Kowabunga, douche.

Education For Extinction:
American Indians and the Boarding School Experience
by David Wallace Adams

Classroom

"Probably more significant than the specific content of the science curriculum was the deeper message being transmitted. Traditionally, Indian children had been taught to look upon nature in ecological and spiritual terms. To know nature was to recognize one's dependence on the earth and its creatures. The world of nature was inseparable from the world of the supernatural; gods and spirits inhabited the earth, sky and lakes just as every living creature--the deer, the eagle, the mountain lion--possessed its own distinctive spiritual essence, which, through rights and ceremonies, might be incorporated into one's being as a sustaining source of personal identity and power..."

Sounds like Halloween to me.

"...In the end, the Indian's knowledge of the physical and natural environment was inseparable from how they approached it--intimately, harmoniously, and with reverential respect for the mysterious. Whites, on the other hand, objectified nature. Western science was ultimately the search for "laws of nature" and scientific principles that, once established, could be put to the service of technological progress. Nature was to be controlled, conquered and, finally, exploited."

Kind of like how the Indians themselves were to be: controlled, conquered and exploited.

"Science too was an expression of the white man's power."

The Sum of Man by Norah Pollard

In autumn,
facing the end of his life,
he moved in with me.
We piled his belongings--
his army-issue boots, knife magazines,
Steely Dan tapes, his grinder, drill press,
sanders, belts and hacksaws--
in a heap all over the living room floor.
For two weeks he walked around the mess.

One night he stood looking down at it all
and said: "The sum total of my existence."
Emptiness in his voice.

Soon after, as if the sum total
needed to be expanded, he began to place
things around in the closets and spaces I'd
cleared for him, and when he'd finished
setting up his workshop in the cellar, he said,
"I should make as many knives as I can,"
and he began to work.

The months plowed on through a cold winter.
In the evenings, we'd share supper, some tale
of family, some laughs, perhaps a walk in the snow.
Then he'd nip back down into the cellar's keep
To saw and grind and polish,
creating his beautiful knives
until he grew too weak to work.
But still he'd slip down to stand at his workbench
and touch his woods
and run his hand over his lathe.

One night he came up from the cellar
and stood in the kitchen's warmth
and, shifting his weight
from one foot to the other, said,
"I love my workshop."
Then he went up to bed.

He's gone now.
It's spring. It's been raining for weeks.
I go down to his shop and stand in the dust
of ground steel and shavings of wood.
I think on how he'd speak of his dying, so
easily, offhandedly, as if it were
a coming anniversary or
an appointment with the moon.
I touch his leather apron, folded for all time,
and his glasses set upon his work gloves.
I take up an unfinished knife and test its heft,
and feel as well the heft of my grief for
this man, this brother I loved,
the whole of him so much greater
than the sum of his existence.


"The Sum of Man" by Norah Pollard, from Death & Rapture in the Animal Kingdom. (c) Antrim House, 2009.

Aww, that's too bad (or: One step foward, two... um, I forgot what I was saying because I'm really high right now.)

After the buzz wore off from the Obama administration's decision for the Justice Department to back up off a state for gettin' down, those damn Yankees go and thwart the will of the people. Or at least of pot smokers.

I've recently started getting these updates to keep up with all the different fronts of the War on the War on Drugs, or at least the war on pot, from theses guys at the Marijuana Policy Project. Now that things are truly, seemingly, in the hands of states, let's hope for a wave of different types of legalization/decriminalization to sweep the land. Okay, maybe not sweeping, that seems like a lot of work; maybe just, like, by osmosis...

Marijuana Policy Project Alert:

...New Hampshire legislature came just shy of voting to override Gov. John Lynch (D)'s veto of the state's proposed medical marijuana law. Two-thirds of the votes were needed. Although we cleared the House with 67.6% of the vote (240-115), it lost in the Senate, 14-10.

The bill had passed the legislature in June, by 232-108 in the House and 14-10 in the Senate. But on July 10, Gov. Lynch vetoed the bill, after refusing to meet with 15 patients and after failing to give input to the legislative conference committee, which amended the bill to address each of the eight concerns he had voiced in April.

...To override the veto and pass the bill into law, we needed supportive votes from two-thirds of voting members of the House and 16 votes in the Senate.

But the bill faced strong opposition from the state's attorney general and chiefs of police.

...71% of New Hampshire voters support allowing seriously and terminally ill patients to use and grow medical marijuana for personal use if their doctors recommend it, according to a 2008 Mason-Dixon poll.

The above is an infographic depicting the percentage breakdown of all crimes in the U.S. for last year. Any guess what's the #1 single most-arrestable offense? Gettin' mean with a little weed (or other drugs).

It seems the attorney general and the chief's of police wouldn't have much to do anymore if their were no drug users (mostly pot smokers) or sellers (who would vanish upon changing the laws) to bust. Do you know what it's like in winter up there? No, me neither, but for some reason The Shining comes to mind.

Though, if pot was legal, they could all just sit around and get stoned. Then, maybe there'd be less hunting accidents. Because there'd probably be a lot less hunting. And less drinking and fighting and car accidents and road rage and child abuse and spousal abuse and bullying and reduce a whole lot of the other crimes on the graphic--wait, why is pot smoking still illegal, still considered a bad thing?

Once was douche, but now he's found.

At least he knows how to give props when deserved.

The administration's recovery efforts [for hurricane Katrina] have drawn praise from Republicans, too, including Gov. Bobby Jindal. Jindal has credited Obama's team with bringing a more practical and flexible approach to the process. "There's a sense of momentum and a desire to get things done," he said in August.

So, it looks like he decided to play nice and except some help from the federal government, after all. I gave Bobby a hard time back when he gave us all a laugh at a dorky looking Indian-dude with a Louisiana accent and cheesy smile (see below) trying to out-pimp Obama, after the president's speech. Well, Bobby, I know how to give props too. Enjoy it, though, I doubt there'll be much more.

Columbus, what a prince.

"They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawk's bells. They willingly traded everything they owned.... But they were well built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make the do whatever we want."

--from A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn

Charming.

The Odds on Obama (or: Things that creep me out)

Weren't very good, but then again he was as safe a bet as Bill Clinton. Regardless, both were better off than MJ or W, as well they should have been--if only because Obama would be hard-pressed to fuck up as royally as George Jr. But, that's also why it was a stupid move (in the words of some diplo-type "Absolutely stupid"--thanks M.) to give Barack the award: he hasn't really done anything yet, and the few things he has done aren't worth the approbation. And, perhaps not as importantly but more annoyingly, this is just the kind of thing the Right will use to support their horror that the world is sucking at the teat of Obama-nation.


Still, what's most disturbing about the whole affair is this creepy graphic The Economist used in their reaction piece about the award.


Heard George Packer (of The New Yorker) on the radio say Obama should not accept it (didn't know it was an option), that they should put it on hold, so to speak, until he has accomplished something. I completely agree.



Otherwise, I've mostly been creeped-out by science. Like the oncoming war of man versus machine ala Terminator. There's the singularity that Ray Kurzweil talks about, explained on this podcast from Future Tense, a weekly science/tech show. Basically, the rate of technological advance will increase so much that soon we'll be able to live indefinitely, if only virtually. But first computers are just going to get smarter than we are, hence the possible catastrophe. According to The Economist, it will be here soon.

"How soon before evolvable machines become cleverer than people? Little over a decade is the current consensus. One such machine has already been awarded a patent for something it quietly invented on its own."

Crap.



Alongside the computers outsmarting us, not only will medical technology increase, but we'll be incorporating computers into our biology, like some of us already (or soon will) have. Though for now technology only tacks on a few years, eventually it will allow us to live a really, really long time. Ready for that?

"'Very long lives are not the distant privilege of remote future generations -- very long lives are the probable destiny of most people alive now in developed countries,' Kaare Christensen of the Danish Aging Research Center wrote on Friday in a study in the Lancet medical journal.

Many governments in developed nations are already making moves toward raising the typical age of retirement to try to cope with aging populations."

What? As soon as people start living a little longer they talk about making us work more? Screw you Reuters.



"The researchers said this was an important strategy, and added that if part-time work was considered for more of the workforce, that could have yet more benefits.

"If people in their 60s and early 70s worked much more than they do nowadays, then most people could work fewer hours per week.... Preliminary evidence suggests that shortened working weeks over extended working lives might further contribute to increases in life expectancy and health."

Oh, okay, I like the sound of that. But still:

"'People younger than 85 years are living longer and, on the whole, are able to manage their daily activities for longer.'

But for people older than 85, the situation is less clear, the researchers said. Data are sparse, and there is widespread concern that exceptional longevity -- with ever larger numbers living to 100 and more -- could be grim for the people themselves and the societies they live in."

Crap.

"Keep in mind: I'm rich, I already have health insurance, and I don't care about other people."

Ah, Stephen Colbert. God bless his honesty. Check out his interview about health care reform. On the same episode watch the interview with Corey Booker, who is one of the stars of a Bravo documentary, Brick City, about Newark, the city of which he is the mayor. While you're at Colbert Nation, hear the new Flaming Lips album streaming live, and see them perform. After that, watch the interview with Wayne Coyne, the singer, in which Colbert accuses him of trying to "expand his mind" through the band's music. How dare they.


"Cut the president some slack," requests Obama. And though I completely agree about Kanye West--I hope he gets crabs--it's never a good sign when someone refers to themselves in the third person... this bloggist would never do that.

I was more afraid he was going to start swatting heads, "c'mon guys..." remember the last pest he dealt with in an interview.

Last week: 2752

It was at least a bracket on which to construct memory and, more so, a place of departure—perhaps the wrong way, like an elbow bent backwards. It became context: a way to delineate and map New York’s, and my, existence.

It’s my A.D. she said. Yeah, everything is before or after. After is when it all started to go bad.

Did you loose someone? No, luckily. Not that day, but soon enough. At the time, I thought I could have lost anyone, everyone. Or I was lost, and others were mourning the loss. For some, close enough to the epicenter, all those in the falls were our loss, and, too, something that had been collectively all of ours before was now lost with them. Physical proximity can in part explain this discarnate connection between strangers, those remained and those gone; the ripple effect that dissipates as it moves outward from point of origin.

For weeks the smoke, ill-defined, crawled slowly out of lower Manhattan; crossing the East River onto Brooklyn, hanging in the sky over apartment buildings, like mine. Enmeshed with the afternoon sun of that clear day, the amalgam of the smoke and ash of paper and plane and body went on to hue the sunset a beautiful, if unnatural, charcoal-red blood orange.




This was from the Writer’s Almanac last week.

D.H. Lawrence: 'Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.'

It was on this day in 2001 that two hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City.

The first rule of Health Care Reform is you don't talk about Health Care Reform. (In honor of Teddy-bear Kennedy, R.I.P.)

The second rule of Health Care Reform is you DON'T TALK ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM!

No, I still will not talk about health care. But below is a surprisingly, from The Nation anyway, funny piece we all might enjoy in the current tumult.
















Your Questions About Health Care Reform Answered

by Christopher Hayes on 08/11/2009

Ok, so there's been a lot of misinformation about proposals to reform the health insurance industry and provide (near) universal coverage. Understandable! It's complicated stuff. Herewith, I'll try to answer some questions

1) Is it true that all of the bills currently proposed would end the practice of "rescission," whereby health insurance providers refuse to treat customers who've paid their premiums simply because they've become ill?

No! That's a common misunderstanding. Actually, all of the bills would ban incisions, that is, they would legally bar surgeons from performing surgery until a panel of twelve gay illegal immigrant government bureaucrats unanimously signed off on the procedure.

2) Is it true that health care reform would ban insurers from refusing to insure people because of pre-existing conditions?

Wrong again. To get rid of health inequality, the bills actually mandate that every American be given a pre-existing condition. A National Illness Commission, with academics appointed from Harvard, Reed College and Berkeley, will evaluate each citizen, and based on their demographic profile, choose their malady. Each disease or syndrome is scored on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most severe. White christian men will receive pre-existing conditions of 8 or higher. Black people, "wise latinas," and ACORN members will be exempted.

3) I heard the proposals currently under consideration provide seniors with option of free counseling sessions under Medicare, where they can discuss a living will and end-of-life care.

That's a huge misconception. The bills require all senior citizens (who are non union members) be euthanized on their 70th birthday. Under section 278(c)ii all last rites will be performed by Jeremiah Wright using a Q'uran.

4) I've heard the bills being proposed would require insurers to provide preventative care, like mammograms, free of charge.

No, but all lactating mothers will be forced to breast-feed poor children.

5) Will the current bills plug the "donut hole" in the Medicare prescription drug benefit so seniors don't have to pay exorbitant out of pocket expenses for their medication?

Absolutely not. The legislation will ban donuts.

Plenty of room at the Hotel...

Bed-Stuy, early last week.

I woke up depressed. Or rather I got depressed quickly. First, I hear/read that the past few days I’ve been without TV or internet I’d missed the abdication of the public option by the Obama Administration from health care reform. I’ll be honest, I can’t say the public option is the salve needed to start the process of good health care reform, but I haven’t heard compelling arguments against it either (meaning I’ve heard more for it).

Then, another Obama-related tidbit: 57% of Americans don’t think the stimulus has made any positive difference. The help shoring up state budget deficits across the country alone has softened the blow. With most of us living in these biggest, most populated states, like NY and CA, as you’ll see below, it would seem the statistic is backward. But no, just fucked up priorities.

Can’t help the government because the government shouldn’t help us, because government is bad, because it’s un-American. Un-American? Really? You might want to wipe that subsidized corn syrup off your mouth before you speak. Or at least pull up your pants after you’re done fucking the economy from Wall Street, while, between de-regulation and tax cuts of the past thirty years, the wealth you’ve accumulated at the expense of everyone else is still intact.

But actually these two groups can’t compromise the entire 57%. Besides a few other specific groups, the rest are working-class poor (mostly white, non-urban and Christian) who don’t know anything more than the mantras of God and Country they were taught in elementary school, now echoed in the right-wing talk radio and tabloid cable-TV “news” and, lest we forget, Hollywood-ified American history.

To meet a critique of the last mentioned medium more than halfway, I’ll use a rare example of good historic filmmaking I’ve seen recently. Though it might be unfair to call HBO Hollywood, they’re close cousins, the John Adams bio-drama was a fair representation of some of the intellectual and philosophical strains surrounding the Revolution, the founding documents and early administrations. Still, even just an introductory knowledge of the documents and the histories of the time are needed for the dialogue to be anything more than mere platitudes.

I don’t claim expertise, but I’ve at least read most the writings and histories of the events of the era. So, do me a favor, don’t tell me what an American is, and I won’t tell you either. Tell me something about health care reform, instead of shouting at me and then telling me it’s your American right to do so. Nowhere in the Constitution or the Federalist Papers does it mention being an asshole. But then again, its better to be shouted by a mob than to be tarred and feathered by one, as was shown in the Adams series. Wow, so I guess we really are making progress! Adams, Jefferson, and the boys would be proud. Now I feel better too.


Actually, the real reason I’m in a better mood is that a piece in The New Yorker (with the bonus of it coming a few days earlier than normal, which is later than it should be, normally, which is today) about the Golden State that just happened to align with a piece I’d started earlier this summer about California, it’s budget, drug law reformation, the right-wing, etc.—you’ll see below.

So, apparently, now that the state has now been deemed “ungovernable” (what the once said of NYC; that is, before Giuliani; though, that is a myth) a revolution is a brewing. As opposed to the comparably conservative notion I talk about below—pot legalization as a revenue generator—these guys are ready to trash the whole government. I love it! These MF’s are crazy.

I’ll say it now, if this happens I’m moving to California; if not to be a full on citizen, than just to watch it all go down. I was already thinking of moving there anyway if they did, or were about to, legalize pot. And though, yes, I like pot, this has more to do with the revolutionary nature of legalization and its implications for drug policy nationwide, worldwide.

But, damn, they’re talking about an actual revolution—not just a green one. The beauty is that, so far, it has wide ranging support across the political spectrum in the state. I always liked the phrase, if everyone agrees but none are happy, then it’s probably fair. I’ll add the corollary, even though it’s the inverse of the usual formulation, that, in this case, if everyone agrees it’s probably a good idea. Even The Economist is overturning this old platitude, but instead for the "cash-for-clunkers."

After all, any scheme that so many politicians agree on is almost bound to be a clunker itself. Yet given the difficult economic circumstances facing the world, the policy looks like a nice little runner.


California, one of the wealthiest places on the earth, with a multi-millionaire governor and billions in debt, had to send IOU’s to residents for their tax returns this year after the state’s inability to pass a new budget.

No question the system is broken," said liberal Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who recently decided not to run for governor next year and whose city is grappling with a $530 million deficit. "It's a state on the brink, families falling through the cracks with IOUs as a safety net. It's mind-boggling to me how little controversy there is over the IOUs."

Then Schwarzenegger held a large knife in a television address about the budget and it finally passed. Unsurprisingly, the balancing came by cutting services not increasing taxes. What got cut? The usual: schools, the elderly, state workers.

There are no new taxes. But hammer blows hit the poor, the elderly, the infirm and students and will keep them staggering for years.

Because California is one of only three states that require a two-thirds majority to approve a budget or even a tax increase, the small GOP minority had just enough votes to block passage. And entrenched gerrymandering makes their seats invulnerable, allowing them to take the most extreme positions. "For me it has been heartbreaking," said Democratic Assemblyman Kevin de Léon, one of ten conferees on the budget. "Back in February we came up with a good budget but with those two minor taxes--on oil and tobacco. That money would have gone right into education. But because of the two-thirds rule, and even though a majority wants it, we get handcuffed by a small group."

Over the past three decades, California has tripled the number of prisons it operates, has more than quintupled its prison population and has gone from spending $5 on higher education for every dollar it spent on corrections to a virtual dead-heat in spending.

Perhaps, in the next logical step away from the War on Drugs, after legalizing “medical” marijuana (was in LA recently and saw pot stores advertising along with prescription writing doctors in local papers), the state will realize the cash crop they’re sitting on, and legalize pot completely.

Here are some excerpts from two great articles from The Nation. Most quotes above are from a more recent piece about the "ungovernable" state. The pieces below give a more than decent overview of the past and present failures of the War on Drugs, both nationally and in California.

For Betty Yee, chair of California's Board of Equalization--the office responsible for collecting sales tax in the Golden State--the changes, especially around drug-law enforcement, can't come soon enough. …Specifically, she has become an outspoken advocate for legalizing pot for residents older than 21… Yee wants to levy fees on business owners applying for marijuana licenses, impose an excise tax on sellers and charge buyers a sales tax. Do it properly, and the state could reap about $1.3 billion a year, she has estimated. "Marijuana is so easily available. Why not regulate it like alcohol and tobacco?" she says, and gain additional tax revenue into the bargain?

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger… announced that the state should at least consider the merits of pot legalization. He wasn't advocating it, he was careful to stress, but he did think the time was ripe to debate the issue.

Huh, what?!? Did say debate? Well, I’m sorry but that just sounds waaayyyyy too reasonable to me—I smell a rat!

"The budget is so bad now, the populism of the issue is beginning to work here in the Legislature," Ammiano says. [Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a former San Francisco city councilman, is pushing just such a bill in the State Legislature.] "But there's a lot of policy wonks" supporting it. "There's very conservative support from the oddest sources and locations." The GOP chair in the state, as well as Tom Campbell, a Republican gubernatorial hopeful, have indicated their support for his bill, Ammiano declares. "When it starts to cost more money than it's worth even in the eyes of the pooh-bahs, then you can accomplish something."

Oh, right: the fiscal conservatives. Normally used to justify uninhibited financial gain, advance moral (read: crazy-Christian) agendas, or service Congressional rapacity; the more logical, fiscally responsible conservatism is coming to the surface. In large part, this is what is fracturing the Republican Party—to their credit, their benefit and ours.

The Right is finally waking up to the costs, monetary and philosophical, incurred after years of indulging their base: generally, white southern (east and west) and middle states who have co-opted conservatism to fit their xenophobic and Christian-based ideals; e.g., the abortion/execution paradox—love that one. Only, this definition of constituency is incomplete, leaving out generally more affluent whites of the northern part of the country and in urban centers.

These are libertarian folk who believe in states rights over federalism and the right to bear arms as a means of defense from an authoritarian government. Over time, this focus on civil liberties by the founders and the traditional brand of conservatism it spawned, including both fiscal and religious freedom, were split; the former joined the opposite of the latter: the desire to keep the government’s hand out of our pockets, taxation, was melded with the seemingly contradictory want to dictate people’s behavior morally, religiously.

This conservative-Christian alliance is something that’s always stuck in my craw (and, yes, I do have a craw). Conservatism shouldn’t have shit to do religion. If anything, the Right should be the most irreligious—the separation of church and state, anyone? Anyone? Buhller? Buhller? Yet, I can’t remember when the two haven’t been fused. Truly, this is puzzling.

One reason I can think of, according to Occam, would be that neither faction—the fiscally responsible (more in theory than practice, of late, seemingly only when it fits their politics—looked at the Iraq tab lately?) conservatives and the anti-poor (irony alert: most of them are working-class at best; What’s the Matter with Kansas explores this phenomenon), xenophobic bible-thumpers—have ever had even close to enough support individually to combat the wave post-WWII liberalism. But that’s just crazy, right?

Tough-on-crime rhetoric, and the policies and institutions that grow from it, emerged from Nixon's Silent Majority tactics, from his recasting of politics as a series of debates around "values" rather than bread-and-butter issues.

Oh, right. So maybe the usurpation of conservatism by the religious right mentioned above has it backwards, or at least only half right. Perhaps the traditional conservatives enveloped the Southerners, realizing that increasingly after WWII the numbers weren’t on their side. Between the radicalism and civil rights of the 60’s and affirmative action and de-industrialization of the 70’s, this country’s white-patriarchal tradition was existentially threatened—or so they thought.

In fact, recent Zogby polling commissioned by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency suggests that close to eight in ten Americans favor alternatives to incarceration for low-level nonviolent offenders. Another Zogby poll, from last fall, found that just more than three-quarters of Americans felt the "war on drugs" was a failure. The sea change in public opinion holds in California too. In late March the Los Angeles Times ran a column asking readers their opinion on marijuana legalization. So far 4,927 people have replied, and 94 percent of them favor legalization. A Field Poll in April found that 56 percent of Californians favor legalizing and taxing pot.

Checkmate. You guys loose—the drug thing anyway.

I will not talk about health care, I will not talk about health care, I will not...

The quotes below are from Media Matters, (yes, again) about the energy/cap-and-trade bill that passed a little while back. And though I’ve become aware that the main guy there at MM is of a somewhat dubious character, I still trust the quotes—I mean, if it’s easy enough to verify, why would they lie? That’s why I’ve like: though it’s no secret what side they’re on, they usually let the media’s stupidity speak for itself.

On Fox News, actor and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein described the president's plan as "the nerdy kids in high school who didn't have cars or had to take the bus to school or mothers had to drive them to school, they're taking revenge on the cool kids who had the cool cars."






Wait, Ben Stein? Isn’t he the branded-stereotype nerd of them all, since like the 80’s and Ferris Buhler’s Day Off? You know: Bueller, Bueller… Bueller?









Over on the Fox Business Network, Neil Cavuto likened the administration's plan to a fictional mob boss, saying, "It is not the American way, but it may be the Tony Soprano way."


Funny, I thought the Sopranos was based in New Jersey—god, if that’s Sicily, it has really let itself go. Kidding, I love Jersey. And though some might not like to be reminded of it, we can’t say that Tony Soprano isn’t as American as certain flavors of pies or sports games. Besides, what other country would a Don go to a shrink? Okay, perhaps Germany.

But, really, this is just another example of the American Dilemma—as in, there is no dilemma when there should be. We like to be proud of certain behavior and claim it as American, but we don’t own up to the stuff we deem bad; this goes for domestic and foreign policy. Bullshit, it’s all American. No, criminal enterprise is not uniquely American, but our brand is. One that is quite comfortable in the political and business worlds, among other things. Contradiction is okay; we can be good and bad, and not become schizophrenic.

Here’s another.

But it was MSNBC's Mike Barnicle who best illustrated what's wrong with the overwhelming majority of current economic punditry. On Wednesday, he asked his Morning Joe co-hosts incredulously, "What are they doing with the [stimulus] money?" Then on Thursday, he reflected on the detrimental nature of America's "amazingly impatient culture" where people can't stop asking, "Where's the money?" Simply put, this kind of schizophrenic analysis is still overwhelming logical thought, much to the detriment of the viewing public.

The Writer's Almanac, a daily antedote to existential crisis

I wrote recently about Hemingway. Below is a story about the author, summed up well by Garrison Keller's The Writer's Almanac, I'd been meaning to share. Added are a few other excerpts.


The Writer's Almanac for July 21, 2009

Hemingway said, 'The writer's job is to tell the truth.' In A Moveable Feast, he wrote: 'I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, `Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.'

There's a legend that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to create a six-word story, and he said, 'For sale: baby shoes, never worn.' Inspired by this, an online magazine invited readers to submit their own six-word memoirs, a collection of which was published by Harper Collins in 2008 as Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Six-word memoirs include: 'All I ever wanted was more' and 'Moments of transcendence, intervals of yearning' and 'They called. I answered. Wrong number.'


Never pretend
to be a unicorn
by sticking a plunger on your head

"Advice to Young Poets" by Martín Espada, from The Republic of Poetry. (c) W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.


Here's part of another recent day's Almanac, from July 13, 2009

Hislop once said: 'Satire is the bringing to ridicule of vice, folly, and humbug. All the negatives imply a set of positives. Certainly in this country, you only go round saying, 'that's wrong, that's corrupt' if you have some feeling that it should be better than that. People say, 'You satirists attack everything.' Well, we don't, actually. That's the whole point.'


Money is such a treat.
It takes up so little space.
It takes no more ink
for the bank to print $9,998
than to print $1,001.
It flows, electronically;
it does not gather dust.
Like water, it (dis)solves everything.
Oceanic, it is yet as lucid
as a mountain pool; the depositor
can see clear to the sandy bottom.
It is ubiquitous and under pressure, yet
pennies don't drip from faucets.
Money is so tidy, so neat.
It is freedom in action: when you
give a twenty-buck bill to the cabbie,
you don't tell him how to spend it.
He can blow it on coke,
for all you care. All you care
about is your change. No wonder
the ex-Communists are dizzy. In
the old Soviet Union
there was nothing to buy,
nothing to spend. It was freedom
of a kind, but not our kind. We need
money, the dull electric thrill
when the automatic teller spits out
the disposable receipt.

"Money" by John Updike, from Americana and Other Poems. (c) Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.