Found a cool site today on Cuba while I was searching for info on poet Reinaldo Arenas. Communism is not what its cracked up to be folks, and Fidel is no folk hero. Here's the . Also, take a look at the video of Arenas at this internal page . He says:
"There is a very advantageous position among leftists writers who live in capitalistic countries who enjoy all the benefits of democracy and great profits they earn while attacking democracy while they live in a democratic country. Maybe if those writers lived in a communist country from where they could not get out - they might change the way they think. Since living there, they would not be able to write a word! So for us, who suffered so much in Cuba - it's infuriating to see people enjoy all the security that comes with democracy - getting pleasure attacking it and becoming rich from doing this!" Bad translation, but you get the picture:

Ha Ha! Who's driving an SUV now boys!? ;)
You should check out fueleconomy.gov and verify my research. I'm not trying to be argumentative here (well...), just super bored at work.



I guess I'm just trying to find someway to feel at least a little better (at someone else's expense haha!) about my car which, as I have melodramatically stated on many an occassion, has ruined my life. Tomorrow I have to go to court to defend myself against the charge of "following too closely". If I get a point on my license, then I'm doomed (DOOMED) although I don't know how my insurance could possibly go up any higher. Anyways, as the above figures demonstrate, you can no longer remonstrate me for driving a gas guzzling SUV without admitting that the Malibu is no dream vacation either! Oh! I'm cruel! ;>

While researching a database system at work, I found this online catalogue of 74 IWW protestors from near Seattle who were part of the Everett Massacre of 1916. (I'll paste the story in below). You have to go to the site and look at these amazing photos of the protestors: . Their faces are absolutely present across time:


Jack Leonard, age 27, laborer, born in Kentucky. More widely known as Jack Miller, this defendant was the last known surviving Verona passenger until his death in 1986. A spirited and eloquent spokesman for the IWW until the end, Jack was frequently the subject of Seattle-area newspaper interviews and appeard in the documentary film "The Wobblies".

From the website:
Sunday, November 5, 1916 marked the bloodiest battle in Pacific Northwest labor history. On that day, about 300 members of the Industrial Workers of the World (the I.W.W.) boarded the steamers Verona and Calista from Seattle and headed north toward Port Gardner Bay

The I.W.W. (or Wobblies) planned a public demonstration in Everett that afternoon, to be held on the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore, a spot commonly used by street speakers. Hoping to gain converts to their dream of One Big Union, the Wobblies began street speaking in Everett during a local shingle weavers' strike, encountering brutal suppression by local law officers. Free speech soon became the dominant issue. The number of demonstrators and the violence of the response from law enforcement grew as the weeks wore on.

On November 5th, word reached Everett that a group of armed anarchists was coming to burn their town. 200 citizen deputies, under the authority of Snohomish County Sheriff Donald McRae, met to repel the invaders. The Verona arrived first, pulling in along side the dock. McRae asked "Who is your leader?" When he was told "We are all leaders!", he informed passengers they could not land. A single shot was fired, followed by minutes of chaotic shooting. Whether the first shot came from boat or dock was never determined. Passengers aboard the Verona rushed to the opposite side of the ship, nearly capsizing the vessel. Bullets pierced the pilot house, and the Verona's captain struggled to back it out of port. The Calista returned to Seattle, without trying to land.

Okay so I'm fairly better but not perfect. I wonder in general about the solipsistic self-pitying nature of journaling these days. I think if we had witnessed the great fire of Chicago or roomed with Peggy Guggenheim or something equally exciting we might have had more interesting things to say. But how do I know that YOU aren't someone futurally famous or infamous or at least interesting (which you KNOW you are) and maybe I don't know it and here I am writing about my poopy existence while stories I could be telling about you may someday be valuable to navel-gazing future grad students like myself. Oooh did you see how that circled right back around again! TO ME!
Anyways, the most exciting thing in my life that has been happening lately are my dreams which is not so exciting to you because as the great Built to Spill song says "No one wants to hear/ What you dreamt about/ Unless you dreamt about/ They-em." Well I haven't dreamt about anyone I know but maybe a bit in amalgamations-- no one but everyone I love, hate, hurt, for, fall, frustrate, futile. You know. That guy.
But there was this one earlier in the week, you see I have these fake birds in my room with real feathers. A fake cardinal on my dresser flapping and taking off. And a very grim Crow (courtesy of our Poe party) perched on a curtain rod (qwrok! nevermore!) So I had a dream that there was this strange blue-black bird with a puffy chest who had been mounted on a wooden plaque and hung on the wall but it was ALIVE and it would move around and peck at the air and I was horrified and kept thinking its intestines its lungs how how can I kill it its an abomination oh god should I strangle it or club it... sooo terrible!!!!!
Is that too much of my psyche for all y'all out there? I could talk about sex if I was having any, the acceptable unacceptable conversation to have on not-so-anonymous chat rooms. But here's the scary part. I'm pretty sure my bird dream WAS about sex!!! WAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
Oh also, in regards to my previous posting about giving it all up and moving to a commune, two sundays ago in the NYT magazine saint Noam said something to the extent of "well I wouldn't feel like I was doing the world any good if I just lived in Montana and grew my own food" or something like that. So I'm off to say four Hail Emmas and an Our Guevara to repent...