Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things:

"The last captive thylacine died in the Hobart Zoo on September 7, 1936. Today in Australia, the day is now known as “Threatened Species Day.” Ten years ago it was known as “National Thylacine Day.”"

the amount of species wiped out in the 20th century makes me angry when I think about it,
which is rarely...

LBJ Night Before JFK Assassination: "Those SOB's Will Never Embarrass Me Again"

LBJ Night Before JFK Assassination: "Those SOB's Will Never Embarrass Me Again":

"Brown said that in the immediate aftermath of the convention Hunt and Johnson mapped out a strategy to kill Kennedy.

'It was a total political crime and H.L. Hunt really controlled what actually happened to John Kennedy - he and Lyndon Johnson,' said Brown."

Nikola Tesla's 'Black Magic' Touring Car: Tesla's Free Energy Pierce-Arrow | 150th Anniversary of Tesla's Birth | What powered the electric 1931 Pierc

Nikola Tesla's 'Black Magic' Touring Car: Tesla's Free Energy Pierce-Arrow | 150th Anniversary of Tesla's Birth | What powered the electric 1931 Pierce-Arrow?: "As the story goes, Tesla inserted the two metal rods and announced confidently, 'We now have power' and then proceeded to drive the car for a week, 'often at speeds of up to 90 mph.' One account says the motor developed 1,800 rpm and got fairly hot when operating, requiring a cooling fan. The 'converter' box is said to have generated enough electrical energy to also power the lights in a home."

Tesla.
death rays and free energy.
right on.

so...

left my phone at the axiom

good thing

otherwise
I'd be
making calls
I have no business
making...

as it is blogging
to avoid
e-mails
I shouldn't send

coming home
instead of going to notsuoh
to avoid saying things
I shouldn't say...

this was not
the night
I had planned.

it never is.

I take this as evidence
that plans are bad
not that mine are faulty...

best laid
aft gang agley
all that.

g'night.

Spacetaker.org | Culture when you want it.

Spacetaker.org | Culture when you want it.:

"Yes, we love Speeding Motorcycle too but it can't go on forever! So come on down to Axiom this Saturday, Sept. 2nd and say goodbye to happiest sad show in Houston theater history. The play is sold out but afterwards (round 9:30pm) we'll reopen the doors to the public and you can see the Speeding Motorcycle band rock out with some good old Daniel Johnston tunes. Stick around to catch the inspiration of it all playing with his new band, Danny and the Nightmares!

It's fun! It's free! And there's beer! Yay!"

C'mon by for the celebration!

hey liittle girl...

would you like to buy some candy?

listening to the oldies station
on satellite radio
makes me a little freaked
out
about how many songs from
the 50's are about dead teenagers
or inappropriate relationships
with young girls...
what is the world coming to?

Daily Kos: The difference between Progressives and Liberals

Daily Kos: The difference between Progressives and Liberals:
"While liberalism emerged in the Northeast and among the more enlightened industrialists (who believed they were building a better world), a second political movement emerged in the Midwest. There were a number of individuals involved in the birth of the Progressive movement, but I will attempt to explain through the activities of John Dewey and Jane Addams because I know them best and it is easiest for me. Dewey was also a Pragmatist but his perspective was a little different from the one that developed in New England (even though he was originally from Vermont). Dewey developed an approach that has been called Instrumental Pragmatism. He concentrated on the actual problem solving and the way humans lives could be improved by improving their problem solving. The idea that Dewey believed human lives could be improved as a whole, and not just problem to problem, is critical. Dewey also believed that there was no line to be drawn between the philosophical, the political, and education. "

Recently had someone tell me we needed to reclaim the word liberal...
didn't like it when I called myself a progressive.

Copyfight: the politics of IP

Copyfight: the politics of IP: "According to a December 2005 entry in the blog Alas, there are translators and publishers who would love to re-do the translation and, presumably, correct these and other errors. However, the current publisher (Knopf) has the exclusive English-language rights locked up until the book goes into the public domain - in 2056. They are also supposedly refusing both to do an updated transation themselves, and to allow anyone else to publish one."

Once again intellectual property rights protects the actual "property" itself.
This is pretty disgusting.

Blood on the tracks - The Boston Globe

Blood on the tracks - The Boston Globe:

"Greene and his colleagues described the finding as a partial victory for David Hume, the British philosopher who wrote that reason was a ``slave to the emotions.' But more precisely, they described moral decision-making as a process in which reason and emotion duke it out within the mind. The finding, they added, was also a blow to older theories of human development, which held that as we become adults, we stop making moral decisions with our emotions, as children do."

All you people who do mean things because they are rational. Well, yr just mean.

aynart.com --- kid ornery presents the adding machine

Ayn's got her page up from "the adding machine"!!!

aynart.com --- kid ornery presents the adding machine

go check out all the great pics!!

dialogue - influences obvious

A: Suspicion?

B: No.
Confirmation.

A: Type?

B: Visual.
Saw them.

A: Saw them what.

B: Together.
Saw them together.

A: You?

B: No.
Ben.

A: Motive?

B: Motive?

A: Ben's? Motive for seeing? telling? describing?

B: Truth?

A: Truth. Truth's no motive.

B: Motive?

A: Motive?

B: Yours. Yours in questioning - implying his.

A: Questioning yes.
Implying no.
Must alway question.

B: Thus, questioning yours -
Motive?



Study questions:


1. There are at least 4 (possibly 5) people in this story.
Who is the most fucked?
The least?

2. Is there always a motive for speech? always a motive for action?
when are these motive suspect? and when are they not?

3. Do you trust the advice of others in regards to decisions most dear?
if so, do you examine their motives? their reasons for you to live your life
a certain way?

4. Do you think Ben really saw what he says he saw?
if not why not?
what possible motives could he have for relaying what he did or did not see to B?

5. What motive could A have for impugning Ben's integrity? for making B wonder if Ben had an ulterior motive?

6. There are no wrong answers, which makes it unlikely that there are any right answers...
which pretty much mean we're fucked...
this isn't really a question is it?
well, comes to terms with this idea, in language - that sounds like you couuld get an essay out of it...
so there.
:P

Kid Ornery

what are you gonna do when the ax falls?

today
work
then
speeding motorcycle
made my worst screw up yet
(yes, worse than falling off the stage)
walked out with my horn,
when I should have been empty handed...
("startling facts" for those what know the show...)
got through it

then the last misfires gig (till the next one)
and then rudz
and then notsuoh

lots of whiskey

and tomorrow (or is that today?)
Stanford Meisner studies
no TDU (bass player burgled again)
and hopefully early to bed...

best thing to come from tonight
is maybe a new addition
to the playtime sessions...

we'll see.

M

light blogging

working in candy store
searching for bike tubes
and fighting off the lizard men
seem to be taking
all my time

sorry

had a long post
about alienation
tribes
music
branding
isolation
entertainment
and aging...

but it got lost
somewhere
between
the blow-pops
and the tootsie rolls.

tonight

#'s

I am neither the oldest
nor the squarest
person in the room.

At first lots of folks
I recognize
but nobody I know...

one girl -
blonde bob,
long legs,
short skirt,
dancing early
nobody else
on the floor
I wouldn't say
all eyes on her,
but a certain number
for sure.
anyway,
once the floor begins to fill
she goes and sits down -
in one of the only permanent spots
of light in the whole club.
Once the club really
got crowded -
she disappeared completely.

Later - a brunette
"did you just direct a play?
have a fundraiser at your house?
I was there.
I'm a friend of Julie's.
Loved the show."
chat for a bit -
pleasant enough.

Then run into
Jim TDU
and his friend -
big surprise

in the meantime
danced to
or at least heard -
New Order
T. Rex
Devo
Joy Division
Le Tigre
James Brown
David Bowie
Siouxsie and the Banshees
LCD Soundsystem
E.L.O.
The Smiths
The Cure
Depeche Mode
Prince
and more...

dancing
is a celebration -
helps a lot
more than whiskey
although
whiskey helps too

bike ride there
and back
both great.

gonna have to sleep
eventually
i guess

Full Contact Concert

Full Contact Concert:

"Two performers are equipped with microphones. One microphone, connected to a stethoscope underneath the scapula of the performer’s back, records the repercussion of the beats hitting his chest. The other microphone, glued to the performer’s chin, records his breath."

Finally, an instrument I don't want...

The Washington Monthly

The Washington Monthly:

"Sometimes, you see, even the most outlandish conspiracy theories turn out to be true."

I'm on a couple of conspiracy theory mailing lists...
and often the media lags it about 4-6 months.
Many of the stories I read on the list contain
the germs of real news - facts being uncovered -
even if they aren't being put together in
completely conventional ways...

listen to the man in the tin-foil hat!

meanwhile...the skies turn red

birds just falling out of trees
two in our yard
one down the street
tom calls the city
they say
"we need to test their brains
but they need to be fresh
so get one as soon as they fall
out of the tree and put it
in a ziplock in the freezer
and call us back."
and we'll just hope
whatever made them
fall out of the tree
isn't something you can
catch from picking them
up and putting them
in a ziplock bag in your freezer.
pretty sure I don't want
mysterious dead bird
next to my frozen pizzas...
maybe in a styrofoam cooler,
on the porch.

Daily Kos: The Right Not to Pray In School

Daily Kos: The Right Not to Pray In School:
"But how far does the right not to pray go, and what does it require? Is the onus upon the students choosing not to participate? If the voluntary, student-led prayer is allowed, then the non-participating students have two options: stay and just don't listen, or leave the room until the prayer is finished. I know from experience that neither option is all that comfortable for the non-participating students, in part because both options make them stand out for their non-participation. And the second option almost seems like the classroom, and the even the school itself, belongs less to them than it does to the religious majority.

Should they have to leave the room or sit there and 'not listen'? The only other option would be not to allow the prayer at all, and that would likely incense the religious majority, which could mean more negative consequences for those in the religious minority, if they are identified as such and associated with the prohibition in the minds of the religious minority. You only have to look at the what happened to the Dobrich to see that.

In a way, the stories of both families are kind of a reflection of the situation faced by religious minorities (including the non-religious) right about now. Just like with the school situation, if America is a 'Christian nation,' what's the status of non-christians and non-believers? To what degree is this our country too? Or does it primarily belong to the religious majority? And does that mean that in order to keep some semblance of peace, the rest of us must 'not look' and 'not listen'? And as religion becomes more and more a part of public life, and increasingly informs policy, what does that mean for the citizenship of the non-religious and religious minorities?"

It means as a humanist parent you teach kids to why you are a humanist and what that means. You make sure they understand they have freedom of belief and action.
You explain that when people pray around you it doesn't bother you, but you don't pretend to participate. You quietly go about your business and let them pray. You can listen. Listening to a prayer and saying a prayer are two different things. When someone leads a prayer if you are praying with them it is as if you are saying those words too. Just listening to someone say a prayer is not praying. If it is appropriate to have kids singing songs about Jesus, it is certainly appropriate to teach them agnosticism, atheism, or humanism.

We had just a few Jehovah's Witnesses in our school system growing up. They never had a problem not saying the pledge, or not participating in holiday parties, at least no problem that they showed. They knew and understood what they believed,
and what they believed didn't seem any crazier to me than any other story that starts with a virgin birth and ends with a resurrection.

Anyway, what I'd have to say is that non-Christian kids just have to toughen up - there is no excuse for what happened in this case. Nobody should be thrown out of a public school activity because they won't pray. But kids who don't wanna pray or pray a different way should just do their thing knowing that living your beliefs is important.