January 05, 2009 19:14

This whole affair has certainly stirred up a lot of emotions in me. Last night I rewatched an interview with James Baldwin, famous writer, playwright, activist. The interviewer asked James Baldwin to speak about the differences of Malcolm X and MLK and what is precisely going on here. Hauntingly, if Martin and Malcolm were replaced with contemporary figures, Baldwin might seem as if he's talking about our current global politique, read:Israel/Palestine, Neo-cons/THE WORLD, Security/Terrorism, hubris hubris hubris, here's a portion of the interview:

Jim: When Malcolm talks or one of the muslims talks, they articulate for all the Negro people who hear them; who listen to them. They articulate their suffering, the suffering which has been in this country so long denied. That's Malcolm's great authority over any of his audiences. He corroborates their reality; he tells them that they really exist.

Clark: Jim, do you think that this is a more effective appeal than the appeal of Martin Luther King?

Jim: It is much more sinister because it is much more effective. It is much more ffective, because it is, after all, comparatively easy to invest a population with a false morale by giving them a false sense of superiority, and it will always break down in a crisis. That is the history of Europe simple-- it's on eof the reaosn that we are in this terrible place. It is one of the reasons that we have five cops standing on the back of a woman's neck in Birmingham, because at some poin they were taught and they believed that they were better than other people because they were white. It leads t moral bankruptcy. It is inevitable, it cannot but lead there. But my point here is that the country is for the fisrt time worried about the Muslim movement. It shouldn't be worried about the muslim movement, that's not the problem. The problem is to elimnate the conditions which breed teh Muslim movement.

January 03, 2009 19:33

My resolution into the New Year has been to save more and at the very least understand where my most of my meager income is going into... Mint has been AWESOME for it.

One thing that really bothers me about bank and credit card companies is how UGLY they are. If logging onto my bank account on a Monday isn't depressing enough then I have to see how much I spent after a weekend of ski trips, $10 hot dogs at the chalet and breaking a pole while trying to do something stupid. Mint makes it at least a prettier experience.

On top of this, you can set budgets for your different expenses, for example $250 on car payment a month, $200 a month for food and dining, etc. It's great-- then it will give you emails or texts to let you know if you are on track. It will show you your spending on different expenses through different months as well allow you to graph the whole experience--  All in all it's been great.

In terms of security, there is really no liability. I did some heavy research on it and even if you access all your financial accounts via mint, you are liable for $0 by law on credit cards and up to $50 on bank accounts. I didn't check anything with respect to stock/investments etc because I have none.

December 31, 2008 03:02

So apparently somebody decided to have a little fun and destroy some user accounts on oqodo, mine included.  It's my fault for making the method publicly available, I didn't bother with any security for this site cuz I figured it would only ever be use using it.  Oh well, it's been patched and the accounts are restored.  Fun times.