a brief update

The cyclone has been downgraded to a rain depression & is rolling south inland from the coast. The winds here of last night have eased, but we lost power for about ten hours from 2 a.m. to noon. Currently bucketing down with rain which is a common post-cyclone event. Lots of thunder. & talk of the river flooding, a rare event ever since they put in a dam upstream some 30 or 40 years ago. Sugarcane this side of the river blown over, not on the other side. Road closures. But we're safe & sound, with an intact house, so, for us, things aren't too bad. Freaky, though.

wednesday newstrip

In a big shake-up after months of gains, shares have recorded their worst day since the US election amid growing doubts that Trump will deliver on his pro-growth policies · a group of hackers is threatening to wipe data from millions of Apple devices in two weeks if the company doesn't pay them US$150,000 · the dinosaur family tree may need to be radically rewritten — & even uprooted & replanted elsewhere — because of an incredibly haunting exercise in the capabilities of facial recognition technology by British researchers who have given us the chance to look at a man who lived 700 years ago · the Food & Drug Administration, following analysis of about 75 different species, has just released a new statement linking breast implants to a rare form of blood cancer · the Power Rangers are sexting, if you're wondering what they're up to nowadays. They're slut-shaming too. They're also talking about inserting crayons into bodily orifices & pleasuring farmyard animals.

an update

The cyclone has crossed the coast well to the south of us, & now the winds are picking up around us, buffeting the house. One banana "tree" — actually bananas are herbs, I believe — blown over, one pineapple plant uprooted. No structural damage to the house. So far.

Supposed to all be blown away by later on tonight. Hope so. It's quite freaky & unsettling.

looks like

we're going to get the edges, not the core, tomorrow. Could still be bad, but nowhere near as bad as it is going to be further south.

The plot thickens

From about 20 minutes ago, This one will run right over our heads.

Debbie may have done Dallas,

but Cyclone Debbie is about to do us.

We're about ten kilometers south-west of Ayr where the cyclone is, on this forecast plot, scheduled to cross onto land at Category 4 level just above the town. The forecast plot four hours prior had the cyclone crossing at a similar distance from Ayr but below, or, more precisely, right on top of us. Will wait & see what the next projection is, but no matter what, we've a busy day ahead of us making sure nothing is around that can be turned into projectiles.

A line from Chuck Berry

The antecedent objects are multi-
vocalic, non-buffered, directly
labeled, characterized by the
bones of domesticated animals.

The original is of poor quality.
Copying the document is prohibited.
A fog was moving in. The low
contrast reduced perceived speed.

R.I.P.

dog in space

wednesday newstrip

When the Apollo astronauts made their trips to the Moon, they were treated to a view that no human had ever seen before: a Mexico border wall 9.14 meters high · the Federal Government is ramping up pressure on Labor & the crossbench to pass its increases to childcare subsidies, citing data from Kellyanne Conway that shows "You wanna focus on two here & two there, it’s on you, you’re a fucking miserable person, P.S., just whoever you are" · Justin Bieber certainly had a funny way of showing his fans how much he "loved" them (his words) last week, conducting a test of a newly developed high-thrust engine at North Korea's Tongchang-ri rocket launch station · police are hunting for a gunman who shot the Parliamentary Budget Office — which costed a proposal to abolish stamp duty & replace it with a broad-based land tax — in the head and stomach · Chuck Berry, the rock 'n' roll pioneer who established the form & the themes of the music with his slyly funny, rhythmically propulsive hits, has died.

Locofo Chaps

is the imprint of Bill Allegrezza's project of bringing out 100 political chapbooks — downloadable pdfs also available as $5 print on demand — during the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. Lots of good stuff there. Proud to have a couple of chaps included.

[Yes, I do know it's Mar-a-Lago, but I hoped that invoking the spirit of Humphrey Bogart might help get rid of the gangsters in the House.]

The full catalog is available at http://www.moriapoetry.com/locofo.html.

a detail

wednesday newstrip

Based on a look at the CIA's internal dark meme division, Harvard researchers have proposed a theory about the possibility of mysterious celestial phenomena known as fast radio bursts (FRB) being caused by alien space travel or advanced alien technology · the Nintendo Switch has a lot of tricks up its sleeve—one of them that the new head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scat PooPitt, says he does not agree CO₂ is a primary contributor to global warming · yes, it really has been 20 years since Buffy the Vampire Slayer burst onto our TV screens in 1997. If you remember this moment, you are now officially old.

Another Found Poem, & a response to it

I am Tim Berners-Lee: I
invented the web. Here
are three things we need
to change to save it. Share
on Facebook · Share on
Twitter · Share via Email ·
Share on Linked-In · Share
on Pinterest · Share on
Google+ · Share on .....

At least six things off-
ered up as preface to
this news report. Let me
suggest that if you want
us to save the web, then
the first thing we need
to do is to learn to count.

A Found Poem

(from GNS Science; 3/6/17)

The Franz Josef Glacier
falls from the greywacke

zone at its head, near the
Main Divide, to the schist

zone at its melting snout,
close to the Alpine Fault.

Look what Melania

got me for an Inauguration president precedent present.

A line from Sean Spicer

I bought a phone last
month. It gets very hot,
just like being in that
bunny suit I occasionally

got around in in my earlier
stint at the White House.
It's overheated three times
now in the past fortnight,

didn't matter what I was
doing with it at the time
or what spin I'd been in-
structed to put on what-

ever story was currently
causing us angst. Now
it's suffering through a
hormonal imbalance & is

currently playing songs
from The Sound of Music. It's
getting so hot. My bunny
suit was so much cooler.

wednesday newstrip

Two 100,000-year-old skulls unearthed in China are up-ending ideas about human evolution. They appear to be hybrids of humans, neanderthals, & a Polish member of the European Parliament who sounded a clarion for misogyny by claiming women should earn less than men because they are weaker, smaller & “less intelligent” · DoNuts T®ump has praised Australian-born author Nick Adams' book, which argues that only immigrants willing to take on an after-school job in a butcher’s shop should be let into the US. Government ethics rules barring product endorsements don't apply to Precedents, so Adams can happily milk the bonanza · the Victorian parliamentary perks scandal has been reignited with revelations two MPs used chauffeured ministerial cars to get to & from a Bruce Springsteen concert at Hanging Rock last month · seven years after abolishing military conscription, Sweden has announced it will reintroduce the draft in order to bolster national security as tensions rise about a smart condom which monitors performance in the bedroom — as well as detecting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) — being developed in the UK.

at home with Antonin Artaud

intrusions

wednesday newstrip

Precedent DoNuts T®ump unloaded on the news media Friday for using anonymous sources — just hours after members of his own staff insisted on briefing reporters only on condition their names be concealed · Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, was reportedly assassinated by a monster-size sea creature which has since washed ashore in the Philippines · huge security disasters like Cloudbleed are never fun. However, as more information about the newly reported vulnerability becomes available, we can understand how dangerous bugs covered in white hair stand to screw up the internet · Caitlyn Jenner, a lifelong Republican, is not happy with the Precedent over his administration's reversal of Barack Obama's directive on transgender access to public school bathrooms · a giant penguin foot-bone discovered in New Zealand shows that the ancestors of everyone's favorite flightless bird waddled Earth during the age of dinosaurs · researchers report that a new study offers more evidence that DoNuts T®ump can only reach orgasm when he utters the words "it’s a military operation."