The sunny beaches of Capri, the well tanned sin of Rio, the underage in Thailand. What if you could take all these distant locations and put it into one experience greater than all of its components? What if you could do that right in your own back yard?
Yes, the future of vacation is now! Come see the exotic Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport Men's bathroom. The same location where Senator/ex-Senator/wait-wait-wait-give-me-one-sec-to-decide-Senator Larry Craig tapped his toes into our hearts.
Don't believe me that it is a tourist location? Via Seattle's The Stranger check out this holiday snap
Reminds me of the time I went camping in that ditch where Ted Kennedy killed that hooker.
kisses,
-James
fellyconnelly - 09/08/07 00:07 oh man.. why spend your vacation at a ruby convention when you have such delightful possibilities?
09/06/2007 10:35 #40966
Another Awesome Music Site Category: music
Howdy,
I was looking to expand my blues knowledge a year or so ago when I was reading about Blind Willy Johnson. As a kid his mother rubbed lye in his eyes to get revenge on his father. He did survive childhood and married. But died alone of exposure in a rotten shack he was living in.
Now, one of his songs is on the Voyager spacecraft, reaching further and further distances from the earth. Perhaps intelligent life will find Voyager and they will hear one of the most beautiful expressions of humanity when they do.
Voyager Golden Record has an online copy of what must be the greatest mix tape ever made. In addition to Blind Willy Johnson it has Hindi music, pan pipe recording from the Solomon Islands, Bach, Mozart, Chuck Berry. The recording is immense!
One of my favorite surprises was Javanese Gamelan music. I was familiar with this style from a Japanese performing art group Genioh Yamashirogumi who achieved international fame for doing the soundtrack to the movie Akira. They are also famous for teaching themselves how to program MOOG synthesizers to play notes beyond our 12-tone scale. I thought Gamelan wouldn't sound the same without an armada of crazy MOOGs enhancing the sound only to realize that it was all about the Gamelan. Here is a video of such a Gamelan group.
For a bigger show, this is a children's performance group. It is 9 minutes long, but so freakin good!
But check out that golden record. You will be happy you did.
lizabeth - 09/07/07 02:26 Have you ever listened to Henry Rollins's radio show Harmony in my Head? (It's streamed online every Tuesday night - I forget the url, but you can Google for it.)
Anyway, he's played some stuff like that before. Very cool.
museumchick - 09/06/07 22:25 I am so happy you linked to the music site. I find it fascinating!
zobar - 09/06/07 17:00 This is blowing my freaking mind.
- Z
09/05/2007 15:20 #40949
Massachusets other Fliip-Flopper Category: politics
Mitt Romney is wearing the Emperor's New Cloths.
Like Rudy he is a blue state Republican trying to win over the red state heartland. Doing so his song has changed more times than an ex-boyfriends mix tape.
Though I have to admire his pluck when criticized by Sam Brownback about his pro-choice record he retorted "I am tired of being criticized by people who have been pro-life longer than I have". However, the man is a goon who has been campaigning and fund raising so much he has no idea what the issues are or where he has and will stand on them. It is a sort of incompetence that would make me forget about the guy.
But you can't ignore him. He is beating the crap out of everyone in Iowa and is beating Guiliani by 4 points in New Hampshire. This guy very well might win the nomination. Damn.
The Massachusets Democratic Party has started the site Romney Facts which documents his changes. Not on small issues ether. From all right to gay marriage, to against it. From pro-choice to pro-life. These aren't from documents from Mitt's wild and crazy college days. No, the change happens in the same year, sometimes the same day in the case of gun control. It is an amusing site to look through.
This is nothing to say of the man who believes the use of contraception is tantamount to abortion and that a morning after pill is the very same as abortion. I wonder if he passed high school biology or if he just got the Cliff Notes bible?
On a side note, this video makes me so happy I could cry
james - 09/05/07 18:39 Joshua: All Politicians do that. But this man has gone through a positive metamorphosis in the last year. He makes Jeff Goldbloom in the Fly look like glacial movements. Also, Fred has said he will be announcing soon for months. I recall being relieved when he said he would make an announcement on the 4th of July. Must be nice being able to hide your financial records until the first few states have had their primary. I am also not too impressed with Fred. Then again, I am not too impressed with any of the candidates.
Oh, and the Massachusetts missing a 'T' is frickin hilarious! I wish I did that intentionally.
Jason:Ya, it is a shame Ron Paul doesn't stand a chance, as he makes a lot of sense on a lot of issues. He is the rogue candidate in the field, like Kucinich... but not frickin crazy! (I love him, but the man is out of his gourd)
Lauren: Yesterday began a renewed love affair with the B52's. This makes like the millionth time I have had a renewed love affair with them. The video makes me feel guilty because I think Ricky Wilson is so smokin' hot in it. (for the uninitiated, he the guitarist who died in '85, not Fred Schneider who is their quirky male singer.)
lauren - 09/05/07 18:21 I'll admit to knowing a damn thing about whats going on in politics or what the hell you are talking about, but sure do love the kinda guy who can talk about the prolife prochoice debate only to follow it with a sweet B-52's video.
joshua - 09/05/07 18:06 Oh (e:james) remember when I caught the name confusion in the title of one of your journal entries? I simply had to mention the missing T in Massachusets here, not because I'm anal but because I thought you'd appreciate the reference.
jason - 09/05/07 16:49 Unfortunately, that's what happens in politics. The only Democrat I can think of with any principles at all is Kucinich. The Republicans, I am not so sure anymore, I don't think there is really a small government minded one among them.
In fact, I don't think there is a single politician alive who just can't wait to use government power to limit our freedoms in some manner or another. Maybe, MAYBE Ron Paul, but his candidacy is DOA.
I absolutely marvel at the ability of Mass voters to install a Republican Governor, let alone a Mormon, when they outright reject Republicans in virtually every other type of election. That's like a true blue San Fran liberal bamboozling people from Alabama into voting for them. Unbelievable.
joshua - 09/05/07 16:08 Mitt Romney isn't my guy, thats for sure. He reminds me of Ron Popeil for some reason. Still though, I can't figure out how he got elected in Mass. to begin with.
Fred is declaring tomorrow and I still believe that he'll be the candidate. Mitt is in the lead because he is the least offensive of the group - in my view anyway I think the lines are drawn far more permanently in the Democrat camp than in the Republican and so its truly open ended... unless you are Sam Brownback.
As far as flip flopping goes, all career politicians (or those who are wannabes, hi Hillary) are masters at it. In Mitt's case I'm not particularly surprised, as at some point I can't see how he could have placated the libs in Mass. without saying things he didn't actually mean.
09/04/2007 10:18 #40925
Super Size me... WITH WHISKEY!
Howdy,
This journal has nothing personal in it. It is a single youtube video that I enjoyed briefly while here at work.
enjoy your tuesday, chumps
fellyconnelly - 09/04/07 20:11 i think i know that guy.
09/03/2007 16:37 #40917
From the ironic file Category: queer
A school district in Marlton, New Jersey banned a video to help teach diversity.
First, if you don't use your own community to discus diversity and instead look to a video to do it for you... well, you kind of missed the whole point. You might as well be talking about cyborg diversity in Renaissance Flanders.
Well, the video itself was dull enough. It was designed for elementary school kids to teach them about many different sorts of families: bio moms and dads, single parents, step parents, foster parents, and the one that launched a thousand ignorant ships: a same-sex couple.
When I said the video was dull enough, I should have said it was innocuous. It shouldn't have riled anyone up. No single mother took a swig of malt liquor and proclaimed "I am so glad my husband had an affair with a hooker and left me and the kids for dead." No foster parent took precious-moments Christian children and circumcised the girls and threw them into burkas.
"When does Evesham Township or any school have a right to show to my grandchildren something I believe to be morally wrong," asked one woman.
Well, if one considers the fact that same-sex couples merely exist morally wrong... but this is silly. As if the very fact that kids saw a same-sex couple carried with it a seal of approval on homosexuality itself.
Furthermore, what if I find math to be morally wrong? The onus for morality education is thrust on the schools when it serves tawdry little purposes and often flies in the face or reason and research. New Jersey has civil unions and certainly has same-sex parents recognized by law. And yet, they have to go! Abstinence education has never worked and is more dangerous than reasonable education, as documented by decades worth of research. Forget about our children's safety, it has to go!
And surly, when the school district voted to can the video 7-1 it was not out of any real concern that the video would turn New Jersey's youth into drug-addled sodomites, but because of fear of a law suit. One that the district would win but couldn't afford to fight. Our schools are held hostage.
metalpeter - 09/04/07 20:00 I do think that it is good for kids to know that there are different kinds of families. But from the aspect of them selves feeling like there type of family is ok (again I don't think this is the schools place to try and teach that). I have to say though that I'm not sure if a kid gets it or not. But showing to men or two women as parents and saying that is ok is also saying indirectly that homosexuality is ok. Because they wouldn't be together unless they where gay. The same thing could be said about single fathers or mothers that it says that divorce is fine. The reason it says this is that the film endorses single parents (I assume). So even though the film doesn't come out right and say that these ideas is ok it does imply that they are. I think that people should try to treat everyone as equals. But I still don't think a public school should teach that directly.
james - 09/03/07 21:04 Jason: It is third grade. It is very fluffy and things like diversity are their subject matter. That is of course if the high-stakes-testing crowd gets in any deeper despite tons of research...
Also, what is the state imposing? The state sets a diversity curriculum standard but the individual district, school, or teacher chose the video.
Further, if homo-hating parents want to indoctrinate their own children, fine, that is what home is for. Ignorance like this has no place in a classroom. You can't hold a school hostage because a few Ludites can't take responsibility for morality education for themselves.
jason - 09/03/07 20:54 Damn. I will off a light touch on this one. Those kids had better be to a person aces in every single academic subject if they have time to get into this kind of thing. I am 1000% (no typo) against the state imposing itself in this way, giving the finger to parents, even if the cause is as innocuous as this.
It just doesn't work, and it isn't the school's responsibility to do this, as is evidenced by this scenario, and it will never work. The homo hating parents, and even the ones that aren't blatantly anti-gay are going to take control of their own families regardless of the social engineering the school tries and will instill their own family "values", whatever that means anymore.
james - 09/03/07 20:38 Peter: Clergy are not compelled to perform any sort of union unless their church dictates makes them. So, gay marriage is all about civil marriage and not religious marriage.
The video did not make a moral judgment on sexuality. It just pointed out the realities of their community. Namely, that families come in all shapes and sizes. No matter what you think of divorce, sex before marriage, homosexuality, or any number of possible issues this video could raise there was nothing inherently amoral in the video... with the exception of the stripper doing a pole dance. ^_~
metalpeter - 09/03/07 20:06 I will be perfectly honest here this is where I'm devided. I personaly feel that same sex parents isn't a big deal and so what. I will extend that to say I believe that same sex mariage is fine as long as priets who moraly oppose it can't be forced or sued for not doing. I think that marriage is just a contract with the state and that it being in a church is different then that, but that maybe spliting hairs. I think that encouraging diversity is a good idea.
Here is the however. If I'm parent that thinks homosexuality, race mixing, or not being a member of the church I belong to is wrong then I don't want school teaching my kid that it is ok. If I had a gay kid and in sex ed all they mentioned was hetrosexaul sex I would feel the same way. The point is I don't want a school to tell my kid what is right and wrong moraly that isn't there job that is my job.
james - 09/03/07 19:14 School is taxpayer indoctrination. Pure and simple. Everything taught in school indoctrinates kids in some fasion. It is the letter of the indoctrination that get people fired up.
This video, and I have not seen it I have only read a description, has absolutely nothing to do with sex what so ever. Family has nothing to do with sex on the level they are presenting it. It shows a wide range of families as they are and not how they came to be. The sexual reality of couples and individuals is as explicit with het, bio-parents as it is with same-sex couples.
Further, I don't think sex or coupledom should be a secret to kids, to be sprung on them at some age when deemed appropriate. There are thousands of kids who's reality is that they have same-sex parents, and that fact isn't shocking to them nor is it a topic to be addressed later.
Kids aren't dumb and they are well aware of people gay and straight. By keeping the straight in the school children's eye and not the gay says that gay people are inferior, taboo. If people were more aquatinted with the reality of their communities they might not try to pray the gay away when their son Billy doesn't turn out the way they hoped.
Also, heterosexuality it everywhere. Heterosexuality is compulsory and any other expression of sexuality is deviant. If one is to shield kids from homosexuality then they better shield their kids from heterosexuality as well. Anything else is bigotry.
joshua - 09/03/07 17:36 Hmm. This is a sticky situation. Many, many people consider something like that taxpayer-funded indoctrination, especially since this video was to be shown to elementary school kids. I think something like this should be reserved for high school - the bottom line is that elementary school kids are too young to be sophisticated enough about sex of any kind, let alone the "ebil gayness" that some parents are afraid of. Some might say that this isn't about sex, but ultimately, yes it is. Additionally, I think control of this sort of thing should be in the hands of the parents and not the school, but like I said - at some age these kids will have to be prepared for the world rather than protected.
This sort of thing happens all the time - its simply the issues that change. The ACLU targets and sues small municipalities on a regular basis because of Christian symbols in the city seal, or in a courtroom. School prayer? Outlawed. In these cases controversial issues are almost always have a specter of litigation surrounding them, none of which is affordable. So what do these schools and municipalities do? They cower. This sort of thing is one of the reasons why I hate lawyers and decided to forego law school.
The big picture is that gay folks aren't going away and its a reality in our culture that some people choose not to accept. That is their choice, similar to athiests, etc. choosing to erase any semblance of Christianity in our culture. Diversity is a slippery slope, and everybody has their own flavor of diversity (sexual but not religious, religious but not sexual, racial, or none at all) but like I said, in the end I don't think that this sort of thing is appropriate for elementary school kids - they are simply too young and parents shouldn't be forced to have to address such a topic with a 7-year old because of what the taxpayer-funded school board has on their agenda. When these kids are older I think that they shouldn't be shielded from the realities of the world, however... but in the end that should be up to the parents.
oh man.. why spend your vacation at a ruby convention when you have such delightful possibilities?