Black Friday Death

I am going to be honest with all of you, we are not doing too well. The fact that we have managed to trample a person to death not out of religious fervor, not out of desperation, fear of pain or death, but simply because a TV was on sale, well I'm just horrified.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?_r=1

We are all to blame. We have all allowed this to happen. We have got to be better.

On Pasts

"Ooooh you look so good, ooooh you looook so fiiine."


Who makes up the past anyway?

Was it you? I seem to remember you being there, like a detail in a movie that is very small and has to be mauled out in a flash, but that doesn't really fit. It's tight, it's a close-up, and it's in there, pressing it's untrimmed finger into your stomach. But I remember your name. And I remember when your Birthday is.

Because it's alive man, it's everywhere woman, the middle word in life, keeping itself inside your head even when everyone else is loosing their's and blaming you. "Are you going to travel through space on a fraction? What are you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths?" Have you lived a third of you life? By 18, 22, 35 - do the math, and then tell me. It's the past man, your past man!

Or maybe, it's raining frogs, and the past, the past, we're through with the past, no, we're through the past, and we'll be back after this short commercial break, but the past ain't through with us.

And so maybe it's a weird night, a night that is happening again and again, always happening, like the restaurant at the end of the universe, a perennial blooming and blooming and maybe because time is a whole and doesn't come in slices. Maybe it's a Rolo, and you can tick off the bits of it and pop then in your mouth. But it's hard to say that it has been a weird night if it's still the same night - yet to become 'has been' - and it is the same night it has always been, when it is all kinds of full of the past and the future, and the past might be the future, and we maybe want the past and the future to meet so that we can feel like we are off the hook for a change.

So if I remember your name, what past can there be for someone who doesn't forget? And if "blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better of their blunders," well what then? Where do all blessings lie? Does this one in his time play many parts too, if his time curls up into a ball, the end always somewhere near the beginning, the feet always near the face. All the world staged in one act.

But then too, onto the last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, in second childishness and mere oblivion. Who is that we speak of in our legacy, whose legacy do we speak? What's left?

Am I having the past over for dinner? Is the past having me for dinner?

On Research, and Letting Things Lay

I've been researching lately. I don't know why I started (actually I do), but it will be a while before I finish. I am writing in the meantime, working on bits for a new novel (which the research is geared towards), which means I have more projects on my plate than I really should have, but I feel, at least on a day like today, that its all worthwhile and I would prefer to have a whole bunch of things to focus on than none at all, so I'll keep listening to the New York Dolls and letting today just keep on raining. Every drop's another story, from a certain perspective. I'd like to blame Neil Gaiman for my concern with perspectives, but he just gave me some solider grounding for that sort of thing. I like the word solider and will continue to use it.

The research has been geared heavily toward Global Climate Change and the issues of Water Shortage/Water Rights. Last night, in a kind of break, I stopped off to meet some friends for a fete of the release of 2666, the final novel by the amazing Roberto Bolano, and not only did I get to chat a bit and hang out with some people I ever so rarely get to hang out with because I am dodgy and far too encumbered by life, but I managed to find some excellent further reading into the issues at hand.

They are intensely important issues and from here until the rest of this post I rail with the utmost vehemence (you are forewarned). People need water to live, let us try to keep that in mind. Just every day, keep that in mind.

One of the absolute necessities I see for the soon to be Obama Administration will be the elevation of Director of the EPA to a cabinet level position, or creation of an equal level position with the same purview, and Obama's choice to fill that position will be the MOST important decision he has to make.

That we have only a few months left of the abysmal direction of the EPA by Stephen L. Johnson, who for a scientist, is an utter travesty of an intellect, a waste of education and brain cells, and from a purely personal standpoint, a fuck of a human being.

If that offends some, I feel justified as he so greatly offends me, on every level, as a human being. His attitudes, his lay-like-a-rug allowance of the worst president in history to dictate in the face of all scientific research, of expert opinion, and of dire, apocalyptic warnings policies totally devoid of solutions and replete with exasperation of the problems totally in line with the interests of nearly archaic fuel source suppliers is the epitome of monsterdom. That he should act in complete opposition to the platform of State's rights so espoused by the republican party and threaten the very sanctity of life so fervently and wrong-headedly fought for by conservatives, is painfully sickening hypocrisy. That he should so pettily, so meekly and spinelessly gamble with the future of our world, with the lives of so many living on this planet and yet unborn is, with no other word to match the enormity of the crime, a sin.

So let us be clear. My name is William Arthur Owen, and Stephen L. Johnson, you are a monster. Good day, and good luck.

It is Through Obama That We Are Free to Hope -The Final 36

*Sen. Ted Stevens (AK) [not AL] 10 minutes ago from web

Last piece of business will be the defeat of Sen. Ted Stevens (AL). 19 minutes ago from web

I am impressed by McCain's speech. It sounds like the old John McCain. 30 minutes ago from web

cnn.com crashes 33 minutes ago from web

America you did er right! about 1 hour ago from web

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! about 1 hour ago from web

Gaaaaaaaaa! about 1 hour ago from web

Franken back up by 9k about 1 hour ago from web

MT, CO, IN, VA, and FL for Obama, plus CA in 5 min, = 325 electoral votes about 1 hour ago from web

Damn MN race down to 2k votes about 1 hour ago from web

I am saying as of 11:06EST = 275 electoral votes for Obama about 1 hour ago from web

VA and CA. 24 Minutes now about 1 hour ago from web

2500 votes seperating NC. 30k in VA. 3500 in IN. hhhheeeee about 1 hour ago from web

@templesmith LA, CO, and MN all upswinging for the Dems. 57 seats with OR and AL still to go about 1 hour ago from web in reply to templesmith

O HI OBAMA! about 2 hours ago from web

Ohio about 2 hours ago from web

Florida, every day that passes I have less and less of a use for you. about 4 hours ago from web

@peachesmalone Seriously. Polls should close at 6:30, so that we can either drown our sorrows or celebrate properly and still get some rest about 7 hours ago from web in reply to peachesmalone

Can I take a nap before the party? And where is the party? about 7 hours ago from web

@Jimmykitty I would have walked by them and kicked them squa' in the nahtz about 10 hours ago from web in reply to Jimmykitty

@chapmanchapman Wait, you mean I didn't get a free coffee because of my mesmerizing beard-powers? about 11 hours ago from web in reply to chapmanchapman

@templesmith The truest test of a leader: funk. about 11 hours ago from web in reply to templesmith

@ZSOstudio Five up top ! Wooo! about 13 hours ago from web in reply to ZSOstudio

I am Jack's inability to stop twittering about 13 hours ago from web

You know what today calls for, a little "Come on Feel the Illinois" by Mr. Sufjan Stevens about 13 hours ago from web

I am Jack's raging urge for coffee about 13 hours ago from web

I am Jack's calm elation for democracy. about 13 hours ago from web

I am Jack's happy exercised center of civic right. about 13 hours ago from web

I say, now that we've voted where's the sexy parties? about 14 hours ago from web

Voting makes you cute about 15 hours ago from txt

@tropicalsteve 11:20/12:30 if I had to guess about 22 hours ago from web in reply to tropicalsteve

Re: Election - really wanting to watch the series finale to SportsNight. I feel a lot of relevance there. about 23 hours ago from web

Keerist! How am I this busy? I blame the demycrats! 9:30 PM Nov 3rd from web

Drinking coffee to try and calm down 7:14 PM Nov 3rd from web

Apparently if you vote and take your sticker or whatever to Starbucks, you get a free coffee. I love America! 4:18 PM Nov 3rd from web

@corbst3r How about "Vote for McCain, because we're ready to pack it in" 4:17 PM Nov 3rd from web in reply to corbst3r

My slogan for the rest of the day: A Vote for John McCain is a vote for Utter Fucking Stupidity 3:34 PM Nov 3rd from web

@peachesmalone Agreed. Our world is too often puerile and dumb. 3:13 PM Nov 3rd from web in reply to peachesmalone

I just tried to review the Planned Parenthood Voter Guide and was blocked because it was Sex Education. I work for an academic publisher? 1:11 PM Nov 3rd from web

@corbst3r Wallaby has to learn to stand up for himself. Thanks though, that is actually a great distraction from the election. 12:32 PM Nov 3rd from web in reply to corbst3r

More than anything, I need me some EnvirObama! 12:19 PM Nov 3rd from web

Politics: LET ME LIVE DAMN YOU, LET MEEE LIIIIIIIVE! 11:58 AM Nov 3rd from web