Found in my electronic chapbook.
What other than medical illness spurs normal people to write prolifically? The chief cause is not quite illness, but nearly: love, especially unhappy love. p. 43
From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer”s Block and the Creative Brain. by Alice W. Flaherty.
[Blogger’s note: For those readers who might have thought I’d given up on Myanmar please know that that is not the case. With the new design and a heavy intrusion of real life, I found myself with little time for blogging over the past two weeks. With this post I’m caught up on Myanmar and expect to have other features on schedule again this week. Thank you for your patience.]
A classic marker of hopeless poverty is a rise in prostitution. While the sex industry has long flourished in Thailand, a change has taken place to the North in Myanmar where increasingly girls and women, sometimes by choice, sometimes by force, are turning to prostitution. Here are two perspectives.
From Asia Times:
The struggles Myanmar has weathered in recent decades have led to a sharp rise in the number of women opting to work in the sex industry to escape poverty. Once confined to a small domestic market, the sex trade is now opening to an emerging tourist market. This trend is particularly noticeable in towns straddling the sometimes rough-and-tumble border region with Thailand. What follows is an account of an encounter with prostitution in one such town.
While famously common in many parts of Asia, in Myanmar dens of prostitution were comparatively rare just a decade ago. But extreme poverty and lack of work has led more young women to the sex trade – in karaoke bars, massage parlors, nightclubs and restaurants. Continue Reading »
Ickes: Hey, I just got the lieutenant governor of-
Howard Wolfson: Have you seen Gore? (Grabs a remote, flips on CNN”s live coverage of Al Gore arriving at Denver airport.)
Ickes (shocked): Holy shit!
Wolfson: He”s lost, what, 30 pounds?
Ickes (still can”t believe his eyes): He looks like …
Wolfson: A fucking candidate!
CUT TO:
Al Gore passes through a hotel lobby and is swarmed by fans and delegates. The fat man from the sex scene fights his way close to Gore. A Gore aide whispers the fat man”s name to Gore.
Fat man: Hey, Al, remember me? I”m the lieutenant govern-
Gore: Hey, Pete, great to see you. Are you committed?
Fat man: Well, actually, I just said yes to Hillary, but if you throw your hat in the-
Gore: Hey, I”m just here to help any way I can.
Fat man: You look just unbelievable.
Today”s interviews have been unsettling; staring into the faces of these anonymous women and seeing the same matching expressions and void, vacant stares when asked about the allegations, I wonder how they can justify the trite euphemisms they offer.
I”m furious with these women, many of whom might have been themselves exploited children, standing passively by while their children are abused and doing nothing to protect them. Yes, they”ve been brainwashed. Yes, they”re being manipulated. But they”re mothers, damn it, and nothing, NOTHING, not even God, should come between a mother and a child needing her protection. Nothing is more sacred than that.
You don”t allow someone to hurt your child. Ever. No matter what it costs you. Terry Kanago
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 Vladimir Nabokov discusses Lolita.
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.
It is an age that begs for those who break the rules, who imagine the heretofore impossible. Tom Peters
What impossible reality will you imagine today?
Found in my electronic chapbook.
The scientist in me can quote the study (the single study, I must point out) that finds manic-depressives artists to be more productive when they are adequately medicated. The residual psychiatric patient in my is not convinced – it thinks I wrote better when I was at least a little bit ill. p. 37
From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer”s Block and the Creative Brain. by Alice W. Flaherty.
Blogger David Mixner brings us back to one of the most basic questions in Myanmar since the marches of last fall: where are all the monks? Are they in hiding? Are they out of the country? Are they in prisons? Are they dead? We don’t know and the generals are telling.
The world community remains strangely quiet about the missing monks of Burma. It has been nine months since we all were riveted by the bravery of tens of thousands of monks parading in quiet dignity through the streets of Yangon. Their saffron robes adding a ceremonial flourish to their procession, their rice bowls turned upside down in protest, they marched for all the citizens who lived in fear or who already had filled the jails as political prisoners. The news footage and photographs starkly chronicled the monks’ seeming lack of fear in facing down the brutal military junta of Burma.
Their non-violence was in direct contradiction to the 500,000 soldiers in the military who had already killed thousands in 1988 seeking freedom. The monks, who are the most revered citizens of Burma, captured the hearts and minds of an entire planet. Every evening the news would be filled with visuals of the brave spirits confronting military might. Now we are lucky to even hear a story about Burma — and when we do, it invariably turns out to be a flat, “What is happening now?” sort of article. 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 Quit playing with your balls and throw a frisbee.
I usually stop at Phoenix Coffee on my way to work for a my daily cup of inspiration. The Free Times ran this article about Phoenix and their goal to phase out disposable cups.
If I wanted to carry around my own cup for coffee instead of a disposable cup, I’d make my own coffee at home and put it in a cup. I don’t like carrying around a cup. I don’t like forgetting it at work. I don’t like it knocking around in my car when I’m not using it. I don’t like washing it. And yes, washing a cup using hot water and soap uses energy too.
Phoenix has been using Styrofoam cups instead of paper cups (like Starbucks and Caribou). I prefer the Styrofoam cup. The coffee stays hotter longer. And those paper cups sometimes drip at the seam. I HATE that.
Next week, Phoenix wants their customers to commit to a full week of not using disposable cups. They have pledge cards to sign. It is mentioned in the article, and I’ve seen these pledge cards. And I won’t be signing, because I’m just not interested in carrying around my own cup. Audient
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.
Depression, when it does not incapacitate a person, may actually make them see the world more accurately than normal people do. p. 32
From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer”s Block and the Creative Brain. by Alice W. Flaherty.
When in 1980 President Jimmy Carter decided that the United States should boycott the Moscow Olympics Americans generally didn’t’ understand. In 2008 the opposite is true. The world’s leaders don’t want a boycott of the Beijing Olympics, but the people of the world do understand why this is important.
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 Way Back Wednesdays.
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.
WAL-MART NATION COMING SOUTH… Andrew Munger”s Wal-Mart Nation, debuts south of the (Canadian) border tomorrow night at the Oxford International Film Festival in Oxford, Ohio. It fascinates me that one company can be such a rich resource for documentary film makers. Keep reading…
WHO REALLY BENEFITS HERE…? OK, this is where I get out my aluminum foil and wrap my head to safely spout insane conspiracy theories. Wal-Mart couldn”t care less about the 30 years of videos. The company knows exactly what”s on those videos. Keep reading…
HOW WAL-MART FUNDED HEALTH INSURANCE…? We”ve written a bit about Wal-Mart”s raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from a dead-employees scam, but a revelation in the court documents filed yesterday in Florida added an extra level of evil to the plan by revealing where the money went. 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 MattHawes. Keep reading…
THE WAL-MART STIMULUS PACKAGE…? Wal-Mart Director Jack Shewmaker sees President George Bush”s free money for everybody economic stimulus package as boon for Wal-Mart in 2008. He expects a great number of those checks to be cashed and spent at Wal-Mart. Keep reading…
A FIELD GOAL FOR THE WAL-FLACKS… When a hometown boy does good, it”s cause for the local newspaper to do an interview: throw a few softball questions, solicit cheery quotes and snap a smiling photograph. And that”s all good. I”ve written a few of those pieces myself. Keep reading…
ATTENTION WAL-MART SHOPPERS: NO SMOKING…! What started as an annoying smell inside a Wal-Mart in Garfield Heights (a Cleveland suburb), Ohio that I jokingly blamed on the third burrito Harry in toys ate on break, has become a serious public health hazard for people walking from their cars to the front door. Keep reading…
A SLOW STEP TOWARD WAL-MART RUSSIA… Maybe it”s the cold, maybe it”s the vodka or maybe it”s Wal-Mat learning the ropes of Russian business, but more than a year later, Wal-Mart is still circling the retail market in Russia like a wolf from the steppes wary of that lamb staked in the snow. Keep reading…
HOW SOON WILL THE GUN CAMERAS GO…? Just as Wal-Mart did when it briefly took an enlightened stance toward sexual/gender orientation, Wal-Mart has adopted a social position that has raised the ire of the political wrong over the gun control. But I think Wal-Mart is up to something else. Keep reading…
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