Beatles MP3 player

Well now, this is really a lot of fun. 

A better version of Bruno Mars

Hey, I found a better version of Bruno Mars at the Grammys.  You’ll have to suffer a promo spot first but the quality is far better than the YouTube version in my previous post.

~ Tom

Bruno Mars is totally cool…

I finally remembered to record the Grammys this year.  (The last couple of years I missed them).  Anyway, I’m a bit late on reporting my impressions, but aside from the Whitney Houston tributes, none of the live performances (even Bruce and Adele) rang my bell EXCEPT Bruno Mars!  I really had not paid any attention to this guy and it was the first time I had ever seen him and his awesome band.  Let me tell you, it was a perfect, exciting, ass-kicking performance in every regard.  And, it was live!

I could only find one YouTube version of it, and it’s a bit rough, but it still comes through in all its raw glory.  I loved it then, and love it now.  Enjoy

Bruno Mars at 2012 Grammys

Self portraits

I found this web page to be very interesting.  Nice if you can make yourself to look anyway you want – I mean did Peter Paul Rubens really look that suave and cool?  Much harder to pull off in a photograph.

Citizens United revisited

In early January I wrote this post about the Montana Supreme Court refusing to follow the disastrous “Citizens United” decision rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court . 

It now appears that my hope of SCOTUS reopening the matter could come about sooner rather than later.  Check it on HuffPo now.

The outrage continues…

The other night I was watching the Maddow show when she did a segment on how the odious Gov. Scott Walker was using money that will come to Wisconsin from the foreclosure fraud settlement to help balance the budget.  Of course the reason Walker has a shortfall in his budget is because he cut taxes on corporations and fat cats.  I went poking around on the Internet to find an article about this and found one at Think Progress, which you can check out here.  The upshot is that Wisconsin is getting $140 million, $31.6 million of which goes directly to the state, presumably to be doled out to help victims of foreclosure fraud.  Instead, Walker is going to divert $25.6 million of these funds to “help close a budget shortfall.”  Wow, how much more brazen can these right wing Republican state officials get?  All I’ve got to say is that it is a good the the whole $140 million didn’t go directly to the State!

A quote for today …

"Just because they say action doesn’t mean you have to do something"  ~~ Marlon Brando

Toles nails it as usual…

Today’s Toles cartoon in WaPo is painfully true.

Bill Cunningham New York

I have been trying to watch more film documentaries these days.  Netflix streaming video has a lot of them.  I particularly enjoy finding ones that feature people and/or places I have never heard of and know nothing about.  Most recently I watched “Bill Cunningham New York,” which really delighted me.  I knew nothing of Cunningham until I watched the film.  As a photographer, I was very tuned into the whole thing, and the panoply of colorful New Yorkers turning up here and there was loads of fun.  I enjoyed it all, but there was one thing that stood out for me that most people probably did even think was out of the ordinary: Bill Cunningham still only shoots real film!  No digital cameras for this guy.

I agree with Roger Ebert, who said: "This movie made me happy every moment I was watching it." 

Bill Cunningham New York trailer

p.s.  When you are watching something made a year ago about an 80 year old guy, you wonder if he is still alive now.  I am happy to report that Wikipedia says he is still around.  Cool.

Fallows article

I just got back from taking Spenser to the dog park and running a few errands.  While I was in my car, I heard portions of Michael Krasny of our local NPR station interviewing James Fallows regarding Fallows’ article on Obama, which appears in the March issue of The Atlantic.  The parts of the interview I was able to hear (I was in and out of the car), were fascinating.  I have always considered Fallows one of our great living journalists. 

Now that I am home, I have found the article.  I am going to make time to read the whole thing despite its length -- Fallows mentioned that his article was quite long.  I’m pulling your coats to it so that you have the choice of checking it out or not…

‘Nuf said!

It doesn’t get any cooler than this…

Alpine Meadows–Summit chair

We were up at our Tahoe/Donner place the past weekend.  It was the first time we have been able to ski all year.  There has been no snow at all until a couple of weeks ago, and we had other commitments last weekend. 

Anyway there was still enough snow to cover some of the runs, so all in all we had a good time.  The weather was sunny and bright.  The big news this year is that Squaw Valley USA, where we’ve had season passes for many years, has merged with neighboring Alpine Meadows Ski Resort.  The upshot is that we now get to ski Alpine Meadows on our season pass along with Squaw Valley.  They are running free shuttle buses between the two resorts and the ride is only about 15 minutes or so, with buses running every 15 minutes! 

So, we ventured over to Alpine Meadows on Saturday and Sunday.  There is a high-speed, six-person lift called “Summit Chair” that goes all the way up to the summit of Alpine Bowl, above 8,000 feet.  The view is utterly spectacular, with Lake Tahoe floating below the horizon.  And it’s a long, long way down to the bottom, so it is a great ski run. 

Sunday, I took some pictures from the top of Alpine Bowl where the Summit Chair unloads.  While it was sunny and cold, there was a big wind blowing right up the face of the run, so I was getting a face full of wind-blown ice crystals when I took these.  I could barley see the view-finder so I was pretty much guessing.  I’m posting three of the better shots.  Please click on them to blow them up.

** Here is a shot showing Lake Tahoe floating in upper middle of the picture.  By that way, that is Eileen in the lower right corner in the black outfit.

** Another shot of the Lake and Eileen.

** A shot looking down the run.  The run goes down this face and then turns left in about the middle of the shot, and then wends its way a long ways down to the bottom.

I’m sure glad I’m living long enough to enjoy the beauty and thrill of the whole experience!

Can justice actually be done?

Let’s all whip us as much good karma as we can for Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General.  The President appointed him to head “…a large-scale civil and criminal investigation of the banks, mortgage vendors, securities bundlers and other financial actors who inflated the last decade’s housing bubble and nearly blew up the economy when it burst.”  You can read about it in Harold Meyerson’s column in today’s WAPO.

I’m fervently hoping that some of these white-collar criminals get convicted and actually do some jail time.  If this was the “normal” situation where the so-called “investigation” is a ruse to placate the public, I’d not be expecting anything other than maybe a sacrificial lamb getting thrown under the bus and a bunch of wrist-slapping.  But, in this case Schneiderman had a chance to take that route by going along with the 25 billion dollar settlement, which was then being pushed by the White House and other influential players.  Instead, he refused to sign on, which tanked the deal.  Now, the White House has changed its position and Schneiderman is going to be given big-time resources and support, which will allow him to really go after the people who have wreaked havoc upon our country and millions of its citizens.  I say, “go get ‘em Harold.”