So on Tuesday, I picked up a penny at the bus stop in the morning. It was heads down. I remembered the warning that a heads down penny would bring bad luck. Sure as shit, the battery in the van died that day and I needed to leave work early to replace it.
This morning, I found a heads up shiny new 2008 Denver minted penny at the bus stop. Bring on the luck!
If people have no patience, they have no patience, and I can’t insist that they develop it. But I’ve observed that human life without patience becomes unworkable. My experience has been that I’ve been forced to develop patience with unchangeable situations.
~ H.H. the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa Urgyen Trinley Dorje
Los Angeles Says Piracy ‘Detrimental to the Public Health, Safety’
By David Kravets EmailMay 08, 2008 | 11:29:38 AMLocal governments in California and the United States have long had the power to declare property a public nuisance when their owners allow their land to become denizens of drugs, gangs, prostitution and gambling.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, following New York’s lead, is adding a new category: music and video piracy.
In an ordinance just adopted, the five-member board is declaring that piracy “substantially interferes with the interest of the public in the quality of life and community peace, lawful commerce in the county, property values, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare of the county’s citizens, its businesses and its visitors.”
The regulation was crafted at the urging of the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America.
The county retains the right to shutter a property for up to a year for violating ordinance 13.90.010 and also gives local authorities the right to bring a civil action to “temporarily restrain, preliminarily enjoin, and/or permanently enjoin the person or persons intentionally conducting, or knowingly maintaining or permitting the public nuisance from further conducting, maintaining, or permitting such a public nuisance.”
Property owners who knowingly permit such activity can also be dinged $1,000 for each counterfeited work produced on the property.
The bastards on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors should be thrown out of office for dereliction of duty. This egregious abuse of the power of eminent domain should be fought with all resources of reason and the public right. What a waste.
EDIT: More has been revealed:
A Los Angeles County ordinance adopted last week giving authorities the legal muscle to shutter property used to produce counterfeit DVDs and CDs was the result of intense pressure from Hollywood and the recording industry.
Additionally, the so-called nuisance abatement ordinance was based, in part, on exaggerated piracy figures provided by the entertainment industry, which also gave the measure’s key political backer thousands of dollars in campaign contributions….
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/entertainment-i.html
(emphasis added)
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
final 3 stanzas of Song of Myself, Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Since everything is but an apparition,
Perfect in being what it is,
Having nothing to do with good or bad,
Acceptance or rejection,
You might as well burst out laughing!
~ Longchenpa
That Sami al Hajj, a Sudanese citizen, was held 2,340 days at Guantánamo bay before being released last week. Hajj was never prosecuted; the U.S. did not make public its full allegations against him.
In a hearing that classified the cameraman as an enemy combatant, U.S. officials alleged that in the 1990s, Hajj was an executive assistant at a Qatar-based beverage company that provided support to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya.
May the world know that there is at least one American who noticed this violation of human rights, and believes, nay, knows, this is contrary to the very principles upon which our country was founded. As-sallamu aleykum, Sami al Hajj.
Source
Sharing the Tragedy of War
by Aileen Mory
Weekend Edition Sunday, April 13, 2008I believe that democracy is a shared responsibility. The problem with any core belief is that life has a way of testing it. My most recent test came in the form of the Iraq war. I failed.
I was against the war from the start, although my opposition never translated into a protest march in Washington or a letter to my congressman. It remained no more than a quietly held belief. Today, there’s talk of leaving Iraq, but I don’t know what to think. I want our soldiers to come home, but can we really abandon the Iraqi people to what is essentially a civil war of our own making?
I don’t have a solution, but I think I may have figured out what’s missing from my perspective on democracy: pain — universal, democratic pain. In terms of the Iraq war, this country’s burden is being shouldered by a select few. Some families and communities have been devastated by the war. Others, like mine, have been far too insulated. We can’t truly share the responsibility for our democracy until we all share in its suffering.
And so, in the name of shared pain, I support the reinstitution of the draft.
Don’t get me wrong. I have two children, ages 13 and 17. I don’t want them to be drafted. I’m frightened at the idea of having them serve in the military, just as I would be at the prospect of having a cop or fireman in the family. But guess what? If I’m mugged, I’m going to turn to my local police department. If there’s a fire in my house, I’ll want to hug the man or woman who saves my home. And if my way of life is threatened by outside forces, I’ll be forever grateful to that soldier guarding the wall. Unfortunately, that soldier is invisible to me. I know he’s out there, but he doesn’t have a face — certainly not the face of my child.
The idea that our troops are risking their lives thousands of miles from home, while my life is essentially unchanged, is chilling. I’m not saying that I don’t care. I’m saying I don’t care enough. When soldiers are dying to support our nation’s decision to go to war, “we the people” should not have a choice about our level of involvement. We should be drawn into the fray, kicking and screaming if need be, but fully engaged.
So draft my kids. Force them — and me — to be part of this democracy. Make no mistake: If I believe the country is waging the wrong battle, I’ll fight you tooth and nail. I don’t want my children going to war.
If every parent does not have to fear losing a son or daughter — if every politician does not have to face that fear in his constituents — decisions to go to war will continue to be too easy. I believe that a true democracy comes from shared responsibility for our collective choices. If that choice is war, we must all share in its tragedy.
I heard this on my NPR podcast a few weeks ago commuting home from work, and I was seriously taken aback. I’ve got three boys of my own, I do not support the Iraq war, but the last damned thing I think we should do is re-institute the draft.
I’m no logician, but isn’t her argument essentially cutting off the nose to spite the face?
Instead of offering up her (and my!) sons to the slaughter, shouldn’t she be focusing on less destructive means to accomplish the goal of stopping the wrongs we’ve wrought as a country in the Middle East? If she hasn’t felt enough pain on a personal level, maybe she can spend a day at the nearest national cemetery and witness the grief of families first hand.
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.~ Wendell Berry
http://www.myspace.com/hanatunes
Quote from: hana pestle myspace blog
i am SIGNED!! fo sho, fo real. with the music business the way it is right now, ben, my management, my whole team and i decided that we should take this all the way. after doing the entire album independently, why hand it over to The Man in the end? so, ben created a record label, FNR records. WWWWWWOOOOOOOOOTTTT!
(emphasis added)
EDIT: I looked back at the blog entry cited above on 5/2, and look what else I found!
p.p.s-for all of you ben moody fans……holy CCCCCRAP you guys are in for a treat. ben has been working on his album for the last million years on and off, but since february he’s really been working hard. it’s really happening, so just give it a little bit more time. PLUS i feel super special because michael tait and i arranged all the background vocals!! yeah!
Sweet.
AMERICAN PRINCES AMP STOLEN IN DES MOINES IOWA PLEASE REPOST
ladies and germs, will’s amp was stolen from the vaudeville mews in Des Moines Iowa last night.
bum-out
It’s a Marshall Valvestate S80 2×12 combo.
Dirty-ass logo on the front
here is a photo:
it has a small sticker below the input jack reading “PLUG IN”, as well as several pieces of red duct tape stuck on it in random places about the sides and back.
if anyone thinks they can give any information about it please email thehonestthief at gmail dot com
PLEASE REPOST!
PLEASE REPOST!
PLEASE REPOST!
PLEASE REPOST!
PLEASE REPOST!
PLEASE REPOST!