It was twenty-one years ago today that Freddie Mercury shuffled off this mortal coil. Queen is my favorite band and I think Mercury was the greatest front man of all time. On top of his incredible vocals, he just had an amazing chemistry when he was performing. The way he connects with a crowd is just awe-inspiring. Here is Queen at Wembley Stadium in 1986 in one of their most famous performances
Here's to you, Freddie. Your voice is amongst the angels now, no doubt showing them how it's done.
This apparently happened last month, but I just found out today. Epic symphonic power metal band Nightwish has parted ways with Annette Olzon who joined the band in 2007 to replace Tarja Turunen. Olzon was a somewhat controversial choice as she did not have the operatic vocals of Turunen. Tuomas Holopainen's compositions didn't change, but the delivery couldn't help but be different with Olzon who had a "smaller," poppier voice. Personally I ended up liking her more than I expected to, but I still missed Turunen's voice as did many other fans of the band.
The replacement singer for the time being is Floor Jansen. She was the lead singer for After Forever before they broke up. At this time she is just filling in for the remaining Nightwish concerts on their current tour. Whether she will continue with the band when they go back to the studio is up in the air. I'm excited about the possibilities. I always liked her in After Forever and her voice is definitely more operatic than Olzon's. Here are a couple of tracks from After Forever.
She definitely has the chops. I hope she does stick with the band.
Jeremy Scahill is one of the best voices out there covering American foreign policy, especially in regards to drones and American policy on terror. Here is a good interview with him about these subjects and the media that covers (or doesn't) these topics.
I do think the stuff about video games comes off as sort of a cheap shot. Kids have played at war games ever since the advent of kids and I don't think violent video games are much different than running around whacking each other with sticks.
One of the things that bugs me the most from people in government (typically from legislators) is the phrase along the lines of "The President (or governor or whomever) needs to step up and lead" on some issue. The latest version of this I've seen is from Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) speaking about the fiscal cliff.
There’s a problem out there. It’s got to get solved; it’s got to get solved by the president leading. He’s got to put forward what we ought to do and ought to negotiate from there? The point is real leadership — get in the room, here’s what I ought to do. All of the speculation doesn’t do anything to do anything except muddy the waters. He needs a clear vision statement, what he thinks we ought to do, and specifically how. If his answer is only to raise taxes, that doesn’t stop the problem. We ought to stop sequester.
I wonder if Sen. Coburn (or other people saying this) skipped their government class in high school. It seems that he doesn't realize that the Congress is a co-equal branch of government. He or any other legislator can step up and lead on this issue just as well as the President. The problem, though, is that would require Sen. Coburn to put himself out there, to take some responsibility. It's far easier to call for some other guy to put forth a plan and then criticize it for not being exactly what you want. I understand that's the political game, but there's no reason for us not to call it out when it happens.
A group of Georgia lawmakers got a briefing on the details of Obama's secret mind-control plot.
President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as "Delphi" to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities. That's according to a four-hour briefing delivered to Republican state senators at the Georgia state Capitol last month.
I don't think there's much to be done about stuff like this other than laugh. There will always be a fringe group of people who hold out crazy notions (see also Birthers, Truthers, Grassy Knollers, etc.) The problem in the 21st-century is that the internet gives them an easy way to reach out to each other and connect, thereby reinforcing their foolishness.
About the only thing that can be done is to know the facts and be prepared to speak to them when those close to you start espousing nonsense. These people aren't going to be persuaded by the truth by anything they see on TV or read in a book. The only possibility is when it comes from someone they know and trust. Not that it's a guarantee, but it's a lot more likely than from someone else.
Also, for your own mental health: laugh. Because, really, this stuff is damn funny.
Tomorrow I am being dragged along to that movie about sparkly vampires, the dudes with tight abs that don't like them, and the wilting flower caught between them. The things we guys do for women. I probably won't be permitted to offer running sarcastic commentary, either. Damn.
Some time back, the local paper here, the Billings Gazette, decided that it was going to start limiting online access to its website to people who were not subscribers to the paper. It's not the first paper to do this; the New York Times announced a similar plan earlier this year. Naturally there are typically ways around these firewalls. I understand that this is a turbulent time for newspapers, but this seems exactly the wrong way to deal with the problem. As a result of the Gazette's actions, I am not purchasing a digital or hardcopy subscription. I am just getting my local news elsewhere. With no disrespect to the people that work there, the Gazette just isn't that good of a paper. It does a perfectly serviceable job, but it's just not good enough to part from me $69.50 for a one-year digital subscription.
Again, I understand that it's hard out there for old-school journalism, but this is not the way to save it. The Gazette is no doubt counting on the fact that it is the only daily newspaper in the area right now. But counting on that is no way to ensure a successful future. They need to get a lot more creative than just limiting online access to meet this challenge.
So, David Petraeus is resigning as head of the CIA after it has come out that he had an affair. Am I the only one that finds this odd? I'm not in anyway defending his actions which are rather reprehensible, but I'm wondering why any of the rest of us care. Sure, there's the off chance of some sort of security risk in that someone could potentially blackmail him, but the blackmailing would rely on the rest of us caring enough about Petraeus's personal life to care about whether or not he is cheating on his wife.
Of course Petraeus is not the first leader, nor will he be the last, who was caught with dirty laundry in his/her personal life. These people are frequently tut-tutted by the rest of us in some sort of odd cathartic release as we imagine that we're better than the person being drummed out of their position. I'm just wondering out loud if this is the best way to run things. Should we demand an impeccable moral standard from our leaders? Is that even possible as long as people are people? Should we care about someone's personal life and personal failings even if those failings are unrelated to their job?
I don't have a solid position on this because I think it's complicated, but my first instinct is to say that it shouldn't matter. If Petraeus is having an affair, that should be the business of the people involved and not a matter for anyone else to concern themselves with. However, I'm open to arguments from the other side. Let me know what you think.
2006 was not exactly a banner year for me. In addition to losing my dear friend, Patrick, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis on this day six years ago. I had been having odd symptoms for months and I knew it was serious. I'll never forget sitting alone in the exam room waiting for my doctor to come back with the test results, thoughts running wild in my mind. Never have I ever felt so lonely and I seemed to be sitting there for an eternity. When he finally came in and told me what was going on, I'm not sure I could even tell you what went through my mind then. It was a jumbled confusion whatever it was. What did this mean for my life? What was going to happen to me? Why me? A sort of fog settled over me as I tried to parse this information.
In a sense everything had changed and nothing had. I was still the same person I always had been. Now, I just had this to aspect to me that I had to accommodate whether I like it or not. At least in the short-term, nothing was much likely to change. Down the road would be a different matter, but how long before that happened? How long before I could look forward to using a cane, a walker, or a wheelchair? How long before physical difficulties started having a serious impact on my day-to-day living? These were now questions that settled into my head and are always there, always lurking in the background.
I was lucky enough to get involved in a study being done on two MS drugs that were currently on the market - Copaxone and Avonex. The study was looking at whether these two drugs worked better when taken together or separately. The Copaxone was a daily injection that had few to no side effects. The Avonex was a weekly injection that made me feel horrible with flu-like symptoms for about 24 hours. It's a good thing I don't have a problem with needles because I was now poking myself eight times a week. The drugs are not a cure for MS which doesn't exist. Their purpose is merely to slow down the advancement of the disease and delay the onset of more serious symptoms.
I was in the study for nearly five years before I quit. The side-effects of the Avonex were having a serious impact on my quality of life and I just didn't want to put up with it anymore. That meant, of course, that further treatments would have to come out of my own pocket. Even with insurance, I was looking at hundreds of dollars a month for anything on the market. That's not exactly feasible for me at the moment, so I haven't been taking anything since then.
The disease has definitely progressed. My most common symptom is fatigue which really hasn't changed much since my diagnosis. On most days, even when I have gotten a proper amount of sleep, I feel very tired by mid to late afternoon. Whenever I have a chance (read: weekends), I try to take an afternoon nap. What I do deal with more frequently now than I used to is numb spells. My right leg is the most common victim and it will just go completely numb for a few seconds. This can lead to some entertaining results such as when it happens mid step when I'm on a flight of stairs or jogging across a busy road just ahead of oncoming traffic. The spells are brief and then sensation returns as if it never went away. They're more an irritant now more than anything. "Oh, there's my stupid leg going numb again. I guess I'll keep forcing myself to walk and hope it goes away in a second."
One good thing the MS has helped me with is that when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes a year-and-a-half later, it wasn't all that big of a deal. What's an incurable disease when you already have one? Pssh, it's old hat. That sounds like a really sad sort of good thing, but it's true. The diabetes diagnosis wasn't near so hard to hear as the MS diagnosis.
I'm not sure there's anything else I could really say that's been good about getting MS. Oh, I could probably spout some banal platitudes about appreciating life more or blah, blah, blah; but those all sound so silly. Sometimes shitty things happen in life and there's nothing to be done about it. You simply have to adapt to it and not let it get the best of you. I think I do all right most of the time. I'm human, though, and have moments of feeling sorry for myself. But for the most part, I'm just like, "I'm Shane Noble and no goddamn incurable disease is going to get the best of me." Or at least I try.
I know I've said it before, but this time I really am going to work on committing to regular posting again. I've missed it. Feel free to shoot me an email if you haven't seen a post in a couple of days.
I've been looking for some good sites for sharing my photos and I've come across a couple I'm going to try out.
500px - I hadn't heard of this site until recently. There's a couple of different membership options and I'm just driving with the free one now. So far it seems relatively simple to use.
DeviantArt - I have heard of this site and perused it before. Like 500px, it's relatively easy to use so far.
I think I'll link to these sites when I upload new pics rather than hosting them directly here on the blog.
One thing that became exquisitely clear on both of these sites is that there are some damn good photographers out there and I fell almost embarrassed having my photos on the same website. I plan to keep working at it, though, and maybe some day I'll feel like I belong there.
Now, Brennan’s power has increased even more: he’s on his way to becoming the sole arbiter of life and death, the unchecked judge, jury and executioner of whomever he wants dead (of course, when Associated Press in this report uses the words “Terrorist” or “al-Qaida operative,” what they actually mean is: a person accused by the U.S. Government, with no due process, of involvement in Terrorism):
...
Needless to say, all of this takes place in total secrecy, with no legal framework and no oversight of any kind. Indeed, even after they had Brennan publicly defend the CIA drone program, the Obama administration continue to insist in federal court that the program is too secretive even to confirm its existence. It’s just a tiny cadre of National Security State officials who decide, in the dark, whom they want dead, and then — once the President signs off — it is done. This is the Change with which the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate has gifted us: ”some of the officials carrying out the policy are equally leery of ‘how easy it has become to kill someone.’”
This is so far from candidate-Obama's words that it's just baffling. The power of the Executive continues to grow seemingly unchecked and there seems to be no obstacles to stopping it and no future path visible to reverse it. This way lies madness.
I often wonder what extreme Christians are thinking when they say we should do things like, "Build a great, big, large fence — 150 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there... Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out… And you know what, in a few years, they'll die."
In a sermon blasting President Obama for his same-sex marriage support, Pastor Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina, offered a novel — and horrific — solution to the so-called gay scourge: build an electric fence and let "lesbians, queers and homosexuals" starve to death.
"I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers," he says in his sermon, delivered on May 13. "Build a great, big, large fence — 150 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there... Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out… And you know what, in a few years, they'll die."
Has Mr. Worley read a Bible? I have. A few times. I'm struggling to recall a place where Jesus talked about treating people like this. Maybe it's in some apocryphal book I'm not aware of. In my Bible, Jesus talks about loving people. He hangs out with outcasts - lepers, whores, tax collectors. I'm pretty sure he didn't advocate locking sinners up somewhere and letting them die. In fact, I'm pretty sure an idea like that runs counter to everything Jesus talked about. Again, maybe this is in a text that was accidentally and erroneously left out of the New Testament. It would be nice of Pastor Worley to share this text with the rest of us, though.
In addition to wondering where these people come up with these ideas, I wonder about their perception of the efficacy of these statements. Do they think that someone hears a message like this and thinks, "What? That's how bad homosexuality is? I had no clue. I guess I better get my act together." Do they imagine that someone hears this and thinks, "That's a church I'd feel comfortable going to. Those people aren't judgmental at all."
Look, I get that some people have honest religious convictions about issues like homosexuality and abortion. What I don't get is how people like Pastor Worley think that this is a good way to get that message across. This isn't the 18th-century anymore where nearly everyone is going to church and local pastors have a lot of control over what happens in their communities. People have enormous freedom and are bombarded with numerous messages, spiritual and secular. The bottom line is that people are going to go where they feel comfortable, where they feel welcome. Preaching that we should lock homosexuals up and let them die is unlikely to offer many outside a very small community a welcoming message whether they are LGBT or not.
I went to Riverfront Park for these pictures. It's a great place. Two things became apparent, though. One, I really need to get some more lenses. There were a few shots I really wanted to get, but couldn't without a telephoto lens. If anyone has any spares lying around they want to get rid of, I won't say 'no.' Two, I really need to make sure I'm taking enough memory with me. I had 3 Gigs of memory, but I forgot the 2 Gb card was full. I had to cut the shoot early because of that. Ah, well. I still think I got some decent photos.
Stray Geese Strut
Geese Whisperer
The Elusive Squirrel
The "Mountain"
My niece kept pointing at the hill in the distance and saying we needed to walk to the mountain.
Swim Lessons
This is one of my favorite TED talks.
Humility, moral or any other kind, is hard. But necessary.
Freddie deBoer writes that geeks need to stop playing the victim card because they've won.
The success of the Avengers is only a small part of a broader phenomenon: the rise of “geek culture” as the single most powerful force, commercial and cultural, in the art and media landscape. The major genres and media once consigned to the realm of geek or nerd culture, such as science fiction, high fantasy, comic books, and video games now dominate both in terms of commercial success and popular attention. They are simply unavoidable. Year in and year out, the most highly promoted and widest opening blockbuster films come from broader geek culture. Superhero movies have become so ubiquitous that filmmaker demand is outstripping the supply of comic book characters that could plausibly carry a movie. (Jonah Hexx happened for a reason.) Coverage of video games is now prevalent in general-purpose newspapers and magazines. Television shows like Game of Thrones and Grimm bring Dungeons and Dragons-inflected fantasy—once a bridge too far even for many genre fiction fans— to a large audience. Even the traditionally high-brow cultural media, publications like the New York Times and The New Yorker, devote more attention to sci-fi and superheroes than they do to opera, orchestral music, and ballet.
Yet despite this dominance, there remains a remarkable sensitivity towards perceived slights among these genres’ most dedicated fans.
It's a good essay. I wonder where this feeling comes from. As deBoer points out, it wasn't that long ago that geeky things weren't taken quite as seriously as they are today. However, I don't think it's proximity to the recent past that is fueling the aggrievement. My guess is that it comes down to two things.
One, on a large scale, geeks may have won. I don't think the same can be said on the individual level. A pasty-white, math genius who loves Dungeons and Dragons is a lot more likely to get teased and picked on and bullied than the star quarterback. It's hard to proclaim that geeks have won when you're getting shoved into lockers on a regular basis.
Two, geeks are still portrayed as sort of oddball losers in many forms of media. Not in every show and movie, of course, but in many. People are good at taking portrayals of their group in media and making it their own whether or not it matches their own experiences.
These are just a couple of off the cuff thoughts I had while reading deBoer's essay and not any sort of rigorously thought out ideas. Maybe I'll think differently tomorrow.
John Scalzi, sci-fi author and blogger extraordinaire, wrote a post analogizing being a straight, white male to the lowest difficulty setting in life.
Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?
Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.
It's a good analogy. What I find most fascinating, though, are the comments. Plenty of SWMs pop-in to cry foul and "what has being a SWM ever done for me?!?!"
Many SWMs listen to someone talk about the privilege they have and immediately cry foul which is why Scalzi avoids using the word in his analogy. "I was born poor," they say. "I've contracted cancerAIDS," they say. "Some minority got a job instead of me just because of Affirmative Action," they say. Naturally they miss the point. Scalzi is not saying that being a SWM is a guarantee of riches and an easy life. He's saying that it gives you a leg up. Of course a SWM is (usually) still going to have to put some effort into life to get ahead. It's just that it won't typically have to be as much as someone who is, say a gay, Arabic woman. More doors open more easily for SWM than they do for people who are not.
The larger point that Scalzi is making is that the people who are privileged, the SWMs, need to be aware of this. Being aware doesn't mean needing to feel guilty or to run around making apologies for what they were granted by accident of birth. It means understanding that others have not been granted the same. It means asking, "What can I do, what can we do as a society to reduce the privilege gap so that all people have the same opportunity (not the same outcome) for success.
This is not a simple problem by any means and it's not something that will be solved overnight even if everyone agreed that it was a problem that needed solving. There are still people out there who think white supremacy is a good thing. But the first step in fixing a problem is acknowledging that there is one. That's what Scalzi's post aims at doing in the clever way he's so good at.
File under "Annals of the Ludicrous." A New Jersey town has outlawed texting while walking.
Pedestrians in Fort Lee, New Jersey will have to stop to text, following the passage of a new law that imposes $85 fines on walkers caught texting. Fort Lee Police Chief Thomas Ripoli cited numbers of pedestrian crashes to support the ban: Last year there were 74 crashes involving pedestrians; three pedestrians were killed this year, according to The Record's NorthJersey.com.
“It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,” Ripoli said during an announcement of the ban.
Following a brief warning period, New Jersey police began issuing fines to distracted walkers near the end of March, with more than 117 violations recorded to date.
This sounds like an excuse to collect money from the citizenry. Sure, distracted walkers are getting into accidents and getting killed, but how is criminalizing it going to solve the problem? Oh, that's right. When we ban things as with alcohol or drugs, no one uses them anymore. Got it.
