Sudafed = Good

Unless you want to sleep. I couldn't sleep because I of my sinuses so I took Sudafed at 4am, then I couldn't sleep because I was wired. So I've gotten a few hours of sleep each of the past two nights.

Hey, I'm back online.

I spent xmas snowed in at my parents' house. It was okay, we lost power for most of the day so I spent a lot of time shoveling and trying to stay warm.

Now I am sick. I have a sore throat and I ache all over.

I'll write more later.

After a week of feeling pretty good, I was kind of out of it and shaking all day today.

Well, I am headed home Wednesday morning. I am not looking forward to it but I haven't seen my niece and nephew for a few months, so that will be good.

My brother will be home this weekend and we will do our xmas deliveries, he as Santa and me as Santa's driver and lackey. I really do look forward to that; the kids get so excited when Santa shows up at their door.

I probably won't write here again until after Christmas so here is a xmas story for you. I have listened to it every Sunday morning before xmas for the past 7 or 8 years on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. If you have 10 minutes click here to listen or go to the NPR webpage. I really love that story, especially on a cold Sunday morning.

It has been very hectic here lately. I'm trying to finish a conference paper before I go home. I leave Wednesday morning for home, I'll be there for a week, come back here for a few days and then to Chicago on the train for a few days for a conference. And, I hate snow.

"I Know You”

I know you
You were too short
You had bad skin
You couldn’t talk to them very well
Words didn’t seem to work
They lied when they came out of your mouth
You tried so hard to understand the others
You wanted to be part of what was happening
You saw them having fun
Seemed like such a mystery
Almost magic
You thought that there was something wrong with you
You would look in the mirror trying to find the flaw
You thought that you were ugly
And that everybody was looking at you
So you learned to be invisible
To look down
To avoid conversation

The hours, days, weekends
The weekend nights
Alone
Where were you,
The basement, the attic, your room?
Working some job?
Just to have something to do?
Just to have a place to put yourself?
Just to have a way to get away from them
Staying away from the ones
That made you feel so strange
And ill at ease inside yourself

Did you ever get invited to one of their parties
You sat & wondered if you would go or not
For hours you imagined what might transpire
If they would laugh at you
If you would know what to do
If you would have the right things on
If they would notice that you came from a different planet
Did you get all brave in your thoughts
Like you were going to be able to go in there
Deal with it & have a great time?
Did you think that you might be the “life of the party?”
That all these people were going to talk to you
And you would find out that you were wrong
And that you had a lot of friends
And you weren’t so strange after all?
Did you end up going?
Did they mess with you?
Did they single you out?
Did you find out that you got invited
Because they thought you were so weird?
I think I know you

You spent a lot of time full of hate
A hate that was as pure as sunshine
A hate that saw for miles
A hate that kept you up at night
A hate the filled your every waking moment
A hate that carried you for a long time
Yes, I think I know you

You couldn’t figure out what they saw in the way they lived
Home was not home
Your room was home
A corner was home
Anywhere they weren’t
That was home
I know you
You’re sensitive
You hide it
You fear getting stepped on one more time
It seems that when you show a part of yourself
That is the least bit vulnerable
Someone takes advantage of you
One of them steps on you
They mistake kindness for weakness
But you know the difference
You’ve been the brunt of their weakness for years
Strength is something you know a bit about
You had to be strong to keep yourself alive
You know yourself very well now
You don’t trust people
You know them too well
You try to find a special person
Someone you can be with
Someone you can touch
Someone you can talk to
Someone you won’t feel so strange around
You found that they don’t really exist
You feel closer to people on movie screens
Yea, I think I know you

You spend a lot of time daydreaming
People have made comment to that effect
Telling you that you’re self involved & self centered
But they don’t know, do they
About the long night shifts alone
About the years of keeping yourself company
All the nights you wrapped your arms around yourself
So you could imagine someone holding you
The hours of indecision
Self doubt
The intense depression
The blinding hate
The rage that made you stagger
The devastation of rejection
Well, maybe they do know
But if they do
They sure do a good job of hiding it

It astounds you how they can be so smooth
How they seem to pass thru life
As if life itself was some divine gift
It infuriates you to watch yourself
With your apparent skill in finding every way possible
To screw it up
For you life is a long trip
Terrifying & wonderful
Birds sing to you at night
The rain & the sun
The changing seasons are true friends
Solitude is a hard won ally
Faithful & patient
Yes I think I know you

By Henry Rollins from “Black Coffee Blues”

www.dubyadubyadubya.com

Here is your art lesson for today: Picasso's Guernica

Well, here we go...an amateur photographer was arrested and harrassed by the Denver police and Secret Service for...drumroll please...get this...taking pictures in a public area where VP Cheney was staying. All in the name of the bogus "USA Patriot Act". Read the story here.

Topic #2 - I saw an excellent documentary on HBO last night. It is called Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton about poverty and its effects on education in the Mississippi Delta. The film is by Maysles Films, Inc., who have made such films as Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens, and Salesman. Anyhow, it is an excellent film and I recommend it highly, along with the other three that I mentioned.

I really hate snow!!!

Snow Cams

Good news! The Phillies Have now signed two veteran players, David Bell from San Francisco and Jim Thome stolen away from the Indians. (HaHa...Suck on that popsicle Cleveland! © 2002 CMW ;-) ) Maybe that will give them a better chance of getting Glavine from the Braves also. Anyhow, I am looking forward to a good season for the Phils in 2003.

I am back...holiday, relatives, school, illness... :-|

But, right now I am tired so check out the sites below.

I probably won't be online much for a couple of weeks - maybe an hour in the afternoon. And, I may not post anything here--maybe I will--but if I don't, I didn't die :o).

I love this poem. I heard a few years ago but forgot the title and author.

Poem: "Topography," by Sharon Olds from The Gold Cell (Alfred A. Knopf).

Topography

After we flew across the country we
got in bed, laid our bodies
delicately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly from the left my
moon rising slowly from the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Still shaking, but getting used to it. It's just strange.

Now I am totally fucked up. Not only am I shaking from head to toe but I can't concentrate and today I started crying for no reason. I just want this to stop.

I took me about five minutes to this far and remove the typos. :-|

The doctor gave me Ativan but said that is addictive and to only take it when needed. I took it yesterday and it made me sleep and then I felt like shit when I woke up. :-/

bye

Back from the doctor. He thinks it is from anxiety but they did some blood tests and we will know next week.

First, I don't know what I would be anxious about. Second, I am shaking all over all the time. Anyhow, I hope that he is correct. The other thing that they are checking for is thyroid problems.

She may look clean...

ruin
by Charles Bukowski from Septuagenarian Stew

William Saroyan said, "I ruined my
life by marrying the same woman
twice."

there will always be something
to ruin our lives,
William,
it all depends upon
what or which
finds us
first,
we are always
ripe and ready
to be
taken.

ruined lives are
normal
both for the wise
and
others.

it is only when
that life
ruined
becomes ours
we realize
then
that the suicides, the
drunkards, the mad, the
jailed, the dopers
and etc. etc.
are just as common
a part of existence
as the gladiola, the
rainbow
the
hurricane
and nothing
left
on the kitchen
shelf.

Okay, I think I may have mentioned this berfore but John Ashcroft is a very, very dangerous man.


Today Ashcroft held a news conference about the snipers. Apparently the feds moved in and filed charges first for the sole purpose of deciding where these guys would face trial. The federal charges on which they were being held were dropped and the accused snipers sent to the jurisdiction where they would have the best chance of being convicted and executed the fastest.

Why is the Justice Department in the middle of this? These guys, if convicted, will certainly be sentenced to either life in prison or death. I think Ashcroft will delight in playing a part in putting black non-christian men to death.

He should read his bible again. Commandment Six is "Thou shalt not Kill." Four simple words. Or are right-wing christians above their own god's law as well as their country's laws?

I know I sound like a black-helicopter-anti-government whacko, but I really am not. My idea of the role of government just differs from this administration's. Government should help the citizens and protect them, not look for people who are not like them and do its best to oppress them and force its religious beliefs on everyone else.

I am distraught over the election results. I just wanted the Democrats to hold on to enough Senate seats to keep the Republicans from ramming all kinds of laws through Congress. The Republicans now control all three branches of the federal government, with the Presidency, majorities in the House and Senate, and the ability to appoint federal judges and Supreme Court justices.

Less than 40% of registered voters went to the polls yesterday (I did vote). After the next two years of All-Bush-All-the-Time maybe more of us will get off our asses (but I doubt it). Well, enjoy your civil rights while you still have some.

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." -- Jesus (Matthew 10:34)

Jesus was a Terrorist

Jesus was a terrorist
Enemy of the state
That's what the Romans labeled him
So he was put to death

He died for his beliefs
What's changed today?

Today bible-thumping cannibals
Reap money from his name
Buy cable networks & power
With old ladies' checks

If Jesus saw Pat Robertson
What do you think he'd say?

Tax-free they re-write our laws
And sick 'em on you
Women don't control their bodies
TV preachers do

Censor everything from bathing suits
To science books
From the schoolroom to the bedroom
They want our thoughts - or else

They treat us like the Romans
Used to treat the Christians
Even some churchgoing folks are scared

Modern catacombs of fear
Built with money, power and threats
Rock'n'roll is labeled porn
Sell a record, you're under arrest

Instead of fighting AIDS
They try to stop us having sex
They brag that they won't quit
Til they take dominion over our lives

Is freedom of speech such a terrorist act
Is spiritual peace such a satanic threat
Believe what you want
But we'll fight to keep
Out heads from being cemented in your sand.

-- Jello Biafra

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
Voltaire

Here and There

Here and there nightfall
without fanfare
presses down, utterly
expected, not an omen in sight.
Here and there a husband
at the usual time
goes to bed with his wife
and doesn't dream of other women.
Occasionally a terrible sigh
is heard, the kind that is
theatrical, to be ignored.
Or a car backfires
and reminds us of a car
backfiring, not of a gunshot.
Here and there a man says
what he means and people hear him
and are not confused.
Here and there a missing teenage girl
comes home unscarred.
Sometimes dawn just brings another
day, full of minor
pleasures and small complaints.
And when the newspaper arrives
with the world,
people make kindling of it
and sit together while it burns.



"Here and There," by Stephen Dunn from New and Selected Poems (W.W. Norton).

mmmm

Molasses Crumb Cake

2 cups sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup butter
1 cup molasses
2 cups boiling water
1 tablespoon baking soda

• Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease and flour a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking
  pan; set aside.
  
• Combine sugar, flour and butter together, mixing well. Reserve 1 cup mixture for crumbs.
• Stir in remaining ingredients and pour into prepared baking pan.
  Sprinkle crumbs on top of batter.
• Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

No EGGS ;-)

Shooting at Arizona College of Nursing this morning.

See Bowling for Columbine

Yankee dollar talk
To the dictators of the world
In fact it's giving orders
An' they can't afford to miss a word

I'm so bored with the U...S...A...
But what can I do?

-- Strummer/Jones

Thirty pieces of silver?

The television was on in the background as I was reading. I heard London Calling by The Clash so I turned to look at the TV and I realized it was a commercial for Jaguar. How ironic is that? Punk bands, especially The Clash were anti-authority, anti-capitalist, anti-status quo, anti-rich. Now their music is being used to sell luxury cars to rich people.

Iggy Pop, the godfather of punk, has allowed his music to be used by numerous companies in their TV ads. After being told for years by record companies that he wasn't "commercial enough" now his music is being heard by most people for the first time in commercials. Do you think that Ford knows that Lust For Life is about trying quit heroin?

Unlike the "artists" that appear regularly on MTV, no one can say that The Clash or Iggy Pop has sold out artistically. Iggy Pop has been making music for more than 35 years and has never compromised his music in order to sell more records so he never sold (relatively) a lot of records. He should be allowed to reap the long-overdue benefits without people questioning his integrity (not that he cares what other people think.) In fact Iggy said "those songs were written 30 years ago with no regard to commercial success whatsoever. If the check clears, they can use them to sell dog food now for all I care. I know what they were about."

Today was Be-rude-to-Rob Day. I swear that every person that I had contact with today was rude to me. Normally I don't care because I think to myself that if I was doing their job I would be unpleasant too.

The kid waiting on me in the library would not speak in sentences. He would grunt an unintelligible sound and then when I asked him to repeat himself he rolled his eyes and gave me an attitude. I think that he may have even insulted me but I could not understand him.

The other thing that bothers me is when people are walking toward me on the sidewalk and refuse to yield. I usually move out of their way but today I tried an experiment. I walked on the right side of the sidewalk and whenever a group approached me I just held my ground, looking straight ahead and moving forward* like they weren't even there. I think that four guys ran into me.

* thanks to Carey for the heads-up on the video :-))

Plastic girl with plastic gun
Plastic smile under plastic sun
You burn my heart with your frigid stare
Rip me off with your greasy hair
I hate you and your fishy friends
I hate you and it never ends

-- Plastic Sun by Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth

"There is nothing more frightful
than ignorance in action."
-Goethe

Which John Cusack Are You?

"It's worth remembering that extreme sports are not political movements and rock, despite its historic claims to the contrary, is not revolution. In fact, to determine whether a movement genuinely challenges the structures of economic and political power, one need only measure how affected it is by the goings-on in the fashion and advertising industries. If, even after being singled out as the latest fad, it continues as if nothing had happened, it's a good bet it's a real movement." -- Naomi Klein, No Logo - Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

Justice Louis Brandeis,
Olmstead v. United States, 1928

(e.g. John Ashcroft)

These are the first two headlines that I heard on NPR's Morning Edition today:

• President Carter Wins Nobel Peace Prize for decades of tireless work for peace.
  
• Congress Approves Iraq Resolution to allow Bush to invade.

I think that speaks for itself. :|

Who's watching us?

"Only someone completely distrustful of all government would be opposed to what we are doing with surveillance cameras."
NYC Police Commissioner Howard Safir, 27 July 1999

The fight over surveillance cameras in public spaces has come to Central Pennsylvania. The campus chapter of the ACLU is planning its protest yet most people are either unaware of the controversy or they just don't care.

Beaver Avenue is lined with student apartment buildings that feature balconies and is the site of past "riots" by drunk undergrads. After a big win (or loss) some people feel the need to take to the streets and break things.

There are already numerous cameras around town on private property at banks and department stores. Also several webcams are set up around campus. Now, as part of a plan to deter future disturbaces State College and the University agreed that "security cameras may be installed to monitor public spaces in the area. Private security cameras will be installed to monitor balconies." The cameras along Beaver Avenue will serve both a deterent to future rampages and as tool for police to identify participants in such distubances.

The ACLU folks plan a conventional protest with a march, petition and letter-writing campaign. But, there is a group that has been at this for several years called the Surveillance Camera Players (SCP). Their form of protest is a little more creative. They give Big Brother something to look at by performing plays for the cameras. In November 1999 they performed The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich for cameras in a New York subway station.

Even though the right to privacy is protected by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution it takes groups like SCP to focus attention on violations and erosions of our fundamental rights.

Mix It Up http://www.mixitup.org

“It is not wrong to want to live better; what is wrong is a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed toward ‘having’ rather than ‘being,’ and which wants to have more, not in order to be more but in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself.”
Pope John Paul II
Centesimus annus

In the United States consumerism is taking over. Not only has it become almost a national religion but in the days following September 11 the Bush administration was on TV telling people to go out and buy stuff for the good of the country. Thus equating consumerism with patriotism. Patriotism is not about spending beyond our means to perpetuate the status quo.

There is this sort of conventional wisdom that one can find happiness in things. Work more to make more money to buy more things to be happy. However, that happieness is fleeting. As soon as the novelty of the faster computer or fancier car wears off the cycle starts again.

Now it is getting closer to the holidays and time to look for gifts for my nieces and nephews. I always enjoyed finding gifts for them--musical instruments, books, art supplies, etc. But this year I am considering something different. I might end up doing something like a gift to charity in their names. (Just what a kid wants. LOL)

There are great programs like Heifer Project International which gives livestock and trees to families around the world and then provides them with training. You can get a goat ($120) or a share of a goat ($10) or some other animal for a poor family. I just know that that family will appreciate that goat (and its milk, manure, and offspring) a lot more than my niece would appreciate the latest "cool" toy.

My family thinks that I am nuts because I don't have this drive to earn lots money. As long as I can feed myself and have a place to live and clothes to wear I am OK.

This is my "depressed stance"; When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this.


Charlie Brown

The poem below is why, even though I enjoy movies, operas, plays, etc., I rarely attend events. :-)

A. P. Herbert
1890-1971

"At the Theatre:
To the Lady Behind Me"


Dear Madam, you have seen this play;
I never saw it till today.
You know the details of the plot,
But, let me tell you, I do not.
The author seeks to keep from me
The murderer's identity,
And you are not a friend of his
If you keep shouting who it is.
The actors in their funny way
Have several funny things to say,
But they do not amuse me more
If you have said them just before;
The merit of the drama lies,
I understand, in some surprise;
But the surprise must now be small
Since you have just foretold it all.
The lady you have brought with you
Is, I infer, a half-wit too,
But I can understand the piece
Without assistance from your niece.
In short, foul woman, it would suit
Me just as well if you were mute;
In fact, to make my meaning plain,
I trust you will not speak again.
And – may I add one human touch? –
Don't breathe upon my neck so much.

Christopher Hitchens on George Orwell
• BBC 5 minute essay, Why Orwell Still Matters


• The Internationalist, LA Times

"A Poem for Emily," by Miller Williams from Living on the Sun Face (Louisiana State University Press).

A Poem for Emily

Small fact and fingers and farthest one from me,
a hand's width and two generations away,
in this still present I am fifty-three.
You are not yet a full day.

When I am sixty-three, when you are ten,
and you are neither closer nor as far,
your arms will fill with what you know by then,
the arithmetic and love we do and are.

When I by blood and luck am eighty-six
and you are someplace else and thirty-three
believing in sex and god and politics
with children who look not at all like me,

sometime I know you will have read them this
so they will know I love them and say so
and love their mother. Child, whatever is
is always or never was. Long ago,

a day I watched awhile beside your bed,
I wrote this down, a thing that might be kept
awhile, to tell you what I would have said
when you were who knows what and I was dead
which is I stood and loved you while you slept.

Red Pop

It was a hot late summer day in the 1970s. My brother and I were perfoming our bi-weekly duty of washing the gold 1972 Chevrolet Impala while my dad and the neighbor sat on the porch listening to Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn calling the Phillies game on the transistor radio.

On this day my dad decided to send us to the neighborhood corner store for sodas. "Here's five dollars," he said "bring me the change." Usually he would walk to store with us, but this time he sent my brother and me by ourselves. So, off we went, with Abe Lincoln in hand, the three blocks to the store seemed like miles back then. We picked up horsechestnuts along the way, peeling open the green prickly shells to reveal the shiny brown buckeyes inside.

When we reached the store we pushed open the heavy green door which slammed behind us ringing the bell. This place was a kid's dream. There was a Hershey's ice cream freezer, shelf upon shelf of Taskykakes and behind the glass display case was every type of candy that you can imagine -- Swedish fish, string licorice, bottlecaps, etc. After checking out all of the possiblities we make our decision - a big bottle of Red Pop. So we tell the shopkeeper we want two 16 ounce Pepsis (one for dad and one for the neighbor) and a bottle of Red Pop for us.

The man handed the change to me and the paper bag with the three cold sodas to my little brother and we started home in the heat and humidity. We couldn't wait to get home so dad can use the bottle opener on our purchase. This was a real treat for us, we usually had only iced tea or Hi-C at home, but this was a first for us.

At about the halfway point the unthinkable happened--the three bottles came crashing through the bottom of the bag which was by this time soaked from the condensation on the cold bottles. All three bottles lay lifeless and broken on the hot sidewalk. A mixture of Pepsi and Red Pop stained our Keds and Dr. J tube socks.

As we made our way way home we were dreading telling our dad what happened. We approached the porch with frightened looks on our faces. "What's wrong," he said, "is the store closed?" We explained what happened. He wasn't angry, he just said "next time carry the bag with your hand on the bottom. Let's go make some Kool Aid."

• Local man attempts sex with horse

  
  
  OK...whatever turns you on. :-/ ...Central PA, where the men are men and the horses are scared. 8-O
  
  
  

• Fewer objects thrown by students at game

  
  
  "Throwing water bottles at the helpless people down front was half the fun of the football game" --- Brian Phillips (sophomore-computer engineering), The Collegian, Monday, Sept. 30, 2002

  
  

  The Penn State Alma Mater
  
  by Fred Lewis Pattee
  
  For the glory of old State,
  For her founder strong and great,
  For the future that we wait,
  Raise the song, raise the song.
  
  Sing our love and loyalty,
  Sing our hopes that, bright and free,
  Rest, O Mother dear, with thee,
  All with thee, all with thee.
  
  When we stood at childhood's gate,
  Shapeless in the hands of fate,
  Thou didst mold us, dear old State,
  Dear old State, dear old State.
  
  May no act of ours bring shame
  To one heart that loves thy name,
  May our lives but swell thy fame,
  Dear old State, dear old State.
  
  

  
  

  Hear the Alma Mater sung
  by the Penn State Glee Club
  
  
  
  

Hypocrisy?

I have had this conversation with several people. They feel like hypocrites because they believe in a cause or an issue yet they don't follow that belief to an extreme. To me it is not hypocrisy. I think that anything that you do to further that cause is laudable.

If someone believes in organic food because it is better for the environment but cannot find or afford to buy all organic food, it is fine to start with a few items and build on that. For example, at my local grocery store there is a small organic section but most of the items are two to three times the price of the non-organic items, so I get organic milk and vegetables. As more people switch over to a few organic items the more the store sells and the more the store buys from organic farmers and the more food organic farmers produce.

There will always be the people on the fringe who adopt a cause and make it their lifestyle. I applaud them for living what they believe but not everyone can or wants to take things that far. For example, there are people who refuse to use any form of transportation with an internal combustion engine and that is fine if it works for them. But, if you can't go that far why not take public transportation to work or school.

Hypocrites are people that tell everyone else how to live but then don't hold themselves to the same standards. People who tell us how moral they are and then cheat on their wives and lead "immoral" lives behind closed doors.

I am really disturbed about this "inevitable" invasion of Iraq. Most of the news media makes it sound like we are going to invade, it is just a matter of when.

Bush gave Saddam an ultimatum - allow UN weapons inspectors in or we will use military force aginst you. So, Iraq agrees allow to let them in but Bush says we are coming anyhow.

Al Gore gave a speech on Monday outling his argument against a war with Iraq. "After Sept. 11, we had enormous sympathy, goodwill and support around the world," Gore said . "We've squandered that, and in one year we've replaced that with fear, anxiety and uncertainty, not at what the terrorists are going to do but at what we are going to do."

What is the rush to do this? Why can't we allow the weapons inspectors to do their job and take it from there. Could this have anything to do with mid-term elections in a few weeks? Or, is it because Osama Bin Laden may still be out there, in which case W looks a lot like his daddy after the Gulf War.

Americans wonder why the rest of the world hates us. This is exactly why. We pretend that we abide by international law but when something does not suit the US government we use our military to force our will on the world.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”

Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Apparently some public school teachers don't know that they are government representatives and therefore subject to the establishment clause.

From the U.S. Department of Education website

Official neutrality regarding religious activity: Teachers and school administrators, when acting in those capacities, are representatives of the state and are prohibited by the establishment clause from soliciting or encouraging religious activity, and from participating in such activity with students. Teachers and administrators also are prohibited from discouraging activity because of its religious content, and from soliciting or encouraging antireligious activity.

From A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools on the FreedomForum.org website:

The Personal Beliefs of Teachers

11.
May I pray or otherwise practice my faith while at school?
As employees of the government, public-school teachers are subject to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and thus required to be neutral concerning religion while carrying out their duties as teachers. That means, for example, that teachers do not have the right to pray with or in the presence of students during the school day.


Outside of their school responsibilities, public-school teachers are free like other citizens to teach or otherwise participate in their local religious community. But teachers must refrain from using their position in the public school to promote their outside religious activities.


Teachers, of course, bring their faith with them through the schoolhouse door each morning. Because of the First Amendment, however, teachers who wish to pray or engage in other religious activities—unless they are silent— should do so outside the presence of students. If a group of teachers wishes to meet for prayer or scriptural study in the faculty lounge during their free time in the school day, we see no constitutional reason why they may not be permitted to do so as long as the activity is outside the presence of students and does not interfere with their duties or the rights of other teachers.


Teachers are permitted to wear non-obtrusive jewelry, such as a cross or Star of David. But teachers should not wear clothing with a proselytizing message (e.g., a “Jesus Saves” T-shirt).

Download A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools

Well, yesterday was kind of quiet. Yes, there were lots of people wearing anything that they own that is red, white and blue, but it wasn't too bad. I didn't see any of the TV coverage yesterday but I listened to NPR all day and they did a good job. All Things Considered actually had stories about things other than 9/11.

Of course there were those white men in pick up trucks with their t-shirts featuring US Flags and the words "Try to Burn This." These are the same guys who go home and complain about the spics and niggers taking over their comfortable little towns.

Anyhow, below is a poem that was on NPR yesterday.

9/11 (with Allen Ginsberg in mind)



by Andrei Codrescu


9/11, I can barely remember you, they’ve buried you in so much hype!

9/11 I wept when you were first on television! I wept for New York, for the dead, for all of us, for myself, for the world!

9/11, I was sure that the world had changed forever because bad guys wanted America dead and hated us because we listen to rock ’n' roll and wear no miniskirts on our naked faces!

9/11, I cheered when our warplanes ripped through the skies of Afghanistan scorching the caves where our enemies burrowed and I marveled at our precision-guided bombs to ignore their occasionally murderous imprecision!

9/11, I sat mesmerized in front of Fox News and CNN as the gargoyled faces of the Cold War began crawling out of the musty cellars of history and, eyes unaccustomed to light blinking, began to spout the doctrines of Total War!

9/11, I started to feel sorry for you when retired generals, admirals, spies, loonies and fakes brushed off their swords and rushed to your defense! So many double-chins! So many watering eyes! So many dentured grins and brush haircuts! So many double-bottom suitcases clutched in so many pimp-ringed hands! They even brought Ollie North from felonious disgrace to stand up for you with his Constitution-overthrowing boyish old looks!

9/11, I felt bad for you when the Lefties crowded you from the other side with their guilt-filled jaws of "I told you so," and their eternal excuses for the wretched exotics of the world whose suffering they experience in their marble-topped kitchens between arguments about what wine to serve with the wild rice! And I wept for you again when soured professors who missed the collapse of commie fascism in 1989 descended on you like rabid wolverines led by Noam Chomsky whose teeth marks are all over the zero ground of American academia!

9/11, you saved the paranoids from self-cannibalism!

9/11, you were a boon to advertisers and publicists and flag manufacturers, and they sold you with cars and pizzas and they drained you of your raw primal power even as they pretended to grieve for you! Zero down payment until Doomsday!

9/11, you were a godsend to poetasters who were out of the gate lamenting and whining before your towers even gave out!

9/11, your dead and your heroes are covered by thick layers of ash and greed and the Republic owes you an apology...

9/11, I close my eyes and recall you in all your gory glory and I still hate those who did this to us and to our greatest city.

9/11, I can barely remember you and I'm sorry.

Listen to the poem read by the author.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. -- O'Brien in 1984 George Orwell

Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed. -- I. F. Stone

I am not looking forward to the 11th. Everyone will be trying to show how patriotic they are. Rather than wearing red, white and blue ribbons and adorning their vehicles with little American flags people should be speaking out against the Bush Administration's disregard for the Constitution.

You would think that we would have learned our lesson. In the 1950s we had the McCarthey hearings; during WWII the internment camps for Japanese Americans; Sacco and Vanzetti during the "Red Scare" of 1919-20; all the way back to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. It seems that everytime there is a "crisis" we put the Constitution aside "for the good of the country."

We have the Bill of Rights to protect us from our government. Bush and Ashcroft cannot decide to "suspend" certain rights because of a national crisis. It is at times of crisis when our rights are most vulnerable and most important.

Still reading? Are you sick of me ranting about this yet? OK, I'll stop for now. =)

Read Changing History by Eric Foner, The Nation 9/23/2002

The Bush Administration has been trying to convince people that to be "patriotic" Americans we should just trust the government (specifically the Executive branch.) Nevermind the Constitution, there are bad people out there that we must stop.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin

More on Ashcroft and his dream to lock up everyone that disagrees with him. --- Hentoff on Ashcroft

Here is a great op-ed piece from NY Times (you have to register but it's free)

I'm With Dick! Let's Make War! By MAUREEN DOWD

Today this undergrad stopped by and said that he wanted to talk to me. I invited him in and after a little uncomfortable small talk he comes out with "do you believe in god?" I reply "no." His eyes widened and he seemed excited. This was his chance to bring one over to his side. I then explained to him that I am atheist and messed with his head a little bit.

Why do these people feel the need to tell everyone about their religion? Campus Crusade fo Christ should be out there doing "good works" or something, not proselytizing. Think of all of the hungry people they could help. Anyhow it just pisses me off. :)

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it, religion has actually convinced people that there's an INVISIBLE MAN...LIVING IN THE SKY...who watches every thing you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten special things that he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever ´til the end of time...but he loves you."
--- George Carlin

• Amendment I
  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck the government'. --- Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce FBI file

The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is "what should be." Now, if you're taught to live up to a "what should be" that never existed-only an occult superstition, no proof of this "should be"-then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!

--- Lenny Bruce (1925-66)

Human Behaviour

--- by Bjork Gudmundsdottir/Nellie Hooper

If you ever get close to a human
and human behaviour
be ready to get confused

there's definitely no logic
to human behaviour
but yet so irresistible

there is no map
to human behaviour

they're terribly moody
then all of a sudden turn happy
but, oh, to get involved in the exchange
of human emotions is ever so satisfying

there's no map and
a compass
wouldn't help at all

human behaviour

I am a little worried about this so-called war on terrorism. It seems to me that this administration is using this "war" as an excuse to do whatever they please. If, indeed, this is a war then why are the 564 people being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba not prisoners of war (POWs)? As POWs they have rights under the Geneva Conventions (see Convention III Article 4), as "detainees" the Bush administration claims that they have no rights.

Also, under the Constitution we are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Yet, Attorney General John Ashcroft has arrested hundreds of what amounts to the "usual suspects" * on immigration violations. These people just happen to be Arabs or Muslims. The administration may be arguing that the Constitution does not apply to non-citizens but if Americans were being held in foreign prisons because they might commit a crime in the future there would be a huge outcry.

Anyhow, my point is that if they can do this now, what will stop them in the future from doing similar things to the rest of us.

My beloved Phillies have fought back to reach the .500 mark. After a terrible start and spending most of the season in last place, they are 44-33 since June 1 and now only behind the Braves in the NL East, although they are 18 games out of first. The reality of a post season for the Phillies is not likely this year but they have been playing good ball lately. Can't we just pretend that April doesn't count?

Sleep is still eluding me. I can nod off on a transit bus in the middle of the afternoon but I can't fall asleep in my bed. The good thing is that I have been more productive lately. I fear that I am starting to look and and sound like Ellen Feiss, although I find her hilarious in that spot.

Last weekend we went to a Pennsylvania Dutch Festival which, as it turned out, had nothing to do with the PA Dutch. I got there expecting to see lots of Amish baked goods and jellies and quilts. Instead, it was table after table of middle aged chubby white women selling cutesy knick knacks and jewelry.

A whoopie pie or slice of pumpkin roll or homemade pie is what I was looking for. But, there was only one table manned by Amish or Mennonites out of the 200 or so.

Of course the Peruvian panpipe players were there. They are at every county fair and flea market I have ever been to. People must actually buy their CDs.

Portrait of a Burger as a Young Calf
by Peter Lovenheim

Listen to an excerpt HERE

"In Germany they [the Nazis] came first for the Communists, and I
didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the
Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came
for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak
up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that
time no one was left to speak up."

-- Pastor Martin Niemoeller, 1946.

See: "Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision"

I hope that Ashcroft doesn't consider me an enemy combatant now. :)

BBC Coverage


Ashcroft at a press briefing in front of the statue "Spirit of Justice" before he had a $8,650 drape installed to cover the bare breasted figure.

On a lighter note, you can listen to:

The Potato Ball Incident

Why are you reading this?

I don't know what to do. The northeast in the fall usually makes me feel good...College football, apple cider, harvest festivals, crisp autumn nights...but then comes what seems like six months of grey , cold winter.

The problem now is that I have thought about it too much. Any suggestions?

Sunday morning, 8:55 I am awakened by the comforting sounds of a leaf blower. What is wrong with people? I give up.

I am thinking about hitting the road. I am just sort of spinning my wheels here so what the hell. I want to take some clothes, my laptop, some CDs and get in the car and go.

For some reason I am thinking of Denver. I don't know why. Maybe it's like a Jack Kerouac thing.

I am still contemplating this...I should decide by the end of the week.


Oh yeah....HELLO Europe!

I heard this on The Writer's Almanac today:

Poem: "The Iceberg Theory," by Gerald Locklin from The Iceberg Theory (The Lummox Press).

The Iceberg Theory

all the food critics hate iceberg lettuce.
you'd think romaine was descended from
orpheus's laurel wreath,
you'd think raw spinach had all the nutritional
benefits attributed to it by popeye,
not to mention aesthetic subtleties worthy of
veriaine and debussy.
they'll even salivate over chopped red cabbage
just to disparage poor old mr. iceberg lettuce.

I guess the problem is
it's just too common for them.
It doesn't matter that it tastes good,
has a satisfying crunchy texture,
holds its freshness
and has crevices for the dressing,
whereas the darker, leafier varieties
are often bitter, gritty, and flat.
It just isn't different enough and
it's too goddamn american.

of course a critic has to criticize;
a critic has to have something to say
perhaps that's why literary critics
purport to find interesting
so much contemporary poetry
that just bores the shit out of me.

at any rate, I really enjoy a salad
with plenty of chunky iceberg lettuce,
the more the merrier,
drenched in an Italian or roquefort dressing.
and the poems I enjoy are those I don't have
to pretend that I'm enjoying.


Listen

1. Meetings are mostly useless and unproductive.

2. Why do people sit in circles on the lawn?

3. Frisbee?

Next week at this time the campus will be overrun with freshly minted undergrads. They travel in packs for the first week or so. The girls in their low-rise faded jeans and the boys in their $70 Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts all trying to fit in. After a week they usually find new friends and try to ditch their old ones.

And me? I just try to stay out of their way.

Yes, I really am this boring. No, really I am. :-)

Well, I am just trying this to see if it works. I really don't have anything to say right now.