Author's posts
Apr 19 2008
Crazy Sorrow
I once started a novel titled Crazy Pussy, but abandoned it later as an exercise in bad judgment. It was based on a woman I once knew. Unspeakable things had been done to her. She was a strange mix of beauty and darkness, tenderness and rage, passion and loathing. She captured me without my having fired a shot in my own defense. Our’s was a raging roller coaster of earthly delights and bone deep horror.
Dylan – Tambourine Man
Apr 13 2008
I’m Not Bitter – I’m Outraged
Any more the bad news comes like the steady downpour of the tropical monsoon.
There is no time to catch one’s breath.
There is no pause to absorb the outrages of the day, no interlude to break the tragedies into digestible chunks, no relief for the overwhelmed between the vicious punches to the gut, the finger jabs to the eyes, the thunder kicks to the groin.
Apr 06 2008
Somehow This Madness Must End
I was born at the tail end of 1951. My father was a soldier who served in WWII and Korea. His brother came back from Korea so psychologically devastated that he never recovered. He lived nearly fifty of his seventy years haunted by the horror of what he witnessed in the Korean War. He was not alone. Every war produces more casualties than are accounted for in the body counts. My uncle died just a few years ago but it was the Korean War that killed him.
Apr 02 2008
Angel from Montgomery
I never learned to love Montgomery, but I loved people I knew there.
There was a dark-haired beauty whose fighter pilot husband had been taken by the horror in Vietnam, a frightened single-mother completely lost in this world. I could never reach her, but I loved her.
We weren’t teenagers but we danced to this tune…and it has always reminded me of her.
Mar 30 2008
Love in the Time of Torture – the March 19 Demonstrations
We’ve become embarrassed to speak of it, but love is what it’s all about: love of country, justice, peace, humanity…and love of one’s fellow Americans – one’s fellow protesters. In contemplating my most recent experience demonstrating against the war in Washington DC, that’s what comes to me, the overwhelming love I feel for those who care enough to stand up and be counted.
My son Daniel and I flew out of Atlanta late on Tuesday, the 18th so I could get in a full day of work. As we approached our hotel in DC my phone rang. It was Victory Coffee. She explained that she had brought a friend and that they’d be in McPherson Square at 7:30 in the morning. Daniel and I settled in to try and get a good night’s rest but could hardly sleep for the anticipation.
The alarm went off at 6:00 AM. I got up, showered, and jumped into my best protest Levis with my gen-u-ine Ben Masel ‘Impeach Cheney First’ button and my ‘No Blood for Oil’ button and then fiddled with cameras and batteries and whatnot while Daniel got himself ready. I carefully laid out the IGTNT flyers and bags that snackdoodle had mailed me the previous week. I had promised to find people to hand these out at the protest as a way of honoring America’s dead in the Iraq war. I got the flyers divided into roughly equal stacks, placed them in the bags, stacked them neatly on top of the TeeVee and promptly went off without them. We were in McPherson Square by the time I realized my mistake.
Mar 14 2008
“All Roads Lead to Rove.” – Siegelman
All roads lead to Rove. That was the message scrawled as an afterthought in the lower left-hand corner of the envelope I received in yesterday’s mail. It contained a letter from an old and dear friend of mine. His name is Don Siegelman. He is the former governor of Alabama and he is being held as a political prisoner of the Bush administration in a Federal prison in Louisiana.
Mar 12 2008
We’re going to shut down the IRS! MARCH 19, 2008
It’s important to be reminded that innocent and precious lives are being needlessly lost right now and every day until we stop it. I know there are no high-priced hookers involved (as far as I know) or super delegates or anything like that but this senseless war is five years old now. It’s bad enough that we initiated such a stupid catastrophe in the first place. That we haven’t ended it by now five years later is a crying shame.
We have a responsibility for this war, a responsibility to do something about it. If you take your responsibility in this regard seriously and have been thirsting for an opportunity to do something about it, then please consider coming to Washington DC on March 19 to pitch in and help those of us who have had enough.
Mar 08 2008
5 Years of Horror and Madness in Iraq
March 19th marks the 5th anniversary of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. This debacle is costing us ,upwards of two trillion dollars, nearly four thousand American lives so far, and a million or so Iraqi lives.
Mar 02 2008
A Revolution is Coming
This diary carries a message or two but is also a tribute. It is not hero worship. I am well aware of JFK’s flaws and weaknesses as a human being – you needn’t remind me. But John F. Kennedy was also a gifted orator who inspired and uplifted us with the poetry in his soul and the power in his words – and certain of his words resonate now more than ever.
Feb 22 2008
Deliver Me
Because of my frank criticism people sometimes question my love of country, but make no mistake, I do love this country.
Aside from a hideous past and a hideous present, what do we have to be ashamed of? I do love my country.
I love her for her promise. I love her for what she was meant to be.
I love that we as a people are finally ready for change. I’m glad that we are making history and that once again we are inspired by a leader with poetry in his soul. Some have said that words are cheap, and while that can be true, they can also mean everything.
Feb 16 2008
Let Us Not Talk Falsely Now
“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief, “There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth, None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”
“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke,
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate, So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.Bob Dylan – All Along the Watchtower
