Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Almost missed it. I was quite late. It’s not too far to get there but it’s in that awkward zone where I might as well walk as public transport is indirect. It’s a lovely walk, just over the river.
Then, nobody was there. Walked into every room of the pub, which was just slightly more crowded than completely empty. No sign of a poetry reading at all. As I was leaving, I saw the courtyard, which I guess belongs to the pub but is not directly adjacent, and I happened to look in and there they all were.
All gathered around one very long table so that, although we were less than 20, it seemed quite a crowd. And, it’s always a nice, informal reading with maybe a bit of conversation between each presentation.
The sky grew dimmer, probably more than half the people read, one guy read a short story about his job, in a bar on a boat, on the Vltava, and it was just plain and real, a couple of joints went around, a few more people came, the sky grew dimmer still, the first stars came out and then I walked home, toward the lights across the river.

On the way there, right about sunset, I’d looked up just as I was passing a newish block of flats, all of which have balconies with a great view over the river. I saw a couple of women, in their 20s or 30s, sitting back with their feet up and a couple of glasses of red wine on the table. Wine glasses, not ordinary glasses. And I thought, they’ve got it great, they are at the peak. And everybody in this building has that balcony view, that sunset, that river – and then I realized that in that 6 story, 3 block long complex, they were the only ones outside.

I hate these kind of dilemmas. I remember when George W. Bush was president and every damn thing he did we got into the “Is he truly evil or just abominably stupid?” It should be an irrelevant argument, because , in a society which is democratic and by democratic I mean actually responsive to the needs and desires of its people, either one should be reason enough to remove somebody from office, whether that office is county sheriff or President of the U.S.
So it is with Biden. When he said, in a speech today in Las Vegas, that he was against the war in Iraq, was it a gaffe or was it a lie? Because he voted for the war. (of course Bernie Sanders voted against it. Bernie is always a bit ahead of the curve.) Of course, his full statement was the even though he’d voted for the war, as soon as it started he realized he was against it. Which is still bullshit (a common tactic: when you’re caught talking bullshit, talk some more bullshit) because he was still singing the war’s praises for years after it had begun.
I’m thinking this is in the flat-out-lie category. He’s got a history of that, too, and plagiarism. Really, just not the most trustworthy guy.
But how can you tell the difference? Well, the actual things he said made grammatical sense – not like ‘we prefer truth over facts’ or ‘poor kids are just as smart as white kids.’ I didn’t actually watch the video of the speech but the Business Insider article didn’t say his speech was slurred and he was muttering, which was definitely the case when he said “In the 60s, the 70s, late 70s, when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, and it was the era of tune in, turn on, drop out, true, you could go to Haight Ashbury in San Francisco and all the hippies, some of you guys remember but I’m sure you ladies don’t.” So, I’ll assume he was speaking coherently this time.
Which makes it not a gaffe. Which makes it a lie. Which is way, way worse. When a politician tells you they were against a war, and you can very quickly check the public record and see that they were in no way opposed to the war, that politician should be pilloried in public and pelted with various vegetables, well beyond their sell by date.
They should certainly not continue their nonsense run for office.

The kids are back in school so it is quiet in the house. It marks a change, and I’m a bit sad at the end of this summer. It was a very pleasant summer. A memorable vacation in the Balkans, finished and published one book of poetry (Cup of Tea – just click above, on this page, the little box that says ‘poetry’) and spent a lot of time on Facebook, watching Netflix, and sitting around getting high.
But, change is good and change is inevitable and change is the essence of our lives. As far as changes to the Earth are concerned, we are moving from wildfire season into hurricane season, which won’t help Brazil much. First of all, since the fires are south of the Equator, the seasons are different, secondly ‘fire season’ and ‘hurricane season’ are not exactly the same as spring, summer, winter and fall and a whole host of local conditions enter the picture, and third and mostly, those aren’t wildfires. Those are totally deliberate and planned fires. The Amazon rainforest isn’t burning, it is being burned.
So, change. We need change, and we need changes but, even as dire as the world situation is, there are still a lot of changes that could make the world a worse place.
We need positive change. Rather urgently.

When people who are not oppressed
go marching in the street
and they wave their misspelled banners
and stomp their angry feet
“We are white, male, heterosexuals!
Life is so unfair!”
We all just look at them and laugh
’cause no one really cares

This was a little poem I wrote this morning. It took a while between inspiration and completion because I was looking for a true zinger of a last line but you’d be surprised how few good rhymes there are for ‘losers’ or for ‘pathetic.’
This is a bit of a problem with rhyming poetry. Very often it winds up being watered down, confined, forced into being something it was originally not. Of course, in less regulated forms, such as blank verse and Facebook comments, there are no such restrictions and plenty of people are already expressing their opinions in that way.
A poem, especially a rhyming poem, winds up being what it can within the constraints of meter and the actual sounds and meanings of words, much like a river is constrained by its banks. The banks themselves may change, over the centuries, but they hold for a good long while. The life of a great poem is longer than the life of a person, for sure.
I suppose it’s just as well. Maybe the poem is better this way.

Just had a conversation (on Facebook) with my nephew, who is an ardent 2nd amendment supporter, and he said he’s less likely to vote for Sanders because of Sanders stance on guns. Well, we sure don’t agree on that issue, but it got me thinking about how many things are important to different people, and that led to this:

If saving the planet is your main issue, then you should vote for Sanders. Tulsi is pretty good on the environment, too, as are Jay Inslee and Mike Gravel, but they are out. Sanders’ environmental plan is the most comprehensive environmental plan I have ever seen from any politician anywhere. It includes lots of cool stuff like small, organic farms, high speed trains, and a better infrastructure for electric cars, and it not only will pay for itself with sales of electric energy from solar panel and wind turbines but it will create a whole new revenue stream and a couple of million new jobs and all.
If universal health care is the main thing for you, Bernie wrote the damn bill.
If you are burdened with college debt, or if you are about to go to college, and you don’t particularly care for the idea of a lifetime of debt, you should vote for Bernie.
If you, like me, smoke large amounts of the beloved herb, marijuana, then you should vote for Sanders, probably. Lots of candidates have come out in favor of legalization, even the crooked cop lady, but there are only a couple I think are sincere. Biden, being an old fossil, is still opposed.
If you’re making less than $15 an hour, you should definitely vote for Bernie. You deserve a raise.
Abortion. If you’re pro-choice, then you should vote for Bernie. I’m sure most of the female candidates, in facet most of the candidates, are pretty much the same on this issue. Buttigieg had a real good statement on it. But Bernie’s been fighting for this since BEFORE Roe v. Wade. How many of them can say THAT, huh?
If you vote according to character, you should vote for Bernie. He’s got so much character he IS a character. He doesn’t take bribes, i.e. corporate and PAC donations. There are only a couple of candidates who can say that, and Elizabeth Warren is not one of them. He’s never been implicated in any kind of a scandal, and he plays baseball and basketball with kids.
If you really insist on a female candidate, it should probably be Tulsi. She’s the closest you can get to Bernie without being Bernie.
If you’re voting on the basis of electability, you should vote for Bernie. He’s popular in the rust belt, which is essential to the Democrats, and polls show him beating the short fingered vulgarian by over 10 points. He’s even polling ahead of Trump in Texas.