Memorable Moments of 2011 ?

2011 -  Memorable moments? I will think about that. Perhaps the word moment  is a clue to why it is not worth thinking about. Is a moment worth anything in the culture of our times?  Yes, personal moments are always memorable. But are public moments truly memorable?  Yep and Nope might help me. I will "yep" and "nope" the entire list and see what I have as a total

(From the NY Times)
It was, as always, a year of memorable moments — some awe-inspiring, some laughable, some just head-shaking. (Charlie Sheen? Winning? Really?) Here are some of the most compelling topics of conversation of 2011.



1. The G.O.P. debates. The best reality TV show not on Bravo.

NOPE

2. The best moment of the debates: “Oops.”

NOPE

3. The second-best moment of the debates: Ron Paul’s errant eyebrow.

NOPE

4. Regis Philbin calls it quits after 28 years.

NOPE

5. Kim Kardashian calls it quits after 72 days.

NOPE

6. Adele.

NOPE

7. Kate Middleton’s wedding dress (by Sarah Burton): Grace Kelly reborn.

NOPE

8. Princess Beatrice’s fascinator (by Philip Treacy). Laugh if you will, but it raised $131,000 for charity.

NOPE

9. Pippa Middleton’s derrière (by nature). The backside that launched a thousand paparazzi shots.

NOPE

10. The D.S.K. whiplash. He’s guilty! No, he’s innocent! Hey, maybe he’s guilty after all.

NOPE

11. The Alexander McQueen show at the Met. A tortured British designer proves almost as popular as King Tut.

NOPE

12. Steve Jobs. Fittingly, many people learned the news of his death on their iPhones.

NOPE

13. Occupy Wall Street. Brought the phrase “the other 99 percent” to a zillion T-shirts and bestowed unexpected, late-in-life fame to a former Ed Koch aide, John Zuccotti.

NOPE

14. Chaz Bono on “Dancing With the Stars”: a transgender star is born.

NOPE

15. Ellen Barkin on Twitter. Never has unbridled profanity been so entertaining.

NOPE

16. Sept. 28 and the most thrilling three hours in baseball history. Final scores: Philadelphia 3, Atlanta 2; Baltimore 4, Boston 3; Tampa Bay 8, New York Yankees 7.

NOPE

17. “9-9-9.”

NOPE

18. “Homeland.” Angela Chase grows up into a pill-popping, bipolar, line-crossing C.I.A. operative. The most compelling character on television in 2011.

NOPE

19. You’re never too young to be a cougar. Selena Gomez (19) snares Justin Bieber (17).

NOPE

20. Splits: Arnold and Maria, Ashton and Demi, Scarlett and Ryan, Candace Bushnell and Charles Askegard.

NOPE

21. Funny women: Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, Chelsea Handler, “Bridesmaids,” the showstopping moment at the Emmys when all the nominees for best actress in a comedy series came up onstage together.

NOPE

22. Serena Williams has another meltdown at the United States Open.

NOPE

23. Al Sharpton gets a TV show on MSNBC. We’re waiting to see if Tawana Brawley will ever be one of his guests.

NOPE

24. Keith Olbermann leaves MSNBC to go to Current TV, is never heard from again.


NOPE
25. Zooey Deschanel: adorable or irritating? Discuss.

NOPE

26. The Uniqlo phenomenon. Its ads were inescapable (especially for anyone who rode the subway).

NOPE

27. Anderson Cooper’s disappointing talk show. Sigh. He should have waited for Regis to retire.

NOPE

28. A hearty farewell to bin Laden, Qadaffi and Kim Jong-il.

YEP

29. Anthony Weiner resigns after reports surface that he has tweeted pictures of his naked torso to young women across the country. Insert joke here.

NOPE

30. Same-sex marriage comes to New York State.

NOPE

31. Cathie Black’s short, shockingly inept stint as New York schools chancellor.

NOPE


32. O.K., she was a terrible chancellor, but no one deserved that unpitying photo of her that New York magazine ran on its cover.

NOPE

33. Nascar fans boo Michelle Obama and Jill Biden when they show up at a race — to promote a charity.

NOPE

34. Here, there and everywhere. The ubiquitous Nicki Minaj.

NOPE

35. The Murdoch phone-hacking scandal. Has there ever been a better example of schadenfreude?

NOPE

36. Mia Farrow’s and Woody Allen’s son, Ronan (né Satchel) is named a Rhodes scholar.

NOPE

37. The Netflix debacle.

NOPE


38. Waiting for “Downton Abbey” to return.

NOPE

39. The end of Elaine’s.

NOPE


40. In August, Mayor Bloomberg announces a deputy mayor has resigned to pursue “private-sector opportunities in infrastructure finance.” Left out of the announcement: The official had been arrested days earlier after allegations of a domestic dispute with his wife.

NOPE

41. Brian Williams: the next Walter Cronkite or the next Johnny Carson?

NOPE

42. Blake Lively and Leo DiCaprio

NOPE

43. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.

NOPE

44. Ryan Gosling’s abs.

NOPE

45. The heat wave in July. The hurricane in August. The blizzard in October. Mother Nature must be awfully angry about something.

NOPE

46. The terrifying Tiger Mother.


NOPE
47. Elizabeth Taylor goes out with a bang. The auction of her jewelry, gowns and other belongings at Christie’s raises $156 million, much of which will go to her AIDS foundation.

NOPE

48. The maddeningly catchy (or maybe just maddening) “Moves Like Jagger.”

NOPE

49. Getting lost at “Sleep No More.”

NOPE

50. Getting a lap dance from Hugh Jackman.

NOPE

51. Planking.

NOPE

52. “Twilight.” Isn’t it over yet?

NOPE

53. The body count at “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

NOPE

54. The guessing game at Dior.

NOPE

55. Andy Rooney signs off for the last time

NOPE

56. Lady Gaga, yes. Jo Calderone, no.

NOPE

57. Michael Fassbender. And not just because of the frontal nudity in “Shame.”

NOPE

58. Meryl Streep. And not just because she nails the accent (again) in “The Iron Lady.”

NOPE

59. R.I.P., R.E.M.

NOPE

60. The two Emmas (Stone and Watson) rocked the red carpet in 2011.

NOPE

61. “The Book of Mormon.” Never has blasphemy been so hilarious.

NOPE

62. Oprah takes a year — and three finale shows — to say goodbye.

NOPE

63. The 10th anniversary of 9/11.

NOPE

64. Gospel brunch at Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster Harlem.


NOPE
65. “I simply do not know where the money is.”

NOPE

66. The seatmates from hell. Gérard Depardieu is escorted off an Air France flight after he urinates in the middle of the cabin. Alec Baldwin gets into a fight with flight attendants over his refusal to stop playing “Words With Friends” on his iPhone.

NOPE

67. The scandal at Penn State: What did JoePa know, and when did he know it?

 NOPE

68. Mothers of reinvention: Tina Brown and Arianna Huffington.

NOPE

69. The end of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

NOPE

70. The nearly two-day waits to buy a new iPad 2. (One woman spends 41 hours in line at the Apple store on Fifth Avenue, then sells her spot for $900.)

NOPE

71. Tebow Time.

NOPE

72. Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied.

NOPE

73. A fond farewell to Erica Kane and the rest of Pine Valley.

NOPE

74. The now officially annoying James Franco.

NOPE

75. The revival of Larry Kramer’s 1985 play, “The Normal Heart.” An eloquent reminder that Silence = Death.

NOPE

NOPE  NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

Do It Obama!

President Obama's ratings are heading south. Oy yoi yoi! This is my first post since August 2009. OMG! Have I been asleep? Am I in denial.? I voted for the lug and I guess I just went about my business, believing in his words and not seeing him as a dyed-in-the-wool politician. I guess he was still in the dye vat last year and did not see his true colors. He certainly made a good case for accepting him in the family. Did I fail to see his duplicity while he was courting my country? I guess I was like the father who can't believe that his daughter would fall for someone who was just a smooth talker. I saw the smooth talker, but figured he was speaking to an entire nation, not just a doting father. Should have known better.

That Oval Office is some funny place. Put a wanna be or gotta be in the chair and sure enough they enjoy the company an oval can attract. All those Wall Street migrants seemed to be attracted to the shape as well.Obama is by now properly insulated from public opinion.

Oh, he probably reads, sees it, gets told about the public's the s0-called American People, but does it matter now? After all, he IS President of the USA. Nice job. Nice perks. Plenty of intellectual stimulation. Hire and fire. State dinners. Travel. Good food. Nice place to live. Plenty of network news anchors bleeding for an interview where Mr. Obama can speak in absolute terms or conditional terms. He can blame the former administration. Oil (BP). The Economy. Wall Street. Republicans. He can tout his Health Care accomplishment and new regulations and Supreme Court appointments.

What can we do? He promised a rose garden and forgot to mention the thorns. Men who become president of the United States in modern times disppear into the power they wield. They hear the mummerings of the "People" but are too busy paying attention to other voices in other rooms.

But the unemployed. The failed business. The foreclosed home.They can't wait
The administration that claims to be working for the nation and raising the level of hope in what appears to be a hopeless economy, a deregulated business world, a scheming and duplicitous financial environment, a quarreling House and Senate, can't neglect the people.
It must speak to us and show heart. Then it must do something and not be distracted by radicals and the reactionaries. To be elected to the highest office in the land is not employment.
It is an honor and a privilege calling for leadership and creativity. DO IT OBAMA! NOW!

Migrants

Migrants

Our feathered friends spread wings,
Their light-filled heads lean southward.
We notice the leaden silence of our days,
Their cheeriness buried in our breasts
Urging us to upward voices
Our poor forms unable to take flight
Song is all we have.


August 2009

Edward Kennedy

Teddy ("Nothing to it.")

" Nothing to it."
A colossus sometimes blocking out the sun.
His brilliant teeth a keyboard of possibilities.
His hand pressing a shoulder firmly,
Urging belief in Hope,
Although only achieved with pick and shovel.
"It's there for the taking."
"Just got to push away the debris."
"Trust me,
I know each place where Hope is buried."
"DIG, DIG, DIG."


August 2009

Esoteric Christianity

While recovering from pneumonia, I received the phrase "cry into my eyes" and images of all the suffering I have witnessed for decades. The idea of God's tears or a cosmic grief brought me to compose these two verses. We are a well of tears if we only knew it. Each day as we witness or learn of some terrible human loss we suffer with the sufferers. This idea of "crying into my eyes" struck me as an image of this daily experience.



Esoteric Christianity

Oh God
Cry into my eyes
For your only begotten son.
Cry into my eyes
For all the sons and daughters
Whose lives were lost
In war and peace, health and sickness.
Flood my soul with knowing and love
For all who trembled and fell into the light
Of Christ's love.

Secular Esotericism

Cry into my eyes for your children
Lost to brutality or the rapaciousness of force.
Cry into my eyes for lives not lived,
Songs not sung, shared love, joyful now, imagined tomorrow.
Cry into my eyes.
Inform my heart with knowing
That I might share your pain and keep you safe.

Whew!

Whew! It wasn't close, but it was an anxious time waiting to see if Obama was going to slide into history one way or the other. John McCain clinched it though when he tossed up Palin to see if she would fly. She did but it was an unstable flight doomed to bring the erratic McCain campain crashing to the ground. Amen!

It was just the uncertainty bred by 8 years of the Bush that made us all uneasy. Fifty-eight million of us still don't care who is in office as long as it is a republican.

Now that Obama can say "giddyap" we must wait to see if we can arrive somewhere in the next four years that we democrats consider a destination.

I am seeing a number of old men lining up for the Obama cabinet. I respect their knowlldge and experience but I wish they were advisors to a young cabinet.

I guess I have to trust that Obama is not just trying to reassure the "old guard" that he can handle this buggy, but knows that right now government needs some mature expertise not just out of graduate school.

I guess we have done our job and can go back to waiting for the hopeless feeling to return.

Sara Palin For Vice-President?

Sara Palin For Vice-President?

Republicans did not disappoint the Democrats last night. Sara Palin muscled her way into the presidential campaign with both guns blazing. This Annie Oakly of the party of the past delivered her populist speech riding the bounce that Huckabee and Gulliani provided in their speeches before hers. Her small town credentials combined with her uptown ambitions served to profile a woman on the move. But should she move into the White House because she is ambitious? Of course she can apply, but does she have the resume?

Her speaking skills are sound. Her populist politics are familiar. Small government. Lower taxes. Fewer welfare programs. Secure our shores. Opportunity for all who work hard. Off shore drilling. Get tough foreign policy. She is a reformer. She has taken on the "big guys" and special interests. She has won several elections. Is this enough for a modern vice-president? Further, is being a governor from a small state the credential we need in the highest office of our land should she be faced with the presidency?

Obama was diced and sliced by this pit bull with lipstick. "No executive experience." "Zero". chanted the crowd. From the PTA to Mayor to Governor may be good for the state of Alaska, but is it good for the United States of America? Is Obama lacking in day-to-day CEO experience? His rise to be the nominee of the Democratic Party has been described as brilliant and well managed. Is eighteen months of campaign management an executive credential? Is intellectual capital a credential? Is his stand on the Iraq War, health care, taxes, the environment, international affairs, oil, education, and Washington as not a place of "business as usual" an indication of his executive plan and leadership? Is Joe Biden's many years in Washington and in foreign affairs more valuable to the country than executive experience in town,city, state government in Alaska? Does the domestic and international stage require more than a hero and more than soccer mom with executive experience? I believe it does.

The Death of Cape Cod

It is clear that Cape Cod is becoming an overpopulated suburb like Long Island, New York.

Yes, it still has gorgeous beaches and architectural character in the small villages, but the villages used to be Cape Cod.

Now Cape Cod is a distination for shoppers, developers, restaurants, discount malls and brand name malls from one end to the other with the exception of Truro, Wellfleet, and Provincetown.

So what is new about this? The news is that this New Cape Cod is becoming the Old Cape Cod,

Mega Mansions and landscaped properties even dominate the scenic roads. The look of Old Cape Cod with its unpainted rambling houses, no landscaping, patchy grass lawns, laundry blowing in the wind..... gone forever!

The nouveaus arrive in their suv's and shop, eat, and play on the water and on the beaches. becoming dewy-eyed when they reflect on their summer when bthey return to another suburb they have created years ago.

The change has not gone unnotificed by locals and town officials and and when a shellfish area is threatened by the growth in dock construction of waterfront properties, town officials and public servants are confronted by three-piece suits and verbal skills that make the local idiom seem quaint.

It happens every day and is a type of place erosion. It can't be stopped. One retreats emotionally, like home owners moving their old fashioned, simple summer cottages back so many feet after years of predictable wearing away of the beach.

Now, finding the Old Cape Cod means visting protected areas or the National Seashore.

The machine that pushes out the old and makes the new old in time is inexhorable.
Perhaps it is a natural decline, a rise and fall of the times and economics.

When one thinks of all those flushing toilets, washing machines, swimming pools and remember a Cape Cod with small cape houses and a two seater and laundry on the line drying in the sun and wind, one must pause, bow one's head, and leave...but for where?