Mike Luckovich's Year in Review

One of my favorite political cartoonists is Mike Luckovich. Click on his name for the link to his top 10 cartoons of 2007.

My favorite is the one above, titled, "Play Democrat."

Again, this is true.

You Are Modernism

You tend to be oriented toward the future and technology. You like art that signals how the world might change in radical ways. As far as art goes, everything in the past is obsolete - and it's time to carve a new path. You prefer art that doesn't follow any rules - even if the art doesn't make much sense.

What Art Movement Are You?

I FINISHED SOMETHING!!! Art Sunday

Crocheted bag, 8 x 15". Wool/cotton blend crochet thread.
Rayon lining.
11/2007



I have just finished this up last week, it's for ME!
Small knitting bags for carrying socks and other small projects are very useful.
I know, I've learned how to knit socks standing up,
it keeps my "balls" from running off while I wait
in these long December checkout lines...


Here's what's kind of funny, after going to "Wickedly Innocent"'s blog (she's hosting Art Sunday this week), I think this accidently wintery colored bag actually includes some of her favorite colors! 

Art Sunday - Althea Merback

Stephanie hosts Art Sunday this week...gee I've missed her!


Winter time, our minds turn to staying warm...and gloves!

Ancient Greek Gloves, 2005

Silk Thread, Knit 1:12 scale
From the Kathleen Savage Browning Miniatures Collection
Kentucky Gateway Museum Center
Maysville, Kentucky
Photo by Althea Merback

Althea Merback's website is Bugknits.

Her miniatures are hand knit with surgical wires, are shown on this colorful site, along with listings for future shows.

She's also featured in a new book called
KnitKnit Profiles + Projects from Knittings's New Wave,
written by Sabrina Gschwandtner and photographed by Kiriko Shirobayashi; published by Stewart, Tabori and Chang STC Craft Melanie Falick Book
(September 1, 2007; ISBN-13: 978-1584796312)
This is definitely on my Amazon Wish list!

How High are you?

Photo borrowed from www.humor-day.com

Susan, bless your Royal Heart, I borrowed a blog again...

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Lady Madame Suzanne the Calm of Much Leering Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Not in any photoset

Not in any photoset

My Photos

Scribblers

me and the kids

Frank at Advanced Graduation

Mail Attachments

Frank, Andy, and the forever remembered Smiley.

Mobile Uploads

The Waterbed incident. July 2006

Motorola Pics

The Ruby Slippers are at Goodwill

Around Here

Frank at Advanced Graduation

The Kids

Yahoo! 360° - Suzanne's Profile

http://www.suzannedeal.com

Reading about my options

I've been reading lately about all the potential changes Yahoo 360 might go through,
and like many, I'm looking around,
trying to find a comfortable place to land just in case I have to move. 

I do think I am liking this blogging format though...
I am not particularly fond of HTML with my intimate thoughts.

Art Sunday, Jeepneys

The Photo is from Godofredo Stuart's Photo/Essay on the Philippine Jeepney,
a recent "Yahoo Pick."

I of course, now I have some diabolical plans
for sprucing up my old Cherokee Sport.


From Wikipedia...

"The word jeepney is usually believed to come from the words "jeep" and "knee" because of the crowded seating, passengers must sit knee to knee.

"When American troops began to leave the Philippines at the end of World War II, hundreds of surplus jeeps were sold or given to local Filipinos. Locals stripped down the jeeps to accommodate several passengers, added metal roofs for shade, and decorated the vehicles with vibrant colors and bright chrome hood ornaments.

"Although the original jeepneys were simply refurbished military jeeps (Willys), modern jeepneys are now produced by independently owned workshops and factories within the Philippines. In the central Philippine island of Cebu, the bulk of jeepneys are built from second-hand Japanese trucks, originally intended for hauling cargo rather than passengers. These are euphemistically known as "surplus" trucks."



I'll just say that I consider them rolling canvases,
and a fine example of folk art.

Dear Mr. Yang,

Inspired by Night_Howl's blast
"Tell Jerry Yang,the head of Yahoo, that you want 360 to stay!"




I do want 360 to stay...so I left the following comment on this page...

Where does Yahoo! head next?October 16th, 2007 at 3:13 pm by Jerry Yang, CEO & Chief Yahoo

I'm also a 360 user, my homepage is Yahoo's home page,
my default search engine is Yahoo, I use the Yahoo tool bar,
I'm in over 20 groups on Yahoo Groops, and I use the "My Web" feature daily.

I'm 50, I'm one of the babies in the Baby Boomer Generation.

There are many of us out here, and I'd hope your "senior" leaders will keep us in mind
. When it comes to the 360 sites, many of us are there for the content,
and not the toys. Mash seems to be a lot about toys and gimmicks,
and not about substance.

Please keep us in mind when you go through your changes, and we go through ours.
We are more settled about who we are, and what we are comfortable doing.
I think that's an asset. Work with us, answer our questions, fix the problems with 360,
and don't roll your eyes when we want to stay with something
that's working perfectly well for those of us who know
what we need and why we need it.

Tarot reading

From Astrology.com

Today, it felt like it was right on the money.

The Temperance card suggests that my alter ego today is the Mediator, whose superpower for negotiation lies in my innate ability to create the right chemistry within a particular situation. I am a continual work in progress. I strive for equality, balance and compatibility -- driven by my innate sense of fairness. This provides a certain degree of predictability in my actions, and is my recipe for success. As in all things truly worthwhile in life, love is an art, sketched and painted atop a canvas of mutual respect. Such a foundation allows only for the occasional brush stroke to cover a mixed message or misunderstanding, and avoid use of the paint roller. Take it one day at a time, valuing all things with such an openness as to provide not only the proper balance, but to allow for proper action when needed.

Friday 5

The Friday 5's Questions are from Kat.

While I've got a killer earache (don't you hate bad sinuses?),
I am feeling emotionally up. Might as well jump on a topic and go with it, aye?

1. What creature scares you the most? (Real or imagined - people are creatures too)

The ghost of my Ex. It still haunts me, I wake up from bad dreams, full of terror.
Fortunately, he was shot on the day after Halloween in 1989.
Oh, I'm also afraid of mice.

2. Your favorite scary movie of all time?

Sling Blade. What? You aren't scared of Dwight Yoakam?

3. The scariest moment in your life?

When my ex threatened to kill me, with a pistol to my thoat,
it wasn't just an idle threat.

4. The scariest place you have ever been?

That place where I had the scariest moment of my life,
the back porch of an old cabin on the lake.
(Doesn't that sound like a horror movie?!)

5. What scares you?

I'm scared that I've accomplished all that I'll ever accomplish.
And mice.

Mark Fiore's Animated Cartoon Site

This is for all my friends who think the Dems are looking kinda limp.

Wow, if they only had a spine....

http://www.markfiore.com/spineocrat

From his site:

http://www.markfiore.com
"Mark Fiore, who the Wall Street Journal recently called “the undisputed guru of the form,” creates animated political cartoons from an undisclosed location somewhere in San Francisco. His work appears regularly in a wide variety of online news web sites and is seen by millions, probably even scrillions.

"After a short stint at the San Jose Mercury News as their staff cartoonist creating traditional political cartoons in a terribly stifling fluorescent windowless office, Fiore happily fled the print world in 2001 to devote all of his energies to creating animated work.

"Mark Fiore was awarded a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and has also received an Online Journalism Award from the Online News Association and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. With two awards from the National Cartoonists Society for his work in new media under his belt, Fiore also seems to excel at writing in the third person."

Slipped this from Sally ZA, I'm Southern all the way to the Squeal!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The South   That's a Southern accent you've got there. You may love it, you may hate it, you may swear you don't have it, but whatever the case, we can hear it.
The Midland
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Inland North
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Saw this on Susan AZ's...it's so me!

You Are a Zombie

You're a pretty apathetic person, and you often feel like you're sleep walking through life. You don't necessarily have a case of the "blues", but you do have a case of the "blahs." It's hard for you to snap out of your boring every day routine. You're a bit burned out. The only thing you crave is the company of others. But you're not too nice to the people who do hang around you. Your greatest power: Your lack of a normal conscience Your greatest weakness: Your lack of most emotions You play well with: Aliens

What Kind of Monster Are You?

Pity the fool Mehmood Ali

This afternoon, I got three messages just like this...

mehmood ali has sent you a message
Kiss u darling I like u

mehmood ali has sent you a message
Kiss u darling I like u

mehmood ali has sent you a message
Kiss u darling I like u

I wandered over there, to see who this fool was, who dared jerk with me. And there he was, jerking...

mehmood ali's Blog
Come on all sexy girls. I have a strong and big (LUND)dick. I like sexy girls. I like kissing and fucking



So, I left a note on one of the two blog entries he had:

Tuesday October 16, 2007 - 06:25pm (EDT)
You are a big boob. Don't write to me anymore, you idiot.

And he wrote back. Pity him.


mehmood ali has sent you a message
Big dick , big cock I am not big boobs, I am big dick, I have big cock for your pussy


Sure, I can report him, but isn't this more fun? Wait, I shall report him too.
Interesting what makes me blog, isn't it? Michael Vick and a stray Dick.
Go figure.
Stay tuned, I'm fixing to do better...

karma

From Cartoonist Gary Varvel

http://blogs.indystar.com/varvelblog/index.html

My friend Michael forwarded this...

Terence Moore: Vick's blind loyalists are just wrong

This column comes from the AJC, and Terence Moore has a new fan.

By the way...if you are seriously in need of a Role Model type...try out the Falcon's Warrick Dunn

Terence Moore: Vick's blind loyalists are just wrong

Minor League team to host "Michael Vick Animal Awareness Day" - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

X-Bo from Dogster.com

(Uh, no, that's not my dog...)

You guys who know me, know I love my dogs. Frank is a flat coated retriever I found on the side of the road one afternoon coming home from work. (He's named after the restaurant here at Jackson Lake, he was in their driveway, you know, like the book and movie, "Because of Winn Dixie.") I met Jesse two Januarys ago at the Newton County Animal Shelter. She wasn't more than 10 weeks old, I guess, and had those webby lab feet, and I thought that was what I was getting. Later, as she developed the neck and shoulders and tenacious demeanor of a pit bull, did I realize I had a mostly pit bull.

-------------

I love these dogs dearly. They love each other, and me and Andy the cat. They took care of a black snake in the kitchen, and a mouse somewhere in the house this weekend. They just want me to come home, and play with them, and love them, and feed them whatever I'm eating. If you knew how foolishly I acted around mice, you'd say that was a small price to pay.

-------------

Anyway...my friend Matt sent me this link and I thought I'd share it with you. Everybody knows, dogs like ball games!

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Minor League team to host "Michael Vick Animal Awareness Day" - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

July 23, 2007
LONG BEACH, California (Ticker) - A minor league baseball [team] has announced that on Sunday they will host "Michael Vick Animal Awareness Day."

The Long Beach Armada of Los Angeles of California of the United States of North America including Barrow, Alaska in the Independent Golden League are holding the event on the heels of Vick - the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons - being indicted on federal dogfighting charges.

Fans are invited to bring their dogs and sit in a special section at Blair Field.

Also, any fan who trades in a Michael Vick jersey will receive free admission to the game. The Armada also will destroy all Vick jerseys in protest to the inhumane treatment of animals. --Updated on Monday, Jul 23, 2007 4:13 pm, EDT

Nina Katchadourian

Nina Katchadourian has put together the "Sorted Books Project" with lots of pictures.

An interesting place to linger and read book spines...

Also look around in her other portfolios, great concepts, wonderful results.

Sunday Shopping

Long Cool Drink Pin

A little tongue in cheek, or rather in the toilet, for your Sunday, from this wonderful site. Peace.

Shop to Benefit The Animal Rescue Site

and while you're there...

Click on the button on the main page to help provide shelter food!

Amazing things: May 2007

Click on the link for an incredible time...Amazing things: May 2007

Amazing? Yes! I've gotten pieces of this blogsite in email forwards.

What a great site, and what wonderful photographs. This is where I've spent the afternoon, looking at the archives.

Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor

Yesterday, at Emory University's Woodruff Library in Atlanta, a collection of letters written to Elizabeth Hester by Flannery O'Connor, were unsealed and made available to the public.

----------

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution article by Jeffry Scott,

"... a man who appears frequently and unflatteringly in the correspondence of Georgia author Flannery O'Connor, showed up to take his medicine.

" "I was young then, in my 20s," said William Sessions, "and it's something to see myself written up by a master. Marvelous phrasing — with a stiletto." "

----------

From Wikipedia...
"An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer in the vein of William Faulkner, often writing in a Southern Gothic style and relying heavily on regional settings and -- it is regularly said -- grotesque characters. However, she remarked "anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic" (Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose 40). Her texts often take place in the South and revolve around morally flawed characters, while the issue of race looms in the background. One of her trademarks is unsubtle foreshadowing, giving a reader an idea of what will happen far before it happens. Finally, she brands each work with a disturbing and ironic conclusion."

----------

Milledgeville isn't too far from here, only a couple of counties away, and I'm familiar with her homeplace in Baldwin County. There is a website for the The Flannery O'Connor-Andalusia Foundation, Inc., with information about the farm.

----------

My favorite short story and a good story to read just to get a feel for O'Connor's style, is "A Good Man Is Hard to Find."

NPR : Humorist Sends Dispatches from "Up" South

I love Southern Writers, and here's one of my favorites...if you like to listen there's also a link on this page:

NPR : Humorist Sends Dispatches from "Up" South

A friend and I were talking this morning, and we agreed that this had been a glorious season for Southern Books. I'm not talking bodice rippers, or swooning dixie belles...I'm talking about killing and sex with cousins, rabid dogs and loose morals, shit on the shingle and thick grits with redeye gravy and fresh possum, and and all things disfunctional in ways that can only be Southern.

I've got a couple of days coming up, that I can sit, and write, and so I shall. And I will write of a few things Disfunctional, in ways that only a Southern Woman can.

The Bra Purse

The Bra Purse

-----

Craftbits sends out a newletter occassionally, and the latest one featured crafts from recycled stuff.

-----

I liked this one.

Here is the link for a project using a recycled Bra...a gentle reminder to "check ourselves!"

-----

I'd opt for needle and thread for the beads and lace additions instead of hot glue, but still this could be a very cool purse.

-----

Yes, Rhiannon, I'll make one for you!

-----

I'm still feeling like a nut. Obviously!

Sometimes I feel like a nut

Woodpecker Gourmet Food

---------

I got a message from Smutman the other day, apologizing for not getting by more often, but I can always get a daily jolly of sorts from the emailed jokes he sends around.

------------

But, getting right down to it, yes, I'm a nut, I suffer from the same sort of blues he gets (even though, right now, he's got some sadnesses he can name). I can't help it, drugs dull it, but don't completely stop it, I've had folks tell me that exercise will fix it (it doesn't when it's this bad), that I need to have a more cheerful point of view (hey, my buds think I'm plenty cheerful), and that I just need to buck up, and be happy. Bullshit. I dont' know what it is, why it is, or why I feel this way. I just do.

------------

Anyway. If you'll bear with me, I do enjoy coming around and reading, though, I'm bad about not leaving comments like I should, and I'm trying to come back around. Hey, when I'm happy, I'm one of the happiest people you'll ever know, when I'm down, I'm so down, well, you don't wanna come down here. I do know lots of my fellow bloggers here have the same problem, and I appreciate it when I am able to see I'm not the only one.

------------

Anyway...I am going to try to avoid peckers of all sorts right now, including the wooden types...if I feed them, maybe they'll go away.

------------

P.S. I will be back...what goes down, usually comes back up. Okay, that sounds a little nasty, but you guys know what I mean.

Art Sunday, The Anemoi Mittens

From the Site, See Eunny Knit, came these wonderful mittens. I've been doing some two color knitting lately, but it's leaving without being photographed. I am really getting the hots to make some mittens like these and the Latvian mittens, maybe before next winter. Or the one after that...

-------------------

She writes, "The Anemoi Mittens - A decidedly different pair of mittens in an asymmetrical, non-repeating stranded colorwork pattern of windy scrolls and breathy swirls. An unusual semi-corrugated rib and a close-fitting shape ensure toasty fingers and easy movement - go ahead, class up that dirty snowball fight."

----------------------

Here are some different versions from Eunny's friends who've posted pics in the gallery...

I lose another hero...

Molly Ivins

------

August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007

------------

We've lost another great Texan. Why did I admire her so? Because she said things like this...

Molly Ivins: Not. backing. Hillary.

Friday, January 20, 2006; Posted: 9:18 a.m. EST (14:18 GMT)

AUSTIN, Texas (Creators Syndicate) -- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls?

Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008."

This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad news from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman.

Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.

Art Sunday, and Jennifer Maestre

Pencil Collage, Artist Trading Card, 3.5 x 2.5 inches. Colored pencils, paper

------------------------------

I love beaders, and most especially beaders who are sculptors. Jennifer Maestre is one of the best around. Working with beads, nails, thread and pencils, she produces sculptures, jewelry and artist's trading cards.

-----------------------------------

In her Artist Statement, Maestre says,

"My sculptures were originally inspired by the form and function of the sea urchin. The spines of the urchin, so dangerous yet beautiful, serve as an explicit warning against contact. The alluring texture of the spines draws the touch in spite of the possible consequences. The tension unveiled, we feel push and pull, desire and repulsion. The sections of pencils present aspects of sharp and smooth for two very different textural and aesthetic experiences. Paradox and surprise are integral in my choice of materials. Quantities of industrially manufactured objects are used to create flexible forms reminiscent of the organic shapes of animals and nature. Pencils are common objects, here, these anonymous objects become the structure. There is true a fragility to the sometimes brutal aspect of the sculptures, vulnerability that is belied by the fearsome texture."

----------------------------------

Her work can be purchased at her Etsy site, where she says,

"I am a sculptor with a particular fascination for pencils. I find them extremely inspiring, probably because I have a million of them in my studio. The big joke in my studio- I can never find anything to write with."

-----------------------------

Enjoy, and next week, I promise, I will show more of my work!

The Gift of Life

Full moon at twilight January 2, 2007

I'm not all that special.

I've been a fairly regular blood donor for several years now, and it always makes me feel good to give something that money truly can't buy.

I'd stopped for a while, because of a course of antibotics to try to get my skin cleared up...again, and right before Christmas, I decided to give again, because they were giving away these really cool long sleeve tshirts.

Anyway, I was introduced to the idea of donating platelets while I was at this last blood drive, and today I got a call scheduling me for my first donation. I've got this not so rare blood, A Positive, with a rare trait. I have never had a virus called cytomegalovirus, and because of this, my blood is called "baby's blood." So, even though I'm normally not "child friendly", my blood is a lifesaver, for sick babies and even some adults with compromised immune systems.

According to KidsHealth Website:

"CMV (cytomegalovirus) is mainly a problem for certain high-risk groups, including: unborn babies whose mothers become infected with CMV during the pregnancy, and
children or adults whose immune systems have been weakened by disease or drug treatment, such as organ transplant recipients or people infected with HIV."

I know a lot of people gave blood right after 9/11. Folks at the Red Cross blood drives said that donors wanted to be assured that the blood would be going to New York to help with the injured. People wanted to help those who'd been hardest hit by this tragic event.

During the time I was a volunteer first responder, I saw first hand, tragic events happen every day to every walk of people. Car wrecks, fires, sick babies, accidents, all of these things can impact someone just as hard as the 9/11 attack impacted the individuals in those towers, the pentagon. and the planes, and the families that loved them.

Donate if you can. Make a difference.