Filed under: miscellanea, tibetan stuff | Tags: Darwyn Cooke, Frank Miller, good natured ribbing, The Spirit, tibetan stuff, Will Eisner
And Bhutan didn’t win a medal for archery. I’m so heartbroken I could listen to the Smiths.
On the bright side, Dave is opening a Tibetan restaurant in Bangor, called Bangor to Bangkor. Due to my ignorance of podunk towns in Maine, I stumbled across the little fact that there is a Tibetan city called Bangkor (how’s that for a consonant cluster!). My searches for Decatkur met with a much lower level of success, but I did uncover this little tidbit: there are more black people in Bangkor than in Bangor (0 and -4, respectively).
Here’s hoping that the math team in Bangkor is gangbusters. And just so this entire post isn’t in-jokes, I’m going to rant about a comic-book movie.
Filed under: tibetan stuff | Tags: bike, bloomington, Culture-with-a-capital-C, mongolian, tibetan
It’s the Bloomington Tibetan/Mongolian Cultural Center, where you can send your Tibetan/Mongolian children to summer camp so they can, er, “learn their culture” as one volunteer put it. Culture has to be taught at summer camp? When your Specialness is being Violated it does!
Anyway, the place was billions, with a temple (where I failed spectacularly to meditate…like, really spectacularly), two stupas, and seven or eight gers (Mongolian yurts). The grounds are beautiful, expansive, well-landscaped and well-maintained, and when I was poking around Aidi, a Mongolian guy who works there invited me to lunch eat the lunch he had lovingly prepared. It was, mercifully, not too spicy. According to Aidi, Tibetans like spicy food but he does not, because it upsets his stomach. I got along famously with Aidi.
Unfortunately, there were no Tibetans around, since all eleven or so monks who live there were out of town on various errands. Major bummer, since I really wanted to practice my Tibetan. I even tried speaking Tibetan to Aidi but he didn’t understand. Because he’s Mongolian, not Tibetan.
Also, in the middle of my five-ish mile ride home I ran over a nail and had to walk my bike for three-plus miles. While the humor of the situation was not lost on me, I was tired and dehydrated when I finally got home. If you are looking for the most bike/pedestrian-friendly route from downtown Bloomington to the center, this is not it.
(Link to photo, and others, on a map, no less!)
Hippies and hipsters are natural enemies in many ways, but they share the common bond of liberal politics. And these two sub-cultures don’t just support liberal politics, no sir, they support liberal politics without knowing anything about politics! That brings us to today’s question: what are the top pet causes for each group…and who has the edge?
For hipsters? Barack Obama is the king. He can do no wrong. For the hipster, his cigarette habit was proof that he was like one of them! Then again, it’s easy to do no wrong when no one knows what you’ve done. Ask a hipster why they like Barack Obama some time and you’ll get one of three responses:
1) Are you racist or something?
2) He’s really going to bring about change. (NOTE: follow up with “what kind of change?” to get the following response)
3) He’s going to give the people hope!
While some people may criticize hipsters for this mindless repetition of campaign slogans, I think it’s great that we’ve replaced the outdated ideals of “Truth, Justice, and the American Way!” with “Change, Hope, and Massive White Guilt!”
Hippies, however, have no problems with white guilt, as they’ve obviously transcended to a higher level of existence. And higher levels of existence are synonymous with, you guessed it, Tibet. And there’s nothing a hippie loves more than to hold a concert for the freedom of the poor, oppressed monks of Tibet. With hippies, however, it is even easier to perplex them. You don’t even have to ask them why Tibet should be free. Just ask them what Tibet should be freed from.
If their reply is “From, you know…the man!” you have the legal right to kill them.
And we’re going to have to call this one a push for today, folks.
And, Rest in Peace, Skip Caray, you were one of the very best announcers I’ve heard.
