Check out a full-to-scale Noah's ark rebuilt according to the dimension provided in the bible. Oh, the Netherlands! I like this link for 2 reasons:
1) it is on a crown-heights blog
2) it was sent by ben wilson
Noah's Ark!
not to sound like a heathen, but where would noah have found all that wood in the middle east? did he have a sawmill? you're telling me that a man working alone or with several others was able to craft thousands of axe-hewn boards from the pitiful lumber supply of israel and lebanon. gimme a break. I think the dimensions in the bible are a bit exaggerated.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Matching Piano with Voice
Cool videos of a person playing a piano to McCain and Palin speeches and interviews. When asked about such videos, Tani said, "whoever is playing the keys is genius...its hard to connect speech and music, and the person did it flawlessly."
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Offices of the US Socialist Party
Here is a panoramic image of the headquarters of the US Socialist Party. How intimidating....
US Socialist Party Headquarters
US Socialist Party Headquarters
Monday, October 20, 2008
Consumption-fest
Head on over to the Disgusting Things I have Eaten blog. It features a wretched milieu of carefully --dare I say germanically so--categorized assortment of some of the worst gustatorial concoctions of western society. Ever heard of a Gandy-dancer? ever counted your meat in kilos? Check out the great rhetoric paired with terrible food, courtesy of my brother. You won't be let down. (Note: picture ripped from aaron's blog)
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Homelessness
I've heard before that the term hobo actually stands for homo bonus, or better man and that the only true life is the listless life on the road. some douche bag intellectual authors have posited the same things, while sipping tea in their southern california mansions. fuck you jack london.
I think that the homeless become resolved to their condition, and enter into a state of helplessness much like a patient in a hospital, where life just kind of rolls on them like waves, and they just bob along surviving. Once they lose their dignity, everything falls apart. And how could they not? the average person on the street will view a homeless person (if they look at all) as a sub-human. the homeless sit on the ground, sleep on the ground. they go to homeless shelters where they are robbed, raped, and beaten. they are roughed up by cops and security guards.
and how does it happen?
Well, i know someone who was trying to get a job. He had no college degree, but some experience in his field and a good head on his shoulders. he applied to job after job, getting rejection after rejection. He watched his savings dwindle. couldnt' afford a car or a cell phone. he lived at friends' houses, left one, was kicked out of another, and then things began to fall apart. He was on the verge of having no where to live. with no address, you can never get a job. luckily he found a job, immediately got a car and an apartment, and is now stable. but in this i saw how a good person can slip through the cracks. Imagine what would have happened had he not had a supportive family and community he could have fallen back on, or if he had a drug or alcohol problem. he would be under a highway overpass somewhere.
the homeless are by and large not the insane or addicted, but teeter on the edge of both when stripped of dignity and opportunity. I count my blessings daily (even though I bitch alot).
I think that the homeless become resolved to their condition, and enter into a state of helplessness much like a patient in a hospital, where life just kind of rolls on them like waves, and they just bob along surviving. Once they lose their dignity, everything falls apart. And how could they not? the average person on the street will view a homeless person (if they look at all) as a sub-human. the homeless sit on the ground, sleep on the ground. they go to homeless shelters where they are robbed, raped, and beaten. they are roughed up by cops and security guards.
and how does it happen?
Well, i know someone who was trying to get a job. He had no college degree, but some experience in his field and a good head on his shoulders. he applied to job after job, getting rejection after rejection. He watched his savings dwindle. couldnt' afford a car or a cell phone. he lived at friends' houses, left one, was kicked out of another, and then things began to fall apart. He was on the verge of having no where to live. with no address, you can never get a job. luckily he found a job, immediately got a car and an apartment, and is now stable. but in this i saw how a good person can slip through the cracks. Imagine what would have happened had he not had a supportive family and community he could have fallen back on, or if he had a drug or alcohol problem. he would be under a highway overpass somewhere.
the homeless are by and large not the insane or addicted, but teeter on the edge of both when stripped of dignity and opportunity. I count my blessings daily (even though I bitch alot).
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Greenville, MS
Last night I was talking with my friend LydiaDL about how her 22nd birthday was coming up, and being self-centered, I got to thinking about where I was at my 22nd birthday. I was in Greenville, Mississippi, a place I haven't thought about in some time.
My buddy wes, who was a party with me to many nefarious deeds in college, got the idea to go there from his sister. She was living there working for teach for america, living in some big old southern mansion with about 6 other teachers, all of them semi-recent college grads. Sister said that the teach for america people were starting a summer camp there that would cater to the impoverished severely and profoundly mentally retarded children in Greenville and the surrounding Delta area. I had never been to the delta, but had heard about it, about it's beauty and its poverty; but seeing it is something else entirely. So wes and I packed up the car and headed on down to Greenville, a good 9 hour straight-shot from Atlanta. I remember as we crossed into mississippi, the sparkling and endless white pavement of I-20, which stretched on sloping hills miles ahead of us, endless miles of us, that government-laid pavement took on a reddish tint. The land gradually changed from the dense pine patches of eastern mississip and western alabama to rolling farm lands. We saw some corn, some soy, but most of all, we saw tobacco. We stopped in Greenwood, just a hop skip and jump away from Greenville, and looking around that dilapidated old shell station, I felt as if I'd steped back more than the 1 hour time-zone change, I felt as if I'd stepped back 70 years. 5 black men, some strong, some old, al,l with down-turned ruddy overalls and shitted-up denim, pushing an old pickupwith no wheels on it onto a wooden trailer, the rotor cutting a deep hole in the moisture-soaked wood. People walked by, stared at us, cause of our clothes, because of our voices, the way we talked. We were foreigners, and I've lived in Georgia nearly my whole life.
We descended upon greenville, flanked by rich soil and endless tobacco. Greenville is small, but not tiny. The town has suffered from what so many small southern towns suffer from: low-rise commercial establishments. Mcdonalds, burger kind, wendys, steak and shake, and of course, wal-mart. We pulled up to the teacher-house, and after fond hello's and introductions, we decided we wanted to mosey around town. We happened upon a casino. This casino was on a riverboat docked in an oxbow of the mighty mississippi river. I suspect this was due to some sort of legal loophole for gambling. Anways, we made our way inside. I have never been in a casino before, but what hung in the air in this place was 1930s-style depression. Men still in their works clothes--janitors, farm workers, orderlies--throwing their entire paychecks onto the table, watching it get stuffed in by the dealer, and watching their week's pay turn to fallen-hopes. These men, who weren't at home with their wives on a wednesday night, who hadnt even taken the time to switch their clothes, threw some of America's most honest-earned dollars down the drain, for perhaps a hope of escape, of riches, or just to feel big for a while. These were not high-rollers, these are poor working men.
We get home, to find the head teacher drunk in the front yard, sitting on her overweight haunches, cackling with a miller light in one hand and propping herself up with the other. Foreshadowing!
The next day we greet our campers. Their parents or caregivers bring them to us. Some have severely handicapped parents, some from seemingly normal families. I speak with one father who boasts to me:
"I been pickin' cotton heya all ma laf. Ma granpa hat fowty aye-kas ant a myoole, an sho nuff thas what I got too."
Slavery is a source of pride, believe it or not. He was proud of his heritage, as a black american. I didn't know what to make of that. We went to the campsite, a lake-side slew of cabins in the woods outside of greenville. There were about 25 campers in all, ranging from 5 years old to 18, and from partially functional to completely inert. The camper I was assigned to was Austin Tardy, a 17 year old severely down syndromed young man. Austin, I learned, was the product of an adulterous affair, and actual has a twin sister, who is normal. I heard grumblings among some of the greenville locals who came to work with our camp, about how Austin is the penalty for his mother's misdeeds. Austin did not speak and was incredibly stubborn. However, he had a sweet soul underneath it all, and one could tell he was capable of great affection. Austin threw my boots into the lake, tried to break my fishing pole, and wiped his butt with my bandana. He consistently hit other campers, and was often physical with me. I think he liked me, because sometimes he would crack a smile and laugh as he came at me, but luckily I was quick on my toes (most of the time). What was interesting, was how much Austin hated John, a 275-lbs recent Greenville High School grad who came to work at the camp. Upon looking at him, one might draw some conclusions: big white-tee, corn rows, deep southern drawl. But John was all heart, but Austin, for some reason, would throw ashes at him (from our BBQ) every time he got a chance. He hated John, and I suspect he learned that at home. Austin was the only white camper.
Tony-T was my favorite camper. He was the product of his severely retarded mother being raped in the hospital by her orderly. That is terrible, but is not unusual down there (and I suspect elsewhere too). In fact, tony was raped in his front lawn by an at-risk teenage boy from Greenville High. Tony could talk, carry on a conversation, was very funny, and at 18 years of age, he was one of the oldest campers. He spoke in a high-pitched southern lilt, almost at a falsetto. Every day he would wake up and put on a fine black suit, with a dapper black tie, and talk about how he can't wait to sing the song we were teaching them to sing in church that sunday. He told us of life with his Auntie, of his girlfriend michelle, about how he wanted to fish (we taught him to), and how this was the first time in his life he had ever left Greenville. We gave out toy cellphones as a prize to some campers, and tony would talk on his all day. saying he was talking to his girlfriend, and how she was gonna come over and see him. One time in the car, he asked wes to borrow his cell phone, he had to call his auntie. wes, assuming tony was up to his old fake cell phone hijinks, said, "why don't you call her on your cell phone (the fake one)?" tony looked at wes incredulously, and responded, "man, that's a fake cell phone!" At that moment, I wondered who was the camper and who was the counselor.
Two older fellows came to see the children (lord knows how they found out we were there). One of them was a lineman for the power company, who had taken a fall and had broken his back and both femurs. He could barely walk, was struggling with alcohol and other drugs, and seeing these kids, he was constantly moved to tears. He spoke about how he was a broken man, and he embraced tony, and told him to cherish his life.
The camp had a buccolic exterior, but underneath was a darkness that lurks in much of these poor southern areas: alcohol, drugs, abuse. THe speech therapist who worked at Greenville High School was named Debbie. She was an overweight and overbearing woman, but we trusted her, assuming her to be responsible and interested in the welfare of these vulnerable kids. However, I caught debbie doing strange things. At one point, I saw he take a wooden spoon and raise it up to strike Trentarus, a def and severely cerebral-palsied boy. I stepped in between her and him, and she protested "move ben, his mother told me I can do this if he acts up" I said, "i don't give a fuck what the mother said, you are not hitting him with a god-damned wooden spoon." debbie sculked off, but kept a watch on me from that point. At night, debbie's boyfriend rick would show up in his big rumbling pickup. they would disappear into debbie's room for hours, and we'd hear noises of laughter and talking, and then they'd leave at 9 pm, and return at 3 am. Wes and I would stay up at night drinking beers and flirting with the cute southern girls who worked with us (all of them had boyfriends named John, or Mike, or JohnMike). We would see debbie stumble in, intoxicated, with this rick. I saw rick put his hands on some of the children, from a distance, for a second. not a friendly pat, an inappropriate touch. At our nightly meeting, Debbie's eyes were bloodshot and pupils were heavily dilated. she was sweating. I suspected meth. We had words with her that night because she was abusing the children, and she got in a fight with the head counselor (the drunk from the lawn), which ended in debbie storming out of the camp, fired. We were concerned, as on the way out, rick yelled some sort of threat. The next night, wes and I went back to the house in greenville (all the teachers were at the camp). As we pull into the driveway, we see someone run past the window in the living room. Who is that? wes asks. We realize quick its a burglar, perhaps rick, and we run after him. He takes off out the porch, and wes and I pursue him through the backyard. He jumps the fence, but is snagged on the barbed wire top. Just as I grab hold of his pants-leg, he frees himself, and jumps into a waiting pick up. He stole laptops, broke the television. THe police come. We tell the white officer about what happened, and he says, "I wish yo uwould have caught him, cause you coulda killed him if you wanted to. Hell I woulda shot him myself if I'd been here." We suspected debbie and rick were behind it, but probably not.
I found out recently that both debbie and rick were imprisoned for hijacking a truck filled with supplies going to New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina victims. Rick fled once he got bail, and debbie committed suicide in her jail cell.
There are more stories from that place, and as they come to me, I will post more. There is something so beautiful, and yet so terrible, about the south.
My buddy wes, who was a party with me to many nefarious deeds in college, got the idea to go there from his sister. She was living there working for teach for america, living in some big old southern mansion with about 6 other teachers, all of them semi-recent college grads. Sister said that the teach for america people were starting a summer camp there that would cater to the impoverished severely and profoundly mentally retarded children in Greenville and the surrounding Delta area. I had never been to the delta, but had heard about it, about it's beauty and its poverty; but seeing it is something else entirely. So wes and I packed up the car and headed on down to Greenville, a good 9 hour straight-shot from Atlanta. I remember as we crossed into mississippi, the sparkling and endless white pavement of I-20, which stretched on sloping hills miles ahead of us, endless miles of us, that government-laid pavement took on a reddish tint. The land gradually changed from the dense pine patches of eastern mississip and western alabama to rolling farm lands. We saw some corn, some soy, but most of all, we saw tobacco. We stopped in Greenwood, just a hop skip and jump away from Greenville, and looking around that dilapidated old shell station, I felt as if I'd steped back more than the 1 hour time-zone change, I felt as if I'd stepped back 70 years. 5 black men, some strong, some old, al,l with down-turned ruddy overalls and shitted-up denim, pushing an old pickupwith no wheels on it onto a wooden trailer, the rotor cutting a deep hole in the moisture-soaked wood. People walked by, stared at us, cause of our clothes, because of our voices, the way we talked. We were foreigners, and I've lived in Georgia nearly my whole life.
We descended upon greenville, flanked by rich soil and endless tobacco. Greenville is small, but not tiny. The town has suffered from what so many small southern towns suffer from: low-rise commercial establishments. Mcdonalds, burger kind, wendys, steak and shake, and of course, wal-mart. We pulled up to the teacher-house, and after fond hello's and introductions, we decided we wanted to mosey around town. We happened upon a casino. This casino was on a riverboat docked in an oxbow of the mighty mississippi river. I suspect this was due to some sort of legal loophole for gambling. Anways, we made our way inside. I have never been in a casino before, but what hung in the air in this place was 1930s-style depression. Men still in their works clothes--janitors, farm workers, orderlies--throwing their entire paychecks onto the table, watching it get stuffed in by the dealer, and watching their week's pay turn to fallen-hopes. These men, who weren't at home with their wives on a wednesday night, who hadnt even taken the time to switch their clothes, threw some of America's most honest-earned dollars down the drain, for perhaps a hope of escape, of riches, or just to feel big for a while. These were not high-rollers, these are poor working men.
We get home, to find the head teacher drunk in the front yard, sitting on her overweight haunches, cackling with a miller light in one hand and propping herself up with the other. Foreshadowing!
The next day we greet our campers. Their parents or caregivers bring them to us. Some have severely handicapped parents, some from seemingly normal families. I speak with one father who boasts to me:
"I been pickin' cotton heya all ma laf. Ma granpa hat fowty aye-kas ant a myoole, an sho nuff thas what I got too."
Slavery is a source of pride, believe it or not. He was proud of his heritage, as a black american. I didn't know what to make of that. We went to the campsite, a lake-side slew of cabins in the woods outside of greenville. There were about 25 campers in all, ranging from 5 years old to 18, and from partially functional to completely inert. The camper I was assigned to was Austin Tardy, a 17 year old severely down syndromed young man. Austin, I learned, was the product of an adulterous affair, and actual has a twin sister, who is normal. I heard grumblings among some of the greenville locals who came to work with our camp, about how Austin is the penalty for his mother's misdeeds. Austin did not speak and was incredibly stubborn. However, he had a sweet soul underneath it all, and one could tell he was capable of great affection. Austin threw my boots into the lake, tried to break my fishing pole, and wiped his butt with my bandana. He consistently hit other campers, and was often physical with me. I think he liked me, because sometimes he would crack a smile and laugh as he came at me, but luckily I was quick on my toes (most of the time). What was interesting, was how much Austin hated John, a 275-lbs recent Greenville High School grad who came to work at the camp. Upon looking at him, one might draw some conclusions: big white-tee, corn rows, deep southern drawl. But John was all heart, but Austin, for some reason, would throw ashes at him (from our BBQ) every time he got a chance. He hated John, and I suspect he learned that at home. Austin was the only white camper.
Tony-T was my favorite camper. He was the product of his severely retarded mother being raped in the hospital by her orderly. That is terrible, but is not unusual down there (and I suspect elsewhere too). In fact, tony was raped in his front lawn by an at-risk teenage boy from Greenville High. Tony could talk, carry on a conversation, was very funny, and at 18 years of age, he was one of the oldest campers. He spoke in a high-pitched southern lilt, almost at a falsetto. Every day he would wake up and put on a fine black suit, with a dapper black tie, and talk about how he can't wait to sing the song we were teaching them to sing in church that sunday. He told us of life with his Auntie, of his girlfriend michelle, about how he wanted to fish (we taught him to), and how this was the first time in his life he had ever left Greenville. We gave out toy cellphones as a prize to some campers, and tony would talk on his all day. saying he was talking to his girlfriend, and how she was gonna come over and see him. One time in the car, he asked wes to borrow his cell phone, he had to call his auntie. wes, assuming tony was up to his old fake cell phone hijinks, said, "why don't you call her on your cell phone (the fake one)?" tony looked at wes incredulously, and responded, "man, that's a fake cell phone!" At that moment, I wondered who was the camper and who was the counselor.
Two older fellows came to see the children (lord knows how they found out we were there). One of them was a lineman for the power company, who had taken a fall and had broken his back and both femurs. He could barely walk, was struggling with alcohol and other drugs, and seeing these kids, he was constantly moved to tears. He spoke about how he was a broken man, and he embraced tony, and told him to cherish his life.
The camp had a buccolic exterior, but underneath was a darkness that lurks in much of these poor southern areas: alcohol, drugs, abuse. THe speech therapist who worked at Greenville High School was named Debbie. She was an overweight and overbearing woman, but we trusted her, assuming her to be responsible and interested in the welfare of these vulnerable kids. However, I caught debbie doing strange things. At one point, I saw he take a wooden spoon and raise it up to strike Trentarus, a def and severely cerebral-palsied boy. I stepped in between her and him, and she protested "move ben, his mother told me I can do this if he acts up" I said, "i don't give a fuck what the mother said, you are not hitting him with a god-damned wooden spoon." debbie sculked off, but kept a watch on me from that point. At night, debbie's boyfriend rick would show up in his big rumbling pickup. they would disappear into debbie's room for hours, and we'd hear noises of laughter and talking, and then they'd leave at 9 pm, and return at 3 am. Wes and I would stay up at night drinking beers and flirting with the cute southern girls who worked with us (all of them had boyfriends named John, or Mike, or JohnMike). We would see debbie stumble in, intoxicated, with this rick. I saw rick put his hands on some of the children, from a distance, for a second. not a friendly pat, an inappropriate touch. At our nightly meeting, Debbie's eyes were bloodshot and pupils were heavily dilated. she was sweating. I suspected meth. We had words with her that night because she was abusing the children, and she got in a fight with the head counselor (the drunk from the lawn), which ended in debbie storming out of the camp, fired. We were concerned, as on the way out, rick yelled some sort of threat. The next night, wes and I went back to the house in greenville (all the teachers were at the camp). As we pull into the driveway, we see someone run past the window in the living room. Who is that? wes asks. We realize quick its a burglar, perhaps rick, and we run after him. He takes off out the porch, and wes and I pursue him through the backyard. He jumps the fence, but is snagged on the barbed wire top. Just as I grab hold of his pants-leg, he frees himself, and jumps into a waiting pick up. He stole laptops, broke the television. THe police come. We tell the white officer about what happened, and he says, "I wish yo uwould have caught him, cause you coulda killed him if you wanted to. Hell I woulda shot him myself if I'd been here." We suspected debbie and rick were behind it, but probably not.
I found out recently that both debbie and rick were imprisoned for hijacking a truck filled with supplies going to New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina victims. Rick fled once he got bail, and debbie committed suicide in her jail cell.
There are more stories from that place, and as they come to me, I will post more. There is something so beautiful, and yet so terrible, about the south.
Monday, October 6, 2008
When, for lack of a logical argument, paint your opponent as the black incarnation of hitler
Here is a video my dad sent to me today:
This video is disturbing, of course. Any form of indoctrination of youth (to a drum-beat no less!) is just awful. Of course, I don't believe that the Obama campaign wrote this song, rather it was probably the nutty teacher leading them in the center. The tribal-esque drums and clothing of the observers leads me to assume (I bet i'm right!) that this is somewhere in new-age goofy california. Look, the west-coast is messed up. the US already put internment camps there once. Anything can happen out there, so I will keep as far from california as possible.
Aaron Lefkove's reaction: I think Joseph Goebbels, Leni Reifensthal, and Karl Rove. Would all applaud this wonderful piece of propaganda. Well done
I think obama is not hitler, nor do I believe he has the power or means to dispose of our personal freedoms. I think the constitution was very careful to insure that a US leader can not be a tyrant, or rather cannot attain the power of a tyrant without having a massive nation-wide resignation of power. Indeed, the US constitution diversifies power much in the way I wish my stock portfolio were diversified. I agree with aaron though, that this video is propaganda, that the people in it are complete nuts acting alone, and that barack obama has neither the time, nor influence, nor public support to attain the position of tyrant/fascist. Here's a funny bit of humor, and then I'll wrap this up:
as one becomes more and more extreme in any political direction, that person borders on some form of totalitarianism. The extreme end of conservate republicanism is fascism. The extreme end of liberal democratism is socialism (and eventually communism). What is funny is that the above youtube video, if you read the comments, is being proferred by what seems to be conservative republicans. They, whose ideology is the one that borders fascism, are calling obama a fascist! HA! ain't that rich.
Anyways, I denounce this video as propaganda, and without merit. The end.
This video is disturbing, of course. Any form of indoctrination of youth (to a drum-beat no less!) is just awful. Of course, I don't believe that the Obama campaign wrote this song, rather it was probably the nutty teacher leading them in the center. The tribal-esque drums and clothing of the observers leads me to assume (I bet i'm right!) that this is somewhere in new-age goofy california. Look, the west-coast is messed up. the US already put internment camps there once. Anything can happen out there, so I will keep as far from california as possible.
Aaron Lefkove's reaction: I think Joseph Goebbels, Leni Reifensthal, and Karl Rove. Would all applaud this wonderful piece of propaganda. Well done
I think obama is not hitler, nor do I believe he has the power or means to dispose of our personal freedoms. I think the constitution was very careful to insure that a US leader can not be a tyrant, or rather cannot attain the power of a tyrant without having a massive nation-wide resignation of power. Indeed, the US constitution diversifies power much in the way I wish my stock portfolio were diversified. I agree with aaron though, that this video is propaganda, that the people in it are complete nuts acting alone, and that barack obama has neither the time, nor influence, nor public support to attain the position of tyrant/fascist. Here's a funny bit of humor, and then I'll wrap this up:
as one becomes more and more extreme in any political direction, that person borders on some form of totalitarianism. The extreme end of conservate republicanism is fascism. The extreme end of liberal democratism is socialism (and eventually communism). What is funny is that the above youtube video, if you read the comments, is being proferred by what seems to be conservative republicans. They, whose ideology is the one that borders fascism, are calling obama a fascist! HA! ain't that rich.
Anyways, I denounce this video as propaganda, and without merit. The end.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
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