What’s new in Joomla 1.6 from Andrew Smith on Vimeo.

Turning Left is not a Joomla! site, but friends of ours run Joomla, so we’re putting this video here for any and all who want a sneak peak at Joomla 1.6.

Enjoy.

Here you go: the terrifying, riveting video all Jonas Brothers fans have been waiting for. Yes, this heart-stopping moment is brought to you by AOL News.

No, this isn’t ‘Love in an Elevator.’ This is the Jonas Brothers, after all.

Enjoy these meaningless few minutes as you watch the brothers elude danger, certain death…, well, none of that, really. If you’re here, just enjoy.

Turning left is a collection of the musings and reflections of select authors, all of whom have been turning farther and farther left for quite some time. As the right continues to raise its ugly head, it is more and more apparent that all of us should be Turning Left. We are proudly, unabashedly liberal.

Let it be clear: Turning Left is first, and foremost, opinion.  We do not claim to publish first-hand news. We will point the reader to first-hand sources, and, we must stress, caveat lector! Let the reader beware!  Remember, something is not true just because it exists online.  Please do your own fact checking!

Our goal is not to mock or hide behind anonymity. Our goal is Truth, Veritas, and we recognize that human rights are still being denied many in this the United States and abroad. We wish to help shed light where there is darkness.

We respect the right of our authors to remain anonymous. The anonymous journalist helped shape this country, the United States, and many anonymous journalists labor today in the U.S. and more oppressive countries. In the proud tradition of Thomas Paine and countless others, we invite you to join us as we all continue Turning Left together.

From ENEWSPF:

Our pick for judge in the 15th Subcircuit, Phelan vacancy, is Judge John C. Griffin of Palos Heights. Griffin has four opponents, and was appointed to the bench in 2008. He sits in the Chancery Division.

Judge Griffin is a true Democrat. One of his opponents in the Democratic Primary is a life-long Republican who is seeking election in 2010 as a Democrat. This opponent has stated that he recognizes that it’s impossible to be elected from this region as a Republican. This opponent has been Republican supervisor in Bloom Township for several years (having defeated now State Senator Toi Hutchinson when she ran as the Democratic candidate for supervisor in 2005).

When endorsing judges, we rely on the experts, especially experts who belong to bar associations.

The Chicago Council of Lawyers found Judge Griffin qualified, writing:

Judge Griffin was admitted to practice in 1976. For 31 years he was in private practice
primarily handling real estate, zoning and development-related matters. In March 2008, he was
appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to a judicial vacancy. He has served in Traffic Court
and currently presides over mortgage foreclosure matters in the Foreclosure/Mechanic’s Lien
Section. Judge Griffin is reported to have good legal ability and an excellent temperament. He
had a good reputation as a hard-working and knowledgeable attorney and is praised for his
courtroom management skills and for being well-prepared. The Council finds him Qualified for
the Circuit Court.

In addition, Judge Griffin has been found qualified or recommended (per each organization’s policies) by all associations performing review:

• The Chicago Bar Association – Qualified
• Illinois State Bar Association – Qualified
• Cook County Bar Association – Recommended
• Chicago Council of Lawyers – Qualified
• Women’s Bar Association of Illinois – Recommended
• Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago – Recommended
• Puerto Rican Bar Association of Illinois – Highly Qualified
• The Decalogue Society of Lawyers – Recommended
• Asian American Bar Association – Recommended
• Hellenic Bar Association of Illinois – Recommended
• Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Inc. – Recommended

We give Judge John C. Griffin our highest recommendation, and encourage all in the 15th Subcircuit to vote for him.

I’m quoting the entire endorsement — with permission — but I want to focus on one point in particular.

What, indeed is a Democrat? What, indeed, is a Republican?

One of John Griffin’s opponents was a Republican who ran as a Republican against Congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr.; and he was the unsuccessful Republican candidate against Democratic Judge Anna Demacopoulos in 2008.

Judge Griffin is a true, life-long Democrat, a true member of the Democratic Party of Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama. I urge you to vote for John C. Griffin to fill the 15th Subcircuit judicial vacancy. Besides all of those Democratic credentials, I have met with John Griffin several times. He’s an ethical person. Ethics are crucial in a judge. I sense an incredible sincerity when I speak with John.

Vote for Judge John C. Griffin. He deserves nomination to be the Democratic party’s candidate in the November election.

It is what Edgar Allan Poe might have called "a mystery all insoluble": Every year for the past six decades, a shadowy visitor would leave roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac on Poe’s grave on the anniversary of the writer’s birth. This year, no one showed.

Did the mysterious "Poe toaster" meet his own mortal end? Did some kind of ghastly misfortune befall him? Will he be heard from nevermore?

"I’m confused, befuddled," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. "I don’t know what’s going on."

The visitor’s absence this year only deepened the mystery over his identity. One name mentioned as a possibility was that of a Baltimore poet and known prankster who died in his 60s last week. But there is little or no evidence to suggest he was the man.

Happy Belated Birthday, Mr. Poe.

Have you ever been so angry at friends or life in general that you wanted to explode? Ever fall into a funk with life, feeling down and out, dejected and disheartened?

I was in such a place just before Christmas. The winter solstice brings out the best and worst in us, I suppose. So it was I did “beweep my [perceived] outcast state.” When I found myself in this uncomfortable place, I remembered one of the ways Abraham Lincoln used to deal with his own anger and melancholy: Abe would write letters expressing his deepest feelings, and never send them.

I tried that with a few text messages, and got burned when I accidentally sent a couple of them.

Abraham Lincoln I’m not.

Abraham Lincoln, two words that mean “America” almost more than “Old Glory.” I try to emulate Abe in politics, in the way I write, in the way I deal with people. I’ve also tried to employ some of Honest Abe’s coping mechanisms. To make a point in an argument or debate, Lincoln would tell a clever short story, emphasis on short. With brevity and humor, Lincoln would make his point, helping to quell a potentially polemical debate. In doing so, the man succeeded in building bridges, working with people who disagreed with him significantly.

Lincoln also had his bouts with depression. Consider an excerpt from God, Lincoln and Depression, published January 2, 2010 Psychology Today:

Abraham Lincoln is an unusual psychological case study. He was both chronically melancholy, and yet among the strongest people in history.

Lincoln lost perhaps his one true love, and married a mentally unstable woman who abused him. He loved his sons – indulged them ridiculously – but one died very young, and another (Willie) died at age 11 in the White House, almost breaking Lincoln.

Oddly, the same philosophical-psychological outlook caused Lincoln to be both depressed, and incredibly strong. Lincoln was not a Christian, as he was raised. But it is not accurate to call him a disbeliever. His parents were hard-core Baptists, and Lincoln rejected their church. But their Calvinist views of predestination had an indelible impact on Lincoln.

Throughout his life, Lincoln was stricken with bouts of sometimes paralyzing melancholy. And although he enjoyed reading, telling stories, practicing law, political machinations – and playing with his children above all – Lincoln was never a cheerful person.

One method Abraham Lincoln employed to work through his occasional anger, depression and bouts of self-doubt was to write letters. To his credit, he never sent most of the letters he wrote. Lincoln wrote many letters expressing disappointment and anger, placed each letter in an envelope addressed to the person who was the target of his wrath, put the envelop in a drawer, and moved on. Many of these letters, according to Lincoln on Leadership, were in the form of conversations. Lincoln would go all out, expressing in these letters his anger and criticism of his subordinates, often in very scathing terms, then seal the letters, leaving them forever undelivered.

The website LettersNeverSent.com shares a passage from Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People, a book I read in my youth, and should probably read again:

As Abraham Lincoln lay dying of an assassin’s bullet, Secretary of War Stanton was quoted as saying “There lies the most perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen.”

What made Lincoln such a great leader? He succeeded in curing himself of the critical spirit we’ve talked about this morning.

Lincoln had suffered through inept and bungling generals for the first three years of the war. McClellen, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker… but in the summer of 1863, it seemed that the Union under General Meade would finally be able to crush the confederacy. Lee had stumbled badly at Gettysburg and needed to flee back across the Potomac to regroup and survive. But the Potomac was swollen and crossing was impossible. Sensing victory at hand, Lincoln sent both a telegraph and a special messenger to Meade specifically instructing him not to hold a war council but to attack immediately. What did Meade do? He held his war council and delayed. Because of that delay Lee had the time to move his troops across the river to safety.

Lincoln was crushed. In anger he composed this letter:

“My dear General,

I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within our easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so south of the river, when you can take with you very few – no more than 2/3′s of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect and I do no expect that you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it.”

What do you suppose Meade did when he read that letter?… He never did. Lincoln never sent the letter. It was found later amongst Lincoln’s papers following his death. Why didn’t he send it? Because he had come to grips with a critical spirit and determined to defeat it.

As I mentioned, while in my less-than-happy place before the Christmas holiday, I decided to tap out a few text messages expressing my anger and disappointment at life. I don’t text many people, so I opened the last few messages I had sent, and started clumsily typing in my mobile phone. In the back of my mind, I was remembering Abraham Lincoln, how he found writing like this therapeutic.

I did too. It really helped.

I went at it, giving vent to every petty insecurity I felt at the time. I was on fire.

I did this over a period of a few days, each session choosing the last person I had texted in real life, filling a text field with my rambling rants, then I would go on to the next text message I had sent, and fill that field. After each therapy session, I would return to what I had written and carefully backspace over my diatribes, carefully erasing them.

Or so I thought.

Turns out I don’t send enough texts to know the subtleties of my phone’s messaging client.  In short, I really don’t know how to use the software.

So, a few days later, while away for the holidays, feeling much better and enjoying family, I took it upon myself to send a couple of friendly text messages to some friends — or so I thought.

On two occasions that I know of, I found that portions of my rants had not been completely deleted, somehow hiding above my phone’s cursor. Off they went to my friends, making my Christmas greetings sound like sarcastic stabs in the back.

I’ll not suffer through the details of what I actually sent here.  Just know that what I sent sounded juvenile and trite.

Instant communication is a wonderful thing, but it’s very hard to take back.

So I write this hoping to pass along a lesson learned.  Be careful when you text — something I should have known.

How would Lincoln have survived email, voicemail, and text messaging, I wonder?

Better than I have, I’m sure.

I still have explaining to do.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

"As the World Turns" is going off the air.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Procter & Gamble, the company responsible for the phrase "soap operas," is out of the daytime drama business after 76 years now that CBS is making "As the World Turns" stop spinning.

The network announced the cancellation on Tuesday, the day "As the World Turns" broadcast its 13,661st episode. Its last episode will air next September, CBS said.

It’s the second daytime drama CBS has canceled in a year, after "Guiding Light." They were the last two produced by a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, the company for which the term "soap operas" was created because it used the shows to hawk products like Ivory soap and Duz laundry detergent.

Daytime dramas have been fading as a genre for years with more women joining the work force and the increased number of channels offering alternatives like news, talk, reality and game shows. In tough economic times, paying casts, producers and writers proved prohibitive to networks when there were cheaper alternatives.

The cancellation will leave CBS with only two daytime dramas: "The Young and the Restless" and "The Bold and Beautiful." ABC has three soaps left and NBC one.

Through the years, actors Marisa Tomei, Meg Ryan, Parker Posey and James Earl Jones have appeared on "As the World Turns." The show follows families in the Illinois town of Oakdale.

I won’t miss it.

From Advocate.com:

Tom Petty admits that his father physically and verbally abused him because he assumed the singer was gay.

"[My father] was scary and violent," Petty said in the new issue of Rolling Stone,according to website Spinner. "He beat the living hell out of me, and there was constant verbal abuse."

Haven’t heard from Tom Petty in a while. Of course it would help if I listened to the radio.

Wow.

More here.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) has confirmed the presence of 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus in a pig sample collected at the Minnesota State Fair submitted by the University of Minnesota. Additional samples are being tested.

"We have fully engaged our trading partners to remind them that several international organizations, including the World Organization for Animal Health, have advised that there is no scientific basis to restrict trade in pork and pork products," said Vilsack. "People cannot get this flu from eating pork or pork products. Pork is safe to eat."

I’m still eating pork. Enough said.

More here.

Multiple media sources are reporting that charges are pending in the case of Richard and Mayumi Heene, whose son Falcon was the so-called ‘balloon boy’ who millions believed was aboard a helium balloon that reportedly had taken off with the boy inside.

From WTAE Pittsburgh:

A Colorado sheriff said he was pursuing criminal charges in the case of a 6-year-old boy who vanished into the rafters of his garage while the world thought he was zooming through the sky in a flying saucer-like helium balloon.

The boy’s parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, met with Larimer County investigators for much of the afternoon, but Sheriff Jim Alderden didn’t say who would be charged or what the charges would be.

Alderden didn’t call Thursday’s hours-long drama a hoax, but he expressed disappointment that he couldn’t level more serious charges in the incident, which sent police and the military scrambling to save young Falcon Heene as millions of worried television viewers watched.

“We were looking at Class 3 misdemeanor, which hardly seems serious enough given the circumstances,” Alderden said. “We are talking to the district attorney, federal officials to see if perhaps there aren’t additional federal charges that are appropriate in this circumstance.”

He said deputies were seeking a search warrant for the family’s home, and there would be more information at a news conference Sunday.

Other media sources are essentially running the same article from the Associated Press.

And then there’s this “exclusive” from Gawker: Exclusive: I Helped Richard Heene Plan a Balloon Hoax. In the article, 25-year-old researcher Robert Thomas reveals to Gawker how earlier this year he and Richard Heene drew up a master plan to generate a massive media controversy using a weather balloon. From the article:

One night, when Richard and I were sitting and talking, he brought up Wife Swap, and specifically a confrontation he had with a woman on the show who claimed to be a psychic. They very much disliked one other. Richard said, “Well, think about it. We were the 100th episode of Wife Swap. And why are we the most recognized Wife Swap family and episode? It’s because of the controversy. I don’t care what people say about me as a person, but the fact of the matter is that they know who I am.”

And then we delved into the area of UFOs. I was reading a book on witness reports of Roswell at the time, just out of curiousity — I’ve never concluded whether it really took place or was an elaborate hoax. And Richard said, “how much do you want to bet we could facilitate some sort of a media stunt that would be equally profound as Roswell, and we could do so with nothing more than a weather balloon and some controversy?”

Read more here, or you can get a bullet-point summary of Robert Thomas’ accusations here.

The album, Michael Jackson’s This Is It
, is a companion piece to the Michael Jackson’s This Is It Movie and features the music that inspired the film, demo recordings and two versions of the previously unreleased song, "This Is It".

Source: michaeljackson.com

David Letterman acknowledged on Thursday’s show that he had sexual relationships with female employees and that someone tried to extort $2 million from him over the affairs.

During the taping of his CBS late-night show in New York, Letterman discussed receiving a threat to either pay $2 million or risk the relationships being made public.

In a release from the show’s production company, Letterman said he referred the matter to the Manhattan district attorney’s office and that an investigation ended in an arrest Thursday. Letterman did not identify the person he said was arrested.

As part of the investigation, Letterman said he issued a “phony” $2 million check to the individual and the arrest followed — along with testimony by Letterman.

This one really didn’t take me by surprise.  I really don’t have much to say.

It’s Thursday night, and I’m watching his opening monologue now.  He sounds fine.  I suspect we’ll hear more than we care to about all of this in the days and weeks ahead.

A new friend of mine showed this to me today. I never heard of Matt before today.

Apparently, over 24 million people already know who Matt is. Nice to meet you, Matt.

This is just too, too cool. And a wonderful moment of Zen.

A little bit about Matt:

Matt is a 32-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.

A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said "Hey, why don’t you stand over there and do that dance. I’ll record it." He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It’s actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea.

A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on. Now Matt is quasi-famous as "That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I’ll send you the link. It’s funny."

The response to the first video brought Matt to the attention of the nice people at Stride gum. They asked Matt if he’d be interested in taking another trip around the world to make a new video. Matt asked if they’d be paying for it. They said yes. Matt thought this sounded like another very good idea.

UPDATE: A huge tip of the hat to PENGUINSIX for the lyrics to Praan, the "Stream of Life" song. First, a transliteration of the original, which is sung in Bengali, from the composer’s blog, followed by a translation:

Praan Lyrics – Transliteration

Some people have asked for this. So here you go.

Bhulbona ar shohojete
Shei praan e mon uthbe mete
Mrittu majhe dhaka ache
je ontohin praan

Bojre tomar baje bashi
She ki shohoj gaan
Shei shurete jagbo ami
(Repeat 3X)

Shei jhor jeno shoi anonde
Chittobinar taare
Shotto-shundu dosh digonto
Nachao je jhonkare!

Bojre tomar baje bashi
She ki shohoj gaan
Shei shurete jagbo ami

Stream of Life
by Rabindranath Tagore

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Want to dance with Matt? Go here for more: http://wherethehellismatt.com/

Download the song Praan, by Garry Schyman, here.

Asking his mother how her and her late husband’s friendship with Ted Kennedy started, Mrs. Reagan responded responded, “Nobody really knew it,” that their friendship was so close. “I think they couldn’t quite conceive of two people in two different parties, how could that become a friendship? Which it, of course, did.

“Yes,” her son Ron replied.

“I think it started when we first got to Washington and Teddy asked Dad, Daddy, if he could bring his mother to the Oval Office. And Daddy, of course, said, ‘Of course.’ Which he did.

“And then after that, he asked him to speak at the Kennedy Library, which he did. And from then on, they developed this friendship.”

“Both of them respected one another,” Mrs. Reagan continued. “It was a very good friendship. It’s what there should be more of today.You know, two different parties. Enough with all this other stuff.”

Ron commented that it would be unusual today, his father and Ted Kennedy, “polar opposites politically,” that a friendship like that could begin and endure for so long.

“But it shouldn’t be,” his mother replied. “It shouldn’t be thought of as unusual. That’s my point. It just shouldn’t. They were two men who respected each other — didn’t agree, politically — but that doesn’t make any difference. You can still respect one another. And they did.”

She continued, “Ted gave the best speech about Daddy that I have ever heard. I forgot what it was, but, oh, it was a good speech. So good.”

“I got to know him better over our association over stem cell [research], because we both worked very hard for that,” Mrs. Reagan went on. “There just was a great, great friendship and respect for one another.”

“I’ll miss him,” Mrs. Reagan said.

The interview is very moving, especially when the conversation turned to President Reagan’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. A subsequent phone call Mrs. Reagan received on her birthday is also very moving.

“It was a good, solid friendship,” Mrs. Reagan said, “We need more of them today.”

Ron asks his mother if perhaps there was an “air of sympatico” between his father and Senator Kennedy because of the attempt on President Reagan’s life, and Mrs. Reagan says she “never thought about it like that. How smart you are!” she says to her son.

That was quite nice.

Mrs. Reagan also expressed her hope that health care reform would pass.

Listen to the whole interview here:

I have to say, this was one of the most touching interviews I’ve ever heard in my life. I had to pull the car over because my eyes were watering up. Gave me a whole new perspective on Mrs. Reagan, and I appreciate that.

Very moving. Very stirring.

Also, please visit the Ron Reagan show on the Web, and listen to Air America Radio.

Adonis Bell saved the lives of his family early Wednesday morning when a fire broke out in his grandma’s Roselind two-flat.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

At 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, the 11-year-old woke up when a fan started pushing heavy black smoke into the room where he slept.

He was the only one in his grandma’s Roseland two-flat to notice.

Barefoot in a tank top and jogging pants, Adonis went to the kitchen where he saw the ceiling on fire near his bedroom — billowing black smoke and orange flames that were gnawing a giant hole above the kitchen stove.

The boy remained calm.

“I knew what to do,” Adonis said. “A fireman came to our school.”

He ran to wake his mother, who told him to get his 2-year-old godsister, Jordan Hobbs, out of the house.

That’s what the fireman at school said, too. “Get myself and everybody out. He told us not to grab any stuff,” Adonis remembered. “Just get out.”

Firefighters tell us every second counts in a structure fire.  I saw a controlled demonstration of such a fire once in Park Forest.  The flames grew tall and hot very fast.

Quick thinking, Mr. Bell.  Kudos to you, sir.  You saved the lives of every member of your family in the house that night.

Mayor Daley, this young man deserves official recognition from your office.  He’s one of Chicago’s finest.

Read the rest of the story here.