Bouts Râmes

The first bout is up!

No Little Man Required

I just got off the toilet after spending a good half hour reading the story of the first handheld calculator -- entirely mechanical.

Sociobiology and Metaphor

Sociobiology isn't Science: it's Poetry.

Killing an important check

This could be the stink that gets me to hold my nose and vote for Kerry.

Windfall Profit

The plumber showed up punctualy, took out his finger-thin flashlight, and looked into the garbage disposal to see what had been jamming it up.

Um....

Did Yule let Rageboy take over her blog while she was somewhere else?

Canonical Proportions

I decided to go on a hunt for my Buddha nature.

Immortal Topics

I like to keep this blog as a place where sufferers of loss aren't chided for their materialism, but given solace for their pain.

Martyrdom 7: Christ and the Cross

In the original myth, Christ didn't die so that we might emulate his suffering: he suffered because we suffered.

Rotating Image Machine

You might have noticed (or not) that I have been playing the chameleon over on the right.

What 20th Century Poet Am I?

maria of alembic was too proud to show her picture which was that of the dreadnought Gertrude Stein.

The Poor and Rich

The poor are materialistic but the wealthy want power, not just to own objects but to own people, too.

Pugnare amamus

We love to fight. Fiona grabs Boadicea by the scruff, pulls her head up.

Dripping Cave

It's not much, just an undercut of a brief run that comes down from the neighborhood called "Top of the World".

For the Record

If you wish to reprint any poem, photograph or article from this site, please respect my copyright and ask me for permission

Posted by Joel at 12:13 AM | Read More

This could be NEAT

The spring could be a fine season for astronomy indeed.

Sociopath Sanctuary

Here's a campaign issue to throw in the face of Bush appointee John W. Ashcroft, who promised to enforce the laws as they were written. Here's something to demand of John Kerry.

Insert Trite Metaphor about a Corral Here

Tomorrow Mute Troubadour is coming by for the tour of the nation's Republican heartburnland.

Fiona Upstages the Freesias

This is a hazard I don't face when I go photographing wildflowers in Whiting.

From the Container Garden

This year, I planted Freesia in a rainbow which produced the blooms you see at the right.

Another Grammar Thing

Yes, Irene. We've heard the kvetching about our spelling reforms.

Truth and Beauty

I answer that they exist out there and they are products of our minds which take in fragments of the world and organize a picture.

A Grammar Thing

I was taught and I continue to believe -- against all the grammar books -- that the position of the period when you quote someone in the context of a longer sentence which did not begin with the quote belongs outside the quotation marks.

Temptation

I get to say all the naughty words around here. F*ck off.

Amending Arendt: Camp X-Ray Reveals Banal Evil

What "allegedly" happened in Camp X-Ray wasn't torture: it was sexual harassment, not unlike what Catherine McKinnon and others saw happening to women in the American workplace.

Dripping Cave Outing
From left to right: Bart, Donna, Diana (back), and, of course, Lynn. Went to Dripping Cave over the weekend...

Bad Words

F*ck. This topic's like an oily rag waiting for spontaneous combustion: the arguments are old, predictable, and sure to enflame.

Jesus of the Plastic Injection Molding Machine

Christ spoke of lilies not artificial flowers.

Paul Goodman Buried

A man who may have the most to say about our age and time is silenced by the modern marketplace that he criticized.

What is Going into the Notebooks

I've been writing a lot of poetry lately, a few concentrated lines taking the place of the prose that I can turn out page after page.

Anaphora

I am writing at my desk.

I am writing at my desk, pounding the keys of the keyboard till the acid-weakened faces erode under my fingertips.

I am writing at my desk to fill the box that says "Entry Body" because I abhor the naked space.

Dream

I rarely comment on dreams, but this one seems to tell a truth.

Lopadotmachoselachoga-
leokranioleipsanodrimhy-
potrimmatosilphioparao-
melitokatakechymenoki-
chlepikossyphophattope-
risteralektrynoptekephal-
liokigkiopeleioagolosi-
raiobaphetraganop-
terygon Anyone?

I can eat whatever I want so long as I control the portions.

War's Anniversary

I'm for remembering all the dead, American and Iraqi....no more soldier-hating presidents.

Dumpster Treasures

Much of what passes the eye in a cursory reading deserves a closer look: what the mind writes off as garbage may be worth a second look.

Search Function Implemented
You can now search the site! Scroll down the sitebar for the Google toolbar. (Thanks to Gary of TFS Reluctant...

Bouts Râmes Anyone?

The play went like this: someone made a list of rhymes and presented them to the others. These had a period of time to create a poem using those rhymes.

Martyrdom Series
I want to apologize to anyone who has been waiting for the next installment of my martyrdom series. I intend...

Duel

A red-tail hawk attempted to settle down atop one of the long-leafs. Two crows swirled about him, pecking.

Sex and Hair -- Mostly Hair

Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer is the first novel that I chose as my reward for finishing the last notebook.

I Showed You, Stu

I love surrounding myself with bric-a-brac despite my zennish poetry.

Rent-A-Coup

It's politics Tuesday and there is a single event that I want to call your attention to: the story behind the aborted Rent-A-Coup flight in Africa.

Suffering, Guilt, and an Ant Farm

The older I get, the more wary I become of self-help courses....

Our Boys in Green

They're strict here.

What about the Glass?

Whether the glass is half empty or half full, it's going to make a wishy washy noise when you shake it.

Scratching at the Silence

The thing that is slowing me down is filling the brown notebook to meet tonight's deadline.

Scourges by God?

The message out of the Bible and out of Science is that these things are just diseases.

Sleepy Hollow, Whiting Ranch Wilderness

I am an atheist when it comes to the existence of the lower pond.

Watch for this....
Coming here, live, at Pax Nortona, on Politics Tuesday Friday: A new quiz. The world premiere is due after 0:00...

How My Father Beat Me

I never lived with a man such as they show in movies.

From a Notebook

I'm with Wittgenstein on this: scientific philosophy looks at things, describes them.

Insert Trite Metaphor about a Corral Here

Here's the week's steaks and cow patties.

Moral Values Test

The BBC thinks I am a great person.

Sanity Quiz etc.

Care to compare?

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 17

Felis Concolor at Whiting Wilderness 4

On Tuesday, I went for a walk along the Sage Scrub Trail. There, preserved in the hardened mud along that mountain biker-eroded canyon, I saw a series of about ten tracks.

Self Portrait Series 1

Advertising this Site

I reciprocate.

Northern Lights

In summers, we can sometimes catch it in Maine, which is about the farthest north that I have been.

My Right Kidney

If you see me, don't feel sorry for me.

Perfection

I'm caught for a second by these words....And then I detect a pitfall: if perfection is dissatisfaction, where does happiness come in?

One Year for Bill
Bill of Prairie Point has been blogging for one year. These Matilja Poppies are in honor of this achievement, his...

Martyrdom 6: Catholic Martyrs, Attis, Pious Frauds, and BDSM

It was not for beauty that the early church fathers banned the damaged from celebrating the Mass; the prelates were more concerned about the barbarous lengths to which some interpreted scripture and pagan rites in which initiates altered themselves.

New Lexicons for the New Century

I received a shorter version of this list from John Lettiere via email.

Decluttering

Damn, I felt evil.

Pseudonyms

I reject this thinking as unethical and as a capitulation.

Mondrian Mash

Mondrian reminds me too much of the idle tiling of graph paper sheets I used to do when I was supposed to be doing my mathematics homework.

Nightfall

Slashing swatches of sky

the knees of scarlet embryos just before dusk

R.D.'s Jesus

Do not think of me as flesh, but as graven images

Father Forgive Them, They Forgot Their Lines

Jesus: [rolls eyes at camera] John could write gospel, but, you know, could he write dialogue?

Does God Hate Lobster?

Eat not of the Shrimp because it is loved by Your Creator.

Fetch

Is that joke too obscure? Did only the Wiccans get it?

Old Age Road Rage

I pulled up behind the creme-colored, old style, I'm-so-big-you-have-to-park-me-in-the-Great-Plains Cadillac at the corner of Aliso Creek and El Toro.

The International Protestant Conspiracy

Will someone please tell the Bush Administration Jews to get on the schtick?

Martydom 5: Vukovar, Guernica, and Hiroshima

I refused to take the side of any government, any army in a war.

A Week of Passion

Thanks to everyone for a good week of uninhibited and sincere blogging.

Toot toot!
(It's my Horn And I'll Do What I Want With It)

I'm beginning to think of the myth of Satan as a form of mind control and a free dispensation to excuse acts of violence as "temptations" when it is you doing them to others.

The Third is Real

All three of my cats are pacifists except when it comes to eating insects and destroying catnip toys.

Yelling at the Universe

Sometimes the only thing you can yell at is the Universe.

Whoops - It's No Name-Calling Week

No one told me about this!

Hannah Arendt on Eichmann

What mattered in the case of Eichmann is that he wanted to please his superiors.

Martyrdom: A Short Break and Wicked Thoughts

A couple of amusing thoughts that came to me while discussing this with my wife regarding the issue of the mythical "International Jewish Conspiracy".

Daddy and One of His Girls

Fiona and Boadicea will be a year old this month.

Machine Politics in Orange

They sneaked in electronic voting in Orange County. When we went to the polls, the luminescent screens in their blue boxes were there.

Keyboard Mystery

This is a picture of the left side of our keyboard. The right side doesn't have the same nuclear meltdown look as the left.

Martyrdom 4: The Soot in the Fields

To thwart them, we must tell the whole truth. Sixteen million people died in the Holocaust: Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, and "defectives".

Ahnold's Screwy Financial Scheme

Go ahead, Ahnold. Terminate the Debt. Don't stretch it out into one sequel after another.

Darken Down?

I think almost everyone who stands up against funny-boy-bullies gets told to "lighten up" at one time or another.

Martyrdom 3: Esprit de Corps

Generals such as Patton like to think that they are the high priests of vast congregations called "armies", but from what I have heard and read from grunts the spiritual community is more akin to that of Quakers than to the Vatican or Shinto.

Passionate about Passion

How often is it that you get to see people all around being passionate about a myth?

Old Shoes

I leave my shoes in strange places.