“Since she has already paid her $9, Marisa will need only to show the court her library receipt and pay a $15 court fee, to have her case dismissed. If a delinquent borrower doesn’t pay his or her fines before going to court, and then pleads not guilty to the charge, the case goes to trial. Maximum penalty for conviction is $1,000. An adult also can be sentenced to jail.”
— Denver Post
And you wonder why those kids went on a shooting spree through their school and killed themselves in the library?
Why do I know the librarian also drives a SUV with a Mary Kay sticker on the back window?
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
China executed 32 people who were sentenced to death for drug-related crimes at public rallies held nationwide to mark a United Nations anti-drug day.
CNN.com
There is something incredibly sick about this. State sponsored slaughter to commemorate an attenpt to end widespread self destruction of human life.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
I may be a little sick in the head.
I must be.
Have you ever heard a giant boom and not gone to look? Do you calmly ponder it’s origins, wondering what may have crashed this time, or was it a bomb, or even, the Bomb?
Maybe it’s just this city that’s sick.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
“Airline officials are trying to figure out if there is anything to be done after a Georgia congressman urinated into a cup on a flight from Washington to Atlanta on Thursday night.”
— ABCNEWS.com
Just what always happens… congressmen pissing all over America.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
“I didn’t get close enough to the 6am rally, but in my search for an organizer of Turn Your Back On Bush, I did indeed hear the announcement. Graduating students were told that they would be expelled and arrested if they turned their backs. they were alerted that dozens of staff memebers and police officers would be watching the stands, as well as the Secret Service. A few students asked for the definition of expulsion….did it mean removal from the stadium or refusal of their diplomas, or both? One of the persons at the front said "Both. And what will your parents do when they are paged from the crowd to bail out their son?" I do not know if this person had an official capacity with the Ohio State University or any police department.”
The Not In Our Name Statement
Despite the fact it was issued for and signed by a tediously long list of prominent Americans, you probably won’t see this in The New York Times and time soon.
Just… read it.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
Man… it hasn’t even been 24 hours since I read the first article on how Universal and Sony will start selling unprotected digital music online.
And already the walls are shaking, and cracks are appearing.
I just finished a suspiciously timely article about how when Disney broke ranks with the other major movie studios and started selling their movies to be broadcast on Television in the early days of broadcasting, it broke the studios resolve and they all started offering their products up for sale. Of course, this resulted and still results in massive new amounts of income for the studios.
The New Scientist has an article that speculates movie studios may start abandoning copy protection on their DVDs, since the copyprotection is likely costing more than it is worth. I say this was a test ballon, to see how well a Movie like Harry Potter, which should rack in millions, fares when people are able to copy it from their neighbors.
The same site features articles (1, 2) on some already well documented stories like Panasonic (the owner of the copyright on Compact Disc technology) being unhappy with copy-protected CDs, and the ease of breaking most copy protection schemes.
I feel like I’m living in Jericho, and somebody just started playing the horn.
(Did you catch the musical reference there… damn I’m good!)
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
Money.
Money. Money. Money.
Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money.
Does anyone else think the Shrub is on a spending spree with someone else’s credit card?
I’ve seen him do nothing but sign into law new multi-billion dollar initatives. Five billion dollars today for bioterrorism protection efforts.
Fucking hell, man.
We were three trillion dollars in debt back when I was in grade school. That is an obscene amount of money. It would take essentially every last cent collected in income tax this year to pay a debt like that. If it hadn’t continued to grow. If the money wasn’t needed elsewhere. If it wouldn’t destabalize the entire world market.
And here the Shrub is spending more money each day than even Bill Gates makes?
If only it would happen.
Money. Money. Money.
Come back to me in 10 years. Show me 3 of these programs that recieved all the funding they were promised. I’ll buy dinner at Georgia Brown’s.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
I was rather quiet last month.
I lay the blame at Stacey‘s feet, for the most part.
We got together for the first real time since my freshman year at RIT. Despite several years of us both being rather thick, and not talking anywhere near as much as we needed, she invited me to her graduation. (She is now Doctor Stacey.)
I couldn’t turn her down again, even if I wasn’t sure how things would be between us. While she told me to stay as long as I wanted, I kept my reservations limited. I neither wanted to overstay my welcome, nor be stuck in a torturous atmosphere.
I apparently keep forgetting how direct Stacey is. If she hadn’t wanted me there, or hadn’t wanted me to stay, I would very well have known.
But it isn’t all this friendship crap that really got to me. Our friendship is close to 12 years old now. That’s nearly half our lives.
But I had forgotten the way life goes.
I’ve sat here many times wondering how she can be so adamant about going back to Rose when she finishes her educational obligations. Even my time in Rochester made me pretty certian I would find no peace in my own small hometown any time soon.
There was some brick wall there for me, when I first arrived. It was my own wall, not Stacey’s.
I’ve gotten so used to fuckin’ ‘trying’. I can’t remember the last relationship here that didn’t require some effort. Life in this city is a series of confrontations.
None of that existed while I was in Syracuse. I had nothing to prove to Stacey, and would look foolish if I tried. The simple act of spending time together was new again, it had been so long since I last tried it.
Stacey is incredible. Incredibly beautiful. Incredibly smart. She has a personality that will not be overwhelmed, no matter how much punishment she subjects it to. And if she cares about you, you’ll never doubt it. Outside of myself, who was probably grandfathered in, her friends are much the same.
I left the weekend in Syracuse reminded of these things. Reminded why she was so special to me. Reminded of how peaceful life can be. I walked to work for a few days with a smile on my face, which probably scared the shit out of the locals. And for a while I felt bad about the excessive negative emotions this place can bring out in me.
Believe me… this is one of the people I mentioned before, who will kick you in the teeth, and then drive you to the hospital. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
"This weekend, in a luxury hotel outside Washington, D.C.," said the announcer, "Europe’s secret rulers are meeting their American counterparts %uFFD0 or that’s what some people believe. Today is the start of the annual gathering of the Bilderberg group. Never heard of it? That’s the whole point. It’s officially described as a private gathering, but with a guest list including the heads of European and American corporations, political leaders and a few intellectuals, it’s one of the most influential organizations on the planet."
“This theme can be played in a very sad, minor key, by training the lens on realities that seem to sink the Washington myths. The once-grand town houses now boarded up. The vaguely seedy cornices on rundown local buildings, which do for Washington architecture what bad teeth once did for the idea of English aristocracy. A picture of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., that apostle of hope, caged behind a security grate.
“But on balance, it’s a happy thing, this wealth of common human dailiness, this life force, bursting through the abstractions and idealizations, the symbolism and the rhetoric. Here’s Washington for you: fresh-faced teenagers trying to look tough, hard hats with ropy muscles and plenty of work, flower gardens and bow ties and quiet acts of generosity.
“Every time we Washingtonians drive over the Potomac bridges, or up I-295, or along New York Avenue or East Capitol Street — each time we catch sight again of the dome, the temples, the obelisk — we are reminded that we live inside a very famous photograph. Billions of people around the planet have seen our spot in the world.
“But only we really know it, because for us, Washington is not an idea, nor even simply a place. It’s home.”
I woke up to a strange day.
I didn’t know it at first. It was just another lazy Saturday. A day to forget the week and do something truely pointless with great meaning.
But while waiting for the bus to take me to great meaning, I stopped to read the front page of the newspapers, through the vending machine windows.
The first article I read, in the Washington Post, explained that a three judge panel had declared the 2 decade old prohibition on protesting next to the Capitol Building to be unconstitutional. They said the Capitol Police’s concerns did not outweigh the citizen’s first amendment rights.
I’m sure you think this is about as astonishing as Oprah Winfrey gaining weight. But dispite the fact that this is the Capital of the United States, those who spend any time here know it is also one of the most restrictive, oppressive, unfair, and secretive places in the world. There’s a law on the books that you cannot protest here without first obtaining permission from the Police Chief; telling him what you want to protest about. On any given day your route to work is likely to be barricaded by National Guardsmen with machine guns cradled in their hands; (the guns are never slung over their shoulders here). And the Shrub is so scared from having received more death threats than any American President in history, that he typically demands quadruple the security measures instituted for any head of state. The Secret Service regularly lies about his whereabouts and access to the man, as a means of protection.
In this city, no one is shocked that you weren’t allowed to protest outside the Capitol.
I also looked at the front page of the Times. They had an unfortunatly small article about the ruling of a 3-judge panel in Phillidelphia, which declared the much despised Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) to be unconstitutional. The problem found with this Act involved the Internet filtering basically forced upon public libraries. As anyone who’s read up on Internet filtering knows, there is no reliable way to block access to supposedly pornographic material without also blocking a great deal of legitimate educational material. This led the court to overturn CIPA.
This alone is heartening. Now if someone would tell me a good reason why we are blocking public access to anything on the Internet, I would be very appreciative. We are talking public libraries here. These aren’t the third rate movie theatres where Pee Wee Herman was found jacking off to Fourth Rate pornos. If librarians who should be keeping at least a cursory watch on their computers cannot keep youth from viewing such materials, than what hope does filtering software have? There is more sex in Shakespear and Catcher in the Rye than on most web sites. And frankly, since I’m technically an adult, I don’t need your morals thrust upon me. If I wish to use an idle library computer to download Pamala and Tommy’s honeymoon video, what business is it of yours? Libraries are meant to provide us with access to information and media, not to dictate it’s value or uses.
Yeah.
While waiting at the barbershop, I was again reading the business section of another newspaper. And there was a blurb about third judicial panel overturning the court order that required Sonicblue, who handles client accounts for one of the digital-TV recorder companies (Tivo or one of those), to commence monitoring their client’s use of the product and turn that information over to their major media corporations (theoretically for use in anti-piracy invetsigations).
This panel were apparently the second – to – last people in the country to realize how much of an invasion of privacy this order was. But better late than never.
In the age of Rudy “freedom – is – about – how – much – liberty – you – are – willing – to – give – up” Gulliani, I can’t believe how many judges took the time to consider the idea of liberty, privacy, and freedom yesterday. What next? Open elections in Florida?
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!