Voted Off the Island

Veepstakes: Palin vs. Biden

Woo hoo!  McCain picked a woman with less experience than Obama as his VEEP.   I cannot wait to see Sarah Palin debate Joe Biden on foreign policy. . . or anything for that matter.  Go read what Daily Kos has dug up on her.  Bring it on!

One more thing:  Sarah Palin and Tina Fey...switched at birth?  SNL is going to be worth watching just for Tina's inevitable Palin parodies.

Brian Schweitzer Rocks Denver

Let the mainstream media analyze Hillary's speech all they want.  Me, I'm googling Brian Schweitzer.  I want to know more about this guy who's the Democratic Governor of Montana and has a 70% approval rating.

Brian who?  Montana has a Democratic Governor?  Have we all been asleep or living under a rock. Apparently so. Frankly I thought Mark Warner was a snooze as keynoter last night.  But Brian Schweitzer,  he rocked the arena.  This guy is a natural communicator and man can he connect with a crowd. He had them on their feet. Watch.

And it gets better.  They guy never held public office before becoming governor of Montana.  He's the grandson of Montana homesteaders.  He's such a man of the soil he actually has a Masters in Soil Science! He speaks Arabic...after overseeing the building of irrigation projects in the Middle East and the construction of the world's largest dairy farm in Saudi Arabia.

Under Governor Schweitzer, Montana :
• Created more jobs at higher wages than anytime in history.
• Cut more taxes for more Montanans than any other time in the state’s history, including a $400 rebate to Montana homeowners.
• Increased Montana’s electrical generation capacity more during his administration than the previous 16 years combined where the state is one of only two states in the country to have increased oil production; in fact it’s up by 50%.
• Invested more in both K-12 and higher education than any previous administration – while also capping tuition at our state’s colleges and universities, the first such effort in a generation.
• Increased the number of children on the Children’s Health Insurance Program by more than 3,000 now providing quality healthcare to more than 16,000 kids and giving the future a healthy start in life.
• Montana’s bond rating has been upgraded for the first time in 26 years with Moody’s, Fitch and Standard and Poor’s Investment Services – a sign of sound fiscal management in state government.

In 2004 we first heard from a candidate for U.S. Senate named Barack Obama.  In 2008 the "it" guy of the Democratic Convention has to be Brian Schweitzer.

I Heart Beacon, NY

To think that I almost didn't go.  It would have been so easy to just jump in the rental car last week and head straight up the Thruway to Blue Mountain Lake, NY where turkey, mashed potatoes, a big glass of wine and my family were waiting. But instead I took the road less traveled thinking, 'what the heck, there are no pesky children or moody ex husbands in this car,' so why NOT drive across the Beacon-Newburgh Bridge and visit the Dia Museum in Beacon, NY. 

I'm so glad I did.  Dia Beacon is the finest setting for modern art I've ever seen.  And that includes MOMA, The Guggenheim, and Mass MOCA. What makes this museum so stupendous is that so many of the art installations were created for the space, not shoe-horned into it.  It just works beautifully.

Donald Judd boxes let you walk around, peer inside, and experience the
endless ways a plywood cube can be fashioned

Dan Flavin light sculptures are showcased in this gallery

Andy Warhol's "Shadows" takes up a gigantic room with comfy couches
so you can sit and take it in s l o w l y

The Dia Beacon  space is an old Nabisco packaging plant on the banks of the Hudson River. 

Built in 1929 by Nabisco (National Biscuit Company), the historic steel, concrete, and glass factory building, designed by Nabisco’s staff architect Louis N. Wirshing, Jr., is a model of early-twentieth-century industrial architecture. Its most recent owner, International Paper, donated the building to Dia in 1999. The design elements that advanced the work of the factory also create an outstanding environment for viewing works of contemporary art. These elements include broad spans between supporting columns and more than 34,000 square feet of skylights, which introduce exceptional amounts of reflected north light. At Dia’s instigation, the building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The museum is literally a 5 minute walk from the Beacon train station, which is only 1.5 hours north of New York City.  Having lived in the river town Croton-on-Hudson and commuted daily into NYC, I can tell you that the ride is gorgeous and thrilling in every season and that I never tired of it. The trip to Beacon takes you even further north, where the real beauty of the river unfolds.

When you get to Beacon, there's another surprise -- downtown Beacon, also a 5 minute walk from the train station, has come back from the dead. It's practically Woodstocky...yet so much easier to get to and enjoy than the iconic Catskills town. 

   Beacon, NY in the fall

For most of the last 40 years, Beacon was an impoverished river town, famous for being the home of Pete Seeger and home port of the Sloop Clearwater.  The Dia Museum has accelerated the gentrification and renewal of the city.  Main Street now has shops and galleries and eateries and a vibrant street life. It's a place that's definitely on its way back to health and definitely worth a visit, even a weekend.

UPDATE ON DIA BEACON

McCain A "Kept" Man?

It's getting ugly out there.  In today's Salon, Glenn Greenwald recalls the right wing's attacks on John Kerry as a "kept man" and using their own gutter talk, brands McCain a gigolo who lives on his second wife's money after dumping his first wife.

"What's most notable about John McCain's confusion over the number of homes he owns isn't merely that it demonstrates that, after running his campaign based on depicting Barack Obama as an out-of-touch elitist and himself as the all-American Everyman, McCain lives a life that is about as far removed from the Average American as one can get, and has done so for decades. What's notable is how McCain was able to live that way. McCain himself isn't actually rich. He just lives off the inherited wealth of his much younger, former mistress and now-second-wife -- for whom he dumped his older and disfigured first wife -- and who then used her family's money to fund his political career and keep him living in extreme luxury (while insisting that he sign a prenuptial agreement, which would make McCain the first U.S. President to have one).

Obama jumps on the "how many houses do you own, Mr. McCain" debacle.

Campaigning in Chester, Va., Obama said: “I guess if you think being rich means you’ve got to make $5 million and if you don’t know how many houses you have, it’s not surprising you might think the economy is fundamentally strong.” He returned to the McCain remark later, saying of teachers: “Most teachers hold themselves accountable. They didn’t go into teaching to make money. They don’t have seven houses.”

The DNC hustles out the "Luxury Real Estate Guide"

McCain fires back with this tv ad on Obama's "Housing Problem"

Is this what it takes to win the presidency? 

Goodnight Bush

       

         

I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry when reading this wickedly brilliant -- and unauthorized -- parody of the children's classic Goodnight Moon.  You can have a look inside at the official website.  If you can wrap your mind around the idea that the horrors of the Bush years could be rendered "poetically" this is the book that does it.  It turns something truly cherished into something very very dark.

   

In a Newsweek interview, author Erich Origen said:  ...from our experience, the people who are the biggest fans of "Goodnight Bush" are actually the fans of "Goodnight Moon." Because the more you understand and know that book, the more you get what's going on in "Goodnight Bush."

         

 

       

      

              

Hemlock Hall

I am counting down the days, and very soon I will be at Hemlock Hall in the Adirondack Mountain hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake, New York where the current temperature is a blissful 72 degrees.  It's 97 in Atlanta and thoroughly disgusting.  I'll be vacationing with my Mom, Dad and sister and our "Blue Mountain Family" -- the constellation of other families who always choose the same week in August to gather here. 

This will be, I think, my 13th time at Hemlock Hall and my parents' 16th.  I skipped a few years since moving to Atlanta. But August in Blue Mountain Lake is the beautiful way my family has always ended the summer and braced for the madness that is early fall.

What you see above is the main house at Hemlock Hall, where guests sit and rock on Adirondack rockers, where games are played at night, where young children compete for a chance to ring the bell that summons guests to breakfast and dinner.  The rest of the "resort" consists of individual cabins strung out along a hillside overlooking a pristine lake, an apartment above the boathouse, and a couple of so-called "motel units."   

    
Cottages                                                  Motels

We keep returning to this place as our families grow and change.  Babies become toddlers, children become teenagers, and so on.  Engagements are made, marriages are made and marriages end.  People are born and people die.  But the menu here and the pace here stays just about the same. Wednesday's chicken and biscuits is legendary.

Here's a typical guest review of the place.

Family #1:  "Hemlock Hall is not just a place, it is a state of mind. It is a return to an earlier era where simple pleasures and activities such as Hiking, Kayaking, swimming or just reading a book mark the passage of time punctuated by the ringing of the dinner bell. The hike to Castle Rock is a right of passage. While not luxurious, it is lovingly maintained. Everything is absolutely unchanged for decades, including the weekly menu. No stress, no decisions, no dinner reservations, meals are served family style, and seating is rotated among the tables to make sure everyone meets everyone else. By the end of your stay, everyone feels like an old friend. There are no phones, TV’s, computers or video games, a healthy thing for overly wired kids. The 100+ year old manor house with a stone fireplace sits up on a hill overlooking the Lake and the grounds are wooded and beautiful. In the evenings, board games are played while Paul invites the little kids to help him bake bread. Something as simple as cookie night becomes an event. This is a very rare and special place."

Family #2:  "Our family had been going to Hemlock Hall for 15+ years, but life got in the way, and we haven't been since the summer of 2001 (I can't believe it's been that long!) and we are planning a trip for our usual week (the 3rd week of July) in 2008!!! Extra kids in tow (alot can happen in 6 years) will absolutely LOVE it there! It says so much about the people and property that 3 generations can find things to do, together or apart. Here it is August of 2007 and we are already excitedly awaiting the hike to Castle Rock, the rope swing (hope it's still there), the Sandy Beach, pre-breakfast swim (at least for me!), etc. We hope the people we remember are still going and ready for a game of Trivial Pursuit! Everything about Hemlock Hall is a fond memory for us - the place, people, staff, food, etc."

View from Water's Edge...the best cottage at Hemlock Hall.  Many happy hours and many games of Boggle happened here.  We miss Bob Altshuler especially this summer.

Project Runway - Season 5

Well, I was going to weigh in on Project Runway Season 5, but why even bother when BlogHer's own Kristy of She Just Walks Around With It, has nailed the show's mediocrity so completely in this post about episode 3, the Bus Tour.

I started this season with high hopes.  Now, 4 episodes in, I'm bored to tears.  Korto's winning design on the Olympics Challenge was a good call, but some of the crap that came down the runway was just fugly.

Holla back at me if you seriously disagree.  This season absolutely makes you yearn for Chris March, Rami, Christian and Elisa. 

Korto's Winning Design
Season 5, episode 4

Marketing Run Amok

Some days I miss the ad biz.  Some days not so much.  Some days even the non-profit sector goes a little nutty.

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