Kris Krisofferson: "In the News"

"I want nothing but the ending of the war. No more killing, or it's over and the mystery won't matter anymore."

If wimmin were the ones strategizing and deciding when or if anyone should go to war...

More Archaeology Damage...

The minarets of the Askariya Shine
A series of blasts have destroyed two minarets at an already damaged Shia shrine in the northern Iraqi town of Samarra. The explosions were heard in the vicinity of the Ashariya mosque at about 9:00 am on Wednesday.

Police said the Shia-dominated ministry had been responsible for security at the mosque, after taking over from local security forces in April. In February 2006, the highly revered shrine was bombed by alleged al-Quaeda fighters. The attack destroyed its golden dome.

The bombing last year triggered nationwide Shia and Sunni sectarian clashes. The Askariya contains the tombs of the tenth and eleventh imams, Ali al-Hadi, who died in 868, and his son Hassan Askariya, who died in 874. Descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, Shias consider the two imams among his natural successors.

I've recently made it clear how disturbed I am by the destruction of the ancient buildings and artifacts...well...in any country. But we are dealing with Iraq now...and a war that never should have taken place. A failed war at that. That these things of antiquity have so grossly and negligently been disregarded by anyone that can think or has eyes in their head is beyond me. Bottom line...we cannot make these things come back to life. Which brings me to the legacy of death for this country of Iraq. Blood letting on both sides...leading nowhere...just draining into the sands of time. We must be relentless in our quest for PEACE...relentless!

I think we have a new endeavor approaching us though...a new consideration...a new battle of wills...like we needed more of that. Like Bob Dylan said back in the 60's..."when we they ever learn?" How many times must a man look up...before he can see the sky? The answer is blowing in the wind...and I think it is a cold ill wind blowing our way. No offense Bob.

We've Been Betrayed...

Last November we voted the Democrats in position because they promised us the reward of working in our interests. Slaps head...we could have had a V-8! I think the reality is that we really in the end knew this would happen. Oh...we didn't want it to...hoped it wouldn't...despite our honest efforts to prevent it. Our situation with the leadership that we have is just a pus filled sore waiting to split open and dump its contents onto an unsuspecting multitude of good honest folk. We actually believed our leaders and trusted them to do right by us...for one, they said that they would. I'm cynical just about all the time...and even I bought into it...because I desperately wanted someone to genuinely care.


We've needed someone to care about 'we the people' for 6 years now and counting. I feel I've pathetically had unrealistic hopes of a better world, better America...better everything because I want it desperately for all of us. I'm not a selfish person...I'm willing to share the good times, the inevitable ups...the downs...the highs...the lows...it's second nature to us now...like breathing out and breathing in...we've grown accustomed to our life. (thank you My Fair Lady!) Yet we don't want out way of life at the expense of innocents dying in Iraq. I can no longer face the TV scenes when a car bomb has gone off and you hear the inevitable numbers of the tolling of the dead.


With so much going on we have to pause to take it all in...in smaller proportions to even begin to make sense (if there's any to be had that is!) The bottom line ~ if the Democrats do not vote down the blank check Iraq War supplemental bill they are proposing, they will be complicit in the war, and should expect to feel the consequences in monumental proportions. If you vote for it...you now own it! Russ Feingold said in March..."The realization is growing that the only way to stop this thing is to use our power." But, power is not always used for good...and I know you've read that in some fairy tales in your childhood somewhere.

Now here's a weird situation if I ever heard one. Some politicians are afraid to "take political ownership" of the war by using their power to end it. So, in the meantime as they focus on their particular brand of politics...while people are dying...it becomes clear that Feingold is right. "If the Democrats don't use their power, when we're in the majority in both houses, we're going to start owning this war." Russ Feingold who seems a man of integrity swimming in a pool of sharks also said, “It is George Bush’s war, but if we don’t get serious we’re going to start owning this war.” This is a critical point that many politicians are seemingly forgetting right now. The president may have started the war, and may own it politically, but he was also elected in 2004 just the same...or even in spite of it.

So this brings us to an uncomfortable realization about his being elected...he was elected on honest pretenses as pertaining to the war technically. The Democrats on the other hand...were put into office with a great deal of grassroots effort in 2006...drum roll...because they promised to end the war. So...by their betrayal (that's what it is to me) they've just turned around and become complicit in the very war they promised to stop...which by definition gives them a bigger chunk of ownership of the war than our Fearless Decider...because (and hang in here with me) they have broken their word to "us" and our country. Pure and simple.

A lot of people are bystanders walking way round this issue and say they do not have the ability to stop the war...which of course makes them innocent mostly in their own hearts and minds...but we know the truth about the shape of their spines. November was a heady time of joy and elation that lasted several days. We thought we'd gotten our country back and would soon get it moving toward a better understanding of what the American people wanted and needed. And some of what we wanted and needed was to get out of Iraq and leave those poor people and their families alone. They'd endured enough destruction and death to last a lifetime. And we knew we'd spend a lifetime making it up to them if given the chance. But...Nancy Pelosi said she would vote against the blank check bill...but she won't use her power to actually stop the bill from moving forward. Does that sound like a person with no power?

I've said this myself...and many lawmakers say it also...that the war is Bush's responsibility...not mine...not theirs...he must develop a plan to end the war. But it certainly doesn't mean our lawmakers don't have many ways at their disposal to force him to develop a plan. Through timelines tied to funding is a good example. If our Congress had the guts to brandish its Constitutional power of the purse strings and cut off funding by a certain date...it should force Bush and his so-called military commanders to furnish a much needed redeployment plan.

I guess that is whistling in the wind for what that's worth. But we can hope...there's always that. But I don't see the future as a bright presence any time soon. I think we have far more hurdles to jump before we land on good solid ground with this situation. It would be so wonderful for the Dub to wake up one morning...smell the fragrance of the flowers blooming outside of his bedroom...and turn to Laura and say..."you know Pickles...this war has gone on long enough, and too many people have died over it. It's time we brought our people home." She'd sit up and look at him...reach for her glasses...and say..."Who are you and how did you get in here?"

A Standing Woman

In the days before Mother's Day this year, Standing Women sent out the following request:

Please stand with us for five minutes of silence at 1 p.m. your local time on May 13, 2007, in your local park, school yard, gathering place, or any place you deem appropriate, to signify your agreement with the statement [above]. We ask you to invite the men who you care about to join you.

Being a solitary, a poet, and a country woman, I decided that I would stand, not in a park or school yard, as those places are not natural to me, but on the front stoop of our house in rural Bourbon County, Kentucky. My husband stood by me, as he has done for 35 years now, and so did our son. It was on this stoop that we kept our candlelight vigil four years ago, on the eve of the War in Iraq. It seemed appropriate.

It was very quiet in Kentucky at 1 p.m. on May 13. For most of the time, the only sound was that of the wind in the trees and the birds fussing at their nest-building. Later on, we heard the noise of a jet in the distance.

The sky was a cloudless blue, the sunlight butter yellow. The grass and the trees wore their shiniest springtime green. The wind moved in waves through the tall pasture grass. The black locust was just beginning to show its white, sweet-smelling bloom.

The male oriole, flitting from locust to locust in his gorgeous orange-and-black and singing his simple but elegant song, was like a Renaissance courtier, a Donne, perhaps a Sir Walter Raleigh. The robin with his puffed rose-colored vest was more a country cleric out of an Austin novel.

What a beautiful place I live in. How privileged is my family to have this quiet safe haven, to share a place with these beautiful creatures.

I mourned (and still mourn) that there are children in the world who cannot experience some version of this quiet and simple beauty. This is the world I would dream for them now and for seven generations to come.

Yet I was also strongly comforted by the thought that women were standing, as I was standing, in simple, eloquent protest, standing up in ranks as the world turned.

Other women are sharing their stories at the link.