When did peace become a five-letter word?

This article appalled me.

Standing up for peace these days is almost an act of treason. It's bullshit.

I wonder what Jesus would think about this...you know, Jesus, whose birthday is coming in less than four weeks? The whole basis of Christianity?

"Kramer" loses it...

I saw this on YouTube and one of the comment said...

this is nothing compared to richard pryor, eddie murphy, many many more attacks on white people which have been ok'd by most. oh well, shit happens.

Richard Pryor(RIP) took shots at white folks but who did he have his most cinematic success with? His buddy, Gene Wilder. Many black comedians used humor to make light of heavy situations (slavery, economic inequality, discrimination) as a form of therapy, like when female comedians bag on men.



Michael Richards lost all points in my book. He turned a less than optimal situation (a heckler, which is par for the course in stand-up) into an arena for hate or ignorance. There's a big difference between "white people walk and talk funny" comedy and "N***er" this and "n****r" that. He clearly wasn't joking...there's nothing funny about that. There are better ways to take down a heckler or a disrespectful audience member, whatever the object of his epithets was. His ass needs a drink from the firehose...

Election Redux

"YAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" - Howard Dean, Chair, DNC

I am feeling pretty good about this past election. There's a black governor in Massachusetts and the Republican rule of Ohio's executive branch and the country's legislative branch is over!

Now...let's get working...minimum wage, health insurance, affordable higher education, equitable K-12 funding await..

Kellen Winslow...

People bashed Kellen Winslow II when he said he was one of the premier tight ends in the league, if not the best.

I went to NFL.com to see if the stats prove him right.

Surely enough, he's 9th in the league in catches. He plays in the league's worst offense. Here's the list of tight ends with more catches...


...

...
Hmmm...it's empty. Maybe he is a @#$& soldier. My new nickname for him is "GET OFF ME!" because when guys try to tackle him, he shakes them off like "GET OFF ME".

UPDATE:

Through 8 games, Kellen Winslow has 51 catches. That's more than all but two receivers. Period. He would have more yards in a more vertical offense. Kellen is for real people...barring injury.

The crazy thing is...he's still only 23. If he stays healthy and plays 9 years like the senior Winslow, he will be better.

You can quote me on that.

Words to live by...

"You handle animals. People you have to deal with."
-Arnold "Red" Auerbach, 1917-2006

I wish more people felt that way...

What in the hell...

Now, I know the GOP is hard up to retain power in Congress but this is probably the most classless political ad I have EVER seen.

To top that off...it's in Tennessee. Somewhere, an idiot is changing his vote..

and you wonder...

...and people wonder why Ye said that George Bush doesn't care about black people...

Check this out...

CARTHON GONE!

Maurice Carthon is fired..

It's about damn time...the question is, who will replace him. Where's Don Coryell when you need him?

My two favorite teams (Browns and Cardinals) have the two most inept offenses in the NFL. It's not for a lack of talent.

UPDATE 1035 AM:

nfl.com >states: "It's unclear if Carthon quit on his own or was forced out by Crennel, who hired him last year and had been reluctant to remove his close friend."

Bill Clinton

There are only 2 presidents during my lifetime that I feel had a rapport with the common man...well, President Carter did until the b-list actor started his Bullshit Brigade (Morning in America...give me a break). He kept it real when everyone wanted fake. He was like Al Gore with balls.

The other being Bill Clinton. Say what you want about his sexual dalliances (shoot, if I was him and single, I would have spent some time with Monica. Bill and I are both fans of the smart, thick women :-) ) but he's an intelligent and witty guy. I would go have a beer with him.

"They say if you vote Democrat, they will tax you into the poorhouse. And, while you're in the poorhouse you will see a terrorist on every street corner and stumble upon an illegal alien."
--Bill Clinton, 10/23/06 in Columbus

"Not So" Ugly Betty...

Salma Hayek had an idea...let's bring the telenovela to the American audience. She also had another idea...I want America to be the lead...as in America Ferrera. Anything that has her in it makes it something I want to see. I LOVED Real Women Have Curves.

But, Ugly Betty?!?!

I can't even think of America Ferrera in the same breath as ugly. She has done great, classy work even though she's only 22. She also had this to say about weight (from IMDB):

"I think Hispanic women are beautiful with their curves. I'm not sure who feels that way in Hollywood. I was never told to lose 50 pounds. If they think that they just don't bother with you. You just don't get the role and you never know why. That's still better than physically harming yourself and becoming unhealthy just to star in a movie."

Curves are comforting. Curves make you wish for rainy nights and cold, lazy days...but that's another post. I will be checking out Ugly Betty online and watch live (hopefully) next week.

my general disgust with music right now...

I wrote a lot on my MySpace blog about how pissed I am with music, especially hip-hop right now...no, more specifically, popular hip-hop right now. I was thinking about this Lionel Richie (yes, Nicole's dad -- yes, of The Commodores -- yes, that song from the Starburst commercial) video that I saw last week called "I Call It Love".

It turns out Mr. Richie has a big Arab following. In another case of good music breaking barriers, ABC News did a story on the Iraq's love for Lionel. I think it's intriguing. The man behind one of the first songs I ever sang "Brick House", which is prophetic in so many ways, is big in the Middle East. I wish we could all get together and sit down and pull out our iPods, crates, CD cases and/or boxes full of tapes and just listen to music. We would realize that our artificial divisions (yes, nationalities are artificial) don't matter as much as what binds us as humans.

The Goal of Terrorism? : Scare people

Terrorism is created to scare people. Terrorist acts don't have to kill people, they just want to scare them a little bit. Have you ever been in a relationship where you were with someone and they were ignoring you and you say "well, so-and-so in the office finds me handsome/beautiful". Of course, you wouldn't run off with Emily or Armando from the office but you put a little thing on the mind of your significant other "hey, maybe I should pay more attention to my relationship..."

Multiply that by a few thousand and voila! Terrorism.

This article states that the media and the powers that be are playing right into the terrorists hands by using rampant fear-mongering for personal gain. It's not unlike politicians using the "tough on crime" talk to garner votes.

It's all bullshit. It doesn't deserve more of an explanation.

Women's Liberation is Men's Liberation as well...

This is part of why I am down for feminism.

http://www.jwa.org/feminism/_html/_pdf/JWA067a.pdf

Wow...

I have seen an amazing thing.

Last year, when I went to OSCON, I met Miguel de Icaza (the GNOME master). During OSCON, he had a keynote address about the new generation of GNOME technology..and it involved wobbly windows. I saw it and I couldn't !@#$!#@ believe it. I have been waiting and waiting to put this on merman (my computer's name...my laptop's name is trapjaw).

You have to see it...here and here.

Vista, eat your heart out.

T-Mobile...are you listening?

Now this is the phone I want!!!

-Derek

Ohio...where are you?

Ohio claims that they want to prepare their students for the 21st century.  They do it by empty mandates such as this one made by Governor Taft, outlined in his State of the State address this year:

First, require all students to take rigorous course work that will prepare them for the workforce or college – this means four years of math, including Algebra II; three years of science, including biology, chemistry and physics; four years of English; three years of social studies; and at least two years of a foreign language. To give families and schools time to prepare, the core curriculum should apply to students in the graduating class of 2011.

That's all very nice Mr. Taft but do you know that we have a hard time keeping teachers as it is, especially in math and science.  You are creating more need for teachers in districts that you are still unfairly funding.  You and former Governor Voinovich are to blame for this and should be jailed until there is an equitable means to fund Ohio schools.

After that, you could do what Indiana is doing.  Instead of rendering unto Microsoft, you could take the Linux route in placing computers in clasrooms.  For what high schoolers learn on computers, whether it be word processing, use of a spreadsheet or a web browser to web design and development, the rudimentary principles (and sometimes the apps are the same -- e.g., Firefox) are similar enough to translate.  In some applications, such as programming, Linux is superior because of the number or programming language options available at little to no cost.

  If Indiana can do it, we can. 

How bad is it to steal Jobu's rum?

  


isss very bad...

Hundreds of Britons expected to fuck themselves...

What more can I say..Read the story here

Malls and Development

An article on Ohio.com , talks briefly about the rise and fall of Rolling Acres Mall and how it isn't unique to Akron.  One only has to look up Route 8 to see that Rolling Acres's bigger sibling Randall Park Mall has had problems since its' salad days in the late 1970's and 1980's when both were the new kids on the block ( Rolling Acres opened in 1975 and Randall opened in 1976. )

Why are malls like Rolling Acres and Randall Park beleaguered when smaller malls that predated them like Richmond, Chapel Hill and Summit Malls have survived? What can we learn from their fates?

Giffels asks:

One of the great themes of our age is the upward spiral of consumer
culture. The question underlying that theme is how far it can be built
up before it can no longer sustain itself.
The local answer: Rolling Acres.

Also,

Every so often we have to stop and wonder: how much is enough? How
is it possible that all of these businesses can survive while feeding
on the same host? And what does it say about us that we seem to need
this many places to spend money?

This is one of those times to wonder.

If there is a time to really think about development of retail in our region, it's now.  I think that our failures (and, yes people, Rolling Acres is a failure) have more to teach us than the successes because who is to say that Montrose won't be the next generation's failure? 

Someone long ago probably stood at a then-makeout point for Kenmore teens on the Akron/Barberton border and thought that it would make a great spot for a mall...thirty-one years later, we see how that turned out.

Why I am glad that I don't believe in the death penalty

As some of you might know, I got selected for jury duty the week after Memorial Day. Instead of some shoplifter in a dollar store or something equally benign, I am considered for a capital murder trial. Not just a regular murder trial, a capital "this person could die" trial.

Not just any trial. This trial.

There are a couple of reasons why I am glad I wasn't on the jury:

1. I don't believe in the death penalty.

Why not? I believe that, quite frankly, too many states fuck it up. What else can you call it when innocent people die? It's bad enough that the victim dies innocently. Adding to that by killing the wrong person in retaliation is not the smartest thing in the world. Also, there are considerable racial and class rammifications in sentencing in capital cases which no one wants to look at. Also, execution of the mentally retarded (which is one of our president's hobbies as governor of Texas) is totally inexcusable.

2. I don't feel that I have the right to determine if another human should die.

With the notable self-defense exception, I don't feel that I should hold someone else's life in my hands. Sure, Clarence Fry is more fucked up than a Pinto in a NASCAR wreck but I am still not God.