Seeing all the grief over violence in today’s news, it seems like a good day to draw your attention to Poets Against the War. This was started last year, before the war started, and the poems were presented at the White House at some point, as I recall. It’s a good site to visit if you’re seeking a little clarity.
… I don’t know why they saw fit to put an e-mail link between the title and the first line of each poem. Oh well.
I’m here now. It rained
for two days and I stood
very still, made of glass.
At midnight, I buttered bread,
made tea, and it rained. Outside,
there were painful sounds.
I will be gone soon,
becoming a storm over the dull
hills. That’s how it is.
Kyle Kimberlin
1/23/2001 | 3/13/2004
John Ashcroft may be sidelined with a bad gallbladder, but his Justice Department still has plenty of gall to go around. They want to mess with our Internet to keep closer tabs on the bad guys. Does anybody really believe they’re just going to monitor terrorists? Not me. I believe that any time the government wants it easier to keep people under surveillance, the consequences for the 4th Amendment, and for all of us, are dire.
Wasn’t it Shakespeare who wrote First thing, let’s freeze all the lawyers? No? Well, this is a chilling tale of caveat emptor.
Remember the horrible bombing at the Atlanta Olympics eight years ago? I do. Can you imagine the task that confronts the people in charge of security for the Olympics in Athens this summer? The job is so big, so daunting, they’ve asked NATO for help.
I can’t understand blowing up innocent people at the Olympics, or in trains or planes or office buildings. I wouldn’t walk up to a stranger and kick him in the shins. Just don’t get it. Terrorism makes no damn sense.
Well that was a very disagreeable experience. Ever lose a file? I mean like a chapter of a book you’ve been writing for a long time. Well, last fall I started a chapter for my book. This particular chapter had something to do with my protagonist going to a lake and spending the night in his truck, talking to his dead grandfather about a woman he liked, who left town to live with her sister and help run the family Laundromat, and did not say goodbye. Classic literature.
That’s all I could remember about it; all else, including the likely file name, was lost to the musty winds of memory. And I could not find the file tonight, when I wanted to sit down and try to rescue it from its obvious shortcomings. … Not on the hard drive, not on the floppies or the CD backups or the FTP. Damn.
Well, it finally occurred to me to look on Old Sparky, my senior citizen laptop. There it was, with the rather mystifying working title The Cheese Stands Alone. Can’t imagine what inspired that, except maybe a line in a book on writing [Anne Lamott? — Natalie Goldberg?] “The cheese stands alone, and decides to take a few notes.” Too bad the cheese didn’t make a note about where one might find this cheesy little chapter.
I wave my hand over a pot of vegetable
soup to displace the steam
and the simmering house falls asleep.
All the gentle ghosts join hands
in the dimlit living room
listening to the furniture pray.
KK | 11/29/2002
Yahoo! News – Woman Gets Criminal Record for Petting Dog
This is just not right. Where’s the criminal intent? Where’s the friggin’ common sense? … Oh, I forgot, our legal system doesn’t recognize common sense.
Check out all the good reasons to Vote Bush Out of office. There are 167 posted so far.
For my friends interested in law, here’s Blawg – Law Blog – Links & Information on Legal Weblogs – Blawgs – Web Links
I don’t get it, I really don’t. I don’t understand how blogging trackback works to share information. I get that you can make a like to another page; I do that all the time. It’s the tracking part that eludes me.
OK, so Buzz posted this morning about linking from other blogs about sites we have blogrolled. I can do the part I understand:
I have blogrolled All That Arises and Pete Beck because these guys are friends of mine, who both put a log of thoughtful time into what they write. Erik at ATA writes about the war, the economy, etc. – very incisive. As long as our people are in harm’s way we owe them this cognizance. Pete’s blog is more built for fun, and it is.
Now I don’t see how any of that serves to track anything back to Buzz’s blog. Maybe I’m supposed to add this code:
Somebuddy ‘Splain it, Puhleeze.
Metaphor 