A podcast about books, art & life — not necessarily in that order
Off to Nashville, where I likely won’t see the outside of the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center until I’m in a cab back to the airport on Wednesday!
Huh-huh-huh. . . He said, “Gaylord. . .”
Speaking of which, the ultimate Beavis & Butt-Head DVD collection comes out tomorrow!
It seems that Iran will only use peaceful means to “wipe out Israel from the map of the world”! Whew!
According to the wall calendar in my office, Monday was “UN Day”! So, to honor that occasion, here’s a link to the Word document of the Mehlis report about the Hariri assassination in Lebanon.
(This would be the file that includes the “Track Changes” fixes by the UN Secretariat’s office, in its attempts to soft-pedal the fact that the assassination was ordered at the top of the Syrian regime.)
As an bonus present, here’s a link to a PDF from Chris Hitchens’ site about how the Iraqi Oil-for-Food scam worked! I found it in this article by Hitchens about possible perjury charges for MP George Galloway.
Happy 60th!
If New Orleans is good enough for the American Library Association, it’s good enough for our wedding!
Last week, a delegation from ALA traveled to New Orleans to assess the situation. The delegation found that downtown, the French Quarter, and the Garden District had largely escaped flooding, and that essential services have been fully restored in those areas. They found the conference center and conference hotels bustling with hundreds of workman repairing broken windows, installing new drywall and laying new carpeting. Restaurants are reopening on a daily basis, and plans are already underway for Mardi Gras in February.
No sooner do I post about John & Liz’s new baby than I get news that official VM buddies Blake & Ines have just welcomed Beckett Martin into the world! Congrats abound!
(no pix available at press time)
Congrats to official VM buddies John & Liz on the birth of their baby boy Miles, probably named after the sheer amount of travel his parents have done:
All is love.
Boy, if I hadn’t self-imposed a moratorium on book-buying until the end of the year, I’d buy Dream Boogie in a heartbeat.
Why shouldn’t there be a Hasidic reggae rapper? Go, Matisyahu!
Got in safe and sound, but rush-hour traffic’s a bear, so the official VM fiancee & I have hit a mall (with a Mac store) in NJ before we try to make it into NYC to drop her off.
We’re about to head out to the airport, and we’ve packed away a couple of MREs for next weekend’s photoblogging session. Once we’re settled in, I’ll get my French Quarter photos posted up here, so you can see that it’s not THAT bad.
Sorry if my long post about Saturday’s trip sounded too depressing. Seeing all the (re)construction going on down here, I’m pretty optimistic about the city’s immediate prospects. I’m concerned about how it’ll deal with the long term, of course, but I’m concerned with how you’ll deal with the long term too, dear reader.
In all, I’d say it was a good trip, insofar as I gained a better understanding of the after-effects of the flood, along with loads of funny stories about Amy’s family members.