"Everybody dies but...

NOT everybody lives"

(Red Bull)
  

After flying to an altitude of 39,045 meters (128,100 feet or 24.26 miles) in a helium-filled balloon, daredevil "astronaut" Felix Baumgartner completed a record breaking jump for the ages. He is "the man who fell to Earth."

• Felix sky dives to Earth from space
• Meditation too hard? Try Parkour!

From the edge of space, exactly 65 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound-barrier flying in an experimental rocket-powered airplane, Felix broke the record in a special airtight suit. He reached a maximum freefall speed of 1,342.8 km/h (833 mph) through the near vacuum of Earth's stratosphere.

Beavis & Butthead, Jackass, are teens already trying this at home?

He was later slowed down by the friction of our atmosphere during his 4:20-minute-long drop. The 43-year-old Austrian skydiving expert also broke two other world records (highest freefall, highest manned balloon flight), leaving the record for the longest freefall to project mentor Col. Joe Kittinger, who was manning Mission Control during the jump.

 

Watch the full Recap

 
Red Bull sponsored extreme sports compilation (2012)
 
Parkour (Freerunning) in Kuwait at The Art of Motion
  

What is "Red Bull"?

Pat Macpherson, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

I'm not real, just here to sell mo' sugar.

Legend has it that a traveling toothpaste salesman was passing through Buddhist Thailand when someone offered him an energizing syrup. It worked (caffeine kick), so the salesman tracked down the elixir-concocter and said, We should sell this to the West. But first we carbonate it. 

The taste, apparently, never mattered. Is it healthy? Who cares? Do people drop dead at raves chugging it with Vodka? Maybe. So what, the maker says. That's not his problem. Red Bull gives you [corporate jingle] wings! There is no evidence that Felix Baumgartner was a drinker. But Aunt Jemima don't eat no pancakes neither. That doesn't keep a room full of mostly White male executives (at RB or General Mills, Inc.) from cashing in on their comforting brand logo/mascot. 

  

Auntie J originally came from an old timey racist minstrel show of White people in blackface promoting stereotypes. The corporation puts the best spin doctoring on its product's public face. Red Bull may not be good for human consumption, but they do sponsor great feats in extreme sports and funny commercials. If the Honey Boo Boo Thompson Family uses it to make Go-Go Juice and bring on obesity, diabetes, and gray hair, why would anybody blame the corporation that produces it? Soda doesn't help anyone do anything worthwhile, but brand affiliations might. White sugar is toxic, but the artificial sweetener Aspartame is worse.

  

 

RECIPE: How to make Go-Go Juice at home using Red Bull

• Pay more taxes to have less sugar in soft drinks?
• FREE three-day Yoga Workshop in Los Angeles 
• What is transforming Kim Kardashian's face?
• Extended raw footage (hide annotations to clear screen)

Red Bull sponsored extreme sports compilation (2011)

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Race Relations in America (video)

SCPR.org (KPCC FM); Wisdom Quarterly

Watch Race 2012 - Preview on PBS. See more from Race 2012

  

"OBAMA — Racial barrier falls in decisive victory" was the New York Times headline four years ago after B.S. Obama won the election. But just how much have racial relations changed since 2008? That's one of the questions explored in a documentary on PBS called "RACE 2012."

• Hipster racism: myth or fact? (Patt Morrison)  The term "hipster racism" has been tweeted about quite a bit lately, prompting praise, debate, and a lot of head-scratching. What is it?
• Three-day Fall Yoga Workshop, Los Angeles 
• Author discusses history of racism in LA after Trayvon
• Study: New heart disease drug may also battle racism (Mar. '12) In a new Oxford University study, participants on a beta blocker tested lower on prejudice-judging tests than those on a placebo.
• Reports detail cultures of racism, bullying in Riverside
• God worship in India - a reflection 
• From DCentric: Brown, Black, racism, and relationships One of Multi-American's sister blogs on NPR's Argo Network, WAMU 88.5's DCentric in Washington, D.C., had a thought-provoking post...  
• Racism for Dummies (Off-Ramp)(Feb. 2008) Two "Daily Show" alums take on bigots in a new book called A Practical Guide to Racism. As Jon Stewart says, "Read it with someone you hate..." 
• Un-Fair Campaign to combat racism focuses on whites   (Feb. 7, 2012) The billboards are striking. Splashed across Duluth, Minnesota, they read: “It's hard to see racism when you're white.” That message appears over...

Move it or lose it! (Or move it and lose it sometimes. Build up slowly).

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Cara Install Movie Maker Windows 7

Hari ini saya kedatangan 3 orang mantan murid saya di Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan (SMK) dengan membawa laptop masing-masing. Pak tolong installing movie maker karena di laptop kami tidak ada movie maker, begitulah permintaan anak didik untuk diisntalkan movie maker di laptopnya. Coba kemari bawa laptopnya, kata saya, dan setelah memperhatikan sejenak, memang tidak ada windows movie maker pada

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Can RAP Music Fans be Buddhists? (video)

Boo and Tee tag team interview (edited by Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Seven), Wisdom Quarterly

Artistic inked rendition of Boo and Tee (tattoo art by Erika Doyon/StudioArtease)

    

The Godfather of Soul James Brown

"Yeah we #1/Boo the color of mayonnaise/Tee the color of Akon/Trippin like a purpa haze/Got our tie we on/[Rap] her under the table/But babe she won."

  

The question arises around the campus offices of Wisdom Quarterly: Can someone be a Buddhist AND a hip hop gangsta-rap music fan?
 

What would Sid do? (weeklyvolcano.com)

"Of course," one might answer, "anyone who listens to the Beastie Boys might be both!" But "Brass Monkey" or even "So What Cha Want" is not what most people mean by "rap" nowadays. That's vintage hip hop. And it is now the gangsta rap genre that appears to be dominating the limelight and sucking all the air out of the room. Can those fans be Buddhists? We have already seen Buddhists in metal and punk genres.
 
WARNING: May trigger epileptic seizures. Explicit language! Earworm content.

  

There are far more US White and Brown rap fans than Blacks (not as a proportion but in total numbers). Boo and Tee are White-Latino, which makes sense in our increasingly blended Amerika, which manages to remain racist. They point out that rap superstars Cypress Hill happily combined the efforts of a Mexican (B'Real), Afro-American (Sen Dog), and Scandinavian (DJ Muggs), and whose final member (Bobo) had previously recorded and performed with the Beastie Boys.

"Latin Thugs" ft. Tego Calderon combines horns, beats, gang-violence

This popular sub-genre seems to glorify alcohol abuse, drug consumption and/or sales, "partying," casual sex, violence, sexism, gang banging, hyper-masculinity, false bravado, grotesque/comical conspicuous consumption ("bling") celebrating capitalism, and other realities of American society -- particularly the leisurely life of suburban denizens attempting to imitate their imaginary version of day-to-day urban survival.

On one extreme Tyga may be all about Rack City b-tches, but J. Cole likes the easygoing island version on "Can't Get Enough." Both appear to be obsessing.
 

Kanye West is much to blame in this regard with No. 1 hits alongside 2 Chainz, Katy Perry, JZ, and a whole stable of up-and-coming rappers -- and making Tadolf Swiftler cry by stealing her limelight that time.

QUESTION: Tee, are there any songs that you feel demonstrate this penchant of modern rap music to excess and heedlessness with regard to the Five Basic Precepts?

The original pompadour, hips, and showmanship

TEE: F@#% yeah, like, Kendrick Lamar, "Swimming Pools (Drank)." Y'know, White Man stole the Black Man's music. Called it rock 'n roll. Same thing happening here. They invent it; The Man reinvents it and cashes in. Elvis vs. James Brown, Eminem vs DMX. So who got more RAP IQ points than we do?

WARNING: Alcoholic themes, profanity.

QUESTION: Same question, Boo?

BOO: Sure 'nuff, totally, like "Bottoms Up" by Trey Songz featuring Nicki Minaj [ignores the precepts].
 
QUESTION: And you two are "Buddhists"?

BOO: Yeah. I guess.
TEE: Yes, I am.

Cartoon simulation of Tee rapping ("Family Guy")

QUESTION: How do you reconcile the two endeavors?

BOO: What do you mean?
TEE: I feel you, but it can be done. It's easy with Zen Buddhism. I don't drink anymore, but some Zen monks drink. What's up with that? Sake and sh-t...
BOO: Oh, they go. I'm in recovery. I mean, I still clean the screen. That's medicine. But I quit everything else. The Dharma keeps me in check, meditating. Keeps my head straight.
TEE: Think of it like this. Hey-Zeus [the Judeo-Christian Godman Issa] was preaching to who? The pimps and hoes, not the temple folk, right?
BOO: It's the new "rock 'n roll," grand concerts, big stadium arena shows, same as seeing Lennon or Zeppelin.
  
WARNING: Explicit content, vulgarity, celebration of alcohol abuse, sexual situations!
  

The N-Word

King Kanye and Kim (perezhilton.com)

QUESTION: Ah, then there's the gratuitous "n-word." Exceeded in frequency only by the s- and b- and f-words.  It gets to be a bit much, no?

BOO: Yeah. But it's free speech.
TEE: Yeah. Who needs political speech when we could be cussing? I'm sure that's what Founding Fathers like John Footpenis had in mind.
BOO: *Laughing*

QUESTION: Then there's the whole Kim Kardashian connection, who seems to be a hybrid, more alien than human. Not only her but the Canadian cousins Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, Ryan Gosling, and Celine Dion, not to mention unrelated unnatural (supernatural) artists like Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj. [See below and "Sex and Justin Bieber."]

TEE: Blame Seacrest for that.
BOO: She's a st-pid h-. Kanye can't be blamed for that. He just capitalizing on her fame.
TEE: Yeah, and he's not even a baller [sports figure] except in the sense that he's a player [street guy who made it]!
BOO: He think he da new Sean "Puff Daddy Baby Jesus" Combs dating J-Lo. P!nk is embarrassing.

QUESTION: Is there a rap song that's not embarrassing?

TEE:  Totally! What about "Cashing Out" by Ca$h Out? It's like [the movie] "The Secret." Fake it till you make it. Anything by Minaj may be silly, but it's hella popular among White moms and their [pre-adolescent] daughters [and ABCNews' GMA].
BOO: Yeah, yeah, and that's not all. Plenty a artists drop great joints [release excellent songs]. Karmin? Kidding!
 
All ages. Child safe. Karmin does her best Nicki Minaj on "Suiper Bass."
 
QUESTION: Bottom line, Can a person be a hip hop (gangsta) rap fan and a Buddhist?

  

The Buddha comforts Kisa G

BOO: To be completely mindful is to be able to distinguish between what you like and what they want you to like. 

  

It's the same with being a punk and a Buddhist -- a movement based on chaos and anarchy and destruction going hand in hand with the centered, mindful, and ultimately serene approach of Buddhists?

To listen to rap and know -- despite all the violence and drugs involved in the culture and the explicit content of the lyrics -- is to distinguish and enjoy the music. What they [the rappers] say has no destructive impact on you. That's one Buddhist's bumbling rap. I don't know.

TEE: Damn, girl, straight up. Testify! Swerve! I just like the beat mostly. And 2 Chainz's preposterous imagination:


WARNING: Explicit content, vulgarity, sexual situations, and gratuitous violence!

WARNING: Light profanity, violent situations, drug use! Gangsta rap has something for everyone. This one's for suburban dads: "Boyz in the Hood" (Dynamite Hack).
   
WISDOM QUARTERLY: Thank you for the discourse and your exquisite decorum!

BOO: WTF?
TEE: Heh?

QUESTION: Boo, would you like to do a closing "rap" like Tee's opener?

BOO: You can hear me live at Get Lit's Open Mic (Wed., Oct. 17, 2012 @ Actor's Gang Theatre, 9070 Venice Bl., LA).

QUESTION: Would you mind coming back for a Part II?

TEE: Love to!
BOO: Love to!

We Are One

"Earthmen are easy!" (Travis Charest)

The only race is the human race -- but it extends into space. Hybrid devic beings like Kim Kardashian and other sex-crazed "stars" are the main attraction/distraction. Asuras, nagas, yakkhas, and devas (titans, reptilians, ogres, and dubious "angels" or fairies) make their contribution as Kanye contributes genes on behalf of the terrestrial humans. All hail the "king"!

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