Monthly Archives: October 2010

You learn something new every day…

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…and today, I learned that this is reportedly the first photograph of a human:

See?  Right there? ^ There are two people, probably a shoe shiner and his customer.  How cool is that?  It’s Boulevard du Temple, Paris by Daguerre (inventor of the Daguerreotype).

How fun is that?  And it’s a really great picture, too!

“Enemies” vs. “Opponents”

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I watched the news this morning and was horribly offended by some statements that were made recently.  I wrote a big post on how racist and offensive these statements are (references to Republicans sitting at the back of the bus and Latinos punishing their enemies and rewarding their friends), but I happened to come across this article and deleted my draft and began again.

It’s amazing what happens when someone takes two seconds to think rationally and look at the fact that “enemy” is not the same thing as “opponent.”  Here’s a snippet:

“There’s a difference between disagreeing with people, like newscasters on Fox News that I think are incorrect in their analysis of the days events, and people that threaten to kill you for putting a cartoon image of Mohammad in a bear suit [which is what "South Park" did]. And that’s a line that we too often forget. And it’s very easy to dehumanize — and I will say in this room, I would imagine [Glenn] Beck and [Sarah] Palin are easier punching bags — and we think of it as, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so scared if they take over.’ . . . And you know what, we will be fine. . . .

“I think we always have to remember that people can be opponents, but not enemies. And there are enemies in the world. We just need the news media to help us delineate. And I think that’s where the failing is, that the culture of corruption in the media doesn’t allow us to delineate between enemies and opponents.”

 
Although I would venture to disagree with Stewart that the media doesn’t need to “help us delineate” (we need to think for ourselves instead of letting others tell us what to think), he’s right about how we can disagree without being enemies. 
 
This great nation was founded on the principles of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, yet it seems that those freedoms are punished anytime they dissent from the accepted point of view. 
 
I absolutely think that the statements made lately–mentioned above–are regressive (ironically from a “progressive”), but getting in a huff and spouting off about the injustice and the sadness of referring to a horrible and embarrassing part of history is not constructive.  What is constructive, however, is to remember that we’re all in this together and we’ve got to work together to make something better in this world.  Maybe some politicians should read Stewart’s statement and take note. 
 
Just sayin’.

6 Pictures from 6 Albums

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Recently, a friend of mine sent me something on Facebook entitled “15 Albums.”  The object was to list out 15 albums that have profoundly impacted you at some point in your life.  Well, sure, this is a great exersize for anyone who is familiar with a variety of music genres, but I *know* I probably had some friends read my list and think, “Who? What? Huh?” 

So, because this is my own personal little virtual doodle pad, and I can do whatever I want to do here, I figured I’d recreate a shorter version of the list here and select one song (okay, that’s REALLY hard for some of these albums) and post it for you here.  I shooting for 5, but came back with 6.  Enjoy!! ;)

1) Imagine (John Lennon) “Imagine”

2) For Emma, Forever Ago (Bon Iver) “Flume”

3) Lungs (Florence + the Machine) “You’ve Got the Love”

4) Girls and Boys (Ingrid Michaelson) “Far Away”

5) Black Holes and Revelations (Muse) “Glorious”

6) Billion Dollar Babies (Alice Cooper) “Billion Dollar Babies”

The object of the game was to name off the 15 albums in 15 minutes, without really thinking about it all too much, but these six albums were really easy to come up with.  What would be your top album/song choices?