The idea is real simple, drop change in the meter and you own the space until the violation flag pops up again. Lay some astroturf, drop in a potted tree or two, maybe a marble fountain, add comfortable chairs or a bench and voila, instant public park. The movement started in San Francisco, California. Cleveland had three parks this year.
Five big-city surgeons gathered for drinks with their favorite scrub nurses in the hotel bar to have drinks after a grueling 30 minutes in a meeting to justify writing off the annual convention in Tahiti as a work-related expense. After several single-malt Scotches, the discussion turned to what kind of people made the best patients in the operating room.
The first surgeon, from New York, said, “I like to see accountants on my operating table, because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered.”
The second, from Chicago, responded, “Yeah, but you should try electricians! Everything inside them is color coded.”
The third surgeon, from Dallas, said, “No, I really think librarians are the best, everything inside them is in alphabetical order.”
The fourth surgeon, from Los Angeles chimed in: “You know, I like construction workers… those guys always understand when you have a few parts left over”
But the fifth surgeon, from Washington, DC , shut them all up when he observed: “You’re all wrong. Politicians are the easiest to operate on. There’s no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains, no spine, and the head and the ass are interchangeable.”
“I”m tellin” ya, Karl Rove”s is this big, and boy-howdy does it hurt!”
“I don’t care what you say,
I know from personal experience that Chaney is only this big.”
And Sullivan’s runners up:
“I prefer mine this big. That’s why I’m sticking with Rumsfeld.”
“Real inches or AOL inches?”
“Mark, we’re this close to winning the war in Iraq.”
“I swear, Ruben Sierra was part zebra!”
It’s photo caption contest time folks. This is the picture of Republican Congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and Republican President George Bush that everyone is having a blast writing captions for. The starting point is Foley’s instant messaage: Get a ruler and measure it for me. I’m sure we’all can do a lot better. First prize is… I’ll think of something.
Newt Gingrich wanted 100 days to implement his Contract For On America. Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has layed out her first 100 hours as Speaker of the House if she get’s her dream to becomes the first woman within two heartbeats of the presidency. The first order of business: drain the swamp created by 12 years of Republican rule.
Pelosi told the Associated Press that her time line would be:
Day One: Put new rules in place to “break the link between lobbyists and legislation.”
Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.
Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds _ “I hope with a veto-proof majority,” she added in an Associated Press interview Thursday.
All the days after that: “Pay as you go,” meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority.
To make all of that happen Pelosi needs 15 seats to change hands in the House of Representatives. What looked like a tough but doable task two weeks ago has moved a lot closer to the party’s grasp.
And it’s all thanks to the ongoing meltdown of Republican leadership after its disasterous cover-up of Republican Congressman Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) creepy Internet stalking of male teenage Congressional pages.
It sucks to be Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) right now.
His arrogance and hubris in believing he could ignore Foley’s actions for more than two years (and possibly longer) is shaking the Republican power structure like a cheap New Orleans shack in Hurricane Katrina.
Can Representatives John Conyers’ (D-Mich.) 9-11 hearings be far behind?
Kinky Friedman has them worried in Texas and that is a very good thing. As Jesse Walker writes: It’s not whether he wins or loses-it’s how he derails the game. Attempts to derail his campaign by letting voters know that Kinky is rude crude and unacceptable aren’t getting traction. I’m mean, compared to Mark Foley, how bad can he be?
I was barely home from the hospital and sucking on a rubber nipple when Allen Ginsberg stood up at Six Gallery in San Francisco and publically read Howl for the first time, 51 years ago today. I’m curious, what memories do my readers have of first hearing or reading the poem? Anyone out there remember hearing about Ginsberg’s work in 1955 or ’56?
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene-
ment roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war…,
keep reading…
I will honor all life
-wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell-on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.
From School Prayer by Diane Ackerman.
[Note: Over the past week my primary lap top has been in the shop and I didn’t have access to my Chapbook files. This morning I’ve filled in the gaps and I specially don’t want my readers to miss two from Carl Sagan here and here.]
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.
She had learned to live without picking up any snakes. She killed every one she saw, no hesitation and no questions asked. p. 9
Ryan Maynard at News Blog 5000 has one hell of a crystal ball. Back on 24 September I wrote about a possible October surprise. Ryan commented that I have it on good authority that the October surprise is the George W. Bush is going to announce he is a Democrat. Well, it turned out that Bush didn’t have to convert, Mark Foley carried the water for him.
I missed this story because my computer was in the shop, but the issues it raises are important ones. I think that the motto that George Nemeth used to have at the top of his right-hand column speaks to the safest path: Show up. Pay attention. Speak your truth. Let go of the outcome. As long as we do that, I think Justice will be served.
The party of family values and personal responsibility just got a new mascot: the Pedophant. The blogger at Blue Collar Distro asks a great question: why is it that Republican Congressman Mark Foley had so much free time when there is so much important work to be done? Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert certainly was too busy to notice.
Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousers
are covered with blood–
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.
From Hard Rain by Tony Hoagland.
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.
The only revolution that could possibly succeed, he maintained, was the cool one introduced to the world by the Lord Buddha, twenty-five hundred years ago.
Something about this statement did not sit well with Kate. She looked at him carefully. He was certainly a well-fed-looking soul, she thought. Not many meals missed by that one, except by accident.
Quietly glancing down at the program on the floor beside her, she saw he had grown up in an upper-middle-class home, had had educated and cultured people as parents and as grandparents, had studied and lived in Europe as well as in the East.
Was now a prominent professor at one of the country”s most famous universities. Easy enough for him to dismiss the brown and black and yellow and poor white people all over the globe who worried constantly where their next meal was coming from, she thought.
How they would feed, clothe and educate their children. Who, if they did sit down to meditate, would probably be driven up again by the lash. Or by military death squads, or by hunger, or by… the list was long. p. 4-5
Dangerous Precedent
Pages warned each other to stay away
from congressman Foley for eleven years,
but the Speaker couldn”t see anything wrong.
Reporters flush fresh facts daily
with little apparent effort,
but the Speaker found nothing serious.
Republicans need a fall guy,
but they won”t dump J. Dennis Hastert.
It would look like accountability.
From Dangerous Precedent by Ken Duncan.
OK folks, things just got even more interesting. It’s time to connect some dots. Dot No. 1: creepy Republican congressman gets nailed for really creepy Instant Messages with teenage boys and drops huge sack of flamming dog shit on Republican Party. Dot No. 2: creepy Republican congressman’s home district is in Florida.
Dot No. 3: Major Republican contributor Wal Mart announces it will roll-out generic drug price reduction three months earlier in Florida than previously announced.
Dot No. 4: Republican Governor Jeb Bush takes part in press conference, thanking Wal Mart for helping all of Florida’s citizens (and specially seniors).
Is it clear yet?
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.
1005 Westboro Baptists of KS picket at Amish girls funeral – is that really what we mean by free speech?
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