Thursday, May 31, 2007

Mother One do you read me, over.

the Earth,
her surface crissed with steel pipes collecting
her bubbling pockets of digestion gas.

The Iranian Embassy said Turkey gets about half of its gas supplies from Iran, but Botas said it did not expect any shortages. The company said the cut in Iranian gas would be compensated by supplies from Russia, which are brought in by way of the Blue Stream pipeline underneath the Black Sea.

Fertility for generations to come
if we let her bubble grind and crush the poisons
into rocks weeping fertile futures ten million years
from now.

Turkish and Iranian officials are reportedly discussing expanding the pipeline for exports to Europe.

Has not it been written
that we are in a garden of Earthly delight?
Doesn't she give us naturally all that we need?
She is my Mother.

China supplied its own oil for decades from domestic oil fields, but became a net importer in the 1990s. Driven by a booming economy, it has quickly risen to become the world's third-biggest oil importer, after Japan and the United States.

A web of pipes and screw driven ships
mix and churn the surface of my Mother.
And the wires
the wires the wires

Sunday, May 13, 2007

A Public Radio Dream

No, I am NOT giving up on Grateful Dread Radio. No way in heck is that happening. But when you've spent a lifetime dreaming about and preparing for working in public radio to do good, positive, progressive, world-changing work and an opportunity so incredible as the Public Radio Talent Quest comes along, you simply have to go for it. Please humor a middle-aged do-gooding journo as she attempts to make a lifelong dream come true. I'm certainly more than qualified for the job, and uniquely so, but frankly, it comes down to votes, and the first cut is massive (only 10 entries from nearly 1000 move on to round two). Please drop by and if you like what you hear, vote for me (and please steer your friends and associates toward it too). Costs nothing but a couple of minutes and it could -- oh please, oh please, oh please -- change the entire course of my life for the better (and, frankly, would be great for public radio too). Thanks and pax vobiscum!

http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/1068

Thursday, May 10, 2007

blank paris

In every life, about a handful of Truly Significant moments are collected. These, unless you’re easily given to joy upon opening stationery catalogues eating spaghetti, polishing brassware et al, are wrung from events broadly agreed to be drenched in emotion. Births, deaths, marriages and all their variants and relatives from illness to ignited love provide the stuff of big moments.
You will recognise these moments for their potency. Within these instants, some sort of emotional coin is dropped. A new mechanism is activated and, slowly then suddenly, your insides creak and you’re changed for good.
When you care to peruse your album of rare and remarkable moments, you will almost certainly find these were built in the immediate company of life, death and affection. You may also find that this record is slim. This, truly, is the way it should be. A life too well-punctuated by high drama and joy is a life drained of meaning. Unless, of course, you’re Namoi Campbell.
I suspect that I’m quite fortunate to have collected a few such moments for display and ready reference. My internal emotional directory contains a select hit list at the top of which is an “I Love You” closely followed by an “It’s completely operable”.
Occasionally, however, I find myself eager for the inclusion of new moments.
Like a brooding tween hepped up on a dissatisfying diet of Emo and trans fats, I find myself idly hoping for bad-ass, life changing emotional action.
I’m not at all entirely certain who to blame for this accerelated urge. However, apportion blame I must. First, as a selfish student of the twenty first century, I automatically seek to blame external forces for my own emotional failures. Second, and more or less altruistically, I have noticed a great many other adult persons who appear in similar need of memorable exhilaration. It’s a virus that someone, at the very least, should diagnose.
And Paris Hilton, culture’s screaming diseased chimp, is its point of origin.
When Paris says she “loves” something, as she nearly always does, I believe she means it. She loves Vuitton luggage. She loves Hermes scarves/Kelly bags/toilet paper dispensers. She loves frankly vapid conversation with former stars of That 70s Show just as much as she loves anything. Unchained in the high end boulevarde of post-meaning hell, Paris can no longer identify between the kind of love one reserves for people and the sort formerly reserved for Really Cute Shoes.
Emotions of the more purplish hues, it seems to me, are in over-supply. Passion, despair, fear and stinging love all seem to ooze more freely from the unglamorous rocks of the everyday. A heretofore unseen level of passion dominates the supermarket queue, the workplace, the acquisition of a throw rug.
One tempting way to explain this emotional gush is a reference to “stress”. It is popularly held that we are subjected to a great deal of stress.
Certainly, we are over-stimulated. Probably, we reside in a toxic cultural landscape where meaning and satisfaction have been ablated by sugary drinks, neo-conservatism and other fizzy distemper.
Stress, however, is no genuine excuse for our unstuck, post teenaged flock of feelings. My grandmother lived through the rather more identifiable stress of World War, depression and the introduction of packet mix cake. (Incidentally, as a former sponge champion, she regards this latter infraction as the worst.) And, to this day, she feels little need to show improper emotion. (With the exception of shouting at game shows and pictures of the prime minister.)
The term “stress” I think, has been cheapened by its overuse by nearly everyone. Just as the term “love” has been cheapened by overuse by Paris Hilton.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Bush to the Next President: "Here ... Catch."

President Codpiece celebrated “Mission Accomplished” day by vetoing the Iraq war spending bill. Why turn down money he’s just dying to get his grubby hands on? Cause those mean Dems are trying to make him end the war some time during his Presidency. And that just ain’t gonna happen.

No way will George W. Bush clean up his own mess! He’s never done it before, so why start now? Bush has always used the "here … catch: approach to life, kicking the can down the road and sticking somebody else with problems he created. And that brings me to my
latest limerick.

Mad Kane

What to do with teenagers when roller skating gets old? SkyZone!

As the mother of a teenage daughter, figuring out activities that give ME a break, are nearby, don't involve computers and cell phones...