everything changed nothing
the children dressed in dreams
culture craves corruption
sunlight likes to scream


Cara Ober, Certain Flowers Persist, 2008

* From Harper's October 2008:

-- Estimated number of U.S. lives saved per month by $4 gasoline, through reduced driving nationwide: 1,000

-- Number of U.S. gas stations where the group Pray at the Pump has gathered to ask God to lower the price: 12

-- Total donations that John McCain received from the Oil and Gas industry in June: $1,100,000

-- Portion of this that came after he endorsed new offshore drilling on June 16: 3/4

-- Number of Senate votes McCain has cast since May: 0

-- Number cast by Ted Kennedy since he was diagnosed with brain cancer that month: 1

-- Annual salary of the Bush Administration's director of fact checking: $60,000

-- Amount of loose change recovered at U.S. airport-security checkpoints since 2005: $1,050,371.18

* Open letter to Senator Obama from William Galston, who, Joe Klien says "was one of the smartest domestic policy advisers in the Clinton White House, but has never been a self-promoter, seems very smart to me."

* In DC? The Foreign Press performs at the Velvet Lounge (915 15th street, nw, wdc) Saturday September 20. Doors at 9, show at 10. With Dame Satan (from ess eff) and the childe ballads (ex-Jonathan Fire*Eater)

* "The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced." -- Frank Zappa