Ok, ok this is the third and final VW ad (that I know of). I know you'll like it.

Volkswagen GTI Campaign

VW uber-auto, and this is a "uber" ad, funny enough to be on the uber-bowl.

Do you care about basketball? If you're reading my blog, you probably like playing it, but would rather listen to me ramble on about Russian poetry than watch five minutes of NBA basketball. One of these days, you might get interested in caring about what goes on the court, but pro ball is much bigger the Rose Garden, Madison Square Garden, or any other piece of flowery hardwood. There're also dreams and desires at work. Not the players' desires, they've got it made, but the dreams of the kids watching them. Specifically, black kids coming from the wrong sides of the tracks. The borderline geniuses of Free Darko (if you don't believe me, read this) have a great post about these kids. It's probably the best thing I've ever read on any blog about any topic. Here's an excerpt:

"For so many of the kids I taught, dreams of basketball and dreams of college were mutually exclusive. For those convinced that a life of fame and wealth on the court awaited them, seeking higher education was construed at best, as irrelevant, and at worst, as an indication that they had failed in their quest to reach the league as soon as possible. I’m not sure that any amount of rational discourse might have persuaded these kids to find an alternate dream, and maybe the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to try indicated a failing on my part as well, but dreams of future success didn’t vary much in Indianola, Mississippi; almost no 7th grade boy aspires to be a young black doctor, lawyer, or entrepreneur because he’s never seen one and has been inundated with subtle and overt cues, practically from birth, that he can never become one."

The writer is in favor of the new restrictions against high schoolers jumping to the NBA without first going to college. This is a heated issue, as some people have declared to be racist. But this has more than a "human angle" to a story; this gives the issue a soul. There's so much more than incredibly small number of athletes getting to the top of the world a year early. This is about kids who are being told they can't succeed except by making it to the big leagues.

This problem isn't restricted to Mississippi. Portland may be one of the whitest cities in the world, but still I'm clueless in how I can take four class at Portland State, and have the grand total of 3 black classmates, and one of those being from Africa. At PSU black=athlete and athlete=black, so there's definately happening well before the college years.

I'm grateful for FreeDarko's post, and for David Stern's efforts to encourage kids, especially black students, to look beyond basketball and to dream about college.

Save the Internet!

Fascinating video on the issue of net neautrality, and preserving it so that we would not be forced to pay cable like prices to use sites like youtube and blogger

Tag

First time I've ever been tagged. The meme? Twenty-five things I want to do before I die.

1. Go to Russia (well, duh!)
2. Speak Russian
3. Understand Russian
4. Understand Russians, this one is a letter tougher, but it'll worth.
5. Graduate from college (heck, I'd be fine if I could finish the freshman year!)
6. Run for office. I'll do it when I'm sixty. If I run if Portland I'll sweep the Russkies.
7. Learn good grammer. English grammer.
8. Go back to Slovakia. To work in the embassy.
9. I'm unafraid of speaking my pidgin Rus to a girl, maybe I could speak in English to an American Девушка, and not get nervous.
10. Play in a band.
11. Get that band to play one non-crap show.
13. Get the fumigator movie finished.
14. Have the D.O.A. be a household name like "Jared Hess." (I thought of his name before you know, that other guy's name).
15. Not just to see the NE Patriots live in Foxboro, but to have season tickets.
16. Ditto for the Blazers.
17. Maybe get some of book published. (How to fail in 12 easy steps: Hint #1: Trip over the first step, and the rest will come.
18. I also want to go to England, and while I'm there visit Highbury and watch Arsenal play at Emirates.
19. Visit the Louvre
20. Go to Florence

A few things I want to do before I die, but other people actually have to do them for me.
21. Blazers win a title
22. And not move away
23. NHL hockey in Portland (if they could have it in Nashville...

Now back to our regularly scheduled memes
24. Go to some sort of big-shot concert...ah! here we go a tribute to Mark Heard, featuring Bob Dylan, Bono, The ghost of George Harrison, Emmylou Harris (even if they don't know who he is), Sam Phillips, The Lost Dogs, Kevin Max, Buddy Miller, Daniel Amos, Larry Norman, and Terry Scott Taylor.
25. After the concert I mentioned in #11, and have the Edge tell me that I aint all that bad.


I tag Queen's Mum (someone tell her she's been tagged).
Everyone else I know has been tagged and Лариска нет блога, so I'll tag ....
Anonymous

Do these things work with MySpacers?

Vote!

Vote, but I don't think anyone should vote Republican this year. I'm an independent, not a Democrat, when I vote along Democratic lines, it is to restore balance to this country. Balance is something that the Republican party has lost. They claim to be protecting the nation from terrorism, but they promote terrorism. Terrorism, not abroad, but is aimed at our country. I don't believe they are in it for anything less than the power. Terrorism is their only true platform: pro-life matters are irrelevant to them, "Compassionate conservatism" is too wild for them. Morality and ethics mean nothing to them. You might ask, "how do you know their hearts?" How do I know their hearts? I don't. I know their deeds, and knowing their actions is a hell of a lot more damning than any knowledge of their innermost being. I know their big promises to grant their supporters their wildest dreams: money for charity, no money for abortions, money for the troops. Nothing. 000000000.

Money. Money. Money.
What we've gotten is war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Chairman of the RNC has said that Democrats are "cut and runners" who want Iraq to be a failure like Afghanistan. Even the Republicans say that war was a failure. Iraq, what is Iraq? I hate it. I have a friend who fought there. I care for him more than I care for another round of Balkan bloodbaths. The only reason CNN is not calling it a civil war is because Robert E. Lee hasn't ridden up on Traveller to fight for a side.

Sorry, this is just a crazy post, but can we wake up and restore balance and unity to this Nation.

Throw out the people pay to run ads for terrorists. Throw out the people who call more than half the nation "traitors."

The P is for Politics

Finally, I am here. For too long I have not said anything about politics and the shameful state of our nation. What is it when a president is worse than King John? King John, forced by the noblemen, signed Hapeas Corpus into the Magna Carta. Hapeas Corpus, meaning the police have to state why they are arresting you. This no longer exists in the United States. Bush has taken a crap on this law, and has singed into law that any person a war tribunial, or any other kind of body he appoints, can send you to prison as an "enemy combatment." At least Stalin knew how to throw a show trial.
Congratulations, you live under a dictatorship. I thought I was only going to experience this once.

I hate this.
Torture is legal, and it's applauded. Do you care?

Am I not a man, and a brother?

We string up taxi-drivers like Christmas trees, because our generals don't know the hell they walked into. This situation could become worse than the Balkans in the 90's.

Ethnic groups killing each other for the hell of it.

Communism was dead: good thing

Saddam overthrown: good thing (but the right thing?)

But hornets' nests have arisen?
What are going to do?
Shoot people?

Torture them with methods learned from Stalinists and Pol Pot?

You're killing me.

End the war already,
I do not to fall in love,
I do not want flowers,
I want the bricks
from your high towers,
I want this to be over with.

I hate myself,
I'm tired of this clueless country,
Who are going to praise today?
Who's Jesus Anyway?
Did the whore anoint him,
perfume him for a battle?

He fought,
climbed a cross,
sliced into death with pain,
Sin, a parachute, he jumped into Hell,
and died.

Three days he hung,
Three days he lay
In blood and clay,
Till
the prisoners frolicked home free,
till he untied himself
to stitch a world together

"Peace on earth, we need it now, I'm tired of all this hanging around,
Sick of sorrow sick of pain, sick of hearing again and again, that
there's

going to

be

peace
on
Earth"

"Jesus, Jesus help me, I'm alone in this world, and a f**ked up world it is too. Tell me, tell me the story the one about eternity and the way it's all gonna be..." bono

Hope you have a good day, and I'll see you in Gitmo.

(yes, the eff word is necessary. it wouldn't be honest for me not to quote it in full. if it's a really big moral problem, please tell me. but what did Tony Campolo say? millions of people are dying around the world, and you're mad because I said "Damn.")
Revision: I "bleeped" the word. This morning I realized that it is not a very wise thing to typing obscenities at one in the morning. But who reads this blog anyway?)

DC and Gettysburg pictures Part Two: Air and Space Museum

Smithsonian Castle

Spirit of St. Louis, you're looking at the underbelly of probably the most important prop plane ever.


Hook-up of Soviet and American spacecraft.


No explanation needed




A moon lander. It never made it to the moon but still there it is.