Katrina: A Year in Photos

Yahoo has some really impressive photos of last year's disaster here.


Are you ready for the next storm or other disaster? I have a "go bag," but not enough water, food and baby stuff. I really need to see about that.

Technorati tags: katrina | hurricane | disaster

Ailing Ortiz in thoughts of teammates

From MLB.com:

OAKLAND -- Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital on Tuesday evening for tests to determine why he has experienced palpitations multiple times over a 10-day span. The big slugger remained in the thoughts of his teammates.

"You just hope that everything is OK," said Red Sox second baseman Mark Loretta. "Baseball kind of takes a back seat when you're talking about things of this nature. Obviously, we want him and need him, but we know that it's much bigger than baseball. They're going to do some tests and hopefully that will rule anything and put his mind at ease. Maybe it's fatigue or stress or a combination of the two."

Ortiz experienced stress, dehydration, lack of sleep and a rapid heartbeat on Aug. 18 and checked into Massachusetts General Hospital for observation the next day, where he was kept overnight and released with a clean bill of health.

He actually played (and played hard) in the Yankees series while experiencing this. Contrast that with Manny who took himself out of one of the games when he (supposedly) tweaked his knee.

Read more...

Technorati tags: Red Sox | David Ortiz | Baseball

Colorado not to charge Karr in JonBenet case

Colorado not to charge Karr in JonBenet case - Yahoo! News: BOULDER, Colo. (Reuters) - Colorado prosecutors said on Monday they would not charge schoolteacher John Mark Karr with the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey because tests showed his DNA did not match DNA found in her underwear.

Was anyone surprised by what went down yesterday? Not me. The sad part is, Karr got a free trip back to America and he's probably REALLY happy to have escaped whatever justice was waiting for him back in Thailand. He'll gladly face some child porn charges in California.

Back on the streets, teaching in your neighborhood in a couple of years.


Technorati tags: JonBenet Ramsey | John Mark Karr | pedophile

Survivor & Race: Panama: Exile Island

Last in my series of observations about racial elements in Survivor.

Panama: Exile Island: Bobby, an attorney, was on the "young male" team. Cirie, a nurse, was on the "older women" team. Cirie was grossly overweight and had no outdoors skills, but she managed to survive being voted out in episode one while a much fitter woman was ousted. In episode 2 the four teams were consolidated into two and Cirie chose Bobby to be on the Casaya team. In episode 4 Bobby was described by Danielle, a white female teammate, as “not being a gentleman” because he wanted to use the bathroom won in an immunity challenge as a bathroom (God forbid) instead of as a storage shed for wood. She later also accused him of not helping in the camp when others were complaining about her not helping out.

In episode 5 Bobby won the food challenge for the team, but when the team lost the immunity challenge, Danielle engineered for Bobby to be voted off. She described him as “selfish” for sleeping in the outhouse and sharing a bottle of wine with Bruce, the Japanese man. Strangely, Bruce, equally culpable, was never penalized for that indiscretion. Bruce made it to the final six, but exited the game because of a medical emergency. Cirie, initially considered "lazy" because of her lack of outdoors skils, made it to the final four, but lost a tie-breaking fire building challenge.

That's pretty much the run down of race and Survivor. There's at least one Survivor season I didn't see, so I'll add that if it comes on OLN.

Technorati tags: Survivor | Diversity | Race | Reality Shows

Survivor & Race: Pearl Islands, All Stars, Guatemala

Continuing with my observations.

Pearl Islands: Osten and Tijuana were on the Morgan tribe. Sandra, a Puerto Rican, was on the Drake tribe. Tijuana was described as "over-excited by things" by Nicole, a white female teammate 10 minutes into episode 1. Nicole was voted out that same episode. The Drake tribe started out really well because Sandra, the only one who spoke Spanish, was able to work out good deals for supplies. That was the only time in the series that Sandra stuck her neck out.

Osten, who had traded all but his drawers for supplies, talked of quitting early in episode 2. Tijuana talked him out of temporarily, but when the team lost their second immunity challenge, he asked the tribe to vote him out. The tribe's leader, Andrew, told him they needed his “physical strength.” Despite Osten's wishes, he wasn't voted out -- a frail white teammate was voted out instead.

In episode three, Osten was chosen as the physically strongest member and had to hold a teammate suspended over water for two hours. He failed to beat Rupert, but still didn't get voted out. Osten finally exited the game in episode 7 after once again asking to be voted out. No vote was actually done -- Jeff, the show's host, simply extinguished his torch. Then Jeff made a big deal out of this and kept calling the guy a quitter like he owed him or something.

Tijuana was later blindsided by the scheming Johnny “Fairplay” and was the 10th person voted out. She was one of the few black women not to be considered "strong," but like Linda from Survivor: Africa, there was an early attempt to paint her as crazy or high-strung.

Sandra, the latina, won the game by never being seen as a threat.

Survivor All Stars: Alicia from Survivor: Outback was the twelfth person voted off and the third member of the jury. She was not targeted, but she was described as “having a big mouth” by Boston Rob, the good friend of Sean from Survivor: Marquesas.

Guatemala: No black contestants, so I didn't watch it. CBS has probably realized that other people of color do the same thing when it comes to these reality shows. So if white viewership is down, there needs to be some way to boost the numbers. Hence, they've increased the number of contestants to 20 for Survivor: Cook Islands and only five of them are white.

I ain't done yet, there's one more post on this topic.

Technorati tags: Survivor | Diversity | Race | Reality Shows

Survivor & Race: Thailand and Amazon

More observations about race in Survivor:

Thailand: Ghandia and Ted began the game on the same team. They started bonding, but by episode three she accused him of “becoming sexual” with her at night and revealed that she’d been raped in college. She tried to forge an alliance of the women based on painting Ted as a sexual predator. It didn’t work and she was voted off in episode four.

Interestingly, Shi-an, the Taiwanese girl on the opposite team, admitted to the camera in episode five that she was shocked at how “culturally different” she felt from her white teammates and said she “stuck out like a sore thumb.” She was considered a know-it-all by her team. Her white teammate Robb was repulsed by the fact that she ate chicken livers and gizzards. She was branded a traitor and voted off when there was a false merge and she complained to Ted’s team about being cut out on her own team because of race.

Ted made it to the final five before being labeled "not a team player" and voted out.

Amazon: This was the first Survivor game with no black male. The black female, Joanna, objected to having the immunity idol near her in the camp because she felt it was “sacrilegious.” She got into it with the deaf girl, Christy, in episode two because of her religious beliefs.

Joanna was praised for her "physical strength" at the tribal council in episode two by a teammate who was desperate not to get voted off. In episode four Joanna was described by Deena, an openly gay feminist, as being “the most physical” with “too much power, too much force” and a “fierce competitor.” Joanna was voted out that episode.

Daniel, a Chinese male, was accused of “not being friendly” in episode one, but he became friends in episode two with Matthew, a white teammate who spoke fluent Mandarin. Daniel was betrayed by Matthew and voted out in episode three.

In the above examples and the ones from yesterday you can see the emerging pattern with regards to the black contestants. The black men are "lazy workhorses" and the black women are "strong-willed." There's also a pattern with the Asian contestants -- they're considered "not friendly."

To be honest, Ghandia and Ted really bothered me, as did the ultra-religious Joanna. Regarding the latter, it was very interesting that Deena, the lesbian, basically axed Joanna for not being feminine. Ain't that some shit?

I almost felt sorry for Shi-an, but I think she learned a very important lesson about how others perceive her. It was funny, she was quite lazy, but that's not the problem her team had with her. They clearly thought that she thought she was smarter than them, so she got bounced because of an Asian stereotype that generally is considered positive.

More to come...

Technorati tags: Survivor | Diversity | Race | Reality Shows

Survivor & Race: Borneo, Outback, Africa, Marquesas

As promised, here's part one of my observations about the racial things that have gone on in Survivor.

Borneo: Gervase and Ramona began the game on the same team. Ramona was voted off early, but Gervase made it to the merging of the tribes. Gervase was called “lazy,” Ramona was called “stand-offish.”

Outback: Nick and Alicia began the game on the same team. Both made it to merge, but female was voted off first. Nick, a Harvard law student, was called "lazy," Alicia was called “too strong.”

Africa: Clarence and Linda began the game on different teams. Clarence was called "selfish," Linda was called a “wild woman.” Clarence made the major faux pas of sharing a can of beans with a white female in episode one without clearing it with the entire team, but he was kept because he had “a strong back,” as one white male contestant put it. Linda was voted off early, but Clarence made it to merge before being booted.

Marquesas: Sean and Vecepia began the game on the same team. Sean was called "lazy" and accused behind his back of “not carrying his weight” as early as episode two. Sean was praised for his physical strength, though he was actually one of the shortest men in the game.

Both Sean and Vecepia made it to the merge. Vecepia distanced herself from Sean when he became unpopular. Sean was the first black to openly talk about race in the series. Sean also was the first black to win a shared reward challenge post merger. He made it to the final five. Vecepia made it to the final two -- and won the game. Distancing herself from Sean when he began to talk about race made it possible for her to fly under the radar.

There's a definite pattern to how the non-white contestants were described by the white contestants in the shows.

More to come...

Technorati tags: Survivor | Diversity | Race | Reality Shows

Survivor Gets Racial

MSNBC was buzzing today with the news that the upcoming season of Survivor: Cook Islands will divide the 16 contestants by race. The game will start with four teams: Blacks, Whites, Hispanics and Asians. All day long there’s been a parade of minorities on the screen. There were two Asian women, a Dominican guy, two black guys, etc., all saying how terrible this is and it’ll set race relations back 50 years and Rosa Parks is turning in her grave and on and on.

How come no one ever asks me?? I think this is great. I will definitely watch the show.

I found the discussion amusing for a few reasons:

• Survivor has been segregating the contestants for years. If memory serves me, starting with Survivor: Amazon, the teams were split along gender lines. In the most recent season, Survivor: Exile Island, the initial division was Old Men, Young Men, Old Women and Young Women. Dividing the contestants by race was the next logical step. I think they should go for broke and have Homosexuals vs. Straight People in Survivor 14. I would watch that too.
  


• Survivor (and The Apprentice, Treasure Hunters, Amazing Race, etc.) are always racial and people are acting like they never noticed. When you have a show in which there are 14 white people and two black people, and people start forming strategic alliances, the black people are fucked*. I saw the reverse happen on that Sean Combs reality show with the aspiring rappers. The white contestants were marginalized so fast, they were in tears, literally.

I’ve been tracking the racial aspect of Survivor for a while now. I had watched a bit of the first season when it debuted, but I never watched the subsequent seasons. I became involved in an online Survivor game last year and I needed reference material because I’d forgotten what the show was all about. I began watching reruns of the earlier seasons on the OLN network and the racial shit was so in-your-face, I started documenting it so that I could blog about it. I took notes, which I will share.

Now, I said I'll watch Survivor: Race Baiters, but I'm cynical. Is there going to be something racial about the challenges as well? The producers always pick black folks who can't swim! I guess that shit is funny to them, watching the black folks coughing up seawater. Fuck that. Contrary to popular belief, there are black people who can swim. Will the entire black team drown??

Here's another scenario: If the producers of the show are smartasses (No! Couldn't happen) they'll pick quartets that have natural intra-racial or intra-ethnic issues. For example, let's take the Hispanic group. Let's say they consist of a Mexican, a Puerto-Rican, a Dominican and a Caucasian Cuban. These people might not have shit in common.

More later...


*Yes, I do know that a brother managed to win The Apprentice last season and a sister did actually win one season of Survivor. I’ll talk about how she managed to do that in the next post. As for the brother on The Apprentice, I stopped watching, so I can’t comment on him in particular, but I can comment about Kwame from season one.

Technorati tags: Survivor | Diversity | Race | Reality Shows

Being Bin Laden

Hey, it looks like Bobby has some competition for Whitney from an unlikely source -- Osama Bin Laden. African author Kola Boof, who claims to have been held against her will as Osama Bin Laden’s "mistress" (she objects to the term "sex slave") says that Bin Laden is a big Whitney Houston fan:

"He said that he had a paramount desire for Whitney Houston, and although he claimed music was evil, he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting with the superstar. It didn't seem impossible to me. He said he wanted to give Whitney Houston a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives. I tried to hide my outrage at his racist remarks, but it would come to pass that for the entire time that I would be trapped in his palm, Whitney Houston's was the one name that would be mentioned constantly. How beautiful she is, what a nice smile she has, how truly Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and her husband—Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed, as if it were normal to have women's husbands killed."

Oh my!

Read more...

Technorati tags: Osama Bin Laden | Whitney Houston | Bobby Brown | Kola Boof

LLWS notes: Staten Island team reprimanded for on-air obscenities

From USA Today:

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) — Staten Island manager Nick Doscher and one of his players were reprimanded by Little League World Series organizers Monday following an incident during the New York team's 1-0 loss to Lemont, Ill., in which the player yelled an obscenity and Doscher responded by striking him.

Staten Island, trailing by a run, had just turned a double play in the top of the sixth when the unidentified player swore as the players huddled in the dugout before the team's final turn at-bat.

The obscenity was clearly heard on ESPN's prime-time broadcast of the game, just before the network cut to commercial. It appeared that Doscher then struck the player with an open hand.

Dang! I think I TiVoed this! I gotta check it out!

Read more...

"Did the Patriots' season start yet?"

SWEET!

OMG, I would've been happy with two out of five, but we swept the Red Sox.

I like what this guy from Newsday posted in his blog:

There are things you know you want to say to those obnoxious, annoying Red Sox fans in your office but you're afraid to because you have to work with these people and you fear repercussions down the line. Understandable. I'm here to help. Just print these out and send it via interoffice mail so they can't figure out who it is.

"Ortiz really had an MVP performance this weekend."

"Youkilis hitting behind Manny is the worst protection I've seen since Pagliarulo hit behind Balboni in 1989."

"Hey, Red Sox Nation, you've got a top-notch bullpen up there!"

"Boy that Coco Crisp is one heck of a player. And a much better value than Johnny "10-for-23, 8 RBIs" Damon. Good call."

"I'll have to double-check the box scores, but I'm fairly certain I saw Alex Rodriguez deliver a few key hits in important spots."

"Did the Patriots' season start yet?"

"Dude, Kyle Farnsworth got the save. Kyle Farnsworth! It hurts, doesn't it?"

ROFL!

But God knows, we'll go out west and drop 4 out of 6 to Seattle and the Angels and the Sox will be right back in it.

Read more...

JonBenet suspect heads to U.S. in style

From AP:

ABOARD THAI AIRWAYS TO LOS ANGELES - John Mark Karr, the suspect in the death of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, sipped champagne and ate fried king prawns in business class Sunday after being put aboard a flight to Los Angeles to face charges in the United States.

As Karr wined and dined in style and chatted with the three U.S. officials escorting him, another bombshell emerged: Reports that Karr sought treatment at a Thai sex-change clinic.

This gets crazier all the time. And I still have my doubts that they've got the real killer, but we'll see.

Read more...

Do the Math

I was nervous about this five-game death match the Yanks have with Boston starting this afternoon until I did the math. Since we’re currently up by 1-1/2 games, these are the possible scenarios:

5-0: We leave Boston 6-1/2 games in front. Woo Hoo!
4-1: We leave 4-1/2 games up. Solid.
3-2: We’re 2-1/2 up. Livable.
2-3: We’re a 1/2 game up. Hey, a lead is a lead.
1-4: Oops, we’re 1-1/2 games down. We could reclaim the lead again by Wednesday.
0-5: Holy Shit! 3-1/2 down! But we were down by more than that earlier this summer.

I think the most likely scenario is a 3-2 or 2-3 split. Surely we can win two stinking games up there. The key is taking one of the games of today’s doubleheader.

Book Meme

Taken from the Henchmen's blog:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the text of it and the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag three people

My answer:

It takes a few years for the arch to become permanent. Baby is beginning to use her hands. Her hands are becoming more of a focal point for her. She may open and close them, bring them together, wave them around and move her fingers.

From the "Milestones this 7th week" chapter of Your Baby's First Year, Week by Week.

I'll forego tagging you.

Life on Mars

I’ve found another little TV gem to tide me over until Lost, Battlestar Galactica and Prison Break (new season starts Monday!) return to the tube.

Life on Mars, a fantasy on BBC America is a cop show set in 1973. Only, the main character, Sam Tyler, is really from 2006. While investigating a serial murder case, Sam was hit by a car and when he woke up, he was stuck in 1973, complete with flared-leg pants and wide collared shirts.

Sam believes that in “reality,” he’s in a coma. So he acts funky towards people and doesn’t try that hard to get along because they’re all figments of his imagination, right? However, he’s not completely convinced of that fact. The detail in this dream he’s having is too specific, right down to feeling sand on the hands of the policewoman who convinces him not to fling himself from the top of HQ to prove that everything going on is one big hallucination.

Occasionally Sam gets close to waking up, but either he does something to stay in the dream or something in the “real” world keeps him under and the dream continues on. I haven’t seen all the episodes, but I get the feeling that at some point in the “real” world, one of his loved ones may have to make the decision to pull the plug on him a la Terri Schiavo, since he may be in a persistent vegetative state.

Creepy.

A good show, though I know that I miss all of the in-jokes a Brit would get and I need subtitles to understand what the hell they’re saying. I have to catch up on the episodes I’ve TiVoed.

Take this quiz to see if you’d be able to survive in 1973.

Read more...

Technorati tags: Life on Mars | BBC

New Blog: Sneak Preview!

I spent the weekend porting The Lion’s Domain over to its new site and setting up Wordpress. The site is a work in progress, and it looks pretty good, but the hosting company I’m using absolutely sucks. It takes too damn long to load the blog, even on a T1 line. :(

I have to find a new host and do this all over again.

You can take a peek at the new blog design here.

Abby Cadabby: New Sesame Street Female

Somehow I never noticed back in the day that all of the Sesame Street characters I was watching were male. This is especially funny because I distinctly remember that I liked Ernie because I assumed he was supposed to be a black child. Does this mean that race and ethnicity have always been a greater part of my identity than my gender? Probably.

Anyway, someone must’ve noticed, ‘cause the folks at Sesame Street finally have a female character on the show. Her name is Abby Cadabby. She is pink and lavender-colored, full of sparkles, and she’s a fairy. The creators of the show have made a point of having her be very vulnerable. She can’t fly unless she’s happy, or something.

Is this what girls want? Is this good for them? I wouldn’t have identified with this character at all.

Read more...

Gettysburg

Do you hate PowerPoint? Do you think it makes it easy to present good ideas poorly, and make poor ideas look even shittier? Then you’ll love this example of PowerPoint at its worst. Here’s how the Gettysburg Address would’ve gone down if Lincoln had had to do it with a Microsoft product.

Vital Stats

Orlando’s visit to the pediatrician on Wednesday went well. He’s growing nicely. His latest stats:

Height: 25.5"
Weight: 13 lbs. 13.5 oz.
Head Circumference: 43 cm

I used the Baby Growth Percentile Calculator on babycenter.com and got the following results:

Length = between 75th and 90th percentile
Weight = 50th percentile
Head Circumference = between 75th and 90th percentile

Not bad!

He received four more shots. He howled in pain, but he was fine again in a few minutes. He didn’t get a fever later, thank God. He rolled over three times for the doctor and he giggled while she was examining him, so he’s becoming more and more social. At his next appointment (6th month checkup) he should be sitting up on his own!

Unicorns are Rad

Yes, unicorns are rad. And they’re not just for girls -- guy’s dig ‘em too. I blame my co-worker Nicole for giving me the scoop on a male unicorn enthusiast’s site.

An excerpt:

The story behind this is simple I guess... a "fair" maiden coaxed him to lie in a peaceful glade, then held fast to his head while men and hounds leapt out of ambush and cut the magical horn from his brow. Now, he's PISSED!!! Which makes this picture completely and totally rad.

Which goes to show all the wonderful things you can find on the internet. Did you know that there are directions on how to field dress a unicorn? And there's even a site where you can purchase an action figure unicorn that spears a mime!

ROFL!

Read more...

Technorati tags: Unicorns | Fantasy

Dominican Dandies

Is Yankees announcer John Sterling hitting the sauce? He's been getting increasingly erratic this season. It's a daily ritual for the radio personalities on WFAN to mock him, and they're going to have a field day tomorrow.

Just now in the top of the 6th inning of a game where Randy Johnson is throwing a no-hitter, 2nd baseman Robinson Cano hit a homerun. Sterling shouted with glee, "The Dominican Dandies have done it again!"

I'm like, WTF?

What he was trying to say was Cano and his buddy Melky both hit homers in this game, and isn't that great, but "Dominican Dandies"?

Asshole.

Yo, no-hitter through 6. But Randy won't complete this game.

UPDATE: Yup, I was right. It's the bottom of the 7th, the no-hitter is gone and Randy is getting lit the fuck up. They've scored two runs already and no one's out. Joe had to yank him.

Technorati tags: John Sterling | Dominican Republic | baseball | Yankees | Randy Johnson

How the iPod is Changing Major League Baseball

I'm close to buying a new iPod because I'm tired of my Shuffle. I was doing some research and I came across this:

The iPods are changing the way everything works, even in pro sports. Professional athletes have discovered a new use for the iPod: Using it to study their opponents. The Colorado Rockies are using it to check out batting styles. It’s a clever idea: Keep a portable reference of your rivals and study them, with a hard drive that fits in your pocket.

Who knew? But the Rockies still suck.

Read more...

'Superman Returns' director signs TV deal

From Digital Spy:

Superman Returns director Bryan Singer has secured a massive contract to develop new shows for television channel ABC.

In a deal reported to have reached the seven-figures mark, Singer will work on three new scripts, one of which is assured to be a pilot that he will helm.

Talking about his newfound enthusiasm for medium of television, the director explained to The Hollywood Reporter: "You put something together in a quick time frame and get to create something that could have a long-lasting effect. [Also] television has an organic quality to it. Movies are pretty set. TV shows are open-ended, they can evolve over time."

His previous television experience includes developing sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica and also directed and produced episodes of the hit show House.

Interesting. With the success of Lost, maybe ABC has an appetite for pseudo fantasy fare, but mainstream TV has yet to show me that it’s really willing to give straight-up Sci-Fi and Fantasy a chance to build a fanbase unless it masquerades as a drama (as Lost does). The X-Files would’ve been pulled after half a season if it hadn’t been on Fox. Let’s see what Bryan is able to come up with and develop for the small screen.

Technorati tags: Bryan Singer | Superman Returns

Your Comments

There are a whole bunch of comments that I didn’t get a chance to respond to because of my DSL issues, so here they are.

JamaicanQueen said...

Oh my gosh! He has gotten so big! I can't believe how big he has gotten so fast. And look at that smile! You are gonna have little girls calling your house very early!

Yes, people have been warning me about that. What will I do? How does one handle kid stalkers??

A Army Of (Cl)One said...

So Orlando is at the push up stage. How much is the lil guy rolling around or is he crawling yet?

He can’t crawl yet, but he can roll over from his back to his stomach with great effort. I cheer him on when he does it. It’s so cute. :)

Luke Cage said...

Look at dat lil mannnn!!! What's up little guy? Welcome to the Republic!

I’m thinking of dressing him up as a padawan for Halloween!

Thank the Maker

I’m back!

My DSL modem has been reset (after a 45 minute tech support call to Verizon) and I can post again.

Tears of joy!

Technorati tags: Verizon | DSL | wireless | modem

Verizon is Booty!

I never realized how much I depend on Internet access. If I can't get online I can't shop, pay bills or entertain myself.

The horror!! :(

I have to have a one on one with a Verizon rep tonight to sort out what's up with my line.

Technorati tags: Verizon | DSL | wireless | modem

My DSL is acting funky

My wireless connection is crapping out. Sorry I haven’t posted or responded to comments! :(

Technorati tags: Verizon | DSL | wireless | modem