http://selvesandothers.org/ en SPIP - www.spip.net http://oxtogrind.org/archive/200 2007-03-05T08:47:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p>Dedicated to R.H.</p> <p><i>“Honeybees have evolved an extraordinary form of communication known as the ‘waggle' dance. It is highly symbolic, separated as it is in both time and space from the activity it grew out of (discovery a nectar source) and the activity it will spur on (getting other bees to go to that nectar source).” — The author's buddy from NOVA</i><br /></p> <p><i>“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years left to live.” — Albert Einstein</i></p> <p>I decided to leave drafts of (Apoidea-related) cute observations in “My Documents” (under the title <i>Left for Dead</i>, which won out over both <i>To Buzz or Not Two Buzzes?</i> and <i>The Departed: From Bee Whirl to Hollywood</i>). Ditto for my detailed O(h)Scar notes.</p> <p>Now to <i>minor matters</i>, as O. Wilde would say: <strong>There's mass suicide going on in the bee world</strong>.</p> <p>A mysterious ailment known as <i>hive collapse</i>, also referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder, is causing agricultural honeybees to abandon their hives…and disappear. Nationwide. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/199 2007-02-20T00:48:26Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p>“The population of Malawi 40 years ago was small and sustainable. None of us Peace Corps volunteers there at that time thought in terms of rescuing the country but only of helping to improve it. Now Malawi can't feed itself; it's one of the many countries that people wish to flee, renowned for being hopeless, unustly publicized as an enormous orphanage of desperate tots, needing to be saved, devoid of pride, lost without us. The notion that a pop singer (back then it would have been Elvis) would breeze through and scoop up a child in a condescending gesture of rescue was unthinkable then.” — Paul Theroux</p> <p>“Most reviewers of Theroux's work –even many who praise him excessively– seem to me to not have actually read his words in full, with careful attention. He is, arguably, the most underappreciated highly popular author in history.” — The author's neighbor</p> <p>More people. More problems. More attempts to do good. More need to be singled out as important. More distance from both The Land and The Mystery.</p> <p>Rare that I would ask readers to run through something from commondreams.org, BUT Paul Theroux's 2007 year-end op-ed piece, originally published in the International Herald Tribune (and posted in <a href='http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0102-63.htm' class='spip_out'>http://www.commondreams.org/views06...</a> by the impotently fulminating folks at that middle-of-the road monstrosity) should be digested at this juncture. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/198 2007-01-23T19:10:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p>I don't remember who I was going to see in Martha's Vineyard, but I had to hitchhike once I got off of the ferry to see the too-wealthy young sweetie. Or couple. I do remember that it was around the mid-sixties.</p> <p>Art Buchwald picked me up in a Volks Bug. I didn't know who he was —even though I was quite old enough to, and —considering my professional goal at the time— sure as hell should have.</p> <p>Noticed today, in an AP obit (<a href='http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070118/ap_on_en_ot/obit_Buchwald' class='spip_out'>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070118...</a>), that he had had a serious bout with depression in ‘63. Seems like there's a parallel there with what's plaguing activists today. “You do get over it, and you get over it a better person,” he once said of the illness. Good for him. I don't know about that, but I do have a recommendation for down-and-almost-out activists. To wit, the point of this piece. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/197 2007-01-16T21:02:51Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p>Me and Marcel (for a reason, not <i>Marcel and I</i>) got off of 101 at the University Avenue exit, and our stomachs turned as The Oxmen edged past a spanking new Ikea outlet, into East Palo Alto, where nothing Swedish survives, but where you can smell Stanford…it's so near…yet so far.</p> <p>We were early, and that was a good thing ‘cause I had a lot of difficulty finding Youth United for Community Action. I hadn't taken the address with me, so although we were on Clarke Street at 2:20…I didn't pull up to the appointment with Annie until 3:00 (on the nose!) at # 2135.</p> <p>During the forty minutes that I spent in East Palo Alto once I passed the local Ikea/McDonald's vortex, I experienced a whole lot. YUCA was supposed to be situated right around the corner from Bay, as I understood it. But…it was down quite a ways. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/196 2007-01-12T14:08:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p>Oh, she's dead already?</p> <p>Good. (1)</p> <p>What about him? See this piece, written before 9/11:</p> <p><a href='http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=116' class='spip_out'>http://www.corpwatch.org/article.ph...</a>. (2)</p> <p>Or read Janine Roberts' GLITTER AND GREED: THE SECRET WORLD OF THE DIAMOND CARTEL. Or <i>mine</i> <a href='http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Company/diamonds1.htm' class='spip_out'>http://www.minesandcommunities.org/...</a>.</p> <p>Omigosh, it's such an abomination…what Oprah did in interviewing people associated with the recent Leonardo DiCaprio <i>Blood Diamonds</i> flick, serving as an apologist for the Butchers of Africa…whitewashing whilst serving up misinformation/disinformation. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/195 2007-01-10T00:20:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p>“…all dark people who are a problem disappear….”</p> <p>A local San Jose, California newspaper published a piece with the same title as what I have here…without the question mark. In fact, it is no secret. The secret has been discussed openly for quite some time.</p> <p>High Tech's dirty laundry –environmental racism of the worst sort– has been plaguing East Palo Alto residents (located not very far from pristine Stanford) in the form of Romic Environmental Technologies' hazardous waste recycling facility… for sixteen years, the last eleven with only a provisional permit…in spite of OSHA violations plus. Or should I say PLUS? (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/194 2007-01-07T14:10:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p><i>“All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.”</i></p> <p><i>–Joey Conrad</i></p> <p>I've gotten into more trouble shoplifting as a teenager than many congressman have gotten into committing felonies.</p> <p>Congress has constituted a retirement system for itself that includes pension and 401(k)-style plans, whose payments are far more generous than what similarly salaried workers in the private sector typically receive. Most taxpayers are surprised to learn that no Member of Congress is required to forfeit a pension unless convicted of crimes related to treason and espionage. As a result, over the past 25 years at least 20 lawmakers guilty of other serious offenses have enjoyed Congressional retirement payments. This needs to stop. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/193 2007-01-05T18:14:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p><strong>I don't see The Peanut Farmer on his knees begging forgiveness. Do you? Did I miss something?</strong></p> <p>“People ask what they can do aside from complain, feebly protest and analyze? They can start out by really calling a spade a spade…and see where that leads them. The Peanut Farmer did not change the national language of Nicaragua, did not formally institute slavery, or plan to annex the country to the American South. Like Tennessean William Walker. No, he did worse. Now what does that tell you about what we have to do?” — from a San Jose, California radio call-in show</p> <p>I don't see Mr. Carter on his knees begging forgiveness. Do you? Did I miss something?</p> <p>Yes, there is a lot of reason to praise The Obviously Praiseworthy, like Jimmy Carter's “support” of Palestinian efforts. BUT… the vast majority of left-leaning citizens are embracing the notion that we owe a debt to the Ex-Prez for “long hidden…vital truths.”</p> <p>NO. The “support” vis-à-vis publication of his recent release is a good thing. But <i>debt owed</i>, NO! (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/192 2007-01-04T10:21:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p><strong>Sometimes metaphors work. Sometimes they don't.</strong></p> <p>When Princess Di <i>worked the landmine</i> abomination for the press she was –knowingly or not– addressing the horror of Angolan politics simultaneously. They've always gone together.</p> <p>Just like Gerald Ford and The Horror of Angola. Though you'd never know it to read Alexander Cockburn's praise of the <i>recently-passed</i> on president.</p> <p>“Kissinger was part of the furniture when Ford took over,” explains AC…as he enthusiastically endorses Gerald as Our Greatest President, serving simultaneously as a shameless apologist for Crimes Against Humanity as per Ford. Like an air conditioner turned on way too high, but with a stink lingering. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/191 2006-12-31T10:44:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p><strong>Forget Global Warming. We are the ones primarily responsible for Global Heating. We are the worst.</strong></p> <p>On the 27th of December the too-well-read Counterpunch Co-Head Honcho, Alexander Cockburn, posted an obituary of sorts respecting Gerald Ford. I've reproduced it below for your displeasure…just in case you have an ounce of sense in the left side of your brain.</p> <p>Talking about how Ford's tranquil hand was relaxing for the nation after “the hectic fevers of the Nixon years” is merely absurd, compounding the ignorant myth that the country would've done worse if Nixon were put through the arduous process of official (severe) punishment. That “the country” needed calming down. That Ford's gesture wasn't self-serving. Etc. BUT BUT BUT… his comment about Ford's contribution vis-a-vis East Timor is both disgusting and instructive (in terms of how worthless CPunch's Left is, how The Left has a Cleft Palate that'll never heal). (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/190 2006-12-20T12:52:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p><i>Original title: ROSEBUSH Now Playing</i></p> <p>Of course, Sean Penn made a good speech upon receiving the 2006 Creative Coalition Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award on December 18th. It was so admirable that Counterpunch posted it on December 19th. You can read it at <a href='http://www.counterpunch.org/penn12192006.html' class='spip_out'>http://www.counterpunch.org/penn12192006.html</a> and then get back to me here. I think that's the best approach.</p> <p>One of my favorite lines is his one about the original title for “Start the Revolution Without Me”…from which he derives the title of the speech (”Georgie, There's a Crowd Downstairs”). You'll see, it leads to all sorts of goodies within the text. A text which has a basic message which is difficult to argue with, content which no one in his right mind and heart in the best of all possible places would ever consider questioning.</p> <p>That's all to praise Mr. Penn, which he most certainly deserves.</p> <p>HOWEVER, let's get down to the fact that those SP would bring down…bring downstairs so that the crowd could have their way with them…are not going to be impacted negatively (the way in which he wants) either by the speech itself or by its contribution to the cumulative criticism of Bush & Co. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/189 2006-12-18T15:13:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p><strong>Too many activists are going down that road, climbing that mountain.</strong></p> <p>O'Toole collected his money, having guessed correctly who the first Mt. Hood-identified-casualty would be. That's how gross the gambling can be in the UK. Londoners are merciless with their wagers.</p> <p>But if you think such activity is an abomination –and it is– you should take a look at the widows of recent Oregonian snowstorm/adventure deaths.</p> <p>One in particular comes to mind. That'd be the Kim gal, Katie. Raising money for her? Grieving for her more than others? (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/188 2006-11-24T15:18:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p>On November 17th, the 149th anniversary of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's first foray into writing the first draft of his Gettysburg address, I spoke to someone who had walked out of Michael (“Call me less racist than Mel, please”) Richards' performance at L.A.'s Laugh Factory. He was furious, but instructive.</p> <p>Turns out that the angry “fan” had had irritating contact with the ex-Seinfeld star previously, following the recording of the last episode of the failed Michael Richards Show. It came in the form of an off-the-record interview. “Kramer” was feeling vulnerable, and apparently his infamous “passion” got the best of him (once again). Below is an excerpt from the interviewer's notes.</p> <p>Interviewer: You say that the term “lynching” has always been somewhat ambiguous?</p> <p>MR: Yah, yah, first of all, those who were “victimized” were mostly vagrants or lowlifes. It's like I was saying about the people dying from AIDS in Africa. (pause) C'mon, the disease is an exceptionally expensive condition to care for and treat. You can't hardly help but conclude that the more rapidly those people living with HIV in the so-called developing world become sick and die, the more “cost-effective” the response to the epidemic would be.</p> <p>Seems as if Michael's really rowing the racist boat home here again. If we were all living in the fourteenth century…it wouldn't be hard to see him believing that syphilis as a way to clear the decks and start the development process all over again.</p> <p>But the question shouldn't center on whether or not MR is a racist. Or whether or not he's a sick individual. Nor should there be any discussion concerning the information above, the veracity of the reportage. He shouldn't be in the spotlight at all now. Nor should the ignorant, devious owners of the club…or the fatuous responses of colleagues, celebrities, et. al. The focus should be on us. Or at least on the members of the audience at the Laugh Factory who laughed, stayed or…merely walked out on the performance.</p> <p>First things first.</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/187 2006-10-30T21:08:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p>On the road to “revolution” in the Russian theatre, radical change on the streets in Cuba, and the like elsewhere, we find a common denominator. Extrapolate on what I offer up below, if you will.</p> <p>“I can't say, even approximately, at what moment I <i>stopped reasoning</i> and acquired something like faith, because the road was quite long and there was a lot of turning back.”</p> <p>Ernesto Che Guevara said something like that in ‘54. The italics are mine.</p> <p>The obligation is yours –to yourself and others (in that order, perhaps)– to stop being run by reason.</p> <p>There would be no Che, no Chekhov without that faith…which cannot be born in a room ruled by geometry.</p> <p>No purges, no poetry.</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a> http://oxtogrind.org/archive/186 2006-10-03T20:23:00Z text/html en Richard Oxman <p>“I sometimes feel now it is just possible that, setting off on his journeys, he was not looking for something so much as running away from something.” - V. Nabokov, <i>The Gift</i></p> <p>“At the time of this writing, when ecological themes and the ‘rape of the landscape' obsess us, <i>The Cherry Orchard</i> has taken on new life.” - Donald Rayfield, <i>The Cherry Orchard: Catastrophe and Comedy</i></p> <p>For anything related to A.E. Housman (”Loveliest of trees, the cherry now” and more from <i>A Shropshire Lad</i> and elsewhere) , see Tom Stoppard's <i>The Invention of Love</i>. For most of what's worthwhile about my great grandfather Anton Chekhov see Queen Mary's (University of London's) Donald Rayfield...or me.</p> <p>My specialty respecting all of the above would be the politics of the famous dudes and their dramatic art. But let's get personal for now, shall we? (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.oxtogrind.org/" rel="directory">Ox to Grind</a>