Yesterday, Republican Scott Brown was sworn in to the US Senate, taking over the seat of the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy. Brown has vowed to be an independent voice in a bitterly divided Senate.
What’s fascinating is the story of how he came out of nowhere to single-handedly derail the Democrats’ filibuster-proof super-majority. The democrats can no longer simply script an agenda and vote along party lines to push something through the Senate. Suddenly, this single election changed everything in politics.
This article from the New Yorker (sent in by my brother, Stu) tells the story of the origins of the movement that, some might argue, led directly to Brown’s election.
Here’s a slightly slanted wikipedia page that covers the Tea Party Movement, whose main focus is the opposition to using stimulus to spend our way out of the recession.
A fascinating look at an important chapter in our political history, well worth the read…
Posted by Dave Mark on Jan 26, 2010 in Music, Stu, video
My brother, Stu, put together this video for one of the tracks off his band’s first release (cousin Mark is part of the band, too). If you would so indulge me, put on some headphones and watch the vid. I find the music great to program by and the video kind of trippy. An excellent effort by Stu and Mark, together known as Autostar. If you like the track, you can find it on iTunes by clicking this link…
My brother, Stu, blogged a nice quote from Mark Twain. Inspired me to do the same. This from William Faulkner:
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again…”
Posted by Dave Mark on Nov 11, 2009 in Science, Stu
OK, it’s just a study, but a pretty fascinating one. Researchers at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey (and my brother Stu’s alma mater) found that experiment participants who did a crosstalk exercise designed to stimulate communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain before taking on a creative task, actually performed better on said task.
From my brother’s blog: When I was a kid, growing up in Queens and then New Jersey, there was an amazing TV show called Chiller Theater. Basically just a scary movie, the real value of the show for me was the opener, the bit of film that introduced Chiller Theater each week.
My brother posted that bit of film on his blog. Normally, I’d just embed the video here, but since Stu was the one who actually found it, thought I’d send you to his page to check it out.
This little clip scared the bejeesus out of me. Creepy, creepy, creepy. And delicious! Anyone else out there remember it? Oh, and be sure to count the number of fingers on that hand…
From Stu: This story describes how a surgeon uses Twitter to communicate to his students (and the curious) as he performs surgery. I wish my Mom’s surgical team was so inclined, but I suppose I’d prefer that they keep their mind on their knitting…
