Summer Song #28... Up Up & Away

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon

We could float among the stars together,

 You & I

For we can fly, we can fly

Up, up & away

My beautiful, my beautiful balloon

The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon

It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon

We can sing a song & sail along the silver sky

For we can fly we can fly

Up, up & away

My beautiful, my beautiful balloon

Suspended under a twilight canopy

We'll search the clouds for a star to guide us

If by some chance you find yourself loving me

We'll find a cloud to hide us

We'll keep the moon beside us

Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon

Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon

If you'll hold my hand we'll chase your dream across the sky

For we can fly we can fly

Up, up & away

My beautiful, my beautiful balloon

Balloon...

Up, up, & away...

Jimmy Webb

1967

I have never been in a hot air balloon. It is one of the many things on the list of things I want to experience before I go. I sense that I need to start checking off that list. Tell me, have you ever been up in a balloon?

Norwegian Would

I was thinking about lesbians today, (& who of us does not?), preparing for the post below. I have been dumbstruck by the lack of attention this story got in the mainstream press. Americans love a Hero Story, & yet I have seen no accounts in our country’s press of this story.

They were doing one of those things that lesbians do better than most of us- Camping. Hege Dalen & her spouse Toril Hansen were camping on an island when the couple were among the first responders to assist victims following the shooting massacre in Norway last week, when a Right Wing Christian gunman- Anders Behring Breivik went on a shooting rampage at a youth camp on Utoya island.

Dalen & Hansen made 4 trips back forth in their small boat, picking up injured, bloodied & scared young people.

Dalen & Hansen were near Utöyan having dinner on the opposite shore across from the ill-fated campsite, when they began to hear gunfire & screaming on the island.

Dalen: “We were eating. Then shooting & then the awful screaming. We saw how the young people ran in panic into the lake.”

The couple immediately took action & pushed the boat into Lake Tyrifjorden. Dalen & Hansen drove the boat to the island, picked up from the water victims in shock in, the young wounded, & transported them to the opposite shore to the mainland, all the while there were bullets flying overhead. They returned to the island 4 times. The couple were able to rescue 40 young people from the killer.

Heroes like Dalen & Hansen need to be part of the story when reported in the press. The Right Wingers call gay people many degrading names, but a HOMO HERO is a term that they just might choke on.

Born On This Day- July 31st... Pioneer Activist Barbara Gittings

During an era when very few gay people dared come out in private, much less in public, Barbara Gittings was a vocal & visible figure in the fledgling fight for gay rights.

In the late 1950s, she founded the NYC chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first national organization for lesbians, even though she lived in Philadelphia. In the 1960s, she took part in early gay rights demonstrations at the White House & Liberty Square in Philadelphia. In the early 1970s, she helped lobby the American Psychiatric Association to change its stance on homosexuality; in 1973, the APA invalidated the definition of homosexuality as a mental disorder.

Gittings also strove to make information about gay men & lesbians more widely available in libraries. Though not a librarian by training, she was for many years the head of the American Library Association’s Gay Task Force; she coordinated & edited the association’s comprehensive bibliography of literature by & about gay people.

Gittings felt keenly aware of the need for such a bibliography as a young woman, when she scoured local libraries, seeking, but seldom seeing, something that would help her understand her own life.

Gittings was born on July 31, 1932, in Vienna, where her father was a member of the United States diplomatic corps. Returning to the United States when Barbara was young. When she was a teenager, her father caught her reading The Well of Loneliness, the 1928 novel of lesbian love by the English writer Radclyffe Hall. He told her, via a letter, to burn the book. Gittings father mailed the letter, when he could not bring himself to speak to her.

Gittings studied theatre at Northwestern, but she was increasingly distracted by the need to learn as much as she could about homosexuality. She haunted the libraries of Chicago, unearthing little that was relevant & nothing that was encouraging.

Gittings: "I had to find bits & pieces under headings like ‘sexual perversion’, ‘invert, or ‘sexual aberration’ in books on abnormal psychology. I kept thinking, ‘It’s me they’re writing about, but it doesn’t feel like me at all.’"

She left Northwestern after her freshman year, & for decades she supported her activism with clerical jobs. In 1958, commuting from her home in Philadelphia, Gittings started the NYC chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, which was founded in San Francisco in 1955; she later edited the organization’s national newsletter- The Ladder. In 1965, she took part in one of the first gay rights pickets of the White House, in an effort to end discrimination against gay people in federal employment.

Gittings received many awards, among them honorary membership in the American Library Association. The Free Library of Philadelphia named its gay & lesbian collection for her, & the NY Public Library acquired the papers of Ms. Gittings & her partner Kay Tobin Lahusen, which chronicle more than half a century in the gay rights movement.

She appeared in the documentaries Out of the Past, Gay Pioneers, Before Stonewall & After Stonewall.

Gittings died of cancer in her home on February 2007 at 74 years old.

Lahusen: “Before Barbara died, we went jointly into an assisted-living facility here, Our last bit of activism was to come out in the newsletter of our assisted-living facility.”

Gittings front & center in 1966. Photo by her partner.

PRINCE WILLIAM AND KATE MIDDLETON

On 16 November 2010, Clarence House announced that Prince William, elder son of the Prince of Wales, was to marry his longtime girlfriend Catherine Middleton "in the Spring or Summer of 2011, in London". They were engaged in October 2010 while on a private holiday in Kenya; William gave Middleton the same engagement ring that his father had given to William's mother, Diana, Princess of Wales—an 18-carat white gold ring with a 12-carat oval sapphire and 14 round diamonds. It was announced at approximately the same time that, after their marriage, the couple will live on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, where Prince William is based with the Royal Air Force.

The couple met while undergraduates at the University of St Andrews, where they both lived at St Salvator's Hall during their first year, after which they shared accommodation in the town for two years. In a study of the ancestry of Catherine, William Addams Reitwiesner uncovered that she shares ancestors with Prince William; the closest relationship is via a common descent from Sir Thomas Fairfax and his wife Agnes Gascoigne, daughter of Sir William Gascoigne and his wife, née Lady Margaret Percy, making William and Catherine fifteenth cousins. Catherine "Kate" Middleton is the eldest of three children born to Michael and Carole Middleton. She was educated at St Andrew's School in Pangbourne, Marlborough College, and the University of St Andrews. After graduating, she worked in retail and then as an accessories buyer/catalogue photographer at her parents' business. She is primarily of English descent, but with a few distant Scottish and French Huguenot ancestors. Her paternal family came from Leeds, West Yorkshire, while her mother's maternal family, the Harrisons, were working-class labourers and miners from County Durham.

Prince William is the elder son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales, and grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. As such, he is second, behind his father, in the line of succession to the throne in 16 independent states known as the Commonwealth realms. William was educated at Ludgrove School, Eton College, and the University of St Andrews, after which he was commissioned as an officer from Sandhurst in the Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry. He later transferred to the RAF and went on to become a full-time pilot with the Search and Rescue Force at RAF Valley, Anglesey.

As Prince William was not the heir apparent to the throne, the wedding was not a full state occasion and many details were left to the couple to decide, such as much of the guest list of about 1,900. It was a public holiday in the United Kingdom and featured many ceremonial aspects, including use of the state carriages and roles for the Foot Guards and Household Cavalry. Hours before the service, the Queen conferred the titles Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn, and Baron Carrickfergus upon William. Upon her marriage, Middleton therefore became Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge. The ceremony was attended by most of the Royal Family, as well as many foreign royals, diplomats, and the couple's chosen personal guests.

The wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine Middleton took place on 29 April 2011 at Westminster Abbey in London. Prince William, second in the line of succession to Queen Elizabeth II, first met Catherine Middleton in 2001, when both were studying at the University of St Andrews. Their engagement on 20 October 2010 was announced on 16 November 2010. The build-up to the wedding and the occasion itself attracted much media attention, with the service being broadcast live around the world, and being compared and contrasted in many ways with the 1981 marriage of William's parents, Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales. Much of the attention focused on Kate Middleton's status as a commoner (i.e. not a part of the aristocracy) marrying into royalty.

The Prince of Wales said he was "thrilled ... they have been practising long enough", and Queen Elizabeth II said she was "absolutely delighted" for the couple, giving her formal consent to the marriage, as required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772, in her British privy council on the morning of the engagement. Congratulations also came in from the Queen's prime ministers, including Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard, who has moderate republican leanings. The suffragan Bishop of Willesden, Pete Broadbent, who has republican views, published a critical reaction to the wedding announcement on Facebook. He later acknowledged that his words were "offensive" and subsequently apologised, but his superior, Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, instructed him to withdraw from public ministry "until further notice".

Fotos De Ana Patricia Gonzalez

Hugo León Ferrer was executive producer. Venezuelan screenwriter Valentina Párraga originally developed the teleplay but dropped out and was replaced by another Venezuelan screenwriter, Isamar Hernández, who made it resemble a story she wrote on early 1990s. The show was directed by Rodolfo Hoyos and Andres Biermann. On-air promotions for this serial began on Telemundo on March 2, 2007. The network originally announced back in 2006 that the show would join its daytime lineup, airing at 1 p.m. ET/PT, which is where it ultimately wound up. Telemundo originally planned to run 120 original hours from Monday to Friday over about 26 weeks, but the order was apparently cut to 80 hours. Only 14 episodes aired in prime time, three of which were cut to a half hour. Recaps of those shows aired during the first week in daytime. During the initial run, Telemundo broadcast English subtitles as closed captions on CC1, but abruptly dropped them during the afternoon time slot.

This show is also known as Cuatro Rosas ("Four Roses") and 4 Lives... For Love. It is based on the 2006 TVN comedy-drama Entre Medias ("In Between"). The four heroines parallel the four temperaments.

Telemundo debuted Sin Vergüenza on weeknights at 10 p.m. ET/PT. After the early weeks received disappointing ratings, it moved to daytime, airing weekdays at 1 p.m. ET/PT from May 7 until August 21, 2007.

Sin Vergüenza (Spanish pronunciation: [sim berˈɣwensa], No Shame) is a Spanish-language telenovela produced by Telemundo and RTI Colombia. This limited-run series about four beautiful, yet very different women, resembles Desperate Housewives and Sex & The City. Venezuelan actress Gaby Espino stars. This telenovela was sold to 9 countries around the world.

SUMMER MEANT OPEN CARS.

2000 Vauxhall Astra Coupe

In 2002, despite a full time MG attack and the addition of Honda and Proton rivals, Vauxhall won a clean sweep of the titles again. Likewise in 2003 and 2004 when the Astra was retired from works competition, but it still lived on for a couple more years in private hands.

The Triple Eight Race Engineering Vauxhall Astra Coupe was the first BTC Touring car to be unveiled in late 2000. Work began on the car in the summer of that year and as a result, had a massive headstart on the rest of the field come the 2001 campaign. In the end, it was developed so much more than the other cars, that it managed to win 25 out of 26 races in 2001 (although the only non Vauxhall win was a non-points scoring victory by Anthony Reid for MG, so they picked up maximum points in every race).

Onion Domes and Brick Buildings

 

 

Sent to you by terry via Google Reader:

 

 

Onion Domes and Brick Buildings

via Moscow Daily Photo by Ashira on 7/30/11

Brick buildings, apartment blocks, an overly large Mercedes-Benz logo which sits atop one of the apartment blocks, a star from one of the Kremlin towers, and the ubiquitous onion domes of the Kremlin churches - must be Moscow!

posted by Ashira

 

 

Things you can do from here:

• Subscribe to Moscow Daily Photo using Google Reader
• Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

 

 

Ray Ban Eye Glasses

Ray-Ban Eyeglasses - Ray-Ban

Polarized sunglasses first became available in 1936, when Edwin H. Land began experimenting with making lenses with his patented Polaroid filter.

Ray-Ban Sunglasses - RB 2015

In the early 1900s, the use of sunglasses started to become more widespread, especially among stars of movies. It is commonly believed that this was to avoid recognition by fans, but an alternative reason sometimes given is that they often had red eyes from the powerful arc lamps that were needed due to the extremely slow speed film stocks used.[citation needed] The stereotype persisted long after improvements in film quality and the introduction of ultraviolet filters had eliminated this problem. Inexpensive mass-produced sunglasses were introduced to America by Sam Foster in 1929. Foster found a ready market on the beaches of Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he began selling sunglasses under the name Foster Grant from a Woolworth on the Boardwalk.

Ray Ban Eye Glasses,

Yellow/amber and brown-tinted spectacles were also a commonly prescribed item for people with syphilis in the 19th[dubious – discuss] and early 20th centuries because sensitivity to light was one of the symptoms of the disease.

they can be nerds too

James Ayscough began experimenting with tinted lenses in spectacles in the mid-18th century, around 1752. These were not "sunglasses" as that term is now used; Ayscough believed blue- or green-tinted glass could correct for specific vision impairments. Protection from the Sun's rays was not a concern for him.

Ray-Ban Sunglasses Summer

It is said that the Roman emperor Nero liked to watch gladiator fights with emeralds. These, however, appear to have worked rather like mirrors. Sunglasses made from flat panes of smoky quartz which offered no corrective powers but did protect the eyes from glare were used in China in the 12th century or possibly earlier. Ancient documents describe the use of such crystal sunglasses by judges in ancient Chinese courts to conceal their facial expressions while questioning witnesses.

Ray-Ban RX 5087 Eyeglasses

In prehistoric and historic time, Inuit peoples wore flattened walrus ivory "glasses," looking through narrow slits to block harmful reflected rays of the sun.

Ray-Ban RB3362 Sunglasses

Many people find direct sunlight too bright for comfort during outdoor activities. Healthcare professionals recommend eye protection whenever the sun comes out to protect the eyes from ultraviolet radiation (UV) and blue light, which can cause several serious eye problems. Sunglasses have long been associated with celebrities and film actors primarily from a desire to mask their identity. Since the 1940s sunglasses have been popular as a fashion accessory, especially on the beach.

on Ray Ban sunglasses,

Sunglasses or sun glasses are a form of protective eyewear designed primarily to prevent bright sunlight and high-energy visible light from damaging or discomforting the eyes. They also help cancel out harmful UV rays from the sun. They can sometimes also function as a visual aid, as variously termed spectacles or glasses exist, featuring lenses that are colored, polarized or darkened. In the early 20th century they were also known as sun cheaters (cheaters being an American slang term for glasses).

CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE 3

Modern Warfare 3

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was known to be in development after a legal dispute between Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella and Activision resulted in the pair being fired from the company. Several dozen Infinity Ward employees followed West and Zampella as a result of the ongoing dispute, causing Activision to enlist the services of Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software to assist development of the title.

Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 3

The game will immediately follow the events of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, where the Russian Federation continues its invasion of the United States of America, and has also expanded its offensive to Europe, including England, France and Germany. Campaign stages are also planned for Somalia, Sierra Leone, Moscow and Dubai. Gameplay videos from E3 2011 in Los Angeles showed Delta Force soldiers forcing a Russian submarine to surface in the East River and boarding it before taking part in a mission to destroy a radar jamming installation on top of the New York Stock Exchange.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

New non-playable characters that have been confirmed so far include Truck and Grunt, who form part of the Delta Force fire team alongside Frost and Sandman. A Delta Force operative named Grinch was announced, with Tobey Maguire voicing.

Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

The game will see the return of Task Force 141 Captain John "Soap" MacTavish, former SAS Captain John Price and Russian informant Nikolai who are on the run after killing the rogue U.S. Army Lieutenant General Shepard. Russian Ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov will also reprise as the game's primary antagonist. Several new playable characters have been added, including Derek "Frost" Westbrook and Sandman, a pair of Delta Force operatives in New York City; Marcus Burns, a Sergeant in the Special Air Service fighting in London; and Yuri, a Russian federal security agent. Wallcroft from Call of Duty 4 will also return in the game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Infinity Ward has recently revealed that it has revamped the entire killstreak reward system. They have stated that while Treyarch had slightly improved the system, it was not enough to make the system feel perfect. Infinity Ward has also revealed that they are removing annoyances that make players rely less on skill and more on perks. To do this, they are removing certain perks that give players a power advantage over others who do not possess the same perk. Quick scoping has also returned, having been absent in Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Duty: Modern Warfare 3,

Infinity Ward revealed that Modern Warfare 3 will feature a new survival mode. Survival mode features one to two players fighting endless waves of enemies with each wave getting more difficult. Despite being much compared to the Call of Duty: World at War Nazi Zombies mode, enemies do no not spawn at fixed locations like the zombies did, but instead at tactical positions based on the current location of the player. The mode will be available on all multiplayer maps in the game and in the mode players can earn "cash" for items such as weapons, upgrades and ammo.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Like its predecessors, Modern Warfare 3 is a first-person shooter. Modern Warfare 3 will run at 60 frames per second.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (abbreviated as Call of Duty: MW3 or simply MW3) is an upcoming first-person shooter video game currently in development by Infinity Ward with assisted development from Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software co-developing multiplayer. It will be the third installment in the Modern Warfare series, and the eighth Call of Duty installment. Sledgehammer Games has announced the game to be the first Infinity Ward entry in the Call of Duty series to have built-in support for color-blind gamers.