1307: March saw the largest private employer hiring in three years.

When I was in high school I had an American flag with only 48 stars hanging on the wall of my bedroom. I joked that I didn’t recognize either Mississippi or Alabama as part of the Union.

Mississippi continues to have issues as illustrated by the school board of Itawamba County canceling of the Junior Senior prom after senior Constance McMillen planned on wearing a tuxedo and bringing her girlfriend as her date. The story has now taken a twist worthy of Faulkner.

From the New York Times:

To avoid further controversy, the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi has rejected a $20,000 gift intended to underwrite an alternate prom replacing one canceled by a local school district after a lesbian student demanded that she be allowed to attend with her girlfriend.

The gift, to sponsor one of several privately sponsored alternate events, came from the American Humanist Association, an advocacy group whose mission is to promote “good without God.”

“Although we support and understand organizations like yours, the majority of Mississippians tremble in terror at the word ‘atheist,” ” Jennifer Carr, the fund-raiser for the A.C.L.U of Mississippi, wrote in an e-mail message to Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the humanist group.

I don’t know who to reference best, Kierkegaard or Thompson.

The Wall of Shame. Much in need of Jail time. and a good de Frocking.

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.

The peeled white body of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulcher; though changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal. Slowly, it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting poniards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats further and further from the ship, and ever rod that it so floats, what seem like square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the murderous din. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that hideous sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair face of the pleasant sea, wafted by joyous breezes, the great mass of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite perspectives. p. 208

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

Myanmar’s prime minister and 4th-highest ranking general, Thein Sein, is expected to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Hanoi next week and some expect pressure from the other nine members for Myanmar to ease off on it rules for the faux election this fall. Don’t bet on it.

From Democratic Voice of Burma:

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations grouping has remained mute on the elections since Burma”s main opposition National League for Democracy party on Monday decided to boycott them.

But, according to Roshan Jason, head of the ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, ASEAN “knows it has to discuss the issue and has to be forward about it”.

“I think [ASEAN] will just advise the government and try to convince [junta chief] Than Shwe to reconsider the election laws,” he said.

ASEAN Affairs Department director-general Vitavas Srivihok told the Bangkok Post yesterday that the election discussion would likely form part of the post-summit statement delivered by ASEAN chairman Surin Pitsuwan.

Where’s the leverage? What incentives can the other ASEAN members offer to Myanmar to change? What’s to keep Myanmar’s State Peace and Development Council (aka, the country’s military dictators from rolling on the floor laughing their asses off at the posturing?

That certainly would be the impression any stranger would get if they were to visit The National Speed Trap Exchange. For Cleveland Heights — all of 8.1 square miles and a population at the last census of 49,958 — the reader-informed website lists no fewer than 35 speed traps (really just favorite places for the police to monitor traffic).

My favorite is along Monticello Boulevard, most typically on the North Side at Elbon. When I lived on Pembrook, right around the corner, I would see a Cleveland Heights Green-and-White there at least three times a week.

Non-residents constantly complain about the traffic stops here in Cleveland Heights, but I cannot say enough about how good our police force is. If you obey the traffic laws you’ll have a pleasant experience. It’s that simple.

Brian Hester writes:

According to the U.S. Census, Ohio ranks 35th in paying state taxes per capita. Only “15 other states collect less in taxes per person than Ohio.” The Census also found that Ohio ranks 33rd in the nation in average percentage of income to State income taxes; only 17 other States collect less of a percentage in income than Ohio.

0722: The plan to repeal has been repealed…

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.

The writing of prose, you see, is rather more like painting than photography. We cannot point a camera and, with a click of the shutter, record instantly all that is visible to the lens. Instead we must wield worlds as a painter wields a brush [paint, JH], spotting a detail here and there while leaving another section purposely vague. p. 207

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

Myanmar appears increasingly isolated from the world and, more importantly, from its local neighbors who are none to happy with the State Peace and Development Council’s (aka, Myanmar’s military dictators) apparent plans for faux elections in the fall. Could Indonesia bridge the widening gap?

From The Irrawaddy:

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa is expected to meet with Burmese generals this week, in what will be the junta”s first meeting with a top diplomat from Southeast Asia since its Political Party Registration Law was announced in early March.

Ahead of Natalegawa”s visit, which began on Tuesday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch urged on Sunday that as leading Asean member, Indonesia should continue its principled stand on the human rights situation in Burma.

Natalegawa said on Friday: “We would like to know about the practical implications of the recently issued electoral laws to determine whether its substance meets the Myanmar [Burma] government’s commitment to hold a democratic, free and multi-party election.”

Burmese authorities did not report on Natalegawa”s visit in state-run-newspapers. But, the media reported on Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung”s visit over the weekend.

At Burmese Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein”s invitation, Nguyen Tan Dung will pay a “working visit” to the country in the near future, according The New Light of Myanmar.

Both the Indonesian minister and the Vietnamese prime minister visits come a few days ahead of the 16th Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Hanoi on April 8-9.

Vietnam is the 2010 chair of ASEAN. Vietnam”s motto for its chairmanship is “Towards the Asean Community: from Vision to Action.”

Human rights activists in Southeast Asia have called for Asean to take a stronger stand on Burma’s electoral laws and the upcoming election, which has been widely criticized as undemocratic. Indonesia has been one of the strongest critics of the Burmese regime.

Neighbors have a better chance of cleaning up their neighborhood than carpetbaggers.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

CITRUS, APPLE AND PEACH NOTES… One of those never-dying Walmart jokes involves a fictional list of names considered popular with Walmart shoppers. I first posted the list back in 2005. Today, however, I discovered that something called Wine Channel TV reviews wines bought at Walmart. Keep reading…

BALTIMORE AIN”T BUYING IT… More than 100 people came together to speak their minds in Baltimore, Maryland, concerning plans to drop a Walmart supercenter into their neighborhood. They were not happy and the representative of the developer was on the defensive. Keep reading…

MAYOR DALEY BOWS AT BENTOVILE ALTAR…? So, Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley”s minions made the pilgrimage to Bentonville, Arkansas to huddle with Walmart functionaries and lay their scheme on how best to break the Chicago-Don”t-Want-No-Wal-Jobs jam. Good luck with that. Keep reading…

AND THEIR COUNTERFEIT ID TRAINING WAS…? We last looked in on Nitra Gipson way back in June of 2008 when I we first learned of the the law student spending two days in jail because the management staff at Walmart was convinced she was trying to pass counterfeit money orders. Keep reading…

MARIJUANA AS A CONSERVATIVE ISSUE…? It is seldom that i (indeed I can”t remember the last time I did) Quote from The American Conservative, but I”ve just finished reading that magazine”s take on Joseph Casias and his firing from a Michigan Walmart for smoking Medical Marijuana and I recommend it. Keep reading…

NONE OF THE ABOVE IS THE BETTER CHOICE… Cruising the interwebs this afternoon I came across two independent stories casting the consumer”s choice as Walmart or insert-name-of-other-national-big-box-store-here. That is just wrong. The choice is not paper or plastic but a raft of alternatives.
Keep reading…

WALMART ORGANICS HIT… AGAIN… Yesterday I wrote that we need to stop thinking of the choice as being between Walmart and any other Big Box Retailer. Big, specially when it comes to foods that we feed ourselves and our children, does not equate to good for anyone. Keep reading…

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.

I would suggest you notice, in your reading, how other writers use verbs, and what you do or don”t like about their techniques. p. 205

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

U Win Tin, a member of the Central Executive Committee and a founder of Burma’s National League for Democracy party, has chosen the pages of the Washington Post to tell Americans why his party, and its best known member Aung San Suu Kyi, will still out this fall’s faux election in Myanmar.

Burma’s military regime has forced our party, the National League for Democracy, to make a tough decision on whether we will continue to operate legally.

The ruling generals, known as the State Peace and Development Council, issued a set of unjust electoral laws this month that threatened to abolish our party if we did not re-register at the election commission within 60 days.

We know the cruel nature of the regime. We did not expect the electoral laws it established would offer a semblance of fairness. But we also did not expect that the regime would use its laws to remove our leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and all political prisoners from the political process. Once again the regime has defied the will of the people of Burma and the international community by disregarding their call for transparent, free and fair elections that include all parties.

The Political Party Registration Law bans all political prisoners from participating in elections by voting and contesting, forming a political party, or joining a party. Parties must make sure that political prisoners are not included in their membership and must pledge in writing that they will obey and protect the country’s constitution and abide by its election laws. They are also required to participate in the election. Failure to comply with these restrictions will lead to abolishment of the party.

Clearly, the NLD wants the political ball firmly in the court of the United States. Whether or not that is a difference that makes a difference I’m uncertain, but I lean toward not.