If you don't read The Onion once is a while, then you probably don't like to laugh, and you likely hate dark humor...or you just don't know what you are missing. Well, its not news, but it sure is funny. This lewd story (***If reading foul language makes you feel weird, then don't click the link.) about a future mother kinda sums up how I felt when Estoria was forming in her Momma's belly, and I wasn't even the mother, duh (Read: sarcasm).
A more general story from The Onion has to do with marketing the America franchise for other nations. I know, I know, America has been trying to dominate the globe for as long as the loonies believed in manifest destiny and all that hooooopla...but this just may be the secret to fulfilling that goal! Perhaps its prophecy, and not news?
Friday, January 27, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Eye of the Beholder
Kid world, usually a bit blurry.
DJ Esty deep in thought, feelin' the beat.
"A'ight everybody, bring down the house."
These are the last pictures that were taken on my little camera before I, unknowingly, put the teeny guy through the washing machine. Dang. I hate it when that happens. It still works, though, sorta. I can review pictures on the memory stick but when I tak a picture, it looks like this:
That's Esty standing up on the couch...don't tell her Mommy. I guess the camera is ruined, unless you like plum tone on everything.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Timeless
This is part of a transcript of a speech that Martin Luther King, Jr gave on March 31, 1968 at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The whole speech, titled "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," can be read in it's entirety here. The Rude Pundit turned me on to it, and it is quite appropriate for today. The Rudeness pointed out that we should take out the word "millionaire" and put in the word "billionaire."
Here it is:
"We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. Two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry tonight. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; they are shabbily clad. I’ve seen it in Latin America; I’ve seen it in Africa; I’ve seen this poverty in Asia."
....
"Not only do we see poverty abroad, I would remind you that in our own nation there are about forty million people who are poverty-stricken. I have seen them here and there. I have seen them in the ghettos of the North; I have seen them in the rural areas of the South; I have seen them in Appalachia. I have just been in the process of touring many areas of our country and I must confess that in some situations I have literally found myself crying.
"I was in Marks, Mississippi, the other day, which is in Whitman County, the poorest county in the United States. I tell you, I saw hundreds of little black boys and black girls walking the streets with no shoes to wear. I saw their mothers and fathers trying to carry on a little Head Start program, but they had no money. The federal government hadn’t funded them, but they were trying to carry on. They raised a little money here and there; trying to get a little food to feed the children; trying to teach them a little something.
"And I saw mothers and fathers who said to me not only were they unemployed, they didn’t get any kind of income—no old-age pension, no welfare check, no anything. I said, 'How do you live?' And they say, 'Well, we go around, go around to the neighbors and ask them for a little something. When the berry season comes, we pick berries. When the rabbit season comes, we hunt and catch a few rabbits. And that’s about it.'
"And I was in Newark and Harlem just this week. And I walked into the homes of welfare mothers. I saw them in conditions—no, not with wall-to-wall carpet, but wall-to-wall rats and roaches. I stood in an apartment and this welfare mother said to me, 'The landlord will not repair this place. I’ve been here two years and he hasn’t made a single repair.' She pointed out the walls with all the ceiling falling through. She showed me the holes where the rats came in. She said night after night we have to stay awake to keep the rats and roaches from getting to the children. I said, 'How much do you pay for this apartment?' She said, 'A hundred and twenty-five dollars.' I looked, and I thought, and said to myself, 'It isn’t worth sixty dollars.' Poor people are forced to pay more for less. Living in conditions day in and day out where the whole area is constantly drained without being replenished. It becomes a kind of domestic colony. And the tragedy is, so often these forty million people are invisible because America is so affluent, so rich. Because our expressways carry us from the ghetto, we don’t see the poor.
"Jesus told a parable one day, and he reminded us that a man went to hell because he didn’t see the poor. His name was Dives. He was a rich man. And there was a man by the name of Lazarus who was a poor man, but not only was he poor, he was sick. Sores were all over his body, and he was so weak that he could hardly move. But he managed to get to the gate of Dives every day, wanting just to have the crumbs that would fall from his table. And Dives did nothing about it. And the parable ends saying, 'Dives went to hell, and there were a fixed gulf now between Lazarus and Dives.'
"There is nothing in that parable that said Dives went to hell because he was rich. Jesus never made a universal indictment against all wealth. It is true that one day a rich young ruler came to him, and he advised him to sell all, but in that instance Jesus was prescribing individual surgery and not setting forth a universal diagnosis. And if you will look at that parable with all of its symbolism, you will remember that a conversation took place between heaven and hell, and on the other end of that long-distance call between heaven and hell was Abraham in heaven talking to Dives in hell.
"Now Abraham was a very rich man. If you go back to the Old Testament, you see that he was the richest man of his day, so it was not a rich man in hell talking with a poor man in heaven; it was a little millionaire in hell talking with a multimillionaire in heaven. Dives didn’t go to hell because he was rich; Dives didn’t realize that his wealth was his opportunity. It was his opportunity to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother Lazarus. Dives went to hell because he was passed by Lazarus every day and he never really saw him. He went to hell because he allowed his brother to become invisible. Dives went to hell because he maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum. Indeed, Dives went to hell because he sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty.
"And this can happen to America, the richest nation in the world — and nothing’s wrong with that — this is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will."
Here it is:
"We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. Two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry tonight. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; they are shabbily clad. I’ve seen it in Latin America; I’ve seen it in Africa; I’ve seen this poverty in Asia."
....
"Not only do we see poverty abroad, I would remind you that in our own nation there are about forty million people who are poverty-stricken. I have seen them here and there. I have seen them in the ghettos of the North; I have seen them in the rural areas of the South; I have seen them in Appalachia. I have just been in the process of touring many areas of our country and I must confess that in some situations I have literally found myself crying.
"I was in Marks, Mississippi, the other day, which is in Whitman County, the poorest county in the United States. I tell you, I saw hundreds of little black boys and black girls walking the streets with no shoes to wear. I saw their mothers and fathers trying to carry on a little Head Start program, but they had no money. The federal government hadn’t funded them, but they were trying to carry on. They raised a little money here and there; trying to get a little food to feed the children; trying to teach them a little something.
"And I saw mothers and fathers who said to me not only were they unemployed, they didn’t get any kind of income—no old-age pension, no welfare check, no anything. I said, 'How do you live?' And they say, 'Well, we go around, go around to the neighbors and ask them for a little something. When the berry season comes, we pick berries. When the rabbit season comes, we hunt and catch a few rabbits. And that’s about it.'
"And I was in Newark and Harlem just this week. And I walked into the homes of welfare mothers. I saw them in conditions—no, not with wall-to-wall carpet, but wall-to-wall rats and roaches. I stood in an apartment and this welfare mother said to me, 'The landlord will not repair this place. I’ve been here two years and he hasn’t made a single repair.' She pointed out the walls with all the ceiling falling through. She showed me the holes where the rats came in. She said night after night we have to stay awake to keep the rats and roaches from getting to the children. I said, 'How much do you pay for this apartment?' She said, 'A hundred and twenty-five dollars.' I looked, and I thought, and said to myself, 'It isn’t worth sixty dollars.' Poor people are forced to pay more for less. Living in conditions day in and day out where the whole area is constantly drained without being replenished. It becomes a kind of domestic colony. And the tragedy is, so often these forty million people are invisible because America is so affluent, so rich. Because our expressways carry us from the ghetto, we don’t see the poor.
"Jesus told a parable one day, and he reminded us that a man went to hell because he didn’t see the poor. His name was Dives. He was a rich man. And there was a man by the name of Lazarus who was a poor man, but not only was he poor, he was sick. Sores were all over his body, and he was so weak that he could hardly move. But he managed to get to the gate of Dives every day, wanting just to have the crumbs that would fall from his table. And Dives did nothing about it. And the parable ends saying, 'Dives went to hell, and there were a fixed gulf now between Lazarus and Dives.'
"There is nothing in that parable that said Dives went to hell because he was rich. Jesus never made a universal indictment against all wealth. It is true that one day a rich young ruler came to him, and he advised him to sell all, but in that instance Jesus was prescribing individual surgery and not setting forth a universal diagnosis. And if you will look at that parable with all of its symbolism, you will remember that a conversation took place between heaven and hell, and on the other end of that long-distance call between heaven and hell was Abraham in heaven talking to Dives in hell.
"Now Abraham was a very rich man. If you go back to the Old Testament, you see that he was the richest man of his day, so it was not a rich man in hell talking with a poor man in heaven; it was a little millionaire in hell talking with a multimillionaire in heaven. Dives didn’t go to hell because he was rich; Dives didn’t realize that his wealth was his opportunity. It was his opportunity to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother Lazarus. Dives went to hell because he was passed by Lazarus every day and he never really saw him. He went to hell because he allowed his brother to become invisible. Dives went to hell because he maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum. Indeed, Dives went to hell because he sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty.
"And this can happen to America, the richest nation in the world — and nothing’s wrong with that — this is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will."
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Take away your personhood
Vermont is pretty cool. Not just because I have family and friends that decide to live there, not just because it doesn't allow billboard ad's on the highway, not just because it borders Canada, and not just because it has reeeeally fun skiing. Stephen Colbert brings Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to tell the nation about the fight to end corporate personhood....(thus highligting more of Vermont's coolness.) It's a big problem, in case you were wondering. Sign the petition here. Send it to your friends/enemies. Use your e-voice, sucka!
If you are still interested, some cities (L.A., N.Y.C., Boulder, Oakland) and states (VT) have passed their own resolutions to put the lid down on this monster.
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
If you are still interested, some cities (L.A., N.Y.C., Boulder, Oakland) and states (VT) have passed their own resolutions to put the lid down on this monster.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Waiting for Snow.
Wall Monkey Thinking.
Esty made a mean stew reminiscent of cement mix. Yum. Her friend Salomon can't wait to try it.
"Ummm, yeah, that stew jus' ain't no good!"
What is this scene? It's a Christmas Market in Thomas, WV replete with tye-dyed clothing, hand made felted bowls/creations, local photography, handmade super cute children's clothing, yummy yum baked goods, aromatic handmade candles, sleeping babies (not for sale or resale), and massage therapy. Rumor has it that this market scene could return to Thomas. Time will tell.
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