Junior Brown is Hero number one in my new TackleAction series celebrating guitar heroism (Heroes in no particular order). Here he is doing the Sugarfoot Rag. Enjoy.
I don't know how i feel about reading these. I'm embarrassed that i'm interested in it, because it feels voyeuristic. I'm kinda glad i got a chance to read about what's going on. But being so detached from it, the only point of reference i have is war movies. But in stories like this one, the people are really dying. No actor to blur the distinction. It makes me pretty sad when i think too hard about it.
Why would you feel embarrassed about tyring to educate yourself about the realities of this, or any, war? I believe that we don't get enough of this kind of information because it makes people sad, which can be an "inconvenience" or "demoralizer."
I think everyone needs to be acutlely aware of the harsh realities of war -- inlcuding all the gory details. Perhaps then the choice to go to war will be a last resort rather than a pre-emptive strategy.
The most shameful part is that i pursue violence for entertainment (band of brothers is one of my favorite moving-picture things.) so what's to differentiate this 'real' depiction of war to a 'sorta-real' depiction i see on the tube.
You could probably make a case that our government's censorship (FCC) regulating everything EXCEPT violence is a conspiracy to make the populous okay with violence so we can fight wars and kill tens of thousands of people with minimal popular backlash.
I think people are 'okay with violence' through TV/Movies because 1. they have confronted it so often that they no longer make emotional connections with it. and 2. because they see so many 'fake' depictions of it that your brain does not confront the issue of death and violence as personal.
I agree that we are all probably jaded by violence in the media. I have enjoyed many violent movies but I don't know if that would make me more accepting of the idea of war (unless accompanied by a steady stream of patriotic propoganda).
Justification for the violence is easier for us to accept because there hasn't been a war on our hometown main street in a very long time. It's been in someone else's backyard (Europe, Asia, Middle East). Of course, I would rather have it this way than to live in a country where generation after generation knows nothing but war...
I woke up at 7am this morning in the middle of a snowstorm and trekked across town to Best Buy to line up for a Wii. Apparently I wasn't the only one with this idea, but I was early enough to be about the 14th person in line, landing me one of the 36 they had in stock after a good 2.5 hours of standing in the cold.
This thing is all kinds of fun... but I've got two complaints so far. (1) No extra controllers anywhere in this town... and (2) I suck at bowling.
On the one hand this is kinda cool, on the other...why?
There's gotta be something better you can do with your exceptional hand/eye coordination than this.
Isn't this part of the allure of organic food? Nature made that maggot, and if you eat the maggot, you are one step closer to mother earth.
Although, this is why i don't eat fruits and vegetables... I've had run in's with fruit bugs before, but only after eating part, or several of then before i realized it. There's something unappetizing about something so natural (even the inorganic variety). At least the meat bugs are too small to notice.
C'mon Paul, we're made of tougher stuff than you think. Countless generations of evolution have conditioned us to handle most of the insects, and microbes that could be associated with "organic" or foods.
A few bugs are way more appetizing than a mouthful of pesticide.
Worms are supposed to be good for you anyway. It's called protein, and you need it. Unless they're parasites. Then you just get a free diet plan out of the thing.
From this article about a fire that was started by a cell phone that was in someone's pocket:
"There have been a couple other cases in California in the past few years,'' Tweedy said. "It's no different than any other fires involving mechanical or electrical items,'' Tweedy said.
Tweedy did not want to identify the manufacturer or model of the phone for legal liability reasons.
"It was a freak accident. It just happened and could happen anytime,'' he said."
Way to nip that in the bud, Vallejo Fire Department spokesman Bill Tweedy.
Apparently there are lots of Guantanamo-ites that were picked up in raids in Pakistan that were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. And with no options for hearings, they can only sit around and write their novels and drafts for reparations. This is a video by an appointed investigator, and some videos from his interviews with a prisoners co-workers (he used to be an administrator at a hospital, and was clearly awesome at ping-pong.)
This was on boing boing - but it was too good to not post along.
"You can't download songs directly onto it from the iTunes store, you have to export them from a computer. And even though it's got WiFi and Bluetooth on it, you can't sync iPhone with a computer wirelessly. And there should be games on it. And you're required to use it as a phone—you can't use it without signing up for cellular service. Boo."
I wonder if this stuff is still open to being fixed through updates. But these all seem like bigger misses than i'd expect from apple. Most notably, the inability to download direct from the internet.
Maybe it has something to do with the EDGE network... which doesn't seem like the fastest network tech. i thought Cingular is already setting up it's faster HSDPA network... so what's the deal with the old tech? (i really don't know that much about this stuff - so if someone wants to fill me in, comment.)
Also, where the hell is my GPS? If there is one thing i have needed more often from a phone is the "Where the hell am i" button for when i'm lost.
Spend 10 minutes watching the iPhone in action on Apple's website.
After you're sufficiently blown away, pause, take a breath, and pull your phone out of your pocket.
Try not to weep.
it's gotta be better than an ipod - i too want to know what that screen's made of. i'm not too crazy about sticking a giant screen into my pocket. i'm also not a fan of carrying cases.
Macworld keynote is tomorrow @ 11am. Here's my big prediction:
I got a feeling they gonna say something about 'we thought about
the name iTV, and looking at the product we thought something was
missing."
And then they're gonna release a 42" LCD that works wirelessly with
all macs. and it's gonna have a camera in it, so you can use it to have family to family videoconferencing.
i donno if you noticed but they pulled the isight from the apple store a week or so ago... leaving me (and others) to speculate the camera is going into the monitors (like on the laptops)...
so you might not be far off.
i think it'll "work wirelessly" through the little itv box. so you buy a monitor/tv (30"... 42"?) and plug the itv in below it.
So, i was blogging googling my last name to see my popularity in context to the other Siekas in the world. I'm about 34'th. I have a cousin who is 4th. But the #1 Sieka is some Dutch woman, whose first name is Sieka.
Anyway. She has a whole page about her name, illustrated by some of the finest imagery i could have ever done - with intended or un-intended irony.
Side note: based on how little we know about how google works, would a Sieka (me) linking to this Dutch Sieka only solidify her #1 spot in google?
thanks for this so honoured by this.hope you write someday in my guestbook or give me a mail cause i did wrote you years back about how funny names can be. about paul and sieka ....and its your name paul sieka...but thanks for let my pages at nr in google maybe you can do it also at the other search sites,much appreciated. greetings from the Sieka where this is all about....im flattered realy i am....
I've never been big on setting "life goals" for myself, probably because I'm a huge slacker. But now I think I've figured out what I want to achieve before I die: to have a hedcut of myself in the Wall Street Journal (inspired by this article). It doesn't matter why, as long as there's a beautiful black and white rendering of my mug included with the article, I'll die a happy man.
I watched The Deerhunter this weekend. Russian roulette plays a big part in this movie's plot, and I was wondering why.
My first thought is that it is a metaphor of the Vietnam Experience. In that you are facing death with the knowledge there are good odds toward living, but real odds at death.
And second - as a possible statement about Vietnam/war/etc - relating war to Russian roulette trivializes the 'experience', and shows that merely giving yourself up to possible death is in-and-of-itself traumatic.
I think the game of Russian roulette is used to symbolize what happens during a war. When playing the game, the outcome is random-you could live or you could die same. That's also what happens during war.
Additionally, I think it symolizes how the war takes a toll on a soldier's sanity. When playing Russian roulette, Michael and Steve look terrified. They seem afraid of the outcome-Steve shows it the most. Nick, on the other hand, seems to show no fear. I think the way the men react show, on different levels, how one's sanity is affected during war.
I would have to argue that soldiers in war have little choice as to what they can or can't do. I'm sure it's more like they're told what to do. Assuming that you're talking about the war.
If you're talking about choices they make after they're discharged, I still think sanity has something to do with it. They were all affected so differently and look at how they were living after the war. All 3 made completely different choices because they were all affected so differently.
But going to war is inherently a choice. You can always run away, break your leg, file paperwork to be a 'conscientious objector", etc.
And in the movie, all 3 characters volunteered.
What i meant by "trivialize the experience" in my original post is that in russian roulette the entire experience of war is just the pulling of the trigger. Because putting the gun to your head is like signing up, and then the result is either coming home dead/alive/wounded.
I don't think it's always a choice. You can only defer for so long, run away and then do jail time, break your leg and heal in 2 months etc. before you're forced to go-think of drafts. Sure, you can volunteer as these men did, but I don't think it's always a choice. Anyway, that point is getting us too far off topic.
I don't think war is just like pulling the trigger. I think the game symbolizes the whole experience of war not just one part of it.
I don't think that The whole game repeats itself every day during a war. It's only the kill or be killed part (the pulling the trigger) that is like war itself.
You choose to sit at the table, and then the trigger(war) decides how you leave the game.
I guess though, in the movie and in real life, the choice to sit at the table is not always yours.
Now to backtrack for a second, here's how the movie present russian roulette: Two 'players' pass a gun with one bullet in the chamber back and forth until one of them dies, while people bet on who dies first. yes, it's a spectator sport.
I'm starting to think that the real parallel between russian roulette and war is:
1. they're both just games that see who will die first
2. Your survival is based completely on someone else's death
3. There is nothing aside from luck that lets you live.
5. Even the winner loses (maybe his sole, sanity, etc).
4. The only real winners are those who are betting on the game.
I want one of these for work.
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