Monday, December 20, 2010

Microinspection of Andy Reid and Deshawn Jackson

I know I can't get it, but damnit why can't everybody be just a little more like me?

Somebody made a judgement and chose to call Jackson's move a fumble. Head coach Andy Reid chose not to use his protest flag. Haven't seen it? Take a look:

Oh, screw it. I couldn't find one.

It was a close call. The coaches, players and refs work without the benefit of instant replay. Can't we all just get along? Come on, let the zebras do their job! We should do ours and cheer.


Instant replay is killing the game, but not on its own. It is being ferried along by the well-meaning but misguided fans who watch this stuff over and over again and talk the poop out of it until there is no other issue and the game is over.

Our grandcestors gave us a fantastic game. Let's keep it in shape good enough to pass on to our following degene/rate children. The only way this game survives is with us avoiding the urge to tear it apart to win a $050 over/under.

Tonight's eclipse

Very good pagan stuff, this. Can you imagine the last one in 1638? We are all huddled around a fire, waiting out the longest night of the year, when a loud voice proclaims "god is bathing the moon in blood!" We run outside shivering and terrified of the cold and the darkness that protect the wolves and wildcats that lurk in the dark, hoping to make a meal of us. Up we look to the sky and see it: a disk floating where the moon would be, but orange and pink instead...

Eclipse tonight!

Tonight's lunar eclipse will mark the first time since Shakespeare died that we have a full eclipse coincide with the winter solstice. Let's see if there is any after effect. The last time this happened the world was a very different place.

The people that were here in what we now call North America were very different and doubtless had something to say about a blood covered moon on the longest night of winter, but I don't know what that was...

Before last timehttp://www.brainyhistory.com/years/1638.html

After last time  http://www.brainyhistory.com/years/1638.html

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Elizabethan versus Victorian

Just got back from the Dickens Fair at Cow Palace. I think I now know the difference between the Victorian age and the Elizabethen.

And what does In Excelsis Deo mean, anyway?
http://www.sacklunch.net/Latin/G/gloriainexcelsisDeo.html

Not much. But about 200 years.

Gotta go. She is on the silent rampage.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Pigeons

What a bad rap the pigeon has had. Ken Kesey called them "rats with wings." All over every city there are wires and fences and plastic owls with the expressed intent of preventing these rock doves from congregating. Any yet live, they do. In numbers ever increasing.

A gullible person is a ___
Myself, I have heard MYSELF say this a hundred times or more, "(gazing up at some avian acrobat "...is it? No, just a ______."
These super survivors are spectacular evidence of what Whitman meant when he said, "...on and on and on, forever the urge to live..." or something like that.

More later...

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Looking for Uncle Ruthie

Looking for Uncle Ruthie, and her soft introduction to the weekend Saturday morning LA broadcast of children's songs and stories, I instead came upon this piece recounting a Manhattan morning years ago: http://www.halfwaydownthestairs.net/index.php?action=view&id=243

I still haven't found Ruthie. Her broadcast had been overtaken by a pledge drive show, and her archives are eluding me.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The Wall of the Dead List

For myself and my students I have a VERY circumscribed Wall of The Dead. Writing and Research and Reflection prompts, really. The names of a few people who seem to have lived their lives well.

Paul Harvey
Elizabeth Edwards
......


...

President Obama upsets the left

Is THAT what happened? I am reminded of an old joke I used to tell about Jesse Jackson during his presidential candidacy in the 80's:

"Jesse, The Pope and The Press Corps are in a boat on 

the Red Sea......







....

Great News! U.S. Schools Twentieth in World Assessment

Great News! U.S. Schools Twentieth in World Assessment

It IS great news that we can USE!

How? Well, let's not get too complicated with it. If you are twentieth in a running race, what do you do to win?

Now, I know this is more complicated than represented here. I know because I have been an advocate for education all my life. Long before I became a credentialed teacher, or taught in my own classrooms, I...



...

Great News! U.S. Schools Twentieth in World Assessment

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Fear and Loathing in San Francisco

Yeah, the people are nice, but the cats are unbelievable up here...!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

70 % of all lawyers in Liberia are women.

Today is World Aids Day 2010.

Pablo Cassals said that everything is a succession of rainbows.

Mind TV is amazing.

An educated population should know how violent people get weapons they use for killing.

Lots of countries have trouble with elections.

There is flooding in Venezuela today.

Lots of news is not covered on CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox.

Everything looks different when you don’t have shelter and food.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Day 101 of the occupation

Journal 20101120

Start out the day pissed with headache and tired jaw and brainstem. Rise from our newly assembled “Simple Bed” from EQ3, and get to the TV.
    McLaughlin Group
    http://www.mclaughlin.com/
    The guys are knocking it around about Republican domination and the end to monarchy in Britain. 
 Guess what name the opposition has chosen?


...Wait for it!


Yes! The Republicans!


Yes I am serious!

    Yelp for Breakfast in Haight Ashbury
Ended up at Well Kneaded, or, What You Knead, or some cutesy name like that. The waitresses served us artichoke omellettes and acrid coffee for $25.
Found a copy of “David Bowie: Black Book” in a trash pile with “Cat’s Cradle”, “Trainspotting”, “Mexico City Blues”, and a book of short stories. She actually let me keep them, so I let her grab the one called, “Bitch.” Black Book turned out to have several OUTSTANDING photos and factoids of Bowie back in the day, including one brooding one next to a shit-eating-grinning Mick Jagger. Does anyone know if these two have ever collaborated?
Discovered BAM/PFA and resolved to visit with the BMW. Museum and film school at Berkeley.  http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/
NYT Saturday, November 20, 2010:
    * 9/11 plaintiffs settle suit for damages. End to 7 year struggle.
        a MILLION stories here. peanuts for lives. heroic sacrifice met with civic                 indifference. Cold, heartless, heatless urban reality.
        What will these mothers raise their children to worship? the municipality                 that took their lives, their health and threw them coins in return?
        Gut-wrenching tales of the endless patience of the city machine.
        Surprise. “...many plaintiffs were pained by the vigorous legal defense                 mounted by the city as the lawsuits began  flowing in 2003.” How many of                 us work with, in, around, and in compliance and dependency on similar                 bueareaucracies?
    * Pope says that condoms are OK
    * Saudi girls can play sports, but only in burkas
    * Riots in Haiti: Idiotic Panic Rules the Day, or is it?
    * Infrastructure update: The water at our taps may soon stop.
    * No, it’s not 1975! But SALT II missile defense treaties are again front page news
   
Castro Theater Schedule
Roxie Theater Schedule
SFCMT
    San Francisco Children’s Musical Theater
Friedlander at SFMOMA
...and the Gay Area finally gets it’s real wish: Target!

    Search Results

  1. Gala 2010 - Yerba Buena Alliance

  2. Visit the Yerba Buena Neighborhood - the cultural heart of San Francisco! ... Since 1991, the Yerba Buena Alliance has helped promote the Yerba Buena ...

  3. www.yerbabuena.org/site/c.cfLEJUOxHkE/b.4356367/ - Cached - Similar

  4. July 2010 - Yerba Buena Alliance

  5. Target Arts and Wonder FREE FAMILY DAYS - July 16-18. Click here for more ...

  6. www.yerbabuena.org/site/c.cfLEJUOxHkE/b.../k.../July_2010.htm - Cached

  7. Show more results from yerbabuena.org

  8. Target Family Day at Yerba Buena Gardens (San Francisco) on 13 Aug ...

  9. Last.fm concert page for Chelle! and Friends at Yerba Buena Gardens (San Francisco) on 13 Aug 2010. Discuss the gig, get concert tickets, ...

  10. www.last.fm/festival/1514772+Target+Family+Day - Cached

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Delta Death Thursday November 2010

Several news item to follow up on later, if anyone wants to dig:

GM IPO largest ever? Why? How? Implications for average U.S. citizen.

The water just keeps getting hotter: Delta Death: How California's water policy is poisoning the bay-delta estuary

By Patrick Porgans and Lloyd Carter
news@sfbg.com

While Californians were held captive waiting for...

While Californians were held captive waiting for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature to agree on spending cuts and adopt a budget, state officials were throwing hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain and compounding California’s crisis.

Water officials have wasted more than $10 billion and 35 years in extended delays in their failed attempt to carry out their legal mandates to protect the waters of the state and restore the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary.

The result: water quality in the estuary is rapidly declining; fisheries are in crisis; and the proposed solution, an $11 billion bond act set for the ballot in 2012, will only make things worse...

(posted while sfbg.com and sfbayguardian.com sites are down)

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

How to Fail at Mathematics

HOW TO FAIL

  1. Don't study until the weekend. That way you will always be behind. Because you didn't do Monday's homework before Wednesday you won't understand Wednesday's lecture. By the time the weekend rolls around you will have forgotten Monday's lecture, too. You'll be facing eight or ten hours of homework in a subject you haven't looked at in a week, and you'll have to learn it all on your own. Good luck.
  2. Don't read the book. When you come to a homework problem you can't solve search the text for a similar example and try to copy it. Otherwise ignore the text. That way you'll never be able to solve a problem unless you have something to copy or unless it is exactly like one you've seen before. You'll never really understand what's going on.
  3. Do only the easy problems. Better yet, don't do any!
  4. Don't ask questions. Be afraid that you'll look stupid if you do.
Back to G. Jennings' homepage.

Questions? Send email to gjennings@csudh.edu
 
 

Monday, November 15, 2010

Viewpont - Zogby - MHz Network

Just watched a fragment the show "ViewPoint" with a Talking Head Named Zogby. Very informative and worthwhile. Cogent, pointed, yet not blatantly slanted discussion regarding Israel, this one. I think there is little more important than the issues that were touched on by Zogby and the Atlantic Monthly writer that he had on (sorry I missed his name), including polarity and partisan behaviors in the current "lame-duck" congress,

[one of the many wonderful things about san francisco is channel 60-2 KCSMWHz. They have a wide variety of news broadcasts, including Chinese, Taiwanese, Israeli, Al-Jazeera English, French, and more. LOTS of stuff very different than what you will get from the four networks (Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC).
http://www.mhznetworks.org/
http://www.aaiusa.org/dr-zogby/38/viewpoint]



Just watched a fragment the show "ViewPoint" with a Talking Head Named Zogby. Very informative and worthwhile. Cogent, pointed, yet not blatantly slanted discussion regarding Israel, this one. I think there is little more important than the issues that were touched on by Zogby and the Atlantic Monthly writer that he had on (sorry I missed his name), including polarity and partisan behaviors in the current "lame-duck" congress.

Most important to me is the general practice and context of intelligence, curiosity, respect, and tolerance for individuals and ideologies. If we are going to  get through this century, we are going to need to learn how to listen as well as how to speak. If we can get just one percent of the population ACTIVELY involved with government, we can get back to a representative democracy where we don't feel so distanced from DC, Sacramento and the media elite who seem to have the only VIP passes to the show. Gotta go to work. C19 out

Monday, October 25, 2010

Why Juan Williams is wrong

There are two reasons here pertaining to why I object to Juan Williams's response to his dismissal.

One, it is a fight he can not win. He is, like the Eagles sang, 'already gone.' Trying to talk your ex-girlfriend into loving you again never works. Forget about doing it with complaints and vague threats of litigation.

Two, he is so clearly wrong. Let me see if I have the basic elements of the situation: JW (Juan) is a prominent on-air personality hired for his skill at speaking and respected for his intelligence at same. JW says something ridiculous looks stupid and refuses to recant. JW is let go. JW cries about it from the hilltops. Is that about it?

Let's put it in a lottery context. The numbers are about the same:

JW goes on the air and gets all excited because he found a lottery ticket. He even mentions it during an on-air interview. Afterwards, his boss calls him in

Boss  --   "What the hell is going on? Why is a lottery ticket getting air time?

JW  --       "Well, JW says, "I might win enough to quit my job and write full
                 time for FOX!"

Boss --    "Did you win?"

JW   --      "No, but every time I see one of those tickets I get all excited! I
                 mean, you never know!"

Boss   --    "Here, Juan. Here's a couple of tickets. Take the next few days off.
                  You look tired....and stupid."

That being said, I hope everybody buys into Tuesdays Mega Millions. One Hundred Eighteen Million Slama Jammas for my Baby Mama!

Oh and Juan, really, man, I hope I have it wrong. I have listened to you for years and learned and learned and learned. Thank you thank you thank you. You have clearly worked your ass off, and that can't have been easy. I know you will land on your feet. You have as they say MAD SKILLS for broadcasting, you look good and you are smart as a whip. How about something on the Internet? Say ANYTHING you want! No holds barred! Let that big brain fly! This was just a dust up, but it was YOUR dust up and you should own up to it. The ratio of dangerous terrorists to practicing Muslims is about the same as winning lottery tickets to losers. Get some perspective.

I am a teacher

I want my guitar
I want my harmonicas
I want my paper, paints, brushes, books and pencils
I want to use music and drawing to write and to teach

I am scared like crazy about my next classroom – because of my last

I didn't get back up on the horse and now it is a giant
Eisner spoke of an artist who made
tiny men who couldn't ride their giant horses
and giant men without horses their size to mount
which am I
growing, I hope to one, the other, a third, perhaps
I am a writer
I am a teacher
God Damn! Let me get to it!

Respect for your enemies

On my headstone/crypt/final email message: from McCallister statue by SF city hall) "a fearless advocate and a courteous foe"
Micheal Eisner has some good things to say about going to camp and teamwork
Adolf Hitler had some good ideas that we live by today (Olympics, freeways, rocket science, media manipulation). To ignore this is to live the edict of repeating the past by ignoring it.

Deniro in "AWAKENINGS" : "...learn, learn, learn, learn, LEARN!!"

Monday, August 9, 2010

Self Analysis

Where does all the time go? Maybe the problem is in the question. Time doesn't have location, so it doesn't have locomotion. It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't pass by, it doesn't wind down, and it definitely doesn't depart.

I had an idea of how to manage my time better, so of course I went to Google. Turns out that the first page of results for "free time self analysis software" didn't have much that I was looking for, though I don't really know what that is.

I am going to try journaling. Start out with five minutes a day. Maybe use the voice recorder. What is the difference between my scheduled activities and my actual time wasting shit?

If I could just find out why I don't have any money, job, or wife, I know I could be a better man. I just don't have a clue. I make lists, I get depressed. I try, and I try. Still I am turning into that wreck of a creation: the has-been who never was.

Gotta get back to it. Cmdr out

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Mexico is better than Hawaii

I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light.
- Isaac Newton

One lucky year my life included two trips almost on top of each other: Chiapas, Mexico and Kauai, Hawaii. First time to both. I figured that in Hawaii I would be swimming in coffee and pineapples and in Mexico not swimming at all -- a desert --. I packed my own coffee for the trip. Suffice to say for now that I had it all backwards. Hawaii exports 100% of its coffee, so anything you buy there has been shipped TWICE to get there and is from $20-$30/lb. Ditto for pineapples. The best price I found was some guy selling hot ones out of his car for $4 apiece. Chiapas, it turns out, could feed the entire planet. The lush rain-forest is shrinking due in part to commercial farming interests like Dole and Chiquita, but there is still rich farmland. Put a kernel of corn in it and you will often get 3 stalks of maize. One will shoot up. Harvest it - don't pull it - by breaking the stalk and letting the corn dry. Fresh corn is not often eaten in Mexico. It is the staple tortilla around which is built their entire rich menu. Another stalk will grow. Repeat. More later.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Mathematics definition

"Mathematics is the technique of discovering and conveying in the most economical possible way useful rules of reliable reasoning about calculation, measurement, and shape." Lancelot Hogben, "Mathematics in the Making"

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Conspiracy

It takes a pretty fucked up mind to be able to handle the intricacies of College Statistics and still get tripped up on the weak-ass arguments that say that black opps guys ran a game on 330 million of us and took down the Trade Center towers ten years ago with C4 and godknowswhat, so they could tighten their grip on whatever and increase their control of HUH?

I know, I know. I have seen custody battles and estate fights. There is almost -- no nothing -- as desperate as an American who thinks they are one lie away from banking some sweet secret stash. And if there were a team of clowns who could conceive of a way to fake a foreign attack and capitalize, hell, there wouldn't even be any thought about it. Go!

History is written by the winners.

But come on. 3000 people in the buildings?
Another what, 400 in the planes? All not there? All in on the lie? Come on. No, it wasn't a missile that hit the fucking Pentagon. I don't care what the streetlights poles look like. 200 people saw the plane bounce into the building and then either ran away or ran in.

There is plenty of fucked up stuff going on now that we can do something about, and it says plenty that a mature, intelligent, streetwise woman can get this pretzelled over an obvious pass, but hey, what the hell, it doesn't make anybody any stupider to play devil's advocate.

There is always a chance that anything is true.

I am too tired to keep this drivel going.

I love my baby and I am hoping I get to have her again. That is enough to make those two towers stand back up and blow me.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Why I am like this.

Jaye saw it coming, A thousand years ago, soon after I moved into THE DEVONSHIRE HOUSE. I still expected to break 80 every time I teed it up and never did. My clubs suffered then as a result. I would throw them, whack them on the ground, and penalize THEM for shots I had hit. One time at Malibu (back when it was still PL) I ended up 2 and 12. Every club but my Armour 2 wood and Ironmaster putter (that I got straight from the hand of Chris Schock) was snapped in two over my left knee.
I worked it into a nice ritual: I would walk down the fairway to my drive and plan my second shot. If I didn't like the outcome, snap! One quick one over the knee and both pieces tossed in my Jones carry bag. By the time of the end of the round I almost couldn't carry the bag on account of it was so bottom heavy.

While untreated, my depression was like a wall a thousand feet tall. I didn't have the will to even consider trying to climb it. Yes, I know. Lazy. And I agree. And I hated myself for it and willed myself to change, and wrote lists and joined churches and fucked it all up with the greatest of intentions and what the hell do I do now that I am 52 and it is still going on and may be worse now? Suck it up, I say. TCB. Or like Alika used to say at quite high volume, "TAKE CARE OF YOUR SHIT, MAN!"
It is just that I have to try to explain it someway; the old shrug of the shoulders doesn't cut it with prospective employers. “What's with the last three years?” they want to know. Me, too. Add my wife to the list.

Jaye fixed them all. Pretty sure it was a set of Confidence IIs. Nice True Temper shafts (like there was anything else) and Green Victory grips. Until I couldn't pay him and then he took me on as apprentice. Allegedly I was a club repair technician in training, but I was really majoring in being a junior drug addict. I worked good for a while and then started moping around and he said, "Oh, no. Don't go getting blue on me!"  I took a walk and came back a couple of weeks later. Just remembering that moment kind of makes my blood run cold. How could I know what the hell was going on with me?  Shit. I still don't and it is thirty years later. If I had known, could I have done anything about it? I don't know. Maybe he does. I see where he is working at Sepulveda lately. Maybe I'll go out and see the old vulture.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Free Association

I should be more bummed, but I'm not. I should be more stuck, but I'm not. I am one day deeper into this long, long string of unworkingness, and I now think I may get out of it. Maybe this is just that glow of warming just during final collapse under hypothermia.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Nam

Nam Myoh Renge Kyo
Nam Myoh Renge Kyo
I dedicate myself to the endlessly mysterious and vibrating earth
I thingk I can handle that. Let's see for sure. How many religions have you joined? Plans made? Lists started? Only to be dropped like a turd at the first distraction...
According to The Buddha in Your Mirror, there are ten levels of existence:
1) Hell
2) Hunger
3) Animality
4) Anger
5) Humanity
6) Heaven (rapture or temporary happiness)
7) Learning
8) Realization
9) Bodhisattva (compassion)
10) Buddhahood (enlightenment)

Okay, let's get this party started! Whadaya think about LEARNING being higher than HEAVEN?

Just for starters...

Sunday, July 18, 2010

20090115

concentration

I can't concentrate.
I mean I can, I just can't tell when I am going to do it. Currently this issue is the shining city on the hill of my life.
I remember a Dean Koontz book where several characters become obsessed with ideas about the moon. One, an adult male, became obsessed with the idea of purging this fixed and rooted idea from his consciousness. He tore down the shrine he had built - Dreyfuss Closes Encounters Style - to all things lunar. He carted out to the scrapheap the telescopes, books, posters, and models that he had accumulated previously with equal passion. After he had worked feverishly for hours - as his wife and family had insisted as a requisite for his participation in their lives - and then discovered that he had replaced all the shit back into the house. Triple quadruple take. Trash cans are empty. Study is overflowing again with stuff about orbits, tides, sea of tranquility, and the dark side of things. Anguish for the main guy.
I get what was scary about this. I just went through some files and found twenty writing projects and journals, and many, MANY more lists of life-changing behaviors that were written with passionate intensity, only to be dropped, lost, filed, forgotten and waylaid how many minutes after conception?
My fear is that my brain is failing. my memory worsening, my ability to cope shrinking inversely with the demands placed on me. Do I NEED someone to steer me to survive? Is risking the little time I have left to my own skewed view of things just asking for more calamity?
But I don't think that I really believe this. If I did I would be much more scared.
What I think is happening is that in the course of my dealing with my separation from my wife, I have gained a new perspective. I am able more now to see without focusing through her lens. I love my wife, and I have chosen to have no more important task than to be the partner that she needs to be in this world. To not have that ability is terrifying. The thought of her alone and scared is withering.
But I have to put on my own mask first. If I can't get through the week on my own, I won't be able to help her put her own on and get out of the damn plane. And how can I do that if I jump from the in-flight movie, to the crash instructions, to my own writing, to HIS philosophy or HER religion, to - oh yeah, putting on the oxygen masks and getting ourselves to relative safety.
I think, therefore I concentrate,
I think I can, I think I can
I know I can, I know I can
Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate!

Friday, July 9, 2010

We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others

Whoever La Rochefoucauld was, whatever. Rufus has got it right. I don't know shit about shit. I've eaten my last four meals out of the same plastic bowl, using somebody else's spoon. Last week I had a house. What the fuck is this all about anyway? I'm sleeping in someone's house, paying them $15 a day. $15 I don't have. I'm so underwater in debt, I am drowning just trying to drown. I can't tell the difference between shit and gold. Patrons of our recent garage sale benefited some from this particular imbalance. Don't know what I'm for. Don't know if I am good for my wife. Don't know if my wife wants me. I know I am not with her. She is 400 miles away. Worried, worried, worried. Fearful. Terrified. But is this really such a shock? Haven't they warned me enough of the doom of this place? Numb. Trying to be here now. Just trying to do this thing. Get the job. Make some money. One foot in front of the other. Keep facing up with the silence.

Fuck the Blog

Fornicate on this godamn assignment. I am empty of inspiration. I have about as much to write as a dry pen. Rufus is a good companion, though. Just not much of a critic...

Thursday, April 15, 2010

LA Observed and more

I am going to try and focus this blog. I will use grist and wheat from LA Observed, KPFK, NPR, NASA, Universe Today, and the McLaughlin Group. Let's see where this goes.

Friday, April 2, 2010

I am a Christo Pagan Capitalist Entrepenuer...and so are you!

I am a Christian Paganist Capitalist Entrepenuer. But did you know you were, too? If you were raised in North America, you can not have been immune to the impact of the church of christmas, halloween and Israeli domination. Not that I am against that. I have been taught that Israel is a shining light in the "Middle East." But this brings up many, many issues. On to Point Two: Pagan, like you 101. What day do you start your week on? Is it "god" day? If you speak spanish, it is. Domingo speaks to the day of god. Sunday however is an homage to idol worshiping Sun worship that us pagans like to embrace. Oh, and where did god create his first two humans? In a palace of creation which the Wikans, Earth Witches and Christians commonly refer to as a "garden."
Capitalist because the roots of this country were built on it. Study up.
And entrepenuer because I have to. No longer can I depend on the state to support me. My teaching jobs have evaporated. I am forced to supplement my income with my own small business. You too? Just notes here. Bore you more later. Commander out!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Just watched Thunderheart again. Turns out that Apted made a documentary about the same time. Link here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4219825247691110146#

afghanistan sells you dope

Afghanistan is now the leading pot supplier as well as the number one heroin source. What is the role of the United States in this?

Monday, March 29, 2010

Keep on rocking in the free world

I have nothing to say. I am contemplating tearing up my roots and moving north. Not something I am much inclined towards. Maybe it would be quite good for me, under the if it doesn't kill you... heading. Nothing else to say, but passover is here and I am growing into the Jewish holidays. My Spiritual Paganism is morphing into something as yet unnamed. More later if you ar elucky. Thousand points of light. Kinder gentler machine gun hand.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Political Cartoons and History

Just saw a good one on History Detectives.
One of their reporters was going after Arthur Szyk, who is credited with helping inspire the West to go against Hitler and Mussolini. Later he died as an American citizen under investigation by the Unamerican Activities Committee.

Links:
http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives
http://www.szyk.com/
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/szyk/

Monday, March 22, 2010

Maybe I'll Just Stay In

The time is tight to pick up the plane. This weekend has seen me using public transportation and participating in our democracy. I have lounged and stared at entertainment shows. I have watched the best golfers in the world compete. I have cleaned and worked in the garden. I have spent time with my godson - sad to say a rare event lately. I have been refusing all public visits and have withdrawn and been quite a hermit. Enough with that. Though it may have been the perfect formula. Who knows what I may have fucked up if I went outside?

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Willy Wonka 4/15/1993-10/12/2008

Willy Wonka 4/15/1993-10/12/2008

I miss my cat. Our cat. Willy was her everyday name, but she was right in Elliot's wheelhouse with multiplicities of namage. Willy Wonka, Willameena, Bink,and One-Eyed-Willy. Many others, too, to say nothing of the multitudes of inflections we might use on our name of choice. It would be mood-driven, and would depend on whether she had just shit all over the bedding, or whether she was currently in our favor. I wonder which one she used for herself.

I guess it was nice to be able to say goodbye. It WAS. No doubt. We had two weeks from diagnosis to death and in that time we were able to spend some slow time with her and dwell upon her leaving, and her presence in our lives.

I'll write more later. I can't see the damn keyboard or the screen.

Thanks for being a great cat, Willy!

CMDR out

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Was it The District or LA Observed?

Dunno, but one or both of these fine sources clued me in to the debate last night amongst the three candidates for the 9th district council seat in Long Beach.

http://thedistrictweekly.com/2010/daily/writing-shotgun/watch-debates-at-da-beach-over-dinner-or-on-da-web/#disqus_thread

Monday, March 1, 2010

SEx offender arrested

Chile needs help

How strong is an 8.8?

700 rising

Good news: Americans safe?

Convicted sex offender arrested
Gardener
missing teenager

Friday, February 26, 2010

Hysterical Thougtlessness

...Maybe that's better.

I mean, four drops of water don't make a a waterfall, and four thoughts don't describe a cascade.

A tendency toward disconnecting my conscious thoughts to escape from a sense of panic nurtured by...what?

Cascading Thought Processes

I think that is an accurate description. The waterfall effect. Isn't that a great metaphor? Don't your thoughts cascade like a falling body of water? Mine do, and often to my detriment.

Take right now. I have these thoughts that I want to get down so you can read them. But I also have a grilled cheese burning on the stove. That I don't really need to eat. Cause I'm fat. Well, not REALLY fat, but fat enough that I laughed off the 5k tomorrow. And the crisis develops: write or eat? Or do the yard? I really should get the lawn mowed before she gets home. She MAY be really pissed this time. Oh, and now M & C want to invite themselves over for drinks and share their silent non-stop gay drama with us here during our extremely rare and fragile pax.

Sandwich.

Seeya

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Queen for a day

The Queen of England is the top dog in Canada. Not the governor. Not the Prime Minister. Can you name the OTHER 14 countries besides Great Britain, that she is in charge of?
New data out of Australia is based on the theory that our home galaxy the Milky Way has been sucking in other stars, star clusters and galaxies for billions of years.
A goiter is an enlargement of the thyroid gland which is found in the neck.

Monday, February 22, 2010

The good news is that I don't seem to need these friends anywmore

The good news is that I don't seem to need these friends anymore.
ONce they were the most importanat things in the world to me. A reason to live. A way to relate to the world. Joy, Danager, Excitement, challenge, wild laughter. It all died and not the way Chaz Palmanteri died in Mullholand Falls. But silent, invisible, unreal, fake, aombie like shells of their bodies now overtaken with automoton performing vehicles. I am alone, with no bridge back. No desire to return. No passion. Only fear and the absence of feara.

Learn how to write this better.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Simon Winchester writes well

Simon Winchester writes well enough for me to read books about dictionaries. He has an impressive past. Clearly, HE is impressed with himself. So am I. I plan to read more of "The Meaning of Everything" and "The Professor and the Madman," while I am waiting for the IRS to decide in my favor. Commander out

Monday, February 8, 2010

Long Beach IRS

Just got back from the Federal Building in Long Beach. What a pain in the a--.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

First Thursday in San Pedro

Tonight I am lucky to return to San Pedro for First Thursday, their franchised cultural program running for some ten years, now.

In December I caught it for the first time and had a great time wandering through the very safe -- lots of cops and yellow-jacketed street monitors -- streets of San Pedro visiting art galleries, bars, studios, restaurants, and pet stores all in that beachy, misty air above Ports O'Call Village.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Zicam kills free cable?

No time today for posting. I just sent my baby out the door with a snoot full of Zink infused Zicam that could have some long-lasting effects. Check the stuff out before using it, people.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Conspiracy Monday

I just get off of the CounterKnowledge.com website and where does NPR.com send me?

Debunking Conspiracy Theories in Voodoo Histories.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123127032&ft=1&f=1032

Both sites deal with how stupid it is to doubt the bullshit that we are fed every day. Now I am not a no moon landing they shot the Kennedies GWB brought down the towers. I really like these sites. They both bring together a lot of resources to bear to forward their ideas that THINKING is a great treatment for deception. I guess I will just have to put in the work and the effort required.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Korea in Cerritos

Oh, loyal readers can hear that other Adida drop here: I found the Korean restaurant to replace Soot Bull Jeep from Koreatown off Western.

The place I found is on Pioneer off of South street, just east of the 605, but I can't remember their name! Oh well, too bad for you. I am feasting there tonight and will update with contact drool information to follow.

Commander out

Stephen King says:

Straight out of the mouth of Stephen King:
"When I was a kid I believed everything I was told, everything I read, and every dispatch sent out by my own overheated imagination. This made for more than a few sleepless nights, but it also filled the world I lived in with colors and textures I would not have traded for a lifetime of restful nights. I knew evern then, you see, that there were people in the world -- too many of them, actually -- whose imaginative senses were either numb or completely deadened. , and who lived in a mental state akin to color-blindness. I always felt sorry for them, never dreaming (at least then) that many of these unimaginative types either pitied me or held me in contempt, not just because I suffered from any number of irrational fears but because I was a deeply and unreservedly credulous on almost every subject. "There's a boy," some of them must have thought (I know my mother did), "who will buy the Brooklyn Bridge not just once but over and over again, all his life."

There was some truth to that then, I suppose, and if I am to be honest, I suppose there's some truth to it now. My wife still delights in telling people that her husband cast his first Presidential ballot, at the tender age of twenty-one, for Richard Nixon. "NIxon said he had a plan to get us out of Vietnam," she says, usually with a gleeful gleam in her eye, "and Steve believed him!"

That's right; Steve believed him. Nor is that all Steve has believed during the often-eccentric course of his forty-five years. I was, for example, the last kid in my neighborhood to decide that all those street-corner Santas meant there was no real Santa. (I still find no logical merit in the idea; it's like saying that a million disciples prove there is no master). I never questioned my Uncle Oren's assertion that you could tear off a person's shadow with a steel tent-peg (if you struck precisely at high noon, that was) or his wife's claim that every time you shivered, a goose was walking over the place where your grave would someday be. Given the course of my life, that must mean I'm slated to end up buried befind Aunt Rhody's barn out in Goose Wallow, Wyoming.

(Stephen King, "Myth, Belief, Faith, and Ripley's Believe It or Not!")

Thursday, January 28, 2010

More on the moron

Okay, so there is a lot to look at on the web. More sites I have been visiting:

Israeli Timeline of significant events in West Asia:
http://www.mapreport.com/countries/israel.html

A fun Israeli site featuring Elvis impersonators. I will say this: film I see makes Israel look much more like Los Angeles than other West Asian countries, especially Islamic Theocracies.
http://www.israel21c.org/

If America Knew. org
Pro-Palestinian site that is built on the equation that the Israelis have killed ten times more children than they have lost. I dunno, what do YOU do when your kids get blown up at the day care center?
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

Peta-sort of protest about some ice skater wearing fur:
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=ap-weir-fur&prov=ap&type=lgns

History is a Weapon. Site features Howard Zinn and seems to forward a contra-traditional view of history ala People's History of the United States.

And I guess that is it. Thanks for reading. I look forward to your comments and to writing better.
Commander out

More on the moron

Listing in no particular order the Arab-Israeli sites I peered at:
Ariel Sharon, ex-Prime Minister of Israel, allegedly in an unconscious coma for four years
http://www.smh.com.au/world/four-years-on-sharon-still-comatose-and-without-a-clear-legacy-20100105-lsb7.html

Howard Zinn : "Look for a peace organization to join. It may look pitiful. That is how the Viet Nam protest began and looked at first."
And "Don't believe in great men. Believe in yourself. History happens from the bottom up."
http://www.democracynow.org/

I was wondering how it is decided who gets to sit where for the State of the Union. Turns out that even a senator has to wait in line or camp out to get close to the President. http://congress.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/01/27/premium-seating/

Library of congress: One day teacher workshops. This one re how to how to use online primary docs to teach students about the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and the Genesis of This Country. One http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/creatingtheus/Pages/teacher_institute_form.aspx
Noam Chomsky on mainstream media control, Howard Zinn and the Viet Nam war protest:
Chomsky: "Well, it was a breakthrough. The people of Viet Nam had a country that was for all intents and purposes, destroyed. Howard really broke through. He was the first to say loudly:'We have to get out. Totally.' It sank in pretty quickly and it affected and changed people's perspectives. He was willing to be out on the front line. He changed the consciousness of a whole generation. The phrase of his that always stays in my mind: ' ..reverence for the countless small actions that unrepresented people do in order for any large event to transpire.'

Good to know, hard to forget

Amy Goodman has a strong show going today, marking Howard Zinn's death and last night's State of the Union address, mainly with Noam Chomsky.
Amy, of course is on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM, Pacifica Radio. Outstanding perspective far outside the mainstream media. Very worthwhile listening.
Right now, Zinn (interviewed last year) is reminiscing about his role in bombing Germany from the air at the end of WWII.
Now Alice Walker, a student of Zinn's at Spellman College in Atlanta, "...so Howie gets up and says 'I stand to the left of Mao Tse Tung.' Now no one could believe anyone saying such a thing. I was incredible lucky to have met him."

Thursday Survey

Okay, so I have almost everything set up for my BlogRadio bit (DouglasDouglas and the Hard Work Hour, Fridays at 5:00pm PST on BlogTalkRadio) tomorrow. Possible topicsinclude some of my browsing from the last day or so.
Long Beach Courthouse and how to stay alive in traffic;
Seating for the President's State of the Union address. Turns out it is festival seating according to the gov't website. Congressmen and Senators were either camping out to hold their prime seats (successfully) or leaving notes and biz cards (failed). Good to know. Hard to believe.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Six Continents

Let's start out the new year with some new perceptions. To start with, there are not seven land masses surrounded by water, there are six. Europe is just a western suburb of Asia. How many dominos fall when we allow this truth to matriculate up and percolate on down? (More on this later.)
Point #2 If you are from North, South, or Central America, you are American. The united States being currently at the top of the heap of the military industrial world does not give us (them) the right to usurp the title "American." More later.