Once again, Mr. Obama is being faulted for bowing to a foreign leader. Here is the video of our president briefly genuflecting to Emperor Akihito of Japan.
All the president is doing is showing his respect for another culture’s traditions. I happen to believe that many traditions are antiquated nonsense, such as saying “god bless you” after someone sneezes, but a diplomatic rendezvous with one of the world’s most powerful leaders is not the best platform to assert your views on outdated conventions.
Critics of Obama’s graceful curtsy can call it a sign of weakness all they want; it only shows how cripplingly insecure they really are. I doubt the president’s momentary bending at waist will trigger a massive overthrow of the United States government.
“He bowed to the emperor? That’s the sign we’ve been waiting for! Bust out the nukes boys.”
Respectfully bowing is the very least of our worries. If another country wanted to destroy our nation, I’m sure we’ve given them plenty of other, more relevant reasons, such as the two wars we are currently fighting, or the career of Nicolas Cage. And let’s not forget the hand-holding stroll through a park former President Bush took with Saudi King Abdullah. At least Obama didn’t treat the emperor like a nursing home resident.
So I think our country is going to be just fine. No Pearl Harbor 2 (Pearl Harder), and no more Pokemon designed to secretly poison our youth against us. After all, this country did nuke the hell out of two Japanese cities not that long ago – the least we can do is be a little nice.
A battle is waging now between two Chinese government agencies, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and the Ministry of Culture regarding the regulation of online gaming, particularly the widely popular World of Warcraft. The game literally has China divided over the issue of online media regulation.
Here’s an article about it from Friday’s issue of the New York Times.
Apparently there’s billions of dollars at stake. That aside, the impact of this game is a bit frightening to me. I guess I don’t really see the allure of a virtual fantasy world. Or maybe my issue is that I don’t have much of a problem with actual reality.
Take a walk or go camping. Or if you are infatuated with the world of medieval fantasy, erect a paper mache dragon and slay it with your mighty cardboard battle axe. That’s cool too!
I swear, the real world isn’t so bad once you give it a chance.
And finally, here’s a link to a hilarious parody of World of Warcraft produced by The Onion. Oh, the irony…
I just saw this video for the first time, really well done, and interesting. Unless I just see the picture wrong, it also looks like there are banners of Lee Harvey Oswald during a soviet parade as well, not sure when or why (well I could guess maybe why).
Writing my column about President Barack Obama’s first year I was looking for some articles about his stop in Bloomington before the Indiana presidential primary. I stumbled across this YouTube video:
I remember attending that rally. Everyone in Assembly Hall was pretty excited. The person sitting next to me was so excited that, while chanting “yes, we can” over and again, he felt the need to keep touching me.
The speech was pretty pretty typical for Obama. He claimed that “this election is different” and talked of our generation making its mark.
That election was important, but in one key aspect it was just like any other. Candidates offered over-the-top rhetoric and played on political myths over substantive policy discussions.
Americans largely indulged them. I am not sure why we always forget how different governing this country is from campaigning to do so. A lot of people certainly put faith in Obama’s ability to be transformative simply because he said he would be.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think our generation is uniquely guilty of getting overhyped about these sorts of things. And I also think Obama has had a good start as President.
But it is important to acknowledge now, a year after the election, that too much of Obama’s campaign was empty fluff.
This is an addendum to my column that ran today, updating the events that have transpired since I wrote it on Tuesday.
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must be beginning to wonder exactly what year it is.
An anonymous Youtube user has posted a video showing a fragment of massive demonstration in favor of defrauded presidential candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi in Imam Khomeini Square on Thursday. The New York Times reported that it appeared even larger than Monday’s protest, which Tehran’s mayor has said may have itself drawn as many as 3 million people.
Similar protests have drawn tens of thousands in cities all across the country.
Despite the Khamenei/ Ahmadinejad regime’s repeated attempts to stifle dissent regarding the disputed results of last Friday’s elections– arrests, police brutality and shutting down the lines of communicatoin– as well as trying to buy time by making token gestures to the opposition such as a partial recount, the opposition does not appear in any way to be letting up.
It is beginning to appear that the Iranian government’s decision to rig the election may indeed produce a far worse result than anything that may have happened had they simply allowed Moussavi to assume his rightful place as Iran’s next president, begging the question– where will this end?
Will we soon see something along the line of the 1979 revolution that put this theocratic regime in place likewise remove them from power?
If you had asked me last week what the biggest threat to the artistry of music was, I would’ve replied one of two responses:
1) Albums that indulge celebrities’ whims
Track 3: Lay Your Head Upon My Awesome Rack
2) Auto-Tune and it’s ability to pitch correct any singer into a modern-day eunuch.
AutoTune: The Voice of our Generation
Neko Case, singer for The New Pornographers, solo artist, and goddess on Earth had this to say about Auto-Tune:
When I think about Jackie Wilson or the Platters and then I think about modern, Top 40 music that’s really horrible, it makes me mad. Singing isn’t important anymore. I’m not a genius– if I had been around during the time of Jackie Wilson or Rosemary Clooney or Patsy Cline, I would be shit. I would be singing in some bar somewhere for $5 a week and that’s as far as I would ever go. But I’m living now and I write songs, it’s different. There’s some part about the craft of singing– craft is too important of a word, I hate that word but I just used it anyway– in a lot of places, it hasn’t really made it. It’s not to do with the people who are doing it as much as the people who are producing it. There’s technology like auto tune and pitch shifting so you don’t have to know how to sing. That shit sounds like shit! It’s like that taste in diet soda, I can taste it– and it makes me sick.
But now, a greater threat has emerged: Microsoft Songsmith.
These previous obstacles were nothing but a distraction. Sufficiently fed off the sorrow of music lovers, Songsmith rises from their shadow towering above us all. It is then that we realize that the potential for its evil was always around us, but somewhere in the balance between life and death something happened that allowed this technological devil to be summoned. Perhaps Bill Gates realized he was tired of lying in his house made of money and that the world needed something interesting to happen. To Mr. Gates, all music being reduced to five pre-set melodies and rhythms is “a good day”.
This is the equivalent of SkyNet from “Terminator”. This will bring about the End of Days.
For some people it’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” For others, it’s not really Christmas until they’ve seen the Garfield and Peanuts specials. Others prefer the old classics like “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” But the Red State Update Christmas party is quickly becoming my favorite holiday tradition:
(Mild content warning for both)
You can tell it’s old because Jackie still hadn’t quite settled into the role he plays now. Best Jackie Broyles line evah: “These here are for my blood pressure… and these aren’t really mine, but, but they done me some good.”
And while I’m something of a traditionalist that loves the old classics, here’s a new video that the Red State boys put together for this year:
On Wednesday the IDS ran a story about a Bloomington Planned Parenthood employee who was suspended without pay after a highly embarrassing online video of a sting operation at their location became public:
The video shows a 20-year-old UCLA student, who went undercover as a 13-year-old, going into Planned Parenthood, saying she was impregnated by a 31-year-old man and asking for help. The Planned Parenthood employee, “Diana,” is seen telling the teen to cross state lines to get an abortion that doesn’t require parental consent.
The video was released Wednesday but was filmed in June at the 421 S. College Ave. location by the student-led Live Action Films, a student human rights organization.
In the video, the employee tells the teen she is supposed to report the incident to Child Protective Services but will pretend she did not hear the age of the man who impregnated her.
November 15th, 2009 by 
Josh Kraus, IDS Columnist
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