Hillaryphillic

This article, Hillary Clinton’s Last Tour as a Rock-Star Diplomat, largely focuses on the Secretary and it's interesting (if fawning) in itself, but there are also some insights about the Foreign Service are are worth reading about.  Here is the juiciest bit though.

These [personal] gestures and her strong advocacy for the budget at the State Department have re-energized the American Foreign Service, which felt beleaguered under President George W. Bush. Clinton makes a point of visiting American embassies and consulates — 109 so far — wherever she travels to thank the diplomats and their families, as well as the local staff who make up most of the work force abroad. She became the first secretary to hold special Christmas parties at the State Department for the families of diplomats with hardship posts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Daily Commute

I saw this on my way home today.  My imagination went wild.  How could this happen?

Car Trampolines Are Never a Good Idea

Time(less)

Going back to California is always an intoxicating mixture of nostalgia and excitement, but nothing captures the essence of that tonic like baseball.  Fortunately I had the chance to go to a Dodgers-Angels game when I was in Los Angeles last week with my family.  Even though the Dodgers lost, the game was still amazing.  Dodgers fans outnumber Angel fans in the first few innings and Bobby Abreu rewarded our enthusiasm by driving in three runs during the top of the first.  The Dodgers' power continued into the second inning, but the Angels stopped it cold after that.  But the fourth inning was the most impressive because the Angels' Bobby Wilson pulled off a suicide squeeze and then Mike Trout hit a homer to give the Angels the a 6-5 edge.  The Angels ended up winning 8-5.

Bummer.

But even if you don't like baseball (and many readers of this blog don't), how can you not be impressed by a view like this:

"Probably Impossible"

It's probably impossible, but Kishi Bashi's "Bright Whites" was probably fathered by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and raised by Animal Collective.  How can one not hear the resemblance?

 127% of your daily recommend whimsey in less than five minutes!

None of my planes crashed, I received a free upgrade to business class on the Miami to Port-au-Prince leg, and I discovered this song made my return to Haiti surprisingly buoyant.

Kudos to NPR for podcasting about Bashi.
 

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