from salon.com "This place is the bomb" by David Wolman about a Sooty Tern invasion Rho00167
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Christmas Island
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Information Regarding Dividend Investing
Presently I am not an investor. This morning I found two sites of interest pertaining to dividend investing. Each is worth a look, but read their Terms of Use entries. Global Dividends - Saturday August 30, 2008 WorldWideWeb Tax - Saturday August 30, 2008 Rho00166
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
from Ten Fingers Typing
This will connect to yesterday's post on Stacey Lynn Brown's site. Her "cautionary tale" has gotten wide exposure. You can access that tale once you take this link to her blog, but you should read this page first. It was yesterday at Collin Kelley's site that I first found out about her happy/ sad situation. Today I encountered it at Joseph Hutchison's site. This story is being passed from poet to poet. Rho00165
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Minimalism overview
A comment by Colin Bassett beneath a Rho-- post led me today to return to his web site, and do some further reading. That led me to search Minimalism and Postminimalism, and eventually to choose Wikipedia. Before I knew I would be making that choice, I read a comment favoring Amy Hempel, a writer I'd never heard of. When I got to Wikipedia's Minimalism page, a page covering all the arts, I found her name showing as a link in the Literary Minimalism section. So two links will show here. Minimalism Amy Hempel Unfortunately, I should have done an advanced Literary Postminimalism search because Google's early results were all related to music. At Wikipedia the Literary Minimalism definition embraced many of the poems I had written in the last two years. That somewhat surprised me as I had not thought of them as minimalist, even though some certainly are minimal. Rho00164
Monday, August 25, 2008
Rothenberg Palmer on Goethe Shelley
In 1959/60 when I was a freshman at Marquette University, another student talked me into reading Shelley's poem: "The Sensitive Plant". I did. But this post is about two posts at Poems and Poetics, a blogspot site maintained by Jerome Rothenberg. If you link to there from here, be sure to read TO BEGIN and A PROSPECTUS at the top of his site. The first link is to a June post, and the second is to an August post. Reconfiguring Romanticism Reconfiguring Romanticism Rho00163
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The Time of the Troubles
Nostradamus interpretations: No need to go beyond the first page. Read the question and then some of the comments - about Ray Mabus Rho00161
solar and
from International Herald Tribune: "Investments pour into solar energy, but the sector is scary" by Holly Hubbard Preston Published: June 27, 2008 expert advice Rho00160
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Two New Blogs
Kyphotic Hermit (kyphotichermit) the ghost in the dumpster (tgitd) Not sure why, but suspect the first one will be essentially personal and critical ruminations; and the second one will be mixed creations of a more artistic nature, a place where I can try things akin to automatic visionings. Will see. rho00159
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Younger Writers Group Project Note
At the behest of and under the direction of Brandon Scott Gorrell, a group of younger writers which includes Tao Lin and Noah Cicero have each written about another group member and have posted the project's relevant links. See at Noah Cicero's site Shane E. Jones wrote about Jillian Clark, who is 16. At the end of his assignment, he asked her 4 questions. Part of her response to the fourth question is: "i want people to know that i will organize the scrapbooking scene once the blogosphere scene, or whatever this is, dies." Unlike those of us who are older, younger bloggers grew up with computers, and so are more comfortable with them in general. Another speck of knowledge in Jones's post came from a negative review of Clark's poems written by someone not in the group: Clark's style was called post Tao Lin / Miranda July. Jillian explained to the reviewer that as she is only 16 she did not have a style. She simply writes the way she feels, which in her case means/ that if she wants to suddenly change direction in a poem, she does. In my notebook is a list of the participants names and each one's web site. I've added some others too. Not sure, but I may place all of them in my Blog List. Rho00157
Monday, August 18, 2008
Obama on taxes
Decide for yourself, but get the facts from the proper sources, not from some outside opinion. The following link is to an article in a recent Wall Street Journal. Written by two Obama advisors, it details both Obama's and McCain's tax plans from a historical perspective. However, I do not wish to provide a direct link. So I am linking to the Obama site. There is a link there to it. Obama Campaign site Rho00154
Sunday, August 17, 2008
New Method for Detecting Cancer
MRI Scans Of Body's Natural Baking Soda Detects Cancer from Medical News Today May 29, 2008 Note: Direct access not allowed. Therefore, link goes to .com page. Choose Gategory M-O. Slide over to MRI / PET / Ultrasound. Click. Choose page 3. Scroll down to May 29, 2008 MRI . . . article. Click title. [ . . . . . ] Rho00152
Saturday, August 16, 2008
The Georgian South Ossetia Error
Lead article: "Don't Know Much About History..." by CounterPunch's Alexander Cockburn Cold War Mistake Rho00151
Capitalism Upside Down or
How Dopes Like Me Got Duped A Money Manifesto Introduction: Though the war for this nation had not yet begun and though my father was kept out of it when it did because he worked for a newspaper, I am a war baby. Times were good. My childhood was good. Too much was good, especially for someone like me. Had I been born a Spartan and had the illnesses I had, I would have been placed on the mountain shortly after my birth. But no, I was born near the heel of a stinky swamp lake in beer, brat, and cheese Wisconsin into a religious and mostly practical and caring family where I--the second born--was the surrogate first. Making sure I did not die was imperative. So, though not totally pampered, I grew up in relative comfort. Am not certain, but I think my father bought a TV (an Admiral) in 1949. It was the first in the neighborhood. Okay. Some years later, when I was a student at a Wisconsin State College midway up the western side of the stinky swamp lake, my dad gave me the family Rambler. During my senior year I rented a space with some other guys in the upstairs part of a large house which was near the college. At some point, since I wasn't using it, I sold the car. My bride-to-be was not pleased. She told me I should have brought it down. Her dad could have stored it for us. In those days there still was train service. Anyway, she had been working for ACNielsen; and so after I graduated we had to use some of her money to buy a car. An aunt of mine had taught me how to drive a stick shift after my mother had taught me how to drive. Guess what, therefore, this Brian did. Bought a stick shift; and not a used one. It was a white Falcon. At the college two teachers of mine who had been through the Iowa MFA Program coaxed me into applying. I was accepted. Fine, but how was I going to pay for it? On June 12th she became my wife, and I became her--. She had an excellent work record. We honeymooned in Iowa City and, as I suspected, the university had a keypunch department. Shortly after we returned home, I wrote a letter to that department, but I made believe I was her. One day at work she got a call from them, and they hired her over the phone. I never did drive that Falcon as I ought to have. She said she always knew when I was coming up the hill to get her. While I was teaching at Eastern Illinois, the Falcon's odometer got to 50,000. I traded it in for--right--a new yellow Fairlane. I then taught my wife how to drive, but didn't make clear to her when to use the turn signal and also took the same course, thinking that was the course the tester would take her on. He didn't, and I sensed a prejudice against her before they went out for the test. She was a small woman, but she actually did well. That cop failed her for one reason: she did not flick the turn signal on soon enough. I wanted her to try a second time. Guess what happened to the Falcon--a pizza place bought it. Or maybe it was the Fairlane that pizza place bought. It got driven to Key West. I had purchased a set of The Great Books, not that I ever thought I would read them/ even though I intended to, but they came with a vacation to Florida. The next car was a blue Maverick. Rightfully, I didn't get tenure at Eastern, but the new Mav got driven from Wisconsin to California and back. She had a aunt and uncle living in Santa Barbara, and one of her sisters needed a ride out to California. I sought work there, and might have gotten employed as an ombudsman at the university had we not left before they called her relatives. Back at our home base, she walked over to ACNielsen's while I and her youngest brother headed north along the western side of the stinky swamp lake. By God's perfect timing I obtained an English Instructor position at my alma mater. She, of course, had gotten employed again at the product-rating facility. Then, though the Maverick had had an eventful gallop, I, unannounced, bought an army-colored Nova. Tonight I see that vehicle as a symbol of what was about to happen in my life. Early in 1973 I did a one-time-only Wisconsin Poets-in-the-Schools gig. As to the cars, I am not certain of the order; but there was a sky-blue Volare, an orange captain-seat Dodge van, a VW Sunbug, and one or two others up into 1981 when we moved from Milwaukee to Austin, Texas, without a vehicle. When we did get another car, it was with $2000 my mother secretly gave me after our move to Gainesville, Florida. That was a used Buick which we had for a good long while. My wife's favorite color was red, and toward the end of her life, her father went with me to Main Street Chevrolet where via a loan I bought a red Geo Metro. It became my last car as of early in January of 2003. Needlessly wasting money on transportation wasn't the only way I financially messed up my life, but I don't want to go there. Not now. * Here is the nitty-gritty. Free market capitalism depends on active consummerism. Thus the buy-this- buy-that-put-a-feather-in-your-hat philosophy: the emphasis on pleasure: the emphasis on the so-called American dream. These false ideas are pushed by many corporations and by much of the media. One reason the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is that the rich follow the principle of delayed gratification while the poor follow the principle of immediate gratification. This is deeply complex, but by dividing it into three complicit sources/ it can be analyzed more easily. These are the sources: the public sector, the private sector, the personal sector. In the Twentieth Century in the U.S. (and by extension, the world), the two leading monetary theories were the Keynesian and the Friedmanian. Neither is perfect, yet neither should be faulted for the current fiscal improprieties in the U.S. of _______. See Monetarism at Wikipedia: $$$ and read what is there carefully. It is not the theories; it is how the theories were interpreted and skewed. I did not use the word "complicit" inordinately. The Public Sector: - I'm restricting this to government. Several thoughts: 1. Excessive spending causes inflation. 2. Allowing the creation of more paper fiat notes devalues each note. 3. Relaxing credit promotes fraud in the markets. 4. Incentives are ultimately bad for business. 5. Allowing usury destroys the consummer base. 6. Bailouts of financial entities are dangerous. 7. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Private Sector: - Several thoughts: 1. Are the U.S. politicians controlled by corporations? 2. Does the Federal Reserve have too much power? 3. Has the Federal Reserve misused the power it has? 4. In what ways is Wall Street good? The Personal Sector: - Several injunctions: 1. If there is a church or other entity you wish to support, note it in your will. 2. Find ways to save as much as you reasonably can, but be aware that the dollar is ill and may become more ill/ and is therefore not the best way to save. 3. Don't count on job security. 4. If you can't pay for it, don't buy it. 5. The sooner you start saving, the better your life will be when you are 70, if you live till then. 6. If you enjoy working and are able to beyond when you are supposed to retire, keep working. - And this thought: Your worth as a human being does not depend on your credit rating. = Take link on this post to read Mike Hewitt's history of US money at his Dollar Daze blog: about the role of the central banks Rho00150
Thursday, August 14, 2008
article against Bakken oil hype
from The Oil Drum: This article (post) is somewhat long due to the analyses it presents in order to make clear what is true regarding economically recoverable oil in the Bakken Formation of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and surrounding areas. As always with sites allowing comments, the comments are often as informative as is the post they relate to. Read at least the first twenty or so. To repeat the obvious: No matter how much new oil is found on this planet--and there are new finds off the coast of Brazil and around and in Australia, the best information available concludes that the world's supply of fossil fuels is declining even as consumption is accelerating. Just as we have become addicted to debt, so have we become addicted to FF (as one commenter termed it). We need to change how we live. I, alas, have been forced to somewhat change due to illnesses. If you-- as I am--are a believer, you just might agree with me: an illness is not always a negative condition. with charts and links Rho00149
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
saving planet Earth three
From the International Herald Tribune: "Experts ponder the hazards of using technology to save the planet" by Cornelia Dean 2008-08-12 urgent action and oversight Rho00148
Had I not been reading
works by and/or about Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and Joseph Campbell before 1972, this post would not be. However, as is my usual practice, I will defer to others about these authors. - In 1971 my "Revealing the Source" was published in Yes and then in my 1972 book. Presently here, that poem is a re-visioning of humanity's roots in light of humanity's evolution, specifically as it relates to the invention of movable type, and by implication all advances-- if one sees them as advances--of human ingenuity. - McLuhan: Gingko Press Marshall McLuhan page under the M authors - Frye: Frye Centre - Campbell: Wikipedia Rho00147
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
one futurist and one poet
The futurist is Michael Anissimov. The poet is Ron Silliman. The discussion is not between them, but it is a part of what each says. The discussion is about this planet and its human inhabitants. Today and tomorrow arouse the questions and the definitions held by each. - * * * * * - * * * * * Rho00146
Monday, August 11, 2008
KSM's Poetry and Technology posts
That K. Silem Mohammad thought to ask: Is Poetry a Technology?: is impressive. That--especially in the second post--he leans toward a no answer, and yet allows doubt and uncertainty in/ either because he honestly is unsure or he is purposely so since he wishes to maintain a critical distance/ made me think of Keats. These are the two posts: - 1) Is Poetry a Technology? - 2) More on Poetry and Technology (sort of) Oh: Read the comments beneath the posts. >1< >2< Rho00145
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Alvin Turner as Farmer
a book of 60 poems by William Kloefkorn originally published in 1972 by Road Runner Press in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, as a special Road Apple Review summer 1972 vol. iv no. 2 edited by Terry Smith and Brian Salchert is its author's first collection of poems. At that time Mr. Kloefkorn was a teacher at Nebraska Wesleyan, and Bill Evans, who was a friend and colleague there, contributed 8 pen and ink sketches. See cover image. Subsequently, because this book was popular, in 1974 it was republished by Ted Kooser's Windflower Press. In 2004 Logan House Press published it a third time. Here is a short poem from the book: (15) After a difference We go together as We fall apart: with words. They are clear and clipped and Gently strange, And hearing them I think Their sound is like the little noise Of needles, knitting. Rho00144
Friday, August 8, 2008
Humanity Is a Doomed Species
unless--and I don't think I need to say why; but here are three articles that broach this: "Doomed to early demise" by Edward O. Wilson from UNESCO "Why Global Warming Efforts are Doomed" by Stu Flashman from his web site "I See Doomed People" by George Musser This is an abridged version of an interview of the movie director, M. Night Shyamalan, pertaining to his: The Happening. from Scientific American Rho00143
Thursday, August 7, 2008
the move to smaller vehicles
Here is an article from mlive.com Saginaw News: * Also, though drivers of them need to be careful, some states and municipalities are now allowing golf carts on their streets and roads. Even local government agencies are using them. Our society is changing in the face of less oil. Rho00142
the movie that describes us
From James Howard Kunstler's Dark (K)night post: "We're so far gone that real human emotion is beyond us." Dark (K)night Rho00141
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
I have decided
outside of what I've been doing--placing a .txt copy of each of my posts in an appropriate offline folder-- that in spite of the inevitability of the structuring of canons by individuals and groups of individuals, I favor saving as much as can reasonably be saved. Why? Because canons, whether they are compendiums arrived at by popular acclamation or by the aesthetic stance of this one / that one / these / those, cannot be other than interesting introductions, and because the course of every human's death journey is of value beyond any vaunted canonicity. Death begins at birth. Therefore, death is the only life worth living. Thus one should try to live for as long as one rationally can since it is not possible to know what engendering encounters will occur before that moment one actually dies. To be clear: I am not against canons or manifestoes or explications. Interesting introductions are fine by me. I have several such in this blog's Poetry Oases section. My barriers are these: 1) a general openness which dissuades me from adopting a method other than what emanates from the thing being made/ even when I have chosen beforehand/ the form of that thing/ because words are wicked wonders/ often having designs of their own 2) as widely as I have read, over the years I have drifted in and out of realms pertaining to poetry, and so have read less widely in those realms than I otherwise would have 3) I have an above average intelligence which only on occasion, and then only through diligent effort, have I been able to ratchet above 140, and so my memory is weak and likewise my spatial recognition abilities 4) emotions seem to direct my choices more than do common and not-so-common logics, although rational thinking is not foreign to me. These days there are so many makers of poems using so many different styles and languages, I doubt any one person could get through that cornucopia, and the robots cannot be trusted. Back in the 1980s when I was into poetics, mathematics, and market analytics all at the same time, Derrida's strong deconstruction position effectively ended my curiosity about those approaches to literature. To me it seemed he was not only deconstructing others but also himself, to which the only proper response was laughter. Recently I have been reading (possibly rereading) Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, a complex, provocative delving into where humans have been, are, and are heading. On page 255 of the Doubleday Anchor edition I own is an insight that may seem too obvious today, but which I think merits repeating: "The seen tree may be real enough for the sensation of vision, just as the dreamed tree is real enough for the dreamer as long as the dream lasts, but neither can ever become a real tree." Poets and scientists can refine and refine how they depict realities of atomic substance by means of their envisionings, and I would suggest the more angles of vision the better, but those realities will continue to be bark-on, wave-whacking, wind- dervishing incomprehensible. That is the sadness and that is the joy, and that is the truth and the beauty of it. I don't care how compellingly this Era of humanity draws us to irony and satire, the persistence of natura naturans, the ongoing, tells us transcendence remains. Language itself is an eminent example: meaning created out of nothing. Swing the side of your fist against what we call a "tree" and you might come back calling that object an "uuh". So who were my literary progenitors? Who cares. But the answer is: anything and anyone. Sure I was influenced by him and her and her and him somewhere along my journey. Being as I am easily influenced, even now I am being influenced; but I still wend my own way. Heck, Ron Silliman's The New Sentence influenced me, but not in ways he would have thought possible. You see, just like all others who enjoy interacting with words, I draw from the happenings around me and the happenings in my mind. You've read one or two of my poems and did not like it (them). That's okay. I'm inexhaustible--ha ha. Look for me in the cracks in your walls. Rho00140
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
back to 0.4 or
Toward a Type 1 civilization from the L. A. Times this op ed by Michael Shermer Rho00139
search engine result errors
Prompted by Cuil, I just searched my name (Brian Salchert) at Google, MSN Live, and Yahoo! in order to verify what I have long known to be true at Google: results that provide a snippet of a comment supposedly by me but which in fact are not by me. All 4 of these s-engines make this kind of error, usually attributing a comment below mine to me. In case you do not understand what I am saying: this note is about comments I (or anyone) make beneath a post on a blog maintained by another blogger. Something is wrong with the technologies used or with the ways they are used. I don't think the search engines intend to deceive, but they do. Not certain how these errors/ can be corrected. Perhaps they can't be. To be fair, many times errors of this kind are not made. They are made often enough however. Rho00138
defense against nuclear weapons
newsmax.com is a conservative news source but a recent article in it by Ken Timmerman is worth reading - do this search: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S. * I don't want to link to it. Rho00137
Monday, August 4, 2008
why i am isolated
Reasons: health, time, money, opinions Health: Due mostly to one disease and the complications of it. I inherited a frail body. That body led to osteoporosis when I was in my late fifties. Causes beyond the genetic ones were multiple. It didn't help that I wasn't careful enough when I encountered situations requiring strength. I have three fractured vertebrae, and so have exacerbated kyphosis. Once 5'6.5", I am now less than 4'11". Disease number two--now being controlled by a medication-- is adult-onset epilepsy. During the time when it was not yet under control, I was forced to quit both working and driving at the same time. Could probably go back to driving, but don't think it would be a wise choice. Time: Use of it is difficult, not that it ever was easy for me. My thoughts and my imaginings have always taken precedence in spite of my knowing I must have a body which is sufficiently healthy first. Money: Barely have enough to survive on. Therefore, I have had to stop indulging several pleasures, driving being one of them. Opinions: I am an aesthetic chameleon. My interests are varied, and persist in ways I suspect most others are unable to comfortably relate to. I make no special claims for myself. A Richard Wagner I'm not. So why am I even online? Because however odd I am, I do need to interact, to learn, to share; and the Internet is at this time the best place to be for one who wishes to do such things. Actually, it has gotten so that even if every other who is online shut me out, I would remain with the winds and the shadows of my being in my chosen places, and continue to tap tap tap. Rho00136
Saturday, August 2, 2008
foreclosure crisis
from AlterNet "One million homes lost and counting: how to end the foreclosure crisis now" by Fred Moseley, Dollars and Sense Posted August 2, 2008 what/ needs to be done Rho00135
about a certain bank
"America's Smartest Banker" by Daniel Gross a short article which appears in today's Slate growth the common sense way Rho00134
Friday, August 1, 2008
a look ahead
Something sad but more hopeful from James Howard Kunstler: "The Coming Re-Becoming" thoughts on a drive north of Albany, New York. Rho00133
