Alternate Entries

Friday, June 19, 2009

Translation of voiceover:

Tomorrow is Saturday. Tomorrow is a day of destiny.

Tonight, the cries of Allah-o Akbar are heard louder and louder than the nights before.

Where is this place? Where is this place where every door is closed? Where is this place where people are simply calling God? Where is this place where the sound of Allah-o Akbar gets louder and louder?

I wait every night to see if the sounds will get louder and whether the number increases. It shakes me. I wonder if God is shaken.

Where is this place that where so many innocent people are entrapped? Where is this place where no one comes to our aid? Where is this place that only with our silence we are sending our voices to the world? Where is this place that the young shed blood and then people go and pray -- standing on that same blood and pray. Where is this place where the citizens are called vagrants?

Where is this place? You want me to tell you? This place is Iran. The homeland of you and me.
This place is Iran.

From Nico Pitney at HuffPost

posted by jeev | 3:42 PM |

Monday, March 16, 2009

For reasons best known to the Brits themselves, the big dog show there is known as Crufts. So the London Times had an Anti-Crufts contest, and among the winners was

A dog/manatee combo

Echo, clearly a rare dog/manatee mix. As it so happens, Echo is a regular at my little local dog park. And now she's an international dog star! Way to go, Echo!

posted by jeev | 8:40 PM |

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Blossom Dearie, RIP:

posted by jeev | 1:34 PM |

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

"A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin.""

We begin.

posted by jeev | 6:52 PM |

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Somewhere around my birthday in November of 2004, I had what turned out to be the last substantive conversation I would ever have with my father - we argued, about whether I should help him fund the con woman who was busy taking him for all he had. When I refused to send him the $30,000 she was apparently asking for, he was quietly sullen for a bit. Then, after a moment, he asked, with a slight lilt in his voice, "So how'd you like the election?"

The nasty triumphalism of that question, and the irrational anger that fed it, became for me a symbol of everything that had gone somehow haywire, in my country and in my life. My mother's death a month later, and my father's soon after, cemented a sense of despair that was so pervasive, so encompassing that it was no longer even noticeable: it was simply the way life was. And the state of the world around me repeatedly confirmed that conclusion.

I'm writing this because of late I've begun to feel the miasma lifting, if ever so slightly, to find myself believing that while the world is a very complicated and difficult place, despair is perhaps not the only and inevitable response.

No one could be more surprised about this than I am. Yes, Mr. Obama, apparently we can.

posted by jeev | 2:44 PM |

Monday, December 29, 2008

For all you WOW players out there.

Obama wins President Achievement on World of Warcraft

For everybody else, trust me, this is pretty funny.
Courtesy of Wow Insider.

posted by jeev | 12:55 PM |

Friday, December 12, 2008

Maddow is on fire:

I made car parts in a terrible factory when I was in college. Hot and dirty and mind-numbing and dangerous. And the Republicans think the people who do it their whole lives, well, they're just fat cats who need to re-adjust their expectations. Morons.

posted by jeev | 9:37 PM |

Sunday, November 23, 2008

"It's going to be fucking amazing."

posted by jeev | 2:19 PM |

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

A friend tweets:

Obama joy has been worn off, replaced with Prop 8 dread. A popular vote about you is depressing.

What he said.

posted by jeev | 10:50 AM |

Paul Krugman:

Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.

What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.

And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”

Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness.

For now.

posted by jeev | 10:40 AM |

Tuesday, November 04, 2008