A day in the life of Jeff Berwick...

YouTube link.

... who has been blind for 25 years.  Nicely done.  Created by Accessible Media, a Canadian company -

Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) is a not-for-profit multimedia organization operating two broadcast services, VoicePrint and The Accessible Channel – TACtv, and a companion website (ami.ca). AMI serves more than five million Canadians who are blind, with low vision, print-restricted, deaf or hearing-impaired, learning disabled, mobility impaired, in need of literacy skills or learning English as a second language, by making print, broadcast and online media accessible.

Moral outrage fatigue, chapter 38...

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie arrived at his son's baseball game this afternoon aboard a State Police helicopter.

Right before the lineup cards were being exchanged on the field, a noise from above distracted the spectators as the 55-foot long helicopter buzzed over trees in left field, circled the outfield and landed in an adjacent football field. Christie disembarked from the helicopter and got into a black car with tinted windows that drove him about a 100 yards to the baseball field.

During the 5th inning, Christie and First Lady Mary Pat Christie got into the car, rode back to the helicopter and left the game...

"It is a means of transportation that is occasionally used as the schedule demands," said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak in an email. "This has historically been the case in prior administrations as well, and we continue to be judicious in limiting its use."

The governor had no public events on his schedule, offering no insight to where he might have been traveling from. He had a private meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion, in Princeton. He is meeting with a group of Iowa donors who have publically expressed a desire to persuade him to run for president in 2012.

Christie was ferried to the field in a brand-new AugustaWestland helicopter, purchased at a cost to taxpayers of $12.5 million.

Text and file photo from the New Jersey Star-Ledger, via Reddit.  I don't know whether in this era of cost-cutting and budgetary constraints politicians are just totally oblivious as to the public's perceptions of their activities, or whether they just don't give a f*** what the public thinks.

Addendum/update June 4:
First this happened -

Facing broad criticism for flying by helicopter to watch his son’s high school baseball game in Bergen County, Gov. Chris Christie refused today to refund the state for Tuesday’s $2,500-an-hour flight. "The governor does not reimburse for security and travel," a spokesman for the governor, Kevin Roberts, said in an e-mail message. "The use of air travel has been extremely limited and appropriate."..

As for Christie’s use of a car to get the 100 yards from the landing site to the ball park, which was ridiculed by Van Susteren and others, Jones said the cars were there for the governor’s safety.
"If the helicopter got called away for a higher priority mission, then the governor would be transported to his next location on the ground," Jones said.

Then this -

After a firestorm of criticism, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made an about-face Thursday, reimbursing the state for his personal use of a state police helicopter because he said the story had become a distraction from the real problems facing the state.

Remaining unapologetic about his use of the helicopter to attend two of his son's baseball games and a political dinner with GOP campaign contributors from Iowa, Christie said that he has reimbursed the state about $2,100 and asked the state Republican Party to pay about $1,200 for his trip to see the donors.

"There, I fixed it"

Via picshag and Found Shit.

Commercials coming to PBS

Sponsorship arrived many years ago, but now advertisements will be inserted into the body of the programming, as illustrated in the graphic above.  From a report in The Atlantic:

Network executives hope that the new strategy will prevent viewers from fleeing to other stations during the promotional breaks between programs, some of which can last up to eight minutes...

This is sad for two reasons. First, nobody wants to snap out of the Ken Burns zone for even a few seconds. As The Times points out in their coverage, PBS's chief selling point to both audiences and sponsors was the unbroken programming, a format that both felt more authentic and supports the in-depth focus of shows like Frontline or any of the network's many documentaries about everything you didn't think was so exceedingly interesting until you sat down and leaned in for an hour...

Second, this latest shake-up draws further attention to how [PBS] is in trouble. Last week, on the heels of the same meeting during which executives unveiled the new interrupted programming structure, The Times also reported how a number of stations were withdrawing from the network because of record high dues, in some cases to be replaced with programming from religious networks.

"Super cool"

A model presents a casual office wear during a "Super Cool Biz" fashion show, a government-sponsored event featuring outfits appropriate for the office yet cool enough to endure the sweltering heat.

Photo credit AP, via the Telegraph.

Real house prices

Still going down.  "Real," in this case, reflecting adjustment for inflation.  More info on the indexes used, and graphs before inflation adjustment and house priceds compared to rent costs, at Calculated Risk.

Crab spider captures an American Copper

Photo credit Dan Sonnenberg, via Wisconsin Butterflies sightings page.