30 March 2010
30 March 2010
ROLDO RIGHTS…
0711 by Jeff HessWhy does the Plain Dealer print O”Brien? That was the headline atop Sunday”s letters page in the morning newspaper.
So why DOES the newspaper put up with his nonsense.
There were eight letters all taking Kevin O”Brien, a PD editorial page editor and columnist, to task for – even for him – an unusually strident, stupid and ignorant column on the recently passed health care measure.
The column cited screamed out for such a response.
Kevin is upset.
But he is upset in a mean-spirited and dishonest way.
O”Brien”s most onerous paragraph, cited by the first letter writer Philip Pellett, tells it all.
The Democrats in Congress and the White House have forced upon the United States of America (music please) a federal health care plan designed for people who are too stupid, incompetent and weak to managed their own affairs.
Anyone who has lived even a little should take offense to that.
Anyone who has lived even a little knows that there are bumps, if not crashes, in almost everyone”s life. You don”t have to be stupid, incompetent or weak to know this. You just have to live.
I think Editor Susan Goldberg and Editorial Page Editor Elizabeth Sullivan should give this some thought.
They need to ask themselves, Why do we print Kevin O”Brien?
Lots of people really want to know. Why?
30 March 2010
FROM MY DAD…
0630 by Jeff Hess
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.
30 March 2010
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0030 by Jeff HessFound in my electronic chapbook.
My English teacher had us thing of synonyms for get. I have a feeling she may have been somewhat obsessive on the subject. In any event, she had us compile a lengthy list of alternatives for this verb, which she described as banal, nonspecific, and a blight upon the mother tongue. p. 204
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
29 March 2010
GOOD MORNING MYANMAR…
2130 by Jeff Hess
What is China thinking? What China is always thinking, of course, how best to benefit the ruling Communist Party of China, and nothing else. The Party is very corporate in that sense, considering all actions or inactions in terms of its own prosperity. So why would the Party think Myanmar should free its political prisoners?
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
China has joined Australia and the US in telling Burma’s military junta to free all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and allow them to participate in upcoming elections, the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said.
”The government must create conditions that give all stakeholders the opportunity to participate freely in elections,” Mr Ban said. ”This includes the release of all political prisoners.”
No mention, naturally, of its own political prisoners which surely number many times Myanmar’s more than 2,100. Perhaps the view of China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Li Baodong, only last week is instructive.
A general election, held in any country, is a matter of a sovereign state. That should be respected.
After all, China refrained from commenting on our own presidential elections here in the United States in 2000 and 2004.
29 March 2010
29 March 2010
AND NOT A MUSLIM IN THE BUNCH…
1627 by Jeff HessWhat ever will the TSA do now?
Christ is our king of kings and top general of all things, for we are not of this world but we live in it. The Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield if so God wills it. We will reach out to those who are yet blind in the last days of the kingdoms of men and bring them to life in Christ. (…) Oh and don’t forget that you can write us through the contact us link on the Hutaree homepage. Once again thanks for visiting Hutaree.com and may Christ bless you widely.
Seriously, what this really illustrates is that we are dealing with a criminal threat best addressed by law enforcement and not a military threat that requires the mobilization of our armed forces.
29 March 2010
MY COMMENTS…
1309 by Jeff Hess29 March 2010
FROM MY DAD…
0630 by Jeff HessI 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.
29 March 2010
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0030 by Jeff HessFound in my electronic chapbook.
When something is wrong with a sentence, more often than not it can be improved by changing a verb or two, making one of those action words more active, or more specific, or less ordinary, or, well, just plain better. p. 204
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
28 March 2010
GOOD MORNING MYANMAR…
2130 by Jeff HessIn his nation’s equivalent of a Stalinist May Day speech following the obligatory viewing of the troops from atop the Kremlin, Myanmar’s chief military dictator Than Shwe warned the citizens of Myanmar that meddling by foreign powers and divisive acts would not be tolerated in his sham reauthorization of dictatorship.
From Reuters:
Addressing 13,000 troops at the country’s annual Armed Forces Day parade, Senior General Than Shwe said Myanmar should oversee its own elections and urged patience and fair play.
“During the transition to an unfamiliar system, countries with greater experience usually interfere and take advantage for their own interests,” the reclusive junta supremo, wearing full military garb and adorned in medals, said in a speech.
“For this reason, it is an absolute necessity to avoid relying on external powers,” he said in the address, which was broadcast to the nation and witnessed by foreign journalists who received a rare invitation to the isolated nation.
Than Shwe did not reveal a date for the long-awaited polls, the first in two decades in the former Burma, a strategically situated but isolated country with rich natural resources from natural gas to timber and gems and a Southeast Asian port.
The election has been widely dismissed as a sham to entrench nearly five decades of iron-fisted army rule.
The United States and United Nations have expressed frustration about the lack of inclusiveness of the polls, which they say will be far from credible, suggesting the removal of much-criticized Western sanctions will be unlikely.
Nothing like laying the groundwork for canceling elections spoiled by external, divisive forces.
28 March 2010
28 March 2010
ROLDO RIGHTS…
1528 by Jeff HessI have the perfect place for the new Cuyahoga County Council to meet. It shouldn”t cost a penny. County taxpayers already paid for construction. And even to furnish it!
It”s a building the County constructed in Jacobs Field.
It”s not far from the present County Administration building.
The building wasn”t even in the lease. It was a gift.
I was told at the time that there was an unsightly ramp. Such a problem. So we – thank you Michael White and Tim Hagan especially – built a 57,500 square foot administration building “to hide the ramp that would have been visible to the public from Ontario Street,” Gateway boss Tom Chema told me. I guess they didn”t think of some far less costly solution. Shrubbery perhaps?
The truth is that Dick Jacobs wanted an office Continue Reading »
28 March 2010
WHAT THEY SAY…
0833 by Jeff HessThe priesthood of the believer meant that I looked inward to find God, rather than outward to an authority like a Bishop or a Pope. It meant that I had a responsibility to lead an examined life. To remove the beam from my own eye before I worried about the mote in my neighbor”s eye.
The dangers of referring to an external authority are well illustrated these days by the revelations of years of abuse of children by Catholic priests. What a skewed notion of God that kind of abuse must instill and, in this case, I want to think Jesus is one with the helpless.
The problem with inward authority is that most of us don”t really want to examine and acknowledge our own darkness. And we all harbor darkness. Satan, you may remember, was God”s favorite.
I still live by the values I learned growing up in a little country church – one that I admit was probably exceptional in its liberal attitude. My role models – my mother, my sister, my friends – are devout Christians and I hold them in great respect. But I don”t call myself Christian much any more. “Christian” in our society has come to mean something hateful and fearful. And I prefer an honest agnostic to a hypocritical believer.
28 March 2010
28 March 2010
AMEIN AND AMEIN…
0816 by Jeff HessThings become artificially simple when we disregard the humanity of the other person. It unleashes the darkness within us. When that happens, we lose our own humanity and evil prevails. Jesus was truly looking after us, speaking out of love and concern, when he said “Love your enemies.”
28 March 2010
FROM MY DAD…
0630 by Jeff HessI 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.
28 March 2010
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0030 by Jeff HessFound in my electronic chapbook.
Wodehouse rewrote intensively. In a letter he described how he pinned pages of his current manuscript around the walls of his study, singling out those that were insufficiently energetic, returning to them again and again and reworking them. He was a perfectionist, convinced that every line of a Jeeves story had to have entertainment value. p. 204
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
27 March 2010
GOOD MORNING MYANMAR…
2130 by Jeff HessTomas Ojea Quintana’s report calling for war crimes investigations for the State Peace and Development Council (aka Myanmar’s military dictators) continues to grab traction with the latest move coming from the European Union and United Nation’s Human Rights Council. Dare we really hope?
From Reuters:
The U.N. Human Rights Council condemned Friday widespread violations in Myanmar and called on its generals to release 2,100 political prisoners ahead of an election this year, saying the vote must be free and fair.
It adopted by consensus a resolution, presented by the European Union, which also extended by one year the mandate of the Council’s special investigator on the former Burma.
The Council condemned “systematic violations,” including disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners and recruitment of child soldiers.
It urged Myanmar’s government to “ensure a free, transparent, fair electoral process which allows for the participation of all voters, all political parties.”
Or, as I really feel, do we simply drive Myanmar’s generals deeper into the embrace of China?
