#arlene lott

[jaitlin]

The Degrassi Palooza reunion documentary “Narbo’s Guide to Being a BroomHead” has just been released by Pat Mastroianni to stream!

[jennyjammm]

The Old School Degrassi Tour was honestly one of the greatest experiences of my life!!

[broomheadz]

Nancy Notion (Nancy Kramer Fashion) DH S1E12: Natural Attraction Aired: 1989

LOL, Nancy is talking to Liz. Well, they are probably talking about Erica’s abortion. Anyway, Nancy has veered away from the peach color today but my eyes keep trying to project peach onto this oatmeal-colored sweater. Sorry it’s blurry, this was mid-camera-pan.

[rapidteszt]

OG Degrassi actor now making Toronto's most intricate pies

OG Degrassi actor now making Toronto’s most intricate pies

Some of Toronto’s most intricate pies are being made by someone who used to not-so-secretly act on degrassi back in the day. Arlene Lott played Nancy Kramer on Degrassi High from 1987 to 1991, which everyone knows was filmed in Toronto. While her work still involves television, she now often takes more of a behind-the-scenes role, though the pies she’s become known for on social media are as…

[derekfoxwit]

Animation Figures that I Think Should Be Considered for a Winsor McCay Award

Exactly what it says on the title. For those who don’t know, it’s a lifetime award given by the Annie Awards, which are high-honor accolades dedicated to celebrating excellence in animation. In case of this, the award is for an individual’s lifetime / career contributions to the medium of animation. I’ll be listing those who are yet to get said award, but I feel could or should be considered. They will be categorized in different positions, but several of those will be more loose than anything else. 

Here’s a list of those who already got it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsor_McCay_Award

With that clarity, here’s my list.

Producers / Showrunners

Hideaki Anno (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy BeBop; Samurai Champloo; Space Dandy)

Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time; Bravest Warriors; Midnight Gospel)

Arlene Klasky & Gabor Csupo (Founded Klasky Csupo, who worked on early Simpsons episodes and made Rugrats, which was basically the 90s SpongeBob in terms of success)

Fred Seibert

What a Cartoon -> Dexter’s Lab; Powerpuff Girls; Johnny Bravo; Family Guy, technically

Oh Yeah! Cartoons - > Fairly Oddparents; My Life as a Teenage Robot

Random! Cartoons -> Adventure Time

Arthur Rankin Jr. (posthumous) & Jules Bass (Their stop-motion specials)

Joe Ruby & Ken Spears (posthumous) (co-creators of Scooby-Doo)

Toshio Suzuki (Producer of Studio Ghibli films, which he was the president of)

Craig McCraken (Powrpuff Girls; Foster’s Home; Wander Over Yonder)

Sam Register (President of Warner Bros. Animation & Cartoon Network, making him executive producer of numerous projects made by both)

Travis Knight (Lead animator and producer for Laika Studios)

Mike Lazzo (Former executive vice president for Adult Swim, which he served as the producer of numerous of their shows, including many of its’ most renowned cartoons)

Peter Lord (Co-founder and producer of Aardman)

Will Vinton (posthumous) (Developer of claymation)

Ted Turner (Basically started Cartoon Network)

Lou Scheimer (posthumous) (Producer of Filmation’s cartoons, including He-Man)

Masao Maruyama (Founded and produced for anime studio Madhouse, which made Satoshi Kon’s directorial work)

Bonnie Arnold (Toy Story 1; How to Train Your Dragon)

Directors

Don Hertzfeldt (Rejected; It’s Such a Beautiful Day; World of Tomorrow)

Jan Svankmajer (Indie director of several stop-motion films, several of which were combined with live-action)

Masaaki Yuasa (Mind Game; Ping Pong the Anime; The Tatami Galaxy; Devilman: Crybaby [Adventure Episode “Food Chain”])

Kirk Wise & Gary Trousdale (Beauty and the Beast; Hunchback of Notre Dame)

Lotte Reiniger (posthumous) (Pioneered silhouette animation [uses cardboard cut-outs that are only seen as silhouettes, sort of a stop-motion style], developed an older version of the multiplane camera for this style of animation, directed the oldest surviving animated film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed)

Rene Laloux (posthumous) (French director; made Fantastic Planet)

Tomm Moore (Cartoon Saloon co-founder; Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers)

Rob Renzetti (Link to make this easier - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0719952/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0)

Lee Unkrich (frequent Pixar co-director [main director on Coco]; Pixar film editor as well)

Andrew Adamson (Shrek)

Voice Actors (here, you’re just better off looking thru their Behind The Voice Actors or IMDB pages)

Frank Welker

Tom Kenny (mainly here for SpongeBob and Ice King)

Tara Strong

Jim Cummings

Rob Paulsen

Nancy Cartwright (mainly here for Bart Simpson)

Dan Castellaneta (mainly here for Homer Simpson)

Steve Blum

For Japanese VAs

Megumi Hayashibara

Kotono Mitsuishi (Mainly here for Sailor Moon)

Masako Nozawa (mainly here for Goku)

Writers

Aaron Ehaz (head writer for Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch; How to Train Your Dragon, several co-writing credits for 90s Disney films such as Mulan, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King; also frequent character designer)

Pete Docter (Pixar Director and Writer [Monsters, Inc.; Up; Inside Out])

Tom Ruegger (The Spielberg TV cartoons [Animaniacs; Tiny Toon Adventures; Pinky & the Brain; Freakazoid!])

Derek Drymon (Writer and Producer - SpongeBob and Adventure Time)

Larry Leker

(Storyboard artist - Don Bluth films; The Little Mermaid; Spirit: Scallion of the Cimarron) 

[Co-writer for Aladdin & The Lion King]

Akira Toriyama (Creator of the Dragon Ball franchise)

Phil Lord & Chris Miller (Clone High; LEGO Movie; Spider-Verse)

Dan Povenmire & Jeff “Swampy” Marsh (Created Phineas & Ferb; worked on the animation on Simpsons and co-wrote for Rocko’s Modern Life episodes)

Povenmire (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0693933/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0)

Marsh (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0550578/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0)

Lauren Faust (In addition to ponies) - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0269260/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0)

Adam Van Wyk (Storyboard Artist, working from Batman Beyond to Harley Quinn 2019)

David X. Cohen (Head writer for Futurama, also worked with Groening on Simpsons)

Leiji Matsumoto (Space Battleship Yamato)

Brenda Chapman - Story Supervisor - The Lion King; Director - The Prince of Egypt; Story - Beauty and the Beast; Hunchback of Notre Dame

Andrew Stanton (Pixar Man, directed Finding Nemo and Wall-E)

Composers / Songwriters

Alan Menken (Disney Renaissance film composer and songwriter [Little Mermaid; Beauty & the Beast; Aladdin)

Joe Hisaishi (Studio Ghibli films)

Yoko Kanno (Cowboy BeBop; GitS: Stand Alone Complex)

John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon; Kung Fu Panda; Shrek; Chicken Run [some of these done alongside Harry Gregson-Williams)

Michael Giacchino (Frequent Pixar composer [The Incredibles; Ratatouille; Up; Inside Out])

Hans Zimmer (The Lion King, several DreamWorks films, served as music producer for several animated films he wasn’t a direct composer for [i.e. the score Thomas Newman composed for Finding Nemo])

Animators

Masashi Ando - Animation director / Supervising Animator (Princess Mononoke; Spirited Away; Paprika; Tokyo Godfathers; Your Name; Weathering with You)

Makiko Futali (posthumous) - Key animator (Arika; Angel’s Egg; Majority of Ghibli’s films)

Kitaro Kosaka (Akira; Several Ghibli films)

Jin Kim - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1088420/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1

Sergio Pablos (Directed Klaus) also conceptualized Despicable Me but let’s ignore that

Animator

Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

Hades (Hercules)

Superviser Animator

Tantor (Tarzan)

Doctor Doppler (Treasure Planet)

Tony Fucile

Character designer (Hunchback of Notre Dame; The Iron Giant; The Incredibles; Ratatouille; Soul)

Bud Luckey (posthumous) - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0524726/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

The Brothers Quay (Stephen and Timothy) - Indie stop-motion animators. Look their work up

Michiyo Yasuda (Posthumous) (color designer) - Spirited Away; Grave of the Fireflies (color key); Castle in the Sky; My Neighbor Totoro (cel painter)

Misc.

Takeshi Seyama (Film editor) - Ghibli films; Paprika; Tokyo Godfathers; Akira

Edwin Catmull (Pixar co-founder)

Kelly Asbury (posthumous)

Story Artist - Frozen; Kung Fu Panda; Toy Story; Shrek; Wreck-It Ralph

Artistic supervisor (story) - Prince of Egypt

Visual Development - The Little Mermaid; Beauty and the Beast 

Director - Shrek 2

Bob Singer (Character Designer & Layout / Storyboard Artist; Hanna-Barbera)

Randy Thom (Sound designer) - The Iron Giant; Coraline; Ratatouille; The Incredibles (won him an Oscar); How to Train Your Dragon; several other misc. animated films

Michael Chang (Storyboard Artist / TV episode director, from Teen Titans to TMNT 2012 to Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts)

Nizo Yamamoto (Background artist and Art Director, being the latter for Grave of the Fireflies)

Darren T. Holmes (Editor) - The Iron Giant; Lilo & Stitch; Ratatouille; How to Train Your Dragon; Wolfwalkers

Assistant Editor - The Lion King

William Reeves (technical director and supervisor; Pixar man)

Bob Camp (Character Designer & Storyboard Artist Also cucks John K.’s writing and directing “abilities”)

Bob Peterson (Pixay Guy)

Vicky Jenson (co-directed Shrek), Here’s the rest of her work: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0421776/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_23

Storyboard artist / Story artist (ain’t sure of the difference) - Road to El Dorado; Chicken Run; The original She-Ra; The original He-Man

Misc. animation work

Production Designer - Road to El Dorado

Background artist - Ren & Stimpy; He-Man; Original Smurfs cartoon)

[starfleet-louvelune]

LOOK AT THIS CAKE

“ Cake: The Final Frontier. My friends over at Star Trek Discovery are celebrating the start of Season 2, so they asked me to make them something exciting to mark the occasion. #StarTrekDiscovery #StarTrek #Cake #torontofood” - by Arlene Lott

 LOOK AT IT. HAVE YOU SEEN IT!!!! *0*

[hootsewers]

I'm learning Python and I found this little random name generator on github as a learning tool for which it has been very helpful but some of the names it spits out are fucking hilarious.

Click here to visit the github page if you wanna play with it and also to just credit the creator for giving me several hearty giggles this afternoon

anyways some choice selections:

Cissy Oza

Hoopes Register

Canon Nichole

Shanks Blanka

Son Taggart

Kawasaki Hose

Rod Manus

Nill Marchal

Demb Daudin

Pulling Grabowski

Sharyl Terrill

Eglanteen Jea

Scammon Lipps

Seaman Vevina

Virgin Gerge

Rock Early

Hazlip Carptentier

Bunni Lamb

Montana Boos

Dunkin Barrier

Champagne Stringer

Goodman Emeric

Cressy DMS

Paradies Fuqua

Vowel Oliver

Krissie Cookie

Freud Rudd

Dollar Moriah

Wood Flanders

Lilyan Couchman

Meade Boy

Grimbal Chud

Inman Weiner

Bright Con

Smallman Lagarde

Banks Millan

Brittan Dolphin

Stucker Center

Mooney Kohut

Dust Davies

Morehouse DiPasquale

Inness Holland

Krock Presson

Mayne Moth

Schargel O'Toole

Pond Gene

Prussian Slotnick

Grubb Ayoup

Happ Dorion

Yokum Franny

Ignatius Craghead

Charlotte Lott

Hung Edgar

Didar CSR

Evey Duyck

Zed Gib

Waiter Corpening

Grobe Betsy

Ajay PKDCD

Dona Prissy

Saltman Starbuck

Cato Page

Rann Reporting

Ungley Arlene

Grethel Hurleigh

Botsford Dockendorff

Missagh Hew

Yule Willin

Volpe Twelve

I guess these are free NPC names. Or tag yourself tbh im Pond Gene

[fotopadova]

Un minuto di New York: street photography, 1920–1950

da https://www.clevelandart.org (trad. G.Millozzi)

 -- La fotografia di strada, immagini spontanee della vita quotidiana catturate in luoghi pubblici, è esplosa a New York durante la prima metà del XX secolo.

- Family in Front of Synagogue, Pitt St., Lower East Side, NY, 1938 (printed later)  © Walter Rosenblum (American, 1919-2006) 

Questo giovane genere di fotografia era l'erede della tradizione leggermente precedente del realismo urbano nella pittura e nella stampa, come si vede nella mostra complementare Ashcan School Prints and the American City, 1900-1940, in mostra nella James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery dal 17 luglio al 26 dicembre 2021. Entrambi i movimenti si sono rivolti alle rappresentazioni delle attività quotidiane degli abitanti delle città per esplorare i radicali cambiamenti demografici, sociali ed economici che stanno trasformando la città.

- Group in Front of Fence, Pitt Street, Lower East Side, NY,1938 (printed later) © Walter Rosenblum (American, 1919-2006) 

Gli intrattenimenti abbondavano sotto forma di film, teatri, luna-park e le attrazioni di Coney Island. Le vetrine dei negozi e le locandine dei film offrivano allettanti visioni di abbondanza e di eleganza sofisticata. Ma quelli erano sogni piuttosto che realtà per la maggior parte dei residenti, in particolare gli immigrati dall'Europa, da Porto Rico e dai paesi dell'America Latina e dai neri americani che erano stati attori della Grande Migrazione. Affollate in minuscoli appartamenti, le famiglie hanno trasformato verande, marciapiedi, parchi e spiagge nei loro soggiorni.

 - Subway Portrait 1938-1941 © Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) 

I fotografi di strada erano guardoni, catturando momenti privati ​​che si verificano negli spazi pubblici. Alcuni avevano motivi nobili. Le immagini dei membri della Photo League, che includevano Walter Rosenblum, Lisette Model e Leon Levinstein, testimoniano i divertimenti e le lotte dell'uomo e della donna comuni. Walker Evans e Helen Levitt hanno realizzato le loro immagini esposte in questa mostra come opere d'arte personali. Louis Faurer e Lloyd Ullberg hanno lavorato per delle riviste. In questa mostra, ci sono diversi esempi di lavoro di fotografi come James Van Der Zee, Roy DeCarava, Arnold Genthe e Ralph Steiner che hanno eseguito dei ritratti dei quali ancor oggi si riconosce la validità.

- Fashion Show, Hotel Pierre, New York City, 1940 © Lisette Model (American, 1901-1983) 

Che siano create per un incarico, come espressione personale o per sostenere il cambiamento della società, le immagini di questa mostra, tratte interamente dalla collezione del museo, forniscono una macchina del tempo che ci permette di vivere uno spaccato di vita a New York di un secolo fa.

Tutte le mostre al Cleveland Museum of Art sono patrocinate dal CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Il principale sostegno annuale è fornito da Bill e Joyce Litzler, con generosi finanziamenti annuali da Mr. e Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., del Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memoria di Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Janice Hammond e Edward Hemmelgarn, Ms. Arlene Monroe Holden, Eva e Rudolf Linnebach, William S. e Margaret F. Lipscomb, Tim O'Brien e Breck Platner, dal Womens Council del Cleveland Museum of Art e da Claudia Woods e David Osage.

- Three Children on Swings, Pitt Street, New York 1950 © Walter Rosenblum  (American, 1919-2006) 

Il Cleveland Museum of Art è finanziato in parte dai residenti della contea di Cuyahoga attraverso una sovvenzione pubblica di Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. Questa mostra è stata sostenuta in parte dall'Ohio Arts Council, che riceve il sostegno dello Stato dell'Ohio e del National Endowment for the Arts.

---per altre immagini: link

-------------------------

Dal 10 luglio al 7 novembre 2021

Cleveleland Museum of Art

Galleria fotografica di Mark Schwartz e Bettina Katz, Galleria 230

11150 East Boulevard Cleveland, Ohio 44106

216-421-7350888-cma-0033

 Ingresso generale gratuito – le mostre speciali possono essere a pagamento

Orari: martedì, giovedì, sabato e domenica 10.00-17.00; mercoledì e venerdì 10.00-21.00; chiuso il lunedì.

[jacquelynlowenthal]

227 Likes, 10 Comments – Arlene Lott (Arlene Lott) on Instagram: “Shake a tail… https://ift.tt/2xw13ix

[glenbryd]

227 Likes, 10 Comments – Arlene Lott (Arlene Lott) on Instagram: “Shake a tail… http://bit.ly/2WPTU6G

[bethanieburdick]

227 Likes, 10 Comments – Arlene Lott (Arlene Lott) on Instagram: “Shake a tail… http://bit.ly/31CK5Nd

[claudiaboes]

227 Likes, 10 Comments – Arlene Lott (Arlene Lott) on Instagram: “Shake a tail… http://bit.ly/2W425vX

[broomheadz]

Nancy Notion (Nancy Kramer Fashion) DH S1E4: Dream On Aired: 1989

Nancy is just being Nancy in an expected peachy tee, khakis, and white Keds.

[gastropost]

From Gastroposter Arlene Lott, via Instagram:

How hot is your chocolate? Turn up the heat with these homemade cinnamon heart dusted marshmallows for your lover.

[thisdaynews]

How the Democratic Netroots Died

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-the-democratic-netroots-died/

How the Democratic Netroots Died

Liberal blogger’s like Markos Moulitsas used to have major sway in presidential politics. | Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

2020

Only 15 years ago, liberal bloggers like Markos Moulitsas were a powerful force in presidential politics. What happened?

Twelve years ago, progressive political bloggers were so influential that nearly every 2008 Democratic presidential candidate attended the Yearly Kos convention—a gathering of liberal online activists named after Markos Moulitsas’ popular Daily Kos website.

This year, that same event, now called Netroots Nation, attracted a measly four of the 24 Democratic candidates. Only one of them, Elizabeth Warren, even polls in double digits. Rather than attend the event,the Bernie Sanders campaign engaged in a Twitter spat with Moulitsas.

Story Continued Below

What happened? Not all that long ago, liberal bloggers had genuine achievements to point to: Only a year before the 2007 Yearly Kos, Ned Lamont, a wealthy but little known Connecticut businessman, beat Joe Lieberman—the incumbent and a former vice presidential nominee of the Democratic Party—in a U.S. Senate primary by embracing the “blogosphere,” a ridiculous word for a not-ridiculous force: progressive online activists who could drive discourse, cultivate small donors and legitimize outsider politicians. Lamont made common cause with bloggers to punish Lieberman for his vote to authorize the Iraq War. Thirteen years later, now-Governor Lamont has endorsed the only presidential candidate who cast the same vote: Joe Biden.

Moultisas chalked up the lack of presidential attendance at this year’s forum to “fear.” But the opposite appears to be true. Democrats do not fear offending the blogger stars of yore because the attempt to turn armchair pontificating into organized political power has failed.

Antipathy toward President George W. Bush and the Iraq War sparked a chemical reaction with internet technology to create powerful force in politics, but social and technological shifts have since depleted that power. The decline of blogger influence stems in part from the rise of Facebook and Twitter, which have fundamentally altered how Americans do politics on the internet. No longer do we hop from blog to blog by clicking blogrolls, and most of the earliest political bloggers have shut down their websites and begun posting their commentaries on their social media accounts instead.

But it’s not just the rise of social media. The political ties that unified progressive bloggers during the George W. Bush presidency have frayed, too. The netroots’ fragmentation and weakened power in 2020 is as much a story of the end of a coalition as it is of changing technology.

In the first decade of the 2000s, the scrappy lefty blogger crew steeled Democrats to block Bush’s plans to partially privatize Social Security, ousted Trent Lott asSenate majority leader after he praised the 1948 segregationist presidential candidacy of Strom Thurmond, and transformed a small-state governor named Howard Dean into a presidential contender and chairman of the Democratic National Committee. I had my own little blogger success stories while tapping away at LiberalOasis.com, where I conducted the first formal blogger interview with a presidential candidate, Dean, and broke the news of a misleading attack from Lieberman against Lamont.

The founding members of the progressive blogosphere envisioned a movement distinct from the left-wing activists of yesterday—aggressive, but not beholden to ideological purity. As described by Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong in their 2006 bookCrashing The Gate, netroots activists wanted progressives, and their favored politicians, to be “fiercely partisan” but not “ideological” because “there is actually very little, issue-wise, that unites most modern party activists except, perhaps, opposition to the Iraq War.” They wanted not litmus tests on policy but a style, an attitude: a tougher Democratic Party that could better beat Republicans.

That politically welcoming perspective was put into electoral practice. Progressive bloggers championed a 2005 long-shot House special election bid from Paul Hackett, an Iraq veteran from Ohio who supported gun rights and “limited government,” but did not hesitate to call President George W. Bush a “chickenhawk.” Some bloggers were angered when Hackett was pressured by Democratic Party leaders to drop out of the 2006 Senate race to make room for Sherrod Brown, even though Brown was more liberal than Hackett. Bloggers also recruited Jim Webb, a former Reagan administration official and Iraq War opponent, to run for the Senate in Virginia in 2006, and they didn’t flinch when a 1979 essay surfaced in which Webb argued “Women Can’t Fight” in the military. Webb apologized for it.

Ari Melber, writing for theNation, concluded that bloggers’ love for Webb showed a preference for “political pragmatism” over “ideological purity”: “If netroots Democrats care about one thing more than aggressive partisanship, it’s winning.”

But the 2008 presidential primary put an end to the netroots’ unity. In his 2009 bookBloggers on the Bus, Eric Boehlert captured how the election drove wedges through the once-harmonious band of online activists. As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton slugged it out, some bloggers took sides and others felt caught in the crossfire.

In March 2008, a group of Daily Kos diarists who backed Clinton staged a virtual walkout in protest of the site’s tilt toward Obama. Moulitsas shot back that Clinton’s refusal to drop out showed she was “eager to split the party apart in her mad pursuit of power.” HisCrashing the Gateco-author, Armstrong, saw the race differently; in his view, Clinton “showed signs of being accountable to the netroots movement” while Obama “didn’t need the netroots” and “was basically an identity-politics cult” leader. Armstrong later quit blogging and worked for Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson in 2012.

The New York Times’ Paul Krugman, a blog aficionado, told Boehlert he was dismayed at how he felt Obama’s online supporters had treated Clinton: “I don’t think people, myself, are ever going to look at Daily Kos the same way.” In the 2016 primary eight years later, Daily Kos was accused of favoring Clinton over Bernie Sanders, as Moulitsas banned “malicious attacks” targeting Clinton, “our presumptive presidential nominee,” before the primary process was completed.

After Obama won the primary, and the presidency, ideological purity began to rise in importance among the most prominent bloggers. For an activist movement to set aside small differences to fight a common political enemy, only to form a circular firing squad once the enemy is defeated, is an old political story. The progressive blogosphere wasn’t all that different from its forebears, after all.

In July 2008, Obama provoked several leading bloggers when he supported legal immunity for telecommunication companies that abetted warrantless wiretapping by the second Bush administration. In the 2008 primary against Clinton, Obama, then a U.S. senator, promised to filibuster any bill that gave the companies retroactive immunity; but he stood down after winning the Democratic presidential nomination and voted for compromise legislation that included it. That helped him avoid being tagged as soft on terrorism, but Glenn Greenwald charged Obama with supporting “a full-scale assault on our Constitution.” Duncan Black, who stills blogs—and tweets, naturally—under the handle Atrios, dubbed Obama his “Wanker of the Day.” Moulitsas, ahead of the switch, fretted, “We may worry that he’s just another one of these spineless Democrats” and fail to give Obama the full “intensity of support.”

Obama’s willingness to ignore the bloggers’ demands foreshadowed the difficulties the netroots would encounter once Democrats began wielding power. Obama’s groundbreaking campaign tapped the power of the internet, but it did so largely without the help of progressive blogosphere leaders. Matt Stoller, an early blogger who is now a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, gave Boehlert a clear-eyed assessment of the Obama campaign’s posture toward the blogosphere: “They don’t care what we think. … Their logistical operations are remarkable, their campaign structure is phenomenal, and we’re not a part of it.”

Once Obama won without the “intensity” of the blogosphere, the relationship between the online left and the Democratic establishment reverted to fractiousness, with the purist outsiders taking potshots at the compromising insiders. In December 2009, as it became clear that a public health insurance option would not be part of Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Moulitsas lambasted the legislation as “a turd of a ‘reform’ package, potentially worse than the status quo.” When Obama tried to boost morale for the slowly recovering economy and credited his stimulus package, Atrios scoffed at the calls by Democrats to “clap louder you stupid hippies.”

When the Obama administration persuaded Sen. Arlen Specter to switch parties in 2009, helping Democrats briefly hold a 60-vote Senate supermajority, blogger-activists who could not forgive Specter’s conservative past helped Rep. Joe Sestak defeat Specter in the 2010 primary. Specter’s willingness to participate in a Netroots Nation primary debate proved insufficient for the blogosphere. The victory was pyrrhic, as Sestak then lost the general election to a Republican.

As the Bush-era blog leaders struggled, the decentralized nature of the online political world gave oxygen to newer factions, including a robust democratic socialist left that viewed the founding members of the blogosphere as insufficiently progressive. “Once Obama took office, Kos went soft” wrote the “Chapo Trap House” podcasters in their best-selling book, based on Moulitsas’ negativity toward Sanders in 2016 (and ignoring his many attempts to boost primary challenges against establishment officeholders.) Oversimplifying the community of Bush-era bloggers, the “Chapo” gang dismissed the netroots as “a league of pathetic, repulsive morons who mastered a technology every child knows how to use” and “piloted journalism into a newer, even more idiotic frontier of toxic hackery.”

One person’s toxic hackery is another person’s call for revolution. Which was exactly the problem for the blogosphere: Its decentralized nature rendered it fairly useless for accumulating organized power. InCrashing the Gate, Moultisas and Armstrong saw decentralization as a strength: “That’s why this movement is so effective—and so threatening to established powers. It is leaderless. It cannot be harnessed, controlled, or co-opted.” Well, yeah.

Boehlert, who now writes for Daily Kos, rejects the conclusion that the attempt at an organized netroots has foundered. He points to the sprawling anti-Trump “resistance” as based on “the model that the blogosphere created 15 years ago” in shaping dialogue that’s “very aggressive, factual and passionate.”

Nearly two decades after the birth of the blogosphere, there’s no question that the ability of the internet to make anyone a publisher—or, in the age of podcasting and YouTube, a broadcaster—has altered the political landscape, brought new people into the process, and made the ground under the Washington establishment shakier. But the vision of a powerful, progressive “netroots” that was at once aggressively partisan, progressively principled, organizationally leaderless and politically potent was not sustainable. It couldn’t go on forever and so, to paraphrase Herbert Stein, it didn’t.

Read More

[andreaeppolitoevents]

Super Chic Shower in Toronto, Canada

Let me take you behind the scenes to Laura's bridal shower, which took place on Sunday

Muneeb knows his bride to be. He planned her entire bridal shower, along with her three bridesmaids; Diana, Vittoria and Lisa.  His directive to Laura was that she needed to simply put on her prettiest dress and show up!  On Sunday, March 18th,  Laura did just that!  Dressed to the nines in her Halston Heritage and wearing her favorite peep toe Louboutins, Laura was treated to a chic, sophisticated shower surrounded by family and friends.   

No games, gimmicks, or crafts.  Just wonderful company and really good food - just the way Laura likes it. 

The shower took place in the trendy King West district of Toronto at Oretta, a restaurant that has been said to have been named for "a young, urban Italian woman who has style but is grounded in Italian roots.”   That could very well be Laura herself, thus this afternoon was the perfect precursor to Laura and Muneeb’s wedding at the Bellagio, Oretta is a beautiful space offering delicious Italian food in a stylish setting.

Guests dined on burrata served with olive oil-poached clementines and crushed pistachios, fresh kale, fennel and radicchio insalata, beef and tuna tartares, arctic char with saffron cauliflower puree, and flat iron steak served with purple cabbage and a salsa rossa.

Dessert was, in true Muneeb and Laura form, another showstopper. In addition to Oretta’s authentic tiramisu and chocolate plate offerings, guests were treated to a stunning gluten-free black cocoa cake. The stunning confection was filled with dark dulce de leche and toasted coconut, then wrapped in vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and black cocoa ganache.  The master behind this beautiful creation is Toronto-based baker, Arlene Lott, who added finishing touches of gold leaf, gold drip, smoked salt and caramel bonbons...Plus a fewpretty anemones.

In lieu of party favors, Muneeb and Laura’s bridesmaids opted to make a donation to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, in memory of Laura’s mother. She was certainly at the shower in spirit, sending her love and blessings on that sunny Sunday afternoon.

I love, love, love this couple.  Love them.  Hard.  They are my ideal couple....Stylish, over the top, completely in love, and dedicated to celebrating every one of life's moments in a big way! 

We are just 6 weeks away from their wedding, and I cannot wait to show you what we have designed for them!

Until then, enjoy these #bts images from their beautiful Sunday.

Always...