Bill Costley

SO the MOON

2012-02-20T07:41:00.000-08:00

SO THE MOON

You can’t deny that the Moon looks quite engrossing …to poets, lovers, small children, dogs, wolves, & lunatics.

Geologists & mineral-entrepreneurs, too, but for purely material reasons. Who knows how much of which minerals lie under the moon’s surface? NASA; so, let’s go up again & dig deeper.

Of course, there’s a lot up there that we could lay claim to if we established a permanent moon-base. Newt Gingrich groks that one way to do it is to make it the 51^st state after we reach the requisite number of our citizens residing on it to apply for statehood (60K)

Our terrestrial feet on the Moon would, of course, create an instant interplanetary stir, with all the other terrestrial entities (cf. the U.N., China, Russia, Oceania, etc. ) accusing us of solar-system commercial imperialism.

Commercial? Think A-merican! Whatever’s named on Earth can be re-branded on the Moon. Starbuck’s & who knows how many fast-foot vendors could open Moon mini-branches (really just reconstituting-units), with subsequent product-naming rights. Moon Burger? Moon Dog (actually, I think he’s had that for decades), Moon Pie (isn’t that P.D.?), well, all-white-cheese Moon Pizza then.

As on Earth, so the Moon.

NEWT STEPS

2012-02-14T10:45:00.001-08:00

Newt steps into a revolving door &

spins it expertly-R. “I’m in!” He’s in

when he’s not abutting Santorum,

but he always R-abuts Romney. He

bats R, swings L, catches L/R, like

Ron Paul. He’s a switch-hitter. He

has no directional shame. He goes

where Opportunity presents Itself:

to the Moon, talking dreamily. His

3^rd wife joins him, a chilly moonlilly

(14 FEB 12, Santa Clara CA)v3

Remembering Bro. Kyrin [Ed Powers] CFX

2012-01-19T10:46:00.000-08:00

My most inspiring St. John's Prep. (Danvers, MA) lit. teacher was Bro. Kyrin [Ed Powers] CFX who began the 1st-day of Senior English (early SEP.'58) with the command: "Activate the Illumination!" directing the student sitting nearest the light-switch to snap it on.

Sometime that year, he suddenly wrote on the blackboard: "With a Ki-yi-yi... the Emperor of Ice-cream..." (from the eponymous poem by Wallace Stevens), revealing us to a fancifully surreal poetry we'd never imagined: suddenly I saw that poetry could be anything, anything, poetry & was instantly baptised into 20th-century modernism..

So I eagerly went in to Harvard Sq. (by MBTA) & bought him both a paperback & a hardbound copy of William Empson's 7 Types of Ambiguity (Noonday Meridian, 1955) that he had praised, & handed them both to him, much to his surprise. (I have a green-covered 1955 ppbk copy of it sitting on the shelf before me as I type this.)

After I graduated St. John's (JUN '59), Kyrin & I corresponded; the next year, I, as a Boston College freshman, I once advanced the idea that one could derive a theory of drama from Heidegger, theory of poetry from Husserl (who I was reading then.) Kyrin grandly 'tushed' me off.

After he became the principal of Xaverian Prep. (Brooklyn NY), he invited me to go to with him to the White Horse Tavern, Dylan Thomas' 'local' (pub) while he was in NYC, but I was never able to take Kyrin up on it - because I couldn't afford to travel down to NYC from way up in Lynn MA where I lived with my parents (until 1963.)

Kyrin & I lost touch after I graduated Boston College (Summer '63) because my life was in turmoil, partly because of the draft (which I beat by claiming to be gay, a story in itself.) I wrote him many years later that I was grateful that my son Alex was actually gay & so couldn't be drafted. Response: silence; Kyrin was probably closeted, but occasionally burst brightly into flames (see pars.1-2, above.). I owe him my sincerest thanks for his poetic influence. (I've just found out by calling Xaverian Prep that he died in 1982.)

Crackers & Appalachia

2012-01-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

CR@CKERS & APPALACHIA

Ethelyne ‘cracker’ to be built in Appalachia.

– NPR 12 JAN 12

My uncle Tom told how his wife Vi(olet)

once took him to a ‘cracker’ party: a boy

stood in the center of a room with a pail

of water & box of saltine crackers; she

said: “Be nice Floyd dance!” & so Floyd

danced around the pail with the crackers

that never got wet & no one ever ate.

No matter how intended, Southerners

take it badly at being called ‘crackers’

recalling indentured servants ‘cracking’

tars from pine trees in Georgia. What about

high-octane fuel for combustion ? Will

‘cracker’ rise in occupational status? Will

boys wear T-shirts saying ‘CRAYKUH!

& dam’ proud of it, y’all!” (Wait & see.)

(12 JAN 12, Santa Clara CA) v2

Warren Buffet's (alleged) Fix for Congress

2012-01-03T07:30:00.000-08:00

A CHAIN-LETTER IS CIRCULATING (allegedly) FROM WARREN BUFFET ON HOW TO 'FIX' CONGRESS, & as usual, asks you to send it to 20 friends to make the entire country aware of its terms in 3 days. Mine came from my longtime friend, poet & biologist Dr. Bob Chute Sc.D. in Poland Spring ME.

Usually omnibus 'fixes' like this are superficially appealing, but reveal unobvious conseqences in their details:

I.] Are congress's salalries supposed to pay for more than just their personal living expenses in DC?

If so, 1) It will cause independently rich/self-sufficient congresspersons to predominate.

2) If, however, their salaries fund their entire office, not just their persons, (by whatever means rich) congresspersons will obviously be able to live richly in D.C.

II.]The terms of their collecting Social Security sound OK; however.

But...so would the wealthy's not being able to collect SS above a fixed income cap (not cited.). They obviously don't & won't need it. But many wealthy people do collect it, nonetheless. Proposal: It should be ended immediately, congress included, nobody excluded; enforced across the board, it would obviously save the federal budget much more than just reducing congressional salaries & perks.

Anyway, can we safely assume that Warren Buffet fully-researched these fixes & consequences before promulgating them? - if indeed he did. It might well be a bogus Buffet proposal. Anti-incumbent cranks come up with proposals like this year after year, esp. federal election years. It has the popular mania of a Tea-Party iniative to me. But what if it were proposed by U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (R.I.) - would you be inclined to believe it? Why/not? Let me know.

UPDATE: I've finally done what carolin always did, after saying "I'm one of Nature's suspicious people." Consult the debunking SNOPES website (www.SNOPES.com) where I quickly found that the alleged WarrenBuffeted 'fixing' Congress ACT 2011 is mostly based on an anonymous 2009 predecessor then called: "A 28th Amendment." Google: Buffet fix Congress SNOPES Then send its correction to whomever you sent the mostly-fake chain-letter - which in itself should have been an adequate tip-off: billionaire Warren Buffet recco chain-letters to communicate nationally? Hardly.

Occupation: Inform

2011-12-31T08:32:00.000-08:00

OCCUPATION: INFORM

Or: Shock , then Teach;

Word of the Year 2011: Occupy

Occupation shock troops

shocked everybody,

friend & foe alike, into

awareness, discomfort.

Everybody knows how

determined they are, not

Everybody knows what

they know, so it’s time to:

consolidate: inform, teach

from a position of security.

Occupiers are seeking

buildings to inhabit that

they can rest in safely.

You, out there, who own

abandoned buildings:

give them places to live,

recoup, show that living

doesn’t mean silence,

normalcy doesn’t mean

complete capitulation.

(01 JAN 2012, Santa Clara CA)v3

NEWT {on) VENUS

2011-12-24T10:21:00.001-08:00

NEWT {on} VENUS

Newt whizzes to Venus,

opening a campaign HQ

believing it’ll B AOK

after reading VENUS,

INC. (Pohl & Kornbluth)

eager for mega-votes

from its New-t Frontier:

“New-t President VENUS”

bumperstuck everywhere.

Write-in: Newt! Write-in!

(24 DEC 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

appears on The New Verse News
www.newversenews.blogspot.com
25 DEC 2011

Barry's Hand

2011-12-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

All along, I've thought Obama's ultimate strategy was to give the public something nobody has yet been able to give them - a national health program - at a time when it's obviously most necessary. The political risk was that it would never get thru congress. Well, it did by a single-party manoeuvre; so now nothing much else can, except tax-cuts (until this little last one.). Which in itself should alert the public as to who wants what for them, if they're really watching, which remains to be seen. Details confuse them, so the Republicans say No! - which everybody imagines means No More! (Not quite.)

The Republicans have worked to confuse the public about this in every possible way, finally taking 'Obama-care' to the Supreme Court via the states where they will (presumably, given the current 9 justices) prevail. Penultimately, they want to make Obama look increasingly incompetent in every possible way about everything.

Inverting the political premise: 'You can't beat Something with Nothing', however, the much too large field of R-candidates in the primary is only exposing their spectacularly contentious disorganization, making Obama seem even more organized than he really is...unless all of this fits into his reelection plan. If so, Barry's one helluva political poker-player.

What the -ites don't like (short version)

2011-12-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

The Occupy Movement strikes hot cultural oil when sub/urbanites feel their (so-called) hippiedom calls our superstructure into immediate question.

The -ites think: It's hard enough for us to keep things going, but do those hippies have to disgust, insult, obstruct, impoverish us while do? Do they have a death-wish...or something? Yes, they have Something...

Occupiers are a bread spectrum of people; some may look like hippies, but they come from many classes, and share a sense of how to focus everybody's attention on the centers of power - state houses, city halls, big bank offices (not credit unions), corporate HQs, Wall Street - where it is & what it symbolizes. They want to educate us; they aren't asking to be housed on their own behalves; they aren't panhandling us, they're accusing certain institutions of not doing what they should.

Meanwhile, The 1% want us to be distracted by appearances: to be charmed by the rich, disgusted by people sleeping on downtown sidewalks. But the more the Occupiers are rousted, the deeper our sympathy flows towards them..

One newspaper observer says that the Occupiers having cellphones shows they're not poor. Look, Occupy is not a Poor People's March. It's an Informed People's indictment of our economic situation. The more our situation worsens, the more disturbing their indictment gets, until we start to ask ourselves: Why, why...why can't we just fix it?

Answer: Resistant -ites prefer that things stay mostly the way they are, especially while they're being called into question before our eyes by Occupy.

What the -ites don't like (long version)

2011-12-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

There's a substratum of the Occupy Movement that yields some very hot cultural oil. What appears to the hardcore sub/urbanite as their radical deculturization (aka hippiedom) instantly calls much of our shaky cultural superstructure into immediate question.

The -ites think: It's hard enuf for us to keep all these things going, but do those whacko hippies have to disgust & insult & impoverish us while we work hard at it? Do they have a death-wish...or something? Yes, they actually do have... Something...

Occupy actually contains a bread spectrum of people, some of whom may look superficially like hippies, but come from many classes. They have a fine/instinctive dramatic sense of getting everybody's attention fixed on where & what they want it to be concentrated on: the centers of power - state houses, city halls, big bank offices (not credit unions), corporate HQs, Wall Street - where it is & what it symbolizes. This is a intended as a profoundly educative effort; they aren't asking to be housed on their own behalves - or hasn't anybody noticed & remarked upon this yet? They aren't panhandling us, they're visually & verbally accusing & distressing the institutional players who are actually ripping us off.

The 1% (of course) want us to be distracted by appearances, charmed by the usually envied & admired rich, while being disgusted by what appears to be the undeserving poor sleeping in little mountaineering gumdrop-tents on downtown sidewalks. But what actually happens is that the more the Occupiers are abused, the deeper our subconscious sympathy runs.

Some media-hacks (Willie Brown in his last Sunday's CHRON column) scorn the Occupiers for having cellphones & not really being abjectly poor. For the record: Occupy is not a Poor People's March. It's an Informed People's deeply disturbing indictment of our warped economic situation. The more our situation warps, the more disturbing the indictment: We ask ourselves: Why, why...can't we just fix it?

Ans: Some -ites like things just the way they are. So do the plutocrats who once used to inspire & now covertly fund them. That increasingly faltering delusion's being called into question now by the Occupy Movement, right before our decreasingly unbelieving eyes.

What's...actually...Jewish?

2011-12-13T08:47:00.000-08:00

'Jewish' food is a matter of what Jews eat in different countries & how much they've adopted that cuisine. Jews are always amazed to find that I grew up on latkes. Well, they're actually called Sachsiche kartofflen (Saxon potatoes) in Germany, so they're not originally 'Jewish' at all; Poles call them platski (flatties). One young Jewish guy I worked with once said wistfully, "I wish I could have latkes more than once a year." I told him: "I had them often, because (most) Poles do." He was amazed. Poles eating latkes? Saxons eating platski?

Dunking German-Jewish pumpernickel into Polish chicken soup simply reunites what's already common to some Jews, some Germans, & most Poles. (Chicken soup is jokingly called 'Jewish penicillin' by Jews).

(flashback:) When I was young, my mother took me by bus across Lynn MA to a kosher butcher on Union St. in East Lynn to buy her chickens. She came from Salem, the next city east. 'Jack' the kosher butcher was the Nazi-cariacature of a Jew: big hooked nose, thick lips, big teeth, jet-black hair, etc. He must have wondered why this Polish woman came across town by bus for his kosher chickens. I assumed that's just where the chickens she wanted could be had. She, of course, never told me; I wonder what she told him? I assume it wasn't in Polish.

Danish Pastry Memories

2011-12-11T18:55:00.000-08:00

DANISH PASTRY MEMORIES

Ginny walks into the bedroom

holding out a cheese-'Danish'

reviving my childhood memory

of delicious 'Danish' pastries

bought after Sunday mass from

New York Model Bakery in Lynn’s

Jewish ghetto, The Brickyard. Were

any other things I ate also Jewish?

(11 DEC 11, Santa Clara CA) v5

GARGOYLE 57

2011-12-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

When the U.S.P.S. hand-delivers a 600pp book 1-1/8 inches thick by 5 ½ x by 8 ¼, it’s either a catalog, or an annual anthology from Arlington VA:

GARGOYLE 57 (2011) edited by Christine Ebersole & *Richard Peabody.

ISBN 978-0-931181-36-8, 600pp, USD$24.95 www.gargoylemagazine.com,
gargoyle@gargoylemagazine.com (703) 525-9296.

Here are all the contributors:

Non-fiction: Claire Blechman, Carolyn Cooke, Carmen Delzell Brandel France, Simki Ghebremichael

Poetry: Albert Abondonado, Clayton Adams, Heather Anastasiu, Nin Andrews, Saadia Ali Aschemann, JoAnn Balingit, Mary Bargteil, Laurel Bastian, Jeffrey Bean, Jill Beauchesne, Maria Bennett, Clifford Bernier, Linda Blaskey, Claire Blotter, Dan Brady, Elissa Braff, Steven Brayak, Philip Calderwood, Michael Casey, Alex Chertok, Katherine Coles, Antionette Constable, Robert Cooperman, Claudia Cortese, Nina Corwin, **, Kelly Coveny, Barbara Crooker, Jim Daniels, Kristina Marie Darling, John Davis, Barbara DeCesare, Liz Dolan, Philip Dozal, Doug Draime, Gabe Durham, Moira Egan, Kristina England, Bair Ewing, Sarene Friedman, Molly Gaudry, Megan Giller, Kimberley Grey, Michael Gushue, Jeff Hardin, David M. Harris, Nowan Hasm, Chris Haven, Kathleen Hellen, David Hernandez, Alison Hicks, Le Hinton, Jean C. Howard, Colette Inez, Fred Joiner, Don Judson, Ann Keefe, Stephen Kessler, Daniel Kharms, Alan King, Benjamin C. Krause, Sarah Layden, A. Loudermilk, Adrian C. Louis, K.E. MacMillan, Anthony Madrid, Stephen Matin, Aoife Mannix, Joyce Mansour, Peeter Marcus, Hugh Martin, Frank Matagrano, Steve MccClain, Sjohanna Bruce McCray, Alex McRae, Mark Melincove, Michael Monroe, Nancy Carol Moody, Steve Moran, Mary Morris, Kristine Ong Muslim, Tim Meyers, James Norcliffe, Jay Pabarue, Maria Padhila, Shelley Puhak, Kim Roberts, Ronald Simon Rubin, Tomaz Salamun, Sarah Sarai, Sami Schalk, Eric Paul Shaffer, Michael Shorb, Barry Silesky, Edgar Gabriel Silex, Joan Stepp Smith, Patricia Smith, Robert Spiegel, Carlie St. George, Marilyn Stabelin, Kurt Steinwand, D.E. Steward, Marc Swan, Adam Tessier, Samantha Tatangco, Meg Thompson, Jim Tolan, Billie Travalini, Meredith Trede, James Valvis, Mimi Vaquer, DanVera, Kim Vollmer-Lawson, Avni Vyas, Ronald Wallace, Pamela Murray, Bill Wolak.

Fiction: Forrest Aquirre, Robert Allen, Stephanie Allen, Alexander V. Bach, Jill Birdsall, Jamie Brown, Rae Bryant, Tom Carson, Kim Chinquee, Susan Cokal, Charles Conley, Bethe Couture, Ramola D, Jewnmarie Davis, Katrina Denza, Glenn Deutsch, Meghan, Dombrink-Green, Janice Eidus, Saskia Fischer, Thaisa Frank, Scott Garson, Alessandra Gelmi, James Grady, Myronn Hardy, Jessica Hollander, Suzanne Marie Hopcroft, Julie Innis, Robert Kloss, Bettina Lanyi, Nathan Leslie, Peter Tieyras, Ben Loory, Jonathan Mack, Cynthia, Newberry Martin, Susan McCarty, Lindsay Merbaum, Cory Mesler, Janet Mitchell, David Morhman, Teresa Burns, Claire Marie Meyers, Susan Smith Nash, ME. Parker, Meg Pokrass, Zena Polin, Meredith Pond, Wena Poon, Pilar Quintana, Michelle Reala, Doug Rice, Ethel Rohan, Gabriella Romeri, Ann K, Ryles, Kris Saknussemm, Robert Scotellaro, Lynda Sexson, Elisabeh Sheffield, Marcia Slatkin, Curtis Smith, Katherine Smith, Amber Sparks, Dawn Sperber, Daniel Stolar, Lee A. Tonuchi, Roz Kuehn Unruh, Judy Viertel, Elisabeth Warren, Paula Whyman, Bess Winter.

Artwork: Marilyn Stabelein, Matthet Kirkpatrick, C, Albert, Bill Wolak,

Contributors’ notes: pp. 570-91. * Rick Peabody is an adjunct prof. at Johns Hopkins; **My poem “Byrd fiddles in Purgatory” is on p.93

Why cite everyone? In a review like this, it’s analagous to the mag.'s thickness & breadth of contributors. Normally I’d cite a few whole poems as samples, but that's impossible/unfair with this many contributors. What if I just cite a single line & tell you where to find it? Here it is: All you need to do is write. (p.61)

2011-12-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

Double-quilted

Adding a 2nd, double-thick

rose-patterned quilt

doubles my dozing pleasure

here in Norcal on a foggy

November-end morning.

Snow falls in the mountains,

but rarely the valleys. My

chilling blood bubbles, like

a hot cuppa…whatever.

(30 NOV 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

lone.ly writer

2011-12-03T08:39:00.000-08:00

Most people think writers are willing solitaries, deeply engrossed in writing & revising. That may apply to prose-fiction writers (esp. novelists who were once generally believed to be drunks. Californian Upton Sinclair wrote a critical study of famous drunk-writers.) but this doesn't apply to any poets I know, including me.

I do, however, experience a fair degree of low-key lonliness. I rarely get phone-calls (usually when I'm shaving) which I don't remember to retrieve until as much as a week later. I do, however, read my e-mails - often, very often, over & over. For constant company, I have a 10yr old 10 lb. Maine Coon cat named Reggie that Carolin & I got from a dairy farm in Vergennes VT. Since moving here, I've taught him to say: "Out!" & he's learned to say "Hello?"

What would a cautious 69-yr old poet would eat these days? safe foods: soy & ordinary plain yogurt; oatmeal/muesli w/soy-milk for breakfast; lentils & noodles w/crushed tomatoes dusted with dry basil/oregano; crock-potted carrots & whole beets, incl. greens; an occasional medium egg; various decaf (due to heart-attack) teas, esp. rooibos. No more Danish/Polish jams on crunchy sourdough bread

----------------------

If you live nearby, I'll gladly have decaf tea with you*. I don't & never have driven, so I conveniently live on the VTA#60 bus line, 2+ blocks from the Winchester Transit Plaza (at the Valley Fair mall in west San Jose, where the #60 bus line ends & the #23 bus line runs west to DeAnza College in Cupertino & east to downtown San Jose.) I live 2 blocks from the east end of Pruneridge Ave. in Santa Clara, where it becomes Hedding once it crosses N. Winchester Blvd. & San Jose begins. My address is: 390 N. Winchester Blvd. apt 4-4D, Santa Clara 95050-6541, opposite 888 N. Winchester (actually in San Jose.)

*e-mail me if you're interested: billcostley@yahoo.com

2011-12-02T07:14:00.000-08:00

I've sent out my Plantable Greetings
Christmas cards with "Spread Cheer"
covered by a yellow Post-It (tm) with
OCCUPY written on it; inside:
this World pasted above the original:
"like a field of Wildflowers
this Christmas."

(02 DEC 11, Santa Clara CA)v3

I've sent out 11/12 of my altered-OCCUPY Xmas cards & await responses. So far: 1) Anita Holzberg, Sunnyvale CA: "Clever & beautiful; loved the whole idea." 2) Ruth Emmett, Bangor ME: "I love my card, thanks; its stunning originality cheers me." 3) Ann Wainwright, Leven, W.Yorks, GB "I give it a thumbs up, and it has plantable seeds too!!!!!"

2011-12-02T06:50:00.000-08:00

HISTORY: in the Making

Occupy L.A. is visited

by high-school students,

gladly brought there

for a living-history lesson.

Imagine: Boston students

visiting Brook Farm (1841-7)

meeting Nathaniel Hawthorne*

& his wife Sophia Peabody.

(They were there. History's

always in the making.)

(02 DEC 11, Santa Cara CA)

* who wrote about it in his novel
The Blithedale Romance (1852)

BLACK FRIDAY

2011-11-25T16:26:00.000-08:00

Shoppers desperate for retail stuff

hit bigbox stores like bargain-wolves

on Black Friday eve, proof that:

if They sell it, they will come.

Like the Market, it addicts;

addling, TV-news projects

on-line frenzy into Cyberweek.

(25 NOV 11, Santa Clara CA)v8

POETS LAUREATE MAKE NEWS

2011-11-24T04:44:00.000-08:00

Mayor Bloomberg lets NYC's 'finest' cops

demolish a signed first-edition donated

to Occupy Wall. St. by Philip Levine

current US Poet Laureate.

Former Poet Laureate Robert Hass &

his wife, Brenda Hillman get beaten

in Occupied Berkeley 09 NOV.

He writes about it 19 NOV

in the Sun. NYT

American poets finally make news

in ways anyone can appreciate

on both coasts.

(24 NOV 11, Santa Clara CA)v3

Occupy Maine needs propane

2011-11-23T11:31:00.000-08:00

Occupy Maine’s campsite

ran out of propane today;

visiting Veterans for Peace

brought new cylinders &

e-mailed their members:

propane only costs $13.

Maybe this is small patatahs

to you, reader, but in Maine

today the snow fell 8” &

it's freezing outside.

(23 NOV 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

2011-11-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

CHENEY WATCHES

while the Occupiers
mess up downtowns,
infuriating a middle-class
teetering on the thin edge
of collapse disgusted
by anyone who disturbs
their security, comfort.

“They’ll finish what I began.
They just, just can’t stop!”
CHENEY laughs, smiling..

(20 NOV 11, Santa Clara CA)v4

because UAW endorses Occupy

2011-11-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

My father was a long-term member of the IUE & worked 29+ yrs at the River Works GE in Lynn MA where I grew up. I joined the NWU (National Writers' Union) in AUG 1981 when Reagan fired the air-traffic controllers. I felt it was time for me to be a union member, never having had to be one.

{30 yrs later:} I rejoin the NWU, amalgamated local 1981 of the UAW, because the UAW supports the Occupy movement:
http://www.uaw.org/articles/
uaw-stands-occupy-oakland-movement-and-nationwide

Last night, San Francisco ABC7 showed UAW busses as having transported students from Berkeley to downtown San Francisco to sit in the Bank of America branch at 50 California St. in the financial district. I'm a BofA depositor & I approve.

copoidality

2011-11-16T08:23:00.000-08:00

Mornings, I wake up already nauseous

to find what’s happened overnight:

‘public safety’ used to justify

despicable copitude.

But not everywhere;

some cities aren’t yet copoidal.

What does it take to tip to cop?

(16 NOV 11, Santa Clara CA)v4

DO NOT FEED YOUR CATS

2011-11-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

Alcoholic beverages that cause intoxication, coma, & death.

Baby food which contains onion powder that can be toxic to cats, & can also result in nutritional deficiencies, if fed in large amts.

Bones from fish, poultry, or other meat sources which can cause obstruction or laceration of the digestive system.

Canned tuna (for human consumption) can cause malnutrition; it lacks proper levels of vitamins & minerals.

Chocolate, coffee, tea, contain caffeine, theobromine, or theophylline; they can be toxic & affect the heart & nervous system.

Citrus oil extracts can cause vomiting.

Dog food If accidentally ingested, will not cause a problem; but if fed repeatedly, may result in malnutrition & diseases affecting the heart.

Fat trimmings can cause pancreatitis.

Grapes & raisins contain an unknown toxin that can damage the kidneys.

Human vitamin supplements containing iron can damage the lining of the digestive system, & are toxic to the other organs including liver & kidneys.

Large amounts of liver will cause Vitamin A toxicity affecting muscles & bones.

Macadamia nuts contain an unknown toxin that can affect the digestive & nervous systems & muscle.

Marijuana depresses the nervous system, causes vomiting, & changes in the heart rate.

Milk & other dairy products Some adult cats & dogs do not have sufficient amounts of the enzyme lactase which breaks down the lactose in milk which an result in diarrhea.

Moldy or spoiled food, garbage contain multiple toxins, causing vomiting & diarrhea & can also affect other organs.

Mushrooms can contain toxins, which may affect multiple systems in the body, cause shock, result in death.

Onions & garlic (raw, cooked, or powder) contain sulfoxides & disulfides that can damage red blood cells & cause anemia. Cats are more susceptible than dogs. Garlic is less toxic than onions.

Persimmon seeds cause intestinal obstruction & enteritis.

Potato, rhubarb, & tomato leaves; potato & tomato stems contain oxalates that can affect digestive, nervous, & urinary systems.

Raw eggs contain the enzyme avidin that decreases absorption of biotin (a B vitamin), & leads to skin & hair coat problems. They may also contain Salmonella.

Raw fish can result in a thiamine (a B vitamin) deficiency leading to loss of appetite, seizures, & in severe cases, death if fed regularly.

Salt (in large amts.) leads to electrolyte imbalances.

String can become trapped in a cat's digestive system.

Sugary foods can lead to obesity, dental problems, & possibly diabetes mellitus.

Table scraps (large amts.) which are not nutritionally balanced. They should never be more than 10% of the diet. Fat should be trimmed from meat & discarded.

Tobacco which contains nicotine, affects the digestive & nervous systems & can result in rapid heartbeat, collapse, coma, & death.

Yeast dough can expand & cause gas in the digestive system, causing pain & possible rupture of stomach or intestines.

on Tea Party {VS} Occupy

2011-11-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

The Tea-Party wants to take over the country by exploiting the electoral process. The Occupy movement wants to reform a 'corporate' electoral process by supplanting it with direct democracy (one voter, one vote, no bundling.)

Which of these intentions can the general public grasp?

If, in the short term, the TP's, wherever & whenever they fail (which they will) & are rejected, they will be replaced in the longer term by an evolved Occupy+ combined with a growing union-based democracy. The TP's brutal antitax reductionism can't & won't resolve the ongoing crisis. Desperate to get the public to believe they're the original anti-government movement, whenever & wherever they become the (temporary) government, they become self-contradictory as well as self-defeating, sure to be challenged by an evolved Occupy+ dedicated to meeting people's real needs. The TP only serves (its own) relatively well-off individuals' needs. (The avg. TP member is 40+ & earns $40+K) Newly-announced bi-partisan-based 'moderate' 3rd-parties may propose 'moderate' tweaks.

Unions may be relatively weak now, but are growing again, stimulated by Occupy's 'energy' (that unions admit they admire & need) & engagement in public-needs projects (cf. moving homeless families into repaired abandoned houses.) Unions have already been supporting Occupy camps with needed showers, food, & clothes in return for Occupier participation in union strikes.

Some city administrations (Portland, Santa Rosa) have expressed sympathy with their Occupiers, but want them to vacate overnite while public-works depts. cleanse their campsites. Occupy Oakland will be allowed to stand vigils, but not camp overnight. In Manhattan, the Occupiers' of Zuccotti Park are being allowed overnite by the court, but not by the city administration http://news.yahoo.com/ court-order-allows-occupy-wall-st-protesters-back-135130959.html .

If Occupiers vacate city-limits & see to their own health & safety needs, becoming self-sustaining, they might even be tolerated as semi-autonomous. To do this, the Occupiers will need the * sympthetic loan of unused land & abandoned buildings & the means to develop self-sustaining communities (21st century versions of 19th-century communities like Amana, etc.) Building liveable communities may even win the broad public's approval, support, & cooperation.

Conclusion: The Tea-Party is a holding action pretending to be a long-term solution. The Occupation Movement is of indeterminate duration, but is dedicated to broad, long-term goals & humane reforms

*Occupy L.A. receives offer to decamp
By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles officials * have offered Occupy L.A. protesters a package of incentives that includes downtown office space and farmland in an attempt to persuade them to abandon their camp outside of City Hall, according to several demonstrators who have been in negotiations with the city.

The details of the proposal were revealed Monday during the demonstration's nightly general assembly meeting by Jim Lafferty, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who has been advocating on behalf of the protest since it began seven weeks ago. Lafferty said *city officials have offered protesters a $1-a-year lease on a 10,000-square-foot office space near City Hall. He said officials also promised land elsewhere for protesters who wish to farm, as well as additional housing for the contingent of homeless people who joined the camp.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/
la-me-1122-occupy-la-move-20111122,0,1592348.story

Having NOT Served

2011-11-11T07:05:00.000-08:00

Not having ‘served’ once

disqualified a man as a Man.

(I‘ve lived with this 51 yrs)

Now having willingly served

reduces some men to beasts

living outdoors like bears.

What has this country come to?

It all depends on who you ask:

Where is there any 'honor' in it?

(11 NOV 11, Santa Clara CA)v4

NOT ENOUGH?

2011-11-02T17:09:00.001-07:00

Not enough of the People

were hired to infiltrate the People,

so the People got out of hand.

Not enough of the People

were working full-time

to be fully-occupied.

Enough of the People

were working to take a day off.

Enough of the People showed up

to make the point: The People

will make their presence visible

whether they’re wanted or not.

The People will always show up.

(02 NOV 11, 5pm, Santa Clara CA

while listening to KPFA 94.1 FM)

BROKERS...BUSTED

2011-11-02T07:41:00.000-07:00

Busted...brokers were parodied as desperately willing interns
on a (recent) NBC "30 ROCK" show.

But have any of them been interviewed as REALLY willing
to work for (relatively) spare change? They must have enough
money banked offshore (on islands) to survive anything.

But what if they re-became neo-Entrepreneurs? or Educators:
(seminar:) How To Survive the Loss of a REALLY good job.

They could become a money-making [{club}], not just a busted g@ng.

Pink Bulbs in Silicon Valley

2011-10-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

For decades, Carolin & I slept in a very cold pink bedroom above Wellesley Sq. (built in the the 1920s, the house wasn’t insulated) with a pink lightbulb in its only lamp.

Now that I live with our Maine Coon cat Reggie on the 4th floor of a 4-storey apartment block in Santa Clara, I can’t paint my bedroom walls pink, but I do keep a pink 60-watt lightbulb in a faux ginger-jar lamp. The bulb died a few days ago, so I assumed I could easily get a replacement.

Not so. Most Silicon Valley stores don't stock pink incandescent bulbs: my nearby Ace/Do It Best hardware store, Home Depot, Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) don't, & referred me to Target (assuming it has everything; it doesn't.)

Lamps Plus graciously gave me the phone number of Batteries & Bulbs, a tiny specialty store in a small strip-mall in neighboring Sunnyvale, who gladly told me they had what I was looking for.

Braving Friday's afternoon rush-hour traffic Ginny drove us there & waited nearby in McDonalds while I limped to the strip mall to buy (2) 2-bulb packs of Sylvania Go Pinque 60W bulbs @ $5/bulb. Steep, but worth it; via internet, the shipping alone is as much.

So once again I can sleep softly in Silicon Valley with a pink bulb on.

2011-10-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

HIRING LITANY

Reasons not to hire you:

You’re an underachiever .
You’re underqualified.
You’re undereducated.
You’re overeducated.
You’re overqualified.
You won’t work for minimum wage.
You will work for minimum wage.
We’ll be hiring in our next Fiscal Year.
We never hire after the holidays.
We always lay-off after the holidays.
We’re taking over our competitor.
We’ve been taken over.
We're moving operations to China.
We're going Chapter 1l.
We're going out of business.
Would you like to buy the company?

(12 OCT 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

OCCUPIER Q&A

2011-10-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

Q: What's up with those Wall St. Occupiers?
A: They lack hierarchy & party affiliation,
but they do have real handmade signs.

Q: Where are those Wall St. Occupiers headed?
A: To encamp outside big banks' local branches
holding up real handmade signs saying:
THIS BANK’S 2 BIG

Q: What can you tell a Wall St. Occupier?
A: Anything; whatever you say, there'll be
someone who'll agree with you &
someone who'll disagree with you, too.

(09 OCT 11, Santa Clara CA)v9

2011-10-07T06:11:00.001-07:00

JOBS DIES, QQ REMAIN

Q: What can we conclude

from Steve Jobs’ death?

A: It’s much too soon.

Q: Was he a true ‘Giant’

Of Business, Technology,

Electronics, Electricity?

Q: Of which was he truly

most characteristic? All?

These & other QQ remain

to be answered slowly,

with no iDevice in hand.

(06 OCT 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

Of the Age of Electricity

2011-10-06T08:43:00.000-07:00

A current USNEWS piece by Rich Newman "Where Steve Jobs ranks among the Greats" suggests that Jobs is one of the enablers of the middle-class, as were Benjamin Franklin & Thomas A. Edison, who all made new-technology inventions accessible & desirable to a broad commercial audience (as the world population increased.)

They all were dependent on electricity for some of their inspirations. Franklin, from his simple experiment with lightning & a kite; Edison* for his inventions that required electricity, & Jobs** (ditto.).

They're all entrepreneurs/enablers of the Age of Electricity...which we take to be absolutely essential to the world as we know it, because most of us use it. (Those few who don't are primitives or electro-luddites.)

But is electricity absolutely essential? If not, what's next? (Solar-derived power is still only used to create electric current, as are nuclear, geo-thermal, even water.)

If we do (somehow) move beyond electricity, we will have taken a quantum leap. What if...the next energy source & distribution system were geo-magnetic? (Sci-fi writers have imagined that flying saucers might be driven by some geo-magnetic repulsion/reversal drive that uses the earth's mass & magnetism in its propulsion scheme.)

What's certain is that this will continue to be speculated about in this advancing electronic century. The current media surface noise about Jobs' relative position will have to abate. At the moment, he's too close to us to evaluate rationally. We need a longer perspective. I suggest The Age of Electricity as a technological historical period.

If our current electronic technology (somehow) fails, we will fall back (be reduced to) to the pre-electric age & begin our development again on some new basis. Or not. Does that frighten you?

Notes: *Edison sued & defeated many other inventors, so his achievements may now appear unique, but they weren't. **Jobs refined other people's 'products', raised prices, fascinated fellow tecchies, but was never up for a Nobel Prize.

"Out of Work"

2011-10-04T08:50:00.000-07:00

Walking up a big street in a big city,

you’re suddenly passed by a line of

people carrying signs that read:

Out of Work

Still Out of Work

Still…Out of Work

going somewhere, walking fast.

You think you’re in a New Yorker

cartoon, but you’re not. This is real.

04 OCT 11, Santa Clara CA)v3

2011-10-02T19:45:00.001-07:00

IF THE RICH

for carolin combs

If the rich are so nourishing,

Why not…eat them? I see

Carolin’s Eat The Rich

slogan on a poster held by

today’s Wall St. Occupiers,

hers in her button-basket

all these decades, rarely

worn, never out-of-date.

(02 OCT 11, Santa Clara CA)v3

foxiously noxious

2011-09-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

When Nixon was on his way out

we shuddered: the daily paper's

Perry, balladed

2011-09-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

Rick Perry (ballad)

Texas got a man

in snakeskin boots,

spits in a can,

smokes cheroots.

Sing Yippie-ay-yay, ay-yo!

When Texans lurk,

Perry's their jerk,

tells a damn good lie

with a cold glass eye.

Sing: Yippie-ay-yay, ay-yo!

Chorus 1:

You know Rick Perry,

Don't feel no werry. (bis)

Chorus 2:

Sing Yippie-ay-yay, ay-yo!

(23 SEP 11, Santa Clara CA)v5

Rick Perry

2011-09-23T02:55:00.001-07:00

Rick Perry (ballad)

Texans, elect galoots

in snakeskin boots

who're in cahoots,

& smoke cheroots.

Sing Yippie-ay-yay, ay-yo!

Texans, y'all smirk

when he talks jerk.

Texans, y'all hoot

for his snakeskin boot!

Sing: Yippie-ay-yay, ay-yo!

Chorus:

You know Rick Perry,

so don'tya werry. (bis)

Contemporary Class Warfare

2011-09-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

The 1st time heard a Republican operative I knew use the term 'class warfare' was when I interviewed him on Wellesley College radio in the late '80s. It came out of nowhere, & went nowhere we were talking about. He was just trying it out because he was on the radio. It was the propaganda hot-bullet of that year. Now it's back.

It's an attempt to make a European term American, but only applies to the American present if you admit that if any class suffers a relative taxation injustice, it's the middle- vs the upper-. Which pays a higher % of taxes? (You know the answer.)

Post WW2, a greater number of Americans have aspired to & achieved many traditional middle-class perks: a college education, a white collar job with a larger paycheck, a car, country-club membership. Owning a home became the American Everyman's Dream. When polled, most Americans soon claimed they were middle-class. Those middle-class people whose homes were (temporarily) worth a realty (not real) million imagined they were actually millionaires. They've just had a rude awakening recently: what goes up, can come down. Nonetheless, their delusion persists:

http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/113526/
what-it-takes-become-millionaire-cnbc?mod=retire-planning

Rabid Republicans are belatedly conning them with the propagandistic distortions of the "Death Panels","Death (Estate) Tax" & "Class Warfare."

Demonstrating that: some people never learn; some don't want to; some don't want you to. Which are you?

Early Riser

2011-09-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

EARLY RISER

w/out radio

Wake @ daybreak.

Take a dump & flush it.

Take an Extra Strength Tylenol.

Go back to bed, get under the quilt.

Rub my cat Reggie; put him aside.

Drift off...composing this poem;

bolt up & type it out.

(20 SEP 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

Footcare

2011-09-20T06:18:00.001-07:00

Footcare

My feet get prickly, hot;
I pull off my crusty sox,

soak my feet in cold water,
then in soapy hot water,

apply clear aloe lotion,
rub on oatmeal lotion,

pull on clean white sox.

One day later,
my feet feel much better.

(20 SEP 11, Santa Clara CA)v7

Public Transit Blues

2011-09-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

Public Transit Blues

The more you read about the S.F. Bay BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system, the worse it gets.

The system that I, as a lifelong Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) rider, had longed to ride is now in constant turmoil over its police shootings. (cf. Oscar Grant, fatally shot by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle in the early morning of New Year's Day 2009)

Once I'd come to live on S.F. Bay, & rode the BART, I was chilled, & exhausted by its long distances. Now I avoid them entirely..

But not the connecting CalTrain commuter line on the Peninsula. It's an hour & a half from S.F. to Santa Clara (48mi.). The view’s the industrial side of every stop: lots of car repair shops & municipal yards. Riders often fall asleep. I quickly learned to store my black Shogun 105 in the final bike-car & sit in one of the bank of seats reserved for stringy, fraternal bikeoids who noisily drank beer, offering me none.

Repugs Conclude

2011-09-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Repugs Conclude

A time-traveller asks

the R-presidential candidates

to discuss welfare: First

they call it workfare, then

they call it payfare.

Lacking any idea

of a life worth living,

they won't consider

population control;

finally reaching a really

Repugnant Conclusion:

A world of miserable people

is more affordable than

a world of happy people.

(15 SEP 11, Santa Clara CA) v5

11 SEP 2001

2011-09-11T10:07:00.000-07:00

11 SEP 2011

Like chloroform-soaked sponges,

gravestones silence questioning;

grief extends from year-to-year,

decade-to-decade, necessarily.

The perpetrators are dead,

but the exploiters are alive

with ever-expanding strategy.

Nobody wants this to end.

(11 SEP 01, Santa Clara CA)v3

on The New Verse News: Tues. 13 SEP 2011
www.newversenews.blogspot.com

on 11 SEP 01

2011-09-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

My sister, (who I hadn't spoken to for years), called me in the morning from Spring Hill FL (at her children's insistence) to tell me my mother (b. 13 SEP.14) had just died in an Alzheimer's care-facility there. I couldn't fly anywhere.

I wasn't shaken by what was happening in NYC & DC.

Perspective: The aerial attack on NYC was much less devastating than the London Blitz. (Sept.7. 1940- May 10, 1941), or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) & Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945)
.

2011-09-10T06:07:00.000-07:00

Compare & Contrast:
NYC: 09/11/01
London: 09/07/40-05/10/41

Americans under-30 can’t.
They don’t remember the Blitz.

They think we’re unique. We are;
we think History begins & ends

with us.

(10 SEP 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

Dreaming of...

2011-09-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

I’m dreaming of

the fluffy white pillows

& white down-filled quilt

of my Polish grandparents' bed

on Forester St. off Salem Common

where as a child I slept away

Sunday afternoons after WW2.

(9 SEP 2011, Santa Clara CA)v2

HUGH FOX

2011-09-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

HUGH FOX

(1932-2011)

From 1968, the more

I got to know Hugh,

the more he perplexed:

transvestitism as Connie,

conversion to Judaism,

really only amounted to

ordinary provocations.

Q: What next? I wondered.

A: Death by cancer.

(05 SEP 11, Santa Clara CA)5

BIZ.ARROW WORLD

2011-09-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

In today's Biz.arrow World

companies pay top CEOs

to hire bottom workers

who can't buy what

they make; buying less,

economies plunge, CEOs

claiming to be unaware

that Henry Ford sold

Fords to his workers.

(04 SEP 11, Santa Clara CA)v10

My father never taught me how to garden

2011-09-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

My father went to Essex Agricultural Institute ('The Aggie') in Danvers MA, but hardly gardened in West Lynn where I grew up (7-21.) He never taught me to garden. Maybe it was because we rented.

But taking me along with him to the cemetary on Mother's Day, he would stop at a florist to buy a flat of hot-house pansies, his mother's favorite annual, to place on the family plot.

After retiring early (62.5) from the Lynn GE River Works, he bought a small house a block from where I'd grown up & gardened in the back yard. I'd moved away by then, & when I visited again, he showed me some Egyptian walking onions with tiny bulbs at the tip of scallion-like stalks.

He still never taught me how to garden, keeping that to himself. He was strangely secretive.
.

Poets, Verging

2011-09-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

As a young poet (25) in 1967 I verged at Wind in the Timothy, an 'upcountry' poetry festival held across the road from the old Shaker colony in Canterbury NH. It was mostly anti-war.

I came along with my poetic mentor, Tom Sheehan (Boston College '56) , a pro-war poet who had joined me (Boston College '63) in producing Earthwork/Redoubt a xeroxed 10-pg. pro-/anti-war poetry booklet we sold for 60c (the cost to produce it.) We read it to a mostly-poet audience; amazingly, it sold out.

Biologist Dr. Bob Chute of ME, an anti-war poet & editor we met at the festival soon began publishing both of us in his new 'small-press' mimeo quarterly, The Small Pond of literature.

44 years later, Bob & I exchange our latest poems via internet. Here's his blog: A Poet On the Verge of Science http://scientificpoet.blogspot.com/

2011-09-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

Holding an apple in my hand
takes me back over a half-century
to my Massachusetts childhood,
sinking my teeth into Winesaps.

(What did they taste like? I forget.)

Today, I read in the NYT online
that Gravensteins are fading from
California’s winey Sonoma County.

Where are the Winesaps of yesteryear?
Answer: Growing in Virginia.

(01 SEP 11, Santa Clara CA)v6

HAUF & HALF

2011-09-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

It’s one thing to be half-something, but it’s quite another for them to be dissimilar halves.

In my case it’s Scottish (my dad was born in Glasgow, Scotland ) & Polish (my mother was born in the Salem MA Polish-speaking community.) He was allegedly monolingual; she was perfectly bi-lingual

Anyone familiar with Scotland knows that most Scots speak a dialect of English, but also 'The Scots' with its distinctly Scottish vocabulary.

When I was living in Fife, Scotland, the father of my poet-friend Tom Hubbard suddenly turned to me and said “D’ye ken the braid Scots?” (Do you understand the broad Scottish dialect?) I carefully answered in Boston-American: “I ought to, my dad was born in Glasgow.” Thereafter, he comfortably spoke broad-Scots when I was around.

All my life I’ve switched (mentally & vocally) between multiple linguistic frequencies: Belarusian Polish, Glasgow Scottish, New England American & std. American English. In prep-school & undergraduate college I also learned Latin, French, & Russian. All of them have filtered what I say or hear.

I feel it makes me not quite what I appear to be. Indian- & Asian-Americans must feel this even more acutely.

But who ever bothers to ask them? How to begin? Q: “What’s it like to live with embedded linguistic filters?”

Would they be startled to know that anybody else knows?

(01 SEP 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

On Class & Wealth

2011-08-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

I've admired Barbara Ehrenreich ever since I read about how she worked as a hotel-maid to experience & expose the actual social-class relations between Maid & Mistress. (Mistress expected Maid to tipple & steal, but not have a Ph.D!)

Generally, Americans don't want to admit that social-class position rules this society like any other; & so a great many Americans prefer to imagine they're 'middle-class' - a presumption that's now being relentlessly eroded.

Once Americans realize how & by whom, they should have an overdue re-awakening; but what they'll do about it (post FDR vs Reagan, Clinton vs Obama) remains to be seen. Meanwhile:

Many think Social Security & Medicare are the 3rd-rail. The Tea Party thinks it's levying totally unnecessary Taxes.

It's much more than that. It's also about the disparity of 'wealth' & where that puts each of us as members of a spectrum/hierarchy of classes (fiscal, material, occupational, technical, etc. )

Speaking of 'wealth', how many people admire Warren Buffet? Bill Gates? Because of what they do with their wealth? To & for...whom?

Where CHENEY Hid

2011-08-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

WHERE {CHENEY} [HID]

exVPOTUS CHENEY now

admits he hid [in a bunker]

under his DC home "behind

a massive steel door secured

by an elaborate lock, w/a

narrow connecting hallway

lined with shelves filled w/

communications equipment,"

& @ Camp David, Maryland

& wayback home in Wyoming

(27 AUG 11, Santa Clara CA)v5

DISPARITY

2011-08-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

When you think of it

(if you do think of it),

money's relative:

tiny amounts of money

prime the dry sumps

of crushing poverty;

obscene money creates

overwhelming disparity.

FINANCIALLY: CHINESE

2011-08-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

Current Chinese academic research reveals:

Chinese companies have a genetic disposition
affecting their financial performance; although
generally, genetics affects only 25% of one’s
financial decisions, by buying Chinese you
increase that percentage & by contracting
with Chinese manufacturers, you participate
in Chinese finance. Chinese genes add value.

(17 AUG 11, Santa Clara CA)v3

Tea Party trumpets

2011-08-15T05:10:00.000-07:00

The Tea Party trumpets

from delusional peaks:

The rich & tax-free

deserve H-2B!

(15 AUG 11, Santa Clara CA)112

CRUEL RULES (ctd)

2011-08-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

Whose rules are the Cruel Rules? Are they religious?

Where belief (in something) is required; religion may not be.

You can now be a capitalist even in Communist China, but you cannot promote Falun Gong (a 'traditional' religion which is severley outlawed for irs fallacious science) which means that in Communist China political belief is separated from economic belief & religious belief.

In western capitalist countries, spiritual religion may be a matter of personal option, but capitalism is nonetheless the reigning state economic religion. Capitalism can be severe (notoriously so in empires' colonies) & is becoming increasingly so in these times of economic distress which I call The Time of Resolve, whose 3 Cruel Rules

Only the least expensive get paid.

Only the most efficient survive.

Only the most productive prevail.

apply in this case in the present world crisis and might be more severely applied under The Tea Party. Does this make the Tea Party religious? Economically yes, but not religiously as normally understood. The vulgarly assertive use of 'religiously' to mean absolutely or stringently is a corruption of the term. If those 3 rules seem acceptable to you, you are definitely not a Christian, no matter what you claim.

(TBC)

CRUEL RULES

2011-08-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

CRUEL RULES

In the coming Time of Resolve

cruel rules will run the world:

Only the least expensive get paid.

Only the most efficient survive.

Only the most productive prevail.

Cruel rules permit some to survive

a starkly inhumane world.

We will not be asked to believe;

we will only be told to behave.

(11 AUG 11, Santa Clara CA)v5

ignorant newsreaders

2011-08-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

Ignorant newsreading TV anchors

act astonished that The Market

can fall, & then rise, & then fall

as tho they’d never seen it do it

throughout every media-day.

They imagine The Market’s

gross numbers constitute

a colossal bank account,

not a fluctuating lottery,

junk bonds only as real as their

derivatives' underlying assets.

(10 AUG 11, Santa Clara CA)v4

TV programs

2011-08-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

Note on ME & TV programs

Here are the TV shows I’ve been an avid viewer of.

While living (1979-2003) in relatively wealthy ivy-league college town Wellesley MA, 2010 pop. 27,982, “Northern Exposure” delighted me. Its small Cicely AK somehow felt like Wellesley where I was media-active (regional & town newspapers, college radio, cable TV, civic-symphony, one-off opera, 20 yr anti-war vigil).

“The Gilmore Girls” set in a small CT town 10 mi from Hartford, due mostly to its fast dialog : “Talk fast. Life is short.” which Carolin probably saw appealing to me because I have 5 planets in Gemini; obvious class-relations; Yale story-line.

Now that I live alone in Jesuit-college city Santa Clara CA, 2010 pop.116,468, I occasionally watch "House", Burt Wolf's "Travel & Traditions" (deft research), Food TV's "Simply Ming" (Tsai) who owns "Blue Ginger" restaurant in Wellesley Sq. (that I never went into when I lived there) & "America's (VT) Test Kitchens" (my daughter Maya & grandson Asha live in Putney.)

OCEANOGRAPHERS

2011-08-08T09:20:00.000-07:00

QINGDAO’s STATUES

There’s a statue garden

in the eastern Chinese

coastal city of Qingdao

with 7 life-sized statues

of Chinese oceanographers.

There are no such statues

anywhere else in the world.

(Qindao faces Korea.)

08 AUG 11 ( Santa Clara CA)v3

AAA ratings

2011-08-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

AAA ratings

The next time you need a AAA rating,

B advised that AAAnybody

can buy as many initial capital As

as they like in the Yellow Pages where

U can B as A as U sAy U R.

(08 AUG 11, Santa Clara CA)v2
on The New Verse News
www.newversenews.blogspot.com
Tues. 09 AUG 11

Reggie on the run

2011-08-02T16:15:00.000-07:00

If I'd wondered what Reggie might do if he got loose, I found out yesterday, when frightened by a leaf-blower, he jumped down from my walker, popping the clasp that attaches him to the long yellow nylon lead-out, & ran swiftly all the way back to my building & stood at the door, obviously hoping to get back in. I was right behind him all the way, picked him up, took him into the building, into the elevator & up into my apt. Now I know what he'll do if he ever gets loose again - run home (esp. if frightened or hungry.) Anybody that observed us probably thinks I chased him home - but I didn't have to. He ran as fast as he could, a few steps ahead of me all the way.

In the Gazebo

2011-08-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

We were sitting on the continuous polygonal bench of the big gazebo at Santa Clara Plaza Park that surrounds the Family Reading Library branch.

We were reading our own books - Ginny, her own paperback of BEING HAPPY by Talden Ben-Shar, I, a damaged library discard of THE KING OF MADISON AVENUE - David Ogilvy and the making of Modern Advertizing, by Kenneth Roman, former chairman & CEO of Ogilvy & Mather. Reading about Ogilvy cast me into a false present, actually the past, indistinguishable from our present, because great modern advertizing (cf. Apple's "Big Brother") achieves quasi-eternality if the original product disappears and only the ad remains. Ginny read encouraging quotes to me from her book about 'failure' not being what it's alleged. (It's really more like a necessary rehearsal.)

A friendly grounds-keeper told us the whistling birdcall we could hear above us was a mother hawk teaching her fledgling to fly; down here, below her, a defiant battered skinhead played dominoes with an admiring friend at a cement table, as he had the last time we were there. A light breeze cooled us.

MOP-UP

2011-07-31T05:41:00.000-07:00

MOP UP

[SCENE: U.S. House of Reps.]

“Lean on that mop,” says Boehner

to smiling Cantor, lugging a bucket

of fresh congressional blood he

accidentally spills; Cantor grins.

Boehner barks: “Get another mop.”

What’s left of The House looks like

an OR after a lawyers’ bar-fight.

(31 JUL 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

Original Art (where I live)

2011-07-30T08:23:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, the Santa Clara Public Library circulated a collection of framed prints. When they finally decided to discontinue the print project, they auctioned them off. I got an original lithograph (184/275) of 18 tall thin trees beside a pond after a rainfall by Roberto Righi (1942-, Rome), who (like Gauguin) abandoned finance (in Righi's case, accountancy) for fine art. Here at Valley Village's Bldg. 4, the administration has put up a half-dozen prints in the building-length corridor on the 4th floor where I live; I've put up 2 more of my own a few feet from my apt. door: Righi's lithograph, and an undated watercolor of the thistle Echinops Ritro by Barbara Russell (who I know nothing about.)

LOWEST OVERHEAD

2011-07-29T16:17:00.000-07:00

It will finally come down
to everyone buying everything
online from Amazon.com  If you
don’t have a computer, just
use the one in the library trailer.
Be sure to carry lots of quarters.

(29 JUL 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

IN SCARY TIMES

2011-07-28T10:13:00.001-07:00

SCARY TIMES


Every day there’s some bad news:

The government might be running out of money.
People are losing their jobs.

Everything seems to cost more:
Your rent goes up, gas goes up.

The banks have cut down
on the interest they give you
that you used to rely on
to take a vacation, do things.

It seems like every day there’s something
to be overwhelmed by, worried about.

I want my sanity back in my life.



(28 JUL 11, Santa Clara)

~ Ginny Zeitman

Valley Village 12D
390 N. Winchester Blvd
Santa Clara CA 95050
(408) 296-0200

Rubber vs Glass

2011-07-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

“Look at it this way…”

says the macrorisk analyst:

“Our Debt Ceiling’s rubber,

Our Credit Rating’s glass.

We can cushion ourselves

by printing more money;

but how we look to the IMF

is one thing, debtors, another.

We definitely aren’t

Going Out of Business

no matter what we do.

Neither is Red China.”

(27 JUL 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

ZOMBIE-MASTER

2011-07-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

“With no heart & no brain,

you will now run faster…”

Norquist hypnotizes

his zombies eviscerating

the ex-Republican Party:

“Only my will animates you!”

(26 JUL 11, Santa Clara CA)v3

on The New Verse News
www.newversenews.blogspot.com
Thurs. 28 JUL 11

7th-inning

2011-07-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

7th INNING

Boehner sends himself

to the showers in the 7^th,

due back in the 8^th

with the same Big Deal,

faking it’s his, not Obama’s.

Each side knows where

it comes from counts more

in an election year when

the ball’s still the ball

& the buck's the buck.

(24 JUL 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

Reggie, Ravel

2011-07-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

Reggie watches me exercising

in my glider-chair, wondering: Why?

I stand up w/out using the arm-rests,

walk to the keyboard, write & edit this,

breathing deeply as Ravel’s piano

swells behind me on TV.

What could be easier? Doing nothing.

Reggie curls up nearby on my desk,

closing his eyes. Ravel ends, begins again.

(23 JUL 11, Santa Clara CA) v3

GOING BATS

2011-07-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

BATS

Obama flexes his

soft verbal nerf bat,

Boehner polishes his

dented aluminum bat,

Cantor shoulders his

Adirondack ash bat

& walks. The crowd

groans in the stands.

Who's willing to kick

the can down the road?

The Gang of 6 swings wide.

(16 JUL 11, Santa Clara CA)v5
on The New Verse News
www.newversenews.blogspot.com
Thurs. 21 JUL 11

WHAT'S COOKIN?

2011-07-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

Riffling thru my massive copy

of the COMPLETE cookbook

(Murdoch Books, Sydney NSW

1045, AUSTRALIA, 2002, 600pp)

I hit 2 recipes for what’s cooking

in the international newsmedia:

Spicy Chicken Tarts (p 195)

Family Chicken Pie (p 213)

but no Beef UnWellington.

(15 JULY 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

AEROBICALLY

2011-07-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

This morning I passed on

early outdoor-walking

for yoga in my glider-chair,

right arm rising to the ceiling.

until I breathed aerobically.

(08 JUL 11, 08:07PDT, Santa Clara CA)v4

Imp@irment

2011-07-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

I measure of my degree of dementia
by whether I can remember the 3^rd word
in mild cognitive impairment. Can you?

(07 JUL 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

ON THE 4th: Cupertino CA

2011-07-05T05:43:00.000-07:00

ON THE 4th

in Cupertino CA

They’re mesmerized. Even the brightest
stare at the fireworks exploding above

a suburban high school athletic field.
My hand smooths the tablecloth,

undistracted by the sensationalism
of my cuppa ginger infusion.

(04 JUL 11, Santa Clara CA)v4

HISTORY: REAL (REVISED)

2011-06-17T04:59:00.000-07:00

“The Framers didn’t use rolling papers.

The Constitution was real paper!.”

Chauvinistic twaddle sinks quickly

into the sensationalistic minds

of a susceptible high-school class

eager to see real American History.

The history teacher’s on furlough,

so a Tea Party re-enactor plays

Benj. Franklin in period costume,

carrying a 6’ Revolutionary Rifle:.

“Revolutionaries held their rifles

in their right hands, out of respect

for the Constitution.” Young heads

nod in approval as twaddle sinks in:

"Guns, right! In their right hands,

not their left! History’s easier

when it speaks right to us! This

is real American History! History;

books are just paper. This is real!"

(17 JUN 11, Santa Clara CA)v4

appears on The New Verse News Thurs. 23 JUN 11
www.newversenews.blogspot.com

Can I Can I

2011-06-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

CAN I CAN I

to carolin

Can I can I tell you
how much I failed
to cherish you enough,
grieving now for all
you are to me, my
carolin, companion,
my young wife.

(16 JUN 1, Santa Clara CA)v4

IN the INtimate

2011-06-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

Stance is the gift of the poet – Frank O’Hara

Starting a step above,

I end up

steps below,

in the intimate.

People insist they

can’t hear me as

I descend octaves.

(14 JUN 11, Santa Clara CA)v3

2008

2011-06-12T08:04:00.001-07:00

Rooibos tea steeps in the round green carafe
as I fill 2 envelopes with my 2008 poems,
addr.to: Melissa Watterworth Batt, Curator
special collections, Thomas J. Dodd Research Ctr
UCONN Libraries, Storrs CT 06269-1205
calmly archiving my recent poetic past.

(12 JUN 11, Santa Clara CA)v5

BANK ON IT

2011-06-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

According to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, the recovery has stalled because of strict banking regulation. --Robert Reich

When bankers wail
workers should wonder
Q: What happens next?

A: When bankers wail
they communicate like
wild animals caught in

regulatory traps, crying:
“Regulate us less!” &.
“Keep the workers out
of our deep pockets!”

(8 JUN 11, Santa Clara CA )v2
on The New Verse News: Sun. 12 JUN 11 www.newversenews.blogspot.com

AHEAD

2011-06-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

No longer wanting to lunge for the snap in everything,

I seek sustinence for me & others in the longer line,

the longer unbroken phrase. Years ahead look back.

Stroke the cat & rise to boil water for camomile tea

steeping it for an hour in the round green carafe.

(10 JUN 11, Santa Clara CA)v2

while listening to Henry Cowell: Music for Strings
(NW Chamber Orchestra, Seattle, CPO 999-222-2)

WHEN BANKERS WAIL

2011-06-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

According to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon,
the recovery has stalled because of strict banking regulation.
- Robert Reich

When bankers wail
workers should wonder
Q: What happens next?

A: When bankers wail
they communicate wildly,
like wild animals caught

in regulatory traps, crying:
“Regulate us less!” &.
“Keep the workers out
of our deep pockets!”

(8 JUN 11, Santa Clara CA )v2

Wake! Rise!

2011-05-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

WAKE! RISE!

Packing up their kit-bags of invisible tools,
Patriotic Actors have renewed their vows
to pursue terrorists of all stripes, bands,
colors & color-combinations. Libertarian

Rand Paul (R-KY) & the ACLU object,
among others, making political bedfellows
of strict-constitutional insomniacs. Or is
everybody else comatose? Wake & Rise!

(26 MAY 11, Santa Clara CA)v4

on The New Verse News for 28 MAY 11
www.newversenews.blogspot.com

Winding...watch

2011-05-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

I was winding my old watch
when the World ended,
or I thought I was.

I’m not sure what time it was,
what time zone I was in.

Time no longer mattered,
I thought, matter no longer
felt quite the same.

I blamed Higgs Boson particularly,
Harold Camping, numerically,
& contined to wind my watch.

I’m probably still winding it.

(25 MAY 11, Santa Clara CA)v3

21 MAY 2011 CE

2011-05-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Oakland CA evangelical radio broadcaster Harold Camping (88) has studied The Bible for over 70 years & says he's come up with a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden in it. Trained as a civil engineer, Camping crunched the numbers one night a few years ago & was stunned to find that the world will end on 21 MAY 2011, 11am PDT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Camping

21 MAY 2011 is also my 69th b'day. Ginny & I intend to be at a midday (10am-1pm) health fair & free picnic here at Valley Village where we both live (in Santa Clara CA, in Silicon Valley) I'll let you know if anybody at the picnic mentions Camping or The Rapture he's predicting as happening on Sat. Or my b'day.

Evening UPDATE: Nobody mentioned Camping or the Rapture. Re: my b'day: just Ginny Zeitman & Lorraine Wheeler (who lives in my bldg. & smilingly declines to explain how she knows it.)

But now it's back to this World (as most of us know it.)

This World

e.e. cummings, revisited

Whether this World ends/not,
the day begins. Or does it?

What we’re seeing satisfies
most of us as adequate proof
of a World where things aren’t
going very well at all for most

of us. Therein lies the belief
in rapturous transcendence
of This World (as we know it):

above This World’s a better one.

(22 MAY 2011, Santa Clara CA)

I turned 69 on 21 MAY 11. Nothing happened,

so Camping's upping his Rapture-date to 21 OCT 11.

Chauvet Pont d'Arc Cave

2011-05-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

Cave of Forgotten Dreams, dir. Werner Herzog, (USA, English, 2010)

Yesterday Ginny & I went to experience Werner Herzog's new 3-D documentary of the Chauvet Pont d'Arc Cave in France's Ardeche region (Rhone-Alpes); sitting front row center in West San Jose's CineArts 6, wearing our polarized glasses, the brightness of the stones of the landscape & the artificially-lit white interiors really did make us feel we were there, except for ambient temperature. It's full of animal drawings that could just as well have been done recently by contemporary figurative-art students. The small audience of less than a dozen couples were all 65+, obviously uninterested in 3-D THOR showing in another part of the cine-complex; it apparently takes advanced age to appreciate the truly prehistoric (32K years.) What I came away thinking was not that the principal artist was 6' tall, but assuming he fondly stroked/slapped the life-sized woman's white thigh after he'd finished drawing her on the stalactite. Was he a member of a tribal guild who began & continued the drawings, who thought: my brother(s), father, uncle(s), grandfather(s) have drawn & re-drawn these buried animals. Did he have any sense of time other than family & season? Isn't that still a part of how we reckon Time? If so, then how humanly distant is 32K years?

This appears, with minor alterations, as "Herzog's 3-D Cave of Prehistoric Dreams" in The [San Francisco] Bay Citizen (www.baycitizen.org) 'Columns & Citizen Blogs' section.

Goods

2011-05-13T21:45:00.001-07:00

A barrel, a box, a bag.
What does it take to carry
your goods? Or are they
the containers themselves?
Where are you taking them?

(10 MAY 11, Santa Clara CA)v2
"An African Refugee" variant  appears on
The New Verse News, Th. 26 May 2011
www.newversenews.blogspot.com

ON OSAMA'S DEATH

2011-05-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

ON OSAMA’S DEATH

A wan, drawn CHENEY
said vaguely on MSNBC:

“This really is a great day
for an awful lot of people

[who I can't name]

who worked very hard
for a long time.”

(05 MAY 11, Santa Clara)v2
CHENI@D Book CXXX
on the New Verse News.

2011-05-04T17:11:00.001-07:00

Trrrumffp

2011-04-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

Other than never saying The Donald's last name,
I think I'll just have difficulty in pronouncing it:

Trrrumpfff

Or just mumble it:

Trrrumfffp

It's that terminal p that throws me.

Losing Weight

2011-04-26T08:14:00.000-07:00

@ my current weight (300+ lbs)

my cardiologist gives me 10 yrs.

to live, projecting death by 79.

My GP says he can keep me alive

until I’m 90, but can’t guarantee

‘Quality of Life” Both want me

to lose 1-2lbs a month, walking

aerobically about 45min. a day.

That & more, caddying reduced

me from a fat 13 to a trim 17;

50+ years later, what will @ 68?

(25 APR 11, Santa Clara CA)v1

Celebrating Easter

2011-04-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

Celebrating Easter

Celebrating Easter resolves the conundrum

“Can Life defeat Death?” with resurrection.

Which of us wouldn’t rejoice at knowing

it was & will be done again? wouldn’t

want our beloved resurrected? Our joy

in knowing they will be makes the rest

of our lives all the more bearable; I’m

looking forward to seeing carolin again;

I expect she wants to see me coming.

(05 MAR 11)v2

written @ Karl Kadie's invitation for
St. Mark's [Episcopal], Santa Clara CA:
"Our Easter Journey:
A Gift of the People of St, Mark's"
(Easter 2011 meditation calendar}

Bad Teachers' Rubber Room

2011-04-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

Tonite a guy who'd been watching "CNN or FOX, I don't know which..." told our weekly sr. cit. adult-ed class there was a 'rubber room' in NYC where K-12 teachers who'd failed to get tenure just killed time & collected their pay, thanks to their union. It took the whole class, with the intervention of the community college VP who conducts it to disentangle union from tenure in this guy's mind, but he finally got it as the class ended. Here's the New Yorker version of what he saw. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill

Blueberries

2011-04-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

for Bob Chute

Bob eats Wymans’ truly
authentic ME blueberries,
not knowing how trendy
they've suddenly become,

blended w/ pomegranate
as a ‘dark fruit’quietly
lurking in the Juice aisle;
flash-frozen in plastic bags.

Thoreau’d {B} bemused.

(12 APR 11, Santa Clara CA)v5

RANDIAN RHYTHM

2011-04-14T00:38:00.000-07:00

In fa$cinatin' Randian-rhythm,
his bright blue-eye$ blinking,

Paul Ryan (R-WI ) tap-dance$
like a Hollywood hoofer,

while Ayn Rand* clap$, de-
lit by his $ong & dance.

Rand doe$ a $tar-turn;
Ryan recognize$ her:
"Thi$ i$ your $how!
$tand up, Ayn!"

(13 APR 11, Santa Clara CA)v6 *Ryan was outed today as an Ayn Randian by Jonathan Chait, Sr. Ed. New Republic, in NEWSWEEK 13 APR 2011 pp 6-7: [Connecting the Dots] "War on the Weak" How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites and the rich as our rightful rulers http://www.newsweek.com/2011/04/10/war-on-the-weak.html

DEALT HAND

2011-04-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

DEALT HAND

Libyan conceits

Paid mercenaries play cards.

People risking death play spades.

People seeking freedom play hearts.

Troops suppressing freedom play clubs.

(The Colonel’s already got the diamonds.)

The suffering People play backgammon.

(10 APR 11, Santa Clara CA)v2