Tag: digest

What a crappy, if prolific week:  A (hopefully temporary) set back in Wisconsin. Violence in Libya.  An earthquake and tsunami and nuclear emergency in Japan.  Bad, winter weather, flooding and power outages, in Eastern New York and New England.  Your bloguero is about ready to push back from the keyboard and run away to join the nearest circus.  Maybe he could be the elephants’ poopsmith.  Although there are signs of Spring’s arrival (redwing blackbirds, March Madness, the first buds), your bloguero’s seasonal affective grumpiness (SAG) continues unabated.  He needs to see the first crocus.  Not a green stem.  No.  An actual, honest to goodness flower.  And he needs it badly.

The week ended on Saturday with a sad memorial, For Mike, the husband of our sister Port Writers Alliance bloguera, Diane.  She and her family are in our thoughts and prayers.  She has our condolences.

The weekend also brought your bloguero the recognition that things aren’t over in Madison, Wisconsin.  No, not at all.  It’s not the end, it’s the beginning of movement.  And, of course, MSNBC got it all wrong.  Wisconsin: It’s Not Over Until It’s Over points out the Trad Media outlet’s folly of pessimism.  Stooges .

The devastation in Japan brought your bloguero to prayer.  There didn’t seem to be anything else that could be done.  Kyrie Eleison For Japan is Christian, Jewish and Buddhist, a prayer for those suffering in Japan in the wake of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear emergency.  Even if you don’t pray, please keep these people in your thoughts and do what you can to be of help to them.

Six Town Court Haikus, are as the title says, six haikus your bloguero wrote while wearing his lawyer clothes and sitting in an unnamed Town Court somewhere in Upstate New York, waiting for justice to be done.  For years and years, lawyers and politicians have tried to eliminate these small, formerly justice of the peace courts to no avail.  The New York Times has criticized them regularly.  Is there an outcry?  Crickets.

The night when Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate acted on their pronounced willingness to do the bidding of the Koch Brothers rather than the citizens and pulled a fast one on the electorate led your bloguero to write On Wisconsin!.  Your bloguero sees this maneuver as a temporary setback, and one that will lead to a real people’s movement.  Maybe your bloguero should thank the Wisconsin Republicans.  Not very forking likely.

Any time you can get an alligator and gerbil into the same poem, you’re doing ok.  Haiku For March does just that.

Your bloguero noted the passing of Moacyr Scliar, who invented the plot for Life of Pi, in which a person and a tiger are together alone in the same small boat, and Alberto Granado, who accompanied Che Guevara on his motorcycle trip.

And your bloguero reminded his six readers of that Saturday’s demonstration in Madison, Wisconsin in Solidarity With Wisconsin’s Workers.  At the time, your bloguero had no hint that Governor Koch-head had a plan to steal the cheese (and the workers’ right to bargain collectively) and would appear later in the week to be running the Wisconsin government as if it were a game of 3-card Monty.

And the week began with hope, the first sign that just maybe, Winter was on it’s way out. At Last: A Hint Of Spring noted the arrival of the first redwing blackbird.

Your bloguero also notes that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is supposed to be posted early Sunday morning.  Yes, he knows it’s still Saturday (again).  But your bloguero wants to go to the drum circle on Sunday morning and beat his brains out.  See you next week if the creek don’t rise on Sunday early.  No drum circle next weekend.  🙁

And what a weak week it was in Weequahic.  Also, in the Dream Antilles.  Your bloguero’s seasonal affective grouchiness (SAG) kicked into high gear as Old Man Winter continued to torture the inhabitants of the Northeast with inclemency and frigidity .  Meanwhile, the radio station was broadcasting the Mets from sunny Port Saint Lucie in Florida.  It did not help your bloguero’s disposition at all that Luis Castillo was playing second and Ollie Perez was on the mound.  These two guys, who should have been traded or fired at the end of last season, still get paid 8 figures to do nothing.  Your bloguero would be willing to do nothing for mid 6 figures, and he’ll negotiate.  You know where to send the offers.

The week ended with Bloguer@s: Play the Game Right, a meta discussion of recent flameouts at Port Writers Alliance blogs.  The post spares you the details but notes that most of the hostilities are provoked by uncontrolled ego and ego’s stepchild, defensiveness.  Your bloguero asks, “Can’t we play the game right?”

In  Obama: Get Our Your Comfortable Shoes you will find a video of President Obama on the campaign trail in 2007 telling workers in South Carolina how he’ll put shoe leather to the pavement and walk the pick line with them if they have to strike.  Right.   Get out your Guccis.  And Wisconsin?  No, he’s not going there.  Nope.  He’s not even going to give a sternly worded letter to the Governor.  Posts like this heighten the contradictions, as if they needed heightening.

The Times had an article explaining how books were going to be sold in odd locations like clothing stores.  Books And Non Books notes in passing that the “books” being sold aren’t literary gems, they’re non-books.  Put another way, the publishers are going to foist a lot of paper junk on shoppers in the vain hope of keeping themselves above water.  News like this makes your bloguero think about withholding the life preserver.

Duke Snider, RIP notes the passing of a childhood hero, Brooklyn Dodger outfielder Duke Snider.   Your bloguero didn’t think Snider was better than Mays or Mantle, the other iconic New York outfielders of the era, but he loved the Dodgers, and Duke was a part of that team.

Thank You For Supporting Wisconsin’s Workers thanks readers of The Dream Antilles for going to demonstrations on Solidarity Saturday and for buying pizza for Wisconsin’s demonstrators.

Your bloguero notes in passing that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is supposed to be posted early Sunday morning. Well, things happen.  The best laid plans of mice, etc.  See you next week if the creek don’t rise on Sunday early.

Today is Solidarity Saturday.  Your bloguero and thousands of others will brave the cold and head to Albany, New York,  and other cities across America for demonstrations in support of Wisconsin’s beleaguered public workers and their unions.  So the first  bird (in this case a phoenix, for America’s labor unions) is this: join me in Albany, New York today at high noon or in the zillions of other places where at the same time  progressives will apply shoe leather to pavement, lift every voice, link arms and stand up for public employees.  You can find the demonstration nearest you by following this link.  As Mother Jones said, “Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living.”  Your bloguero notes in passing the additional salubrious effect of exposure to cold winter air in battling cabin fever and inevitable Seasonal Affective Grumpiness (SAG).

The phoenix was your first bird.  The second bird (in this case almost a complete turkey):  the Dream Antilles Weekly Digest.  Your bloguero notes that this week was not the finest  at The Dream Antilles, but also, thank goodness, not its worst .   It was a  week dominated by concerns about events in  Wisconsin and never ending Winter.  Here’s what there was:

The week began much as it ends with Solidarity With Wisconsin’s Workers, complete with Pete Seeger and historical video, a recollection of the importance of unions public and private and a call to stand in solidarity with the workers in Wisconsin.

Haiku for a blustery, winter night with high wind and low, low, low prices temperatures.

Cuba’s Celebration Of Books: Can We Have One? notes the  delights of the Havana International Book Fair and wonders whether an event like that, focusing on the reader, wouldn’t be wonderful for New York City.  The Dream Antilles began as a Lit Blog.  Sometimes it actually finds its way back to its original topic.

In response to a New York Times piece prematurely hinting at  the demise of blogs and utterly clueless about the evolution of the Internet, your bloguero felt compelled to post I’m Nor Goin Nowhere, complete with Bob Dylan video and an analysis of why people migrate from platform to platform as the Internet evolves.

Your bloguero confesses it.  Your bloguero always aspired to be a philanthropist.  Alas, that has not happened yet, though, of course, hope for such things springs eternal.  Buying some pizza for the demonstrators was as close as your bloguero came this week to being a philanthropist.  Ian’s Pizza answers your bloguero’s telephone call.  The Governor answers the call of “Koch.”  Please contrast and compare.  The story of feeding the demonstrators and a call for others to buy pizza for those in Madison is in Feed The Wisconsin Demonstrators Pizza.  The success of this movement is noted in today’s New York Times

Annoyed that none of the major Democratic powers had visited the striking demonstrators in Madison, your bloguero issued an invitation to the President, Obama: Please Go To Wisconsin.  As I look out the frozen window here in preparation for today’s demo, I note in passing that Our Nation’s President has not responded to this clarion call for action.  Question for later: how not surprised is your bloguero?

Haiku about yet another approaching, forecasted snowstorm.  Yes, it did arrive.  Yes, there is more snow.  Columbia County, New York has had a snow cover for months.  Climate change has made this winter in your bloguero’s humble opinion the worst in decades.  More to come, he fears.

And you end up where you began, today is Solidarity Saturday.  Be There.  I hope we can all push back from the monitor and keyboard, pull on the appropriate clothing, and get out there.  After all, what else is there to do?

Your bloguero notes in passing that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is supposed to be posted early Sunday morning. Well, things happen.  The best laid plans of mice, etc.  Or as your bloguero’s great grandmother, an organizer of the ILGWU used to say, “Mann tracht; Gott lacht.” See you next week if the creek don’t rise on Sunday early.

Pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training, so the end of winter must be nearing.  Ojala! That’s good, because your bloguero has an acute case of seasonal affective grumpiness (SAG) that just won’t quit.  Tonight there is a high wind warning.  That means gusts of over 60 mph.  If Winter is going out to go out like a lamb, at the moment it’s acting like Rodan.  But enough about him and your bloguero, here’s what this week brought to read and look at:

Solidarity With Wisconsin’s Union Workers features a great historical video and Pete Seeger singing Solidarity Forever.  Normally, your bloguero would have cross posted this, so consider it a gift if you read this far.

Almost Spring Haiku.  Things started to melt, your bloguero was inspired. Briefly.

Futbol, Galeano, Mexico a story by Uruguayan genius Eduardo Galeano about football and Mexico and some context by your bloguero.

Hello Cruel World!, an invitation to blog readers who might be looking for a new place to hang out to visit Port Writers Alliance blogs.

Haiku  that wonder about what one tells oneself, about one’s inner voice.

Your bloguero notes in passing that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is supposed to be posted early Sunday morning. Well, things happen.  The best laid plans of mice, etc.  See you next week. if the creek don’t rise on Sunday early.  

Unlike Stupid Bowl 2010, an occasion on which your bloguero’s use of various intoxicating liquids led to an uncharacteristically  spectacular flame out and a gigantic, public crash, in which the biggest injury was self-inflicted embarrassment that would persist unabated for a full calendar year, Stupid Bowl 2011 was mild.  It ended in relative quiet and probity, and was quickly eclipsed by the excitement of AOL’s buying Hufflepuffle and, much more important, Egypt’s Televised Revolution.

As usual, your bloguero had no idea what the week would bring.  Self absorbed, he was thrilled that he would not spend the year until Stupid Bowl 2012 in penance and vain attempts to apologize for his unfathomable folly and excuse his bad behavior.  No.  He would be able to move on.  What a relief.  But he admits it: his having committed to writing this Digest did cause him some slight concern.  What, he asked, would happen if he couldn’t bring himself to write anything this week?  What if the writing muse were on vacation and the story warehouse were padlocked? Maybe he could avoid this potential problem be being abducted to someplace in the Caribbean  with coco palms and warm beaches and, best of all, lacking all Internet and/or electricity.  Alas and alack.  No such luck.  No space ships.  No armed kidnappers.  Not even an invitation to escape. Nada.

If you look at the last week in The Dream Antilles you will find:

A Haiku about snow.  Because of ice and sleet, my dog friend was finally able to walk on top of our deep snow cover.  A brief reflection on the canine world.

Huffpo Bought By AOL. The news that the beleaguered, dinosaur of dial up, AOL, bought Huffington Post and made the doyenne of coy self promotion, Ariana, even richer.  A $315,000,000 deal built at least in part on the backs of those who blogged and wrote for free, who were, of course, screwed in the deal.

Sorry, Ariana and Markos, No More Free Content For You.  I didn’t write anything at Hufflepuffle, but I was sure that when dailyKos was eventually sold to a group of investment bankers and venture capitalists-I think this is now likely– I wouldn’t be paid for all of the writing I posted there, that Markos would argue that I got the “exposure” I deserved and that nothing further not even a propina piquena was required.  So, though I think the GBCW genre has fallen on bad times since ErrinF penned her immortal screed, I waved my middle digit in the rear view mirror and rode away on a cloud indignation.  This was surprisingly easy.

Skewering Spiderman.  How often can you find a review that says this?  “Spider-Man” is not only the most expensive musical ever to hit Broadway; it may also rank among the worst.”  Ouch.

Brian Jacques, RIP.  A children’s author I really loved to read to my kids passed on.  In his stories good always triumphed.  He will be sorely missed, though I’m sure that for generations to come parents will enjoy reading his works to their kids.

Mubarak To The World: I Fart In Your General Direction.  No Nixonian adieu for the perennial tyrant.  No.  Instead, defiance and indignation even as he was secretly packing his bags and moving his money around getting ready to do the Mobutu.  

A Haiku about a subzero night sky.

A Haiku about Haiku.

And Now Algeria? wonders whether the demonstrations we saw on Saturday in Algiers and elsewhere are the starting bell for events like Tunisia and Egypt.

A Piece Of Internet History marks the end of dKos as we know it, and the transformation into what I think amouts to “Left Coast Facebook^TM.”  

This essay about what is on The Dream Antilles. It’s supposed to be a  weekly Sunday morning very early digest for the Writers Port Alliance. As you can see, today is Saturday.  I’m putting this up now, because I won’t be able to on Sunday. See you next week, if the creek don’t rise.  On Sunday early.