the life of james

Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

hilarious

religious leaders appealing to religious teachings to encourage a religious constituency to do the right thing isn’t blasphemous; it’s a textbook example of knowing your audience. that it has to do with politics is no more a violation of the separation between church and state or an assault on the christian faith than what jesus himself said in the bible: “give to caesar what is caesar’s and to god what is god’s.” in fact, it’s practically the same message.

what irks me is that the mere mention of jesus’ name instantly supercharges any conversation. it shouldn’t be that way. credit that to people who throw out jesus’ name for their own ends; it seems to me a true christian would never invoke jesus’ name for the sake of personal gain, only for the sake of god and god’s ends — which is to say in the promotion of love and righteousness. encouraging people to obey laws hardly seems to go against what jesus himself said.

Group’s Census promo called ‘blasphemous’

A Hispanic group promotes full participation in next year’s Census with an ad campaign built around the story of Christmas.

By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY

A push to spread the gospel about the 2010 Census this Christmas is stoking controversy with a campaign that links the government count to events surrounding the birth of Jesus.

The National Association of Latino Elected Officials is leading the distribution to churches and clergy of thousands of posters that depict the arrival of Joseph and a pregnant Mary in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. As chronicled in the Gospel of Luke, Joseph returned to be counted in a Roman census, but he and Mary found no room at an inn, and Jesus was born in a manger.

“This is how Jesus was born,” the poster states. “Joseph and Mary participated in the Census.”

Most of the posters are in Spanish and target Latino evangelicals, says Jose Cruz, senior director of civic engagement at the Latino association, which launched its Ya Es Hora (It’s Time) campaign in 2006 to promote voter registration among Latinos.

It is promoting the Census, used to help allocate $400 billion a year in federal dollars, redraw state and local political districts and determine the number of seats each state gets in Congress.

“Our challenge is a full Latino count,” says Cruz, who designed the poster. For people who fear government — especially those here illegally — the plea to fill out the Census has to come from someone they trust, he says. “There is no more trusted voice in our community than faith-based leaders.”

The campaign may counter efforts by one Latino evangelical group to get Hispanics to boycott the Census unless Congress changes immigration laws.

The Rev. Miguel Rivera, chairman of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, says invoking the name of Jesus to promote the 2010 Census is “blasphemous” and “violates the concept of separation of church and state.” Using the name of Jesus for “a political and secular intention, it is definitely an assault against our Christian faith,” Rivera says.

Government did not pay or play a role in creating the posters, says Nick Kimball, spokesman at the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau. “We work with people from all walks of life to get an accurate count but do not provide funding,” he says. Most mainstream Latino groups do not support a Census boycott.

Tying the Census to the Christmas story strengthens the message, Cruz says, because “Mary and Joseph, who were both God-fearing, decided they needed to participate.”

Music Blogs > Hip-Hop Media Training > Wedding Dance Couple Go To Divorce Court In Spoof

Wedding Dance Couple Go To Divorce Court In Spoof

Posted Mon Aug 3, 2009 7:54pm PDT by Billy Johnson, Jr. in Hip-Hop Media Training

Should Kevin and Jill Heinz ever file for a divorce, the breakup proceedings can be just as hip-hop and grandiose as their wedding procession that made its rounds via a viral video a few weeks ago.

Indigo Productions, a successful New York-based production company, has created a divorce court parody of the video that mimics the wedding party dancing down a church aisle to Chris Brown’s hit “Forever.”

JK Divorce Entrance Dance @ Yahoo! Video

In the “Unexpected Divorce Intro” video, the attorneys, judge, bailiffs, bride and groom also dance to the Chris Brown song as they make their entrance in the viral spinoff filmed Wednesday in an actual local Supreme Court. They released the video Thursday.

Indigo Productions, which has a corporate client list that includes brands L’Oréal, Canon, Chase, IBM, and The Smithsonian Institution, was inspired to make a response video as part of a challenge posed in the Viral Video Workshop At NYU course the production company offers at New York University.

When assigning the master project task to create a viral video, the students asked Indigo Productions to participate. “The students challenged us,” said Max Rosen, Indigo Productions president and “Unexpected Divorce Intro” producer. “They said, ‘Let’s see what you can do.’ And we said, ‘Ok.’”

Rosen’s top team of directors, producers, and writers brainstormed and came up with several ideas that involved a tribute to Michael Jackson as well as sketch and horror pieces. But the “Unexpected Divorce Intro” idea materialized when a colleague called Rosen during the all day Sunday class session with an idea to make a divorce version of the hilarious Heinz video. Everyone agreed to make the breakup short.

They quickly assembled a cast that includes professionally trained Broadway performers. Rosen called his friends at the Conan O’Brien show to pull in its choreographer for the project. They rehearsed for one hour, and shot the video in three takes.

Indigo Productions has made more than 20 viral videos for internal use for its client Ricoh. When Rosen told Ricoh about the project, Ricoh offered to fund the effort and did not require a product mention. The team worked on the project for either free or below rate.

Rosen said they are dying to hear from newlyweds Kevin and Jill Heinz.

He added that the clip was the most fun he has had making a video in his company’s 17 year history.

Maybe Chris Brown will make an appearance should a third version arise.

funny shit.

five years ago, on this date, koalayummeee wrote his first blog entry on xanga. back then he was still in high school and had yet to even kiss a girl! who would’ve known that five years later, not only would he no longer be in high school and have kissed many, many girls, but he’d still be writing (albeit on his own website and more so posting pictures than writing)?!

here’s to another five years full of cool stuff to blog about!

well guys, i’ve been busy at work. i’ve now uploaded over 6000 images to the gallery, and i’m still working! i’ll probably have close to 10,000 picture and video files up by the time i get done. and that’s only old pictures; it doesn’t include those i have yet to take!

click on the photo to view the gallery (6000+ pictures)

other than that, not much new to report, other than i have successfully passed the hardest exam of patriot phase—though i barely scraped by with an 84% (we’re required to score at least an 80%). overall, my average has been dropping steadily. i graduated core phase with one of the highest averages in the class at 96%, but it’s come back towards the center. it’s just so hard to apply myself! i was one of only 5 people in the class, however, to score a 90% in all categories on the apft.

finally, i am happy to hear that phil, jaime, and peter may be coming to el paso soon. i can’t wait. michelle also said she might take a trip down here. anyone who wants to visit is definitely welcome here!

nothing much to report, except for the fact that i’m working on putting up a rudimentary online photo gallery… which means that i’m pretty much working off of what i had on farizah’s website, but adding new pics and some future upgrades to follow…

such as integrating the album into wordpress, so there is a consist design between that page and this one…

so on a total whim, out of the blue, i finally designed a front page for koalayummeee.com. it’s been a few years, so it’s about time i actually put something up!:

i’m kind of ambivalent about it, though. it’s along the lines of what i did for farizah, but it’s definitely kind of “boxy.” i sure spent a lot of time in microsoft paint…

now i just have to set up an online photo gallery, and i’m good to go!

that said, grow your own 1up mushroom!

a few items that caught james’ interest…

one about baseball

it’s only been 100 years, but the cubs are finally favored to win another world series! every single year i have bled cubbies red and blue, and every year i have had my hopes crushed. five years ago, after having my heart torn to pieces in the nlcs, i predicted that the cubs would win the world series in 2008. it’s fate…

with all the hubbub and hullabaloo surrounding the recent revelation that vp-candidate sarah palin’s 17-year-old daughter, bristol, is pregnant, here is the latest in a long line of “commentaries,” including such notable entries as Polish monk preaches divine sex, governor spitzer’s girls, abstinence - just say NO!, and on hiv/aids awareness and the correlation between stds and risky sex with spiders, scorpions, and other arachnids of ill character…

ready? here it is:

i’d tap that.

commentary over!

one about depraved sex and how the hindus got it right

seriously, though, what’s wrong with sex and lots of it? nothing, i say! sex is great! i love sex! whether it’s enjoying a night of burlesque with my girlfriend, a lapdance from a hot stripper, or beautifully ergonomic mousepads—or, of course, it’s having the wildest, most depraved sex ever with anywhere from one to twelve girls, a variety of costumes, handcuffs, whips, whipped cream, and toys so depraved i had to study diagrams (sorry, can’t link to those posts!)—sex is great! okay, so i lied. it was chocolate frosting from lover’s lane, not whipped cream! ;D

in any case, yes, the world would be so much of a better place if everyone would have lots of sex! there would be no wars or no reason to fight. everyone would be too busy to fight—because they’d be having lots of sex! and even if, perchance, someone found a free moment when they weren’t having sex, they’d be too happy or tired to want to do anything bad—that is, except for having lots more wicked sex!

all facetiousness aside, i think the hindus had it right. there are many paths to finding truth, and everyone has to follow their own path. whether dharma, artha, kama, or moksha, there is value in all things. even if some paths are better than others, it is only through walking and learning from experiences that one begins to see which way to go. it’s kind of like living in a big city. if you don’t know the city, you can easily get lost, but the more you walk around in it, the more familiar you become. you learn which ways to go, which ways to avoid, and which are the best to get you to your destination. sure you can use a map to help you navigate, but a map is only a guide. it doesn’t tell you where you should go. only you can decide what has value and what is worth the time traveling to get to it. sometimes, you can search for years before you find that perfect spot. sometimes you never find it at all…

one about hurricanes

i’ve been asking this question for years: why are we spending ridiculous amounts of money on a city that is one storm away from being the next atlantis? the city is below sea level, for crying out loud! i love bare breasts and college girls as much as anyone, but is mardi gras really that important?!

i quote:

president obama?

so apparently barack obama admitted he might run for president in 2008. great…

so i was one of the first barack obama supporters–when he was still a long shot for illinois senate, before his ads on wgci, before blair hull and jack ryan bowed out due to their respective domestic troubles (blair hull beating his wife, jack ryan coercing his wife to publicly have sex with him in “avant-garde” sex clubs)…

but frankly, starting about the time of his 2004 dnc keynote speech, i quickly got sick of the whole “let’s all be friends” feel-good success story that is barack obama.

you heard it here first: FUCK BARACK OBAMA.

i didn’t even vote for him in 2004. i think i casted a write-in vote for snoopy. no wait, that was for president.

for senate i voted for cookie monster. =)