Displaying 0 To 0 Of 0 Comments hee hee. I’ll probably be there. I’m fascinated by this kind of stuff. In a former life I probably looked on the Great Pyramid of Cheops and said, “They’ll NEVER make anything bigger than that!” » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 6, 2010 @ 3:24 am I’ve seen that. I didn’t realize it was suspended for now. Too bad. Tokyo is currently constructing one of the world’s largest structures. The New Tokyo Tower, “Sky Tree”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Sky_Tree » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 6, 2010 @ 3:10 am Thanks for the pictures, as always, Kalima. That Burj Dubai is quite an architectural wonder, even if it does turn out to be a white elephant for a while. By my reckoning, you’d have to go back to the Eiffel Tower to have a comparable achievement. It’s nearly twice as tall as its nearest competitor, after all. All through the last century (and first decade of this one) of skyscraping mammoths, you never saw such a leap. Even the Empire State Building was only about a quarter to a third taller than its rival, the Chrysler Building. » Posted By whatsthatsound On January 6, 2010 @ 2:47 am Never Forget – The Dark Days Could Come Again This is a response to both Sue and Nellie. Thank you both for your thoughtful replies. Sue, when I used the word “childish”, I didn’t mean you specifically. There have been other posts, such as one that compared disgruntled progressives to children screaming “waaahhh!” because they didn’t get their cookies, that I had in mind. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 29, 2009 @ 5:24 pm Great post, but I must yet again (as I have often done on this site) take issue with the characterization of unhappy progressives as selfish seekers of “instant gratification”. The sentence in the post “Well, news flash, he belongs to the nation as a whole, not to a specific group.” is telling, because that is exactly the issue that the progressives who get incessantly criticized and mocked here would like to raise with you. They fear that the special interests the president “belongs to” are the usual suspects. The MIC, the financial giants, etc. His appointments and handling of the banking crisis, more troops to Afghanistan, continuing Bush’ refusal to join civilized nations in banning land mines, telecom immunity, etc. etc. indicate to them NOT that Obama isn’t their own personal Santa Claus, but that he is seriously compromised. If you disagree with them, then argue with them about that. Make it clear to them how they are wrong about him. But with facts. Not with saying, “What? You’d rather have Palin?” or calling them childish and selfish. Otherwise, they’ll just respond by calling you Obamabots or Obamapologists. And the progressive movement remains a house divided. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 29, 2009 @ 12:43 am Gingrich: In 2010 the GOP Will Run on Repealing HCR Hey, look everybody! Newt and the Ariannabot from AdLib’s “All the Huffington’s Men” look like they are going to high five each other! Intentional?!? » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 28, 2009 @ 8:07 pm That will be a great way to round up the usual suspects, the BIble thumping, Fox watching, Beck group-hugging, non thinking twenty seven percent of the country! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 28, 2009 @ 7:44 pm Arlen Specter: GOP Already Thinking Ahead to 2012 Wow, so sorry to hear that, Kalima! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 29, 2009 @ 4:44 am It’s a terrible tragedy. Personally, I am against the death penalty in all cases, but I think that in the case of execution of foreign nationals, there should be agreement among all countries that still practice the death penalty to never execute a foreigner from a country that doesn’t practice it, except in the case of the most heinous crimes. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 29, 2009 @ 3:14 am A Few Poems From My Newest Book… Very beautiful! Very impressive! I met a traveler from an antique land And on the pedestal these words appear: Nothing beside remains. Round the decay » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 28, 2009 @ 1:39 am The High Costs of Private Contractors This is meant as a reply to Kalima, below. That’s the question: how can one possibly be “compensated” for this? It’s a sick, sick story. Taxpayer money, filtered through a lawless company, was used to harm this woman, and others. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 27, 2009 @ 4:03 am Nominations – The Planet’s Top Posts of 2009 Mutual of Omaha! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 28, 2009 @ 8:22 pm Too Close to Home Often Hurts…and Then Some So true, we’re all in this together, and we need each other. And ferrets! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 27, 2009 @ 4:07 am I know the feeling, Kalima! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 27, 2009 @ 4:47 am Probably. Global warming gives new meaning to the term “guilty pleasure”. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 27, 2009 @ 4:18 am That’s very kind of you, Kalima. I’m so flattered. How has your day been? I’m enjoying the fact that it hasn’t been so cold lately, and there has been a lot of sunshine. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 27, 2009 @ 3:54 am I’ve never met a single person who told me he or she believes that if we halve our military, then China would do the same. But I do know that the following countries all are “blessed” with American military bases. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 27, 2009 @ 3:38 am Well, see, that’s mostly it, I think. We have bases all over the place! Think about that, what a military base IS, exactly. It is a foreign country sitting on your land. Sometimes the guys act up and do bad things. In Okinawa, in Japan, there have even been rapes of minors. Now, think about it in reverse. Imagine that you are an American living, let’s say, outside Chicago. About twenty miles from where you live, and right on your way to work, is a military base of another country. This country had a war with you many years ago, and they have been there ever since. You are not allowed to enter this base except on certain “open” days, and you are always treated as an outsider. When you go to bars, sometimes some of the guys from the base are there too, and sometimes they get a little wild. They eye the women lecherously. They treat the bartender with disrespect. They laugh, and you are pretty sure from the little bits of their language you understand, that they are amused by you, your culture, etc. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 26, 2009 @ 3:31 pm Wow! Reading Sher’s and K7’s stories makes me happy I’m spending Christmas in far off Tokyo, where Christmas means cakes, bright illuminations on giant buildings, and endless loops of George Michael’s “Last Chrismas” and Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is You”. And guess what the “traditional” Christmas dinner is here? I’ll take their delusions over the ones you guys write about any day of the week, and twice on Christmas! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 25, 2009 @ 4:49 pm Such an assortment of cunning linguists we have here! Great stuff, Nellie! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 25, 2009 @ 2:43 am Great post, Peacekitten! We built the world wrong, that’s the only way to look at. Collective humanity is wearing a suit that just plain doesn’t fit it. It’s tight and cumbersome in some places, threadbare in others. The left pant leg is designed so that it scrapes against and causes calluses on the right as it brushes past it. Somehow, we need to just throw off this nightmarish outfit we’re wearing, return to our naked, real self, our Tao, perhaps, look upon all the places we went wrong, and start to live as human beings again, or perhaps for the first time. » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 24, 2009 @ 11:48 pm Twas The Night Before Christmas – A Parody An instant classic! » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 25, 2009 @ 12:44 am The Tea Party is Biting the Hand that Feeds Them? What a bunch of granfalloons! (If you’ve read Cat’s Cradle, you’ll know what I’m talking about…) » Posted By whatsthatsound On December 24, 2009 @ 3:54 pm Thank you, Adlib. I’ll write. In fact, I just wanted to reproduce the first ever article I wrote here, “They Shoulda Been Contenders”, as we have all these new members and it’s just after Oscar season. So if you could do that (with the slight change to the title) I’d be so appreciative. Thanks again! » Posted By whatsthatsound On March 2, 2011 @ 12:10 am I am completely unable to post an article. As instructed before, I reduced the size of the image to the required specifications. I place in the text, and then the modified image. I press “preview”, and all disappears. No way to get it back. I tried posting it yesterday, but the only thing that showed up was the preview image and the article title. Kalima and Khirad wrote a bit. I wanted to pull the article, but couldn’t even find the “delete” function which I had used previously. Kindly, someone took care of that for me. » Posted By whatsthatsound On March 1, 2011 @ 11:53 pm Same exact problem, and Adlib fixed it for me. He explained you have to scale down the pixel size. I haven’t done that on my own yet, but he did it for me my last two posts. » Posted By whatsthatsound On February 17, 2011 @ 1:41 pm x2! » Posted By whatsthatsound On February 17, 2011 @ 1:39 pm Thanks so much, Adlib! Next time I run something, I’ll see about how to reduce the px. I have been adjusting the file size down to get it under 2MB, but I need to figure out about the other consideration. You may hear from me again, some time in the future, my ever patient Capitan! » Posted By whatsthatsound On February 15, 2011 @ 4:31 pm Totally understand, Adlib. Everybody here already knows you are as busy as a bennie popping bee! » Posted By whatsthatsound On February 15, 2011 @ 4:24 pm TY! » Posted By whatsthatsound On February 15, 2011 @ 4:23 pmComments Posted By whatsthatsound
Nellie, I see your point, and it is a very good one. However, arguing on behalf of those I write about (as you may guess, I myself am ambivalent, and want to be shown, over time, that my skepticism about the president is unfounded), couldn’t one say that although the issues you mention are solid, and positive, that in terms of weight, it is far more than “half” we are talking about. A video that is going around the disgruntled progressive community shows candidate Obama telling the AFL-CIO that, in order to get single payer health insurance in this country, we need to do three things: take back the White House, the Senate, and the House. Looking at the way he didn’t use the bully pulpit to fight harder for something he campaigned for and the majority wanted, how can they not look back on that video and feel cheated? Feel that what they were REALLY seeing was an advertisement for a product called the Democratic Party?
Finally, as to the point of patience. It is a valid, and important one. No question. But if President Obama is really the “chess player” he is said to be by some, then he, more than anyone, understands that with midterm elections being talked about soon after the inaugural speech, he needs to show results quickly, and clearly. Stem cell research doesn’t do that. He received a popular mandate to remake this country. That is true; his election and the increases of the Democratic Party made much bigger changes possible. It is very easy to understand the disappointment people felt. We all see 2010 coming up. It’s not that we’re impatient so much as we see an opportunity being forfeited.
But those folks already know how they’re going to vote anyway!
A terrible way to end a year.
May the Year of the Tiger have blessings in store for you, and soon!
Thematically, not stylistically, it reminds me of one of my favorite poems, “Ozymandias” by Shelley.
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(1818)
South Korea
Greece
Italy
Bahrain
Japan
Spain
Cuba
Kuwait
Iraq
Germany
Afghanistan
Israel
Kosovo
Bulgaria
Turkey
Portugal
Take a quick guess as to how many of those countries are doubly blessed with a Chinese military base. On their land.
It is not for me to opine whether this is excessive or not. The fact is I just don’t know enough about each individual situation. But it does seem that terrorist attacks would tend to follow from that, and maybe folks can stop asking themselves “why do they hate us?” or convincing ourselves it’s what we “represent”. Think of the angriest American you know, the Fox news watching type. Now imagine a foreign military base stationed just outside his hometown. Now imagine that some guy from the base, who doesn’t even speak English, stole his girlfriend. Presto! You just may have yourself a terrorist!
They are mostly young. They seem like punks to you. They are trained to kill you! In fact, it is more likely that they WOULD kill you or harm you than that you would ever have any kind of genuine human relationship with them. Do that mental exercise, think about it, and think how it would make you feel.
A bucket of Colonel Sanders’! I kid you not! They dress up the Colonel like Santa Claus. I imagine some Japanese kids actually imagine Colonel Sanders IS Santa Claus!
We’re poets and we know it, and our feet show it, cuz they’re Longfellows!
But in order that this doesn’t happen in the future, I’ll write to you with the information so we can sort this out.
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