Poem: Tendrils

When a bush is cut down
Volunteer shoots sprout
From the roots

Sending tendrils of life into the world
In an urgent last gasp
A genetic S.O.S.

Like what they say
Happens
When you hang a man.
---o0o---

Another time travel Help Wanted: wanted, an alien or someone with time travel technology

Further to the want-ad I posted here last week looking for a fellow time traveler, this gent from AOL was looking (a few years ago) for both a companion and some hardware:

To: <rountreej@earthlink.net>
From: Bobby<timetravel@gdcs.net>
Subject: Time travelers PLEASE HELP!!!!!!
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 01:46:04

If you are a time traveler or alien disguised as human and or have the technology to travel physically through time I need your help!

My life has been severely tampered with and cursed!! I have suffered tremendously and am now dying!

I need to be able to:

Travel back in time.

Rewind my life including my age back to 4.

Be able to remember what I know now so that I can prevent my life from being tampered with again after I go back.

I am in very great danger and need this immediately!

I am aware that there are many types of time travel, and that humans do not do well through certain types.

I need as close to temporal reversion as possible, as safely as possible. To be able to rewind the hands of time in such a way that the universe of now will cease to exist. I know that there are some very powerful people out there with alien or government equipment capable of doing just that.

If you can help me I will pay for your teleport or trip down here, Along with hotel stay, food and all expenses. I will pay top dollar for the equipment. Proof must be provided.
Please be advised that any temporal device that you may employ must account for X, Y, and Z coordinates as well as the temporal location. I have a time machine now, but it has limited abilitys and is useless without a vortex. If you can provide information on how to create vortex generator or where I can get some of the blue glowing moon crystals this would also be helpful.

Also if you are one of the very, very, few beings with the ability to edit the universe PLEASE REPLY!!!

Only if you have this technology and can help me please send me a (SEPARATE) email to:

Robby0809@aol.com

Please do not reply if your an evil alien! Thanks

Poem: Rub-a-dub

1.
Tidiness is phobia
Cleanliness is delusion
Order is madness

So much is lost
The love music art
Books and walks and idle moments

Of shocking profundity and beauty
Put on hold or abandoned
Even Dr. Lister would be appalled

2.
We've become a nation of
Rub-a-dub-Georges
Wielding sprayers wipes and germicides

Madly laving away
The sepsis germs and cooties
Scrubbing for dear life

3.
Cleanliness and tidiness
Are a bulwark
Against the inevitable

Tidiness to the extreme
Exterminates the connections
Between the parts

4.
No one ever said
On their deathbed
I wished I'd kept a cleaner house.
---o0o---

Alien Lore No. 75 - What the f***, duck? Grey body appears in mallard's X-ray

Last week, workers found what seemed to be the image of a Grey in the x-ray of a duck. At least, some workers at the International Bird Rescue Research Center in Cordelia (in the Bay area) seem to think.

Lodged in the duck's gizzard, is an image of a scowling Grey. However, when an autopsy was performed after the mallard died, the Grey had departed the host's body and was no doubt off performing implants, abductions, and other mischief.

Jay Holcomb, the director of the rescue center, said "I don't know my aliens well, but it looks like one of those with the big eyes and the long fingers."

The bird arrived at the center last Sunday with a broken wing. Workers do not know how the mallard was injured, but, well, eating a Grey can't be that salubrious for your health. One worker, first seeing the x-ray cried out "Look at this, it's an alien head!"

According to one worker at the rescue center, strange things happen among male mallards during the spring mating season. Their testicles, for one, grow to three times the size of their brains; none however have ever grown an alien head before.

The one-of-a-kind X-ray, which measures 17 inches by 14 inches will be auctioned, along with a certificate of authenticity, starting this week.

Maybe the mallard stumbled upon a nest of aliens and ate one of the babies.

Cordelia is something of a hotbed of alien phenomena. Crop circles have been discovered twice in the past three years on wheat fields near the rescue center.
---o0o---

Digging for Jimmy Hoffa

I guess Jimmy Hoffa is really the Judge Crater of our time. . .although Hoffa clearly had far more enemies. FBI teams yesterday sifted dirt from a chest-deep hole in the ground in an intense search for the body of labor leader Jimmy Hoffa three decades after his disappearance.

FBI agents directed a work crew that used heavy equipment to rip up the concrete floor of a horse farm barn demolished a day earlier. After the rough stuff, they started working like archaeologists... sorting through the soil under the foundation of the barn by hand, photographing and videotaping evidence (they hope) inside the yellow crime scene tape. The investigation was triggered by a tip from a federal marijuana prisoner who lived on the farm at the time of Hoffa's disappearance.

The property was previously owned by Hoffa associate/Teamster official/Mafia associate Rolland McMaster. The farm is about 20 miles from where the Teamster boss disappeared without a trace in 1975.
---o0o---

Cate Blanchett to play Bob Dylan in new movie

Cate Blanchett will play Bob Dylan in his "androgynous" phase (I assume they mean the made-up Bob during his Rolling Thunder/Desire era) in an upcoming film by director Todd Haynes (who made the interesting and strange Velvet Goldmine, roughly based on Bowie's life).

Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain) and Richard Gere will play (presumably) the younger and older Dylan. Click here to read the full AFP article. . .
---o0o---

Hello! to everyone referred here today from http://www.godlikeproductions.com/



Browse the archives, bookmark us, and y'all come back now. . .
---o0o---

Happy 123rd Birthday Brooklyn Bridge!

click images to enlarge

One of my favorite walks when I lived in Brooklyn and Manhattan was across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Today is the Brooklyn Bridge's 123rd birthday. Crossing the East River between the huge cities of NYC and Brooklyn, it opened on May 24, 1883, after 14 years of construction (and 27 deaths).

Within 24 hours, a quarter million people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, using the promenade above the roadway that John Roebling designed specifically for walkers.



The connection between the population centers of Brooklyn and Manhattan changed New York forever, and in 1898, the city of Brooklyn merged with New York, Staten Island, and a few farm towns to create what would become the wonderful and terrible NYC metroplex.
---o0o---

Help wanted: Need a Time Traveler. "I have only done this once before"

---o0o---

Alien Lore No. 74: The Tenth Planet

Click the icon to play

In the alien lore of the television series Dark Skies, the Tenth Planet was a mothership for the Greys and The Hive, heading toward earth. This audio clip is from the final episode, where a Hive traitor, Lt. Phil Albano, frames Captain Frank Bach and is about to turn the reigns of Majestic over to the Hive. He mentions the arrival of the tenth planet "at the millenium," when the invasion, and takeover, of earth will be complete.

---o0o---

The Clintons on a tightrope

"Mrs. Clinton may be the only Democrat in America who cannot look at Bill Clinton as an unalloyed political asset"

The New York Times today published an article "Clintons Balance Married and Public Lives," that speculates about the delicate balance of the Clinton marriage. And how the public will react to possibly electing a President with a First Man whose failings and intimate details have been repeatedly and graphically (e.g., the blue dress, the crook in the Presidential phallus) documented. The article analyzes how many days and hours the Clintons spend together over various months, both in their New York and Washington homes.

The most revelatory tidbit:

"Mr. Clinton. . .has told friends that his No. 1 priority is not to cause her any trouble. "

click to enlarge

---o0o---

Is everything on blogs true?

Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz writes:

"Even ten years ago, false stories, rumors and speculation disguised as knowledge operated in a world of hushed tones, being passed from individual to individual. If a lie was making its way around the world, it at least wasn’t being heard world-wide. The Internet has changed all that. Today, not only can even the most outrageous stories be instantly available to millions of people, they are susceptible to different interpretations. One man’s suggested dress code can become another’s Nazi-like pogrom."

All This Is That, however, wants to thank our contacts within the White House for all the recent breaking stories we have covered, including:

2006-03-30: White House sources reveal Cheney under suicide watch and a White House in chaos, according to some guy who just made all this stuff up (35)

2006-05-11: In surprising turnaround, Vice-President Cheney announces he will seek the Presidency (4)

2006-05-01: President angrily refuses to accept Veep Cheney's resignation--discussion reported to have become physical (9)

2006-04-28: President Bush's new Press Secretary Tony Snow lambasts Bush "off the record" (7)

2006-04-24: George Bush's son?

2006-04-19: Rumsfeld, reacting to resignation pressure threatens to expose drug use, sex, and corruption in White House

2006-04-12: President George Bush 'channels' Adolph Hitler during Iowa speech (includes audio clip)

2006-04-06: Flashback: President Bush vows to "take care of" CIA leaker (with SFW POTUS photo)

2006-03-22: Nearly catatonic President soils pants following voodoo doll disclosure - White House terrorist charged with littering

2006-03-17: President Bush lights up the "c***suckers" in the press

2006-03-01: President Bush intends to beat Dick

2006-02-27: Bizarre scheme: Republicans threaten to release White House sex tapes
---o0o---

Del Brummet's Spontaneous Poem: Audio Blogger

click the pic to zoom

Click the icon to play

I was cleaning out old computer files tonight and stumbled onto this one by my son Del Brummet, who must have been around seven when I recorded this. This was spontaneous; he just started talking. . .

[Your kookiest guy]

By Del Brummet

Your kookiest guy
In the world

Numbers
Flying in the sky

Stars
And moons
---o0o---

Copyright (c) 1999, 2006 Del Brummet

The tenth planet a/k/a 2003 UB313

The Tenth Planet - Click image to enlarge


"It's definitely bigger than Pluto," says Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology who announced the discovery of a new planet in the outer solar system just about a year ago. Some things move fast in science. . .some, like the discovery of a dim and far distant planet, seem to move slowly. Not much new has turned up in the year since the tenth planet's discovery.

The planet, which hasn't been officially named yet (other than 2003 UB313), is nicknamed--for the moment, Xena--was found by Brown and colleagues using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego. It has also been spotted on other and smaller telescopes. 2003 UB313 is about 97 times farther from the sun than Earth. When they discovered it last year, it was said to be 30% larger than Pluto. Since then, they have found it is about 1,490 miles in diameter. With the margin of error being about 60 miles, it may be larger or nearly exactly the same size as Pluto (which the Hubble telescope measures as 1,422 miles in diameter). Other observers/scientists say the planet is 125% the size of Pluto. Whoever you listen to 2003 UB313 is right up there!

The new planet is more or less in the Kuiper Belt, a dark realm beyond Neptune where thousands of small icy bodies orbit the sun. Its sheer size in relation to the nine known planets means that it can only be classified as a planet itself, Brown says.

Backyard astronomers with large telescopes can even see the new planet. It looks like a dim speck of light, visual magnitude 19, moving very slowly against the starry background.

"We are 100 percent confident that this is the first object bigger than Pluto ever found in the outer solar system," Brown said. "Even if it reflected 100 percent of the light reaching it, it would still be as big as Pluto," says Brown. Pluto is 1400 miles (2300 km) wide. "I'd say it's probably [about] one and a half times the size of Pluto, but we're not sure."

Rumor has it that the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has either made a decision (or will by August 2006) as to whether or not the tenth planet will really be classified as a planet or not.

The original discoverers of the tenth planet, along with astronomers at the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea took a look at the 10th planet with a new instrument that allows them to see details as precise as those seen from the Hubble Space Telescope. The images quickly revealed that it has a faint moon in orbit around it!

The tenth planet will not be named Xena. The IAU is the group responsible for approving astronomical names and they have suggested that the name should follow in the Greco-Roman tradition that the previous planets used. The discoverers will have to come up with a more suitable name. Sheesh!
---o0o---

God is warning of big storms, Reverend Robertson says

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says God has told him that storms and possibly a tsunami will hit the Pacific Northwest this year.

Over the last two weeks The Right Reverend Robertson has made this prediction four or more times on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club."

"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," Robertson said on May 8. "There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest."

Selected recent postings about Reverend Roberton on All This Is That:

More Wisdom from Rev. Robertson

Pat Robertson calls Islam Satanic
Robertson's Jesusland in Jeopardy?

Pat Robertson only managed to keep his foot out of his mouth for two weeks
---o0o---

Poem: Changes Eleven/Peace

1
Heaven and earth unite
In an image of Peace

When grass is pulled up
The sod comes with it

There is no one
Without the other

2
No plain is not followed by a slope
No going not followed by a return

No relief exists without discomfort
And no woman without a man

Or man without a woman
Or a virus without a host

3
One who courts danger
Is testing and exploring

The very margins
Of life

4
The wall falls back into the moat
The king's body hangs naked

From the flagpole
A ruler is toppled

And the condition exists
For the next leader to emerge.
---o0o---

Condoleeza Rice's favorite music

The Ten Best Musical works - chosen by Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State (From The Independent, and a special issue edited by Bono, published: 16 May 2006)


1 Mozart
Piano Concerto in D minor

At the age of 15, Rice began piano classes - although she has played since she was three - with the intention of becoming a concert pianist. This concerto holds many memories for her: "I won my first piano competition at the age of 15, playing this work."

2 Cream
'Sunshine of Your Love'

I love to work out to this song," says Rice. "Believe it or not, I loved acid rock in college - and I still do."

3 Aretha Franklin
'Respect'

"The Queen of Soul's anthem", in Rice's opinion. Aretha Franklin is best known for her soul and R&B music, but is also skilled at jazz, rock, blues, pop, gospel and opera.

4 Kool and the Gang
'Celebration'

Rice loves this upbeat track, saying: "It's just such a great song."

5 Brahms
Piano Concerto No 2

This is considered one of the most difficult piano works to learn, but Rice isn't fazed. "It's a stormy, difficult piece, but I'm going to learn to play it before I leave this earth!"

6 Brahms
Piano Quintet in F minor

This piece by Johannes Brahms is "passionate without being sentimental", Rice says. The work, composed in 1864, is the piece she most loves to play with her quintet.

7 U2
Anything

Rice, a big fan, is happy to listen to any of their tunes.

8 Elton John
'Rocket Man'

"It brings back memories of college, friends, my first boyfriend."

9 Beethoven
Symphony No 7

"Quite simply the greatest symphony of all time," is how Rice describes Beethoven's Seventh.

10 Mussorgsky
Boris Godunov

"The greatest opera of all time," Rice says. "If you love Russia, you have to love Godunov."
---o0o---

President Hugo Chavez enjoys protestor's bikini

You have to commend PETA and Greenpeace for their skin-revealing tactics. . .in this case, it might not help their cause much, but it did impress the President of Venezuela (click here to read the original Reuters story in The Scotsman).

A bikini-sporting woman protesting plans for a pulp mill in Uruguay snuck into a photo session of European and Latin American leaders in Vienna today.

Evangelina Carrozo, a Greenpeace activist and "carnival queen" from Gualeguaychu, Argentina slipped by the security guards, stripped to a tasselled bikini and leather boots and held up a protest sign.

"She was very pretty and I blew her a kiss," said Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez..."
---o0o---

Another terragen landscape

Click to enlarge

Another landscape I rendered in Terragen. . .
---o0o---

35 albums I can usually count on

Thirty-five albums I can count on. . .they may not be all my favorites, or even at the top of my best of list, but they are the Rock of Gibraltor.


Special Beat Service - The English Beat
The Sermon - Jimmy Smith
Dear 23 - The Posies
Old and in the way - Old and in the way
This Year's Model - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Imperial Bedroom - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Help - The Beatles
Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives and Sevens
Abbey Road - The Beatles
Will The Circle Be Unbroken - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (and many others)
O Brother Where Art Thou - Various Artists'
My Four hundred hours of Radio shows by Jean Shepherd
Talking Heads '77 - Talking Heads
Roxy and Elsewhere - Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
Revolver - The Beatles
Everybody's In Show Biz - The Kinks
Weld - Neil Young
Milestones - Miles Davis
A Love Supreme - John Coltrane
How Many More Years Have I Got - Lightnin' Hopkins
The Koln Concert - Keith Jarrett
Tonight's The Night - Neil Young
Hank Williams - 40 Greatest Hits
Crosby Stills and Nash - Crosby Stills and Nash
Forest Flower - Charles Lloyd
Amazing Disgrace - The Posies
Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan
Blood on the tracks - Bob Dylan
American Beauty - The Grateful Dead
Europe '72 - The Grateful Dead
Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
The Tiffany Transcriptions - Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys
Today - The Beach Boys
---o0o---

The 25th Amendment: one of my very favorite amendments

As you may have guessed, section four is my favorite section. The only time it has ever been invoked is on TV and in the movies. . .


25th Amendment to the Constitution (1967); Passed by Congress July 6, 1965. Ratified February 10, 1967; Replaced part of Article II, section 1 of the Constitution, originally written in 1783.

Section 1.
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2.
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3.
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4.
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
---o0o---

Beyond Belief Lyrics by Elvis Costello

The lyrics to one of my favorite (among many) EC songs. . .



History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies the same defeats
Keep your finger on important issues
With crocodile tears and a pocketful of tissues

Im just the oily slick
On the windup world of the nervous tick
In a very fashionable hovel

I hang around dying to be tortured
Youll never be alone in the bone orchard
This battle with the bottle is nothing so novel

So in this almost empty gin palace
Through a two-way looking glass
You see your alice

You know she has no sense
For all your jealousy
In a sense she still smiles very sweetly

Charged with insults and flattery
Her body moves with malice
Do you have to be so cruel to be callous

And now you find you fit this identikit completely
You say you have no secrets
And then leave discreetly

I might make it Californias fault
Be locked in Genevas deepest vault
Just like the Canals of Mars and the Great Barrier Reef
I come to you beyond belief

My hands were clammy and cunning
She's been suitably stunning
But I know there's not a hope in hades
All the laddies cat call and wolf whistle
So-called gentlemen and ladies
Dog fight like rose and thistle

I've got a feeling
I'm going to get a lot of grief
Once this seemed so appealing
Now I am beyond belief

(repeat chorus)
---o0o---

Poem: Changes Ten/Treading

Tread the tail of the tiger
And she doesn't bite back

A one-eyed man is able to see
A lame man is able to walk

Dragging his wooden leg
Behind him.
---o0o---

Jack at E3

Jack at E3 in Los Angeles 5-11-2006. Holding a .50 mm
sniper rifle at the America's Army game exhibit. Click to
enlarge.
---o0o---

Keelin Curran, Army of One

Click photograph to enlarge. . .photo courtesy of the
United States Army


Keelin Curran in Los Angeles last Friday, checking out a .50 mm sniper rifle. The lieutenant said the way she handled that sniper rifle, he was ready to enlist her on the spot.
---o0o---

Happy Mother's Day

Click the twins to enlarge. That's my mother on the left. Happy Mother's Day!
---o0o---

all this is that reheated: The Godfather chapter titles

[while Jack continues his Hollywood sojourn, we arew reprinting another oldie but goodie. Jack liked the DVD chapter titles of The Godfather films so much, he typed them into a list. Jack returns in person tomorrow.]




The Godfather Chapter Titles
(originally appeared July 2005)

My family gave me The Godfather box set for father's day. I have probably seen the movies fifty times since they came out, and it's great to actually own them now. I am utterly fascinated by the chapter titles Coppola gave the scenes.

If you know these movies, the chapter titles are amazingly evocative of the movie, and just four words can bring the entire scene flooding back into your mind. This must be one of the most fun parts of creating DVDs for movies.

The Godfather:

1. I Believe in America
2. The Wedding
3. Johnny Fontane
4. Tom Hagen Goes to Hollywood
5. Meeting With Sollozzo
6. Shooting of Don Corleone
7. Luca Brasi Sleeps With the Fishes
8. Michael at the Hospital
9. It's Strictly Business
10. How's the Italian Food in This Restaurant?
11. The Don Returns Home
12. The Thunderbolt
13. Sonny Gives Carlo a Warning
14. Michael Marries Apollonia
15. I Don't Want His Mother to See Him This Way
16. Apollonia's Murder
17. We Are All Reasonable Men Here
18. The Don Puts Michael in Charge
19. I'm Moe Green
20. I Never Wanted This for You
21. Baptism and Murder
22. Don't Ask Me About My Business, Kay
23. End Credits

Godfather Part II (DVD 1):

1. Funeral in Sicily
2. It's Not His Words I'm Afraid Of
3. Ellis Island, 1901
4. Party at Lake Tahoe
5. You Can Have My Answer Now
6. Frankie Pentangeli's Complaint
7. Bedroom Shooting
8. New York City, 1917
9. Vito Meets Clemenza
10. Keep Your Friends Close, But Your Enemies Closer
11. I Remember She Was Laughing
12. Welcome to Havana
13. I Know it Was You, Fredo
14. Was it a Boy?
15. Fanucci Wants to Wet His Beak
16. Murder of Fanucci

Godfather Part II (DVD 2):

1. You Can Never Lose Your Family
2. The Dog Stays
3. Senate Hearing
4. You're Nothing to Me Now
5. Pentangeli Sees His Brother
6. Michael, You Are Blind
7. My Father's Name Was...Antonio Andolini
8. Mama Corleone's Funeral
9. You Can Kill Anyone
10. Like the Roman Empire
11. Kay With Her Children
12. Hail Mary, Full of Grace
13. Surprise Party
14. End Credits
---o0o---


posted by Jack Brummet

all this is that reheated: The day I went bald

[While Jack is in Hollywood, we reprint a couple old favorites from all this is that]


The Day I Went Bald
(first appeared December 06, 2004)

It started one day--or, rather, I noticed it one day--right after I received a really bad haircut...you know, a haircut so bad that you fix it yourself with whatever crude scissors are around. So, I left the barbershop, went home and looked in the mirror. Most of my left eyebrow was gone! Just a few scraggly hairs remained. . .up to then, I had thick eyebrows. All of a sudden---pffffft! I was really steamed at that barber, but there was no way I was going to let him touch up my hair, and the eyebrow would just have to grow back. How did he butcher my eyebrow?

A week or so later, Keelin said "Turn around, Johnnie. What's that on the back of your head?" I turned around and she pulled aside some tendrils of hair. Gleaming there was a GIGANTIC bald spot!! It was about the size of a softball. And it happened literally overnight! I was going bald!!!!! I spent about five hours a day looking at that spot in the mirror. I could feel the wind on it. It always felt cold. And I was sure everyone was always staring at it. It wasn't in the center, but off to the left side. It just flat looked weird. Naturally, I obssessed about it night and day. I found out from some fellow sufferers that I was experiencing Alopecia Areata [1].

It could stay like this. Alopecia! The bald spots usually happened in twos and threes! Two more could sprout up! It could all grow back. It could also cause every single hair on my body, including my eyelashes and nose cilia, to disappear. I would look like a Grey! No one really knows much about Alopecia and there aren't any real treatments. My doctor said it was no big deal. She could refer me to someone. . .but they didn't really have any way to treat it. I wondered if she would have been so cavalier if I had been a woman?

I ranted and raved. My entire being was now focused on those few inches of bald real estate on the back of my head. I checked the spot dozens of times a day, My bald friends were fascinated and highly amused. A couple of months later, I was performing my obsessive scalp observations, and discovered it had now sprouted peach fuzz! Woohoo! All hail the mighty stem cell [see footnote 1]. Within a month, my skull had reforested itself. The eyebrow came back too; not so bushy as it once was. The hair coming back in my eyebrow was white! I dyed it a couple of times. And then my second growth eyebrow slowly darkened, and matched my other eyebrow.

There is nothing that says the alopecia won't come back with a vengeance. In fact, Keelin told me yesterday I was tempting fate by just writing about it.

Several years later, there have been no further rogue white blood cell attacks. Excelsior!
/jack


[1] In alopecia areata, your immune system/white blood cells attack the growing cells in the hair follicles. They start thinking your hair is some sort of infection! The affected follicles become small and drastically slow down production. Thank the Lord that the stem cells that continually supply the follicle with new cells do not seem to be targeted and the follicles COULD regrow. But the hair may also fall out again. No one really knows how or why. Some people lose just a few patches of hair, then the hair regrows, and the condition never recurs. Other people continue to lose and regrow hair for many years. A few lose all the hair on their head; some lose all the hair on their head, face, and body.
---o0o---

In surprising turnaround, Vice-President Cheney announces he will seek the Presidency

In a stunning about face, Vice-President Dick Cheney today announced that he would seek his own term as President of the United States. Making his announcement with his wife Lynne at his side, the Vice-President promised that in one additional term he would be able to implement the programs the Bush Administration had to set aside in order to wage war. "We haven't come as far as we'd hoped. With your help, I intend to get us there."



In the surprise speech to the Cheyenne, Wyoming Daughters of the American Revolution, Cheney said he would cut taxes even further, while strengthening the military, and "finally cleaning up the Social Security mess."


The Vice-President also announced that he would continue and widen the war on terror. "We have them on the run now," Mr. Cheney said, "and I promise you, we will kill or capture the leaders of Al Quaeda as well as Osama bin Laden."

Other potential Republican and Democratic candidates had no comment on Cheney's announcement other than to say "we are utterly stunned and in disbelief."



One campaign chief on the G.O.P. side said "This is wrong on so many levels. Wait until tomorrow when the floodgates have opened." Another Democratic political operative guessed "On the face of it, this seems like a really sick joke. We could see Cheney withdraw from this race as soon as next week. When it comes, the blowback on this one will be nothing like we've seen this crazy year so far."

Several would-be Republican candidates already have press conferences scheduled for tomorrow morning.
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Senator Clinton files bill linking congressional pay to minimum wage

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has introduced a bill that linking Congressional pay increases to increases in the federal minimum wage. It would require that the federal minimum wage be increased by the same percentage amount as Congressional salaries every year. Senator Clinton's bill will immediately raise minimum wage to more than $7 an hour, and provide automatic raises, just as Congress receives.

This is either a great election year ploy. . .or a serious attempt at reform! Either way it works for me. I don't know how congress ducks out on this one--except by making sure it gets bottled up in committee. It won't affect us in this state (Washington), since our minimum wage of $7.63 is considerably higher than the federal rate.

Her bill follows:

S 2725 IS
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 2725
To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage and to ensure that increases in the Federal minimum wage keep pace with any pay adjustments for Members of Congress.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
May 4, 2006
Mrs. CLINTON (for herself, Mr. KENNEDY, Mr. JEFFORDS, Mr. LEAHY, Mr. HARKIN, and Mr. OBAMA) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

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A BILL
To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage and to ensure that increases in the Federal minimum wage keep pace with any pay adjustments for Members of Congress.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act of 2006'.
SEC. 2. MINIMUM WAGE.
(a) In General- Section 6(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)) is amended to read as follows:
`(1)(A) except as otherwise provided in this section, not less than--
`(i) $5.85 an hour, beginning on the 60th day after the date of enactment of the Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act of 2006;
`(ii) $6.55 an hour, beginning 12 months after that 60th day, adjusted for that year as provided for in subparagraph (B); and
`(iii) $7.25 an hour, beginning 24 months after that 60th day, adjusted each year as provided for in subparagraph (B); and
`(B) the wage provided for under clauses (ii) and (iii) of subparagraph (A) shall be automatically increased for the year involved by a percentage equal to the percentage by which the annual rate of pay for Members of Congress increased for such year as provided for pursuant to the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (2 U.S.C. 31).'.
(b) Effective Date- The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act.
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My Worst Jobs: Fifty Tons Of Sand

I was about nineteen. It seemed like easy money. We go to a foundry, unload a boxcar of silica sand and split $100. The guy who hired us--someone's dad--told us he'd done it by himself and it took "two, maybe three hours."



One Sunday, Bill Seguin, Kevin Curran and I drove to the Olympic Foundry in South Seattle. The foundry specialized in civic metal--fire hydrants, manhole covers, park benches, and electrical vaults. We pulled up jovial and full of coffee. There was no one in the entire place except a guard or two, a couple of foundry cats, and hundreds of rats in hiding. It was a sunny day.

We found our shovels and climbed into the boxcar. When we pushed the door open, tons of sand came spilling out. We climbed to the top of the pile and rode a wave of sand down into the sandpit below and in front of the boxcar. Over and over again we rode the waves of sand; this was going to be easy money.

And then, the sand was not tumbling out the door. Gravity had done her part; now it was our turn.

After an hour it was impossible to see that we'd made even a perceptible dent in the fifty tons of sand. Two hours later, we estimated we had unloaded one sixteenth of the sand.

It was time for lunch. Coming back was agony. The boxcar looked like it would take days to unload. Our arms and shoulders began to ache. We imagined we had been stricken with silicosis. We told sick jokes. We talked seriously. We tried to find a system to make the sand pour out the door. How the hell had Ivo been able to do it in three hours!? By six o'clock, every shovelful was agony. And we'd maybe emptied half the boxcar. Every shovelful now required a curse or a grunt. By ten o'clock, we said "forget the hundred bucks. I can't take this any more."

We left the rest of the sand. None of us could lift a shovel off the ground any longer. The next day Ivo called Bill. He expected to get reamed out for leaving all the sand. Ivo just said, "yeah, there was a little sand left. I just grabbed a broom and swept it out in a couple of minutes."

A small selection of my other worst job sagas on all this is that:

My Worst Job No. 1: McGoo (profanity alert...not safe for The Children!)
Design Insanity - Hype, Shuck, and Jive In The Dot-Com Years
My worst job 3: Brewburger
My worst jobs 4: Salsa
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Transcript: 'I'm a simple man with a simple mind'

In his speech at the The White House Correspondents' Dinner, Stephen Colbert put on quite a show, and savaged both The President and the media, who barely gave any play to his speech, even though we all agree it was savage and masterful! This is a transcript of his talk...

Wow, wow, what an honor. The White House Correspondents' Dinner. To just sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what, I'm a pretty sound sleeper, that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face.

Is he really not here tonight? The one guy who could have helped.

By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers and somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Mr. President and first lady, my name is Stephen Colbert and it's my privilege tonight to celebrate our president. He's not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the "fact-inista." We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up," and that's not true. That's because you looked it up in a book. Next time look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works.

Every night on my show, "The Colbert Report," I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the no-fact zone. Fox News, I own the copyright on that term.

I'm a simple man with a simple mind, with a simple set of beliefs that I live by.

Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states. And I cannot wait to see how the Washington Post spins that one tomorrow.

I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical.

And though I am a committed Christian, I believe everyone has the right to their own religion, be it Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it's not butter. Most of all I believe in this president. Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. Pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32 percent means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

Folks, my point is that I don't believe this is a low point in this presidency. I believe it is just a lull, before a comeback. I mean, it's like the movie "Rocky." The president is Rocky and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world. It's the 10th round. He's bloodied, his corner man [is] Mick, who in this case would be the vice president, and he's yelling "Cut me, Dick, cut me," and every time he falls she says stay down! Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up and in the end he -- actually loses in the first movie. OK. It doesn't matter. The point is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face.

So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68 percent of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68 percent approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

Now, there may be an energy crisis. This president has a very forward-thinking energy policy. Why do you think he's down on the ranch cutting that brush all the time? He's trying to create an alternative energy source. By 2008 we will have a mesquite-powered car.

And I just like the guy. He's a good joe. Obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She's a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma'am. I'm sorry, but this reading initiative. I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitists telling us what is or isn't true, what did or didn't happen. What's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914. If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American. I'm with the president, let history decide what did or did not happen.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man's beliefs never will.

And as excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story -- the President's side and the vice president's side. But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in Eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason -- they're super depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished.

Over the last five years you people were so good over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home.

Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know, fiction.
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Monthly index of poems on All This Is That

Next poem: Changes Ten/Treading (will appear May, 2006)
Another politican resigns in disgrace
Changes Nine/The Taming Power of the Small
The Candidate
Reds
Poem: Making Room
Changes Eight/Holding Together
Changes Seven/The Army
Changes Six/Conflict
Changes Five/The waiting
Changes Four/The Young Shoot
Changes Three/Trouble Ahead
Changes Two/The Receptive
Changes One/Action
The revolt in heaven
Found Poem: The Richmond Hill Oracle
Poem (and painting): The Robot Wars
I don't believe I'm here
Ten ways of looking at lies
The Broken Chord
With our heads in the sand during the transit and eclipse
the sun plays its red song
Litany
Poem: The Developers
A raindrop's life
The mystery of the first amendment to the Ten Commandments
The Bay Of Delusion
Mad Song
Reasons To Keep On
Conspiracy Theory
The Moon Race
Mr. Flue's Grave In Hillcrest Cemetary, Kent, Wash.
The World Seems Especially Calming And Verisimilitudinous Today
Kent, Washington
Rollover
[It's the Lee Harvey Oswald smile]
Zombie Breakdown
Heaven
The Variations
You Rehearse Dying
Sonnet For Hari
Defensive Daydreaming
The Dream
Dogpaddling
The Prostethic Head & The Absence Of Blood
Tetuan - "No Paranoia, My Friend"
The Grey Visitors & Painting: The Grey Ambassador
The Bad Movie
The Bucket
The Man In The Mirror
Liftoff
Optimism
Perspective
A Flight Of Swallows
Audioblog - The Prevaricator
Weather Report
Your Wooden Leg
The Revelations Sermon At The First Church Of The Mojo Apocalypse
Dosvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch
The Late Excavation (Text And Audio)
Jack Kerouac, Meet John Barleycorn
The Gideon Bible In My Nightstand
At The Acropolis
When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
The sous-chef is a sociopath]
James Wright Falling
[Life Is Not A Hardy Novel]
Seven
Coyote Comes Home Like A Salmon
Shorts For Jerry Melin ca. about 1988
Bird
Monism
The Golden Rule
The Countdown
When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
AT HILLCREST CEMETARY IN KENT, WASHINGTON, I WALK BY THE GRAVE OF SAM THE GRASSEATER
Notes On Flying
Daybreak
Explosions
Not Past Tense Yet the glass is not half-full
It's Getting Crowded Here
Li Po In Disgrace
The Clock
A Love Song
Bad Timing
The Killer
The Absence of Footprints
Growing Up
Gone Fishing
The M.D.s
A Poem - Acrylic
The Marriage
Driving Home To Seattle, We Watch Deer Drinking from the Skookumchuck River
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President's latest approval rating (Gallup/USA Today) continues disastrous freefall. . .

The USA TODAY/Gallup poll's most recent results for President Bush's approval rating in 2006: May 5 - 31% approve; 65% disapprove; 5% no opinion. As recently as January, 2006, the numbers were 43% approve; 54% disapprove; 3% no opinion.

The U.S.A. Today article points out that even the hard-core Republican faithful (what they like to call "the base") are deserting the President. It looks more and more like we'll see some reverse-coattails momentum in the mid-tern elections. Heh heh.
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Poem: Another politican resigns in disgrace

Sending out feelers
And testing the ground
The right place was one
Place he couldn't be found.


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Poem: Changes Nine/The Taming Power of the Small

1.
The wind drives across heaven
And reminds us of
The taming power of the small

The wind is air
And bumps clouds together
Across the sky

Transient
Like people
Who cannot change nature

But change the world
Breath by breath
A deed at a time

2.
The strong press forward
Tilting against obstructions
Dragging the feeble along

The spokes burst from the wagon wheels
Blood vanishes
And fear gives way

3.
True wealth like laughter
Is not selfishly hoarded
But shared with friends and strangers

Pleasure shared
Is pleasure doubled
The moon is nearly full

4.
An owl sits in the plum tree
And she doesn't know
I'm glad she's here

5.
This is as good as it gets
And it gets this good
Every day.
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Copyright (c) 2006 by Jack Brummet

Top spook resigns amid bribery and prostitute allegations

CIA Director Porter Goss has resigned after only one year, amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.



In a last minute Oval Office announcement, neither President Bush nor Goss offered a decent reason for why the head of the spy agency was leaving after only a year on the job.















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The Lego Church

click to enlarge


The Abston Church of Christ, made with LEGO pieces, was built by Amy Hughes, a software developer. Abston's name comes from the plastic used to make Lego pieces--Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene. The Church is 7 x 5 1/2 feet and 30 inches tall.


click to enlarge

The church has 400 people in the sanctuary and choir loft, with rooms for thousands more! It has nearly 4,000 windows, including fantastic, majectic windows surrounding the altar, restrooms, mosaics, incredibly ornate flooring, a baptistery, a nave, and a huge, pipe organ.


click to enlarge

Click on Amy Hughe' web site for lots of photographic goodness and more information.
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No Pants Day -- Reminder!

Blowback

The word blowback has come into fairly common usage recently, at least in the new and old media. . .

According to dictionary.com, blowback is

1: the backward escape of unburned gunpowder after a shot

2: misinformation resulting from the recirculation into the source country of disinformation previously planted abroad by that country's intelligence service.

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The G.O.P. = The New Dumb

Yes, the Republicans are the new dumb. Perhaps they haven't always been that way. . .but even our most beloved President pulled things that you would be drummed out of office for today. . .

In 1861 and 1862, President Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus. Habeus corpus, put simply, is a writ ordering that a prisoner be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not the prisoner is being imprisoned lawfully. Habeus Corpus essentially prevents us from holding someone prisoner indefinitely without trial.



During the civil war, in 1861, Link suspended habeus corpus due to massive riots, and a threat by the slave state Maryland that it would secede from the Union (and therefore leave Washington, D.C., in the south). The suspension was also intended to tame the Copperheads, or Peace Democrats, and anyone in the Union who supported the Confederacy. Lincoln's order was overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court. But Lincoln did nothing to reinstate the doctrine. On the other hand, The Confederate Prez, old Jeff Davis, also suspended Habeas Corpus and imposed martial law.

Habeus Corpus was not actually restored until 1866, long after Lincoln's assassination.
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Friday is No Pants Day - mark your calendar, and buy some spiffy boxers

Click montage to enlarge
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