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 Thrillers: Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre by Jerry Palmer.

What the hero can be is limited: he can be neither amateur nor bureaucrat. The hero cannot be impersonal in his relations with others.

The villain may be characterized by being a bureaucrat and/or impersonal, but it is equally possible that he is neither. What is most significant is that the villain is dispensable: provided there is a conspiracy.

It is immaterial what the personal characteristics of the conspirator are. It is the characteristics of the conspiracy that are important. The fundamental characteristics of the conspiracy are mystery and disruption.

It is only the truly monstrous that can serve as the subject of a thriller. Mystery is integral. Devoid of mystery, one is in the presence not of conspiracy but of opposition or obstacles.

It is the conspiracy that kick starts the plot, and it is this initiative that justifies the hero”s response. The morality of the thriller is the morality of the playground: he started it! The conspiracy and the hero constitute the most fundamental layer of the thriller. The plot is the process by which the hero averts the conspiracy, and this process is what provides the thrills the reader seeks. p. 53

Teflon Don: The haunting wail of bagpipes is drifting over our corner of Camp Ramadi. Bravo company’s amateur pipist is slowly pacing while he practices a song none of us want to hear. The tune he plays is “Amazing Grace.” Tomorrow morning he will play it at the memorial service for CPL Shannon, the first member of our task force to die here in Iraq. He fell to an…

Joel Johnson delivers a rant that is so beautiful in its breadth and depth that I want to swoon. Johnson nails the army of consumer sheep out there who have to have the biggest, the fastest, the shiniest robot turd (gawd, I love that phrase) that the flacks tell them they must have and who then whine when the stuff doesn’t’ work the way they want it to.

From Gizmodo:

And you guys just ate it up. Kept buying shitty phones and broken media devices green and dripping with DRM. You broke the site, clogging up the pipe like retarded salmon, to read the latest announcements of the most trivial jerk-off products, completely ignoring the stories about technology actually making a difference to real human beings, because you wanted a new chromed robot turd to put in your pocket to impress your friends and make you forget for just a few minutes, blood coursing as you tremblingly cut through the blister pack, that your life is utterly void of any lasting purpose.

[Snip…]

Stop buying this crap. Just stop it. You don’t need it. Wait a year until the reviews come out and the other suckers too addicted to having the very latest and greatest buy it, put up a review, and have moved on to something else. Stop buying broken products and then shrugging your shoulders when it doesn’t do what it is supposed to. Stop buying products that serve any other master than you. Use older stuff that works. Make it yourself. Only buy new stuff from companies that have proven themselves good servants of their customers in the past. Complaining online about this stuff helps, but really, just stop buying it.

Remember, if you keep buying robot turds, the terrorists win.

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.

On the outskirts of a small town, there was a big, old pecan tree just inside the cemetery fence.

One day, two boys filled up a bucketful of nuts and sat down by the tree, out of sight, and began dividing the nuts.

“One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me,” said one boy. Several dropped and rolled down toward the fence.

Another boy came riding along the road on his bicycle. As he passed, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery. He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough, he heard, “One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me.”

He just knew what it was. He jumped back on his bike and rode off. Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along.

“Come here quick,” said the boy, “you won’t believe what I heard! Satan and the Lord are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls.”

The man said, “Beat it kid, can’t you see it’s hard for me to walk.”

When the boy insisted though, the man hobbled slowly to the cemetery.

Standing by the fence they heard, “One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me.”

The old man whispered, “Boy, you’ve been telling’ me the truth. Let’s see if we can see the Lord.”

Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything. The old man and the boy gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of the Lord.

At last they heard, “One for you, one for me. That’s all. Now let’s go get those nuts by the fence and we’ll be done.

They say the old man made it back to town a full 5 minutes ahead of the kid on the bike.

What is it with my colleagues these days? It’s bad enough when bloggers just make up quotes and then give them credence by assigning the words to someone famous (it’s called pseudepigraphy) but when a columnist for a nationally read newspaper does it I have to ask the question: why should we believe anything he says?

See the quote from Abraham Lincoln above? Guess what? Lincoln never said it. Never said anything like it. It’s 100 percent fake. And Gaffney knew it because he stole the quote from another writer who admitted he made it up. (Well, actually he blamed it on a copyeditor. Yeah, right.)

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald offers a most thorough fisking of Gaffney that includes a number of illuinating updates.

I specially like his use of the following quote (fully cited) from Republican President Theodore Roosevelt:

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

A lie told enough times is still a lie.

Any one in the Libby courtroom yesterday who had read Runaway Jury must have felt a cold shiver go down their spine as 11 of the 12 jurors entered wearing red t-shirts with white hearts on them. And then a retired school teacher from North Carolina rose to address Judge Reggie Walton and I can just hear the murmurs of mistrial, mistrial.

From this morning’s New York Times:

Before the jurors departed on Wednesday afternoon, they filed into the courtroom, all but one wearing bright red T-shirts with a white valentine heart over their clothes, to the uncertain laughter of many in the courtroom.

But as one juror, a retired North Carolina schoolteacher, rose to speak, Judge Walton became visibly anxious that the juror might say something inappropriate that could threaten the trial. Jurors are not supposed to speak and are supposed to make any concerns known through notes to the bench.

The juror said they were wearing the shirts to express their fondness for the judge and the court staff on Valentine”s Day. He then added, to the judge”s growing discomfort, that they were unanimous in this sentiment, but they would all be independent in judging the evidence in the Libby case.

The sole juror who apparently declined to wear the shirt was a woman who had been a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Imagine that.

Republican state representative Stacey Campfield wants to needlessly add another layer of bureaucracy and paperwork to Tennessee’s government just so he can pander to his financial patrons. If he thought he could get away with it, Campfield would put photos of women who get abortions on the front page of every newspaper.

From the Associated Press:

Legislation introduced in Tennessee would require death certificates for aborted fetuses, which likely would create public records identifying women who have abortions.

Rep. Stacey Campfield, a Republican, said his bill would provide a way to track how many abortions are performed. He predicted it would pass in the Republican-controlled Senate but would have a hard time making it through the Democratic House.

“All these people who say they are pro-life — at least we would see how many lives are being ended out there by abortions,” said Campfield.

The number of abortions reported to the state Office of Vital Records is already publicly available. The office collects records — but not death certificates — on abortions and the deaths of fetuses after 22 weeks gestation or weighing about 1 pound.

How about miscarriages Campfield? Want to require a death certificate for that? Or how about a death certificate for every time a woman has her period? That’s the loss of a potential life too, you know. Or how about the tens of thousands of potential lives you murder every time you masturbate, Campfield?

Do you get to do one mass death certificate for that?

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 Thrillers: Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre by Jerry Palmer.

In the positive thriller the hero”s professionalism results in glorious isolationism. The conspiracy is scotched an the World is secure and problem-free. In the negative thriller the hero”s fallible professionalism results in bleak isolation. The conspiracy is scotched but the World is not really secure and problems will reappear. p. 52

Remember back in 2004 when President George Bush schooled Senator John Kerry on the difference between two-party talks and six-party talks with North Korea? Remember how President Bush said that only six-party talks would bring about a resolution to the threat of a nuclear North Korea? I do. And so does John Bolton:

This is in many respects simply a repetition of the agreed framework of 1994. You know, Secretary Powell in 2001 started off the administration by saying he was prepared to pick up where the Clinton administration left off.

President Bush changed course and followed a different approach. This is the same thing that the State Department was prepared to do six years ago. If we going to cut this deal now, it”s amazing we didn”t cut it back then.

One conservative blogger sees it this way:

Here”s what I think. We”re weak in the eyes of the world. We”ve rolled into Iraq, spent four years and hundreds of billions of dollars there, lost 3,000 soldiers, and the country is no better off than it was. In many ways it”s far worse.

The American people are losing their appetite for fighting, especially when we don”t seem to be making any progress at all. The North Koreans know this. They know that there is not going to be any widespread popular support for taking a tough line against the Norks, and they”re using this to their advantage. (Note: So are the Iranians.)

To put it in plain terms, what we are seeing here is the United States, its negotiating position significantly weakened, kissing up to the North Koreans. In other words, Lil” Kim just won this last round.

Remember this the next time someone tells you (or you say) that Bush has “made us safer.” He hasn”t. We”re now playing kissyface with the Norks because, frankly, we don”t have any other option.

Bush”s Iraq gambit has demonstrated to every one of our enemies that we aren”t to be feared, and that will do nothing but make us less safe for years and years to come.

Six years ago the Norks offered us this shitty deal and we rejected it. Now we”re accepting it. Has North Korea become significantly more strong in that time period, or have we become significantly weaker? This, my friends, is the Bush legacy.

I really don’t know what’s holding the wheels on the Bush administration anymore. I truly don’t

[Update — 18 April 2008 — We have a new official Dark Tower website.]

If anyone ever thought that bringing The Lord Of The Rings to the big screen was difficult, that was child’s play compared to filming Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. By my count, the seven books contain a total of 3,837 pages, compared to Tolkein’s 1,168 pages (which includes the appendixes and end notes).

Would Clint Eastwood dare to play Roland?

[Update 5 March 2009 — The decision has been made. According to reader Sandy Corkins, David Simmons has won the role.]

I made a few of these when I around 12 or so, mostly when I was in my Secret Agent phase. I almost wince to think what may be found in a book somewhere years from now. I think I could do a much better job of it now and I really like this idea of hollow books as special gift boxes. What would you want to receive in a hollow book?

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.

CAN WAL-MART LEARN FROM ITS MISTAKES…? That”s the question Brian White is asking over at Blogging Stocks. He”s looking at the deal cut between Wal-Mart and Bharti this week. The 50/50 deals calls for Bharti to operate the front-end and Wal-Mart to handle the back end. White ponders:
Keep reading…

COMRADE SHOPPERS UNITE…! Flush from the announcement yesterday that it had its entry into the 1.1 billion shopper Indian market, Wal-Mart is closing in on another consumer-spending giant: Russia with its 141 million comrade shoppers. Last week we reported on Wal-Mart”s interest in GUM. Keep reading…

NEARLY 3,000 LINK HANDS TO STOP WAL-MART… On a cold (for Texas) morning as many as 3,000 people held hands to form a human chain around the Northcross Mall to protest what is promised to be the largest Wal-Mart ever. [I]t”s hard not to listen when you look around and see this many people… saying no. Keep reading…

HARVESTING DRIVER”S LICENSE DATA… What next? Blood samples. Under the guise of foiling those who might alter the printed data on their driver”s license, Wal-Mart in Arizona has begun scanning the driver”s licenses of all people purchasing alcohol, regardless of their apparent age. Keep reading…

DARK WAL-MART TO BE REC CENTER… Spearfish, South Dakota, has laid out nearly $3 million to buy its dark Wal-Mart as the first step of turning it into a $7.7 million community recreational center with three basketball courts, locker rooms and a walking track to open in the spring of 2008. Keep reading…

SCORE ONE FOR THE BIG BOYS… Two giants have squashed a tiny cadre of rugged individualists who thought the law was the law. Today bottlers who had sued Wal-Mart and Coca Cola over a plan to bypass their traditional distribution system dropped their suit. Keep reading…

YOU CAN”T MAKE THIS STUFF UP… I was kidding the other day when I wrote: Do flowers last longer and retain their color better if you infuse them with carbon monoxide? But you know, just when you think you”ve gone to far with the satire, reality jumps in and smacks you down. From the Associated Press: Keep reading…

MORE HEALTH CARE CLINICS AT WAL-MART… Starting tomorrow, Wal-Mart shoppers in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi will be able to buy that supersized bag of double-cheddar cheese potato chips and stop in to get their blood pressure and cholesterol checked at one of 14 CheckUp in-store clinics. Keep reading…

THAT GREAT SUCKING SOUND… What”s missing in this story from the Charlotte Observer is how those lower food prices change the local economic dynamic by doing two things: first, by changing higher-paid Union jobs into lower-paid non-union jobs and… Keep reading…

CHAS CALLS BULL COUGH SHIT… My friend and fellow Cleveland blogger Chas Rich calls the editorial board of our local daily dead-tree media on its lame attempts to avoid any examination of its culpability in cheerleading the Stealyard Commons debacle. The board wrote: Keep reading…

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.

1547 Reason #(it”s been so many I forget) to have a blog
1155 Wal-Mart Encounter
2055 Sandy and I are going to have coffee and talk

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 a special blizzard afternoon blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

As a trucker stops for a red light, a blonde catches up. She jumps out of her car, runs up to his truck, and knocks on the door.

The trucker lowers the window, and she says “Hi, my name is Heather and you are losing some of your load.”

The trucker ignores her and proceeds down the street.

When the truck stops for another red light, the girl catches up again. She jumps out of her car, runs up and knocks on the door.

Again, the trucker lowers the window. As if they’ve never spoken, the blonde says brightly, “Hi my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!”

Shaking his head, the trucker ignores her again and continues down the street.

At the third red light, the same thing happens again.

All! out of breath, the blonde gets out of her car, runs up, kn ocks on the truck door. The trucker rolls down the window. Again she says “Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!”

When the light turns green the trucker revs up and races to the next light.

When he stops this time, he hurriedly gets out of the truck, and runs back to the bl onde.

He knocks on her window, and after she lowers it, he says…

“Hi, my name is Kevin, it’s winter in OHIO and I’m driving the SALT TRUCK!”

B.C.: I’m still at Firebase Snake, which is a cool-sounding name for a small group of ramshackle brick buildings and a Hesco wall tucked in a river valley somewhere in Uruzgan province. I can’t talk specifics, but there aren’t a whole lot of Americans here, and our only link to friendly forces is by air, due to the bad roads and worse people who control them. I’m working on month…

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.

WAL-MART ♥”S SLAVERY AND POISON… How romantic are you? Well, Wal-Mart thinks that you can measure that by identifying how much money you spend on slavery-supported diamonds and chocolate and poison-laden flowers. My home state of Ohio either ranked low or not at all on the lists.
Keep reading…

STEALYARD COMMONS… TAKE II… Bill Callahan, founding co-bloggers of No Cleveland Walmart (our predecessor), is also ticked off about this morning”s announcement. My favorite line from Bill is: 1,800 phantom jobs. And now, phantom property taxes. This story is so sordid, and so totally freaking predictable.Keep reading…

WIMPY WAL-MART… The gnomes do not think that Wal-Mart has had a good week (month, year; take your pick). In fact, Investor”s Business Daily, thinks that Lee Scott is acting like a girly man. It has this to say to its readers this morning:Keep reading…

STEALYARD COMMONS… TAKE III… Clevelanders are getting hotter and hotter under the collar as they discover the royal screwing given to them in the economic dispoilment known as Stealyard Commons. Wendell left this comment on Tim Ferris”s blog this morning. 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 skarinkids. Keep reading…

WAL-MART AND BHARTI SEAL DEAL… Bharti Enterprises and Wal-Mart have sealed the deal, according to India Business, on a 50-50 joint venture Wal-Mart will manage the back end while Bharti gets to be the front man for the Bentonvile Behemoth. Bharti did not reveal how much money is involved. Keep reading…

SOMEBODY FINALLY PAYS ATTENTION… Months after the presence of Nazi regalia at Wal-Mart was brought to light, someone is finally paying attention. According to the Chicago Tribune”s Washington bureau Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) sent a letter to Wal-Mart”s CEO Lee Scott. Keep reading…

NUTHIN” SAYS LUVIN” LIKE FLOWERS FROM… Wal-Mart? I know that if I wanted to ensure marital bliss or impress some sweet young thing with my shopping skills and willingness to spend my money judiciously I”d be sure to order my flowers from Wal-Mart. I just hope they”re fresher than the meat. Keep reading…

NUTHIN” SAYS LUVIN”… PART II… Diamonds and chocolates are not a good choice for Valentines Day – that whole child-slavery thing, remember? But flowers look to be a safe and popular choice. And the folks at Real Simple (via Life Hack) make it easy to Internet shop for a dozen roses. Keep reading…

BANKING ON FAST TRACK IN MEXICO… Wal-Mart de Mexico plans to open its own full-service, consumer banking branches in 576 Wal-Mart store this July. The Mexican government sees the move as a way to force competition in a market already too controlled by foreign banks. According to Bloomberg: 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.

HER DIARY:

Tonight, I thought my husband was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a bar to have a drink. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it. Conversation wasn’t flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk.

He agreed, but he didn’t say much. I asked him what was wrong; he said, Nothing.” I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn’t upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it.

On the way home, I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, and kept driving. I can’t explain his behavior. I don’t know why he didn’t say, “I love you, too.” \

When we got home, I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly, and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed. \

About 15 minutes later, he came to bed. To my surprise, he responded to my caress, and we made love. But I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep — I cried.

I don’t know what to do. I’m almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster.

HIS DIARY:

Missed a big deer today, but at least I got laid.