“All oppression creates a state of war.” — Simone De Beauvoir (1908–1986)

The stories that are coming out of Myanmar (The country was known as Burma up until 1989, when the government officially changed the name) are heartbreaking. If you have not heard anything about what is going on over there, the people have been under a military government since 1962. There were accusations in 1988 about political oppression and economic mismanagement that led to peaceful marches and demonstrations by the people, who wanted democracy (the 8888 Uprising), where hundreds of people were massacred by police and military. There have been a constant stream of uprisings ever since, each met with the use of military power against the people.
Be sure to check out these links:

• Burma Myanmar Genocide at Blogspot
• VOA News
• Burma News at CBox
• National Geographic – coverage by satellite.

Here is a video of a Japanese journalist getting gunned down. The murder and torture of average citizens is referred to by the military regime as “internal matters,” and journalists and any form of communications to the outside world are a nuisance. Probably because the reaction by outside forces would be overwhelming if they saw the truth.

“Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance.” — Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

We can only hope that the people living in the region are able to continue to get news out to the world, whether through blogs or through traditional routes, and that those who are currently in power find peace and wisdom from within.

It’s time again to highlight a song that I discovered on Amie Street.

This week’s song is by Matt Woods.

Knowing that a relationship is about to end this song explores the conflicting feelings and philosophies we all keep just below the surface of our consciousness. The band’s main website is Here.

I found this song by a tip from Sshomi.

County Considers Earlier Last Call
The city of Atlanta forced the clubs and bars to close earlier, and now people are apparently flocking to Dekalb county in droves to spend money at businesses, and now the county is debating over passing a similar bill to force the taxpaying bars and clubs to close earlier as well.

What do they mean by “sending people and any trouble along with it”?

It’s my contention that:

1. Adults can manage themselves
2. Bars and clubs are businesses
3. Businesses manage themselves
4. If clientèle cause “problems”, there will be a drop in profits
5. making changes in laws in order to “follow the herd” is short-sighted

Convince me otherwise.

Yesterday, the WordPress group released an update to the butt-kicking blog software I’ve been using for years now. I did the upgrade in about 10 minutes total, then found a couple of spots where some old plugin code that’s outdated now (read: UTW) was mangling a page here and there, and I think it’s all Kosher now, easily fixed by editing the templates.

There are a ton of bugfixes, and some really groovy enhancements. The main enhancement is that tagging is handled by WP rather than by any number of plugins. I’m still roaming through, noticing the updates, but I can say after a short while using it that the admin area is responding a lot faster for me, and it’s not my connection. I’ve noticed the speed using three different internet connections.

Mouseclone Did the upgrade, though, and something went awry… I’m not sure of the details, because I had to run off for a bit, and when I’d returned, it looked like a tornado had passed through his database. Word to the wise: backups. Backups BACKUPS!
The mantra is and has always been:

“If you don’t have at least three copies of a piece of data on different media, the data does not exist.”

I say this, knowing full well that I didn’t make a new, full backup before doing the update to the WP bits, but here’s the cool part of the story: he made a backup, and looking at it right now, everything is back up and rocking out.

The whole thing was a little confusing at first. I mean, the name of the l said “upstairs”, but walking into the building, you had to go down a flight of stairs, then weave your way through a small throng of people to get to an open, cobbled courtyard (complete with a water fountain), then take one of the long staircases up to the “upstairs” area to get to the namesake of the place.

My first impression of Andrews Upstairs was that it’s very upscale, especially for the show I was there to see. It is really intimate, with room for a crowd of possibly 250 or 300 people, and has tiered levels, the top and furthest back with arranged tables and seating, the middle with ledge and high-top tables and no seating, and the bottom level being standing room in front of the smallish stage. The stage has levels and exposed sets of stairs, giving both a dramatic and geometrical feel to the place.

When The White Leppard Crüe descended from the stairs that led behind the dark curtains into the celestial heights, it was like 1986 all over again. Three rock stars (they were short by one guy that night) with torn concert shirts, hair as high as the rafters, and ready to kick ass… The show was on!

The show was high-powered and resplendent, oozing with tunes from the likes of Ratt, Poison, Guns N Roses, Motley Cruüe, Whitesnake, and Def Leppard. I tried to capture some clips with my voice recorder to share here, but the clips I got were highly overmodulated due to the extreme wattage of the show being way too much for the recorder’s sensitive widdle inputs…

The stage lights, fog machine, and and the roaming colored strobes were really cool, but not overstated. The crowd was pretty cool, if slightly overdressed, but I expected that given the part of town it’s in. The show raged in full pace for about three and a half hours. There were two or three small audio issues that were patched up very efficiently.

They said that they would be playing there again in November. Solid!

I’ve been holding fast to a personal rule for many years now, that once you flip the calendar page to October, the personal spending should taper off steeply. The reason I came up with this rule many years ago was because of the whole holiday shopping mania. Every time this comes up in conversation, other people have said that they have the same rule, but only after Black Friday, The shopping addict’s complete bender of a day, in all of its retail glory…

I have always included both October and November because of extended family, and knowing that I’d rather be saving money for some nicer things for loved ones, or spending the extra shopping time making something special by hand to go with store-bought things….

Now that I have little ones, though, much of the foaming-at-the-mouth retail frenzy cannot be staved off. Every year, I do more and more of my holiday shopping online, and the return is exponential, especially when you factor in the lines, parking, and having to try to purchase “Santa” items right under their noses. Of course a sitter is an option if you have the cash, but I usually don’t.

So, what about Black Friday, you say? The day after Thanksgiving, all the stores have these amazing deals that are so awesome, people are camping out in front of the store to get in and buy them before they run out. Well , if you like to do the shopping online, and also want these deals, there is a really cool site, black-friday.net, that can help you tremendously in getting these deals without having to show up at the store, practice judo to get the toys, stand in line, and hit the next place, all before the rooster crows. They have several large chain stores listed, offering deals at Toys R Us, and they watch for the black Friday ads to show up, post them on the site, and also keep up with discount codes to use in the shopping carts of all the retailers, to save you even more cash.

I’m already set up with email reminders, too. I was really impressed with the list of stores where they have deals. They have at least ten of my favorite places on the planet to drop a few bucks in the list. Another cool thing about doing the holiday shopping online is that everything shows up in a plain brown wrapper, which makes it even easier to keep the innocently curious from getting into before you are able to gift wrap and camouflage the good stuff to save the name of the fat red-coated guy in the sled!

parental warning: zoological porn!

Greg at Mediocre Films said to tell you hi, and that you smell like cookies.

He’s got some really funny skit pieces, but my favorite is Sexy Panda… I’m saving up to pull down the ringtone of the song from the end… I think that would be the coolest to go off either in a meeting! It’s got the whole Tom Jones vibe to it.

They forgot to add a part where the research team teaches the male panda to brag about the prowess of his sesamoid bone in order to entice the female. That would have just rocked!

I can’t believe it’s already Thursday! Must be the changing of the weather…

1. Errol Flynn: Hollywood’s Greatest Swashbuckler & Greatest Enigma!
2. Bill Clinton: 42nd President of the USA!
3. Babe Ruth: The Sultan of Swat!
4. Anthony Edwards: Emmy-winning actor from Revenge of the Nerds and ER!
5. Kevin Kline: Academy Award and Tony Award winning actor from The Big Chill and A Fish Called Wanda!
6. Placido Domingo: World-renowned Tenor!
7. Alan Alda: actor from MASH, and author!
8. Arnold Schwarzenegger: Bodybuilder, Actor, Governator!
9. Joshua Jackson: Actor from Dawson’s Creek and The Skulls!
10. John Cusack:actor from Sixteen Candles and High Fidelity!
11. Evander Holyfield: heavyweight boxer!
12. Donald Trump: entrepreneur and reality tv star!
13. David Letterman: night talk show legend!

Care to guess the physical attribute? Put your guess in the comments!