If you oppose drilling in the Artic Wildlife Refuge (and you should!) then please be heard: Citizens’ Roll Call.
In addition, please keep this info in mind from John Kerry’s web site:
We need to launch emergency online advertising campaigns in the home states of those seven critical senators: Senator Coleman (MN), Senator Smith (OR), Senator Specter (PA), Senator Martinez (FL), Senator Lugar (IN), and Senators Gregg and Sununu (NH).
So, if you live in one of those states or have friends or family in one of those states, get the word out! Thanks!
Oh boy. Sometimes you can just hunt and around and stumble upon something great and just feel so grateful for the internet and the millions and millions of words floating out there for us to find.
Anyway, I just stumbed across this story that just grabbed me by the throat Ten Letters to the President by Paul Maliszewski:
The conversation could have easily gone in a different direction. As Ted smoked his cigarette down and I polished off my sandwich, I imagined how when Ted asked me how things were going and I answered him that things weren’t going bad, that Ted, in our wholly hypothetical lunch break on another planet, would turn to me then and ask what was wrong, and that I, for once, would actually tell him what was wrong. I would tell him how close I’d come to kidnapping Abby and Nick, how I’d had a cabby drive us nearly to Winston-Salem before I thought better and, you know, got a grip. It was a long story. I might require several lunch breaks to tell it in its entirety, but I wanted to try. When asked how it was going, I wanted to respond honestly. I always consider the honest response, however momentarily. I do want to be more honest. Inside my head, I feel the sentences arranging themselves, queued up like soldiers, in ranks and columns, ready to be deployed, ready to leap out into the air. But I pause. That’s as far as I often get. I speak maybe one sentence for every fifteen or twenty that I think. I pause, and I wait, and I think, come on, man, just ask me what is wrong—or whatever the question happens to be—please just ask me what’s wrong. It will only unlock everything.
This story is heartbreak. All heartbreak. It is funny and it is absolutely, without a doubt, tragic.
p.s. part of it takes place around 9/11–so if you are avoiding such reminders, you may want to not read this story.
The new edition of Smokelong Quarterly is live and is it ever a good one, featuring the work of such writers as: Tiff Holland, Terry DeHart, Grant Bailie and many more. Go on and read it!
This is just such great news–Judge Says Calif. Can’t Ban Gay Marriage:
San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled Monday that while withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians has been the status quo, it constitutes discrimination the state can no longer justify.
I hope that we will see more and more states following in these footsteps soon.
Propoganda by any other name would smell as sweet:
An explosive, front-page New York Times story this weekend exposes President Bush’s vast manipulation of the media and White House attempts to manipulate public opinion. Over the past four years, it turns out at least 20 different federal agencies have been involved in producing hundreds – yes, hundreds – of fake TV news segments, many of which were “subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government’s role in their production.” In fact, since President Bush took office, the White House has spent at least $254 million on these fake segments and other public relations ploys to spread positive propaganda about his policies.
Read on, my friend: The White House Fakes It
Dream from last night:
There was a party in my house and all of the neighbors were invited (note: you have no idea how unlikely this is to happen). My house was transformed–had cathedral ceilings with bookcases up the walls. There was a ladder up the bookcase. The woman from up the road was there and asking me weird questions, except I wasn’t annoyed by her.
I decided that I would climb the ladder because I wanted to walk along the tiny railing above the bookshelves. Everyone decided to follow me but the ladder was shaky and I had to hold onto the railing. It all seemed very precarious, verging on the slapstick.
Then the dream transformed into something with a serial killer who was stalking me which is mostly too disturbing for me to repeat, except for the part where I begged Allen to let me buy a new gun but he refused. He said, “We already have my Colt 45 and you have yours so we don’t need another.” (note: we don’t really have guns. I don’t think Allen’s even ever touched a gun. I have though I would never want to own one.)
New this week in Pindeldyboz, the fabulous Mary Akers. Read it here: Ice
Dreamt of a building of windowless rooms and flourescent light. A bunker almost but the rooms were all either classrooms or bedrooms. I got out of my bed and went to one of the classrooms. There was a girl who was on my same school bus. She was worrying over a guy she wanted to date. I was talking with her, trying to work out strategies for how they could get together. The guy she was talking about is, in real life, her brother but in the dream we were talking as if he weren’t (even though I knew he was even then).
Later I went to another classroom. My favorite reading chair was against one wall with a blanket over it. I sat down on it but it was sodden. I stood back up and noticed that one part of the blanket was drenched as though someone had deliberately poured a glass of water on it. I was certain someone had done it on purpose.
A few people came into the room and as each new person entered, I would take him aside and tell how my chair had been made wet by some unknown culprit.
Just as I was about to tell the story again, I woke up.
New Lit Mag reviews are up at newpages: March Reviews.
myfanwy collins 