criticks of buddy don: whut a cuple more comminters sed

fer the most part, my life has bin one whar ye could say twuz better lucky than good. fer proof of that, cunsidder the hi qualty of them that rites commints here.

i writ bout anonnymus wundern whuther i wuz trine to be funny or sumthin by ritin in hillbilly dialeck. thay wuz sum good commints that cum frum that, witch one of em leads to a verr good idee (thankee smijer!).

we kin save whut smijer had to say bout them commints frum anonnymus till the end on a counta how it brangs up a good idee. meanwhile, twuz my verr good luck to have this commint frum anne johnson frum the gods are bored n six word blog:

"Anonymous" doesn't have a lock on proper grammar him/herself. Writing must be true to the heart and soul, and this is the way you want to do it, BD. To thine own self be true.

lucky a nuff fer me, i dont know no other way to do it.

the next commint cums frum a feller i aint never met but feel lack i bin a'knowin all my life, who that wood be buck frum the same blog as smijer, tete-a-tete-a-tete (caint make them symbulls cum out rite on blogger fer sum reason):

The first time I ever read this blog I laughed out loud because it reads almost exactly like me and many of my kin folks talk.

I think it is funny as hell and purty much dead on.

I thank if we followed the blood river Buddy we would find that many of mine are kin to yorn.

mayhap i feel lack i know buck on a counta we could be cuzins or sumthin. twoodnt sprize me n twood be a honor ifn turnt out to be true!

the next commint is nigh onto poetry, cummin frum a comminter name of marcia, who she rites a grate blog bout knittin n purt near ever other subjeck under the sun name of purls before swine:

Oh buddy don. I have to get to bed right now, but need to put this down before I forget. Over the past few weeks I've been gazing on my own navel on the idea of of "personal vernacular". At this time, however, I will spare you the configuration of the lint, therein.

Personal vernacular is a powerful thing. It is rich and poor. It connects and separates. It has sound and imagery. It can sustain thought without a word spoken. It is a word spoken, without need of thought.

It is the blankie that comforts and helps us transition to new worlds and experiences.

It is the wallpaper of our soul.

lack i sed, the way marcia knits wurds together is pure poetry. i wish i coulda cum up with half them grate metafors bout persunal vernackular.

finely, heres whut smijer had to say, witch this is such a good idee that i am a'gone try to see whuther i kin make sumthin of it:

Have you ever done any audio? What I hear when I read you probably isn't exactly what you hear when you write... I'd love to hear the 'real thing'.

I'm afraid I've all but lost recollection of the dialects I grew up with, but I love to hear any country dialect, including European ones... they all sound a little bit like home to me.

fack is, i have dun a lil audio, but i aint dun whut i shoulda dun alreddy dun ere now: record a lil bit of this here dialeck that i kin here clear as a bell in my mind but kin convey to the page only so good (never as good as i kin here it).

fer eggsample, nigh onto everbidy knows that down south the furst persun singular is pronounced without the dipthong that makes it two vowel sounds, a "aaah" follerd by a "ee" sound. we dont add the 'ee'. tiz almost impossibull to capchur that in letters, so i dun give it up n settled on usin 'i' on a counta i figger most folks know bout how that wurd is pronounced by folk lack me. thang is, i aint a'gone putt 'aaah sed this' nor 'aaah sed that' but ye kindly git the idee.

innywho, thankee one n all fer yer criticisum. ye caint git a nuff of that in this world fer the most part n i am verr gratefull fer it.

pinions of buddy don: ifn tennessee is on the frunt page of the ny times ...

... then taint lackly to be good news, lessn tiz about them lady vols. todays ny times aint no different, witch it has a articull name of Firm Acted as Tutor in Selling Towns Risky Deals:

LEWISBURG, Tenn. — Five years ago, this small factory town was struggling to pay the interest on a bond for new sewers. Bob Phillips, Lewisburg’s part-time mayor and full-time pharmacist, was urged by the town’s financial adviser, an investment bank named Morgan Keegan & Company, to engage in a complex financial transaction to lower interest rates.

When a Lewisburg official attended a state-sponsored seminar intended to lay out the transaction’s benefits and risks, he was taught by investment bankers from Morgan Keegan.

And when Lewisburg decided to go ahead with the transaction, who was there to make the deal? Morgan Keegan.

In January, local officials were shocked to discover that annual interest payments on the bond had quadrupled to $1 million. Morgan Keegan, they said, did not serve them well in any of its roles.

dont that jes beat all? sum of the wurst news is how them industries is movin out of tennessee, witch the menchun of sanford pencils moving to mexico is a prime eggsample. jes brakes yer hart that these jobs trickle down to other cuntries (on a counta trickle down always means jobs fer them that wurks fer the least money, no matter whuther tiz in this cuntry or sum othern).

quik note of buddy don: whut i wood do

everbidy is upset over the aig bonuses, witch they accounted fer about .0916% of all the money we dun give aig ... n they pertend to be outraged over earmarks, witch they amounted to lessn 2% of the budget n wuz money that wuz a'gone be spent no matter whut, so why wood folks be upset that how it wood be spent wood be deecided by them that represents the ackshull people they represent?

seems to me we putt way to much thought into the lil thangs that dont hardly matter nun n ignore the big thangs that do. whut is aig a'doin with tuther money they gut?

speakin of givin way too much creedents to lil thangs that dont hardly matter, lust aint the problem, deespite whut the far right relijus theeocrats of the cuntry lacks to preach.

point is, taint lust but greed thats the problem.

why am i talkin bout lust n greed (two of the gratest of the seven dedlies)? on a counta we dun kickd out a feller that knew how to brang greedy insiders to heel on a counta his lust. i am talkin bout eliot spitzer.

aint nobidy in washingtun dee cee thats gut the guts to up-point the lusty mr spitzer to whar they gut that tim geitner guy, but twood be a smart move, in my lil hillbilly's pinion.

reckomendayshuns of buddy don: vote!

me n miz bd gut in line about 5 mints after them polls opend, but we dint git to vote fer 1 hour n 45 mints! the jersy state guvner votes at the same precinct we do, so all the media ye kin magine wuz thar. he still had to wait in line n far as i know, he is a'waitin still.

we bin votin here in whut they lacks to call ny citys sixth boro fer eight years, but we aint never had to wait ere now. even in 2004 we wuz in n out in no time.

but them lines is wurth it when yer part of histry bein made.

vote yall!

yall vote!

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

observayshuns of buddy don: we dint panick ... yet

as my five or six long term readers have dun figgerd out by now, i wurk on wall st. as ye mite could magin, yesterdy wudnt nuthin but hard to git thru.

thay wuz a point whar even my own boss n sum higher ups couldnt hardly do nuthin but sit roun a cumpter screen in the cubicull village a'gawkin at how the shares of the last remainin big boys, goldman n morgan, wuz floatin to earth lack they wudnt nuthin moren late sprang cherry blossoms ... with a strong wind a'blowin.

whut else could a bidy do but sit with mouth hangin open n wunder whar thangs will lead? everbidy is skeerd fer thar jobs no matter whar they wurk nor whut they do on the street.

i wish i could say sumthin smart bout it, but tiz all i kin do to keep up with my own lil job, witch lucky fer me (or not) dont have nuthin to do with bein a ackshull banker. i caint say i understand whut brung us to whar we are ceptn that tiz purty clear that ye caint let the foxes guard the henhouse.

i reckun thats a lessun lernt fer a mint or two ... then twill be back to trine to git gummint outta the way of bizness by puttin sum foxes up to guard the newly cunstructed henhouses. makes me glad i aint a banker n aint speckted to understand whut bankers has to do.

but i know a slew of em n unlack the stereotypes of em bein fat n lazy, thar that hardest wurkin folk i ever knew or herd tell of. investment bankin dont leave em without a life ... it becums thar hole life!

n they jes seen thar portfolios shrank down to nuthin. so did mine, but taint much of a loss on a counta ifn ye dont have much, ye caint lose much, but they had millions. now they gut thousands. or maybe nuthin by the end of the day.

so whut are they a'wurkin fer?

thay wont be no bonus this year, witch that dont wurry me much. shore i aint had a raise since '03 but aint hardly nobidy i know had one neethur (corse we wurkers are much more perductiv, so on cold winter nites we kin warm ourselves by our pride in a job well dun fer sumbidy elses proffit).

fack is, i wood cunsidder it a bonus ifn i still have a job at the same place by bonus time. or maybe a job at the same place only with a differnt name or sumthin.

or is it time to try to cash in n find a cheeper place to be? plane fack is, me n miz bd dont hardly know whut to do next.

as they say, all opshuns are on the table ... long as we have a table to putt em on, that is.

whutever! thay aint no doubt that today will proov verr innerestin.

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pinions of buddy don: how cum bleevers caint have faith in whut they claim to bleeve?

thays a pluralty of christchuns in this cuntry that dont seem to thank god is up to the task of doin the judgin jesus eggsplained wuz hisn, not ourn, to do, witch he taught that in the sermon on the mount in the seventh chaptur of matthew:

1Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

ifn ye truly bleeve in whut jesus sed in that famus sermon, then ye dont need to git yer gummint to ban aborshun, speshly in a demockrussy whar most folks ackshly supports the rite of a woman to make her own choices bout whuther to have a baby n risk eternull damnayshun by treatin her lil zygote lack the millyuns of other lil zygotes kept on ice after inveetro fertilizayshun: gittin rid of it.

i aint sayin thats rite, only that tiz up to god to judge, not me ... n not my gummint. (thanks to them publicans n them spineless dimcrats, thar way too far up in our bedrooms n phones n emails alreddy!)

it also aint the role of our gummint to enforce laws on the basis of relijun. taint to say gummint should let jes anythang go -- ye caint sankshun murder or robbin folks (lessn tiz dun on a verr large scale, witch enron showd us all how that wurks) -- but the gummint aint gut no bizness trine to enforce the viewpoints of a relijus group that dont represent the majorty.

why caint that same group putt thar faith in god? caint he be trusted to do the judgin? kin it be they dont trust god to hold up his end of the bargain? aint they jes faithless bleevers? (god kin judge whuther thar faithless, but thats how it looks to this here sinner.)

aint it hard a nuff to live a christchun life without trine to force the gummint to poke out the motes in everybidy elses eyes? shouldnt them that bleeves spend thar time trine to live rite? aint that a big a nuff task fer a lifetime? (i know based on personull eggzperients that it takes everthang a bidy kin do to live rite n even then ye mite fall short.)

i sumtimes wunder whut kinda thankin wood lead sumbidy to wonta dicktate to everbidy else how they kin live. seems to me it cums down to this.

furst, ye gut to bleeve that god is more innerested in the kinda justus that results in eternull sufferin frum witch thar aint never no chants of eggscape fer innybidy that fails to bleeve eggzackly the rite tale bout how to git saved. (that bleef is a stumblin block fer me on a counta i caint bleeve in such a cruel god n tend to thank he wood half to be more mercifull than that.)

but ifn ye kin bleeve that, ifn ye bleeve in eternull torment fer them that bleeves the rong thang, then secunt, why woodnt ye wont folks to be punished fer the rest of thar lives ifn they do innythang that the faithless bleevers thanks is rong, such as gittin pregnunt ere yer marrd? ifn ye do such a evil thang, ye deeserve yer punishment, witch that means havin the child, period, n probly bein forced into a marrg when yer barely outta hi skool.

n thurd, bad luck should be punishd: must be gods will or sumthin.

corse, bad luck dont mean the woman wood half to git marrd: ifn a woman should have the terrbull luck of gittin raped, speshly ifn twuz her father or her bruther or her uncle or sum criminull rapist she dont never see agin in life, least she wont half to marr the bum.

but ifn them faithless bleevers gits thar way, she also wont have the opshun of gittin rid of the lil zygote n takin a risk that wood only apply to her, gods judgment.

in sted, she will be judged -- n punished -- by the gummint them faithless bleevers wonts to force on the rest of us.

ifn ye have faith, ye know that god knows how to handle the situwayshun, both fer the judgers n the judged. n ifn ye bleeve life cummences with concepshun (n not with the 'breath of life' frum genesis), then ye orta try to cunvints everbidy that tiz evil n rong to abort. tiz yer rite to do that. but ye dont have to take away the rites that the majorty of murkins bleeves women orta have.

ifn ye truly bleeve, why not have the faith to let god do the judgin? could it be ye fear gods mercy? on a counta thays a lot of it in that thar new testamint, witch thats whar tiz claimed that tiz god, not humans, that duz the judgin of everbidy.

but most of all, how cum bleevers caint have faith in whut they claim to bleeve?

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pinions of buddy don: mass transit

whenever i deecided to move up here to the new york city area, i had me a few of the reason ye mite eggzpeck: wontin to live in the gratest city in the worl, wontin to have ackcess to all that cultchur, wontin to eggspand my horizons, wontin to live in a cosmopolitun place whar a bidy could meet folks frum ever part of the globe, wontin to here all kinds of langwages bein spoke everday as ye walk round town, etsetra.

but one of the biggest reasons wuz wontin to be able to live without havin a car or a car payment or a insurants payment or maintenunts costs or gas costs or oil to change or air filters to go bad or tires to rebalance or even wear out or encounters with drunk drivers.

i had dun alreddy lived in west germany (germany hadnt been re-united back then) a cuple of times, furst in frankfurt, then in münchen (witch tiz called munich fer sum reason over here). in bof places, i never needed a car even once. i could git to everwhar i needed to go fer jes a lil money by usin publick transportayshun. ifn i wonted to go to a nuther cuntry, twuz easy to git on a train. n twuz easy to walk round town, witch that aint the case in lots of places in the u.s.

so i wonted to live that kinda life fer a bit over here, witch i been a'livin in now fer nigh onto 23 years.

i know thays a passel of folk that thanks havin to take publick transportayshun is a fate wursern death, that they woodnt be safe amid all them other folk, witch tiz a fack that thays ever kind n color n relijun ye kin thank of on the subways n busses of new york n new jersey.

but after i larnt how to find my way around (n all ye have to do is ast innybidy ye see, witch folks up in here is much friendlier than they gits credit fer bein), i gut to lackin it even bettern i dun over in west germany.

i know tiz hard to bleeve a bidy is safe out amung folks without a tun or more of metal n glass round em, but taint the case. the subways carry moren 3 millyun folks everday n tiz a verr rare thang to here bout a sangle one of em havin inny problem with crime. tiz natcherul that they woodnt on a counta tiz jes folks on them trains, beesides witch thays plenty of poe-leece officers to keep thangs under cuntrol.

but the best thang bout it is how ye kin read whilst yer commutin to wurk! thats rite, ye kin git cumpletely inside of yer book without havin to wurry bout drivin.

thay aint no stress frum sittin in traffick, aint no need to wurry bout bein cut off by tuther driver, aint no need to stop to git gas ere ye run out, aint no need to find a parkin place, witch up in here it costs a fortchun to park fer jes one day, as much as it used to cost to fill yer tank ($30 or so). ye also dont have to find a place to park whenever ye git home. n ye aint eggspozed to drunk drivers that mite not notiss whuther thar about to wreck thar car or truck into ye.

i know that ye caint have this kinda life everwhar, that thays verr few places in this grate cuntry with the foresite to build em a publick transportayshun system, but ifn yer local place gits to thankin bout it, ye mite orta support it.

tiz a grate way to git frum here to thar, dont use near as much gas or uther fossil fuels, n aint near as stressful.

now that gas has riz almost to half whut folks pay over in europe, minnys the driver a'cunsidderin the same thang i do: commutin by mass transit. n ifn they caint do that, thar a'buyin smaller cars, witch that aint good fer a deetroit that dont wonta sell em.

sides witch, ye git to read, witch at the moment, i am a'readin Twilight at Monticello by a feller name of Alan Pell Crawford. plane fack is, i never red near as much back whenever i had a car n had to drive to git innywhar.

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pinions of buddy don: grate cause

i gut thisn frum my good frien thinking meat. i caint putt it no bettern meat fer brains dun dun:

Award-winning author Pat Cadigan has started the “Match It for Pratchett” campaign, honoring Terry Pratchett. Pratchett, the author of the popular Discworld novels, recently announced that he has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. He has donated £500,000 (roughly $1 million) to Alzheimer’s research, and the campaign to match his donation is underway.

Please visit the campaign’s Guide to Giving and donate today.

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pinions of buddy don: more bout folks readin books

ye mite could say it dun hit a nerve whenever steven jobs claimd thay wudnt no future fer amazons kindle on a counta he dint thank nobidy red all that much. corse that wuz ded rong, witch i figger everbidy knew as much. so twuz a nice sprize to see an articull in the new york times name of book lust writ by a feller name of timothy egan on the verr subjeck, witch i reckon ye half to pay to read it.

mane thang that articull dun fer me is to reemind yall bout sum good books i red lately:

• that thar trilogy name of his dark materials by philip pullman. tiz a trilogy, witch that eethur means ye gut to read three books or that ye git to read three books, all accordin to whuther ye lack them books (i shore did).


• the road by cormac mccarthy, witch hes a author i lack sumtimes n caint hardly stand in otherns. this book is grim fer shore, but tiz so well imagind n deescribed that ye feel as ifn ye wuz in the verr hell he shows ye ... till tiz over.


• best of the bunch, a thousand splendid suns by khaled hosseini, who hes the guy that writ the kite runner (a nuther grate read fer yall). i enjoyed bof of them books, but i found the bettern to be a thousand splendid suns.


• finely, i jes finishd a verr enlitenin book name of understanding islam, an introduction to the muslim world, writ by a feller name of thomas w. lippman. thang bout this book is it reeminds ye jes how lil we really know bout the worlds fastest growin relijun. i had tuck a class on islam in collidge, but twuz still grate to brush up on the topick. warnin: ifn ye read this book, ye mite not have much payshunts fer folks spoutin out thar ignorunt pinions bout islam, witch tiz the die-reck deecendent frum judaism n christianity, witch muslims revere abraham, moses, noah, jesus n mohammed.

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pinions of buddy don: john scalzi n a new way of gittin books out thar

tiz verr hard to git yer books to readers ifn ye use the ole fashun way, witch thats to git sum big publishin cumpny to publish n market n distribute it.

lucky fer everbidy that lacks to read n fer them that lacks to rite books n git em red, thays new ways of doon thangs. tiz much simpler these daze jes to git a manuscip reddy n have it dun. i will be sayin lots more on this topick, soon i hope.

meanwhile, thays other ways of gittin yer book notissd, speshly once ye git ye a follerin, lack john scalzi has dun alreddy dun. here hes splain his awkshun to sell the bound vershun of the manuscip ere tiz gone thru its final copy editin, meanin warts n all. whoever wins the awkshun will git it sined n all, witch ye kin read all bout that by clickin on that thar lank (tip of the hat to meatbrain frum thinking meat).

point is, thays new ways of gittin a book red, n aint no better way of gittin it aroun than wurd of mouth. i dun red a cuple manuscips lately that i caint hardly wait till it kin be bought sum kinda way. twoodnt sprize me ifn them authors wuz offerin simlar kinda thangs to whut mr scalzi has offerd or mayhap to sine the final vershun, not the bound ms.

tiz my pinion that these changes is a'gone make it possibull fer us to read sum good books that woodnt ever git out of the authors drawer otherwise ... n as jed wood say, that dont make nuthin inny wurser.

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pinions of buddy don: kin it be that jurnalists is makin a cumback?

i aint had much time fer bloggin lately on a counta havin to wurk out as a way of fitin them migraines (seems to be heppin so fer). today i am a'hopin that i am still employd at the end of the day on a counta thays rumors bout layoffs n rifs all up n down 'the street' as folks calls wall street firms. but i am hopin fer the bes, witch whenever yer bout to have fates cards dealt to ye, thay aint much more ye kin do.

but i do have sum good news, witch seems lack thays folks that bof lacks to commit jurnalism now n then ... n that folks that watches tv kindly dont keer much fer a channel that aint nuthin but a mouthpiece fer one of the parties.

tiz good to have good news on a day that could turn out bad, so have a look at them articulls whilst ye mayhap send sum good thoughts n luck at this ole wanderin hillbilly.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pinions of buddy don: steven jobs splains how i am not a people

tuther day i wuz readin sumthin steven jobs had to say bout me, witch twuz his way of attackin one of his cumpetitors or lease whut he mite coulda thunk wuz a cumpetitor sum kinda way. heres whut he sed, frum a articull in the new york times:

Today he had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

i wood lack to set ye strate on sumthin: people still lacks to read. i know it fer a fack on a counta i leave outta the apartmint ever mornin n git on the bus to ride over to man hattan, witch that thar bus is chock full of folk a'readin thar books with thar em pee three player earphone in thar ears.

so mayhap thays a minorty of folk that dont read but a book ever year. that dont mean that people dont read, only that sum of em dont.

as fer readin, heres sum of the books i been a'readin lately, witch ye mite wonta check em out yer ownself:

1. The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen. i tuck to readin thisn on a counta them waka i wuz ast to rite fer a dojo. mosly whut they wonted wuz sum waka in english that had sum of the sam meanin as them that wuz writ by the Japanese Emperor Meiji, who he writ over 100,000 of em. that gut me to wundern about im n whut kinda worl he cum frum, n nex thang ye know, i wuz hip deep in modurn japanese histry writ by a feller that started out in ww2 a fitin agin em as a translater. tiz a verr mazin tale, witch it led me to read a trillogy of novels bout the tokugawa period in japanese histry.


2. them three books together is calld The Tales of The Otori: Across the Nightengale Floor, Grass for His Pillow, and Brilliance of the Moon, all three by a woman name of Lian Hearn, witch thats the fake name she uses n dont nobidy know yet whut her real name is, or ifn they duz, i couldnt find nuthin bout it. i will say that even ifn ye dont much lack to read, ye wont be able to putt these down ifn ye once git started.


3. i have now cummenced a nuther trillogy on a counta readin bout a movie made frum it over on anne johnsons site, The Gods Are Bored. ye mite coulda dun herd bout em, witch they wuz writ by a feller name of Philip Pullman. the trillogy is calld His Dark Materials n cummence with a book name of The Golden Compass. bout alls i kin say bout thisn is ifn ye read the furst 30 pages, ye a'gone have ye a hard time stoppin. ye mite dun alreddy herd bout how that thar furst book has won mos ever prize thay is fer books that kids mite wonta read, n much as i gut lots of pleashure frum the harry potter books, fer my money, thisn is much better with more to thank on. aint no doubt i will finish these three n then carry on to read otherns.

fack is, folks lacks to read, even if mr jobs claims they dont. as proof, here sum more books i red lately n thank ye mite could lack:

1. Illium and Olympos by Dan Simmons—science fickshun that lanks in tales as old as the iliad an oddyssy.


2. also by Dan Simmons, a fine sci-fi riter, i read a tetrallgy that wuz more fun than disnyland: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. i doubt ye kin find better ritin innywhar, whuther tiz science fickshun or not.


3. The Hard-Boiled Virgin by Francis Newman, a verr suttle kinda book that mite not seem lack much at furst, but by the end, ye know ye dun herd the voice of a grate critick of the place n lifestile of women in the south at the beginnin of the 20th centry.


4. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin—probly the best science fickshun novel n one of the best novels of inny kind i ever red, tho it dont grab ye the way sum lesser wurks mite could do.


5. Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind, all by Orson Scott Card, witch the furst book is amazin tho to me they seem to git a lil less with each one.


6. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd: i pickt thisn up at one of them book sales by the side of the rode, witch i had herd of it but dint know much bout it, so i figgerd i wood give it a try n it wuz shore wurth the effort! whut a fine book tiz.

point is, people still reads, even if mr jobs aint figgerd it out.

corse, i dont thank i will git to the point of readin a book frum a kindle no time soon on a counta i jes luv the feel of a real book. the smell of the pages, the look of it once i am dun with it, the notes i kin make in the margins n so furth.

i wunder, duz innybidy else read? twood be a blessin to me ifn ye wood add mitt it in a commint n say whut book ye red lately that ye really lacked a lot, witch i pall gize bout that commint moderayshun, but seems them lank spammers lacks to use this site fer thar vile lil lanks.

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pinions of buddy don: ifn ye bleeve that

thays a bridge over in brooklyn that mayhap ye dun herd bout. tiz a beeyooty. heres a pitcher of how it looks whenever yer jes steppin onto it ...



member them prossecutin atturneys that wuz fired? twuz jes fer performants. ifn ye bleeve that, ye kin buy that bridge.

tiz a good bridge, with views of the statchew of liberty way off in the distunts, witch i aint sayin liberty gittin so small aint no metafor fer nuthin ...



them same prossecutin atturneys wudnt fired on a counta pallticks, nor fer not heppin them publicans win eleckshuns by investigatin voter fraud whar thay wudnt nun, witch thats a nuthern ye need to bleeve ifn ye wonta buy that bridge.

but that bridge is wurth it! ye kin see how tiz useful fer carryin traffick from brooklyn over to man hattan or vice uh versa ...



n corse, dint alberto gonzalez have nuthin to do with the firin of them atturneys neether, on a counta how hes a grate atturney general of these here united states, witch i real eyes the list of thangs ye gut to bleeve is long.

but tiz a grate bridge ye kin buy ifn ye kin jes bleeve it all. ye git grate views of famus bildins into the bargain! that thar woolworth bildin, fer instunts, witch tiz a worl class beeyooty ...



corse, karl rove dint have nuthin to do with firin them atturneys on a counta everthang he duz is pure pallticks n thay wudnt nuthin pallitickull bout them firins, witch ifn ye bleeve everthang up to now ye wood shorely bleeve that since ye wood bleeve innythang.

sides that, tiz a bridge that brangs folks frum all over, even film makers ...



finely, it goes without sayin that mr bush dint have nuthin, i reepeat, nuthin to do with it. not atall nohow. noway.

that bridge is well cunstructed, even bettern sum lies that sum folks tells, n taint lackly to fall apart n i have herd ye kin git it fer about a hundert dollars, ifn ye kin bleeve ...



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pinions of buddy don: fishin thru the net

heres a few thangs that state thangs all too well. frum that thar daily kos site, thays this articull name of The Good Option by darksyde:

Are you losing track of the good and the bad in Iraq? We're told the Sunni insurgents are bad, but they're backed by Bush's noble Saudi pals. The Shiites are our default allies in Iraq, but the Iranians who are helping them are bad. The Kurds are good, because they're relatively peaceful and independent, except their peaceful independence is creating profound anxiety among our Turkish friends, which is bad. Al Qaeda is bad, we all agree, except when they oppose Shiite Cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, which is ... what ... good?

And that's only scratching the surface. Within each of these groups are a dazzling array of quasi-official militias, criminal gangs, death squads, and even the local version of end-o-the-world religious maniacs hoping to hasten Armageddon. On any given day, these groups can be 'good,' while, paradoxically, their allies are 'bad.' Those classifications swing unpredictably on a right-wing whim dictated by whatever bullshit soundbite is mumbled incoherently that day to keep our fighting men and women in the blood-soaked turmoil.

The confusion is only furthered by an Administration warning that Iran may get involved if we leave, while telling us on alternating days that Iran is deeply involved. That Al Qaeda could gain a foothold in any vacuum left behind, while telling us repeatedly that the place is swarming with Al Qaeda. And we're sternly reminded we cannot pull US forces out or Iraq would become a failed state, in blissful, willful ignorance of the fact that Iraq is a failed state and, more to the point, it became one while occupied by US forces.

reeminds me of that ny times articull name of In a New Joint U.S.-Iraqi Patrol, the Americans Go First:

When the Iraqi units finally did show up, it was with the air of a class outing, cheering and laughing as the Americans blew locks off doors with shotguns. As the morning wore on and the troops came under fire from all directions, another apparent flaw in this strategy became clear as empty apartments became lairs for gunmen who flitted from window to window and killed at least one American soldier, with a shot to the head.

Whether the gunfire was coming from Sunni or Shiite insurgents or militia fighters or some of the Iraqi soldiers who had disappeared into the Gotham-like cityscape, no one could say.

“Who the hell is shooting at us?” shouted Sgt. First Class Marc Biletski, whose platoon was jammed into a small room off an alley that was being swept by a sniper’s bullets. “Who’s shooting at us? Do we know who they are?”

sad thang is, we are stuck in a war that everbidy agrees we dont have no idee how to git out of.

that putts me in mind of a book i red a cuple years ago by Kevin Philips name of Wealth and Democracy whar he splaind how the prior three grate world economick powers cum undun. thay wuz three steps to the process, witch heres the way i member em:

1. in sted of makin thangs, ye git folks in other cuntries to make em fer ye on a counta how they kin doot fer less money, makin it moren more possibull fer them thats rich to git richer, futher concentratin the cuntrys wealth in fewer n fewer hands
2. after ye git to be a grate worl power, ye go frum havin a economy based on makin thangs to one based on finants, insurants, n real estate
3. yer cuntry becums a debtor nayshun (we dun that in 1985 with the hep frum presdint raygun), witch that makes the disparity of wealth, meanin the concentrayshun of wealth into the hands of fewer n fewer people, grow
4. yer cuntry gits itself involved in a long war that it caint git out of.

the good news is how we dont need to wurry no more bout that global warmin stuff on a counta how thay aint nuthin we kin really do bout it now.

taint no wunder we luv sports so much: lease thar we kin have justus n fair play. n ifn it seems lack thay wuz a bad call, ye kin have a instunt reeplay. wish we could have one fer that seleckshun of 2000.

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nitemares of buddy don: jes bad dreams?

i aint gut not time to blog today, but i did dream lack nobidys bizness las nite.

i dreamt that them paranoids that bleeves in cunspiracies wuz rite, that the 9/11 attack wuz a inside job, set up on a counta them neo-cons needin a pearl harbor moment sos they could take over. twuz one of them dreams whar ye know thangs, lack how them energy meetins cheney had in the summer befor the attack wuz to splain to them oil cumpny buddies of his how they wood solve the energy problem by takin out iraq n tuther places in the middle east thats gut our oil underneath thar sand. i wonted to ast why hadnt nobidy spilt the beans on such a cunspiracy, but miz bd splaind: turnt out they had all dun been blackmailed by thangs larnt by ill-eagle gummint spyin.

i shore wuz glad to wake up n fine out twuz jes bad dreams on a counta couldnt nuthin lack that ever happen here.

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readin of buddy don: dont read thisn!

i warn ye: dont read thisn. ifn ye start it, dont finish. ye shorely dont wonta brake yer silents neethur, rite?

tiz shamefull we gut to go thru this overn over agin. i hope ye had a grate day 'on' yesterdy.

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pinions of buddy don: questchuns bout thangs that dont make no sense

i figger i owe it to that feller who calls his self 'the author' to prove that i aint dead, so here goes sum thangs that dont make no sense to me:

• we dun been tole overn over agin that ifn we wuz to leave iraq, twood embolden them terrists: aint them terrists bold alreddy?
• why wudnt victry deeclared after we prooved agin whut them united nayshuns investigaytors wuz proovin, that saddam dint have no wmd?
• we have been tole that ifn we wuz to leave iraq, twood turn it over to al qaeda, witch ye gut to wunder wuz al qaeda in iraq befor the invayshun??
• since al qaeda wudnt in iraq befor the invayshun, how did al qaeda git thar foothold in iraq?
• did the chaos frum the war let al qaeda into iraq?
• wuz lies whut gut us into iraq?
• ifn ye kill one terrst by invayshun of a nuther cuntry whar thay wudnt no wmd nor no al qaeda neethur, how minny reglar folks deecide to join the terrsts? is it zero? one? more than one?
• why do folks keep wontin to join up with terrsts?
• how did escalayshun a surge wurk back in our other nayshunull nightmare uh, that is, quagmire make that, great forn pallsy adventchur effort to free the people of vietnam n keep them dominoes frum fallin n turnin us all into communists?
• whut ever happend to 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far'?
• is thay a penalty fer gloatin in a loud blustery voice n then showin the worl that yer big stick is broke?
• is it hubris or ignorunts that makes inny cuntry thank it kin fix this place?

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quick note of buddy don: now he tells us

ifn he wuz a patriot n not a partisan, then mr ford wooda made this publick whenever he wuz furst thankin it:

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."

he coulda told folks bout this as well:

"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."

not that mr bush wood listen to nobidy that wudnt alreddy sayin whut he wonts to here, witch how kin we send this man a message? we march by the hunderds of thousunds, vote as strongly as we kin to tell im we dont wonta pore more gasoline on the iraqi fire, n all he kin say is surge, even tho whut he proposin is more lack a spurt than a surge. corse, a real surge wood take troops n at this point that wood take a draft (or a change of hart by all them 101st keyboarders who support the war in thar pjs -- magine the surge we wood have ifn they all volunteerd!?!).

ye mite remember (or mayhap ye dun red about) whut happend durin the last war we escalated.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pinions of buddy don: look, up in the sky! it's a bird! it's a plane! it's ...

Al qaeda, man!

Faster than the spread of Communism!

More powerful than Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, The Soviet Union and Communist Red China ... combined!

Able to topple tall buildings with a single plot!

It's a man!

It's a movement!

It's al qaeda, man!

Yes, it's al qaeda, man, strange islamofascists from another culture who came to the civilized world with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal nation states.

Al qaeda, man, who can change the course of mighty civilizations, bend western constitutions with their bare threats, and who, disguised as simple desert peasants or mild-mannered goat herders in tiny, barren wildernesses scattered throughout the middle east and the stans (Tajikistan, Dagestan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Etceterastan), fight a never-ending battle against truth, justice and the American way!

It is an enemy of such power that the only chance to save our consitution is to destroy it by removing the rights that make it possible for al qaeda, man, to bring down our government, destroy our way of life, and establish a new caliphate over the entire earth.

They may appear to be little more than a rag tag group of criminals, but in fact, al qaeda, man, comprise the most powerful enemy the United States of America has ever faced!!

How do we know this?

Simple:

• Never before has an enemy forced us to give up our habeus corpus rights!


• Never before has an enemy forced us to give up any suspect's right to be considered innocent until proven guilty (now such evil terrorist suspects can be tortured subject to aggressive interogation techniques including solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, enforced constraint in stress positions, administration of psychedelic drugs, and public vilification)!


• Never before has an enemy forced us to give up each citizen's sixth amendment right to "a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense."


• Never before has an enemy forced us to give up our fourth amendment right "of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures," a right that "shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"!


• Never before has an enemy forced us to give up the checks and balances that made our nation great!

Using the fear engendered by simple and repeated over-estimation of a single enemy's power, our nation has moved forward from its crudely liberal and idealistic belief in an open society, for which we would willingly sacrifice "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" (to quote one of the primitive texts instrumental in the creation of our flawed democratic republic) to the creation of a land of timidly fearful citizens who eagerly sacrifice their freedoms, rights to privacy and shared faith in our outdated constitution!

We have replaced such outdated norms – certainly, if a law passed in 1978 is outdated and too pre-9/11, a constitution written by hand on parchment must be way too pre-9/11 and ready for the scrap heap of history– with a unitary executive who has all the powers he says he needs to protect us (but not the constitution he swore to uphold) from external enemies (but not from a potential dictator)!

Indeed, we now have a streamlined executive that is regaining most of the powers King George III lost in the U.S. revolution!

After all, if you are killed by terrorists, you have lost all of your rights anyway!

And isn't living with limited freedom better than living with fear of death by terror? Already, the terrorists in attacks on our shores have killed a whopping .001% of us (3,000 out of a mere 300,000,000)!

Let's face it, fellow citizens: the Unitary Executive is the only form of "green Kryptonite" available to counter al qaeda, man, right?

Al qaeda, man!

Be afraid ... Be very afraid!

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pinions of buddy don: seein cunnexshuns everwhar

mayhap tiz jes me, but duz innybidy else see sum cunnexshuns twixt the follerin stories?

• Wal-marting and wealth:

  A single parent with two children working at minimum wage earns $10,700 a year, which $4,700 below the U.S. poverty level. Forbes magazine reported there are now 374 U.S. billionaires who have more wealth than the bottom 95% of the U.S. population.

• Number of billionaires surges:

  The number of billionaires surged this year, as did their collective pile of cash, according to Forbes magazine's annual billionaire list.
  
  The magazine said the number of billionaires worldwide increased by 102 people in 2006 to 793, a record number, largely due to bullish global stock markets. Their total net worth jumped 18 percent to $2.6 trillion.

• U.S. Army Battling To Save Equipment:

  Equipment shipped back from Iraq is stacking up at all the Army depots: More than 530 M1 tanks, 220 M88 wreckers and 160 M113 armored personnel carriers are sitting at Anniston. The Red River Army Depot in Texas has 700 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 450 heavy and medium-weight trucks, while more than 1,000 Humvees are awaiting repair at the Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania.
  
  Despite the work piling up, the Army's depots have been operating at about half their capacity because of a lack of funding for repairs. In the spring, a funding gap caused Anniston and other depots to lose about a month's worth of work, said Brig. Gen. Robert Radin, deputy chief of staff for operations at the Army Materiel Command at Fort Belvoir.
  
  "Last year we spent as much time trying to find available money as managing our program," he said. "We don't want to go into the next rotation . . . with equipment that's at the far end of its expected life."

• GSA Chief Seeks to Cut Budget For Audits:

  The new chief of the U.S. General Services Administration is trying to limit the ability of the agency's inspector general to audit contracts for fraud or waste and has said oversight efforts are intimidating the workforce, according to government documents and interviews.
  
  GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a Bush political appointee and former government contractor, has proposed cutting $5 million in spending on audits and shifting some responsibility for contract reviews to small, private audit contractors.

• Gilded Paychecks; Lure of Great Wealth Affects Career Choices:

  A decade into the practice of medicine, still striving to become “a well regarded physician-scientist,"Robert H. Glassman concluded that he was not making enough money. So he answered an ad in the New England Journal of Medicine from a business consulting firm hiring doctors.
  
  And today, after moving on to Wall Street as an adviser on medical investments, he is a multimillionaire.
  
  Such routes to great wealth were just opening up to physicians when Dr. Glassman was in school, graduating from Harvard College in 1983 and Harvard Medical School four years later. Hoping to achieve breakthroughs in curing cancer, his specialty, he plunged into research, even dreaming of a Nobel Prize, until Wall Street reordered his life.
  
  Just how far he had come from a doctor’s traditional upper-middle-class expectations struck home at the 20th reunion of his college class. By then he was working for Merrill Lynch and soon would become a managing director of health care investment banking.

• Everybody's Business; In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning:

  NOT long ago, I had the pleasure of a lengthy meeting with one of the smartest men on the planet, Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, in his unpretentious offices in Omaha. We talked of many things that, I hope, will inspire me for years to come. But one of the main subjects was taxes. Mr. Buffett, who probably does not feel sick when he sees his MasterCard bill in his mailbox the way I do, is at least as exercised about the tax system as I am.
  
  Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.
  
  Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.
  
  It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?"he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”
  
  Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.
  
  “There’s class warfare, all right,"Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

• Protecting the Military? Just “Junk” Says Bush Court Nominee:

  On Friday, the American Bar Association hosted a conference in Washington on national security. Among the speakers was Scott Stucky, General Counsel of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and President Bush’s nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. When the subject of the amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill that protected military families from payday lenders, according to someone in the audience, Stucky dismissed it as “junk.”
  
  The Department of Defense had asked Congress to cap interest rates to military families at 36%, effectively outlawing the 400% loans and other high priced lending practices that the military said “undermine military readiness, harms the morale of troops and their families, and add to the cost of fielding an all-volunteer fighting force.” Sorry, Mr. Stucky, but this isn't just “junk.”
  
  DoD had done its best to make clear that predatory lending affects troop readiness. The Center for Responsible Lending estimated that the payday lenders had one in five military families in their clutches. After the DoD report came out, statistics also showed that there had been a nine-fold increase in the number of troops who have lost their security clearances because of debt problem, further undercutting our ability to field an effective fighting force.

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