The Way It Goes

Gillian Welch performs my favorite song off her new album on Conan.



David Rawlings is such an amazing guitarist.

A Day at Silverdocs

Eagan and I love the Silverdocs documentary film festival that comes every June to the AFI theatre in our neighborhood. We've seen four movies so far (The Interrupters -- from the guy who made Hoop Dreams, The Loving Story, and Our School). Our first movie today was Life in a Day. You remember the call last year for people to submit footage to YouTube for a documentary? Well this is the documentary. It was an excellent and impressive film.

Before the film started, I was waiting in line outside the theatre and guess who was standing next to me in line?  NPR's Linda Holmes! She's a pop culture/entertainment expert, and she writes for the NPR blog Monkey See and is on the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. I recognized her and we started chatting in line about the festival and the different movies we've seen. I get so geeked out over NPR hosts, apparently.

And then when I got home, I saw this:

@nprmonkeyseenprmonkeysee

Shouts to the very nice blog/podcast fan I met in line for LIFE IN A DAY. Humans spoke to me who knew who I was!

20 minutes ago via TweetDeck

She's referring to me!! Very cool.

P.S. The other movie we saw today was The Learning. It's a documentary about Filipino teachers that come to Baltimore to teach (because of Baltimore's teacher shortage, they're having to look for teachers internationally). The documentary focuses on four Filipino teachers' adjustments to teaching and living in the U.S., and the struggles they encounter when having to leave their families back in The Philippines. It was a really interesting documentary. I think it's coming to POV on PBS this fall.
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Well said!

New York Senator Diane Savino:

I know many people are concerned about the destruction of the sanctity of marriage, as well, and they view this as a threat. But let me tell you something, ladies and gentleman, what are we really protecting when you look at the divorce rate in our society? Turn on the television. We have a wedding channel on cable TV devoted to the behavior of people on their way to the altar. They spend billions of dollars, behave in the most appalling way, all in an effort to be princess for a day. You don't have cable television? Put on network TV. We're giving away husbands on a game show. You can watch "The Bachelor," where 30 desperate women will compete to marry a 40-year-old man who has never been able to maintain a decent relationship in his life. We have "The Bachelorette," in reverse. And my favorite show, which thank god only ran one season because it was truly distasteful, was "The Littlest Groom," where 30 desperate women competed to marry a dwarf. That's what we've done to marriage in America, where young women are socialized from the time they're five years old to think of being nothing but a bride. They plan every day what they'll wear, how they'll look, the invitations, the whole bit. They don't spend five minutes thinking about what it means to be a wife. People stand up there before God and man -- even in Senator Diaz's church -- they swear to love, honor, and obey; they don't mean a word of it. So if there's anything wrong, any threat to the sanctity of marriage in America, it comes from those of us who have the privilege and the right, and we have abused it for decades.

Whole speech here:

Good job, New York!

Choose The Right

I'm sure the Mormons are glad to see that they're lumped in at the bottom with atheists and gays!!! Good company, I should say.

More people say* they would vote for a black/Jewish/Hispanic/woman president than a Mormon president. And that's saying a lot.

*Of course, social desirability could be a factor with the survey results. People might just say to the researcher that they would vote for a black person, for instance, because it's seen as socially unacceptable to say you wouldn't. Whereas, it's a little more socially acceptable to say you wouldn't vote for a Mormon.