Politics Explained.

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

goodbyecaptain:

Summer vacation ...

... without the vacation
I don't know why I even bother to get excited that school is closed because I'm not on vacation - I gotta work. I guess there are a few things that are good about it tho:
1) I get home when there's still sunlight
2) Finals are over - no more sweating in anxiety and I got all A's
3) I can do what I want to do, watch tv, read things that excite me

The cons are that all the stuff I neglected while studying for finals are attacking me all at once. It's a bloody massacre - laundry, bills I forgot to pay, email I didn't respond to, phone calls I haven't returned, forms I haven't completed for next school year, occasions I forgot to acknowledge, etc. I didn't forget mother's day this year - I did lift my head to send flowers to my mom (score 1 for the black sheep/ favorite child). But the other stuff ... man, I guess I can't escape it. So this is what my Summer of leisure boils down to -- catching up with my past obligations. It could be worse. I'll be going home too for a few weeks in August - sweet, sweet Jamaican sunshine. So that's something to look forward to.

You know, people always say this to me: "Why not visit Jamaica in the Winter time -- it's more special when you're taking a sunny vacation while it's cold in New York. Why leave heat to go to heat?"

Folks, there is no logic to that at all. It doesn't matter what season it is here. Heat in New York and Heat in Jamaica are two different things. I can't explain it. If I drink a Corona in Jamaica it even tastes different. And I will go to Jamaica when Hell freezes over too - that's Winter, for those of you who didn't know that Hell actually does freeze over annualy, from October to May and it's located North East on the American map.

Happy summer all! I'll be working on my tan!

his side of the story

Hassan the potter - by N.M rashid

Jahanzad, down in the street before your door
Here I am, burnt-out Hassan the Potter
This morning in the bazaar when I saw you
At old Yusuf the perfumer’s shop
In your glance was that brilliance
I’ve longed for, wandering nine years in madness
During that time
I never looked back
At my ailing pots -
Pots formed by my deft hands,
Lifeless creatures of clay, color, oil glaze
They whispered:
“Where is Hassan the Potter now?
He left us, his own creations
He created us, then turned away like the gods!”

Jahanzad, nine years passed for me
As time would pass in a buried city;
Clay in the clay-vats
With its fragrance that used to ravish me
Lay stone-hard
Flagon and flask, jug and cup, candlestick, vase
Props of my trivial life, of my art
Lay broken
I myself, Hassan the Potter, mud-mired, dusty-haired, naked
Beside my wheel, hair disheveled, head on knees
Like some grieving demigod, from fantasized
Clay-and-nothing I molded pliant pots out of dreams.

Jahanzad, nine years ago
You were a child, but you knew
That I, Hassan the Potter
Had seen in your talisman eyes, your sky-warming eyes
Brilliance
Which made my body and soul an open road
For cloud and moon

Janhanzad, the dream-colored Baghdad night
That bank of River Tigris
That boat, the boatman’s closed eyes
For a worn-out, grief-burdened potter
One night was the charged amber
His static being clings to, even now.
His soul, his shape
But that night’s flavor was a river-wave in which
Hassan the Potter sank and has [never] come up.

Jahanzad, in those days, day after day
That ill-starred woman came
When she saw me by the wheel, mud-mired, head on knees
She shook me by the shoulders -
(that wheel which had been, year after year, my life sole prop!)
she shook me by the shoulders:
“Hassan, look at your desolate house
how will the children’s hollow stomachs be filled?
Love-struck Hassan
Love is a rich man’s game
Hassan, look around at your house!”

In my ears this mournful voice was like
A call to a drowning man in whirlpool.
Those heaps of tears were flower-beds, no doubt
But I, Hassan the Potter, lived among ruins
In a fantasy-city where not
A voice, a movement
A flying bird’s shadow
Not a trace of my life existed.

Jahanzad, here now in your street
Here in the cold-colored darkness of night
I stand before your door
Head and hair disordered
From the window those spell-drowned talisman eyes
Glance at me once again
Time, Jahanzad, is the wheel on which like flagon and flask, cup,
candlestick, vase
Humans are made and unmade
I am a human but
Those nine years that passed in the mold of grief!
Hassan the Potter is now a dust-mound without
Even a hint of moisture.

Jahanzad, this morning in the bazaar
At Yusuf the Perfumer’s shop, your eyes
Spoke once again
Their brilliant mischief
Calls forth again in the dust-mound a quiver of wetness
Perhaps to turn the dust to clay
Who knows the scope of longing, Jahanzad, but
If you want, I'll go back to being
That potter whose pots
Were the pride of every house and street, city and town
Whose pots shone in the homes of rich and poor
Who knows the scope of longing, Jahanzad, but
If you want, I will go back to my forsaken pots
To the dried-out vats of clay-and-nothing
To the props of my life, my art
So from this clay-and-nothing, color and oil glaze,
I can again strike sparks
That light up the ruins of hearts.

[A Translation]

Janet's tit in court again

Yes - once again, good old tax-payer's money is going to the Supreme Court to defend the titigate scandal of 2004. Intriguing. The country is ass broke, so in order to stimulate the economy of the lawyers and judges, they gonna take rich ass Janet Jackson to court with our money because her tit fucked up on prime time tv. The horror. What they are aiming to prove is that the tit didn't inadvertently escape but was deliberately released in a contrived scheme to make white people go blind.

I can't believe that one black tit could spark so much controversy. The media is so obnoxious and hypocritical. Janet's tit is like a bomb that went off in a crowded marketplace. Yet a few years ago I remember eating my damn dinner at 8pm when a Sex in the City's episode aired, where Samantha was eating out a woman and they showed when she lifted her head from between the woman's legs and the cum shot landed on her mouth. I almost puked in my curry chicken. So what's the big deal that Janet's tit got some "air time"(mind you, the nipple was covered). Oh yes, it was wholesome white American family event and viewership was global.

So hell damn what? Now we have to see just white old ass country western and rock bands from the caveman days. But being that the sport is dominated by Black athletes and it would come off as racially biased to totally deny Black artists from performing, the only black performers who will ever be able to perform at the Superbowl will be the ones who don't rap hip hop - like the crispy cream Prince, and people not in the mainstream yet, and people who don't dance. Oh, and Jennifer Hudson got to sing the Star Spangled Banner. Not like I want to see hip hop but I'm just saying the obvious, because it needs to be said.