Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Seriously?

I was just shopping on Amazon and searched "Gift For Mom" and this item came up.



Exactly what are you implying, Amazon?

Monday, July 29, 2013

Surf Riot



When I saw the headline "Surf Riot in Huntington Beach Last Night." I thought, "'Surf Riot' now that's a good band name." Then I thought Fox News will cover it as "Yet another Trayvon riot." And then I googled it and found out that there was a much more destructive riot in 1986 at the exact same event, which has since been renamed, and none of the articles I was reading mentioned that history. Exactly why is it so hard for reporters to google? I mean, the "Los Angeles Times" didn't mention it and they wrote a substantial article about it in 1986 telling the story of a lifeguard protecting medical equipment in their headquarters from looters by shooting into the ceiling to disperse the crowd.

Anyways, here's a guy using a surf board as kindling below. It's at least much more on topic for a surf riot than piercing a bike store window with a stop sign, though it can be said that destroying a surf board at a surfing event is also just a tad bit ironic.


Sunday, July 21, 2013

Chinatown


Most colorful roach trap in the world.


Toughest mannequin in the world.


Happiest disembodied heads in the world.


Florida, water, the cause of all the problems in the world.


The most specific wishing well in the world.


Loneliest weave in the world.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Trayvon Protest in LA Sunday 7/14



Below is a photo/video log of how, on Sunday, July 14th, the Justice for Trayvon Martin Protest March found its way onto the 10 Freeway.



It began as a fairly small demonstration at the intersection of Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Blvd in front of the Crenshaw Plaza Mall at 4 PM.



Chants of "Justice for Trayvon Martin" were heard.



Drawing parallels between Trayvon and Emmett Till.



And then, without warning, in the middle of someone's speech, people suddenly started walking en masse up the southbound side of Crenshaw. Which is in the opposite direction of the 10 freeway.



After about 15 minutes of walking in this direction, the crowd turned around and took over both sides of Crenshaw. And then this baby's Skittles fell on the ground. I handed them back to his mother.



Beyonce plead from the billboard above us to "Live For Now," brought to you by Pepsi.



And when I got to this intersection, the protestors had already blocked the tram, seconds later it went in reverse all the way back to the station.



This "2 Guns" movie billboard allowed us to imagine what might have happened if it hadn't been just one gun. Or to think, yay, more guns. Or, Denzel Washington's in a comedy with Mark Wahlberg?



Just before 6 PM we were closing in on the 10 and it seemed obvious to me that what no one was saying, was indeed going to happen.



At the entrance to the 10 surprisingly, cops were only on the off ramp opposite of us. No one was guarding the on ramp. As the group caught up, the intersection began to fill and then suddenly... the crowd started walking down the on ramp.



And this is a still from the moment we stormed the 10.



And this is a video from that moment.



And this is me on the 10. (That's right, I'm that girl who only gets followed by people who wonder why I'm walking by myself in this neighborhood because it's not safe.)



We spread out further as a march on the 10 than the news portrayed.



People cheered us on from the overpass above.



And this is when we hit the police line which had formed seconds earlier when, laden with riot gear, the police jogged up the opposite side of the 10 in order to deploy ahead of us.



This is video of that interaction. Just before I shot this, the police officer was getting jostled pretty hard. I thought for a moment, it was about to go down when an older black man came out in front and appealed for calm. At this point I turned around and realized that the cops AND the general traffic had closed in on us and people were running to climb up the hill for fear of a rubber bullet situation.



I felt like we were ants escaping water the way we all streamed rapidly up a now trodden ivy path.



Here we go.



Baby included.



Just a few protestors left on the 10.



Protestors standing their ground.



Moments later, they retreated up the hill and only cops were on the 10.



And then I noticed this guy on his bike.



And... here he is getting handcuffed.



Here's a closer look. Now, to get to off the freeway, we all had to climb a concrete barrier into some guy's backyard. I twisted my ankle as it was an arm's length over my head. On the second try to get over, some guy launched me up when I stepped into his threaded together fingers. I then dropped just as far down on the other side, followed immediately by a muscular guy who came down on his back, dust flying everywhere. I was always better at the dismount. Of course, as I turned the corner I saw people crawling on their hands and knees through a tiny maintenance door in the wall. Oh, well.



For quite a long while they kept the 10 closed and there were only cop cars on it.



Then, there were no cars on it. Some protestors proclaimed that they were heading on towards Hollywood, others said they were going to Beverly Hills, I decided to return to my car as my ankle was fairly painful. This involved walking all the way back down Crenshaw.



The Crenshaw return group was much smaller, but still a couple hundred, and was led by a Black Panther who reminded me of that scene in "Malcolm X" when he would start and stop us all solely with hand signals. We walked past low-riders as a drum corps joined us with the most serious of faces. By then my cell phone had died so I experienced the last half hour through my eyes rather than through my screen. Finally, we amassed at the intersection of Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Blvd, right back where the whole thing had begun. Less cops than before, more honking in support than before, and darkness was falling on what seemed like, an if not brighter day, a day that had drawn attention to the dire consequences of racial profiling and the entirely uneven application of the law.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Broke The Story

Due to the internet's "research" into the bombings at the Boston Marathon this week which was full of misinformation, jumping to conclusions and worldwide trending of the names of the falsely accused, I was reminded of a bit of research that I did, for the movie "Religulous," on a quote which is often attributed to former Secretary of the Interior James Watt, "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."



Here's the thing, James Watt didn't say that. But the internet says that he did. And when I was asked to verify it, I actually had to do something that no blogger has ever done: go to the library.

What Watt did say, on February 5, 1981 at the Oversight hearing before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs in the House of Representatives, was “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to have the resources needed for future generations.”

In mentioning "before the Lord returns" while testifying to congress about the need for environmental responsibility, he's implying that we should keep the end times in mind when estimating the fuel needs of our great, great grandchildren. 'Cause, the rapture isn't powered by coal, it's powered by prayer. Or Kirk Cameron. Or something.

The quote above is only in Congressional transcripts, which I found in the stacks at UCLA, no where else on the internet until now. I know, hold your excitement.

It's frustrating, that if you use the internet for research, you'll find the same misquotes cut and pasted onto every blog and book and reputable periodical in town. I'm looking at you, Washington Post. So, I did a little, go-to-the-library looking into it. Actually, go-to-two-libraries looking into it.

And below I've charted out how Watt’s statement was swapped around and how he makes himself sound better by changing one word in his 2005 Washington Post article, therefore misquoting himself. And it’s not like he can say it’s a typo because he sent the changed transcript to a blogger as well.

In the Washington Post article Watt's writes “leave the resources” rather than “have the resources” which is what is in the published transcripts from the House of Representatives. I’d say that swapping in "leave" for "have" conveniently makes it sound better environmentally. As if he wants to "leave" the trees instead of clear-cutting. If you read into it, by saying “have” it sounds more like he wants to cut them down but don’t use all the wood at this time.

Am I giving the stenographer the benefit of a doubt? Yes. Yes, I am.

As stated above, the popular misquote is: "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." It was first found in a book published in 1990, which I found in the Santa Monica Public Library, Setting the Captives Free by Austin Miles (1990, pg. 229). Miles is unable to substantiate this quote. Grist picked up the quote in 2004 and then Bill Moyers’ quotes it from Grist in a speech that same year. Both Grist and Moyers have since apologized for the misquote. Watt is also upset at Barbara R. Rossing, who wrote The Rapture Exposed, because she cherry picks his actual quote, and truly by cutting it off she does put him in a worse light. As a side note, Watt was brought up on contempt of Congress charges for failure to supply subpoenaed documents on the very topic he was briefing them on. You know, honor thy constituency and all that.

In 2004 Grist Magazine published “Odds are it was in 1981, when President Reagan's first secretary of the interior, James Watt, told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. 'God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back,' Watt said in public testimony that helped get him fired.” “The Godly Must Be Crazy,” Grist Magazine, by Glenn Scherer, Oct 27, 2004 "Odds are"? Seriously? Is that all you have to do as a journalist? I mean, couldn't you do a little bit of journalism down at the law library? It's free. Maybe it's the parking charges. That's probably it. Or traffic. That's another possibility.

Bill Moyers stated that he’s quoting from Grist in his acceptance remarks, on December 1, 2004, for the Global Environmental Citizen Award at Harvard University: "James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, 'After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.' Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate if a recent Gallup poll is accurate." Yeah, ABC-NBC-PBS-Bill Moyers.

The following is Barbara Rossing's partial actual quote which upsets Watt in his Washington Post Article "Watt told U.S. senators that we are living at the brink of the end-times and implied that this justifies clear cutting the nation's forest and other unsustainable environmental policies. When he was asked about preserving the environment for future generations, Watt told his Senate confirmation hearing, 'I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.' Watt's 'use it or lose it' view of the world's resources is a perspective shared by the Rapture proponents." (The Rapture Exposed by Barbara R. Rossing (of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago), 2004, pg 7)

Then Powerlineblog received the transcript from Watt which includes the “leave the resources” line, showing my point that Watt is repeating this word change that he made in the Washington Post. The blog also asserts that Grist added “testimony before Congress.” Well, Powerlineblog, that detail Grist got right. He was briefing the House of Representatives which IS Congress. And Watt himself does not refute this so this is probably a blogger looking for something that’s not there as the real quote was said before Congress so let's add that on to the misquote pile.

Here is the portion of Watt’s Washington Post Article wherein he changes one word in his quote and is annoyed that it gets cut off by Rossing "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns; whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations." (“The Religious Left’s Lies” The Washington Post, May 21, 2005, by James Watt)

And finally, the part that you've all been waiting for... THE CONGRESSIONAL TRANSCRIPT - Transcribed by me from the actual transcript after sitting on the floor for two days in the basement of the UCLA Law Library reading through volumes of records attempting to find the quote as I could only find the year and month in which he testified. So besides not having the quote, no one had the exact date online either.

Here's the title, it's short and catchy "Oversight hearing before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-Seventh Congress, First Session on Briefing by the Secretary of the Interior, Hearing" held February 5, 1981, Serial No. 97-1, Subject: 290300 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Environment, Health, & Safety ;290400 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Energy Resources; ;ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY;RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT;US DOI-- PLANNING; GOVERNMENT POLICIES;HEARINGS, Published: 1981 Jan 01, Pgs. 37-38. The UCLA Law Library Call Number is Y4.In8/14:97-1

This transcript should really be turned into an animation, especially the part at the end.

“Mr. Weaver [D. Ore.]: Do you want to see on lands under your management, the sustained yield policies continued?

Secretary Watt: Absolutely.

Mr. Weaver: I am very pleased to hear that. Then I will make one final statement... I believe very strongly that we should not, for example, use up all the oil that took nature 1 billion years to make in one century.

We ought to leave a few drops of it for our children, their children. They are going to need it... I wonder if you agree, also, in the general statement that we should leave some of our resources--I am now talking about scenic areas or preservation, but scenic resources for our children? That we should not just gobble them up all at once?

Secretary Watt: Absolutely. That is the delicate balance the Secretary of the Interior must have, to be steward for the natural resources for this generation as well as future generations.

I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to have the resources needed for future generations.

Mr. Weaver: Mr. Chairman, I want to conclude, if I might, seeing the Secretary brought up the Lord, with a story.

The Chairman: The conversation will be in order.

Mr. Weaver: In my district, Mr. Chairman, there are some who do not like wilderness. They do not like it at all. I would try to plead with them. I go around my district and say do you not believe--I would plead with their religious sensibilities--that we should leave some of our land the way we received it from the Creator?

I have said this frequently throughout my district. I got a letter from a constituent... He said, 'Mr. Weaver, if the Lord wanted to leave his forest lands, some of them in the way that we got them from him," he said, "why did He send His only son down to Earth as a carpenter?'

(Laughter)

Mr. Weaver: That stumped us. That stumped us until one of my aides, an absolute genius, said that the Lord Jesus before he determined his true mission spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness.

(Laughter)”

So when blog after blog copies and pastes the same piece of information and tweets and retweets and then CNN reports on it, it becomes "a fact." We're living in a time where content wins over correct. There are no more scoops. The internet already broke the story. In more ways than one.



I don't believe that you've read this all the way to the end, so I put this sentence here.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Open Call

Tyler Perry is stepping down from the role of Madea. But I can think of a few guys who are totally up for donning a dress and interpreting the word of god.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Guns, Guns, Guns


There was a guy on that show that Larry King used to do
Yelling about guns to you know who
Well, maybe you don’t know who
Piers Morgan who calls a bathroom a loo
Or at least I assume that’s a thing he would do

He likes The Queen Mum
That Piers Mor-gun
He said in a matter of fact, ho-hum
“Are you finished,” [you sun of a gun]?
Alex Jones let out another yelp
It’s obvious that there would be no such help
Communicating with this man who cooperates like kelp

Guns, guns, guns
Buns, buns, buns
Um, um, um
Plum, plum, plum
Dumb, dumb, dumb