joshedwards.com

Sadie, as seen through the LEGO Photo iPhone app:

On November 27, 1963 Lyndon Johnson addressed a Joint Session of Congress and the American public only a few days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

It’s a pretty amazing speech, that starts as good as any I know:

All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today.

LBJ goes on to set up his vision of his presidency, deftly using JFK’s memory to lay out his own goals.

Check out the full text.

Just read a fascinating article in the new Foreign Affairs: “The Broken Contract: Inequality and American Decline“.

Oh UAE, you never cease to amaze me: “Car with a coat of coins to be dedicated to UAE“.

I meant to post this yesterday, but I forgot. Here’s the newest New Yorker cover:

Happy Thanksgiving.

Also, along the lines with my not liking the Astros moving to the American League in 2013, I really, really don’t like the new Miami Marlins name and logo:

The Washington Post had a good article yesterday about the nation’s debt and the “supercommittee” tasked on fixing it: “Debt panel’s failure puts Bush tax cuts in spotlight“.

The key quote that sums up politics right now:

The deadlock on the committee offers the latest reminder that the country’s political class seems unable to address fundamental national problems unless faced with an immediate crisis. In this case, the Bush tax cuts – and, with them, the fate of the nation’s precarious finances – will in all likelihood be punted beyond next November’s election.

The person (or party) that recognizes this and campaigns on it will have a good shot of winning next year …

Yesterday on the Apple site they added a minute-and-a-half featurette on shooting scenes from the upcoming Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Check out the featurette.

Currently Major League Baseball has 8 teams of 30 reach the playoffs. New one-game wild card playoffs discussed today for the 2013 season would push that to 10 teams.

At first I thought 30 percent of teams reaching the post season was too high a ratio. Then I read this tonight:

In the NFL, 12 of 32 teams make the playoffs. In the NBA and NHL, 16 of 30 teams advance.

Huh.

So we’re at the Birthplace at Mercy, working on having this baby. It’s been an uneventful 11 hours so far.

Last night, while Liz was watching Grey’s Anatomy I watched the 2004 Red Sox video “Faith Rewarded”.

You might recall how Kevin Youkilis was on that team, but barely played. In fact, he was one of the handful of players who came to the parade in Portland. I believe, at the time, I made the joke, “Kevin Who-kilis?”

Anyway, it was funny to see him pop up in the video last night, more often than I would have thought, too.

Although, oddly, I found a commonality to all of the Youk sightings. See if you can notice it:

Last winter Liz and I had a wonderful weekend getaway to Boston at the Omni Parker House.

That’s not likely this winter, though. I just saw this Yankee Magazine recipe for Parker House Rolls. That might need to be our getaway instead …

There’s a new story over at the Greason-Edwards Family blog … Check it out!

I haven’t had the official word from BU yet, but it appear from my student record online that I earned an “A” in my first class in Boston University’s Online Master of Science in Health Communication program!

Lately I’ve been reading, or re-reading, the short stories of Dashiell Hammett. They’re all reading the I have time for as my BU grad class is taking a good amount of time.

Anyway, while many people generally don’t praise the prose of early 20th Century crime fiction, I’m rather fond of it.

I just read a great line in “Afraid Of A Gun” describing the antagonist Rip Yust:

Yust was not possessed of the clearest of minds; he was not fitted, for all his patience and deliberation, to unerringly sift the false from the true.

Pretty clever …

I have too many things to say, so many memories to share, but I’ll start with a simple “Happy birthday” to Walt Disney World in Florida.