0759 and 0750 and 0747: Harness on Our Back

From Ta-Nehisi Coates:

I failed eleventh grade English. I was thinking about this recently because I’m working on an education piece for the magazine. I failed because literature was, in my time, all about technique and not much about beauty. We had to memorize all of these fucking words, “foreshadowing,” “irony,” “hamartia,” blahblahblah. Now obviously all of that is important, but I just didn’t much care about it because I couldn’t relate it to anything. Yeah, I know Shakespeare is doing that in this passage, but why is it important? Why should I care?

So, how do we restore the beauty? Is it really as simple as Robin Williams (or any Hollywood dream teacher for that matter) makes it look in Dead Poets Society? Here’s what Ta-Nehisi found:

I hated Macbeth in eleventh grade, because someone tried to teach it to me like a rule-book. I loved it in twelfth grade because it wasn’t really taught to me at all. Someone basically handed it to me for class, and said let’s talk about. There was no pressure to understand “technique,” but after I got the beauty of the thing, I was all about technique. I got an A in English that semester that they tried to bump me up to AP. I looked at them like they were crazy. I’m a weird cat. I don’t like audio-tours through museums. Let me wander. If I’ve got a question, I’ll ask…

I’m all for wandering. Please don’t tell me how or what to think.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog video excursion I present: From My Dad.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

First names can be interesting too. Of late I”ve taken to using surnames as first names and I like the effect of it. p. 229

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

252 pounds this morning.

Breakfast this morning is 4 oz. of grapefruit juice, two eggs cooked in 1 tsp. butter, two slices of toast and black coffee. Because Phoenix doesn”t open until 7 a.m., I took the time to make and freeze six turkey w/Colby sandwiches and to slice the rest of my carrots into sticks. I keep them in a tub of water in the refrigerator so that they stay crisp. I”ll go grocery shopping this afternoon for additional items for the week ahead.

I walked with Tim Russo and Cierra, his intern who is a freshman at Baldwin Wallace, this morning in Old Brooklyn neighborhood distributing campaign literature for State Representative Robin Belcher. Everyone met up at the McDonald”s at West 25th and Denison. While waiting for the group to gather I ate a sausage biscuit and drank a small coffee. Cierra and I walked for about 90 minutes, distributed a lot of literature, but only chatted with two people who answered their doors. Tim hit fewer houses but talked more and managed to collect five signatures for his own campaign along the way.

Lunch was Campbell”s tomato soup made with 1/2 the recommended water and a slice of toasted multi-grain bread torn into croutons along with a 1/4 cup of carrot sticks.

Dinner was a 1/2 cup of pasta and the leftover kale w/chicken from last evening. While the pasta was cooking I nibbled on 1/2 slice of multi-grain bread and a handful of hot pepper rings. I”m putting hot gardenia on my shopping list.

Two mugs Tension Tamer w/1 tsp of honey each after dinner and 10 corn chips kicked-up with a few drops of hot sauce after 2130 followed by more hot pepper rings and 1/4 slice of multi-grain bread.

United States Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) fears a Myanmar dominated by China. He did not address specifics in a speech before the House, but I imagine that the specter of China projecting power into the Indian Ocean, threatening both the Straits of Malacca and the coastline of India plays a role in his fears.

Rohrabacher said, in part:

The patriots and freedom loving people of Burma will either join against tyranny and foreign domination, or their country will be lost for generations to come. If Burma is to be saved there needs to be reconciliation between the Burmans and those ethnic peoples, who make up half of that country”s population.

In a decades old insurgency, the ethnic fighters have been the primary opposition to Burma”s iron fisted dictatorship. Urban Democratic leaders like Aung Sun Suu Kyi, and other Patriotic Burmans have been beaten down and repressed. These two elements must come together as one, under a banner promising respect for the rights and traditions of the various people who make up that wonderfully diverse nation.

An opposition coalition, must be joined by patriots in the military, professional soldiers who seek to remake their army into a respected defender of the nation, not a tool for corruption and foreign domination by China. It is time for leaders in the army to join the people and build a new prosperous and free, and yes independent Burma. In a blink of an eye Burma, Myanmar, can reclaim its sovereignty, and be put on a path to national reconciliation, democracy, and prosperity. The military in a new Burma would be a respected institution, as are the professional armies in democratic nations throughout the world, not a tool of foreign domination and repression.

Why is Rohrabacher interested in Myanmar? He has a long political history with the country that I was not, until today, aware of, that extends at least back to at least 25 January 1996 when he introduced H.R. 2892, the House version of a bill placing sanctions on Myanmar. That bill added:

…further measures, beyond those contained in the Senate Bill, [S. 1511, JH] such as investigation of Burma’s labor practices, narcotics and environmental policies.

Two years later he met with Aung San Suu Kyi on 13 April 1998. In September 2007, in the midst of the Saffron Revolution, he said:

We may be witnessing a historic event taking place in Burma,” said Rohrabacher. “Religious leaders are bravely confronting a violent and brutal military dictatorship… I urge all Burmese soldiers, do not kill your own people for the greed and corruption of those who have sold out your country to the Chinese. You are not a vassal state of Beijing.

Clearly, Rep. Rohrabacher continues to urge.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

The powerful Cleveland Ratner family has finally pushed the Daniel Goldstein family out of its Brooklyn, N. Y. home. But they haven”t shut him up.

And it cost them $3 million, not the $500,000 deal first offered.

Goldstein says that he took the offer without a pledge to keep quiet about it. Although he had to step aside as chief spokesperson of the citizen organization – Develop Don”t Destroy Brooklyn – he didn”t sign on, as usually happens, to retreat from speaking about the project.

“Contrary to press reports I have not given up my First Amendment rights or my involvement in Develop Don”t Destroy Brooklyn,” said Goldstein.

Bruce Ratner, head of the development firm called Forest City Ratner, is building the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn – a housing, retail and arena development.

Goldstein has led a vigorous citizen”s revolt against the project. Continue Reading »

[Update @ 0852 — Via Eric Vessels: DB issues I think.]

At Plunderbund this morning.

Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

I haven’t been able to connect to Plunderbund for about 30 minutes this morning. I’m hoping that this is a matter of good traffic or routine maintenance and not a denial of service attack.

Johann Hari writes:

The British media is overwhelmingly owned by right-wing billionaires who order their newspapers to build up the politicians who serve their interests, and marginalise or rubbish the politicians who serve the public interest. David Yelland, the former editor of The Sun, bravely confessed this week that as soon as he took his post, he was told the Lib Dems had to be “the invisible party, purposely edged off the paper’s pages and ignored”. Only a tiny spectrum of opinion was permitted. Everyone to the left of Tony Blair (not hard) had to be rubbished – even when their policies spoke for a majority of British people.

Both TV debates, then, have been a very rare moment in which a slightly more liberal-left voice could speak to the public without the distorting frame of pre-emptive abuse and smears. When, for example, have you ever heard the EU defended as plainly and clearly? The window of permissible opinion was opened a little – and people responded with a wave of enthusiasm. It could’ve been opened wider still – to the Greens, say – and found a receptive audience too.

Years ago I read a study about how Murdoch changed journalism in America. I can’t find the paper online, but it was essentially the precursor to what Hari says here. Now the natural response would be, but you read this in a British newspaper, doesn’t that negate what you’re saying? Perhaps, but I think I could make the case that it doesn’t.

Tim?

Via The Daily Dish…

Jennifer Brunner demonstrates the real courage that Dan Rather thought he was talking about nearly twenty-five years ago.

I don’t think so…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog video excursion I present: From My Dad.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

Personally I”ve come to favor lengthy last names rather than short ones, and uncommon names rather than common ones. p. 228

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

I hit the scale at 253 pounds this morning.

Breakfast was steel-cut oatmeal with cranberries and a banana (it was chilly this morning). One of the recipes in Jamie Oliver”s Food Revolution is for evolving, as he puts it, basic oatmeal with various fruits and other toppings. There”s even an adult version that call for whiskey I”m going to try real soon. Grains are really the best option for breakfast, although I am going to hit his Full Monty, a British fry-up that is grilled or broiled with sausage, bacon, mushrooms, eggs, beans and tomatoes, sometime soon.

Lunch today was sushi from Zagara”s. I got the 12 pack with four pieces each of tuna, salmon and avocado. While I was shopping I bought more cheese (Colby this time) and turkey. The deli-lady gave me a slice of cheese to check the thickness – it was fine – and I ate that while I was waiting for my older.

For dinner tonight I”m making kale with sun-dried tomatoes and pasta. I may throw a chicken breast into the mix as well. When I was at the store I bought a regular bag of Classic Fritos. One ounce of the chips (approximately 32 pieces according to the bag contains 160 calories, as I noted on Wednesday. A little quick math arrives at a figure of 5 calories per chip or 100 calories for 20 chips. I”m going to use my little 1 cup plastic containers to divide up and store the chips in 100 calorie snack packs so that I”ll have a better way of controlling the salt urge.

For dinner tonight I did make the kale dish. The flavor was marvelous. I made enough for two servings, but ate only what fit in my bowl and put the rest in the refrigerator for tomorrow. I did drop 20 chips into a small container and I”ve been eating them slowly while working at the library this evening.

I”m heading home now – no stopping for Combos – and I will have my Tension Tamer and a nice slice of toast with orange marmalade while I do some more reading.

1426: About that GOP momentum in Ohio…

1111 and 0652: Kris Jordan Introduces Crazy Anti-Health Care Mandate Legislation

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog video excursion I present: From My Dad.