Kansas City - 83º (94 had been predicted), clear, wind – NW @ 3 mph, humidity – 63%. Doesn’t seem too bad at the moment for KC, but it can be a bitch in the summer (in the winter too). So why come back here in the middle of the summer – because everywhere nice is full of tourists or too expensive. I’m looking for a home – a small town with a coffee shop and a bar with a variety of draughts (not just Bud lite and MGD). Someplace to follow high school sports and more than a Baptist church. Where winter is not devastating and summer is at least tolerable. I haven’t found that place yet. Oh, yes – I don’t want to hang out with snowbirds at the local Hardee’s and if MacDonald’s is considered the gourmet spot, then screw it. Larry McMurty claims that the DQ is the community center of any North Texas town. With a good local library I can get anything I want to read through Interlibrary Loan even if they disapprove of my reading taste. I’m hoping that with the economy in the shape that its in I can find rental digs without having to sign up for a year. A spot to do some gardening would be nice. I’m not yet ready for a dog.
The duration of future pleasure bears no intrinsic or necessary relationship to the agony of current waiting – Stephen Jay Gould
The competition is on
Who knows who, who has one
Spoken to or been
Addressed by
We’re like that – holding out
A hand with fingers
Intertwined
The most celebrities
Entertainers, sports figures
The movers and the shakers
The media darlings
Rarely are politicians or intellectuals
Ever mentioned
I should know, you’d think
That I’d would have
Run into some
Dead celebrities don’t count
Well maybe Elvis and Michael
Beauty cannot be loved fruitfully if it is loved only for the pleasures it gives. Just as the search for happiness for its own sake brings nothing but boredom – Marcel Proust
To be old is to be
Out of contention
And we bemoan
This condition
“I could have been
Somebody”
An April 9 Rasmussen Survey showed that only 53% of Americans believe capitalism is better than socialism (37% of those under 30) while 20% believe that socialism is better (33% of those under 30). But I believe that there is much confusion about what the words ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ really mean which has been caused by the radical right's use of the term ‘socialism’ to lambaste any solution to healthcare – calling it socialized medicine implying that the mess we have is capitalist healthcare and anything better is socialized medicine. What a lark – conservatives are creating a demand for socialism, although neither those in favor of or against have any idea what the term means. And without the ‘evil empire’ as a counter example who is to say what it means – they didn’t seem to have any better idea of its meaning than does Rush Limbaugh. And my fondest hope is that all of this will creates a real debate (which I doubt – we never have had the necessary preliminary discussions) about the nature of the ‘American Dream’. Have we had such a debate since April 1861 – and that one was cut short by a call to arms! But, oh, what joy are these statistics that show almost as many socialists as republicans (more if you only count those under thirty).
Average poets don’t just stand within their age, they compose it – David Orr
What you are taught serves not your needs but the needs of those who teach it to you. What you learn is to your own benefit.
They [cattle] are all breed beef: beef hash, beef hide, beef hocks. They’re a human product like rayon. They’re like a field of shoes… You can’t see through to their brains as you can with other animals; they have beef fat behind their eyes, beef stew – Annie Dillard
The Sarah Palin phenomena – so what does happen to losing Vice Presidential candidates? What are the chances that she will continue in a leadership role? About a third of tour former VP losing canidates are returned to the House of Representatives (1) or to the Senate (11), some serve in an appointed capacity; Ambassador (5), or a Cabinet Office (4); only one returned to state politics; 10 returned to private practice; two pursued other careers (as University President and a news commentator); and for eleven there is no record of a subsequent career at all (how pathetic to top of a distinguished career make a failed VP attempt). Only four remained rising stars – Franklin D Roosevelt (Governor of New York and later US President), Earl Warren (Supreme Court), Joseph Robinson (Senate Majority Leader) and Nicolas Butler (Columbia University President best known for his anti-Semitism). Chances that Sarah’s star will continue to rise – 1 in 10. Best chance - run for US Senate.
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The Volvo door slammed. When we had bought that station wagon the year of Nixon’s landslide because it somehow showed you were a liberal, against Vietnam and for abortion and conservation, but it had always seemed to me to give a bumpy ride and mediocre mileage – John Updike-
The mythology is all estranged
Hanging out their flags as if it’s
Rivers painting Washington’s
Crossing the Delaware
(Burnt on one corner in the
MOMA fire and severely smokeDamaged) – Just like queers
To be still camping and swishing
When nothing contains any reality
Reality is a nude posing. Just carry on
Nothing real is going on
Such a rude awakening
He was a bit of a dude, a bit of a gangster, a solid family man with some flings on the side – a man in love with all the angles life can be approached by, with no time for books, for history, for doubt – John Updike
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Obama is the boy toy
Of the paper economy
He’s mighty busy
Repapering the walls Of his new house
It’s a fixer upper – he’s a flipper
From the Journals #1 - 01/06/2004 - San Francisco - Royal Ground
“One hour and fifteen minutes and Click & Clack will be on”
“On 91.7 Click & Clack will be on in fifteen minutes”
“91.7?”
“Yep, 91.7”
Muni riders remember - front seats are for seniors and person with disabilities …Approaching one car Embarcadero in one minute…Next stop Castro Station
I Boarded BART at the Montgomery Station headed for the Berkeley Transportation Library to research the topic of emerging vs. established markets expenditures for road construction vs. road maintenance. It was for of the BP bitumen proposal. I was looking for data of highway construction and maintenance expenditures for Russia. And I didn’t want to be sitting there in the office.
Oakland City Center - 12 St Bart Station - I transfer from the Pittsburgh Bay Point train …Richmond in seven minutes…I get out at Berkeley Station walk towards the UC campus.
I have a sudden need to urinate. I’m on the second floor of McLaughlin and I am no longer looking for the Library. I am looking for a restroom, any restroom - noting on this floor - down the breezeway to Engineering - security lock - have to turn back. As I turn the urge gets stronger. I am waddling back down the breezeway - getting a little wet by still managing to hold on - upstairs or down stairs - down stairs is less strenuous. At the bottom of the stairwell is a floor guide. I’m in luck there is a restroom to my left (the direction of the arrow). I am now both waddling and holding my penis. Oh Oh, the front of my pants is getting warm. I make it around the corner - there is no sign of a restroom. I spot the women’s restroom on my right - where the hell is the men’s - then I spot it just as water begins trickling down my leg into my shoe.
Its no longer warm and comforting - its now cold, wet and chaffing my thighs. What did they make of big puddle of water outside the door, in the hallway. He says “Hello” and I say “Hello” as I walk out the door. I feel a little guilty about not cleaning up the puddle, but that would just have called attention to what had happened. I head off looking for the library.
I’m slowly changing my routine, puttering around in my Pjs. I do a little cleaning, reading on the bed and I hang up some clothes. I remove the shoes from the middle of the floor. It usually doesn’t bother me. I leave them were they are removed until I need them again. I’m sleeping later and enjoying the last few minutes of the coziness of a warm bed.
I did some Australian petroleum exploration success benchmarks for the Santos project in the afternoon and then called Dallas regarding some data for a marketing letter. I reply to an inquiry from London and provided them with some market research studies from Solomon. Otherwise it is all quite on the Western Front. From where will the next attack be launched? Not my concern, I am due for rotation.
Finished with today’s work and I’m at the Royal Ground by 4:15 after having picked up my laundry.
My strategy is to make them want to get rid of me and the more than they thing I want to stay the better my bargaining position (trouble is I can’t do any bargaining; bargaining is reserved - manno y manna). It’s hard to play a hand when you’re not allowed to sit at the table. I am attempting to make the problem their’s and the solution mine.
Everybody experiments with himself, improvises, makes experiments, enjoys his experiments; and all nature ceases and becomes art – Fredrick Nietzsche
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