Hail, Hail, Rock 'n Roll, Deliver Me From…

Chuck Berry is 85 years old today.

hashtag revolution

"Do you understand that 400 people in this country have more wealth than the bottom 150 MILLION? Does that sound fair to you?"
—fervent comment found here.

It depends on how well the bottom 150 million are provided for. For my money, the 400 can go ahead and be that wealthy if and only if the needs of those 150 million are adequately met, and when that happens, the 400 can go ahead and try to be as wealthy as the bottom 250 or 300 million, on the same plan, for all I care. It doesn't matter to me how much the 400 are worth compared to any other fraction of society so long as the 150 million, the 250 million, the 300 million, the 99% of us, don't have to eat shit for that to be the case.

The Polo Field To Date, October 2011

A View of the Polo Field From The East
October 2, 2011 

Fifty years ago, on October 7, 1961, the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park was occupied by one of the largest crowds in San Francisco history. By most accounts half a million people gathered there that day. I was one of them, squatting on the grassy berm above the playing field far across a vast sea of people from the stage where Father Peyton led us in the Rosary.

A View of the Polo Field From The North
October 7, 1961, via 

A little more that five years later I was at the Human Be-in, held on that same field. It was a much smaller crowd that day, but in many ways equally impressive. There was a great deal of chanting on both occasions, I seem to recall.

Record Of A Pleasant View

Gig Harbor, WA  August 2011

Steve Jobs, February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011

.

Jerry Leiber, April 25, 1933–August 22, 2011

As much as anybody, he deserves thanks for rock 'n roll.

"Corporations are people, my friends."

So is Soylent Green, my hearties.

August is Weedmonth

A dog, snarling with bared teeth, charges you. You have a heavy stick in one hand and a gun in the other.

Do you …

A. Thwart it with the gun.
or
B. Thwart it with the stick.

There's a distinction to be made between reason and logic. Some might hasten to work logically through to an irrefragable argument for A over B, trusting that reason might prevail in reaching a solution to the dog's threat, so that the matter, succinctly decided, might shine as a beacon of best practice in all such future encounters. Others might contrarily chose to support preference B, no matter what, traditionally favoring a cudgel in hand in every dealing with a dog from the get-go.

In this narrowed window of rational choice an argument might be made. Marshalling all the main and ancillary points required to support positions for or against one or the other of these fundamental choices will take a non-trivial amount of time and effort. N.B.The stipulated dog does not inflict itself, but remains suspended in all respects while this sort of argument runs its course.

Individuals entering into such an argument become attached to, proprietary of, the logical structures the've contributed or endorsed in searching their way through to what they submit is a reasonable end to the matter, and often enough are so willingly invested in supporting the logic that leads them to claims about the fairly decided thing they strive for that they will continue to defend that logic long after it has become abundantly clear that an encompassing view of the list of alternatives to the leading question Do you …,  has not yet been exhausted, with all the explanatory material inserted here in the text merely serving to approximate the effect of the great opening intercessionary salvos of argument arising whenever gun or stick is called for, but which alternatives must at the very least include

C. Trust the fence.

D. Profit!

BREAKING: After 168 Years, Britain's News Of The World Vomits Its Last Edition

Mr. Murdoch and his son discussing the British phone hacking matter with Paul McMullan. 

Egypt

…as it ever was:

Four months after the fall of Hosni Mubarek, the winners have begun to take shape. The military averted the prospect of a Gamal Mubarek succession and maintained the power it has held since Nasser’s coup d’état of 1956. The Moslem Brotherhood has emerged from decades of persecution to potentially become new Egypt’s new powerbrokers, and the Salifist groups, once outlawed, are now organizing political parties. So far, Egypt’s revolution has bolstered the standing of all parties, except the young, secular, progressive activists whose dreams and courage first ignited it.
—Christian Vachon at The Rumpus

Independence Day, Almost

The Half-Life Of Other News

“Ft. Calhoun is the designated spent fuel storage facility for the entire state of Nebraska…and maybe for more than one state. Calhoun stores its spent fuel in ground-level pools which are underwater anyway – but they are open at the top. When the Missouri river pours in there, it’s going to make Fukushima look like an x-ray.”

—Tom Burnett on the underreported story of Nebraska's Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant, currrently submerged beneath a national wave of weiner jokes. Presumably Burnett is concerned that the flooding Missouri River, adjacent to the plant, will wash away some, or even lots, of the spent nuclear fuel stored in outdoor pools around the plant, where an electrical fire in the control room interrupted the regular order of business a week ago.

Bloomsday! For Reals!

It's all aligned now, you see, the proper anniversary of Bloomsday, when the calendar comes round as it will from time to time, with the day of the week, Thursday, and the month, June, and its sixteenth day, all three essential components matched up once more, identical to those canonically given in the famous book "Ulysses" by James Joyce.

Here's the fabulous RTÉ Radio dramatization, courtesy of the Internet Archive:

I'll be over here leafing through the thing as is my way on Bloomsday.

Flag Day Observed

Argumentum ad Tabula

 

 
— via Kieran Healy
 

Gil Scott-Heron, April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011

 





 

Thanks, Bob

 

 

He Walk On Gilded Splinters

Dave Bry at The Awl posts "13 other songs about Voodoo, Juju, Mojo, and Witchcraft" to go with a video by Random Axe called "The Hex" and fails to include a song by Dr. John. Specifically, this song, "Walk on Gilded Splinters," a seven-and-a-half minute discursus on just those matters.

Buildings Facing West in Davenport, California, March 2011

DOM

Homegrown in Davenport

Yep

A List of Analogies

 
She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
 

Happy Computus

Putting Easter where it belongs was as grave and momentous a battle as the Roman-inspired calendar has ever experienced, with the class of those who cared to note the event eventually splintered into factions which continue to this day to maintain their own prescription for dating each year's Easter.

To say "Happy Easter" today of all days perhaps inadvertently endorses an argument that had them shouting from the lecterns all over Christendom some time ago and hasn't ended yet. To say "Happy Computus" is much more even-handed.

Hazel Dickens, June 1, 1935-April 22, 2011

Daddy died a miner and grandpa he did too,
I'll bet this coal will kill me before my working days is through
And a hole this dark and dirty an early grave I find
And I plan to make a union for the ones I leave behind

Stand up boys, let the bosses know
Turn you buckets over, turn your lanterns low
There's fire in our hearts and fire in our soul
but there ain't gonna be no fire in the hole

tl;dr

Self-fullingness from sfgate:

Human minds evolved to constantly scan for novelty, lest we miss any sign of food, danger or, on a good day, mating opportunities. But the modern world bombards us with stimuli, a nonstop stream of e-mails, chats, texts,...

Closely Watched Flowers