ok so I know it's been a while since I've blogged but I haven't had a whole to blog about, so there :-P
But I have had something weighing on my mind. I have/had this friend a few years ago, his name was Jonathon. He was from Oz and a really nice, cheerful, funny guy. He made documentaries for a living, travelling all over the world. When he wasn't doing that he lived in Ferndale Michigan with his buddy Matt and Matt's wife. Well in the fall of 2003 he and some of the gents he works with, set out to do a new documentary. In his own words:
"The project started out being about drug-cartel kickbacks from expat Brazzies in the US, except nobody wanted to say "boo" on the subject to us gringoes. Then, by accident, I got some long-shot film of a cute little golden monkey getting shot with a dart gun by some unscruplous trappers, who evidently have been making quite the fortune sellinig the poor little buggers to illegal game traders, as exotic pets to rich people in the US and Europe. Our crew of five has become obsessed with catching these villains red-handed on film, making us all put up with far more nonsense than we ought. Call it dedicated, call it masochism, just don't call us late for happy hour. I can see this taking another couple months before we either get what we need on film or give up entirely."
So over the next few months we chatted a few times a week on Yahoo! IM. He liked keeping in touch with his friends "back home". It kept him from being too homesick. He even had a "standing gig" awaiting him when he returned. I'm not entirely sure what it was. He was always entertaining in his descriptions of his adventure:
"I write thee from "San'Amaro" which is local brogue for "Santo Amaro do Sul", a wee quaint village way down in the bowels of Braz. We've traveled just about every way known to man on this gig, from the backs of foul-humoured donkeys to freight cars to cabbage lorry to our own two hoofs. Lately we've been on long outboard motored plywood canoes, so except for the crocs it's been rather a holiday."
During one of our chat sessions he told me they were nearly caught in the middle of a firefight between the blokes they were following and god knows who else. They were in their canoes and heard it ahead on the river so they pulled ashore and were waiting for some information from the local authorities. Apparently they got the go ahead for whatever it was they needed to do. The last email I received from him was June 4, 2004:
"Not to fret, we're all alive n' well; the laptop finally took a dumper so the ol' electronic thing has been out of the question. I'm tapping this out on a little phone-sized keypad attached to a single sideband HF radio that somehow does text emails, loaned by a very nice mob of Braz civil engineers.
I'll write more as soon as I can!"
About 6 weeks later Matt emails and asks when I last heard from Jonathon, apparently the email he sent me was the only communication anyone received after the laptop went to the crapper. It has now been a year and a half and still no trace of Jonathon or his mates. His father hired a Private Investigator who specializes in finding missing people in remote areas, but he has had no luck finding Jonathon. He has even hinted he suspects a government cover up. Its a really sad situation that I think about often. Jonathon had told me he thought he had met a girl he could settle down with, which makes it doubly sad.
Anyway, there is a song that I play (that Kent HATES) that reminds me of Jonathon. It's NOT a good song by any means, but its the lyrics that get to me.
I woke up from my sleep to the sound of that voice
From the words that I heard I had no choice
They told me that I had to turn around
My assurance slowly faded down
and I wonder
Will I ever make it home, will I ever leave the ground
Leave this place so far behind ,
till there is no turning back,
Will i ever make it home, get to where
I wanna be, find the ones who wait for me
to the place were i belong
Will I ever make it home
The plans that I had were quickly destroyed
The problem was one I couldn’t avoid
They welcomed me to stay overnight
I’m too tired to complain so I just might
And I wonder
Will I ever make it home, to the place I recognize
Far from here and where I’ve been, and all the things that I’ve been shown
Will I ever make it home, can they keep me here for good
Where I hardly know a soul, and my fear keeps going on
Will I ever make it home
My weariness keeps growing inside
My patience is starting to subside
And I hope I’ll be there soon
It can’t be long, or I’ll fall through
Can't help but to think I'll never get back
I'm ready and i'm waiting to hear that
Everything's alright and I can go
But when will that occur, i don't know
Do they miss the way I look
Do they miss the way I touch
Do they know just how I feel
oh i wish and pray that they could
Can I hold on very long?
Can I make it through the night?
Can you hear me when I call?
Will I ever make it home?
Will I ever make it home, will I ever leave the ground
Leave this place so far behind, till there is no turning back
Will I ever make it home, can they keep me here for good
Where I hardly know a soul and my fear keeps going on
Will I ever make it home
Will I ever make it home
Will I ever make it home
Here's to hoping that he does make it home one day.Current Mood:  melancholy Current Music: Ingram Hill - Will I ever make it home |
Monday, December 19, 2005
Bad Santa is having a lot of trouble getting ahead in life.
A doll's severed head in a gory "Bad Santa" holiday display has been snatched by dollnappers — who are holding it hostage until the owner writes, "I am sorry for being a bad boy" 1,000 times, according to the New York Post.
"The 7th Avenue Boys for a Merry Christmas," a Brooklyn-based group, stole the doll head Wednesday night, which Joel Krupnik and his family had set up in front of their Manhattan home as part of their bloody "Bad Santa" display.
Before the dollnapping, the set-up showed a skinny Santa Claus clutching a blood-soaked knife in his left hand and the severed head — blood pouring from the eyes — in his right. Krupnik called the display a protest of the commercialization of Christmas.
Krupnik, 58, said he won't negotiate with the headnappers.
"I wouldn't stoop so low," he told the Post. "It's ridiculous."
A leafless tree bearing the headless corpses and severed heads of Barbie Dolls stands in front of the blood-soaked Saint Nick.
"Dean," a spokesman for the "7th Avenue Boys," said the group's "commandos" made a holiday raid on the $3 million brownstone — making the successful headnapping after using lookouts as spies to make sure there were no police around.
In an e-mail including pictures of the captured severed head, "Dean," a father of two, wrote, "Although it's technically illegal, sometimes we have to cross the line and sacrifice our possible well-being to protect children's hearts and minds and their innocence."
The "7th Avenue Boys" will keep holding the head hostage until Krupnik, who they call "this Grinch with a heart darker than Scrooge's," complies with one of two demands, "Dean" said:
— Take the "Bad Santa" display down and write: "I am sorry for being a bad boy. Next year I promise to be on top of Santa's good boy list!" 1,000 times.
— Or, take his family, including his three kids, to watch him sit in Santa's lap at Macy's in Herald Square while he tells him "what a bad boy he has been."
"Dean" said the head will be "handed to our renegade elves at the North Pole and used to make wooden toy dolls for the boys and girls of New York City next Christmas" if Krupnik doesn't meet their demands.
Krupnik told the Post he'd been expecting just such a theft — and he'll just get another head if the dollnappers don't return the old one.
 Current Mood:  cranky |
NEW YORK - For the man who has everything — or someone really desperate to find a last-minute gift — Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos have an answer: Their red-suited Santa Claus figure, holding a bloody knife in one hand and a severed doll's head in the other, went up for auction on Christmas Day.
Already, bidding had reached $200 and "might go higher, maybe even to $500," the New York Post quoted Krupnik as saying.
Lest anyone be offended — and some people were — Krupnik had explained earlier that the macabre holiday display outside the couple's midtown Manhattan home was intended as a protest against the commercialization of Christmas.
The bids were to be deposited in a box next to the 5-foot tall Santa, to be opened after 3 p.m. Krupnik, whose telephone is unlisted, could not be reached late Sunday afternoon for a final accounting.
The auction proceeds would go to the highest bidder's favorite charity, according to a sign next to the display, which also included a number of other Barbie doll heads.
As for any critics suggesting the display was sacrilegious, Krupnik said St. Nick "is not in the Bible. He's not a religious symbol." |
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Death
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Dec. 21st, 2005 @ 11:07 pm
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When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me,
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress-tree:
Be the green grass above me,
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
----Christina Rosetti (1830-1894)
In almost all societies, death has one or several symbols associated with it. Common symbols of death in Western cultures include the grim reaper and the color black; conversely, in certain Eastern cultures, the
color white is considered symbolic of death.
Irreversibility is often cited as a key feature of death. By definition, a dead organism cannot be brought back to life; if it were to be, that would indicate that it had never been dead. Nonetheless, many people do not believe that death is necessarily irreversible; thus some have a religious belief in bodily or spiritual resurrection, while others have hope for the eventual prospects of cryonics or other technological means of reversing what is currently thought of as death.
" Everyone is going to taste death, and We shall make a trial of you with evil and with good. And to Us you will be returned " [al-Quran 21:35]...
An afterlife is the cornerstone of most major religions. In Judaism, the concept of after-life entered the prayerbook in the philosophic hymns of Yigdal and Ani Ma'amin. Centuries later, hundreds of thousands of Jews, packed in cattle-cars, enroute to the crematoria, sang the Ani Ma'amin, the affirmation of the coming of the Messiah.
The Hindu religion says that at the moment of death the following things take place. If the person is impious and quite sinful, the messengers of Yamaraja, called the Yamadutas, fierce, horrible looking persons with twisted features, copper red flaming hairs that stand on end, black in complexion and frightening to behold, appear at the deathbed of the person in question and drag him forcibly from his body with ropes and chains. This scene so frightens the person that he literally dies of fright. They then pack up the subtle body of the person in a bag, where they take the soul, now covered only by the subtle body of mind, intelligence and false ego, to the abode of Yamaraja for judgement. He is taken over long stretches of hot, dry sands, and along the way he is insulted in various ways by other horrible creatures and bitten by dogs. He is suffering terribly on this journey and he wishes it would end.
Nice huh?
However, most persons are not quite that sinful and therefore they may expect a more normal departure from the body. At the time of death, death is denoted as the moment when the spirit soul departs from the material gross body. At that time the soul, covered by the subtle body of mind, intelligence and false ego, leaves the body. The subtle body always travels with the soul wherever he goes
within this material world and therefore the living entity has a continuity of material experience throughout his different lifetimes.
Most Wiccans believe in reincarnation. Our souls come back lifetime after lifetime, to learn new lessons and to grow as individuals. Between lives, our souls reside in the Summerlands. It's neither heaven nor hell, but a place for our souls to rest and reflect on the experiences of completed lives. You may be reunited with loved ones as well.
And well, Christians believe the Heaven/Hel thing.
Well if you're still with me after all that, you're probably wondering why all this talk about death. Well a few weeks ago, my best friends sister died. November 22, just before Thanksgiving. She was 25 years old. She was getting groceries out of her van and she just collapsed. They did an autopsy and blood work but all was inconclusive. She was just gone, and with no real reason. "No known cause of death, natural death." My first reaction was WTF? I mean people don't just drop for no reason - natural death my ass, it's not like she was 92!! I guess for me, it's there WAS a reason, and if they keep looking they would find it, but they don't...and why? was she not important enough? I mean we are in the #*&$damn 21st century, you just don't have "unkown cause of death" anymore, that's bullshit.
So ya, it really pissed me off, to say the least. A life just, poof, gone. Like a switch turned off. Someone's sister, someone's daughter, someone's mom. She had a 6 week old baby. That poor child will never have known her mom. I had a similar situation happen. My father died when I was 7 from a cerebral aneurysm. While I didn't have much time to get to know him, I at least had those 7 years. My brother on the other hand wasn't so lucky. He wasn't born until the following month.
And now, my mother's husband is in the hospital tonight and they're not sure if he's gonna make it. They've not even been married a year. Most of you already know my mother and I never really got along. But right now I'm feeling bad for her, for him, for his son...
Apparently he has an ulcer that is bleeding out of control and while they were trying to do a scope he threw up blood and it went into his lungs. Just awful. They told my mother she needs to call the family. That's usually not a good sign. I hope and pray that he pulls through this because it's just not fair. You spend most of your life with the scum of the earth, then find a man you love and marry him to have this happen. I hate to think of what will happen to his son if he doesn't make it. Death sucks - for the living anyway.
And to lighten the mood a tad, here is The Death Clock http://www.deathclock.com/
Thanks to wikipedia, chabad.org, and veda.harekrsna.czCurrent Mood:  morose |
Macabre Christmas Display Makes Statement
By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 14, 2:35 PM ET
It's usually easy to tell where a person stands in the culture wars, but whose side is someone on when his Christmas decor is a blood-spattered Santa Claus holding a severed head?
Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos decked the front of their Manhattan mansion this year with a scene that includes a knife-wielding 5-foot-tall St. Nick and a tree full of decapitated Barbie dolls. Hidden partly behind a tree, the merry old elf grasps a disembodied doll's head with fake blood streaming from its eye sockets.
In a telephone interview Wednesday, Krupnik explained that his family thought it would be a fun way to make a comment about the commercialization and secularization of Christmas.
"It is a religious holiday, but they have turned it into a business. And it shouldn't be," he said. "We didn't put it up to offend anybody. It was just something that came out of our imagination."
More than a few people passing by the brownstone were a little puzzled about the message behind the massacre. There were a few signs the macabre theme is a year-round thing — the facade of the building was covered with leering gargoyles. A statue of Death, hooded and grim-looking, stood outside.
Peter Nardoza, 81, of Manhattan, shook his head and chuckled.
"Sick, sick, sick," he said. "What kind of a world is this that we live in?"
Ronnie Santiago, a deliveryman on his route, speculated that something bad must have happened once to the homeowner at Christmas. A few spectators wondered whether the campy gore would bother children.
The family is far from the only one making an editorial comment this year on how Americans celebrate Christmas, although it may be the only one doing it by depicting Santa Claus as a killer.
Pope Benedict XVI complained this week that Christmas festivities have been "subjected to a sort of commercial pollution." Christian conservatives have launched campaigns to reintroduce a religious component to Christmastime decor in schools and public squares, chiding even President Bush this year for sending out cards wishing supporters a happy "holiday season."
But despite the home's gruesome exterior, some visitors appreciated it.
Bucky Turco, 31, of Manhattan, said the display captured how he felt when watching someone costumed as SpongeBob SquarePants promote products at Rockefeller Center.
"This is brilliant," said Turco.
Walter Garofalo, a musician from Brooklyn who wandered by wearing a black bandanna covered in skulls, was awe-struck.
"I wonder if these people would let me use this as our next album cover," he said. "It's perfect!"Current Mood:  confused |
| » Dear friends |
|---|
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Hello, my name is Bryan and I suffer from the guilt of not forwarding 50
billion fucking chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if
you send them on, a poor 6-year-old girl in Saskatchewan with a tit on her
forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her
redneck parents sell her to a traveling freak show.
Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you, and everyone to
whom you send "his" email, $1000?
How stupid are we?
"Ooooh, looky here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid
by a model I just happen to run into the next day!"
What a bunch of bullshit.
Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my house and sodomize
me in my sleep for not continuing a chain letter that was started by Peter in 5
AD and brought to this country by midget fucking pilgrims on the Mayflower.
Fuck 'em.
If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly
amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 10 of your closest friends, and this
poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some
omniscient being" forwards about 90 times.
I don't fucking care.
Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing
to by sending out these forwards. Chances are, it's our own unpopularity.
The point being? If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you
shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send
it on.
Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana
with no fucking teeth who has been tied to the ass of a dead elephant for 27
years and whose only salvation is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you
forward this email.
Now forward this to everyone you know.
Otherwise, tomorrow morning your underwear will turn carnivorous and will
consume your genitals.
Have a nice day.
P.S. Send me 15 bucks
Dec. 13th, 2005 @ 07:36 pm
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| » Elf poop???? |
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Ok now this is just funny. The hindu santa is good, but the dreidle song is hilarious!
http://www.chrismahanukwanzakah.com/
Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah everybody!
NOTE: This is not an endorsement of virgin mobile!!
Dec. 7th, 2005 @ 09:45 pm
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| » Linkspam and stuff (some from cleolinda) |
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Ann Coulter is such a bitch
She is such an asshat.
In an extraordinary lapse of
both common "netiquette" and overall decency, Republican bootlicking extremist
Ann Coulter has posted a personal phone number and email address of BRAD BLOG
Guest Blogger Lydia Cornell on the front page of her website with a link to the
post again on her "Quotations from Chairman Ann" page.
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002088.htm
http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/quotations.cgi#163
Merry Fucking Christmas You Neo Yuppie Scumbags!!
heehee, I love foamy the
squirrell
http://www.illwillpress.com/xmas.html
and if you
haven't seen it check out foamy on NOLA
http://www.illwillpress.com/kat.html
FBI Plants Fake Candidate in W.Va. Race.
The Doll Lady. If spooky old-fashioned dolls scare you, do
not watch this.
So it turns out that Michael Jackson is not the biological father of his first two
children. And then it gets worse.
J.K. Rowling does not exist, says Norwegian tinhat director. Clearly, the fact that she's the priority of the Warner Bros. marketing department and has good business judgment means that she's a fraud.
I need to weigh in on what is becoming a national debate... from </a></b></a>![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) performingdude
http://www.livejournal.com/users/performingdude/74175.html
oh this is good!The
Church of Apathetic Agnosticism: "We don't know and we don't care."
CIA realizes it's been using black highlighters all these years
German youths offer R-rated Bible calendarA German Protestant youth group has put together a 2006 calendar with 12 staged photos depicting erotic scenes from the Bible, including a bare-breasted Delilah cutting Samson’s hair and a nude Eve offering an apple. You can see two shots from the calendar here www.bibelkalender.de
Dec. 4th, 2005 @ 09:58 pm
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| » How scary are you? |
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| You Are Scary | 
You even scare scary people sometimes! |
Nov. 17th, 2005 @ 11:37 am
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| » Burn in hell Mr. President |
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Damn, this is one pissed off dude!!
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7650.shtml
My first reaction when I read the transcript of President George W. Bush’s
Veteran’s Day speech was anger. No, not anger. Rage. Blind rage.
How dare he, I thought. Not even the lowest, scum-sucking son of a bitch in
politics would stoop to using a day to honor those who served their country
would stoop to using that day to promote his lies-based, illegal, immoral
exercise in mass murder called the invasion of Iraq.
Yes he would. George W. Bush is a pathetic, pitiless scrap of sub-human trash
that lacks any shred of decency or morality. So why wouldn’t he desecrate the
memories of those who serve our nation?
As a journalist, I’m expected to be dispassionate about events and those who
shape them. But I cannot be so when it comes to Bush. He’s a liar and a traitor
to the oath he swore when he became President of the country he now works so
hard to destroy.
Bush is much, much more than just a bad president. He is a genuinely evil
man, a raving lunatic who cannot face the fact that his insane policies have
destroyed a once-great country called America. George Bush’s America is an
arrogant bully distrusted by its allies, hated by most of the rest of the world
and divided internally by his divisive, duplicitous actions.
I can no longer regard this maniac with journalistic dispassion. I may be a
journalist but I’m an American first and, as an American, I cannot stand silent
as a truly evil man destroys the country I love.
Polls show most Americans share my distrust of Bush. We all see him for what
he is – a dishonest, opportunistic political beast who lets nothing stand in the
way of his unbridled lust for power. He speaks of God at one moment and calls
those who dare disagree with him “motherfuckers” the next. He has, without
blinking an eye, sent more than 2,000 American military men and women, along
with countless thousands of Iraqi civilians, to their deaths in a senseless
invasion based on manufactured “evidence” and outright lies.
Then he has the gall to stand up on the day we set aside to honor those who
served and continue to promote his lies and call those who see the truth
traitors who aid the enemy.
Sorry George. Your lies don’t play here or with the majority of American
citizens. It is you who has sold out your country, who is a traitor and who has
committed treason against your office, your country and humanity.
God may one day forgive you for your sins but I cannot. Neither can the
wives, husbands, parents and relatives of those you sent to die in your dirty
little war. Neither can memories of those who served, those we honored on
Veterans Day and those whose memory you so callously dishonored with your
propagandist pap.
On second thought, I’m not even sure God can forgive you for what you have
done. You have lied and you have killed and those are sins that even an
understanding God may have trouble forgiving.
If there is justice in the afterlife, you will stand and face that justice
for your sins. And may you burn in hell for
them.
© Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue
Nov. 14th, 2005 @ 09:11 pm
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