With his website named Hasidic Reggae, it has to be good. In fact, it rocks.
Category Archives: Popular Culture
Oh, My Heart Stopped…. There It Goes.
My wife was appalled at the new Hardee’s commercials that feature the 4-pound Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub Burger. She couldn’t believe that such a thing existed. Well, feast your eyes on the all-new Beer Barrel Belly Buster. The news story describes it this way:
The burger comes with 10.5 pounds of ground beef, 25 slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, three tomatoes, two onions, a cup-and-a-half each of mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, mustard and banana peppers – and a bun.
It costs $30.
“It can feed a family of 10,” said Denny Liegey Sr., the restaurant’s owner.
This is just sad. In fact, it makes me very, very angry at just how extravagant and wasteful the west can be.
Salvaged History
Eureka! Extraordinary discovery unlocks secrets of the ancients
By David Keys and Nicholas Pyke
17 April 2005Thousands of previously illegible manuscripts containing work by some of the greats of classical literature are being read for the first time using technology which experts believe will unlock the secrets of the ancient world.
Among treasures already discovered by a team from Oxford University are previously unseen writings by classical giants including Sophocles, Euripides and Hesiod. Invisible under ordinary light, the faded ink comes clearly into view when placed under infra-red light, using techniques developed from satellite imaging.
The Oxford documents form part of the great papyrus hoard salvaged from an ancient rubbish dump in the Graeco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus more than a century ago. The thousands of remaining documents, which will be analysed over the next decade, are expected to include works by Ovid and Aeschylus, plus a series of Christian gospels which have been lost for up to 2,000 years.
These kind of stories fascinate me. In my undergraduate, my major (Youth and Family Ministry) required me to take 3 semesters of Koine Greek. I loved it. I wasn’t the best student (I took 5 semesters) but I made strides everyday. The language added such a depth of knowledge and reality to scripture that I find myself constantly reaching for my USB4. I still love it. It will be amazing what these text might reveal about ancient culture and daily life. It will also help CBS advertise its new fall line-up of CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, and the all new CSI: Mesopatamia.
The First iPod
President Bush, the most powerful man in the free world, is a PodHead. No, I’m not calling him a bad name. President Bush’s iPod has come under public scrutiny as The New York Times and Rolling Stone try to psychoanalyze his playlist of roughly 250 songs. Their finds are not shocking: country, pop rock, George Jones. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Rock on, Pres. Rock on.
Digital Music Revolution
Shnikes! I agree with Mark Cuban! Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has written a great tech triste on the death of the CD. Over the past year many have been pontificating about the death of the album. Cuban takes the argument and moves it ahead. His idea of “music kiosks” excites me and his vision of the music sections in Best Buy evolving to meet the needs of the MP3 player is dead on!
I am a frequent iTunes user. While I do miss the experience of heading down to the store, tearing open the case, and pouring over the liner notes and the disc art I enjoy this new digital experience. Both Jack Johnson’s “In Between Dreams” and the Complete U2 digital boxset came with liner notes (.pdf files). This may be just me, but I feel that on some level iTunes is a community. You see what others ar buying and listening to. You can browse user submitted iMixs of individual’s playlists. I loved the old experience and I am loving the new. Instead of complaining about the new medium, Mark Cuban engages it full steam. Maybe he’ll send me the seed money to start one of these kiosks.
Interesting
This morning, RelevantMagazine.com posted this story:
The formula worked for Johnny Cash, so why not Neil Diamond. Producer Rick Rubin was responsible for reviving Cash’s career with the American Recordings series, and is trying to do the same for veteran singer Neil Diamond.
Last Christmas, my wife gave me the Cash: Unearthered boxset. The set was pure genius. The liner notes spoke extensively about Rubin’s involvement and vision. He sounds like the kind of producer that you want working for you. Tough, fair, committed, and interested in making a killer album.
As long as Rubin can avoid any Neil/Babs duets, I’m sold on this idea.
iMix
Allthough I wasn’t able to attend the show in San Diego last night, I have enjoyed listening to the setlist all day. I made a playlist of the songs using various tracks from my iTunes library (Where possible I used live tracks). If you have iTunes, you can click the link below to the iMix that I submitted. Enjoy and stay classy San Diego!
That’s some nice policin’ boys!
Last night’s 8pm episode of The Simpsons, proved once again why I believe it is the smartest comedy on television. Originally airing last month, “Pranksta Rap” was a deftly written satire of how we look the other way instead tackeling hard issues and calling the truth truth. The episode guide describes this episode as,
Bart sneaks out of the house to attend a forbidden rap concert. When Marge and Homer discover he is missing, Bart fakes his own kidnapping to prevent being grounded. It is up to Springfield’s finest to save him. Of course, no one has any faith in bumbling police Chief Clancy Wiggum. Inspired by an apparition of Barney Fife, Wiggum vows to rescue Bart. Meanwhile, Bart is hiding out in Kirk Van Houten’s bachelor pad unbeknownst to Kirk. Wiggum cracks the case, Bart is rescued, and Kirk wrongfully goes to jail. Wiggum is promoted to Police Commissioner and Kirk becomes a lady’s man among the felon-loving singles of Springfield. Lisa searches for the truth and discovers that the kidnapping was all a hoax and everyone goes back as it was before.
Seems harmless enough. What the guide doesn’t tell you is that everyone except Lisa is fine with the lie. When Bart, Homer, Wiggum, and Kirk are caught in their lies they… throw a party! Everything is ok. No lesson learned, no sappy music. Just Homer cannonballing into the pool.
In my humble opinion, the writers were criticizing the nations aparent indifference to the “truth” about the Iraq war. Although, I do not believe that we were lied to about the belief that Saddam had WMDs, I do believe that, in order to keep the status quo, no one has been held accountable for mistakes. I understand completely that I am an armchair commander at this point. I am thankful that we do live in a country where our leaders, for the most part, do look out for us. I just have a hollow feeling about the aftermath here in America. I pray that those in Iraq will come to love freedom. The elections were an amazing step forward. I know that wonderful things have happened but, does the end truly justify the means? Who knows, maybe I’m looking into the episode tooooooooo much.
I appreciate the writers of the Simpsons for tackeling the issue of truth and justice in such a great manner. It wasn’t scathing but it was powerful. It caused me to think. Imagine that!