The now-notorious video of the Obama Youth Choir singing paeons to their new hopeychangey overlord has caused quite a stir. The scene hadn’t even shifted to the Kool-aid drinking parents waving their hands in epiphaniste euphoria before the name “Dear Leader” sprang to mind. My days in Korea were filled with propaganda like this, shown by the South Koreans to underscore the brainwashing their northern brethren were condemned to endure.
Others pulled out the Hitler Youth clip from Carousel, a truly creepy scene. Indeed, “creepy” was the word of the day as the video went viral. “Children of the Corn,” “Village of the Damned,” “Pod People,” you name it. Even the non-insane Left was creeped out by the vapid acolytes worshiping in song and cypto-Hula.
The Messianic iconography already applied to His Celestial Barackness has been disturbing enough – halos, the Guevara-esque CHANGE posters, the white-clad Venus de Chicago emerging from the waters accompanied by doves – but bringing children into the mix may be the moment the Obama Movement officially nuked the fridge.
Naturally, I want to encourage this disgusting behavior, so even the most dedicated anti-McCain/Palin type (of every party) will get the point that this is not just an election for some people, but an actual MOVEMENT designed to heal the planet and cast the evildoers (e.g. people not drinking the Obama-ade) into outer darkness, where there will be no more gnashing of teeth thanks to the resurrected (get it?) Fairness Doctrine.
Whether or not Barack believes his own PR, he does little to dissuade it. He’s happy to exploit the gullible rubes, the lost and adrift looking for something to believe in, and give them B.O. as the Way, the Truth, and the Light.
Just in case sanity and self-preservation does NOT prevail next month, I guess it’s never too early to capitalize on the coming revamp of the hymnals, starting (naturally) with the kids’ sunday school songbooks.
I have a modest example here.
He’s got the whole Party … in his hands
He’s got the Democratic Party … in his hands
He’s got the only sanctioned Party … in his hands
He’s got the whole world in his hands
He’s got the TV networks … in his hands
He’s got the cable news networks … in his hands
He’s got the history networks … in his hands
He’s got the whole world in his hands
He’s got the little bitty babies … in his hands
He’s got the terminated cell clumps … in his hands
He’s got the eugenics program … in his hands
He’s got the whole world in his hands
He’s got the Euroweenies … in his hands
He’s got the Asian commies … in his hands
He’s got the African tyrants … in his hands
He’s got the whole world in his hands
he’s got the hearts of many … in his hands
He’s got the minds of many … in his hands
He’s got the balls of everyone … in his hands
He’s got our jewels in his hands
Submissions welcome. I for one welcome our new Obama overlords…
You know, that Rev. Wright makes some compelling points. And my grandmother – who is one-eighth black – always encouraged me to take my heritage more seriously. I’ve passed for white for so long, though, that I may be stuck with it. Which stinks, because that’s one group that seems to be on its way out in the 21st century (less like the Dodo and bearded arizona lake lobster, more like “auf Wiedersehen” on Project Runway.)
But I need help. Knowing what white people like doesn’t come naturally to me. (Like Project Runway.)
Fortunately, I’ve found a site that provides helpful insight into that most curious demographic, with handy tips on how to establish rapport with white people under a variety of circumstances.
The Jane Goodall of Pallid America goes beyond the obvious quirks – mayonnaise, DIE HARD movies – into the truly useful. For example:
Obviously, whites want black friends so as not to appear racist (see earlier Obama post). However, if we dig deeper what we notice about white people is not if they have black friends but in fact, how many black friends they have. White people like numbers. They like to count things like stars in the sky and the death toll at Mt. Everest and the number of times they’ve seen Tori Amos and/or Phish in concert. Counting the number of black friends is then clearly a divine imperative. (“#14 Having Black Friends“)
That would explain why The Count always flummoxed me on Sesame Street. I’ve always wondered…
My next sock-rattling epiphany came when I read entry #40, on Apple Products:
When you ask white people about Mac’s they will say “oh, it’s so much better than Windows,” “it’s just easier to use,” “they are so cutting edge,” and so forth. What’s amazing is that white people NEED to meet people who use Windows to justify themselves spending an extra $500 for a pretty looking machine. [...]
Apple products also come with stickers. Some people put them on their computer, some people put them on windows, but to take it to the pinnacle of whiteness, you need to put the Apple sticker in the rear window of your Prius, Jetta, BMW, Subaru 4WD Station Wagon or Audi. You then need to drive to a local coffee shop (Starbucks will do in a pinch) and set up your apple for the world to see. Thankfully, the Apple logo on the back will light up! So even in a dark place, people can see how unique and creative you (and the five other people doing the exact same thing) truly are!
Suddenly, my six years in Seattle make sense.
Before you let white people confuse and offend you, it may be worth a visit to this helpful site. Their actions may not be intentional; it may simply be part of their culture. And a rich and varied culture it is…if a bit shallow. The comments on each entry range from helpful to angry. Some believe this must be a joke, but … after just one day of applying what I’ve learned, I’ve become much more welcome in my white circles.
I don’t think I’m the cell phone industry’s favorite client. I tend to hold onto my phones for years, until they’re so old the tech guys ask to have them carbon dated.
I’d bought my last new phone a couple years ago, on my first (and only) Black Friday shopping experience. I was long past my two year contract, and my phone – a workhorse Sanyo – was finally too abused to trust as a traveling phone. I gave into the hype, braved the round-the-block crowds, and picked up a Samsung “home entertainment center” phone that did all sorts of things the Sanyo had not, including an accelerometer-enabled “beat box” (shake it and you’d get the wooga-wooga scratch-scratch that is all the rage with the kids these days). First time I broke out the beat box, my brother said, “you remember that time, just before you started doing that? Good times…”
It was my first foray into the concept of phone-as-fun. It had faster Internet, streaming video, better graphics, a camera/camcorder with optical zoom, a downloadable music store and stereo playback, an alarm scheduler that worked better for me than any Franklin Planner…it actually had some coolness to it. And no extensible antenna.
It held up pretty darn well. Not even the iPhone tempted me away. But time passes, and eventually the contract expired and I was free to consider other phones. My wife’s phone, a bottom-feeder LG-225, had been replaced no fewer than four times; my phone had been through the wringer with little more than a slightly cracked screen.
We’ve been discussing our options for months. Smart phone? Media phone? Sprint? Helio? Verizon? iPhone? We trolled the phone stores at every opportunity, giving the phones a test drive. I tried an LG Musiq for a few weeks; well regarded by Consumer Reports, it had some nice features, including real-time traffic and navigation in a package thinner and blacker and cooler than any phone I’d ever tried. When you touched the outside controls, they buzzed. Ooh.
But in the end, I went with a sort of convergence device. I own a Palm T|X PDA, and my best chance to lighten my pockets was to pick something that could run those Palm apps I’d come to rely on.
We ended up going with a pair of the Palm Centro – black for me, pink (champagne blush) for her. It’s a smaller cousin to the Palm Treo 755p, with really tiny keys – but it’s surprisingly easy to type on. Its Internet is fast enough; Google Maps looks terrific on it; I can finally maintain my calendar on my phone through Outlook; it’s got SuDoku; and because my wife and I have matching phones, we can synchronize our calendars with little effort. I can run my favorite apps, including Documents to Go for creating Excel spreadsheets and Word documents.
The phone isn’t perfect. The screen, while larger than my other phones, is much smaller than the Palm T|X. The keyboard takes some getting used to. For some reason, incoming calls still read “Unknown caller” even after I’ve added it to my contacts list with a name. I’m not a big fan of the Palm Hotsync method, which takes longer than Windows Mobile’s activesync. I can crash the thing at will, but cannot will it to NOT crash, which happens far too often. And uninstalling apps can be a nightmare.
But all things considered it’s been a good choice, and I think I can live with it for at least two years.
There are certain politicians that just get my engines running, and not in a good way.
There have been times when I fed off that knee-jerk outrage, and other times when I just wanted to escape to more soothing topics.
The previous post, about Harry Reid, just pushed me over the edge. Time to find my “oooommmmm” side again.
I’m sweating up a storm, packing up my office for a move this weekend (Bigger cubicle! Massive decluttering! Labsourcing half my equipment! I’ll have room for a cot again!) My iPod is set to Baroque (random). I’msteeringclear of some of myfavoritesites for a few days and curling up with book or three and some seriously cheesy television. Maybe check in with some good friends.
My wife recently enrolled in an Italian class, in part to underscore her intent to vacation in Tuscany. (mmmmm, Italian cuisine….) She picks up languages quickly, having dabbled in several (Irish, Russian). She’s not wildly interested in Spanish, partly because of the efforts of so many in our area to force the language upon us.
Me, I don’t mind Spanish, though I’ve only danced around the edges of it. I’ve never taken a class, though I watch a ton of Super Sabado Gigante and El Gordo y la flaca…for the language training, of course. *ahem* I’ve looked at any number of offerings on Audible.com and elsewhere, but the more interesting courses are also the more expensive. I like Rosetta Stone in particular, but its price tag is close to tuition on one (or more) college courses. Some online sites offer some instruction for free, but their quality varies.
Enter LiveMocha, which was unveiled this week. For a detailed introduction to the site and its mission, see its blog, here.
LiveMocha reminds me most of Rosetta Stone, though this is not as immersive as Rosetta’s 3.0 offering (CD and online) that hears and grades your spoken language. Another limitation is that it tends to give you four static images at a time, so the process of elimination during the exercises is easier (Rosetta Stone mixes up the images and their locations for every question).
These two limitations aside, LiveMocha is a breeze to use. It offers the equivalent of 160 hours of instruction (in college terms, 101, 102, 201, and 202 courses) for languages they deem important in the 21st century, including Spanish, English, Hindi, and Mandarin – each of which has at least 1 billion speakers. Those are the four dominant languages in my workplace. French and German are also offered, for those who do a lot of business in the EU. As part of your profile you can specify which languages you (1) speak and are (2) learning, and those lists cover dozens of languages; this lets you search for and connect with people who can or want to converse in more than just the six languages offered. Even so, I hope they eventually increase the offered courses to languages such as Korean and Japanese, Latin and Italian.
The lessons do build on one another, using and extending vocabulary. I take notes in an open Notepad window as I go. I suppose you could cheat, but if the idea is to lear, why would you?
Each course consists of one or more units, which in turn is composed of one or more lessons. Each lesson has four sections: learning, where you’re given 40 words, phrases, and/or sentences.
The Live part of LiveMocha is its social networking, and this is where I see great potential in its “21st century, Web 2.0″ approach. You don’t just enroll in a language; you can’t help but see who ELSE is enrolled. You can see how well they’re doing in your course. If you’re competitive, the Leader Board keeps you motivated not just to finish the lessons, but to do as well as possible. (“What? He’s three points ahead of me? Gaaa! Wait until Unit 8, darn ya!”) When you’re feeling more cooperative, there are options for inviting and accepting Friends who are learning, teaching, or speaking any “common” language, for a natural stable of pen pals. This is particularly useful for languages like Mandarin and Hindi; for Spanish conversation, I can yell at my neighbor’s kids. (¿cómo se dice “hey you kids, get off our lawn”?)
The social networking could be a mixed bag. My first day I was inundated with mail from a “hey, sexy!” spambot, though to the site’s credit, that ended quickly and I haven’t been bugged since. I’ve accepted several friend requests from fellow travelers in Spanish 101, and from an instructor. I’m still at “¿Dondé está casa de Pepe?” stage and haven’t started chatting yet, but the site’s philosophy that language is meant to be USED is common sense, and conversing with folks at varying levels means you can butcher the lingo with fellow n00bs, get schooled by the l33t, and in turn shepherd the young minds filled with mush into the correct path of your native tongue.
The site recommends one lesson per week. Heh; Internet Time mocks such a glacial pace. I signed on 48 hours ago, and I’m 2/3 of the way through the first course. I don’t have all the content memorized, but it’s been sticking as I go along, and I’m feeling accomplished, as this song will attest:
All in all, I give LiveMocha three stars, and say Check it out.
I have more media players than I need. But not more than I want.
I blame Steve Jobs. The seductive turtlenecked bastard.
On September 5 he refreshed the entire iPod line. My first two ipod Nano devices are gone (stolen and flushed) but my high-end 2nd Generation Nano has been a bloody workhorse for over a year. There’s nothing wrong with it…except it’s no longer the Alpha Pod. Now there are video-capable Nano Fatties and the Buddha Pod (“scuze me while iTouch the sky…”), which beckon in their slutty Siren ways at The Steve’s behest.
Need? Not yet. I’ve bought too many MP3 players over the years, most of which still work…but not well enough. Intel’s 32Mb flash player. the Audible Otis. A couple of Creative players with no screen. A few “MP3 CD” devices with navigation as smooth as Iggy Pop’s face. a “Nano Killer” from Sansa that does have some nice features but just annoying enough to gather more dust than attention; I refresh it once a week, whether I need to or not.
No, for the past couple of years, my go-to devices have been my Palm PDA (for video and ebooks) and the Nano (for audio). The third Nano was the charm.
The new Nano would be a decent one-for-one replacement of my current iPod, but for video? For music videos, perhaps, but for Stargate reruns and Top Chef? Um, no. So what of the iPod Touch? Definitely replace my current iPod, and a partial replacement for the PDA, though there would be tradeoffs; I’m addicted to some PalmOS apps, for which there are at present no Apple equivalents. But given time, it could inherit the PDA mantle.
Given time. So, why not wait?
I’ve resigned myself to holding onto my current devices until they die. There is no Grand Unification device yet. I am not tempted to “accidentally” flush my Nano…yet. When Steve talks, I earphone up, like Odysseus lashed himself to the mast, for my own safety.