I always wondered what skin cancer looked like
and I thought this was a good link to get an idea. Since cancer is truly an epidemic these days, the more we know about what it looks like, the earlier we could be treated if something seemes suspicious. Please be warned some of the photos of skin cancer in the link are pretty gross, but without seeing what a cancerous spot looks like, it's hard to take action- or encourage a loved one to take action.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-204_162-10006772.html?tag=page
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Jersey Wildflowers- North Plainfield, NJ
Wildflowers I grew up with:
Virginia bluebells
Lily of the valley
spring beauties
trout lily
garlic mustard
phlox
jack-in-the-pulpit
mayapple
spicebush
milkweed
butterfly bush (above)
indian pipe
wild geranium
mullein
jumpweed
ground ivy (or gill-over-the-ground)
purple dead nettle
boneset
joe pyeweed
horse nettle
purple nightshade
wild carrrot
wild strawberry
chickweed
daisy fleabane
bull thistle
goldenrod (various species)
aster (various species)
shepherd's purse
coltsfoot
slender flag iris
pink lady's slipper
butter and eggs
dogbane
periwinkle
pachysandra
mild mint
watercress
wood nettle
stinging nettle
spotted (striped) wintergreen
bearberry
sheep laurel (above)
rhododendhron
honeysuckle
chicory
dandelion
day lily
snow bells
dogwood
star of bethlehem
blue eyed grass
spiderwort
wineberry
black raspberry
jewelweed
wind ginger
multiflora rose
violet
asiatic dayflower
johnswort
cinquefoil
Many of these plants have been introduced species and are invasive "weeds" to most. However, being an alien species isn't necessarily bad in my mind, since many were introduced by settlers from Europe as food sources.
Lily of the valley
spring beauties
trout lily
garlic mustard
phlox
jack-in-the-pulpit
mayapple
spicebush
milkweed
butterfly bush (above)
indian pipe
wild geranium
mullein
jumpweed
ground ivy (or gill-over-the-ground)
purple dead nettle
boneset
joe pyeweed
horse nettle
purple nightshade
wild carrrot
wild strawberry
chickweed
daisy fleabane
bull thistle
goldenrod (various species)
aster (various species)
shepherd's purse
coltsfoot
slender flag iris
pink lady's slipper
butter and eggs
dogbane
periwinkle
pachysandra
mild mint
watercress
wood nettle
stinging nettle
spotted (striped) wintergreen
bearberry
sheep laurel (above)
rhododendhron
honeysuckle
chicory
dandelion
day lily
snow bells
dogwood
star of bethlehem
blue eyed grass
spiderwort
wineberry
black raspberry
jewelweed
wind ginger
multiflora rose
violet
asiatic dayflower
johnswort
cinquefoil
Many of these plants have been introduced species and are invasive "weeds" to most. However, being an alien species isn't necessarily bad in my mind, since many were introduced by settlers from Europe as food sources.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Go Bag
The point of a go bag is emergency preparedness,
not necessarily long-term survival.
It's something that everyone in the family can grab so that they can get out and get by in the case of a disaster of some kind. Of course, it would only help you if it's ready to go!
There was a great article in the Awake magazine a couple years ago. It encouraged the practicality of assembling a go bag one for each member of the family.
It's been a project on my "back burner" for a while, so I've decided to update my bag with that information. I will share some of my research here. I have most of the items from my wilderness exploration days, but they have become scattered about the house over time.
THE GO BAG!
Internal frame pack with sturdy hip belt
waterproof pack cover
midsize MSR cookpot
butane lighter with duct tape rolled around it
pocketknife
gerber hatchet
stainless steel soup spoon
(non-down) Sleeping bag
fleece blanket
8x10 brown/ black plastic tarp
basic clothes-
3 pairs comfortable hiking socks
3 pairs underwear
2 set modal long underwear- top & bottom
sturdy canvas jeans- Carhartts are good
Lightweight fleece hoodie
insulated Carhartt hoodie
good leather belt
comfortable fleece/wool hat- pref. a visor beanie
lightweight fleece gloves
or leather gloves which are great for using around a campfire
copies of important papers-
Passport, driver's license, DPA, etc.
Food (in a stuff sack)
5 cans kippered herring!
-or- a few cans of tuna
box or two of Stoned Wheat thins
sack of organic quick oats
plastic jar of organic peanut butter
small plastic bottle of olive oil
sea salt, pepper, chili, garlic, and cinnamon powders
bunch of healthy fruit & nut type granola bars
small sack each of sweet brown rice and green lentils
small sack of brown sugar
small sack of whole wheat flour
journal, pen, and pencil
small Bible
small songbook
small first aid kit
(a few basic medicines, tape, ace bandage, moleskin, bactroban/neosporin/ tweezers, flexible splint, CPR mask, basic bandages, cloth cravat or two)
any necessary prescription medicines
2 small rolls of parachute cord each about 20ft long
small bottle of unscented bleach- 2 drops per qt to purify water
Small solar charger for the cell phone
Plastic or preferably stainless steel Nalgene bottle with a strainer insert for making tea out of random stuff. They sell these at EMS and REI.
stainless steel MSR fuel bottle - this is a great item for cold weather. You can boil water in it, stuff it in a sock, and then put it in your sleeping bag by your feet at night. It works great as a radiator!
That's pretty much it. Actually, that's a bit excessive; but still manageable.
I can live out of a backpack pretty comfortably with all that.
Actually, it would kind of be like a vacation!
Anymore stuff just becomes too much weight on the shoulders, would drag me down.
The plans of the diligent one makes for success...
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Graphic Depictions of DECLINING ARCTIC SEA ICE - from NASA
As many are now aware,
the Arctic ice cap has been declining rapidly over the past decade.
Arctic sea ice plays an important role in global temperature regulation, due to the reflection of light energy by the white ice. As more seawater becomes exposed, and thus absorbing light energy due to the dark color of seawater, the arctic waters warm. This trend has caused the incredibly thick Arctic sea ice to thin significantly in recent years.
How dramatically? Well the long sought-after Northwest Passage for shipping was open for shipping transport by large container ships in 2007. Not an irrelevant development by any means!
The following link displays government statistics graphically for every year since 1999.
Keep in mind that the ice level in September-following the 24 hour summers of the far North is always at its peak decline for the year.
The ice level in March, after the dark, cold Arctic winter,
depicts the greatest amount of sea ice for that year.
follow this link to learn more:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php
.
the Arctic ice cap has been declining rapidly over the past decade.
The top two images below show arctic ice
in the yearly min and max from 1999 to 2000
Now compare them to the two images below them, taken ten years later!
Keep in mind the scale of the images- that's a lot of missing ice!!
Arctic sea ice plays an important role in global temperature regulation, due to the reflection of light energy by the white ice. As more seawater becomes exposed, and thus absorbing light energy due to the dark color of seawater, the arctic waters warm. This trend has caused the incredibly thick Arctic sea ice to thin significantly in recent years.
How dramatically? Well the long sought-after Northwest Passage for shipping was open for shipping transport by large container ships in 2007. Not an irrelevant development by any means!
The following link displays government statistics graphically for every year since 1999.
Keep in mind that the ice level in September-following the 24 hour summers of the far North is always at its peak decline for the year.
The ice level in March, after the dark, cold Arctic winter,
depicts the greatest amount of sea ice for that year.
follow this link to learn more:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php
Here is another interesting link
on the same satellite imaging website.
This compares the vegetation changes in a region of the far north over 43
years. Apparently, the climate has warmed sufficiently enough to allow
shrubbery to spread significantly onto the tundra.
.
Monday, May 2, 2011
When you post to FACEBOOK - you are contributing all your info to the US Intelligence network
http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/wikileaks-julian-assange-facebook-an-appalling-spying-machine/
Here is an interview with Julian Assange, who is currently in a huge legal mess for the publication of classified government documents via his WikiLeaks website. Obviously he's quite perturbed at the lack of truth in human communications and is a very well-spoken man.
His commentary on Facebook and Twitter are worth your attention, as well as his perspective of corporate news media.
Facebook commentary @ 2:00
News media commentary @ 7:25
Here is an interview with Julian Assange, who is currently in a huge legal mess for the publication of classified government documents via his WikiLeaks website. Obviously he's quite perturbed at the lack of truth in human communications and is a very well-spoken man.
His commentary on Facebook and Twitter are worth your attention, as well as his perspective of corporate news media.
Facebook commentary @ 2:00
News media commentary @ 7:25
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Current photography of dkeil
I've been working on catching people and places in a moment of social commentary.
Follow the link to my photostream on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/palatialstudios/
Follow the link to my photostream on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/palatialstudios/
Saturday, April 2, 2011
The Need for Solitude- from Awake magazine 11-1-1956
As a matter of personal study, I like to consider material that was printed many years ago in order to reflect on how culture has changed. This is an article that I found particularly encouraging regarding our necessity for purposeful time spent alone. Time alone working things out, reflecting on the past, preparing for the future, considering the application of spiritual principles.
When reading the article, note the comments that were made in 1956 regarding foreseeable changes in society due to the influence of television- and compare them to what we observe now in 2011. Less time with TVland's fantasy world is more time in our reality, it takes vigilance though because a walk through suburbia at dusk reveals most living rooms glowing and flickering with commercially-inspired TV programming. Just think, not too long ago, people used to spend that time communicating, reading, and yes- even sitting quietly and thinking. Now on a regular basis their brains are filled with all manner of sordid violence and troubles- and people do have a choice in the matter.
Inter-generational changes can be substantial, yet largely dismissed. One hundred years ago it was the one who didn't attend a church who was viewed as strange, possibly deviant. Today, quite the opposite. Instead of working for knowledge, as the article mentions,
I thought this was a particularly valuable point in the dumbing-down of the mind that appears to be a progressive cultural trend throughout my lifetime- certainly one I don't wish to follow.
Personally, I am very thankful for the information published in the Awake and Watchtower magazines. Did you know that they are the most widely distributed magazines in the world?
Available in almost 200 languages (yes, 200) and with a combined printing of over 82,000,000 copies- as of this April's edition. A truly worldwide educational effort.
Have you ever heard the saying that "nothing is free?"
It's a popular saying- but it is wrong.
The truth is free- and available,
for those who are willing to accept it.
The following is the excerpt I discovered in my personal research:
AWAKE magazine -November 1, 1956
Jehovah commands us to meditate; and to meditate we need solitude. We are to meditate on Jehovah’s Word, not just for mental exercise or personal enrichment of thought or to philosophize, but to be better able then to go preach it to others. Serious meditation, not daydreaming, is hard work. The mind is like a balky mule; it takes a few licks and kicks to get it moving. And it takes solitude so that outside interferences will be cut to as near nothing as possible.
Writing in the December 1, 1954, Christian Century, Simeon Stylites said: “In so many ways we, as a people, have declared war on solitude and meditation. We are lost without a ‘set’ or a ‘bunch.’ The worst possible calamity is to be alone. If you enjoy anything alone, you are ‘antisocial’ and ought to be rushed to the psychoanalyst’s couch, or better still to the mental hospital.”
And in the January 11, 1956, issue of this journal this writer said: “At last it is here—portable TV! Let’s all stand up and sing the doxology. For this is the climax of a long line of inventions and appliances designed to prevent a person from ever being reduced to the necessity of meeting himself. It will save us—along with that other instrument of deliverance from the horrors of solitude, the portable radio—from what many up-to-date moderns regard as the worst fate possible: to be left alone without any gadget to protect them from the necessity of rubbing two thoughts together.”
Neither this world nor its god Satan wants people to think for themselves. Satan’s propaganda floods out through worldly channels to mold all minds into a conformity with his system of things. On page 66 of The Age of Conformity Alan Valentine says: “Americans spend so much time in sodden absorption in radio, television and press that little is left for other communication or recreation. Inner resources for self-entertainment are atrophying from lack of use, and personal thought is being made unnecessary by the acceptance of predigested opinion from favorite commentators.” And on page 113 he adds: “The average American has not warmly accepted the highest flights of the creative mind. He prefers intellectual showmen or barkers who do not tax his brain or imagination too heavily.”
Many like thinking only if others do it. They will absorb themselves in television quiz and panel shows to listen to others think, but shun such mental exercise themselves. They would like to have knowledge, to know all the answers, but not enough to work for it; just as they would like to have a strong physique, but not enough to do the exercise necessary to get it.
Youth, following in the adult footsteps, has the same aversion to solitude and meditation. Psychologist Robert Lindner says that one main source of youth’s troubles today lies in “the abandonment of that solitude which was at once the trademark of adolescence and the source of its deepest despairs as of its dubious ecstasies. And frequently this solitude was creative. From it sometimes came the dreams, the hopes and the soaring aims that charged life henceforward with meaning and contributed to giving us our poets, artists, scientists . . . But youth today has abandoned solitude in favor of pack-running, of predatory assembly, of great collectivities that bury, if they do not destroy, individuality. Into these mindless associations the young flock like cattle. The fee they pay for initiation is abandonment of self and immersion in the herd . . . This innovation can yield no social gain. For it is in solitude that the works of hand, heart and mind are always conceived. In the crowd, herd or gang, it is a mass mind that operates—a mind without subtlety, without compassion, uncivilized.”
The necessity of solitude and the difficulty of getting it are discussed by Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Gift from the Sea: “We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends, and movies should fail, there is still the radio or television to fill up the void. Women, who used to complain of loneliness, need never be alone any more. We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side. Even daydreaming was more creative than this; it demanded something of oneself and it fed the inner life. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone. . . .
“The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone. How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice! Actually these are among the most important times in one’s life—when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray.”
It is the refreshing spiritual springs that are tapped by true Christians when they meditate in solitude on Jehovah’s Word, and when they come together in meetings each one has more to contribute to the discussion, and when they go preaching in the homes of the people they have thoughts substantial enough to withstand opposing error, overturn it, bring wayward thinking into harmony with Jehovah’s Word. Jesus sought both solitude and people, one as a time to take in and the other as a time to give out. And he is “a model for you to follow his steps closely.”—1 Pet. 2:21; 2 Cor. 10:3-5; Luke 4:42; 5:16, NW.
For more info on the Bible's teachings or if you would like a free home bible study-
go to the official site of Jehovah's Witnesses at www.jw.org
You can read the Bible online, even download publications on many interesting topic in PDF format.
There's also a link in the sidebar on my blog.
When reading the article, note the comments that were made in 1956 regarding foreseeable changes in society due to the influence of television- and compare them to what we observe now in 2011. Less time with TVland's fantasy world is more time in our reality, it takes vigilance though because a walk through suburbia at dusk reveals most living rooms glowing and flickering with commercially-inspired TV programming. Just think, not too long ago, people used to spend that time communicating, reading, and yes- even sitting quietly and thinking. Now on a regular basis their brains are filled with all manner of sordid violence and troubles- and people do have a choice in the matter.
Inter-generational changes can be substantial, yet largely dismissed. One hundred years ago it was the one who didn't attend a church who was viewed as strange, possibly deviant. Today, quite the opposite. Instead of working for knowledge, as the article mentions,
people "like thinking only if others do it. They will absorb themselves in television quiz and panel shows to listen to others think, but shun such mental exercise themselves. They would like to have knowledge, to know all the answers, but not enough to work for it; just as they would like to have a strong physique, but not enough to do the exercise necessary to get it."
I thought this was a particularly valuable point in the dumbing-down of the mind that appears to be a progressive cultural trend throughout my lifetime- certainly one I don't wish to follow.
Personally, I am very thankful for the information published in the Awake and Watchtower magazines. Did you know that they are the most widely distributed magazines in the world?
Available in almost 200 languages (yes, 200) and with a combined printing of over 82,000,000 copies- as of this April's edition. A truly worldwide educational effort.
Have you ever heard the saying that "nothing is free?"
It's a popular saying- but it is wrong.
The truth is free- and available,
for those who are willing to accept it.
The following is the excerpt I discovered in my personal research:
AWAKE magazine -November 1, 1956
"The Need for Solitude"
Jehovah commands us to meditate; and to meditate we need solitude. We are to meditate on Jehovah’s Word, not just for mental exercise or personal enrichment of thought or to philosophize, but to be better able then to go preach it to others. Serious meditation, not daydreaming, is hard work. The mind is like a balky mule; it takes a few licks and kicks to get it moving. And it takes solitude so that outside interferences will be cut to as near nothing as possible.
Writing in the December 1, 1954, Christian Century, Simeon Stylites said: “In so many ways we, as a people, have declared war on solitude and meditation. We are lost without a ‘set’ or a ‘bunch.’ The worst possible calamity is to be alone. If you enjoy anything alone, you are ‘antisocial’ and ought to be rushed to the psychoanalyst’s couch, or better still to the mental hospital.”
And in the January 11, 1956, issue of this journal this writer said: “At last it is here—portable TV! Let’s all stand up and sing the doxology. For this is the climax of a long line of inventions and appliances designed to prevent a person from ever being reduced to the necessity of meeting himself. It will save us—along with that other instrument of deliverance from the horrors of solitude, the portable radio—from what many up-to-date moderns regard as the worst fate possible: to be left alone without any gadget to protect them from the necessity of rubbing two thoughts together.”
Neither this world nor its god Satan wants people to think for themselves. Satan’s propaganda floods out through worldly channels to mold all minds into a conformity with his system of things. On page 66 of The Age of Conformity Alan Valentine says: “Americans spend so much time in sodden absorption in radio, television and press that little is left for other communication or recreation. Inner resources for self-entertainment are atrophying from lack of use, and personal thought is being made unnecessary by the acceptance of predigested opinion from favorite commentators.” And on page 113 he adds: “The average American has not warmly accepted the highest flights of the creative mind. He prefers intellectual showmen or barkers who do not tax his brain or imagination too heavily.”
Many like thinking only if others do it. They will absorb themselves in television quiz and panel shows to listen to others think, but shun such mental exercise themselves. They would like to have knowledge, to know all the answers, but not enough to work for it; just as they would like to have a strong physique, but not enough to do the exercise necessary to get it.
Youth, following in the adult footsteps, has the same aversion to solitude and meditation. Psychologist Robert Lindner says that one main source of youth’s troubles today lies in “the abandonment of that solitude which was at once the trademark of adolescence and the source of its deepest despairs as of its dubious ecstasies. And frequently this solitude was creative. From it sometimes came the dreams, the hopes and the soaring aims that charged life henceforward with meaning and contributed to giving us our poets, artists, scientists . . . But youth today has abandoned solitude in favor of pack-running, of predatory assembly, of great collectivities that bury, if they do not destroy, individuality. Into these mindless associations the young flock like cattle. The fee they pay for initiation is abandonment of self and immersion in the herd . . . This innovation can yield no social gain. For it is in solitude that the works of hand, heart and mind are always conceived. In the crowd, herd or gang, it is a mass mind that operates—a mind without subtlety, without compassion, uncivilized.”
The necessity of solitude and the difficulty of getting it are discussed by Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Gift from the Sea: “We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends, and movies should fail, there is still the radio or television to fill up the void. Women, who used to complain of loneliness, need never be alone any more. We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side. Even daydreaming was more creative than this; it demanded something of oneself and it fed the inner life. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone. . . .
“The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone. How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice! Actually these are among the most important times in one’s life—when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray.”
It is the refreshing spiritual springs that are tapped by true Christians when they meditate in solitude on Jehovah’s Word, and when they come together in meetings each one has more to contribute to the discussion, and when they go preaching in the homes of the people they have thoughts substantial enough to withstand opposing error, overturn it, bring wayward thinking into harmony with Jehovah’s Word. Jesus sought both solitude and people, one as a time to take in and the other as a time to give out. And he is “a model for you to follow his steps closely.”—1 Pet. 2:21; 2 Cor. 10:3-5; Luke 4:42; 5:16, NW.
For more info on the Bible's teachings or if you would like a free home bible study-
go to the official site of Jehovah's Witnesses at www.jw.org
You can read the Bible online, even download publications on many interesting topic in PDF format.
There's also a link in the sidebar on my blog.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
"I'm Not Buying" poem by Douglas Keil (dkeil)
"I'm Not Buying"
-Douglas Keil
Billboard babes and pinstripe suits
Flattering words telling me what to do.
You’re owned and your words are cloned-
A paycheck doesn’t mean the words are true!
A catch all with a quick swipe;
pick up lines and a bunch of hype;
not the drop-by friends that I tend to find.
Hardly a coffee klatch or even good times.
I don’t think they’ll want to stay awhile.
Hit and run, they’re under the gun
a short time to stack up a big pile
Business is not your friend,
Not someone on whom you can depend.
A real friend’s love is true-
The bottom line doesn’t play pretend.
Pretty girls with pretty smiles,
Pretty boys running away
with self-centered lifestyles;
dead babies piling up for fast times,
trading playtime for lifetimes,
Bloodguilt is heavy in the land,
At night in sorrow women moan,
girls as mothers working two jobs alone,
so many broken homes and boys without dads,
sick and twisted diseases
that no one needs to have.
What happened to marriages and baby carriages?
Allure, it’s sure, buries an easy cure-
But happiness can’t be had with a new ‘do-
and people look so sad.
Corporate dash. College degrees and Ph-Ds
Big debt, new cars, new house, but no J-O-Bs.
JP Chase is fishing for a bite,
credit perks that are outta sight!
Comcast is catching someone’s living room view,
Streaming gleaming entertaining thrills for you
the City never sleeps ‘cause it’s up all night
Printing new things for my shredder to chew.
It’s just another case of “I did it my way,”
I think I saw this movie before.
I think I read the history about that war.
I heard the stories about kings who hated the poor
people who just wanted to live.
There’s been enough attempts to rule us all.
Y’all failed- we don’t need any more!
Limelight burns along with tropical honeymoons,
How many are needed; when will we learn? No one’s immune!
For me- a simple life doing good will do;
minding spiritual things will carry me through.
I don’t want to be one singing the blues
when along comes the day-
a day coming soon; “Hey fella, your payment’s due!”
The ransom’s high, but I found a way…
It’s a double header on a famous Friday
flashing lights and the lot is full,
bad dreams for sale,
but I’m not buying.
© 2011 Douglas Keil
-Douglas Keil
Billboard babes and pinstripe suits
Flattering words telling me what to do.
You’re owned and your words are cloned-
A paycheck doesn’t mean the words are true!
A catch all with a quick swipe;
pick up lines and a bunch of hype;
not the drop-by friends that I tend to find.
Hardly a coffee klatch or even good times.
I don’t think they’ll want to stay awhile.
Hit and run, they’re under the gun
a short time to stack up a big pile
Business is not your friend,
Not someone on whom you can depend.
A real friend’s love is true-
The bottom line doesn’t play pretend.
Pretty girls with pretty smiles,
Pretty boys running away
with self-centered lifestyles;
dead babies piling up for fast times,
trading playtime for lifetimes,
Bloodguilt is heavy in the land,
At night in sorrow women moan,
girls as mothers working two jobs alone,
so many broken homes and boys without dads,
sick and twisted diseases
that no one needs to have.
What happened to marriages and baby carriages?
Allure, it’s sure, buries an easy cure-
But happiness can’t be had with a new ‘do-
and people look so sad.
Corporate dash. College degrees and Ph-Ds
Big debt, new cars, new house, but no J-O-Bs.
JP Chase is fishing for a bite,
credit perks that are outta sight!
Comcast is catching someone’s living room view,
Streaming gleaming entertaining thrills for you
the City never sleeps ‘cause it’s up all night
Printing new things for my shredder to chew.
It’s just another case of “I did it my way,”
I think I saw this movie before.
I think I read the history about that war.
I heard the stories about kings who hated the poor
people who just wanted to live.
There’s been enough attempts to rule us all.
Y’all failed- we don’t need any more!
Limelight burns along with tropical honeymoons,
How many are needed; when will we learn? No one’s immune!
For me- a simple life doing good will do;
minding spiritual things will carry me through.
I don’t want to be one singing the blues
when along comes the day-
a day coming soon; “Hey fella, your payment’s due!”
The ransom’s high, but I found a way…
It’s a double header on a famous Friday
flashing lights and the lot is full,
bad dreams for sale,
but I’m not buying.
© 2011 Douglas Keil
Where Have The Good Men Gone? (excerpted from the Wall Street Journal)
Where Have The Good Men Gone?
Kay S. Hymowitz argues that too many men in their 20s are living in a new kind of extended adolescence.
By KAY S. HYMOWITZ
![[Review cover]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/RV-AB753_Review_G_20110218215802.jpg)
Erin Patrice O'Brien for The Wall Street Journal Most Popular Video - Now Via Email
For most of us, the cultural habitat of pre-adulthood no longer seems noteworthy. After all, popular culture has been crowded with pre-adults for almost two decades. Hollywood started the affair in the early 1990s with movies like "Singles," "Reality Bites," "Single White Female" and "Swingers." Television soon deepened the relationship, giving us the agreeable company of Monica, Joey, Rachel and Ross; Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer; Carrie, Miranda, et al.
But for all its familiarity, pre-adulthood represents a momentous sociological development. It's no exaggeration to say that having large numbers of single young men and women living independently, while also having enough disposable income to avoid ever messing up their kitchens, is something entirely new in human experience. Yes, at other points in Western history young people have waited well into their 20s to marry, and yes, office girls and bachelor lawyers have been working and finding amusement in cities for more than a century. But their numbers and their money supply were always relatively small. Today's pre-adults are a different matter. They are a major demographic event.
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WHY GROW UP? Men in their 20s now have an array of toys and distractions at their disposal, from videogames and sports bars to 'lad' magazines like Maxim, which makes Playboy look like Camus. Still, for these women, one key question won't go away: Where have the good men gone? Their male peers often come across as aging frat boys, maladroit geeks or grubby slackers—a gender gap neatly crystallized by the director Judd Apatow in his hit 2007 movie "Knocked Up." The story's hero is 23-year-old Ben Stone (Seth Rogen), who has a drunken fling with Allison Scott (Katherine Heigl) and gets her pregnant. Ben lives in a Los Angeles crash pad with a group of grubby friends who spend their days playing videogames, smoking pot and unsuccessfully planning to launch a porn website. Allison, by contrast, is on her way up as a television reporter and lives in a neatly kept apartment with what appear to be clean sheets and towels. Once she decides to have the baby, she figures out what needs to be done and does it. Ben can only stumble his way toward being a responsible grownup.
Pre-adulthood can be compared to adolescence, an idea invented in the mid-20th century as American teenagers were herded away from the fields and the workplace and into that new institution, the high school. For a long time, the poor and recent immigrants were not part of adolescent life; they went straight to work, since their families couldn't afford the lost labor and income. But the country had grown rich enough to carve out space and time to create a more highly educated citizenry and work force. Teenagers quickly became a marketing and cultural phenomenon. They also earned their own psychological profile. One of the most influential of the psychologists of adolescence was Erik Erikson, who described the stage as a "moratorium," a limbo between childhood and adulthood characterized by role confusion, emotional turmoil and identity conflict.
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Marty (Ernest Borgnine) is 34 and single, to the chagrin of his mom— and himself. He finally finds love, even if his friends call her a "dog."Like adolescents in the 20th century, today's pre-adults have been wait-listed for adulthood. Marketers and culture creators help to promote pre-adulthood as a lifestyle. And like adolescence, pre-adulthood is a class-based social phenomenon, reserved for the relatively well-to-do. Those who don't get a four-year college degree are not in a position to compete for the more satisfying jobs of the knowledge economy.
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Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and his friend Billy set off on a motorcycle trip across America. Encounters with hippies, drugs and jail ensue.But pre-adults differ in one major respect from adolescents. They write their own biographies, and they do it from scratch. Sociologists use the term "life script" to describe a particular society's ordering of life's large events and stages. Though such scripts vary across cultures, the archetypal plot is deeply rooted in our biological nature. The invention of adolescence did not change the large Roman numerals of the American script. Adults continued to be those who took over the primary tasks of the economy and culture. For women, the central task usually involved the day-to-day rearing of the next generation; for men, it involved protecting and providing for their wives and children. If you followed the script, you became an adult, a temporary custodian of the social order until your own old age and demise.
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Tony Manero (John Travolta) has an unfulfilling job at a hardware store. He really lives for weekend nights ("Watch the hair!") at the disco.Unlike adolescents, however, pre-adults don't know what is supposed to come next. For them, marriage and parenthood come in many forms, or can be skipped altogether. In 1970, just 16% of Americans ages 25 to 29 had never been married; today that's true of an astonishing 55% of the age group. In the U.S., the mean age at first marriage has been climbing toward 30 (a point past which it has already gone in much of Europe). It is no wonder that so many young Americans suffer through a "quarter-life crisis," a period of depression and worry over their future.
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Ambitious stockbroker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) just wants to get to the top. His new riches nab him such nifty gadgets as a sushi maker.Given the rigors of contemporary career-building, pre-adults who do marry and start families do so later than ever before in human history. Husbands, wives and children are a drag on the footloose life required for the early career track and identity search. Pre-adulthood has also confounded the primordial search for a mate. It has delayed a stable sense of identity, dramatically expanded the pool of possible spouses, mystified courtship routines and helped to throw into doubt the very meaning of marriage. In 1970, to cite just one of many numbers proving the point, nearly seven in 10 25-year-olds were married; by 2000, only one-third had reached that milestone.
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After a drunken affair makes the immature Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) a father-to-be, he makes a go, slowly, of becoming a grownup.
American men have been struggling with finding an acceptable adult identity since at least the mid-19th century. We often hear about the miseries of women confined to the domestic sphere once men began to work in offices and factories away from home. But it seems that men didn't much like the arrangement either. They balked at the stuffy propriety of the bourgeois parlor, as they did later at the banal activities of the suburban living room. They turned to hobbies and adventures, like hunting and fishing. At midcentury, fathers who at first had refused to put down the money to buy those newfangled televisions changed their minds when the networks began broadcasting boxing matches and baseball games. The arrival of Playboy in the 1950s seemed like the ultimate protest against male domestication; think of the refusal implied by the magazine's title alone.
American men have been struggling with finding an acceptable adult identity since at least the mid-19th century. We often hear about the miseries of women confined to the domestic sphere once men began to work in offices and factories away from home. But it seems that men didn't much like the arrangement either. They balked at the stuffy propriety of the bourgeois parlor, as they did later at the banal activities of the suburban living room. They turned to hobbies and adventures, like hunting and fishing. At midcentury, fathers who at first had refused to put down the money to buy those newfangled televisions changed their minds when the networks began broadcasting boxing matches and baseball games. The arrival of Playboy in the 1950s seemed like the ultimate protest against male domestication; think of the refusal implied by the magazine's title alone.
At the same time, young men were tuning in to cable channels like Comedy Central, the Cartoon Network and Spike, whose shows reflected the adolescent male preferences of its targeted male audiences. They watched movies with overgrown boy actors like Steve Carell, Luke and Owen Wilson, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Will Farrell and Seth Rogen, cheering their awesome car crashes, fart jokes, breast and crotch shots, beer pong competitions and other frat-boy pranks. Americans had always struck foreigners as youthful, even childlike, in their energy and optimism. But this was too much.
What explains this puerile shallowness? I see it as an expression of our cultural uncertainty about the social role of men. It's been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. The goal was to prove their competence as protectors and providers. Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing.
Today's pre-adult male is like an actor in a drama in which he only knows what he shouldn't say. He has to compete in a fierce job market, but he can't act too bossy or self-confident. He should be sensitive but not paternalistic, smart but not cocky. To deepen his predicament, because he is single, his advisers and confidants are generally undomesticated guys just like him.
Single men have never been civilization's most responsible actors; they continue to be more troubled and less successful than men who deliberately choose to become husbands and fathers. So we can be disgusted if some of them continue to live in rooms decorated with "Star Wars" posters and crushed beer cans and to treat women like disposable estrogen toys, but we shouldn't be surprised.
Relatively affluent, free of family responsibilities, and entertained by an array of media devoted to his every pleasure, the single young man can live in pig heaven—and often does. Women put up with him for a while, but then in fear and disgust either give up on any idea of a husband and kids or just go to a sperm bank and get the DNA without the troublesome man. But these rational choices on the part of women only serve to legitimize men's attachment to the sand box. Why should they grow up? No one needs them anyway. There's nothing they have to do.
They might as well just have another beer.
—Adapted from "Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys" by Kay S. Hymowitz, to be published by Basic Books on March 1. Copyright © by Kay S. Hymowitz. Printed by arrangement with Basic Books.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Musical adventures- favorite videos of late
OkGo "End Love"
This amazing stop motion music video just plain makes me happy.
I absolutely love the super slo-mo work, the goose guest, and the spinning ending in the park.
Talk about artistic cooperation. A musical art take on the huge extras sets of the 60's.Did I mention that they must have a love of color like yours truly?
Excellent production and editing work. A masterpiece!
Hollerado "Americana"
is another example of stop-motion at its finest. Reminds me of the days when a boyhood friend, Dan Wilckens, and I would be in his basement with his family's VHS camcorder doing stop motion filming. He was a genius. At the time, I knew stop motion had real application beyond Wallace and Grommit- well here it is!
If you are further interested in the "how-in-the-world-did-they-do-that," just search the video in YouTube and select the video on "the making of Hollerado Americana."
I highly recommend the filming insight.
If you are further interested in the "how-in-the-world-did-they-do-that," just search the video in YouTube and select the video on "the making of Hollerado Americana."
I highly recommend the filming insight.
This is not the official video for Guster'"Satellite"
- somehow I wasn't able to upload that one.
Nevertheless, it is a pretty creative use of their music. A playful use of color, popart, retro vibes, and a healthy dash of cheesiness. Definitely a favorite song of mine though..
La Roux's "I'm Not Your Toy"
I love the song more than the video, though I can certainly appreciate
the scathing take on the phoniness of the jet-set and wealthy lifestyle of business barons.
Martinis, pools, dapper duds, and the shameless pursuit of young and beautiful people for immoral and unprincipled exploitation is cooly presented here by La Roux as the disgusting foolishness it is.
What at first may seem to be a personal indulgence in the MTV "video success formula"
slowly develops into a clever satire. People are not toys, love people, not stuff.
The Go Team! "Milk Crisis"
I don't know what is about this band...I love their instrumental work.
I'm not much a fan of their vocalwork, but here is my favorite-
A staticy overdubbed, live instrument work with a bunch of funky double-dutch, cheerleaderish-calls playing over a pretty sweet retro-modern rock groove.Reminds me of some music I liked as a little kid in the Bronx, watching out of the window of my friend Maureen's apartment as streetkids played in the spray of a fire hydrant below. A blistering hot July summer day; there was some funky, uptempo optimistic youthful music playing behind the sounds of children's laughter. To this day, I don't know what it was, but this song and some of Stevie Wonder's stuff strikes the chord well.
Breakbot "Baby I'm Yours"
Ok- the artist in me kinda goes crazy with this composition.
How in the world someone had the patience to paint all 5,000(or whatever) number of watercolor plates it took to produce this video is absolutely beyond me. I'm blown away. A nice pictoral development of the theme- I could do without the creepy snake scene, but there's always something a little off in the entertainment world. I admire the craftsmanship, but try to keep a safe distance from the snares set along the trail.
I do absolutely love the style of this visual work, and a sweet groove of a song to boot!!
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