Eternal Recurrence

I’ve decided when I am reincarnated, that I am going to come back as Edward R. Murrow.  I don’t CARE if he’s been dead a long time so just SHUT UP about that!

Go ask Friedrich.

Can’t you see the resemblance?

 

Me. TOBACCO ADDICT!

Edward R. Murrow – TOBACCO ADDICT! Coincidence? I think not . . .

The Red Carpet

Secretary of State Clinton and Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza

Wasn’t it lovely for Peshawar to roll out the Red Carpet for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton when she arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan?  Too bad that the red dye used for the carpet was from the blood of more than 101 Pakistanis killed in a bombing perhaps coincidentally timed to her arrival.  Perhaps not . . .

According to the New York Times,

The bomb tore through a congested area of narrow alleys and crowded stalls in Peshawar’s old city, killing as many as 101 people, most of them women, and wounding about 160.

I’m sure it had the speech writers scurrying around.

But then again maybe not.  By this time I am sure that there are MANY stock responses to atrocities of this sort.  Ya think?  How sad . . .

See the story here:

Deadly Blast in Pakistan Casts Shadow Over Clinton’s Visit

All we are saaaaaaaying

Is give War a Chance.………

(Well, New York Times?)

doc

HEY! NEW YORK TIMES!

I’ve been plugging you since December of last year and have I received just one word of thanks?

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Who do you think you are anyway?  The New York Times or something??

The New York Times is the best newspaper I can think of for any reason other than local news outside of New York City.  OK, so you, the New York Times, DON’T have funny pages, but that’s okay.  I can go to OTHER places than the New York Times for my Baby Blues and Classic Peanuts.

I ALWAYS read the New York Times–at LEAST 4 days a week!  And the SUNDAY New York Times will be in newsstands in Heaven!

You could at least give me a subscription to the New York Times.  Throw a Poor Boy a bone, will ya, New York Times?  Please?

and we thank you for your support

Gryphon

News and Other Male Bovine Feces – Part Eins

Me and Natasha

Yeah.  Stop your whining.  You knew what you were getting into when you walked out the door.  You blew a hole in the bottom of your rowboat with a shotgun 35 years ago and now you’re crying because you have to bail water.  Poor baby . . ..

The coffee yesterday was nice and you got me the Times and the Post and that was nice too.  So thanks for that.

Now, back to you guys . . .

Gryph, Natasha,, and I have been having EXTREME difficulty getting good internet connection today.  You would THINK that if people are going to be so gracious as to allow us to steal their wifi signal that the LEAST they could do would be to boost it up more or point it in our direction or something!  It has taken me one hour now just to get this far along.  Hopefully, the

FiFi. Not mine, but adequately representative.

connection will hold for a little while now.

(the automatic spell checker tells me that “wifi” isn’t a word and recommends that I replace it with “FiFi.”  “FiFi” was a French “hostess” that I met one time many years ago at Caesar’s in Atlantic City.  It’s not appropriate here . . . but maybe some other time I’ll talk about it . . . where was I?  She was sparkly, very sparkly . . ..)

So, Letterman was schtupping Stephanie eh?  She would have been my choice too were I in his white socks and loafers.  She is hot in a mousey way.  I always wondered if she was a squealer or a moaner . . . Huh?  oh…….  ok…….

And Now For The News!

I have a good one that I will try to save for the end but I can’t make any promises.  It is just soooooo good that it is hard to hold in.  I’ll try . . .

Let’s start with my notes as soon as I can find them.

Everything was provided for me by the good people at the New York Times who have YET to give me a free subscription regardless of HOW many times I give them free plugs.

INTERNATIONAL

Guinea

Capitan Moussa Camara

There was a coup in Guinea.  It was back in December ‘08 and believe it or not I did a post on it Christmas Day.  My post was called Coup in Guinea.  Original, eh?

Anyway the country was back in the news yesterday.  It seems that the new ruler, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, is not such a very nice guy, which comes as a large surprise him being a military dictator and all.  It seems that when he promised free elections back in December within two years that he MIGHT not have been completely sincere.

They had a rally last week for some reason or other and the Times claims that Camara’s soldiers turned it into a bloodbath.

Moussa was going to go the rally.  Really he was!  He said he was going and you know that a despot is ALWAYS good for his word.  But he didn’t make it for reasons beyond his control.  He really wanted to go but when the time came to leave he couldn’t find the keys to his pickup truck.

I shit you not.  That was his excuse.  He really and truly told reporters that.  He couldn’t find the keys to his truck.  He said that.  That was the reason he didn’t show up for a rally that his troops turned into a bloodbath.  He misplaced his keys.  MAN!  I HATE when that happens!

They have this little electronic device now that will help you locate your keys by clapping your hands.  Maybe they don’t have that technology yet in Guinea.

Well, anyway, it may not be very original but is just as believable as any other lie he could have told.  And, who knows, maybe he really did lose his keys.  Is he married?  Could his wife have been of assistance here?  Seems vaguely important that the leader of a country be able to find his keys in time to get to a rally where folks are going to be shot and stabbed and women raped with assault rifles.  Spectacles like that just CRY out for leadership to show the proper way of doing things.

He told this to a group of reporters in a long extemporaneous news conference and then at the end of it he offered to send the reporters out on the town to nightclubs.  “On my tab,” he said.  “As Chief of State.”

We interrupt this news broadcast for generalized whining . . .

Look it is taking me a real long time to write this.  I keep losing connection for 15 to 30 minutes at a time.  So this is what WE are going to do.  We are going to call this Part I.  Part II will be up directly–just not tonight.

to be continued . . .

c.e.s.

Delivering Democracy from 30,000ft

Reaping the rewards of democracy

The Obama administration and its allies in Afghanistan continue to escalate George Bush’s good fight in the name of bringing democracy to the people of Afghanistan. Obviously in this case greater democracy promotion translates into record numbers of bombs dropped last month;

“Air Force, Navy and other coalition warplanes dropped a record number of bombs in Afghanistan during April, Air Forces Central figures show.

In the past month, warplanes released 438 bombs, the most ever.

April also marked the fourth consecutive month that the number of bombs dropped rose, after a decline starting last July.

The munitions were released during 2,110 close-air support sorties.

The actual number of airstrikes was higher because the AFCent numbers don’t include attacks by helicopters and special operations gunships. The numbers also don’t include strafing runs or launches of small missiles.”

George must be proud.

Don’t Tell Me You Were Surprised

Campaigner for Human Rights is Beaten in Moscow

( New York Times, Thursday April 02, 2009.  A:5 )

by: Michael Schwirtz

(recap and commentary: c. e. spots)

The leader of a prominent human rights group was beaten by . . . men outside his home late on Tuesday night, in an attack that police and colleagues say was very likely linked to his professional activities.

Protest AGANIST Gay Rights parade. "Sieg Heil?"

It is the fashion these days in Russia to deal out violence against well-known people involved in human rights activism.  Lev A. Ponomaryov, a frequent critic of the Kremlin, is but the most recent.  He went to the hospital but was released and returned the next day for medical tests.  Having satisfied the requirements for his SAT many years previously and with his GRE apparently in good order, medical tests were all that needed to be fulfilled.

His daughter said,

Is is difficult to say who did this, because he was involved in a number of human rights’ issues.

The day before the attack, his car tires were slashed.  Recently while presiding over a news conference, a gang of youths burst in and began pelting the participants with eggs.  The Times did not report if the youths were wearing brown shirts.  And some would have thought that he might have picked up the hint.  Fortunately, the guy had the strength of his convictions.

Members of Russia’s close-knit community of human rights advocates and critics of the government have said that fear is spreading through their ranks as a result of growing violence.

Lev Ponomaryov -- Before

No kidding?  Who would have thought that they couldn’t remain stoically unafraid while being unprotected by the government for exercising their supposedly natural rights to free speech?  In January, a human rights lawyer and a journalist were shot to death near the Kremlin.

Police seldom, if ever, identify perpetrators.  Rights groups have accused Russian authorities of tacit complicity, if not actual involvement in violence and threats.

Alexandr S. Brod, director of the Moscow-based organization Human Rights;

Since the government began to again consider human rights

and After

organizations enemies, there has been increased pressure from the secret services, tax inspectors, and of course from marginal forces and parliamentarians [sic "paramilitarists?" ] with supremacist, nationalist outlooks.

According to Brod, the security of people like himself,

will be under even greater threat during the sconomic crisis because, in addition to marginal groups, even political forces will begin to foment hatred of them.

Sound familiar?  Of course it doesn’t because even Old Fucks such as myself weren’t alive in the 1930s.  But if you have read your history and studied your political science, as I have, then you will certainly be able to draw very striking parallels to Hitler’s Germany, pre WWII.  This, my friends, is rising Fascism, prima facie.

It all fits quite nicely in with the theory that failed communist states have a tendency to become authoritarian-right states.  res ipso loquitor and Sieg Heil.

c. e. s.

Khmer Rouge Leader to go on Trial

TUOL SLENG PRISON, Cambodia (CNN)

Kaing Guek Eav is an elderly former math teacher and a born-again Christian. “Duch” ran a prison where people were tortured and killed under the Khmer Rouge.

The Khmer Rouge was the ruthless communist/agrarian regime run by the brutal killer despot Pol Pot during the 1970.  His own particular form of genocide was called The Killing Fields.

Duch is also — prosecutors contend — a former prison chief with Cambodia’s ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge movement who oversaw the torture and killing of more than 15,000 men, women and children three decades ago.

The trial of the 66-year-old man, better known as Duch, resumes Monday in front of a U.N.-backed tribunal just outside the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.  He faces charges that include crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder.

While he has admitted his role in the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal reign, Duch won’t be spared weeks of evidence.

The prison he headed was a converted school, Tuol Sleng, that the regime renamed S-21.  Here, men, women and children were shackled to iron beds and tortured — before they were beaten to death, prosecutors said.  Prisoners were meticulously photographed before they were put to death.

It all seems so fresh

said Norng Champhal, who was a starving little boy when Vietnamese forces invaded the prison. He was separated from his mother after a night in the prison and never saw her again.

It’s hard to control my feelings when I see this.

he said, as he watched footage of the prison taken 30 years ago.

I wonder whether my parents were tortured like these people.

The Khmer Rouge swept to power in 1975. Three years, eight months and 20 days later, at least 1.7 million people — nearly one-quarter of Cambodia’s population — were dead from execution, disease, starvation and overwork, according to the Documentation Center of Cambodia.

The organization has been at the forefront of recording the atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge regime.  Tuol Sleng was one of 189 similar institutions across Cambodia. Duch is the first former Khmer Rouge leader to stand trial.

The tribunal, which is made up of Cambodian and international judges, does not have the power to impose the death penalty. If convicted, Duch faces from five years to life in prison.  The trial is expected to last three or four months.

Probably the most important thing about this court is: even after 35 years, you are still not going to get away with it. That is the message,

said Chief Prosecutor Robert Petit.

When proceedings began last month, more than 500 people — including three survivors from the prison Duch ran — filled the tribunal. About 50 people came from Kampong Thom province, the birthplace of now-dead Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I was dreaming about my time at S-21,

Vann Nath, one of the few survivors of the prison run by Duch, told The Phnom Penh Post last month.  Even though Duch was not a senior leader with the movement, many Cambodians were relieved that one of the regime’s former leaders was facing justice, said Youk Chhang, head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia.

I think there is a feeling of, well you know, finally — now it’s finally happening after all these years of waiting — hearing, fighting, negotiating.  People have that kind of sense of relief that it’s now moving. When I ask people around the center today, people say, ‘Oh, it’s about time.’

he told CNN last month.

Four of the regime’s former leaders, also accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, await trial before the tribunal. The regime’s leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

If I weren’t a Christian I would hope they cut off his old, dried up nuts and let him taste them for a while before they slowly kill him.  But as a Christian and a well educated and liberal doctor I could never say anything like that, could I?

Cornelius E. Spots, Ph.D Special Correspondent to the Aerie

The Rest of the Story

He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and began his radio career in 1933 while still in high school.  he began by cleaning the station and eventually was allowed to fill in on the air reading sports and doing commercials.  His career in radio broadcasting came to span more than 70 years.

He was known for his pregnant pauses and deliberate delivery.

He gave news and commentary and was best known for his signature “The Rest of the Story.”  In the “rest of the Story pieces he would lead his listeners on by telling them the story of someone’s humble beginnings full of pathos and then leave them hanging while he did a commercial break.  When he came back from the break he would tell of that preson’s rise to greatness in one field or another and then at the end announce who the person was.

He was the King of Burying the Lead.

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And now for the REST of the story.

He received the Medal of Freedom from President Bush.  He died in a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona where he kept a winter home.  He had been hosting his radio show part-time for much of the past year.

His son said in a written statement,

My father and mother created from thin air what one day became radio and television news.  So, in the past year, an industry has lost its godparents and today millions have lost a friend.”

ABC Radio Networks President Jim Robinson said in a written statement that he,

was one of the most gifted and beloved broadcasters in our nation’s history.  As he delivered the news each day with his own unique style and commentary, his voice became a trusted friend in American households.”

In 1990 he was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

President Bush, also in a written statement said, he

was a friendly and familiar voice in the lives of millions of Americans.  His commentary entertained, enlightened, and informed. Laura and I are pleased to have known this fine man, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

He was 90.

His name was Paul Harvey.

Rest in Peace, Paul.

And now you know the REST of the story.

c.e.s.

Would you like milk with that?

Story courtesy of CNN.

Donald Crabtree of Vassalboro, Maine has opened a “theme” coffee shop.

The waiters and waitresses are topless.

The Grand View Topless Coffee Shop opened last Monday and is doing booming business.

Crabtree states

It’s just been crowds mobbing in.  I know what people want.  People like nudity, and coffee is profitable.  Sure, I’d start a coffee shop [without nudity] but I’d be out of work in a week.

He got a flood of applications for wait staff.  After all the unemployment situation is bad, the tips for a job like this has GOT to be great, and there is no pole that you have to dance around.  All you have to do is serve coffee and be VERY careful about spills.

The coffee shop jobs are paying off. One waitress received a $100 tip for a cup of coffee, and most of the wait staff make about $30 a table.

Crabtree said,

The economy is so bad.   Everyone’s losing their homes, their ties, everything they own. People leave here happy and can’t wait to come back. It’s nice to see people smile again.

Once it got past the prudes and the town council approved it how could this idea NOT be a hit.

A Hot Bath

I read the newspaper every chance I get, and not just any newspaper.  I prefer the New York Times.

The Times is difficult to get where I live.  The Washington Post is more available but not as satisfying.  Don’t get me wrong.  The Post will do, but it’s always with a sigh when I break down and buy one.  At least the post has the “Funnies” which is a charm in and of itself.  The local paper, The Daily Progress, will do in an absolute pinch, but I usually come away from a reading of it sorely dissatisfied.

This is not an advertisement for the NYT (although I wouldn’t mind a free subscription to it if they somehow were alerted to all my good words. )  This is a post about the art of getting the news.  It is a post supporting newspapers in general.

It is about taking a bath.

When I buy the Times it is most often when I know that I am going to have time to immerse myself in it.  I step into it as I would step into a warm, bubbly bath.

I try to make sure that I am relatively free of interruptions.  A good cigar is always a plus.  There is nothing quite as calming as a good Churchill Madura when I am being assaulted by death, chaos, and corruption.  Terrorists in Mumbai?  *puff*  Sleazy Mid-West governors?  *puff puff* 50 billion dollar Ponzi schemes?  *puff*  get the picture.  The world is softer through the blue haze of fine tobacco.

Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message.  He was right.  Reading the newspaper is like taking a bath.  I relax into it and let what I read roll around in my head.  The Times gives me most, if not all, the details I crave.  I can go back and reread sections before I have even finished the article!

People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.

Marshall McLuhan

When I read the newspaper I take in the ideas, the facts and more importantly I take in the “Message” and the “Medium” is a distant secondary importance.  Sure it’s still there.  ADVERTISING!  A full page of Lord and Taylor’s jumps out at me.  McLuhan had a whole lot to say about advertising as well, but at the risk of digressing I’ll leave that for another time.

Television News is like taking a shower.  I quickly get what I need and realize that the distractions of my personal world prevent me from giving the experience what it truly deserves.

Internet News is like getting blasted with a waterhose.

(Did I stretch the analogy too thin?)

c.e.s.