This Country

“this country—this big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, restless, striving, daring, beautiful, bountiful, brave, good, and magnificent country....  

What have we to lose by trying to work together to find those solutions? We’re not getting done much apart.”   Sen. John McCain

If you haven't watched Senator John McCain's heartfelt speech, you should.  HERE   

He's speaking to the Senate, but we should all apply his cry for bipartisanship to all our lives: talk to each other!  listen!  be open and work together to help each other and our country.

Battle for Net Neutrality

Call your representatives please.  Tell 'em you like your internet neutral!

Need more info?  Listen to comic John Oliver  HERE.

And, of course, you can only watch that video because we HAVE net neutrality... otherwise mine would be a   very   slow    lane    indeed.

Two Things...

Two completely unrelated things:

First:

Whenever you're shopping on Amazon, please consider using the Amazon Smile page HERE where you can select Kitchen Dog Theater as recipient of free money! (Amazon donates 0.5% of qualified purchases.)  

Please and Thank You!  We're saving to fix up our future Dog House so we appreciate every penny.

Second:

A lovely and timely quote from Henry David Thoreau...

Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion and tradition, and pride and prejudice, appearance and delusion...

till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place which we can call reality and say, 

"This is and no mistake."

Isn't that a wonderful image?  

Courtesy of PublicDomainPicture.net

Anyone who's ever sat on a riverbank wriggling their toes in the green-y mud down to the cool, water-smoothed limestone below, you know how reassuring that solid, non-slip footing is.

Today - when life and especially politics! - seem especially slimy with opinion and lies... well, a fact that's an actual FACT is a comfort.  I believe strongly that at this moment it is our civic duty to wriggle down through the muck to find truth.  

Then to act on that.

The surface under our feet is shifting at this moment - rules for healthcare, the environment, the internet, education, immigration, trade, foreign wars and relations - all  changing.  We need to let our legislators know what we need and want RIGHT NOW.  

We each need to figure out what truth we stand on.

(Thanks to Chris Tucker's review of the new Thoreau biography for reminding me of this Walden quote.  Time to reread that book... and to look for that new bio: Thoreau: a Life by Laura Dassow Walls.)

Color Names

Finding good names for colors is a vital skill for paint companies, but it's hard.  

I understand that, years ago, the endless torment of trying to decide whether to call that beige-y pink "Baby's Face Pink" or "Seashell Blush" drove one company to throw up its hands.  (Corporations are legally people, people generally have hands, ergo corporations have hands.)  They decided to just give colors numbers!  Briefly.  Because, turns out, #346-A7 doesn't sell as well as "Rhapsodic Red."

It's a problem.

Well, check out this post at Ars Technica on using artificial intelligence to take over the job...   HERE  Humans ain't outa work yet.

My favorite AI generated names might be "Cremper Viulet" or "Kold Of Tale" - which would make great fairy tale character names.  "Blue Child" (a pink) is a another favorite.  But "Copper Panty?" ...bet that name sells!

Believed public domain image - found HERE with others!

On the subject of corporations as people... one of my trusty art and set dressing supply sources, Hobby Lobby, has just been caught illegally buying Iraqi antiquities, with the money possibly funding Islamic terrorists.  This confused me because, um, why?  New selections in Home Decor?  Or in... Ceramics?  But it seems they're starting a Biblical museum.

Sigh.

I've been trying to overlook Hobby Lobby's no-workers-here-get-birth-control-'cause-religion stand on the theory that workers can quit (theoretically) if that offends them.  But I feel pretty strongly about knowingly fueling the stolen art market.  Plus, you know, terrorists.

So... 

Guess Michaels will be getting most of my business now.  

(Can't believe this, but I just took time to read Michaels' "Code of Business Conduct and Ethics" and to check their Better Business rating!  They sound good.  In fact, their "Code" seems admirable in content, presentation, and concrete examples.  I'll hope they follow it.) 

Theater doesn't just talk about ethics, it requires 'em.

Color Wheel

Going through some old files, I found this sketch for a class on interior design that I taught ages ago...