Migration: New & Selected Poems by W.S. Merwin Nominated for National Book Award

Should Merwin win, it will end a seven National Book Awards (NBA) nomination losing streak for the poet. His last nomination was in 1975.

Sam Hamill, co-founder of Copper Canyon, who published the work, called Migration a was a sure candidate for the NBA. Typically a poetry book might sell 1,000 copies. Copper Canyon Press has already sold 6,500 copies of it.

Wow! If I might be allowed one word of editorialzing.

Cheney Scolds War Critics as Dishonest

Vice President Cheney scolds war critics. He has joined President Bush in once again seeking to pin a mark of disloyalty or lack of patriotism on those who take issue with the American foreign policy that has taken us into the war in Iraq.

The President and Vice President have attempted in the past few days to frame this in the context of a partisan battle with Democrats. In lashing out at Democrats on this issue they are ignoring the fact that there is no broad support for the Iraq War any longer.

Considering the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll taken this month:

52% of America says the war in Iraq was not worth it.

57% believe the President misled the country about prewar intelligence. That is nearly 6 out of ever 10 people. Conversely only 35% believe he did not mislead us.

58% believe the president has not given us good reasons to keep the troops there.

The opposition to the his war is not partisan. If he wants to continue to frame it in that contest, he is only kidding himself.

This week - Senator Chuck Hagel said, "The Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and elsewhere and should not be demonstrate and condemned for disagreeing with them." Senator Hagel is from Bush's own party.

In fact, this week the Senate on a vote of 79 to 19 sent a strong message to the President about their concern for this war. Such a vote clearly shows that there is broad concern about this war in the Senate and not just from Democrats.

If the President and Vice President believe they can shore up support for Iraq with this kind of talk they are (putting it politely) naive. There is nothing to come back from. The American people have seen enough and they are not buying this war or the lame excuses (whichever one) Bush and Cheney choose to use today. And when they question the loyalty or patriotism of certain Democrats because of their opposition, then they are questioning the loyalty and patriotism of six out of 10 Americans. That kind rudeness isn't going to buy anyone political capital, respect or a cup of coffee.

Tags: Iraq Bush War Cheney

Herald Sun: Torture bunker busted [17nov05]

Herald Sun: Torture bunker busted [17nov05]: "IRAQ'S new security forces have been accused of routinely abusing and torturing detainees the same way Saddam Hussein's brutal regime did.

A gruesome discovery in Iraq... more than 170 tortured and starving prisoners in a locked Interior Ministry bunker beneath Baghdad. US troops stumbled on it while searching for a missing boy. A spokesman for the division of the multinational force in Iraq responsible for training the Iraqi police reportedly said, "This sort of behavior completely undermines everything the Iraqi Government stands for and everything the coalition came here for, It is unacceptable in any form." He might want to check higher up with say, Vice President Cheney.

This is the culture that Bush / Cheney / Rumsfield are exporting to the world. This is the very example that they are setting and it is against this backdrop that both the new regime in Baghdad and the United States will be judged by the world. Even all but 9 members of the Senate recognized recently.

Now comes more disturbing news... Is the United States using chemical weapons in Iraq? Is White phosphorus a conventional weapon?

torture Human Bush Iraq White Cheney McCain

It's Snowing

How appropriate my last post with the Dickinson verse "A little this side of the snow" because it was indeed a wee-little this side of it. The white stuff is falling here today! The are big husky flakes that look like they could be on steroids. Fortunately for the time being it is not sticking.

I am listening to Schubert - Symphony No. 5 - finale on xm satellite radio - presently and have taken a pause from my work to have diet drink and post this morning's blog.

A tango in mid-air
Reruns hammering the keys
Like no tomorrow
We'll do it again
But it will be different

Autumn Poets Singing

The air has chilled a bit - was nice earlier. My daughter Meg and I did the leaf thing in the front yard. I say the leaf thing because we didn't really rake as much as we sucked them up into bags all nicely mulched. It beats the hell out of raking when you have a lot.

Saturday and today I have created two new poem drafts which I am most happy with - they will require a bit of tweeking but not likely too much. It is a nice feeling when you have more then one come together nicely in a span of two partial days of work.

I read the New Yorker article from the November 7th issue by Larissa MacFarquhar on John Ashbery. What an astounding profile. I enjoyed every bit of it.

Speaking of Ashbery - I was reading a few of his poems and I especially like Paradoxes and Oxymorons from his book Shadow Train.

I will close out this evening post with a fitting autumn quote....

Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.~Emily Dickinson

On Civil Disobedience

"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." ~Albert Einstein

Cicada Song

The treadmill cicada whine
Blends with the television.
I feel her presence
As if she is gently tapping my back

Periodically. The way she might have
Come up behind me at my locker
Thirty-three years ago. It’s substantial,
Solid, like a good hard mahogany table.

If we had not married, would I feel the same
About the cicada sound?

She’s stopped walking now, and gone upstairs
And I miss the cicada sound.