Archive for 4/4/2008 - 28 Adar II, 5768

The latest installment of Make Louvre (Not War)

I’m wondering if now that she’s 22 it’s alright for me to admit I have a “thing” for Lacey Chabert. It probably is directly related to her two-year stint in the role of Cosette on Broadway. (And likely played Gavroche once or twice since most actresses who played Young Cosette were also an understudy for the Gavroche role…) I’m not saying I thought she was anything but cute in Party of Five. I’m not saying I thought she did the best acting job of all the cast in Lost in Space, though she certainly did better than Matt LeBlanc. Let’s just say she is aging nicely.

Chabert as Cosette in June 1992

Ohio judge sentenced teen who stole adult vidoes to stand outside the adult video store, for 4 hours, blindfolded.

Now, if the crime was being perverted enough to be interested in adult videos (whether this is perversion or not for a teenager is arguable - some would probably think it perfectly healthy), one might argue this could deter future perversion. It is in a sense putting the kid on the other end of the fishbowl. Depending upon how perverse he is, he might enjoy it.

I have no issue with unusual alternative sentencing. However, this has nothing whatsoever to do with teaching the kid what’s wrong with shoplifting. Which, I assume, is the crime he committed.

This punishment by the same judge, seems more appropriate. But it’s possible he might view humiliation as an appropriate teaching tool.

More unusual sentences

Woman gives goldfish mouth-to-mouth.

I think I would be willing (and likely to try) giving a dog or a cat “the kiss of life” as apparently UKers call it. But I think I would draw a line at a goldfish.

I’ve decided I spend way too much of my free time writing and not enough reading. Every good writer must also read — its illogical to consider an artist who doesn’t appreciate other artists.

So I’ve joined Kritter’s book club

The first book to read will be Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Personally, if I were to choose an RLS novel to read it would have been Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Or his collection of essays, Familiar Studies of Men and Books (but only because of the essay on Victor Hugo). So it only seems appropriate the first book I read in this book club is by him, and I wasn’t even around when they picked it. I read Treasure Island, I believe, when I was a kid. (Or perhaps an abridged version.) And I’ve been to Treasure Island (or the island in the Caribbean RLS allegedly based the novel on.) So I’m looking forward to this.

Maybe, once I’m done with the novel I’m working on, and succeed in getting it published, I’ll convince them to discuss it…the only problem with that is how I will react when everyone in the group says its the worst novel they’ve ever read.

There is no longer an anti-semitic hate site at the #1 ranking when you use Google to search for ‘Jew’. The site that used to be there isn’t on the first page of results, or the second page. A mirror site appears on the third page. What happened? Did Google do what it said it wouldn’t do?

Maybe not. They (or dmoz.org) did remove it from a category of hate sites. The directory is accessible at directory.google.com or dmoz.org. This undoubtedly affected their ranking negatively. Though, while all the sites in this directory are chosen by people (anyone can volunteer to manage a category), I do question the decision of whoever made the choice. The hate site, unfortunately, does belong there.

The owner of the hate site, who is a St. Louisan, and who’s address and phone number used to be accessible with a simple WHOIS query at networksolutions.com has purchased a private registry.

A WHOIS query now results in:
Registrant:Internet Education
ATTN: JEWWATCH.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA. 20172-0447
Domain Name: JEWWATCH.COM
Administrative Contact: Weltner, Frank
4tx3fc4gt@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
ATTN: JEWWATCH.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
570-708-8780

A brief search of NetworkSolutions site, and no mention of a TOS requirement for having a private registry. Godaddy.com (which has much cheaper annual fees for domain names), refuses to provide private registration to “morally questionable” websites. NetworkSolutions may not make that decision. Which is laudable from a freedom of speech perspective.

Frank Weltner’s couchpower.com domain is still not private, by the way.

My spam mail has increased 10 fold since I joined JewSchool in blogging about this. I’m sure that’s coincidental.

UPDATE:
Correction: The link in Google/Dmoz.org’s directory hasn’t been removed. It is still here. However, when you list every site that links to the hate-site above, Google only lists one of their directory categories at the top of the list. The second category, where I thought it had been delisted, is actually on the 2nd page. I believe (but I’m not sure) this means the value of that link in a site’s ranking has become devalued. Whether this is a result of something Google did intentionally, or other factors, is unknown.

Every year Princeton students observe “Paul Newman’s Day” where students try to drink 24 beers in 24 hours. (Paul Newman allegedly once said, “24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day, coincidence? I think not.)

Newman has asked the administration to put an end to this event, or at least to get students to change the name.

I didn’t go to Princeton. I went to Grinnell College in Iowa. Grinnell is lucky Lewis Caroll is dead, or they might be the ones being mentioned in newspapers. (Though I must say I was disappointed to read the Alice in Wonderland Festival actually didn’t occur for two years. It’s good to see it’s back. Hopefully *all* of it is back.)

I mean - 24 beers in 24 hours, that’s tame! It’s not really even binge drinking. (It’s more like a marathon as opposed to a 500 yard dash.) Nudity, Pot, Acid, Tie-Dye…now that’s a party! (I refuse to declare which activities I participated in.)

However, up until 1999, Princetonians did know how to have a little fun…

Side by Side comparison of Bush’s and Kerry’s military service (courtesy of DNC)

Restaurant Fined over plans to serve food on half-naked women.

The restaurant management told China’s official Xinhua news agency they simply wanted to introduce a special Japanese food culture to Chinese people

The practise of eating sushi off naked or nearly-naked women has long been popular with a certain clientele in Japan. But the authorities in China said the restaurant’s actions violated women’s rights, as well as laws on advertising and food sanitation.

The BBC adds the local perspective to the story:

Some “were indignant, claiming it is humiliating to women,” the official China Daily newspaper reported at the time.

“But others were curious and tempted to have a try,” it added.

Talk about serendipity, creative bloggers at StlBloggers.com recently wrote a round-robin fic that mentioned both sushi and a naked woman.

I wonder if a sushi restaurant in St. Louis would be willing to give this a try? (Or maybe someone could open up a sushi restaurant ‘across the river’) Any entrepreneurs out there?

St. Louis wouldn’t be the first American city to offer this delicacy or the second.

“It takes a lot of concentration and muscle control”

And back in 1960 a picture of this delicacy appeared on the cover of Vogue.

I’ve written about Manjis before, how they resemble swastikas, and how I have no problem with their appearance in Japanese art, Anime Trading Cards, or anime toys.

However, there’s a nice little controversy brewing over at St. Louis University

There’s a painting by an Italian painter with a design that evokes a swastika.

According to the artist, an Italian priest named Renato Laffranchi, the painting depicts four rivers flowing from the Garden of Eden, forming four gardens that humanity is to tend. However, the rivers are depicted in the shape of a swastika, which is the cause of concern.

The Student Government resolved it should be removed

College President resolved it wouldn’t be

Saint Louis University President Lawrence Biondi, S.J. has responded to the Faculty Senate’s and Student Government Association’s repeated requests for the removal of the painting, Four Rivers, currently hanging in the John Cook Business School Atrium. It appears that, contrary to both governing bodies’ wishes, the painting will remain, until it is scheduled to be rotated.

A Post Dispatch
article mentions that the swastika is an ancient symbol of good fortune, according to the artist. It’s a reminder of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust for some jolted viewers. The University News articles don’t mention the artist gave that excuse. I don’t accept it. It’s an ancient symbol of good fortune in Asian cultures, and Native American cultures. The artist is an Italian Priest.

I would actually accept the excuse, “I was drawing the rivers flowing from the Garden of Eden, the evocation of a swastika was purely unintentional.” If the Post is correct in the artist’s explanation, it suggests he was thinking about the swastika as he painted it. And considering his geographical location, he wasn’t thinking of it solely based on its history as a symbol of good fortune. I can’t believe he’s ignorant of his nation’s history.

Sorry, location matters. From an Italian Priest it’s not a manji, it’s a swastika.

This is something I received in my email a year or so ago, and I decided I had to put it up on my site. Someone took pictures of a handful of actresses, and added a few pounds with photoshop - or some other graphics program.

here’s the results.

Call me crazy, but Sandra Bullock still looks great. Maybe it’s the red dress.

Angelweave mentions on her blog the latest prank by the people at PETA.

For a donation, you could have a brick in the San Diego Padres new PetCo Stadium engraved with a message. PETA jumped at the chance.

The inscription read: “Break Open Your Cold Ones! Toast The Padres! Enjoy This Championship Organization!” � the first letters of which spell out “Boycott Petco.”

PETA isn’t too fond of the pet-store chain. Complaints about how pet stores mistreat animals are legion.

I agree with Angelweave in that it is a childish prank — but it certainly gets their message across. And its poetry during National Poetry Month! (Well…some people consider acrostics as poetry.) PETA is quite good at getting their message heard, love it or hate it. I actually find myself agreeing with much of what they say — though I don’t always agree with their tactics, and I’m not a vegetarian. Having extremists out there doing extreme things is actually good. It makes the moderates seem more…well…moderate. Without the extremists, the moderates look extreme. Not a good thing. (Which is why we need Michael Moore on Air America, not Al Franken. Or at least in addition to Al Franken)

Editorial Disclaimer of Possible Bias: I was the roommate of “PETA Director of Vegan Outreach”, Bruce Friedrich for several months. (Actually, we had separate rooms of a 4-room suite in college Sophomore year. Though I left the college the following January, so it was only for 4 months or so.)

Holocaust on Our Plates - a poem I wrote a while back about a PETA campaign. My blog entry on the same campaign.

Today is Patriot’s Day…the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. (Longfellow’s poem often misleads people to think the anniversary is April 18th, but the poem referred to the midnight ride of Paul Revere. The battles occurred the next morning.

It’s also Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day. Observed on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - April 19th (Nissan 27). The Hebrew and Roman calendars are pretty much aligned this year as they were in 1943…just one day off. The holiday was observed by many in the US yesterday. However, Israel is observing it today. (Not, of course, because of the Roman date, but for the same reason we in the US observe national holidays on the “Monday following”.)

Both holidays commemmorate a battle for freedom. Resistance against tyranny. Yes, tyrants on a totally different scale — unfair taxes can’t be compared to genocide. And while on Yom HaShoah we do recall the events of the entire holocaust = the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was picked for the date to emphasize resistance, and fighting back.

I’m going to write her a letter, and make sure she realizes — whenever she’s ready, all she needs to do is ask.

I think what I’ll do is take Woody Guthrie’s song, and just change a couple words each time they appear.

(Of course, it didn’t work for Woody…)

It’s no longer Rock music, or D&D that’s causing the world’s ills.

It’s Soap Operas!

I knew there had to be something sinister and evil about them. (Even though they’ve stopped reporting on the Royals, Ananova can still be counted on for something, at least.)

Ananova used to be such a great resource for news on the British Royal Family.

You could search for news stories about the Royals in general, Princess Diana, Prince Charles, Prince Harry, or Prince William. I link to all searches just to illustrate all stories now stop at the end of February 2004. Is it possible Ananova chose to stop reporting on the Royal Family entirely?

They still have their wonderful Quirkies section, and are a good source of gossip on Celebrities. But I fear either the British Royal Family was dissolved…and I am sure they’d have reported that, or someone on their editorial staff decided to stop chasing the Royal Family around, and give them a little space. What a shame.

I may go through their archive of news stories and see if they’ve truly stopped reporting on them, or if you just can’t search for them anymore.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch runs an editorial calling the Missouri House a “House of Hypocrites”

A Representative tacks on an ammendment to a bill that would eliminate the sales tax exemption for the Post.

Legislators insist there is no connection between the two, and this isn’t retaliatory legislation against the newspaper for criticizing them.

Yeah, Right.

Some Conservatives like to get real angry with those who attack Bush because he “avoided” Vietnam through the National Guard. “The National Guard is a legitimate, and honorable service,” they insist. Granted. They are correct. (There is some question as to whether Bush fulfilled his required duty in the National Guard, but this post is not about that.)

Now there are Some Conservatives belittling Kerry’s service, arguing his 3 purple hearts were for minor injuries. Yes, seriously, they’re saying this. And these are Conservative Veterans saying this!

(Whether any Conservatives are included in both somes, and thus are complete and total hypocrites is irrelevant. The two somes should get together and decide which avenue they wish to pursue…It serves cross purposes to argue from both sides.)

Harry Harry
Potter Potter
Krishna Krishna
Harry Harry

ABC will air Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone on Sunday, May 9th, 6 PM Central, followed by a 10 minute sneak peak of Harry Potter 3: Prisoner of Azkaban. The movie will be an extended version with previously unseen footage.

In other HP news, it looks like in HP 4, one way they will be cutting down on he length of the movie is eliminating The Dursleys. (As unfortunate as utting anything is, it does seem to be a sensible choice.)

Kate Winslet is in negotiations to appear in HP 4 as Fleur Delacour (not a bad choice)

HP 4 is scheduled to be relased Thanksgiving 2005

Well..not really.

But now when you search for “Jew”, at the top of the page, there is a link to a Google Editorial with the title “Offensive Search Results, and a description “We are disturbed by these results as well. Please read our note here.”

Ironically, the Wikipedia entry is finally #1 on the search. So there’s no longer a reason to be offended…unless one is offended by a sack of shit hate site being listed #2.

Google’s editorial does include the best explanation yet on why this problem existed in the first place. The word “Jew” is predominantly used by hate sites. Other sites often use words such as “Jewish” “Judaism” “Judaic” etc. There’s nothing wrong with the word, “Jew,” but when used properly, it is used when discussing an individual, not a religion, culture, language, etc. Most informative websites about the religion, culture, language, etc aren’t talking about individuals. And when they do, they don’t see the need to identify the faith of the individual. So the word just doesn’t appear.

Google is sticking by its policy of not changing search results manually for politically correct reasons, which is good, but this does raise the question, how many complaints are necessary before they will add a “note of explanation” to a specific search result?

Madonna is refusing to perform on Friday nights on her upcoming tour because her “Religion forbids it.”

Despite what the article says, Kaballah is not a ‘branch’ of Judaism. It is a Jewish branch of mysticism. Reform Jews can be interested in Kaballah, as can Conservative, Orthodox, Hassidic, and Jews for Jesus.

I don’t think Madonna has said anywhere that she considers herself Jewish. To her, Kaballah is probably the same as the Bhagavad Gita, Book of Mormon, Chicken Soup for the Soul, or Tuesdays with Morrie. Inspirational writing. (Yes, there are people who hold the first two as religious tracts…what I am saying is that there are some people who will look anywhere for inspiration, and its not really the same as identifying with the religion of the people who wrote it originally)

I have no problem with her observing the sabbath. That’s great. But until she comes out and says “I’m Jewish”, she’s not. She’s a non-Jew who finds inspiration in Jewish writings/teachings.

Another website owned by piece of shit Frank Weltner. Couchpower is his personal website.

Here’s the site for his radio show - on WGNU

WGNU’s “Party Line” is actually not a bad one. To quote from their homepage:

The WGNU Party Line

The Most Eclectic Collection of Talk Show Personalities Anywhere In The World!

Conservatives…
Liberals…
Libertarians…
Democrats…
Republicans…
Birchers…

YOU NAME IT, WE’VE GOT IT!

And I personally know another host from the station who I can say is pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum from Weltner. So while one can get upset with WGNU for providing a soapbox for an extremist, they do it for all extremists.

Harassing an individual for any reason is against the law.
Physical harassment has severe penalties associated with it. And even minor things such as TPing the trees in front of his house, or prank phone calls, can result in fines.
I do not advocate breaking the law.
Nor do I advocate harm or injury to another person.
I believe in non-violence.
Hopefully this is all clear enough.

THe Charleston Post and Courier has an article on the Google search for ‘Jew’ controversy I mentioned a couple days ago. They are one of the first, if not the first newspaper, to actually reach the owner of the anti-semitic site (JewWatch), and interview him. The paper says his name is Frank Weltner, he’s a retired librarian, and lives in St. Louis.

Here’s a google link to a piece of shit National Alliance webpage referring to our local as a radio raconteur, and pro-white activist, so it seems he does live in our St. Louis. (As opposed to St. Louis Park, MN, or some other St. Louis) (Note the way I linked to the site above. Maybe someday someone searching for “piece of shit” will find it.)

There is no Weltner in the phonebook (Of course he’d be unlisted, he’s no idiot…well, not a complete idiot. He appears to be a technologically illiterate idiot, though…

Jerolson on his blog did what I was about to do myself. Go to a DNS WHOIS and lookup Jewwatch.

Here’s the info:
Registrant:
Internet Education (JEWWATCH-DOM)
6936 Bruno
St. Louis, MO 63139
US

Domain Name: JEWWATCH.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Weltner, Frank (35957380P) cpotato1941@yahoo.com
6936 Bruno
St. Louis, MO 63139
US
314-644-2025

Record expires on 14-Jun-2004.
Record created on 15-Jun-1998.
Database last updated on 1-Apr-2004 19:48:04 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

ISERVER.STORMFRONT.ORG 206.160.0.11
SVR02.STORMFRONT.ORG 207.44.248.24

All publically accessible information. (Yes…a similar search can be done on this website. It’s possible to make the information private…or at the very least use p.o. boxes. I’ve considered doing the latter in the past, but I’m not an active hatemonger. I don’t believe I’ve ever done anything that would make someone hate me enough to consider that. Of course…maybe I just did.)

Yes…the server, stormfront.org…it’s that stormfront.

Note the expiration date. If he’s smart, he has his domain registrar automatically renew his domain each year. If he’s dumb, God could intervene and make him forget and allow his domain to lapse.

A beauty pageant between 26 Israeli and Palestinian girls. They’re calling it, “Miss Barrier Line”.

Personally, I think this is carrying a laudable concept a little too far. The two populations need to interact more in a positive manner. Postive interactions lead to friendship. Pyschological studies support this theory. But beauty pageants?! Oy.

Jokes were made during the early primary campaigns that it was fashionable to have a “Jewish connection”. Dean had his wife. Kerry and Clark discovered Jewish roots. And of course, there was Sen. Lieberman.

Kerry researched and traced his roots back to 1771 and a man named Bernard Loew. Loew isn’t all too uncommon of a name, so to many, even those who knew of the legends, the last name slipped by unnoticed. But a Czech historian believes he has traced Sen Kerry’s roots further back, to Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague’s brother.

The Rabbi Judah Loew who allegedly created the Golem, a creature of clay, to protect the citizens of Prague. “The Golem, as legend has it, was a faithful servant until Loew was forced to drain the creature of its life force after it developed an ego and disobeyed its creator.”

Here’s a related poem of mine from almost 2 years ago.

Baseball players are superstitious by nature. If they do something and they win, and in the next game, they don’t do it, and they lose…they will do that something, whatever it happens to be, for the rest of the season.

It is for this reason, I predict, at least one LA Dodgers player will go insane this year. (Perhaps they already have)

I admit, I purchased Hung’s CD too. For the novelty. But the novelty wears off quick. I would not subject myself to listening to it every morning. But I guess, whatever works. If this helps the Dodgers win, more power to them. If they go all the way to the World Series, they should name Hung MVP.

I’d suggest the Cardinals look into it, but they aren’t living in LA, and the California weather (or possibly the plate tectonics in the area) are known to make people a little screwy.

I will be watching the movie finally on Saturday. I didn’t want “any of my silver to cross Mel’s palm” so I have had to wait for the opportunity of a more “private” showing. Slightly smaller screen. Perhaps a few defects here and there. But it will suffice.

It appears afterwards I may get to view South Park’s: The Passion of a Jew episode. If so, I will review it too.

If I am really lucky, and you are too, I may also include a review of Mel’s soundtrack.

There was a chance all of this would have occurred on this past Sunday, Easter, but alas, there were some familial scheduling conflicts with others who wished to view.

After a hiatus of several months, a new entry (#26) has been posted at Make Louvre (Not War) (A comic by an artist who can’t draw, so he steals)

The entry was actually conceived a couple months ago, but not produced until now. It’s already a little dated, but not by munch.

Jesus was Jewish, on that most reasonable individuals agree.

This weekend many observe the anniversary of Jesus’ death. There’s still, 2000 years later, some controversy around the circumstances, but we’ll leave that be.

Jesus preached loving thy neighbor, not hate. (He was of course, quoting Leviticus, when he did so. He was Jewish, and quite literate in scripture.)

Where am I going with this?

It was recently discovered that the #1 result for “Jew” on a google search was an anti-semitic hate site. Google can’t, of course, be blamed for this. Their search algorithm is, algorithmic. A lot of the hate websites out there linked to that site, so it ended up at the top of the list.

While Google’s algorithm is secret, my guess is the link that had the biggest influence was the Google Directory listing under hate groups (which is actually the dmoz.org directory). This directory is handled by real people, not algorithms. Google and DMOZ could be petitioned not to list hate groups in their directory. However, this would be problematic since there are legitimate reasons to research hate groups. And that hate site does belong in that list.

So the best solution was to pick another website, and start a google bomb Wikipedia’s entry was chosen. I believe it was chosen due to its neutrality. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written by readers, and editable by anyone. (Theoretically, wikipedia is subject to attacks, but there are precautions).

So if more people link to Wikipedia’s entry for Jew, we can finally get the anti-semitic site off from its #1 position, where it clearly doesn’t belong.

It’s what Jesus would have wanted.

Multiple links on one page, as some people like to do, doesn’t help. And actually can have a negative impact. It’s likekly Google’s algorithm watches for that. However, a single link in a blog entry isn’t ideal. Once that entry is archived, it will have less of an influence on the algorithm. But it is better than nothing.

But if your blog does often, or occasionally, talk about issues of religoius concern, you might consider adding the link to the “links” section, so that it never gets archived. (Look to the right for an example.)

Jerusalem Post article on the issue.

One might wonder, why with my obsession with Hugo, I didn’t list one of his poems below in my “favorite poems” entry. It’s because I don’t know French. And there’s something lost in translation, especially with poetry, and it’s hard for me to choose.

But here’s one of Hugo’s earliest poems, written when he was only 13, Envy and Avarice (based on Aesop’s fable). And here’s a lot more.

Hugo is responsible for perhaps the most famous love poem in all of history. I mentioned this back in February. To quote from the poem, which appears in Les Miserables, in French:

Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,
Les bleuets sont bleus, j’aime mes amours.

These are poems you may, or may not, have read in school, which are among my favorites:

Incident - by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.

Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Because You Asked About The Line Between Prose And Poetry - by Howard Nemerov

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

Christy links to the most famous poem she ever wrote, so I thought I’d link to mine. (Do not follow the link if you are under 18 without a parent present.) It was written 10 years ago. It is as true today as it was then.

Art is nothing without Form ñ Flaubert

I enjoy playing with words in the same way a cat enjoys playing with a ball of twine.

One game I enjoy playing is writing a poem, but limiting the words I am allowed to use. There are a lot of different restrictions I can impose on this creativity. Liponyms are popular among a certain crowd. A liponym is where one intentionally omits all words containing a particular letter, or letters. (For example, omitting the letter ëeí can be difficult). If you eliminate all vowels except for one, this subset is called a Univocalic. (One-Vowel)

When a wax statue of Arafat appeared in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in New York City, a group of individuals demanded that it be removed. I wrote the following poem, trying to convey the humor of the situation:

Bad!

Arafat Bad. Wax Bad.
Bad Bad Bad!
Ban Wax Arafats!
Ban All Arabs!
Ban Ban Ban!

Another restriction I enjoy is the Homoliteral ñ where every word shares at least one letter in common with the word prior and following. No word is completely forbidden in this form, as long as one can, as in a chess game, plan ahead.

Back in June 2001 I read a weird news story, and wrote the following homoliteral

United States

Some North Dakotans
think the “north”
sounds too cold
and want to alter their name
becoming ‘Dakota.”

However, when their neighbor
decides ‘South’ sounds too hot
then we’ll have
Dakota and Dakota.

Kids asked the capitol
won’t know which was meant.
Not necessarily bad, but still
somewhat confusing.

When North Carolina
And neighboring South
Join in and are
then soon followed
with Virgina’s western sister
we’ll have mass confusion.

Once again,
not necessarily bad,
and perhaps the ultimate end result —
fifty states all bearing the same name —
might help unite us

It’s National Poetry Month

• Read a poem
  
• Write a poem
  
• Listen to a poet
  

From the Academy of American Poets:

Why is April National Poetry Month? When the Academy began its planning for the first National Poetry Month, it approached booksellers, librarians, and teachers to determine what might be an appropriate month. One criterion was that it had to be a month when school was in session, so that students and the educational audience could be reached most effectively. Fall was felt to be too crowded with holidays, so spring was considered an ideal time. February is Black History Month; March is Women’s History Month. So April seemed a logical choice, especially given the poetic references (T. S. Eliot and Chaucer).

“April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory out of desire…”
– T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

“Whanne that April with his shoures sote
The droughte of March hath perced to the rote.”
Geoffrey Chaucer - Prologue, Canterbury Tales

An email correspondent told me today, “My 15 yr old played Grantaire over the last 2 weekends, and you died in his arms in all three performances.”

Nothing wrong with that. Gavroche is supposed to die in Grantaire’s arms. And I sometimes refer to myself as ‘Gavroche’. But the ’slightly older’ kid inside me can’t help but think if I am going to die in the arms of a fifteen year old…why can’t it be the student playing Gavroche’s sister, Eponine? (Or even the student playing Gavroche’s mother, Mme Thenardier?) I know it doesn’t fit the plot. That’s not the point.

Oh, well. Gavroche is only 11 or 12 and isn’t supposed to be having these thoughts. And since I’m considerably older than 15, I shouldn’t be either.

If you live in St. Louis, MO, and it surprises you that there is an election tomorrow, you might want to Look up what will be on the ballot in your community. (Link is to St. Louis County Election Board website. All you have to do is enter you address, and it will tell you exactly what will be on your ballot.)

As I have mentioned before, I have been known to commit fiction. I am in the midst of writing a novel, which someday, who knows, might be read by one or two people outside of my family and writers group. I have no delusions of being the next Stephen King, or even the next Margaret Mitchell. (Who wrote Gone With the Wind, but nothing else).

Anyhow, it is common for me to experience what might be called Character Vengeance. Where a character, upset with your plans for the story line, starts to fight back. For example, they might refuse to let you sleep until you change a scene. I refuse to create a character who can kickbox for this very reason.

I hadn’t thought about it. But after reading this news story, I don’t think I will ever attempt to write a screenplay.

We Both Went For Saddam (A ‘Chicago’ parody), written by Peter David

a study suggests the more television a 1-3 year old watches, the greater the risk they will develop Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

The voices behind The Simpsons have gone on strike. Considering the show has had what, 15 seasons?, they are probably the most underpaid actors in Hollywood.

If the producers wished to be cheapskate **sholes, I have two ideas for them:

• The Simpsons - 1920s (Silent Movie Era)
  
• The Simpsons - Captioned for Everyone, Not Just the Hearing Impaired
  

Of course…if they tried that…there might be one or two other actors who walked out of other shows in a ’sympathy strike’.

Yes…since this news story was released yesterday, it might have been a joke. But no one’s said “April Fools” yet…

Arie Kaplan, a writer for MAD Magazine, has written a 3-part article on the history of Jewish artists and writers in the comic book industry. They appeared in Reform Judaism Magazine:

• Fall 2003 (Part I: Golden Age)
• Winter 2003 (Part II: Silver Age)
• Spring 2004 (Part III: Bronze Age)

There’s a lot of historical information that could prove interesting to any comic book fan.