My job, an Exquisite Corpse, and Super Green Beret
It's no surprise to any of my friends that I really, really hate my job and that it's getting me very down. I'm making a concerted effort not to whine about that in this web log. So I mention it not to whine, but to provide some background.

I came across a website with an Exquisite Corpse poetry generator. Random words flash by and you choose when to stop the program by hitting your browser's stop button. The result was an interesting line:

The drunken dog torments the rare boss

And even though I'm not much of a drinker, I thought the rest of the line was relevant. The best way to describe my current supervisor is "rare boss" as he's rarely there and even more rarely much of a supervisor. And the "torments" part is more of a fantasy than actuality. But, discrepencies aside, it is a nice line.

Some background about the game of Exquisite Corpse. I had heard that term for several years as the name of a poetry journal, and I had assumed that it was a purely random name (like the name of so many garage bands) that didn't refer to anything. Although the name was generated in a somewhat random fashion, it refers to a game that was popular among the Dadaists in the early part of the twentieth century. Here's the information on the name and how to play the game from the website I mentioned above:

Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident was a kind of collective collage of words or images called the cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse). Based on an old parlor game, it was played by several people, each of whom would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on to the next player for his contribution.

The technique got its name from results obtained in initial playing, "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau" (The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine). Other examples are: "The dormitory of friable little girls puts the odious box right" and "The Senegal oyster will eat the tricolor bread." These poetic fragments were felt to reveal what Nicolas Calas characterized as the "unconscious reality in the personality of the group" resulting from a process of what Ernst called "mental contagion."

It's a nice game, but that part about "unconscious reality" and "mental contagion" seems bloated with stupidity. "Mental contagion" seems like a term better used to explain why the Bush administration thought Iraq posed a threat to America that was urgent, gathering, and other really scary adjectives.

----------

Having forced a glimpse of my depression on the reader, I owe it to you to give you something amusing as well. This goes to the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I literally laughed so much that at one point I was gasping for air.

Apparently there was a deservedly short-lived comic book in 1967 called "Super Green Beret." It honestly has to be the very, very worst written comic I have ever seen in my entire life. Someone scanned every panel from the first issue and posted them on his website so that you can experience the wonder yourself. (Note for parents: the web author's commentary does get mildly blue at times. But you might want to consider letting the tots see this comic since we live in times when the Bush adminstration expects the exact rah-rah attitude toward war that led to this horrible comic book. Consider it a humorous innoculation against war fever.)

Rumors
I should be hesitant to pass on more rumors since the one I wrote about earlier -- Kerry's mistress --appears to be false. Yep, should be hesitant. Yep.

But if I paid attention to "should" I'd be thin and rich. And I can't be having that. Soooooo, here we go.

First, there's a rumor that we've found where Osama Bin Laden is and have the area surrounded. Here's an excerpt from The Sunday Telegraph (UK):

"A BRITISH Sunday newspaper is claiming Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Sunday Express, known for its sometimes colourful scoops, claims the al-Qaeda leader has been 'sighted' for the first time since 2001 and is being monitored by satellite."

The full story in the Sunday Telegraph can be read here. I'd like to give you a link to the Sunday Express, but so far they haven't put the story online yet. Here's the link to their front page so you can try later.

I really hope this story is correct and we're close to capturing Osama. It would even be worth enduring a second Bush term. (Democrats will immediately understand what I mean. Republicans will only understand that in their heads and not their hearts -- but this is new?)

My impression of the Express is that it isn't the most reliable source in the world. But, there are some signs that bolsters the story's credibility. First, lately there have been a lot of statements by politicians and military personnel that we're very close to capturing Osama. Second, the story also fits with where military intelligence thought he would probably be. So, I'm inclined to believe it (although this may be a case of wishful thinking on my part).

---------

On a lighter note, there's a rumor going around about a certain Republican governor. Supposedly his wife has left him and is going to file for divorce. But the governor and his people are rumored to be begging her not to file...not so much to keep the marriage together but to keep a lid on what prompted her to leave. Let's just say it's not another woman. Hmmmm. Wish I could tell you more about whether this rumor is credible or not, but I honestly don't know.

---------

Looking back on today's entry, I see that I've indulged in the desire for revenge against Osama and I've just been petty towards a governor. So I've shown myself up as quite the hypocrite when you consider that my ideals are Jesus and Buddha. I think today's entry just delayed my spiritual enlightenment by several years, so I hope you enjoy reading it.

Madge has passed away
Jan Miner died this month at the age of 86. She was the actress who played Madge on those old Palmolive ads. Remember? "You're soaking in it." (I put this item here mainly for the benefit of Bob, since I strongly doubt that the BBC will mention it. And wouldn't it be oddly received if they did?)

I'm watching "Fiddler on the Roof" as I type this. I'm finding it almost impossible not to type in rhythm to the music. (Right now Topol is singing "If I were a rich man.")

Which reminds me, one of the haiku websites I sometimes visit had some interesting links. I haven't checked out the one labeled "cybergeek haiku" yet, but I did click on "Jewish haiku." I can't give credit for them because they appeared to be anonymous. (If anyone does know who wrote them, please let me know). Technically these are probably senryu rather than haiku, but why quibble? Here are a few.


Like a bonsai tree,

your terrible posture at

my dinner table.



Left the door open.

for the Prophet Elijah.

Now our cat is gone.



Today I am a man.

Tomorrow I will return

to the seventh grade.



"Can't you just leave it?"

the new Jewish mother asks --

umbilical cord.



The next one is my personal favorite. Not only is this poem witty, but the first part even manages to sound like a Japanese haiku.


Wet moss on the old

stones. Lying in the

grass, I ponder who to sue.

Simple poems
Don't look back at poems written in youth. Very painful. They seemed so good back then.

I've been writing poetry for 24 years. Fortunately, I don't write that many. I'd like to avoid the common trap for amateurs of generating more poems than meaningful thoughts. One should strive for a parity.

Sadly, despite my sparse output, I'm also guilty of this. My poems may be few, but my thoughts worth writing a poem about seem to be fewer still.

There is one hint of progress. I wrote almost all of my poems in the same book of ruled, blank pages. This created a rough chronology of them which I have reread several times over the years. As I said -- painful. But when looking at them, I try very hard not to flinch and to be as honest as I can. Although there are poems throughout that should have been strangled in the crib, there is a trend that shows glacially slow improvement. This trend only starts at the end of the first decade of writing them, but at least it continues.

I'm trying to salvage a few of my early poems with drastic rewriting. So far this is the only one worth recording here.



Follow the golden mean, golden golden mean
This simple rule of life, so easy and so light
Aurea mediocritas, golden golden mean

Aristotle found it once for every girl and boy
Not fish nor foul nor good red meat
But our hair will shine, and our feet won?t stink

So follow the golden mean my son
And you?ll be half a man

Republican dirty tricks -- fake photo of Kerry & Jane Fonda
Friday the thirteenth didn't bring any bad luck, and all Valentine's Day brought yesterday was a light accumulation of snow in the morning that melted completely by midday.

The Republicans seem to have nothing to say on the issue of jobs other than outsourcing many of our jobs to other countries is a good thing. So instead, they're spreading a doctored photo of John Kerry on the Internet. The photo shows John Kerry speaking side by side with Jane Fonda at a rally against the Vietnam War. (I'm not referring to the one showing him just sitting in a crowd at a different protest rally a few rows behind her.)

What does the photo have in common with the White House's projection that 2.6 million jobs will be created this year? They're both Republican fakes. I look forward to these future doctored photos from the Republicans: George Bush fighting in Vietnam. George Bush showing up for duty as a National Guard pilot in Alabama. George Bush showing up for duty as the president in Washington, D.C.

Granted, there are some real photos of Bush working in Washington, D.C. But given that he has taken more vacations that any American President in history, such photos probably aren't thick on the ground. Remember, this is the same man who literally said he wouldn't rest until Osama was captured, then went on vacation for a month at Crawford. Speaking of Crawford, a Democrat asked a rhetorical question today about the vast number of photo ops of Bush clearing brush at his ranch. Exactly how much brush does that ranch have? He could have cleared a milewide swath to Austin by now. Personally I think once the reporters are ushered away he immediately stops clearing. That's the only way to account for it.

Here's a sample from a
"news article at Newsday.com about the photo and Ken Light, the photographer.

"As a 20-year-old photographer documenting the country's struggle over the Vietnam War, Ken Light snapped the picture of John Kerry at a peace rally in Mineola. It captured the future senator alone at a podium, squinting into the sun. Light did not photograph Jane Fonda on that warm June Sunday in 1971. The actress, who is reviled by many Vietnam veterans for her vocal stance against the war, did not even attend."

For a webpage that shows both the real photo and the doctored one, go here

By the way, that last webpage is part of a website called Snopes.com that debunks a lot of urban legends, sometimes very shortly after they happen. For example, after a huge disaster such as 9/11, the internet will soon sprout some brand new quatrains purporting to be from Nostradamus. Snopes.com is quick to determine whether or not Nostradamus really wrote them.

Kerry, or "Hazel" as his close friends call him (yes, that was a joke) may have more serious problems than fake photos. There's the rumored affair with Alex Polier. This story broke at the beginning of last week, but didn't show up on the mainstream news for a few days. Here's the best account I've seen of it so far.

My morning mantra
I woke up at 3 AM today. Joy. After about thirty minutes of trying to get back to sleep, I gave up for awhile. I even said my usual morning mantra, "God, I'm so tired, so very, very tired." For some reason, this mantra never seems to motivate me to become active in the morning. However it is terribly effective in making me very, very tired.

Also, and I'm not making this up, when I start the day I see aftertrails behind anything moving. I'm really not kidding. I don't know if my eyes have dried out too much or what, but it's really disconcerting. It started a few months ago. Does anyone else ever experience this?

Good webpage that compares what Bush said Sunday to . . .
Check out this web page for a good comparison by John Podesta between what Bush said Sunday to the -- oh, I don't know, maybe -- truth. Here's one example:

"The President's statement that there is 'good momentum' on the job creation front is dishonest: while we are averaging 72,000 new private sector jobs created per month, at that pace, it would not be until May 2007 that this President would have created his first net job."

Most of his comments had as little credibility as Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's claim that he acted alone followed within 24 hours by a full and complete pardon.

Ironically, the reports I've heard don't list Iraq as one of the countries that bought nuclear secrets from Khan. Maybe our "intelligence failure" was that our President confused IraQ with IraN. One mistaken consonant...oops! If I were anyone in Britain right now, I'd pray that no country wants to (1) support terrorism and (2) change their country's name to Britaiq. At least not while there's a Bush in the White House.

How many Georges can dance on the head of a pin?
What can you say about Bush that he can't say himself? Pretty much any word with two syllables. Except for the word "evil" which he has mastered through constant repetition.

The Republicans vehemently criticized Clinton (not without justification) on the issue of his parsing words. But Clinton was not even in the same league with Bush and his inner circle. Bush said when trying to sell the war that Iraq was "a grave and gathering danger" and an "urgent threat." But now the White House insists that he never said "imminent threat." Urgent, imminent, tomato, tomahto. (By the way, the reason for the title of this blog entry is that Bush claiming there's a difference between "urgent threat" and "imminent threat" is as absurd as claiming to know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.)

The Associated Press has a nice page of some of the things Bush and his people said back then. Please click to see the list of quotations.

Also, I counted the times Bush said the word "threat" (or "threats" or "threaten") in the text of a press conference he gave on March 7, 2003. He said it twenty-two times. Twenty-two. But apparently what he meant to imply was, "not imminent."

Interestingly, he was also asked by a reporter about our allies who "have access to the same intelligence information, why is it that they are reluctant to think that the threat is so real, so imminent that we need to move to the brink of war now?" [Emphasis added.] Bush didn't seem to have a problem with the use of the word "imminent." He also didn't seem to care that our allies were right that the matter wasn't imminent.

Shouldn't America's first officially preemptive war have had so much justification that less than a year later the President wouldn't have to parse words about why he got us into it?

At least no one died because Clinton split hairs about the word "is."

Evil chemistry and evil biology
John Ashcroft continues this administration's love of the word "evil" for things they don't like (and "freedom" for things they like). Ashcroft made the following remarks to reporters while he was in Vienna:

"I believe there is a very clear understanding that Saddam Hussein continued to pose a threat," Ashcroft said.

"Weapons of mass destruction, including evil chemistry and evil biology, are all matters of great concern, not only to the United States, but also to the world community," he said. "They were the subject of UN resolutions."

Also note one more instance of the administration's odd insistence that the UN (through previous resolutions) was in favor of this war despite the fact that the UN (at the time of the war)was objecting to the war.

Misc.
Click here for a funny cartoon I saw recently.