In the fall of 2009 I traveled to Jordan and Syria with a group organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war, which to date has killed some 93,000 people, I’ve often thought back to the peaceful country I visited just a year and a half earlier.  I found a  landscape of green hills, desert and sea that in some ways resembles Oregon, cities full of friendly people and intriguing souks, and everywhere wonderful smells of fruit, spices, and flowers.  I think back on those scents and they return to me as an emblem of Syria’s beauty and a prayer for peace.  Here are a few photographs of my trip.

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Tags: ends & odd, photography, travel & foreign lands // Add Comment »

I have been declared Emperor of the World. Let us not waste time explaining why or how; let’s all simply accept the fact that we are better off, as a result; hence, my next decree:

Emperor’s Decree No. NSA1: The Emperor has allowed this Obama fellow to oversee things in America, so far. He has allowed this because it pleases him to do so. Alas, the Emperor is now becoming vexed. “Why is the Great One vexed,” you ask? It is because, for some reason, Mr. Obama and his fellow officials are starting to act like Emperors. There is only one Emperor; only one divinely-appointed Overlord who wields the right to pry into your tiny little personal lives; to search through your phone calls without probable cause; to arrest you in the middle of the night on a whim; to kiss your sister at will. It is I. He. It is he. (It’s hard to keep pronouns straight when one is always talking in the third person. When he is always talking in the third person. We? Ah, bugger it.) However, the Emperor is willing to allow this governmental snooping to continue, so long as the petty rulers in America submit to the punishment below.

The Punishment: All politicians will, henceforth, serve out their terms in loin cloths. (The women in American government may add seashell brassieres, if they are inclined toward modesty.) This should serve a reminder to them, on a daily basis, of what it means to feel “exposed,” as do the citizens of America, to ever-increasing degrees. Even ground. That’s what it’s all about. Equality. (Except for us. Me. We. You know what I mean. The Emperor.)

Now, go forth and obey.

The Emperor will grace the world with a new decree each Tuesday morning.

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In 1995, running back Ricky Watters signed with the Philadelphia Eagles after starting his career with the San Francisco 49ers. In his first game with the team, he was running a crossing pattern and made a feeble attempt at catching a pass because he was shying away from the contact that was coming at him. When asked about “short-arming” this pass after the game, Watters famously wondered aloud why he would have even considered doing otherwise, asking “For who? For what?” Although he went on to have a very good career with the Eagles, the notoriously tough Philadelphia fans never let him forget the selfish questions with which they were introduced to him. This week, another new Eagle, Cary Williams, went down a similar road when asked about some recent Organized Team Activities that he had skipped. Uh-oh.

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10. That, at one state dinner, Obama strongly implied that the defrosted ham was actually fresh!

9. The scandal of Obama hiding something about his heritage: he’s mostly Irish

8. The disgrace of Obama once meeting heads of state wearing a clip-on

7. The fact that Obama really really wanted to call his first daughter Clinique

6. That Obama recently sanctioned killer computer worms able to zap any computer user who dare read this Top Ten list

5. Obama sinking so low as to make the ridiculous accusation that Fox News is screaming ‘scandal’ ‘scandal’ ‘scandal’ ‘scandal’ infinity-times-infinity times just in the hopes that, eventually, something might stick

4. The Smell-Of-Cigarette-Smoke-After-Midnight Scandal!

3. That, when Obama was three, he once advertently stared up a grass skirt

2. That Obama smoked so much dope in Hawaii, it has undoubtedly kept him from even greater things – than being the most powerful man on the face of the earth

1. White-After-Labor-Day-Gate
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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#57

The man’s greatest weapon is patience.
He can stand and wait, perfectly still,
As long as the elements don’t interfere.
He doesn’t believe in anything but chance.
Though he cannot eat what he cannot kill,
An empty net is not his deepest fear.
The boy is still healthy, but he worries Aimee
Has become pale and her milk is gone.
She gathers useless flowers and sings,
“They are not for me, but for my family.”
He thinks the same of the sea and sun.
At times, when the bay is full of nothing,
Exhausted by his empty regrets,
He dreams himself diving into the net.

Note: This is one of more than 120 poems after paintings or images, which can be viewed at the blog, Zealotry of Guerin.

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Long, long ago – for about 15 minutes – Steven Seagal was a big deal in Hollywood. His movie “Under Siege” made a lot of money. But that was pretty much it. Next came a string of big-budget flops followed by a lengthy and ongoing twilight spent in straight-to-video purgatory.

Tags: art & entertainment, travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news // 3 Comments »

Everywhere you roam nowadays in our great land, you see tattooed folk. I wonder if the runaway U.S. tattooing craze of the past decade or so is connected to the rise in American shortsightedness (e.g., “What do you mean overextended? I’m buying that house!). More importantly, when I see how young some of the inked are, I often can’t help but feel they are traveling the road to regret. [Read more →]

Tags: virtual children by Scott Warnock // 6 Comments »

In the world of academics, I would bet that university presidents are popular individuals. The successful ones are highly visible on campus, raise tons of money for their schools, and are often given at least some credit for the success of their institutions. From a college athletics standpoint, though, I am starting to really despise these guys. People like E. Gordon Gee of Ohio State just don’t seem to live in the real world, and yet they get paid large (sometimes huge) sums of money to be the faces of their universities. This week, Gee came under a great deal of scrutiny after a recording of one of Ohio State’s athletic council meetings surfaced during which he made offensive remarks about a number of different targets, including Catholics, the SEC, and a couple of Kentucky schools. [Read more →]

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10. Have policemen and firefighters work on commission

9. Convince the EU to go in with us on a Groupon

8. Rent out Mount Rushmore to rappelling clubs

7. Put advertisements on our currency

6. Don’t pay mailmen anything, but let them keep whatever’s in every other package

5. Sell one of the Carolinas and one of the Dakotas

4. Put turnstiles in the border wall between Mexico and Texas

3. Charge visitors to the Statue of Liberty ten bucks to look up her robe

2. Turn the National Mall into a real mall

1. Only paying Congressmen for work that actually gets done
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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#69

This desert’s a blanket of earth’s exhaustion,
Where all that remains of life is on the surface.
Each creature, like the sun, is a dying furnace,
Slowly fusing bone, sinew, muscle, intestine.
The old structures melt away into essence,
Bypassing decay, desiccation, and putrescence,
Stopping short of the irreducibility of sand.
New life emerges, sparked by a decaying sun,
Ectoplasmic shapes a god wouldn’t understand,
Creatures without breath or senses or reason.
If all worlds are possible, billions like this exist,
Simply because you or I can always imagine it.
We think, therefore, perhaps, we should resist
Creating a world we would never wish to visit.

Note: This is one of more than 115 poems after paintings or images, which can be viewed at the blog, Zealotry of Guerin.

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The Mets’ four-game sweep of the Yankees this week, with two victories at home in Queens and two overseas in the Bronx, may not be a story for the grander history books. But for this baseball fan and for New Yorkers on both sides of the greatest baseball divide, it was memorable. [Read more →]

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We have all heard people complain about American schools. A little too much, I think. In general, we do a pretty good job. I do, however, believe we often go about it in silly ways. If you ever want your confidence shaken, though, you should do something that I just did: do level-placement of high school freshmen for the upcoming year.

What we use are three things: middle school grades, previous standardized testing and our own placement test (standardized, as well).

On the application information form for some of the area schools, there is an spot in which the teachers can say whether they think the student is on a “high” level, a “middle” level or a “low” level, in a particular subject. Here is the worst case scenario that I have to deal with — and it happens quite a bit: [Read more →]

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You’ve seen it hundreds of times. Some guy is being interviewed by the local news after he helped prevent some crime or rescued someone in distress. The reporter asks, “Do you consider yourself a hero?” Apparently, this question must be asked in order to test whether or not said person is in fact a hero. According to local news rules of heroism, the man is only a hero, if and only if, he claims to not be one. Most people, knowing this rule, go on to say that they don’t consider themselves to be a hero because they just did what anyone in their situation would’ve done. The reporter then cuts back to the anchorpeople who disagree with the man’s assessment. Feeling that the hero test was passed, they comment about what a true hero the man is while a colorful “local hero” graphic displays besides them. Personally though, I agree with the guy. He’s not a hero. [Read more →]

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I have been declared Emperor of the World. Let us not waste time explaining why or how; let’s all simply accept the fact that we are better off, as a result; hence, my next decree:

Emperor’s Decree No. 29833: “KenSue’s Deli.” It’s out of business, but the faded plastic sign still swings outside. The Emperor passes it every day on the way to the Imperial Office. It is our infallible opinion that the reason the place is closed is because the wise minions of the Emperor refuse to go to a delicatessen with such a stupid name; they are disgusted by the saccharine ooziness of some kissy-faced couple who thought it would be cute to combine their names instead of just calling it “Ken and Sue’s Deli,” like sane people would. The Emperor sees too much of this name combination in businesses when people can’t come up with something better. It’s silly. Be creative.

The Punishment: Violators of this decree will have their business names changed by the Imperial Psychologist. Hence, a deli called “KenSue’s” might have its name changed to “Rat Sandwich.” An air conditioning repair company might have its name changed to “Hot-n-Sweaty, Limited.” A daycare called “JaneTom’s Happy Hoppy Land” will, henceforth, be called, “Knives and Razors, Day(more-or-less)care.” Be creative, minions. Be creative. You don’t want to have your mobile dog grooming business renamed to “Jugular Slash Grooming.” Do you?

Now, go forth and obey.

The Emperor will grace the world with a new decree each Tuesday morning.

Tags: language & grammar, The Emperor decrees // 2 Comments »

The world has many problems. So many, in fact, that any attempt to list them would be futile, and the idea of putting them in some kind of order is ludicrous. I believe, though, that racism is certainly somewhere near the top of the list. In my own sheltered little world, it is easy to pretend that it doesn’t exist, but that bubble bursts on a regular basis whenever I let the real world intrude on my idyllic existence. Racism is not as pervasive as it was 50 years ago, of course, but it is still a very real force in our society, and sports are in no way immune to its effects. Two weeks ago, golfers Sergio Garcia and Tiger Woods battled for the Players Championship title and, at the same time, bickered back and forth about a breach of course etiquette that Garcia believed Woods had committed while they played together during the 3rd round. This week, Garcia, who was being asked yet again about the incident, stepped far over the line and made a clearly racially-tinged remark about Woods.

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10. Strap a dust cloth to the dog’s tail, then show him a porterhouse steak

9. If you see a fuzzy ball in the corner, make sure it doesn’t need to be killed before you throw it away

8. You can skip those hard-to-reach places, because nobody looks there anyway

7. Dryer lint can be formed into a lovely snowman ornament and stored away for next Christmas

6. When you take a shower, be sure to wear clothes and carry some dishes, thus killing three birds with one stone

5. If you replace your couch and easy chair with plastic lawn furniture, cleaning them is just a hose away

4. If you remove the actual glass from your windows, they’ll always look crystal clean

3. Leave the attic and the basement as they are – out of sight, out of mind

2. When checking out the wearability of clothes, don’t just use the ‘sniff’ test, but also use the ‘stiff’ test

1. If you scrape up the caked-on toothpaste from the bottom of your sink, it can be formed into lovely after-dinner mints
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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So much going through my head at this time … how to express it? … maybe I shouldn’t try … it’s been said before … and said with words far, far better than anything I could ever compose …

Semper Fi, Mac!

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#108

The circus train cars abandoned decades ago,
The circuit of America now belongs to vultures,
Who once followed the elephants and clowns
Like starved, yearning runaways, an exiled sideshow.
Now, as then, they only eat the unclean, if pure,
Scraps of disease or murder on the edge of town.
It exasperates them, winging round and round,
With only frowning little girls and unplanted
Trees, shrubs, and ancient sawdust on the ground.
We know that of all fowl we’re the most unwanted,
But those tiny birdbaths are simply insulting.
Tattered flesh, the strength of decay, our putrid breath —
From a vulture’s field of view nothing can be revolting.
We soar, bubbles of gold, spiraling death.

Note: This is one of more than 115 poems after paintings or images, which can be viewed at the blog, Zealotry of Guerin.

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The young men who comprise the Midland College Chaparral baseball team truly are the ‘boys of summer’ this year. At a time when most students are pursuing ventures off-campus – recreation, work, whatever – the team has remained on campus and at work, getting ready for what lies ahead. It’s been two weeks since commencement exercises brought an end to the 2012/2013 academic year at our community college in Western Texas, and it will be another week before we kick-off the summer semester. It’s a quiet time around campus … unless you’re a baseball player. They returned to Midland just a few days ago with a regional championship trophy in hand – the first ever for MC Chaparral baseball. And now they’re in Grand Junction, Colorado for the JUCO World Series, the National Junior College Athletic Association‘s national championship tournament.

JUCO World Series-bound Midland College Chaparrals, 2013 NJCAA Region 5 Champions

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Xi’an, China is a big bustling city of over seven million people. It was a Chinese capital of ancient dynasties that thrived centuries ago, but today takes second stage to the prominent coastal megacities—Beijing and Shanghai and that more recent capitalist “import” to the mainland, Hong Kong. Beijing of course hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics while Hong Kong hosts some of the most amazing economic inequalities anywhere in the world (think ten million dollar penthouse suites while poor city residents rent cages to live in), but Xi’an’s seven million residents would easily make it a top-five city in the United States and the most populous city of a majority of countries in the world. By contrast, my native Philadelphia, America’s fifth largest metropolis according to the 2010 U.S. Census, has a population within city limits of about 1.5 million. [Read more →]

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