3 May 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 Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.

Story is metaphor for life.

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2 May 2007

ONE WAR, TWO WAR, RED WAR, BLUE WAR…

2000 by Jeff Hess

I know I’ve talked about this before but President George Bush’s recent statements clearly demonstrates that our President tells lies. The problem now is: can anyone tell me from the three examples provided below when President Bush is telling the truth and when he is telling a lie? Hat tip to Think Progress for the archive.

From this morning’s Washington Post:

“Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure, and that would be irresponsible,” Mr. Bush said. He said the measure would “impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat” by forcing them to “take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.”

Spin the clock backward to the Houston Chronicle, 9 April 1999:

Bush, in Austin, criticized President Clinton”s administration for not doing enough to enunciate a goal for the Kosovo military action and indicated the bombing campaign might not be a tough enough response. “Victory means exit strategy, and it”s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is,” Bush said.

And two months later in Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5 June 1999:

“I think it”s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn. If there needs to be a residual force, it is important that over time U.S. troops are withdrawn and our European allies carry the majority of the load.”

Was President Bush lying in 1999 or 2007? You decide.

Posted in Operation Iraqi Freedom | 2 Comments »

2 May 2007

LAUNCHED…

1600 by Jeff Hess

Windy, sunny, and Sunday,
the afternoon of your father’s promise,
you will learn to ride your bike:

your father breathing hard
pushes, runs at your side,
one hand on the handlebars,
the other firm on the seat,

launching you like a glider
to soar long seconds
before wobbling to crash
in the soft green field

until you know how to ride
suddenly except for the brakes
and your father suddenly
is a speck waving way behind.

as you pedal toward strange sights
in blocks where he
has forbidden you to walk.

From Bicycle Spring by Kevin FitzPatrick,.

Posted in Poetry | No Comments »

2 May 2007

IT IS A WONDEROUS THING…

1600 by Jeff Hess

I look out on my patio after a soft rain.
The birds won’t stop singing.
The geraniums are an impossible pink.
I want to swallow them, whole.

Every flower has a shine,
like a woman who has just been loved.
Her body glistens. She struts when she walks,
has time to be generous,
to spread that glow around a little.

From After the Rain by Penelope Barnes Thompson.

Posted in Poetry | No Comments »

2 May 2007

DUMPING OUT THE SANDBOX…

1544 by Jeff Hess

[Update — 0753, 3 May — From The Associated Press.]

Messages home from the troops in the field have always been dangerous things. In wartime it is standard practice for military censors to read and redact mail leaving the warzone. But in the 21st century, the shear volume of emails from soldiers around the World makes this impossible. No censor corps could possibly read all the mail.

So what does the Pentagon want to do? Make superior officers responsible. Now, let’s say your a 2nd lieutenant with a platoon of soldiers under your command. Does anyone not living in a twilight zone believe that superior officer has just oodles of free time to read all the mail from the members of the platoon?

From Wired:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops’ online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq — the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

“This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging,” said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. “No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has — it’s most honest voice out of the war zone. And it’s being silenced.”

That’s certainly one way to dump out the sandbox.

And a big red flag that the fighting in Iraq is getting worse.

Posted in Operation Iraqi Freedom, The Sandbox | No Comments »

2 May 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 the leaded window opened…

Posted in Blogpile | No Comments »

2 May 2007

FROM THE SANDBOX…

1200 by Jeff Hess

1SG Troy Steward: Well, here’s Volume II of the My Life in Astan series. It opens with video of the attack on my FOB and then goes into pictures after that. The music is a great song from Green Day, my Son Jordan’s favorite band. It’s called “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” I am working on some other videos, experimenting with some different video…

Posted in The Sandbox | No Comments »

2 May 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.

UNDERSTANDING WOMEN
(A MAN’S PERSPECTIVE)

I know I’m not going to understand women.

I’ll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax, pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root,

and still be afraid of a spider.

Posted in From My Dad, Humor | No Comments »

2 May 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 Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.

When the conscious mind is put to work on the objective task of executing the craft, the spontaneous surfaces. Mastery of craft frees the subconscious.

Posted in Chapbook | No Comments »

1 May 2007

WHAT ELSE COULD THERE BE…?

1600 by Jeff Hess

It’s all I have to bring today-
This, and my heart beside-
This, and my heart, and all the fields-
And all the meadows wide-
Be sure you count-should I forget-
Some one the sum could tell-
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

From It’s all I have to bring today (26) by Emily Dickinson.

Posted in Poetry | No Comments »

1 May 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 Who”s the Mack?

Posted in Blogpile | No Comments »

1 May 2007

FROM THE SANDBOX…

1200 by Jeff Hess

SGT Roy Batty: A month and a half ago I introduced The Sandbox to the newest Combat Outpost in Baghdad — the formidable hostel that I called “the Keep”. Full of overinflated prose, I described it as “a rose-colored ruin forgotten in the desert, a relic full of whispered secrets,” prattled on about its supposed glorious past, and then promptly, disappeared…

Posted in The Sandbox | No Comments »

1 May 2007

I LOVE BEING IGNORANT…

1000 by Jeff Hess

I really do. And when I tell that to my students they start looking for the best way to flee. But I’m serious. The only thing I love more than being ignorant is learning, and as long as I’m ignorant, I get to learn new things every day. Reading this little vignette about Ella Fitzgerald this evening was an aha for me.

It revealed a connection and a part of Marilyn Monroe that I had no idea existed.

Marilyn Monroe was one of her biggest fans. Ella said, “I owe Marilyn a real debt. It was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the ’50s. She personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again.

What did you learn today?

Posted in Music, Social Justice & Advocacy | No Comments »

1 May 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.

WOMEN’S REVENGE

“Cash, check or charge?” I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase.

As she fumbled for her wallet, I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse.

“So, do you always carry your TV remote?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, “but my husband refused to come shopping with me,

and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally.”

Posted in From My Dad, Humor | No Comments »

1 May 2007

HAPPY MAY DAY…

0641 by Jeff Hess


Give me that ol’ time religion. There is something appealing, something clean and unencumbered, about religions that stick to first principles: Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Sex. Spirituality ought to be scary and bloody. We ought to participate in the slaughter of our sacrifices. Perhaps then we might not allow so many to be made in our name.

Posted in Culture, Superstition & Ignorance | 8 Comments »

1 May 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 Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.

Your goal must be a good story well told.

Posted in Chapbook | No Comments »

30 April 2007

DIE GROßE STILLE…

1932 by Jeff Hess

Posted in Video | No Comments »

30 April 2007

A BIT OF PERSPECTIVE…

1556 by Jeff Hess

Nothing
looks good from a prone position.
You have to walk around to appreciate
things.

From Choice of Diseases by Hal Sirowitz,.

Posted in Poetry | No Comments »

30 April 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 Writer’s Rooms.

Posted in Blogpile | No Comments »

30 April 2007

A SKIDMARK MOMENT…

1309 by Jeff Hess

You know WCPN, you know Driveway Moments; when you sit in your driveway listening to hear the finish of a captivating bit of radio. Well, I’m instituting Skidmark Moments, radio that cause you to slam on the brakes because you can’t believe what you just heard. Today, Dan Moulthrop does The Greater Cleveland Film Commission.

I haven’t had time yet to transcribe the exact quote from the audio file, but my skidmark moment went something like this:

Here’s my transcription of the comment (43:13 into the audiofile) by Ivan Schwarz, vice president and production coordinator of the GCFC:

…the reason that Spiderman came here was because of the cooperation and the community support that was given to Spiderman, you know, closing down a 10-block area is, but really this would be the only city in the united states that would say yes to that, and do it really well so that they could do that during the week.

So Schwartz’s message is this: downtown Cleveland is so feckin’ dead in the middle of the week we can shut down 10 blocks for three days to produce 11-seconds of finished film and nobody flinches.

Do you suppose we could at least get them to bill it as Spiderman 3+?

Posted in Cleveland, Radio, Skidmark Moment | 7 Comments »

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