 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What's your favorite podcast? Ones I currently love: This American Life (always and forever), The Moth, Slate's Culture GabFest (really good), Stuff Mom Never Told You, Stuff You Missed in History Class, Stuff You Should Know, WNYC's RadioLab. Always open to new suggestions! I just started the Slate Audio Book Club, so I can't say yet if I love it. But the Culture GabFest is REALLY good and I kind of want to marry Stephen Metcalf, just based on his sense of humor and how he says "Da-na" and "Ju-lia" (his frequent co-hosts' names). Tags: pleas for help, psa
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sonnet: On the Sale by Auction of Keats’s Love Letters by Oscar Wilde These are the letters which Endymion wrote To one he loved in secret and apart, And now the brawlers of the auction-mart Bargain and bid for each tear-blotted note, Aye! for each separate pulse of passion quote The merchant’s price! I think they love not art Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart, That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat. Is it not said, that many years ago, In a far Eastern town some soldiers ran With torches through the midnight, and began To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw Dice for the garments of a wretched man, Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe? 1886 Tags: poetry
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
KNOW YOUR VOTING RIGHTS
- if you are in line at the official closing of the polls, you are legally entitled to vote and the polling location must allow you to vote.
- bring your driver’s license/photo id with your local address or your driver’s license and college id with you to your polling location. you have the right to vote in the community where you live and go to school - whether you are an in-state or out-of-state student. don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
- if your registration is in question or you’ve forgotten to bring a picture id, you have the right to request and complete a provisional ballot. a provisional ballot will be verified and counted in the case of a close election. do not leave without voting!
- if you make a mistake or spoil your ballot before it is submitted, you have the right to receive a replacement ballot.
- you have the right to file a written complaint at your polling place if you are dissatisfied with the way an election is being run. and you have the right to vote without anyone in the polling place trying to influence your vote.
- if you experience any intimidation or problems voting at your polling location call the election protection project at their toll-free number, 1.866.OUR.VOTE. the hotline provides free, immediate and multi-lingual assistance to voters who encounter barriers to the ballot box.
and as a note, USE A PROVISIONAL BALLOT AS A LAST RESORT. usually provisional ballots are THROWN AWAY WITHOUT BEING COUNTED. do everything you can to prove your voter registration is valid and get an official ballot - bring photo id, bring utility bills, bring a copy of your lease if you have to. DO NOT LEAVE without voting. if the lines are long, HOLD OUT. your vote counts, and it definitely won’t count if you don’t cast it. lines may be long, so bring something to read, bring a sandwich, bring something to drink. DO NOT WEAR OBAMA OR MCCAIN APPAREL as you will NOT BE ALLOWED TO VOTE. it is considered campaigning on a voting site which is not allowed.
if you do not know where you are supposed to vote, search your state’s voter registration information database which lists your location and its times of operation.
PASS IT ON!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As Obama has pulled ahead in the last few weeks, McCain/Palin strategy is now ALL NEGATIVE ALL THE TIME. I live in a swing state and I can vouch for this. All of Obama's commercials here are about Obama, or if they're about McCain they are clips of videos of him saying things. All McCain's ads here are voice overs with scary music and all-caps headlines saying Obama is evil. No mention of McCain at all until the message approval at the end. Today Palin said that Obama "is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." Palin cited an article in Saturday's New York Times about Obama's relationship with Ayers, now 63. But that article concluded that "the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.' "It makes me sick they have a month left to make their case for why they'd make good leaders and THIS IS WHAT THEY COME UP WITH to prove it. Lies, smears, and slander. I hope this backfires so, so hard. I challeng you: next time you see a negative ad from EITHER party, mute the TV. Pull out your laptop. Check Politifact. Check FactCheck. Please pass the word along to anyone who tries to feed you this crap. We have a month left and this election is important. TPM has this to say: There are two drawbacks for McCain in going all-negative as he is right now: "First, while partisan Republicans will love it (as they loved Sarah Palin's convention speech), negative ads don't always work so well with independents, whose votes are now crucial to both sides. Second, there is a very real danger that either Obama, or more likely, Democratic 527s will start throwing mud right back at McCain. A few choice subjects for negative ads are (1) his taking bribes from convicted felon Charles Keating in the 1980s, (2) the fact that he is an old man who has had a very dangerous form of cancer four times, and (3) the way he divorced his crippled first wife to marry a beer heiress worth $100 million. Clearly Schmidt knows all this but apparently he feels he has to shake things up before it is too late. It is going to get real messy." source: CNNTags: election
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more – not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.
"That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
"We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.
"So history reminds us that walls can be torn down. But the task is never easy. True partnership and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy; of progress and peace. They require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.
"That is why America cannot turn inward. That is why Europe cannot turn inward. America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic. Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It was this spirit that led airlift planes to appear in the sky above our heads, and people to assemble where we stand today. And this is the moment when our nations – and all nations – must summon that spirit anew." There's a lot more, and it's really, really good. Pass it on.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Previous
