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 Kensington Adds More Romance Titles To Exclusive WalMart Deal.
SGT Brandon White: Just got back from a three-day mission down south. While I can”t go into operational specifics I will list the keywords: Taliban, weapons, poppy. This photo shows someone”s little “backyard garden” of papaver somniferum, aka Opium Poppy. These guys look to be no more than a few weeks old, but would have grown to produce thousands of dollars for…
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.
INDIANS PROTEST WAL-MART… [Update – 1023 – Marketplace hits the protests this morning.] Wal-Mart, even with the cover of Bharti, is going to face a level and kind of protest against its entrance into a market that I don”t think it has seen before; we”re talking communist banners and burning trash in the street. From the BBC: Keep reading…
ONE STEP UP IS TWO STEPS DOWN…? The Worker”s Rights Consortium claims that the Chong Won factory in the Philippines, maker of clothing for Wal-Mart supplier One Step Up, abuses workers through forced overtime and minimum-wage violations. From Reuters: Keep reading…
THE ANTI-WAL-MART… Here”s a sentence that must make Lee Scott”s head spin around: The warehouse-club retailer ‘has figured out the big, simple things”: Hold down expenses and prices, treat employees well, make discount shopping fashionable and keep shareholders happy. Keep reading…
SOMETIMES YOU OUGHT TO APPLAUD… I attempted to leave a comment at Wake-Up Wal-Mart concerning it”s news release on Wal-Mart and Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs. There was a glitch – Typepad claimed the site wasn”t configured correctly – so I”ve decided to post the comment here. Keep reading…
PAINTING THE LILY IN AUSTIN… A little more than a week after nearly 3,000 people linked hands around the site for a new Wal-Mart Supercenter, Wal-Mart has announced that it will make a few cosmetic changes intended to assuage the community”s ire. It”s not working. Keep reading…
WERE THEY SEPARATED AT BIRTH…? Surfing around this evening I came across this review of Richard Vedder”s The Wal-Mart Revolution, and then I noticed the blog post was by JR. After reading it I have to wonder, could this be our own Jonathan”s evil twin? Here”s a small sampling: 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 toantran. Keep reading…
PRICE CHECK…! OK readers. I need help. I don”t have an Ikea in Cleveland. Yesterday I stopped at Wal-Mart (we have plenty of those) and found 60/75/100 equivalent GE Compact Fluorescent light bulbs for $7.58 (three pack) and $9.88 (six-pack). What are they selling for at Ikea? Keep reading…
WAL-SMART: INSTALLMENT THE FIRST… I have a guilty secret: I”m a business-book junkie. I consume them the way Roger and his friends read self-help books. There is a good eight feet of Tom Peters and petersesque tomes on my shelves and I”m always looking for the next generation. Keep reading…
WAL-MART MAKES LITTLE GIRLS CRY… Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the head is unfair and over the top, but when I read this story about Wal-Mart booting a mom-and-pop ice cream operation as a matter of corporate policy, I just wanted to push someone”s face into the double mocha fudge. Keep reading…
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.
Facts (or at least what pass for facts on the Internet. JH)
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. (Hardly seems worth it.)
If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. (Now that’s more like it!)
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. (O.M.G.!)
A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (In my next life, I want to be a pig.)
A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy.) (I’m still not over the pig.)
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories a hour. (Don’t try this at home,maybe at work)
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off. (“Honey, I’m home. What the…?!”)
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field. (30 minutes… lucky pig! Can you imagine?)
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)
Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still want to be a pig in my next life…quality over quantity)
Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know.)
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. (Hmmmmmm……)
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people. (If you’re ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)
Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (okay, so that would be a good thing)
A cat’s urine glows under a black light. (I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. ( I know some people like that.)
Starfish have no brains (I know some people like that too.)
Polar bears are left-handed. (If they switch, they’ll live a lot longer)
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig??)
One of my co-bloggers at The Writing On The Wal passed along this ebook link to Bob Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians In the introduction, Altemeyer talks about how John Dean has planned to co-author his Conservative Without Conscience with Senator Barry Goldwater. I haven’t read Dean’s book (or Andrew Sullivan’s either) but I’m enjoying Altemeyer’s.
From the introduction:
Authoritarianism is something authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders cook up between themselves. It happens when the followers submit too much to the leaders, trust them too much, and give them too much leeway to do whatever they want–which often is something undemocratic, tyrannical and brutal.
In my day, authoritarian fascist and authoritarian communist dictatorships posed the biggest threats to democracies, and eventually lost to them in wars both hot and cold. But authoritarianism itself has not disappeared, and I’m going to present the case in this book that the greatest threat to American democracy today arises from a militant authoritarianism that has become a cancer upon the nation.
We know an awful lot about authoritarian followers. In one way or another, hundreds of social scientists have studied them since World War II. We have a pretty good idea of who they are, where they come from, and what makes them tick.
By comparison, we know little about authoritarian leaders because we only recently started studying them. That may seem strange, but how hard is it to figure out why someone would like to have massive amounts of power? The psychological mystery has always been, why would someone prefer a dictatorship to freedom? So social scientists have focused on the followers, who are seen as the main, underlying problem.
I’ve written before about how the ideological battle has shifted from Capitalism vs. Communism to Democracy vs. Authoritarianism and what that means to those who believe that the whole life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness thing is a good idea.
It is far easier to stop an Authoritarian when nobody cares about them than it is once they gain power. The trick is to see the train coming before you step on the tracks.
I suppose that I could do one of those five-things-you-don’t-know-about-me posts, but I’d rather take the Dick Cheney approach and leak things in dribs and dabs. My guilty secret for the day: I like to do dishes. I love organizing and stacking and the way the hot (yes, hot) water makes it all clean again. The little things are important.
As Stephen Baker realized the other day:
My wife complains no end about how I clean the kitchen, because I often stop when the job’s 90 percent done. I enjoy the beginning of the job. You wash a big pot and put plates in the dishwasher, and suddenly the counter’s clear. Progress is palpable.
But the last 10 percent of the job–the glass you left on the table, the stains on the stove–they seem to take 50 percent of the time, and provide no satisfaction. So my temptation is to leave a dirty spatula or two in the sink. Why sweat it? They’ll have company in no time.
Now I’m realizing, as I write the chapters of this book, that each one is a kitchen clean-up. I’m leaving the details, including the hard stuff I don’t know the answers to, for later. It’s easy to think that the world, like pitching staffs, features at least two types of specialists, starters and closers.
It’s true elsewhere, too. Writers, editors. Dealmakers, contract lawyers. But in this case, it’s up to me to fill those holes, like it or not. And the idea that 10 percent of the content might require 50 percent of the work is… unsettling.
I can’t tell you how many time wanna-be writers have handed me drafts to read with those kinds of holes in them. These are people who don’t want to write, they want to have written; to be famous for being famous.
While driving between students yesterday I had occasion to listen to a bit of an NPR radio show dealing with organized religions and sexual practices. One of the guests asked why it is that religious leaders spend so much time on sex when issues of poverty, hunger and abuse are so prevalent in our world. I thought it was a very good question.
Here’s one answer offered by Andrew Sullivan that comes from Episcopalian priest, Sam Pascoe:
I believe [homosexuality] is a vital issue in the life of the church. The hope of wholeness and holiness of life is integral to the Gospel message. Jesus didn’t die on the cross to save us from throwing gum wrappers on the sidewalk or using the wrong fork to eat our tofu, he died to save our deepest selves from our darkest sins.
And, because we are created with human bodies full of hormones and fallen psyches full of what my friend Bill Stafford calls “disordered affections,” many of those deepest sins will involve our sexuality. We are not given new life and new power in Christ so we can do what we darn well please.
We are not our own, we are bought with a price, says St. Paul. Therefore, he says, we are to glorify God with our bodies.
Well. There you have it.
And oh, by the way, Pascoe is looking for a new job since he was tossed out on his ass last week when his congregation decided his inappropriate relationship with an adult female congregant didn’t fall under the whole glorifying god with our bodies rule.
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 A Strategy For Daily Living by Ari Kiev.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today. Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I weighed the possibilities, made lists, wrote memos
to myself: was it spontaneous or planned –
and for how long? I couldn’t let it go.
I kept calling my brother and sister to let them know
what I had figured out. Each time they listened
but then told me what I had always known:
we would never understand. I had to let it go.
From The Investigation by Jeffrey Harrison.
Congratulations to BEAF for not only winning the Judges’ Choice award (and the trip to Seattle for four days of studio time that was First Prize) but also the People’s Choice award from the nearly 1,000 screaming fans who attended the Rawk Final Four in Spokane, Washington, over the weekend. Not everyone that blogger Terry sees is invisible.
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 Censorship Of ‘Inappropriate’ Book At Wal-Mart?
CAPT Doug Traversa: Today Hamid (my interpreter) came with me to lunch, and I stopped by the hut to drop off my armor and rifle. “Hey, you’ve never seen my blog, have you? Come in and I’ll show it to you.” I pulled up my front page, and showed him the January archives so he could see how much I am writing. As we walked to chow, he said, “You really do write a lot. What do…
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.
The “Best Lawyer Story of All Time”…
The United Way realized that it had never received a donation from the city’s most successful lawyer. So a United Way volunteer paid the lawyer a visit in his lavish office.
The volunteer opened the meeting by saying, “Our research shows that even though your annual income is over two million dollars, you don’t give a penny to charity. Wouldn’t you like to give something back to your community through the United Way ?”
The lawyer thinks for a minute and says, “First, did your research also show you that my mother is dying after a long, painful illness and she has huge medical bills that are far beyond her ability to pay?”
Embarrassed, the United Way rep mumbles, “Uh… no, I didn’t know that.”
“Secondly,” says the lawyer, “my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair and is unable to support his wife and six children.”
The stricken United Way rep begins to stammer an apology, but is cut off again. “Thirdly, did your research also show you that my sister’s husband died in dreadful car accident, leaving her penniless with a mortgage and three children, one of whom is disabled and another that has learning disabilities requiring a huge array of private tutors?”
The humiliated United Way rep, completely beaten, says, “I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”
And the lawyer says, “So…if I didn’t give any money to them, what makes you think I’d give any to you?”
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 A Strategy For Daily Living by Ari Kiev.
The more I learn about my field, the more capable I”ll be in recognizing opportunities as they appear.
I’m more than 27 months into this whole blog thing and clocking along at nearly 1,300 unique visitors per day. I’ve never really thought about what I was doing other than to stay true to what I think of as my charter: to treat my blog as if it were dinner conversation with a few close friends. So I don’t know about this whole brand thing, but it’s interesting.
Via Life Hack: Ten Paths To Good Blog Branding:
1. Be Consistent. [The] Number one way to damage your brand is through inconsistency. Your brand is how people think about you, your product or your company. Through your words and behaviors you make a kind of promise.
2. Think Long-Term. Short term thinking is the next biggest brand gremlin. You have to think long-term with branding. Putting short-term financial gain above long term value.
3. Focus. You have to focus to create a crystal clear brand. Lack of focus sends mixed signals. This is extremely common in blogging.
4. Work. Weak input is rewarded with weak results. Lack of ongoing, energetic, effort will hinder your brands spread, visibility and rewards. Launching a blog is tough, keeping it going is even harder.
5. Keep Going. When you achieve a modicum of success it is even more important to determine what your brand is about and focus on those things that made you successful in the first place.
6. Prioritize. Small niggly glitches can add up to a big headache. Do not let your brand corrode through not enough atentioNn two deetaill. [sic]
7. Have Content. Although only number 7 this one really gets to me. Many blogs are all brand and nothing to back them up. Famous for being famous.
8. Be Original. Following the herd is so easy. Many bloggers are tempted to cover a story because they feel like it is expected of them.
9. Do As You Say. Behavior that doesn”t match your words destroys trust.
10. Be Nice. Your brand lives in the brains of your readers, customers and prospects. It”s not all about you. If you make it all about you they will find a replacement that is all about them. Answer “What”s In It For Me”. It”s that simple.
What do you think?
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 Wordcount: Tracking The Way We Use Language.
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.
I first saw the Go played in Korea back in ’77. It’s played there the way chess is played in the parks of New York. I learned the game in the late ’90s and have since tried to at least become a respectable novice, but the mental powers required are so far beyond those of chess, at which I’m competent, that computers can’t handle a serious game.
Two Hungarian scientists have now come up with an algorithm that helps computers pick the right move in Go, played by millions around the world, in which players must capture spaces by placing black and white marbles on a board in turn.
“On a nine by nine board we are not far from reaching the level of a professional Go player,” said Levente Kocsis at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ computing lab SZTAKI.
The 19 by 19 board which top players use is still hard for a machine, but the new method is promising because it makes better use of the growing power of computers than earlier Go software.
“Programs using this method immediately improve if you use two processors instead of one, say, which was not typical for earlier programs,” Kocsis said.
I practice using the computer program The Many Faces Of Go. I can beat the computer about half the time on a 19 x 19 board with no handicap. I also like to watch the really good players on the International Go Server, but I’ve not gotten up enough nerve to actually challenge any of the players.
My dad isn’t the only one who sends me fun stuff via email. A good friend and educational mentor also routinely passes along her share of chuckles — intermixed with not a few requests for veracity on things viral and outragious. Don’t worry, there still plenty of stuff to come From My Dad but occassionally I’ll toss a few of Mona’s finds in as well.
The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.
“Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, ‘There’s Jennifer, she’s a lawyer,’ or ‘That’s Michael, He’s a doctor.’
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, “And there’s the teacher, she’s dead.”
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