SCIENTIFIC METHOD VS. IGNORANCE…
1218 by Jeff Hess
29 September 2007
29 September 2007
FROM THE SANDBOX…
1200 by Jeff Hess
Doc in the Box: This is the first video I made in 2004 while attached to HMM-764 (Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron). It covers most of the first month of deployment, my first and longest time Kuwaiting. We were the first reserve CH-46 squadron to go into Iraq, and had to unpack our helicopters and make sure they were fully ready to fly, which took a good…
29 September 2007
29 September 2007
WHAT THEY SAID…
0920 by Jeff HessI extend my support and solidarity with the recent peaceful movement for democracy in Burma. I fully support their call for freedom and democracy and take this opportunity to appeal to freedom-loving people all over the world to support such non-violent movements. Moreover, I wish to convey my sincere appreciation and admiration to the large number of fellow Buddhists monks for advocating democracy and freedom in Burma.
As a Buddhist monk, I am appealing to the members of the military regime who believe in Buddhism to act in accordance with the sacred dharma in the spirit of compassion and non-violence.
I pray for the success of this peaceful movement and the early release of fellow Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Tenzin Gyatso, The Dali Lama
Prayer is insufficient. Who do you know? Can they help? Do they know someone who can help. If we are ony six degrees from Kevin Bacon, how closer must we be to someone in power?
Think…
Contact…
Convince…
Demand.
29 September 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.
29 September 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 So, You Want To Write by Marge Piercy.
Poetry is an art of time, as music is. Rhythms are measured against time: they are measures of time. A poem goes forward a beat at a time as a dance does, step-by-step, phrase-by-phrase. Narrative, whether fiction or memoir, is about time. First this, then that. Or this – then before it was that. Therefore this. p. 27
29 September 2007
MY WORDS…
0200 by Jeff Hess
To improve my vocabulary (and my reading) I always keep a dictionary close at hand because I aspire to a Shakespearian vocabulary. Inspired by the new PBS Kids show Word Girl, I’ve decided to add My Words as an occasional feature here at Have Coffee Will Write. The word I’ve chosen for today is Bildungsroman.
-noun, plural -mans, German. a type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist. [Origin: 1905-10; G, equiv. to Bildung formation + -s n. ending in compounds + Roman novel]
29 September 2007
TIME POWER: TODAY…
0001 by Jeff HessToday, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: When you identify your highest priorities of life, what you value most, you anticipate those events. When you bring them under control, you experience a profound self-esteem you cannot get in any other way. It is the greatest surge of of self esteem that anyone can ever have.
28 September 2007
28 September 2007
28 September 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 Zen To Slim Weight Loss Plan.
28 September 2007
FROM THE SANDBOX…
1200 by Jeff HessAdrian B.: A lot’s happened since the last time I took a couple minutes out of my day to write. Notable highlights were me getting my CIB*, a steady worsening in the me-interpreter relations, the death of my grandfather, and a steady escalation in the activities of our “friends across the border,” the Taliban. People may be wondering why I don’t write more about such…
28 September 2007
WHAT THEY SAID…
1002 by Jeff HessDavid Petraeus is a political general. Yet in presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the “way forward,” Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind-one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington”s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes. Nope, not another liberal attack from MoveOn. This one comes from The American Conservative.
Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.
28 September 2007
A MYANMAR/BURMA PRIMER…
0957 by Jeff Hess
When I was a young political science/journalism student at Ohio Universtiy — class of ’84 — I was required to read the Christian Science Monitor for two reasons — first, it was the best copyedited paper there was and, second, it had the best international coverage of any newspaper. It’s good to see that the paper is holding up its tradition in offering:
Monks Rising: The Basics On Burma.
Burma’s military rulers are trying to choke off an escalating protest movement led by Buddhist monks that has gripped the country since last week. Tens of thousands of clergy and lay people have marched in cities and towns across Burma (Myanmar) in the largest antigovernment demonstrations in nearly two decades.
After an initial standoff, authorities have denounced the monks, arrested political activists, and imposed a nighttime curfew and a ban on public gatherings in the two biggest cities, Rangoon (Yangon) and Mandalay. Police fired shots and tear gas to disperse crowds Wednesday in Rangoon, killing two monks and a civilian, according to the Reuters news agency. But thousands still continued to march. Armed security forces are stationed around the city, according to news agencies. The US and other foreign governments have urged authorities not to resort to violence against demonstrators.
Isolated by its rulers and excluded from the economic prosperity of its neighbors, Burma is among the poorest countries in Asia. Parts of its northern and eastern frontiers are controlled by ethnic-based armies, some of whom have signed ceasefires with the military. Fighting in these areas, which has ebbed and flowed since the 1940s, has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, including many refugees in Thailand.
Keep reading if you want to understand why Buddhist monks are protesting and dying in the streets.
28 September 2007
WHAT THEY SAID…
0858 by Jeff HessAnother foreigner, reportedly a Caucasian woman, was also seen shot and wounded in the street, according to the exile groups. Edward Cody
No word yet. I’ll keep everyone informed as soon as I hear anything from my reader.
28 September 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.
28 September 2007
THE ISRAEL LOBBY… WHY I SQUIRM…
0746 by Jeff Hess
The deeper I get into Mearsheimer’s and Walt’s book the more I squirm. I can’t express strongly enough how much I oppose the tactics and agenda of organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. I dislike them for the same reasons that I dislike Dick Cheney and the crew of Neocons who have run my country into the ground.
But then there’s that world Israel in the title of the organization. And the realization that for most of the United States if you try to describe for them the differences among Judaism, Zionism, Israel and Jews the response is most likely to be: whatever. We are just them. And there are plenty of people in power for whom we are the scapegoat of choice.
Like Fred Malek.
Malek was the go-to guy when President Richard Nixon infamously asked: How many Jews were employed at the Bureau of Labor Statistics?
From Slate:
Kenneth J. Hughes, the Miller Center’s Nixon tapes editor, has kindly furnished Slate with the memo traffic concerning the Jew count, including a never-before-published memo by White House personnel director Fred Malek confirming the planned transfer of three Jews to less-visible jobs and the effective demotion of a BLS deputy with a Jewish-sounding surname. Malek, today a very wealthy investor, remains active in Republican politics; this past April, he was named national finance co-chair of John McCain’s presidential campaign.
Can we just say: Oh, you worked for the Nixon administration? You’re out of here.
Oh. No. We can’t. We’d have to can most of the present administration.
28 September 2007
WHAT THEY SAID…
0718 by Jeff HessMyanmar is one of the world’s oldest oil producers, exporting its first barrel in 1853. Rangoon Oil Company, the first foreign oil company to drill in the country, was created in 1871. Between 1886 and 1963, the country’s oil industry was dominated by Burmah Oil Company (BOC), which discovered the Ychaugyaung field in 1887 and the Chauk field in 1902. Both are still in production.
China is Burma’s biggest oil and gas partner. But Burma also has partners in oil and gas with France (Total), South Korea (Daewoo), India, Thailand in partnership with Oman and Malaysia. And with Unocal, the American company China wanted to buy, and who once had Hamid Karzai as a director.
We noted two years ago that oil deals were lubricating the India-Burma rapprochement, which resulted in a brutal crackdown on ethnic guerillas seeking independence from India, who had theretofore been using Burmese territory as a staging area.
The US firm Unocal recently had its own interests in construction of a pipeline across Burma to Thailand. In 2004, Unocal settled in a case brought under the US Alien Tort Claims Act charging the company was complicit with forced labor and other rights abuses by the Burmese regime. (Radio Free Asia, Dec. 18, 2004)
In 2005, Unocal’s French partner Total agreed to compensate victims to the tune of 6 million euros ($7.2 million), paid into a fund for humanitarian projects. (EarthRights International, Nov. 29, 2005) The Yadana pipeline is functioning today-and being protested by global ecologists for its impacts on the sensitive rainforest regions it cuts through. (Qatar Gulf Times, Sept. 4, 2007)
But now that Burma is integrating with India-which is, in turn, seeking a new gas pipeline with Iran-the Rangoon junta has manifestly outlived its usefulness to the US elites. Eugene Plawiuk
28 September 2007
28 September 2007
CAN BLOGGERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN MYANMAR…?
0701 by Jeff Hess
Yesterday I compared the uprising in Myanmar to the 1989 people’s movement in China that we all watched on television. This timewe’re not just watching the pictures coming out of Myanmar gathered by tens or perhaps hundreds of journalists. Now tens-of-thousands of bloggers are spreading the news.
Will we make a difference in the Saffron Revolution?
The Wall Street Journal thinks so.
As Myanmar’s regime cracks down on a growing protest movement, “citizen journalists” are breaking the news to the world.
At 1:30 yesterday afternoon, a cellphone buzzed with news for Soe Myint, the editor in chief of Mizzima News, a publication about Myanmar run by exiles in New Delhi.
The message: “There is a tourist shot down” in Yangon, the center of recent protests by Buddhist monks and others against the military junta in Myanmar, formerly Burma. Troops there were clearing the streets, telling protesters they had just minutes to go home — or be shot.
The text message wasn’t from one of Soe Myint’s reporters. In fact, he doesn’t know who sent the message. He believes it came from one of the more than 100 students, activists and ordinary citizens who have been feeding him reports, images and video of the violent events unfolding in recent days.
In the age of YouTube, cellphone cameras and text messaging, technology is playing a critical role in helping news organizations and international groups follow Myanmar’s biggest protests in nearly two decades. Citizen witnesses are using cellphones and the Internet to beam out images of bloodied monks and street fires, subverting the Myanmar government’s effort to control media coverage and present a sanitized version of the uprising. The Associated Press reported yesterday that soldiers in Yangon fired automatic weapons into a crowd of demonstrators as tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters converged in the capital. Wire services have reported the number of dead at nine, citing the state media.
Technorati is tracking nearly 16,000 blog posts world-wide on Myanmar; and more than 25,000 on Burma.
Here are just five.
ko htike’s prosaic collection…
Blogging Burma…
Don’t Flee Myanmar, Exiled Leaders Advise Activists…
Burma, and preference falsification…
Dhammapada Verses…
The whole world is reading. The whole world is listening. The whole world is watching.
The whole world needs to act.
