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 Coffee: A Dark History by Anthony Wild.

…some drink it with milk, but it is an error, and as such may bring in the danger of leprosy. (The warning against the use of milk is of Islamic origin, and accounts for its absence in Arabian coffee drinking today.) p. 88

My Soundtrack: Little Lover’s So Polite by Silversun Pickups on WOXY.

And so we sit one lonely afternoon sipping water together.
The fern looking out of its fronds, as I look out of mine. …

From One Lonely Afternoon by Russell Edson.

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 Coffee: A Dark History by Anthony Wild.

Indeed, it could be said that the introduction of coffee to England led to the a second brain explosion like that which has rocked our Ethiopian ancestors. p. 87

My Soundtrack: Knowitall by Phantom Planet on WOXY.

Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords introduced Senate Bill S. 3698, the Global Warming Pollution Reducation Act Jeffords, at least, seems to have heard Al Gore’s message loud and clear and sees his bill as setting the United States on a path to decrease and, in time, reverse the emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

In describing the challenge, Sen. Jeffords said, The science is clear, mankind is heating the planet in a manner that is destructive. We can no longer afford to watch from the sidelines. We are a nation of innovators, and we have the skills to develop the technology to make these needed changes.

The Findings section of S. 3698 says that:

Congress finds that–

(1) global warming poses a significant threat to the national security and economy of the United States, public health and welfare, and the global environment;

(2) due largely to an increased use of energy from fossil fuels, human activities are primarily responsible for the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping global warming pollutants that are accumulating in the atmosphere and causing surface air and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise;

(3) as of the date of enactment of this title, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are 35 percent higher than those concentrations were 150 years ago, at 378 parts per million compared to 280 parts per million;

(4) the United States emits more global warming pollutants than any other country, and United States carbon dioxide emissions have increased by an average of 1.3 percent annually since 1990;

(5) (A) during the past 100 years, global temperatures have risen by 1.44 degrees Fahrenheit; and

(B) from 1970 to the present, those temperatures have risen by almost 1 degree Fahrenheit;

(6) 8 of the past 10 years (1996 to 2005) are among the 10 warmest years on record;

(7) average temperatures in the Arctic have increased by 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit during the past 50 years;

(8) global warming has caused–

(A) ocean temperatures to increase, resulting in rising sea levels, extensive bleaching of coral reefs worldwide, and an increase in the intensity of tropical storms;

(B) the retreat of Arctic sea ice by an average of 9 percent per decade since 1978;

(C) the widespread thawing of permafrost in polar, subpolar, and mountainous regions;

(D) the redistribution and loss of species; and

(E) the rapid shrinking of glaciers;

(9) the United States must adopt a comprehensive and effective national program of mandatory limits and incentives to reduce global warming pollution emissions into the atmosphere;

(10) at the current rate of emission, global warming pollution concentrations in the atmosphere could reach more than 600 parts per million in carbon dioxide equivalent, and global average mean temperature could rise an additional 2.7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century;

(11) although an understanding of all details of the Earth system is not yet complete, present knowledge indicates that potential future temperature increases could result in–

(A) the further or complete melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets;

(B) the disruption of the North-Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (commonly known as the Gulf Stream’);

(C) the extinction of species; and

(D) large-scale disruptions of the natural systems that support life;

(12) there exists an array of technological options for use in reducing global warming pollution emissions, and significant reductions can be attained using a portfolio of options that will not adversely impact the economy;

(13) the ingenuity of the people of the United States will allow the Nation to become a leader in solving global warming ; and

(14) it should be a goal of the United States to achieve a reduction in global warming pollution emissions in the United States–

(A) to ensure that the average global temperature does not increase by more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius); and

(B) to facilitate the achievement of an average global atmospheric concentration of global warming pollutants that does not exceed 450 parts per million in carbon dioxide equivalent.

I think that pretty well sums it up. S. 3698 is 70 pages long and as with any bill, the devil is in the details. What do you find buried inside that is important to you?

My Soundtrack: 0078h by M83 on WOXY.

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.

THE CONSENSUS CASE AGAINST WAL-MART… (Part 1) Open warfare has broken out between Wake-Up Wal-Mart and the Wal-Flacks at Working Families. Keep reading…

PUBLIC RELATIONS CONSULTANT JOINS WAL-MART… The giant retailer said yesterday that Leslie Dach, a prominent Democratic operative who advised President Bill Clinton during the impeachment process, would join the company in August. Keep reading…

THE LEE AND AL SHOW… Wal Mart allowed journalists to cover Al Gore”s global warming presentation and one of those reporting was Amanda Griscom Little from Grist Magazine. Little called Lee And Al Show a strange scene, but she saw the sense in it. Keep reading…

My Soundtrack: The Beast And Dragon, Adored by Spoon/em> 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 Coffee: A Dark History by Anthony Wild.

On the face of it, taverns and coffee houses were both potentially places where political dissent could arise, being meeting places where open debate between strangers was inevitable. However, it is the nature of coffee to clarify and order thought, and in the nature of alcohol to blur and confuse it. A tavern might generate heated discussions, but it is likely that the contents of the debate would have been forgotten by the following day. p. 55

My Soundtrack: On The Radio by The Concretes on WOXY.

The dead-tree media thinks it can provide stories on every page of its newspapers that will attract 13-17 year-olds without alienating its much older, graying and dying present audience. At least that’s what the Newspaper Association of America Foundation in its Lifelong Readers: The Role of Youth Content thinks

New research for the Newspaper Association of America Foundation finds that newspaper content for teens, by teens and relating to teens strongly impacts a newspaper’s ability to attract young adult readers and keep them as they age. According to the study of more than 1,600 18- to 24-year-olds, 75 percent of respondents who said they read newspaper content aimed at teens when they were 13 to 17 years old now read their local paper at least once a week, compared with 44 percent of those who said they did not read teen content.

“Local newspapers recognize the need to nurture students’ appetite for news, and newspapers that provide content tailored to teens are making a powerful connection with the younger readers in their communities,” said Margaret Vassilikos, senior vice president and treasurer of the NAA Foundation. “This study is the first to validate that not only are newspapers on the right track in reaching the readers of tomorrow, but they are nurturing a future generation of informed and involved citizens who are able to serve as active participants in the democratic process.”

When pigs fly.

My Soundtrack: The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co. Resignation Letter by Matthew Friedberger on WOXY.

On 15 January 1975 I reported for basic training at the Navy’s Great Lakes Training Center. As winter recruits we were always bundled up in our peacoats with our collars up and our watch caps pulled down over our ears. The result was that we were black from head to toes with only our closely shaven skin of our faces exposed to the cold.

Because of the look, we called ourselves raisins.

I was the Recruit Chief Petty Officer for my company and responsible for calling cadence as we marched from building to building. Until Service Week (essentially duty in the huge mess hall) which came half way through our training, I was only allowed to count cadence; a steady left, left, left right left. Boring as hell, but with the exception of a few band geeks like myself, the guys in my company had never marched anywhere.

After Service Week we became a senior company and were allowed to sing cadence. The songs consisted of the kind of call and response chants that troops have marched to since God was striking for boatswain. Some were forbidden for their R- and X-rated lyrics, but a lot of PG-13 stuff was OK.

I got read the riot act one cold night because as I was passing a new company on the street I sang out:

Raisin, raisin don’t be blue…
My recruiter screwed me too…

Years later I would do a short stint as a recruiter in my home town and learn some of the ins-and-outs of the job. We didn’t lie out right. But you got in real trouble if you talked about some of the downsides of the job.

Nothing has changed it seems. This morning I read Veronica Johnson’s Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be AmBushed and discovered that what we used to call deferred enlistment (you could enlist up to three months before your actual active duty period began and get time-in-service credit for the three months) has been expanded to four years.

Yes, the military is now coming after 8th and 9th graders.

Recruiters are using everything from promises of inflated signing bonuses to threats of jail if potential recruits do not sign on the dotted line. Children as young as 14 can be signed up with promises of getting $10,000, paid in installments, along with a monthly stipend until they enter the military upon graduation from high school. But, as this article points out, there is a huge catch (emphasis is mine):

The army recruiters offer the kids a bonus of $10,000.00, paid in yearly installments plus $350 a month stipend until the boys go into the army in four years… One mother took a close look at the fine print. It revealed that, not only was her son unthinkingly signing up to be in combat, the $350 monthly stipend her son receives is actually an advance on his $250 per month combat pay and $100 per month hardship duty pay. What the army is doing is guaranteeing that the boy will go to war and the Pentagon is paying him now so he can’t back out later. Any recruit faces strict punishment if they refuse duty when coming of age. If the recruit is incapacitated or killed before two years of service, he or his relatives will have to pay back the rest of the money “owed” to the government.

How cold-blooded is that? “Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I regret to inform you that Suzy got cut down by shrapnel because we were too busy giving tax breaks to billionaires to provide her with proper body armor. By the way, since she failed to serve her full tour of duty, you owe us six grand. Will that be cash, check, or credit card?” If there is any karmic justice, special rings of Hell are being created as I type for Republicans and the gutless Democrats who signed off on this twisted policy.

What Johnson doesn’t consider is what this says about long-range plans for our armed forces. If the military is thinking about recruiting shortages four years in the future, where do you thing they plan being then? Iran? Pakistan? China?

My Soundtrack: You Can’t Hurt Me Anymore by The Hiders 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 Coffee: A Dark History by Anthony Wild.

Weight for weight, tea contains twice the quantity of caffeine as Arabica coffee, but as the volume of vegetable matter used is much less than half, the net effect is less caffeine in the final beverage. p. 42

My Soundtrack: Stars And Sons by Broken Social Scene on WOXY.

Andrew Sullivan calls An Inconvenient Truth: thoroughly persuasive about the reality of global warming and the contribution of carbon dioxide emissions to it. He strongly recomends it but notes a couple of weak points. One of Sullivan’s points I disagree with, but only mildly. The other I’d say he was dead on.

On the first, Sullivan writes about Gore’s terms as vice president.

No mention is made anywhere [in the film] of the fact that Al Gore was a very powerful vice-president for eight years in a critical period for this issue. His fulminations against others’ indifference would have been a little more credible if he’d at least addressed and explained his own failure to do anything when he was able to.

I do seem to recall Gore making mention of the road blocks presented by the shift in Congress in ’94. That’s not an excuse for not speaking out, which is why I say I only mildly disagree with Sullivan.

Where I think he’s absolutely right is at the conclusion of the movie.

It’s …striking that Gore could have used the movie to argue for a serious increase in the gas tax — and he didn’t. The movie’s final recommendations — recycle! write your congressman! ride a bike! reset your thermostat! – were truly lame after the alarm of the rest of the movie. I think a serious gas tax and a tough increase in mandatory fuel economy standards in the U.S. are essential to prompting the technological breakthroughs that alone can ameliorate this. And yet Gore balked.

A serious energy, not just gas, tax is inevitable. And the politician that raises the issue will be cutting their throat unless they can make Global Warming a life-or-death reality for Americans and call upon all that has made this country great to get behind a global sacrifice to perserve our future.

That’s a very tough sale.

Two weeks ago Gore spoke to a small crowd of Wal Mart executive about the corporate giant’s environmental policies. When the question arose, as it had to, about whether or not Gore was planning on another presidential run in 2008 he said:

“I really believe that the highest and best use of my experience and skills may be to concentrate all-out on changing the minds of the American people about the [climate] crisis. That way, whoever does run for president faces an electorate that flat-out demands that they make this their priority.”

If he can accomplish that in the next two years, he’ll have the mandate from the people to call for an all-emcompassing energy tax if he decides to make the run himself.

My Soundtrack: Warmest Part Of The Winter by Voxtrot 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.

1536 From Here To There

My Soundtrack: Never Have To Guess by Bears on WOXY.

I love it when blogosphere serendipity happens. Our brain’s greatest function is its ability to connect the dots. This morning MetaFilter led me over to this from the Wharton School in Philadelphia. Then this afternoon George at Brewed Fresh Daily linked to this post from Andrew and I surfed over to Built For Walking to leave this comment.

Shalom Astoltz,

Unfortunately, bikes, in the long term, levy a heavier environmental impact on our planet than cars.

Here’s why: The Environmental Paradox Of Bicycling.

The logic works like this:

1. Every moment we live we impose a resource tax on our environment.

2. The longer we live the greater that tax becomes.

3. Riding a bicycle improves our health and prolongs our life.

4. The natural conclusion is that all of us bike-riding environmentalists should immediately commit suicide and spare the Earth our burden.

B’shalom,

Jeff

p.s. when evil wields logic, never expect a logical outcome.

So damn all you derrick-hugging environmentalists. I’m going to ride my bike until they make getting less than 50 miles per gallon a felony and drag everyone who owns a Hummer to the ground and beats them into Ralph-Nader-voting greenies.

My Soundtrack: Car No Driver by Dirty On Purpose on WOXY.

I swear, I don’t make these up.

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 Coffee: A Dark History by Anthony Wild.

The coffee industry today is curiously coy about the fact that the current way of preparation is one of only many ways, and that coffee can also be a tisane or tea: an infusion of dried vegetable matter in hot water. p.41

My Soundtrack: Lions and Tigers by Asobi Seksu on WOXY.

If the 16th century belonged to the protestant and the 20th century to the industrialist, then the 21st century belongs to the geek. But if geeks will claim their rightful post, they must learn to speak and be heard; to recognize those things that bind them together. In that vein, Devanshu has published 95 Theses Of Geek Activism.

1. Reclaim the term ‘hacker”. If you tinker with electronics, you are a hacker. If you use things in more ways than intended by the manufacturer, you are a hacker. If you build things out of strange, unexpected parts, you are a hacker. Reclaim the term.

2. Violating a license agreement is not theft.

3. All corporations are not on your side.

4. Keep in touch with everyone you can vote for and make sure you know where they stand on the issues you care about.

5. More importantly, make sure they know where you stand on the issues you care about.

6. Everything will enter the public domain some day — even Mickey Mouse.

Keep reading…

While he dances around it in theses No.’s 52, 79, 80 and 89, Devanshu never repeats what I’ve always thought of as the core value of Geekdom: Information Wants To Be Free.

My Soundtrack: Martha’s Very by Emily Strand & The Town 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 Coffee: A Dark History by Anthony Wild.

The presence of Sufis in south China seem to have influenced Japanese Buddhism, leading to Zen Buddhism, which, like Sufism, focuses on masters and illustrative tales from their lives. p. 37

My Soundtrack: Everybody Here Wants You by Jeff Buckley on WOXY.

There are works of literature that many would censor or ban because they contain objectionable characterizations or words. William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and its Shylock, Mark Twain’s Life On The Mississippi and Nigger Jim and Charles Dickens’ Fagin all come to mind. But censorship is a poor tool.

What I would celebrate someone else might ban. It is better publish other views and allow the words to compete for the opinions of reasonable people.

Will Eisner’s Fagin The Jew is a perfecdt example. Rather than rail against Dickens’s character in Oliver Twist, Eisner uses the graphic novel tell us the tale that Dickens’ didn’t: how Fagin became Fagin and why he did the things he did. Eisner does no damage to Dickens, but he enters the London that Dickens inhabited and shows us the streets and alleys from the other side of the looking glass.

This is the way free speech should work. We shouldn’t burn books because we object to them. We shouldn’t reduce the number of words in the world. We should increase them with our own truths and let history be as it is.

My Soundtrack: Yellow Sun by The Raconteurs 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 Coffee: A Dark History by Anthony Wild.

Thus the fundamental ritual of Islam was a significant encouragement to the science of navigation, and the concomitant spread of faith and commerce. p. 36

My Soundtrack: Roscoe by Midlake on WOXY.

At last it’s over. How we all applaud!
The poet thanks us with a modest smirk.
Everybody in the room was bored.
He wasn’t interrupted or ignored.

From A Reading by Wendy Cope.

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 Coffee: A Dark History by Anthony Wild.

The general character of Sufi practice involved the communal singing of poetry; the ritual repetitions of the divine name; a veneration for saints, many of whom were shaykhs, or former leaders of Sufi order; and the ritual visits to the tombs of such saints.

Spread by proselytizing shaykhs, by the 12th century Sufism had reached Yemen. There, in the late 15th century, it would appear that the Sufis were the first to adopt coffee drinking. Not only did coffee assist in enabling devotees to stay away during their night rituals, but the transformation of the coffee bean during roasting reflected the alchemical beliefs in the transformation of the human soul which lay at the heart of Sufism. Coffee worked both at a spiritual and a physical level. p. 31

My Soundtrack: Multiply by Jamie Lidell on WOXY.

I’m starting to wonder at what point do I feel the sting of Jim’s tranguilizer dart and wake up with a numbered tag on my ear and a radio collar that Marlin has fixed around my neck. Why? Because of things like this study of 233 bloggers (yes, a whole 233 bloggers) from the Pew Internet & American Life Project that puports to define bloggers.

From the report’s teaser.

A national phone survey of bloggers finds that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology. Blogs, the survey finds, are as individual as the people who keep them. However, most bloggers are primarily interested in creative, personal expression — documenting individual experiences, sharing practical knowledge, or just keeping in touch with friends and family.

Now how’s that for a shocking revelation? And guess what? Grass is green, ice is cold and Britney Spears has no talent.

Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted the phone interviews for Pew from 5 July 2005 through 17 February 2006. The 233 bloggers were 18 or older and answered the questions on a 23-page survey. Despite my ire at being bagged and tagged, there is interesting information in the raw data: 13 percent of those surveyed are on Live Journal, 9 percent are on My Space and none were using Word Press.

What do you find interesting in the report?

My Soundtrack: So Says I by The Shins on WOXY.