Category Archives: News
Pictures of the Day
Rock City is near Ruby Falls in the Lookout Mountain region of far northern Georgia, near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Supposedly you can see 7 states from the highest vantage point atop the mountain – a claim first made during the Civil War – but that’s never been proven scientifically. Regardless, almost every point on the mountain provides stunning vistas with massive and ancient rock formations and over 400 native plant species. Rock City is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year as an official tourist attraction. Unfortunately, they’ll only be open through September 3, but here’s a small collection of pictures of this incredible locale.
Filed under News
In Memoriam – Marvin Hamlisch, 1944 – 2012
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Marvin Hamlisch died August 6 in Los Angeles. He had just turned 68 on June 6. He collapsed Monday after a brief illness.
Admitted to Julliard at age 7, Hamlisch fell in love with the theatre and eventually became one of America’s most renowned songwriters and musical composers. He is among a handful of artists to win every major creative prize, some more than once, including an Oscar for “The Way We Were” (1973) and a Tony and a Pulitzer for “A Chorus Line” (1975). Other works include the score for the 1973 film The Sting and the song “Nobody Does It Better” from the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.
He often teamed up with fellow lyricist Carol Bayer Sager and singer Barbra Streisand.
In more recent years, Mr. Hamlisch also became an ambassador for music, traveling around the country and performing and giving talks at schools. He often criticized the cuts in arts education.
“I don’t think the American government gets it,” he said during an interview at the Orange County High School of the Arts in Santa Ana, Calif. “I don’t think they understand it’s as important as math and science. It rounds you out as a person. I think it gives you a love of certain things. You don’t have to become the next great composer. It’s just nice to have heard certain things or to have seen certain things. It’s part of being a human being.”
Filed under News
Quote of the Day
“This is the most important election since 1860. The future of American depends on what God’s people do. If America dies, it will be from self-inflicted wounds.”
– Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, during Glenn Beck’s three-day Restoring Love event in Arlington, Texas.
Now, we know what happened to at least one of the writers from As the World Turns.
Filed under News
In Memoriam – Maeve Binchy, 1940 – 2012
Acclaimed Irish novelist Maeve Binchy died July 30 in Dublin after a brief illness. Binchy published her first novel, Light a Penny Candle, in 1982, after five publishers rejected it. She had a steady stream of success in the years afterwards, including Silver Wedding, Firefly Summer, Evening Class, Echoes, The Copper Beech, Circle of Friends and Tara Road; stories centered around such ordinary events as a wedding anniversary or the building of a hotel. They sold in their millions and were translated into more than 30 languages.
Binchy began her career as a journalist with The Irish Times in 1968, though she admitted later she never had the instinct to be a reporter. When her mother died suddenly of cancer at age 57, Binchy stayed home to look after her father. When he died three years later, she sold the family house and moved to Dublin. Aged 29 and unhappy, she developed a phobia about a mouse, drank a lot and had a painful affair with a married man.
In 1971, Maeve Binchy met the children’s writer Gordon Snell through friends. He was working for the BBC in London and she was, by then, women’s editor of The Irish Times. After a year flying to see each other during weekends, she asked for the job of the paper’s London correspondent and moved across the Irish Sea. Binchy and Snell married in 1977.
Binchy became lonely in London and began to write stories in the evenings to stay occupied. She began with two books of short stories, Central Line and Victoria Line, then tackled her first novel at the age of 42.
At the time, she and her husband were two months behind with the mortgage. But, Light a Penny Candle, a novel which follows the fortunes of two young girls growing up in Ireland in the aftermath of the Second World War, sold for £52,000 – the largest sum ever paid for a first novel – and their problems were solved.
“Nothing terrible has ever happened to me,” she told an interviewer. “I met and married the man I love in my thirties when I thought all that had passed me by. Success and money came in my forties, when I’d my head screwed on… I’ve never really searched for success, never felt there was some hole in my life that needed filling. I’ve only ever wanted more of the same.”
Filed under News
Here’s an independent view of the Chick-fil-A fiasco.
I am sure that there are many people in the U.S, even those reading this article, that are weary and tired of the excessive politicization of practically everything in American culture. This politicization has caused innate personal decisions to enjoy Oreo’s without there being a statement about supporting gay rights. Or an individual choice to enjoy a chicken sandwich resulting in being labeled as a person who hates or is a homophobe.
The American cultures ability to over politicize anything has been apparent in the recent escapade that was started by comments by the Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy in response to a question about marriage:
We are very much supportive of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. We know that it might not be popular with…
View original post 2,124 more words
Second Picture of the Day
Carly McGehee, a resident of Flower Mound, TX, just outside Dallas, decided to do something more than just boycott Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day on August 1; she planned a “National Same Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A” this Friday, August 3. “Of course people will oppose us, but I think everyone will be surprised at the amount of support that comes out tomorrow night,” McGehee says. “We just have to remember that love conquers hate. Love will always conquer hate.”
Filed under News
Tweets of the Day
In response Sunday’s shootings in Wisconsin, two of the assholes who commandeer the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas had this to say:
For their reference:
Matthew 7:1 – “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”
And, just so they’ll also know, I’m only practicing my right to free speech.
1 Comment
Filed under News
Tagged as Oak Creek Wisconsin, Sikh temple shootings, stupid comments, Westboro Baptist Church