“Dave, parenting is something you can learn as you experience it; like riding a bike, or like filing a restraining order against a crazy aunt.”

Link of the Day [9.11.12]

On this, the 11th anniversary of a terrible, terrible day, remember as you go to vote that it was a Republican president who ignored the warnings. It could've been stopped. It wasn't stopped because Bush was president. How much longer must you vote Republican before you realize that that party needs to be dissolved? They're evil and they lie; they have no business receiving your vote. None. Nada. Zip. They bungled the 00s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?smid=pl-share

Link of the Day [8.25.12]

I’m currently on a Yasujiro Ozu kick, because, in reality, I’m on a Setsuko Hara kick. I’ve finished up his and her collaboration in the Noriko “trilogy,” Late Spring, Early Summer, and Tokyo Story. I find that Late Spring is the best of the three, and that Early Summer is a comedy.

I’m slowly tracking down Ozu’s films from Criterion looking for that Eclipse box set with late Ozu and a mature Hara. She’s also in a couple of Kurosawa films also in an Eclipse box set.

Hara is especially fascinating. She’s still alive and was the model for the Satoshi Kon’s Millenium Actress. I need to catch more of her films.

http://www.criterion.com/people/2737-setsuko-hara

Link and Quote of the Day [6.07.12]

"No other object has been misidentified as a flying saucer more often than the planet Venus. Even the former leader of your United States of America, James Earl Carter, Jr., thought he saw a UFO once, but it's been proven he only saw the planet Venus.

Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus, but I assure you: it was Venus."

Man In Black (Jesse "The Body" Ventura), The X-Files, "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'"

NASA's gallery of the transit of Venus across the Sun from the the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Whoa! Breathtaking.

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10996