If this comes with a doxy and a bottle of rum I’m so there. My dad was good at building treehouses and assorted forts. He even once spent an afternoon running the tractor mower through an adjacent three-acre field and turning it into a maze that was perfect for creating our own fantasy adventures. And this is really cool too.
So, McDonald’s got the message about supersizing people, but it seems it still has a supersizing jones to feed. If the insta-food monster can’t get to customers directly, then perhaps it can be a bit sly about it by enticing children with the ultimate obscenemobile: the Ronald McHummer. The only truck that doesn’t make your 400 pound butt look big.
An informed electorate is an empowered electorate. That’s why I’ll be attending the We Count 2006 Conference on 29 and 30 September. Cleveland has become an epicenter for the confidence-shaking waves that washed over our 2000, 2004 and now 2006 elections. If the freest, most poweful nation in the World can’t hold fair elections, then what?
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.
1652 Where in the world is Jill?
1630 Hackett manhandles GOP talking-points action figure
0824 Our incredible shrinking city: The ACS flunks the smell test
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 early GRRRL by Marge Piercy.
The Miracle
Somewhere hair of gauze
eyes of a frightened jay
you are kicking
your shrill new hungers
and sucking watered milk.
Somewhere they are just starting
to tease your arms
with pins.
From Breaking Camp, Poems Of the Early to Mid-Sixties.
My Soundtrack: They Took A Vote and Said No by Sunset Rubdown on WOXY.
Friday evening (6-9:00) I’ll be making my 2nd annual trek to the Poets and Writers League of Greater Cleveland’s rent party. The requested donation will be $5 and there will be plenty of munchies from Tommy’s and both adult and other beverages. Last year John Ettorre, Chas Rich and I represented the NEO bloggosphere. I’ll see you 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.
1141 The GOP convention – some perspective from Philadelphia
When I stopped in at the Phoenix Coffee House on Lee Road yesterday I glanced at the Pee Dee headline: One city credits its revival to convention, Cleveland hopes to duplicate Philadelphia’s civic boost from hosting GOP in 2000. And I had to ask myself: How many more one-shot miracle projects are we going to buy?
If there isn’t a cohesive plan that everyone commits to for the long term, there ain’t going to be no miracles.
Then this morning I popped in on Bill Callahan and found a letter from one of his friends, who just happens to be a very involved citizen of the city of Brotherly love. I read his reaction to the PD story with interest but found this observation dead on.
If the idea is that the 2008 Republican Convention could give Cleveland a boost all by itself, that”s just not what happened here. It was an important step in an ongoing process… That”s what people concerned about holding the Republican Convention in Cleveland should be asking – what”s the long range plan? If there isn”t one, it should be an exciting event for the City, but that”s all it will be.
And, as Bill ponders, If there is a long-range plan, where do you suppose we”d find it?
My Soundtrack: The Death Of American Radio by Radio 4 on WOXY.
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 early GRRRL by Marge Piercy.
Lapsed
Memory smells
like carefully dried love
where I shelter
inside failure”s toughening husk,
where each one labors
secreting the amber
that turns gnats
and midges and stinging flies
into jewels.
From Breaking Camp, Poems Of the Early to Mid-Sixties.
My Soundtrack: We’ve Come So Far by Radio Birdman on WOXY.
The BBC’s Noel Thompson interviewed former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, 8 August for the show Hard Talk. Netanyahu was in England to marshall support for the Israeli’s response to the Hezbollah’s attacks. I was not able to verify that the following exchange actually took place during the interview.
When I solve my technical problem with the BBC download, I’ll update this post and make any corrections that may be necessary.
Thompson: How come so many more Lebanese have been killed in this conflict than Israelis?
Netanyahu: Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?
Thompson: Why not?
Netanyahu: Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the war was caused by Germany’s aggression.
And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima.
Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and fell on a Danish children’s hospital, killing 83 little children.
Perhaps you have another question?
There is a factual error in the above that could be attributed to Netanyahu’s memory or this exchange’s fabrication. Dresden was not bombed as a result of the accidental bombing of London. Berlin had that singular honor.
There may be a second error as well, one that has become part of our popular culture, mostly due to so many readings of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five in high school and college classrooms.
The fire bombing of Dresden came at the end of the war, on the nights of 13 and 14 February 1945. Estimates of those killed in the bombing vary widely. Some place it as high as 250,000 while other quote a much lower around 35,000.
The death toll at Hiroshima is estimated to have been some 140,000.
Neither error, or possible error, is critical to Netanyahu’s central point: those who would assign a different standard to Israel than they would to the rest of the world’s nations are practicing a subtle form of anti-semitism.
Robert Goldberg is still safe.
My Soundtrack: Dorothy At Forty by Cursive on WOXY.
The BBC reports this evening that 11 of the 24 people arrested in the hair gel bombing threats that moused air travel two weeks ago have been charged. Eight with conspiracy to murder and preparing acts of terrorism; two with failing to disclose information and one with possessing articles useful to a person preparing acts of terrorism.
The 13 other people arrested were released. From the BBC Worldnews:
An initial 24 people were arrested following police raids in Walthamstow, east London, High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire and Birmingham on 10 August.
[snip]
In a highly unusual development, [Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter] Clarke went into significant detail about the evidence so far uncovered by police inquiries. These included:
69 searches of houses, flats and business premises, vehicles and open spaces;
Searches had found more than 400 computers, 200 mobile telephones and 8,000 computer media items such as memory sticks, CDs and DVDs;
Police experts have removed 6,000 gigabytes of data from the seized computers;
Bomb making equipment, including chemicals and electrical components seized, police say;
A number of video recordings recovered.
Hmmmm… Still no mention of those pesky airline tickets or passports. Sticky wicket that.
My Soundtrack: No One Knows by Queens Of The Stone Age on WOXY.
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.
Robert Greenwald’s Iraq For Sale — a documentary on the war profitteering in Iraq — is finished and the filmaker is scheduling screenings for the week of 8 October. You can find a screening (or schedule one yourself) here. Greenwald helped to rip the lid off of how Wal Mart really does business with last year’s The High Cost of Low Price.
He’s using the same guerrilla marketing tactics to bring the 75-minute Iraq For Sale to the American public.
At the completion of the film, Greenwald said:
Producing this film has been a powerful, challenging and gut-wrenching experience for all of us. A group of amazing heroes came foward to speak on camera about their experiences with the companies who have profited obscenely from the war in Iraq: Mothers whose sons were killed in Fallujah; truck drivers who went overseas to help the troops and instead faced first-hand the greed and profiteering of haliburton/KBR; and interrogators and translators who were hired by the profiteers caci and titan to work at Abu Graib. These stories will shock, appall and mobilize you and everyone else who sees this film.
Possibly not since American troops were sent into Central America to protect the interests of the United Fruit Company, have so many Americans given their lives for corporate profits.
Last time I checked I lived inthe USA, not the United States of Halibruton. I’d like to keep it that way.
My Soundtrack: My Week Beats Your Year by Telefon Tel Aviv on WOXY.
See him acclaiming the sun and come plunging down
while his sensible daddy goes straight into town.
From To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph by Anne Sexton.
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 early GRRRL by Marge Piercy.
This Is A Poem For You
We shimmer with sweat.
We are playing out our knowledge of each other.
We are asking riddles with our hands
and solving them with our hips.
We are a soft clumsy organism.
Music blows through the long tangled pelt,
the red mouth is open to roar and taste,
the eyes are wide and bright and moist,
the paws are raised.
From Hard Loving, Poems From The Late Sixties.
An old man was critically ill. Feeling that death was near, he called his lawyer. “I want to become a Democrat. Get me a change of registration form.” “You can do it”, the lawyer said, “But why? You’ll be dead soon, why do you want to become a Democrat?” “That’s my business! Get me the form!”
Four days later, the old man got his registration changed. His lawyer was at his bedside making sure his bill would be paid. Suddenly the old man was racked with fits of coughing, and it was clear that this would be the end.
Still curious, the lawyer leaned over and said, “Please, before it’s too late, tell me why you wanted to become a Democrat so badly before you died?” In a faint whisper, as he breathed his last, the old man said: “One less Democrat”.
I’m on a mini-retreat this weekend so no new posts until Monday morning. I’ve put a couple of Evergreen pieces in the queue, but this is the second of two open threads for your use. Pick a topic. Suggest a thread. Introduce yourselves. Share baby pictures or rock concert war stories. Talk among yourselves for a change. Discuss.
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 early GRRRL by Marge Piercy.
Your Eyes Are Hard, And Other Surprises
…do the hairs of your belly
remember my sweat?
From Hard Loving, Poems From The Late Sixties
My Soundtrack: They Took A Vote and Said No by Sunset Rubdown on WOXY.
A little old lady calls 911. When the operator answers she yells, “Help, send the police to my house right away! There’s a damn Democrat on my front porch and he’s playing with himself.” “What?” the operator exclaimed. “I said there is a damn Democrat on my front porch playing with himself and he’s weird;
I don’t know him and I’m afraid! Please send the police!” the little old lady repeated.
“Well, now, how do you know he’s a Democrat?”
“Because, you damn fool, if it was a Republican, he’d be screwing somebody!”
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