Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The Curran and Ericksen family in Nicaragua


click to enlarge

My brother and sister-in law, Dean, Mary, and their young children Declan. Althea, and August are on a two month trip to Nicaragua. Read his harrowing and endlessly fascinating account of life in Central America in his sporadic dispatches right here on BlogSpot.



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Senator Fred Thompson swamps The Mayor of 9/11 Rudy Giuliani



It's been a bad month for Rudy Giuliani. First the firefighters come out swinging, blaming Rudy's decisions for causing deaths and health problems following the World Trade Center collapse and cleanup, and now Fred Thompson leaps in and surges to the top of the field.



Senator, Reagan wannabe, and husband to Jeri Kehn, Fred Thompson has soared to the top of the Republican presidential nominees in national polling done by John Zogby.

For the first time since February, the former mayor no longer leads the Republican field. Thompson's support comes at the expense of Giuliani and John McCain, who has fallen to fourth place after losing massive support over his positions on immigration and ther Iraq war. Only a short year ago, McCain was the presumptive nominee.

The Republican Fred Thompson has grown his lead with support in his homeland, the South, and the Midwest. And maybe just a little bit because of Mrs. Thompson.
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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Armed Forces: Jack's parents in World War II

Click all the photographs to enlarge.



Jack, Sr. in the army, shortly before World
War II, clowning with a serious looking buddy


Jack, Sr. in "dungarees" displaying his
rifle and bayonet at boot camp, in
about 1940.


Jack, Sr. a/k/a John Newton Brummet II
clowning with Navy buddies in about 1943.
World War II began just after he was
discharged from the army. He immediately
enlisted in the navy. I'm not sure the army
wanted him back. He served in the Navy
for the duration of the war.


Betty Echo Jones Brummet, with her twin brother
Bill a/k/a William Raymond Jones. Bill enlisted in
the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. He was a
senior in high school. This picture was taken in
the spring, when the Navy allowed him to return
to Ballard High School to graduate with his class, and
sister.


Betty Brummet on leave from her post in
the Marine Corps. Betty worked for a while
during the war as the iconic Rosie The Riveter
at The Boeing Company in Seattle. During
the war she enlisted in the Marine Corps and
served in Santa Ana, California, and Cherry
Point, North Carolina. She followed my
Grandfather, William Jennings Bryan Jones
into the Marine Corps. Grandpa Bill served
in the Marines in both World War I and World
War II. In this photo, she is walking in
downtown Seattle with my step-grandma
Sally Jones.
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Katie Couric, drugged, kidnapped, making a hostage tape?

Former CBS News producer Mary Mapes said she is "uncomfortable" watching Katie Couric conduct the evening news because the anchor looks like she has been "drugged, kidnapped, and is making a hostage tape."


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Monday, July 16, 2007

Backlink of the day: The Six Faked Moon Landings?


click photo to enlarge


The original article on All This Is That: The Six Faked Moon Landings?
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More Jeri Kehn photos--> A follow-up to "Meet the Thompson Twins: Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri Kehn (with photos) "



Not long ago, searches for photos of Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri Kehn Thompson soared to the top of various search sites "most popular searches," along with the usual suspects. . .whoever got into hot water that week, and whoever was in the news for whatever reason (often folks like Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Anna Nicole Smith, Osama bin Laden, Scooter Libby, and other "newsmakers" or news-victims).



Our article on June 26, Meet the Thompson Twins: Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri Kehn (with photos) was high on the Technorati list of searches for Jeri Kehn, and even now, three weeks later, about 50 people a day stop to look at the post.



The rumbling has quieted down somewhat, as people have learned that Kehn is a smart attorney who has consulted for the G.O.P. and worked for one of the largest political consulting firms in Washington. The speculation now focuses on whether the G.O.P., the neo-cons, and the red state denizens can accept a smart, good looking first lady who barely looks 40 years old alongside a husband who looks every day of his 64 years. Let's not even go into their tans!


Only a handful of Jeri Kehn photos are extant, and many of them are not photos of her at all. When the Kehn story first broke, there was an explosion on blogs and websites of people debating whether or not she would be a fit first lady, whether she was "just a trophy wife," and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough (a conservative I normally like) speculated that she might "work the pole." This might have been Scarborough's Don Imus moment, but somehow he survived this execrable moment of misogynism.

SCARBOROUGH: Have you seen Fred Thompson's wife?
CRAWFORD: Oh, yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: You think she thinks she works the pole?
CRAWFORD: That's what a Hollywood career will do for you, I guess.
SCARBOROUGH: What do you mean?
CRAWFORD: You get wives like that.



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Sunday, July 15, 2007

The Binster is back--> Osama bin Laden makes a new video appearance & is reportedly tired-looking (have you looked at Dubyah lately?)


President Bush and Sheikh Osama bin Laden in happier times

A new al-Qaeda videotape posted Sunday on a militant Web site featured a short, undated clip of Osama bin Laden praising martyrdom. An A.P. report said bin Laden looked weary.

Bin Laden glorified those who die in the name of jihad, or holy war, saying even the Prophet Muhammad "had been wishing to be a martyr." "The happy (man) is the one that God has chosen him to be a martyr," added bin Laden, who was filmed outdoors wearing army fatigues.

You may remember Donald Rumsfeld's spontaneous poem on finding Osama:


Where is Osama bin Laden?

We do know of certain knowledge
That he is either in Afghanistan
Or in some other country
Or dead.
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I can't find the video yet, but did locate Osama bin Laden's appearance on The Family Guy.








Recent posts on All This Is That about Osama bin Laden:

Ding Dong, Osama's Dead?
Happy 50th Birthday Osama bin Laden!
The C.I.A. and the creation of Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden guest appearances on niece's reality show spark outrage
President Bush achieves an all-time low in approval ratings
bin Laden's offer of a truce smells worse than his camel's a**
The Poetry Of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld X:::::::::Where Is Osama bin Laden?

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Saturday, July 14, 2007

Video and lyrics: Bob Dylan's It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

I recently bought a new copy of Bob Dylan's remastered Bringing It All Back Home. This replaced a cassette copy that had long ago had enough oxide scrubbed off to alllow you to just barely identify the song.

I forgot what a stone masterpiece this album was. And it wasn't the first Dylan masterpiece that year. My favorite song on the record is It's All Right Ma (I'm only bleeding). Here is a video of Dylan performing the tune the year the record came out. If you get the chance, you need to hear the pristine re-mastered version. Dylan nailed it on the record, and I've never heard him do a better version than what he originally recorded. I was brought back to this song because David Chase used it in the last episode of The Sopranos. . .as A.J.'s $30,000 erupted in flames and exploded. . . The kids said something like "Can you believe this was recorded 40 years ago?!"

The lyrics are magnificent. This must be one of his ten best songs (but the competition is formidable). Dylan was at the height of his powers with the long form song and dense, imagistic--not yet surrealistic--lyrics. His guitar, on the record at least, is fluid and tasty. Maybe the only flaw in the song is, as my friend Kyle Lingol, pointed out, "He never writes bridges!"





Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.
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Digital painting: Jack's shadow


click to enlarge jack's shadow
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Friday, July 13, 2007

Hillary Clinton and John Edwards caught on a live mike scheming how to eliminate some of their opponents from debates


I always love these "hot mike" incidents on the campaign trail! In this case, however, it was probably not a hot mike, but a shotgun mike trained on them from some distance away. . .by our good friends at Fox "News." An A.P. story gives a few more details.

Democrats John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton were caught yesterday by Fox News microphones discussing a plan to limit future joint appearances and cut out some of whom they consider to be lesser rivals and also-rans.
Edwards: "We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group."
Clinton: "We've got to cut the number" and "they're not serious."
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Remember, 27% of the people still approve of President Bush's performance in office. . .



click the Prez. to enlarge

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Dr. Michael Toubbeh



This post, two other related articles, and forty comments were deleted by the All This Is That editors on July 12, 2007.

If you are an All This Is That regular, you know this isn't the way we generally operate this popsicle stand. On the other hand, as much as it sticks in my craw, it seemed karmically right. Aside from the White House, I never wanted this blog to cause pain for anyone. Let me note, however, that the removal of these posts and their emotional and heated comments in no way reflects on the veracity of the articles, or the valid and palpable passion and emotion engendered in the many comments.

I could have stuck to my guns. I told the T.S.A. to take a hike when they asked for further information about another article regarding the Vice President. On the other hand, I've dealt with this one too long, and now, at last, it has begun to interfere with the actual business at hand: poetry, politics, paranormal (aka aliens), pop, parody, painting, and pranks. Sometimes you can fight the good fight; and sometimes it's just not worth the expenditure of oxygen. I don't mean to be cryptic about all of this. . .I just want to play Pilate and wash my hands of it. And then, remember that this is the internet. All the material deleted from All This Is That is available elsewhere. You just have to look for it, nudge nudge. Selah. /jack
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