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.
0834 Drop-in [Hopefully Atypical]
0821 If Not Now, When?
0742 An Officer and a Blogger
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.
Two very elderly friends, Max and Wally, met in the park every day to feed the pigeons, watch the squirrels and discuss world problems.
One day Wally didn’t show up Max didn’t think much about it, figured maybe he had a cold or some such.
But after Wally hadn’t shown up for a week or so Max really got worried.
However, the only time they ever got together anymore (they used to play a lot of golf together) was at the park, and Max couldn’t remember where Wally lived so he was unable to find out what had happened to him.
A month passed and Max figured old Wally had gone to his heavenly reward, but one day Max approached the park and, lo and behold, there sat Wally! Max was very excited and happy to see him and told him so! Then he said, “For crying out loud Wally, what happened to you?”
Wally replied, “I have been in jail.”
“Jail???,” cried Max!! “What in the world for?”
Well,” Wally said, “You know Sue, that cute little blonde waitress at the coffee shop where we sometimes get coffee?”
Yeah” said MAX, “I remember her. What about her?”
“Well one day last month she got mad at me and to get even, she charged me with rape. I was so proud of what everyone would think an old fart like me could still do, that when I got into court, I pled ‘Guilty’. The judge then took a good look at me and gave me 30 days for perjury.”
So he just repeats his assertions loudly, as if volume is a substitute for reason. It isn’t. Andrew Sullivan
John Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen were playing at St. Peter’s church in Liverpool while another guitarist, who couldn’t read music but did remember lyrics, listened from the audience. Paul McCartney introduced himself to John and music changed. Fifty years later my 9th grade students are still listening to The Beatles. I find that amazing.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It’s easy.
There’s nothing you can make that can’t be made.
No one you can save that can’t be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time
It’s easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1967,
They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?
From Neither Out Far Nor In Deep by Robert Frost.
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.
[Hat tip to Sherry Chandler for this particular find.]
This is a passage I copied from War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.
Following the Iraqi invasion of Kurwait, it was widely disseminated that Iraqi soldiers removed hundreds of Kuwaiti babies from incubators and left them to die on hospital floors. The story, when we arrived in Kuwait and able to check with doctors at the hospitals, turned out to be false. p. 145
Teflon Don: We took another trip up into Karma tonight. We patrolled up through the town and cut east, out through the area in which coalition forces recently took a bite out of al-Qaeda’s anti-aircraft capability. A bomb crater nearly blocked the road in one spot, another was visible a short distance off the road. We spent four or five hours heading out to our…
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.
SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr. DeVries:
It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:
Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond.
A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity.
A review of the Department’s files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.
The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2007.
Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff.
Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action..
We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
David L. Price
District Representative and Water Management Division.
Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr. Price,
Your certified letter dated 12/17/06 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane , Trout Run, Pennsylvania .
A couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood “debris” dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials “debris.” I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.
As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.
My first dam question to you is:
(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers, or
(2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request?
If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.
I have several concerns. My first concern is, aren’t the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation — so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer. The Department’s dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event, causing flooding, is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling their dam names.
If you want the stream “restored” to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers — but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English.
In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers’ Dams).
So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2007? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then: and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then.
In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality, health, problem in the area. It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone.
If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! The bears are not careful where they dump!
Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.
THANK YOU.
RYAN DEVRIES & THE DAM BEAVERS
My 4th of July activity was to plunk down $8.25 at the Cedar-Lee Theater to see Michael Moore’s latest bit of guerilla theatre: Sicko. Like all of his previous movies, Sicko has problems. But those problems are overwhelmed by the message Moore delivers. There’s a lot in the movie to think about.
I’m still processing precisely what it is that I want to do. But I do know I want more people to see it. So go.
(Thanks to Rebekah for the heads up on Moore’s call for videos.)
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.
[Hat tip to Sherry Chandler for this particular find.]
This is a passage I copied from War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.
War finds its meaning in death. p. 144
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.
SGT Sack: Part of the process of getting out of here is remembering those that have gone before us. It struck me the other day as we were making plans for coming home parties, car purchases, and vacations, that not everyone that got on the plane with us is making the trip home. One of the benefits that the Guard sells to young soldiers is that Guard is family…,
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.
PUT DOWN THE SUSHI AND WALK AWAY… Sometimes you just can”t make this stuff up. Driving to the coffee house this morning I hear yet another consumer horror story from China. This time it”s farm-raised shrimp, eels and fish laced with dangerous chemicals. Keep reading…
ATTACKING TUCSON”S BIG-BOX ORDINANCE… Stymied by Tucson, Arizona”s, big-box ordinance, Wal-Mart is circulating petitions to repeal a portion of the law restricting food and beverage sales to no more than 10 percent of a store”s total space.. The company only needs 11,615 signatures to get on the ballot. 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 jayjacobson14. Keep reading…
WHEN IT”S ALL GREEN… NOTHING IS GREEN… I have in the past and continue to applaud Wal-Mart”s ecological/environmental efforts, regardless of the fact that the changes are motivated by financial gain and not any altruistic revelation. But I am troubled by this story from Fast Company: Keep reading…
CHICAGO UNIONS CRACK OPEN DOOR… Don”t look for any great session of back slapping and exchange of rude party jokes anytime soon, but there does appear to be some light showing through a barely cracked door in Chicago over the living-wage issue. From WMAQ: Keep reading…
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE REPEAT THIS STORY…? Bad company is nailed for bad product. Government agency issues recall of bad product. Wal-Mart promises quick action. Consumers find product still on the shelf. Wal-Mart says it”s flagged at the register. Stop me if you”ve heard this one. Keep reading…
NOTICING HOW THE POWERLESS ARE TREATED… Women know that if you want to get a fast read on a first date, pay attention to the way the man treats the serving staff. Mike Neiss on Tom Peters! carries it further, saying his friends and associates are paying more attention to more than availability and price. Keep reading…
EMPLOYEES WORTH MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE… Class-action lawsuits are nothing new for Wal-Mart. But this one is, to steal a phrase from the attorney bringing the suit, plain creepy. Michael Myers alleges that Wal-Mart has been collecting on life insurance policies it secretly took out on its employees. Keep reading…
It would be 90 years after that day in Philadelphia when our forefathers declared the thirteen British colonies to be in revolt before, at least on paper, all men were seen as equal in our country and another 44 years before all American citizens over the age of 21 were able to vote. On 5 July 1852, Frederick Douglas. said this.
Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens:
He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country school houses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.
The papers and placards say that I am to deliver a Fourth of July Oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for me. It is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall seems to free me from embarrassment.
The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable-and the difficulties to he overcome in getting from the latter to the former are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence I will proceed to lay them before you.
This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July. It is the birth day of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, as what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. l am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young.-Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.
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.
A Citizenship Test for the 4th
I scored 27/30, missing nos. 22, 28 and 29. (I would have had No. 29 correct by I second guessed myself.)
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
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.
[Hat tip to Sherry Chandler for this particular find.]
This is a passage I copied from War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.
The Christian ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr warned us that moral choice is not between the moral and the immoral, but between the immoral and the less immoral. p. 144
SPC Freeman: The time between mortar attacks used to be measured in days, even weeks. Now it’s measured in hours. The days have been hot, and long. I’ve worked 12 to 14 hours a day, at least, for several weeks now. Only recently have I begun to enjoy some downtime, and had time to think about anything but cleaning my weapon or calling my wife. I’m…
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