Xmas lights are hung,
the moon is down
Santa’s on his way
Think he’ll skip Baghdad and Darfur
New Orleans, too
no safe place to land the sleigh
what’s the use anyway?
Broken vets slump in crooked doorways,
already forgotten, worse off than brothers in flag-draped coffins,
living dead;
Shock & Awe meets disgrace under pawn shop glass
Purple Heart medals alongside rusted .38’s
Swiss Army knives,
money clips, harmonicas, GI watches
Lives stolen by immoral cowards
who sleep at night in warm featherbeds
and celebrate their failure
The tunnel is dark, the shelves are bare,
the last train has departed, the fire’s out;
no cookies on the plate for Santa, no turkey
in the oven
Remember the reason for the season,
son of God, born in a manger
three kings on his trail, guided by a star
seeking something to believe in
Same need now as then -
to believe in angels
and a savior; in an unseen hand
and a well of mercy
Santa’s on his way
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Bush the Befuddled
That voice. That snide voice. That jeering, wasted-Yale-education voice, that lifetime of upward failure voice, shamelessly breathing new life into dead and discredited ideas, into failure and shame, into torture and death. It was too early in the day for that voice.
“Turn it off,” I yelled to my wife. “Please.”
Bush the Befuddled, holding another useless press conference, and insisting, despite graphic evidence to the contrary, that the “war” in Iraq is worthwhile, winnable, and key to protecting American citizens from those horrible people who ascribe to an “ideology of hate.”
If Bush believes his own bullshit he’s insane. Iraq was unnecessary, a waste of young lives, a waste of tax dollars, a waste of American moral credibility – and that’s just for starters from a provincial American perspective. It’s the Iraqis who have lost big time, Iraqis who fear for their lives in outdoor markets and office buildings, on street corners; Iraqis who are without basic human services, due in large part to American arrogance, ignorance and greed.
For Bush to stand there and state his belief that the majority of Americans don’t want US forces withdrawn, to stand and say that we don’t understand the consequences, is crazy gibberish. Bush is the one trying to beat his dead, maggot-infested horse to life. The people get it. Iraq is a lost cause no matter what we do, and has been since we toppled Saddam and unleashed bottled up sectarian strife.
US miscalculation placed Iraq on the path to civil war. The US is responsible for destroying a country that never posed a credible threat to our national security. Thanks to Bush and his cronies, the average Iraqi now has ample reason to distrust, despise, and discredit any move the US makes in Iraq.
Bush talks a lot of nonsense about liberty and freedom for Iraqis while he systematically dismantles Constitutional protections here at home. Enough already.
This unarmed, lower middle-class American citizen, an Air Force veteran, is sick of the bullshit, lies, posturing and criminal behavior of Bush the Befuddled and his cronies. I’m sick of Wolf Blitzer and Tim Russert and Brian Williams, just to name a few of the many blabbermouths in TV land who blithely lend Bush Administration fantasies credence.
The America that lives (only barely) in my imagination is a country with a moral reservoir deep enough to admit failure and make amends for its misdeeds.
Bush was a fraud from Day One and he remains a fraud now; he was unfit from Day One and he’s even more unfit now; he was an embarrassment to our country from Day One and so he remains.
“Turn it off,” I yelled to my wife. “Please.”
Bush the Befuddled, holding another useless press conference, and insisting, despite graphic evidence to the contrary, that the “war” in Iraq is worthwhile, winnable, and key to protecting American citizens from those horrible people who ascribe to an “ideology of hate.”
If Bush believes his own bullshit he’s insane. Iraq was unnecessary, a waste of young lives, a waste of tax dollars, a waste of American moral credibility – and that’s just for starters from a provincial American perspective. It’s the Iraqis who have lost big time, Iraqis who fear for their lives in outdoor markets and office buildings, on street corners; Iraqis who are without basic human services, due in large part to American arrogance, ignorance and greed.
For Bush to stand there and state his belief that the majority of Americans don’t want US forces withdrawn, to stand and say that we don’t understand the consequences, is crazy gibberish. Bush is the one trying to beat his dead, maggot-infested horse to life. The people get it. Iraq is a lost cause no matter what we do, and has been since we toppled Saddam and unleashed bottled up sectarian strife.
US miscalculation placed Iraq on the path to civil war. The US is responsible for destroying a country that never posed a credible threat to our national security. Thanks to Bush and his cronies, the average Iraqi now has ample reason to distrust, despise, and discredit any move the US makes in Iraq.
Bush talks a lot of nonsense about liberty and freedom for Iraqis while he systematically dismantles Constitutional protections here at home. Enough already.
This unarmed, lower middle-class American citizen, an Air Force veteran, is sick of the bullshit, lies, posturing and criminal behavior of Bush the Befuddled and his cronies. I’m sick of Wolf Blitzer and Tim Russert and Brian Williams, just to name a few of the many blabbermouths in TV land who blithely lend Bush Administration fantasies credence.
The America that lives (only barely) in my imagination is a country with a moral reservoir deep enough to admit failure and make amends for its misdeeds.
Bush was a fraud from Day One and he remains a fraud now; he was unfit from Day One and he’s even more unfit now; he was an embarrassment to our country from Day One and so he remains.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
APPLE PIE - FICTION
Fell face first into his apple pie, dead, still holding my hand when his heart stopped. Strangest thing I ever witnessed. What a time for his time to come! Would it have happened if he hadn’t been home when I brought the pie over, if I had just left it on his porch with a note, which was what I intended all along. Ed insisted I have a piece with him, wouldn’t hear otherwise. I sat in the little dining area. Ed only had two chairs, which I took as a sign that he got as many visitors as I did. I noticed there were no pictures in the living room, no frames with smiling faces in them. No wife. No kids. Not much furniture. Ed seemed shy and a little more nervous than he was the day he drove us to the hospital. He admitted that he wasn’t used to visitors. Other than Mensa, a chubby stray cat he’d taken in, he had only himself to worry about, and since his tastes were simple he didn’t need much. As I watched him brew coffee and pull plates from the cupboard I got a solid feeling about Ed, like if a flood or a hurricane hit Crystal Springs he’d be the last resident standing. He was everything Steve never could be, everything Steve never bothered trying to be; Ed was the kind of man who kept his trailer neat, who voted in every election, who took care of his pets, who changed the oil in his truck every 3,000 miles, who owned insurance. Solid, responsible, dependable. I imagined that he was sweet to his late wife, brought her flowers for no reason, fixed her tea with honey when she was sick, stuff that never in thirteen years crossed Steve’s mind to do for me. Only thing I could ever depend on Steve for was losing his temper and making a complete mess of things. Ed had kind brown eyes, like the eyes of those dogs you sometimes see outside the grocery store, waiting on their owner, as calm and patient as can be. The years had etched some lines on Ed’s forehead and around his eyes, proof that his days hadn’t been all sugar and daffodils, but the lines didn’t mask the kindness in the man. Ed sliced the pie and served me first. Still wore his wedding band I noticed. Took his coffee black, chewed his pie slowly, like he wanted to wring every drop of flavor from it, and again I thought of Steve, the caveman way he ate, all slurps and grunts and mess, as if eating was a competition. When Ed said my pie was the best he’d ever tasted, I felt fire on my cheeks. I didn’t know what to say, it had been such a long time since a man paid me a compliment, but I was happy to be sitting here. I was even more surprised when Ed put his hand over mine, and held my eyes with his, as if he was searching for something he’d lost, and I felt my heartbeat speed up; it felt weird, to be honest, I’m not your touchy-feely type of person, no time for that, but something passed between Ed and me in that moment, not love or even physical attraction, it was more like connection, clear understanding, human being to human being. When he smiled I smiled back, and then he squeezed my hand and his throat clutched like he was choking on a bone, and before I could say or do anything he had collapsed face first into his pie, dead. Left me stuck with his cat.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Word From On High
Judging by the froth in the mainstream media, you’d have thought that the Iraq Study Group report was coming directly from the pen of Jesus, a document that would deliver us from our own evil and set beleaguered Iraq on a path to peace and brotherhood.
Wrong. It’s always hard for an imperial power to apologize, even harder for it to admit defeat and flee the scene of the crime. Word to Bush/Cheney: the Invasion/Occupation was a mistake based on lies, your regime is responsible for a calamity, and you two, as principal architects and shills for the fiasco, should be sitting in Leavenworth Prison in orange jumpsuits.
Iraq is fucked, whether the US sticks around for a year or two or folds its tent and retreats as soon as possible. The screwball dreams the Bush/Cheney junta had of a “democratic” Iraq and free-flowing oil opened a Pandora’s Box filled with death and misery.
The US will be washing this blood from its hands for fifty years.
We reap the consequences of a mentally-challenged commander-in-chief, a wicked Vice-President, and a complacent, rubberstamp Congress. It’s a dangerous thing to try and remake the world in your own corrupt image. You’d think our Bible-toting leaders would know better, but all they had in mind was power, and the wisdom of the good book flew straight over their heads.
The anti-war protestors who filled city streets all over the world in 2002 and 2003 were right, though it didn’t take a crystal ball to predict the bloody outcome.
We’ve done enough damage. It’s time to go.
Wrong. It’s always hard for an imperial power to apologize, even harder for it to admit defeat and flee the scene of the crime. Word to Bush/Cheney: the Invasion/Occupation was a mistake based on lies, your regime is responsible for a calamity, and you two, as principal architects and shills for the fiasco, should be sitting in Leavenworth Prison in orange jumpsuits.
Iraq is fucked, whether the US sticks around for a year or two or folds its tent and retreats as soon as possible. The screwball dreams the Bush/Cheney junta had of a “democratic” Iraq and free-flowing oil opened a Pandora’s Box filled with death and misery.
The US will be washing this blood from its hands for fifty years.
We reap the consequences of a mentally-challenged commander-in-chief, a wicked Vice-President, and a complacent, rubberstamp Congress. It’s a dangerous thing to try and remake the world in your own corrupt image. You’d think our Bible-toting leaders would know better, but all they had in mind was power, and the wisdom of the good book flew straight over their heads.
The anti-war protestors who filled city streets all over the world in 2002 and 2003 were right, though it didn’t take a crystal ball to predict the bloody outcome.
We’ve done enough damage. It’s time to go.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
The Earle of Tatum
Gary Earle, President of the Coalition for Sensible Planning, an organization which sounds like, and probably is, run out of a Goleta PO Box, brings to mind an image of a slick, smarmy, slippery, slimy used-car huckster, willing to employ any means necessary to sell a twice-wrecked, cosmetically-restored Plymouth with an Earl Scheib paint job to an unsuspecting sucker for top dollar.
Ever since the Santa Barbara School Districts announced it was conducting a feasibility study of options for making sorely needed cash from two unused parcels (Hidden Valley & Tatum) of land it owns, a study that included the idea of building affordable housing for teachers and staff, Earle and others of his sort have come out of the woodwork, the shadows, out from behind adobe walls and from under goosedown comforters, to protest, bray, sputter, smear, and malign the study, the School Board, and the District Administration.
Before the ink on the contact with UniDev LLC – a firm with expertise in building “workforce” housing for non-profits – had time to soak in, before any projections on the number of homes was released, before a stitch of research had been accomplished, Earle’s posse of NIMBYs were standing outside Vons on Turnpike, passing out home-made fliers decrying the District’s intent to erect some four hundred homes, smack in the heart of their precious suburban “neighborhood.” Where Earle’s Coalition got that number is anybody’s guess, but it’s not even in the same area code with the number proposed in UniDev’s final report.
From the outset, Earle called UniDev’s motives into question, claiming the company was steering the study toward the workforce housing option so it could make major league money as the ultimate project developer, a claim not tethered to the reality of the UniDev contract, but what the hell, who’s paying close attention to meddlesome facts? Taking his cue from modern masters of mendacity like Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Hannity, Earle stretched and kneaded the truth to suit his own ends, which are, apparently, to keep anybody else from calling this Promised Land home, especially teachers and school workers, who, to be sure, carry meaningful water for the community, but must accept their impoverished servitude and move to Lompoc, Oxnard or the shitty end of Salinas Street.
After the final UniDev report was presented to the school board on November 28, Earle, decked out in a pin-striped suit, hair coiffed and tanning booth glow in place, got face time on KEYT, where he was quoted as saying that the District hasn’t cooperated with the Tatum community, and that, “the District just wants to make as much money as possible.”
The first statement is flat wrong and the second just plain stupid. The District held a number of public meetings about the feasibility study, accepted public comment for a month, gave community members ad naseum opportunity to speak at school board meetings, and so on. Claiming the District has been uncooperative with the local community is like claiming the U.S. Army never tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib. We got digital photos, dude!
As to the money angle, well, Duh! Mr. Earle, squeezing these vacant assets for every dime they will surrender is THE POINT! What’s wrong with the school district exploring every revenue-enhancing option at its disposal? People like Gary Earle don’t piss and wail when a private individual seeks to earn obscene amounts of coin, so why get your Grigioperla boxers in a wad when a school district seeks to exercise the very same capitalist imperative? Good old American money-grubbing, baby! The school district’s got something that’s as good as gold in these parts, and its anemic financial condition demands that the school board do whatever it takes to bring more coin into the coffers. It would be a colossal failure of the school board’s fiduciary responsibility not to seek the biggest score it can haul to the bank. The taxpayers from whom the prized booty came in the first place should expect no less.
Ever since the Santa Barbara School Districts announced it was conducting a feasibility study of options for making sorely needed cash from two unused parcels (Hidden Valley & Tatum) of land it owns, a study that included the idea of building affordable housing for teachers and staff, Earle and others of his sort have come out of the woodwork, the shadows, out from behind adobe walls and from under goosedown comforters, to protest, bray, sputter, smear, and malign the study, the School Board, and the District Administration.
Before the ink on the contact with UniDev LLC – a firm with expertise in building “workforce” housing for non-profits – had time to soak in, before any projections on the number of homes was released, before a stitch of research had been accomplished, Earle’s posse of NIMBYs were standing outside Vons on Turnpike, passing out home-made fliers decrying the District’s intent to erect some four hundred homes, smack in the heart of their precious suburban “neighborhood.” Where Earle’s Coalition got that number is anybody’s guess, but it’s not even in the same area code with the number proposed in UniDev’s final report.
From the outset, Earle called UniDev’s motives into question, claiming the company was steering the study toward the workforce housing option so it could make major league money as the ultimate project developer, a claim not tethered to the reality of the UniDev contract, but what the hell, who’s paying close attention to meddlesome facts? Taking his cue from modern masters of mendacity like Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Hannity, Earle stretched and kneaded the truth to suit his own ends, which are, apparently, to keep anybody else from calling this Promised Land home, especially teachers and school workers, who, to be sure, carry meaningful water for the community, but must accept their impoverished servitude and move to Lompoc, Oxnard or the shitty end of Salinas Street.
After the final UniDev report was presented to the school board on November 28, Earle, decked out in a pin-striped suit, hair coiffed and tanning booth glow in place, got face time on KEYT, where he was quoted as saying that the District hasn’t cooperated with the Tatum community, and that, “the District just wants to make as much money as possible.”
The first statement is flat wrong and the second just plain stupid. The District held a number of public meetings about the feasibility study, accepted public comment for a month, gave community members ad naseum opportunity to speak at school board meetings, and so on. Claiming the District has been uncooperative with the local community is like claiming the U.S. Army never tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib. We got digital photos, dude!
As to the money angle, well, Duh! Mr. Earle, squeezing these vacant assets for every dime they will surrender is THE POINT! What’s wrong with the school district exploring every revenue-enhancing option at its disposal? People like Gary Earle don’t piss and wail when a private individual seeks to earn obscene amounts of coin, so why get your Grigioperla boxers in a wad when a school district seeks to exercise the very same capitalist imperative? Good old American money-grubbing, baby! The school district’s got something that’s as good as gold in these parts, and its anemic financial condition demands that the school board do whatever it takes to bring more coin into the coffers. It would be a colossal failure of the school board’s fiduciary responsibility not to seek the biggest score it can haul to the bank. The taxpayers from whom the prized booty came in the first place should expect no less.
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