smells like old fogey spirit

Whoknowswhatelsehewanted
I went to the Arbys, and found, to my delight, that the 2 for $4 fish sandwich deal would be going on through April. Getting home, I realized that I haven’t posted anything in a few days. People might think I was slack if I didn’t put something up, and I don’t want that.
Kurt Cobain would be forty today. Of course, being forty is not what it used to be. When I did high school, there was a saying, never trust anyone over thirty. And I went to my thirty year class reunion five years ago.
There is a book in my bag now about Nirvana. This is the "grunge" band from the early nineties, not the nordic paradise. Nor is it the Christian rock band, which got $50k to change their name from Nirvana, to whoknows what else. There was a part about how Kurt's lyrics often did not make sense (duh). Maybe this is the style of the new generation, of the text message attention span. Or, perhaps a paradigm for modern times...an invasion of babylon, expecting to be greeted as liberators, with the troops home for Memorial Day.



georgiasclassiccityhomage
R.E.M. wrote songs that don't make sense either. They once lived in Athens GA. Lots of things about Athens GA don't make sense, even if they make dollars.
As I write this, Florida is poised to win the NCAA basketball title for the second year running.
The first name mentioned in "52 girls" by the B52s is Effie. If you grew up in Georgia during a certain time period, you know about Effies. Some German filmmaker...I think it was Mr. Fassbinder...made a movie, "Effie Briest". The mitteleuropa Effie was not like the Classic City variety. Of course, little is known about THAT Effie, except that her business was on the banks of the Oconee River.
"Shall we gather at the river"



morefamilyvalueschatter
Frances Bean Cobain is a teenager.
Is coherence, structure, grammar and spelling obsolete?Was this planned obsolescence conceived by William Randolph Hearst over a century ago?
Marion Davies called her longtime paramour "W.R." He gave Ogelthorpe University $100k and 400 acres of land in exchange for a degree, and a granite building named "Phoebe Hearst Hall".
John Waters probably did not subject Patti Hearst to the casting couch.
Courtney Love...bless her heart...is. Her band is called "Hole". There is not indication of what the LE stands for, unless it is a french pronoun. Maybe she was going to call it "Le Ho", but some Christian band was already using the name. Being cheap is often the correct move.

The spell check suggestions for this post:
effie...effuse, eiffel, elfin, iffy off, ufo,
Oconee...coon
french ...front, drench, trench, wrench, fresh, freest, fret, ferret, ferrite, Franc, France, Franco
fogey...foggy, fogy, fogged, fogger,
Arbys...arbors, abyss, airbus, aerobes.

Lunch Entertainment

thirtysixhundredseconds
I am starting to appreciate the concept of a one hour lunch.
When I started here, I took a half hour, and not every day. Often we would be busy, and I would routinely skip the noon meal. The bean counters at corporate were not amused.
But, you can get used to anything if you have no choice. The internet is a good companion, especially if you have some things to look for.
Of course, my blog got no comments (you,with the world’s smallest violin,downsize). The Jesus Worship blogs are there, but blessedly quiet today. I start to make the rounds of the address bar.
Now, the address bar is a cool feature of the much maligned internet explorer. (I have foxfire at home, and honestly don't know what the big deal is) If you look at it, you will see the latest urls that have been typed/pasted in. Since another user of the machine here has overrun the favorites window, the address bar is the de facto bookmarks column.


twinkietwinkielittlestar
The first stop is the Wikidumper .This is the last refuge of articles about to be 86'd from wikipedia. Today the top feature is "twinkies in popular culture".
I was going to make a joke here, but I am so out of touch with modern "culture" that I don't know a name to insert.
Hell, I once saw a comment about Bono, and thought they were talking about Sonny.
As the legal "profession" likes to say, they did it Pro Bono. Cher and Cher alike. Gypsies, tramps, and theives.
All this time I am eating ramen noodles with Kroger "traditional salsa". An easy open can of Kroger yellow cling peaches awaits, followed by an afternoon of water and bagels. Yes, it is cheaper than McDonalds, but I miss waiting in line and the attitude of the staff. Life is not fair.



mercenarialventure
The next line on my impressionistic internet inventory is kikoshouse .A resounding repository of antiwar common sense, K's house is a must stop on my virtual journey. The top feature today is a welcome to the spring season, illustrated by a Grant Wood image. Below that is a thought provoking feature on the use of contractors in Iraq.
With the all volunteer army, contractors, who are well compensated, do many of the jobs formerly done by conscripts. This has been very profitable to the corporations who got the contracts. It is also morally iffy, when you consider the role of "private security" contractors, a.k.a. mercenaries. These merry men do a lot of the dirty work in this “liberation”, which has the benefit of being deniable to our side.
However you may feel about the war, it is tough not to be supportive of the troops. They are doing their job, at great risk and low pay. However, when you have a hired gun, making a six figure salary...the sentimental notions about supporting the troops goes out the window.
As a side issue, when Vietnam was being napalmed to save it, those of us on the homefront heard a lot about "backing our boys in Vietnam". Now, those guys were young, but they were not boys. They were men. In the present conflict, women do many of the jobs. It takes too long to say, "back our boys and girls". So, we say. "support the troops". This is an improvement.



quotaofquotidianquotes
The last electronic stop before I got the urge to write was The quotation page The first name I entered was Oscar Wilde. There were seven pages of quotes, many of which are familiar. The next name was Janis Joplin. I found one :
"Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got".
I could add the time she was on the Dick Cavett show.
" I could tell you were a swinger by your shoes".
The last name I entered was Larry Kramer. There were no quotes in the database. This might be a good thing. I have been warned about "inappropriate" websites while at work.
The pictures here were taken at and near the Carter Center on March 18, 2007.
Jimmy says hey.
The spell check suggestions for this post:
bono...bonn, boon, boo, bon, bone, bonnie, bongo, bond, bony, bolo, bozo, boron, boson, boons
cher...cheer, cheri, her, tier, cherie, char, chare, chore, chorea, chori chef, chew, cherry, cheers, cheery, cheek, cheep, chess
ramen..ramon, ramona, ragmen, ragman, rammed, rammer, raven
cavett...caveat, cave, caved, caves, cadet, caret,

the man on the grassy knoll

hourforlunchistoolong
Does anyone else find Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be a fraud? Much of the media is buying his story at face value.Some even use it as a justification for our war in Babylon.
the strangest thing just happened. I am at a computer, looking at the internet during my enforced one hour lunch. I decide to look for stories on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Now, I cannot spell arabic very well, and like to use copy/paste when it involves tricky names. With technorati it worked well, but when i tried to paste it into this document, it didn't want to go. Finally, I just manually copied it off the screen. Now, when i copy Khalid Sheikh Mohammed off the word document it goes fine, but if i copy it off the internet it doesnt work.
Perhaps big brother encoded the words Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on the internet and it was not possible to copy that phrase


Shakespheressistersays
Here is a commentary.

"Mohammed made his confession at a military tribunal in Guantánamo Bay on Saturday, "according to a transcript released by the Pentagon yesterday"—a transcript we have to trust entirely, since no reporters were allowed inside the courtroom"
We also have to trust the translation of his comments, since, no doubt, they were not in english.
Much has been made of the timing of this announcement. The implication is that the Administration is trying to distract public attention by waving the flag of 911. The only problem with this is the fact that W, Dick and the crew has been in deep doo doo all the time recently. Any time would be a suspect time to release this transcript...we don't even know when KSM really gave the statement.
The issue of torture raises its gnarly head. If and when he goes to trial, the issue of whether KSM was tortured will cast doubt on the proceedings.
DNA samples were taken. This will help to verify his claim to be the father of Anna Nicole's baby.

purple flowers

whattheydontknow
It all started innocently enought. My "virtual neighbor" Denny posted a few pictures of himself. I commented:

You should be careful with this. The internet is crawling with photoshop junkies looking for images to molest.
Self timer is a dangerous feature.
Nonetheless, I am so grateful for the miracle of digital photography. I am too cheap to buy the supplies and prints of traditional photography. By my latest guesstimate, my cost per image price of my camera is down to about a nickel apiece. There is almost no fast way to know, but the three folders on my machine with pictures have over 4 gigs.

You know, a tour of my picture folders would be a subject for a future post.



fishsandwich2for$$four
Well, I decided to go get dinner, and come back and ponder the evenings assault on good taste. Looking at the western sky, I saw the sun about to sink over the horizon. Before you could say "holy pixel batman" I grabbed the camera and headed up the hill to the schoolyard.

Alas, there were too many trees on the horizon to yield a postcard quality sundown, but the pine trees and baby magnolias were all too happy to share their glory with me. There was a window where some first graders had watercolored images on the glass. At the top of the path, a little purple flower posed for me. Never mind that some would call it a weed...not being bio knowledgeable, it is a mystery to me

march weekend

tomorrownevercomes
this is now officially a good weekend. I have, in the last 36 hours:
---Bought groceries
---Built the model for a picture I am working on.
---Made several commentaries to other peoples blogs. Here is one:

W.M.D.s in Iraq was the excuse, not the reason, for the war.
Yes, Saddam did use chemical weapons on the Kurds. This is when he was the Ally of the United States. You might wonder why Saddam was executed before a trial on the gassing of the Kurds. Quite possibly, we would have found out where he got his poison gas, and that might have been embarrassing to the United States.
I realized something while I was typing my initial comment in this thread. My loathing of the President is largely because of the war, not the other way around.
There is an aricle in this months Vanity Fair about a man who went to Iraq to film a pro war movie. When I read this, I was horrified at the killing party that he portrayed. This is the war that some of the meaner elements of our society has wanted for a long time, and the whole terror/w.m.d thing is a mere pretext for some feel good bloodshed. The price will be paid when these men-turned-killing machines come home and integrate themselves back into our society. We will be paying for this war for a long, long time

cellphonephrenzy
---Had a highly entertaining phone call with a friend. Some of the observations are:
**a person will not forgive someone they have done wrong. While I have suspected this for a while, it was articulated by the late molly ivans with regard to the right wing media and their treatment of hillary clinton.


**the war in iraq is the result of years of war/debt economy. we have been spoiling for a fight for years, and we have found one.

**saddam was a threat that must be destroyed. he was also weak, after years of sanctions, and would not offer much resistance.

**the loathing that i feel for the president is the result of his adventure in iraq. This is the opposite of being opposed to the war because it was started by mr bush.

**If we nuke iran, the fallout will land on our troops in iraq


moreadventuressaturday
---Finished watching "Reservoir Dogs". I rewound it and started to see it a second time.
---set the clocks ahead one hour
---Walked to a fabulous potluck supper. I like to walk on railroad tracks, and the freight train on the tracks passed by just as i walked by one of the access points, so I got to walk on the tracks. I was enjoying life at this point, after a week of struggle, depression, exhaustion, and hard work. I was walking on railroad tracks, going to what promised to be a night of excellent food and camraderie.
The dinner was all I hoped for and more. I took a bunch of pictures, which i doctored and posted elsewhere.

these things too shall pass away

immovableobject There are walls in Atlanta that are designed to stop a freight train.
A concrete sandwich, with two ferro concrete sides filled with gravel, with a garnish of steel bands. They are in place in front of the supports to elevated sections of the MARTA train lines. They protect these supports from a runaway freight train...or a passenger train, which is usually travelling faster and would have a greater impact. Of course, any passengers would be converted into mush, but the rapid transit lines need to be protected.
The amount of force generated by a freight train... hundreds of tons of product, hurtling down the silver rails at great speed...is immense. The promise of an immovable object that can control this unstoppable force …this is what we have here.
To date, these walls have not been tested.