annika's journal
annika's journal
...it's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there...
Via Breanagh McTavish, check out this fun website. Remember those two Iraqi kids who posed with a sign, and there was some controversy about whether it had been doctored? This site lets you create your own caption for the sign. i like this one. This is a cute one. Here's one for G&S lovers. And i found this one to be worth a few chuckles. Here's one for Neo fans.
i made some too. Here's one i made for all 80's movie fans, and one for Teen Girl Squad fans. And this kid deserves a piece of pie, doesn't he? And here's some free promotion; what a sweetie.
Wednesday being poetry day here, i think the perfectly appropriate selection in light of my current dillema is this one, the most famous poem about dillemas:
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
i'm serious. Trust me. This is like the funniest thing! It's called Teen Girl Squad. It's totally clean, but you might get in trouble for laughing your ass off at work. Watch all five Teen Girl Squad videos. Actually anything on this site is hilarious.
Thanks to Rambling Rhodes for the tip.
As noted in the aftermath of Pat Tillman's death, many sports figures gave up successful careers to fight in World War Two, including baseball players Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio and boxer Joe Louis.
Baseball Crank reminds us that things were no different in the Great War.
* 'Harvard Eddie' Grant, formerly an everyday third baseman for the Phillies and Reds, killed in action October 5, 1918 in the Argonne Forest.Some big names there, if you follow baseball history.* German-born Robert Gustave 'Bun' Troy, who made a brief appearance with the Tigers in 1912, killed in action October 7, 1918 in Petit Maujouym, in France.
* Christy Mathewson, who suffered severe health problems from which he never recovered - possibly contributing to his death in 1925 at age 45 from tuberculosis - after inhaling poison gas in a training accident. (Ty Cobb also served in the same unit).
* Grover Cleveland Alexander, who as I explained here, would probably have made it to 400 wins or close to it if he hadn't lost a year at his peak to World War I, and who suffered lasting trauma from seeing combat with an artillery outfit.
* Sam Rice, who as I explained here, missed a year following his first big season after being drafted into the Army in World War I; Rice also got a late start in the majors because he’d joined the Navy at age 23 after his parents, wife and two children were killed by a tornado (Rice saw combat in the Navy, landing at Vera Cruz in 1914). Without those interruptions, Rice could easily have had 3500-3700 hits in the major leagues.
* Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville also missed a year to the Great War, as did several others I've overlooked here. [links omitted]
Can't seem to hurt number one? Try going after number two.
It all depends on what the definition of 'medals' is.
i don't really give a rat's ass what Kerry threw over the fence. It's the fact that he threw anything over, and the lies he told about the men serving in Vietnam, which he has yet to apologize for, that disqualifies him from the presidency, in my opinion. Not that you asked for my opinion.
Sunday night seems to be the perfect night to cruise the blogosphere* and check out new stuff. Here's some of the good stuff i found tonight.
. . . Robofrost. i like his take on Dallas radio.
The thing about driving Dallas and its inevitably clogged highway arteries is that the Metroplex's radio stations freakin' rock, and rock hard. When I first scanned through my rental car's 10 FM radio presets, at least five blasted the bejeezus out me with heavy unadulterated loud-ass rock 'n' roll guitar. Classic, alternative, straight-up rock — you name it. Even the Christian rock station, 89.7 Power FM, completely rocked my balls off. It's nowhere near the same in cosmic cowboy Austin, so it was a blast to throw open the moon roof and rattle the asphalt and irritate some tightly wound Dallas yuppies and Range Rover soccer moms.i don't know if that's true or not; the last time i was in Dallas, i think i was listening to country, or western, i can't remember. i was 13 at the time. But i will say, L.A. rock radio sucks, compared to almost any metropolitan area you want to name. Anyways, Robofrost's blog is pretty fresh, with some cool pictures, too. . . .
. . . Mike at Virginia Patriots explains why Iraqi mosques can be a legitimate target. . . .
. . . Matt Armstrong of Paste Magazine's blog sheds some light on an e-mail spam quirk i blogged about here. . . .
. . . All About Latvia reports that while Latvia debates its continued involvement in Iraq, the Latvian foreign minister denied a visa to an Al-Jazeera reporter without explanation. Good. If you ask me, the fact that he was from Al-Jazeera is reason enough. And in other Baltic news, Estonian blogger Tall Blonde reports an interesting statistic:
15% россиян не знают, кто такой ЛенинScroll down to April 23 for the translation. It's Glogspot, and there don't seem to be any permalinks. . . .
. . . Snazzykat unilaterally declares this week Blogger Love-in Week!
Today - and the days hereafter (because love shouldn't be limited to one day if you don't come across this until Tuesday!) - is the start of Blogger Love-in Week. Go to each of the blogs you read and tell them why you love them so much. Then come back here and let us know you're a part of the love-in, which is sort of like a sit-in but with a lot more touchy-feely action goin' on.i'm lagging in my own Ecosystem stats, so i thought maybe i should compose a nice blog comment spam bomb to lay on you all. Something personal like "i love you [man][girlfriend][blogger of unknown gender]! And here's why: [_______]."
Then i thought, bad idea. Spamming blogs with comments might cause someone to accuse me of being a "male college student capitalizing on cute pictures of his girlfriend" in order to raise my popularity on the blogosphere.
i think i'll just stick to trackback begging. (Ooops) . . .
* Some bloggers may shy away from the term "blogosphere," but i think it's quite descriptive.
It should be noted that on this day, in 1917, the greatest singer in history was born: Ella Fitzgerald.
i got a chuckle out of this idea. But i can't imagine anyone having the balls to walk around in one.
There's so much to say about the death of Pat Tillman, and i know i can't say it all. i knew about his story before he went into the Army because i listen to Jim Rome's show. i can remember the glowing praise Rome had for Tillman and his decision to give up his pro career to join the Army and enter Ranger training. Like Rome, i always thought he'd come back to us.
It's true that Tillman's sacrifice is equal to the sacrifice of all the brave men and women we've lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. But if there is a difference, it's that we civilians who have not been touched by any personal loss, have now been given a face to put on the sacrifice of those heroes who are over there protecting us. i feel Tillman's loss because i knew him as a fan, however remotely, and it brings home to me the sacrifices of all the men and women who have died or been injured to protect me.
Here's a very poignant salute to Pvt. Tillman written before he went overseas, which reminds us that Tillman joins the ranks of other great patriots like Ted Williams.
Here are some of the tributes coming in now.
And i want to note that Tillman was killed in action, on a mission to hunt Al Qaeda. He was literally killed in the act of protecting you and me.
Pat Tillman was my age. When 9/11 happened i, like many people i know, thought about enlisting in the armed forces. i also thought about the FBI or the CIA. But i didn't follow up on anything. There were others who joined and would join. i had my life and my plans, and my patriotic fervor subsided in time. Not that i ever became un-patriotic, but let's just say i chose not to make the personal sacrifice.
Pat Tillman did. And not only did he give up the comfy bed and the new wife and the safety of life in the U.S., he gave up millions of dollars too. Not only that, he was in the NFL. It's not just money. It's fame, too. He gave up the adoration that anybody who's ever played the game of football knows is one of the great perks of the sport. Chicks dig football players. i was a cheerleader, i know. Even a married guy like Tillman must have appreciated the rare power to turn heads in any bar or restaurant simply because they are in the NFL.
If somebody offered me three mil to join the Army, i would have done it in a heartbeat. But Tillman did just the opposite. He gave up an NFL contract for the opportunity to risk his life. Why? Because he loved America, and he had a sense of duty so great that i can't even comprehend it. And he not only risked his life, he gave it.
i know that somewhere up there this morning, Ted Williams is buying a beer for Pat Tillman and saying "good job soldier." God bless him.
More: i've been somber and teary-eyed all day, because of the news. Today being casual Friday, i took my usual Friday lunchtime power walk around Century City. i listened to Sean Hannity on my walkman. Of course he was talking about Pat Tillman, and saying the nicest things about our people serving in the military. That made me even sadder. Then he played Toby Keith's beautiful song "American Soldier" and i totally lost it.
Oh, and I don't want to die for you,There i was, sitting on the curb in front of the mall, with tears streaming down my face. i looked like a mess. The poor valet guy had to ask me if i needed help. It was embarrassing; i'm not normally an emotional person. But all i could think about was how much i love and appreciate the people serving in our armed forces. i really do, i love them all. If it takes Pat Tillman's death to really bring that home to me, there's one good thing that comes out of his loss.
But if dyin's asked of me,
I'll bear that cross with honor,
'Cause freedom don't come free.
One advantage to having this blog is my wealth of readers with superior ballistic knowledge. So, i ask you Publicola, Rustler, et al.: is the hype i've been reading about the soon to be available XM-8 true? Or is it all hype? i already know how most users feel about the M-16. Would the XM-8, in either the 5.56mm or 6.8mm version, solve our problem? It sure is a science fictioney looking thing.
Yet another senseless killing of a peace officer in Los Angeles occurred this week. Last night at 3:00 a.m. they arrested a sixteen year old, who just wanted to kill a cop. Any cop. California Highway Patrol officer Thomas Steiner was walking out of the Pomona courthouse after testifying on some routine traffic ticket cases. The wrong place at the wrong time. He was thirty-five years old and the father of two sons. i've been to the Pomona courthouse and it is a rough neighborhood, as i recall. i hate to hear about these things.
In a related story, California's lesser of two evils: Diane Feinstein, every now and then says or does something that i like.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein drew a standing ovation with her statement that a police officer's death is 'the special circumstance called for by the death penalty law.' Outside the church, Feinstein said she never would have endorsed [San Francisco D.A.] Harris had she known her opposition to the death penalty extended to officers.Story here.
The "Magnificent Bastards" is the moniker of the historic Second Battalion of the Fourth Marine Regiment. Rush Limbaugh read this message at the end of his show today. It was written by the 2/4's CO and upon hearing it, i was filled with pride and gratitude at the power and sacrifice of these wonderful Marines:
Early in the morning we exchanged gunfire with a group of insurgents without significant loss. As morning progressed, the enemy fed more men into the fight and we responded with stronger force. Unfortunately, this led to injuries as our Marines and sailors started clearing the city block by block. The enemy did not run; they fought us like soldiers. And we destroyed the enemy like only Marines can. By the end of the evening the local hospital was so full of their dead and wounded that they ran out of space to put them. Your husbands were awesome all night they stayed at the job of securing the streets and nobody challenged them as the hours wore on. They did not surrender an inch nor did flinch from the next potential threat. Previous to yesterday the terrorist thought that we were soft enough to challenge. As of tonight the message is loud and clear that the Marines will not be beaten.What kind of enemy is it who thinks they can fuck with the Marines and win? If you ask me, i think the enemy is fully aware that they are going to their death when they attack the Marines, and that's why they attack.
Today the enemy started all over again, although with far fewer numbers, only now the rest of the battalion joined the fight. Without elaborating to much, weapons company and Golf crushed their attackers with the vengeance of the righteous. They filled up the hospitals again and we suffered only a few injuries. Echo company dominated the previous day's battlefield. Fox company patrolled with confidence and authority; nobody challenged them. Even Headquarters Company manned their stations and counted far fewer people openly watching us with disdain. If the enemy is foolish enough to try to take your men again they will not survive contact. We are here to win.
i found another article about the 2/4 in Iraq, which is interesting because of the contrast in tone. Where the piece written by an actual participant is filled with resolute pride, the piece filtered by media bias exhibits a more somber, defeatist tone.
'I didn't sleep. I lay in the bed,' Oety recalled, sitting alone with a cigarette after a Marine memorial service Sunday.The contrast between the two perspectives is striking to me. Journalists, for the most part, are gutless, ignorant hacks. It doesn't surprise me that a journalist would focus on casualties, rather than accomplishments. Journalists don't understand what our soldiers, marines and sailors are doing, nor do they want to. It frightens them.The American deaths fell most heavily on Oety's 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment, a storied unit known as 'the Magnificent Bastards' that hardly needed another infamous battle on its resume.
Five died from just one 13-man squad ambushed on a road they patrolled every day.
'I can't stand that area,' said Oety, 24, of Louisville, Ky. But Oety did what his battalion is known for: plunging back in.
Update: Blackfive contrasts AP and Reuters coverage of the so-called cease fire.
i'm going to try to make Wednesday poetry day here on annika's journal. A great way to start is with my favorite male poet, William Carlos Williams, and a poem relevant to today:
Peace on Earth
The archer is wake!
The Swan is flying!
Gold against blue
An Arrow is lying.
There is hunting in heaven—
Sleep safe till tomorrow.
The Bears are abroad!
The Eagle is screaming!
Gold against blue
Their eyes are gleaming!
Sleep!
Sleep safe till tomorrow.
The Sisters lie
With their arms intertwining;
Gold against blue
Their hair is shining!
The Serpent writhes!
Orion is listening!
Gold against blue
His sword is glistening!
Sleep!
There is hunting in heaven—
Sleep safe till tomorrow.
Take what you want from that poem; that's what poetry is all about. To me it's a wish that you and i will continue to sleep safe while the battle between good and evil goes on around us, whether we're aware of it or not.
The Maximum Leader informs us that he has been known to wear a kilt,* then links to this story about a Marine who plays the bagpipes.
[1st Sgt. Dwayne] Farr, an African-American from Detroit, was inspired to learn when he saw another player who didn't match the Scotsman stereotype.This story reminded me of an amusing vignette from the book i'm reading called Intimate Voices from the First World War. Here's the excerpt, written by a twenty-four year old German recruit at the western front shortly after the battle of Ypres Salient. Apparently it was the first time he'd ever seen a Scotsman:'I was at a funeral and I saw a Marine playing the bagpipes, and I thought, this isn't a big, burly, redheaded guy with a ponytail and a big stomach. He's a small Hispanic Marine. I said if he can learn to play the bagpipes, I can learn,' he said, chuckling.
When he is not on the front-line, Farr wears a kilt when playing, and some Marines have been skeptical about a member of one of the toughest fighting forces in the world donning what looks like a skirt.
But Farr is unfazed. . . .
'Kilts are something that fighting men wore many years ago, and we know that the Marines are fighting men. So real men wear kilts. And they are pretty comfortable too,' he said.
There are lots of Scots amongst all the dead and wounded. Instead of trousers they wear a sort of short, warm skirt that only reaches halfway down their thighs. Well it’s not really a skirt, it’s more of a sort of folded wrap-around thing. It is a strange sight. I’m amazed the boys don’t freeze their bums off, walking around half-naked like that, because they don’t wear any underwear either.Pretty funny, eh? That was written in 1914. i love the irony of the last line.That said, they do have a warm, heavy coat like the other English soldiers. The colour of their uniform is much more suited to the terrain than ours. It’s a sort of dirty brownish green. Their hats and wrap-around things are the same colour. The English soldier can move much more freely than we can. With their practical clothing and light packs, they can run like hares. This really is an advantage when under fire. But we’re still going to win.
* Permalink doesn't seem to work, scroll down to April 16, 2004.
If you see a rookie from Asia, by all means pick him up. He'll often be ranked low and overlooked by the other league members. And he might just kick ass his first year, since no one will have any experience with him. Think Nomo and Ichiro in their rookie seasons.
This year i picked up Hee Seop Choi and Kazuo Matsui under the radar. Choi is currently tied for fourth place in the NL with 5 home runs. And he's playing for the defending champs, so i expect him to improve as the season goes on. Matsui is hitting a respectable .302 right now, although i may dump him for José Valentín pretty soon.
| You are 35% geek | You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.
Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. |
Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com
Got this offa TBG.
Dawn at Clareified has a very good piece on the term Uncle Tom, which you should read.
Even after they kill you, the terrorists want to find your body and desecrate it. This is the type of people we should appease? i don't think so.
The body of a Spanish police officer who was killed in a raid on suspected Islamic terrorists was removed from its tomb Sunday night, dragged across a cemetery, doused with gasoline and burned, a Spanish police official told CNN.i don't want to hear anyone saying that we need to understand why the hate us, that they're just fighting for their own freedom, or that we are in any way responsible for what these demons are trying to do to the civilized world. They are evil, plain and simple. In fact evil isn't a strong enough word.
Link via LGF.
. . . Hugo has an excellent post on the porn-HIV story.
The porn industry has become increasingly mainstream, so much so that on the same day that the HIV story broke in LA, the New York Times did an "at home" feature in its House and Garden section on porn star Jenna Jameson's 6700 square foot palace in Arizona. . . .In my opinion, porn has its place, and its place is not in the mainstream. When our society has progressed to where being a pornographic actress is something to aspire to rather than something to be ashamed of, well, i think the sexual revolution has gone too far. Just my opinion. Go read Hugo's essay, like most of his stuff, he courageously pulls no punches . . .
. . . Big changes at A Small Victory.
There will be no political rants. There will be no leftie bashing. There will be no warmongering. There will be no talk of the election, the war, Israel, anti-war demonstrations, Michael Moore, Iraq, Iran, immigration issues, political correctness run amok . . .Michele is one of those big time bloggers that i usually don't link to because i assume everybody's reading her anyway. i think she's awesome, and like a couple of my other favorite biggies, she's never let her fame turn into arrogance. Whatever she decides to blog about will undoubtedly be worth reading, i'm sure . . .
. . . Publicola is now a Munuvian! Yay! . . .
. . . Brent at Cop Talk asks a legitimate question: Why Wil Wheaton? . . .
. . . Matt's son enjoys a little birthday cake. Happy Bithday little Blackfive Junior! . . .
. . . Desert Cat calls attention to a small step forward in Germany . . .
. . . Brian at Random Numbers adds more evidence to support my view that many Libs are very quick to resort to violence . . .
. . . Stephen Macklin talks about civil debate on the blogosphere and the evil troll scourge, a subject that is a bit too relevant to my own site of late . . .
. . . And i think the Chicago Sun Times should hire Tony Pierce as a sports columnist. Their hip sports columnist. Or maybe the L.A. Times: Tony's been like the Jim Murray of the blogosphere lately . . .
The Dodgers have the best record in baseball. They just finished a sweep of the San Francisco Giants, their great rivals. i caught two of the three games on TV. Each game was a one run victory. i don't think i've ever seen the Dodgers sweep a series with San Francisco, although i'm told they did it when Pac Bell opened.
Now my best friend Betty, who grew up here, is needling me to be a Dodger fan. i'm also feeling the pressure from Scof, way over there in Texas. But you know the Dodger-Giants rivalry is bigger than you or me or anyone. It's been going on for 100 years! It just might be the most heated rivalry in all of sports. It's certainly up there with the Yankees-Red Sox, the Raiders-Broncos, or even the Celtic-Rangers rivalries for longevity.
Still, i've never really been a big Giants fan. i always followed them, but i grew up in Oakland and i'm really an Athletics fan, if you wanna know the truth. i still remember vivdly one of the greatest, and most disappointing, events in all of sports history: Kirk Gibson's two strike, two out, pinch-hit walk-off homer, bottom of the ninth inning, game one of the 1988 World Series, off ace reliever Dennis Eckersley, to spur the Dodgers on to upset my A's for the World Championship.
Can i forgive them? Well, they're in different leagues, so i can conceivably root for both my A's and the Dodgers. i do like a team with history, and the Dodgers have that. So, now that i am a resident of Los Angeles, i will give it a try. And it helps, too, that i have Odalis Perez, Guillermo Mota, and Adrian Beltré on my fantasy team. Go Dodgers!
That said, there's no way they deserved to win today. How the hell do you pitch to Bonds with first base open, when he's doubled and homered already against the same pitcher? What kind of Jim Tracy brain fart was that? i could see if Gagne were on the mound, but Jeff Weaver? Come on! The Dodgers were lucky to escape with a one run win today.
i'm into short blog entries today for some reason. Here's an analogy i thought up today:
Libertarians are to Republicans as Orange County is to Los Angeles.
Most people around the country think of Orange County as part of the Los Angeles area. Most people in Los Angeles think of Orange County as if it were part of Los Angeles. However, if you mention this to anyone from O.C., they'll insist adamantly that they're not from L.A., they don't like L.A., and they never go to L.A. unless it's absolutely unavoidable.
In the same way, Republicans like to think of Libertarians as kindred spirits. Non-Republicans also seem to lump the two together. But Libertarians usually get pissed if you call them conservative and they're often just as likely to rip Bush as any Democrat.
Rick alerts us to the dangers of too much Viagra.
i did my taxes last night at the very last minute, electronically. i have to give a ringing endorsement to the TurboTax online system, which is available through Yahoo! My taxes aren't overly complicated, but there were a few wrinkles last year, which made it impossible for me to file using the EZ form. Rather than strugle with the 1040, i just answered the very simple questions on TurboTax and it was a snap. Usually i have to race down to the main post office to mail my return before midnight, but this year i didn't even have to leave my desk. Add to that, the fact that i got a refund when last year i had to pay, and you can see why i'm a happy camper.
An essay about Diet Coke, by Sarah Hepola.
The first time I drank Diet Coke I was 10. It was summer in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and my older cousin worked at an arcade called Star World. In addition to the glories of 10-cent hotdog night, Star World offered employees free soda. I spent all summer amidst the the blinking lights and boinking machines of that place, sipping free Diet Cokes, which I drank instead of Coke because I wanted to lose weight, since I was in love with this tool named Andy, who ended up barfing all over himself in a bathroom one night at a party. After that, I was addicted to the stuff.We can find profound meaning in the simplest of topics, here on the blogosphere. i love it.
Courtesy Kevin's Wizbang and his fabulous Kerry Sloganator, here's my attempt:
It may be too early yet to gloat, but it's true. i heard about it on Larry Elder's show this afternoon and immediately tuned over to KBLA 1580 AM, where i heard a bunch of women praying in Spanish. Air America is definitely off the air in L.A. and Chicago. No telling when or if they'll be back.
After just two weeks of broadcasting, Air America Radio, the fledgling liberal talk-radio network featuring Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, was pulled off the air Wednesday morning in Chicago and Los Angeles, the network's second- and third-largest markets, in a payment dispute that shows no sign of quick resolution.They bounced a check!
Arthur Liu, owner of Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, which owns Air America affiliates WNTD-950 AM in Chicago and KBLA-1580 AM in Los Angeles, said Air America bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million. Air America and Multicultural had entered into a time brokerage agreement in which the network was essentially renting Multicultural's airtime, Liu said.Hardy-har-har!
'They bounced a check today,' Liu said. 'It's a default. They have paid only a very small portion of what they owe us.' Liu declined to say how much Multicultural is owed, but did say he is holding $1 million in checks that Air America has asked the company not to cash.i thought liberals were supposed to be the fiscally conservative ones nowadays.
Ooops, i wasn't going to gloat. Sorry.
Like any good liberal, Air America's executive vice president (a lawyer, no surprise) immediately filed a lawsuit.
Air America filed a complaint Wednesday in New York state Supreme Court charging Multicultural with breaching their contract and seeking an injunction forcing Air America back on the Chicago station. An Air America source said a separate lawsuit over the Los Angeles station is forthcoming.i would never have suspected that a company calling itself Multicultural Radio Broadcasting would be a member of the VRWC. Go figure. Good work guys!. . .
According to Air America's suit, a Multicultural representative showed up at WNTD's offices Wednesday morning, kicked out Air America's lone staffer overseeing the network's feed to the station from New York and changed the locks on the doors.
Update: Ryan at soundfury has some good background. Link via Instapundit, who of course had a post about this hours ago.
i'm flattered to learn that i am now considered one of "the usual suspects."
i made these, but they sure would look good on your sidebar, i think.
(If you do take one, please copy it and load it on your own server so Pixy doesn't get mad at me for using up his bandwidth. Also, a link back here would be appreciated, but not required.)
i was so happy to see Phil Mickelson finally win a major, and in such an exciting way last Sunday. His family had a tough time last year, but he never whined about it or used it as an excuse for not winning. He seems like a really great guy.
And his favorite dish happens to be lobster ravioli. i love lobster ravioli, too. i had a great one in San Francisco last weekend. Here's a recipe i googled, from Emeril. i may give it a try someday when i'm feeling ambitious. With lobster meat, not live lobster, of course. i'm too squeamish to kill the poor things myself.
i'm listening to Attorney General Ashcroft's testimony as i type this. It's clear to me, after his opening statement, exactly why people hate and fear him so much. He's very good. The AG landed a number of effective shots in his statement, and i can't wait to hear how the opposition tries to deflect them. It's also clear that Dick Clark and Dr. Rice were the undercard and Ashcroft's is the heavyweight title match. i was that impressed.
Gotta go, Ben Vineste is on now, yakking about the PDB again.
. . .
WTF? Ben is asking about Ashcroft using a chartered jet? Slimeball. Why doesn't he ask if Ashcroft was the one who warned all the jews to stay out of the WTC on 9/11? Why doesn't he ask who planted the bomb in the Pentagon and made it look like a plane crash? Aaack!
. . .
Now the idiot commenter at NPR cuts in to assure his audience that they will "have a look at" Ascrofts answer to the sleazy chartered jet question after his testimony is over. Whaaat? Why the hell don't they "have a look at" Ashcroft's more serious and relevant accusations about Clinton's and Reno's eight year incompetence spree? Aaaack!
. . .
Why do the commisioners keep calling him General? He's not a general, he's an attorney general. The word "general" modifies the noun "attorney."
. . .
i'm unable to listen that closely because i am annoyingly distracted by the need to create a false impression of diligence in completing my job tasks.
. . .
It's now over, i didn't notice any effective counter-punches by the commisioners. Now the spinning begins.
The troll comment i got this morning reminded me about something i've been thinking about since my visit to the State Capitol last weekend. It's an example to illustrate one difference between people on the left and people on the right.
i know i'm gonna be generalizing here, so save your breath. i'm aware that the majority of people on the left are not freakazoids who need to be locked up. There's some very decent and thoughtful lefties on my own blogroll, for instance. i also know there's some real whack-jobs on the right too, and in fact some of them actually have been locked up. (Right wing crazies tend to stay in jail though, instead of being offered tenure.)
Anyways, here's my observation. The great state of California has had thirty-eight governors in its history. Many are unknown. Some, however, are perhaps more famous:
Can you guess which one?
No, it's not left leaning Jerry Brown's.
No, it's not that great judicial activist, Earl Warren's.
That's right, it's Ronald Reagan's.
Can you guess why his portrait, out of all thirty-eight governors, has to be protected by a layer of plexiglass? No, it's not UV light. Notice that Reagan's is hanging next to three other non-plexiglassed portaits.
The reason is that some asshole slashed Reagan's picture a few years ago. A left-wing-hater-nut-case. Some liberal fuck, with a head so filled with bitterness and so empty of common sense, that he or she thought vandalizing the portrait of one of our greatest presidents might be a good way to "raise people's consciousness."
Well, one might ask, if one of the governors' portraits was slashed why don't they encase all of them in plexiglass? Why not protect Jerry Brown's ugly abstract, or Earl Warren's distinguished visage on the second floor landing? Surely they're at risk of being slashed too?
No, you see only a conservative icon like Ronald Reagan can inspire such hatred and vitriol. Because he was, and still is, so loved, his portrait remains a target for the haters. And unfortunately, there seem to be a large number of lefties who have no problem being violent and destructive when they want to send their little hate messages. Conservatives might dislike Jerry Brown (especially conservatives living in Oakland these days), but they're not going to slash his picture.
Lefties like the one who vandalized Reagan's portrait, and the one who blew up all those SUV's in L.A. last year, and the professor who vandalized her own car, and the ones who screamed in my face as i walked to class during last year's anti-war demonstrations, and the ones who carry signs saying New York looks better without the World Trade Center, and the ones who smash the windows of Starbucks Coffee because it's a successful business, and the one's who go around saying that the terrorists in Iraq should kill more Americans, etc. etc.
Those are the ones you have to watch out for. Yah, maybe just as much as the far right wackos. They're both liable to blow something up, but only the left wing crazies will have the ACLU and the newspaper op-ed pages on their side after they get caught.
So when an idiot like this morning's troll says that he thinks conservatives should be "exterminated like vermin" and "need to be snuffed out of existence," how am i supposed to take that? Is it rhetorical hyperbole, or is the guy a real nutjob who needs to be monitored closely?
My point is this: in the cultural war that's been going on in this country for the last forty years, one side always seems to be more violent than the other, if not in deed then in rhetoric. i'm sure there's some psychological or sociological reason for that phenomenon, but i have no clue what it might be, nor at this point do i give a shit. i just think it's worth noting.
* In 1986, the late Justice Rose Bird became the first California Chief Justice to be voted out of office for being too liberal. Sounds familiar?
Update: Thanks to Blake for pointing out this example reported by Drudge, which further butresses my argument:
Campaign 2004 turns extreme in Florida with the placement of a newspaper ad calling for physical retribution against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld!i might also add as examples, the many angry liberal callers to the Michael Medved show, one of whom i heard say that he wished Medved would just commit suicide and "save us the trouble" of killing him. Or the time Alex Baldwin screamed on and on about "stoning Henry Hyde to death.""We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger," the ad reads.
Where are all those assholes who, just a few months ago, were complaining that Halliburton was paying its employees too much for working in Iraq? Was Thomas Hamill getting paid too much?
i took this photograph last weekend outside the state capitol building. i thought it might be cool to Van Gogh-ize it with PhotoShop.
Hello, i hope y'all had a nice Easter/Passover holiday. This weekend i've been fighting two viruses. (Or is it viri?) The first is some kinda flu that i suspect i caught on the plane last weekend. It's weird. Usually i start with a sore throat and end with a cough. This time i started with a cough and now i have a sore throat. The second virus is a crappy toolbar spyware thingie that attached itself to my Internet Explorer like the monster in Alien. i had to hack it up piece by piece to delete it. i'm still not sure if i got it all.
So that's my excuse for light blogging. But, i have selected a Huge Comment of the Week®, so i haven't been completely idle.
This week's H.C.O.T.W.® laureate is someone by the name of Anonymous, who commented on an old humorous bit i did way back on March 5, 2003, called Match The Idiotic Quote With The Idiotic Celebrity. i was pretty proud of that post, it being so clever and snarky. But this person Anonymous didn't seem too impressed by my humor.
so i bet all of the previous posters have never made mistakes before and find it easier to just put other people down because of their mistakes instead of look inside their own selves. im not saying that i like any of these 'stars' as role models, especially for little kids. i really dont think they are great role models at all for kids. but. as adults, i think its time we stop bashing things down and provoke change. its not productive to participate in giving these people money (however inadvertantly) by paying any attention whatsoever to them. to me, it seems as if all of you have bought into the whole cherade. i mean, britney, christina, allanis, paris, theyve all got you writing and making pages 'worthy' of stooping to their level and even discussing them. it just doesnt seem to make sense to me....... i dont mean to offend anyone here and id be more than happy to clear up my position on things, but im just amazed that this badmouthing can be any more valid than the whole entertainment crap. just dont pay attention if you dont like it. and if you really dont like it, do something about it.i feel chided, i do. Still, i don't think i can stop making fun of people like Brittany, Kristina, Atlantis and Peris. i don't think i want to. It's too much fun. And if anyone doesn't like it, well, i refer them to this recent post.
Which "happy bunny" am i?
Congratulations. You are the kiss my ass happy
bunny. You don't care about anyone or anything.
You must be so proud.
which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Have you been reading LeeAnn, queen of the run-on sentence and a very funny writer? The blog's called The Cheese Stands Alone and it's mu.nu, too.
Today is Good Friday. There are some among my visitors who are religious, even religious intellectuals. i found a dense article by Romanus Cessario, O.P., which reviews Gibson's The Passion of the Christ in light of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica.
i must admit, i have not read Summa Theologica and i had difficulty following a lot of the discussion. However, there is a passage in the review that addresses one problem i had with The Passion, which i described in my own review when i wrote:
The scourging scene goes on for an unnecessarily long time. Historically, people died from scourging. It didn’t take a lot of strokes to kill someone, and Jesus was whipped savagely in the movie. Though i’m not an expert on this, i really do think any person would have died from that amount of flogging. There was so much blood on the floor after the scourging scene, it is impossible to believe that Jesus wouldn't have at least passed out, let alone believe that he could carry a heavy cross afterwards. We know that Jesus did not die until he was on the cross for three hours, so i think Gibson overdid the scourging scene.Fr. Cessario's review addresses my problem thusly:
If one allows that the scenes of punishment exceed the modesty of the Scriptures themselves, or if we follow those who opine that after such beatings and harsh treatment, no man would be able to shoulder the cross or even walk, there is still the explanation that the artist chose this excess for a theological reason.i think that's roughly what i meant when i said:A long theological tradition supports this sort of iconographical modification: The Church asks us to ponder the price that the Savior of the world paid. Without this meditation, one cannot embrace the full dimensions of Catholic piety; instead, we would find ourselves moving rapidly toward those various forms of de-sacramentalized Christianity that focus exclusively on interior psychological states.
Thematically, it’s clear Gibson wanted to shock the audience with the amount of torture in the scourging. His torture represents the sins of mankind. It looks horrible because Gibson wants to impress us with the magnitude of God’s gift to us. That was the director's choice. If Gibson had toned it down to a less shocking level, maybe we wouldn’t get the message.Fr. Cessario also points out that Gibson's intent was to show the divine aspect of Jesus, which previous directors chose to downplay in favor of His human aspect, perhaps because our secular world accepts His humanness more readily, and perhaps because it is impossible to represent divinity accurately on film.. . .
Nowadays, people seem to think that Jesus came simply to tell us to be nice to each other. It’s a pleasant message, and it fits into our overly secular world without ruffling too many feathers. But, it’s not why Jesus came here. Remember, we didn’t need Jesus to tell us to 'love our neighbor.' That commandment was already in Leviticus. But in our secular world, people have forgotten the real reason Jesus came to earth, which was to suffer, to die, and to rise again.
Mel Gibson directs Jim Caviezel in a way that, in my view, approaches accomplishing the impossible. There are the Christs of Pasolini, of Zeffirelli, and of Rossellini, but the Christ of Gibson captures what these others were content to accomplish by representing a high expression of human values.i might disagree somewhat with the last sentence of that quote, because, as i said:Although I am not an art critic, it seems to me that the very excesses, even the distortions, which some commentators have questioned, in fact aim to show us that this man is more than human. That we have to look elsewhere for the source of his human endurance.
The whole point of Jesus’ torture and death was for Him to submit to it as a man. Using His power as God to withstand any torture would have been accepting the Devil’s temptation.But Fr. Cessario's article also got me thinking: maybe Jesus' endurance seemed impossible in the film because it was supposed to be the extreme limit of human endurance. Perhaps Gibson intended to show that Jesus, while rejecting the temptation to supernatural intervention available to Him, endured the limit of human suffering because He knew the purpose of His mission, where another might have succumbed out of weakness or incomplete knowledge. Just a thought.
i'm not too crazy about gimmicky poems that look funky on the page. i guess it's the lingering effects of trying to decipher too much e.e. cummings in school. But here's one i found via Ivy is here, which i really like a lot.
Click here to read Sunday Morning from the blog Watermark.
What the heck does it mean?
William Wordsworth was born on this day in 1770. In honor of his birthday, here's one of my favorites:
DaffodilsPretty, isn't it?
I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
i'm upset about the recent escalation of casualties and violence in Iraq. You know i supported the war and i still do. But we must win. i'm not ready to jump ship and start agreeing with Teddy Kennedy, but i'm starting to worry.
Kennedy compared Iraq to Vietnam. It was a foolish statement, and i hope to never see the day when Kennedy could be described as prescient. But i know all too well that we lost Vietnam because our politicians tried to fight a limited war against an enemy that used our reticence against us.
To me, there is one commandment of warfare and it is this: Thou must kick ass all the time. Americans like me do not want to see our side get hit like they did today. We're willing to go along with this war, but we don't want our best men losing any fights.
Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.. . . is hateful. No, we don't like to lose. Vietnam affected our national psyche for decades. That's why Mogadishu, even though we killed a ton of bad guys, sticks in our collective craw. And so will Fallujah, if we don't get some serious payback.
Patton again:
We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the [enemy] that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy . . . cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. . . .This is my point: we can pussyfoot around some more, trying to get these assholes in the Sunni Triangle to like us, or we can start killing them. Yes, i said fucking kill them. Now lest you think i've gone off my rocker, here's what Niccolo Machiavelli had to say on the subject back in the sixteenth century:. . . [W]e are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. . . . We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!
When a newly acquired State has been accustomed . . . to live under its own laws and in freedom, there are three methods whereby it may be held. The first is to destroy it; the second, to go and reside there in person; the third, to suffer it to live on under its own laws, subjecting it to a tribute, and entrusting its government to a few of the inhabitants who will keep the rest your friends. . . .i'm not advocating the flattening of Fallujah (although if that were to happen, i'd not lose a wink of sleep over it), or bombing it back into the stone age, as some would say. i simply think we need to be a lot more heavy handed than we have been. In those areas where the yokels are jumping around in the street and taking potshots at our guys, it seems obvious that they haven't developed a healthy fear of the United States. Machiavelli would have advised against trying to make those scumbags our friends.We have examples of all these methods in the histories of the Spartans and the Romans. The Spartans held Athens and Thebes by creating oligarchies in these cities, yet lost them in the end. The Romans, to retain Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, destroyed them and never lost them. On the other hand, when they thought to hold Greece as the Spartans had held it, leaving it its freedom and allowing it to be governed by its own laws, they failed, and had to destroy many cities of that Province before they could secure it. For, in truth, there is no sure way of holding other than by destroying, and whoever becomes master of a City accustomed to live in freedom and does not destroy it, may reckon on being destroyed by it.
And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. For of men it may generally be affirmed, that they are thankless, fickle, false studious to avoid danger, greedy of gain, devoted to you while you are able to confer benefits upon them, and ready, as I said before, while danger is distant, to shed their blood, and sacrifice their property, their lives, and their children for you; but in the hour of need they turn against you. . . .We will never win the love of the people who hate us by anything we do. Nor will we win the support of the pansies in Europe by being gentle with our enemies. We need to instill fear into them, by killing them. And, in my opinion, we need more troops over there until the crazies in the Triangle understand the score. This Rumsfeld idea of doing things on the cheap is not looking too good right about now.Moreover, men are less careful how they offend him who makes himself loved than him who makes himself feared. For love is held by the tie of obligation, which, because men are a sorry breed, is broken on every whisper of private interest; but fear is bound by the apprehension of punishment which never relaxes its grasp.
Machiavelli cautioned that fear should be distinct from hate. i don't know what he'd say about a people who already hate the new prince, but haven't learned to fear him yet. But Machiavelli's formula for instilling fear while staying clear of hatred is a do-able one, in Iraq.
[A] Prince should inspire fear in such a fashion that if he do not win love he may escape hate. For a man may very well be feared and yet not hated, and this will be the case so long as he does not meddle with the property or with the women of his citizens and subjects. And if constrained to put any to death, he should do so only when there is manifest cause or reasonable justification. But, above all, he must abstain from the property of others. For men will sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Moreover, pretexts for confiscation are never to seek, and he who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is not his; whereas reasons for shedding blood are fewer, and sooner exhausted.Don't mess with their property, don't mess with their women. We're not doing either of those things. So far so good. In fact we're fixing their property and soon they should be on their way to creating more of their own property and wealth, thanks to us.
But the final step of my Machiavellian advice to Bush is one that i'm worried about. Bush has shown an incredible amount of strength and leadership getting us this far, and changing the Middle East in such a fundamental way. i hope he's got the guts to start really kicking ass now, when it's necessary. Because unless the regime holdouts and terrorist assholes start fearing massive retaliation, i'm afraid they're not going to stop killing our guys. And if we don't stop them, they win.
Update: Guess i spoke too soon about messing with their property. Oops! LMAO.
Thanks, Lemur Girl!
i usually don't link to Lileks, because i assume everybody is reading him anyway. However . . . Today's Bleat is in the top ten percent of the most brilliant things Lileks has ever written, IMHO. Let me add my voice to the multitude of bloggers out there who are saying: "read it."
i'm leaving for lunch in a few minutes and i intend to get into my car and see if i can pick up Air America Radio. i haven't been able to tune them in at work because AM reception is sketchy inside our building.
i checked out the website. What a loser line up. Jeannine Garofalo? Al Franklin might be amusing, but Garofalo has always been so inarticulate whenever i've heard her on talk shows. She displays all the rhetorical problems of amateur leftist pundits. Dodge, change the subject, ad hominem, change the subject, say something idiotic, when challenged on it, claim you were joking, change the subject, talk over your opponent, change the subject, claim your opponent won't let you speak then refuse to answer their question, change the subject, etc., etc. . . .
And Chuck D? That's the best they could do? Two comedians and a rapper?
Some say that the liberal network is bound to fail. i disagree. The liberal media have a vested interest in propping it up. They won't let it fail, even if it sucks and no one listens. An analogous example is the WNBA. Even though WNBA games play in empty arenas, and nobody watches it on TV because it's boring basketball, the league just won't die. Nobody wants to pull the plug because it wouldn't be PC. So they keep trying to ram womens pro ball down our throats, long after sports fans have rejected it.
Update: Well, i listened to part of Al Franklin's show and i was so impressed, i can't tell you. The man is brilliant. Even though he focused solely on bashing Bush and the administration along with conservative talk show hosts, and he never mentioned Kerry, Franklin inspired me to change my way of thinking totally. i now plan to vote for John Kerry and i am re-registering as a Democrat. i am now a liberal. Thank you, Al Franklin!
Oh, by the way, besides being my birthday, today is April Fools Day. Happy April Fools Day everybody!
