Deadend Margo and I went to see Green Zone.

The first scene is captioned "March 19, 2003" and I thought, "Fuck. That's right. I forgot."

7 Years. 7 Fucking Years.

I know where I was when the war began. Just like wanderingaengus, "I was watching a really good episode of Angel. Then it got interrupted for this lousy war."

I was temping, having lost my full time job and my retirement savings during the dot bust. After a long self-imposed hiatus from dating after one too many heartbreaks, I was trying again with a series of disappointing online meetups. I had yet to meet Deadend Margo or start using Livejournal. Overall, I was getting past a rough time, and would sometimes call postmaudlin to discuss Angel and my life. I don't know if I was still doing that the night of the war.

I know used my annoyance over the petty thing to keep from crying over the big thing. I had already had that cry earlier in the week, when it became clear nothing was going to stop it.

While Green Zone involves a lot of skill and talent, it's a somewhat tepid film beyond the well rendered setting, involves a ludicrous twist at the climax and has an inept and unbelievable attempt to insert an upbeat note in the ending. In retrospect, I find as much thematic resonance in Angel, some of which still seems valid.

That's not the point. The point is I feel weird about having forgotten. We're still there. People are still getting killed, we're still squandering billions as the flow of blood and treasure shifts over to Afghanistan. Gitmo is still open and permanent detention without charge is still policy.

We had already crossed many lines by March 19 seven years ago, but this is the day we took a gigantic dump on our future and fully pissed off the world. The factors leading to the shit we're in now would have been there no matter what, but the 3 trillion dollar clusterfuck ensured it would be ugly.

March 19 is still fucking us and the Iraqi people over. It's never stopped and as far as I can tell it may never stop. Not in my lifetime, I fear.

Well fuck.

As mentioned before, LJ's recent "upgrade" changed the posting function in a way which conflicts with the older browser at my workplace. I can read posts and leave comments, but the post/edit page is blank (save fixed elements like the LJ logo and the words "Post an Entry").

I was hoping this was a temporary bug but it seems like a permanent conflict (for now).

( Digression on campatibility. )

Livejournal is still my base, I must diversify as a precaution. Information on my additional loactions to come.

( More musing. )

I decided to put my thesis through this thing. Yup, got lots of "like" too.

Исполнитель: Armin van Buuren
Альбом: A State of Trance
Год выхода: 2010
Жанр: Trance
Звук: 320 kbps, MP3
Продолжительность: 02:02:45

From sirenoftitan1



Much like her, I apparently use a lot of similes.


Also fun, I did one with all the poems from my first book:


and the manuscript that followed, which I never published because I hated it:

Are there any restaurants in Columbus that sell fried chicken and waffles?

The US Conference Catholic Bishops are campaigning against health care reform, claiming it supports abortion. This contradicts the position of the Catholic Health Association of hospitals and and organizations representing 59,000 nuns, who say they've carefully studied the bills and, as care givers and women, know what the fuck they're talking about.

I favor the Bishops, as the men of the Church are such excellent and wise moral authorities, especially wney when it comes to anything to do with sex. Consider these news stories from just the past two days.

Belfast - Under-fire Cardinal Sean Brady admitted last night he was sued by a young woman who accused a priest in his Armagh diocese of raping her.

The case was settled in January when the woman received £45,000 from the priest Fr Joseph Quinn over the allegation he raped her in 1997.
-----
(CNN) -- A police investigation continued Thursday into a Catholic abuse scandal in Brazil, which erupted last week when a network aired a video that it said showed a priest having sex with a 19-year-old altar boy.

The report, aired by the SBT television network, identified the priest as 82-year-old Luiz Marques Barbosa...SBT said the videotape was secretly made by an unidentified 21-year-old man who alleges that he was abused by the same priest, who serves in Arapiraca in northeastern Brazil.

Marques Barbosa's bishop, Valerio Breda, has ordered the priest's removal, according to Brazilian media reports.
-----
Granite Falls, Minnesota (CNN) -- As a boy in Ireland, Francis Markey dreamed of becoming a priest and serving parishioners all over the world...Now 82 years old, Markey is sitting in an Indiana jail awaiting extradition to Ireland to face the charge that he raped a boy more than 40 years ago...Deeply Catholic Ireland has been badly shaken by a government-backed report that found the Archdiocese of Dublin and other church authorities covered up child abuse by priests from 1975 to 2004. Child sexual abuse was widespread then, the report found.
-----
ESSEN, Germany — The German archdiocese led by the future Pope Benedict XVI ignored repeated warnings in the early 1980s by a psychiatrist treating a priest accused of sexually abusing boys that he should not be allowed to work with children, the psychiatrist said Thursday.

"I said, 'For God’s sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children,'" the psychiatrist, Dr. Werner Huth, said in a telephone interview from Munich. "I was very unhappy about the entire story."
-----
A Kane County judge Thursday rejected lower bail for a Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old St. Charles boy.

Judge T. Jordan Gallagher shot down the motion sought by the Rev. Alejandro Flores, who is being held in lieu of $1 million bail following his January arrest on seven felony counts. Flores, 37, is accused of assaulting the boy in 2005. At the time, Flores was a seminarian assigned to a West Chicago parish.
-----
BASEL, Switzerland (AP) — A western Swiss diocese has admitted that it hired a priest in 1971 knowing he had sexually abused children.

The Basel diocese says it made an unjustifiable and wrong assessment when it hired Father Gregor Mueller, knowing he was dismissed from his previous post in neighboring Germany for sexual abuse...Chur said Wednesday Mueller resigned after admitting to sexual abuses in the German monastery as well as another one in Austria.
-----
Pueblo, CO - A new lawsuit filed Wednesday against the Catholic Diocese of Pueblo alleges the former director of youth services for the diocese was a sexual predator.

The suit, filed by former Puebloan John Yengich, claims that Rev. Daniel Maio sexually abused him dozens of times from 1968 to 1969...The suit claims the Pueblo diocese took steps to conceal the abuse and Maio's propensity for committing it.

In a press release, Horowitz noted that Maio was in a supervisory role over another accused priest, Rev. Andrew Burke, who killed himself in 2005 after the diocese received an allegation that he sexually abused a child...Another settlement was reached in a case involving a confidential victim and Rev. Michael Kurz, formerly of the Pueblo Diocese.

If I were a Catholic I'd think it was AWESOME that these guys are the ones telling me what's unclean.

I want to make something clear, before launching into anything... I work at a counseling office that is widely known for the treatment of trauma survivors and training therapists to be competent in the treatment of survivors. We treat men and women alike. My mother is a trauma therapist and my father is a social worker. Not to mention my 2 aunts that are also therapists. I am not insensitive to the struggles and personal experience of trauma. I also believe it is very important that the trauma in your life does not define you. A survivor is someone who, against all odds and/or in the face of great tragedy or terror, keeps on thriving, keeps on living... There is life after trauma.

I know that a few have mentioned it, but I am concerned that the canon of work representing the "best" of female poets is largely based on personal trauma.

Given the content or WoWps, women continue to paint themselves as victims (Ms. Wise on finals stage saying: This is for all the women out there who have ever been victims). We are not victims, we are survivors. We are whole people who, although broken in places, are capable of great reflection and revelation.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that I think rape poems and trauma poems should not be written. I think one of the most important things needed in recovery is Witnessing. We need to tell our story. We need to be seen. Often, keeping the secret can be the most toxic.

Is this how we want to define ourselves? If someone had never read poetry, seen it performed before or even heard it read aloud, why would an onslaught of traumatic images make them want to watch/read more? Surely they would walk away thinking that most women only write about trauma and rape.

I am not saying pander, I am saying push yourself. I am asking women to be more than the traumas they have survived. I am saying there is beauty, there is humor, there is hope, there is tragedy, there is struggle, there is passion... there is so much more to write about.

I am saying I would love to see less about how we are victims and more about how we are human.

* * *

MadLab
105 N Grant Ave
Columbus OH 43215
madlab.net

( In this Our House in the Middle of Our Streeet issue: 1. No, ThankYou! 2 New and Improved MadLab: Opens Tonight March 19! 3. To Pay for Party Favors and Such 4. Kill 'Em With Kindness Comedy Festival 5. The New MadLab website 6. Theatre Roulette 2010 7. Who's House? Run's House! )

Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman was head of the CTA a year ago, he made use of the "Doomsday Scenario" negotiating trick - issue warnings about massive cuts to get union concessions and/or state funding, then go ahead with lesser cut and hikes which were probably planned from the start.

Now he's doing the same with the schools:

The Chicago Teachers Union president Tuesday accused Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman of using "scare tactics" and "threats" to try to solve the budget crisis, just as Huberman called on the union to reopen its contract and help fill an upcoming deficit of at least $700 million.

CTU President Marilyn Stewart charged that Huberman was "making a bad budget situation worse" with a PowerPoint presentation he made to principals Monday detailing possible cuts -- including increasing class sizes to 37 kids and potentially displacing 3,200 teachers.

The presentation outlined a way to fill the gap if neither the unions nor lawmakers help CPS resolve its budget problems.

"It's absolutely a threat," Stewart told the Sun-Times on Tuesday. "We know the crisis is real, but his scare tactics are absolutely chaotic."

"Six months ago he was talking about a 'culture of calm.' Now he's become the king of chaos."

All the teachers are freaking out about this. A teacher friend I know has it on good authority that no matter what they do, 1500 jobs are going to be cut.

I wonder if Arne Duncan is still going to point to Chicago as proof he knows what he's doing. Actually since the Obama administration has made union busting the centerpiece of its education policy, I'm sure he's down with this.

All week over on FaceBook I have been posting a few names each day of poets who helped to make my WOWps 2010 experience so memoriable. I wanted to post that full list here in one place.
This list is in no way inclusive or comprehensive. I simply would not have enough time to craft that list. But none-the-less, here it is...

-Syd Malicious, her poetry is a soft beautiful hand on your shoulder hiding a clenched fist.

-Christine O'Keefe Aptowicz makes it ok to pee your pants in public.

-Blaire Bommer knows what she wants but her poetry will make you doubt what you thought you knew.

-Sierra DeMulder, her poetry is a stolen glance across a room, you will still be thinking about it the next morning and the morning after that.

-Cynthia French is a stalker that YOU want to follow.

-Ariea ‘Dee’ Mathews, like her poetry, Dee is classy, in your face, animated, powerful and so beautiful that you don’t get a choice; she makes you fall in love with her.

-Barbara Fant’s voice, the timbre and tone, is simply the most beautiful voice I have heard. I always look forward to hearing her poetry but dread it at the same time because I KNOW she is going to make me cry.

-Kimberly Brazwell is the best kind of ‘hot mess’ that there is. Her poetry is a clown; the “laughing on the outside” kind. Be warned though, when you go to catch your breath you may just learn something. Ninja Clown!

-Rachel McKibbens’ poetry is a tattooed heart, eager and able to grab you by the shoulders, look you straight in the eyes, and say, “Look, these are MY scars! Show me your scars, feel how they sculpt who I am, who you are. Now accept them on your own terms and by the way, it’s ok to be angry at them.”

-Gypsee Yo’s poetry is an old growth forest; deep roots and the smell of historic loam that carries hundreds of footprints in its bosom and holds the hope of breaking buds high in its canopy.

Artist | Title | Year : Lusine ICL | Lucky Numbers | 2010
Genre : electronic, idm, leftfield, downtempo
Bitrate | Size : VBR 0 | 174 mb


( tracklist + links )

Day-to-day Music, Entry #001



- One of the many songs I like from di.fm

Anyone live here? I believe its with the MGI company. Just wondering how daily life is, stuff that I wouldn't be able to find out from the rental office. Pros and cons welcome!

(x-posted to ohiostateuniv)

Holy shit, Mike McGee slept with Sandra Bullock's husband!?!? And he's going by the stage name "Bombshell" now?

Next weekend is the 5th annual 24-Hour Poetry Feature!
Scott Woods reads hundreds of poems over a 24-hour period and you can come watch for free!

Saturday March 27 @ 8:00 pm
through
Sunday March 28 @ 8:00 pm
@ Kafe Kerouac 2250 North High Street
Admission is free!

So there's this article in Salon about Hipsters on Food Stamps. Like many trend pieces there's more selective storytelling than actual data. ( Two neat tricks of truthiness vs. actual information. )

I loathe privileged, entitled hipsters as much as anyone. I am sure there's some wanker who really has gamed the system. I know there are people who benefitted without learning much about privilege or economics from their experience

But this seems like an upscale remix of the iconic lazy food stamp elite, who indulge wasteful appetites using tax dollars. Except there stealing our money to buy pricey bottled water instead of expensive brand name snack cakes. [Some pit the two stereotypes against each other in the comments, favoring white kid epicureans against fat minorities.]

It's the same anxious need to believe only The Wrong Sort of People suffer captialism's whims and the Right Sorts are safe. The young, white and educated can't be at risk, it's probably just the Wrong Kind - fey artists who turn up their noses at hard work.

Among the many outraged comments, my favorite quote is this: "Rather than sully their precious hipster cred with some dreaded, uncool job such as waiting tables or manning the counter at Borders, these spoiled, art-damaged infants decide to go on food stamps."

Borders? AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

shouldnt be this hard.  I have two children.  I dont need 87 more, but I love being the boss! lol  Work is great, just busy despite typing this AT WORK!

And I cant move from acting like I have a bunch of muscles lifting heavy stuff over the weekend.  Donielle's MOVING Co. at your service...... 

I was only with WOWps in spirit and text messages.  I hated to miss it, but loved the text of love, updates and WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU DIVA messages.

Im getting back into LIVEJOURNAL! woohoo!

I have been gone a year now from OHIO and I still miss my friends, but Chicago is LOVELY!!!!!

My daughter had her first FIRST GRADE dance date!  too cute!  The school mentioned her skipping a grade due to the fact she is doing 2nd grade work and reading third grade books.  She is a WRITER of many stories too!  She has seven books all written and illustrated by Ahmaya R. Johnson  She also writes songs to which the lyrics make you think how a 6 year old KNOWS this stuff.

My son is playing t-ball, football and dabbling in drawing! He is teaching ME sign language! lol  Its irritating to tell your children to HUSH and they start signing back and forth to each other.  What is a mother to do, but learn the language and sign back for them to keep quiet!!! lol  Aric changes Ahmaya's music arrangments so I guess he would be a producer of sorts. lol

Im getting back into my photography.

Im modeling in Chi-town and Ohio.

I have 26 more lbs to lose before I hit my goal!!!!!!

I need to go back to the Green Mill.  I havent been since December!  I miss it!  I stopped writing for a while, but now its like a flood of poems coming out.  WOOHOO!

I am in a theater group.

and a comment: It is so frustrating to be told something to the point of belief then you read a journal entry or comment that is quite the contrary.  Horses mouth is always best.







 

Someone needs to stop Q Records now before they kill someone’s baby.

I’ve seen lullaby collections of, how shall we say, un-childlike material before. Metallica, Tool and Nirvana from the “Rockabye Baby” series spring to mind. But the “Baby Love Lullaby” series from Q Records takes the cake. They’re doing hip-hop artists as well as other genres, so now children can be sent into sweet, sweet slumber to new age-reductionist versions of tunes like “P.I.M.P” (from the 50 Cent collection), “Kill You” (Eminem) and “Jigga That Nigga” (Jay-Z).

The music doesn’t sound anything like the originals, and they’re all instrumental to remove any hint of incivility and black culture. There are strings and synth washes and flutes…it’s all very Arkenstone if he were hit with a 2x4, then forced to sit at a harp and strum for his life.

Oh yeah, and the baby on the cover of the 50 Cent collection sporting a Kevlar vest in diapers? Nice.

There's a massive class action lawsuit aimed at funding of public defenders in New York. It seems fair in concept, but I have no idea if it's legally coherent or would actually improve anything:

A class-action suit to be argued next week in New York’s highest court has become a test of a national strategy by civil liberties groups to challenge what they say are failed public defender programs in many states.

Because an estimated 80 percent of felony defendants in large states are too poor to hire their own lawyers, and because the case is being watched around the nation, the case has the potential to alter the shape of the criminal justice system.

Filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the lawsuit is a broad challenge to a patchwork system that has been described by decades of studies and commissions as dysfunctional, underfinanced and “in crisis,” with often poorly trained and poorly supervised lawyers handling huge caseloads. It says indigent clients have been failed by their appointed lawyers all around the state.

...As the system works now, defendants who are unhappy with their appointed lawyers can generally make those claims only after they are convicted. The court then reviews each appeal case by case. But the civil liberties lawyers argue that a broad review is necessary because the arrangement has not addressed systemic failings that unconstitutionally leave tens of thousands of defendants without meaningful representation in every part of the state.

...Law enforcement officials are divided over the case, with arguments on each side filed by groups of former and current New York prosecutors. Some prosecutors say the case overstates the problems with public defender programs. In some areas, the system is “working well and protecting every right,” said Kathleen B. Hogan, the president of the State District Attorneys Association.

Ms. Hogan, the Warren County district attorney, said that allowing a sweeping challenge would bring chaos by encouraging thousands of defendants to claim their lawyers were inadequate and their convictions should be overturned.

I really need to do more research to even get close to an informed opinion. Anyone out there want to offer a more knowledgeable reaction? Or even a knee jerk one?