I am really sick and tired of hearing people say that McCain picking Palin is going to help him with the female vote, or that Hillary supporters are not going to vote for him. To me that is insulting and degrading to women. So what all women are suppose to vote for McCain just becasue he slapped some random woman on his ticket?

Palin's polictics, views, ideals are completely different from Hillary's so if the idea is women are just going to vote for McCain becasue of Palin, than that must mean that women are not capable to thinking, or being intellectual or caring about, or understanding poltical policies, but you just wave a vagina in front of us and we go crazy and cannot resist.

That is bullshit.

As you know, I am not one to often talk about current news and politics, simply becasue you get enough of that on TV, in the news and from others who are dedicated to discussing such, so I like to offer something a little different most times, but every once in a while, something will come up that I just want to rant about.

So the big news now of course if McCain's VP choice Palin. And I am sure everyomne has heard about her 17 year old pregnent daughter sense that is all everyone is talking about. Now on the one hand I do not think that really is relveent to anything and that it is a personal matter that does not refelect upon the mother's ablity to be VP, and I never much pay attention to the personal stuff they dig up about Polititions, becasue that is not what I really care about.

Yet, on the other hand, Palin is one those big advacators against teaching birth control in schools, and is one of those absecentence only people. And do I really want the woman with a 17 year old pregnant daughter to lecture me the evil's of teaching children birth control? As we can all see, how well her absecentence only plan worked out within her own household.

I mean really how can she even say that with a straight face.

A while back I posted a list of books called My Personal Reading List, which was a collection of books gathered from the recomendations of others on Non-American/English liteature. So I thought I would post ratings and prehaps breif reviews about each of the books I have read from that list.

Anna Karnine ~ Tolstoy

Rating: * * * *

I found this to be a rather charming, though not nessciarly happy, and interesting book upon love and relationships, it is the story that looks at several different relationships, and how each individual previces there loves, and thier ideas about relationships, from the devoted faithful young couple struggling through marraige, to the adultress, and a devoted loving wife, with the womanizing husband. This book is very passionate and moving, but it also gives a rather realistic glimpse into life and love.

Madame Bovary ~ Flaubert

Rating: * * *

It starts out a bit slow and kind of dry, in the begining I did not find that the main characters really grabbed my attention. But the second part of the book it does begin to get intersting and the story picks up more. You are introduced to a new set of characters that I find to be all rather entertaining in someways even comical. It is a tragic love story of a young woman Emma who is discontent with her husband, a not very ambitious doctor who is content where he is, and spends most his time away working leaving his wife alone to day dream of a more exciting life.

The Metamorphosis ~ Kafka

Rating: * * * *

This is a bazzar story that is touched by both humur and sadness. It starts out in a rather comical fashion but as the story progresses it becomes more emotional, and yet still a thread of comody prevades throughout. The story is about a pool family who is being supported by thier son, Gregor. When one day Gregor wakes up to discover he had over night metamorphed into a giant insect. Not knowing what to do about him his family at first keeps him locked within his room and with his condition they begin to gradullay decline.

Death in Venice ~ Mann

Rating: * * *

Youth, Beautiful Youth ~ Hermann Hesse

Rating: * * * *

The prose of Hermann Hesse is stunning and beautiful and it moves so fluidly. I love his work, and I always feel a connection with his writing, as if I truly understand where he is coming from, and as if his works speak to me. This was a wonderful story filled with rich flowing verses. The story is about a young man who was something of a misfit as a child, and as he began to enter manhood, set off on his own in the world. Now on Holiday he returns home a successful business man and has a breif moment to relive some of the moments of his childhood, as well as have some new expeirncess before he must set back out into the world again.

Books in Progress:

Krambambuli

Mornings Breath

The first breath of morning

flush upon the skin

like the brush of rose petals

in the wind.

A quietude that cannot be put to words

but felt and understood

in a precious moment

where all stand still at peace

A subtle realization

all too soon lost

a beauty of the harmony of the soul

Gentle caressing

as the warmth of the sun

seeps into a tingling breeze

not to be rivaled

In an eyes blink

like only a passing dream

it slips away too easily

disturbed, a shatter

like fragile moth wings.

I just finished The Name of the Rose, an excellent book by Umberto Eco, and these are a couple of passage from the book I wanted to share. The book is filled with so many profound discussions.

The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God, or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.

Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, becasue the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passaion for the truth.

Here is a list of books I am currently reading. I will keep it updated as I finnish books and start new books.

Cats Eye

The Initiate Brother

The Devil In Music

The Tommyknockers

The Stone of Tears

People of the Earth

Caravan To Xanadu

The Fire of Heaven

Water for Elephants

The Jungle

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed there seems to be a growing trend in fast food joints, seeming to advertise primairly to stooners in thier commericals? So many of these commercials seem to be featuring the establishment exmpahasising just how much later they are going to be open. Now in all honestly, isn't it pretty much a given, ezactly who is going to be ordering a burger and fries at one in the morning. And there was a while back, one, I cannot remember which, where it seemed like the people in the commerical were blatently stoners.

Than I just saw the newest Toco Bell commericals, now, once again, who else but a stonner would be rapping about a drive threw menue while they are in the drive threw getting ready to order.

This is an exceert from an article I read. The article is called Tangled Up In Me by Joseph Hart and I read it in Utne, it is about the boomer generation, and well this passage just really struck me.

Such misty-eyed sessions of "those-were-the-days" tend to dominate the landscape of aging boomer culture, as does a sort of innocent grandiosity. Al Gore more or less cliaming to have invented the Interenet is just one item on a long list of willful superimposistions: The Beatles as if there were no Elvis, free love as if there were no Emma Goldman, utopian communes as if there were no American Trancendetalists; student movements as if there were no Latin America; LSD as if there were no laudanum.

I really do not know what to say. I have just heard something that just leaves me speeachless and makes me want to go and bang my head against a brick wall a few dozen times.

There is this place in Indonesia where for centuries the people who live there had found a way to live in harmony with the Komodo Dragon's who also live in the area. And for 1000s of years, the people have coexisisted with these creatures in a way in which both parties were happy more or less. The dragons never harressed the people, and the people revered the dragon's as being sacred and never hunt them or hurt them.

What the people do, is when they go out on deer hunts they would leave offerings of parts of the deer out for the dragons, and on occassion they would sacrifice a goat to the dragons. They would take one of thier goats and leave it out there for the dragons. Which I know becasue the people are seen as being more "primitive" or tribal, people will have a tendency to think that sounds so barbaric and horrible. But it is no different from when I go to the reptile store and buy a live mouse to sacrifice to my snake to eat.

The people also keep dogs as pets, and the barking of the dogs, does help to warn away the dragons if they do come too close to the people's homes.

So anyway, so far so good.

But than this group of Enviromentalists come along and of course they think they have a better idea than the one which has been working for more than 100 years. Becasue they are "civilized" and "educated" they have a better system.

So the enviromentlest come in and say. "First of all you cannot go on deer hunts anymore, becasue we can't have you killing the dear, and goat sacrifices are inumane, so you cannot do that anymore, and dogs are not a native speicies to this area, so you have to get rid of your dogs.

And guess what happend after this brilliant plan was implimented?

Komodo Dragon's started attacking people, which has never happend before.

I just want to scream after that, it is so frustrating and just arrrrggggghhhhhhhhh!!!

I am left completely speachless.

Since there is never anything on Sunday's I was flipping through the channles to try and find something at least somewhat tolerable to put upon the tv while I sit here at the computer and I happend upon PBS, though I usually never whatch that channel, I stumbled upon this rather odd, quirky looking movie. The sort of thing which I probably normally would not really pay any attention but I am here all by myself with nothing else to do, so I thought it could be kind of fun to watch, and it is quite amusing.

I have no idea what it is. It was already started when I first turnedit on, but in some ways in reminds me of the19th century style Gothic Novels. Though the moive I think is acutally set in the 40's based on the clothing and such, and it takes place in England.

There are these two old ladies, and one of them becomes convinced she saw a murder upon a train but no one will take her seriously becasue there is no proof of anything, so she gets her frineds to help her try and uncover the mystery. And there is this old man who lives in this estate that looks like a Castle almost, and his wife had died, and now he is bitter tword his sons.

Out of the purple drifts,

    From the shadow sea of night,

On tides of musk a moth uplifts

    Its weary wings of white.

Is it a dream or ghost

    Of a dream that comes to me,

Here in the twilight on the coast,

    Blue cinctured by the sea?

Fashioned of foam and froth --

    And the dream is ended soon,

And lo, whence came the moon-white moth

    Comes now the moth-white moon!

 

Frank Dempster Sherman

Sometimes you get an idea, that you think at first will be a good idea, but you don't really think too far ahead, and than when you acutally go to do it, it turns out to be not such a good idea. And by than it is usually too late to go back.

Well I had come acorss this list called 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. And I love book lists so I thought it could be interesting, and I was looking through the list noting all the books upon the list I already read, or many books that I had wanted to read anyway.

So at first I think it will be fun to print this list out. Because I have an obcession with having lists, and well I love checking things off of lists. Though I was not nesscairly planning on trying to acutally read all of the books on the list, I thought it would be fun to check off the ones I have read, and see which ones I wish to read and check those off as I do, and such.

I go to print out the list not really thinking about it, and well as it truns out. 1001 books, makes for a lot of paper and printing, I do not know what to exepct, but I hadn't thought of that, but I did not want to stop after I was already in the middle of printing and waste what I just printed, so I printed the whole thing out but well it turned out to be a very fat list. Because on the website there were a total of 21 pages, which was not so bad, so I thought when I printed it out it would print like it was on the site.

But I did not think, that it there would be more books on a page on the website than could fit on a peice of paper, so for each one of those 21 pages on the website  it printed 5 pages. But I have it now.

Wake No More