sundries

[rm]

Good day yesterday. Everyone is almost in the same time zone and there was productivity. I think tonight it might be sushi time, depending if Patty is noshy after her department's party tonight.

I am dithering about opera tickets. Also theater tickets at BAM for next season. All slightly complicated by many schedule things that we lack answers to or the ability to control.

The US government wants you to know that the best thing to do in case of a nuclear attack is to shelter where you are. Even minimal shelter, like a car, would result in fewer radioactive fall-out deaths. The problem? They're not sure how to communicate this without getting us upset. I AM UPSET. DO YOU HEAR ME? I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT MY FUCKING COLD WAR CHILDHOOD AND I INHERENTLY OBJECT TO A RETURN TO REFLEXIVE BOMB-SHELTER DESIGN AS A RESPONSE TO AN UNCONTROLLABLE WORLD.

A town holds its silence about a bully's killing.

On a party planner. Oh, check out the slide show. Also, I want to see that map.

You've heard it before but, a piece on homophobia and how it's really about the challenge to male power that queerness represents.

The hunt is on for a serial killer in Long Island.

Journalism, in public.

Boehner, Clinton and the weeping problem. Interesting, but I think it's too sure of how people will response. Men crying makes US folks REALLY uncomfortable as a rule. I don't think it'll work in Boehner's favor, although I do think people will largely be uncomfortable discussing it, which might work in his favor. Here's another piece on it that's well-crafted but also avoids some of the questions of impact.

A look at Holbrooke's death and the suicide of Mark Madoff through the lens of Greek drama.

The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Ireland's abortion ban.

Heroic, female and Muslim. Stop being surprised. The only thing possibly surprising here is that anyone -- regardless of religion or gender -- could be this awesome.

Things I can't quite believe I'm linking to. A piece from Rob Thomas on straight people standing up for gay rights. It's not a perfect piece by any means, but it makes the fascinating assertion that a civil union is about death (hospital visitation and inheritance rights) and a marriage is about life -- that's why the name matters. I don't necessarily agree, but it's a fantastic rhetorical flourish.

Glenn Close as an Irish man. HOT. HOT HOT HOT HOT. Now more than ever, I'm pleased that friends of mine used to say she should play me in a movie of my life.

Don't forget, got industry questions? Ask here.

Also, fandom, we're going to have another talk later today. Don't worry, Torchwood, this time it's not about you. Well, not any more than usual, but seriously, on today's topic we're at least better than average.

Comments

[orlacarey.livejournal.com]

Personally my way of dealing with the nuclear threat is to live close to DC and hope I don't survive the inital blast. Sorry too many post nuke reality movies when I was growing up.

[cozzene.livejournal.com]

That still from Albert Nobbs...my god, the way she wears that suit is just killer; And the walk; jaw dropping.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's inspirational.

[cozzene.livejournal.com]

Without a doubt. The power just comes through in that shot. I would love to see it in a high-contrast B&W image.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

"Journalism, in public" has the wrong link -- right now it goes to the LI serial killer.

[rm.livejournal.com]

fixed.

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

In junior high, my brother used to read books from the 1960s on nuclear warfare and we worked out at dinner one night that the thing to do was hope you were killed instantly or duck and cover.

The "emergency procedure" sheets when I was in school always had a space for the euphemistically entitled "nuclear emergency". Surely filling that blank in would be a first step. (Heck, duck and cover's not that dissimilar from school earthquake drills, I don't think. I explain school tornado drills to Californians by telling them it's duck and cover or an earthquake, but in the hallway, rather than under the desk.) Or just putting an item on the local news with some old civil defense video and the reporter saying "By the way, we figured out that really wasn't as stupid as we all thought it was." It might be enough to put the idea back in people's heads without alarming them. It's not as if people don't know what duck and cover is/was, so telling them it isn't the joke we treat it as would be a first step.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

That actually sounds like a really good plan, and a way to plant important information inside people's heads by disguising it as useless trivia. "By the way, those stupid 'duck and cover' videos? They were totally the right thing to do."

My former Boy Scout troop leader is a cop and had been the liason to the 911 operators for a while, so at one point he took us on a tour of that facility. They had all sorts of fancy fallout shelter technology built in...and fresh air vents you couldn't close. Apparently, in the event of an actual "nuclear event", most of them pretty much assumed they had no actual protection and resigned themselves to that.

[cobweb-diamond.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOODNESS. I am so totally going to see that Glenn Close movie.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Glenn Close is HAWT! Jesus...

Thanks for the John Shore article.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

That article on Dr. Hawa Abdi is amazing; so linking to it. Thank you!!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

In re the town that killed a bully: I wonder if there's any investigation into why he was allowed to get away with it for so long.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder what that article _isn't_ telling us. That guy apparently was arrested for three felonies a year, but got aquitted from every one of them until he shot a guy in the neck, and then he was released on bail. Was the local judge his uncle? Did he have blackmail material? Was he just that terrorizing? How do you be that much of a bastard in a small community and not suffer for it?

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

...yeah, that bothered me, too.

[juniperus.livejournal.com]

Re: nuclear attack shelter
I'm like you, and I get what you said a year ago, and now. Next-door neighbors' house had a buried metal shelter--would have been worthless against radiation, I think, but my sister and I (and the neighbor kids) took shelter in it on more than one occasion when tornado sirens were going off and our collective parents weren't home. I'm claustrophobic... I can't tell you if I was before then. MRI's bring flashbacks of that slightly-larger metal coffin and drills in elementary school involving getting on our knees on cold tile floors, foreheads to the floor and holding hardcover textbooks over our heads.
I don't want this.
But yes--I play real-life-Tetris in my head, too.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

True facts, I first heard about Ken McElroy from the mouth of someone who was, at the time, driving both of us through Skidmore on our way back from a camping trip. There's very little information available about it, it's nice to see new journalism emerge. I'm afraid I side with the townsfolk on this one.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

So do I. It's obvious enough to me that the social contract (the legal system), for whatever reason, failed to deal with McElroy. That's when it's okay for people to step in and say, "Fine, let's deal with it our way."

as seen in the Podunk Nowhere paper

[snufflesdbear.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I was stunned, then had to send you a link to the article. This is the MOST backward town I have ever been in. Honestly! So was impressed here.
http://www.coshoctontribune.com/article/20101213/NEWS01/12130301/As-awareness-of-celiac-disease-grows-so-does-popularity-of-gluten-free-diets

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

...I think I see my brother in the second party slide of the party in New Orleans.

I jokingly leaned into the screen "I wonder if my brother is there?"

But there's a figure right in the middle of the shot that looks enough like him to startle.

Oh, lol.

[hab318princess.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links, really interesting

but I think I've lived in denial about the cold war threat of bombs... seriously, I don't think I've thought about it since we watched the film The Day After (and I remember readng a book about it in school too) - that said, I don't remember drills or shelters at all - wonder if being in West Germany made a difference

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Blogging Dr. Hawa.

I remember picking up a video with the names and pictures of Glenn Close & Mandy Patinkin on the cover and guessing wrong.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Re. Dr Hawa: *that's* whom Time should've had as Person of the Year!

Glenn Close: definitely looking forward to that movie. Wow.