SGT Brandon White: There they are, staring each other down, perhaps five feet between them as the day’s dying sun sinks behind the peaks. The faint cawing of a bird breaks the relative silence of the camp. The wind picks up for a moment or two and dies back down, and I register the slight rustling of the dried leaves of The Tree. I turn my eyes back to the current…
I remember President Richard Nixon’s address on the invasion of Cambodia. I was a freshman in high school when he told us: A majority of the American people, a majority of you listening to me, are for the withdrawal of our forces from Vietnam. The action I have taken tonight is indispensable for the continuing success of that withdrawal program.
Last evening another President tried to sell us another lie.
Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice shame on us.
It is impossible to comprehend how much shame there is this morning.
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 hmmm I present: From My Dad.
Weather Bulletin – North Dakota
North Dakota News This text is from a county emergency manager out in the western part of North Dakota state after a snowstorm. (see below)
Up here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic event- – may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions” — with a historic blizzard of up to 44″ inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10’s of thousands.
FYI:
George Bush did not come.
FEMA did nothing.
No one howled for the government.
No one blamed the government.
No one even uttered an expletive on TV .
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.
Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.
Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.
CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit — or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.
No one looted.
Nobody — I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.
Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.
No Larry King, No Bill O’Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.
No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.
Nope, we just melted the snow for water.
Sent out caravans of SUV’s to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.
The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn’t ask for a penny.
Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families. Families took in the stranded people — total strangers.
We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.
We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is “Work or Die”.
We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for ‘sit-in at home’ checks.
Even though a Category “5” blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.
“In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world’s social problems evaporate.”
I almost deleted this one, but I wanted to post it to make a bigger point. The story is a fabrication and you can read the details at Snopes.
The underlying message here is racist: Us independent white folks in Montana don’t need no government help like those lazy, good-for-nothing black folks in New Orleans.
Bull shit. Pure and simple.
As the recent blizzards in Colorado demonstrate, the National Guard and lots of other national assistance is being called into not only help people, but cattle as well.
Now think about that for a moment. The men and women of the Colorado National Guard are risking their lives to save farm animals.
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 Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis by President Jimmy Carter.
Except for General Dwight Eisenhower, I spent more years in active military service than any other president since those who had served as generals in the War Between The States. Although prepared to give my life if necessary as a submarine officer, I joined other officers and men in common commitment that America”s obvious strength and steadfastness would be a deterrent to war – that we were the ones who were preserving peace. I never felt that my dedication to military service was a violation of my faith in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. p. 147.
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 and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.
ORWELLIAN…? DO YOU THINK…? Wal Mart may talk a great deal about pleasing the customer, but the individuals that it really wants to keep happy are those who issue favorable decrees on its stock price: Wall Street gnomes. The following is an old story to The Writing On The Wal readers. 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 Mookieisms. Keep reading…
FROM POST SECRET… Post Secret is an amazing blog where hundreds of thousands of people have shared their deepest secrets in the form of messages on post cards. The Walmarting of America goes far beyond any simple physical domination of the retail market. Keep reading…
SAM”S NIGHTMARE IN BENTONVILE… Wal Mart is going on the public relations offensive with a series of commercials on national television. That Wally World is diverting its ad buys for this shows how much it”s hurting. The 30- and 60-second spots take a folksy tack, according to The Associated Press. Keep reading…
THE GOLDMAN SACHS FALLOUT… Yesterday Goldman Sachs analyst Adrianne Shapira downgraded Wal Mart”s stock to Neutral from Buy. The gnomes are restless and silly feel-good commercials are not going to make a difference. From The Associated Press: Keep reading…
CUSTOMERS AND ASSOCIATES… LAST…? It could be coincidence. It really could. But doesn”t it seem strange to you that Wal-Mart excutives are starting to bail? Like Wal-Mart”s president and chief executive officer of global procurement Lawrence Jackson? Keep reading…
ANY JOB IS A GOOD JOB… BULL SHIT…! Last year one of the talking points from Wal-Mart”s supporters has been the long lines of people looking for jobs as Wal-Mart associates. Rather than seeing the desperation in the lines, the sock puppets claim its because Wal Mart is such a great place to work. Keep reading…
YOU CAN”T SWING A STICK IN RHODE ISLAND… …Without hitting a Wal-Mart. Rhode Island gets its 10th Wal-Mart this month. Our smallest state covers 1,214 square miles, that”s 121.4 square miles per Wal-Mart. Figure that each square is about 11 miles on a side and you get a horrifying picture. Keep reading…
RESOLUTION: TO BE MORE LIKE WAL-MART… Andrew Leonard, Salon”s How The World Works columinist takes a different tack on Wal-Mart”s company-wide implementation of its employee scheduling software. He sees strength in flexibility: rolling with the tide vs. surfing in the pipeline. Keep reading…
Tadpole: I have the day off, which is a nice change of pace seeing as I have not had any real ‘down-time’ in about three weeks. It amazes me how much pressure there still is, this close to the end. But in any case, I took some time today to sit and meditate and reflect on the positive aspects of this deployment, and I have realized that it really isn’t all bad. I…
It’s been a while since Garrison Keillor said something I found interesting in his Salon column. It’s not that I found what he had to say this morning was all that interesting, it’s not. But I did find it pathetic in the extreme. Life is too short to spend it posing in Starbucks. We have worlds to conquer. Why throw away 20 minutes on style?
1. If you want to make a serious impression, don’t buy one paper, buy three or four. A person walking into Starbucks with four papers folded under his wing is immediately taken for a mogul. If he’s young, he’s a software mogul. If he is unshaven and wearing pajamas under his raincoat, he is an eccentric mogul, perhaps a Mafia kingpin.
2. Take your sweet time opening the paper. You already know what’s in it, boss man, you only read it so you’ll know how much other people know, so there’s no big rush.
3. Once you open it, never look up unless someone speaks your name. Don’t be distracted just because a leggy blonde has crossed the room, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke and Chanel No. 5. You’re the actor so let others be the audience, you be the scene.
4. Scan the front page, check out the headlines, but don’t pore, don’t be a drudge. Be cool. Jump to the sports page, then the comics, then the society page, then editorials. That’s the beauty of the inverted pyramid news story. A glance is usually good enough.
5. Always rip out a story or two and tuck it in your pocket. Not casually, like it was a recipe for meatballs, but with urgency and purpose. This creates an indelible aura of mystery.
6. When you’re done with a paper, clap it shut and toss it aside. (You can’t do that with a laptop.) A gesture of dismissal that says, “Feh! Enough of this pettiness! Onward! To the barricades!”
7. All of this should take no more than 20 minutes.
To this I would add No. 8: Get a life, Garrison. The sizzle is not more important than the steak.
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.
Sometimes name calling isn’t swearing…
Ashley is not invisible, but Terry sees all the ones that are and asks the questions about can we be OK with this when money is an issue? Remember the mother whose baby doctors allowed to die in Texas because she had no insurance at the same time Republicans were screaming to save Terry Schiavo?
Forget global warming, forget terrorism, forget nuclear holocaust, there will be no issue in the 21st century more significant than what healthcare we’re willing to pay for.
Last evening the Cleveland Heights Socrates Café group met. We asked: If indisputable proof were presented that an afterlife either did or did not exist, how would this change individuals and society? Because the term itself is so loaded with baggage,the discussion center on the response: well, that depends upon what you mean by afterlife.
Were we talking about a pleasant afterlife? A neutral afterlife? A nasty afterlife ? Did everyone enter the same afterlife or was there some kind of entrance exam based on actions in this life?
My take was that indisputable proof of no afterlife (a condition that I believe to be true at present) would result in no change; those people who make an afterlife an important part of their world view would continue to do so.
On the other hand, indisputable proof that an afterlife did exist would greatly shakeup science (physics in particular) and our attitudes towards death. And it would all depend upon the string of questions I list above.
What do you think?
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 The Noodle Maker by Ma Jian.
Of course, he never posted them. They were the most personal and truthful letters he ever wrote. p. 122
I have two bookstore giftcards totaling $50 in value that I’m going to use in a couple of weeks when they hold their annual Educator’s Discount sales. My plan is to stock up on poetry. I already know I’m going to buy at least one Marge Piercy and one Sherman Alexie book. What other poetry books should I pickup?
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.
1008 No school birthday parties for today’s remembrance
1013 Washington, D.C., coverage shrinks, as online-only national politics “paper” launches
This makes so much feckin’ sense it scares me. Industry has been making use of off-peak electricity pricing for years (ask any aluminum operation that uses electric furnances) yet consumers don’t get the option. Bill Callahan puts the Northeastern Ohio spin on the story, but what we see as savings, the utilities companies view as a revenue loss.
They won’t go lightly into this good night.
If all the free nations of the world were to flood Iraq with 2 million troops right now it would not end the violence. Only one thing can do that: disarming everyone in the country. Sadly, we lost the opportunity to do that when we allowed elections and a government to form. And anyone who needs evidence that I’m right, just read this.
These posts on Daily Dish is not directly related to the discussion surrounding the Ashley Treatment, but I do think it informs the greater issue of how much manipulation of our children is society willing to allow. I know many parents who don’t even want to know the sex of their baby before it is born. Yet I’m sure others want to know much more.
Capt Doug Traversa: Kabul is currently enduring a massive bout of cold weather, which our interpreters Wali and Hamid assure us is far from normal. They say this winter is the worst in 15 years, and many people here are suffering. I don’t doubt it, as I’ve seen endless numbers of people, both adults and children, wearing only sandals on their feet while walking…
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