POETIC JUSTICE: May 2007

PEACE... COME STUMBLING

Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the spirit. Soldiers usually win battles and generals get the credit for them. You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war. If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.
__Napoleon Bonaparte

We cannot use peace. It must come stumbling.

We cannot force peace. It must enter free of war.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
__Albert Einstein
Peace, if it rears its beautiful head, will have found its legs in the resistance to bloodshed.

The stepping stones of this event are laid down by the people.

We must choose to walk upon the stones and not be motivated by force.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
__Dwight D. Eisenhower
But… violent and meaningful reactions to power (or tyranny) are not out of step with the natural path toward peace.

So, when peace stumbles, as it will, it must be held upright by the strength of these actions, not made to fall away.

In other words, any use of force on the way toward peace must never stem from unbridled, unreasonable or unmitigated violence; instead it must always be motivated by and in line with the goal of peace, not power.

The goal toward which all history tends is peace, not peace through the medium of war, not peace through a process of universal intimidation, not peace through a program of mutual impoverishment, not peace by any means that leaves the world too weak or too frightened to go on fighting, but peace pure and simple based on that will to peace which has animated the overwhelming majority of mankind through countless ages. This will to peace does not arise out of a cowardly desire to preserve one's life and property, but out of conviction that the fullest development of the highest powers of men can be achieved only in a world of peace.
__Robert Maynard Hutchins

A New Language of Peace

Inspired by betmo's Tuesday Post for Peace

The Tree

THE WAY OUT

(Ben Heine - Cartoons)

Iraq: The Way Out
The Bush administration often repeats the phrase "When they stand up, we'll stand down".
And in an effort to speed up the process, the US army is training teams of soldiers to embed into the very Iraqi army they once defeated.
Al Jazeera's Josh Rushing follows one such team through training at Fort Riley, Kansas - where the soldiers are supposed to learn culture and language skills to help them "lead from behind" in their new assignment - to Al Hatra, Iraq to find out how training compares to reality.

Sure… there is a way out
There’s also the occasional truth

Of course, lies can be made to fly a longer distance
And have the sheen of certainty

They do not have the smiling faces
Of children with hope of a future

They do not carry supplies to the offended
And they cannot be made to reflect

The dream of every ferocious wolf
Is a world gone mad with sheep

And, inevitably, it ends with everyone soaked in red
Frothing from the cup of empire

Sure… there’s a way out
When war’s the only thing you know

Poetryman Productions

Previous Post - HIGH INTO THE MOIST AIR

HIGH INTO THE MOIST AIR

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

the thread is now barren, too soon,
waving over the arid ground,
it splits again
and the cotton bleeds with the fallen lists of yon
giant horned butterflies swoop in with their drums
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
and the pageant fills the air in every city and the sky groans
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
the solemn horde stand in their mumble-stumble anthem
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
handkerchiefs are made handy for eyes dropping bombs in the dust
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
the holy alliance with the soil spilled long ago grows heavier still
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
soulless worms made of oil inch along in macabre silence
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
well dressed children stoop in slack-jawed bewilderment
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
a little boy is told to stop giggling this instant
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
the young lad won’t see that his laughter is out of order
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
and he notices all the solemn faces and bleeding cottons
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
and the giant horned butterflies beating their drums
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
the loudly torn anthem now stumbles to its horrid close
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
and the butterflies lift their drums high into the moist air
thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-a-tum-tum
the sky tumbles down with a tyrant’s ferocity
thrum! thrum! thrum! thrum-a-tum-tum!
the pageantry is quickly called on account of rain
thrum! thrum! thrum! thrum-a-tum-tum!
and the little boy cries as the giant horned butterflies come crashing
THRUM! THRUM! THRUM! THRUM! THRUM!

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Previous Post - SOLDIER

FOLLOW

O they’ve followed us home!
O home! O home! O home!
They’ve followed us home!
So why are we failing
And so damned alone?

We need see ourselves in their shadow,
If not, then see to their reasons.
Why only listen for their moist-plodding feet
Rumbling our fears rooted in seasons?

Why do we shiver and gasp at their specter;
Ghosts of our own image-and-nation,
Phantoms embarking of invisible caravan
Coming to carry us away from creation?

O home! O home! O homeward they’re marching!
Calling from graves of political deception,
Motioning to us from barren street lamps,
Thrashing down alleys and streaking the sky
Bringing their wrath upon pale conceptions.

O home! O home! O homeward they’re striding!
The least of them nearing our beckoning nation,
Moaning and groaning, intriguing our children
With movie passes and soda and popcorn salvation.

O home! O home! They’re following us home
To sit by the fire and move us to seething,
To cudgel our hopes, mislead and threaten
The chord of our most dire illusions,
Carrying passports to virgins waiting in heaven...

Previous Post - WAR AND SHAME

WAR AND SHAME

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Neville Chamberlain:
"My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time...Go home and get a nice quiet sleep." Sept. 30, 1938
~
Winston Churchill:
"Owing to the neglect of our defences and the mishandling of the German problem in the last five years, we seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feeling is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later, on even more adverse terms than at present." Winston Churchill in a letter to Lord Moyne, 1938

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

We have at last managed to turn up here,
Arriving so near again to our hope filled pain.
Trusting was our finite howler;
Waiting on frauds to usher in our word.
Let us question this; our recent path.
Let us notice its pebbles of truth
Shattered and scattered along the edge.
Peace with principle, it seems, shall not be,
So let us trust ourselves to forge anew.

“No! Damn them! Damn them all to hell!”
“We’ve done our part! They’ll abandon us no more!”
“I’m tired of their games! We’ve now lost our way!”
“To hell with power and deceit and endless war!”

Forge an alternative, not lay down with these wolves
Then sucking at their bloody fangs in our defeat.
Stand up now! Rise up! Wake my friends! Stir
Your next boil and look ahead of war and greed
And gutless indifference of the enemies of truth.

“No! No! Damn them! Damn them! Damn them!”
“We’ve bled enough only to have this spawn!”
“Yes! Enough! There’s no more we can possibly do!”
“Yes! To hell with power and blood and their oily con!”

Let us not, in the course of that last bleak choice
Between an endless war and our great shame,
Choose dishonor’s tawdry whip,
Nor choose the wretched blood of warfare,
Instead let us choose to rise again
With the same minds that brought us
So near to our hope filled burning.
The men and women fight the war over there
Knowing we’ll lunge in battle for them here!
Set straight thy bending will and vigor,
Align your minds and breathe, yet again,
The air that shall not forsake you!

“Yes! We must not allow them to defeat us!”
“Yes! Let us march and bray upon the streets!”
“We must choose a new path, a new leadership!”
“Yes! To hell with power and war and deceit!”

March ever onward toward the ruffled truth,
Seeking new paths that will lead us to peace.
Do not allow their weakness to parade as power.
O! What challenges us only strengthens our resolve!
Knock the will of truth into their sporadic souls,
For, when faced with resistance, their lips
Shall split open with a new accord…
And then we’ll say,

“To hell with this god awful war!”

Previous Post - THE PRIEST NEXT DOOR

PROGESSIVE DEMOCRATS OF AMERICA

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Visit PDA and Take Action! There's much to sign and act upon!

Previous Post - THE PRIEST NEXT DOOR

They Scream Jordan

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is USA river
selling salvation between
Western Auto
and Mike's bar.
There's no Jordan
on Main Street,
only a river of pick-up trucks
and beaten Chevrolets.
At night, it's a river of fire
rolling on and on
past x-rated movies, pawnshops
drug stores and hot dog stands.
All night I sit, drinking
vodka in Mike's bar,
waiting for Dostoevsky
to rise with the heavy smoke,
to come alive
in the voices of the room.
The woman next to me says, It's war
out there. At dawn
I return to sleep
all day,
to dream Jordan.
Over my roof,
the whole sky is burning.

Andrés Verse

Previous Post - THIS AMERICAN ANTHEM

THIS AMERICAN ANTHEM

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Al Gore to Diane Sawyer: "Listen to your questions. You know, the horserace, the cosmetic parts of this — and, look, that’s all understandable and natural. But while we’re focused on, you know, Britney and K-Fed and Anna Nicole Smith and all this stuff, meanwhile, very quietly, our country has been making some very serious mistakes that could be avoided if we, the people, including the news media, are involved in a full and vigorous discussion of what our choices are."

Memorize these words!
Soak them into your soul.
Paint them upon the canvas of consciousness,
For they are the ideal example of truth.
They illuminate what should be our most fundamental flame of citizenry.
Those that heard, or read this, and rolled their eyes
Or laughed with derision, are the problem.
They're sold on the god awful dream of the neocon.

Let these words be emblazoned upon the steps of state houses
And the required oath in schools.
Let it be placed on every pew in the nation.
Let it be sung at baseball games
In place of the national anthem!
This should be the mantra of we the people;

But while were focused on
You know,
Britney,
And K-Fed
And Anna Nicole Smith
And all this stuff,
Meanwhile,
Very quietly,
Our country
Has been making some
Very serious mistakes
That could be avoided
If we, the people,
Including the news media,
Are involved in a full
And vigorous discussion
Of what our choices are.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Thanks to C&L for the video.

Previous Post - LEAVE

LEAVE

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(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

We are happy that we got rid of Saddam but we will never be happy to give away our country in return.
Sorry if our flesh harmed your knives... is that what they want us to say. Is this what they came for?
The failure of this invasion is a victory for FREEDOM and a defeat for radicals in U.S. and later in Iraq.

Order the troops to leave Mr. President. afraid for the safety and the future of this place... leave 20 thousands of your soldiers on both Iranian and Syrian borders and let us take over our own country. THIS COUNTRY WILL BE FREE... whether you take your troops out now or by the efforts of the good people of Iraq and America. Sooner or later they will leave, and Al Qaeda will be defeated by the efforts of the good sons of Iraq... by the way, the state dept. must coordinate with the immigration guys to issue the Iraqi politicians visas and residency in U.S. (off course many of them have US passports as you know so those dont need these arrangements).
(Read the whole post.)

After reading this post I responded thus…
Hope you and your group are safe and sound as I write this.
There is no greater heartache I would imagine than to watch all this unfold in your
own homeland. The death alone is staggering. To watch as your culture is torn away
for oil; for hegemony. You can disregard those that say you are foolish to want the
US to leave for it is the only way your country will heal. The delusions of Bush and
his supporters will soon find themselves hungry with regret and filled with sorrow.
Your post has stirred my muse and she is stringing words together for my next post.
I will spread your message far and wide. It is perhaps the most worthy message for
it weeps for true freedom and with the knowledge that only those experiencing such a boiling heartache could possibly understand.

Peace,
Thepoetryman

The following poem was inspired from my visit to Inside Iraq.

Leave

Grown teeth and groomed black box
Lighted by the sun’s last step
Moving with a whales majesty
Through the wary sea of red streets.
The royal land now grown slack
To the weight of screeching blasts
Through all the black occupied days
Where shrapnel and glass trump flowers
In all the gardens of home; as your heart
Wants you spirited and questioning this lifting
Of your children, of your people in the dry
Wash of stale munitions; the national pride
Of youth rearing up in bloody rebellion
Against those that would call them sons and daughters.
Alone you can snap it off, pierce the bloody boil
Growing in the teeth and black boxes covered with soil.
This last step is pointed at the fuming flames
And asking, imploring of them to leave.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

I highly recommend that you visit Inside Iraq

Previous Post - TORTURE PUFFS UP

Looking back- One year ago today on A Poetic Justice

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EMPIRE'S MILITANT

Child,
Who are these so-called militants? Faint brooding death?
Who are these soulless, wicked insurgents? Death’s reveling?
Freedom fighter? Might’s persuaded equilibrium?
Are the bombs dropped on homes empire’s reveling echo?
Is there cause to celebrate when a child’s body is shredded
At shrapnel’s forlorn behest; life swallowed by almighty throat?
Child,
Who are these militants? The wrath of God?
Insurgents; evil martyrs for a lost cause?
Are they the back of vengeance? The mirror held up?
Slipped devils wrenching Armageddon?
Is there cause to rejoice as the missile’s valor topples
Before mothers and fathers lunged in freedom?
Child,
Across the land into the mosques, into the sovereign home,
Wars snarled device writhes on the ground and upon the air
Beseeching men to volley detonation to ancient sacrificial carnage,
So who are these ferocious militants and soulless insurgents?
Death’s own reveling in power's thrashed persuasion?
The child, for lack of hue, answers not…

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Previous Post - PAINTING TIME

A Poetic Justice Photomontage

YOLANDA KING'S EMERALD DREAM

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We declare peace in this; thy emerald dream.

Men, women, children, all and every color
Rise up to meet her in the nomadic vapor.
Rise up! Greet her with thy soul’s civility,
We can ask no more and no less of thee.

Affirm the worlds waiting stillness with her.
Bring thy grace, let go thy mortal weaponry.
Rise up in the streets of the towns and cities,
Rise up! Tilt thy angry faces toward the sun!

Yolanda King, we march with thee this day.
We stride with thee… sharing thy morning walk,
We sit with thee… and drink at thy table,
We speak with thee… though we see thee not.

O! Ghost in the shade of want come forth,
Walk with us, walk with us in our trance!
We declare peace in this; thy emerald dream,
Open eyed to it grasping thy bleeding chance!

O! We tongueless ones in our painful disgrace
Let us not use deceit to twist the patient hands failing,
Instead let us smile upon the poor lives of all men
and carry this emerald sheen with a proud face!

Yolanda Yolanda... Rest in peace my friend.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Yolanda Denise King

Previous Post - BENT BEYOND REASON

BENT BEYOND REASON

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O! These depraved days of doom rocking the skies, the armies
Of sinister things toward death
To the fetid drums of war.

O! To our horror these damned devil dogs to their howling
Near the gaping mouths
And unwarranted, decomposed applause
Within the pulse of torturous, whirling dread.

Goddamned horror of their pasty mouthed infection
Riddling the mind, dulling the senses, stoking the fear of fear.
This! This! This is what we want? Tormented reason? Souls
Whose only judgments are bloody goddamned vengeance?
Rooting downward we’re filling our mouths with reeking sewage.

In these audiences are the people of this land. O! The children
Will soon look to them for truth,
Seek them out for sound council,
Shaping their ovation, bent, unripe and swilling from hell’s cup.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

GOP - Debate II C&L

Previous Post - COURSING UPWARD

HONOR AND CRAFT

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(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Kristol: "It's a ridiculous political calculation as well as a dishonorable one by those Republicans who are thinking of jumping ship. I think they can be beaten back with a strong campaign of explaining what's really happening on the ground in Iraq, and a real explanation of what the consequences of defeat would be. But I- you know, the Democrats are behaving terribly, but the Republicans are behaving foolishly - some of them. (chuckle)" (More...)

Dishonor is your amusement as you naked lie
In your quest for power’s reach; supremacy.
In attendance with the things of flesh and bone
Entertaining themselves about you, you gab
Incessantly about the oily future’s bounding craft.
O the lackluster smirk of connivance!
The prattle of foolish analysis by a crafty fool
Honoring himself and his ravenous ambition
To usurp the throne of ungodly liar!
Honor, you’ve none. Craft, you’ve plenty.

(C&L - Kristol Republican 11 can be beaten back...)

Previous Post - NOCTURNAL CITIZENSHIP

ODE TO MOTHER

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Thou art nourishment.
Let this world surrender to thee.
Arise and take thy place at the gate of stars…

Thine is the crown of affection. O laugh laugh blue skies
Delight may soothe our errant shells,
Our infected creature and imperfect soul.
We should not tire of thy loves demonstration,
Instead we need hover to the center of its heaven
And kindly bathe in gentle ocean’s offspring.

Thou art nourishment!
Let this world surrender to thee!
Arise and take thy place at the gate of stars…

Summon us forth of thy wonderment. O weep no more!
Our birth, even thine own, we owe to thee,
Needing, even now, to enter thine arms embrace,
To be rescued of ourselves. Consoled. Loved.

There is no other miracle so desirable as our beginning.
Arise now and we toward yearning arms shall move.

Julia Ward Howe, Poet / Activist
Born: 27 May 1819
Birthplace: New York, New York
Died: 17 October 1910

Best Known As: The abolitionist who wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Julia Ward Howe was a poet who co-published the anti-slavery newspaper The Commonwealth with her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe. In 1861 she wrote the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which became the recognized theme song of the Union during the Civil War. After the war Howe continued writing, became active in the woman's suffrage movement and advocated world peace. In 1908 she became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Here's a must read - Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe.

Previous Post - Mr. Bureacracy Moved In

GATES OF HELL

The Fall of Rome

by Adrian Dorrington

The Romans had existed as an important power for over 1000 years. They had brought stability, prosperity, and order to the civilised West. Excellent roads connected the far reaches of the empire with the capital at Rome. These were built originally for military purposes but improved all communications and trade. Roman law kept the internal peace and 20 to 30 Roman legions defended the frontiers.
All was not perfect, however. Emperors held absolute authority. This worked well with good emperors, but incompetent ones could do great harm. The rules for succession to the throne were never clear, and debilitating civil wars often resulted. The bureaucracy that managed the empire on a daily basis grew more corrupt, increasing the dissatisfaction of the common citizen. The wealth of the empire gradually concentrated in the hands of a minority while a large slave population did most of the work. The borders of the empire were immense and put a strain on military resources (500,000 soldiers defended a frontier that required 3 million or more to be secured). Roman conquests had ceased in the second century A.D., bringing an end to massive inflows of plunder and slaves. Taxes increased and production fell as the work force declined. A plague may have killed 20 percent of the empire's population in the third and fourth centuries, further reducing trade and production.

The $Cost$ of War Unnoticed

by Lori Montgomery

The global war on terror, as President Bush calls the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and related military operations, is about to become the second-most-expensive conflict in U.S. history, after World War II.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress has approved more than $609 billion for the wars, a figure likely to stand as lawmakers rework their latest spending bill in response to a Bush veto. Requests for $145 billion more await congressional action and would raise the cost in inflation-adjusted dollars beyond the cost of the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
But the United States is vastly richer than it was in those days, and the nation's wealth now dwarfs the price of war, economists said. Last year, spending in Iraq amounted to less than 1 percent of the total economy -- about as much as Americans spent shopping online and less than half what they spent at Wal-Mart. Total defense spending is 4 percent of gross domestic product, the figure that measures the nation's economic output. In contrast, defense spending ate up 14 percent of GDP at the height of the Korean War and 9 percent during the Vietnam War.

Our authority!
Our authority and nothing else
Can end this; our termination.
The mission cannot stand.
The people cannot rest.
We must remember the blood spilled from thousands,
Troop and civilian; slaughtered, battered, injured;
Crucified along this blunder strewn path.
Six hundred and nine billion served
At the foot of gluttony,
The hands of apathy,
The talons of empire…
Reaching through the gloom.
We will not trace this time,
We will not remember even its stench.
We will not hear the echoing cry of “rise up”!
(Sacrifice has not been asked of us.)
Our surrender will be our forged glory;
The resonance of the sheer absurdity
We’ve found rumbling in the sticky swamp
Of stay the course hammering our ears.

Of this tragic loss we’ll most remember.

I wonder what great men stood on the Senate floor
Pushing back at the gates of hell opening on Rome?

Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation

Cheney says Iraq going well; Iraq says otherwise

Previous Post - BAD NEIGHBORHOOD

PLAN B

(Ben Heine - Cartoons)

Small brown rodents scurry across the shell of the span.
A broken and weeping child lies upon the makeshift bed,
And at the shattered window next to the door, the slumped
Tears of a torn fabric drop in the wind.
Soon the door to that other noisy time will thrash and split
And the barrels of the sun will enter without knocking
And demand of them a fresh, uncluttered room.
(Surely the wave of fabric will startle them.)
After a rather lengthy and determined conversation,
The barrels will find reverie in their clatter
And breathe a sigh of relief at their escape.
Across the alleyway a woman seizes her bread and her child
And runs frightened into the abandoned street.
Looking up toward her sister’s shattered casement,
She calls out to her.

The sky rolls in its troops and the moon calls forth its howl.
A new landscape moves in as the rodents groom their nails
And hone their teeth for a grand feast upon the streets.
Tonight will be no different than the last; the dark queen
Will issue her edict to the fangs of night and forth they shall come,
armed and invisible.
With precision they’ll carve the brief respite of silence like a sword
And yet another shattered child will consume the fabric.

Boehner - For Benchmarks?

CHARLATAN

READ THE POEM +/-

"In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

"We're shocked by the evil of the Virginia Tech shooting," Romney said. "I opened my Bible shortly after I heard of the tragedy. Only a few verses, it seems, after the Fall, we read that Adam and Eve's oldest son killed his younger brother. From the beginning, there has been evil in the world."

“Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games. The Virginia Tech shooter, like the Columbine shooters before him, had drunk from this cesspool."

In America there is a man suspected of devotion
Parading his lips on the heels of our confidence
Offering nothing but inanity and gloom

Without leading he shows himself to be a fool
A tainted reflection trying to convince an eyeless mob
That evil existed prior to the conception of God

When, in the company of charlatans and liars,
Men choose to follow instead of show the way
Their mouths will always be filled with dust

BEHEADING DEATH (re-post)

O! Put death away! Put death away!

Lower the bloodied dagger to its crypt!
Leave it snuggled with darkness,
To our dreams in cackled night.

Put death away! Put death away!

Shuttle him through the crease of humanity.
Put him down to rest in natural green plain.
Bring him not out to spectacle, child’s eyes.

Leave him slouched within our bladed shadows
Hunkered down in the dark house of mighty Ares’
With shrieking vulture’s span; its howling wind
And the mongrel’s yowl beseeching the moon.

O! Put death away! Put death away!

The corpse shall find its way soon enough.
The precursor of bomb’s the mighty sword,
Slip it bravely within its lengthy scabbard
And give death chance to come forth alone,
Let its scraggly legs wobble and meander
Find its victim in the natural motion of day.

Do not hasten its swooping blade from empire.
O! Put him away! Rest your demise for a while,
Empire will soon fade `way and lose its seed.

No need for death to plant our brazen youth,
Nor puncture hope with its reddening silver.

O! The living!
Put death away! Put death away!

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

MISSION ACCOMPLI

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

This story originally appeared on TomDispatch.com.

It had taken much thought and planning that wartime May Day four years ago when George W. Bush co-piloted an S-3B Viking sub reconnaissance Naval jet onto the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Scott Sforza, a former ABC producer, had "embedded" himself on that aircraft carrier days before the President landed. Along with Bob DeServi, a former NBC cameraman and lighting specialist, and Greg Jenkins, a former Fox News television producer, he had planned out every detail of the President's arrival -- as Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times put it then -- "even down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated shirt colors over Mr. Bush's right shoulder and the ‘Mission Accomplished' banner placed to perfectly capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single shot. The speech was specifically timed for what image makers call ‘magic hour light,' which cast a golden glow on Mr. Bush." (More...)

The sea tilts in its mournful ballet
Waiting upon your puffed utterance to strike
An awkward chord over the rapturous.

Pirouetting jauntily you make your way front
Captured in the sun’s golden swagger.

They wait. Fearing what death may come upon
Their course. What long faces tip of this gloom;
Furrows patterned of your barefaced malice.

You’ve no more magic hour light to snuff or bend.
All that you have crawls over innocence.

A tomb howls in the mist. It beckons,
Etched with your name.

La mission a accompli.

Read Progressive Daily Beacon's Bush's Texas Chainsaw Massacre

fait accompli

PIG ON THE SPIT

I awoke to the smell of rotting flesh wafting from the confines of DC
And I called Nancy to make sure I wasn’t in some waking dream.

An assistant answered and sounded rather rushed,

Yet with a pleasant tone. I asked if they were perhaps roasting a pig and had forgotten about it and left it on the spit .

There was a moment of silence on the other end.

I assumed she had run outside to make sure that this was not the case,

or she didn't... my words comprehend.

About a minute later the assistant was on the phone
Reassuring me that the smell was not that of an old pig on the spit
But was coming instead from the Oval Office.

She told me she would alert Nancy of the smell as Nancy has lost ~~some~~ most

of her olfactory senses due to an old college injury;
Something about an initiation into a sorority, or some such nonsense.

I thanked her for checking and she thanked me for calling.

My nose works just fine. Sometimes I wish I had Nancy’s smeller.

This information comes to us from Proud Progressive @ Some Notes On Living
SPEAKER PELOSI IS TAKING TALLY FOR IMPEACHMENT

House Speaker Pelosi’s office is taking calls voting for Impeachment of Bush/Cheney at 202-225-0100
HERE IS A LIST OF TOLL FREE CAPITOL HILL SWITCHBOARD NUMBERS:
1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

Thank Liberally Mirth for the alert...