Left In Lowell

Apparently he has passed away after a short illness. There was a lot of friction between Pat and I, but he was a hard worker and passionate about politics, and about Lowell, and my condolences to his family for their loss.

It seems to be a bad month for losing political and public figures. I hope that this is the last condolence thread I have to make for a long while.

It was just announced that Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, has passed away due to her cancer. There are so many reasons to love Elizabeth - she was tough, smart as hell, progressive, caring, warm, and just a presence in a room wherever she went.

I had the privilege to meet her during the 2008 campaign, in NH, before her husband dropped out, and before revelations of his extra-marital affair with a campaign staffer which produced a child. She handled her illness, and her marriage, and her life under such public scrutiny, with grace and dignity. There are many many fans of Elizabeth Edwards and I am one of them…she shone, even as the luster tarnished on John Edwards. People stopped believing in him, but they always believed in Elizabeth.

Thank you, Elizabeth, for your example about what a great human being should be. Rest in peace.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and I hope you are planning to spend a nice time with family and friends.

Things as you all probably know are very, very busy for me, with teaching and running a business, so following political news and posting has been difficult. So on the blog front, I am thankful today for my coblogger Mimi, who has continued to post on local issues and kept the blog light on.

So what are you thankful for this holiday season, and how are you spending it? As for me, it’s back to prepping for a hoard of family and friends descending on us tomorrow (about 18 of them), so back to my hidey hole I go!

I just got my little greedy hands on the brand new (released today!) HTC Evo phone, which has so many cool new things to do, it’s going to be months before I learn it all. And the apps…the apps…oh the humanity…

Anyway, I’m going to run some experiments today on one particular native app to the Evo, which is, live streaming video from the phone to the web via qik.com. If successful, then I will be attempting to live stream some parts of the state Democratic convention tomorrow, which I will be attending as a delegate and as a blogger. I’m so wickedly excited about this ability, that you can be sure that this will be the first of many, many events live streamed from me.

And one in the eye for iPhone - the guy in line behind me was coming to switch off of AT&T and his iPhone to the Evo. Sweet.

Get ready, weather.com is saying that Monday and Tuesday will see more heavy rain, and that parts of the northeast could get at least another four inches.

Since when did we turn into Seattle, anyway? I feel for residents who have basement problems. We’re lucky (well, mostly by design), ours stays dry - if the eight inches in 24 hours didn’t flood us, not much will - but I have family members going through a rough time.

Brace yourselves. I’m posting this mostly because it surprised me to hear about it, and if I hadn’t heard about it, maybe some of you hadn’t. I hope the weather people are wrong! But it wouldn’t hurt to check in on your sump pumps or other mitigation devices ahead of the storm.

This AM, just as the light turned green on YMCA Dr turning onto Thorndike, yet another idiot decided to run the red. Which of course meant he was going through the intersection when it’s possible to hit another vehicle.

Then, blue flashing lights. Me, patiently losing green light time while the cop hurried through the intersection: “Whoo hoo! Go get ‘im!” (There were only two of us at the light anyway, it was unlikely we wouldn’t get through afterward the police car was gone…but I would have happily given up another light cycle for someone to get caught running the red.)

There are some things in life that are very satisfying. I could write a poem about this moment.

Now, do that every morning for a few months, and I will be a happy person…and I’m convinced you could close the city’s 2010 budget gap at the same time.

PS - I hope the offender is someone who reads this blog and is ashamed of themselves!

Wow. This review pretty much sums up everything I think about Avatar. Captured by a slow talkin’ old guy with a foul mouth and a pretty good grasp of every irony, over-simplification, and tired plot point. LOL. It was too funny not to share. Fair warning, I wasn’t kidding about the foul mouth…

Sent via the Mr. via HuffPo.

One of the funniest quotes from the review (which is in two parts):

“So people tell me that Avatar wasn’t supposed to be about the plot. It was about feeling the experience of being on Pandora. Oh, is that what all this 3-D shit is gonna turn movies into? Like, theme park rides? Like, I probably wouldn’t bitch about the plot to the Star Trek Experience, or Jurasic Park, The Ride. Cuz, it’s like a ride.”

Part 1:

Part 2:

Since you or I will likely never make it to the top of Mount Everest…though I have a relative who climbed there…here’s a cool panoramic view from the highest mountain in the world. I recommend going full screen! (Via dkos.)

A lot of people feel helpless in the face of the terrible disaster in Haiti. If you are contemplating a donation to one or more organizations that are part of the response, I hope you’ll consider an organization I’ve come to know, the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation. They have facilities on the ground and while some of their bigger facilities were not affected, being further out, all of the country’s remaining hospitals are being overrun with patients fleeing the city and looking for care. They also have facilities needing to be rebuilt as well. They are well positioned to deliver needed care now, as well as on into the future, to continue their work to build and rebuild infrastructure that Haiti sorely needed before the earthquake, and now is desperate for.

They are also blogging their experience on the ground as best they can.

Other organizations that I recommend as well are Oxfam, and Doctors without Borders. Both groups get stellar marks for the amount of your dollar that actually goes directly to aid.

You have to go like three archive pages back to see a post by me. A combination of the holidays, post-election burnout, an exceptionally busy business with employees I must ensure get paid, and another nasty week long cold served as the perfect storm for long-settling feelings of “gawd, I don’t even want to look at the blog right now.”

So, apologies for getting out of the habit, especially since the last couple of weeks have been rife with local political news. Thanks to Mimi for picking up the slack, and of course, the rest of the local blogosphere which, frankly, goes along quite nicely without me. It’s good to know if I disappeared tomorrow, there’d be plenty of people to continue to rattle the local cages.

Anyway, hopefully I can start posting again, if I find something interesting to say.