{phfr} devastating reality edition

{phfr} devastating reality edition


I had this post up all yesterday as I wandered around the day trying to do all the stuff I was actually supposed to do while typing at the same time. But then when I was standing in the church kitchen at the end of the day, staring at the disaster of the century (see below) and the Internet cut out, I just gave up and put it away until this morning. I'm trying to find a word for what sort of day it was--the beginning was perfectly fine, but then as it went on it got worse...there must be a perfect word for that....hmmmm...oh well....still nothing.{pretty}This is cosmos and lettuce gone to seed. It's so nice to walk out of the church into this delicate array of purple and white. Tragically, for me, the sun flower appears to be facing away over the fence. I hope the neighbors are enjoying it.
I'm so glad I snapped these pictures yesterday because apperantly there was a 'light' frost last night. Oh may my soul be strengthened in the time of trouble, I am not ready for any frost, light or otherwise.Today I'm going to go out and cut all the flowers off my surprising Dahlia.
The thing about this Dahlia is that I thought I was planting a peoni (what do I know) and then it grew to be huge and glorious and about as tall as me and to extend far out over the walk so that as you're muscling your way up the path with 25 pounds of kale and bags of paint and trays and dowels and fake flowers you have to turn and slide sideways so as not to smack into it.And this Yellow Flowered Thing has turned out to be glorious. I thought it was going to be some sort of close to the ground yellow flowers and it turned out to be nearly a tree. Amazing.All these flowers have been a consolation to me in my failure to plant vegetables. No tomatoes this year but every day a fresh array of color on the kitchen table.
{happy}Last Saturday I took Elphine out with me for the day because, well, you know, she's eleven now, and I had this vague sense that if I didn't go wander around with her for an afternoon she would come unglued. We had a good time but Gladys, here,
did come unglued at being left home. And so Wednesday morning, while everyone else got down to their school work and had a piano lesson, we went to Panera where I had a boring coffee and she had this amazing pastry and a hot chocolate. We chatted happily and then she vouchsafed to me that she wished there were only five children in our family, not six, and that if we had to get rid of someone (though, she admitted, that wasn't a nice idea) we could let Alouicious go live with our good friends who only have three children and might like another one. More digging produced the root of this desire and we talked a lot about Jesus and forgiveness. I was so happy about, it, frankly, because I knew something was wrong but not what it was. Sometimes I'm not a terrible mother (cough).And this was my other great happiness this week: breakfast of nectarine, plum, and blueberry topped with four cups of cooked oatmeal, half cup oil, two eggs, pinch more salt, bit more sugar, cinnamon, two cups of flour, mixed together and poured over the fruit, baked at 350 until bubbly and golden, gone within 20 minutes the next morning at breakfast, fights breaking out as the dish was being scraped. Felicitous, really.
{funny}Elphine's cat, Frances requires all the children to pet her every day, but not me. I thought she didn't like grown ups but it turns out it's just me. The person she actually loves most, besides Elphine, is Matt, whose tolerance for her is at a devastating low. I laughed for ten minutes yesterday as he stood and petted her angrily. She wants Him to pet her, not Me, and his sense of duty to all creatures meant that he stood and did it. Cats do know who love and hate them, uncannily, I've seen it again and again.
{real}So all day long I went along thinking that I would get to the Real and write about how I've been reading both Daniel and I Samuel for the last few days and how interesting and strange is the anger of Nebuchadnezzer and Saul. I read about them in the same hour as I read about the bakery in Oregon being put out of business. We don't like anger, I think, we go great lengths to see that it doesn't bubble up, except on weird television shows. We're not used to it. But when someone is running as far and as fast as they can away from the Most High, real anger has to accompany that flight to give it energy and purpose--real distructive scary anger. We Christians should try to get used to it because its hotting up quick, the fire as it were, and spears are starting to fly, and the rage is swelling up everywhere. But God isn't surprised by any of it, and he intends for some, even some Nebuchadnezzers, to repent and believe.But that turned out not to be the Real Reality that transformed my day.Have a look at this steaming brew.
Mmm. Delicious.....what do you think it looks like? In the pot it had a kind of color of spam and the smell of some foul-er sections of Gehenna, and the consistency of something grossly and unfavorably meaty.Who made this steaming Pot o' Sorrow? you ask.Why I did.Me. Just Me. Wretched old me. And I had to serve it up to the deserving and patient Shepherd's Bowl crowd, apologizing all the time and encouraging them to eat more bread and salad.I'm not going to relate how the soup came to be this way, other than that it was very delicious the day before but then went through some chemical destruction through the night so that I spent from 3 o'clock to 5:30 desperately but ineffectually trying to make it better."Will anyone ever come back to Shepherd's Bowl after that soup?" Matt inquired when all was said and done, "Is our ministry In Binghamton over?""I don't know," I replied, "but I do know that all my works are not so much like filthy rags but more like this hideous life destroying soup."I'm going to keep this firmly in mind as I go about the rest of my work this weekend, trying to get ready for Sunday School, remembering things like"Unless The Lord Builds the House, Anne makes Terrible Soup"And"No one comes to the Father, Especially if Anne Makes the Soup."And"I go to prepare a place for you and Don't Worry, Anne won't be making the soup"

This Week's Staff Picks

This Week's Staff Picks


Here are some new titles that the staff at Atomic Books are way into this week.


33 1/3 Volume 88: They Might Be Giants' Flood by S. Alexander Reed / Charles Philip Sandifer / Philip Sandifer
picked by Benn
It's been too long since we've had a new installment in the excellent 33 1/3 series, but Vol. 88 makes the wait worth it. While the selection of this book bolsters my argument with friends that Flood is the more important record, not Lincoln, it also serves as a fascinating look at how the success of this record marks the rise of geek culture. The nerds shall inherit the Earth.


As You Were #2 by Mitch Clem (editor)
picked by Haleigh
Oh hey, look! A comic book about going to punk shows! Weird how I would like this, right? The first one was awesome. The second one did not disappoint me. I dig the mosh pit theme for it too. I can't really narrow down my favorite artist in this one, because I'm into almost all of them.






Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell by Brian May / Denis Pellerin / Paula Fleming
picked by Benn
The chance is very good that by the time you read this, this book will already be sold out. When we originally got in copies, it sold out in a day. We were able to get some more in, but it looks like this book is already going in between printings. Why? Well, first, look at the author list. Yes, it is THAT Brian May (legendary guitarist of Queen - he happens to be an expert in Diableries). Second, this gorgeous, hardcover, slipcased collection of 3D dioramas all set in Hell also comes with a 3D viewer so you can see this 19th century artwork as was intended.


Late Century Dream: Movements In The US Indie Music Underground by Tom Howells / Noel Gardner / Pavel Godfrey / Brian Howe
by Haleigh
The stories in this book are go city by city. I've only been able to get to Austin and Huston, Texas. It immediately kicks in with interviews and show stories about the big boys. There is stuff about Superchunk and JFA at the end too. Also, tons of pictures of show flyers and insane sets. It's killer! BAMM!!




Sandman Overture #1 by Neil Gaiman / J.H. Williams III
picked by John
With Sandman Overture #1, writer Neil Gaiman and artist J.H. Williams III accomplish in a single issue what decades of recommendations from goth-y friends couldn't; they convinced me to go back to the beginning and dive into Gaiman's much-loved Sandman mythology. The new series is a six-part prequel to the original comic, and for once the interior art is as good as the covers. Interesting layouts, lush with detail, and an assured sense of pacing make this a must read for comic fans.



Soul Train: The Music, Dance, And Style Of A Generation by Questlove
picked by Benn
Not to sell Questlove's prose short here, he does a great job of outlining the legacy of the TV show Soul Train and putting it into a fitting cultural context, but the pictures here are pure gold. The styles, the stars - it comes as close as anyone can reasonably expect to capturing the magic of being a child, turning on Don Cornelius' show and being mesmerized by the crazy music, the crazier fashion and the even crazier dance moves. Sooooooouuuulllllll Traaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinn....


Uzumaki (Deluxe Edition) by Junji Ito
picked by Julia
Japanese horror manga master Junji Ito is back with a new, deluxe one-volume edition of Uzumaki, or "the Spiral." Residents of a small Japanese town begin to grow an obsession with spiral imagery. Is it a curse? Surely it must be as spiral-related deaths begin tearing through the town. Junji Ito's trippy horrific manga is always a fun read, and Uzumaki is both terrifying and beautiful.

Simple Enough

Simple Enough


I have stored my scarves and belts on a hook on my closet door for years. They are super annoying and fall off all the time! Plus I could never get just one down without three or four falling off as well. It wasn't working very well. Then I saw that I had pinned this a while ago and of course never did it.

Seemed simple enough and would make for an easy mark off the pinned list so I finally did it.The first picture was pretty clear that this was the first step.
Here is my pile of scarves and belts.
Here is the tricky part. Put it on the curtain loop. Then again and again with the rest of your items. I know that was complicated but try and keep up.
I was pretty satisfied at this point. Then I picked it up and realized that this hanger wouldn't last long under the weight of everything.
So I put it on a wooden one, which when I looked back at the steps became obvious that I should have done in the first place. Done. The loops were $1.16 at my local Walmart.

NY Post Publishes Devastating Article About NYC Economy - Never Once Mentions Bloomberg As The Culprit

NY Post Publishes Devastating Article About NYC Economy - Never Once Mentions Bloomberg As The Culprit


Here's a taste of the Post article:
New York City is stuck in the economic misery lane of middle-class
jobs flight and an unemployed and underemployed class faced with
long-term joblessness and rising hunger, according to the latest
economic research.
The city is emerging from the worst of the Great Recession, but this so-called recovery is nothing to write home about.
The unemployment rate is 8.4 percent and has eclipsed the nations
average. More disturbing, the citys “underemployment” rate surpassed
New York states by just over 1 point.
The citys “underemployment” rate stood at 14.8 percent in the first half of 2013.
That figure counts the underclass of workers officially unemployed,
working part time, or who are no longer counted as unemployed but are
willing to work, according to an analysis of New York State Department
of Labor data by New Yorks Fiscal Policy Institute.
“We do have an issue with lower-paying jobs coming in, and Wall
Street is not back to where it was before the recession,” said Jim
Diffley, regional economist for IHS Global Insight. “There have been a
lot of job gains in the leisure and hospitality sectors.”
But on the whole, these jobs do not have the pay or benefits of the jobs lost in banking or other middle-class vocations.

...

“Much of the job growth that has occurred has been in jobs that will
make it hard to build a stable future for working New Yorkers,” a Fiscal
Policy Institute report says. “Trends have continued in which New York
has lost tens of thousands of middle income jobs in manufacturing,
construction and government.”

The rest of the article is just as devastating - a single mother of three who had her hours reduced from 40 a week to 20, had her benefits cuts and now must make it on just a few hundred dollars a week.

And this woman is the coordinator of the Park Slope soup kitchen Christian Help.

The article says that like 2 million other New Yorkers, she needs to get by with the help of food stamps.

The article also goes on to report that while "food insecurity" - a phrase used to denote a time when people do not have access to food - has remained stable across the nation, it has risen in New York State.

In the Bronx, 23% of households are food insecure.

The very same newspaper, the NY Post, writes glowing reviews of the Bloomberg years on their op-ed pages, slams Bill de Blasio as a "class warrior" for running a campaign that acknowledges the "Tale of Two Cities" economic divide in New York, and then publishes this devastating article about the economic "malaise" (their word, not mine) New York City is suffering through in 2013.

Who is at fault for this malaise?

Bill de Blasio?

You can bet if he's mayor in 2014, within a month or so, they'll start to blame this stuff on him around.

And yet, Bloomberg, the mayor who has done everything in his power to assuage and cajole the rich people of this city - including going down to Goldman Sachs and soothing the tears of the brain trust when a former staffer published a Times piece about how evil the firm is - gets off free and clear in the Post article.

It's not his fault he's rezoned huge swaths of the city and turned them into playgrounds for the rich, given tax deals to real estate developers to knock down tenements and build luxury apartments, refused to raise taxes on the wealthy, refused to negotiate contracts with unionized municipal workers (the core of the middle class in this city), demonized teachers as greedy, lazy scum even as he has praised the bankers and hedge fund managers on Wall Street who helped bring about the '08 collapse through their own greed and criminal activity.

Not Bloomberg's fault at all, say the Posties.

You can bet if de Blasio is somehow elected mayor in November, they'll make sure they make it his fault in February.

That is, if the Post is still in business.

As Bloomberg noted in that infamous New York Magazine article yesterday, the Post is suffering its own "economic malaise"" - it loses $100 million a year.

Le Million, because I like to celebrate American holidays with French films

Le Million, because I like to celebrate American holidays with French films


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Le
Million1931Director: Rene ClairStarring: Rene Lefevre, Annabella, Paul
OllivierI
make it no secret that I love musicals.
Theyre comfort films, they pick me up when Im down, they make me
happy. But I dont love all musicals
indiscriminately; I tend to prefer musicals where the musical numbers are
incorporated into the everyday lives of the characters over those that have to
use the stage as a “reason” to have song and dance. I think this coincides with my love of
heavily stylized film; having characters spontaneously break into song and
dance, while troubling to many of my fellow blogger friends, is something I
love, as it reinforces that this movie is taking place in a different
world. The world of the movie musical is
usually one full of sunshine and happiness.
I welcome this alternate reality.
When I first encountered Rene Clairs superb Le Million, it was as if
I had unearthed The First Musical Ever.
While Busby Berkeley (rightly) gets a great deal of credit for
popularizing the movie musical with his raucous films, I give Rene Clair the
credit for introducing, or at least legitimizing, the idea of incorporating
music into the everyday action of his films.The
story is very simple: Michel (Lefevre), a broke artist, unexpectedly wins the
lottery. This is great news, as it will
allow him to pay off his many debtors and maybe even marry pretty Beatrice
(Annabella) who lives in the apartment across the hall from him. Problem is, he left his winning ticket in his
jacket pocket, the same jacket that Beatrice just lent to Grandpa Tulip
(Ollivier), a Robin Hood-esque figure who runs a petty crimes syndicate
dedicated to stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Michel must track down his missing jacket and
missing ticket in order to claim his winnings.
Le
Million is
a musical, but not a traditional one.
There are few, if indeed any, “musical numbers” in terms of what we
think of today as big showstopping song and dance numbers. Instead, there is an almost constant use of
music and sound throughout the film which, accompanied by an irrepressible
sense of whimsy, establishes the mood if not the specific logistics for so many
great musicals to come. There are many
small musical touches that arent combined into fully realized “songs.” For example, the scene where all of Michels
debtors marching up the stairs in unison as they sing (well, more like chant)
about how theyre about to get paid isnt strictly speaking a song, but its a
great example of how Clair approaches his world in Le Million. The couple of Michel and Beatrice make up
after their required fight (this is a musical, after all, of course the lovers
have a fight about something or other) in an incredibly clever setting, stuck
on the stage of an opera while the couple in the show sings a love ballad to
each other. Would I call this a musical
number? No, not in the traditional
sense, but its a very winning use of a love song that isnt sung by the hero
or heroine. And then there is the
unexpected yet ridiculously charming “football game” over the missing suit
jacket, where Clair pipes standard crowd noises over the film as the men turn
the jacket into a football, complete with tackles and huddles.
The
plot of Le Million is simple enough and the comedy broad enough that
this could have been a silent film, but its the above scenes that make me glad
it isnt. Yes, silent films had musical
scores, but they were simply scores, no sound effects, and its really the sound
effects that shine brightest here. Its
odd to think of someone actually inventing the concept of the “sound effect,”
but Rene Clair does a fantastic job in Le Million of incorporating sound
smartly. Too many early sound films were
nothing but cacophonous excuses to cram as much rhythmic noise (NOT music) into
the ears of the audience that they never stopped to think about sound as a
storytelling technique. This does NOT
apply Le Million, as it is quiet when it needs to be, and jubilantly
loud when it needs to be, and most of all, using all manners of sound –
dialogue, music, and effects – to tell its tale. Sound furthers the story and adds to the
overall charm. If this were not a
primitive musical, if this were instead a silent film, it would not be Le
Million, but something inferior.
Le
Million is
irrepressibly fun. It exists in a world
where it is never cloudy, and although our characters may encounter problems,
never fear, for they will find a way out.
People occasionally start walking in time with one another singing a few
snatches of song with one another. A
suit jacket becomes a football. This
right here, all of these things, these would become the Great Hollywood Musical
in future years as film evolved. It is
all here, in a distilled, primitive form, but there for the taking. It is so easy to see how a film like Le
Million, in just a year or two, would lead to the Fred and Ginger
musicals like Top Hat or Swing Time, and then, in a few more
years, to the Technicolor extravaganzas like Singin in the Rain. While hardly emotionally or intellectually
taxing, Le Million to me is a sure thing. A sure thing to pick me up, a sure thing to
make me smile, a sure thing to usher in a cheery mood. Arbitrary
Rating: 8.5/10

Happy Birthday Dodd-Frank a law that was designed not to and isn't working

Happy Birthday Dodd-Frank a law that was designed not to and isn't working


In his Huffington Post column, former Senator Ted Kaufman looks at how the Dodd-Frank Act was designed not to address the causes of our current financial crisis and fails to make a future financial crisis less likely.
Failure was built into Dodd-Frank from the beginning. Instead of writing laws that addressed the abuses that led to the crisis, it nearly always kicked the can down to agencies, instructing them to write new regulations.
Regular readers know that by definition Dodd-Frank could not address the causes of the financial crisis because it was completed prior to the conclusion of any inquiry into the actual causes.

Instead, Dodd-Frank, with the notable exception of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Volcker Rule, was written by the bank lobbyists for the benefit of the banks.

The US is not alone in pursuing bank friendly reform legislation.

In the UK, Parliament is just taking up financial reform legislation almost 6 years after the financial crisis began. There have been two commissions that looked into the crisis: the Vickers Commission and the Commission on Banking Standards. By and large, the proposed financial reform legislation either ignores or adopts a weakened version of the recommendations made by the commissions.By and large, those regulatory agencies have been overwhelmed by a combination of congressional underfunding and a massive lobbying effort by the megabanks that increasingly seem to control Washington....
When Dodd-Frank was being drafted, the bank lobbyists knew that the regulatory rule making process favored their positions.

Regulatory rule making favors the banks for 3 reasons: money, known by regulators, and act together.

Supporters of financial reform tend not to have the same financial resources, tend not to be known by the regulators and tend to focus only on the financial reforms of interest.

So making the regulators work on a large number of rule makings was intentional.Here are just a few examples of Dodd-Frank's failure:• The banks still are gambling with FDIC-insured money. The JPMorgan Chase "London Whale" fiasco was just the latest proof that there has been no change in the casino speculation of Wall Street banks.• There is still a giant loophole in derivatives trading. Although there are new regulations curbing the kind of derivatives trading that was a key element in the crisis, those regulations do not cover the foreign subsidiaries of megabanks. Banks can easily move trading activities into different offices. He wasn't called the "London Whale" because he worked in Philadelphia.• No one has gone to jail. And no one will. There are many examples of criminal behavior during the meltdown, but not one megabank executive has been jailed. Without that deterrent, white-collar crime is not just profitable but inevitable.• Reform of the credit-rating agencies is a long way off. "Essential cogs in the wheel of financial destruction," as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission described them, the credit-rating agencies still operate as they always have, bought and paid for by the entities they rate.• Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac have not been fixed. In fact, they weren't even mentioned in Dodd-Frank, despite the fact that everyone agrees they played a role in the meltdown.
Regular readers know that brining transparency back to the financial system would fix four of these failures.

It would end banks making proprietary bets. JP Morgan showed with its closing out the London Whale trade when it became known to the market that transparency ends proprietary betting.

It would end concern over where derivatives are traded. With transparency, banks must disclose on an ongoing basis their current global asset, liability and off-balance sheet exposure details. So derivatives traded in London would still be disclosed and investors could adjust the cost of the bank's funding to reflect these derivatives.

It would reform the credit rating firms by making them just another voice offering their views on an investment. When market participants have access to the same data as the credit rating firms, market participants can independently assess the risk and value an investment or hire a third party to do it for them. They don't need to have any reliance on the credit rating firms.

It addresses the reform of Fannie and Freddie by restarting the private label mortgage securitization market. With the private label market unfrozen, Fannie and Freddie's portfolios can be run off.There were lots of heated debates before passage of Dodd-Frank, but no disagreement from anyone in the administration or Congress about one thing. The bill had to end the possibility that American taxpayers would ever again have to bail out a big bank because its failure would have a severe impact on the entire economy.You would think that by now at least that problem would have been addressed. But it hasn't been.
Eliminating the need for taxpayer bailouts won't occur until banks are required to provide ultra transparency and disclose their exposure details. It is only with this data that market participants can limit their exposure to each bank to what they can afford to lose given the risk of each bank.

Design Team Call!!!

Design Team Call!!!

CALLING all CRAFTY ladies and gents!!!!


Incy Wincy Designs Challenge blog is looking for YOU!!!!We are searching for 4 or 5 talented people who love to create and would love to be part of our little family!!!

Your term will be 6 months and you will be provided with images from our sponsors - you will be required
to post the sponsors badge a link to their store on your blog post

Challenges run every Monday (post at 2:00 am MST)
You will be required to visit the participants blogs to view and comment on their cards according to the schedule we have set up

You will choose a Top 3 and a winner according to a rotation schedule

You will be required to be the Blog Post Author on a rotating basis with the other team members
Open communication is VERY important! We are VERY flexible and understanding, and we like to laugh - a LOT!!!! IF this interests you, we'd love to have you join our team!!!!

Please send a little bit of information about yourself, a link to your blog, and TWO pictures of your favourite projects to: incywincychallenge@hotmail.com

Design Team Call ENDS Dec. 10 - we will let the lucky ducks know by Dec. 15 and your term will start Jan. 6

THANKS! We look forward to hearing from you!!!!
HUGS,
Chris, Nikki Hev

Banking Accident

Banking Accident

I have been known to be a bit accident prone. I like to think that I've been growing out of it. I also like to think that rather than this being due to my negligence, it is instead due to my daring! Don't laugh.The other day I was in the drive-through at the bank attempting to deposit a check. You know how the ATM starts beeping as a warning that it's about to suck your card down as a punishment for taking far too long? Well it does. So it started beeping. So I attempted to rush through the process of putting my check in the envelope (because unlike BofA, USBank still requires envelopes) and somehow managed to gash my cuticle wide open and no amount of pressure, sucking, or mopping would make the thing stop pouring.I know this sounds like a wussy injury, but let me tell you, the constant re-opening and re-bleeding of this #!$% cuticle is driving me insane! I ended up dripping my way to the Target help desk in order to beg a bandaid off of them while they considered labeling me a biohazard.Here's to an accident free new year!*snort*