Global

I am in the famous Mystic Pizza, in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, where a young, unformed Julia Roberts grins from a fading movie poster. Out the window, the late November sky gathers cold, grey and moist, wanting to snow. Townspeople, bundled up, hurry in and rush out with sizzling pizza in boxes.

Against the wall, serenely oblivious, gold and silver and rainbow colored fish shimmer and wiggle and dart in the warm water of their tank. I recall my first time snorkeling, after running a terrible marathon in Hawaii. There I was, just a gal from Ohio, glimpsing creatures underwater so exquisitely beautiful and diverse and beyond my imagination that my eyes teared.

And now, on my walks through this centuries-old New England village, I pass an old, squat, one story red brick building. It sits apart from the surrounding three-story wood structures. No filigree porch or widow’s walk. Above the door a flaking brown sign states in white: Fourth District Voting Hall.

Unlike the previous majority party in Congress, the Democrats who take power today know their weaknesses.  They know they're not very good at the whole press conference thing where you're supposed to stand there and say something people care about.  So they've announced an open-mic policy. 

And it seems to be working.  It turns out that an ordinary person who's not been through our campaign bribery system and not agreed to a list of positions acceptable to Washington strategists is much more interesting to listen to than Rahm Emanuel.  Speaking at Congressional press conferences could become a regular stop for tourists of our nation's Capital as well as for locals who enjoy karaoke.

Congressman Emanuel had not been informed of the new policy yesterday, but we knew he'd appreciate it.  So, while he was in the middle of trying to impress employees of Disney and GE with his commitment to banning lobbyists from donating small islands to Congress Members except on weekends (or something), Cindy Sheehan livened things up by beginning a chant of

DE-ESCALATE, INVESTIGATE, TROOPS HOME NOW!

“Your constituents will no longer allow you to fund the warfare, to send our daughters and sons, or to participate in the death.”

On Friday, January 5, at 9:30 am, on the sidewalk in front of Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s office at 1 Maritime Plaza, members of the NW Ohio Peace Coalition will hold a news conference prior to delivering to her the 3,000 lights they held up along Summit, Jefferson, and Madison Streets on New Year’s Eve.  The lights were displayed to memorialize the 3,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq to that date. 

Accompanying the lights will be a letter (below), written by Peggy Daly-Masternak and authorized by the NWOPC steering committee, explaining the significance of the 875-foot strand of bulbs. 

These days, a hefty slab of the teenagers alive in America will supposedly live to be 100 (presumably working till they drop to pay for the rest, jobless and dying from diabetes). Given the reproductive shadow hanging over America -- poor semen quality, cryptorchidism, impaired fecundity -- they won't have that many children, although the sparse litters will contain people likely to live to be 125, handing down horrible recipes for turkey giblet gravy to the next generation.

            In short, there'll be a lot of centenarians about, and the name Gerald Ford will mean absolutely nothing to any of them. You had to have been born in 1960 to have been 14 in 1974, hence even vaguely conscious of the genial interregnum between Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, over which Ford presided.

            Ah, the 1970s! More precisely, the mid-1970s, an interval -- from Nixon's resignation on Aug. 9, 1974, to Jan. 23, 1977, when Carter installed Zbigniew Brzezinski as his national security adviser -- when people thought America might head down a different path.

Recount-Audit Observations
Franklin County, Ohio
December 2006

The evidence adduced during post election review of the results demonstrate(s) unequivocally that by reason of stunning violations of Ohio law and complete disregard of mandatory election procedures established by the Ohio Secretary of State and the Ohio General Assembly… [t]he deviations are so pronounced that the results of the election are uncertain.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE

The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck -- so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.

            I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.

            This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to send 20,0000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week.

Form plus function,
Equals matter,
If the function of the form is not known,
It’s a case of anti-matter,

Ignorance of the eyes,
Illusion on Vision causes,
State of Beliefs and Opinions,
Matter functions change forms,

Logical math addition,
Elements of induction,
Patterns form repetition,
Matters empirically not deduction,

Cycles of motion,
Through Beliefs and Opinions equal emotions,
Knowledge is the magic of the Reason portion,
Vision beyond the eyes with no distortions,

The Form to perceive matters,
Ignorance and Emotion shatters,
Knowledge and Comprehension matters,
Vision of two dimensions intrinsically betters,

Form minus function,
Differs to matter,
If the intention and purpose emotionally evoked,
Matters start to matter,

All Beliefs and Opinions of the mind,
Susceptible, as subjected to a need of leaders,
For guidance and direction of accepted find,
Irreversible state of emotional prisoners,

All Knowledge and Comprehensions of the mind,
Demand coherence of the functions to a form to matter,

(13 Poems to self assess your Beliefs, Values, Reason and Intellectual Integrity)

Illegal Human being

We in the land of the free,
In God we export democracy,
You, illegal human being,
No rights to feed your off spring,


We in the Eurotopia community,
Intellectuals think about humanity,
You, illegal human being,
No rights to feed your off spring,


We in the First World have intellectual integrity,
Human, Animal, Insect and Vegetable rights are priority,
You, illegal human being,
No rights to feed your off spring,


You, illegal human being, we have to teach you,
Everything about Freedom, Democracy and Human rights,
Et sur La liberte', l'e'galite' et la fraternite',
Until we colonize your country, go back,


Because you still don't understand about human rights.




Within the Walls of Freedom

Within the Walls of Freedom,
The sun shines so bright,
The colors are so many,
It all seems so right,


So many Arena Heroes,
So many Stars and Gold Icons,
Synthetic worship awards to all,
And to the most overplayed songs,

I want the yellow ribbons back,
But this time around,
It should be upside down,
Supporting me back home, please, right now!

It's very easy for you,
A sticker to pull off your car,
To trash your shame,
And hide that you were fooled by far,

But I am here,
Under the bullets rain,
Your moral support brought me here,
And you don't have to deal with this pain,

Like you I believed in it too,
A noble cause for me and you,
Please don't hide your shame,
Help me to come home, cause we now know who's to blame...

Julian Bravo, May 2006

I had a nightmare,
That the people of this Nation,
For the first time ever,
Will be in real despair,

That one day we will be judged,
By the color of our words in flair,
And not the contentment,
Of our characters, yes, I had a nightmare,

That this Nation,
Will rise a new Emperor,
Off its common sense,
From a ghost of terror,

In blood it will be spelled,
Over the Legislative walls,
Strokes of Judiciary Bush,
Demon-cracy for all's.

Julian Bravo, June 1st, 06.