There'd better be a fucking apology from MLB for the way the fucking umpires are handling the Mets game.

Here's a great article on the way comedy shows that talk about race and oppression are not necessarily 'attacking' political correctness. This is great for anyone who's run into people who "loooove The Office because it's soo politically INcorrect, teehee!" but hasn't been able to put why they disagree into words.

Here are some choice quotes:

Stephen Merchant, co-writer of The Office and Extras with Ricky Gervais, says: "We're endlessly cited as being non-PC, and yet we sit and agonise for ages over what we put into the scripts, and over whether our choices can be defended, both morally and intellectually," he says. "We may push things, but we're always motivated by satirical imperatives." But the duo's scripts do use non-PC language? "Yes," explains Merchant, clearly slotting back into a tramline he has had to follow many times before. "But we deal in taboos and hot areas by appearing to approach them from a non-PC standpoint, but as soon as you even introduce topics that PC has declared off limits, people assume you are trying to be dangerous and politically incorrect. Often we're all unsure of what to say, for example, in the company of someone who is disabled. These are areas ripe for comedy because of social anxiety, not because the subject itself is intrinsically funny. A joke about race, and about how we react to race, is not necessarily a racist joke. That is fundamental. Political correctness has made the world better for those who might otherwise have been unfairly marginalised, but there is the problem of the idea that you cannot discuss different areas for fear of being politically incorrect."

Peter Baynham is one of the unsung heroes of British comedy over the past two decades - he wrote the famous "Michael Heseltine Is Dead" bit for Chris Morris's radio show, and helped sculpt Patrick Marber's Alan Partridge character from its chatshow incarnation into its fully realised sitcom version. But it is as one of the co-writers of Sacha Baron-Cohen's Borat movie that he has finally won a British Comedy Award, the industry's least valuable honour, and earned enough money to buy David Hasselhoff's hair from him and wear it as if it were his own. So what does he think of the attacks on the Borat film? [...]

Baynham is philosophical about the way Borat has occasionally been received. "It's weird to see the film seized upon by people who hate political correctness, and think it's a bad thing, when PC was clearly just an understandable reaction to 70s racist awfulness," he says, on a rare trip home from Los Angeles to the native land he now scorns. "In my own pretentious, terrible opinion, which may not be shared by the other writers, the Borat movie is not anti-PC at all. When Borat says a black politician has a 'genuine chocolate face' he is a) clearly an idiot and b) from a naive, fictionalised foreign culture. But it's also a good thing to do because that bit absolutely wouldn't have been funny 25 years ago, precisely because that sort of thing was more openly said by people. It's a little kick, a little reminder, of why we don't say those things, and it's weird when you read people saying it was deliberately offensive. The laugh is a laugh of 'Oh my God, you can't say that!' People are laughing with shock, because we've reminded them of why it's wrong to say that black people have chocolate faces." At this point, Baynham seems to be approaching something profound and timeless about comedy, that stretches beyond petty concerns about political correctness.

Deer standing in the distance, thunderstorms, a very green rosemary bush, porch swings, the moon rising over the roof, tea with friends, wine with friends, red stem spinach, Nanci Griffith, hugs, love, posts about Stevie Nicks, cherries and strawberries and red grapes, loading and unloading the dishwasher and the swishing sound of it, honeysuckle,summer squash, gold finches, art from pizza boxes, puppet shows with elaborate sets, wet grass, the smell of the color green, little paper cat ears and nose and tail held on with cellophane tape - it's been a very relaxing weekend.

Our neighbors planted a portion of the garden this morning. I was having tea and cherries with a friend and heard my name out the door and went out to explain the bifurcated hose system. I like the activity of it all. The doors opening and closing. Moving the chairs under the stars and then out of the rain. The sense of everything in movement and the sense of everything being so still.

As it is still this house in this town.

i can't wait to go to sasquatch! the only downside being, it will be, quite possibly, the last weekend of my life where i get to be a stupid kid. i'm not ready for that to be over.

i just put a streak of purple in my hair. it will soon fade to red, but until then....
DAMN THE MAN! I'M HARDCORE! I'M NEVER GROWIN' UP! BEING AN ADULT SUCKS!!!

ok i'm glad i got that out of my system. time to get bellig and go to a mortar board meeting. or vice versa.

The sky is that luminous dark blue of nearly night. 9.59pm. It's a little chilly to have my window open but I don't want to shut out all the goodness drifting in. The echoing voices from the playing field, the tolling bell of the school. The calls of seagulls and the drone of traffic on the road beyond. Downstairs somebody fills a kettle and a girl shrieks. There must be boys around. Footsteps in the stairwell and there's a fire going outside, I smell the smoke. The peace is almost audible, the feeling of all existence speaking itself into this one moment. I'm missing W so much today and yet feeling the fullness of it all. The goodness of loving a person this much and knowing myself to be equally loved. I miss him and yet I delight in my aloneness, I inhale it deeply and feel it spreading through me until I am soaked in it. A siren starts up in the distance and then fades back into silence. My belly rises softly into the monitor glow and falls again. I have no need for anything more than this.

Tags: contentment, love, solitude

Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.


Germany goes Solar

This sad stretch of eastern Germany, with its deserted coal mines and corroded factories, epitomizes post-industrial gloom. It is a place where even the clouds rarely seem to part.

A solar cell is checked on the assembly line at Q-Cells in Thalheim, Germany. More than 40,000 people work in the photovoltaic industry in Germany, helping to revive once-blighted areas.

Yet the sun was shining here the other day — and nowhere more brightly than at Q-Cells, a German company that surpassed Sharp last year to become the world’s largest maker of photovoltaic solar cells. Q-Cells is the main tenant among a flowering cluster of solar start-ups here in an area known as Solar Valley.

Thanks to its aggressive push into renewable energies, cloud-wreathed Germany has become an unlikely leader in the race to harness the sun’s energy. It has by far the largest market for photovoltaic systems, which convert sunlight into electricity, with roughly half of the world’s total installations. And it is the third-largest producer of solar cells and modules, after China and Japan.

LEDs light up the club scene

American DJ has unveiled a revolutionary new kind of intelligent moving head powered by a mega-watt LED. The company’s new X-Move LED utilizes one super-size 20-watt white LED to create a brawny beam that’s powerful enough to project gobo patterns and colors across floors, walls and ceilings.

Comparable to a 250W halogen lamp in output, the X-Move LED’s whopper LED beam shines through the fixture’s color and gobo wheels to create stunning images and patterns that look like they were produced by a traditional halogen or discharge effect. Yet, although the X-Move LED’s effects are indistinguishable from a conventional moving head to the eye, the unit offers the benefits and ease of LED technology, such as a long 50,000-hour rated lamp life and a low power draw. At a mere 44W, it consumes just a fraction of the energy of a traditional 250W effect! In addition to saving energy, this lets you hook up more units on a single electrical circuit.

A windy future

The U.S Department of Energy (DOE) today released a first-of-its kind report that examines the technical feasibility of harnessing wind power to provide up to 20 percent of the nation’s total electricity needs by 2030. Entitled “20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030”, the report identifies requirements to achieve this goal including reducing the cost of wind technologies, citing new transmission infrastructure, and enhancing domestic manufacturing capability.

Most notably, the report identifies opportunities for 7.6 cumulative gigatons of CO2 to be avoided by 2030, saving 825 million metric tons in 2030 and every year thereafter if wind energy achieves 20 percent of the nation’s electricity mix

Royal Renewables

HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco has been a long time supporter of the green cause too. Famed son of Grace Kelly, and head of Monaco, that little tiny tax-free haven falling into the sea, his foundation has done some serious, ground breaking work on global warming; renewable energies; loss of biodiversity; improving access to water and fighting desertification. In recognition, he has now been named Europe's "Champion of the Earth" by the United Nations Environmental Programme. On receiving the award, he said: "We can't go on as business as usual. Those who haven't realised that yet will be sorry in a few years". He pledged to "carry out missions to raise the alarm and heighten awareness in the field. The world is facing an unprecedented threat. We must assume our responsibilities without delay and rise to the challenge that history has placed upon our path".

From oil to renewables

One of the world's largest oil producers has begun construction on the first zero-carbon city, powered entirely by renewable energy.

Officials from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, touted plans for a $22 billion development known as the Masdar Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Cambridge, US, on 5 May.

"This is going to create huge business and research opportunities to get beyond where we are today," says Khaled Awad, of the government-owned Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company.

UAE is the third-largest oil exporting country in the world and sits on 10% of the planet's known oil reserves. Awad, however, sees the city, which will house an alternative energy research institute, as an investment in alternative energies that will eventually replace oil.

Electric is Glamourous

As he pulled one of the sleek new automobiles down a side street Thursday and put the pedal to the metal, its lithium-ion battery-powered engine didn't give off sparks. It just emitted a powerful hum, something like a much quieter version of a jet taking off.

"Accelerate pretty good?" asked Snyder, head of client services for Tesla, who knew the answer.

"I call it a turbine sound," he said of the sound. "Because it's an electric motor it's got 100 percent torque all the time. So it just pulls you like when you're taking off in an airplane."

After several years of development, the Roadster - with sleek lines like a Ferrari or Porsche and a sticker price of $109,000 - officially moves from the drawing boards to the market next week when Tesla's first store opens. It's near the University of California, Los Angeles, in the city's toney Westwood neighborhood where Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood practically intersect.

"Because it's Hollywood and glamorous, this is the flagship store," Snyder said.

The next store is to open in a couple months near Tesla's headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of San Carlos, where the car was developed with venture capital of more than $40 million from such investors as Google Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. More stores are planned for Chicago, New York and other cities by early next year.

Although a fully loaded model can set a buyer back as much as $124,000, that's still cheap compared with a high-end Ferrari. And its 6,831-cell lithium-ion battery pack gives off no emissions.

The car goes from 0 to 60 mph in just under four seconds and tops out at 125 mph. It goes 225 miles on one charge and can be fully recharged in 3.5 hours, which Tesla officials say should allow most people to drive it to work and back and recharge it at night like a cell phone.

Tags: futurism, led, renewable energy, solar, transportation, wind

Another molar popped today. And MAN, is the household unhappy. No sleep for the fam, lots of crying and thrashing for the wee one last night.

I'm sure she's in a lot of pain, nose running, and chomping on her fingers. We're doing homeopathics and ibuprofen, but with three molars erupting at once, there isn't much relief.

And, writing deadline looms.

I just have to remember that we leave for vacation verrrrry soon, and all will be done and well.

Breathing, breathing, breathing.

Now, back to writing.

Tags: maeve milestones, tooth 10
Current Mood: anxious

I think I have a spare ticket or two to renfaire today. closing day. if you want to go, and happen to see this message, call me (or comment if you don't have my #)!

I liked this one today - not really a secret, but so true.

Tags: kindness, post secret, truth
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: rilo kiley

I finally decided to put the stuff I'd been hoarding from the Hippy Camp (Bombed Back to the Stone Age) in my display case, and I'm in the top 10 in four out of the five items (Handful of Pine Needles, Handful of Nuts and Berries, Dreadlock Whips, and Stone Frisbees), with a top twenty in the fifth (Sabre Teeth). Woohoo!

This one gets me every time.
I didn't quite find a you tube version that does it justice, but close enough for hand grenades and horseshoes.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

What was I going to write again? Hmm. Something about the mythic warrior nature of all that lies before me, I think. I kind of got distracted taking pictures of myself. That'll happen. No really though, I was talking to W last night, having spent some of the day pondering on our conversation of the night before. The conversation that reminded me in amongst all the newly stirred emotion and swirlingness of the rebirthing, that we also have a few not inconsiderable hurdles to get through before we can be together. Like, for example, the fact that I pretty much need to get back into work, get off benefits and get to looking like some sort of going concern as far as the immigration people can see. For those new to my journal, the background is that I've been to a large extent off work for the past four years with a chronic wrist injury, which is now pretty much better but which has now been taken over by new body woes which probably don't exactly prevent me from working but which do make me feel somewhat less than 100% gung ho about myself. I also am just so out of the loop of working (of course I have been working from home, somewhat, in my capacity as a homeopath) that I've really lost confidence in my value and aptitude for work. I've become so used to lots of quiet time and alone time that I wonder how it will affect me to be around people not exactly of my choosing for so much of my week.

Anyway. Here's the thing. I realised a few things yesterday. I realised that there are two ways I can do this thing, this thing of moving my life to Seattle and starting afresh there. Firstly, I can remain somewhat disempowered, ask my mum for more money for the airfare and other expenses and arrive, fearful of my ability to cope. I can allow W to carry me for a while, financially, emotionally and hope that in time I will manage to climb back up to a pla