[dovate.com] » 2006 » April
Until today, I’d never seen the majestic (for a duck) Wood Duck within Philadelphia City limits. Today I saw 5 of them down in the Wissahickon Valley. Being a fan of birds and such, this really made my afternoon. It also justified my biking around all day with a heavy ass 300mm peice of glass in my bag.
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I smoked for 10 years. I quit a year and a half ago. While I was a smoker, I looked with fear and dread towards each smoking ban that forged way into Philadelphia City Council. Each piece of legislation introduced in Philly has died somewhere along the way, but someday one of these bans will stick. At this point I could give a shit either way.
At this point the issue is so muddled with idiots that it’s nearly impossible to take a side. On one side, smokers act as though the right to smoke is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, somewhere just above the second amendment and that a smoking ban in indoor public places is just legislative terrorism enacted by a cabal of rabid fascists.
On the other hand, they have a point. Proponents of a smoking ban are often more concerned with not having to be near cigarette smoke than they are about the bar and restaurant workers they use as the moral pawns in their stupid little game. As New Jersey debates outdoor smoking rules, (as was quoted in an NPR story to keep people from having to walk through a “cloud of smoke” when entering a restaurant) I can’t help but think of this photo I took up in Portland, Maine last summer… In case you can’t read it, the neatly stenciled message on that giant oil tanker reads “PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT - NO SMOKING”:
In my irrelevant opinion, smoking ban indoors = arguably ok. Smoking ban outdoors = arguably the weakest argument for environmental and human health ever proposed with a straight face. Banning smoking in outdoor public places is probably about as an effective way to clean up the planet, as duck and cover is for surviving a thermonuclear attack. That’s all for now.
Half my family is Jewish. Most of them are of the typical liberal stripe, but like an increasing number of Jewish Americans, bizarre ideas about foreign policy have metastasized among a small minority of them. It seems that neoconservatism can be frustratingly infectious.
But anyway, back in 2003 at a Passover Seder I got into a spirited ‘debate’ with a (non-blood) relative about his fucking insane notions of the then, fresh-off-the-shelf Iraq war. It was still the statue toppling, museum looting days, so the dispute was largely intellectual. Being right, I argued that the United States would likely face seemingly unending guerilla warfare as the country slid slowly into civil war. He argued that Americans would be showered with rose petals and that by today most of the Middle East would be mounting homegrown democratic insurrections.
Over the last few years, I’ve had the common decency not to mention his horrible idiocy. I bring it up now though – because I still hold to the belief that if we just leave Iran alone, they will turn out just fine. If we bomb them, then all bets are off. The youth of Iran, (who make up a majority of the population) do not much care for their pole up their ass holier than thou government. Leave them alone and eventually grow out of them, either violently or by sheer numbers and force. It was going in that direction before we went and invaded Iraq and it will continue to do so as long as we stop threatening to attack them.
When your country gets attacked, people rally around even the stupidest, most despotic dipshits. [i.e. 9-11 and (possible upcoming attack to be blamed on Iran)] Bombing Iran will not help along the process of Iranian democratic reforms. It will just kill a lot of people and make the rest murderously angry. O’well.
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Devil’s Walking stick
Wissahickon Valley, Fairmount Park, January 2006.
I’m sure most everyone enjoys their daily emails from MoveOn.org. Although I never give $, I do sign all their petitions. Sometimes I even read 1/3 to 2/3 of an email.
But none of this is what I came to write about. To tell you the truth, I’m starting to lose whatever faith I may or may not have once had about just about everything. For example, it was a real optimism crusher when, coming back from lunch I saw the MoveOn subject line: “Don’t Nuke Iran”
Let’s be honest here… When’s the last time a MoveOn campaign actually worked? Conclusion being, Iran will soon be nuked. There’s no way that’ll play out well.
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Image 93
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Cherry Blossom festival, 2006
I deleted my weekend’s posts because of some formatting trouble. They’ll return when I fix them. Until then, to get that godawful Hoff Soap image off the top of the page, enjoy this symbolic blast from the past. This building is no more. It was beautiful in death.
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For the complete gallery, click here.
I haven’t had much sleep, so I might be a little deranged, but this is quite possibly the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. I need to order a couple for work.
You know how I said the gospel of Judas or some shit was found yesterday. Fuck that. Later on in the day, the gospel of Toynbee as recorded by (_________) was uncovered. The sacred texts were under protection of a man in Maryland who we’ll call Silu. Silu contacted the Resurrect Dead team after synchronizing a sophisticated set of well tuned technological devices to receive messages carried on ambient frequencies. Information was then transmitted digitally to the documentary team at a specified time and location.
Keep checking back here and at Resurrect Dead for updates. Due to the sensitive nature of these texts, they remain at Above Top Secret status, inaccessible even to the president of the United States. A small, clandestine group of elders based in West Philadelphia will be handling declassification and dissemination of these materials. That’s all for now.
Wow, lost biblical texts are a lot like Star Wars scripts:
“The account goes on to relate that Jesus refers to the other disciples, telling Judas “you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”
…the anonymous author of the Gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone among the 12 disciples understood the meaning of Jesus’ teachings and acceded to his will.”
In the next uncovered Gospel, learn how the “shadow gnostics” converted Judas with a temptation towards the power which the dark side possesses.
I’m gonna go ahead and continue on with my theme of presenting obscure and varied subjects that few actually care about. My intention is to present them in an entertaining way. Today: How to invalidate an internet conspiracy theory in a page or less.
I know, this sounds too easy. Or maybe your of the Runmsfeldian school of the “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Or maybe that doesn’t make any sense and I just wanted to drop that quote in there. But anyway, back to the conspiracy.
A man in rural Virginia is sitting on secret knowledge. Illuminati bankers (aka evil Jewish overlords) have hidden 27.5 trillion dollars somewhere, but for some reason they forgot where they put it. OK, sounds plausible so far. Apparently, this man in rural Virginia is the only person alive who knows where it is (that’s why he hasn’t been killed). But not only that, he has been entrusted by a sympathetic Virginia judge to hold the money for safekeeping. The man wants to turn the cash back over to the American people. What a hero!
All checks out so far. But then our hero drops this line:
“Dutch (President Reagan} always intended the money be returned to the American people to be used for roads, schools and health care.”
Now that doesn’t sound right at all. Reagan? Health Care? Schools? HAHAHAHA!!! What a fucking whack-job. The conspiracy continued on for god knows how many pages, but I stopped reading after that. People – when you’re making shit up, you gotta maintain credibility.
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Near Colfax, CA. December 2005
Everyone should know about the dung beetle. Read up:
wikipedia - the magical scarab.
Weather report:
Sunny and snowing in Philadelphia. WTF?
Today while I was finishing up a slice of tomato pie at Joe’s II and glancing over City Paper’s I love you/I hate you ads, I saw a mention of my friend Colin. Colin is the one man (+ 1 robot drummer) band Seizure 17. The ad reads:
SEIZURE 17
I hadn’t heard you before, but when I saw your act, I creamed my panties. I can’t wait till the next show. This time I won’t wear any panties.
Damn. His girlfriend is probably not gonna to be happy about that. But anyway, if you want to cream your panties or whatever, Seizure 17’s next show is this Tuesday (4-11) at the Grape Street Pub in Manayunk, 8:30PM.
One of Philadelphia’s crown jewels is slated for destruction. Eastern State Penitentiary’s larger, scarier and crazier cousin to the North, Byberry Mental Hospital will be demolished later this year. The Byberry complex is actually a series of 20 or more buildings spread across an enormous campus and linked by underground tunnels.
Think of it as an abandoned University. Or more precisely, an abandoned University that instead of having students, had mentally ill prisoners who instead of attending classes, were subjected to inhuman experimentation, often verging on torture. It was closed a couple decades ago and has been trashed, looted, burned, burglarized, explored and smashed to bits ever since.
Having been featured on dozens of websites, magazine and newspaper articles and even in upcoming Philly Film Fest movie The Fourth Dimension, the place is a must-visit for urban explorers everywhere. Sadly, I’ve never been to Byberry and may never go.
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I just found this on my computer. Bar in Brooklyn, Fall, 2004.
The New York Times launched a redesign, so I figured what the hell – I will too. Basically, I’m switching to a (we)blog format. How will that change the site? I don’t know. I was really tempted to post a recipe for a black-eyed pea and cilantro salad I made last night, but restrained myself.
The ease with which content can now be published and more importantly – archived – will probably result in an increase of superfluous posts. This is good and bad. More content = a more interesting site but along with that, the average quality of posts will decrease proportionally to their frequency. Don’t worry; I’ll still occasionally ponder over the subtle nuances of romantic abstractions. I’ve created the helpful tag ‘pretentious’ to help you find them. Also, when I write faster, I tend to write funnier. Keep an eye out for that too.
I also now have a place for comments. With an average of about 100 unique hits a day (yeah it’s not that much, but it is something) some of you have to have something to say. Don’t be afraid to speak up. Otherwise it looks like I’m talking to myself – and that’s just crazy. That’s all for now. More later.
