Most of the tramps spent ten consecutive hours in this dreary room. It is hard to imagine how they put up with 11. I have come to think that boredom is the worst of all a tramp’s evils, worse than hunger and discomfort, worse even than the constant feeling of being socially disgraced. It is a silly piece of cruelty to confine an ignorant man all day with nothing to do; it is like chaining a dog in a barrel. Only an educated man, who has consolations within himself, can endure confinement. Tramps, unlettered types as nearly all of them are, face their poverty with blank, resourceless minds. Fixed for ten hours on a comfortless bench, they know no way of occupying themselves, and if they think at all it is to whimper about hard luck and pine for work. They have not the stuff in them to endure the horrors of idleness. And so, since so much of their lives is spent in doing nothing, they suffer agonies from boredom. –from The Spike

From Collected Essays Of George Orwell.

Symbols of bias: The Pee Dee switched its logo on stadium coverage after the proponents decided it wasn’t supposed to be a stadium alone but a Gateway project. The Pee Dee used the top logo in its first coverage, then switched to Gateway, using the same identifiable silhouette of downtown buildings, thus duplicating the theme of stadium supporters.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

You can bet that the string-pullers who want to add a 20-year extended sin tax on cigarettes, wine, beer, and alcohol out quietly out preparing for a massive campaign to get poor people to tax themselves.

I’ve heard that they’re already working the black community via the ministers, a powerful grassroots group. It could help sway those least likely and most harmed to vote against their best interests.

Unlike in 1990 when Rep. Louis Stokes (and Rep. Mary Rose Oakar) strongly opposed the sin tax – and won their battle since city folks voted down the tax only to lose to a larger suburban vote. There so far aren’t strong voices in opposition to the tax, higher than the original.

The subterranean campaign has started. It will surface soon in the Pee Dee.

And you can bet the farm that the reason Lou Stokes took a lead in 1990 was that Judge Carl Stokes was courtroom silenced. The 21st District Congress fought the sin tax vigorously and no one can convince me that Continue Reading »

Only a West Virginian knows exactly how long directly is — as in: Going to town, be back directly.

My Hess line moved to Palantine, Virginia (now Fairmont, West Virginia) in 1723. My father and his parents moved to Marietta, Ohio during World War II. My dad is fond of joking that he raised the average intelligence in both states when he moved.

From Anna Clark at the Columbia Journalism Review:

Over the past year, the Cleveland paper has followed much the same plan that owner Advance Publications carved out in New Orleans and elsewhere: it reduced print delivery, shed staff through layoffs and buyouts, and saw the creation of a new, non-unionized digital company under the same corporate umbrella. The Plain Dealer Publishing Co. and the new company, Northeast Ohio Media Group, are separate entities, but both contribute material to the free website Cleveland.com and to the print newspaper, which saw its newsstand price rise to $1 this week.

Via Roldo…

Speaking can also change the world. If we’re capable of saying or writing something, in line with compassion, understanding, nondiscrimination and inclusiveness, we feel wonderful in our body and in our mind. That kind of speech will have a healing effect. After you’ve been able to say something kind, forgiving and compassionate, you feel much better. When you write a letter full of compassion and forgiveness, you feel very good within yourself. Although the other person hasn’t yet read it, you haven’t yet posted the letter, you feel wonderful and liberated already. Right Speech can heal, can liberate—it can heal and liberate you, and help to heal and liberate other people in the world. Speech is the second form of action. p. 87

From Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society by Thich Nhat Hanh

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook.

Mater Dei School is an all-boys elementary school not far from my home in Montgomery County, Maryland, where this principle [that boys respond to challenges as long as: there are winners and losers and the outcome is in doubt. Anybody might conceivably win and anybody might conceivably lose. Everything depends on how hard you play.] is understood very well. On enrollment, every boy is assigned either to the Blue Team or the White Team. The assignment [unlike those made by the Hogwarts’s Sorting Hat] is arbitrary, in other words, it’s random—and permanent. Once you’re a member of the Blue Team, you are forever a member of the Blue Team. The two teams compete in every aspect of school life. When the boys play soccer, it’s Blue against White. On school examinations, it’s Blue against White. The Team that scores higher on the exams get points. The team whose members donate more food to give away at Thanksgiving get points. A the end of the year, the winning team[, like the winning house at Hogwarts, JH] is officially recognized and gets its name—“Blue” or “White”—the year of its victory, the name of the team captains [house boys], emblazoned on a plaque in the hallway. This may seem silly to some people. [Not if you’ve read the J.K. Rowling. JH] But for many of the boys, it’s highly motivating.

Team competition is another benefit for boys who are motivated by the will to win. Team competition socializes boys. It teaches boys to value something above themselves. It subordinates some of the ego and the egocentricity that these boys often manifest. pp. 45-46

From Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From left: Richard Hongisto, Carl Stokes and Dennis Kucinich

Roldo Bartimole writes:

The political mess New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie put himself in made me think back to political crises involving two Cleveland mayors and how they handled their emergences.

Dennis Kucinich, made the muddle he experienced into a defining moment. It revealed, as Christie’s did, character flaws already noticed by the public. It was all unnecessary and damaging.

They provide pieces of Cleveland mayoral history of how to handle a crisis and how not to.

Kucinich’s test involved a dramatic move he made by hiring Richard Hongisto from San Francisco. Hongisto had been charismatic police chief. He was considered a lefty who would fit the Kucinich’s regime. And maybe help control the testy Cleveland police. The force often became a mayor’s major headache.

In a possible telling sign of what would come I was told that in an interview at the time with Tom Hayden, a long time peace and justice activist in San Francisco, asked chief Kucinich advisor about the administration’s ability to govern Continue Reading »

Dramatist, novelist and poet…

[Richard] Louv provides a compendium of research demonstrating that when there is profound imbalance in a child’s early experiences—when nature has been replaced by computers screens and fancy indoor toys—the result is an increased risk for attention deficit disorder. p. 31

[Many years ago I had a bright student who was prescribed a daily variety of medications (four or five as I recall) and who had been removed from school for violent behavior. I worked with the student for several months. I vividly recall one instance when I took the student out into the back yard for a mini-field trip. The result was not good. The student followed me about like a duckling and after tramping about in woods in the back of the property for perhaps 10 minutes expressed dis-ease and asked if we could go back inside. The parents eventually decided to withdraw from the school system and enroll the child in a school in the rural west. I was contacted by the mother several months later and told that the student was off all medication and thriving in the electronics-free, out-of-doors environment the new school provided. JH]

From Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook.

We need to insert a tiny moment of reflection before we bite into a hot slice of pizza or the gooey chocolate brownie. This sounds easy, but it can be an interesting challenge. p. 19

From Mindful Eating by Jan Chozen Bays Nhat Hanh

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From The Best of 2013…

The Sanskrit word karma means action. p. 86

From Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society by Thich Nhat Hanh

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook.

Keef is not making this shit up…

I Recently watched the first two seasons of Inspector George Gently (the father of Douglas Adams’ Dirk do you suppose?) and the Geordie accents were murder. A cousin, who is a Scot but is married to an Irish lass and living in Wales, sent me this list recently that illustrates the point perfectly.

1 aye – yes
2 crabbit – bad tempered
3 blether – talkative
4 peely wally – pale
5 tattie – potato
6 auld – old
7 glaikit – stupid
8 scunnered – fed up
9 bonnie – beautiful

10 aboot – about
11 bahooky -backside
12 dinnae – don’t
13 drookit – soaking wet
14 mingin – dirty
15 eejit -idiot
16 haver – talk rubbish
17 bairn -baby
18 greet – cry
19 braw – brilliant
20 stookie – plaster cast

One of my holiday gifts was a $25 gift card from Barnes & Noble. Yea! Today in my email I got a reminder that next week is Teacher Appreciation Week at Barnes & Noble which gives me a 25 percent discount on all purchases at the store. Double yea!

I quickly did the math and figured that I could leverage my $25 gift card with the 25 percent discount and buy $33.33 (33.33 x .75 = 25) worth of merchandise.

So, I do some online shopping to check prices and decide I want to buy a couple of Calculus books by W. Michael Kelley.

Here’s the rub, if I buy both books online, I can get them for $31.19 with free shipping. If I buy them at the store, not counting time and gasoline, I have to pay $38.90 plus sales tax ($3.11?) or about $42 ($10 more for the privilege of going to the store); more than a 30 percent markup!

Clearly, Barnes & Noble has no real interest in keeping its brick and mortar stores open. Since I buy all my books (except when I get gift cards) at Mac’s Backs, that is a plus in the long run because I want Mac’s to be around for a long time.

You can show or point out the general direction of yonder.

My Hess line moved to Palantine, Virginia (now Fairmont, West Virginia) in 1723. My father and his parents moved to Marietta, Ohio during World War II. My dad is fond of joking that he raised the average intelligence in both states when he moved.

[According to Richard Louv, author of Last Child In The Woods, p 63, 67] “Nature is about smelling, hearing, tasting.” The end result of a childhood with more time spent in front of computer screens than outdoors is what Louv calls “cultural autism. The symptoms? Tunneled senses, and feelings of isolation and containment… [and] a wired, know-it-all state of mind. That which cannot be Googled does not count.” p. 30

From Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Have you ever seen a bigger con game than the corporate/political/media gang want to play on Cuyahoga County voters?

The Greater Cleveland Partnership really wants to pull a major fast one this time.

Already the news media – from Plain Dealer to every news channel – is ignoring the largest theft of public funds ever in the County’s history.

In 1990 they set a 15-year sin tax to build Gateway. It cost taxpayers $240.5 million. That was to BUILD and equip both the baseball stadium and the basketball arena.

Now they are shooting – presumably to upkeep those facilities – not for a five-year tax renewal, not a ten-year tax, not even, as the original, a 15-year tax.

BUT a 20-YEAR EXTENSION AT THE SAME RATES on cigarettes, wine, liquor and beer. A sales tax that hits the ordinary person hardest. Another regressive tax.

With five extra years, and higher prices of commodities since 1990, they are asking for at least $325 million!

Not to build two sports facilities but for other reasons.

Why do they want an extra $325 million? What are the wealthy owners going to give? Nothing. Only take.

The Browns have already hit the city for a $5.8 million advance for renovations, got Mayor Frank Jackson and that hapless City Council to vote Continue Reading »

You know how many fish, greens, peas, beans, &c., make up a mess.

My Hess line moved to Palantine, Virginia (now Fairmont, West Virginia) in 1723. My father and his parents moved to Marietta, Ohio during World War II. My dad is fond of joking that he raised the average intelligence in both states when he moved.