Daily Archives: February 9, 2010

I had a wonderful time in Santa Monica at the Vintage Fashion Expo this weekend. I flew solo on Saturday but I had the pleasure of Sandra Mendoza-Daly’s company on Sunday. And as I meandered the aisles of this vintage wonderland, I was reminded of a few tips that might be helpful to all the vintage fashionistas who enjoy these types of events:

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I adore Elizabeth Warren and consider her one of the most courageous policy leaders in Washington today. Her simple, prescient toaster metaphors in 2007—remember the world before the financial crisis??—were brilliant. That summer, a full year before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, she wrote:

It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the street-and the mortgage won’t even carry a disclosure of that fact to the homeowner.

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It’s 1961. William Stockton, a well-respected doctor, is having a birthday dinner with family and friends. They toast his service to the community and joke about all the late-night work he devotes to his hobby. Dr. Stockton has just finished building a bomb shelter for his family.

Before the guests can repair to the living room for after-dinner drinks, the radio announces a yellow alert. Radars have detected unidentified flying objects heading toward the United States. The good doctor guides his family into the basement shelter to await the nuclear attack. One by one, the neighbors approach the shelter door to ask for admittance. The doctor says no, there’s only enough air and water and food for his family. The neighbors quickly go from wheedling to demanding. Growing desperate, they ultimately break down the shelter door with a battering ram. Just as the door splinters, the radio announces that the objects are only satellites, not missiles.

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I have heard it said that a woman over 40 has a better chance of being killed by terrorists than she does of finding a husband. I don’t buy it. I’ve seen too many examples of older couples finding true love.

My parents, Ken and Gloria Gallagher, were both in their 50s when they divorced after 31 years of marriage. They each moved on, found new love, and have been happy with their respective partners for 35 years now.

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THE DEPROLIFERATOR — “Nuclear war must be the most carefully avoided topic of general significance in the contemporary world. People are not curious about the details… almost everyone seems to feel adequately informed by reading one book about nuclear war.”

– Paul Brians, chronicler of nuclear imagery in literature and pop culture

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The day I was thrown out of school, at the tender age of fifteen, was a happy day indeed! Having played truant for almost all of the previous year (ducking into the subway station, changing out of my school uniform, and spending the day at the movies) I was thrilled at the thought of legitimate freedom.

The only subject that had interested me at school was writing. I used to love making up fun fantasy stories, and charging my schoolmates money to let them read the sexy bits. Ah yes, at that young age sex was the engine that drove my somewhat lurid stories, although once I became a published author I soon reached the conclusion that sex doesn’t sell a book, a good story and interesting characters does.

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Mark Green

Time to take back “populism” from Teabaggers and Palinites who’ve kidnapped it to only mean less government and taxes. Democrats need to define a phrase and philosophy that tells Independents we’re on your side.

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Coober Pedy, an opal mining town in South Australia, is located in an extremely inhospitable environment. Desert temperatures in the summer usually exceed 104 degrees Fahrenheit and it can get quite chilly in the winter. Years ago, the original miners stumble upon a solution to living there: build everything underground. They began using old opal mines or digging out new structures for housing. The underground homes naturally maintain a comfortable temperature. They require no air-conditioning or heating systems, greatly reducing the residents’ carbon footprints. Most of the towns 1,916 residents continue to build and live underground.

Check it out:

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