Jim in Real Life

The most oddly inspiring thing I've seen lately

With the combination of geographical gaffes, FISA surveillance "compromises" and terrorist fist bumps (which my 4-year old son and I have done for two years now, usually accompanied by a joyful "BOOYAKASHA!! Respect!!"), it's easy to feel a bit discouraged, overwhelmed or isolated.

That's where this... idea... comes in. Go to every place in the world you can think of and dance with whoever happens to be around there. No politics, religion, race, ethnicity... just a bunch of people dancing.

Every time I watch this, it brings tears to my eyes as a simple reminder that we are all one on this wet spinning blue marble. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

The music is a piece called "Praan" by Garry Schyman. You can buy it here from Amazon.com in a non-DRM MP3 format.

The haunting lyrics are based on a poem and the spirit of the words definitely makes the piece even more powerful, even if you don't speak Bengali:

From Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore (sung by Palbasha Siddique).

“Stream of Life”

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

------------------

If you like the piece, buy the song. And buy Stride Gum. They sponsored it. See, Virginia? Viral marketing DOES work...

And now for something completely awesome...

An inspiring idea to reduce oil consumption

This is sheer brilliance. Simple, achievable, and above all... DOABLE.

http://www.pickensplan.com/

Pass it on.

The New Yorker joins the sleaze parade

Well, I wouldn't have thought it possible, but the New Yorker magazine has chosen to publish this as its most recent cover. I'm sure they meant it to be "ironical" and all, but the truth is that this simply reinforces lies and innuendo about Barack Obama.

The New Yorker can fuck off. I am a part of the liberal elitist uber-cultured in their core demographic, and I'm fed up and offended. Below is the text of the letter to the editor of the New Yorker that I submitted this morning:

Frankly, I'm appalled that a magazine which I had, until now, considered respectable and a fine source of objective and interesting journalism would stoop so low as to publish a cover like this. When I first saw the cover image, I was sure it was a joke until I came to the Web site and was shocked to find it wasn't.

By publishing an image like this, you are actively perpetuating the lies about Barack Obama in an insidious way. Regardless of the "point" of your choices or who your editors plan to vote for, the New Yorker should be utterly ashamed. While I expect that sort of unethical journalism from Fox News, it was absolutely appalling to discover the New Yorker participating - however slyly - in attempting to demean a candidate through lies and innuendo.

Though it has been several years since I subscribed to your magazine, rest assured it will now likely be many more before I would consider it.

You simply should be ashamed. Very very ashamed.