Poem.

The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students
Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me
snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting
you were beautiful; goodbye,
Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain
brown envelopes for the return of your very
Clinical Sonnet; goodbye, manufacturer
of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues
give the fullest treatment in literature yet
to the sagging-breast motif; goodbye, [...]

Cool Saturday sounds.

Annie Lennox: “No More I Love You’s” (live)

“What do Starbucks and Wal-Mart have in common?”

Actually, they have more in common that just this.
Wal-Mart sells cheap plastic crap made in overseas sweatshops.
Starbucks sells (burnt-tasting) coffee that tastes like crap.
Visit Stop Starbucks here.

“A call-up gone too soon.”

by Frank Fitzpatrick
(Philadelphia Inquirer) May 28 - Memorial Day always makes me think of Harry O’Neill.
A major-league ballplayer, a World War II hero . . . O’Neill’s story, I’ve often thought, might make a nice newspaper takeout, perhaps even a book or screenplay.
His short life was as sweet as any imaginable. And as bitter.
“Porky” O’Neill reached [...]

What he said.

Seen in San Francisco on Tuesday.
(via Common Dreams)

What could have been.

I should be blogging today about President Obama’s (excellent) pick for the Supreme Court yesterday.  Or I could be blogging about The Zombie Veep Who Wouldn’t Die (Dick Cheney).  Or about North Korea and their new toys.  Or about the obscenity that was the more decision by California’s Supreme Court on Tuesday.   Or maybe even [...]

Riddle me this:

What are we supposed to do now?
U.N. Security Council condemns North Korea nuke test
NEW YORK (AP) May 25 - The U.N. Security Council swiftly condemned North Korea’s nuclear test on Monday as “a clear violation” of a 2006 resolution banning them and said it will start work immediately on a new one that could result in [...]

Thanks, Dad.

Richard Manning Austin, USN.

Memorial Day poem.

Dreamers
Soldiers are citizens of death’s gray land,
Drawing no dividend from time’s tomorrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit [...]

Read this.

Giving parents’ loss a name
by Karla FC Holloway
(Philadelphia Inquirer) May 24 – In a National Public Radio essay nearly three years ago, I pondered the lack of a word for parents whose child has died. I remember I said it must be a quiet word, like our grief, but clear in its claim.
I recalled the [...]

Poem.

Poetry As Insurgent Art (I am signaling you through the flames)
I am signaling you through the flames.
The North Pole is not where it used to be.
Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.
Civilization self-destructs.
Nemesis is knocking at the door.
What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?
The state of the world calls out [...]

Cool Saturday sounds.

Michael Franti & Spearhead: “Time To Go Home.”

Here we go again. Again.

Sheriff: La. 8th grader planned school shooting
LAROSE, La. (AP) May 18 – A Louisiana middle school student who stormed into a classroom Monday and fired a gunshot over a teacher’s head, then shot himself in a bathroom had detailed plans for a rampage in a journal and suicide note, authorities said.
The 15-year-old student, whose name [...]

May 19: Troy Anthony Davis Global Day of Action.

(Newer stuff below.)
From the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty:
Tomorrow, Tuesday, May 19, is Troy Anthony Davis Global Day of Action.  This is an opportunity to “shout from the rooftops” in opposition to what could be the execution of an innocent man.  We invite you to join NCADP by participating [...]

Proof that fear is bad for your brain.

It stops you from thinking clearly, for one thing.  It also makes you jump to really offensive conclusions…
Utah school forces student to change out of kilt
WEST HAVEN, Utah (AP) May 17 – The principal of a Utah middle school has been asked to apologize for forcing a kilt-wearing student to change his clothes.
Weber School [...]

Poem.

To the Young Who Want to Die

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a [...]

Cool Ska-turday sounds.

Madness: “On the Wings of a Dove.”

Just. plain. wrong.

A Different Kind of Boy Scout: Armed and Fighting “Terrorism”*
IMPERIAL, Calif. (The New York Times) May 14 – Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on [...]

Cue the Keg Partiers!

In case you haven’t noticed, as in many other places, we here in the Garden State have MAJOR money problems.  We’re running a humongous deficit.  Businesses are leaving the state in droves.  Services are being cut and jobs are being lost.  State workers are being furloughed. Pensions are being raided.  It’s a giant sucking chest [...]

“The new case against the death penalty.”

by Corianna Barrett Lain
Richmond, Va. (Christian Science Monitor) May 11 - This year, state budgetary crises have given death penalty opponents their most successful argument yet – money.
Just two states have abolished the death penalty in the past 40 years, New Jersey in 2007 and New Mexico in March. The cost of capital punishment played [...]