On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Tom Hilton, Hortense Lake.
Tom Hamill, Grand Teton.
Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short caption if you want one.
Click on the photos for a link to the photographer’s website. To see all photo threads, click on ‘photo blogging’ at the bottom of the post.
If your computer cannot read our email links at top right, my email is (remove the zeroes): portus0jackson0ii at yahoo dot com.
jeffreyw
I used to live on Hortense Street, so when I say this is a good pic, I speak with some credibility.
Jason Bylinowski
Some guy on reddit just posted what amounts to a Discovery Channel mashup video; it is well worth watching for the soundtrack alone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf07e5h8474 (watch in HD)
Amazing video. I used to scoff at people who do mashups as being too derivative. I would say though that this and several other recent mashups have me convinced that there are creative possibilities that I had not considered.
trollhattan
Q: “Isn’t that Hortense?”
A: “She looks pretty relaxed to me.”
“Sank you, ve be here all veek. Please tipping vaitress.”
Nice shots. I assume the first is in the Sierra somewhere–the peaks look familiar–but not the childishly amusing lake name.
Brick Oven Bill
Matt Stoller is the Alpha Tool (on the left side in the photo), and disburses money to progressive blogs through the organization, BlogPAC, which is funded by unknown sources.
Here is Mark’s new project, Open Left. Balloon Juice is a superior blog to Open Left.
Now consider what would motivate a person like Matt to be a Tool. We understand that he is a Harvard grad, and spends his time between London and the Northeast. Therefore it is likely that he is a man of Wealth and Birth, and may logically choose to protect this position of privilege and status from Talent and Virtue.
Or, in the case that he is not independently wealthy, it could be a paycheck from whoever funds BlogPAC.
I would also consider the possibility that it could be to meet women. Some of the most attractive women are into the whole uber-nurture scene.
As Matt does not apparently contribute regularly to Open Left, we can posit the theory that he is not likely industrious, and therefore his political leanings are to protect his family’s status from the Bill Clinton’s of the world.
So Matt may not be a Tool after all, simply one of the Moneyed. Perhaps a Legacy Scholar.
asiangrrlMN
I love the picture open threads because usually they are of nature which means they help me relax. Which I desperately need.
trollhattan
bOb evidently likes photos with his pie. Who knew?
Alex S.
Wonderful:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/reid-slams-broder-as-a-retiree-who-writes-a-column-once-in-a-while.php?ref=fpb
Harry Reid vs. David Broder
MTmofo
109th meeting today. UM Griz (10-0) vs MSU Bobcats (7-3), series 68-35-5 Griz. Go Grizzlies!
r€nato
This weekend:
I’m rooting for Fiorentina over Parma. (that’s Serie A soccer for you North Americans.) Next Saturday, HUGE showdown against league champions and 1st place incumbent Inter. Can’t wait for that one.
I’m rooting for ASU against UCLA but I have little hope of a victory in that one. This season is pretty much done for the Sun Devils.
Sunday, I’m rooting for the Cardinals over the Rams and Suns over Pistons.
If I finish the weekend 3-1, I’ll be happy.
MikeJ
@r€nato: I don’t mind watching Italian football, but I can never keep track of which teams are fascists and which ones aren’t. When you’re picking on side or the other at random to cheer for you hate to learn after the fact they’re fascists.
Dave C
Happy Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act implementation day, everybody!
r€nato
@MikeJ:
There are fascist fans and there was that one player for Lazio who gave a fascist salute to a group of fans (Di Canio), but there really isn’t a ‘fascist team’ that I am aware of.
(I’m sure there are plenty of NFL fans who have some pretty fascist viewpoints, but it doesn’t stop me from watching football)
gizmo
I think that’s Jenny Lake in the foreground of the Grand Tetons photo. i’ve camped right there….
smiley
In which she proves she isn’t:
(via C&L – sorry for bringing up the Wasilla Wingnut again)
r€nato
@smiley:
What drives me nuts about Palin (and, I suspect, many others), is that she is so aggressively, obviously, transparently dumb and full of resentment.
For chrissakes, we just (somehow) got through 8 years of being led by a guy who was aggressively dumb.
Yet, she still has a substantial following. WTF is wrong with people? You literally could not run a candidate who was too dumb for Republicans to follow, so long as he or she was handsome/attractive enough.
r€nato
yeah it is such a terrible thing to have an Ivy League education.
It is such a terrible thing to be articulate, to be educated, to know things, to be intellectually curious, to be able to grasp the subtle shades of gray in the world around us.
Christ my head hurts. I need a drink now.
licensed to kill time
@smiley: I just pasted that same quote over on the Dave Noon reading Rogue thread and said :
She is really pushing this “common sense” meme, sort of like Bush’s “compassionate conservative” tagline and equally content-free. Read those sentences a few times and they still don’t mean a goddamned thing except to the true believers, which is basically “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me are better than those spineless liberal elites”.
Also, O’Reilly “Bold and Fresh” always sounds like a deodorant commercial to me.
Also, too, great pics again.
r€nato
One step closer to health care reform:
Senate Democrats assured of 60 votes to debate health bill
cleek
If ‘elitist’ just means ‘not the dumbest motherfucker in the room,’ I’ll be an elitist!
— get your war on
r€nato
@cleek:
no shit. I wear my elitist badge with pride. I don’t think any parent with any sense would ever tell their kid, ‘whatever you do, don’t grow up to be one of those educated elitists! I want you to dig a ditch for a living, like the common folks do!’
Jason Bylinowski
@r€nato: In theory I agree with you. However, Ivy League colleges are legacy institutions, which more or less means that fully half of their students don’t actually deserve admission; I’ve got an unshakable case of class envy (because I come from somewhat humble origins and so far have had no little trouble rising above it) so this fact always ticked me off to no end. I fancy that I’m the sort of guy, given the right circumstances, who would be perfectly cut out for graduate-level education at a elite school, if I could only afford the cost of moving/admission. But instead I’ll bow and scrape my way to uneasy financial stability, try to someday finish my undergrad, and more than likely “retire” by free-falling relievedly into my grave.
Some American Dream this turned out to be.
r€nato
@Jason Bylinowski:
and I bet they LOATHE affirmative action!
Jason Bylinowski
@r€nato: No kidding, I acutally work for a guy who graduated as a legacy from Rice, and we had this exact conversation. I pretty much wanted to strangle him. Nothing against Rice, of course, which is a great New Ivy school from what I hear.
Chat Noir
@r€nato:
Courtesy of dictionary.com.
Oh, yeah, elite is a bad thing.
r€nato
@Jason Bylinowski:
there’s actually some penetrating observations to be made about American attitudes towards class and race, in that little episode.
Preferences on the base of class are OK and utterly non-controversial, so long as the class receiving the preference is the wealthy or perhaps sometimes the middle class, so long as the wealthy get thrown a much, much larger bone than the middle class.
On the other hand, preferences on the basis of race are horribly unfair and even racist, even if their goal is to correct the centuries of racial preferences for the white and wealthy.
This is where the ‘class warfare’ tripe comes from; it’s not class warfare if it is being waged upon the poor, minorities and the disadvantaged. It’s only class warfare if they fight back or if they demand their fair share as well.
Tom Hilton
@trollhattan: Ha!
Yeah, no mistaking that Sierra granite. Hortense is on the Silver Divide in John Muir Wilderness, south of Yosemite and north of Kings Canyon NP.
New Yorker
As the son of an NYPD cop and a middle school teacher who attended one of the ancient 8, I agree with this somewhat, but for every dumbass legacy, there are at least 3 extremely bright and talented people who belong there (and not every legacy is a W-style fuckup). It’s definitely not “fully half”.
The ugly truth is that dumbass rich kids would be hooked up in life by their parents no matter where they go to school, Harvard or not. A 2.3 GPA at Dumbfuck State will still get them a paralegal job at the law firm where daddy is a partner.