Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Knitting Friday

 

A short, late post because this is the first day all week I've been able to get anything done. Just got back from food shopping; never shop at lunch time, ever. 

 

Little body, big head, sick dog

First to report: Miss L is much, much better. As a dog, she lasted a day without any food and then a day of weaning back to regular food much better than most humans would.

 

The picture on the right was taken during her illness in the "starving" phase. She looks so bedraggled which only a picture shows since she was really happier and perkier than she looks.

 

I finally added two new projects to my knitting library. One is a top-down lace sweater made from two strands of crochet cotton. I had used this yarn to make two summer shawls I adore. I wore one today in 96F outdoor weather and it was perfect in the freezer sections of the grocery. Pictures next week.

The color isn't as bad as it looks.

The picture for this Friday is a light green?, yellow green?, puke green? top-down (can I really knit any other kind of top?) summer shell.

 

I had originally planned to work the entire shell in the beginning lace stitch (which is a simple one row of *yo, sk2p, yo, k3*, second row of K, third row of *k3, yo, sk2p, yo* and a fourth row of K.) It's a 6 stitch pattern but you could work the lace rows in *yo, K2tog, K3* instead of *yo, sk2p, yo, K3*. Just as long as you work lace stitch - K3 - lace stitch - K3 across the row and remember your pattern stitch is 5x sts, not 6x sts now.

Inquiring minds may wonder why I have a pattern of 20 rows of lace, then 5 rows of K throughout the shell instead of my first plan.

 

Well, I got to the underarms where you had to bind off for the top of the arm and cast on for the underarm and discovered that, although I had been working with a multiple of 6 sts throughout, to keep in the continuity of the pattern, I would have to CO 12 sts for one underarm and then CO 9 sts for the other one. Talk about crop circles! How could that be? I checked and rechecked; I counted once, then I counted again correctly, then again a third time either correctly or not since I was too math tired to care by then.

 

I'm grousing for a reason because I was faced with ripping back to the collar and working a different lace. This is problems tons of knitters face every day and in the past I would have just frogged the damn thing. But I didn't, and you shouldn't get discouraged with your work. Before you frog, which is the point of no return, see if you can modify your pattern to incorporate your problem. That's what I did. I knew that if I started working in stockinette, I could CO the same amount of stitches for each underarm. I also knew that I had checked my gauge for the lace stitch, and not stockinette. So if I continued in stockinette in the body I would have a tighter (unwearable?) sweater.

 

Here's my solution: I had worked the beginning lace pattern for 19 rows to just before the bind off for the top of the arm. I bound off the stitches there with a K row (Row 20). Then I upped my needles to US 10.5 and worked 5 rows of stockinette starting with the CO row for each underarm. (I CO 12 stitches for each underarm.) After 5 stockinette rows, I switched back to US 10 and worked 20 rows in the lace pattern. I'll do this (20-5-20-5-20) to the hem and I think I'll be able to conquer that pesky underarm CO problem with a slightly different pattern. So don't get discouraged when you come across problems like the weird one I had. You may have to think out of the box but a knitting solution is usually available.

Another tip I discovered the hard way: some lace stitches are counter-intuitive and for me sk2p is one of those. Sk2p is slip 1 K, K2tog, pass the slip stitch over the k2tog. You decrease two stitches this way but the one YO on each side of the sk2p bring you back to your original count. But while I almost always work *YO, K2tog* correctly, I would work sk2p and then forget to pass the slipped st over the k2tog at least once a lace row. I'm finally checking each row which is cumbersome. But don't be afraid to modify your lace pattern. You just have to keep the same stitch count and with sharp lace needles, a K3tog will get you the same results as sk2p with half the angst.

OK, we're heading into a heat wave in NJ. Hosing downs of Miss L are in the near future. See you next week. I'm thinking about a crochet KAL. It would be a top-down summer shell (how original!) but I'd like to see if I could duplicate the knitted look. After all, while I love knitting, fixing mistakes are such a breeze in crochet. Happy knitting.

 

 

  

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Website Wednesday

 

I'm sick

Sorry there was no Movie Monday but Miss L is one sick puppy. First, we thought she ate something during the softball tournament on Sunday since this breed eats everything. But she just got progressively worse (doggie trots) the further we got from that day. I've been making rice by the ton and she's been wolfing it down. (Now, on one of my many forays into diet land I did some research and rice, even brown rice, is really not a nutritious food.) So here's this poor puppy getting bulk but nothing else. By Monday evening we had decided to give it one more night. That didn't work well since the dawn brought another hosing down of her and her cage. Tuesday we called the Seeing Eye coordinator to get permission for the vet visit and she said bring her in because other puppies were having a similar problem. All of Tuesday it was 1/4 cup of rice every two hours so, by vet walk-in hours in the evening, she was perkier and a day-free of any pooping. Looking at her, I would have thought: She's on the mend, does she really need to see the vet? But dehydration can always be a hidden problem so off to the vet she went. And that was a shocker! She's not dehydrated but she's running a fever! Poor puppy! To top it all off, it's no food for her today. 

 

So look at the above paragraph as the "dog ate my homework" excuse. 

 

On to Website Wednesday:

 

http://websearch.about.com/od/booksandprintedmaterials/tp/Free-Textbooks-Online.htm 

 

OK, I know, it's summer time and the living is easy but I'm leading you to free textbooks on line. Why? Well, because the girl is just starting her AP English summer work with reading Plato's Allegory of the Cave (Can you believe that last year's summer reading for 8th grade Honors English was an Agatha Christie mystery?) and I'm getting the boy ready for some serious reading comprehension in the 6th grade (the 6th grade reading books are puerile but their comp questions are wicked.  It's like trying to pull a rose from a puddle of mud.) So I'm in the learning mode.

 

Free Textbooks-Online has links to 10 different sites. Forget site # 1, Google (Google Books was last week's pick.) and # 3 the MIT one, since they are their general sites and you have to find your way from there. Doable but work.

Site #4, Textbook Revolution, and # 7, Wiki Books, are slightly difficult to navigate but doable. Open Culture, Site #2, is easy to navigate but you'll find some dead links.

Flat World Knowledge, #5, took me three clicks to get to a British Lit book only to be told that it's not just published.

 

Site #6, Online Math Textbooks, is very good.  It looks like you have to register for #8, Free Digital Textbook Initiative and it seems more interested in setting out CA learning standards than books

 

Curriki, #9,touts itself as more than free textbooks but you have to register (free) and I just don't have the time right now.

 

 #10, Scribd (who puts these random letters together?) just takes you to an interesting blog with different articles, but clicking them or the link "books" sends you to a blank page.

OK, I did the math and that's all the ten sites. The referring site (the link above) is an About.com site. If you scroll to the bottom, you'll get more than textbook sites. There are links to the best sites for any free books online. and free educational videos online. About.com has always been a very reliable "workhorse" for reference in the internet community.

Now, I have to admit that my website pick may be quite specialized this week but I find it a lot of fun to click around for treasures and also duds. I have a feeling that the math selections are quite good but that's based on the fact that I have no idea what's written there.

Be sure to click all the links on these pages. For example, Open Culture has a sidebar with a treasure trove of all sorts of free books, films, courses, etc.

Hope you enjoy this pick. Gotta go and scritch the dog.

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

Knitting Friday

I have nothing! Whatever I promised for this Knitting Friday, I was a liar, liar, pants on fire. Because, for the first time in centuries, I have only 2 items OTN. One is a shawl design which I plan to stitch up into a shrug and the other is the prototype for a shrug, knitted arm to arm (first in the round, then flat for the back, then in the round for the other arm) without any cuff. Why no cuff? Here's a picture of a cuffed shrug:

fattening cuffs

I think cuffs grab me in such a way that my little, little arms look enormous. Which I find a mystery since I'm wearing a short-sleeved dress as I type and my arms look OK in it. So, I'm hoping that w/o a cuff, a shrug might work. Though I have my doubts because yesterday in the 106 degree heat I wore a sun dress and a shrug. Wow! Did that shrug "kill" the look! So I replaced it with a cotton thread black lace short shawl and it worked. That's why, right now, I'm thinking: Shrugs may not be your fashion statement. Why are you even wasting your time on a prototype?

birds getting along.

 

In keeping with having nothing, here's a random picture for you. In my walks, I usually see birds dive bombing each other. I don't mean the vultures and I see plenty of them, sometimes atop carrion. Vultures seem to get along surprisingly well. One munching away and another circling me ready to peck me to death if I approach. I mean little birds, chasing each other through the sky. Perhaps, it's bird tag to them; to me it looks like a death race. However, if you give them dual perches, the world is peachy for them.

And to continue my useless random thoughts, I awakened this morning with the thought: Why dinosaurs? I mean those suckers were huge. They had to eat and poop a ton. Yet they evolved into their largess, stayed around for a while, and then poof! They became extinct and we have never seen such huge creatures again, except some whales and the Loch Ness monster, of course. I know I'm way too old for a kid's interest in dinosaurs but I have this burning curiosity all of a sudden. Weird! Not the dinosaurs, the curiosity.

Finally in this "I got nothing" post, mea culpa for the lousy editing in some of my postings lately. My web host has added some really neat features; editing is not one of them. For example, because I use more than one computer for blog writing, "Normal" font can be tiny in one post, huge in another. Which surprises me because I use Word Publisher on different computers for my newsletter and the font size is always the same. Maybe this mystery, not dinosaurs, is the one I should be investigating. 

 

Also, I dread editing a post for spelling or syntax because the paragraph spacing automatically changes. They look fine in the edit mode but after I update and publish, the paragraphs congeal into one blog. Then I have to return to the edit mode and tap the Enter key 2xs (not the normal 1x) for each paragraph space.

 

Oh, the horror! A document which is not a WTSIWYG! I guess what I'm saying is that I'm leery about reopening a post for editing and sometimes it shows.

Gotta go so this blathering will stop. Happy knitting.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

Website Wednesday

(Edit: Looks like I spoke too quickly re: Google Books selections. The public domain books and magazines seem to be complete but copyrighted books, Five Little Monkeys....etc., are just about 15 page previews. Makes sense.)

Woody Allen made me write this post today. Not his movies, but the fracas over a twitter his son sent demeaning Woody on Father's Day. If you want to read about all this, there's still a posting on Huffington Post Entertainment with over 5,000 comments. What got me interested in this issue (and the event which triggered all this modern day uproar happened 20 years ago; when probably a lot of the commenters were not even a "a gleam in their father's eye."), was the vitriol against Allen by people who obviously didn't know the facts (because they got them wrong) but had read enough about it to form lifelong cast-in-stone opinions.

Now, I'm not going to go into this 20+ year-old court case because it's too long and will spin me away from my main point which is, as I've harped before: myth becomes meme and meme becomes truth.

Which brings me to Max Hastings and WWII:

  http://www.maxhastings.com/

Max Hastings is an historian whose book, Inferno, (All Hell Broke Loose in England) looks at World War II as it really happened. It was a war occupying most of the inhabited earth, not a jingoistic event of which we're still singing praise to the brave western world (US and Britain) almost 70 years later.

I wanted Inferno for the December holidays and got it for my anniversary, which is today. I liked the reviews for the book; now I like the book. Even only about 30 pages into it, I'm getting a feeling of WWII as comparable to the horror of the Thirty's Year War (without the religious tone) when European countries were invaded repeatedly. When Hasting describes the Germans arriving in a Polish town and casually shooting a young child who panics and freezes in the street, I understand clearly the universal horror the medieval farmer felt as he spied the invaders appear in the distance.

But even more than this intimacy with horror, Hastings removes the "western" flavor of the sacrifice and finally we get a book which values the unbelievable slaughter the Russians endured to provide the Allies with a much-needed Eastern Front. 

Hastings, unfortunately, has his critics because of his inclusion of the Soviet Union's vital contribution to WWII. For too long in western Europe and the US, the myth and then the meme (The Greatest Generation) has been that this war's sacrifice was primarily in the western world. I don't think this book alone will alter the meme but it's such an important addition for getting a true history of this time period.

Hastings' website is chocked full of articles, lectures and speeches dealing with World War II and other events. Here's a fact I didn't know: in Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940-45, he writes that the British would have been content to push D-Day (Allied invasion of Normandy, 6-6-44) into 1945. Also, he explores a great fear of the German solider: that, if captured, the Russians would do the same to them as they did to the Russians - even a bully doesn't like to get bloodied.

Take your time going through this site. There's a lot here for thought and analysis.

And now, to bring us back to our mundane lives but still keeping with myth to meme to truth, there's:

 http://books.google.com/books

Now Google Books is a "poor relation" competitor to Project Gutenberg at the moment since its cache of classics is pretty paltry at present, though I do expect this to change. But it's their old magazine section which I find interesting. Not that I expect truth from magazine articles but there is always an advantage when you read contemporary documents. This is shown with all the mis-facts in the Woody Allen comments. (He was not married, nor lived with Mia Farrow; Soon-Li was not his adopted daughter, etc.) The advantage of reading contemporary articles is that errors are usually corrected or mentioned in Letters to the Editors. Twenty years after a fact, memories get cloudy.

Google Magazine has a lot of this century's issues but also a treasure trove of old Life magazines and some real "gems" like an issues of Weekly World News from the 1990s with headlines such as: Priest Explodes During Exorcism.  

Oh, and completely off-topic; this Google site has Five Little Monkeys with nothing to do! The whole illustrated book! I used to love reading that series to the kids.

Back on track: do look at the websites of Max Hastings and Google Books. You won't be disappointed.

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

Movie Monday

(Note: Edited at 5pm for silly grammar mistakes. I hope I caught them all.)

I've pretty much given up on Hollywood movies and I'm using "Hollywood" in a generic sense: big budget, no-brainer, big box-office. That's why I'm doubly disappointed when I come across a non-CGI, thoughtful, political flick which is just awash in missed opportunities.

I'm talking about The Ides of March in which George Clooney has a starring role and  directed and wrote so much of the blame must lay at his doorstep.

How would I describe TIOM? Well-photographed, slickly written (for a while), miscast in at least one pivotal role and dull.

But first, let me sing its praise. Loved Marisa Tomei. She owns any scene she's in whether it's explaining the facts of politics to Ryan Gosling's Stephen (even though it was such a unnecessary scene since Gosling had just told her he was a veteran of far too many political campaigns but apparently he still needed a primer on "how it works"'; just sloppy plotting) or holding her own with the likes of  Phillip Seymour Hoffmann. The movie lights up every time Hoffmann is on the scene, which isn't often enough. Hoffmann is probably the consummate character actor (which is why he won the Oscar for Capote since Truman Capote was always a walking "character.") Whether it was his short bit in Cold Mountain or the cranky coach in Moneyball, he's a pleasure to watch. And finally, Paul Giamatti, wasted in a small role as Tom Duffy, a rival campaign manager, but, as always with him, he's not phoning in his acting.

Which brings me to Ryan Gosling. Rumor is that Peter Jackson let him go as the father in The Lovely Bones and then went on to make a lousy picture. Here, Clooney kept him and went on to make a lousy picture. Most of the time, dull films can spread the blame but here I think the casting of Gosling in such a pivotal role was a big mistake. I'm assuming Clooney was going for "Clooney" with this role in that he, as an actor, can convey a lot with silence and facial expressions. Gosling, unfortunately, can not. We begin the movie with Gosling passively spouting phrases while testing the mike for an upcoming debate and, whether with directorial approval or that's just the way he acts, Gosling's Stephen plays the whole movie in a passive state of blank/near blank expressions.

And in doing so, he allows the most grievous sin in "thinking" movies to occur: we just don't connect. We watch but we don't care. 

Now while I believe Gosling was miscast, he has to also carry a stall plot; not only a well tread and much better tread plot (The Candidate) but one that, by the end, if I didn't know Clooney's political persuasions I would have thought was really written by the right to demonize liberal ideas.

And what is the plot, you ask? Clooney, as Governor Mike Morris of PA, is one of the last two candidates standing at the end of the Democratic primary race for the presidency. The all important Ohio primary is the last stumbling block and he is pitted against a right leaning candidate. This is an important race because we hear Clooney spout some really progressive ideas (free college for two years of mandatory government service) while his opponent tries to pin him down on acceptance of the Bible. 

 Morris has standards. He counters his opponent with "I'm not a Christian. I'm not an Atheist. I'm not Jewish. I'm not Muslim. My religion, what I believe in is called the Constitution of United States of America." He refuses to compromise and get an over-the-top number of delegates released from a former candidate because he wants, in return, the Secretary of State position. To paraphrase, Morris says he not giving that position to a guy who "wants to lob off 10 stories of the UN." So we're told that we are dealing with a progressive, principled candidate; a man of honor; a family man of honor with a loving wife and an 11 year old daughter.

And then Evan Rachel Wood steps up to play her pivotal role as Molly and everything lands in the sewer; for the governor and for us. For what could have been, should have been, a verbally slick look at American politics and the mutation of ideals, becomes HE SLEPT WITH THE INTERN! We then must watch, but never feel, the angst and betrayal Gosling experiences as he is, in unison, banging and helping Wood, salvaging Clooney's chances and fast-tracking his own rise in influence.

Which is all such a hackneyed plot, but having said that, also a plot which very good acting and pacing might have saved. You have neither here. As someone at IMDb said, the laconic pace of business at Clooney's campaign headquarters just a few days before the Ohio primary (the ides of March) is laughable. Add to this, the unbelievability of Wood as Molly the 20-year old intern. Molly, who has only one fling with the Gov after "he reached around and closed the door" is played neither "here nor there." Meaning: Molly is presented straight up as a sexual player but also as the young intern who would never make trouble as she tells Steve repeatedly. So she knows the ropes but doesn't know how to say "No" to the Gov. Her appearance and situation in the movie is really the ultimate MacGuffin: she's there to move the plot along.

I said earlier that I could almost believe this was a "right-wing" script for we're really presented with the archetypal Republican meme: Those liberals, what hypocrites. So what coulda/shoulda been a thoughtful political drama of power and corruption ends up taking the easy, well-travelled road. Which still might have worked in a hackneyed, enjoyable way but not with Gosling as Stephen nor probably Wood as Molly.

 And finally, I'll leave you with my crime stopper tip which comes from too many hours of watching Gil Grissom's character (love William Peterson) in CSI: Las Vegas. When you have a plot point of a character dying from overdosing on pain killers which you see the abortion clinic handing to her in the scene before, just removing her cell phone secretively from the room (has her calls to the Gov on it) is not enough. If you leave the pill bottles you are leaving information on prescribing MD and pharmacy which is very easily traced. Additionally, if  CSI Dr. Robbins performs an autopsy, no way is that day before abortion going to go undetected. Hey! I might have been knitting intricate lace while watching that show, but I listened!

 Last puzzle: What was the point of ending the movie with another young female intern arriving? Were they going for the ending of All About Eve?

 So finally, bottom line: Bright promise wasted. 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Knitting Friday

 

Right now, I'm experimenting with two shrug patterns. One will look at lot like this one:

 

Shrug with armbands

Except I'm eliminating the 8 seed stitch rows of armbands. I don't like the way it grabs my upper arm so I'm eliminating the armbands. I'm working the pattern in the round immediately with US 8 needles, and increasing EOR to 60 stitches. Then I'm knitting even across the back until it's time to decrease stitches and needles for the second armband. Another variation: starting with US 8, then US 9 and finally US 10 which I'll use for all of the back. Usually, you just go from the armband needle size to the body size.

 

The lace design is a little different in parts because I'm going from lace with increases to no increases so the slant changes. (It's a simple pattern: R1: Sl1P *YO, K2tog* K1 R2: Sl1P, *P* K1.) I don't know if I'm going to be able to duplicate this wonkiness at the another end since I'm decreasing, not increasing there. If not, I plan to try differently by starting at the middle back with a provisional CO of 60 stitches and working towards one armband. Then I pick up the prov CO and work towards the other armband. That way, I'll have identical wonkiness. I'll post a picture next week and the pattern when I get one finished that I like.

 

Mystery skein

 Which brings me to my picture on the right. On the left in the picture is a summer top which was worn a few times, washed, and then, either due to the washing or a brain wave, I realized the top was way too big. So I tinked back to the neck band, eliminated 20 stitches from the yoke and body (160 to 140 and 120 to 100) and knitted down to the hem. But, you say, surely that top is not knitted down to the hem? And right you are. Because at the hem, I saw I had one row where I started with a YO, K2tog pattern and finished up just knitting straight across. So what you see is a second tinking almost back to the armholes.

 

The "mystery skein" caption under the right picture refers to the fact that both the the top and the shrug (the same one as the one in the left picture) come from the same skein of cotton mill ends. When I first made the top it was the same color as the shrug. After I washed it (the top), it "bled" out to almost a pure white. I still like the yarn because it has a slight twist but I know that as soon as I wash my shrug the color will change to the top's color. This is the first time I've found washable dye in such a light yarn. (The wash water(s) took on a red tint.) I'm always leery with dark yarns but with them the color usually bleeds on my fingers as I knit so I know I'd better wash it as soon as it's finished. I remember during knitting that the top was very heavy. In fact, much heavier than any other cotton garment I've ever knitted. No idea what that means since I don't think that dye has weight but the "new" top is lighter to knit. Crazy!

 

Finally, I had to call and get a replacement for another Harmony Knit Picks interchangeable tip. First, #11 was rough where the wood part of the tip meets the metal part (not where it screws into the cable but above that.) Yesterday, I started knitting cotton thread with the #4 Harmony from the same set and I felt the same roughness. Knit Picks has an excellent customer service. They'll send me new tips without my having to return the defective ones. I know that some people on Ravelry complain that their quality control re: needles should be better. In the perfect world, yes. But to repeat the philosopher: Shit happens. It's nice to know that someone is there to help willingly when it does.

 

Next week: Ask me about the all lace shrug I'm knitting with those US 4 needles. It's one of the experiments I referred to at the beginning.  OK, it's the simplest lace pattern known to man but I am determined to work with small needles and cotton thread and make a sweater/shrug and not a shawl.  See you then. Happy knitting. 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Website Wednesday

 

I started this blog in October of 2008 because I feared a McCain victory and thought: Can I really do anything to help Obama? (I should have said: Can I really do anything to help capitalism as we know it? But that's a story for another day.) I knew the internet and I had been writing since I could first form letters so I combined the two and, as they say, here I am almost four years later.

 

All my blog posting pretty faithfully three times a week for all this time was predicated on the fact that I had watched both Gore and Kerry refuse to effectively deflate negative ads and bold lies throughout the 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Especially nasty was the swift boating of Kerry and his inability to deflect the lies. I watched lies become memes and memes become truth. Never did I think that my blog postings changed anyone's mind but it was/is cathartic for me.

 

I mentioned on Monday that I would get back to W. Joseph Campell who wrote Getting It Wrong where he discusses 10 major journalistic myths (Walter Cronkite's anti-Vietnam broadcast turned the country against that war, etc.) and how they became memes and finally false, still-believed truths. During both those campaigns I mentioned above, I saw this happen and just the other day someone commented sarcastically on a blog how Gore invented the internet, so the lies do live on.

 

W. Joseph Campbell (I'm hoping most of you realize the irony of this man's name and the myth-busting field he has chosen, but if you don't, google Joseph Campbell you'll see what I'm talking about.) teaches journalism at American University, has written the book mentioned above, and maintains a blog which is my first website pick for today:

 

 http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/

 

Media Myth Alert says about itself: Media Myth Alert is a Web log that periodically calls attention to the appearance and publication of media-driven myths — stories about and/or by the news media that are widely believed and often retold but which, under scrutiny, prove to be apocryphal or wildly exaggerated.

 

This type of blog is important for all of us to check, especially with what promises to be a vile, fear-driven, fact-deprived US presidential campaign looming.

 

Also in my reading travels, I learned that if we, humans, do nothing to correct global warming by 2025 we'll hit the tipping point. Now, "tipping point" is a pithy phrase and I'm sure a lot of people think: Well, we can fix it then. Like we won't tip over the cliff but back to the safe ground. Unfortunately, we can't. Think of it like climbing a tall, very thin tree. If you get too high, your weight is taking you and the tree down - and the fall will not be into new-mowed hay.

 

Definitions of tipping point often contain the word "irreversible" so I thought: Maybe I should just be happy for the the next 13 years? Maybe Alfred E. Neuman was right with his "What Me Worry?"

So, in keeping with my new devil-may-care attitude, here's a neat website:

http://www.instructables.com/

Instructables says of itself: Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others. The seeds of Instructables germinated at the MIT Media Lab as the future founders of Squid Labs built places to share their projects and help others
 
Just clink Explore in the top bar and you'll be taken to pages and pages (How many? you ask. Well, over 4000!) of instructions for making just about anything. On its current first page, among other things, are a recipe for a delicious-looking crunchy caramel cake and directions for making an Arduino Solar Tracking Robot.

Now, I have no idea what a solar tracking robot is but the directions are so clear that I know I could make one. A click on page 4 gets you directions for a rain water filter and interior solar lighting. 

 

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the directions but I love the whole concept of this site. There’s nothing phony about the sincerity of the participants for their projects. Click on Living in the side bar and you get a long clickable list with even a separate category of Yarn! Not only am I impressed with the inclusion of yarn as a category but a quick look at some of the directions shows me that people worked very hard to make their project instructions obvious to all.

So, whether doom looms with the approaching climate tipping point or we all do get to make a soft landing, visit Instructables often. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

 

 

 

 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

Movie Monday - Bel Ami

I got to see Bel Ami a few days before its theatrical release because HD Net, a Verizon movie channel, had a sneak preview. Then I got to watch its professional reviews at Rotten Tomatoes peak at 30% (that's really rotten) so I re-watched it on my DVD recorder because I thought: Am I nuts?

No, I'm not; at least not about my reaction to this movie. And that began a weekend where, when I had the time, my thoughts went to: What's going on here? Did I or did the professional critics' world miss the mark with this movie?

Then, yesterday morning, in a rare watching-C-SPAN-at-7am moment, I listened to Brian Lamb interview W. Joseph Campbell (more on him another day), author of Getting It Wrong, where Campbell (former journalist, now journalism prof at American University) takes 10 still believed US journalistic myths ranging from Hearst's quote of "You deliver the pictures and I'll deliver the war." to Murrow stopping McCarthy, to Cronkite turning the country against Vietnam and to Woodward and Bernstein bringing down Nixon. Watching this show, I realized that with Bel Ami the myth has become the meme and the meme has become the truth. 

And now, I'm going to leave that last sentence as a teaser and give you my review of Bel Ami first. And, even more "first", I'm going to discuss the book by de Maupassant ever so slightly. 

Bel Ami, Or, the History of a Scoundrel is told in de Maupassant's straight-forward style for he, unlike many other of his French novelist pals, left his audience to draw conclusions, connect the dots or feel the rage with the disparity between the social classes of his time. Read The Necklace to see what I mean. It's a surgically cut short story about social pretensions and their unhappy consequences but you must draw this conclusion yourself for de Maupassant is just telling a good short tale. I've read many de Maupassant short stories, though not the novel, Bel Ami, but I'm willing to wager that Georges Duroy is more sympathetic in the movie than the novel and Madeleine Forestier less the vocal feminist in the book. But then, the cast and crew of Bel Ami, 2012, were not making a movie to appeal to an audience with 1890's French sensibilities. Now, on to the movie:

I approached Bel Ami with trepidation since I had heard it was done almost a year ago and such a long lead time to release never bodes for a good movie. Then I was afraid that Robert Pattinson wasn't up to the lead role and using two strong actresses as Uma Thurman and Kristen Scott Thomas was a way to prop him up.

I was wrong on both counts. Within minutes, the movie had me. The cinematography and musical score immediately set the scene and I "saw", within 5 minutes, all I needed to know about George Duroy. Poor, resentful, resigned, depressed, living in poverty, staring at luxury, angsting over the fact he doesn't have the coin to buy a cheap whore. And, it was Pattinson who pulled off this rapid montage for in the opening silent few minutes he must show us what it's like to be a poor outsider in a rich Paris, not with words as he finally does with Clotilde at the end of the movie, but with expression and movement. It's these first 5 minutes which swoop us into the story which follows and they work.

What follows is the serendipitous meeting of Duroy and an old army buddy, Forestier, who seeing Duroy's pathetic state and invites him to dinner ("Come and meet my wife.") From there the story unfolds as Duroy desperately tries to work his way into Parisian society but is only thrown crumbs because, as he is reminded often throughout the movie, he will be forever an ignorant peasant. It's only his quick acceptance of Madelene's advice, "cultivate the wives" which brings a path to success; a path which he travels with very few mistakes.

Pattinson plays Duroy with a nuanced sensitivity so though we get to see him as a social climber he telegraphs his hurt every time the establishment trods on him. (Losing his job, the jabs about Comte de Vaudrec and his wife, being referred to as "Forestier" after he marries Madeleine, etc.) Even as he takes almost a Count of Monte Cristo revenge, Pattinson conveys a world-weary ironic sadness so that we never leave his camp. For really, even though de Maupassant sub-titled this A History of a Scoundrel, a better choice would have been: A History of a Scoundrel among Scoundrels.

This movie is very watchable; beautiful to see and hear, with actors who are all most capable of carrying a period-piece film successfully. Pattinson, Ricci, and Scott Thomas hit the mark again and again but special praise must go to Uma Thurman who has the difficult job of conveying Madeleine as an early feminist without resorting to brittleness nor overshadowing the true plot which is George's path to riches. I talked last week about how the removal of the sex scenes in the TV showing of A History of Violence muted the film's theme, in Bel Ami the inclusion of the final sexual encounter between Madeliene and George shows how important such scenes can be. I'm sure the director(s) didn't plan it, but this scene turns the image of Robert Pattinson as the ultimate sex symbol on its head.

Which brings me back to my introduction: the 30% favorable rating of Bel Ami by Rotten Tomatoes and the fact that when the myth becomes the meme it always trumps the truth. Because, I think, a lot of the disfavor with Bel Ami is a disfavor with Robert Pattinson. After viewing, Remember Me and How To Be with Pattinson, I saw what a good actor he is away from the tripe dialogue of the Twilight saga. But I really don't think this young man can catch a break from the critics when it comes to his acting. 

Remember Me only got 28% favorable from RT and How To Be didn't get enough reviews to even register there. Yet in both movies, Pattinson was very good. He's a serious actor who didn't take the block-buster route after Twilight but hones his craft in nuanced roles. Only time will tell if professional critics will explore beneath the meme (Pretty-boy, low talent) and see a serious actor. Memes are hard to break but good luck to him.

For me, I recommend Bel Ami. I even watched it a third time yesterday (yes, I lack confidence in my judgment; what a wuss!) and still found it most enjoyable.

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

Knitting Friday

This Friday, I have a pattern for a knit (armbands) and crocheted shrug. Now since I made this shrug, I learned how to make a foundation chain plus single crochet row. Here's a link to YouTube instructions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZrabIcA8C8

She goes rather quickly but she makes "clear" stitches which you can follow. I'm mentioning this type of chain cast on because if I had known it before I made the purple shrug, I would have crocheted all of it. The beauty of this type of CO? You work one chain/single crochet at a time to the size you need. No more chaining the number mentioned in the pattern, working a few rows

Knit cuff, crochet shrug

, and discovering your work is too small/big.

The pattern for the shawl pictured is:

 Simple K/C Shrug (Pictured shawl is 32" long and 21" width not stretched.)

Materials: US 8 needles, circular or DPN, I hook, and heavy fingering/light sport weight yarn

CO 43 using US 8 needles. Join and work 8 rows in seed for your first armband. BO and transfer your last loop to an I hook. Chain 2 and work 36 half double crochets (HDC) across your BO edge.T (You will be crocheting flat now.)

Next row: *Ch 5, skip 2 HDC stitches, single crochet in next HDC* across. (12 Ch-5 spaces made) Turn

Next row: *Ch 5 then sc in each ch-5 sp of previous row across* with two exceptions: In the first and last ch-5 spaces of the row, you'll work two ch5/sc stitches so that you will be increasing two ch-5 spaces on each row. You'll work this row till you have 16 ch-5 spaces.

Note: I didn't have a lot of yarn so I stopped at 16 ch-5 spaces but you can make more spaces. And. you could crochet one row straight (see below) and one row with the increasing till you get the number of spaces you want.

Straight Body Row: (once your shrug is wide enough) T. *Ch5 and work 1 single crochet in each ch-5 sp across, no increases in the first and last space* Work this body row until your shrug is long enough, minus about 2".

Second armband decrease: On this row, you will decrease 1 ch-5 space each side until you're down to 12 ch-5 spaces again:

How to decrease at the beginning: Ch 5 and bring your hook through the first and second ch-5 sp working your sc in the second ch-5 sp. 

Then work *ch 5, sc in space as usual across.

End Decrease: With 2 ch-5 spaces left, ch 5 and bring your hook through the last two ch-5 spaces, working your sc into the last ch-5 space.

Work this row to 12 ch-5 spaces.

Next row, HDC row: T, Ch 2 and work 36 HDC  across in your 12 ch-5 spaces.

Armband: Using the loop on your hook as your first stitch. change to US 8 needles and pick up 43 stitches. Work armband as above. Bind off. Weave in your two ends and wear.

That's it. Right now, I'm in love with shrugs so there may be a new one next week. Happy knitting! 

 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 Website Wednesday

A quick reference: http://boxofficemojo.com/

for my facts about movie grosses on Monday. I realized I didn't cite this until after I posted the blog and editing has become a bear so I said: Fuggeddaboutit.

Scott Walker did not get recalled in WI. If the exit polling is correct (by Edison Research: right wing?, left wing?, neutral?), 36% of union workers voted for Walker and 60% said recalls should only be used for misconduct in office. 


OK, to keep on the serious side, my first website pick is:


http://www.thegodlessheathen.com/

Their motto says: "the sleep of reason brings forth monsters" which comes from Goya's etching, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. (Wikipedia)

The Godless Heathen links to mucho, many talk videos with interesting, important and quirky ideas. Like the one on gaming and gamers, an different take on a subject which usually gets a brush-off as an alternative lifestyle pastime. While the site lives up to its "godless" creds (Hitchens, Dawkins, etc.), they never forget their sleep of reason motto. These talk videos get you to think.


TGH will make reasoning seem worthwhile as it explores a myriad of thoughtful topics: rednecks in America, slavery in the Bible, the Transit of Venus, genetics......... It's well worth a bookmark and return visits.

And now for something completely different. Summer and school vacation is looming large and in keeping with my desire to read every tasty recipe out there and soon-to-come summer meal prep with the kids: 

http://www.cookingwithmykid.com/

Cooking with my Kids is just that: simple recipes you and your kids can cook together. Like Breakfast Potatoes, an instant favorite for me because the ingredients are either staples (eggs, cheese) or pull from the freezer items (shredded potatoes.)

The About at CWMK says: Foodie by day, microwaver by night; I set out to teach my kid (and myself) the art of cooking in hopes of churning, burning and learning new recipes along the way.  The mission: 365 recipes in 365 days.  The ground rules: All cooking must be kid-assisted.  Doubling up is OK, but a minimum of 7 recipes must be attempted each week UNLESS travel is involved.

You can scroll through the recipes which really do look kid-friendly or click on Crafts at the top right for a glimpse at her next adventure, 365 of craft, art, art appreciation. I like how this woman thinks. Enjoy.








 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Movie Monday - some this and that

1. Did you know that Tron Legacy (which was pretty unwatchable to me) made 57% of its gross outside the US and Avatar made 72% gross there? Which makes me want to start researching movie profits (an oxymoron if there ever was one because we all know movies never, ever, make a profit, and that has been well-researched.)

 

2. I know that I promised long, long ago and probably in a different galaxy (nod to Star Wars fans) to review Dogville and Manderly. I still have them recorded, ready to watch; 'cept I'm just not ready to invest the time. It'll happen though.

 

3. I just recorded The Ides of March. It was shown on my movie package last Saturday but I had no "sit down" time then. I did get to see the first five minutes and it looks verbally slick. Perhaps a typical "dark" Clooney movie. I still vote for Michael Clayton as my favorite Clooney movie. I like him best as the dark, slightly/very amoral protagonist.  He has a verbal banter which fits the modern hero's angst.

 

4. Should distributors (or whomever) be able to cut movies for their TV run? I watched A History of Violence on the Fox Movie Channel and I think the violence was intact but not the sex. Getting to the sex (or lack of it in a minute), I love the melancholy music in AHOV since it's the perfect backdrop for this provocative, classic tale. And, I just looked it up, Howard Shore composed the music. Way to go, Howard!

 

But back to the sex. There are two sex scenes in the movie and both are needed because they are thematically not voyeuristically driven. If you know the movie, the cut in the second sex scene is laughable and deadens the message it's meant to convey.

 

Which leads me to to wonder: what's the purpose of cutting and then showing theme-driven movies? OK, you could cut one, two, even three fight scenes from some block-buster CGI favorites and no one would blink, but when a movie is trying to say something worthwhile to an audience, is it fair to streamline the "naughty bits" (and it always seems to be those bits which are streamlined since violent scenes always seem to dodge the cutting scissors)? What's the purpose of streamlining an allegory to the point where it only becomes a piece of gossip? (Did you hear about the shoot out at Stall's diner?)

 

4. If the Chinese are going to lead the world's economy in a few years, they already have their hand in becoming the masters of over-the-top movie CGI. I watched a small part of the Chinese Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame yesterday before I ran screaming from the room. Now Judge Dee is a classic detective story character based on a real Chinese judge from the 600s. Dutch Robert van Gulik used him as his detective in a successful series of books and this movie is a horrible spin-off from all this. Horrible because within minutes, it succumbs into massive  CGI effects. You get to see unbelievable tall structures, millions of extras, spontaneous human combustion..... the list goes on. JHC! Judge Dee solved crimes! He was presented in some very interesting settings; every thing was not rose-colored in the stories but over-the-top CGI possibilities, no way. But this movie can't seem to let go of CGI. Even after the opening fireworks when empress decides she must summon Dee from him imprisonment to help her, our next scene is not she and Dee consulting. Nooooooo, it's CGI at the prison where white-clad women warriors fight with black-clad assassins and a bearded, disheveled prisoner shows his kung-fu chops. Could this be Dee? I didn't stay around to find out.

 

5. HD Net, which is an HD movie channel I get, is showing Robert Pattinson's Bel Ami next Wednesday. It does this once and a while; show movies before theatrical release. This used to be reserved to "movie dogs" but the world of movie distribution has changed and some of those shown are not that bad. (I wish they would make a movie of de Maupassant's Ball of Fat. It's a short story but with a lot of "meat.")

 

6. And finally, again from HD Net, a short review of Emergo/Apartment 143. It's a The Blair Witch Project heir meaning it's another one of those fake documentary films that hinge on the peg that their amateurishness should be overlooked because, hey, we're not real film makers we're real people like you.

 

Emergo is Spanish, short (80 minutes), and one step above average in its genre because it has two strong dialogue scenes mixed in with a lot of paranormal activity hunting in an apartment using all the do-dads parapsychologists need. (Just how much does all that equipment cost?) Unbelievably, it got an R rating!

Leave your rational thinking behind when you watch Emergo but it won't be the worst 80 minutes you spend at the movies. Oh, and don't turn it off too fast at the end because you know this type of movie must have that final everybody-knows-it's-coming coda.