obama in my window

obama in my window, originally uploaded by dirtystan.

if you can't find it, make it. I think the dudes in the parking lot next to my building must be thoroughly convinced by now.

29 Palms, CA, January 2008

I took this at the little motel near 29 Palms where I went with Anna to shoot her line for Dolce Vita this past January. We had to wake up around 5 or 6 in the AM and I was waiting for them to be done with makeup and such. It was much too cold to go swimming unfortunately. This year has gone so fast.

Bill Ayers was my nursery school teacher. Seriously.

Below is a letter I sent to the New York Times today:

Letter to the Editor:

What makes a radical? Is it early learning, or your parents beliefs passed along? I am a liberal, yet American to the core, the descendent of passengers on the Mayflower according to my grandmother, yet Bill Ayers was my nursery school teacher. I turned out fine and I’ve never had the inclination to bomb anyone. So when I read, “Senator John McCain joined in the attacks on Thursday on Senator Barack Obama for his ties to the 1960s radical William Ayers as he told an angry, raucous crowd that “we need to know the full extent of the relationship” I feel I must add my two cents. These people do realize that Mr. Obama is a United States Senator, do they not? Not to mention that the Weather Underground was active when Mr. Obama was a child himself.

Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn worked at a day care center called BJ’s Kids on Manhattans’ Upper West Side in the late seventies. Only years later, after Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn had been pardoned by the government did my parents realize who they had been. My mom remembers BJ’s kids as an unruly operation, where she protested the practice of the children being sent home with whatever jacket or mittens happened to be closest, as she had knitted my winter accessories herself. And the time they took all the kids to a No-Nuke demonstration somewhere just outside of the city without letting the parents know in advance about the field trip. I guess I must have been mumbling leftist rhetoric that evening at home and she knew something funny had happened at school that day. Day care centers in the city were hardly regulated back then and many such home-grown operations supported the burgeoning crop of babies from aging hippies like my parents; full disclosure: my mom volunteered for the Chicago Seven during their trial in 1969, writing press releases in Chicago.

So when John McCain and Sarah Palin and others intent on making you forget what this election is really about and bring up Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground, who no one really remembers nowadays anyway, I hope everyone remembers that Barack Obama was a child when the Weather Underground did their dirtiest work. Also that I was a child when Bill Ayers helped me learn to tie my shoes and find my winter mittens, and I am not a terrorist and neither is Barack Obama. The only people looking childish in this situation are, well, John McCain and Sarah Palin. Barack Obama is the only candidate that really has a plan to get this country back on track and I plan to be in Washington to watch him be sworn in to office in January.

- quotation taken from: McCain Questions Obama-Ayers Relationship By Elisabeth Bumiller
October 9, 2008, NYT

Lia on Sugar Island

still editing photos from the summer. it's been a busy time in life, which is good. being on Sugar Island this summer with the Brezavars was truly wonderful. I am so excited for Mr. Obama to be our president. I am so excited for what he can do and proud of his campaign.

NY Mysteries

Everytime I walk past this building on 13th street, which is an old church that was made into apartments years ago, I get weak in the knees. I decided when I was 15 or so that I would live there someday. I wonder what it is like inside, if it's quiet, if there are stained glass windows and pews here and there.

Summer memories of a farm in Dundee, NY

Here are a few polaroids I took up on John Coffer's farm in Dundee this past July when I was taking the tintype workshop.

Wonderful picture from Fredericksburg, VA rally

photo by: ROBERT A. MARTIN/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

I like T Rex, but this is ridiculous.

This is worth a look-see, folks, especially if you are still undecided about who should be given the keys to the country.

Tunnel to Towers: first 5k!

Today I ran in the Tunnel to Towers run through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel up to the WTC site. I was joined by my friends Rebecca, Leslie and Paul from Macy's, and Nicole and Augustin, as well as 15,000 other runners, a great majority of whom were firefighters from the area and beyond (even London, UK). 2008 is the year I discovered running on a regular basis and this was my first timed run. It was just spectacular to run down into the tunnel with thousands of screaming people at your side and be pushed on through the tunnel by the echoing sounds of several groups of Marines doing their chants, each of them in full dress fatigues and carrying all of their combat gear in tribute to the firefighter Stephen Siller, who died in the towers on 9-11-01 after running through the tunnel on his day off to join the rest of his battalion. I feel very proud to be a New Yorker, even though too much flag-waving and screams of "USA, USA!" from local groups of cheerleaders and police make me nervous. The worst residual of the attacks on the WTC to me was the carte blanche given to our most jingoistic leaders to saunter through the world with a big stick. But, as my Dad says daily, Obama will fix it.