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 Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

The first explosion sounded as I came out of a flower shop. A worker from the shop, some passersby and I stood to watch the cloud rising on the western horizon of the city. It looked white and innocent enough, like a child who has just committed a murder. p. 235

We can always on Bill Callahan to run the numbers. This time Bill has broken down the boondoggle that is Ohio Learn Lie And Earn Equivocate. And the picture isn’t pretty. In exchange for helping a tiny number of truly needy high school students pay for attending Ohio colleges, we agree to make the uber wealthy even more so.

From Callahan”s Cleveland Diary:

So… what will this do to help Cleveland kids go to college?

While exact numbers are not easily available, a liberal estimate of Cleveland residents now graduating from public and private high schools is 3,500 a year. If 60% of these kids go to college, and 90% of them attend Ohio institutions, that”s a total of 1,900 eligible for Learn and Earn assistance of some kind, starting with the class of 2009.

The top 5% of this group would include fewer than 100 Cleveland graduates each year. That”s the top 5% of Ohio-college-bound graduates in each CMSD school building – the top 5% from Arts, the top 5% from Rhodes, the top 5% from East, from Glenville, from Max Hayes, etc. – plus the Cleveland kids (if any) who make it into that top college-bound 5% at St. Ed”s, Ignatius, Magnificat, St. Joseph”s, et al. It will work out to one, or two, or three, or five kids at most from each high school – the kids nearest the top of their classes, many of whom will already be in line for scholarships from other sources.

Other than this very thin upper academic crust, how much help will Learn and Earn provide to other graduates trying to finance college? Well, this is all very iffy because the proposed amendment leaves so much up to the Regents. But here”s a way to estimate it:

Please keep reading…

OK, I’m going on the record here. Within the next 30 days gasoline prices will drop below $2 gallon and the price will rise again after 7 November to the near $3 realm of a few months ago. And the American people will gladly take part in this political deception. We are so easily manipulated by our own greed and self-centeredness.

From USAToday:

When it comes to President Bush’s approval rating – the number that measures his political health – one factor seems more powerful than any Oval Office address or legislative initiative.

It’s the price of a gallon of gas.

Statisticians who have compared changes in gas prices and Bush’s ratings through his presidency have found a steady relationship: As gas prices rise, his ratings fall. As gas prices fall, his ratings rise.

For some Americans, analysts speculate, gas prices provide a shorthand reading of the general state of the economy. Even though prices at the pump are largely outside the president’s control, he gets credit when they fall – and blame when they rise.

Baaaaa…. Baaaaa….

I have to say that Senator George Allen (R-Va.) continues to ride above the stupid questioning by Peggy Fox and lame pseudo-outing by The Forward. What, I’m sure, Fox and The Forward thought would be a negative for Allen and cost him marginal idiot vote, is turning into a character issue that might actually win him a few votes from moderates.

Specially after reading this in this morning’s Washington Post:

At the table in Palos Verdes, Calif., Allen’s mother, who is 83, said she told her son the truth: That she had been raised as a Jew in Tunisia before moving to the United States. She said that she and the senator’s father, famed former Redskins coach George Allen, had wanted to protect their children from living with the fear that she had experienced during World War II. Her father, Felix Lumbroso, was imprisoned by the Nazis during the German occupation of Tunis.

“What they put my father through. I always was fearful,” Etty Allen said in a telephone interview. “I didn’t want my children to have to go through that fear all the time. When I told Georgie, I said, ‘Now you don’t love me anymore.’ He said, ‘Mom, I respect you more than ever.’ “

I’ve already had the discussion this morning about Mrs. Allen’s motives and I refuse to judge her decisions. No one, not even other survivors of the Shoah, can truly judge her. This is an intense personal family moment that I wish Mrs. Allen and her family could have been spared.

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 Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

“All time is unredeemable.” George Elliot, Four Quartets. p. 228

Yep. Those scamps in the Republican Party are just so full of fun. They love a good tussle, don’t they? So much so that, gosh darn it, they just want to toss that silly ol’ rule of law right out the window so that they can frolic. Exercising high spirits means getting in there and telling the other guy to bring it on (now where have I heard that before).

From today’s Elyria Chronicle:

Republicans launched a television advertising blitz this week, attacking Democrats Sue Morano and Matt Lundy. Lundy and Morano fired back, claiming the negative ads showed fear and desperation on the part of the Republicans. And a Democratic blogger is upset because the Republican ad attacking Lundy featured a photo he claims was stolen from his Web site.

That, of course, would be Jeff Coryell at Ohio 2006.

Jeff Coryell, a Cleveland Heights Democrat who blogs under the name Yellow Dog Sammy, has his own complaint about the anti-[Matt] Lundy ad. He said the Ohio House Republican Campaign Committee, which produced the ads, stole a picture he took of Lundy during an Aug. 21 interview at the Bob Evans restaurant in Avon and put it in the ad.

“This is theft, plain and simple,” Coryell said.

So far, he”s not getting any satisfaction. He said he has yet to hear back from [Rep. Earl] Martin [(R-Avon Lake)] and can”t reach anyone with the GOP campaign committee. But he intends to wait and see what happens before he takes any further action – which the former ssistant U.S. attorney said could include a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Martin said he doesn”t know if Coryell”s complaint has merit and has forwarded it to state Republicans.

[Scott] Borgemenke [, chief of staff for Speaker of the House Jon Husted] said the issue is being examined, but won”t [sic] the ad won”t be changed whatever is found.

“We won”t change the ad,” he said. “He can take us to court if he wants to.”

The shear arrogance of that statement floors me. Borgemenke sounds like a drunken frat boy daring the sheriff to catch him in the new red Porsche his daddy bought for him.

I wonder if Borgemenke realizes how many attorney/bloogers there are out there who would love to take this one on?

[Update — 0836, 21 September — As always, Bill Callahan has run the numbers.]

One of my most popular posts back when Queen Jane was fronting casino gambling had to do with screwing gambling and legalizing screwing because that was something the states around Ohio didn’t have and that by legalizing prostitution Ohioans would reap far more in tax dollars because we’d be first.

Well, it seems Roldo has the same idea.

If Clevelanders want [slot machines], they should also legalize prostitution and 24-hour-a-day drinking joints. This kind of business is just what downtown Cleveland doesn”t need. They represent a nesting place for corruption and crime.

Can you imagine gambling to be sold on the basis that it will help educate our children? Actually, can you imagine it being sold any other way with the batch of rapacious politicians, business and civic leaders now living off the carcass that once we called the Best Location in the Nation?

That”s how these bottom feeders want to sell us.

I was sorely disappointed when Mayor Frank Jackson came out in support of the gambling plan. It’s a clear statement that not even a year into his term in office he is out of ideas and helpless to make any improvement. He’s thrown up his hands and said to the powerful in Cleveland: you win, do what you want. I’ll dance while you play the tune.

Cleveland deserves better.

Because being a man was finally too sad-
In spite of the perks, the lifetime membership benefits.
And it got old,
telling the joke about the hooker and the priest

at the company barbeque, praising the vintage of the beer and
punching the shoulders of a bud
in a little overflow of homosocial bonhomie-
Always holding the fear inside
like a tipsy glass of water-

From And The Men by Tony Hoagland.

I found Lee at Right Thinking From The Left Coast back at the end of July and I’ve enjoyed his blogging since. I popped in this morning to catch up after the weekend and found a slew of posts on the torture issue that are dead on and clearly demonstrate that, as Lee says, this is not a Liberal/ Conservative issue, it’s an Authoritarian/Democracy issue.

I was going to post individual links to the posts but you need to read them all. Here’s a good place to start: Losing America. Just keep reading forward from there.

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.

0810 State Rep Earl Martin Steals from Blogger II
1014 The Field Manual Explains

From Keith Knight

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.

GEORGE WILL… ON WAL MART…?
I have to wonder how many times George Will has smiled and accepted a cart from the Wal Mart greeter in the Wally World near his home. (Is there a Wal Mart near his home?) But he has a lot to say about shoppers at the store in Evergreen Park, Illinois. Keep reading…

ATTENTION, FAMILIES FOR WAL MART… In the past, the NAACP has often been a big supporter of (and recipient of money from) Wal Mart. But even large checks can”t guarantee the support of the people in the trenches. The NAACP chapter in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has its own ideas. Keep reading…

LIMA, NEW YORK, SAYS NO THANK YOU… The people of Lima, New York were not pleased with the idea of paving over 53 acres with asphalt and a Wal Mart Super Center where once crops grew so that the Bentonvile Behemoth could sell more cheap plastic crap. And they let their elected officials know about it. Keep reading…

DESIGN BY MARTHA COLIN… In its continuing efforts to scramble upscale (like ditching the layaway department) as its clientel slides downward, Wally World is welcoming Colin Cowie as its very own Martha Stewart (sans felony charges the company can only hope.) Keep reading…

CORRECTION… Last week in Buying Good Press…, I reported on Wal Mart”s donations to Conservative think flack tanks. The New York Times, which was the source of the story, has corrected part of its story. Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan. From yesterday”s Times: 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 Candyintherain. Keep reading…

OK, THIS IS INCREDIBLY STUPID… Wal Mart sells 40 percent of all DVDs purchased in the United States. Now isn”t that a pretty pile of change? So when movie studios began talking about allowing custmers to download movies, the flashing red lights went off in Bentonvile. Keep reading…

ANYTHING BUT A WAL MART… That was the sentiment here in Cleveland when the Steelyard Commons project rolled out. Residents were and the city”s leadership were happy that the vacant land in the Cuyahoga River valley was to be developed as a shopping center…, Keep reading…

$500 MILLION LOCAL DOLLARS…? As I was reading about delays in the opening of a Wal Mart Super Center in San Jacinto, California, this leapt out at me: Additionally, Wal-Mart buys nearly $500 million of goods annually from more than 400 Inland-area vendors, indirectly fueling 16,000 additional jobs. Keep reading…

CAN YOU SAY ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER… I don”t really remember riding around in baskarts, but I know I did it. And I didn”t die. But then the stores weren”t 200,000 square-feet plus. Are our children so incapable of entertaining themselves that they need videos in their baskarts? Keep reading…

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS AND WAL MART…? Wal Mart was expected to roll out its nationwide voter registration and education program today, but the announcement was canceled at the last minute when its lawyers asked for another week to tweak the details, according to The Hill. Keep reading…

WAL MART LISTENS AND DOWNSIZES…? The shocking quote appears at the bottom of a news story on Smart Growth Online about a proposed Wal Mart store in Crofton, Maryland where residents want a new environmental impact study completed before a 143,000 square foot store is built. Keep reading…

COSTCO STEPPING IN IT, PART II… Last week in Costco Stepping In It I reported on a gender discrimination suit against Costco, the Wal Mart competitor usually held up as the labor-friendly example. Other bloggers are sitting up and taking notice and it”s not looking pretty. Keep reading…

WAL MART RETARDS GROWTH… Counties with a Wal-Mart store experience slower growth in their standard of living than those without the world”s largest retailer. That”s the lede on an Associated Press story out this morning on a study released yesterday by The University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Keep 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 Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

She said, “We envy people like you and we want to be you; we can”t, so we destroy you.” p. 222

I won’t be voting for Virginia Senator George Allen. I can’t, I don’t live in Virginia. And if I did, I wouldn’t vote for him because he’s a Republican. But what was done to him yesterday during a debate was despicable politics and all of those responsible ought to be ashamed of themselves. What happened? Allen was asked if he was a Jew.

From The Washington Post:

“It has been reported,” said [WUSA-TV’s Peggy] Fox, that “your grandfather Felix, whom you were given your middle name for, was Jewish. Could you please tell us whether your forebears include Jews and, if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?”

Allen recoiled as if he had been struck. His supporters in the audience booed and hissed. “To be getting into what religion my mother is, I don’t think is relevant,” Allen said, furiously. “Why is that relevant — my religion, Jim’s religion or the religious beliefs of anyone out there?”

“Honesty, that’s all,” questioner Fox answered, looking a bit frightened.

“Oh, that’s just all? That’s just all,” the senator mocked, pressing his attack. He directed Fox to “ask questions about issues that really matter to people here in Virginia” and refrain from “making aspersions.”

“Let’s move on,” proposed the moderator, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News.

Is Allen Jewish? It’s nobody’s feckin’ business. As near as I can tell, he was raised as a Christian in a Protestant sect and the blood line of his mother is of no consequence whatsoever.

If Allen had been raised Jewish, converted and hid the fact for poltical gain while attacking minorities, that would be a different matter. He would have made it an issue of his campaign. But he didn’t do that.

The question could have had only one purpose, to give a tiny part of his base a reason not to vote for him; to cut out the stupid anti-semite vote. That Fox thought her question was clever just shows her own stupid anti-semite tendancies.

I sincerely hope that Allen loses. But not because his mother’s name was Lumbroso.

[Update –1856 — Sen. Allens has issued the following statement. Thank you Jill for bringing this to our attention.

“Yesterday, I found it especially reprehensible that a reporter would impugn the attitudes of my mother, as Ms. Peggy Fox did in her first question at the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce Senate debate. My mother and father both taught me to abhor bigotry, and Ms. Fox”s suggestion to the contrary was deeply offensive.

“The notion peddled by the Webb campaign that I am somehow embarrassed by my heritage is equally offensive, and also absurd.

“I was raised as a Christian and my mother was raised as a Christian. And I embrace and take great pride in every aspect of my diverse heritage, including my Lumbroso family line”s Jewish heritage, which I learned about from a recent magazine article and my mother confirmed.

“On several occasions through the years, I have mentioned publicly that my mother”s father was incarcerated by the Nazis. I have never known whether he was persecuted by the Nazis because of his nationality, his religious faith, his role as a community leader, or his part in the anti-Nazi resistance.

“What I do know is that my grandfather”s imprisonment by the Nazis had a profound impact on my mother. It was a subject she found painful to discuss and so we almost never discussed it.

“Some may find it odd that I have not probed deeply into the details of my family history, but it”s a fact. We in the Allen household were simply taught that what matters is a person”s character, integrity, effort, and performance – not race, gender, ethnicity or religion. And so whenever we would ask my mother through the years about our family background on her side, the answer always was, ‘Who cares about that?”

“My mother has lived a long and full life, and I hope and pray she will enjoy many more years. She deserves respect and she also deserves privacy, especially where painful memories are concerned. I sincerely hope that simple decency will be respected.”]

Hat tip to Writes Like She Talks and Daily Dish.

What is it about Republicans in this state? They pontificate and bloviate but when it comes down to it, they can’t walk the talk. Even poor Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) listed Thou Shall Not Steal as one of the two out of ten commandments that he could name. Clearly Ohio Rep. Earl Martin can’t even get that one right.

From Jeff Coryell at Ohio 2006:

Ohio House 57th: Martin (R-57) Steals My Photograph for Lying Attack Ad – UPDATED

I do not consent. I object.

I have a Creative Commons license on this site that limits usage of what I publish here. Use of my photographs for campaign ads without my permission is not allowed.

Martin is airing a negative ad today that uses my picture of his opponent from this blog. Moreover, the TV ad in question is a blatant lie. Martin accuses challenger Matt Lundy (D-Elyria) of “raising county taxes” while a member of a city council. City council members do not raise county taxes. As Lundy points out in an email to me, it was Martin, not Lundy, who voted for the largest tax increase in Ohio history by voting for Gov. Bob Taft’s sales tax increase (H.B. 95) on his first day on the job in 2003.

This ad is false, it is despicable, and Martin’s use of my photograph is theft, plain and simple.

I demand that Rep. Earl Martin (R-Avon Lake) immediately cancel any and all advertising using any images or descriptions from this blog. I also demand a full public apology.

UPDATE: Thank you to the many readers who are expressing their outrage to Rep. Earl Martin over this gross abuse of intellectual property rights. His contact information is (614) 644-5076, fax (614) 719-3957, email district57@ohr.state.oh.us

2nd UPDATE: Rep. Martin is trying to weasel out of responding to my protest by having his legislative aide send this evasive response to emails about stealing my photograph:

You will have to contact the Ohio Republican Party regarding this ad.

This email and office is Representative Martin’s for work regarding the Ohio House of Representatives and is prohibited in engaging in campaign
related work.

Thank you,

Travis Lockney
Legislative Aide to
State Representative Earl Martin

I have resent my objection to the only address on Martin’s pathetic campaign site, which is info@martinforohiohouse.com, and to the Ohio Republican Party, contact information as follows:

(614) 228-2481 phone
(614) 228-1093 fax
info@ohiogop.org

3rd UPDATE: More weaseling. The Ohio Republican Party, the “party of personal responsiblity,” won’t accept any:

Mr. Coryell

The Ohio Republican Party is not involved in television advertising for
Republican candidates for the Ohio House.

Your complaint needs to be directed elsewhere.

Kind Regards,

Ohio GOP

And here I thought the Republican Party was all about taking responsibility. Well. Was I ever wrong. Those weasel comments are worthy of the worth flacks I’ve ever encountered.

There was no Denzel Washingon to speak for Maher Arar and because of that we are enabling the terrorists to achieve their goals. We are a nation of Rights and Laws; not a mob of Old West vigilantes and Jack Bauer wannabes. The problem is not a bunch of low-level fanatics. The problem begins at the very top.

From this morning’s Washinton Post:

Canadian intelligence officials passed false warnings and bad information to American agents about a Muslim Canadian citizen, after which U.S. authorities secretly whisked him to Syria, where he was tortured, a judicial report found Monday.

This is the problem with hyphenations and fruit salads: he was not a Muslim Canadian citizen, he was a feckin’ citizen of Canada.

When we create subgroupings it becomes possible to consider others to be in lesser categories. I am not an Appachlian American Citizen. I am not a Jewish American Citizen. I am not a White Citizen of America. I am not a Male Citizen of America. I am not a Military Veteran American Citizen.

I am an American Citizen.

Period.

The report, released in Ottawa, was the result of a 2 1/2-year inquiry that represented one of the first public investigations into mistakes made as part of the United States’ “extraordinary rendition” program, which has secretly spirited suspects to foreign countries for interrogation by often brutal methods.

The inquiry, which focused on the Canadian intelligence services, found that agents who were under pressure to find terrorists after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, falsely labeled an Ottawa computer consultant, Maher Arar, as a dangerous radical. They asked U.S. authorities to put him and his wife, a university economist, on the al-Qaeda “watchlist,” without justification, the report said.

Arar was also listed as “an Islamic extremist individual” who was in the Washington area on Sept. 11. The report concluded that he had no involvement in Islamic extremism and was on business in San Diego that day, said the head of the inquiry commission, Ontario Justice Dennis O’Connor.

Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan — where he never has been — and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found.

O’Connor concluded that “categorically there is no evidence” that Arar did anything wrong or was a security threat.

No evidence. None. Nada.

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for the video.

This is the difference between Christians and Christianists.
Go see Jesus Camp.
Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

[Update — 1528 — Jill has a link to more information at The Atheist Mama. Thanks Jill.]

Avast you scurvy bilge skimmers. It be International Talk Like A Pirate Day and to be ‘onoring t’is fine celebration of all bright and shiny t’ings of a buckaneer nature ‘ave Grog Will Plunder brings you the startling tale of ‘ow all of us freebooters like from that vile pit of a country called Spain turned to raiding the Spanish Main.

An’ it all be the fault of t’ose two n’er do wells Isabel and Ferndinand who gave us Jews the ‘eave ‘o.

Adam Wells be telling this stirring tale.

Tales o’ Jewish piracy, which stretch aft thousands o’ years, aren’t in t’ public’s consciousness, and Hollywood even has been known t’ remove a pirate’s Jewish aftground. As a result, we’re stuck with portrayals o’ pirates as wayward English seamen on a murderous rampage.

But now a forthcomin’ book hopes t’ change that image by focusin’ on Ladino-speakin’ Jews whose piracy grew out o’ t’ Inquisition. “T’ Jewish pirates were Sephardic. Once they were kicked out o’ Spain [in 1492], t’ more adventurous Jews went t’ t’ New World,” said Ed Kritzler, whose yet-untitled book on Jewish pirates will be published by Doubleday in sprin’ 2007.

Arrr, Blackheart Kritzler be a right speaking seadog.

Kritzler has stuwent t’ Davy Jones’ locker pirates for 40 years, and said that t’ public be fascinated with them because they’re “rugged individuals in a world o’ conformity. They carved their own identity, independent o’ t’ rules and strictures o’ society.”

But determinin’ t’ exact number o’ Jewish pirates be difficult, Kritzler said, because many o’ them traveled as Conversos, or converts t’ Christianity, and practiced their Judaism in secret.

While some Jews, like Samuel Pallache, took up piracy in part t’ help make a better life for expelled Spanish Jews, Kritzler said others were motivated by revenge for t’ Inquisition.

One such pirate was Moses Cohen Henriques, who helped plan one o’ history’s largest heists against Spain. In 1628, Henriques set sail with Dutch West India Co. Admiral Piet Hein, whose own hatred o’ Spain was fueled by four years spent as a galley slave aboard a Spanish ship. Henriques and Hein boarded Spanish ships off Cuba and seized shipments o’ New World gold and silver worth in today’s doubloons about t’ same as Disney’s total box office for Dead Man’s Chest.

T’at be eight chests filled wit’ pieces of eight, a pretty bit of treasure. (T’at be $1 billion for you landlubbers.)

Another Sephardic pirate played a pivotal role in American history. In t’ book “Jews on t’ foreier” (Rachelle Simon, 1991), Rabbi I. Harold Sharfman recounts t’ tale o’ Sephardic Jewish pirate Jean Lafitte, whose Conversos grandmother and mother fled Spain for France in 1765, after his maternal grandfather was put t’ death by t’ Inquisition for “Judaizin’.”

Referred t’ as T’ Corsair, Lafitte went on t’ establish a pirate kin’dom in t’ swamps o’ New Orleans, and led more than 1,000 men durin’ t’ War o’ 1812. After bein’ run out o’ New Orleans in 1817, Lafitte re-established his kin’dom on t’ island o’ Galveston, Texas, which was known as Campeche. Durin’ Mexico’s fight for independence, revolutionaries encouraged Lafitte t’ attack Spanish ships and keep t’ booty.

Jean LaFitte were a right good sailor man. I be thinkin’ that his adventures t’wer part of the makin’ of our great country.

Arrr!