The big day.

crowds like swarms of bees...............DAMN.



a prayer ceremony held in Islamabad, Pakistan.

(both from the Boston Globe's "Big Picture" -- Click on the photos for a better view)

flomen & magic

photogram by michael flomen

fangela - here we go magic
tunnelvision - here we go magic

(their self-titled album comes out in february.)

which reminds me:

(So far, she's my favorite.)

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

'thanks and have fun running the country'

McSweeney's is releasing a book on January 20 titled, Thanks and Have Fun Running The Country-- "a collection of letters from students to President Obama—questions, requests, and advice."

For example:

Dear President Obama,

I know you want to save the earth, but people don't want to clean. My life is to clean up all the world and help you to clean. I always dream of cleaning the world with you. I'll do anything for you because you are the president in this world.

Stephanie Gonzalez, age 7
Los Angeles

And also:

Dear Obama family,

When you move into the White House, turn on the heater so it won't be cold. You could also take hot baths in your new antique bathtubs. Or you could make hot tea and coffee. When I moved to a new house, I helped my dad. He took apart a chair and I carried pieces of it. If I were your helper when you move in, I could move everything! Have a nice day being the first family.

Nazrawit Dessie, age 7
Seattle

End of story--children never cease to amaze me.

on the front page today...

Front page of today's New York Times.

The acid attacks are not isolated to the November incident in Afghanistan. New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof titled his article on the issue "Terrorism That's Personal." I wasn't aware of any of this until my sister mentioned in a couple of weeks ago. The slideshow of the photographs accompanying today's article, including the three above, is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/13/world/20090113AFGHAN_index.html

gursky & beebe

Photograph by Andreas Gursky

At Sagamore Hill Theodore Roosevelt and I used to play a little game together. After an evening of talk we would go out on the lawn and search the skies until we found the faint spot of light-mist beyond the lower left-hand corner of the Great Square of Pegasus. Then one or the other of us would recite — ‘That is the Spiral Galaxy of Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns each larger than our sun.’ Then Roosevelt would grin at me and say —
‘Now I think we are small enough! Let’s go to bed!’

--William Beebe

my best friend -- you inspire me.

http://bryanmeador.blogspot.com/

..............blt?

new order - bizarre love triangle

(can this ever be more than 'just an 80s song' to you? i'm enthralled.)

what it is.

Also:

Ortega suggests that there is no me without things and things are nothing without me, I (human being) can not be detached from my circumstances (world)... 'Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia' (I am myself and my circumstance).

This circunstancia is oppressive; therefore, there is a continual dialectical exchange of forces between the person and his or her circumstances and, as a result, life is a drama that exists between necessity and freedom.

In this sense Ortega y Gasset wrote that life is at the same time fate and freedom, and that freedom “is being free inside of a given fate. Fate gives us an inexorable repertory of determinate possibilities, that is, it gives us different destinies. We accept fate and within it we choose one destiny.”

In this tied down fate we must therefore be active, decide and create a “project of life”—thus not be like those who live a conventional life of customs and given structures who prefer an unconcerned and imperturbable life because they are afraid of the duty of choosing a project.

(Thank you Wikipedia.)