THE LIMBAUGH PRINCIPLE

Rush Limbaugh Compares Al Franken's Win to the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Vote Recount





O! From the foul wind blowing over America
Comes this; a most colossal whore’s voice
Screeching another miserably worn-out minute!

The irony of his deception belies an ignoble aim
Leaving fools ready to lop off someone’s head
As the mythic shit-stain spews forth tired claims.

He is no one’s god but his sheep. No precision
Within his words, just fuel for agitation
For a weak-willed herd of unconscious ovine.

Let us not mistake his voice, his words for courage or fact;
Let us bend his insensitive language into the brave light
And watch the drip, drip, drip of uncontrolled lies retract.

O he is most foul and undoubtedly in need of an outfit;
A tall hat, bow tie, long shoes, red nose and a wig;
So, what he spews forth is seen for what it is.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

DO YOU EVER WANT TO TAKE ANOTHER QUIZ AGAIN?

This quiz is designed to tell you whether you love,like, are indifferent to, or whether you loath taking quizzes. Results may vary, but this test is scientifically proven to make you mad!

DO YOU EVER WANT TO TAKE ANOTHER QUIZ AGAIN? » Fun Trivia Maker

introspection

when the whole world is upside down and sideways, i sometimes find peace by looking inside. it calms me and it gives me a way to recenter. in these uncertain times, i truly believe it is important to center. music and poetry are as important to me as prose- and it is one important way humans differ in the species chain. one of my favorite musicians is james blunt- who i also believe writes poetry with his lyrics. enjoy.

"Tears And Rain"

How I wish I could surrender my soul;
Shed the clothes that become my skin;
See the liar that burns within my needing.
How I wish I'd chosen darkness from cold.
How I wish I had screamed out loud,
Instead I've found no meaning.

I guess it's time I run far, far away; find comfort in pain,
All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.
Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray.
I've heard what they say, but I'm not here for trouble.
It's more than just words: it's just tears and rain.

How I wish I could walk through the doors of my mind;
Hold memory close at hand,
Help me understand the years.
How I wish I could choose between Heaven and Hell.
How I wish I would save my soul.
I'm so cold from fear.

I guess it's time I run far, far away; find comfort in pain,
All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.
Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray.
I've heard what they say, but I'm not here for trouble.
Far, far away; find comfort in pain.
All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.
It's more than just words: it's just tears and rain.

Tears and Rain.

Tears and Rain.

Far, far away; find comfort in pain,
All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble.
It's more than just words: it's just tears and rain.

ARE YOU FUNNY OR UN-FUNNY?

This quiz will tell you beyond a shadow of any doubt whether you should quit the job you have now and start a comedy club tour and take a chance on becoming a successful stand-up comedian.

ARE YOU FUNNY OR UN-FUNNY? » Quiz Question Maker

WHAT FAMOUS POEM ARE YOU?

This quiz tells you what famous line in poetry best describes who or what you are...It is 100% accurate!

What famous poem are you? »

BEN HEINE'S Michael Jackson Tribute...

Click on picture to enlarge...

Public Radio Programming Pushes Commercial Banking in Poor Communities

Last Saturday I heard a disgusting segment of Marketplace Money (produced by American Public Media) on "Vermont's NPR Station": Banking on the previously unbanked, praising the opening of commercial bank branches in the poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

Just the kind of feel-good/do-gooder programming that would appeal to Vermont Public Radio's successful, smug, elite listener and donor base: we know better, so let's help the poor people who don't!

But the copy was was straight from the marketing departments of commercial banks. No matter what their public relations people will tell you, Bank of America and Wells Fargo (featured in the segment) are not caring institutions; they want to make a profit and will do anything to attract customers, even by using deceptive marketing in lower class neighborhoods.

A few telling quotes from the program: "He found that lots of banks simply don't think they can make money in these neighborhoods."

"But I think that often the banks find it very difficult to visualize a whole bunch of low-income consumers as being a vibrant market, but in fact they can be."

"The mayor's office says its goal is to add 10,000 people to the banking system and get them away from predatory lenders, like check-cashing storefronts, payday loan outfits and even liquor stores.."

"Predatory lenders" indeed! More like "Pot calling the kettle black."

There was neither a mention of small town, neighbourhood "community banks" nor of credit unions.

VPR should review its purchase of this kind of programming from American Public Media. But like most NPR affiliates, it won't. Its stations receive 31% of funding from local business underwriting and rely heavily on underwriting from Chittenden Bank. (Vermont's largest full-service bank - now owned by a Connecticut bank - bankrolled the establishment of VPR Classical.) In 2007, then VPR president Mark Vogelsang praised Chittenden in the bank's community newsletter, "With Chittenden’s help, we've created a resource for the community that connects neighbors across the state." To VPR, neighbors = bank customers, wealthy retirees and "summer" contributors. So naturally, this NPR affiliate continues to run programs that look positively on corporate bank scum like Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chittenden.

A recommendation: Peace Tree readers - of any economic class - in Vermont who want to keep their money in the state - away from corporate banks - should join Vermont Bank Users Strike.

SUNDAY (6/28/09)

Quiet crackdown drains Iran dissidents
They took off their shoes and planned
And their naked feet paced a new journey
Which now stirs inside every room.
Shoes cannot represent this moment,
It’s feet and hands and the flame of a newborn star.

Ready or Not, Iraq’s Military Prepares to Stand on Its Own
Prepare to make your way in the manner you see fit
Like the depth and curve of a valley;
Shaped by vigor and crushing force,
Yet on the crimson breath of a new morning.

Jackson family 'want new autopsy'
Speed it past our minds, this doubt.
Hurry beyond our sick and prying judgments.
Float above, where the angel voices linger.

Ruth Madoff forfeits asset claims, left with $2.5 million
Poor Ruth, she senses that it’s not enough;
Her life’s flipped over on a foggy turnpike,
Skidding headlong into the swindled horde.

Obama Turns Up Heat on Senate to Pass Climate Bill
And the fuming beast tosses our bodies
Through the clammy air of our mad dash.
We watch it as it’s happening, aghast,
And turn to hear the dismal sky speak our name.

Right-Wing Extremist – Joe the Plumber
There are those that are remembered souls
And those that are forgotten,
Then there are the forgettable assholes…

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Crisis in Honduras This Weekend! [Updated,12:00 PM 6/28/09]

caption: Supporters of deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya confront soldiers in an armored car near the presidential house in Tegucigalpa on Jun, 28, 2009. [Source: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images]


Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has denounced what he refers to as an attempted coup against his administration and calls on the people of Honduras to defend the rule of law.

The ruling oligarchy of Honduras is represented by the country's Supreme Court and Congress, and it is defended by the armed forces. These forces are in conflict with the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, because he supports major constitutional reforms that would give more voice to the poor majority. A referendum vote to be cast Sunday asks the population if they want to vote on reforms this November. However, oligarch-owned media in Honduras say Zelaya wants to change the constitution to allow his reelection.

This week Zelaya fired the head of the armed forces when the military refused his demand to distribute 15,000 ballot boxes for Sunday's referendum. The Supreme Court ordered Zelaya to reinstate the general even though they do not have the constitutional mandate to do this; Zelaya refused, and the Congress began investigating him for this refusal.

But Zelaya enjoys popular support in the country since raising the minimum wage, eliminating the monopoly on petroleum imports and joining The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, a fair trade and solidarity alliance that includes Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.

US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley stated they are "concerned" about the breakdown in the dialogue among Honduran politicians over the proposed June 28 poll.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on parties in Honduras on Friday to show restraint in this situation. Ban expressed concerned about the 'political and institutional tensions' in one of Latin America's poorest nation and called for restraint by all concerned in order to prevent further escalation.

The capital Tegucigalpa saw hundreds of troops deployed last week in an attempt to avoid potential disturbances, a move that some feared indicative of a possible military coup. They have since returned to their barracks.

This weekend will mark a critical moment in the country's political future.

-------------------

UPDATE: 12:00 pm, 6/28/09, The military arrested Zelaya this morning. He seeks asylum in Costa Rica. For updated information: A Call for Prayers from Honduras. Military Arrests President. He Seeks Asylum. http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/3555070-a-call-for-prayers-from-honduras-military-arrests-president-he-seeks-asylum

SATURDAY SONATA - Tony Rice + Dawn Landes

Tony Rice guitar , Jerry Douglas dobro , Sam Bush mandolin , Mark o'Connor fiddle, Mark Schatz Bass and Béla Fleck on banjo. The highlight of the "Legends of Flatpicking Guitar" DVD.

dawn Landes & the WST Band put a bluegrass spin on the Peter, Bjorn & John song "Young Folks"

Straight Lines song by dawn Landes
featured on the album "dawns music + straight lines" available in the UK OCT 6, 2008 and on itunes Directed by Ben Dickinson.

WOUNDED SCAMP (HLP)

Gay Exorcism Video
Come! Manifest thy vigorous and crippling glory,
Spit thy upright venom atop my prone and unclean
Skin, rend it complete to partial bone and space,
But above all, Lord, keep thy charlatans away.

Michael Savage Threatens Media Matters Staff
O Savage, steal your mask away, place your microphone down low
So your sheep might not listen in…“Take heed. They’ve already come for you,
Seeking to blunt your influence, your shtick. They’ve attended your airwaves
And found a loathing drone of inhumane righteousness and complete poppycock
Clearly, since you’re still yappin’, they felt it was apt for American classlessness."

Michael Jackson Dies
I suppose it’s only right,
Now that you’ve passed,
That they speak of your life’s splendor,
Your skill, as if you were a potent god
Moon walking on the pantheon floor.

Maliki Casting U.S. Withdrawal as Victory for Iraq
No. This will never do. It won’t construct a blockbuster war movie plot,
Hell, it won’t manage to break even or encourage our youth to bomb those
Brown skinned youths whose father’s scrape their knees upon prayer rugs
And whose mother’s howl at the gutless catchphrase, “collateral damage”.

Hamas leader: Obama must do more for peace
A shard of bone held to the sun for a moment, dull blades
Scattered all around, future carvings littering these streets.
The outcome we cannot know, nor what hatred’s sown
From the smoldering flesh pounded to dust on the storm.

Glenn Beck Plays with Barbie Dolls, Bill O’Reilly Looks on like a Sexually Repressed Bully
Yapping goddamned cretin and your squealing scamp gazing gratified,
Your wits not playful and your doll’s humor seems lost on everyone
But you!
Your jokes are as dreadful and artless as your minds.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

FRIDAY (6/26/09)

Gay Exorcism Video
Come! Manifest thy vigorous and crippling glory,
Spit thy upright venom atop my prone and unclean
Skin, rend it complete to partial bone and space,
But above all, Lord, keep thy charlatans away.

Michael Savage Threatens Media Matters Staff
O Savage, steal your mask away, place your microphone down low
So your sheep might not listen in…“Take heed. They’ve already come for you,
Seeking to blunt your influence, your shtick. They’ve attended your airwaves
And found a loathing drone of inhumane righteousness and complete poppycock
Clearly, since you’re still yappin’, they felt it was apt for American classlessness.

Michael Jackson Dies
I suppose it’s only right,
Now that you’ve passed,
That they speak of your life’s splendor,
Your skill, as if you were a potent god
Moon walking on the pantheon floor.

Maliki Casting U.S. Withdrawal as Victory for Iraq
No. This will never do. It won’t construct a blockbuster war movie plot,
Hell, it won’t manage to break even or encourage our youth to bomb those
Brown skinned youths whose father’s scrape their knees upon prayer rugs
And whose mother’s howl at the gutless catchphrase, “collateral damage”.

Hamas leader: Obama must do more for peace
A shard of bone held to the sun for a moment, dull blades
Scattered all around, future carvings littering these streets.
The outcome we cannot know, nor what hatred’s sown
From the smoldering flesh pounded to dust on the storm.

Glenn Beck Plays with Barbie Dolls, Bill O’Reilly Looks on like a Sexually Repressed Bully
Yapping goddamned cretin and your squealing scamp gazing gratified,
Your wit's not playful and your doll’s humor seems lost on everyone
But you!
Your jokes are as dreadful and artless as your minds.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Michael Jackson (50) Passed Away Today!

Very sad news today. Michael Jackson (50) died. News reports are saying he died of a heart attack. For years he has been very thin and in not the best of health. Stress and the media assaults on him probably had a lot to do with it. Although he had been charged in a couple of court cases, he was always found not guilty. We in America believe in innocence until proven guilty, so for any haters out there who say harsh things about Michael but say they believe in "the rule of law" should remember this.

I always loved Michael Jackson and his music. He and his family were so talented. The first song I remember hearing was "ABC" in 1970. My little brother brought it home. I remember when my little brother brought the album home, I kidded him by saying "Oh good. Now you can learn the ABCs at home." My baby bro and I always kidded each other like that, even to this day.

I grew to love the Jackson 5 and all of their music. There was such a rhythm to his music. I grew up loving Motown especially the Temptations, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Four Tops. In the mid-seventies, Michael's music began to evolve. There were so many beautiful songs in his album "Off the Wall." I cried to "She's out of my life", danced to "Don't stop til you get enough" and "Rock with You." The seventies were the times of miniskirts, hot pants, disco boots and Discos. In the discos, we danced and danced to them all.

Then my lovely husband and I married. I had my oldest son a year later. I always say my son saved my life because he brought so much more love and happiness (and maturity) to our family. He was so beautiful. He was a brilliant baby. He learned to walk at 10 months. He was potty trained at 18 months. He was reading Grover's "Monster at the end of this book" at the age of two. And he was rockin' to Michael Jackson's music since he was born. When he was four or five years old, I bought the Thriller cassette tape. He loooooooooooved Michael Jackson. I bought him his own walkman with headphones for the Thriller tape. He was so cute rocking and moving to the music. There were so many great songs on that tape. Besides "Thriller", there was "Beat It" and "Billie Jean".

My husband played softball every summer and my son and I watched his games from the stands. While on the stands, my son wore his earphones and rocked to the tapes. Everyone just loved him. Some of the jocks would say, "What you got there little buddy?" My son proudly beamed, "Michael Jackson's Thriller tape."

When the TV Special "Motown 25" came out, we all sat in front of the TV watching it. When Michael Jackson did the moonwalk for "Billie Jean", we all started screaming in awe. My baby son immediately got up and started imitating the moonwalk. It was beautiful!

Thriller remained my sons favorite album for years.

By the nineties, when my son became a young teenager, he moved on to other music, other interests. I think this happened to a lot of people. My son and my music interests parted at that time. He became interested in Hard Rock and I stuck with the Oldies, Pop and Country. But through those teenage years, every Halloween, I brought out the old Thriller tapes and we danced again to Michael's music.

Those times will always, always hold a special place in my heart.

THREE THREE THREE (Ed, Farrah, Michael)

O! Three three three!
Goodnight and goodbye
We shall see you on
Our television screens…

Your song and patter
Legs and laughter
All now soaring into
The fleeting ever after…

O! Three three three!
Presently rest your head
Down upon our dreams
And bring forth gentle sleep…

Michael Leviton "Summer's the Worst"

I'm not sure I am thrilled by the song or the music, but the story, though kind of cheesy, is worth a look see. I recommend listening/watching to the end...

Conversations With History... a talk with Roya Hakakian

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Roya Hakakian whose book "Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran," chronicles her intellectual odyssey from teenage rebel to Iranian-American writer. In the conversation, Roya Hakakian reflects on the craft of writing, the importance of poetry in Iranian culture, the betrayal of the revolution by the Ayatollahs and the impact of the revolution on the Jewish community in Iran. She also compares the struggle within both
Islam and Judaism as young people reconcile modernity with religious identity.

Double Standards: Two Quotes (Updated)

Quote:
President Obama said (via NPR's ATC program): "I have made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is not interfering in Iran's affairs. But we also must bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. We deplore the violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place. [...]

[On Neda Agha Soltani and the video showing her killing:] "It's heartbreaking. It's — it's heartbreaking. And I think that anybody who sees it knows that there's something fundamentally unjust about that."

And if the victims of violence had been Palestinians?

Quote:
NPR's Morning Edition: Airstrikes believed to be carried out by U.S. predator drones have killed at least 45 militants in Pakistan and injured scores more. The reported death toll would make the attack the deadliest since the U.S. deployed its remotely guided missiles to target the Taliban leadership dug into Pakistan's mountainous border with Afghanistan.

Details of the assault on the remote tribal area of South Waziristan known as Pakistan's badlands are still emerging. Local media report that dozens of militants were killed when three drone missiles were fired on Taliban fighters as they gathered for a funeral for fellow militants. Those fighters had been killed earlier in a separate drone attack. [...]

The United States would like the area as flushed of Taliban as possible in advance of a new deployment of American troops just over the border in Afghanistan later this year.

Would the NPR report have been less sanguine if those killed had been American, British, Dutch or Israelis?

Cross post at Antimedius and The Peace Tree.

UPDATE: Excellent post on NPRCheck - highly recommended - about NPR's biased and incomplete reporting on the attack in Afghanistan.

AJE has a completely different headline - 'US drone' hits Pakistan funeral and and story on the drone attack; no where is the word militant used. Unlike the NPR story, it has this:

'Pakistan officially objects to strikes on its territory by the pilotless US aircraft.

'Questioned about the reported attacks, a US defence department official said: "There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan."'

Maybe I am wrong, but frequently NPR just cuts and pastes the DoD press release, without question.

Video games of the future!

American Revolution II: Campaign 2010
* [+/-]

(The American Revolution : Campaign 1776)

Call of Duty: The 2nd Revolution
* [+/-]

(Call of Duty)

Need for Peace: Most Wanted
* [+/-]

(Need for Speed: Most Wanted)

Shadow of the Constitution
* [+/-]

(Shadow of the Colossus)

Resident Upheaval
* [+/-]

(Resident Evil)

Imprints of Persia: The Overthrown
* [+/-]

(Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones)

Full-Life
* [+/-]

(Half-Life)

Documented: Legal Origins
* [+/-]

(Condemned: Criminal Origins)

Neoconbusters: The Video Game
* [+/-]

(Ghostbusters: The Video Game)

Finally Democracy: The Tolerant Years
* [+/-]

(Final Fantasy IV: The After Years)

Transformation: Revival of the Citizen
* [+/-]

(Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen)

Yes Wii Did
* [+/-]

(Wii Fit)

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

WEDNESDAY (6/24/09)

Support Health Care Reform that Addresses Needs of Women
She basks in the slender bone of sun that has embraced her disease
As she lies upon the biddable afghan knitted by her only daughter.

The birds of shadow have begun to fasten themselves `round her spirit;
On this day the sun will commence setting much earlier than she imagined.

Ask President Obama and his admin: Include the vision of a nuclear weapons free world in Nuclear Posture Review
The sound was deafening; a howling hell blew through the skies,
Shattered streetlights emitting a darkness lined the broken streets,
Sentries at their stations with bloodshot eyes were broken of sleep.

Congress Should Require an Exit Strategy from Afghanistan
There will come a day when the sirens will cease their racket
And the hollow whistle of dried bone will be the new alarm
Fetching our soldiers pace within the guns blistering melody.
By then, the word “exit” will be of little or no significance.

Don't Let the Insurance Industry Dictate Health Care Reform
Each dark chord that blares above the gloom is worthless!
All of the greedy hounds that howl over the aged and ailing
Shall be met with forty million tongues soaring to the sun!

Don't fund more F-22 fighter jets!
Blown skin and blood scattered.
Crushed bodies. Tips of fingers.
Blasted, strafed, split and shattered.
Flicked across the sandspeckled canvas
Waiting to paint again, until the wind
And nobody even remembers them being there.

Save Lions From Carbofuran Pesticide Poisoning!
When they came for the lion, I looked away.
When they came for the gorilla, I said nothing.
When they came for the whale, I fell silent.
When they came for the owl, I was quiet.
When the lions came for me, I screamed.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

THE RUBBER CEMENT INCIDENT (funny!)

Thanks for the video Case - Short Shots (Snark and bite from the creator of Belacqua Jones)

democracy is earned

a friend of mine sent me this cartoon- and i had to share. in the interest of full disclosure, i have not been following the news closely about anything lately. i generally skim the headlines and read what interests me. but i have kept up with the headlines on iran. i do not know the culture intimately- what i have learned comes from a couple of blog buddies of iranian descent and national geographic. what i do know is, the persian people are strong and resilient. they have resisted losing their sense of self and their cultural identity- they are proud to be persian.

i don't know that the same can be said for americans. we lost any cultural identity we had to strip malls and fast food joints a long time ago. we turned into self centered, perpetual scared, sheeple with a 'lord/lady of the manor' attitude- we delegate and pay for people to do things for us. well, this is just proof positive that you can't outsource or pay for democracy. we would do well to follow the iranian model- and apologize for calling them part of the 'axis of evil'- if we would have been smart 60 years ago- we would have left their democracy intact. i don't think that they have ever quite gotten over the fact that we meddled in their government then- and i really have a feeling folks should understand that it was us who mucked things up in the middle east. not the middle eastern folks.
"

Playing For Change: Peace Through Music

http://playingforchange.com - is a film that explores our connections in a world overwhelmed with division. Through the process of making this film we traveled around the world and discovered that music opens the door to a place where we can come together as a human race. Music helps us to persevere through struggles and celebrate our differences which changes the world into a more peaceful place. Look for the DVD of this award-winning film in stores in late 2009.


"Stand By Me" Peace Through Music-


Weapon X- Time for a Change
My message to my Iranian people in the struggle. You are not alone. www.myspace.com/wxmc www.facebook.com/fsalimi

Hootie and the blowfish - State your peace

Studioversion of "State Your Peace"
With lyrics in the video.
...state your peace; before it's too late.

Living On $2 A Day: An Interview With Economist Jonathan Morduch

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

According to the World Bank, almost forty percent of humanity lives on a daily income of less than two dollars per day. Another 1.1 billion scrape by on less than one dollar per day.

How can anyone possibly survive or raise a family with such a meager income? In New York City, two dollars per day won’t even cover my daily Brooklyn/Manhattan round-trip subway commute. Yet billions of low skilled people put food on the table, educate their children, grapple with unexpected emergencies and even save money.

In Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live On $2 a Day, Darryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven, compiled yearlong “financial diaries,” of villagers and slum dwellers in Bangladesh, India and South Africa. The diaries track penny by penny, how specific households manage their money with sophistication and resourcefulness. Recently published by Princeton University Press, Portfolios of the Poor, presents revealing data in an accessible seven chapters and 184 pages of text. The text is supported with an additional eighty plus pages of appendices, data tables and notes illustrating “the story behind the portfolios.”

In a tour de force of primary research, the authors report that the world’s poorest do not live hand to mouth and desperately spend what they earn just to keep from drowning. Instead, they utilize financial tools, rely on “informal” networks through relatives and neighbors and navigate perils such as medical calamities and political strife. Their stories are both inspiring as well as heartbreaking.

Although the world’s poorest are far more adept at financial management then previously understood, they’re confronted with what the authors describe as the “triple whammy”:

• Low income
• Irregularity of income.
• Unpredictability about when they will earn income.
  

Hence, the authors assertively advocate for microfinancing as a means of empowering the world’s poorest with more secure and convenient instruments to access and manage money. Microfinancing is financial services for low income clients in the world’s poorest countries who are self-employed or operating their own businesses.

The authors argue in their book that microfinancing should also be extended to address the needs of exceptionally low-income wage earners as well. It is their contention that poor people in the countries they researched demonstrate on a daily basis that they are responsible money managers and would also be reliable clients of microfinancing services.

One of the authors, Jonathan Morduch, is a New York University ("NYU") professor of economics as well as a managing director of the Financial Access Initiative - a consortium of researchers at NYU, Harvard, Yale, and Innovations for Poverty Action. Morduch, agreed to a telephone podcast interview with me about the book and our conversation was just under twenty-six minutes.

Among the topics covered was how his team earned the confidence of the people they interviewed, the informal market tools utilized by the world’s poorest in Bangladesh, India and South Africa and why he’s a proponent of extending microfinancing to the world’s poorest wage earners.

Please refer to the flash media player below.



This interview can also be accessed at no cost via the Itunes Store by searching for either the “Intrepid Liberal Journal” or “Robert Ellman.

Father's Day and Time

It is a wise father that knows his child.
__William Shakespeare

All the clocks that surround us mark off moments as they dissolve;
Steady drum of the second hand tick tocks like a time bomb,
Vanished down beneath the rising rush
Cast outside of reach of all that’s here
Or that frantic hands can seize or bear.

Like time, we will travel forward as moments become lean and swift,
Instances slipped within pale snapshots; smiles of odd, uneasy faces.
Tick tock goes the gesture, the nod.
Plunging seconds speed by exhausted
Below the pitch-black lather of time.

As summers own swimming and winter’s trudging speed through
Second hands rush on, prying the next season to scuttle forth.
Does it matter more what time it was
Or more that a moment’s remembered;
Vanished, frantic, outside of my reach?

All of the clocks shrug at this; my yearning to paint my father true,
To prevent time’s rolling course upon scatty legs made of seconds.
Cease your lean and speedy march.
If I’m to know him, you've got to stop,
Time, before you run out of clock.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

46 Mexican Children Perish in Day Care Fire! Will Mexico's Plagues Ever End?

Governmental corruption preceded economic collapse. The migration problem was compounded by the drug cartel wars. The swine flu epidemic...now Mexico reels from its latest "golpe" [blow]: fire at a government-run day care center claimed the life of its 46th child last weekend.

Anger boiled over in the northwestern city of Hermosillo where the populace blames the government for failing to enforce safety regulations, for failing to properly investigate the blaze and for failing to hold anyone criminally responsible in the 10 days that have passed since the fire.

As time passes the national grief is turning to outrage in the embattled country. During a rally that was televised nationwide on CNN affiliate TV Azteca Saturday in front of the Sonora governor's office, parent Poberto Zavala declared to great cheers:

"If there is no justice from the authorities, there will be vengeance from the people."

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has promised there will be a complete investigation. Officials blame an air-conditioning unit in a government-run warehouse in the same building as the day care center for causing the fire.

Commentators denounce the fact that 46 children can die due to negligence while it appears that: 1) no one will be punished, and 2) that the safety of other day care centers is not being reviewed to ascertain that this will not happen again somewhere else in the country.

Suffering seems to be making a home in Mexico. When the plagues recur over and over, the question arises: how much can and will a people accept?

We offer our prayer for peace.

SATURDAY (6/20/09)

Call on Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute Bush-era torture, etc
Seeing the old man who moved like a sloth across the parking lot
Stumbling a path waged in determination and loaded with angst,
I began to see the future. A panorama of a rebellious reckoning
With a gnarly toothed reality of necks bent in disappointment.
Our smugness, suffering tossed out like crumbs to the starving,
Begins its vengeful quake across all the gloom we’ve scattered.

Send Harry Reid an email, asking that he not allow drilling in any global warming or climate bill that comes up in Senate
Drill down to the cry of oceans
Drill down to the cry of birds
Drill down, drill down, drill down
Loose the hell hounds come howling
Loose the next monstrous wave
Loose the next hoarfrost and eddy
Drill down, baby. Drill down.

Please cosponsor the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2009 (S. 624)
Water. Water. Water. Water. Wate. Wat. Wa. W.

Sign petition showing your support of Congress' work to reform America's health care system
They won’t fix what ails you for no stinking shriek or prayer or howl...
Hell no! It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than human consideration
to stitch up your son, or radiate your daughter, or treat your parents!
It’s going to take a goddamned miracle!
A malodorous, impractical, goddamned phenomenon!
Ain’t no spare change or extra angel wings to save us!
Bone cracking, god-smacking miracles to come roaring!
I’ve more faith in congress…

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

FRIDAY (6/19/09)

Support a Cautious Response to the Iranian Election
I am turning the lights out now
A heavy summer heat hovers over the ground.
Before the morning light lifts this crimson boil
Many will have marched in solidarity on far off streets
While others watch with bewilderment, a mini shock and awe.

Tell Congress to require legislation be posted on the Internet for 72 hours before debate
This rattling the cage will not wake them
They’ve been asleep for too long,
They’ve not been greeted sorely.
This noise will never match that which came before;
Hell’s throat, deafening, piercing the skies with war.

TRADE Act Introduction Imminent: Write Your Rep!
Since they’ve lost hearing from their piercing dreams
Since they’ve discarded the people for the money vote
Since we’re dying in a war that will never have a victor
Since our words have lost their meaning… we write.

Remove the Trojan Horse from Global Warming Legislation
It moved toward the castle with death’s grace,
Creaking and clanking along the wet terrain.
Its reflection swam inside their anxious eyes
As its massive frame came shuddering to a halt.
It loomed over the castle like an ominous god….

Tell Congress to Strengthen the Clean Energy Bill!
The morning sun reflected off of its golden mane
And the people moved toward it like zombies.
In lock-step they found their purpose, their guts,
And wielded the mightiest of weapons…

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Support a Cautious Response to the Iranian Election

I am turning the lights out now
A heavy summer heat hovers over the ground.
Before the morning sun lifts this crimson boil
Many will have marched in solidarity on far off streets
While others watch with bewilderment, a mini shock and awe.

~
Support a Cautious Response to the Iranian Election

President Obama has faced pressure from some members of Congress and voices in the media to take sides in the internal dispute in Iran over their recent presidential election. While the events that have transpired in the wake of the election are disturbing, an aggressive response by the United States could make the situation for Iranians – and the future of U.S.-Iran relations – even worse.

So far, President Obama has responded cautiously, neither endorsing the election result nor the opposition claims of fraud, and re-affirming his intent to engage Iran diplomatically, regardless of the election result. Would you thank President Obama for his cautious response and urge him to continue his efforts to engage Iran diplomatically?

Thank you, President Obama, for your display of caution in addressing the situation in Iran following the disputed Presidential election. We agree that the U.S. must avoid the appearance of meddling in Iran’s internal affairs and we urge you to continue your efforts to engage Iran diplomatically, as you have pledged to do.

Sign the letter here!

Read more Take Action Head-Lines!

...EVERMORE

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Minuteman Leader Charged for Murder of Latino Father and his Nine Year Old Daughter
O! The minute has come to address the rotten deeds of your foul-smelling, toothless fear!
May you and your murderous brethren spend an eternity with only love in your hearts
Memorizing every moment of the lives you ended and the hatred you encouraged.
May your hearts be full of an unsoiled love swimming inside you evermore!

Shawna Forde Has Direct Ties to Extremist National Minuteman Groups
May every waking moment be filled with Brisenia's lovely face and innocent eyes
Bringing her to boil in your dreams the faces of all those you’ve polluted!
O! Goddamn your decaying carcasses full of the world’s abhorrence!
Lop off your thoughts steeped in the shameless foam of immorality!

Minuteman Gunny Bush, Forde’s Murderous Partner
Yes! You too should see the innocent faces swimming in your soulless, wanton thoughts,
While you stir and even as you sleep, never to be free again of their countenance!
Witness unattainable and sparkling love swimming in your spirit forevermore!
To the bedraggled edge of anguish may you reside without love’s nectar!

Minutemen Leaders Cannot Back Peddle From Long Association with Forde
May your every living thought be consumed in remorse at your hateful instructions
As nature makes a charade of your loveless judgment and dreadful actions.

Brisenia Flores – The Beautiful Child Murdered, Along with Her Father
May you, most lovely child, forever bring living hope and love to those of us in need,
And may your father hold your hand while you both ascend this; our madness.

The 911 Call from Brisenia’s Mother
Your plea, dearest mother, your call for help within such living hell has been heard
And we must bestow upon you all the unfettered love in our grateful breathe!
Su súplica, más estimada madre, su llamada para la ayuda dentro de tal infierno de vida ha sido oída...

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Immigration Talk With a Mexican/American

THRUSTING AMERICA'S LOVE OUTWARD

I compel you to love your country.

To draw her into your arms ever so tenderly,
To embrace her softly, dearly to your heart,
To huddle close, near together her masses,
And sense her least sustained yearning.

I compel you to love your country.

A nation that lifted the breast of humanity
Caressing it tenderly toward equality’s rapture
With gentle fingers of selfless, searing desire
Exploring over her ever toward paradise.

I compel you to love your country.

Freedom lovers damp in stiff-limbed writhing
Stumbling kisses upon red-barreled bravery,
Softly probing her robust and supple liberty,
Heed now her cries of woeful sovereignty!

I compel you to love your country.

Between her Trail of Tears and Mount Misery
She still waits upon the coupled plains of affection
Ready for our design and mastery of this worlds love
Panting heavy expectation upon her shape.

I compel you to love your country.

Perched upon the shore of Rolles Creek she waits
With Mount Pleasant in reach of her willing fingers.
With expectant sounds of closure now within her folds
She lunges forth with an expectant mouth!

I compel you to love your country.

O! Gentle sleep now beckons to her languid pink flesh
As the rogues tongue laps at her ebbing shores of joy
And beckons her let go of her valuable love’s embrace
Lunging forth behind her eager lips!

She counters not… for she is the boiling hunger we seek.

What a devoted worship we’ve had with the motherland.
Many a great poet has written their songs upon her flesh;
Their bright and shimmering waters lapping her shores
In ardent freedom’s want of hopes howling, dripping heat.

I compel you to love the world!

On this day of days let us remember her youthful glow,
Her ripe fruit of wonder, her drowsy ache of emancipation,
Her most alluring burnish upon our exploring of her skin.
(The burden of immense throbbing now falls upon her heart!)

I compel you to love the world!

America, carry your waves to all shores. Hope, not savagery,
In your goodness, not in impudent desire to control destiny.
Leave not the naked child, but your desire alone on the road.
Shelter not your intentions, but those most needful and hungry.

I compel you to love the world!

We have been witness to our dove, crippled and flailing in terror!
We’ve been onlookers to our expectations emerging fruitless.
Watching unmoved while our oily desire bleeds into the waters
And the cold white eyes of death tread progressively before us.

I compel you to love the world!

Come now, peace. Come now, warriors, lay down your guns
To witness the beauty at your hands as she lays down your sword
And with dripping red lips envelops your craving to possess her.
Do you not hear the night voices calling you with an angels whisper?

I compel you to love the world!

To open the door and step out into the bright sun, desire can wait.
Take notice of the many tender, breathing, soul-caked living.
Gaze upon the world’s most unbendable faith in humanity.
Gently touch her skin, delicately massage her furious soil.

I compel you to love the world!

Enter her sculpting space and weave a covering made of lifeless war.
Paint upon her face a gentle art made of your temples sweat.
Scribe a love song upon her back with the eagle’s most willing blood.
Erect in her a tower of light for all to see that they might weep.

I compel you to love the world!

The masses of age lie here and we should not be so ready to die
Like confused animal’s hooved in selfishness, deficient and artless.
The world is full of freedom lovers damp in stiff-limbed writhing
Stumbling kisses upon red-barreled bravery, tenderly probing liberty.

I compel you to love the world!

Amid her supple lands and majestic mountains she waits our affection,
Ready for our desire and design embracing her most ready warmth
Needing our hot hope upon her shape, wanton as wide-eyed first love.
(Heed now the world’s hot desire for freedom pulling us in.)

With hopeful whisper's within her waters, she leans forth, expectant.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

AMEROTICA poetry

On June 17th...

1992 Slaughtering by Inkhata-followers at Boipatong, South Africa, kills 42

1991 South Africa abolishes last of its apartheid laws

1981 Battle between Moslems and Christians in Cairo, 14 killed

1982 President Reagan 1st United Nations General Assembly address, "evil empire" speech

1973 Russian party leader Brezhnev visits U.S.

1972 5 arrested for burglarizing Democratic Party HQ at Watergate

1967 1st Chinese hydrogen bomb explodes

1965 1st bombing by B-52 (50 km north of Saigon)

1963 Supreme Court rules against Bible reading/prayer in public schools

1958 Radio Moscow reports execution of Hungarian ex-premier Imre Nagy

1954 CIA exile army lands in Guatemala, JF Dulles and United Fruit Co

1954 Televised Senate Army McCarthy hearings ends

1950 Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria sign security pact

1944 French troops under Lattre de Tssigny conquer Elba

1944 Hitler secretly meets with von Rundstedt in Marjival Soissons

1942 1st WW II American expeditionary force lands in Africa (Gold Coast)

1940 France asks Germany for terms of surrender in WW II

1938 Japan declares war on China

1916 U.S. troops under General Pershing march into Mexico

1915 League to Enforce Peace forms in Philadelphia

1885 Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City

1863 Naval Engagement at Warsaw Sound GA-USS Weehawken vs CSS Atlanta

1856 Republican Party opens its 1st national convention in Philadelphia

1855 Heavy French/British bombing of Sebastopol, 2000+ killed

1579 Sir Francis Drake lands on coast of California

WEDNESDAY (6/17/09)

Minuteman Leader Charged for Murder of Latino Father and his Nine Year Old Daughter

O! The minute has come to address the rotten deeds of your foul-smelling, toothless fear!

May you and your murderous brethren spend an eternity with only love in your hearts

Memorizing every moment of the lives you ended and the hatred you encouraged.

May your hearts be full of an unsoiled love swimming inside you evermore!

Shawna Forde Has Direct Ties to Extremist National Minuteman Groups

May every waking moment be filled with Brisenia's lovely face and innocent eyes

Bringing her to boil in your dreams the faces of all those you’ve polluted!

O! Goddamn your decaying carcasses full of the world’s abhorrence!

Lop off your thoughts steeped in the shameless foam of immorality!

Minuteman Gunny Bush, Forde’s Murderous Partner

Yes! You too should see the innocent faces swimming in your soulless, wanton thoughts,

While you stir and even as you sleep, never to be free again of their countenance!

Witness unattainable and sparkling love swimming in your spirit forevermore!

To the bedraggled edge of anguish may you reside without love’s nectar!

Minutemen Leaders Cannot Back Peddle From Long Association with Forde

May your every living thought be consumed in remorse at your hateful instructions

As nature makes a charade of your loveless judgment and dreadful actions.

Brisenia Flores – The Beautiful Child Murdered, Along with Her Father

May you, most lovely child, forever bring living hope and love to those of us in need,

And may your father hold your hand while you both ascend this; our madness.

The 911 Call from Brisenia’s Mother

Your plea, dearest mother, your call for help within such living hell has been heard

And we must bestow upon you all the unfettered love in our grateful breathe!

Su súplica, más estimada madre, su llamada para la ayuda dentro de tal infierno de vida ha sido oída...

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Immigration Talk With a Mexican/American

A New Policy

To paraphrase Michael Ledeen, a former advisor to Karl Rove, every sixty or seventy years, the American public has to grab big business by the collar, slam it against a wall and teach it some manners.

Someone should tell the Democrats you can't do that while you're kissing their ass.

a matter of life and death

"

my sister-in-law number two (my husband has 2 sisters) has gone into labor and by the time anyone reads this- will most likely have had her daughter. my mom's health continues to weaken as her heart and lungs fight against time to keep her blood flowing and her life going. and the world continues to take life for granted. i am not sure what it is about humans that make them so, well, fickle. on the one hand, we have folks who fight tooth and nail for a fetus' right to live and turn around and fight just as vigilantly to declare war on another cultures' fetuses. strange. we don't have a choice when we are born. our parents got together and for better or worse- had us. should we have the right to die?

much debate has swirled around abortion and whether or not it should be legal- but what about an adult's right to die? who gets to make that choice? some believe it's up to a mythical being called 'god' and others worry about ethical and legal issues. but if you strip those considerations aside and think simply for yourself- would you want to be able to die when you chose? our culture doesn't like to think about dying much. perhaps because we are so very far removed from it. at one time, folks were up close and personal with their loved ones' deaths. they washed the bodies, made the coffins and sat wakes. then, they dug the hole and buried them. now, there are a whole host of folks who whisk the body away and do all of those things very clinically and loved ones get a shot at seeing a strange corpse to 'say goodbye' before cremation or burial. it's like we want to forget they are dead.

i can only speak to what i know and see and believe- i know that my mom says she has made peace with dying. i know that she would rather be healthy and stick around. i would rather she be healthy and stick around too but death is inevitable. none of us escape it. i would also rather that my mom not suffer needlessly. and if she chose to go, i would rather she be allowed to do so. assisted dying is a sticky widget. i have a feeling as our population ages- it may push a bit to the forefront. folks are living longer true- but we also have seen quality of life deteriorate for some and it really doesn't look like the health care system will be fixed in this country any time soon. not in a viable way. millions of folks won't wait to be told that they are allowed to end it. they just will. it would be nice to help them on a journey with dignity.

as for me, i would absolutely rather choose to die if i became ill with a terminal illness. the end result would be the same (assuming that we had exhausted the known medical treatments) and i would not want to suffer nor put my loved ones through prolonged suffering. i would rather folks celebrated my life and not dwell on my death. i think all of us would rather live. it's that human nature and survival instinct- but we also have it within our power to end life. and i think we are going to have to face that next obstacle.
"

TUESDAY (6/16/09)

Eliminationist Gear at Café Press – Scott Roeder is an American Hero
The pages are alive with lifeless gods and pale blossoms
Painted with too much glee as if a child stroked the paper,
Grinning at his creation. Offerings of murky madness
That scream unhinged slaughter more than glee or satire.
Posed as freedom’s rant; naive, normal, nontoxic furor,
A bitter thought crawls up from infection to its birth.

Neo-Nazis Working Their Way Inside the Military
Soiled hearts and souls that the air drops off- the ground
Has a sickness creeping forward, sowing cruel emblems
And ashen ideas through the caged veins of their children,
Who’d rather, given the chance, reject the virus altogether.

Fox News Gives Lecture on Iran’s “Stolen Election
They want to slaughter this thing within their filth.
They worship their empty voices with seditious folly
And gaze content at their form in front of the mirror,
Had they but the thought to look down at their hands.

Scarborough Blames Obama’s Cairo Speech for Iran’s Election “Chaos”
There’s enough to go around, Joe.
By the way, you’ve a stain on your sleeve.
It looks like blood, but it’s only makeup;
The blush that matches your clown disguise.

This Week in Memoriam
I know the deceit that lowers you down;
Oil, greed, profit, god- lust, ego, apathy-
Entrenched deep below artificial liberty.

SC GOP Activist Jokes that Escaped Gorilla is Michelle Obama’s Cousin
Surely you’ve more to present than these,
Cousin? Ape, monkey, gorilla, chimpanzee…
Maybe you’ve a nigga joke up your sleeve,
Or some soiled slur pursing smutty lips,
Or vigorous insult roaring out another slit,
Perhaps a razor to offend upon your wrist?

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Read more Head-Line Poetry...

Snark and bite..."again and again" from Short Shots

Stupidity comes in many forms. There is the stupidity that arises from plain ignorance, or the stupidity that arises from inadequate information, or the stupidity that arises from misinterpreting the information at hand.

However, the deadliest stupidity, the one that has spread death and carnage across the face of the earth, is the stupidity grounded in sheer momentum. If an individual does the same thing over and over and expects different results, it’s called insanity. If an organization does the same, it’s called policy. (Please visit Case to continue reading...)

MONDAY (6/15/09)

Netanyahu accepts limited Palestinian state
If you give up your guns and your rockets and turn your eyes away,
You can live in what little space that is left for you to stand.
If you accept this, your sentence, you’ll also acknowledge your fate…

Crowds join Ahmadinejad victory rally
Majority rules on Election Day with its bright lights on.
Save for the house arrest of the graying reformer,
Iran teeters similarly to our own uncertain and valued vote;
An alleged coup d'état, intimidation, chaos, rumors;
We only think... imagine that we're vastly different.

Threats, violence seen eroding U.S. abortion rights
If thou give up thy lawful rights and turn thou eyes toward our god,
We will smile and praise thy goodness. If not, we shall execute thee
And all of thy children, born or unborn matters not…
Amen.

Gas Prices Jump Another 17 Cents a Gallon
There is no rest for the imperially wicked.
Plotting what is next that will divert our attention
From the thing that truly matters- The Constitution.
O! Permit this, our liquid god, consume us first!

Urban Coyotes Have Streetwise Ways
Animals roam our streets and drink our water
And devour our children with their blood-filled lust.
No. It is not the coyote that has learned from us.

Israel targets smuggling tunnels in Gaza
There will be no tunnel here, no resistance exposed by
Bared teeth or fitful soul, only those bent and docile
Shall unbend their backs and burrow out of their grave.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

On Crime and Punishment - Kahlil Gibran

It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.


Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self dwells not alone in your being.
Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,
But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.


Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.


And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,
And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,
And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.
Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,
And still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.
And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.


If any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.
And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.
And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?


And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?
Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.
Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.
And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?
Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,
And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.



__Khalil Gibran (born Gibrān Khalīl Gibrān bin Mikhā'īl bin Sa'ad; Arabic جبران خليل جبران بن ميکائيل بن سعد), (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer. Born in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of Ottoman Syria), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began his literary career. He is chiefly known for his 1923 book The Prophet, a series of philosophical essays written in English prose. An early example of Inspirational fiction, the book sold well despite a cool critical reception, and became extremely popular in 1960s counterculture.

Kahlil Gibran's Works

REVISITING A MANIACAL MELODY

CIA chief believes Cheney almost wants U.S. attacked


O! Love at first sight in bleak day.
You’ve life’s gallant sun.
The arid tempest swoons;
Love. Hope. Joy. Doubt. Lust. Slaughter.
Blood’s staining authority.
The silver gorge croons to her,
Breathing deep, conjuring worship;
The grubby toothed grin of casualty.

“My love, may I have this dance?”
“Tis my honor most valiant knight!”
“Take my hand, my dear, and we shall.”
“Yes, my love.”

O! Life’s embittered perfection,
Love’s wish filled stain,
Let go this; your dreadful date
And curl your arms `round eternity
Heeding the smothered breath of thy god;
Hatred. Contempt. Red. White. Blue.
Blood’s staining authority;
The solvent spirit’s bloody weight!

© 2006 mrp/thepoetryman

Happy 80th Birthday, Anne Frank! We need you more than ever.

"With a diary kept in a secret attic, she braved the Nazis and lent a searing voice to the fight for human dignity." --Time (1999), naming Anne Frank with the heroes and icons of the 20th century on their list of The Most Important People of the Century.

Anne Frank was born just 80 years ago in Frankfurt, Germany on June 12, 1929. A Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis with her family, Anne kept her sanity before her capture and subsequent death in a concentration camp by recording her thoughts in a diary. That diary, given to Anne on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944. It became a classic when it was published after her death: The Diary of a Young Girl, one of the most widely read books in the world.

As we reel this week from the fatal shootings and deaths in Washington DC's Holocaust Museum, initiated by a man with a virulently anti-Semitic past...

when we view photographic evidence of unspeakable acts of torture inflicted by our military in prisons far and not-so-far away...

when indigenous defenders of the Amazon jungle are gunned down like criminals...

elections are so suspect that the citizenry must riot in the streets...

a Minuteman leader is apprehended for a double homicide in AZ...

...we ponder with broken hearts our own human capacity for evil and struggle to find the hope we need to remain faithful to working for justice and peace.

These quotations, taken from Anne's diary, are worth recalling today as a celebration of her life, her voice, her courage, her open heart. In Anne we find the antidote to despair that we sometimes desperately need:

On our infinite possibilities:

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

On optimism:

"I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."

On the restorative power of nature:

"The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be."

On personal power:

"The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands."

On gratitude:

"Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy."

On human nature and hope:

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. ... I think peace and tranquility will return again."

On happiness:

"Whoever is happy will make others happy, too."

On human potential:

"Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!"

Happy birthday, Anne! Your life, your spirit is as relevant as ever. May we, the living who are blessed with your example and inspiration, live today more fully and humanly.

Consequences

I’ve earned them,
I’ll deal with them.

Sometimes, sometimes,
Trust can be regained,
Sometimes.

Sometimes there are
Second chances,
But only sometimes.

I’ll learn.
I’ve been given many chances by a few.
And, I hope, honored them.

But I’ve learned that most
Do not give one another chance.

I’ll learn.
I’ll model for others
The grace with which one can give
Second chances, or more.

All it takes is a heart
A soul, an ability to protect
Yourself from harm;

And humility.
Enough humility to know
Anyone can need a second chance.

God does not make garbage.
Do not throw people out.

THE CLEAN SKIN...

More than some ashen membrane
Are the clean skin.
Tell me what they are?
Oh! How beautiful are these alien creatures!

They move with the wind
Under cover of night and sun.
Glowing and graceful they progress
Nearer my tenuous fear.

Seen and unseen,
Like I’ve just exited some dark room;
Under the sun everyone’s a ghost.

Phantoms, whose faces are washed away,
And whose hands are sickly white,
Blanched from unredeemed horrors,
Stand now, drumming rigid fingers
Across the consciousness
Under my clean skin.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

WHAT IF...

...2009...
Imagine life under these conditions: Living in limbo under a foreign occupier. Having no self-determination, no right of return, and no power over your daily life. Being in constant fear, economically strangled, and collectively punished.

Having your free movement denied by enclosed population centers, closed borders, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences, and separation walls. Having your homes regularly demolished and land systematically stolen to build settlements for encroachers in violation of international law prohibiting an occupier from settling its population on conquered land.

Having your right to essential services denied - to emergency health care, education, employment, and enough food and clean water.

Being forced into extreme poverty, having your crops destroyed, and being victimized by punitive taxes. Having no right for redress in the occupier's courts under laws only protecting the occupier. Being regularly targeted by incursions and attacks on the ground and from the air.

Being willfully harassed, ethnically cleansed, arrested, incarcerated, tortured, and slaughtered on any pretext, including for your right of self-defense. Having no rights on your own land in your own country for over six decades and counting. Vilified for being Muslims and called terrorists, Jihadists, crazed Arabs, and fundamentalist extremists. Victimized by a slow-motion genocide to destroy you.

According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, Israel has conducted state-sponsored genocide against the Palestinians for decades and intensively in Gaza. In a September 2006 Electronic Intifada article titled "Genocide in Gaza" he wrote: "A genocide is taking place in Gaza....An average of eight Palestinians die daily in the Israeli attacks on the Strip. Most of them are children. Hundreds are maimed, wounded and paralyzed. (It's become) a daily business, now reported (only) in the internal pages of the local press, quite often in microscopic fonts. The chief culprits are the Israeli pilots who have a field day," like shooting fish in a barrel. Why not, they're only Muslims, so who'll notice or care.


What if war were just a chaotic dress rehearsal in a school play
and torture were long philosophical conversations with idiots,
bullets, tiny bits of lint culled from laughing soldier's uniforms,
fighter jets, kites dropping from the shoulders of the sun,
warships, marshmallows floating in a sea of hot chocolate,
and tanks, funny little cars full of tumbling clowns?

O! If only it were so then all of the world's hideous warmongers might be
paper dolls in rooms full of beautiful children, each with a pair of scissors...

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

Genocide - Free Palestine (Saturday Sonata)

...2009...
Imagine life under these conditions: Living in limbo under a foreign occupier. Having no self-determination, no right of return, and no power over your daily life. Being in constant fear, economically strangled, and collectively punished.

Having your free movement denied by enclosed population centers, closed borders, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences, and separation walls. Having your homes regularly demolished and land systematically stolen to build settlements for encroachers in violation of international law prohibiting an occupier from settling its population on conquered land.

Having your right to essential services denied - to emergency health care, education, employment, and enough food and clean water.

Being forced into extreme poverty, having your crops destroyed, and being victimized by punitive taxes. Having no right for redress in the occupier's courts under laws only protecting the occupier. Being regularly targeted by incursions and attacks on the ground and from the air.

Being willfully harassed, ethnically cleansed, arrested, incarcerated, tortured, and slaughtered on any pretext, including for your right of self-defense. Having no rights on your own land in your own country for over six decades and counting. Vilified for being Muslims and called terrorists, Jihadists, crazed Arabs, and fundamentalist extremists. Victimized by a slow-motion genocide to destroy you.

According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, Israel has conducted state-sponsored genocide against the Palestinians for decades and intensively in Gaza. In a September 2006 Electronic Intifada article titled "Genocide in Gaza" he wrote: "A genocide is taking place in Gaza....An average of eight Palestinians die daily in the Israeli attacks on the Strip. Most of them are children. Hundreds are maimed, wounded and paralyzed. (It's become) a daily business, now reported (only) in the internal pages of the local press, quite often in microscopic fonts. The chief culprits are the Israeli pilots who have a field day," like shooting fish in a barrel. Why not, they're only Muslims, so who'll notice or care.

A Native American thanksgiving

This is lovely - from Episcopal Café's Speaking to the Soul.

Daily Reading for June 12 • Enmegahbowh, Priest and Missionary, 1902

Leader: For our ancestors who built nations and cultures; who thrived and prospered long before the coming of strangers; for the forfeit of their lives, their homes, their lands, and their freedoms sacrificed to the rise of new nations and new worlds.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For the wealth of our lands; for minerals in the earth; for the plants and waters and animals on the earth; for the birds, the clouds and rain; for the sun and moon in the sky and the gifts they gave to our people that enabled the rise of new world economics. All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For oceans, streams, rivers, lakes, and other waters of our lands that provide bountifully for us; for clams, lobsters, salmon, trout, shrimp, and abalone; for the pathways the waters have provided.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For the friendship that first welcomed all to our shores; for the courage of those who watched their worlds change and disappear and for those who led in the search for new lives; for our leaders today who fight with courage and great heart for us.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For the strength and beauty of our diverse Native cultures; for the traditions that give structure to our lives, that define who we are; for the skills of our artists and craftspeople and the gifts of their hands.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: For the spirituality and vision that gave our people the courage and faith to endure; that brought many to an understanding and acceptance of the love of Christ, our Brother and Savior.
All: We offer a song of honor and thanks.

Leader: Accept, O God, Creator, our honor song, and make our hearts thankful for what we have been given. Make us humble for what we have taken. Make us glad as we return some measure of what we have been given. Strengthen our faith and make us strong in the service of our people, in the name of our Brother and Savior, Jesus Christ, your Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

From “A Native American Thanksgiving for the Americas and Their People” offered at the National Cathedral in 1992 and quoted in The Wideness of God’s Mercy: Litanies to Enlarge Our Prayer, revised and updated edition, compiled and adapted by Jeffery Rowthorn with W. Alfred Tisdale. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Anne Frank centre stage on 80th 'birthday'

Had she survived, Anne Frank would have celebrated her 80th birthday today.

From DutchNews.nl

Friday 12 June 2009

The diaries and other writing by Jewish teenager Anne Frank, who hid in a secret attic in Amsterdam for two years during World War II are to go on permanent display, the government announced on Thursday.

'Her diaries and writing will come home,' to the museum now housed in her former home, the statement said.

Three diaries, a note book of short stories and a collection of her favourite quotes will go on show from November 1.

The documents have been donated to the museum by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, which was given them by Anne's father Otto. He was the only one of the family to survive the concentration camps and died in 1980.

Short life

Anne would have turned 80 on Friday if she had survived the war and a number of events have been planned to mark the occasion. On Friday evening there will be a live tv broadcast from the Prinsengracht museum with guests from the Netherlands and abroad.

At Madame Tussauds waxworks museum, artist Silvester Peperkamp is painting a portrait of how Anne may have looked if she was alive today.

Meanwhile, the shed at Westerbork transit camp, where Anne was put to work dismantling batteries after her capture in 1944, is to be rebuilt on its original location.

The shed has been used for agricultural storage in Veendam since 1957.

For a list of international events click here

[Cross posted at Blazing Indiscretions and Antemedius.]

PLAY FROM YOUR HEART

-Zoe Keating @ La Boule Noire Paris Oct 23, 2008/Amanda Palmer cabaret show.

Play from your heart
What's the point of anything if you don't?
What’s to stop us from staying in the middle
While hate’s tangled up in a half-baked peace
And love’s tapping out some half-hearted beat?

Love’s not a liquid flowing between worlds-
It’s now!
It’s the curve of her neck as she turns to gaze at her children.
It’s the teetering laughter heard over the howl of thankless men.

Love’s useless if it only moan’s like a lamb-
It’s loud!
It’s the whispered roar of goodnight as he watches them sleep.
It’s the fearless torrent of immeasurable expressions of grief.

It’s not war… It’s peace.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

-The Point Of It All - "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" Video Series: Part 5-

Friday Morning Music with Zoe Keating

-Zoe Keating performs at MIT's 2008 Emerging Technologies Conference-

-Zoe Keating @ La Boule Noire Paris Oct 23, 2008-

Musical selections from the film "Ghost Bird"

Spc. Kenneth Jacobs death a year ago and tragedy goes on

"This is a cross post in full. A soldier's widow needs help for justice.

Soldier from Holly Springs dies
Wednesday, June 25, 2008

HOLLY SPRINGS (WTVD) -- The Army is investigating the death of a Schofield Barracks soldier from North Carolina found dead on base earlier this week.

Spc. Kenneth Jacobs, a 22-year-old from Holly Springs, N.C., was found unconscious and not breathing Monday.

Paramedics tried to revive him but were unsuccessful and declared him dead at the scene.
Jacobs was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team. He moved to Hawaii in 2006. He returned in October from a deployment to Iraq.
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=6228338

I receive a lot of emails, heart tugging emails, and once in a while the sender is begging for help. They feel they are out of hope and out of help. This is one of them. I was asked to post this and I'm doing it praying someone out there can help this widow get the justice denied her husband.

Huffing deaths are not suicide. They are doing it to seek relief. Spc. Jacobs was put on Zoloft and we all know there are problems with this. You can't give them medication this strong and simply hope for the best without any kind of therapy. Yet when Spc. Jacobs was found dead in the barracks, that was the end of it. There were no more follow up stories of yet one more non-combat death not counted. Not one more headline grabbing story of a young soldier's death following PTSD and not treated properly. Above all of this no story of the young widow and her children left behind with no income, no death insurance and no help from the military under survivors benefits. Read her story and if you can help her, contact me and I'll give you her contact information. There has to be help for her out there somewhere. My God! Do we really support the troops and honor military families or don't we?

I’m writing to you to tell you about my husband, SPC. Kenneth Robert Jacobs who passed away on June 23rd 2008.



Ken graduated basic training from Ft. Benning GA , in August 2006 and was stationed at Schoffield Barracks in Hawaii. The unit that he was assigned to was already in Iraq and he joined them there in Nov. 2006. Ken’s duties in Iraq included house to house searches, guard duty, tower duty, and gunner on Humvees. During Ken’s 1 year deployment his hummer had been hit by 4 IED’s. He never complained about being there and said he knew they were helping the Iraqi people. Ken was the only one in his unit that received The Leader of The Pack award twice while deployed.



His deployment ended in Nov. 2007 and Ken said they all had to have a physical and debriefing before they could come home. He said they were told how to answer any questions asked, if they wanted to go home right away and not to stay for more evaluation. They were told that nightmares were normal and would go away in time, and not to mention anything they had to do over there to anyone. He was also told “anyone who had been hit with an IED go stand in that line” which he did. Then they were all asked as a group “who wants more testing done?” and no one raised their hands. Ken said he “didn’t want to look like a loser in front of the other guys” so he didn’t raise his hand.



Because Ken had answered all of the questions “correctly” he got to come home on leave for 4 weeks. After his leave him and I flew back to Hawaii and got married. Myself and my 3 year old daughter moved to Hawaii in Feb. 2008.

At this time I noticed that Ken became very angry easily. His drinking was out of control and he would have terrible nightmares, thrashing around in bed. We were getting into terrible fights and one night the MP’s were called. Ken had to see a Psychiatrist and told him about some of the things he had to do and things he saw in Iraq . The doctor told him “No wonder you’re messed up!” This doctor diagnosed him with PTSD and put him on Zoloft. I believe this was in March of 2008. After this he really wasn’t getting any better. In May of 2008 I was out on the porch and heard Ken yelling at my 3 year old to go out the window. He was screaming “Go! Go! Go!” Then fell to the floor and started to have some type of seizure. When it was over, he got up and sat in a chair and started typing on the computer. I asked Kenny “What just happen?” and he didn’t remember any of it. I told him he needed go back to the doctor. He went back to the doctor and told him what happen and he increased his Zoloft.

That’s it! No counseling for him or I to understand what was going on, nothing.

The two of us were still fighting horribly and after another blowout he decided to spend the night at the barracks with his buddies on June 22, 2008. Ken went to his detail the next morning and we made up. We had an OBGYN appointment that morning, because I was 4 months pregnant, and Ken was going to meet me there. He asked his friend if he could take a nap in his room until the appointment and his friend said yes. That was around 9:00am. His friend came back to his room at 1:00pm and found Kenny lying in bed not moving. He rolled him over to find Ken had passed away in his sleep.



Because Ken was found alone in the room there was a criminal investigation. They determined there was no foul play and ruled his death accidental. The initial autopsy report did not show anything so all of Ken’s reports and test were sent to DC to be analyzed to determine cause of death. After waiting for 4 months the doctor who wrote the autopsy report said there were no drugs or alcohol in Ken’s system. They also didn’t find any Zoloft which I knew he took every day. The only thing they could find was a trace of difluoroethane which is a common ingredient in “dust-off” So in his opinion, this was probably Ken’s cause of death.



The investigators did find one can of dust-off in the room behind the T.V. on the opposite side of the room where Ken was found. According to the National Institute on Drug abuse the key danger of inhalant abuse is Sudden Sniffing Death Syndrome. This is when a huffer dies within seconds of taking a hit of the inhalant, usually from heart failure. Since the only can of dust-off was found on the other side of the room on a shelf behind a T.V, wouldn’t this cause of death be unlikely? I may never know how my husband died, and nothing will bring him back. But I do know the Army did not provide him or I with counseling for his diagnosed PTSD. He was given medication and told that would solve all of his problems. Ken was scheduled for deployment again in Nov. 2008



Why isn’t there a program in place for these soldiers to get the help they need when returning home from deployment? Why are these kids given a choice to get counseling, and make it seem like punishment, or an embarrassment? Scheduled counseling should be mandatory when a soldier is put on any anti-depressant or antipsychotic medication. More intense screening should be done to determine brain injury for soldiers who had been hit with IED’s. Sgt. Sipes (kens team leader) told me that “one of the IED’s that they hit was so bad that Kenny was bleeding from his ears. He and Ken were taken to a Med Aide station to be observed for 48 hours but no tests were done.

He said Ken was never the same after that. He was always the comic relief guy, he said. Ken would make light of any situation they were in, and always had a smile on his face. He told me after that day his personality changed. He kept to himself and the sgt. knew that there was something wrong with him. They came home shortly after that. Sgt. Sipes was one of the soldiers who found Ken that terrible day and tried to revive him.



My husband was 21 years old. He left behind a wife, stepdaughter, mother, 2 younger brothers, sister, grandparents, many friends, and a son who he will never get to see.

Please don’t let this happen to another soldier, or family. Better screening of Traumatic Brain Injuries and mandatory counseling for returning solders’ who are prescribed anti depressants or anti psychotic medication should be our governments’ top priority.



Because of the autopsy determination myself and my children have been denied the VA's DIC benefits. My husband had not changed his beneficiary from his mother to me after our marriage of which he was supposed to be counseled on and never was after our marriage. My mother in-law has received the insurance money. She does not help me out. I am on SSI and live with my mother, daughter, son, brother, sister and nephew. Why am I and my family being punished for what the military has "determined" to be my husband’s cause of death? Why didn't my husband receive the help he needed instead of the medications handed out like candy. If my husband had been receiving help for his diagnosed PTSD this would never have happened. Now, I am without my husband. My children without a father. How are families of soldiers that commit suicide awarded the benefits and not mine? Isn’t it time the military supported it's soldiers and their families? Please help me to receive the DIC benefits that my husband's family deserves for his service to our country.



It is time the military stands behind its families of the soldiers that have served our country. Death should not be discriminated and families should not suffer any more then they have. If a soldier gives up and commits suicide the family is taken care of. These families have a right to know that if what the servicemen and women are asked to do and if what they have seen affects them mentally, their service to our country is forgotten and the surviving family’s will also be forgotten.



We have also been in contact with Mrs.XXXXX. Her husband passed away days after Kenny from the same circumstances. She was told before she received the death certificate that the cause of death would need to be changed in order for her to receive her benefits (which read the same on my husband’s certificate). She did so before applying and has received the benefits. We were not told this. Also, her husband did not receive the help he also deserved to prevent his death from happening. We are not alone and unfortunately unless mandatory counseling is given to these soldiers no mater the rank, there will be more of us. Please help us with our fight for our survivor benefits, to reclassify my husband’s death, and to enforce counseling for these soldiers to prevent this from happening. My husband did not die from huffing, an overdose or suicide. My husband’s death was clearly service related and he never came home from Iraq.

How can this be ignored?



Sincerely,

Chriscedia D. Jacobs

"

(423) NOTHING BUT TALK

THURSDAY (6/11/09)

Gunman kills guard at U.S. Holocaust Museum
No.
I can’t imagine the foul deed set between this dog’s teeth
Leaning awkwardly against death’s unbending carry.
There must be something- illusory power tethering murder?
An unplumbed urge sitting in some bar with an open tab?
Something that has nothing to do with killing a human being.
There are other dogs howling his name, should we be alarmed?
Yes.

Iran's president attacks election rivals
There’s something quaint about this story.
Something evocative in its promenade,
Swagger if you will.

U.N. powers agree on draft North Korea sanctions
Hideous grins loom over the collapsing façade
Each with its own face, its own scheme; enclosure.
Pin the beast down… brand a sneer upon mad lips.

A Fixture on the Supremacist Fringe
HITLER’S WORST MISTAKE:
HE DIDN’T GAS THE JEWS.
JAMES VON BRUNN
WWW.HOLYWESTERNEMPIRE.ORG
Remember, the Federal Reserve Act (1913) gave JEWS control of America’s MONEY. Followed by control of America’s main sources of information .
Early on, during the war-torn 20th Century, the only broadcast networks : ABC, CBS, and NBC — were JEW owned. Today, JEWS control ALL important sources of information (The major networks, Newspapers, Magazines, Book-publishing, Tin-Pan Alley, Music & Recording Industry, Hollywood, Encyclopedia Britannica, Public schools and Universities, the Catholic Church, etc.).
Bit by bit Liberalism ascended. Bit by bit the Constitution was re-interpreted. Bit by bit government institutions and Congressmen fell into JEW hands — then U.S. diplomacy, businesses, resources and manpower came under JEW control.
Whitemen sat on their collective asses and did NOTHING - NOTHING BUT TALK. Never before in World history has a Nation so completely been conquered with absolutely NO physical resistance.
Whites LOVE their Enemies.
Today, on the World stage, Whitemen are LAUGHED AT, their women bred by stronger men.
And America ?
America is a Third-World racial garbage-dump — stupid, ignorant, dead-broke, and terminal.
Prepare to die, Whitey.
jvb-88

Von Brunn,
Your rambling, unbearable descent into artful madness followed hard upon
Your terribly ordinary yet dreadfully mad, compulsive mind,
Found you to be altogether artless when all was said and done.

Holocaust shooter was big fan of Sarah Palin by Gryphen of The Immoral Minority
This is the oven your grandmother baked with all of her life.
She spent every day here… just baking, baking and baking.

Where did grandma get such a frightfully big oven, Mama?

She could not say. She would not say. She thought,
Sears? JC Penny? Wal-Mart? K-Mart? Auschwitz?
It was her job, dear, baking. She baked everything.
She’d’ve baked your grandfather had she known what he’d do.

At least 9 dead in Pakistani hotel blast
The living will and must one day join the dead.
Terror will and must discover its own way out.
But, only this am I sure of- nothing lasts.

Nearby Star May Be Getting Ready to Explode
We still had doorways filled with the hungry,
Air choked gasoline cars and unbuttoned wars
When the sun exploded. A sight to behold.

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

WHO AM I AND WHERE ARE WE GOING?

I was visiting an old friend, Graeme, on the net yesterday (Facebook) and he introduced me to the singer, Chocolate Genius and his song, "My Mom". I was very moved by the song and my muse began to scream, as she's in the habit of doing. Hours later, the next day, I was driving into town and listening to my Bright Eyes disc "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" track #1- "At the Bottom of Everything" and my muse began screaming in my ear that this was the song I was to use in combination with "My Mom" as inspiration to write a poem for Alzheimers and peace. Enjoy...

(Video thanks to Graeme of Left in East Dakota)

We’re free and brave and we act as if we’re going to a party on the sun,
An all night party with the moon, the clouds, the planets and our guns…

We act like we’re going to a ball with all the amenities of wealth.
We act as if we’ve got it made- Got our money and our health.
We act as if we’re not suffering and not causing anybody harm
When, truth be told, we’ve got it all so completely, sadly wrong.

We are spoiled rotten and we’re set, so deeply set within our ways,
And we’ll not change a thing until we've killed all the Arabs and the gays…

We mustn’t look down our noses while snorting oil and hurling down abuse
The planet will look as if it’s square and that there’s nothing here to lose.
We think so much of ourselves and we still pat one another on the back,
“We’re number one” runs through our heads but that train is off its tracks.

Make amends while we can and we’ve a chance to save our multi-colored skins.
I say we make it right while we can still recall the names of family and friends…

It’s fleeting, life and all it holds, and can be taken one stem cell at a time;
One transitory instant we exist and in the next we unexpectedly decline.
I say we make the most of what we’ve got riding on this, our grateful life,
Let’s break down the walls of freedom and have the world over for a night.

Let’s bring our laughter and affection and leave all weapons locked away
And just move and laugh and breathe as one and never break away…

We must take hold of this moment and let it swell, let it open deep inside.
We must liberate all the innocents now before one more’s allowed to die.
We must settle our past dues with people we’ve hurt and we’ve wronged.
We must live, we must live, we must live, we must live like we belong…

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

(The poem's rhythm could somewhat follow the tune below if it were to be sung...)

family and loved ones

"

in light of the recent round of gay marriage legislation, endless war and occupation, immigration roundups, and overall sense of doom and foreboding about nearly everything, i thought we could use some beauty and warmth. i love van morrison- and i searched high and low for a free recording of him- to no avail. i own irish heartbeat and while i am not irish, i can appreciate the traditional music. however, this song- written by van morrison- is my favorite. enjoy and hug someone you love if you can...

van morrison- irish heartbeat

Oh won't you stay
Stay a while with your own ones
Don't ever stray
Stray so far from your own ones
'cause the world is so cold
Don't care nothing for your soul
That you share with your own ones

Don't rush away
Rush away from your own ones
Just one more day
One more day with your own ones
cause the world is so cold
Don't care nothing bout your soul
That you share with your own ones

There's a stranger
And he's standing at your door
Might be your best friend
might be your brother
You may never know

I'm going back
Going back to my own ones
Come back to talk
Talk a while with my own ones
'cause the world is so cold
Don't care nothing bout your soul
You share with your own ones

Oh won't you stay
One more day with your own ones
Don't rush away
Rush away from your own ones
This old world is so cold,
Don't care nothing for your soul
You share with your own ones

billy connolly singing irish heartbeat

"

TUESDAY (6/9/09)

Mercy plea for held US reporters
Euna Lee and Laura Ling were not alone in their frantic plea.
The parent’s gasps were sentenced to twelve years of labor-
A heaving wave smothering freedom’s beacon;
China’s Guantanamo.

Crews find more bodies from Air France crash
Wind, rain, lightening, sky, wish…
Floating now. Moving us down,
A weight atop such laden grief.
Wind, rain, lightening, sky, wish…

CIA: Keep Documents From Bush Era Sealed
Secret codes, men in black suits, government assassins,
Covert operations, state secrets, ticking time bombs,
Civilization in peril and grandiose, riveting car chases…

I’m no longer convinced that James Bond isn’t realistic,
Isn’t a mirror image of our special agents in action.
At least it gives justification for not getting at the truth.

U.S. forces build in Afghanistan
Adversity sinks its teeth into 20/20 vision
Acting as omen for the blow that’s sure to come.
March on America, into the goddamned sun!

FBI Director Defends Use of Informants in Mosques
Worshipping god-fowled information
Fells the wall between prayer
And the listener;
Their ears to God’s lips.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell via The Pagan Sphinx
If we tossed our minds out to sea
They’d not know of our blindness.
We’d not know of their mindless natter
And our fervent double standards.
We’d neither know, nor ask;
Useless as our feigned equality.

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

LONG AND BROKEN

Name That Racist Tune With Daniel Carver
-Caution: Disturbing racist slurs and language throughout video-

Hat Tip to We are Respectable Negroes-

Levees.Org

BREATHING ART AGAIN

(Ben Heine - Cartoons)

Ceaselessly giving.
Art opens inward
The generous spirit of the heart.

Art widens the eyes,
The soul,
Then seeks you within it.

Rigid and hot,
It needs freedom, faith
To consider where it’s taken you,

Like dipping your mind’s brush
Into the cleansing water,
Thoughts swim, breathing like fish.

Now given to, submerged,
Bathed in the shape of it,
What wrangles your soul?

If you find your breath full...
Think not of the artist’s truth,
Think but of your own;

Spirit and the heart of hope
Weep
And question why…


© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

In Defence of Art

Silenced by KO

Enter Tlaxcala

Ben Heine - Cartoons

Billy Graham & the Rise of the Republican South: An Interview With Historian Steven P. Miller

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

In the age of Barack Obama, both the Republican Party as well as the South appear marginalized and out of step with the rest of America. Yet it wasn’t so long ago that the South represented the foundation of America’s conservative hegemony. Starting with Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, the Republican Party prevailed in nine out of the next fourteen presidential elections with a reliable Southern base.

Specifically, the Republican Party exploited white Southern resentment against the cause of civil rights and integration. The "Southern strategy" as it was later called, enabled Republicans to end the Democratic Party's previous domination of the South following the Civil War. A key figure in that realignment was the renowned evangelist Billy Graham.

Historian, Steven P. Miller, first explored Billy Graham’s role in this realignment with his doctorate thesis entitled, “The Politics of Decency: Billy Graham, Evangelicalism, and the End of the Solid South, 1950-1980.” Miller later converted that thesis into his current book, Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South, recently published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Miller’s book delineates how Graham allowed his iconic celebrity to be used by national politicians so they could make inroads into the South. His book also details how Graham capitalized on his leverage as a regional heavyweight to influence presidents and policy.

With President Dwight Eisenhower, Graham had an ideological soul mate as both valued “moderation” between segregationists and those who championed integration. Graham believed that racism could not be overcome through legislation and the heavy hand of federal power. Instead, he advocated changing the hearts and minds of people “one soul at a time” through his integrated “crusades” where he preached his love thy neighbor gospel.

Under the presidencies of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, Graham straddled the fence between promoting racial tolerance and preserving local southern autonomy or “states rights.” In that regard, Graham was an intimate part of Richard Nixon's inner circle after he became president in 1968. Graham’s defenders argue that he helped the South transition from its shameful past while preserving stability. His critics claim that Graham was a cowardly apologist for white privilege who didn’t do nearly enough to advance the cause of civil rights. Personally, like many liberals, I'm partial to the latter argument.

Ross Douthat writes in his April 19th review of Miller's book in the New York Times that,

“Neither story is the whole truth, but both are true. And it’s a credit to Steven P. Miller that his ‘Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South,’ a study of the evangelist’s relationship to the cause of civil rights on the one hand and the cause of conservatism on the other, does justice to the tensions and complexities involved — for Graham, for the South and for the country. In Miller’s account, one of 20th-century America’s most important religious leaders emerges as a representative political actor as well, whose example is worth pondering less because he was courageous than because he often wasn’t.

The story of the civil rights era is usually told as a collision between heroes and villains: the marchers on one side and the K.K.K. on the other; the Martin Luther Kings and Lyndon Johnsons making the way straight for justice, and the George Wallaces and Bull Connors standing sneering in their way. But the movement’s successes and failures were ultimately determined by the choices of more unheroic men — men like Billy Graham.”

Miller, who earned a PH.D degree in history from Vanderbilt University and has taught at numerous institutions, including Washington University, Webster University and Goshen College, agreed to a telephone podcast interview with me about his book and our conversation was just under thirty-six minutes.

Among the topics covered is the difference between hard core fundamentalism and evangelicalism, Graham’s role in facilitating Republican inroads into the previously reliable Democratic South, whether his middle ground on civil rights was courageous or cowardly, Graham's alliance with Eisenhower, his friendship with Lyndon Johnson, the intimate collaboration with Richard Nixon and the legacy he left behind.

Please refer to the flash media player below.



This interview can also be at accessed at no cost via the Itunes Store by searching for either the “Intrepid Liberal Journal” or “Robert Ellman.”

Naked PeaceLuis plays Vincente Fernandez

""


PeaceLuis's comment: "Self-Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man" evolving as Exhibitionist wearing only a guitar Stay in Bed & Grow Hair Hair P.E.A.C.E.

I know PeaceLuis. We're not best friends or anything, but I know him well enough to know that he has made a live-long commitment to peace.

I met him among a group of activists who stand vigil for peace and against active warfare in the Middle East. When you're just standing around holding a sign for an hour at a time, you have a chance to get to know one another. PeaceLuis is a Peace Corp alumni; he must have been one of the first.

He is an artist who does a lot of performance art. Recently he's taken to producing YouTube videos. I'm a subscriber. This is his latest one; at this moment it has 36 views. I think it is a bit of a take off (ha ha) on John Lennon and Yoko Ono's bed-in stunt.

Peace Luis puts it out there for peace. What am I doing for peace?

""

(421) SOMETHING IS PLEADING

SUNDAY (6/7/09)

Obama remembers bravery of D-Day vets
They moved down into the valley of the shadow
And found death there. They marched into its jaws,
Quaking at its countenance with an eagles fortitude
Leaving their breath for it to commit to memory.
They battled onward so this day could breathe,
Saved this world that we might salvage our spirits,
That we might remember what it meant to live.

Obama speech to Muslims "deceptive," Taliban says
Grim granite fiends pounce upon the resistant lips of man…
Beast and man roam together; their pleasure reaching out like arms
that fold and salute desolate idols carved out of stone
lining nameless streets that lead to unknown tombs.

Insurgents Increasingly Use Teenagers in Iraq Attacks
Something is calling out. Something is pleading.
O! The bloodstruck sidewalks do not go down.
Something tells us that the world is guilty of their use.

U.S. contractors held in Green Zone killing
I’m quite sure that as I raise my weapon
They stand still as death, ready as hate,
Hunched down in the zone
That was eagerly assembled for slaughter.

"Bob Cesca Puts (Torture) Pieces Together" from Mad as Hell Liberal
The scrape of agony- dark, deep and rasping…
Ogres stretch my limbs in dreams and
Deceit plods along the busted and breaking walls.
O! Why must the wretched bile move so stealthily
While the willing mouths of truth go under?
Strap, wrench, bend, split, crack and drown!
We are laden with lifeless things that endure…

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

BROKEN

U.S. contractors held in Green Zone killing

Information is temporarily unavailable.

Iraq suicide attack kills man, hurts police chief

War concludes, piercing the proof of silence;
Influence spent, the station of splendor set,
Undressed in stillness; an ambush on our union.

But let’s not paint the words; let us just say it-
War, for the warrior, never ends.
War, for the dead, lives on without them.
War outlives our marriage to grief.

Grief, then, outlasts the lover’s ceremony.
It beats it back,
Rupturing it with devoted impatience,
Drowning it under earth’s damp ground,
Like a monstrous wave unleashed by frail levee.

We sense the dark curve of evermore run screaming
Along the edge.

Not many could keep on in this perilous wave,
No love, no devotion, no vigor, no union,
None, save for war…

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Effects of Iraq War on American Citizens

Progressive.org - Broken by This War

PTSD Personal to President Obama's family

Some of my Republican friends just don't know what to think of me. I have a habit of getting on their nerves at times. What we all have to remember is that no matter what side of the political debate they arrive on, they do care about the men and women serving this country. I see it in what they do everyday. While their elected have a habit of saying they support the troops, the fact is, they vote against them all the time when they need the government and the congress to step up, fund the VA and make sure the DOD are taking care of the wounded, instead of just tossing them over. Republican voters don't know this. They thought McCain support the troops and the veterans even though he voted against them all the time. They just assumed he did because he said so, much like they thought he supported the GI Bill, even though he campaigned against it and then didn't bother to show up for the vote. That kind of lip service support is what got our wounded troops and veterans into the mess they're in right now.

Aside from that, one of the other issues I have getting the facts across to them is President Obama and Michelle. Michelle has taken on military families and has been trying to bring their issues into the spotlight. She's met with probably hundreds of military families. President Obama, well, aside from the biggest VA presidential budget request before congress, he also served on the Veterans Affairs Committee, which was also responsible for the biggest VA increase in over 30 years. Not bad at all. But they think he hates veterans. Go figure that one. All they have to do is look up the facts and know what reality is. The other thing is that aside from the funding requests he's been responsible for, the man has paid attention.

Read about what he just said about PTSD and know, when it comes to this invisible wound, President Obama has his eyes and his heart open.

PTSD Personal to President Obama's family
When I tell people that President Obama has been paying attention to PTSD since he was a Senator, they don't believe me. They don't believe me when I tell them that he's so informed on the problems associated with this wound, that he picked the best program to address it. He went to the Montana National Guard to find out about their program. I track all of this everyday, usually with 70 hours a week invested in it, so for me to know this program was one of the best, what I've invested in learning about it brought me to it. For Obama, able to pick any program across the nation including the failure programs the government came out with, he picked one that works. That proved something to me right there. He has to care to even know about it. Well, now maybe the rest of the people in this country I've been trying to get thru to will finally understand why it is that they now have more hope of healing than at any other time. To President Obama, PTSD is personal, familiar and family.

Veterans and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
By Maggie Vespa
Story Published: Jun 5, 2009 at 9:55 PM CDT
It was somewhat unexpected. In the middle of his highly publicized trip to Germany this morning, President Obama got personal."Because my great uncle, my grandmother's brother, was part of the unit that first liberated Buchenwahl," said the president this morning. But for some, what may be an unexpected anecdote, for others may be much needed recognition. Because while it's a disease that's plagued many for generations, it's only recently been brought out into the open."He suffered what we now know, what we call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder."Over twelve-hundred veterans in Illinois alone suffer from P.T.S.D.,and while treatment for it is at an all time high, experts say, for many returned from duty, it's still vastly under diagnosed."Oftentimes, they're in denial and don't want to seek help. They feel like if they ask for help, that they're weak," said Kathy Thomas, clinical social worker for the Department of Veterans Affairs.go here for more
http://www.week.com/news/local/47110497.html

D-Day June 6th

A day to remember the thousands who lost their lives on the beaches of northern (Normandy) France, to begin the end of the Nazi's European dominance of terror, and to end WW II. To be sure, it should never be forgotten, especially since many in the World and in the United States claim that the holocaust never happened. Holocaust deniers are some of the dumbest, hate filled people on Earth. Yet, there are millions of them. This is why it is important for History to record and remember the millions of deaths during WW II.

It is a fact that America's entrance into the war, won the war. It is also a fact that Americans did not want to enter the war, and for years, millions died while we stayed out of it.

Poland was invade and the Nazi's started their murder machine. England suffered the first rocket bombings in the World's History. France fell to the Nazi's. China and much of the Pacific Islands were raped by Japan. The human extermination camps were working at full speed. Finally in December of 1941, Japan attacked the United States naval fleet in Perl Harbor, Hawaii, and the war came to America.

At that time we were a weak military country, but within 18 months we were pouring out planes, tanks, artillery, etc., and fighting both Germany and Japan. By the end of the war we would not only be the super power of the World, but with our super atomic weapons, change the World forever. Peace through strength, had proven its certainty. The death and carnage of the war, was unbelievable. Tens of millions around the World had died an awful death. Almost 500,000 Americans lost their lives. Over 10 million Americans were called to serve.

WW II had started less than 20 years after the end of WW I (the war to end all wars). Another foreign war that could not have been won without the help of America.

It is not an overstatement, or bragging to say that America has truly saved the World from oppression. We have proven that military strength is the sure way to secure freedom. For those of you who believe that violence solves nothing, History is not on your side.

Is there such thing as a good war? NO.
Are there times when we must fight, kill, and die? Yes.

That does not condone the misuse of our power, or the mistaken idea that all people of the World must live by our ideology. We, the people of America, are responsible when our government chooses to send our young people to fight and die. We have made mistakes, and people have died because of our mistakes. Yet, there is no denying that America is the shinning light of freedom throughout the World.

That position demands that we act responsibly. There can be no wars of opportunity, only wars of moral destiny. We need leaders with humanity. We don't need leaders to tell us what our individual morals should be, or that the World must all have the same morals. We need leaders who act on our behalf, with morality.

TIME

I stand with Judge Sotomayor

Stand with Judge Sotomayor Against the Right-Wing Attacks

Sonia Sotomayor is an accomplished scholar, celebrated judge, and devoted public servant. But despite her impressive credentials, right-wing critics have responded to her historic nomination with thinly veiled sexist and racist attacks. Please join us in standing with Judge Sotomayor and urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to give her a swift confirmation. (Please sign it now!)

John Lee Hooker - Saturday Sonata XXI

Hobo Blues & Boom Boom & Boogie Chillen



John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was a Grammy Award-winning influential African American singer-songwriter and blues guitarist, born in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi. Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a half-spoken style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was rhythmically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his masterful and idiosyncratic blues guitar and singing. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen" (1948) and "Boom Boom" (1962).

Hooker's life experiences were chronicled by several scholars and often read like a classic case study in the racism of the music industry, although he eventually rose to prominance with memorable songs and influence on a generation of musicians.

Slithering under the...

Makeshift Pyre

MAKESHIFT PYRE

Daniel James Murray Charged With Making Threats Against Obama In Utah
Federal prosecutors have charged a man with making threats against President Barack Obama after he allegedly told a bank employee in Utah he was on a mission to kill the president.

Johnny Bounds at 11:00pm May 31 Facebook
“THE LAST MAN NAMED HUSSEIN THAT MESSED WITH THIS COUNTRY WAS HUNG IN PUBLIC, I SAY WE KEEP THE STREAK ALIVE"

Slithering under the boards that are used to construct the coffins
you move with the coldness of such loathing; your countenance,
that of confusion, a beast without an alternative to its actions,
plans that hold no magic or beauty or love. You cannot rest. Your
rage finds its way over the cold floor, which is little comfort for
a mind as destructive as it is empty. You’re trapped under the heap
of your making; a makeshift pyre waiting on you to sleep, pausing
on the hatred to consume every pore until you destroy something.

You could have risen to change, to the worlds open arms, yet you chose
To accentuate the thing you knew would be your undoing; brutality.
There are many reasons to be angry; there are old men rotting in churches,
Turning the spoils of a god into riches, men and women waiting for the chance
To neglect a child, liars and thieves waiting for the dispossessed to fall to
Steal mere pennies that would better serve a wishing well than they, and
Then, there you are, slithering under the boards stacked for making coffins;
Living is a bitter pill lodged in your throat, death, a glass of water.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

What is too good for wounded veterans?

This is my first post. I was just invited to post and considering that fighting for veterans with PTSD has been my life since 1982, this invitation couldn't have come at a better time. I blog over at Wounded Times if you are not familiar with me. I'm a Chaplain working with veterans and my husband is a Vietnam vet.

Right now the veterans need your help, especially the veterans with PTSD. There is a Bill sponsored by Congressman John Hall that has just made it thru the VA Subcommittee. Some Republicans voted against it telling me that when it comes to a full house vote, we'll see more Republicans saying "it's too good for veterans" instead of asking is it good enough. It also says that when it comes to the Senate, there will be an ever bigger fight from more Senators thinking along the same lines and saying no. While Democrats will hold the majority, we need to make sure that this Bill gets as many votes as possible. Not just for the sake of the newer veterans but for the sake of all of our veterans as a way of telling them, yes, we are a grateful nation and nothing is too good for them.

The rest is what I posted on my blog.


How can any Republican or Democrat say anything is too good for the troops or our veterans? These are the same people that were in position to send them into combat in the first place right? If a man or woman is willing to set aside "normal" life as a civilian, ask their families to sacrifice for the sake of the nation, then risk that life facing death or life changing wounds, how can there be anything at all that is "too good" for them in return? Think about it.

Think about what we ask of them and what they deliver on. What is it they ask in return? They ask that they be only used as a last resort; they are provided with the plans to carry the mission they are given out; they are trained to do their jobs; they are fed and clothed with uniforms that don't fall apart in the crotch (yes, this happened too) and in the end, they ask their families are taken care of if they pay with their lives, and should they live, they will not have to suffer neglect or financial hardships for surviving. Not a lot to ask for since from every corner of this nation we are able to spout out "Support the Troops" "Freedom isn't free" and use the words "from a grateful nation" yet when you get right down to the bottom of all this talk, talk is cheap but actually doing what we claim is very expensive.

I've been tracking PTSD in this country for far too long to know exactly how bad it is for them and how much worse it's going to get. They have to put up with people saying PTSD is not real and that they are just trying to suck off the system. Lord help these people if they ever encounter a traumatic event that changes the rest of their lives, but in order for that to happen they would have to have a tender soul and feel for others first. So that's unlikely.

They have to carry on with the mission watching over the backs of their buddies, while nightmares and flashbacks are eating them away. They have to then come home, bulldoze past ignorant fools trying to make them feel as if they are responsible for the pain they are carrying with them, and then, then they get to fight the VA to have their claims honored. No easy task either when they have to prove what moment in time did it to them. It's almost as if the VA cannot understand that sometimes it's not one, two or three times, but hundreds of them. Simply being able to show that they were fine when they were in boot camp and not fine after their deployment into hell the first time, the second time or third time and so on, would be honorable but all they have to go thru is just not enough for some law makers who have never once lived with them, talked to them or held them in their arms.

John McCain and Bush whined about the GI Bill being "too good" and would make the troops want out to go to college. Members of congress, guess which side, took to the floor of the congress and said there just wasn't enough money to increase the VA to take care of the wounded when they absolutely no problem at all funding two military campaigns without plans or accounting at the same time both were producing more wounded veterans. Was that really supporting the troops?

Want to use the excuse about money? Well that one doesn't work either because when you consider how much they could be making as a private citizen instead of military pay, you would then understand that they are not in the military for the money. Then consider when they are wounded by body or soul, and they cannot work they receive a lot less than they could working. The VA does not pay bonuses and it does not pay overtime. It does not give merit raises but it does give measly cost of living increases. If you think those increases keeps pace with inflation or what gas prices did last year, you must be living under a rock.

Set aside the over 900,000 claims in the system already still waiting to be processed and denied that they have to wait their turn on. Set aside the fact that between now and the time they begin to be treated, PTSD gets worse and when you add in the extra burden of bills that cannot be paid because they can't work and the VA won't approve their claim, is hell for them and their families. Set aside the fact that for the last 8 years we had people in charge without a clue what to do. Set all of that aside and then please tell me, what could possibly be too good for any of them after all we ask of them?

So please tell me how any member of congress would ever say that anything is too good for any of these men and women? Ever think about how many years lapse between the time a soldier or Marine is wounded by PTSD and they actually sought help? How about over 30 years later and they don't get retro pay for the 30 years they were suffering in silence. Think about how much money they save the government? Then take it a step further and look at the Korean veterans and WWII veterans seeking help for the first time.

My father-in-law had a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart because of serving this country in WWII, but never sought one dime from the VA. We had to pay to bury him. My husband came home in 1971 and knew he brought home an enemy inside of him but he thought he could work and the VA was for the "guys missing legs" so he didn't receive a dime until 1999, six years after PTSD was full blown and killing him. He knew something was wrong in 1971 but he didn't cost the government a dime all that time. He sucked it up as PTSD got worse. He had a job and made good money, worked overtime, got longevity bonuses and raises along with promotions for when he learned to use another piece of equipment. PTSD got so bad, his doctors told him he had to stop working. That, well that came two years shy of 20 years on the job. That cost us money as well as the lost overtime and raises but I still had my husband living instead of in the ground with a very early death. Then we had to go without any income from him while we fought to have his claim approved. All he had was a decreased pension coming in instead of the pay check we were used to living off of. His retroactive pay only went back to the time he filed his claim and not back to Vietnam. Think of how much money he saved the government and what it cost him to do it.


If you want to try to tell me that making it easier to have a claim for PTSD approved is "too good" for the men and women serving this country, you better be prepared for an ear full because when you consider that civilians like you and me would get workman's comp if we suffered from trauma on the job and they can't just walk off the job and go to a trauma center or make an appointment with a psychologist, you'd know what they have to go thru. They have to still pick up their weapon and risk their lives the next day and the next day until they can do it no more. They have to stay until they are ordered back home. Everything they do from the time they enlist until the time they are discharged is for the sake of all of us. So why aren't we asking will we ever be good enough to them instead of what's too good for them?

Make sure your congressman votes to approve this bill and get it done for their sake!

Subcommittee approves bill easing PTSD compensation for vets
By Otto Kreisher
CongressDaily June 4, 2009
The House Veterans Affairs Disability Assistance Subcommittee on Wednesday approved a bill that would make it easier for veterans to receive financial compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bill was referred to the full committee on a voice vote, despite votes against it from at least two of the three Republican members.

Sponsored by Disability Assistance Subcommittee Chairman John Hall, D-N.Y., and 16 other Democrats, the bill would allow a veteran to qualify for the monthly compensation for combat-related PTSD just by demonstrating that the psychological disorder was caused by something that happened while he or she was serving in the "combat theater" as defined by the Defense secretary. Currently, the Veterans Affairs Department requires proof that the stress occurred during "combat with the enemy."
go here for more
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0609/060409cdam1.htm

WEDNESDAY (6/4/09)

N.H. governor signs gay marriage bill
Strolling through the violet forest
Bonnets of green, sleeves of red and caps of brown
Shake their hips to the breeze.
Born there, grow old there… die there.
They’ve not much say in the affair.
Born red. Born green. Born Brown.
Living. Breathing. Crying. Laughing with the wind.

New Air France debris found, explosion unlikely
Steadfast in this expanse, uncovered
And brazen like a worrisome thing,
Undeniably fixed upon its hesitant horror.
When did all catastrophes become suspect terror?
(We need end our addiction to fanatical dread.)

GOP Rivals Hint at Runs in 2012
Wherever sorrow travels they come running
Breathing hard, waiting for an opening,
A moment of glee to place their gloom
And echo the masters of doom-
“Let me lead you there, away from where I led you before.”
Don’t follow; turn away from its wagging lips.

Obama Touts Muslim Roots
O show compassion for mankind.
Raise him up, bring water to her lips.
Sing praises to the seeds of truth.
Don’t fall back of this, meet it smiling.

Cheney's Role In CIA Briefings Unusual, But Legal
I can only imagine what moves you…
To be honest, truth is quite worthless
If it doesn’t burst forth with grand revelation.
I mean, if the truth’s been AWOL for so goddamned long,
Who the hell knows where it’s been?

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

The End Of The Republican Party ?

And The American People Helped

by TIME

In the polls, the American people support the Republicans by about 20%. More in some parts of the country and less in other parts of the country. The Republican party is quickly becoming as important as the Green, Communist, or Socialist parties. They have no one to blame. but themselves.

It's a combination effort needed to destroy the second biggest political party in the country, and they will probably never die out completely, at least not the radical right wingers. There will always be the haters of the party who still believe that the destiny of America, means white America.

Most importantly, in the last 30 years the conservative philosophy of less taxes, less government regulation, and smaller government has become a proven failure. Not that the Republicans ever reached success at that stated philosophy, and that was just one reason the American people have rejected the honesty of their ideology.

President Bush was the foreseer of the failure of their economic utopia, when he declared it "Voodoo Economics." It was not an economic ideology (trickle down) invented by President Reagan. It was based in the sensible idea from hundreds of years ago, that government was to serve the people and to do that it should stay out of the way, as its people would be the driving force of its economy through their capitalistic businesses.

Having abused that ideology and their power while in office, they have wounded themselves and earned the hostility of the American people. They used hate, fear, intimidation, and illegalities in the performance of their official duties. They have been given more than a fair chance (over 30 years) to prove themselves, and they have failed.

Not only have they failed, but they have left America in worse shape than at any other time in our History. For the first time, Americans will leave a country to their offspring that is not better than it was given to them. Our ancestors must be rolling in their graves, and for good reason.

It is the American peoples reaction to their mismanagement that leaves Republicans out of the serious political discussion. Especially when their discussion of the issues includes the hate speech of "racist" as the weapon they choose to debate ideas and issues. Not only weak, but harmful to the unity of our society.

Now we can add a new nail in the coffin of the Republican party. Our new President is a very good politician. He has seen that the American people have rejected the Republicans for their exclusive, extremist ideology and has decided to help them destroy themselves.

President Obama is appointing the few Republican moderates left in the Republican party to work in his administration. This will effectively box the Republicans into their extremist viewpoint, even as they search for moderates within their party to boost their popularity in the next election cycle. This will keep these moderate Republicans out of the election cycle at least through the 2012 election.

In a true adaptation of the political tactics of Thomas Jefferson, President Obama has learned from his political History. Yet, it will not secure him the office of President in 2012, if he cannot move the American economy for the better and put people back to work. Although, Americans have been know to give their Presidents time to prove themselves. Example: voting for George Bush (43) twice.

WEDNESDAY (6/3/09)

Obama pays call to King Abdullah
It is as it has been this closeness with kings.
It is as it should be these gestures of goodwill.
It is as it shall be the backside of reason.
Truth be told, we need keep them closer.

Bagram: Obama's new Guantanamo?
New, fresh and haunted?
The siren song wafts over Bagram
Calling for warfare without anguish.
Someone needs it this way;
New. Fresh. Idealized.

Cheney Defended Interrogations
O! I’ve no room for this fear monger’s bluster!
I’ve more to do, more to add than trembling cures.
We’ve a bright and long-lasting peace to build;
Assembled from the stacks of bleached bone.

'Artery' Exhibit Prompts an Art Attack in Arkansas Town
These controversies over art give me little pause.
The paintings aren’t flamboyant, crude or outlandish.
They’re the artists thoughts, subjective, and that is all.
One would think they depicted the deceit of mankind,
But that particular work of art is reserved for bigots.

Bin Laden message: Obama sowing hatred
O! Another fear monger’s bluster paints the page!
We’ve more to do than this shaking might heal!
Don’t you know by now that we know not how to listen?
We have our own misery, our own stagnant pain to feel
And deliver and occupy and murder and drain and ignore and steal.

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

© 2007 mrp/tpm

THE DISTORTION OF EVE

Upon the homeward rumble of unkind supremacy;
The breathtaking leap of winter, and black sky…
Our marching lions return from their stalking submission,
Arriving champions, thrashing and pining for quiet
To pull open drooping eyes against the use of this globe.
When the warrior sleeps, and the higher peace consumes
And wraps around their grip, freeing the feel of the trigger,
And they know the bird’s touching down upon home
The screech of gears jostles them out of their sleep;
The vision of the children’s scattered brown skin
Surges now their scope like some distortion of Eve.
The planes tires have the shattering cries of the fallen
Breathing their last and now the ears pierce with humming;
They think, better to be home, than pleading in the shadows,
Than pulling the action and cutting strangers in two
Or seeing their own legs lying next to them…

Home! Home at last!
No more angry fingers clutching at roadsides.
No more the rigid fists of quagmire their reaping.
No more exploding flesh. No more! No more!
Let the harvest stray in the sand of that land!

Now stepping off to the touch of home,
To a streaming banner of never again.
To flag draped visions rising up chanting `hero’.
To faces stumbling among the fleshy fragments
Looking surprised, uttering unintelligible dread.

And the lion scans the gathering, piercing past the flesh
To walk through, to feel the defeated fingers of home.
Now the air broken with music blasting the newfound peace
And the mob of tears and applause consume the humming
As families look for one another to hold close this discord.

The music faded, photo snapped, banner down, they march home,
And, as the lions drift easily off to the first quiet sleep,
The rumble turns into the voice of a dark pleading,
Asking, “To what end?” “Where were you going?”
“This cloth we use to mop up the oil, wipe shame across the sand?”
The use of this realm, these three-colored banners,
Is all better washed than flown, burned or buried,
Than waved down the broken streets of home.

Even the lions now to their busy, restless lives;
Complacent and lockstep with the re-fragmenting horde.
"No! No! No! Goddmanit! We’ve yet to heal!
We’ve only managed to cover our wound and our wounding!
There’s been no aroma of peace wafting here!
Cease your goddamned marching! Cease!"

Upon the whistling street tosses the signs of conformity,
The smiling empty faces of greed and blindness.
The horrific film loop of deceitfulness.
The casting agents are auditioning our children
As extras in war movies that bow to beasts.

Will we now sleep through the harvest?
March down Old Glory Street?

Oh! Lion…
Step off your plane to the hush of peace...........

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

life is death and up is down

"Nobody told me there'd be days like these

Strange days indeed
strange days indeed.
Everybody's runnin' and no one makes a move"

i find it incredibly interesting that there is a segment of america who genuinely believes that it's ok to kill others-- despite what they are taught in church. these folks believe it's ok to take the life of another- not in self defense but 'to protect the innocent'- and despite the fact that there are laws on the books that often differ with their particular worldview. vigilante justice isn't part of any biblical passage i have read- but i guess when you believe that YOU are god- the interpretation is quite loose.

these are the same folks who condemn the islamic rite of stoning folks to death and puff up righteously and call these folks 'terrorists.' the hypocrisy and arrogance is almost as thick as the irony. looking at what i know i was taught in my bible belt, baptist upbringing- and what these folks proclaim as 'the truth'- well, somebody was taught wrong. or perhaps they have twisted the bible to their own will instead of their god's will. see, life doesn't end at birth. if you are anti abortion, then you also need to be anti capital punishment, anti torture, anti war, anti poverty,...

i am currently reading chris hedges' book 'losing moses on the freeway' and it is an eye opening read. he obviously believes in god, but he harbors no illusions about organized religions. he disects the ten commandments chapter by chapter but this is no synopsis. he uses real life situations and experiences and draws it all around and lays bare all hypocrises. i have a feeling it might be too much truth for these 'patriots', these 'god fearing christians' to handle. it might interfere with their own god complexes.

(420) IN THE FAMILY OF MAN

TUESDAY (6/2/09)

Killing puts abortion foes on defense
In worship he found his cause
In prayer he found his score
In murder he found his god

Obama hopeful on Mid-East peace
How simple it must sound
This wistful wishful flight among the fragile beams
Of stone and foul hatred.

Search Is On for Wreckage of Missing Air France Jet
Among protea, cycads, and pincushions and the stunning breath of petals
They surely float. The jagged Drakensberg Peaks, like broken teeth
Shimmering edges, dark lines, not bones, but fractured meadows.

Judge: Release Gitmo Docs
We say we’d die for our beloved country,
We proudly wave her colors and cry
At the thought of promised freedom,
Say we’d descend into the grave of valor-
But what of our torture?

4 Troops Killed In Bomb Strikes In Afghanistan
In the next battle,
The next black mound of sand
To blur our vision,
Will be war against the heart
Above our gut of reason.

We will reach up and touch
The fold of four stars.

U.N. human rights investigators enter Gaza
It’s such a madness of exploration
This “human right” mentioned now and again.
One would think that this was settled long ago.
A mad word, ‘investigation’; meaningless,
Since we’ll discover what we’ve always known.

Scott Roeder, Home Grown Terrorist, Son of O'Reilly, In the Family of the Republican Christian Conservative Coalition
But then the dreams began,
Those that conjured your aggression;
Complicit nightmares blaring out,
Encouraging the language of your god.
Sleep deeply, then awake, ready to ambush your god.
with its back to you.

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

No we didn't!

Our pundicrats love to bloviate about what a change it was when America elected its first Black president.

The trouble is that we did no such thing!

Black is culture, not race.

We will have elected our first Black president when, after taking the oath, our bling-bedecked president steps up to the podium, glares into the camera and begins his inaugural address with:

"Yo! Listen up, motherfuckers!"

Monday (6/1/09)

Last survivor of the Titanic dies

The vessel that for so long held our imagination

Is finally free of our living. …To its rest now.

May she be a reminder of man’s arrogance;

His gleeful dalliance with nature’s teeth.

This is what grows from the seeds of hate

The testament of our breathing’s riddled with slaughter.

Gruesome weapons made of man’s intolerance

Walk the world without a home- a grave nomadic betrayal.

The assassination of freewill is the irony in this riddle.

After Many Stumbles, the Fall of an American Giant

It is time for lights out; time to sleep, to dream.

“Hush now. Everyone is weary. Hush.

Drift away to your mind's eye, the olden days.

You are not alone in your grief, your failing";

At least there’s some throbbing comfort in that.

North Korea may launch intercontinental missile: report

Not the first, not the last

To frown upon man’s stage;

His unending quest for power.

But it’s the unknown end,

The final curtain,

That awaits our applause.

Pro-Lifers Fear Backlash After Murder

“Pro-life” is subjective; death penalty, pre-emptive war,

Poverty, smog, pharmaceuticals, neglect,

Indigenous genocide, religious persecution…

“Pro-lifers” are slain by their own failings.

Darfuri Women Live 'nightmare,' Study Says

They move like the lion,

These rapists, these brooding beasts;

With honed claws and an angry use

They seize more than flesh.

Homeland Security Detains Nobel Peace Laureate

We stand in windowless cubicles waiting,

Seeking answers, shafts of dream to fall upon us.

As we idle, the earth holds little mystery for us;

Nature moves past, growth languishes, hearts wane,

Spirits dissolve, knowledge emboldens our warring.

And what of peace?

Peace is indefinitely detained.

© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman