Tag Archives: elections

Elections, Muppets, Hospices, Accents, and More – a link dump.

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Kurt Vonnegut motivational posters. One of these days I’ll get around to reading something of his.

Pencil art – but not the way you think.

This article on hospice care is a hard article to read, but worth it.

A practical plan for when you feel overwhelmed is exactly what it says it is. Turns out I’ve been using most of these for years without having read them in a blog, but the bit about doing 15 minutes of fast things, followed by 35 minutes of something hard, is worth giving a try I suspect.

An awesome photo of a really bad shot by Tiger Woods.

Grover does Old Spice Guy.

Awesome use of negative space in IBM “Outcomes” campaign

Tilt-shift Van Gogh

Best Drunk Driving Public Service Annoucement for today’s geek ever:

An interesting look at the evils of shoes and not just heels, but pretty much all of them. I’m a big fan of MBTs, which they diss just a bit, but which increased my balance quickly enough that my martial arts instructor noticed. That’s progress. On the other hand, I’m hearing wonderful things about Vibram Five Fingers, and they’re likely to be my next adventure in shoes.

32 photographs of the solar system by The Big Picture.

An Open Letter to All the Political Parties

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Hi!

My name is Anne Gibson. I’m a 30-year-old married woman living in Pennsylvania, who votes on a regular basis. I like technology, intelligent thought, and peace and quiet.

I’m getting an average of a half dozen political calls per day. That’s six times each evening that a recorded voice for someone’s political party, special interest group, or election team calls my house and disrupts my life to spew on about their political priorities. Sometimes, I might agree with their points. Sometimes, I do not. Either way, right now, I’m hanging up as soon as I determine that the caller is not, in fact, human.

It’s wasting my time. It’s wasting the money of the political parties and pundits that are so desperately craving my attention and aren’t getting it because they’re making me angry. As there is illness in my household right now, it’s disrupting the ability for my family to rest and heal. I can’t politely describe how frustrating that is.

I’m very tired of it. I’m on the Pennsylvania “Do Not Call” lists because I don’t want to receive telephone calls that from groups I haven’t “opted in” to receive. While I support the right of members of our political parties to attempt to spread their messages to me, I don’t want to have to shut my phone off at night so I can enjoy the occasional dinner with my family uninterrupted. When a survey company calls me, I can request that they remove my household from their calling list. I haven’t found a way to do that yet for a call coming from a recorded nonperson.

The November elections are on their way. Political calls are by far one of the smallest issues you have to deal with. On the other hand, it’s disrupting my life and I need to know: What are you doing to silence my phone?

Thank you for your time and attention
Anne Gibson
—-

PS. I’ve already sent copies to: the Republican Party, Democratic Party, Curt Weldon, Rick Santorum, and Ed Rendell. (Their websites all list contact info. It’s handy.) Anyone have any further suggestions on who I can contact?

PPS. The funniest one so far was when they held the special elections in New Jersey and someone called to urge me to get out and vote. I’m not, nor never have been, a resident of that state. Are they a “vote early, vote often” state?