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!

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.

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.

            What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn't supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny? Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?

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,

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