Trying to be a poet — a writer — is pretty farking lonely. It’s dull. It’s really hard work. That’s why I like blogging so much — ostensibly. You get to switch windows for a minute now and then and get a little feedback, some human interaction. You post something, and check for comments on the things you posted yesterday, or whatever. Like checking little cyber-crab traps.

My traps keep coming up mostly empty. So it goes. No more sailing around, wondering whether I’ve got crabs. I’ll be kicking back on the pier, having a tuna sandwich and tossing the crusts to the gulls.

I guess this incipient trademark violation case falls under the heading of some things just aren’t worth fighting over.

Link

Afraid of clowns? Might was well face it here.

Thanks to Pete’s photoblog.

You guys gotta read this. Seriously. Tom Daschle speaks out on the Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill witch hunts, “the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity as a deep cover CIA agent,” and the Abuse of Government Power.

“This is no way to run a government.

The White House and its supporters should not be using the power of government to try to conceal facts from the American people or to reshape history in an effort to portray themselves in the best light.”

I’m sorry, but I found this on Dave Barry’s Blog and I just found it udderly impossible not to pass it on.

Hey, Abbot! I’ve been a bad boy.

The official Calvin and Hobbes site

One of my alltime favorite Calvin & Hobbes comic strips:

Google to Roll Out E-Mail Service

Good idea? BFD? Anybody need another e-mail account? Guess we’ll see.

Check out this insightful essay on Via Negativa. And on the subject of fog, I’ll offer this poem. Incidentally, she still hasn’t called. But it hasn’t been quite five years yet. She will, right? She will.

CERTAIN STREETS

Time passes, so I get up

every morning. I have

soap that smells insanely

like spring in Ireland,

or a waterfall. I brush my hair

and talk to the dog while

calculating how long

it has been since you called.

Seven months, so I drive to work.

The yellow fog burns back

to the water’s edge and leaves

a brilliant path for me.

I slip along the edge of clarity

and listen as the stock market drops

through the morning light.

If time goes on, I have lunch

in the park and everything

hums through the day;

computer, printer, people

and lights. At three o’clock

I have coffee, then drive home

at dusk through certain streets

where I see you float, silk

on a breeze of unremitting weeks.

Should I call? I’m sure

there will be time, some morning,

evening, afternoon, when the clock

is resting in a shadow on the wall.

Kyle Kimberlin

2000

I was over at my folks’ house tonight, and Hollywood Squares was on in the other room. A question was asked: true or false, there’s a theme park called Stalinworld, that resembles a Soviet concentration camp. I would’ve answered False; I would have been wrong.

For Fun in Lithuania, Visit Stalinworld!

In response to comments on my Boycott EMI post …

The whole issue has moved beyond nuance for me. To me, layoffs for the sake of profit margin … as opposed to bottom line survival … are inherently evil.

One of the companies I used to work for lays people off every time there’s a downturn. Then when things pick up they hire new people. The new people, not having earned raises and being under newer, leaner health plans and such, are cheaper than the ones that got dumped. A few years ago, the trend was that you could make more by switching companies — starting salaries were climbing faster than raises for existing personnel. That paradigm is dead.

And downsizing is done on every whim. The shareholders like to see the herd getting thinned, and that appearance is sometimes the only apparent motivation for the purge. It’s as if every time I opened a window or turned on the heat in my home, 12 people hit the streets, clutching cardboard boxes and trying through the panic to remember where they parked.

I want — and I know it’s silly — a national grassroots mandate telling companies that people care about people, and the worker is not an expendable company resource. We are not office supplies.

EMI to cut 1,500 jobs, outsource CD manufacturing

Boycott! Companies have to learn they can’t go on a low carb diet, to increase profits, by eating people.