Your interpretation?

Check out this photo that I ran across a while back.  I have been looking at it off and on since then and each time I get a different take on it.  There is something about it that is powerful and a bit mystical.  Your thoughts?

Mash: Oh my, I’m ancient

Rummaging around on the Net I came across this photo:

Folks, Mash was released in 1970!  I felt a surge of youth when I chuckled over the picture, then realized how old I have become since it was taken. 

Alda and Wayne Rogers were nifty in the TV series but let’s face it, these guys are the only Hawkeye and Trapper I’m opening my front door to.

Elizabeth, R.I.P.

From today’s Chronicle obit:

In her twenties, Ms. Taylor’s looks went from light and lilting to voluptuous, and she cut a fine figure as Maggie in the screen adaptation of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958), though the play was sanitized beyond recognition in its move from stage to screen.

Still ……

Remember, this was 53 years ago!

A not so politically correct quote, but probably true

“Translation is like a woman.  If it is beautiful, it is not faithful.  If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.”

~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko (Russian Poet)

Private (self-destructing) note

Even if you are not the guy handing out assignments to the Mission Impossible crews, this may come in handy at some time in the future.

~ ??

Presidential approval ratings

I have been reading some comments on other blogs wherein right-wing trolls are smugly claiming that President Obama’s approval ratings are in the toilet and thus he is the worst president in modern times, will be a one-term president, etc. 

Well, here is a terrific site to disprove all this hogwash.  Note that in the first part, “Current President Barak Obama” the polls are  listed in reverse chronological order, and that as of February of this year all the listed polls show that Obama’s approval rating is higher than the disapproval rating.  And, note that among those polls is Fox News, which gives him 51% approve, 43% disapprove, and 6% “other.”

Then scroll down to the cool graphs and click on Ronald Regan, and you will see that after two years in office his approval rating was only 35%!  The graphs for the other presidents are also very interesting.  Bush Junior got the high ratings in the first years of his presidency because of 9/11, and finished under 40%, having dipped below 30% just months before his term ended.  By the way, the graphs are a bit confusing with respect to disapproval percentage.  For the disapproval percentage you have to read the scale from the top and treat the 100% line as zero, 90% as 10% and so on.  It took me a while to figure that out.

The guy who is fascinating is Clinton.  Click on his graph and you will see that his approval rating was well over 50% from early 1996 until the end of his presidency.  Mind you, this was in the face of constant trashing by the right wing haters and a full-blown impeachment!  Amazing.

Huge kudos for “The Adjustment Bureau”

It is storming and very, very windy today in the Tahoe region.  The ski resorts were all either closed or on “wind hold” so we went to Reno to catch the 11:30 am showing of “The Adjustment Bureau,” projected digitally. 

This the best movie I have seen in a while.  In my mind everything about it is perfect. 

• Cast:  Not even one miscast actor.  The leads, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt have some of the best screen chemistry I’ve seen.  The main Adjustment Bureau cats are perfect and include the great John Slattery from “Mad Men” and the incomparable Terence Stamp – also an actor I’m not familiar with, Anthony Mackie who plays “Henry.”
• Love story:  Every review I have read notes that this is one of the best love stories to come along in a while.  I heartily agree.  I admit I was tearing up in places and my wife gave me a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek at one point.
• Script:  Snappy and intelligent.  Best of all is that unlike a lot of sci-fi stories, they did not bog down the plot with “talking head exposition.”  Instead they worked the exposition into the plot a little at a time so that you hardly noticed it, but on the other hand you don’t leave the theater saying to yourself, “what was that all about?”
• Production:  Top of the line direction, cinematography, and design.  Digital projection was an added plus.
• Music:  Original music by Thomas Newman who also did the music for Wall-E, Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty and tons of other films and TV shows.  The music is very effective in this movie as you will see.
• Story:  Hey, it’s Philip K. Dick, need I say more.  You will be on the edge of your seat a lot of the time wondering what comes next and savoring it when it comes.

Tom says five out of five stars.  Go see it.

Gas prices & corporate welfare...

Wow, I did not realize that I had not posted on my own blog for a while. I have been writing fairly long comments on other blogs so I have neglected by own.

Anyway, we are back up at the Tahoe/Donner place for a week's vacation. We got here on Friday and we don't have to go home until Sunday!

While we were driving up on Friday we had to stop for gas. The price per gallon? $4.07 for regular. This gets my blood boiling. These tea party party people and the right wing are forever pushing to cut welfare for the poor and disadvantaged who truly deserve it. Yet, they defend (or at least ignore) the huge subsidies that we, that's right WE the tax-payers, shell out to the oil companies. Of course these are the same companies charging over $4.00 a gallon for their product. How can this be justified?

On a more mellow note, I went out snowshoeing the other day after another snow storm. It was cloudy and cold, but truly stunning. Here is a photo I shot that proves it.