Steven Wright-I

Posted on November 14, 2008 by JordanCornblog

ChristopherCornblog was asking me about Steve Wright the other day.

Here are some samples for you!  (Lazy way to post, I know … but enjoy!)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIHZDo9NBMk&feature=related

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPWGfnJ9X7c

Posted in Random Thoughts | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Happy 25th Birthday, Loan Fund – And Some Post Election Commentary – Relive the Feelings!

Posted on November 13, 2008 by JordanCornblog

First and foremost, it’s the 25th anniversary of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund – an amazing organization that has had a huge impact on the lives of people in NH.  (It is also one of the few investments that hasn’t tanked in recent months … so you might want to think about investing your nest egg with the Loan Fund … where you can make money and feel good about it at the same time!)

Congratulations JPE and everyone on Wall Street (Wall Street in Concord, NH that is).  Sorry to miss the celebration!

I thought I’d post some links to wonderful op-ed stuff that was coming out just after Obama won.  (Since I’m not on-line for a bit, it seemed a good time to sharesome things that I probably I wouldn’t get to otherwise.)

First, if you missed it, here’s Maureen Dowd’s NY Times column titled “Bring on the Puppy and the Rookie.”  It’s  not vintage Dowd – but Dowd from the heart.  Nice (and with apologies to CB)!

There have been many awful mistakes made in this country. But now we have another chance.

As we start fresh with a constitutional law professor and senator from the Land of Lincoln, the Lincoln Memorial might be getting its gleam back.

I may have to celebrate by going over there and climbing up into Abe’s lap.

It’s a $50 fine. But it’d be worth it.

Then, there’s David Brooks … who has dreams!

The inimitable Gail Collins shares some good down to earth insights and advice about how to manage winning and losing.  She may even be succeeding in talking me down (just a bit) from my anti-Lieberman ire.  After all, as she says so well …

“… the most Lieberman accomplished with months and months of nonstop campaigning was to push McCain support in his home state of Connecticut to 38 percent. Treachery is bad, but inept treachery is easier to get over. Since Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, needs the vote, you could understand him telling Lieberman that he’s still welcome.”

And here’s Judith Warner in her piece, “Tears to Remember,” echoing the sentiment that struck everyone at our house, as we experienced Obama’s (and our) victory:

Sept. 11, the seismic event that we’d feared would forever form their political consciousness, shaping their world and constricting the boundaries of the possible, had actually been eclipsed, light blotting out darkness, the best of America at long last driving away the demons of fear. We wanted them to see that it was the end of an era.

Yes, indeed, the end of an era.  Whatever happens next … the people have spoken and have repudiated that hate and fear-mongering and narrow self interest that have marked so much of our recent history.  It’s a process, and this is just the beginning … but it’s a start!

Thanks, PB, for pointing me toward these!  🙂

Posted in Civic Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Olbermann's Fine Speech re Prop 8 & Gay Marriage is a Classic!

Posted on November 12, 2008 by JordanCornblog

Enjoy your trip, Jordy!

And thanks so much for mentioning that MAGNIFICENT address by Keith Olberman on MSNBC re Prop 8. It’s a classic that would dignify every newspaper that ran it now, and every history book from this point onwards!

I tried to post this as a comment to your recent blog, Jordy, but maybe the link I provided disqualified it. This particular link leads to MSNBC, where the transcript to Olbermann’s talk is also posted. But for those who have the time, it’s really worth hearing Olbermann speak. It’s inspiring to me to hear someone speak so frankly, and with such heart.

Posted in Civic Life | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Off to the Woods

Posted on November 12, 2008 by JordanCornblog

Before I head out to the lake this morning, a fond review of some favorite spots to visit … just to see what’s up one more time.  (You’d think I was going off for a month, wouldn’t ya?  The way I go on and on and on …)

Oh, and before I forget, we watched a reprise of The Daily Show last night.  One of my favorite lines definitely bears repeating.  An update on Sarah Palin (this from just after the election):  “Sarah Palin has been tagged and released back to the wild.”  Nice.

Okay – so let’s check some sites …

First, on Boltgirl, here’s a wonderful and heartfelt commentary by Keith Olbermann re. Proposition 8.  He cuts to the heart of the matter very movingly.

From Just Keep Swimming, we have an exhaustive (and I’m guessing exhausting-to-compile) list of keyboard shortcuts.  Thanks for the info!  I’d just add my recent, personal favorite, “Windows Key” D, which takes you back to your desktop.  Here’s the list I got that one from, FWIW.

Princess Sparkle Pony … is back on Condi’s case … and loving the new do! (Yay!) On Mudflats you can follow the still unfolding story of the election(s) in Alaska. (Is it just me, or do you now hear Sarah Palin’s voice saying the word, whenever “Alaska” appears anywhere?  Dang!) Truth continues the pursuit of … well, Truth … over on Main Street USA. And Margaret and Helen are unhappy about Prop 8, too.  Then there’s always Huffington et al.  God, all this is just making me miss my computer more.

I’m off to seek solitude (and get chilled to the bone in the process, no doubt).  Be sure to stop back and visit while I’m gone – I’ve got my robot (JordanCornbot, actually) on the case, and she’ll be posting as usual.  Not sure just what, but it’ll be something, for sure.

Peace out.

Posted in Random Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Palin Waits for Sign From God (and Sorts Through Her RNC Wardrobe)

Posted on November 11, 2008 by JordanCornblog

As a metaphor for the Republican right wing, that headline pretty much says it all.  They sport a sensibility that’s moralistic as all get out – yeah.  But it’s a very literal and childish morality.  Black and white – no nuances or doubts allowed.  Oh, and it’s based on “signs” from a god who is pretty much defined by the particular quirks and prejudices of the individual believer’s mind.  Stripped of power, this is a world view that is just inches away from deserving a diagnosis!  Twinned with power, it is one damn scary phenomenon.

Palin is scary.  Clearly, she is not going away.  She’s been in the media as much post-election as she was before (and I guess you can count me guilty, in my small way, on that front).  Here’s her first post-debacle interview .. on Fox News, of course!

Faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator’s hands – this is what I always do. I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is. Even if it’s cracked up a little bit, maybe I’ll plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don’t let me miss an open door. And if there is an open door in (20)12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.

Guess that door to Nieman Marcus was open just a crack, huh?  Don’t want to miss those open doors.  Plow on, Sarah, plow on!

I am so sad to note that Miriam Makeba died  – collapsing on stage after a concert, at 76.  What a loss – both to the world of music and to the struggle for human rights everywhere. (And I am so glad that she lived to see Obama elected.)

I add to my links a great site that I’ve been meaning to get up for some time now:  The Root.  Check it out.  It’s tag line says it all:  “History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.”  James Baldwin

Last but not least, the rankings and brackets for the Women’s D1 NCAA Soccer Tournament have been announced.

Onward!

Posted in Random Thoughts, Soccer, etc. | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Soccer and Sneakiness On Monday Morning

Posted on November 10, 2008 by JordanCornblog

First the soccer news, which includes Angela Hucles’ 100th cap (in a career year for her) and another win (over South Korea) for the USWNT.  With two more games left in their post-Olympic Tour, it woulds like the team is pleasing Pia!

The NESCAC  Soccer Tournament is over for another year.  (Oh yeah, that’s the New England Small College Athletic Conference.)  Williams prevailed over Amherst in OT on the women’s side, while Amherst upended Middlebury on the men’s to win their first NESCAC soccer title.  (Not to be outdone by Amherst … in the Centennial Conference, the Swarthmore men’s soccer team won their first title, too!)

And I apologize profusely for being so remiss!  I discovered this morning that Beulah has been posting about the WPS domestic allocation and about Women’s College Soccer while I’ve been otherwise engaged.  Yikes – and thanks for the info, as always, Beulah!  The Women’s college soccer info, in particular, makes for great reading in the run-up to the tournaments.

Finally, in some sad news on the soccer front, we learned that Michelle French is battling a rare form of cancer …  Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma and Schelorsis of the Mediastinum, a Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  What sucky news!  We wish Frenchy all the best in her treatment and recovery!!

On the sneakiness front, we have this, from the Washington Post (and lots of other outlets) this morning:

The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration’s request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

Yeah, the Bushies continue to loot and pillage (not sure about rape, but it’s probably in there somewhere) as their days dwindle.

Meanwhile, Barack and Michelle are visiting the White House today.  Wish they could move in right now … before more damage is done!

Posted in Civic Life, Soccer, etc. | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Poetry Sunday

Posted on November 9, 2008 by JordanCornblog

Sometimes the morning’s fare from The Writer’s Almanac is too good to not share.

How To Be a Poet

by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill-more of each
than you have-inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
“How to be a Poet” by Wendell Berry from Given. © Shoemaker Hoard, 2005. Reprinted with permission.

In an odd juxtaposition, I see that today is Anne Sexton’s birthday. Hard to think of two poets whose lives and sensibilities could be more different.  With Anne (not unlike my mother, who’s another Ann … and equally unlike Wendell Berry) her ending is what springs to mind – more than her beginning, I’m afraid.  Anyway, here’s Flee on Your Donkey.  A favorite of mine, it chronicles, in brutal and mundane detail, one of Sexton’s many hospitalizations.  It ends with this haunting, heartbreaking stanza:

Anne, Anne,
flee on your donkey,
flee this sad hotel,
ride out on some hairy beast,
gallop backward pressing
your buttocks to his withers,
sit to his clumsy gait somehow.
Ride out
any old way you please!
In this place everyone talks to his own mouth.
That’s what it means to be crazy.
Those I loved best died of it-
the fool’s disease.

Anne Sexton, born November 9, 1928.

And finally, a wee podcast from yours truly … reprised from an entry last year right about this time.  (Not sure I can rememeber how to do this, but try clicking here and we’ll see if it works!

Posted in Random Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Some Soccer, Some Other Stuff-It's Saturday

Posted on November 8, 2008 by JordanCornblog

It’s a warm, foggy Saturday morning here in post-election New Hampshire.  Most of the political signs are put away, and gunshots now ring through the hillsides.

Rebellion against the new socialist state?  Post-election right wing despair?  Nah.  Hunting season.  It’s more personal this year than some, as the doe and two fawns that we’ve been watching all these months are out there in the danger zone.  Hope they make it through.  Hope the carnage in the woods misses them.  Hope.

HollyCornblog and Charlie Hopbrew are off on a road trip this weekend and, if the weather permits, HollyCornblog may be doing a bit of fishing down Cape May way.  (I’ve just been decrying hunting – but speak of fishing as though it didn’t involve the death of living things.  Having never developed an attachment for a fish, guess it just seems that much less personal to me.  And guess I have some more evolving to do.  Even on the weekend?  That’s harsh.)

I found a kinda cool on line To Do list (free) called Remember The Milk whose functionalities I’m exploring today/this weekend.  Gotta do something to keep myself organized in this detail-riddled life!  Finding myself more or less rudderless, now that the Phillies have won the World Series and Obama is the President Elect, I am quite sure that this To Do List will be the answer!

Okay- on to the news.  On the soccer front, the USWNT has one more game against South Korea (today in Tampa).  They round out their “Achieve Your Gold” Tour against China.  We know about the 12/17 game in Detroit.  The first of the two-game series is on December 13th in Carson, CA at the Home Depot Center.  And speaking of soccer – nominations are being accepted for USSoccer.com’s annual “Best of” Awards (presented by Soccer America magazine). One of the categories is blogs.  (Hint, hint …)  😉

On the political news front, Maddow sure shredded Sarah Palin last night.  Meanwhile, Palin is calling her critics “jerks” and “cowardly.”  I kinda get her point – but then again, if you’re gonna dish it out, you may want to consider that it might come right back atcha.  You betcha!

Joe Lieberman apparently still thinks he has leverage and ground to stand on somewhere.  I will be sorely disappointed if the Dems don’t give his smarmy ass the boot.  (If it’s taking this long … I have my doubts.  Is 60 votes in the Senate worth keeping on with this untrustworthy soul?  Guess that’s the basic question … and I would clearly be far too hot-headed to manage well in the halls of Congress.)

Here are Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks with some interesting observations about body language, as the Presidential campaign wound down.  (I got teary all over again, looking at the photos of Grant Park on election night.)

Keep your eyes on Fivethirtyeight.com as the final undecided races play themselves out.  Oh yeah … and finally – Madden has picked the Eagles to beat the Giants on Sunday night!  😉

Posted in Civic Life, Soccer, etc. | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Happy Friday!

Posted on November 7, 2008 by JordanCornblog

Wow – it’s still hard to take in the enormity of what has transpired in this country, this week.

I was listening to “Talk of the World” on NHPR yesterday – and the enthusiasm, world-wide, for this president and what the American electorate has done was giving me goosebumps.  WE did it.  And this election has done more to “spread democracy” than anything BushCheneyHalliburtonExxonShellBP has done in the past 8 horrific years.  As people spoke I felt, too, like a lid had come off and the world was finally free to tell us how utterly awful it has been.

It’s wonderful to experience the glow – from around the world, from here at home, from the blogosphere.  Bed Time in Alaska (on Mudflats) offers a wonderful perspective out of “the-state-you-can-see-Russia-from,” and shares this link, that says it all.

The US is US, folks.

Not everything has been decided, as we read on fivethirtyeight.com. Let’s hope that, as things play out, Joe Lieberman will receive the treatment that he deserves.

Another one of the big pluses, in my mind, of the change that is underway, is the arrival of Michelle Obama on Pennsylvania Avenue.  A breath of fresh air doesn’t begin to express it.  And then there’s that puppy!

Oh yeah – and then there’s the fact that it’s Friday.  Things couldn’t be brighter, IMHO.  Here’s a nice blog entry from The Time Finder – tips on injecting a little bit of Friday into your life everyday.  (I’m all over that!)

Posted in Civic Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As the Dust Settles

Posted on November 6, 2008 by JordanCornblog

It’s day two of what continues to feel like a new era.  Obama faces a plethora of daunting tasks, and we are on notice that for hope to burn bright, we need to roll up our sleeves and help.  That’s the difference.  Obama’s no white-haired GOP fake Father-Knows-Best, but a competent and inspiring leader who’s asking for our best!

Meanwhile, as the dust settles, the McCainiacs are starting to peck at one another in the ways that those on the losing end of the stick so often do.  The Palin debacle is getting a lot of the focus – as it probably rightly should.  Cable News shows and comedians will sorely miss Sarah, but the country will be well-served if she quietly recedes into the woodwork.  (I doubt, however, that that will happen.  She’ll disappear for awhile … but rabid supporters will keep her overblown ego fed, and she’ll re-emerge.  Mark my words!)  Here’s the video cited by Princess Sparkle Pony on the Think Progress site!  (It’s from Fox News, no less!)

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWZHTJsR4Bc

The USWNT, I notice, played another game yesterday (as the dust settles).  The result, against South Korea, was a somewhat surprising draw.  Played in Heather Mitts’ hometown (Cincinnati), the game was the first in all of 2008 that didn’t include Carli Lloyd in the line-up (she’s battling a nagging injury).  The team plays South Korea again in Tampa, before another break.  Their last game of 2008 in in Detroit on 12/17 – against China!  (Maybe President Obama should invite them to the White House after January 20th … I’m guessing that Pia would be all over it!)

Obama has announced his transition team (happy to see Chris Edley in the mix – I always feel better when he’s the Swarthmore grad in the political news – rather than Rob Zoellick.  Sorry Rob!).

Here’s Chris speaking at Zeitgeist ’07 talking about how he helps his law students learn to be change agents – it’s excellent!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNrmxeOsNk4

Meanwhile, speculation abounds about his cabinet, which I’m sure will be taking shape as the week progresses.  Like no time before, given the precariousness of the economy and the state of the world, he’s got to hit the ground running.

Godspeed, President Obama!

We had a sad day here yesterday, as one of our chickens (Lucy) got mauled by some predator.  She survived, but the damage to her chest and neck was massive and a trip to the vet’s confirmed that there was no real hope of recovery.  She was euthanized, and now rests peacefully with the myriad other beloved small animals who have passed to the other side on this hill.

I’m getting ready for some solitary time at the lake next week.  It’ll be chilly (possibly snowy) and a great adventure.  For the first time ever, I’ll be going without a canine companion.  It’s an experiment in more significant solitude than I’m used to – and I’ll admit it’s got me a little nervous (so accustomed am I to conversing with Willie)!  After the lake, I’ll be visiting HollyCornblog and CharlieHopbrew … then home to dig in for the long winter!  I’ll try to load up the blog ahead of time – but If I don’t get to it, you’ll just have to join me in the quiet!  😉

Posted in Civic Life, Random Thoughts, Soccer, etc. | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment