Bigots in the hood
Bigots came to our neighborhood the other day while we were out walking with the baby. They were in town as part of a general protest against Jews, but according to local news reports these bigots were also the proud owners of the www . godhatesfags . com (sorry god hates fagers, you’ll get no such link from us). They have enough hate for both gays and Jews, but that’s not all. They believe that 9-11 was God’s revenge on America for its sins, and that American soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are immoral for defending an immoral nation. They were sued by the father of a fallen soldier for protesting his son’s funeral. They seemed to express an odd wrap around convergence of Timothy McVeigh style terrorists with Islamic terrorist interests. McVeigh was not religious, so perhaps the god hates fagers share more with the Islamic terrorists.
The bigots seemed so incongruous with the rest of Brooklyn. NYC has its racial tensions which are mixed with issues of class, history, etc. but this seemed so arbitrary. My first thought was to try and take a tourist photo with the actual specimens — true middle American loons. The Smoked Salmon prevent this as it was not the usual form of protest. The Smoked Salmon, who is a Jew but has no sense that in some places Jews are in fact a minority, was totally confused. What was their purpose, she asked? Did they expect Jews to just up and convert because of the bigots’ hateful message? That couldn’t have been it. Why would a group of Christian try to convert anybody without Santa and the Easter Bunny? It would be like the re-deem team without Kobe and Lebron. I suppose they just wanted to show off to the other bigots, that they were the most ridiculous bigots around. Some shit is just f-ed in the ‘a.
I did snap a picture of them from a safe distance.
Robbie Maddison’s Incredible Arc Jump
Robbie Maddison jumps his motorcycle over 120 feet onto the top of the Arc de Triumphe at the Paris Las Vegas… then jumps back down. Holy shit.
Nyets!
Dude, the Atlantic Yards basketball project is back!
Some Russian bizillionaire is going to buy the Nets and help them to come to Brooklyn. The stadium is going to be right near my apartment. The deal to bring the Nets to Brooklyn has been on the table for a while, but Nets new owner Bruce Ratner ran out of money. The horrible neighbors have some group opposing the project because they don’t want traffic in the hood. But don’t they know, no one goes to Nets games. In fairness, some neighbors are going to have to move because the stadium will actually be built on top of their buildings. Their gripe is a little more credible. But with apologies to my soon-to-be former neighbors, I wanna watch pro basketball!
Calender Questions
In terms of long shot theories I admit that this one is way long even by the standards of this blog. However I have observed that in the winter it doesn’t get cold until January and December is fairly mild nowadays. When I was a kid, December was cold. Also, I’ve noted that summer seems to go on longer and start later. For instance it’s the end of September now and it’s 80 F in NYC. On the other hand, June was chilly and rainy.
I believe that there is a distinct possibility that, due to a massive oversight on the part of the astronomical community and indeed on the part of physicists as a whole, we have miscalculated the length of a solar year. I think a true solar year may be longer than the 365.25 days that we recognize thus seasons appear to start and end later. These miscalculations used to happen all the time. In ancient times, people found themselves celebrating summer holidays in the winter, and winter holidays in the summer. The ancients simply re-adjusted their calenders. I suspect we could use another adjustment.
Ella vs Moose Leg
The moose population in the lower Kuskokwim delta region has been in decline for some time. So much so that for the last five years, moose hunting was outlawed (which naturally peeved a lot of people).GOP on message, still.
The Bush Administration was famous for staying ‘on message’, and keeping the GOP on the same message. One imagined a simple top down hierarchy where Carl Rove had a catchy nugget of propaganda pop into his mind like “Kerry is a flip-flopper,” or “better to fight them there than here,” etc. Rove mentioned the sound bite to an assistant who emailed it to Condi, Dick, and a few key Republican Party big shots. They sent the message to cronies who used to terms in the media. Fox News picks up on it, and they’re off.
The impressive thing is how well Conservatives stay on message without the Bush infrastructure. Find a right winger who doesn’t worry about government panels interfering with old people’s health care, or fear what cap and trade will do to the economy. They disagree with the extreme characterizations of Obama’s plans, but do not deny there maybe a kernel of truth to calling Obama a socialist.
Naturally, Obama can’t stay on Obama’s own message. I wonder if fidelity to the message is a universal characteristic of right wingers across the globe? Right wing parties seem always to be associated with patriotism, even in countries like Holland or Israel where freedom of thought is a founding principle of the national character.
No Photoshop
A fireman investigates a fire truck stuck in a sinkhole in the Valley Village neighborhood of Los Angeles. By Nick Ut, AP
The genius of Lasse Gjertsen
Amateur, performed and edited by Lasse Gjertsen, a genius animation and video artist from Norway. “All the sounds are the actual audio from the original video tape”. Each note, chord, beat, and symbol was played individually and edited into music in the video editing stage. It’s hard to believe Lasse’s claim that he “can neither play the drums nor the piano”, but that’s almost besides the point. This is an amazing feat.
A few others from Lasse:
Giovanni Sollima – Sogno ad Occhi Aperti (Daydream) PART 1
Jeg går en Tur – A self portrait by Lasse Gjertsen
Roshambo – Lasse Gjertsen
Danny Way jumps Great Wall of China on his skateboard
Danny Way breaks skateboard history records by ollie-ing over the Great Wall of China. Skip to 3:25 if you’re in a hurry. Incidentally, Way is the same crazy son of a bitch who set the land speed record on a skateboard earlier this year.
Moondog, Bird’s Lament
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Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin) was an incredibly talented, blind New York City composer. He spent much of his career busking on the streets of midtown Manhattan in (homemade) Viking garb and his iconic horned Thor helmet. Buy Birds Lament 1, “Bird’s Lament” here.
911 call from cop Edward Sanchez overdosing on weed (MP3)
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On April 21st, 2006, off-duty police officer Edward Sanchez placed a phone call to 911 call from his home in Michigan. During this 5-minute recording, Sanchez tells an emergency dispatcher that he and his wife were fatally overdosing on marijuana.
Dog Eats Too Much Weed
This is a parody of the Above the Influence anti-marijuana ad you can watch here which also references this YouTube classic. Full audio of officer Edward Sanchez’s 911 call can be heard here.
Get Behind This:
