I Prefer The Pretty...

I don't like to mar the look of my blog with too many photos of myself, but here is one that is tempered by the sweet Fred and Homer as we sat at the park at Schroon Lake, New York. The boys were fascinated with the finish line of a bike race, and even treats would likely not have drawn their attention back to the camera. They are cute boys, however, and here are a few photos to show you, all from our Schroon Lake outing on Saturday:

On Vacation

A shot of President Obama playing with his niece Savita while vacationing at Martha's Vineyard. Sweet.

I LOVE This Story

Here's the link, but I've copied it in here to read. I love this woman.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_working_at100

NJ woman celebrates 100th birthday — at work
By SAMANTHA HENRY, Associated Press Writer Samantha Henry, Associated Press Writer Thu Sep 24, 6:22 pm ET


PARSIPPANY, N.J. – Astrid Thoenig got dressed, went to work and sat at her desk smiling Thursday as she slid her finger gently under the envelope flap of yet another identical birthday card. They don't make that many that say "Happy 100th."

Thoenig was interrupted by a steady stream of deliverymen bringing bouquets, chocolate-dipped strawberries and stacks of cards to the Thornton Insurance Co. in Parsippany where she's been answering phones, keeping financial records, handling payroll and typing up documents for more than 30 years.

"It's another day — it's hard to explain," Thoenig said of turning 100. "I don't feel old, and I don't think old."

Born Sept. 24, 1909, in Bloomfield, N.J., Thoenig's earliest memories start in 1918, when she witnessed something so traumatic, "it erased all memories of my childhood before that."

"I remember coming down the stairs from my bedroom and saw these two coffins in the living room: one white, for my sister, and the other for the grown person," she said, recalling how the flu pandemic of 1918 killed her father and her 10-year-old sister within hours of one another. "To see my father and sister — of all the things I can't remember — that's very vivid in my mind."

Thoenig, her remaining sister, and her mother also were infected but survived. Her mother lived until 101 and her sister, who suffered permanent hearing loss from the illness, was 95 when she died. A few years ago, scientists tracked Thoenig down and took blood samples from her as one of the few remaining survivors of the pandemic of 1918-1919 that killed an estimated 30 million to 50 million people worldwide, including thousands in New Jersey.

As Thoenig turns 100, her grandson, 43-year-old Peter Thornton, said she couldn't have picked a better era.

"If you had to pick a dramatic century to live, it has to be Astrid's," he said. "The invention of the automobile and the airplane, television and computers, the moon landing and two world wars. 1780 to 1880 would have seen changes from a musket to a rifle."

Thoenig says "thinking young" has helped her take a century's worth of technological changes in stride. The daughter of Swedish immigrants, she credits her strong constitution, a wonderful family and getting up every day to get dressed and go to work with keeping her mind sharp.

Thoenig once sewed all her own clothes and still dresses elegantly, accenting with gold jewelry, colorful glasses and a full head of blond hair that makes her look decades younger. Her strong, agile hands come from a lifetime of typing, knitting and embroidering.

Married twice — her first husband died from injuries that earned him a Purple Heart in World War II — Thoenig started working shortly after high school, and has held positions at banks, lawyer's offices and for the borough of Caldwell.

Her current job is her favorite — working alongside her son, John Thornton, and grandson Peter at the family-owned insurance company.

"I'm 67, and one of our jokes is: 'How can I retire before my mother does?'" John Thornton said. He says his mother is a meticulous worker, reviewing contracts, preparing the payroll, making sure bills are paid, and is always pleasant company.

Thoenig credits her son for giving her the job, taking her to work — although she still drove until age 98 when a botched hip operation made it difficult to get around — and always being patient.

The growing stack of birthday cards may have identical motifs, but the messages inside them each touched her in their own way. Some, sent by people she's never met, were from seniors who continue to work and are inspired by her example: "I'm at my job 37 years and still love it," someone wrote.

She took special delight in a bouquet from her dentist with the message: "This is only the beginning!"

New Poll From NY Times/CBS News

I think the article in the New York Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/us/politics/25poll.html ) regarding the results of this poll seems to be negative on the numbers as it relates to Obama, even though all of his numbers as compared to Democrats, and especially, Republicans in Congress are quite better.

An excerpt:

There is evidence of public distaste with Washington that washes across both parties. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believed that Republicans in Congress were opposing Mr. Obama’s bill only for political gain; just over half said Democrats in Congress backed the bill for political reasons.

Just 30 percent said they had a favorable view of Republicans in Congress. By contrast, 47 percent said they had a favorable view of Congressional Democrats.

I understand that Obama has lost some of the sheen from his early, crazy-high numbers from just after his election. When you get pummeled they way he has been you are bound to lose some percentage points. People believe all kinds of shit, thus the popularity of the Limbaughs and the Becks, though it seems that the conservatives haven't gained much from their machinations on TV and radio, based on the popularity of their party in this poll.

My favorite part of these numbers is Obama's popularity at this point in his presidency versus previous presidents:

At 56 percent, Mr. Obama’s job approval rating is similar to what President Ronald Reagan’s was at this point in his first term (53 percent); President Bill Clinton’s was at 43 percent. Still, Mr. Obama’s approval is down from 68 percent in the spring.

The article failed to note, however, where Obama's immediate predecessor, George W. Bush was during a similar timeframe. Bush started at about 57% and hovered there and in the low 60s at or about his inauguration. He fell to the low 50s during the first months of his presidency, all the way through to 9/11. So when Obama was in the high 60s Bush was in the low 50s.

Lest we read too much into these approval ratings, Bush's approvals went through the roof in the days following 9/11, as this chart shows:


He was unable to sustain these high numbers because he was an idiot, as we all now know. And what this chart does not show is his rating at the end of his presidency, which ranged from an average 22% to one low of 19%.

When it comes to numbers, I think I'll stick to watching Numb3rs on CBS rather than dwelling on this NYT/CBS poll!

What A Surprise...

...Those people in D.C. last week don't know what they're talking about. These people in this video are as scary as it gets.



Thank you, Andrew Sullivan, for the link.

Shelburne Museum

I have been to some great museums in my time. I was lucky enough to live for most of my life across the river from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The steps made famous in the movie "Rocky" make up the approach to this wonderful museum at the end of the Ben Franklin Parkway. It's in Fairmount Park, a beautiful tree-laden, statue filled park along the Schuylkill River in the City of Brotherly Love. It will always be one of my favorite museums. And Philadelphia is home to other world-class museums as well, like the Franklin Institute and the Rodin Museum.

As I said, I have been to a lot of great ones: the Louvre, the Musee D'Orsay, the Pompidou and others in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art and all of the other great museums of Washington, DC, MoMA and the Metropolitan in NYC, the Gibbes in Charleston, SC, the Uffizi and Accademia in Florence, Italy, Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey, the Vatican museums in Rome, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Huntington Library and the Getty Museum in California, the Tower of London. And so many others. Unlike my great friend Sharon, I LOVE museums.

But much like the Grounds for Sculpture museum near Trenton, NJ, I believe that Sharon would love the Shelburne. It is unique and one of the great museums that I have visited, and as you can see from the incomplete list above, I have been to a lot of the great ones.

Here is the link to visit the Shelburne online: http://www.shelburnemuseum.org/

But you should go there yourself. Here are some snapshots of my visit there last week with my sister Dana.

A nearly perfect rose in one of the Shelburne's many gardens.

Outside and inside the Ticonderoga, a side-wheel passenger steamboat built in 1906.












The Round Barn, built in 1901 and made famous by American folk artist Warren Kimble, in the distance while on the 1920's vintage carousel.












A lighthouse built in 1871 which now houses works by Warren Kimble. This American flag is my favorite.

This is just a taste of all there is to see at the Shelburne. Dana and I could not get into everything on our one day there. We purchased an annual membership as we need to go back to experience the rest of this great American museum. It is truly a Vermont treasure.

Bill and Barack's Excellent Lunch Date

Two of my favorite men heading out of Il Mulino Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. They got together for lunch today following Obama's speech on Wall Street. Love both of them so much.

Once Again...I Stand With Andrew

I cannot say it better, so I will let Andrew Sullivan speak for me:

Tea For Two
A reader writes:

I attended my 1st tea party in Worcester, Massachusetts 4 months ago. I am a conservative independent and went because I see this country going in the wrong direction FAST. Bailing out car companies. Bailing out Wall Street. The so called "stimulus" debacle. Tripling our deficit in 3 years.

Do you think I was a big George Bush fan? No. I was not. He was a big spender too and he never vetoed anything. But Andrew....comparing the spending of Bush compared to Obama is like saying eating a jelly bean is just as fattening as eating a whole cheesecake. TRIPLING the deficit in 8 months??? Earth to Mars.....do you even get this??

Andrew responds:

Look: the only reason the deficit has tripled in eight months is the recession, which Obama inherited. And I know of no serious person who really believes the federal government should have sat back and let the US economy spiral into the abyss rather than try to stabilize it with a bank bailout and stimulus. To blame Obama for what amounts to inheriting an emergency bequeathed him by his predecessor is plain loopy. And to blame him for future deficits which were a function of all those who came before him, is equally misleading and disingenuous. Yes, blame him for deficit spending once the economy recovers. Yes, perpare a plan for real government downsizing when and if we emerge from the Bush fiscal wreckage. But give the president a fricking break.

The circumstances of this past year have been extraordinary. If the position of the right is going to be: no bailouts at all, no stimulus at all, and spending cuts now to balance the budget, then they should say so. Instead we get this adolescent hysteria, combined with no serious alternative set of proposals.

Really, my fellow small government independents: Grow up.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09/tea-for-two.html#more

Signs of the Lunatic Fringe

I do not consider myself a progressive; I think of myself as simply hardcore liberal. But I do appreciate the column by self-described progressive columnist Paul Begala over at The Huffington Post. I will copy it in here, and provide a link. He says exactly how I feel these days about these extreme views from the right. I will say it here as I said throughout George Bush's terms as president: I hated his politics and I hated his policies and I will always believe that the President of the United States should be smarter than me, and he most certainly was not. Our current president is a lot smarter than me, and I just have to hope that he can weather all the insanity going on with this minority of people out there who look crazy and have the potential to act crazy.

A SIGN OF THE TIMES
Paul Begala, CNN Political Commentator

The sign said it all. It was not some last-minute message some meth addict scrawled in crayon on a scrap of cardboard. No, this sign was professionally printed. White block letters on a blue background, the four-word message was in all caps. Someone had to have thought this through. Someone wrote it, edited it, planned it, designed it, ordered it, paid for it. Someone approved it, printed it, distributed it. And then someone thought this was a message he or she wanted to convey to the world. Thank goodness someone had the courage to take a photo of it, and then Huffington Post had the guts to post it on its home page.

The sign made me nauseous, made me embarrassed, made me wonder if at long last there is no decency on the far right. The sign said:

"BURY OBAMACARE WITH KENNEDY"

Oh, I get it. Sen. Kennedy is dead, and these slugs want health care reform to be dead too. That is so clever.

Fourteen days after Edward Kennedy was laid to rest in the company of his fellow American heroes in Arlington, right-wing hate-mongers decided to use his burial to make a cheap point about their opposition to health care reform.

What would they have done if liberals had printed signs that equated Ronald Reagan's burial with the hoped-for death of George W. Bush's plan to privatize Social Security? Or Bill Buckley's painful passing with the GOP's loss of the White House in 2008? Or the demise of my right-wing former colleague Bob Novak with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts? You can't imagine that, can you? Because, while we progressives have our moments of frustration and our occasional lack of couth, there is nothing I can think of that compares to the sick, savage sign that the teabaggers were waving in Washington.

The inmates have taken over the asylum. The ever-sunny Reagan is dead. The congenial Buckley is dead. The old-school conservative Novak is dead as well. In their place is the party of Joe the Shouter and Joe the Plumber and Sarah the Death Panel Screecher.

They hate Pres. Obama - even though he has bent over backwards to accommodate Republicans. They hate tax increases - even though the Democrats have cut taxes for 95% of Americans. They hate health care reform - even though Ted Kennedy fought his whole life to get them the same health care millionaires like him already had.

There was not, to my knowledge, a sign that said, "Let's Bury Medicare," even though Medicare is precisely the sort of single-payer, government-run, socialized health insurance the whack-jobs say they hate. Nor did I hear about a sign that said, "Let's Bury Tricare," although the military health system is as socialized as Britain's, its beneficiaries (including, according to Newsweek, Congressclown Joe Wilson of South Carolina) are very happy with their socialized health care. Nary a sign, so far as I know, decried the Bush prescription drug entitlement, even though it ballooned the deficit, enriched the pharmaceutical companies and furthered the supposed slide toward socialism. Nor, I'm told, were there any signs criticizing the $2 trillion Mr. Bush's unjust, unwarranted, unwise war in Iraq will cost our children and grandchildren. Nor ever a single sign about the Bush tax cuts, which helped squander the Clinton surplus. If this were about fiscal policy, the protests would have happened long ago.

These tea parties are, at least for some, more about hate than high-minded debate. Anyone who needed proof need look no further than the sign captured in the photo on the front page of the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/a-sign-of-the-times_b_284779.html


A collection of the signs at Saturday's DC gathering:





This child, as you can see, is the one who was holding the sign just above. A parent allowed a child to carry that sign, and to wear that t-shirt. This is a perfect sign that the right has gone off the deep end.











<-- I will never understand a parent allowing a child to carry something like this. An absolutely disgusting threat.

And my favorite sign, the one circled below, shows just how delusional these people are. They don't remember all of the spending during the Bush years? The enormous deficit that Bush and his party built up? That they squandered a surplus left by the Clinton administration? I'm sorry to have to say it, but they are delusional or stupid. Neither one is good for this country.