting up in the morning and looking out the window.
Our coffee shop, which seems to have pretty much replaced the tavern as my second home. Just living in the Village.
Getting a copy of the Times at 4am and reading it before I go to bed.
Meeting Ash for breakfast, after she has been up all night, and listening to her early morning political diatribes.
Having every other Monday off.

Hmmm seems to be more in the first list.

Stay tuned.

tuneage

Observations from the Window

For reasons all my own I find myself sitting in the window thinking about pettiness. Or is it simple immaturity?

Why do people act petty? Do they become obnoxious because it’s fun and gets everything stirred up and than they get the attention they are starved for in the first place? I guess that isn’t too hard to understand. Or is it insecurity? So afraid somebody might possibly be right that they have to go and trash everything about that other person to ease their own mind.

My own personal opinion is that people act that way because, for some reason, they feel inferior to you and probably anybody else they disagree with. They make themselves feel better by putting you down.

I don’t have the time or patience for other people’s pettiness and childish games. If I’ve learned one thing it’s that life is too short and precious too waste on things like that.

It means absolutely nothing to me.

As always I turn to the authority on all matters. The Urban Dictionary defines petty as ‘Someone that is so insignificant as to be almost unworthy of notice, even despicable. Marked by narrowness of mind, ideas, or views. Deliberately nasty for a foolish or trivial reason.’

tuneage

Art

“In order correctly to define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and to consider it as one of the conditions of human life. Viewing it in this way we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of intercourse between man and man.” Leo Tolstoy

Over the last couple days I had more discussions about art than I have in some time. Over breakfast this morning the ultimate question came up. What is art? After a lifetime of creating in one form or another, and eight years of study, you would think I had a ready answer but I don’t. I suppose that’s something to dwell on another day.

And what makes somebody and artist? I think you are an artist if creating is necessary for your well-being. You literally need it to survive. It feeds your soul and you can’t be who you are without it. It doesn’t make you a good artist but that’s subjective anyway.

I constantly struggle with the thought that my art isn’t good. I don’t know enough or my technique sucks. I always see things and wonder why I can’t do that myself. I know I need to create just to create, to please myself. But really I use it to say what I can’t say, a window into my soul so to speak, and it shouldn’t be to make others happy. At the same time to create something ‘for’ somebody is one of the great joys of art. I want others to enjoy what I do and I want to feel proud of it.

I create because there is something inside me that needs to get out. A desire to express what I feel so others can feel it too. It’s a form of therapy and meditation I suppose.

It’s a pure joy.

tuneage

Plurk goes to the Grammys

Just a random sampling of the insanity that is plurk. All names have been removed to protect the innocent ....

"Attention Plurk. The Grammys are not on here yet.

Reading freaky fanfics and waiting for the Grammys to start.

in my perfect world: tonight Lady Gaga steals the mic from Kanye to avenge Taylor Swift...just a prediction for the Grammys

who in the heck are all these new artists of the year?

Pink on the Grammys: "Cirque du *get* laid!"

one thing about the grammies. i keep feeling too young or too old. wtf ?

OMFG! Celine Dion, Smokey Robinson, Usher, Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood with da late Michael Jackson-Earth Song in 3D

Funny what you find out about people by what they plurk about The Grammys.

Dang !!! Quentin Tarantino Is just awesome acting a Hip Hop/Rap White Boy grammys

the Grammys were interesting, and that's all I'm gonna plurk about it. lol

almost time for the grammys again XD

Good morning! I enjoyed the Grammys last night. What did you think?"

Yes some may call it a waste of time but i like to think of it as, well, as always the urban dictionary may say it best.
'The only way to talk in the third person without sounding like a douche'

tuneage

Observations from the Window

With the warm sun streaming in i could just curl up and spend the afternoon here. Maybe i will.

Sunday afternoon seems to be the deadest time on the street below. That just seems off to me. may Villagers are religious after all. On Sunday we shall rest. Or maybe its just we got no sleep for three days and cant move.

I'm reading the paper and find that I am getting a new neighbor. Anderson Cooper bought an old firehouse just a few blocks away.

Now I'm not, and never have been, attracted to guys. But if i was, and made a list, i think Anderson would be at the top of it. I think I'll be walking around that block from time to time.

Maybe I need a dog I can walk.

I think the guy across the street is checking me out. I wonder if i should wave or flash him ??

"Buy the ticket, take the ride" Hunter S. Thompson

tuneage

from the window, Queers

We were working in the gallery yesterday when a woman walked in, mid 50s and dressed to black perfection, but seemingly upset about something. In the end it turned out she had overheard a staight couple talking on the street. Something to the effect of ‘I have never seen so many queers before in my life’. This totally upset her and I just had no idea why or what to say. Maybe it was the age difference but I think I would have looked at them and said ‘nice isn’t it’.

To me it’s just a word. My brother will be the first to tell you I ‘am’ queer and always have been. Than again maybe he has something else in mind. Some gays will say it’s inappropriate for any straight person to use the word queer. For them I leave this vid.

Lewis Black

This just seems to be one of those times I’m writing to make myself think. Just trying to understand how that woman felt. I guess I’m just too proud or arrogant to let a word bother me now. Maybe in high school I felt different but today call me what ever you want. The worst thing you can possibly think of. It will just bring that evil little knowing smile to my face. I’ll have to think about all this another day.

For now I’m just a woman who loves women. That works for me.

Tuneage

In a related note, a new activist group, Queer Rising, announced its existence on Martin Luther King Day. Now that is gay.