Aussie Town

"remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you."
-From "First Lesson" by Phillip Booth


This weekend I went down to Austin on the greyhound - going there gives me so much joy. It feels like I'm going home. It's the people that I know and love there, it's the sense of freedom, it's the parks and the rivers, and the old houses, and the old stores and the mix of people I don't know - east side, west side, college kids, street kids, the capitol of Texas, politicians, old hippies... music and liberalness... the hills to the east, San Antonio to the south, the Colorado river, the Hole in the Wall, Eeyore's birthday, Pease Park, Zilker Park, the dirty drag, The fortress, das bleu house (rip), rutamaya, spider house, the local shops for the local people, the anarchists, the true believers. When I'm in Austin I feel like I'm in the arms of a mother who loves me.

I miss her.

Some poems for today....

Written for Old Friends in Yang-Jou City While Spending the Night on the Tung-lu River

I hear the apes howl sadly
In dark mountains.
The blue river
Flows swiftly through the night.

The wind cries
In the leaves on either bank.
The moon shines
On a solitary boat.

These wild hills
Are not my country.
I think of past ramblings
In the city with you.

I will take
These two lines of tears,
And send them to you
Far away
At the western reach of the sea.

Meng Hau-Ran, Tang Dynasty, Early 730s A.D.

pray for peace

Pray to whoever you kneel down to: Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross, his suffering face bent to kiss you, Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat, Adonai, Allah, raise your arms to Mary that she may lay her palm on our brows, to Shekinhah, Queen of Heaven and Earth, to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, Record Keeper of time before, time now, time ahead, pray. Bow down to terriers and shepherds and siamese cats. Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Pray to the bus driver who takes you to work, pray on the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus and for everyone riding buses all over the world. If you haven't been on a bus in a long time, climb the few steps, drop some silver, and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM, for your latté and croissant, offer your plea. Make your eating and drinking a supplication. Make your slicing of carrots a holy act, each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

Make the brushing of your hair a prayer, every strand its own voice, singing in the choir on your head. As you wash your face, the water slipping through your fingers, a prayer: Water, softest thing on earth, gentleness that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already a prayer. Skin and open mouths worshipping that skin, the fragile case we are poured into, each caress a season of peace.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired. Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day. Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth. Pray to the angels and the ghost of your grandfather.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox, to the video store, let each step be a prayer that we all keep our legs, that we do not blow off anyone else's legs. Or crush their skulls. And if you are riding on a bicycle or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution of the wheels a prayer that as the earth revolves we will do less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure, a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail or delivering soda or drawing good blood into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas, pray for peace.

With each breath in, take in the faith of those who have believed when belief seemed foolish, who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace, feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed that spills onto the earth, another second of peace. Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk. Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child around your VISA card. Gnaw your crust of prayer, scoop your prayer water from the gutter. Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling your prayer through the streets. pray for peace.

~ ellen bass © 2003 ~

Normality

by Rubin

why do you want me to be a reflection of yourself in the water?
I am the water. I have depth; I have mysteries; I have facets and multidimensions.
I run my own course, unabated by no one. I erode rocks, I irrigate the ground; I bring life to the barren wastelands.
I can not be changed. Sometimes I'm cold; sometimes I'm warm. I am normal.

I

-----------------------------------------
(I like this poem)

"We are on autopilot, and we have already entered the storm."

My tax dollars fund torcher and I don't know what to do about it. I feel outraged. I feel betrayed. I feel angry and helpless. Is all of America sedated? Why aren't we protesting in the streets? Why aren't we doing something? Where is the outrage? Daily life isn't very different today than it was before. In America we live, go to work, eat, play, pay taxes, occaisionally vote, joke about the veep shooting someone, and worry quietly about the future. It feels like we are plummeting into a fiery hell of our own making and nobody really notices. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think or feel. I feel numb.

"Abu Ghraib cannot be allowed to fade away like some half-forgotten domestic political controversy, which may have prompted newsmagazine covers at the time, but now seems as irrelevant as the 2002 elections. Abu Ghraib is not an issue of partisan sound bites or refighting the decision to invade Iraq. Grotesque violations of every value that America proclaims occurred within the walls of that prison. These abuses were carried out by soldiers who wore our flag on their uniforms and apparently believed that Americans here at home would approve of their conduct. Rather than hiding what they did out of shame, they commemorated their sadism with a visual record.

That is why Salon is willing to publish these troubling photographs, even as we are ashamed to live in a country that somehow came to accept that torture and prisoner abuse were simply business as usual -- something that occurs while a sergeant catches up on his paperwork."

Some of the letters in response to Salon's decision to show these pictures:

Abu Ghraib Photos
These photos don't move me at all especially after seeing Iraqi terrorists behead innocent people. This is a war and no matter what anyone says or thinks, there are no rules to be followed. It is sad but true, men and women at war are no more than animals (on either side). I don't approve of thier tactics on any side of the situation but I will support my side right or wrong when survival is the issue. Like in the 60's question: What if we had a war and no one showed up? It's all about oil and money, power, control or land, and everyone knows this - it is not about human rights, welfare, or fair play. It has always been this way and always will be this way. It is human nature. To think otherwise or think we as humans can rise above our nature is to defy history. I really don't see the point of your article at all. Perhaps you should have put the overall cost to produce this into some other humanitarin effort that is bound to fail.

-- Joe Duke

PermalinkThursday, February 16, 2006 8:55:40 AM

Note: Salon did not post the Danish cartoons but they did post some of the Abu Ghraib photos
We do have a right to know what is done in our name
Walter,

You are to be congratulated for publishing the photos. You do so at the risk of strife, anxiety, and offending the Muslim world.

But I have noticed that your sources find only pictures that degrade the Muslims and our troops. You really need to take the blinders off and find the thousands of positive photos that are out there. I and millions of other people the world over have seen them in the internet, print and television. So, how is it that you folks miss them?

Since you are the paragon of journalistic virtue, you may want to publish some photos of the positive things happening in Iraq. Remember, we do have a right to see what is being done in our name. You,of course, would not want to be thought of as censoring the news out of your publication. That would be so Republican ( and Democrat)of you.....

Since you've already offended the Muslims with the photos, publish the Danish cartoons. We need to see them too.....unless you are afraid of that pesky fatwa thing.

-- Gigelorum

PermalinkThursday, February 16, 2006 9:19:55 AM


The Daunting Task of Accountability
I am saddened and horrified by the torture you document. I am even more saddened that some do not call it torture. They echo Gonzalas's wording in his infamous memo which implied: inflict any kind of pain, humiliation, deprivation, even rape -- as long as it doesn't leave a mark, it is not torture. Of course, this is ludicrous. It is also an important point.

We define torture by "what doesn't leave a mark." In other words, torture is not defined by the effect it has on its victims (which in these cases is obviously horrific) but by the evidence it leaves.

We, simply, do not want evidence. We do not want to "see" it: if no marks exist, it never happened.

You have done a dangerous and brave service: you have shown us the scars. Now they exist. And any who would not see them now (who think this is something he/she would "pay for in Las Vegas") defines some aspect of our culture (American, human) that we should be wary of: it is a part of us, the secret wish of sadism.

People say you are Anti-American for posting these photos. These photos will, they insist, insight violence. Hmm. . . Disturbing. This suggests a prejudice against Muslims: "They can't handle the truth." "They are irrational." (More irrational than we are? How? Please compare the riots over the cartoons to the incredible suffering we cause daily in the mere cause of our economy.)

More disturbing, such people suggest that we cannot and should not be accountable for our actions -- the actions of our government (not mere soldiers). We tortured these men. We killed many. We should be accountable.

The question then becomes: How do we save our soldiers? How do we protect them? Certainly not by denying the truth that Muslims have known anyway. Accountability is part of that answer, and then more -- but the question is, you see, a different one.

I do have a lingering fear about these photos, however, and that is that I think that (this is horrible to say) many of us secretly want to see this. We are terrified of this new kind of war we find ourselves in; terrified of Muslims. We don't feel dialogue of any kind is possible with these "lower-than" others (and, therefore, we feel free not to be accountable or engage in dialogue.) And we enjoy seeing this "other" in these repulsive positions. That sadistic genie is released, and I am frightened of it.

And I am cynical enough to wonder if this wasn't part of the rational behind this brand of torture (photographed as it was) to begin with. Justify a war by creating a war. Incite anger and even terrorism to justify invasion and more costly (if more acceptable) violence. I do not mean to justify terrorism here -- I am trying to understand a process. A machinery is in action; I want to understant it.

Thank you for your documentation of the scars we have left. I hope we are up to the daunting task of accountability.

-- Laura Seltz

We are on autopilot, and we have already entered the storm. It is time to wake up.-- rob

PermalinkThursday, February 16, 2006 9:49:58 AM

There are no rules in war? The enemy has done bad things too? Didn’t they behead people on camera? These are not excuses and do not justify or condone abuse of detainees in American custody. Terror is not justifiable in the name of fighting terror, and the ends do not justify these means. The term “war crime” exists for a reason- there are some actions that are beyond even what is considered permissible in the brutality of war. Saying that the enemies’ actions are justification for our own acts of abuse is to say that we are no better than they are- to sink down to their level in a race to the bottom of depravity. When Bush & Co. were selling this catastrophe of a war to the public and congress, we were repeatedly told that Saddam was a “monster who tortures his own people.” Who is responsible for tortures committed after Saddam’s fall?

These pictures of abuse have nothing whatsoever to do with the Danish cartoons, as others have already eloquently explained (kudos alarajrogers). If you feel the need to see the danish cartoons and haven't already, do a Google search.

-- Chaostician

Dear dead vine

"Did you ever see a dead vine bloom? I have seen it. Last summer I trained some morning-glory vines up over a second story balcony; and every day they blew and curled in the wind, their white, purple-dashed faces winking at the sun, radiant with climbing life. Higher every day the green heads crept, carrying their train of spreading fans waving before the sun-seeking blossoms. Then all at once some mischance happened, some cut worm or some mischievous child tore one vine off below, the finest and most ambitious one, of course. In a few hours the leaves hung limp, the sappy stem wilted and began to wither; in a day it was dead, --- all but the top which still clung longingly to its support, with bright head lifted. I mourned a little for the buds that could never open now, and tied that proud vine whose work in the world was lost. But the next night there was a storm, a heavy, driving storm, with beating rain and blinding lightning. I rose to watch the flashes, and lo! the wonder of the world! In the blackness of the mid-NIGHT, in the fury of wind and rain, the dead vine had flowered. Five white, moon-faced blossoms blew gaily round the skeleton vine, shining back triumphant at the red lightning. I gazed at them in dumb wonder. Dear, dead vine, whose will had been so strong to bloom, that in the hour of its sudden cut-off from the feeding earth, it sent the last sap to its blossoms; and, not waiting for the morning, brought them forth in storm and flash, as white night-glories, which should have been the children of the sun.

In the daylight we all came to look at the wonder, marveling much, and saying, "Surely these must be the last." But every day for three days the dead vine bloomed; and even a week after, when every leaf was dry and brown, and so thin you could see through it, one last bud, dwarfed, weak, a very baby of a blossom, but still white and delicate, with five purple flecks, like those on the live vine beside it, opened and waved at the stars, and waited for the early sun. Over death and decay the Dominant Idea smiled: the vine was in the world to bloom, to bear white trumpet blossoms dashed with purple; and it held its will beyond death."

"Tooning out humanity"

There was salt in my heart today. I felt sad for a variety of reasons... some of them were personal, and some of them were about people and life in general. Sometimes the world seems so cruel and bizzare and horrible to me - people kill animals and plants and life on earth - people kill people, hurt each other, hate each other. The world seems disgusting sometimes. I wonder why people want to have kids when so much of life is pain and suffering. There are nice things in the world. But is it enough?

From salon:

----
Triggered by cartoons, the latest episode of the clash of civilizations is the caricature of a caricature, one in which our fundamental humanity is diminished, the almost limitless richness and diversity of that vast world of the intellect and the imagination that we call culture is flattened and shadowed over, the profound commonality of our human condition rubbed out, until finally all that remains is the horrible and the grotesque: the "liberal" West represented by a T-shirted female American soldier holding a prone and naked Arab on a leash, and the "devout" Arab/Muslim world represented by a masked and hooded terrorist holding a knife to a hostage's neck under a banner of "God is great."
----

Vague updates and kisses

Q: What does a pig farmer give his wife on Valentine's Day?

A: Hogs and Kisses!

I love ya'll. Ya'll know who ya'll are. :)

Updates:

I have a job. I'm a "Research and Development Chemist" working on research and development chemistry. I'm happy to be employed.

In my personal life... there is a difficult road ahead, and for as long as I can remember I have avoided the inevitable, that I have to go down this road. I need bravery and strength. I need to keep my head clear.