in todays news:

1. saul williams show last night
2. kanye
3. new orleans

1. Saul Williams at UM last night

We found out about the show through Morgan's little brother- foreboding sign number 1. It was at the Rathskeller at the University of Miami- foreboding sign number 2. The only person we knew was "the dancing guy" who was dancing a la drum and bass to the opening act which was a jamband-jazz-hiphop fusion type deal- foreboding sign number 3.

But actually it wasn't as bad as the signs pointed to it being. But it wasn't Saul in his element. The crowd was filled with the typical UM student and well- lets just say there were too many guys in flip flops for my taste. From the ceiling hung Hurricane flags and frat paddles adored the walls on the second floor where Morgan Andy and I prepared for the event we really came to see.

Saul did the damn thing, as he usually does. Some people really felt it. Alot of people looked confused. Everyone was drinking beer. He focused his attention on the black females. He gave a little aside about the shit going down in New Orleans and, well, despite the environment he was still empowering. I will always appreciate artists that make you want to leave their show in the middle and go make the world a better place. Though, his spoken word shows are more likely to have that effect.

I prefer the spoken word and it was a short performance, and well not worthy of two thumbs up but it definitely gets a nod of approval. It was just an interesting night.

2. Kanye... (almost... droppin some real knowledge)

"Good Morning, this ain't Vietnam still
People lose hands, legs, arms for real
Little was known of Sierra Leone
And how it connect to the diamonds we own...
Though it's thousands of miles away
Sierra Leone connect to what we go through today
Over here, its a drug trade, we die from drugs
Over there, they die from what we buy from drugs
The diamonds, the chains, the bracelets, the charmses
I thought my Jesus Piece was so harmless
'til I seen a picture of a shorty armless
And here's the conflict
It's in a black person's soul to rock that gold
Spend ya whole life tryna get that ice
On a polar rugby it look so nice
How could somethin' so wrong make me feel so right, right?"

Why are human rights activists concerned about diamonds?
Diamonds in Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have fueled and funded civil war and gross abuses against the civilian population. Sierra Leone is of particular concern because of the extraordinary abusiveness of the rebel forces that control most of the country's diamond production. Since 1991, the RUF has fought to control Sierra Leon's rich diamond-producing areas. Those diamonds, transshipped through Liberia, Burkina Faso, and other countries, have provided the RUF with millions of dollars to buy sophisticated weapons. The RUF has forced millions of Sierra Leoneans from their homes and committed tens of thousands of abuses, including raping, recruitment of child soldiers, and the amputation of hands of thousands of children, men, and women. Despite the presence of over 10,000 UN peacekeepers, the RUF currently controls approximately three-fourths of Sierra Leone, and has spread the war over diamonds to neighboring Guinea. The link between diamonds and abuses in both Sierra Leone and Angola is so strong that the United Nations has imposed an embargo against diamonds from rebel-controlled areas of both countries. (http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/sierra_leone/diam_q&a.html)

needless to say... if you're going to buy diamonds, make sure they are not funding wars, it's really the least you can do if you can afford a diamond in the first place. (just google conflict diamonds and you will find lists of jewelers who DON'T sell them, complete with certificate of origin and everything.)

3. New Orleans

Wow. The whole thing just sucks. Now the news has become bleaker than ever and who really wants to know about it anyway... it's just... depressing. But really, it was only a matter of time, a state right on the gulf that's UNDER sea level... come on. News organizations (like the Washington Post) are calling those stuck in the submerged city 'refugees'. Just a minor correction, they are not. As long as they are in the US, they can't be refugees, they are internally displaced people, or IDP. I don't know, they mis- differentiation is somehow important to me. It makes a difference everywhere else. It actually makes me realize that we are lucky to have never had to really think about the difference between the two terms in this country. Lucky us, huh?

And not to make the whole thing even more depressing... but... it just makes you have to think about all the IDP all over the world.

AND THE GRAND TOTAL OF ALL IDP IN THE WORLD IS: 25,300,000

(as of August 31, 2005... none of them from the US... to find out where they are from go to... http://www.idpproject.org/statistics.htm)

so i had seen it many times over the past few months, i don't remember the first time. but here was this guy, on air somewhere after the last episode of law and order and before the guy with the apple peeling machine, and he was telling the world he had the cures to diseases. that 'the man' doesn't want you to know these cures. that companies are making money by keeping you sick. yeah man, no shit. he was right... just not about the cure part. obviously this man, kevin trudeau, was not the medicine man and his book Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About was obviously not some sort of bible for the bed ridden. he had nothing credible to really back up his supposed cure for cancer. yet, i knew he had one thing right, people are being screwed and they are going to believe a person who appears to be on their side of things. and boy was he right.



even after numerous headlines in regards to his book, such as: "The Book Just Simply Sucks" and "'Scams they don't want you to know about", the book remained on best seller lists across the country. he books were still selling even after we were told he had been in jail for credit card fraud and was accused of running a pyramid scheme in the 90s, not to mention he was banned from making certain infomercials in 1998 by the federal trade commission- something to do with health products that didn't actually work. (luckily for him he can say whatever he wants to in a book... that whole free speech thing.)

ahem. he's a con man. and it's sick. it's also sad that people distrust the medical world so much. this story is not all that interesting because of mr. trudeau. the real story here is that that people really do feel they are suffering so the rich can get richer. i admit it, i feel that way to sometimes. if people are healthy they won't want to by drugs... so lets just give them things that don't cure the problem, just make it go away for a bit so they always need more. if mr. trudeau had a medical degree i might have bought the book too... or at least skimmed through it at the book store. however, i do think if there was cure for cancer already, we'd know. the longer people live, the more advil, birth control and cholesterol medication they can buy.

(this was written with the help of salon.com and jessica's internet connection)

so i was at a friend's apartment in brooklyn. it was a long train ride back uptown, with lots of interesting things to watch:

* i'm one of those people who feels terrible when there is someone begging for money on the train. (well, most of the time). a few thoughts run through my head but one that is always present is the fact that it is not very flattering work and i would hope that people are really in trouble before they resort to begging. i would like to believe that this is their last option. most of the time i do believe them. granted i only know they deserve what money i give them if they are some sort of performer or musician, because then it is not begging but i am merely paying them for a service. well anyway, case in point, this 20 something gentleman got on the train, dressed decently, and asked for money for his wife and 2 month old daughter so they could eat. he held up a picture of his daughter as well. i wanted to give him something, but i had absolutely nothing on me. there was a couple across from me and the woman gave him a dollar while her boyfriend just shook his head urging her not to.

i think in some way i have to believe that most people begging on the trains are not using the money for crack or alcohol or other such things. but unfortunately you never know. it's a toss up: you could be making their lives better, or worse. what do you do? i want to believe people and i guess that's a weakness sometimes. it's just too bad we have to question people's motives in such a manner, because you never know who is telling the truth.

* so apparently when you are riding the new york city public transportation system, you are automatically subject to random searches of your bags or packages. it started on the 21st i think. now i'm paranoid on the train, even when i'm not carrying weed on me. i know weed is not what they are looking for but i'd probably do more time for it than if i was carrying explosives. we have become so paranoid that soon nothing in our lives will be private. hell, i guess if i was so concerned with privacy i wouldn't have this livejournal up online (or a facebook account, or a myspace account, or 4 email accounts on 3 different servers or do/did most of my banking online). but cyber privacy and physical privacy are unfortunately two different things.

this ability to randomly search people scares me. i've never disliked police or authority figures of that nature. they have to exist and someone has to be them, they are just doing their job, right? most of the time i believe that, but as two police officers walked through my train car today i clutched my bag and part of me prayed they actually did search me just so i could legitimately get pissed off. i saw them walk through, looking at everyone with this look of god-like power in their eyes. they were the kings of the train. everyone stopped to watch them walk past, the public displays of power (much like public displays of affection) made me want to vomit. at the end of the car a young brother and sister, maybe about 6 and 4 respectively, waved at the officers. they were latino children and i couldn't help but wonder how long it will be until they stop waving at police officers and look at them with distrust.

i have to be up in 4 hours to go to work. i have increasingly had the desire to write entries that are all about me and the stupid things i do. but that may be because i don't know what's going on in the world at the moment, except that there's nothing really good.

lately i've been dumb. doing things i don't really want to be doing, only i do them anyway because anything seems better than nothing at all. and i think that i'd be fine if what i was doing just ended completely, but then realize i really want what i don't even really want. i don't know man, i just don't know.

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but anyway....

on the train to day:
the woman on my right was reading "The Best of American Erotica"
the woman standing in front of me was reading the new Harry Potter
and the woman to my left was reading "The Bell Jar"

i found it amusing...

i am sitting alone in my apartment in harlem. my current two roommates are away for the weekend, leaving me with nothing but the internet and the two mice that have moved in without our permission and without offering to pay some rent to entertain me. thus, i fall into the trap of being alone in my head and, thus, thinking silly.

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i've refrained from writing about this for a while but i will write about it now because ali brought it up...

By now you have probably seen something from Dove's new marketing campaign, entitled the Campaign for Real Beauty. The premise is an open defiance to the stereotypical ideal of what is considered beautiful. "Real women have curves." "Grey or gorgeous?" Their billboards and magazine ads feature "plus" size women, women with freckles, women with small breasts, older women, etc.

I like it... in theory. It's completely insane the way we strive to permanently be 20 years old, wear size 2 jeans and DD bras, and have the perfect nose, perfect skin and conform in any way we can to this image that is simply arbitrary. I am the first to encourage anyone who decides to live life on their own terms. There is this overwhelming pressure on women to be that famous actress in order to be considered attractive. We learn from a young age the many ways we can change ourselves to fit society's expectations of us (and all the things we can buy to do so). We learn to shave our legs and underarms, pluck our eyebrows, get manicures and pedicures, count calories, apply makeup, and straighten, blow dry and control our hair. And girls are now learning these lessons far earlier than I remember learning many of them. The message given to women is to fit this image or be shunned. But maybe that's just what I perceive, perhaps I overreact to everything I see and hear in this regard.

Nonetheless, in theory I should be a fan of this campaign. But I just can't be. Yes it is refreshing. Yes it is needed. Yes big business finally doing something beneficial for once. However, there's something about it that concerns me. Since when have freckles been something to be ashamed of? By pointing specifically to these characteristics, they turn them into flaws. "Oh look at that girl with the small breasts, oh well, it's ok, she can still be pretty anyway." The campaign does not make these women beautiful because they are who they are but rather despite who they are. Maybe it can be interpreted in the opposite way. It might just be the fact that a cosmetic company is responsible for the campaign and thus, since most women are not "model material" it's very good for business to make your consumers feel you are the only company that truly understands them. Yes, it is good for business.

Perhaps I haven't quite figured out the real reason why it all sits so poorly with me. Maybe it's because all the women are still actually very attractive women. Or maybe it's something else. But I guess Dove does deserve a little praise for attempting to break the stereotype, even if it does put a few extra dollars in their pockets. I just can't get past the fact that in our society, everyone can't be beautiful. Today I touched the belly of a co-worker who is 7 months pregnant, and all I could think was how overwhelmingly beautiful that child will be- whether they be fat, skinny, tall, short, or freckled- and how beautiful my co-worker looked with her large belly, dressed in her work uniform and ready to work for a paycheck that will not nearly be enough.

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat3.asp?id=2287

bad news all around this first of july 2005:

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justice sandra day o'connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, retired today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/politics/politicsspecial1/02oconnor.html?th&emc=th

July 2, 2005
O'Connor Held Balance of Power
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, July 1 - The O'Connor Court.

The phrase has been used so many times over so many years to describe the Supreme Court that it is nearly a cliché. Yet the simple words capture an equally simple truth: to find out where the court is on almost any given issue, look for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

If you are a lawyer with a case at the court, pitch your arguments to her. If your issue is affirmative action, or religion, or federalism, or redistricting, or abortion, or constitutional due process in any of its many manifestations, you can assume that the fate of that issue is in her hands. Don't bother with doctrinaire assertions and bright-line rules. Be meticulously prepared on the facts, and be ready to show how the law relates to those facts and how, together, they make sense.

And it is because Justice O'Connor has played such a pivotal role on the court for much of her 24-year tenure that her unexpected retirement is such a galvanizing event. Much more than the widely anticipated retirement of the predictably conservative Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, her departure creates an opportunity for President Bush to shape the court.

The last such defining moment occurred with the retirement in 1987 of Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., whose position on the court then resembled Justice O'Connor's today. President Ronald Reagan nominated a polarizing conservative, Robert H. Bork, whose defeat by a Democratic-controlled Senate after a protracted battle still resonates today.

A list of the issues on which Justice O'Connor has held the balance of power goes far to explain why holiday weekend preparations screeched to a halt in Washington on Friday morning as word spread of her decision to retire.

Just two years ago, she wrote the opinion for the 5-to-4 majority that upheld affirmative action in university admissions. Earlier, in a series of decisions interpreting the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection, she led or joined 5-to-4 majorities that viewed with great suspicion government policies that took account of race in federal contracting, employment and electoral redistricting. Her view was that the government should not be in the business of counting by race.

But in Grutter v. Bollinger, the University of Michigan case decided in 2003, she became persuaded that affirmative action in university admissions was still justified. "Effective participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the civic life of our nation is essential if the dream of one nation, indivisible, is to be realized," she wrote.

Until the pair of Ten Commandments decisions this week, which found her in dissent from the ruling that upheld a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, she had occupied a central position on the role of religion in public life.

Beginning with her earliest years on the court, Justice O'Connor adopted her own test for evaluating whether government policy amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Instead of a three-part test that the court used, she asked whether the government policy under review conveyed to nonadherents the message that they were "outsiders, not full members of the political community."

This led her to vote to prohibit public prayer at high school graduations and football games, but to insist on equal access for student religious publications and clubs. In 2002, she voted with the 5-to-4 majority that upheld the use of publicly financed tuition vouchers at religious schools. In her opinion this week concurring with the 5-to-4 majority that declared framed copies of the Ten Commandments hanging in Kentucky courthouses to be unconstitutional, she said the Constitution's religion clauses "protect adherents of all religions, as well as those who believe in no religion at all."

On the other most intensely fought social issue of the day, abortion, Justice O'Connor's successor will not be in a position to move the court away from its support of the core right to abortion, now at 6 to 3. But in the court's last major abortion ruling, five years ago, Justice O'Connor provided the crucial fifth vote to strike down Nebraska's ban on what were called "partial birth" abortions.

She has been a loyal ally of her Stanford Law School classmate Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist in the court's continuing reappraisal of the relationship between the states and the federal government, joining the five-member majority in a series of cases that have insisted on greater respect for the sovereignty of the individual states while limiting the role of Congress.

One of the few federalism cases in which she and Justice Rehnquist parted company came last year in Tennessee v. Lane, on whether states were immune from being sued for failing to make their courthouses accessible to people with disabilities. Justice O'Connor provided a fifth vote against immunity, while Chief Justice Rehnquist dissented. The plaintiff was a man who used a wheelchair and who had been forced to crawl up the stairs to reach the courtroom in a Tennessee county courthouse.

To the extent that Justice O'Connor had an overall judicial philosophy, she might have expressed it most directly in an opinion dissenting from a 1995 decision that authorized public school districts to subject student athletes to drug testing without any suspicion of individual wrongdoing. The policy was justified to deal with rampant student drug use, the district had argued in Vernonia School District v. Acton.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice O'Connor warned that judges should be wary of overreacting to such arguments.

"Some crises are quite real" but some are not, she said. "The only way for judges to mediate these conflicting impulses is to do what they should do anyway: stay close to the record in each case that appears before them, and make their judgments based on that alone."

Sandra O'Connor's pragmatic approach to life and the law was probably born in the stark and isolated desert of the Southwest that she described in vivid detail in "Lazy B," a childhood memoir she published three years ago. The Day family ranch, 250 arid square miles straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border, "was no country for sissies," she wrote.

The house, 35 miles from the nearest town, had neither electricity nor running water. Her companions were horses and ranch hands, and her goal as the first-born child was to be useful around the place and to please her hard-driving, perfectionist father. When things broke, they needed to be fixed. There was little room for discussion and none for theorizing.

Fulfilling her father's own ambition that had been thwarted by the lack of money, she attended Stanford University and Stanford Law School, where she graduated third in the class of 1952 at the age of 22. The top honors in the class went to a World War II veteran more than five years her senior, William H. Rehnquist. He went on to a Supreme Court clerkship. As a woman, she could not get a job with the law firms to which she applied, receiving offers of secretarial jobs instead.

She turned to the public sector as a lawyer for state and local governments, while raising three sons with her husband, John, who had been a fellow law-review editor at Stanford. The couple settled in Phoenix, where civic activities led her to a career in Republican politics. The Arizona governor appointed her to a vacant seat in the State Senate in 1969, and she later twice won election. She became majority leader, the first woman in the country to hold such a high leadership position in a state legislature.

In 1974, she was elected to a seat on the state trial court. Five years later, Gov. Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, appointed her to the state appeals court, where she was serving when President Reagan, who had promised to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court, chose her in July 1981 for the first vacancy to occur during his term. She was confirmed unanimously, forever to be known as the first woman on the Supreme Court, or F.W.O.T.S.C., as she has put it dryly.

Although hardly a feminist in terms of political activism, Justice O'Connor demonstrated from her earliest years on the court a sensitivity to issues of sex discrimination that she maintained throughout her tenure.

One of her first majority opinions, in 1982, came in Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan. The 5-to-4 decision declared unconstitutional the exclusion of a male applicant from a state-supported, women-only nursing school. Her opinion warned against using "archaic and stereotypic notions" about proper roles for men and women.

On several occasions, including this year, she joined the four more liberal justices to uphold a broad interpretation of a federal statute addressing sex discrimination. In 1999, for example, she wrote the opinion for a 5-to-4 majority in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, holding public school districts accountable for one student's sexual harassment of another student.

And during the term that just ended, she wrote the majority opinion in another 5-to-4 decision, Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, that expanded the scope of the sex discrimination law known as Title IX to provide protection against retaliation for whistle-blowers who complain about discriminatory practices in schools and colleges.

One exception came in 2000, when she joined Chief Justice Rehnquist's 5-to-4 majority opinion in United States v. Morrison, invalidating a provision of the Violence Against Women Act on the ground that Congress had lacked the constitutional authority to enact the law.

The most famous, or notorious, 5-to-4 opinion in 2000 was, of course, Bush v. Gore, which ended the Florida recount and effectively called the presidential election for George W. Bush. Justice O'Connor joined the unsigned opinion that declared the conditions of the recount to violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.

While Mr. Bush was undoubtedly pleased by that decision, he was just as undoubtedly displeased last year when the court refused to accept his administration's position that the federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges to the open-ended detention of those being held both at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in military custody in the United States.

"A state of war is not a blank check for the president," Justice O'Connor wrote for the court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. She said "history and common sense teach us that an unchecked system of detention carries the potential to become a means for oppression and abuse of others." In a second case decided at the same day last June, Rasul v. Bush, she joined the majority opinion extending federal jurisdiction to the Guantánamo detainees.

During the term that ended on Monday, Justice O'Connor was on the losing side in two major cases: Kelo v. City of New London, which upheld governmental power to use eminent domain for economic development, and Gonzales v. Raich, upholding the federal government's power to enforce federal drug laws in states that permit marijuana to be used for medical purposes.

Justice O'Connor learned she had breast cancer early in the court's 1988 term and underwent a mastectomy and follow-up treatment. She never missed a day that the court was on the bench, and only years later did she reveal publicly, in a talk to other cancer survivors, how stressful the period had been. She also bounced back quickly from an emergency appendectomy.

In recent years, she has maintained an active schedule of public speaking and foreign travel, in addition to writing two books. It was her husband's deteriorating health, not her own brushes with illness, that finally wore down a woman who still proudly refers to herself as a cowgirl.

"She has taught us all," her friend and colleague Stephen G. Breyer said Friday in a statement released by the court.

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luther vandross, the voice behind such hits as Here and Now, passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/arts/music/02vandross.html?th&emc=th

Luther Vandross, R&B Crooner, Is Dead at 54
By JEFF LEEDS
Luther Vandross, the silky-voiced R&B crooner who spun romance into hits like "Here and Now" and "Any Love," winning eight Grammy Awards, died yesterday afternoon at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison, N.J. He was 54.

The medical center, which did not disclose the cause, released a statement saying that Mr. Vandross "had a peaceful passing under the watchful eye of friends, family and the medical support team." It added that he "never fully recovered" from a stroke he suffered at his Manhattan apartment on April 16, 2003.

Mr. Vandross, whose supple tenor and smooth delivery drew ecstatic swoons from his fans, had kept a low profile since the stroke, though he did appear on videotape at the annual Grammy telecast in 2004, when he was a sentimental favorite to win several awards. He won four that night, including best song for "Dance With My Father," a bittersweet reflection on his youth. He delivered his acceptance speech on the video. "Remember, when I say goodbye, it's never for long," he said, breaking into a signature hit, "because I believe in the power of love."

Mr. Vandross also appeared on Oprah Winfrey's show later that year, when she visited him as he underwent rehabilitation.

Mr. Vandross sold an estimated 30 million albums. His "Dance With My Father" album on J Records made its debut at No. 1 on the Billboard chart while he remained hospitalized from the stroke.

He ranked as one of the most successful R&B singers of the 1980's and broke through to even wider commercial success in 1989 with "The Best of Luther Vandross, the Best of Love," which included the new song "Here and Now," his first Top 10 hit.

Born in New York City in 1951, Mr. Vandross was the youngest of four children. His father, an upholsterer, died when Mr. Vandross was still a boy, leaving his mother, a nurse, to support the family.

While in high school, Mr. Vandross developed an affinity for the legendary Motown label's all-female acts, and for the gospel-soul sounds of artists like Aretha Franklin and Cissy Houston. Dreaming of a career in music, he briefly attended Western Michigan University.

In 1972, a song Mr. Vandross wrote, "Everybody Rejoice," was included in the Broadway musical "The Wiz." But his biggest early break came when he landed a job as a backup singer for the British glam-rock artist David Bowie, who later hired him to work on vocal arrangements for the album "Young Americans."

Mr. Vandross soon became a sought-after backup singer and arranger, working for artists from Bette Midler to Barbra Streisand, and he helped pay the bills as an anonymous performer of commercial jingles. In the late 1970's, he recorded under different names and with a variety of groups, including Bionic Boogie and Change, and sang on the Chic hit "Dance, Dance, Dance."

He finally signed a contract with Epic Records, which released his 1981 debut, "Never Too Much," which reached the top of the R&B charts and sold more than one million copies, effectively sparking his career as a star. Through the 1980's, he released a string of hit albums, including "Forever, for Always, for Love," "Busy Body" and Any Love."

Mr. Vandross had become a superstar with black audiences, but he often appeared frustrated about the difficulty of crossing into wider pop stardom.

"I didn't buy blond wigs; I didn't walk differently," he told one reporter in 1995. "One of the things I admire most about, let's say, Aretha, is that she got crossover success based on her own terms, own talent, own approach."

He did broaden his audience further with the 1991 album "Power of Love," and through the 1990's he performed hit duets with the pop stars Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey.

Mr. Vandross won a Grammy for best R&B male vocal performance in 1991 for "Here and Now," two in 1992 for co-writing the song "Power of Love" and performing on the album of the same name, and another in 1997 for his performance of "Your Secret Love."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, in a telephone interview last night, described Mr. Vandross as "a voice of rare vintage."

"In the tradition of Nat Cole, he was a singular male voice," Mr. Jackson continued. "He was an artist who brought a great sense of dignity to his art."

Mr. Vandross had long struggled with obesity, hypertension and diabetes. His weight often fluctuated, and he told a television interviewer in 2001: "I've never been more healthy than I am now. I wish I was this healthy when I was 25."

Mr. Vandross is survived by his mother, Mary Ida Vandross.

which as it is now under the banner of homeland security, have hired very intimidating and unpleasant officers... apparently. as i was standing in line to go through immigration i found myself nervous, being a 21 year old with a teenager brother just coming back from colombia. i had no reason to be nervous since the only thing i was bringing back was lots of coffee and some alcohol, but yet there was a little something inside me... well it's hard to explain but you know that feeling when you go in to take an exam and you just want to grab the blue book from out of the ta's hand and get the damn thing over with? well it was the same feeling.

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ok since my work with other people's photographs got such wonderful reviews... let's see how it goes with photos of my own. here it goes : colombia redux (since ali is such a good translator of my babblings)...

though i'm not fluent in spanish these days, street art is a universal language... and this wall was amazing...











my father reminiscing about his youth while looking at the building that used to be his boarding school:



scenes from monseratte, a very old church way up in the mountains that looks down on all of bogota:





the salt mines/church of salt in zipaquira, colombia:





ok... some more street art... because i really liked it...





(visit their website!)

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quote of the trip:

"once i start reading, i can't stop. that's why i don't start. unless the book is bad or boring, then i drop it like it's hot."
~my brother

i just have about 15 minutes to write this entry. im in colombia now visiting the family, most of whom i haven´t seen in about 8 years. its funny how much this city has grown and how much the united states has impacted it, but at the same time it is so different. though i suppose the more rural areas are very different, bogotá is so modern its quite amazing. its a beautiful city that i will describe using photos from the internet since i dont have my computer and cant post any of the pictures i have taken. ok, here goes the photo essay of photos i did not take... entitled... bogotá through the eyes of a of 5% colombian 95% ´american':

la candelaria (my favorite part of the city)



yes... mcdonalds is aplenty



wonderful stencil art





and the botero museum



shit... out of time... must go... will write more later...

off to rediscover my roots... so to speak... instead of leaving you with an interesting post i only have time to leave you with this.

... mr. sam brown of exploding dog... you make me sad sometimes...

you make me forget how to breathe

mos def in a commercial for the GMC Denali (an SUV):

http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/community/news/diversity_ads_050905.html

i haven't seen it but i doubt it can be reconciled with the following lyrics off his latest album:

Listen
All white men is runnin this rap shit
Corporate force's runnin this rap shit...
The rape over, turn your face over nigga
No god in disguise it's me, game over

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this next one... well... it makes me want to cry. i can't even talk about it, just read for yourself.

http://www.upn.com/shows/r_u_the_girl/

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silly silly naive me. i used to think that music was art. and art is governed by something greater than the cash money bling-bling, gotta get mine rhetoric that permeates american society. i used to think art, and thus music, fell into the category of those things that are beautiful and creative and individual and emotional and moving. you know, art was supposed to be like love. we work everyday to come home to it. it is why we keep living, keep playing into the game, something we protect from the game. but i was wrong. apparently, artists (those keepers of the sacred and beautiful, those we look to for inspiration and hope that all is not lost in the world) have decided to collectively say "fuck it."

i didn't care when it was britney doing her pepsi commericals- she can not be considered an artist. i don't mind when pseudo-pop stars who are famous not for their talent but for their brand, decide to promote another brand. i guess i just didn't realize that even those "socially conscious" artists that have become so popular were only marketing their brand to people like me. people who are desperate to find something real and genuine somewhere in the crap. and i bought the whole thing. but i get it now. musicians can say things like "fuck bush" or "fuck mtv" or "fuck the way things work in general" but they only mean it if it sells records/concert tickets/or can get them a deal with a major company. i have to say... it will be difficult to be inspired by music from now on. it's all a ploy, how could i think that music somehow transcended the pull of the almighty dollar, i guess nothing does. silly silly me.

Hi I'm Gideon Yago and I don't like what MTV is doing to the youth of this country but hey, as long as I'm making a name (and big fat pay check) I really don't give a damn about any of it.

Destiny's Child is preparing to launch their summer tour titled "Destiny Fulfilled (and lovin' it)". yes the very famous and wealthy trio are teaming up with McDonalds and playing dates from St. Louis, Missouri to Hiroshima, Japan to Rotterdam, Holland. At each stop on the tour, the group will visit local McDonalds' to meet and greet employees and managers.

“We’re lovin’ the chance to work with McDonald’s and know that together we’ll create lots of fun and cool surprises,” said Beyoncé Knowles, founding member of Destiny’s Child. “McDonald’s shares our passion for music, so we can’t wait to start connecting to our fans -- McDonald’s customers -- all over the world.”

This is one show to catch when it invades a city near you.



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now this is liana. one thing to say: listen to this song (which i mentioned in my last post) and then think about the tour cited above (http://s38.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0ZT109JHQSC3634Z92CJGFJG0K). what's going on with music? "mcdonald's shares our passion for music"???? yeah they are all about the art, i mean fast food that can kill goes right along with it. i mean, good for those three ladies, they are indeed racking up the bills by performing mediocre music and adapting it to fit the slogans of a lard slinging, deep frying, let's get rich off the deteriorating health of the american population company that unfortunately has the most amazing french fries. but it's not like i would pay to see the show if mcdonalds wasn't involved anyway.

(here's the press release by the way: http://www.media.mcdonalds.com/secured/news/pressreleases/2004/Press_Release10062004.html)

back home. being back home is funny. sometimes four months can seem like a lifetime and sometimes four months is nothing at all. either way every thing reminds me of something else. every house looks like where there was 'that party that one time.' every park looks like one where we used to drink beers. stuff like that is only made worse by listening to melodic and thoughful music while driving by, but of course this all might just be me.

but yeah i was hoping for nice weather... apparently i'm not so lucky...

weather.com says today will look like this:


and tomorrow will look like this:


oh well...

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here's some music for ya'll. it's off the new esthero album, which i highly recommend. it's happy and sad and beautiful all at once. a little different than the previous album but it's been a while since i've listened to that one. it does lose some of it's initial momentum about halfway through the record but still, it's some of the best stuff being made. i'll post up the obvious favorite track (we r in need of a musical revolution) that was on the ep later, i don't have it on this comp but just a little lyrical taste "a grown ass man can rape a little girl but we still hear his shit on the radio." (fyi this is me trying my hand at reviewing... of course in my very own special way)

http://s38.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=092EPO61FZ22835XN9VRK0QKCP

so the other night was the new york city air guitar championship. i can not do the event justice in mere words and thus, here is a photo essay:

for the love of the sport:








for the fun of the sport:





the judges:



and the act that stole our hearts- lil van halen:



(it was all about lil slash)

(lil slash was amazing! and dave* stole some french fries from a drunk couple)

sorry... i know my livejournal has sucked recently... my only explanation... i've sucked recently... all work and no play makes me an unhappy person. that is why seeing the air guitar competiton tomorrow will make the world a better place.



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jean grae... "is the hottest thing in the streets since crack in '85" fo sho.

http://s50.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=01QATK73G6IM52HWSQPALKB5Q4

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guess what guys. for my new internship, i have to call trick daddy's daddy (yes you read that right).

here's trick daddy:



here's trick daddy's hat that i have wanted for a while... only in a browner color.



so if anyone back home sees this hat somewhere... pick one up for me... although i'm not sure what size hat i am.

i've been up since 9am yesterday. i have to go to work now. i haven't showered. i won't be back to sleep for another 12 hours, at least. all to see star wars with my friends. i wish i had slept instead.

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here's that haiku ems:

star wars really sucked
would love a cup of coffee
with milk and sugar

beacuse it's already been said, my exact thoughts...

most of the time- bob dylan

Most of the time
I'm clear focused all around,
Most of the time
I can keep both feet on the ground,
I can follow the path, I can read the signs,
Stay right with it, when the road unwinds,
I can handle whatever I stumble upon,
I don't even notice she's gone,
Most of the time.

Most of the time
It's well understood,
Most of the time
I wouldn't change it if I could,
I can't make it all match up, I can hold my own,
I can deal with the situation right down to the bone,
I can survive, I can endure
And I don't even think about her
Most of the time.

Most of the time
My head is on straight,
Most of the time
I'm strong enough not to hate.
I don't build up illusion 'till it makes me sick,
I ain't afraid of confusion no matter how thick
I can smile in the face of mankind.
Don't even remember what her lips felt like on mine
Most of the time.

Most of the time
She ain't even in my mind,
I wouldn't know her if I saw her
She's that far behind.
Most of the time
I can't even be sure
If she was ever with me
Or if I was with her.

Most of the time
I'm halfway content,
Most of the time
I know exactly where I went,
I don't cheat on myself, I don't run and hide,
Hide from the feelings, that are buried inside,
I don't compromise and I don't pretend,
I don't even care if I ever see her again
Most of the time.

so this was the email i received from my politics professor today:

sorry about that. in a fit of wanting everybody to be able to get on with their summers, i've decided to base tomorrow's final just on the most recent set of review questions. if you've already studied the earlier questions, i'm glad that you have reviewed material that will make you an informed citizen :-). but i won't be asking you about it on tomorrow's test.

best,

prof. harvey

now, i thought this professor was the most monotonous, unexciting and tedious professor i've ever had to listen too and her grading curve is not only harsh but also doesn't make sense. all that is still true, but now none of it matters because now she is amazing.

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on the political note:



"The (contiguous 48) states of the country are colored red or blue to indicate whether a majority of their voters voted for the Republican candidate (George W. Bush) or the Democratic candidate (John F. Kerry) respectively. The map gives the superficial impression that the "red states" dominate the country, since they cover far more area than the blue ones. However, as pointed out by many others, this is misleading because it fails to take into account the fact that most of the red states have small populations, whereas most of the blue states have large ones. The blue may be small in area, but they are large in terms of numbers of people, which is what matters in an election.

We can correct for this by making use of a cartogram, a map in which the sizes of states have been rescaled according to their population. That is, states are drawn with a size proportional not to their sheer topographic acreage -- which has little to do with politics -- but to the number of their inhabitants, states with more people appearing larger than states with fewer, regardless of their actual area on the ground. Thus, on such a map, the state of Rhode Island, with its 1.1 million inhabitants, would appear about twice the size of Wyoming, which has half a million, even though Wyoming has 60 times the acreage of Rhode Island."

this picture is a cartogram, the blue is democrat, red is republican and purple shades are where the vote was very close. this is really kinda scary



http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

(thanks for the links winn)

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so i really have nothing else today except i'm happy but very very exhausted and have been having jamba juice nightmares. not good. i need to quit (or get promoted as the case may be). but back to studying that much smaller amount of information than i thought.

ok so once again i need your assistance. yes, it has occurred to me that last time i asked for help (and on the facebook) i did not properly thank those of you that helped. but consider this a formal declaration of sincere appreciation.

now, i need your comments for the last time this semester... this article is on...

DRUNK DIALING.

so tell me...

what's your definition of drunk dialing?

how has it affected your life? a positive or negative thing?

do you try to stop yourself from doing it? how?

when/why would you consider yourself to be drunk dialing?

any interesting stories related to the issue?

and anything else you'd like to add. see it's a fun topic i know all of you want to talk to me about... if you don't want to reply in a post here then email me at *********.

thanks, L

finally got online... after a dramatic interlude with a wireless card and three wonderful friends that tried to help me figure my shit out. thanks guys, you are the best.

i don't have much to say right now.... so i'll post this... it was taken at the bronx zoo...