Open Thread – Moment of Zen
Barnacle-covered rock on the shore of Prince William Sound.
December 18, 2024
Thursday, August 3, 2023
The Quitter Returns! -Monday, March 21, 2022
Putting the goober in gubernatorial -Friday, January 28, 2022
Barnacle-covered rock on the shore of Prince William Sound.
Why is zen offered in moments but work gets an entire shift?
I’m sorry to kill your beautiful vibe here, but doubtlessly you’ve heard about this:
http://www.adn.com/2010/10/10/1495235/two-charged-in-homeless-camp-killing.html#disqus_thread
I heard about it listening to Shannyn Moore’s podcast, and I’m sure that I’ll have nightmares about this.
I know that a lot of these homeless guys can less than attractive to be around. Still, the brutality of this murder and the fact that many homeless have been killed in Anchorage in the past year has got to creep everyone out.
An old I Love Lucy line. They were on a radio quiz show, and Lucy thought she had swiped the answers and then memorized them:
“Why did the French send Marie Antoinette to the sharp blade of the guillotine?” “To scrape the barnacles off her hull!”
I didn’t see any barnacles, but I did see 8 trumpeter swans and 21 mallards at Potter Marsh today. Go see them before they fly to Jamaica for the winter!
I’m off to bed…..I can’t take any more from the idiot from alaska.
I can’t believe the hate coming from palin and her followers about President Obama and his wife along with Katie C. You would think palin would be over her losing the election and God closing the door in her face but it seems she is not.Here’s hoping God slams another door closed for her LOL
She must relive that campaign all day long and all the stupid, mean, and classless things she said. Joe the plumber?? lol talk about resurrecting someone.
During the 2008 campaign, my beloved tortoiseshell cat, Vicki, developed a brain tumor. I know that I was an idiot for keeping her alive for a few months, but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I’d just feed her phenobarbitol and nurse her. Anyway, one night, I was listening to CSPAN radio and they started broadcasting a Palin speech.
I was going to switch the station, but then I thought: “Don’t be closed-minded. You need to listen to the other side even if you’ll never agree with them.”
Five minutes into the Palin speech poor Vicki let out a terrible, painful howl, which I’d never heard from her before or since. I figured that was it. Time to turn off the Palin speech!!!!
I am so mad that she mentioned Pat Tillman in a speech. How dare she!
I know, she babbled on mindlessly, like she didn’t have a clue he was killed by friendly fire. The parents’ eyes must have bugged out when they saw her “use” him like that.
I believe that this link has been posted before but it’s still worth a watch:
Sarah Palin’s Mama Grizzlies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXwzm8Tdmc&feature=player_embedded
That’s just to prove that white women can be just as stupid as white men. Right? Oh, and that we always have a token minority. (I’m a white woman.)
If you feel the need for a little more zen, check out the website of wildlife photographer Florian Schulz. He and his wife Emil did a presentation several days ago at the Rochester School for the Deaf and I was able to attend. His photographs and videos are simply stunning, and range from caribou migration to polar bears to humpback whales…and everything in between!
He has become very involved in using his work to promote conservation and the development of wildlife corridors, particularly in the Rockies. Much of his photography was done in Alaska and Yellowstone, and he also followed whales all the way down to Baja California. He’s now working on a new project documenting wildlife in the Arctic to protest oil drilling in the fragile Arctic ecosystem. Some of his video was even used during the 2008 presidential campaign! Enjoy!!
http://www.visionsofthewild.com/
Palin’s nastiness is given its due credit:
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/sarah_palin/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/feature/2010/10/16/palin
Her later pictures–and it can be hard to identify them–show an aging woman. I’m older than she is by a lot of years. She’s beginning to look my age, and not aging gracefully by any means. What will she depend on when her looks are gone? And will Todd take the money and run? Seriously. If their relationship is based on, “Have you seen Todd?” “Have you seen Sarah?” There’s not much time left on this meter.
“not aging gracefully by any means”
Anger, hate and jealousy will do that to you.
Not only does it sound like their relationship is built on that flimsy base, but her entire career depends on her looks and sex appeal. If the political career is going down in flames (which it appears to be), her only hope of making the big bucks she’s become accustomed to is television – which is notoriously cruel to women over 40. Since Fox seems to be even more focused on hiring cookie-cutter blondes with great figures and no flaws, her future seems particularly limited with them. No other network would hire her, so her options are becoming ominously narrowed.
Just wait and see what a couple of years of wallowing in obscurity does to her looks and her temperment.
Well if you are drinking Baileys for breakfast, you are in all sorts of trouble.
In those pictures with O’Donnell, Palin looks like gramma grizzly in comparison.
She’s looking matronly, especially in comparison to O’Donnell. Yep, the matron grizzly, the head of her pack and lookin’ it.
Considering there is only a 5 year age difference between the witch from the east and the witch from the north, side by side pictures truly do show a much older looking Palin.
Guess what Tea Party folks and Rethugs? Dems and progressives can get angry and turn out the vote also. Angry at the gross economic inequities in this country and having no interest in going backwards and making that worse! Angry at rising health care costs, rising populations of uninsured, rising unemployment and having no interest in going backwards and making it worse. Angry and ready to keep moving things forward, and not by baby steps anymore, but by some real change. Angry and ready to turn out the vote. Angry and totally proud to vote for Democrats–across the slate, across the country.
Oh, and we can get there, while zenning out on those barnacles also. Peace and activism are totally compatible.
LOVE the picture AKM! I remember the first time I saw a rock like this just underwater off Lopez Island and I saw the barnacle open and a feathery thing come out and wave around in the water. I was totally entranced and decided that I wanted to work in some way with the oceans, so I decided I would be an icthyologist and work in the warm south seas. While I did not grow up and become an icthyologist, I remain fascinated by, and in love with, all things oceanic.
Thanks for dredging up this memory.
I grew up on a small island next to Lopez. I played with baby crabs and jellyfish in the tidepools since I can remember. We, as kids found them fascinating. Every tide brought more treasures to our beach.
Thanks for the moment of Zen, AKM
What a glorious set of islands off the BC and WA coasts! My heart belongs to Lopez, but unfortunately, most of the land that our family owned has since been sold and I no longer have a base there. This was such a magical place every summer for us kids. I loved it.
Here’s a positive note about our Democratic LtGov candidate – who is actually and truly fiscally conservative in her real-life. Diane Benson:
http://www.adn.com/2010/10/15/1504168/benson-hauls-her-own-dirt-lives.html
So – Diane Benson raised a combat vet and is not shouting it from the rooftops? She can live well on under $20 million a year? I would love to see her elected.
Me too – already voted for her!
My apologies to Lewis Carroll, my muse for the day. From “Father William”
You are old, Sarah Palin
”You are old, Sarah Palin,” the young child said,
”And your hair has become very colored;
And yet you incessantly call Reagan from the dead
Do you think that’s OK for a dullard?
”In my youth,” Sarah Palin replied to her clan,
”I feared Reaganomics a bane;
But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have mine,
Why, I tout it again and again.”
”You are old,” said the Todd, “as k
ids mentioned before,
And you have grown cellulite fat;
Yet you wore shorts and a T-shirt at the Hawaiian shore;
Pray what was the reason for that?
“ ”In my youth,” she raged, as she shook her bumpit locks,
“I kept myself always in trouble
I was a mean girl as well as a jock;
I never was known for subtle.”
”You are old,” said the kids, “and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than speaking;
Still, people walk out, you say they have cheek;
Pray, how did you keep from freaking?”
”In my youth,” said Ms. Palin, “I took to no law,
And ignored ethics complaints from the right;
And the muscular strength, from clenching my jaw,
Has seen me through all of that strife.”
”You are old,” said the public, “one would hardly suppose
That your looks are as good as ever;
Yet you avoid mainstream media and turn up your nose;
What made you say “Interviews Never!””
“I’ll answer questions when Couric’s in the buff,”
Said Sarah. “Don’t give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs.
I think Carroll would wholeheartedly approve!
And , personally, I very much enjoy the words, “dullard” and “Palin” , coexisting.
I would love to hear what Nancy Reagan thinks of Palin!
Does “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” decision ring a bell Buffalogal?
I SOOO hope that the next Congress passes some legislation that requires disclosure of all donors. This fundraising stuff is getting truly scary when you think about how corporations are essentially choosing our leaders…and doing it in complete secret.
Agreed. For all the things we’re recently learning about how things are played out in the deep background ….I’m afraid to even think about everything that we’ll never know about and how it impacts our lives.
To me that is just one more very important reason to vote your values and stop coporations from taking over our country
AKM…thank you for a morning of serene thought. i have things to do but there is the new Dana Stabenow ‘Kate Shugat’ novel calling to me. wanting me to pick it up; and open it.
it seems the beloved Park is changing a bit. there is a mine involved in there too. also.
maybe i ‘ll just make a nice pot of tea. toast an english muffin and put a pat of butter (unsalted) on each half and a bit of that raspberry rhubarb jam i bought from that farm last summer…..*
note to Stabenow: “wassamatter you!!!????” you didn’t tell us about the new book.
Speaking of Stabenow, has anyone heard any updates about the television show?
New book is out in February!
Joan Walsh has a very good piece in Salon. Well worth the read, and the video with Chris Matthews at the end should not be missed either.
“At her San Jose event she played off the First Lady’s much maligned (and misunderstood) statement, “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country, because it seems hope is making a comeback.” Palin said, with her trademark tortured syntax: “You know when I hear people say or had said during the campaign that they’ve never been proud of America until that time I think haven’t they met anyone in uniform yet?”
Of course that’s not what Michelle Obama said, but beyond that typical Palin mangling of the truth, let’s examine the utter classlessness of her remarks. She’s a leading if undeclared contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012; in many ways comparable to Sen. Barack Obama in 2006. Can anyone imagine Obama mocking Laura Bush for something she might have said on the campaign trail two years earlier? ”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/feature/2010/10/16/palin/
O’Donnell raises $3.8mil in the last month- only 1.3% of that came from Delawareans
http://is.gd/g4seY
***** Her report showed that just 1.3 percent of her contributions from individuals — $47,361 out of $3.7 million — came from Delawareans. She also received about $52,000 from political action committees, including PACs run by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the National Rifle Association, the conservative advocacy group Citizens United and other conservative groups.*****
So where did the rest come from?? $3 million came from individuals outside of Delaware ? Just plain ol’ patriotic ‘murkins , over the course of a month ??
Haven’t you been paying attention? It came from Sean Hannity’s back pocket!
This needs to be plublished in every paper and TV station in the State of Delaware with a big question WHY???? A Wake-up Call!!!
This is why she answered the debate question about transparency the way she did. She doesn’t want anyone to know where the money is coming from.
Sorry to disturb the zen aura of this thread, but, in this crazy political year, ducky pajamas trump barnacles.
Republican Blake Farenthold is running for a state House seat in Texas and was photographed in blue pajamas covered in little yellow duckies, posing with a bleached blonde woman in lingerie. Bad enough that he actually wore that outfit outside of a bedroom, but to pose with someone in her underwear and willingly HAVE A PHOTO TAKEN…it just boggles the mind!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/16/blake-farenthold-pictures_n_764685.html
Well, how could you not love little yellow duckies?
and how could you not laugh! Thanks for brightening my morning!
And thank you to AKM for barnacle zen.
Enjoy the transition from one adventure to the next, AKM!
Here’s Ernie and Rubber Duckie on YouTube. He’s much more mature than that congressional candidate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf9d7rSf_Ks
Now THAT’S a ducky that will bring you sweet dreams!
If you like your Ernie and Rubber Duckie with a little eye candy, check out this video of the yellow guy (complete with red beret) ‘directing’ Ernie and Liam Neeson reciting the alphabet.
Gotta love a 6’4″ Academy-award-winning actor who can look good performing with a terry cloth puppet and rubber bath toy! 🙂
Palin endorsed him in a list on her FB page a few days ago.
Zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zen, zzzzzzeeeeennnnnnnnnnn.
Been reading a bunch of political blogs before I saw the Moment of Zen.
I could feel my body relax.
Thanks AKM!
This was too funny not to post.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/archives/224944.asp
Th Ho should have added: “Although most of my best customers are Republicans.”
Parker has a decent column today in the Post discussing the strange political times we’re seeing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101504708.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
I especially liked these paragraphs:
“Coons’s palpable uneasiness doubtless was owing equally to his contempt for her shallow knowledge and to his inability to challenge her without seeming like a bully. Instead, he seemed merely condescending and snarky. If the witch and the Marxist were a wash, the Everyday American triumphed over the elite.
“Ditto the scene in Las Vegas Thursday night, where Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle managed to hold her own against Harry Reid. Of course, to be fair, all Angle and O’Donnell had to do was not be weird — hardly a high bar for public office. ”
I watched a bit of the Delaware debate and was impressed with Coons. He is amazingly knowledgeable and exhibited more restraint than I would have. I thought that he had clearly won the debate so was shocked at the comments I have read about his lack of charm and obvious frustration with his opponent. I have also read that “she held her own”. OY! It was the Palin/Biden debate all over again, whereby all O’Donnell needed to do was not faint, run or throw up and it could be considered a win for her. What has happened in America?!
I watched that debate and O’Donnell made all kinds of stupid faces, and shook her head all the time Coons spoke. After O’Donnell spoke on an issue, he told Wolf he didn’t know how he could respond to her remarks. At one point, he said it took 2 mins to know what she was talking about.
I sometime would compare this to the Spitzer (sp?) Parker show on CNN. He is sooooo intelligent and she just tags along.
That’s my verdict on the Parker Spitzer show too, they need a divorce and she needs a program about women in the home, something like that. Much like Morning Joe, the “girl” is there for some vapid girlishness. Spitzer is fantastic, between him and Dylan Ratigan I’ve learned more about the financial mess than from any other source. I really couldn’t care any less about who he’s been in the hay with. Since this is an open thread, is anyone besides me getting tired of hearing from that woman from Huffpo that has the Babawawa voice? Ariana huffington, I guess her name is. I turn her off.
I’m sick of her. I have been trying to comment on the Geoffrey Dunn thread a couple of times today over at HP. None of my comments are showing up and a lot of others are complaining about the heavy handed moderation. It is just not possible to converse over there.
I will never again complain about AKM’s spam filter.
Thanks AKM for providing this place of sanity and good luck with your last day in the store.
I agree w/you! I’ve grown terribly tired of her too and have disagreed on some of the positions she has taken. My disagreements w/her are on the increase which has caused me to switch channels when I see her sitting on a panel.
She used to be a Newt Gingrich supporter, a RW republican.
Yep, she was married to a really rich R and he ran for I think Gov or Senator here in CA. They ended up getting a divorce when he came out of the closet but she got a real taste for politics. Somewhere along the line she decided from her Santa Barbara mansion she was liberal. She is one smart cookie but I think a lot of her positions are clouded. I also can’t stand her voice, just to whiney with the Zsa Zsa accent.
a-HEM ! 🙂 That’s a GREEK accent, not Hungarian …as like all Greeks, we have a taste for politics… ( yup, 1/2 greek here ! the rest is Heinz 57 ! 🙂 )
I think the men candidates are afraid of being accused of not being “gentlemen” with the women. The women know this and are trying to use it to their benefit. The women are trying to push buttons, and the men are being too careful in not pushing back.
Yes, the press is just waiting to jump on a man that replies “hey lets leave the sexism out”, or anything else that even acknowledges it. There is no reply that won’t look weak. Best to ignore it, and say, back to your statement that you have “classified information” about China planning to take over the US, can you produce that proof for us, and where is your security clearance?
Agreed. And the media, I think, has taken the cue — they let female candidates [and candidate wanna-bes (cough – $Palin – cough) ] get away with all manner of chit.
The *only* reason O’Donnell is getting any negative press is because Bill Mahr personally has video of her and he keeps posting it. ‘Media’, itself, is too “in lurve” with the females to act; being afraid they’ll be accused of sexism, or of being mean, or for whatever reason, they are gonad-less when it comes to exposing the female’s bs. Or maybe media is just too lazy to bother fact-checking.
Had $P (or Bachmann, Angle, etal) been a male, she’d have been smacked down, hard!, ages ago…she’d never have made it out of the starting gate. beth.
Yes, this was an advantage when I was a kid. I was the only girl living on my street which was rural and a dead end. The boys teased me unmercifully. I decided I wasn’t going to take it and the next time a boy started in, I took him on. I figured I couldn’t lose. If I lost the fight, he’d only beaten a girl and he’d picked a fight with a girl. Looser. If I won, well, he’d lost to a girl. Looser. I won. After that, I always picked fights I knew I could win, and I did. The boys left me alone after about a month, and everyone around school knew I’d whipped their bony behinds.
That was nice for me, but when we get to political debates, we aren’t talking physical superiority. We’re talking about whether you know what you’re talking about. That’s one thing I like about Hillary. The press may have been hard on her, using a double standard about hair and clothes and so on, but she never ever looked for a double standard when they evaluated her understanding. She stood her own and more so.
I think it was the same with palin in the VP debates.Everyone did not want to seem to be a bully and palin sure would have and did use it to her benefit even though IMO she was the bully.She has turned me off of any republican and it may be forever.
After watching the Coons – ODonnell debate, Coons was the blowout winner. There was no uneasiness in Coons’ demeanor at all. The debate was strongly asymmetric, with an informed and experienced elected official debating an uninformed and inexperienced airhead. As a public interview for the Senate job, Coons far and away won the contest. If ODonnell is the cultural champion of the Tea Party movement, then they are not going to be around long.
The civil rights movement in America is winning. Political power is being redistributed more fairly, to all cultures. Our democracy is working. Some pundits call this a, “growing cultural divide.” Wrong. The cultural divide is diminishing as whites share power. The Tea Party is a last gasp of noise, and then it will be gone.
Palin “won” her debate with Biden, because she didn’t throw up, and she said she wasn’t gonna answer any of them stupid questions, anyway. Paraphrased. Angle and Odonnell had their republican talking points all ready “man up”…..to which no man can fight back without saying hey you stupid b itch. During the primaries, O’Donnells staff put out a rumor that Castle was gay, and then O’Donnell denied saying it, over and over, just so the subject would come up. At the same time she publicly said that it wasn’t a “bake off” and to put his man pants on.
It’s just so sleazy, and Palin is the queen of sleaze, with her remark in Spanish as though she ever took a foreign language except for English.
Back to barnacles….I remember a little boy that always told me he walked on the dock and saw the “bonkanels”.
Weren’t they supposed to be where geese hid out in the winter, something like that?
I wish Coons had pressed O’Donnell more on the AAA bonds issue. It was clear she didn’t know squat about this.
Found on reddit.
$18 million library expansion proposal is up for a vote in my county and I see this in a neighbors yard…
submitted 11 hours ago by PSUGorilla
http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/huskerpower02/libarry.jpg
That is the town where we lived in Kansas! Not a surprise. Very town/gown.
OH——-that is sooooooo funny!!!!!
OMG… that is just ….. their are no werds for it. And you know that is the way they achally “say” the werd Libarry. I bet they say “irregardless”, too. Oh wait, that are to many sillables.
Ouch, it hurts my brain to misspell. 😉
Apparently the homeowner has never been in one (a library) just ignorant and proud of it.
Sadly, the principal of my school also pronounces it “li-berry”. I cringe every time she says it over the PA system, especially when there are parents in the building.
Sigh…
Years ago, my son’s 3rd grade teacher mispronounced the library word, and the class in unison loudly corrected her. I know this because the teacher told me and was proud of the class. The teacher (really good math motivator, excellent with the children and honest) had been mispronouncing the correctly spelled word all her life (regional?)..
We live and we grow. Many of us do and will continue to do so because when given the opportunity, we stand corrected. Hooray for good parents, excellent teachers, and wonderful librarians.
I think your neighbor got the message across very succinctly.
A friend of mine was told by a student’s parent that “…it’s called a lie-barry ’cause that’s where those librul elites bury all their lies! ” Friend got out the dictionary and pointed out the correct spelling and the etymology but parent could not have cared less. Some folks are just proud of teh stupid.
Oy, vey!
Sometimes people surprise you–Jesse Ventura speaks his mind about Palin:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/16/jesse-ventura-sarah-palin_n_764658.html
I saw that – and I couldn’t have said it better. Wish others would speak up and say the same!!
Thanks for posting so others can see.
Jesse always speaks his mind—–what I love about him. He was on the Joy Behare (sp?) show and also on Cnn . He talked about Tim McVey being Christian and no complaints about building a Christian church in Okla.near the Federal building site.
That’s what we are reduced to? Can’t we just put her away somewhere? Perhaps some of the other names will step up, I can’t believe I’m saying this. we must get her off the field.
You know, we might just get rid of her if she had to pay her own way instead of being allowed to run all her horsepunky in the free-ads section.
Any ideas how to do that?
She’s has dodged the larger press at every turn… how can we make that end…?
Morning all !
Question for those who know have posted to You Tube – Can someone tell me how to get this over there ?
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7358405/
It’s the animated tea party news clip that I posted yesterday but I’m clueless about how to transfer it.
Re: barnacles – I look at that and see many teeny faces peering out in to the world. There’s a children’s book in there somewhere.
Jimzmum – is this the closing weekend of AKM’s store ?
I am fairly certain it is. Of course, my brain is on drugs, so it could be in March!
it is the closing weekend…i have a feeling we won’t be hearing from akm for a bit
I love looking at barnacles. I never knew quite what they were till we moved to the Puget Sound and saw them up close in a tide pool at the beach. Never knew what a tide pool was either, when I lived in Kansas.
And now I’ll go back to zenning with Martha UYS. Nice.
When we moved to Kansas (!) from NJ, our youngest child, six at the time, looked at the lake as we walked her to school and announced, “Tide’s in. No crabbing till after school.”
Aren’t barnacles the neatest things? Thank you, AKM. You’ve given me a picture of a memory.
I do hope you know how we are all thinking of you this weekend. Wherever your new path may lead, I hope it is filled with joy, wonder, and peace.
Great story.
I love that little story!
I grew up on the Puget Sound – love barnacles, even though they are sharp, foot-cutting little bastards. In the photo above, it looks like a grouping of some kind of tiny flowers – very beautiful. the best is squatting down when the tide’s just washing over them, and watching their little shells open so they can reach out and feed. Wow. Brings back memories. There are no barnacles in the Willamette Valley *sigh* but thanks for the reminder to do some close-up watching next time I’m at the coast.
I’d llike to take a walk in the woods with my friends. Up from the beach, secure in the trees. Home.
Thanx, nem
No comment. I’m zenning.