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January 30, 2007
shenanigans
I love to sit next to the sunny window as I did this afternoon, reading for school, listening to the sirens and subway, church bells playing "Abide With Me" and "Ave Maria," drinking chai to warm my bones.
Gilbert Blythe is in the 2nd season of Slings and Arrows! I've seen about three Canadian productions in my life, and he's in two of them! What a strange experience to see his reddish hair and hear his aged voice (not old, just older). Where have all those years gone? He belongs in the Mark Hamill/Seinfeld characters category; no other role shall suit them.
I read on my grande Starbucks coffee cup yesterday a quotation from a musician whose name escapes me. A paraphrase: the most important thing I've learned in my career is to not let anyone intimidate me, because everyone's experienced pain, loneliness, and weakness at some point. As someone who is not very smart nor well-equipped in many areas of life, I've had to embrace this mindset wholeheartedly. If I look a fool to someone who should intimidate me, then I look a fool. Most of the time I avoid people anyway, so it doesn't matter.
Last week I helped a fellow disabled student read her homework, and I'll repeat the task this week. I enjoyed it because it felt like bedtime storytelling, only the content was more sophisticated and my subject highlighted important points as she read along.
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January 25, 2007
family pix
Belz fam
New Year's Eve bowling with cousins
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January 22, 2007
finally snow...and the battle of algiers
Tonight I first saw snow visit our neighborhood. It's nothing to write home about (only an inch), but as snow has decided to elude these parts, I must commemorate it. Where hast thou been, fine crystal playground? My unprepared feet stumbled and slipped on an icy sewer door on my route home. No match for gravity, I could only laugh at myself, elated at the prospect of a true winter week.
I was returning from my guerrilla warfare class, where we watched the film The Battle of Algiers.
This film narrates the uprising of the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria in the 50's and early 60's. The most interesting part of the story, besides the balanced portrayal of French paratrooper and terrorist perspectives, is the way women were used to carry out terrorist activities for the FLN. From hiding guns underneath burqas, to disguising themselves as French women (haircuts, hair and face coloring, modern dress), to carrying bombs in large handbags and conveniently leaving them in popular French civilian hangouts - it's clear women were indispensible to the Algerian revolution, even if it meant compromising strict religious practices. I don't condone these women's actions, of course, but it's hard not to admire their cunning techniques. Children, too, were "heroes," acting as secret messengers, ganging up on incompetent or disloyal members of the FLN, and encouraging the Arabs via loudspeaker about the fortune of the rebellion.
If you haven't seen the film, do. Philip Jenkins wrote an article about it (unfortunately I can't find the url), arguing that The Battle of Algiers is a must-see for anyone who wants to understand or even...ahem...form policy within the Muslim world. It also elucidates the workings of a terrorist-led revolution and the measures taken to suppress it, measures that ultimately failed. Lessons from one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century bear timely relevance to the issues we're dealing with now. Pay heed, says Jenkins; I concur.
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January 15, 2007
In honor of MLK Day
Here it is again: "I have a dreamsicle."
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January 13, 2007
news ironies
In recents days, a couple of odd news items crossed my path and fell subject to my cutting scrutiny. More specifically, each story revealed the humourous heedlessness of its subjects and/or storytellers. See for yourself.
Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode, as you may well know, wrote a letter in December to John Cruikshank, detailing his opposition to the swearing in of Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison. Goode's beef with Ellison is that he made his oath on a copy of the Koran rather than the Bible. I've selected some of the most significant quotations from the letter to make my point:
"The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.
"I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped."
Other than the glaring dismissal of Ellison's American citizenship, Goode's rhetoric mirrors the U.S. government's approach to fledgling democracies in other parts of the world - namely, Algeria in the 90's (the Feis party vs. military) and Egypt in the early 2000's (Muslim Brotherhood vs. Mubarrak). Unfair comparison, you say, but Goode's message is clear, even if he disguises it in an argument about immigration. Basically, we don't want Muslims, radical or not, to gain too much power in these governments, even if they're democratically elected - and now Virgil Goode is afraid of it happening in our own country? I don't want to argue about whether it's beneficial for Muslims to be elected to Congress or for Muslims to immigrate to this country - personally, I think both are fine - but the humor of the story is that American foreign policy has morphed into American domestic policy, albeit unofficially and only through Goode's words. Given the negative reaction to Mr. Goode, I don't think we're in danger of his underlying argument becoming policy.
The other news irony, a little less serious and more intentional, is an AP story from Friday's Metro about a University of Calgary study on procrastination in America. Apparently we consider ourselves chronic procrastinators more than we used to. TV and the Internet are to blame (heck, I'm not gonna argue with that). What is university professor Piers Steel's answer, according to the AP? "Something has to be done about it, sooner rather than later...." Well, I'll say. We mustn't procrastinate trying to fix our procrastination problem! I'll give the Metro credit, though, because even though it's not a bastion of fine, admirable journalism, it can manage some humorous self-awareness in its more serious sections (the ones not labeled Entertainment, Weekend, or Opinion).
Finally, I want to add my own phrases to Lake Superior State University's list of banned words for 2006:
"We are social creatures."
"I'm a people person."
"I'm a visual learner."
"Grey's Anatomy."
"Grey's Anatomy in hi-def."
"We're gonna watch Grey's Anatomy in hi-def!"
Too late for 2006...I'm pushin' for '07.
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January 09, 2007
youtube gems
Preface: Does anyone remember the name of the show with the adults dressed up as zoo animals? I'm pretty sure the name contained the word "zoo." That's all I can recall, honestly. I'm just hoping a light will turn on in one of your heads when I give you these vague clues.
Not at all uninspired by Josiah, I've decided to post some of my favorite cartoons' intros from the 80's and 90's. Before I watched the Gummi Bears on Josiah's blog, I had all but forgotten about that show. It's amazing what details one remembers from childhood - the bears jumping onto their wooden bobsled; Bobby's tricycle wheels extending to balance on the railings as he sails down the stairs; and Garfield polishing off a plate of spaghetti in one gulp. The timing of each sound, too, is etched in my memory, even if such sounds would now be indistinct to my adult mind.
Apparently a lot of these come from Retrojunk. Enjoy!
Bobby's World:
Garfield and Friends:
Fraggle Rock:
Muppet Babies (also look for the Star Wars parody - classic!):
And of course, Square One:
Last but not least, I had to post another Colbert favorite in honor of my possibly going to the show in February (fingers crossed!):
I do realize, by the way, that the last one I posted (with Eleanor Holmes-Norton) was one of the most popular on the Internet; the posting was more for my sake than anyone else's.
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January 04, 2007
Refreshed
First, a favorite Colbert highlight:
Second, our new ticket to public transportation (you tap this plastic Charlie on a sensor, and if you don't have him, you pay $2.00 for a subway ride):
Third, I bowled a 134, apparently dressed as Little Miss Homeschool.
And for Christmas, I received new snowflake pajamas, slippers, a bottle of sherry, massage oil and foot roller, two new rings, RJD2's Since We Last Spoke, David Brooks' On Paradise Drive, and Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear it Away. I can now take those last three off my wishlist.
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