Olbermann on Clinton's "Assassination' Remark

There has been a lot of discussion around me concerning Hillary's 'Assassination remark' that hit the blogs this past week. I've heard many folks say it was a mistake or a comment taken out of context. And for all I've heard, I just can't believe it--although I want to. I want to believe that no one, especially a Clinton, would mindfully imply she is staying in the race in case Obama is assassinated, which is what happened to Robert Kennedy in June 1968. And yet, for all of Hillary's mis-spoken comments, just throwing something like that 'out there' makes me wonder to what extent she'll willing to go in order to win this campaign.

We all know that Obama has had to tighten his security amid constant death threats. Is she playing on that fear? Is she counting on folks thinking, "If I vote for him, I'm wasting my vote because he'll surely get assassinated."

You know, her use of fear and tragic 'what-ifs' is something Karl Rove did for George Bush. Bush frightened an entire country with threats of terrorism and "activist judges". And Rove led him all the way. Say, wait-a-minute, she's actually consulting Rove now, right?

Then her comments really shouldn't surprise me...they simply anger me!

Watch Olbermann's rant. He has the newsprint, commentary, and the outrage I feel towards her and her remarks.

Petra: A Tribute to 33 Years of Christian Rock

I grew up listening to this group and even now, years later, hearing their songs brings back wonderful memories.

Canon Balls*

It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on our Frigates - our war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.

Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon.There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make Brass Monkeys. Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled.

Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. And all this time, you thought that was a vulgar expression, didn't you?

*Note: I have no idea if any of this is true, it was an email sent to me and I just thought it was funny.

Funny Married Names

Here's a fun post about the last names of people just married, taken from newspapers across the country. It's Hardy-Harr funny. ;)

The AIDS Blamegame

Here's a brilliant post from Wayne Besen:

The AIDS Blame Game
by Wayne Besen

"What is it about gay sex that makes U.S. health officials want to play Chicken Little with AIDS prevention and public safety?" Tony Valenzuela writes in the latest Poz magazine, where he criticizes, "The clueless tabloid and public health hysteria over man-on-man sex."

Valenzuela points to "an imaginary 'super strain of HIV to the sci-fi MRSA superbug." And, he is correct that it seems the media and society seem to always take on the absurd posture that gay sex is a mysterious ticking time bomb.

It is important to remember that gay bashing is a multi-million dollar industry. There is a vested interest by fundamentalist groups to convince the public that gay people are morally inferior and diseased, thus a threat to children, society and themselves.

The notion that AIDS is a punishment from God is a staple of right wing literature. Instead of focusing on the condemnation of unsafe sexual practices, extremist groups say that the very nature of being gay makes one a candidate for an early death. For example, the so-called "ex-gay" group Exodus International uses the Bible to justify their belief in God's wrath and fury against homosexuals.

"Those who practice these sins 'receive in their own persons the due penalty of their error,'" writes former Exodus Executive Director Bob Davies in 'A Biblical Response to the Pro-Gay Movement.' "In today's society, homosexuality is reaping a bitter harvest...homosexual involvement reaps deep devastation in the lives of many who practice it."

The Traditional Values Coalition has published what they call a "fact-based report on the dangers of homosexuals and homosexual behavior to children and to our society." One "fact sheet" is called, "Homosexual Sex = Death From HIV Infection."

Focus on the Family offers that, "solid, irrefutable evidence proves that there are lethal consequences to engaging in the defining features of male homosexuality..."

Of course, blaming victims for deadly diseases is nothing new and has ushered in some of the most shameful and horrific acts in world history. In a recent New York Times magazine article, epidemiologist and physician Gary Slutkin (the article was about gang violence, not HIV) spoke of how Chinese Americans were once thought to be inherently prone to disease.

"Chinatown, San Francisco in the 1880's," Slutkin said. "Three ghosts: malaria, smallpox and leprosy. No one wanted to go there. Everybody blamed the people. Dirty. Bad habits. Something about their race...And people come up with all kinds of other ideas that are not scientifically grounded -- like putting people away, closing the place down, pushing people out of town. Sound familiar?"

John Kelly's book, "The Great Mortality" explains how Jews were blamed for the "Black Death" that wiped out an estimated one-third of fourteenth century Europeans.

"In January 1349, Basel burned its Jews on an island in the Rhine, while hygiene-conscious Speyer, fearing pollution, put its dead Jews in wine barrels and rolled them into the river," wrote Kelly. "Strasbourg marched its Jews to a local cemetery and burned them...In Worms the local Jewish community, faced with death at the hands of Christian neighbors, locked themselves in their homes and set themselves ablaze."

What I find bizarre is how the right continues to portray HIV as a gay disease when more than 80 percent of people infected worldwide are heterosexual. If God really wanted to punish the so-called "gay lifestyle" and send a message, wouldn't He use a smart bomb -- like blowing up gay bars on Saturday nights -- instead of an indiscriminate shotgun blast that claims the lives of hemophiliacs and babies? The last time God was this inefficient, He placed George W. Bush in the Oval Office to carry out his will.

For reasons of political convenience and conservative correctness, anti-gay groups pick and choose who gets blame. In Washington, DC, black residents account for 81% of new reports of HIV infection and 86% of people with AIDS, though the city's population is only 57% African-American. Based on anti-gay "logic," this would mean that the "black lifestyle" is dangerous and should be condemned. Interestingly, they only focus on homosexuality and ignore other demographics and the largely hetero International AIDS epidemic because the inconvenient facts don't mesh well with the right's anti-gay storyline.

Gay people were around for thousands of years before AIDS and will still inhabit this planet long after the disease subsides or is eradicated. In the grand scheme of the universe, HIV does not define homosexuality any more than past syphilis or gonorrhea outbreaks in Europe defined heterosexuality.

Illnesses, like natural disasters, are not God's wrath, but ordinary phenomena that affect different populations at any given time. History, however, teaches us that the most enduring disease is divisiveness in the name of the Divine, that predictably rears its ugly head at the very moments when healing is needed instead of hatred.

Another sign that you're getting older...

...is if you'd rather be regular than lose that extra ten pounds.

This is soooooo true, right? Within the last month, I've changed my breakfast selection considerably. Rather than eating cereal every morning with a piece of fruit, I now change it up to include real oatmeal (as opposed to those packets loaded with sugar). I had read that doing so will keep me from being hungry later in the day. And you know what? It's true!

Another added benefit, and this is something I didn't expect, is that I can now say, after 42 years of living... that I am now 'regular'. I have no idea why this is happening but if I don't eat my oats, then I am not regular and I decided just now, that if I had to choose between losing the extra weight I gained from my illness and being regular, I'd take being regular in a heart beat.

Fortunately I can have and do both.

No Shame on the Walk of Shame

This energy drink commercial was filmed at one of the most charming and photogenic intersections of New York City's West Village, where so much movie, tv and ad production takes place: where right-angled Commerce Street intersects with Barrow Street, between Bedford and Hudson Streets. The hot-dog stand is right at the corner, and the walk of shame is moving eastward on Barrow toward Beford -- within a short walking distance of the Perry Street block which provide the exterior shots of Carrie's street and townhouse stoop. Even closer is the Bedford Street intersection that provided the exterior shot of the apartment building on Friends.

h/t towleroad

Appropriate Cartoon Image, right?

h/t The Daily Dish

We've Come A Long Way, Baby

Here is an inspiring story about a young man voted Home Coming King at his high school.

Ghostly Car Ad

A friend of mine actually emailed me the movie, rather than a link to YouTube, that I am posting here. Here is what the email said,

Really cool, but make sure that you read the article before watching the video. This is a car advertisement from Great Britain. When they finished filming the ad, the film editor noticed something moving along the side of the car, like a ghostly white mist. They found out that a person had been killed a year earlier in that exact same spot. The ad was never put on TV because of the unexplained ghostly phenomenon. Watch the front end of the car as it clears the trees in the middle of the screen and you'll see the white mist crossing in front of the car then following it along the road......Spooky! Is it a ghost, or is it simply mist? You decide. If you listen to the ad, you'll even hear the cameraman whispering in the background about it near the end of the commercial. A little creepy but pretty cool!

My friend, in the email added his own note to say that I needed to get real close to the screen to see what they were talking about (perhaps you should to, I dunno, I am sure it'll help).



Pretty scary, right?

20 Things You Can Use Twice before Tossing

Here is a great post about using stuff twice. Most of us use those plastic grocery sacks as liners for our trash cans, but here are other uses of items from collected business cards to cardboard paper towel rolls.

You know that you're over 40 if . . .

. . . you know who this woman is.
By the way, I love her. ;)

Upgrade your Life

If you're a productivity geek always looking for a better way to do an old thing, then do I have recommend a book for you. Gina Trapani has written a gem, Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better.

In the book, you'll learn better ways to do email, organize your desktop, and get more done sooner leaving you more time for life's important stuff like going home earlier and spending quality time with your loved ones.

I am on Chapter 2 and have already implemented a new way to organize my emails and have installed Microsoft's new desktop search engine (Google has one, and is recommended in the book, but it scares me).

Anyways, check out the book. While you're at it, also check out LifeHacker.com. This is the website from which the book is based and sign up for its daily threads. They're as good as the book.

This Is Interesting

I CAN READ IT! CAN YOU ????

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too.
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

Now THIS is a Grill!!

Getting Organized

I am always on the hunt for better ways to be organized. I read stuff on it, look for stuff on it, and generally keep an open ear for it in conversations. Oh, and I also read blogs about it. Lifehacker has a great post on the different GTD applications. GTD stands for, "Get Things Done," although if I were handing out acronyms, I would've picked GRD (Git 'R Done).

So, yesterday I read a great post on Lifehacker about Remember the Milk and remembered that I indeed signed up for it ages ago but never worked on it. So after reading the post, I returned to Remember the Milk, a GTD web app that I signed up for ages ago but never used. While reading the post, I found a tutorial that gave me one of those 'A-ha!' moments. Since yesterday, I have been using Remember the Milk like mad.

I can definitely see myself using it for quite some time. Go check it out. I think it's pretty cool.

Long Time No Posts, Right?

So sorry about that. Been crazy busy. I'll add the details about that later. For now, I found this great cartoon pic this morning.

Arghhh!! The Dreaded 'Caps Lock'

Do you type a lot? I do. I type all the time and I like to think that I am a pretty fast typer. The fastest I've been "clocked at" is 100 wpm but that doesn't mean that I sometimes don't hit the wrong keys from time to time. One of my most-often-key-hit-by-mistake is the Caps Lock button on my computer keyboard.

I found myself over at Lifehacker today and discovered this great script that you can also download as an .exe without having to actually put the script in yourself (just scroll down the post half-way to find it). The script reconfigures your Caps Lock button. Once the script is installed, you have to double hit it, to engage it. So, the next time you accidentally hit it, it won't engage your Caps Lock.

Pretty cool, right?

The Bigotry of Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas, a nationally syndicated columnist, wrote an article that appeared this week in the Daily Oklahoman, the state newspaper of Oklahoma. My mother told me about the article but was unable to send it because the newspaper was inadvertently discarded with the evening trash (that happens a lot with the Daily Oklahoman). Mom encouraged me to google for it, and I found it this afternoon. You can read it by going here.

Thomas' titled his article Barack and the Bigot. He was referencing the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright's speech blasted on Fox News and other places of mindless political commentary. Thomas believes that members of Trinity UCC and other's desiring to listen to the voice of a prophet should not listen to Wright, but rather Bill Cosby. Here is what Thomas said,

The voice that black people should be listening to is not Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but Bill Cosby. At Jesse Jackson's 33rd Annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition conference in Chicago in 2004, and at many other venues, Cosby called on his fellow blacks to stop blaming the "white man" for their problems. Cosby suggested most of the problems in black America are caused by "what we are doing to ourselves."

This is the attitude that appeals to others, especially whites, and makes them want to help poor blacks escape poverty. Blaming whites for black problems may empower the speakers, but it repels people who genuinely want to assist the disadvantaged to become advantaged.

I ask you, who is this white man telling black men who they 'should be listening to?' What privilege does he think he has to tell members of Trinity Church and others whom he deems more worthy to proclaim the gospel? This is very condescending and reveals his elitist leanings. But Thomas' statement is very revealing: Thomas likes Cosby because it lets him off the hook when it comes to an accountability of racism; let's put the onus of responsibility on poor black persons helping themselves rather than on how he and others in the white majority share in the responsibility for black person's (and other people of color's) problems. This way, the white man doesn't have to do anything different.

Thomas is right about one thing though, white people do love it when black people blame themselves instead of others--then they don't have to face the conviction that they cause and maintain a continued atmosphere of racism and prejudice.

Another point of contention I have with Thomas' article is that, from what seems as a slap from left field, he judges Union Theological Seminary. Read what he writes:

Obama says Rev. Wright is a "Bible Scholar" and has spoken at seminaries around the country. He specifically mentioned Union Theological Seminary, which is theologically and politically liberal. Liberal seminaries teach a "social gospel" that is more social than gospel and more the earthly agenda of the Democratic Party than the Kingdom of G-d.

Calling Union Seminary a place that is more concerned about social justice than it is about the gospel and a place more concerned about the Democratic Party than it is about the Kingdom of God, is wickedly blind beyond words and it shows that Thomas has no idea what Union Seminary is all about. At Union, we had a saying that explained its unique approach to training ministers. "Union trains prophets instead of pastors."

I ask you to look to the prophets and ask them if they're being more concerned about politics and social gospel than about God. To them (and us Unioners), God's Gospel IS a social message of equality and aid to the poor and disenfranchised. It is a message of deconstructing systems of power that aid the elite. For only by exposing the ways in which we disempower and corrupt the system will true freedom be possible. In its essence, one tenet of the social gospel is a message that proclaims from the mountaintops that the sins that affect us all are wraught by those who use their positions of privilege to keep, maintain, and support injustice.

But Thomas doesn't believe that--or that Wright or Union Seminary is concerned about it. To him, it's all about politics as he dismisses and condemns the messages Wright and the prophets from Union Seminary who are trying to speak to the power of racism.

This is kinda scary...

At first, it looked like two men carrying something up a hill...and then, I realized it wasn't. This is for real. I wonder what it'd look like with machine guns, tear gas, and other crowd-breaking spectacles. The future is getting closer and closer....