Dylanesque Eddie/Another Shooting Here/Nice Letter

(P1) Poetical

Pronouncing "Iraq"

Ear Rack or Ear Rock?
What implications?
(dismiss all Eye Rackers
for just who they are)

Ear Ack
Ear Ock
each tick
each tock

air attack
must whack
political hack
wolf pack
kick back
data track
pitch black
media claque
all those youngsters
ripped by flak
yack yack
spore sac

voting flock
cuckoo clock
where's John Locke
in dry dock
mental block
preening cock
full of schlock
writ in chalk
for mock and hock
loss of freedom block on block
despairing race against the clock

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(P2) Political

Please Ban Handguns, For the Common Good!

On a nice afternoon last week, I drove down to Mail & More (on Hopper & Airway) to deliver and pick up my business mail. As usual, I drove by the non-profit organization Community Resources For Independence (CRI) of which I was co-founder. To my amazement, the whole area was ringed with bright yellow police tape. Squad cars and officers were everywhere. I went into Luigi's to see if Edith was ok and to find out what had happened. She was huddled with an employee and no dining customers. She explained that there had been a shooting across the street and asked that I inquire at Mail & More as to what had happened. She also wanted to know what TV station was shooting in the parking lot. Sean at Mail & More told me that 2 kids from the continuation high school had been shot by a shooter who'd jumped out of a car. One victim was a boy shot (not fatally) in the head, the other a girl shot in the hip. The motive may have been gang-related. The school is a "baby-sitting" facility for kids expelled from other high schools.

My mind immediately went to the kids from Elsie Allen HS at a graduation party last year - good kids - one was the star of the rugby team which had just played for the national championship. Six good kids gunned down by party crashers. We all remember party crashers when we were kids. If violence broke out, it was settled with fists. We knew something of knives and chains from Westside Story, but never guns (those were the province of westerns and crime shows). After that tragedy, I emailed all of the City Council members who responded either with the rote "more enforcement" and/or "activities for kids." No one mentioned the fact that much of the gang crime was being controlled from Pelican Bay Prison in Crescent City. Anyway, the issues are big ones, and I don't think that gang violence will be easily solved.

What I did mention to Sean was my belief that handguns simply have no positive value and must be outlawed. He gave me the usual replies about hunting and that "then only the bad guys will have guns." But we've moved well beyond all this. The "guns for self defense" cry is belied by a statistic I read years ago, something like there being a 500 percent greater chance of a violent crime in a household possessing guns. The number of home invasions prevented by guns is an infinitismal fraction. It's simply time to contact legislators demanding that handguns be banned. Once they are off the legal market, certainly some criminals will find ways to obtain them, but with 90% of the availability curtailed, it stands to reason that gun crime will go way down. Gun crime and violence represents an emergency of the highest order. The lives of children are at stake. Let's do something!


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(P3) Philosophical

This lovely letter from the web site of Esther Cameron, editor of The Neovictorian/Cochlea resonates,

I want to write
to all of you, "accepted" or "rejected" this time around, to thank you for your poems, and also to explain in greater depth than I could do in that brief advertisement why I started this review, and what I hope for from its readers and its writers. (This is in lieu of criticism, which some asked for, and of guidelines for next time.) First of all, I am, like you, a poet, but for some time have felt dissatisfied with literary fashions that seem molded too much by various markets, and too little by visions of the world we’d like to make. My view is shaped by memories of a era when poetry was shared with friends who sought to see the outline of a common future. Then I heard poems, not in isolation but as the dialogue of one great play extending over many generations where every one had something to contribute and where the challenge was not to be "better" than fellow-bard, but rather to be true to one's own moment, one's own point upon the continuum of human space and time -- to speak your part, whatever it might be. Too, I've been influenced by Paul Celan, whose work made many voices audible, whose tragic fate seemed not just the result of the past trauma of the Holocaust but rather of a framework within which his word was not allowed to make things happen. Appalled by this, I looked toward other cultures, read Black Elk Speaks, some Talmud, and considered the little that is known about the Druids -- all cultures where the speakers formed a guild with some commitment to the social welfare, to poetry as a common enterprise of understanding and communication. I'd like to think that we could still rebuild this, that it is not too late. For after all the 'sixties were just thirty years ago, the changes which we sought then were far-reaching -- we might have known that patience would be needed, and willingness for long experiment. At any rate, the poems I've selected are those that seemed as if they might fit in to such a dialogue -- that held some spark of true experience or concern, conveyed in words that came alive to tell their tale. I have a certain preference for "form" because I've found the forms a source of strength, although the openness of good free verse is something that a reader of Celan cannot forget to honor. If the above has struck some chord in you, I hope you will pursue the conversation. If I've failed to understand your work, then please forgive me and try again. A sample issue may help you tune in. And last, this publication is funded by no grants. I hope you'll feel the company makes up for modest format, and that you'll want to help sustain this vision by subscribing, ordering extra copies (besides the two contributors receive) and sharing this with friends. The issue won't have a "bio" section, but will print titles of books by the contributors, also your mailing address, if you're willing to enter into dialogue with readers -- please let me know. Wishing you all the best of vision, luck and guidance, I remain yours sincerely, Esther Cameron Please Post Your Comments Here about the above and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

O.I.L./Yeats/National Debt

(P1) Political

Operation Iraqi Freedom (O.I.L.)

Read what fearless Guardian (UK) investigative reporter Greg Palast discovered about the real reason for the invasion of Iraq.

by Greg Palast

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED

The Guardian

Monday, March 20, 2006

Get off it. All the carping, belly-aching and complaining about George Bush's incompetence in Iraq, from both the Left and now the Right, is just dead wrong.

On the third anniversary of the tanks rolling over Iraq's border, most of the 59 million Homer Simpsons who voted for Bush are beginning to doubt if his mission was accomplished.

But don't kid yourself -- Bush and his co-conspirator, Dick Cheney, accomplished exactly what they set out to do. In case you've forgotten what their real mission was, let me remind you of White House spokesman Ari Fleisher's original announcement, three years ago, launching of what he called,

"Operation

Iraqi

Liberation."

O.I.L. How droll of them, how cute. Then, Karl Rove made the giggling boys in the White House change it to "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the 101st Airborne wasn't sent to Basra to get its hands on Iraq's OIF.

"It's about oil," Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA's top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam's former oil minister to finalize the plans for "liberating" Iraq's oil industry. In London, Bush's emissary Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose as post-OIF oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing Iraq's crude.

Now read the full article and discover how "Bush went in for the oil -- not to get more of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it. " Here's a link to the full Palast article


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(P2) Poetical

Oil and Blood

IN tombs of gold and lapis lazuli

Bodies of holy men and women exude

Miraculous oil, odour of violet.

But under heavy loads of trampled clay

Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;

Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.


(William Butler Yeats - 1929)

(P3) Philosophical (sort of)

Could This Be True?


Randi Rhodes opines that the right-to-life folks might well want to rally against "stealing from the unborn." If, in fact, the unborn, possess a basic set of constitutional rights, aren't they entitled to protection against the robbery occurring as the national debt increases exponentially. You and I won't suffer as directly as our offspring and their children...and, if, in fact, the unborn are human beings too, and if the national debt increase will result in a de facto tax of $30,000 to each human American, where are the cries against this on behalf of the unborn? The first 42 presidents of this country COMBINED borrowed $1.2 trillion from other nations. George Bush, in only 4 years borrowed $1.05 trillion! What's going on here? I thought we were supposed to not trust John Kerry with our fiscal future. Bush has an MBA! So much for MBA's. Anyhoo, our "president" inherited incredible fiscal SURPLUSES, and, well...look at us now!



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Cruella/Bumper Sticker/Chicken Poem

(P1) Political

Mary & Cruella

Until Arianna Huffington ran the following image, I wondered why Mary Matalin had annoyed me so much more than merely because she procures for right wing so diligently. But now, following the Academy Awards, she'll get some respect considering that the winner of Best Song was Three/Six Mafia's immortal "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp!"

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(P2) Philosophical

Bumper Sticker

A bumper sticker I saw several days ago on the back of a pickup got me to thinking. It read "Land of the Free Because of the Brave." Reflexively, I gave myself an unwarranted pat on the back for having spent a year in Vietnam. I also had visions of the young men, throughout the Twentieth Century who had fought bravely in ....and then it hit me..."in defense of our country." But, I asked myself (unpatriotically? heretically?) had these men fought to "defend" America? Let us review the wars from approximately the start of the century.

Spanish American War - ostensibly to bail out the suffering Cubans at the hands of the "mighty" Spanish. Actually a Hearst-provoked newspaper war.

World War I - How many American boys had even heard of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef assassinated by a Serb. How many of our boys had even heard of Serbia?

World War II - The closest thing we've got to a "noble cause." We fought to liberate Europe. Certainly, the Japanese played right into our hands affording us with a better excuse and, perhaps a real sense of a "defense" mission. However, how likely would it have been that the Japanese would have invaded the mainland? Just about zero. A farfetched argument could be made that, had the Germans kept Europe, they would have invaded us. Really? How? In any event, U. S. participation in WWII may have been our most selfless and lasting gift to the world (along with what the U.S. constitution once inspired).

Korean War - North Korea invades South Korea. China joins. Thousands of Americans die, but not to defend America.

Vietnam - Ditto with different country names. Our participation ruins our national unity for decades

Iraq Number One - We ostensibly defend Kuwait.

Afghanistan - This one is close to a "defense" of our homeland by going after the perpertrators of Sept. 11th only to see that the real purpose was to go after

Iraq - again and its oil.

So, I decided, the next time I see or hear jingoistic slogans, I intend to take a closer look especially when the slogans might result in more American men and women killed under false pretenses, and more and more billions of our tax dollars going to something misnamed "defense."

However, rather than completely rule out the "brave," I thought back to those who had died securing our freedom during the American Revolution and preserving the Union during the Civil War. Following this, my wife Joyce further called me to task by asking me to take another look at the bumper sticker's words, "Land of the Free, Because of the Brave." Couldn't it also refer to those brave enough to "fight" for freedom by calling attention to attempts to stifle it? What of Edward R. Murrow and all those who resisted McCarthyism, and those of us today who resist and call attention to government snooping and other attempts to curb our basic constitutional freedoms?

So let's also give that pickup driver some benefit of the doubt. There may be more to a bumper sticker than meets the eye.

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(P3) Poetical

Original Song/2d In New Series/Forgive CT

(P1) Poetical

Song

Where Have All True Demos Gone?
(Ed Coletti to the tune of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?")

Where have all true Demos gone?
we must be asking.
Where have all true Demos gone,
since Roosevelt?
Where have all true Demos gone,
conciliating placators?
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where are all the radicals?
we must be asking.
Where are all the radicals?
since days of rage
Where are all the radicals?
Gone suburban every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all idealists gone,
Since late Sixties?
Where have all idealists gone?
So long behind
Where have all idealists gone?
Gone to believe what they hear
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Still unchanging.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
this time again.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to greedy oil wars.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

What of all their families?
lost and grieving.
What of all the families?
All bereft of hope.
What of all the families
Are you all still listening?
When will they ever learn?
When will you ever learn?

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(P2) Philosophical


Number 2 From Our New Series
(Things Even I Know That George Bush Doesn't)

(2) "Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish me from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons."

-Alan Watts in The Book: On Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are"

(1) "In all there are more than seven thousand known species of dung beetles without which the earth would literally smother in excrement."

-Carl Hiaasen in Sick Puppy

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(P3) Political

Troop Poll/Ingersoll/Octavia Butler

(P1) Political

What The Troops Are Saying

Wondering how to support the troops in Iraq? How about just listening to them. According to Nicholas D. Kristof who actually visits these places, "...unrepentant hawks (most of whom have never been to Iraq) have insisted that journalists are misreporting Iraq and that most soldiers are gung-ho about their mission...

"Hogwash! A new poll that was released Tuesday shows that U.S. soldiers overwhelmingly want out of Iraq-and soon...Zogby International and LeMoyne College...asked 944 service members, 'How long should U.S. troops stay in Iraq

"Only 23 percent backed Bush's position that they should stay as long as necessary. In contrast, 72 percent said that U.S. troops should be pulled out within one year. Of those, 29 percent said they should withdraw 'immediately.'

"That's one more bit of evidence that our grim stay-the-course policy in Iraq has failed. Even troops on the ground don't buy into it-and having administration officials pontificate from the safety of Washington about the need for ordinary soldiers to stay the course further erodes military morale...

"So what would it take to win in Iraq? Maybe that was the single most depressing finding in this poll. By a 2-1 ratio, the troops said that 'to control the insurgency we need to double the level of ground troops and bombing missions' And since there is zero chance of that happening, a majority of troops seemed to be saying that they believe this war to be unwinnable...

"..."It's time our commander in chief stopped stage-managing his troops and listened to them."

Because I wanted to make absolutely certain that this was a poll of troops serving in Iraq, I went to Zogby and found the following:

Nearly three of every four American troops serving in Iraq think the United States should withdraw all its troops and end the war within a year, according a Zogby-Le Moyne College poll released Tuesday.

Le Moyne faculty helped develop and word the poll's questions, which were given to troops in face-to-face interviews in Iraq, pollster John Zogby, of New Hartford, said.

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(P2) Philosophical

Wow! Robert Ingersoll

"Robert Ingersoll, "a glorious flame of free thought.' How can I do this genius justice in such a short space? I will try. He lived from 1833 to 1899 and was internationally known as the 'Great Agnostic', one of the most brilliant thinkers, lawyers, orators, debtors and authors of his day, or any day. Twelve volumes of his works are still available and are a collector's treasure. He lectured all over the United States and abroad to standing-room-only audiences. He spoke on many subjects, but thousands upon thousands turned out to hear him demolish the absurdities of orthodox religious dogmas, including Chriatianism. He found them repugnant due to the damage they did to the human mind and spirit. And yet, on a deep and profound level he had a sense of the Mystery that was breathtaking.

"I can tell you that, without exception, his funeral eulogies are the most beautiful that I have ever read in the English language.

"Walt Whitman, the poet laureate of the universe, said that only one man could speak at his funeral and that man was Robert Ingersoll...

"Mark Twain..wrote...Except for my daughter, I have not grieved for any death as I have grieved his. (Ingersoll's).

To read some of his words, press the link to the full William Edelen column titled Robert Ingersoll..."A Most Precious Treasure."

(P3) Poetical

In Memoriam

Octavia E. Butler
American Science Fiction Author
1947-2006






All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change.

-OEB 1993

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Lose Your Head/Vegetarian Poem/New Series

(P1) Philosophical

Himalaya Headless

(link to photo source)

I was so taken with Joe Carpenter’s response to my afterlife survey that, in addition to it being added as a comment, I thought I would feature it here because I suspect that not everybody reads the comments. Following the article, I’ll include what Joe provided as a “biography.” I first came across Joe Carpenter’s work in a wonderful article titled “We Are The People” in the current Utne Reader.

Notes from nobody - with a smile

In the 1930's, a fellow named Douglas Harding was hiking in the Himalayas. At one point, in an instant, he realized that he'd been confused about the nature / existence of - his head. His thoughts, and sometimes various sensations, had always endeavored to place this "head" atop his shoulders. However, as he was wandering about in the Himalayas, looking at the astonishing scenery, he was jolted by the fact that, for the most part, he did not experience a head in that "space," where he thought his head was, but, rather, moment to moment, in day to day life, he experienced an "empty space." Somehow, he'd just never noticed! He realized, too, that that space was filled, at the moment, with the clear, crisp grandeur of the Himalayas, but that it generally contained "the world." This empty space, where he'd always believed he had a head, was filled with life - with, well, with everything. He said, later: "...I lost a head, and gained the whole world." (photo-D.Harding)

This understanding, this insight, is sometimes called enlightenment, or awakening... as if waking from a dream.

Rumi refers to it in several places. In this example, he calls it "presence" -

"...The presence that one second is soil, then water, fire, smoke, woof, warp, a friend, a shame, a modesty,

is too vast and intimate for partnership. Observers watch as presence takes thousands of forms.

But inside your eyes, the presence does not brighten or dim; it just lives there..."

In this one, he calls it "another world" -

"People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep!"

In this one, he speaks of what happened to him, after this insight, after "losing a head, and gaining a world:"

"...He has ransacked my house so that no one lives here anymore,

just a boy running barefoot all through it."

Let's pretend, for the moment, that this "space," this "presence," is actually that "Reality, which is neither sensory nor conceptual, neither of the body, nor of the mind, though it includes and transcends both," as Nisargadatta puts it.

Let's pretend, further, that "the world," the stuff which occupies this "space" - whatever it might be at any given moment... the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, a row of filthy garbage cans, the kitchen sink, the pizza delivery guy, the lawn in the back yard, a portion of one's body and a computer screen and keyboard, a dreadful and vivid old memory, a fantasy involving several nurses and a bedbath, the darkness of the insides of the eyelids - whatever...

let's pretend that this "world" is a magnificent painting - a living, breathing, constantly moving, ever changing painting, astonishingly "lifelike."

I ofttimes think that, as we age, and perhaps acquire a bit of wisdom, there come some odd 'pentimento experiences,' as it were. There is something "else," sometimes, in the painting, beneath the painting. There arise odd questions, strange presentiments, experiences which do not make sense. We grow older, still, and the painting sometimes almost seems transparent, and the painting now sometimes contains odd images and strange dreams, insights, certainties...

Then, one day, an "unseen hand" comes and wipes away all the paint of the painting that is "one's life." That "empty space," that "presence" we've talked about, above, is entirely unaffected. It remains as "presence," powerful, aware, alive - but the painting has been wiped away. One could call this "death."

But now, the 'pentimento' painting is revealed; there is another painting beneath the old one. It is a "new," old painting - and the "stuff" of this painting is what fills that "empty space," for a while, or perhaps for a very long time. And then, perhaps, the empty space somehow conjures up a brand new painting to cover the old, new one, and we call this "birth." Though, of course, that "empty space," has remained, throughout, entirely unaffected - "including and transcending both body and mind" - and infinitely more.

Joe Carpenter says the following about himself, “Gee, I don't have much of a bio. I'm just a goofy, almost old guy who has spent lots of time wandering around. I work out in my cluttered garage, on an aging, beat-up laptop. I'm a nobody with a smile. I guess that's as good a title as any - "Notes from nobody - with a smile."

You know, I went to Nisargadatta's house, in 1991. He'd been dead for ten years, but I was undaunted. I stood there with my hand on the building for perhaps ten minutes while a lot of very, very poor Indians hustled by and looked at me as if I was from another planet - which, of course, was true. Then, I walked to a wonderful, old cafe up on the main road. I talked with an old curmudgeon who had known Maharaj. He asked me why I'd visit the home of a dead man. I told him about reading his books and pondering his teachings. The guy said: "You believe all that? No need to be so complicated. Here's the answer: Want much? Little happiness. Want little? Much happiness."

The US had just invaded Iraq, in George the First's War. He said: "Americans want very, very much."

( Sharp Cookie, eh?)

< - This is not Joe Carpenter

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(P2) Poetical

I'm Not Yet a Vegetarian but...

This poem must be read all the way through or you'll miss the whole point.

A Buddhist Grace or What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Somehow I never make it through this prayer:
Potatoes, celery, carrots, onions,
Each tenderly coaxed
From soft soil aerated by your hand
Thank you farmer for your work
I am connected to you
Through this fine stew
Unified by its good red burgundy stock.
Thank you vintners and wine makers
For your part in this symphony
Conducted with the tang of a bay leaf.
Let’s see, allow me to consider what else
For which to be thankful in my
deep dish of pungent stew...
...ah the succulence of fall-apart beef
Nurtured to morseled chunks by your hand,
My cook, my uniter of all components.
Thank you cattle for offering yourselves as sacrifice
Thank you slaughterhouse workers
wading ankle-deep in blood.
Thank you, those of you with the courage
to impersonally slay.
Thank you to the packers hanging carcasses on hooks.
Thank you for the cutters who hew beef bodies
As if they were so many grades and cuts of lumber.
Thank you, all of you, for the intimate part
You play in my meal and my life this day.

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(P3) Political (sort of)

New Series: Things Even I Know That George Bush Doesn't

(1) "In all there are more than seven thousand known species of dung beatles without which the earth would literally smother in excrement."

-Carl Hiaasen in Sick Puppy