Saturday, August 28, 2010
Saturday line
Posted by Max Brantley on Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 4:24 PM
Here's a thread. I hope the Arkansas Blog or Rock Candy will have something later about tonight's rallly and concert for the West Memphis Three. Several of our bunch will be on hand. (Update from Gerard: Check out Rock Candy below for a run down of the press conference and some photos).
Speaking of...
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Supreme Court grants hearing for Death Row's Timothy Howard
April 26, 2012The Arkansas Supreme Court has ordered a further hearing on the DNA claim of a Death Row inmate, Timothy Howard, that state suppression of critical problems with DNA evidence prejudiced his fair trial. /more/
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Ellington on the WM3
March 26, 2012Scott Ellington, the prosecuting attorney in the West Memphis Three hearing last year, told a Memphis TV station that he asked the defense to come up with a guilty plea offer that would allow Damien Echols, Jessie Miskelley and Jason Baldwin to go free. /more/
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Jason Baldwin visits the Supreme Court
March 21, 2012He writes: "You see, while I am innocent of the crime that sent me to prison most of the people there aren't (though I did meet others who actually are) and I made the decision long ago to treat these guys as people and not see them for the crimes that put them there. As a result I saw their humanity. I made friends with a lot of guys there who were juveniles when they committed their crimes. I grew up with them. We shared food, hopes, dreams and prayers. When I left I promised them all that I would not forget them. That is why I now not only fight for the innocent, to abolish the death penalty but I also fight for those youth who made a horrible mistake and realize that now." /more/
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Jason Baldwin's new life in the west
March 21, 2012Great little story in Seattle Weekly today about Jason Baldwin's efforts to rebuild his life in Seattle since he, Jessie Misskelley and Damien Echols were released from prison last summer. /more/
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West Memphis Three reward fund increased to $200,000
March 14, 2012An anonymous donor has added $100,000 to make a $200,000 reward fund for information leading to the killers of three West Memphis boys in 1993. /more/
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Jason Baldwin, Hollywood producer
March 5, 2012Jason Baldwin and his girlfriend, Holly Ballard, are executive producers for "Devil's Knot," the movie about the West Memphis Three case to star Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon. /more/
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West Memphis 3: How to extract a tainted confession
February 26, 2012Here's an interesting analysis from the New York Law School project on law and journalism about Jessie Misskelley's confession in the West Memphis 3 case. /more/
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Scott Ellington considering 1st District congressional race
February 24, 2012Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington of Jonesboro said he is "giving some contemplation" to entering the Democratic primary for 1st District Congress. /more/
- More »
Comments (38)
Showing 1-38 of 38
Something to help you forget Washington (in all its aspects and today, colors):
Every year, English teachers from across the USA can
submit their collections of actual analogies and
metaphors found in high school essays.
These excerpts are published each year to the
amusement of teachers across the country. Here are
last year's winners.
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had
its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and
breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without
Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from
experience, like a guy who went blind because he
looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes
with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country
speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking
at a solar eclipse without one of those
boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. He grew on her like he was a colony of E. Coli,
and she was room-temperature Canadian beef. :~)))))
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that
sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had
disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as
a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly
surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond
exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like
a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole
scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're
on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at
7:00 p.m. Instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair
after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like
maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed
lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other
like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at
6:36 p.m. Traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka
at 4:19 p.m. At a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with
picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two
hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob
informant and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a
steel trap, only one that had been left out so long,
it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil.
But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you
get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical
lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually
lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and
extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a
fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing
kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought
he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing
up.
like
dislike
I listened to baby-faced Ralph Reed, explain this morning to all the great unwhashed, that these tea party types love liberty so much that they would rather do without than have the government handouts. He almost had tears in his eyes as he tried to make us all understand the humanity and the loving nature of these followers of Christ and their leader, Glen Beck. Other than the stupidity of discussing Glen Beck at the same time you speak of sacrifice and doing without, the dumbest thing was that Ralph Reed doesn't seem to have a clue how quickly all those nice, loving tea baggers would turn on him if they lost their SS or their disability payments. I don't know who's the bigger fool, Reed or the tea baggers. Once thing is certain, Beck is playing all of them for fools and laughing all the way to the bank while doing it. He sometimes even laughs in their faces.
As for their "wiring", DBI, I think you are correct. I remember as a grade school child going to my neighbor's house to sell something from a catalogue we got at school. If we sold a lot of stuff, the school would get something and I think the child who sold the most also got something. My neighbor refused and said the school was "teaching me to think I should get something for nothing". Way back then (and I do mean WAAAY back), there were people who resented anyone, even a child, getting something they didn't sweat for.
I guess we are born with that mind set because I can't understand it even though there is a wide strain of it running through my family.
Pathetic!
To follow up on our discussion last week about certain media outlets and political hacks complaining about Obama taking too much vacation, here is a followup:
"It was Obama's ninth vacation as president, counting shorter weekend getaways, according to CBS radio reporter Mark Knoller, recognized by the White House as a meticulous presidential statistician.
At 10 days, it will bring to 48 the number of vacation days Obama has taken since taking office. Former President George W. Bush had spent more than twice as much time on vacation at this point in his presidency."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38895705/ns/us…
I love those metaphors! Joe Heller has a good one involving hairy strawberry ice cream in Catch-22: "[In a hospital] No one was beaten to death. People didn't stick their heads into ovens with the gas on, jump in front of subway trains or come plummeting like dead weights out of hotel windows with a whoosh!, accelerating at a rate of thirty-two feet per second to land with a hideous plop! on the sidewalk and die disgustingly there in public like an alpaca sack full of hairy strawberry ice cream, bleeding, pink toes awry."
Thanks couldn't be...passing along to high school teachers.
CiCi, Reed just about had his prison bitch name laid out for him in the Abramoff crimes. How he dodged the prosecutors is likely a matter of corrupt Republicon politics.
You can bet he is as cynical about the T'baggers as he was about the injuns he ripped off.
Photo quiz. See how many you can identify. WWII, a few days before D-Day. Have at it.
http://tinyurl.com/2cndq73
Well...I thought I'd seen just about everything the nutty right (as if there's any other kind anymore) had to toss. Good Gawd, we had former President Shit for Brains for 8 years and our last Democratic President was crucified for an extramarital blow job...something I'm pretty sure 'most' Presidents were guilty of enjoying. And now I'm watching a lily white Mormon Messiah-wannabe try to steal the memory of Martin Luther King from black folks/the rest of us appreciators of Civil Rights.
It seems surreal...my gosh the bastards can't even let black folks/poor folks/decent folks have Martin Luther King as their very own. We promise y'all can KEEP Reagan/and EVERY other Republican leader of our lifetimes for your very own...(no one, after all, would want them but y'all)...just leave our heroes alone.
Of course they're lying about the crowd numbers. It's what they do best...that and stealing other folks ideas/words/heroes.
Zelda--I hope you saw the link I put on the open line last night for you.
So eLwood, what was the Faux News report on attendance at the rally? And what did the other sources say?
zelda, do you suppose jazzy would have a few cutting remarks? Hahahahahaha.
Lordy, I miss her on this board.
Lu Hardin is back in the news...
CONWAY — The chairman of the University of Central Arkansas board of trustees “seemed uninformed” about UCA, says a national accreditation team’s report that also accuses some trustees of a lack of “stewardship” during Lu Hardin’s presidency.
The 51-page report says the university’s new administration, headed by President Allen C. Meadors, “understands the task before it and has begun to undertake the difficult work of mending a campus and rebuilding on strengths.” But, the report adds, “It is not apparent that the Board of Trustees as a group understands the task before them.”
if you have a subscription to ADG or NWA Newspapers you can read the story.
http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2010/aug/28/…
Cato,
I'm not too sure about that bald guy in the general's uniform or the other bald fellow in the jump-flight suit but the solider in the back with a photo tear running across his chest is Harold Schwartz. He retired to Hot Springs and opened a souvenir import bidness where I worked after hours in high school. He had that same pic on the wall behind his desk.
I didn't see it last night, NVR, but I went to the link today. Thanks...and it's as we feared...grandpa's feelings were hurt by the 'foreign' doctor who treated him like he was a child. It's basically one day at a time...
It somehow helps, however, to know that all this is COMMON...that almost every person who's lovingly cared for a parent deals with most of this stuff at one time or another.
I think jazzy would've popped a cork, LIKE I DID, when she saw that nutty lily white FOX Mormon trying to steal MLK from black folks. Next...Hillary won't belong to me/CICI...then Hannity will try to claim Susan B. Anthony/Annie Arniel and Gloria Steinem as his gals. Lordy!
Night blooming jasmine has blooms for the very first time...and I've been getting quite impatient, as mother nature laughs. It's the first time I've planted them and...so I'm excited/easily entertained these days (JUST NO KING-STEALING BECK!!).
Cato, I'm guessing Prime Minister Mackenzie King of Canada, Winston Churchill (of course), Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and (of course)General Dwight Eisenhower.
Cato,
On June 2nd 1944, just four days before the Allies landed on Normandy's beaches, a train carrying Winston Churchill and members of his war cabinet pulled into a cutting close to Droxford station in the Meon Valley, Hampshire.
From Left to Right
Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, New Zealand Prime Minister Peter Fraser, General Dwight David Eisenhower, ______________, Field Marshal Jan Smuts of South Africa
Couldn't get the guy on Ike's left. Sorry.
You did good., snap and dot.
Left to right:
Mackenzie King, Prime minister of Canada;
Winston Churchill;
the head coming out of the train is General De Gaulle from France;
the man in the hat is Peter Fraser, PM of New Zealand;
Gen. Eisenhower;
Anthony Eden; and
General Smuts from South Africa.
Now here is an easy one. See if you can spot the crook. *grin*
http://tinyurl.com/2d65hya
I wish there were someplace we could all sign up to send an alpaca sack full of hairy strawberry ice cream to those insane idiot fools. Toes included.
zelda, this sounds bitchy (Imagine!!) but you can get ready for lots and lots of bids for attention, just like a little kid. Im so sorry yall are having to go through this. its sad to become your parents' caretaker/parent, but whats worse is when you dont have any parents any more.
Wow...my browser must have a delay!
I loved those metaphors, too. I laughed out loud.
As usual, the Boston Globe has a great photo archive posted--this one related to Katrina--
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/r…
Cato, are you sure about Charles De Gaulle? I think he's the one (standing) whose smiling face appears over Peter Fraser's right shoulder, not the "head coming out of the train.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesar…
Ooops! I don't know why that link to a picture of De Gaulle didn't work, and hope this different one does. It is more the way I remember him, anyway.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-…
Cato--I think I have to agree with Snapback on the photo. See the link for a photo of a younger De Gaulle. Nose shape very similar to the man over Fraser's right shoulder.
http://tiny.cc/im2dz
Twas a beautiful Saturday afternoon for a country drive, so we cranked up the ole Chrysler and went for one. Took Hwy. 10 West out of LR, then north up Hwy. 113, a narrow, winding, hilly road with guard-railed mountain vistas here and there that bring to mind sections of the Pig Trail between Ozark and Fedvul.
For those who don't know, Hwy. 113 runs through hayfields and timber to Wye (no daffodils in August!), then across the Fourche La Fave River and past the Bigelow High School football field where a late afternoon scrimmage was underway.
From Bigelow, we followed Hwy. 60 East to the quaint, tiny St. Boniface Catholic Church (established 1879) in what once was a community known as Dixie, Ark. In the church’s cemetery rest folks born as far back as 1827, before Arkansas was a state. The grasses have been growing over some of the graves since 1884.
From St. Boniface, we crossed the Arkansas at Toad Suck and a couple minutes later into bustling Conway the explosive growth of which in recent years staggers. After exploring a few of Conway’s many new residential areas and touring UCA and Hendrix, we enjoyed drinks and dinner at Mike’s Place, an upscale downtown restaurant that was full of beautiful women any one of whom I imagined might be zelda.
The dssw ordered the Grouper Creole (delicious, said she) while I enjoyed a marvelous house seafood specialty called Shrimp Brantley which, for all we know, is named in honor of Boss Brantley who runs this here blog.
From Conway (population approaching 70,000 I hear), we tooled back down to el Rocko via I-40/430 and saw three deer staring into headlights mere feet from 70 mph traffic as we approached the 430 bridge. Where there are three deer there are probably 30, so I can’t imagine that somebody’s not gonna hit a Bambi near the bridge before this night is over.
All of this, my friends, to say that if you’re looking for a nice little daytrip/getaway — perhaps tomorrow afternoon, even — I’ve just told you about a good ‘un. The St. Boniface church is on the link. Be sure to go inside if it’s unlocked. The quiet beauty of it will knock your socks off. And tour the cemetery, too. Yer welcome. And goodnight to you and yours.
http://www.dolr.org/parishes/parishphotos/…
Durango--Such a beautiful photo of St. Boniface made we interested in finding out more. Here are more photos of the inside and outside of the church as well as some history:
http://www.arkansasties.com/Perry/Structur…
"And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention."
MLK 1967
Wow, NVR, what a great find! Glad I read a few more threads and checked back on this one before logging off. Love the pics and St. Boniface church history. Some of the church family surnames noted in your link are Hampel, Lipsmeyer, Miller, Nagel, Nutt, Olles, Rump, Siefker, McNulty, Straessle, and Volpert. Saw lots of those names on markers today. One of the gravestones I got a pic of was that of an 8-year-old boy. His 126-year-old marker reads (as best I can tell):
HIER RUHT IN GOTT
PETER ALEX OLLES
CEB 27 NOV 1876 ZU TRIER
GEST. 2 APRIL 1884
DIXIE, ARK.
Somebody who speaks German will have to translate for us. Spanish or Pig Latin, and I could have done the translation.
Durango--Online translator says:
HIER RUHT IN GOTT = HERE RESTS IN GOD
I assume the rest is his birth and death date and by using the translator for English to German, died is gestorben, and birth is Geburt so the marker probably is GEB 27 NOV 1976, th GEB and GEST being the abbeviations. Oh yes, Trier is a town in Germany so he was probably born there.
Don't you just love the Internet!
Wow I should have paid more attention when proofreading my previous post--"th" should be "the" and I left the "r" out of abbreviations. It must be late and time to call it a day.
Thanks for the translation, NVR. You are one resourceful lady. And, yes, I do love the Internet; and wish I were better at using it. Two things I’m good at, though, is brewing a pot of coffee and unrolling the morning paper both of which I’m fixin’ to do. Gotta see what Dennis, Pickles, Dilbert, and Zits are up to today. Enjoy your Sunday!
Well Durango, it is my duty as a younger citizen (meaning younger than your 93 year old self) to help the older folks! ;-)
Glad to see you're back on the blog since it had been kind of quiet around here for the last week without you.
NVR, like I’ve often said, you’re a sweetheart. There ain’t a lotta young city girls like you these days who are willin’ to pay proper respect and lend a helpin' hand to frail, elderly fellers like me, and don’t you ever think your attention is not appreciated. While we’re talkin’ about it, I’m wondering if you’d be willin’ to drive me around town when the dssw is away. My wheelchair is very lightweight and I can fold and unfold it myself and for the most part get in the car without assistance, so I’d be a lot less trouble than you might think. Ponder on it, young lady. I know you wouldn’t accept pay, but gasoline, drinks, dinner, and anything you want at Walmart would be on me, of course, lol!
Well since you asked so nicely Durango, I suppose I couldn't refuse an offer like that. I think my little car might hold a wheelchair and I promise not to drive too fast and give you a heart attack. If DSSW says it is OK with her, then you can count on me to be your chauffeur. But if you buy me dinner, don't expect me to feed you or wipe your chin when you dribble. That's asking a little too much!
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