Death and Deception

Just to note this day, another political assassination, this time Ms. Benazir Bhutto the ex-Prime Minister and current political opponent of Pakistan's Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf. If there is one thing to fear in this world of terror, it is the callous use of suicide bombing to destroy human life in the name of political expediency. It is actually my primary thought when I think of HRC being elected. Our history is too strong in favor of this to not be worried. Human life is fragile and frangible. The side effects of this action will not be wonderful to watch.

A New Name for an Old Item - Pot

Yesterday was the beginning of a new era in the seemingly endless war on drugs. David Lazarus in the business section column he writes for the LA Times brought up the idea that it was time to legalize the use of marijuana and tax the heck out of it the same way we do tobacco and alcohol. He then made it clear that this tax money would/should go towards setting up a single pay healthcare program for the state of California.

My suggestion to him was that we need to find a new vocabulary for this discussion if we really expect to be successful. Use instead of abuse for example. Today I am just starting to think about other possibilities.

So I am on my Mac and . . .

I am trying to move my poetry over to a PC and it is not accepting my save or publish commands.

Going to the dogs . . .

It seems to me that we are really pushing our denial button these days with the current uproar over Micheal Vick and the dog fighting situation. Is it just me, or is this the height of hypocrisy. The man plays professional football, a sport that has turned America's need for gladiatorship and vicarious violence into a billion dollar business. How is it any different than what Vick and his pals are accused of doing? Is not the retired player's association engaged in a major law suit to force the league and it's owners to somehow redress them for the incredible damage done to them in the name of sport? What's the deal, we get upset if it's dogs but oh well if it's humans?

What a joke . . .

Yesterday, on the front page of the LA Times, I read a story about the Supreme Court's new rulings on the election laws concerning corporate contributions and specific advertising. I am sure you heard about it. The corporations won. What really struck me though was the comment by Chief Justice Roberts that "We give the benefit of the doubt to (free) speech, not censorship." Directly below the quote at the end of the column was a related story box pointing to a ruling by the same court rejecting the right of a student to post a sign "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" on a public street outside a school. Free speech? I guess not.

The Heartland . . .

Years ago, when I was a sophomore in high school, my Dad performed his last feat of legerdermain for me when our family was moved to California for a three year tour of duty at Camp Pen. I say it was for me because I know he wanted to give me a chance to finish my high school years all at one school. And I know it was for me because he hated California, not so much for what it was, but for what it wasn't. It wasn't the South. He had grown up on a farm in Arkansas and we had just spent a three consecutive tours in Memphis close enough to drive down and drop me off every summer to work my Uncle's farm.

So imagine my surprise when I turned on the radio and heard the KBIG announcer welcome his listeners and me to the Southland. Even though we had driven across country and back by both the southern route and the northern route numerous times, I guess you could call this my first real geography lesson. I thought at first that through some miracle I had picked my favorites blues station up from the Treadway on Beale St. But then as the light dawned I realized I would have to let it go - the South, southern fried accents, the Irma Brown blues, the 100% humidity, and all the rest. Southern California was my new Southland. Well, at least, I still had the music.

I started thinking about this last night as I was listening to country singer Toby Keith being interviewed on some "balanced news" talk show. The host kept referring to the time he'd recently spent on the streets in the Heartland and how the people there really supported Keith's point of view. Frankly, as I listened it began to piss me off. It seems to me by claiming this title for the middle of the country the host, and the political crowd that he's a part of, have laid claim to an analogy that represents exactly what is wrong with the way this country has been divided up. By claiming that they are the "heartland" the middle of the country seems to think it gets extra credit in the debates about what our country is doing and how it should go about it. After all, they are the heart, aren't they? And everyone knows that if it comes from the heart it's sincere, and honest , and done for all the right reasons, don't they?

Two dogs . . .

Brisk paced
Passed my place.

I had to squint. The sun was in my face.

The dogs' heads held high
Scarcely slowed barely bowowed
As their tales swept by.

Two dogs out in the sun a daily run.

I began to scribble this to catch the sight
Just right.
They ran on were gone.

Quickly now black & tan and tan
Were they male&female I couldn't tell?
Whose?
Where?
Uh oh, there they go ...

Two dogs . . .

In the back of two trucks
Out in front of the laundromat
Put there for safety
And to see that no one fucks
With their owner's stuff,
Bark like crazy, loud at ear height,
Reminding me of
Bar bouncers
Out for fun and
A good fight.

Bristling and jostling, they shiver the sky
Until closer inspection reveals that they are just barking goodbye. „

Two dogs . . .

Some Low level of rage runs through my thoughts like black&tan rotweilers barking and snapping and thirsting for blood.

I know I can’t let them loose. It won’t do me no good.

Still, they run,
They rage,
Seek solace on a page.

Act out, . . .No doubt, . . . I’ll end up in a cage.

But just once wouldn’t it be worth it
To let them all the way out.

Get blood up the snout.

I have to find a punching bag, a tackling dummy, a blocking machine;
A way to vent my spleen.

Just picture it: A meal on wheels made of corporate heads, millionaires’ homesteads, stars and starlets fresh from their magazine spreads.

The growl snarls up and through me
My chest vibrating . . .
My voice gone vibrato,

My jaws unclench, saliva flows.

God, just to be raving pack of two dogs
Finally let go. „

THE SUNSHINES BLUE . . .

On the day outside my mind,
rides like wind flies and trains of inconsequence trade themselves for thoughts as I wish for more than I can have or hold or even use in this world gone mad as a hatter,

In a world where anything can un happen, can re happen, can happen more or less with consequences and all the trimmings,
While we (you and I) still stay in a quandary, at a loss,
Up in the air like a coin star-crossed, our minds flipping, tripping

at all the evil dripping from the last bomb tossed.

Frankly, . . .

I'm stunned when the short blonde lady behind the counter asks, "How are you doing today?" I've gotten used to the hurry up push, can I help the next customer, sell of today's consumer place. So my smile is tentative, and my voice hesitant as I reply, "Okay, I guess." But then she continues, as though she senses that things aren't okay, that is. And she adds, "It's really beautiful this morning, and we're not in Iraq."

I can't reply. I can't say anything to her because she only wanted me to have a nice day and because we are in Iraq.

Sense and non . .

sense lets be real. It's pain and frustration. This is what you feel. Late at night, you wait for relief. But morning comes, and time's still a thief.

Part of me

wants to write until my fingers are weary but it seems that a more powerful part wants to pretend that writing isn't something that I can be successful at doing. So I think of things to say but when it comes time to put them down in readable form I sort of let them slide right off the tabletop of my mind. I find a good book or watch tv or go for a ride, or lately I just go to bed instead of sitting up for hours working on this writing thing until it grows a shape, takes on a meaning, a life of its own.

Things fall apart . . .

Chinau Ichebe wrote this book. I read it during my post graduate year and while I was working on finishing my teaching credential. It's about what an African tribes man feels and learns as, he says, things as he knows them fall apart. I recognized what he was saying and why it was important to know it then but now I have to go back and re-read it. Things are still falling apart.

If nothing else . . .

say that you are doing it to help fight terrorism. If they ask you to explain why oil dependence and Global Warming are so important. Then tell them thinking about these things helps us in the war on terror. When you propose the idea of changing the focus of the war in Iraq from killing the terrorists to protecting the Iraquis from the terrorists, tell them how this will help us win the war on terror. Turn their words back on them.

Bloggers . . .

are cool. I've been discovering this as I use the random "next blog" button. Whether someone is commenting back or not, bloggers are still writing, journaling, putting their thoughts in a bottle and sending them out for someone to find and maybe respond to. I love the links you find and the art work. The ability of some of these correspondents to manipulate images is wonderful to behold. The internet is infinite, is space, is the final frontier. Thanks fellow voyagers.

It seems so very clear.

Each of us wants to talk. And many of us have a lot to say. But in this era of terror . . .

This world is . . .

This world is what? Crap, crappy, ugly in its My-ness. Although, maybe I shouldn't say that since Google bought ad space on "MySpace". But still, it's crap because it seems to me that everything that is going on these days is about the "MY" generation. Especially if you define the word generation as meaning all of us who were alive starting at a particular time. I know that this generation started before 9/11 with the selfishness that grew so abundantly in the 90's but that event is what triggered this tremendous sense of vulnerability that is at the core of this "My Generation". I am reminded of the quivering reply to criticism "but this is how I feel." If I can get clinical here, this "My-ness" is at the heart of the denial mechanism that represents current American thought. We're not in Iraq for the Iraquis. We're not in favor of Homeland Security measures to protect others. We want "MySpace"protected. So we can go on and on and on saturating ourselves in the media, the reality of tv, and the protection that we have convinced ourselves and have been told that we need.

It turns out . . .

Well, it turns out that the crisis in the California schools isn't as large as first stated. After a group of parents sued the school districts and the state, it was reported that the real number of those facing the no diploma deal is actually 6000. Quite a difference, eh? Could it be that here again the media went for the headline instead of the facts. There are more than 6000 high schools in this state, so seen in that light you could say that one per school is quite an improvement over the past. Though why I am taking the time to write about this I really don't know since I really believe that the way we educate in this country is severely messed up.

They say we're going to have a revolution

Once in a long while, I try to remember what it was like back then in the 70's. I say this because I want to believe that the things I did, the things my friends and I accomplished, really meant something. This in the face of all the contempory evidence to the contrary. And because I just finished reading Cormac Mcarthy's No Country for Old Men. http://www.cormacmccarthybooks.com

I remember riding my bike to school the day a future school board member came to lecture the student body about the value of "our commitment to the war in Vietnam" and the furor I aroused when I pointed out to my students that this local preacher had arrived in a Cadillac and dressed to the nines, that his company manufactured bomber sights, that his pledge to support the football team was just another way to encourage warfare, and that his values were the ones that were relative.

Seems like there ought to be a reason

I had to laugh yesterday at two things that happened. I was watching tv when an advertisement for Walmart told me I had to hurry order my copy of Madacascar before supplies ran out. Then I turned to LA Times and read that California schools face a crisis in 2006 because 100,000 students still haven't passed the proficiency test.

It's been awhile since I donned this guise

Once in great while, I just have to take a break. Though in reality that isn't what happens. I still read the papers, LA and NY Times, and of course, I'm in book stores all the time so I can't miss the new books. So when I say take a break, I just mean I'm not going to go public with my thoughts for a bit. But now I'm back and the first thing I want to write about is the big deal over Paris Hilton and the gay rights parade. Ironic isn't it? Paris apparently isn't moral enough for the gay community. Hmmm? Don't the neocon and christian right think of gays as immoral? What's going on? Is there another level of morality that we're just learning about, some astral plane of morality that maybe was best explained in that thrilling little short story by T. Sturgeon, If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let Your Sister Marry One? Or is this just more PR like the Katie Holmes kidnapping?