Benjamin Maurice Melançon the First, A.D.H.D. variously known as BMM Inc., the Maurice Institute Library, and the godfather of CATSUP, is quite possibly a figment of his own imagination.
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Ted Rall's Cancers of the Future-- that's a fear of mine, too

Ted Rall's Cancers of the Future cartoon supposes that all those little electronic gadgets beaming waves at us (including wireless internet and self-flushing urinals) cause cancer.

Cell phones probably do.

I'm scared he's right. Talk about preventable disease. At least we in the wealthy world would suffer the effects of our own poor planning and extravagance for a change.

When a Pro-Labor Law is Really Pro-Establishment

Sixty years after Taft-Hartley helped destroy the momentum of the labor movement, the newly Democratic Congress is on the verge of passing the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow unionization of a workplace if a majority of workers signed a card indicating their desire for a union.

Why now?

Imperial Suicide Party: time to cut off the tap

I coined another phrase today: imperial suicide party.

Over at NewStandard News' blog on shoddy journalism in the attempted run-up to a war against Iran.

And just the day before I coined the phrase free software is worth paying for. (Unlike, say, these coiny phrases.)

Poor People to StatsCan: Your Study is Stupid, not us

With the misleading headline "University costs may not be blocking poor youth: StatsCan," the CBC this Thursday played the well-worn media role of trying to discredit anyone calling for action.

This single-source story came after students protested for lower tuition. It is this context, and its presentation, that are most troubling. Personally, I agree that poverty and inequality themselves are the larger problems, and that they will not be overcome by lowering university costs. Because of the barriers to entry of required tests and an educational system that puts more effort into separating students than educating everyone at the highest level possible, the University of Massachusetts tends to be a subsidy for middle-class kids paid by the taxes of lower-income state residents. (This is also due to state taxes being relatively regressive.)

Sweet Neocon

Just listened to The Rolling Stone's "Sweet Neo Con" again.

I love how the Dixie Chicks apologize for Texas' letting Bush loose on the world, and there is a sustained media campaign against them. Here, the Rolling Stones have a whole bloody song deconstructing Cheney and Bush's war on Iraq, and the media ignored that little fact. The purpose is the same: eliminate critique of power and suppress protest against the war on Iraq, but the Stones are just too big to take on. They don't get much radio time anymore anyway, they just sell a million records and sell out every show anyway.

Turns out the Dixie Chicks were also too tough for Clear Channel and the right-wing media echo chamber, always aided willingly by the establishment media, but I find the difference in approach revealing. It's not an emotional or ideological response, "how dare they criticize the President." It is a pragmatic (for the powerful) response: the best approach to minimize dissenting opinion.

Iraq and the new conventional wisdom

I never finished this e-mail and it's rather late to send now, but it responds to what I see as buying into the new imperialist rhetoric (humanitarian reasons).

"Internationalizing the Iraq problem" is barely-concealed double-speak for enlisting other rich-country governments to keep the Iraqi people from having any sort of independence.

The problem is the person endorsing Jacob Weisberg's view (below) is a terrific, indefatigable anti-war organizer. You can see my e-mail's not ready to send to such a person, and won't be, but I wanted to get this view out there.

Recommend for a more realistic view:

On the draft

Draft
better - citizens have a say in war
choice
facing death and jail

404 Error: Page Not Found

And forward to contact page...

Contact M.E.

You do not exist.

Therefore you cannot see the document you are looking for.

Please try again when you exist.

... or try from the Melançon Enterprises home page, or search the whole site with google.

On bars and gangsters

place in Chinatown across from South Station. Open after hours, illegal, lights on and everything and I think there was a police station nearby.

I think most of the waiters were gay. One of them [also worked at the bar where I worked]. He was a flamboyant gay. Danced [like anything]. He introduced me [to the other waiters] as "This is the ONE straight guy I like"

My boss – who was [no small] gangster himself pointed out all the wiseguys at the restaurant from the area and New York

Cows in India and the world (Dad passing on new knowledge)

Dad passing on new knowledge. He was always giving the most important news, and interesting information.

The dog, or wolf, and the cow are the oldest domesticated animals.

Cow domesticated in three different areas of the world: southern Africa, Savannah, and in India
And in India it's the Holy Cow-- something like 250 million. And it's a complicated [business] of worship.
A woman quit being a doctor, and became a doctor [for cows]

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