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