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Written by Brian Robertson on January 1st, 2009 | 0 Comments
The FreshBrief of the Moment:
A Radio With Guts
it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street
I used to get drunk
and throw the radio through the window
while it was playing, and, of course,
it would break the glass in the window
and the radio would sit there on the roof
still playing
and I’d tell my woman,
“Ah, what a marvelous radio!”
the next morning I’d take the window
off the hinges
and carry it down the street
to the glass man
who would put in another pane.
I kept throwing that radio through the window
each time I got drunk
and it would sit there on the roof
still playing-
a magic radio
a radio with guts,
and each morning I’d take the window
back to the glass man.
I don’t remember how it ended exactly
though I do remember
we finally moved out.
there was a woman downstairs who worked in
the garden in her bathing suit,
she really dug with that trowel
and she put her behind up in the air
and I used to sit in the window
and watch the sun shine all over that thing
while the music played.
Charles Bukowski
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bukowski, charles bukowski, caricature, poem, poetry
Written by Brian Robertson on January 1st, 2009 | 0 Comments
WASHINGTON — President George “Pew-Pew” Bush announced today, in the waning days of his administration, a new health program for Senior Citizens that covers the full range of health, housing, food and adult day care. The “daring new plan” was said to be one that would save money and guarantee both Social Security and Medicare funding would last almost through the end of next month.
The program would give seniors a cool, shady place to live in the backyards of younger and healthier families with constant access to bowls of clean water as well as WalMart brand crunchy food, Exercise is encouraged as each senior is to be supplied with a bright red rubber ball as well as a matching red bandanna to be worn around the neck.
Technorati Tags: bush, senior citizens, old people, health care, united states, social security, medicare, exercise, health, housing, adult day care, kibbels and bits
Written by Brian Robertson on December 30th, 2008 | 0 Comments
Wow, and after reading my last few posts I thought *I* was in kind of tirade about how life is going right now for the world (and welcome to it).
Turns out Roger Ebert, of all people, went ballistic. Some people gave him hassle for not writing a film review, but, hey, more power to the guy:
I dreamed, we all dreamed, for years that the future held vague visions of progress and prosperity, and that our problems would be “solved” by science. How many of us are so sure about that now? I wonder if we are living in the End of Days. I do not mean that in a biblical sense. I mean that we seem to be irrevocably screwing things up. In the case of the global warming problem, we may have already done so. Please, please, don’t tell me global warming is Al Gore’s fantasy. I am reminded of a great line by Saul Bellow. A dying man tells his brother: “Look for me in the weather reports.”
Earthquakes. Tsunamis. Typhoons. Volcanoes. Melting icecaps. Dead zones in the sea. Barack Obama’s family and everyone else on Oahu was trapped in a power blackout, after ferocious lightning storms struck the power grid. I googled “power blackout Oahu” and found only 17,000 hits. If you know anything about Google, you know this was a freak weather occurrence. But the sun came up the next morning, and in less than a month Obama will be President.
What a daunting situation he will face. How well can he possibly “succeed” when so many of the problems, starting with the climate, cannot be cured by the actions of man? How can he lead the economy back from a pit of unbridled, unregulated greed–when we learn that CEOs protected their own $100 million bonuses as part of the bailout package we all paid for? How will he bring world peace between peoples who have hated each other for decades?
If you are a member of the U.S. Congress, you should not give a damn if you are a Democrat or a Republican. You should discard ideology and partisanship. You should be searching only for what works, or gives promise of working. You should be listening to the best counsel of the wisest people you can find. This is no time for playing to the crowd. That is all over with. This is the hour to seek what might lead us back from the brink.
Technorati Tags: roger ebert, rant, obama, saul bellow, al gore, global warming, biblical, ceo, corporate bailout
Written by Brian Robertson on December 29th, 2008 | 0 Comments
TruthDig has a wonderful article, a column, written by Chris Hedges entitled, “Why I Am A Socialist.”
I recommend everybody read it, and you will either agree with much of what he has to say or throw holy water at your computer. I doubt there’s a middle ground.
In speaking about the similarities between Psychopaths and Corporations, he makes the following point:
Psychologist Dr. Robert Hare lists in the film psychopathic traits and ties them to the behavior of corporations:
- callous unconcern for the feelings for others;
- incapacity to maintain enduring relationships;
- reckless disregard for the safety of others;
- deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit;
- incapacity to experience guilt
- failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behavior.
He then goes on to conclude with some rather prophetic words:
If Barack Obama does not end the flagrant theft of taxpayer funds by corporate slugs and the disgraceful abandonment of our working class, especially as foreclosures and unemployment mount, many in the country will turn in desperation to the far right embodied by groups such as Christian radicals. The failure by the left to offer a democratic socialist alternative will mean there will be, in the eyes of many embittered and struggling working- and middle-class Americans, no alternative but a perverted Christian fascism……..
This is heady stuff, and probably appeals to me more than it might because of the anger that’s bubbled up as noticed in the previous post.
When Gandhi was asked, “What is your opinion of Western Civilization?” he famously replied, “I think it would be a good idea.” We are in a heap of trouble. We do need to think this through before we are though, frankly, and we are going to have to find a Way with a Heart. Smarter people than myself will find it, but it is, more so than we can imagine, tragically necessary.
Technorati Tags: socialism, barak obama, fascism, corporations, psychopaths, robert hare, chris hedges, truthdig
Written by Brian Robertson on December 29th, 2008 | 0 Comments
“All this was, and is, disproportionate, indiscriminate mass violence in violation of international law. Israel is not exempt from international law and must be held accountable. “It is time for the UN to not just call for a cease-fire, but for an inquiry as to Israel’s actions.”
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Sooner or later, there can’t be one set of rules for the “Good” guys and one set of rules for the “Bad” guys, especially since that very situation blurs the line, as we have learned in our own country, until, as Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
We invade a country for the sole reason of Bushian personal revenge for his Father with a dash of neoconservative wetdream. Their theories fail. We allow corporations to run amock in the name of Free Enterprise Without Government Oversite and are teetering on the edge of destruction as a country.
Israel blows into town, killing innocents — unless you count the three brothers above who are 14 and under to be enemies of the State — and while Kucinich has the balls to stand up and say something, our own failed international goobers are sluffing it off as “boys will be boys” and saying that Hamas must stop the missles cause “they started it!”
There is no excuse — not religious, not traditional, not diplomatic, not ethically, not morally — to roll over and let Israel have its way in this one. The other side of the equation are far from angels themselves, but Israel hasn’t got a clue as to winning the hearts and minds, do they?
I don’t feel humorous today. I feel like we are even closer as a civilization to our own nervous breakdown — witness this mess along with India and Pakistan and much, much more. The truth is, we are living in an era of Religious Wars. The sad part is, there are people who will blame it on religion as being inherently evil and destructive and, to a point, that much has become the case because spirituality, rather than being a force for good, has allowed itself to become a tool for destruction, discrimination, death-dealing and a hundred other failings of a humankind that seeks to wrap itself in the cloak of the religious.
If anyone in this horrible mess was really religious — for example, practicing the religion of Jesus rather than the religion about Jesus — things would be different because they were, to our own depths, different within in our hearts. Rather than being pawns manipulated by someone spamming the “Religion” button, we might, gasp, take on a Higher view, each in our own way. We might even stand up and say that enough is more than enough.
Technorati Tags: hamas, israel, jesus, india, pakistan, religion, kucinich, bush
Written by Brian Robertson on December 26th, 2008 | 0 Comments
Ohhhhhh — and one day too late, here’s a classic bit of Eartha:
Santa Baby
Technorati Tags: eartha kitt, santa baby, obituary
Written by Brian Robertson on December 26th, 2008 | 0 Comments
Wow. When an original like Eartha Kitt dies, we lose something. In case you’ve been living in the basement, she passed away on Christmas Day.
Who’s gonna show that kind of class from the current era? Janet Jackson??
I just sprayed my coffee on my keyboard in the old fashioned Danny Thomas spit-take.
{tags]eartha kitt, legend[/tags]
Written by Brian Robertson on December 24th, 2008 | 0 Comments
I’m old enough and have lost too many people to be thrilled about Christmas. Somewhere I do have a spliced together run through my first 10 Christmas mornings with Santa, toys, parents, uncles, grandmothers and more. I’m not sure I could watch it, to be honest.
But one thing never changes. The cat dressed in winter clothes pulling a sled that says so much about Christmas. So, from 1914:
I’m hoping as my gift this year a picture of a kitty makes my ailing wife smile. She has suffered from the Martian Alien Flu for two days now and, I hope. gets better quickly.
Technorati Tags: christmas, post card, kitty cat, sleigh bells
Written by Brian Robertson on December 23rd, 2008 | 0 Comments
This is a closeup from within a photo taken by designer Neil Sandbach at a farm in Hertfordshire for inclusion in some Wedding Stationery he was preparing for a couple due to host their wedding at the venue. When Neil opened up the photo on his computer he was surprised, and not a little spooked, when he noticed a blurry white figure that he was certain wasn’t visible when the photo was taken, as there was nobody else around.
Neil explains, “a week or so later, just before the actual wedding, and without mentioning the photograph, the couple getting married asked the staff at the venue if anyone had ever seen something ’spooky’. Their faces went white as they described what they had seen on various occasions: the ghost of a young boy dressed in white night clothes, appearing close to the main barn”.
See the main photo here. You might also enjoy a look at the Top Paranormal Events of 2008 from About.
Technorati Tags: ghost, haunting, sandbach, photograph, paranormal
