May 12 2010
cross-posted from Sum of Change
About 1,000 nurses, with a handful of doctors mixed in, rallied today on Capitol Hill for National Nurses Week to “press the case for moving beyond insurance reform to improving the quality of care in U.S. hospitals and other healthcare settings.”
May 12 2010
I saw the best era of my species destroyed by
cynical incompetent drinking of kool-aide,
bragging themselves through the meta ghetto
shackled by a golden steel dawn,
outdated hippies claw for days of back
self-fulling lies of pop culture nexuses
of when babies boomed and came of age
clutching at tethered self-importance
skull fucking the vacuum of progress,
sloppy seconds of a doomed generation, blood stained
in desperation to relive what was never lived,
astroprojecting lies of crumpets for tea parties with Allah
self-appointed caretakers of aging Fates,
burning the wealth of generations in their vanity bonfire
least they realize the flames lick their shadows
in cave they never left or saw, but deprecated throughout
knee-high incomparable failure blaspheming bloodlines,
scholars of their own self-righteousness,
who stole the future in the night, thieves
of self-identified IDs marching all in labyrinth lines
expressing prepackage individuality of shattered spiritualities,
resting wickedly to rise of brilliant morns
making cakes of lies for mind-starved prodigies
laced with roaring icing of Thou Shalt Not
dragon scales for their eyes,
soup kitchens with no souls, archaic fantasies
of rusted cunts and dickless porn stars
fluffed in zen gardens of atomic-glass sands
who loaned the impulse of their zeitgeist
leveraging the cowboy beebop open ranges
assets of timelined cultures, for their depraved hedonism of their now
craven ecstasy, swallowing whole inquisitions
against their self-truths, Charlie hut whorehouses,
sanctified as holy for the hopeless class
mirror reflections refused to be recognized,
shadowing boxing the Gay Jesuses in Private Idahos,
arms protesting the delivering of their anger letters
to the Chinamen of the moment of here and how,
who vapidly suckled the tit of their own denial,
growing fat beyond passed skin of karma bassoons,
skeleton crews of long sunked ships, winked out
in the darkness of innumerable killjoy matinees,
stranded on an island of self-conviction of self-worth,
manuscripts in hand of self-proclaimed glories,
hulls crushing skulls of babies yet born,
who burrow with burros in esoteric texts
penned in tongues trampled by Spanish iron maidens
heralding concepts steampunked into regulated
regurations to answer questions hogtied and derailed
least fantasies be approached and ballets stopped,
the purity of deprived rejection of dissent
for self-centered preservation, no matter the dead
injuns on the reservations,
I’m with you in the Boom,
where babies lose fingers in the loom,
I’m with you in the Boom
mortgaged to crises outside of time,
I’m with you in the Boom
crack-addled by state secret lies,
I’m with you in the Boom
where the future is denied for lusting pasts,
I’m with you in the Boom
swirling in the Brazil of checks in the mail,
I’m with you in the Boom
where salt dresses wounds uninflicted,
I’m with you in the Boom,
where Buddha killed himself on the road for shelter,
I’m with you in the Boom
dancing to player pianos written by derelict pilgrims
on the typewriters of the heretical Gods
I’m with you in the Boom
cherry picking tomato ripe aborted fetuses
I’m with you in the Boom
sweathoused sewing new suits for the emperor
commoditized and sold for brand America
I’m with you in the Boom
chicken scratching fables of truth
of a generation howling against itself
I’m with you in the Boom
watching history collide against humanity’s bulkwork
of entitled babies stealing candy from history.
May 12 2010
DKOS is getting increasingly Kafkaesque and more than a little embarrassing to itself. None of the following can even be mentioned there in an adult discussion. They would be instantly censored by what is clearly a small, organized group who rec’up diaries and HR people to shape the content and the community on DKOS.
May 12 2010
There used to be a day when the ‘Blame Game’ was just NOT an option. There used to be a time, WHEN Action was called for, Action was taken.
My oh my, how times have changed.
“The buck stops here” is a phrase that was popularized by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who kept a sign with that phrase on his desk in the Oval Office. (Footage from Jimmy Carter’s “Address to the Nation on Energy” shows the sign still on the desk during Carter’s administration.) The phrase refers to the fact that the President has to make the decisions and accept the ultimate responsibility for those decisions.
May 12 2010
The one recently in the headlines, as it was stolen after a Supreme Court ruling about the placement on public land.
Well:
Anonymous letter explaining cross theft sent to Desert Dispatch
contacted the Desert Dispatch newsroom at around 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Snip
We are passing along this information in the hopes of illuminating what might have happened:
May 12 2010
Forgive me for doing something a bit different today. A steady diet of teh serious often gets burdensome.
The late 90’s to early 2000’s MTV animated series Daria was finally released yesterday on DVD in totality. I’m not sure a more perfect encapsulation of my adolescence could have ever been created. Born in an era where content on MTV still could be seen as edgy and daring, instantly creating a kind of seductively rebellious authenticity with a younger audience, the series served as a lifeline to lonely, isolated, insecure teens like myself. I myself related so much to many of the characters. Daria and her best friend Jane were a kind of wise-cracking vaudeville act, lampooning the contradictions and hypocrisies of the world around them with their own private repertoire. I also knew many in my own life who reminded me of Jane’s ne’er do well brother, Trent, a chronic slacker whose dreams of rock ‘n roll stardom are always frustrated by his limited proficiency as a songwriter and guitarist. Sometimes I still encounter the Trents of the world, particularly when it comes time for me to once again take my guitar in hand, sit, and play before an audience.
May 12 2010
On this day in 1937, George Denis Patrick Carlin was born in the Bronx. He was raised by his mother in Morningside Heights which he and his friends called “White Harlem” because it sounded tougher. He was raised Irish Catholic and educated in Catholic schools. He often ran away from home. After joining the Air Force while stationed in Louisiana, Carlin became a DJ in Shreveport starting on his long career in entertainment. Carlin rose to fame during the 60’s and 70’s, generating the most controversy with his famous “Seven Dirty Words”:
Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that’ll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war.
His arrest and the subsequent FCC rulings ended up in the Supreme Court which upheld the right of the FCC to regulate the public airways. In the ruling it called the routine “indecent but not obscene”.
In 1961, Carlin was also present in the audience the night that Lenny Bruce was arrested in San Fransisco for obscenity. He was arrested, as well, after the police, who were questioning the audience, asked Carlin for ID. He said he didn’t have any because he didn’t believe in government-issued ID’s.
We all know the rest. His popularity as a comic and “commentarian” on politics, religion and social issues made him a popular guest on late night talk shows. His death in June 22, 2008 saddened many. He left behind his second wife, Sally Wade, whom he married after his first wife Brenda died of liver cancer in 1997. He left a daughter by his first marriage, Kelly.
Happy Birthday, George, you are missed.
May 12 2010
Last week I livestreamed the first closed door meeting of the president’s fiscal commission. I did this out of frustration that we received no response to a letter that we sent from 81 organizations representing over 61 million Americans, asking that all the work of the commission be done in the open. Letters were also sent by Chairman John Conyers and Minority Leader Boehner asking for transparency.
Dan Froomkin sums up the problem with closed door meetings for the commission at the Huffington Post saying,
The move only heightens suspicion that rather than forging a national consensus on future spending priorities, the commission’s work will consist of backroom dealings in which members of the Washington aristocracy find high-minded excuses for cutting the social safety net.
You can watch the highlights of our previous livestream here
May 12 2010
Yesterday was tax day in this formerly underwater New England community. Much like the intrusive census questions this time it was the tax people asking me to jump off a cliff.
If the government asks you, do you automatically comply.
May 12 2010
May 12 2010
Well I told you I wanted to get away from those depressing Russians and Germans so I went looking far across the Atlantic where I found a little place called Hennicker, New Hampshire and a composer named Amy Beach.
She was quite the prodigy and started composing at the age of 4. In her whole life she only had one year of formal education in composition, when she was 14, although she did receive extensive training in performance.
At 16 she made her professional debut and was soon a soloist with the Boston Symphony Opera. Two years later she married a surgeon 24 years older who requested that she perform only once a year.
So she devoted herself to composing and was soon considered one of the major American composers. She composed a piece to open the Women’s Building at the Columbia Exposition in 1893.
When her husband died she toured Europe for several years and upon her return was particularly noted for teaching and mentoring young musicians. She was the first President of the Society of American Women Composers and wrote a book laying out her mostly self-taught compositional principles- Ten Commandments for Young Composers.
Her best known works are her Mass in E Flat Major, the Gaelic Symphony, and her opera Cabildo. This piece, Piano Concerto Op. 45, starts on the right and continues below the fold. It was posted by deviantrake.
