h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

S had a little rant this evening about parents leaping in cars to fetch kids from school instead of letting them take the (working) school buses home, and how cars kill and are far more unsafe, so you are not alone Z. The traffic here was shocking at 3:30 pm, and stayed shocking until gone seven.

But then we are all shocked.

I watched far too much news coverage, got all wound up, and cried. S was stuck at work sensibly getting on with work and keeping his mind off things. For some reason this really annoyed me.

Anyhow, off to the Blood Donors Centre tomorrow morning. I am O positive, I am in demand.

Most of you know that I am woefully uneducated in art appreciation. Yesterday I was introduced to a bona fide artist while my employer was updating the artist's website. Turns out they have been friends for years and several pieces of his work are hanging in my boss's house. He is based in New York and is also a published author. My main contribution to the conversation was to be complementary without embarassing myself about my lack of knowledge.

I am curious what the art mavens here think of his work:

http://www.edadler.com/

I hope and pray that nobody here is affected by the attacks. I feel absolutely wretched about being so selfish - what of the people who I don't know who were injured or killed? to all.

> Shrub's gonna have a hard time making this look good.

Yeah, I'm with FG and Lil, here - I think that he'll manage. He's managed to spin everything around 180° and make this war be about the lack of patriotism in our media, our liberal thinkers, and our courts rather than it be about the mistakes *he's* made.

'Scuse me.

It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?

How different it might have been if only the Bush administration had kept their focus on Sandy Place #1 instead of leaving things half done and embroiling the US and Britain in Sandy Place #2. There would have been no reason for terrorists to focus on England, no more than on any other part of the world. Perhaps, if the issues in Sandy Place #1 had been resolved at the outset, there would not have been terrorists, although I suspect I'm being unrealistic in saying that.

Yes. Expect enough spin to warp a Mercator projection. Dubya is all hat and no cattle.

I'm glad that everyone on Hootoo seems to be okay; I also agree with Z -- after the first shock in the morning on 9-11, I turned the TV off for a month. This time when the radio woke me up, I started shaking before I even got out of bed.

Lil, saying the Shrub is "all hat and no cattle" rather implies he might have something under the hat -- clearly not the case. Perhaps "all belt and no horse"?

The Shrub has tried to make it all about "fighting the good fight, if we just buckle down harder..." Are we all to stop carrying briefcases, backpacks and big purses -- how the h*ll do you stop someone who's willing to blow themselves up?? I'm thinking maybe a world-wide campaign on mental-health might be more to the point.

Amy, congrats!!
SC

Well i'm slightly mistified why in this day and age with all this video conferencing they did not opt for this way , the cost of the operation would keep some third world country going for a couple of years.
but then thats too simple like flying half way around the world to talk on global warming.

Witty, I found some of the Pop Mythology series to be quite interesting. But don't take my word for it. I have a tin eye when it comes to art.

Man, it sucks being single in a city with only a few work friends... I need to get out and socialize more. My life has become work.

I know of what you speak Marv.

Witty, I'm afraid I don't like your artist's work. But then, I often am at odds with the rest of humanity when it comes to art, so it's probably wonderful.

Things like this play into Bush's hands. It gives him an excuse to step up his war on terrorism - and civil rights. I bet his approval ratings go up again.

I've just been to have a look at Ed Adler's stuff, as linked to by Witty. It's impossible to reach any conclusions about his technique because those images are blocky and full of artifacts, but he's an asociate prof who's been doing art since World War II so I guess we can take it on faith that he possesses technique!

So the only thing we can really talk about is what he paints. And he's one of those who has chosen to replicate the mass-produced illustrations from the first third of the twentieth century. These have an unfortunate effect on me. They remind me of the books I was forced to read in first and second grades! Like Dick and Jane.

It never took me long to read the page (Look Dick look. Look and see.) and while the teacher was forcing each student in turn to read the page aloud I would be examining the illustration, looking in vain for something interesting. The page I just quoted had a picture of a girl and a boy on either side of a knee-high plant with a few knurled leaves, all of them against a blank background, devoid of detail.

I would have liked some scenery. A farmhouse and barn set in front of a hill on which horses stampeded against a lightning-forked sky, a few people running for cover with a tornado in the distance. Something worth looking and seeing.

And there's me drifted thoroughly off-topic. What is the reading primer currently in fashion?

Simulpost, Hypatia. And you're just the person to answer my last question.

Logicus, I did hear some questions being asked about that on the BBC last night - why are we flying everybody half way around the world, contributing to the carbons in the atmosphere, when that's the problem in the first place? The fellow they were asking the questions of said that airplane travel was only 22% of the problem.

The real problem, of course, is the lack of restrictions on oil refineries down on the Gulf of Mexico. I grew up there, and the rate of cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and other ailments is a lot higher because of the crap in the air. If they would tighten restrictions on emissions, they'd see a drastic improvement in the health of the children and adults.

It's actually Dick and Jane. They are making a comeback. They were reprinted. I bought the set last year. Same old illustrations.

Have I told you my sister's Dick and Jane story? She taught first grade for a few years. One day, after teaching Dick and Jane all day (this was the early 60's) she went out to go home and found out she had a flat tire. She looked at it and exclaimed, "Oh,oh,oh. Look, look, look. Damn, damn, damn!"

This explains why I someties exclaim "B*gger, b*gger, b*gger!"

But this is not good news about the Return of Dick and Jane. I blame it on Ayatollah Dobson.

You think that's all he had to read as a child? Might explain a few things...

See Dick run... Sounds nasty, really.

I tend to double or triple my curses when I swear. I wonder if that is where I got that.

I'll say Damn-damn-damn, but I think it's because just one damn doesn't express my ire appropriately.

Depending on what I've done, I will multiply my curses.

Big hug, everybody.