Kravica Waterfalls

Kravica Waterfalls on the Trebižat river in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Zen They Came For the Buddhists...

 

Captain Thomas Dyer, U.S. Army Buddhist Chaplain

ecumenism (noun): the doctrine, or quality, of universality (esp. of the Christian church).

Until a few days ago I would never have looked for evidence of ecumenism in the United States Army. Yet there it was, or rather, there he was, staring me in the face, courtesy of a BBC Radio program, Heart and Soul.

This is Thomas Dyer, the newest Chaplain appointed by the U.S. Army, and he is a Buddhist chaplain. As the BBC interviewer immediately delved into, this seems like a contradiction in terms. I know scant information about Buddhism except perhaps what little I have gained from being a fan of the late Beat poet and Buddhist, Allan Ginsberg, but I do know that non-violence is central to Buddhist teachings, and in particular, in the U.S., Buddhism underpinned much of the beliefs of the anti-war activists of the 1960s and 1970s, and Ginsberg was a central figure of the anti-war movement.

Now, I am still skeptical. But as I listened, Dyer won me over, though he still has plenty of winning to do amongst fellow Buddhists and soldiers and citizens of other faiths.

Ecumenism is the belief that faiths, especially the various branches of Christianity, can find their way through meeting, discussing and mingling, towards greater understanding and ultimately, unity. You can see immediately how problematic this is: what might be mildly uncomfortable contradictions in belief between some Episcopalians and Roman Catholics (woman priesthood, for example) might be violent poison for other Christians. Ecumenists have been accused of everything over the years, from being the Pope’s stealthy fifth columnists to deluded wishy-washy liberals.

Indeed, when I was growing up, Dr Ian Paisley, Northern Ireland’s Cardinal Richelieu and John Calvin rolled into one, was forever banging an anti-ecumenist drum, alongside all the other drums he banged.

Instead of banging drums, Chaplain Thomas Dyer would rather we sound bells. And it was at the exact moment when he spoke of the bell that Buddhists ring at strategic points in the act of meditating, that I began to see just how far out on his tree limb Dyer has gone – and how, with all the contradictions and special circumstances that service in the Military requires of soldiers, and of the religious faiths they hold – how that other faiths in the fighting forces might actually reach accommodation with the Buddhists in their midst.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” Dyer told his interviewer, as he sounded a bell used in meditation, “if this M16, if the metal in this M16 would one day be a bell that sounds like this, and the plastic pieces on this weapon, wouldn’t it be wonderful if they would transform into a cup that would hold medicine?”

Dyer has asked his Buddhist-inclined soldiers to bring their weapons into meditation ceremonies, rather than stack them on racks at the door, as is the practice during Christian and other faith ceremonies, precisely to present this thought, which hardly differs from the swords-into-plowshares tenet of Christianity. I can’t believe that from the most battle-hungry raw recruit through to veterans who have seen multiple tours – I can’t believe that any of them or their commanding officers desire perpetual warfare, but rather see the role of a Military as necessary defense in an imperfect world, and a world where increasingly peace keeping occupies the world’s defense forces, as well as – something of a cliché – winning hearts and minds.

Information is Hilarious

Alumin(i)um! It's Alumin(i)um! Dammit, you're WRONG. Alumin(i)um! Alumin(i)um!

I just found Information Is Beautiful, a site dedicated to, well, beautifully-displayed information. With tongue firmly in cheek, the site owner presents several examples which I share with you now, including Wikipedia's Lamest Edit Wars:

I marked my favorites with red asterisks on this screen shot above. You can see the real thing here. There was a fight amongst Wikipedia editors over the diameter of the Death Star in Star Wars!? A debate as to whether the entry on cow-tipping should have a photo of a cow, with the words: "An unsuspecting potential victim of cow-tipping"??!

Don't miss another equally engaging map: Because Every Country Is The Best At Something. Hmmm... Ireland has the best quality of life, but the Central African Republic has the most expensive Internet! And Belarus has the most unemployed women...

Blending serious with silly, as I often do, please also note that the Oxford English Dictionary online recently re-wrote the dictionary definition for the word "information," extending it out to, as one commentator suggested, a 9,400-word novella (screen shot of the start of the entry below).

 

Notice what is the very first, top, though now partly obscure, definition? "The imparting of incriminating knowledge."

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a major railway hub for the Midwest...

The city center, seen from ... uh... near the river!

Jonathan Raban wrote about the American freight train's horn sounding sadly across distant plains. I've seen freight trains every day I have been outside, and heard them every night when falling asleep.

...hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

New Zealand

In pondering some aspects of my ancestors' lives, I started looking for information online pertaining to immigration from Ireland to New Zealand in the 1900s. On the New Zealand government's archive web site I found this map, above, of a tiny island, Hauturu, or Little Barrier Island, somewhere down there.

Specifically, I am trying to find out if my two great uncles and their several sisters, who emigrated to New Zealand in the 1910s, became New Zealand citizens, and when. Both great uncles, George and Robert McKinley, joined the New Zealand Rifle Brigade and fought in France in the First World War. I am wondering if they had time to become New Zealand citizens first, or if citizenship of New Zealand was required for serving in the army? (Non-citizens with green cards can join the U.S. Military, which fast-tracks naturalization considerably). I'm going to guess that in those days, loyal stalwarts of the Empire seeking to enlist were welcome regardless of the far-flung recruiting office they lined up at.

From tiny little tropical islands to that other small island, though small only in physical dimensions -- Bruce McCall, an illustrator whose work I love, imagines Manhattan in which pedestrians and cyclists take precedence over the automobile on the streets.

Speaking once again of the southern hemisphere, I read today that Americans are seeking better jobs and life opportunities in Australia.

Beardland, Ohio

Santa brought me a beard for Christmas.

From The Millionairess by G. B. Shaw

"You see, Mr Sagamore, it's like this. There are two sorts of people in the world: the people anyone can live with and the people that no one can live with. The people that no one can live with may be very goodlooking and vital and splendid and temperamental and romantic and all that; and they can make a man or woman happy for half an hour when they are pleased with themselves and disposed to be agreeable; but if you try to live with them they just eat up your whole life running after them or quarrelling or attending to them one way or another: you cant call your soul your own.

As Sunday husbands and wives, just to have a good tearing bit of love-making with, or a blazing row, or mostly one on top of the other, once a month or so, theyre all right. But as everyday partners theyre just impossible."

Having just forced my long-suffering friend here in Cleveland to watch the start of George Bernard Shaw's hilarious The Millionairess (starring Maggie Smith and an all-star cast in this brilliant 1972 production), I will now ruin the impact of Shaw's deliciously sharp observation above by drawing attention to Shaw's interest in punctuation. Note that words like "they're" are spelt without the apostrophe. Shaw, obsessed for much of his life with creating a better, clearer, more logical alphabet and (English) language, left money in his will for the creation of just that: the Shavian Alphabet.

Minus 18.6 degrees in Castlederg

On the above map, point B is Castlederg, a small town in north County Tyrone. Point A is my hometown, Dungannon, or, as I call it, Dungannistan ( hence the name of my blog, as y'all should know).

Castlederg, like most of the country, has experienced record breaking low temperatures this Christmas. My brother Timothy, who lives just across the border from Armagh, had no running water as of a few hours ago, because of the severe frost.

Meanwhile, I am here in Cleveland, Ohio (see below), where it is cold but barely freezing.

The Lewis Chessmen

The Lewis Chessmen, a collection of chess pieces found on the Isle of Lewis in 1831, have comical facial expressions ranging from overdone gravitas to worry and fear -- one rook appears to be glancing over his shoulder, wondering where he might run away to. Then there are the Beserkers -- several of the medieval 78 pieces carved from walrus tusks and whale bone represent Beserkers, warriors who were so fierce that they fought in a trance-like fury, and are seen chewing their shields in readiness!

Yet contemporary scholars suggest that what to us seems comical, may to the makers and original owners of the chess pieces have seemed perfectly solemn and serious... The 78 pieces may be Norwegian in origin and may be the remnants of as many as five complete chess sets.

Merry Christmas

"Mitchum's! Mitchum's Deodorant! I swear by Mitchum's Underarm Musky-scented Roll-on for Men!"

Signing Away

"Now in its closing [days], the 111th Congress is the busiest one in eight decades in changing the U.S financial system on both regulatory and household levels."

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell', the odious 1993 policy that 'prohibited' gays and lesbians from serving in the U.S. Military, is no more.

I'd much rather herald a world in which societies questioned the need for militaries and armies, than one in which we celebrate that a heretofore marginalized group can now join up and join in preparedness for slaughter (what else is a military for, even in defense?) BUT: Obama signed Don't Ask Don't Tell into the closet of history today and gave us all a good dose of feel-good. His remarks are worth reading:

Sixty-six years ago, in the dense, snow-covered forests of Western Europe, Allied Forces were beating back a massive assault in what would become known as the Battle of the Bulge. And in the final days of fighting, a regiment in the 80th Division of Patton’s Third Army came under fire. The men were traveling along a narrow trail. They were exposed and they were vulnerable. Hundreds of soldiers were cut down by the enemy.


And during the firefight, a private named Lloyd Corwin tumbled 40 feet down the deep side of a ravine. And dazed and trapped, he was as good as dead. But one soldier, a friend, turned back. And with shells landing around him, amid smoke and chaos and the screams of wounded men, this soldier, this friend, scaled down the icy slope, risking his own life to bring Private Corwin to safer ground.


For the rest of his years, Lloyd credited this soldier, this friend, named Andy Lee, with saving his life, knowing he would never have made it out alone. It was a full four decades after the war, when the two friends reunited in their golden years, that Lloyd learned that the man who saved his life, his friend Andy, was gay. He had no idea. And he didn’t much care. Lloyd knew what mattered. He knew what had kept him alive; what made it possible for him to come home and start a family and live the rest of his life. It was his friend.


And Lloyd’s son is with us today. And he knew that valor and sacrifice are no more limited by sexual orientation than they are by race or by gender or by religion or by creed; that what made it possible for him to survive the battlefields of Europe is the reason that we are here today. (Applause.) That's the reason we are here today. (Applause.)

And the President has gone to Hawai for the holidays.

The Doom Awaits Me

This photo is of The City of San Francisco, an Amtrak train which famously got stuck in snow in 1960, on the way to SF. Luckily, my train from New York City to Cleveland did not suffer the same fate.

Seen on Fifth

Celebrated Viennese Psycho-scientist E. Vernon Hraaaj-Wintergreen was spotted on Fifth Avenue yesterday...

Priest Played Elvis Music to Drown Child's Screams

Oh... please, somebody think of a joke to make this go away...

A Dublin priest who raped a seven-year-old young boy on the altar, after tying him up with cords from his vestments and playing Elvis Presley songs to drown his screams, was sentenced to 16 years for abusing young boys.
Tony Walsh, 57, was a famous member of a priests music group known for his Elvis impersonations. He was a serial molester whose activities were known to senior figures in the Dublin archdiocese who overlooked his crimes.

I Should Do More of These...

We Knew Him As Simply "B.J."

This gentleman is a blast from the past -- he was at St Andrews with me years ago. And he's still trying to become a Tory Member of Parliament! He must have shaken the hand of every person in England by now.

I remember that he claimed to be descended from Judge Jeffreys, the notorious hanging judge of the "Bloody Assizes" during 17th century England's tumultuous swing from monarchy to republic and back again. Jeffreys left no male heir, but his indelible mark on history impressed even U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who has cited Jeffreys as an example of an 'extremist.' And if anyone should know about Judges Gone Wild, it's Scalia. (After all, he has to sit beside Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and the worst of them all, Ruth "Grisly" Ginsberg!)

A Winter's Morning

At dawn, an old pier on Manhattan's East Side looked as though it could have been set in concrete, so calm was the East River...

There was nothing concrete about the flow of brisk shoppers and workers on Eighth Avenue.

I saw some nice reflected light playing off old bricks on West 35th Street...

A relief on the wall of Housing Court in lower Manhattan...

And —what a relief — on this occasion, merely walking past our dear friends at 100 Centre Street...!

Later in the day, a man and his best friend crossed Manhattan Avenue near West 125th Street in Harlem. I just discovered recently that the sharp curve of West 125th Street right about where Manhattan Avenue crosses it — one might accurately call it a dog-leg corner — this section of West 125th Street was called "Manhattan Street" until the locals voted to change the name in 1920.

And right before I saw that man and his dog, I glimpsed some great square box belonging to Columbia University, seen through the leaves and cast iron railings of Morningside Park.

Who is that in shadowed silhouette? The picture taker himself, the one and only, merely, just, only — me.

None of You Are Getting Past Me

In September, President Obama came to New York City early one evening for a fundraising dinner or two and then to appear on the TV show, "The View," the following morning. Above, a cop with a couple of disconcerted pedestrians.

Ssssh! Sailors on 42nd Street

New York City is sometimes the Big Apple, and sometimes it's the Capital of the World.  In some parts of Manhattan, when in a certain frame of mind, one can conjure up Fritz Lang's Metropolis. As that old song goes:  "The great big city's a wondrous toy / Just made for a girl and boy..."

The song is called "Manhattan," and it is a duet between two young lovers, too poor to afford the traditional Summer vacation escape from the Big City.  But they make the best of things:  "We'll settle down / Right here in town..."

We'll have Manhattan,

The Bronx and Staten

Island too.

It's lovely going through

The zoo

It's very fancy

On old Delancey

Street, you know...

And chances are the young pair might see sailors such as those chaps above. Because long before it was the Apple, and before it claimed the title of Center of the World, New York was a nautical town and if you didn't see a string of onions in Paris or fog in London, you would see sailors in NYC.  Amusingly for the time in which the song was written (1925), the song alludes to gay New York: "We'll go to Greenwich / Where modern men itch / To be free," Greenwich Village being the part of the city (indeed, of the world) with the longest history of being a place of openness and tolerance of those of a different sexual orientation. Rhyming Greenwich with itch is only one of the songs funny rhymes. 

This has been a long introduction that at last brings together sailors and gays. Long indeed, but at least after mentioning many other things, I got them together in the one sentence.

Which is more than the Office of the President  of the United States could do, or at least whomever it is sent out the email yesterday announcing that the pernicious policy of throwing gay men and women out of the U.S. Military if their orientation is revealed, will be overturned.

I got an email from Organizing for America/BarackObama.com which incredibly talked the whole "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" issue up and down, back and forth, lauded the Pentagon for releasing a study yesterday that "found that 70 percent of troops do not believe the change would have a negative impact on morale, and troop readiness would not be affected,"condemned those stubborn old Republican Senators like well-known Prisoner-of-War-Heroism John McCain who want "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to stay, and yet that email did not use the words homosexual or gay once. Not once. Nor the term "sexual orientation."

Are they scared to? Ironically, of course, the 1993 law which enshrined the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy had to go to painstaking lengths to define what it was all about — sample quotation: "The term 'homosexual' means a person, regardless of sex, who engages in, attempts to engage in, has a propensity to engage in, or intends to engage in homosexual acts, and includes the terms 'gay' and 'lesbian'." 


Have a good look at the shorter version of the email I got, here. That is the cowering, terrified, barely-beating heart of Liberalism, championing your cause very quietly.

Sugar Hill, Harlem, November 24th, 2010

The Tree That Fell To Earth

Photo by spikeblacklab

On Sunday evening around 730pm, I was walking on a meandering tree-flanked public pathway known as the Bronx River Park, that follows the course of the shallow and gently flowing Bronx River.

I have walked these paths before. I've always liked how the entire snaky park consists mostly of the flood plain of the river, and some unusual vegetation grows along the river banks. And not just clutching the river's edge — there are a spread of tall reeds fanning out for quite a distance on either side of the river's banks at several places. The Bronx River is also New York City's only fresh water course. It's always peaceful there, though for a short distance, trains on the MetroNorth railroad roar past occasionally.

At a slow curve in the river, with the path following the same bend, I passed several large trees -- the above photo is from the Bronx River Park, but the trees you see in that scene are hardly of the girth and venerability of the trees to which I am referring. Four or five great trunks, the kind which two grown men could barely reach around and touch each other's hands, so I am haphazardly guessing they may be eighty to one hundred years old...

As I pass in the gloom -- it is just past dusk -- I hear a strange noise from one of the trees. It sounds as if someone is up the tree, or something is up there, rattling and scratching and making quite a noise. There is not another soul to be seen anywhere near me in the park.

I glanced up at the great dark tree, its branches just visible against the night sky. And as I can't see anything, I walk on. But the noise persists, and if anything gets louder. There is a TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP! sound just like a woodpecker, and another sound underneath, more high-pitched, a sound which I can't even begin to focus on, as I turn and start to walk back towards the tree. And I stop, ten feet from the trunk, peering up into the dark branches, noticing for the first time what seemed like dust or debris showering down the trunk from above..............................

Nothing prepared me for what happened next. TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP—.....then, the entire tree, from about twice my height up the trunk, cracked off and smashed down into the river, crashing to earth with a huge BOOOM!...

The tree had just died. Right as I was staring at it. It felt like something between an omen and a tragedy, a dream, and its prophetic fulfilment. I stood, ironically rooted to the spot. I stared for many minutes. A minute or two after the crash, I glanced at the time — 7:49pm, so it fell at roughly 7:46 or 7:47pm.

Most of the tree lay in huge rotten and shattered hunks in the river, which flowed in and around it. In time, I suppose, park workers might come and cut up and carry away most of the tree, but already the river had found its adaptive flow around and away the sudden barrier. In 'Song of a Brook,' Tennyson wrote in the voice of a waterway: "For men may come and men may go, but I go on forever." That goes for trees as well.

Mount Washington Observatory Tower

 

Said to be home to the worst weather in the world. But it's in New Hampshire!

Shoe Me The Money

That 'orrible little man Bernie Madoff: his personal possessions, shoes and other crap, were quietly auctioned off these last couple of weeks by the U.S. Marshals at the Sheraton Hotel here in Manhattan. Size 8 and a half loafers in abundance... and Rolex watches... and other tat and junk.

The response to Bernard Madoff's crimes struck me as odd. People went out of their way to describe him as monstrous, worse than Satan, a real bastard. His victims were the type of people who would say: "can you believe we only took seven vacations this year, that's how much money we lost!"

With next to no expert knowledge and equally limited access to Madoff's mind, I still feel as if his scam perpetuated itself more than that he worked actively to rip off the semi-stinking rich. Isn't it possible that he screwed up one or two or three times, but was able to paper over the gaping shortfalls created by some bad investments, with money from other areas of his investing which had done well. He may have just kept on doing this, hoping to one day fix it, but pedaling forward and being pushed forward by the thing he had created. Above left, note the uncanny physical similarity between Bernie and George Washington.

James Beard Ruins Everything

Smacking his lips from beyond the grave, James Beard just made me go "eeeewwww!"

 

How can you simultaneously ruin the food concepts of bread, pudding and bread pudding? Throw in some leeks! Beard is probably dipping cupcakes in ketchup right now, and gobbling them down. Gross...

What a Piece

At the Neue Galerie, a fascinating, bizarre exhibition, through January 10th: the busts of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. The exhibition blurb:

Around 1770, there was a rupture in Messerschmidt’s life. The artist was thought to have psychological problems, lost his position at the university, and decided to return to Wiesensteig, his native Bavarian town. From that period on, Messerschmidt devoted himself to the creation of his “character heads,” the body of work for which he would become best known. To produce these works, the artist would look into the mirror, pinching his body and contorting his face. He then rendered, with great precision, his distorted expressions. Messerschmidt is known to have produced more than 60 of these astonishing works before he died in 1783 at the age of 47.

 This one is called "The Yawner." The Neue Galerie is at 1048 Fifth Avenue at 86th Street, is frequently mispelt in the press, and unfortunately charges $15 for admission; hours: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

As someone pointed out, "The Yawner" is probably unique in Western art for its accurate portrayal of the underside of the human tongue... And now, a warning! A cliché.

What piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable!

People spend 'half their waking hours daydreaming'

People spend nearly half of their waking hours not thinking about what they are actually doing, according to a US study conducted via the....where does all the water in the rain go? Oh, look... there's a funny knob on the back of my laptop...like the knob at the base of my skull... never did like heavy metal music much... but sometimes those long-haired guys looked hot if they took off their shirts......iPhone.

More than 2,200 volunteers downloaded an app ...app!...app!...aaaaaappp!....AWP! GAWP! BAWP! AP...Agence France Presse... wonder how that French guy lost his left arm... which then surveyed them about their thoughts and mood at random times of day and night.

The Science study suggested minds wander, even from demanding tasks, at least 30% of the..........purpley

Remembrance Day

At Caterpillar Valley, the Somme, France:
McKINLEY, GEORGE KNOX
New Zealand Rifleman 12238 New Zealand Rifle Brigade, October 3rd, 1916. Age: 25

My great uncle George emigrated from Ireland to New Zealand in the 1910s. With his brother Robert, he joined the New Zealand infantry and went to fight in France against the Germans during the First World War. Robert survived the war, and moved to New York City. George was killed at the Somme, on October 3rd, 1916.

Angry Internet Mobs

You May Have Heard of the Longest Woman in Ireland..

It seems that the longest Wikipedia entry as of today is... a list of townlands in County Cork.

Note: the Longest Woman in Ireland is a character from County Cavan (I think), of whose provenance I am uncertain.

Justice is Severed

New York Times: No One Will Be Charged in Destruction of C.I.A. Interrogation Tapes, Justice Official Says

A federal prosecutor will not bring criminal charges against any of the Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in destroying videotapes depicting the brutal interrogation of Al Qaeda detainees, Justice Department officials said on Tuesday.

However, the C.I.A. has been warned that next year's supply of water balloons, exploding pencils, poison gas teddy bears and Mach 10 drones could be held up if the agency is caught being a naughty boy again.
 

The Summer Revisited Again

Blogging at Dungannistan has been non-existent lately for no particularly good reason. The onset — indeed, the onslaught — of Winter, has happened with its normal swift knife to the kidneys, felt as always in mid-to-late October, on a late afternoon day when for no good reason, one finds oneself under-dressed, cold and exposed to the eerie chill of some stupid street in the Bronx or Brooklyn. There is a late sun setting in the sky, but now it gives no warmth. What was so reliable, the warming sun, the fierce afternoon raging fire of the summer sun, is now a taunting memory. It is cold. It is Winter. Brrrrrrr!

New York City shares the same latitude as Rome, but the two cities have very different climates. To which I say: Brrrrrrrr! Above, a very different Brooklyn than today: August 2010.

Van Morrison Sending in The Clowns

I was at the last stop on the New Jersey Light Railway in Newark a couple of months ago, after an especially tough day trying to love that unlovable city... around the platform (see below) as I waited, and waited... were the lyrics to Send in the Clowns, by Stephen Sondheim.

And so I had time to study the lyrics: There aren't any actual clowns in the song, at least not in the circus sense. Rather, the clowns are emblematic fools, any fool who might fall in love. In other words, you or I or anyone.

Van Morrison does a half-decent version of the song, dirge-like, with his Belfast accent giving it a slightly taciturn impact on the ears. Some people loath the Belfast accent, but I love it, with its funny wee   odd differences from the accent I had, growing up in the countryside 40 miles away (forty miles is like the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy to Northern Irish people).

Well, I had never paid attention to the lyrics before and so, on the platform in Newark, all alone, I was reduced to tears. Time does not permit me to talk about that remarkably odd style of Sondheim's, how he captures through his choice of words, the flow and clash of everyday speech, the blunt endings of words all over the place, fitting together or not fitting at all.  Unlike what we write down and maybe rewrite or edit, speaking conveys meaning as much by the awkward, sometimes ugly half-formed sentences we come out with., which I think one can see best in the third stanza:

Don't you love farce?

My fault, I fear.

I thought that you'd want what I want -

Sorry, my dear.

But where are the clowns?

There ought to be clowns.

Quick, send in the clowns.

Setting the words to music is almost to play down the natural rhythm of speech.

Send in the Clowns

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.


Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move.
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.


Just when I'd stopped
Opening doors,
Finally knowing
The one that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again
With my usual flair,
Sure of my lines,
No one is there.


Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want -
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Quick, send in the clowns.


What a surprise.
Who could foresee
I'd come to feel about you
What you'd felt about me?
Why only now when i see
That you'd drifted away?
What a surprise.
What a cliché.


Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother - they're here.

Darling, Those Frightful Bureau People Came Round Again

...You should have seen what they were wearing!

Actually, the FBI is nothing to be afraid of.  The ones who really chill my blood are... the Reclaimers.

The text of the above party invitation reads:

YOU CAN'T SCARE US!
A Halloween Party to Stop the FBI Witch Hunt

The FBI recently raided the homes & offices of anti-war and international solidarity activists in several cities, issuing subpoenas to appear before a grand jury.

Dancing! Drinking! Solidarity!
Bring friends and family!

Friday, October 29, at the Brecht Forum
7 to 11pm, 451 West St., New York City
$10-100 donation, sliding scale
Children welcome

Monies raised will support the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
For more information: www.stopfbi.net

An important update--each of the fourteen activists subpoenaed to appear signed a letter from the lawyers stating they would NOT testify. The Assistant U.S. Attorney, Brand Fox, told the lawyers he would withdraw the subpoenas, but he would say nothing more. This is not over yet - the government is not likely to let go. The government has a number of options—more raids, arrests, new subpoenas, or offering immunity to some with the threat of jail if they do not speak. For the time being, the FBI continues to harass other anti-war activists at their homes and work places, trying to divide and intimidate. So we need your help – we’ll see you on Friday!

Beefcake Buddha

A Great Line Break

Funding For National Public Radio