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Saturday, April 30, 2011
This essay first appeared here in the April, 2005 issue of TheScreamOnline.
The Terrible Beauty of Pope John Paul II
Janosik, folk hero in Slovakia and Poland. Image purchased in Gdansk; artist unknown.
Gay rights? Yes. I've
published, broadcast, marched. Women's rights? Yup. I've worked hard, and paid
the price – even in the "enlightened" Ivory Tower. Church sex abuse?
As I said in a broadcast essay, it's about time this stuff went public, and
married and women priests are two of our best hopes for change. Liberation
Theology? I taught in the
students died of stomachaches.
Pope John Paul II
dropped the ball on all of these.
On April 3, 2005, in
the cold and rain of a very late spring, I traveled far, to
Egan presided; UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Senator Chuck Schumer, Rudy
Giuliani, and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy were in attendance. My
sneakers were wet with rain and I was cold and my students' midterms needed
grading. Why was I there, my pew-mate's elbow in my ribs, my dripping raincoat
in my lap? The answer presented itself to me; this was the first clear thought
I'd had since I learned of the death of Karol Wojtyla. I was there because I
was in so much pain that I felt that I would rip my heart out of my chest if I
didn't do something, and this high-falutin, but rather uninspired, high
mass was the thing to do. I was, as people do when they mourn, just assigning
my head, heart and hands busywork until I could face my real assignment:
inconsolable grief.
The face of a feminist, a proponent
of gay rights, a fan of Liberation Theology, has run with tears over the death
of John Paul II. If you'll allow me, I'll tell you why.
***
"How do you know if your house has been robbed by a Polak?
The garbage can is empty and the dog is pregnant." I grew up hearing those
jokes. Grew up telling them.
Oh, you're thinking, so you
liked him out of simple chauvinism. You're Polish-American; a famous guy was a
Pole.
And I respond, "You don't understand."
Poles say that a lot. And then we say, "Let me explain."
Polak jokes, as vile as they were, spoke one truth: Poles were
among the scum of the earth.
The word "slave"
in major European languages comes from the word "Slav." Slavs were
Europe's and
century, and, then, again, under Hitler. Between 1772 and 1918,
colonized; this dark period is called "the partitions." Noblemen were
marched to
hangings; schoolchildren were punished for praying in their mother tongue.
Lots of peoples have been oppressed. No, make that most
peoples. Even WASPs. The Highland Clearances drove peasants from the Scottish
countryside to make room for the more profitable sheep.
An
old Peace Corps proverb says, "Volunteers come back from Latin America
talking revolution, from Asia contemplating their navels, and they come back
from
attests that different peoples process oppression in different ways. What makes
the Poles, as sufferers, different from any other miserable, blistered batch of
seething humanity?
Popular commentators provide an easy
answer: the Catholic Church. That answer is too easy. During the, roughly, two
hundred years when Poland was more or less occupied territory, the Vatican was
quite capable of telling Poles not to make waves. Too, when
free before the partitions, it was a proudly multicultural state, hosting
Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Orthodox, Arians and Unitarians.
nationalist heroes include Adam Michnik, a Jew. Nazi and then Communist ethnic
cleansing made
more than ninety percent Catholic only in the second half of the twentieth
century.
There's another possible explanation for
ability to propagate offspring like John Paul II. Before the partitions,
Knights, who were famous for converting Pagans to Christianity by killing them.
Catholic Poles united with Pagan Lithuanians; some see this alliance as the
genesis of
famous religious tolerance.
Poles were on the winning
side of the 1683 Battle of Vienna. Bernard Lewis cites this Turkish defeat as
the beginning of a long slide for Islam that reached its nadir in the terror
attack of September 11. Poles saved
from advancing Jihad. Poles did well as well as doing good; some families
measured their diamonds and pearls by the bucket-load.
Then,
in 1772,
decreed goal was "to abolish everything which could revive the memory of
the existence of
Poles had a mission: resisting genocide, not just for themselves, but for other
oppressed peoples. Thus was born the messianic slogan Poles cried when fighting,
as they did, in the only successful New World slave uprising in
in the American Revolution – think Kosciuszko and Pulaski – and in the RAF,
"For your freedom, and ours."
The Polish
mythology I'm proposing, in brief: "Our true home is glory. Our current,
entirely wretched, circumstances are temporary. We reveal our true selves not
in how others serve us, but how we serve others." Of course, this meshes with
the Judeo-Christian narrative of
Not everyone was invested in this; if you go, you will
meet as many jerks in
as elsewhere. But I've traveled the world, and the fine people of
In the dregs of Soviet-era
I encountered distinctly Polish lives lived as if powered by lightening.
Even e-mails from cranks can contain a grain of truth. Years
ago a disgruntled reader wrote, "I can't stand Poles! I've been there!
They can be nothing but peasants who crap in an outhouse and they strut like
the lord of some manor!" Well, yeah.
"Where
there is no vision, the people perish." So says the book of Proverbs.
of those places where vision could be a leading export. Modern poets testify to
the burden a surfeit of vision imposes. William Butler Yeats belongs to
could have been a Pole. Yeats wrote, "A terrible beauty is born,"
about the diamond-hard heroism that hardship and vision together sometimes
conspire to engender.
Here in the
woman, long before
became hip, I was resisting the American-flavored genocide of ethnic jokes. As
a teenager, I got a job as a nurse's aid, earning minimum wage. I saved up. I
went to
beauty.
I'll tell you just this one story; this happened
in
a nation with its own mythology. My Uncle John knew everything there is to know
about the forest. A biologist hired him as a guide. The Communists had made
this biologist a non-person. He lived in a one-room, underground hovel with
sheet metal walls. He was forbidden contact with other scholars. Luckily the Communists
did not realize that my peasant uncle, though unschooled, was a brilliant man;
they were allowed to associate.
Scientific
paraphernalia surrounded the scholar. We chatted in English. He was eager to chat
with me, a backward teen. He kept me a long time. I itched for the door. Though
he was painfully courteous to me, the scholar's speech hurt me. His vocabulary
was broad and his grammar flawless but his speech sounded mechanical, jerky,
almost like one of those voice synthesizers that people with ALS use. I was
eventually told why. This scholar had taught himself English, with the aid of
nothing but a bilingual dictionary. He had never had a conversation in this
language he had so painstakingly learned.
I am haunted
by this man, by the power of his dream, by the pressure of his prison, by the
sound of his voice. I was depressed in his presence and I wanted to leave. I've
never left, of course. When I try to do something hard, and I weaken and want
to quit, I think of him in his hovel, word by word learning a language he’d
never be able to use to read distant colleagues' work and to express his
discoveries, his enthusiasm, his life. And I keep going.
My Uncle Jan is at the far left of this photo.
Oppression plus vision is an invitation, not an obligation. It is an
invitation that many decline. Much of the Soviet-era
a diorama of the bleakest aesthetic principles and logic of Film Noir. Life was
ugly and irrational, and …then it was ugly again. A pacifist, I felt violated
by my own dreams: manning sandbag barricades and machine-gunning faceless
enemies.
Late one winter afternoon, I was in a bar
mleczny, one of the cheap vegetarian cafeterias the Communists had set up. An
old man with a thick stubble was eating fermented rye soup and cheese
pierogies. He wore rumpled workingman's clothing. His posture was hunched, his
fingers thick. There was nothing remarkable about his appearance. He picked up
one of his pierogies, and smeared it across his stubble. It was disturbing to
watch. No one reacted. I rose from my unfinished dinner and left.
That old man could have been crazy in the way that people
anywhere are crazy. But to me he's the poster boy for the person who reaches a
point where he can't take it anymore, and stops resisting the crushing tide of
ugliness, and joins it. So, no, not everyone accepts oppression's invitation to
heroism. But some do, and, strangely, there are reports of how darkness can
introduce light.
Romeo Dallaire was commander of UN
Peacekeeping forces in
during the 1994 genocide. He told an interviewer that he is certain that there
is a God at least partly because he shook hands with men possessed by Satan. One
night Dallaire wanted to quit and leave to protect himself and his men. At that
moment, "there was a sort of a breeze or a sense that came through the
window, and I just felt some presence. It's sort of like a vibration or
something." He decided that "we were going to sustain ourselves one
way or another, we were going to stay and we were going to do everything we
could" (Fresh Air). Dallaire identified that breeze that made him change
his mind about leaving
as God. He is not the only one who knows of light because he has seen darkness.
T. S. Eliot, in "The Wasteland," mentions a
phenomenon experienced by some humans in extremis – at the brink of
their ability to hold on.
"Who is the third who
walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only
you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white
road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is
that on the other side of you?"
Here Eliot refers
to Antarctic explorers who were near death and alone, but were convinced that a
benign companion accompanied them.
Rabbi Gershon
Winkler, in his book, The Place Where You Are Standing is Holy, tells
the following tale.
"The eighteenth-century Rabbi
Pinchos of Koritz once visited the home of a disciple who had suddenly absented
himself from the rabbi's weekly discourses. He found the young man secluded in
his bedchamber, disheveled, melancholic, and unkempt. 'Where are you?' the
rabbi called to him.
The disciple, shocked by the
presence of the holy master, warned him to stay away: 'Do not approach me,
Rebbe, for I am in the darkest of all places, the lowest of abysses, and, in
fact, at the very final gate of ultimate defilement! Stay away or you will be
contaminated!'
When the rabbi heard these words, he
broke into joyful excitement and seized the hand of the 'fallen' man,
exclaiming, 'The darkest place, you say? The lowest of all abysses, you say?
The very final gate of defilement, you say? Please let me join you! For I, too,
want to see the Face of God!'"
Warsaw
During my trip to
We are the scum of the earth. The jokes are only half right, though. This
earth-scum hoards diamonds.
That was in 1978. A few
days after my birthday, my phone rang off the hook. The College of Cardinals
had elected the first Polish pope in history. Am I telling you that John Paul
II was elected as a birthday present to me because, as a teen, I scrounged
enough dough to travel to
You know I am. Shamelessly.
And I believe your stories,
too. He was elected the day a couple got married; an unseen hand pushed a
teacher to the front of the line at just the right moment and John Paul
II blessed his newborn; a woman was cured of cancer. And all of these stories
are true.
John Paul II said mass in Yankee stadium. As
he turned to the portion of the crowd where I was, I felt – palpably – his
charisma. Pinpricks in throngs report: "You feel as if he is talking just
to you." Illusion? Then explain this: when the sun shines, it shines on
billions, and, yet, you feel it, it changes your day, as intimate
as a warm liquid swallowed down your throat. That you share a light weakens the
light not at all. Illusion? What could be more real than the millions gathered
in
only reward to walk, hurried by guards, past his mortal remains? In April,
2005, "How many legions has the pope?" ceased being the snarky retort
of Godless Communists and became the panicked cry of the operators of
Illusion? Almost everyone I know has at least one miracle
story, information they knew that they could not have known, dreams that
predicted the future, sudden reversals of ill fortune to good. Miracle stories
involve love. How powerful is love, anyway? As powerful as the sun? What
happens when a man surrenders to love everyday of his life? Why don't we
perform an experiment, and find out?
***
Love? Love?
For many, nothing
is more abrasive of the skin encasing the heart, than the wall-to-wall media
coverage of what a good man John Paul II was. The accolades from Jews, Muslims,
Communists – from Fidel Castro! From the Dalai Lama. People concerned with gay
rights, women's rights and AIDS have expressed much pain.
"Hey," these voices are saying. "We are part of the human
race!" they are saying. "And he said that our love is evil, that we
are inferior. How dare you equate such hatred with love? Do you know how abandoned
we feel?"
Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do,
actually. But I've already bored you with
you with my own. Please, though, bear with me just a bit longer…
***
Mystics say that before we are
born, we choose the lives we are to lead. Tell me, who would choose this one?
He was born in a country that hadn't existed two years before his birth, a
country wracked by the wretchedness of all post-colonial states, from
internecine killings to a shaky economy to train tracks that did not mesh from
one region to the next; differing colonial powers used different gauges. His
mother died when he was nine. His classmates would later recall that his pants
were made out of his father's hand-me-down uniforms. His brother, and then his
father, died. As he put it, "At twenty I had already lost all the people I
loved, and even those I might have loved, like my older sister who, they said,
died, six years before I was born." One day while he was serving as an
altar boy at mass, invading Nazis bombed
his city.
The world is rightly well-informed about
Jewish suffering during WW II, and the world is largely ignorant about what
happened to non-Jewish Poles. Without that understanding, one can't understand
Pope John Paul II.
Historian Michael Steinlauf, son of
Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivors, wrote that Poles, "after the Jews and
the Gypsies, [were] the most relentlessly tormented national group in Hitler's
"without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or
language." For almost the first two years of its existence, most of
Non-Jewish Poles were among the first to be gassed there with Zyklon B.
Estimates of non-Jewish Poles killed by Nazis run between two
and three million. One estimate of non-Jewish Poles enslaved puts that number
at two million. Two hundred fifty thousand Polish children were taken from
their parents and relocated to
to be raised as Germans, because their "superior" traits revealed
German ancestry. The Nazis erased 300 Polish villages. The Soviets invaded from
the east as the Nazis invaded from the west. During this Soviet occupation,
wrote Jan Gross, "the Soviets killed or drove to their deaths three or
four times as many people as the Nazis from a population half the size of that
under German jurisdiction."
How did Karol Wojtyla
respond?
"'It was the first wartime Mass before
the altar of the crucified Christ and the scream of sirens and the thud of
explosions have remained forever in my memory – nonetheless Karol in his
imperturbable way had crossed over the bridge and walked to the Cathedral
because he was always observant in his religious commitments.'
After he left Mass, he walked through the agitated crowds with
his friend, the actor and theater director, Juliusz Kydrynski. German pilots were
dropping bombs all over the city. The two friends stood inside a courtyard
watching the smoke and mayhem...Juliusz remembers Karol's calm demeanor:
'All hell was breaking loose – and Karol stood by the wall as
it trembled in its foundations not showing the slightest fear – if Karol was
praying, he was praying in his soul quietly...'" (WGBH Educational
Foundation.)
In a stone quarry, Wojtyla was a
"slave laborer," according to his friend Gilbert Levine. Wojtyla was
struck by a German vehicle; unconscious, he was left for dead. Had a passerby
not aided him; he probably would have died. He survived the occupation at least
twice by hiding from Nazis, once in his own basement, once in the home of an
archbishop.
Karol resisted. He performed Polish national
works in an underground theater. Nazis were executing Poles for such crimes as
owning a radio. Performing Polish works in an underground theater was vital
resistance, for which one risked one's life.
Karol
decided to become a priest. Polish priests had been singled out for torture and
extermination. They were subject to gruesome medical experiments. Eventually
thousands would be murdered. In one region, Pelplin, forty-six percent of
priests died in concentration camps. That a handsome, gifted young man would
find the priesthood inviting under these conditions is extraordinary.
In January, 1945, this young seminarian would save the life of
a Jewish girl, Edith Zierer. He fed her and carried her to safety. Had he not,
later, gained world fame, the only pages to know this story would have been
those of Edith Zierer's diary.
After the war, there was
no liberation. Soviets invaded, and something close to civil war broke out.
Under Communism, Wojtyla's superior, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, was arrested
and imprisoned.
I know people, and I do not condemn
these people, who have surrendered their faces to masks of bitterness,
cynicism, or even just a stubborn, numb refusal to engage because of just one
of these wounds. "My mother died when I was young…I have seen the worst of
humanity. And, so, you can't expect anything but poison, perversity, or heavy
sighs from me."
Think of that face we first espied
on the
1978 after the announcement, "Habemus papem." That face was dimpled.
It was smiling.
And who would choose this life: being
shot in the stomach, the arm, the hand. A vigorous athlete, relishing the speed
and freedom of skiing down snowy slopes, imprisoned by Parkinson's Disease.
Inexorably, his body becomes a prison squeezing his lungs and heart. This
public performer used to relying on his stalwart good looks must appear before
photographers stooped, drooling, and barely coherent.
***
The 1999 PBS' Frontline documentary, "The Millennial
Pope," featured important scholars and social activists voicing their
gripes against John Paul II. These were important, smart, concerned people. I
agreed with their points. Compared to John Paul II, they came across as
petulant children. Some seemed simply whiney.
They came
across as inauthentic; John Paul II came across as authentic. He believed in
Jesus Christ. He lived his life according to that belief, to the best of his
ability. How many people do you know who actually live by what they say they
believe?
I can't imagine Bishop Karol Wojtyla whining on
national television that the communist authorities would not permit him to
build a church in Nowa Huta.
Krakow was
cultural center, home to many ancient cathedrals and monuments that, together,
mutely and perpetually, recounted the Polish myth. Stalin decided to build a
steel mill there. Smokestack fumes would corrode
old stones, and the proletariat would rewrite Polish history. There was to be
no church in Nowa Huta.
The proletariat demanded a
church. Authorities denied permission to build. And, so, Karol Wojtyla, his
priests and congregants…built a church in Nowa Huta.
It
took twenty years. They were twenty years of non-violent protest, of open air
masses, of erected crosses being pulled down and put right back up again, of
filled-out forms and filed requests disappearing down bureaucratic black holes.
But they got the church. The altar cross was made from shrapnel removed from Polish
soldiers' wounds. Talk about turning swords into ploughshares. Talk about turning
ugliness into beauty.
"Live as if you are
free," John Paul II counseled dissident leaders Lech Walesa and Vaclav
Havel, before Communism fell in 1989. Not, "An eye for an eye." Not,
"Mock and whine." Not even, "Act nice in public but always bear a
grudge and nurse your resentments." Just, "Live as if you are
free."
***
There is no
reconciliation between the Bible's – between John Paul II's – insistence on the
worth and dignity of each human being and homophobia and misogyny. To the
Christian, it is clear: John Paul II was human, not God. Humans "see as
through a glass, darkly."
But what a magnificent
human. John Paul II is more than his failings. We need to acknowledge that to
be part of any effort to make the world a better place.
The
millions, perhaps billions, who mourned him, are correct. John Paul II raised
the bar. He challenges us. Long before that step out onto the
balcony and into history, he was a little boy who spoke out against
anti-Semitism in his own hometown. He kept his eyes on the prize, even as bombs
fell. He remained focused, even as he survived the two most murderous regimes
of the bloody twentieth century. He won his magnificent race step by step,
alone, endangered, wounded, without fanfare, missing his mother, even a sister
he never knew, doing the very small work that was right in front of him –
serving mass, performing an underground play that only four or five people
might see, bringing bread to a Jewish prisoner, building a cathedral brick by
brick; he did all this before we ever met him, when he was part of a people
defined as the scum of the earth, by powerful others who were acting on that
definition by putting people like him in concentration camps and using them for
medical experiments. In those humble, patient, loving steps, Karol Wojtyla
marched to the center of the world stage, to become the most recognized human
being on the face of the earth.
I will spend the rest
of my days trying to emulate Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II. I hope others
do, as well. What better model could there be for those of us trying to build a
church we have been told it is forbidden to build?
Saturday Morning Update.........
Been busy the last couple of days. Worked Thursday till late and yesterday - THE SUN CAME OUT!!!!!!
Got some yard work done and then, KidK and I drove South and I bought a small utility trailer that was advertised on craigslist.
Nothing fancy, but will really fill a need for hauling shit around here. And it was cheap!
No picture yet. I left it parked at KidK's house as it was getting dark and the trailer doesn't have lights.
No title or plates either, so we drove the 60 miles or so home hoping to not end up with Officer Friendly noticing that fact.
All good. Hopefully Monday, when I go to pick it up, the river will be back within it's banks and I can take the more direct route home, too.
Still a lot of roads flooded here.
Gotta go get myself prepped for work and fighting the Zombie Hordes this weekend. See ya Monday.
Gratuitous Picture for a Saturday Morning-
Maybe I should have watched the wedding.
Friday, April 29, 2011
How To Run An Ultra - Bryon Powell Tells All In His New Book, Relentless Forward Progress
0 comments Posted by ai at 6:37 PMToday was my birthday, and one of the greatest gifts of the day was finally having the time to read Relentless Forward Progress, the new book by ultrarunner extraordinaire and iRunFar.com guru, Bryon Powell. What a fantastic primer! Bryon has absolutely nailed this one.
It's no surprise that his writing is both entertaining and approachable, making it feel like he's hanging out with you at a coffee shop to eagerly give you the low-down on his greatest passion. But he also has help from his superstar friends who chime in with their stories and advice, such as Dave Mackey's tips on running downhills, Geoff Roes and Ian Torrence debating the need for speed work (Roes says skip it, Ian says bring it), Michael Wardian on "how to race a road ultra", Krissy Moehl getting to the essence of "why?", or Eric Grossman's tales of getting back to good when things go awry. It's a treasure trove of ultra All Star goodness.
There are dozens of pages of practical advice, including starter training plans for various levels of runners, all with a nod to the culture of spirit of ultrarunning. I think it's the perfect thing to give an aspiring ultrarunner, a friend who is curious about what you do, or anybody new to crewing. I'm going to keep a few copies handy for sure.
It went on sale today, and you can buy it here.
Great job, Bryon!!!
SD
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Say a Prayer for People Down in Dixie...............
Over 120 Tornadoes in the last 24 hours.
Alabama appears to have gotten the worst of it so far. Reports of 64 fatalities and you know that will be going up.
Damn. Just damn.
Gratuitous Picture for a Wednesday Night-
Tuesday Triumph. Wednesday WTF???????
The youngest son, Dogboy came down yesterday and we spent the day cleaning up and organizing the garage, etc.
A masterful bit of work on his part. He, having no emotional attachment to all the useless shit stacked here and there, was able to just toss shit that needed to be tossed.
Hell, I can even see the top of the workbench now.
We organized all the miscellaneous screws, nuts and bolts, hardware and motorcycle bits into nice manageable bins and containers, too.
Very satisfying to say the least.
This morning, while doing a bit of finish work out there, I got this strange rumble in my belly and then .............. RUN!!!!!!
I didn't know a volcano was hiding in my ass.
(actual photo of my ass volcano)
Don't know what kinda little viral nasty has taken up residence in my GI tract, but oh boy, is it a doozy.
I will be staying as close to the bathroom as possible for the rest of the day.
And I will not even THINK about farting.
That could be disastrous.
OK, gotta run.
Gratuitous Picture for a Wednesday-
Pic swiped from KnuckleDragger who has been added to the links along with a couple of other new sites. Check em out.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Mobil Mitsubishi Terbaru 2011 Harga Spesifikasi Mitsubishi Pajero Sport Diesel VGT
0 comments Posted by ai at 9:17 AMMobil Mitsubishi Terbaru 2011 Harga Spesifikasi Mitsubishi Pajero Sport Diesel VGT - Anda pencinta otomotif mobil Khususnya mobil merek Mitsubishi? Ada kabar terbaru dari produsen mobil Mitsubishi. Pasar mobil Indonesia akan di ramaikan oleh kehadiran Mitsubishi Pajero Sport bermesin diesel Variable Geometry Turbo (VGT)
Sebelum baca info selanjutnya dari dunia otomotif mobil mungkin Anda sedang cari info otomotif motor seperti Honda CBR 150R Pemasaran Motor Honda Model Sport CBR Terbaru Tahun 2011, Motor Sport Terbaru 2011 Di Indonesia Motor Sport Honda Yamaha Suzuki Kawasaki TVS Tahun 2011 , Harga Terbaru Mobil 2011 Lonjakan Kenaikan Harga Mobil Akibat Kenaikan Pajak BBN-KB Tahun 2011 atau Trend Mobil 2010 2011 Model Terbaru Indonesia Keluarga Gaya Hemat BBM.
Produsen mobil Mitsubishi kembali melakukan penetrasi di pasar otomotif roda empat tanah air dengan menghadirkan Mitsubishi Pajero Sport bermesin diesel Variable Geometry Turbo (VGT) besok.
Meski kapasitas mesin sama yakni 2.500 cc, komponen VGT yang terbenam pada Mitsubishi Pajero Sport diklaim mampu menyemburkan tenaga lebih besar. Mitsubishi menyebutnya DI-D High Power.
Sebelumnya tersemat VGT, mesin lama hanya memiliki tenaga sebesar 136 PS, namun dengan VGT tenaganya meningkat menjadi 178 PS pada 4.000 rpm.
Tidak hanya itu torsi juga mengalami peningkatan cukup signifikan yakni dari 314 Nm menjadi 350 Nm pada putaran mesin 1.800 rpm sampai 3.500 rpm. Dengan penambahan VGT, kompresi mesin juga menjadi lebih rendah yakni dari 17:1 menjadi 16,5 :1.
Mitsubishi Pajero Sport Diesel VGT seperti yang dijelaskan Direktur Marketing PT Krama Yudha Tiga Berlian Motors (KTB) Rizwan Alamsyah bukan untuk menggantikan Pajero Sport lama, Pajero Sport bermesin diesel Variable Geometry Turbo (VGT) hanya varian tambahan untuk melengkapi kebutuhan.
"Mesin baru ini tidak akan menggantikan mesin lama, tapi akan menjadi pilihan bagi konsumen yang ingin tenaga besar. Sebentar lagi akan kita aplikasikan, untuk perbedaan harga, nanti saja ya," kata Direktur Marketing PT Krama Yudha Tiga Berlian Motors (KTB) Rizwan Alamsyah.
Sayang pihak KTB enggan membocorkan harga Mitsubishi Pajero Sport bermesin diesel VVGT besok. Menurut situs resmi PT KTB Pajero Sport dibanderol mulai dari Rp 361 sampai Rp 453 juta on the road Jakarta. (oto.detik.com)
Acara Tunangan Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono (Ibas) dan Aliya Rajasa Selasa 26 April 2011
0 comments Posted by ai at 8:51 AMAcara Tunangan Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono (Ibas) dan Aliya Rajasa Selasa 26 April 2011 - Pasangan sejoli Ibas (Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono) dengan Aliya Rajasa rencananya akan melangsungkan pertunangan pada hari Selasa tanggal (26/4/2011). Bagi orang tua masing-masing SBY dan Hatta Rajasa pertunangan ini merupakan langkah menuju ke pernikahan.
Sebelum baca info selanjutnya dari Blog artikel Indonesia mungkin Anda ingin baca tentang Kebaya Pengantin Terbaru 2011 Model Busana Baju Kebaya Pernikahan Wanita Muslimah , Fashion Terbaru 2011 Dunia Trend Mode Fashion Indonesia Untuk Pria Dan Wanita Info Model Baju Fashion Terkini , Model Busana Baju Batik Modern Terbaru 2011 Koleksi Kemeja Baju Batik Modern Untuk Pria/Wanita Terbaru.
Hari ini mungkin jadi hari yang terindah bagi sejoli Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono (Ibas) dan Aliya Rajasa, mungkin juga bagi orang tua, SBY dan Hatta Rajasa. Sebuah langkah awal untuk mencapai jenjang perkawinan dilaksanakan: pertunangan.
Dijadwalkan, Ibas dan Aliya hari ini, Selasa (26/4/2011) akan melangsungkan pertunangan di kediaman pribadi Hatta Rajasa di daerah Fatmawati, Jakarta Selatan. Belum diketahui pasti jam berapa acara sakral ini akan berlangsung. Namun kabar yang berhembus, acara akan berlangsung malam nanti, setelah SBY dan Hatta Rajasa selesai bekerja.
Hatta Rajasa dalam berbagai kesempatan tak banyak bicara soal rencana pertunangan ini. Pria berambut perak tersebut lebih memilih mengelak, atau menjawab seadanya saat ditanya wartawan, termasuk kemarin saat ditanya kepastiannya kapan tunangan akan dilangsungkan.
"Insya Allah, didoain saja ya," jawab Hatta singkat di Istana Presiden kemarin.
Begitu pula pihak Istana. Tidak ada sanggahan atau kalimat mengiyakan keluar dari Juru Bicara Kepresidenan Julian Aldrin Pasha saat ditanya perihal yang sama. "Kita doakan saja," jawab Julian beberapa waktu lalu.
Dipilihnya hari ini sebagai hari tunangan, mungkin karena 26 April adalah hari lahir Aliya Rajasa. Sementara perkawinan konon akan berlangsung pada November mendatang, sesuai tanggal lahir Ibas. Adapun tempat perkawinan konon di Istana Cipanas.
Meski hari ini punya gawe, Presiden SBY tetap bekerja seperti biasa, meski jadwal acara yang dia hadiri tak seperti biasanya. Jika acara-acara SBY, terutama di Istana biasanya mulai berlangsung pukul 10.00 WIB, maka hari ini acara peringatan HAKI yang berlangsung di Istana Negara, berlangsung pukul 09.00 WIB.
Dipercepat untuk persiapan tunangan? Mungkin saja. Untuk hari ini, sementara acara SBY cuma satu saja. Berbeda dengan kemarin yang menumpuk tiga acara di Istana. Saat ditanya di Istana kemarin, Hatta mengatakan jika dia akan memberikan pernyataan perihal pertunangan ini baru pada hari Rabu besok.
Kabar akan berlangsungnya pertunangan putra Presiden dengan putri menterinya ini sudah lama beredar. Bahkan, saat menggelar acara intern di Istana Cipanas beberapa minggu lalu, Presiden ternyata juga bertemu dengan Hatta Rajasa dan keluarga. Pertemuan ini kemungkinan juga membicarakan rencana perkawinan Ibas dan putri Hatta, Siti Aliya Rajasa.
Kala itu, pihak Istana tidak mengiyakan tapi juga tidak membantah. "Baik-baik saja, saya kira sebaiknya kita ikuti, mendoakan saja. Bapak Hatta sebagai Menko Perekonomian juga melaporkan kinerja perekonomian kita yang terkait dengan bidangnya. Tapi di samping itu, hubungan personal, pribadi beliau, Pak Hatta dengan Presiden sangat baik," kata Julian Aldrin Pasha.
Sebelumnya, Presiden SBY juga pernah menikahkan putranya, Agus Harimurti. Agus mempersunting Annisa Pohan, putri mantan deputi Gubernur BI Aulia Pohan, yang pernah menjadi pesakitan dalam tahanan terkait kasus aliran dana BI ke sejumlah anggota DPR.
Acara perkawinan berlangsung secara meriah di Istana Bogor, Jawa Barat. Pasangan tersebut kini memiliki satu buah hati, Almira Tunggadewi Yudhoyono, atau yang biasa dipanggil Aira. Berbicara tentang pertunangan pasti tak lepas dari dunia lifestyle dan trend terbaru untuk mengetahui perkembangan Model Desain Fashion Busana Pakaian Resmi Wanita Dan Baju Resmi Pria (detiknews.com)
Monday, April 25, 2011
How High's the Water Momma?????????
"5 feet high and rising"
I mentioned the other day that there were a lot of roads flooded out and the rain hasn't stopped since then. Things are REALLY gonna get wet around here before long.
We had a bad blow come through here the other night and it took down a few garages, barns and a shit load of trees.
The utility company and the county guys have been busy as hell and doing a fine job of keeping things up and running so far.
It's raining like hell out there now with no end in sight according to the forecast. Looks like there's a hell of a lot of flooding around the Midwest and one can only hope things dry out asap.
One of the things that amazes me is people continue to try to drive their cars through areas of high water. WTF?
It floods around here every Spring and there are certain areas that you know are gonna be under water. That's just a fact. There are areas that look like a damn lake, water as far as you can see. But dumbasses try to drive through that shit every year and get stranded or drowned.
We haven't had a fatality from, Suicide by Stupid, in a few years but had a close one yesterday.
Some drunk decided he wasn't gonna take the long, dry way home and ventured into some high water area yesterday. He didn't get far.......... till the current got hold of his car and floated him several miles downstream. Lucky for him, he got hung up in some trees so the rescue workers could get him out before he drowned.
The dumbass had electric windows and couldn't roll them down and was to drunk to think about kicking a window out I guess. the water was up to his chin when he was fished out of his car.
Damn. Sometimes I wish Darwin worked a little quicker in cleansing the Gene Pool.
Speaking of gene pools that could use a good cleansing.......
It seems that our friends from Westboro Baptist Church we're planning on protesting at the funeral of a fallen Marine in Mississippi last week and.............. Well, things didn't work out quite as planned.
"A couple of days before, one of them (Westboro protestors) ran his mouth at a Brandon gas station and got his arse waxed. Police were called and the beaten man could not give much of a description of who beat him. When they canvassed the station and spoke to the large crowd that had gathered around, no one seemed to remember anything about what had happened.
Rankin County handled this thing perfectly. There were many things that were put into place that most will never know about and at great expense to the county.
Most of the morons never made it out of their hotel parking lot. It seems that certain Rankin county pickup trucks were parked directly behind any car that had Kansas plates in the hotel parking lot and the drivers mysteriously disappeared until after the funeral was over. Police were called but their wrecker service was running behind and it was going to be a few hours before they could tow the trucks so the Kansas plated cars could get out.
A few made it to the funeral but were ushered away to be questioned about a crime they might have possibly been involved in. Turns out, after a few hours of questioning, that they were not involved and they were allowed to go on about their business."
H/T - Jawa Report
That's how things should be handled when dealing with these Shitheads.
Yep, that warms the cockles of my cold, black heart.
Make a point of watching the video while you're there. Moving is all I can say.
I'm going out and work on the Ark now.
Gratuitous Picture for a Monday Afternoon-
Makanan Khas Jawa Timur Daftar Nama Masakan Jajanan Kuliner Khas Asli Dari Jatim
0 comments Posted by ai at 9:16 AMMakanan Khas Jawa Timur Daftar Nama Masakan Jajanan Kuliner Khas Asli Dari Jatim - Suka menikmati aneka makanan khas dari daerah lain yang ada di Indonesia? Yuk kita telusuri Makanan Khas Indonesia yang berasal dari Jawa timur. Provinsi Jawa Timur memiliki banyak potensi wisata yang sangat menarik di antaranya adalah wisata kulinernya. Dan pariwisata Jatim ini juga menjadi favorit untuk tujuan tempat wisata Indonesia
Provinsi Jawa Timur dengan ibukota Surabaya adalah kota terbesar ke 2 setelah Jakarta. Sebelum menelusuri Makanan Khas Jawa Timur lainnya mungkin Anda ingin tahu Makanan Khas Surabaya Jajanan Kuliner Asli Kota Surabaya dari Blog artikel Indonesia. Nama makanan khas yang sudah terkenal yang berasal dari kota Surabaya, Jawa Timur adalah Rawon, Lontong Balap, Bebek Balap, Pecel Surabaya, Rujak Cingur, Semanggi, Tahu Lontong serta Tahu Tek.
Tapi Provinsi Jawa Timur kan tidak cuma Surabaya, masih ada daerah kabupaten lain yang ada di Jawa Timur. Barangkali saja suatu saat anda berkunjung ke daerah berikut Anda bisa mencari makanan khas Jawa Timurseperti dari daerah berikut ini.
Makanan Khas Lamongan Jawa Timur
Pernah makan soto kan? Coba deh Soto Lamongan jika Anda berkunjung ke salah satu daerah di Jatim ini. Makanan Soto juga menjadi khas dari Jawa Timur dan Anda bisa mencarinya mulai di pelosok kampung, pasar hingga di shopping mall besar. Makanan Soto merupakan makanan rakyat dan biasanya orang menyajikan diwaktu pagi atau siang . Harga makanan ini juga relatif murah dan terjangkau untuk semua kalangan sehingga banyak di gemari hampir seluruh masyarakat.
Makanan Khas Madiun Jawa Timur
Belum tahu makanan Pecel? Makanan pecel merupakan makanan khas Kota Madiun yang terbuat dari campuran beberapa sayur yang telah di rebus. Sauran itu biasanya terdiri dari sayur bayam, tauge, kacang panjang, kemangi, daun turi, krai (sejenis mentimun) atau sayur lainnya. Penyajiannya semua sayur di campur dengan bumbu sambal kacang pedas. Bahan utama untuk sambal pecel adalah kacang tanah yang sudah di goreng, cabe rawit, jeruk purut, bawang, asam jawa, gula merah dan garam. Semua bahan ini di haluskan denga cobek. Agar lebih nikmat pecel sering juga dihidangkan dengan lauk rempeyek kacang, atau makanan gorengan lain.
Sebetulnya masih banyak makanan khas lain yang berasal dari daerah lain di Jawa Timur seperti Makanan Khas Malang, Makanan Khas Gresik, Makanan Khas Bondowoso Jawa Timur, Jember, Bojonegoro hingga Makanan Khas Madura.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Pembobolan Dana Deposit Rp 111 Miliar Milik PT Elnusa Tbk (ELSA) Di Bank Mega
0 comments Posted by ai at 10:08 AMPembobolan Dana Deposit Rp 111 Miliar Milik PT Elnusa Tbk (ELSA) Di Bank Mega - Bank Mega Diminta Tanggung Jawab karena Bobolnya Deposito Elnusa. Pihak Manajemen dari PT Elnusa Tbk (ELSA) akan meminta pertanggungjawaban terhadap Bank Mega terkait raibnya dana deposito perseroan Rp 111 miliar. Cairnya dana deposito tersebut dipastikan tanpa sepengetahuan manajemen Elnusa.
Sebelum baca info tentang ekonomi bisnis selanjutnya mungkin Anda ingin baca Prediksi Ramalan Inflasi Nasional Indonesia Tahun 2011 atau Tips Cara Investasi Emas Menguntungkan Kiat Meraup Untung Dengan Investasi Emas, Contoh Proposal Beasiswa Proposal Bantuan Dana Pendidikan dari blog artikel Indonesia. Hal ini disampaikan Direktur Utama Elnusa Suharyanto dalam press confrence di Hotel Dharmawangsa, Jalan Brawijaya, Jakarta, Minggu (24/4/2011).
"Kami akan meminta pertanggungjawaban dari Bank Mega. Elnusa mempertanyakan sistem dan prosedur yang ada di bank Mega tersebut," terang Suharyanto.
Sayangnya manajemen belum menjelaskan langkah teknis yang akan dilakukan perseroan. Namun Suharyanto akan menyerahkan seluruhnya kepada manajemen Bank Mega dan Bank Indonesia (BI).
"Kamis kami bertemu dengan manajemen Mega, posisinya seperti apa. Pada Senin, sebagai perusahaan terbuka kami bersama-sama akan melaporkan kepada pihak Bapepam-LK. Namun dari Kamis sudah ramai," ucapnya.
Keterangan tertulis juga akan disampaikan kepada manajemen Bursa Efek Indonesia (BEI). Informasi yang disampaikan adalah duduk perkara kasus perjanjian penempatan dana Deposito perseroan.
"Belum ada keterangan tertulis dari Bank Mega," kata Suharyanto.
Dalam keterangan tertulis Elnusa, jumlah dana deposito yang ditempatkan sebesar Rp 111 miliar, dalam bentuk deposito berjangka. Deposito berbagi menjadi 5 bilyet. Satu bilyet terakhir sebesar Rp 10 miliar telah ditandatangani oleh Suharyanto. Empat bilyet sebelumnya, masih ditandatangani Dirut Elnusa sebelumnya Eteng.
"Bilyet kelima, Rp 10 miliar juga ditandatangani oleh Dirut lama. Setiap bank juga sudah kami berikan spesimen, sudah ada pergantian direksi. Pak Eteng terlibat, dia justru yang memberikan pengaduan kepada pihak kepolisian," tambah Suharyanto.
Seperti diketahui, deposito awal yang ditempatkan di Bank Mega sebesar Rp 161 miliar pada 7 September 2009. Pada 5 Maret 2010, sebagian dana Rp 50 miliar tekah dicairkan hingga total deposito yang seharusnya masih tersimpan adalah Rp 111 miliar.
"Pencairan juga ditandatangani oleh Dirut sebelumnya, Pak Eteng. Jadi sudah jelas, ini nggak benar," ucapnya.
Pihak kepolisian melalui aparat dari Fiskal, Moneter dan Devisa (Fismondev) Direktorat Reserse Kriminal Khusus Polda Metro Jaya, pun telah menangkap Direktur Keuangan PT Elnusa, Santun Nainggolan terkait pembobolan rekening PT Elnusa. Santun diduga terlibat dalam pembobolan rekening perusahaannya sendiri.
"Tersangka dijerat dengan pasal penggelapan jabatan, perbankan dan money laundering," kata Direktur Reserse Kriminal Khusus Polda Metro Jaya Kombes Yan Fitri Halimansyah.
Menurutnya, tersangka kini sudah ditahan. Selain Santun, polisi juga menangkap 5 tersangka lainnya yakni IHB, Kepala Cabang Bank Mega Jababeka, Komisaris PT Discovery berinisial AJ, Dirut PT Discovery berinisial IL dan RL, dan seseorang yang belum diketahui indentitasnya (detikfinance.com)
"Water for Elephants" and "Hanna": Two New Films with Polish Characters
0 comments Posted by ai at 7:45 AM"Water for Elephants" and "Hanna" reviews below, followed by commentary on their Polish characters. One is quite the surprise.
Even in the poster, Christoph Waltz, and the elephant, are the most interesting characters.
"Water for Elephants" is a flat soap opera
lacking flair or heart or even coherence. It's a love story set in a
Depression-era circus; how could it be so boring? Direction and miscasting.
Director Francis Lawrence never milks the Depression or the circus setting. He
directs as if in the suburban living and bedrooms of television's Pine Valley.
You never get the sense of how a Depression-era, small-town kid would be
thrilled, terrified, and curious seeing a lion or an elephant for the first
time. There are a couple of what appear to be CGI shots of a train chugging
across moonlit landscapes; even these lack magic.
Robert
Pattinson, star of the teen-vampire sensation "Twilight," is miscast
as Jacob, the lead character, a circus vet. Pattinson displays the skills
necessary to make teenage girls swoon: he pouts, he broods, he is
self-absorbed, he makes zero intellectual or psychological demands on his
audience. He has heavy brows and lots of hair. These skills deserve respect. They
cause teen girl fans to post reviews of his work that end in multiple
exclamation points!!!!!!! But Pattinson is in so far over his head in
"Water for Elephants" all you see of him, in some scenes, are bubbles
on the surface as he sinks into invisibility.
Reese
Witherspoon is a crisp and perky professional with shiny hair and perfect teeth.
Problem is, she's playing Marlena, an orphan trick horse rider who marries an
abusive circus boss, August (Christoph Waltz.) Marlena should exude desperate
vulnerability combined with manipulative power, the kinky raw sex appeal of a
woman who, scantily clad in skin-tight, revealing costumes, performs suggestive
tricks with muscly animals in front of applauding throngs. Witherspoon doesn't
even try to bring that Marlena to life. She just plays Reese Witherspoon,
professional movie star with flawless hair and teeth, a little bit bored as
Oprah interviews her. There's nothing of the abusive orphanage, the poor
street, the skanky Big Top about her at all.
Robert
Pattinson's Jacob and Reese Witherspoon's Marlena have zero chemistry. They are
the least sexy screen couple I've ever seen. Al Gore and Bill Clinton had more
chemistry. When they do kiss, it's not that long-awaited, thrilling moment of
release. It's "Huh?"
Christoph Waltz as
August, the circus owner, is from a completely different, much better, movie.
People are going to walk out of this film wishing that they could have seen the
movie centered around Christoph Waltz's August. Waltz demands the audience's
attention in a way that no one else in the film does, except Tai as the
elephant, Rosie. Waltz's nuanced performance brings to life an August who is
very complex and worth caring about, despite his being a monster.
It's clear that Sara Gruen, the book's author, and the filmmaker
wanted to tell a story that featured lots of animals. The plot is a
cobbled-together, soulless bit of scaffolding on which to hang shots of circus
animals and shallow depictions of circus rituals. Why is Jacob a Polish
speaker? Why is the elephant a speaker of Polish? Most Polish immigrants to the
US at this time were descendents of recently liberated serfs, and did very
harsh manual labor in the US: coal mining, steel, cleaning. It's very unlikely
that a Polish speaker would be an Ivy League veterinary school graduate. In any
case, the film makes no use of Jacob's ethnicity. He could as easily be Spanish
or Italian or Greek. Why would a man who had the focus and self-discipline to
complete an Ivy League veterinary school education toss aside, literally,
everything he has worked for, and everything he owns, to jump on a passing
train? The moment utterly lacks verisimilitude and psychological depth. It's
obvious that the film just wants to get to its circus setting and animals.
Jacob is just a pawn. Why is the film told as an old man's flashback? That
approach, and the voiceover narration, add nothing to the film.
***
"Hanna": Come to think of it, she DOES look a bit Polish.
"Hanna" is a ruthless, relentless, chase
featuring a teen girl assassin. It's violent and suspenseful, fast and cruel.
The chase sprawls over travelogue settings in the Arctic Circle, North Africa,
and Berlin. It's like the Bourne movies, like Daniel Craig's Bond movies. The
difference is, of course, that the hero is not a muscle-bound adult male, but a
barely muscled teenage girl, Saorise Ronan. And the focus never waivers from
the chase. Hanna gets no love interest.
I generally
don't go to movies I know are going to be violent and I have walked out of
violent films, but I loved "Hanna" and kept my eyes open throughout
almost all of it. It's not just that Hanna, the assassin, is a girl, and I'm
female, too, although that was part of it. "Hanna" depicts Hanna as
having an admirable work ethic, and as being an underdog. The one thing that
separates her from the people she so determinedly wounds, beats, stabs, and
kills is that she is just following the pedagogical training of her admirably
dedicated, old-school patriarch, Erik (Eric Bana.) Erik raised his girl to know
how to read, write, and kill. He did this for a righteous reason. The people
Erik trained Hanna to kill are very, very bad people, and the audience wants
them dead, as well. The morality and worldview of "Hanna" is very much
that of the setting of its opening scene: the harsh north. This is Nordic
morality, where even if you do the right thing, you may end up dead, anyway.
There is no reward. If you don't end up dead, and live on, you live on only to
keep fighting in a harsh, unforgiving landscape.
Saorise
Ronan gives an Oscar-worthy performance as Hanna. She truly inhabits a character
whose sole focus is on struggle. She enters every new landscape, from a
treeless desert to a hotel room, with the focus of a wild animal: where is the
food? Where is something to drink? From what direction will danger come? How
will I meet it? Ronan never once slips up, never once behaves as a comfortable
teenage girl would behave. She has a killer's eyes throughout the entire film.
I have to wonder if this wasn't a tough film for her to make. Playing Hanna
would have given me nightmares.
The film's ruthlessness
becomes a bit of a failing. The film is so ready to wound and kill characters
the audience wants to like, so ready to turn sweet moments into deadly poison,
so ready to let any landscape become a death trap, that I did get a bit jaded
about 75% into the film. I was no longer surprised when a character showed some
humanity only to be dispatched in the most hateful of ways. But the film threw
some new plot developments in at that point, and it kept my interest.
Cate Blanchett is terrific as Hanna's foil. Eric Bana is solid
as her dedicated teacher and father. The supporting cast, including Tom
Hollander and Olivia Williams, is all very good.
The
Chemical Brothers' soundtrack is perfect. I often don't even hear soundtracks
the first time I watch a movie, and when I do notice them, it is, all too
often, because they are intrusive and trying to do the work of wrenching
emotions that poor filmmaking could not do. During one breathless scene in
"Hanna," I realized that the post-Apocalyptic soundtrack geared me up
and made me tense and brought me into the scene in a very enjoyable way.
***
Comments on the Polish characters in these new films:
"Water for Elephants"'s Jacob Jankowski is Polish in
name only. It's highly unlikely that a Polish speaker would be an Ivy League
vet school grad in the Depression. Most Polish immigrants to the US at that
time were descendants of serfs who had been liberated only in the 1860s. They
did very demanding, deadly, manual labor and Ivy League universities, at that
time, were cranking out "scholarship" proving their racial
inferiority. I'm not saying that no Polish American got an Ivy League vet degree
in the Depression; I'm saying that such a person would not be representational.
In any case, there is nothing Polish about Robert Pattinson's
Jacob. He could be the exact same character and be Greek, Eskimo, or Urdu.
The whole film struck me as random in that way. Events and
characters existed only as an excuse to produce a movie pretty animals and
exotic circus costumes and the Depression. And none of these features came to
have any verisimilitude or heart, except Rosie, the very adorable elephant, and
Christoph Waltz.
"Water for Elephants" is the
first movie that made me lose respect for a book I had not read. I came to
wonder if the book is as random and pointless as the movie, as much just an
excuse for pretty horses on the page. I read reviews
at Amazon that suggested to me that that may be true.
"Hanna," on the other hand, is fascinating. One learns -- I'm
about to type a spoiler! -- that Hanna is a genetically modified human being.
She was genetically modified to have less pity, and more of an urge to kill. Where
did the CIA go to get embryos to manipulate in this way? You got it, reader,
Poland!
Friday, April 22, 2011
Mystery Chicks Update............
Found the missing 3rd hen this morning, but she was all alone. Any chicks that hatched either got lost or eaten by critters.
That's the way is goes sometimes.
Another storm outside. Like we need anymore damn rain. The roads all over are flooded out already and more rain is not what we need.
I guess that's the way that goes sometimes too.
Nothing to do about it.
I've been hanging out in the house today playing guitar some and trying to learn the pickin' parts of this Steve Goodman song -
Lovely song and always a favorite of mine. I'll probably never get those parts down exact, but close enough will be ok.
Damn shame he died of leukemia so young.
He was a great songwriter and one hell of a good guitarist. Check out the licks on this song-
As you can see, his sense of humor carried over into his songs, too-
This song makes me think of My Old Man-
Gratuitous Picture for a Stormy Friday-
RIP Grete Waitz (1953-2011), One of The Greatest Women Runners of All Time
0 comments Posted by ai at 11:03 AMFormer world record holder and nine-time winner of the NYC marathon Grete Waitz died of cancer earlier this month at age 57. The Washington Post has a great bio and video about her extraordinary life. She was one of the greatest runners of our era, helping put women's running on the map for good.
I had a chance to meet Grete at the 2007 Boston Marathon, when she graciously signed a poster saying "Good luck at the 100-Mile Championships!". That poster has since been in direct sight to my treadmill, so that any time I'm pussing out, I can think about what it took to come out and clock a 2:32 first marathon in world record time in an era when women were still thought to not be able to do the distance. That poster now has even deeper meaning, since I'm sure Grete would like nothing more today than to be training and feeling that pain.
Do an extra 800 for Grete Weitz this week and feel that pain... Thank you for your inspiration! You can also donate to Grete's charity that helps the quality of life of cancer patients here.
Tempat Menarik Di Medan | Tempat Liburan Wisata Anak-Anak dan Keluarga Di Sumatera Utara Indonesia
0 comments Posted by ai at 10:03 AMTempat Menarik Di Medan | Tempat Liburan Wisata Anak-Anak dan Keluarga Di Sumatera Utara Indonesia - Medan yang merupakan ibukota provinsi Sumatera Utara menyuguhkan lokasi liburan yang menarik untuk jalan-jalan seluruh anggota keluarga. Dimanakah tempat menarik di Medan untuk tujuan wisata dan liburan?
Yuk kita cari tahu tempat wisata Indonesia yang ada di Kota Medan, Sumatera Utara, Indonesia. Informasi obyek wisata di Medan yang ada di blog artikel Indonesia ini untuk menambah pengetahuan wahana wisata yang ada di Indonesia pada umumnya dan di kota Medan, provinsi Sumatera Utara khususnya. Saat jalan-jalan di Kota Medan bersama keluarga banyak pilihan yang sangat menarik untuk di kunjungi apakah mau datang ke tempat wisata di kota Medan, mau mencari tempat makan enak di Medan seperti wisata kuliner di Medan dan lain-lain. Kalau Anda datang dari luar da ingin tahu dan cari hotel murah silahkan cek di Hotel penginapan murah di Medan
Beberapa daftar nama tempat menarik di Medan, obyek wisata Medan, tempat liburan keluarga di Medan yang bisa di pilih seperti berlibur ke
* Istana Maimun Medan
* Mesjid Raya Medan
* Rumah Tjong A Fie di kawasan Jl. Jend. Ahmad Yani (Kesawan).
* Gedung Balai Kota lama Medan
* Menara Air (juga merupakan ikon kota Medan)
* Titi Gantung Medan (sebuah jembatan di atas rel kereta api)
* Gedung London Sumatera
Nah kita coba saja lihat dan mengunjungi Istana Maimun ya!
Istana Maimun merupakan salah satu dari ikon dari kota Medan, provinsi Sumatra Utara. Lokasi istana Maimun terletak di daerah kelurahan Sukaraja, kecamatan Medan Maimun.
Istana Maimun ini didesain oleh seorang arsitek yang baerasal dari Italia dan dibangun oleh Sultan Deli, Makmun Al Rasyid Perkasa Alamsyah pada 1888. Luas Istana Maimun sekitar2.772 m2 dan terdapat 30 ruangan.
Yang menarik di Istana Maimun dan mengapa sering menjadi tujuan wisata utama di kota Medan karena istana ini bukan hanya karena usianya yang sudah tua, tapi juga memiliki desain interiornya yang sangat unik dan indah, dengan memadukan unsur-unsur warisan dari kebudayaan dari Melayu, dengan gaya Islam, Spanyol, India dan Italia. Jika Anda melewati tempat menarik di Medan ini pada sore hari, Anda bahkan bisa melihat anak-anak bermain sepak bola di halaman istana ini. Selain wisata Indonesia tambah juga pengetahuan tentang budaya indonesia
Sometimes it seems to me that everything is related to
Polish-Jewish relations.
Of course to a mathematician everything
revolves around equations, and to a politician, everything is political.
In April of 2000 my friend Don Freidkin (Polish-Jewish ancestry,
now married to a Polish Catholic) was kind enough to give me a documentary about
the Shroud of Turin. I was so fascinated I watched the documentary several
times, back to back.
The many extraordinary features of
the Shroud defy easy explanation. Swiss criminologist Max Frei identified pollen grains from Israel on the
shroud.
German master textile restorer, Mechthild
Flury-Lemberg, reports shroud features that date it to first
century Israel.
Secondo Pia's 1898 photographs
confounded the world – these photographs discovered a shroud feature that had
previously been invisible. The shroud is a photographic negative. These
images were so shocking, Pia was accused of fraud.
Artist
Ray Downing claims that the shroud contains three dimensional
information.
The man on the shroud shows what appear
to be marks left by a Roman whip. (Discussion here. Photo here.)
One could go on, and on, and on. Science has been over the
shroud with numerous technologies and instruments and yet no universally
accepted explanation for it has emerged.
What I saw on
that documentary that Don sent me, though, was that the humanities had been all
but ignored. The hard sciences were offering their questions, and answers, but
the humanities should be heard from, too.
I drew up a
list of questions that a humanities scholar might ask about the shroud. I sent
my questions to Barrie M. Schwortz,
one of the talking heads on the documentary. I was astounded when Mr. Schwortz
wrote back to me, and offered to place my post to him on his award-winning,
essential website, www.shroud.com. I
include my comments, in full, below. You can also see them on this page, almost halfway down.
I still have these questions. As far as I know, no shroud
debunker has even tried to answer them.
***
Barrie M. Schwortz is the go-to expert on the shroud. He
maintains an award-winning website that archives the full-text of countless,
detailed, published, peer-reviewed scholarly articles. This library is a
priceless gift to humanity. We all owe Barrie Schwortz our gratitude.
In August of 2009, I emailed Barrie and asked him a question.
You identify yourself as an Orthodox Jew, but as someone who believes that the
Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. How do those two features
fit into your one life?
Barrie told me to phone him with
this question, and I did. We talked for an hour and a half.
It was a private conversation, and I never received permission to repeat
what we said to each other, so I won't repeat anything Barrie said here. I will
say, though, that I discovered that Barrie is of Polish-Jewish descent. Needless
to say, as soon as our phone call was over, I sent Barrie the chapter of "Bieganski"
that appeared here.
Since today is Good Friday, I post, below, the questions that
someone in the humanities, rather than the hard science questions that have
been focused on so far, might ask about the Shroud of Turin.
***
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 18:02:40 -0500 (EST)
From: danusha veronica goska
Dear Barrie Schwortz:
The shroud has been subjected
to imaging analysis by NASA scientists, to carbon dating, and to analysis,
performed by criminologists and botanists, of the pollen particles found on its
surface. Forensic pathologists have analyzed the death depicted on the shroud.
At least since Descartes, the West has come to regard religion and hard science
as polar opposite disciplines. It is this very intersection of religion and
hard science that intrigues, delights, and perhaps even threatens many, and
attracts many to the Shroud story.
In truth, though, and
perhaps counterintuitively, the hard sciences are limited in their ability to
crack the mystery of the shroud. This sounds contrary – science has come to be
understood as *the* source of definitive truth. In this case, though, hard
science has failed to provide an answer that satisfies the demands of Ockham's
razor.
William of Ockham (1285-1347/49), positied that, "Pluralitas
non est ponenda sine necessitate;" that is, "Plurality should not be
posited without necessity." In other words, Ockham's razor demands that,
of two competing theories, the simplest explanation is preferred.
The shroud compels exactly because there *is* no simple or
easy explanation. None of science's tests, including carbon dating, has changed
that. None have produced a simple explanation that meets the demands of Ockham's
razor.
One might argue, based on carbon dating, that the
shroud is a simple forgery, dating from the middle ages. That theory is not
best tested exclusively by hard science. Rather, insights from the social
sciences and the humanities are necessary in cracking this mystery.
I am not a hard scientist. I am a Ph.D. candidate in the
Folklore Institute at Indiana University. Folklore, like its fellow social
sciences, has demonstrated that human expressive culture follows rules, just as
surely as carbon decay follows rules. One does not need to be a social
scientist to understand this.
Suppose an archaeologist
were to discover, in an Egyptian tomb, a work of art that followed the
aesthetic prescriptions of Andy Warhol's 20th century American portrait of
Marilyn Monroe. Certainly, hard science would argue that ancient Egyptians
possessed all the technology necessary to produce such items of expressive
culture. Ancient Egyptians had pigments; they had surfaces on which to draw. Hard
scientists might see no mystery in a pharaonic Warhol Marilyn.
A non-scientist would have every reason to find such a blasé
attitude bizarre. Of course the ancient Egyptians could produce Warhol-like
art. The fact is, though, that they simply never did. Ancient Egyptians, like
all artists everywhere, followed the artistic mandates of their time and place.
True, art does change, but it changes organically, slowly, and
after leaving vast bodies of evidence of change in intermediary forms. For
example, as different as it is, art from Greece's Golden Age can be seen to
have grown from Egyptian art, in intermediary forms like Kouroi figures. The
shroud is as much an object of wonder and worthy investigation, in spite of
carbon dating, as would be an isolated pharaonic Warhol, or a rock song that
had been composed during the period of Gregorian Chant, or a Hopi vase that
someone somehow came to make during the high point of peasant embroidery in
Czechoslovakia. Yes, in each case, technology was available to create these
anomalous forms; however, as any layman might well point out, humans did *not*
choose to use available technology in order to create anomalous forms.
There are two consistently unaddressed flaws in the arguments
of those who contend that the shroud must be of medieval origin, created by
contemporaneously available technology. The first flaw is that even if
technology had been available to create an image with all the remarkable
features of the shroud, there is no way to explain *why* an artist would have
done so.
This question must be explored not via carbon
dating, NASA imaging, or pollen tests, but, rather, by comparison with other
relics from the medieval era. I have not seen research by experts in medieval relics
that attempts to compare and contrast the shroud with comparable artifacts from
the medieval era. Does the shroud look like other relics, or does it not? If,
as I suspect is true, it does not look like other relics from that era, then it
behooves anyone who argues for a medieval date to explain exactly why. Those
who argue this position must tell us why the equivalent of a Warhol portrait
has been found among Egyptian artwork where the laws of human expressive
culture dictate that it plainly does not belong.
In the
writings of church reformers like Erasmus and Martin Luther, one can read
descriptions of medieval relics. In fact, many relics once popular in the
medieval era can be visited even today. Reformers like Erasmus and Luther
expressed open contempt at the gullibility of the Christian masses. Bones that
were obviously animal in origin were treated as if the bones of some dead saint.
Random chips of wood were marketed as pieces of the true cross; random swatches
of fabric were saints' attire.
Why, in such a lucrative
and undemanding marketplace, would any forger resort to anything as detailed
and complex as the shroud? Why would a forger resort to an image that would so
weirdly mimic photography, a technology that did not exist in the Middle Ages?
Well, one might argue, the forger created the highly detailed,
anomalous shroud in order to thoroughly trick his audience. This argument does
not withstand analysis. The relic market is profoundly undemanding. It was
profoundly undemanding in the Middle Ages; it is barely more demanding today.
The Ka'bah of Islam, the millions of Shiva lingams found
throughout the Hindu world, the venerated sites of Buddha's footfall or Buddha's
tooth, the packages of "Mary's Milk" on sale to Christian pilgrims in
Bethlehem, are all contemporary relics that attest to the willingness of
believers to believe in items that might look, to others, like simple rocks or
standard, store bought powdered milk.
The faith in
relics is not limited to the large, world religions; New Age is similarly flush
with relics of a provenance, that, to non-believers, may seem comical at best. For
example, a speech well beloved by New Agers, titled "Chief Seattle's
speech," has long been known to have been written by a white Christian man
living in Texas. This knowledge has not stopped many New Agers from believing
that the speech issued, miraculously, from Chief Seattle.
The shroud does more than not follow the simple rules of relic hawkers. The
shroud not only does not follow the laws of the expressive culture of medieval
relics, it defies them. For example, blood is shown flowing from the man's
*wrist,* not his hands. It is standard in Christian iconography to depict Jesus'
hands as having been pierced by nails. This was true not only of the medieval
era, but also today. What reason would a forging artist have for defying the
hegemonic iconography of the crucified Jesus? Anyone who wishes to prove a
medieval origin for the shroud must answer that question, and others, for
example:
Items of expressive culture are not found in
isolation. They are not found without evidence of practice. If one excavates an
ancient site and finds one pot, one finds other pots like it, and the remains
of failed or broken pots in middens.
If the shroud is a
forgery, where are its precedents? Where are the other forged shrouds like it? Where
is there evidence of practice shrouds of this type? If the technology to create
the shroud was available in medieval Europe, where are other products of this
technology? Humankind is an exhaustively exploitative species. We make full use
of any technology we discover, and leave ample evidence of that use. Given the
lucrative nature of the forgery market, why didn't the forger create a similar
Shroud of Mary, Shroud of St. Peter, Shroud of St. Paul, etc.? And why didn't
followers do the same?
I'm not attempting here to prove
the shroud to be genuine. I am insisting that hard science alone cannot tell us
the full truth about the shroud, and that ignoring the obvious questions posed
by the humanities and the social sciences leaves us as much in the dark about
the shroud as ever.
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