Now With Handsome Irish Goodness

Our apologies on neglecting the opportunity to portray the handsome Irish goodness from the June 20th post (I assume that would be the fella' with his arm draped all over this blogger's wife, the bastard).

Tax the Middle Class! (Bastards)

It appears that Congress has finally had the insight to do away with out of control tax breaks, such as tax breaks for college tuition or tax breaks for teachers having to buy their own supplies.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqKKaxKK5Z9g&refer=home

Comments and questions are always welcome

Squeezing the Big Boxes (They Can Take It)

This story was brought to our attention by Adam, thanks Adam and good luck on your final thesis paper.
I like the fact that Wal-Mart is complaining about having to pay their employees $10 an hour and give them health insurance. I also like how Mayor Daley may veto the measure, in order to "help the people of Chicago".
That's the funny thing about Chicago they think that they want livable wages and health care, but they really don't and sometimes it takes elected officials and big business to remind them of this.


Remember, this is a blog, so comments and questions are encouraged and welcomed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/us/27chicago.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Oh, Sweet Sweet Irony

Man responsible for passing around the Danish Mohammed cartoons which resulted in the destruction of the Danish embassy in Lebanon is ironically saved by the very same Danish embassy in his evacuation from Lebanon back to the safety of Denmark.

http://bibelen.blogspot.com/2006/07/akkari-and-danish-flag.html

"Global Warming is a hoax" Says Professional Liar.

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is the Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and he is comparing Global Warming to the great lies of the Nazi Party (I'm not sure that I follow his insinuation here). Who in the hell elects these people to office?

Remember this is a blog, so comments and suggestions are always welcomed and encouraged.
http://www.senatemajority.com/
outrageous_quote_of_the_day_james_inhofe

MA Universal Health Care Update

Massachusetts passes Universal Health Care insurance Act. Now officially the first state in the country to do so.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/07/26/national/a133956D72.DTL

Darth Vader Reminisces

If you have 10 minutes to kill, I thought this was funny.
http://www.akjak.com/vader-sessions/

Demon Ducks...by Request

Last week fossils of giant flesh eating Demon Ducks of Doom and Killer Kangaroos were found in Australia.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5172292.stm

On This Date (Warning: this is a cop-out post)

July 16
64 A.D. - The Great Fire of Rome, Nero fiddles.
1967 A.D. - Vin Diesel is born. While setting Hollywood on fire, he does not fiddle as he is too busy kickin' ass.

July Reading and Listening Recommendation

A Confederacy of Dunces
The first I had heard of this book was as a recommendation from a friend as we were settling in for pizza on his last night in Spain before making his way back to Ireland (and eventually to South America). At the time he was halfway through the book, but sold half of the book to me as well as he could.
Later while reading 24-7 (the English guide to Valencia) I read a review of it as an "oldie but goodie". The back story is almost as interesting as the book itself.
The author, John Kennedy Toole had committed suicide in 1969, long before the book had been published. In 1976 his mother had found the manuscript while going through his belongings. She read it and took it to to Professor Walker Percy of Loyola to see if he would be interested in doing something with it. Not terribly interested on giving up time on a scratchy manuscript based on the recommendation from the dead author's mother as "pretty good", he let it sit on his desk. He eventually got around to reading the first page with the intentions of not continuing, but he was looking for a substantial reason to tell the mother that he couldn't do anything with it. As Percy tells it he found himself enjoying it and agreeing that it should be published. It was realeased in bits and pieces in 1978 in the New Orleans Review and it was finally published in its full form in 1980, eleven years after the author's death.
The story itself is about Ignatius J. Reilly a 30 year old man that still lives with his mother. He is a self-proclaimed genius and is five years into the process of writing his masterpiece about the decline of civilization since the Middle Ages. He writes at the pace of roughly a paragraph a month and references a previously written 5 page piece on the same subject that he boldly gave shelf space to in the New Orleans public library. Mrs. Irene Reilly is determined to get her son out of her house and into a job, this is where the hilarity ensues.

Broken Boy Soldiers
The Raconteurs is the "not a side project" from Brendan Benson, The White Stripes's Jack White, and Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of The Greenhornes. Broken Boy Soldiers isn't as experiemental or groundbreaking as The White Stripes, but if you remove Jack White's previous credentials from the equation you have a fun little foot stomping collection of tunes. The influences stem more from The Beatles or the pages of No Depression than any resemblance to White's other band. For any Australian readers, you'll be looking for Broken Boy Soldiers from a band called The Saboteurs. Apparently the name, The Raconteurs, is being used by a local Queensland band that is refusing to be bought out.

Going on Vacation - Be Back Mid-July

The doors at Inner Sense Abroad will be closed for a few weeks due to a brief jaunt back home.

While we have been admittedly slowing down on our production over the past few weeks, it is (albeit feebley) excusable through final exams and other teacher things.

Over the next few weeks however we will not just be slowing down, but coming to a screeching halt.

Be back in Mid-June.

Rest Easy, Nick and Kara are doing fine...

Nick and Kara arrived on Friday evening for a gentle harmless midnight sit down with Limon Granizados at a sidewalk cafe. Saturday night however became a bit more debaucherous as birthdays (Marta's) and alcohol became involved. The night was topped off with limbo, reggaton, sharks and a final race against the sun to get home (incidentally the sun won). Follow Nick and Kara's endeavors as they continue their journey through Barcelona, Italy and Greece. They've posted some good pictures of Valencia and written an entertaining synopsis.

Good luck on the rest of your journey.

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nklenske/eurosummer06/1150659480/tpod.html

32nd America's Cup

Next summer will be the 32nd America's Cup in Valencia. The school where I am working booked a boat for a tour. The tour was cut short because the sea was tossing us around and we had to turn back, I tried to capture the waves with the camera, but there isn't a perspective to really do it justice. However there were moments where the back end of our boat was on water while the front end was sent plunging downwards. At any rate here are some pictures of riding in a sailboat on the Mediterranean.

June Reading and Listening Recommendation

The Catcher in The Rye
I have read three books since my last review in May. I read The Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett, Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I could easily be suggesting any one of these three books, but given the history The Catcher in the Rye gets the nod.
I first bought this book from a used bookstore in Cedar Rapids. I don't remember how old I was, but I know that I walked to the bookstore, so I'm guessing around 13 or 14. The bookstore was called Basically Books and it was in the same strip mall that The Video Station used to be in. I picked up the book having heard of it, but having never read it. When I took it to the counter to ask about the price the woman at the checkout went into some rant about how she couldn't believe that I had found a hardback copy of the book in her store. Apparently this was a rare copy of the book and since I had found it first she would let me have it for $5. This is notwithstanding the fact that the first page had been torn out. Like a sucker for a good deal I bought the book thinking I would someday sell it back for my early retirement (I had just recently gotten out of baseball cards where everything had the potential to one day make you rich...I'm still waiting for that damn Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card to make me a millionaire, clumsy bastard). Needless to say I have since seen the hardback version that I purchased in nearly every other used bookstore in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area. The one difference being that the other copies have all of their pages intact.
I re-read the book this past week in order to prepare for teaching it to my group of 10th graders next year. I had forgotten how good of a book it was. Salinger gives the teacher a hand as Holden, the narrator, makes comparisons between himself and other literary heroes such as David Copperfield, Eustacia Vye and Lt. Henry.

Stadium Arcadium
I have already heard the complaints about the new Chili Peppers album, its too commercial, its too poppy or that they have sold out. If you line up their previous efforts I would beeline straight for Mother's Milk or Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Its not that I didn't like Californication or By The Way, I just thought that they were boring. Stadium Arcadium is poppy and it is commercial and I don't care. I don't think that commercialization is necessarily a bad thing. Commercialization is simply appealing to a mass audience, be it for better or for worse. Selling-out on the other hand is different. To me selling out is the notion of pulling back, resting on your laurels, or getting lazy in order to put out what you know will make a lot of money. I don't believe that the Chili Peppers have sold out with this album. Stadium Arcadium is intricate and filled with subtle nuances that reward the listener with each go around.
They weren't going to make a lasting career on "Give It Away", "Under the Bridge" or "Higher Ground". They had to develop the melody in their songs or today they'd be doing the country fair scene with Creedence Clearwater Revisited or The New Beach Boys. It would be a fat Anthony Kiedis and three other guys who for legal purposes would be called The Really Hot Chili Peepers. They'd be doing "Sir Psycho Sexy", while Kiedis would be dipping over trying to catch his breath at the sloppy bass breaks being performed by a tall lanky guy named Gnat or Mosquito.
Given the alternative, commercial isn't such a bad thing.

Valencia Web TV

Valencia Web TV is an internet based interactive Valencia information page. It has video footage from local bars, cafes, shops and places to stay. It is a fantastic resource for those living in the Valencia area and those about to visit. The web page is in English and the videos are subtitled, you couldn't ask for easier access or more convenience.
You can access it through my sidebar links or just click on the link below.
http://www.valenciawebtv.com/

Vermont #2 in the Nation to take on Universal Health Care

Vermont Governor James Douglas is the second governor in the United States to take on Universal Health Care for its citizens. Incidentally what has been perceived as a liberal issue has been adapted by two Republicans. Mitt Romney, Republican governor of Massachussettes and potential 2008 presidential candidate, proposed a similar plan for his state earlier this year. So apparently it will be the Republicans carrying this torch, good on them (let's all observe as the Democrats watch another boat drift off to sea without them).

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2005592

Al Gore XP Security Pack

The new version of Al Gore is funny, outspoken, makes movies and apparently breathes fire. The fire breathing alone put me on his bandwagon.
Check out the link to see the trailer for his new movie An Inconvenient Truth. I'll be curious to see if this movie puts Global Warming in the national spotlight or will be relegated to select cities (industry speak for NYC and LA only). I will also be curious to see what he will do with this media attention over the next couple of years.
If not Feingold as the Democratic nod, then what the hell, give Gore another go.

http://a.videodetective.com/?PublishedID=778954

Al Gore 2000 vs. Al Gore XP

This is from the May 25th edition of Slate Magazine. It asks whether or not Gore could or should make another attempt at the presidency. If you haven't seen Gore's performance on Saturday Night Live from a few weeks ago, the article links to it, if you haven't seen it check it out, its quite funny.
http://www.slate.com/id/2142362/nav/tap1/

A (very) Short History of the Spanish Flag

I think that this is interesting, and realistically in this little corner of the world wide web that is all that really matters...seriously, start your own damn blog.

The green, white and yellow flag is the flag that Columbus sailed on his Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria when he ventured off for the Indies on behalf of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in 1492.

The red, yellow and purple flag is that of the short lived Second Republic of Spain that lasted from 1931-1936 before being interrupted by the Spanish Civil War. The irony of this flag is that it represented the Republic of Spain, yet the purple on the bottom represented royalty, which the Republic was getting away from. I like this flag, something about its colors make me want to sit in my dorm room hitting hookahs and playing rhythm-less bongos to Bob Marley and Peter Tosh records.

Finally, the last flag to be mentioned is from a brief period in the 1960's when the country became obsessed by everything Miles Davis. For one week in December of 1960 the country had made this its official flag and had flirted with changing the name from Espana to Miles. Unfortunately for Mr. Davis this was reconsidered in 1961 after the nation took up its new obsession with Chubby Checker's "Let's Twist Again".

Devistatin' Dave says 'Thank You'

Devastatin' Dave and I just wanted to take this chance to thank those that are posting comments on my blog.
We would like to encourage more comments, let's discuss, let us know what's on your mind. Do you suspect your loved one of infidelity? Let us know, we'll talk about it, we're here to help you. Hell, maybe one of our bloggers is the recipient of the unfaithfulness, in which case...mystery solved.
Or as Devastatin' Dave the 'Turntable Slave' would say, "Zip Zap Rap...y'all"
'Zip Zap Rap' indeed Dave, 'Zip Zap Rap' indeed.

Here's to another month of Inner Sense Abroad.