two satires and a funeral

It’s time to for a good ol’ post-presidential election unwind.  Here’s three questions (and answers) to help y’all out:

Sign the Petition: Censure Bachmann

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) was just re-elected. Let Bachmann know you disagree with her opposition to the First Amendment:  Sign the Petition.

Poem: Backlash 101308

This is one of my more recent poems.  It is directly inspired from a conversation with someone who lives across the continent from me in Canada.  One of her reactions was, “Do people really say, “y’all”?”  Yup.   I live outside of any city limits and I grew up surrounded by farms: horses, cows, crops.  I collected eggs from the chickens as part of the morning chores before school.  I have a rural “y’all,” but there are also plenty of folks with an urban “y’all.”

The conversation was about success, failure, lessons learned and processing recent advice given to me by an academic advisor, activist and mentor:  “First, do no harm.”  Simple, but perhaps something that we all struggle with.  But ’nuff said.  To the poem…

“just thinkin’ out loud…”

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to talk about my trip through Kuwait, Jordan, the West Bank (Palestine) and Israel [for the record, I'm still not done typing everything up and publishing it].  Lately, though, the blog has taken a deep dive into the tepid cesspool of crass political commentary.  Funny how priorities change like that…I’m still planning on finishing my writeup of the trip.  Not in the least because, hey, you gotta come up from the depths of the tepid cesspool for a breath of air every now and then (real life notwithstanding).  I also owe FoEME (Jordan) my notes from our conversations and brainstorming at the ‘Amman office.

However, the title of the blog itself hints at a different purpose.  When I started this blog, I also promised myself that I would use it as an outlet for my poetry.  That’s been a difficult promise to fulfill. 

fear tactics

It’s damned near impossible to have an honest policy disagreement in the political mainstream these days.  Fear spreads like a disease.  People who are afraid will try to make others afraid.  Often, this is unintentional.  Sometimes, though, it is deliberate.