Rubble: Death and Re-Birth... Welcome to Rubble Redux

Cross-posted from Rubble:

3/18/2011, 9:15 PM

Back in 2009, I moved all of this blog's posts (Rubble Blog), up to the start of 2005, over to Suburban Eschatology Pt. 2 on LiveJournal. Today, I mostly finished the process. I finished the process of killing this blog.

Originally, I intended to move everything. I wanted, in essence, to gut this thing and to start over from scratch here. However, a couple things happened to change that. I wanted to empty out this blog so I could re-purpose it. Today, I think I stumbled on that purpose.

On Facebook, I've been posting a "Photo of the Day" for a little over a month now and, recently, I started using Picasa to edit my photography. It is the best editor I have available right now (sorry, no Photoshop at home, nor any Adobe tools). Picasa is a Google product, and Blogger was acquired by Google a few years ago, so they link up nicely and the editor has a one-click posting tool. So, it just makes sense, because it is easy, to click that button every morning and to start shooting my Facebook photo onto Rubble as well. This morning I was able to work some kinks out of my system and I was able to do that for the first time today.

This event is actually what inspired me to put the final bullet into the old blog today. If I was going to start using it again, I thought it was damn well time to finish the job I started in 2009. Besides, as I start the search for my next writing contract, I am looking at cleaning up and streamlining my web presence, so finishing this job was on my to-do list anyway.

So, as I was copying and deleting five plus years worth of posts today, I stumbled on the poetry from 2005 that I posted on here. That year I was taking a couple of Desktop Publishing/In Design classes at Portland State University and my project for the second term was to put together a book of my poetry and photography. While working on that, I wrote quite a few new poems. It was really the only productive time I've had when it comes to creative writing since 2000. But, re-reading these poems today for the first time in a long time, I liked them. I decided to leave them here.

So it clicked… I wrote them for a project involving my creative writing and my photography, so why not dedicate this site to those purposes? It seems like a no brainer.

Of course, while I have a novel length writing project I am working on right now, I have very little else going on these days in the creative writing department, and that novel is still a long ways from seeing the light of day. While it is a goal of mine to get some more creative writing projects going in the near future, for the near future, the content of the new Rubble will mostly be my photography, I suspect.

Which is very amusing to me, since for several years, 2004 through to 2008, I mostly used this blog to post photography. This was my primary, personal blog for several years but at some point, around 2004, I drifted over to LiveJournal. I liked the privacy and networking features there better for my personal stuff, primarily being able to lock down certain posts for "friends" only. For a personal journal, LiveJournal, at the time, was the better option.

However, in 2008, due to being out of work due to health issues, I could not afford to keep the website where I hosted the pictures I had posted to Rubble, so they all blinked away into the ether leaving behind years worth of red Xs. That was, essentially, the death of this blog, it is when it was declared to be a terminal patient. In 2009, I started a Facebook account and that became the primary depository of my photos, so this site was pretty much abandoned and that is when I started the process of actually dismantling it.

While consolidating all of my personal blog posts into one journal made perfect sense, it was still sad, to me, that it ended up being the new blog that survived and Rubble that died, since I started this blog in 2001. It is amazing to me to realize that this blog will be a decade old in a couple months. It is older than my youngest son. My earliest post on Blogger was on July 12, 2001 when I posted the following:

My old service seems to have gone nipples up on me. You can view my old postings here. Soon, I will use my magic box that does the spooky work of the devil to create something interesting with this space. Until then, please visit my site, Rubble.

Before that, my primary blog was on a now long dead service called GrokSoup, though I am not sure that the word blog even existed when I started that one [weblog (web-log) did]. That blog was also called Rubble, and this blog was really a continuation of that one when it died. So, essentially, this blog is really 11 or 12 years old. Unfortunately, all of the posts from back then died with GrokSoup. Today, I found a decent little blog post on the history of that site, written by its creator. (http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2004/08/09/groksoup_and_th.html)

Reading that article is amusing, it reminds me that I have been blogging, on and off, forever. I was one of the first, a veritable pioneer. Many others from back then went on to do great things. Me, not so much… I've been frying other fish since then.

Bygones… Anyway, I have three blogs now, and they are all clearly defined for the first time in years. My personal journal at LiveJournal, where I can whine and bitch and moan. I also use that one as the home base, so to speak, for my Facebook notes. It has useful tools for cross-posting. Soon, the posts I removed from Rubble today will appear over there, posted to their original dates.

Rubble, this blog, will be primarily dedicated to creative output. This does not just mean fiction, poetry, and photography. I may put up some essays and what not here as well. In fact, there is one essay that I left posted here already.

Democracy In Distress, that long neglected blog dating back to George W. Bush's re-election in 2004, will still be there for political writing, though I want to eventually steer it more towards a discussion about media issues. That blog, though, may be dormant for quite some time. It's been several years since I've had any time or energy to focus on politics or the media. For a long time, I was just too angry to type (you can't type with fists), and then I just became too tired and jaded, burned out… But the blog is still there if I ever need it. I even have a bulletin board set up for it, though I do not know if that is still functional or not.

Many things have changed over the years. The Rubble and Democracy In Distress blogs used to support websites with the same (or similar) names. These are long gone now, but the blogs remain. Someday I may set up a new website to use as a portal to all my blogs and to the other corners of the internet that I hang out on, but I do not see doing this anytime in the near future.

So, yes. Rubble Blog is dead. Long live Rubble Blog… But Rubble Blog is reborn. Welcome to Rubble.

A bill passes through the House...

So the House passed the Health Care Reform Bill. I need to actually take a look at this. All of the jive and bullshit surrounding this whole issue just makes me run in the other direction, but now that something is actually happening, I have a strange desire to actually be informed on the issue.

First thoughts: Health Care Reform? Good. Government Option? Good. Mandatory Insurance with the burden on the consumer? BAD! This was the main reason I fell into the Obama camp instead of the Hillary camp during the primaries.

The whole way this has been handled by, well, just about everyone on either side of the issue makes me feel a little sick. But before I start pounding my keys with my fists about it, I need to do some reading.

Is democracy still in distress in America?

Of course it is, as long as there are fellows like this out there egging on Islamic extremists, which actually would probably be more likely to inspire domestic terrorists to try to stage an attack that they could blame on Islamic extremists.

This is a real piece of work here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auQJVhNH99c

Michael Scheuer, there is a special place in hell for you. I do agree, to an extent, with Glen Beck, with the thought that such an attack would not be in any overseas terrorists' best interests at this point in time.

I do not have the time for a long and thoughtful essay at this point, but this is just one example of the type of issues I plan on addressing soon in this blog as I slowly revitalize it. Media issues and political issues, primarily; gossip and hatemongering from the right, political missteps from the right and all the fun that ensues…

Is democracy still in distress in America? Well, it may be healthier than when I first started this blog but, because this is a free country, there will always be threats.

And how is democracy doing around the world? Is it spreading and growing or it is at risk and failing? Or is it changing?

Hopefully I will have some time to explore these themes this summer.

(Here is the full Glen Beck / Michael Scheuer interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcX5xXzbfuc )

Very Little Happens in Indiana...

5/6/2008, 9:48 PM

Came in a few minutes ago and, to my surprise, found that Indiana is still too close to call. Not what I expected.

While I won't get this posted until tomorrow, I thought I might scribble a little bit as I watch this.

Ack, the talking heads are talking about "Operation Chaos" from Limbaugh... The talking heads are saying that Obama's strength in Indiana tonight, whether or not he wins this one in the end, may be enough to tip this thing…

Really? Really? Are they watching the same primaries that I have been? Are they watching the same campaign?

Carl Bernstein is now saying that sources in the campaign are saying that Hillary will be looking for the vice-presidency. One source, according to Bernstein, said that she would demand it. He is saying that she really is not looking to return to the Senate.

Interesting. I thought she would be the one of the two to say no if it was offered. I thought I could see Obama on her ticket, but not Hillary on the bottom of an Obama ticket. Of course, others are saying that she wouldn't take it, and still others are saying that he wouldn't offer it.

What does this mean? Nothing, probably.

Twenty minutes until more numbers from Lake County, a voice on the phone is telling John King.

Another question: Is this interesting, or is this, like the Daily Show graphics suggested the other day, the Bataan Death March to the Nomination?

Are there shenanigans in Lake County? Is CNN trying to make news out of nothing? The mayor of Hammond, Indiana is on saying that "something corrupt may be happening." He is a Clinton supporter. "I'm not saying that anything improper is happening, but it looks like something improper is happening," he says.

Spin. This supports my view, that while Clinton may take a VP role when all is said and done, she will do anything it takes first to get the top spot. She may go legal, she may tear up the convention… I would guess the idea is, get the spot, at what ever cost, then heal the party later.

Most of the votes just came in. It's looking like she will put this off, at 10:09 PDT.

Anyway, the earliest I'd expect Clinton to drop out would only be after the Minnesota and Florida issues are definitively settled. And those states, depending on how they are handled, while maybe not securing the nomination for her outright, may give her the fuel she needs to keep her hopes alive.

So, really, tonight is mildly interesting, but it probably will not settle anything.

10:13, and CNN just called it for Hillary. Closer, by far, than expected, but tonight, as they say, met expectations on both sides.

And, most likely, nothing changes...

Still Napping...

Okay, are the primaries over yet? Do we have a candidate? No? Okay, back to sleep…

Sure, Guam, seven votes? Two delegates each. Sure, Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday? Will these settle anything?

Is this damaging the party? Maybe. That will be impossible to tell until November. I do, however think, if this thing gets ugly in the backrooms, then it will. I've seen some numbers where it looks like supporters of one candidate are starting to get too bitter about the other candidate to support them in the general, but I think these wounds, at this point, can heal when faced with the possibility of a John McCain, Skippy II, administration.

Is this making the eventual nominee stronger? Well, perhaps if it is Obama, but if it is Hillary, I think she already has the political machine necessary for success, so in her case, it is really only a matter of not pissing too many Democrats off before the general.

Okay, so there are rabid preachers and there was something about McCain hanging out in strip joints when he was younger. There are too many talking heads getting paid for too little real news on the television.

In Portland, it is a spectacular day. I am heading back into a book on Stalinism for one of my history classes, soaking up the sun, and hiding from this damn election some more.

Primary Season Nap Time...

I am doing it again. Nice book on the table in front of me on the history of America's relationship with the Middle East, mandatory reading that I am now weeks behind on for class, and I am putzing around doing everything but my homework.

Anyway, I do remember that there is an election campaign going on, sort of…

It's just that, well, absolutely nothing of value is going on at the moment. Sure, all the talking heads are trying to create news, but there is no real news going on right now involving the election.

The ratings must have been huge for the news networks there for a while. When this current lull started, they really tried their hardest to keep the coverage going, but with six weeks between meaningful primary votes, there really is nothing going on.

These little flutters of punditry are just that, and they are probably fairly meaningless. Did Barak offend people who are not going to be pulling the Donkey lever in November anyway? Probably. His pastor (er, former…)? Okay, so for two weeks we had it pounded into our heads that whatever Obama is, he is not a Muslim. This doesn't hurt him.

And Hillary is out their squawking away about this and that, and Bill's out there looking, quite frankly, senile, and Chelsea thinks that Mom's neater than Dad… And still no real news.

So, yes. I have been busy. I haven't been paying that much attention. But there has been nothing worth paying attention to.

Wake me when this thing starts up again.

To live and die in Texas and Ohio…

So… I haven't seen it yet, I am sure it will be said. I am sure I will groan and roll my eyes whenever I see it, so I will strike first… Huckabeen.

So long. For now. Anyone notice some slight echoes between McCain 2000 and Huckabee 2008? See ya' next time.

As someone wrote eariler on Wonkette, it is too early to call the Democratic races (that matter, sorry Vermont and Rhode Island) RESPONSIBLY: but, also quoting them, "Fuck, i'll (sic) call them. Ohio, RI -> Clinton, Texas -> Obama. Ok, let's all go home."

Yep. Except that means that no one is going home. How long until Pennsylvania? Good or bad for the party, I am tired.

CNN earlier was gushing over how tonight changes everything for McCain. Bull. That's just filling time until they can talk about the real news tonight. McCain clinching the nomination tonight was about as surprising as the sun coming up this morning and changes nothing, really. He's been campaigning as the nominee for weeks, so what is he going to change now?

I am coming to agree with the Stupid Tuesday label that a lot of people have been using for tonight. My guess, lots of hype, little news. However, tie goes to the runner, and Hillary's been crawling back into this race slowly, which is surprising to me in some ways. I will say that the two weeks since the last votes have actually helped her in the short term, but I think the way she is conducting the campaign in the long run will hurt her in the remaining primaries and, if she actually gets the nomination, could hang her in the general.

For christsakes, she's running ads for McCain, essentially. At least a few people have been calling her on the damn phone ad. For Hillary, you lose on experience. For Obama, you win on judgment. It's what I said during the Texas debate, and dang it, I am sticking to it.

All right. I am sliding off into my two day internet blackout. I might hijack the work intertubes, though. I'll see what happens.