Exclusive Toylit Interview With @RadioactiveHair: The Man Who Infiltrated North Korea

Exclusive Toylit Interview With @RadioactiveHair: The Man Who Infiltrated North Korea

It was an amazing time to be alive: North Korea entered the international community by creating an account on Twitter called @Uriminzok (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/08/north_koreas_propaganda_playgr.html). A /b/tard declared it the end of history. Public radio in the US was abuzz with the possibility that Kim Jong-Il would lay down his arms if he got enough followers. Sadly, optimism tends to trend to pessimism and Portly Asian Elvis stood in the corner, sullenly brandishing nukes and cognac. Pyongyangologists were excited to see NK break this trend when it increased the number of accounts it followed to 13 (auspicious number indeed!) (http://www.reviewmylife.co.uk/blog/2010/10/07/north-korea-13-twitter-friends/). Was this a sign that North Korea was ready to break out of its shell? Perhaps! @Uriminzok didn't seem to think names were very important when it started following @RadioactiveHair nor did it seem uncomfortable with @RadioactiveHair's rapist history either... at least at first.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-gonna-get-raped

All good things must come to an end and after a ruthless Twitter purge, as of March 16, 2011, @Uriminzok follows just 2 people on Twitter: @Pyongyang_DPRK and @JimmyDushku.

I caught up with @RadioactiveHair on Twitter and asked how he felt about his historic role as The Man Who Infiltrated North Korea.

How did you find out about North Korea's Twitter account?

"I wasn't quite sure when I found out about Best Korea's twitter account, but after searching a chat log I can pinpoint an exact date and time. 13:29 Aug 18 2010. "

How did you get North Korea's Twitter account to follow you?

"They followed me on September 16th 2010 after I praised the Dear Leader and Best Korea. September 16th was also 5 days after Collapsing Yankee was supposed to be carried out. This was delayed."

Can you make any sense of the regime based-off its Twitter behavior?

"As I do not speak Korean, I am unable to make any sense of Best Korea's twitter behavior. However, I can understand their propaganda pictures against USA and the other Korea as they did what they could to rape Best Korea in the 50's. Being threatened with nuclear weapons is never pleasant."

Who do you think was really reading your tweets in North Korea?

"I don't know who in Best Korea read my tweets, maybe some of the 10.000 with cellphones they have acquired illegally? For the sake of epicness, I hope it was Kim Jong Il himself. He did say in 2007 that he is an internet expert, so the possibility is there."

When did North Korea stop following you on Twitter?

"You enlightened me about Best Korea unfollowing me on March 8, while it may not be the correct date let's just say it is. When I do find out the date, it shall become a national day of mourning."

Do you think anyone was executed or sent to a labor camp for their role in following you?

"Of course they executed someone for following me, Best Korea doesn't have the time to feed everyone."

When dealing with such a volatile regime, do you worry that trolling them might incite a real war? Or is this what you're hoping for?

"Best Korea is always threatening the south with attacks, so of course I will help bring that forward. Even if it could escalate to a World War if China was to become involved like the last time. If they are smart, they'll make their move now as the crisis in Japan is still ongoing."

Would you like to visit North Korea even though it's probably too late to safely do so now?

"During the period that Best Korea did follow me, Kim built me a mansion outside of Pyongyang, which I visited. At the moment though I will not go back."

You've managed to do what professional espionage agencies as of yet have been unable to do: infiltrate North Korea. Any tips for spymasters reading this?

"Just pay some corrupt folks in China and you'll get instant access to Best Korea. Who to pay I shall not reveal further, nor the sum."

Do you think Kim Jong-Il knew he was gonna get raped? Did that have anything to do with him unfollowing you?

"I hope Kim knew he was gonna get raped, and if he did I sure hope he likes rape."

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Cannibalizing the Giant [Today's News Poem, March 15, 2011]

Cannibalizing the Giant [Today's News Poem, March 15, 2011]

All the ruling beasts align together:
Canis and Catus; Homo and Capra.
Each imagines self in starry patterns,
Fixed in perspective: parallax shiftless.
Stars like these consume a billion comets,
Chlorophyll feeds on waves—radiation.
Mammoths ate the leaves and haunted paintings:
Apes with their spears on tundra surround them.
Lonely giants trumpet loss, extinction.
Only their bones outlast our worshiping.
Hurtle, herd the herds, as herd of herders:
Mineral, vegetable, cannibal
Eating their own; in the end, eating self.

"Australian student Casey Heynes became the latest YouTube sensation—and unofficial anti-bullying PSA posterboy—when he was captured on video bodyslamming a bully that had hit him in the face."
—Brad Cohen, Sports Grid, 3:47 pm, March 14th, 2011
http://www.sportsgrid.com/media/video-of-bully-victim-body-slamming-his-antagonizer-goes-viral-media-firestorm-clouds-form/

Bully FAIL w/ Commentary from John Morgan on Vimeo.

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Pet Apocalypses [Guest News Poem by Mark Kerstetter, March 14, 2011]

Pet Apocalypses [Guest News Poem by Mark Kerstetter, March 14, 2011]
By Mark Kerstetter http://markerstetter.blogspot.com

When not stricken dumb
The tongue turns to teleology
In a churning tide not of waves
But faces, each a cipher
Of any number of pet apocalypses

And so I invoke the Great Mother
Who cares not for end time rhetoric
For whom poems are but sighs
On a chill wind from cracked
And quivering lips

She will call her children home
And scatter at whim
Blankets and robotics her mulch
Be they sardine dolphin or human baby
She doesn’t give a Great Tsunami Fuck

When her skies smile down again
On the nuclear stuff inside
Will there be time to sacrifice a virgin
Or a Sony to turn
on a tumbling shore?

"Radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by an explosion Tuesday and a fourth caught fire in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe. The government warned anyone nearby to stay indoors to avoid exposure."
—ERIC TALMADGE and SHINO YUASA, Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake

"The millions of sardines that were found floating dead in a Southern California marina this week tested positive for a powerful neurotoxin, researchers said Friday. "
—Associated Press, 03/12/11 02:17 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/12/redondo-beach-dead-fish-t_0_n_834958.html

"In the Gulf, record numbers of dead baby dolphins are washing onto the shores of Mississippi and Alabama, creating frightening spectacles for families and their kids prowling the beaches. Tourists are bewildered by scientists slicing tissue samples from the lifeless baby mammals."
—Rocky Kistner, Media associate, NRDC, March 2, 2011 10:12 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rocky-kistner/as-dolphins-die-gulf-rest_b_830200.html

"A tide of bodies washed up along Japan's coastline Monday, overwhelming crematoriums, exhausting supplies of body bags and adding to the spiraling humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis after the massive earthquake and tsunami."
—The Associated Press, 12:30 PM, Mar. 14, 2011
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110314/WDH0101/303140075/1207&located=rss



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Final Garfield Strip: The Censored Original! (And Announcements Enclosed)

Shocking, isn't it? But the redacted original is even more stunning and hints at a tantalizing thesis that demands further investigation:

We have a guest News Poem by the talented & e-lovely fellow (didn't check the Megan's Law registry for Florida, but since he doesn't seem to live under a freeway [at least according to his pics], I think he's okay...) Mark Kerstetter. I'm really fond of the guy. He doesn't meet your context, he makes you enter his context. He's a huge idea-cloud full of symbols and images and artistic torsion. Go to his page http://markerstetter.blogspot.com to more carefully examine his artistic vision.

Are you being a cheap bastard? Yes you are! Buy my book, or click an ad. Otherwise it starts with you bullying me and it ends like this:



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Psychicphrenic Sensitivities [Today's News Poem, March 14, 2011]

Psychicphrenic Sensitivities [Today's News Poem, March 14, 2011]

Every moon has its current.
Only the wisest of schizos acknowledge
It's nerve and it's nervousness.

Every action reacts to the first of all actions:
Explosion, orgasm, whatever you call it
Remember to whimper.

It's not wave, it's not current; it's possible
Is what it is—haecceity—
And nothing could be otherwise.

All the schizos could feel all the nerves
In the earth; they were twitching and bruising
Their knees on the hydrants.

My cat almost died for Japan—
He's connected as well by this feeling of nerves.
His organs unseized and he leaped to my lap

Knowing his death comes much later,
And watched as I watched the tsunami
On teevee, surprised I surprised myself.

I'm laughing. I died in Japan yet I'm typing
A poem. I died in a styrofoam avalanche,
Died in my cradle, died in the ocean;

I died, yet I'm here and the schizos declared it;
They gobbled tobacco and tuned for the station
That everyone hears—it's static: absolute static.

"Japan’s nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday after an explosion damaged the vessel containing the nuclear core at one reactor and a fire at another spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to the statements of Japanese government and industry officials."
—HIROKO TABUCHI, KEITH BRADSHER and MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times, Published: March 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html

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Tsunami Riptide [Today's News Poem, March 13, 2011]

Tsunami Riptide [Today's News Poem, March 13, 2011]

Unravel the surface and peel off the ceilings.
Reveal, repeal, uncover, then exile.
Start up the truck as the water's delivery
Peels the lampposts, borrows the vehicles.

We play while we live with our toys and our tools,
The buildings worth a life of unceasing work.
Nothing in history rhymes with disaster—
Past it, patterns form—they're etched beneath our feet.

"Japanese officials struggled on Sunday to contain a quickly escalating nuclear crisis in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, saying they presumed that partial meltdowns had occurred at two crippled reactors, and that they were bracing for a second explosion, even as problems were reported at two more nuclear plants."
—HIROKO TABUCHI and MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times, Published: March 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/14nuclear.html



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Combatwords Wants YOU

I know your kind: your hollow fealty to words. You claim you'd die for literature, yet you fear to be slain in the arena. Well Combatwords ain't your uncle and it ain't Sam neither... but it wants you. It wants you to fall on your face and break your dainty nose. It wants you to scream for blood between the lines and it wants a final, wordless yet implied 'fuck you' as you lie defeated in the sand.

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/combatwords-march-11-2011-reversal.html

RToady (Seann McCollum) http://carrioncall.blogspot.com March 12, 2011 2:20 AM :
"A modern Salome, or Magdalene,
all she had to do was grin;
gripped between her perfect teeth, the blade
she emancipated bananas with,
flinging them up to the grubby gamins
begging at the edge of the pier."

I was late to the game March 12, 2011 9:58 PM :
"Admit it, you've suffered reversals.
Desire, so the Buddhists declaim,
Is the root of one's woe as if life
Were a trifle. It's huge. It's the only
Certainty, other than death."

Go forth and fight:



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Debunking the Myths of Japan [Today's News Poem, March 12, 2011]

Debunking the Myths of Japan [Today's News Poem, March 12, 2011]

The dolphins are laughing, the bigot applauds;
Maguro, unagi salute in the ocean.
Even Poseidon must chuckle; Hephaestus
Wins far too often, inhales the emissions,
And must be extinguished and trade his position.
Japan had it coming: the oni predicted,
Fat Man predicted, Nanking predicted,
Wako, Yamato, Toyota, Pearl Harbor,
Godzilla, Naruto and Rapeman predicted
Japan as a story, as myth and Atlantis.

"A quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant reeling from an explosion at one of its reactors has also lost its emergency cooling system at another reactor, Japan's nuclear power safety agency said on Sunday. The emergency cooling system is no longer functioning at the No.3 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, requiring the facility to urgently secure a means to supply water to the reactor, an official of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference. On Saturday, an explosion blew off the roof and upper walls of the building housing the facility's No. 1 reactor, stirring alarm over a possible major radiation release, although the government later said the explosion had not affected the reactor's core vessel and that only a small amount of radiation had been released."
—Reuters, Sat Mar 12, 2011 4:17pm EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/us-japan-quake-nuclear-cooling-idUSTRE72B3GI20110312

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Eye Big In Japan [Today's News Poem, March 11, 2011]

Eye Big In Japan [Today's News Poem, March 11, 2011]

Where wave meets reactor; where blaze floats on foam,
Where old circuits die where the tide gores the bull,
Where eye met the image of screen-shot and shoots
The skyscrapers full of its cracked vision scorn;

Where bored meets the keyboard and sleep joins the show,
Where dreams fuse together with flames surfing seas,
A glass made in Tokyo holds sea (drowning cup)
That falls down the throat of a fool: scared to sleep.

"A devastating tsunami hit the coast of northeast Japan on Friday in the aftermath of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake about 80 miles offshore, killing at least five people and injuring dozens. "
—MARTIN FACKLER and KEVIN DREW, The New York Times, Published: March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12japan.html



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Banana Slug Nazar [Today's News Poem, March 10, 2011]

Banana Slug Nazar [Today's News Poem, March 10, 2011]

At first it was God's Eye: a charm of protection
We made with two sticks and a colorful yarn.
Crafts of our youth went to trash, yet the talisman

Survived with its crudeness—its innocence, crudeness—
And stupidly watched from its perch near the stove
Warding off something far worse than our bickering.

I'll miss it and throw it in trash while I'm cleaning
My mother's possessions and sorting her will;
Stunned at my ignorance—mother my mystery.

And somewhere between, back in college, a woman—
A schoolmate who kissed and forgot me—had kissed
Someone who tore off his pants and excitedly

Began to undress her. She gazed at the nazar
And pushed him away. There were eyes all around,
Spitting their blessings or semen on comforters.

I batter my shoulders in doorways and rarely
Avert when I gaze. I have missed all the cues,
Broken the spell that coordinates offices—

The pace on the sidewalk—deflected the daggers
They've launched from their eyes, so the eye of the slug—
Pattern of spot it may be—might examine me

And stay me from clumsiness, grant me her rhythm
Amidst all the traffic just meters away,
Grant me her slime and remove my revulsion.

"McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) announced a far-reaching sourcing policy that could significantly reduce the fast-food giant's impact on the environment, including global forests. Yesterday McDonald's unveiled its Sustainable Land Management Commitment (SLMC), a policy that requires its suppliers to use "agricultural raw materials for the company's food and packaging that originate from sustainably-managed land". The commitment will be monitored via an independent evaluation process, according to the company. "
—Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com, March 11, 2011
http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0310-mcdonalds.html

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Deducing Induction [Today's News Poem, March 9, 2011]

Deducing Induction [Today's News Poem, March 9, 2011]

Fourteen billion pairs of eyes
Gazed at their seventy billion toes;
Saw a trillion hairs on feet,
Prayed to quadrillions of deities.
Life is one. The earth is one.
Hope is quintillions, a googolplex.
Hope is any set plus one.
Hope is the infinite self
Or the incomplete other.

"Young men in hooded jackets smoke cigarettes and await transfer to the mainland — a prospect that is striking fear in many European hearts."
—RACHEL DONADIO and SUZANNE DALEY, The New York Times, Published: March 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/world/europe/10europe.html

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Lies In The Firmament [Today's News Poem, March 8, 2011]

Lies In The Firmament [Today's News Poem, March 8, 2011]

I think I felt a spark beneath the moon;
It was crushing, tremendous—I felt like the tide.
My heart transmitted burning waves
As I saw the long meteor strips with an oak.
I heard the owl adjust her perch
Beneath the summer's nighttime noon.
It is funny to think that we feel we'll abide
Decaying cells; that feeling saves
And that feeling survives when rebirth is a joke
Beneath the false and sparkling church.

"In a potential advance in the field of tissue engineering, researchers report that they've been able to repair injured urinary systems in boys by using bladder cells grown in a laboratory."
—Randy Dotinga, HealthDay Reporter, March 8, 2011
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/digestive-disorders/articles/2011/03/08/lab-grown-urethra-used-to-replace-damaged-tube

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Excuseman Misses Quota [Today's News Poem, March 7 2011]

Excuseman Misses Quota [Today's News Poem, March 7 2011]

The pencils for closers, the door for excuses;
Go to the door my excuseman, with Willie
And get drunk and go driving and fall off
A bridge in the water; it's careless.
Who gives a shit for excuses?
Did they ever meet quota?
Award me a trophy?
Suck off my penis?
Can they grovel?
Promote me?
Feign love?
No.

"Check this one out. The employee does in fact have the skills and talent to do the job, but lacks the passion, enthusiasm and commitment to execute. In many cases, he is not going to tell you that, because what would it sound like? "Boss, I hear you, but I need to tell you that I’m just not feeling it. This job stinks. I can’t quit because I’ve got a family to support. I need this stupid job." Such communication would be refreshingly honest, but don’t hold your breath expecting it to happen. "
—Steve Adubato, NJ.com, Sunday, March 06, 2011, 6:44 AM
http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2011/03/dealing_with_poor_performance.html

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Bird of Coffins [Today's News Poem, March 6, 2011]

Bird of Coffins [Today's News Poem, March 6, 2011]

It started in grass and it ends in the sand.
It glided the thermals, its droppings exploded.
I saw how it hatched from a box, how it fanned.
Debris that unbound, disinterred and unloaded
The mineral arrows, the cylinder coffins
That fall from the wings of a bird made of coffins.

"And rebels near Ras Lanuf said they shot down a Libyan air force plane, a Soviet-made Sukhoi Su-24MK that crashed in the desert, on Saturday. CNN located the plane's debris, spread over a kilometer (about half a mile), with the headless bodies of two pilots at the site."
—CNN's Nic Robertson, Ben Brumfield, Arwa Damon, Ben Wedeman, Salma Abdelaziz, Jomana Karadsheh and Jill Dougherty contributed to this report, CNNMarch 6, 2011 3:14 a.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/03/06/libya.conflict/?hpt=T2

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Buried Alive In A Grave For Pagan Gods [Today's News Poem, March 5, 2011]

Buried Alive In A Grave For Pagan Gods [Today's News Poem, March 5, 2011]

'Shafted,' the veins call. Shafted in ore.
Shafted like oak trees they whittled to beams.
Abandon the forest, salvage the timber
Concealing—not God of the pagans, not Odin,
Nor the glory of mist on leaves in the morning—
Just a buttress to stave off the ruin of matter.
Stakes that were stabbed in the caverns, entropy unifies
Corpses, inertness, a profit, a loss, though it's purposeless.

"A priest has given last rites to a man who fell into an abandoned Nevada mine shaft so deep and treacherous that rescuers have abandoned efforts to reach him,"
—(AP), Mar 5, 2011 11:55 AM CST
http://www.newser.com/story/113448/rescuers-abandon-man-trapped-alive-in-nevada-mine.html

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Tales From the Combatwords Arena: Randomness

Anton Gourman (http://forpuck.wordpress.com/) won last week's Combatwords, so he selected this week's topic. You can see him win here: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/02/combatwords-february-25-2011-friendship.html

Read this week's combat here: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/combatwords-march-4-2011-randomness.html

Valerie Valdes http://candleinsunshine.com/asthemoonclimbs/:
""When the time comes, choose
the top one." Lucky numbers
six, nine, forty-two."

Amalia Dillin http://blog.amaliadillin.com/:
"I am Europa, and this bull is my god. Zeus, Poseidon, Jehovah, Allah, Odin, Thor, or Amun-Ra. He leans into my touch, and I am blessed. I am alive. I am electric."

Seann McCollum http://carrioncall.blogspot.com/:
"Instructions tumble from your unclenched fist.
Each word can be interpreted six ways..."

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The Golden Termite [Today's News Poem, March 4, 2011]

The Golden Termite [Today's News Poem, March 4, 2011]

It's always back and forth between deduction, induction, reduction, seduction; always a slip of the while to recover one's footing; capture one's balance to throw it akilter again. And we slither on tightropes; we slither as tightrope: slivers of quicksilver. Silver; everything bright is a gem or a metal refined to its limit; a thing to explore and deplete and discard. The object dissolves as we breach to the center of things—hear the ring of the harmony latent in spheres? Eve of our prayer to atom, we played in our garden of tin and its blossoms of soot; we reduced our perspective and drilled to the core, which exploded of course and enthralled us. It called us a name we have kept ever since: something like element, shapeshifter—termites that watch for their God in the timber, in cellulose. God of the termites. God as a termite.

"Gold futures rallied and silver hit its highest point in nearly 31-years Friday as jitters about rising oil prices amid Middle East tensions boosted the metals as refuge investments."
—Matt Whittaker Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES, The Wall Street Journal, MARCH 4, 2011, 2:38 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110304-710448.html

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They Will Take It From Us [Today's News Poem, March 3, 2011]

They Will Take It From Us [Today's News Poem, March 3, 2011]

I don't embrace
you yet—I will, so tarry.
Bless us, extend our duration. Delay

another day
and let me bed upon—not
under—the grass and in sunlight's gold trace.

"in 1856 when, barely a year into his reign, Alexander II announced to an assembly of noblemen, “I’ve decided to do it, gentlemen. If we don’t give the peasants freedom from above, they will take it from below...” Northern leaders, on the other hand, pointed with shame to the fact that the world’s greatest democracy and its most infamous autocracy stood alone among major Western powers in retaining slavery."
—ADAM GOODHEART, The New York Times, March 2, 2011, 8:30 pm
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/the-other-emancipation-proclamation/

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Commanded To Surrender [Today's News Poem, March 2, 2011]

Commanded To Surrender [Today's News Poem, March 2, 2011]

Law is stone and God is brazier:
Bronze, unyielding, burning razor.
Time is bone, a crystal rock:
Fossil lost to gemstone features.

Love our eyes for eyes, and seek
Blind surrender, yield as weak.
Gradations have vanished in binaries:
Perfect, defective, and perfect
Again.

Surrender, surrender; it's envy, surrender—
God is the captain of every surrender.

"Sirhan made his first appearance before a California parole board since 2000, supported by two psychologists' reports saying he no longer poses a threat to society, his attorney said... On occasion, Sirhan flashed a gap-toothed smile, but as Prizmich announced the parole denial, Sirhan bit his tongue.
Prizmich said that Sirhan's assassination of Kennedy marked a national loss, prompting Sirhan to make a startling assertion.
"That was not my responsibility," Sirhan blurted out.
Sirhan's attorney, William Pepper, expressed "disappointment" over the parole board's decision and said Sirhan will appeal the matter to the courts. The parole board "ignored every thing we had to say, and they went on the emotional kick of a loss of a presidential candidate," Pepper said. "The magnitude of the crime has nothing to do with his suitability of being released from prison after 43 years.""
—Michael Martinez, CNN, March 3, 2011 12:01 a.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/03/california.sirhan.parole.hearing/

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False Etymology of Western Modernity [Today's News Poem, March 1, 2011]

False Etymology of Western Modernity [Today's News Poem, March 1, 2011]

Pass through the root of a word:
It resembles enchanters of blaze,
Medicine wands made of paw
And the pelt of a Nemean Lion.

Passion: an animal zeal.
The religion of sunrise and rays
Sniffs for and snuffs out the source
In the soil, in the catgrass—the cornstalks.

Compassion: the dream of a mouse
Covered in paws; and compassion—the taste
Of blood is the flavor of rain,
Pity and love: the communion of famished.

Romance: desire is a sword
Or wound, or the wounded—the wounding
Passing unbreakable flesh
To memories, hopes, expectations.

Roman: the letters and laws.
Imperial characters slaying
Wilderness, making the peace
With weaponry, ownership, commerce.

Roma: a cairn made of bones
For saints and salvation. Religion
Vanquishes beast and its praise,
Compassion and conscience—the wilderness.

"They are not God, yet they act as though they have all power and authority to determine the day and hour of a baby's death and also the manner in which he dies."
—Jennifer Hartline, Catholic Online, 3/1/2011
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=40526

"Animal control officials are concerned that they have had to put down too many dogs and have developed a plan to curb the euthanasia rate."
—Kevin Valine, The Modesto Bee, Feb. 28, 2011
http://www.modbee.com/2011/02/27/1576232/oakdale-tryingto-reduce-rate-of.html

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Change Charges Promise [Today's News Poem, February 28, 2011]

Change Charges Promise [Today's News Poem, February 28, 2011]

Change is a coin that one flips in the air,
Calls as it lands; then one curses the name.
Nickel's the treatment for rust in the metal;
Keeps all the surfaces shiny with promise.
Promise me coins will prevail
After we've flipped and set sail
On an ocean of change on a charge card—a barque
Made of plastic that charted the storms and approved.

"“At the end of the day, how much change will there really be in Egypt and other countries?” he asked. “There will be many disappointed demonstrators, and that’s when they will realize what the only alternative is. We are certain that this will all play into our hands.” "
—SCOTT SHANE, The New York Times, Published: February 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/world/middleeast/28qaeda.html

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Rat Maze [Today's News Poem, February 27, 2011]

Rat Maze [Today's News Poem, February 27, 2011]

Over capacity, under the freeway,
Next to the tower of smog—yes the thunder's
Alive, not like Thor, but like eyes that observe
The mazes of pageantry, splendor of rats.
Wedged in a corner of pavement; the rodents
Halve and are mice, halve and are newborns—
Divide to the zygote, to ova and sperm.
Repeating division, the dead are reborn,
Branching through time as the life-form imagines,
Mates and then dies, is reborn in the fragments:
Cast origami of proteins unfolding
Building a lattice of mazes just like it.

"... there are warning signs that China could soon suffer from the same overcapacity that has long afflicted the United States and Europe. Half of the executives surveyed by KPMG, the accounting firm, believe that China will have too many automotive plants within five years, according to a study that KPMG published in January."
—JACK EWING, The New York Times, February 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/business/global/28iht-cars28.html

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11.5 More Hours of Combatwords

Get your Combatwords right here: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/02/combatwords-february-25-2011-friendship.html

Hikimadwoman http://preservativewoman.posterous.com/:
"i
hold
still
a rubber kick
my hands shattering"

RToady/Seann McCollum http://carrioncall.blogspot.com/:
"saguaro phalluses ablaze with blossom,
clumps of opuntia best approached with caution."

Vandamir http://vandamir.wordpress.com/:
"my lover sent me an irate message. His family read my online journal and confronted him regarding our relationship. They were concerned because I practiced magick and openly discussed birth control."

Anton Gourman http://forpuck.wordpress.com/:
"Five tables stood in line
Small candles flickering Morse promises
of future greatness and the perfection of the moment,
casting shadows of time on
the crayfish, cheese, bread and the paper plates,
which were ready to lose their innocence for our pleasure"

Naomi McArdle http://harmlessnoise.wordpress.com/:
"And yet, we're bound by
invisible blood-brother rites,
the ink of life that decrees
in small-print clauses and codicils
the benefactors of emotional wealth
on a pre-mortem testament."

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Breadlines and Roselines [Today's News Poem, February 26, 2011]

Breadlines and Roselines [Today's News Poem, February 26, 2011]

Make a date: the Ferry Building Farmer's Market.
Wait in a civilized line for a sourdough.

In gray we trust the bridge of shadow, steel, and sunlight
To conjure the dungeness claws for an altar:

Motor oil and seagull bones; a coil of feces
Nearest the merchant with roses from Bakersfield,

And nearest where we kiss, the first of many kisses
(Enormous, between and beneath, we're impressive)—

Nearest rust we trust will wait—our lives beginning
Ordered disorder, with roses and sourdough;

And ready for bridge or pier collapse,
And ready for kiss and crab and rust.

"Workers were still hastily painting over graffiti calling Colonel Qaddafi a “bloodsucker” or demanding his ouster. Just off the tour route were long bread lines where residents said they were afraid to be seen talking to journalists."
—DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, The New York Times, Published: February 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/world/africa/27libya.html

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Whiteout [Today's News Poem, February 25, 2011]

Whiteout [Today's News Poem, February 25, 2011]

In the dark, it's mind and toes that cringe and hands that grip the walls;
Dark and it's raining—you'll drown in the whiteness of clouds and squalls.

It is simply candle dulling sight to match the other senses.
Stars fall as gushers; to river down asphalt, as water fences.

And combined they're dull, as white as candle wax or strips of rain
Flinging the sparks to the earth in a tantrum of cloudy chains.

"Yup. Still Raining."
-Khakjaan Wessington
Source: A window in SF

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Blackout [Today's News Poem, February 24, 2011]

Blackout [Today's News Poem, February 24, 2011]

Rain the timbers sideways, raise the tarp
And slide if you dare through a hurricane.
Jets are steaming drinks of sky for you:
A latte of contrail and shivering.
Who recalls the first of many lights?
The last is the one we remember.

"The weather looks like shit in my neighborhood, but no snow yet."
-Khakjaan Wessington
Source: Khakjaan Wessington's window

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The Slave Meme [Today's News Poem, February 23, 2011]

The Slave Meme [Today's News Poem, February 23, 2011]

Calculate value with margins of error:
Rome had its slaves who rebelled and destroyed it;
We have computers to operate, process
Assets, authority; ever our servant.

Rome was the peak of the body as weapon,
Masters of iron and bronze for the export
Of edges to fringes to chip off the forests,
And skewer the lion and lamb in their turn.

Enslavement as industry; slaving the farmer,
Enslaving a continent's people who feuded
And built a machine with no center for labor;
To slave and be slain in their turn as the master.

Heirs to the empire of crumbling marble,
Sacrifice blood in arenas of numbers.

"The political turmoil sweeping the Arab world drove oil prices sharply higher and stocks much lower on Tuesday despite efforts by Saudi Arabia to calm turbulent markets."
—CLIFFORD KRAUSS and CHRISTINE HAUSER, The New York Times, Published: February 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/business/global/23oil.html

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Time Machine [Today's News Poem, February 22, 2011]

Time Machine [Today's News Poem, February 22, 2011]

Los Angeles twists on Sierra—
A snow-melt from faucet to desert—
And gargles the fossils with toothpaste.

The mountain is boundary, sentry;
And distance is measured in pipelines
We lay like a path to the future.

The future is now and it orbits
A tribe in Brazil in an airplane
And photographs warriors fleeing.

The past is around us, it threatens
The girder with rust and the freeway
With sinkholes; turns water to sewage.

Machines are the network: they've processed
The distance with diesel, computed
The time with those nerves of connection,

And mingled—yet mingle the present
With infinite loops where the t-shirts
And bottles go drift in the ocean

That links all with shorelines and current
And plastic and ink made of pixels
With past to the future, with present.

"Four Americans taken hostage after their yacht was hijacked by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa last week were killed early Tuesday when gunfire erupted during attempts by the United States Navy to negotiate with their captors, American military officials said. American officials had opened a channel of communication between the pirates’ financier as well as elders from their village to help negotiate the hostages’ release."
—J. DAVID GOODMAN. The New York Times, Published: February 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/world/africa/23pirates.html



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American RPG [Today's News Poem, February 21, 2011]

American RPG [Today's News Poem, February 21, 2011]

I loaded my game and returned to the sidewalk.
To level, I jaywalked and dodged all the autos.
And somewhere a player is rolling the chances
And notes my encounters with clerks at the grocer.
I've died on the freeway and died on the mountain;
I've fallen off cliffs and been shot in an alley.
My character loaded, returned to the story,
Where datapoints gather the resources, treasure
And play simulation. A city of players
Where oil is from Libya; the trinkets, from China;
American program—add prayers to be certain.

"Several oil companies said they were making plans to evacuate employees from Libya and investors are wondering which oil-producing country may be next to face the wrath of its people. “Political risks is hanging over a big proportion of the world’s oil supplies,” said Simon Derrick, an analyst at Bank of New York Mellon. “I can see safe haven buying the natural outcome of all this.” Particularly strong was a survey showing that business confidence in Germany... Concerns about Portugal’s debt crisis... Earlier in Asia, investors also had their first chance to respond to Friday’s decision by the monetary authorities in China to increase the amount banks hold in reserve."
—Associated Press, February 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/business/global/22markets.html



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Skipper De-Jaded [Today's News Poem, February 20, 2011]

Skipper De-Jaded [Today's News Poem, February 20, 2011]

If I chose revolution and salvaged compassion
From my island of shipwreck, my computerized jail;
Would it fit in its place in my chest if I swallowed
That original cast-off, or would its reaction
Summon the bile of the years and erupt through my ribs?

It was breeze from my fingers that blew it to skerries
Of electrons—that voyeur of fiber and flicker.
We had sailed on my ego through oceans of info:
We saw thousands of murders, a million transgressions;
Billions of people and trillions of dollars depart.

I had come to believe my compassion a weakness,
So I left it exposed on a rock while I traveled
Through the internet, paralyzed gawker of horrors.
It's the game of the world; it enriches, imprisons,
Battens the hatches—we're planted on asses and watch

As the currents run swifter, the water much colder;
And an enemy lurks in the depths—it's a monster
That is ancient, too awful for morbid obsessions.
It is nerves and it sounds like a bus: it is bullet,
Plastic and prayer—it is servant and master in one.

"Chinese authorities detained dozens of political activists after an anonymous online call for people to start a "Jasmine Revolution" in China by protesting in 13 cities—just a day after President Hu Jintao called for tighter Internet controls to help prevent social unrest. But Chinese authorities seemed to take it seriously, deploying extra police to the planned protest sites, deleting almost all online discussion of the appeal, blocking searches for the word "Jasmine" on micro-blogging and other sites and temporarily disabling mass text-messaging services."
—JEREMY PAGE , The Wall Street Journal, FEBRUARY 20, 2011, 2:10 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703498804576156203874160350.html

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