Meme shot #2

In all seriousness, me after a hard day at the office. As if there aren’t enough photos of me on the internet! :p
Meme shot #1

Sooper cool motion shot, if I do say so myself
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So, I’m also listed as “music” blog on the Elbo.ws music aggreggator. I saw my recent posts on there. NOTHING ABOUT MUSIC!!!

OOH THE AGGRAVATION!!! Being caught with no tunes! Yikes!

Once upon at time, I posted MP3s and ogg vorbis files to hear and share at leisure. This was before I transferred my setup to Linux (and, of course, the current election season). I can’t encode MP3s in Linux (I’m sure someone will show up here and say “YES YOU CAN”, and tell me how, for which I will be eternally grateful), so I will have to find another way of sharing music I do or like (via the oggcasts, or course).

For now, however, I’ve spent too much damn time on my PC this morning. Off to play!

Here’s the other side of the story. Yes, she’s evil, but I had no idea that Ms. Palin engendered so much hatred that she’s even been accused of naming her chlidren after television witches! Of all things, there are worse things to crucify VP candidates over than that, even if it WAS true.

There are lies from both sides (for Palin, Obama, Biden, McCain, et. al) and, ironically, as that linked blog header states: “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

Yeah…right…

See below. God, have I been trigger happy, lately:

From another email forwarded to me by my friend Ed (he DID not write this one, btw, just forwarded it.):

——————————————-
I took the list of books Palin was supposed to have tried to ban in her hometown library off of something Norbert Blei sent me.

Then
I got the email below from Brad Hamlin correctly identifying where that
list originally came from. It’s possible that Palin took that list and
tried to apply it to her local library, but when I think about it, not
very likely. When I think about it, her local library probably doesn’t
carry half those books to begin with.

Distorted truth is bad
news in my books, regardless of whom it’s directed at, so I’m passing
this information along. Click here for info on where the list
originally came from:
http://www.adlerbooks.com/banned.html
——————————————-

Possibly consider the previous post null and void until further proof arrives that this actually happened.

Peace out…

See above.  Grrr….

My friend Ed Mycue just emailed me the list of books Sarah Palin tried to get banned from the public library when she was mayor of Wasilla, AK. You all can make up your mind as to whether this actually true or not. I’m inclined to lean more truth, but you all know how much I want this woman taken down, so my bias IS a little colored, at this point.

So the Canterbury Tales was immoral, eh? Lord knows what ELSE she’ll try to get banned when she gets into office:

A list of books Sarah Palin attempted to ban in the library of the town she way mayor of in Alaska:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L%u2019Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy%u2019s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer%u2019s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It%u2019s Okay if You Don%u2019t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley%u2019s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O%u2019Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo%u2019s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women%u2019s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Ronald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil%u2019s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid%u2019s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won%u2019t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster%u2019s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Order THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Mark Hartenbach
Hcolom Press

http://www.hcolompress.com/Books.html

Out of my sick bed to make a point this afternoon…

So my little rant on Sarah Palin (OK, out of respect for whomever’s side you are on, I won’t call her Bitch or Cunt anymore - I’ll leave that for John McCain to refer to his wife as such) generated some buzz on my Friendfeed feed the other day. Most agreed with me. Some didn’t. One guy (a CEO, no less) went elsewhere and called me a “pathetic, hateful asshole“. I’m flattered. Whatever…

Yes, it was quite harsh. Maybe a LITTLE too so? Too bad. I’m not taking it back. Was it personal? Yes. When I feel that my rights as a woman are being threatened, damn straight I’m going to take it personally. When someone attempts to fuck with my liberties, I WILL fight back. Tooth and nail.

Sure, I focused too much on her daughter. In the grander scheme of things, it’s not really about her daughter, but what Sarah’s views on family life entail, how she tries to push them, and how she doesn’t practice what she preaches.

Disclosure: I practiced abstinence when I was teenager. I had no choice. My parents wouldn’t let me date until I was 18, (and frankly, none of the guys in my high school would have me, but…moving on…). I freely admit that, due to generational and cultural misunderstandings, my parents made many mistakes raising me, and, in certain fashions, stunted my growth as a person in ways that I’m still, to this day, trying to work through. I will always thank them, however, for giving me the strength and the courage to say NO! to whatever offers of sex came my way during that period in my life. It strengthened me as a woman, and it strengthened me as a person.

Also, all I had to do was take a look around me. I was surrounded by statistics. Young girls in the prime of their youth, taken down by a pregnancy. Forced to marry their boyfriends, taking crappy jobs to make ends meet. Not going anywhere with their lives. Trapped in a small Northern California town with no way out.

That was damn well NOT going to be me.

I would hope it wouldn’t be Bristol Palin as well. If her mother had encouraged in her the abstinence teaching she so clearly wants to instill in other children, she would not be in the mess she’s in now. I have no personal issues with teenage sex, or sexual activity at any age, as long as precautions are taken. It’s a fact of life, and should be taught as such. Abstinence worked for me. But, well, it’s my life. Not anyone else’s.

I watched Palin’s speech last night. Sure, it was well delivered. Sure, she had the audience on it’s feet afterward. I did note, however, that aside from the stale snide remarks being repeated ad infinitum about Barack Obama, the bad joke about the “community organizer” and the flat out lies she told, one point I saw was quite telling.

She mentioned how proud she was of her son being sent off to the military. He happily stood up among the applause.

Not one mention of pride in her daughter Bristol. At all.

I don’t really care about Sarah Palin having 5 kids and running for VP. I know, and know of, many mothers handling a large brood and a demanding job. It’s their life. They chose it. If they can handle it, good for them. Rock on.

Just don’t force your views on others by parading your children as shining examples of your beliefs, especially if they can’t live up to them. Then push to deny others the same care and comfort that are/will obviously be provided to your children, even though they made a mistake.

Look, I’m not promoting abortion here, either. Don’t even think it. Surely Ms. Palin has a few friends and family back in Idaho or Alaska that can hide a baby out for a few years? There’s also something called “giving your child up for adoption”. Works for some, no?

Back to bed…

PS: My girl Erin has even more links to crap Ms. Palin and her ilk in the Republican party are trying to cover. Check it!

I’m really feeling fucked up this afternoon.

Film at 11…but more blog posts on the way…

Yeah, I saw the Repubs this week (check my lifestream in the side bar - need to give them equal time after the Demos last week…is it just me or is St. Paul more of a fascist state than Denver was? Moving on…). We need a break. The embedding on this vid has been disabled by request, so you will have to click on the “Youtube” logo to actually play the vid. Enjoy anyway. Tay Zonday is king. And I still think Rick Astley is hot! :p

From my referrals this afternoon:

http://youonpolitics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7786

My response, short and sweet:

1. I’m not a political blogger, but I do post on politics from time to time. It’s just that it’s an election year. It’s on everyone’s mind. Surely, it’s on yours, no? I have a right to spout on it the way I want to. Don’t like it? Go crap in your own nest.

2. You act as if I’m some anonymous asshole hiding behind a PC. Check the side bar. I’m hardly anonymous. Deal.

3. I tolerate a lot of things. I don’t tolerate hypocrites. Bitch is one. I called her out on it. Call me an asshole if you want. I’m an honest one. Don’t like it? Go hang with the goodie two shoe liars, then. :p

4. I gave fair warning to people about what I was going to say in that post before I said it. Not my problem if you were offended by my bile. Don’t hate me for being mean. Hate me for being honest.  Apparently, it also appears that if I said the same sort of thing about Barack Obama or Joe Biden, or came off as the staunch Republican the way YOU are, I wouldn’t have come off so HATEFUL. :p 

5. You call yourself an administrator on a political forum, yet you can’t deal with it when people discuss politics? Especially when you can’t handle any thing with which you disagree?

You, DRISLEY, are not cut out for your job.

Hateful asshole.

CNN Reporter Campbell Brown, and McCain rep Tucker Bounds go at it. It’s both hilarious and painful to watch. Consider also that Brown’s husband is a Republican strategist who worked for Romney, but I sense no sour grapes here. Just a woman doing her job.

McCain, as a result, pulled out of appearing on Larry King live, “After a relentless refusal by certain on-air reporters to come to
terms with John McCain’s selection of Alaska’s sitting governor as our
party’s nominee for vice president, we decided John McCain’s time would
be better served elsewhere.”

Come to terms? That’s hitting below the belt. Campbell asked him several times about Bitch’s foreign experience, and Tucker flat out refused to answer the question. That’s relentless?

I used to like John McCain. Now, if he’s going to take his ball and go home, why doesn’t he do a nice long run off of a short pier on the way?

Of course Bitch has foreign experience. Alaska’s next to Russia, y’know

Wow! I woke up this morning, and found that all these peeps looking for something, ANYTHING, about Sarah or Bristol Palin ended up on my site and read my little, er, rant. I’ve probably gotten more hits here in the last 24 hours than I’ve had all month. Thanks! I guess unleashing my foul mouth every once in a while does me some good.

Now…for all you namby-pamby whiny little wimp-bloggers crying of how horrible it will be for Bristol now that she’s got all this media attention focused on her, during what should be an intimate and private time in her life - yes, I agree. She should be left alone.

However…

Don’t blame the “left-wing” bloggers. Don’t blame the “mainstream” media, and don’t blame the ever-so-curious general public for continuing to follow and encourage this story.

BLAME HER OWN FUCKING MOTHER FOR PUTTING IT OUT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!

Supposedly, this tactic was used to “thwart” blogger speculation that Bitch’s recently born “son”, “Trig” was not her’s, but her daughter’s. Great going, Bitch! You’ve not only thrown your own daughter under the bus for political purposes, unleashing on her even MORE speculation and ridicule, you’ve also exposed even more holes in that moral fabric you call “family values”.

If Bitch had ANY amount of decency, she would have kept her big fat stupid piehole about her daughter shut, and while little Bristol would probably have been found out at some point, it wouldn’t have been the big deal it is now.

And her kids and their friends can go back to showing off their underaged partying publicly on their Myspace pages without the threat of them getting “Cached” or screenshotted.

Exploiting your children for family values. What a concept.

And no, no comments for you here. Go crap in your own nest about this. :p

I was going to leave this alone, but since this story about Sarah Palin and her family just gets more and more frustratingly stupid, I’m having another go at it.

I don’t really care if one’s views on abortion are pro- or anti-. I have lots of friends who are pro-life and they respect my views as I respect theirs. After all, neither myself nor anyone i know who thinks the opposite that I do are in charge of public policy regarding this sort of thing.

All I ask is that they use some fucking common sense and live by the principles that they strive to uphold. I’ll still disagree but I’ll have some respect for you.

Which is why this story about Sarah Palin’s 17 year old daughter being pregnant pisses me off.

My anger on this hold no bounds, so forgive me as I’m about the fly off the handle.

Basically, what we have here is a vice-presidential candidate (who we will alternatively refer to in the future as Bitch or Cunt, depending) who has an anti-abortion stance and supports a school sex education platform that teaches abstinence.

Well, GEE! How about that! Everyone else in high school has to keep their legs closed except for Bitch’s horny-ass daughter. They”ve got their equilibrium in the Alaskan bible belt, let me tell you. Every girl in high school’s a whore except Bitch’s daughter, y’know?

Meanwhile, Bitch praises her daughter Bristol for deciding to keep the baby and marry the boyfriend.

WHAT?!?!?! You mean to tell me that you are PROUD of your daughter being a STATISTIC, you fucking stupid Cunt?

This is all about “TAKING RESPONSIBILITY”, you say. Nice going, Cunt. Where was YOUR responsibility as a PARENT to YOUR young girl, that would have prevented her from continually getting into this mess in the first place?

That’s right. I said continually. I don’t care what Bitch says, I’m sticking by those stories that state her newborn child is, in fact, NOT Bitch’s but Bristol’s. It was easier to cover up before John McCain dinged her with the nomination.

Oh, and nice going on the shotgun wedding arrangements. I give this marriage a couple of years, at best. Watch those stories of teenaged wife-beating and enablement come creeping out of the family compound.

See, you all remember when Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney’s sister, got HERSELF knocked up? Oh, these ultra-conservatives and evangelicals were just beside themselves. The shock! The horror! How could she do this? She’s setting a bad example for other teenaged girls everywhere! But she’s Britney Spears’ sister, so of course, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, yuk, yuk, yuk.

So now Bitchs kid gets knocked up and all of a sudden, Bitch and her child need support and sympathy.

Excuse me? Condemning one girl but supporting another for doing the SAME DAMN THING?

Bitch and her daughter don’t need sympathy. They need a fucking boot to the fucking head!

How can you encourage and support policy that would put controls on uteruses of every woman in the United States, when you can’t even get a handle on your daughter’s own womb?

This “she’s only human” shit is just a stupid copout. Bottom line: Bitch’s own daughter went against HER public policy. Bitch should have taken that in to consideration when her daughter had her FIRST kid. Now that Bitch’s daughter has been caught being preggers yet AGAIN pretty much tells us that Cunt thinks the rules apply to everyone but her.

And she wants SYMPATHY? FUCK THAT!!

Earth to Bitch: You have NO RIGHT to TELL ME what I CAN OR CANNOT DO with MY BODY! EVER!!! And this is ESPECIALLY when YOU can’t even get a GRIP on YOUR OWN FUCKING KIN!!! Can’t hang? Then SHUT THE FUCK UP about it and stay out of MY uterus, you stupid backwoods cunt!

So “you’re proud of your daughter”? Congratulations, Bitch! You raised a whore! Nice going!!  May your accomplishments as a mother outshine those as a politician.

No, wait…that’s not exactly what’s happened, is it?

Done. Comments are closed. Talk to the hand because the face doesn’t give a shit.

Agree with her politics or no, Amy Goodman is a highly respected journalist and should not have been treated like this.

Two of her cohorts were in Minneapolis/St. Paul covering demonstrations outside the RNC, and were arrested for “conspiracy to riot”. She went to help them, and well…there you go.

In trying to thwart further terrorist attacks, Bush and his cronies have handed Al Queda and their ilk the ultimate victory: the US is now a fascist police state. November can’t come soon enough.

And with that, our song of the day. A little lesson in political science and philosophy from Jarvis Cocker. Think of it as a possible soundtrack to all those police brutality-at-convention videos that I’ve been posting lately:

Actually, someone may have already done that for you. Enjoy!

NCCA23

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NCCA14

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I killed a bee this morning.

The little bugger flew into my bathroom as I was taking a shower. It just hung on the ceiling. I got a broom. I suppose it would have been more humane to chase it to the screen, close the window, then let it crawl out through one of the screen openings.

But I had to make my point.

I guess

Ms. Palin has apparently, er, QUITE the history running our lone state in the great white North. Check this:

What is McCain Thinking? One Alaskan’s Perspective. « Mudflats

If she gets ANYWHERE near the top office, VP or no, with her insistence that she is “used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here…” then we would be worse off than just with McCain in the office.

As for me, it’s still Obama or Barr. I’m still trying to choose, ‘tho Barr’s anti-choice stance is pushing me to Obama, despite the latter’s Socialist tendencies.

Update: I don’t feel like creating a new blog entry on this topic, so I’ll just edit this one.

One of my favorite peeps of Twitter, QueenofSpain, has weighed in on the Sarah Palin VP choice. I really adore Erin, although I disagree with her on a lot of things. I think, however, her visit to the DNC has gotten partisan dander up a little too high.

Why should it matter which party this (now apparent) douchebag from Alaska came from?

Personally, I don’t think it should matter WHICH party someone chosen to possibly lead (or co-lead) the country comes from. The person could come from the “All Green Animals are King” party, for all I care. Just so long as the individual(s) chosen were selected based on experience, fairness, and political propriety. Ms. Palin, as it has become rather clear, was NOT chosen based on those principles, but ones based on political pandering and trophyism.

That’s right. John McCain’s got a working trophy wife! Cindy’s getting on in years. Time to get a younger model. All hail the third possible Mrs. John McCain!

Oh, and speaking of all hail, King George’s goons are doing clean sweeps of Minneapolis/St. Paul prior to his arrival. If you don’t think we’re living we’re living in a police state now, you will after seeing this video.

Yes, there were arrests of protesters in Denver (one report from ABC news got beaten down by cops for taking a picture OFFsite!).

Yes, there are stupid ass goons everywhere. But when tactics are used to silent whole groups of people who disagree with our government on basic tenets during what is, perhaps, the most important and historic election in 140 years, it goes beyond goonery and into out and out fascism. I don’t recall this happening in Denver, as all the arrests were, at least, made during the DNC, and were documented. I doubt such coverage of personal and profesesional harrassment will be allowed next week, not if Bush and his goons get their way, anyway.

So, a warning to the BlogHer peeps and other left/moderate/not-right oriented bloggers covering the RNC this upcoming week: if you thought the Secret Service guys were bad in Denver, they’re going to be MUCH worse in Minn./St. Paul.

Not hatin’. Just sayin’. Stay strong, my blogging brothers and sisters.

Once again, we are faced with a lesser of two evils choice for the presidency (or third, if you wish to include Bob Barr in the conversation – I read somewhere that he’s also “pro-life”, which I’m not thrilled about. But anyway…).   I was going to possibly go full tilt for Obama until Joe Biden was picked as his running mate – I’m not at all happy with someone who will think nothing of siding against his constituents on civil liberty issues, particularly internet ones.  But then you should see the values John McCain’s recently announced running mate Sarah Palin espouses. “Pro-life”, anti-gay marriage, avowed creationist…hooo boy.

So, who would you rather have eventually assisting our upcoming commander in chief:  Someone willing to erode our freedoms for the sake of a few dying corporations?  Or someone willing to set the rights of women and gays back about 50+ years?

Tough decision, no

#11 on Europop chart this morning, Soundclick.com

I don’t know what happened, but thank you!
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The intro to this one, ‘Better Than This’, reminds us of something but we can’t quite put our fingers on it…

DAVID BOWIE!!!!! I thought you people were up on your pop pop culture…jeez!

Are you among “the web”s least interesting narcissists” or “the slow-witted woodland creatures who enjoy grooming their fur” - http://www.43folders.com/2008/08/26/pause-button

Time to put my tech hat on again.

In trolling around my Friendfeed subs (Hey! They’ve got a new look! Get a login and check it!) and investigating their links, I found a nifty little site called PixelPipe. If you use Ping.fm to spam repost your entries to all the blogs/status update sites that you maintain, then you pretty much get the idea of this site’s purpose. I’ve set up my account to post to my Flickr, YouTube, Facebook WordPress and Live
Journal accounts (as evidenced from a test upload of the lovely pics of my babies beating me to the punch, in terms of time to post). It’s faster posting to pictures sites than it is to blogs, but no service is perfect. They also have software available for you to use with their site, but, given that I’m on Ubuntu Linux now, and my install capabilities are still severely limited by my (lack of) knowledge r.e. the OS, I was force to download Mozilla Prism and put the site in a web app for ease of access and use. What the hell, it works.

If you want your own account to try, the site is currently in closed beta, but this blog’s got invites to spare. Just make sure your friends, if they track you everywhere on the web, REALLY like your photos.

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This is (a sort-of official video for? a fan-made video for? an outtake/vacation video collection for?) the new Keane song, Spiralling. I heard it for the first time today. It sounds like a piss-take from some long-forgotten Sweet/ELO collaboration done in the 1970’s. Me likey.

I think it sounds great because it sounds loud, proud, tacky and as nasty as anything that’s out on the radio. With, of course, the super earnest lyrics. But what I’m talking about is that someone decided to put some REAL guitar in the mix, instead of running the piano through a bunch of effects boxes which is what they did on their last CD. Oh, and Tom Chaplin. He’s the guitar player here, from what I understand (correct me if I’m wrong, Keane enjoyers), but what I’m really impressed by is, that, well, I always thought he was a sexy beast, but, vocally, a little too pretty. Here, he’s sounding as if he’s had his teeth kicked in a few times. Not quite as florid as before. You go, dude!

Yes, I admit it. I love me some Keane. Don’t be hatin’ on Tom, Tim and Richard. They’re my boys! :p I have both Hopes and Fears and Under the Iron Sea. Bring on #3!

Guess what! Madonna doesn’t like John McCain! Oh the shock! The horror!

Sure, she lives in England now, but, from my understanding, she never gave up her American citizenship. Ergo, whether you like it or not, whether you think her message on it is extreme or not, her free speech rights are protected by the first Amendment of our Constitution.

Don’t like her comparisons of Senator McCain to Hitler? Don’t buy a ticket to her shows. Simple as that. :p

I remember these shows as exhibiting some of the most fun, together, musucianship ever. And now one of them is gone.

Leroi Moore, DMB Saxophonist. Dead at 46. http://stereogum.com/archives/rip-leroi-moore_015791.html

RIP.

Thanks to this guy for the link: http://friendfeed.com/joffi

Seriously?

Last night I stayed up to watch Nastia Liukin battle Shawn Johnson to win the overall women’s gymnastics competition in the Olympics.  It was truly a bittersweet moment to watch.  Not just to see two friends in a good show of sportsmanship and grace within the confines of competition, but that, as a Russian-American, to view a positive side of a group of people that have gotten quite a bit of bashing lately actually support the “other” side.

This morning, of course, this Russian general fucks everything up by threatening Poland for signing a missile treaty with the US.  To which I would tell him, “Well, dumbass, after what world saw your country doing to Georgia (never mind that, technically, Georgia started this business - not that I’m taking sides here), what in the hell would you expect?   If I had a nasty neighbor who kept harassing and bullying those around him, I’d be stockpiling arms in my house, too.

I spent a good 15 - 20 years getting over the social and personal trauma that was the Cold War.  Being discriminated against based on my last name, getting spat on walking home from school.  Watching my parents being humiliated by cops out in the boonies who pulled them over and kept asking to see immigration papers.   I don’t really care to experience that again.  I don’t really think others should either.

It’s just this cycle that’s always been a part of it’s history.  Russia experiences a change in economy.  It’s good for a while but when they can’t make it work anymore, some of the people cry for the “old” times.  Then shit like this happens!  What’s worse is that this situation is being likened to 1936 Europe, which, well, it IS similar, isn’t it? Russia’s feeling all disrespected now, just as Germany did back then.  So it wants to kick some ass, no? Does this mean Vladimir Putin is the new Hitler? Where’s Merkel, Brown or Sarkozy in all of this?  Why is it OUR problem?  

Let’s just all breathe in now, click our heels three times and and say the name:

Nastia Liukin

And hopefully, Americans will continue the current understanding that not everyone from, or descended from, “over there” is bad.

Rolling Stone did a story on the new Ben Folds CD.  He admits to pulling a number on Pirate Bay regulars by recording a bunch of fake tracks and “unleashing” them on the internet himself. 

I feel kinda sad about this.  I mean, I’m the world’s biggest Ben Folds fan.  I never got to hear them.   Why do I feel so small? So unloved?  I mean, ANY Ben Folds is better than none at all.  Even fake Ben Folds.  :\

Dude has forsaken me! Damn!

I suppose that blog of his I found on Live Journal a few weeks is not really him either. :\   Oh Wait…

Also, I suspect that the reviewer of this CD is a 15-year-old trying her bit at advanced lit, or Rolling Stone is more afraid of angry Jonas Brothers fans on anti-depressants than Random House was afraid of pissed off Muslims.

Discuss…but not here. :p

UPDATE: Now that I’ve ONE MORE FRIGGIN day to think about it, here are some further, and final thoughts on this matter, with more added for good measure.

One thing I was reminded of in my earlier defense of Thomas Hawk is that, especially in a public setting, a good boss will always protect their employees, even at the risk of their own reputation.  

I can certainly get on board with that.  I can’t tell you how many times earlier in my working life I got thrown under the bus by supervisors more willing to jump to a conclusion provided by an external/internal customer/bitchy staff member, rather than investigate my side of the situation (it’s been especially true of my experience in advertising, but I digress).  It’s also why I really cherish my current workday position.   It’s just really nice to work someplace where almost everyone there has your back, and that even the ones who don’t really do not make it a practice to sabotage whatever you’re doing, just to save face with a client who didn’t like your response to an issue, even though it was the correct one.

Which brings us back to the initial issue from Friday afternoon, the internet hullabaloo that resulted from it, some admonishments from others, and some follow up, both by the offender and the offended.   My friend Ed has also passionately chimed in with this issue, verifying what has was stated in the commentary section of the SFist article covering this issue:  that Mr. Hawk was ejected from SFMOMA after several requests to stop using his camera at a certain angle that was threatening to SFMOMA’s employees, not due to the kind of camera he was using.  These requests were either misunderstood, or ignored. 

For the record, my friend Ed is not into social media, and wouldn’t know any of these Friendfeed/Twitter/etc. A-listers such as Hawk, Robert Scoble, et. al. from a hole in a ground.  He IS a poet of wide renown, he is very well-connected in the San Francisco arts community, and knows staff members of SFMOMA who witnessed the situation as it happened and expressed their outrage to him Friday night.

Whatever you may think of Simon Blint, and I frankly still don’t think much of him for acting as he did to a paying customer, at this point, you cannot deny that he was doing what any good boss would do: protect their employees from any kind of threat, perceived or no.  Yes, this whole situation could have been handled more delicately, given Mr. Hawk’s status as a member of the museum.  Yes, Mr. Blint should have listened to Mr. Hawk’s side of the story before making his decision, knee-jerk as it was.  It remains, however, that Blint appeared to be standing up for his employees, even at the risk of looking like a jerk.  Which is what he ended up being painted as, over the weekend.  *sigh*

Granted, in hindsight, perhaps Mr. Hawk did come off as arrogant and rude.  I’ve probably done so as well in previous blog entries I’ve written, where I described a perceived (or real) instance of disrespect toward myself.    Everyone gets pissed.  Some of us choose to write about it.   Guess what?  Does this make him a pain in the ass?  Yes.  A bad customer?  No.  A bad customer would just badmouth a place for personal gain.   Hawk, for all of his gesturing, had a point.  He was a victim of a huge misunderstanding, as well as bad customer service.  And the photographers on the internet are rallying around him, tired of getting hassled for taking pictures in public places.   Perhaps something good will come out of it, who knows?

Then there’s the issue of employee empowerment.  Does this incident mean that female employees at SFMOMA now have to further consider the consequences of their actions before reporting customer harassment? Could they no longer treat any lens inadvertently focused on them with suspicion?  Or would they now be too scared to report any kind of customer harassment, lest they run the risk of the entire internet/public descending on them and their supervisors in ridicule?  Talk about rights eroding…

You long time readers of this blog know how I roll.  I occasionally will shoot first and ask questions later.   This is definitely one of those times where I probably should have asked first.   But, no matter.  Live and learn.  Just as Mr. Peterse- er-Hawk did.