Joining the ranks of other HBO hits such as The Sopranos, Band of Brothers and Sex & The City, Generation Kill stands as a genre-defining series that everyone should see at least once. Even if you are not an avid fan of so-called “war movies” the dynamic of these shows makes them accessible to anyone.

Generation Kill is based on a book written by Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Wright embedded with a platoon of Marines from the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion for two full months. While in Iraq, Wright was encouraged by the Marines he was with to write about everything that went on, even the potential “bad” stuff. The Marines didn’t want to appear as though they were modern-day Captain Americas nor did they wish to be viewed as Baby-Killing Monsters. In the first episode of the series, one soldier describes the Marines as “America’s Pitbull.” The metaphor could not be more apt.

The series is brutal, often filled with obscenities and military jargon (though it is surprisingly easy to figure out). Don’t expect to watch Generation Kill and come away with a warm, fuzzy feeling. It simply isn’t that sort of story. In addition, the sets and environments add no small dash of realism. If any of you have ever seen Band of Brothers, you can expect the same level of production and attention to detail in Generation Kill.

Alexander Skarsgård, portraying Gunnery Sergeant Brad “Iceman” Colbert, leads an impressive cast of virtual no-namers. You will most likely not recognize a single actor in Generation Kill save Lee Tergeson as journalist Evan Wright. The cast performs well with each other in their camaraderie, pestering, and infighting. On the whole, they truly appear as a unit that has trained, fought and bled together.

The series does have a dark side though: it is real. Well, as real as one could hope for. Due in no small part to this series, quite a few Marines were disciplined. Generation Kill does what no movie I’ve seen has, in that it shows some of the faults and mistakes of the American military. Usually known as a juggernaut composed of well-trained, highly-professional warriors, Generation Kill showed that there are always bad apples mixed in amongst true heroes. Characters such as “Encino Man,” a Captain that almost calls down artillery on his own men or “Captain America,” an officer that almost executes innocent Iraqi prisoners due to his own paranoia.

I’ve talked to a few true Iraqi War veterans about the series and they resoundingly agree that Generation Kill is about as realistic as you can get without going to Iraq. I felt that I was able to relate more to this series than Band of Brothers (one of my perennial favorites) because it actually happened during my time on this planet. While watching episode 1, my wife commented that the soldiers “looked really young.” And they are. They are our age and that, in itself, is a tad bit terrifying. You owe it to yourself and everyone that fought in the Iraqi War, to watch this series.

-Chad 2

This is a clip from the November 30th episode of The Colbert Report, featuring a representative for The Ploughshares Fund in a Better Know A Lobby segment. This is clearly the best impression of a nuclear explosion ever. My favorite part? Well the part with the bicycle of course.
The Link!

Stephen Colbert is a big liberal but he has some interesting comedic insights into the time he was the comedy relief at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner and hoopla.

From James Warren of the Atlantic.

Colbert disclosed that he did substantial self-editing upon looking at the president and discerning that he wasn’t ecstatic. He had planned to play off Medal of Freedom awards Bush had given former CIA Director George (“It’s a slam dunk”) Tenet and former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer; joshing about how Bush was clearly giving awards to everybody in sight.

“‘But nobody gives this man an award,’” Colbert recalled as the thrust of the riff he scrapped. “‘That ends tonight. I’m going to give the highest honor I can give….a certificate of presidency.’”

It would be akin to “something you get from The Learning Annex for taking a course. ‘I, Stephen Colbert, acknowledge…’” Colbert looked at Bush and said to himself, “I’m going nowhere near this.”

When the dinner was over, “I don’t think I’m dying. I go to sit down and nobody’s meeting my eye. Only [the late journalist-turned-White House spokesman] Tony Snow comes over and says I’m doing a great job.” Then Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia came his way and told him he was brilliant.

“I said, oh, s-, don’t let me like Antonin Scalia!”

Funny how it was two Republicans who congratulated him afterwards and none of his liberal friends had the guts to do it in public, but I’m sure they tweeted with him.

What bothers me the most about this article is not the article but the comments that follow.  If you have time to waste, scroll through them.  The thread seems to be that liberals are smarter at comedy than conservatives.  I don’t think either side has a monopoly.  There is probably more crude comedy on the left than the right.  I liked the late George Carlin but he came across as angry and bitter as anyone on the right.  Woody Allen is a typical New York liberal in love with his daughter, but his screenplays such as Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanors are great movies without a liberal ideological arc.

Still it is an interesting question to ponder.  It’s an unconscious thought that I have had before and these comments have kicked it upstairs.

More to follow.

just killin’ it

Alicia Keyes feat. Stephen Colbert – Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down

Just like Comedy Central, our posts are often not what they seem. My homage to a selfless ‘ROTE’ promoter.

We have 4 types of visitor to this site (as far we can tell from the cyber-communications we receive:

1) Friends & Family checking if we are alive (for them, our posts and descriptions are actually just about what they were expecting).

2) Travel surfers who will read anything and everything travel related on the web (who seems to be enamored with out style, like observers of a particularly gruesome car crash).

3) People who get tricked by search engines (YES! We are #1 site for “Thailand Christmas Miracle!” and for “Thailand, survive Christmas economy, video.” Two very misleading queries).

4) People trying to get some info on ESL.

For the last category of people, this post is for you. Our posts illustrate the possibilities and nuances of life abroad and I have included some ESL “How To’s”, but this sight is clearly, by no means, the only one you should be looking at. For some more unsolicited and much more personal (like Kindle play list and graduate school taunting personal) insight into the life of an ESL teacher and the experience of Thailand, check out Scott’s site: http://padthaichocolatejesus.blogspot.com/

Scott is a very unique fellow that we had the pleasure of meeting while in TEFL Cert school. He is our occasional fixer for ruin scouring trips up to Ayutthaya and a leading expert on X-Men Theory (I kid you not) and he loves Thailand, a lot.

Here is a taste of his shtick: “Okay so here’s what i have learnt about the Thais over the past few weeks – feel free to add more if you feel I’ve left anything out. I love the Thai people, but they really can be very strange sometimes……..

• 1) Thais cannot tell the time – there are 4 systems for telling the time, some of which depend on which region you are in. Their inability is shown by their sense of timekeeping.
• 2) Thais cannot be flustered – the attitude of Mai Pen Rai means they never worry, leave everything to the last minute and infuriate Westerners.
• 3) Thais are possibly colour blind – the system for colours in Thailand is ridiculous, for example the word for purple is the same as the word for mango.
• 4) Thais have no sense of rhythm – just try and get a class of Thai children to repeat a simple drum beat and you’ll see what I mean. (I added, “I think their inability to tell time goes hand and hand with being unable to keep a beat. They have literally no perception of time whether it be a half-second or two hours. The next time I want to burn an hour lesson I’ll try explaining Daylight Savings Time to them.”)
• 5) Thais hate Thursdays – the word for Thursday is about 5 syllables longer than every other day – i think that it translates to “day that is shit and no where near as good as Friday”
• 6) Thais take pleasure in simple things – for example the I.T teacher at my school who loves Harry Potter. The only thing he wants in the world is a pair of Harry Potter glasses.
• 7) Thais are fascinated by blond hair – hence all the stairs I get from small children, old ladies and I.T teachers who love Harry Potter
• Thais have never heard of the Nazi Party or Adolf Hitler – a man walked past me at a festival with the biggest Swastika on his tee-shirt that I have ever seen in my life and all my fellow teachers wondered why i looked like I had seen a ghost. When I tried to explain just why a man should never have a Swastika on his tee-shirt they shrugged their shoulders and said they didn’t understand. Then they said Mai Pen Rai
• 9) All Thais support Liverpool – see a few months ago when the Thai national team played Liverpool and all the Thais in the crowd supported Liverpool.
• 10) Thai motorcyclists are fucking nuts!!! – in no other country in the world would you see a family of 4 plus shopping ride a motorcycle through a busy city at rush hour.
• 11) Thais are more than capable of wasting your time – such as by insisting that you go to a 3 hour orientation meeting and then conducting 2 and a half hours of it in Thai. They even told us that we could help ourselves to food in Thai, then wondered why none of the Westerners moved!
• 12) Thais believe that a straw is compulsory with any drink – which includes a large Chang beer, meaning that the straw will sink into the beer and inevitably choke you when you forget about it later.
• 13) Thais are not responsible enough to be allowed fireworks – no further explanation needed if you have seen the Thais swing a firework over their head and release at the last possible moment. Or if you have seen them launch over the heads of a large group of Westerners.
• 14) Thais believe that anything you buy should go into a carrier bag – whether that be a small bottle of coke, or something that is already in a bag. I brought a carrier bag with me to 7/11, put my shopping in it, the Thai clerk took the bag and put it inside of another bag!
• 15) Thais don’t believe in prior warning – for example when they recently fumigated the school for mosquitos whilst I was still teaching a class.
• 16) Thais will rather pretend they know where something is rather than lose face – which is a little infuriating when numerous Thais send you all over Ayuttahya looking for a bus, only to have another Thai send you back in another direction.
• 17) Thais have only just received the Doris Day song Que Sera Sera – I wondered why all the children at my school were singing it, and I have been told that it is number 1 in the charts at the moment, after a group of children sang it on a popular Thai television show. (Amy added, “A co-worker told me it is so popular because it was recently featured here in a commercial for insurance. Under the principals direction, my students will be signing it for our school Christmas show next month. Instead of whatever-will be will be, I just say whatever.”)
• 18) Thais believe that a bucket constitutes bathroom sanitation – however better the rest of Thai life may be compared to back home, using the bathroom in Thailand is not a pleasant experience.
• 19) Thais believe that if you can speak 20 words of Thai then you are fluent – the woman who runs the laundrette next door to my flat chats away to me in Thai everytime i see her, and i smile and nod and say “tchai krap” when prompted. The reason she does this is because I know the numbers and told her that i would come back to collect my laundry at “hok mon yen” (6pm)
• 20) There are at least 2 ladyboys in every single class – no idea why, that’s just Thailand for you. It is really nice to see such acceptance from teenagers though.”

cere

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m approaching my Best Television of the Aughts in top-down order, rather than the more conventional bottom-up reveal. A few other parameters for my list:

• I’m not segmenting by genre like other critics, mostly because I don’t want to haggle over some shows that straddle the comedy/drama line, and because it’s more interesting sorting through a mass of programs and creating some unusual bedfellows.
• I’m only considering American programs, as that’s my expertise and I see so little non-American programs that it would be hard to be able to judge what is truly tops and what just happened to make it to my TV. If I did include non-US programming, the titles that spring to mind that would be somewhere on my list are The Office (UK), Slings & Arrows (Canada), and FLCL / Fooly Cooly (Japan).
• I’m not claiming that I’ve seen everything sufficiently to be able to rank it or not – I’m sure there are shows that belong on this list that I haven’t seen (at all or enough of). I will follow-up with a “blind spot” list of shows that I don’t rank that I might reassess if/when I watch them.
• I’m not going to rank programs numerically – in part because I don’t have the energy to devote to deciding between what counts as #9 vs. #10. I’ve just finished grading a ton of papers, so I’m avoiding such numerical wrangling as long as I can. Instead, I’m breaking my list into tiers, highlighting similar levels of quality (subjective, of course) – within each tier, shows are listed alphabetically.

I did also want to link to many of the other decade lists that I’ve enjoyed reading over the past few weeks. But instead, go to my friend Chris Becker’s new-but-essential blog News for TV Majors where she links to dozens of great lists. I’d particularly point to Emily Nussbaum’s take on the decade as the emergence of TV as an art form, an article that just makes me feel validated professionally and personally.

I previously highlighted The Wire and Lost as my top two picks for the decade. The next four shows – which interestingly enough spell out the alphabet – round out the top tier, which I’d argue should all be considered all-time classic television, in the hunt for Best Ever status. I expect that only one of these will be controversial…

Arrested Development - Best Comedy of the Aughts

Certainly the stand-out sitcom of the decade and in the running for the title of the Funniest Show of All-Time. It deservedly lives at the top of most critics’ lists, and its absence instantly makes a list invalid (see the crazy Hollywood Reporter list that omits both AD and The Wire!).

For me, I can sum up the appeal of Arrested Development in one word: “ANALRAPIST.” It encapsulates the range of comedic strategies that made AD simultaneously innovative and hysterical. It’s a freeze-frame gag whose pacing inverts the norm for TV comedy: instead of the performances pausing for the laughter to subside as on a conventional sitcom, AD requires you to pause the constant stream to catch your breath – and I literally fell on the floor when I first saw this episode. As many critics have noted, AD was a show designed for the TiVo/DVD era, demanding the use of pause and rewind to catch the gags and recover from laughter. The gag itself is also typical of the show’s blend of the crude and sophisticated, creating clever wordplay that ultimately pays off with scatology. Finally, it highlights how AD pushed the boundaries of televisual content regulation, with off-color jokes that seemed inappropriate for broadcast television of another era – but presented so quickly that less savvy viewers wouldn’t be offended.

But AD isn’t just a rapid-fire random gag machine, a style that has become popular in both animation (Family Guy) and live-action (30 Rock). It’s also got deliriously clever plotting as inspired by classic farce and Seinfeld; richly demented and robust characters unlike any seen on TV before; a self-conscious awareness of TV history surpassing every show save perhaps The Simpsons; brilliant innovative use of televisual form, such as voice-over narration and keyed graphics; and possibly the greatest comedic cast and use of guest stars in television history. Even though it has its own particular style of comedy that’s certainly not for everyone, it’s virtually impossible to imagine what other sitcom could follow in its wake that could match its overall quality.

And it was mercifully canceled by Fox. I doubt it could have had the longevity that more conventional shows might, and we can relish the fact that it never jumped the shark (aside from when it literally had Henry Winkler jump a shark, that is…). Given the choice between 20 perfect hours of TV comedy and an additional few series of potential sub-par work, I’ll take the former.

Breaking Bad – Best Decade Straddler

Unlike films, albums, novels, and other cultural works, television series are hard to restrict to a certain year or even decade. While many shows are clearly bounded by the convenience of decades, many straddle the boundary between them in awkward ways.

Flashback to 1999 – if I were making a Best of 1990s list, what might I have done with The Sopranos? It had just aired one of the most groundbreaking and exciting seasons of television in the medium’s history, and it seemed poised to emerge as an all-time great. It would have been tempting to award it a high place on a list due to that phenomenal debut, predicting its greatness to continue unabated. But, as I’ll discuss in a later list, the series did abate in a way that I found sufficiently problematic to undermine its initial strengths – as such, despite airing the vast majority of episodes in this decade, it ranks lower on my decade list for the 2000s than it would for the 1990s. Dealing with decade-straddlers is tricky, an issue I’ll return to with some other programs later in my list.

So in looking forward, I want to nominate one fairly new program for a top slot, with the caveat that its placement might plummet depending on how it sustains its early momentum. Breaking Bad for me is clearly the show still in its early years that has achieved the most with limited time, and seems poised for reaching the ranks of all-time greats. I might regret this pick in years to come, but it seems worth gambling on one of these. (And to the Mad Men fans who have just started writing scathing comments, I’ll tackle that show in my forthcoming Blind Spot post…)

One of the chief ways that a television series can assert its quality is by offering moments that I keep returning to in my head, long after watching. Breaking Bad creates more of these moments that stick to my skin than any other show I can think of, images that haunt me and make me want to return to the series, even if the moment is (as they often are) harrowing, disturbing, or unsettling. There were a few of these moments in season 1, but the show didn’t quite cohere beyond a few effective set pieces and a spectacular lead performance by Bryan Cranston – in my roundup of 2008, I celebrated Cranston’s performance on “not a great show.” But this year in season 2, BB surpassed great, creating a depth of character and emotion beyond just Cranston’s still awe-inspiring performance. Nearly every episode had one of these stellar moments, from Walt and Jesse stuck in Tico’s desert lair, to Jesse’s adventures with the ATM machine – and of course the moment at the end of “Phoenix” which secured Cranston his second deserved Emmy. Thinking about these emotionally intense fragments fills me with such affection for a storyworld that I’d never really want to visit. And like many of the other great dramas of the 2000s, the show is also consistently quite funny in a way that balances the grim subject matter.

I’m confident in BB’s future in large part because of “the leap” that the show made this season – series that improve over their first few seasons (such as The Wire, Seinfeld, The Office, and Buffy/Angel) seem more likely to sustain greatness than a show that starts at the top of its game (like The Sopranos, Alias, and Veronica Mars). The rest of the cast has elevated its game to match (or at least try) Cranston, and the long-term arc seems well situated to create a vibrant narrative for years to come. Perhaps it has already peaked, but Breaking Bad’s second season is so fantastic that it alone warrants a high place in the best shows of the decade – I elevate it to the top tier with some optimistic anticipation for future sustained greatness.

The Colbert Report / The Daily Show – The Most Important Television Shows Ever

The Daily Show no longer is introduced with that hyperbolic tagline, but together with The Colbert Report – which is less two independent programs than an essentially linked tandem – these two nightly rituals emerged as truly essential outposts of democracy, serving the fact-checking, truth-to-power role that most traditional journalism abdicated. It’s a testament to the vital role these shows have played this decade that whenever breaking news hits, my first instinct is to imagine how Stewart & Colbert will tackle it. In the end, I can’t imagine my sanity surviving the political horrors of this decade without these shows.

Although they are naturally linked, they are certainly different shows. The Daily Show is at its best as a commentary on the media itself, as in this recent classic take on CNN. Jon Stewart has become a master interviewer, asking the probing questions that others in the “real press” won’t, while maintaining a degree of levity that lets him get away with it. Like Arrested Development, the show throws in scatological humor to temper its serious satire, but as with the CNN piece’s devolution into discussions of bestiality, its use of lowbrow humor somehow makes the social critique seem more vital through juxtaposition – if our country’s most reliable source of political commentary resorts to jokes about goat fucking, then we’re all screwed.

Colbert seemed likely to end up a failed one-note satire upon its debut, but four years later, it seems no less essential than its parent program. The genius of the show was not to make it solely a string of commentaries by a fake pundit, but also to craft an imagined world around Stephen Colbert’s character, with crazy obsessions and phobias (bears!), fake products and phony feuds. The parody then became brilliantly reflexive, as the show turned its mirror on the right-wing dittoheads keeping Fox News afloat by developing an ardent fanbase to play the part of meta-fans, inspiring a Stephen-centric cult of personality that resulted in internet vandalism & viral videos, hijacked votes for naming bridges and NASA equipment, and my own favorite, a fan-created Wikiality site dedicated to reconstruct the truthiness of Colbert’s worldview.

Possibly the most essential television appearances for Stewart and Colbert this decade were not on their shows but in the “real world” of the Washington press corps. Stewart’s appearance on CNN’s Crossfire in 2004 threw down the gauntlet in his fight against pundit-based journalism, a battle he won in part when CNN canceled the show months later. Even more astounding was Colbert’s 2006 appearance at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, as Colbert gave an in-character reaming to the press and Bush administration standing next to President Bush. If you haven’t seen it, take the time to watch what might be the boldest political video of the decade:

Both the Crossfire appearance and Colbert’s dinner presentation (originally aired on CSPAN) spread dramatically via the still emerging world of online video, marking their ability to engage both old and new media platforms. Today, I’m more likely to see clips from Daily Show and Colbert Report on my computer, linked from Facebook or spread via Twitter, as Comedy Central’s online video sharing makes the programs feel native to both media, and thus exemplary texts for the decade.

Next Up: Tier Two, with a bunch of great shows that aren’t quite this great…

Alabama Payday eCash

Alabama is one of the most important states in the United States, especially to America’s overall economy. Alabama’s major industries are essential in helping America’s economy to keep running smoothly.

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Counties in Alabama:

Autauga, Baldwin, Barbour, Bibb, Blount, Bullock, Butler, Calhoun, Chambers, Cherokee, Chilton, Choctaw, Clarke, Clay, Cleburne, Coffee, Colbert, Conecuh, Coosa, Covington, Crenshaw, Cullman, Dale, Dallas, DeKalb, Elmore, Escambia, Etowah, Fayette, Franklin, Geneva, Greene, Hale, Henry, Houston, Jackson, Jefferson, Lamar, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Lee, Limestone, Lowndes, Macon, Madison, Marengo, Marion, Marshall, Mobile, Monroe, Montgomery, Morgan, Perry, Pickens, Pike, Randolph, Russell, Saint Clair, Shelby, Sumter, Talladega, Tallapoosa, Tuscaloosa, Walker, Washington, Wilcox, Winston

Ray Stevens says you’re always watching me.

But it’s starting to get a little creepy.  Not okay to watch me shower.  Please stop.

Holiday greetings from your friends,

Michelle & Stephen

Well, Mother Nature decided to read my blog, I guess.  And she read the post in which I complained about the upcoming  snow.  And she said, “I’ll see your post and I’ll raise you a respectable snowstorm, even by your Ohio standards”.   We probably have about eight to ten inches on the ground, a pretty healthy amount for the South.  My husband and I excitedly bundled our daughter up this morning in her little snow suit to go for a march outside.  She saw snow last year, but unless she’s some kind of prodigy, it’s highly unlikely she remembers that.  So this was, we thought, a big deal for her, a fun-filled event for the whole fun-filled family.

Except.  Except it turns out that our daughter did not like the snow.  Allow me to present exhibit A:

Our daughter definitely was unhappy and cold.  I find it hard to believe that she was that cold, because we put her in about ten layers underneath that snow suit.  She even has a pair of boots on under the foot flaps of that ridiculous pink nightmare of a  snow suit.  (In case you’re wondering, that is the same snow suit she had on in the pictures I posted earlier.  Those pictures were from ten months ago…granted, the snow suit was big on her ten months ago, but still…what a little peanut of a daughter we have!)

When our daughter gets upset, she, like many children her age, I suspect, gets a little dramatic.  Allow me to present exhibit B:

Here she is, after she hurled herself forward in a theatrical attempt to look pathetic and so earn our sympathy.  Unfortunately for our daughter, we’re terribly immature parents, so this damsel-in-distress fainting move was met not with care and concern but with giggles and guffaws.  Poor kid.

All was not lost in our outdoor adventure, however.  I got some pretty great close-up pictures of my beautiful girl.  She looks gorgeous even when she’s angry and snot-nosed.  If she were an adult woman, I’d be really jealous of her.  Allow me to present exhibits C and D:

Exhibit C

Exhibit D...I told you she was beautiful.

So I guess it was a great morning in the snow after all.  For me.  Not so much for my daughter.

P.S. – Did you read this, WordPress?  Did you like it?  Then feature it.  Thanks!  (I may possibly end every post with this post script until my blog is featured.  Sorry if it annoys any of my loyal and lovely readers.)

P.P.S.  - I’m thinking of starting a “feature my blog” campaign a la Stephen Colbert’s various campaigns (in which he recruits his “nation” to vote for him to get his name on this or his picture on that)…what do you think? Pathetic?  Probably.  Effective?  Maybe.

The new Fela! Broadway musical has been buzzing with critics and audiences since it opened in late November.  And as surprising as it was to see the show make the initial jump from the 37 Arts to the Broadway stage, Bill T. Jones‘ and companies epic Afrobeat tribute took it’s official place in pop culture history last week  when Jones and the cast appeared on the Stephen Colbert show.

It could be argued that you ain’t hit the mainstream till you’ve been lampooned by Colbert or John Stewart, and while big name notoriety isn’t always the best thing for a creative work, it looks like Fela! has jumped into the category with last year’s Passing Strange and is helping to usher in a wider spectrum of African Diasporic life and arts.  And I’m sure the buzz is music to the show’s investors-Jay Z , Will and Jada Smith.

In the clip above the cast gets down to a rendition of “Zombie” with ‘ography by Jones and music by Antibalas.  When I 1st saw this the 1st thought was “those don’t look like Bill T. Jones dance moves” then I remembered, well, they’re based on a pretty specific and well documented style, and after comparing this vid to others of Fela and his bands Africa 70 and Egypt 80 you can see where the inspiration comes from.  The doc below was filmed in 1971 at the original Shrine nightclub and offers a glimpse into the energy and action of the sacred dance and music space.

The interview with Bill T. Jones and Stephen Colbert talking about the show is over at the Colbert website.

I don’t know about you but I love Stephen Colbert. He’s a comic genius and so genuinely funny that he can pull almost anyone out of a bad mood. So here’s my early Xmas gift to you! P.S. The song is about New York and how it’s a place where dreams come true and anything is possible. But I’d like to think that’s true for any place you live! As long as you believe in yourself and your dreams, don’t let anyone or anything stop you from going after the things you love, the things that make you feel alive and happy!:)

–Lauren

Alicia Keys was on The Colbert Report Tuesday December 15th to promote her new album The Element Of Freedom, which features collaborations with Beyonce and Drake. Plus, part two of her and Jay-Z’s hit song “Empire State Of Mind.” She sat down for an interview and performed “Empire State Of Mind (Part II) Broken Down” with some help from Stephen Colbert himself!

ALICIA KEYS appeared on THE COLBERT REPORT SHOW where she discusses her meaning behind “EMPIRE STATE OF MIND” and talks about her experience with BILL COSBY.

She also delivered a great performance on the show and as ALWAYS…. Her BACK-UP SINGERS are on point!

TALENT AT ITS FINEST!!

Snoop talks about his new album and then performs “I Wanna Rock.”

Here is a Colbert-esque post for Townhall.com on an article about Al Gore’s “agenda”

Greed is ugly

It makes me sick that enviro-dogooders like Gore want to hack into the profits of the oil companies and other “big time polluters”.  Oil is a limited resource and we need to strike while the irons hot.  The future of oil supplies is counting on oil that we can discover through new technologies for finding it.  But if there’s none to find we could be at peak oil now!!

This is the worst time to further tax the oil companies!  It doesn’t make any sense to switch to renewable electricity and electric vehicles while we still have oil.  One day we wont have any oil and then there will be lots of time to use these renewable sources (assuming the sunspot which is currently heating up our planet doesn’t continue in which case we are simply doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it)

Profits are what make our system work.  Companies need to grow to remain viable.  Imagine what it’s like for huge companies like oil companies have to grow constantly!  The more you make you have to make even more next year!  Lets not hamper their growth with “green” mumbo jumbo.  That’s just ugly.

In an attempt to reclaim both houses in the 2010 election, the Republican party has proposed a “Purity Test,” a screening process that would weed out candidates who don’t adhere to “core conservative principles.” As the ten stipulations of the test revolve around opposition to the Obama administration, Colbert compared them to the 10 Commandments – “if one of the tablets said ‘F’ and the other said ‘U.’”Colbert called out the GOP out for the hypocrisy of the plan, describing them as “a party of white Christian men, who call Obama a Nazi, pushing the concept of purity.” He added that adhering to a checklist would not provide the assurance the GOP needs, so he presented an alternative — putting moderate Republicans in life-threatening situations that reveal their true beliefs…like in the move “Saw.”

* 5 Ways Obama Can Redeem His Nobel.

* Fight Climate Change, Not Wars.

* Hard to believe a tip like this turned out to be unreliable. Via Vu.

* Scientists have apparently uncovered syntax in monkey language. And yes, I learned this from The Colbert Report.

* Matt Taibi is—act surprised—unhappy about the health care compromise.

* Let me get this straight. You have a commission proposing a package of highly unpopular legislative changes. And, in addition to having to surmount the 60-vote barrier in the Senate, which is nearly insurmountable for major legislation and which was avoided for both of the last two major deficit-reducing bills, it’s also going to impose a new supermajority requirement in the House and a 78% threshold in the commission itself?

To say that this procedure “is designed to get results” shows a very odd understanding of American political institutions. (via Steve Benen)

* “A band of no-hopers”: The American team that beat England in 1950.

* Science: “The most effective way to contain the rise of the undead is to hit hard and hit often.” (Thanks, Steve!)

* The Disappearing Snows of Everest.

* David Foster Wallace, “All That,” and religion. At Infinite Zombies, still chugging along.

* John Malkovich is apparently your next Spider-Man villain. But why would they scrap the Black Cat for a made-up character called “The Vulturess”? That sounds impossibly stupid.

* James Cameron, you had me at “sci-fi samurai epic.”

* And today’s chilling vision of things to come: ‘Is 4chan the Future of Human Consciousness?’

Bless his cotton socks, Sherman Alexie rocked The Nation last Tuesday. As staunch as ever in his ideals, Alexie took on the digitalization of books in a manner which out-colberted Colbert. He ran that interview with grace and humor, going so far as to get the last word.

Alexie, whose recent is War Dances and much acclaimed, says that while he will adapt his art somewhat to get when he can out of technology, we will not allow his books into digital format.

I don’t know that I will adopt Alexie’s stance , mostly because I haven’t published any books.

(He knows all about the gut. from en.wikipedia.org)

I wake up and check my grades. Only the Practical exam grade is available. I passed, but just marginally. Nevertheless, I have improved since the last test. This next block is supposedly easier, so perhaps I can excel here.

***

Time to return to the Gross Lab. Since this is the start of a new block, our table’s been assigned to a new cadaver.

Our table is broken into two groups: A and B. I’m in B. While the Bs were in Histo yesterday, As did dissection. So today, a rep from Group A comes in and teaches us in Group B about their dissection and the appropriate structures from 8-9. 

At 9, we begin our work: opening the abdominal cavity to see the organs underneath, such as the small intestine, stomach, gallbladder, appendix, etc. Some of the bodies have clearly undergone surgeries where some of these organs have been removed. Since it’s mainly opening the cavity, we finish this one early.

***

Lunch time comes around. The CMDA has its Tuesday meeting, and this week they’ve asked me to lead the Bible study. I’ve prepared my own questions and lesson, and well, it goes as well as the other Bible studies. Fewer people this week, though. I realize I need to rehearse the study and questions a bit more next time.

***

1-3 lecture. Dr. Mawe talks about blood supply in the abdomen, as well as secretion, motility and control mechanisms in the gut.

There’s a lot of fascinating info here. You may have heard about the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), but the gut has its own: the enteric nervous system. This means that when detached from the brain and the rest of the body, a piece of colon can still move something through it!

Dr. Mawe also informs us that there are more neurons in the gut than their are in the spinal cord. And just after I thought about of Stephen Colbert, he shows us an interview from the Colbert Report with  Dr. Michael Gershon, who’s written a book about the gut called “The Second Brain: A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestines (Your Gut Has a Mind of Its Own)” .

***

In MSLG this week, we’re discussing alternative and complementary medicine. So a craniosacral therapist comes in to discuss how he presses and rotates various areas to move fascia around and relieve cranial nerves. He even gives us a demo, and what he does seems harmless, since he barely moves the body around. He tells us he takes the approach that he’s interested in whatever cures the patient, whether it’s traditional allopathic medicine or another branch of alternative medicine.

Before that, though, we had our “check-in” time, which is essentially an ice-breaker/fun intro to whatever we do. It’s my turn to lead it this week. My idea: have everyone share a song they liked, and why.

We all go around and share our choices. (Mine was “Hello Hurricane” by Switchfoot.) When it’s the group leader’s turn, she suddenly pulls out an iPod and a speaker system. She plugs it in, plays “Bang On The Drum All Day” by Todd Rundgren, and urges us all to dance along to it with her. We do. We laugh very hard.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

guitar: Elvis Costello
vocals: Stephen Colbert

Love it!

(couldn’t find the video, but someone put the audio up!)

More Colbert goodies here. My favorite (after ‘Cheap Reward’ of course) is ‘Charlene (I’m Right Behind You)’.