28 June 2007
28 June 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.
[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 magnitude of the deaths and ultimate indifference [to the Armenian genocide] may have led Hitler, on the eve of the invasion of Poland, to remind his followers, “Who still speaks of the extermination of the Armenians?” p. 126
27 June 2007
27 June 2007
27 June 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.
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 StupidSalad. Keep reading…
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND WAL-MART… Over the years that I”ve been writing about Wal-Mart I”ve noted a lot of very bad (and a few good) morsels of information, but I”ve never managed to do what The Indian Economy Blog did: talk about Wal-Mart and thermo-nuclear weapons in the same post; Keep reading…
ALL NATURAL… WITH E COLI… What I can”t fathom about this story is this: how is it possible that every single patty of Angus Steak Burger All Natural and package of All Natural Ground Beef, Carne Molida de Res contaminated with E Coli was only sold to Wal-Mart? Is this horrible luck? Keep reading…
THIS T-SHIRT VANISHED REAL FAST… One customer in one store complains and Wal-Mart yanks a t-shirt from its shelves. Hundreds (thousands?) of people complain about the Nazi t-shirt and its still showing up in stores nearly a year later. OK, so this was 12 years ago. Keep reading…
THIS WILL MAKE YOUR JAW DROP… Yesterday morning a new Wal-Mart opened in the town of Millbrook, Alabama. The Stanhope Elmore High School band and cheerleaders performed for the crowd in preparation for the 8 a.m. opening. There was a pledge of allegiance, a singing of the national anthem and an invocation for the 500 people waiting outside to shop. A part of the crowd was made up of city employees on the tax payers dime. 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 FunnyClassNotes. 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 wendy2705. Keep reading…
HAVING A BANK WITHOUT HAVING A BANK…Keep reading…
UNION, RIGHTS GROUPS CONVERGE IN CLINTON… Bus loads of union members and human rights advocates from several southern states converged on Clinton, Mississippi, yesterday to protest Wal-Mart”s low wages and continued reliance on a public-sector healthcare bailout for its workers. Keep reading…
WAL-MART ZAPS 133,000 JOBS… No, not jobs at Wal-Mart. Those low-paying, Mc Jobs are growing every day. No, the jobs zapped by Wal-Mart are the kinds of jobs people used to depend upon to buy cars and houses and college educations for their kids; manufacturing jobs. Keep reading…
TO SHOP OR NOT SHOP…? THAT”S HIS QUESTION… Blogger Golbguru at Money, Matter, and More Musings asks the question: what are your reasons to shop (or not shop) at Wal-Mart? What reasons do you cite when you encourage or discourage your friends/family to use Wal-Mart? Keep reading…
27 June 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.
27 June 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.
[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.
“My daughter and two grandchildren fled with the crowds,” said [Burka] Bakovik. “I did not even have time to say goodbye. In a moment they were gone. Now I am alone and afraid. I do not want to be by myself in my apartment, so I stay here. We are all women; we all felt the same pangs of childbirth. We do not believe in war.” p. 111
26 June 2007
26 June 2007
26 June 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.
26 June 2007
WHAT THEY SAID…
0740 by Jeff HessSo: If you were going to raise and spend $400 million in public money to spur private economic activity in Cuyahoga County, would you buy a Convention Center?
Here are a few alternatives to consider:
One Convention Center @ $400 million, or
400 megawatts of utility-scale wind generators (with no debt to pay off, so the power would be very cheap)
Full-ride tuition at Cleveland State for more than ten thousand county residents
8,000 street miles of optical fiber at an average cost of $50,000 per mile (1,300 miles would cover the entire city of Cleveland)
Major weatherization and furnace replacement for 60,000 to 80,000 homes. (While you”re at it, you could probably throw in lead paint abatement.)
That”s just off the top of my head. What”s your $400 million idea?
26 June 2007
“WE THE PEOPLE, IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION…
0722 by Jeff Hess
I hope that if the time comes when I have to decide whether to burn our Constitution or go away for five years, I’ll have the courage to stand up for the words I once swore to defend with my life. None of us can know until faced with the reality; like that endured by these four librarians. (Hat tip to Writes Like She Talks.)
Hey, do you know about the U.S.A.?
Do you know about the government?
Can you tell me about the Constitution?
Hey, learn about the U.S.A.
In 1787 I’m told
Our founding fathers did agree
To write a list of principles
For keepin’ people free.
The U.S.A. was just startin’ out.
A whole brand-new country.
And so our people spelled it out
The things that we should be.
And they put those principles down on
paper and called it the Constitution, and
it’s been helping us run our country ever
since then. The first part of the
Constitution is called the preamble and tells
what those founding fathers set out to do.
We the people
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity
Do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.
In 1787 I’m told
Our founding fathers all sat down
And wrote a list of principles
That’s known the world around.
The U.S.A. was just starting out
A whole brand-new country.
And so our people spelled it out
They wanted a land of liberty.
And the preamble goes like this:
We the people
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity,
Do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.
For the United States of America…
Don’t let the terrorists win.
26 June 2007
MY COMMENTS…
0649 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.
26 June 2007
AND THEN… CHOP WOOD, CARRY WATER…
0633 by Jeff Hess…Every man
And woman deserves one true moment of greatness
And this was his, this Dutch interior, entered
And possessed, so tranquil and yet so busy
With details: the couple’s shed clothes scattered
On the backs of armchairs, the dog chasing a shoe,
The wide open window, the late afternoon light.
From Dutch Interior by David Lehman.
26 June 2007
STILL MORE EXCELLENT LOCAL JOURNALISM…
0513 by Jeff Hess
Regular readers know that I’m a particular fan of the local journalism produced by the team of bloggers at Word Of Mouth. There are plenty of newspapers who don’t do as good of a job of covering local news. And every organization needs a photographer. For WOM it’s Henery Hawk.
Henery has launched a photoblog to compliment the good work he’s been doing all along. Take a look.
26 June 2007
200,000…!
0439 by Jeff Hess
Yesterday as I was driving from Cleveland Hebrew Schools to my 1730 student, my 1990 Toyota Camry rolled from 199,999 miles to 200,000 miles. That’s twice the milage of my first car: a bright yellow 1978 Plymouth TC3. I’m still working on setting aside the money to buy another car before winter hits Cleveland, but I can’t complain.
26 June 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.
[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 war began with words,” said Seka Milanovik, sixty-eight, the other Bosnian Serb woman, “but none of us paid any attention. The extremist Serbs and Muslims were misfits, criminals and failures. But soon they held rallies and talked of racial purity, things like that.We dismissed them – until the violence began.” p. 110
25 June 2007
CLEVELAND +++…
1707 by Jeff Hess
Roldo said: Now the other study is an examination of poverty statistics in Ohio. It”s called: “The State of Poverty in Ohio 2007 – Jobs Vanish & Incomes Plunge as Inequality Rises; Poverty Reaches All-Time High Since the War on Poverty…” Very depressing stuff. Each dot represents 100 persons who live in poverty. But we’ve got money to burn on marketing.
25 June 2007
IS RAPE A PREJUDICIAL WORD…?
1647 by Jeff Hess
Short answer? Yes. That said, I am completely stymied in my attempts to understand what Nebraska District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront was thinking when he agreed to a defense motion that the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the rape trial of Pamir Safi-accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.
And since all of this happened last fall, why are we learning about it now?
From Slate:
Usually we leave it up to the linguists and philosophers to muse on the crazy relationship between words and their meanings. In the law, words-the important ones, at least-are defined narrowly, and judges, lawyers, and jurors are trusted to understand their meanings. It’s precisely because language is so powerful in a courtroom that we treat it so reverently.
Yet a Nebraska district judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, suddenly finds himself in a war of words with attorneys on both sides of a sexual assault trial. More worrisome, he appears to be at war with language itself, and his paradoxical answer is to ban it…
Safi’s first trial, the one held at the end of 2006, did end in a mistrial. Prosecutors will try again next month, with the same insane gag in place.
And here’s the kicker: the prosecutor is not allowed to let jurors know about Judge Cheuvront’s ruling.
Can some of our local blogger/lawyers like Pho and Chas make sense of this for me?
(And Jill, not to abuse your good graces, but please feel free to jump in too.)
25 June 2007
WHAT THEY SAID…
1637 by Jeff Hess[The County Commissioners sales tax proposal] is about Forest City, the Millers and the Ratners, the Wolsteins, the Jacobs and any other downtown property owners looking for another way to keep their downtown property values up and sell at a high price if possible. Chas Rich
