action figures sold separately

exodus quartet’s What’s That?. terminally smooth.

to laugh at life, knowing that the other elvis, in A Little Less Conversation, actually uses this great word: “Satisfactioning” (!!) what a country.

Oh, well, I feel so loose tonight I might fall to pieces
So be prepared to sweep me out the door
And I might be horizontal by the time the music ceases
So I think I’ll get acquainted with the floor

Oh, I was trying to get away from the things that I always do
Hello, floorboards once again–how are you?

Lip Service–well, that’s all you’ll ever get from me
Well, how could you believe I’ll take you seriously?
With your cheap rewards, your blackmail, and your comical rage
Just remember you’ll only be the boss so long as you pay my wage

All the sign posts on this road that point one way
Don’t act like you’re above me, just look at your shoes
I’ll turn the light out now ’cause there’s nothing more to say
And it’s all been lost before so there’s nothing to lose

Oh, but you could say that you love me very painlessly
I would’ve done the same for you, oh, but you said to me:

Lip service–well, that’s all you’ll ever get from me
Well, how could you believe I’d take you seriously?
With your cheap rewards, your blackmail, and your comical rage
Just remember you’ll only be the boss so long as you pay my wage

Just remember you’ll only be the boss so long as you pay my wage

(pdx from sf that is) …to find that gw is still hell-bent on war. but also just bent. i said so recently, but it bears repeating: lots of really sharp perspectives and solid info about all this can be found at ruminate this and these other places.

but while i was in SF, i thought i’d just for a moment duck into modern times. good move for the brain, bad for the bank account. here’s a few of the things i came out with, most of which i’m recommending very highly.

the first, and i believe most important right now is Addicted to War: Why the US Can’t Kick Militarism. i was enraged, saddened and inspired. its 62 pages of comic book education are extensively footnoted and very well layed out. while my zionist sister and brother in law would have issues with the way that Andreas characterizes US support of the Israeli war of occupation against Palestine, there’s nothing in it that’s not factual. neither is anything blown out of proportion. it’s an ideal resource for anyone who doesn’t yet have a clear picutre of US military build up and intervention in the last couple hunderd years, and for those of us who’ve studied that a lot, it’s a concise and energizing reminder of the facism brewing all around us. pick up copies for your pals, your folks, your neices and nephews, your dentist, etc.

A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan, edited by Gerard Chaliand which Choice mag calls outsanding.

with high praises, Ted Rall’s To Afghanistan and Back

and finally, the relatively thick new treatment by the Sentencing Project’s Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind, Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment.

comments on those last 3 very welcome. i’m just getting started.

Heloooo! I am on call in the NICU. You can check out what’s going on at residentblog if you want and get an idea as to why I never post here anymore. Eli’s in the Bay Area for a friend’s wedding and much fun. The girls (thank L.O.G.R.O.T.U.) are being cared for by our awesome dogsitter, Nancy. I had Saturday off and drank coffee in Red and Black and folded laundry and knit while watching Buffy first season DVDs and headed for a Sound of Music Singalong and Nuns and Nazis drinking game at a friend’s house. It was such a blast. Most of us were drinking rootbeer but it was still fun drinking with the women when the nazis were on screen and having the boys drink when the nuns were on screen. And today went by fast-like. Its weird being on call on Sunday because Sunday feels like such a non-regular day and then all of a sudden its Monday and its a regular day and you are sort of thrust into it in this weird sleep-deprived dreamlike trance.

katie where are you? we miss your bloggin!

super good coverage of last week’s reclaim the media gathering in Seattle is up at that conference site and also at Paul’s excellent media geek. Don’t miss the picture of the Clear Channel poster. very illuminating.

several days ago, A and i were struck with a brilliant idea: we’re taking our bikes on the light rail to go on a big ride. we step up to the platform and a guy standing there with his coworkers says, “this bike thing has gotten out of hand!”

yes, well, it really has, hasn’t it? bikes are just a big problem all around, aren’t they? bikes don’t use up enough resources or promote war in the middle east enough, do they? they don’t bring thousands of lives a year to a tragic end on our freeways and roads, do they? they don’t contribute to enough air and noise pollution do they? something must be done! we at AFSS propose the bike tax. we hope you all like the idea.

anyone not driving a Ford Exploiter, Chevy Destroyer, or some other such monster will be taxed extra, while those who do choose to boost our nations flailing war economy by driving one of these dangerous vehicles will be handsomely rewarded.

ug. at first, we laughed, thinking what a great satirical spoof we could spin with this. then we found out about the actual real-life IRS Section 179 $24,000 Deduction For Trucks, Vans & SUVs (yes, that’s a pdf file and it’s for real. if you buy a 3-ton gross vehicle weight car, you get up to 24 grand off yer taxes). then we also found out about how Oregon, our new home state, which we love in so many other ways, not only doesn’t reward you for driving a fuel-efficient electric or hybrid-electric car, they charge you an extra registration fee. Can we say Arrrggghhh!!??

ug.

looking for the 411 on who’s who and what’s what in the build-up to war, along with the usual cogent analysis of middle east politics? check out robert fisk’s pieces collected at the indipendent. as well, the sidebar at lisa’s ruminate this always has excellent resources, organized into several handy sections. check it. then hit the streets. with rage, laughter, and organizing, we can stop this latest monster.

i thought that his namebase site was pretty cool. but now i read at alternet that Daniel Brandt is yelling at google for being undemocratic. dude, you just don’t get it. your site has a relatively low page rank because other folks aren’t linking to it. it’s not as if google, in all their evilness, has decided to rank you lower. don’t people have anything more interesting and important to do? sheesh!

both the electric writer/astrologer Rob Brezsny (in his email newsletter this week) and the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (in a piece posted at Znet) got good and noisy about fundamentalism, in all its forms. and so in celebration of our survival, and our persistence, and our resistance, and in reflection of the last year, i offer you these poignant yet wicked-sharp Brezsny excerpts:

The Sacred Uproar is coming to you live from your repressed memory of paradise . . . reminding you that life is crazily in love with you — wildly and innocently in love with you. // I won’t lie to you about your mission. You have to be a cheerful rebel fighting against all odds. You have to joyfully and exuberantly resist the temptation to swallow thousands of delusions that have been carefully crafted and beautifully packaged by Very Self-Important People who act like they know what they’re doing. You have to buck every system and go against every grain — even as you stay true to your vow to have a lot of fun. You have to be relentlessly skeptical and sweetly innocent as you overthrow the sour, puckered hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as reality. // First, we can create sanctuaries for spiritual freedom fighters, safehouses to shelter and nurture all of us who are devoted to the divine revolution. These might take the form of temporary events like parties or workshops, or they might be places like homes and treehouses and yurts under highway overpasses. The only requirement is that they be power spots in the network that supports our growing rebel paradise: insurrectionary homebases where we can be our unpredictably miraculous selves and perfect our skills as crafty, open-hearted, kick-ass lovers of life. // Both terrorism and the decimation of our civil liberties are immediate dangers that we are legitimately afraid of. But there is an even bigger long-term threat to the fate of the Earth, of which terrorism and the loss of civil liberties are but symptoms. That threat is fundamentalism — not just the religious fundamentalism of fanatical Muslims and Hindus and Jews and Christians. But also patriotic fundamentalism, the fundamentalism of materialism, the fundamentalism of science. Every fundamentalist divides the world into two camps, Us versus Them, those who agree with him and like him and help him, and those who don’t. There is only a right way and a wrong way to interpret the world: according to the ideas the fundamentalist believes to be true, and everyone else’s ideas. The fundamental attitude of all fundamentalists is that they take everything way too seriously and way too personally and way too literally. And here’s some bad news: Like just about everyone in the world, each of us has our own share of the fundamentalist virus. It’s not as dangerous to the collective welfare as, say, Osama bin Laden’s fundamentalism or the sentimental fundamentalism of American politicians or the CEOs who fervently believe that making a financial profit is the supreme good or the scientists who deny the existence of the 99 percent of reality imperceptible to the five senses. Our fundamentalism is not as virulent as theirs. But still: We are infected, you and I, with fundamentalism.

via the super-informative ruminate this (which i’ve been finding lately to be jam packed with rad news and views), the AP’s listing of the fundamental rights we’ve lost in the new Bush administration.

reflecting today on the erosion of legal rights previously granted by elites and on the greater entrenchment of political and economic power in the US, i remembered these sources about how the drug war has eroded the fourth amendment:

• The USA PATRIOT Act: What’s So Patriotic About Trampling on the Bill of Rights? [from the Center for Constitutional Rights]
• Mark Berkey of the Arkansas State University Herald on how a new state law degrades the fourth amendment.
• Drug War 101, compiled by the dedicated folks at the Human Rights and the Drug War campaign.
• Timothy Lynch’s commentary on flagrant 4th amendment violations by cops.
• and Wired’s Privacy a Victim of the Drug War.

and while it’s indeed a sad day of remembrance for so many, i’ve got to send a happy birthday shout-out to E, Leonard (tomorrow, same as mine), and geronimo ji-jaga (the day after).

behind a couple of recent headlines:

• US blocked all action on renewable energy at the earth summit in Johannesburg - at Democray Now
• Cellblocks or Classrooms?: The Funding of Higher Education and Corrections and Its Impact on African American Men - at Justice Policy Institue.

After 60 years of experience with nuclear power and weapons, it now seems clear that humans are unable to devise controls that work. Nuclear is too complicated and unpredictable for reliable human control. Unlike renewable sources of energy, nuclear is an unforgiving technology because normal human lapses and errors can produce unexpected consequences that are catastrophic and irreversible. Yet as a nation, our tax dollars are still massively subsidizing the expansion of nuclear.

broken down for us at rachel’s environment and health news

yow. by consuming just enough chocolate and listening to old Boston, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Cake, BlackStar, Rickie Lee, and Jimi, 8 of the categories were updated with 33 new links. more on the way.

it’s totally fascinating, and just in time for skü:

• unsaid
• bite me
• are you suicidal?
• seven | image
• a miscellaneous adolescence
• and the list at eatonweb

here’s a little bit (from unsaid):

Friday; September 06 09:14 PM School fucking sucks. It’s definitely worse than I thought it would be. Half the teachers last year left so we have a lot of new ones.. including a new principal and vice principal. My hot gym teacher from last year left and I didn’t even know until school started. So sad. But I have another hot one this year too. So anyways, I hate my classes. I hate my schedule. The only classes I can stand are Sociology, Physics, and the SAT prep course. I thought psychology would be cool but nope, it sucks too.

dear dj & at: we were psyched you showed us lemongrass. but next time ya’ll are in town, it’s khun pic’s bahn thai. oh. my. dog. sooooooooo amazingly good. love, e & a.

<nerdzone>

• why have i not told you about brian’s java colorserve? it’s super handy. check it out. i use it constantly.
• in trying to get samba and netatalk to play nice on our network, i’ve come across this helpful short posting and this reprint of a macuser article which also has a link to this cool linux netatalk how-to page
• ok, and unless you are clinically allergic to all things flash and all things star trek, check out the tour of the enterprise NX-01. makes me think of all the other much cooler, and certainly more useful things we could apply that technology to. but still, it wins extra geekpoints for the pivot tool and zooming capability.
• in the still-not-going-ipod department, we’ve got further proof that nothing else out there is worth it either. the über-dorks over at street tech have posted this review of the new toshiba mobilphile. um, the name alone pegs it as a loser. almost as dumb as putting an “i” in front of something, just cuz.

</nerdzone>