Politically it was a week not to be forgotten. Republicans kept right on with their self-destructive ways, thanks to the untiring efforts of Grand Old Party Poopers Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. And let’s not forget that charming hangover from the Clinton years, Newt Gingrich, who insists on piping in his voice of little consequence. Colin Powell refused to let the tag team of Cheney and Limbaugh read him out of the Republican Party, reminding the world of his moderate bonafides, in spite of what the last Republican administration required him to do in calling for the invasion of Iraq in front of the United Nations using fictitious evidence.
Newt Gingrich, ever the political chameleon (he turns from brown to black, and back to brown again), shifted from his call for Nancy Pelosi’s resignation to join House minority leader Boehner in calling for a mere apology. I guess that’s what he would call progress. His Divine Weaselness probably felt lonely, he being the only voice this side of Limbaugh calling for her resignation. Perhaps, gasp, gasp, the Republicans are finally coordinating their offense.
But then Tuesday rolled around, and with it the announcement of President Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee. And the country’s future has never looked brighter.
At this point I have a confession I would like to make. This time last year I was an out and out Hillary Clinton supporter. I supported her because she is brilliant and especially because she rankles the Republican opposition. I supported her because she is a woman, and after the mess men have made of this country for the past uncounted years, I thought it was high time we put in a highly qualified woman to clean up the mess. I wasn’t her only supporter, lots of old fogies like me supported her. Jack Nicholson even made a YouTube video using various characters he has played in films to support her candidacy.
However I would like to be the first to admit that the democratic process worked out for the best in the end. The Democratic primaries finally caused the most qualified candidate to rise to the top like so much fresh cream. And Barack Obama went on to win not just the Democratic nomination, but the election itself. The American People, the voters of the good ole U.S. of A., pushed their inherited prejudices out the window and voted to put in power the first black man in the history of the republic. Amazing what?
But most amazing is the man we put into power. A man who instead of running from, or at best ignoring his campaign promises, from day one has been busily putting them in practice. Very un-politician like. We could quite easily get used to this.
All of which leads us back to President Obama’s first Supreme Court nomination. Unless you’ve been in, like, a coma, I’m sure you are aware, that on Tuesday morning, May 26, President Obama announced his first appointment for a justice in the Supreme Court. And it was Sonia Sotomayor, an hispanic female of Puerto Rican descent, who was raised in the projects in the Bronx, N.Y., in the shade of Yankee Stadium, and who graduated at the top of her class at Princeton, and went on to edit the Yale Law Review. She was first appointed to the federal bench by George H.W. Bush, and promoted to the Appeals Court by Bill Clinton. In short she is the American Dream personified. And her story happens to mirror President Obama’s own rèsumè, and so it is easy to see why after only an hour long conversation with her he felt comfortable in choosing her as his first court nominee.
And you know President Obama’s doing something right by the color of the opposition to her pick. Rush Limbaugh is fang and claw against her, and he’s joined in this, and this is guaranteed to bowl you over in shock, by Newt Gingrich. His Royal Snideness has never seen an Obama pick he couldn’t snarl at. And with opposition like that you just know her candidacy is blessed and should sail right through the Senate. Not only have the Democrats an overwhelming majority and can run her nomination right through, but she was first put on the federal bench by President George H. W. Bush, and several Republicans who voted for her confirmation back then are still in the Senate today, and it would be awkward for them to go back on their confidence now.
But the main thing her candidacy has going for it is that she is a member of America’s fastest growing political group, hispanics, a group Republicans will desperately need should they ever get serious about increasing their voting numbers. It is a group already turned off by the stance of many Republican on illegal aliens. A Merry Band of Daily Beast Bloggers wrote an all inclusive reaction to President Obama’s first Supreme nominee, which you can access by clicking your cursor here! And finally we urge Ms Sotomayor to pay particularly close attention to this article by Ken Duberstein, who shepherded several nominees through the process during Ronald Reagan’s administration, and who has some particularly compelling advice for the nominee here!
The consistent advice to Republicans among the BeastOsphere’s blogging community is that the GOP would be smart to lay off giving harsh interrogation to this candidate, at the risk of offending women in general and hispanics in particular. Will Republican Senators take their advice? TIme will tell, we do believe.
And Friday our question was answered. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called as “terrible,” Limbaugh’s and Gingrich’s publicly expressed opinions calling Obama’s pick “racist.” "I think it's terrible," Sen. John Cornyn, told NPR's "All Things Considered" Thursday. "This is not the kind of tone any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advise and consent.” I’m sure the esteemed Senator from Texas can see Latinos the country ever visualizing the Democratic party lever at the polling booth as they react to the Limbaugh, Gingrich calls of racism. But oddly enough. if the truth be told, few can rise to the level of racism as daily demonstrated by both Limbaugh and Gingrich. Of course they are both on the WASP side of the racial divide. But they are racists pure and simple. And it takes one to know one, as we used to say.
Damn, what in the world could possibly be any better? In spite of the lousy economy I can’t find words to express how good it feels to actually have a president leading our country who is uniquely intellectually qualified for a change, and who on top of that extraordinary talent has the empathy to feel our pain, and who is devoting the resources of the federal government to among other things help improve our lot. What a refreshing addition to the office of the president. Hang on everybody, Little Eddy predicts a most interesting and productive ride ahead.§
Above you see the cover for the June 1st edition of the New Yorker Magazine. The artist, Jorge Colombo, stood outside Madame Tussaud’s Wax Musem for an hour, creating the cover on an iPhone, using an iPhone application called Brushes.
In his own words, “I got a phone in the beginning of February, and I immediately got the program (Brushes) so I could entertain myself,” says Colombo, who first published his drawings in The New Yorker in 1994. Colombo has been drawing since he was seven, but he discovered an advantage of digital drawing on a nighttime drive to Vermont. “Before, unless I had a flashlight or a miner’s hat, I could not draw in the dark.” (When the sun is up, it’s a bit harder, “because of the glare on the phone,” he says.) It also allows him to draw without being noticed; most pedestrians assume he’s checking his e-mail.
There’s a companion application, Brushes Viewer, that makes a video recapitulating each step of Colombo’s composition. Check the starting arrow below to watch Colombo creating this week’s cover.§
This article used material culled from the N.Y. Times which can be accessed in its unvarnished entirety here!
Microsoft Head Honcho Steve Ballmer announced to the world that its search engine’s new name is Bing. This happened at the All Things Digital conference on Thursday. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak seemed very impressed with Balmer’s demo, and said he’s eager to try the new product himself, which is not yet on the web, but which is supposed to make its appearance sometime next week.
Most of the world doubts that it will be a Google killer, or even make that much of a dent in Google’s market share. Meantime people are speculating what impression the name Bing brings to mind. Many old timers will think Bing Crosby. But for Monty Python fans it will remind them of the birth sketch in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. A mashup of that sketch, nowhere near as funny as the original, but right to the point here, is available on YouTube, and will be available to you by simply clicking the arrow below.
As the week wound down one of our favorite writers, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, summed up the approaching Sotomayor nomination conflict in terms of what it really means. A chance for conservative groups who oppose her nomination, to fund raise on the strength of it. Wrote Milbank:
Perhaps the most honest statement was from Richard Viguerie of ConservativeHQ.com, who celebrated the arrival of the "first major ideological battle since the early Clinton years." He wrote that "win or lose, we will reap major benefits in the 2010 and 2012 elections."
For the entirety of Milbank’s report, which covered all sides of the dispute, direct your cursor and click here!
We worship gods of rock and now it’s time to kneel before the gods of personal computing. This epic piece of original art was uncovered during a gallery walk through New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, appropriately captured using Apple’s Jesus phone.
“The Trinity” is painted on plexiglass then back lit for a dramatic stained glass effect. It features Linus Torvalds credited with creating the Linux OS on the left, Microsoft’s Bill Gates who’s forced to share his esteemed place with Steve Ballmer popping out from his tie on the right, and finally at center the mega-deity of the computing world, Steve Jobs, who’s immortalized holding his beloved iPhone.
The Mac power button symbol inserted as a halo behind Steve Jobs’ head is a classic touch that will please the most devout Apple faithful. The depiction of Ballmer as an angelic being is perfectly sarcastic though it could have been true comedy if he was painted more accurately as a big chubby cherub baby.
Lit candles are always present near this divine shrine for proper prayer and reflection while visiting “The Trinity” up close and personal. Kneeling is optional.
For the original story go here!
Well, don’t let our headline scare you unduly. It’s not the sort of tragedy that makes a damn bit of difference out here in the real world. Probably most visitors to this page aren’t even aware of it’s existence, as you have to click your end button to even see it. But if you do click end at our page’s bottom there appears a page counter which until Monday was showing a page count at 3400+. Then suddenly Monday it disappeared.
I clicked on the remains of my dead page counter, and got a link to a new page counter. I guess the company that had supplied my original one was bought out by another company. This company too offered me a free replacement, which I hastily took them up on. Copying the embedding data to the clipboard, I returned to my page and replaced the embed data from old counter with that of the new. And B-I-N-G-O it worked. Only problem, it started me at zero. Flushed all of our myriad hits down the digital toilet.
I sincerely hope the creators of my brand new page counter can devise a way where we can carry over our data in cases where we have to replace the counter. It is a drag to go back to zero. I tried refreshing the page but the counter remained frozen on 000012. I tried going to the Washington Post, then returning to Little Eddy. Still 000012. I did it again, this time remaining on the Times long enough to read the teasers for a couple of stories. Then back to Little Eddy. And guess what, the counter’s still on 000012. I even quit Camino for awhile, then reopened Little Eddy and checked below, and what did I find? 00012. What in hell is it going to take to move the damn thing? Or are we doomed to live in 000012 hell throughout Eternity?
Well, to make a long story interminable I went to Google and searched for page counters, and installed a new one which let me start somewhere’s near where we left off, This one let me start at 3499, and after several returns my page is showing 5003. And yet another return brought up 5004, so at least this one seems to be moving. However, even with the lower number, our showing is pretty pathetic.§
And as we tiptoe our way out of here, we would like to call all of you grownup’s attention to what we feel was a major publishing event. Russell Hoisington, author of the Wynter series, released part two of Wynter and Brinkley the other week. It does not complete the volume, but it does carry it far along the way. And best of all, it proves to us that Hoisington is alive and well, and working on his legacy, and it is a legacy filled with the warmth of humanity, and the foibles of the human experience. To access Wynter and Brinkley direct your cursor and click here! You will have to register with the site before you can obtain access, however, as Russell’s writing is classified as adult.
If you haven’t yet read the other stories in the series click on Russell Hoisington’s Page underlined at the top of this page. The stories are best read in the order they were written. Wynter, Wynter and Jimmy, Wynter and Cinnamon, Wynter and Hailey, and finally Wynter and Brinkley. Enjoy. And thanks a bunch for stopping by.§
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