Accepting the Challenge…Kind of

I was challenged the other day during a phone conversation with a friend who had several comments to make on last week’s Freedom Friday post. Though her comments will remain between us, she seriously stimulated my thinking. She succeeded in motivating me to re-think the direction of these posts because as a result of our conversation I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions. Questions for which my answers lean more toward opinion rather than well researched, clear and rational understanding.

I’m not liking this about myself. I may be able to defend my opinions with well chosen rhetoric, but that’s not good enough. Rhetoric isn’t reason. Rhetoric may support it, but it isn’t a very good replacement.

Here’s the thing. I’m a freedom lover, an advocate for liberty. I’m very much aligned with the “Leave us alone” crowd. The question that most stimulated me after my discussion with my friend was: “Am I a liberty advocate based on the principles advanced by America’s Founding Fathers, or because I’m an independent cuss who simply wants to do as he pleases?”

Other questions I’ve been playing with are:

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SNJ091909 — A Night with Diana Krall

What can I say about this lady? Her sensuous voice just sends me. Her piano playing is as near perfect as one can get. She’s a Grammy winner whose consistently at the top of the jazz charts. She brings a unique contemporary interpretation to all sorts of wonderful jazz standards. Her “Quiet Nights” album (released on March 31, 2009) has fixed her in my view as the absolute Queen of Jazz .

So for your listening pleasure I bring to you the following wonderful jazz from the Queen herself — Diana Krall. I hope you enjoy.

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SNJ091209 — A Night of Random Goodies 2

Not much to say tonight, just playing around with Grooveshark and following wherever its recommendations lead me. Its easy to do and a lot of fun. You can discover some great music this way. Give it a shot. Just go to Grooveshark and type in your favorite artist. Then click on a song and give it a listen. With each song comes recommendations and links to other similar music. Click on one of the recommendations and play that one. Then rinse and repeat for as long as you wish. A great way to spend some time with your favorite artists and discover new ones. Hope you enjoy this evening of random jazz.

Christo Redentor — Duke Pearson
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Christo_Redentor/10853627

Black Orpheus — Cassandra Wilson
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Black_Orpheus/10382996

The Best Thing For You — Diana Krall
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/The_Best_Thing_For_You/23034167

You and the Night and the Music — Elain Elias
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/You_and_The_Night_and_The_Music/9646404

Mood Indigo — Rosemary Clooney
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Mood_Indigo/3736048

Bird Alone — Abbey Lincoln
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Bird_Alone/2554173

Learnin’ The Blues — Katie Melua
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Learnin_The_Blues/8556669

If You Can Dream — Lena Horne
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/If_You_Can_Dream/7182981

Hey Big Spender — Peggy Lee
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Hey_Big_Spender/3408723

I Didn’t Know What Time It Was — Anita O’day
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/I_Didnt_Know_What_Time_It_Was/3735363

In a Sentimental Mood — Nancy Wilson
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/In_a_Sentimental_Mood/18181579

Backlash Blues — Nina Simone
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Backlash_Blues/950863

Hi, All. I’m Back for More

Well, it’s the seventh and as promised, I’m going to start posting again. Took me a while to remember how to do everything. I also had to adjust how I do things because I got a new iMac and am still transferring stuff off my laptop to the new machine. So my return post is being posted a bit late and without much editing. Me at my worst.

It’s good to be back even though things will be a bit different. During my brief hiatus, when not trying desperately to breathe during the two weeks in August where temps were in the 90’s with 90% humidity, I did some thinking about the blog and decided to make some changes. Some were internal and not visible on the blog (i.e. adding and subtracting various WordPress plugins) and some were or will be more visible as time goes along. Here’s some of the more visible changes I came up with: Read the rest of this entry »

Announcement: Taking Some Time Off

It’s the end of July and it’s very, very hot here in Olympia, WA. It’s going to get into the upper 90’s and close to 100 this week. Miserable, miserable weather with way to much humidity. Going to be sitting in front of a fan or in our local Borders Bookstore for as long as I can this week. Too hot to think or do anything.

Anyway, between the heat and the need to focus on some business issues over the next few weeks, I’ve decided to take some time off from blogging for a bit. I’ve got some decisions to make and some actions to take that will require most of my attention so I’m suspending any blog posting until September. I will return to posting on a regular basis on September 7th. In the mean time if I come across anything I think is interesting or would be of value to you, I’ll put up a quick link and description for your Internet exploration pleasure. I’ll just not be posting as regularly as I have been for the next several weeks.

Thanks for spending time with me so far, and I look forward to sharing future thoughts, observations and ideas with you for a long time to come once I return on September 7th.

Internet Discoveries: 07-15-09 to 07-21-09

Politics and Liberty

• Welfare for Dependent Dictators — End welfare in the form of foreign aid.
• Preparing for the New Economy — Don’t expect a “recovery.” Expect something New and probably not very good.
• The Fallacies of Another New Deal –A longer article, but very education about why we cannot afford to let this happen again.
• Bernie Madoff Was Only a Petty Crook Compared with Uncle Sam — Why do people hate Bernie Madoff, yet excuse the Government from it’s own serious high crimes and misdemeanors? When will enough be enough?

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Internet Discoveries For the Week

Week of 07-07-09 to 07-13-09

My friend Alice, from Tucson, sent this to me in email on Sunday. I really, really liked it. Wish I could have been there to see it live. I love creative artists. Like I told Alice, it’s a joy to be part of the human race. A race that does stuff like this. Enjoy.

Politics & Liberty

• A Case Against Intellectual Property — The logic behind intellectual property rights is highly illogical. Here’s why.
• Wealth Envy — Do you engage in it? Are you a victim of it? Let’s put it to an end by thinking about it.
• What are the Rules of the Game of Human Flourishing? — Do you know them? Are you playing the game, or are you ruining it for others?
• Fed Independence or Fed Secrecy? — Ya gotta love Ron Paul and his fight for transparency in government.
• Thinking Like a Dandelion — Aubundance is not quite here. But that can change. In the case of government, it’s time for everyone to start thinking like dandelions.

Writing

• 10 Literary One-Hit Wonders — How many of these have you read? (Source: RAPatton on Friendfeed)
• Write a novel in 30 days — 50,000 words in 30 days? Hmmm. Not sure I could do this, but might like to try. (Source: Prometa on Friendfeed)

Miscellaneous

• Are You Overwhelmed by Internet ADD? What to Do … — Once again, Liz Strauss nails my rear end to the wall. Thanks for the reminder, Liz.
• Moonfruit — A very interesting web site maker. (Source: Morton Fox on Friendfeed)

Review – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

After reading my posts about Wolverine and Star Trek you’ve probably guessed that I’m an action movie junkie. Nothing is more fun than wasting two hours downing handfuls of popcorn and sipping on a Big Gulp sized soda while vicariously saving the world, winning the girl and re-gaining the respect of family and friends. That is as long as the “Big, Dumb, Action Movie” is anywhere remotely close to decent.

The original Transformers movie was fun. Sure it had it’s moments of way-over-the-top stupidity, but those were tolerable. The action was fun and the special effects were awesome. The only real complaint I had with it was the strobe-light effect and choppiness in the fight scenes at the climax. It was hard for me to watch and gave me a headache by the time it was over. Other than that it was an OK movie. Not a good one, but OK. Maybe a 2.5 or 3 out of 5 stars.

The sequel? Save your money. Like way too many Hollywood “Big Dumb Action Movie” sequels, this one isn’t even worth getting out of bed for. Look, I didn’t go expecting Inherit The Wind or Raging Bull. It was a summer action movie. I know what those are. Big, dumb and supposedly fun. This one was all of the first two descriptors but none of the third.

The Good

OK. I will admit that the special effects were even more awesome than in the first movie. There were some incredible jaw dropping moments. The got rid of the strobe-light effects in the fight scenes so no more headache. They actually put the “bullet-time” effect introduced in the Matrix, to good use here. I can not fault the movie at all when it comes to the special effects. There were plenty and they all worked very well. But Hollywood needs desperately to learn that special effects do not make a movie work.

The Horrible

Think of every god-aweful cliche’ you’ve ever seen in a movie or read in a book and, like Prego, it’s in there. I mean everything. From boy goes to college and meets sexy, aggressive college girl and computer geek-internet weirdo roommate, all the way to the “This is my time, now” redemption of a discredited hero, they are there in all their excruciating infamy.

Thirteen year old humor also makes its presence known. Like a person with no social skills dumped into the middle of a cocktail party, the stupid humor barges in on nearly every decent moment the movie could have had. The worst of it was found in the two robots known as the twins, who were constantly beating up on each other and talking bad jive-talk. It was like being caught in some kind of surreal racist nightmare that constantly displayed the very worst of African-American culture and reinforced Black on Black violence. It wasn’t at all funny. It was disgusting and reveals the true attitude toward race that abounds in Hollywood.

The Pathetic

Just when you think things couldn’t possibly get worse, the movie sinks to a new all-time low. The pre-pubescent toilet humor in the movie simply knows no bounds. From the opening shot of Megan Fox with her rear-end blatantly stuck in our faces, to another character giving targeting instructions to the captain on a destroyer by saying he is standing under the Decepticon robot’s scrotum while we are treated to a shot of a pair of metal balls hanging loosely and banging against each other between the robot’s legs. This kind of “humor” is not funny. Not funny at all. It is completely unnecessary and a total in-your-face disrespect for common decency. I could have tolerated it if these attempts at potty humor occurred only once or twice. With a roll of my eyes I would have dismissed it. But no, the writers had to push and push and push with all kinds of stupid, gross, inane attempts at getting cheap laughs.

Don’t hold back, Dave. Tell us what you really think about the movie.

OK. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a movie made by a no talent, disrespectful, pathetic excuse of an entertainment industry that should bow its head in shame and get out of the business as quickly as possible. Out of 5 stars, they owe me 6 for being stupid enough to give them my money.

Picture by flicker user chanchan222 under Creative Commons License. Use of this picture does not constitute an endorsement by chanchan222 of the ideas in this post.

4 Reasons Why Liberty is Vital to Your Life

If you’ve read much of what I’ve written lately, or observed my Tweets on Twitter, especially over the last few days, you’ll quickly learn that liberty is very important to me. It’s a topic for which I have great passion. I am always reading liberty-oriented books, articles, and blog posts. I listen to liberty-oriented podcasts and enter discussions concerning liberty with whoever wishes to explore the benefits and inherent responsibilities of our freedoms. In other words, I think liberty is important.

Why? Let me give you four reasons out of the many I could list and then make a few observations.

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The Big Question (Part 2-B)

The Religious Side of the Question (Part B)

By way of brief review, in last week’s post we saw the Hebrew people lead by God into a land where they were free to pursue their hearts’ desires, guided by conscience and participating in celebratory rituals that reminded them of their unique and positive relationship with God.

Having rejected that life for rule by a King, turning the celebratory rituals into religiously strict duties and leaving wisdom and conscience to become completely self-absorbed, God sends prophets to warn the Hebrews of coming judgment and destruction.

At the end of the Old Testament God has only one message to the Hebrews. It goes something like this (and I loosely paraphrase): “I’m fed up with you people and your hypocrisy, your injustice and your self-absorbtion. Your religious rituals are meaningless to me and I’m done with you. I’m going to wipe you out except for a small minority who have remained faithful to the life I wanted you to live. From them I’ll create a new relationship and a new age of prosperity and peace. Return to me and the life I intended for you or die.“

The New Testament: Jesus of Nazareth and the New Age

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