Archive for ‘Social Studies (the big grab bag)’
171 items.
I’m not a Flybaby but I can tell who likely is because I’ve recently been reading her list with the same interest I had in Tammy Faye Bakker and her Fundie drones way back in the day. And there’s a lot of you Flybabies out there, open and closet, because when Flylady says, “Clean your closet,” suddenly people are blogging about cleaning their closets.
Flylady’s Yahoo group has over 469 THOUSAND members.
And people act like this is all cozy toes in the same tie-on shoe (I’ll get to that in a moment) and not a $4 million dollar business with at least 24 employees selling you on the notion you must buy her products to help you (oh the not very humorous irony of it all) to declutter your life.
“Declutter your unorganized life! Buy my stuff!”
Picture perfect irony.
It’s a fearful picture I get of all these women (yes, the list is geared for women folk) in their Flylady denim vests and Flylady key lanyards with their Flylady dusters cleaning house in concert with their Flylady timers, managing their lives via their Flylady calendars, fastidiously writing up their must-dos in their Flylady control journals with their Flylady Pens, ordering their business around their Flylady Office in a Bag, congratulating their kids with the Flylady pencils and stickers for doing their fair Flylady share, purchasing Flylady’s de-clutter kit in order to, you know, declutter, doing whatever it is they do with their Flylady Comfort Zone calendars that can’t be managed with the other Flylady calendar which is adhered to the refrigerator with your special Flylady calendar magnet, drinking out of Flylady water bottles, drying your hands with Flylady one-a-day dish towels, junking wallets and tote bags for Flylady’s wallet and tote bag, and putting on the Flylady purple and pink T-shirts all the better to fly in communion…with tie-up shoes.
And then there’s the Flylady doll you can buy for $8.
On the Flylady website is a photo of a little girl cuddling her Flylady doll in her sleep.
Despite 24 employees (I guess this includes the six people hired to reply to Flylady’s fan mail) the Flylady website has a hokey amateurish, “I don’t know much more about the internet than you do, can you tell me how to put up a photo?” feel. I guess all the better to foster the feeling of the accidental entrepreneur who’s down on her hands and knees cleaning the bathroom with you so she doesn’t have the time for CSS or HTML…and certainly she wouldn’t be hiring out the website or the housework despite the fact she’s got a four million dollar business with a road show and webcasts and a self-syndicated column…and the Yahoo list.
The first time I saw that cartoony graphic of the winged Flylady I immediately envisioned a fly swatter. It was my gut reaction and it’s stuck with me.
Now, I hold no malice against Flylady. I’m amazed by anyone’s ability to sell themselves. I marvel. I go, “How the hell do you do that?” I’m reading Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up” right now and I’m amazed by how he had this seemingly natural sell-self muscle…
But I read Flylady and I know she has over 469 THOUSAND members in her Yahoo group and I have this vision of a future where all these kids are growing up with the It Must Be This Way Exactly knowledge that on Mondays you do this and on Tuesdays you do this and on Wednesdays you do this…and all over America in fifteen years will be these brainwashed kids marching out to run their households exactly like mum’s Flylady said to do it and the odd ball will be the person who vacuums on Tuesday.
“You vacuum on Tuesday? Everyone knows you should vacuum on Monday.”
And this damn shoe business. Flylady wrote the other day:
I don’t want to hear, well I don’t wear shoes in my house. Well you do now, sister! Buy or clean up a pair just for that reason. You can have a great pair of indoor shoes that are real shoes, not slippers or flip flops. Don’t get stuck in that perfectionist thinking “I don’t wear shoes in my house”, if you want change in your home, you are going to have to change your thinking on shoes.
Seriously. You’re really going to let someone tell you, “Well, you wear shoes, now, sister!”
Try telling that to the Japanese.
You must do it this way or you will never change. What kind of BS is that?
It doesn’t strike you as a tad bizarre and irrational that Flylady decries someone as having “perfectionist” thinking if they say they prefer not to wear shoes, but she can say that if you don’t do it her way then you’ll never change–and this is somehow not being, what, perfectionist and rigid?
Which is why I decided to go ahead and write this post. That and the whole, “declutter and throw out all the crap you don’t need and buy my stuff that I searched the wide world over just for you and anointed as Flylady perfect with my Flylady logo” routine.
C’mon, that bullyish, full-of-itself Well, you do now, sister! doesn’t grate on you even just a little? It doesn’t make you go, “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
If you’re conservative and the conservative Ed Morrissey’s “Heading Right Radio“–which hosted Republican Flylady in December of 2007–is the kind of thing you like to listen to, well, then, maybe you don’t mind people addressing you like that. A fairly recent Republican county commissioner, Flylady (her husband is a Republican judge) told Ed Morrissey his business is talking politics and hers is getting people to clean but maybe if people get their house clean then they’ll go out and vote.
I’ve been following her list, looking for any mention of politics. In 2000 she polled her group to see who they would be voting for and the results were over 60% for Bush and she crowed about a full Republican sweep in her county. She has been quiet on politics since then, but the appearance on Heading Right is interesting. She no doubt wants to keep her list as apparently bi-partisan as possible in the interest of her business, but she did say on Heading Right,
“Building the community is key because without my Yahoo group I don’t get the people to come listen to my radio show…I love cooperation and networking that we can do within ourselves because I can promote your show and I can promote my show…”
Whatever that means. It was very vague, this “building the community” idea and all that entailed. I didn’t notice her plugging “Heading Right” on the Yahoo list but she may have in her blogradio show.
Flylady, who happens also to be a Christian, is currently writing a book on Flylady spirituality.
I wonder if it’ll have a chapter on wearing your tie-on shoes for god.
6Comment
Head over to Youtube and watch every chapter of “The Story of Stuff”–the Intro, Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption, Disposal and Another Way. Or view the film at The Story of Stuff website.
I watched the film last night and H.o.p. found it so engaging that he picked up his chair and brought it over and sat through the film with me.
Then, he requested we watch it again. Yes, he was primarily interested in the animation, but he was also listening, adding his own punctuations of, “Oh, wow!” and “Oh, no!” “I didn’t know that!” and questioning me on certain points.
Not that there was a lot of fresh info of which he might not be aware, because we talk about the subjects covered daily around here, but there was some new info and the presentation was excellent, catching his imagination. Which is why I’m recommending the movie. Whoever Annie Leonard is, she does a fine job drawing the viewer in and is just plain enjoyable. And it’s a difficult job making the topic of “Who the hell pays for that ultra cheap $4.99 radio and no you don’t really need those new shoes” inviting and enjoyable, especially when you’re also being told about how destructive planned obsolescence and mass consumerism is.
She even brings up why Bush, after 9/11, immediately told us all to go out and SHOP!
Down the same vein, Annie broaches the subject of how those of us who don’t participate in mass consumer culture become viewed as less valuable members of society. Indeed, if you have time for only one chapter, then the chapter I’d suggest watching is the one on consumption.
"Nothing stands between me and my vacation."
August 5th, 2007 |Posted In: Social Studies (the big grab bag)
Democrats cave! Democrats cave!
Duh. Well, of course they do. It seems to be what Democrats do best is yield to pressure because they don’t want to look like they’re, uh, uhm…I know, they don’t want to look like they’re standing in the way of Bush & Co.
What mantra do they practice before the mirror each morning?
It’s not my fault! He made me do it!
How were they made to do it?
They wanted their summer vacation.
Just in case you’re still wondering how high the personal sacrifices will go for sake of some ideals.
These are the kind of people who say, “You’re an idealist,” and make it sound like something really dirty and contemptible.
Update: And icky. They make it sound icky, too. And irresponsible. Laughable. And lame. That, too. And childish, as in irresponsibly, stupidly childish. And stupid. As in, “You don’t understand politics. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I just bought myself a heaping serving of summer vacation. Get lost, you childish, lame, laughable, annoying, ridiculous idealist.”
Site Search Tags: bush&co,
Penthouses From 14th Street
Despite all my rage, I’m still just a rat in a cage…
Music for the ride. Smashing Pumpkins, Bullet with Butterfly Wings at You Tube.
The truth is the world really does look different from the penthouse, or the mountain top. And the ministers never tell their congregations the truth. I know that, having relatives who were ministers. The laymen leaders of congregations have their own agendas, certainly, which they also don’t disclose to the unwashed masses, and are often powerful enough to lord it over the clergy. Clergy which they choose to shepherd the flock. And the clergy? Whether they’re bitten or biting, they just don’t tell, and don’t tell what the penthouse view is. The congregation is as much an Other to them as the citizenry is to the police. They will smile and embrace you, and you will think you know them and that they serve you absolutely and are your friends, but they will never let on what transpires in the inner sanctum.
Systematic lying creates what communications scientists call a “disinformation situation,” in which everybody eventually begins to distrust, demonize and diabolize everybody else. Paul Watzlavik, among others, has performed classic experiments in which totally sane people will begin to behave with all the irrationality of hospitalized paranoids or schizophrenics–just because they have been lied to in a calculated and systematic way. This sort of “disinformation” matrix is so typical of many aspects of our society (e.g., advertising and organized religion, as well as government) that some psychiatrists, such as R.D. Laing, claim it is the principal cause of psychotic breakdowns. When the politics of lying becomes normal, paranoia and alienation become the “normality” of the day.
Robert Anton Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger Volume 1
Ah, you didn’t know that I have read RAW, did you? But of course I have. Certain interests of his like cryogenics and the reach for physical immortality, I never had much use for, but RAW dovetails nicely with Philip K. Dick.
A problem with the above quotation is that it’s expressed in such a way that it makes everyone sound like raving, isolated paranoids, which the normal mom or pop or teen isn’t going to recognize in themselves. Because people are imminently adaptable, whether rewarded with the occasional door prize or the threat of loss of something dear, like income, and succumb to the status quo, whatever is handed down by the paramount threat/god in their lives. They build community and personal nests at the base of the mountain from which the law is handed down so the news of what’s good/bad for the day is readily available, and the system becomes theirs, becomes normal, is the way to conduct your affairs, and the paranoia is directed against out-of-towners. Thus the horror flicks of vacationers happening on the town from hell.
But the problem with RAW also is that that the townies aren’t going to want to read RAW because he is the out-of-towner. If I handed RAW over to any of my conservative relations or friends, they would, at their best, take a glance at the Eye of Horus on the cover and knowing that the Eye of Horus is all superstitious myth they would promptly discount as without merit and laughable. At paranoid worst, they would see the Eye of Horus and the words “Final Secret of the Illuminati” and without a clue as to what is within the covers they would distrust, demonize, diabolize–all based on that Eye of Horus or Ra. The wdjet, wadjet, udjat. Which was/is a symbol of protection and a mathematical representation of the Egyptian Kingdom.
Curiously, we now have widgets (whether there’s a relationship, I don’t know) as nothing sort of whatevers, objects that are mute as to their value or meaning when not in direct context, and maybe even then. You just know that you don’t want to spend your life making widgets which are mysterious dark critters as compared to gadgets that are obviously not widgets. Except that widgets, if you know their function, may be just what the doctor ordered. Such as with different widgets I can install in my sidebar that make blogging more convenient.
So one way of describing most religions and governments is that they’re paranoid systems which make paranoid living a comfortable situation by giving people concrete somethings (everything outside the system) about which to be paranoid. The thing is that there are multiple paranoid systems that have every right to be paranoid of each other, and even if there weren’t multiple paranoid systems, just one is enough as everything exterior becomes adversarial by reason of its place in the paranoid system, which is the diabolical, free-wheeling Other that is out to corrupt the status quo. In other words, the paranoid system takes everything prisoner. Everything must have its reason and place in the system, even those things which are not remotely connected with it ideologically.
America was already paranoid before Bush, before 9/11. It just felt more in control and less worried about the Other, such as weary travelers who just happen to have a brief pit stop in Los Angeles and must fill out lengthy forms and be fingerprinted and photographed before heading on to that Not-A-United-States-Place where they plan to have some fun, because who wants to vacation in a police state?
What’s to be questioned is what the leaders are paranoid about, both Democrat and Republican. Do they buy the same fears they’re selling, which are used to justify the information gathering and over-the-top controls? Do they buy their hype?
I’m not saying that the overlords don’t fear. I just believe they’ve got their own set of fears, which they keep reserved for themselves, while feeding the general public a special set of fears, just like you have your skin cream products that are for the general masses and then you’ve got the specialty stuff which the general public doesn’t need as it’s just security camera time for them rather than High Definition TV. After all, the general public is part of the Other, the Adversary. And are the Priests of Fear going to take the General Public into their confidence and let them know what keeps their cogs oiled and the home fires burning with their own rarefied paranoid fuel?
Less than 2 Days (like not 2 days at all, like right now)
June 28th, 2007 |Posted In: Social Studies (the big grab bag)
Resurrecting an old REAL ID graphic of mine from back in 2005…
Tomorrow’s the deadline for trying to get your Senator to say no to an employment verification system requiring everyone to have a REAL ID for a job. Read more here.
Will it make any difference all those faxes? If it does I swear I’ll try on a daily dose of optimism.
Innocent Bystander: Help! Will, someone not help us?! The White House has arranged it so we are scaling way back monitoring climate change from space which means a perilous loss of data!
Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch, a watchdog program of the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, called the situation a crisis.
“We’re going to start being blinded in our ability to observe the planet,” said Piltz, whose group provided the AP with the previously undisclosed report. “It’s criminal negligence, and the leaders in the climate science community are ringing the alarm bells on this crisis.”
Whatever will we do?
Sci Trash Goofus Gordon: I may be Sci Trash Goofus Gordon, but even I can hear the bells tolling! Though I’m currently preoccupied looking at ground pictures of the dark side of Britney Spears’ moon. More time for booty watch, I say!
Sci Trash Gallant Gordon: Woe the ignoble press, and cellulite-challenged celebrities. Let us now speed to the tropics with an appropriate cover-up for Ms. Spears lest she take ill from a draft.
Where’s the picture of the new fucking huge American embassy in Iraq I saw a couple of weeks ago. This isn’t it, or maybe it was. Never mind, the image will have to serve as there seem to be almost no photos of something so big.
Some AP photo
At 104 acres and $592 million dollars, this complex moves a few steps beyond BIG. You’d think they’re trying to outshine y’know, what is it, Iraq’s, what da ya call it, bigness in ancient history, words like monumental come to mind, Mesopotamia, Fertile Crescent, Akkadian, Assyrian, those bad Babylonians. Whatever, I seem to recall reading something about it over the years, a smidgen here and there, and a few pics of the Gate of Ishtar. Anyway, the impression I was given in high school, the few paragraphs we read of it, was that the Fertile Crescent was the seat of ancient civilization out of which the rest of the world poured eventually. Except for American Indians and the Chinese and other people like that, who lived way off the beaten track. But the image I came away with from middle or high school, of the Seat of Civilization (which was quaintly pagan, but big, and gave us farmers and builders and successive empires, but not as big as the Romans ultimately, whom we could better understand as they had a Senate, I think) was that they had big sand colored walls. They liked walls. So did King Arthur, didn’t he? All those castles! Lots of walls. Only those were gray because Europe is misty gray whereas Babylonia was all glaring sun and sandy walls.
Anyway, that’s going to be some addition to the kid’s history books, isn’t it?! Pictured under Wonders of the Modern World Lording It Over Those Ancient Wonders Which We Hope To Assimilate Somehow Someway So That We May Own Them In Our Role of Current Top Dog Empire.
I was only reminded to write of it because of Norwegianity making mention of it. And Cindy Sheehan. He wrote some about Cindy Sheehan who’s been making noises about Democrats who walk and talk like Republicans, except they’re Democrats. Republicans are Republicans and Democrats are Democrats and never the twain shall meet except for Democrats caving on Iraq and Democrats caving on the Bankruptcy Bill and whatever else the Democrats have caved on. The list is long. But Democrats are Democrats and the Republicans are Republicans and they’re out there daily with the gloves on making a show of a boxing match so we’ll know we have voting choices.
When I saw the pic of the embassy a few weeks ago, H.o.p. and I were watching films on The Great Wall of China, which the Chinese hated and saw as a symbol of oppression, all those dead people that went into the making of it, but which the Western World hearted (soooooooooo big) and eventually seemed to convince the Chinese it was something of which to be proud after all.
There’s a famous photograph of a little boy and girl walking into the sublime light and (don’t ask me why) that’s the picture that came to mind as I gazed upon the image of the American Embassy in Iraq while watching films of the Great Wall of China. Hand in hand, off they trot into history.
You can see what my public school eduction did for me.
Empire, empire, empire, empire. Lots of walls. Then Rome. Christ in there somewhere corresponding with 0 A.D., which is how I can locate where I am in the mess because I was born 1957 years after. Then blankets of fog out of which shine some gray castles. Feudal walls. Then pilgrims fighting for our religious rights and some Indians who said “Welcome, Land of the Brave and Free”, then George Washington crossing the Delaware and America, then Indians forgot to be hospitable somewhere along Custer’s way and got pissed about it, though it was all for their own good and was our divine right, carrying the freedom flag and all. The Promised Land. And there was the British Empire, like our misfit older sibling, who used to wield some authority but settled down to gardening. And Europe had a couple of misfit wars and a maniac, but we settled all that, and took care of Japan too.
And now, though the history books weren’t so explicit, WE ARE THE WORLD, with the stars and stripes in one hand, but more importantly Coca-Cola in the other. Lots of it. In fact, forget the stars and stripes. Just send Coke. Which at least had a nice white stripe against a red background. The not-so-new American flag. That immediately recognizable Coca-Cola stripe against that red.
I don’t know what in the hell they’re talking about pulling out of Iraq with that great big new 104 acre embassy there? I can’t make those two pieces of the puzzle fit together in my head. Big 104 acre, half billion dollar embassy. Pulling out of Iraq. No, doesn’t fit.
But I don’t understand POLITICS. I don’t have a clue.
Well, y’know, except maybe it’s enough that someone’s construction business was able to pump a few jobs into someone’s economy and make a few bucks for someone.
Are we really going to pull out and leave that COUNTRY in a COUNTRY to fend for itself?
The Vatican City is 0.2 square miles of Country. That’s about 109 acres. I’m so disappointed! The Vatican is larger than the American Embassy in Iraq. Does that sound right to you? All we needed was another 6 acres and we’d have beat out the Vatican. As far as not being the smallest country in the world. So the Vatican becomes the second smallest Country and the American Embassy is the smallest. Except the American Embassy in Iraq isn’t a Country and wouldn’t ever want to be its own Country since it simply represents us.
A 2006 April AP story said of it:
BAGHDAD, Iraq – The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.
The new U.S. Embassy also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the ministate in Rome.
“We can’t talk about it. Security reasons,” Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for information about the project.
Story continues below ↓advertisementA British tabloid even told readers the location was being kept secret — news that would surprise Baghdadis who for months have watched the forest of construction cranes at work across the winding Tigris, at the very center of their city and within easy mortar range of anti-U.S. forces in the capital, though fewer explode there these days…
It will have its own water wells, electricity plant and wastewater-treatment facility, “systems to allow 100 percent independence from city utilities,” says the report, the most authoritative open source on the embassy plans.
But they’re WRONG! It’s not the size of the Vatican. It’s smaller.
Embassies are usually about 10 acres in size. But this is a fully self-sufficient one. Kind of.
Except for food. Eventually. Nothing is ever completely self-sufficient. Even if they have vegetable gardens and fruit trees and cows and chickens and pigs stocked in there somewhere, and fields of grain, they’re still going to eventually need computer parts, like rare replacement screws.
I don’t think the US Govt would ever want to cross Sony and manufacture its own replacement screws. If the US Govt has any Sony equipment within the embassy. Which it may not. But if it did, you don’t want to cross Sony. No.
I wonder what’s the official soft drink of the embassy? Coke or Pepsi? Coke? Sure Pepsi tried to usurp Coke as the new flag with its white stripe and the red on one side and the blue on the other. But Coke’s still the one with the white on red.
And they can’t manufacture Coke in there either, because the recipe for Coca-Cola is top secret, so again the American Embassy compound in Iraq is not entirely self-sufficient.
Which is one reason we’re going to have to stay in Iraq. To keep that supply line flowing.
Do you think they’ll paint it? What color? Surely, they’ll do some landscaping. A few flowers. Maybe install a couple of sculptures. If they could pull it off, Gormley’s Event Horizon would be nice.
If we do eventually pull out, how much do you think the new refurbished “Embassy” condos will go for?
Drama kings and queens.
Me (to H.o.p.): Don’t be a Drama King.
H.o.p.: What’s a Drama King.
Me: You know what a Drama King is.
H.o.p.: To be or not to be?
I’m stealing that one.
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A while back I pretty much stopped writing about politics because, frankly, after reading the news each day I slide under the desk and can only be tempted back out into the light by chocolate raisins, but like you have any right to criticize me for that when Zapatista rebels start writing and selling “Just sex. Pure pornography” novels, self-satisfyingly drawing on pipes during promotional interviews. What the hell that’s about, I don’t know.
But since I stopped writing about politics one had to have known it was only a matter of time before I started blogging about CELEBS!
What broke the dam? Ms. Spears demanding to be let off a plane right before take-off, apparently causing a delay, because she’d realized they didn’t have any leather seats!
Does Ms. Spears never sit in not-leather seats?
My mind looks for reasons behind the obvious. Like maybe the pure porno novel is all secret code. And maybe Ms. Spears is upset because vinyl will leave creases in your skin or something whereas leather won’t? (Did I just make that up or did I read it somewhere many years ago. And yes I realize now it was probably a cloth seat, which gives you an idea of how often I fly, which I don’t, because I hate flying.) Or maybe she’s just another crazy multi-megarich businessperson? When the music she was lip-syncing to started skipping at a “performance” the other night, she did have the presence of mind to keep on dancing rather than leap off the stage onto the sound techs, screaming they were out to get her, so she knows something about how the show must go on.
I never paid too much attention to celebs, but started reading a couple of star-worship sites a few months ago because I wanted to contemplate the why why why of celebrity worship, and have even written a couple of posts on it but never put them up. One thing I’ve noticed is that celebs, like politicians and big business, don’t often apologize for anything. Am I wrong on this? I don’t think they do though.
Seems one thing I have learned too late is never apologize for anything. I should have known better. After all, what was that myth about George Washington never telling a lie about except a nod and a wink as to the clergy of business-money-politics never having to offer an apology for the actions of their beloved hatchets?
So why in the world do I tell H.o.p. things like it’s the big person who knows when to acknowledge when they’ve done a wrong and apologize, and that people will respect you for it?
My son is seriously expressing his sense of style. Not that he cares about style. He cares about comfort and blue. If it looks comfortable and it’s blue, that’s what he wants.
Sick this past week, I didn’t go on the shopping expedition to Old Navy for Spring and Summer clothes, which H.o.p. badly needed because of course nothing from last year fits and all his Fall and Winter sweatpants are now highwaters.
Marty and H.o.p. returned and H.o.p. happily dumped the booty out of its bag.
There isn’t a pair of pants that isn’t polyester. All athletic polyester shorts and track pants. Except for one pair of sweats and t-shirts. In every shade of blue. Except for the ones that are white.
The athletic shorts are comfortable with elastic waistbands. That’s all H.o.p. cares about. He has always liked clothing that’s huge on him, which was fine by me–and I too wear my jeans in men’s sizes several too sizes too large for me, big and baggy. But then he decided big and baggy wasn’t comfortable enough. He wanted comfy sweats. Fine.
But polyester sports shorts and track pants? And what in the hell were they thinking picking up anything in white?
Sigh. I keep my mouth shut.
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On the yoga front. I guess it’s something not to do while you still have a cold. Every time I bend over my nose goes water faucet on me. But it didn’t keep me from lemon oiling the floor. For some reason whenever I get sick, as I begin to feel better, I lemon oil the floor. A quirk.
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Noticed at Netflix yesterday the appearance of the “View now!” feature on our account. Only about 15 movies in our near 480 some queue are available for Viewing Now! but there were enough choices that I could give H.o.p. a treat of a WOW! LIVE FROM NETFLIX! movie to watch before we did some MATH! He was excited to opt for the 1963 “Jack the Giant Killer” with special effects by Harryhausen. Oops! Within the first 15 to 20 minutes Jack the Giant Killer was throwing a noose over the stop animation giant’s head (“Uh, H.o.p., this may not be something you’ll want to see…”) in order to choke him and stabbing him repeatedly in the chest. H.o.p., when the noose went over the head, sensed something coming that might be too much. He turned. I said to him not to watch, that I’d let him know what happened. He ran out then came back in and said no, this wasn’t a movie he wanted to watch. So instead we chose BIGFOOT! The legend of. Real or hoax! Afterward he sculpted a little Bigfoot head out of polymer clay that he says he’s going to cover with fuzzy material and make into a puppet for an animation. Then we argued about doing math and then we did math.
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Drip drip. Hack hack hack hack hack.
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I’m loving the phrasing of the questions that were permitted to be fielded by Bush when he was speaking at Tipp High School in Ohio yesterday…
Q — what is your view of the opposing party
Q Mr. President, how would you respond to the rather mistaken idea that the war in Iraq is becoming a war in Vietnam?
Q Would you speak a little bit about the support, or lack of support that we’re getting from other countries, particularly those countries surrounding Iraq –
Q Mr. President, to kind of switch directions a little bit, illegal aliens in this country apparently are putting a lot of pressure on our social services. Could you comment on what the plans are in the future to take care of that?
Q This is truly an honor. Thank you for coming today. My question is about the U.S. military preparedness. I’m actually of a small manufacturing company in Dayton where we manufacture a lot of parts for the up-armored humvees — gun turrets, and things like that — (…) Here’s my — I’ll get right to it. There’s — currently the law is that only 50 percent of the military components have to be U.S.-made. When we went into Afghanistan there was a gentleman in Switzerland who refused to give us part of something for the Nordam –(phonetic) — bomb that we had — he refused to make it because it was made over there. And my question is about increasing that percentage, and keeping a prepared military, that we don’t have to rely on other countries to defend ourselves.
Q Mr. President, I admire your stay-to-it-iveness — (inaudible) — not using polls and focus groups. But I have to ask you personally, with respect to economics, with respect to the war, with respect to the war on terror and Iraq, and immigration, when you go to bed at night and you see these polls — everybody and their brother does a poll now — how does it make you feel?
Q This is in regards to the Virginia Tech tragedy. Being a high school student, I was wondering what’s being done to ensure safety in schools?
Q I believe there’s a big misconception that scaling back in Iraq will cost less in the long run than to go in and get the job done. How do you get that message across to America, and especially to Congress?
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I’ve missed out on lots of fun stuff this week that H.o.p. and Marty did, but I had one lovely experience. Took a nap yesterday and woke up to hear the most beautiful singing. What? Realized someone in the building behind us was doing vocal exercises. Not one of those booming operatic voices pulling it from the chest. He was a medium to high tenor and sounded more like some of our Arabic recordings. And the exercises were different from any I’ve heard before. Accompanied by piano, he exercised his chords for about 45 minutes. And though they were only exercises it was one of the more beautiful things I’ve heard in a while. I stood by a back window and listened for a long while.
Clearer Youtube Video of Tasering
November 16th, 2006 |Posted In: General, Social Studies (the big grab bag)
Man! How many times did they taser this guy?! Towards the very end you get to hear an officer threatening another student with being tasered, indicating that he move away from the scene.
Update: I read he was tasered five times, also while wearing handcuffs. That’s not in the news though so I don’t know.
Link to vid via Americablog.
