So.  What does Occupy stand for?  What are their demands?  What are they trying to accomplish?  That seems to be all you hear the media say about the Occupy movement and it kind of makes you wonder if the media has been collectively living under a rock.  The signs at the protests are clear as day.  The declarations adopted by the General Assemblies of many of the Occupy encampments are very explicit.  Wall Street, with help from Washington politicians they’ve paid good money for, are hijacking our economy and our country and taking it on a hundred and thirty mile-per-hour joyride with all of us riding unwillingly in the passenger seat. This is why we Occupy! https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-U2nJnW1vFRo/TsQYr9m9GsI/AAAAAAAAAFE/9cTpf5E7cFI/s912/big-bank-theory-chart-large.jpg This is a chart posted on a website called Mother Jones.  The title of the chart is “The Final Four Financial Institutions.”  As you can see, up until about 1996 there w...

1. Darkest Hour - The Sadist Nation 2. Crestfallen - Nine to Five RSVP 3. Every Time I Die - Enter Without Knocking and Notifying the Police 4. Every Time I Die - The Logic of Crocodiles 5. Refused - Protest Song '68 6. Leftover Crack - Gang Control 7. Thrice - Cold Cash and Colder Hearts 8. Thursday - For the Workforce, Drowning 9. Rage Against the machine - The Ghost of Tom Joad (Bruce Springsteen cover) 10. Fear Factory - Securitron (Police State 2000) 11. Propagandhi - Purina Hall of Fame 12. Against Me! - What We Worked For 13. Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome 14. The Beatles - Revolution 1 15. On the Strings Of - Brick By Brick 16. This Is My Fist! - Voice from Occupationland 17. Aus Rotten - Welfare Recipients 18. Refused - Deadly Rhythm 19. The Assistant - 93,800 Hours

1. Baroness - Ogeechee Hymnal 2. Baroness - A Horse Called Golgotha 3. Envy - A Far-Off Reason 4. Elliott - Voices 5. Elliott - Calm Americans 6. Far - Bury White 7. Deftones - Around the Fur 8. Sevendust - Grasp 9. Alice In Chains - Would? 10. Stone Temple Pilots - Down 11. Queens of the Stone Age - Song for the Dead 12. Radiohead - Myxomatosis 13. Adele - Rumour Has It 14. Kanye West - Slow Jamz 15. (hed) PE - Bartender 16. Jimi Hendrix - Red House (Live from Woodstock) 17. Led Zeppelin - Black Dog 18. A Perfect Circle - The Package 19. Nine Inch Nails - Somewhat Damaged

OK well I procrastinated and missed my deadline on last week's picks so here's what I'm gonna do: I'm gonna go through and, as honestly as possible, I'm going to talk about what teams I would have picked last week (believe me, I can already see quite a few I'd have picked wrong and I'm gonna own up to that).  Then I'll do the rest of the column like I normally would. Two Weeks Ago Highlights: Absolutely NAILED wins by FIU, Texas, Arizona State, and Michigan.  Also 2-0-1 on the spreads (USC/Utah was a push) Lowlights: Pretty much the only lowlight was the upset pick.  Guess I overestimated Jordan Wynn and the Utah offense. The Rest: Thought Alabama and South Carolina would win more comfortably than they did. No. 3 LSU at No. 25 Mississippi State -- ESPN -- Thursday, September 15th, 8:00pm Definitely would have picked LSU in this one (as evidenced by the fact that I have them #1 in my Top 25) No. 21 Auburn at Clemson   -- ABC -- 12:00pm I really thought Au...

“When we move, it’s a movement.”  Those are the words of a guy named Will Killingsworth from a band called Orchid and of no group are these words truer than of young adults.  Whether the young adults of this congregation, of this faith, of this country, and of this planet--whether they like it or not, every move we make is a movement because we are the ones who are next in line to lead.  I really wish so badly that you all could have been with me in Charlotte to see the irrepressible energy, the innovative ideas, and the incredible sense of focus, purpose, and overwhelming forward momentum oozing out of the UU Young Adults.  You guys would have seriously fallen out of your chairs.  I was overcome by a tsunami of optimism and hope for the future of not just that faith but of our country and our world.  These kids are already leaders, now, today, and they’re going to take us places, ladies and gentlemen.  You can either be along for the ride or get left ...

MY TOP 25 1. LSU This is the only team that's proven anything as far as I'm concerned.  They utterly flushed a top 5 team in Week 1 and that's good enough for me at this stage of the season. 2. Alabama Another impressive win over Penn State puts them on top of Oklahoma for at least this week (Oklahoma faces FSU next). 3. Oklahoma Possibly the most talented team in the country but so far untested. 4. Boise State In spite of the fact that Georgia lost, Boise's dismantling of them in Week 1 looks mighty impressive right now. 5. Wisconsin Russell Wilson has been looking great for the Badgers.  It's pretty obvious this is the best team in the Big Ten right now. 6. Texas A&M This is going to be a really tough team to get by in the Big 12 this year with a senior at QB and a monster defense. 7. Oklahoma State With Brandon Weedon and Justin Blackmon back, this is going to be one of the most potent offenses in the nation. 8. Stanford With Andrew Luck, anything is possible...

Last Week Highlights: Great start to the year on the Upset of the Week pick. Also I totally called Auburn and USC struggling mightily against seemingly inferior opponents as well as BYU winning a defensive battle with Ole Miss. Lowlights: Massively overestimated Georgia and underestimated LSU as well as the impact of Miami's suspensions (more on that in just a bit). I also don't know why I thought I should take a crack at picking Colorado/Hawaii. Maybe I should exercise some veto power over my plan to pick every game that's on basic cable. The Rest: Picked Michigan and Ohio State to obliterate Western Michigan and Akron. Big whoop. Overestimated Tulsa's competitiveness against Oklahoma (Sooners even covered the spread, totally screwing over anyone who made a parlay with my "Out-of-Whack Spreads"). West Virginia beat Marshall a bit more comfortably than I expected as well. Current Record Overall: 8-4 Upsets: 1-0 Spreads: 2-1 HEADLINES -First of all, if...

HEADLINES Usually I'd talk about the headlines from the past week in this section but this is Week One and I got a lot of that venting out in my piece about the Nevin Shapiro debacle. Also, I'm gonna try to start getting these done on Thursday afternoons before the Thursday game is played. The latest format I'm going with is just picking all the games that are on basic cable. Seems like a sound strategy. I'll also be bringing back old weekly favorites like "Out-of-Whack Spreads", "My Heisman Ballot (If the Voting Ended Today)" (as I was typing this, Robert Griffin was kicking off his campaign for Heisman), and my BCS predictions (predicting the winner of each conference, their BCS bowl matchup, and the result). Without further ado... Akron at No. 18 Ohio State -- ESPN -- 12:00pm OSU has five players suspended. Fortunately they're hosting Akron. Everyone will be drunk in the parking lot by halftime playing beer pong and sack toss. Hobbitco...

If the media is to believed, then Nevin Shapiro may have just crippled or killed the sports team I cherish above all else and have for over 20 years. I figured maybe I should write a blog post about it. Why don't we start with the basics: -Nevin Shapiro is in jail serving a 20 year sentence for a $930 million Ponzi scheme -He is also a former University of Miami sports booster -Between 2002 and 2010, he claims to have provided illegal (according to the NCAA, not the law) benefits to 72 Miami Hurricanes football players (and some basketball, but who cares about UM basketball?) including use of his mansion, yacht, throwing sex parties, buying of strippers and prostitutes and even paying for a stripper's abortion -Twelve of these players are current players (also one current basketball player) -6 coaches are implicated as being either knowledgeable or even involved with providing of illegal benefits (Frank Haith [now at Missouri] and five assistants [two basketball, three footba...

here's what Thrice would play in my utopian fantasy world: 1. Lullaby 2. The Weight of Glory 3. Yellow Belly 4. Burn the Fleet 5. Flags of Dawn 6. Broken Lungs 7. Daedalus 8. The Earth Will Shake 9. Hold Fast Hope 10. Talking Through Glass/We Move Like Swingsets 11. Come All You Weary 12. Open Water 13. Lost Continent 14. The Whaler 15. Red Sky 16. Music Box 17. Like Moths to Flame 18. Backdraft 19. The Weight 20. Trust 21. The Melting Point of Wax 22. All That's Left 23. Silhouette 24. The Artist In the Ambulance 25. Cold Cash and Colder Hearts 26. Kill Me Quickly 27. To Awake and Avenge the Dead 28. Deadbolt 29. For Miles 30. Beggars The more of these they play, the more epic this show will be...

...and a lot of people seemed to like it for some reason. Personally I think it could use some updating, which is why I'm storing it here for now. In storage but on display. Think of it as a "demo version." UPDATE: I've edited it a bit and have a second draft now. The edited version is directly below and the original version is underneath the edited version and italicized. float away catch a star on your way let it expire in a fury of light that once was so small to those far away yet now it fills the sky and when you show us that we'll cry but we'll know that love never dies we'll hug in great numbers and take home reminders of all that we have and we'll know know that best friends forever is more than just a cute catchy phrase know that the words we say are more than just words and we'll say them with more conviction than ever and we'll cry but these tears will be the happy kind the kind that come from community from words spoken with sin...

So it seems there's a new trend going around Facebook. It's called 30 Day Song Challenge . Basically the idea is that you post a video every day according to the list of songs you're meant to select (found by clicking on "Rules"). As I was reading this list, I felt remiss at the idea of posting these videos and not offering any explanation as to why each fits into its given category. There are plenty of good stories behind more than a few of these songs, at least for me. For the purposes of this blog entry, I tried to, whenever possible, avoid boring videos of just the song over some pictures. Many of them are live versions, some music videos, a few special versions, and a couple of the aforementioned boring videos. Some I didn't bother posting videos for for what should be obvious reasons. day 01 - your favorite song - Thrice - For Miles It wasn't long ago that I'd have had a hard time even putting a four-minute song with a pop song structure i...