A critical anlysis of your cherished childhood memories

The president wants to send a man to Mars by 2015.

And Captain Planet is nothing but a tool of imperialist, racist global corporate capitalism.

In cartoon form.

How's this you ask? The Captain did so much for the environment, you say?

Not so fast. As if the mullet were not enough evidence, look at the powers all of the planeteers were assigned: there was wind, earth, fire, water, and heart. And what does the Latino kid get stuck with? Heart.

The shittiest power of them all.

While everyone else was out there making floods, and forrst fires, and earthquakes, this kid's stuck in the back standing there like a douchebag with no discernable superpower. No one wants the power of heart. I mean, what could he do? Make people fall in love? No! Only fate and circumstance can do that. A love devoid of free will is no love at all.

So, Captain Planet gave the shittiest job to the Latino kid. It's like the entire American economy, only in scale. Cartoon scale. People complain about Mexicans taking all of our jobs, when they’re not taking the kick ass jobs like doctor, or water; they’re taking the shitty jobs like janitor, or heart.

But they tried to mask the fact that it was racist by including one of every major ethnic minority group as defined by the network legal team. But of course, in their racist conception, the asian girl was a scientist. Obviously they needed a scientist to teach kids about the earth and that type of shit, but why'd it have to be the Asian girl? Why couldn't it have been the Scottish kid, or was he too busy getting drunk and playing golf?

So what's the point of all of this?

It’s called being a critical thinker, asshole. Captain Planet seemed like a harmless cartoon. In fact, it seemed like a good one. It tried to teach our children to love and respect the earth. Instead, it implicitly taught them to be racist tools of global capitalist imperialism. It’s just like this Mars landing. It sound all benign and even wonderful, until you think of the fact that there are millions of peple starving on earth, and instead of feeding them, we’re wasting billions of dollars sending people thousands of light years away for little to no reason. We may as well be searching for five magical rings that combine to form a weird gray superhero.

The kind of thing graduate study in the social sciences enables you to figure out.

Hurrah for education!

Doesn't matter your political views...

Well, I thought it was an urban legend, but it actually exists. The website NowThatsFuckedUp.com actually exists. It's a site where soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan can trade photos of brutally murdered/tortured Iraqis and Afghanis in exchange for access to pornography. Of course, all of the extremely gruesome photos (not safe for work, by the way) have captions such as "That's what you get for messing with the U.S." or other similarly machoistic nonsense. And of course, these mutillated bodies are almost always surrounded by groups of smiling soldiers giving a hearty Lyndie England-sytle thumbs up.

People, I don't care what you think about this war or any other subject, this shit is just about as wrong as wrong can physically possibly be.

Just something to ponder with your "Support Our Troops" bumper sticker.

Mars Volta/System of a Down Concert Review

Out of every show I've ever been to in my short existance, this one undoubtedly featured both the best hair and dance moves. But for a review in full...

Opening Act: Hella

Caught about the last 5 minutes of their set due to a wrong turn (still new to town). But from what I heard of their set and then later heard from musically-trustworthy friends, these guys are worth a listen.

First Act: The Mars Volta

Undoubtedly on of the greatest bands in current existance. These guys are insane musically and dance-illy, which very well could be a word. Throughout their set I couldn't help but think this was about the closest thing I would get to seeing Led Zep perform live. And not just because of the Robert lant-esque bell-bottom suits. The show was electric and insanely high-energy. The kind of thing that shows that good musicians are always better live. Not to say that Francis the Mute was not brilliant (it was) but it was merely one take from some great improvisers. Catch them live while they still exist as an entity.

Second Act: System of a Down

Given their outspoken political views with such side projects as Axis of Justice, I was expecting more political ranting between songs, but this was kept to only one comment from Darin about how we should establish one big purple state. The set was fairly straight-forward renditions of their music, but was notable for the extended intro's Darin performed. Also, more than one song had clearly newer lyrics either to reflect the current political landscape or just because these guys are clever lyricysts (sometimes) and like to show it off. I did question just how long it is until Darin releases a solo albulm, given the fact that he wrote a good 70-80% of SOAD's last albulm and was definately center-stage at the show. Finally, they capped off the show with an extended version of "Sugar" from way back in the day which got the hardcore fans going.

Only complaint about the show:

I do enjoy some hardcore and shred-metal (and I'm only semi-emberrassed to admit it) when it's done well. But like so many sub-genres, even if I like the music, I typically hate the people who listen to it. The best example is that in the exceptionally long line in the bathroom between sets, all of the stupid metal-heads were complaining about how weird and boring the Mars Volta are, which I would have argued about with them if they weren't all clearly on steroids.

Even though, couldn't kill my good music buzz. I must say, it's so nice to live in a city where it's only a 15 minute drive to see good music, instead of 4 hour drive.

Whatever happened to Teddy Roosevelt...

The great trust-buster must be rolling in his grave. Right now, Wal-Mart is applying for a liscence to open a bank in Utah. That's right folks, soon you could be banking at the good ol' Bank of Wal-Mart, presumably with 8 year old Asain girls for tellers. The FDIC is having an open public comment period to get feedback on whether it should allow Wal-Mart to do this or not. Because apparently being the largest employer and private company in the world just isn't what it used to be. For reasons that are far too painfully obvious, a Bank of Wal-Mart would pretty much spell out the apocolypse. Please go here and voice your displeasure and let the FDIC know not to go through with this.

Who's reading Jesse's blog? Part II of never-ending series...

Earlier I made a semi-humorous (or at least attempting to be humorous) post looking at who reads my blog and how they came to it. Most came looking for pornography, which either says something good about my exercise program, or just kinda tells the story of the internet as a whole. But now I've got a new and even more disturbing brand of fan. I was momentarily excited when I found that a recent post garnered a fair number of comments. Upon reading them, I found that 3 out of the 4 posts were actually advertisements for debt consolidation and/or loans. But again, this makes me ponder life. Is it just the internet? Or, have I been so horribly mis-managing my finances that people who don't even know me have finally taken to anonymously posting on my blog in a last-ditch effort to help me? Either way, I'm saddened and just a bit hurt. I mean, if "Sonya" or "blogs r us" really think I have that big of a problem with my finances, why couldn't they give me a call, or tell me over a cup of tea at the Hard Times? And "7472" with the extremely confusing offer of penis enlargement pills after posting half of an article about Orphans International Worldwide? I though I knew you "7472," but apparently we're just not the good friends that I thought. And really, if there's a problem of too many orphans in the world, shouldn't we all try to cut back on our consumption of penis-enlarging pills? I mean, they're not exactly related, but it can't be helping anything.

As always, "I'm not making this up!™"

I don't care about your political views, these people are just assholes

Senator Rick Santorum (the man whose name is synonymous with the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is often the by-product of anal sex) said that those who didn't leave New Orleans should be punished for not leaving (because having everything you own destroyed and half of your family killed isn't punishment...unless you're a pussy) and Barbara Bush pushed the envelope even further by saying that since the people who are stuck in the Superdome amongst dead bodies and raping looters were poorin the first place, they have it pretty good now. She may be right, though. I mean, it's practially like a vacation for these people. They don't have to go to work (because the place where they work is under 30 feet of water), they get free food (possibly), and they get the opportunity to be beaten up/raped and have the few meager possessions they have left stolen from them. Sounds good to me. Especially since the Bush administration response to this tragedy is pretty much the same thing as erecting a Bruce Lee statue to bring about peace andreconcilliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Boy, I'd sure hate to be the president right now...

Here it is, straight from the White House website, posted on August 26th:

"The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing."

Confused? It means the president assumed responsibility for the disaster relief for Katrina before it even happened. But this didn't make him cut short his vacation until 3 days after the storm hit. Would someone kindly explain to me how he's not responsible for the thousands of lives lost because of the entire lack of a federal response in the aftermath of this catastrophe?

Rental stories of the damned...

So I've officially lived in my new apartment (technically a "condo") for a month and nothing has broken and needed to be repaired yet. Yet, being the operative term. But this is actually quite a step up from the previous hole-in-a-basement that I lived in. By the time I had hit the one month mark there, my apartment had already flooded 2 times, the toilet had broken down, the kitchen sink drain had broken, and the pipes in the false ceiling had burst, causing a foul-smelling brown liquid to rain down on everything I own. Good times.

But possibly the best story comes from when the pipes in the wall burst and my kitchen and bathroom walls become little art deco/po-mo waterfalls. So I call the landlord's maintenance guy, who's really nice, but clearly a full-blown alcoholic, and kinda insane. So he comes over at 11 p.m. on sunday night to fix the problem. Not exactly an orthodox time for maintenance work, but such is life. Now, I lived in a one room efficiency, so it wasn't like I could ignore him. I mean, I could go around the corner so I couldn't see him, but he talks loudly to himself, so it was semi-distracting.

Well, he finds the problem, and he now thinks he knows why the pipes burst. He found my bottle of emuratic acid under the sink (my Dad's a chemist, so he can get even cooler cleaning solvents than your average janitor) and thinks that the fumes from this tightly-capped bottle caused the pipes inside the wall four feet away to burst, which makes some sense, I suppose. But not to worry, he comes to me and says "I think it's your acid, but I went ahead and beat the hell outta the whole area with a wrench so the landlord doesn't know it was your fault, but you didn't hear that from me." How nice of him.

But then it turns out that this is too much work for him, so he calls in an associate. The time is now a little after midnight, and I have to work in the morning. It's now like a bad 3 Stooges episode, only there's only 2 of them, and I think they're both drunk. But it gets more entertaining, because I hear snippets of conversation such as:

Dude 1: "Did you turn off the power?"

Dude 2: "Yeah, I already took care of it"

Dude 1: "If you turned off the power, why is the light still on?"

Dude 2: "Must be on another breaker"

Dude 1: "Ok" (slight pause) "Ow! Damnit!" (sound of Dude 1 hitting the floor)

Dude 2: "Oops. Maybe I didn't turn it off."

Or:

Dude 1: "It should be fine as long as there's no smoke"

Dude 2: "Well, I'm getting alot of blue smoke back here"

Dude 1: "Hmmm...well, I don't know what that means, but it can't be good."

Out of sheer curiosity, I round the orner into the kitchen, and my stove is sitting on the patio outside, and they're doing somehting with an acetylene torch. It's now 2 in the morning, and a third person has come over. But this one's a girl, and I don't think she's a maintenance worker, because she's just sitting on my kitchen table drinking one of my sodas and telling dirty jokes. Finally, it get's to be about 4 a.m., and seeing as how I have to work the next day, I tell them I'm taking off to sleep at a friend's house for the night and that they should lock up when they're done. When I get home at 10, they're gone, but they've taken a bunch of food and used all of my dish towels to wipe up grease. Fortunately no valuables are gone.

I consider it a pretty good repair job.

Except for the fact that they removed a very important support for the sink, so it now leans forward so far you have to pull up on the front and bend it the other way to get the water to go down the drain. I thank God I'm moving out of there in a few weeks and go on with my life.

In short, pretty much nothing could happen in this new apartment/condominium that would really throw me.


"Latex condom? I sure wish I lived in one of those"-Abe Simpson

They have the internet on computers now...

It's been quite a light summer for the ol' blog here, but I've finally made the big transition to Minneapolis and graduate school and have my new computer all wired and ready to go. So, I may finally get back to regular blogging. Hopefully. So if you've read this in the past and have quit reading because I rarely updated it this summer and you happent o be checking by chance, start coming back regularly.

Crime Watch: Who will Bush arrest first?

Will it be...

A) Osama Bin Laden, the man who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and is still conducting terrorist attacks

or...

B) Cindy Sheehan, mother of a American soldier who died in combat in Iraq


While the CIA says it had Bin Laden trapped in early 2002 but the President refused to send enough troops to capture him, he has made it clear that if the grieving mother of a fallen soldier sets foot on his ranch in texas, she will be arrested as a threat to national security.

So what does Mrs. Sheehan want that's so intimidating?

She wants one hour of Bush's time during his 5-week long vacation to explain to him why she and all of the other members of Gold Star Families for Peace (families that have lost a loved on in combat) want him to bring the troops home so no one else's children have to die. This, of course, being a much more greivous crime than ramming planes into the World Trade Center.

Which one will it be, Mr. Bush?

Who wouldn't want a baby girl named after a boy named after a girl?

 So my friend/improv troupe director Doug is about to have a baby. Well, technically his wife Laurel is about to have the baby, but you know what I mean. Anyway, the baby was due on the first of August, but it's still hanging out, enjoying yet another perfect day in the womb, making it 8 days late. On his homepage, Doug has a "baby watch," and will let the world know what day the little girl (potentially known as "Francie"...blech) has entered the world.

Now, the catch is that the 11th is my birthday. This means that if the little one holds out for a mere two more days, she and I will share the day of our birth, mine having come a scant 23 years before hers. Now, at that point, being a good friend of the family, and all-around renaissance man, it would only seem appropriate that they name their child after me. Yes, Jesse Scott Genesius Wozniak Palmer Shaw. Sounds pretty good to me. Much, much better than "Francie," at least.

The problem is that despite the numerous times I have brought this idea up, Doug and Laurel politely laugh and then change the subject, as if I'm making some sort of poorly conceived joke. To show them I'm serious, I need your help with my petition. I have started a letter campaign asking them to name their child after me if it is indeed born on the 11th. An adendum to the letter asks Laurel to hold out until the 11th to ensure that this happens. I need you, loyal reader, to send a copy of the letter to Doug in the hopes that enough letters will sway their opinion. Please send letters to doug@dougshaw.com. You may feel free to compose your own letter, or simply copy and paste the letter below:

To Dr. Douglas Shaw and Laurel Palmer (which I'm vaguely certain is her last name...on second thought, better just leave that out),

As a concerned citizen, it has come to my attention that you two are about to become the bearers of a new human life. As countless medical and psychological studies have shown, a child's name can have a great impact on future health and well-being. Therefore, as first time parents, you undoubtedly want to give your child a moniker that will bring her health and good fortune through all the years. That is why I would like to add my voice to the growing number of conceerned individuals that request your child's name be Jesse Scott Genesius Wozniak, with whatever last names you deem appropriate to saddle her with as well. In addition, I would like to request Laurel to postpone delivery of the child until the 11th of August, in the year of our Lord 2005, but no later, as this has been proven to be a day on which exceptionally attractive and talented people have been born (such as wrestling Hall-of-Fame member Terry "Hulk" Hogan and holder of the world's highest recorded IQ/parade magazine advice columnist Marilyn Vos Savant). In so doing this, you will be giving a gift not only to your unborn child, but to the future of humanity.
In solidarity with your momentous task,
Johnathon Quincy Public

A Great Day for common sense

CNN has just announced that they have indefinately suspended conservative/creepy commentator Robert Novak after he had a tempertantrum on air in which he swore at James Carville (which, admittedly, most of us want to do) and then stormed off the set. You might remember Novak as the man who committed treason by publishing, in his nationally syndicated column, that Valerie Plame is an undercover CIA agent, thus putting her life in great danger. Of course, it was in no way connected to the fact that Mz. Plame's husband, Joe Wilson (also a CIA agent), was a very vocal critic of the President's reasoning for going to war. Oh, and his storming off the set has nothing to with the fact that the moderator was just about to ask him about the investigation into his treason. I'm sure there's a very valid reason for all of this, and that history will prove Novak was only trying to serve his country. In the meantime, you can watch the footage of his entire career being destroyed here.

A Visual Guide to My Education

I've mentioned a few times in my blog that I'm finally leaving Iowa and beginning graduate school at the University of Minnesota. This lead me to do some misty-eyed reflecting on my past educational experiences. More specifically, I've spent a large amount of time reflecting on how idiotic school mascots are. Here, presented for the first time, is a life that can contend for having endured the worst ideas people have ever had to create school spirit.

High School: Rodger Dodger


Since I couldn't find and online image, I was forced to draw a composite sketch, although this is pretty much it. His name is Rodger Dodger (quite descriptive in and of itself), and as to what he is, your guess is as good as mine. Top hat? Life-sized promotional battery? Friendly anthropomorphic bong? All I know is that the outfit required someone under 5'4" to wear it, so the majority of the time, we didn't have a mascot.

Undergrad: T.C. Panther



This is the mascot of the University of Northern Iowa Panthers, seen here cavorting with a drunken elderly woman. Quite ferocious and at least of discernable genesis. Yes, just like De La Soul, I graduated from UNI-versity. Anecdotally, I once saw T.C. in the student union while I was studying. Apparently, the cheerleading squad, in conjunction with some fraternity, was offering to take your picture with T.C. for a fee to benefit some charity. Seriously. I remember that he (and he is a he...read an article here in which he relates having to beat up a high school student in self-defense) spent quite a bit of time at the tables of attractive women. Now, I can't help but wonder what he was thinking. He can't be seen or heard from inside there. But he seemed to be fully expecting to stumble onto a girl sitting there thinking "I have such a void in my life. If only I could fill it with sex with a man who isn't afraid to dress up in an over-sized novelty animal costume." Oh, and what does the "T.C." stand for, you ask? It stands for "The Cat." Yes, his full name is "The Cat Panther." However, even this redundant name does not take the cake, for there is also...

Grad School: Goldie Gopher


Yes, now I will be represented by Goldie the Golden Gopher, seen here conferring an honorary degree upon State Representative Gene Pelowski. I think "Goldie" may be even more stupid than "The Cat Panther," but it's a pretty close call.

Although over my career I may have totalled the highest number of idiotic mascots, I didn't hit the worst of them. For example, I could have been any of these:

In the religious category, we have the Demon Deacons of Wake Forest, as well as the Battlin' Bishops of Ohio Wesleyan. Of course, they don't match the loveliness of Lansig (Mich) Lugnuts or the Akron (Ohio) Zips. Then there's my personal favorites, the UC-Santa Cruz Banana Slugs.

However, none of these are overtaken by the Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys who preseumably at one point in time had both Michael Douglas and Toby Maguire playing for them, with a pep band soundtrack by Bob Dylan.

Too good to pass up

This blog won't be as funny as it could be because I'm on a 10 yr old p.c. in a 3rd world nation, but I found this little doozy on MSN. Rock and Roll "legend' and former News frontman Huey Lewis will be starring in "Chicago" on Broadway. He may or may not be appearing in "Checking In," the smash-hit broadway musical about the Betty Ford Center, as well. He joins such other luminaries who left one tragically successful career to join the ranks or legitimate stage actors as John Schneider (Bo Duke), who came all the way from Hazzard county to play Frank Butler, and Macaulay Culkin, who at age 20 re-entered the acting world by plaing a 15 yr old in Madame Melville in London. I think I won't be the first in rushing off to the box office this year!

A long and probably boring blog

Hey, I'm finally at a computer with enough time to do this, so I'm just putting down shitty, unedited e-mails I sent to friends about my trip. Feel free to peruse them...some are funny, some are politically interesting, some are just pointless personal stuff that will mean nothing to those of you who aren't my close friends, but seeing as how I haven't posted in a month or so, I thought I'd do this. Look for new and better posts coming next weekn when I'm back in the good ol' U.S. of A.


Sawatdee Crampdt (hello--from a fella)! Today downtown Bangkok was shut down because of massive anti-government protests, and I just couldn't help but think of all of you. So I thought I'd send you an e-mail to let you know how my trip is going, instead of sending you all postcards. I mean, I'm not made of Baht, people. Oh, and for those of you on the listserve who don't know me, feel free to delete this, or read on for an entertaining missle about my first week in Thailand. This is one of your more intersting countries. It's great to know that imperialism is alive and well--they just cannot get enough of white people here. In fact, they themselves want to be white, as is evidenced by the fact that literally every third commercial on tv is for whitening cream. (Side note on television--the MTV here is phenomenal. It plays a mixture of different asian videos, all looking as if they were shot with a $10 budget in someone's basement. I cannot understand a single word they say, but that's hardly necessary, if these lyrics are anything like the bands played no the U.S. MTV). It's pretty saddening to see how much people hate their own skin color. The upside of imperialism is that over here, my brother and I and his friend Jason are all considered very attractive, so I had to turn down several offers to go home with various women at the bar last night, which is definately a very new experience. So far, I've only been in Bangkok (one night here and the world's your oyster...you'll only get that refference if you listen to ABBA) and I must say that it's a very interesting city. The other day we were given a tour of it by the mother of the foreign exchange student my parents will be hosting next year. She's in the prime minister's cabinet as the secertary of technology, which is extremely impressive for a woman in this nation. So it was kind of like the equivilant of getting a tour of D.C. from Condeleeza Rice, except without the evil. We saw some pretty amazing things, all of which I'm not going to try to describe, because you really have to be there. But I can say that Buddhasts just love to cover things in gold. The hotel (or "mansion" as it, assumedly ironically, calls itself) is right across the street from the MBK center, which is Thailand's answer to the Mall of America. Yet another upside of imperialism--the dollar goes very far here. The exchange rate is roughly 40 Baht to one dollar, and to put it in perspective, my entire family, plus a friend, plus my borther's fiance, just had an entire dinner for 180 Baht, or roughy $4.50 U.S. And that was the entire bill, not per person. So again, it's nice to see the upside of our crippling economic policies (sorry about the rant, but you know what they say--you can take the boy out of rigorous sociological study, but you can't take the rigorous sociological study out of the boy). The other more interesting thing about Bangkok is the means of transportation available. For sissies there's the taxi, which are just like US taxis, only nicer. But for the fun-loving, there are these things called Tuk Tuks, which are hard to describe, but are basically half a counch on the back end of a motorcycle. The best thing about riding in a Tuk Tuk is that the drivers of them are completely insane. You haven't lived until you've been on the back of a motorcycle driving on the dividing strip between two lanes of oncoming traffic the wrong way down a one-way street. The straight-up motorcylclists are even crazier, never afraid to hop on the sidewalk, median, or gutter or to challenge a bus for the right of way. Kind of ironic that a culture which is so stereotyped for being selfless and polite has such crazy drivers. It is actually reccomended that you neglect traffic laws when driving in Thailand. Today we visited one of the schools my brother used to teach at, and again we experienced the upside of imperialism. As white people very rarely come out to the smaller provinces, we were of course treated like royalty for having such pale skin. Pretty ackward, but fu at the same time. My brother had to make an impromptu speech to the entire student body of the school, but he didn't have too many inspirational words of wisdom for the kids, so it was pretty short. I thought it was pretty hilarious, though. Well, much more than that has happened, but I've already wasted enough of your time. Hope you're all having a fun and safe time back there in the states, and hopefully you've been mildly amused by my recollections.

I'm now in the village of Amnat Charoen, where my brother lives. Life sure is interesting in the boondocks of a third-worl nation. For instance, last week I encountered my first eve Thai toilet. It consisits of a hole in the ground with two footholes next to it. The flushing mechanism AND toilet paper is a bowl floating in a concrete tub full of stagnant water next to the toilet. Needless to say, I've learned to hold it until I get home to Wassana's (my borther's fiance's mom, even though because of myt age I can't call her that, it's easier for the purposes of this e-mail) house, where thankfully there is a western style toilet. Well, a close approximation of a western style toilet. The food is pretty good, but Jason and I made the mistake of saying we like fish the first day we got here, so every night Wassan fixes us each a foot-long fish to eat. I don't know a polite way to tell her that the previous 10 fish have been enough to last me for life. Last night we had Thai pizza, which like everything in this country, is an attempt to copy something western that fails miserably. It was quite interesting. I would do just about anything in the world for a good hamburger. I'm actually beggining to miss America. It's like Lisa Simpson said "America may have it's granduers and it's follies, but mostly it's where all of our stuff is." Last night, through a strange series of events, I went out drinking and karoake-ing with an entire platoon of US Marines. With my back to back renditions of Bon Jovi's "It's my life" and Bryan Adam's "Everything I do I do it for you," I became quite the toast of the Marines, if you can believe it. Even though every toast (which happened approximately every 45 seconds) was either to the "Red White and Blue, what we die for" or for "Kicking Saddams ass" or some such thing like that, the Marines unanimously thought that Bush is an idiot and this war is wrong. Of course, that didn't stop them from following orders and shipping out to Falujah today, which they al knew too well meant that they weren't all coming back. To add to the irony, I had lunch on the Mekong river yesterday. Interesting to have lunch on the river where my uncle took half a dozen bullets 30 years ago. Again, maybe I'm too cynical, but it was surreal to be placidly looking at a place where thousands of people died because Henry Kissinger is a jerk. And he won the Nobel Peace Prize, thus making the prize entirely meaningless. Yesterday we went to yet another Buddhest temple (as a side note, for those who complain about Catholics eating off of gold plates at mass while people starve, which granted, is despicable, they should see one of the thousands of Buddhest temples), I got stung by a very angry wasp many times. I'm sure it was my white, male God becoming upset with me for paying respect to the wrong person. Anyway, the welts have finally gone down enough for me to move my arms, but there's definately still some pain there. On the plus side, after climbing a seven-story spiral staircase with stairs that I shit you not were only 3" wide, I saw a bag containing the bones of Buddha, so I should get some good karma out of that. In happier news, my new suit of Thai silk clothes came back from the tailor today, so I'll be looking pretty styling for the engagement party this friday. I've never had a tailor made suit of clothes before, so I'm feeling pretty good. Well, that's about al for now. The only computer I was able to find that's connected to the net looks ot be about 20 years old, so I'm having a heck of a time using it. So please excuse what I am sure are the many thousands of spelling and grammar errors. Well, much, much more than that has happened, but that's all I have time to write. If you've made it this far, thanks plenty for reading.

I'm now in Malaysia, having finished my little tour of Thailand. The wedding/engagementparty (we're not really sure which one it was...it's a long story) was really fun. Very different, but interesting. Even my brother, who speaks the language, had very little idea what was going on the whole time, so I don't feel so bad. And then, of course, there was karaoke. Nobody does more karaoke than Thai people. I don't know how much of this news you're getting in the states, but there's a very peculiar situation going on in Southern Thailand. Might even be something for Amnesty to focus on next year. Anyway, there has been a large increase of Muslim seperatists in the region for quite some time (think Al Quiada-type folks) that have been commiting quite a bit of violence. Anyway, the gov't had opriginally pledged to solve it peacefully with full respect for human rights, etc. But now, in the pas two weeks, theprime minister went around the parliament and declared a state of martial law. He can now censor any publication, detain and arrest without charge, wiretap without warrant, and, well, basically everything that's in the Patriot Act. I think the most depressing part of it, though, is that the newspapers (which were already subject to censorships laws, but are now subject to even more stringent censorship) are still dramatically better than American newspapers. Eveery major paper carried article after article criticising the PM's move and calling for greater respect for civil liberties and human rights. And these are CENSORED newspapers. To make a tired point, we know what American newspapers would do in that situation, because we're already in it. So there's some interesting politics form this side of the world. 牋?Malaysia is quite a different world from Thailand eventhough they share a common border. The most obvious difference is that it is a Islamicist state, and not a Buddhast state. It's extremely weird to see women walking around in full burkhas. Even though most women wear only a simple veil, or not religious clothing at all for some, there are still plenty of woemn dressed head to toe in black, even some with their eyes covered. It's like Pop says, it's hard to understand why every major religion in the world feels it needs to oppress women. The politics here are similarly fragile. Again, though, it's pretty similar to the states. There's a growing fundamentalist movement which wants to enfore it's crazy, half-baked interpretation of a religion on everyone, and a vocal opposition which would prefer to be allowed religious freedom. So there are many interesting posters and spray paint around, but those voicing anti-Islamicist state opinions are usually defaced by the gov't before anyone can read them. But as an Orang Pute (honky) I've had no problems, so I don't think things are getting that bad yet. Malaysia is a former Brittish colony, so pretty much everyone here speaks pretty good English, which is nice, because my Malay is even worse than my Thai, which is not very good at all. Though right now we're having a very Malay experience, because in the small village we're in, the best Hotel we could find features amneties such as being only a block away from a public toilet, which is less than convenient when you get up in the middle of the night and need to use the bathroom. Also, the smaller towns tend to be more conservative, so I'm usually not allowed to enter buildings wearing shorts (you're not supposed to show you legs), which is extremely annoying because it's about 110 degrees in the shade. But I always find something to complain about. On the upside, it's extremely beautiful here, and my parents were able to find their old friends form when they were in the peace corps 30 years ago, so we've gotten to see so many intersting things too numerous to mention. 牋 Well, that about does it. I'm set to come home to the states in a short while, and then I'llbe off to Minneapolis. I miss you all and hope you'll come visit me up in the Twin Cities. Take care.

Expect blogging to be pretty gosh darn light

Loyal readers, faithful and true: just letting you know that blogging on this site will be extremely light to non-existant for the next month. I'll be visitng my brother in Thailand and some old friends of my parents in Malaysia, so I'll be out fo the country from tommorow until August 1st. I may hit a computer somewhere in there and have some time to throw down a post or two, but I don't know how likely that is. So, read all the old posts one more time and appreciate both their humor and historical significance, and come back August 1st to resume your regular reading.

Lifestyles of the rich and...Jesse?!?

Seeing as today is my last day at work here at the ol' FCC, my coworkers took me out to lunch. Not just any lunch, but Bena's restaurant, conveniently located at the fancy-shmancy Pipac Centre (note that it is not speeled "center," for that is how poor people would spell it). For those of you not in the CF area, the Pipac Centre is a really fancy place (think marble floors...actual marble) where people have weddings and proms and things like that. So the lunch was as it always is at those kind of places, overpriced and focused much more on the appearanca rather than the actual taste. But that's not what caught my eye. When I went to the bathroom, the urinals were entirely filled with ice. Right up to the brim. Every last one of them. So I used the ice-filled urinal, and I came back after I was done eating (too much water to drink) and they had been re-filled. Up to the brim with ice. Now, I'm certainley not rich by any means, but I've eaten in fancy restaraunts before, and none of them had ice-filled urinals. Is this the new thing amongst the ostentaiously rich?

Well, apparently (according to this source) it's because people are too lazy to flush. My theory? Rich people just like doing things differently, even when it makes no sense, just as a way of seperating themselves from us. For example, right now Ken Lay is somewhere yelling at his butler because their isn't enough ice in the toilet.

How to tell you're losing a war, part XIV

Readers of this blog will be quite familiar with my position on the war, so there's no need to get into all of that here. And seeing as I'm a fairly meaningless person in the grand scheme of things, my opnion also matters little. However, some important people with important opinions are starting to agree with me, and they're people you wouldn't have thought would join my side of the battle.

For instance, Representative Walter Jones. You may remeber him as the Republican Congressman from North Carolina who lead the battle to rename French Fries to "Freedom Fries" in the Capitol lunchroom (also while doing so, he presumably took his shirt off and spun it above his head in a helicopting motion). Well, now Rep.Jones, still very much a Southern Republican, is one of four co-sponsors of a bill in the house demanding a withdrawl of troops beginning in 2006. Also among the signers, the best dressed man in either chamer of congress, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii).

Much like LBJ said of Walter Cronkite and the Vietnam war, Bush will one day look back and say "When I lost Freedom Fries Guy, I lost the nation."

¡Viva Bolivia!

Under the "You think we got it bad here" file...

Currently, as you're reading this (or it may have already happened, if you don't check often enough) the Bolivian government is meeting in secret to put in a *gasp* puppet of U.S. corporations. Despite the fact that over 80% of the population does not want him being in office. In fact, they blockaded all the roads so that the corrupt officials had to be flown out into the boonies to avoid democracy. However, thousands of Bolivians are marching through the country side to show their dissaproval.

Read about here.

Who reads my blog? Let's take a look-see...

So I got this fancy new hit counter (prominently displayed down at the bottom of the ol' blog...don't trust it's count, though, because my blog is much older than the counter, so it looks like not too many people have visited) and one of its best features is that it allows me to see what web page someone visited immediately before they came to my blog. For instance, if someone was googling something and my blog came up, it would show me what they were googling.

Sounds fun, right?

Well, it's actually kind of disturbing. There is some humorous stuff, such as the majority of people coming to my blog were searching for some combination of "Lil' Jon" and "Nerd," no doubt coming to see an old blog of mine with the diminuative Johnathon's senior protrait. But the disturbing thing is that many people who ended up at my blog were clearly looking for porn. In one case, this individual was clearly looking for incestuos porn. One of the many downfalls of a having blog titled "I blogged your MOM" and having an entry titled "I kick ASS for the Lord, my SON," I suppose. You can see how the combination would cause problems.

So I guess what I'm getting at, is that although I do appreciate a good round of consensual sexual intercourse, if you're looking for that, I'm afraid all you will encounter here is some witty reparte and sarcastic political commentary. Sorry about that.