Tribute to Lady

Lady ( July 4th 1997 - December 19th 2010)

(Lady drawing by Ray Swaney)

A pensive black doggy named Lady

Lay quietly where it was shady.

A bevy of quail

Marched onto her trail

So she rapidly joined their paradey.

Lady As God 2007

My dog Lady otherwise engaged
will not come to me when I pray to her
“Here girl, good girl” busy god she
with no time to deign to descend
to respond to this mere god-made-man,
more likely, certain of my deity,
no mere agnostic she, Lady turns
away from me her personal god
never having conceived
hell among her many
much less virulent creations.

Without a Resurrection

Our black dog Lady
generally collapses to rest.
Trembling haunches
no longer ease her descent.
And likewise it would take muscles
dying within her, with her,
to enable our unabled black dog
to rise mightily once again
even one last time.



















Tale of the Tail

Did our black dog miss her tail?
She arrived without one.

I suppose it can truly be termed a “rescue.”
when you take in a dog without a tail.

What sort of tale lies behind her missing tail?
This poetic autopsy of my dog Lady’s tail:

What we know is that Lady
the offspring of a bizaare coupling

big black boisterous male lab and
coy little curly blonde cocker spaniel bitch

began in Clearlake where she
emerged confused on the Fourth of July.

Her psychic nine month gestation
prior to her finding her way to us

began with the pup picked from a box
before the Safeway store in Clearlake.

With such odd breeding, this puppy
named Cheyenne like something wild,

like some Nevada desert whore
with a prairie personality,

proved to be at battle within herself,
skittish as the worst-bred cocker,

convivial as a back-slapping lab,
this two-in-one toddler tugged-at-war within herself.

Scared love given
She must have been beaten

We see it when she cowers
We know of her former mistress

Mistress Oblivious who told us,
“Cheyenne (Oh how that name grates)

“Cheyenne was so good!
She used to pull my wheelchair.”

(something like the Grinch’s
scrawny little mutt without the antlers)

We know she rode long distances
over the mountain in a truck.

We know for show they later
bought two Maltese pups

that bit my black dog’s drooping ears
whenever she’d attempt to eat.

Then, like Cinderella, she was left
outside always alone

while her wicked little stepsisters
ate and played within –

--those tiny bitches! –
and then the tail was taken

by an overzealous vet
who tried to do a cocker bob

but effected a fully final amputation;
how embarassing when other dogs would

check her out, not to mention the phantom
pain she felt for her missing extremity.

The fortuitous fortune that set her free –
-- selfish folly—“too much trouble”

She found her way to us
through a fateful friend

She was wearing a black bow with
big white polka dots

We loved her instantly
She was fully a “Lady”

home from the camps
laden with baggage.

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Outsourced Thanksgiving/ Shaky Leaf/How Obama Saved Capitalism and Paid For It/Communalism/Hell

(P1) Poetical

Outsourced Thanksgiving

Welcome to the Butterball Turkey Hot Line
What is your name please?
Thank you Edward. How may I help you?
Oh that is a good question.
I will tell you what to do with your turkey before you roast it
First, remove the original plastic wrapper
from the thawed or fresh turkey.
Do you understand?
Good. Now remove the neck and geeblets,
then drain the juices and blot the turkey dry
with paper towels. You may now stuff the turkey
then return it’s legs to the tucked position,
insert an oven-safe meat thermometer into the thigh,
brush with oil to prevent the skin drying
and follow roasting directions that come
with every Butterball turkey.
Have I helped you, Edward?
Good and Happy Thanksgiving
from all of us here at Butterball Turkeys in
Bangalore—I mean Illinoize! Goodbye

Ed Coletti

Leaf

One quivering leaf

lets go,

glides across

a bit more time,

then softly

settles.

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(P2) Political

How Obama Saved Capitalism and Lost the Midterms

This piece by Timothy Egan appeared in the New York Times November 2, 2010. I'll begin with the highlights and then leave you with a link to the full article.

"If I were one of the big corporate donors who bankrolled the Republican tide that carried into office more than 50 new Republicans in the House, I would be wary of what you just bought.

"For no matter your view of President Obama, he effectively saved capitalism. And for that, he paid a terrible poitical price.

"Suppose you had $100,000 to invest on the day Barack Obama was inaugurated...

"...As of election day, Nov. 2, 2010, your $100,000 was worth about $177,000 if invested strictly in the NASDAQ average for the entirety of the Obama administration, and $148,000 if bet on the Standard & Poors 500 major companies. This works out to returns of 77 percent and 48 percent...

"...The banking system was resuscitated by $700 billion in bailouts started by Bush (a fact unknown by a majority of Americans), and finished by Obama, with help from the Federal Reserve. It worked. The government is expected to break even on a risky bet to stabilize the global free market system. Had Obama followed the populist instincts of many in his party, the underpinnings of big capitalism could have collapsed. He did this without nationalizing banks, as other Democrats had urged...

"Saving the American auto industry, which has been a huge drag on Obama's political capital, is a monumental achievement that few appreciate, unless you live in Michigan. After getting their taxpayer lifeline from Obama, both General Motors and Chrysler are now making money by making cars. New plants are even scheduled to open. More that 1 million jobs would have disappeared had the domestic auto sector been liquidated...

"And apology is due Barack Obama," wrote The Economist, which had opposed the $86 billion auto bailout...

"Interest rates are at record lows. Corporate profits are lighting up boardrooms/ it is one of the best years for earnings in a decade...

"All of the above is good for capitalism, and should end any serious-mined discussion about Obama the socialist...Obama got on the wrong side of voter anxiety in a decade of diminished fortunes...

"...Of course, nobody gets credit for preventing a plane crash..."

Here's the full Egan article.

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(P3) Philosophical

And for those of you not as keen on runaway capitalism, check out this thought-provoking opinion piece that appeared in the Northbay (SF) Bohemian recently.

A Broken Record

Why are solutions for the economy stuck on repeat?

By Art Kopecky

Friends, here we are at the very apex of human thought and endeavor, yet public discussion on the economy sounds like a broken record. For instance: we're waiting, hoping for the economy to "recover." Maybe at some point, growth is not normal or possible, and we cannot recover by reverting to an unsustainable trajectory.

Where do the size of our population and finite resources enter the equation? When people and animals mature, they reach a certain size and stop growing. Perhaps that's the correct analogy. Is it so hard to imagine we have reached a mature economy? Maybe there are enough cities, freeways, suburbs and shopping malls. How often do you hear that?

On the left, there's the monotonous broken-record mantra that we must "stimulate" the economy, and the only solution imaginable is government action. It's never suggested that the people themselves, with the greatest freedom and prosperity in all human history, can find a way to help besides being good consumers and shopping for their nuclear family.

On the right, the only contribution to the debate seems to be cut taxes, even though deficits are too big. Then, the idea follows, we'll "stimulate" the economy and huge growth will pay off the deficit and create millions of jobs. (Example: George W. Bush reduced taxes, and everything turned out fine.) For all our vaunted freedom, action on the part of the people is never suggested—except to vote and shop. So little imagination.

Everyday we're besieged by a litany of concerns. We're urged to protest global warming, nuclear weapons, foreign wars and mega-corporations. There are daily reminders that we have 14 million Americans unemployed and not enough jobs for the 150,000 entering the job market each month. There are environmental concerns that development hurts the precious natural world. We need something positive in the mix, something new and exciting.

So, you ask, what have I got? How about: bring on the Aquarian Age. Not through legislation, but through service and good works. Join or support "back to the land" intentional communities. Create a culture of cooperation and generosity by sharing properties.

Are we all just guinea pigs ruled by a constant diet of advertisements, or can some of us strike out and do something outrageously positive, helpful and generous?

Forward-thinking people have greatly influenced our history in the past, starting with the very notion of a country run by the people and extending to the end of slavery, the rise of civil rights, of workers' rights and women's rights. So what's next? I believe the intentional communities movement, already well incubated with a 50-year modern history, fits our need.

I don't think it can be avoided. Some of "the people" will have to pioneer advances in the culture (some are already doing it, but not nearly enough). If young people can dedicate themselves to war, giving up life and limb and comfort, then where are the young people who can build cooperative communities for mutual survival for all? Where are their elders who can encourage a nongovernment people's movement, to demonstrate consideration and even brotherly love?

If we are so advanced, so smart, why aren't these ideas in the conversation? Are profit, greed and accumulation the high points of human consciousness? A few million people on beautiful farms, supportive of the "low money" people—is that such a crazy idea?

Unemployment is here to stay, the cost of living is only getting more astronomical, and the government is way beyond broke. So help out by creating intentional communities instead of crying to be given jobs. Why are we avoiding it? Is it too hard, too creative, too original, too against human nature? Be a pioneer and prove them wrong. Our culture has already come a long, long way.

Create a culture of conscious kinship? Whoa! Stop right there. Let's get back to stuff we're used to: "go shopping," "cut taxes" and "stimulate the economy" so it can "grow" . . .

Ah, that broken record is so comforting.

Art Kopecky is the author of 'New Buffalo: Journals from a Taos Commune' and 'Leaving New Buffalo Commune,' UNM Press. He lives in Sebastopol, works as a contractor-carpenter and is active in the communities movement.

Finally, I like this from Christopher Hitchens in his wonderful book God Is Not Great: how religion poisons everything. Nothing proves the man-made character of religion as obviously as the sick mind that designed hell, unless it is the sorely limited mind that has failed to describe heaven -- except as a place of either worldly comfort, eternal tedium, or (as Tertullian thought) continual relish in the torture of others.

(Photo by Lin Marie de Vincent)

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Laurel&Hardy Meet Santana/Bizarro/The Buffalo Theory/Sinead O'Connor Writes the Pope/Mike Smith Cartoon/

P1 Poetical (sort of)

A Bizarro That Resonates













Laurel & Hardy Meet Santana

Check out this link for
Laurel and Hardy Meet Santana !


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P2 Philosophical
Sinead O'Connor's Open Letter to the Pope (9-20-10)

Sir,

Your remarks made last week concerning church authorities' handling of child rape complaints give the impression that neither John-Paul II nor yourself knew of how these complaints were being managed.

Can you please make clear exactly who has been running the church since 1979?

You have said church authorities did not act quickly nor decisively in dealing with allegations. This is entirely dishonest.

In fact church authorities acted extremely quickly and decisively, but in protection of rapist priests and the church, not of children.

In your letter to Irish mass-goers you stated that the Irish hierarchy, in covering up rape and transfering known rapists to other parishes, where many more children were raped, had done so out of "a well-intentioned desire to protect the reputation of the church."

If there is any such well-intentioned desire on your part then why have you not in outrage fired every employee of the church who contributed even in the remotest of ways, consciously or uncsonciously, to the attack on Christ himself as made manifest in those children who were raped?

It looks extremely bad that you have not done so. And that you continue to set up lies and smoke-screens and treat us as if we are stupid.

Spokespeople on your behalf keep saying, falsely, that hierarchies acted independently of The Vatican, when countless pleading letters from bishops to The Vatican show that is not the case, as do the specific instructions issued by The Vatican in 1962 to all bishops in the world for dealing with allegations of rape and abuse.

As you are aware, those instructions required the cleric taking complaints, as well as the victim making the complaint, to sign an oath of silence under threat of excommunication.

Your letter of 2001 to all bishops in the world confirms the 1962 instructions were in operation until 2001.

Why do you allow your representatives to lie?

All reports carried out in the four corners of the earth have found, independently of each other, that the church's main concern in dealing with abuse was the preservation of its assets and reputation and that the welfare of children was not a consideration.

As an example I refer you to the fact that in 1987 the church in Ireland took out a series of insurance claims in every diocese in order to protect the church from claims they foresaw would be made.

The church then sat back and did nothing until 1995 when complaints became public knowledge.

The reports show that without exception each diocese in the world behaved in exactly the same manner when dealing with allegations.

If hierarchies had been acting independently of The Vatican there would have been differences in their behaviour.

We deserve better than lies and insults to our intelligence.
The Holy Spirit deserves better.

As long as the house of The Holy Spirit remains a haven for criminals the reputation of the church will remain in ruins.

Finally, your statement that you hope the church's "humiliation will help the victims" is deplorable on two levels.

One: not one member of The Vatican has publicly displayed an iota of humility over this issue. Instead each person who has spoken has done so most arrogantly and dismissively.

Two: how dare you use the word humiliation to describe what you and the church are going through? Hope and pray, and thank God that you will never know the abject humiliation of children who were raped by monsters in the employ of your church. That is true humiliation.

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The Buffalo Theory by Cliff Claven “Well, you see, Norm, it’s like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it’s the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.

And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”

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P3 Political

• The Pope

Personal Infrastructure Crisis/Spitzer's "Boy Toy"/Ingersoll Quotes

(P1) Political

Infrastructure?

Friend Tom Mariani, primarily as the result of the family Volkswagen plunging off a bridge crumbled by an earthquake near Eureka, California in late 1980, became a strong advocate for improving the state's highway infrastructure.


Look closely at the photo, and you'll see the car bearing Tom and his wife. For a time they were terrified not to be able to find their two children who had been ejected from the car. Tom writes The L.A. quakes in the 1970s that caused overpass failures, showed that we cannot rely on the constant force of gravity. What my wife and I saw out of our windshield November 8, 1980, and what we all saw in the Bay Area after the 1989 quakes, further demonstrated that Caltrans' engineering theory for freeway construction does not hold up during an earthquake.


To this I add "infrastructure" well may be the single greatest concern and cause to which each of us should subscribe. As roads and bridges age, as water conduits corrode, as buildings rot, far too little is being done in the way of replacement. "Taxes" whether new or increased apparently have become "evil. Many of us grew up expecting to pay our fair share in return for services and infrastructure improvements. Sure we grumbled at tax time, but we knew that there was no free lunch. Somehow, over the past 30 years, the term "tax increase" is barely whispered. Instead, we have either unbridled borrowing or, perhaps worse, nothing at all. On top of that, proposition 13 gave us one percent property taxes. That "free lunch" resulted in "no lunch." Wake up, California and America; demand infrastructure projects and also the jobs they will create!!!

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(P2) Poetical



"Boy Toy"

Partial representation of 8"x8" Acrylic painting by Jim Spitzer

For Sale

jimspitzer@lycos.com

or visit the studio at
4524 Badger Rd.
Santa Rosa, CA 95404

707-538-4640

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(P3) Philosophical

4 From Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) (Look him up!!!)

1. It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey.

2. A believer is a bird in a cage; a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.

3. Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted--of the tears it has caused--of the agony it has produced. Think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel in the universe...There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god.

4. Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith!

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Oscar Grant/Katherine Hastings/Harvey Pekar/Global Warming Big Time/

(P1) Poetical


In Memory of Oscar Grant
New Years Day, 2009

by Katherine Hastings


As the young supermarket worker lay facedown
amid the darkness
as he lay there in Oakland's underground,
where moon and stars are barred
unarmed, black, pinned down,
inside the darkness
begging not to be shot,
as he lay there covered with cops
dark forms with dark wings
hiding him from view as best they could,
through fear's thick veil
cell phones up and down the tracks
a shape-shifting transit crowd
recorded the cop pulling his gun,
pressing it to the back of the unarmed black man
strength in meekness
who was a young friend, who was a lover,
as a drop of dew
who was a father laying facedown
as a small drop of dew

As the young black man lay there,
encircled
pinned down, facedown, begging,
a lone drop of dew
a cop shot him in the back, BAM!
dying
shot him in the back!

As the young unarmed man laid dying,
birds within the wind
cops hiding him the best they could,
fish within the wave
cell phones recorded the shooting of Oscar Grant,
thoughts of man's own mind
unarmed,
float through
pinned down,
all above
face down,
begging.
the grave

Everyone saw it and saw it and saw it
those eyes
and no one can say
burn through

Death!
it wasn't so.
the last embrace

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(P2) Philosophical

Harvey Pekar Tribute by Jaime Crespo





















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(P3) Political

Forgotten About Global Warming? - Check this out
Giant Ice Island Breaks Off Greenland.. Largest Chunk Since 1962

WASHINGTON — A giant ice island has broken off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland.

A University of Delaware researcher says the floating ice sheet covers 100 square miles – more than four times the size of New York's Manhattan Island.

Andreas Muenchow, who is studying the Nares Strait between Greenland and Canada, said the ice sheet broke off early Thursday. He says the new ice island was discovered by Trudy Wohlleben of the Canadian Ice Service.

Not since 1962 has such a large chunk of ice calved in the Arctic, but researchers have noticed cracks in recent months in the floating tongue of the glacier. (AP 8-7-10)

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