Sharon Swanke: On the home front… 1:30 a.m. The smoke detector on the main floor starts intermittently beeping, loud enough to wake me but not the kids. It is running low on batteries. 1:45 a.m. A thorough search of the house reveals that all batteries that fit the beeping smoke detector went overseas with deployed husband. 1:50 a.m. Shop for…
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.
They never
rant, rail,
protest, declaim,
debate, explain, and then,
head bowed, plod meekly
forward anyway,
as I did
as a child-
and still do now.
From The Virtue of Trusting One’s Mind by Marcia Slatkin.
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.
1050 Three Important Rules For Writing Well
0712 for you, rumblefish, in admitting the problem
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.
Villains motives, insofar as they are visible, can be reduced to three categories: profit, revenge or power. p. 16
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.
2056 YouTube to Share Revenues with Content Providers
1949 Three Important Rules In Writing Well
1520 Add this to my book list
1127 Ed Morrison”s guess of what”s happened
0834 Random bullets ala Parts-n-Pieces
0827 Healthy or holy?
Two weeks ago I posted a brief note about President Jimmy Carter’s newest book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. I hadn’t read the book at that point but now I have and I’ve given myself some space to digest what he has written. I’ve done that and my impression of this work is that is as solid as anything Carter has written to date.
First, I have to put my disclaimer at the top. Carter is a personal hero of mine. He was the first president I ever voted for and remains the only president that I still feel good about having cast a vote for. He will certainly not go down in history as one of our best presidents, but he has in the years after his term in office earned the title Statesman.
Second, Carter’s first contact with the inner workings of Middle Eastern politics began in 1973 when he was preparing for his presidential run in 1976. I can think of no other non-Israeli diplomat who has his cumulative knowledge of the Middle East and its problems. There is no one better qualified to write this book.
Third, this is not a book that can be cherry-picked. Like a seasoned attroney (which he is not) Carter carefully builds his case over 216 pages and provides extensive documentation for his conclusion. To attempt to read any part of this book in isolation is to deny yourself the depth of his understanding and his grasp of a problem that is central to world peace.
Finally, having said that, Carter’s thesis rests on two points: if the United States is to broker a meaningful peace in the Middle East it must, like any mediater, act imnpartially. Any prejudice towards one side or the other dooms any acceptable outcome; and second, in his own concluding words Carter tells us:
The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens – and honor its own previous commitments – by accepting its legal borders.
All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel”s right to live in peace under these conditions. The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.
It will be a tragedy – for the Israelis, the Palestinians and the world – if peace is rejected and a system of oppression, apartheid and sustained violence is permitted to prevail.
We have a lofty place in the world and Carter calls upon his country to be worthy of that place, lest we fall and take the world with us.
Sometimes the counter-intuitive allows you to open your mind and see through to alternative goals and pathways. Perhaps to understand how to save something you figure out the best way to destroy it. Then do the opposite. What I find interesting about this list from Reg Adkins at Life Hack is that applies quite nicely regardless of the size of your community.
Provide subsidies which retard the natural evolution of the local economy.
Migrate all governmental authority to locations distant from the community.
Siphon off any gifted community leaders into the larger government body.
Train residents to rely on outside parties for leadership and guidance.
Centralize manufacturing to the extinction the local craftsman/artisan.
Through lending practices create an undesirable local market.
Draw as many wage earning males out of the community as possible.
Encourage inflation by the steady increase in wage earning at the lowest level.
Encourage lower paying service industry development over manufacturing.
Allow a build up of substandard, low cost housing to corral the poor in one area.
What do you think is the best way to destroy Cleveland?
CAPT Doug Traversa: For those who have been reading my posts, excuse me while I do a quick review for new readers. I work at the Central Movement Agency, the only transportation unit of the Afghan National Army. More simply, we are a trucking unit. In addition to running convoys all over the country, we have taken on the additional mission of picking up cargo flow…
There have probably been a few dozen desperate people who have used this technique to escape whatever country they’re living in to come to the land of the free and the home of the brave. And a few have made it. Sadly most die of exposure. At 40,000 feet not only is there not a lot of air to breathe, it’s feckin’ cold.
But don’t you think all that heightened security would have prevented this? I would. What if he’d been a bomb-totting terrorist?
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.
A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child’s work.
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.
The girl replied, “I’m drawing God.”
The teacher paused and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.”
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, “They will in a minute.”
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.
The professional is the only one of these three categories who is entirely self reliant: the Amateur is permanently incompetent and the Bureaucrat is incompetent once deprived of his organization. But his self-reliance in its turn implies isolation, since it can only be demonstrated by placing the Professional in a situation where he is effectively deprived of all support; in the thriller his usually means face-to-face confrontation with the enemy. p. 15
1SG Troy Steward: The cold continues and so do the combat missions. We are still doing multiple missions every week, not letting ourselves or the ANA take a break. For the last couple of days we had a mission a day going out. It has been pretty quiet here enemy-wise, so that keeps them quick and boring. It is not that way everywhere in this country, and there is no doubt the…
This morning Terry at I See Invisible People posts about the t-shirt above that a Spokane, Washington, high school is selling to raise relief funds for Darfur. I ordered two (to give away as Have Coffee Will Write prizes or possibley to auction off. Molly at After Enlightenment also ordered one. How about you? Get yours here.
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 blonde’s car gets a flat tire on the Interstate one day So she eases it over onto the shoulder of the road.
She carefully steps out of the car and opens the trunk. Takes out two cardboard men, unfolds them and stands them at the rear of the vehicle facing oncoming traffic. The lifelike cardboard men are in trench coats exposing their nude bodies to approaching drivers…
Not surprisingly, the traffic became snarled and backed up. It wasn’t very long before a police car arrives. The Officer, clearly enraged, approaches her yelling, “What is going on here?”
“My car broke down, Officer” says the woman, calmly.
“Well, what the heck are these obscene cardboard pictures doing here by the road?!” asks the Officer…
“Oh, those are my emergency flashers!” she replied.
I’ve been thinking of Ashley X in isolation. I’ve neglected to consider History. I’ve failed to broaden my thoughts to include beauty-queen moms. I’ve allowed my ignorance of parental ideals to influence my ruminations. And amazingly enough it is my favorite poet, Marge Piercy, who reminds me to look at the forest.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.
From A Work of Artifice by Marge Piercy.
The Rolling Stone thinks that Al Gore should run for president in 2008 (well duh, Have Coffee Will Write was an early adopter on this one). In the Psychobilly Democrat poll, Gore came in 3rd, but received the most 1st place votes. (One of which was mine.) Gore is so poised to step in at the convention and bring unity to a fractured and flailing party.
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.
The hero MUST be a professional. p. 14
There is a story that shortly before his death the Buddha told his closest disciples, When I’m dead, burn everything lest they build shrines to my knuckle bones. After reading this story I’m even more convinced that he had the right idea. Just because we have the technology does not mean we have the right or even the moral authority.
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