Shame on Change

In the beginning, Barack Obama carried a big bucket of change — change he claimed all of us could really, really believe in and live with as we moved onward into that most-wonderful future. My first dimming impression that this was all bullshit came via a personal metaphysical-political incident, or maybe an alarm faintly chiming…

Keep reading Shame on Change

Afghan War Degenerating — Worse than Vietnam?

There’s a joke I tell people sometimes about my cigarette-smoking habit: “Worse dumb-ass thing I’ve ever done — next to being married twice.” (Illustration found here). Afghanistan has never, ever been any kind of a joke, unless it’s one of those extreme-black swipes at humor. In a report from the BBC, the US Pentagon says…

Keep reading Afghan War Degenerating — Worse than Vietnam?

Cloud Hands

This a photograph taken via cell phone near Willits, located in California’s Mendocino County, and e-mailed to me. Cloud formations are always inspiring, but this shot is oddly fascinating with an intriguing, pleading image for reconciliation of harmony. More than cool. And, this the last stanza of Percy Shelley’s The Cloud I am the daughter…

Keep reading Cloud Hands

Patton’s Panic

US military commanders are apparently up to doing whatever it takes to further cloud an ugly, inevitable truth of a botched war and an even more botched war plan in rolling back history. From the Washington Post: The deployment of a company of M1 Abrams tanks, which will be fielded by the Marines in the…

Keep reading Patton’s Panic

Weekend Wanking

“But February made me shiver With every paper I’d deliver. Bad news on the doorstep; I couldn’t take one more step. — ‘American Pie,’ Don McLean Surfing Internet news sites can be overly-depressing. Any kind of news nowadays is depressing — beware of those bearing glad tidings, they either don’t want to upset you, or…

Keep reading Weekend Wanking

No Way Out

‘Cause suicide is painless it brings on many changes and I can take or leave it if I please. …and you can do the same thing if you choose. — Johnny Mandel, (M*A*S*H lyrics) (Illustration found here). The suicide rate for the US military is staggering. From CBS News last Friday: The Army’s suicide rate is…

Keep reading No Way Out