Anyone who's a regular reader of this journal must have long since noted how much of a political firebrand I can be. I've written a great deal, often in very strident terms, about political issues that have set alight my ideals about what's right and wrong for the country and the world. You may have also noticed a drop-off in those types of posts recently.

One reason for that is that recently I've been spouting off about politics in the News Forum of our local paper, the Columbia Daily Tribune. If you want a recent sample of me mixing it up with the other side of the ideological spectrum, check it out (watch out for flying spit).

The other, and main, reason is that I've lately been feeling the corrosive effects of politics on my psyche. There's a folder in my inbox full of political blog-topics, all lined up neatly and waiting to be torn into with all the evangelical articulation I can muster, but I've found myself not touching them, nor wanting to. I've found that after a prolonged bout of attacking these issues, and debating them with people so far (in my mind) from the truth, a certain despair starts to set in. And then I begin to think that approach isn't the right battlefield for my ideals.

Does that mean I'm giving up on my ideals, abandoning the championing of progressive values? No way. It's probably just a matter of time before something riles me up to the degree that I have to detonate another word-bomb over it.

But I'm feeling like a different approach to things is in order, and we'll see how that develops in time. I'm just starting to get the feeling that I don't want the ultimate identity of this journal or site to be one of ranting, no matter how truly I believe in the principles I'm espousing. Spreading awareness of the things I learn of will continue to be an important part of this site, but I hope to allow more room for the sharing of discoveries and enthusiasms along the way. Or, in a nutshell, to spend more time promoting what's good, and what could be, than railing against what's bad. And when presenting bad news, to try different approaches to it.

That doesn't mean turning this into the sunshine & happiness channel--but if my ideal is for a better world, perhaps there's a benefit in focusing more on what that would be like.

Labels: Politics

Quiet

Soft damp bed of green
Soaking up step-sounds
Mushed dust of old mountains
Crackles gently underfoot

Deep rusted red herald
A hoary halo overlooks comers, goers
In the soaked gray air it's deepened
I give a salute of auburn curls, underby

Alone and surrounded
Echoing, chirping, rustling life abounds
Slithers, flutters, hops, buzzes, whispers
In a language too slow for me to catch

A lightness fills me
Stands me up, lifts me along
As my legs stretch around solitary bends
And a fleeting connectedness washes through

The curves create friction
The inclines spark surges
The resistance replied with a sweaty push
Hot breath and hammer-heart

Soft-tails alight
Retreating to their canopy
Human ruin a muted presence at the fringe
All come and go in the closest thing to peace.

Labels: Environment, Poems, Running

After foolishly missing it at the recent True/False Festival, I recently caught a showing of the new documentary Why We Fight (thanks to Ann Marie's encouragement).

This smart, patient film looks at evidence spanning more than 60 years and includes interviews with a wide range of people, from Gore Vidal to Richard Perle, from John McCain to the father of a 9/11 victim, to the Stealth fighter pilots who dropped the first bombs in our current war on Iraq. Interspersed are telling historical anecdotes relating to our nation's transformation during and after WWII and the amazing tale of five-star-general-turned-president Dwight D. Eisenhower's realization of the increasing--and frightening--role that militarization was playing in American life.

The conclusion that the evidence points to is an alarming shift in power away from elected government--which still has some degree of accountability to the people--and toward a more secretive network of military contractors and militaristic think-tanks and advisors who are, in essence, writing government policy without any accountability.

The result of all that is a film that is insightful and emotional while never being cheap or sensational. Unlike, say, Michael Moore films, this one is sober, calm, and largely allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions. Sights like footage of carnage in Iraq and a military contractor performing magic tricks at a military-vendor trade show (sleight of hand, anyone?) tell stories more powerful than words.

It's an emotional film, but it doesn't play on your emotions so much as it calls on your sense of common decency. It's a bracing reminder about what we've come to take for granted as normal and acceptable, and what we're still accepting today, over 60 years after our last necessary war ended. Highly recommended.

For more info, see the film's official site, an interview with director Eugene Jarecki, and an opinion piece by Walter Cronkite addressing the film.

Labels: Culture

Halfway behind me.
I knew, the very first time I saw
The first of only two times
'Recognition' by another name
I knew, but how little.
Hands seething with heat
Pulled aside layers and felt for yours,
And you stole into the rescuing night
As in my thick coat I unfelt
And remarked at it.

Déjà, une décennie?
I looked past you, but you caught up
And replaced everything in my eyes
A door opening and re-opening
With no handle for me to hold.
Silver chariots and cold oceans
Summer rains under canopy of green
You looked back over your shoulder
As I gasped and learned
And I learned a lesson I'd live to repeat.

(Three)

One in six, the dissatisfraction of the beast.
Knowing again at the very first glimpse
And with clearer mind and evolved heart
I made my greatest mistake.
There are no words here.

Close to a lustre.
Fire, consuming everything within and out
Chimera, inevitable this illusion meant
Fruit of seeds entwined with each step
Weeping thorn and withered blossom.
Ceaseless gorging of endless hungering
A sweaty, frenzied remindlessness
Literally hundreds of explosions
Between us couldn't hold together
What one small drop of regret slid apart.

(Six)
(Seven)

Two seconds of the life-minute.
Barely out of sight
Yet never completely in focus
Centaur-warrior crowning Venus
Hunting and haunted.
With eyes that nearly overlapped
We saw everything but the distance
Tiny and infinite
Bridged with a touch, yawning without
You writhed, I let go.

Still on the breeze.
Heat and forgiveness
Pushing and understanding
Patience, golden moments
A near-perfect paper-performance.
Held in hands habitually tearing
Destroying and protecting
Sometimes even intentionally
Cut down on the vine
Spilled before a chance to age.

Hazily in front of me.
I strain so hard to see you
To read the ashes for some clue
To make it all make sense
To make a narrative of transience.
You give me no warmth or solace
Your ecstacy an imagined promise
Yet I keep choosing you
Looking for the period, the

Fin.

Labels: Poems

The President's FY07 budget includes a proposal to sell hundreds of thousands of acres of national forest land to help make up for a shortfall in rural school funding due to declining timber sales. The money to be raised is a tiny fraction of the money we're pouring into the debacle in Iraq (it's equal to roughly 3 days' worth of warmaking), and could easily be found in other ways. This would affect dozens of states, and Missouri would be one of those most affected, with more than 21,000 acres on the chopping black.

For those already familiar with the proposed sale, you can easily send an editable form letter to the Forest Service, courtesy of the Wilderness Society, or if you want to do it on your own, you can e-mail comments directly to SRS_Land_Sales@fs.fed.us. The deadline for public comment is May 1, 2006, so act now!

Now, for those who may not know the details of the issue, here are a few resources with which to get up to speed:

• Missouri congressional delegation takes stand against Forest Service plan: Kudos to Sens. Kit Bond and Jim Talent, and Reps. Kenny Hulshof, Jo Ann Emerson and Roy Blunt for seeing this turkey of a plan for what it is.
  
• Details of the proposed plan: Fact sheet, list by state and region of how much land would be sold, and related stories.
  
• Forest Service looking beyond timber sales for revenues: The Forest Service has other lousy plans in the works for further commercializing and opening up our national forests to development.
  
• Senators propose alternative to forest sale: Two western senators present a plan that would generate several times more money than the proposed sales--simply by closing a tax loophole on deadbeat government contractors.
  
• Forest Service wasting taxpayers' money: Far from being a responsible steward of our shared resources, the Forest Service is making a disastrous mess of things that is costing us all billions of dollars. Read this to help shed light on why the timber program is a failure.

The national forests of this country belong to all of us--it's not right for the administration to sell them off without our permission, when simple fiscal responsibility would take care of the budget problem. Please make your voice heard--the form letter link above only takes a few seconds to complete--and let them know that our lands aren't for sale.

Labels: Environment, Politics