Hatred...

Crazy should not be allowed to breed.  I am honestly sorry about this, and I know it seems harsh, but...no.

"The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child," said Brett Curtis, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.  "I don't want our schools turned over to some socialist movement." (Some Parents Oppose Obama's Speech to Students)

Brett, why do you think President Obama is a socialist?  And...

Why do you think that he would want your three children for his socialist programs?  With a parent like you, think of all the indoctrination that would have to happen...

With good left parents in New York and New England, there are millions of children primed and ready to carry for the mandates of Obamism; which seems to consist of studying hard, working well with others, and attempting to excel.

If you don't want that for your children, Brett, fine, but don't ruin it for the rest of us with your tinfoil hat behavior and your crazy words.

(Nice Dream)

If you think that you're strong enough
If you think you belong enough
If you think that you're strong enough
If you think you belong enough

It's Almost 6...

On a Saturday Morning, and I am awake. 

I sit here, with my dog still sleeping beside me, and I am thinking of friends.

People who have challenges in their lives...

People who have opportunities...

And those who have great things coming...

I wish you all luck, peace, joy and happiness.

Brilliant

Sandor movie from Sandor S on Vimeo.

In addition to having the best palette of anyone I know, SandorS is also a heck of an actor.

When I am going to be able to see Tragic Donut though?

Last Birthday Reference for the Day

She lives in this house over there
Has her world outside it
Scrapples in the earth with her fingers and her mouth
She's five years old

Thread worms on a string
Keeps spiders in her pocket
Collects fly wings in a jar
Scrubs horse flies
And pinches them on a line
Ohhh...

She has one friend, he lives next door
They're listenening to the weather
He knows how many freckles she's got
She scratches his beard

She's painting huge books
And glues them together
They saw a big raven
It glided down the sky
She touched it
Ohh...

Today is a birthday
They're smoking cigars
He's got a chain of flowers
And sows a bird in her knickers
Ohhh...

They're smoking cigars
They lie in the bathtub
A chain of ... flowers

Tonight's reading material (Zombie Obsession)

My plan for the evening consisted of a wilted paper cup full of
bourbon and rereading an oldish Gibson novel, however, I now have
something new to read.

Thank you, P.!

Defending SUNY?

Calling a press conference downtown to promote the idea that 64 SUNYs
is a good idea?

Classic.

I was only physically able to listen for about ten minutes before
becoming so angry at the shameless self promotion.

A Birthday Gift from the Post

Imagine my glee when I saw this while going for a walk this morning.
I am not generally one to purchase the NY Post however...more news
from Prof. No. 9's three diamond "student" is the best birthday gift
ever!

Thank you, Rupert! I will think of you kindly from now on.

And some days...

Just swinging can be the most wonderful pleasure...

Happy Birthday to Me

Happy Birthday to me

As of today, I am thirty five years old.

When I was a child, thirty five seemed astoundingly old while now, it doesn't seem like I have grown up at all. Which, I suppose, is a little bit on an issue for me, at least in terms of development and things like that...maybe I am the overgrown child that I often claim to be.

If I am lucky, I will live another thirty five years, and I like that. The concept of dying on the day of my birth creates a certain symmetry in my mind that I do fine enjoyable.

If I die at 70, TEA will be 42 years old. A man. Hopefully established. Future TEA will be seven years olds than I am today while writing this and while he will miss his dad, he won't need me any more. That is the way it should be.

We play a role in our childrens' lives and do the best we can, and then we should leave, allowing them to find their full roles, and fulfill their great expectations.

If TEA breeds around the same time I did, my grandchildren will be old enough to have memories of me, but they will also have reached the point where Grandpa is no longer their favorite person on the planet, and I can move along from that point as well with my head held high. The old should make way for the new.

Happy birthday to me, and I look forward to the next thirty five years.

Zombies (both the viewing and the brain eating type)

Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead has been added to Hulu.

I do not know if this is a good or a bad thing.

Joseph O'Neill at the Albany Writers' Institute

September 29 (Tuesday)
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center
Reading — 8:00 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center

Joseph O'Neill, born in Ireland and raised in Holland, is the winner of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Netherland, a novel about a multiracial group of immigrant cricket players living in New York City. New Yorker critic James Wood called it "one of the most remarkable postcolonial books I have ever read." Last spring, President Obama chose Netherland as his first book for pleasure reading since assuming the presidency.

Visiting Writers Series

Facebook Event Page

Amazon Link to Netherland

via All Over Albany

For those who have recently bred, are about to breed, or who are considering spawning

If Your Kid Eats This Book, Everything Will Still Be Okay: How to Know if Your Child's Injury or Illness Is Really an Emergency

Apart from a terrific title, the book has plenty going for it. Basically, Even if Your Kid Eats This Book is a detailed guide to everything you don't have to worry about. It has an orifice-by-orifice guide to detecting and removing Lego! A list of things under the sink that won't poison your kid! Sensible advice about how to get rid of dry skin! (Hot bath, then anything greasy from Crisco to Vaseline, then time).

Via Boing Boing

An Advocacy Advertisement That I Actually Like

Equality Maine via Manhattan Young Dems

I do kind of want this t-shirt

MYD will set aside any profit off of these shirts to be used AGAINST Pedro Espada Jr.'s 2010 campaign, if such a thing actually materializes. If for some reason that doesn't happen, we will donate it to his legal defense fund. (OK, That was a lie)(We'll donate it to another Democratic cause here in NYC)

Don't Vote for Pedro

Five Things

Five Things That I Should Be Embarrassed By But...I Am Not

1. More often than not, I will find myself in the morning snuggling with a pillow.
2. I sing (loudly and off key) in the shower.  Mostly Radiohead, the Smiths, and Sinead.
3. I have an iTunes playlist called "Happy" that is full of songs that make me feel sad.  This is named such in case anyone looks at my playlists and is not shocked by seeing something called "Old Sad Bastard Music".
4. I do not believe in any Creator but on occassion, I will pray for the health and well being of loved ones and their loved ones.  I feel hypocritical doing this, but, if there is a chance that I am wrong, come on, G*d, you got an atheist/Bright to acknowledge Your existence and ask Your Intervention.
5. I have a very specific order to how I check the various places on the internet when I wake up, and I have set up my iPhone to mimic it if I am awake yet I do not want to get out of bed.  When I am in a place that has little to no connectivity, I have a small panic reaction and I am irratable.
   

Reflection

The Corning Tower

I'll Do Anything to Get An "A", Professor.

Spitzer to become professor at City College

The college said he’s teaching a three-hour law and public policy class once a week in the political-science department...Spitzer said the class will focus on government, economics and philosophy.

You'd think that he would want to avoid something like this, wouldn't you?

The jokes alone would be enough to make someone who has the least bit of self awareness quake with fear and doubt...but not Gov. Good-c**k.

Aside from hubris, what was Spitzer's overruling political philosophy as both AG and Governor?

I ask that question with all seriousness.

Good luck to the students of Professor No. 9.

And some mornings...

The only thing that can make me laugh is Viking Kittens.

Interesting Links

From The Awl:  Pouring on the "Fat", a disgusting new NYC Health Dept. advertisement about the dangers of drinking soda.

From Deadspin: Drunken Rugby Antics, Welsh girls drink.  Welsh girls roll two ton lawn roller onto another girl's tent.  Insert flat chested joke here.

From Gawker: South Carolina Board of Education Member Resigns for... (wait for it) writing softcore.  South Carolina has more weird stuff going on lately than Vegas does.

Media Blackout

I realized something wonderful today.

It has been a year since I last saw a commercial for either deodorant of shaving cream.

Nor have a seen a commercial for weight loss programs or acne medication.

I have (in a bar with golf on) been exposed to erectile dysfunction medication as well as hair replacement therapy (talk about targeted advertising) which I am okay with because those commercials are incredibly creepy in a way that I can laugh about.

Akin to the idea of a school teacher from Baltimore as a new White House Correspondent...so absurd as to be straining credulity.

Sorry, back to the point...

Aside from being reminded that I cannot maintain an erection and that I am bald (which, come on, I know these things), I have not been reminded about how I stink, how my shave isn't close enough for "her", how fat I am, nor how awful my skin is.

I like the idea of not having a television.  This makes me feel better about myself.

A Tale of Two States

September 1st is often one of the days that new law and regulations go into effect.

For Vermont, it is a very happy day.  Same Sex Marriage is now legal.

In New York, the big news is that DMV fees are going up.  Way up.  A 25% increase with new rules about license plates that were put into effect as a simple way to raise revenue.

Part of me is tempted to just go back to bed.

I Wish For Things That Sadly Have Come True

(Another version, live and acoustic from VH1.com)

you wouldn't let me near you
so I settled for the fear that you'd be
happy with me six feet in the ground

No. I will not become a fan of this.

Things I am a bigger fan of than Coors...

1. Cholera
2. Genocide
3. Lady GaGa
4. The first three Star Wars films
5. The Twilight Books
6. Scabies
7. RPI Hockey
8. Jean Claude Van Damme Films.
9. Truck Nutz
10. Land Wars in Asia

Feel free to add your own.

Questionable Content

Faye is about to make a choice. (If you are not reading QC, start at the beginning and just start reading.  Take a break at three a.m. and when you speak of me, speak well.)

If Faye makes the realistic choice, I am going to feel bad about the choices that a comic strip character is making. 

I have far too much time on my hands.

American Royalty

Glenn Greenwald at Salon writes about the Jenna Bush hire by the Today Show (which I snarked about yesterday) and says this...

They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it.  They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it's really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment.  They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency.  Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from.  There's a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.

I wish I could have said it better...but...well said.

(via Boing Boing)

Of Course They Are Depressed

Schenectady High is starting an opt in program for ninth graders so they can be screened for depression. (Times Union via AOA) I find this to be a great public relations move but nothing more than a start...not even a good start.

Of course ninth graders at Schenectady High are depressed.  The combination of economic pressures (parents out of work, general tension at home, and a decrease in the general quality of life) plus all the awful crap that everyone goes through when they are 14 and 15 has to be depressing.

Can you remember what it was like to be 15?  How did you feel?  For me, being reasonably cute, and passably athletic at a small school made my life a little bit easier, but...I still hated my life to a great deal.  All of my friends has similar experiences.  It goes with the territory.

So..

You have all these hormone addled young teenagers put together in an overcrowded school and then you add the specter of gang violence and guess what...so of these children are going to choose the sweet release of death to the living hell that is high school (and high school is hellish under the best of circumstances, but a high school that would be too incredulous for a very special episode of 21 Jump Street would be a very special kind of hell). 

But...screening isn't going to help if they don't remove the gangs from the school.  Bullying is being addressed in Health Class, but...not enough.

If you create a stable environment where people have jobs, they are not going to seek out the false family of a gang...

But...screening...

It's a start.

It's not nearly enough, but it is a start.

Etched into my Mind and Body

My new ink as referenced in the post Sanity.

Such Great Heights

Who says that journalism is dying and there are not standards left...

I mean...

If the Today Show (the number one morning show in terms of viewership) is the gold standard, their hiring of Jenna Bush is a sign of quality.

Sanity

From Post Secret

I tell everyone who asks what my tattoos indicated (especially the two new ones) because they keep me sane as well.  They remind me that the most important most important person in my life has permanently marked my soul and my life.

Dead Snow

I feel compelled to watch this again, after watching Drag Me to Hell yesterday.

A Contest

The Spectrum is offering a contest.

OK, so we got another contest for you! One of the themes in 9 is carrying on the spark of humanity in a post-apocalyptic future. Tell us what you think is the most important part of our world that should be carried on as our legacy and why. We will choose the one we like best and award the winner a pair of passes and a 9 movie poster! You can email submissions to info@spectrum8.com with 9 as the subject. Good luck!

If something were to survive humanity, what would I want it to be?

What best represents us as a species?  Art?  Would a piece of music that means something to me mean as much to the next big thing on this planet?  What about a book?  Something transcendental to me (Shakespeare for instance), would that translate to some creature that may not understand the pathos of love, loss, and dying?

So, what would I want to leave to posterity?

What best exemplifies the best of humanity and what we had to offer?

After thinking about this...

I leave these words...

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.