Okay, yes, I played Mass Effect 3. And yes the ending pissed me off.
Nonetheless, I’m really into space opera and epic fantasy these days and the Mass Effect series is a pretty cool, character-driven space opera trilogy. It’s certainly a better space opera than any written the granddaddy of space opera, E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith and his Lensman novels.
So here’s a cool video conversation about the game.
Pound still hasn’t really gotten back into the swing of things, in terms of style. I’m just not a fan of most of these Cantos taking place in the early days of the United States or during the Revolutionary War.
Nonetheless, I very much enjoyed this little segment:
My compliments to Mrs Warren
as to the sea nymphs
Hyson, Congo, Bohea, and a few lesser divinities
Sirens shd/ be got into somehow.
Tories were never so affable
Tories were never so affable.
We shall oscillate like a pendulum.
slow starvation, conclave, a divan,
what shall we do when we get there
Next Sunday at 3pm, there will be a poetry reading at the DC Arts Center on2438 18th Street in Adams Morgan (south of Columbia Rd. on the west side of the street).
Admission is $5, free for DCAC members.
Gina Myers, Jim Goar, and Rod Smith are the poets.
Florida Democrats should be worrying about two things and neither of them involve moving a lot of resources into helping Obama win Florida.
The Obama campaign will put a lot of resources into swing areas like Tampa Bay and Orlando, as well as in areas rich in Democratic voters like Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Yes, Obama losing Florida would be a blow to the state’s Democrats – and a big one. But state and local party organizations need to trust his campaign to handle that.
And while there are some winnable seats out at the Congressional level (one in Central Florida, along with potential upsets against David Rivera, assuming a strong candidate can be fielded, and against Vern Buchanan who already faces a strong opponent in Keith Fitzgerald), the fact is that, speaking locally of the Tampa Bay area, Castor is not in trouble (in terms of protecting Dem incumbents) and neither Young nor Bilirakis are going to come anywhere close to losing in November.
So what should be the priorities?
Number one is getting Bill Nelson re-elected. Losing the last statewide Democrat elected would be a terrible blow. He needs to win (and if you want a reason to make Obama a priority, I will offer this one – Nelson’s fortunes will likely rise and fall with Obama and an Obama loss by more than a point or two in Florida would likely mean a loss by Nelson, as well).
Number two is picking up some legislative seats. This doesn’t mean trying to take back a chamber in this cycle. It means exactly what I wrote – some legislative seats. A few. Enough to start getting a foothold. Enough to make sure that moderates in the Senate have some allies and the bare minimum in the House to engage in some parliamentary maneuvers (which is to say, hold a total of forty seats or one third of the total seats).
Finally, and this is something for next year, elect a Democrat as mayor of St. Pete.
That last one is crucial. The mayor of the state’s fourth largest city instantly becomes a figure of statewide figure importance. That person becomes a potential candidate for statewide office or for Congress (once Bill Young retires). Add this hypothetical Democrat to a mix that includes Dave Aronberg (who is running Palm Beach County Attorney), Dan Gelber, Loranne Ausley, and maybe even Alex Sink and Charlie Crist (?!), and all of a sudden you have a pretty good bench ready to go when opportunities to win statewide and federal office come up.
With a Democratic mayor in St. Pete and with Bob Buckhorn across the bay in Tampa (not to mention Alvin Brown in Jacksonville), the landscape for Democrats will look a lot different.
This has long been something I’ve harped on, but we’ve got to stop this process of candidates running for offices for which they are not ready. Nina Hayden could be a solid candidate for a local office, but come November, she is going to find that her quixotic campaign for Congress against Bill Young is between one and two million dollars short of being viable.
Sandra Beasley is a local (DC) poet, so I felt I was doing a good deed for the area by buying her poetry collection, I Was the Jukebox. Right now, she’s more famous for her memoir, Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl, but I just don’t have much interest in contemporary memoir.
I do admire her for putting together a living via readings, grants (usually, insofar as I can tell, to do poetry and writing programs in schools), and honorariums.
I also like her poetry.
Unlike a lot of poets who come out of the contemporary MFA scene, she avoids some of the surface ‘craftiness’ (and I don’t mean ‘craftiness’ as a synonym for ‘cunning’). She combines amusing surfaces with some lovely, deeper, revelatory stuff beneath it – including opening up on personal insecurities and vulnerabilities (particularly romantic and sexual ones).
I like it. But I don’t love it.
She’s a safer version of Kim Addonizio.
Addonizio seems to me to be a very similar poet, but, frankly, much better. She doesn’t stop at thought provoking, but goes all the way to heart and brain wrenching. She’s funnier, sexier, and more original.
But Addonizio is (at the risk of giving a woman’s age) also twenty-odd years older. Beasley has plenty of time to surpass her.
Who is Ono no Komachi?
the coffee philosopher 