23 dollars? so i can sit there like a two year old and have some perverted jackass put me in different poses and take pictures of me to “make me look good”?

and then on TOP of that spend more money to get some teeny sized pics?

wtf
that’s pure capitalism at its crappiest

they’re trying to squeeze bloody money from TEENAGERS
goddammit
high school students!

vicious pieces of crap

why not set up my own booth
bring my digicam
set it at high rez, take snapshots
get some backdrops from drama or steal them from the real photographers
take pics of peeps in different poses whatever
and then go home, “airbrush” them on photoshop
get em printed nice on nice paper at professional printers
or whoever develops digital pictures
and give em to the people for however much it costs to print the pics + a buck or two for the effort
and i’m sure that’ll be way under 23 dollars

gayness

ima just get my proofs for 23 dollars
apparently it’s eight proofs
now if anyone wants to trade they better do it fast (before the eight run out) and they better be satisfied with a proof
heh

capitalists

there were elections today
for the s.a.c.
the ONLY competent candidate out of all of ’em was brennan connolley or however you spell his name for president
his speech was a really good one
what i found shitty was that he got booed as he walked up to make the speech
incredibly, these same people cheered his rival, brittany
now that’s gayness
her speech sucked, too
she has nothing to offer
though cindy liu’s speech was okay, she didn’t present it well
(check off brennan)

all of the speeches were crap
almost all
just about everyone had a poem
how original when EVERYONE has a bloody poem

the one i liked out of em all was madiha’s (events) “i decided i’ll rap … :cheers from audience: … oh, i’m just kidding guys”
that was actually funny
then she went on to read a poem
:S
her rival, shurelle, had a crappy speech, didn’t even look up from her paper (maybe once …)
and
then she went on to do a “freestyle”
SHE WAS READING RIGHT OFF THE PAPER
that’s not a bloody freestyle you illiterate and uncultured … person
i will not trust you with my vote
(check off madiha)

for publicity, one of the posters in the halls said
“did ya hear? kathyrn c’s running for publicity! spread the word!”
under which i posted a sign saying “that’s your job, genius”
but eugene’s speech was nice, cute, and actually funny
(check off eugene)

i was making rude comments for almost all of them, actually vocally booed brittany
(not loud enough though)
but the girls sitting in front of me were giving me dirty looks
which i didn’t mind
my ulterior motive was to get kicked out by a teacher
but i wasn’t loud enough
maybe some other assembly

i’m still trying to tangibly get kicked out of the library

i should’ve run for publicity last year
oh well

i just got back to riyadh from umrah (that is the lesser pilgrimage, in islam)
basically i went from riyadh to the mountain city of taif, stayed there, from there carried out a “sortie” on the haram-al-shareef (noble sanctuary, that is the holiest site in islam) in mecca, got back to taif, rested, and got back to riyadh
the haram is as wonderous as ever, the ka’bah a looming and magnificent structure as throngs of pilgrims go around it without stop (except for the five obligatory prayers spaced out throughout the day) — and this is at 2:30 am, mind you
i can’t estimate, but there were quite a few thousand people around — from all over the world — and this isn’t even hajj
(the bible makes a prophecy about a house of worship where mass worship never stops, the doors are always open — to my knowledge, there is no such place except for mecca)
we left the mosque at 5:00 am, having completed the umrah and fajr prayers there
great experience as usual
except for the extremists barking at women to move
you see, during salat time, space really fills up — and the haram isn’t segregated by solid barriers (it just can’t be), so some women overflowed into the space for men, and that was fine because room was made for them — until this old extremist moron comes and starts barking at them to move, violently and vuglarly, and they comply to a degree — but there’s no space, where do you expect them to go — and he keeps barking at them
so a youth who was watching it all finally gets up and tries to stop him, this old geezer smacks him a couple of times and a fight erupts (verbal, thankfully — the youth didn’t get a chance to retaliate physically as some mohrems stopped both)
this, ladies and gentlemen, is the spirit of islam, if you can’t get some tolerance and peace in haram al-sharif, don’t expect iran and iraq to become the best of bed fellows
what really ticked me off is the way the mutawwas or “religious police” — they weren’t even religious police, i think, but rather some dudes appointed by the mosque — and their manner of getting women to move wasn’t much different than this old geezer (who wasn’t authorized by the mosque) — they were WHIPPING at the women with their robes, what the hell is that
you get people from all over the world coming to this single spot, you’d expect some decency, tolerance, kindness, understanding, and peacefulness from these annointed ones
but no, let’s all bark like dogs

notes:
– saudi government’s done a bang up job on the roads, really well made … so why not bother putting a few signs here or there to let people know where they’re headed and how to get there?
– how about teaching people safe driving habits, such as not going damn slow on a heavily used single-track mountain road so that the other morons don’t try to pass you and the car behind you — it’s a wonder more people get out of the mountain road alive than dead
– perhaps a little more forward outlook and planning in mecca would help to NOT make it such a disaster spot? why not build fast moving mass train systems between mecca and other cities (i.e. taif, jeddah, etc.) so that those buses don’t kill every odd fellow with asthma and breathing problems and cause massive traffic jams and slow a trip that would normally take fifteen minutes to four hours during hajj season?
a little planning could save a lot of inconvenience
– a lot more could be said and done, shame it is

i was watching libyan tv — official state run channel
and there was this song, with a great and catchy tune (in arabic), with french subtitles
“afreeqya ya harra!” — “L AFRIQUE LIBRE” — that is, “a free africa”
and it had beautiful verses, like “the colour of the night is in your beautiful eyes, the beauty of eyes that are black”
or something like that
but it kept showing qaddafi when it came to particularly heroic words and slogans (also showed lumumba, and qaddafi with mandela)
that song is stuck in my head

racist skinheads — no known connection between lack of I.Q. and lack of hair…

chechnya on fire

i switch positions with my partner so that i can offer my morning prayers. set up in strategic positions around the outskirts of savedeno, we lie in wait. we understand that the russians are liable to attack the town at any moment.

completing my worship, i hear faint rumblings from afar. my partner and i immediately recognize the sounds: russian tanks. although the russians are aware that their bulky tanks are virtually useless in mountainous terrains, they nonetheless attempt to intimidate us. i immediately alert the other fighters using the walkie-talkies.

from the high cliff, we see many of our troops moving into position. we follow suit. creeping around the base of the cliff, i can see the sun commencing its rise. the russian troops are blissfully unaware of our presence. the bushes, trees, and hills lining their path provide us with the perfect cover.

one of our mines is set off. five more explosions add to the symphony of sounds of russian confusion. i hoist my bazooka to my shoulder. i hear a rocket-propelled grenade being fired. the russians are in a state of absolute disarray. i fire at their entourage; noticing their machineguns retaliate pointlessly, littering the sky with bullets. soon enough, almost as quickly as it had started, the battle was over.

we have won, it seems. we swarm onto the path to secure the spoils and to collect the surviving losers, if any. i grab a young russian and pull him up to his full height. looking into his eyes, i sense his fear. he has heard stories of how we treat prisoners. soon, a dark spot forms around his crotch. he is barely eighteen. disgusted, i turn him over to another soldier. he has little to fear. unlike the russians, we treat the prisoners of war well.

this war would not have concerned me had i not seen what i have seen. a child being raped in front of her mother, a father butchered in front of his son, among other such heinous atrocities. such events led me to believe that, as their brother in faith, it is my responsibility to aid them, defend them, and to fight by their side.

on the other hand, i wonder why the russians continue this war. as our brothers in afghanistan and our previous encounters have shown, they simply cannot win. their old are dead, so they send their young. the mothers of russia, the people of russia find this war to be useless. yet they still persist — the lives and properties of millions are worthless to them. i continue to wonder why the russians perpetuate this hostility.

i wonder why, and i fight.

– nomes
(a story about the freedom fighters in chechnya, this was written early in 2001 — the war in chechnya was then well under way, it has not yet ended.
estimates of the dead civilians vary from 60,000 to 150,000, the refugees of the conflict number well in the millions, and russia is given carte blanche to continue its atrocities…)

i just saw john q

it is an amazing, amazing, amazing movie

one of the best that i have ever seen, hands down, no questions asked

go watch it, it is pure amazing

i wrote this, long before i actually saw the movie … but it relates very closely:

i’ll buss a cap on yo capitalist a**/
ripping off the ‘middle’ and the ‘lower’ class/
your arguments “for economy” reek plain crass/
punk lemme tell you this breath is your last

voices of dissent are quickly quelled/
they’ll turn your life into a living hell/
if you don’t conform and do as they tell/
so you can’t ever be the one to ring the bell/

so we’re dissecting pigs in bio class
they’re fetal pigs, and have been soaking in putrid smelling formaldehyde for days
the smell sticks in your nose
doesn’t leave
putrid

if i were a jew, i would claim religious exemption
jews aren’t allowed to even approach pig

some muslims would argue the same
but i believe that the restriction is only on eating pig

it’s fun
but it’s unsettling

the pigs were all still-born, so it’s not like they were aborted or anything
yet imagine if a human was still-born, born dead, that is
and without the mother’s permission, the baby is “donated” to science
it’s “preserved” in formaldehyde and injected with red and blue latex
and then is hacked at, made fun of, played around with
by a bunch of high school students

quite unsettling

an incident today in english class really made me wonder…
we’re starting on a new book, brave new world by aldous huxley
i’ve heard of it, and now i’m reading it
at any rate, the teacher told us to start reading, and left the class for a moment
a couple of black girls started putting up objections, “oh i’m not reading this”
i thought it was because they felt it was too complicated for them (which i felt it was, a bit — definitely not like many other books i’ve read)
at any rate, i ask “why not? it’s sort of confusing?”
“no, i haven’t even started reading it yet, it’s just one line, on page nine…”
“… you should see the way a negro ovary responds to pituitary!” (quoth the book)
i say, “the book was written in the 30s, it was a common reference back then. it’s not meant to be offensive”
they kept objecting, and i said “listen, how many times have you heard the word in a rap song in the past thirteen days?” (my own personal count … countless)
the girl responded “oh, don’t get me started”
i’d rather not, so i didn’t
cuz she can really get started
(but then again, i’m not a chia pet)
at any rate, i let it go
the teacher came back in, they pointed it out, she talked about how the word was common in the vernacular back then and stuff
and described how even martin luther king jr. used the word in his most famous speech, and she said the word wasn’t discontinued till the 70s
i wanted to argue that malcolm x was one of the pioneers of discouraging that word, and starting using the words “african-american” and “black” instead
didn’t get that chance (though she did respond to a separate query at the end of the class with a ten minute lecture on the history of england and britain)
at any rate, that seems to have calmed the girls down
but that was a stupid objection
you could see right through it, they just didn’t want to read the book
it’s like blaming the arrow or the bow because your shot’s off
it’s stupid
i’m not being racist, i’m not saying all black people would use petty excuses not to read a book
i’m just saying it’s stupid to use your skin colour as an excuse for your own incompetency

whatever

i just finished watching “no man’s land”

it is, simply put, one of the greatest movies i have ever seen

it puts “a beautiful mind” to shame

it puts every other movie i’ve seen in the past year to shame

wow

what are you waiting for?
GO WATCH IT
NOW