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.

There have been claimed sightings of coffee in the Old Testament, including in the presents that Abigail made to David, the red potage for which Esau sold his birthright, and in the parched gain that Boaz ordered to be given to Ruth. p. 28

My Soundtrack: Another Fine Day by Golden Smog on WOXY.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the universe’s source for cheap plastic crap. In my last installment former vice president and present Global Warming evangelist Al Gore had been invited to Bentonville to address the mega-retailer’s executives. This week the Bentonville Behemoth is stumbling about in its tragic unhipness.

GREEN BEGATS GREEN… Basic Rule: you get rich not by making more money, but rather by spending less of the money you do make. And the rule applies whether you”re making $50,000 or $50,000,000 a year; whether you”re Jeff Hess or Rob Walton. Keep reading…

MY WALLY WORLD SPACE… Why is it that when I read this story I have a tape loop of The Simpsons” creaking Monty Burns wagging a finger in the air and exclaiming “23 skidoo” as he does his best to be hip? Probably because it”s dead on. From AdAge: Keep reading…

My Soundtrack: The Clever North Wind by Helvetia 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.

1120 If an editor kills a story in the woods

My Soundtrack: Over And Over by Hot Chip on WOXY.

Lake Chad is on the opposite border from the Darfur region of Sudan, but what has happened to the lake is indicative of what is happening in the larger region. This dwindling water supply, says Jeffrey Sach, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, is an important factor in the continuing genocide in Darfur. From Reuters.

The origins of Darfur’s three-year conflict can be traced to decreased rainfall and population growth in the 1980s that sparked a struggle between settled farmers and pastoralists, according to Sachs.

“In general, crises like these are viewed through the optic of geopolitics and the military,” he said. “But when you are dealing with very hungry people and desperately poor people, unless you also put forward a realistic and viable development option, you can’t make peace.”

How appropriate it is that in the Darfur Is Dying game the player’s first task is to collect water.

My Soundtrack: Lost In Boston by The Walkmen on WOXY.

From Ha Aretz.

OK. So I’m one of the idiots from Ohio and I grew up telling West Virginia jokes, but my longest family roots in this country (almost a quarter millenium) are sunk in Palintine (now Fairmount), West Virginia. And this is from my dad who was the last Hess of the line born in Fairmount. So I guess I qualify for the punch line of this story.

The Creation of West Virginia

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for six days.
Eventually, Michael the Archangel, found Him, resting on the seventh
day. He inquired of God, “Where have You been?”

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards
through the clouds, “Look Michael, look what I’ve made!”

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, “What is it?”

“It’s a planet,” replied God, and I’ve put life on it. I’m going to call
it Earth, and it’s going to be a great place of balance.”

“Balance?” inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth, “For example,
northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while
southern Europe is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be
a hot spot. And over there I’ve placed a continent of white people,
while over here is a continent of black people.”

God continued, pointing to different countries.”This one will be
extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in
ice.”

The Archangel , impressed by God’s work, then pointed to a large land
mass and said, “What’s that one?”

“Ah,” said God. “That’s West Virginia, the most glorious place on earth.
There are beautiful lakes, rivers, sunsets and mountains. The people
from West Virginia are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and
they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely
sociable, hard working and high achieving, and they will be known
throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace.”

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, “What about
balance, God? You said there would be balance!”

God replied wisely, “Wait until you see the idiots I’m putting around
them in Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Only someone who is from West Virginia will forward this.

Or somone once removed.

My Soundtrack: Sour Shores by Portastatic on WOXY.

I’ll be at the Jewish Community Center tomorrow evening to take part in a community rally in solidarity with Israel. What will the rally accomplish on the World stage? Probably not a lot, but that’s not the point. There are times when we all need to be around those who understand best what we’re feeling.

Thursday, 20 July, 7:15 p.m.
Mandel Jewish Community Center
Stonehill Auditorium
26001 South Woodland Road

My Soundtrack: Pet Grief by The Radio Dept. on WOXY.

This is what happens when you ignore necessary chores. Its been nearly 10 months (and one hard drive crash) since I’ve mucked out the stable so this is the final post. These all struck my fancy for one reason or another as potential blog topics. I confess that I have little idea why they did. So, back to shovelling: scoop, lever, heave, scoop, lever…

Whiskey Painters of America
The Euston Manifesto
The Truth
200 Ways To Revive A Hard Drive
The Case For Globalized Labor
Web Zen
New-Time religion
Citizen Media
50 Weight Loss Tips
How To Lose Weight with a Spreadsheet
Cosplay Squared
An Art With Aroma
100% Pure Coffee Art
Art Of Coffee Painting
America’s Air Conditioned Nightmare
Interview With Barack Obama
Barack Obama, Not Pandering
Hammer & Tickle
Speed Meter

My Soundtrack: Grace by Supergrass 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.

It would appear that while caffeine is not to be found in the hair of the decease, traces of cocaine and nicotine are. p. 27

My Soundtrack: No Fit State by Hot Chip on WOXY.

Today I discovered The Dictionary Of American Fighting Ships. I expected to find a brief entry on my own ship, USS. Bainbridge, CGN-25. Instead I found this wonderfully detailed history that narrates my four years as a sea dog that included playing with both the Soviets in the Sea of Okhotsk and the revolutionary Iranians in the Gulf Oman. I joined the Bainbridge on 1 January 1976 and left her for the last time when I was heloed off for transit to discharge in December 1979.

The work included the replacement of her 3-inch guns with two 20 millimeter guns, and the installation of new radar and the Model IV Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS). Complications and delays delayed the overhaul. Bainbridge was reclassified a guided missile cruiser and redesignated CGN-25 on 30 June 1975.

Following her yard work, the ship carried out her post-overhaul certifications and evaluations in the Puget Sound area with intermittent participation in Operation Sea Crow—a long-range aircraft detection exercise carried out in cooperation with the Air Force. Bainbridge carried out a series of tactical exercises first with aircraft carrier Constellation (CV-64), then with a pair of submarines, and finally with the carrier again, in southern Californian waters in late November. She returned to Bremerton just before Christmas.

The cruiser opened 1977 with a voyage to Hawaii (4–30 January). Bainbridge concluded her post-overhaul repairs on 31 March and, following several final tests early in April, sailed for her new home port of Naval Station, San Diego, on 11 April. During the summer, she completed refresher training in southern Californian waters, and visited the Seattle Seafair in the first half of August.

Bainbridge deployed to the western Pacific on 10 January 1978. The ship trained in Hawaiian waters en route, and reached Yokosuka on 3 February. She participated in exercises off Okinawa in February, in the South China Sea in March, and off the Philippines in April and May. The cruiser also visited Pusan (Busan), South Korea (22–28 February); Singapore (28 March–2 April); Sattahip, Thailand (6–11 April); Hong Kong (22–24 April); and Pusan (late May); followed by repairs at Yokosuka (5–28 June). She stopped at Subic Bay briefly on 2 July, and set out on a circuitous voyage home, sailing by way of Darwin, Australia, the Tonga Islands, and Pearl Harbor. The guided missile cruiser reached San Diego on 9 August.

The ship accomplished an availability at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (6 October 1978–27 January 1979). The upgrades included the installation of the RGM-84 Harpoon surface-to-surface missile system. She returned to San Diego on 2 February.
U.S. Navy Photograph USN 1174727, Naval History & Heritage Command Bainbridge makes a high speed turn in the Pacific, March 1979. She mounts a quadruple Harpoon surface-to-surface missile launcher on the starboard side aft—the superstructure obscures a second quadruple launcher fitted to port. (U.S. Navy Photograph USN 1174727, Naval History & Heritage Command)

She deployed to the western Pacific on 8 August 1979. The guided missile cruiser visited Pearl Harbor (18–23 August), stopped briefly at Midway Island (27 August), and arrived at Yokosuka on 2 September. After escorting aircraft carrier Ranger (CV-61) to the vicinity of Midway (early September), she rendezvoused with TF 75 to carry out Operation Free Seas 79 in the Sea of Okhotsk (15–20 September). Bainbridge returned to Yokosuka (25 September), joined TG 70.1, built around aircraft carrier Midway (CV-41), and sailed by way of Subic Bay to visit Perth, Australia (20–25 October). From there, the task group moved into the Indian Ocean and made a “show the flag” port visit to Mombasa, Kenya (early November). Midway and Bainbridge moored outside Mombasa, while frigate Stein (FF-1065) and combat store ship San Jose (AFS-7), and Military Sealift Command replenishment oilers Mispillion (T-AO-105) and Navasota (T-AO-106) moored in the harbor.

Political unrest and violence mounted in Iran (20 November 1979), and Bainbridge and her task group moved northward to the Arabian Sea for contingency operations. Iranian Shah Mohammad R. Pahlav? fell in mid-January 1980.

The Al Gore we didn’t get to see, as filmed by Spike Jonze.

Like a lot of my friends I’m watching developments in Lebanon and the Middle East as closely as I can and trying to explain to others who stop by my table at Phoenix with questions: what the feck is going on. I do my best but it’s getting more and more frustrating. Two quotes from this BBC piece are instructive.

The first is a quote from Fouad Siniora, the prime minister of Lebanon who told the BBC that Israel was: “opening the gates of hell and madness” on his country.

No Mr. Prime Minister. Israel opened no gates. That happened when the democratically elected government of Lebanon (that would by you, Mr. Prime Minister) allowed thugs and terrorists to set up shop on your soverign soil and then attack another sovereign nation from your country.

You have no one to blame buy your own ineffectual self, Mr. Prime Minister. The responsibility for the death and destruction of your citizens and their property rests on your shoulders. No weaseling allowed.

The second quote is from the other prime minister involved in escalating war: Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Israel. The BBC quotes Prime Minister Olmert as asserting that Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers last week was timed to divert attention from Tehran’s nuclear programme. This has been my understanding from the beginning.

That Iran grossly underestimated Prime Minister Olmert is plainly obvious. As my friend Cavana and I discussed this morning, there is always a lot of infighting among Israeli politicians, but when the nation is attacked, that all quickly disappears. Iran somehow missed that lesson.

My regular readers know that I’m no fan of President George Bush, but I have to say that not since the early days of the invasion of Afghanistan and the rousting of the Taliban has he wielded America’s international moral authority more clearly.

My Soundtrack: Champion by Professor Murder on WOXY.

Every time I think I have my mind wrapped around the genocide in Darfur, a new piece of information gets tossed on the table and I have to re-evaluate everything I thought I knew. From All Africa comes this 15-part series by Alex de Waal that takes the peace accord paragraph by paragraph. It is sad that it takes so much paper to say: place nice.

Tonight I will drink tequila and dream of a screaming Vincent Black Shadow hurtling along the razor’s obsidian edge after midnight. I will replay visions of what the Doctor ordered on the advice of his attorney and know that there was nothing else to be done when you got down to it. Happy birthday Hunter. I still miss you.

As the Christianists dance in the streets praying to be taken up and the Islamists cavort in the wadis to the flash and roar of their masters’ rockets, the World is going to shit. The Ha Aretz columnist Ari Shavit has a suggestion: a do-over, a unilateral cease fire by Israel. But only for 72 hours. Hell, Jack Bauer would do it in 24.

…the war should be started over: Hold fire. Declare a unilateral cease-fire for 72 hours. Make the international community responsible for resolving the problem of the northern border by nonviolent means within that period.

Make it clear that Israel is not an unthinking bully that lashes out in every direction, but rather a responsible, orderly country, which is demanding that a zealous terrorist organization be removed from its border, that it stop threatening the lives of Israel’s citizens and that it release the soldiers it kidnapped entirely unprovoked from Israel’s sovereign territory.

Such a cease-fire, accompanied by an all-out political and informational campaign, would restore to Israel the moral high ground it lost over the past few days, when it attacked airport runways, bridges and civilian buildings. Such a cease-fire would enable the Israel Defense Forces to plan thoroughly and meticulously a crushing and focused military campaign that will lead to Hezbollah’s defeat.

…above all, the cease-fire would serve to redefine what is now mistakenly perceived as a savage war between two savage and bloodthirsty tribes. It would serve to make clear to Israel’s civilians, to Israel’s soldiers and to the international community what we are killing for in this war, and for what we are being killed. We are killing and being killed for our border. We are killing and being killed for our liberty. We are killing and being killed for our very existence as a free society.

And if the International community fails to remove Hezbollah from Israel’s northern border in 72 hours? Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

My Soundtrack: Cast It At The Setting Sail by Danielson on WOXY.

Everybody is focusing on what President George Bush said on an open mike, but what I found much more interesting was what Prime Minister Tony Blair said. In responding to President Bush’s statement that I think Condi (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) is going to go (to the Middle East) pretty soon, Blair said:

See, if she goes out she’s got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk.

Just go out and talk? Chew the fat? No need to accomplish anything. Just have a nice little chat over tea and biscuits.

And this is diplomacy?

My Soundtrack: Still Rough by Heather Duby on WOXY.

Violence is the last resort of the incompetent. — Issac Asimov.
From Scott Stantis.

No. This is not one of those awful word problems from Mr. Dunkett’s third period math class where you have to figure how far that damn bee flies between the two cars. But it does still require a bit of thinking outside of the box. And just so you don’t go postal, you’ll find the answer in the first comment. From my dad:

You are traveling in a car at a constant speed.

On your left side is a double decker bus and on your right side is a fire engine traveling at the same speed as you.

In front of you is a galloping pig which is the same size as your car and you cannot overtake it.

Behind you is a helicopter flying at ground level.

Both the giant pig and the helicopter are also traveling at the same speed as you.

What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?

Answer in the comments.

My Soundtrack: Sour Shores by Portastatic on WOXY.

This is what happens when you ignore necessary chores. Its been nearly 10 months (and one hard drive crash) since I’ve mucked out the stable so this is the second of three posts. These all struck my fancy for one reason or another as potential blog topics. I confess that I have little idea why they did. So, back to shovelling: scoop, lever, heave, scoop, lever…

Adjustable Mr. Coffee Burr Mill
World Wide Words
Halliburton Building Concentration Camps
Urban Paradoxes
Wolfgang’s Vault
Japan: The Slow Life
Slow Life City
Slow
Slow Life and Semantic Architecture
The Long Now Foundation
Camp Quest
Where Did We Come From, Mommy?
Think Again!
Perspectives of High School Dropouts
Riddley Walker
The Prohibition Era
Online Dictionaries And Translators
Your Dictionary
Lee Fitch Watercolors
Art Pro

My Soundtrack: Everyday by Dios 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.

…caffeine is nothing more than a natural insecticide, and the high caffeine levels protect the seed from unwanted attention. Hapless insects who ingest too much find their nervous systems go into overdrive. p. 21

My Soundtrack: Tales Of Endurance by Supergrass on WOXY.