Dinosaur Variety Packs
January 31, 2012
Could you check the date on the package of dinosaur? It must be old.
We picked that up eons ago.
Music Association: Sam Cooke - Wonderful World "Don't know much about history... don't know much 'bout biology..."
Hierarchy of Needs
January 30, 2012
Music Association: The Beatles - All You Need Is Love
Statistics
Are Numerical Stereotypes
January
27, 2012
Statistics are those
things that are accurate about others but not about yourself.
I recall listening to Hawaiian music the day I filled out my
census forms, and it might have affected my answers. I was surprised to
find out how many Hawaiians and Fujians live in my neighborhood. No man
may be an island, but my neighborhood is all islanders.
Please
excuse me, English isn't my first language. Sarcasm is.
And that's the frame
of mind I had when I read that Americans are living alone now more than
ever.
Fortune magazine said
that "American
consumers stay single."
Oh, consumers. I thought the census was
talking about citizens, not consumers. I can't remember if I was a
consumer that day or not. The census says that the population is dense; they love talking about population density.
In Washington, DC, 48% of respondents say they're living alone.
✔ Atlanta is 45%
✔ Minneapolis is 43%
✔ Seattle is 42%
✔ San Francisco, Denver, & Cleveland are 40%
Yup, even Clevelandians want to be alone.
And that's when the Statist-o-meter goes haywire. (What's a haywire?!?) I couldn't imagine Clevelandians sitting at home alone... listening to sad songs... so I checked the language question.
Sure enough, in Washington, DC, 48% of respondents say sarcasm is their first language.
✔ Atlanta is 45%
✔ Minneapolis is 43%
✔ Seattle is 42%
✔ San Francisco, Denver, & Cleveland are 40%
Yes, even Clevelandians are sarcastic.
Music
Associations: Eric Carmen - All By Myself, Gilbert O'Sullivan - Alone
Again Naturally, Billy Rose & Dave Dreyer - Me and My Shadow, Three
Dog Night - One (Is the Loneliest Number), U2 - One
Do We Really Want To Go
There?
Somalia & The Horn of Africa
January 26, 2012
Seal Team Six just rescued
two Western hostages from Somalia,
the Pirates &
Hostages Capital of the World.
The two hostages, Jessica Buchanan, U.S., and Poul Hagen Thisted,
Denmark, were humanitarian aid workers working in Galkayo, Somalia for
the Danish Refugee Council.
Somalia needs help. Somalia says it's starving for
hostages. It is currently two short.
So they're getting another team of heroes, the Justice League.
We Can Be
Heroes is the Justice
League supporting Mercy Corps, Save the Children,
and the International
Rescue Committee. By donating to We Can Be Heroes, matching
dollars are sent to these supporting agencies.
Somalia wants humanitarian aid workers?
They're going to get
humanitarian aid workers.
Music Association: Tina Turner -
We Don't Need Another Hero
Movie Review
Red
Tails 
January 24, 2012
Red Tails
is a good, action "based on true events" story of the Tuskegee Airmen
fighting in WWII.
Talking to Jon Stewart, George
Lucas said, Red Tails "was
designed to be a film during the war. It's very patriotic... very
jingoistic... old fashioned, corny... just exactly like Flying
Leathernecks, only this one was held up for release from 1942 when it
was shot [Jon laughs]
and I've been trying to get it released ever since."
The movie does what Lucas intended -- it fits a missing puzzle piece
into the WWII canon of films.
Nobody will drown in the depth of the film. It could be a metaphor for
soldiers who are trained and capable of fighting but kept from serving
in front line combat missions, like women in today's U.S. Army. But it
isn't. It could be a character study in the pressures of war beyond
war itself. But it doesn't go that far either.
My two problems with the film are:
1.
I didn't like it when one of the main flyers was killed. But
then, I'm not supposed to like it. War is hell.
2.
Cuba Gooding Jr. was
miscast as Major Stance. He and his pipe are mugging for the camera
when he should be showing strength of character, gravitas. Lawrence
Fishburne, Avery Brooks, Samuel L. Jackson, Forrest Whittaker, or
Denzel Washington might
have been better cast, despite each of them probably being too old for
the role.
But those two problems and the lack of depth didn't prevent me from
enjoying the movie.
Red Tails is a good action and war-buddy movie that will have a long
shelf life. I give it four stars and stripes out of five.
Music Association: The Air Force
Song "Off we go into the wild blue yonder..."
Rights to Life, Liberty,
& the Pursuit of Happiness
Gendercide in China, India, & (possibly)
Afghanistan
January 23, 2012
I've been reading first-hand stories of women in
Afghanistan, through the essays
and poems
of the Afghan Women's
Writing Project.
This morning, Miriam
wrote that Kabul is covered in snow -- the first snow of the
season. Her 1 ½ year old son has never seen snow. She told
him
it's sugar. She described children playing Yaakh Malak and Barf Jangy.
I've played those games too (except with other names). And she tells
about the
suicide bomber who killed many women and girls going to school
(university).
I've been reading Afghan stories, reading about Afghan
women's rights, and reading about the Afghan Women's
Network and its 2011 battle to prevent the government
takeover of women's shelters.
And I've been
reading about gender-specific infanticide in China
and India,
with hints about Afghanistan and other Asian countries. These maps
illustrate gender ratios by country.
All of this makes western news
seem very trivial.
Music Association: Roberta Flack
- Killing Me Softly
Impossible
January 20, 2012
“It
always seems impossible until it’s done.”
- Nelson
Mandela
Superheroes
exist. Their morality is their superpower -- the greatest
superpower.
Morality
could land the four
superheroes listed this week
in jail or exile. Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. each were political prisoners for a
time. His
Holiness the Dalai
Lama has lived in exile from his native Tibet.
Three of the four superheroes listed this week received Nobel Peace
Prizes: the Dalai
Lama, Nelson
Mandela, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mahatma
Gandhi was nominated five times but never received the
award.
The
greatest omission in our 106 year history is undoubtedly that Mahatma
Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace prize. Gandhi could do without
the Nobel Peace prize, whether [the] Nobel committee can do without
Gandhi is
the question.
- Geir
Lundestad, Secretary of Norwegian Nobel Committee in 2006
The
Dalai Lama, Nelson
Mandela, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. have been called children
of Gandhi and spiritual heirs to his teachings
of non-violence. Albert Einstein described
Gandhi's work:
Mahatma
Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has
invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an
oppressed country, and practiced it with greatest energy and devotion.
The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of
the entire civilized world will probably be much more lasting than it
seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces.
Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and
strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and
educational works. We
may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an
enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come.
Music Association: Santana -
Mandela
Music
Association: Travis Tritt - Tougher Than The Rest
Imagine
January 19, 2012
"Be the
change you wish to see in the world."
- M. K.
Gandhi
Music Associations: John Lennon
- Imagine & Give Peace A Chance
SOPA Protest
January 18, 2012
Democracy is fragile.
Its system of
checks and balances can be torn apart by hatred,
war, and even fear of lost revenue.
Copyright law is
good, but imperfect. SOPA is not the answer.
What Is Life
January 17, 2012
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity,
answered, "Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he
sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious
about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being
that he does not live in the the present or the future; he lives as if
he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."
Music Association: George
Harrison - What Is Life
Turning Point
January 16, 2012
I
have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the
true
meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that
all men
are created equal."
Music Association: Nu Shooz -
Baby, I Can't Wait
