Revelers celebrate the pagan festival of ‘Summer Solstice’ at Stonehenge in Wiltshire in southern England, on June 21, 2013. The festival, which dates back thousands of years, celebrates the longest day of the year when the sun is at its maximum elevation. Modern druids and people gather at the landmark Stonehenge every year to see the sun rise on the first morning of summer. By Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images.
Caroline Stanley admires a photo series of centenarians:
Outside of that Smuckers-sponsored Willard Scott segment on the Today Show and the occasional hyperbolic news item on the rise of STDs in rest homes, we rarely see imagery of people over a certain age — unless they’re famous, and being trotted out to accept a lifetime achievement award. Perhaps this is why we’re so smitten by the close-up portraits in Jahrhundertmensch, a new series by German photographer Karsten Thormaehlen that we spotted on PetaPixel.
Buy Karsten’s book of the portraits, Happy At Hundred, here.
Vienna, Austria, 8.05 am
One-night stands always run this risk:
Cerne Abbas, England, 10.15 am
You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts. Be sure to email entries to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.
A sparrow sits in the muzzle of a former Soviet T-34/76 tank at the Soviet Memorial in Berlin’s Tiergarten on April 5, 2013. By Tim Brakemeier/AFP/Getty Images.
[Re-posted from yesterday with several more questions suggested by readers to ask Fox. It takes less than a minute to vote your preference if you have the time.]
From his Wiki page:
Josh Fox is an American film director and environmental activist, best known for his Oscar-nominated 2010 documentary, Gasland. In addition to this film, he is one of the most prominent public critics of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. In February 2012 he was arrested during a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on hydraulic fracturing when he attempted to videotape the proceedings.
Gasland 2 is premiering soon at the Tribeca Film Festival and will air on HBO over the summer. From a recent interview with Josh:
[EnergyWire]: In New York, there’s a moratorium against high-volume horizontal fracking, and efforts to end the moratorium have been slowed, partly by vocal activists like you. Do think “Gasland” is directly responsible for slowing down or blocking fracking in New York and sparking the anti-fracking movement there?
JF: They’re concurrent. I saw an industry white paper on this that shows when “Gasland” came out, there was a big spike and that attention never left the media. “Gasland” brought something to a high level of media attention that might not have been that way before, but what it also did was it showed people from different areas that they had the same issues. It’s a comparative study. It brought people out of their isolation. When you had the media hone in on that film in 32 countries, where 50 million people watched it, that’s incredible to me. I started out doing the film as an exercise for my neighbors [in Pennsylvania]. It was a prayer that we would get into [the Sundance Film Festival].
EW: In our pregame interview, you suggested Democrats and CPAC — the Conservative Political Action Committee — have the same policy on fracking. Could you elaborate?
JF: I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the same policy, but I do think there’s been an embrace on both sides of the aisle. And I don’t think that was done with good science, I don’t think that was done with sound information. The gas industry has this myth that gas is better than coal, but they know it’s no better because of methane leakage problems.
To submit a question for Josh, simply enter it into the Urtak survey after answering all of the existing questions (ignore the “YES or NO question” aspect and simply enter any open-ended question). To vote, click “Yes” if you have a strong interest in seeing Josh answer the question or “No” if you don’t particularly care. Thanks for your help.
All your favorite videogames from the Simpsons:
Long-time readers of the Dish know Dreher well. But for everyone else:
Rod Dreher was a conservative editorial writer and a columnist for The Dallas Morning News, but departed that newspaper in late 2009 to affiliate with the John Templeton Foundation. He wrote a blog previously called “Crunchy Con” at beliefnet.com, then simply called “Rod Dreher” with an emphasis on cultural rather than political topics. … Raised a Methodist, he later converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993. He wrote widely in the Catholic press, but covering the Roman Catholic Church’s child sex abuse scandal, starting in 2002, led him to question his Catholicism, and on October 12, 2006, he announced his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy.
You can follow Rod’s writing at his blog at the American Conservative. He also has a new book out, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life:
[The book] follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie’s death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life. In Louisiana for Ruthie’s funeral in the fall of 2011, Dreher began to wonder whether the ordinary life Ruthie led in their country town was in fact a path of hidden grandeur, even spiritual greatness, concealed within the modest life of a mother and teacher. In order to explore this revelation, Dreher and his wife decided to leave Philadelphia, move home to help with family responsibilities and have their three children grow up amidst the rituals that had defined his family for five generations – Mardi Gras, L.S.U. football games, and deer hunting.
Some praise for the book:
“If you are not prepared to cry, to learn, and to have your heart cracked open even a little bit by a true story of love, surrender, sacrifice, and family, then please do not read this book. Otherwise, do your soul a favor, and listen carefully to the unforgettable lessons of Ruthie Leming.” — Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
“The Little Way of Ruthie Leming is Steel Magnolias for a new generation.” -Sela Ward, Emmy Award-winning actress and author of Homesick
To submit a question for Rod, simply enter it into the above Urtak survey after answering all of the existing questions (ignore the “YES or NO question” aspect and simply enter any open-ended question). To vote, click “Yes” if you have a strong interest in seeing him answer the question or “No” if you don’t particularly care. View the results here. Thanks for your help.
The Dish 