Saturday, February 19, 2011
I dont even
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Freakin Sick Ass Mysteries
Ive got a thing for the unexplained and mysterious. This is one of the coolest that I've come across so far.
The Taman Shud Case
A picture of the Somerton Man:
Also known as the ‘Mystery of the Somerton Man‘, this internet peculiarity is a murder case that has gone unsolved for over 60 years. On December 1st, 1948 at 6.30am, the body of an unidentified man was found on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, South Australia. All they found on the body was a unlit cigarette placed behind his ear, a used bus ticket from the city to St. Leonards in Glenelg, an unused second-class rail ticket from the city to Henley Beach, a comb, a pack of Juicy Fruit (what kinda grown ass man chews Juicy Fruit?), an Army Club cigarette packet containing Kenistas cigarettes and a box of matches (no wallet? again, what kind of man doesn’t own a wallet? Although using an Oyster card holder as a make-shift wallet is permissible).
A month later on January 14th a brown suitcase belonging to the man was found in Adelaide Railway Station. The police, hoping to find a lead, found that all identification marks on the clothes had been removed apart form the name “T.Keane” on one of the ties, “Keane” on a laundry bag and “Kean” on a vest. Cased solved right? Wrong. After further investigation yielded nothing, they came to the conclusion that whichever douche-bag removed the identification tags from the clothes had left the tags with “Keane” on them knowing full well that “Keane” wasn’t the dead man’s name. You gotta respect that level of dedication to the lulz.
Then the story gets more intense. A few months later in June they found a piece of paper with ‘Taman Shud’ written on in it in a secret compartment in his trouser pocket. A quick side note: HOW THE FUCK DO YOU MAKE A SECRET POCKET IN A POCKET? (I need somewhere safe to stash my mephedrone obviously). Anyway the Five-O called in some book nerds to find out the translation of ‘Taman Shud’, who recognised the writing as the phrase “ended”/”finished” which is found on the final page of The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam – a collection of Persian poetry. Another breakthrough came when in November a man reading an article on the case realised that a copy of The Rubaiyat had been mysteriously left in the back seat of his unlocked car, the Po-Po did all that sciencey CSI shit on the book and found that the piece of paper was from torn from the pages of the recovered book.
On the back of the book they found this code:
The code has never been cracked and from here the story just becomes increasingly ridiculous:
* On the back of the book was a unlisted telephone number of a former nurse.
* The former nurse herself had a copy of The Rubaiyat which she gave to some guy.
* They found out the guy she gave it to was alive and well, and he still had his copy of The Rubaiyat that she originally gave to him.
(Quick time out: Was it just normal in those days for people to just have ridiculously obscure book of Persian poetry, what the fuck is going on? Is every generation just getting stupiderer?)
* The former nurse lived in the same suburb the mystery man visited the night he died.
You should check the wikipedia page for more bizarre coincidences that would challenge even the most staunch of logical thinkers.
By Tuvshin Bolor
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Taking toplessness to the streets
Taking toplessness to the streets
It's shirtless season -- should women be able to join in?
Is there any part of the anatomy more eagerly scrutinized, more breathlessly sought after, more powerfully head-turning than a female nipple? A starlet in a sheer blouse makes headlines. A bralessness-revealing breeze can cause uproar. So on Saturday, when two dozen women doffed their shirts and marched through the streets of Portland, Maine, you can imagine what happened next.
They were there to try to normalize the presence of female skin in public – even the bouncy kind. They sought to protest the eternal double standard of men's vs. women's toplessness. And as a result, they attracted the attention of what the Portland Press Herald described as "several hundred boisterous and mostly male onlookers, many of them carrying cameras." The organizer of the event, Ty McDowell, told reporters she was "enraged" at the ogling.
The news media was quick to snark on the naiveté of the women -- CBS noted, "Topless Women Shocked That People Like to Watch Topless Women," and sneered, "Good luck with that." The local WGAN radio host noted that bare breasts ought to come with a provision "that the women be good-looking." Oh, you zany feminists -- show us your tits!
Say what you will about its ability to create a stir, toplessness doesn't violate public nudity laws in Maine, nor does it where I live, New York City. (Erykah Badu's recent "Window Seat" shoot courted an indecent exposure arrest in Texas because she went full monty -- topless is one thing, pants on the ground another matter entirely.) But though we painted hussies of Gotham have a legal right to take our shirts off in public, we rarely if ever seem to exercise it. In contrast, on any day the temperature goes above 55 degrees, we're guaranteed to get an eyeful of male shirtlessness. I'm not going to lie – some of it is distractingly, fabulously great. Some of it is hauntingly grotesque. But there is always plenty of it to go around. Why shouldn't women of all shapes enjoy the option of T-shirt-free sunbathing or stoop sitting on summer nights with the same equanimity our male counterparts do? In fact, given the amount of cleavage, belly, and butt crack my female neighbors already seem comfortable flaunting, why don't we?
They were there to try to normalize the presence of female skin in public – even the bouncy kind. They sought to protest the eternal double standard of men's vs. women's toplessness. And as a result, they attracted the attention of what the Portland Press Herald described as "several hundred boisterous and mostly male onlookers, many of them carrying cameras." The organizer of the event, Ty McDowell, told reporters she was "enraged" at the ogling.
The news media was quick to snark on the naiveté of the women -- CBS noted, "Topless Women Shocked That People Like to Watch Topless Women," and sneered, "Good luck with that." The local WGAN radio host noted that bare breasts ought to come with a provision "that the women be good-looking." Oh, you zany feminists -- show us your tits!
Say what you will about its ability to create a stir, toplessness doesn't violate public nudity laws in Maine, nor does it where I live, New York City. (Erykah Badu's recent "Window Seat" shoot courted an indecent exposure arrest in Texas because she went full monty -- topless is one thing, pants on the ground another matter entirely.) But though we painted hussies of Gotham have a legal right to take our shirts off in public, we rarely if ever seem to exercise it. In contrast, on any day the temperature goes above 55 degrees, we're guaranteed to get an eyeful of male shirtlessness. I'm not going to lie – some of it is distractingly, fabulously great. Some of it is hauntingly grotesque. But there is always plenty of it to go around. Why shouldn't women of all shapes enjoy the option of T-shirt-free sunbathing or stoop sitting on summer nights with the same equanimity our male counterparts do? In fact, given the amount of cleavage, belly, and butt crack my female neighbors already seem comfortable flaunting, why don't we?
Maybe because, as the shutter-happy rubberneckers and "Whaddaya expect?" finger-wagging news reporters this weekend proved, real life is rarely fair or equal. Because women are already subjected to gropes and jeers and comments and creepy guys looking down our shirts or up our skirts. Who wants to be the bare-breasted canary in that coal mine?
I'm not saying it's right, or that it's our responsibility to be the guardians of the male gaze. I'm just saying that the way we present ourselves, whether in a miniskirt or a burqa, comes with an implicit degree of attention. The reality is that we live in a country where a woman taking off her shirt is not generally viewed as a natural consequence of a warm day. It's more often seen as a desperate plea for Mardi Gras beads.
Breasts have always been surefire attention-getters. They're lovely and erotic and arousing -- but they're also straight-up utilitarian to boot. When my daughters were babies, I never hesitated to nurse in public -- and never thought to hide under a blanket. One of my sweetest memories is of sitting in a downtown plaza with my infant at my breast, and having a group of French tourists approach us to coo over the jolie sight. That's how it is with exposed flesh -- it isn't just whatever we deem it to be. It can be both eminently practical and exquisitely beautiful. It can be sexy or ugly or inappropriate. (Dear shirtless guy in church: Really, man?) We can't decontextualize it, and we can't insist others see it exactly as we do. We can, however, grow up a little about it.
If I'm going to slow down a little when I walk past the basketball courts in summer, I can't well expect the world to not notice a girl sunbathing in Central Park either. But we can -- and should -- insist upon non-harassment when we're out and about, whatever we're wearing. We are all of us, male and female, deserving of unmolested courtesy. So maybe it's possible that if more women took advantage of local laws regarding shirtlessness, we might find ourselves living in a country with a slightly more mature attitude toward our areolae. We might live in a world that doesn't go apoplectic every time a thin blouse meets a cold day. And we might even be able to walk down the street fully dressed and not get hassled.
I'm not saying it's right, or that it's our responsibility to be the guardians of the male gaze. I'm just saying that the way we present ourselves, whether in a miniskirt or a burqa, comes with an implicit degree of attention. The reality is that we live in a country where a woman taking off her shirt is not generally viewed as a natural consequence of a warm day. It's more often seen as a desperate plea for Mardi Gras beads.
Breasts have always been surefire attention-getters. They're lovely and erotic and arousing -- but they're also straight-up utilitarian to boot. When my daughters were babies, I never hesitated to nurse in public -- and never thought to hide under a blanket. One of my sweetest memories is of sitting in a downtown plaza with my infant at my breast, and having a group of French tourists approach us to coo over the jolie sight. That's how it is with exposed flesh -- it isn't just whatever we deem it to be. It can be both eminently practical and exquisitely beautiful. It can be sexy or ugly or inappropriate. (Dear shirtless guy in church: Really, man?) We can't decontextualize it, and we can't insist others see it exactly as we do. We can, however, grow up a little about it.
If I'm going to slow down a little when I walk past the basketball courts in summer, I can't well expect the world to not notice a girl sunbathing in Central Park either. But we can -- and should -- insist upon non-harassment when we're out and about, whatever we're wearing. We are all of us, male and female, deserving of unmolested courtesy. So maybe it's possible that if more women took advantage of local laws regarding shirtlessness, we might find ourselves living in a country with a slightly more mature attitude toward our areolae. We might live in a world that doesn't go apoplectic every time a thin blouse meets a cold day. And we might even be able to walk down the street fully dressed and not get hassled.
Planes to make your jaw drop.
Blue Angels
Some very impressive stuns.
Sure the videos with music are enjoyable but the feeling you get with raw flight sound is irreplaceable.
Some very impressive stuns.
Sure the videos with music are enjoyable but the feeling you get with raw flight sound is irreplaceable.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
music
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