Where The Hell Am I?

Thursday, October 12, 2006

MyHeritage.com - I look like who?!

I swear I'm not writing this because John Mayer wrote about this a few days ago. Honestly, I had no idea because I've been simultaneously swamped with both work and school.

I only just discovered he wrote about it too a day or so ago when I went to his MySpace page. I think what's happening is a lot of MySpace users are converging on the MyHeritage.com site and uploading their pictures to discover what MyHeritage.com claims are their so-called celebrity look alikes. That, in turn, is driving other MySpace users to the cite.

Hence, why he's blogging about it as well as others at virtually the same time.

Okay, with that out of the way, I went a few days ago and ran picture after picture as I've managed to collect quite a few in my time. Plus, playing with that site is much more productive than say studying or working on school projects...not.

Here are three of my look alike collages:

My take on this is it's more about your pose and your facial expression. Maybe it has something to do with the relative distances of your facial features as certain celebs have come up a few times over. However, it's pretty clear that similar poses and big grins will pull up photos where the celeb is doing the same. I tend to smile broadly in photos.

Mayer's blog post, however, does come in handy for this observation. If you check out his blog, you can see that he's not a big smiler (at least not in the picture he used on MyHeritage.com) and got matched with two photos that had similar, more serious, less smiley shots.

MyHeritage.com has matched me thrice both Keira Knightley and Jamie Lynn Spears...hahahahahaha. Come on, I bear no resemblance whatsoever to either one, but randomness like that is what makes it funny.

I think the closest matches are Xzibit, that guy could be my brother, and Sarah Vaughan.

Try it out for yourself as it's, sometimes ridiculous, but fun.

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Friday, October 6, 2006

North Korea's Nukes and Ban Ki-moon

A South Korean military police walks past a signboard showing the distance to the North Korean capital Pyongyang from Imjingang Station, of the incomplete inter-Korea railway, near the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas, about 55 km (34 miles) north of Seoul, October 6, 2006. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon (photo and caption taken from Reuters.com)

You know, when I heard about North Korea announcing to the world that it was planning a nuclear test, I just rolled my eyes in frustration.

Yes, it's serious, but the thing is North Korea is tiresome and invokes the same tired tactics all the time. The nation is like those annoying kids who pitch a fit when they don't get their way. The problem is unlike the kids who don't get their way, North Korea has weapons and technology to trade in for cash to get even more dangerous weapons and technology. Also, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that they're stupid in North Korea. North Korean specialists on the US know much more about the States and its society than vice versa. The problem also they know the world basically rolls its eyes when they make noise so they have to up the ante with each move which inevitably makes them more dangerous with each provocation.

Now that South Korea has Ban Ki-moon running unopposed for the postion of the next UN Secretary General, North Korea is making noise. Now this probably isn't just to thwart Ban at the UN, but I'm sure it plays a part. Whenever South Korea is doing well or is making positive strikes the North makes noise to take from their achievement it seems. The good thing is it doesn't matter at this point. If you didn't know, both North and South Korea joined the UN in September of 1991.

During that time South Korea has made impressive strives with its economy and democracy. In contrast, North Korea has managed to isolate itself even more than before with even its traditional allies of Russia and China slapping its wrists for its political miscalculations.

The problem is here in South Korea there is a generational divide and a lot of South Koreans aren't given and don't seek out the full story. South Koreans forget this, but the North tried to take away South Korea's glory during the 2002 World Cup. Good for me, David Scofield remembered when he wrote N Korea's military edge over S Korea:

In the closing days of the World Cup competition in 2002, a North Korean naval vessel attacked and sank a South Korean navy ship inside South Korean territorial waters. Two years later, not one politician from either the ruling or opposition camps attended the memorial for the six South Korean sailors who perished, and most of the nation's media outlets relegated the story to the back pages, if they covered it at all.

The irony is up to recently every South Korean I spoke to remembered the accident where two South Korean teenage girls were killed by a US Army tank during the same month. But when I remind or inform them that during the same period North Korea intentionally fired on a South Korean ship and killed South Korean sailors, all I get is silence.

South Korea is also back pedaling on its desire to have the US Army reduce its presence here.

So will North Korea conduct a nuclear test in spite of the UN's warning not to do so? Probably.

The problem is it's the same old guff but the stakes are escalating. North Korea has no problem with taking things to a crisis point because they have in the past. The question is if, how, and when will it stop. Let's hope that Ban can conduct another Korean miracle if he is successful in becoming the highest ranking diplomat in the world.

Here is a timeline from FACTBOX-N.Korea's nuclear gestures - it's all in the timing

(Reuters) - North Korea's announcement of its plan to carry out a nuclear test coincided with a symbolic anniversary, just as previous bold statements were timed to capture maximum attention.

Here is an overview of similar tactics by Pyongyang in the past:

- Oct 3, 2006 - Pyongyang says it will conduct a nuclear test but gives no date. The announcement comes on Foundation Day, the anniversary of the day in 2,333 B.C. that the mythical Tangun founded Korea, and while China is on a Golden Week holiday.

- July 5, 2006 - North Korea launches seven missiles early in the morning, with the launch coinciding with the U.S. Independence Day holiday.

- Feb 10, 2005 - North Korea declares it has nuclear weapons for the first time. The announcement comes as South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is in the air on a trip to Washington to meet U.S. officials, and as much of Asia is celebrating the Lunar New Year's holidays.

- Feb 25, 2003: North Korea test fires a short-range cruise missile. The test comes hours before the inauguration of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and other international guests in Seoul for the event. Powell says the test is "fairly innocuous" but the White House calls it diplomatic extortion, aimed at forcing a compromise in the stand-off over Pyongyang's suspected nuclear program.

- August 31, 1998 - North Korea test fires its Taepodong-1 missile, its first test in five years and fourth since 1984. The test comes as the United States and North Korea are 10 days into sporadic talks in New York about the North's nuclear program, and ahead a September congress that confirms leader Kim Jong-il as holding the highest office of state.

- November 1987 - North Korean agents blow up a Korean Air passenger jet, killing 115 people, in what South Korea says is an attempt to disrupt Seoul's hosting of the 1988 Summer Olympics.

Sources: Reuters, Global Security

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"God's just a Baby and her Diaper's Wet"

I got to read this on a forum that I go to sometimes. It's from Saul Williams and it was sent out as a bulletin to people who are his MySpace.com friends.

In spite of the dire need for paragraph breaks, it touched me because it's how I feel about so many things concerning the country that has given me so much. How is it that the citizens of the US can be so powerful as a group, yet feel that we can't make a difference as individuals? Why is it that I've been abroad for over half a decade, yet so many I know claim it's such a hard thing to do when it's as easy as shifting priorities, getting passport and using it?

With that said, here it is with certain parts emphasized.

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"God's just a Baby and her Diaper's Wet"

Some people have asked me to explain what I mean by that statement. Here it goes: We need to change how we think of God. We need to change how we think of ourselves. To live in the richest most powerful nation in the world that boasts of democracy and freedom and yet so many of us feel like our voice doesn't count, won't make a difference, won’t be heard, makes me question what true democracy/enlightenment would feel like. On one hand, many of us DO feel like it is within our power to become rich or successful (which is why so many people move here, right?) But why don't we feel like we can stop our country from becoming the hypocritical terror-mirror, torch of torture, murderous empire that it has become? We can make cash but we can’t make change? cow dung. All of us.We are so caught up in our own selfish materialistic pursuits and celebrity endorsed comfort that we fashion our lives and our idea of God to suit our own lack of merit. Why would God bless America before HE (ha) would bless IRAQ or the SUDAN? Is it because we are the chosen? Does God prefer us? So can we only think of a God that is as prejudice as we are? **** that! It is 2006 and Native Americans STILL live on reservations, poor people STILL struggle for decent housing and education, Palestinians STILL live in refugee camps, on their own ***** land. Does our God not care about them? Or is it truly that WE don’t care about them and don’t have the time to fashion a God that does? We are Godless hypocrites on the threshold of damnation. No, not hell, simply America and the lands of our chosen allies. Will we sit back and let our leaders pass Patriot Acts and torture bills in a fancy language that dresses up murder, thievery and torture in some high-gloss attire forcing the innocent down planks and runways at gunpoint while our children fight to audition to be America’s next Top Model? Why do we question our own intelligence and ability to share our opinion on serious matters more than we question our so-called leadership? Why do we continue to follow in the footsteps of CEO’s that incorporate cow dung and sell it back to us as hot topic? Why do we endorse religions and religious leaders that we have quite simply outgrown? Not even Jesus was Christian. His message was of spirit. He broke his religious law daily insisting that those were the laws of man. Why do we feel that certain things need not be questioned just because we were born into them? What about people that were born into slavery? How did they find the courage to question their reality? Did they heed naysayers? Didn’t they also feel like their voice didn’t count, let alone, their entire being? Where did they find the courage to question the empire that enforced torture and terror on them? They found it within themselves. I’m not impressed with CEO’s, record execs, fashion lines, fascist leaders, and the yes men that support them in hopes of tasting so-called power. I am impressed with a creative compassionate awareness that enables as it enlightens. I’m impressed with music that heals and inspires. I’m impressed with humanity and the individuals that seek to explore it rather than control or convert it. Only 14% of Americans own passports. We are mostly self-consumed while our government and our own lack of outward concern seeks to exploit the resources of people and lands we seldom visit. Lebanon is beautiful. Iraq and Iran are wondrous. Afghanistan is magical. Palestine is sacred. And America is lost, asleep, drugged, brainwashed, scary. What’s great about our country is that it’s like a Rubik’s Cube; we can change its ****** face. And it’s always the youngest that are the first to figure it out. Me? I got tired of the puzzle and realized that I could pull the pieces off and reassemble it in its proper order. Shortcuts ain’t always cheatin’. Sometimes the world can’t wait.

We can’t wait for Jesus to come back and incite the change that we are afraid to fight for and become. Fact is, Jesus may have already come back in the same Arab body that he came in the first time and is now being held without trial by our own God-fearing government along with the 14,000 other “terror suspects” that we are holding in American war camps with hope of passing new bills to torture Our Saving Grace. We are a young nation with an antiquated idea of godliness. The God of guns enforced slavery and terror. I will not pray to him. Will you?

I look into the eyes of a newborn and see an innocence that I find hard to remember. I hold her close to my face so I can smell what water has not washed away. I sing my song into her ear and thank her for her being. She has come to remind me of the reasons why I sing. But before I lose myself in the soft purr of her cuddle she wriggles to remind me of her discomfort and the fact that she cannot fend alone. She must be changed. I must change her. We must change things. Time for change. Boycott stupidity. Here’s a super short list of some people that have been successful at it (if you have school reports or term papers coming up, might I suggest):

Paul Robeson
Assata Shakur
Alice Walker
Audre Lourde
John Brown
Toussaint l’Overture
Mahmoud Darwish
Chief Seattle
Amiri Baraka
Sojourner Truth
Steve Biko
James Baldwin
Nina Simone
Anais Nin
Angela Davis
Arundhati Roy
Ben Okri
Julia Butterfly Hill
Noam Chomsky
Nikolai Tesla
Mahatma Ghandi
Carlos Castaneda
Ken Wilber
Ann Frank
Pete Seger
Mother Theresa
Cesar Chavez
Terrence McKenna
Erica Jong
Amy Goodman

and on and on….

Love,

Saul

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A Short Hiatus

Photo: clocks (shamelessly lifted from PBS.com)

I’ve been in a state of writing paralysis because I have tons of projects coming up for school. I’ve refused to write anything for this blog until I did some work; the irony is that paralyzed me completely.

So now I’m taking another route. I’m going to write and hope that it loosens me up enough that I can get over this block and actually get some work done.

If not, there will definitely be an entry about how I failed all my courses this term, lost my scholarship and dropped out of the program.

In the hopes that I don’t fold in on myself, here we go. Let the writing begin!