short notes:
will brady's ruminations
distractions
The guys at Comedy Central wondered what people would do if they saw a talking deer on the hood of a car. They learned that people responded. Click on the pictures to see the clip.
"Hey Buddy, somebody stole your hair"
combatting prejudice
Over at professor Vernellia Randall's Race, Racism and the Law there's an analysis on how a Katrina-linked New Orleans photo has morphed into an object lesson on racism. There has, apparently, developed an entire "pulp culture" on the internet which has taken his head and placed it on top of other pictures.
One of Dr. Randall's students, a woman who characterizes herself as "
...an Ultra-Conservative Republican..." conducted a study on the evolution of the image. The student also says of herself that she is "
...intelligent enough to spot racism when I see it and I am bold enough to call it racism when I see it." She further concludes that "
Thinking something is funny does not make it less racist."
I am heartened to see my own sterotyping of conservatives shattered, [I used to think all conservatives to be racist] but her note about the perniciousness of race hatred/race supremacy ought to be heeded. Disappointing that so many supposed "liberals" are not as observant as she.
Check out her essay [with photo examples]
The Racism of "Lootie"/ It's well worth the read.
distractions | adventurers
They rowed across the Atlantic Ocean naked! ...
Or so the publicity proclaimed. Why would they do such a thing? Why, of course, to support the
BBC's Children in Need charitable campaign, I could think of nothing nobler. They said their rationale for rowing most of the way naked was "
to avoid chafing".
Uh huh. I'd buy that. No chafing perhaps, though I can certainly imagine the fair-haired team of
James Cracknell and
Ben Fogle going all the way without a little blistering. Far be it for me think that two good looking, physically fit, athletic, virile young men rowing for thousands of miles alone, naked and sweaty might be a British man's answer to
prolonged fishing trips in the mountains,
especially since their own website bravely proclaimed that the pair would
...contend with loneliness, boredom, celibacy & sunstroke. Honestly, why even mention the celibacy part? But if they did succumb to [how was is said?] ...
helping each other when the other was down... what of it? It sure wasn't sissy stuff they were doing. Just, maybe, working out the kinks, so to speak.
Foley and Cracknell were
but one of 30 teams that took part in the competition, but they were the only ones who dared to do it in the raw. Perhaps the lighter load helped streamline their corss-Atlantic sojourn, since
they won!
THANKS TO: Ron's Log who spotted this before I did | LIBEL LAWSUIT DISCLAIMER: As the old homo porno mags were quick to note "..the inclusion of pictures of males, or the description of males engaged in manly pursuits, on this site, does not mean to imply that those males are, in any way, homosexual." In case you were wondering.
surveillance
The following was posted on one of the discussion groups I receive mail fromThis domestic spying is bulls*it! One of the reasons I use Firefox browser instead of MS Intenet Explorer. Another good program to have is TOR. It can be found here http://tor.eff.org/ I use it in conjuction with Privoxy found here 
http://www.privoxy.org/ These programs allow you to hide your IP address most effectively but it slows down your browsing somewhat. You are able to switch them on and off at your discretion. I usually don't look at sites that are "questionable", but with all the crap going on, it doesn't hurt to have these programs, when you are going to be surfing questionable websites. And questionable encompasses quite a bit. For instance, the NSA recently was putting cookies that didn't expire for years on peoples computers. My thought is if a website can put cookies on your computer, it can easily put other crap that you didn't think it could on your computer that could get you in trouble
incommunicado
we lost phone and cable access this week past, hence no postings or answering of e-mail for awhile. We were left without the endless stream of Rupert Murdoch's FAUX NEWCan't say I regretted it. Thankfully, we didn't lose electrical power so the freezer part of our pantry remained intact.
Our household is comprised of readers, and we've got plenty of books to keep us occupied.
We also got to watch two films that we'd purchased from remainder bins, Pilobolus' and Maurice Sendak's
Last Dance and David Byrne's
True Stories.
Dance [2002] was dance troup Pilobolus' interpretation of Sendak's story about Jews sent to a Czech city during the Holocaust;
True Stories [1986] yet another quirky David Byrne media experiment exploring the surreal life that we have come to know of as the USofA. Both older films, both fresh as new to watch.
A blog adjunct to rondak.org [click on the globe] | Perspectives on: human rights; environmental concerns; life as a visual artist; 21st century feudalism; progressive politics; aboriginal culture; new urbanism; permaculture; sustainable technology; non-traditional families; achievable utopias
Hurricane Katrina: John Strain from Covington, LA. continues reporting his observations. From my end, here's a page of useful Katrina Links. Not that you can drive anywhere but WDSU's Causeway Camera is STILL NOT operating.
