Entries Tagged as 'Uncategorized'

Friday, July 16th, 2010

Great news! pha’titude Literary Magazine is back!

This is to announce the “Spring” 2010 issue of pha’titude Literary Magazine is finally out, and you can find, among loads of great poetry and prose, an essay by myself within!   Please peruse.
Here’s the link:

phati’tude Literary Magazine

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010

The End of Capitalism… for Beginners

In my grade school in my wonderful hometown of Media, Pennsylvania, back in the 60’s and 70’s, they taught us rubbish.  I am not referring to them telling us our government, elected by the people as it was, functioned ideally or even equitably, that we were “free,” (if you’d like to see an example of [...]

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Drill-Baby-Drill Clowns on Parade or… Texas-Tea Party in the Gulf?

200,000 gallons-a-day of comeuppance will continue to spill onto the coastal wetlands (think birds,) bayous, oceanfront, fisheries, and shellfish (shrimp, oysters, etc…,) beds of Republican voters of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Florida.  This will go on for several months, and should swamp all the gulf states in black gold.  By the end of May, [...]

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Medicine for Peace Update: Haiti

I wanted to share this with my readers and encourage you to visit the site:
Dear Mark,
Just a short note to thank you for your contribution to Medicine For Peace’s Haiti relief efforts. Seven weeks since the earthquake struck, and it is still difficult to describe the extent of the devastation in Port-Au-Prince or the squalor [...]

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

A New Definition for Multicultural Literature

Key to motivating children to read literature that is not junk (see my previous post: Throwing In the Towel with Reading Workshop,) is finding a relevance that connects the child to the book, educational psychology having long-ago established relevance spurs an interest in reading (obviously.)

In this anally racial-attentive US culture, what has been known [...]

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Throwing In the Towel with Reading Workshop

It used to be that the Language Arts programs of the typical urban high schools taught traditional classics like Animal Farm, Sounder, Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye….  In those days, schools that could get kids to read them did so, and schools whose kids would rather throw paper balls around the room and chat [...]

Monday, September 21st, 2009

The 10 Best FREE Podcasts (with Help for Beginners)

After a short explanation of podcasting, Motormanmark.com offers the ten greatest podcasting sites on Earth.  (This is an update for those of you who read last year’s entry.)
 
New to podcasting?  Well, a podcast is a sound file you can get off the internet—anything from interviews to reviews to informative shows or lectures.  All you need [...]

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

A Short Story from the Old Hard Drive

WITH FRANK AND SHIRLEY IN WALNUT, IOWA
 
                             By Mark Crane
 
 
 
     A grain elevator appeared blue, breaking the shaggy horizon that ran between the black fields and the cloudy night sky.  Over the hood, fat, long-legged flies sparkled in the headlights.  They were hovering, soaking in the hot air that smelled of pigs and chickens–before splashing [...]

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Killer Curves Strike Again

On the occasion of the deadly crash of two Washington D.C. Metro trains, which obviously happened on a curve as photos of the crash clearly show, I republish this investigative piece about the routine killings of humans by New York City Subway trains. As the media ponders the great “mystery” of this crash, you can [...]

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

It’s May. Happy International Doula Month!

by DoulaRina of DoulaRina.com
 
A doula is a professional labor assistant.  Doulas are experienced in childbirth and provide continuous physical, emotional, and informational support to the mother and her partner before, during, and just after childbirth.  In the prenatal period, a doula can help women gain information so that they can have the power to make [...]

Monday, February 16th, 2009

My Ambien Trips to HELL

I’ve never been very good at falling asleep.   If you locked me in a cave without any clocks I think I’d sleep seven 5-hour nights every six days or something like that.  Unless I am sleep-deprived or slowed down with a couple glasses of wine, it is very difficult for me to fall asleep any [...]

Friday, February 13th, 2009

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY: KILLED BY KISSES!

As a Valentines guide to safe kissing, I offer this post a day early:

This particular post is not usual to my series of reprints of hundred-year-old Times articles. This one I came upon by a more circuitous route.

I live near Woodlawn Cemetery, here in the Bronx, where there can be found [...]

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

Pre-Emptive War Is Murder

I adhere to a position that may seem at first blush to be as recklessly extreme as one taken by certain anti-abortion activists: I equate with murder the killing that goes on in what is popularly referred to as “pre-emptive war.” 
 
This oxymoronic phrase is a crass euphemism, not only for its attempt to make [...]

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Breaking News: Scoop! 1st Draft of Obama Inaugural Address

Another scoop for the blogosphere!  Here, Motormanmark.com presents a web exclusive:  what is alleged to be the first draft of President-Elect Barack Obama’s planned inaugural address, to be delivered at the White House on January 20, 2009. This document was secretly appropriated from the office of Roy G. Biv, Chairman for the Obama Transition Team.
 
 
Fellow [...]

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

How to Live Poor with a Smile on Your Face

Living Poor 1.01 – Secrets to Getting Along on Squat
 
Lost your job?  Cut in pay?  Dark clouds on the horizon?  Or maybe your family, like mine, just wants to afford to have a homemaker–to survive on one salary.  I’m going to tell you the things I know that can help you to get along on [...]

Friday, November 28th, 2008

Internet User Convicted of Not Obeying Her User Agreement!

You know that fine print you have to click “I agree” to whenever you register at an internet site.  What if you were held criminally liable for not reading it?
 
Lori Drew, the Missouri woman (who evidently rose from the 7th layer of hell,) who taunted a little girl into killing herself through email, was just [...]

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Joy for Every US Citizen

by Mark Crane – Motormanmark.com
 
Today, I left my apartment with my family on our way to vote.  In the hallway, I met the two old ladies from down the hall, two of the last of the dwindling Irish population that lost this West Bronx neighborhood to a mix of Latinos over the last half century. 
 
I [...]

Friday, October 24th, 2008

Dear Casim – Letter Two

Dear Casim  -  Part II
 
These letters were discovered in a pile of refuse outside Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.  The author is believed to have been a gentleman known as Jasper–or John Doe #124587-49C (Phila. County Coroner’s Office)–who died of heart failure this past March and has not been identified.
 
Where the order of the letters can [...]

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

Why Sarah Palin Is Going to Hell

At the base of Sarah Palin’s politics is a religious framework that rejects intellectualism.  The pride of people who are more interested in, say… sports!, than in reading the international news section must have a way to systematically reject intellect to survive in the political world.  Obama has no accomplishments to a person like this.  [...]

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Dr. Pluto’s Parenting Tip #12 Raising Your Child to Be Heterosexual

No, this Parenting Tip is for the rest of you who know perfectly well that homosexuality is not something you get from watching too many Charlton Heston movies. You enlightened, large-minded progressives grew up laughing at Archie Bunker and Frank Burns. You probably have a gay friend here or there, and you like sitcom characters who are gay a whole lot.