More than one billion people on Earth speak Mandarin Chinese, but they all seem to be concentrated in China, as are the close to one billion that speak Hindi in India. And yes, millions speak Arabic, Russian, German, Portuguese, and Japanese as well. However, the languages that seem to be pretty spread out across the globe and are to be found almost any and everywhere are: English, French, and Spanish. If you speak one of these tongues, you've already got a huge advantage over the rest of the population, due to the incredible influence and importance of these languages in everything from business, entertainment, to diplomacy issues. Interestingly enough, many of our place names in the U.S. are usually in these three languages, due to important historical colonial reasons.
Because of the rabid and golddigging Spaniards of the 16th century, great chunks of the world came under Spanish rule for more than 300 years, and their language now boasts some 400 million speakers worldwide. All across North and South America, Europe, certain parts of Africa and Asia, Spanish is an enormously popular language which exerts great influence due to its incredibly rich literary heritage and popular entertainment value. If you want to be a successful recording artist, you either sing in English, or Spanish I say! Even the United States of America, with its overwhelming English tradition, is now a major Spanish-speaking country, to the horror of purists and conservatives who now feel threatened by its popular growth. Brazil, the lone Portuguese-speaking South American country, has in recent years had to learn mandatory Spanish in school just to deal with all their neighbors. Sí amigo, el mundo de veras habla español: Yes friend, the world indeed does speak Spanish. The language of my family, many traditions, and of God himself (in my crazy mind); the language does hold a special sentimental place in my heart.
The proud and uppity French also colonized vast chunks of the world at one time, and now count some 270 million speakers of their proud tongue in Canada, Haiti, certainly throughout Europe, large areas of Africa, and some in Asia. A beautiful and gorgeous language indeed, but almost impossible to write, French was at one time the world's most important language for diplomacy and the educated elite. Its use as such has declined tremendously, but it still does retain some of its prestige and is the second most learned and studied language in the world. Glad I took four years in high school, and thanks to being so closely related to Spanish, I still remember lots of it. C'est la vie n'est-ce pas? Pleine de merde: That's life right? Full of shit.
Ah, but the granddaddy of them all, the language that now rules the world and has it firmly in its grip (but of course you say!), the language of Shakespeare, barely spoken by our President, and the one used in this and most blogs: that would be indeed, English. Out of the British Isles and heavily influenced by Latin, Greek, and French words, the Brits became the greediest people ever, taking over the world like no one ever before or since. The British Empire was the largest empire in human history and as such spread their royal tongue practically everywhere. Then came this little rebel called the USA, broke off from the UK, and went on to become the mightiest power on the globe, making English even more powerful than ever before. In entertainment, music, on the Internet, aviation, telecommunications, science, and diplomacy, English is now the world's greatest and most important language; which is why many English speakers become lazy to even learn other languages (why should they bother right?), when the world is desperately trying to learn theirs. Some 400 million native speakers, but a recent estimate claims about one billion total speakers, due to so many trying to learn it or speaking it somehow (even basically) all over the face of the Earth. English is found in the USA (of course), Canada, Belize, Jamaica, all over Europe, India, Africa, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, etc. The sun never truly did set on the British Empire now did it? The Queen must be proud.
In the end, all languages have value, regardless of the number of speakers of course.
Yes, even Klingon.
One year ago tomorrow, that nasty horrendous & historic Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and changed the lives of many there forever. I remember blogging extensively on it, worried to death that it would be really really bad as it approached the area, especially for New Orleans; a city I have partied hard in and enjoyed tremendously in the past.
My worst fears came true unfortunately.
I was watching all kinds of shows on the disaster this past weekend on cable and it was really sad to see just what happened there. There was incredible footage of some firefighters who amateurly taped the storm as it was barreling down on the Big Easy and the amount of rain was tremendous, but even more shocking was to see how quickly the city began to fill with water as levees began to break and the flooding got worse. Even after the storm has passed, the worst was yet to come, for as the water kept pouring in, it was now mixing with household cleaning chemicals, oil from local refineries, sewage, gasoline from parked cars, and all kinds of toxic crap! I mean, if ya didn't drown, you probably got poisoned to death. How bloody awful! And even after the water was pumped out, the houses got infested with nasty smelly destructive mold. This was a disaster that even one year later, we are barely beginning to comprehend.
Pretty compelling stuff! I hear Spike Lee came out with some documentary on this, which is quite graphic, and I dunno if I can sit through that one. Some 2,000 people were killed, but even that might be wrong because so many went missing and unaccounted for. This storm wasn't even as bad as it could have been (and that's saying something), for New Orleans wasn't even hit directly and the hurricane was a Category 3 by the time it reached land.
Government response was quite lame as we all saw, that dumb mayor was re-elected (God knows why), and the catastrophe only reiterated the urgent need for us all to be prepared for any kind of natural disaster or terrorist attack which means stocking up on stuff to survive. I'm so bad, 'cause I don't even have water stored! I'll die if a huge quake hits LA anytime soon and catches me unprepared.
God, please keep the ground beneath me as stable as possible...
Are you happy? I mean, be honest with yourself. Are you? I try to be, but I often feel bummed out. Perhaps most do, which is why there's an incredible amount of alcohol and drug abuse.
I find myself always whining and complaining about my life, when in all reality, I am quite blessed. Spoiled even. I have a job (despite the sea of morons), a decent car, a roof over my head, food, relatively decent health, am fairly smart, and have good friends and a decent family. I live in a fairly progressive country that is pretty rich compared to most of the world's very poor.
And yet, day in and out, I often ponder if it couldn't be better. Could I not be earning more money? Have a better job? Live in a better place? Travel more? Be more organized? I know there is always room for improvement, but I am much too hard on myself, and I know I shouldn't be. This is the cause of much of my unhappiness; often, I live vicariously through the success of others, which I know is a big mistake. Why does Justin Timberlake get to be so rich and famous and oh at such a young age? Why couldn't that be me?! DAMN HIM! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! I often stupidly think that if I were rich and did not have to worry about working so much, I'd be happier. Perhaps only temporarily so. But JAYSUS, money sure would help. Oh God yes!
Even worse, is when I start to judge my physical appearance. I don't think I'm an ugly dude by any means, but I am often very critical of my looks. I wasn't blessed with the best skin (oily as hell, but good for wrinkles though), often feel much too thin, and hate the idea of having to age and get older. The gray hairs are starting to show, the birthdays are coming much sooner than before, and the idea of my face and body transforming into an old man is really quite scary to me. VANITY RIGHT? And yet, others say I look fine, and should be happy, but there I am: my own worst critic. I dunno why. Early parental conditioning perhaps? Yeah, can't forget the way we were brought up huh? UGH!
And the fact that I got cursed with stupid anxiety disorder which hits me like a freight train at times really sucks. The source of probably most of my unhappiness really. It has kept me from taking more risks, and of being more adventurous. I'm still functional in the real world (thanks to medication), but I find it very demoralizing and frustrating to not be more bold and always worry about having a panic attack.
Being gay was also a great source of my previous unhappiness, but recently having come out of the closet more has helped that issue a bit more. I'll always run into intolerance and people who hate me, and I guess I'll be okay with that, as long as they don't decide to bash my head in or hang me from a fence like a scarecrow.
Alas, I don't know why I should be sharing my issues like this really. I'm sure y'all have yours.
It's just that mine are the ones that matter.
HAHA!
I gotta agree with Scotty on this one: why all the attention all of a sudden on this nasty frightening creep that has been dominating media outlets non-stop all weekend?! What are we being distracted from?! Just posting his pic alone gives me the heebie-jeebies, but there he is, staring at the world looking like some sick gangly alien of some sort. EEK! That crazy radio guy Michael Savage today called him The Pervert on the Plane and I just hollered out laughing!
Now there's fucking doubts as to whether his confession is real or not, and that all this hype over finally having found JonBenet's real killer is nothing but bologna! My God, the news coverage on this has been ridiculous, to the point of even covering his arrival at LAX last night! You'd think Jesus or The Beatles were aboard that God damned plane the way they were carrying on about the landing!!! A case that has been unresolved for ten years, Patsy Ramsey dies of cancer just this past year, and now this shit.
No killer caught yet in Chandra Levy's case yet huh? Remember her? It was the big freakin' story all summer long of 2001, and Gary Condit was in hot water for his affair with her and what he possibly had to do with her murder and crap, and then came the WTC/Pentagon Disaster of Our Lifetimes Day and there went that story, until a bit later when they found her bones amidst the squirrels at some park, yet still no main suspect in that case. Hmmm...
And speaking of unresolved, can someone please tell me whatever happened with the Anthrax Attacks and those letters that were mailed out back in 2001? REMEMBER THAT?! Just a week after 9/11, and those laced letters were showing up in the Senate and crap & infected quite a few people with that deadly powder, and killed some five people! WHO THE HELL DID THIS??!! DID THEY EVER FIND OUT WHO??!! My co-worker says she read somewhere one of the 9/11 hijackers (Mohammed Atta) had set this anthrax attack up in Dearborn, MI before executing his most dastardly attack that 9/11 morning. Whoever it was, they got away with it, and scared us all from our regular mail for quite a while.
Man oh man. There's some real sick evil twisted people in this world. And sometimes, they get away with it (a la Jack the Ripper) and we're left scratching our heads.
Which is most disturbing indeed.
I dunno man. I used to really enjoy working here, for the first two years or so...
Now past five years and tragically counting, I started realizing how lame some of the morons here are! My supervisor hails from India, and has got the intelligence of a goat at the petting zoo. Yet, she still supervises me! The supervisor above her is a hard worker and all, but she's got a horrible attitude, and so I often ignore talking to the c*nt. The other clerk has mood swings often, and one day she's all happy and the next she's a real bitch, and I've just about had it trying to figure out what day she's on! The social workers can be real pretentious uppity conceited assholes who think that just because they have a Bachelor's or Master's that they're better than a simple little clerk like myself, so I often hear them talk down to me or others as if they have a right. The gay guys here are mostly drama queens, and can sometimes act worse than the women even. I dunno, there is so much dysfunction here, it's quite revolting. Comes with having a government job I guess.
There's plenty of foreigners here, people who've learned English as a second language with stupid backward ideas from their old countries. I've heard the ex-Soviet Armenian say how homosexuality is wrong, the other Armenian say how the Soviets saved humanity during WWII (even though it was the USA that did it), the Vietnamese who was put off the phones because her English is not clear enough, and there's the Salvadoran woman who thinks abortion is sinful. I hate to sound xenophobic, but sometimes these people irk me. They really effin' do. Even though I'm the offspring myself of immigrants, I HATE THE BACKWARD IDEAS AND CRAP SOME OF THESE PEOPLE COME HERE TO AMERICA WITH! UGH! And they are so critical of the United States too, which is even more annoying! THEN WHY DID THEY COME HERE?! Thank God for us new generations I guess...
Well, never one to keep his yap shut (although many times I have let things go), I've reached a point of semi-apathy. I don't care to call in sick anymore even if I am not, for I do have plenty of time on the books. I don't work as hard as I once did, because all they'll do is take advantage of you here. I often tell others off (as respectfully as possible, though not always) when they try to be sarcastic or a smart ass with me. I especially hate nosey co-workers who wanna know why I wasn't at work a certain day and they act as if concerned. GET A LIFE! I'm not a bad dude and am quite goofy and silly, but I feel I have no choice sometimes to just be a plain mean asshole when the time is right. I don't want these mothereffers and beatches ta think I'm stupid or dumb, and that they can walk all over me. It's sad that humanity teaches one to be like this, instead of making one a better person. I often feel bad about behaving like them, but they leave me no choice for being so petty themselves.
EF THAT. I'm very smart and talented, and Lord knows I should not be working here. Alas, other issues have kept me trapped here, but that's another story. The point is, I do not mind my job, IT'S THE FACKIN' PEOPLE I HAVE TO DEAL WITH. I have to work and support myself, which leaves me no choice for now but to deal with most of these sorry ass f*cks. I know I sound pretentious when saying this, but DAMNIT, I know I don't belong here. And yet, I know what I'm dealing with here already; another one of these office jobs will only introduce me to a new set of LOSERS, which is the last thing I want. Will I ever find a job where I don't feel surrounded by the masses of stupidity? I need to be creative or artistic. This office cubicle shit is quite boring and dead end. I only do it to pay my bills. Lucky you fellow reader who loves what u do. This is rare I believe.
I imagine most of us deal with this at our jobs. Which is sad. I'm sure many think I'm a moron and useless here too. But I go out of my way to admit who I am, by being as honest and real as possible. I hate hypocrisy and two-faced people. And that is soooooooooo prevalent here and in most workplaces I'm afraid to say. I hate capitalism sometimes, for forcing me to be amongst these dumbasses I would never wanna be around in my spare time. WHY DEAR GOD WHY? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Thank God for Howard Stern on Sirius in the mornings, for the few decent folk here at work, for my Ipod, getting laid, laughter, sleep, good food, friends, animals, those I love, and my weekends.
Were it not for that, Idda thrown myself out of our fourth floor window here at work long ago...
I used to like flying actually. Back in the mid 90's that is. Then that little piece of shit anxiety struck me, and the thought of being in a plane confined with all those others on board made me cringe.
September 11 didn't help, but miraculously I was able to fly out to New Orleans and back two years in a row just before Hurricane Katrina. Now look at the latest scare. Security now is extra extra tight, thanks to the airliner bomb plot that was uncovered by the Brits and has made headlines the world over. Flying now seems like a real annoying chore.
Hmmm...me wonders and scratches my head. I do hate to be cynical, but...
Important election coming up in November, I wonder if this isn't all a way to get Bush and crew some much needed support for their failure in Iraq. After all, this is a fantastic way to scare the masses, instill fear once again, and get the public convinced of the great job being done by our administration to stop these Islamic heathens from shredding us to bloody bits.
So kids: no mouthwash, toothpaste, lipstick, lube, hair gel, hairspray, box cutters, sharp scissors, bottled water, iPod, and many other things we could conveniently take on board before, will be allowed onto the plane. Makes for a really inconvenient and frustrating trip. These are the sick and atrocious times we live in. The "Islamic Fascists" are hungry to kill themselves and others in the process. They just don't care now do they? This is really pissing people off, including our beloved Sandra Bernhardt! HAHA!
It still boggles my mind that I could still be this young and witness this madness that our world has become.
If I have to get on a plane again, Imma take me a good strong sleeping pill or a couple of drinks and say good night. Wake me up when the plane lands.
That is, if I don't get blown up in midair.
Christ.
Whoa there!
Looks like Paul McCartney's divorce from the one-legged chippy is starting to get oogly. Yeah, the locks were changed on the bitch, and her accounts frozen by Macca. This is really a shame, because they share a two year-old, and Paul did not sign a pre-nup, so ya know the amount of money Heather is going to get is gonna be astronomical. All that glorious songwriting, album sales, and touring has made Paul a very wealthy man worth 1.5 billion.
Which brings me to good ole' Linda McCartney. What a shame to have lost such an amazing towering figure in Paul's life. The mother of most of his kids, his wife for close to thirty years, she toured the world with him while a member of Wings, and was the inspiration for many of his really great songs during his post-Beatles career. Linda married Paul in 1969 and they were virtually inseparable until that evil fuckin' cancer claimed her life back in 1998. HOW BLOODY AWFUL AND UNFAIR!
She was a vegetarian too! She lived a relatively healthy lifestyle and convinced Paul to stop eating meat, and then comes that shitty disease and kills her. I know Paul was devastated as were many fans, who really liked Linda lots as one of the nicest and most down-to-earth Beatles wives, unlike that annoying bitch Yoko Ono.
I guess Paul was trying hard to start over with Heather, but alas, it was not meant to be. There was and only will be one Linda forever. You now know the pain and stress of divorce Sir Paul, for the first time ever.
Your true muse, your real friend, and true wife is long gone...
"Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you
Baby I'm a man and maybe I'm a lonely man
Who's in the middle of something
That he doesn't really understand
Babe I'm a man and maybe you're the only woman
Who could ever help me
Baby won't you help to me understand"
Oliver Stone's new film comes out this week and is getting decent reviews as a wonderful tribute to the heroes of that shocking day.
However, do you believe the official 9/11 story?
Ya know, the official version being that four planes were hijacked, two were crashed into the World Trade Center which collapsed from the burning jet fuel, while one went into the Pentagon, and the other into a field in Pennsylvania. I guess most Americans did believe the official story for a good few weeks after the horrific event, but nearly five years on, a vast amount of people out there believe there is a conspiracy at work here, if not several.
I myself have some doubts mind you. How were they able to hijack four freakin' planes so seemingly easily as they did? With box cutters?! I dunno man. I guess anything's possible and Americans were truly naive of the possible evil from extremist Muslims, but it bugs me to no end that not one, but FOUR FREAKIN' PLANES were so effectively taken over that morning. Second, where tha hell was the Air Force to shoot those suckers down? I can tolerate the first plane that went into the WTC, but the second one was given fifteen more minutes or so to find its target and go into the South Tower to the horror of millions watching on TV. HOW?!
Even more questions arise with the final two hijacked aircraft. So many feel the Pentagon story is loaded with holes. Was it truly a plane? Why has the footage from cameras on the ground been so bad? Could it have been a missile? And the final plane that crashed into that field arouses even more suspicion. Did those people on board really take the hijackers down or was that plane shot down? Why did the plane disintegrate upon impact and leave hardly, if any wreckage?
Then there's people who question the WTC collapse itself. Many feel it was a controlled demolition, and that explosives were placed in the building prior, then detonated to bring the buildings down. The list of anomalies and possible conspiracy theories are endless: the government knew and let it happen, Bush was way too comfortable at that school, and it was all a pretext to go to war in the Middle East.
We know what we saw. We saw those two planes hit the WTC for sure, the towers burning, people tragically jumping to their deaths, and thousands killed as the towers came down. This we cannot dispute. They are images that will forever haunt us till the day we die.
But so many questions remain unanswered for so many, including me to be honest. We will never forget the 3,000 or so victims of this monumental tragedy which has forever changed our lives and that of the world entire.Some out there buy the official story, many others do not.Just what really happened?Further reading:http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/http://wtc.nist.gov/http://www.debunking911.com/http://www.infowars.com/martial_law_911.htmhttp://www.freepressinternational.com/911.htmlhttp://www.911truth.org/http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/9_11_facts.html
This is one dude who made history alright. Admired by few, and hated by most, Fidel Castro is either on his last legs or has already bought the farm, though it is being denied.
In power since 1959 folks! Can you imagine?! 47 years as the ruler of Cuba? If that ain't a dictatorship, I dunno what is. The recent "temporary" transfer of power to his brother Raúl is a good indication that Fidel's stomach surgery or whatever tha hell he's going through is very serious. Time to meet your maker Fidelito! You're old and pretty outdated man.
Yeah, you were purty cool in the 1960's. You stood up to American Imperialism very effectively, you gave some real fiery speeches, and the crowds adored you. The Soviets had your back, and ya almost sent the world into nuclear holocaust back in '62. I mean, Fidel was tha man! A really powerful figure who will forever be remembered by his military green outfit, that hat, and of course, the beard!
Now look at him. Completely irrelevant, worn out, and delusional. Many of the Miami/Florida Cubans have been dancing on the streets hoping for any news of Fidel kicking the bucket, and I can understand why they hate him so much and feel their island nation was robbed of its capitalistic potential under the old tyrannical rule of communism. But I find it kinda silly really. More so, if it's a U.S. born 20 year-old of Cuban descent who probably doesn't know shit about Fidel or Havana and was only taught to hate the dude just because it's the cool thing to do.
Even Al Pacino dealt with Fidel! Well, only in the movies really; Godfather Pt. II and Scarface. If ya remember and know what I'm talking about.
My Cuban co-worker thinks he's not dead, and regardless says nothing will change. But Fidel's brother is really old too. How much time hath he got? Something's gotta give.
This will be interesting indeed to see unfold. I gotta say, 2006 started off rather boring in terms of world headlines, but it has now become quite the year.
More than one billion people on Earth speak Mandarin Chinese, but they all seem to be concentrated in China, as are the close to one billion that speak Hindi in India. And yes, millions speak Arabic, Russian, German, Portuguese, and Japanese as well. 
