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It occurs to me as I write this that tomorrow is likely the last time all of us will be together.
A lot has happened in the past four years. It seems like just yesterday that I was a freshman moving into Mudge and being scared at the big, scary school and all the new people and needing to fit in. Tomorrow all of us are going to walk across the stage and get a piece of paper that says, “You paid us lots of money, congrats.” and then we’ll all go off and get jobs or go to grad school or be bums on the street and pretending we’re pregnant to get money.
Even though I technically left all this last semester, it still seems awfully final this time. Before there was always the possibility of me visiting and everything being just like it used to be… midnight walks home from halfprice with friends, randomly going to Tim’s room for games at random times, having people stop by at any old time for any reason, going to events, being in groups where the most random and socially-unacceptable things could spontaneously happen…
College is so much more than an education, and no matter how many times people said that to me before, it never really sank in until now. Yes, I learned a lot about computer science here, but now somehow that seems far less important than the relationships that I’ve forged here. And now those relationships are going to be strained by distance and life pulling us all different directions. It feels like I’m losing the most important thing that has come out of these past four years.
I’m not really sure what I’m saying, so I suppose I’ll just wish everyone a happy graduation (and hope that it doesn’t rain tomorrow during the main ceremony) and hope that we don’t all lose touch with each other.
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Observe:
Silhouette City
This film is about Christian Dominionism and its militant arm. Folks who have read this community for a while will be familiar with its players and concepts. The bibliography mentions more than a few books that I have read, and websites I have visited in my studies on this subject.
One thing that really grabbed my attention was the parallels of the recruiting film for the CFA to those of the jihadi groups in the middle east- even down to the lyrics to the songs. It is also interesting to see the blatant posturing of some of the players- particularly Ted Haggard, Rod Parsley and Mike Huckabee. And the contrast between the well-heeled core of the hard right and its impovrished, boonies-dwelling roots is also sharp. The film touches on some interesting facets of the hard right, including the Teen Mania/Battlecry movement, the infiltration of the military, and the chumminess of these people with the top levels of our government. One graphic showed the military installations around Colorado Springs, then showed all the major churches, then added the major military contractors. The mixture of crosses, stars, and factories was chilling. If you don't think that these folks don't have their fingers in many pies, you'll learn otherwise.
It is good to see the subject treated in such a level-headed manner. If you get a chance to see the film in your city, by all means, do so.
I tried making coconut-rum balls, but for some reason they were not sticky enough to actually clump together. So I thought to myself, FINE, I'll make a cake and put the coconut-rum stuff on top and bake it that way. But after mixing the sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking soda, vanilla extract, and amaretto extract together, I realized I didn't have the last ingredient: milk. I didn't want to use rice milk because I'm pretty sure it's going bad, and all we have is half-and-half, so I diluted the half and half with water. Then I baked the thing for 15 minutes, covered the top in coconut-rum goo very carefully so it wouldn't collapse, then baked it for another 25 minutes. It is now filling the kitchen with the smell of deliciousness.
I... think I'm going to go taste it. It's diabetic shock just waiting to happen, but I'm curious...
Pattiann Rogers
It's a beautiful heaven, shining aqua
arrangements on black, scattered
chips of pure turquoise, gold, sterling
white, ruby sand; dimmer clouds
of glowing stellar dust ; beads
like snow, like irregular pearls.
Last week, I thought this heaven was
god's body burning, as in the burning
bush never consumed, sudden flarings
of the omnipresence, the coal tips
of god's open hand, the brilliance of god's
streaming hair, the essence of grace
in flames, the idea of creation illuminated.
I believed each form of light and darkness
in that combustion was the glorious
art of god's body on fire, the only
possible origin of such art. Maybe god's
body remains invisible until it ignites
into its beginning. I could almost detect
the incense rising from that transfiguration.
But yesterday I believed it to be music,
the circling and spiraling of sound
in a pattern of light, a pattern I might
begin to perceive, each note, each count
and measure of the concert in progress
being visible, constellations of chords,
geysers of scales, the bell-like lyricism
of overlapping revolutions and orbits, deep
silent pauses of vacancy, as we might
expect, among the swells and trills,
the cacophony of timpani, the zinking
of strings. Yesterday this seemed
a reasonable thought, a pleasing
thought. It seemed possible.
Today, I see it is all signal numbers,
static and spate: the sun, 25,000 light --
years from the center of "our galactic
realm," around which we travel once
every 200 million years, you understand.
I don't resist the calculated mass of "our
supercluster." I don't deny those 100
trillion suns of our suns among which
we pass, turning over and over day
after night after day. The last "outpost"
in our cluster, before a desert cosmic
void begins, is named Virgo. I stop there
for rest and provisions, to water the horses,
pour oats in their trough, to cradle my child.
I wish I could sing like electrons
on a wheel. I wish I could burn
like god.
if you actually go to the youtube page for these videos, you can watch higher quality versions of them. under the views counter there should be a toggle that lets you select standard or enhanced quality. or, you can add &fmt=18 to the end of the url.
We're meeting at Rula Bulas at 6pm.
My dad is paying for everything. Rula Bulas will provide us with a select menu of meals, drinks and desserts. Everyone can have whatever they want from that menu, with a maximum of 2 drinks per person. If you want anything NOT on the menu, you have to provide it yourself, but I think I've seen the select menu before and it's pretty decent.
If you plan to go, please let me know as soon as possible! My dad needs a head count.
when i started this project, i remember asking myself, "wait, do i hate my job?" i was really stressed out about it because, time-wise, it was a project that really reduced my margin of error. plus, there was a lot of motion graphics work, which isn't my strong point. so i had this feeling of doom hanging over me, like this project would completely mess up my ability to work efficiently and finish all my other projects in a timely fashion.
but it turned out pretty good and i now know that, actually, i really do enjoy my job. i love how, whether you intend it or not, everything in video means something. it's this sea of symbols and you have to balance them so that they come out communicating more or less the same thing. i love how the frame is packed with meaning. it's a very efficient way to tell a story.
i'll post the youtube versions soon, probably tomorrow. just know that the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of david rither or 20th century fox.
The first was a basket of little "Alien"-looking pod things. Upon a closer inspection, I realized the "pods" are paper-like leaves that curl up around a little pumpkin-orange berry. The label identifies them as "gooseberries", and they're very sweet, and semi cherry-like in flavor.
The other purchase is a bunch of pale green to yellowish tomatoes. They're supposedly sun ripened "sugar drop" tomatoes, and I thought I'd try them, since they're little and cute. The one I tried in the car wasn't completely ripe, and already it was sweeter than most tomatoes I've had, and very flavorful. I cut four or five of the riper ones up and used them in the red snapper recipe I stole off the internet.
Dinner tonight was tasty: baked red snapper with a sauce made of tomato, red bell pepper, red onion, garlic and spices, plus brussels sprouts covered in a sauce made of mustard, garlic, green onions, and fresh rosemary picked from the backyard. I have to admit, I'm still surprised every time I manage to make good food. I prepared this meal in under an hour and it involved 3 burners AND the stove all at once. Just call me Betty Crocker! (No, don't, I'm just kidding).
Malia called while I was cooking and told me about a weird experience she had today while at a photo shoot. She and the photographer were chatting as he adjusted the lighting and Malia mentioned the fact that our mother used to model when she was around our age. He asked her what kind of jobs our mom did, and Malia told him about a commercial our mother once did where she played a siren emerging from the ocean to give soda to people on the beach. When Malia told him this, the photographer said, "Wait, Tab?" Apparently he not only saw the commercial---which played some 25-30 years ago, I think---but he says he still remembers our mother's hour-glass figure and thought the commercial was hot. The idea simultaneously makes me proud and creeps me out...
In other modeling news, Malia has been getting a LOT of jobs lately. She's had 3 photo shoots since Saturday. I accompanied her to two of them, both of which were kind of interesting in their own ways. The first was fascinating because of how glamorous it WASN'T. There was much changing in the back of cars and being made up by the photographer's girlfriend. The photos were taken in a park in downtown Chandler, so there were office buildings and such in the background. However, the pictures turned out pretty well, and the photographer just shrugged about the buildings and said he'd photoshop them out.
The second shoot took place at the photographer's home in Phoenix. 90% of his tiny little house has been converted into a studio, with a costume/dressing room, makeup/bath room, and the actual studio. When we walked in apparently the photographer didn't know who the hell I was and asked me if he was taking pictures of me, too. I told him no, I'm not a model, and jabbing my finger at Malia, told him I'm her sister. Malia was given free rein to explore the costume room and choose a couple outfits she wanted to wear for the photo shoot. While her choices---a belly-dancer costume making use of antique jewelry and an outfit I can only describe as strategically placed feathers---would not have been MY picks, the resulting photos looked really good and actually weren't as revealing as I'd thought they would be. I was surprised, as I watched her move, by how GOOD at this she is. She knows precisely how to place herself so that she simultaneously looks beautiful and is covered up. Despite her fears, I did NOT disapprove of the clothing she wore, although I would not be caught dead in them myself.
The photographer had a few enlarged, framed photographs around his studio. One featured a dark haired young woman in a leotard standing on pointe and, holding her toe, stretching her back leg behind her in a sort of parallel attitude, like this, only her thigh was parallel to the ground, she looked uncomfortable, and she was slipping off her box on the base leg. While Malia was changing I asked the photographer some questions about how often he does dance shoots, whether or not the women he uses are actually dancers or models he puts in dance poses, and whether or not the women use their own pointe shoes or borrow them from him. Somehow, he misheard or reinterpreted that last question, because instead of answering he said, "You have pointe shoes?" I said I did and asked why he wanted to know, and he said he'd love to shoot me sometime, because he uses dance photography in art shows all the time. I told him again that I'm not a model, and he said if I provided the poses, he'd make the pictures work, and that I'd get studio quality photos out of the deal. I told him I have no money for photos right now, and he laughed and said he'd give them to me as payment for participating in the shoot. I pointed out that I haven't danced--really danced--since I was 17 or so. He said that for the most part, he'd have me doing easy things, like sitting down or doing simple ballet poses. So, I may be doing that on Tuesday. Weird.
Shel Silverstein
How many slams in an old screen door?
Depends how loud you shut it.
How many slices in a bread?
Depends how thin you cut it.
How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live 'em.
How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give 'em.
- Mood:
busy
Dignity, and some minor protections for personal liberty? Is this all they can give us? Surely not. For all of us who have so vigorously campaigned for the universal recognition of certain unalienable rights for plants, this is a travesty, a half-measure, a revisionist piece of flim-flam - in short, a disappointment and a crime. But of course, we should've seen it coming. It's all political expediency, compromise in the service of almighty coin. Yet the world we know and purport to love subsists upon a systematic and terrifying atrocity committed by man upon all independent plant matter - from the gentle corn stalk to the wise old spruce tree, from the humble grasses to the "weeds" we pull away without a thought as to their dreams and aspirations.
The problem today, I submit, goes beyond some given industrial policy in this or that country. I could go on about deforestation, about square melons, about the tight conditions of wheat stalks raised on massive industrial farms and given no more than an inch at most -- I repeat, an inch, if that -- to flex and move about. But that list would go on forever. It would win us nothing but tears and anguish. Indeed, even the most casual observer should be aware that the chlorophyl blood that stains our hands is nothing short of a fundamental consequence of our very civilisation, our very way of life and contemporary existence; and it should be equally clear, at the briefest of glances, that nothing short of fundamental action shall emancipate the silent victims who mutely stare at us with sullen and accusing eyes: the asparagus, the pineapple, the tulip. Every single one a casualty and a victim.
I call upon everyone here for help. Not your commitment, mind you. Not even your sympathy. But rather your acceptance. Acceptance of the idea that plants can live free, unimpeded, dignified lives. The idea that a better world is possible. The idea that one day we can look at each other and say, we are civilised human beings, and these here are civilised plants. That one day, lemons and daisies, forget-me-nots and pine trees, will join us not as slaves but in mutual respect, at liberty to own their own soil, buy and sell, come and go, at liberty to pursue happiness on their own terms, to engage in political discourse, work, and photosynthesise not at our convenience but at their very own.
Their own, I say, their own. For this is about them, their struggle, their dreams. It is out of sympathy and hope that we should support them, for we stand now upon the brink of a new and better world. Run and be free, my kumquat friends. My allies. My compatriots. My people. Run, and be free.
- Music:The Internationale
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http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/doc
Under these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the
traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest.
Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory
provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are
unconstitutional.Accordingly, in light of the conclusions we reach concerning the constitutional questions brought to us for resolution, we determine that the
language of section 300 limiting the designation of marriage to a union “between a man and a woman” is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available both to opposite-sex and same-sex couples. In addition, because the limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples imposed by section 308.5 can have no constitutionally permissible effect in light of the constitutional conclusions set forth in this opinion, that provision cannot stand.
Kudos to the California Supreme Court. Makes me glad to be living in a state with sane judges (and mostly sane politicians).
Can’t wait to hear the “Oh noes they’re destroying our families, or so we claim with absolutely no evidence to back up the crap we spew” responses that are sure to follow.
Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry “will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage,” (Chief Justice Ronald George) said.
In addition, he said, the current state law discriminates against same-sex couples on the basis of their sexual orientation - discrimination that the court, for the first time, put in the same legal category as racial or gender bias.
He also noted that state laws and traditions banned interracial marriage until the California Supreme Court, in 1948, became the first court in the nation to overturn such a law. “Even the most familiar and generally accepted of social policies and traditions often mask an unfairness and inequality that frequently is not recognized or appreciated by those not directly harmed,” the chief justice wrote. “
Here’s hoping that either the case isn’t appealed or, failling that, that the US Supreme court refuses it. That court is filled with too many Bushlings right now, and the wrong ruling would set the US back decades as far as equality goes.
Edit: Never mind: The parties cannot appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Herrera said, as no federal constitutional questions are at issue.
Edit 2: I’ve now had time to read over the “dissenting” opinions (which are actually “concurring and dissenting” opinions) and I can see many of their points. It seems that the dissenters basically reason that, “Since California already has domestic partnership laws that confer the same rights as marriage, at least at the state level, and voters have passed a law that reserves the term ‘marriage’ for a man and a woman, it is not the court’s place to redefine that term, in particular because there are already ’separate but equal’ institutions in place.”
I actually mostly agree with that statement. However, I still think this is the right ruling, in no small part because people would have twisted a negative ruling to their own benefit, ignoring the very logic that would have led to that decision in the first place (such as using the ruling to argue against any rights for same-sex couples when that was clearly not the court’s intention). In particular, a negative ruling would have set a dangerous precedent for other states that currently do not give any rights to same-sex couples.
I wish the stupid fundies who’ll raise hell about this would give logical, thought-out arguments similar to these dissenting opinions instead of spewing garbage.
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oh also! Fat Tire beer bought the rights to one of Josh's songs, "Brunch is for Bastards" to put in a short film they just made. !!! It gives Tail Enders the money to record their first full length album. so so Exciting.
You can find this and other of their songs on their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thetailenders
The recordings aren't fabulous, but their going to beable to refine them a bit more this summer!
Next show is May 27th.
- Music:"and the rates they quoted to you...."
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teh0wnz0r!Page Summary
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alanv_blog : Graduation [+0] - alargedinosaur : (no subject) [+2]
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dark_christian :: sunfell : Silhouette City [+7] - djayha : (no subject) [+2]
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- dark_christian :: gothic_oreo : QOTD [+61]
- zenicurean : Plant dignity. [+6]
- alanv_blog : The right ruling [+0]
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