USA Today posted this on Facebook (Photo by Buggie Vegas, AP):
A waterspout spun by Grand Isle, La., last week. Although it looks intimidating, the spout did little damage.
And I can’t stop looking at it. Just amazing.
We don’t have stuff like this in New York. And much as I’d love to see one of these things live and in person, I also have to admit that some things are best seen in photos.
KIRKLAND, Wash. — I BELIEVE that parenthood starts before conception, at the moment you decide you want a child, and are ready and able to create a safe and loving home for her or him. I support abortion rights, but I reject the false distinction between the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” Here’s why.
This is a very compelling argument against limiting abortion to the first 20 weeks, or the first trimester, or to whatever the next set of restrictive laws will try to achieve. Nicastro, carrying twins, learned in her 23rd week of pregnancy that one of the fetuses had a hole in his diaphragm.
Only one lung chamber had formed, and it was only 20 percent complete. If our boy survived birth, he would be on oxygen and other life supports for a long time. The thought of hearing him gasp for air and linger in pain was our nightmare.
Anti-abortionists say abortion is murder, period, end of conversation. (Though they often permit exceptions for rape and incest, which I think is inconsistent with their doctrine. The fetus is not responsible for the conditions of its creation. If abortion is murder, isn’t it also murder to abort a fetus that results from incest or rape?)
I say the writer made the right decision, however painful. Aborting a fetus in this sort of condition at 23 weeks is much more merciful and compassionate than condemning it to a short lifetime of constant agony once it’s born.
Read the op-ed. You decide.
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Seen on Facebook:
(h/t Lori Day)
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(h/t Mike Regan)
For men competing in triathlons past the age of 40, the grueling slog to the finish line could be their last.
As the average age of competitors in endurance sports rises, a spate of deaths during races or intense workouts highlights the risks of excessive strain on the heart through vigorous exercise in middle age.
OK, I’m convinced. No more triathlons for me.
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(h/t Josh Miller)
Anyone can find tranquility on top of a mountain.
Can you find it in the middle of Times Square?
Find tranquility and transcendence in the midst of the world’s most commercial, frenetic and urban place, Times Square. Thousands of yoga enthusiasts will come together for a collective ohm on the longest day of the year (June 21st) to participate in an all day yoga festival.
Celebrate the sun, summer and creativity at the Crossroads of the World with five free outdoor yoga classes. Participants will receive a Solstice gift bag* and Athleta will provide free yoga mats* to the first 1,200 that arrive to each class.
Oh, I’m just dying to be one of a few thousand fools practicing yoga in Times Square. Sun salutation, anyone?
On the other hand, it’s so hard to pass up a free Solstice gift bag.
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New Jersey high school athletes who talk trash could find their teams penalized and themselves under investigation by state officials.
In announcing the new policy, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association and the state Attorney General’s Office said it brings athletic events into line with the state’s anti-bullying law for schools.
According to the policy, sports participants could be in trouble and under investigation by the state Civil Rights Division if they make harassing statements related to gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or religion.
There once was a baseball player named Dummy Hoy. These days, you could never call him Dummy (not that he could hear you if you did). I guess it’s a good thing that we’re going to ban trash-talking. But the world sure has changed, hasn’t it?
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I woke up Thursday morning and heard a familiar voice that I thought was part of a dream: Muhammad Ali was discussing why he had refused to be inducted into the Army….
I have stopped using the word hero to describe greatness.
In an era of unimaginable intrusions into our private lives, the would-be hero walks on a rug that can be snatched away at a moment’s notice. Better to talk about someone’s heroic moment or performing a heroic act.
Muhammad Ali is a great man. What he did 46 years was a heroic deed for the ages.
Each generation has its own method of protest and resistance. Listening to Ali on Thursday morning was a reminder that courage, honor and integrity are timeless.
Excellent piece. Don’t miss this one.
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[T]he main factor in workplace discontent is not wages, benefits or hours, but the boss. Yes, that cretin from Kentucky Fried Chicken, in countless forms. The survey said there was consistent anger at management types who failed to so much as ask employees about their opinion of the job. Ever….
What the Gallup survey makes clear is that the easiest way to make life better in the workplace is the simplest: all those unctuous, self-important, clueless bosses out there could notice the toiling subordinate who’s been taking up space for many years. Fake it, if you have to, just to see what it feels like.
If you’ve ever had an abusive boss, you need to read this. If you’re a boss, you need to read this even more.
This piece by Matt Zoller Seitz is just terrific. It explains why we’re all feeling a sense of loss today. Gandolfini was us. RIP.
James Gandolfini was real. He was special. You could feel it.
Friends felt it. Colleagues felt it. People who talked to him for five minutes and never saw him again felt it. People who never met him in person and knew him only through his performance on The Sopranos felt it.
It was real. It was deep. It was true.
James Gandolfini had an authentic connection with viewers. Everyone who watched him perform, in a starring role or a bit part, came away feeling understood. You watched him act and you thought, “Yes. He gets it. He understands.”
He wasn’t one of them. He was one of us.
Fox News Being Sued For Accidentally Airing Suicide On TV (Mediaite)
You may recall that last September, Fox News aired a car chase that culminated in JoDon Romero getting out of his car and shooting himself in the head. His suicide was aired on Fox before they could cut to commercial, and Shepard Smith apologized on the air for showing it. Now, Romero’s three young children (one of them only nine years old) have filed suit against Fox News, claiming the cable channel’s airing of their father’s suicide has caused them serious emotional distress.
I feel bad for the victim’s kids — how could you not? — but what a ridiculously frivolous lawsuit. It may have turned out to be in bad taste, but there’s no law against bad taste. Fox News had a First Amendment right to show the video, accidentally or not.
We’ve seen video of all sorts of monstrous tragedies — the World Trade Center collapse, the tsunamis in Japan and Thailand, two space shuttle explosions, assorted plane crashes . . . Can you imagine if events like these were followed by lawsuits against the TV channels that showed them, complaining about emotional distress?
That’s what the news IS. Every “good” story is emotionally distressing to someone.
This lawsuit is just plain silly.
La Tagliatella in Arlington makes a strong case for hazard pay for restaurant critics. The Italian concept, an unfortunate import from Europe that plays up 400 combinations of pasta and sauce, is so distasteful on so many different levels, I was tempted to dismiss it after just one visit. I changed my mind when I considered its prime corner real estate in Clarendon and the Poland-based chain’s intention to expand elsewhere in the United States.
Someone needs to put a stop to this threat to our nation….
The slick menus with their commercial-grade food shots suggest the sort of reading you might find on the desk of a budget hotel or the seat pocket of an airplane….
The wines by the glass will remind you of the stuff you left behind in college, but the drinks here are generous and strong. Cocktails, it turns out, are one way to get through a meal at La Tagliatella, a brand unleashed on America last year with two branches in Atlanta, poor thing.
Yeah, he didn’t like the place. And the Washington Post asks on its homepage if this may be its harshest food critique ever. But Sietsma’s review pales in comparison to the standard set last November in the New York Times, Pete Wells’ unforgettable review of Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen & Bar Restaurant in Times Square.
Bon appétit!
Excessive behavior is embarrassing to your child, it’s embarrassing to yourself, and it teaches your child all the wrong lessons about sportsmanship, character and grace. But even if you’re not risking those outcomes, there is a challenge to finding the line between unconditional love and intensity. Even if you stop short of acting like the horrible parent, there’s a finer line to walk. You don’t want to smother the experience for them with too much engagement. It’s their game—just as it’s their life. Know when to butt out.
I’ve seen the worst of parents at Little League games. Smoking was not allowed on school grounds where my kids played Little League. One day, a mom lit up a cigarette from her seat on the grass berm behind the team I managed. One of the kids complained to me that she was smoking. I asked her nicely to put out her cigarette. She stood up, and loudly — so that everyone at the game could hear — told me she’d do whatever she want. Then she flipped me the bird, for added effect.
I once was umpiring a game at first base. A dad sat down in a chaise longue (yes, I spelled that correctly) with a six pack of beer and booed every call I made throughout the game.
I was umpiring behind the plate once when my second-base umpire made a bad call. But it was HIS call and I couldn’t reverse it. The fans from the team that got screwed spent the next inning booing loudly at every ball or strike I called. It got ugly. I told them if the abuse continued, I would have to stop the game, which would mean a forfeit. I was told that if I did, I wouldn’t make it to my car in the parking lot. They were serious. A kid I knew was on the team and he literally told his teammates, the umpire is OK. It’s Mr. Bromberg. I felt bad for him, because he felt bad for me.
Little League parents are the worst.
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‘Ex-gay’ group says it’s shutting down; leader apologizes for ‘pain and hurt’ (nbcnews.com)
A Christian ministry that led the so-called ex-gay movement, which professes to rid people of their homosexuality, has announced that it will shut down, and its leader apologized extensively to gays for causing “pain and hurt.” . . . .
The president of Exodus, Alan Chambers, said late Wednesday on the ministry’s website that he had “conveniently omitted my ongoing same-sex attractions” but now accepts them “as parts of my life that will like always be there.”
Addressing gays, Chambers, who is married to a woman, wrote: “You have never been my enemy. I am very sorry that I have been yours.”
“Sorry” doesn’t quite cut it here. The damage Exodus International has done for more than a third of a century is incalculable.
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As the Supreme Court considers overturning California’s ban onsame-sex marriage, gay people await a ruling that could change their lives. But the case has already transformed one gay man: Ken Mehlman, the once-closeted Republican operative who orchestrated President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election on a platform that included opposition to same-sex marriage.
Now Mr. Mehlman, a private equity executive in Manhattan, is waging what could be his final campaign: to convince fellow Republicans that gay marriage is consistent with conservative values and good for their party. His about-face, sparked in part by the lawyer who filed the California lawsuit, has sent him on a personal journey to erase what one new friend in the gay rights movement calls his “incredibly destructive” Bush legacy.
To his credit, Mehlman is trying to undo much of the harm he helped inflict before he came out.
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The tea party returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, but this time the don’t-tread-on-me crowd trod upon one of its own.
Much of the scene was familiar: the yellow flags, the banners protesting tyranny and socialism, the demands to impeach President Obama and to repeal Obamacare. But there was a new target of the conservatives’ ire: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and his “amnesty” plan for illegal immigrants. The loathing of this onetime darling of the movement — Rubio rode the tea party wave to office in 2010 — could be seen in the homemade signs on the East Lawn of the Capitol proclaiming, “Rubio RINO” (Republican In Name Only) and “Rubio Lies, Americans Die.” Rubio antagonism became a main theme of the event, held by Republican Reps. Steve King (Iowa), Louie Gohmert (Tex.), Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and other opponents of the bipartisan Senate immigration legislation that Rubio negotiated.
Et tu, Tea?
Starting Tuesday, 25 solar-powered charging stations will sprout in parks, beaches and other outdoor spaces in the five boroughs, part of a pilot project from the wireless provider in partnership with the city. The stations — 12.5-foot steel poles with three petal-shaped solar panels fanning out on top — can accommodate up to six devices at a time regardless of wireless carrier, with dedicated ports for iPhones, Androids, BlackBerrys and standard USB charging cables.
A very cool idea. But seriously, folks . . .
Who’s going to stand around this charger cocktail table in the middle of the beach at Coney Island for half an hour waiting to get a 30 percent charge on his iPhone? Or even worse . . . standing around for two hours in Bryant Park waiting for a full charge?
I suppose we could leave our phones there and go for a cup of . . . no we can’t. This is New York. Chances of finding the iPhone where you left it are about as good as the Mets coming back to win the World Series this year.
Not to mention what’s going to happen when a hundred people want to use the same recharge stand. This isn’t London; we don’t queue up in an orderly manner.
I don’t have high hopes for this one.
Mayor Koch’s tombstone mistakenly engraved with wrong birthdate. (nbcnewyork.com)
That’s about as good as it gets.
“If you want to deny evolution and live in your world — in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe — that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it, because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future.”
So says Bill Nye, the Science Guy, quoted in this wonderful piece in the New York Times. The writer, John Schwartz, calls him “Springsteen of the nerds.” I love that almost as much as I love Nye, an American hero who is not afraid to tell truth to power.
When science contradicts your religion, try to reconcile one with the other. The science is fact. Your religion shapes who you are, but it does not allow you to deny scientific fact.
State photo-ID databases become troves for police. (Washington Post)
In many ways, this is much more disconcerting than the NSA data-mining “scandal.” Top of the website this morning:
The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations….
The most widely used systems were honed on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq as soldiers sought to identify insurgents. The increasingly widespread deployment of the technology in the United States has helped police find murderers, bank robbers and drug dealers, many of whom leave behind images on surveillance videos or social-media sites that can be compared against official photo databases.
But law enforcement use of such facial searches is blurring the traditional boundaries between criminal and non-criminal databases, putting images of people never arrested in what amount to perpetual digital lineups. The most advanced systems allow police to run searches from laptop computers in their patrol cars and offer access to the FBI and other federal authorities.
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Study finds supportive tilt to gay marriage coverage. (New York Times)
Tough call here. The piece points out:
The study lends credence to conservative charges that the nation’s news media have championed the issue of same-sex marriage at the expense of objectivity. Others have argued that news organizations are right not to overly emphasize opposition to what many see as a core civil rights issue.
And that’s what makes it a tough call. Would news coverage that tilted toward legalizing interracial marriage have been wrong? What about news coverage that tilted toward freeing slaves? We strive for fairness and balance, but does every issue require that each side get equal time?
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Ohio police chief takes criminals to task online. (AP)
49,000 is about to multiply exponentially. What a fun story. Don’t be a mope:
KENT, Ohio (AP) — If you’re up to no good in this pocket of northeast Ohio, especially in a witless way, you’re risking not only jail time or a fine but a swifter repercussion with a much larger audience: You’re in for a social media scolding from police Chief David Oliver and some of his small department’s 49,000 Facebook fans.
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Bloomberg plan aims to require food composting. (New York Times)
I’m sure the right will blast this as nanny-statism, and it’s seriously hard to imagine pulling this off in New York City, but . . . It really is a great idea. It will save money and it’s environmentally sound.
If composting can make it here, it can make it anywhere. It’s up to you, New York.
Gail Collins’ column, The Other Side of the Story, in Saturday’s New York Times is on the essential reading list. If you’re not concerned about the possible effects of data mining, just read about Brandon Mayfield. It’s a chilling story, and worth remembering. Bookmark this one and reread it every now and then.
An AP story on FOXNews.com has a Methodist minister opposing license plates that feature an “iconic image of a young Apache warrior shooting an arrow skyward [that is] depicted in Allen Houser’s “Sacred Rain Arrow” statue [and] was a clear choice of a public that looked at more than 40 designs that featured Native American art, cowboy images and western and wildlife themes.”
Tourism officials hailed the license plate as a traveling billboard for Oklahoma, and the image was deemed the best license plate in the nation in 2009 by the American License Plate Collectors Association.
But a Methodist minister claims the plate is an affront to his Christian beliefs, and a federal appeals court ruled last week that the minister’s case can proceed.
“I think it’s important to understand that whether it was a Native American symbol or a symbol of any other faith, the issue would be the same,” said Keith Cressman, pastor at the St. Marks United Methodist Church in Bethany.
It pains me to say this, but the minister is right. If the image depicts a prayer, it does not belong on a license plate.
And finally, Mo Elleithee offers this on Salon: To my daughter on Father’s Day: Sorry I used to be a sexist.
I never had a daughter, but I like to think I’d be writing this to her if I had.
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