The Twins: August & Althea Back To Back

click photo to enlarge... Photograph by Del Brummet June 20, 2005

Painting: Map 13 - Martinet

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Democrats Demand That White House Adviser Karl Rove Apologize Or Resign For Accusing Liberals Of Wanting “Therapy And Understanding” For Terrorists

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Go here to read the full article on MS-NBC. Save the apology, Karl, just resign. . .
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If Congress Wants To F*** With The Constitution, Repeal The Second Amendment

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The House of Representatives today approved an ill-conceived measure giving Congress the power to ban desecration of the American flag. They debated whether this would impinge on the Constitution's free-speech protections and decided it would not.

These attempts to protect "Old Glory" go as far back as 1984, when a flag was burned outside the Republican convention in Dallas. Five years later, in 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that a Texas law outlawing flag burning violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech. It came to a vote again in 1995. It always passes the House, and gets hung up in The Senate.

The Senate has defeated the bill previously (narrowly), but this year. . .who knows? We may get the 28th amendment. I don't actually know if it can be challenged in court before it is enacted.

It's not popular with the Republican stormfront, but flag desecration is protected speech and legitimate expression (referring again to the 1989 decision by The Supremes). It's an unhealthy sign that we want to ban it. Someone needs to remind our knuckle-dragging Congress that the flag is a symbol; a symbol of us--We The People. And We The People are strong enough to watch a symbol take a little abuse.

If Congress wants to amend the Constitution, they should repeal the second amendment. The proposed 28th amendment is good for nothing except as salve for our bruised and misdirected jingoistic pride. Attention Gun Nuts: don't write, telling me how many lives guns save. If you want to use your gun, try it out on the man in the mirror.
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Camille Paglia Is Right Again: Joni Mitchell Is A Poet

The poetry "community" has been debating whether Camille Paglia's elevation of Joni into the pantheon is legitimate. Yeah, it's weird, but poets and scholars debate things like this. Like most controversies in the community, it is a tempest in a teapot. Joni Mitchell writes better poetry than virtually everyone involved in the debate. There are dozens of examples, and here is one of many. Case closed. The Jungle Line is laid down on a foundation of Burundi warrior drums, a warped bass line and Joni's amazingly biting and weird lyric.

The Jungle Line

Rousseau walks on trumpet paths
Safaris to the heart of all that jazz
Through I-bars and girders, through wires and pipes
The mathematic circuits of the modern nights
Through huts, through Harlem, through jails and gospel pews
Through the class on Park and the trash on Vine
Through Europe and the deep deep heart of Dixie blue
Through savage progress cuts the jungle line

In a low-cut blouse she brings the beer
Rousseau paints a jungle flower behind her ear
Those cannibals-of shuck and jive
They'll eat a working girl like her alive
With his hard-edged eye and his steady hand
He paints the cellar full of ferns and orchid vines
And he hangs a moon above a five-piece band
He hangs it up above the jungle line

The jungle line, the jungle line
Screaming in a ritual of sound and time
Floating, drifting on the air-conditioned wind
And drooling for a taste of something smuggled in
Pretty women funneled through valves and smoke
Coy and bitchy, wild and fine
And charging elephants and chanting slaving boats
Charging, chanting down the jungle line

There's a poppy wreath on a soldier's tomb
There's a poppy snake in a dressing room
Poppy poison-poppy tourniquet
It slithers away on brass like mouthpiece spit
And metal skin and ivory birds
Go steaming up to Rousseau's vines
They go steaming up to Brooklyn Bridge
Steaming, steaming, steaming up the jungle line
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The Only Joke I Know By Heart

A Texas business man came to Japan for business meetings, and, of course, golf. His first night in Tokyo, he employed the services of a beautiful young Japanese woman as his companion. The Japanese girl spoke only broken English and the businessman spoke no Japanese. They got down to business, and, in the heat of the moment, she began yelling "Ungawa! Ungawa!"

The businessman knew he had pleased his female friend and soon afterwards drifted off to sleep.

The next day, playing golf with his Japanese colleagues, one of them hit a hole in one from 170 yards away. Everyone went nuts and began yelling excitedly in Japanese.

Wanting to impress his friends, the Texan joined in and began yelling, "Ungawa! Ungawa!"

Suddenly everyone became quiet. After a moment of silence, one of the Japanese turned to him and asked "What do you mean wrong hole?"
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I'm 18 And I Vote!

It was thirty-five years ago today that President Richard Nixon signed the 26th amendment to the constitution, lowering the voting age to 18. I was able to take advantage of it in 1972, and vote for George McGovern for President, the first in a long string of half-baked candidates my beloved party would offer up for my delectation.
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List No. 7: The Fifty Most Frequently Shoplifted Items

This is a real headscratcher...the Food Marketing Institute’s list of the most frequently shoplifted supermarket items. I thought wine and steaks would be right up there...it looks like when people's hearts turn to larceny, they head right for the pharmacy department...



Most Frequently Shoplifted Items in Rank Order

Product Name
Advil tablet 50 ct
Advil tablet 100 ct
Aleve caplet 100 ct
EPT Pregnancy Test single
Gillette Sensor 10 ct
Kodak 200 24 exp]
Similac w/iron powder - case
Similac w/iron powder - single can
Preparation H 12 ct
Primatene tablet 24 ct
Sudafed caplet 24 ct
Tylenol caplet 100 ct
Advil caplet 100 ct
Aleve caplet 50 ct
Correctol tablet 60 ct
Excedrin tablet 100 ct
Gillette Sensor/Excel 10 ct
Gillette Sensor 15 ct
Monistat 3
Preparation H Ointment 1 oz
Similac w/iron concentrate 13 oz
Tavist-D decongestant tablet 16 ct
Trojan ENZ 12 ct
Tylenol gelcap 50 ct
Tylenol gelcap 100 ct
Tylenol tablet 100 ct
Vagistat 1
Advil caplet 50 ct Advil gelcap 50 ct
Advil gelcap 24 ct
Advil tablet 50 ct Aleve tablet 50 ct
Anacin tablet 100 ct
Centrum tablet 60 ct DayQuil liquicaps 20 ct
Dimetap tablet 12 ct
Duracell AA 4 pk
Ecotrin tablet 100 ct
Ecotrin tablet 60 ct
Energizer AA 4 pk
Excedrin tablet 50 ct Femstat 3 app
Gillette Atra 10 ct
Gyne-Lotrimin 3 app
Monistat 7
Motrin caplet 50 ct
Motrin tablet 24 ct
Oil of Olay 4 oz
Preparation H Ointment 2 oz
Schick Tracer FX 10 ct Gillette Sensor/Women 10 ct
Sudafed tablet 24 ct
Visine drops 1 oz
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Painting: "Our Flag Was Still There"

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President Bush Hits The Wall Over The Bolton Nomination: Is POTUS A Lame Duck Already?

President Bush faces a politically thorny situation _ and stark choices _ now that Senate Democrats twice have blocked John Bolton's confirmation as U.N. ambassador.

The president could withdraw the nomination, authorize further concessions to Democrats over access to information they seek or bypass lawmakers altogether by appointing the former State Department official to the job temporarily without the Senate's OK.

But any of those options could leave the president appearing weak as he confronts sagging poll numbers and fights to stave off a lame-duck label just six months into his final term.

Click here to link to the full story in The Washington Post.
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He's Not Close Enough To Give Him The Johnson Treatment, But LBJ Appears To Be Answering A Pointed Question From Dan Rather

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Cheops, The Sphinx, and The Pizza Hut At Giza

Most of the photos of Cheops and The Sphinx we westerners see don't show any modern civilization around. This photo, shot through a Pizza Hut tm window, is therefore unexpected and a little startling. . .
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