. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OMG!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

From Combat Doc: Most soldiers I talk to fall into one of three groups. First are the die-hard supporters. Guys who claim to “hate the Hajj” but really only do so because they think it’s their job to. This is about 10%. Second are the anti-war, Bush-is-full-of-shit, no-war-for-oil crowd. These guys see no good at all even if they were part of it. This is about another 10 or so percent…

I know I’m being really, really suspicious here, but the follow- up on North Korea’s detonation of an underground bomb has me thinking. It’s actually easier to build and detonate a large nuclear weapon than it is a small one. The smaller the bomb the finer the tolerances. So when I read that the anaylsis of the seismic data from the event on Sunday, I went hmmm.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the blast was only half-a-kiloton.

How hard would it be for Kim Jong ll to bury 500 tons of conventional explosives, announce he was setting off a nuke to ensure that the world is watching, and scam his way into the nuke club?

And yes, I know, it could have been a much bigger device that fizzled. But a nuclear North Korea works to the short-term advantage of President George Bush’s administration. He finally appears to have a member of the infamous Axis of Evil with a real weapon of mass destruction. Set aside for a moment that it also means he started at the wrong end of the axis, Republicans now have a new boogeyman to shake in voters’ faces.

I’m just asking.

[Update — 0811 11 October — OK, so I’m not completely nuts. From USA Today: “It could even be a fake – conventional explosives masquerading as a nuke,” nuclear proliferation reporter Richard Stone of Science magazine, says by e-mail. Richards says, however, that timing 500 or more tons of TNT to ignite simultaneously – and getting the explosives to the test site without being detected by satellites – seems “not very credible.”]

…I was
eighteen and between my present and future
was a wall so big that not even sunlight

crossed over. I felt surrounded by all
I couldn’t do, as if my hopes to write,
to love, to have children, even to exist

From Thelonious Monk by Stephen Dobyns.

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.

0445 Unwinding From Bush’s Mistakes

OK, so every once in a while I put on dark glasses, black trenchcoat, pull my hat down over my eyes and take the back alleys to visit Front Page Mag for the comic relief. David Horowitz would be on Comedy Central if he wasn’t such a threat to truth, justice and the American way. My dad sent me a copy of this interview of Richard Poe.

Poe is Horowitz’s co-author (I’m thinking, real author, but hey, what do /I know?) for The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party. This is how it begins.

Front Page: So what exactly is the Shadow Party?

During the 2004 election cycle, the Shadow Party raised more than $300 million for Democrat candidates, prompting one of its operatives, MoveOn PAC director Eli Pariser, to declare, “Now it”s our party. We bought it, we own it…

Don’t waste your time reading anymore, unless you’re feeling like a repentant member of Opus Dei.

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 Now Is The Time To Open Your Heart by Alice Walker.

At the airport they exchanged phone numbers and email addresses and hugged and kissed one another good-bye. this the way people live now, thought Kate. If you”re lucky you get to spend intense weeks or months with people with whom you exchange the most intimate and vital information; then, you take off again, you are gone. She wondered if they would ever see one another again. She hoped so, but did not expect it to happen. p. 167

Jonathan Rees deserves to hang a piece of burned Astroturf in the shape of a recreational vehicle above his computer screen. Rees, one of my co-bloggers at The Writing on the Wal hammered away at a Wal Mart loving couple touring in a Wal Mart owned/rented RV until Business Week took notice and outed the Ozzie and Harriet-esque couple.

From Sgt. B: My role in this will be, if all goes well, as a Sergeant in Company “B”, 1st of the 161st Mechanized Infantry, 81st Brigade Combat Team. The physical is done (I passed), the paperwork for a few waivers has been submitted, and I should be vaulted into the saddle within the next two weeks. Done deal. I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and determined that…

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.

1609 Where Does “Jim” Work?
1556No Negative Comments by Wal-Mart Employees?
1552 The Truth About “Jim” and “Laura”
0417 In the name of Blackwell: Blackwell supporter attacks the Methodist faith, and RAB applauds it

Bartenders are among the most observant people on the planet. When you walk back and forth across 30 feet of duckboards for eight hours every night, you get a feel for people. Seven New York City bartenders were asked if they could nail a customer’s personality based on What they drink. Though interviewed separately, they concurred on almost all counts. The results:

Women: older, more refined, high maintenance, has very picky taste; knows exactly what she wants. Your Approach: you won’t have to approach her. If she’s interested, she’ll send you a drink

Women: easy; thinks she is classy and sophisticated, actually, she has no clue. Your approach: make her feel smarter than she is…this should be an easy target.

Women: No explanations required — everyone just knows what happens there.

Men: He is thinking he has a chance with the toothless waitress.

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 Now Is The Time To Open Your Heart by Alice Walker.

Turn your back for only a moment while the water boils and you are lost in the scent of things to come, and Life puts out a tentacle to grab some part of you. Even the cup from which you prepare to drink is already being pulled if only so slightly back to the ground. p. 16-7

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.

1805 Time to call the councilman

From Army Girl: There’s something that’s been weighing on my mind recently. On my way back from leave, in the airport in Atlanta, the airlines directed me towards the VIP section, where they check your bags and send you through the metal detectors. I picked an off-time to go through the line to the gates and found myself the only soldier among a great number…

I’m almost caught up after the down time from my primary laptop going to the shop. My emails are down to 15 (all read, just not all answered) from 420+ and the last of the fill-in posts went up this morning with two music videos: Parts I and Parts II of a live performance of Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick

You need to know what they know…
You need to understand what they do…
You need to feel what they feel.

We burn a lot of things out here. There is a huge pit where we destroy much of our trash. There is no city dump to drop things off, where trash is divided into papers, plastics, and metals to help with the ever-imminent energy crisis always lurking behind the door. There is also no Environmental Protection Agency. Somebody surely cares, somewhere, but alas, he is not here. Just tonight I walked outside and the air was thick with acrid smoke. It smelled like burning plastic or rubber or something else one wouldn’t normally burn back home.

I’ve seen the people that have been “distance abused.” Spouses and significant others don’t relate to what the Soldier is going through. They want the text message, phone calls, digital pictures, letters, and hell some probably even want sky writing. They think that just because it is available, then the Soldier should jump through every hoop there is to meet their expectations.

There is lots more and it’s all good stuff. Bill Mauldin and Ernie Pyle would have been proud.

My dad does send me serious pieces too; like this early 2004 speech by former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm. The speech reminds me of an insight from one of my 9th graders last week. We’ studying 20th century Jewish Cleveland and were watching the 1975 film Hester Street. As we talked about the movie questions about immigration arose.

I explained to my students that the paradigm at the beginning of the 20th century was the melting pot. And that it became the fruit salad at the end of the century.

One student stuck his hand in the air and asked: “Shouldn’t that be the fondue?”

I’m long since learned not to jump to conclusion when a student offers something I don’t understand. I nodded and indicated with my hand that the student should unpack his idea more.

“Well, I get the fruit salad idea, we’re all supposed to be good together but retain our individual identities. But I think the fondue makes more sense, the pieces of fruit stay separate, but they all have to get coated with the chocolate, so they’re all part of the same thing.”

Gov. Lamm needs to talk to my student.

Here’s the governor’s speech:

I have a secret plan to destroy America. If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white bread, too self-satisfied, too rich, lets destroy America. It is not that hard to do. History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that “an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.” here is my plan:

Continue Reading »

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 Now Is The Time To Open Your Heart by Alice Walker.

So, said the old woman, this is an endless kind of a thing. Do we kill it or do we let it live? Do we ever believe its true nature and does that true nature ever change? And does ours? p. 10