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Doh! Running late ...
2009 Jul. 11th
2009 Jul. 10th
07:01 am - Paul Krugman!
The question is what the president and his economic team should do now.
It’s perfectly O.K. for the administration to defend what it’s done so far. It’s fine to have Vice President Joseph Biden touring the country, highlighting the many good things the stimulus money is doing.
It’s also reasonable for administration economists to call for patience, and point out, correctly, that the stimulus was never expected to have its full impact this summer, or even this year.
But there’s a difference between defending what you’ve done so far and being defensive. It was disturbing when President Obama walked back Mr. Biden’s admission that the administration “misread” the economy, declaring that “there’s nothing we would have done differently.” There was a whiff of the Bush infallibility complex in that remark, a hint that the current administration might share some of its predecessor’s inability to admit mistakes. And that’s an attitude neither Mr. Obama nor the country can afford.
What Mr. Obama needs to do is level with the American people. He needs to admit that he may not have done enough on the first try. He needs to remind the country that he’s trying to steer the country through a severe economic storm, and that some course adjustments — including, quite possibly, another round of stimulus — may be necessary.
What he needs, in short, is to do for economic policy what he’s already done for race relations and foreign policy — talk to Americans like adults. More
06:58 am - The Rude Pundit on CIA, Lying, and Nancy Pelosi
Easy Predictions: No One Will Apologize to Nancy Pelosi: More
Shamelessly Stolen from
supergee06:50 am - Humpday (2009) NYT Critics' Pick
Mark Duplass, left, and Joshua Leonard in "Humpday."
Putting a Bromance to an Erotic Test
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: July 10, 2009
To guys everywhere: “Humpday” has your number. With X-ray vision, this serious indie comedy, written and directed by Lynn Shelton, sees through its male characters’ macho pretensions to contemplate the underlying forces hard-wired into men’s psyches in a homophobic culture. Think of it as a Judd Apatow or Kevin Smith buddy film turned inside out. More
06:44 am - Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009) NYT Critics' Pick
Gertrude Berg in a scene from "Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg."
July 10, 2009
So Listen, America, to Your Bighearted Jewish Mother
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: July 10, 2009
“The Oprah of her day” is one talking head’s description of the broadcasting pioneer Gertrude Berg in “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg,” Aviva Kempner’s engrossing documentary portrait of a once-beloved radio and television star who died in 1966 and today is barely remembered. The film could be described as Exhibit A in a study of media celebrity and collective forgetfulness in the age of information overload. More
06:41 am - The Vanished Empire
Lidia Milyuzina and Alexander Lyapin in "The Vanished Empire."
Rites of Passage Through the Rolling Stones and Fallen Civilizations
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: July 10, 2009
Like teenagers everywhere, Sergey Narbekov (Alexander Lyapin), a headstrong 18-year-old student in 1973 Moscow, whose growing pains are chronicled in Karen Shakhnazarov’s beautiful film “The Vanished Empire,” is drawn by the lure of the forbidden. For Soviet youth in those days, the hottest contraband items, furtively traded in an open-air black market periodically raided by the police, are rock albums from the West. More
06:36 am - Lake Tahoe (2008) NYT Critics' Pick
Diego Cataño in Fernando Eimbcke’s “Lake Tahoe,” set in a Yucatán harbor town.
July 10, 2009
Flickers of Trauma
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: July 10, 2009
So different from the usual fare that it might have arrived from another galaxy, “Lake Tahoe” is a painstaking collage of small incidents and expansive images clustered around a fragile narrative. At the center is Juan (Diego Cataño), a phlegmatic teenager whose bright red Nissan has collided with a pole; around him are a variety of characters — a grumpy dog lover, a friendly kung fu fanatic — who may or may not be able to help him get moving again. To reach his destination, however, he will require more than a mechanic and a replacement part. More
06:34 am - Teenage Terminatrix
Gianna plays a vampire-human hybrid posing as a 16-year-old student in Chris Nahon’s film “Blood: The Last Vampire.”
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: July 10, 2009
Upholding the Japanese media mandate that every teenage terminatrix resemble a murderous Catholic schoolgirl, “Blood: The Last Vampire” introduces Saya (Gianna, otherwise known as the South Korean actress Jeon Ji-hyun), an ancient vampire-human hybrid posing as a 16-year-old student. Ever since her father was killed by the über-demon Onigen (an excruciating performance by the Japanese model and actress Koyuki), Saya, assisted by a shadowy organization known as the Council, has pledged to rid the world of demonkind. In her down time she sips blood from bottles tucked inside brown paper bags, like a strangely sexy wino. More
2009 Jul. 9th
09:46 pm - Fresh Ink
My Antonia - Illusion Theater
There's musicians....
It's a 90 minute retelling of the book at Fresh Ink. It's a great performance, considering it's half read. (The script changes a lot.)
07:10 am - Reno in 2011
After a year of bidding, we're down to the final phase of the Reno in 2011 bid -- the final vote in Montreal. And that depends on you.
Ballots can be hand-carried or filed in person at Anticipation in early August. 15 July is the deadline for mail-in ballots for Site Selection. We'd like to encourage all supporting and attending members of Anticipation to cast their votes in Site Selection.
Although we are the only bid to have formally filed for 2011, we hope to have a strong turnout to support both the selection process and our bid to bring the Worldcon to Reno. Voting also ensures that you get the best deal on joining the 2011 Worldcon, as every site selection voter gets a Supporting Membership to the 2011 Worldcon.
Additionally, if you vote, you can convert your Supporting Membership to an Attending Membership for no more than $90, for at least three months after Anticipation.
You can find full details of the voting process, and our filing documents, on the filing page (http://www.rcfi.org/filing.php). Most importantly for those of you who can't make it to Montreal, please remember that mail-in ballots must be received by Anticipation by 15 July.
After this date, voting will only be possible in person or by hand carried ballots delivered at Anticipation.
The Site Selection ballot is available online on the Anticipation site:
http://www.anticipationsf.ca/English/SiteSelection
Note: Ballots must be mailed to:
Anticipation
2011 Worldcon Site Selection
1074 El Solyo Heights Drive
Felton, CA 95018 USA
Patty Wells, Chair, Reno in 2011 - 8 July 2009 http://www.rcfi.org
2009 Jul. 8th
04:19 am - Yesterday
Yesterday, tarkrai posted that he had a layover here in Our Fair Cities while on a journey from Hamburg to the wilds o' Idaho. Various pond-spanning communication methods and busy people ended up with me at the airport around six pm, to whisk Steve off to sushi at Midori's Floating World Cafe, which I've been to once before. One wrong turn later, and after parking the car, I realized it wuz no longer at the location I remembered. Phone calls and google resolved the location, but off we went in search of it and more wrong turns. We ended up back in the same parking space, because it had only moved across the street and to the corner. We ate fish after one of the minnehahas and guppiecat arrived and all twenty other people in the restaurant were fed. mia_mcdavid arrived after a bit to join in with sake. The minnehaha and guppiecat took off for music at Merlin's Rest, and Steve and I took off for more wrong turns to drop him off at the airport after the brief, but inadvertent, tour of scenic Highway 62 right here in Beautiful South Mpls.
Best wishes to Steve's mother, who is in hospital.
03:36 am - A New Spin Cycle for the Common Dip
By MARK BITTMAN
Published: July 2, 2009
WHEN I was young, there was but one dip served in my world: sour cream mixed with Lipton onion soup mix, served almost exclusively with Ruffles potato chips. (I realize this dates me, but I also can’t read the preceding sentence without wanting a scoop of this.) More
Recipe: Pea Dip With Parmesan (July 8, 2009)
03:31 am - If It Wasn’t for That Umlaut ...
FROM HERE TO YOUR BACKYARD The Wachau region of Austria produces the rich and multi-talented grüner veltliner wines.
Tasting Report: Grüner Veltliners, the Quiet Austrians
By ERIC ASIMOV
Published: July 7, 2009
GRÜNER VELTLINER is one of summer’s great, unlikely pleasures.
As eager as we were to embrace the wines, the tasting was somewhat disquieting. While we very much liked our favorites, we found too many wines that were not up to snuff.
Why unlikely? Well, it may seem shallow, but Americans have always been riveted by the mellifluous, flowing wine names drawn of the romance languages — the chardonnays, pinot grigios and Sancerres. Germanic terms, with their umlauts and consonant pileups, have historically posed obstacles, whether gewürztraminer, blaufränkisch (its alternate name, lemberger, is no better) or the ever-popular trockenbeerenauslese. More
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2009 Jul. 7th
2009 Jul. 6th
2009 Jul. 4th
2009 Jul. 3rd
03:35 pm - Palin Resigns?
Sarah! Sarah! Sarah! What are we going to do if we don't have you around to make fun of?
Wait, there's Amy Klobuchar! “It’s important he go against the grain of his past career and really get to know the issues.” Link
And, for those o' us locals, there's always Our Favorite Suburban Wingnut: Michele Bachmann! Link In all honesty, I do wish they'd draft her. I'm sure she's too sour to bottle, but she'd be great toting a rifle in Afghanistan.
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