15 February 2008
15 February 2008
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff Hess
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 Tree lined Eco Boulevard.
15 February 2008
15 February 2008
WHAT THEY SAID…
0945 by Jeff HessClearly, “not qualified” was their emotional response, given matter-of-factly, tossed off like science – science of spin. Attacking Maynard [Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta, Georgia] was emotional, self-serving, not supportable by fact, primal, and racially charged. All that stuff that would usually be ascribed to black folks. Pot calling the kettle black. What disqualifies Maynard?
“What? … Well he just isn”t,” they would insist.
I pointed to the skin on my own hand. “Is this what disqualifies him?” Dexter Scott King
15 February 2008
MY COMMENTS…
0843 by Jeff Hess
Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.
0846 Forget about Clinton, McCain or Obama stance on Israel,…
0841 Happy Valentine”s Day Bloggers
15 February 2008
FROM MY DAD… ANIMALS WEEK PART I…
0800 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. This week he brings you some amazing animal photography: From My Dad.
15 February 2008
GOOD AFTERNOON MYANMAR…
0430 by Jeff Hess[Update — 0836 — Myanmar Ethnic Rebel Leader Killed. KNU general secretary Mahn Sha was shot at his home in Mae Sot at about 4:30 p.m. by two unidentified men, said Zin Linn, a member of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, an exile group opposed to Myanmar’s ruling junta. Myanmar is also known as Burma.
“A bullet hit his heart and he died on the spot,” said an e-mail message from Zin Linn. “The two men then sped away in a vehicle. No one knows about the murderers as yet.”]
If you create a work of art and then lock it away in a chest in a cupboard in your basement and stack boxes and other trash around the cupboard to conceal it from prying eyes and then lock the basement door, board up the windows of the house and move to a different country, have you really created a work of art?
In a strage way that is the question that leapt to my mind when I read Newsweek’s story titled: The Art of Defiance.
In a simple studio tucked into the shadows of a wealthy Rangoon neighborhood, a leading member of Burma’s underground political art movement lights a Red Ruby cigarette, smoke curling into the hollows of his cheeks. Thein Soe (not his real name) is 61 years old and probably weighs less than 100 pounds. The paintings spread across the studio walls, desk and floor could bring a prison sentence in this military dictatorship, where freedom of expression has not existed for 46 years, since the military took power in a coup. “It’s very difficult to show our inner sense, our expression,” says Soe. “There are many censors for art here.”
[Snip]
In secret, artists buy and sell portraits of the detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and share ideas and inspiration. Young artists are also joining the fold. For lack of traditional materials, several youths have turned to installation and performance art to speak their minds. One young man recently walked a busy street with a birdcage on his head before dropping it and fleeing. “We paint what we suffer and what we feel,” says Soe, speaking for a group of a dozen or so master artists. “It’s very dangerous for us.”
Ever since some dissident drew a rude portrait of village leader Tok Tok with a near-microscopic penis, artists have created defiant art. Today. In America. Defiant taggers, denied access to dominant media mark the walls of their cities to rage against the machine.
If the art speaks for itself, if the signature is unimportant to the viewer, then it ought to be unimportant to the artist as well if it means the art will be seen.
15 February 2008
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff Hess
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Midrash and Literature edited by Geoffrey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick.
Literature and Midrash: “The Plain Sense of Things” by Frank Kermode; “Milton and the Scene of Interpretation, from “Typology toward Midrash” by Sanford Budick; “The Hermeneutic Quest in Robinson Crusoe” by Harold Fisch; “Romanticism and the Internalization of Scripture” by Joshua Wilner; “The Model of Midrash and Borges”s Interpretive Tales and Essays” by Myrna Solotorevsky; “Kafka”s Parables” by Jill Robbins; and “Midrash and Narrative: Agnon”s Agunot” by Gershon Shaked.
15 February 2008
15 February 2008
TIME POWER: TODAY…
0001 by Jeff HessToday, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: Four techniques for reducing phone conversations:Use a stopwatch to keep you posted on where time is going.
Use the monologue approach.
Use the spontaneous goal.
Use body language (believe it or not, it works).
p. 133-4
14 February 2008
GOOD MORNING MYANMAR…
2030 by Jeff HessConstitutions are only worth the people who write them. I’ve said many times that I consider the deeply flawed Constitution of the United States the most significant living document ever written by humans. If tyrants write a constitution you get a tyranical document. It really is that simple.
From the Asian Tribune:
The average population of Burma disapproved of the junta’s abrupt statements made recently as nothing but duplicity. The regime is attempting to legalize the military dictatorship with a sham constitution and multiparty elections. Most citizens believe that the junta’s referendum to approve a new constitution and new election as a declaration of war against the people of Burma.
There is a conventional joke in Burma. The military dictator of Burma, Than Shwe, is just like a madman sitting in the middle of a stairway. Nobody knows of his idea when he will climb up or climb down in the staircase. But now, he has made a knee-jerk reaction. To everyone’s amazement, he jumped out of the stairway unexpectedly. May he fall by head or fall on feet is a puzzle for people.
It is believed that the referendum in May on the constitution and proposed elections must have come from Senior General Than Shwe that Burma’s junta will hold a referendum on a new controversial constitution in this May. The ruling junta had earlier a plan in its announcement in January to hold the referendum on February 9. The junta also promised to launch multi-party elections in 2010 in its announcement of February 8, 2008. But, the junta failed to give precise dates for referendum and elections.
The people of Myanmar may be oppressed, but they will not be fooled.
Are you surprised?
14 February 2008
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff HessI’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 After looking at this pad, Hugh Hefner is a square.
14 February 2008
14 February 2008
WHAT THEY SAID…
1104 by Jeff HessObama is no Jimmy Carter. Andrew Sullivan
Here is the email response I sent to Sullivan.
Shalom Andrew,
In saying that Obama is no Jimmy Carter are you referring to President Carter”s use of our military forces after the taking of the American Embassy in Tehran?
As a sailor who served in the first Persian Gulf War (1979-1980, The Iranian Phase), I”ve grown tired of this unjustified smear of President Jimmy Carter.
There were three carrier battle groups dispatched to the Gulf of Oman to support a strike on Iranian forces should any hostages be injured or killed. Since the goal was to get all of the hostages home unharmed, it would have been counter productive to stage punishment strikes while they were still alive.
The failure of the rescue attempt was not a matter of politics or presidential will, it was a military operation gone wrong; something that happens all too often in the fog of war.
We now know that the message President Carter had delivered to the leaders of Iran was that if any hostage were harmed, the full weight of those battle groups (and the might of the Air Force) would have fallen on Iran. The hostages came home alive, so the tactic worked.
I know that speculation continues as to why the hostages were released on inauguration day for President Ronald Reagan. Reagan supporters like to suggest that it was because the Iranians feared what President Reagan might do. From the other side there is speculation that candidate Reagan, through candidate George H.W. Bush, cut a deal with the Iranians (that would later grow into the Iran Contra Affair) to hold the hostages until he entered office.
Only the Iranians truly know why they released the hostages when they did, and to date, they”re not talking.
That a president who had served with distinction in the Navy would consider risking American lives as the last resort is to President Carter”s credit.
Your statement is not to your credit.
I don”t know how a President Obama (and he is my candidate) will use the military might of the United States. No one does. Yet.
B”shalom,
Jeff
14 February 2008
FROM MY DAD… ANIMALS WEEK PART I…
0800 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. This week he brings you some amazing animal photography: From My Dad.
14 February 2008
GOOD AFTERNOON MYANMAR…
0430 by Jeff HessThe generals in Myanmar collectively delivered a big raspberry to everyone in the world (all two of you) who actually thought they were serious about this whole road-map to democracy plan; complete with a constitutional referendum and democratic elections only two years from now. They are such pranksters these generals.
From Reuters:
Myanmar’s junta gave prominent opposition politician Tin Oo another year in jail on Wednesday, dashing hopes of a relaxation of restrictions on dissidents before May’s referendum, a home ministry source said.
Tin Oo, number two to detained opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under house since May 2003, when their convoy was attacked by pro-junta militiamen in a provincial town.
The extension of his detention was read out to Tin Oo by a junta official who visited his house, the government source said.
See, the generals are too cheap to even pay for prisons. They just post a guard outside your house and make you pay for your own upkeep.
(Seriously, I do know that many of the citizens of Myanmar are rotting in horrible state-run prisons.)
But am I the only one who sees the irony in these house arrests?
14 February 2008
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff HessMy name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Midrash and Literature edited by Geoffrey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick.
From Midrash to Kabbalah: “Midrash and the Dawn of Kabbalah” by Joseph Dan; “Infinities of Torah in Kabbalah” by Moshe Idel; and “Sacred Language and Open Text” by Betty Roitman.
14 February 2008
14 February 2008
14 February 2008
TIME POWER: TODAY…
0001 by Jeff HessToday, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: Nine techniques for reducing a visitor”s overlong stay in your office:
Always maintain a businesslike stance and a formal tone.
Set a time limit.
Do not allow interruptions.
When the time comes for the visit to end, stand up.
Always keep a timepiece where you can see it.
Say, “It”s time for the meeting to end.”
Give a summary for action.
Use body language.
Have your secretary interrupt you if necessary. p. 131-3
