The Who at the Super Bowl

Pete was understanding of their subdued reception:

Backstage after their show, Townshend laughed and said: "You know, you could kind of tell from the stage the crowd is really here for the game."

"It was nice for that reason. It was nice to feel a part of something and not having it all to be about us," he added. When it was mentioned that most rock stars want everything to revolve around them, he joked and said: "We're too far gone to care I think."

They looked so faded. They were my favorite band in high school & college, though I never saw them live. It's hard to listen to Daltrey sing anymore. The only hard rock vocalist from his era who's kept his pipes intact, IMO, is Paul Rodgers:

Random Rock Bloggage

Four views of The Sugarfoot Rag:

Punniest headline of the week goes to...

MSNBC: Boosters flare in space debate

On the value of a free press

Journalists perform on an invisible stage. A broadsheet proscenium. We can't see the audience but we know they're there. Millions of them. Every Sunday I'm read by more people than will pick up a Booker Prize-nominated novel in a year. That's not a comparison of quality, it's a statement of impact. Almost every other bit of the culture may have more value but none has more importance. Without poetry, fiction, drama, music, art, dance and origami, we'd be immeasurably poorer, but we'd get on. Without news, without information we'd be back in the Dark Ages. There's no democracy without a free press. It's an absolute prerequisite for a free market. There is no global anything, just rumour and speculation based on ignorance. Freedom of speech is what all the other human rights and freedoms balance on. That may sound like unspeakable arrogance when applied to restaurant reviews or gossip columns. But that's not the point. Journalism isn't an individual sport like books and plays; it's a team effort. The power of the press is cumulative. It has a conscious humming momentum. You can - and probable do - pick up bits of it and sneer or sigh or fling them with great force at the dog. But together they make up the most precious thing we own.
-- A. A. Gill, Sunday Times, 2003

"It's very well for him, '' I hear you say, ''on his high horse about freedom, but just look at the papers. They're full of lies and gossip and laziness. The theory's fine, the practice is disgusting," Well, let's just look at that, I don't know what it is you do, what you make or sell, but consider this. Consider starting each morning with three or so dozen blank sheets of broadsheet paper. And then having to fill them with columns of facts, opinions based on facts and predictions extrapolated from facts. I don't know how many facts a newspaper has in it. Thousands. Tens of thousands, Millions. From the Stock Market to TV listings by way of court-rooms, parliaments, disasters, wars, celebrity denials, births, deaths, horoscopes and the pictures to go with them. Now tell me, how long did your last annual general report take? Days? Weeks? And you had all that information to hand. How long did the last letter you wrote take? You just made that up. Newspapers are the size of long novels. They're put together from around the globe from sources who lie, manipulate, want to sell things, hide things, spin things. Despite threats, injunctions, bullets, jails and non-returned phone calls, journalists do it every single day, from scratch. What's amazing, what's utterly staggering, is not the things papers get wrong, it's just how much they get right. Your business, no other business, could guarantee the percentage of accuracy that a newspaper does. And what's more, if you live in Britain, you don't get just one, you have the choice of a dozen national papers. Oh, and a small boy will come and put it through your letter box before you've even got out of bed. Nothing, but nothing, makes me prouder than being a hack.
-- ibid

Twitter saves baby's life

Well, if the Iranian resistance wasn't enough of a reason to quit sneering at Twitter, here's another one. A sick baby with a rare blood type got a suitable blood donor thanks to Twitter.

RIP Howard Zinn

Glad I was never assigned his tome when I was college, though I got fed other leftist takes on American history. I much prefer Paul Johnson's A History of the American People, because it is more about the actual people over the years, and not about academic radicals' projections of oppression & revolution onto history. America is more than the sum of her sins, and always has been.

Obama state of the union address

I let the kiddiwinks stay up and watch about 30 minutes of it for their education. When he mentioned how he had averted a second great depression, my oldest said, in her sulky 4th grade girly voice: "I don't want a second great depression!"

Legalize drugs?

I know that there's not 100% overlap between liberals and people who want to legalize drugs. But still, it's weird, those that do overlap. On one hand they say that the government is bought & paid for by big business interests, that corporations are running the show. One the other, they offer smiley-face fantasies about "tightly regulating" drug cartels once drugs become legal. the cartels are exponentially richer and more ruthless than any hedge fund manager you'd care to name--pluse they have guns. Just who is going to bring them to heel, and how?

Georgia Work Ready Certification

In 2006, Georgia Work Ready Certification was launched. It is now being more heavily advertised in response to the economic downturn. The idea is that prospective employees can take some tests, get "certified" that they will become good employees, and thus get a leg up in their hunt for a job.

Well, good luck to all concerned. But I just think it's a shame that a Georgia high school diploma doesn't perform the same "certification" function.

Don't forget Haiti

The story will begin slipping from the headlines in a few days, maybe weeks. But the hardhips from this disaster are going to last for years. Do your due diligence, find a charity or investment vehicle that really helps the Haitians, and give what you can.

Amazing Computer Generated film

Everything and everyone in here looks so real, but the description says it's all computer generated. Play it in full screen, on an HD monitor if you have one.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Via Foreign Dispatches

In Memoriam, Richard John Neuhaus

It's been one year since Fr. Richard John Neuhaus was suddenly summoned home. Too early, too early...

I admired him since I first encountered him, in the pages of The Wittenburg Door in the mid 80s. He recounted his journey from Sixties activist to conservative Catholic priest. He kept up his insistence for justice in Vietnam after the communists won, but was told by his fellow activists that the communists were on the correct side of the world revolution and were not to be criticized. Later on, I discovered First Things, don't remember how. Much of the contents resonated with me (though I continue to deplore their toleration of Intelligent Design charlatanry in their pages), and became part of my inner furniture.

In fact, I used to theme this blog as a running appreciation of FT. After a while I drifted out of schtick--I didn't have the intellectual firepower to do more than just link, it turned out. But I still resonate...

By chance, his memorial mass is just now starting, in New York City. Insert moment of silence here.

More. And more.

Tim Wilson

Just discovered the novelty country music artist Tim Wilson. See what you think: LiveLeak's crappy code doesn't seem to let the embed work, but it you double-click on it, it'll take you to the hosting site. It's worth it!

Random Rock Bloggage

The Youngbloods' "Get Together", from the late 70s No Nukes concert:

The Jihad--enemy of the civilized world

I find it fruitful to consider who do terrorists consider to be their enemies? RW militias in the U.S. hate the federal government. The IRA hates Britain. The Tamil Tigers hate the Sri Lankan government. The ETA hates the Spanish national government.

But Islamic jihadists attack everyone. Chechen jihadists attack Muscovites. Thai and Filipinio jihadists attack their nominal co-nationalists. Arab jihadists take it as a religious duty to attack non-dhimmified Jews. French “youths” burn cars, among less visible mischief. British jihadists are only the most visible part of the stealth jihad in that land. “Islam has bloody borders”, as someone once said.

That doesn’t include all Muslims, certainly. But it includes enough of them to constitute a serious problem for the peace of the world. There’s nothing directly comparable to the omni-fronted Jihad in any other militant movement in the world, not since the fall of expansive communism.

The Decade in Apologies

The Decade in Apologies

2000
Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker apologizes for dissing New Yorkers.

2001
George Bush kinda sorta apologizes to China, in the wake of China’s interceptor colliding with an American spy plane.

2002
Trent Lott apologizes for praising Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Presidential run.
Saddam Hussein apologizes for invading Kuwait.
Cardinal Bernard Law apologizes to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

2003
Ahnuld preemptively apologizes to any women who might claim he sexually harassed them.
Symbionese Liberation Army radicals apologize to family of slaying victim Myrna Opsahl at their sentencing.

2004
Justin Timberlake apologizes for causing Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction.
George W. Bush apologizes for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

2005
U. S. Senate apologizes for historical inaction on lynching.
Prince Harry apologizes for wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party.

2006
Seinfeld star Michael Richards apologizes for racial rant during standup comedy show.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney apologizes for scuffling with a Capitol Hill security officer.
Senator John Kerry apologizes for “botched joke”, that soldiers in Iraq are uneducated.

2007
Mattell apologizes to China over lead-based paint in imported toys.
Japanese Prime Minister apologizes to WWII sex slaves.

2008
Roger Clemens apologizes for “mistakes” in personal life.
AMA apologizes to black doctors for past racism.

2009
Singer Chris Brown apologizes to fans for assaulting girlfriend Rihanna.
U. S. Senate adopts resolution apologizing for slavery.
Kanye West apologizes for interrupting Taylor Swift’s award acceptance speech.
Tiger Woods apologizes to fans for “transgressions.”

Some milestones of the decade

* The ascension of Google from a new search engine to a near-complete internet experience in itself. Does anyone even think about about alta vista, dogpile, and lycos anymore, let alone use them?

* Wikipedia, which harnessed the aggregate power of public knowledge, for good and ill. By decade's end, its best articles were on a par with those from the Encyclopedia Britannica--because that's where many of them were originally cut 'n' pasted from. And where else could you lose an afternoon's work time, by sorting out the set lists of the Rolling Stones' 1981 tour?

* YouTube. From on-the-spot reportage in faraway places to deep archival footage which hadn't been seen in decades, YouTube was tele-democracy incarnate.

* The ouster of Cynthia McKinney. Yay! Gwinnett County voters no longer had to suffer the stigma of being represented by the cutest li'l communist in the House of Representatives.

* And the rise of the personal blog, and the challenge the best of them presented to the traditional media.

Here we go again...

Korean-American Activist Crosses Into North Korea

The most charitable explanation is that the horror-show that is North Korea sent this sensitive young man around the bend. Let's hope we don't send Bill Clinton back to kiss KJI's ring again, though.

A very Merry Christmas to all in the blogosphere

May this season find you in peace, joy, health, prosperity--or all primed to make a run at being those things in the upcoming year.

Picture from The Art Renewal Renewal Center museum

"When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

"For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.

"If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who I am will be gone.

"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom," the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well."
--Frederick Buechner

Big name blog wars...

...bring to mind this old Neil Young song:

I hear some people
been talkin' me down,
Bring up my name,
pass it 'round.
They don't mention
happy times
They do their thing,
I'll do mine.

Ooh baby,
that's hard to change
I can't tell them
how to feel.
Some get stoned,
some get strange,
But sooner or later
it all gets real.

Walk on, walk on,
Walk on, walk on.

Free after being wrongly imprisoned for 35 years

Stories like this wrench my heart.

James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

Mobile devices didn't exist in 1974, the year he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field.

Neither did the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used to determine he could not have been the rapist.

I'm very much a tough-on-crime type, as well as a supporter of capital punishment. So, in the interests of justice, I warmly support projects that result in freeing wrongly convicted people. The Innocence Project is perhaps the best known one.

Broadband for America rural areas

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. — Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce during a visit to Georgia that the government will provide stimulus grants and loans to bring broadband to communities that have little access to the technology.

Biden was to appear at Impulse Manufacturing in Dawsonville on Thursday to announce an initial $182 million investment in 18 projects in 17 states.

The White House says the federal money has already been matched with $46 million in private capital, and that the projects will provide job opportunities in addition to helping communities held back by the lack of broadband technology.

Good. Helping to build cyber infrastructure is a wise, forward thinking move by the federal government. Can't help but contrast how connected with high-speed internet South Korea is, compared to the U.S. Sure, it helps that Korea is much smaller, with less population to wire together, but they are nonetheless streets ahead of us in internet technology. A lot of other technology, too. When you think of "clever electronic gadgets", you don't think "made in USA", do you?

Asia and race

My wife once took a computer course in Atlanta with another student who was a black Korean. She was raised in Korea, and spoke the language like the native she was. The other Koreans in the class were amazed/repulsed by her, I could tell. I wince when I think of the life she must have had, growing up in Korea.

Which leads into this interesting roundup of viewpoints of race in China.

Most earth-like exo-planet ever seen is discovered relatively nearby

It’s not exactly Earth’s twin: It’s about six times bigger, a whole lot hotter, and made mostly of water.

So, living there might be akin to living in South Florida during a heat wave, after an enormous turkey dinner.

Le mot juste

So I was watching a Korean kids' program on TV in my inlaws' house in Gwangju over Thanksgiving. It was on JEI english instructional TV. It was an english language animated show, with english subtitles for those learning the language. At one point, one of the characters said "Darn!" Apparently, whoever was writing the captions couldn't find that word in their korean-english dictionary, at least not with the appropriate meaning. So they substituted another word: "Damn!"

Oops.

Video of terminally ill mother in law

Blogger just ate my original of this post, grrr. I'll try to recreate it. Hard to do once the catharsis is spent.

Apologies in advance for not sharing the video I'm discussing with you. Too private, I'm afraid.

I've been back in the States for a couple of weeks now. We went to Korea to visit my terminally ill MIL, before it's too late. Due to creeping dementia caused by an aneurysm, she doesn't even know she's sick. Fortunately she is surrounded by a large, loving family, many of whom are medical professionals. She won't lack for any comfort, physical or emotional, in her final months.

I took a lot of video of her while I was there: at family gatherings, in church, and just puttering around at home. I tried to get scenes of each of the grown children spending time with her alone, but didn't quite succeed. Hope no one feels left out. I've asked for old family photos from them too, to make a montage out of. (Costco nearly ruined the still photos I took on this trip, but that's another post.) I don't speak Korean, so I had a hard time anticipating where to point the video camera. But I hope I succeeded in capturing some good memories for the in-laws. I've only ever met Omoni (respectful Korean term for mother) on five visits. I might be the one with the only video footage of her, though; big responsibility.

There are two especially poignant scenes in the footage I've got. One is at church. All the family gathered from all over Korea to sing together. We were ostensibly singing to the congregation, to celebrate my family's visit, but we were really singing goodbye to her. As the camera pans back and forth, many singers can be seen dabbing their eyes. The actual farewell later, as we were setting off for the bus station, was anticlimatic by comparison.

The other scene was later, at Omoni's house. My two children, no longer quite so small, laid their heads in her lap, at my urging. She started patting their backs and saying "Jam-ja, jam-ja, jam-ja..." "Sleep, sleep, sleep". Just as she had done tens of thousands of times long ago with her own children, and with the grandchildren she raised, while the grown children were off pursuing their degrees and their careers. "Jam-ja, jam-ja, jam-ja..." I'm almost tearing up just typing about the sight. It will make a great coda for the finished film.

...*sigh*...

Swarms of starlings

Big name blog wars...oof!!

I've tried to stay out of them, and so far I've succeeded. I want to stay on friendly terms with as many of my favorite bloggers as I can. But lordy, the Great Dextrosphere Crackup is causing a real strain. I had to delete a comment here the other day, from someone who disapproves of the company I keep.

Dame Trot and her cat
Led a peaceable life
When they were not troubled
With other folks' strife

Baby Einstein dvd refund

When you're doing your Christmas shopping, don't forget to give yourself some extra folding money by sending in your old Baby Einstein dvds for a refund. Details here.

In retrospect, it was pretty silly. TV is a bad babysitter, how could having your baby stare at blinking pixels do anything good?

Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus

I heard on the radio that on this date in 1968, the superstar concert known as the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus began. The project was filmed but not released until 1996. The music's good, though the circus bits are expendable. See:









How can you not love Taj Mahal in a cowboy suit?

iPhone camera

Yet another use for duct tape: Turn your iPhone into an SLR camera.

Funny hell, boring heaven

One of my Korean brothers-in-law is a prominent surgeon, who spent a couple of years in the American Midwest. He said that the difference between Korea and America was that Korea was a "funny hell", and America was a "boring heaven". Korea is too crowded, not enough space, etc., but if you are wealthy you can carve out a very nice sphere to live in there. By contrast, he found the city in the cornfields he was doing an exchange residency in to be dull, creature comforts and abundant space notwithstanding.

If he ever comes back and resides in one of the coastal metropolises, I'm sure he'll change his mind.

Good visit with Omoni

As oftentimes happens with the terminally ill, my MIL is on an uptick this week, and is able to enjoy our visit. It's wonderfull, seeing our children make her old heart so merry and glad, just by their presence. I've been trying to explain this to the kids, how grandchildren have a special gift to make grandparents glad, simply by showing up. The children are pretty grumpy at times, wanting to leave and go play computers games, but I make them stay and sit with halmoni for a decent interval. I keep telling them that later they will be happy that they were able to make their Korean grandmother glad. They don't see it now, but they will understand later, in the fullness of time. Especially when they see the videotape of her laughing over them, squeezing their hands, and caressing their faces. Sorry, but for privacy I won't be posting the vids online.

My MIL is an educated woman, but she put in a lifetime of sacrifice to put her daughters and son through higher education and enabling them to become prominent professionals in their respective fields. It's very lucky that her twilight days are spent surrounded by grateful and attentive children--and, from time to time, cute as a button American grandchildren.

Fashionable Korea

I'm in Gwangju at the moment, near Chonnam National University. While my wife is visiting her mother and sisters, I've been out strolling the grounds of the nearby university. The students are sleek and fashionable, mostly dressed in black. It's uncanny what a strong hold fashion has on them: the same Beatles mop haircuts for the boys, the same black clothes, cut in an assortment of hot fashions, the same rectangular tortoise-shell eyeglasses. It's wrong to say so, but I can barely tell these kids apart, and I'm glad I don't have to.

Stimulus job boost in Massachussets exaggerated

While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started.

And I doubt that the Bay State is altogether unique in this regard. It's hard to create a solid foundation for economic growth when your political philosophy views money as just something to be flung with both hands from the back of a speeding bus.

Via Viking Pundit

School will stop fundraiser that sells higher grades

That pots-&-pans crashing racket you hear is the sound of a school districk suddenly coming to its senses.

Bing now a serious challenger to Google

So it says in this PC World article. However, the only time I see a Bing search show up in my sitemeter is when someone is using it to look for gay porn. Sorry, pervs: the only thing you're going to find here are these old blog posts of mine.

Of course, I've probably just attracted more unwelcome attention to myself. But if Bing is so smart, maybe it'll direct the rough trade traffic elsewhere, after I post this.

Life is a long song

Well, the sad news has finally come around. My mother-in-law is terminally ill, so we're flying back to Korea to see her before it's too late. This lovely rendition of this lovely song seems appropriate. Last time I was in Korea the in-laws surprised me by asking me to sing. I blanked, and managed to croak a few words of The Beatles' "In My Life". If they ask me again this time, I'll offer this:

When you're falling awake and you take stock of the new day,
And you hear your voice croak as you choke on what you need to say,
Well, don't you fret, don't you fear,
I will give you good cheer.

Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.

If you wait then your plate I will fill.

As the verses unfold and your soul suffers the long day,
And the twelve o'clock gloom spins the room,
You struggle on your way.
Well, don't you sigh, don't you cry,
Lick the dust from your eye.

Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.

We will meet in the sweet light of dawn.

As the Baker Street train spills your pain all over your new dress,
And the symphony sounds underground put you under duress,
Well don't you squeal as the heel grinds you under the wheel.

Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.

But the tune ends too soon for us all.

Now this is inspired!

I enjoy Glenn Beck's radio show in moderation, haven't seen much of the TV show. But this satire will forever color it for me from now on. I love impressions, and this is just great.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The 11/3 Project
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Islamic Creationism

The phenomenon has raised concerns among scientists and educators - especially those in Muslim countries and in countries with growing Muslim minorities - who see in it a threat to scientific literacy, a drag on the potential for Muslim countries to build up their languishing scientific research sectors, and as another flashpoint in the Muslim world’s long-running struggle between religion and secularism. Unlike in the West, creationist beliefs are not associated in the Muslim world with religious fundamentalism, but instead are often espoused by members of the mainstream intellectual elite - liberals, by their own lights, who see the expansive, scientific-sounding claims of creationism as tracing a middle way between the guidance of religion and the promise of modern science. Critics of the movement fear that this makes it more likely that creationism will find its way into policies there, especially when the theory of evolution is portrayed among Muslim thinkers, as it often is, as an instrument of Western intellectual hegemony.

Cue Han Solo: "I got a bad feeling about this..."

How to be a good K-blogger

Ex-pat blogger Roboseyo has some good advice on better blogging. It's geared towards K-blogging, but a lot of the more general tips are well worth heeding. In fact, I think I will try to heed them. My health problems are in abeyance, and things are going better at work. So, maybe I can try to make this blog more worth looking in on, from time to time.

The Daily Show goes to Iran

Jon Stewart's crew went to Iran and didn't get eaten alive, therefore Iran is just a misunderstood victim of the U.S. propaganda machine. Wonder if the hipper-than-thou jerks spoke with any of these Iranians?