Image of instruction card issued to troops, on how to treat prisoners in Vietnam, from Andrew Sullivan’s TIME blog. … “Always treat your prisoner humanely.” It includes the following quotation:
“The courage and skill of our men in battle will be matched by their magnanimity when the battle ends. And all American military action in Vietnam will stop as soon as aggression by others is stopped.”
— Lyndon B. Johnson
Those were the days, huh?
It was good to go to the rally today. I posted a couple of photos on Flickr . It’s good to protest, and to be among like-minded people. As they say, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. The speakers were all good, especially Hannah-Beth Jackson, and Steve Sherrill from Veterans for Peace. It’s right to applaud when someone calls for bringing the troops home, ending the slaughter, impeaching the very bad president. But there is, regrettably, the small matter of futility.
The word juggernaut was used by speakers today, and the thing about a juggernaut is that it’s hard to stop. Once set in motion, a juggernaut of war and hate creates its own fuel, its own momentum. It’s a chain reaction, because hate begets hate, and violence begets violence. This ravenous beast was conjured in the dark heart of fanatical self-righteousness, by men of unqualified power and corrupt moral vision. After three years, it’s just as lumbering, roughshod and hungry as it ever was.
This is a strange and bitter kind of war. It’s not over territory, or riches, or power within a traditionally calculable scope. By the Bush administration’s own admission, this is, “global struggle against violent extremism.” (Donald Rumsfeld.) Perhaps only the Third Reich had such broad ambitions for a new world order, and so little respect for its place among nations.
“It ought to be ‘the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.’ ”
— George W. Bush
The goal is to conquer the consciousness of the world. We haven’t won until the Stars & Stripes are planted in Thought itself, until the conscience of the free world has supplanted by force all opposing conscience. Bush has made enemies with whom he cannot hope to make peace, and every effort to destroy them creates exponentially more of them. (And aren’t they people, after all? Damn it, when did our language make room for eradication of men, as though they were vermin?)
The end can never be in sight, because no end is contemplated. In the frigid thorax of this beast, there is nothing but the vacuum of obsession. I’m afraid that George W. Bush has opened Pandora’s Box, and he couldn’t close it, even if he wanted to.
Nevertheless, we stop at nothing but to say Impeach Bush, wrest Congress from the Republicans in November, hope the Democrats grow a backbone by then, and always Pray for Peace.
On a lighter note, I just think this is pretty funny.
What were those prirates smokin’, to think they should fire on Navy warships? Must’ve been something that made the ships looks reeeealy small.
I got home a short time ago from the peace march and rally in Santa Barbara. I’ll have something to say about it later, and maybe a few photos. For now, I want to say that I almost didn’t go. My stomach’s been bugging me a little today. I was tempted just to stay here in my comfy place, where the only noise is that of children playing outside. But then I turned on the computer and saw this photo. 
Blood drips from the head of a blindfolded suspected insurgent inside an army headquarters in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad March 18, 2006. Three years after the war, dreams of a bright new future have died as insurgency and rising sectarian violence have brought new fears, and more poverty.
REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi
Hard to look at, isn’t it? And you see why I couldn’t stay here in my soft chair, sipping coffee and watching CNN, while the world devolves into blood and weeping. Not today.
Peace.
You will all be relieved to know that metaphor has been reviewed by the eminent techies at blogger, and officially certified unspamish. All sanctions have been lifted, and we can get back to the serious business of stopping at nothing.
Well, Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you. It’s a lovely, green day here in wee Carp. Where the debris meets the sea and leprechauns run free. Just damp and dark enough for a good cable-knit sweater. I’m wearing the green, as we all may if we choose. The Irish people have been so integral to the founding and building of America, that maybe we’re all a little Irish. And I happen to be part Irish. I’m a mutt. And I’m a Christian and Patrick is one of the Saints.
So here I am, as from inside the monitor looking out, wearing the green today. 
A fine specimen of a lad.
I don’t drink green beer, though. Point of fact, I haven’t had beer of any color in almost two years. It’s just so very fattening. And it does tend to fog the mind a bit. My mind needs all the clarity it can get.
St. Patty’s Day holds some grim memory for me. My very good friend and ex-roommate Mark died, at the age of 30, on March 17, 1995. Eleven years, hard to believe. I have some photos of him somewhere, though on apparently on this computer. I should find and scan them.
Mark was a good guy, an excellent friend. A calm and sincerely young man. I saw him get angry, but never mad. I knew him for over 10 years, and don’t think I ever knew him to raise his voice. When I was down, he was there. So if you’re out tonight, drinkin’ a bit of green Guinness, raise a glass to my friend.
The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.
-James Fenton, poet and professor
I can’t let this New Yorker column go by without sharing it with you. You’ll be glad I did!
My Mom sent me an e-mail today, linking to a very pretty slideshow, with music, called The Interview with God. It’s uplifting.
My grandma used to have an expression, “Well, here we are, dark and it a’rainin’.” I miss her. But here we are. Feeling comfy? I hope so. We’re back from WordPress, which was really nice but started getting very unstable. Weird font problems, lost and wandering links, etc. I thought about putting the blog on my existing Web site, and that’s a possibility if things get whacky here at Blogger again. But right now, I’m just not in the mood to webmaster it.
I hope you like the new color scheme. I did it just for you.
So, what shall we talk about? Poetry? Philosophy? Potential pandemics? OK, poetry it is.
I wrote a chapbook back in the late 20th century, called Finding Oakland. And I’ve been writing ever since, so I have quite a stack of stuff stacked up. A couple hundred poems, maybe. Haven’t counted them.
A couple of years ago, I started writing prose poems – sketches of short fiction – brief scenes in prose, but with a subtle meter, and an attention to the language that one usually employs in poetry. They’re good, I’m told. I’ve got about 30 of those, I guess.
My friends tell me I should endeavor to persevere to get my stuff published again. I haven’t been since Pembroke Magazine did a couple of my pieces in Spring of 2002. Four years. I have no excuse. Except that getting your work published is hard, and it’s not much fun. It’s a little like trolling for the Loch Ness Monster in a row boat, with a fishing rod from Wal-Mart.
I need an agent.
I need another cup of coffee.
I’ve had this blog for three years. Suddenly, Blogger is making me do word verification to post. Their robot, Rusty, thinks it’s a spam blog.
No, it’s mostly useless, obtuse, sometimes annoying. But it ain’t spam.
I met a fellow Citizen this morning, arriving home from the grocery store with his provisions for St. Patrick’s Day. These he said were corned beef and cabbage and “a case of whiskey.”
Saints preserve us.
Metaphor 
