On September 11, 2001, I learned of a plane hitting the World Trade Center by seeing it pop up as a headline on AOL while I sat waiting for someone to agree to meet for sex. Only when my mom called me from her office to tell me it wasn”t some small bi-plane did I tear myself away to turn on the TV, where I saw the second plane hit.
At that very moment, my life was in the crosshairs of the FBI and a local TV news crew.
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 brain bump I present: From My Dad.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
…a useful definition of creative work is that it includes a combination of novelty and value. Creativity requires novelty because tried-and-true solutions are not creative, even if they are ingenious and useful. And creative works must be valuable (useful or illuminating to at least some members of the population) because a work that is merely odd is not creative. This two-pronged definition of creativity also provides an explanation of why the creative can lie close to the insane (unusual but valueless behavior). p. 51
From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer”s Block and the Creative Brain. by Alice W. Flaherty.
An unexpected practice has made itself known to me over the past two days; I’ve gone radio-free. It began as part of my intent to wash dishes when I wash dishes. I very seldom just listen to the radio. I brush my teeth and listen to the radio. I shower and listen to the radio. I wash the dishes and listen to the radio.
Most of all I drive and listen to the radio. I hadn’t turned on either of my radios — the stereo in my living room or the clock radio in my bathroom — since Saturday and frankly didn’t notice that the radio in my car was turned off (to accept an incoming cell phone call on Friday I’m sure, curse you Alltel) until yesterday. I was so into not hearing babbling voices that I didn’t miss even the semi-commercial-free WCPN (forgive me Dan Moulthrop).
I’m noticing everything that I’ve been missing. Continue Reading »
If you intend to rig a vote, then it is typically considered just not done to broadcast your intent in a way that everyone is in on your secret. But if you’re a military leader for life, well, the rules just don’t apply, do they? And if no one actually believes the vote isn’t rigged, why not show off your skills in being extremely clever?
A rising star within the ranks of Burma”s military regime is reported to have unveiled a plan to ensure the junta gets its way at the May referendum for a new constitution, according to information revealed to IPS.
Lt. Gen Myint Swe told a meeting of some 600 people, which included senior government officials, that only the last 10 people to vote at each polling station will be entitled to monitor the counting of the ballots at the station, revealed a well-informed source close to the military, who attended the meeting.
Furthermore, the results of the votes counted at the local level will not be revealed as and when the tallies are confirmed, Myint Swe is reported to have added, the source said of the Apr. 9 meeting, which was held in the former capital, Rangoon. The junta”s plan is to reveal the final results in one announcement from the new capital, Naypidaw.
‘”This is to control the votes and rig the votes if needed,”” says Win Min, a Burmese national security expert lecturing at Payap University, in northern Thailand. ‘”This is different from the 1990 elections, when they announced the results by each polling station at the local level, which makes controlling the result difficult.”” Continue Reading »
I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is The D.C. Madam Case, All Sordid Out.
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, Robert Feinman, Peter Sayles and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.
HOW LONG WILL A GOOD IDEA STAY GOOD…? As Kunmi Oluleye learned, being a supplier to Wal-Mart is hard. Still, the idea of having your product on the shelves of the world”s largest retailer, is so attractive that thousands queued for a chance to even get to second base. Keep reading…
SOAR BY WAL-MART… CRASH BY WAL-MART… Yesterday I wrote about Wal-Mart”s courting of local suppliers in North Carolina and how it can be a boon for a local or regional supplier of a product Wal-Mart believes its customers will purchase. Brambles illustrates one risk of climbing in bed with Wal-Mart. Keep reading…
AT THE WALLY PLEX… There are sound stages on Hollywood”s back lots smaller than Bentonvile”s behemoths, so it”s no surprise that budding video talent has been sneaking cameras in at odd hours. And now for the midnight show at the Wally Plex featuring Studio33TV. Keep reading…
MORE ON THE WAL-MART MOMS… Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain”s campaign is credited with coining the 2008 catch phrase Wal-Mart Moms. Like the soccer moms and NASCAR dads of the past, these terms are silly attempts to package voters for lazy journalists. Keep reading…
THE FACES OF SAVE MONEY, LIVE BETTER… Didier Leiton and Savin Phal are two of the reasons Wal-Mart shoppers get to save money by buying cheap plastic crap from China Costa Rica and Cambodia. Because they work under inhumane conditions with very low wages shoppers benefit. Keep reading…
A NATION IS NOT ITS LEADERS… Tens of millions of Americans apologized to the world in 2000 and again in 2004 trying to explain that they hadn”t elected President George Bush and that they didn”t support his policies. The people of the world got it and didn”t hold Bush”s actions against us. Keep reading…
WHAT $4 GETS YOU AT WAL-MART”S PHARMACY… The $4 prescription meme has pretty much died away as a gimmick to get Wal-Mart good press and consumers have figured out the exclusions involved. But blogger David Lindner discovered that price ain”t shit if you can”t get a clerk to sell you what you want. Keep reading…
WAL-MART”S SUSTAINABILITY SCORECARD… I stumbled across a discussion at Environmental Manager on The Impact of the Wal-Mart Sustainability Scorecard this morning. Understanding how professionals view Wal-Mart”s programs is instructive. Keep reading…
HOW TO RUIN A BEAUTIFUL, THRIVING CITY… Living in Cleveland I am envious of Tornoto, Ontario. It is a city that represent everything that Cleveland could be: a metropolitan center with a vibrant walkable downtown that rocks 24/7. But there”s one thing Cleveland has that Toronto doesn”t: A Wal-Mart. Keep reading…
RATHER GOES BEHIND WAL-MART”S CURTAIN… It”s beginning to look like there may actually be more in those videotape archives than I first thought. Former CBS news anchor Dan Rather will use the tapes this evening for a segment tagged: Wal-Mart Goes To Washington.” Keep reading…
DO WAL-MART SHOPPERS REALLY DO THIS…? I was never a Postie during my four years at Ohio University”s journalism school, but I knew many of them. They tended to have pastie skin from long hours inside and took forever to graduate because they always took a minimum course load.
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 brain bump I present: From My Dad.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
“I assure you, there is very little that is compulsive about my life, either in writing or otherwise. I believe that the creative impulse is natural in all human beings, and that it is particularly powerful in children unless it is suppressed. Consequently, one is behaving normally and instinctively and healthily when one is creating – literature, art, music or whatever. An excellent cook is also creative! I am disturbed that a natural human inclination should, by some Freudian turn of phrase, be considered compulsive – perhaps even pathological. To me this is a complete misreading of the human enterprise.” Joyce Carol Oates upon being asked in an interview: is there a compulsive element to her writing. p. 47
From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer”s Block and the Creative Brain. by Alice W. Flaherty.
The generals claim to have identified a suspect in the double bombing in Yangon. as a member of an exiled anti-government organization. According to the official government newspaper, The New Light Of Myanmar, the suspect, now in custody, was identified by a security camera near the first explosion.
Security cameras behind the Traders Hotel in Yangon, the biggest city in Myanmar, filmed a man “carrying explosives” Sunday evening before blasts went off in the area, The New Light of Myanmar reported.
The newspaper reprinted a snapshot from the security camera, showing a blurry image of a man in a T-shirt and knee-length shorts holding what appears to be a small bag and another nondescript item.
Citing anonymous sources, the state-run newspaper said the man has been identified as a member of the exiled group Vigorous Burma Student Warriors. The paper said the man went by the code name Storm, and had entered Myanmar after attending explosive training courses in an unnamed country. Continue Reading »
I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Max Mosley’s Nazi S&M Orgy.
The pathetic waste of human genome who gave us the above political advertisement is back and this time the target is Obama. From Time Magazine.
Starting Tuesday, a group of conservative activists led by Floyd Brown, author of the famous Willie Horton ad used so effectively against Michael Dukakis in 1988, will begin a campaign to tar Obama as weak on crime and terrorism, a strategy that aims to upend Obama’s relatively strong reputation among Republican voters.
“The campaign by Hillary Clinton has not been able to raise Obama’s negatives,” said Brown on Monday. “It is absolutely critical that Obama’s negatives go up with Republicans.”
Brown says the initial effort, a 60-second spot called “Victims,” will be aired later this month in North Carolina and e-mailed to between 3 and 7 million conservatives this week, with a plea for more funding to further spread the message. “All of the efforts I have ever done in my life have been significantly funded,” Brown claimed, though he declined to describe the size of the purchase. “This is going to be the most Internet-intensive effort for an ad debut ever.”
Have we grown beyond this?
One of the blogs I visit regularly via Life Hack is zenhabits written by Leo Babauta. Leo isn’t a Buddhist, but he gets Zen and has managed to incorporate many of its principles into his life and his blog.
Two weeks ago, before I had contemplated my Going Out From Egypt posts, Leo listed 13 Things To Avoid When Changing Habits. No. 2 on his list was Not committing a plan to paper. He wrote:
It”s easy to wake up, jump out of bed, and yell out loud, “I”m going to make a change today!” Who among us hasn”t done that? (Side note: if you don”t live alone, your housemates or family members might not appreciate all the yelling.) But just telling ourselves, whether out loud or quietly in our heads, that we”re going to change isn”t enough.
You have to write down your goal. Write a start date. Write an end date (30 days is a good time frame). Write down exactly what you”re going to do. Write down how you”re going to be accountable, what your rewards are, what the obstacles are, what your triggers are. More on these below. Main thing: put it on paper and stick to the plan (don”t file the plan in your inbox, you piler you!).
It’s ancient advice. I know that it goes back at least to Napoleon Hill and I’m sure that he heard it somewhere.
I’ve already published my start date — 19 April — but I haven’t designated an end date or listed exactly what it is that I’m going to do, how I’m going to be accountable or what my rewards, obstacles and triggers are. 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 brain bump I present: From My Dad.
President Bush has set a record he’d presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll. USA Today.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
“When Shirley gets in front of the typewriter it”s like a pissing sow,” Stanley Edgar Hyman on his wife Shirley Jackson. p. 46
From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer”s Block and the Creative Brain. by Alice W. Flaherty.
As the generals get all their storm troopers in a row in preparation for the sham constitutional referendum May 10th, violence struck Myanmar’s former capital of Yangon. Two explosions startled residents last evening and sent police and military forces into the streets to secure the area. No group has taken responsibility for the small detonations.
Two bombs exploded Sunday in the largest city of the military-ruled country, witnesses said, but no casualties were immediately reported.
The witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of official reprisal, said the first blast occurred on a downtown Yangon street at around 8 p.m. The second blast occurred about an hour later on a different street near the luxurious Traders Hotel, they said.
No further details were immediately available, and there were no immediate claims of responsibility. The government has not blamed any group.
The roads were immediately blocked off by security and riot police. Continue Reading »
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