DON’T FORGET BURMA NO. 45…
0230 by Jeff Hess
27 December 2007
27 December 2007
TIME POWER: TODAY…
0001 by Jeff HessToday, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: …Can you do everything you have on your desk in one day? Of course not. So you end up with many screaming urgencies in the form of papers piling up around you. This is totally incongruous. The wise thing to do is to prioritize all these papers carefully and keep only the highest priorities in one small stack in front of you, with the rest of the desk clear. You now have a sense of urgency associated with these vital priorities, and the lower-priority items you have put out of sight, thus removing the sense of urgency. p. 18.
26 December 2007
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 101 Simple Appetizers in 20 Minutes or Less.
26 December 2007
26 December 2007
WAL-MART WEDNESDAY…
1000 by Jeff Hess
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.
HOT TUB REFILL IN AISLE NO. 7… Strictly speaking this isn”t a Wal-Mart issue, companies should not be held accountable for any unplanned uses customers may find for their purchases. An unintended consequence of low- low prices, however, highlights the damage such policies can wreck. Keep reading…
DARE WE CALL IT GUILT BY ASSOCIATION…? Nature is filled with examples of mutualist relationships. My favorite has always been the tie between sharks and pilot fish. We”ve written much here about how Wal-Mart destroys local businesses. Now the company will be jumping on another segment. Keep reading…
WHAT AMERICA IS BECOMING…? Keep watching…
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 wildmania. Keep reading…
SUBVERTING UNIONIZING WORKERS…? The case of Patsy Stephens took a strange twist yesterday when her attorney filed papers seeking a new trial claiming that Stephens thought she was helping her boss in a secret plan to subvert workers trying to unionize.. Keep reading…
WAL-MART: DRIVE LIKE A MANIAC… JUST BUY…! Keep watching…
AN HONEST DISCLAIMER… I perform a number of searches every day looking for interesting Wal-Mart connections to add to the conversation here. This morning I found a blog touting the size of the after-Christmas sales at Wal-Mart and I was intrigued. Keep reading…
AN AMISH WAL-MART CHRISTMAS… Keep watching…
MERRY CHRISTMAS… BRING ON THE RETURNS…! Keep watching…
LIFE WITH WAL-MART… INTRODUCTION…
There are millions of Wal-Mart stories out there. Some people speak them, some blog them, some video them, some even tell them to a judge. Occasionally a few like Kunmi Oluleye actually write a book to tell their Wal-Mart story. Keep reading…
26 December 2007
FROM MY DAD…
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. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
26 December 2007
GOOD AFTERNOON MYANMAR…
0430 by Jeff Hess
How is it possible that Myanmar has already passed into the gray area where it could be considered one of the top ten most underreported humanitarian stories of 2007? The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders has placed Myanmar on that list and Executive Director Nicolas de Torrente discussed the reasons on Democracy Now.
AMY GOODMAN: Burma?
NICOLAS DE TORRENTE: Yes. Well, Burma did get-I mean, of course, you”ve covered it, and others have covered what happened, the pro-democracy protests against the military regime there. But, you know, this is really, in a way, the tip of the iceberg, in terms of what”s happening in Burma, in terms of the conditions of the population throughout the country.
There are places, for instance, you know, Rakhine state, which is in the western part of the country, where the Rohingya population there-these are Muslims-are not even considered to be citizens of Burma. And so, they”re-you know, they have no rights, basically.
And so, the government disregards them completely. There”s a lot of abuse. And their needs-in terms of basic healthcare issues, HIV/AIDS is a major problem in Burma, and TB and other health issues are major problems. And so, this is not being talked about.
What”s going on in the east with ongoing insurgencies, ethnically based insurgencies against the regime, again, not being covered. That area is sealed off. The government does not want aid agencies to be present. So, you know, there are a lot of restrictions to the operations of aid organizations.
And there”s-since there”s a willingness to kind of cut off the regime and not to provide assistance that could support it, there”s also a lack of engagement on the humanitarian side. And we think that these things can be a bit dissociated and that there is a way to provide assistance quite-you know, more directly to the population in Burma and not necessarily strengthen the hand of the military regime, that doesn”t care about the population anyway.
If the dictators don’t care abou their own people, how do we better demonstrate that we do?
26 December 2007
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 Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations From Sufi Wisdom by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut.
“Do like me; dive headfirst into the Sea. If you wait patiently, you will obtain your Pearl.” Junayad. p. 19
26 December 2007
26 December 2007
TIME POWER: TODAY…
0001 by Jeff HessToday, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: Urgent simply means calling for immediate action. p. 17
25 December 2007
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 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less.
25 December 2007
25 December 2007
FROM MY DAD…
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. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
25 December 2007
GOOD AFTERNOON MYANMAR…
0430 by Jeff HessPresident George Bush famously and, not surprisingly, incorrectly claimed that Islamic terrorists attacked the United States on 11 September 2001 because they hate our freedoms. Christmas means little or nothing in Myanmar, but this day seems a good one to examine, the broader implications of the monks, Myanmar and Freedom.
From The Christian Science Monitor:
Vladimir Putin is Time’s “Person of the Year”? What about Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov, forced to withdraw his presidential bid because of state harassment? What about Burma’s monks, beaten into silence? Standing for freedom is much harder than suppressing it.
Liberty around the world has taken it on the chin, and worse, this year, no small thanks to Mr. Putin. Freedom House, a nonprofit which tracks the progress of civil and human rights, concludes that 2007 saw an “increased assault” on freedom. This follows a decade of “freedom stagnation.”
Men and women around the world stand up for freedom. We rename french fries.
When rights are under attack is exactly the time when individuals need to take a stand for them. Václav Havel, the former anti-Communist dissident from Prague, talks about this in an essay called “The Power of the Powerless.” He wrote it 11 years before the 1989 “Velvet Revolution” brought democracy peacefully to what was then-Czechoslovakia.
Imagine, he posed, that one day a greengrocer no longer places a propaganda slogan in his shop window, then stops voting in farcical elections. The grocer starts to say what he thinks at political meetings and even expresses solidarity with those whom he supports.
“In this revolt the greengrocer steps out of living within the lie,” wrote Mr. Havel. “He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity. He gives his freedom a concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth.”
Of course, the grocer’s actions invite consequences. For Havel, standing for truth brought imprisonment; for others, it costs their life.
In itself, the greengrocer’s action has no power, Havel continues. Its potency lies in the light it sheds on his surroundings – light that others see. That is what gives it power, and why, he maintains, living the truth is the greatest threat to autocratic governments built on lies.
What truth are you living?
25 December 2007
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 Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations From Sufi Wisdom by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut.
“Of course, I will save you. But first, let go of the branch!” Traditional Sufi story. p. 18
25 December 2007
25 December 2007
TIME POWER: TODAY…
0001 by Jeff HessToday, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: People often confuse urgent trivialities with vital events. p. 15
24 December 2007
24 December 2007
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 Stop working jobs that suck!.
