Friday, February 29, 2008
1 out of 99 Americans are now in prison: we've cracked the 1 in 100 barrier
click to enlarge
We've finally cracked that elusive barrier: more than 1 out of 100 Americans are now in the hoosegow, calaboose [1], jail, prison, penitentiary, and medical lockup.
According to an Associated Press/CBS story, for the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison. I was going to do the math to figure out when 10%, and even when all of us, will be in jail. But I didn't; it's too depressing.
[1] A word I learned of reading Herman Melville, my favorite American novelist. [cal·a·boose /ˈkæləˌbus, ˌkæləˈbus/ noun Slang. jail; prison; lockup. Origin: 1785–95, Americanism; (<>
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Thursday, February 28, 2008
The Isla Nubars a/k/a Del Brummet post a new demo: The Fantasy of the Century
Click here to hear the new demo, Fantasy of the Century, and listen to some of the old ones...
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Poem: The sounds on Puget Sound
The sounds on Puget Sound
The fog pushes up the hill
and the stars fade
into a milky film
smeared across the sky.
I hear the voices
of three distinct sea lions--
Momma, Poppa, Baby,
Or maybe three bachelor
sea lions frisking on the jetty
outside Golden Gardens.
The barks come steady now
and I wonder if they're cold,
but Baja is just a swim
down the coast
and it's not easy
to leave the salmon, shrimp,
crab, squid, sardines,
smelt, octopus, oysters,
anchovies, starfish, cod,
clams and geoducks behind.
Maybe it's the lunar eclipse
getting under their hides,
and the moon, melting away
yanks their bearings awry.
The foghorn on the buoy begins
its low moan in counterpoint
to the random sea lion arfs
and out along the sound
somewhere between Seattle
and Bainbridge Island
I hear the muffled putt putt putt
of a tugboat hauling a sand barge
into Elliott Bay
and I realize the sea lions
are just barking
to cover up the engines.
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Fiddling around with Grand Central from Google
This is kind of a mindf***er, really. Google Grand Central assigns me a telephone number (in my Seattle area code even) and if you click the button on my sidebar a 'bot will call you and connect you to the All This Is That voice mailbox. I can access all this from my smartphone or my computer or a a public PC. I chose the direct to voice mail option for calls from this blog (since Pablo Fanque and whatever scurrilous slander he decides to post generates plenty of hate mail.
They claim I have this phone number for life. This one phone number will ring me direct or via voicemail at any or all phones I use --work, home, and cell. I can even switch phones in the middle of a call. And it will call all my phones at the same time, if I choose that option, whichever one you pick up becomes your phone. I'm not explaining this well.
Other cool stuff--if you leave a message, I can post it directly to my blog with one button push. And I can download all the messages as MP3 files. A side benefit is that I can once again phone in voice calls to this blog (which has been defunct for two years). I tested this tonight (see below), but this looks to be interesting technology anyhow...if only for a voicemail box with no public number (and callers have the option of giving no name or number). Obviously I don't totally get it...but it's pretty cool. Or at least it seems like it tonight. Tomorrow morning, it may just seem about as exciting as Friendster.
I kind of stumbled reading this poem, since I'd never read it out loud before (and every time I do, I find several things I want to change because I don't like saying them out loud!). And my phone was fading in and out a bit, since I am in a weak cell area...but it kind of shows a little of what Grand Central can do. So, if you're ever in the mood, call the All This Is That Voicemail Box.
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Video & Lyrics: Bob Dylan's I Want You
This is one of those YouTube pseudo-videos...a song, with a photomontage. In this case, the song is great, and the photos they used are mostly choice. (Lyrics follow). I want You is one of my top ten favorite Dylan songs...
I Want You
by Bob Dylan
Copyright © 1966; renewed 1994 Dwarf Music
The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonesome organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep,
They wait for you.
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
Now all my fathers, they've gone down
True love they've been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
'Cause I don't think about it.
Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid.
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her.
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see.
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit,
He spoke to me, I took his flute.
No, I wasn't very cute to him,
Was I?
But I did it, though, because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I . . .
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
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Keith Olberman nominates John McCain as the worst person in the world after changing his third denial in as many days!
One of my favorite television political wonks—Keith Olberman—named John McCain as the winner of his worst person in the world award today. In this case, John McCain denied knowing the man who introduced him at a rally and used Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, to whip the crowd into a frenzy. McCain denounced him and denied knowing him. Well, not quite. As it turned out, the McCain campaign hired him as a fluffer more or less "to throw red meat to the crowd." And John McCain had met him twice "at a rally or something."
Jump here to see Keith Olberman's video piece.
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Oregon Mayor fired over her underwear (or, rather, where she wore them)
She told KATU News Tuesday she had no regrets and seemed to harbor no hard feelings about the recall.
"My reaction is that the democratic process took place, and that is a good process that we have in the United States, and it's fair," she said.
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Debate 20—a lumbering snoozefest—we call it a draw—guaranteed to anaesthetize the newly enfranchised democrats—a weird sense of calm prevails
click painting to enlarge
[jack writing in from Austin, Texas] Hillary's opening was almost beyond bizarre. Unfortunately it seemed off the cuff, and in fairness, she has had the first question in the majority of the last debates (still including up to 7 people). But still.
The rest of it, I'd score them each a point here, a point there. One thing that really struck me—and a commentator on MSNBC also mentioned it—was that Obama never seems to generate real excitement in the debates. When he appears in public, speaking to a packed stadium, yeah, El Hombre es en fuego! But he doesn't transmit that same excitement in debates. I think he probably can. But I don't see it. He comes across as way cool. I actually count it against him that he never loses his cool in these unscripted public events. Is he the kind of man who only catches fire when he is front of an admiring throng? Or is it that he's more comfortable speaking to The People? If that's true, he may be right. It's probably long past time to think we can change the corrupt Washington system by working with congress. Maybe Obama really can take it to the people, and rally the country around real change.
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Desperate Clinton campaign's thoughts and actions now more closely resemble the last days in the Fuhrer Bunker than a Democratic politcal operation
I do believe in hardball, but I believe what the campaign is promulgating is a scorched earth policy--wrought from wrath without a hope of turning around her bungled campaign--that will come back to damage Obama when he faces off with John McCain. [1]
I will be in Austin in the afternoon tomorrow--which should be interesting. Austin is an Obama hotbed. Who knows, there may even be a candidate around..though I doubt it. Hillary's lost Austin, Obama won't bother showing up in a town he can win hands down, and I doubt if McCain ever bothers to appear.
At this point, I only regret that Hillary is in the race for two more weeks, doing incalculable damage. . . as our reader/frequent Kev points out, Obama doesn't really need anyone's endorsement right now, But he does indeed need "all hands on deck" as Kev wisely said, come the general.
Well, it's time to get all hands on deck and slap a muzzle on Hillary Clinton. Over the last few days she:
►Denounced Obama over the weekend for an anti-Clinton flier about the Nafta trade treaty;
►On Sunday, sarcastically portrayed his message of hope as naïve;
►On Monday, Senator Clinton delivered a scorching speech comparing Mr. Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience to that of the candidate George W. Bush;
►In Clinton’s Monday speech , she also portrayed herself as “tested and ready” to be commander in chief, while accusing Mr. Obama of believing “that mediation and meetings without preconditions will solve some of the world’s most intractable problems”;
►And the capper was a photograph of Mr. Obama in ceremonial African garb that appeared on the Drudge Report (see our post on this in yesterday's All This Is That), and the item’s author, Matt Drudge, claimed that the image was provided by a Clinton staff member.
Video: On the set of Grandma's Boy and the roll it all up scene
And another video,of one of my favorite scenes in the film Grandma's Boy:
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Monday, February 25, 2008
The Clinton Smear Machine Turns The Dial To 11
According to the Drudge Report, an email by one staffer asked "Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?"
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Ralph Nader enters the Presidential race to save us from ourselves
Nader ran as a third-party candidate in 2000 and 2004, and probably cost Al Gore the election by siphoning away nearly three percent of the vote. So why wouldn't we want to elect the guy responsible for putting George Bush in the White House.
Barack Obama, responded Saturday to Nader's earlier criticisms that he lacked "substance," and praised (and damned) Nader: "In many ways he is a heroic figure and I don't mean to diminish him. But I do think there is a sense now that if somebody is not hewing to the Ralph Nader agenda, then you must be lacking in some way."
Senator Clinton called Nader's announcement a "passing fancy" and said "obviously, it's not helpful to whomever our Democratic nominee is. But it's a free country," she told reporters in Rhode Island.
Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, speaking before Nader's announcement, said Nader's past runs have shown that he usually pulls votes from the Democrat. "So naturally, Republicans would welcome his entry into the race."
"If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form," Nader said.
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