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To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make.
-- Truman Capote
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Via Drudge and ABC, I read that Dennis Hastert is subject to a criminal probe. This is after he suggests that those in Congress shouldn't be subject to FBI raids and shows his support for House member Jefferson from Louisiana, who was taped accepting a bribe. Of course Hastert's protecting the backside of Jefferson - Hastert might be on the take as well. Corruption is all over the place in Washington, both in Republican and Democratic circles. Scout 'em all out. Jail the guilty. Jerks. ETC: The DOJ denies that Hastert is under investigation. But for being an idiot and suggesting that Congress-folk shouldn't be searched like the rest of us are when there is ample evidence that we've taken bribes, he should still be tossed overboard. I'm so tired of politicians. Small government is good government. |
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Those who know me and talk with me regularly know that I've been following prosper.com and zopa.com closely. These two companies have started p2p (person-to-person) lending web sites for unsecured loans. I read this yesterday: Most intriguing are both companies' plans to introduce APIs [application programming interfaces] so programmers can integrate social finance with social networking. Members of Yahoo Groups and MySpace would be able to participate in peer-to-peer finance through groups already established at other services. Groups could even be set up to view financial data and perform administrative functions from sites other than Prosper or Zopa. I expect that Prosper and Zopa will offer finder's fees for either lenders or borrowers who come together to do business through third-party blogs. Today, about the only way that people can make money blogging is by placing advertising on their blogs - most popularly, Google's AdSense. What's coming are companies willing to dillute their brand by spreading the company skunk works across tens and hundreds of thousands of blogs through APIs that allow the average blogger to make money. To some degree, this happens today, but I expect p2p lending to be a better model of income for bloggers.Question of the day: what happens when this moves beyond lending? |
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Books can be an embarrassment. The ones we show on our shelves can reveal a great deal of who we are and subject us to the preconceived notions of others. I have several versions of the bible, for example. The New English, the Revised Standard, the New International, the King James and the New King James, the Moffatt translation, and so on and so forth. Fancy me a Christian? Why, you just might, if you saw my books. But the truth is that I'm not. At least not any more. Onions have layers, Shrek tells us. Onions also make you cry as you peel them apart, and us people, in getting to know us, can cause the same reaction. It's conflicting and difficult to learn someone as you dive more deeply into them. We learn about others by their actions and their words and the books they have and by those who know them. On the advice of a friend, I stayed up late to watch Bridget Jones' Diary. I'm in a movie mode lately... a sign of lots of thinking going on... and I'm buying books. These are both signs that I'm craving input as I'm trying to figure something out. Bridget felt it was time to avoid being a spinster, and so she was off man-shopping. She found such a guy, but he was an absolute cad, though he was smooth and great in bed. Later, she found the right guy - the one who wanted her for exactly who she was. He knew her imperfections and spoke honestly to them - he saw them outright - but their presence had no impact on him. He wanted her just as she was. Although she didn't see that he was the right one until it was almost too late. The reading material that we have lying about can cause such trouble. It certainly did for Bridget and she ran half-naked through the streets because of it. I have a copy of Dr. Laura's book, The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands. That book has caused me no less than eight arguments with women. How condescending the title, I hear from most of them. Or I hear that Laura is hideous. How can you stand her, they ask. But I like her. She's honest, which is the quality I admire most in people. I also like the bible, despite its imperfections. Just as I don't agree with Laura on everything that she says, I also don't agree with the bible about everything that it says. But I feel that you would be hard-pressed to find a deeper book. A lot of wisdom in there. The same is true about Laura. A great attractiveness about Bridget, I think, was that she didn't try much to hide her flaws. She knew that they would be exposed. She even kind of embraced them. Because perfection doesn't exist. I sometimes say things that I don't mean, or I say it wrong for the audience to whom I intended it. Or I say it at the wrong moment. No matter how much I try - and I do try very hard - my communication is probably fumbled in delivery as often as it succeeds. And I'll also hear things incorrectly from others for the same reasons and make assumptions about what they're saying. Stephen Covey's "Seek to understand before you seek to be understood" is most appropriate here. Questions are a salvation. You know, it's hard to remember to ask the right questions in the midst of a conversation. Things happen so fast. I heard Laura address this one night on the air with a couple. As they got into bed, the husband made a comment. The wife got out of bed. He assumed that she was pissed, and so he reacted to that, when in fact, she got out of bed to ensure that their child was truly asleep so that they could talk. But instead, they got into a very long fight over a silly miscommunication. Had the husband asked why she got out of bed, the fight could have been averted. Had the wife commented what she was doing as she got up instead of saying nothing, the fight could have been averted. Imperfection is beautiful when it's embraced. It makes us humble. It renders us soft in a difficult discussion and easy in a complicated relationship. Acknowledged imperfection allows us to laugh at ourselves, as Bridget often did. Being unafraid to see imperfection also makes forgiveness possible. It's indispensable, really. It encourages us to accept one another - just as we are.  |
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I watched the film, United 93, today.  I think everyone should watch it. Except for the 2-year-old who sat six seats down from me in the theater. What kind of horrific mother brings her toddler to such a violent and emotional movie? About 20 minutes into the movie, I found my heart racing. Throughout the film, I learned a few things that I didn't otherwise know about what happened that day. Ultimately, this was a film about three things: - Zealotry. Islamic religious zealots who gave no care to the lives of others, but instead thought only of their cause. There is a difference between zealous and zest. The difference is selfishness, and the zealot is focused obsessively on one thing, regardless of who or what stands in the way and regardless of what others might want for themselves. There is no other way but the zealot's, even at the expense of the lives of others.
- Buffoonery. The government screwed up in so many ways. It occurred to me that we are unfathomably lucky that we did not get hit by a larger entity of more than 20 terrorists that day. Had this been a full-out attack by, say, China, we'd all be speaking Chinese today. Government is never an answer to any problem. Its myriad levels of bureaucracy and bloated inefficiency can never be trusted for timely decisions. This film shows that truth in all its glory, which reinforces my firm belief: good government is small government.
- Individualism. The heroes of the film are the individuals who made hard decisions without trying to commit it to a vote. They didn't wait for authority or approval - they just did what made sense. And most notably, the passengers. With a dire situation and sketchy details by phone, they ran rings around the government's Pony-Express-speed answer, and saved Washington another hit with their sacrifice. The individual should never be fettered by anyone to move ahead and make a decision and act upon it.
A truly well-made movie that was hard to watch, but critical to see.As I came out of the theater and into the lobby again, the first thing I saw was a poster for Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center." I shuddered. He'd better not mess with something so sacred as that day. Thankfully, "United 93" honored it by just telling the story, and used several of the very people involved in key roles that day in the movie itself. I can see why the families of the passengers agreed to the film. I'll buy the DVD when it comes out. I'll show it to my grandkids someday. |
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My son, Austin, gave me this today. He made it.  I love that boy :) |
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 I have a program on my computer that allows me to make animated content. This is my first attempt. But it also allows me to make Flash content, so in theory, I could make cartoons of sorts, with sound and such. I think that might be useful during election years. |
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My standing floor rack holds 24, and I now have 18 painted. You can see all of the cards here: http://www.artbybrett.com/ 6 more, and the rack is full. I'm still missing a birthday card, and I need to do an "Iowa" card or two. I'm working on the friendship card at the moment. I want to do a couple of contemporary designs. I could wrap up all 6 by the end of the month, which would put me on track to have 60 by the end of the year (5 cards a month). Woo hoo! |
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A few weeks ago, I painted a heart. It was fine, but I didn't like the composition. Nothing that I paint is a front-and-center composition. It's always off to the side or something. So I decided to redo it.  I like this one better. |
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I've started the next one, and could finish today. We'll see how it goes.  It's fun to take an image and then think it through color-wise and then get started. This one will feature green and red and blue. It's a friendship painting of two kids walking hand-in-hand down a country lane. Can you make that out in the image above? No? Yeah - me neither, yet. In the last one, I really liked how the text balanced it out. I might try that with this one too. I wish I had the entire week off work. Or better, that this was my work. |
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 ETC: I think I'm going to redo some of the color in her face. I need yellow and brown, not the lavender that I currently have. |
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