On Extended Vacation

January 29, 2008

I have decided to stop posting for several months. I am sure that from time to time I will post something here or there. However I must stop for now. It is not that I have run out of ideas or interest. It is that I have to run elsewhere.

To my Blogroll: thank you from the depths of my soul. You have given me such strong support and encouragement. I have benefited more than you will ever know.

I am sorry I did not get around to read and comment as much as I should have. It is something I always felt guilty about (dead beat blogger) and one of the considerations in my decision. Reading other people’s stuff is just as much part of blogging as is posting. When I return I will do so only when I have the time to visit other blogs. That will be enjoyable.

I started this project almost two years ago and have thoroughly enjoyed your work and comradierie. It reaffirms my belief that we are all gifted in myriad ways.

till then
peace

Peace Is Free

January 27, 2008

You don’t have to get cleansed
cleared or confirmed

You don’t have to pay tribute

Peace is as free as your next breath
your next smile

January 25, 2008

God’s love is perfected in us.

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Newark revisited

January 22, 2008

During the summer of 1967 I worked at a Fresh Air camp in the rural hills of New Jersey. Twenty miles to the east was rioting and rebelling in the streets of Newark.

I was asked to make an emergency trip into the Newark ghetto to return a camper whose mother or sister had been killed by gunfire.  I was to say nothing about it.  The Bonnie Brae camp truck would be our credential for safe passage I hoped.  On each corner were crowds of angry black men staring at each vehicle passing by.  Forty years later many corners are still the same.

I was living in Newark in 1968 when Doctor King was murdered. Five of us (all quite white) lived in a black neighborhood while attending Seton Hall.

Down the street from our apartment was Cookie’s Plain and Fancy.  We would stop in after class to play pool, shoot darts, and drink High Life. Cookie had a shotgun behind the bar and  James Brown on the jukebox.  On the day he bought us a round of beers we felt like honorary members of the neighborhood.

When Martin Luther King was assassinated – it all changed. We were told not to return by Cookie.  We moved to the white suburbs soon after.

Evil had its way – with all of us.

whi/te boys gone
to the moon
plantin flags & stuff
why you boys goin
to the moon
dont yall think
yall done fucked up enuf
without messing
with somebody else’s world
in the beginning
it was africa
you just wanted to see
you said
& once having seen
commenced to fucking up
open up them china gates
& let’s hunt tigers in india
you whi/te boys sho nuff likes
what ever anybody else has
all ways got to be
digging in somebody’s bag
always got to be plantin flags & stuff
whi/te boys done gone
to the moon
just like they come here
talking bout it’s a
great adventure & we is
the first ones here
& plantin flags
whi/te boys gone to the moon
whi/te boys done gone to the moon
sho hope them lil brothers up there
dont show um how
to plant corn

– Kalamu ya Salaam

Blood and tits sell.

January 19, 2008

fox_logo_with-tit-and-red.jpg

blood on tits
even better.

hdtv

January 18, 2008

high
definition
drug

 

spiritual guests

January 16, 2008


seal-hunt.jpg

We are spiritual guests on this earth
and should not join in the killing cycle.

Buddy with “tree”

January 12, 2008

buddy-with-tree.jpg

leave that tree alone

January 12, 2008

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Tonight Buddy and I roamed the streets of our town. He is an Airedale terrier and loves to be vigilant. Unfortunately his eyesight is not keen and he will often mistake something like a fire hydrant for a possible attacker.

Along our route were many discarded Christmas trees abandoned at curbside. Perceiving them as critters, Buddy would pitch forward on the leash at each sighting. It made these sad encounters refreshingly comical.

I could not help but reflect on all the resources we put into these trees: the time, land, labor, fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, shipping, selling, buying, decorating, stripping, tossing, and disposing. Over 100 million of these trees are harvested worldwide each year. It seems a waste.