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’ve grown tired of the if-you-boycott-the-company-the-people-suffer arguments of large, multi-national corporations threatened with revenue losses because they do business with repressive regimes. The chutzpah is that somehow if the corporation didn’t provide jobs, then the poor people will starve.

They lived before the corporations came and they’ll live afterward.

From CNN:

The recent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar has rekindled a decades-old debate: Is it morally right to do business in countries with repressive regimes?

Some foreign businesses, including French jeweler Cartier, cut ties with the country after the suppression of the protests in September and October.

But others remain, arguing that they help the people of the impoverished country by creating jobs.

France’s Total contends that cutting off Myanmar, also known as Burma, hurts ordinary people more than it harms the military regime and could hinder moves toward democracy. Total and Chevron, which are partners in a natural gas field off Myanmar’s coast, also provide health and social programs for local communities.

It’s the same line that Royal Dutch Shell used when the apartheid boycott caught fire.

The approximately $2 billion in gas sold every year to Thailand from the Yadana field and from another field operated by Malaysia’s Petronas provides the bulk of Myanmar’s foreign exchange earnings.

“Only a few people are benefiting from these investments … the majority of people are not,” said Soe Aung, spokesman for the National Council for the Union of Burma, an umbrella organization based in Thailand for exile groups.

An estimated 90 percent of Myanmar’s 54 million people lives on about $1 a day.

Do the math: .9 x 54 = 48.6 million people or $48.6 million/day. Multiply that times 365 and you get $1.774 billion/year. That’s a local economy worth nearly as much as all the gas sold by the military dictators. I don’t see a lot of evidence that the people of Myanmar will see the standard of living drastically crash if Total/Chevron have to pull out.

Where is the money going?

Chevron and Total provide free healthcare to 50,000 people along the Yadana pipeline, where local infant mortality rates are a sixth of the national rate and enrollment in school has doubled due to the creation of 44 schools in 23 villages, Chevron said.

Activist groups call this propaganda.

“Every time we focus on a company doing business in Burma, they throw some money at a local foundation … and throw some pictures up on their Web site of smiling, happy people,” said Mark Farmaner, acting director of the Burma Campaign UK.

“They don’t put up pictures of the MIG jets that the generals bought with their first oil and gas paychecks,” he said.

How many childhood vaccinations could you offer for the price of one fighter jet. (And why the feck does Myanmar need fighter jets in the first place.)

What do you think?

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 Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the border between science and spirituality by John Horgan.

“… psychedelics can draw us in opposite directions: they can make us feel blissfully connected to all things, or alienated and alone. Which experience is truer? “The place I think the Buddhists try and get you to,” Ann [Shulgin] responded, “is right on the knife edge between the two. That”s where the truth is. But don”t ever forget that the truth of the universe changes second by second. It”s not the same universe it was when we sat down at this table”.” p. 201

Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about Selections from One-Hundred-One Time Management Goals:

60. Throw golden bricks at myself.

61. Throw no dirty bricks at others.

62. Throw no dirty bricks at myself.

85. Replace my in-basket with an in-drawer and out-basket with an out-drawer.

86. Have on the desk only the current task.

I love San Francisco. Every chance I had when I was in the Navy I went there. I was even discharged from active duty through Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay in 1979. I know that it is outrageously expensive to live within 50 miles of the Golden Gate, but, more than anyplace else that I know, the city has Right Mind.

From Laughing Squid:

Sunday Dec. 9th, 2:00 – 3:30 pm

Civic Center Plaza
Polk St & McAllister
St, San Francisco, CA 94102

COME RALLY FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM to Mark The International Human Rights Day!

The People of Burma have been forced to live under the brutal dictatorship since 1962, and have been violently crushed repeatedly every time they rose up against the successive dictatorial regimes.

Recently, led by Buddhist monks, hundreds of thousands of peaceful people are taking to the streets to cry out for an end to the long-standing military dictatorship in Burma yet again. However, holding Buddhist Sassana flags and reciting prayers of love on the street is now a crime punishable by beating and death.

Many monks have been disrobed, beaten, humiliated, tortured, and killed, and there are reports of a massacre in the jungle. The military junta is raiding monasteries and private homes in the middle of the night and dragging away those they suspect of involvement. Over 4,000 Buddhist monks and protesters have been arrested and the Burmese population is living in fear.

The people of Burma need your help. Despite this brutal military crackdown, the brave struggle continues, but both protestors and innocent onlookers are being beaten, arrested, imprisoned, tortured and killed.

Please JOIN us to mark the INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY and to appeal to the UN and the international community to take swift and effective measures to stop the killings and establish the democracy and rule of law in Burma.

Contact: 707-360-8452; 510 673 4452; 415 672 9095; badasf.org; bpf.org

Organized by International Burmese Monk Organization, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Burmese American Democratic Alliance, Burmese American Women”s Alliance.

What do we do to have more such events?

Also: Burmese Junta”s break another world record. Interview with General Kyaw San. and Don”t push me, Than Shwe.

Their whine…?

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 Leaving the McMansion for the Small Life.

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.

KEEPING A LIST…? BETTER CHECK IT TWICE… Everyone was worried about Ralphie putting his eye out, but this holiday season mom and dad have much more subtle hazards to worry about lurking beneath the pretty paper and ribbons. Wal-Mart assures us that all the tagged items are off the shelves. Keep reading…

TOO MANY LAW SUITS TO COVER… We try, we really do, to catch all of the Wal-Mart news we can find, but occasionally something slips through the net. In writing a story this morning about toys in China, I read this aside at the bottom of the piece from Reuters. Keep reading…

LIES, DAMN LIES, STATISTICS AND JOURNALISM… The Wal-Mart at Steelyard Commons in Cleveland is open and perpetuating the lies that somehow that is a good thing for the city. Not the least of the lies is that those 300 hired are enjoying that magical full-time wage of $10.65 per hour, plus benefits. 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 TrueActress114. Keep reading…

75,000 FILE IN ANOTHER WAL-MART LAWSUIT… The just keep coming and coming. At some point Wal-Mart”s employees are going to grab pitchforks, torches and converge on Bentonville. The wheels of justice do turn slowly, but eight years before getting to trial would be frustrating. Keep reading…

LOW PRICES, HIGH STANDARDS AND… the return of a family-friendly company. That”s how the Arkanasas Repulican Assemblies – the self-proclaimed Republican Wing of the Republican Party – sees Wal-Mart. How can you trust an organization that only gets one out of three right? Keep reading…

WHAT MAKES A GAME CHANGER…? When you”re out running the pack, when you”re on top of the hill, when you can afford to make mistakes and learn from them, that”s the time when corporations are least likely to change anything. That”s why expecting a company like Wal-Mart to take risks isn”t reasonable. Keep reading…

UNION SÍ… WAL-MART NO… Apropos of Robert”s previous post about our growing status as a third world nation, comes this news that workers in Mexico are organizing against Wal-Mart. Like the United States, the union movement in Mexico has a long history. Keep reading…

IS IT JUST BECAUSE WE ALL WANT A BALDRICK…? In the masterful Black Adder series Tony Robinson plays the brainless and loyal Baldrick, Black Adder”s perpetual servant. He can be insulted, abused and denigrated but he is eternally grateful for whatever small scraps his master deems to throw his way. Keep reading…

BUUTTT… I wasn”t going to respond to this story because I know there is a but in here someplace, but I”ll be fecked if I can find it. Wal-Mart may single handedly (OK, with help from Amazon) force the recording industry to ditch all Digital Rights Management software. Keep reading…

“IS WAL-MART A BAD NEIGHBOR…?” That was the headline in Sunday”s The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Reporters Eileen Drennen and Michael Pearson do a credible job of bringing together many of the issues related to Wal-Mart stores in particular and big-box retailers in general. Keep reading…

WAL-MART COMPLETES SEIYU BUY… Back in October I wrote about Wal-Mart”s intention to go it alone in Japan by buying up the outstanding share in the Japanese retailer. Yesterday Wal-Mart concluded the buy-back, saying it now holds 95.1 percent of the Seiyu stock.
Keep reading…

In 2007 I have spent $193.51 on electricity. Not a large amount as utility bills go, but thanks to Sherry Chandler I now have a way of not only knowing where the coal that produced that electricty came from, but I can also see the environmental damage that mining that coal wrought. I need to reduce my carbon footprint further.

From Huffington Post:

Last evening’s GOP CNN/YouTube debate and the Democratic presidential debate on November 15 were jointly sponsored by a coal industry coalition comprised of mining, railroad and utility interests.

Their high profile civic involvement is designed to further confuse American voters about coal’s true cost to our society. Many of the Republican candidates have endorsed massive new subsidies for King Coal and dutifully parrot industry talking points including earnest promises of cheap “clean coal.” Given that climate change is the most urgent threat to our collective survival, it is shocking that no debate moderator has pressed the candidates to clearly state their positions on “clean coal.”

In fact, there is no such thing as “clean coal.” And coal is only “cheap” if one ignores its calamitous externalized costs.

If you happen to live in the 44118 zip code, as I do, this is what our electricty is really costing us all.

Want to join me in not being so afraid of the dark?

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’m so angry I want to go perform some non-politically correct act on some non-threatening and politically correct yet non-specific — so as to not offend — entity. I really don’t like watching bunny-Americans gleefully take part in the shredding of our soul: The Constitution of The United States of America.

From the Jacksonville, North Carolina, JDNews:

Bloggers and free speech advocates are calling on prosecutors not to file charges against a teacher arrested for allegedly posting an anonymous comment online praising the Columbine shooters.

Some were disturbed by the post police say James Buss left on a conservative blog, but other observers said it was a sarcastic attempt to discredit critics of education spending.

The suburban Milwaukee high school chemistry teacher was arrested last week for the Nov. 16 comment left on Boots And Sabers, a blog on Wisconsin politics. The comment, left under the name “Observer,” came during a discussion over teacher salaries after some commenters complained teachers were underworked and overpaid.

Buss, a former president of the teacher’s union, allegedly wrote that teacher salaries made him sick because they are lazy and work only five hours a day. He praised the teen gunmen who killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide in the April 1999 attack at Columbine High School.

“They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time!” he wrote, adding they should be remembered as heroes.

The comment disturbed at least one teacher, who called police in West Bend, 40 miles north of Milwaukee and home of the blog’s administrator. Police traveled to arrest Buss at his home in Cudahy, south of Milwaukee, last week after the blogger gave them the anonymous poster’s IP address.

After his arrest, Buss spent an hour in the Washington County jail before he was released on $350 bail. He did not return phone messages and e-mails seeking comment, and it was unclear whether he had a lawyer.

Washington County District Attorney Todd Martens is considering whether to charge Buss with disorderly conduct and unlawful use of computerized communication systems.

So because an unidentified person claiming to be a teacher felt threatened by the phrase one shot at a time police resources were redirected from potentially more important tasks and an American, exercising his Constitutional right of Free Speech, was taken from his home, photographed, fingerprinted and held in a jail cell.

And while I have no way of knowing how right or wrong I may be; I expect that the police involved rolled their eyes, but conducted the witch hunt out of fear (again) of a lawsuit on the tiny chance that they get sued for inaction.

We are so fecked.

Following the statement from the military dictators of Myanmar yesterday that they no intention of including Aung San Suu Ky discussions, a monk, living in the United States and connected to the International Burmese Monks Organ- ization, said that the monks in Myanmar are prepared to march again, despite real threats of physical violence.

From TodayOnline:

Myanmar’s Buddhist monks are prepared to face another bloody confrontation with the ruling military junta if the international community fails to force the generals to accept democratic reforms, an exiled monk who has links inside the country said on Monday.
.
United States-based Ashin Nayaka, a key member of the International Burmese Monks Organisation, said monks were a “symbol of hope” for reforms in Myanmar but were “forcibly disrobed, assaulted and killed” by the junta.
.
“If this continues to be unaddressed, further bloody confrontation is unavoidable,” he told a hearing of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

While our government has imposed sanctions, and twice tightened them, there seems to be little outrage from average Americans. Are we burned out by Iraq and Sudan and Afghanistan and Israel and Pakistan?

Quite possibly.

But no one has to be be outraged about every injustice. There are maybe 150 million of us adults in the United States. We can divide up the outrage.

What’s your’s today?

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 Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the border between science and spirituality by John Horgan.

“In [Argentinean fabulist Jorge Luis Borges”] story, The Zahir, the narrator is a man who becomes increasingly obsessed with a coin that he receives from a shopkeeper. Although he attempts to rid himself of it, the coin keeps coming back into his possession. Eventually he cannot think about anything but the coin; it even haunts his dreams.

As the story unfolds, he gradually realizes that the coin is what ancient Islamic texts called a Zahir, an emblem of the mystery of existence, the riddle at the heart of things. At the end of the story, the narrator is still sane enough to foresee his fate: “I shall pass from thousand of apparitions to one alone: from a very complex dream to a very simple dream.

Others will dream that I am mad, and I shall dream of the Zahir. And when everyone dreams of the Zahir day and night, which will be a dream and which the reality, the earth or the Zahir?” In Borges eerie fable, gnosis – a vision of the one thing that explains all other things – represents not salvation or omnipotence or another crest of the timewave, but a black hole into which we vanish forever.” p. 190

Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about Selections from One-Hundred-One Time Management Goals:

41. Set up a systematic, highly selective reading program.

43. Limit TV programs to a vital few – if any.

45. Unblock natural drives by doing what I enjoy.

46. Implement a blanaced exercise program.

59. Throw golden bricks at others.

The United Nations envoy wants Aung San Suu Ky involved in any talks to take place in Myanmar. The presidents of France and England want Aung San Suu Ky involved in any talks to take place in Myanmar. The military dictators of Myanmar don’t want Aung San Suu Ky involved in any talks to take place in Myanmar. End of story.

Myanmar’s military leaders rejected including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy in discussions on a new constitution, Agence France-Presse reported.

“No assistance or advice from other persons is required,” AFP cited Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan as telling a news conference in the capital, Naypyidaw, yesterday. A 54-member panel, appointed by the junta, began work yesterday on a new constitution that will lead to elections, he said.

That pretty much means that all discussions are dead on arrival. That is unacceptable. Where does the world go next?

And the big window is for…?