April 30th, 2008 by Max
1. According to NPR the American oil industry is refining at 85% capacity.
2. Oil speculation by intermediary market players is adding to the price of oil.
3. We are selling arms to the Saudis and others who could open up the spicket a little – we should stop selling weapons to people who are restricting the oil market.
4. The Commander in Chimp could open the strategic oil reserve.
5. We could, as Senator McCain suggests, have a gas tax holiday.
6. We should, stop providing the oil companies with 18 BILLION DOLLARS in government welfare.
There are things that CAN be done, to influence oil prices. Its not just “the market”, especially when OPEC is concerned, which is a non-competitive cabal.
Posted in Max's Theories | 1 Comment »
April 30th, 2008 by Max
Ok. I saw the clips of the Rev making fun of the way that John Kennedy talked. I saw him making fun of Johnson. Both of whom worked for the improved rights of African Americans.
I didn’t see his whole speech. Or speeches. I did see him dancing around in a 360 at the press conference.
I thought he looked a little nutty. The eccentric uncle you have to deal with once in a while at family reunions.
I thought he made himself a fool, and that since Obama is not a fool, perhaps the Reverend has taken himself right out of usefulness, as a cause against Obama.
Barak Obama is NOT responsible for the kooky things Reverend Wright does. I hope he gets even more kooky. The kookier he gets, the more he becomes sympathetic, and the less he stays a problem for Obama. So dance Reverend. Make fun of white civil rights leaders – make yourself irrelevant.
It may be the best thing you can do for my candidate at this stage!
Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »
April 28th, 2008 by Max
Nothing moves in a straight line. Ever heard of two steps forward, one step back? Well that’s pretty much the way life works.
At the risk of repeating myself, I use to tutor students at Junior College who were studying Social Studies. This survey of recent global history posited one basic theme. Three things were on the rise, democracy, secularism and capitalism.
While this is the subject of a massive tome, let me make a simple point.
As each trend increases, there will be push back. Humans don’t like change.
As democracy spreads – [and lets not confuse this with the war in Iraq] entrenched systems push back c.f. Russia today.
Capitalism … well, the forces fighting raw capitalism [which is bad for capitalism anyway - but that's another story] are in trouble, but lets assume that liberalism is on the rise and that something short of communism, will reign in the greedy, c.f. Obama.
And then there are the Secularists. Humanists you might say. Boy do these people get the push back c.f. Osama, Bill O’Reilly, and Ben Stein!
Two steps forward, one step back.
Progress is inevitable…
Posted in Max's Theories, Social Commentaries | 3 Comments »
April 27th, 2008 by Max
Saturday April 26th MWV (the new name for MeadWestvaco) held its own EarthFest. Michele McFee estimated that we would pull 1500 members of the staff of MWV and of the community to come see, the Raptor Show, the Kopernik Sky Show, the Zoomobile [which strangley I did see, but didn't see any animals], The DEC pull fish from the Susquehanna River that morning to display, community charities produce copious amounts of food for selling, The Upper Susquehanna Watershed Commission bringing in all kinds of crawly water things as samples of the River’s health, birdhouse building and flowerpot painting and too many more things to mention.
Here are some:
Posted in Photos | 1 Comment »
April 21st, 2008 by Max
ABC news reported that a group of very senior administration officials took part in a discussion about which torture techniques to use on Guantanamo detainees. The only one missing was George himself. Plausible deniability? No! Intellectual laziness.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080410/pl_nm/security_interrogation_report_dc
ABC reported that the so-called “principals” discussed interrogation details in dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House.
Then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by a select group of senior officials or their deputies, ABC said.
ABC reported that the so-called “principals” discussed interrogation details in dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House.
Then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by a select group of senior officials or their deputies, ABC said.
This blog puts it well:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/82155/
Think about it — a president who used to shove firecrackers up the asses of frogs and light them to watch the frogs explode. A vice-president who shot a friend in the face. A female Secretary of State in fuck-me boots who gets off on torture. An attorney general who’s afraid of calico cats, offended by a statue’s breasts, and anoints himself with vegetable oil. And he’s the SANE one, the one who was troubled by the whole proceeding.
ABC continues:
“Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding,” ABC reported.
In addition to Rice, the principals at the time included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the report said.
Is THIS how we want to portray America to the rest of the world? The DAMAGE the dubbaya has done to our reputation in the world is awesome!
Everyone forgets that we placed soldiers in Bosnia ten years ago, to protect Muslims. How long will they remember Abu Ghiraib? I suspect the good we’ve done fades fast, but the harm lingers for a few generations!
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April 20th, 2008 by Max
Wow. Derby Hill, Sterling Wildlife Refuge, and Montezuma all in one day:
Barb and I traveled so far, that after we setup the tripod, and the Osprey went away – we think they were afraid of the tripod – we waited about ten minutes for them to come back, then gave up! [Of course they returned as soon as I took the tripod down.] We were happy for them anyway. Two weeks ago when we were there, it looked as if the winter had taken their old nest down, and they were losing the battle with time to make a new nest. We watched a couple of times as they tried to add to the scrawny nest they had, and missed; the marshy sticks falling uselessly into the high grass. So we were glad to see this pair sitting on a nest.
None of these pictures are from Derby Hill, a place I’ve longed to see, where the southern birds come back around Lake Ontario on their way back to Canada. We saw a bald eagle. Barb saw a Nothern Harrier. The group saw kettles of broadwings. All were too high up to get a photo of, though I should have taken a shot of the lake. I don’t think I’d ever seen it before.
Anyway. Long day. Hot day. Good day.
Posted in My New York, Photos | 2 Comments »
April 20th, 2008 by Max
The scientists in this film, were tricked into appearing, by a fraudulent front company “Rampant Films”. When they found out, they refused any further interviews.
People have fear. Some people who profess to love the truth have fear. That’s how I explain an organized attack against Darwin’s Fact of Evolution. The truth hurts. I’d feel bad for Ben Stein, but his reactionary fear of science hurts the advancement of knowledge in my beloved United States of America.
Go here:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/
Posted in Other People's Theories, Social Commentaries | 2 Comments »
April 19th, 2008 by Max
Back in 1978 or 1979 at the appartment that Kevin and Annette and I shared, during what I will always think of as my favorite year we had many conversations and we used to write in a book – The Book – about whatever it was that we were thinking, or wanting to write. Now I think of it as a joint (not to say “joint” blog).
One conversation I will always remember had to do with this song:
A case of you
Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constant in the darkness
Wheres that at?
If you want me Ill be in the bar
On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue tv screen light
I drew a map of canada
Oh canada
And your face sketched on it twice
Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh Id still be on my feet
Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
Im frightened by the devil
And Im drawn to those ones that aint afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time
Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still Id be on my feet
And still be on my feet
I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
Color go to him, stay with him if you can
Oh but be prepared to bleed
Oh but you are in my blood youre my holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still Id be on my feet
Id still be on my feet
Kevin asked “Do you think this song is a compliment to the person (James Taylor?) that she wrote about? I think this line ‘I would still be on my feet’ is damming with faint praise” [or words to that effect]
Talk amongst yourselves. For me, I’ve always tried to shake the notion that he was right!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6voJjexENok&feature=related
Posted in Arts | No Comments »
April 18th, 2008 by Max
I have to. Its my favorite poem, from my second favorite poet – Care to guess the first? Anyway here is my annual homage to ee cummings and spring!
in Just-
by: e.e. cummings |
|
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee |
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April 16th, 2008 by Max
Yankees – Red Sox. Yankee Stadium. Yanks up 4-3. 4th inning. Young star pitcher in-the-making for the Sox. Taylor Buckholz. A rookie with a major league no hitter to his credit. Veteran catcher calling the game. Announcers think he’s letting the kid call his own game.
Bases loaded. Two out. Yankee Captain Jeter up to the plate.
The kid busts a fastball inside.
The kid throws a high change up behind in the count. He’s pitching backwards!
The kid throws a filthy curve just inside off the plate. Ball.
The kid throws a curve at the knees.
The announcers repeat how this kid goes with his best stuff. His junk. John Flaherty says “If I’m Jeter I’m looking fastball here all the way. If the kid throws a breaking pitch, I tip my hat to him.”
Here’s the wind. Here’s the pitch. Fastball!
Jeter pulls his hands in, slaps the ball to right field and drives in two!
Should he have gone with his best stuff? Could he have thrown three curveballs in a row over the plate with bases loaded and two out. Thinking the game. Judging the game. Living the game.
This is when baseball is fun!
Its pitching strategy, pitching execution, pitching vs hitting.
Forget all that DH stuff. Its secondary.
What’s he gonna throw?
That’s baseball!
Posted in Sports | No Comments »
April 16th, 2008 by Max
I think I’ve linked to youtube before, but maybe that was on blogspot. So this is a test on WordPress:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9vS8g7hx6k
^ This one is cool. I like the song and this appears to be the writer.
The one below?
Followed a link from WordPress. I can’t explain it. But I did watch it, and in a time of so SO much media avialable, just sitting all the way through a video is … well … saying something.
http://youtube.com/w/?v=_dIya1aJJKA
Posted in Blogroll | No Comments »
April 13th, 2008 by Max
Rock Royal. I like this one.
Posted in My New York | No Comments »
April 12th, 2008 by Max
Check out Countless Screaming Argonauts – the podcast of record!
Last week was our baseball Extra Extra Vaganza. Manhattan Man and Booth Boy join the Penguin and Max for a wild eyed view of the national pastime. Its fun. Its exciting. And … its free!
The podcast http://www.csapodcast.blogspot.com/
Episode 22 is the National League
In Episode 23 we take on the better league [with the lesser rules]!
Posted in Sports | No Comments »
April 11th, 2008 by Max
Ever wonder how people are going to talk about you when you’re gone?
Maybe you wonder IF they will talk about you when you’re gone.
Sometimes I think about what it would look like if someone made a movie of my life. How would they capture me? Would they write about the silliness? Would they write about the fears? Would they tell the great irony of my life. That I always wanted to have people around yet spent most of my life alone. That in my bones was a need to please from a time when I was so small I could almost not remember, but I can remember. Could you tell the story of the me that is inside me, by telling the stories people will remember of me? When they make the movie of my life, would they say that he had a great way with kids because his father was so good with kids, but with women, his example was a relationship so torn …
I think they will make a movie about my mother. Poor soul. Angry. Alone herself. Chasing people away with bitter frustration, bitter certainty and fear. Saying and doing mean things to her own children. Will they show my sister telling my mother, on her deathbed, what a good job she did raising us, while I sat back and listened in utter disbelief. How can you tell her story, without telling the story of the stories of the relationships of her kids in the world.
They’ll show my sister’s death. But not her life. Will they tell how she moved out at 16, to live up the street at the neighors where she babysat? There’s so little time in the movie of my life for the tangential stories. Her’s is such a big story, for such a short life. Her insecurities. The other’s insecurities. Her story will be her death, and that’s not the story of her life.
But how can they capture in me, that thing that keeps me moving. When I don’t know what makes me move. Or what keeps me from going far far away. Always tethered to something. How important is that to me? Even I don’t know. Sometimes I think whatever that is, my brother had it more. He went farther. How can you tell my story without mentioning the kid with whom I shared a room for 16 years, but who always wanted to get away from me. Who wrote in his autobiography in third grade “… then my brother was born and that’s when my troubles began.”!
Its so hard to capture, really capture, who someone is. People write of presidents and poets and read first hand sources such as their correspondence, but even that is prepared for the public. Or at least prepared to affect how someone else thinks.
How do you show the inner mind. The person inside who says hey look at me, see me, I’m in here. I’m not this shell, I’m here and I’m alone.
I bet that’s the story of many lives. People will say, oh she’s so smart. Oh he’s so kind. We like to have a handle on who everyone else is, but I think we don’t know the inside. Mostly we know that pigeonhole where we keep them. But people live in multiple pigeonholes at the same time.
My poor Dad’s story. Even I don’t know if I know it. What a powerful sad story it is. I could list the sad facts. The ever wear on the psyche. But could even I gauge, what that psyche really is? How long will it take to ACTUALLY describe his life, actually define him. Would a whole book be able to tell the story of who is inside? In the case of my Dad I think it is raw optimism. I think he’s optimistic, though I tell people he’s had his sense of humor surgically removed.
How could he be optimistic? Strange as that may sound. How else could someone so good, get pounded for so long, with so many heartbreaks, and see the good? His should look like chapters from a beautiful mind, in the middle at least. From Ordinary People, in the middle. From Cinderella Man. From the Grapes of Wrath early. How devastating the fire? The loss of a child? The loss of hope for happiness and the knowledge that you’ll live your life with a woman incapable of it, yet tied to her forever. How do you depict a man who would fight any man to protect his kids, but who would rather work than come home? Or the loss of a second child. More mental illness in more places. The prodigal son. When Celia died he said “she wasn’t the one he expected” it to be! How long has he been carrying around the expectation of disaster? And which child was the one he feared the most for? The struggling other daughter? The son under the car? Epilepsy here. Epilepsy there? Job loss.
How do you tell a story of a boy with 1 brother and 5 sisters, all of whom were good to him except the one closest in age? Of a farmer father with a new scheme every once in a while. Of a father who knitted a suit of clothes and then wore it in the 4th of July parade? What impact does it have to be raised by a man who could build a rock wall and knit a turtle cover for a footstool. A man who would divine water, or believed he could. And you believed he could. I have no idea who that man was (my grandfather) but did my dad? So I have no idea of how he was also that chicken farmer, and JP, and father.
Who was the father? Who was the son? What is in the mind of a young man to whom cow tipping was mischief. What was that little boy like, inside? Before the cow tipping began? How many cows were tipped? Was that even important? Who was the boy?
In the end are we all the child we were at three? Lately I think so.
There’s a sister who was already married and gone before he was grown, left for the west and came back from the dustbowl and her husband, the first of three, who was like a big brother when they came back. Only to die young. A sister who was a second mom. A mom who managed the household, while the dreamer dreamed … and the little boy played. I imagine a bucolic world, insulated by the hills of PA and the dreams of the diviner and the strength of the matriarch. Just as I was the boy who would inherit the legacy of JFK with all of its hope, dear ole dad inherited something positive through his childhood, that would withstand the buffetting of a life more stormy than the worst storm he saw as that young child. His life would not be consumed by the sequences of storms, just as the War of 1812 bayonet would not be consumed by the fire, that scared his psyche for the first time, and that consumed all the other ‘things’ of his life.
Where is the real man in there. Is any of that relevant? Is any of that, the piece of one’s soul that one keeps only for one’s self?
Do we even keep these things for ourselves? Or is it in showing ourselves to people, that we create these caricatures of ourselves, that people will talk about when we are gone?
I suspect, in presenting ourselves to the world, in the way that we do, to not show the holes in our panes, while trying to let the world see in. We try to get the thing that we need, we ensconce in transulcent frost, the lens we are trying to focus on ourselves.
Somewhere behind the glass, is us!
Posted in Max's Theories, Social Commentaries | 2 Comments »
April 9th, 2008 by Max
Here’s some views:
joe.jpg 
And some others…
Posted in Photos | No Comments »
April 8th, 2008 by Max
Dr Evil: Why are you crying Chuckles?
Chuckles: I just presided over a Medal of Honor ceremony. A brave American gave the last full measure of devotion for his fellow soldiers. His family was devistated.
Dr Evil: So?
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April 2nd, 2008 by Max
Isn’t it possible, that things have gotten better in Iraq, BECAUSE OF THE LAST ELECTION! And because of the next election in the US. Maybe, the Iraqi’s…some of them…who knows which ones, see that they’d better change their approach because they now understand THAT THE AMERICAN’S ARE LEAVING!
Posted in Politics | 2 Comments »
April 2nd, 2008 by Max
Dr. Evil: Tell me Chuckles, are there any more white mice in the refridgerator?
Chuckles: But boss, the doctor told you those aren’t good for your heart. They’re filled with cholesterol.
Dr. Evil: Cholesterol and yummy flavor. [shouting] Now get me my tastey treat!!! [ under his breath] Before I eat your soul!!!! [nearly silent at first, then building]. Mmm, yes. Yeahhhh ha ha ha ha!!!!
Chuckles: [To himself as he moves to the fridge] Geeze really? Really? You’re sucking the life blood out of innocent lab rats. Dressed in black with the pointy nose and the goddam cliche crooked smile and you really have to make with the evil cackle?
Dr Evil: What was that?
Chuckles: I’m coming oh brains of mine. Where would I be without you. Did you see the baseball game the other night?. I like crackers. Want some Ice Cream? Want a beer? Why were they booing at the game? Did you see the eclipse? Do you think it was … “evil doers?”
Dr. E: Shut up and get me some dollars. I think I just soiled myself!
*** Stay tuned. Next week we’ll hear John McCain say – “I think we should bomb Iran.” and Dr Evil will say: “Shithead.”
Yay!!
Posted in Politics | No Comments »
