Demystifying DC - part one

But it’s a place worth investigating. It runs on more than money. Though money plays a stunningly important role here, abject poverty is commonplace. It also runs on truly remarkable dedication. I know, the media and the more ingenuous politicians have never stopped complaining about the cost, the waste, and the most obvious absurdities of our government, and DC, being the seat of that government, gets unavoidably painted whenever their terribly broad brushes take another swipe. And from the distance across a continent, it pretty much all looks the same.
Slip over here for more ...Dispatch from the front lines ...

Open Mike Night

"There's a show going down tonight
It's the hottest show in town
Down to that Gypsy Cafe
Where the freeway turns around
Once a week or so you know
These people show up to play
And they're gonna be stars someday
They're gonna be stars someday!"
Surviving The Downturn

Last Tuesday, Amy and I convened a conversation. Sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce to bring the business community together to consider: Surviving the downturn.
To our surprise, most reported no loss of lift, no panic. No one wore a barrel.
How does one take the temperature of a town? I'd spent the morning waiting with my dad while my mother was injected, inspected, reflected, and ultimately rejected for now: no obvious cause. Scheduled for continuing tests. Conclusions inconclusive.
Life, being holographic, presents herself in various equivalent disguises. Where ever I go, there she is. The phantom hitchhiker. "Say, isn't that the same woman we passed a hundred miles back?" Rod Serling authors every life.
So we convened, listening more than facilitating. Prepared to be changed by what we heard. What DID we hear? The conclusions inconclusive. More tests coming.
How to represent what we heard? One way is a word cloud- see above graphic. Another is word jazz, where the sound and shape and meter carry as much meaning as the words: see below-
Slip over here for more ...The Recipe For Doing The Impossible

Did You Serve?

Who Will Defend Us Against Ourselves?

Ain't No Fleas On Me!

The Wonder I Have Found

I have long held the tradition of writing a series of Christmas poems. The rules of engagement are simple. Each poem must be written between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (with a strong preference for before Christmas "morning", which I define as "before people open presents.")
I usually manage something between six and a dozen poems. In the past, I've written a unique poem for unique cards, painting an image that melds my feelings about the person and the picture on the card. This year, I decided to do a series of poems inspired by a single image, one of a youngster catching snowflakes on her tongue. The whole poem cycle, then, is entitled Catching Snowflakes On Your Tongue, which seems to encapsulate my feelings about this Christmas season this year.
Regaining lost innocence emerged unbidden as the overall theme.
Here's one from the series, written for a very special someone and posted here for all of the likewise very special someones who peruse this blog.
“There are so many,” she whined, standing knee-deep in the snow.
“I haven’t a chance to make a difference, unless it’s falling slow.”
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A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country

Citizens for Good Grievances

One popular local strategy undermines. Rather than helping officials leverage their power to serve your interests or taking their power for yourself, this approach diffuses their power by defaming it. No need to painstakingly work through issues or risk personal injury.
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You might not have noticed. Not much media coverage of this latest erosion of freedom. Slip over here for more ...
Letter to the Editor: Know When To Fold 'em
We face daunting odds in Iraq. Many professional soldiers say that we lost this war some time ago, and that we’re just trying to accept this fact now.
But anyone who’s ever watched the television show Deal or No Deal knows that people don’t always approach uncertainty with a clear head. Something about the tiniest promise of reward can motivate a naive gambler to hold ‘em way too long. Slip over here for more ...
Joy
Me, being four and feeling tough.
Decided, if just to assert my best,.
To challenge old Santa to a little contest. Slip over here for more ...
The War on the War on Christmas
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Picky and Choosy
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Veterans Day
Last year, I got to spend a little time in Flanders. Near where the trenches were. Where a generation of English and French and German kids were sacrificed to an ancient folly, War. I asked my Flemmish friend how Belgium survived the wars. He replied that his country was very good at rolling over and playing dead. The enemies just pass through. Have for centuries, he said.
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Department of Defensiveness
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Tiny Minds and Big Mouths
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Forgetfullness
Letter to the Editor - Hindsight
Flying Away
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Possessing Truth
The Right Click
"Huh?", I responded.
"Right click on the box."
Silence. I thought, "Am I clicking wrong?" but I said, "I don't understand what you just said."
Slip over here for more ...Letter to the Editor - All In The Family
Computerless
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Shakespeare and Company
And lost the lease where her business thrived.
Gone, where Joyce was well supported,
Gone but not entirely forgotted.
A man who claims to be
The grandson of Walt Whitman, he
Bought old Beach's library
and moved it to a Seine-side quay
And opened what you see today
with the original name and company.
Arriving In Trastevere
Our cab circled Trastevere for a half hour, seeming to end up in the same dead end alley way, retreating to a small piazza two or three times before the cab driver, after asking three different people, found himself pointed in the right direction to find the tiny opening to Vicolo Moroni. The cars parked on either side of the lane had their side rear view mirrors either pulled back against the side of the car or in some degree of being torn off. I saw a truck backing into this lane later in the week. A man on either side pulled rear view mirrors out of the way and guided the driver with barely millimeters to spare on either side. Our driver unloaded our luggage, heavy with the anticipation of a month's tour, and left, presumably to circle for another half hour searching for the way back out of this labyrinth.
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What The Teacher Doesn't Tell
They wouldn’t understand.
Who would want to burden the subject by including the depth of their own despair and their feeble attempts to counter it?
History shouldn’t be about me, or them, or anyone alive today,
Except it is and inescapably so.
The big black dog that trotted beside Lincoln trots today.
Galileo and Bruno and every one of true genius,
Their anxiety still floats free,
attaching itself intermittently to those so blessed with that curse. Slip over here for more ...
School Daze
Democracy Then and Now (from today's NYTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/opinion/23mon3.html
Level Crossing
Slip over here for more ...Today is my father's 83rd birthday. I wrote this poem for him. Many happy returns!