What are you doing this Sunday? That’s what I thought.

Instead of being bored silly, come to the Forum for the CircleFest blues concert and silent auction!

I happened to be in close proximity to the last rehearsal, featuring both student musicians from The Circle School and the very talented folks from the Blues Society, and WOW! The music was amazing, the energy was through the roof, and my excitement grew exponentially. They’ve got four blues bands lined up, including Nate Myers and the Aces, one of the hottest acts in town. It’s going be quite an afternoon.

To summarize, come to the Forum from 2-6 PM on Sunday, May 1st for:

* A great blues fest featuring top area bands (and how often can you do this in a smokefree environment?), and
* great deals on all kinds of things at the silent auction while supporting the only democratic school in PA.

You can order tickets here.

Often, I turn on the radio or start reading the news and think Every day is the same. This made me think I guess some days are worse than others.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Ratzinger is elected as new pope

The BBC’s William Horsley in Rome says his papacy is sure to continue John Paul II’s strongly traditional interpretation of the Catholic faith, including opposition to abortion, homosexuality, priestly marriage and women priests.

Excellent. So glad to hear it.

After only a few posts, it’s too early to tell if this blog from Lebanon will be interesting/valuable, but for now there are some good images and a brief history that I probably shouldn’t admit contains more than I knew before.

Kristin?

This article pretty much speaks for itself.

How Does Justice Scalia Mount His Spouse?

I don’t know enough about the Democratic candidates for US Senate to have picked a favorite (I figure I have some time, since the election isn’t until 2006), but it’s clear to me that Santorum needs to go. Here’s one synopsis of why:

Daily Kos :: Definitive Rick Santorum Diary: Your Talking Points

My personal dislike for Santorum is all based on things that I can’t find links for, but you might be able to find your own reasons for disliking him right on his own website. He is, I guess, a pretty typical Bushite, complete with talk about the culture of life, activist judges, and how liberals encourage pedophilia and man on dog action. The normal stuff.

Bob Casey’s the candidate who currently appears in the best position to defeat Santorum. Here’s a list of other announced and potential candidates, some of whom might be more palatable.

I’m pretty much of the “anybody but Santorum” mindset.

Ohhh. The newly redesigned Corvette has been announced. The word, I think, is sexy.

The Untitled Project is a series of photographs of urban settings accompanied by a graphical text layout. The photographs have been digitally stripped of all traces of textual information. The text pieces show the removed text in the approximate location and font as it was found in the photograph.

It’s really interesting to me what we can fill in on our own, and what our eyes keep looking for. I went through looking first at the image alone, then at the text, and then the two together. I think adding the words made the biggest difference on this one.

The UN has released its third annual Arab Human Development Report. According to the New York Times, the report says that Arabs don’t have very much freedom. I would say that while this is an issue that needs attention, it does not come as a surprise.

More interestingly, the article notes that our lovely president tried to suppress the report because it suggests that “the United States and Israel have also played a part in suppressing Arab freedom.”

Don’t like that someone’s saying you’re restricting freedom? Restrict their ability to say it. Seems to me like that’s a classic and time-honored strategy.

Iraqi political parties have finally begun to select leaders. From the NYT:

The assembly is expected to name Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, as president; Adel Abdul Mahdi, a prominent Shiite Arab politician, as vice president; and Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar, the Sunni Arab president of the interim government, as the other vice president.