Molecular Genocide: Don't piss on my doorway you hipster asshole

My eyes roll back
And I am looking forward
The world is still and yet
I can see it as it spins

White flashes, electric storms
We are just salt water
But in that flash, the arch of my back,
The wings of my wrathful state.

And the visions come.
Mild at first in comparison
with what follows.
But I am speechless.

And the first vision begins.

My hand grabs you by your hair
and I smash your head into my wrought iron gate
then demand your phone.
Humiliation, my old stand by.
As you bleed, I find your mother's number.
And I call her, to tell her what you've done
and to tell her to take you back home
to your Dairy Queens and Jack in the Boxes,
milk fed girls with round faces and big tits,
who never looked at you until you joined your frat.
And I tell your mother that I have her number
and will call her everyday to check on the progress
of moving you back to your Midwestern suburban shit hole.

And in a flash it has passed,
thought in a nanosecond,
fully realized.

But another flash begins, brighter in intensity.
Darker in the images it brings,
and I am sickened as it passes through me
but I can't shut it out,
demanding your sister and mother and girlfriend,
as restitution,
a ritual rape,
worthy of the finest genocides in history.

And then the last flash.

As I recede into a molecular, genealogical Gabriel
I end your family line....but that is not enough.
I chip away at your DNA.
Molecule by molecule.
I am in all time.
Dismantling every ancestor.
Adenine to adenine.
Cytosine to Cytosine.
Guanine to guanine.
Thymine to thymine.
The proteins of every member of your family tree
break down like leaves in autumn.
And I am everywhere, in all times,
so I can be the witness to what I have done.

And then it is over. And I am staring semi-catatonic out a window where I saw a Midwestern, scumbag, hipster, asshole wait on the sidewalk, while his Midwestern, scumbag, hipster, asshole friend pissed on my front door.

For When You Try To Sleep Darling

If you ever feel alone
think of my belly against the small of your back

If you ever feel cold
remember the heat that I give off

If you ever feel afraid
think of the place in my chest where you would rest your head

If you ever feel ugly
remember the way my eyes look at you

If you ever feel sleeplessness
think of how I pet you to sleep

If you ever feel inconsolable

remember how I cried with you

If you ever feel the distance

think of how my love can reach across the oceans

If you ever feel you are unlovable

remember the mountains I have climbed to love you

If you ever feel you have too much to carry

think of how I helped you take the weight

If you ever feel unquenchable

remember how I satiated those thirsts

If you ever feel exhausted

think of how your eyes close easily when we sleep

If you ever feel...

remember...

I Take The Fire, I Take The Flame

I think I miss you much more than you could know
At night when I'm hollow and I close the door
I thought that maybe you'd be by my side
When I'm at the market alone in the aisle

My left hand is shaking
When I reach for your fruit
I never drew pictures, I never drew pictures
My head hears the voices
The whispers on high
But they never told me, They never tried

I took your hand with me down by the water side
I knew that you might have been pulled deep down under the tide
I took my time delivering my bad news to you
What I never wanted, what you'd never do

My butter is melting
Inside this hot rain
I never moved on dear, I never moved on
I see their faces
I see their pain
I never moved on dear, I never moved on

I take the fire and
I take the flame
You never ate cashews, you never ate cashews
I fall apart here
As I take the reigns
My timing is awful, my timing is awful

And I smell the berries
And I smell your hair
Na na na na na na, na na na na na na
I take the car keys
And you clear the air
Na na na na na na, na na na na na na

I'll call the doctor
You call the vet
Their voices are louder, their voices are louder
You'll tell me your ready
And then make me wait
It wasn't my timeline, It wasn't my timeline

I drew the fire down when we laid ourselves back in bed
You said you were freezing I pulled the blanket up over our heads
You tried not to worry, you tried not to cry
But you never thought that I......would

I carried the groceries
You put them away
I never smiled harder, I never smiled harder
I cooked our dinner
you watched some TV
I never smiled harder, I never smiled harder

We turned down the volume
we sat down to eat
It made me so happy, It made me so happy
The Yankees were winning
I cleaned off the stove
The dishwasher humming, the dishwasher humming

Asleep on my shoulder
You started to snore
I write in the kitchen, I write in the kitchen
I jotted some lyrics then
Turned out the lights
Slept in the next morning, slept in the next morning

You bring me the virgins
I'll turn back the tide
In these little moments, in these little moments
You parted the Red Sea
I flooded the Nile
In these little moments, in these little moments

The kitchen seemed quiet I woke up the next day alone
Lydie was hungry she made it quite clear I woke slow
Cold tile in the bathroom a note on the door
Drank left over coffee wondering if I'd dreamed it all up

I look out the window
A cat plays in the grace
Of the sun that we made here, the sun that we made here
My slippers protect me
They keep my feet warm
We made our own home here, we made our own home here

Our Long National Nightmare Is Over

I have been reluctant to be too excited, too relieved. Life is full of disappointments. I write this on Martin Luther King Day, a day that commemorates the life and work of a man who tried to end the three headed monster that holds us all down - racism, poverty and war. Yet, we cannot celebrate this man's life and work without acknowledging how his life ended. His assassination, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and of other men who fought to end these things were disappointments. They were more than disappointments. They were crushing blows to the human rights movement, crushing blows to anyone who believes in human dignity. So we are wary. We've been taught to be. We've been taught that hope is a dangerous thing, something in finite supply to be used only at the most critical junctures. And yet, that is exactly where we are.

So to quote an unlikely source:

Our Constitution indeed does work. Yet in order for us to be a nation of laws, we have no choice but to protect those laws. So we have some housekeeping to do. We have been left with a mess and in the weeks and months and years to come, we will be digging out from the disgrace that is the Presidency of George Walker Bush. Although it seems impossible, we are sure to discover things these disgusting men have done that are so vile, they will make what we know about the last eight years seem like a stroll in ethics-berg and morality-ville.

Tomorrow we will see the end to the worst Presidency ever. We will see an end to one of the darkest times in our nation's history. President Bush is a criminal. He is a murderer. We circle around these terms in our political discourse, downplay the importance of the power of the Presidency, of US government, US policy. But there is no argument. No qualifications. No sugarcoated terminology like "Enhanced Interrogation." Our President is a murderer. We can discuss the death toll on his watch. Argue about the numbers. But the facts are clear. President Bush used the US military and Intelligence organizations to murder people.

If we put the invasion of Iraq on hold for a second and focus strictly on torture, the path becomes clear. President Bush has admitted to authorizing torture. These torture techniques are illegal under our law as well as international law. There is at least one instance reported of a death, due to these techniques. And there you have it.  Murder. 2. Depraved indifference to human life. If we are to be a nation of laws, then it is clear that President Bush must be prosecuted for murder. This is quite simple. He ordered the torture of a prisoner that led to that prisoner's death. There are precedents to back up this course of legal action. The very same "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized by President Bush were prosecuted by the US government during the Vietnam War. That's right folks. We prosecuted US soldiers for using waterboarding during Vietnam. Are you sick yet? I sure am.

What makes this so insidious, so ridiculous, is the ease with which these policies were put into place. The ease with which President Bush turned our Constitution into a roll of toilet paper for his own desperate need to defend the failed ideology of Neo-conservatism. The Bush administration even used the names of their policies to mock human decency, human dignity. We were sold a Patriot Act that allowed the United States to prosecute illegal, un-American acts. It's like naming the Missouri compromise the "End of Slavery Act."

There can be no compromise on these issues. Are we a nation of laws or not?  If not, we should all start robbing banks tomorrow. We could even name our bank robbing policy the "Protection of Banks Act." We could go further. War crimes trials. Investigations into the handing out of military contracts to companies owned by members of the Bush administration. We could investigate Bush's reaction to hurricane Katrina, or Bush's dismantling of the SEC, or the implementation of the Enron loophole, or the falsification of intel in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq. The list goes on and on. We could investigate the erosion of our civil liberties as policy. We could investigate the allegations of racism in the Civil Rights office in the Justice Department. We could investigate rendition of prisoners to torture friendly nations. We could investigate the erosion of the separation of church and state. We could investigate. We could.

We could do many things, but one thing is clear. I believe that without at least an attempt by the Justice Department to look into the actual death of a prisoner in American hands, due to illegal torture, authorized by President Bush, we will not begin to free ourselves from our recent history, and get back on the path of civilization.

So the day before the heaping pile of steaming shit that has been the Bush presidency comes to a close we are left with two thoughts. The future and the past. Hope and Justice.

So we hope.

I hope for Justice....  

Don't Love Me This Way (New Song)

I knew you

sometimes better 

than you knew yourself 

you were hiding 

in your pain 

unaware

Oh...And I would surround you for a moment in time

you pulled me in 

into the ashes 

where you once loved

It swirled 

around me 

the short river of time

Oh...And I was beside you and miles away

And it was okay 

When we would play 

Where we would stay 

But don't love me this way...

Oh...Don't love me don't love me this way 

Don't love me this way...

(Listen to it in the Songs Music Box on the right)

Some Advancements

There is now a music player and the right hand info bar as well as links to some of the blogs I read. From time to time I will post new songs to it as well as some older things that haven't seen the light of day in ages. Enjoy!

On Being a Zealot...

I sometimes don't know what I am. Don't know my own capabilities....But sometimes I do. Obama has won the election, the first step in what is sure to be a long process of recovery for our nation. How do we wipe away the backward thinking, the anti-progress of the last 40 years? We have had moments, bright spots in a sea of despair, a war of attrition against the American dream itself, the dream of equality, opportunity for all. And as I say these words, I reflect on myself; my instincts, my inclinations and impulses. I have been asking anyone who will respond if I am a zealot. A Fanatic. An Extremist. So what am I? What am I capable of?

I seek vengeance. I taste blood in the water and I want more. I want to punish those who have punished us for the last eight years. Punished us for hoping. For being creative, dreamers, believers in a fundamental human goodness. Where is the modern Nuremberg? Where will these crimes against humanity trials take place? "Would trials even be enough?" I ask myself knowing full well what an unlikelihood a trial or series of trials would be. Will there be any justice worthy of these crimes? Any punishment? I seek vengeance for those killed, and for us, our hands bloodied, our humanity maimed. These are my instincts, my impulses. I do have a pragmatic side. I understand the need for reconciliation. I even understand the desire for it in some. But my instinct keeps popping up. Slapping me in the face. I am aware of the cross I bear, my own hatred. It rains down on me in dreams. I descend to earth and as I do, my blackened, battered leathery wings open up and slow my fall. I am an angel of death, leaving heaven early, to pass judgment and sentence upon whom I see fit, ignoring the will of God. My sights fix in, not on personal enemies, the people who have injured me, but on the true evil doers. The killers of hopes and dreams. The wasters of life and limb. The ones who have engineered hell on earth and the ones who follow them out of fear or stupidity. These recurring dreams are visceral, nearly sensual. There is no fear. Only the near erotic satisfaction of vengeance. And as the smoke clears and the ashes of the dead float away on the gentle wind, I realize I cannot share in the earth's new found peace and freedom because I have transformed. That I have disfigured my soul beyond recognition. That I am a danger, a bringer of death. These are my sleeping dreams. This is what I sense, in my soul, I'm capable of.......perhaps.

In "The Candidate", after winning the election, Robert Redford's character asks his campaign manager, "What do we do now?" What do we do now? The pragmatist in me thinks that a modicum of reconciliation could go a long way in repairing this country. But I am also deeply concerned about this reconciliation process. So we reach across the aisle? We get input? We try to get the Right Wing on board, moderate our agenda for the sake of bipartisanship? Part of me understands that this is what a man like Barack Obama would do. Try to heal the nation. And yet I can't help but think that now is the time to fix America's policies, our problems, not to soothe the hurt feelings of these small minded, sleazy lunatics, at the risk of putting these course corrections in place at a glacial pace. How do you make a place for people so wrong about so many things? Let us set aside the question of what we do now for a moment. Instead, let us think of what has led us here, these policies, these issues.

Health care. Does anyone believe that there should not be universal health care? Seriously? Who in good conscience could be against everyone having health care? Can we not look at health care as a fundamental human right? I am going to be blunt. If Jesus himself came today to judge the living and the dead, would those who invented and support the for profit health care system not be among the first on the list to spend an eternity in hell? How could you explain to your Jesus, that a dying child should die because she hasn't got the money for a transplant or a surgery? And for what? So that a stock holder in an insurance company can have a larger dividend? A CEO can have a bigger bonus? That is what we are talking about, right? Profit margins made on the very lives of human beings. There would be a special place in hell set aside for these people, if I believed in such a place. If I believed in hell, I imagine their place would be to relive the pain and anguish of the mother of that child turned away, and of that child's death, over and over again for an eternity.

Iraq. A war started by lies. The stated reasoning for this deadly folly was that the United States was in danger, that Iraq was an imminent threat. Think about that for a second. Iraq was an imminent threat. What madman dreamed up such an unbelievable lie? The idea brings laughter. Iraq, flanked on each border by an enemy, monitored by US forces and UN forces and no fly zones. The claim was that they had weapons of mass destruction. There were UN inspectors on the ground, led by Hans Blix, who knew, and told us that this was not the case. And what about the intelligence info? The two mouthed George Tenet who said it was a slam dunk out of one side of his mouth and prayed to his God that what he made up would come true out of the other. And the second source of info? The second opinion? A newly created wing of the Office of the Vice President, specifically an intelligence gathering wing. This is the office that tried, again laughably, to float the idea that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Namely, that lead 9/11 perpetrator Mohammad Atta had met with Iraqi Intelligence officers in Prague, and that they had trained in Iraq, intelligence gotten from prisoners that they knew full well had no access to this type of information. And on the weapons of mass destruction fabrication: the evidence of yellow cake uranium purchases in Niger, proven to be fabricated, aluminum tubes, the wrong size and type for the Bush administration's claimed uses....The list goes on and on. The only evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was fifteen years old. The weapons that proved what a bad man Saddam really was. The ones used on the Kurds. So sad really, especially when you consider that Iraq at the time was our ally. Think about the pictures of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam from that period. Think about the fact that the chemical weapons used on the Kurds were most likely bought and paid for by US dollars. The only WMD that we knew Iraq had were the ones we basically gave them to use on their own people.

We are nearing the 6th year anniversary of when this war began. And no one can explain why we were there in the first place. The so called "Left Wing Media" seemed to be in collusion with the Bush administration, overlooking these blatant fabrications and errors. Few voices mentioned the 1996 policy paper entitled “A CLEAN BREAK: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, in which Richard Perle, and other NeoCons outlined a strategy of sabotaging Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, eliminating Yassar Arafat, crushing the Palestinian independence movement, as well as an ambitious plan to invade Iraq, remove Saddam Hussein, and replace him with a US friendly puppet government. No one mentioned a meeting in 1998 when these NeoCons flew to Texas to "educate" one George Walker Bush. No one said a God damned thing before the invasion. Nothing. Not a peep. Not a peep was heard about Saddam Hussein's ties to the Reagan Administration, or the CIA, heavily involved in the Bathe party's rise to power as well as its longevity. Few said anything after the disgraceful "Mission Accomplished" speech, and those that did were ridiculed and called Anti-American. Those that dissented were swiftly marginalized. And no one said a word about the most horrific thing of all. We were allied with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, while secretly selling weapons to Iran. Imagine selling weapons to the Nazis and the British during WWII at the same time. Is there anything else more insidious to do during a war then sell weapons to your ally's enemy? To profit by selling weapons to the two opposing sides of a war? As with the health care profiteers, what does the hell I don't believe in have in store for these people?

With war comes incredible tragedy, heroism, and loss. We have brave soldiers fighting in Iraq for a lie. Every day when we wake up and look at ourselves in the mirror, we know this. I am not talking about what we do now. I am talking about what has been done in our name. As I am writing this, the US military death toll is over 4200. Not wounded. Dead. This is an American tragedy that will never be healed, lives that will never be recouped and for what purpose? The 9/11 attacks killed nearly 3000 Americans. We are approaching one and a half 9/11s worth of US military deaths in this horrible, unlawful, immoral war, and this is only half of the coin. The US government does not officially keep statistics on Iraqi deaths, a sickening thought in itself. The lowest number I could find on Iraqi deaths was 86,663 and those were violent, non-combatant civilian deaths. The highest number was 1,446,063, and was a toll of all of the deaths due to or related to the war including civilians and military combatants, caused by coalition military directly and infrastructure failure caused by the war. Even if you turn a blind eye to the large number (I suggest sitting somewhere in the center of the bell, most estimates are around 600,000), how many 9/11s is that? Divide 3000 into 86,000 or 600,000 or 1.4 million. How many people have to die before we call it a genocide? What number? And why are these people dead? Because of a misguided theory about spreading democracy through the world. Unlikely. Because Iraq was an imminent threat to us? Laughable. Because these people had something to do with 9/11? Fabricated. What are we left with? Who benefits from a perpetual war in an oil rich nation? Oil men like Bush? Military contractors? And guess who was the head of Halliburton, a military contractor, before the disputed 2000 election. That's right, the very same Vice President whose office fabricated intelligence to get us into Iraq. What does the hell I don't believe in have in store for the war profiteers responsible for more than half a million deaths?

Jeremiah Wright accused the US of being shocked that "Our chickens had come home to roost." And oh...The uproar. How could he say that? How could Obama have listened to things like that in his Church? How could anyone think that way? Oh, wait. The Mujahideen funded by the US under Reagan gave rise to the Taliban. Close family friends of the Bushes? The Bin Laden family. Pictures, Pre-9/11 of President Bush shaking hands with Taliban representatives. A long history of covert and not so covert actions in the region. The Bush family, an oil family, with deep ties to Saudi Arabia, where most of the 9/11 hijackers came from, funded by petrodollars made amply available by decidedly anti-green policies. To say that 9/11 was a conspiracy from within the US may be plausible, but is still a huge stretch. To say that any nation deserves to have a 9/11 happen to them is certainly an odious, disgusting, and unfathomable suggestion. To say, however, that our chickens have come home to roost, to take stock of the history, of which the United States is heavily involved, that led up to the attacks is perfectly sensible. It would be irresponsible not to look at what led up to the attacks. Yet where is the study on the US foreign policies that led to 9/11? Are we that sensitive that we can't take into account our own hand in it? Even if it is a repugnant idea. Are we to squelch any and all dissent? Are these Pre-9/11 truths so painful that anyone who brings them up is demonized? And after the passage of laws allowing people to be spied upon, allowing others to be tortured, how was anyone shocked at a backlash against American policies? Are Post-9/11 policies so frailly conceived that they cannot stand up to the wind created by a million or a thousand or a hundred or one eyebrow raised? In this post 9/11 world we have tossed Habeas Corpus out the window. We have allowed our government to spy on us. We have allowed our government to set up secret prisons, with secret juries and secret sentences where torture is not only tolerated, it is applauded. What place is there for those who would use fear as a tool to wipe away any opposition, any dissent, any questioning at all, in the hell I don't believe in?

Economic Equity. Who doesn't want lower taxes? I defy you to find someone who wants to pay more. However, as anyone can tell you, a government needs money to run. In this election cycle, Obama faced criticism for wanting to raise taxes on the highest bracket. His proposal, to raise the highest rate from 36% to 39.6%, was tacitly called Socialism. Mind you that the top tax rate under Nixon was 70%. This type of idiotic, hypocritical accusation actually took off. It was somewhat effective in garnering votes for the ethically challenged McCain/Palin duo. Though slight, the use of the Socialism label did give McCain/Palin a bump. Mind you again, that Sarah Palin as governor of Alaska created a wealth sharing program where each person in the state got over $3200 culled from taxes on oil companies. Yet the official McCain tax proposal had more tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans and corporations. This comes down to an economic theory the was put into place by Reagan. Supply side economics, also known as "trickle down" economics. During the 1980 primary run, George Herbert Walker Bush, an opponent of Reagan, referred to supply side economics as "Voodoo Economics." Though arguments on the validity of supply side versus demand side rage on, there has never been an official study on the efficacies of what is still a theory in practice in a very early stage. At the same time that the wealthy get tax breaks directly from the government, the other Republican mantra of privatization lies in ruin. Privatized health care allows 18,000 people to slip through the cracks in the for profit health care system to their deaths. The 1st Amendment is blurred as federal dollars are funneled to faith based organizations with no accountability. The Republicans preach that we need school vouchers without explaining that this money will be pulled from an already underfunded public school system, and sent to private for profit schools as well as religious schools. Both, again, with no accountability, and in the case of religious schools, again, sending federal dollars to religious organizations. In the end we must ask ourselves, what is more important? The weakest among us or the strongest? Do we give tax cuts to the rich, the poor, the middle class or everyone? How can any well off, economically comfortable person in good conscience accept a tax cut while children still go hungry, people still die because they have no health insurance, education fails our children, families have no homes, and the list of the impoverished becomes longer and longer?

Issues of "morality" and personal freedom. Pro-choice? Pro-life? Those on the Pro-life side of this equation have two main problems with their arguments. They all too often side with the Pro-death arguments in Extra-Abortion issues, IE: Pro-death penalty, Pro-war, Anti-universal health coverage, and the list goes on. For people so interested in protecting unborn life, they sure seem to be indifferent to life once it is born. Secondly, if we are to grant these people the freedom to practice their religion (most Pro-lifers are religious fanatics after all), and it is from their religion, not science, that their conception of when life begins arises, shouldn't people who don't practice their religion have the right to choose that definition based on science? In other words, it is the very freedom of religion that allows us the option to not have to practice one person's religion or another's. No one is Pro-Abortion. We all feel that human life is sacred. We disagree on when human life begins. We all agree that the problem is unwanted pregnancy, and we all understand that the fewer unwanted pregnancies, the fewer abortions. Yet, by and large the Pro-Life community is Anti-sex education and Anti-contraception distribution, both proven to reduce unwanted pregnancy. So what we have is a community that wants to illegalize abortion and birth control at the same time. They want more unwanted pregnancies and they want them carried to full term. The minute these unwanted children are born, of course, they wash their hands of them.

On the most joyous election night of a lifetime, there was one major blemish. The passage of Proposition 8 in California. This despicable law....an amendment taking rights away from fellow human beings is an unprecedented and immoral exercise in hate. And for what? In the name of sanctity of marriage? Whose marriage does it sanctify to take marriage away from some people? What reasoning goes behind this? Is this the work of sensible "Christians," people who believe in love? People who believe in the Golden Rule? What does it matter to them if gays marry? How could it? No one has asked Prop 8 supporters to be gay. No one has asked them to change anything they do. It only matters to those who would want to insure that gays remain second class citizens; that gays do not have access to the same rights as straights. That's what we are talking about here. Bigotry. Hate. These are the same arbitrary prejudices that are used by people who believe that blacks should be second class citizens, or Muslims, , or Catholics, or Jews, or that interracial marriage should be illegal (it was illegal in 16 states as recently as 1967). These are the ideas that breed slavery and genocide. These are the ideas that dehumanize one "stock" of humans, that lead to theories of racial or sexual superiority. To turn a group of people into outcasts, untouchables, is to strip humans of their very humanity. What place in the hell I don't believe in is set aside for these people? What punishment is deserving for the Mormon church that dumped $20 million dollars into the Yes on Proposition 8 Campaign? Are there chains on a slave ship in hell long enough to enslave these people for the eternal torment they deserve?

The United States of America. A nation with high hopes. Those hopes were best expressed in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, most poignantly in the first two lines and the last:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

This hope, this dream of a nation has endured. A government of the people, by the people, for the people has not yet perished. Yet it cannot endure if the people lose their ability to think, to question, to see fact from fiction. We as a nation, over the last half century have promoted a culture of stupidity, of anti-intellectualism where no one questions anything and consumerism runs rampant. This trend culminated in, among other things, the election of a man with no intellectual inquisitiveness as President of the United States. Those who adored him wanted to have a beer with him. These are the same people who love their country, but refuse to educate themselves about what their country does. Like people in Kansas who are poor and who align themselves with the Republican party for no conceivable reason. Are they for supply side economics? For the for profit health care system? For the occupation of Iraq? Why? Why do they allow themselves to be mislead? Is it all the American flags? Do they really believe in these ideologies or have they shut their brains off? A government of the people, by the people, for the people cannot exist if the people do not participate. The knee jerk flag waivers, the "never forget 9/11" crowd that refuse to ask uncomfortable questions about why 9/11 happened, or how it has been used by the Republican party since, have chosen to no longer participate. They have refused to use the modicum of intellectual rigor it takes to ask simple questions, to read a newspaper or a magazine. They have instead fallen in dogmatically with whatever the Republican party says. Ask them why they believe that 18,000 people should die, by being denied health care, for the sake of corporate profits. Ask them why they believe that gays should be treated as second class citizens. Ask them why Iraq needed to be invaded when they presented no threat. Ask them why the rich should pay less taxes while children still starve. You will not get an answer. You will be called a socialist or a communist or a Nazi. You will get hazy Republican talking points. You will be called anti-American or unpatriotic. You will be told that they believe what they believe. There will be no reason, no rational thought behind it.

So what do we have? A list of sins. The constant hunt for personal profit over the needs of the people. Over our very lives. Corporate profits over the lives of those who so desperately need health insurance to live. Personal profits for military contractors, oil executives, middle managers at companies that build bombs and make tanks over the lives of the troops, put in harms way for these profits. Outright hate like Proposition 8, framed with no subtlety at all. These sins cannot be wiped away. These are the sins of the Republican party. And they are the sins of any that would pick up the mantle of that label. What does it mean to take this name? To take up this belief system? If you are a Republican, you believe that gays shouldn't have the right to get married. You believe in supply side economics, and that tax cuts should be given to the wealthy. You believe in an end to public education, an end to the separation of church and state. You believe in the death penalty. You believe that the war in Iraq is justified. You believe that women should not be allowed to have an abortion. You believe in a for profit health care system. You believe that dissent is not to be tolerated. You believe in the unforgivable. There is no pardon, no special dispensation, no indulgences granted by the local bishop. If you choose to align yourself with evil, with sinners, you cast your lot with theirs. These men are sinners of the worst kind. The soulless calculations that have allowed them to do the things they have done prove that they are incapable of the guilt associated with these crimes against humanity that they should feel in their hearts. Their ascendancy, their power and affluence makes the likelihood that they will receive some sort of earthly justice, infinitesimal. We know there will be no Nuremberg trials for them. No Gitmo lockup, no water boarding, no electrocution. They will never know the audacity or evil of their crimes. Oh how I wish there were a hell, for these creators of hell on earth.

And I am falling....The air passing over me. Chilling my skin as I descend. There is no fear. I arch my back and my wings unfurl. Beaten, black, leathery. They reinforce what I am, an angel of death, and my mission, the reason for my presence. I am the destroyer. The destroyer of worlds, of life itself, a tool of the God I once believed in. He left us long ago, to fend for ourselves and we angels have been asleep. The soulless wolves have been given the power over life and death itself. And they've chosen death. They have proven over and over again their unfitness as leaders, their unfitness as humans. They have lost the right to eat at the table of humanity, to drink at the water hole. And this doesn't stop with the architects of these sins. The enablers, fools too involved in themselves to open their eyes, the supporters even in name only have cast their fates as well. To all that have stepped in the way of decency and humanity for personal greed or worse, my cup of wrath has overflowed. I spill my seed of annihilation. I am now the arbiter, judger of those who escape justice, with guile or stupidity. I rain down upon them. I breathe in and the putrid smoke of burning bodies fills my lungs. And it stings less than it should. The exhilaration of the kill in all of its bloody exultation. The destruction of the tyranny of the wealthy, the sycophants and lackeys, the meek thoughtless obedient sheep who follow hate as blindly as they would follow their favorite television show. The victory of freedom and life over fear and death. The ecstasy of killing for a just cause, of laying to waste those ruiners of life, those wasters of what we hold so dear. The orgasm is overwhelming and terrifying. And then it is over. I look over what I have done and I no longer know if it is good. The emptiness surrounds me. I stand on the blood soaked battlefield. It is accomplished. I have saved all but myself from their reign. I have stripped away whatever remnants of my humanity were left. I have become the danger, the tyranny I've fought so hard against. I have wiped away the tears from their eyes. The tyrants that have held them down are gone. But, I cannot wipe away my own tears. I cannot celebrate with my compatriots in humanity, for I have lost mine.....And I know what I must do. And as I remove my armaments, I reach down with all of my being to try to hear that child who believed in hope. I cannot. And I take my leave of this world....And then I awake....

These last few months have been strange. These last eight years have been stranger. We have been beaten and abused for so long, weighed down by the intricacies of this chapter of American history, as well as our universal history....the history of man. We have been subjected to realities, too grim, too dire, to know how to react anymore. We spy on each other and call it a "Patriot Act." We invade a nation for no reason, killing hundreds of thousands and call it part of a "War on Terror." We bail out the richest among us while people go without food or shelter and we say it's a necessity. We turn our backs on our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. We fail them all. The weak. The poor. The young and the old. The helpless and the hopeless. Until we are helpless and hopeless, prisoners of this regrettable human history. And we had let ourselves become hopeless until this election. And I am a zealot. And I am not a good man. And I have this hatred welled up within me, ready to explode upon the first person who does not believe in human rights, human dignity, justice. And this is all too real, and I wonder to myself if hope is enough. Because I have seen things. Incredible things. This election. This man. This voice telling me to believe in hope. To forgive. And that has inspired hope. But I have also seen horrible things, inhumane injustices, indignities of the spirit, the body, and the soul. And I wonder how I can reconcile them, how to let go of my pain, our pain. And I have cried tears of joy and tears of anguish. And I don't know how much of that eight year old that believes in hope is still there. And I worry..........

And I fall..........

And as I do my wings unfurl..........

But I want to hope...........

Salad Dressing For Andrew

3 Tablespoons Tahini-Hummus

1/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

1/8 Cup of Rice Wine Vinegar

1/2 Teaspoon Sesame Oil

1 Teaspoon Sugar

Fresh Ground Pepper, Dash of Hot Sauce to taste

For you Andrew, my dear partner.

This was a concoction I had created before with varying degrees of success when dishes called for flavors with an Asian influence. It was perfected one late afternoon at a business meeting in my kitchen. Andrew, one of my business partners at the studio is a vegan. I admire him for it. It takes a strong sense of will to take a stand on principle, especially with the pressures of a society that asks him to give in, not to mention two maniac, carnivorous business partners. Anyway, on with the show!

You'll need two small bowls. In one bowl, mix the sugar, vinegar and soy sauce until the sugar is dissolved. Please use good soy sauce and good rice wine vinegar. With the proliferation of the Whole Foods' and Fairway's of the world, it shouldn't be too hard to find. Real brewed soy sauce is so far superior to the salt water with caramel color that some brands try to pass off as soy sauce. A note on hummus. People have different tastes as far as hummus goes but for this recipe, I like to use a hummus with a high tahini concentration. Most hummuses on the market have a little or a lot of tahini in them but for best results I tend to stick with the Sabra brand Hummus & Tahini.

In the second bowl, whisk a thin trickle of the olive oil into the hummus, slowly at first, making sure that the oil integrates into the hummus. Then, with the same process whisk in the sesame oil. Once incorporated, again with the same process, trickle in the contents of the other bowl, constantly whisking. Add the fresh ground pepper. Add hot sauce to taste. You are finished.

This will go great on just about any salad. I often serve it on a thinly sliced carrot and cucumber salad, but any leafy greens would be excellent. It's even good on, sorry Andrew, meats and fish. This goes very well with seared sea scallops, or a nice seared rare tuna, or even on some thinly sliced rare flank steak. As with any recipe, fool around with the numbers. Add a little more of this or a little less of that. As long as you use the technique of slowly whisking in the oils, then the water based ingredients you will have success! Enjoy!

The Linear Nature of Time

The hours seem like seconds

I cannot catch up to the busy hands

of time itself.

She pushes forward, ever faster

She eats our pasts, leaving only the shell

of the essences of what once was.

These empty fragments, echoes of reality

stored in soft tissues, so fleeting

Informing every action, reaction

And we cannot escape them

no matter how we try

We are every moment that led up to this moment

We are made up of these

Cracks in our spirits, 

and yet she softens them with time

except for the unfortunate

with a recall too vivid

she attacks these soft tissues

Her march unyielding

until we are left with nothing

24 Hours Later

As I start writing this, it has been more than 24 hours since the Barack Obama acceptance speech. I don't want this feeling to go away. I haven't been able to put into words, exactly what I am feeling, what I felt last night. I am filled with sincere humility and tearjerking joy at what has happened.

At about 10:57 Chris Matthews on MSNBC began talking about what it might mean if the west coast came in for Obama, if he was the next president. And then 11:00 hit, and they all came in for him, and he was. The enormous exhale, the relief that what we knew would happen, a west coast sweep, had. 

It is an amazing feeling that I have right now, and maybe that is better left un-dissected, only appreciated in an experiential way, but that is not my way, so.....there we all were, in my basement apartment in Brooklyn New York and we were cheering and hugging. And I started to tear up because the struggle has seemed so hard and so long and there it is. We won. But then the TV switches its feed. Chicago. A quarter of a million people cheering and crying. And it was amazing. And the feed changes again, this time to Harlem and a young black girl is crying and another has fallen on the floor in tears, curled up in the fetal position, and I began to cry and then times square, and then....the crowd by the White House. On my block people were in front of their houses cheering. We all ran outside to watch the spectacle. People were screaming from blocks away and in the distance there were fireworks. We heard the strains of John McCain's concession speech through the window and hurried back to watch. 

McCain was conciliatory, his speech, heartfelt, I believe, and was only marred by one or two of his lunatic fringe supporters shouting out slurs and booing when he mentioned Obama by name. It felt good, but the sense of vindication I thought I would have had was muted. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing and the more I thought about it the less sure I was about what I was witnessing. The celebrations outside continued and we went in and out of the apartment, taking turns celebrating with others and watching states come in for Obama. My neighbor, a Tibetan artist came over and said he was so happy. He told me that the rest of the world looks to America. He told me that what we did was amazing. As the time for Obama's speech grew closer, whatever minute thoughts I had for the political ramifications I had thought about so much and followed so closely, melted away. I couldn't understand why I didn't feel what I thought I would feel. And then, his speech began:

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all 

things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in 

our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your 

answer.

"It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in 

numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and 

four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that 

this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

"It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and 

Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, 

disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that 

we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states 

and blue states.

"We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

"It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be 

cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands 

on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this

date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America."

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer? The chill up my spine was soul altering. The answers rushed to my mind, into my heart, and out of my eyes as tears in a vicious cycle that left me euphoric, then hysterical with laughter, then sobbing like a baby in tight, twisting succession, and nearly completely internalized, as I was still able to concentrate my conscious mind on the words this man was saying. 

"It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their 

generation's apathy ... who left their homes and their families for jobs that 

offered little pay and less sleep. It drew strength from the not-so-young 

people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of 

perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and 

organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the 

people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth."

"Their generation's apathy." it reminded me of RFK's line: "The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society." And yet there was still this swelling, up and down and around inside of me. He continued:

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in 

one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful 

than I am tonight that we will get there.I promise you, we as a people will get 

there."

"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for 

generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast 

her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line 

to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon 

Cooper is 106 years old.

"She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars 

on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for 

two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her 

skin.

"And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in 

America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the 

times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that 

American creed: Yes we can.

"At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she 

lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we 

can.

"When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she 

saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of 

common purpose. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

"When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the 

world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a 

democracy was saved. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

"She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in 

Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people 

that We Shall Overcome. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

"A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a 

world was connected by our own science and imagination.

"And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast 

her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and 

the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

"America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much

more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to 

see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as 

Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have 

made?

"This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

"This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of 

opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of 

peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, 

that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we 

are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will 

respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we 

can.

"Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America."

And it was over. But my emotions had not stopped. I was Spinning around this spot I could not focus on, his words in my head, that little black girl crying, My days and nights on the streets of North Philly, knocking on doors and talking to black folks and little black girls just like the one on the TV and there he was, this black man, our next President, embroidering these words, musical, yet sober. And I can't figure out why I feel so strange. And I rely on what tools I have, my reason, my theories, my Ideals and I can find nothing to aid me. And I begin to try and piece it together and....

Do you remember when you were in elementary school and you were taught that in America, anyone can be what they want to be, and that we are free and that America is the greatest country in the world? And you believed it? You believed it with all of the wild eyed innocence of a child, because you were a child. You believed it because you were fresh and clean and new, unstained.

It may have been Junior High or High School, or even College, when anyone with any shred of intelligence realizes that these thing aren't true. Not everyone can be anything they want. We are not a free country. We are not the greatest country on earth. Our undeniable history, a dark, dark history of violence, genocide, slavery and oppression, creeps into the reality of how we see our nation; An adult, mature vision tarnished by the ugly realities of how we came to be, and what we have done; what has been done in our name. We lose our faith. We fall from grace, and like all the apples from trees of knowledge, we cannot get it back. We cannot regain that innocence, cannot believe in the unbelievable. We hope for a small change in the glacial battle of evil against less evil. We discuss our political choices as lesser of two evils scenarios. The reality of America and the American dream do not jibe. The reality of America is a far cry from the American dream. But I am still spinning, and I don't know why and there are his words and that little black girl and there's a black man on The Television and he's our next president.

And I know that's impossible because this is America, and in the real America a black man with a funny name can't be president. And I think about that little girl, and how for her, there is going to be a black person in the White House, and he won't be a servant or a slave. A person that looks like her. And it comes over me in waves. that the reality has shattered. And the jokes made, that after the worst presidency ever, only the Democrats could fuck it up for everyone and lose the election by putting a black man or a woman up as president, because it was a fact. Because that can't happen. Not a woman president. Not a Black president. Not in America. But there he is on TV and the people out on the street are cheering. 

I had tried to help. I started to believe the numbers. I began to believe that Obama would win. I thought about how cool it would be. But when it became official, that spinning, those tears, were not tears of victory for my candidate, or for my ideals. I was in shock because I was realizing what had really happened, as an American as a human being, as a citizen of earth, the hurdle that was being overcome. And I thought of Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. I see the tears streaming down Jessie Jackson's face on the TV as they stream down mine and then John Lewis is on TV, a Representative from Georgia who was beaten during Civil rights marches with King and still has scars is puffy faced from crying and so am I, and I think about all of the blood, shed for this to happen, the sacrifices and the pain of lives erased or ruined so this night could be a reality.

And Obama's words are ringing in my head, "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer." And as my throat closed and I cried again I realized that I believed in America again, like I did when I was eight, in elementary school and the books said we were free and the teachers said we were the greatest nation on earth and anyone could become anything they wanted to be and a half black kid with a wacky name could be president and there he was on TV telling me to believe and I believed. Telling me it was real and it was real and I was eight again.

No black mother or father will ever have to tell their son or daughter that they will never be president because they're black. No black mother or father will ever have to think they are lying to their child when say that they can be president, because it won't be a lie. Because America is the greatest country in the world, where anyone can grow up to be anything.

And the world is watching too. And maybe my neighbor is right. Maybe this is amazing. And maybe this changes everything everywhere, because America is the greatest country in the world because anyone can grow up to be anything. Maybe the world does look to us. Maybe This feeling, this spinning, these tears mean more than I could possibly fathom.

And I know that in a few days or a few weeks this will pass and we'll have to come down to earth and deal with the huge issues we have, pay for the horrible sins we have committed but right now I don't have to think about that because I'm an eight year old inside and I believe in the American dream. And I'm not a child, but I feel like a child and it is even sweeter to have overcome, to overcome our history, to recapture that child like love. He is only a man. Nothing has fundamentally changed about the place we find ourselves in but everything has changed because we have a black president and that is impossible in America but it's true because there is a black man who is the next president of the United States telling me it is true. And I believe it because I feel innocent, fresh, clean, and new again. And if, what I know to be impossible has happened, then anything is possible.

And I know I don't want this feeling to end.