January 2009
27 posts
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December 2008
149 posts
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Movies, on the eve of 2009.
Tim and I have been watching a lot of movies lately. It’s been an eclectic mix, a product of the English-language selection at our neighborhood Blockbuster, the occasional, very slow download and two bouts of sickness (a double feature!) in two weeks.
Yesterday, my 29th birthday, I spent the entire day in bed. There was a nasty bug in my stomach. But at least the movies were good.
When...
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An NPR Reporter Becomes the News →
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“[A]s each week brings more bad news from the United States, those forecasts seem...”
– The New York Times on the Mexican economy. I like the original headline better: When the US sneezes, Mexico catches a cold.
Freda: It is with no small amount of guilt that I jump up and down watching the peso’s fall. But I can’t help it. The 25 percent drop in Mexico’s currency...
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The Top Ten People Who Should Be Unemployed Come...
Pareene on Jeff Jarvis on his “The Top Ten People Who Should Be Unemployed Come ‘09” listicle. (via maura) :
“The entertainment journalist who got internet famous for blogging about batteries or something is now the official overpaid consultant of saving the newsmedia, even though he doesn’t really know what reporters do (he is pretty sure they should blog about batteries or...
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Finally, some answers on NPR's cuts. →
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“[T]he TV industry is scrambling to adjust its business model in a cruel and...”
– Salon’s Heather Havrilesky writing on The year the small screen fell flat.
Plowing the Secondaries
My brother and I are out plowing the secondaries the morning after a big spring snowstorm—my brother in one plow, me behind him in another, and I can see my brother is going way too fast, and I think: If he doesn’t watch out he is going to hit something. And then he does not watch out and does hit something. It is a woman. My brother keeps going after he hits her, big flumes of snow curling and...
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“In June, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a controversial...”
– Charles Blow, with whom I so often disagree, writing on Heaven for the Godless in the NY Times.
Freda: Whew! Well, that’s a relief. Heaven, here I come!
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Obama's next scandal: Taking his kids to the... →
Freda: It’s these things that make it hard to stay angry at Obama, even when he does asshole and/or idiotic things, like picking Warren as his invocation pastor or Hillary as his Secretary of State.
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Christmas dessert delight
Freda: Our Christmas dinner was fantastic. This recipe, from Cooking Light (don’t be deterred by the low calorie count) was easy and really good. I added strawberries to the figs for extra yum. I also had to substitute Ricotta, which was nowhere to be found in Colonia Roma, with panela (a similarly wonderful Mexican cheese).
—
Red Wine-Poached Fig and Ricotta Tarts
...
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All I Wanted for Christmas Was a Newspaper →
Freda: I couldn’t have said it better, yet I couldn’t agree more.
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By thirty...
Freda: My dad has often said that his 29th birthday was the hardest — not his 30th or 50th, or the others one might think. His 29th was the one where he most acutely felt his age, or aging. It was the 29th that spelled the end of his youth (those roaring twenties) and the press of mortality.
With my 29th birthday rapidly approaching, a borrowed list of things to figure out by my 30th. I...
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Freda: I loved this song when I was ten.
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“The ’80s did for money what the ’60s did for sex. They told a...”
– I’ve been thinking about the 80s a lot lately — about John Hughes and his oh-so-seductive class warfare, specifically. This piece is on Tom Cruise by Stephen Metcalf in Slate.
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No!!! Not her, anyone but her...!! →
Sure, 81 is a ripe ol’ age, but still this is a loss. At a time when a salty, sultry sexualilty with real intellect were unappreciated attributes in a woman, Kitt was radical. Plus, I’ve had some damned good times to her tunes. The year I met Tim, 2001, Katie and I listened to it incessantly while drinking ungodly concoctions of Jack Daniels and whatever-else. It was a time.
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A chef who cooks local and organic food and picks... →
Freda: Food is good for you. Food policy is a political danger zone.
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Freda: I’m loving Chris Isaak’s...
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Beautifully counter-intuitive: Mexicans flock to... →
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Have a very Christless Christmas. →
“What I love about the holidays are what Warren and his ilk surely consider distractions: the trees, the lights, Santa, and Muppet specials.”
Freda: What else is there?
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In the town of Fort Bragg, California, fishermen... →
My hometown, and its woes, in Smithsonian.
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“Sure, Vegas boasts of renewable power investments and energy-saving light bulbs....”
– David Sirota in Salon. Will “Viva Las Vegas” always be America’s motto?
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Top 10 Gifts for Politics Geeks: Recession Edition →
Freda: I say skip the presents altogether and spend your gift budget eating well, but this is an amusing list nonetheless.
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“…[E]ven as big papers have become less profitable they’ve arguably become...”
– James Surowiecki writing on newspapers and getting what you pay for in the New Yorker.
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The Bloody Mary: My favorite "health food" →
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Actress in Christmas pageant dies in 25-foot fall →
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No matter what they chose, presidential candidates... →
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