Terrorism Information and Prevention System

Also known as TIPS.

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From Rick Moranis:

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Something Else

By RICK MORANIS

Published: May 14, 2010

Rick Moranis is a writer and actor.

Almost a decade ago

We didn't know the half of it.

Push Poll

Response to The Peacemakers' question "Has anyone here ever been polled about ANYTHING?"

Polled?
Well yeah -
In 2003 my phone rang between this and that (before caller ID), and when I got to the "Hello?" part, the caller asked if I had a couple of minutes to respond to a supposedly objective phone questionnaire. About nuclear "energy."
I said "Sure," thinking maybe my responses to a professional "objective" questionnaire might make a difference. And in late spring of 2003 - for some reason - I was Pretty Pissed Off about things.
Imagine that - late spring 2003 and pissed off. Go figure.
Anyway, when the caller eventually pressed me about why I was so against the "wonder-solution" of nukes, I said something or other which now I can only paraphrase: something like "That nuclear shit never completely flushes down, but it creeps out of the bowl at night and clings to every living thing in the house until everything suffocates or starves. Horribly."
The caller jumped quickly to the first half of one of those sell-to-the-skeptic TV detergent ads - in this instance for the Wonderful Yucca Potty as the alternative to worse value.
I demurred.
The caller's response? A collage of factoids forming a tableau of the blessings of mineral modernity, leading to something like "Would you - given the perils of our privation of a 'viable energy source' - still be against burying nuclear wast under a hill in some far-away Nevada people's back yard - even if that meant all the children would die?"
That's what a "push poll" looks like. And I guess I'm a baby-killer.
But I still don't trust polls - even the ones whose results I agree with - unless I've seen the questions and marked in my answers on a paper ballot in November.
How about you?

"I was of three minds" (a classic)

Late winter/early spring:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
by Wallace Stevens

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

One Train May Hide Another

Kenneth Koch:

(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line—
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia
Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may hide another—one colonial may hide another,
One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath
may hide another bath
As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.
One idea may hide another: Life is simple
Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein
One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory
One invention may hide another invention,
One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.
One dark red, or one blue, or one purple—this is a painting
By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,
These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin
May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician
Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but
One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.
A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides
Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in
A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag
Bigger than her mother's bag and successfully hides it.
In offering to pick up the daughter's bag one finds oneself confronted by
the mother's
And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker
May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee
Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love
or the same love
As when "I love you" suddenly rings false and one discovers
The better love lingering behind, as when "I'm full of doubts"
Hides "I'm certain about something and it is that"
And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the
Garden of Eden
Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.
Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.
When you come to something, stop to let it pass
So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,
Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory
Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,
The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading
A Sentimental Journey look around
When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see
If it is standing there, it should be, stronger
And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore
May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk
May hide another, as when you're asleep there, and
One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs
Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the
foot of a tree
With one and when you get up to leave there is another
Whom you'd have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,
One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man
May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.
You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It
can be important
To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.

Equinox

Now the springtime zephyrs urge us to spread our wings and fly (sometimes in pairs) apart.

Remember the bonechilling autumnal gusts that made us clutch together and don garments?

The Great Scarf of Birds – John Updike

Playing golf on Cape Ann in October,

I saw something to remember.

Ripe apples were caught like red fish in nets

of their branches. The maples

were colored like apples,

part orange and red, part green.

The elms, already transparent trees,

seemed swaying vases full of sky. The sky

was dramatic with great straggling V’s

of geese streaming south, mare’s-tails above them.

Their trumpeting made us look up and around.

The course sloped into salt marshes,

and this seemed to cause the abundance of birds.

As if out of the Bible

or science fiction,

a cloud appeared, a cloud of dots

like iron fillings which a magnet

underneath the paper undulates.

It dartingly darkened in spots,

paled, pulsed, compressed, distended, yet

held an identity firm: a flock

of starlings, as much one thing as a rock.

One will moved above the tress

the liquid and hesitant drift.

Come nearer, it became less marvelous,

more legible, and merely huge.

“I never saw so many birds!” my friend exclaimed.

We returned our eyes to the game.

Later, as Lot’s wife must have done,

in a pause of walking, not thinking

of calling down a consequence,

I lazily looked around.

The rise of the fairway above was tinted,

so evenly tinted I might not have noticed

but that at the rim of the delicate shadow

the starlings were thicker and outlined the flock

as an inkstain in drying pronounces its edges.

The gradual rise of green was vastly covered;

I had thought nothing in nature could be so broad

but grass.

And as

I watched, one bird,

prompted by accident or will to lead,

ceased resting; and, lifting in a casual billow,

the flock ascended as a lady’s scarf,

transparent, of gray, might be twitched

by one corner, drawn upward an then,

decided against, negligently tossed toward a chair:

the southward cloud withdrew into the air.

Long had it been since my heart

Had been lifted as it was by the lifting of that great

scarf.

Dancing in the Streets

". . . Swinging, swaying, and records playing -"

Let's not forget, compadres.

" - Summer's here and the time is right . . . : There'll be dancing -

Everywhere."

Nothing to dance for just now though, is there?

So let's just dance for nothing.

Noam Chomsky Reflects

From an interview with Amy Goodman at the Harvard Memorial Church, Cambridge MA. (Rush transcript)

- Sponsored by Harvard U Extension International Relations Club. Democracy Now! Aired 15 March 2010.

The lesson that we ought to learn, there was a split in American public opinion, very sharp split, very visible, in the early ’70s, between elite opinion—you know, newspapers, Harvard faculty and so on—on the one hand, and the general population, on the other. Not the antiwar movement, the general population. In elite opinion, articulate opinion—and that you can read, so it’s easy to document—the most extreme condemnation of the war was that it was a mistake which proved to be too costly. OK, that’s about as far as you can go. Among the public, about 70 percent, in polls, said it’s not a mistake, it’s fundamentally wrong and immoral. OK? It’s a very sharp and significant split. And I think the lesson we ought to learn is, to bring it to today, that, say, when Obama is praised for opposing the war in Iraq because he thought it was a mistake, we should recognize that to be on a par with Nazi generals after Stalingrad who thought that the two-front war was a mistake. The issue isn’t was it a mistake; it’s whether it’s fundamentally wrong and immoral. Well, that’s the lesson that has to be drawn. That’s what the public probably already understands, but we have to do something with them and organize with them.

Thomas Jefferson - Retrieved from the Texas Memory Hole

Alert to all teachers lucky enough to choose your own textbooks and to school boards, administrators, and department heads: Eschew choosing textbooks from publishers that revise content to please the Texas Education Board. All textbooks - not just those that have been revised.

BANNED: A framer, but allegedly a dangerous radical:

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

"Open Wider" music

See the post from Feb 20 2:51 am.
Grooveshark is up again, so - put on your headphones if you have to - now you can hear the tune.

Did the bamboo and baskets calm the beast? Or maybe pandanip?

Bummer - Grooveshark is down

I meant to link the previous post to the audio music. But when I went to retrieve it at this site, I got this message:

To those of you who were redirected here, we apologize.

In an attempt to befriend Asian investors and increase office morale, we here at Grooveshark established some connections with the Chinese black market and imported our very own black-and-white Giant Panda (hereby known as "Pickles"). Unfortunately, due to circumstances no one could have foreseen, Pickles became agitated at the fluorescent lights and near-constant belly rubs and began clawing at our computers.

Pickles is currently thrashing about in the server room, causing the technical difficulties and temporary outage you just experienced. As soon as our interns return from Pier 1 with synthetic bamboo, a picnic basket and an oversized net, we will be able to return the servers back to normal and, if we can, rescue the coder that Pickles has taken as a prize.

Thank you for your patience.

"Open Wider"

"Open Wider"
Music: Flannery and Bird York

Like a mantaray gliding serene through strange farmland,
Newly runaway, I got away clean in your car,
In your hands.
Sliding the warm black tongue highway,
Your hands there, so smooth, between between my legs
The cornfields sigh with freedom
Feel the world open wider
(turning me inside out)
See the trees, wild in the breeze, dancing insane
Quiet older guy
Driving us deep into nowhere
I'm soldered to your side
While stuttering stars, spit and strewn, wink and stare
The wind whips so wildly
From our speed,
Stirring such a frenzy deep in me
My heart becomes unbolted
Feel the world open wider
(turning me inside out)
See the trees, wild in the breeze, dancing insane
Fifteen year old, love hungry girl,
A flower, in the fist of the world
Flying in a fat blue car
Eyes wide, fresh heart
Feel the world open wider
(turning me inside out)
See the trees, wild in the breeze, dancing insane, dancing insane
- Bird York (John Flannery wrote the music I think) from The Velvet Hour

Spring will come: Long-awaited initiation ceremony ("turning me inside out") arrives ambiguous -- at once dark-scary and fresh-liberating - "The cornfields sigh with freedom."

May it ever be a little bit scary and a lot bit liberating - "dancing insane" - like a carnival ride for you.

Let's go again.

Lumpinprollie on the radio 2/19/10

Listen: "What if God Was One of Us?"

Corporate News

Not long ago I was debating someone on television. I thought the discussion was going well until the commercial break when a producer said into my earpiece "be angrier."

"Why should I be angrier?" I asked him, irritated that he hadn't appreciated the thoughtfulness of debate.

"That's how we get channel surfers to stop and watch the program," the producer explained. "Eyeballs are attracted to anger."

At this point I lost my temper.

- Robert Reich, "A Thought on Evan Bayh and Partisan America" Huffington Post 16 Feb 2010.

Paper Democracy

I am on your side 'til we win this fight:

- 'Til we get there.

Seen at a Teabag Rally

Here are some signs, but not all of them. There were some other signs that were just absurd.

Donna Lee

How fast can you think?

Please Do Not Feed the Senators

Please Do Not Feed the Senators

There was the needle that stuck in the camel's eye.

While the swine were cast the cultured pearls.

Now goats and guppies visit the same veterinarian.

And the tit-willow gave birth to a dragon litter.

Some zoo: these buffalos in the bird-bath!

One thing and another being comparatively unequal,

the measurements of poison get a bit off balance.

Penitentiaries remain unimpressed by penitence.

The case of the unhealing wound will be continually reopened.

Which eye at the keyhole for which eye in the mote,

and whose tooth for whose toothache?

But things are looking up (without much hope).

Though more things are still left hanging.

Not high and dry, no, nor quite damp enough for a deluge:

so said the weather expert at closing tim e.

On the whole we regret the absence of thunderbolt.

- James Broughton, "Please Don't Feed the Senators," Evergreen 1:2 (New York: Grove Press, 1957) 108.

Death sucks

Day of Rage -

While the flame of Hope blued, flickered, and then was gone, we lost Zinn - and now Salinger.
Death sucks - whose great business plan was that?
The Dies Irae part (http://tinysong.com/7HRu) of Verdi's Requiem seems to me to shout every human's resentment of god for letting us taste love & hope - and then playing this Bad Practical Joke on us.

Howard - thanks for mixing a bit of hope with our rage.

Jerome - thanks for sharing those siblings - revered older Seymour and Holden; and chummy cohorts Buddy, Franny, and Zooey.

The Invisible Iron Heel

"The invisible hand has let go of the common good and our values. [Adam] Smith without a moral framework the market really can't function properly, and Schumpeter, Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian economist, said, 'When there's no ethical sensibility, the market ends up devouring every other sector and finally ends up devouring itself.'"

- Jim Wallace on Tavis Smiley.

Nuclear Energy

Pick up your revolver. Put one shell in a chamber. Give the cylinder a spin. Place the business end of the barrel firmly against either temple (your own). Pull the trigger.

Maybe the Ultimate Solution.

Pretty Words

But consistent?

“No Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint - no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or the Red Cross worker, or even a person of one's own faith."
- US President Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech 10 December 2009.

"I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world.”
- President Obama, same speech.

"It should be more easy to get out of war than into it."

My ancestor Oliver uttered these words in 1787 at the (US) Constitutional Convention. Moyers cites this in this week's comment.

Ekphrasis

What I really meant to send to Alice & Gloryoski:

EKPHRASIS or "ecphrasis" is the graphic, often dramatic description of a visual work of art. In ancient times it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis, 'out' and 'speak' respectively, verb ekphrazein, to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name. ("Ekphrasis." WIKIPEDIA. Web. 2 Dec. 2009) Here's one from that amazing old pacifist Homer - regarding the shield Achilles' mother (Thetis) persuaded his metalsmith stepfather underground god (Hephaestus) to make for her little warrior (asshole) boy:

- - - (478) First of all he forged a shield that was huge and heavy, elaborating it about, and threw around it a shining triple rim that glittered, and the shield strap was cast of silver. There were five folds composing the shield itself, and upon it he elaborated many things in his skill and craftsmanship. (483) He made the earth upon it, and the sky, and the sea's water, and the tireless sun, and the moon waxing into her fullness, and on it all the constellations that festoon the heavens, the Pleiades and the Hyades and the strength of Orion and the Bear, whom men give also the name of the Wagon, who turns about in a fixed place and looks at Orion and she alone is never plunged in the wash of the Ocean. (490) On it he wrought in all their beauty two cities of mortal men. And there were marriages in one, and festivals. They were leading the brides along the city from their maiden chambers under the flaring of torches, and the loud bride song was arising. The young men followed the circles of the dance, and among them the flutes and lyres kept up their clamour as in the meantime the women standing each at the door of her court admired them. The people were assembled in the market place, where a quarrel had arisen, and two men were disputing over the blood price for a man who had been killed. One man promised full restitution in a public statement, but the other refused and would accept nothing. Both then made for an arbitrator, to have a decision; and people were speaking up on either side, to help both men. But the heralds kept the people in hand, as meanwhile the elders were in session on benches of polished stone in the sacred circle and held in their hands the staves of the heralds who lift their voices. The two men rushed before these, and took turns speaking their cases, and between them lay on the ground two talents of gold, to be given to that judge who in this case spoke the straightest opinion.(509) But around the other city were lying two forces of armed men shining in their war gear. For one side counsel was divided whether to storm and sack, or share between both sides the property and all the possessions the lovely citadel held hard within it. But the city's people were not giving way, and armed for an ambush. Their beloved wives and their little children stood on the rampart to hold it, and with them the men with age upon them, but meanwhile the others went out. And Ares led them, and Pallas Athene. These were gold, both, and golden raiment upon them, and they were beautiful and huge in their armour, being divinities, and conspicuous from afar, but the people around them were smaller. These, when they were come to the place that was set for their ambush, in a river, where there was a watering place for all animals, there they sat down in place shrouding themselves in the bright bronze. But apart from these were sitting two men to watch for the rest of them and waiting until they could see the sheep and the shambling cattle, who appeared presently, and two herdsmen went along with them playing happily on pipes, and took no thought of the treachery. Those others saw them, and made a rush, and quickly thereafter cut off on both sides the herds of cattle and the beautiful flocks of shining sheep, and killed the shepherds upon them. But the other army, as soon as they heard the uproar arising from the cattle, as they sat in their councils, suddenly mounted behind their light-foot horses, and went after, and soon overtook them. These stood their ground and fought a battle by the banks of the river, and they were making casts at each other with their spears bronze-headed; and Hate was there with Confusion among them, and Death the destructive; she was holding a live man with a new wound, and another one unhurt, and dragged a dead man by the feet through the carnage. The clothing upon her shoulders showed strong red with the men's blood. All closed together like living men and fought with each other and dragged away from each other the corpses of those who had fallen.(541) He made upon it a soft field, the pride of the tilled land, wide and triple-ploughed, with many ploughmen upon it who wheeled their teams at the turn and drove them in either direction. And as these making their turn would reach the end-strip of the field, a man would come up to them at this point and hand them a flagon of honey-sweet wine, and they would turn again to the furrows in their haste to come again to the end-strip of the deep field. The earth darkened behind them and looked like earth that has been ploughed though it was gold. Such was the wonder of the shield's forging(550) He made on it the precinct of a king, where the labourers were reaping, with the sharp reaping hooks in their hands Of the cut swathes some fell along the lines of reaping, one after another, while the sheaf-binders caught up others and tied them with bind-ropes. There were three sheaf-binders who stood by, and behind them were children picking up the cut swathes, and filled their arms with them and carried and gave them always; and by them the king in silence and holding his staff stood near the line of the reapers, happily. And apart and under a tree the heralds made a feast ready and trimmed a great ox they had slaughtered. Meanwhile the women scattered, for the workmen to eat, abundant white barley.(561) He made on it a great vineyard heavy with clusters, lovely and in gold, but the grapes upon it were darkened and the vines themselves stood out through poles of silver. About them he made a field-ditch of dark metal, and drove all around this a fence of tin; and there was only one path to the vineyard, and along it ran the grape-bearers for the vineyard's stripping. Young girls and young men, in all their light-hearted innocence, carried the kind, sweet fruit away in their woven baskets, and in their midst a youth with a singing lyre played charmingly upon it for them, and sang the beautiful song for Linos in a light voice, and they followed him, and with singing and whistling and light dance-steps of their feet kept time to the music. (573) He made upon it a herd of horn-straight oxen. The cattle were wrought of gold and of tin, and thronged in speed and with lowing out of the dung of the farmyard to a pasturing place by a sounding river, and beside the moving field of a reed bed. The herdsmen were of gold who went along with the cattle, four of them, and nine dogs shifting their feet followed them. But among the foremost of the cattle two formidable lions had caught hold of a bellowing bull, and he with loud lowings was dragged away, as the dogs and the young men went in pursuit of him. But the two lions, breaking open the hide of the great ox, gulped the black blood and the inward guts, as meanwhile the herdsmen were in the act of setting and urging the quick dogs on them. But they, before they could get their teeth in, turned back from the lions, but would come and take their stand very close, and bayed, and kept clear.(587) And the renowned smith of the strong arms made on it a meadow large and in a lovely valley for the glimmering sheepflocks, with dwelling places upon it, and covered shelters, and sheepfolds.(590) And the renowned smith of the strong arms made elaborate on it a dancing floor, like that which once in the wide spaces of Knossos Daidalos built for Ariadne of the lovely tresses. And there were young men on it and young girls, sought for their beauty with gifts of oxen, dancing, and holding hands at the wrist. These wore, the maidens long light robes, but the men wore tunics of finespun work and shining softly, touched with olive oil. And the girls wore fair garlands on their heads, while the young men carried golden knives that hung from sword-belts of silver. At whiles on their understanding feet they would run very lightly, as when a potter crouching makes trial of his wheel, holding it close in his hands, to see if it will run smooth. At another time they would form rows, and run, rows crossing each other. And around the lovely chorus of dancers stood a great multitude happily watching, while among the dancers two acrobats led the measures of song and dance revolving among them.(606) He made on it the great strength of the Ocean River which ran around the uttermost rim of the shield's strong structure. (transl. Richard Lattimore)

PS: When you read Homer, you draw with him an overarching conclusion: War is destructive bullshit. Glory - I love LeGuin; still figuring out how to dance with Rilke. Alice - xoxo T&A

Superpower to the People: An Allegory

People v. US Might

Glass-Steagall Repeal Redux

More from Bernie Sanders from our friends at Democracy Now!

Glass-Steagall Act Repeal

from a William Kaufman piece that videopal posted 10 April 2009 on the page titled Common Ground:

The Glass-Steagall Act, passed in 1933, mandated the separation of commercial and investment banking in order to protect depositors from the hazards of risky investment and speculation. It worked fine for fifty years until the banking industry began lobbying for its repeal during the 1980s, the go-go years of Reaganesque market fundamentalism, an outlook embraced wholeheartedly by mainstream Democrats under the rubric "neoliberalism."

The main cheerleader for the repeal was Phil Gramm, the fulsome reactionary who, until he recently shoved his foot even farther into his mouth than usual, was McCain's chief economic advisor.

But wait . . . as usual, the Democrats were eager to pile on to this reversal of New Deal regulatory progressivism -- fully 38 of 45 Senate Democrats voted for the repeal (which passed 90-8), including some famous names commonly associated with "progressive" politics by the easily gulled: Dodd, Kennedy, Kerry, Reid, and Schumer. And, of course, there was the inevitable shout of "yea" from the ever-servile corporate factotum Joseph Biden, Barack Obama's idea of a tribune of "change"--if by change one means erasing any lingering obstacle to corporate domination of the polity.

This disgraceful bow to the banking industry, eagerly signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1999, bears a major share of responsibility for the current banking crisis. Here's the complete roll call of shame:

REPUBLICANS FOR (52): Abraham, Allard, Ashcroft, Bennett, Brownback, Bond, Bunning, Burns, Campbell, Chafee, Cochran, Collins, Coverdell, Craig, Crapo, DeWine, Domenici, Enzi, Frist, Gorton, Gramm (Tex.), Grams (Minn.), Grassley, Gregg, Hegel, Hatch, Helms, Hutchinson (Ark.), Hutchison (Tex.), Inhofe, Jeffords, Kyl, Lott, Lugar, Mack, McConnell, Murkowski, Nickles, Roberts, Roth, Santorum, Sessions, Smith (N.H.), Smith (Ore.), Snowe, Specter, Stevens, Thomas, Thompson, Thurmond, Voinovich and Warner.

DEMOCRATS FOR (38): Akaka, Baucus, Bayh, Biden, Bingaman, Breaux, Byrd, Cleland, Conrad, Daschle, Dodd, Durbin, Edwards, Feinstein, Graham (Fla.), Hollings, Inouye, Johnson, Kennedy, Kerrey (Neb.), Kerry (Mass.), Kohl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Lincoln, Moynihan, Murray, Reed (R.L), Reid (Nev.), Robb, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Schumer, Torricelli and Wyden.

REPUBLICANS AGAINST(1): Shelby.

DEMOCRATS AGAINST(7): Boxer, Bryan, Dorgan, Feingold, Harkin, Mikulski and Wellstone.

NOT VOTING: 2 REPUBLICANS (2): Fitzgerald (voted present) and McCain.

*

Who's in charge here now, really?

Won't Get Fooled Again

We keep saying that, but we keep getting fooled: "Meet the new boss - same as the old boss."

"The partyng on the left is now partyng on the right."

"I know that they hypnotize - never 'lie.'"

As for me - "I move myself and my family aside / If we happen to be left half alive."

I could go on. Find your own favorite lines.

Save energy! Put people back on the job!

Let's work our way out of the twenty-first century Depression. Bernie Sanders:

Stop Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccinations

Keep yer damn lab shit outta my family's bloodstream!

http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/June-2009/Swine-Flu-Vaccine--Will-We-Have-A-Choice--by-Barba.aspx

That Said

What's with all the unnecessary gibberish syllables people are increasingly attaching to their utterances? For example the phrase "that said," after making some point. First of all, this is obvious if the listener/reader has been paying attention at all. Second, it usually suggests a prelude to presenting another perspective, which could more meaningfully be conveyed with the word "however" or meaningfully and briefly with "but."

Or how about "It is what it is"? Gee! Really?

How does "in and of itself" differ from "in itself"?

Some forms of "to be able to" seem increasingly to replace "can" or "could." Or to appear for no reason at all, as in "When Gallileo looked through his telescope at the moons of Jupiter and at the motions of the other planets, he was able to conclude that Copernicus was right about the turn of the earth." This could more economically be put like this: ". . . he concluded that . . . ."

In his essay "Politics and the English Language" Orwell called these "verbal false limbs" and warned that exposure to blather like these (and some other forms - see his essay) threatens collectively to make our minds lazy. This is already happening.

These are just a few examples. Here are some more.

Kurt Vonnegut

From Armageddon in Retrospect:

We don't fear death, and neither should you. You know what Socrates said about death, in Greek. of course? "Death is just one more night."

As a Humanist, I love science. I hate superstition, which would never have given us A-bombs.

I love science, not only because it has given us the means to trash the planet, and I don't like it here. It has found the answer to one of the biggest questions: How did the Universe begin, and how did we and all the other animals get the wonderful bodies we have, with eyes and brains and kidneys and so on?

OK. So Science sent the Hubble telescope out into space, so it could capture light and the absence thereof, from the very beginning of time. And the telescope really did that. So now we know there was once absolutely nothing, such a perfect nothing that there wasn't even nothing or once. Can you imagine that? You can't, because there isn't even nothing to imagine.

But then there was this great big BANG! And that's where all this crap came from.

This is a blast

I was kind of like the inciter guy in this short after I survived brain surgery. I think people at work thought I was stealing stuff.

The House - Richard Wilbur

THE HOUSE
by Richard Wilbur

Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes
For a last look at that white house she knew
In sleep alone, and held no title to,
And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.
What did she tell me of that house of hers?
White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;
A widow’s walk above the bouldered shore;
Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.
Is she now there, wherever there may be?
Only a foolish man would hope to find
That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.
Night after night, my love, I put to sea.

(The New Yorker AUGUST 31, 2009)

At least Mom got out alive!

I know what you might be thinking. Mom is dead, some year and a half. So that's just ignorant. I say no, no it's not! Mom got out somewhat unscathed. She died in her sleep on her favorite couch, in her most favorite abode. The couch of all transgression, god forbid! When mom broke her hip and was finally released to her home, she had a visiting nurse whom she loved - Anne - St Anne who loved mom reciprocally. She listened to all Mom's political ravings (Anne-sorry to say I always egged her on).
Well, after her hospital rehab for a hip joint replacement, mom was assigned a youngish- ornery physical therapist who came every other day to bark at her. He told her and she then told me that her furniture, (especially her couch) was unacceptable for her to relax on. I said ok what did he suggest we get?
Mom: Who knows? Oh yeah? What did he know? Brat! He was just a young very unhappy man. Well apparently he did himself in (and her consequentially) when he showed up at a random time in the summer. Mom kept her screen door and windows open. He saw her 'sitting on the dreaded couch' and threatened her that if he ever caught her sitting on THAT couch again, he'd personally throw the damn thing on the lawn.
Mom wasn't easily threatened- in fact she took it as a challenge, and she practically started to live on the couch, in utter defiance of the stocky little man who seemed to her to arrive just in time to torture her in some way. Mom and I decided he was just a dick-and he was.
His last visit to her before he imploded was another unannounced visit. Knowing mom she may have been washing dishes and saw him coming and got her butt right over to 'The Couch' and snuggled right in there just to irk him. "Hello? Someone there?"
According to her report to me, he finally imploded and did a Rumpelstiltskin hissey fit and ran out the door yelling back to her, " You will never see me again!"
Mom was gleeful, but guilty, when I showed up. "I finally got rid of that nasty little man!"
What? I thought, another carcass on the superhighway of mom's intolerance?
I was really proud of her, even though I was put into a position to rescue her from the status quo. I wasn't prepared for that, as in why don't they give manuals when you have a new baby? I called Anne. Anne, saint Anne took this all in and also considered when she met up with me, that I was the antagonist, which she accepted without scorn, saint that she was. She came right over and brought a new, unconventional caretaker for Mom, some lovey- dovey- tiny- Korean woman, who babied mom and was very touchy-touchy. Mom was appalled. She hated touchy-feely-gushy people. At the end of this mortal coil for mom, she tried to give up that belief, with caveats. Like forgetting her appointment with the nice woman by mistake on purpose.
Anne was eventually recommissioned and moved on to her new assignment, but never forgot about mom and kept up on all the goings on. Mom continued to believe that Anne was her Guardian Angel- who else could she be? I was inclined to agree.
On Dec 22, 2007, Mom died on her beloved couch. She won in the final inning. She used all of her great talents to unseat the nasties, and for someone who always took the "Golden Rule' very seriously, in the end realized the golden rule applied to her being as well. God love and good deserved rest Mom!

Wendy's Baconator Sandwich

What has the food industry done? They've taken the fat, sugar, and salt; they've put it on every corner. They've made it available 24/7. They've made it socially acceptable to eat at any time. They've added the emotional gloss of advertising. Look at an ad: you'll love it; you'll want it. They've made food into entertainment. We're living, in fact, in a food carnival. - Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler


http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/3/former_fda_commissioner_david_kessler_the

Till We Get There

I am on your side.

The Lumpen

Black Panther Party band

All power to the people!

Whistleblowers

We can be heroes just for one day.

Full Spectrum Dominance

It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering.

Fripp: Exposure (dir. Chris Stein). Again - http://tinyurl.com/lmu597

The Troublemaker

Separate were heaven and earth, good and bad, birth and death. Day and Night never mixed. Woman was woman and man was man.

But Exu, the errant bandit of Africa, liked to entertain himself by provoking outlandish minglings. And he is still at it.

His devilish tricks erase borders, join what the gods divided. Thanks to his clever deeds the sun turns black and the night burns bright. From the pores of men sprout women and women sweat men. The dying are born, the born are dying. For everything created or yet to be created, backward and forward get so confused you can never tell boss from bossed or up from down.

Later rather than sooner, divine order reestablishes its hierarchies and geographies, and everything and everyone gets put in place. But sooner rather than later, madness reappears.

Then the gods lament that the world is such a difficult place

--Eduardo Galleano, "The Troublemaker." Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. Tr. Mark Fried. (New York: Nation Books, 2009) p.2.

"So What?"

Masters of blues:

The American Empire is Bankrupt

Chris Hedges:

"This week marks the end of the dollar's reign as the world's reserve currency. It marks the beginning of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signifies the last gasp of the American imperium. That's over. It's not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful."

Did they get you to talk or did you hold out?

Thanks a lot -  RMN, LBJ, Milton Friedman's Chicago Boys, RR, (& GRF) and, yes, even JEC and WGC:  http://tinyurl.com/m8h5dy

War is Sin

Chris Hedges:

The crisis faced by combat veterans returning from war is not simply a profound struggle with trauma and alienation.  It is often, for those who can slice through the suffering to self-awareness, an existential crisis.  War exposes the lies we tell ourselves about about ourselves.  It rips open the hypocrisy of our religions and secular institutions.  Those who return from war have learned something which is often incomprehensible to those who have stayed home.  We are not a virtuous nation.  God and fate have not blessed us above others.  Victory is not assured.  War is neither glorious nor noble.  And we carry within us the capacity for evil we ascribe to those we fight.

Those who return to speak this truth, such as members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, are our contemporary prophets.  But like all prophets they are condemned and ignored for their courage.  They struggle, in  a culture awash in lies, to tell what few have the fortitude to digest. . . . 

Marx's Relevance Right Now

Also:

http://tinyurl.com/lb7kur

Remember when WalMart lobbied in favor of upping the minimum wage?

Williiam Carlos Williams "The Dance"

 . . . . Kicking and rolling about  / the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those / shanks must be sound to bear up under such / rollicking measures, prance as they dance / in Breughel's great picture, the Kermess

Night

Back when she was a child, Helena pretended to be sleeping and then slipped out of bed.
She dressed all in white, as if it were Sunday, and without a sound snuck out on the patio to discover the mysteries of the Tuscuman night.
Her parents slept, her sisters as well.
She wanted to see how the night changed and how the moon and stars moved. Someone had told her that the heavenly bodies shifted and sometimes fell, and that as the night advanced they changed color.
That night of nights, Helena watched without blinking. Her neck ached, her eyes hurt. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. She looked and kept on looking, but the sky did not change and the moon and stars remained firmly in their places.
Dawn awakened her. Helena shed a tear.
Later, she consoled herself with the thought that night doesn't like anyone spying on its secrets.

- Eduardo Galeano, "Night." Voices of Time: A Life in Stories. Trans. Mark Fried (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006) 40.

Torture

The debate about whether "human rights" can ever truly be separated from politics and economics is not unique to Latin America; these are questions that surface whenever states use torture as a weapon of policy. Despite the mystique that surrounds it, and the understandable impulse to treat it as aberrant behavior beyond politics, torture is not particularly complicated or mysterious. A tool of the crudest kind of coercion, it crops up with great predictability whenever a local despot or a foreign occupier lacks consent to rule: Marcos in the Philippines, the shah in Iran, Saddam in Iraq, the French in Algeria, the Israelis in the occupied territories, the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. The list could stretch on and on. The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system--whether political, religious or economic--that is rejected by large numbers of the people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain "indicator species" of plants and birds, torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections

As a means of extracting information during interrogations, torture is notoriously unreliable, but as a means of terrorizing and controlling populations, nothing is quite as effective. It was for this reason that, in the fifties and sixties, many Algerians grew impatient with French liberals who expressed their moral outrage over news that their soldiers were electrocuting and water-boarding liberation fighters--and yet did nothing to end the occupation that was the reason for these abuses.

-- Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine (New York: Picador, 2007), 155-156.

Harold and Maude

HAROLD: You sure have a way with people.

MAUDE: Well, they're my species!

Lumpenproletariat

lum-pen-pro-le-tar-i-at
noun
(esp. in Marxist terminology) the unorganized and unpolitical lower orders of society who are not interested in revolutionary advancement.

ORIGIN early 20th cent.: from German (a term originally used by Karl Marx), from Lumpen "rag, rogue" + PROLETARIAT.

Oxford American Dictionaries

Desiree & Medea's Great Act at the Correspondents' Dinner

The best act didn't make the main stage.

Nassim Taleb in one of his sunniest moods

from OPACITY: WHAT WE DO NOT SEE

#111:  Some people think they attend opera for the story.

It is the same with language.  Language is largely made to show-off,  gossip, confuse people, delude them, charm them, seduce them, exploit them, etc.  And as a side effect, convey information.  Just a side effect, you fools.

Honeymoon's Over for Obama ( with more thanks to Taibbi)

Weird decisions from the get-go.  More Goldman Sachs thieves?  Talk about crooked cops!

Taleb's Ten Principles for a Black Swan free world

As I understand it a "black swan" is an odious random circumstance that affects history.  You could probably think of some.

Eric Cantor: Flunkie for Extortionist Thugs

Gosh I'd hate to see anything happen to your paycheck. How's the wife and kids?

One of the Heroes

Someone who reminds us that (abridging Frank Zappa) it's great to be alive.

Usury & foreclosures - not so much.

Larisa Alexandrovna on shabby reporting

At a recent John Edwards appearance at Brown.  Sad.

Anybody Want More War?

We got it!

Christopher Smart

18th century English poet.  From poets.org

My Love

My Love

I feel you

Like I felt you

Over time when I called you

And I searched for your face

In all of the small towns

And wondered what it would be like

If we passed each other on the street

I feel you now

Is it you? Is it?

My spine tingles

My sleep is fitful

As I reach for you, but you aren’t there

I wake smiling and the dream

Dances on through my day

Tide of Anger

Naomi Klein

Dharma

The way the dog runs out through the front door

every morning

without a hat or an umbrella,

without any money

or the keys to her doghouse

never fails to fill the saucer of my heart

with milky admiration.

Who provides a better example

of a life without encumbrance--

Thoreau in his curtainless hut

with a single plate, a single spoon?

Ghandi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world

with nothing but her brown coat

and her modest blue collar,

following only her wet nose,

the twin portals of her steady breathing,

followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside

every morning

and eat all his food

what a model of self-containment she

would be

what a paragon of earthly detachment.

If only she were not so eager

for a rub behind the ears,

so acrobatic in her welcomes,

if only I were not her god.

Billy Collins 1974

The Pope Knows

I haven't written and I feel sooo guilty! There is so much on my mind, I am glad that the election is over and I believe I may throw my hat in for my town Board. It's an actual paying job, which has been a problem in this last year. Not much to be made on unemployment after Cobra payments. What a world!

The most distressing situation has been the murder by shelling and dropping of white phosphorous and god knows what all else, on the innocent people of Gaza by Israel. There is no excuse, I feel it is outright genocide. Thank the stars for Jimmy Carter, and the others who took Israel to task and are now threatening war crimes charges.

"The New Weapons Research Committee (NWRC), based in Genoa, Italy, indicated that Israel was "experimenting with new non-conventional weapons on the civilian population in Gaza," similar to those Israel used during its 34-day war on Lebanon in 2006.

The committee, made up of independent scientists and doctors studying non-conventional weapons and their medium-term effects on people, said Israel was using "white phosphorous, dense inert metal explosive (DIME), thermobaric bomb, cluster bombs and uranium ammunitions, and experimented novel weapons and delivery modalities."

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has concurred, saying that Israel was using white phosphorus, and that its own researchers observed multiple shell-bursts of the chemical material on Jan. 9 and 10 near Gaza City and Jabalya refugee camp. HRW urged Israel against using it in its operations in densely-populated areas.

The rights group said while Israel seemed to be using white phosphorous as an "obscurant," which is permitted in principle under international humanitarian law, it is a violation to be used in populated areas.

"White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin," HRW senior military analyst Marc Garlasco said in a statement." (Middle East Times, Monday February 2, 2009 )

So back to the Pope, Ratzinger, who was busy forgiving a holocaust denier bishop, while claiming solidarity with Israel. What do you expect from a former Hitler Youth? See below:

"Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday expressed "solidarity" with the Jews and condemned denial of the Holocaust after lifting the excommunication of a bishop who claims the Nazis did not use gas chambers." (AFP news- Wednesday January 28, 2009)

Anyway, with all of this hypocrisy and lying, I will leave with this thought: Where is the benevolent god that religions supposedly seek? I guess the Pope knows..

Peace

Taibbi on Friedman

Hilarious.

Good News!

Obama Names Michael Copps Acting Head of FCC

After Winter Solstice at the Tropic of Cancer

Todos Santos

A cock crows at dawn.

And then the dog crows.

A few other dogs join in.

The human mutters, resettles

in the bed, and drifts back

toward that dreaming quest--

fitfully; Soon a pickup truck rumbles

up the battered dirtsand roadhills.  By and by

other trucks answer the cantor of the Holy

Muffler Choir.  The human's questing dreams

redirect toward potty and coffee.

A silence.

A distant cock crows.

The human restless resettles and listens

again for the song of Morpheus.  Gets

another burst from the pickup cantor instead.

Bare

footsoles on cool stone clay tiles carry the waking

human another day.

Suspicious Plane Crash

From Larisa Alexandrovna

-This can be found at http://www.atlargely.com, or by clicking the title above.

  Jim gave up trying to eat his hot stew.  "How are we going to go about it, Mac? What do we do first?"

  Mac looked over at him and saw his excitement, and laughed.

"I don't know, Jim.  That's the trouble with reading, you see.  We just have to use any materials we can pick up.  That's why all the tactics in the world won't do it.  No two are exactly alike."  For a while he ate in silence, finished off his stew, and when he exhaled, steam came out of his mouth.  "Enough for another helping, Jim?  I'm hungry."

   Jim went to the kitchen and filled his bowl again.

   Mac said, "Here's the layout.  Torgas is a little valley, and it's mostly apple orchards.  Most of it's owned by a few men.  Of course there's some little places, but there's not very many of them.  Now when the apples are ripe the crop tramps come in and pick them.  And from there they go on over the ridge and south, and pick the cotton.  If we can start the fun in the apples, maybe it will just naturally spread over into the cotton.  Now these few guys that own most of the Torgas Valley waited until most of the crop tramps were already there.  They spent most of their money getting there, of course.  They always do.  And then the owners announced their price cut.  Suppose the tramps are mad?  What can they do?  They've got to work picking apples to get out even."

- John Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle, Chapter 3

Crusades Vol. 2003

There died a myriad,

And the best among them,

For an old bitch gone in the teeth,

For a botched civilization.

- Ezra Pound (who lived conflict/crisis/fall and eventually remorse--sheepishly labeling his pro-Musollini-era anti-Semitism "suburban")

Horoscopes in Hell

6.  Opportunity is knocking again  A window of opportunity is right outside your door.  Here comes yet another shot, one more chance for you to jumpstart what's left of your bleak, grainy, black and white docudrama existence: a utilitarian contingency plan meant to ignite you out of the shadows of blue funk mediocrity and into a splash of daylight focused on the newest edition of yourself.

Right there, center stage, the latest re-invention of you, with your cerebral coagulation of half-baked life experiences that, with a little effort, could possibly be organized and edited into a seamless, low-grade masterpiece.

Even though you are much too far-gone to be famous, there's still time to make a minor miracle of yourself.

Opportunity comes a-knock, knock, knocking in the same deliberate cadence as all the other knocks that failed to make you pop the locks and open up and begin again, once again.

This time around you look surprisingly well-equipped.  You seem to be good and prepared for a change, sleeping there with your boots on.  Gung ho, primed for action and long-suffering, coiled and ready to strike at a moment's notice.  You could be a guerilla warrior.

But maybe I shouldn't jump to conclusions.

Because the  word on the street is that you are a brooding loner, an anti-social recluse, a sad, solitary individual who has been beaten down by a cruel society that refuses to let you anywhere near the borderline of your destiny, so that you find comfort in surrender and curling up and dying.

This is not the code of the guerilla warrior. It sounds like the behavior of a pathetic head case hiding in the dark, restrained by a jambalaya of mental dissonance.

Horoscopically speaking, there is help for you, provided you seize that unannounced golden opportunity, even if it turns out to be just a stainless steel opportunity.  You can't be too choosey.

And keep in mind that Neptune is overseeing your career and Jupiter is covering you love life.  Whatever that means.

How about just going outside and getting the benefit of some sunshine?  Not too much sun, though, or else you'll get arrested by Al Gore for being environmentally incorrect.

If the sky is partly cloudy, stare at the clouds and play Rorschach test.  It's usually good, clean fun until every cloud you see starts looking like erogenous zones of the human body.  Then again, your public display of perverse enjoyment at gazing at the sky might attract that certain someone who may prove to be the kindred spirit of your dreams.  Or it might be a plainclothes cop.  Or both.

Whatever it is, your next chance encounter with an interested member of mankind may be the last bit of opportunity that comes knocking at your lackluster station of life.

So, embrace the opportunity and don't be a jackass.

- Bob Balogh, Greater Backfish Journal (Denver: Outskirts Press, 2007) 87-89.

Power

"You know what they do, Sybil?

     She shook her head.

    "Well, they swim into a hole where there's a lot of bananas.  They're very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in.  But once they get in, they behave like pigs.  Why, I've known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas."  He edged the float and its passenger a foot closer to the horizon.  "Naturally, after that they're so fat they can't get out of the hole again.  Can't fit through the door."

- J.D. Salinger, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"

Before the Dance

The blue lights' shine, lost in the foot-

Prints on the flat, thumpy wooden plain--

Really seven lateral strips of plain

Receding to the backdrop--glistens water

Drops near our feet with bright pointy

Echoes of the blue lights' blue.

Ruff Tuff Cream Puff* - McSame and Buffy Chip

*(With apologies to R Crumb for the title)

Hearing of the visit to Sturgis by McCain and wifey, I became somewhat intrigued as to what the Republican Presidential candidate was trying to prove by going there. Misogyny? Anti Establishment? Curiosity? Does he have a bike? Did he and "Buffy" stay for the week to get the full measure of orgiastic fun and games that only a dictator of the free world could appreciate? All of that could be a motive, definitely the misogynistic piece. Slowly as Saturday became Sunday morning, I let the thoughts go to dream world for some possible reorganization, and eventually it dawned on me that he was an old old man, trying to show that he was the tough guy. He might be thinking you won't see Obama showing up in a tough guy place like this and even offering up a compliant wife to a mud wrestle or wet tee shirt contest- or worse. Yes grandpa showed up sans blackhawk helicopters and special ops guys, but he surely has a team of secret service bodyguards all around and was therefore able to stand on the stage with his tiny tiny wife and taunt the sweaty masses with the prospect of seeing his wife demeaned and used. Well no you wouldn't see Obama there with his beautiful wife with or without the secret service. I can't imagine any presidential candidate showing up there for a photo op. Take a look at what goes on there. I'll leave it at that.

Rogue State

Lumpinprollie has been wondering for a couple of years why other world nations don't come to a consensus that the US is a rogue nation and whether they might collaborate to contain the US by force.  The US must look terrifying from the outside, and by the Bush administration's standards the good old US of A's arsenal (including fully developed WMDs) and international belligerence (preemptive strike = invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation, as we now see) qualifies us as a rogue state.  I use the word "terrifying" deliberately, for Noam Chomsky concurs with LP's premises in the context of terrorism (thanks Alice):  

"I use the U.S. governmenrt's official definition of terrorism from the official U.S. code of laws. If you use that definition, it follows very quickly that the U.S. is the leading terrorist state and a major sponsor of terrorism and since that condlusion is unacceptable, it arouses furious anger. But the problem lies in the unwillingness to recognize your own terrorism as terrorism."

Although US practice of brandishing and too often firing guns around is diplomatically flawed, perhaps an international force will come and liberate the people of the United States. 

Gather rose petals.

Sitting Here in Limbo

The view from this other world away is - breathtaking. The Pacific ocean spans out across the bedroom windows and there are no neighbor's houses blocking the view. I feel so privileged to be here. Anywhere else I would have to be very rich to have this view in this beautiful home that we are living in for a week. I think, maybe some day we will stay here in Mexico- my honey and I, and possibly our families, as exiles. That is, if we are lucky enough to weather the storm of the Bush dynasty on our home back in the US. The weather here is a bit brutal, but it is livable most of the year. I am trying not to look at my 401K, which has been ravaged by the banking industry and Wall street and Bush's war. He thinks the 'conomy is just fine. I keep hearing on the financial news - don't worry - everything will be alright and whatever you do, don't take your money out of the bank. Hmm where have I heard that before? I really don't want to be involved in this whole debacle, I'd just like to stay here in this world of no yesterday and no tomorrow. There is one major drawback, (as if there can be in Limbo). My girlfriend, who lived here for many years, who told me to come visit her here, was fairly recently robbed viciously beaten and left for dead in her little casita, where she lived alone. I did not know this until we were all booked for this trip. She finally answered my emails and told me this. I drive by her house daily on my way to town and each time I feel a chill and I get depressed thinking of her suffering. It makes me sad and fearful and I wish she could be here. (She has since moved back to California). I am searching my soul right now as to how I can still live here. But God, it is beautiful!

Metablog