Sleepless

Sleepless
Originally uploaded by olivander.

Silhouettes like shivering ancient feelings
They cover my foreign floors and walls
Submarines are lurking in my foggy ceiling
They keep me sleepless at night...
Can you pull me out
Of this sleepless night
Can you pull me out?

--King Crimson

Getting out of town

, originally uploaded by olivander.

I am not a city boy.
I do not need proximity to the chattering swarms,
the sea of foul-tempered elbows
late to their pigeon holes.
I do not need concrete building blocks to prop myself against,
that serve no purpose
other than
to remind me of my place.
I do not long for the lurching buses
and black-stacked lorries
coughing pale death
down the shattered roads.
I do not desire 57 channels and nothing on.
I need the tree-spired horizon
buttoning wild skies of beetling snake-tongued clouds
to undulating golden oceans.
I desire ear-splitting silence
and a kitchen-cut sandwich
with thumbprints mashed into
its spongy surface
on a forgotten wayside
on a forgotten lane to nowhere
in the shadow of a prairie shipwreck's
hay-dripping spanners.
From here
the land receives
Day's slow blink
without trepidation.

"We're on a mission from god."

Ok, so the White House is denying that Shrub said at a summit in Jordan that god told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. And granted, there seem to be no actual recordings of the comment. However, it appears to be backed up by at least one witness, and, really, doesn't it sound entirely within Shrub's character to say such a thing? Is there any doubt in anyone's mind anymore that the US's shift from a democracy to a monarchy to a theocracy is complete?

Overkill, pt 2

What's that saying about those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it?

The Supreme Court's Michael Brown?

Given the recent furor over inexperienced Friends of Bush being given top positions in the administration, you'd think that Shrub would have had second thoughts about nominating old friend and White House council Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. She has zero judicial experience. She's a lawyer; she's never been a judge. In fact, she has only held the post of White House Council since February of this year. I thought that the Democrats remained totally spineless on the John Roberts confirmation. I can only hope that they will summon at least a tiny bit of courage and say "no" to putting another Michael Brown on the Supreme Court.

But then, Shrub often doesn't have a first thought, let alone a second. How else can one explain putting a person who's never sat on the Supreme Court in charge of the Supreme Court? Or making someone who is openly contentious of the United Nations ambassador to the United Nations? Or giving out the job of Attorney General as a consolation prize for losing an election to a dead man?

Shrub appears to have learned nothing from the total man-made disaster that emerged from hurricane Katrina. He has zero concept of the consequences that arise from granting positions of power to those who haven't earned them. When politicians in this country give powerful posts as rewards to friends and those who spent lots of money to get them elected, we call it cronyism. When leaders of other countries give powerful posts as rewards to friends and those who spent lots of money to get them elected, we call it corruption.