I don’t believe he exhausted all diplomatic processes.
And now Iowahawk informs us that the widow of the fly is looking into a lawsuit. The website gives some info…
“It was just before supper time and I was predigesting the evening @#$% for the kids,” she recalled. “When I looked up at the TV I saw Bob there, and of course I was pretty excited. He started waving at me, and then, all of a sudden, SLAP! My whole world, my life, layed smashed across the back of Obama’s left hand. And with 360 degree peripheral vision and hundreds of eye facets, it was impossible to look away.”
Note: mild language warning…. the word ‘manure‘ seems to be hard to find when there is a shorter alternative.
Viral video is a term for a video that is so enjoyed that everyone passes it on to their friends…. viewership can expand exponentially, like the ripples in a pond.
Oft times marketers will create a video and hope it will ‘go wild’ in the population. to have viewership of millions is the goal for a marketing company.
Sometimes a marketing professional might come up with a brilliant concept, one that results in an increase in consumer awareness. All of a sudden that person will be seen as a ‘guru’ of advertising. But can they ever do it again?
To come up with a good concept, carry it through to a superior finished product, and then unleash it onto the world, watching as the masses promulgate your message to the world…. this must be the secret dream of many a marketer.
A beverage company came up with a novel concept… create a fictional ‘Rap War’ between East Coast and West Coast rappers. And since drama is inherent in extremes…. they used actors/performers who seemed a bit ‘un-rap-like’ from outward appearances and locations and backgrounds.
The two videos garnered viewership in the millions. This little video documents the Rap War from its first video, to the latest released….
Government is the only force that can amass a huge army to protect the borders…
A government can also give some guidance as to legal issues and trade and commerce.
But a government usually fails miserably when it tries to conduct the actions of the people. Social Engineering is not an activity that governments tend to excel in. And the more stubborn and independent the people, the less malleable they will tend to prove. Go and tell some people what not to do…. and when your back is turned, they’ll be running off to do just what you told them not to do!
Now the government wants to encourage people to purchase vehicles that get better mileage…. so now they are offering the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program. Jon Markman has a great article on this issue.
Could it be that we are all in school, that this life is a continual succession of classes, always ratcheting upward in degree of difficulty and complexity, until we have attained the level set for us….?
Then we graduate.
You live, You learn
Alannis Morrisette
I recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Feel free
Throw it down
the caution blocks you from the wind
Hold it up
to the rays
You wait and see when the smoke clears
Wear it out
the way a three-year-old would do
Melt it down
you’re gonna have to eventually, anyway
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend
You grieve you learn, you choke you learn
You laugh you learn, you choose you learn
You pray you learn, you ask you learn
You live you learn
I guess there’s two portions to life… one is the physical manifestation itself… we breath and our blood pounds through us. But then there is the higher plane beyond mere existence…. Descartes said ‘Cogito… ergo sum”, “I think… therefore I am”. How we get along through life in the way we exist on the mental plane, our relationships with others…. the things we do to help or hinder others…. these are all parts of the portion we need to seriously work on. Automatic functions such as metabolism are easy to maintain… getting along with others… and our own mind is something that deserves study.
How do we do this? We are a species that can learn from others and avoid common mistakes merely by listening to the counsel of others… but my, how hard it is to actually accept good advice… especially when it interferes with the ego.
The fellow in this video puts forth a few good lessons in a very succinct fashion…. and in so doing, he has opened himself, widened his own mental picture, and increased his karma. What we do for others in a glad spirit, usually comes back to us as greater blessings.
Mount Calvary is a monastic retreat in Santa Barbara. The monastery buildings burned down in the ‘Tea Fire’ of November 2008. Their website has a number of ‘Before and After’ photos. They are presently looking for prayers and thoughts, they will have to look to find the proper and best solution to their predicament.
Brother Joseph Brown is a religious icon painter… and he has a gallery of the beautiful icons he has created.
“Then a great and powerful wind
tore the mountains apart
and shattered the rocks before the LORD,
but the LORD was not in the wind.
After the wind there was an earthquake,
but the LORD was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper.”
– 1 Kings 19:11-12
Yeah, ol’ Tom still keeps busy…. and when you’re doing what you love… it’s easy enough to stay occupied at it. When you can do what you love and get paid…. well now, you got yerself a little career going there.
There are some who will say that a career is any occupation you do for money.. but I say a career is the thing you do for love, and because it is an occupation you are eminently qualified for.
Sure, there’s plenty of people with a ‘good job’, but how many of them feel like they have any real control over their actions and the consequences of failure? With so many ‘jobs’, you are the hired person merely going through the motions of your training…. what chances of advancement there are might be regulated on the basis of political, familial, ethnic, or ‘friendship’ considerations.
Yes, there is a world of difference between having a ‘job’, and being engaged in a ‘career’.
Tom Petty has built a massive and long lasting career by means of his brilliance, skill and drive. The man has ‘steam’ people…. without that drive, that internal push…. you might keep your job…. but never break out into your career.
‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’
~Tom Petty~
Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told,
You never slow down, you never grow old.
I’m tired of screwin’ up, tired of going down,
Tired of myself, tired of this town.
Oh, my, my. Oh, hell, yes.
Honey, put on that party dress.
Buy me a drink, sing me a song.
Take me as I come ’cause I can’t stay long.
Last dance with Mary Jane, one more time to kill the pain.
I feel summer creepin’ in and I’m tired of this town again.
Embedding Disabled.. .
you can watch the creepy but well done video here.
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And my favorite Petty song… Refugee
This has a resonance with me… my mother’s family was exiled from Hungary in 1946…
told to leave their own country and never come back..
they grabbed a suitcase each, and fled the country before worse happened to them…
One cousin stayed, and tried to escape in the ‘Uprising’ in 1956….
he was captured and never heard from again.
But from the ashes of a war that killed scores of millions,
I wound up in the USA.
On the tears and heartbreak of the generations before….
I have been given an unanticipated opportunity,
to go from an Eastern Euro rural peasant family
to freedom and opportunity in two generations….
It is an opportunity I must not squander…
John Dicus
Grandson of Janos Kikkl of Nadap, Hungary
executed in Sarajevo
~Tom Petty~
‘Refugee’
Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have
Kicked you around some
Who knows, maybe you were kidnapped,
Tied-up, taken away, and held for ransom
Honey, it don’t really matter to me
Baby, every body’s had to fight to be free
You see, you don’t have to live like a refugee
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In the end, we are each responsible for our own actions and in-actions…
Forest Gump said ‘Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”.
Yep, so very true.
Life is also like the beach…
sometimes the weather is great,
the sun is warm and it’s fun to lay in the sun and ‘catch some rays’.
But sometimes the beach is beset by storms,
the tide will rush in and swallow the sand,
pulling it and everything on it into the foaming churning sea.
The waves will move you because no person is a match for nature…
in the froth, like a rag doll in the washer…
the storms of life will disorient you until you can’t even tell which end is up.
You must weather the storm…..
no gale lasts forever
storms come and they go,
and after they have left, the beach is littered with flotsam and jetsam,
you never know what treasures a storm might bring you.
When the storm clouds form on the horizon,
it is wise and prudent to find a cubbyhole to ride it out…
don’t fight nature…
but do be ready to gather the detritus of the storm
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‘I won’t Back Down’
~Tom Petty~
Well I won’t back down, no I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won’t back down
Gonna stand my ground, won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
Gonna stand my ground and I won’t back down
Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out
Hey I will stand my ground
And I won’t back down.
Well I know what’s right, I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground and I won’t back down
Hey baby there ain’t no easy way out
Hey I will stand my ground
And I won’t back down
No, I won’t back down
Yep, Tom’s done a good job with his career. His skill and desire and attitude is what has propelled him to the top. None of it is easy…. ya just gotta keep at it, and don’t give up.
It’s great to see a cover that turns out even better than the original.
I’m a Neil Young fan for sure… but Margo Timmins handles this better than he ever could (sorry Neil).
~Cowboy Junkies~
‘Powderfinger’
Look out, Mama, there’s a white boat coming up the river,
with a big red beacon and a flag and a man on the rail
I think you’d better call John
’cause it don’t look like they’re here to deliver the mail
And it’s less than a mile away
I hope they didn’t come to stay
It’s got numbers on the side and a gun,
and it’s making big waves
Daddy’s gone, my brother’s out hunting in the mountains
Big John’s been drinking since the river took Emmy Lou
So the powers that be left me here to do all the thinking
And I just turned twenty-two
I was wondering what to do
And the closer they got,
The more those feelings grew
Daddy’s rifle in my hand felt reassuring
He told me, ‘Red means run, Son, numbers add up to nothing’
But when that first shot hit the dock, I saw it coming
Raised the rifle to my eye
Never stopped to wonder why
Then I saw black and my face flash in the sky
Shelter me from the powder and the finger
Cover me with the thought that pulled the trigger
Just think of me as one you never figured,
to fade away so young
with so much left undone
Remember me to my love
I know I’ll miss her
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But, out of respect for Neil young, and in the realization that mankind is an amazing creature, that confronting problems and issues head-on is the best way to go about life… we have ‘Rockin in the Free World’
“Human beings,
who are almost unique in having the ability
to learn from the experience of others,
are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”
~ Douglas Adams
And in the realization that the human race is flawed…
we have ‘Needle and the Damage done’
~Neil Young~
‘Needle and the Damage Done
I sing the song because I love the man
I know that some of you don’t understand
Milk blood to keep from running out.
I’ve seen the needle and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie’s like a settin’ sun.
