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Malala
Malala Yousafzai Malala— the way forward’salways first into darkness,then through it— the light you carry,that old-soul courage— millions will follow ******** At the age of 11, Malala Yousafzai took on the Taliban by giving voice to her dreams. As turbaned fighters swept through her town in northwestern Pakistan in 2009, the tiny schoolgirl spoke out about her passion for education — she wanted to become a doctor, she said — and became a symbol of defiance against Taliban subjugation. On Tuesday, masked Taliban gunmen answered Ms.Read More
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American Society: What Poets See
I’m happy to say that I have three poems in a new anthology from FutureCycle Press called American Society: What Poets See. It’s cleverly put together: Poets appear alphabetically with all their poems together; but a secondary table of contents groups poems by theme, and using it yields the heady experience of hopscotching through the collection. (I can’t wield that word without a nod to the great Julio Cortázar, whose Hopscotch broke this structural ground in 1963.) Here are the groups the editors, David Chorlton and Robert S.Read More
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Best Political Video of the Year (re: the Voter ID Scam)
Wordplay! Obscenities! Watch at your own risk! (Risk of busting a gut with laughter….)Read More
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Thanks for the Memories…
This image is a mashup of two others taken from two sites peddling tee shirts:Party Crasher Tee Shirts and The Liberal Store.Read More
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Nine Big Fat Lies About Women’s Bodies
This political season has wavered between depressing and nauseating as the pathetic know-nothingism of the Right has swept through the body politic like the killer flu virus of 1918. The crazies have been lying so fast that fact-checkers have developed the caffeine shakes, not to mention a mood disorder from the sad truth that nobody seems to care about the facts. My role at this moment is to pass along some actual information that I couldn’t seem to find a workable link for but that deserves to be pondered and re-shared.Read More
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A Passing Thought…
The man worth $60 billion gives away $6 billion, and we are expected to admire him as some kind of saint. We are expected to overlook the people from whom he stole his billions—the workers at home and abroad, as well as the many thousands of companies and individuals who bought his overpriced products. He is a philanthropist, we’re told. An innovator. A job creator who really ought to be rewarded with lower taxes. We ourselves should be happy to pay more for everything rather than risk losing his largesse.Read More
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Poetry Makes Something Happen
Günter Grass at Home I suppose it’s appropriate that Poetry Month should witness the international furor created by the great German poet and novelist Günter Grass with his poem “What Must Be Said.” (So much for Auden and his assertion that “poetry makes nothing happen.”) There are now several translations of the poem available, each of which has something to recommend it; but this is my favorite as a whole, despite an awkward patch or two: WHAT MUST BE SAIDGünter Grass / Tr.Read More
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Under the Mistletoe
My intention was to record this the way Henry Gould has done for quite awhile now. But (a) I’ve run out of pre-Christmas time, and (b) I don’t have Gould’s guitar skills and so would look like an idiot.Read More