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 chuckle I present: From My Dad.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
To continue the analogy, a novelist, like a marathon runner, receives praise simply for having completed his task irrespective of how well he”s performed it. p. 88
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
I’m pondering the reality that a nation would renew permission for an international organization to enter its country to ferret out instances of slave labor. That the governing body itself isn’t livid that slave labor exist under its governance is telling. When it involves the military dictators of Myanmar, however, so what’s new?
From Voice of America:
Burma’s military government has renewed for a year an agreement allowing the United Nations to monitor complaints of forced labor.
Burmese state-controlled media report the agreement was reached Tuesday during a visit by a group of International Labor Organization officials.
A state-television report said the ILO delegation, led by the U.N. agency’s executive director Kari Tapiola, met with Burma’s Minister of Labor U Aung Kyi.
Norway-based rights group, the Democratic Voice of Burma, says the ILO delegation will also meet with labor advocacy groups during its week-long stay in the country.
If slaves exists in a nation, it’s not time for study, it’s time for arrests, convictions, confiscations and imprisonments.
When Are Haitians Looters and When Are They Just Hungry?
Every time I hear a reporter reach for some hint of violence in Haiti’s ongoing tragedy, I want to smack them upside the head and ask: what the feck would you be doing in their place? For every looter story in Haiti there are hundreds, if not thousands of stories of human courage and perseverance.
We don’t need to see the photo of the guy wading through the floodwaters of New Orleans over and over again.
From she who Writes Like She Talks:
There”s a poll on ElectWomen”s front page right-hand sidebar that asks, “Would a woman candidate have a chance of winning if she posed completely nude in a national magazine?” And the answer is…
Allow me to be blunt: if Playboy had featured Jennifer Brunner in a centerfold when she was 22, would she even be remotely considered as a candidtate to become Ohio’s next senator?
From Cleveland Jobs For Justice:
Please support Teamsters Local 407 by boycotting the 2010 Home and Garden Show held at the non-union Great Lakes Convention Center in Euclid. This is the first of a series of shows that have moved from the IX-Center and the Cleveland Convention Center to this non-union facility. Please show your solidarity by boycotting this and other shows held at Great Lakes. The only way we can let promoters know that moving to non-union houses is totally unacceptable is by not patronizing these shows!! For more information on the Boycott please check out our website.
If you would like to join the Teamsters they will be handbilling at the Great Lakes Convention Center Thursday, January 21st from 12:00 PM to about 2:00 PM and Friday, January 22nd from 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM!! The Convention Center is located at 1200 Babbitt Rd. in Euclid – right off of I-90 at the Babbitt Rd. exit.
For more information please email me at dkline@cwa-union.org or call Debbie at 440-333-7007 or call the Teamsters directly at 216-688-0833.
Full disclosure, I was honored in 2006 with a Allison Bonagura Award from Cleveland Jobs With Justice for my continuing work on The Writing On The Wal.
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 chuckle I present: From My Dad.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
“People who spend the most meaningful hours of their lives in the exclusive company of imaginary people are apt to be a little strange.” And that”s the final requisite of the writer”s temperament. We”re every last one of us a little strange, a wee bit different. p. 80
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
Here in Cleveland the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, a museum I have never visited and will never visit because the very idea of Rock And Roll and a Hall of Fame are mutually exclusive. The mainstreaming of Rock And Roll defeats the central premise of the music. You can’t rebel when you’re sponsored by that which you are trying to rebel of against.
A case in point: punk rockers in Myanmar.
The singer smashes his guitar to pieces on the stage as thousands of spiky-haired punk fans cheer loudly — a rare display of countercultural exuberance in military-ruled Myanmar.
At this concert in a land where all song lyrics must be submitted to the regime’s censors, there are no openly anti-establishment messages from either the musicians or the crowd with their dyed blond, blue and red locks.
Would Sid Vicious have ever submitted his music to a representative of Her Majesty’s Government? I don’t think so.
“If I want to write something about freedom, if I want to write about the things I want, I can’t write it directly,” says drummer and songwriter Thar Nge, stepping over the blankets next to his drum kit that serve as his bed.
“If I want to show something that represents the Myanmar people, not just me personally, there’s no way I can do it. If I write that, it becomes political,” he adds.
The censors do not stop at politics, he says. Any mention of alcohol, cigarettes or anything else deemed not to conform to the Buddhist nation’s values is struck out.
Buddha forbid a punker in Myanmar mention drugs.
The twisted tale of Goel Ratzon continues:
It starts with identifying suitable women as candidates (by their degree of weakness, crisis and dependency). It proceeds when the joiners receive a “barrage of love” and the warmth and security they so sorely lack. It moves on to total control of their minds, the point of no return. All this is conducted by a dominant and charismatic spiritual father, a guru with supposed hidden powers.
This process, outrageous though it may be, is not illegal, and it is not by chance that the police and social services intervened only when one of the women decided to reveal details of what went on behind the locked doors.
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.
WHAT WE TOLERATE FOR LOW* PRICES… When I first worked in retail it was in a store that opened at noon on Sundays. Across the river in West Virginia, blue laws kept retailers closed on Sundays and we would have a hovering crowd of after-church shoppers at the doors by 11:45 a.m. I get this. Keep reading…
WALMART IS POISONING OUR CHILDREN… How many times do Chinese manufacturers – purely in the name of profit – have to make and market poisoned toys in through Walmart before parents get a clue and just say no to cheap plastic – and poisoned – crap from China? Keep reading…
DUDU THAT VUDU THAT YUDU SO WELL… I”m sorry, I couldn”t resist the headline. The real news, however, is that Walmart appears poised to change the market for DVD rentals. Clearly when it has more profit than it knows what do about, ruling the world seems like a reasonable business strategy. Keep reading…
STEALTHY LIKE A WHORE IN CHURCH… Andrew Clark traveled to Bentonville, Arkansas, for The Guardian and he wrote a good piece. I have to disagree, however, with the editor who put the headline on the story. There”s nothing stealthy about Walmart”s quest for world domination. Keep reading…
ON THE WALMART NIGHT SHIFT… Slacker victim humor is a sub-sub-genre that must have some fans somewhere, I”m just not one of them. We”re supposed to get this kind of snipe hunt debasement out of our systems in early adolescence. Some people take longer than others. Keep reading…
HOW TO SPEND NO MONEY IN A WALMART… I”m not talking about not shopping at Walmart, but rather how to shop there and still spend no money. I admire the ingenuity of people who work the coupon system. Couponing To Disney is a master. The best way to save money, however, is to not spend money. Keep reading…
CHICAGO”S FAUX APOCALYPSE… As Walmart”s siege of Chicago continues, the Bentonvile Behemoth”s fifth column within the city gates remain impotent. Led by Mayor Richard M. Daley, the pro-Walmart forces are facing a deadline and are growing desperate. Keep reading…
Like magic.
During this first year of grieving for my mother, I have mentioned several times my appreciation for the poems of grief that I”ve encountered in my reading. Reading them taps into my own grief, lets me cry and share and heal a little.
That is what the best poetry is for.
One of the things.
So the poem in this book that shatters my heart into the tiniest pieces and for which I am most grateful is this one…
Just a few suggestions for making better use of your time: Transforming Public Square: Three strategies for enhancing Cleveland”s civic core; University Circle community meeting for the Opportunity Corridor; Cleveland Harbor dredging summit; and Sustainability Symposium 2010.
Bonus points! You may actually live longer if you attend.
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