In Case You Didn't Know Department

"I quote Irish poets all the time because they're the best poets."

- Vice President Joe Biden

English-Only Group Can't Spell the Word 'Conference' -- Politics Daily

This item caught my attention today and I had a good laugh. I hope this makes Morning Joe on MSNBC. Would be a great story for Willie Geist who has the New You Can't Use segment that is generally humorous material. Click the link below to see a photo of the banner.

Filed Under:Republicans, Barack Obama, Gaffes, Humor, Immigration

Should English be the official language of the United States? That assertion was made over the weekend at a conference hosted by talk-show personality and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. Oddly, as the featured speakers delivered their remarks ridiculing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for her supposed lack of English proficiency while at Princeton University, and warning that the Obama administration is "going to gradually institute institutional bilingualism in the country," they did so beneath a large banner that contained a doozy of a typo

English-Only Group Can't Spell the Word 'Conference' -- Politics Daily

Technorati Tags: English-Only Group can't spell,Pat Buchanan.

Nice Bright Colors

Kodak created Kodachrome in 1935 and by the mid-1970's it was so culturally ingrained into society no one gave it a second thought when Paul Simon  immortalized the film in song.   These digital times have reduced the film, known for its vivid colors to a business loser. So much so that Kodak announced today that it will stop making it.

Like the typewriter (you remember that don't you?) the 35 mm film will soon be lost from the vocabulary of a generation who know nothing but digital photography.  Momma won't even have have a chance to take your Kodachrome away.

Technorati Tags: Kodachrome,Paul Simon,Kodak

Thirty-five / for Cathy

Thirty-five


Two numbers open
to possibilities-
the three and five
each with open cupped hand

Coral and Jade
are its traditional and modern
representations

It's a long time for people
to be together these days
but not to long for love
its symmetry
which defies math
or any defining number
rebuking any summation
or equal sign

Thirty-five is not a destination
but a mile marker
a momentary pause
on an odometer
to be be eclipsed

It is green with passion
green with hope
and ivory tough
to carry on
for the years
to come

Journal Bits

• June 7 - "Books on the shelf lean / helter-skelter / left asunder / by random reading"
• June 7 - "Parking is an exercise / of temporary occupation / of territory"
• June 8 - "The day they closed / the car plant / eyes burned of acid bewilderment"
• June 9 - poets to add to my reading list for June: Farrah Field, Joe Wilkins, Adam Clay, Karen Rigby, Emma Bolden
• June 10 - "The miles between us are narrow ruled / I can count the times we've tripped  / over one syllable words
• June 12 - " holding on is an art / so too is letting go"

Technorati Tags: Journal Bits,Michael Wells

Up Sores

My wine of choice is Chardonnay.  Yesterday, I had a glass of "Hob Nob" while eating out. I tried it based upon the two choices available to me. Big mistake. I imagine it's what wood alcohol would taste like.

On a positive note, I saw the movie UP which was charming and very well suited for 3-D which is how we saw it.  Don't let the animation fool you. It's a great movie for adults, especially couples.

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Resistance

Saturday mid-day. Hot, humid and overcast outside, the dogs are sacked out - everyone else gone for now.

Listening to Phil Collins - Take Me Home from No Jacket Required.

The week has been somewhat surreal. Very intense at work. The world beyond too has been intense. There is a very strange seriousness the permeates the air and it seems distant and yet not.

At my age, I've seen my share of graphic pictures and certainly at least since the Vietnam War era graphic media has encroached everyone's life to some degree. Even if it is only regular TV, the news and even much of the programing has perhaps softened us to some degree to the shock of visual brutality, pain, suffering.

I like to think of our nation as one in which dissent is highly regarded.  It was largely the basis for the very formation of this nation, but dissent here has been remolded from those early days. We sometimes develop a hardened resistance to any public display of protest that runs counter to our own individual views. While people in this country on occasion are held in the personal contempt of others for expressing themselves on various topics, we don't often find ourselves in the same position those in 1989 were in who met with tanks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square or  as people have this week in the streets of Tehran.

Each day this week I've seen disturbing Tweets out of Tehran as well as video feeds of protesters meeting with not just resistance but the real likely prospect of physical harm and even death. How deep the opposition is to the government in Iran and the ruling Clerics is difficult to judge but it is clearly a significant voice if not a majority.  The hope of a better life for the average person in Iran to many seems tied to the nation immerging from the isolation that it has been locked into as a result of the path that it has been on at the hands of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Clerics who have continued to support him against real concerns  for credibility in the outcome of the recent Presidential election.

These past few days, what information has seeped through the information wall that the Iranian government has sought to impose shows a very real struggle that is being waged between a massive resistance and the government. A resistance so brutal that some dissenters are paying the price of their lives for the change they believe must come to their homeland. Such change would not come without a tremendous price. How much these people are willing to endure and how long they will continue to expose themselves to the high cost of their dissent will no doubt be a factor in if and when real change comes to Iran.  No one, not even the Iranian government  or the opposition can predict with any certainty the outcome. What is clear is that each of us is a witness to history in the making as each day passes. I am reminded of the calling of poets to be aware of the world around them. To be witnesses to that world.

 

Warning: Graphic Video  

The Lede - Updating news of the disputed election in Iran

Technorati Tags: Poets,witness to the dissent in Iran