Current Configuration

  • Black

    Jdimytai Damour, hero of American consumers everywhere, died 11/29/2008. He gave his life so New York City shoppers could obtain only the best deals for their family and themselves this Christmas at Wal-Mart. If only the unnamed 28-year-old pregnant woman who so valiantly dove underfoot could have also given her life and the life of her near-term fetus so that others could save. Her selfless act will not go unremembered this Christmas.

    It is these brave souls who remind us that the War for Christmas is alive and well in America. Stand strong you bargain hunters. You remind us all why Santa Claus wears red.

  • No Foolin’

    Now that I’m a father, I’m taking the long view into account and thinking a lot about how decisions I make now will play out when my daughter is older. Decisions that have long-term effects now have a dual layering I try to be mindful of: one layer is the effect on my life and the other is how it will be interpreted by Blackbird and what message(s) it could send.

    So, knowing this, I’d like everyone to help me out and start popularizing the following saying:

    “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you again. Stop doing that. It’s not nice.”

    Thanks in advance, everyone.

    ,

  • On This Day

    Thank you to everyone who looked to our future and saw hope.

  • Time to Vote

    The hardest part should be the decision, not the action.

    Google has you covered. Just go to their 2008 Voter Info map tool, type in your address, and it’ll tell you where you need to be on Tuesday, November 4th to cast your vote.

    And to those people out there who are trying to disenfranchise voters by posting misinformation about voting: what you’re doing is treasonous. Get the hell out of our country.

  • Blackbird: 8 Months

    Blackbird waved yesterday. Three times. She watched us waving hello or goodbye to her, tentatively lifted her arm, then moved it back and forth with a gentle flex of her fingers. Our eighth month has been about these first steps from helpless baby into able and curious child.

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  • Good Job, Governor Palin

    I admit, I thought that Palin was going to be a ramble-y mess for the whole debate. But then she clearly and concisely summed up my stance on her candidacy. I admit it, I am impressed at her clarity on this topic:

    Ifill: “As Vice President, there’s nothing you’ve promised as a candidate that you would take off the table because of this financial issue?”

    Palin: “There is not, and how long have I been at this? Like five weeks?”

    Good job, Governor.

  • Blackbird: 7 Months

    Month seven has been another transition month. Blackbird hasn’t hit any big milestones, but has been tiptoeing right up to the edge of them, getting incrementally closer and closer yet never reaching them (a sort of baby’s first dichotomy paradox).

    This past month she’s been almost crawling all the time. Even in her sleep. Her mobility, which is still very limited, is far greater than it was last month. She can freely roll and knows to slow herself to avoid bumping her noggin, she can spin in circles on her tummy (I call it pivoting), and she can get up on all fours and rock forward and backward. However, she can’t get that one final piece: lifting her hands one at a time. This drives her crazy. In fact, she’s better at slowly skooching backward than she is at making forward progress. She occasionally does a face-plant as a result of this little hurdle (which results in virtually no fussing, to my surprise).

    However, in spite of this month feeling a bit ‘in between’ more significant advances, it’s been great fun. The contours of her personality are becoming visible and our interactions have become true responsive events involving feedback from both sides affecting the other. I admit, as cute as she’s been since day one, I’ve never had this much fun before. Yesterday, I spent the morning on the floor with Blackbird and our cat, Leto. Blackbird giggled and squealed, rolling around with the cat and trying to get a handful of her tail between bouts of playing with a book. Her sense of joy and wonder at the world is so strong and energizes me every time.

    For a variety of reasons, we’re a little thin on photos this month (a new job being a big reason). But worry not! I have an SLR to play with now (sadly, only on loan), so I expect the quality and quantity to spike for next month.

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  • 20 Words and Phrases That Mean Nothing

    If you hear these words from someone who is trying to sell you something or get your vote, you can be assured that all of the words associated with them are false or devoid of information:

  • Improved
  • Best
  • Greatest
  • Cheesier
  • Voted the most
  • Fun
  • Sophisticated
  • New convenient size
  • It will blow you away
  • Our forefathers believed/intended
  • Fancy
  • Kids love
  • Naturally flavored
  • I won’t lie to you
  • We can’t offer deals like this for long
  • Truly
  • Classy
  • Chewiest
  • Tastiest
  • Americans want/think/believe/are saying/need

  • Someone Give Kate Beaton Money

    Have you ever read Kate Beaton’s freakin’ hilarious comics? If not, you’re missing out on some of the best humor on the web (according to my vast and comprehensive survey).

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  • Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

    The cover of 'The Road', which is written in red distressed letters along with Cormac McCarthy's name in dark grey letters, all of which sits on a black backdrop. With my new job came a 5-day-a-week train commute. I love it. As a result, the number of books I’ve read this past month has spiked dramatically. After reading a brief synopsis of the plot, I picked up Cormac McCarthy’s The Road over lunch. By the next evening, I’d finished it.

    The plot, to frame it in a manner as spare as McCarthy’s style, follows the journey of a father and son traveling by foot across a portion of the U.S. in a world roughly a decade (give or take) after an apocalyptic occurrence, which has left both the earth and humanity barren and blackened.

    McCarthy’s style is, apparently, quite spare as a matter of course, so I’m not sure if The Road is in line with his other books or even more stripped down than usual. Either way, the tale is delivered with a simplicity and clarity that I’ve hungered for in so many other situations, but hadn’t received. McCarthy’s style is a kind of poetic prose. It has all of the weight and careful crafting of poetry but its payload is delivered with the unassuming clarity and directness of prose. The typesetting is deceptive and adds pages to what is a fairly brief novel, but I found it to be the perfect length. At its opening, we join the man and boy in the midst of their journey, as though we’ve encountered them in the fog along one of the long-deserted highways. In the end, we leave just as quietly, knowing that our time with them was simply a crucial scene, rather than the full story.

    From beginning to end, I was pulled into the relationship of the man and boy (who are also father and son) and deeply touched by the questions and emotions it brought to the surface. There were moments in the telling of the tale that cut straight through to my core in the best possible ways. The post-apocalyptic setting is a still but savage canvas upon which McCarthy makes stark strokes, evoking an emotional depth and enfolding sense of place. The immersive completeness of it was surprising, given how little context and few details are given. The effortless simplicity of it all belies the great skill clearly at work in its construction.

    I wholeheartedly recommend The Road to everyone. It’s not an easy read, emotionally speaking, but its rewards are proportionally great.