There were so many casualties during the last decade they can’t all be listed – but here are some of the most important in a heavily U.S.-centric list, in no particular order:

R.I.P.: DEMOCRACY passed away in Florida, taking big chunks of the Constitution with it. As the debacle of the Bush/Gore election dragged on for weeks, the very foundations of the Republic seemed at risk. Our political system was exposed as a crass, corrupt, greedy, and incompetent morass of conflicting agendas and cutthroat strategy and tactics. It has yet to recover, if it ever can. Repression of democracy continues in places like Pakistan with the Benezir Bhutto assassination, in Burma where opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under perpetual arrest, in Iran where anti-government protesters have been killed in the streets, arrested and executed, or simply “disappeared”, and in dozens of other authoritarian countries around the world.

R.I.P.: THE DOT-COM ERA at one time the most spoken phrase in the world, “dot-com” is a depressing chant of failure and disillusionment today. The fantasy that you could make a fortune by essentially providing nothing in the way of product or service died hard, and took a number of companies big and small with it. The only survivors of the “Dot-Com Bubble” were companies like Amazom.com, that actually offered something to consumers.

R.I.P.: VICTIMS OF TERRORISM in New York, At the Pentagon, and in the skies over Pennsylvania, and around the world. A relative handful of fanatic individuals, armed with nothing more than box cutters, showed us just how vulnerable we are. That revelation continues to unfold today as we bluster and blunder our way through Afghanistan, Iraq, and a continuing nightmare of foreign policy disasters.

R.I.P.: NEW ORLEANS’ POOR when hurricane Katrina destroyed the levees that protected the city from the sea. After three hellish days with no help from the outside world, survivors were dispersed to nearby states, camps, and impromptu government trailer parks (where some still languish today). While the rebuilding of New Orleans’ historic and lucrative commercial districts is complete, and the city’s upper-and-middle-income residential districts are once again thriving, the poorer neighborhoods still face challenges. Around the world tsunami, earthquakes, floods, famine, and drought continue to take their toll. The crisis of global climate change grows worse by the day as political factions continue to argue over its existence.

R.I.P.: SADAAM HUSSEIN proving it wasn’t all bad.

R.I.P.: AMERICAN GLOBAL STANDING as a victim of the arrogant, incompetent, and just plain insulting foreign policy of the Bush administration. From “Freedom Fries” to the Merkel back-rub, it was just one boot-marked cow pie after another.

R.I.P.: THE WORLD ECONOMY driven into the ground by corporate greed, political indifference and collusion, and just plain stupidity. We will be wearing bandages and band-aids for years  to come. It seems the developing nations of the world were hurt the least, mainly because they already had so much less to lose.

R.I.P.: CIVILIAN AND MILITARY CASUALTIES OF WAR never have so many given so much to gain so little.

R.I.P.: ???? leave a comment to add your own casualties to the list.

Es begann ganz klein, heimlich und leise.

Es wurde zu etwas Großem,
dessen Ausmaß ich nicht abschätzen konnte.

Und jetzt sitze ich hier
und frage mich
Was sind wir?

Freunde
hätte ich früher gesagt
Beste Freunde
hätte ich später geantwortet.

Jetzt
weiß ich es nicht.

Ist es noch das,
was es einmal war?

Oder war es das niemals?
Habe ich mir etwas vorgemacht,
wir uns?
Und das Trugbild wird erst jetzt sichtbar
wo ich einmal deine Hilfe brauche
und nicht du meine?

Ich stehe immer hinter dir
das waren deine Worte.

Aber was bedeutet das?

Du hast gefragt, was los ist,
als ich so laut nach Hilfe brüllte,
dass die Pinguine vor schreck zusammen zuckten
und die Strauße den Kopf in den Sand steckten.

Aber jetzt herrscht wieder Stille.
Keine weiteren Nachfragen,
wie es weiter geht,
was sich entwickelt hat,
wann wir uns sehen
in Ruhe reden.

Ist das die Hand,
die sich ausstreckt und dich hält,
wenn du fällst?

As a teenager in school, we studied Milton’s “Paradise Lost”; the story of the “council of war” by the angels who had rebelled against God and been banished from the Kingdom of Heaven. Milton’s epic poem had them bemoaning their plight and the possibilities of re-assembling and attacking heaven again and regaining their former elevated position. Of course we were aware that the fallen angels were now devils. Each devil/angel takes the stage, and has his say, (it seems they were all men!),  and after each has outlined his case the situation was summed up and concluded by the arch devil himself, Lucifer. We weren’t allowed to forget that these devils were once angels in God’s heaven. And, I suppose, this was a lesson for us young boys to learn and remember.

Notwithstanding their inherent threatening nature, I was never frightened by these rebel angels of Miltons, rather I was fascinated by their characters, like actors in a play, and the arguments that he put in their mouths; it was all a trifle unreal, even to a young romantic scholar like myself. They were, in his depiction, powerful personalities, but now deprived of the glory of heaven, and that took the wind out of their sails. Fallen and broken angels they were and not a pair of wings between the lot of them!

Their main deliberation was in their own plight and not focused on me and trying to lead me astray. They were deeply occupied with trying to solve the bungled revolution they had so recently fought with seriously damaging results. Another lesson for us to take heed of, I suppose: not to oppose God and think we could win!

What enthralled me the most about them was the richness and the power of the language Milton gave them. His use and command of the English language intrigued and delighted me more than the so-called evilness of these pathetic creatures, once bright and beautiful, but now dark and despondent. These devils’ speeches had us young English scholars leafing through the dictionary like never before learning new words and meanings. This was more the purpose of the study of the poem, of course, and not anyway religious at all. It was in English class.

Whereas before, we, as children, had been introduced to devils as evil tempters who spent their time egging us on to commit sin and displease God, we were now seeing another side to these tempters; they had their own problems, problems much bigger than ours here on the Earth. Many a the time I felt really sorry for them, defeated, banished and desperate.

I often wondered, later, on more mature philosophical reflection, if such creatures existed at all. Or did their brighter counterparts, angels, also exist? Or were they all like Milton’s darker brooding brothers, simply figments of his fertile artistic imagination? And as the power of the image, whether in painting or literature, has a great impact on the minds of the common man or woman, (as in advertising), we began to accept the artistic vision as the real. Or was the artist’s projected image a reflection of our own fears, perhaps? Of the dark. Of our loss. Of our insecurity!

I’m sure that many arguments, both pro and con, could be tabled. And would we ever know the truth? The human being seems to have the ability to proffer one argument only to be quickly routed by the opposite. As soon as one authority has professed that it’s “okay to eat butter”, another knocks it on the head as being bad for us. I think the same is somewhat true of angels and devils.

Dick Donaghue.

Aqui os dejo con Tom Asta que el otro dia se pasó por el skatepark Black Box de las marcas Mystery, Fallen y Zero y se marcó estos diez trucazos. Atentos al Noseblunt que se marca casi al principio….

Es ist so, dass man springt, um darüber zu kommen, dabei aber auch immer das Risiko des Fallens in Kauf nimmt, bewußt oder unbewußt, weil, ohne das geht’s halt nicht und das ist so. Gerade gestern knackte es wieder in den Knochen, laut, auffällig, vernehmlich, aber es geht weiter, weil, solange ich bin, ist überhaupt etwas, auch der Bischof und sein Sitz, mag da auch anderes behauptet sein, das glaube ich, weil, ich bin ja auch und so ist das!

In the year of 2004 the Fallen footwear was begun by Jamie Thomas the professional skater. Thomas was often referred to as “The Chief” and took part in what should have been the partnership between he and the DC shoes company. Unfortunately however, Quick Silver acquired DC shoes later the same year so Thomas finally made the decision that this project would be moved into his own company instead, they were called the Black Box Distribution.

“Armee” had been the first choice in name for Jamie Thomas’s new skate shoe, but the United States Army ruined that hope and instead, he decided to use the name Fallen, despite the negative sound to it. During their efforts in making their image that comes with Fallen have a negative impact, the company came up with a new design slogan. It was “Rise with the Fallen” or RxWxTxF. Thomas once said “The brand is a symbol of the quality and tradition that my footwear products have always stood for, Fallen Footwear is designed purely for skate boarding”. And as our own Jamie Thomas, along with many other people happy people already know the Fallen footwear has what is considered to be the highest quality in skate shoes.

Today you can only find the Fallen skate shoes in a few select shops for skates and stores. Despite this however the miraculous style teamed with the amazing function and capabilities makes it so that these skate shoes are still the highest choice for the skaters of our world. The fallen footwear makes a great choice that anybody who is a serious skateboarder, or just a person who wants a high quality choice in skate shoes, even if they aren’t that serious about it, can make.

Even though Jamie Thomas has been skating since he was about 11 years old, he didn’t get an actual start with industry until after he had moved to some place in Southern California. He had also done a little bit of filming with the Laban Pheidas before he decided on his own industry.

The very first full length video made for Fallen skate shoes actually came out in the spring of the year 2008. The video’s name is “Ride the Sky”. If you were to watch it you will enjoy watching the skating team for Fallen and their performance. It might even help you to decide to buy your own Fallen skate shoes.

So if you are looking to buy a new pair of skate shoes, you may want to take a good look at Fallen skate shoes. They are good quality, sturdy, great looking, and the skate line produces great professional grade skates that anybody can find with a little effort. You just have to look to find on of the stores that carry them near you. Or if you’d rather, you can search the web and have your Fallen skate shoes shipped to you in order to help save you the hassle of finding a place.

Recommend : shoes cheap

Description:
Opens and closes with magnetic studs,for ease of use.
Stylish stitch finishing, making this case look more beautiful.
With belt clip.

Code: NKNE72LCBT1BK

Press here for buy order

I am so pumped! I have finally received my Autographed by Michael Bay Transformers Revenge of the Fallen DVD today in the mail! This is the coolest thing ever! And it’s actually signed!

Here in the picture you can see my current Transformers ROTF collection so far. The biggest poster on the left is an actually movie poster from the theaters and it has two sides for some reason. But anyway im super pumped and the bumblebee toy i have in my right hand actually transformers into the camaro. It is so detailed! Woot!

And the DVD I am holding is signed by Michael Bay himself!

]]> http://minfilmblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-2009/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:48:56 +0000 minfilmblog http://minfilmblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-2009/

Filmen starter med at hovedpersonen Sam, spillet af Shia LaBeouf, er på vej på college, han har så godt som helt afskåret sig fra Autobots (de gode transformers) aktiviteter på jorden. imens på et andet sted på planeten er Decepticons (de onde transformers) tilbage, USA præsident mener det er pga. Autobots og vil derfor have dem væk fra jorden, men i virkeligheden er de efter Sam. Da de kommer efter ham, ofre Optimus Prime (Autobots leder) sig for at Sam kan slippe væk, det går senere op for Sam at den eneste der kan redde jorden er Optimus, og han skal nu kæmpe for at forsøge at genoplive Optimus.
Kanon aktion film, den har alt hvad nr. 1 havde, aktion, utroligt god special effekts/grafik (tænker på robotterne), lidt humor og sidst men ikke mindst Megan Fox. den har også formået ikke bare at være en kedelig efterfølger men er en film så sagtens kan stå alene, derfor får den 4/5 stjerner.

Ditlev

Thanks to J Kaye’s Book Blog for hosting this weekly meme.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Last week I finished up one book. If you remember, my next book up was going to be Fallen by Lauren Kate, but I got a message from J Kaye about doing a read-along/twitter chat. So we are going to do that, but not until after the Thanksgiving holidays (if you also have an ARC of Fallen and want to join in the chat, let me know).

That left me wondering what I should read next. I have had no luck in completing any books for the Back to School challenge, so I decided to start reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. It’s a little slow going, and with a festive holiday week ahead, I wanted to switch things up for this week.

So, I am picking The Lost Symbol back up (after reading where my bookmark was sitting, I realized this morning it would be better to start over again, so that’s where I’m at), and then I plan to read Decoding the Lost Symbol by Simon Cox, which FSB Associates sent to me for review.

With the holidays, I will probably be a little quiet on posting, commenting and chatting – so I hope you have a wonderful week!

What will you be reading?

BOOK I COMPLETED
1. The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley

BOOKS TO BEGIN/CONTINUE
1. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
2. Decoding the Lost Symbol by Simon Cox

Strange and menacing shadows have haunted seventeen-year-old Luce since she was young, slinking around corners and circling overhead whenever she was near forests, water, dark places. But they never issued a tangible threat until one fateful night involving the mysterious fire and suspicious death of her boyfriend. Luce was there but can’t remember anything from that night – at least, not anything the police would believe – and after a summer full of hate mail and death threats, Luce’s parents pack her off to Sword & Cross reform school.

There, Luce is instantly drawn to Daniel, a fellow student, with the strange but persistent feeling that she knows him from somewhere. But Luce can’t figure out if Daniel, one minute flipping her off and the next asking her to ditch school for a swim in the lake together, hates her or likes her. Luce also catches the eye of the charming and generous Cam and finds herself caught in a bizarre love triangle. Meanwhile, the shadows are growing more frightening and bold than ever before, and Luce begins seeing strange things when she’s with Daniel – glowing violet lights, lake water shimmering around the outline of wings. . .

Luce and her newfound friend Penn begin to search the school records and library to discover more about Daniel’s past, which is inextricably wrapped up in Luce’s own. What Luce finds out, little by little, will change her life – and the world.

Romance, myth, betrayal, danger, a battle between good and evil. . . when the book ends, readers, like Luce, have just glimpsed the surface of the mystery. Readers will likely figure out a key secret a step or two before Luce, but are still left with a satisfactory amount of unsolved questions at the end, anticipating the next book in the series, Torment (Sept. 2010).

Twilight fans will love the forbidden love, supernatural beings, and beautiful and tormented men of Fallen. Fallen’s love story isn’t as charged as Twilight’s, which fans might miss, but for which I am thankful (yes, Daniel and Cam are both handsome, but we don’t have to hear Luce swooning over their perfect bodies, golden eyes, stone cold muscles and dazzling smiles every other sentence). There’s something here for non-Twilight fans as well, who will appreciate Luce, a stronger character than Bella, who begins with a compelling history that only gets better, swims better than any guy, is smart, and cares deeply for her female friends.

And, of course, adult lovers of YA will find something to enjoy as well (the only thing I didn’t like was the high school’s 30-page and 15-page paper assignments. Really? That’s what you do in grad school). It’s a quick and entertaining read that leaves you with an interesting plot to mull over until the next book comes out. This should be a good one for the message boards.

♦Full disclosure: I requested and received an Advance Review Copy of Fallen from Delacorte Press

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I finished reading this book, I was really grumpy about the ending. Really, really grumpy. I had to step away before writing my review.

Looking back, I’m not sure why I was so bothered by it.

From Goodreads.com:

There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah, Georgia. He’s the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.

Even though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce–and goes out of his way to make that very clear–she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret . . . even if it kills her.

Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, Fallen is a page turning thriller and the ultimate love story.

I still have some issues with Fallen, and particularly the ending. I can go with almost any premise, if the rules of that universe are followed. This is hard to do when said premise isn’t set out until the end. That also makes writing this review hard, since I don’t want to give too much away.

As I was reading the book, I kept thinking “That’s strange. There’d better be a reason for that character behaving that way.” or “I hope the author is going somewhere with this setup”.

I’ve got two problems with this. First, it stopped me while I was reading the book. I wasn’t wondering about the story, I was wondering about where the author was going with the story. Second, I still didn’t feel like the groundwork was really set for the end.

The writing was quite readable.

I liked Luce as a character. She was smart and articulate, particularly about her issues with the shadows that haunted her for her entire life. I liked the other characters taken individually, but I didn’t like the way they came together– we’re back to the “why is the author doing that” feeling again.

The romance exactly as portrayed in the publisher summary, with the addition of another potential suitor, one that showed interest in Luce. Luce’s feelings over the pull from these two boys worked for me.

I had mixed feelings on the whole setting. I loved the mysterious school, but Luce didn’t seem to belong in a reform school. The notion of this school that’s near her home, but where her parents only visit her on the once a year visitor’s day just never settled right. They were set up too much as a normal, loving family, trying to deal with her “problem”.

The school scenes were good. About half of the scenes setting up the secret ending were engaging, half left me wondering. What does that add up to for the whole book? I don’t know, I’m still trying to decide.

My copy of Fallen came from the publisher for review. Thank you for this opportunity.

Mail just came in at work, and I’m very excited! Addressed to me was a lovely package from Random House, and when I opened it, inside was a brand new copy of Fallen by Lauren Kate.

Now, besides the obvious excitement (getting presents from Random House!) we advertised this book in our December catalogue, and I immediately added it to my ‘to-read’ list. A change of pace from Vampires to Angels, which is mostly why I’m inclined to read it, the cover art is just gorgeous also. (I know you should never judge a book by it’s cover, but sometimes it’s hard not to!)

Fallen is released on December 8, so I know what I will be reading on the train home tonight!

Hey all, I’ve been grounded recently and I haven’t updated in awhile, like I said, grounded and I’ve been working on Z-Day ideas and drafts. If you guys haven’t read it or heard about it yet, its a book about the zombie apocalypse Will (my good friend) and I are writing. Check it out. zdaynovel.wordpress.com

Okay, that out of the way, I want to talk about Uprise of the Fallen. Okay most of the members from this band has or still goes to my school. I saw them live when I went to see my friend Tony’s band, Backslash,  play at the Northhampton Pavilion.  I knew their old bassist at the time who is in my Theater Tech class and he was in the band when I went to see them. Okay, this band sounds a lot like UnderOath without the good singing. On their myspace, it doesn’t sound as bad, but when I saw them live, I couldn’t help but grimace and look in the other direction. The vocalists voice kept cracking (and how the fuck do you crack in screamo anyway?!) and they all moved in sync like it was fucking Britney Spears dance off.

Jacob, if you read this, (the old bassist) I’m glad you left, they SUCKED! Honestly, and if you’re any good, you can do much better. Oh and grow your hair back out. Hahaha. Kthks.

Oh, and their Christian. Ew.

KTLIOADJ

myspace.com/upriseofthefallen

myspace.com/backslashrocks (Tony’s band, check them out, they are really good.)

DOWNLOAD
Dump.Ro

November, 15, 2009

Author:  Ann Simko
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Genre: Thriller

Our site writer, Ann Simko, is truly an inspiration. She never gave up on her writing dream or her thriller, FALLEN, winner of The Next Big Writer’s Strongest Start Competition, even after 155 rejections. Please give her some applause on its release with Lyrical Press. She also has three more books slated for release in the next eighteen months.

SYNOPSIS:

By midnight he still hadn’t killed anyone.

Dr Dakota Thomas isn’t prepared for the gunshot victim that rolled through his emergency room doors. Michael Ricco looks like an average young Marine. His dog tags, however, tell a different story. How could this fresh-faced Marine have a birth date of 1898? What was he doing wandering in the desert at night, alone and wounded? And why were thirteen people murdered to try to keep his secret?

In a world were genetic experiments push the boundaries of how far someone would go to live just a little longer, the main question is… how many must die to keep one person alive?

BLURBS:

1. I will be featured (well, my query will be) on the awesome, sweet, wonderful (I’ll stop now) Jodi Meadow’s blog. She will be showing me what is wrong with my query, while also helping others learn from my mistakes. To top it off, she is a fellow wool and knitting lover. Does it get any better? Here is the link, I should be on there sometime today: http://jmeadows.livejournal.com/

2. Also, by the 16th, I will be hearing if FALLEN has been accepted for the Demon and Angels Anthology by Samhain. There was a lot of good competition out there, but I remain hopeful (though not optimistic) that I *may* slide in. LOL

3. My first lottery in my new store ends this weekend. Oh yeah, I opened a store for my knitting. I may have not mentioned that. I’ve been busy knitting my little hands off. Here is the link: http://hyenacart.com/purlofknitting/index.php

4. Still waiting to hear about my “revise and resubmit” for RECLAIMED. I have no idea how long it will take, so I check my email constantly. Constantly. haha

5. So, the gist of my post is: Critique, wait, knit, wait.

Play: Babe I’m gonna leave you