Food, Security

You say tomato, I say mutato

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A man in Germany has become famous for showing that the norm is not normal:

Indeed, while they may be fun to look at, Westphal’s photos offer a subtle criticism of today’s culture of cosmetic surgery, the insistence on trying to make the food we consume — to say nothing of the way we look physically — conform to artificial standards of normality and beauty.

I think the ugly tomatoes taste the best.

Shame that in America some associations are trying to ban good taste in order to protect an artificial image.

Poetry, Security

Poetry Presence

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Thank you to all the people sending me poetry. Presence, presents…get it? I really appreciate it and will try to post my favorites as I find time.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but notice this gem in my spam filter:

Covering the land—
Oh you builders,
shaded by live oaks and bottlebrush trees
Like some poor wounded wretch—long left for dead
Trampled snow is the only rose.
Not daring to oppose
In the woods, close by,
Reshaping magnified, each risen flake
And then I go on until I am beneath an archway,
Mère and Père Chose are walking away from the
Wide, whited fields, a way unframed at last
This drizzling three-day January thaw,
snowdrops and crocuses might be fooled
And piled up at the base of the columns
XIII. The Route to the North
The winged winds, captives of that age-old foe
In the woods, close by,
Or by the loud hand of painting, always puts.
their bellies, they’re out cold, instantaneously

I found some Victor Hugo in there, you?

Almost seems like a riddle of poets, or some kind of crypt that has to be deciphered by using famous poetry as the keys. Fun stuff, once you get past the spam bits.

Security

GOP bends election laws in CA

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Newsweek suggests that the Republicans have finally figured out a way to undermine the large state’s tendency to swing Democratic:

Instead of laboring in vain to turn California Red, a clever lawyer for the state Republican Party thought of a gimmicky shortcut. Thomas Hiltachk, who specializes in ballot referenda that try to fool people in the titles and fine print, is sponsoring a ballot initiative for the June 3, 2008, California primary (which now falls four months after the state’s presidential primary).

I think that is a nice way of saying he is someone who specializes in lying and tricking people.

And if the idea was somehow adopted nationally, it would mean competing for votes in only about 60 far-flung congressional districts—roughly 7 percent of the country. Everyone else’s vote would not “count,” if you want to look at it that way.

Apparently counting votes is no way to run an election. This clever fellow wanted to find a way to modify the rules so that the other side can never win.

Thomas Hiltachk, some will know, is the arch-conservative who tried last year to abolish overtime after an 8-hour workday, and who successfully filed Proposition 69 — a DNA database for felons.

Going back even further it appears Hiltachk did work for a smoking “watchdog” group called the Los Angeles Hospitality Coalition, which was exposed as a shameless front for Philip Morris.

“Of all the outrageous and unbelievable things that happen in Washington, this one takes the cake,” said Ellen Miller of the Center for Responsive Politics, which studies campaign contributions and fully discloses its own funding, which comes from foundations. “Posing as a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization to be unveiled as nothing but a special interest tool is really the bottom line of gall.”

Or so they thought…new depths are now being probed.

Bending the truth and a spate of questionable ethics has somehow served Hiltachk well, leading him to become the Governor’s right-hand man — a GOP weapon now apparently targeted against fair elections.