November 2007 archive

Rollo May – The Courage To Create

In college I was asked to read The Courage To Create by Rollo May, I was a bit skeptical at first that something could be gleaned from looking at the lives of past artists and creative geniuses.  I assumed that inspiration was as fleeting as a dust devil so how could one possibly present inroads into the creative process?  

Mark-making was the mindset I was in at the time, focusing on every individual stroke of the charcoal or brush.  It was myopic but necessary in order to progress.  A popular term for this is “Art Marks”, you’ll often see them around focal points to represent distant objects or atmosphere.

The book does not promise that you will become a genius if you follow the steps but it does show you that a lot of the more creative types have similar patterns amongst them.  Starting with long sessions of work, round the clock, with short catnaps, followed by a period of relaxation, like a day off and a hot bath.  Sounds funny huh?  Well follow me beyond the fold to find out why this makes sense.

Make The Call

justicecheneynosferatu2 t

Please all 1-202-225-3121 to say you support Congresman Kucinich’s Impeachment of vice president Dick Cheney.

Why Edwards Is In Trouble In Iowa

Yesterday, I wrote about John Edwards' slippage in Iowa. Normally, I do not take great stock in polls this far out (yes, it is still too far out to take polls too seriously), especially the famously difficult to poll Iowa Caucus. My reasons for thinking the latest Iowa poll was not so much the numbers, as the fact that Edwards has dropped while Obama has risen since the end of July. Edwards now lacks a POSITIVE narrative for his candidacy for the critical last phases of the campaign. He has become the “attack Hillary” candidate (as opposed to being the Not Hillary candidate, the position he has now ceded without a shot to Barack Obama.)

At MYDD, Jerome Armstrong sees it differently:

Chiming in, it's great that the pollsters are now adding whether the voters attended the 2004 caucuses or not . . . I would tend to bank more on those that caucused in '04 . . .

With due respect to Jerome, I think he misses a very important point here, on the night of the caucus, the differences between previous caucus goers and first timers is simply not that great – both in choices and participation. For example, in 2004, the entrance polling showed:

Kerry won the initial preference of first-time caucus-goers, while Edwards and Dean roughly tied for second in this group. (First-timers made up 55 percent of participants, up from 46 percent in 2000.) . . .

Here's my point, the John Edwards campaign is looking more and more like the Gephardt campaign of 2004. He is supposed to have union support,  experienced caucus goers, etc. He has gone strongly negative against the perceived frontrunner. He is not a new face for Iowa, thus the change argument is difficult for him in terms of actually being a new candidate.

Most importantly, in my opinion, his dominant narrative now is one of a candidate whose campaign is dominated by personal attacks against the perceived frontrunner. Like Gephardt.

Unlike Kerry in 2004, or Edwards 2004 for that matter, there is no positive narrative for the Edwards campaign now. There is no doubt he can hurt Hillary (or Obama if he chooses to shoot in that direction), but he now has reached the point where he can not help his own campaign.

And this campaign choice by Edwards is utterly perplexing. He was very viable in Iowa. He had a positive agenda. He was NOT in a two person race, the only ones where negative attacks can work (driving up your own negatives is a necessary part of a campaign of attacks, the hope is you drive up your opponents' negatives even further.)

I think it is clear now that the Presidential race is a two person race in that only two people can win now. I think Edwards can not. And he did it to himself. The most baffling campaign decision I can remember.

Grand Jury Investigation: It’s not just Blackwater

The grand jury investigating the September massacre of civilians by Blackwater guards is also investigating several other “private security firms.” According to the Washington Post:

FBI investigators have reportedly concluded that the killing of 14 of the 17 civilians was unjustified under State Department rules on the use of force. But the case is muddied by the question of what laws, if any, apply to security contractors operating under military, State Department and civilian contracts.

Because massacring civilians is one of those areas of legal mud. The question is whether laws applying to private contractors working for the Defense Department also apply to contractors working for the State Department. And although the military has brought charges against numerous official service personnel, they have brought none against private security contractors. Because whether or not mass murder is legal depends on who is doing the mass murdering, and for whom they work. The current grand jury investigation indicates that might soon change.

The Iraqi government has said it knows of at least 20 shooting incidents involving security contractors, with more than half a dozen linked to Blackwater.

The problem, of course, is that legal mud.

For instance, contractors were immunized from Iraqi laws under a June 2004 order signed by the U.S. occupation authority. That ruling remains in effect.

Because the U.S. occupation authority believed what everyone working for the Bush Administration believes: some people are above the law. And that belief apparently remains. That ruling remains in effect?!

In addition, investigations are complicated by questions about evidence, jurisdiction and the availability of witnesses.

And we can all stop and ponder the meaning of the words “availability of witnesses.” Any guesses?

“If they’re going to try to indict, they’ve got a lot to overcome,” said Patricia A. Smith, an Alexandria lawyer who represents two former employees of Triple Canopy, a private security firm based in Herndon, in a civil lawsuit. The former employees say they were wrongfully terminated after reporting that their Triple Canopy team leader fired shots into the windshield of a taxi for amusement last year on Baghdad’s airport road.

For amusement.

The two former guards lost their case, but are appealing. The company was ruled to have acted “inappropriately,” and three guards were fired, including, of course, the two who reported the shooting. But no investigation was conducted. By any legal authority. Neither U.S. nor Iraqi. Smith says that as far as she knows, no subpoenas have even been issued. Undoubtedly, more legal mud.

ACTION: get KUCINICH on the rec list at ORANGE: link to rjones2818

let’s get some action and surprise people

get rjones2818’s diary on the rec list at ORANGE. GET DENNIS ON THE REC LIST.

Kucinich for President?  Ignore the Ugh? You Bet! w/poll

ACTION: get kucinich on the rec list at ORANGE: link to rjones2818

let’s get some action and surprise people

get rjones2818’s diary on the rec list at ORANGE. GET DENNIS ON THE REC LIST.

Kucinich for President?  Ignore the Ugh? You Bet! w/poll

ACTION: get kucinich on the rec list at ORANGE: link to rjones2818

let’s get some action and surprise people

get rjones2818’s diary on the rec list at ORANGE. GET DENNIS ON THE REC LIST.

Kucinich for President?  Ignore the Ugh? You Bet! w/poll

Pony Party, Boringest Pony Party Evah…

….sigh….

Kucinich for President? Ignore the Ugh? You Bet! w/poll

Sure, he’s not popular with our Great Orange Overlod.  Good for Kos.  No, really!  He has set up a ‘progressive’ community, and we have the right to ignore his dissmissive ‘Ughs.’  Why should we ignore those ‘Ughs?’

Are My Local Bookstores Dead Yet?

I’ll keep this short. I want to read Roberto Bolano’s new book The Savage Detectives. Really I do. I love Latin American literature.  And Amazon says this big novel is one of the top ten novels for 2007. But there’s a small problem.  And it’s not the author’s fault.

Friday I was in Ithaca, New York. I stopped in the Cornell Store and saw that they were selling the book for the list price, $27.00. This seems like a lot of money for a book, even though it’s new and hardcover and I want it. When I got home, I found in my email box an advertisement from Amazon offering me this very book at 40% off, for $16.20. And I could get free shipping if my order totaled $25.00. How could this be? I wondered.

So I went to abebooks.com, my favorite used online bookseller, and I found used copies of the book beginning at $16.79 plus shipping.  In other words, the used books (probably review copies) were more expensive than the new book from Amazon delivered to my mailbox.

I want to support my local, independent bookseller.  That would be The Bookstore in Lenox, Massachusetts, which has been a community institution for more than thirty years.  I love that bookstore.  I have given readings there.  I have attended readings there.  Matthew, the owner, has good wine at readings.  He has a great selection of books.  He stocks books people love.  And he’s succeeded even though Barnes and Noble opened a store nearby.  But I digress.  I want to support my local bookseller.

But as far as Roberto Bolano’s book is concerned, is my commitment to independent bookstores worth $11? For this one book? I’d like to think it was, but frankly, I can hear padlocks snapping shut on the front doors of most independent booksellers near here. That would be a terrible.

And now that Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, etc. are approaching, and the gifting season is upon us, people who give gifts probably want to stretch their gift-giving funds.  I’m worried.  Because all of that desire to save drives people to Amazon and B&N.  And that’s is a real danger not only for my friend’s bookstore, but also for the lovely, lively, local, independent institution of bookstores generally.

Please think about this briefly before you shop. I don’t want bookstores to go the way of the small town hardware store.  

Docudharma Times Tuesday Nov. 20

This is an Open Thread: Free Thinking Zone

U.N. steeply lowers its AIDS estimates ,A gap in GOP candidates’ healthcare proposals ,Audit Finds Misuse of $34 Million student Loan Subsidy,  Radiation Detectors for Border Are Delayed Again, US plans case against AP photographer

U.N. steeply lowers its AIDS estimates

By Jia-Rui Chong and Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

November 20, 2007

The United Nations on Monday radically lowered years of estimates of the number of people worldwide infected by the AIDS virus, revealing that the growth of the AIDS pandemic is waning for the first time since HIV was discovered 26 years ago.

The revised figures, which were the result of much more sophisticated sampling techniques, indicate that the number of new infections peaked in 1998 and the number of deaths peaked in 2005.

USA

A gap in GOP candidates’ healthcare proposals

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 20, 2007

WASHINGTON — When Rudolph W. Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the spring of 2000, one thing he did not have to worry about was a lack of medical insurance.

Today, the former New York mayor joins two other cancer survivors in seeking the Republican presidential nomination: Arizona Sen. John McCain has been treated for melanoma, the most serious type of skin malignancy, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson had lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system.

Muse in the Morning


Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

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