Sunday, November 30, 2008
In response to Kara"s question about whether or not it would be akward to facebook friend my girlfriend
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Life in the Magic City
Mayor Larry Langford, VisionLand's visionary, at his sackcloth & ashes extravanganza in April.
Langford said that Birmingham’s crime problem “pails” (sic) in comparison to the biblical City of Nineveh. In his proclamation of the day, he tells the Bible story of Jonah and the city of Nineveh: “Whereas Chapter 3, verse 5 & 6, of the Book of Jonah, Old Testament states, that the people of Nineveh believe God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them." He bought 2,000 sackcloth robes for the event.
For those of you out-of-towners or those some still unaware of how terrifically awful (and tragically funny) our mayor is... this one's for you. The Birmingham Weekly recently released "Leapin' Larry's Year in Review." Some of it is almost too ludicrous to be true...
A handful of highlights:
*Oct 2007- Mayor-elect Langford announces his choice for Public Works director, Rickey Kennedy, a city landscape supervisor. Langford met Kennedy when Kennedy was cutting the grass in Linn Park. The new job came with a $100,000 pay increase and put Kennedy in charge of the $54.7 million Public Works budget. The Public Works department is the second largest department in the city. Later the Jefferson County Personnel Board declared Kennedy unqualified for the job and ordered the mayor to make a new appointment. To date Langford has defied that order.
*Nov 2007- Langford is sworn in as Birmingham mayor. In his inauguration speech, he promises to build a domed stadium, lambasts parents for buying children designer clothes and once again declares that what children need most is corporal punishment.
• Langford says he is in talks with Mall of America to build a new shopping center in Birmingham. The mall would be adjacent to a new aquarium. “If Atlanta can have Beluga whales, we can too,” Langford says.
*Dec 2007- Langford also claims that Legion Field, which he also wants to demolish, was named after a demon in the Bible. In fact, it was named in honor of the American Legion.
• With its attention span exhausted by the Boutwell debate, the council approves nearly $30,000 for renovations to City Hall. Councilor Roderick Royal questions the expenditure, but his colleagues gripe about his curiosity. Later it turns out that at least $12,000 of that money paid for a new deck outside the mayor’s office where Langford could smoke without having to walk a short distance to the existing deck down the hall.
- In his second interview with Securities and Exchange Commission lawyers in Miami, Langford refuses to answer most questions on the basis of unspecified constitutional rights. In a back-and-forth with investigators, Langford refuses to actually plead the Fifth Amendment. Later, Montgomery investment banker Bill Blount invokes the same unspecified constitutional rights (Matt's side note: He's being nailed by the SEC for accepting $156,000 in illegal cash & benefits. The same day he was indicted, our beloved Jefferson Co. Senators approved a $40,000 raise for him. Huzzah).
• In one of his few major staffing changes, Langford replaces finance director Michael Johnson with former Jefferson County finance director Steve Sayler. At the county, Sayler helped direct billions in disastrous interest rate swaps and left the county’s financial records in such shambles that to date the county has not been able to produce an audited financial statement.
All this before 2008 even hit... I didn't have time to dig into the $70,000 he spent (of loaned money) on clothes, the "top secret" plans he brought in with two officers armed with semi-automatics, his plan to bring the Olympics to the Magic City, the Kids Getting Laptops disaster (his partnership with a man who just received a 98-count indictment) the disappearance of legally-required monthly financial updates... Long-lost friends, if you make any plans to visit us in Birmingham, I suggest you do it soon... before our beloved city is a crater.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
word of the day
as in Hitler was monorchic
that is all because I am at work
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The teaching style is very interesting even.
New Post from Kristen!
So as you may know, I've recently taken to teaching English. There are approx 60 students on any given day, most of them male, and it's terrifying. One of my goals is to get the students to interact and actually speak English because I feel like that might be the end goal. Just a guess. My most recent activity was to bring in photographs that I had laying around and ask them to describe what they see. Then they read them aloud to the class. I thought I'd share some of my favorites.
Some clarifications: in some cases they made up names for people. Also, "fat" is generally translated into english as "healthy". As in "you don't look like you're about to waste away". Don't be offended- it's usually a compliment. This week's photos feature, in no particular order: Cheese, Wardo, Matt, Jen, and Will. You may be next.
"From this picture he seems like singing and his hair is very interesting. It seems curl like black but is white. He is ready to say something but there is no sound, means that I can't hear at the moment. His physical appearance isn't show clearly but now I am seeing his face and it is interesting."
"He seems sad. He live a strengthful. He travels on a buggy. He is a very handsome man. He is a very fat man."
"They drink coca and other. Much amount of food in front of them. The are very drunker. Abebe gives his hand and Almaz for feeding. Almaz would like to drink coca cola. Almaz has so nice hair."
"The man is running and climbing the tree and the man is very scared. The man nearly the tree and is having animal on head. The man is focus for a thing."
"He seems like shout and feels frightened. He also swim in the river and some action and feels serious problem. He looks like red and some extent black face. He speaks some words angrily."17 points if you guess them all right.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
there's nothing un-awesome about dna replication
here's the protocol (which is jargon for "directions") for the brave, the curious, and the brave/curious:
(1) go to http://www.dnai.org/a/index.html
(2) click on "Copying the Code" at the bottom
(3) click on "putting it together" at the top
(4) watch the video, situated conveniently on the left, entitled "Replication"
(5) either marvel in awe, or struggle to stay awake for the minute or so it takes to watch the video (i recommend the first. marveling is the way to go.)
as always, glad to nerd the place up a little.
w00t.
book recommendations.
and, i really want yall to be able to see my turtle song. but whenever i go to download it onto the blog, it takes for-e-va. so, don't hold your breath but i'll get it to you eventually.
in other news, i just returned from a trip to singapore. things are looking good down on the southern most tip of the asia continent.
Was the tip in Key West just the southernmost tip of the United States? I'm assuming yes... (Singapore below)
And, this is my attempt to take an artsy shot like Elaine:) But the yellow/green monkey grass really was intriguing. The yellow will probably be the closest I see to fall leaves...
