Freddie Mercury

I was stumbling around the Net the yesterday and I ran across this great phot0…

Although I’m not gay, even I can tell that Feddie Mercury was hot! 

And he was a great singer and performer.

Credit where credit is …

I am getting a big kick out of listening to the right wing trying to torture (I use that term advisedly) the facts into an interpretation of history that gives Bush all the credit for ridding the world of bin Laden.  Of course it’s is hard to get around this:

I had forgotten what a dufus he was…

And then there is the fact that in 2005 Bush completely shut down and disbanded the unit that had been responsible for finding bin Laden.

Of course, this cartoon says it all:

Kicking and screaming! Contemplating the unthinkable.

You are hearing it here first.  I am probably going to join Facebook today.  I have resisted for a long time, but it has gotten to the point where so many of the people, pundits, writers, and entities that I truly dig are putting everything up on Facebook, I am going to have to join.  Couple that with a lot of my family and close friends bugging me to join and it seems like the time has come. 

Facebook will never supplant this blog.  In fact, I may be able to get more people to read it by putting links to it on the Facebook page. 

For those of you who are already on Facebook, look for me there in a day or so.

~ Tom

Bin Laden–Rest in Hell

"I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." – Mark Twain

Despite Twain’s nifty quote, I can think of a few that I would have “wished dead.”  Of course Hitler is a “no brainer,” and Osama Bin Laden would be on the top of the list.

From what I have read so far, the immensely satisfying result of the operation that finally ended the life of OBL was in no small part due to the leadership, patience, intelligence, and tenacity of our President.  No leaks, no mistakes, no large civilian casualties, and lots and lots of training, including building a full “set” of the compound and rehearsing over and over.

Of course the right wingers, tea baggers, and assorted trolls will “pooh pooh” the plain truth and claim that Obama had nothing to do with it,  he was just lucky, the military did it all without his help, and so on.  It reminds me of something I heard a couple of days ago that is funny, yet sadly so true:

“If the President walked on water, the right wing would criticize him for being too lazy to swim.”

Peace out,

~Tom

Miles will always be cool

This blog is named “Birth of the Cool.”

Here is another photo of Miles that I had not seen before.  It can only be described as “cool.”

O’Donnell wipes the floor with Rush, much to the delight of Jesus

I was raised in a religious Christian family, but long since have drifted away from it.  While I still have a blurry recollection of things biblical, I am at a loss when I want to confront right wing religious nuts with their hypocrisy.  I know Jesus said this and did that, but I can’t rub the right winger’s nose in the New Testament. 

That is why last night I was mesmerized  and delighted over Lawrence O’Donnell’s rant against Rush Limbaugh’s lame attempt at weaseling out of the “What Would Jesus Do” question.  You have to see this.  It’s well worth the 10 minutes you will spend, and I guarantee that you will come away armed with all the biblical ammo you need to confront the next hypocritical phony Jesus freak you run into.   And be sure to memorize, and then use,  Lawrence’s challenge to Rush to find anything in the bible where Jesus sympathizes with rich people for having paid too much tax, or for having been too generous, or forced by anyone to be too generous.  

I’m really getting to love Lawrence. 

~ Tom

The Civil War: Thoughts

This month marks 150 years from the start of our Civil War with the attack on Fort Sumpter.  I had not really focused in on that fact when by sheer coincidence I began watching Ken Burns’ epic nine-part series on the Civil War.  It was being presented on Amazon’s streaming video service and I had not seen the whole thing before so I gave it a shot.  The series had a pretty deep effect on me because it made me put today’s bitter political conflict in context.  Sure, I may get apoplectic over the right wing’s callous, selfish, often racist positions, but I’m not trying to kill them in an all out war between our competing views.  That really happened in the Civil War and it makes me pause mightily to imagine how much hatred I would have to conjure up to be able to maim or kill my own countrymen.

The series also made me want to learn much, much more about that conflict.  Thus I decided to read about it in great detail.  A big part of the Burns series was the commentary of Shelby Foote, who is considered a true expert on the Civil War.  Plus, I really dug his accent, his humor, and his gravitas.  So, I ordered the paper back boxed set of  “The Civil War” by Shelby Foote, which arrived today from Amazon.  It is comprised of three fat volumes in an attractive, sturdy sleeve, and it weighs 9+ pounds!  I can hardly wait.  (More on that later). 

I wanted to make a comment about Foote.  Many of the Amazon reviews I read said that Shelby Foote had sympathy for the Southern cause, yet was fastidiously objective in writing about the War.  I tumbled to that right away in his commentaries in the Burns series.  He reminded me of a mother whose son is in prison for awful crimes that she does not deny.  Even so, she loves him and can always come up with an anecdote about something funny or praiseworthy that he did before “he went down that road.”

As I said, I can’t wait to get into this massive tome.  I’ve always been like that.  When I was 16, I got into Thomas Hardy for some reason, even to the point of actually reading “Jude the Obscure,” much to the amazement of my father.  I liked to read dense, long works, which is still true today.  For instance, I am one of the few people I know who actually read and enjoyed Yukio Mishima’s “Sea of Fertility” tetralogy, which consists of four lengthy novels tracing one protagonist from 1912 to 1975.   When I was younger, I think it was the joy of getting into a world where I never wanted it to end, and I was sad when it did, and I had to say goodbye to all those characters I had come to love (or hate).  Now, it’s a bit different.  Added to the prior feeling is a new overlay, which is that long, dense books are an affirmation of my intent to live longer than I though I would.  That is, no one with a diagnosis of 3 months to live is going to order Shelby Foote’s “The Civil War!” 

~ Tom