Routing and Ranting - A View From The Floor

2010-08-27T04:12:00.002-04:00

Just About Peed Myself

2009-06-30T20:40:00.005-04:00

Lord Have Mercy Upon Our Souls

2009-05-26T21:11:00.003-04:00

"Because education is a ray of light. And I want to be in that light."

I'm in tears. And at the same time I want to get out a multi-bladed gelding knife and don my non-existant superpowers and take off for Swat and do some blood thirsty carnage on the Taliban.

The quote at the beginning? Said by a beautiful innocent nine-year-old girl whose school had been bombed to ruin. This child who will now not be safe unless she wears a burka. This precious innocent life who in God's eyes of the same value as you or I, who cherishes her God given ability to learn but is being told she cannot go to school. There is no "not here", except that Hillary seems to think so. She still has not spoken out. Maybe because that little girl is nothing do her. Probably because that little girl is nothing to her.

More women and girls in Afghanistan have been victims of terror than all the 9/11 victims. But it's not here, is it?

Is it?

Requiescant

2009-05-25T13:03:00.001-04:00

In lonely watches night by night
Great visions burst upon my sight,
For down the stretches of the sky
The hosts of dead go marching by.

Strange ghostly banners o'er them float,
Strange bugles sound an awful note,
And all their faces and their eyes
Are lit with starlight from the skies.

The anguish and the pain have passed
And peace hath come to them at last,
But in the stern looks linger still
The iron purpose and the will.

Dear Christ, who reign'st above the flood
Of human tears and human blood,
A weary road these men have trod,
O house them in the home of God!

Frederick George Scott
In a Field near Ypres
April, 1915

circa 1918

2009-04-29T18:58:00.000-04:00

Obey the laws

And wear the gauze.

Protect your jaws

From septic paws.

A Light In The Harbor

2009-04-08T22:02:00.002-04:00

Tonight we're keeping a light burning in the harbor for Captain Richard Phillips. Praying for your safe return to the waters of home.

Saint Nicholas, Help Of Mariners and Saint Brendan, Navigator - watch over him, strengthen him with your prayers, and guide him selfely back to his home part.

A Disgrace To Her Sex And To All That Is Right

2009-03-31T22:45:00.004-04:00

Madam Secretary,

If the Paschal Bombs of '99 could have perhaps been redeemed this day I might have held hope that there was an inkling of a soul within your mortal frame and that you might take hammer to the chain of trading sacred lives for filthy power. But you were silent this day. You spoke the words :

The status of Afghanistan’s army, the lives of women and girls, the country’s education and health systems are far better today than they were in 2001. So if all of us represented here work with the government and people of Afghanistan, we will help not only to secure their future, but ours as well.

And your sisters will bleed and die for it.

Madam, by your silence have you damned your soul before The Almighty who regards the sparrow.

Who Owns The Rain?

2009-03-22T22:34:00.002-04:00

Disturbing and rightly frightening, to think that princes and sons of men think to claim the Lord's blessed rain for their own devices. Yes we know water is tres cher in certain areas of the country. But, that mortal governments should claim the rain that lands on one's own roof? It is truly mind boggling. But perhaps not given our increasingly faithless and prideful times when contracts may be abridged by governmental fiat, when these fleshly potentates think to quell the industry of individuals and make of the governments a religion, stirring mobs to eventual collectivist ruin in guise of "righteous" anger.

This too is rather disturbing, mob rule, the uneducated and riled voice of the demos encouraged by words from Joebombistan. It is just the beginning I fear, of mob action manipulated from Washington DC - not truly a populist movement.

I talked to one of the phlebots today about government trying to quell personal ambitions and successes without mentioning the administration of this country. Funny thing, they agreed that the government has no business abrogating employment contracts. They did not agree on the rightness of this bit of hubris - which is just as frightening to any person who believes in free enterprise as the government claiming the rain on one's roof.

And so it begins.

A Powerful Song

2009-03-16T23:02:00.000-04:00

What The.......(@^$(#&^ing with Commercial Services

2009-03-02T18:11:00.003-05:00

Oh come on Joebomba administration! For flocksnake have you lost your power sodden minds! Slicing into commercial services and exporter assistance? Nice way to kill off what's left of the manufacturing base of this country communidiots.

Well since none of you have made or grown anything tangible but have had truck only in arguement and hot air, I suppose your base arrogance and stupidity is if not understandable....no wait.

You get no understanding from the Jean Poole for this one you moronic tards.

This That and T'other

2009-02-26T20:53:00.003-05:00

I've been invited to the dark side. Yep, floor-wench is going under corporate payroll. Going to be rather in charge of certain things for all branches of this tentacled beastie called Das Workplace. Maniacal napoleonic ruler of all things exportacious? Heh! Who's gonna be getting all the sales-critters' calorific boxes 'n'baskets come next Nov-Dec? It's all gonna be thrown into the Jean Poole. You know that's true. ... Fear me in these "difficult economic times"

Zoinks! Base Ocean Freight for a 20'ST from Port City USA to Caribbean side of Columbia is $800. Ain't been those kind of numbers for some time. Another shipper just got $500 whacked off a rate (me still making an additional $100 on the rates of course - since nobody gets the full price reduction I get from the line.)

What the hell is this with eliminating the tax breaks for gas and oil industries? It sounds "good" to the hoi polloi. They eat it up because they think the Joebomber administration is sticking it to "the man" for the high erl prices last summertime. Flog that shineola! What's going to happen is gasoline prices and heating oil prices are going to go up. The oil companies can justify by "drop in revenoo" ...whatever.....it's a business. And when oil and gas get so spendy that they negatively effect the last few threads of free enterprise..... Hammer Time.
.
.
Socialism that is, price regulations, movie stars (with their collective tour-bus riding nose shoved firmly up Jobombers collective butt - and trying to tell us it smalls like chanel not charnel.)

Dear Joebomber Badministration. I hope your tentacularness grabs a clue that raising taxes on those fortunate folks who make +250K per year - the people who make the new jobs, who invent the new industries, who are personally invested in growing the economy - is gonna make you not so popular. Because you've flipped them the bird and farted in their faces for good measure. I make nowhere near 250K.... so fucking what? I admire the hell outta really driven people who make an excellent living like that. I live in an apartment where some winter mornings the cast iron radiators don't really radiate....so fucking what! Id rather be squirreling away something for a retirement that will likely never happen than pay more for abodal amenities. If a third floor walk up without a dishwasher or central a/c was good enough for Great Aunt Hilma, it's sure as heck good enough for me .

I'm feeling better. I was pretty out of it with bronchitis last week. Let me tell you something...prednisone and adderall do NOT mix. yeah yeah yeah...rant all you want about how no adult of any intellect needs ADD meds. Sure...and I can tell you about how I'm doing and succeeding with what small goals I care to set. like the cholesterol thing. like getting more authorata at das orifice. Can I help it if my brilliant mind skips around like a record dragged across a gravel road. It's all performance enhancement. Nothing wrong with that. The world moves too fast for certain brilliant but less "modern model" minds who would rather be gentlewomen farmers with leisure....like Jefferson without a penis.

But prednison and adderall....I was feeling weepy there for a couple of days. Port City USA does not believe in tears. I also got Big Bertha style kill em all let dog sort em out antibiotic because my MD, Lord bless her, has never gotten over a rather serious dalliance I had with strep AND staph pneumonias for the last quarter of '02. Bring on the Stoneyfield Farms - older skool remedy beats the shite out of that Activia . Last antibiot tomorrow morning.

51 hours after that I am back on the platelet donation line. Must be off antibiots for 48 hrs before donating. They need me. I love to be needed.

Slam Duncan Now

2009-02-10T21:41:00.003-05:00

Not someone who I think is qualified to be Sekertery of Edjumacation. Because silence is more than consent in situations like this . Silence is active aiding and abetting. I guess the dunkster was too busy giving Bill Ayers a reach-around to pay attention to the behavior of his goons masquerading as teachers. It's sickening really. I guess he came to DC to keep Joebomber company.

Sickening also is this little piece of information on The New World Order Bank's recent shenanigans. It's on many blogs. The only major news outlet with coverage is (of course) Fox.

I'm watching the puppehs at Westminster on the tv. I can remember watching Westminster with mom back in the 80's - sharing a a couple of Molsons and northeast regional brand cheese doodles. A nice memory in a world of stomach trning politiks.

Just Stuff

2009-02-07T16:51:00.005-05:00

Good stuff this week..personally anyhow. The nation continues to be crapped on but my little corner of the world seems to be working.

Entered the 21st century sort of. My local Red Cross has incentives to donate platelets regularly ad recognizes the yearly 15 and 20 donation milestones. I now have a proper 21st century computer monitor. Buh bye to the 17" horking big heavy CRT. It was a nice monitor back in 1999. I really like this 19" widescreen LCD better. And yay for me. My "donation year" runs from January to January - and last Saturday I "maxed" at 24 for the year and was put on hiatus for a month or so.

This from AggravatedDocSurg is one of the reasons I donate all I can. And this is another interesting platelet factoid/research. Whatta ya know. I'm probably more resistant to malaria than many. Not that Port City USA has seen malaria for a good hunnert years or so. And unfortunately, due to the extreme perishability of platelets - our best hope is that scientists can isolate exactly what it is in platelets that nukes malaria. Therapeutic transfusions on any scale are simply impossible in other than the developed world. And Damn! can you think of how many people would need to step up and become donors.

I won a contest too! Over on the left - the link to Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. A fab blog and they have fun contests. This one was to do a recipe in a romantic/purple-prose/smutty fashion. Your's truly got the win Yay! I won an electric steamer/rice-cooker....and this web-infamous book. hee hee hee. Here's a link direct to the contest itself. I'm making some pseudo Asian influenced meatballs tonight. Yum!

Lazy weekend trying to avoid getting riled up at the news. Finding it hard to watch any of it except Fox News. Must enjoy it while I can before the "fairness" brown-shirts fuck it all up. And the 500K thing? That my salty pups is the first step to socilaism - because you know once the lib'rals get their talons into something they never let go. I have issues with POTUS taking editorial space. Also the gentleman has a temper. When (not if but when) he lets it fly on some sector of society that is/was a large part of his constituency (I'm guessing less-than-harvard-educated-women) the reactions will be interesting to say the least. Same time same channel. A gauge of brainwashedness.

Criminal Minds --- Yup They Did It Again

2009-01-29T21:04:00.003-05:00

Tonight my salty pups, the lesson was that we must reinforce the government propagated truth that the Blue Shirts were right right right about Ruby Ridge.... and that Lon Honiuchi did the right thing and Vicki really really really wanted to die. Waco too for that matter since I don't believe it was all on-site explosive material that made that compound blow up.

How long until the media STOPS tarring with the same brush all people who do not conform to the lip-service-but-abortion-and-adultery-and-usury-are-ok putative JeBudHinChriDaoMoslBahZoas who in truth are practicing no more than a form of gussied up atheism? It's only OK if you are Amish or Hasid or a Whirling Dervish...and then you are a quaint zoo exhibit for the tourists and media.

I put Criminal Minds in the title because sort of it sparked this post....but also because a pants load of people googled CM & Romany last week and I got a pile of hits.....yay.

welcome!

And iffen you are feeling down, take a listen to The Mary Ellen Carter by Stan Rogers - it's on the music player on the front page. Damned good tune. Saved a seafarer's life once too. Will get to that story another time.

HAHAHAHAHA

2009-01-29T13:17:00.003-05:00

Brilliant Satire

2009-01-25T18:20:00.002-05:00

Iowahawk does a brilliant satire.

T can't help but wonder though if the "Lyres of Media" should in truth be the "Liars of Medea"

If you're a classically minded salty pup you'll get it.

Today's Platelet Donation and A Call To Arms

2009-01-24T13:57:00.004-05:00

Today I was once again blessed to have a successful 68 Minute Triple Unit platelet donation. This donation was dedicated to the memory of those persons who, because of the actions of one person's pen this week, will never have the chance at the life that The Lord intended them to have.

I also learned that my regional Red Cross is no longer actively recruiting female platelet donors. No one at the donor center was able to tell me why. I had to power up my google-fu to get to the bottom of this.

The reason is that between 50 and 200 persons a year die because they receive transfusions of plasma or platelet products (platelets are naturally suspended in plasma) that come from women who are leukocyte-alloimmunized. These deaths are caused by something called TRALI . I'm that last thing resembling Ms Science so please read the link instead.

Why is this etiology is particular to women? Because Pregnancy is known to result in the development of leukocyte antibodies in a significant proportion of women.

That there is probably 20% of the platelet donating cadre my salty pups. There are screening tests - but even then there is a projected loss of 6% of the donor population. Not every multiparous woman develops the HLA I and II antibodies - but the powers that be have deemed it significant enough to cease recruitment of women.

But there are tests that can show whether or no a woman is leukocyte-alloimmunized. And while my regional RC says it's not that they are turning away female platelet donors, they are just not actively recruiting; so a woman can self elect to donate and She Will Be Tested for the antibodies to guarantee safety of the product.

And so a quite literal Call To Arms:

Mothers: Get yourselves in there now to donate while you still are not summarily dismissed because FDA bureaucrats have decided it is in some perverted idea of "the national interest" to change guidelines. Of this moment, your blood will be tested for all sorts of stuff that is good to know anyhow. And if you happen to test as CMV negative? You will be a "mother" to more babies than you'll ever know.

Mulieris Nulligravidae: We've been called spinsters, we've been told that we are not fulfillng our true nature as women, we've been called feckess, self-indulgent, and self-centered. When people ask me why I have no children, I can hold out my arms and say "Whatever do you mean by that, oh thou scrofulous prying jackanapes?" But get in there for your first donation asap because one never knows what the newly established establishment will summarily bar donations of platelets and/or plasma from all women.

Men: For the love of the mothers who bore you - man up!

that is all......

Embryonic Stem Cells - Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen

2009-01-23T20:57:00.008-05:00

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:16

Next month when I have my quarterly blood-work/meds check, something resembling the following be added as a clause to my Advance Medical Directive and will be handed to my physician, a woman of inestimable decency and faith, to be placed in my "permanent record" - among a few other places I'll be stowing copies:

My agent will refuse the administration to me of any medication, treatment, test, or procedure that originates from or was developed through research on Embryonic Stem Cells, as is consistent with my religious faith. The administration to me of any medication, treatment, test, or procedure that originates from or was developed through research on Adult Stem Cells shall be permitted by my agent if it does not contravene my wishes as stated below concerning illness or condition deemed terminal by my physician or physicians.

If anyone can think of a more klassy wording ...or something I can get a made onto a laminated or plastic advance directive clause card sort of thing....medic-alert type tags for the keychain..wee little swarovsky encrusted keychain flash drive? Please feel free to splenetically rave along in the comments

Criminal Minds and Hate Speech - Thoughts from a Pissed Off Slavic Gadji Post-Inauguration

2009-01-22T19:38:00.002-05:00

I guess there are some people whom it is still acceptable to hate - even post-election when we are supposed to all join together. Well, it's to be expected, what with Joe Bomber playing the wasp-continuo in the background. No change - just redirected prejudices. I wrote this at oh-dark-thirty after a poor night's sleep:

Dear CBS;

It was fewer than 48 hours after the new President of the United States and other speakers called for an end to separations of race, creed, and nationality - an end to prejudices that I thought would be towards all. And then I turned to CBS at 2100 hrs last night (1/22) - to indulge in my Joe Mantegna fetish.

What I saw made me rage and then made me very sad; sad to realize that in these United States of America there are still certain unwarranted prejudices in which the media is free to indulge itself. I speak of the Romani people and the broad brush with which they were tarred.

The Romany are a people with a rich heritage and culture that values family and the arts. And until you can documentarily prove the old canard of gypsies stealing children; I shall instead remember that in 1758 Maria Theresa of Austria issued edicts that forcefully removed Romany children from their families in attempt to eradicate their culture. that in 1886 the United States issued a law which forbade the immigration of Romany. I shall remember Jasenovac where Romany and Jews and Serbs were sent to their deaths together. I shall listen to the music of Django Reinhardt. I shall light a candle in memory eternal for all the hate crimes suffered by these "others" whom you've deemed "not us", and for the myriad attempts to destroy their culture - actions that have been ongoing since the 13th century.

http://www.rromanes.com/4791/index.html --- perhaps your fictional Romany translator on "Criminal Minds" would translate this page for us all. I am not Romany and cannot read the page - but I wept at the pictures.

But I am only one person, one single person whose platelets have saved the lives of children of who knows how many races and creeds. I am personally invested in peacemaking, in acceptance, in honoring of "the other" . And unwarranted slander, hatred, and persecution - these are mine to protest.

I ask your writers and producers and actors to take a moment and learn about the Romani, there is a fairly large community in Southern California. I ask a broadcast apology at the beginning and end of next week's broadcast of "Criminal Minds". I ask you to rethink the meaning of racism. Perhaps I ask for the impossible and perhaps your answer to me shall be "No We Can't". This is a chance I am more than willing to take.

In Peace,

Jean Poole
Port City, USA

January 3, 2009

2009-01-03T22:07:00.002-05:00

Three faiths - all hellbent on destroying God's creations.....over differing iterations of that same God.

"Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to his earth, on that day his plans perish."

It's hard not to hate all earthly powers and potentates.

Department of What The Fuck

2009-01-02T22:39:00.002-05:00

I do smart things occasionally. One if these is participating in a Flexible Spending program which allws me to put aside a certain number of pre-tax dollars each pay-period to cover medical and pharmaceutical copays as well as stuff like the cool new spectacles I got to replace my 10 year old ones. I am now bifocal age my salty pups! It's less in the direct deposit slip but it all comes back as I outlay copays. It's how I budgeted for a pair of glasses that wasn't in the "welfare collection" at Wal-Mart. Times are tight and keeping up on my 401K is a much bigger priority than fashion ...but still a girl needs a little something nice now and again.

But that is only tangentally what this post is all about. It is about the Flexible Spending that I can do and the Flexible Spendijng I need to get speshul dispensation to to. Hells bells I've boasted anough about my cholesterol drop and liver enzymes and going down at least a shoe width and half a shoe size and a whole size in granny panties and all that.

But I did it with the help of "dietary supplements" - which unless you have your physician fill out a special form (that I just found out I needed) Ceridian, the flex account management comany, deems that non-vetted vitamins and dietary supplements are deemed non-reimbursable - because they purportedly are not for relief of an illness or condition. That a niacin pill a day taken preventatively might save your arteries from needing the services of cardio-rooter or that milk thistle keeps your liver in tip-top shape to keep your blood the cleanest it can be ---- I guess it doesn't register with these people that an ounce of prevention is worth a month in a CCU.

But here's the pisser - Ceridian will let you use your flex account dollars to pay for any Legal Abortion.

You don't need a doctor's note deeming it medically necessary. So you can use the money to dispose of a human life whenever you alone decide to....but you can't use the money to avoid getting any number of life-threatening conditions unless you get "permission"?

The Fuck You Say!

I think I have to see if this is some sort of federal law....and if it is write to some senators and congress critters.

I'll update when I know more but toniught - I just wanted to rant about it.

2008 Spanks and Thanks

2008-12-31T22:36:00.005-05:00

30 minutes and the page turns again. And so my Salty Pups and Airborne Strangers an opinionated review.

THE BIZ

(cookie)MONSTER LINES - 120 day transit from Homeport USA to Africa base port? Twice? You suck. And your 800trons suck. And the only thing that keeps me from imploding is that I now have a the direct land line and the cellphone numbers of someone in your organisation who actually takes his business seriously. Full-out flogging and keelhaul ya scurvy dogs.

TSAKSMSCHUCKSCHUMER: I was suprised to find that - at least in the public record - that FedEx, UPS, Pilot, Danzas weren't buying you all a daily truffled fois gras midmorning snack. I hope you're happy - because you've just throughly fucked the independent IAC. same gift as above.

CMA -KLINE - OWL - OOCL : first line carriers with your usual stellar service renewing my faith in ship lines. If I could you'd all get a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and a box of Valhrona's best.

Q1/Q2/Q3 EXPORT BOOMSKI: The profit was nice. The shipline attitudes in the main - sucked elephant nuts. But economics is a cycle. And it's all gonna come back to you. No on-line spank needed.

MY CORE SHIPPERS: I love you guys so much! I happily suck down the caffene and the prilosec and the alpha blockers..... for you.

POLITICS

AL FRANKEN: The fuck you say! This candidacy is of all those ignorant tards who really don't believe in this great republic - those who would prefer mass cacocracy to reason. May you all be a punishment to yourselves.

JOHN MCCAIN: My unexpected "crush". I can't help it, I think he is charming. Nevermind that he doesn't appear to indulge in that sort of smug self-righteousness that seems all to prevalent in this day. And so damned courageous. Makes my wee bitter heart grow and melt.

CACOCRACY OF THE EMOTIONS: nuff said

BLAGOJEVICH: For very sad reasons I think that if Depression is the Northern Slavic mental illness of choice - Narcissistic Personality Disorder is the province of the Southern Slavs. The man needs a loooong time in a rubber room.

LIFE

LOWERED CHOLESTEROL: 100 points in Three Months! I cannot recommend Niacin. Fish Oil, and Plant Sterols enough. And that combo will give you very nice skin as well. Cheaper than "beauty cremes" for these recessionary days too.

LOST A FEW: thank you adderall.

PLATELET DONATION: 120 donations (all double or triple units) and counting. But at this point my inner elbows are getting so scarred over that the Red Cross OWES me the ability to Choose who I want to stick me. A couple random phlebot freaks really butchered it this year. And I mention it when they do. I have a huge fucking platelet count and I am CMV negative which means that infants and other immuno-compromised or immuno-deficient folks who've never had CMV (60% of the adult population has had it) can get what I donate.

FASHION IS UGLY: All those high-waised tunicy things that make alll females look some stage of pregnant, in polyester knit, in loud fugly faux-pucci prints. And polyester pants! Thanks be for a wee little outfit in North Carolina called Pumpkin Creek Clothing and a local charity shop that gets Brooks Brothers donations.

FOOD: Asparagus and Liver still are unedible. Fresh Cuts' salsa fresca is heaven in a plastic tub. Reuben Sandwiches and Bratwurst mit Sauerkraut are yummy. I found a sudden liking for coleslaw. Won Ton Soup with hot pepper flakes is masterful at fighting off inbound cold symptoms. Onions are good on everything except dessert. Salads are a dangerous illusion.

Pied Beauty

GLORY be to God for dappled things—

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise Him.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89).
Poems. 1918.

KisS My aSs

2008-12-29T20:37:00.002-05:00

not l33t speak my salty pups and airborne strangers.

KSMS sucks giraffe nuts. It throws small air-forwarders over the barrel and wields a steely dan of pantagruelian proportion.

We're not the fucking enemy.

That is all.

Enraged

2008-11-28T14:55:00.002-05:00

Stupid Stupid Dumbfuck Oleaginous Slavering Pig-Puppets of Greed

We Are All Mumbaikars

2008-11-28T07:58:00.002-05:00

Which one of us in the international logistics business doesn't know someone in Mumbai or Nhava Sheva? Being in this business shrinks our world - and far off nations and cities are not names of themselves, but are the names of our colleagues and friends.

How many of us were reached out to by friends and colleagues in other countries on 9/11 with messages of support and sympathy?

Let us say a prayer for our friends and colleagues and all the people of Mumbai. Let us reach out to those friends and colleagues with messages of support and sympathy, that they know they do not stand alone - we stand beside them.

Leviticus 23:22

2008-11-23T18:16:00.002-05:00

And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corner of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy harvest; thou shalt leave them for the poor, and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God.

Just got one of those spiritual zaps - channel surfing by CNN. Farmers open fields to gleaners even in 2008. May they be blessed in home and harvest forever more.

One

Several

Many

Tears Of The Sun

2008-11-23T02:04:00.007-05:00

I've passed through many friendships with partings not always well made. But through the ill-made partings runs the theme of strong minds or minds strengthened in madness, clashing and flying far apart, not to be seen again - forever or time long enough to seem so. That last moment trapped in the resin of disagreement and aged long in the sea of memory to amber.

Pity the computer age that puts ready information of far off people and places at our fingertips; for given a choice I would either be incurious or barring that would have each ill parting cast in amber never to change.

That he who built a fortress against dragons for me; but without telling me, built it of spun sugar and built it on sand, would still be building mad empires in his mind. That his end would have come delusionally defending a maiden in distress and not on some weekend empty office park asphalt as suicide-by-cop.

That she who, a score of years previously, had read to me from Mao's little red book about the degeneracy of the brown suede Stuart Weitzmann stilettos I purchased with birthday money, I would meet again a score of years later on a gourmet board; she bemoaning fois gras and caviar restrictions. That instead she would be ranting at me for my scandalous pro-life change of heart and my embrace of that most ancient form of Christianity as is found east of the 1054 divide.

That the former comrade in arms against all things twee and with whom I broke when I started reading histories never taught, of fields of blackbirds and camps of destruction of a people so now maligned by moderns - would still be an opinionated sonofabitch whom I would actually recognize as the person he was born as if I passed him on some random street.

That an old friend would still know me for me and not say he no longer knew who I was after a single brief telecon one evening when he was feeling nostalgic.

Well as for the last, I suppose it was he wishing he could have had me cast in amber at some point along the way. Is it a universal wish no matter how much we may change to the distress or displeasure of the other - that we would have the other remain forever unchanged like the fly in the amber?

But I would still wish the memory of a strong adversary remaining strong. It's the game. I prefer to play it with hazards and obstacles - and immovable objects meeting irresistible forces.

A good appointment with the physician - and my license to rant renewed

2008-11-20T21:19:00.003-05:00

I had a med-check/blood-work appointment on Tuesday. Yesterday my doctor called me at work. It had something to do with the way I finally bucked up and really started working on getting my health back after I let it go down the crapper the last few years. I brought my bad cholesterol down 100 points in 3 months. My triglycerides are down 40 points. My BP is normal. I've lost a recognizable amount of weight. My liver is lovely. My complexion garnered positive comment from my physician.

I take a low dose of a generic statin. But according to my doc, that by itself could not have been the sole reason for such a fabulous decrease. So I fess up that I have cut out most butter and cheese. I take my meds just as prescribed. I take a multivitamin, fish oil caps, and a niacin supplement every day along with natural plant sterols. I also take a milk thistle extract capsule daily for liver support. I drink lots of water and eat lots of tomatoes and onions and peppers - raw. I still enjoy an occasional stop at KFC if I've been working overtime until 1830 or 1900 - just not every day.

Yeah my doctor called me to congratulate me and encourage me to keep up the good work. It made my week. It also renewed my license to rant about those people who have health issues (and really good health insurance) but who would rather moan and cry and complain (out loud) than follow the doctor's and the pharmacist's directives and Remember to take their meds every day and get their asses off WebMD unless they are seeking to help themselves and not find another condition to acquire.

It's tiresome, how people though I was nutso for being so chipper yesterday upon receiving news of my bettering health but who think nothing of griping about every illness real or imagined, besetting them.

And shameless unaffiliated plug for this amazingly amazing salsa that I purchase at my local Harris Teeter and is so scrumptious I forget about butter and cheese and other saturated grease. it's got a wee bit of sodium but not enough to really be scary. And it is utterly fresh. I eat it straight from the little tub it comes in. Buy some. It comes in Hot and Regular. Buy some. Your tummy will thank you.

About Obama's Proposed AG

2008-11-18T18:44:00.002-05:00

Eric Holder - with the firm of Covington & Burling since 2001.

Covington & Burling filed amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in support of the Planned Parenthood challenge of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

Just one more slap in the face of the sancitity of human life.

11/11

2008-11-11T00:01:00.002-05:00

The Healers

In a vision of the night I saw them,
In the battles of the night.
'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood
They were moving like light,

Light of the reason, guarded
Tense within the will,
As a lantern under a tossing of boughs
Burns steady and still.

With scrutiny calm, and with fingers
Patient as swift
They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen
Bodies uplift,

Untired and defenceless; around them
With shrieks in its breath
Bursts stark from the terrible horizon
Impersonal death;

But they take not their courage from anger
That blinds the hot being;
They take not their pity from weakness;
Tender, yet seeing;

Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost;
Keen, like steel;
Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with,
Who shall heal?

They endure to have eyes of the watcher
In hell, and not swerve
For an hour from the faith that they follow,
The light that they serve.

Man true to man, to his kindness
That overflows all,
To his spirit erect in the thunder
When all his forts fall, --

This light, in the tiger-mad welter,
They serve and they save.
What song shall be worthy to sing of them --
Braver than the brave?

~Laurence Binyon

The Dead

I
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There's none of these so loney and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.

II
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

~Rupert Brooke

Bare Ruined Choirs

2008-11-07T00:11:00.007-05:00

And Still We Believe. And Still We Stand. And Still We Pray

Crapocalypse 2008

2008-11-05T20:23:00.004-05:00

This Redundant Piece of Crap? Damn Skippy!

So much for literate, thoughtful, or morally uplifting entertainment. Indulge indulge! Ye seething demos!

We'll be here to sweep up and move in after y'all pass out and freak out and trip out.

Sharkey's Day

2008-11-05T06:35:00.000-05:00

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
Benjamin Franklin

We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy... It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.
Alexander Hamilton

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Adams

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.
James Madison

The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.
John Quincy Adams

Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.
John Marshall

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Clive Staples Lewis

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
H.L. Mencken

"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence -- moral, cultural, social or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how 'democracy' (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient dictatorships, and by the same methods? The basic proposal of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic.' Children who are fit to proceed may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. We may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when 'I'm as good as you' has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway, the teachers -- or should I say nurses? -- will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men.
Clive Staples Lewis

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
-Lord Acton

In a democracy the majority of citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority...and that oppression of the majority will extend to far great number, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. Under a cruel prince they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings; but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes are deprived of all external consolation: they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.
-Edmund Burke

It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny."
-James Fenimore Cooper

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.
-James Fenimore Cooper

We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital. -Horace Mann

We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real Liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship.
Alexander Hamilton

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.
Alexander Tytler

The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act, and their resolutions will be dictated to them by their demagogues... and the violent men, who are the most forward to gratify those passions, will be their favorites. What is called the government of the people is in fact too often the arbitrary power of such men. Here, then, we have the faithful portrait of democracy
Fisher Ames

Words To Rant By

2008-11-04T20:52:00.000-05:00

Responsibility:

Over on the side bar you'll find a couple of pharmacy blogs. I'm not a pharmacist. I just take a twice monthly or so jaunt to the nearest phamly pharm to phill up. I take a few meds. I got a few problems that are tidily under control. Why? Because I LISTEN when my pharmer tells me stuff. I take as prescribed and when prescribed, no more than that. And I don't piss and moan about my various issues. What pisses me off on a work-daily basis are folks who fail to follow their physicians or their pharmacists instructions and then have the belief beggaring gall the make a public scene out of every little unwellness.

Take your SSRI every day at the same time and in the dose your doc recommends. If it's really not working then TELL your physician IMMEDIATELY. Do Not piss and moan and throw crying tantrums for two or three weeks before you collapse and I have to take over your files while you go on a rest cure. You immune system is weak? Strengthen it, dammit! Get help immediately if you get a bacteria. Do not let the damn thing brew for a month while you weep in your Cheerwine about how much your mucous membranes hurt. Nip the problem in the bud, buddy. Eat healthily. Drink lots of plain old water. Suck a zinc lozenge once a day. I'll even share my seekret desk-drawer stash of echinacea and sambucol and vitamin C.

But no, it's easier to complain than to feel better I guess. I feel myself slipping further and further from caring. I really empathize with the hard working pharmers who are not dealing with just one or two malingerers but a daily cadre of snot, shuffle, and moan. My hat's off to you phine pharmers, I'd be in the rubber room if I dealt with the stuff you deal with.

Customer Service
Don't play me

Dear Fellow Freight Forwarder - You need my assist in presenting a vehicle title to customs outbound because you're in Bumpheuque, Illinios and the vehicle is sailing from Homeport USA. Sure, I do it all the time for a wee consideration. What? You have a Malaysian title but No document showing how it was imported into the USA. No can do, camerado. But to copy me in to your intra-company (other company) discussion about how your shipper says he'll dissemble it and ship it as Vehicle Parts. The Fuck????!!! . That's how chop shop operation work. I'm not involved because I passed on assisting you with jimmying a no-entry-documents vehicle through the outbound customs enforcement team here in Homeport USA. You're not serving anyone in this. There are tards in every profession and you're on of them. The issue is on top corporate export desk now sucker.

Dear CommuterLotBus Driver - is it too much to ask that you wait 3 seconds while I walk the 6 feet to a seat before you pull away from the stop with a sharp jerk? I don't need to be falling side ways into my seat plskthksbai.

Dear Shipline Serva-tard - Don't send rates and bookings your tariff can't cash.

Dear Shipper: When I tell you I need a proforma invoice for that export co-load , and the weight of the goods? You need to send me an invoice and tell me the weight of the goods In Writing. And I'll also cheerfully find you the Argentine customs regulation that says you need an invoice or certificate of valuation. I'll send you Argentine Customs Service link for free. I am trying my best to save you any possible difficulties on the receiving end. Please just don't assume I don't know what I am talking about. It wastes both our time.

Entitlement

Is it sick of me to imagine the day people start realizing that there's no pot of gold and no easy painless answers? When people wake up and realize that the dream of More that they were sold has left them with less? Less freedom to rise to the heights, less freedom to self-express, less freedom to be plain old different, less freedom to spend, less freedom to earn, less freedom to freely give, less freedom, to laugh, less freedom to dine, less freedom to worship, less freedom to read, less freedom to do, less freedom to be you and me. Sad .

Remember Kids:

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.
w.churchill
Don't fence me in
c.porter
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
e.abbey
Don't mix plaids and prints
j.poole

The Gaffer In All Of Us

2008-11-03T23:03:00.000-05:00

"Then there was a bit of trouble, but not enough. Old Will the mayor set off for BagEnd to protest, but he never got there. Ruffians laid hands on him and took and locked him up in a hole in Michel Delving, and there he is now. And after that, it would be soon after New Year, there wasn't no more Mayor, and Pimple called himself Chief Shirriff or just Chief, and did as he liked; and if anyone got "uppish" as they called it, they followed Will. So things went from bad to worse. There wasn't no smoke left, save for the Men; and the Chief didn't hold with beer, save for his Men, and closed all the inns; and everything except Rules got shorter and shorter, unless one could hide a bit of ones's own when the ruffians went round gathering stuff up "for fair distribution" which meant they got it and we didn't, except for the leavings which you could have at the Shirriff-houses, if you could stomach them. All very bad. But since Sharkey came it's been plain runination"

JRR Tolkien Return Of The King Book 6 Chaper 8 "The Scouring of The Shire"

Would You Vote For Someone Who Said This?

2008-11-03T07:04:00.000-05:00

“all Serbs should be placed in Nazi-style concentration camps”

.. and raised not a finger or a word when Clinton's Cadre bombed innocents on Holy Pascha.

Wake the Fuck Up! You want a heartless butcher as a VP and a fascist "civilian national secirity force" proposing President?

You choose to vote for that and you will get the fascist hell you deserve. I'd rather be shot whilst manning the barricades.

Vote Laughing

2008-11-01T10:32:00.000-04:00

David Heleniak over at Intellectual Conservative
has the right of it this morning my fellow travellers. Reminds me of that old saw "No matter who wins, the government gets in". If you read nothing else before the elections, read this.

It's wise to fear the "Demos" in "Res Publica" as originally meant - from the Greek and the Latin. You can look them up if needs be. I trust you to do that. I've added Wiki-Search to the side bar.

and we don't have a poem on the front page anymore. Must needs have one here to uplift and strengthen our individual souls.

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

After you take your laughing selves to the polls on Tuesday? Take a little time for yourself.. To drink a cup of your favorite coffee without asking yourself why you like it so much, wear a favorite scarf and just enjoy it, leave off the cosmetics and enjoy the feel of autumn on your bare face, have grilled cheese and tomato soup and don't consider the sodium mg or fat gram - in fact grate some good Parmesan on top of the soup. Kick a pile of autumn leaves and put off the raking together for the weekend. The worlds problems will remain, you've done your civic duty, find a bit of personal contentment.

Me? I am going to have a Reuben Sandwich - grilled - with extra dressing and cheese

no no no no no

2008-10-28T13:10:00.000-04:00

I have got to get outta here early... please oh gods of freight forwarding! don't make me face the commuter lot tonight....and the electro bus to the commuter lot.... at 1700 hrs....

I have ligyrophobia and demophobia and ataxophobia and osmophobia and......

Wait.

Demophobia.

Yup - sez it all.

Armageddon Outta Here?

2008-10-24T20:37:00.000-04:00

Friday evening wind-down with a little blog hopping and Gawker reports that Broadway is going to be losing a heapin helpin of mindless sparkly - in part due to the current Wall Street and worldwide weird.

Leveller agenda du jour?

Tetragrammaton Seminary and School of Dramatic Arts.

Next up?

Converting all stages to black-box theaters.

Every half hour on the 10s?

Waiting For Lefty

**excuse me whilst I slip into my sliced up tee shirt, parachute pants, and neon leg warmers and curl up with a pint of ersatz Fruzen Gladje and a trashy novel**

Ponderable?

2008-10-21T13:11:00.001-04:00

If "everyone joins the middle class" does that mean we'll all be lower class? Think about it. You can have upper middle lower (or) upper lower

hmmmmm... now I get this redistribution crap.

AutoTard Responds

2008-10-20T23:15:00.000-04:00

First things first - I suppose I should disclose something about myself. I'm one of those folks known as "childfree". Not childless - because I never wanted children, so I was really careful (as someone who is also pro-life) to make sure that I did not get "in that way" .... ever. I like kids sure.. in a nice Bearnaise.

Really I do - so long as they are well-behaved and belong to other people.

Hell, I like most of the human species believe it or not. But the one thing that has been yanking my chain the last few months is the 성교 mantra "for families". Like that speaks to me as a voter. 성교 No!

And we all know the most egregious offender on the TeeVee. So I filled out the wee question form on said candidates website using one of my several "junk mail" e-mail addresses. I decided to ask what is in all this crap for the single childfree hard working longtime taxpaying citizen in the middle of her career with 25+ years to go --- who's never taken nuffin offa no one.

And wouldn't you know.... I got an AutoTard response. I already knew I was voting for McCain since for me, it's about my own personal responsibility and I think everyone should take responsibility for their own lives - and not make me pay for their fuck ups all the time.

So the ObaTron AutoTard machine wasn't going to change anything - because you know for sure that this 성교 "wealth redistribution" is going to shank the childfree long and hard. But here's the shit if receive and just count the use of the word "families" against the word "individuals"

Thank you for contacting me about reforming our nation's tax policies and restoring fiscal responsibility. I agree strongly that we need to reduce the tax burden on middle class families while taking the tough steps needed to make sure that the federal government lives within its means. Let me be clear: my plan provides generous tax cuts for almost all American families – and will not raise any tax rate on families making less than $250,000 per year. I believe that the advancement of individual opportunity – the chance for everyone to join the middle class, regardless of birth – is basic to both the history of our country, and to our economy. I believe that there’s a place for every American's dream, and our tax structure must help people reach their goals by rewarding work, rewarding companies that play by the rules and keep jobs here in America, and supporting economic growth. I’ve introduced detailed proposals to make our tax code favor work instead of just wealth, to help homeowners and seniors, and to simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans can do their taxes in less than five minutes. Under my plans, working families will get a tax credit of up to $1,000; low- and middle-income homeowners will get tax relief, and seniors who make less than $50,000 per year will pay no income tax at all. Families making over $250,000 would pay the 1990s marginal income tax rates – of 39.6 and 36 percent – and capital gains and dividend tax rates of 20%. My 20% capital gains rate is the lowest rate from the 1990s, and my 20% dividends rate is 39 percent lower than the rate President Bush proposed in 2001, and lower than all but 5 of the last 92 yearswe have been taxing dividends.

Oh and the Homeowner trip. I am not ashamed to say that as a single person I rent because through my own 성교-ups earlier in life (one supremely icky marriage and a tres toxic almost-marriage) I didn't have the +25% down I told myself I would have to have before I would ever think of getting a mortgage - the way folks did things back in my parents' day before the adjustable-rate and no-money-down and interest-only mortgage shite started colonizing like a fungus. Hey, I was stupid and naive and I will freely admit to it. But I'm not sitting in foreclosure either... so there!

It's also a crap load easier not to deal with a yard and repairs and broken appliance things alone.

And? yeah..did I mention that Slowbama has his mail answered by Tards?

Song of Songs

2008-10-18T20:33:00.001-04:00

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.

Sudden Cravings

2008-10-18T01:05:00.000-04:00

How is it that some food we've only eaten once or twice and a long time ago can evoke memories or sudden cravings even after we forget the name of the place at which we ate it - or the name of what it was even.

Now I do remember the the time, place, and other parties for the honeyed sublime nectar that was pre-phylloxera Madeira.

But the Serunding Daging? This I had to google with the words Dried Shredded Beef Asian.

All I remember is that it was the autumn of 1982 and I was on a semester abroad in London. Now I am off to google for a US based on-line Malaysian grocer who may sell this bit of savory snackishness.

Where is it?

2008-10-13T07:37:00.000-04:00

If there is one thing that gets on my last nerve, it's people in the international transport biz who don't know their geography. There is no excuse not to educate oneself if one does not know.

Herewith is collection of geography and transport related quizzes to stretch your mind and exercise your brain. I play them to brush up and keep the synapses snapping - and to boost my not unsizeable ego. Have fun!

Airport Codes Is it a bad thing that I want a Fukuoka luggage tag?

The Ultimate Geography Quizzes this is a bookmark for sure.

a world seaports quiz Here even though the tard who created it spelled Le Havre "Le Harve" - and this misspelling is my itchiest pet peeve - it gives me hives.

More Geography Quizzes

Merchant Shipping Quiz

Sunday Thoughts

2008-10-12T20:24:00.000-04:00

My Red Cross platelet donation center has a cool new feature. Each donation-lounger-chair-thingy has its own HD television with headphones and a remote control and expanded basic cable! Woot! I got to watch Eugen Weber on the PBS education channel whilst donating my triple unit this morning. That soothing professorial voice is just the ticket. Happy platelets make for happy babies... and that's where mine were going today - right over to the children's hospital.

Read The Political Housewyfe's latest. She's on my reading list on the side bar. Candidate Obama is actively anti-life it appears. Before I read her piece I was unaware that Candidate Obama voted against the The Born Alive Infant Protection Act. That is beyond reprehensible.

My platelet donation today was offered up in memory of the human lives lost and destroyed by abortion.

O most merciful, all gracious and compassionate Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, Son of God: we entreat Thee, most gracious Master: look with compassion upon Thy children who have been condemned to death by the unjust judgement of men. And as Thou hast promised to bestow the heavenly kingdom on them born of water and the Spirit, and who in blamelessness of life have been translated unto Thee; and Who said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven" - we humbly pray, according to Thy unfailing promise: grant the inheritance of Thy kingdom to the multitude of spotless infants who have been cruelly murdered in the abortuaries of this land; for Thou art the resurrection and the life and the repose of all Thy servants and of these innocents, O Christ our God.

Turn the hearts of those who seek to destroy Thy little ones. We beseech Thee to pour forth Thy healing grace upon them, that they may be convicted in their hearts and turn from their evil ways. Remember all of them that kill our children as on the altars of Moloch, and render not unto them according to their deeds, but according to Thy great mercy convert them: the unbelieving to true faith and piety, and the believing that they may turn from evil and do good.
O Holy Master, Almighty Father and pre-eternal God, Who alone made and directs all things; Who rises up quickly against the evil of the impious ones; who, by providence, teaches Thy people preservation of justice and the obliteration of evil on earth; Who condescends to raise up warriors for the protection of the people of God: we entreat Thee with compunction, that as Thou didst give David power to defeat Goliath, and as Thou didst condescend through Judas Maccabeus, to seize victory from the arrogant pagans who would not call on Thy Name; so too, grant protection to us, Thy servants against the enemies rising against us as we go forth to do spiritual battle against the evil one and those who do his will rather than Thine.
For Thou art a merciful God, and lovest mankind, and unto Thee do we send up glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

Prayer from the Orthodox Office For Victims of Abortion

What it costs

2008-10-10T19:53:00.000-04:00

Library Card - $0.00
Spiral Notbook - $1.00
Stick Pen - $0.75
Drawing Pencils: $5.00
Sketch Pad: $2.50
Your Voice: free
Your Imagination: priceless
Your Intellect: infinitely expandable

Welfare: $1,000,000,000,000/year

Voting for the Welfare State: your soul

A poem on my mind

2008-10-07T20:53:00.000-04:00

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The World is Too Much With Us
William Wordsworth

Patriotic Voter Since _____

2008-10-06T11:30:00.000-04:00

.
Here's a thought. On election day. When you, a voter who has done your civic duty since you were old enough to do (you know who you are - the smoke was still drifting off those 18 or 21 candles when you signed your name at the registry) are again casting a ballot ~ as you have done in every election that determined the future of your city, state, and nation that you could.

Make a button or a tee shirt that says PATRIOTIC VOTER SINCE _____. And wear it to the polls and for the rest of the day if you can.

That blank you will fill in yourself. It commemorates the first year you cast a vote and exercised your duty and privilege as a citizen of these United States. It doesn't matter if you are a Natalie or a Toby, a Bill or a Phyllis. When you weigh the issues and make a reasoned choice, no matter what or who that choice happens to be for --- you are by my definition A Patriot.

You're not just a fair weather "what's in it for me" voter. You know there are more than "single issues" that determine your decisions and choices. You have something to boast about a bit even though you probably won't, since you're not about single minded rahrah-hooha-ism.

But I dare you to do it anyways.... because sure as the sky is blue, there are going to be piles of 24+somethings and 30somethings voting for the first time in their shallow lives.

JP.... 10/06/08

DUMBASS QUOTE OF THE MOMENT.

2008-10-03T23:06:00.001-04:00

"Too often the perfect can be the enemy of the good."

That was Mark "Mr. Ed" Warner tonight - speaking of why he supported the bailout ... which will only further serve to allow the continued consolidation of the world's banking establishment and spell hell and disregard for any individual or corporation that does not sell its soul to the bipartisan trilateral plutocracy.

Sure the good is the enemy of the perfect. It is the mere "good enough" that stops people from striving to better themselves in this world or even begin to contemplate the idea of theosis.

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?”

Robert Browning said it best, no?

The Intellectual Conservative --- a daily must read for the Jean Poole. A link to the main page is to the left to the left..... and that oxymoron will keep me pondering until 4 a.m.

Anyways, read the e-zine. Bookmark it. There is good stuff there daily.

A Damned Good Read - and lesson

2008-10-03T19:59:00.000-04:00

See Ambulance Driver on the sidebar? A damned good vocation blog and an excellent read from the Gulf South. Slice of life and a heapin helpin of just what those fine men and women responding to medical emergencies deal with every day. I sure as hell couldn't do the work these folks are doing - a lot of us couldn't.

So I mentioned this blog briefly a number of posts down in connection with my rant on able bodied mentally well people who can evac before an oncoming hurricane but don't.

Let this post from AD be an object lesson and something to reflect on when we think that we are indestructible before the forces of nature. And thank the next emergency responder you see. If you've never needed one, thank God for dumb luck; because there but for the Grace of God go us in that bus.

Shopping If One Must Shop - a few good things

2008-09-30T23:32:00.000-04:00

Wardrobing oneself is a bitch if one cares more for function than form. No disrespect at all to those who like current fashion but in the past few years I've been drifting towards the comfortable, simple, and more-modest-than-not mode. And I have an ardent dislike pf polyester fabrics --- especially polyester knits. It seem that's all the fug that is out there of late. I mean what is with this empire waist, vee boob shelf, pregnant belly drape tunics and dress crap?

It looks moronic, someone on the phone trying to act professional wearing pseudo-pucci poly knit crap.

I've come close to despair... until I found a few helpful things.

1) Score Of The Decade --- I found a charity shop which gets a monthly donation from Brooks Brothers! And now I have some super dapper collared polos in a lovely range of colors, all with the wee little BB golden fleece logo. Men's'. Unlike women's' garments, men's' upmarket 100% cotton collared polos wear like iron and have enough room to stretch to grab the phone with one hand and the rate book with the other. A well made garment to be sure . Pricey no? No. I got 5 of them in different colors. For $5 each.

2) A Skirt That Wears Like Iron --- the perfect skirt in my comfort minded mind. 100% cotton knit that wears like iron, long enough (falling to lower calf) and full enough that it takes a 50 mph wind to ruffle one's sense of decorum, and a range of unassuming solid colors. At $20/each.

Made right here in the USofA. Yes Virginia, there is a skirt fairy. I have a few of these. The picture makes it look more flimsy that it is. This is a super solid middle almost heavy weight knit with enough fullness to handle a bit of monthly bloat or a really good business lunch that someone else is paying for.

So there ya go. Under $100 for a full week's worth of comfortable quasi-professional business-casual outfits. Now if I could only find a pair of well made black leather flats with a fair amount of support and cushioning for the my occasionally cranky spine for under $100 to go with, I'd be in my own little anti-fashion paradise.

Shoes should preferably not be made in the PRC. I don't like walking in the blood of Tiananmen.

Manic Monday

2008-09-29T19:55:00.000-04:00

Exports of manufactured goods are way up!

Exports of kine and swine are rolling on the export waves!

Pity the fool who thought the import economy would last forever and we could just buy and sell money and ideas here...and get anything that was real material from chinavietnamsweatshopsaipanguamlesothowherever. Rave on, whats left of US Manufacturing. Only 9% of the workforce is actually employed in "making" anything anymore. Young 'uns poo poo the idea of factories and manufacturing and want something for nothing. Turn about. Been saying it for a while.

Is it any wonder an end-of-the-month Monday is so manic. Bill bill bill bill bill....hee hee...

It's Nothing To Be Proud Of

2008-09-23T23:16:00.000-04:00

the 11 pm news has a story about some 95 year old woman who has never voted but is now registered and is going to vote in her very first election. Sorry but this sort of new story makes me want to vomit. The woman has lived as a citizen of the USA her entire life . Finally voting like this is nothing to be proud of. Indeed, it is a huge slap in the face of everyone throughout this nation's history who has fought for universal suffrage and equal opportunities.

Because democracy is hard work. Because voting should be considered a privilege and a duty as much as a right - considering other oppressive regimes of the world. I'm all for cutting off the rights to vote for any US born citizen who fails to cast a vote in a national or state election before they turn 35.

Nothing to be proud of not caring for 70+ years.

And speaking of that. I dislike the word "proud" as in "Proud parent of" or "proud participant in" or "proud owner of" or any sort of reflexive self-descriptor that starts with the word "proud". Proud, in my book should only be used toward others in admiration. Don't call yourself a "proud parent" just because your six month old crapped his diaper. Don't call your self "a proud owner" because you happen to have maxed your credit on a $2,000 bottle of perfume or other shite.

Call yourself "honored" - it sounds so much less off-putting and much more grateful for the things you've been given. Call yourself "lucky" - or "stupid" for that matter if you max your credit line on useless crap.

This "proud" crap going around and invading our language? It verges on the hostile if one thinks about it. Nobody thankful or honored or grateful or happy or fortunate--- just proud. Is this what it has come to? That we are so self-centered as to think that our "pride" has gotten us anything at all? Depresses me. A Lot. I retreat to John Donne's words as usual.

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,

Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,

And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,

And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

John Donne

72. "Death be not proud, though some have called thee"

Ship Happens

2008-09-22T23:29:00.001-04:00

Coronary In Aisle One.....

2008-09-21T14:55:00.000-04:00

Supermarket Profiling. Something that has bothered me for some time at the supermarket. I can no longer shop happily. My market-radius (that is the supermarkets en route to/from home/work or just a wee bit off the path timewise/mileagewise) is all wrong.

There is one of the "lower market" chains, and two of the "much better but not best" chain within my market-radius. I let the low end chain off the hook on this one but the better market? Big piles of profiling Fail. Low Sodium deli meats? Not in the ones in my radius. Fresh salsas without perservatives or thickeners - just veggies & spices? Not in the ones in my radius. Whole grain breads & healthy nibbles? Not in my radius. While in the uppah zones there are healthy choices aplenty.

But in My zone? There sure are lots of artery clogging creamy dressings, and mayo based deli salads, and fried foods, and pre-sliced Oscar Mayer Sodium Loaf. And you know what? These markets are right in the heart of the local "coronary zone" aka "food stamp land" aka "the hood" aka my hometown - where I choose to live because this way I save money for when I am old and gray. Same reason I live in a third floor walkup without central a/c -- south of the Mason Dixon.

Poor nutritional habits are not changed when people are not given the option of choosing healthy. Supermarkets could lead the way - who's to say healthy eating/product demos on a regular basis wouldn't be welcomed. Maybe I am just too optimistic about humanity? I really do believe that most people, no matter their current station, do have the intelligence to pull themsehves up to better health or a better job or whatever - if they are encouraged to do so.

Encouraged to take initiative rather than being coddled by the paternalistic welfare state we live in, I mean.

Years ago I was volunteering in a shelter for preganant and parenting teens - teaching them, among other things, kitchen skills and that baking cookies could be more than just slicing a roll of premade dough. I can still remember a young lady at the shelter and her pride in herself that she'd made chocolate chip cookies from scratch. She was glowing because she had actually done something - that not all her peers knew how to do. It warmed me at a very cold harsh period in my life.

Interesting how giving the right things to a person has such great karmic bounceback.

It's is Sunday, so I am hopeful I suppose. I had a good triple platelet donation this morning for my wee ones at the children's hospital. Am about to take my name. Will leave with another favorit poem:

No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe
is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as
well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were; any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne

Some Days We Will Not Celebrate

2008-09-19T12:43:00.000-04:00

We don't celebrate "Talk Like A Pirate Day" around these parts.

McD at CargoLaw has a good page to read.

It says it all.

THREE STRIKES RULE

2008-09-17T11:27:00.000-04:00

Just a thought folks...

If it takes me more than three telephone transfers to reach someone who can get me air cargo rates - I will be most disinclined to Ever use your company. No never ever ever....

If your front line people are not trained to get me to the whomever I actually need to speak with - that tells me your company does not care about the customer - and I cannot trust you with my freight. Period.

Just Another Day In Paradise

2008-09-16T20:59:00.000-04:00

I really do love my work/job. I've been moving cargo of one form or another since nineteen-eighty-something. I got my degree in the least employable of the liberal arts once upon a time. It has nothing to do with what I do, and what I have been dong for the last umpteen years has nothing do do with any degree. It's just common horse sense - which is something damned rare these days - as today's adventures and meditations have proven out.

1) In Memory of 1900 (or) Those who fail to remember the past are damned idiots.

If it happens once. it can and will happen again. If you build on it you are asking for it . If you are able bodied and compos mentis and do not heed the warnings, it's natural selection at its finest. There are people out there risking life and limb on the Texas barrier islands, checking every building for folks who would not evacuate. They are exposing themselves to injury and contagion because some entitlement assholes decided that they were above God.

The Good Lord gave us minds - of the scientists who learn the ways of wind and wave and sand, of the medical folks who are soldiers on the front lines - and this includes paramedics, EMTs and ambulance drivers (say hi to Ambulance Driver on the side bar of my blog reading list) - helping hands of every color and shape inland who will hand you blankets and feed you gratis and listen when you bewail your lost castle build on sand.

Do Not think for one moment that if you choose to stay on a barrier island in the face of a hurricane that you in any way deserve to have someone come looking for you in the aftermath. Do not assume that if you choose to build on a barrier island, you deserve Any help in rebuilding your own personal house of vanity.

I am well aware that many of us, including me, live on coasts - but that is a whole other matter. It is where one chooses to live along said coasts that makes the difference in my opinion of whether a body is an ass or not.

For those who refused to evac off Galveston and the other barrier islands - you dishonor the memory of all those who perished in 1900. My tax dollars should not have to be spent upon your stupid hubris. You owe every taxpayer a debt of gratitude. Deal.

2) Notmyproblemism

Can someone please tell me why a shipment for one of my very best shippers has been delayed in transit 65 DAYS? When three other shipments, which shipped Later than said shipment on the self-same routing, are already unstuffed at destination? Must you, oh stupid 800csrotron, say oops and think that that is acceptable. I would be kicked outta the door and onto the asphalt if I pulled this sort of stunt.

Time was in the shipping biz, that everyone started at the bottom, running errands, doing the tedious documentation, the dull repetitive crap of day to day ops that keeps the goods moving. You learned by watching and listening and taking on "extra" work when you had a moment - offering to assist or asking outright to learn. A few years on and you would be running your own desk - and you could take a shipment cradle to grave almost as naturally as breathing. You were the shipper's primary contact and they had a direct line to your desk - no automated "press 1 or 2" tron voice.

Your name, for good or ill, was attached to that piece of freight and it was your responsibility to make it happen. If it was delayed - you owned up. You fixed it or found someone who could - immediately. You did not just say "sorry" and expect that this would be accepted as viable answer. It was a career and not just a chair.

Now our whole industry is going to hell in a handbasket because we are calling in to a carrier's call center to make a booking . These call centers are staffed by children just out of high school or by uneducated call-center "professionals" who have never seen a container ship, never seen a crane swing a can, never been stuck behind backup at a port entrance because the union checkers are sitting with their thumbs up their ass, never bothered looking at a map or a weather report, never considered any damned thing but what the computer screen tells them to do. We indies hate call centers with the passion of ten thousand burning suns.

Call centers spell the death of the independent mind. Truth.

3) For the Families

I reeely hate this line some times. And it is all to much spewed in an election year. "For the familes" only means that the government wants to further screw you out of your hard earned dollar if you have responsibily chosen not to breed when you cannot independently support another life in the manner it should be supported.

Jean Poole went through a nasty couple of layoffs between 03 and 06. Thiings are fab now - but some stuff takes a while to heal. Like... being told that - after 20+ years of tax-paying productivity - you make too much on the paltry unemployment check that just covers your rent and car payment (on the new used car you need to get to job interviews because your 1990 rice-burner just happened to bite the dust seven months before you were laid off) - to get One Iota of assistance in covering your prescription costs because you "Don't Have Chirrin".

And you are given the hairy eyeball when you try to explain that if you don't have your scrips filled... you could wind up sucking the state teat in a padded room rather than being the productive taxpaying citizen you have been for 20 years and will be yet again.

Liberal top-loaded government does not encorage "Hope" - no matter what Obamatrons say. Liberal top-loaded government sucks the responsible single non-breeding taxpayer drier than the Sahara.

I also get the hairy-eyeball from all those precious strident members of the Cult of Sacred Motherhood when I say this. And I say "sod off" to that. I'll show you the scars on my inner elbows made by the 140+ double and triple platelet donations I made. Those donations saved the life of your drug abused baby who needed immediate surgery as soon as you pushed it into this world, or saved you because you got messed up one night after you got your drink on and decided it would be fun to drive or play with pointy things, and now you are a dilaudid-dependent "disability" case.

I believe in Life. But I think irresponsible leeches are beneath contempt.

If a body can figure out how to milk the government teat, a body can navigate their way through the working world. Deal.

Randomology

2008-09-10T19:20:00.000-04:00

1) On-Ramps

Please enter onto the highway at the Nearest on-ramp near your abode. Do not drive five miles down the city main drag to clog up mine at 0800. Engineers engineer on-ramps they way they do for a reason. You are jamming the works and making my 4 mile commute 45 minutes - losers. So, if I dash in front of you in my own inimitable way - it's because you do not have a local or institutional parking sticker that tells me you belong to this on-ramp. Petty? Hell yes. Deal with it furriner.

2) CSRitrons

A "week out" mean Next Week - period. If I ask for something three weeks out on week 37 it does not mean week 39. Learn to count and stop making half asses excuses for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I will rat your repeated incompetence out to your sales staff. Petty? Hell yes. Deal with it tron.

3) Have/Has

I have. We have. You have. They have. He, She, or It HAS. "He have gone" nooooooooo! You're smart enough to dial a phone and chat the working day away - then you are smart enough that your nouns and verbs should agree. Poor grammar - no excuse for it if you are over 10 years old. Period. End Of Story. Petty? Hell yes. Deal with it maroon.

Liberty DOA - Part The Second

2008-09-06T13:51:00.000-04:00

a note before continuing: My blogging style is to write "on the fly" as it were. Initial posts on a subject may not have all the facts straight or complete. If this was a literary or semi-fiction blog; that would be another story. I only change names, products, specific locations that are not integral to the post itself. And, I follow up on opinion pieces where I may have been mistaken or unclear. What you see here is me & stuff going on in the world that affects me and/or my industry.

So, picking up where I left off in the last post, I investigated this situation a bit deeper on my lunch hour yesterday. And my conclusion is that this whole Los Angeles/Long Beach clusterfuck is even uglier than I thought. because it involves not one, but two damning and freedom limiting systems. You see, each port is screwing the owner operator (and by extension you as a consumer) in a different way. let me explain.

1) Lost Angeles Port Plan for "Clean Trucks" is doing the beast with two backs with "Dirty Money"

Los Angeles' plan is to eliminate all Owner-Operators by the end of 2013. Haulers for the port of Los Angeles must be company drivers - not free contractors. The companies will have agreements with the LA Port dictators and use corporate fleets with hired drivers. Said drivers would have to have membership in the Teamsters Union. The only trucking firms who are going to be able to comply with the new equipment requirements are, of course, going to be the corporate megatruckers who are flush with cash.

Screw the independent who who wants to keep his rig and his freedom of association. The Dems/ Community Organizers/Bleeding Hearts/Union Thugs have been creaming themselves over this plan that in actuality brings a kind of "enslavement by hooligans" over to the Port of Long Beach's community of truckers.

2) Port of Long Beach. Will apparently "allow" owner-operators but only if they sign on with a Concession which is a nice 75 cent word for a company who's given the proper payola to the local political bosses. the Long Beach plan is opposed by the Teamsters. The Teamsters are a bunch of moronic hypocrites who criticize one form of bondage whilst insisting on their own. The gist of the matter is that while the owner-operator May drive his own rig, the kind of rig he drives is limited - and the Port in alliance with Daimler Chrysler financing is oh so kindly offering debt bondage as a way for the heretofore independent owner to "solve" the problem. Hers a link to some of the Facts though I disagree with the antifreedomprounionistbigbusinesslovingliberalwuss conclusions.

So in conclusion SoCalism will destroy small businesses. The increased cost from less competition will drive up drayage rates. Work actions at LA become more likely as the Teamsters stir the pot. The cost of sweatshopcrap will go up. Other ports will become cheaper options than LALGB. LALGB will continue to lose business. More people will lose jobs. There will be less and less money from port fees to improve infrastructure.

I sure as hell know that for any of my shippers looking to move stuff from the west coast, I'm looking at All other options. Texas would be wise to start building another deep-water container port for western states' cargoes. I don't trust Portland or Seattle or Oakland not to follow the SoCalist stupidity.

And independent owner operators? We're keeping a cold sweet tea waiting. Y'all come out here. We have work for you. a decent cost of living, and respect for the entrepreneurial spirit PLUS much more fun and much less interference in your private and business lives.

LIBERTY DOA AT LGB

2008-09-04T19:24:00.000-04:00

I got wind of this only today because I work for an "smaller" regional firm - and hence my contact with the leftist coast is rather less on these days. What I heard today and how it percolated down my mouldering brain only reinforced the singular truth that where I'm at is a hell of a lot better than there.

Back in the day I know a few fine southern gentlemen: BearClaw (loved his morning pastry in addition to having huge mitts), JerryLee (throwback pompadour), Cornbread (scrapping and scraping by to make his way up the ladder and get better gear underneath him), Slacker (the old-timer keeping them all in line). They were great, made me laugh, made me get out of my insular brainiac thenworld and get a bit more real.

Independent businessmen, also known as Owner Operators, that feisty freedom loving brand of non-corporate trucker driver that made transportation what it is. The guys who run a load of float-glass down from PA in an ice storm, flip on their side, get it rolled pack up and patched, and are on the road again - despite a bruised thigh or a cut elbow. They keep gong because their freedom is important, it means something to them to be self-governing and to own outright what they have - their rigs, their piece of hunting land, their homes, all of it.

So it struck me when an alert flashed across my desk about the shenanigans at the ports of LA/LGB - that the granolabirkenstockpastylegmoregovernmentneverworkedasoliddays physicallabor Idiots in Calif. decided on some cockamamie emission plan that would at the end utterly evicerate and do away with the independent owner-operator and the small independent mom-and-pop trucking agency. And a way of life and an honorable way up the ladder is going away for a whole lot of men and women.

No rigs with engines 1989 or older are permitted to run into the ports after 1 October of this year. 90-07 trucks - must be "compliant" or pay $35/TEU each trip - and the independent trucker must sell his soul and fall into debit to keep running in SoCal. Read that link and read these articles. Proceed to throw up in your mouth a little.

And see the shape of things to come when government tries to quash the liberties of its own pople - while making shitloads sitting on the boards of directors of Megamonopoly Marts selling all kinds of crap from evilandcorrupttotalitarianstateswhoareconvenientlyexemptfromthekyotoprotocolsforeverand infiinty.

Think about it. It's a bellwether situation and the outlook is ugly. For my buds the drivers, I'm always careful passing and yielding way in crazee traffic 'round my ports. Luv you guise to pieces - you make me look good on a daily basis

Hard Hearted Hannah the Scourge of Savannah G A?

2008-09-01T22:19:00.000-04:00

Looking at the incoming Atlantic necklace; it is going to be a pissy week at the downtown orifice. I got eleventy seven cans moving out in the next two weeks and the ports are likely going to be upanddownlikeasweatingcowgirl for the next fortnight at the least. Going to seriously back up an already jammed USEC export flow. The weak dollar + blue-ear-pig-disease has sent the US export market to full bull - like the olden days, before yourse truly was on the groovy scene; like somehting out of the early-mid 70's. We're gobsmacked from BOS to HOU (crazee jammed with outbound oilfield equpt). So we hourly check the NOAA site and wait for service delay notes from our carriers.

I'm sick. I like the sit-room vibe. I want a sand (and water) table.

I stil start spiking adrenaline at the thought of acts-of-God-and-man; though these days, I'm all commercial except for a wee bit of USDOS schtuff. The reaction is pavolvian, I start salivating and pull up Perry-Casteneda and WorldPorts and Runway Specs until I slap my hand and pop a xanax.

Back when, I worked on a four year project which kicked off doing full planes and trucks of backhoes and squat-pots to Balkanistania...... and wound down to the last whimpers of arranging winter textiles to Termez on the northern banks of the Amu-Darya and other more sensitive stuff- before Evil New Overlords(tm) decided to get chicken and close said profitable project. Let go the retired LtCdr boss too. I miss that man to this day. Great job, lots of freedom to innovate and solve puzzles - and fab pay (mondo fab pay).

It came with a price of course, 12hr days, weekends, sleeping with two phones taking up the otherperson space in the bed. But it was a rush. I'd wake up at the crack of dawn (though I never asked dawn how she felt about that) . Boot the puter & the teevee and see if anything was perking out there. Making plans on the commmute...waiting for the call.

ROM em, wait, nail details, get the go, go~ for however long the whole thing may take ~ whatever the masters want. 0300 Excel milestone updates telling you your binkies are a couple a thousand feet over the Pamir range? No problem . Loved it. Miss it. Miss the lechers at the prime-contractor orifice too.

Commercial can be boring.

I take on wierd complicated project routings to keep a finger in it. Have new friends in Poti because of it. I have a standing offer of hospitality in Istanbul too. But the industry is becoming automatized with trons filling desks somewhere in Landlockedville who've never seen a crane swing a 40HC. I'm a dodo - I like the big ugly.

Oh yeah, And you stringy-haired-spindly-oatmeal-colored-legs-in-black-kneelength-jorts-writhing-on-the-ground-with-a-face-full-of-pepper-spray losers? You're wasting your Gaia's oxygen. If you can't be part of the solution - shaddup and go home to your room in mom-n-dads basement. Otherwise quitcherbitchen and pick up a hammer and nails, or a shovel, or a soup-ladle.

weekend over....le sigh.

Show Your Quality?

2008-09-01T15:27:00.000-04:00

Goofus has intarweb-bots make a whip-around page

Gallant launches full frontal assault

And image does matter in political contests - very much. As much the pundits seek to dissect it- face time & organization of message really matter. People need to be sparked by bold moves.

Also - something about fearlessness at knowing that the waters into which one is wading are full of assorted rabid crocodiliae - but doing it nonetheless - because one would rather do that which one believes is Right rather than Expedient? That works too

we interrupt your programming

2008-09-01T11:21:00.001-04:00

this just in, Geraldo shrieks like my hysterical idiot blue-haired pink-housedress-wearing catfood-hoarding, 72 year old Aunt Masie.

we now return you to regularly scheduled programming - with love and respect for calm manly-man rescue swimmers.

Talk and Walk - a rambling manifesto of sorts

2008-08-31T18:05:00.000-04:00

Amazing really, the number o' libberals fer hoomanrites'n'peece I meet on a daily basis who are utterly clueless about making peace - and who spew truckloads of snark'n'venom on those they disagree with, while doing Nothing At All to be themselves peace makers.

Human rights? When pray tell do they begin? Nobody is so stupid as to not realize that sex makes babies. Don't want children, don't have sex please. Bob and Poppy are your friends. Use them. You gonna engage in lifemaking activities? Accept that you are making human life with human rights.

You want peace? Make it within yourself and within your community and it will spread to the world - eventually. Deal is, you will be right with yourself and with the Almighty. But if you're just going to tilt at windmills with great horking gusts of verbosity - get the hell out of the jeanpoole.

So yeah, I'm all about human life and human rights and because of that - I made a point to walk the walk.

350–525 x 109/L)
O+
CMV-Neg
To Date: 110 bags (@220-250 total units)

It used to be a hell of a lot more symbolic before the one-armed-bandits came to the apheresis atelier. But the new machines make it so much easier to swig a Mountain Dew - and read the latest issue of Tittilating Tattler in order to indulge in all sorts of cuddly schadenfreude.

Aside from that, it's my way to look at the world from the perspective of peace. Whose life did I save this week? I'll likely never know. I would rather not know that. the crack baby or the silver spoon baby, the plutocrat in his Porsche or the indigent AIDS patient, a best friend or an arch enemy - I could be a part of any of them. And by extension illogical - they are a part of me.

So while it's still perfectly OK in my subjective morality to rail against them - it's not ok to wish suffering and/or pain and/or death on thems whats you disagree with.

My favorite poem. Something nice for a Sunday evening:

Pied Beauty

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

Represent Well..plskthksbai

2008-08-30T13:52:00.000-04:00

Ya know, it's really a bad idea to be a douchebag when you're blogging job crap; especially when that job involves public trust. Makes me wonder what a phukedup-pharmer would think if they got a looksee at my script profile - which has kept me from do1ng Die Postsache all over the world's collective ass for many years. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that my phamily pharm is a genteel civilised place. DCP Holla!

Once Going Whole-Hog, The Biz Now Has The Blues

2008-08-29T22:24:00.000-04:00

Forbes...really. . A big DUH is your mark for today.I don't think that Phelps & Co ate That Much pork

I guess you boyos in your metalglass towers are not keeping up with Sino-swinage. Now JP thinks PRC sucks sweaty sloth balls but I'ma getting the idea from a brief Google news search that the piggies are perkey in Pingdingshan once again.

Well, at least that'll free up some reefers..... not that kind you moron.....

Oh My My My

2008-08-28T21:17:00.000-04:00

Something about a 20 body strong junta of generals and admirals on a stage gives me a touch of the hives.

Anyone up for a small South American coup?