buzz twang

One of the last of the greats has passed away.

More than any other actor and producer that I can recall, the movies of Paul Newman shaped my love of cinema. From Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to The Sting, Cool Hand Luke to Judge Roy Bean, The Hustler to Hud, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to Slap Shot, and there are a lot more… And, his pasta sauce kicks butt too. Thanks Paul. You’ll be missed but never forgotten.

From Cool Hand Luke:

Via Think Progress, Barney Frank makes a reference to a bipolar baseball player in describing John McCain’s behavior at the symbolic but not unimportant White House meeting the other day on the financial meltdown. From TP:

“When asked by the Washington Post whether McCain “will be able to spin the idea that he swooped in and saved the bailout bill,” House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) replied:”

It depends on whether you guys get fooled or not and write that [bleep]. … Before McCain came in, we thought we were working. McCain comes in, it gets screwed up, now McCain leaves — I dunno, it’s like Jimmy Piersall.

Yikes.

Right wing propaganda troll Drudge and his droogs think that McCain won the debate, (and McCain’s victory was announced before the debate began and before it was even known if McCain would attend) yet polls say otherwise. So does a Fox focus group run by GOP turd Frank Luntz. So much for a McCain win, preordained or not.

IMHO, McCain came off mean spirited, clueless, repetitive, arrogant and condescending towards Obama. The entire “Obama doesn’t understand” routine was just sad and dumb. Because it was very clear that Obama did indeed understand. It was indeed mean versus lean.

Obama could have been stronger, but it was interesting to see him pound away at McCain and the old geezer’s reaction, trying not to explode. And, McCain’s not being able to even look at Obama? Wow. It all adds up in the minds of voters.

The next debate will be the double punch. The third the knock out. Watch.

What I see in NYC. good to see others share my contempt for people who do not have the decency to clean up after their dogs. pretty disgusting and a metaphor for the state of things.

Jack Johnson, via You Tube… Lyrics below the quote and the video. (Chose one of the videos without all the war images. The lyrics convey the point fine.) Have had this album for a few years now and it just seems to get better….

I had a few of the lines for it here and there. But what really inspired me to write the rest of it was an interview with Kurt Vonnegut I read where he was asked if he felt that the leaders of today – cultural, political, and artistic – were being responsible to their society. And he had this line that I thought was great where he said, ‘Forget about society. What about humanity in general?’ And so that was the idea for the song. The first line is, ‘By now we should know how to communicate instead of coming to blows.’ It just seems that in this day and age with email and telephones, it’s crazy how we still have wars. It seems that everything should be able to be worked out through a conversation by now, if there’s just a little bit of compassion on every side. – Jack Johnson

It’s such a tired game
Will it ever stop?
How will this all play
Out of sight out of mind.

By now we should know how to communicate
Instead of coming to blows, We’re on a roll
And there ain’t no stopping us now
We’re burning under control
Isn’t it strange how we’re all
Burning under the same sun?

Buy now and save, it’s a war for peace
It’s the same old game
But do we really want to play?
We could close our eyes it’s still there

We could say it’s us against them
We could try but nobody wins

Gravity has got a hold on us all
We could try to put it out

But it’s a growing flame
Using fear as fuel
Burning down our name
And it won’t take too long
Words all burn the same
And who are we going to blame now?

It’s such a crying, crying, crying shame

By now it’s beginning to show
A number of people are numbers that ain’t coming home
I could close my eyes it’s still there
Close my mind be alone
I could close my heart and not care
But gravity has got a hold on us all

It’s a terrific price to pay
But in the true sense of the word
Are we using what we’ve learned?
In the true sense of the word
Are we losing what we were?

It’s such a tired game
Will it ever stop?
It’s not for me to say
Is it in our blood
Or is it just our fate?
And how will this all play
out of sight, out of mind
Who are we going to blame all in all?

It’s such a crying, crying, crying shame

Jon Stewart… video.

What I see in NYC. ny public library and lion lit in pink. it's a pink thing again. stumbled upon it.

What I see in NYC. pink clouds and sky.

John Cole at Balloon Juice writes:

And it is crazy. The folks who spent a year telling us Barack is not ready to be President are now extolling the virtues of being on the PTA. The folks who mocked Obama’s “celebrity” for six months are now buying Palin dolls because of one speech she read at a convention. The whole thing is just nuts.