FFEJWORLD:

my sinus infection is better now that it stopped raining. still can’t figure out what happaned with the phone. i couldn’t hold charge, couldn’t find the net and then at midnight it suddenly did both–and the charge lasted till noon today. weird. i was left without a phone for the better part of a day though.

milwaukee was weird. i wasn’t really necessary. but it was a trip, and it’s not chicago. it’s also not the milwaukee of my youth, or even post adolescence. all things must pass.

megan’s mother has bought a bmw shoe car. she likes it. i like it. very zippy, handles like a real sports car should.

there are disadvantages to having a blog. now that everyone knows there isn’t a firedance, i’m screwed into working for my mother unless i can find something else to do. fast. i deal with some of this in a new article on the other side of the site.

which leads us to this anouncement: The articles site has been updated with one boring review and a new article. clicky on the “Articles, Links, Misc” sidebar link. enjoy.

there have been a lot of noise in blogistan about blog entries getting too big. the consensus seems to be many smaller entries. i’m thinking of limiting mine.bbut not this one. i’m also going back to trying mobile blogging…wish me luck. (it didn’t work)

i’m sitting in filter watching a nice little jazz trio blow free jazz–they’ve just been augmented by Beau on sax, Rhondi’s husband. small world. filter seems to be going through the usual throws of a dying cafe, like adding free jazz to drive away the regular patrons (the place is half empty, and usually they’re standing room only on a saterday). i’ve noticed the staff is different from visit to visit too–no table service means no tips, means staff doesn’t stick around. the place still has the highest female populcase of any cafe i’ve ever been in, and i can’t figure out why.

manana, my damn butterfly at casa sandia check em out.

knee is acting up.

UPDATED: Now with even more something or another.

i’m going to milwaukee manana (well, today, by the time most of you read this). family bizniz. oh well. should be back late friday night. damn this week went fast.

i’m over at Chris and Neil’s, teaching page layout and composition in photo shop.

Katherine just called me to tell me the landlord will be showing our apartment on saterday. joy.

i would like to get the Freedom Fest DVD’s shown this weekend, before i have to surrender them to edmar.

i’m seriously considering installing the google ads. lemme know what you think, i’d be getting .25 to .50 for each click through, money ii could surely use but you folks would have to click on them for me to get the dough. my last attempt at paypal didn’t net me a dime, only two people even tried to set it up, and neither worked.

Spencer sent these two links on a petition to posthumously pardon Lenny Bruce. he was convicted of obscenity in 1964. the links include massive linkage to materials and the judgemnt. i personally dont’ recomend teh web based email form, politicos are known never to read them. write a real letter on dead trees, just print out the form and send it. do it for ffej, Lenny is his favorite comedian.

from Doc Searls:

What are we doing here?

So we have Emerson, Franklin and Pepys among the ancestors of bloggers.

Now Kevin reminds me this morning that Marcus Aurelius contributed some early DNA. In Book One, Marcus drops some interesting credits:

From my brother Severus, to love my kin, and to love truth, and to love justice; and through him I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, Brutus; and from him I received the idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed…

Sound familiar?

Of course we can’t ignore the Letters of St. Paul. Or the Books of Moses. (Anything earlier? Lascaux, perhaps?)

Back to what Chris Lydonsaid when he started this thread. It’s deep and important:

     Speak your own convictions, and your own contradictions, he urged. Claim your own ideas before someone else does. ”I hate quotations,” begins another of the famous aphorisms. ”Tell me what you know.”  Which is what the great bloggers keep doing.

    ”In all my lectures,” Emerson boiled it down, “I have taught one doctrine, the infinitude of the private man.”  Blogglers, do we recognize ourselves?

     We are glimpsing also, through individual voices on the World Wide Web, the fulfillment of Emerson’s universalism and his confidence in cultural connectivity.  The definitively American thinker was a globalist before there was such a thing.  He was anti-racist and anti-nationalist, a student of Persian poetry and Buddhism, an inspiration to Thomas Carlyle and Jawarhalal Nehru.  Not because he was a multi-culturalist but because he thought the human mind and heart were capable of immense and innumerable expansions. ”There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no circumference to us,” he wrote in the essay: Circles .  And now with the Web we understand more nearly what he meant.

     Ahead of the evolutionary and cognitive scientists, Emerson believed there was one human brain, one universal mind. 

     We are, almost all of us, in range of Aristotle’s intellect, Emerson fancied. ”The mind is one,” he wrote in the essay, History:  ”There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has be-fallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.”

Then on Monday Chris visited one of the toughest canaries ever to survive the coal mine of newspaper journalism: Jimmy Breslin. I want to excerpt one representative morsel of Breslin’s column (as Dandid— more about that below), but I can’t. I want you to read the whole story, not just the conclusion:

On Friday, I rode across the Brooklyn Bridge, whose gray netting went with the sky, and as long as there was tension about the bridge, I was remembering Richard Seaberg, a big cop from Emergency One, who climbed to the top of the bridge so many times and pulled somebody down before he jumped. Seaberg protected the Brooklyn Bridge.

Now there is a charge by the government that terrorists intended to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, or pull it down. Simultaneously, while protecting the bridge, the government was doing frightening damage to the life of the country.

Because of it, I am thinking that it could be time for me to begin thinking about leaving this news business. It is not mine anymore. Let me tell you why.

Friday, the newspapers and television reported the following matter with no anger or effort to do anything other than serve as stenographers for the government:

On March 1, give or take a day, in Columbus, Ohio, the FBI arrested an American citizen they say is Iyman Faris. There wasn’t a word uttered. He vanished. No lawyer was notified. He made no phone calls and wrote no postcards or letters.

He was a United States citizen who disappeared without a trace into a secret metal world.

This citizen’s proper name was Mohammed Rauf. He took the Faris from a street name in his neighborhood in Columbus. I don’t know why he did this for sure. A friend of mine in Columbus, Mike Weber, told me Friday that he thought the federal agents wanted him to use Faris because the real name, Rauf, purportedly would alert others that he had been caught. Who knows? You believe the FBI, you belong back in public school.

They held him secretly in an iron world for the next six weeks. This is plenty of time to hand out giant beatings. Oh, yes, don’t gasp. If cops are performing a Fascist act, then always suspect them of acting like Fascists. They have fun beating people up.

In mid-April, again in deep secrecy, the government says Faris was allowed to plead guilty to plotting to pull down or blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. He was in a sealed Virginia federal courtroom. If he had a lawyer, that was some lawyer.

After that, he was sentenced. We don’t know what the sentence was because it is sealed.

I don’t know what Faris looks like or sounds like or what he thinks and what he was doing. He could be the worst. I don’t know. Prove he wanted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and let him paste a picture of Osama bin Laden on the cell wall for inspiration over the next half a century. But first bring him into open court and try him. Pretend you live in America. Even pick a jury. I don’t know. What a thing it would be if he comes up not guilty.

What we do know is that this is your country now.

Dansays,

Breslin has opened my eyes. This case is a travesty — not because Faris is necessarily innocent. He probably isn’t. But justice is not supposed to be a game where “probably” is enough to send someone to prison for the rest of his life after a secret arrest, secret detention and secret proceedings.

The travesty is, first, that our government now operates a secret criminal justice system, because Congress doesn’t care enough about liberty to stop a power-mad Bush administration from tearing up the Constitution.

The second travesty, as Breslin trenchantly observes, is the spinelessness of my chosen profession. I am ashamed to be a journalist when I realize how far down the road we have gone toward utter deference to power.

Why are journalists not screaming bloody murder about this case? Sloth no longer suffices to explain our negligence?

I cringe for my profession. I fear for America.

In fact, fear has become what America is about. (Remember “fear itself?” It’s running the show now.)

On NPR this morning I heard a former diplomat lament the dying of reading rooms in embassies, as America’s preoccupations in other countries morphs from cultural outreach to obsession with paranoia and security.

There’s a larger thread here. It’s still about journalism, but of the extra-institutional sort required to remind civilization what it is fundamentally about — and has been, since our first bloggers started writing about it, and trying to improve it, way back whenever.

UPDATED: with live TV prostitutes and Katherine Chronis.

KC called from florida, all is well, and she misses us. plans are underfoot to import her and harry for a visit. now that will make for a lamprey to remember…

nexus pics are here.

won’t be online much, no phone or other bandwidth where i’m living.

Monday night it was hot enough to broil steak, and with high enough humidity to take the wrinkles out of your shorts. Between that and the pressure changes from a front rolling in, it was hard to breath, like sucking boiling soup through your nose. my lungs felt thick, my throat felt swollen and dilated, i kept expecting the heart attack to fell me that my mother (god rest her soul and quickly too) has been promising me i’m going to have since i was 8. so i went into that bad night, to meet a friend, who as luck would have it, found something more fun to do and neglected to tell me. (or return calls, so be it, scratch one one friend) so after pissing away my weeks grocery bill waiting at one cafe for the errant friend, i headed over to the nexus of evil (henceforth to be referred to as the NOE for short), which despite it’s ability to suck wicker park posers and south side hipsters into it’s vortex always contains someone i know well enough to cadge a cup of coffee from. which i really needed, since when i got on the train to head down there, the buss sucked everything i had off my farecard–which was a fuck of a lot more then fare–the driver gave me a number to call to complain to, and i’m on hold still) when i got there, the place was mostly empty, except for some schaumbergers and some south west siders, and Ned. must have been the low cloud cover, which kept the notoriously fickle pilsenites ffrom flying the 4 blocks from their homes. who knows. ned and i talked for a while, i took various calls from various people, and headed back up to el casa de la Katarina (gotta come up with a better name for the place) at 1am. the buss came 45 minutes later, by which time the air had thickened some more and my sinuses were once again seceding from the union. about roosevelt, a white trash drunk got on, and proceeded to start yelling at everyone, cursing everyone for not acknowledging him, cursing everyone for not speaking english, and genuinely being a pain. as soon as he started to explain to the next person who got on how he was on a four day bender and had lost every cent he had, and how he needed to wake up in time to get off at belmont i knew i was doomed. the guy started panhandling for beer money, explaining how 1000 liquors jacked their prices after 2am, and how he never could get there before 2am. a buss supervisor stopped the buss and told the driver to drive slower since he was the last halsted buss, and i groaned. i started to play solitaire on my visor to keep the feeling of impending doom at bay, it didn’t work, because every time we slowed for a stop the drunk would yell out “is this belmont yet?” we finally reached belmont, i got off at the front exit, let him off at the rear, and i immediately ran across belmont tot he buss stop, as blondy the drunk went staggering off toward 1000 liquors. the lights were out on half the block east of me, adding to the gloom and almost but not quite fog, and then a young gang banger looking guy took up station across the street from me, acting like he was scoping me out for a mugging, and periodically walking half way across the street diagonally toward me, until he realized i had turned to face him, at which point he’d scurry back. no one was moving around on halsted at all, which was creepy, and two large gangs of black transvestites chasing each other back and forth on the north side of belmont, between halsted and clark, offering each other such sage advice as “bitch, i’ll rip your dick off,” “honey you so ugly, why don’t you die?” and “i told you to stay off my corner, bitch!!!” we’re talking forty some odd TVs. not the usual crew at all. interspersed into this pudding of possibilities is a bunch of seedy homeless guys who were panhandling and groping the two crews and who ever else was in reach. after 40 minutes of waiting for the buss, the guy who stalking me moved across the street into the buss turnout, and i decided to move to belmont and clark. as i started walking, i saw a paddy wagon, and then a police car turn in to the turnout, and suddenly the two gangs of TVs split off their attack and separated, letting me through. as i reached the corner, the white trash drunk from the halsted buss showed up like the pied piper leading the seedy homeless guys, and one stoned drunk 16 year old kid, all of which except for the kid proceeded to harangue me for not giving them money and smokes. the kid wandered off with one of the bums arms across across his shoulder, and a look of dread on his face. ten minutes later he reappears, with one of the TV’s arm across his shoulder, and two bums in tow, with the TV screaming at the tom of it’s lungs for them to keep the hell away from her man. A fight breaks out between the bums and the white trash guy over the ownership of a forty ounzer, which is quelled by the reappearance of the paddy wagon and cruiser, which dives into the alley (i know, i know, it’s actually dayton place). as soon as the cops disappear, the two gangs of TVs attack each other, and the 16 year old drunk kid, a total fucking riot. the buss passes me heading for the turnout. the white trash drunk gets pissed at the bums, throws some moves, and dives into the alley. the buss driver pull into the turnout, stops and goes to sleep. the 16 year old drunk gets dragged off by another TV. one of the bums starts to scope out the white trash drunk in the alley. another party of TVs show up, and spectate the riot, urging on various people. a group of TVs break off their attack to chase after the 16 eyar old, the bums all run into the alley after the white trash and the forty oz., and the third party of TVs get sucked into the riot after a series of pushing and shoving and shoe scuffings. there are wigs and clothes flying, people staggering, punches being thrown, screaming and threats of weapons, the sound of a tussle from the alley, a group of irate drunk heteros trying to get past, people being thrown in front of cabs, on top of parked cars, and into the alley, when the buss finally shows up. exactly one hour and 40 minutes after i got off of the halsted buss.

so much for service every half hour between halsted and cumberland, all night long.

UPATED:

Katherine and Jerry at freedom fest: 12 noon. remember, KC leaves sunday, so be there to see her off,and to learn how to deal with cops in the real world, from someone who knows.

be scared, be very scared: Neville’s Red Bull FluegTag entry “Who You Calling Chichen?” has been excepted. Have mercy on the poor Sexy Dancing Hens.

Neil is off for a family reunion. we kicked around some interesting ideas at breakfast. i’m going to help Chris with some photoshoping next week.

still have to move the rest of the stuff out of dean’s. too hard shlepping it on the buss. too hard to pick out what to move, and too hard to find interim storage.

spent all night woolgathering. went over to the nexus for a coffee, ran into gustavo who is barred since he lost his id, and came back to the dogs. who are ever so happy to see me.

things i forgot to post part 8756876587687:

for years i wondered why i craved coca cola. my other addictions are addictions, but coke has always been a weird craving. pepsi never did it for me. yesterday, while talking to nat, he mentioned that he once read someplace that coke used more then half the worlds output of nutmeg. so i went and looked up the infamous formula–the one written out by hand by the druggist. hot damn. i’m a nutmeg junky. explains my craving for eggnog and brandy alexanders. now to figure out how to get nutmeg into my diet without having to drink coke…

i took the knee brace off today for the first time in a week. not bad, not great. but it’s making my calf muscle grow alarmingly, and forcing me to walk funny, so know i’ve got weird blisters.

time to lock up and grab some z’s.

note not one word about my boil.