May 2008
“It turns out that for the past 3 decades, we’ve had a George Costanza Energy policy — every decision we have made as a country has worked to drive energy prices higher. Had we made the opposite decisions, Crude Oil prices would be much lower than they are today…”
—The Big Picture (via azspot)
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“Jim, hi. Meeting went well today, we’re still on track for next week’s presentation to the President, Vice President and the Joint Chiefs. The Joint Chiefs will like what they see. The President won’t have any idea what he’s looking at, but he’ll like the pictures. It’s the Vice President we have to be worried about, he’ll be all over this.”
—
Overheard at Dulles (via skidder) (via marco)
Haha.
(via okdan)The Day My Best Friend Beat Cancer
Zach, my best friend in the whole world, kicked cancers motherfucking ass and I couldn’t be more happy for him. This weekend will be spent celebrating how awesome it is to be alive. It may include a bottle of fancy wine (although perhaps we should save it for a time when his taste buds decide to start functioning again).
Z, I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. This year has been one of the best and worst all rolled into one. Strangely, I couldn’t have made it through this experience without your support and I hope I brought a little laughter to your life along the way.
Screw you, cancer! Hawaii - here we come…
Today is one of the most important days of my life…it’s the day I beat cancer.
It was a little less than a year ago that I discovered a lump near my collar bone that would eventually become Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I brushed it off as my body reacting to an infection, but after 8 weeks of waiting, it didn’t go away…it was time to see a doctor. What followed were a battery of tests and scans, two surgeries, 12 chemotherapy sessions spread over 24 weeks, and 17 radiation treatments.
This morning I had my final radiation treatment. I am officially done with my course of therapy. The only thing I have left are follow-up appointments with my doctors and a few scans to make sure everything’s okay.
When I finished this morning the technicians gave me my radiation mask, a diploma, and let me ring this bell that signifies the end of treatment. Then everyone applauded me. I was so overcome that I cried the whole way home.
Just thinking about everything I’ve gone through is making me tear up right now. I’ve never been through anything so difficult and I never want to do it again. But I did it, and it’s over, and I am stronger. Thank you to everyone that’s helped me through this journey. I couldn’t have done it without you.
So now I can finally say that I’m no longer a cancer patient…I’m a cancer survivor.
Obama is an Adult →
washingtonmonthly.com
“During a fund-raiser in Denver, Obama —a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School — was asked what he hoped to accomplish during his first 100 days in office. “I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution,” said Obama.”
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Zappos Bribes New Employees to Quit
That’s right, Zappos offers one-week old employees a $1,000 “Quit Now” bonus if they, well, quit. Now. Per this article about 10% of employees take them up on what the company calls “The Offer.”
Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company says “Zappos thinks that’s money very well spent, because they’re really trying to build the organization with the creme of the crop…if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for.”
He also told this amazing story about Zappos’ customer service. The I Heart Zappos story (darn it - bandwith exceeded, can’t show you the blog-post). A woman bought 7 pairs of shoes from Zappos for her terminally ill mother. Only 2 of them fit, but she was unable to return them (take them to the UPS store) before the 15 day return deadline because her mother had to be hospitalized. She received a check-up email from Zappos to remind her the 15 days were up. She emailed and explained the situation (she was away, her mother was hospitalized, she would try to get to a UPS store soon). Zappos replied don’t worry, we’ll send the UPS truck to you. So the UPS truck came & she returned the shoes. Then the day after that, UPS showed up to her house with flowers and a note from Zappos saying how sorry they were to hear about her mother, and they at Zappos were thinking about her. She promptly blogged about the experience, and as a result, Zappos received some great unintentional PR.
Very interesting business practices. If only more companies realized the importance of customer service and empowered employees to use their best judgment in situations like these.
“Anytime you sincerely want to make a change the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all of the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things I aspired to becoming.”
—Tony Robbins (via ladysadie) (via sarahchristine)
“‘Lincoln was a very natural human being,’ Harding insisted, ‘with the frailties mixed with the virtues of humanity. There are neither supermen nor demigods in the government of republics. It will be better for our conception of government and institutions if we will understand this fact.’”
—Andrew Ferguson, in an article on Abraham Lincoln’s memorial being misunderstood. Here. (via jeralyndwile)
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It's pretty much a given that an article with the headline
“Supreme Court: Law prohibits retaliation” will contain, somewhere within its body, the phrase “Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.”
“Loving your country shouldn’t just mean watching fireworks on the Fourth of July; loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it.”
—Barack Obama (via robot-heart) (via antoinetta) (via jeralyndwile)
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Sigur Ros - “Gobbledigook”
I don’t know how much of an introduction is needed for a band like Sigur Ros, so I’ll keep this brief: they’re an Icelandic band, they never sing in English, their music is most immediately classified as ethereal post-rock, and they do not suck.
This afternoon, Sigur Ros released the first track from their upcoming album Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, and it’s called “Gobbledigook”. The track features plenty of hand-clapping, tribal drumming, and draws immediate comparisons to early Animal Collective. If the rest of the album lives up to the promise in this song, then expect to see this album on every worthwhile “best of” list come December.
The track is available for free from the band’s official page
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Listen
She and Him — “Sentimental Heart”
“Hardly anyone knows that a secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel has finally been completed. An extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope has been installed at both ends which miraculously allows people to see right through the Earth from London to New York
and vice versa.” —The Telectroscope – 22 May-15 June 2008. London and New York. (via eburn) (via alexamayiborrowyourpencil)
and vice versa.” —The Telectroscope – 22 May-15 June 2008. London and New York. (via eburn) (via alexamayiborrowyourpencil)
“In my lifetime I’ve survived Nixon, Reagan and two Bushes, not to mention Watergate, impeachment, the Cold War, Vietnam, Iraq twice, wimpy Democrats, a cowardly press, and a lazy and selfish electorate. And I’ve got all the scars and bruises you’d expect to show for those decades of disappointment. Believe me, I’m no Pollyanna. It takes a lot these days to get me to use the words ‘hope’ and ‘politics’ in the same sentence. But I am more hopeful about American politics now than I’ve been in decades, and perhaps ever in my lifetime. Barack Obama is a substantial part of that optimism.”
—Why I’m Kinda Fonda Obama (And More So Each Week) (via azspot)
“My advice to writers just starting out? Don’t use semi-colons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college.”
—
Kurt Vonnegut, in one of the many quotable paragraphs from his April 27, 2007 sppech at Clowes Hall, Indianapolis, IN. Vonnegut’s son, Mark, delivered the speech (as written and prepared by his father), sixteen days after his death. It is the last writing Vonnegut produced in an illustrious, amazing life. One can find this speech along with eleven other previously unpublished works on war and peace, as part of a new book titled Armageddon in Retrospect.
I’ve read three of them thus far, and they were all worth the read.
(via trappedintime)
“Where you put your time and attention says a lot about who you are. It says a lot about you as a human being. You have some idea in your head of all the stuff that is high priority to you. All the stuff that really matters. If I sat down and asked you what’s really important to you - you would say ‘oh my family and my church group and I’m a deacon.’ But then I go and I look in your email box, newsfeeds and web browser… If I went and got all CSI on that, what would the last two weeks of your electronic life say about how it maps to the stuff that you claim is really important?”
—Merlin Mann (via simko) (via jratlee) (via amandoline) (via julyshewillfly) (via somethingchanged)
Here are the savings from Arctic drilling — 75 cents a barrel →
mcclatchydc.com
WASHINGTON — If Congress were to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, crude oil prices would probably drop by an average of only 75 cents a barrel, according to Department of…
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“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”
—Franz Kafka (via bluechameleon). (via mills)
“Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and your daughters will come of age, and for that we are grateful to her.”
—Barack Obama, in Des Moines on Tuesday night. (via thegoodlife)
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“Obama’s got the strongest organization in history because of what he’s done with the internet and plugging volunteers into the paid organizers operation. McCain’s team is in a shambles. He has no organization and no grassroots fundraising operation.”
—Joe Trippi, Democratic consultant and grassroot campaigning pioneer, on why Obama is poised to launch a campaign that John McCain simply can’t handle. Read the entire article “Barack Obama juggernaut ‘will crush John McCain’” (via The Telegraph) (via trappedintime)
Golden Rule
walpaper:spacelola:thisshouldbeit:sophiniesom:joshuatuscan:
CHRISTIANITY
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.” - Matthew 7:12
JUDAISM
“What is harmful to you, do not to your fellow men. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.” - Talmud, Shabbat, 312
HINDUISM
“This is the turn of duty; do naught unto others which could cause you pain if done to you.” - Mahabharata, 5, 1517
CONFUCIANISM
“Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: Do not unto other that you would not have them do unto you.” - Analects, 15, 23
TAOISM
“Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.” - T’sai Shang Kan Ying P’ien
BUDDHISM
“Hurt not others in ways you yourself would find hurtful.” - Udana-Varga, 5, 18
ZOROASTRIANISM
“That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself.” - Didistan-i-dinik, 94, 5
ISLAM
“No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.” - Sunnah
SECULAR VIEW
“Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.” - George Bernard Shaw
——
Had this conversation the other night. All the rest is just commentary. But how do we get passed doing unto others as you would have done unto you, when what you would have done unto you is different than what another would have done unto them?
Small communities of those who would have the same thing done unto themselves? It’s not a new idea, but one we are getting as far away from as possible.
You’d still need a overriding police force, to enforce the rule above all.
Secular view most addresses this.
I could go on. And will. Later.
“We have never seen this kind of fundraising base before in American politics. It is a revolution. Josh Green’s piece remains the best explanation of the web strategy. It’s more than a campaign; it’s a phenomenon.”
-Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic.com
McCain Aide to honor pledge not to campaign against Obama →
blog.washingtonpost.com
Mark McKinnon is the lead media consultant for John McCain and will step down from that role in the coming days. McKinnon made a pledge last year that he would not campaign against Barack Obama should he become the Democratic nominee. In an interview last year McKinnon said, “I just don’t want to work against an Obama candidacy…[electing Obama] would send a great message to the country and the world.”
An honorable man in a sometimes less than honorable business. Hats off to Mark McKinnon.
“The best revenge is massive success.”
—
Frank Sinatra (via onherway)
Frank Sinatra (via onherway)
“You’ll never untangle the circumstances that brought you to this moment.”
—Leonard Cohen (via hereharehere)
This Again.
Well, I’ve found myself stuck in yet another sad cycle. It doesn’t feel connected to anything in particular - not the wedding, bridal showers, or the 2 year anniversary of the cancer diagnosis. It just feels dull, which is frustrating, and my instinct is to reach out for my mom, which is impossible. So there’s this void of “I want to do something right now, what is it? Hm. I think it’s that I want talk to my mom. Too bad I can’t.”
I’m scared I’m going to forget my mom. I thought that only happened to little kids?
It is starting to get tedious (and exasperating and lonely) going through this without a support system of others who are experiencing the same/similar things. I’d really give anything for a friend whose mom died of pancreatic cancer when she was 27 so we could girl talk about the shittiness of chemo and the empty feeling you get when everyone else gets to go home to surprise their moms on Mother’s Day, while you get misty eyed watching families out to brunch. I know this is a massive pity party, but it’s just that kind of night. Anyone out there with a recent dead mom want to be my friend?
I’ll probably be embarassed by this post later, but what the hell. Someone’s at least gotta relate a little, right?
Kate, email me (I can’t find your email on your tumblr)… we should chat.
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May 19 - Wikipedia →
en.wikipedia.org
Would somebody please edit Wikipedia to acknowledge my existence beginning in 1982? It’d be an awesome gift. Thank you.
Happy Birthday!
