Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Hadn’t had a poetry reading for about 2 months, as the last one was in November, and I’d accumulated quite a body of work..  Well, not that lengthy, most of the poems were 8 lines or less, but  a few of them were good enough, I think.
I was surprised that there was a huge crowd when I got there, barely any place to sit, I was perched on the windowsill.  But, it hadn’t started yet, so a couple of us went out to smoke a joint, and met a couple more outside already engaged in that process, which is a tradition of Prague poetry  readings that I highly approve of.
So, I didn’t miss anything.  In the first half, our resident Icelandic poet performed a sort of two act play, a romantic dialogue, for which he employed a volunteer from the audience and it was kind of brilliant because she rose to the occasion and it was a very emotive reading on both sides.  There was a Russian guy  I’ve never seen there before and he read a rhyming epic about the life of a monk in the middle ages who looked through a telescope  and learned about the universe and then  he went to the pope and said ‘Why does the Earth turn around the sun?”  and they accused him of heresy and he said, but I know it’s true, and they said destroy the telescope and never speak of  this again, so he did and then, eventually, he died, at least that’s what I understood.  I kind of  got lost, but it was interesting.
My stuff went over O.K.  My satirical ditty about the current American president got laughs at all the right places, mostly because I  used the  word ‘dumbfuck’ a whole lot.  I think everybody  liked  that.

One of the difficulties of Tulsi’s campaign, and one of its greatest strengths, is the lack of big donor funding.  This was true of the Sanders campaign as well.  On the one hand, it gives her, uncontested, the moral high ground.  On the other hand, it means pretty much every other candidate will have more money to spend on advertising.  Sanders, almost miraculously, raised enough to stay in  the race all on small donations.  I don’t know if people are going to dig as deep for Gabbard.  I hope so, but I  don’t know so.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez made a good point the other day.  She said that we (i.e. new, progressive candidates) need to get around the issue of money by out organizing the opposition.
Another hurdle Tulsi will have to get over is that the mainstream media is collectively making an effort to ignore or dismiss her.  They’re going to continue doing that, like with Bernie, long, long past the point where it  is believable.
Here’s my suggestion for getting around that: biopic  They’ve got about a year to put it together, her husband’s a cinematographer, a lot of the footage for the recent stuff, the last 20 minutes or so of the film, already exists, that’s like a campaign montage, with lots of volunteers, and the earlier parts of the film…well, she’s lived  an interesting life.  There are exotic locations (definitely should be some Hawaiian surfing scenes) galore, her environmental activism, her triumph as youngest person ever elected to the Hawaii Senate, her time in Iraq, etc… I reckon about 90 minutes.  Not too much narration, definitely should be a story rather than a documentary.  People love a good story.

Well, I don’t feel like writing about politics tonight, and not too much of significance is happening in my personal life, so I’m stuck for a topic.  There’s a little trick I did a couple of  weeks  ago, or maybe it was a couple  of months ago, to  find a topic and to reconvince myself that the human race isn’t doomed, irrevocably committed  to a path of self-destruction.  I go to Google, type in ‘scientists discover’ and set the filter  to ‘last  24 hours, and bingo.  There are things happening that will  change the world.  Unfortunately, the first 3 articles to pop up tonight weren’t universally optimistic, but it’s still educational  and fun.
Scientists discover new architecture in corn… well, there are positive and negative points to GMO products, so I went to the article with a bit of trepidation.  They were mostly talking about corn for making ethanol, which may  be a boon to mid-western farmers, but  it isn’t much better for the environment than regular oil.  We need to be converting to solar and wind and electric cars and high speed trains, not to  fucking ethanol.  Still, it’s an increase in our overall scientific knowledge, and it may yield some positive  benefits.
The next article was Scientists discover hidden blood networks  that cross through bone.  Cool.  You would have thought we’d have had the  body  pretty well mapped out by now, as doctors have been cutting  open bodies for thousands of years, but apparently we’re still  learning stuff.  I’m not clear about the  applications on this (maybe a cure for bone cancer?) but the more we learn about our bodies the  better.  I feel sure  this  research will  save lives, somehow, at some point in the future.
The third story was Scientists discover freaky fish thriving in waters we thought were deadly to life.  I thought they were  going to be talking about extremophiles near ocean-bottom vents, but no, they are talking about de-oxygenated zones, and they’ve actually  found some fish that can live there.  Now, this one is some scary shit, because human beings sure as hell can’t live without oxygen, and the water is not that far from the land, they even touch  at points.   We may not extinguish all life on  Earth in the next  12 years… just any species that breathes oxygen.
And monsters will inherit  the Earth.

I very seldom play Facebook games, and I never share them.  In  the beginning, I did a few of the name tests.  You know, what is your gangster/unicorn/rapper name, stuff like  that.  I took the Which Hogwarts House Do You Belong in test and they put me in Hufflepuff, when I know perfectly  goddamned well I should be a Ravenclaw, so screw you, Mark Zuckerberg, you are not the sorting hat.

But, I’m not too bothered  if other people do.  Different people are entertained by different stuff.  I just want to write poetry and argue about politics, and there are plenty of people who aren’t into that at all.
Anyway, with this 10  year photo challenge.  I wasn’t tempted to participate, but saw nothing nefarious in  it, either, until somebody suggested that maybe Facebook was using it to build a data base to study age progression/facial recognition technology.  Now, I don’t think anybody’s got proof of that, but it’s right off the bat believable.  It does accomplish exactly that and, as a computer firm, it’s almost certainly something they’re working on.
There are good uses and bad uses for this technology.  Looking into the future, someday this  will be standard procedure if you’re thinking about marriage.  “What is she/he going to  look like 10 years from now?” is kind of an important question and if an answer is available, why not take a peek.
But mostly the police will want to use it.  I’ve got mixed feelings about that.  If they’re using it to  look for kidnapped children or victims of the  sex-trafficking industry, then it’s a good thing.  If they’re trying to find some kid who sold pot in High School 30 years ago, which is what they’ll mostly use it for, because they are dicks, then I’m against it.
The thing  I wonder  is this:  if that’s their goal, why weren’t they just upfront about it.  You know “We are building a database to study facial recognition and, if you wouldn’t mind, could you post a photo of you 10 years ago and one that’s current?  It’s for science.”  They might not have got  as many photos, but I’ll  bet they would have got enough.
Facebook (and all corporations,  really) have got that government disease.  They are just so  used to  keeping  secrets from the public that it’s become a habit and they  do it even when they don’t need to.  It’s a very unhealthy aspect of our society.

I am using the word punks in the old 50s and 60s use of the word, somebody with a loud mouth that couldn’t back it up, somebody who thought  they were a big shot, but they were a scared, little wimp inside and everyone knew it.  That kind of punk.  I mean no  disrespect to fans of the Ramones and anybody who’s ever sported spiky hair.
So, the punks in the news today are a bunch of kids wearing MAGA hats from a Catholic High School in Kentucky, confronting an elderly native American man who  was banging a drum and chanting.  Most of them were shouting and jeering, lots of them were laughing, a few of them were taking photos, and one extremely  creepy  dude was right in the old man’s  face, just staring creepily, the way  creeps do.
Certainly, they are horrible kids, their parents (who  are  undoubtedly smug, rich racists their own selves) should be deeply  ashamed.  Oh, how do  I know they were racists, you  ask?  As I said, they were wearing MAGA hats.  I’m tired of saying “Not all  Trump  supporters are racist.”  Hell they ain’t.
They should probably be expelled  from  the school, especially  creepy dude, he should probably also be followed around for  a while and maybe have a few sessions with the school shrink.  He looks like the type who  kidnaps and abuses animals.  Of course, I don’t  know the  boy personally, so I’m not making any allegations, he just looks like that.  You know, creepy.
But, I doubt they  would be.  There were probably about 15-20 kids involved.  At $10,000 a year tuition, the school  would be out $200,000 for  the year.  I’d be happy if they at least expelled creepy dude, though.  He should have that on  his record.

I don’t expect it, though.  There wasn’t actually any legal infraction.  They were being rude and abusive to an old man, but it was at a  political rally  where many  sides were involved, some confrontations are almost inevitable.  And, to a large extent, most of them were just acting the way uninformed, immature, high school  boys with a pack mentality always  act.  They follow the  worst among them and they all feed off each other. It’s not a new thing.  It’s just that now everything gets  filmed.  So, it can be remembered forever.
Yes, these kids behaved badly.  But, this incident will  fade from the public view in a couple of days, and maybe that’s even  a good thing.

Some of them may still  grow up  to  be  good  kids.