A Call to Action - A Mouse Story

Hello All
Trying to get back to the blog and post some updates. Have had a lot to say, but action has taken the time I would have used to post about things. Below is a post from my martial arts school ( http://www.worldmartial.com ). It was relevant and worth posting, so here it goes:

A Call to Action - A Mouse Story
By Sabumnim David Herbert
From The World Martial Arts Center

There was a mouse, who lived on a farm and his life was perfect. Until one day the farmer asked his wife lay down a mouse trap. The mouse watched in horror because it knew that this was not good, but the mouse did not know what to do or who to turn to. So it ran out of the house in search of help. Hysterically and frantically the mouse ran to the chicken and said, “There’s a mouse trap in the house, there’s a mouse trap in the house!, can you help me, can you help me?” The chicken said, “I’m too busy tending my eggs and I don’t even go into the house and it’s a mouse trap that’s no concern of mine, I’m a chicken”. So the mouse, in despair, ran down to the pig pen and told the pig, “There’s a mouse trap in the house - I told the chicken, but the chicken would not help and the pig said, “What has this to do with me, I’m further away from the house than the chicken it’s none of my concern—maybe you should go and talk to the cow”. So the mouse ran all the way out in the field and said to the cow, “Mr. Cow, Mr. Cow, there’s a mouse trap in the house can you help me?” and the cow said, “Moooooo life is good, but the house is too far away for me to go back there and help you. You should do your best to just avoid it and probably nothing will happen”.

So the mouse finally gave up and in great despair walked back toward the farm house and as he approached the house he heard a ruckus. A snake had gotten his tail caught in the mouse trap. The farmer’s wife after hearing the mouse trap snap ran and reached under the cupboard to pull out the mouse in the trap not knowing it was a snake. The snake bit her and she fell on the floor unconscious and developed a high fever. The farmer tried to contact a doctor but couldn't. He knew that chicken soup was good for fevers, so he went out to that barn and killed the chicken to make chicken soup. Shortly thereafter, the wife’s condition worsened, she grew weaker and weaker. The farmer thought that pork would give his wife strength, so he went out and killed the pig, but the wife died and the farmer was devastated. So they had a funeral and all the relatives came over and he had to feed all of them, so he took an ax and went out and killed the cow. Somehow we are all connected.

All over the world there are people suffering from atrocities beyond belief and this is nothing new. Most of the world simply says it’s not my problem, I can do nothing or pretend it does not exist. What is new is this— with 60 seconds of your time you can go onto this website and simply click 3 buttons to request that world powers address this issue. As you wake up in the morning and have your nice breakfast and go about your pleasant day, there are others who wake up to genocide, rape, starvation or the death of their 2 year old child. When you go home at night and get into your warm bed, you are relatively sure that tomorrow you will wake up refreshed looking forward to the new day. But there are thousands of families that could not even imagine such a thing—they get to huddle together on the hard desert ground, hungry and dehydrated not sure if they will see tomorrow. Learn something—do something. Contact: www.savedarfur.com.

APPLE COMPUTERS BAD ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL PRACTICES

(Pictures below of Greenpeace protest in from of the Apple Store in NYC.)



THE ISSUE:
Globally, between 22 and 55 million tons of electronic waste gets trashed every year. Many of these materials are toxic and carcinogens (lead, PVC, BFRs) and end up in landfills and incinerators, and often get shipped to the developing world to get dismantled by hand in horrendous conditions by poor workers and their children. Many of these children use the parts as toys after they are done helping their parents assemble parts. The waste leaks into water sources and planting areas and end up being consumed by the whole region. Since 2003, Greenpeace has been working with the main electronics companies in the world to help reduce or eliminate these toxic materials, and most companies have agreed to reduce, and in some cases eliminate the most dangerous chemicals. With one main exception.: Apple Computers.



THE CAMPAIGN:
Apple computers has scored one of the lowest of all main computer companies: 2.7/10Apple now uses of the highest concentrations of carcinogens and toxic chemicals on their production.Their products are now manufactured with a life span of about a 1 year ( just about as long as the warranty lasts and as often as new Ipods come in the market). After Greenpeace had been discussing the issues with Apple for about 3 years, back in April 2005, Steve Jobs publicly called environmentalists' concerns about Apple "bullshit". Come on Steve, we'd expect that kind of reaction from fat corporate CEOs who dump polychlorinated biphenyls into rivers, not from a cool, potentially eco-friendly titan of the information age.



THE ACTION:
All we want is for Apple to agree to the same changes all the other companies have already agreed to, so we are planning a friendly, visual way to ask them to change their ways.

You can find more information at:
http://www.greenmyapple.org/itox.html

Election Day NY Style

New Yorkers were trying to make a very clear point today. We are sick of what's been going on, sick of politicians using The World Trade Center as a means to getting their way and tired of how misrepresented we have all been. But in typical manner, we at least had a sense of humor about it. A few moments from today:

- Astor Place, 2 PM.
A man with a megaphone (who happened to be a retired veteran who was evicted), asking people to vote because "rent is too damn high". Also publicizing his personal party and website: http://rentistoodamnhigh.org/.
Which is.. well... interesting. EVERY page plays the "rent is too damn high" song which is distributed by Hamster Records (seriously..) and takes forever to load since nothing was optimized. He is also looking for sponsors to pay for the "rent is too damn high" merchandise.
As crazy as the whole thing is.. gee, rent IS too damn high in NYC.

- Brooklyn Heights, 4 PM

A dog is sitting on a chair in front of the subway, and a small crowd is gathering to read the sign below:



One has to love NY....(yes, you guessed it. I am in a good mood because the Democrats seem to be taking most of the seats... Yeepee)

Barbra Streisand Concert Woes and Freedom of Speech

To anyone who has known me for a while, it comes as no surprise that I am a very avid Barbra Streisand fan. I had been a little disappointed because what attracted me most to her (besides what I consider to be one of the greatest voices of our times) was the courage she has always shown, be it in the career moves she has made or in the honesty of her opinions and how passionately she defends them, and I had been feeling that she had only be making safe choices recently, with her music and her movies.

It is also known to anyone who has followed her career that she is an outspoken liberal who has started using he influence early on and even participated in her first political fund-raiser, for George McGovern (an act that would place her on Richard Nixon's enemies list), and continued to support liberal causes and singing at benefits, like she did for Clinton.

And yet, during her recent tour, in every city she's been in, there has been some kind of "audience outburst" whenever she does a skit in which she jokes with a Bush impersonator. It happened in Philadelphia, here in NY (though we are mostly liberals) and now in Florida, where someone actually threw a drink at her during the show.Why? How? And why does it seem so much like a set up?

Let's see the facts:
~ Barbra Streisand comes back to the stage to get funds for the Streisand Foundation (http://www.barbrastreisand.com/foundationguidelines.html). Her organization which has made grants totaling nearly 15 million dollars to national organizations working on preservation of the environment, voter education, the protection of civil liberties and civil rights, women’s issues and nuclear disarmament.
~ She is one of the most known democratic and liberal celebrities in this country (Bill and Hillary Clinton were sitting by me at Madison Square Garden) who regularly posts political statements on her blog (http://www.barbrastreisand.com/statements.html).
~ The ticket prices varied from a few hundred to $5000 dollars, being that those sitting on the cheaper seats were too far to be able to reach her with anything, so the assumption is that the turmoil was caused by someone from the $5000 section, which was most of the lower levels of the stadiums.
~ Anyone willing to pay $5000 to see someone would have to be a very big fan.

And the question is, what kind of fan who would be willing to pay $5000 for a ticket to see an artist would be ignorant enough to offend her and throw things at her during the show?What kind of person would do that to an artist under any circumstances? And what are the chances of that randomly happening in SEVERAL CITIES?

If that really were a random event, then, by gosh, this country is in worse shape than we think. If it were, as many suggest, someone planted in the shows to discredit her (they managed to make her curse here in NYC and that was all over the news), then this country is STILL in worse shape than we think.

Below is a reminder of some basic principles we seem to be forgetting:

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, provides, in Article 19, that:

Everyone has the right to opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

N.J. and Gay Marriage

The times have been sobering to say the least. So much violence, so much suffering and the inescapable feeling that the world is moving backwards. We seem to have taken a turn towards religious sectism, narrow views, intolerance and war. The issues have been so depressing and so many I have chosen not to write about them. It feels like every topic almost deserved a book, not the concise and easy read format of a blog.
Well, a topic has just caught my attention in a black hole of bad news. N.J. is moving towards legalization of gay marriage.

I have to admit to having fallen for the NYer stereotype. I was not a huge fan of N.J. Having dwelled there for a short period of time, I don’t have many good memories of the town where I lived. I was always aware of how ridiculous the usual comments were, that people who moved to N.J. have exchanged a rich cultural life for a large house, but deep inside I couldn’t help but have my own thoughts that maybe there was some truth to the comments.

And then something happens to prove us all wrong. In a moment of enlightenment and civil rights justice, N.J. starts moving towards the legalization of one of the most basics of social steps towards a truly democratic system, that which ensures all of its citizens the same basic legal privileges to all direct family members. Seems logical, doesn’t it? But because of extremist religious groups (and the amount of money they have been using to manipulate the system) and a lack of understanding of what liberty and democracy really means, this country has been denying its citizens the right to pick the people they love and to provide for them in times of need.

I am still to understand why some people believe they have a right to dictate who others can or cannot love. I live under the principles that your life is yours to live unless your choices harm someone else. And love is never really the reason why people get harmed, now, is it? If anything, we are in dire need of some more of that to go around.

So I bow my head in shame. Shame for not giving N.J. the respect it deserved. For making the same generalizations I criticize others for making, and for assuming the narrow minded influential minority would make enough noise to bring us one more step towards the middle ages
So there is hope...
Bravo, N.J.
Let’s just stay the course (the right one)…

September 11th, 2006

So we wake up on Sept 11th like we do every day, except that there is some tension in the air that we try to ignore to help us go through the day as if it were any other day. But the truth is that it's not. It can't be. At least not yet.

There is a lot of pain still in the hearts of all of us affected by this atrocity, and there are many reasons why we cannot settle and just move on. The main reason is, of course, because that hole in our souls that was caused by the sudden death of our friends and family members will never really disappear. But there are other reasons, many other reasons...

If you are watching the news coverage of the events, in particular the reading of the names of the three thousand victims of 9/11, one thing becomes clear watching some of the readers stumbling or mispronouncing many of the names, the victims were from all over the world, all kinds of backgrounds, all religions.

One brutal, prejudiced, unjustified, criminal, cowardly act does not justify another, and most of what we have seen since 9/11 has been a reaction from individuals and from the government that mirror what has been done here.

The terrorists attacked us due to an uneducated and enlightened view of the world that is composed of manipulative leaders who brain wash them into believing that what they think is right, religious fanaticism that increases their hatred for anyone who doesn't have the same believes they do and a desire for revenge that makes them lose their humanity and make them incapable of realizing that the people they are attacking are just like them.

Have we been acting any differently? We have attacked a country that never attacked us because our leaders lied and convinced a large part of the population that it was for the best. Since that Invasion of Iraq by the USA, it is estimated that over 46000 civilians have been killed. That is over 15 times the number of people killed at 9/11. But somehow, that is viewed as being acceptable.There have been 2,897 coalition deaths, 2,668 Americans, two Australians, 117 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, four Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 31 Italians, one Kazakh, one Latvian, 17 Poles, two Romanians, two Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians in the war in Iraq as of September 11, 2006. That is as many people as those killed in the World Trade Center. And for what? Oil?

There is also another interesting twist to the government's excuse that this is all being done for our safety and so that we can keep our "democratic and free" way of life.Instead of trying to fix the causes for terrorism in the world, we have been reduced to a cat and mouse game.
In a new age of government monitoring of private conversions and actions and all the civil rights violations of the Patriot Act, of lies about the handling of political prisoners, abuses and the recent admission of secret illegal prisons found by an European investigator which held detainees in Europe that were hurriedly shipped out to North Africa a month ago when word leaked out.

The current American freedom of widespread ID checks, locked and bulletproof cockpit doors in airliners, armed pilots, tracking foreigners' visas and monitoring Muslim and Arab communities, to even prohibiting shampoo from being brought on board, tapped phones and monitored internet access. All done for our freedom and safety.

Let's also consider, as we watch the images of ground zero, that that same Department of Homeland Security has just slashed New York City anti-terror funds by 40 percent. FORTY PERCENT!!!Their explanation is that New York has no national monuments or icons. Of course, The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists are probably not important. There are also landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation's most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History.

Let's also forget that NYC is the financial capital of the world, home to Chase, JP Morgan, Citi Group, The New York Stock Exchange, The Commodities Exchange, American Express, George Soros funds, Michael Gabelli's funds, Lazard Frere and Salomon Brothers, to name just a few of the more prominent banking interests located here.

How about ignoring a commuter population of more than 16 million around the city twice struck by fundamentalist terrorists and twice more targeted in plots halted in pre-operational stages. Or more than eight million residents and the largest rail ridership in the nation - more than five million. It is those commuters and rail riders who are expected to suffer most from the cuts since mass transit is listed on most DHS alerts as the top terror target.

Yes, there is a lot of sadness today. Let us all hope for better days...

FringeNYC has come of age...

Every year a mysterious phenomenon happens in lower Manhattan. Theater lovers find incredible shows they want to see. Audience members find out they can actually afford to see many shows without going broke. People who have never been to the theater discover its magic. Teens find out theater is actually cool. And all of that is caused by a marvel called The New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC.org).
FringeNYC, for those who don't know is the largest multi-arts festival in North America, with more than 200 companies from all over the world performing for 16 days in more than 20 venues with almost 2000 performances, art events, free classes and outdoor performances.

FringeNYC started this year with a series of internet issues, with a British company stuck at the airport for 3 days and with one of the actors suffering from collapsed lungs and having to cancel his show, and yet, its spirit and power has been stronger than ever. For the 16 days of the festival, lower Manhattan is transformed. It changes from being the business area of NY, the sad resting place of 9/11, the executive stronghold of the Big Apple to becoming the heart of the creative pulse of NYC.

Streets are taken over by characters and artists, volunteers race to get to theaters so they can help with the crowds, shows move about spreading the word about their perfomances and audience members come to FringeCENTRAL (27 Mercer street) to share their experiences. They talk about being moved to tears by "Sakura", a show from Japan, about laughing until their cheeks hurt at the crazy guys with spatulas from "Minimum Wage", about being shocked at the honesty of the art of "Billy The Mime" or about the hypnotizing dialogue of a jewel called "Americana Absurdum".

FringeNYC has come of age. It has turned 10 this year. Let its spirit, passion and art endure for many decades to come...

FRINGENYC
http://fringenyc.org/
For information on the shows, podcasting and more.

Just a light post for a change..

Hi everyone
So I figured it was about time to just post something light, non-political and with a touch of fluff.

Starting with the fluff:
After having several friends email me, call me and message me about the show Final Fu on MTV2 I finally decided to record a few and check them out, and I am completely hooked. Who knew Martial Arts drama could be so much fun.
The show is basically a competition of different styles and is represented by great martial artists like Ernie Reyes Jr. (who hosts the show), Matt Mullins and a group of blackbelts who can be a lot of fun to watch and who seem to be representing their art to their best abilities. Of course, there is always the bad guy of the bunch, Brian W, who is an embarrassment to martial artists anywhere, by cheating, breaking rules and basically making comments about why he wants to be the "Final Fu" which can make his fellow Taekwondoists cringe with shame.
All in all a lot of fun for martial artists and with enough drama to keep other audiences entertained too.

Now, the web:
Am I the only person who has noticed a bunch of sites having issues at the same time and who suspects it might be more than a coincidence?
Let's see.. four of the webservers I use seem to be either down or having major issues right now, gmail is having difficulties, MySpace has been down or having serious problems for a while now and several of the main sites I visit are either experiencing difficulties, down or very very slow. It's not some problem from my end, they all have warnings about it. What's going on?

INVISIBLE CHILDREN

So we have a group of inexperienced filmmakers, from a typical spoiled American background who decide to go to Africa to document on the war that has been going on there for the past two decades. The result is an amateur documentary that goes from just plain silly to an incredibly moving report on the condition of the children whose lives have been destroyed by the ravages of this insane war. You can see it in its entirety on Google Video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3166797753930210643

And do something by going to:
http://www.africare.org/index.html
or to
http://www.invisiblechildren.com/

World on Fire

I have been away for a long time. It's not because I haven't had things going on, actually, I have had too many things going on to post. But back once again. Things that really caught my attention recently:
The Amazing march of the millions of immigrants all over the USA for legalization Rights:

Jan 16, 2006: The first woman president takes office in Liberia, Africa
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a graduate of Harvard University who worked as a waitress here in the US to pay for her education becomes the example that the world needs to follow. How a low income self educated african woman can overcome obstacles and become a leader in women's rights in a continent with the highest rape and violence towards women and children in the world. Her first action: making rape illegal in a country that saw it simply as " men misbehaving".

And in an act that should be followed by many other artists in the world, Sarah McLachlan creates a video with $15 and distributes the rest of the estimated cost of it to charities around the world.
Watch the video here:
http://www.worldonfire.ca/

What a year...

Starting Dec 26th, 2004 - Tsunami hits southeast Asia. 230 thousand dead.
First Iraqi elections.
Bush starts 2nd term.
6.4 earthquake devastates Iran.
Palestine and Israel declare truce
Car bomb kills former Prime Minister in Lebanon. Syria blamed.
Pope John Paul ll dies. Pope Benedict XVl elected.
Charles marries Camilla.
Deep throat reveled.
L yndie England guilty of atrocities against prisoners of war.
Iran elects new president.
Sandra Day O'Connor resigns.
Lance Armstrong wins 7th Tour de France.
Terrorists bomb London, 16 days later car bombs shatter Egypt.
Discovery damaged, fleet grounded.
Five planes crash in one month.
Cindy Sheehan ignites anti-war protests.
Israel removes settlers from Palestinian territories.
Hurricane Katrina devastates Gulf Coast.
Government slow to respond, average Americans rush to help. FEMA directors resigns.
7.6 Earthquake hits Pakistan. 86 thousand killed, 3.5 million homeless.
U.S. deaths in Iraq reach 2000.
Avian flu grips the world.
Most active hurricane season in record.
Race riots grip Australia. Parisians riot.
Bush defends domestic spying.
Debates intensifies over torture.
11 Million Iraquis vote for national assembly.
Gas prices rise, Bush approval plummets.
Hussein goes to trial.
White Sox win World Series.

Appointed:
John Roberts - Chief of Justice.
Condoleeza Rice - Secretary of State.
John Balton - U.N. Ambassador.
Alberto Gonzalez - Attorney General.

Indicted:
Tom Delay - House Majority Lead.
Scooter Libby - VP Chief of Staff.



Deaths:
Peter Jennings, ABC news anchor.
Prince Rainier of Monaco.
Richard Pryor, comedian.
Shirley Chisholm, 1st black congressman.
Simon Wiesenthal, Nazi hunter.
Rosa Park, civil rights pioneer.
William Rehnquist, U.S. chief justice.

NYC Transit Strike , part 2

So the strike continues and the TWU is still trying to convince us that they are fighting for their rights becayse they have been, oh, so unfaily treated.
Let's look at the facts:
They were asking for 24% salary raise (ridiculous if you ask me).
They were offered 10.5%, their retirement age would remain 55 years old and all their benefits and health would remain the same. The one point the MTA asked for was that NEW hires would have to contribute 6% to their retirement. Current workers would not be affected.

The salaries of NYC transit workers:

The starting salary for a NYC Transit train operator is $52,644 a year, before overtime. In the new contracts that the city’s municipal unions negotiated this year, the starting salary for a New York Police Department officer will be $25,100 a year.

The average subway or bus operator earns nearly $63,000 per year. The average subway conductor earns about $54,000. The average station agent earns about $51,000. A subway cleaner earns about $40,000

The people most affected happen to be those who need the money the most:

People who live in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, especially those who couldn't afford homes closer to the city and who have been walking 3-4 hours in the middle of the winter to get to work in Manhattan because they will lode their jobs if they don;t show up.

Those who have lost their jobs right before Christmas because they couldn't get to work and whose families will suffer right before the holidays.

The people who sell food and magazines by subway stations, flowers inside the trains, musicians who play underground, plays and concerts who can't sell tickets.

Small restaurants and the waiters and busboys who depend on the tips to make a living.

All freelancers who can't get to work, therefore don't get paid, delivery people who can't make deliveries.

People who live in NJ and are riding their bikes to Manhattan.

Students who can't get to school and parents who can't go to work because their kids would be home alone.

And so many more people who are losing their livelihoods, who can't get to doctors and hospitals even for emergency treatments (like chemotherapy and dialysis) and small stores and business who will go bankrupt without the Christmas sales, all because the TWU decided they want a fuller pocket no matter what.

NYers are strong people. We survived 9/11and a blackout in the past few years. We are used to walking and have been biking, roller skating, or scootering (like me) hundreds of blocks to get where we need to go. People have been offering rides to complete strangers and have been going out of their way to pick up stranded co-workers in the morning.

It's just harder when the problems have been caused by other NYer who are just too selfish to care about their fellow citizens and who believe their own pockets are worth more than the safety and well being of 7 million other people.
Even the TWU international is against the strike. I hope they pay even heftier fines until they stop listening to manipulators like TWU President Roger Toussaint.

NYC Subway, Transit, TWU Strike in NYC

NYC Transit Strike
So just heard news that the transit workers (TWU) in NYC decided to go on strike like they have been threatening to do for several weeks now.
My thoughts:
As much as I believe that they have been treated less than fairly in general by the MTA, they have lost all of my sympathy by appealing to a strike that more than inconveniences, but also seriously affects the lives of over 7 million people who use the subways everyday.
The Transit Workers Union has a history of making excessive demands and of being uncompromising. By having the strike so close to major holidays they seem to have absolutely no concern for the small stores that need the business so much, the people who need to work now to buy gifts for their kids and for the people of the city in general.
As always the people most affected will be those who are the poorest, who need to live far away and who usually have to commute for an hour or longer just to get to work. Those people can't afford the suggested cab shares or van services and are also the ones who will suffer the most if they lose money from missed days of work.
The strike is also illegal and the transit workers will be fined 2 pay days for each day of strike. Somehow I don't feel bad for them this time around.....

Suggested (though ridiculous) options and suggestions by the MTA and the Mayor's office:


Driving Alternatives:
Residents and commuters are encouraged to walk or bike, especially during rush hours. Bicyclists are encouraged to keep to car-free greenway paths and on-street bike lanes (some of which will have orange cones along them for added protection from car traffic). Bikers should review the 2005 New York City Cycling Map, available on the Department of City Planning’s Web site: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/bike/bm.shtml.
Ferries will run more frequently.

Public School Information:
Beginning with the first day of a strike, all regular school start times will be delayed for two hours. School bus times will be delayed two hours as well, to accomodate for the new start time. The end of the school day will not be changed.

Car Pooling and Parking:
Cars crossing the main bridges to Manhattan must have at least 4 passengers. For help finding other people to pool with:
http://www.commuterlink.com/
Alternate side of the street parking rules will be suspended Citywide for the duration of the transit strike.

Keep safe and let's hope for a short strike.

Problems with Internet Explorer? Steve Jobs and the Ipod on Saturday Night Live. Need more traffic for your site?

So for another tech section, I decided to help new webmasters who just need to get some hits so their site gets ranked in search engines.
There are several traffic exchange sites and below are some I suggest:

Brastart

321 hits


Another important thing is to always have a back-up browser in case you have problems with Internet Explorer or Safari if you have a Mac. A very good alternative is Firefox:
<--See White Square Button on left for direct link



It's reliable, has hundreds if not thousands of add ons you can download to make your browsing experience richer and it's free.

And a great Saturday Night Live sketch about Steve Jobs and the Ipod. (thank you Dale for sending it to me).
Here (Quicktime, 3.4mb, so it might take a little while to appear)

Finally someone did a parody about the Ipod craze: The IFlea

I won't even start my speech about my feelings for the Ipod fad, but for now, just a funny video:

The Iflea commercial

Enjoy :)

Making sense of the English language...

Hi everyone
A good explanation of why foreigners have a hard time with the English language found on a posts on a Lamma Island forum site ( I could add another 1000 more examples, but it would make the post too long):

Have you ever wondered why non-native speakers have trouble with the English Language?
Let's face it, English is a stupid language.
There is no egg in the eggplant
No ham in the hamburger
And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England
French fries were not invented in France.

We sometimes take English for granted
But if we examine its paradoxes we find that
Quicksand takes you down slowly
Boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
If writers write, how come fingers don't fing.
If the plural of tooth is teeth
Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth (Or the plural of toothbrush, teethbrush)?
If the teacher taught, why didn't the preacher praught.
If a vegetarian eats vegetables
What the heck does a humanitarian eat?
Why do people recite at a play
Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and drive on parkways
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
Of a language where a house can burn up as it burns down
And in which you fill in a form by filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!
English was invented by people, not computers
And it reflects the creativity of the human race (Which of course isn't a race at all)
That is why
When the stars are out they are visible but when the lights are out they are invisible
And why it is that when I wind up my watch it starts
But when I wind up this observation, it ends.

Go figure....

Martial Arts Updates

To those who have been asking me about Martial Arts updates. I will add more information on my personal experiences with Martial Arts, but for now, check our sister site:




Beholders.org - Body, Mind and Spirit
http://www.beholders.org.
We just added a martial arts section and forum to the site. It's also where we sell Xootr scooters, and all the profits go to support a low income teen filmmakers program.
I will leave information to that site and my personal experiences to this blog.
Peace :)

ROSA PARKS DIES, HER LEGACY LIVES ON...

The year was 1955... the day was December 1st... the place was Montgomery, Alabama...and a petit African American woman, 42 years of age boarded a bus on her way home after a long exausting day working as a seamstress. A common action, a common day, and yet, that petit woman would show the world that day the power of one person, one voice, one action...

In a world that was still far from even vaguely acknowledging the rights of African Americans, that woman was asked to stand up and move to the back so a white man could take her seat. Her reply was a two letter word that would change history. She said "No".

That woman was Rosa Parks, and her revolutionary action initiated a series of events: She was arrested and fined $14 for violating a city ordinance, a 381-day Montgomery bus boycott followed, organized by a then little-known Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and, finally, the Supreme Court's ruling in November 1956 that segregation on transportation is unconstitutional.

“At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this,” Mrs. Parks said 30 years later. “It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in.” Rosa Parks died yesterday, at 92.

May her spirit and example change generations to come.

Suggested Tools: Protect your computer

So I always get calls from people asking me to recommend a good anti-virus and spyware protection software they could buy. And the idea is, why buy it when you can get it for free? So here are a few tools I'd recommend:

Grisoft AVG (Free anti-virus, highly recommend it)
http://www.grisoft.com

Avast!antivirus (Free version also pretty good)
http://www.avast.com

Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta, excellent!)
http://www.microsoft.com/spyware

Ad-aware (Anti-spyware, look at the bottom of the page for current build for the free version which they keep almost hidden within the site)
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

Zone Alarm Firewall
http://www.zonelabs.com/

Enjoy :)

JOINING FORCES WITH BLOGGER

Ok, Ok.. so I decided to give into the ease of update of Blogger. Considering that I don't always have my computer with me when I feel like updating the blog, I figured I might actually get more consistent using Blogger. Now, it will still be hosted in this server and I will eventually switch to that format completly, but for now, there will be two blog home pages and I will continue to post the same article on both until they catch up with each other.
The structure will change a little bit, but not much.

To make the life of those who check it often a little easier, I have also added an rss feed to this blog ( http://simplytatydesigns.com/feed.xml )

The new page can be found at:
http://www.simplytatydesigns.com/blogger.htm

Enjoy :)