Burnin’

I’ve recently completed two heavy books. No Logo by Naomi Klein and A People’s History of The United States by Howard Zinn. Both authors point to many more people and organizations and events that deserve further inquiry. Klein mentions Who Will Tell the People? and other works by William Greider of The Nation.

Zinn’s research is exhaustive, but I’m left wanting to know more about The Wobblies, Big Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons, The Haymarket Afffair, and The Ludlow Massacre to name a few important, but often overlooked, facts and figures in American history.

Mother Jones

Teddy Roosevelt wrote to a friend in 1897, “I should welcome any war, for I think this country needs one.”

William James, the philosopher, and one of the leading anti-imperialists of his time, wrote about Roosevelt that he “gushes over war as the ideal condition of human society, for the manly strenousness which it involves, and treats peace as a condition of blubberlike and swollen ignobility, fit only for huckstering weaklings, dwelling in gray twilight and heedless of the higher life…”

Wired is running an interesting piece on Nick Denton, the publisher of Gawker, Gizmodo, Fleshbot, and Wonkette. Of the four, Wonkette strikes me as most entertaining. Denton found Nebraska native, Ana Marie Cox, a.k.a. The Antic Muse, a self-described “failed journalist” to tackle the gossip beat in Washington, D.C.

Cox seems up to the task, as Wonkette recently outed Jessica Cutler, a Capitol Hill vixen and author of the now defunt blog, Washingtonienne. Cutler used the blog to detail her sexual conquests. She provided lurid notes on the daily shuffling of her deck of men, including the kinky acts she would sometimes perform for them for money. Upon being discovered, she was, needless to say, dismissed from her Senate job for “improper use of Congressional computers.”

Cox and Cutler (on right) looking suspicious, maybe even scandalous.

Conscientous livestock producer, Niman Ranch, started out in Marin County, north of San Francisco, and now twenty years later is a luxury meat brand with producers in several states including Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska. The brand now has a following among top-tier chefs and discriminating consumers nationwide. Even Chipotle, the gourmet burrito chain with McDonalds backing, is in on it. They serve Niman Ranch shredded pork and I can attest it is delicious.

Dennis Olson of Alexis, IL raises 700 hogs a year and has been a Niman Rancher since 1999.

One of the great things about Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is the cast of characters he introduces to the reader. Characters that are in many cases unique voices and “true American heroes.” Emma Goldman is one such character deserving of a closer look and frequent mention. More frequent than Madonna, for instance.

An excerpt from the Emma Goldman papers: When President William McKinley was shot in 1901 by Leon Czolgosz, the police immediately tried to implicate Goldman, noting that Czolgosz had recently attended one of her lectures in Cleveland. Consequently Goldman and other anarchists were arrested. Eventually, though, disappointed by the lack of evidence against her, the authorities were forced to order Goldman’s release. Goldman temporarily withdrew from public life to avoid harassment. When she re- emerged she entered one of her most politically active periods, speaking around the country, writing on a wide range of topics, and editing her free-spirited journal, Mother Earth from 1906 to 1917. Many, however, remained convinced that she was a dangerous killer, thanks in large part to the anti- anarchist agitation of the press.

Emma’s mugshots from 1901.

According to New York Press, the city’s self-proclaimed “premier alternative newspaper,” Donny Deutsch is one of New York’s most loathsome characters.

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Donny Deutsch
Ad Man

DEUTSCH REPRESENTS THE latest trend in that most loathsome of New York traditions: the selling of adolescent greed, egomania and narcissism as charisma and depth of character. The chief of David Deutsch Associates (sic.) says he only hires “Jews, chicks and fags,” and is known for tearing off his shirt during office hours and saying—without irony—things like, “I can kick the ass of any CEO in advertising!” Think Steven Seagal meets Charlotte Beers. The “Elvis of Advertising” has been dabbling with a CNBC talk show and even told New York magazine that he’d consider running for mayor. Qualifications: good at selling shit, does lots of pushups. Look out, Bloomie.

Naomi Klein, Canadian journalist and author, caught my attention with her forthright reporting from Iraq. Which led me to her book-length anti-capitalist critique, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, a work I find perversely fascinating, given my occupation as a corporate scribe. Ironically, the No Logo Web site leverages the No Logo brand quite well.

Chicago native, author and organizer, William Upski Wimsatt, is one of the more high profile d.i.y. advocates working today. His books, Bomb the Suburbs and No More Prisons are underground sensations.

Craig Unger’s House of Bush, House of Saud begins with a single question: How is it that two days after September 11, 2001, even as American air traffic was tightly restricted, a Saudi billionaire socialized in the White House with President George W. Bush as 140 Saudi citizens, many immediate kin to Osama Bin Laden, were permitted to return to their country?

Sticker Nation of Ashville, NC is offering a quality adhesive product with phrasing of your chosing at a very reasonable price.

One of my favorite things about living in the Midwest (and being a Midwesterner) is the nativist idea I like to harbor about my ability to discern and enjoy true American gems like Saugatuck and Douglas, MI, for instance. One might add Okoboji, Mineral Point, Door County, or the Sandhills to this quick list—all places where the east coast intelligentsia and west coast hipster tribe dare to tread. These communities are that much finer for that fact.

Big Red by James Brandess, a local artist and gallery owner.

“A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.” -Aldous Huxley

I like to give credit where credit is due. There are a lot of cheats and incompetents doing business out there. And there are also decent, fair, smart people in business. As Whizhost disintegrated, an enterprising hosting company mined their customer list and also managed to get the Whizhost domain name servers forwarding to their own DNS—I assume they paid the defunct firm for that right. Anyway, the people at SB Hosting have been helpful and their robust offerings, new control panel (including Fantastico), and consistent uptime are impressive. With Whizhost my sites were down at least once a day, sometimes for a minute or two, sometimes for much longer. You get what you pay for, and Whizhost was a bargain basement buy. In fact, they did business with no physical address—only a private postal box in Miami and no working phone number. Can anyone say class action lawsuit?

My personal bottom line…It feels good to finally join the real world of Web hosting.