Photos

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink" Here's Lucy and Misty ...



Here is Olive, who I sometimes call Oleg in honor of the Mueller report ...



And here's Mouse ...



It's been raining and the old tarps on the roof are decayed away, so there's lots of leaking, but I haven't been able to contact the guy who has put them on my roof for many years. Today I found out why - he died a few months ago. So sad. He was very kind and had many pets, including a squirrel he raised when it fell out of its nest as a baby. Hard to believe he's gone ...



There are still some flowers, the living among the dead ...

On Tyranny

Yale history professor Timothy Snyder was on Rachel Maddow's show last night. He is especially known for his book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Here's an article about it from a couple of years ago in The Guardian: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder – review.

More Snowden

Trevor Noah interviews Edward Snowden about his new book, Permanent Record ...

Edward Snowden interview

Brian Williams interviewed Edward Snowden tonight. I'm probably in the minority, but I think Snowden is a hero who did a good thing. I hope someday he can come back home to the US. And BTW, he has a new book out: Permanent Record. Here's the interview ...

RIP: Ric Ocasek

Ric Ocasek, New Wave Rock Visionary and Cars Co-Founder, Is Dead

[...] From 1978 to 1988, Mr. Ocasek (pronounced oh-CASS-eck) and the Cars merged a vision of romance, danger and nocturnal intrigue and the concision of new wave music with the sonic depth and ingenuity of radio-friendly rock. The Cars managed to please both punk-rock fans and a far broader pop audience, reaching into rock history while devising fresh, lush extensions of it ....

The five albums the Cars released from 1978 to 1984 each sold a million copies in the United States alone, with ubiquitous radio singles like “Just What I Needed” in 1978, “Shake It Up” in 1981, “You Might Think” in 1984 and “Drive” in 1984. Although Mr. Ocasek wrote them, “Just What I Needed” and “Drive” had lead vocals by Mr. Orr ...

Here's one of my favorites of their songs, Touch and Go, ...



And here is one of the most popular of their songs, Just What I Needed ....



xx

Andy McCabe: more

I had a post about former acting director of the FBI, Andy McCabe, yesterday. Here is more on the situation from Rachel Maddow last night ...

"Hell, yes!"

I'm watching the third Democratic debate (you can watch it all here) and my favorite part so far is this one in which Beto responded to a question about assault rifles ...



Now he's at the top of my 'who to vote for' list.

The conservative press is metaphorically wetting itself over the idea of the government buying back guns. This is an excellent example of the moral bankruptcy of the Republican party = Republican voters are on board with outlawing assault weapons, but the NRA, which funds these Republican lawmakers' campaigns, is not.

9/11: The Looming Tower

My latest DVD rental is The Looming Tower ...

an American drama web television miniseries, based on Lawrence Wright's eponymous 2006 book .... The series stars an ensemble cast featuring Jeff Daniels, Tahar Rahim, Wrenn Schmidt, Bill Camp, Louis Cancelmi, Virginia Kull, Ella Rae Peck, Sullivan Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Peter Sarsgaard.

The Looming Tower traces the "rising threat of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s and how the rivalry between the FBI and CIA during that time may have inadvertently set the path for the tragedy of 9/11. It follows members of the I-49 Squad in New York and Alec Station in Washington, D.C., the counter-terrorism divisions of the FBI and CIA, respectively, as they travel the world fighting for ownership of information while seemingly working toward the same goal – trying to prevent an imminent attack on U.S. soil.

I've watched half of it so far and it's good. Here's a PBS NewsHour segment on the series
...

Dems: climate change

I haven't seen the whole of CNN's climate change town hall, but here are the two Democratic candidates that I think would be the best as president - Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren ...

Preserving the Amazon

There was a segment on the PBS NewsHour tonight about the creatures of the Amazon and what people are doing to try to preserve their habitats ...

New Pew

A new Pew Forum poll finds that most people want abortion to remain legal ...

As debates over abortion continue in states around the country, a majority of Americans (61%) continue to say that abortion should be legal in all (27%) or most (34%) cases. A smaller share of the public (38%) says abortion should be illegal in all (12%) or most cases (26%).

The new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted July 22-August 4 among 4,175 adults, also finds little support for overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion. Seven-in-ten say they do not want to see the Roe v. Wade decision completely overturned; 28% say they would like to see the Supreme Court completely overturn the 1973 decision.

Consistent with these views, a majority of Americans say their greater concern is that some states are making it too difficult (59%) rather than too easy (39%) for people to be able to get an abortion ....

Mayor Pete

Mayor Pete Buttigieg was on Morning Joe today. In one segment he discussed the idea of the moral underpinnings of political topics like climate change ....

Breakfast

My favorite breakfast lately is (frozen) P.F. Chang's jasmine rice with peas, carrots, green onion, with sesame oil, plus my added almond flakes and Parmesan cheese. Yum :) ...

Linda Hamilton

There's an interesting article about Linda Hamilton in The New York Times - Linda Hamilton Fled Hollywood, but ‘Terminator’ Still Found Her. It's about the upcoming Terminator movie, produced by James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar, Aliens), and the iconic character Hamilton has played in the Terminator films, Sarah Conner.


- Sarah in T2

I think Conner is much more of a feminist Icon than other more recent female movie leads like Wonder Woman - she's not a goddess, she has no super powers, she's very human and flawed, a single mom who must remake herself to rise to the occasion of impending apocalypse.

And in this latest Terminator film, she's ... get ready for it ... old! ;) Yes, Sarah Connor gets old and it's not treated as an embarrassing moral failure on her part which renders her unfit for mating, it's treated as the normal result of a woman managing to survive over time. Nice to see that reflected in a movie for a change. As the Times article quotes James Cameron ...

Cameron said that “what’s really cool about it is that a major action picture has been hung on an actress who’s 62.” He was also heartened by the success of a 59-year-old Jamie Lee Curtis as a gray-haired Laurie Strode in last year’s “Halloween” revival. “I think you could cite the examples of that kind of chance being taken previously on one finger.”

Here's a trailer ...

Upcoming movies

I love to visit the Apple movie trailer page and see what movies are in the offing. I went today and found a number that looked promising. Here are a few of them ...

- Anthropocene: The Human Epoch ...



- The Report ...



- Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice ...



- Cold Case Hammarskjöld ...



- Ad Astra ,,,



- And finally, the guilty pleasure movie starring Gerard Butler :) I've been a fan since he was in Timeline with Paul Walker ...



But anyway, his new movie is Angel Has Fallen ...