All This Is That

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Poem: Jack Kerouac, Meet John Barleycorn

Jack comes down with The Willies,
Dreaming of the western terrain,
From moss-humped cedar branches

To the stilled hacking of crows
And rainchecked dove's cooroo.
The falling sunlight tangles

In the shadows of Oregon grape and salal,
Jack prays for a sober tomorrow
And the forest snores like an earthworm.
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Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Celebrate!! - Cloture Stands Unaltered - Hurrah For The American Way!!

click to enlarge

They've come to their senses--mostly the Republicans, but also the Democrats and their need to concede some ground. And they did. I've been wondering what would happen if Republicans altered the cloture rule (limiting the abilty to filibuster). Would it lead to a revolt against the GOP?...landslide losses? The destruction of the Republican party? The destruction of the Democratic party (like we weren't making pretty good progress self-destructing on our own)?

It looks like two old warhorses, Senators Byrd and Warner put this deal together.

The Republicans know their turn in the cold is coming. They may be mean, but they're not stupid. I want them to have the filibuster; it's so sacred we even let Republicans use it!

Without this tool, The Senate would be no different than the factionalized, reactionary, pork-doling House of Representatives, running for office every eighteen months and raising money every day.

So the Senate remains the coolest political institutional around (not discounting many lapses and moments of insanity, particularly with the Republicans majority).

Here is part of a wire service article from today. Click on the title of this article to link to the full news story.

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a dramatic reach across party lines, Senate centrists sealed a compromise Monday night that cleared the way for confirmation of many of President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, left others in limbo and preserved venerable filibuster rules. "We have reached an agreement to try to avert a crisis in the United States Senate and pull the institution back from a precipice," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., adding the deal was based on "trust, respect and mutual desire to .... protect the rights of the minority.

"We have lifted ourselves above politics," agreed Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W. Va., "And we have signed this document....in the interest of freedom of speech, freedom of debate and freedom to dissent in the United States Senate.

Under the terms, Democrats agreed to allow final confirmation votes for Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor, appeals court nominees they have long blocked. There is "no commitment to vote for or against" the filibuster against two other conservatives named to the appeals court, Henry Saad and William Myers.

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Monday, May 23, 2005

Photograph: Jerry Melin At Mud Bay, Bainbridge Island, Washington

click to enlarge
This is one of my favorite Mel pictures. If you look close, you sense the many facets of Mel. . . .shards of something extra, something a little bent; a soul that ranged the darkness and the sublime. He always had something going--something else, something extra bubbling away just under the surface.

This is how Jerry might smile if he loved you.
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Dear Middle East: Let's Make A Deal!!!

SHUNEH, Jordan (AFP) - The Middle East is faced with the prospect of a serious water crisis that could lead to political tensions and hamper prosperity, experts told a session of a World Economic Forum. "We are not secure about water supplies. Supplies are simply not enough ... This is a scary issue," Hazem Nasser, former Jordanian water and irrigation minister told the session.
__________________________________________________

Dear Middle East:

We can provide ALL the water you will ever need.

Send us a barrel of oil and we'll send you a barrel of water.

Sincerely yours,

Jack

Jack Brummet
Seattle, Wash., U.S.A.
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Sunday, May 22, 2005

All This Is That Reanimates! Technical Glitches Fixed

After four days of problems, I figured out what I was doing wrong, and I can publish again. A side benefit: this page should also load about five times faster now.
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An Index To Jack's Heroes & Villains Paintings

Since I recently figured out how to index blog articles, I have been putting together indexes for some of the series I've created here. Here are links to all the Heroes & Villains paintings that I completed a couple months ago...

President Bush Looking Into Saddam Hussein's Underwear

The latest Iraq controversy: pictures of Saddam Hussein in the hoosegow, in his underwear (good ole' American white briefs).

And what did our White House Press Official say? His spokesman said: “He has been briefed and wants to get to the bottom of it.”

Yup. They said that.
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Warren Beatty: I Don't Want To Run For California Governor.

click to enlarge - Warren Beatty In Bulworth

Sat May 21, 6:47 PM ET BERKELEY, Calif. (Reuters)

[ If Warren were to run a campaign anything like Jay Bulworth's in the movie Bulworth, I'd fly down to help him.]

Actor Warren Beatty, who has been considered a potential candidate for California governor, said on Saturday he does not want to run in next year's election, even as he lashed out against incumbent Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Beatty, invited to speak to graduates of the University of California at Berkeley's public policy school, has never held public office, but he has been a trusty supporter of Democratic presidential candidates for decades. In recent months, the two movie stars have sparred in separate public appearances that hinted at a possible political showdown.
"I'm an opponent of (Schwarzenegger's) muscle-bound conservatism with longer experience in politics than he has," the star of the political satire "Bulworth" said at the commencement ceremony.

"And although I don't want to run for governor, I would do one hell of a lot better job than he's done," the 68-year-old actor said. "I could name you a lot of Democrats who would be so much better than I would, and maybe even a few Republicans."

No clear Democratic front-runner has emerged to challenge the Austrian-born Schwarzenegger in the November 2006 gubernatorial election. State Treasurer Phil Angelides has asked for his party's nomination, and producer Rob Reiner has received high marks in the polls.

In a fiery and overtly political speech, Beatty called for higher taxes on the rich, if only temporarily, to close the state's budget gap, as well as for public financing of elections.
He said Schwarzenegger, a former bodybuilder and star of "The Terminator" movies," was playing politics in a bid to prepare himself for a run for president.

"It's not fooling anybody to be running around raising money from Wall Street, K Street and rich Republicans all over the country," he said. "We are not the governor's dumbbells."

Before Schwarzenegger could throw his hat into the ring, Congress would have to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowing a foreign-born American to run for president. Three-fourths of the states would also have to ratify the amendment.

Margita Thompson, Schwarzenegger's press secretary, took a jab at Beatty's age. "I'm sure it's not personal," she said. "Warren's just mad because he's afraid they're cutting off his
Social Security."
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Saturday, May 21, 2005

Continuing Technical Difficulties

All This Is That is experiencing problems creating new posts. We are working to resolve this. In the meantime, browse the archives. /jack
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Go Metric <-----> No Metric

Britain's leading supermarket chain, Tesco, last year announced that they would return to imperial weights and measures (pounds, pints, inches, ounces and feet). The reaction from the British public and press was overwhelmingly positive. A survey of Tesco customers revealed that about nine out of 10 people still used the old-fashioned measurements in their heads.

Tesco's decision follows numerous small grocery store owners who have become heroes by standing up to the European "food police" by defying the latest rules from Brussels, capital of the European Union. The metric system has been unpopular with the Brits for generations, but it has now become a symbol of the European Union's hegemony and what the Brits perceive as an effort to extinguish British culture. The anti-metric movement has some similarities to the anti-WTO movement.

The official name for the metric system is Systeme International d'Unites. The rabidly anti-French British don't much cotton to that name.

The metric system was originally concocted by French revolutionaries who wanted to impose "order." Napoleon's troops often imposed that order at bayonet-point.

The base-10 system, the metric system was allegedly more rational and therefore easier and more scientific. For instance the kilometer was defined -- by Napoleon's decree -- as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole on a line running through--natch!--Paris. Of course that measure is faulty too, because the frogs didn't realize the earth was slightly egg-shaped. Other metric measures are just as faulty, or just as arbitrary as our imperial system.

The meter is now defined as the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458-th of a second. That comes in handy when you're buying a length of rope!

Is that somehow less rational than our inch, which was defined in 1150 by King David I of Scotland as the width of a man's thumb at the base of the thumbnail? Edward I of England redefined the inch in the 13th century to equal three grains of dry and round barley laid end to end. A foot. . .we know where that came from. The mile comes from the Latin for a thousand steps, or, a thousand steps by feet now much smaller than feet are today...

We were supposed to “go metric” in the 1970s, but it never happened. As a schoolkid in the sixties, it was certainly drilled into our heads. They were preparing us for the Big Changeover that never happened. I can think metric pretty well, but I've always had trouble with metric temperatures (weather and oven). Certainly if you buy wine or distilled spirits in this country, you are familiar with the basics of fluid measurement. And even most other liquids are cross-labeled. But isn't wine just about the only area where we actually have gone metric? It looks like this may take another couple hundred years.
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Friday, May 20, 2005

Please Stand By...All This Is That Continues To Experience "Technical Difficulties"

All This Is That continues to experience technical difficulties. . .most articles and postings are not being accepted by Blogger. I am trying to work this out with the folks at Blogger. Until this is resolved, things may remain a little spotty here.

Poem: The Gideon Bible In My Nightstand

"The Gideons! Just who in the f**k are The Gideons?!" - Bill Hicks

With great expectations
The Bible was placed,
Courtesy of The Gideon Society,
In this scarred nightstand
Fifteen years ago.

It tells you where to turn
If you're lonely, hungry, desperate, alone
Or if you want to walk to the window
And keep on walking.

It gives instruction to the infidel and the murderous,
But they never tell you what to do if things are copacetic,
Or if you think a bad day is far better than no day at all.

Frayed, tear-stained, underlined, and mostly forgotten,
But used beyond The Society's wildest dreams.

I did, it says in I Samuel, but taste a little honey,
And, lo, I must die.

It was left for me to get through a night like this,
And get through the night I did, in style, with the likes of
Jezebel, Mary Magdalene, Jonah in the belly of the beast,
Saul, Lazarus, Sodom and Gomorrah, Begetting, Smiting,
The Good Samaritan, Cain and Abel, The Prodigal Son,
The Cock Crowing Three Times, Judas, The Burning Bush,
The Fishes and the Loaves, The Burning Bush,
The Parting of the Waters, Jesus Walking on Water,
Noah and his menagerie, foot washing, Gethsemane,
King Herod, Caesar, King David and Goliath, and Samson,
With a dark and angry Yaweh smouldering in the background
And salvation as the overarching theme.
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