And on the last day of the month....

Plug in, Disconnect
[With Commentary]

She hits the shuffle,
rests the sound above the earlobes
and walks the sidewalk.
She absorbs the people with one sense
through her eyes, but does not hear.

[I enjoy the creative process,
dumping words upon the page in a
mad rush to make imagery.
But I rarely like the result, am
embarrassed to have others read it
and make no connection with the thought
I was madly pushing into language, but
actually fail to achieve.
Mix in the fact that I am writing while
doing the routine of life – like cleaning the bathrooms –
and the message is garbled with the day.]

He drops his teenage body into the lounger
and hits buttons on the remote,
the four foot screen glows with
a shock of moving colors and sounds, owning the room.
He floats into the picture, the room disappears,
and neither parental entreaties nor the phone
can break the disconnect.

[The morning caffeine is wearing off,
the keys do not jump like they did an hour ago,
and my daily calendar calls me for its next deadline.
The metaphors and images wane,
drifting out of my reach, and I fear
the failure of the story. How do I jump
the picture from my mind to yours?]

She logs into her account, somewhere in the ether,
and exchanges electric greetings with friends,
who could have spoken with her at school
just this afternoon;
she re-attaches to the game, just where she left off
last night, and spends the next three hours
living in a flat, colorful, violent world.

[Two bathrooms cleaned, one to go,
probably should turn down the music
that I stored on my portable player, and
piped through my son’s larger stereo system
so I could hear it all over the house –
the one with four bedrooms, three televisions, two computers
and plenty of sustenance in the kitchen.
I might miss my wife opening the door as she returns,
or the phone ringing with the terror of lost children,
or the muffled cries of poverty in the hearts of millions
who I do not see.]

George's Oligarchs and FDR

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." Franklin Roosevelt, 1944.

GeorgeW would never hold to such principles. His friends, the Oligarchs, have other purposes for the federal government. They have friends to support, and they will steer the government apparatus – the White House, Congress, and the federal agencies – to meet those needs.

The country needs a new energy policy? Have the oil companies write it.

The country needs bankruptcy ‘reform’? Have the banks and credit card companies write it.

Social Security taking too much of the government’s GNP? Have investment firms build a new method of risking our retirement funds, even tho it does not fix the long-term prospects for the benefits system.

Gross receipts tax hurting your million-dollar investment portfolio? Have the major corporations rewrite the tax code.

George and the Oligarchs have friends to help. They have a motto to support their efforts: Them that gots, gets.

As for those that have too little…too bad, they must fend for themselves. Or get their own friends in high places.

George and the Oligarchs

Government by the few. Oligarchy.

George Bush is President from 1988 through 1992. Losing, his friends spend a few years identifying someone else to run (after Bob Dole takes his noble run and falls on an electoral sword for the oligarch's cause). The cadre checks the credits of George's progeny, and somehow pick GeorgeW over Jeb. Not sure why, considering that Jeb was already in government as gov of a rather populous state. Being prez of the Texas Rangers rates higher? Whatever.

So the oligarchy surrounds GeorgeW with the right political tacticians, rally the necessary money, and start the conservative juices flowing across the center of the country. The courts lend a fortuitous hand in December 2000 -- and they win. Their boy wins.

I can picture George smiling on that fateful December night when Scalia and the Supremes end the ballot counting and his outflanked opponant concedes. GeorgeW wouldn't even have the presence of mind, or the intellectual capacity, to repeat Robert Redford's character at the end of The Candidate, when he had won his fictional election for governor: 'Now what do we do?'.

All GeorgeW had to do was ask his buddies. The Oligarchs. They know what to do. They would set things up for all their friends over the next 8 years.

Connecting the Random Web

The web has its own sense of randomness. It’s like walking into a library, emptying out the old card catalog, and throwing the thousands of little cards into the air. No more index; everything becomes random. You can only browse.

In the upper right-hand corner of this page is a button entitled “Next blog”. By clicking it, you are sent to a totally random blog page; it could be someone from Sweden, it could be an insurance company in Savanah, Georgia. If you waited another five minutes, returned to my page, and pressed the “Next blog” button, you would get another random page.

Such randomness can lead to some interesting connections. I clicked on the button and landed on the ramblings of a 20-something who described his weekend trip to visit friends at a large university. He described his drinking and smoking binge, and even mentioned getting behind the wheel and buying some beer for a few underage friends. I got bored with his repetitive party descriptions, so I hit the “Next Blog” button….And was greeted with a page from an Alcohol and Substance Abuse Support Center.

Now, if I could only connect the second author with the first…..