3 Ring Binder

(From the Prelinger collection at archive.org) Don't bother hitting play unless you have an hour to spend on this delightful slice of 1939 America.  It was fun to watch even if I couldn't stand the kid protagonist. From an original ad for the film, Here's a family of folks you know - friends who live just around the corner from everyone. Doing the Fair - because that's what everyone is doing this year. Thrilled by its beauty . . . amazed at its wonders . . . the Middleton Family, from Everywhere, U.S.A.! There are Babs and Bud, overflowing with the exuberance of 18 and 14 . . . romping through Wonderland like two kittens across a rug. There are Father Tom and Mother Jane, trying unsuccessfully to be calm and judicious about it all. And there's Grandma, whose eyes, bright with the memories of other Fairs, grow brighter still with the vision of a new Tomorrow for her dear ones. Watch the pages of your favorite magazines for the diverting adventures of t...

Here you will find the FTC’s notice in the Federal Register: Public Workshops and Roundtables: From Town Crier to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age? Again , it’s important to note that The Federal Register is "[t]he official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents." From FedThread , “It's published by the U.S. government, five days a week. The Federal Register tells you what your government is doing, in a lot more detail than you get from the news media.” This FedThread website to which you’ll be redirected, allows you to comment (not an official government comment) and start a discussion with others who are interested in this particular governmental activity as well as establish an RSS feed for all comments on the matter. You can search for issues, and keep up to date with matters that interest you. I’ve added it to my sidebar. (Tha...

The President has authorized the EPA to move ahead with regulations in an attempt to get congress to pass a climate bill. “We are not going to continue with business as usual,” Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. “We have the tools and the technology to move forward today, and we are using them.” The tools and technology of the force of government? That’s the only thing that the EPA has. While the push to stop global warming seems to be based solely on political considerations rather than any global warming itself (alternatively known as science or reality), President Obama’s push to place onerous regulatory burdens on American power plants is timed so that he has negotiating power at the United Nations summit on global warming in Copenhagen in December. And what will this posturing yoke cost us? Apparently, American money, much like reality, is no match for the political popularity of the idea of cataclysmic world destruct...

This weekend my daughters and I went to see some turn-of-the-century summer cottages of some industrialist millionaires. The three homes we toured, The Breakers , The Elms , and The Marble House , were all incredibly impressive in their size and opulence, but we all agreed we'd do some things a little differently (like not emulate any of the King Louis' styles) and some things the same (open courtyards, loggias, huge bedrooms for the ladies, annunciator boxes to call the servants, gorgeous gardens, and lawn all the way to the ocean) if we owned these cottages. Some cottage industry notes: The Breakers, the summer cottage of Cornelius Vanderbilt II who ran the New York Central Railroad, and whose grandfather, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt made his money by developing that railroad, occupies an acre in footprint, some of the wall panels are painted on platinum ; The Elms, built by Edward Berwind who made his money in the Pennsylvannia coal industry, unlike the other two mansions...