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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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December 10, 2002
Welcome to More Things
Movie lovers should GO HERE. Music connisseurs should GO HERE. Cool dudes should GO HERE. Comedy fans GO HERE. Check out the groovy private pic of Saddam and Bin Laden further down this page!
posted by Al at 12/10/2002 11:00:00 PM
Best of Al
New visitors to this site may wish to visit one of these best of Al columns:
Mel Gibson and Christians and Christ-killers, oh my! 2-24-04
I was a teenage cult leader 12-25-03
Janet Jackson's Superbowl Titty Massacre 02-01-04
No Treason: Screw a constitution 2-6-04
Cristy Lane tv album = al Qaeda plot 9-1-02
Chuck D is a signifying monkey 7-19-03
Beverly Hills Cop - Eddie Murphy's dangerous seduction 1-15-04
Al reconciles with the Brother Man 12-21-02
Top 10 Voices I Hear in My Head 11-22-02
A message from God on 9-11 9-11-03
McCain-Feingold worse than the dreaded Patriot Act 12-11-03
Strom Thurmond's negro in the woodpile 12-16-03
Mel Gibson takes it easy on the Jews 2-27-04
posted by Al at 12/10/2002 10:33:00 PM
Precious Kodak moments
Through the faded mists of time we reach for an understanding of how people used to think and live. We read books of history, watch documentary reports on the History Channel. Yet true understanding eludes us.
For example, I've recently become aware of the phenomenon of "posture photos." Apparently, it was common practice for 30 or 40 years -as late as the early 1970s- to routinely have freshmen at many of our elite colleges pose for nude clinical photos.
This wasn't the rednecks from out in corn country. Tens of thousands of the nation's blueblooded elite at Vassar and Yale were sent to the gym and told to submit to full frontal nudity, as well as profile shots with metal pins taped up and down the spine to emphasize the angles of their spine curvature. Among those said to have submitted to this photography: Diane Sawyer, George Pataki, Hillary Rodham, Bob Woodward and Meryl Streep.
Hard telling just what the schools were thinking, but some of these photos made their way to WH Sheldon. He was the fellow who came up with the widely known categorization of human body types as ectomorphs, endomorphs and mesomorphs. The controversy surrounding his work constitutes another fascinating story.
What really strikes me about the posture photos, though, is that this system existed at all. Tens of thousands of our best and brightest actually went to the gym and took off their clothes, and let some photographers take nekkid pictures. This boggles my mind. I can't imagine such a thing happening now. Were all students seriously THAT obedient to authority? What could they have been thinking, either the administration or the students?
You could easily enough hire a few hundred students to voluntarily become subjects for a photographic study. That doesn't strike me as even controversial.
Universal mandatory nude photos constitutes a whole other kind of phenomenon. What kind of weird bonding shame was going on amongst the students? Everybody walks around campus knowing that everyone else has likewise been subjected to this little mini-rape? You could think of it as weirdly egalitarian, maybe.
I'm just trying to wrap my mind around some idea what could have been going on in people's heads here. I'm not getting any plausible understanding yet. For now we see through a glass, darkly.
posted by Al at 12/10/2002 10:10:00 PM
Well that's it, looks like the war's off
We were going to go knock out the Hussein regime and their weapons of mass destruction, liberate the Iraqi people, and just generally improve the hygeine of the region thereby.
Looks like we've hit a snag, though. Ethan Hawke and Kim Basinger have come out against it- in writing even! I know Dubya has already paid for a month's rent on the battlefield, but we're going to have to cancel. See, it's not just Kim and Ethan, but Laurence Fishburne and Uma Thurman have joined with them. Still not convinced that we should abandon plans for our national security? Well, then, I've got two words for you: MATT DAMON!!!
posted by Al at 12/10/2002 04:38:00 AM
Making sense of the playa haters
Here's a fascinating academic analysis of America hating in the Western world, from Lee Harris in Policy Review. By the way, in this case I mean "academic" as a compliment. It's scholarly and in depth, but very readable. Indeed, it's must-read material.
He analyzes how the idea has gone from Marx's view that a communist revolution by oppressed masses within a country was inevitable, to how moderns have dealt with the fact that America's poor have gotten wealthier and thus highly unlikely to overthrow the system they benefit from. He traces the intellectual shift from Marx's realistic ideas of workers internally overthrowing a failing system (which just didn't materialize historically) to the utterly ridiculous modern fantasies of third world fanatics destroying a united America.
posted by Al at 12/10/2002 01:59:00 AM
Likud getting that balance just so
Ariel Sharon beat the considerably more hardline Benjamin Netanyahu for the Likud leadership a couple of weeks ago. However, it appears that Netanyahu's associates did perhaps surprisingly well in the Likud primaries for the Knesset.
Likud members seem to be striking a nuanced chord. They left the more moderate Sharon for their top representative, but are backing him up with somewhat more hardline support. If folks don't want to play nice, the pressure will be for Sharon to be tougher rather than more gently.
This will only be further reinforced since the Likud are expected to pick up strength relative to the other parties in the general election. Overall then, this appears to indicate a moderate ratcheting up of Israeli toughness.
posted by Al at 12/10/2002 01:38:00 AM
Yeah, I go for them weird smart chicks
Emily Dickinson was born 172 years ago today, December the 10th of 1830. CLICK HERE for her complete works online. Really, though, it's better to have something like this in a nice tangible book that you can touch and feel.
She was a freaky little recluse who showed very little interest in actually publishing her poetry. Renown was of no interest to her.
I 'M nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there is a pair of us- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Poetry seemed to be not so much a form of communication with the world, but a kind of personal therapy, working out for her own understanding the obsessions of her soul. She was a cloistered spinster.
Death was a big theme in her work, though not in a hysterical or overly emotional way. Death seemed almost a friend. Consider this contemplation on the "thoughtful" kindness of death
SOME, too fragile for winter winds,
The thoughtful grave encloses,
Tenderly tucking them in from frost
Before their feet are cold.
Never the treasures in her nest
The cautious grave exposes,
Building where schoolboy dare not look
And sportsman is not bold.
This covert have all the children
Early aged, and often cold,
Sparrows unnoticed by the Father;
Lambs for whom time had not a fold.
But let us leave our little tribute to Ms. Dickinson with a happy note. She could be quite the little sunshine superman, drunk on the bountious joys of nature, a "debauchee of dew"
I TASTE a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
posted by Al at 12/10/2002 12:40:00 AM
December 09, 2002
Brothers asking for heap big ass whoopin'
David Yeagley, proprieter of BadEagle.com, a self-described "wild, bloodthirsty savage Comanche redskin" (with five degrees), found himself being lectured at and condemned by black folks at Penn State for the offense of not being properly offended by Indian mascots. Then consider the carefully stilted response from the PC white boys at the newspaper. Geez, it's straight out of Bonfire of the Vanities.
All I'm saying is that I'd suggest that the brothers lay off before this hardcore Injun goes into heap big war dance.
posted by Al at 12/09/2002 07:42:00 PM
December 08, 2002
What a cute couple
CLICK HERE for their honeymoon photo.
These toys come from a Connecticut company Hero Builders, which offers a delightful line of heroes and villains. Yes, the pink dress comes from the manufacturer; it's not been hijacked from a Barbie.
Besides offering cool toys, they have generated some even cooler controversy. Apparently the White House isn't very happy with them. Of course they are being denounced by the usual Arab suspects. Apparently, they've gotten enough grief that some employees find it necessary to come to work ARMED, which obviously isn't so cool. How profoundly evil a bunch of people are we dealing with that they might realistically be expected to come kill you for making frickin' toys?
posted by Al at 12/08/2002 11:46:00 PM
Nothing compares to her
Born December 8, 1966, Sinead O'Connor turns 36 today. Happy birthday!
With her debut album in 1987, she made one of the great classic albums in the history of recorded popular music. Every single song on The Lion and the Cobra seems unprecedented. The compositions, the arrangements, the passion and drive all come together to form one whole with a million unique shards of meaning and invention. It's the expressions of an old soul in a 20 year old body using the most modern stylistic devices. It sounds at once totally grounded in ancient tradition and mythology and style, yet unlike anything that's ever come before. Truly this is a visionary achievement. This album will go head to head with any record in the rock music tradition.
Since then her albums have not quite hit that high, merely running from good to excellent, including I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, which had her big hit single "Nothing Compares to U." Some of her best work has not been on her albums, but live recordings, duets, soundtracks and charity work. She has made standards and Irish traditional songs, and some less than obvious covers.
Some people mock her. Screw them. They don't appreciate her controversies, including the famous incident with the pope's picture on SNL. She has certainly had some dysfunction, some issues. I say that she's brave and honest, if sometimes self-destructive or misguided.
Whatever else you want to say about her, you must say that she's one of the most talented women to ever pick up a microphone.
Here are some morsels that a newcomer to Sinead could start with, emphasizing some rarities:
Just Like U Said It Would B
Troy
I Want Your Hands On Me
Drink Before the War (especially relevant right now)
Nothing Compares to U
I Am Stretched on Your Grave
Fire on Babylon
Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home
Daddy I'm Fine
Silent Night
I Believe in You
Danny Boy (of course)
Someday My Prince Will Come (yes, the Disney song)
Ode to Billie Joe (absolutely a must hear)
posted by Al at 12/08/2002 10:13:00 PM
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