The Headington Cabal

Quote of the Day - E.J. Dionne, Jr.

2010-07-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

We need a new conservatism in our country that is worthy of the name. We need liberals willing to speak out on the threat our daft politics poses to our influence in the world. We need moderates who do more than stick their fingers in the wind to calculate the halfway point between two political poles.

And, yes, we need to reform a Senate that has become an embarrassment to our democratic claims.

Source: Dionne, Jr., E.J. "In American politics, stupidity is the name of the game," Washington Post," 7/29/10.

2010-07-28T18:29:00.001-07:00

day of driving & conference calls, OTP radio show, meetings, phone calls & follow-up. Now heading to grappling. Kimura-time for The Gorilla!

Song of the Day - My Vision

2010-07-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have been a fan of Seal (Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel) for a number of years now. Two of my favorite songs are Love's Divine and My Vision. The drive back from Vegas was long yesterday but I was still on my Netroots Nation high and I replayed this more than a couple of times. It is one of those songs that make you want to dream and wax romantic.

Lyrics

I feel like the sun,
I feel like the rain
I feel like I just found reason for living again
'Cause what I've been feeling,
I know that it's real
I know there's just no changing the way I feel

You're into my head
I'm out of my mind
I feel like I've just found reason for being alive
And I have a secret
I think you should know
I feel like I just can't keep it
It's deep within me
And I feel like I'm losing control

Can you see my vision
Of a red hot summer in white?
When love was the feeling
With no indecision
We were turning that key inside
To get in the moment

We live in a dream,
I see you today
I feel like all my fears are fading away
Been waiting so long for something new
I feel like a constant craving for being with you
And I have a secret I think you should know
I feel like I just can't keep it
It's deep within me
And I know that I'm losing control...

CHORUS

Can you see my vision
Of a red hot summer in white?
When love was the feeling,
When love was the feeling
When love was the feeling,
When love was the feeling

I have a secret,
I think you should know
I feel like I just can't keep it
It's deep within me
And it's deep within me
And it's deep within me
And it's deep within me
And it's deep within me
And it's deep within me
And it's deep within me
And it's deep within me
And I feel like I'm losing control

CHORUS

Can you see my vision
Of a red hot summer in white?
When love was the feeling,
When love was the feeling
When love was the feeling,
When love was the feeling. (feeling echo fade)

Quote of the Day - My Antonia

2010-07-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many women (or men) agree with this one? ;) I still remember then USC president Steven Sample talking about Willa Cather during our leadership class. He would read all of the work of one author before moving to the next--and if memory serves me well, Cather was one of the first for him.

Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody.

Source: Cather, Willa. My Antonia

2010-07-25T19:40:00.001-07:00

still on a Netroots Nation high. Learned some things. Met such interesting & talented people. Looking forward to staying in touch. #NN2010

2010-07-24T12:50:00.001-07:00

on my 3rd Day here at Netroots Nation getting my prescribed dosage of Fired Up/Ready to Go. Voice hoarse from all the chattering last night.

2010-07-23T09:33:00.001-07:00

not saying Netroots Nation is off the chain yet but I'm missing a tooth, there was a tiger in my room & Markos Moulitsas jumped out of my trunk.

2010-07-18T22:27:00.001-07:00

thinking about Whitman's (lack of a) voting record and that Schoolhouse Rock video "Sufferin' Till Suffrage." http://tinyurl.com/6ph7vo

Cartoon of the Day - Friendship

2010-07-17T19:13:00.001-07:00

Song of the Day - California Über Alles

2010-07-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

It's not often that you find a punk song about Jerry Brown--sung in his perspective calling for a hippie-fascist vision of America--with roots in the Third Reich. The title of the song is an allusion to the first stanza of the German national anthem that used to start with "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles" ("Germany, Germany above all"). I wonder if the Dead Kennedys will update it should he become the youngest and oldest governor ever elected in California.

Lyrics

I am Governor Jerry Brown
My aura smiles
And never frowns
Soon I will be president...

Carter Power will soon go away
I will be Fuhrer one day
I will command all of you
Your kids will meditate in school
Your kids will meditate in school!

[Chorus:]
California Uber Alles
California Uber Alles
Uber Alles California
Uber Alles California

Zen fascists will control you
100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face

Close your eyes, can't happen here
Big Bro' on white horse is near
The hippies won't come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay
Mellow out or you will pay!

[Chorus]

Now it is 1984
Knock-knock at your front door
It's the suede/denim secret police
They have come for your uncool niece

Come quietly to the camp
You'd look nice as a drawstring lamp
Don't you worry, it's only a shower
For your clothes here's a pretty flower.

DIE on organic poison gas
Serpent's egg's already hatched
You will croak, you little clown
When you mess with President Brown
When you mess with President Brown

[Chorus]

Poem of the Day - William Butler Yeats

2010-07-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

Brown Penny

I whispered, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

Quote of the Day - Edgar Allan Poe

2010-07-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Not sure which one Lennon was referring to. ;)

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

Source: Poe, Edgar Allan. Eleonora

2010-07-16T22:40:00.001-07:00

finally getting around to seeing "There Will Be Blood." Epic ... Musical score reminds me of "Lost."

2010-07-14T23:33:00.001-07:00

always amazes me how certain folks--U know who UR--pretend the Pringles can is full by not removing the foil cover under the plastic lid. ;)

Song of the Day - "Only When I Lose Myself"

2010-07-12T19:30:00.001-07:00

I was reading Edith Wharton's poem "Wants" earlier and it made me think of this song by Depeche Mode. I often listened to it while on my runs from Virginia to DC and back. At its heart, it is a romantic ideal that we lose ourselves in someone else and then find ourselves. It is rare to find it--much less receive it--but I'm sure many of us have felt it at least once in our life. Who hasn't wanted to "lose control" to "treasure a kiss?"

Lyrics

It's only when I lose myself in someone else
That I find myself
I find myself
It's only when I lose myself in someone else
That I find myself
I find myself

Something beautiful is happening inside for me
Something sensual, it's full of fire and mystery
I feel hypnotized, I feel paralyzed
I have found heaven
There's a thousand reasons
Why I shouldn't spend my time with you
For every reason not to be here I can think of two
Keep me hanging on
Feeling nothing's wrong
Inside your heaven

Chorus

I can feel the emptiness inside me fade and disappear
There's a feeling of contentment now that you are here
I feel satisfied
I belong inside
Your velvet heaven

Did I need to sell my soul
For pleasure like this
Did I have to lose control
To treasure your kiss
Did I need to place my heart
In the palm of your hand
Before I could even start
To understand

Chorus

Poem of the Day - Edith Wharton

2010-07-12T19:23:00.000-07:00

A striking poem by Wharton talking about love, friendship, disappointment, happiness and losing ourselves.

Wants

WE women want too many things;
And first we call for happiness, -
The careless boon the hour brings,
The smile, the song, and the caress.

And when the fancy fades, we cry,
Nay, give us one on whom to spend
Our heart's desire! When Love goes by
With folded wings, we seek a friend.

And then our children come, to prove
Our hearts but slumbered, and can wake;
And when they go, we're fain to love
Some other woman's for their sake.

But when both love and friendship fail,
We cry for duty, work to do;
Some end to gain beyond the pale
Of self, some height to journey to.

And then, before our task is done,
With sudden weariness oppressed,
We leave the shining goal unwon
And only ask for rest.

Quote of the Day - Charles Dickens

2010-07-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

One of Dickens' gems.

My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.

Source: Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield

Cartoon of the Day - Followership

2010-07-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

2010-07-11T11:21:00.001-07:00

predicting a World Cup win today by Spain but aeromancy in LA can be iffy at best. You still with me Paul the Psychic' Octopus? ;)

Poem of the Day - Sylvia Plath

2010-07-10T22:09:00.000-07:00

A life cut short far too early but her words and thoughts stay with us. I liked this for her remarks on captured moments and what is going on within the picture. Like that Virginia Madsen commentary in Sideways about wine and the events going on in the world when it was produced, I often wonder the same about old pictures and paintings--or even the artist when they produce a piece of art.

A Life

Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball,
This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.
Here's yesterday, last year —-
Palm-spear and lily distinct as flora in the vast
Windless threadwork of a tapestry.

Flick the glass with your fingernail:
It will ping like a Chinese chime in the slightest air stir
Though nobody in there looks up or bothers to answer.
The inhabitants are light as cork,
Every one of them permanently busy.

At their feet, the sea waves bow in single file.
Never trespassing in bad temper:
Stalling in midair,
Short-reined, pawing like paradeground horses.
Overhead, the clouds sit tasseled and fancy

As Victorian cushions. This family
Of valentine faces might please a collector:
They ring true, like good china.

Elsewhere the landscape is more frank.
The light falls without letup, blindingly.

A woman is dragging her shadow in a circle
About a bald hospital saucer.
It resembles the moon, or a sheet of blank paper
And appears to have suffered a sort of private blitzkrieg.
She lives quietly

With no attachments, like a foetus in a bottle,
The obsolete house, the sea, flattened to a picture
She has one too many dimensions to enter.
Grief and anger, exorcised,
Leave her alone now.

The future is a grey seagull
Tattling in its cat-voice of departure.
Age and terror, like nurses, attend her,
And a drowned man, complaining of the great cold,
Crawls up out of the sea.

Quote of the Day - Joseph Conrad

2010-07-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.

Source: Conrad, Joseph. Under Western Eyes

2010-07-09T15:36:00.001-07:00

thinking of that guy with empty bottles on his fingers chanting "Warriors, come out to play-yay!"

2010-07-07T09:32:00.001-07:00

looking forward to speaking w/ Christina Rose, Scott Frisch & Sean Kelly on Off the Presses w/ Huffman, Headington & Jones today at 11 a.m.

2010-07-06T21:23:00.001-07:00

still chuckling over what Vikram said on Sat "I'm having heat flashes guys. U think I'm going through manopause?" http://tinyurl.com/2359bxu

2010-07-04T15:00:00.001-07:00

Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776--holding some truths to be self-evident. Thank you Jefferson.