I know this video is old-hat to the majority of my fellow netizens. But the MP3 player just shuffled up the song that the video is set to and I was moved to post this. Hopefully the one person out there who hasn’t yet seen it will, and will enjoy it as much as I do. The song, if you’ve ever wondered is “Praan” by Garry Schyman. One translation I’ve seen goes thusly:
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
If you’d like to purchase an MP3 of this magnificent tune, you can do so here: Praan.
Anyway, for whatever reason this really resonated strongly with me today, so I thought I’d pass it along.
Here in my area of the country tonight is the night we celebrate “Beggars’ Night”. For some reason they arbitrarily pick a date for trick-or-treating but they can’t even bring themselves to call it that (wouldn’t want to encourage mischief, dontcha know) nor to so much as mention Halloween. What the hell is up with that?
Apparently, since adults have co-opted Halloween and turned it into a night for drinking and for women to dress as slutty sexy witches and devils and such, the powers that be have decided that it’s not a good night for kids to be out and about, especially if it falls on a Friday, Saturday or (gasp) Sunday. So, they move the date and call it something else.
I hate that. Halloween is October 31. When I was a kid we really looked forward to it falling on a Friday or Saturday, as that meant no school the next day. It’s really a shame how many of the simple pleasures of childhood have been swept aside in the name of “safety” and “convenience”.
Fellow blogging cyclist (or is it cycling bloggist?) Ed W over at CycleDog has raised a great kid. This story proves it.
Bring a tissue.
Thanks Ed, thanks Jordan, I needed that.
The day after Barack Obama announced Joe Biden as his running mate, I found myself involved in a conversation about his choice.
The person I was chatting with could have been a co-worker, an acquaintance, or a stranger on the street, it really doesn’t matter to the story so, in the name of anonymity, you can select whichever you prefer.
Anyway, this person says to me, quite contemptuously (about Joe Biden):
“That man looks more like a Republican than he does a Democrat.”
I walked away from the conversation at this point, shaking my head and thinking:
“Jesus! And your vote counts just as much as mine does.”
Nothing like having an informed opinion. Honestly! S/he doesn’t like him because he “looks like a Republican.”
Thanks to the combined efforts of “the terrorists”, the news media, and the Bush administration, it appears that we are becoming a nation of trembling Chicken Littles frightened by our own shadows.
I just came across this AP news story by way of Boing Boing, which I will use to illustrate my point.
Basically, here’s what happened:
A Connecticut teacher thought she was alone in the school building. Two teenagers and a custodian, also thinking they were alone in the building began singing “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses over the PA system. Upon hearing the lyric
You know where you are?
You’re in the jungle baby
You’re gonna die
the teacher loses her mind, and fearing for her life, barricades herself in a room then notifies the authorities. Six troopers and three police dogs show up and the kids are handcuffed until the “investigation” reveals that there was no threat or danger.
Now honestly, I can undestand how that would startle, even frighten a person, but come on! Surely most rational people would immediately recognize it for exactly what it was; kids goofing off.
Similarly, apparently all it takes is a “suspicious package” or an errant piece of pipe to fling an entire community into mass-hysteria. Recently our local news reported that a man had found what he thought might be a pipe-bomb in his garage. As you can imagine, the response was immediate and overwhelming. With the help of all manner and sorts of high tech equipment, the bomb squad determined that the “device” didn’t contain any explosives. But even after this discovery, they (the reporters and law enforcement) continued to refer to it as a “pipe bomb”.
Uh, excuse me, but isn’t it the addition of explosives that makes it a “pipe bomb”? Without something that goes “boom”, it seems to me that all you really have is a pipe.
The sad thing is, as society becomes further indoctrinated into the culture of fear, this type of incident will become more commonplace and, I’m afraid, eventually accepted.
In my previous post I mentioned Kurt Vonnegut’s appearance on The Daily Show. Comedy Central has it available on their website. Click here to find it.
Trust me, it’s well worth your time.
And here is the list he speaks of, “Liberal Crap I Never Want to Hear Again”, a brilliant morsel of Vonnegut-style satire.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., photo dated April 8, 1992.
Doug Elbinger, Elbinger Studios.
Another of the great ones has left us. Kurt Vonnegut has been a favorite (and hero) of mine since I first saw (but didn’t really understand) the movie “Slaughterhouse-Five” on late-night television as a kid. I’ve been reading and enjoying his books for over 25 years. I had resigned myself to the fact that there would be no “new” Vonnegut books back when he retired ~10 years ago. However, seeing him recently on The Daily Show (promoting a new book!) rekindled my hopes that there might yet be one more great Vonnegut masterpiece. Sadly that hope too is now gone.
The list of Mr. Vonnegut’s titles is a long one, here in no particular order (and by no means complete):
I’ve read all but a couple of these. I suppose I need to fill in those blanks. Of course, several old favorites I don’t mind re-reading, time and again. Do us both a favor, click one of the links and buy the book from Amazon, thereby helping to feed my book/CD/DVD addiction while fueling your own.
The article I referenced before mentioned a few of the songs to be on the upcoming CD, but they didn’t mention “Home of the Brave”, which is a particular favorite of mine. I dare say that I was far from the only person at ‘The Vogue‘ in Indianapolis who had goose-bumps throughout his performance, but this song in particular really spoke to me.
Home of the Brave
Tom Morello
Fred Hampton went to heaven
On a mattress soaked in blood
At twenty-one his every word
Set fire to the neighborhood
On the bed he held her tightly
His bullet riddled wife
One hundred deadly bullets
In theory took his life
This house is haunted
With righteous souls
I saw them standing blindfolded
Against a brick wall in a row
Don’t ask me for nothing
I already gave
In the land of the free
And the home of the brave
Bobby Hutton went to heaven
Without his shirt on
He was scared and he was fearless
His eyes open on that morn
At seventeen his courage
Made those who saw think twice
One hundred deadly bullets
In theory took his life
This house is haunted
With righteous souls
I saw them standing blindfolded
Against a brick wall in a row
Don’t ask me for nothing
I already gave
In the land of the free
And the home of the brave
Huey Newton went to heaven
On a street corner in the rain
The general, the poet
The hero washed away
But his will shook the heavens
And put the ghetto’s soul on ice
One hundred deadly bullets
In theory took his life
This house is haunted
With righteous souls
I saw them standing blindfolded
Against a brick wall in a row
Don’t ask me for nothing
I already gave
In the land of the free
And the home of the brave
Here he is, via YouTube, performing it live.
I’d buy the album for this song alone, I hope it’s included. Even if it isn’t, the songs that were mentioned; “Union Song”, “Let Freedom Ring” and “Maximum Firepower” are well worth the price of admission.
Postscript:
Sadly, it looks like “Home of the Brave” won’t be on the album. Here’s the track listing from his website:
1. California’s Dark
2. One Man Revolution
3. Let Freedom Ring
4. The Road I Must Travel
5. The Garden of Gethsemane
6. House Gone Up In Flames
7. Flesh Shapes The Day
8. Battle Hymns
9. Maximum Firepower
10. Union Song
11. No One Left
12. The Dark Clouds
13. Until The End
Not a bad song in the bunch, I can’t wait for April 24th!
So, today was Thanksgiving. I was, first and foremost, thankful for such a gorgeous day; 55 degrees, basically no wind… fabulous! I went out for a nice ~1 hour ride, there were so few cars that it was almost creepy at times. As I passed the location of yesterday’s dog incident there were no dogs, but there was a deer carcass, right where the one dog had appeared from, which goes a long way toward explaining his behavior.
As I turned onto my street, on my way home, I passed a man pushing an old pickup to the side of the road. I started to stop and help push, but realized that I wouldn’t be too much help slipping around on bike cleats. As I rolled into my yard, I asked if he needed any help.
“I could use a jump, if you have a car,” he replied.
No problem, I replied, just let me run inside. I ran in, put on some regular shoes and a jacket, and grabbed my car keys. Pulling my car around to his, I asked if he was sure that was all that was wrong. He assured me that it was, that his ignition switch (or something; still pumped from my ride, I wasn’t listening too closely) had gone bad, that he’d filed something down (again; not paying close attention) and had been using a screwdriver to turn the switch. He had left it on, thus draining the battery. I mention that he’s picked a bad day for car trouble as there’s no one around (apparently almost the entire population of Xenia spends Thanksgiving elsewhere). Laughing, he agrees.
I open my hood, he hooks up the cables, then asks if I’ll get in his truck and push in the clutch, he can handle the gas and the starter from there. No problemo. He gets it running pretty quickly and all is well.
As I’m closing my hood, he’s thanking me very graciously and has fished a wad of bills out of his pocket, wanting to give me some money “for my trouble”.
“Seriously, dude; all I did was pull my car around, don’t even worry about it,” I told him.
He thanks me again, saying that I’m a “lifesaver” and that “what comes around goes around” (an awkward turn of phrase, but I knew what he meant). He goes on his way, I park my car and go back inside.
It wasn’t until quite a bit later that it occurred to me that there might be a chance the truck was stolen (I really don’t think it was). I felt a small surge of… what? Not exactly pride, but something, realizing that; faced with a strange black man and a pickup that he has to start with a screwdriver, my first instinct was to help, not to automatically assume he’d stolen it. He seemed very genuine and the color of his skin had in no way colored my perception of him.
Now, if we, as a people, can just evolve to the point where we don’t give these things a second thought, then we’ll all have something to be truly thankful for.
Ya think? Gee, I didn’t realize… apparently there’s some sort of rule against shooting your hunting companions in the face… who knew?
In all fairness, you can’t possibly expect anyone to remember all of the complicated and esoteric rules of hunting. And besides, details like have a valid license and don’t shoot people are really more like suggestions or guidelines than actual rules, aren’t they?
From MSN, here’s further proof the world has gone mad:
According to a report in the U.K.’s Daily Mail, one school in the town of Wellingborough is allowing pupils to swear at teachers, providing they only do so no more than five times in a class.
“Within each lesson the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score,” the Daily Mail quoted White as writing in a letter. “Over this number the class will be spoken to by the teacher at the end of the lesson.”
This has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve seen recently. When I was a kid, using the “f-word”, or any derivative, just once during class would earn you a quick trip to the principal’s office; where he would “speak to you”… right before he spanked your ass with a paddle! And you know what? We didn’t curse at our teachers, ever. Such a thing was incomprehensible; I can just imagine the shocked silence after a kid cursed at a teacher in more civilized times.
Welcome to the age of diminished civility, increased hostility, and lowered expectations.
You know there will be at least one little smart-ass who will save up and drop all 5 “F-bombs” right at the end of class.
Fuck yeah they will, the fucked up little fuckers.
