Thursday, February 28, 2013

SEQUESTERING A FISCAL CLIFF BENEATH A DEBT CEILING



 

I never found one.

Did you?

There were so many, but I couldn’t find one.

Did you?

I didn’t find one, but I wanted one.

Everyone wants one.

It’s a universal wish.

We all wish to have good luck.

The Fountain of Youth.

Shangri La.

The Golden Apples of the Sun.

El Dorado.

Everyone wants to find one.

Everyone wants one.

I never found one.

Did you?





IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!

 

MY LIFE ON PEARL STREET



This is a similar view I had from my bohemian apartment.




Old photograph of Boulder, Colorado
My second-story apartment looks like the building across from the third carriage that is going West. 

 Pearl Street Mall




It was as close as I would ever get to living a Bohemian life.

I worked as little as possible and just lived as much as I could.

It was the kind of existence which I had read about in books by Henry Miller, and by other writers and artists.

Like George Orwell’s Down And Out In Paris.

*

At first, I had slept on the hardwood floor of this bohemian abode close to the front door entrance, then I moved up in the world, and slept on a slab of wood with metal posts holding it up, but so near to the entrance of the apartment that visitors had to watch where they walked or they would plow into it---

Or me if I was sleeping.

My back was good back then.

*

Next, I moved up to the attic---beneath a skylight---and slept on something more like a bed.

At least it was soft.

I climbed a metal ladder to get to this new nest of my bohemian apartment. 

I could climb out through the skylight’s windows to sit or sleep on the rooftop of the apartment.

*

Below the apartment was a pawn shop, and right next door to this pawn shop was a cowboy bar that played all types of music.

It was called Shannon’s Bar, and later took on a different name, but I forget what it was.

I heard that Bob Dylan and Kinky Friedman sometimes went there to hang out when they were in town.

 I liked it when there was a band playing the blues.

I would order just one beer, and make it last the whole time that I was there.

I’m surprised I didn’t get asked to leave when I didn’t buy more than just one drink, but there were plenty of other revelers doing that.

*

My life in the apartment was a sedentary one. 

I spent hours and hours reading while listening to a FM classical music station.

It was in this apartment that I had read Moby Dick for the first time.

  I was twenty-four.

*

To take a break from my reading, I would go downstairs, go outside, and take walks along Pearl Street, or anywhere, just to stretch my legs, and see what was happening in the real world.

*

One afternoon I took my stroll down Pearl Street, and talked with Moonies, Buddhists, Hare Krishna, Children of God, and Scientologists.

Yes, all during one walk!

I was curious about Scientology, so I went up to the Scientology office, and listened to a guy talk about it.

I wasn’t that impressed

I politely said thank you, and left.

*

I think it was on this day that a guy with a dog (and not a religion) said to me:

 “I don’t like humans.  Only dogs.”

I agreed with him, and returned to my apartment.


IT’S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

TO BE OR NOT TO BE A PLANET

Astronomers anticipate 100 billion Earth-like planets
     03 April 2013 13:32
 


The planet formerly known as Pluto now just plutoid!
Pluto and Charon

Charon
 
 
 

After weeks of online ballot casting by people around the world, the poll asking the public to name two of Pluto's moons — currently called P4 and P5 — ended Monday.

As of 12 p.m. (1700 GMT) Feb. 25, the polls closed with a total of 450,324 total votes cast since Feb. 11 with 'Vulcan,' a Pluto moon name proposed by Star Trek's William Shatner, is the clear winner.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0226/Vulcan-and-Cerberus-are-favorite-names-for-Pluto-s-moons

 

*

First, the planet Pluto was demoted and re-classified as a dwarf planet.

I don’t know whether this made dwarves happy or mad.

But hold the phone---the cell phone!

Now Pluto is being called a plutoid.

And I just read today that Pluto…or rather Plutoid the Dwarf Planet

Has ice water!

And lo and behold, its core is an iron-nickel alloy!

And Pluto’s round!

*

“No longer a planet, Pluto is just a member of the Kuiper Belt; a collection of icy objects that extend out past the orbit of Neptune. If you brought Pluto into the inner Solar System, it would start to act like a comet – blasting out gas and particles from the solar wind. It’s a good thing Pluto is in the cold, dark outer Solar System, far away from the Sun.”

Read more:
http://www.universetoday.com/13875/what-is-pluto-made-up-of/#ixzz2M3gpDq13

*

Captain Kirk has taken time from his space travel and work as a commercial for Priceline to tell us that one of Pluto’s moons should be named Vulcan.

I don’t know if this made Spock happy or sad.

Sure, name it Vulcan…or Cerberus…or Pluto’s Son…

But call Pluto a planet again!

 

IT’S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!

 

 

 

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

CLEAVAGE DECOLLETAGE AND THE GREAT SATAN




 


Iran covers up the First Bosom: News agency digitally alters Michelle Obama's Oscars gown to make it look more modest



 

I visited a book store in downtown Abu Dhabi during my brief stay in the United Arab Emirates, and saw magazines with black ink covering most parts of a woman’s anatomy, except for the head and fingers. 

Yes, even arms vanished beneath the black ink.

*
When I lived in Kabul, Afghanistan, I became accustomed to seeing only eyes peer out of a woman's chadri (The full Afghan chadri covers the wearer's entire face except for a small region about the eyes, which is covered by a concealing net or grille.)

We Peace Corps volunteers were trained to not look directly at Afghan women, and definitely not speak to any of the women.

The women in the city were well-covered, and always walked with a brisk pace.

I knew this head covering as a chadri, but I also heard the word Burqa being used (an Arabized Persian word of purda (parda) meaning curtain and veil) which have the same meaning in Persian.

[See Burqa-chadari below]

*

In my English classes at Kabul University, female students usually wore scarves as head coverings, and I could clearly see their eyes and faces.

I guess there is no Biblical prohibition for covering the female anatomy in Christian nations, otherwise how would Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and, then later, many other sundry skin magazines ever have been sold?

Are we a Christian nation?

Some say that God created us the way we are, and the way we look, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of God’s Handiwork.

Is God ashamed of His Body?

Also, wearing clothes wasn’t a commandment on any of the tablets of Moses.

But…

“Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?”

1 Corinthians 11

*

This doesn’t say which part of the female body should be covered during prayer.

Maybe to be on God’s good side, it was a wise thing for women to put a blanket over the whole body when praying, then when not praying, a bikini, nightgown, or nothing was o.k.

Actually, the following verse does say which part:

 “…but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head--it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved.”

5 Corinthians 11

 *

I guess it is “different strokes for different folks.”

Iranians are different from Westerners.

I just don’t like to see all of that black ink going to waste---or in this technological age, photo shopping images to make them fit a cultural and religious dogma.
 
IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!
 
*


“Burqa-chadari, is a full body and head covering for outside the home for many women in Afghanistan. The Burqa is constructed of about ten yards fabric with an embroidered mesh face piece which conceals the entire women's dress ensemble of pants, overdress, and head scarf.”

“The burqa is not only worn in Afghanistan but it's more common in other countries including India and Pakistan. The original chadari has Persian origins but over the time period it became associated with the urban dress of middle and upper class Afghan women. The chadaree has been incorrectly attributed as Afghan women's traditional dress but it only became mandated women's wear after dress sanctions were imposed by the Taliban in 1996”.

 

“During the Taliban women had to wear this piece of heavy cloth on top of their normal clothing to cover them from the head to lower calf or to ankle. In the first days when the Taliban captured Kabul and announced that all women have to wear 'Chadaree' outside of home, many women were shocked, especially in the capital Kabul. They wondered how they were going to wear 3 pounds of extra weight of clothes on top of their formal and informal clothing. It was really difficult for the women who had never worn it before.”


 

"And say to the faithful women to lower their gazes, and to guard their private parts, and not to display their beauty except what is apparent of it, and to extend their headcoverings (khimars) to cover their bosoms (jaybs), and not to display their beauty except to their husbands, or their fathers, or their husband's fathers, or their sons, or their husband's sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their womenfolk, or what their right hands rule (slaves), or the followers from the men who do not feel sexual desire, or the small children to whom the nakedness of women is not apparent, and not to strike their feet (on the ground) so as to make known what they hide of their adornments. And turn in repentance to Allah together, O you the faithful, in order that you are successful"

Qur'an Sura Nur Chapter: The Light. Verse 31

*

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Great Satan (Persian شيطان بزرگ Shaytân-e Bozorg) is a derogatory epithet for the United States of America in some Iranian foreign policy statements. Occasionally, these words have also been used toward the government of the United Kingdom.

The term was originally used by Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini in his speech on November 5, 1979 to describe the United States whom he accused of imperialism and the sponsoring of corruption throughout the world.

Ayatollah Khomeini also occasionally used the terms Iblis (Diabolis - the primary devil in Islam) to refer to the United States and other Western countries.

                                                             Iranians have considered the United States and the United Kingdom as Imperialist states, who have a long history of interfering in Iran's internal affairs. In 1907, the Anglo-Russian Agreement between Russia and Britain divided Iran into spheres of influence, questioning although not terminating Iranian sovereignty. At the height of the Cold War, the administration of the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved a joint Anglo-American operation to overthrow elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, in the pretext that his nationalist aspirations would lead to an eventual communist takeover. The operation was code-named Operation Ajax. At first, the military coup seemed to fail, and the Shah fled the country. After widespread rioting —and with help from the CIA and British intelligence services— Mossadeq was defeated and the Shah returned to power, ensuring support for Western oil interests and snuffing the perceived threat of communist expansion. General Fazlollah Zahedi, who led the military coup, became prime minister.

Ayatollah Khomeini was exiled to Turkey for his outspoken denunciation of the Shah's Status of Forces bill, which granted U.S. military personnel diplomatic immunity for crimes committed on Iranian soil. From Turkey, Khomeini moved to Iraq in 1965 and remained there until 1978 before moving to Paris for four months. He then returned to Iran and led the 1979 Iranian revolution.

The United States supported the Shah starting from the 1950s, but this waned toward the end of the 1970s, particularly under the Carter administration. Many Iranians hated the Shah, and felt that the U.S was against them. When Saddam Hussein came into power, the U.S also at first supported him.[1] Demonstrators commonly chanted slogans such as "Independence, Freedom, and Islamic Republic".

                                                                  

 

 

 

 

Saturday, February 23, 2013


BOMB THE BROWN SNAKE

 
 

The painkillers that the mice will be laced with include acetaminophen, which is the active ingredient in medicines such as Tylenol.

From US to bomb Guam with dead mice


February 22, 2013 19:58




When I lived on Guam I never saw a brown snake.

I never saw a bird, or heard one singing.

*

There was a brown snake living under the condemned jungle house where I was living with Tom and LuAnn, but Tom killed that snake. 

He climbed into the avocado tree that grew outside our back door (next to our outside shower), and used his spring-action spear to kill the brown snake.

Luann and I weren’t allowed to watch this serpent get the ax (or rather the spear), because we might spook the snake, so Tom did the killing alone, but I did catch his muscular body perched on one of the large limbs of the avocado tree.

This was in 1981.

* 

Finally, there may be an end to the brown snake, and allow birds to start singing and flying once again.

And the two million brown snakes won’t feel too much pain since the mice they will feast upon contain Tylenol, along with poison.

*

The brown snake doesn’t look a bit appetizing, and I suppose that’s the reason eating them didn’t catch fire on Guam.

*

It would be wonderful to return to Guam someday and see birds, and hear their singing.

I hope this program to snuff out the brown snake is a success, and doesn’t bomb.

The only bombing should be in the form of the falling mice.

Poor mice!



IT’S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!