Made from a clipped CNN news report about the NSA spying thing, plus some Apple ™ sound effects:
Political
Frightful, nonsensical, and/or anger-inducing stories about power, or commentary upon.
Bob Hope and zombies
A clip from the 1940 movie “Ghost Breakers” with Bob Hope via the No Agenda podcast:
Mark Buehrle and his dog
Here’s hoping the new Blue Jays pitcher can raise awareness about Ontario’s pit bull ban and maybe ultimately the law will change. I’d love for Oliver and Iris to be able to visit us sometime!
…And as [Buehrle] makes his debut as a Blue Jay, he will live alone in Toronto, leaving his family and their beloved dogs behind in St. Louis.
The reason: Ontario has banned pit bulls, one of which — a Staffordshire terrier-bulldog mix named Slater — is a treasured member of the Buehrle family…
“Being a responsible pet owner, you can’t just dump your dog on somebody else or take a chance of breaking a law and taking him up there [to Ontario],” Buehrle said…
The Buehrles adopted Slater from a shelter where he was scheduled for euthanasia two years ago. [Buehrles’ wife] Jamie has an uncommon love for dogs, but when she told her husband about finding Slater, he had never heard her wax so enthusiastic about any animal before. Bring him home, he said.
Slater is the antithesis of the pit-bull stereotype, Buehrle insisted…
Full article in the National Post:
Blue Jays’ Mark Buehrle knows many won’t understand why he’ll leave his family behind ‘over a dog’
2012 election signs
During our 6-day trip to North Carolina immediately before the presidential election, I was anticipating seeing lots of crazy yard signs. Nope. It was mainly your standard DNC / RNC issue signs mixed with local billboards, but drowned out by the thousands of signs for all the lesser positions which clutter up the US ballots. Overall, I saw far more Obama signs in and around Asheville, but the biggest billboards tended to be Republican. To think of all that money spent on changing nothing…
Words of wisdom from the president
I’m several years late on this, but the sound clips below made my day. For some context regarding where they originate, see “Barack Obama is tired of your shit” on Regretsy.com. For the fuller context, you’ll need the audiobook version Mr. Obama’s Dreams from my father, which I myself haven’t yet read (or heard). Maybe later.
*Explicit*
Number
Complicated
Fries
Ignorant
How to save a library
Veterans return war medals at NATO summit
May 2012 at the NATO summit in Chicago, veterans threw their medals in the street.
Random boycott
Some Connecticut libraries have decided not to purchase ebooks from Random House after the publisher tripled their pricing for libraries. Read the story at Library Journal’s Digital Shift:
Consortium of 25 Libraries in Connecticut Votes to Boycott Random House
Leonard Lopate discusses NYPL
March 12, 2012 – Controversy at the New York Public Library.
Critics of New York Public Library’s proposed renovations say the 42nd Street branch would be turning into a “giant Internet cafe” and worry that gutting the stacks to put in more space for computers will make print books harder to access. One thinks that maybe libraries “shouldn’t be bleeding-edge”.
April 12, 2012 – NYPL President Anthony Marx.
NYPL’s president defends the proposed changes as well as the purpose of public libraries as institutions that stand for “free and public access to ideas and information” where all community members can go to “read and write and think and create”. Includes comments on the importance of cataloguing :)
Romney Remix
Watch out folks, I got a digital audio recorder for Christmas and am playing around with Garage Band. My first remix was inspired by a conversation about the “P” word.
BONUS TRACK: