Photos From Amsterdam (4)

These are photos my sister took on our walk around her neighborhood on New Year's Day. One of them is the aftermath of a string of 300,000 firecrackers exploding the night before. Later that week she talked to the Indonesian man who set them off. He said he set so many off to drive away evil spirits and bring luck for the new year. It wasn't until later we realized that the horrible consequence of the tsunami in his homeland may have had something to do with the number of firecrackers he detonated.

Short Post

The wind is blowing with gusts up to 32mph this afternoon. When that happens our electricity starts acting up. We have what my husband calls a "dirty" electrical supply. That means the electrical current is not steady. We have a surge protector to guard against high voltage spikes and something called a UPS Backup to protect against low ones. The UPS starts beeping when the current drops which is a warning to shut down the computer because the electricity may fail. I am not getting the beep but I am getting a flicker on the computer monitor every time the washing machine starts and stops so I am signing off until tomorrow.

Goodness Gracious!

I stayed up late last night to watch Great Balls Of Fire!, a biopic about the rise and fall of Rock and Roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis. I stumbled across it while channel surfing and after the first 15 minutes could not stop watching. A major part of the movie covers Jerry Lee's relationship with his thirteen-year-old cousin Myra Brown. Dennis Quaid plays Jerry Lee and Winona Ryder plays his cousin Myra.

Now, I love biopics about musicians, some of my favorites are; Gary Busey as Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story, Jessica Lange as Pasty Cline in Sweet Dreams, Lou Diamond Phillips as Ritchie Valens in La Bamba, Sissy Spacek as Lorreta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, George Hamilton as Hank Williams in Your Cheatin' Heart, and Kurt Russell as Elvis in a movie simply called Elvis. (Hey, when you make a movie about the King all you need his name.)

My all time favorite is American Hot Wax, a biopic about Alan Freed the man who first used the term "Rock and Roll" to describe the new type of rhythm and blues music being played and sung by white performer in the 1950's.

But Great Balls Of Fire! is strange. First of all it's creepy. This is the story of a pedophile who also happened to be a early Rock and Roll star. When Jerry Lee married his thirteen-year-old cousin he was twenty-two. Dennis Quaid was almost 35 when he made this movie and he looks it. Winona Ryder was seventeen and looks young enough to be thirteen. Let me tell you their loves scenes were pretty uncomfortable to watch.

Second, the movie has a weird cartoon quality to it. The only person in it who acts like a real person is the Winona Ryder character. It's like the whole thing is really a nightmare being dreamed by thirteen-year-old Myra.

The final bizarreness is Dennis Quaid's interpretation of his character. At first I thought he was doing a really over the top impersonation of Jerry Lee but then I realized what he was actually doing was an impersonation of Daffy Duck playing Jerry Lee Lewis. Which, when you think about it, was a wise choice as it fits in with the cartoon quality of the movie very well.

As with all musical biopics the best part of the movie is the music. Jerry Lee Lewis himself sings all the songs and you get to hear some of his greatest; Great Balls Of Fire, Wild One, I'm On Fire, and Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On.

Get Up, Stand Up For Your Rights

We sick an’ tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin’ ’n’ goin’ to heaven in-a jesus’ name, lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty God is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can’t fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do? ),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah!)

So you better:
Get up, stand up! (in the morning! git it up!)
Stand up for your rights! (stand up for our rights!)
Get up, stand up!
Don’t give up the fight! (don’t give it up, don’t give it up!)
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up!)
Stand up for your rights! (get up, stand up!)
Get up, stand up! ( ... )
Don’t give up the fight! (get up, stand up!)
Get up, stand up! ( ... )
Stand up for your rights!Get up, stand up!
Don’t give up the fight!
-Bob Marley

Read this story and then this yesterday. These two stories, along with the checkpoint shooting that I wrote about on Wednesday, got me to go here and sign the Not In Our Name statement.

(Blogger has been acting up since yesterday and I am surprised I got this finished and online today.)

Photos From Amsterdam (3)

This was taken by my sister on the way to my brother-in-law's mother's house the day I arrived. I had been awake almost 24 hours at this point and this photo is a good representation of the dreamlike surreal view I had of my surrounding by then.

Photos From Amsterdam (2)

My sister's Christmas tree on New Year's Eve, Eve.



My sister's Christmas tree on New Year's Day.

SpongeBob SquarePants Scandal!

Give me a break. These people are idiots.
Go here.

Iraqi Girl Loses Parents In Checkpoint Shooting

-Denver Post Headline January 19, 2005



The quality of the photo is not that good but those red splotches on the little girl are blood splashes. United States Marines opened fire on the car carrying the little girl, her four siblings, and her parents. All the children were sitting in the backseat and survived the shooting. The Marines fired on the car because the father failed to stop at the checkpoint they were manning. In an instant two people dead and five children orphaned.

There are people who would say the Marines were just doing their job. That they were in a dangerous situation. That they have to shoot and ask question later. That the man killed was crazy to try and speed though a military checkpoint with his family in the car. But...the question I have is why? Why did the man attempt to run the roadblock? Why did he decide that stopping was more dangerous than not stopping?

I am sick of this. I am sick of George Bush. I am sick of Donald Rumsfeld. I am sick of Condoleezza Rice. We have been lied to from the beginning. We were told we were going to war to uncover "weapons of mass destruction", to free a terrified people, to bring the wonderful gift of democracy, to give the Iraqi a better life. None of this has happened. We are suppose to be the good guys but as the above picture shows we are not. We are "killer angels" bringing death and destruction with us where ever we go.

Photos From Amsterdam (1)

My sister and me on a cold, cold, windy day.
(I don't know what's going on with my lip.)

Married Life

My husband and I just had one of those non-argument arguments.

Him: Where is the phone?

Me: I don't know.

Him: You had it last.

(I had used the phone in bed last night to call my sister.)

Me: It must be somewhere in the bed.

(We both go to the bedroom and start searching the bed. I find it at the end of the bed under the quilt. He takes the phone and walks away shaking his head.)

Me: Hey, it was on your side of the bed. How could you have missed it?

Him: (unbelievingly) It's my fault.

Me: Glad you can admit it.

(Both of us start laughing.)