Powen Shiah - the space between

Naomi Wolf is really good at scaring me

This is a couple of days old, but it's had me quietly freaking out inside since I read it. It's certainly a little alarmist, but somehow also not implausible. I'm willing to believe the worst about people.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/the-battle-plan-ii-sarah_b_128393.html

What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.

Sportfreunde Stiller - 54 74 90 2006

Tom was talking to me about Sportfreunde Stiller the other day.. they have a new(er) album out called La Bum, but it doesn't have this song out on it. I guess that makes sense since this was a hit when Germany was hosting the World Cup in 2006. '54, '74, and '90 are the years when Germany has won it. They were hoping for 2006, but unfortunately that didn't work out.

It's a fun song, and if you can imagine masses of rowdy drunk fans singing this around the Brandenburg Gate, that's pretty much what it was like in Germany during the World Cup. I wasn't there... but that's what they told me.

On a more cultural/historical analytic level, many people said it was one of the first times they felt that Germany emerged from the shadow of WWII and National Socialism to celebrate their patriotism without feeling like the next step would be a nationalist putsch. So I suppose it's progress... resulting from decades of national therapy sessions. For more, you might want to check out the movie Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen.

I think it's actually good to be critical of expressions of nationalist fervor. It's part of what makes me like Germany, that unwillingness to celebrate King & Country. America is completely the opposite, except for pinko commies like me, I suppose.

Enjoy the song. I hear it's been amended already for the next Eurocup or World Cup.

on blogging coherently and well

Now, perhaps I'm the last person (okay, 2nd to last person since I actually "have" a blog) to criticize blogs. However, in the case of people who want to build their blog readership and make their blog part of their online presence, the blog posts should actually be well-written... and coherent. I'm not going to point any fingers because I do like the people who inspired me to write this post, but I'm appending a list of some blogs which avoid most of the let-me-just-slap-this-together-no-one-will-care-because-it's-just-a-blog

I don't mean that their posts are too long, because sometimes the problem is that the post is too short. If you are comparing, say unicorns & rainbows, don't explain that they're different, expound on unicorns, and then forget to talk about rainbows. It's like flirting all night and then forgetting to get my number. Put paragraphs in to separate different ideas, even though your ideas might only be one or two sentences long.

Other times, the posts are too long. I suffer from this problem a lot. It's taken me far longer than planned to dash out my thoughts on this. Some posts meander in several directions before they finally die a slow death. Other times, it just needs a good editing to cut out the extraneous verbiage.

Some examples of well-written and well-edited blogs:
The Simple Dollar 

Gay Days... I mean a McCain-Palin Rally in Media, PA

From Monday 22 September 2008

Do they realize that red is what everyone wears at the awesome Gay Days at Disney? At that it's the color of communism? Also, take note of the awesome protesters who turned out to make sure the ridiculousness didn't take place un-criticized. The gentleman with the "country club first" signs gave me one that I'm displaying proudly at my desk at work.

Red Shoe Day

Leaving work on my birthday (July 31) I spotted this outside of work on the residential street where my coworker parks her car. I wonder who lost just one of the pair, and who in the suburban town of Media, Pennsylvania would have been running around with these on.

I guess I don't have red-letter days, I have red-shoe days.

Red Slipper

PS It's taken me so long to post it because I always forget to grab the photos off my phone. I'm actually quite surprised that with minimal tweaking (in Picasa) that it turned out so well.

Funny: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

I see what you did there...

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:
I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY
HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF
800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT
WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY
REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU
MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION
MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.

THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE
FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS
IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER
SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A
RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE
FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND
ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO
WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION
FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND
WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO
PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON