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.

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. — Winston Churchill

Warning: never trust an Internet quote without checking something other than Google. I’m willing to bet that less than 10 percent of these are real or accurate.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

It might be more useful to point out that a story has two beginnings, it”s beginning on the first page and its chronological beginning. Sometimes they coincide. Sometimes the do not. p. 147

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

I wrote 1,667 words yesterday morning and my total word count is now 17,007.

Previously…

Just as fellow Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela was a constant lightening rod for protests against South Africa’s apartheid government, so to is Aung San Suu Kyi the inescapable top-of-mind political fact hanging in any discussion with Myanmar’s military dictators because imprisonment has negated Myanmar’s next election before a single vote is cast.

Is it possible that the State Peace and Development Council resistance to outside disdain is crumbling?

From The Canadian Press:

Myanmar’s military-ruled government may release pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi soon, so she can play a role in next year’s general elections, according to a senior Myanmar diplomat.

The remarks by Min Lwin – rare for a Myanmar government official on an overseas visit – were in line with vague comments in recent years by the junta that it intends to free Suu Kyi soon. But officials have given no time frame and have made no real moves to release her.

Jim Gomez’s story does not mention what may be a historic meal next week and a significant impetus to change in Myanmar when:

President Barack Obama will sit at the same table with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein at the meeting on Nov. 15, the highest-level contact between the two countries in decades.

I suspect that more than coffee and cocktails will be downed.

[Update @1400: Brian Hester has a few words for John Boccieri.

Update @ 1230: Roldo has a few words for Dennis Kucinich.]

On H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act:

Democrats — Boccieri, N; Driehaus, Y; Fudge, Y; Kaptur, Y; Kilroy, Y; Kucinich, N; Ryan, Y; Space, Y; Sutton, Y; Wilson, Y.

Republicans — Austria, N; Boehner, N; Jordan, N; LaTourette, N; Latta, N; Schmidt, N; Tiberi, N; Turner, N.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Ran into an old friend this morning at University Hospital where we older people are likely to meet. Boy was she angry. At Dennis Kucinich, a favorite of hers.

Kucinich, as you may have noted, vote NO on the health care bill the other night. He gave good reasons. It squeaked in by a couple of votes. So his NO vote was a typical Kucinich vote.

But this fan said she had given him her last dime. And I”m sure she”s given him a lot more than that.

I don”t know if Kucinich would have voted NO if his was a deciding vote. Maybe not.

But his NO vote isn”t a surprise to me. Kucinich is playing Continue Reading »

Ohio will never be the same…

Antonino D’Ambrosio writes:

Cash, [Kris Kristofferson] said, was a “holy terror … a dark and dangerous force of nature that also stood for mercy and justice for his fellow human beings.” Four years before his famous concert at Folsom Prison, four years before the American Indian Movement formed, and at the pinnacle of his commercial success, Cash insisted on producing an uncommercial, deeply personal protest record that was a close as he could come to truth. He would always cherish it. “I’m still particularly proud of Bitter Tears,” Cash would say near the end of his life, while talking about the topical music he recorded in the 1960s. “Apart from the Vietnam War being over, I don’t see much reason to change my position today. The old are still neglected, the poor are still poor, the young are still dying before their time, and we’re not making any moves to make things right. There’s still plenty of darkness to carry off.”

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.

A LETTER FROM A CHALLENGED SENIOR

I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1,800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos and pictures, and communicated with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and two great-grandkids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix, and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. Continue Reading »

Found in my electronic chapbook.

A novel, as we”ve all heard far too often, ought to have a beginning, and a middle and an ending. No question about it. But not necessarily in that order. p. 145

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

I wrote 1,667 words yesterday morning and my total word count is now 15,340.

Previously…

Five years ago I wrote:

LEARNING FROM HISTORY…

The Republican ’20s

One of the things I do is tutor high school student here in Cleveland. I recently started working with a young man on his American History. The assignment was to pick up his work with the end of the Great War-now known as WW I, of course-and to carry through to the mid ’90s. The text is American Odyssey: The United States in the 20th Century by Gary B. Nash, a professor of History at the University of California at Los Angeles.

When I teach History I try to find the connections to the present to better aid my students in making sense of people and events. Usually it’s not too difficult, but this time the comparisons leapt off the page. We started with the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti and quickly moved to reading about The Red Scare. Here’s what we read:

The Red Scare: Anti-Communist Panic.

Judge Felix Frankfurter described the atmosphere in Boston during the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. He said that outside the courtroom Continue Reading »

There is certainly nothing new in the idea of wealthier industrial countries using the carrot of aid to coax intransigent governments to behave themselves. Such a package was instrumental in the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. If it worked there, can it work in Myanmar?

From Voice Of America:

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has urged Burma to release detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi before next year’s election, saying Tokyo is willing to provide more aid if democratic reforms in Burma are advanced.

In talks with Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein in Tokyo Saturday, Mr. Hatoyama said it is extremely important that Burma release Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners before the general election to be held in 2010.

The Japanese leader said that given recent progress being made, including dialogue between the military government and the Nobel Peace laureate, Japan would expand, in phases, humanitarian and human resources assistance to Burma.

I have little confidence that economic actions, positive and negative can sway Myanmar’s State Peace And Development Council, aka Military Dictators unless those actions target the personal wealth and power of the dictators themselves. Finding a way to impound every single baht in their personal bank accounts that exist beyond the borders of Myanmar would be a good start.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Could the pathetic condition of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party give us a Republican for the first County executive? Is the Pee Dee already pushing a Republican, the out-of-county son of Cleveland Indians” owner Larry Dolan for the top spot?

Ohio Rep. Matthew Dolan, it has been reported by the News Herald, who will have move into Cuyahoga County from Geauga County to run would enjoy at least a $1 million campaign fund to bring new leadership to us corrupt Cuyahoga County people.

He sounds just the right ticket for Cleveland”s corporate elite who will not leave the city even more to its decay – except for downtown, of course.

The Pee Dee, playing out its role in trying to Republicanize Democratic Cuyahoga County, ran photos of 10 Democratic present and former officeholders plus a labor leader, asking in a headline: “What do these Democrats HAVE IN COMMON?” Continue 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 chuckle I present: From My Dad.

8Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself. — Mark Twain

Warning: never trust an Internet quote without checking something other than Google. I’m willing to bet that less than 10 percent of these are real or accurate.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

The function of the opening is: getting the story moving (p. 138); setting the tone (p. 139) or establishing the problem (p. 140).

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

I wrote 1,667 words yesterday morning and my total word count is now 13,673.

Previously…

Speaking at Bangkok, Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, Scot Marciel
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs summarized the trip and answered questions concerning the two-day exploratory visit to Myanmar with Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell to speak with, he emphasized, all the stakeholders in the country.

From the U.S. Department of State:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated quite clearly at the outset that the reason for the policy review was that our previous approach, which relied heavily on sanctions, had not achieved the desired results. That”s a factual statement.

She also said that the ASEAN approach of engagement had not achieved the results. So the purpose of the review was not really to question the fundamental goals of our approach, but rather to see if there was a more effective way that we could try to bring about positive developments in the country.

[Snip..]

The results of that review were first, to reaffirm our fundamental goals for Burma. That we want to see a Burma that is at peace, unified, prosperous, stable, respects the rights of all of its citizens, and is democratic. That hasn”t changed.

What we said, what we concluded in terms of approach, was that we were going to maintain our existing sanctions, even though sanctions by themselves had not worked sufficiently – they were still a valid tool of our policy, so we”re maintaining the existing sanctions pending progress; that we would begin pragmatic engagement with the government; that we would continue our humanitarian assistance to help the people of the country as long as we were confident that that assistance was actually reaching the people and doing what it was intended to do. And we also committed to talk to the Burmese authorities about our concerns about non-proliferation, particularly related to North Korea.

The 45-minute question-and-answer period was far ranging. I do wish it had been possible to identify the questioners.

Charter for Compassion…

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 head scratch I present: From My Dad.

If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. — Mark Twain

Warning: never trust an Internet quote without checking something other than Google. I’m willing to bet that less than 10 percent of these are real or accurate.