in rainbows

radiohead's new album is...wow. no adjectives necessary, just a very musical album. i paid two pounds fifty pence, though the price for the download is listed as "?" which when clicked on informs you, "it's up to you." So I paid two pounds plus about fifty pence for processing or credit charge or whatever, so 2.50 (5 bucks). I highly recommend everyone listening to this album.

another good times article

I'll say this is about art and suffering (or lack thereof) and Peanuts, that loveable gang. About St. Paul's native son, Charles M. Schultz. Always good to see some insight about his life on a national level.

Colbert in the New York Times, so funny

Guest spot by Colbert in the op-ed section of the times, courtesy of Maureen Dowd, seems do be doing Colbert a little favor. Funny, though, really funny. Here it is, but you probably read it there before here.

Garrison Keillor's daily almanac

this is from Garrison Keillor's daily Writer's Almanac.

It's the birthday of journalist Brendan Gill, born in Hartford, Connecticut (1914), who wrote for The New Yorker for more than 60 years, publishing fiction, essays, and criticism. He said, "Fiction is my chief interest, followed by architectural history, followed by literary and dramatic criticism. If these fields were to be closed to me, I would write copy for a bird-seed catalogue. In any event, I would write." Gill loved his job and he loved New York. He said, "You feel, in New York City, the energy coming up out of the sidewalks, you know that you are in the midst of something tremendous, and if something tremendous hasn't yet happened, it's just about to happen."
He also said, "Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious."

It's the birthday of Damon Runyon, (books by this author) born Alfred Damon Runyon, in Manhattan, Kansas (1884). He started out as a newspaper man but made his breakthrough as a fiction writer during the prohibition era, when he began to write about gamblers, bookies, fight managers, theater agents, bootleggers, and gangsters in New York City. He wrote semi-fictional sketches of real people, and he gave them names like Dave the Dude, Harry the Horse, Nathan Detroit, Benny Southstreet, Dream Street Rose, Big Julie from Chicago, and Izzy Cheesecake. He helped popularize the slang of the era, in which a woman was called "a doll," a gun was called "a rod," money was called "scratch," and people didn't die, they "croaked." His short stories were collected in books such as Blue Plate Special (1934) and More than Somewhat (1937), but he's best remembered for the musical Guys and Dolls, based upon several of his stories and characters he created. Damon Runyon said, "Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment."

what i've been up to lately

haven't been posting on this here blog lately because of some major other things going on, most of which are cool and great and some involve writing. new job working for americorps VISTA, sort of the domestic Peace Corps but not so much direct service as coordinating cool events for Eastside St. Paul community members, like visiting the library and learning how to find books, dvds, newspapers, how to use the online database and catalog, how to use a computer, how to type words on the computer (really!). many of them speak very little English, so I have to translate library tours into Spanish when that is the case, them not knowing English and instead, Spanish. Also designing and building a Web site/service learning database with the help of a graphic designer and IT department at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Also creating a wiki for our Center for Civic Engagement to use internally. wow, that's a lot. Now to revert to proper English spelling and grammar and capital usage:

Here's what I've been writing:

"Civilized Leisure"- restaurant opening news and interview with owner. The Southwest Journal, August 29, 2007.
"Chickens taking over Minneapolis, one backyard at a time"-feature story about a family raising chickens in Uptown Minneapolis. The Southwest Journal, October 2007.
"Hopkins water safe, say officials"- news report about groundwater contamination. Lakeshore Weekly News, September 25, 2007.
Lake Minnetonka area Farmers Market roundup. Lakeshore Weekly News, October 9, 2007.

More to come sooner than later.

reza aslan

i wrote about his appearance at Marquette in the Tribune about a month ago, but I think it's time we listen to thinkers such as Aslan. Politicians are trying to get the work done in Iraq by getting out, but now that is being blocked by Bush's veto. We're all tired of "you're either with us or against us" (kind of like the U2 song "With or Without You" sung in the key of Bush). I can't live with or without Bush or the War on Terror--one, because he was re-elected. Two because this kind of war will never ever end if it doesn't have to. And it will only have to when we listen to scholars like Aslan--and he's a cool scholar, not tweedy whatsoever, made an appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart--great speaker and amazing visionary of the current state of Islam and commentator that brings media and academia together.

His book is "No god but God" and I plan to read it after I graduate this month. Wow that sounds so weird. Anyone reading care to comment on Aslan (the Islam scholar not the magical lion from Narnia)?

Moyers relaunches "Journal"; Colbert, Tom Wolfe and Captain Hook?

I should probably be commenting on Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel or Illinois Sen. Barack Obama—two parts of last night’s democratic presidential candidates’ first debate, but instead, here are key phrases and comments from April 25’s Bill Moyers’ Journal, now back on the air at PBS after 26 years of hibernation. “Buying the War,” about the mainstream American media’s failure to properly handle information about the run-up to the Iraq War, reflects main talking points from the “Media, War, and Conflict” conference held here at Marquette last Thursday and Friday. I wrote about the conference’s keynote speech by David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun TV critic, in Tuesday’s Marquette Tribune. Note: these quotes are not in direct sequence, but all are in the order in which they appeared on the show.

And then there was Fox News: Whose chief executive — the veteran Republican operative and media strategist Roger Ailes — had privately urged the white house to use the harshest measures possible after 9/11...

BILL MOYERS: What I was wrestling with that night listening to you is; once we let our emotions out as journalists on the air, once we say, we'll line up with the President, can we ever really say to the country the President's out of line.

DAN RATHER: By the way Bill, this is not an excuse. I don't think there is any excuse for, you know, my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war. There were exceptions. There were some people, who, I think, did a better job than others. But overall and in the main there's no question that we didn't do a good job.

WALTER ISAACSON: And there was even almost a patriotism police which, you know, they'd be up there on the internet sort of picking anything a Christiane Amanpour, or somebody else would say as if it were disloyal.

BILL MOYERS: Dan Rather is talking about prominent Washington figures in and outside of government…known as neoconservatives. They had long wanted to transform the Middle East, beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein. The terrorist attacks gave them the chance they wanted. And the media gave them a platform.

BILL MOYERS: Among their leading spokesmen were Richard Perle and James Woolsey. Both sat on the Defense Policy Board advising Donald Rumsfeld. And they used their inside status to assure the press that overthrowing Hussein would be easy.

There’s much, much more of this from the program— you can read it or watch the video for the rest. And next week’s guest is Jon Stewart, talking through the questions, “Why do so many get their news and analysis from his fake news show?” and, “What’s so funny about the media’s cozy relationship with Washington?”

By the by, Tom Wolfe on The Colbert Report Thursday = banter about pirates, ie. Cpt. Hook, as well as Colbert claiming he invented New New Journalism, a form that has plenty of room for imagination and, as Colbert stated it, making stuff up to make the story more entertaining.

resolutions for a happy green year.

Something grandiose with astronomical odds has to happen to curb exhaustively Earth’s ecological threats within the next 365 days. Carbon emissions will have to stop—so I’ll convince everyone on the planet to stop driving planes, trains, and automobiles cold turkey. We’d better allow public transit via trains and busses, though, because as swell as the bicycles Schwinn and Peugeot produce might be, the bike trip from Winnipeg to Tallahassee can cause a really tender gluteus maximus. Meanwhile, I’ll keep blogging and telling everyone about the benefits we’ll all reap with further development of biofuel using corn, native prairie grass, soybeans, sugar cane, and other sustainable, eco-friendly energy sources. Spreading this news will ensure that everyone will trade in their cars, vans, and megatrucks for 100% electric automobiles. Or hybrids.
I’ll still have to plant enough trees to offset carbon emissions. According to my calculations, that will total a $10,000,0000,007 bill at my local nursery, at minimum. To say the least, romantic evenings with my girlfriend will be wanting (she’ll have to adjust).
Simultaneously, all currently operating coal-fired power plants will be shut down this year, and all blueprints for future smelly plants crumpled, thrown in the trash—thanks to my letters to members of Congress citing scientific evidence for the superiority of alternative energy methods. Wave goodbye, killer mercury-laden fish; your glory days are history.

Obviously, these are the definitive solutions to the global climate crisis. Yet, while concocting this elaborate treatise/action plan, it dawned on me that I might be getting ahead of myself. It turns out reversing global climate change will take more than one year of work by one young, pseudo-intellectual, idealistic man.
So, I’ll give the “act locally and think globally” bit the old college try. Perhaps a few of my plans still ended up a little too lofty and probably will meet the same fate as my Yoga for Beginners video I bought for last year’s New Year resolution: dusty, unmet with human contact.
Yet I believe fully in the butterfly effect: a small butterfly flapping its wings causes a gentle breeze, which develops into a strong wind, which gains momentum and blows over the ocean—and voilà! Hurricane. Except in this case, I’m not thinking about destruction or hurricanes at all. I’m thinking about small ideas that can blossom into leafy, expansive, comprehensive plans to combat the global climate change crisis.

TO DO
1. Construct compost bin to transform waste into rich, fertile soil. *Materials attached
2. Start a worm farm in my basement, where the moist air is welcoming to soft-bodied invertebrate animals.
3. Toss worms and waste in compost bin and let the organic magic begin (if the bin’s a-rocking, don’t come a-knocking).
4. Ride bicycle everywhere—to classes, work, meetings, (parties?)—unless in the case of mandatory voyage from Winnipeg to Tallahassee—then take Amtrak. Chat with friendly passengers.
5. Watch “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Earth to America,” and “French Fries to Go” multiple times with everyone I know. Be amazed and gravely concerned. Don’t forget organic popcorn—people love popcorn.
6. Keep buying fruits, vegetables, milk, and meat from Growing Power or other local Community Supported Agriculture community. Or local co-op. Or Whole Foods Market if bank account skyrockets due to bank error (cross fingers).
7. Figure out how to obtain organic, fair trade coffee beans without transportation emissions involved.
8. Consider life without coffee.
9. Freak out!
10. Turn off lights when exiting rooms (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, office). Don’t use lights during daylight; remember to shut down or log off computer when inactive.
11. Sneakily switch all light bulbs at home, in friends’ houses, classrooms, and office to compact fluorescents.
12. Invest 100% of monthly energy bill to alternative energy methods such as wind, solar, and biomass power.
13. Launch sustainable T-shirt line—Step Lightly—with differing shades of green and loud catchphrases like IT’S NOT SLEAZY BEING GREEN and I’M GREEN WITH IVY (ivy graphic crawls along torso).
14. Wear said T-shirts ad infinitum and market to celebrities and international music superstars (Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Bono). Money’s green. (donate to Sierra Club, Greenpeace, etc.).


* Worm composting bin materials
One 4-x-8-foot sheet of 1/2-inch exterior plywood
One 2 x 4 x 12 length lumber
One 2 x 4 x 16 length lumber
16d galvanized nails
6d galvanized nails
Two galvanized door hinges
One pound of worms for every 1/2 pound of food waste produced per day.
Peat moss, brown leaves, moistened, shredded newspaper or moistened, shredded cardboard