little bits of me: 07/01/2004

little bits of me

7.28.2004

This is important stuff. I will have more on it shortly.

posted by jmd ¶ Wednesday, July 28, 2004 0 comments

7.18.2004

holding grudges

They just can't let it go. Talk about pettiness. Charles Jenkins is a deserter, Bobby Fisher traded with the enemy and according to the US, both deserve to be punished. Jenkins disappeared in Korea 40 years ago. Bobby Fisher played chess in Yugoslavia despite a UN trade embargo against the country. This is the long arm of American law and in this case the law is an ass. I'm not even going to talk about Cuba.

posted by jmd ¶ Sunday, July 18, 2004 0 comments

I am publishing her name

Her name is Julie Bureau. She went missing three years ago. I think it is peculiar that now that she has been found, the media isn't allowed to publish her name.

posted by jmd ¶ Sunday, July 18, 2004 0 comments

7.17.2004

the patch-day 48

A sure sign that my smoking days are behind me: I lost my brass zippo.

It was given to me more than 10 years ago by a friend who found it in her couch. She was a smoker, but she wasn't a zippo kind of girl, so she gave it to me. Up until just over a week ago it was always in my front pant pocket where it would mingle with my wallet and loose change and deepen in colour as the oils from my fingers seemed to soak into it's finish, sometimes instantly tarnishing my fingerprints into its side. Had I, at the time that it was given to me, gone out to buy a zippo I don't think that I would have considered getting one in brass. But over the course of the past decade it developed a wonderful patina to it.

Considering my abysmal track record for keeping possession of small, unattached items (I buy cheap sun-glasses and my keys are on a chain firmly attached to a belt loop at all times ) it has been just short of miraculous that I was able to keep track of the lighter for as long as I did. I have looked in most of the usual places for my zippo. Under the bed, beneath the cushions of the couch, in various parts of the car and in every single pocket of every piece of clothing that I own, including a winter coat I haven't worn since, well, the winter. Nada, nothing, you might say 'zippo'.

The lighter is gone.

posted by jmd ¶ Saturday, July 17, 2004 0 comments

7.16.2004

Eloquence

Tony Blair has a touch of it. George W. Bush does not.

Bush speaks in seven-second sound bites, repeating the same mantra over and over and over. For Bush, eloquence is any mantra that rhymes: something catchy that people can hang on to. It doesn't have to contain complete truths either or really say anything concrete for that matter. I try to imagine a 35 minute speech by him, consisting of 175 seven-second sound bites and start to yawn. The repetition must be painful. No wonder so many Americans are confused. The world for Bush is simple and his message too. Simple enough, in fact, to be communicated along the side of the road like Burma Shave.

Tony Blair, on the other hand, seems far more capable in connecting with people on a level deeper than that reptilian level addressed by GW Bush. His sentence structure is more complex and the ideas put forward, though similar to Bush, are conveyed at a higher level. His cadence is fluid and he doesn't seem uncomfortable with the words he uses, particularly those with more than two syllables.

So, my point? Not much really. Bush and Blair both used rhetoric and mantra's to sell a war to the world and continue to use the same techniques in an attempt to keep the war sold. What Bush lacked in eloquence he made up for in repetition. Blair was along for the ride and used his own verbal skills to secure his end of the bargain. Both of these men have blood on their hands and the root of much of their evil is summed up in a most eloquently written article, by JK Galbraith. To be fair, the whole article isn't exactly eloquent, in fact it has some very awkward paragraphs, but the last three paragraphs struck a chord with me and for that reason alone I recommend reading it.

posted by jmd ¶ Friday, July 16, 2004 0 comments

7.09.2004

the patch-day 40

I had a brutal day of idiots in traffic yesterday, one of whom was me, and by the time mid-afternoon rolled around I was ready for a smoke. Actually, I was anxious for a smoke, whether I was ready for it or not. So, I stole one from a friend.

Silly me. I thought it would be simple enough to spark it up and settle my cravings. Not so simple though. I never got around to lighting it. The cravings and desires were beaten down on short order by anticipated post cigarette remorse.

Walking down the street with my ill-gotten smoke in hand, I was heading for a particular park bench in my neighborhood so that I could sit and enjoy the sweetness of the vapours. I never got to the bench. All along the sidewalk I had the devil/angel argument ringing in my head and the devil was getting the snot beaten out of him. No argument put forward by him was able to overcome the prime argument of the angel: I don't want to be a smoker.

By the time I got to the bench the anticipated joy was sucked out of me and I threw the cigarette in the nearest garbage bin.

I think I'm winning.

note: based on earlier calculations I have saved about $360 since I started the patch. cool.
posted by jmd ¶ Friday, July 09, 2004 0 comments

7.08.2004

breaking the silence

The world could use a little more of this. Breaking the Silence, an exhibition of images and impressions of life in Hebron seen through the eyes of Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers, appears to be a frank expose of the reality of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Such an open expression of these soldier's reflections can only lead to healing. Lip service is so often the only thing offered when talking about honesty. Calculations get in the way of the truth, "what will keep me in power?". Meanwhile things are falling apart, or at the least they aren't improving.

There is no such thing as a sanitized war or occupation. Combatants and innocents alike die, homes are destroyed and families are uprooted, divided or simply disappear in a pile of rubble. Every one is a victim including the young men and women of the IDF serving in the occupied territories. Their unvarnished accounts of events step beyond a narrative of details and in to deep observations of what goes through their minds.

In video for the exhibit, soldiers talk about the gradual change that overtakes them during their compulsory service, describing a process by which some say they stop seeing Palestinians as human.

see photo gallery link

In Nazi Germany, Jews were tagged as sub-humans, lesser beings not worthy of protection or respect, and a half century later some apply that same label to the Palestinian people who's lands they now occupy.

The Irony is agonizing.
posted by jmd ¶ Thursday, July 08, 2004 0 comments

7.02.2004

holy shit I'm lazy.
posted by jmd ¶ Friday, July 02, 2004 0 comments