archive of July, 2009
Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten … America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay.
If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness – justice. ~ Dr. Martin King, Junior
Tonight I watched a nonstop Formula One race, televised from the Hungaroring Circuit in Hungary. The race had NO yellow-flag caution periods which the IndyCar Series dearly loves.
IndyCar fans often have to endure 12 minutes of no racing during a race. The laps spent trolling around behind a Honda Accord pace car are counted as race laps, although no one is racing. The fans in the stands are bored and viewers at home are exposed to insipid ads which they’ve seen and heard several times already. If IndyCar Series executive officers care about the quality of their on-track ‘product,’ they would do well to watch Formula One — and other — races which don’t have needless, unnecessarily-long caution periods for such excuses as the removal of a stopped car which is nowhere near the racing surface and thus endangers no one.
I didn’t arise early enough to go to the chingay championship on the George Town Esplanade and make photos of people balancing flag poles, but I went to Tanjung City Marina hoping to photograph a ‘dragon boat’ race to Butterworth and back. Well, it’s an athletic competition for the rowers, not an event that’s ‘made for TV’ or spectating. I couldn’t get a decent photo unless I were in a helicopter or on a boat out in the channel. »→
I sincerely believe … that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. ~ Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Monday, July 12:
In Hospital Pulau Pinang, I asked a nurse at the nurses’ desk if someone would raise my bed like a few others that I pointed to. I wished that I had known last night that the beds could articulate. My back hurt all night and morning, seemingly from the weight of my body on my spine. If I had my bed jacked-up to a 45° angle, it might’ve alleviated some suffering. I ambled back toward bed two, and while I waited for a nurse or orderly or anyone I looked out the south windows of C-block to the playground and the street beyond. Though several windows were tilted open and the ceiling fan above beds 1 and 2 was whirring at top speed, I began to feel very hot, as if I’d just hiked up Bukit Bendera. »→
