This New Thing

...isn't new at all.

The Doomed
A Perfect Circle

Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word

And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude
"Good luck, you're on your own"

Blessed are the fornicates
May we bend down to be their whores
Blessed are the rich
May we labor, deliver them more

Blessed are the envious
Bless the slothful, the wrathful, the vain
Blessed are the gluttonous
May they feast us to famine and war

What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
All doomed
All doomed

Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word

And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude: "Good luck"

What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
What of the righteous? What of the charitable?
What of the truthful, the dutiful, the decent?

Source: LyricFind

A Perfect Circle

A Poem

I only have a minute 60 seconds in it. Forced upon me, I did not choose it But I know that I must use it Give account if I abuse it Suffer if I lose it, Only a tiny little minute But eternity is in it.” - Elijah Cummings

Today's Today

"We wear our widow's weeds like nuns, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifice."

And while we're at it, let's all be sure to ask 45* about that little incident from a coupla years ago, when he was so very actively trying to "help our brave beautiful veterans."

AP (11-08-2019):

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to pay $2 million to an array of charities as a fine for misusing his own charitable foundation to further his political and business interests.

New York state Judge Saliann Scarpulla imposed the penalty after the president admitted to a series of abuses outlined in a lawsuit brought against him last year by the New York attorney general’s office.

Among other things, Trump acknowledged in a legal filing that he allowed his presidential campaign staff to coordinate with the Trump Foundation in holding a fundraiser for veterans during the run-up to the 2016 Iowa caucuses. The event was designed “to further Mr. Trump’s political campaign,” Scarpulla said.

He pimps a worthy cause to raise money for the veterans, but instead of giving over the full amount, he puts a big chunk of the money in his own pockets - which is consistent with his pattern of self-dealing, and why he and his kids are now barred from being involved in charitable organizations.

Anyway -

This is a day for remembering the fallen
The lost
Those who won't grow old with us.
And yet they're still right here
Forever young
Forever by our sides
And will remain for as long as we don't forget their names
I raise my glass to them

A Poem

Lobocraspis Griseifusa

This is the tiny moth who lives on tears,
who drinks like a deer at the gleaming pool
at the edge of the sleeper's eye, the touch
of its mouth as light as a cloud's reflection.

In your dream, a moonlit figure appears
at your bedside and touches your face.
He asks if he might share the poor bread
of your sorrow. You show him the table.

The two of you talk long into the night,
but by morning the words are forgotten.
You awaken serene, in a sunny room,
rubbing the dust of his wings from your eyes.

-- Ted Kooser

A Haiku

Why have we not learned

When fascists rule there can be

No happy endings

Yesterday

Justin King, aka: Beau Of The Fifth Column

Asylum --Maaz 2018

Stand on graves and cast out the helpless.
They arrive in waves to the illusion of hope.
A 'caravan' of people,
All begging for freedom,
But fear not,
They shall be murdered
for they are evil.

How can they expect asylum, safety & security,
from a land built on death?
Where those in power face no scrutiny.
Where an orange haired buffoon can thrive & prosper,
But mothers & fathers cannot afford a doctor.

Yet still these people come here seeking a better life and
how dare they do?
With hands calloused from hard work,
hearts filled with grief,
spirits filled with belief;
Don’t they know?

This is a land built out of the flesh of martyrs,
On a charter that helps oppress its own population,
A country that thrives off devastation.

The Virtue Challenge

The New Colossus --Emma Lazarus 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, 

With conquering limbs astride from land to land; 

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand 

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, 

and her name Mother of Exiles. 

From her beacon-hand 

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command 

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. 

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she 

With silent lips. 

“Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

#ThisIsVirtue

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years.
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.
America. America.
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

Listen

Just listen - an awful lot of the time, that's all most people want from us. People need to know that someone has heard them.

Almost A Limerick

From a cousin across the pond:

Roses are red

River hogs grunt

Nigel Farage is a racist old...

...former UKIP leader who has failed to be elected to the UK Parliament on seven separate occasions, and was once beaten by some guy dressed as Flipper.

Happy Birthday

Seems like a great way to start Black History Month.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
and yet must be —

the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine — the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME —
who made America,
whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
whose hand at the foundry, 

whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career.

He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. He famously wrote about the period that "the negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue".

A Poem

May we raise children
who love the unloved things -
the dandelion, the worms and spiderlings.
Children who sense the rose needs the thorn
and run into rainswept days
the same way they turn towards the sun

And when they're grown
and someone has to speak for those
who have no voice
may they draw upon that wilder bond,
those days of tending tender things,
and be the ones.
-- Nicolette Sowder

Not A Hipster Was Swingin'

Today's Poems

There once was a man from Japan
Whose poetry never would scan
When someone asked why
He said with a sigh
It's prob'ly cuz I put too many goddamned words in the last fucking line.

- and -

There once was a lad
From Cork who got limericks
Confused with haikus

hat tips = Doug Rapier & Sean Harrison

Today's Poem

You'll never change a mind
Unopened
But you can slip a mad man
Water
From the well he's poisoned.

-- Grant Peeples

A Poem

We took a pretty big step last night, turning the House back over to the Dems, but don't forget what we're trying to do here - "...to form a more perfect union..."

Justin Blackburn lays out of a few things that I think we should try to keep in mind:

We're up against a very stubborn (and very natural) resistance to change.

So we stay focused and we keep fighting. We can't revert to the usual - where we automatically start whining about how the Dems didn't get us every last thing our pea-pickin' little hearts desired.

I'm not saying we have to fall in line and march lockstep towards somebody else's false dreams of utopia. Be critical; hold the Dems to account, but understand there's a difference between a healthy skeptical critique and self-destructive carping.

We can't afford to indulge ourselves in the kind of pinch-faced puritanism that requires constant bitching about Pelosi and how the Dems aren't living up to our granular expectations because really, they're just GOP Lite and blah blah blah. When we fall back into that pattern, we're doing the GOP's work for them.

Stop doin' that.

Here's the working metaphor:
When your first flight was delayed to where you missed your connection, don't stand there screaming at the poor slob at the Passenger Service counter. All you're doing is taking a giant shit on the only guy in the whole fucking airport who can do something for you.

If we wanna help, then we chop the wood and we carry the water.
If we win, we chop the wood and we carry the water.
If we lose, we chop the fucking wood and we carry the fucking water.

Tired? Feeling a little worn out and frazzled? OK, take a break. 15 minutes - then it's back to work.

We've got some pretty important shit left to do here.

A Chestnut

...and I couldn't care less about that - it's great, and sadly it seems, there will never be a time when we don't need reminding of the universal theme of how individual toughness feeds into the cooperative effort necessary to make us all free.

Still I Rise --Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise

hat tip = FB pal Vicki W-Eckhart

The Podcast

Make the connections - because nothing scares the Daddy State more than a voter with a properly functioning memory.

• It's OK if the guy's a racist asshole - he'll keep the wrong people from voting
• It's OK if he advocates in favor of torture - we'll get a muscular foreign policy
• It's OK if he thinks Jews control all media- we'll get schools that teach the bible
• It's OK if he wants to short-circuit Due Process - we'll get law-n-order
• It's OK - boys will be boys
• It's OK - we'll get Roe v Wade overturned
• It's OK - we'll get tax cuts
• It's OK - we'll get back to a profit-taking healthcare system
• It's OK - we'll protect the rent-seeking bankers
• It's OK - thoughts & prayers

When all of that's been drilled into the heads of your voters, don't be so surprised when those voters begin acting like the assholes you've told them it's OK to be.

The Professional Left

Do the merch, bitches

Remembering others who've been where we are now
is how we move from despair to celebration
We will find each other in the darkness
and move the light to where we need it
--MJR

- and - 



“Nevertheless, in this sea of human wretchedness and malice there bloomed at times compassion, as a pale flower blooms in a putrid marsh.”
― Henryk Sienkiewicz, In Desert and Wilderness

A Poem

A Glass Face In The Rain

Sometime you'll walk all night. You'll
come where the sky bends down. You'll turn
aside at a fold in the earth and
be gone from the day.

When the sky turns light again
the land will stare blank for miles
at itself. You won't be there
to see any more.

Back where you lived, for those
who remember well, there will come
a glass face, invisible but still and reall,
all night outside in the rain.

--William Stafford

A Poem

Another one from Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

What seems like an admonition - "Just cheer up and everything is peachy" - turns out to be a kind of an ironic lament.

Really glad to have been turned on to Ms Wilcox. I stumbled across her work when I went in search of a quote misattributed to Abe Lincoln.

A Poem

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

PROTEST

To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and childbearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.

Therefore I do protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the mother bears no burden, save
The precious one beneath her heart, until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the land of freedom.