Charitini

This is a black-throated blue warbler. It flew into our glass...

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:58:00 -0400

This is a black-throated blue warbler. It flew into our glass doors at the cottage, right beside where my mom was inside reading, and fell onto the deck, stunned. My mom and I tried to help it (my mom gently nudged it on its front with a dustpan). It lay there, blinking and gasping, as I fretted, and then got to its feet and stood there for a bit. We thought it was a female based on the drab coloring (I learned that from Hair). It let me get quite close for this picture and didn’t seem to be scared (reacted to sound of the click). Then an ant crawled under it and I think tickled it - suddenly she flew up, back into the window but not hard, and then away off into a nearby tree. She left behind a little pool of birdie poop, and the ant, trapped in it. The wonders of the natural world. All we can do is hope that, when life sends us careening into glass doors, we too can make such a swift recovery - and that, when that happens, we are the bird, and not the ant.

Related:

Black-Throated Blue Warbler [Bird-Friends.com]

Adam Lambert sings “My Conviction” from Hair [YouTube](audio)

My contribution to the ESPN-pulled-the-LeBron-story canon:...

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:59:16 -0400

My contribution to the ESPN-pulled-the-LeBron-story canon: Screenshot of what shows up when you visit http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/columns/story?id=5416131, aka the URL where the LeBron ESPN story *was*.

Related: That time I met LeBron, and complimented him on the “Solid Gold!” SNL sketch. It really was awesome.

sbnation: The Baseball Hall of Fame Moves Into The Steroid...

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:04:37 -0400

sbnation:

The Baseball Hall of Fame Moves Into The Steroid Era

The 2011 Hall of Fame will begin moving us deep into the eligibility of many steroid era players. Will the Hall take PEDs into account? If they do, how will they judge, since the league didn’t test until just the last few years? Jon Bois plays judge, jury and executioner.

This will be really interesting to watch unfold.

changetheratio: Okay I admit it. This really has nothing to do...

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:00:03 -0400

changetheratio:

Okay I admit it. This really has nothing to do with changing the ratio:

Andrew Cohen: On Her Wedding Day, Saying The Things Left Unsaid

Lizzie Skurnick: How Not To Congratulate Your Ex On Her Wedding Day

…or does it? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read ‘em both now, in order (you can get away with a skim of the first one).

Now check out Cohen’s private email to Skurnick, helpfully published on Jezebel (did Journolist and Wikileaks teach him nothing?!?). He calls her out for her “shrewish little column” and basically dismisses her as a bitter spinster. Call me crazy, but I think that crossed the line into sexism. He may be a super-nice guy in real life (and I have corresponded with him, as a fellow Canadian lawyer, and interviewed him, and he’s always been very nice), but that does not give him a pass for responding with sexism to legitimate criticism of a piece he published and sent out into the world.

Eh, or maybe I just really, really wanted to post about this.

"When African American panelists only are allowed to talk about race and the only time two of them appear on screen they are talking about race, there’s a larger problem."

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:25:30 -0400

"When African American panelists only are allowed to talk about race and the only time two of them appear on screen they are talking about race, there’s a larger problem." :

changetheratio:

Michael Triplett applies the Bechdel Test for Media to the Sunday morning talk shows, re: African-American guests. Changing the ratio = hard.

Sunday Morning Conversations About Race [Mediaite]

Saw Barton Fink for the first time yesterday. Appreciated but...

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:02:53 -0400

Saw Barton Fink for the first time yesterday. Appreciated but didn’t love it for the first half (and was impatient with how hapless and helpless Turturro’s character was) but second half - well that’s another story. Admit to appreciating it a lot more after reading up on it a bit and then rewatching a few scenes. Admit to also not understanding it entirely. John Goodman has had such a great career. Under-appreciated, that one. Also: Chet!

changetheratio: Via Boing Boing via Good Magazine comes...

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:33:19 -0400

changetheratio:

Via Boing Boing via Good Magazine comes something fascinating, hilarious, sad and head-bonking that I’d never heard of: The Bechdel Test for Women In Film.

From Good:

The Bechdel test—named for the cartoonist Alison Bechdel who wrote a long-running comic strip called Dykes To Watch Out For and the critically acclaimed graphic novel Fun Home—is a test to assess whether women have a meaningful presence in a movie. It consists of three questions.
1. Are there two or more women in it that have names?

2. Do they talk to each other?

3. Do they talk to each other about something other than a man?

Once you start thinking about it, you’ll be surprised by how many films don’t pass this test. In fact, there are entire genres (action-adventure, for example) that seem to fail the Bechdel test, by and large. This page has a year-by-year list of movies, along with their Bechdel status.

Wowowow. Check out the video above and see the visual of movie after movie after beloved movie that fails the test (Shrek! Slumdog Millionaire! Ghostbusters! Princess Bride!). I was like, “Princess Bride? Inconceivable!” and then ran through scene after scene in my head, realizing that Buttercup has one scene with another woman - the witch in her dream. “BOOOOOOO!” Yells the witch to Buttercup…about a man. Nooooo!

Some raise the point in the BoingBoing comments that some movies are just not meant to have women, like, say, Fight Club. Well fine, but like Fight Club, a lot of people would prefer not to talk about this. I’m not one of them. BOOOOO! That felt good.

p.s. I have written one script, from 2000, and ran through it in my head, scared the younger, unenlightened version of me might have failed the Bechdel test. Three main female characters, who talk to each other about a man…and being lawyers, personal fulfillment, dreams deferred and showtunes. Two out of the three get laid. Also at one point, one of them does shots with nuns. Damn, I really should dig that script up.

today: Boater: “It was an awesome experience – I wouldn’t want...

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:38:37 -0400

today:

Boater: “It was an awesome experience – I wouldn’t want to repeat it.”

Slideshow: Whale lands on yacht

#FailWhale tag - awesome Rina!

Sports Tumblrs, Can You Hear Me?

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:59:02 -0400

sbnation:

Looking for some great NFL, NASCAR, Tennis, MMA, College Football, and College Basketball Tumblrs to follow. If you run one, let me know.

Other sports are of course welcome as well, but I’m trying to add more people who blog about those particular sports.

I’m singing this headline in my head like Streisand. Looking at the internets I seem to see a million eyes, which ones are yours?

(I enjoy bringing sports and showtunes together. It’s not the first time.)

Chris Paul Wants Out Of New Orleans

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:53:40 -0400

Chris Paul Wants Out Of New Orleans:

sbnation:

Paul requests to be traded to Lakers, Knicks or Magic before the season.

This is just cruel to put Knicks fans through another doomed courtship.

The report comes from Ken Berger of CBS Sports

Paul, in fact, has put into motion an aggressive exit strategy that will accelerate in the coming weeks, and his clear intention is to be traded before the start of the 2010-11 season, a person with direct knowledge of his plans told CBSSports.com Wednesday.

“He wants out,” said the person, who has been briefed on Paul’s strategy but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly. “He wants to play with another superstar. He wants to follow LeBron’s model of teaming up with other great players.”

Paul’s list of preferred destinations consists of the Knicks, Magic and Lakers, and members of his inner circle already have sent word to the Hornets of his desire to be traded to one of those teams, sources say.

We need a statement on this by Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan! They *never* did it like that in their day!

frontpages: Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern About Safety 4...

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:51:03 -0400

frontpages:

Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern About Safety

4 Oil Firms Commit $1 Billion for Gulf Rapid-Response Plan

New Guidelines Seek to Reduce Repeat Caesareans

Power of the Purse Comes With a Pinch

G.M., Eclipsed at Home, Soars to Top in China

Obama Faces New Doubts on Pursuing Afghan War

The Final Crime Spree of an Oxygen-Toting Robber

Glynnis keeps talking about the drumbeat for Hillary 2012 - this top photo at today’s NYT fits right in.

"Once you start working your way up the masthead, and hanging out with moguls at places like Davos..."

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:48:31 -0400

“Once you start working your way up the masthead, and hanging out with moguls at places like Davos and Aspen, this tends to happen to you: you get more comfortable, and less hungry; you think that access is more important than actual stories. Clearly Kneale has reached that place, and in a way I’m impressed that he’s happy to admit it. Most of the swanning-around class of journalists are delusional enough that they’d never do that.”

- Felix Salmon (via soupsoup)

This is a great and thoughtful article by Felix, as usual.

With Traffic Surging, SB Nation Buys One Blog And Starts Another

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:01:37 -0400

With Traffic Surging, SB Nation Buys One Blog And Starts Another:

soupsoup:

The second maneuver SB Nation is making today is the launch of a new Tumblr blog. While the point of this may not be immediately apparent since SB Nation is already a network over over 270 blogs, SB Nation is following in the footsteps of companies like Newsweek, who have been able to leverage the unique blogging platform to extend their content.

SB Nation has hired Anthony De Rosa, the Channel Manager at Thomson Reuters, to run this blog. Bankoff notes De Rosa’s fandom, and also his popular Tumblr blog, Soup, as the reason for the move.

Soooouuup!

sbnation: Glad you could make it. Pour yourself a cold drink...

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:10:38 -0400

sbnation:

Glad you could make it. Pour yourself a cold drink and get comfortable.

A little background on SB Nation, in case you haven’t already heard of us: we take a different approach to online sports media. We offer over 270 different sites for sports fans, covering every major pro and college program in the U.S. and Canada as well as non-team sports like NASCAR, MMA and Golf. Here’s a directory of them if you want to find your favorites. Each site is devoted to an individual team, sport or league—like Bleedcubbieblue.com for the Cubs, BurntOrangeNation.com for the Longhorns, ArrowheadPride.com for the Chiefs or WaggleRoom.com for golf —and each has its own writers, logos, team colors and community flavor, reflecting unique team traditions and fan spirit. As a die-hard Mets fan, I’m a constant visitor of the incredible amazinavenue.com

The mothership of SB Nation is our national website, sbnation.com. It is a mix of real-time news updates, commentary, analysis and deeper features, written by some of the web’s most accomplished (and best looking) sports bloggers. We also recently launched a series of regional sites like newyork.sbnation.com.

I’m Anthony De Rosa, you may better know me on Tumblr as Soup, and I’m going to be your host here on the SB Nation Tumblr with the support of SBNation.com’s editorial team led by Tyler Bleszinski and Chris Mottram.

Welcome to Tumblr, SBNation! And welcome to SBNation, Soup!

This makes me HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY.

This statement came in to Tommy Christopher via email at 2:07...

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:18:42 -0400

This statement came in to Tommy Christopher via email at 2:07 a.m. Amazing.

Breaking: Vilsack to Reconsider Shirley Sherrod’s Dismissal [Mediaite]

"The financial reregulation package just passed by Congress is far from a comprehensive reform of..."

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:48:53 -0400

“The financial reregulation package just passed by Congress is far from a comprehensive reform of American finance. Despite the enormous threat to the world’s financial markets created by the failure of Lehman Brothers and the stunning excesses of insurance giant AIG and banking conglomerate Citigroup, the reforms are in truth modest. Neither the Obama administration nor Congress opted to cut banks down to size, and the bill is only placing mild limits on risky banking activities. The giant financial institutions, meanwhile, are as big—even bigger—than ever and bankers’ compensation is once again at stunning levels.”

- Jeff Madrick, Obama’s Risky Business (via nybooks)

The New Yorker reblogged this, so I will too. Me smart!

View from the redeye. Virgin SFO —> JFK, yesterday...

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:35:29 -0400

View from the redeye. Virgin SFO —> JFK, yesterday early early a.m.

(Via comicallyvintage)

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:16:40 -0400

(Via comicallyvintage)

frangry: Kate Moss, and a pixie cut, for Elle South Africa...

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:31:33 -0400

frangry:

Kate Moss, and a pixie cut, for Elle South Africa 2010

20 years of Kate Moss. Wow. Yep, that makes sense, because I was in a (wait for it) modeling comptetion when I was 17, and at the finals everyone was buzzing about how you didn’t have to be tall any more because that new British model was only 5’7”. It was early spring of 1990, I think. We’d been picked off of Polaroids taken at the Toronto Festival of Fashion. Elmer Olsen, who ran a big Toronto modeling agency, was there and pulled me up by my shoulders and kept saying, “if only we could pull you up! Up!” (I was 5’7 1/2”, as I still am.) They had us come back for semi-finals in heels and a short skirt, and then for finals with heels and a short skirt and a bathing suit. (I think my mom may have come with me. Aw. Thanks, mom.) In a nod to my 80s class, I wore a neon-multi-coloured animal-print bikini and had the biggest hair ever (like this, but teased). In a nod to 90s class, the winner was an Irish-looking waif with a short black bob, pale skin, freckles and shocking blue eyes. (Oh to go back in time with a straightener and a black maillot.) 2nd place was a blonde Amazon, the only one who didn’t chatter amicably in the room where we were gathered to wait. 3rd place was a skinny, really sweet girl with a bit of a Lauren Hutton gap…and who was 5’7”.

Voila, my modeling career. For those of you for whom 17 was 5 years ago, well…I’m older than you.

Oh NYT Styles, there you go again

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:12:01 -0400

Oh NYT Styles, there you go again:

peterfeld:

The wedding, set for July 31, is so cloaked in secrecy that in Washington, where the mother of the bride holds down a day job running international diplomacy for President Obama, details are harder to ferret out than the president’s Afghanistan strategy.

Maybe this is because Obama has given public speeches and briefings about his Afghanistan strategy, but Hillary Clinton has given no speeches about her daughter’s wedding?

That groom looks rail-thin.