Somalia

by Nancy Mercado (New York)

Military
in a hurry
Time to scurry
onto shore
To restore
It's a chore
Years of damage
U.S. manage
To create
Then escape
Anarchy
Starving pleas
Charity
Misery
Bigotry
Crown Heights
Given time
Ignorance
Laziness
Television
Stomp the mission
To envision
Our control
Stop patrols
Of our souls
Neighborhoods
Welfare goods
Manipulate
Our innate
Driven state
To be free
Peacefully
Liquid assets
Different facets
Of a leash
So to cease
Origins
Of our kin
Darkened skins
James Baldwin
Tito Puente
Palmieri
Leonard Jeffreys
Will not stand
Give up command
To the man's
Masterplan
To disguise
L.A. rights
Black/white
To death fight
Missing flights
Into space
Shuttle craft
As they laugh
In our face
We're fooled
Out of school
Drugs are tools
To exclude
Original
Man
From the plan
To withstand
Our demise
Live as one
Daughters, sons
Fathers, mothers
Sisters, brothers
Earth and sky
Animals
Never stalked
Never game
Just the same
For all time
Human kind
Use our minds
Make connections
No such thing
As elections
Earth runs on
Stocks and bonds
All our pride
Banish us
Into dust
Will not be
We'll not flee
Historically
Cherokee
Apache
Incas
Mayans
Arawaks
Kings & Queens
Of the sun
Of all men
This the plan
We Will Stand!

poem taken from Bum Rush the Page Tony Medina & Louis Reyes Rivera, ed.

from The Waste Lands by Stephen King

MY UNDERSTANDING OF TRUTH
By John Chambers

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
-T.S. "Butch" Eliot
"My first thought was, he lied in every word."
-Robert "Sundance" Browning

The gunslinger is the truth.
Roland is the truth.
The Prisoner is the truth.
The Lady of Shadows is the truth.
The way station is the truth.
The Speaking Demon is the truth.
We went under the mountain. That is the truth.
There were monsters under the mountain. That is the truth.
One of them had an Amoco gas pump between his legs and was pretending it was his penis. That is the truth.
Roland let me die. That is the truth.
I still love him.
That is the truth.
When is a door not a door? When it's a jar, and that is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
What has four wheels and flies? A garbage truck, and that is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
You have to watch Blaine all the time, Blaine is a pain, and that is the truth.
I'm pretty sure that Blaine is dangerous, and that is the truth.
What is black and white and red all over? A blushing zebra, and that is the truth.
Blaine is the truth.
I want to go back and that is the truth.
I have to go back and that is the truth.
I'll go crazy if I don't go back and that is the truth.
I can't go home again unless I find a stone a rose a door and that is the truth.
Choo-choo, and that is the truth.
Choo-choo. Choo-choo.
Choo-choo. Choo-choo. Choo-choo.
I am afraid. That is the truth.
Choo-choo.

Arnold Smith - 1962

Mom found this photograph and gave it to me. After some serious photoshop work it's a recognizable picture again. This is my Grandpa when he was 26 years old.

Movin' on up...

So this week's big news is that mom is moving downtown! She and Corey were looking for an apartment in the burbs but when a lead appeared on a place near downtown, she thought it would be worth at least looking into. Not two weeks later and voila! She loves this new place... it's a nice little gentrified joint just on the fringe of downtown. I'm going to go see it today for the first time and then she and I are meeting one of her urbane co-workers for a jaunt through the neighborhood. I'm excited for her because I think she's going to love urban life... I'm excited for me because my last month in California is going to be in the city! The trolley is a half mile down the street and the heart of downtown is a mile away. She's getting really excited about the move... she hates actually moving but she's excited to get to a new place. In the Army we always said that the best two places you'll ever be are the place you just came from and the place you're going... I can attribute to that. So we'll be moving in two weeks... lots to do. On a related note, I think Thomas and Suzi are buying a house in Ottawa so I will be helping them move too a week after I get home. Anyone else while I'm at it?

The other big news of the week is my computer. I sent it off last week for repairs and, though it cost me alot more money to fix than I wanted to spend, it came back almost a wholly new computer. The only parts that are from the old computer are the back case of the display, the hard drive, and the disk drive. They installed a new logic board, new sound card, new fan, new display, new case, and new keyboard... it's just like having a new computer all over again! I'm excited to have it back. In fact, I'm sitting outside writing right now. It's a beautiful morning... the one thing this place has going for it is that the mornings and evenings are almost always perfect... no matter how hot it gets during the day.

I'm almost done with another book... this one is a much more involved read than the rest of my summer list so far so it's taking me longer to get through it. It's called The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Jenne recommended it... imagine that. It took awhile for me to really get into it and I was growing skeptical as to how good a book it really was (though it is a Pulitzer) but without warning I found myself hooked. I don't generally get emotionally involved in books but this one has won me over. I have a hundred pages or so to finish... hopefully this weekend... and then I'm going to take on book 3 of Stephen King's Dark Tower. After that I had a book given to me by a lady at work called The Untold Story of Mao that I'm excited to get started. I'm hoping to finish those two books and then the remaining four books of The Dark Tower this month... heavy load but I think I can do it.

Guess that's it for now. I'm going to go fish some laundry out of the dryer, clean my room and read... exciting stuff, huh? Until next time... peace.

"Every golden age is as much a matter of disregard as of felicity" -Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Excelsior!

Jenne got accepted into OU Law school! Most of you know who Jenne is... if you don't, the short version is that she's my best friend. She worked her ass off trying to get there and the amoeba on the selection committee took a few months longer than they should have to decide but she finally found out today! Congratulations, Jenne...

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Ben Frankiln

Another week gone by, another book read. I've finished Salem's Lot and started The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It came highly recommended to me... I hope it gets better because the first hundred pages or so just haven't done it for me yet. Its a Pulitzer winner too... I figure it has to get good eventually. Other than that I've just been working. I've spent a day or two down at the beach reading and I'm going to Mission Bay with Mom and Corey today to meet some people from work for a picnic/BBQ thing. Fun. I've been looking around with mom to find a new apartment for them to move into next month. Overpriced. I've been poking around trying to find an architecture competition or whatnot to enter else I fear my brain will atrophy. Bored. I went to the contemporary art museum downtown and saw a show by artists from Tijuana. There was some beautiful work there... alot of it politically motivated. It would seem America is infecting Mexico with tract housing and runoff poverty. Mexicans. I sat in La Jolla [pronounced hoya] cove last night for a few hours and watched the sun fall into the ocean. Kerplunk.

So enjoy your Independance Day. Remember that you are celebrating the day that our forefathers declared an end to the inhumanities and injustices laid upon us by a tyrant. Remember that you are celebrating a system that gives every citizen the power to come out from underneath the tyranny of evil men. Remember that you are being oppressed so subtley and so expertly, you are meant not to feel it and you may not... yet... but I assure you that your rights are being disolved and your privacy sold. Slowly, like a creeping cancer, you are not allowed to say certain words, to be certain places, to do certain things because it goes against what a small group of individuals think. And in order to insure that you are not saying, going, or doing those forbidden things you are being watched through cameras, things you buy are logged, the places your vehicle goes is recorded, the phone calls you make are traced and ther destination and duration reported. It is happening... I wish I had to make this up, but I don't.

Happy Independance Day everyone... peace!

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. -Paulo Friere