Coming to Kindle and Smashwords

Coming to Kindle and Smashwords
November 2013

Dec 31, 2011

The perfect ending..(I am always surprised when these pricks can be so callous toward the situations of others fall to pieces when it come to them personally)

Newt Gingrich cries when asked about his mom

By
Brian Montopoli
Topics
Campaign 2012
UPDATED 2:45 p.m. ET
DES MOINES -- Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich broke down in tears when asked about his mother at a campaign stop at a coffee shop here Friday.
Asked by pollster and Republican consultant Frank Luntz talk about a "special moment" he remembers about his late mother, Gingrich first responded, "first of all, you're going to get me all teary-eyed - Callista will tell you, I get teary-eyed every time we send Christmas cards."
He then started crying, prompting many in the audience - made up mostly of mothers - to say, "awww." Luntz is known for asking questions to get answers based on emotion, telling PBS' Frontline in 2003 that 80 percent of life is emotion to intellect's 20 percent.
"But, uh -- excuse me - my mother sang in the choir," he said, speaking over a crying baby in the audience. "And loved singing in the choir. And I don't know if I should admit this, but when I was very young, she made me sing in the choir."
He went on to discuss how his mother, Kathleen Gingrich, is someone who he remembers "loving life" and "having a sense of joy in her friends." He then talked about how she lived in a long-term care facility toward the end of her life, which led him to emphasize brain science and other issues in his public life.
As he talked about what he called "the real problems of real people in my family," he began crying again. Gingrich's comments prompted enthusiastic applause from the audience. Later, one of his daughters brought him a tissue to wipe his eyes.
Gingrich went on to discuss how his mother spent "27 years as an army wife" as part of a culture that valued patriotism and duty. He said that if his mother were here today he would tell her he would "do everything I can as a candidate to be worthy of ourselves."
Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich wipes away a tear while speaking about his deceased mother during a question and answer forum put together by Moms Matter 2012 at Java Joe's, a coffee shop, on December 30, 2011 in Des Moines, Iowa.
(Credit: Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Before she died, the Daily Beast reported last week, Kathleen Gingrich discussed how she "almost didn't survive" her difficult years raising Newt and Gingrich's violent stepfather, saying she "had manic-depressive illness."
Gingrich's remarks came at the end of an hour long question and answer session with about 150 Iowa mothers at Java Joe's coffeeshop in Des Moines. It was his second stop of the day on his campaign tour around Iowa ahead of the January 3 caucuses.
Earlier in the question and answer session with Iowa mothers, Gingrich was asked to convince the audience that his claimed personality change after two divorces and a history of infidelity reflect a "fundamental change of the heart and not just political talk."

great sh##


flying devil rays....


Dec 30, 2011

Dec 29, 2011

Thanks, Internet: Out-of-Print Blade Runner Sketchbook Surfaces Online

This sketch of a Spinner is just one of dozens of production designs for Ridley Scott's original Blade Runner.
Image: Blade Runner Sketchbook
It pretty much goes without saying — but we’ll say it anyway — that Blade Runner is one of the most visually stunning sci-fi films ever made. There’s a reason for that: Every detail, from Rick Deckard’s gun to the parking meters, was painstakingly planned and executed.
In 1982, the production designs that were used to create the film’s future-noir look were collected in the Blade Runner Sketchbook, edited by David Scroggy. Now out of print, the book is still treasured by fans, and now a full copy is available to read online.
The book, which brings in hundreds of dollars for used copies, collects some of the best production designs from “visual futurist” Syd Mead and director Ridley Scott, amongst others. Included in the black-and-white sketches are designs for the police and corporate Spinners (above), Deckard’s apartment, replicant outfits, the Voight-Kampff machine and even things as unassuming as fire hydrants.
Perusing the book’s pages makes it easy to see why Scott’s 2019 Los Angeles still looks as grittily futuristic today as it did when the film was released almost 30 years ago.
Flip through the Blade Runner Sketchbook below and let us know if you find a sketch of a tinfoil unicorn (we’re still looking).

[via Comics Alliance]

Tiny and Gigantic People, Surreal Scenes by Jean-Francois Fourtou

Tiny and Gigantic People, Surreal Scenes by Jean-Francois Fourtou
Tiny and Gigantic People, Surreal Scenes by Jean-Francois Fourtou
Tiny and Gigantic People, Surreal Scenes by Jean-Francois Fourtou
Tiny and Gigantic People, Surreal Scenes by Jean-Francois Fourtou
Artist Jean-Francois Fourtou creates wonderfully surreal scenes in which people appear either gigantic or tiny, thanks to the artist’s clever manipulation of the scale of objects and sets

1980′s Film Alphabet

Freelance designer Stephen Wildish spends the end of some weeks working on his Friday Project, a “project to create something witty or pretty for a friday”.

Exclusive Preview: Revisiting Superman’s Roots in Action Comics No. 5

Superman's origin story gets retold in Action Comics No. 5, written by Grant Morrison.
Images courtesy DC Comics. Click to enlarge.
Superman’s origin story gets retold like never before in Action Comics No. 5, previewed exclusively on Wired.com.
As the cover says: “It begins … again!”
Written by Grant Morrison with art by Andy Kubert and Jesse Delperdang, the tale starts with the familiar cataclysm on Krypton and reveals “keys facts about Superman’s past” for the first time, according to DC Comics’ description.
The 40-page comic hits stores Jan. 4, 2012 for $4. Read the first two pages of Action Comics No. 5 on GeekDad, then come back for the next three, below.
Gideon's Fall: When You Don’t Have a Prayer, Only a Miracle Will Do

A Vonnegut-style tale of the next century, December 1, 2007
By 
Eric Gabrielsen's "Gideon's Fall" paints a picture of the world 80 or so years from now: a world full of augmented bodies, consolidated countries, a single Catholic church (except for a few lingering Mormon terrorists), a space catapult, and a couple mind-machine mergers

Witness the fall.......

Gideon's Fall: When You Don’t Have a Prayer, Only a Miracle Will DoIn this hurly-burly view of the indeterminably close future, an improbable spritual innocent, an unlikely telekinetic spaceman, and an all too likely cast of surgically and genetically enhanced humans romp through a borderless world in which a militant Catholic church deploys fighting Jesuit castrati, Mormans mount a fighting rearguard action and a Jim Jones wannabe charges into the fray. Through it all a cast of bit players entertain with violent sidelights in a worlwide fight underground

a bit obvious that....


Ron Paul’s Rise Hurts the GOP and Helps Obama


The greater Ron Paul’s success, the better chance the Democrats have of using his crackpot notions to characterize all of the GOP.

Few of Ron Paul’s enthusiastic supporters actually expect their curmudgeonly, 77-year-old champion to win election as president of the United States, but they nonetheless plan to give him their votes in Republican primaries in order “to send a message” to the GOP and the nation at large.
But what, exactly, is the message that impassioned Paulestinians mean to convey if, as expected, the controversial congressman places first or second in the upcoming Iowa caucuses and goes on to show surprising strength in subsequent contests?
Any honest assessment of Ron Paul’s unconventional campaign suggests that whatever successes it manages to achieve can send only two signals, both of them disastrous to Republican prospects and the conservative cause.
First, and most obviously, increased attention to the perplexing Paul phenomenon only serves to strengthen the core argument for Barack Obama’s reelection: that today’s Republicans have become a wild and crazy bunch, harboring oddball, irresponsible notions that place them far outside the American mainstream and make them untrustworthy when it comes to the serious business of governance.
paul-power-only-helps-obama-medved.jpg
In the general election, it’s obvious that a vote for Ron Paul would amount to a vote for Barack Obama., Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

Leave aside the recent publicity for Dr. Demento’s 20-year-old newsletters, studded with outrageous racist and anti-Semitic comments—which the candidate now claims he never read, but which appeared over his signature, and for which he received generous payment from eager subscribers, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars at the very least.
Much more recently, in the midst of this latest of his three campaigns for the presidency, he has endorsed the outrageous doctrine of “nullification”—suggesting that states have the right to reject federal laws or regulations they dislike, and disregarding well-established constitutional law that was settled by Andrew Jackson in the 1830s and Abraham Lincoln (along with 300,000 dead Union soldiers) during the Civil War.
Every additional vote cast for the Mad Doctor in the primaries, every additional delegate he secures, will only help Team Obama.
Association with 9/11 conspiracy theorists has destroyed the credibility of numerous figures in public life–even forcing the resignation of Van Jones, perhaps the most loathsome left-wing loony in the Obama administration. But Ron Paul has flirted with such paranoid delusions for years, appearing regularly on the freakazoid radio show of arch-conspiracist Alex Jones (who accuses George Bush and the New World Order of planning the extinction of the human race)  and telling one of his senior congressional aides (Eric Dondero) shortly after Sept. 11 that “the attacks were coordinated with the CIA, and that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time.”
When leading GOP strategists acknowledge that the Republicans can only build long-term success for their party by reaching out more successfully to blacks, Hispanics, and Jews, Dr. Paul reemphasized just a few weeks ago his opposition to the celebrated Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which most Republicans in Congress enthusiastically supported at the time).
In his most recent book, Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom (published in 2011), Paul singles out Zionism as one of those “essential issues”—and suggests that the national liberation movement of the Jewish people somehow affects “our freedom” negatively. He also associates himself with the hateful, laughably ahistorical Palestinian doctrine of “Temple Denial”—refusing, apparently, to accept Biblical accounts of the two Jewish temples that flourished in Jerusalem over a period of nearly 900 years beginning with King Solomon.  In his book, Dr. Paul goes out of his way to note “that Jerusalem (Palestine), through many centuries, was under Jewish rule for only about 170 years … Dozens of other regimes occupied the land for much longer periods of time. For instance, Muslims ruled Jerusalem for 1,191 years.”
Concerning more recent history, Paul’s former congressional aide and long-time campaign worker Eric Dondero recently wrote a piece for LibertarianRepublican.net in which he attempted to defend his former boss against charges of anti-Semitism and racism relating to his newsletters. But he frankly allowed that “Ron Paul is most assuredly an isolationist….I can tell you straight out, I had countless arguments/discussions with him over his personal views. For example, he strenuously does not believe the United States had any business getting involved in fighting Hitler in WWII…When pressed, he often brings up conspiracy theories like FDR knew about the attacks of Pearl Harbor weeks beforehand, or that WWII was just ‘blowback’ for Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy errors, and such.”
These eccentric, detestable views may play little role in the Republican primary campaign but David Axelrod, James Carville, and other Democratic operatives will make them a major focus of their ferocious efforts to depict the GOP as a haven for whack-jobs, religious kooks, cranks, losers, greedy-one-per-centers, and anti-American extremists. Every additional vote cast for the Mad Doctor in the primaries, every additional delegate he secures, will only help Team Obama in using his prominence in the nomination fight to discredit the entire Republican Party

stunning


  • Part of Sporting News on AOL

  • A surfer falls from his board while riding a wave at Tamarama Beach on May 2, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. (Ryan Pierse, Getty Images)

    dig it....

    Dec 28, 2011

    Ape Speaks.....

    .Theeleegantape
     OK, It looks like it's coming down to a right wing, birch society, gold standard  propeller head or a zhaftig  serial adulterer  with illusions of being the only thing standing between the collapse of western civilization and the invading barbarian hordes and last but not least, a stiff unimaginative cheap haircut in a bad suit who would toss his sainted mother under a bus if it would win him a electoral vote.
     Really? Has there ever been a more compelling reason to hold a nation wide primary. How in the hell do two sparsely populated ( 4.3 million a third of  L.A. 's pop with a tenth of the tax base. Is it now wonder that come time to vote it like a old chief I once served under in the navy said. "It's like a choice between drinking piss or seawater "One will kill ya and the other is well...drinking piss."

    isn't about time someone drug off this wingnut in a net...

    Victoria Jackson: Muslim Brotherhood Taking Over America, Six Hour FBI Meeting

    Victoria Jackson
    Former "Saturday Night Live" actress Victoria Jackson, working on confidential information she as a web talk show host has special clearance to obtain, has claimed that the United States is being overtaken by radical Muslims bent on bringing the nation under Sharia law.
    "I just went to a briefing in Washington DC, across the street from the Capitol, at the Longworth building at 8:30 am two days ago and it changed my life," Jackson said last week on her web show, "Politichicks." "For six hours, I saw pictures and names and dates and facts and Islamic law books and Korans, Surahs for six hours and they proved to me... that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated our highest positions in government and this is serious."
    Jackson also detailed the meeting in an earlier blog post this December. In that post, she details testimony given by John Guandolo, a former FBI agent who worked on the case against former Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson. Guandolo resigned from the FBI in 2008 after he was caught trying to score a $75,000 donation for an anti-terrorism group from a wealthy Jefferson case witness with whom he was having an affair. Guandolo now gives speeches on the existential threat of Islam, claiming that Muslim groups are using political correctness and political insurgency to stop FBI and police officers from stopping their spread of Sharia law.
    The actress-turned-pundit also reported testimony from Maj. Stephen Coughlin, who in 2008 was effectively fired from his post at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because, many conservatives believe, he was a staunch anti-Islamic extremist advocate. Wired reports that his contract was not renewed after a staffer for Gordon England, then the deputy secretary of defense, raised questions about his work. Last January, Coughlin gave a maligned speech during an FBI presentation on Muslim extremism.
    Claiming that it was strongly hinted that President Obama was a Muslim -- his policies all favor Muslims and are against Israel, she claims to have been told -- Jackson says in the video that the ultimatum pushed by terrorist groups in America is "You have to convert or be killed."
    While she says that the meeting forever changed her, Jackson has already long claimed that Muslims -- led by secret Muslim and terrorist sympathizer President Obama -- are quietly taking over the United States government. She also has famously taken umbrage with gays and "Glee," including a highly publicized string of attacks last March.
    "This new al-Qaida magazine for women has beauty tips and suicide-bomber tips! Gimme a break!" she wrote in a blog post for World Net Daily. "That is as ridiculous as two men kissing on the mouth! And I don't care what is politically correct. Everyone knows that two men on a wedding cake is a comedy skit, not an 'alternate lifestyle'! There I said it! Ridiculous!"
    This fall, Jackson visited the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park to challenge protestors, though it did not work out so well for her.
    "Michelle [sic] Bachmann and Rick Santorum are the only GOP candidates so far to acknowledge the above facts and warn against the present threat of Islamic Law replacing our Constitution," Jackson concluded in her blog post on the ex-FBI briefing. In a Fox News appearance early in December, she called Bachmann "my girl" and said, "Very few people in America are informed and educated as I am."

    Related on HuffPost:

    ha aha ha ha ha ha (sorry..)

    Richard Nixon Had Gay Affair, 'Nixon's Darkest Secrets' Claims

    Nixon's Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America's Most Troubled President by Don Fulsom (Thomas Dunne Books, $25.99), former correspondent for United Press International, makes several eye-catching accusations, including that the former president had a gay affair with Charles "Bebe" Rebozo, a banker apparently with ties to the mob.
    The allegation is especially noteworthy because, as gay news website Queerty reports, Nixon was known to have made homophobic remarks.
    When a close aide to President Johnson was caught having sex with a former sailor in a YMCA bathroom, Nixon called the man "ill," and added that such people "cannot be in places of high trust."
    The new book also alleges that Nixon beat his wife and that his aides referred to him as "our drunk."
    The Daily Mail reports that Nixon's alleged secret lover also had a shady history of his own.
    According to the Mail, the FBI claims Rebozo had ties to mob bosses Santo Trafficante and Alfred 'Big Al' Polizzi. He also ran a bank that, a former mobster claims, was used to launder money.

    (perfect )picNYC Table, An Indoor Urban Dining Table That Grows Grass

    picNYC Table, An Indoor Urban Dining Table That Grows Grass

    AK-47 Bullets Ice Cube Tray

     

     

    Dec 27, 2011

    beautiful.....


    Dec 23, 2011

    Crossing the Delaware, More Accurately

    Crossing the Delaware, More Accurately

    Mort Künstler, a painter based in Long Island, who is known for his historical images, has created his own version of Washington crossing the Delaware River that hews closer to the facts than the more famous version.Michael Nagle for The New York TimesMort Künstler, a painter based in Long Island, who is known for his historical images, has created his own version of Washington crossing the Delaware River that hews more to the facts than the more famous version.
    There are few images as enduring in American history as the one of General George Washington standing tall, next to the Stars and Stripes, in a rowboat gliding past mini-icebergs as he leads his troops across the Delaware River on Christmas Day 1776 to start a surprise attack on Hessian forces during the Battle of Trenton.
    In his 1851 portrait, “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” among the best-known of American paintings, the artist, Emanuel Leutze, did not shy away from imbuing the scene with a dose of glory, inspiration and heroism.
    He also did not let the facts get in the way of his masterpiece — the original hangs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
    The only thing wrong with this historical image is the history part, said Mort Künstler, as he recently put the finishing touches on his own version of Washington’s crossing. As it rested on an easel in Mr. Künstler’s studio on Long Island, the painting looked nothing like the Leutze version.
    “I’m not knocking the original: it’s got great impact and Leutze did a heck of a job,” Mr. Künstler said. “I give Leutze higher marks for a good painting than for historical accuracy, but why can’t you have both?”
    Mr. Künstler, who has gained some renown for painstakingly researched paintings that strive for accuracy, invested two months of research for the new painting, which set to be unveiled at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan on Monday, the date in 1776 that Washington led his troops into battle in Trenton after crossing the Delaware.
    And so, instead of the small, somewhat tipsy rowboat in Leutze’s painting, Mr. Künstler depicts a 60-foot-long flatboat ferry, guided by cable, and crowded with dozens of troops, and cannons and horses.
    Washington is not elevated, but rather nestled against a cannon wheel for support.
    He is buffeted by driving snow — weather records show the crossing happened during a northeaster — and his face is lit by lantern and torch against a night sky. The ferry cuts through thick layers of ice, which Mr. Künstler says corresponds with the photographs he obtained of the actual way the Delaware freezes.
    Leutze had limited access to historical material when he created the painting in Germany, where he was born. While Leutze painted a glowing sky and wide river, Mr. Künstler’s painting is more in keeping with the records that this was a dead-of-night crossing at a section of the river less than 300 yards wide. As for the flag in the Leutze painting — the Stars and Stripes was not adopted until after the crossing — Mr. Künstler’s version has no flag.
    For all the differences between the paintings, Mr. Künstler was initially reluctant when offered a commission essentially to correct Leutze’s painting, a copy of which hangs in the White House.
    “I said, ‘Are you kidding? That’s such an iconic image,’” Mr. Künstler recalled. “‘I’m not going to go against that? What can you do with it?’”
    He said this to the man who commissioned him: Thomas R. Suozzi, a former Nassau County executive who also happens to be a Revolutionary War history buff.
    Mr. Künstler countered with an offer to paint Washington on horseback on a bank of the Delaware instead, but Mr. Suozzi mustered his best lobbying skills to talk the reluctant Mr. Künstler into taking the challenge. He said he told Mr. Künstler: “No I want him in the boat, I want to go up against the existing painting. The other painting is great, but it doesn’t tell the realistic story.”
    The notion that Leutze created a romanticized version of a critical moment in American history is generally accepted by art experts.
    “Leutze wanted to convey the idea of Washington’s heroism and to mythologize him, and you’re not going to do that necessarily by getting terribly hung up on factual information,” said Elizabeth Kornhauser, a curator of American paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “He was creating an operatic theatrical piece.”
     Mr. Künstler in his studio in Oyster Bay, devoted  two months of research in order to create his painting of Washington.Michael Nagle for The New York Times Mr. Künstler in his studio in Oyster Bay, devoted  two months of research in order to create his painting of Washington.
    A restoration of the painting was recently completed, and it will be unveiled in a new frame as the centerpiece of the New American Wing Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Met when the wing opens to the public on Jan. 16.
    A museum spokesman, Harold Holzer, said the Leutze painting was “the most asked-about picture at the Met.”
    Mr. Künstler’s two months of research for the Washington painting included consulting historians and books, as well as journals about the crossing and weather records. He photographed the Delaware at the location — what is now called Washington Crossing — and researched the kinds of boats that were in use at the time.
    Mr. Künstler has long tried to let history dictate his paintings, putting in months of research for a portrait. He has weighed Custer’s Last Stand and Theodore Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill. With an estimated 5,000 paintings and ink drawings under his belt, he has done work that includes illustrations for National Geographic and movie posters for “The Poseidon Adventure,” as well as Mad magazine covers.
    But, as Mr. Künstler said, “If I’m remembered for one painting, this will be it, simply because it is an iconic image.”
    He was sitting at his work space, which is mounted on a large circular platform that rotates by motor under rooftop windows, to maximize the natural light. To help capture Washington’s likeness, Mr. Künstler taped a dollar bill to the canvas, and also kept a gift-shop statue of Washington nearby, as well as, yes, a copy of the Leutze painting.
    Mr. Suozzi said he became fascinated with Washington’s crossing after reading the David McCullough book “1776” while running unsuccessfully in 2006 against Eliot Spitzer in the Democratic primary for New York governor. He said Washington’s heroism inspired him to stay in the race despite his dismal poll numbers.
    “It was a heroic decision by Washington in a desperate and down time,” said Mr. Suozzi, a lawyer and investment banker. “And during my during darkest days, when I had no shot of winning, it was the only thing that kept me going. I didn’t want to give up and not show my face. I was inspired by Washington to continue and keep pushing my property tax cap.”
    Mr. Suozzi would not say how much he paid Mr. Künstler for his work, but Mr. Künstler said he charges $50,000 to $100,000 for a painting of this type. While the painting will be publicly shown for the first time at the New-York Historical Society, its permanent home is unclear.
    Mr. Suozzi said that he planned to lend out the painting for public viewing, and that he was seeking an investor to finance a version of Mr. Künstler’s painting, which is about 4 feet wide and 3 feet high, that would match the size of the Leutze painting, which is about 21 feet wide and 12 feet high.
    “I’m telling you,” Mr. Suozzi declared. “This painting will be the one they put in school textbooks one day.”
    Emanuel Leutze's famous painting, "Washington Crossing the Delaware,'' hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NYEmanuel Leutze’s famous painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” hangs in the Metropolitan

    Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year..

    fun and clever....

    By 
    I don't review many books because I'm lazy and indifferent. This book was a knockout in the category of Altered Carbon and The Skinner.

    I hope this guy writes more books. I'll buy them.
    Gideon's Fall: When You Don’t Have a Prayer, Only a Miracle Will Do

    Dec 22, 2011

    I think I got wood.....

    Prometheus Trailer - Official TRUE HD

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    312 views

    funny she doesn't look like a person who would fatally inject a penis......

    Woman Charged For Fatal Penis Injection ABC News

    Woman Charged For Fatal Penis Injection

    Talk about a "pumping party" gone wrong. A woman has been charged with manslaughter after performing a penis-enlarging procedure that resulted in a man's death. Kasia Rivera, 34, injected silicone into the victim's penis at—of all places—her home in East Orange, N.J. Justin Street, 22, died of silicone embolism the day after the procedure, a medical examiner reported. Rivera was arrested for homicide and also charged with unauthorized practice of medicine. Police are continuing to investigate the case and asking other potential victims to come forward

    luv it....

    got to respect the dedication

    Motorcycle that runs on poop to take its debut cross-country journey

    Toilet-bike-NEO-3
    Toto is Japan's biggest toilet bowl making company. You see the logo everywhere you go--at the airport, in department stores, at people's homes. Now you may also see it on the road--the company just released its first hybrid toilet-motorcycle that runs entirely on poop! As the person drives, he can poop into the bowl, and that poop will be turned into fuel for the car. It's actually part of a campaign that Toto is running in an effort to reduce its CO2 emissions by 50% in the next 6 years. The motorcycle will be making its way from Kyushu to Tokyo over the next month (departing in six days). Very exciting! I'm not sure who's driving but I'm sure that, in addition to having a drivers license, they had to check his stool to make sure its healthy and fuel-worthy.

    Illustrator Yuko Shimizu's new book = perfect for your artsy coffee table

    Screen Shot 2011-11-14 at 5.57.20 PM
    Yuko Shimizu is a super-talented illustrator who lives in NYC. Her self-titled monograph came out about a month ago, and is full of provocative surrealistic comic art drawn first with traditional calligraphy brushes, overlaid with digital color and background to look like graphic prints. Super cool. I first met Yuko when I was working on the Studio360 piece about women artists in Japan. She told me that she had always drawn erotic women, but didn't realize she was a feminist until she came to the US for art school and her teachers asked her to analyze her own art for the first time. (The Western tendency to analyze is different from Japan, where it's more common to simply appreciate the aesthetic value of a piece.)

    The '27 Club' Myth Debunked In A Study For The British Medical Journal

    Amy Winehouse

    When Amy Winehouse died this summer, one niggling rumor accompanied the public shows of grief and condemnation -- that the disturbed singer purposely killed herself to join the group of famous musicians known collectively as "the 27 club" -- Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Robert Johnson and Jim Morrison. They all died at 27, just as Amy Winehouse did this year. The legend they spurred was blamed for introducing the fatal idea of a "right" age for sealing one's immortality.
    But a group of scientists writing in the British Medical Journal says the pattern is nothing more than illusion. According to results from a comparison of survival rates between the general U.K. population and popular musicians, about as many musicians died between 1956 and 2007 at the age of 27 as they did at 25 and at 26, and even at the ripe old age of 32 :

    Dec 21, 2011

    anchors aweigh....

    VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted "first kiss" on the pier after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.
    Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, Calif., descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss in the rain with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles. Gaeta, 23, wore her Navy dress uniform while Snell, 22, wore a black leather jacket, scarf and blue jeans. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.
    "It's something new, that's for sure," Gaeta told reporters after the kiss.
    "It's nice to be able to be myself. It's been a long time coming."
    For the historical significance of the kiss, there was little to differentiate it from countless others when a Navy ship pulls into its home port following a deployment. Neither the Navy nor the couple tried to draw attention to what was happening and many onlookers waiting for their loved ones to come off the ship were busy talking among themselves.
    View a photo of the groundbreaking kiss, courtesy of the Associated Press, below: