Just Amazing.

It's moments like these when I don't regret having spent hours downloading music online. When you find the treasure, it's all worth it.

MOMENTS WITH ALOE BLACC, MIKI AND JAYBO: "I NEED A DOLLAR" PART 5/6 from MADE Blog on Vimeo.

Balloon Juice Attacks! from Andrew Sullivan

This recent blog post from Andrew Sullivan was a reply to a tirade from John Cole, author of the blog Balloon Juice. Andrew Sullivan is the author of The Daily Dish, a blog courtesy of The Atlantic, the literary and cultural commentary magazine focusing on foreign affairs, politics, and the economy as well as cultural trends. According to to it's website and Wikipedia page, the magazine that was first founded back in 1857 is primarily aimed at a target audience of "thought leaders." While "thought leaders" at first made me quite discouraged due to it's ambiguous nature, I then became zealous since I couldn't think of any semantic term that was nearly as creative as "thought leaders". It's simple yet intriguing.

Let's visit the original post, bitterly entitled "Under Assault," a good example of what I think is one of the society's biggest problems and unfortunate facts: that sadly, everyone is so easily able to jump to far fetched conclusions that justify rude and reckless banter and behavior based on incomplete narrow-minded perceptions. Instead of choosing to take just a minute to consider the very likely fact that life is not always what it seems to be, most people consider themselves a great judge of character and actions of those they have never even met.

The worst of Cole's rant lies in his third "argument":

3.) The fundamental thing you need to understand when talking to deficit hawks is that when they say something is painful or that cuts will hurt people, you need to recognize that what they really mean is that the cuts will be painful TO SOMEONE ELSE and hurt people THEY DON’T KNOW AND WILL NEVER MEET. That’s why it’s so easy to be a condescending asshole about the budget. That’s why it takes nothing to suggest raising the retirement age for Social Security. That’s why, after taking a month off from writing on the internet to recover from a cold, he can tell people who work back-breaking manual labor every day of their god damned lives for much less money than he or McMegan earn that they should “contribute” more to their health care costs.

I'll save myself by not diving into the political squabble over health care cuts and Social Security retirement age changes and instead focus on the truth that is: Cole doesn't know what he's talking about when he attempts to personally attack Sullivan. He assails Sullivan for taking a month to recover from a cold and not blogging during his recovery. I guess Cole, who has nothing better to do with their time (wait--I don't want to be a hypocrite, should I erase that?) than sit and count the days that Sullivan is MIA, thought that Sullivan was purposely trying to leave his readers high and dry. Sullivan, who has been HIV positive for 17 years, was not just recovering from a cold. His asthmatic lungs caught a triple viral, bacterial, and fungal infection resulting in Sullivan losing half his t-cells in a month. Attached to a nebulizer, he was unable to breath even while stationary, but Sullivan fought this illness for three weeks until he recovered.

Let's all go get Sullivan and hang him to a cross--why not?

Even worse is when Cole adds WAY too much information about his own health in an attempt to glorify his ability to blog (yes, he bragged that he could blog) even under the most dire circumstances (that being tearing his shoulder bones--or should I say, "launching his humerus through his scapula, shattering the latter into multiple pieces." He martyrs himself, describing his heroic act of blogging "non-stop for two months with his left hand" since his right arm was bracefully awaiting corrective surgery. While the last thing I can do after preaching about how much I don't appreciate people who assume things about others is assume that Cole wasn't in as much pain as he has woefully described. I must wonder, though, how on earth did he break his elbow? Why didn't he include his sob story about how we was the victim of an attack, or even the victim of the sidewalk? My guess, since he couldn't omit even one small detail about his injury, is that he hurt himself doing something idiotic. But like I said, I will resist from making assumptions.

Sullivan asks, do you really have to resort to this kind of nastiness to make a point? Maybe you do. Maybe all's lost in the world of empathy and being courteous to others before you make drastic conclusions about their life. But I do know one thing is that after all's said and done--Cole does look like an idiot for making those assumptions about Sullivan. So next time maybe, just maybe, he'll open the book before judging it by it's cover.

My new favorite magazine

it's me!! :)

Check out the full magazine here.

Check out more of Jonathan's work at www.ijonathanmartin.com

Special thanks to Darrell Martin for his fabulous makeup artistry!

Fat Kid Runs the Block

Some say hip hop is dead. But acts of kindness from such a popular rapper makes me want to roll my seat back, sit back and turn the bass up as I drive down the street.

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When you are trying to predict a politician's next move, just listen to the opposite of what White House spox Gibbs has to say. Van Jones, the "communist truther" who came under fire for making derogatory remarks about previous Republican administrations, resigned yesterday at 12pm (although he did not make the announcement until later around midnight). When responding to reporter's questions about Jones on Friday, Gibbs firmly answered, "he continues to work for this administration." Jones described the public's reaction to his name's appearance on a petition connected to the Sept 11th tragedy as a "smear campaign" against him. He bragged about being inundated with phone calls urging him to 'stay and fight.' Well, Van Jonesy, why did you back down? And after you flake out, he's blaming us? What gives? If Burris can get confirmed into the Senate, then surely a position that isn't even confirmed by the Senate (especially with the name "czar") can hold his throne?

In Bad Taste

Please read the following, posted the morning after Sen. Edward Kennedy died of brain cancer last week.

Brad Mahlstedt I hope it is hot down there Teddy! God Bless Mary Jo and her family.
6 hours ago · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (4)Hide Feedback (4)

Jacob Kampen
Yeah baby! I'm sick of all the rosy GOP postings "Kennedy was a liberal, but we all loved him". Not.
6 hours ago

Brad Mahlstedt
He murdered a girl and should have been in jail rather than the senate...
6 hours ago

Matthew Cuyle
True Story "RIH" Teddy
4 hours ago

I have made these names public for a reason. Go find them on Facebook.

It's amazing how some people are so disrespectful of the dead. RIH?! Sen. Ted Kennedy may have messed up big time, but that was before any of these "birthers" were even alive. They barely know the details of what happened that night in Chappaquiddick. Well, maybe they still do. We all know what happened that night--Mary Jo Kopechne, who was the aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy's late brother Bobby, was driving with Kennedy over a bridge when he drove off the bridge into the water with her inside the car. He left the scene and waited 9 hours to report Kopechne missing. While he entered a guilty plea for leaving the scene of an accident and apologized for his "inexcusable" act, Kennedy has never been able to live it down. Hungry GOP obsessed fans can't get their hands off his dead body. I thought that after someone has passed away, we forgive. Take the man for what he is and what he did with the rest of his life. He served for 46 years in the US Senate. He was known as the "lion of the senate." Over 300 pieces of legislation written and sponsored by Kennedy were enacted into law. Give him the credit that he deserves, and shut up the day after his death. It's your day of silence. Respect the dead. Period.

"Atonement is a process that never ends." -TK