Bush acknowledges administration official leaked Plame's name, immediately 'moves on'

The Raw Story Bush acknowledges administration official leaked Plame's name, immediately 'moves on'

At a White House press conference Thursday, President Bush acknowledged that someone in his administration leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, but he avoided addressing the question of whether he saw it as a moral issue or was at all disappointed in his senior advisers.

Well Duh!

Poetry Amidst the Kultursmog: An Interview with David Yezzi.

MND: News and Commentary Since 2001 » Poetry Amidst the Kultursmog: An Interview with David Yezzi.:

"David Yezzi is Executive Editor of The New Criterion and the former director of New York’s Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y. He is a well-known poet whose published collections include The Hidden Model and Sad Is Eros. His libretto for a chamber opera by David Conte, Firebird Motel, was released as a CD earlier this year by Arsis. His essays have appeared at Poetry, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Sun, and The New Yorker. He has earned degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and Columbia University School of the Arts."

This interview is a very interesting read.

Read this....

A MUST READ for everyone.... What is Al-Qaeda?

There was a similar story on NPR today - If I can find the link I'll post it later.

See what summer heat can do?

I know summer is here. There are very distinct signs I can rely upon. One is the All-Star game. This signals the mid-point in the baseball season and starts the mixed-up emotions that come with the downhill turn towards the fall classic. I say mixed-up because this period is a blend of excitement and melancholy.

Another is the size of the watermelons. I am talking about food here, least you think this is some coded sexual thing. I ran into our local Hy-Vee tonight and there were big hefty watermelons, not the personal size variety that have been in the produce isle up to this point.

Yet another sign summer is here is what happens in my office when a nice day follows a really hot one. For some reason the building maintenance people decide we don't need quite as much a/c and they cut it back in the morning. By 1 PM we are all hot and cranky. Today was such a day.

I'm not really big on reality TV. Basically I find it to be an insult to the intelligence of the average person. I'm speaking for the most part about the concept, because I rarely watch it. I suppose this puts me in the category of a person who wants to remove a book from the library because they are offended by it in spite of the fact they haven't read it. I'd like to believe my issue with reality TV is perhaps on a slightly higher level than that.

Part of the thing about Reality TV is that it involves ordinary people. I have nothing against ordinary people. Some of my best friends are ordinary though they might differ in their impression of me. The use of ordinary people by the producers smacks of "cheap". Networks love such programs because they scrape the bottom rung of production costs so scoring high in the ratings is an extra big payoff. Low overhead - high yield. All that said, I could be persuaded to consider watching a Poet's Reality Series. Six or eight poets thrown together in a house - representing various schools of writing.

I think the real test would be to have them each write in their own styles and then open up the home to the community for a public reading. Each would present their own work. Additionally, each would have to sit with the audience through everyone's work. I envision lots of closeups of the facial expressions during the readings.

Okay, I have no real delusion that this is coming to a cable channel near me any time soon. But hey, there would at least be an audience of one out their for it.

Philip Booth, New England poet, dead at 81 - Book News & Reviews - BostonHerald.com

Philip Booth, New England poet, dead at 81 - Book News & Reviews - BostonHerald.com:
"HANOVER, N.H. - Philip Booth, a longtime Syracuse University professor whose poetry focused mainly on his native New England, has died at age 81.

Booth died July 2 from complications of Alzheimer’s Disease in Hanover, where he was born and spent much of his life, according to his family. "

Spend a day in the "real world"

US President George W Bush, facing new pressure to start bringing troops home from Iraq, says he will not consider it until he hears a fresh assessment of the war effort from his top commander there. "That's what the American people expect. They expect for military people to come back and tell us how the military operations are going," Bush said. "And that's the way I'm going to play it as commander-in-chief." (AP wire story)

I would challenge the President to spend a day out in the real world. Away from the pep rally crowds. Away from military bases and military schools. I believe he would be shocked to learn what the American people really expect. He is clueless.

I don't think it takes top military brass to figure out how the operations are going. It seems pretty obvious to everyone but the President, Vice President and a hand full of others. Even many of his most ardent GOP supporters of this war now understand the reality in Iraq.

Why should we continue this path until September's report. When that one looks bleak will he argue for another in January... April.... ?

A Labor of Poetry Love

I was reading Jessica Smith's blog today and was lead to this site. Richard Hansen's Poems-For-All is such an alluring concept. How can any lover of poetry and the arts not be drawn to these magnets to the soul.

Not only is the concept a winner, but Richard obviously believes in the value of word art because he has not been shoddy with the covers of these tiny poem books. If there is an example of poetry as a labor of love, Poems-For-All embodies it.