I think that’s it.
Switching the lights out here, maybe for good.

Nothing left here but dead words, anyway.

Go here, instead.

Or here…

Or here…

Or even here…

What is it with nativist nutbars and neo-Nazis? Anti-immigrant a-holes always pitch a fit when referred to as racists. Yet their knees turn to jelly for swastika-lickers, no matter how ancient or feeble the National Socialist.

Take 74-year-old Elton Hall. (Please, take him.) An Arizona organizer for the American Nazi Party back in the day, he’s now so radioactive that even Rusty Childress’ hate-group United for a Sovereign America pretends the geriatric goosestepper no longer exists. Nevertheless, the neurosurgeons at Patriots Border Alliance, a group of minutemen who broke free from the leadership of Minuteman Civil Defense Corps honcho Chris Simcox last year, have a pic on their Web site showing the crackpot Hitler-lover in a wheelchair, surrounded by fawning fans.

The header and caption for the image read, “PATRIOTS’ BORDER ALLIANCE HONORING ELTON HALL: In appreciation for your deactivated service, devotion, commitment to securing American borders and promoting THE RULE OF LAW.” Sniff. Gets you all teary-eyed, don’t it? All this affection for a dood who once bowed to ANP founder George Lincoln Rockwell, and who has no remorse for it, nor for his current icon-like status with kid skinheads.

Read whole article.

Winner of the Oral History Association’s 2007 Nonprint Format Award…..
A production of: The Northwest Women’s History Project

GOOD WORK SISTER! tells the stories of women shipyard workers of World War IIan eventful period in women’s economic and social history.
“In their OWN WORDS these women reveal the pride they took in their work and the loss they felt when they were once again relegated to women’s work at war’s end”
-Sherna Gluck, Director, Oral History Program, Dept of History,Co-Director, Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive,
California State University,Long Beach

“GOOD WORK SISTER! is impressively researched, packing an enormous amount of information into a short, lively presentation … an honest and complex picture of women’s wartime and post war experience…”
-Jesse Lemisch, Professor of History, Emeritus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Northwest Women’s History Project
PO Box 5692
Portland, Oregon 97228
1-866-574-7837
mail@goodworksister.org

This is taking place at the Clark County Historical Museum, which is located at 1511 Main Street, Vancouver WA, at 7pm on Thursday, May 1st.

This event is sponsored by the Northwest Women’s History Project.

For more information, visit www.goodworksister.org

I’m thinking about moving all this relative non-activity to Kill Ugly Radio.

I get about 60 times the traffic there vs here and don’t have a lot of time to attend to two blogs.
So, the few readers of this blog will have to read more about my radioactivities and music fans and friends will have to read my self-indulgent nitter-nutterings.

What do you think, dear readers?

This isn’t a Japanese recipe, per se, but rather something I make from time to time with a few Japanese condiments.
It’s loosely based on how I used to make Tamago sushi. It’s usually just an excuse to get rid of leftover cooked white rice. Here’s the rough list of ingredients:

• 2-3 eggs
• 1/2 cup of plain white rice, cooked
• 2-3 teaspoons of soy sauce, preferably Kikoman’s or Yamasa
• Some furikake seasoning to taste (about 4 - 5 dashes)
• about 2/3 cup of fried tofu, cubed (do beforehand)
• Green onion tops, about 6 inches

1. Soak tofu in soy sauce and furikake for about 20 minutes then remove and fry until brown and firm in separate skillet, then set aside.
2. Beat two to three eggs with a fork, mixing the soy sauce, furikake and rice together. It should be thick and thoroughly mixed, with no clumped up rice.
3. Preheat non-stick skillet (about 10 - 12 inches in dia.) at medium low, with a little butter. When hot, dump egg conglomeration onto pan. Let it flatten out, forming a circle.
4. Make sure that it isn’t going to stick and while becoming solid, dump tofu cubes onto one half of the circle. Thin-slice the onion tops on top of the tofu. I use a pair of scissors. Don’t you?
5. As soon as the omelet appears firm enough - yet still liquid on top -, fold the side without the tofu over onto the other side, forming the half circle omelet shape. Depending on how much egg-to-soy in the original mix, it should be pretty firm and not tear easily. It’s trial and error.
6. Dash a little of the leftover soy (from the tofu’s bath) on the top of the omelet, letting it soak in for a moment, then flip it over carefully. Repeat on this side and flip again, searing the soy into the omelet.
7. Remove from heat and enjoy! It tastes best with some Aka Miso soup.

That’s what I had for breakfast.

4.25.08

Wife’s birthday today.
Happy birthday, sweetie!

7:35am
At the Oregon Convention center for a training seminar. Really early as I had anticipated heavy Southbound traffic, which was not there.

8:15am
Breakfast at Denny’s, which has no WIFI. But they have grits on the menu, as an alternative side to the usual hashbrowns or oatmeal. The waitress didn’t ask me if I wanted any and I forgot to ask her.

8:50am
Arrived at the center and parked inside. How much will it be? My work will pay for it, hopefully. Also, no WIFI for attendees who don’t want to spend $9.95. This is a stupid move and bad sportsmanship. But I guess they have nothing to lose and the hapless salarymen and salarywomen that end up trapped here for hours will probably cough it up.

THis is a training seminar offered by Kelby Training and Adobe. Excellent classes despite the cattle call size. Sit up front and center or you will be lost. At last class, my friend George and I estimated over 700 attendees. This one may be smaller, due the relative obscurity of the offering. We’ll see, but I am also early enough to choose a prime seat.

I despise training seminars, for the most part. Some are an incredible waste of time and money. Some corporate, day-training seminars are an excuse for a gaggle of cube-mates to step out, dress up and talk shop. And talk they do. Through the entire class. One tablefull that I had the misfortune of sitting at had an entire group of clerical-type persons from a school, which - one would assume - they were all going to learn basic page layout for the school newsletter. But I doubt they learned much. They gossiped all session about so-and-so and you-know-who. I wondered if this was the same person. The instructor was visibly annoyed and - perhaps responding to the cue that one person at the table was physically separating himself from the group in order to hear her - had moved over to our table and gave her presentation from our immediate proximity, and would turn and present directly to us when another arising of nitter-nuttering erupted from the gaggle of office pals.
A real pro and I got a lot from the class, both in the concept advertised and in giving presentations to a potentially inattentive group. These aren’t quite like that, unless you choose to sit by a large group, this shouldn’t occur. We’ll see.

Wife and I talking about replacing our departed #1 cat. I think it must be a young female, or he will beat up on the two older females. I miss Scout. We had a rocky relationship. He was the man in the house before I showed up. He was a cranky shit most of the time. After he lost his leg (and got an excellent new stainless steel leg bone after no small amount of cash), he mellowed considerably. The last three years we had nearly counted him out more than once after he would catch some illness that seemed to nearly do him in before he bounced back unexpectedly. But he took yet another turn and then departed into the woods and it’s been over a week.

9:25am
Class about ready to start. They’re not letting us in until the last minute, which means there’ll be a rock concert-style dash for the good seats.
Lots of vendors selling snakeoil in the lobby. Lots of demos and interested parties. The Wacom Cintique is here again and I want one, even though they are more than a super computer. You can tell the graphics-type people from the non-graphics type people. Many are overweight and have a bluetooth attachment on their heads. Like their ear is being screwed by a cybernetic cockroach. Ponytails abound. The clerical, non graphic types look uptight and anxious.
Must charge my laptop battery at every chance. Found a comfy chair near an outlet and they at least don’t charge for that.
Movement. Must be showtime.

9:40am
Inside. All good seats taken on the inside isle. One was open, but would’ve meant sitting behind an enormous in height and girth-type man. They are playing Starship’s We Built This City over the PA, un-ironically. Horrible. Coffee weak and there are three sugar-substitutes and no sugar.
Hell will be like this.

9:51am
Our presenter is late. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that the class will go on later than five. I wonder what life is like for these touring presenters? Is it like a rockstar’s? Do they have interesting gripes about their tour rider? What does their tour rider look like? Do corporate seminar instructors have groupies?

I am on an outside aisle, towards front. No one wants to sit here, yet, so can claim a chair for my coat and shoulder bag. I need some kind of toting device. Something modular that I can take to the station with me and be light and mobile when I need to be.

Thinking about the trip. Need luggage. I have never needed or owned luggage before.
Need a new battery for my laptop.
Need a big rolling suitcase.
Need a ….
Trying to filter out a cellphone user over my left shoulder. It was inevitable. In fact, it rarely occurs much in these settings anymore. Just realised that I am very far from the presenter, yet right in front of one of the vast monitors that are on either side of him.
People right in front of me now. All three coworkers or otherwise acquainted. Great.
Strong perfume and BO.
Must really be showtime.

11:13am
First break. Class interesting and instructor engaging. Learned a few things even though I’m a long-time user. Hopefully I will remember and apply them and make them habits.

12:18pm
Lunch a bust
No grill or restaurant in the center, which is silly.
Even the japanese store across the street didn’t have the hot bento boxes they usually do.
All restaurants were too far to walk in a short amount of time. Ate a convenience store-type sandwich, which worked. Drank a weird Singapore-export beverage: Carrot/Orange juice. It tasted exactly like carrot orange juice with lots of sugar.
Plugin people did plugin demos during our lunch break to a quarter-filled room.
A late arrival to my row has made me sit with my knee to a table leg, whereas before I had room to move my legs about and even use the adjoining chairs to rest my feet on. Damn.
Tired. Don’t want to overdo the coffee thing, but need it. Sometime during the day we all ran out of lids, making table coffee drinking somewhat hazardous, with laptops, books, neighbors, etc…

2:00pm
Second half much more engaging, despite the Friday afternoon drop in energy. Learning a lot. In fact, learned how to solve some problems that have plagued me for years!
Yippee!

3:47pm
Laptop is scarcely portable anymore, due to its weak battery. Must walk to side of room and plug it into an outlet. I have it propped against the wall, waiting for juice.
Suck! Suck!

4:56pm
Rest of the class a blur of wonder and learning. Amazing. Off to sit in the afternoon traffic.

Oy vey….

At the cost of nearly $500 million, a Los Angeles-based company is “developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum.” The park “is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/24/baghdad-to-get-disneyland-style-amusement-park/

Found at Think Progress

Most of the mainstream media seem to have dropped any pretense of impartiality.
I listened to an NPR piece about the cease-fire talks in Israel and both guests were pro-Israel, American Enterprise Institute members, who gave no mention of the Palestinian people’s complaints.
To make matters worse, few Americans know who these frequently sourced or featured experts are or what their political, corporate or crypto-political affiliations are.
Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times on the Pentagon information clearance house and propaganda arm that’s responsible for what we ‘know’ about Iraq, torture and probably a good chunk of our foreign policy:

Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

Read more.

To my new friend.

It sucks going through a divorce. There’s nothing pleasant about it and it’s a tough row to hoe no matter how you slice it.
Bucking up and keeping a smile on your face when dealing with your ex-partner and keeping it together for the kids is the real tightrope act and doesn’t make any of it easier. In fact, it makes it so much bloody harder.

A little story.
I remember the first few weeks on my own. My little house was nearly empty. I let my ex take nearly everything. Not out of martyrdom but because she had the kids, I wanted them to have as normal a life as possible and I had the house (way too complicated to go into here).
I think I just had a couch, a little tv from boxes of stuff that had been in storage during our marriage. In those first bleak days, I remember turning my little tv up really loud to drown out the echoes of my kid’s voices that I heard when they weren’t around.
I turned their room into a little stuffed animal shrine in anticipation for their semi-weekly weekend stays. I assessed my material needs and slowly started to buy necessary items while licking my financial wounds. But it seemed like the emptiness was vast. I spent a lot of time out with friends before coming home late at night and turning the tv up loud to chase away the silence.

One day, I was rummaging through the storage items and ran across my ancient reel-to-reel recorder and a stack of tapes. I hadn’t thought about it in nearly a decade. I used to make audio tape collages and would experiment with sounds and tape manipulation. I had thought I had gotten rid of that stuff and also the desire to make audio art. Dads don’t do that kind of stuff, do they?
Out of boredom and curiosity, I spooled up one of the reels - the oldest looking one. After years of storage and neglect at my ex-inlaw’s storage room, the old tape machine didn’t seem to want to come to life again. It slowly came around as its vacuum tubes started glowing.

Suddenly, from the tape came a glorious noise that I thought had been lost nearly 10 years earlier. It was a bizarre, one-shot improvisational recording I had made with a guitar and digital delay device, played over the top of some audio from the tv. It was perfect and could never be duplicated in a million years, but over the ensuing years I thought it had been lost or accidentally recorded over. I used to lament the loss of that particular recording and subsequently quit doing audio art altogether. But here it was! It was music to my ears and filled the seemingly-cavernous empty room with gorgeous noise! I remember jumping around my living room with idiot-glee.
I found my lost self on a piece of oxidized 1/4″ tape.
I had reconnected with my past and remembered who I was.

From then on out, I knew everything was going to be alright.

You’re going to be alright, too.