Friday, June 10, 2005

Poem: The Revelations Sermon At The First Church Of The Mojo Apocalypse

Seven seals, seven vials
Seven lamps of fire
Seven sickles for seven angels

The last trumpet
Blows reveille and taps
For the coming and going

Over the hills and far away
The Piper is piping
Us home.
---o0o---

Thursday, June 09, 2005

President Bush's Polling Numbers Continue To Nosedive

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows 52 percent of Americans disapprove of the job President Bush is doing . He has hit a new low, friends, but I don't think he's hit rock bottom yet!

POTUS's approval rating is now a full twenty points lower than Bill Clinton’s was on the day he was impeached. Heh-heh.

Click on the title to link to the MSNBC article, and on the link in the first paragraph to go to the actual poll data from ABC news.
---o0o---

Painting: Gomorrah


click image to enlarge

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Painting: Mosaic


click image to enlarge

Tracking All This Is That "Customers"

Over the last two weeks, the number of people coming to this site has quadrupled. The counter tracking system shows most of the new traffic coming from Google Images. This blog must have made the cut somehow, because now the majority of traffic comes from there. There has also been a huge spike of people coming from Google France. . .same deal. . .this site is now being crawled by both Google Images and Google France.

Most of the hits are on the Presidents paintings and the Heroes and Villains series. A large number of hits are on an optical illusion I didn't create (rotating wheels). I reprinted it on the blog, and dozens of people a day come to look at it, and grab it. /jack
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Tempest In A Teapot: "The G.O.P. Is A White Christian Party"

I'm not sure why Republicans are outraged over Dr. Dean's (a/k/a The Democratic Party Chair) statement yesterday on the makeup of the G.O.P.:

"The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people."
"They're a pretty monolithic party."
"They all behave the same and they look the same."
"It's pretty much a white, Christian party."

The G.O.P. may not like to advertise some of these facts, but they are facts. You Elephants can't have it both ways; you can't beat down and disenfranchise people you hope to vote for you. Over the last year, there has been evidence of Republican support among women and minorities slipping even further. Duh.

Click on the title for more info and an audio clip of Dr. Dean's remarks.
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Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Bush Media Consultant Joins McCain Presidential Election Team

BY G. ROBERT HILLMAN

The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Mark McKinnon, the Austin political consultant who oversaw the advertising for President Bush in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, has committed to help Sen. John McCain in a second presidential bid.

McKinnon - one of the president's closest friends and confidants and a frequent mountain biking companion - met with the Arizona Republican over lunch this spring in the Senate dining room to discuss his support, said a GOP activist familiar with the meeting.

At this point, McCain, who lost to Bush in a bitter 2000 Republican primary, is in the early but unmistakable stages of laying the groundwork for another campaign. And McKinnon has indicated he would review his options, should Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, run in 2008.



Click on the title to link to the complete article.
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New York City: Shangra La?


click to enlarge

It's no longer easy to be murdered in New York City. When I lived there, it still topped the list, just behind Detroit and another hotspot or two.

The city released its 2004 crime index numbers yesterday, and crime is down 4 percent from last year. According to the city, New York ranks 221st out of 240 cities nationwide in the crime index.

Selected Murder Rates

NYC: 7 per 100,000 people
Los Angeles: 13.5 per 100,000 people
Chicago: 14.5 per 100,000 people
Philadelphia: 22.1 per 100,000 people
Detroit: 41.5 per 100,000 people

Seattle: 4.5 per 100,000 people

---o0o---

Poem: Your Wooden Leg

Run
If you still can.
Drag that wooden leg
Behind you, but keep up,
Jogging after your pipe-dream.

Think bullet-proof,
Shun the ghosts,
And always remember
The way back
And the door out.
---o0o---

Poem: Weather Report

Life is a raindrop
Sizzling as it skitters
Across the universal griddle.
---o0o---

Monday, June 06, 2005

Painting: A Grey's Hands


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18,906 Days On Turtle Island:::::::::I Like It Here!!!

I have now lived 18,906 days; on September 5, 2005, I hit 19,000 days.

Things have changed. And nothing has changed. Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush have held the office of POTUS ('though George W. Bush is in the midst of passing through the White House alimentary canal).

The year I was born, Eddie Fisher, Tony Bennet, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Perry Como, Patty Page, and Stan Freberg were on the top of the Hit Parade. From Here To Eternity won the Oscar for Best Picture. Dragnet, The Roy Rogers Show, I Love Lucy and The Milton Berle Show were on television.

Some cool new toys were introduced that year, and they're all still with us: Mr. Potato Head, Pez, plastic army men, Silly Putty, and Legos.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison was published (great book BTW), The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (who died earlier this year) came out, as did Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin, and Secret of The Andes by Ann Nolan Clark.

Bread was fifteen cents a loaf; milk was $0.94 a gallon; a new car cost about $1,800; you could buy a house for under ten thousand; eggs were $0.75 a dozen; gasoline was $0.29 a gallon; and a stamp cost you three cents. These prices sound pretty good, but the minimum wage was $0.75 an hour, and $4,700 a year was a median salary.

World War II had only been over eight years when I was born. It was a contemporary event when I was a kid! One of my friend's Dads was with Patton's 3rd Army (or was it the 5th?) as they raced through Berlin toward Hitler's Bunker. Our dads were all Over There, in Europe, Africa or The Pacific, and our mothers worked in factories (Betty Brummet riveted bombers at Boeing), or joined the service (Betty also enlisted in the Marines).

In 1953, The Depression still cast a long shadow. Our parents lived through it as children.

I am glad to Be Here Now. Of the things gone and things still here, I vote for things here. Now. Where All This Is That.
---o0o---