Pray For Our Korean Friends

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/23/wtaliban123.xml

The Most Important Al-Qaeda Story You’ll NEVER See

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm

If you still don’t think Al-Queda poses a threat to America, look what they do to their own countrymen. Friends, we don’t like to look at these things. But better to look at them and take heed now while there is still time than suffer the consequences later.

BACKGROUND: Michael Yon is an independent, completely reader-supported photojournalist in Iraq. He embeds with American and British forces to tell their stories from the front lines.

When Being Quirky is Hurting You

I’m all for personality quirks (I know, I have a few uh..special quirks of my own). But quirky has gone too far on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

I have identified a trend of people repeatedly posting photos of themselves making absurd faces. This strikes me as odd…not the part about people making ridiculous faces, but the fact that they keep on doing it. I’ve seen profiles of people who seriously post about 200 photos of themselves just making random faces, usually ones where their mouths are gaping open (maybe in mocked shock or horror) or their eyes are especially wide and close to the camera. You know what I’m talking about.

A variation on this trend is people posting endless photos of themselves making seductive, sexy, or otherwise attractive faces. I think we can chalk this one up to pure vanity and insecurity.  So whether a series of attractive faces or absurd ones, I find that the weirdest thing is that people are taking these pictures themselves! (You can easily determine this by looking at the angles the photos were taken at.  Plus I have a hard time believing anyone else would have the patience to take so many  stupid, pointless pictures.)

I just don’t get it. Is it simple plain self-absportion for the whole Internet world to see, or do these people really think all their quirky faces are just that funny? It’s…strange.  Who spends hours on end photographing themself?

Does it really matter that people are obsessed with weird photos of themselves? No.  But when you consider th amount of time people waste taking, selecting, and posting photos of themselves doing nothing else than looking purely ridiculous, it sure does make me wonder if narcicism isn’t becoming more a societal norm than a recognizable form of pride.

Citizens of the WOL, I urge you to set an example in this regard.  Please. Try and resist the urge to capture your own absurdity on film.  And if you must do so, please just keep your ridiculousness to yourself, perhaps in a photo album neatly labeled “Funny Me” or another such title.  Then you can open it up whenever you want and view all your weirdness for as long as you feel you need. And if that doesn’t sound like much fun,  maybe you should ask yourself why the rest of us should be interested in seeing it either.

This is Why I Don’t Like to Cook.

Thank goodness I have long fingernails…Probably saved the top of my finger.

Men Behaving Badly…in the Restroom

My fellow friends in the WOL, I have not forsaken you! It is true that life has been busy. But.. here I am, back to delight you all with yet another tale of a breach in bathroom etiquette…this time coming from the men’s room.

My source must remain anonymous to protect the innocent, but I have recently been informed by an eyewitness of a serious breach in SBP, or Standard Bathroom Protocol, in a workplace men’s room. In fact, this breach in etiquette has turned into a regular occurance, actually becoming, dare I say it, a patterned breach in SBP. I submit the facts:

My source, let’s call him “Joe,” reports multiple incidents on the part of middle and executive level management of breaking etiquette rule #1: never talk to people in the bathroom if you didn’t come in with them (as outlined fully in Bathroom Etiquette…Breached!) What exactly occurs? Joe explains that he will be at the urinal, doing as men do when nature calls, when suddenly and out of the blue management enters and directly addresses him, engaging him in conversation while they too step up to the urinal and begin to attend to matters. And to make things worse, conversation often centers on business affairs.

Joe was careful to note that part of the severity of this infraction results from the suddenness of the conversation. As Joe shared his feelings of deep assault, he reflected on this sudden interruption of his bathroom reverie, stating sadly, “It was like a stealth bomb.”

Men of the WOL, please note: The urinal is to be a private place of silence and solitary contemplation, of focus on the task at hand. I can say this confidently as I have been told by countless men that this is one task you must complete on your own. You do not discuss clients. You do not chat about sales figures. You do not go over productivity benchmarks. You do not vocalize your deepest thoughts on marketing trends. You do not talk about the company Christmas party. You do not even discuss the weather, for crying aloud–NO! You stand there, silently completing the task before you until you quietly wrap things up, move to the sink, and wash your hands with soap.

Even more shocking, perhaps, than this complete disregard for proper restroom etiquette is the frequency at which it occurs. Joe told me that this happens on a regular basis, several times a week…at least once a day, and sometimes more.

If you doubt the seriousness of the offense Joe has suffered, I ask you to consider: How would you feel if you too were attending to one of life’s most personal matters and were suddenly accosted by your boss and unwillingly engaged in conversation about matters related to job performance? For upper management–who should serve as an example–to initiate such conversation at your vulnerable moment would surely be a grievance indeed.

We must ask ourselves: Why? Why does this go on unnoticed, unchecked? How and when did these men learn such poor restroom survival skills? I have no answer to these questions. But with this post, I offer hope to Joe and to all those who must endure awkward bathroom conversation at their places of work. If education is the antidote to ignorance, then I say this post has served its purpose