Can you confirm that?

I watched All The Presidents Men last night for the first time. The 1976 classic starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford is the story of famed journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward whom broke the story that eventually led to the resignation of everyone's favorite president, Richard Nixon. The film simultaneously portrays the best and worst of America and I highly recommend it.

It reminded me of some things Einstein said about America and how it handled McCarthyism. He thought we were on the verge of becoming Nazi Germany at the time. A certain segment of the population was being identified by the government (communists and homosexuals mostly) and blamed as the reasons for any of America's ills much the same way Nazi Germany blamed the Jews early on. He thought that fascism would not be far behind. As he grew older and saw that there was an eventual backlash against McCarthyism and that Americans did in fact realize what they had done was wrong without millions dying he started to appreciate how America works.

At times we do some pretty fucked up things. Sometimes, with the help of people dedicated to the truth like Woodward and Bernstein, we realize how out of control we have let things get. Hopefully with things like WikiLeaks and angry bloggers such as ourselves the fourth estate won't die out with print media. We need some of our brightest minds to show us how to hold ourselves accountable. We can't just scream at each other with unsubstantiated rants if we want this medium to ever be more than a shared journal. We need our young Woodwards and Bernsteins to show us the way to use this tool we call the internet to promote greater accountability as opposed to being just more useless screams like those heard on CNN and Fox News. We need to stop regurgitating and opining on every subject without a critical eye and maybe from time to time do a little legwork ourselves. I'm willing to give it a try. Let's all start checking our sources and maybe we can contribute to the ebb and flow of American life in a positive way.

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4X6

Her smell haunts me. She uses perfume like I use whiskey, a few drops is never enough. I follow her scent the way a small child follows the smell of cooking bacon into the kitchen in the morning: sleepily and with an awoken hunger. I hear a page turn as I turn into the study. She doesn't even notice me she's so completely ensconced in her romance novel. She always tries to hide herself away when she reads them. She doesn't like when I tease her about it. We all have guilty pleasures, although some desires are more damned than others. I pull out my camera and snap some photos of her. Her robe is subtly hanging off her shoulder. She's playing with her hair. She's delicious. I know the photos won't come out, it's too dark. They'll help keep this memory alive though, that's all that really matters.
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Image taken from: http://polarbearstale.blogspot.com/2009/02/always-reading.html

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Vignette

She was withered away on a vodka and cocaine diet. I used to play her ribs like a xylophone while she vomited gibberish over the telephone. I would glance over at the mantle and look at her old pictures. There was a sparkle in her eyes that slowly decomposed. She was dried up. Her tears smelled of formaldehyde. Her breath stunk of cigarettes and missed opportunities. She would gasp when her wild cats jumped her chest and scream when she showered. Her nose was burnt. Tiny crystals destroyed her mind. She was sick. I coughed, and walked out.
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Image is the painting Albatross by Joyce Polance

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Fluidity

It's natural for things to sway. It's natural for things to bend, break and eventually become straight. The world is complex. We break it down into little parts and dissect them until they become microscopic. It's silly, but I do it everyday. You can't fix this without breaking that. You can't touch this without arousing that. Democracy flows. Our country has it's ups and downs and slowly but surely we take the bumps and learn from our mistakes. It doesn't look like that when you study the micro, think macro. I never thought bling or google would be words, but they are. Language flows. Don't stifle it. Improvise or die. If you focused on only high tide the world would flood. If you focused on the low we would never be quenched. Don't be small minded. Don't be blinded. Life is affirming, we're doing OK.

Just another obvious thought I felt the need to express.
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Image taken from: http://skepticdetective.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/seven-suspicious-water-claims/

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