I am sad to find out about the helicopter crash that took the life of Kobe Bryant.
R.I.P. to Kobe and his beautiful 13 year old daughter.
R. I. P. also to Coach Altobelli , Keri Altobelli, and their beautiful 13 year old daughter, who also lost their lives in the crash, and to the other victims of the crash.
My thoughts are with the families, friends tonight. My heart also goes out to the fellow basketball players, and everyone who was touched by those lives.
The tributes that the various team members, and other NBA players made today, during the games was touching and a real demonstration of humanity and compassion.
If you have never heard of the World National Bike Ride then join the club. The thought if riding a bike naked somehow does not have any appeal to me whatsoever. There must be something wrong with me …?
So, here is the deal. This is a bike race and you can be naked. Now, you see how I cleared that up for you?
Here is the Wikipedia version. YES!! It is actually in Wikipedia. Holy crap !
The dress codemotto is “bare as you dare”.[2] Full or partial nudity is encouraged, but not mandatory. There is no mandate to cover intimate parts; this is a distinguishing feature of the WNBR against other cycling events.”
Now I am going to ask you to please read that definition again and let me know if you find anything very very silly about what they wrote?
Go ahead….I will wait.
Did you notice it?… “this is a distinguishing feature of the WNBR against other cycling events.”
Really ? I thought that all cycling events required nudity ! Shows what I know.
Now, here is the really interesting part of this post. Now don’t get too excited….or you may be reprimanded..like this man was ….
Apparently this man in London was banned not only banned from the bike ride, but he was also “Spoken to” by the London Police.
The police were quoted by the media as saying,
“We do not accept this behaviour and he was dealt with and removed before the ride started,” organiser Barry Freeman insisted, according toKent Online.
What was this offensive behavior that caused all the attention and reprimanding, you ask?
Come on…take a guess(and yes I had to resist the temptation to make a pun just then…)
Yep! He got an erection !
Now, I am not quite sure how this constitutes “bad behavior” or why the police thought that the thing to do was to call him over and scold him while he stood there butt naked.
Butt really !! (yeah, I went for the butt pun again) It seems almost like cruel and unusual punishment to me. If he was not bothering anyone directly, maybe it was just one of those things (no…not one of THOSE things…)
Truthfully though, I think they overreacted just a wee bit. (sorry about that one.. it was just to hard to resist)
Here is the post. It even has butt naked bikers in a large scale photo for your viewing enjoyment!
In the rider’s defense, although I am not an attorney, I would like to bring the attention of the jury to the rest of the Wikipedia post about this event.
Creative expression is also encouraged to generate a fun and immersive atmosphere during the ride, capture the attention and imagination of the public and media, and make the experience more personalized and fulfilling for the riders.
My preteen daughter tells me that the rainbow going across the WordPress page is not alone. She said that there are rainbows added to many of the sites now, in awareness that gay marriage has been legalized in all of the states in the US.
If this affects anyone in a positive way, then congratulations and I am happy that you feel good about this. I have a sister who is a lesbian and has an amazing relationship with a partner that she has been with for years. They bought a house less than a year ago, and are having a great time working on fixing it up and the yard together.
As far as relationships go, she seems to be happier and more stable than me, so I am happy for her good fortune. She is a a very special, kind, compassionate, funny and creative woman.
I am glad I have a pre-teen daughter to keep me up to date on these kinds of things. I honestly just thought that the rainbow on WordPress was pretty and I was happy yo see it there. I had no idea that it was symbolic of anything.
Let us all live in peace and compassion for one another.
I just heard that BB King has passed away. I need to go read some articles to find out more.
This is the link to where I saw this first. I was looking at find a guitar teacher online, on order to sign up as a teacher.
As a guitarist, BB King is one of my favorite players. He brought great depth and passion to the world of guitar. I saw a video of BB King playing with Eric Clapton one time. Eric is my other favorite player.
My father has always been my best fan. One day he was bringing me a used computer that he had fixed up for me. He had loaded two videos for me to watch, as my first experience with my new toy.
One of them was my favorite band (The Rolling Stones) playing Jumpin’ Jack Flash.
The other was this amazing video with Eric and BB King.
My father knows my musical taste well ! Better than anyone I know at this time.
It was much fun watching those videos with my Dad. I will have to send my Dad an email shortly to see if he has heard about BB King.
I would like to, and feel obligated to write a post to honor BB King this evening. Guitar players feel indebted to the greats that came before us. We would not have what we have, without them.
We learned guitar by listening to hours of our favorite players. So when one of them has passed, it is proper to do tribute.
Thank you BB King for all you meant to me and to so many other guitarists that you inspired.
Please be advised that this post has to do with cancer and the death of a loved one. If this may be triggering to you at all, please do not read it. This is not about something that just happened to me or anything like that. If it has any possibility of upsetting you, please skip this post.
New research at Stanford University is promising that they have found a new cancer fighting weapon. They are manufacturing laboratory-engineered antibodies that look work to hunt down and destroy cancers in the body.
The new research is based on the way that our bodies naturally tend to reject organ transplants by identifying the organ as a foreign body and attacking it.
You can read more here. I hope that the governments will be helpful in financing this project. It is hard to say about these things. But here is the link, if you are interested.
A new study has suggested an antibody injection could ‘wipe out cancer’ by rooting out and eradicating both primary tumours and distant metastases, where the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Daily Mail.com
My uncle died of a brain tumor in his 40’s. It was the first death of a close person, that I experienced. In the midst of living in mentally abusive situations, divorces, and being drug from one house to another, my uncle was about the only stable family member that I had.
I was in my 20’s and in college at the time. I was devastated, when he died, even though we all knew it was coming. He originally found out he was sick, when he began having trouble with his vision
I remember that he went to the eye doctor for blurred vision and the optometrist immediately told my aunt to take him right over to the neurologist. He must have suspected something wrong in his brain.
The neurologist did scans and told my aunt and uncle that my uncle had a malignant brain tumor. It was operable in a way, but the operation was going to cause damage to other parts of the brain,
They decided to do the operation and he ended up with walking and speech problems. They gave him 6 months to live but he lived for a year and a half. I remember him speaking with me and it was so difficult for him to put his words together.
My grandmother told me that he must love me very much to make the effort to have a conversation with me. Apparently he had not been talking to anyone very much because it was too hard for him. She was very surprised that he had kept struggling through to talk to me for about 15 minutes.
I remember struggling to keep the tears back as I watched him struggle for his words. The speech center of his brain had been damaged by the surgery.
I still miss him and often wonder what life would be like for me, if he were still around. He would have loved my kids and probably spoiled them.
My aunt and uncle loved kids but they could not have any. They used to book the entire summer, when their nieces and nephews were off from school. They had a different kid staying with them, for a couple weeks a piece, all summer. Their house always had a kid or 2 in it. My uncle liked it that way.
My visit was always special to my uncle. I remember him being excited for my visit. He would take my aunt and I to a play or a musical each summer. I saw the musical Damn Yankees with them. I still love that musical. The song “You’ve Gotta Have Heart” still reminds me of my uncle.
Below is the 1958 movie version of the musical Damn Yankees
He knew I loved that song. After the musical, I did nothing but sing that song all week. It was many years later, and my uncle was very sick with the cancer, but he remembered that I loved that song. He mailed me a cassette recording of the songs from Damn Yankees and copied the lyrics to that particular song for me.
Sometimes when I am feeling discouraged, I still sing that song to myself. I know that it why my uncle sent it to me was his way of still being there for me, since he knew he would not be here.
I also loved the song “Whatever Lola Wants” from that musical. I always thought it was very sexy. I used to sing that one too. I imagine it was funny to my uncle to hear a 12 year old singing that song.
Below is from the 1958 movie version. Whatever Lola Wants. In this scene Lola, who has been hired by the devil, is trying to lure the main character with her feminine wiles. But he is very devoted to his wife and she is not having any luck, even with her sexiest moves.
The one below is from a Bob Fosse interview about his choreography of the musical.
This cancer article made me think of my uncle. I still think of him from time to time, even though he died when I was about 23 and now I am 49.
I also still remember how exciting it was to see that musical. I had never seen a musical before and I have loved them ever since.
Here is one more great song from the musical. This is called The Game. The players are discussing all of the things they have to give up during game season. It is a very funny song about how they have to give up women and drinking for the season.
I just saw Walmart’s suggested gift list video suggestions on youtube. Third on the list is a cheeseball shaped like a snowman. It occurs to me that this has “Funny Annie Blog” written all over it. It must be written in cheese wiz…….
Something to look forward to for later.
I really am going back to sleep this time. I never procrastinate…or do I … I will put that thought off until later……hmmm…
Snowman cheeseball! Say it outloud and try not to laugh. See if you can do it !
According to news reports , Taliban gunmen attacked an army school in Peshawar, Pakistan’s. 141 civilians were murdered. The latest reports say that over 130 of the victims killed were children. Reports are that on teacher was burned alive in front of the children.
This follows the civilian attack in Australia which involved hostages having coffee in a local cafe.
In Sydney , Australia a cafe was the target of a “lone Wolf attack”. Hostages were held at gunpoint for 16 hours. The cafe that was involved was the Lindt Chocolate Cafe, New South Wales. Two hostages were killed and others were wounded.
It is very difficult for me to find any words that would convey my level of horror, in regards to this type of inhumanity. There is obviously true evil in the world. The monsters of our childhood storybooks are nothing compared to the real thing.
Man’s inhumanity to man continues it’s ugly wrath.
You have seen many video tapes lately of the police acting in ways that are unconstitutional and a violation of civilian rights. There has been a lot of media coverage as well as internet posts of recordings and video, by people who were witnessing the police using uncalled for violence against an alleged law breaker.
In response to the video tapes, the government is beginning to tighten their reigns on the American people.
A new law was passed in Illinois about recording with video or audio devices any police while on duty. The new law that went into effect December 4, makes the recording of police arrests, chases, apprehensions or any other interactions a Class 3 felony for the 1st offense and a Class 2 felony for a second offense.
The law can be viewed at the Illinois government web site, link below.
If you view the page, you will need to scroll down about half way until you get to the Eavesdropping Law
Illinois is first. Who knows how many states will follow. What is it that the government is afraid of about the citizens being allowed to videotape the police? Is the violence against the public going to continue or get worse?
Below is a link to the Martin Armstrong blog about this topic.
There is a danger of a severe earthquake to occur in California. I have researched several web sites about the reasons for this.
First of all, there is a major drought in California right now. It is apparently the worst drought they have experienced in over 1200 years. The drought is affecting the level of the groundwater.
There have been dramatic changes in the groundwater levels in the southern Central Valley. The groundwater levels are going down more and more, due to a lack of rain to replenish them. This lack of ground water is changing the amount of stress on the San Andreas Fault.
On top of that there now is lots of rain falling. After such a long drought , heavy rainfall can create more risk for an earthquake. The rain is causing flooding. The flooding is likely to result is landslides.
Thirdly, there is a man made potential for hazard called fracking. That is when they use a huge drill to crack into the earth to get fossil fuel out. The damage to the earth’s crust can be a trigger for an earthquake as well.
All of these factors that are occurring at the same time are dangerous.
The city of San Francisco has warned the owners of 300 buildings to comply with a new city ordinance. This ordinance is requiring the property owners to evaluate quake-readiness and take actions that are needed.
Most people are complying with the city. More than 6,000 property owners have taken appropriate action to ensure their buildings are up to code.
Owners have been retrofitting public buildings and infrastructure to withstand intense shaking, and passing laws requiring some property owners to evaluate and upgrade their buildings.
Even with all these measures, the damage from a severe earthquake could be traumatic .
The oil companies should probably rethink their drilling based on the rain on top of the drought. Of course they will not because the money is the most important thing to them. Sad.
GentleKindness 