emilyboots

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, Edgar J. Kaufmann House...

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:10:32 -0400

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, Edgar J. Kaufmann House in Mill Run, Pennsylvania (1937), image courtesy of Best Products Company Architecture Fund and the Museum of Modern Art (via interiordesign.net).

Easter Sunday, 1989.

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:05:13 -0400

Easter Sunday, 1989.

“Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the...

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:04:44 -0400

“Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.”

- Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959)

"May 14, 1997: Cobain performs a stunning acoustic version of “You Know You’re Right” on Late Night..."

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:53:04 -0400

“May 14, 1997: Cobain performs a stunning acoustic version of “You Know You’re Right” on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. It is the last time he appears in public for almost two years (though, during this period, he appears on the cover of Spin twice).”

- Chuck Klosterman, What If Kurt Cobain Didn’t Die? (via bagcoffee)

jwannie: Vintage Ad: Made out of 80% cellulose and 20% cotton,...

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:44:04 -0400

jwannie:

Vintage Ad: Made out of 80% cellulose and 20% cotton, The Souper Dress was a paper dress by Campbell’s Soup as a promotional item. You had to send two soup labels and a dollar to receive it.

Pittsburgh police officers embrace outside the Winter Funeral...

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:38:38 -0400

Pittsburgh police officers embrace outside the Winter Funeral Home in Bloomfield during visitation yesterday for fellow officer Paul J. Sciullo II. As many as 1,000 law enforcement agencies from the U.S. and Canada are expected to participate in a Thursday procession and memorial for officers Paul J. Sciullo II, Eric Kelly and Stephen J. Mayhle, who were shot and killed Saturday while responding to a 911 call in Stanton Heights (via).

Photo

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:01:09 -0400

famous people from my hometown

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:29:35 -0400

Fun meme!

1. Edwin Porter, director of “The Great Train Robbery,” widely considered the first major motion picture in the United States
2. John Woodruff, won the gold medal in the 800-meter race at the 1936 Summer Olympics
3. Johnny Lujack, quarterback for the Chicago Bears and 1947 Heisman Trophy winner

Frankie and Ginger.

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:57:11 -0400

Frankie and Ginger.

molls: Debaser - Pixies

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:32:12 -0400

molls:

Debaser - Pixies

So crushed that this WYEP workshop was sold out (I didn’t...

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:17:00 -0400

So crushed that this WYEP workshop was sold out (I didn’t remember the classes started tonight until late last week, much too late to register). This is a great example of something a public radio station can offer to its listeners!

squashed: Smithsonian Uncovers Secret Message Inside Abraham...

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:48:32 -0400

squashed:

Smithsonian Uncovers Secret Message Inside Abraham Lincoln’s Watch

A watchmaker was repairing Lincon’s watch the day the civil war started. He inscribed a message inside the watch, which Lincoln apparently carried with him but never read. The watchmaker, however, told his children, who told their children, and so on, until one contacted the Smithsonian to see if the old family story was true. It turns out—though the actual message inside the watch was significantly less elegant than that reported in the family legend.

From the Drive-By Truckers show in D.C. that same weekend, 9:30...

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:13:05 -0400

From the Drive-By Truckers show in D.C. that same weekend, 9:30 Club, Feb. 21, 2009.

Walter Reed Army General Hospital. The picture above, taken...

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:53:00 -0400

Walter Reed Army General Hospital.

The picture above, taken when Tim and I visited D.C. a few weeks ago, is not the current hospital but the original Georgian-style facility. The hospital had long been a leader for advancements in military medicine, and its location on Georgia Avenue helped serve ailing presidents and generals for nearly a century.

The hospital will celebrate its centennial anniversary in May. Calvin Coolidge’s young son died at Walter Reed during his presidency. During World War II, wounded soldiers returning home were greeted with parades and star-studded performances on base. Eisenhower passed away there. The current medical center was built in the 1970s; the Vietnam years, unsurprisingly, was a dark period for the hospital that lasted well into the eighties. Today, the facility serves of recovering veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if there is only one silver lining for going to war, it is the advancements made in prosthetic and combat medical care. It’s fascinating, largely untold history — every patient, nurse, soldier and family member has his or her experience with war and convalescence.

Warren Harding and wounded soldier at Walter Reed, 1921 (image via)

I was finishing my junior year of college in April 2005 when Tim, on deployment in Iraq, was seriously wounded when his Humvee was attacked by a suicide driver. His right leg was amputated below the knee. Every day, for more than a year, he endured hours of physical therapy. The visual impact of the injuries I saw — amputations, burns, brain trauma – was terrifying at first, as my limited journalism background did not prepare me for the overwhelming experience. I was immediately aware on some level that I was witnessing something very important, with unrestricted access to the war wounded that social scientists only dream about.

Combat amputees are powerful visual image of the cost of America’s actions in the Middle East, the personification of the price of war. Documentaries have focused on the lives of some of Walter Reed’s patients, and modern advancements in media technology make capturing the stories of service members from these wars more realistic than ever before, although such a personal connection is much rarer.

I’ve always thought about sharing the experience, researching and drafting book proposals, but everything changed seven months after we left Walter Reed following Tim’s medical retirement. The Washington Post’s exposé revealed that recovering wounded troops were living in squalid housing conditions, navigating a confusing bureaucratic maze to receive medical treatment and retirement from military service. The subsequent controversy ignited national outrage, prompting a Congressional investigation and the resignations of the hospital’s commanding leaders. We had returned to Western Pennsylvania and I was finishing my last semester of college when the story became an epic governmental public-relations disaster, leaving no doubt that the hospital would close and relocate to Bethesda. The series was just as decisively declared a journalistic triumph for reporters Anne Hull, Dana Priest and the Post. As an aspiring writer and journalist, and especially as the wife of an injured veteran, I admired their reporting as I watched immediate action taken as a result of their investigative series.

I guess I’m working toward some piece narrative nonfiction about the history of the hospital and my own account of our time there. The historian of the Walter Reed Society has been kind enough to share some of its earliest documents and photographs with me. For a century, Walter Reed brought together the nation’s wounded and made tremendous advancements in combat recovery and military medicine, regarded in its prime by politicians and diplomats as the most prestigious of places to heal. I feel that the hospital was just another casualty of this war, a disservice to its past. The base is scheduled to close in 2011, and the legacy of this historic institution will be largely forgotten.

hereinspain: Washington, D.C., circa 1919. “Walter Reed Hospital...

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:09:06 -0400

hereinspain:

Washington, D.C., circa 1919. “Walter Reed Hospital flu ward.” One of the very few images in Washington-area photo archives documenting the influenza contagion of 1918-1919, which killed over 500,000 Americans and tens of millions around the globe.

Mosha, the victim of a landmine blast, is the first elephant in...

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:02:00 -0400

Mosha, the victim of a landmine blast, is the first elephant in the world to be fitted with a prosthetic leg. At three years old, she is growing so quickly that this is her second prosthesis.

David Sedaris: Pittsburgh Benedum Center on Wednesday, April 1,...

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:28:00 -0400

David Sedaris: Pittsburgh

Benedum Center on Wednesday, April 1, 2009, at 7:30 p.m.

Reminiscing is never a waste of time.

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:14:00 -0400

I spent the weekend in Philadelphia, where my old roommate from college was hosting a farewell party before she begins her nursing residency at an Army hospital in North Carolina. I admit that I was a little concerned about how to handle this Big Chill-like reunion, our first since we all graduated, but all nervousness quickly vanished after we got there, and I was amazed by how easily we let loose and reconnected at dinner. Several hours and stiff drinks later, we were downtown at Woody’s — wasted good times for all. We ended up staying with another college roommate and his boyfriend after realizing that all the rooms at the hotel were reserved that weekend due to the Philadelphia Flower Show.

The craziest nights sometimes reawaken one’s sense of purpose. Two years removed from college, I’ve sort of let go of those ambitions I had then, set forth when I was busy planning my internships in hopes for a career in writing. I’m lately caught against frustration, lost in my own unsureness. The epiphany was needed. I would rather have these goals, even if it yields personal disappointment, than have nothing to work toward over time.

Obama Reverses U.S. Position on LGBT Issues at the UN | UN Dispatch

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:07:02 -0500

Obama Reverses U.S. Position on LGBT Issues at the UN | UN Dispatch:

butnotmine: notthatkindagay (via ferrrn)

If only it were that easy to do this domestically.

How Lincoln and Darwin Shaped the Modern World

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:00:03 -0500

How Lincoln and Darwin Shaped the Modern World:

Feb. 12, 1809: Is it common knowledge in America that these two were born on the same day?