If you find yourself in a place where ‘yonder’ is an accurate measurement, ‘Old Man …’ is a proper title, and erecting an awning over your trailer makes it a house, then you know you’ve ended up in Robert Lee, Texas.
From growing up in New York, to working as an Art Director in DC, I don’t usually find myself having to carefully avoid rattlesnakes and scorpians. But that’s what I went through to see family. And, …
4 hours on a plane.
4 hours trying to get to the right gate.
4 hours on the Robert Lee highway.
144 hours scratching bug bites.
8 hours in a car with relatives
2 hours eating briscut
80 hours of sweat
2 hours selling raffle tickets
20 minutes turning off the AC again
I am greatly comforted by the fact that I had such a hard time coming up with even that list. I apparently had a good time in Texas. My family was in good spirits this year. While there was much manure spread, there were no major arguments.
In past years I really wondered about some of them. Some of them pissed me off. None of them could be accused of being sickly sweet. But each year I see them more and more as people who all want to do the right thing. They go to work every day, and try to raise their own happy families. Once a year they want to come together and restore what time almost tore apart.
In past years I think they were motivated by their own mortality. The older ones are much older. The younger ones never got to know a complete family.
Now they seem to be scared of what comes after them. As I’ve said for years, the next generation of Calder’s does not have the bond the older siblings share. There is no common history. No common trauma. The ones that do continue to show up are ussually the ones who had exposure to other parts of the family outside the context of the reunions.
But as much as I love going to Texas each year, I couldn’t give you the name of more than a handful of my cousins. I could name no more than 4 or 5 who would come to a reunion by ourselves. And it’s a much more diverse group than our parents. We come from many places. We range from small children to people in their 30s.
I have spent the last few years soaking up everything I could about my family; a family that didn’t exist to me before 2000. But I only hope that I don’t have to wait for the mortality of the next generation to catch up with it before it comes together.
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!
"The basis for the complaint was that they were believed to be reading Islamic newspapers," she said.
— Naples Daily news
They were whispering and reading a newspaper in a library? Well someone call out the fucking swat team. They sure have cahones, don’t they?
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!
“Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show their faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful whore? Do you and your fellow Mulsims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate Christmas? Do you and you fellow Muslims hate us because we have befriended Israel, the ONLY civilized nation in the entire middle-east? And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the world are you even here? Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and stability? Are you here to destroy us? If so, I want you to leave. I want you to go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like rats and dogs. I want you to take your religion, your friends, and your family back to your Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE! We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your twisted, violent, intolerant religion.”
— Restore America
And you wonder why Americans are viewed as ignorant, red-necked, inbred, sheep-shaggers?
Note: A man using a radical, misleading interepretation of this country’s founding charter to assault people on the basis of a radical misinterpretation of a major religion’s founding charter.
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!
Disturbing.
I disturb myself sometimes.
When I heard reports about the Supreme Court’s rulings involving schools a couple weeks ago, I don’t like how I reacted.
I did manage to ignore the obsession people seemed to have with the more religious of the two. Timed to coincide with the Pledge of Allegience debate, I have a hard time disbelieving it wasn’t intended to overshadow greateer things.
But as for the ruling that legitimized random drug testing in extracurricular high school activities, I said “Why not?”
yeah.
Why is it permissable to require drug testing as a requirement to participating in extracurricular drug testing?
The ruling was based on ‘Special Needs’ exceptions. The idea behind these exceptions was that some people are in positions so critical and dangerous that they should be examined that they can complete their duties safely and not endanger the public. These people are allowed to quit their jobs rather than face examination.
What does your average high school student do that fits this description?
In professional sports, athletes are often tested to ensure that they are not recieving an unfair advantage due to drug or biologicals use. These people are allowed to quit their jobs rather than face examination.
Again, how does this effect high school students? Will millions of dollars be at stake if East Bumpafuck defeats West?
But participation in extracurricular activities is often considered in college admissions. Try making it through school without participating in something? Do you believe that the definition of extracurricular activities won’t eventually be extended to school dances and graduation parties?
If schools are meant to prepare youth for the real world, why are they subject to searches that no free person would submit to? Or is it more of a matter of time before you could be subject to such a test?
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 swear to anything you hold holy, they get more stupid all the time.
Do the record companies believe they will engender any sympathy, support, or even respect for their fight by suing and/or jailing individuals?
Will the make annnnnnnyyyy money off these lawsuits? No? You say they are just trying to get a message across? See point A.
Does anyone else find it way too coincidental that shortly after Universal Vivendi announced they would pull their ass out of the dark ages and start distributing their music in the format people have been asking for for years, that they are forced to declare bankruptcy? That this new initiative of theirs would have gone directly against the goals and aims of the RIAA?
—
Does every member of the RIAA still take pride in their membership? Or has this organization become the stuff of science fiction stories? The beast that emerges from the collective consciousness of its constituents, so powerful it can no longer be controlled by those member parts.
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!
“The Israeli army has apologised for causing the deaths of six-year-old Ahmad Abu Aziz and his 13-year-old brother Jamil, but said the tank crew opened fire to deter Palestinians breaking a curfew and approaching them.
“However, the footage shows a tank firing the first of two shells, at close range, at a group of civilians who are running away.”
— BBC News
It’s not hard to agree with Isreal’s right to defend itself. Living here in Washington, we were given just one small taste of the unreasonable fear of death and the unknown. Try living under that every day.
And the Isrealis know who their attacker is. I have still yet to see the evidence that convicts anyone in the September 11th attacks.* Everyone including the attackers and their government admit Palestinians are implimenting their attacks.
So we feel bad for Isreal. They are trying to be the ‘bigger man’. They are trying to ethically fight back against an enemy willing to do anything to get their point across.
Bull-fucking-shit.
The isreali defense forces have razed homes of admittedly innocent people to send messages to their families. They have taken over whole cities; instituting cerfews and travel restrictions backed up with lethal enforcement, that can and likely will result in starvation for a majority of the Palestinian people living in those cities. Now they are caught firing on children running away with a fucking tank.
There is no bigger man here.
You have two governments, both being run by former (and current) human butchers, who will defend their people, no matter how many of their own lives it costs.
And the best the rest of the world can do is present peace plans that do little more than quote Rodney King and Reginald Denny? “Can’t we all just… get along?”
—
* The automatic assumption of binLaden’s guilt makes that hard to remember. The american government assured foriegn leaders it had damning evidence that convicted the Al Queda in the destruction.
I don’t remember them ever showing it to us, though. The american people they represent.
I saw video tapes. I don’t happen to know anyone in the area who speaks arabic who could translate for me. But even taking the government translations, (which took way too long to just ‘translate’) as literal, binLaden admits to nothing but joy over the success of the attacks.
That may be sick, but it is hardly evidence, and hardly shocking. I would be amazed to learn that at least a third of the world weren’t happy to finally see the US get bitch-slapped. We are not well liked people. And when I am forced to listen to Joe-Bob and Bertha telling me how they wished they could get out there and help kill those damn A-rabs in Aphgany-stan, I don’t have trouble understanding why.
Show me the fucking evidence.
Or was the evidence more in the nature of the US pointing out to these foriegn leaders that if they went along with this campaign, it gave them free reign to take out (translation: kill) every force they could declare subversive to their own beliefs?
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!
HISTORY OF ART FOR AIRPORTS
what I wouldn’t give to see these in use at the National Gallery. do you think I could get arrested for taping them to the doorways in there?
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!
“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!
