My Favorite Poem

William Stafford (Stories That Could Be True, 1977)

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The Farm on the Great Plains

A telephone line goes cold;
birds tread it wherever it goes.
A farm back of a great plain
tugs an end of the line.

I call that farm every year,
ringing it, listening, still;
no one is home at the farm,
the line gives only a hum.

Some year I will ring the line
on a night at last the right one,
and with an eye tapered for braille
from the phone on the wall

I will see the tenant who waits –
the last one left at the place;
through the dark my braille eye
will lovingly touch his face.

“Hello, is Mother at home?”
No one is home today.
“But Father — he should be there.”
No one — no one is here.

“But you — are you the one . . . ?”
Then the line will be gone
because both ends will be home:
no space, no birds, no farm.

My self will be the plain,
wise as winter is gray,
pure as cold posts go
pacing toward what I know.

Rainy Day Cellphone Photos

Rainy Day View

Ready For The Rain

Roslyn Station

Stormy Roslyn

NYPL

nypl

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nyc

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Central Park Gang

Look out for this gang of bandits congregating in Central Park:

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More Fall park pics by D. Bruce Yolton here

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Jets 10 Commandments?

 

Are you feeling down today?

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Hey Jets Nation – What do you think of these 10 commandments to ward off depression, stick together, and spread the Jets WORD:

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-thou shalt take thy vitamins
-thou shalt wear green or something “Jets” on game days
-thou shalt twitter a @reply once-a-day to a Jets fan or player (not necessarily about football)
-thou shalt always remember to put annoying Phins, Pats, Redskins, Eagles, etc., fans in their place
-thou shalt watch at least some of the games with other fans
-thou shalt take a brisk walk or jog every day the sun is out
-thou shalt DANCE DANCE DANCE
-thou shalt make sure everyone knows of thy membership in Jets Nation
-thou shalt get at least 7 hours of sleep/night
-thou shalt psychically send victorious thoughts to thy fellow fans and thy JETS

Can I get a “Amen”?

J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS

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The Bishop

When I watched the Flashforward pilot, I thought I saw a bishop chess piece on Mark’s big board.  Later, they find a queen, so I thought I was mistaken.  @TheFlashForward on twitter has given us this clue: You think you know what you saw. What did you see? What did you REALLY see? A bishop…

 

Ok, so I did see a bishop.  So perhaps we are dealing with alternate futures.  And maybe Demetri can save himself.  And if he can’t, I guess we just get A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas.

 

Ring Around The Rosie

A Flashforward thought:

Ok – The taxi that almost hit Mark in ep1 said “Carus Taxi”. Carus is the last name of Lucretius. Ep2 opens with children singing “Ring Around The Rosie.” That song is about the plague. What did Lucretius write about? PLAGUE. Among other things like nature, death, physics, and psychology.

Was the flashforward somehow an attempt to head off a plague? Remember when the bird flew into the window; perhaps there is an impending avian flu (No spoilers from the novel please – I haven’t read it.)

 

In no fixed line of space, in no fixed time – Lucretius

 

Flashforward Ep2 notes

Flashforward Ep1 notes

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Revolutionary Road

Quickly re Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates:

So much humor in the book, that was somewhat left out of the movie. Lots of subtext regarding doing what you’re “supposed” to do, which is almost never the thing to do that will provide the best outcome. The insane character is the only character who can see clearly.

The writing is so good – the words so precisely placed. Many books draw you into “the world of the book”, but this book is completely real – it is as close a description of real life as any work of fiction I’ve read.

In Defense Of The Aged

 

And in defense of the callow: The ebullient Mark Sanchez is the only rookie QB to ever go 3-0.

twitpic via Bill Knapp @EmersonKnapp

Pictures Tell The Story

 

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Another Arrest?

more notes on the Annie Le murder (previous notes here):

It has been reported that there could be another arrest in the Annie Le murder case. Raymond Clark has already been arrested based on DNA evidence.  There is suspicion that Clark may have had help in hiding Annie Le’s body.  Clark’s live-in girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, works at the same lab as Clark, where Annie Le was killed.

Clark’s brother-in-law and sister also work at the same Yale lab, and she recommended Clark for a job in 2004, when he graduated from high school.  Yale has made a practice of nepotism at their labs, even though there is high demand for custodial lab work there.  Clark told a co-worker that his résumé said that he had experience as a farmhand, even though he did not.  Clark was described by co-workers as a “control freak.”  Employees familiar with the Yale lab said that Clark’s supervisor did not have time to get involved in the day-to-day operations of the lab.  Yale has now instructed its employees not to speak with the news media.  Yale’s president, Richard Levin, said the killing says “more about the dark side of the human soul” than about security measures at Yale.

Clark always signed in for work with a pen that used distinctive green ink.  Police believe he dropped the pen into a crevice at the murder scene, because he came to the lab the day after the murder with wire, fishing hooks and bubble gum.  Clark’s electronic access lab swipe card, indicates he spent nearly an hour in the same room with Le’s dead body.  Medical evidence indicates Le was hit, then strangled.  Surveillance video of Clark leaving the lab that day is said to show him holding his head in his hands.

After Le’s disappearance, Clark denied seeing her on the day of the killing.  A polygraph machine went off the charts when Clark was asked, “Do you know where she is now?”  Clark then asked for a lawyer, and police could no longer question him.

The big break in the case came from a German shepherd named Max and his handler, State Trooper Nick Leary.  Max is trained in body recognition.  He was first sent to search through large amounts of garbage that had been sent out for incineration.  On Sunday he was taken to the basement of the Yale lab building, where he picked up Annie Le’s scent.

 

-notes from nypost.com, nydailynews.com, nytimes.com, yaledailynews.com

A “Person Of Interest”

 

update: Raymond Clark has been arrested for the murder of Annie Le based on a DNA match.
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notes on the strangulation death of Yale grad student Annie Le:

Raymond Clark of Middletown, CT was picked up by police as a “person of interest” in the asphyxiation murder of Annie Le.

Clark had a menial job cleaning rodent cages and doing custodial chores in the Yale lab where pharmacology grad student Annie Le conducted experiments.  In e-mails, Clark had criticized Le for not adhering to protocols for tending the mice kept in the lab basement.  Le responded in a conciliatory tone, and promised to follow the rules.  Clark’s supervisor had been told that Clark had been hassling grad students.  Clark sent a text message to Le early on Tuesday, September 8th, requesting to meet with her to discuss the cleanliness of the lab’s rodent cages.

Computerized swipe card records show that Le entered a basement lab room at about 10 a.m. on September 8th.  The computerized records show that Clark entered that same room a short time later.  Le was never seen again and her swipe card was never used again.  Clarke’s swipe card records show that he entered the building ten times, including after work hours, on the day that Le disappeared.

Clark had also swiped into the area where Le’s body was found stuffed into a 2-foot crawl space behind a wall.

A former housemate of Clark’s described him as “very unsociable.”  A former neighbor said he screamed at children and was “very controlling” of his girlfriend.  The neighbor said Clark did not allow his girlfriend to talk to anyone, that they heard him yelling often, and that Clark kept a pit bull caged in all day.  The dog would cry all day long.

Clark’s high school yearbook indicates that he was a member of the school’s Asian Awareness Club.

In 2003, an ex-girlfriend of Clark’s told police that he forced her to have sex with him when she was a high school student.

A current neighbor of Clark’s reported that Clark and his live-in girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, hurriedly left their apartment at 40 Ferry St., with luggage, this past Sunday.

When the police picked up Clark for DNA testing, his neighbors cheered as he was led away.  Police released Clark this morning.  Dawn Brooks, a neighbor of Clark’s, said it was “scary” that he would be released after DNA testing.  Another neighbor, Loraine Falcon, a nurse’s aid, said she was fearful for her family’s safety.

-notes from nypost.com, nydailynews.com, nytimes.com, yaledailynews.com, cbsnews.com, foxnews.com, courant.com, wtnh.com, abcnews.go.com

-with help from @Sqrlmom

911

 

9/11/01 TV Archive

NYT Portraits of Grief   Use the NYT search for additional “Portraits of Grief”

9/11/01 Stern audio mp3    (save target)

NYFD 9-11-01 dispatches

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Comic Coincidence?

 

This morning, I started following @BorowitzReport (Andy Borowitz) on twitter; I’ve seen him live and he is quite entertaining. Oddly, a few minutes after I started to follow Borowitz, @Roland_Hedley (Garry Trudeau’s creation) started following me (@LaneLipton).  Now, at that moment, @Roland_Hedley was only following 102 tweeters, and he was being followed by more than 12,000. I was not following @Roland_Hedley and never have. So I wondered – why me?

Later in the day, @Roland_Hedley displayed a couple of jokes about right-wingers comparing Obama to Hitler. And then @BorowitzReport made a joke on the same theme.

Conclusion: Borowitz writing for Trudeau – filling in perhaps for these vacation weeks?

P.S. Whoever is writing it, @Roland_Hedley is hilarious.

Housing Crisis Origins

Some info from a Wall Street Journal article By U. of P. Professor Thomas Sugrue, on governmental interference in housing. The whole article here　

 

…Herbert Hoover signed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act in 1932, laying the groundwork for massive federal intervention in the housing market. In 1933, F.D.R. created the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation to provide low interest loans to help out foreclosed home owners. In 1934, F.D.R. created the Federal Housing Administration, which set standards for home construction, instituted 25- and 30-year mortgages, and cut interest rates. And in 1938, his administration created Fannie Mae which created the secondary market in mortgages. In 1944, the federal government extended generous mortgage assistance to returning veterans.

 

Banking, real-estate and construction lobbyists rose to protect their industries’ newfound gains. Tens of millions of Americans owned their own homes because of government programs, but they preferred to believe that their home ownership was a result of their own virtue and hard work, their own grit and determination—not because they were the beneficiaries of one of the grandest government programs ever. The only housing programs prominently associated with Washington’s policy makers were underfunded, unpopular public housing projects. Chicago’s bleak, soulless Robert Taylor Homes and their ilk—not New York’s vast Levittown or California’s sprawling Lakewood—became the symbol of big government.

 

Federal housing policies changed the whole landscape of America, creating the sprawlscapes that we now call home, and in the process, gutting inner cities.

 

 

Roswell’s Too Quiet For Me

The TRUE story of what REALLY happened the night bandleader George Gee saw that “falling star” while on vacation in Japan with his family:

Mister Gee was walkin’. 
Gee and Glenn were talkin’
Clear and crisp on a Saturday night
Trav-L-Loggin Japan, everything was all right.

Back in the states in old Roswell
Things were so dull I can’t even tell
Little green man in his flying saucer
Reading his National Enquirer

Spaceman headin’ to NYC
Read that Gee was the man to see
To practice his Lindy in gravity
He said “Roswell’s too quiet for me.”

Hey Mister Gee, Swing me please!
‘Cause Roswell’s too quiet for me.

Our alien landed at Empire State
Couldn’t find Gee; thought he was late
Someone on twitter said the gig was no-go
So the E.T. made a turn for Tokyo

Now, all you little green boys and girls
Just come to the ball and take a twirl
Ain’t no need to leave the stratosphere
Gee will swing you right here.