Werner Herzog

A true original. This man has a clear view on the insane little man dancing around in our collective unconscious...

Wernerherzog.com

The best daily news program. Bar none.

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Dr. Martin Luther King & Malcom X

"Dr. King wants the same thing I want. Freedom." ~ Malcom X

Malcom X

Malcom X

Quotes:

"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole."

"We, the Black masses, don't want these leaders who seek our support coming to us representing a certain political party. They must come to us today as Black Leaders representing the welfare of Black people. We won't follow any leader today who comes on the basis of political party. Both parties (Democrat and Republican) are controlled by the same people who have abused our rights, and who have deceived us with false promises every time an election rolls around."

"My alma mater was books, a good library.... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity."

"History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals."

"While I was traveling, I had a chance to speak in Cairo, or rather Alexandria, with President [Gamal Abdel-]Nasser for about an hour and a half. He's a very brilliant man. And I can see why they're so afraid of him, and they are afraid of him -- they know he can cut off their oil. And actually the only thing power respects is power."

"One of the shrewd ways that they use the press to project us in the eye or image of a criminal: they take statistics. And with the press they feed these statistics to the public, primarily the white public. Because there are some well-meaning persons in the white public as well as bad-meaning persons in the white public. And whatever the government is going to do, it always wants the public on its side, whether it's the local government, state government, federal government. So they use the press to create images. And at the local level, they'll create an image by feeding statistics to the press -- through the press showing the high crime rate in the Negro community. As soon as this high crime rate is emphasized through the press, then people begin to look upon the Negro community as a community of criminals.

And then any Negro in the community can be stopped in the street. "Put your hands up," and they pat you down. You might be a doctor, a lawyer, a preacher, or some other kind of Uncle Tom. But despite your professional standing, you'll find that you're the same victim as the man who's in the alley. Just because you're Black and you live in a Black community, which has been projected as a community of criminals. This is done. And once the public accepts this image also, it paves the way for a police-state type of activity in the Negro community. They can use any kind of brutal methods to suppress Blacks because "they're criminals anyway." And what has given this image? The press again, by letting the power structure or the racist element in the power structure use them in that way."

"They use the press. That doesn't mean that all reporters are bad. Some of them are good… I suppose. But you can take their collective approach to any problem and see that they can always agree when it gets to you and me."



links
Official Malcom X website
Excellent Site w/many documents and audio clips
MalcomX.org

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 - April 23, 1850)

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Further biographical information and links

Took this last night.

Non-lethal?

This is the kind of weaponry they use on peaceful protesters. And since the protest in Miami, they seem to think tasers are just fine too. The cynical violence profiteers are responsible for a massive jump in the growth of Taser International Inc. in the last year. But back to the most recent murder perpetrated by those who pledge to serve and protect:

Moments after joy, a tragedy

By Thomas Farragher and Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff | October 23, 2004

A Fenway Park celebration snuffed out by the deadly pop of pepper-powder-filled pellets, the wail of an ambulance siren, and angry epithets hurled at police had begun in far more familiar fashion.

Before the glass shattered, the pepper-powder guns fired, and a young woman lay mortally wounded next to Boston's baseball cathedral, the scene around Kenmore Square had followed the boisterous but predictable script, complete with drunken foolishness and petty vandalism that has come to be expected after titanic sporting triumphs.

In just an hour, what began as a raucous but mostly peaceful celebration of the Red Sox vanquishing their great rivals, the New York Yankees, had morphed into a clash between police and a small minority of bottle-throwing hooligans on Lansdowne Street.

In a muzzle flash, 21-year-old Victoria Snelgrove was shot by police with a weapon that is supposed to be nonlethal, a pepper-powder projectile entering her eye socket in what appeared to be a tragic fluke.

The gathering began just after midnight, minutes after the game ended, when thunderous cheers erupted from dormitories and living rooms within walking distance of the ballpark. A flood of young fans began to converge on Kenmore Square.

"Dude, my whole street is filled with college students!" one young man yelled into a cellphone.

Chastened by their inability to control a riot that broke out in the Fenway after the Patriots won the Super Bowl last February, police had twice as many officers on the street compared with the Super Bowl. More than 300 police officers spread out around Fenway Park and Kenmore Square.

Dominicans ran through the streets waving their national flag, screaming, "Papi! Papi!" in homage to Sox slugger David Ortiz.

With the bright lights of television cameras on them, fans shouted a well-worn anti-Yankee epithet. Young men tore off their shirts. Young women climbed atop the shoulders of friends.

Within minutes, the crowd multiplied. Hundreds grew to thousands, then tens of thousands.

As people laughed, danced, cheered, and hugged on Lansdowne Street, known for its bars and nightclubs, others began to clamber on the steel superstructure beneath Fenway's Green Monster seats.

By now it was after 1 a.m. Police, who until then had been surveying the crowd and keeping it from storefronts, moved in. The mood, eyewitnesses said, grew increasingly tense.

A young man fell from the wall, about 12 feet onto his back. Panicked friends used their cellphones to call for medical help.

According to several eyewitnesses and Globe reporters who surveyed the scene, police watched steely-eyed as others scaled the wall. Some men and women, who had climbed nearly to the top, smoked cigarettes. Other celebrants stood on the steel supports and waved their arms and led the crowd in chants.

When too many students climbed onto the awning of one building on the corner of Brookline Avenue and Lansdowne Street, a special operations officer climbed on top of a police vehicle.

He screamed at them to get down. Most complied quickly.

Over the next half-hour, the situation deteriorated further. Some fans in the crowd made the celebration seem more like an unruly mob. The smell of burning embers and anarchy was in the air.

"The police can't do anything!" one young man boasted to another as they raced down the street.

Some of the rioters began hurling objects at police. A sergeant, Charlie O'Neill, got hit in the face with a bottle that broke his nose.

At the command center, thanks to a small camera mounted on a pole on top of Fenway Park, Claiborne and other commanders could see the mayhem that had broken out on Lansdowne Street. It was decided that police had to do more than just make a show of force.

At about 1:15 a.m., about a dozen Boston Police tactical squad members walked from Brookline Avenue onto Lansdowne Street. All were wearing riot helmets, and some were carrying guns that fire pepper-powder rounds, mingling with the crowd at Gate E. The air gun-toting officers, known in police parlance as grenadiers, began firing pepper-powder projectiles at those on the Green Monster, trying to force them down. The discharge of the air-compression guns, similar to paintball guns, sounded like firecrackers: Pop, pop, pop!

Kent Anderson, 18, an Emerson College freshman from Kensington, Md., said he telephoned his father in Maryland and held up his cellphone so he could hear the raucous celebration.

"And then I looked up and I saw about 10 cops," he said. "They jogged over and opened fire on the kids on the [outside of the Green Monster] wall."

Young fans spilled onto the sidewalk. People began to scream.

Sean Cronin of Concord, a 20-year-old student at Berklee College of Music, said the shots into the crowd came without warning. "No one was taunting the police until they began shooting," he said.

Victoria Snelgrove stood nearby, with a high school girlfriend.

By now, bottles were being thrown at the police. According to several eyewitnesses, one crashed near a mounted officer, startling his horse. Moments later, an officer turned into a crowd, leveled his weapon and fired two rounds in rapid succession, according to Leif Anderson, 25, of East Boston, who said he saw the shots fired.

Stunned, people fled. "A girl was shot!" one yelled. "Blood is everywhere! She's not moving!"

Cronin said he angrily approached the police. "I was yelling, 'What are you doing?' I said, 'Why are you shooting into a crowd? No one's being violent.' There were some chants of 'don't shoot us!' and '[expletive] the police!' I saw one guy get right in a cop's face, saying, 'You shot her. What are you going to do, shoot the rest of us? The cop pushed him and told him to shut up."

Anderson said one man, who lifted up his shirt to reveal a welt on his stomach that he said came from the police force, began to lead others in a chant.

"You shot a girl!" they yelled at the officers. "You shot a girl!"

The officers on horseback moved in, surrounding Snelgrove, who now lay on the sidewalk. An officer in a dress shirt and tie was screaming for the crowd to move away. Keep moving, he told them, or face arrest.

At first, bystanders seemed stunned, melting away, and she lay alone for a few moments. Then a young woman knelt down and felt her neck for a pulse. The woman held her hand.

Boston Police Deputy Superintendent Robert E. O'Toole, the commander of the department's Special Operations unit, stood on the sidewalk, yelling orders. Police formed a cordon so that an ambulance could come to the curbside.

Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole, who is not related to Robert O'Toole, was informed of the shooting and rushed to the scene. As calm was restored, Kathleen O'Toole talked with Mayor Thomas M. Menino by phone. For O'Toole, the shooting of Snelgrove was replete with tragic irony. O'Toole got the job as commissioner after her predecessor was judged to have been woefully unprepared for the Super Bowl riot. Now, despite all the planning, a woman lay dying.

At 12:50 p.m. Thursday, Snelgrove was pronounced dead at Brigham and Women's Hospital. A short time later, Kathleen O'Toole was informed of her death.

Aching with both exhaustion and sadness, she turned to an aide, and spoke not just as the police commissioner of Boston, but as a mother.

"I have to go see her parents," she said.

David Abel and Suzanne Smalley of the Globe staff and Globe correspondents Heather Allen and Brendan McCarthy contributed to this report.Thomas Farragher can be reached at farragher@globe.com. Kevin Cullen can be reached at cullen@globe.com
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Oregon coast

Glen Eden sunset

au cœur du XVIe arrondissement

A pigeon follows me, La vache qui rit...

Bob Marley

Soul Rebel

Insp(I)ration.

Another person I've listened to from the time I was a child. I have to thank my dad (and his English friends who had a badass reggae collection) for turning me on to a music that is as close to me as the blood in my veins.

From the roots to the shoots. Big ups!

Bob Dylan

In the fast lane

The Man. The Myth. The Legend.

I used to say: "everybody wants to be Bob Dylan."
OK, maybe not everybody. But look at the thousands of supremely talented people who count him as an influence -- let alone the hundreds of millions of untalented people like me who have been entertained (and at times sustained) by his music.
My mother and father made sure to play lots of Bob to me while i was in the womb, and i've been listening ever since...

Thelonius Sphere Monk

10/10/1917 - 2/17/92

I like to call him Master of Time. The architecture of his compositions is at the same time ornate and spare. Heart and Soul, a great overflowing creative consciousness funneled through the logic of a delicate mind. Just listen.

To learn more and to see a great documentary, check out Straight No Chaser.

Stephen Crane

He didn't call them poems, he called them "lines". Please have a look, and by all means, call them what you will...

I
Black riders came from the sea.
There was clang and clang of spear and shield,
And clash and clash of hoof and heel,
Wild shouts and the wave of hair
In the rush upon the wind:
Thus the ride of sin.

III
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter--bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

IV
Yes, I have a thousand tongues,
And nine and ninety-nine lie.
Though I strive to use the one,
It will make no melody at my will,
But is dead in my mouth.

V
Once there came a man
Who said,
"Range me all men of the world in rows."
And instantly
There was terrific clamour among the people
Against being ranged in rows.
There was a loud quarrel, world-wide.
It endured for ages;
And blood was shed
By those who would not stand in rows,
And by those who pined to stand in rows.
Eventually, the man went to death, weeping.
And those who stayed in bloody scuffle
Knew not the great simplicity.

VIII
I looked here;
I looked there;
Nowhere could I see my love.
And--this time--
She was in my heart.
Truly, then, I have no complaint,
For though she be fair and fairer,
She is none so fair as she
In my heart.

IX
I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
And carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, "Comrade! Brother!"

XI
In a lonely place,
I encountered a sage
Who sat, all still,
Regarding a newspaper.
He accosted me:
"Sir, what is this?"
Then I saw that I was greater,
Aye, greater than this sage.
I answered him at once,
"Old, old man, it is the wisdom of the age."
The sage looked upon me with admiration.

XIII
If there is a witness to my little life,
To my tiny throes and struggles,
He sees a fool;
And it is not fine for gods to menace fools.

XXIV
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never -- "

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

XXVIII
"Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a rock, a mighty fortress;
Often have I been to it,
Even to its highest tower,
From whence the world looks black."

"Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom;
Long have I pursued it,
But never have I touched
The hem of its garment."

And I believed the second traveller;
For truth was to me
A breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom,
And never had I touched
The hem of its garment.

XXIX
Behold, from the land of the farther suns
I returned.
And I was in a reptile-swarming place,
Peopled, otherwise, with grimaces,
Shrouded above in black impenetrableness.
I shrank, loathing,
Sick with it.
And I said to him,
"What is this?"
He made answer slowly,
"Spirit, this is a world;
This was your home."

XXX
Supposing that I should have the courage
To let a red sword of virtue
Plunge into my heart,
Letting to the weeds of the ground
My sinful blood,
What can you offer me?
A gardened castle?
A flowery kingdom?

What? A hope?
Then hence with your red sword of virtue.

XXXII
Two or three angels
Came near to the earth.
They saw a fat church.
Little black streams of people
Came and went in continually.
And the angels were puzzled
To know why the people went thus,
And why they stayed so long within.

XXXV
A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it --
It was clay.

Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.

XLVI
Many red devils ran from my heart
And out upon the page,
They were so tiny
The pen could mash them.
And many struggled in the ink.
It was strange
To write in this red muck
Of things from my heart.

XLVII
"Think as I think," said a man,
"Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad."

And after I had thought of it,
I said, "I will, then, be a toad."

XLVIII
Once there was a man --
Oh, so wise!
In all drink
He detected the bitter,
And in all touch
He found the sting.
At last he cried thus:
"There is nothing --
No life,
No joy,
No pain --
There is nothing save opinion,
And opinion be damned."

L
You say you are holy,
And that
Because I have not seen you sin.
Aye, but there are those
Who see you sin, my friend.

LI
A man went before a strange God --
The God of many men, sadly wise.
And the deity thundered loudly,
Fat with rage, and puffing.
"Kneel, mortal, and cringe
And grovel and do homage
To My Particularly Sublime Majesty."

The man fled.

Then the man went to another God --
The God of his inner thoughts.
And this one looked at him
With soft eyes
Lit with infinite comprehension,
And said, "My poor child!"

LII
Why do you strive for greatness, fool?
Go pluck a bough and wear it.
It is as sufficing.

My Lord, there are certain barbarians
Who tilt their noses
As if the stars were flowers,
And Thy servant is lost among their shoe-buckles.
Fain would I have mine eyes even with their eyes.

Fool, go pluck a bough and wear it.

Groucho Marx

Quotes from the master:

I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.

Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Room service? Send up a larger room.

Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?

Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.

He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.

A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

Ice Water? Get some Onions - that'll make your eyes water!

You know I could rent you out as a decoy for duck hunters?

You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it.

A man's only as old as the woman he feels.

Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?

Why, I'd horse-whip you if I had a horse.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.

If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you.

I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

It is better to have loft and lost than to never have loft at all.

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.

Either he's dead or my watch has stopped.

Remember men, we're fighting for this woman's honour; which is probably more than she ever did.

Women should be obscene and not heard.

Time wounds all heels.

She got her looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon.

Why was I with her? She reminds me of you. In fact, she reminds me more of you than you do!

Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.

As soon as I get through with you, you'll have a clear case for divorce and so will my wife.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

I don't have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They're upstairs in my socks.

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

Kaimana Beach

Kaimana beach. AKA Sans Souci. This is the beach I hit on a regular basis to see friends and swim. Ah, but all is not well at the last "local" beach left town-side. Read all about it at www.savekaimanabeach.org
 

E Komo Mai

Aloha.
Thanks for stopping by. As you can see, I've decided to add my cyber voice to this thing we call blog. And i've decided to call this space 'ike pono, which, in Hawaiian, means: to see clearly. Let the games begin...