Dear The Nation magazine: Just received your e-mail of 5/24, asking “Why Is Obama Funding A Murderous Regime?” Seriously?

I am glad that you have discovered U.S. foreign aid to the Honduran government, and that you have realized that this is a problem. But I have no idea why you act so surprised. Mr. Obama’s administration has killed thousands of people every year in by perpetuating wars, escalating wars, and starting new wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, etc. And the Obama administration’s military and police aid policies in Honduras are in no significant respect different from U.S. military and monetary support to generation after generation of repressive regimes in Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, etc. etc. etc. by literally every President of the U.S.A. for more than 100 years now. Does it really take much wondering to figure out why the primary alliances of one murderous regime, are to other murderous regimes?

Sincerely, Charles W. Johnson

is scanning the second year of The Liberator (1832) this afternoon.

This weekend’s movies: “Paul Goodman Changed My Life,” “The Wavy Gravy Movie,” and “Land of the Dead.”

is scanning early issues of The Liberator today. (The Garrison one, not the follow-up to The Masses.) Inspiring moments include the famous “To the Public,” “Questions on War,” etc. Less inspiring moments: “drunken Scotchman” jokes on the “Literary, Miscellaneous, and Moral” page in the back.

is kind of psyched to have run into a lightbulb joke I made up being reposted on Facebook without attribution. I’m famous enough to become anonymous.

Huh. So I suspect the now-current issue of the Anarchist Classics Series is the only instalment that I’ve ever been able to cut with my horizontal paper-cutter instead of my big, 500-sheet capacity guillotine stack cutter. Publishing poetry does I guess make for much smaller booklets.

is futzing around with PHP 5 Reflection and WordPress custom types. Wee-ha.

Also from Innovator (Sep 1965): “I/t/a — Alphabet of the Future?”, an article by El Ray on “the exciting educational possibilities” of English spelling reform, based on a 44 character phonetic alphabet. Illustrated with a hand written quotation from Bastiat’s “The Law,” transliterated into the new system.

is digging through some old copies of the later issues of Innovator (ca. 1969 at the moment), including a short little article on ecology without/beyond statism, by “Ho Chi Zen” (one of Kerry Thornley’s counterculture alter egos).

is also missing Adrienne Rich today. 1929-2012. R.I.P. Today is a day for sad news, I guess.

“… [T]he very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration … [art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.” – Adrienne Rich, 1997

“… Crossing the bridge I need all my nerve to trust to the man-made cables.

The blades on that machine could cut you to ribbons but its function is humane. Is this all I can say of these delicate books, scythe-curved intentions you and I handle? I’d rather taste blood, yours or mine, flowing from a sudden slash, than cut all day with blunt scissors on dotted lines like the teacher told.” – Adrienne Rich (1968), “On Edges”