Thursday, November 30, 2006

The thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Mark Twain–born this day in 1835–died 1910

“We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can’t read.”

“A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.”

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

“In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.”

Oh, Howard, you old softy...

“But terrorism has supplanted communism as an attempt to get people to do things against their own interests, to do things that will send their own young people to war, to do things that will cause the depletion of the country’s wealth for the purposes of war and for the enrichment of the super-rich. It doesn't take much thought about terrorism to realize that when somebody talks about a war on terrorism, they're dealing with a contradiction in terms. How can you make war on terrorism, if war itself is terrorism? Because you respond to terrorism with terrorism, and you multiply the terrorism in the world.”

good speech by Howard Zinn in the Progressive—though poorly transcribed...

http://progressive.org/mag_zinn1006?page=0%2C0

Hey there, slinky boy...

Hawks 1 Humans 0

i was out for a briskish walk in centennial park this morning, rounding the back side of the lake and saw these two huge, amazing red-tailed hawks. they had passed me by and landed in the trees.

turns out they were in the same tree. strangely hopping towards one another. don’t know if they were mates or if there was about to be a fracas. i stopped and looked at them for a while and they just looked back and went about their bidness.

when i was a kid, hawks, crows, etc. were too smart and wary to ever be seen anywhere near humans. me and my cousin used to frequently stalk crows with our little daisy BB guns. futile. maybe they've figured out, more than we have, that we’ve all got to get along to survive.

or maybe they’re just looking for stragglers amongst our children...

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Robert Altman (1925-2006)

“I’ve always said that making a film is like making a sand castle at the beach. You invite your friends and you get them down there, and you say, “You build this beautiful structure, several of you.” Then you sit back and watch the tide come in. Have a drink, watch the tide come in, and the ocean just takes it away.”

What am i going to do with all those “Frist Will Put You First” T-Shirts i had made?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Outgoing Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, has decided to forgo a presidential bid in 2008, sources tell "The Hotline."

(Seriously...can you imagine saying the words “President Frist”? Although even after six years—has it only been six?, my God it seems like a decade—the words “President Bush” still sort of stick in my throat.)

Barramundi-licious!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6556434

It seems rare to hear something really, truly encouraging in the news. Heard this one on NPR today about sustainable fish farming. Maybe we are animals who can learn...

follow the link above to listen to the whole story.

Betting on Barramundi, the Green-Friendly Fish

by

All Things Considered, November 29, 2006 · Tired of haddock and salmon? Josh Golberg is betting you'll wake up for barramundi. In fact, he's betting big bucks on America's largest inland fish farm, in the hope that consumers will love barramundi, a fish that can be grown with relatively little environmental impact. Golberg says his factory is an environmental success; now it needs to become an economic sensation, as well. Susannah Lee reports.

Pot-bellied Tyranny

Axis of Weevils

Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.
—C.S. Lewis (born this day in 1898)

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Men and directions

i have never been lost,
but i will admit to being confused for several weeks.
—daniel boone

Coco Love and Mr. Bobo

Jumping Off

“If everybody was jumping off a cliff, would you do it?” (Yeah, maybe...)

Seems like everybody i know has a blog.
My sweetie started one to post her art. (I can do that, methinks).

So here goes nuttin’

God forbid i ever fall to the level of chronicling my every grocery shopping expedition and bowel movement. Seems some folks believe or hope somebody is interested in those mundanities of their life.

Maybe somebody is...

Mostly want to post my excursions in collage. Also might fall into the occasional rant, or post something nice or interesting.

Don't really have time to keep up dialogue...it’ll be a monologue.
“Mono” in Spanish being “monkey” i suppose that would be a monkeylogue.