SpinnyNuNu

Via the Crappy Design subreddit.

Helen Rose | Wedding gown worn by Grace Kelly | c.1956 - - -
Movie actress Grace Kelly, a Philadelphia native, wore this gown for her wedding to Prince Rainier III of Monaco on April 19, 1956. A gift from her studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the dress was designed by Academy Award–winning costume designer Helen Rose, who had created the star’s wardrobe for four films, including High Society and The Swan. MGM’s wardrobe department constructed it with meticulous care under strict security.
In style and detail the dress was conceived to complement the bride’s fairy-princess image. The bell-shaped skirt of ivory faille, supported by three attached petticoats, fans out into a graceful lace train; the high-necked bodice of antique Brussels lace was re-embroidered to render the seams invisible and then accented with seed pearls. Lace embellished with pearls covers the accompanying prayer book, shoes, and cap, which is surmounted by a wreath of orange blossoms. The circular veil was designed specially so as not to obscure the bride’s famous face.
As a Hollywood star, Kelly was renowned for her beauty and talent—recognized by her Academy Award for best actress for her role in The Country Girl (1954)—and for her understated, classic style that inspired the fashion phenomenon known as the Grace Kelly Look. As a royal bride, her magnificent yet simple ensemble incited intense interest and admiration. Shortly after the wedding, the princess presented the gown to the Museum, where it has become one of the collection’s most popular and beloved objects, and continues to serve as the ultimate exemplar of bridal elegance.

#whattheywore #historicalfashion #fashion #fashiondesign #fashionhistory #historyoffashion #vintagefashion #art #vintage #historicfashion #defunctfashion #historicalfashion #costume #costumedesign #couture #costumehistory #museumatfit #1950sFashion #weddingdress
#weddinggown #gracekelly #princessgrace #monaco #bridalgown #fashionillustration #helenrose #philadelphiamuseumofart

Does anyone in this District know the law?

His coach had little sympathy for the "pretty stupid" injury.

A feud is developing between the president and the mayor of hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico's largest city.

The world’s coolest grandmother deserves the coolest birthday, and that’s exactly what Gladys got when she turned 98 this week.

A news anchor in New York made sure she finished her on-air segment — even after she realized that her water had broken on live television.

It's just a bunch of Hocus Pocus .... or is it?

A parachute center in San Joaquin County notorious for deadly accident will face new oversight after a new bill was signed into law.

Although, to be honest, that's probably a palm tree and palms have wood that has evolved to be soft and flexible rather than sturdy.  Still it's a reminder of why weathermen shouldn't stand outdoors for their photo-op reports.

via imgur

Gibson lied about overcoming cancer, lied about having cancer, promised to give money she made from her lie to a little boy who actually had cancer, and then reneged on that, too.

How to Make the Electoral College Irrelevant

We must make sure our democracy doesn’t ever again elect a candidate who loses the popular vote. That means making the Electoral College irrelevant.

Here’s how: As you probably know, the Constitution assigns each state a number of electors based on the state’s population. The total number of electors is 538, so any candidate who gets 270 of those Electoral College votes becomes president.

Article II of the Constitution says states can award their electors any way they want. So all that’s needed in order to make the Electoral College irrelevant is for states with a total of at least 270 electors to agree to award all their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote.

If they do that, then automatically the winner of the popular vote gets the 270 electoral college votes he or she needs to become president.  

Already 10 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws to do this – awarding all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote, as soon as the 270 elector goal is met. Together, these states total 165 electoral votes.

So all we need now is some additional states with 105 electors to pass the same law, agreeing to reward all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote – and it’s done. We’ll never again elect a president who loses the popular vote.

The effort is known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. If your state hasn’t yet joined on, make sure it does.

An Indiana woman is accused of trying to kill her brother's 11-week-old daughter with breast milk laced with crushed pills.

A Florida mom says her 6-year-old's first grade teacher had no right to tell her son to stand -- not kneel -- during the Pledge of Allegiance.

This appears to be a strictly political move to appease a conservative base. There's no legal justification for it.

Why couldn't these men cover their own eyes?

Read more »

DirecTV is reportedly set to offer refunds to its 'Sunday Ticket' subscribers following the protests that ensued during last weekend's football games.

Former patroller still skis the mountain every winter

NFL fans across the country are doing the same.

In the forestry hills of Big Sur, California, Jayson Fann weaves, bends and shapes eucalyptus and willow branches into incredible human-sized nests.

Is a Confederate flag sweater considered racist?

“It was a little bit like open-heart surgery.”

"They lied to the wrong family."

In spite of the best efforts of the White House and the Pentagon, the world would come to know he had been killed in an act of fratricide that was then covered up in favor of a horrible series of official lies.

But that we know the truth at all is owed to the extraordinary determination of Tillman's family, a foulmouthed and eclectic bunch of square-jawed hippies from San Jose, California, and in particular his mother, Mary. A more compliant family, more easily bamboozled by the institutions of American power at the highest levels, might have meekly, or readily, accepted the government's vigorous effort to turn Pat Tillman into a Sergeant York fantasy that it could then exploit relentlessly for propaganda purposes. 

Comments excerpted from a review at Esquire.  Those not familiar with the Pat Tillman saga can review the basics of it at Wikipedia.  My understanding is that the outrage by the family and by knowledgeable members of the public is not directed at the friendly-fire death per se, but on the extensive coverup that ensued.

Addendum:  Those interested in this subject should read Andred O-Hehir's analysis at Salon:

The film is also meant, to some extent, as an antidote to journalist Jon Krakauer's 2009 book "Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman," which the family strongly disliked...

He was a football star and avid outdoorsman who read Emerson; an agnostic or atheist who read the Bible, the Quran and the Book of Mormon out of intellectual curiosity; a man who relished the high-testosterone simulated combat of sports, and excelled at it, while also maintaining an introspective personal journal he allowed no one to read. As a friend of mine recently observed, many of Tillman's characteristics would seem completely normal among the metropolitan educated classes: He never went anywhere without a book, and typically rode his bike rather than driving a car. But Tillman wasn't a bearded, chai-drinking grad student riding that bike to yoga class in Brooklyn or Silverlake or Ann Arbor. He was the starting strong safety for the Arizona Cardinals, and parked his bike next to his teammates' Porsches and tricked-out Escalades...

I'm only guessing here, but one of the things the Tillman family hated about Jon Krakauer's book was probably the author's tendency to view Pat Tillman's death as a case study in the evils of war and the limits of idealism. I might incline toward that view myself, but the Tillmans don't. Right-wing propagandists quickly learned that the Tillman family wasn't going to stick to the pious, patriotic script. (Pat's drunken younger brother, Rich, at the nationally televised funeral: "Pat isn't with God. He's fucking dead.") But the Tillmans aren't interested in starring in an antiwar morality play either. As they see it, Pat Tillman died as he lived, as an American who thought for himself, hewed to his own course and kept his word. It's the rest of us who have betrayed him.

More at the link.

Reposted in 2011 because I just this week finally got an opportunity to view the film. It is excellent (confirmed by a 93% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes).

Reposted in 2017 because Donald Trump, for whatever reason, chose to retweet Pat Tillman in support of his criticism of professional football players.  Pat Tillman's widow is justifiably pushing back:

"The very action of self-expression and the freedom to speak from one's heart — no matter those views — is what Pat and so many other Americans have given their lives for," Marie Tillman said. "Even if they didn't always agree with those views."

Roy Moore represents everything church/state separation activists have always feared about the Religious Right.

Clayton Cook was in the middle of taking wedding photos when he noticed a little boy struggling in a river.

Walter Plunkett | Costume for Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara Kennedy Butler in Gone With the Wind | c.1939 —
#WalterPlunkett #VivienLeigh #ScarlettOhara #GoneWithTheWind #costume #costumedesign #filmcostume #costumehistory #fashion #fashionhistory #vintagefashion #historiademoda #filmcostume #histoireducostume #victorianfashion #victorian #curtaindress #harryransomcenter

The Trump administration plans to shut down the federal health insurance exchange for 12 hours during all but one Sunday in the upcoming Obamacare open enrollment season.

Michael Peroutka said Planned Parenthood is a "national program designed to eliminate black people."

A South Carolina restaurant owner says he will no longer show NFL games until players end their national anthem protests.