Protecting the Necessities of Life

Yesterday, while at a picnic gathering I used the restroom at the park and found this lovely little security feature. Well, realizing this speaks volumes about our current societal norms, I simply had to take a picture. Admittedly, I felt a wee-bit odd whipping out my cell phone to shoot this picture with the camera, but it was just too good to pass up.

I might add, this is not just any padlock, this bugger is secured with a "Master - Commercial" pad lock. The only place this TP is going is "down the toilet."

Now I am a firm believer in the power of words, but this time, I think the picture just says it so much better.

In For A Hot One

Meghan came home last night from a month long trip to visit her older sister in Arizona. All seems right in the world this morning... except did she have to bring the heat with her? We have an afternoon picnic and the heat is already steamy.

I've thrown together some verse this weekend and I am happy with it as draft from. It has room for improvement but the important thing is there is something that can be done with it. I suppose I am most comfortable with it because it has that edgy tome that I am usually most comfortable with.

In thinking about poets that influence us I was wondering if we are drawn to particular poets because our own voice seems closer them them or do we find that our voice becomes more a basis of emulation? Emulation or appreciation, which is it? Seems like it is some of each for me.

I'm having a diet-coke this moment, my performance enhancement choice for the morning while listening to smooth jazz. King of Hearts by the Rippingtons

What's On Your Cover?

I read about a survey of some 2000 adults conducted for Boarders Book Store that indicated the following:

• Half admitted they would look at someone again or smile at them based on what that person was reading.
• A third of the surveyed would go so far as to consider flirting with someone based upon what that person was reading.

This tid-bit from the Culture Vulture blog seemed to me on the surface to represent a somewhat shallow human condition. Yet, upon further consideration I wondered is it really the most shallow factor in how or why some people would be attracted to others?

I'm not suggesting that we should pick our soul mates based upon the cover of their books, but it perhaps could be viewed as evidence that people are in fact prone to other consideration besides that which is only skin deep, so maybe it is not so shallow after all.

It might be worth noting that in general, many actually found erotic fiction, horror, chick lit, and self-help books as non-impressive, while classics, biographical books and modern literary fiction were seen as turn-ons. Just a little help in case you need to know what to be seen reading and what not to be caught with.

Joe is Bombing in New Haven

Next Tuesday, voters in many states will go off to the polls to votes in state primaries. Perhaps none will be watched as closely as the state of Connecticut where long time Senator Joe Lieberman and Al Gore's 2000 running mate hangs onto his political life against challenger Ned Lamont. There are many good things I could say about Joe Lieberman. Unfortunately, I cannot say I would vote for him if I lived in Connecticut.

Right now, Lieberman's campaign is looking pretty pathetic as evidenced by a would be rally in New Haven recently. In fact, you might say Joe bombed in New Haven. His campaign has all the enthusiasm of a George Bush clone. In fact, Joe has been just than on the war in Iraq. While Joe is not the only Democrat that has gotten, shall we say too close to this war on his votes and vocal support for the President, he is so close that his is not only likely to get burnt but scorched by the heat.

Lieberman has had the misfortune of having a Democratic challenger who has taken him to task on his support for the war. And I say it is about time. Ned Lamont's campaign raises a legitimate challenge to the idea that, well this may have been a mistake but we must see it through. A mistake that parallels that of Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam.
Recently, LBJ tapes have shown that at one point, in a private conversation with Gene McCarthy, Johnson acknowledged that the war had been a miscalculation and that if he could figure out a way to exit that day and save face, he would. The significance of this conversation is that it was after this point that 75% of all the American Deaths in Vietnam occurred. It would take determined American public to ultimately force President Nixon to end the War. Long after we had come to recognize the mistake.

A Ned Lamont victory (leading in polls) in Connecticut is a message to Republican and Democratic supporters of this failed foreign policy that the American People are not buying it any longer.

Tags: Lieberman Lamonte War Bush

Then Why Write?

If truth be known I stopped asking myself that question sometime back. I don't think it was because I rationalized an answer. Maybe I even stopped asking the question or perhaps it was that I actually stopped caring. I'm not sure.

It is quite possible that I felt the answer and didn't know it. Wasn't aware that I felt it and at the same time some internal satisfaction was met without realizing what or how the issue had been satisfactorily resolved.

Anais Nin once said, "If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it." I think in writing I have perhaps proven, to myself at least, that I do all the aforesaid verbs. I think that I have stopped questioning "why write" because it has become for me the very photosynthesis that allows me life.

Guilt - American Style

There rests within me a quiet guilt today. I woke to a peaceful neighborhood. If there were noises they were so benign as to leave no memorable footprints in my mind.

The drive to work was no more challenging than most. Perhaps even better. No major traffic backups on the highway.

My workplace was standing. This, I realize is not a normal part of fantasy of many people, but I realized that in some parts of the world, I might not have waken to tranquility but rather sit up all night listening for the sounds of explosions and how close they might be. If I ventured out at daylight, roads may well have been difficult to navigate with ease. My work place might or might not be standing. Even if it were, commerce as we normally know it would be non-existent.

Americans were horrified at 9-11. Most of us cannot recall what it was like when Pearl Harbor was attacked and even those that are old enough likely do not feel the intensity of it, unless they were present during the attack. Americans are richly blessed in that we have not realized the real horror of war when it is on our home front. Even as bloody as the Civil War was here on our home soil, it was domestic and not a foreign country invading.

So we see the fighting on television that is occurring in Iraq or between Israel and Lebanon and we accept it as thought it were just another occurrence like a space shuttle launch. After a while you forget it is going on.

I wonder if there is an aspect of visual imagery that is easier to become immune to than that or word imagery? If I see a picture of a bombed out apartment building flash before me on television screen, do I find it less disturbing than if I read a written account and have to construct the images myself?

And then I also wonder if Americans are more desensitizing to such images as civilian war casualties that people in other countries?

I do think that mankind must recollect such things as war and death and famine - those things that devastate humanity, and we must do it in writing. It is an obligation that we havde to remind future generations.

San Antonio poet and activist Sanchez dies at 63

"Sanchez’s writing topics ranged from race, to children killed by handguns in Detroit in the late 1980s, and spicy Mexican-American food.

His poetry was published in several anthologies, including “Why Am I So Brown?” which is now in its sixth reprint." from khou.com