Sunday Observations 12.2

I had a busy day and never got around to my Sunday observations but watching the Eagles game I just saw something I had to share. First the Eagles are terrible but are beating the Cowboys at halftime which is reason enough to watch. Any year that they beat the Cowboys isn't a total loss. Still my highlight of the game is going to be this Lenovo Yoga commercial. Not only is it a hot ad for obvious reasons, the jacket, but it has a directors cut. Really, a TV commercial with a directors cut. Soon it will be a full length short on blu-ray.

link

While I'm in geek mode I should also mention iTunes again. For some reason I have been having problems with iTunes for a few months now. It's been slow to load and a total memory whore. Normally I don't update it as fast as I do other things because the updates don't usually concern me but this morning I updated to a totally new version (11) as soon as I got the notice. If you are having any problems with iTunes you should too. It's sleeker and has some new features but more importantly it took care of all the problems I was having.

Day Without Art

Coinciding with today's World AIDS Day was the 24^th Day Without Art to raise AIDS awareness. Robert Mapplethorpe was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 and died on March 9, 1989 at the age of 42. Less than a year before his death he took this simple but striking self-portrait that is considered one of his best and most influential works. During that last year of his life he also created the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation which has since raised millions of dollars for AIDS research.

"Robert Mapplethorpe shows himself in a 1988 self portrait withered and dying from AIDS. He grasps a cane topped with a small skull. It is one of the photographs in which every part is not fiercely defined by sharp focus. In stark, silvery black and white, the shiny detail of the skull is chillingly juxtaposed with Mapplethorpe’s haunted face – floating out of focus, receding into darkness." John Ingledew, 2005.

self-portrait, Robert Mapplethorpe, 1988
The J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Observations 12.1

Today is World AIDS Day. On a trip to New York when I was maybe ten I met a friend of my mom's who I now barely remember but I do remember as possibly the funniest person I have ever met. If somebody would ask me to describe him today what comes to mind is the Nathan Lane character in The Birdcage. My mom didn't tell me until later that he had AIDS because she didn't want my reaction to that fact clouding how I reacted to him. I never met him again and he died from the disease a year or so later. I can't even remember his name.

Since HIV/AIDS* was recognized by the CDC in 1981 over 30 million people have died and currently 35 million are HIV positive of which 3.5 million are children born HIV positive. In the United States 50,000 die every year and 150 are diagnosed every day. In comparison in 2009 10,839 people died in alcohol related traffic accidents.

I know comparing AIDS to drunk driving deaths is totally messed up but if you asked the average American what killed more every year, AIDS or drunk driving, I'd be willing to bet a majority would say drunk driving. This country's priorities always seem to be messed up that way. If we as a nation took half the money we spend on war, weapons, and killing and spent that money on AIDS and Cancer research we could probably go a long way towards wiping out both. Never going to happen.

For what it's worth ....

WORLD AIDS DAY, 2012
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

On World AIDS Day, more than 30 years after the first cases of this tragic illness were reported, we join the global community once more in standing with the millions of people who live with HIV/AIDS worldwide. We also recommit to preventing the spread of this disease, fighting the stigma associated with infection, and ending this pandemic once and for all.

In 2010, my Administration released the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, our Nation's first comprehensive plan to fight the domestic epidemic. The Strategy aims to reduce new infections, increase access to care, reduce health disparities, and achieve a more coordinated national response to HIV/AIDS here in the United States. To meet these goals, we are advancing HIV/AIDS education; connecting stakeholders throughout the public, private, and non-profit sectors; and investing in promising research that can improve clinical outcomes and reduce the risk of transmission. Moving forward, we must continue to focus on populations with the highest HIV disparities -- including gay men, and African American and Latino communities -- and scale up effective, evidence-based interventions to prevent and treat HIV. We are also implementing the Affordable Care Act, which has expanded access to HIV testing and will ensure that all Americans, including those living with HIV/AIDS, have access to health insurance beginning in 2014.

These actions are bringing us closer to an AIDS-free generation at home and abroad -- a goal that, while ambitious, is within sight. Through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), we are on track to meet the HIV prevention and treatment targets I set last year. We are working with partners at home and abroad to reduce new infections in adults, help people with HIV/AIDS live longer, prevent mother-to-child transmission, and support the global effort to eliminate new infections in children by 2015. And thanks to bipartisan action to lift the entry ban on persons living with HIV, we were proud to welcome leaders from around the world to the 19th International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C.

Creating an AIDS-free generation is a shared responsibility. It requires commitment from partner countries, coupled with support from donors, civil society, people living with HIV, faith-based organizations, the private sector, foundations, and multilateral institutions. We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end.

Today, we reflect on the strides we have taken toward overcoming HIV/AIDS, honor those who have made our progress possible, and keep in our thoughts all those who have known the devastating consequences of this illness. The road toward an AIDS-free generation is long -- but as we mark this important observance, let us also remember that if we move forward every day with the same passion, persistence, and drive that has brought us this far, we can reach our goal. We can beat this disease. On World AIDS Day, in memory of those no longer with us and in solidarity with all who carry on the fight, let us pledge to make that vision a reality.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States do hereby proclaim December 1, 2012, as World AIDS Day. I urge the Governors of the States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, officials of the other territories subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and the American people to join me in appropriate activities to remember those who have lost their lives to AIDS and to provide support and comfort to those living with this disease.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.

Barack Obama

*A few links if you want to learn more:
AIDS Healthcare Foundation
AIDS.gov
HIV Law Project
UN AIDS
Wikipedia HIV/AIDS

Observations from the Window 12.1

This is one of those totally strange posts I throw in now and than. The kind I come up with, I should say the kind Ash comes up with when I suddenly have no idea what to write about. She just throws something around like "hey, what are your top played songs on iTunes and what the hell does it mean?" So here you have my ten most played songs from iTunes but I have no clue as to what they mean other than I don't seem to have a fav genre of music. Keep in mind I do wipe out the play numbers now and than so Carly Rae Jepsen is pretty much a fluke that I'm going to blame on the Olympics. Also, I removed any Lady Gaga or Britney tunes from the list because I just didn't want to seem weird.

Call Me Maybe (Manhattan Clique Remix), Carly Rae Jepsen
Miss You Paradise (Shogun Remix), Emma Hewitt
Impossible, Anberlin
Pray Tell, Anberlin
Colours (Armin Van Buuren Remix), Emma Hewitt
Drive By, Train
Hypocritical Kiss, Jack White
A Lot of Things Different, Kenny Chesney
Amerika, Rammstein
That's Life, Frank Sinatra

I thought about adding a top Christmas song list to make it seasonal but than I realized too many of the top tunes were Mariah Carey. I dropped that idea because, like I said, I didn't want to seem strange or anything.

So there you have it. My first, and hopefully last, iTunes top ten list. Plan your holiday parties accordingly.

Observations from the Window 11.27

A cloudy and cold morning in the Village as I went for my morning paper and you could just feel it, the first snow of the year is on its way. You know that feeling if you live anywhere that gets snow, the crisp calm air, the quiet. The city has its own version of the quiet, call it loud quiet. The horns and sirens are just as loud but they sound totally different, somehow distant. My sister tells me there is already a few inches on the ground where she is so it's only a matter of waiting here.

I never watch the Today Show but I have it on this morning for a very good reason. Scarlett Johansson is guest hosting and as I write about the weather she is, you got it, doing the weather forecast. She is guest hosting because she will be doing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Richard Rogers Theater. I think I may need tickets for that even though I'm not a big fan of the theatre. Maybe Chloe would like to go but than maybe I should be saying I just love the theatre.

While I'm on the subject of entertainment, or girls, Lindsay Lohan's performance in Liz & Dick was evidently so bad it had twitter in an uproar. It got so bad Dan Savage tweeted "The mob on Twitter will have the decency to feel bad when Lindsay Lohan kills herself, right?" Sad but I only bring it up because my sister showed me this R.E.M. video over the weekend and Lohan happens to be in it. It's a rather fitting if disaffected video given R.E.M. no longer exists and Lohan's current reviews. The tune, which features Patti Smith, was released last year but the video just surfaced last week, that according to my new entertainment editor Kayla.

Lohan always did look good in black.

link

Published on Nov 15, 2012 by remhq
Directed by James Franco. From 2011 Warner Bros. Records release

11/29 update - So it seems Lindsay Lohan was arrested for assault last night at a club in Chelsea. Apparently after a disagreement with a woman in another booth she got up and punched her in the face. Troubled girl she may be but I can't help but like her.

Observations 11.26

Originally the Supreme Court was to announce on November 20^th whether or not it would hear cases on California's Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Instead it announced a ten day delay in that decision which could be good or bad, who knows. If the court decides not to rule on the Prop 8 case, much more likely than not ruling on DOMA, the Ninth Circuit ruling will stand, Prop 8 will be viewed as unconstitutional, and California will become the tenth state in which same-sex couples can legally marry.

This ad began airing yesterday during the Sunday morning news shows. Such a voice ....

Dawn of a New Day for Marriage Equality


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Published on Nov 24, 2012 by hrcmedia
Freedom, justice, and human dignity have always guided our journey for a more perfect union. With historic victories for marriage, we've delivered a mandate for full equality. The wind is at our back, but the journey has just begun.

Observations from the Gallery 11.26

I love my Kindle even though I'm using it for something I hadn't really planned on using it for, reading. I have a button attached to Google Chrome that with a click will send any article I can read online to my Kindle, "Send To Kindle for Chrome". With the HD no glare screen it's much better to read on than my laptop and oh so much easier on the eyes than phone reading. Totally worth the investment and worth waiting for the HD models to arrive.

The following paragraph is just a minor geek vent. Somebody recently accused me of setting my tumblrs to private. For the record no I haven't made them private and no it's not something I ever really considered. What would be the sense of having them if I didn't want anybody to see them? Also the links to are right there on this blog's sidebar so I ask again, what would be the sense of making them private? Honestly if this blog got as many hits as my tumblrs I would be a rich girl. But enough about that.

Something else I have found so very interesting is how many people have discovered VPN (virtual private network) software since the whole Petraeus email mess. Suddenly everybody wants to be anonymous and they don't think other people realize that their emails aren't originating in Russia. To be fair I should say that I have been using one program or another for years but it's funny seeing the pizza delivery guy using one. I'm thinking maybe I should just give up art and go into the security business or maybe, even better, art security.

This short geek post is actually a bit of history in the making. This is my first blog post written and posted entirely by Kindle. Technology is a wonderful thing, until it's not.

Sunday Observations 11.25.2

Well I did find something, something I had been saving to write once I found out more about Sandy's hit on Stone Harbor. I never did use it but I do like it and finding a home for orphan paragraphs was the whole idea behind Sunday Observations. I don't remember where it was from or who wrote it but it's just a perfect description of why people feel how they do about the Jersey shore, the shore.

"There are parts of the Jersey Shore that, in high summer, are almost indistinguishable from California or Florida or some other sun-washed paradise. The difference here is that summer dies each year. It is briefer, and thus more precious, and Labor Day is the saddest day of all. That’s why we grasp the Shore so hard, why we hang on to it so fiercely. How much can we squeeze from this wave, from this romance, from this fishing trip, from this bar band, from this sun? How much more before it all chills and fades and we have to wait nine more months to try again?"

Before anyone texts me I know I could just google the first line and find out where it came from but that would take away from it no? Okay it came from a New York Times op-ed piece by Kevin Coyne.

One more thing while I'm thinking about The New York Times. What is up with the Styles section? Its been way too boring for months now. After three years maybe it's time Stuart Emmrich went back to the Travel section and left Styles to somebody new, preferably a woman after two decades under men.

Sunday Observations 11.25

A weekend with the family seems to go so fast but here we are, Sunday, soon time to head back to the Village. I think I will be waiting until morning, traffic be damned, because I have some photo work I can do here and quite honestly I don't feel like going back yet. Usually I have some notes left over to post Sunday morning but I was a bit lax this week so I'm going to have to wing it. Here we go.

In an awesome gesture Penn State put the year 2012 on the wall of Beaver Stadium along with the years of all the championships and undefeated seasons. It is meant to honor a team that stuck together through everything that happened in the last year but more importantly it honors the thirty one seniors who held the team together. Penn State won its final game against Wisconsin and finished the year 8-4, pretty damn awesome considering many national writers didn't see them win a single game, indeed hoped they wouldn't.

Bill O'Brien became a legend at state in a single year. Not only did he coach the team to its 8-4 record he did it with a style of football some fans have only dreamed of for years. O'Brien's eight wins are the most ever by any first year head coach of the Penn State football team. An impressive total even though there have only been 15 head coaches in the team's 125 year history. Now rumors swirl that some NFL or NCAA team will try and buy him out of his contract after one year so I guess we'll all find out something about Bill O'Brien in the coming months.

An interesting fact about Wisconsin. The Badgers will face Nebraska in the Big Ten championship game next week even though the finished third in their division. They are just lucky enough to be in the same division as Penn State and an undefeated Ohio State both of which are ineligible for the championship or any bowl games. As for bowl games, I don't care who is playing, none of them will be as good or played as hard as yesterday's come from behind (both teams) over-time win by Penn State.

In totally diff type of football the Penn State women's soccer team will be heading to the College Cup, the final four of NCAA soccer, where they will play Florida State next Friday on ESPNU. Even though PSU has won fifteen consecutive Big Ten titles it will be their first trip to the final four since 2005. Congrats!

Seems Sunday Observations became a sports blog this week. That's what happens when I hang around my dad too much.

Observations from the Road 11.22

It officially begins, the holiday season. It begins with warm pastries, coffee, and a newspaper with enough Black Friday ads to kill a tree. Somewhere in this house my dad surely has a case of win hid but I haven't begun to seriously look for it yet. He started hiding it years ago when he bought a case of wine to last the entire month and I drank most of it over Thanksgiving weekend. My wingnut uncles will do that to me and I can call them wingnuts in writing because I've been known to call them wingnuts to their face. They laugh it off though because they know Katie never has been all there. Little do they know, Katie is just fine but they aren't all there. This is how it goes at our Thanksgiving dinner and I love every wine soaked minute of it.

Somewhere Christmas music is playing now. Probably that overly sentimental sister of mine preparing herself for an early round of shopping tomorrow morning. I know its not my brother because it isn't noon yet so he wont be awake. But I lie, he was up as early as me and made the coffee. Much better coffee than I could have made I might add.

It's a gorgeous if cold morning in Pennsylvania. The turkey seems to be suitably thawed and it looks like a nice if somewhat unlucky bird, it didn't win the White House turkey pardon lottery. Wine, cook, dinner, football, wine, argue, stomp out to the porch for a cigarette, football. I think that covers it but did I mention wine?

Strange but as much as I sometimes dislike this time of year it's also the time of year I'm the least cynical. I really don't understand why that is so I guess it just gets filed in the 'I'm just an enigma' category. So what am I thankful for, it always comes down to my family, really that's all I need and I would't change a thing about any of them. Hell I even enjoy arguing with the crazy wingnut branch of the family but maybe that's just because of the wine. I know they don't celebrate our Thanksgiving in the middle east but the Gaza ceasefire seems to be holding for now. That's something to be thankful for too.

Honestly I don't understand why everybody doesn't celebrate our Thanksgiving Day. I mean seriously, who wouldn't want to remember a group of religious zealots landing in a new land, celebrating with the native population, enjoying their gifts of food, all the while wondering how they could be rid of them in the spring. It's just so American. Sarcasm! Just prepping for my uncles.

Happy Thanksgiving people

Observations 11.20

As I have said before I try and keep my opinions to myself when talking about the Palestinian situation, it's just a no win thing no matter what I think or say. Jews having been killing Muslims who have been killing Christians who have been killing Jews for two thousand years. Sadly I don't think that is ever going to completely change. It seems more wars have been fought over supposedly peaceful religions than any other reason.

It's a little bizarre watching a war unfold on Twitter. One minute you can read as the Alqassam Brigade tweets every time it fires a rocket at Israel and a moment later the IDF announcing something called the 'Iron Dome' shot the same rocket down. Than there is a man who tweets under the name "News of the Middle East" from Oklahoma of all places. That is one person who does piss me off because he is totally pro-Israel and his av is a photo of President Obama with the Israeli flag behind him. Talk about not so subtle propaganda, Goebbels himself couldn't have come up with something better than that.

This is one of those videos I stumble onto while randomly chasing links. I'm not completely sure what the 'Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)' movement is but it doesn't really matter for my purposes here. The video was published in September, long before the current round of fighting began, and watching it I can't help but wonder how the turmoil is effecting these students. What they are doing, how they are coping, if they are even alive today.

Gaza, Palestine Youth Send Message to BDS Activists


link

Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Shahd Abusalama
Young Palestinian activists in the Gaza Strip ask their peers in the United Kingdom and around the world to build the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and attend the UK Student Palestine Conference at the University of Manchester on Sunday, September 23.

Observations from the Gallery 11.20

Reuters: GAZA TRUCE WILL BE DECLARED AT 1900 GMT AND GO INTO EFFECT AT 2200 GMT - HAMAS OFFICIAL SAYS

A mobile news flash, the funny thing with this is that before I could even get it posted and IDF spokesman said that truce talks were ongoing and they were still hopeful. That as the Israeli air force intensified the bombardment of Gaza.

We shall see but I wont hold my breath.

Observations 11.18

I really try not to take one side or the other in the whole Palestine, Israel, Jewish, Muslim historical mess. You really can't win no matter what you say and anybody that knows me can figure out how I feel. Last night an Israeli jet bombed a building housing international journalists and an Israeli missile killed 11 civilians bringing the current death toll in Gaza to over seventy. Another 660 have been injured including well over 200 children. As far as I can tell four Israelis have been killed so far by the dreaded Hamas rocket barrage.

You can call them terrorists, victims, innocents, or anything in between but it doesn't matter in the end. Dead is dead. These are the names of the Palestinian dead as of Sunday morning with their age where it was available. Also children under ten years old are italicized. As to what it means, make and up your own mind.

Abdula Muzanar, Amina Muzana, Suhaila Dalou, Raneen Al Dalou (22), Son of Suheil Hammad, Suheil Hammad (45), Hussam Abu Shaweesh (37), Abdallah Al-Mzannar, Tahani Al-Dalou (46), Samah Al-Dalou (25), Sulifa Al-Dalou (50), Nawal Abdelaal (52), Ahmad Essam Al-Nahhal (25), Tasneem Zuheir Al-Nahhal (13), Eyad Abu Khusa (18 months), Muhamed Abu Nuqira, Tamer Salamah Abu Sufyan (3), Gumana Salamah Abu Sufyan (1), Omar Mohammad Hmeid (26), Tamer
Al-Hemry, Samaher Qudieh (33), Mohammad Al-Louji, Awad Hamdi
An-Nahhal, Mokhlis Adwan, Hasan Isaed, Abdulrahman Al-Masri, Ahmad Al-Ja’bary (52), Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan (52), Osama Abdel Jawad, Ashraf Darwish, Ali Al-Mana’ma, Mohammad Al-Hamss (30), Ahmad Abu Musameh, Ayman Saleem, Khalid Khalil al-Shayer (28), Walid Abadleh (4), Hasan Salim al-Hulei (27), Ziad Farhan Abu Jalal (23), Majd Abu Jalal (33), Abu Jalal (43), Mahmoud Sa’ad-Allah (3), Tahrir Suleiman (22), Ismail Qandil (24), Fares al-Bassiouni (5), Oday Jamal Nasser (16), Tareq Jamal Naser (14), Haneen Tafesh (10 months), Walid al-Abadleh (18 months), Khaled Abu An-Nasr, Rami Hamamd, Hisham Mohammad Al-Ghalban, Wael Haidar Al-Ghalban, Habes Masbah (30), Mahmoud Abu Sawaween (65), Omar Jihad al-Mash-Harawi (11), Heba Adel
al-Mash-Harawi (18 and pregnant with twins), Essam Mahmoud Abu
al-Ma’za (19), Mohammad Hani Kaseeh (18), Ranaan Yousef Arafat (3), Mohammad Al-Hamss (30), Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan (52),
and Ahmad Al-Ja’bary (52).

11:00PM update - I'm not going to keep doing this but after an early Monday morning (Gaza time) airstrike leveled two homes I thought I would continue the list till the end of my day. The new names include five more children: Hussein Nasr (7), Jalal Naser (39), Ahmad Abu Amra, Samy Al-Ghfeir (22), Jamal Al-Dalou, Ibrahim Mohammed Jamal 
Al-Dalou (1), Yousef Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou (10), Jamal Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou (7), Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou, Mohammed Bakr Al-Of (24), Mohammed Salama Jundeya, Hussein Jalal Nasser (8), Nabeel Ahmad Abu Amrra, Nawal Abed al-Ali, Saadiyya al-Theib,
and Atiyyeh Mubarak (54).

Sunday Observations 11.18

Thanksgiving is Thursday so I suppose it is officially the holiday season now. It's cold enough in the Village and I went ice skating last night but something still seems to be missing. Oh yes, the NHL is still pretending to be a league on the level of the NFL and there is still no major league hockey. Some Philadelphia Flyers players are going to play some of the hated Rangers in Atlantic City Saturday night to raise money for Sandy victims and my brother has tickets. This now makes my Thanksgiving dinner goal talking him into taking his loving older sister to the game instead of his girlfriend, something that could be interesting with her sitting there. We shall see, I'll just have to keep their wine glasses full.

Another sign of the season is that I have turned on my iTunes playlist of 500 Christmas tunes. Yeah I know, so not me and I sometimes really don't like the season at all. It's just that same old love/hate thing I have going with Christmas.

There was another bit of election news, this time from Oregon. Democrat Tina Kotek was elected state House Speaker by the state's Democrats on Thursday. She will be the first open lesbian to lead a state legislature. Openly gay people will lead the legislatures of five states now, up from two before the election.

Not much news on the secessionist front but there is this very important petition on the White House website now that I will post below. It has been there for a couple days now and the White House doesn't seem in any rush to remove it. Must be something about the Hostess CEO raising his yearly salary to $2.25 million than filing for bankruptcy and putting 18,000 out of work.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Nationalize the Twinkie industry
"We the undersigned, hereby request Barack Obama to immediately Nationalize the Twinkie industry and prevent our nation from losing her sweet creamy center."
Created: Nov 16, 2012
SIGNATURES NEEDED BY DECEMBER 16, 2012
TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000: 22,125

I would scream "save the Twinkie" to finish but to be quite honest I hate the damn things. It would make a good sign for the Walmart Black Friday strikes though so I better get that copyrighted quick.