Wonderfully personal tweets from a few of my Faves
November 5, 2009 by Gee Carol · 6 Comments
Howdy to all y’all at Sirens — I haven’t been posting here in a while, nor too much elsewhere either. Besides being a little burned out, I have been catching up around the house for Thanksgiving company coming. And I am a bit enthralled with Twitter, which can temporarily ruin one for regular writing. Today I am posting a few tweets collected in the past few weeks as examples of the fun reading available on this amazing application. I use the web version of Twitter as well as TweetDeck.
Enjoy!
chrislhayes – Uncostumed as usual. I feel little less guilty about never having a costume with each passing year. #gettingold (10/31/09).
“About to dig into Cheney stuff. Bad flashback,” is from Matt Cooper (10/30/09).
jdickerson Under son’s pillow: “Dear miss tooth fairy. I woud like a dog or a bunny becuse my frend got a turtle. Don’t give me money give me a bunny” (10/29/09).
johndickerson On CBS Evening News tonight wearing my John Dickerson costume talking about Iraq bombing (10/25/09).
libbyspencer I keep my follow list small b/c I’m so OCD I read my entire stream every day-incl the links (10/25/09).
Hegemommy: (1)”OH FUN! One of my students is convinced the Obama election = end of days! And she’s writing on it!” (2)”Okay, I am totally partnering up the rapture student with the student writing about getting Wiccan symbols on headstones for soldiers.”
SCClemons Leaving Amman for Damascus to interview Khaled Mashal. Half the meeting is on the record and half is off. Going alone and a bit nervous (10/16/09).
libbyspencer For the record I think it would be great to #BeatCancer and big props to all the ppl out there who are battling it (10/16/09).
jeffjarvis This story is careening toward tragedy with the whole world watching. I am turning off the TV. It’s unseemly. [regards "balloon boy"] (10/15/09).
“markknoller Notice Macy’s has full-page ads in both the NY Times and Wash Post today of Cindy Crawford in her underwear. God bless the 1st Amendment. (10/14/09)
jdickerson Is there more or less kindness in the world than there appears to be? (10/7/09).
chrislhayes had an email forwarded to me just *shredding* the points I made in that video. Should be able to shrug it off, but can’t quite. (10/6/09).
jdickerson Son wants a dog. He’s up reading a dog care book learning to care for one. I’d make a bad president. If Iran did that I’d let ‘em have nukes (10/6/09).
AlexGoodall RT @PierrePaperon: Goethe: A useless life is an early death. (10/5/09).
libbyspencer It’s important to remember that every day about 295 million Americans get up and fail to tune in to Rush Limbaugh. ~Garry Trudeau (10/4/09).
“jdickerson I know the people at Seventh Generation want me to start a compost pile but making kitchen garbage bags that decompose on use is sneaky,” (10/4/09).
pourmecoffee COOL: The oldest living things in the world (Photo Gallery, Map): http://bit.ly/JUJGh (10/4/09).
libbyspencer RT @WillendorfVenus Thinking abt callus on right middle finger. Used 2 B lot larger. Almost never write w/pen now.||Was thinking abt that 2 (10/3/09).
chrislhayes If I didn’t have 600 pps of Ralph Nader’s new book to get through, today would be a perfect Saturday. (10/3/09).
TheFix Henry the penguin on “Oswald” reminds me a lot of myself. Neurotic, hypochondriac, news addict (by Chris Cillizza, 9/30/09).
jdickerson “Shouldn’t we be able to spell insouciant any way we please?,” (9/30/09).
jdickerson These paragraphs seem to shoot from my fingers as if propelled by a benevolent and magic force. By noon I will delete them. (9/30/09).
SCClemons Is at the United Nations watching the sun rise over the East River. Excited to see Obama Security Council session this morning. (9/24/09).
chrislhayes Sometimes I think it’d be more transparent to just give major banks permnt seats on the relevant legislative committees: http://is.gd/3BAks. (9/23/09).
libbyspencer If only we had carried more commie/fascist signs + screamed abt crazy conspiracies, MSM would’ve *respected* us anti-war protesters too. (9/14/09).
chrislhayes Remember how in the days after 9/11 the whole country was united in wanting less government? Yeah, neither do I. (9/12/09).
libbyspencer RT @HoneyBearKelly RT @UtneReader: How Sept11 should be remembered http://bit.ly/10YM8g ||Great piece could only have been written by a NYer (9/11/09).
ChuckGrassley Great Buy Danish Aebleskiver Dinner tonite at Fredsville Luthern at Dike. 5$ I went. (3/1/09).
I will return occasionally. Peace to all.
Sphere: Related ContentDavid Baldacci, at it again -
August 11, 2009 by Gee Carol · Leave a Comment
This post is one of my “classics” from South by Southwest. I say that because it is one to which people have returned over the years. It was first posted November 9, 2007. Baldacci is still a very popular author.
Best selling novelist, David Baldacci’s new book Stone Cold came out this week, and I was privileged to read an advance copy. What fun it was to discover this new (to me, at least) author. He writes about one of my blog’s favorite fascinations, the federal government. ” Spooks, Spies – Eyes and Ears in the Skies,” is one example. I cannot imagine where I have been all this time.
During the past ten years, 13 of Baldacci’s books have been bestsellers. They should have been familiar to me, because my blogs are often written about what is behind the door of chilling government power — spying, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, illegal domestic surveillance and threats to civil liberties, all subjects woven through the scenes in this author’s books.
This novel’s fascinating main characters will be familiar to dedicated Baldacci fans because Stone Cold is the third in his popular Camel Club series. Traits found in lead characters were carefully woven in moral shades of gray in several previous novels; two of the best sellers were “The Collectors” and “Simple Genius.” And the new book does not disappoint; we meet people who span the warp and woof of good and bad, flawed and heroic. Baldacci uses an interesting technique; he lets his readers in on his character’s thoughts via italics. For example – a CIA man trying to find his targets reflects on his experience:
. . . Gray’s men had checked. Still, with Carter Gray’s resources no one should be able to simply vanish. No wonder these terrorist sleeper cells were proving nearly impossible to uncover. America was too damn big and too damn free. In some ways the Soviets had had it right: Spy on everybody because you never know when a friend might turn into an enemy.
Baldacci’s fiction tapestry is that of government. His is not the government you and I would know from mainstream media accounts. Baldacci’s is a very recognizable shadowy universe that hides spooks, spies and assassins, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the Secret Service, and even the Chair of the Senate Intel committee. He introduces a new character in this book, nemesis “Harry Finn.” Psychologically astute, Baldacci often lets you know what his characters think. Here is a wonderful example:
. . . And when Gray had left the government, he had also left most of his protection behind. . . but Finn was confident he would eventually get to the man.
When Finn looked at the life he had now as part of a family of five in a quite ordinary Virginia suburb complete with a lovable dog, music lessons, soccer matches, baseball games and swim meets, and compared it to the life he has as a child, the juxtaposition was close to apocalyptic in its effect on him. That’s why he rarely thought of these things close together. That’s why he was Harry Finn, King of Compartmentalization. He could build walls in his mind nothing could pierce.
With this novel I walked into what seem to be very complex and realistic scenes from the high powered world of governance. I now know what I have been missing — a dynamite read, at times almost literally. Because his characters have the latest nifty gadgets and like to blow things up, a computer becomes the weapon in one of the author’s intricately interwoven plot lines. To quote from the book:
Finn had been able to get his device past security because it didn’t have any explosive materials in it. Instead, the device had been designed to ignite a chemical reaction inside the components in the CPU. It was a reaction that would make the otherwise harmless CPU a bomb, a possibility no one in the computer industry would want you to know.
Meet Baldacci’s well known hero, “Oliver Stone.” Asked in a Publishers Weekly interview why he named the lead character after a famous film director, Baldacci said, “Stone the film director has a reputation for taking on controversial subjects. Naming my character after him was an act of homage to a man who isn’t afraid to take unpopular positions.” To quote the author from another interview:
Oliver Stone first entered my imagination when I was a young lawyer. I walked past Lafayette Park in the mid-1980s and saw the protesters there. Fast-forward nearly twenty years and the sign, “I want the truth,” is flying proudly in that same park, at least fictionally. Gray characters are the most interesting. They have flaws, divided loyalties, moral complexity, and internal debates about what to do. Do the ends always justify the means? We’ve seen it recently with the Bush administration where you had former Attorney General Ashcroft and his top lieutenants ready to hand in their resignations over the warrantless surveillance matter.
To quote from Stone Cold’s subsequent park scene from above, Oliver Stone approaches the White House:
He would never be allowed to enter the front gates and lacked even the right to stand on that coveted side of Pennsylvania Avenue. What he could do was wait in Lafayette park across the street. He used to have a tent there until the Secret Service made him take it down. Yet freedom of speech was still alive and well in America and thus his banner had remained. Unfurled between two pieces of rebar stuck in the ground, it read, “I want the truth.” So did a few other people in this town, it was rumored. To date, Stone had never heard of anyone actually finding it within the confines of the world capital of spin and deceit.
This skilled writer will introduce you to fast-paced and easy to follow threads of intrigue, mystery, complex twists and turns guaranteed to keep you turning the pages. In Washington D.C. for book signings on Wednesday, David Baldacci is scheduled to be in Richmond, VA on Saturday, Nov. 17. He plans to be at the Barnes and Noble store on Brook Road at 2:00 p.m., if you live in the area.
In conclusion – and because I am also a reading advocate — I learned that Baldacci and his wife are passionate about keeping families reading. In 1999 they founded the “Wish You Well Foundation.” The organization’s mission is to support family literacy in the U.S. by fostering and promoting the development and expansion of new and existing literacy and educational programs.
Partnering against the cold of hunger — His foundation has recently partnered with America’s Second Harvest: The Nation’s Food Bank Network, the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in the U.S. to donate books to families in need. The joint initiative is called “Feeding Body and Mind.” Donations are coming in from all around the world, and they are now seeking corporate sponsorship to continue broadening their efforts.
My “creativity and dreaming” post today at Making Good Mondays is about motives affecting behavior.
Technorati tags: [domestic surveillance writing government Baldacci review
Sphere: Related ContentDizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
May 7, 2008 by Dizzy Dezzi · Leave a Comment
There’s no news like good news. Sadly, there is no good news in today’s Ten Post Round-Up:
1: A serious drug ring was busted up at San Diego State University….
2: Whites and Blacks use drugs at the same rate, yet Blacks are far more likely to be arrested for drug offenses…
3: The offices and home of Special Counsel, Scott J. Bloch, who oversees protection for federal whistleblowers, have been raided…
FBI Searches Office of Special Counsel Building–Crooks and Liars
4: The “Robbins” half of Baskin-Robbins, has passed away (the other half – Baskin, died awhile back). Both left behind more than 1000 flavors enjoyed by ice cream lovers the world over…
5: They saved the school and were served with pink slips…
Sphere: Related Content
winging it
May 6, 2008 by Betmo · 2 Comments
i don’t really know what to post about these days- and it is becoming a common lament across the blogosphere. seems like the bad news just keeps coming and getting worse all of the time. i find that i don’t know really what to do but i feel like i must do something. and i find i have to calm myself down and remind myself that this life is only temporary anyway- so i may as well make the most of what i have- and i have so very much more than most people who share this planet. so- here i am. anyone who reads what i write wherever i write- probably has figured out that i am a huge james blunt fan. 
i do not keep it a secret. so- his latest song- ‘carry you home’ is on the rotating playlist- i posted it here not to long ago. but it’s the song-’i can’t hear the music’ that is running through my head at present:
‘And if I can’t hear the music
And the audience is gone
I’ll dance here on my own.
And I hope the lonely hearts club band
Will play out one last song
Before the sun goes down.’
The Daily Coyote..
May 6, 2008 by Dusty · 2 Comments
Shreve is a woman that likes to be different. She traversed our fair nation on a motor scooter. Not a motorcycle, a Vespa. All by herself. She now lives in Wyoming with her orange tabby Eli and Charlie.
Charlie is a coyote. He came into her life when he was ten days old and both his parents had been killed. None of his brothers and sisters survived. He then came down with Parvo. His life hasn’t been a cakewalk.
He isn’t her pet, not by a longshot. Shreve gives him elk legs to chew on, and if he decides he wants to return to the wild, she will bid him farewell. But until then, we get pictures of him and his mentor Eli. We also get videos of the life in Wyoming in a one-room cabin. And we get the Daily Coyote where we can live vicariously through them all.
Photo is courtesy of Shreve Stockton,©2007 Shreve Stockton. all rights reserved.
Sphere: Related Contenttranquility
May 5, 2008 by Betmo · 2 Comments
Dizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
May 5, 2008 by Dizzy Dezzi · 1 Comment
Be forewarned. You might find some things in today’s Ten Post Round-Up a little shocking:
1: Teen who kept pregnancy secret, delivers healthy baby and walks to the hospital with the umbilical cord still attached….
California teen gives birth in shower, walks to hospital–The Associated Press
2: 38 years ago, 4 students were gunned down by National Guardsmen for standing up against an escalation of the Vietnam War…
Remember Kent State during Convention Protests–Colorado Confidential
3: While the media is dissecting Obama and his spiritual relationship with Rev. Wright, why is McCain being ignored despite his spiritual relationship with Pastor Hagee? The answers could be as simple as “black” and “white”…
Rangel blasts Blitzer: Brings up Bizarre beliefs of Falwell and Robertson–Crooks and Liars
4: The same chemicals used to make nonstick cookware are showing up in nursing mothers’ breast milk…
Moving up the food chain: PFCs present in nursing mothers’ breast milk–Flesh and Stone
5: Having plenty of trees on your block, could cut kids’ rate of asthma…
Sphere: Related Content
My Candidate: None Of The Above
May 2, 2008 by Dizzy Dezzi · 7 Comments
A lot of potential voters are feeling the strain of the current primary battle going on between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Of course, Obama’s supporters are up in arms about the Clinton camp’s apparent racial comments, not to mention the apparent “slips of the tongue” that seem to be a regular part of Hillary’s stump speeches.
As well, Clinton’s supporters are up in arms about the apparent misogynistic comments coming from the Obama camp. Many even argue that Clinton deserves the Democratic nomination simply because she’s a woman (their argument is that sex should trump race in this election).
Then, there are those Democrats and Progressives who aren’t keen on either candidate, for whatever reason. Of course, they wouldn’t dream of ever voting for a Republican, particularly not John McCain. Many voters are also not keen on voting for relatively or veritably unknown third-party candidates, either.
Many people believe that voting for either a Democrat or a Republican is a sell-out vote, no matter how you cut it. They call it “voting for the lesser of two evils” and of course, that means, no matter how you vote, you are still voting for “evil”. And, there are a lot of people who are not down for voting for “evil”, but they still want their vote to be heard. Instead of “voting for the lesser of two evils”, they prefer to vote “None of the Above” or “NOTA”.
Sphere: Related ContentPutting My Tinfoil Hat On
May 1, 2008 by Jolly Roger · 2 Comments
You know I’m not one for conspiracy theories. Although I firmly believe Chimpy is covering up a lot of stuff related to the September 11 attacks, I still think he’s doing it to conceal how incompetent he and Lecondel were in ignoring the multiple warnings they got. I have a feeling that the story of exactly what was going to happen was relayed to the Reign of Error, and they just blew it off. That kind of publicity for the “security” Goppers would be, as Rummy once said, unhelpful.
This, however, is just too damned convenient. Deborah Pelfrey has said many times now that she had plenty more names in her phone records for us. Vitter, she assured us, was only the beginning.
Now, in the space of a fairly short time, Ms. Pelfrey went from naming names to killing herself? I’m sorry; I just don’t see this one. This reminds me of all those “suicides” that occurred after Kennedy was assassinated (like Dorothy Kilgallen, who assured people just before her demise that she was going to blow the lid off the Kennedy assassination. Or Lisa Howard, who was acting as Kennedy’s emissary to Fidel Castro.)
Sphere: Related ContentDizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
May 1, 2008 by Dizzy Dezzi · Leave a Comment
I’ll beg your pardon, right off the bat, as today’s Ten Post Round-Up will probably get a bit personal:
1: “Live Veterans cost money that might better go to the war profiteers. Dead ones cost nothing”….
2: …”if 81% believe we are in a recession, then rest assured 81% will ACT like we are in a recession”…
3: Young voters not pickin’ up what the GOP is puttin’ down?…
4: We might have brought “democracy” to Iraq, but the women of Iraq are still waiting…
5: A little sumthin’-sumthin’ to add to my to-do list in 18 days…
Sphere: Related Content
Dizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
April 30, 2008 by Dizzy Dezzi · 1 Comment
I don’t know if the electorate are really bitter or not, but today’s Ten Post Round-Up will probably leave a grimy taste in your mouth:
1: So it seems that the only people that benefit from your college education is the college and the banks that issue student loans…
America’s Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor’s Degree–The Chronicle of Higher Education
2: Glass houses come to mind…
You Can’t Complain About Sexism If You Participate In It–The Democratic Daily
3: Single mom flips the script and sues RIAA…
Accused music pirate turns the tables on the RIAA–Geeks Are Sexy
4: Dizzy is a sucker for true crime murder mysteries…
Smiley Face Killers: All About The Growing Mystery Gang–The Huffington Post
5: Wright-Obama controversy: An interesting perspective on why religion and politics should stay separate…
Sphere: Related ContentSeparation of Church & State Really of Religion & Politics.–Hypocrisy.com
Dizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
April 29, 2008 by Dizzy Dezzi · Leave a Comment
Sometimes it’s hard to believe in the “benevolent brotherhood of man”. Today’s Ten Post Round-Up will probably not make it any easier:
1: The Supremes say it’s OK to require government-issued photo ID card in order to vote…
As Election Nears, Supreme Court Upholds Repressive Voter ID Law–AlterNet
2: The Secret Service rampant with racism?…
Cox reports “Noose allegedly found at Secret Service Training Center” and the Secret Service already has serious problems with racism–AMERICAblog
3: Money-saving tip: A stamp that is always equal to whatever postage is being charged for a 1 oz. letter, forever…
4: Well, it looks like the media has found Jesse Jackson’s replacement…
5: More of your tax dollars at work, supporting the troops, in Iraq…
Sphere: Related ContentDynCorp Manager Used Armored Car To Transport Hookers in Iraq–Muckraked
Dizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
April 28, 2008 by Dizzy Dezzi · Leave a Comment
Ah, Monday! It’s like the weekend never happened. Rest assured, today’s Ten Post Round-Up will shake those weekend cobwebs from your brow:
1: A few things the MSM neglected to report on…
Unearthed: News of the Week the Mainstream Media Forgot to Report–The Huffington Post
2: As the cost of food soars, so do the lines at local food banks…
3: Just for kicks: Join the Million Blog List…
Welcome to Million Blog List – A blogosphere experiment–Million Blog List
4: Just who will benefit most from those “rebate checks”?…
$100+ BILLION giveaway to the oil, credit card and retail industries–My Three Cents
5: Americans are coming up with creative ways to save a few bucks…
Sphere: Related Content
Dizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
April 24, 2008 by Dizzy Dezzi · Leave a Comment
Another day, another sordid Ten Post Round-Up:
1: The war on tourism: So close to 1984…
2: Manipulating Mother Nature…
3: Virtual Border Fence: Another Homer Simpson moment brought to you with your tax dollars…
4: Cha-ching: Sneaks that grow with little feets (and 10% of the proceeds go to a good cause)…
5: Crazy: Representative that confronted Colorado’s “favorite” Republican gets death threats…
Sphere: Related Content
Dizzy’s Ten Post Round-Up
April 23, 2008 by Dizzy Dezzi · Leave a Comment
So, what happened in Pennsylvania, last night? Did the groundhog see its shadow? Rest assured that today’s Ten Post Round-Up makes no mention of the shenanigans going on in Pennsylvania, but the rest of the world is fair game:
1: South Dakota tries one more time to outlaw a woman’s right to choose…
2: Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are being denied the care they need to recover from the scars of war (physically and mentally)…
New Doubts About Health Care for US War Vets–CommonDreams.org
3: Worst.President.Ever? That’s some legacy…
Bush’s disapproval rating worst of any president in 70 years–Democratic Underground
4: Cool: Hope for some blind folks to be able to see…
5: (Groan): Colorado’s “favorite” Republican makes national headlines…
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