A Fahm Guest Just Blew My Mind

...when she said, "Reading is an interior sport."

"Fahmtastic Story!" Notes from a New Reader

Amazon.com Review by Harry Hart-Browne:

Our Year at The Fahm: or, Blessed are the Cracked for They Shall Let in the Light (Paperback)

"What a delightful book! Sara Parker gives us an unvarnished tour of her new life with her tongue in her cheek and her heart on her sleeve. It reminded me a little of "George Washington Slept Here" where city folk get countrified the hard way.

Sara shares her woes and triumphs with such humor - both extra dry and fairily whimsical - that I become involved immediately, and stayed that way. A real page-turner. She treats language like a lovely lump of Play-Dough, sometimes creating words, phrases and names for inanimate objects that convey their essence far more effectively than conventional wordery can. (It's catching!)

Although this true account is often a romp worthy of Lucy, it also ventures fearlessly to lonely places, human frailties, political insights, world woes, love of animals, as well as rampant mouse poo and homemade applesauce. It shows us how hard hard work can be, the shock of sudden crises, and helps us, by example, to go with the flow. It honors the beauty of Nature. It celebrates good people and laughs at the meanies. Like the official who railed against local beavers building dams without permits. No kidding.

It connected with me on many levels. Sara's every response to her new life is informed by her big sensitive heart, which in turn warmed mine. My inner child smiles. Her subtitle suits her - she lets in the light. Recommended."

I am humbled. 

Winter Storm Falco

8 Degrees F, many inches of snow

We are longing for Solstice...our countdown began days ago.  Soon...

Winter is Coming

...rather, Winter is already here!

Via Weather.com

For Your Consideration, Qualified for Oscar® consideration for the 86th Academy Awards® Best Documentary Film, Valentino's Ghost

Valentino's Ghost: The Politics Behind Images, is the hard-edged film I hope you have already been hearing about.  The film exposes ways in which the U.S. foreign policy agenda in the Middle East drives and shapes the mainstream media's and Hollywood's portrayals of Arabs, Muslims, and Islam.  It is not for the faint of heart. Click here to see the trailer.

Designated a Critics' Pick by The New York Times, called "brilliant" by @MJayRosenberg, and "thrilling" by The Village Voice, Valentino's Ghost received six figures of funding from PBS, which is showing only its truncated version due to controversies raised by the film.

Valentino's Ghost: The Politics Behind Images has qualified for Oscar® consideration for the 86th Academy Awards®, and we are simultaneously trying to go wide with self-distribution, hence this post asking for your financial support toward the cost of spreading the word about this film, which I am proud to say I have had some small involvement in. The IndieGoGo campaign site is here.

Your support, no matter how small, would give this film the higher profile it needs in its dual mission for Oscar® consideration and self-distribution. No American distributor will touch it.  Neither will any major American film festival, even though the Director of the world's oldest and most prestigious Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera, said, "Valentino's Ghost is a great and very important film."

I hope you will conclude that the Valentino's Ghost project and predicament merit your support.  You can view the trailer and see more reviews at www.valentinosghost.com. Please help.

(More) Truth(s) from Banksy

Via Better Out Than In

Banksy's Recent Tribute to 9/11/2001

Happy Birthday, Dad! Reprise

FINALLY

JPMorgan Chase & Co, the Biggest U.S. Bank by Assets Being Investigated By DOJ Over Mortgages

For Library Lovers Everywhere

49 Breathtaking Libraries From All Over The World

Snowden: "I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."

Edward Snowden appears at Moscow airport and renews asylum claim – as it happened

Thank You Medgar Evers, Civil Rights, 1963, Celebrating 50!

From The Root:

On June 12, 1963, Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens' Council, shot 37-year-old NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers in the back outside his Jackson, Miss., home, killing him -- and making a legend out of a man who was already a courageous soldier in the fight for civil rights. In life he was a hero, bravely investigating cases of violence against blacks in his home state, but in the years after his death, he has become a cultural icon. In celebration of Evers, here are 10 facts about his life and legacy. Read more >>

Disappointed, Disillusioned & Disgusted (Though Not Entirely Surprised)

NSA Whistleblowers: "All U.S. Citizens" [are] Targeted by Surveillance Program, Not Just Verizon Customers - Democracy Now

A leaked court order has revealed the Obama administration is conducting a massive domestic surveillance program by collecting telephone records of millions of Verizon customers. The Guardian newspaper published a classified order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court directing Verizon’s Business Network Services to give the National Security Agency electronic data, including all calling records on an "ongoing, daily basis." 

Introducing Barack W. Bush (or George Hussein Obama)

Our first African American POTUS won an historic election in 2008, but then he went all fucking J. Edgar Hoover on us. Compare this paragraph about Hoover:

Hoover's critics accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI.[1] He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.[3]  Hoover transformed the FBI into his private secret police force; Truman stated that "we want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail... all customers, along with location and routing data, and with the duration and frequency of the calls...via Wikipedia

to the same one bracket-edited ala Barack Obama:

[His critics] have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of [his office]. He used [his office] to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.[3] [Obama] transformed [the powers of his office] into his private secret police force; [Critics] stated that "we want no Gestapo or secret police...[this presidency] is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in ...life scandals and plain blackmail...all customers, along with location and routing data, and with the duration and frequency of the calls..."

I find it, actually, horrifying.

Valentino's Ghost Trailer

PBS TV's 60-min version airs starting June 1, 2013! 

Check your local PBS station

Long Time Coming for Valentino's Ghost - NYT Critics' Pick

You may not agree with every observation in Michael Singh’s documentary “Valentino’s Ghost.” But this engrossing examination of American perceptions of Arabs and the Arab world gets you thinking...Mr. Singh’s film scrutinizes the intersection of geopolitics (specifically Western incursions into the Middle East) and Hollywood imagery (which has often reflected Western interests in the region). Viewers are invited to consider history from the Arab perspective, a rare stance in the United States, and Western entertainment from the same angle. via ANDY WEBSTER

debuting this weekend in Los Angeles and NYC.

A Fraction of a Fraction of a Fraction of a Percent

From Patton Oswalt.

"Boston. Fucking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out.

(Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will.""

NHL Skates to Where the Puck is Going to Be

It turns out the NHL is actually a lover, not a fighter!

Just ONE MORE REASON to love the game.

DEATH OF A REVOLUTIONARY

DEATH OF A REVOLUTIONARY 

Shulamith Firestone helped to create a new society. But she couldn't live in it.

Very long and very worth the read. You might not know her name but you do know one of her ideas, the concept that “the personal is political”.

"... “The end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital difference between human beings would no longer matter culturally..." - From The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, a 1970 feminist classic, described as the clearest and boldest (certainly the rawest) presentation of radical feminism published

Genital difference between human beings no longer matters culturally. WHAT A CONCEPT.

Story of My Life

The road up!

Writing

Via reddit