this is shopping mall in catalonia, spain, where tradition is behind display of crapping elf. Some think this symbolizes fertility, preparing the soil for spring crops during the winter, or maybe its just someone's idea of what christmas means to them. especially in a mall.
Wow what a movie! After a stressful day i walked to the oaks theater and saw this film about John Lennon's early life, just as he met Paul and George. It analyzes his relationship with his aunt and uncle who raised him, and his mother Julia who he meets when he is a teenager. Motherless, fatherless, Lennon seems to have no future. But his uncle provides him with a harmonica, and his aunt and mother provide him with what they can, a guitar. It really captures his sardonic wit, his rebelliousness, his anger at the world. Outstanding film. Also shows the grim lives of post war Britain.
This is the X37B, a pilotless space craft launched by the Air Force in California. Mission classified. It just returned to earth, automatic pilot, the first spaceship to "land" (not crash on ground or sea) by computer program. It makes me wonder what kinds of classified aircraft and other technology we might have that ordinary citizens dont know about. Do you think Pres. Obama was briefed about the aliens we are holding at area 51 in California? just kidding...maybe
Publicists picture left, Wedding Picture below !
Paradox of Women in Islam
Thursday December 2
7:30 pm – 8:30 pm
ATS Auditorium
Asra Q. Nomani
Asra Q. Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal correspondent, has also written for the Washington Post, New York Times, and Time magazine on Islam, and has covered the war in Afghanistan for Salon.com. She has spoken about women’s rights in Islam on CNN, PBS, NPR, and the BBC. A Muslim born in India, Nomani was raised in the foothills of West Virginia, and currently lives in Morgantown with her son, Shibli. Her latest book is Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam.
Walter Bruening is now the world's oldest human, 114 yrs old.
He recalled "the dark ages," when his family moved to South Dakota in 1901 and lived for 11 years without electricity, water or plumbing.
"Carry the water in. Heat it on the stove. That's what you took your bath with. Wake up in the dark. Go to bed in the dark. That's not very pleasant," he said.
He said men and women may be able to enjoy life, but they can't be content without a belief or faith. His parting message to the crowd was one of tolerance.
"With all the hatred in this world, in this good world, let us be kind to one another," Breuning said. Wow. Strong message. Now if we could just get the world to listen....
here are a few of the beautiful homes in Oakmont that i pass by while i walk/jog. Oakmont known for its front porches and gardens, and brick streets. Victorian homes are common, a few earlier farm houses not so common but are scattered along my route. Oakmont cemetery also on my route, incredible history. Also Oakmont Civil War cemetery, in need of repair but very haunting, beautiful. Great place to live, good schools too, and homes for every price range.
Wyclef is running for Pres of Haiti - this will be a challenge. First he has no background in politics or administration. Second, haiti is a very corrupt nation, and the corruption is not just haitians, but the UN and the US and all sorts of shadowy aid organizations. Lots of money when there is foreign aid, esp after a disaster like earthquake. 
Israel doesn't get it - whatever it does in Gaza, it is a loser on moral grounds. The latest: Israel stops boats/ships headed for Gaza, 11 people killed one report said. Israel's response was that they thought they were boarding boats with peace activists, didn't think there would be violence. The helicopters that boarded the boats were full of Israeli commandos, armed to the teeth, so how could they say they were expecting peace? They were prepared for war. They are enforcing a blockade that has made Gaza the worst living hell on earth. So if the boats made it through the blockade, Israel loses, and if the boats don't make it through because Israeli commandos stop the boats and kill 11 people, then Israel still loses. Some would say the Gaza arabs are the ultimate losers, but they are the pawns in the games of others. Gazans (Arabs who fled when Israel was created) have been pawns manipulated by France, England, Egypt, Israel and the United States. I doubt that anyone really cares about them - they are pawns. Talk about an existential dilemma: you are trapped in Gaza, blockaded, can't get out even if you want to get out, no where to go, no country will take you, but there are plenty of countries who will give you aid to stay, among them the US and the EU. But these countries also give aid to Israel and Egypt to continue the blockade and prevent you from leaving. All this, simply because you were born in Gaza - your crime is that you came out of the womb in Gaza, instead of Amman, or Cairo, or Paris, or Buffalo NY. 
Great book for insights, almost gossip (stuff people only say behind someone's back) about 2008. But it just seems like a different book than say Joe McGinnis's "Selling of President 1968" - less analytical, more inside story. The emphasis on interpersonal relations is also revealing but not very analytical. Politicians as celebrities I guess. Politicians used to be products that would be sold, now they are celebrities with their posse's and their jealousies. It somehow makes politics trivial. If you want to hear how trivial politics can be, listen to a Matt Lauer or Catie Kouric interview...."This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it."
-Barack Obama, September 2008
In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton-and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin. But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage of this spellbinding drama, remarkably little of the real story behind the headlines has yet been told.
In Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the country's leading political reporters, use their unrivaled access to pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. How did Obama convince himself that, despite the thinness of his résumé, he could somehow beat the odds to become the nation's first African American president? How did the tumultuous relationship between the Clintons shape-and warp-Hillary's supposedly unstoppable bid? What was behind her husband's furious outbursts and devastating political miscalculations? Why did McCain make the novice governor of Alaska his running mate? And was Palin merely painfully out of her depth-or troubled in more serious ways?
Game Change answers those questions and more, laying bare the secret history of the 2008 campaign. Heilemann and Halperin take us inside the Obama machine, where staffers referred to the candidate as "Black Jesus." They unearth the quiet conspiracyin the U.S. Senate to prod Obama into the race, driven in part by the fears of senior Democrats that Bill Clinton's personal life might cripple Hillary's presidential prospects. They expose the twisted tale of John Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter, the truth behind the downfall of Rudy Giuliani, and the doubts of those responsible for vetting Palin about her readiness for the Republican ticket-along with the McCain campaign staff's worries about her fitness for office. And they reveal how, in an emotional late-night phone call, Obama succeeded in wooing Clinton, despite her staunch resistance, to become his secretary of state.
Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character driven and dialogue rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, this is the occasionally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.
…[Heilemann and Halperin] not only tell the story of the 2008 campaign in an engaging and readable way, they come up with some real reporting. Much of that reporting, it must be said, is of the gossipy sort, such as Harry Reid's by-now famous comment about black speech. Still, although I had some sense of the dimensions of the Palin disaster before reading this book, the authors' account of how she failed to prepare for her debate with Joe Biden is chilling…I doubt that any other book about the 2008 election will top this one in narrative drive.
More Reviews and Recommendations
