this has to be the coolest thing that google has done yet. yah sure, they support the chinese government in suppressing democracy, but they support open source technology! they must not be evil!

okay enough sarcasm. this really is the coolest project that i have read about in a long time. thank you google. i mean it. we're all going to see the benefits of this, and not only that, it's going to give a lot of students jobs. most people work on projects like these for free, and they devote their entire lives to it. i was talking about this the other day with erin, about how it's so weird that we can now apply for jobs like online marketing, blogging, and online community management. these used to be jobs that no one would pay for, and everyone just did out of their love for the internet, for the excitement of working together with a community of virtual strangers from all over the world. it amazes me that things that we do for fun (editing images, blogging, checking website stats, posting on message boards, etc.) we can actually get paid for.

so yes, thanks google, thank you for paying us to do what we love.

i got this in the mail from susana today:

The chief is dead.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=282001

You may remember him from such films as "How Inappropriate" by Prawps Guy Productions... I believe this is the same mascot we featured, no?

Thought I'd pass along the news...

S.

strangly enough i was reminded of our class video yesterday when i was subjected to the ricky martin concert. ricky martin is super hot, and his new show has integrated everything a la moda in LA right now, including tatoos, world dance, and saving the children. saving the children is awesome.... we should all try and do something to help make the world a better place. ricky tells us, "Somos las semillas de esperanza". the thing that made me feel uncomfortable was the mix of what seemed like thai sufi dancing, bangra, and capoeira, all in one song. of course culture isn't pure, it is slippery and porous. can ricky martin go pop, save the children, and respectfully appropriate from every country that he donates money to at the same time? find out next time, same bat time, same bat channel.

I can't believe that it has come to this. As you can see in the video, there were no rockets or rocks being thrown by protestors. Why do we continue to kill eachother? When will it end? I've read and seen so many criticisms of "Arab culture" but why haven't we taken a look at our own actions?


Read the article
See the Video

Hiroshima was a holocaust in two seconds.

-=-

Today I was on the street car and a woman asked me if I spoke Russian or Polish. How did she know? How did she know where my ancestors ran from? Jews were so accepted in the Middle East up until the creation of Israel. Israel was a place to run to... now what is it? Have we taken advantage of hospitality? Of course I'm making sweeping generalizations of history.

doubt

-=-

doubt of authority. doubt of goodness. doubt of normal. doubt of nutritional value. doubt of happyness. doubt of order. doubt of change.

doubt

are we building something bigger? better? are we reliving colonial naratives?
are we spreading violence without awareness.
when we turn on our tvs
when we shop at the gap

where

is

there


something


pure.







those pure moments. moments of laughter and lucidity.
when you spark joy in your co-participants.
when you think about babies....

when you realize that the world is beautiful and that's why we're trying to save it.