Members of a local ice swimming club head for the water to swim in the Yenisey river in the Siberian city of Krasnoyars. [Picture: REUTERS]
I'm building up my courage, bishes. I'm actually thinking of getting in our pond by the end of February... But, I'm wondering if it will give me a heart attack or not. So... I dunno. But, if I do. I'll take pictures. Well... someone else will take pictures. I'll be the one in the bikini screaming my head off.
"All your life you are told the things you cannot do...
"All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this.
"THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly.
A young African boy with a haunting back story starts school in Ireland, and finds out quickly exactly what it means to be the new kid. Winner of Best Narrative Short at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and nominated for an Oscar.
I love "Hazel". We should all be so lucky to have one like her among us.
One of my bestest friends ever wrote me this morning. We've been close friends since Third grade. She's such a good friend that a few years back, when a dentist wanted to sand-down a few chips in my front teeth, I said,
"Don't you dare. LeLannie put those there in the Fifth grade when she stole my mittens and I was chasing her on the playground. She slipped and fell on the ice, then I slipped and fell on top of her, slamming my chin onto her head and chipping all of my front teeth. You're not touching those chips."
The dentist just stared at me like I was completely insane, but I didn't give a fuck. Those chipped teeth tell a story, so I'm keeping them. So what if I can't eat solid food.
Anyway, LeLannie wrote to me this morning. She sent me some dialogue between her and her BOSS, "Stank Bish". Her boss, "Stank Bish", forwarded her some inane, bullshit email, but LeLannie had something to say about it.
The forward was titled: "Please join me in prayer" and was as follows:
"We were in Pigeon Forge over the week end. On Sunday, we left to come home. Traffic was moving slowly, and a car in front of us had an Obama bumper sticker on it. It read: "Pray for Obama. Psalm 109:8". Mike's Bible was lying on the dash board." (Because having your bible on your dashboard makes you so much closer to god. And let me guess, that American flag on your bumper makes you a better American.) "He got it, opened it up to the scripture, and read it." (And you read in traffic, nice.) "He started laughing and laughing. Then he read it to me. I couldn't believe what it said. I had a good laugh, too."
Psalm 109:8 "Let his days be few; and let another take his office."
So, LeLannie replied:
"This is sad to me, and they call themselves Christians. Maybe they need to do a little more studying of their bible and what Jesus really stands for."
And Stank Bish replied:
"I think they simply mean they want him out of office- that his days in office be few not his life:)"
And LeLannie replied again:
"Stank Bish,
Read verse 9-10, to me a childless father and widow means death:
Let his days be few; and let another take his office. 9Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 10Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
The context of this prayer is about praying for someone's death and misery, this kind of language feeds extemist beliefs and violence.
LeLannie"
I'm so fricking proud of "LeLannie". She had the courage to stand up to not just anyone, but she stood up to her BOSS.
And that makes her a TOTAL BADASS.
Muy bien, LeLannie... Muy bien to that spirit of yours.
So, at some point, the talking head from CNN says, "In every state across the nation where it has been put to the voters it has gone down to defeat. So, the democratic process is taking place here. Seems to be something that voters at large, do not support."
Last year in California, over Prop 8, California voted it down 52% to 48%. And in the recent vote, Maine voted it down 53% to 47%. So, it's not "something that voters AT LARGE, do not support." Hardly, "at large", you fucking moron. It's actually rather close.
I wrote about voters verses courts deciding civil rights matters back in: The Seeing Eye Car; "Justice is blindfolded for a reason, to see without prejudice, without bias, to see objectively, without fear or favor, regardless of the identity, power, or weakness of the involved."
And actually, the "democratic process" is STILL taking place when a court makes a decision about something. Those judges are still appointed via a democratic process, whether we like it or not.
I'm so fucking tired of stupid people...
Wait a minute.
I don't want to make this all about stupid, uneducated, hillbillies that also happen to be getting paid as "journalists".
That young man (a.k.a. "Gaywad") up in that video clip is a TOTAL BADASS. And that's good enough for me.
"Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind -- even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
“We were assured there would be no legal consequences if we opened fire,” Mr. Chen recalled in an interview on Tuesday. “My only hope was that the students would not put up a fight.” - Chen Guang, 37, a Beijing painter, was a soldier in Tiananmen in 1989 has created a series of works based on his photographs of the incident.
Now granted, China hasn't come very far in its stance on Human Rights, given what happened in Tibet last Spring and Summer before their bullshit Olympics. I still can't believe that the World just stood by and said crap like, "Ohh... We can't boycott or anything because that will just hurt the athletes."
Were we going to KILL our athletes in protest? Is THAT what we were going to do?? So... China can just go ahead and MURDER Tibetan monks and nuns and we don't want to upset our athletes??? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?? That whole thing was such a crock... Licensed genocide, is what it was...
But, if I can calm my ass down, looking back on other issues, I really never thought I'd see gay marriage legalized in any State. Nor did I think there was a possibility in the near future of the U.S. having a President that was half black and half white, let alone how unbelievably intelligent and logical the man is...
And looking back to even when I was a kid, did you ever really think that the Berlin Wall would come down? Or that the Eastern Bloc countries would fall? OR the Soviet Union for that matter? Now granted, there's a host of other problems with the aftermath of Russia, but still...
Or how about just having a little phone that sits in your hand, that you can type tiny words on, then SEND them into space and they actually go to a place that you want them to... without wires.
And yes, there are a whole other set of issues now, but I think that we should dwell in possibility. I know I'm going to... Or I'm going to try anyway. Because that image of one man standing in front of a line of tanks will get me every time... Every. Time.
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." - John Lennon
So, we did indeed have the extreme pleasure of listening to Judy Shepard speak the other night at UC Santa Barbara.
It was heartbreaking. And inspiring. And she was funny... And courageous... And honest.
She ended the event with this Cherokee fable. You may have heard or read this before, but I had not. And I thought it was worth sharing with you...
The Wolves Inside You
An elder Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me.. it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
"The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."
"This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too", he added.
The Grandchildren thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee simply replied... "The one you feed."
