Writing Doesn’t Halt Violence
Stanley “Tookie” Williams
 I usually try to not pay attention to mainstream news, because, well, it’s so slanted. And don’t for a minute think I’m going to say ‘yippie skippie’ because the media is so liberal (which it is), because I don’t think it’s a good message by our media to so slant this country’s perception of the war that it potentially demoralizes our soldier at this quote-unquote war (I mean, just because the president calls it a war and the newspapers call it a war, it doesn’t change that only Congress can declare a war... and it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got our people in harm’s way right at this very moment in Iraq...). Besides, the demoralizing slants on our work in Iraq is probably also the only thing Al Quaeda hears from our news, so they’ll think they have a leg up in their desire to further destroy us.
And this war is NOT even a genuine attempt to destroy the people who originally attacked us (did Iraq, or Saddam Hussein, take credit for flying our planes into the World Trade Center towers? No.) Even at the beginning of President Bush’s crusade to start a war against Iraq, because of what evidence they thought they had about them having weapons of mass destruction, I thought,
Why is he picking this as his enemy? We support getting the enemy from the 9/11 attacks, and in this case, Iraq wasn’t it, Al Quaeda was (Al Quaeda is only now fighting us in Iraq, since we’ve started trying to liberate Iraq, destroying their breeding grounds).
Okay, This president has supported taking us to war, when it was technically the actual enemy of the ones who originally attached us 9/11. He (and all other Republicans) seem to support life so much otherwise, from the likes of Terri Schiavo to the likes of an embryo that has yet to develop to a life-sustaining form (or even a form sustainable by doctors). This same president find a two-day old fertilized egg more valuable as a life form than a prisoner that is given the death penalty.
Maverick, from Signs of the Times, even wrote in The Thin Line Between Life and Death:
“I just feel that based on the principles that we claim to subscribe to, it is hypocritical to push for death of others as compensation for the death of someone else...
What is really ironic to me is how during many elections, the debate often turns to the fight over abortion rights and the pro-life/pro-choice argument. I remembered President Bush’s speeches on “promoting a culture of life” so well, that I found Promoting A Culture of Life on the web.
But how can you say that you promote a culture of life when as the governor of Texas, you have signed more death warrants than any other elected official alive today? And therein lies the hypocrisy. As much as we often like to say how much we value life, all we do nowadays is judge whose life is valuable and whose life is not. George Bush can execute numbers of people very nonchalantly, but he can fight to the death for embryos that are frozen by scientists (more than likely to never be used) so that they will not be destroyed for stem-cell research. And this is the man that represents America...”
In this culture of Life, we’ve learned to “disregard” some lives. And as I said before, I try not to pay attention to the slanted news, but I did hear something about an ex-gang leader being executed in California, and that every left-wing group protested it.
I better cut in right now and let you know I’m against the death penalty. I could talk about the fact that sometimes innocent people are killed, but more importantly, it’s not supposed to be our decision, or our right to kill people. There are commandments and laws stating we shouldn’t kill (right-wingers even find killing an unborn child abhorrent), so how can we allow killing people who have committed a crime? We may want vengeance wrought on people who have done heinous crimes, but if you want to be mean and vengeful, bring torture back into the game, but vengeance isn’t justice, and there is no justice in killing someone because of something they did.
Back to the story... Stanley “Tookie” Williams is a man who joined the Crips, then founded the Los Angeles west side Crips in 1971. He said it was initially started as a means to keep the streets safe, reducing violence and police brutality, but eventually came to be known to be the one of the most violent and horrific gangs in existence today. The gang is now in 42 states and on at least one other continent: South Africa.
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Mug Shot of Stanley “Tookie” Williams
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Williams was sentenced to death in 1981 for gunning down a convenience store clerk at a 7-Eleven and killing a family of three at the Los Angeles motel they owned. Though he has always claiming his innocence, trial witnesses even said he bragged about the killing.
There have also been reports of his violence while in prison since 1981, and he spent spent 6.5 years in solitary confinement in the late 1980s for multiple assaults on guards and fellow inmates.
But Williams has become an anti-gang activist during his many years on death row at San Quentin State Prison, and he started writing children’s books about the evils of gang life. As the former leader of such a dominant gang, his voice was heard and understood by some children, and he has done good for helping children stay clear of gang life today. There’s even a web site for his nine books at http://www.tookie.com/booktemp.html.
How much good has he done? I don’t know. I did hear that he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Price on at least 6 occasions for his writing, so I researched it, and found out that you can only be nominated from a college professor in literature and of linguistics, but I also found our from Wikipedia:
“Williams has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 2001. The first year he was nominated by Mario Fehr, a member of the Swiss Parliament; four additional times he has been nominated by Notre Dame de Namur University Philosophy and Religion Professor Phil Gasper and other professors. He has also been nominated several times by William Keach, Brown University Professor of English Literature, for the Nobel Prize in Literature.”
And it’s true, he hasn’t won a Nobel Peace Prize for his writing. I didn’t win an NEA grant either (and Karen Finley has), so an individual’s talent and merit can’t be judged on winning awards alone. Besides, his not getting a Nobel Peace Prize for Literature doesn’t mean that his writing isn’t valuable.
This is interesting to me because a man on death row was writing, and his writing is doing some good. But his writing isn’t relevant to the fact that he committed a crime. And it does give a mixed message to people about being a good person, if the preacher can’t even atone for his past sins (in this trial) by apologizing or giving information about the murders he committed.
What would Tookie say? Don’t join gangs, kids, ‘cuz it’s not good. But no, I won’t even admit the wrong I did in this murder case.
Reuters even noted this in Real Tookie Williams elusive in death row debate. Because “gang experts dispute Williams’ claims to have founded the Crips and say he has little influence over teens. Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton has said that few gang members had likely heard of Williams before press coverage of his execution.”
And all of this begs the question on whether or not Tookie killed those four people. He always says he didn’t, but we can’t say that witness testimony about him bragging about the “gurgling” noises one victim made before he died are inaccurate. Williams has stated that the police found “not a shred of tangible evidence, no fingerprints, no crime scenes of bloody boot prints. They didn’t match my boots, nor eyewitnesses. Even the shotgun shells found conveniently at each crime scene didn’t match the shotgun shells that I owned.” He says this, while in trial, a prosecution firearms expert testified that recovered shells conclusively matched to Williams’ gun. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger even said (in the New York Times) that the proof of his guilt was “strong and compelling.”
Which leaves us no closer to his guilt or innocence than when we started. All we’re left with are both sides screaming their case, even after the U.S. Supreme Court on October 11, 2005 ruled against Tookie on his final appeal and set his execution date for December 13, and after California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied the convicted murderer and former gang leader’s appeal for clemency less than 12 hours before his execution.
But Robert, a reporter from ThugLifeArmy.com, reported in Stanley Tookie Williams Vengeance or Justice:
“Friday evening [Robert] saw a report on BET about how some LA Blood members turned weapons over to a BET reporter for her to turn them into the police. The gesture was one in ‘good faith’, showing that peace is possible.
Now we all know the Bloods and the Crips have always struggled as rivals against each other, and in this show of ‘good faith’ the members of the Bloods told the BET reporter that if they do this to Tookie they can do it to any of us.”
And you didn’t hear anything about this on the news because it’s a shallow effort, and it’s not like the Bloods actually got rid of all their guns. But it does show that there are two very violent sides to this very violent issue.
•••
So, since appeal after appeal failed (all without an admittance of guilt), we waited for him to be executed by lethal injection. And all we’re left with now are the accounts of his death.
So for those who want the eye-witness details, you can go to the San Francisco Cronicle’s web site at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=5&entry_id=2145 and follow the link to the PodCast from reporter Kevin Fagan at 1:15 AM, one of 17 media witnesses who witnessed Williams’ 12:35 AM execution.
Agreeing with United Press International, MTV.com reported that “In the end, the execution process took longer than usual as technicians struggled for more than 10 minutes to find a vein in Williams’ muscular left arm. As the team searched, Williams visibly winced and lifted his head off the gurney several times and, according to the Times, at once appeared to say, “Still can’t find it?” Witnesses said his death from the lethal injection took close to 20 minutes.”
The prison warden, Steve Ornoski, even noted to the New York Times that “It depends on the person’s veins and whether they are readily accessible,” not believing this was a difficult execution.
MTV.com added that Williams “ate nothing but oatmeal and milk on Monday, refusing a special last meal and a spiritual advisor. Williams had no last words before being strapped to the gurney.”
Which leaves us no closer to his guilt or innocence than when we started. Which I suppose then begs the question on whether the death penalty was a just sentence for his crime... And you know my slanted view on that one. So let’s get someone else’s...
Marian Liu of the Mercury News noted that “this case raised the question of whether a person who has committed such a heinous crime can redeem themselves?”
She seems to be stuck asking questions too, so maybe we’re not alone here. Reuters brought this debate up, along with the question of whether or not Williams was playing the innocent card instead of the “cold-blooded killer” card, so to speak.
You can listen to the Malibu Times, who wrote that “Once (Stanley “Tookie” Williams, a convicted murderer and co-founder of the notorious Cripps street gang) is dead, the world will be no better a place in which to live than it was before the execution, nothing will have been learned, and all that will have been accomplished is the continuation of a bloodthirsty American tradition.”
The Telescope stated in David A. Love’s story Tookie Williams case reveals death penalty flaws that “America’s love affair with capital punishment is a sordid tale of racial bias, arbitrary justice and state-sanctioned violence.” And “In competition with China, Iran, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Singapore (which recently hanged an Australian citizen for possessing 14 ounces of heroin), the United States is in the unenviable position of using the law to kill its fellow citizens.”
The US has to achieve all of it’s goals, I suppose, including being able to kill their prisoners. We’ve just passed our 1,000th execution since the death penalty’s reinstatement in 1976. But even a reporter for The Political Cortex (Brain Food for the Body Politic), who has been a liberal with conservative views on allowing a death penalty, wondered about the number of innocent people who have been put to death. “I think what Tookie Williams has done while in prison is nothing short of amazing and inspirational. He’s gone from unrepentant street thug to ambassador for peace. His critics say that everything he’s done is a sham, that his Nobel Peace Prize nominations are nothing but a PR stunt. They say that at the end of the day, he’s still killed 4 people, ruined the lives of those families forever and must now pay the ultimate price for his crimes. Tookie’s supporters claim that the trial was a fraud, that there was misconduct from every quarter during his prosecution. I don’t know one way or the other.”
Well, neither do I. But when we don’t know, is it then safe to resort to the death penalty to fall back on?
Just remember what Maverick said from Signs of the Times, when he wrote in The Thin Line Between Life and Death: “When Tookie Williams is executed, always remember that we are promoting a culture of life in all things that we do...”
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Janet Kuypers
Editor In Chief
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lunchtime poll topic
cc&d reader’s thoughts on “Tookie”
First off, Tookie was not the co-founder of the Cripps. He joined them two years after they began their reign of terror in California. Secondly, he was convicted of killing four people, but he was an enforcer. Strange as it may sound, I have known two enforcers for gangs personally. One killed quite a number of people and now has dropped out of site. The other I believe is in Statesvile and not coming out too soon. I believe he is directly responsible for killing more than ten individuals and indirectly responsible for the murder of quite another number.
My opinion on his Tookie’s execution? It was a waste. No one deserves to die, and state run executions are the same as murder. Furthermore, everyone can change--and maybe he did. We’ll never know how much because he was murdered by the state. I, of course, feel tremendous grief for the individuals he did murder and their families. Forgiveness is one of humanities greatest traits. It is a great struggle in me why we can’t forgive; why we always need revenge. But then look at our own culture--at war for no reason other than to revenge the other Bush and make some oil barons richer, putting more and more minorities behind bars to keep an underclass in readiness for recessions so we can create a middle class of providers of services for them, and creating dumber and dumber laws like three strikes and your out. All of this is not necessary. We do need consequences for our behavior and in some cases this means punishment in a jail cell. We have free choice. It’s too bad the Governor of California decided to please the conservatives of the state and not make the right choice. On the other hand, it’s too bad Tookie, who is obviously very talented, made the choice many years ago to become an enforcer and hurt people.
— Michael H. Brownstein
•••
Killing is wrong. “Thou shalt not kill” does not have a footnote making an exception for the state. That Tookie Williams was a scumbag who killed people makes no difference. Killing him was wrong. I am not moved by his supposed conversion. I could not care less. And still, killing him was wrong. Arnold is an immoral fuckwad who had a moral obligation to save a life.
— Charlie Newman
•••
I’m pretty liberal on a lot of issues but killers who lead gangs of killers deserve to die. I understand forgiveness and pardon, after all I try to forgive reformed ex-Nazis and reformed facist jihadis who have murdered my family and have targeted me and kin. But as a victim ,forgiving one’s victimizer, well that’s a personal thing. Some assholes deserve to die and I can’t speak for the victims of Tookie. Was Tookie really reformed? Was his “making gang peace” a front or the real thing? Does society gain when we take an eye-for an eye etc.? Tookie, by his choices to climb to the top of a late-20th century Murder Inc., was an evil and manipulative character. Every time he ordered a hit, every time he pulled a trigger he made a choice that decent folks wouldn’t make. Only his victims have a say in this. Us pinko love-thy-neighbor-let’s-read-books folks don’t hold sway here.
— from an anonymous writer
•••
There are many personal things to consider here. You have to sort out your feelings about what happened and the violent murders that took place. You have to know what you think of gang activity. Have you been victimized? Have you been touched by gang violence? Are you a passive observer? You have to understand the negative aspect of what Tookie began and how those deep roots of power still drive our youth to be in gangs. You have to understand the positive weight of change Tookie’s post-gang work has on the current development of gangs with our youth today and how his effort will forever be influencing kids to not be involved, based on the credibility and familiarity of the subject matter. Redemption has a way of clearing paths in many known and unknown ways. You must understand your stance on capital punishment.
This is all so emotional and all of the things you “think” can change with each new fact or life experience.
I do not like violent death, war, gangs, riots, family strife. These are all a part of living as a human. Tookie is dead now. That cannot be reversed. I believe his “Crips” days, coupled with his new work will remain alive as long as it can reach someone. That is his legacy, his curse and his salvation.
Wise, warning, guiding and expressive words that are written and articulated to future generations from those individuals who document life experiences is what literature is all about. History has lessons to teach. It is only when one is receptive to the education that one can grow and learn. Expanding our perspective is key to abolishing narrow-minded thinking and judgmental activities.
Tookie and his dynamic, ever-changing “philosophies” will be valued, scorned, critiqued, evaluated and recognized in a brighter light because of all the attention and controversy surrounding his life. In that lies a certain inquisitive distinction.
So much blood has been shed. It will not end. Tookie or no Tookie. This is another chance for us to see the value of life and witness, once again, the fragility and temporary position we each hold.
How will you make a difference? — Rose E. Grier
news you can use
“Intelligent Design” Is Inherently Religious
By Keith Lockitch
A judge in Dover, PA, has ruled that “it is unconstitutional to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom”--on the grounds that “intelligent design is a religious view.” Advocates of “intelligent design” are outraged; the Discovery Institute, the leading organization promoting the theory, calls it an “attempt to censor science education.” But “intelligent design” can play no part in a proper science education, because it is an inherently unscientific theory.
Proponents of “intelligent design” aggressively market their viewpoint as real science, insisting it is not religiously based. Writes one leading advocate, Michael Behe: “The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself--not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs.”
Proponents of “intelligent design” claim that Darwinian evolution is a fundamentally flawed theory--that there are certain complex features of living organisms evolution simply cannot explain, but which can be explained as the handiwork of an “intelligent designer.”
Their viewpoint is not religiously based, they insist, because it does not require that the “intelligent designer” be God. “Design,” writes another leading proponent, William Dembski, “requires neither magic nor miracles nor a creator.”
Indeed, “design” apparently requires surprisingly little of the “designer’s” identity: “Inferences to design,” contends Behe, “do not require that we have a candidate for the role of designer.” According to its advocates, the “designer” responsible for “intelligent design” in biology could be any sort of “creative intelligence” capable of engineering the basic elements of life. Some have even seriously nominated advanced space aliens for the role.
Their premise seems to be that as long as they don’t explicitly name the “designer”--as long as they allow that the “designer” could be a naturally existing being, a being accessible to scientific study--that this somehow saves their viewpoint from the charge of being inherently religious in character.
But does it?
Imagine we discovered an alien on Mars with a penchant for bio-engineering. Could such a natural being fulfill the requirements of an “intelligent designer”?
It could not. Such a being would not actually account for the complexity that “design” proponents seek to explain. Any natural being capable of “designing” the complex features of earthly life would, on their premises, require its own “designer.” If “design” can be inferred merely from observed complexity, then our purported Martian “designer” would be just another complex being in nature that supposedly cannot be explained without positing another “designer.” One does not explain complexity by dreaming up a new complexity as its cause.
By the very nature of its approach, “intelligent design” cannot be satisfied with a “designer” who is part of the natural world. Such a “designer” would not answer the basic question its advocates raise: it would not explain biological complexity as such. The only “designer” that would stop their quest for a “design” explanation of complexity is a “designer” about whom one cannot ask any questions orÊwho cannot be subjected to any kind of scientific study--a “designer” that “transcends” nature and its laws--a “designer” not susceptible of rational explanation--in short: a supernatural “designer.”
Its advertising to the contrary notwithstanding, “intelligent design” is inherently a quest for the supernatural. Only one “candidate for the role of designer” need apply. Dembski himself--even while trying to deny this implication--concedes that “if there is design in biology and cosmology, then that design could not be the work of an evolved intelligence.” It must, he admits, be that of a “transcendent intelligence” to whom he euphemistically refers as “the big G.”
The supposedly nonreligious theory of “intelligent design” is nothing more than a crusade to peddle religion by giving it the veneer of science--to pretend, as one commentator put it, that “faith in God is something that holds up under the microscope.”
The insistence of “intelligent design” advocates that they are “agnostic regarding the source of design” is a bait-and-switch. They dangle out the groundless possibility of a “designer” who is susceptible of scientific study--in order to hide their real agenda of promoting faith in the supernatural. Their scientifically accessible “designer” is nothing more than a gateway god--metaphysical marijuana intended to draw students away from natural, scientific explanations and get them hooked on the supernatural.
No matter how fervently its salesmen wishÊ“intelligent design” to be viewed as cutting-edge science, there is no disguising its true character. It is nothing more than a religiously motivated attack on science, and should be rejected as such.
Keith Lockitch, Ph.D. in physics,Êis a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.
Copyright © 2005 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
poetry
the passionate stuff
untitled
Michelle Greenblatt
I said
I wish you’d answer me
And you said
Answer what?
3.28.1998
from Carousel Horses
Carriage, art by Cheryl Townsend
Broken
Mika V. Galiher
Gazing upon the blood
The carnage of the war
The bullets that so swiftly robbed men of their breath
The same bullets that snatched fathers from children
Husbands from wives
It was then that I knew
I knew that by the dirt beneath my feet
If there was a God
A Lord
A Messiah
A Savior
He was cruel and ever so
Pitiless.
Chance
Eric Bonholtzer
Lining the skies,
the silent memories sit,
just waiting for an audience
To take the time to listen, and truly hear what the wisps
Of remembrances of times long since past have to say
That remain with us, and stop and stay a while enjoying
Like storytellers by the fire, spinning entrancing yarns
And looming over the horizon, just waiting, a promise
Of a new day
If the past is remembered
And given its chance
To speak.
This material appears in the Eric bonholtzer book Remnants & Shadows.
Cats I Have Known
Bobbi Dykema Katsanis
1. First thing he’d do,
if you let him outside,
was roll in the soft, sun-warmed gray dirt.
Then he’d stalk the perimeter of the yard,
turn half-feral—
if you called his name,
he wouldn’t look up. He’d forget
he had a name.
Inside, he was scared of ceiling fans.
2. Plump and cantankerous, she’d
wake me by clawing an empty paper bag
if breakfast was late.
She was afraid of the pancake griddle.
She’d watch with interest as mice ran past,
found it good theater.
3. On the bathmat every morning,
I find chewed-up remnants of fabric mice.
He’s not allowed to go outside;
undeterred, he shows off his hunting prowess.
On overcast days, he basks under the desk lamp.
Cat languages are exceedingly subtle and elegant,
to us, often unwittingly amusing,
yet I have found most cats will tolerate patiently
our humble attempts to learn.
Air Show
Paul Telles
“LOOK,” my son shouts,
“IT’S SNOWING AIRPLANES.”
All six Blue Angels
tumble:
SKY FULL OF ROAR,
flowers drawn with
afterburners.
ALMOST CRUNCH OF STEEL,
ALMOST EXPLOSION OF
KEROSENE:
all jets
show their bellies
just above the runway.
THEY ROAR INSIDE
my earplugs.
Panes of lungs rattle:
NO MORE SAN DIEGO,
no more secure tarmac
for August afternoon.
I AM RUBBLE
in old movies,
hated by a sky
I cannot comprehend.
I taste my death
beside hot dog stands.
Off-duty jarheads
hawk trading cards
of the war.
BEER BEER BEER
No landing yet,
NO WAY DOWN EXCEPT
true vertical dive,
SUDDEN STEEP CLIMB
lost in the sun.
The Line
Charlie Newman
Let me tell you about the line:
the line goes out the door and down the street and around the corner and across
the intersection and through the neighborhood and over the city limit into the
county and the state and the region and the country and the continent and
around the world in 80 days and beyond the blue horizon and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line shuffles and mumbles and grumbles and gripes and groans and moans and
cries and screams and wishes and swells and prays and grows and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line moves like death moves like marrow moves like history moves like a
victim moves like spent thunder moves like disappointment moves like a civil
servant moves like absolute zero moves like the moment of conception moves
like the flying fickle finger of fate moves like everything you see through the
wrong end of eternity’s looking glass moves and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line is in like Flynn
the line is free as a bee
the line is here for the beer
the line is over in the clover
the line is made in the shade
the line is spent like the rent
the line is ready to go steady
the line is achin’ for a breakin’
the line is cruisin’ for a bruisin’
the line is reelin’ with the feelin’ and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line forms where dreams of glory wither and failure grows like dandelions
the line forms when you turn your back and your blood grows cold
the line forms if what you see is what you get and all you want is all there is
the line forms the history of man and the fiction of fact
the line forms to the right and
Let me tell you about the line
the line is a dotted line...a dashed line...a disappearing line in the sand
the line is a long way from St. Louie...a long walk on a short pier...a long little
doggie
the line is a little spot on the lung of civilization...a little bit of flim flam from
the man and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line stays and the line goes
the line appears and the line disappears
the line cheats and the line steals
the line gobbles souls like a demon on a mission from the god of Dick Cheney’s
pre-compassionate capitalism and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line dances a ballet on your last nerve and
the line stops when and where it wants to stop and
the line looks into your non-negotiable heart and
the line listens to your soap opera prayers and
the line dumpster dives your desires and
the line wins one for the gipper and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line was written by some faceless nameless drone
the line was swallowed with a hook and a sinker
the line was here yesterday and you were in it
the line will play you like the fish you are
the line will settle old scores with new wars and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line ain’t smart and
the line ain’t stupid and
the line ain’t what it used to be and
the line ain’t about to make any changes you’ll be thrilled with and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line has no heart and no soul and no conscience and
the line has all the patience in the known universe and
the line has you covered 5 ways from Friday, Amigo, and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line makes sure you are there in the beginning and
the line sees to it that you are there at the end and
Let me tell you about the line:
the line is all there is and there ain’t nothin’ but the line
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Charlie Newman, photographed by John Yotko
Tynemouth Bay
Christopher Barnes, UK
Lifelong days
smoothing pebbles, shells.
I wished I belonged to oars.
These are fetters that you touched
pigeon-wary. Ruined colours now.
Archaeology of holiday ramparts,
tender mumps.
East sun disgorges light,
daystars west.
Memory seasplash
pervasive sea.
Born
I am wedded to salt.
A spoil, rancour stings
in the churn, constant revisiting.
Anguish, art by Edward Michael O’Durr Supranowicz
A Choice (The Frog Prince)
Andrew Demcak
Her iPod dipped in his modest pond,
and Frog-boy retrieved it- the princess
pledged herself then. Now the horrid toad
wanted oysters from her Noritake
plate and to sleep in her Posturpedic
bed. That frog knew what he required,
croaking out- Give me what you promised,
open to me! Their days drifted past like
frayed sails. Each night they swam in silk sheets,
his cold legs spread by her side, intently-
while she wrestled to breathe, waiting for
his soggy bargain to be applied.
Hazardous, art by Aaron Wilder
Drone’s Life
Mia Marie Collins
The drones are working,
their voices, inaudible, indistinct,
giving rise to cacophony,
occupying the void that is monotony.
Different shades of gray
color their lifeless, lightless days
as they march endlessly on
into the oblivion of boredom.
Feed the machine, evil green.
Fuel the fire of corporate desire.
Stamp out passion, shred dignity,
All in the name of industry.
And so it is, the drones life,
full of detachment, puking the bile of strife,
heads stuck in a noose, hands clutching a knife,
stabbing at an organization that knows nothing of contrite.
The call
William E. Raftery
It’s once in this time,
Of the loathsome pining,
Awaiting the inevitable.
The ring of the phone starts it,
Bastard cousin to the alarm clock,
The true initial culprit of it all.
Stagger the guilt all around here,
But something is the cause of today,
And the someone who must pay is me.
The wishing away of this hurt,
(Called morning) lies not in hope,
But fear the plea will never even be received at all.
Spark 12/05/05
Rose E. Grier
How to get it back How to get it back
That invisible thing
that made nothing else matter
And cause you to drift in the middle
Of everything
And not come back
How to get it back How to get it back
That ebb and flow
The joy of knowing
Nothing
And everything
How to get it back How to get it back
The passion that turns
all into ashes
but you
and your soft, sweet lips
How to get it back How to get it back
The mere touch
of your handsome hands
driving me wild
and your
fragrant hair
with my fingers dancing
How to get it back How to get it back
I want to find it
Is it really gone
Where do I look
After twenty-two years
How to get it back How to get it back
Through all of the
Disgust I have
For my own body
And numbed desire
How to get it back How to get it back
After all the training
Of turning it off
To get you well
And me too
How to get it back How to get it back
How to get it back How to get it back
How to get it back How to get it back
After all the tears and pain and
The raising of our children
How to get it back How to get it back
Working and toiling to
Get ahead
No other focus
And the words of dissatisfaction
Reigning
Disdaining
And remaining loud echos
How to get it back How to get it back
I beg
Silently, honestly
With no solution.
You call, I hear your voice
And I am excited
For a second
Business, business
Trained answers
And silence
How to get it back How to get it back
Where is the lack
Slack
As I wrack
How to get it back
How to get it back How to get it back
Looking, forcing
What used to be natural
Never easy
Looking for
A shimmer, a glimmer of
Love
Not disguised
As our daily routine.
How to get it back How to get it back
On track
You and me
As one?
Soldier at the Gate, art by Mark Graham
America Is In Your Hands
Mark Passero
America is in your hands
Waiting to build rainbow bridges
And diverse coalitions.
America is in your hands
Waiting to comp rend and
Understand the needs of the needy,
And not pretending to be so dirty and
Grim reaper greedy.
America is in your hands,
Applauding loudly,
Drumming up the patriotic bands,
Taking the rightful stand,
Contending with reality and,
Not pretending in practicality.
America is in your hands,
Super Tuesday is here,
Grin, cheer, and tote your vote.
Future change is now,
America’s new open range has now begun.
(Friday, Oct. 29th, 2004)
art by Xanadu
a prayer for mama
Lolita Stewart-White
at twelve, i sat by mama’s side
watched her bedridden
her coal colored skin
cut carved stitched together
like connect the dots
i traced the lines from her incisions
made believe she wasn’t withering away
at the hands of white men
in white coats with sharp knives
in search of treasure they’d never find
i reached out with my girlish fingers
touched a part of her soul
beyond the blue-eyed surgeon’s expeditions
held on to her as tight as a dying man
holds his last breath
i pulled her close
cradled her in my arms
as gently as she’d cradled me when i was new
loved and protected her
the way daddy never would
i wept alone for her in a sterile hospital room
that became oh too familiar
closed my round brownish eyes
spoke to god
said a prayer for mama
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ARTIST STATEMENT (11/29/05)
Lolita Stewart-White is a poet, screenwriter and filmmaker. Her work has appeared in African Voices, Illuminations, Phoebe, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and is scheduled to appear in upcoming issues of Pegasus and Red Wheelbarrow. She was the 1997 recipient of the Fred Shaw Poetry Prize sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. She lives and works in Miami, Florida.
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BROKEN GLASS
Roger N. Taber
Broken glass on a beachÉ
fragments of half-forgotten summers
digging in the heels, pricking toes,
drawing blood from fingers
anxious to pull free, heads swimming
in a splendid sea, lovers not meant
to be together but making
the most of holiday weather till done;
Sun, moon and stars conspiring
to send us, weakly, our separate ways,
lust alone (though our bodies join)
unable to sustain the monotony
of breakfast at seven, home about six,
small talk on the table cloth,
fitting in sex between job and chores,
arguing over the next credit
card bill, whether or not we want kids
to fulfil a need and, if so – why?
Cry from the heart or desire to prove
a wedding ring still means
something? No wonder, glances
from strangers as they pass
send us scuttling, like crabs, across
broken glass - if only in
the mind’s eye, wondering where
each of us goes from here?
SESTINA OF A DRUNKEN WIFE BEATER
Brittany Ranee Thompson
His fiery eyes,
bulging with anger
stare through her pain and fear.
The poisonous drink
flows through his blackened heart
and urges him to hit.
His relentless hitting
only intensifies when she looks to his eyes.
Her body begins to crack and her heart
feels the anger
that the constant drinking
brings with it. Fearing
that soon she’ll no longer fear,
she begins to hit
back, but the drinking
allows his body to feel nothing. His eyes
reflect his enjoyment of angering
her defenseless heart.
His raging heart
realizes her fear.
The anger
boils as he hits
her weak body. Her eyes
watch him take another drink.
She rips the drink
from him. His heart
disappears. His eyes
darken with fear.
and he hits
her in anger.
She swells with anger.
His astonished face drinks
in what his hitting
has done to her heart.
He can’t help but fear
her piercing eyes.
Decades pass, his lonely eyes, now etched with anger,
contract fear. He sips his drink.
His drunken heart begs to hit.
art by Nicole Aimiee Macaluso
Culture Clash (2)
Michael Ceraolo
It was emphasized several times,
first,
by dispatch,
and
then by her family members,
that the patient spoke no English
Her son translated from the Russian
while we were at her house,
but
we were flying blind during the transport
We thought nothing further of it,
until
we arrived at the hospital
and miraculously
the cone of silence was lifted
and the patient responded to the nurse’s questions,
saying that she had lived here for twenty-eight years
and spoke and understood the language
And,
to add injury to insult,
she then presented
with a completely different chief complaint
that made a mockery of our treatment of her
Schizophrenia, art by Lara Chauvin
Imaginary Coffee
Larry S. Lafferty
We drank imaginary coffee while we drove
The scrabbled roads of the Appalachian Mountains.
As we climbed, the night stars fell from the pitch
Hitting our heads.
The rocky ceiling grabbed us and held on.
The sweetness of nothing blew through the truck’s air vents.
Who were we to say otherwise?
Imaginary maps helped us find the dead end roads
And the switchbacks.
We sang songs that hadn’t been written.
We got bored.
Here is what we decided.
The best pizza is DiCarlo’s in Steubenville
The best ribs are at DeeJay’s in Weirton
The best Class A football team in the state is the Madonna Blue Dons
(at least when my brother played)
The best bar is Pat’s Place
(when it was still there)
The best tin mill is Weirton Steel
(when it was up and running)
The best place to buy underage beer is Carmen’s Meat Market
The best raisin cookies and chocolate cake live in the Steubenville Bakery
The best father is a pile of ash in a metal toy soldier box
The best funeral home is Greco-Hertnick
The best family is the one that isn’t there
The best home is the one you can leave
The best town is my town
The best me isn’t anymore.
It was easier coming down
The other side of the mountain.
We picked up speed,
Stars jumped back up in the air,
The radio stations came back on.
old tires
Stanley M Noah
drenched in rain
behind my dad’s
tire shop, now
discarded after their
40,000 mile journeys
and stacked high in single
rows, paper thin tread
and flimsy enough
for a 10 year old
to climb up and
inside, then peep
upward into the night sky
at twilight like from
a giant telescope,
my own private universe--
and circle-pools of trapped water
breeding mosquito larvae
all waiting for the burning--
My Real Machine Name
J D Nelson
In the first year of
the first name of
the first Yates:
A candid feature
within the
machine data.
(A drop of hot sauce
in the donut shop)
Make up your minds,
restaurateurs!
Nice money, a bowl of
goodness noodles --
bawling duckies
and noodle soup.
News tacos, something
at the edge of the shadow --
I’m a hinge
in a bucket
of metal parts.
A minute in this kind of sun
will melt your skin --
a hanging
wouldn’t surprise
these people --
they’ve been witness
to taco seasonings.
We have the bag
of understanding.
A Day in the Life
Kathryn Alison Graves
Deadlines, reports
My painful initiation is beginning to fester; See where I am today
I am now in my highest of heels ..and don’t I look lovely..
Just place my thoughts into the darkest, deepest in-box
Why not. Steal what you can from my loyalty
And then sink what is left of me with a stone!
A daily fighting of the dirty shirts
Behind the desks and papers they lurk
Snarling, crunching my bones; they are relentless dogs
I could tear this blouse off in a second
Leaving the smell of this hell behind me
Buttons and threads thrown down (Is there anyone who knows me?)
Take the top drawer, slam it hard
It has cracked my last rib of sanity
I am in a swirl of a cesspool that society has created
Did I tell you that I tore my stocking today dear?
A small hole
But it drew blood....
art from State of Desire of Being, by Stephen Mead
APATHY
Joshua Gray
A boy on his bike passed me upwind
As I descended on foot downhill.
Near the bottom a butterfly lying
On its side slowly flapped one dull yellow
Wing. I should have moved it from its bright
Lemon mashed guts, or killed it once and for all.
Instead, I turned my eyes and strolled on by
Toward the place where the children play.
Offering up Leftovers
Anne Marie Bonneau
The cheap apples you left behind
Sit on my altar
Untouched, soft and small.
Green as seasickness,
Malnourished from darkness,
Made up with gloss, hoping to dupe the eye.
A terminal optimist,
I pick one from the pile.
With my razor-sharp knife,
I pierce through thick wax,
A shield prolonging the mediocre life
Of this sickly organism.
As I rotate the fruit in my hands,
My palms become sticky, smothered in veneer,
The covering collapsing, melting.
The vulnerable exposed skin
Succumbs to my penetrating blade in the end.
A victim of my warm touch.
Butterfly Collage, art by Mike Hovencsek
Now for This Commercial Message (13)
Michael Ceraolo
The delivery company has a string of spots
where football players suddenly materialize
to chastize business people for using football metaphors
As Johnny Carson might have said,
Not so fast Steroid-Breath
You first
We’ll stop using sports metaphors
when you and your ilk stop spouting war jargon
when describing your game
Spider Web, art by John Yotko
Cracked Open
Whitney K Walker
You give me that look
the one that says I’m the crazy one
and I couldn’t possibly be your daughter
just because I’m sitting here bawling my eyes out
because the voices are back
the ones that bounce off the walls
of the gutter and escape
from the tiny holes of the shower drain.
It hurts when I try to make you understand
about my fear of people on the street
and on the bus,
like the old man this morning
who sat across from me,
looking as if he were about to
crumble to pieces,
blood stains covering
his tan slacks.
I find myself at the train station
where thoughts of taking my own life return,
as I stand by the edge
of the yellow brick tile
where you’re not supposed to stand
and I stare
at the third rail
at the tracks
at the gravel pits
and I have visions
of blood spraying
my head rolling to the side
as the train and I meet head on.
art by Joel MacGregor
Three Years Later
Darcy Saffar
In my sanctuary,
on pastel blue carpet
that almost shimmers
I will lie down on my back
absorbed by Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
I have no starry night of my own.
Hovering in a corner is
my mother’s burgundy Queen-Anne chair
where she once sat,
but no longer.
Sometimes I sit with my cheek
buried in the velvet upholstery
and although my eyes are closed,
I see my mother on the desk shelf
across the room.
The velvet is damp.
I return to the floor
and study the nicks and dents
on the chair’s wooden legs.
I notice my inflatable globe
trapped between the chair and the wall.
I press on it,
trying to conform it to a shape that
will offer it freedom. My trembling
hands blur beneath the earth.
I let the air out of my world.
quotes to live by
Quotes to Live By
Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,” —Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest.
•••
“Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.” —Mariah Carey
•••
“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life,” —Brooke Shields, during an interview to become Spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign.
•••
“I’ve never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body,” — Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward.
•••
“Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country,” —Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC
•••
“I’m not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president.” —Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents.
•••
“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.” —Al Gore, Vice President (DUH)
•••
“I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.” —Dan Quayle
•••
“We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?” —Lee Iacocca
•••
“We don’t necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.” —Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor.
•••
“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.” —Bill Clinton, President
•••
“We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur.” —Al Gore, VP (man he’s smart)
•••
“Traditionally, most of Australia’s imports come from overseas.” —Keppel Enderbery
•••
“Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.” —Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina
•••
“If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there’ll be a record.” —Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman
only in America
from THE WEEK, April 1 2005
Only In America
from THE WEEK, April 1, 2005
• A Texas lawmaker wants to cut state funding to high schoold whose cheerleading outfits are too suggestive. “I admire the ability of young women being able to march and dance and twirl and do all of those things,” said state Rep. Al Edwards. “But it’s just too sexually oriented, you know, the way they’re shaking their behinds and going on.” Edwards, a 26-year veteran of the Texas House, said he filed his bill after being appalled by the “gyrations” he witnessed at several high school football games.
• A Pennsylvania man is waging a legal battle to have his eyes closed on his driver’s license photograph. Auto mechanic Billy Reed, 49, contends that the state Department of Transport is is infringing on his freedom or expression by insisting that he be photographed with his eyes open. A state court reject his claims this week, but Reed says his “right to happiness” is at stake and that he plans to appeal. “Who can see your eyes in that little photo anyway?” he said.
prose
the meat and potatoes stuff
Standard of Living and Dead
Frank Anthony Ph.D.
On the other side of this crazy world, five young Marines were blown to pieces, literally, by a car bomb in Iraq. It was the Sunday that country voted on their first constitution. In revenge, an American airplane bombed bystanders who had come to look at the bombed out military vehicle. We shall never know how many of “them” were killed. No records are kept of the many thousands of “enemy” killed.
The numbers of our dead climb daily to beyond 2000. In Vietnam we lost about 50,000, the same in North Korea, the enemy lost hundreds of thousands. American firepower superiority is obvious. So long as this current war goes on, do we wait until some magic number of dead soldiers is reached before we decide to leave their country and get on to something else for our young militants to do? Or will we mutate into another war?
World War I, “to end all wars”, failed due to a failed League of Nations. Germany was ravaged, which led to World War II. Then came the North Korea and Vietnam adventures. Next, our war machine (Pentagon) advised arming Iraq to take out Iran as a threat to Israel. The state department told Iraq Kuwait was part of their spoils (April Glasspie), hence the excuse for Bush wars to conquer Iraq, huge war-prize of oil!
However, wars go way back before wars for oil. My Great Grandfather was Head Huntsman to Franz Joseph of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He got his family out of Austria by immigrating to America before World War I. My father could have been killed in that war. I could have also in World War II. There is no end to the international thirst for blood or the search for world fame as a dictator.
Now, we have a professional military that is linked to international industrialism. We may lose a few thousand professional soldiers but we can kill a million “enemy” if necessary. Historically, we may be the greatest, ever, empire of destruction. Our “interests”, not unlike the Holy Roman Empire, are linked to our standard of living.
PROTEGE
G.A. Scheinoha
“Never get personally involved.” Her handler’s words floated up out of the mists of distant training, secrets of seduction. . . and assassination, saying more with a coy glance than any words, destroying a foe with common objects, such as those which lay on the dressing table in front of her.
Fortunately, this time it wouldn’t be as complicated as plunging a wispy strand of wire from an uncoiled hair curler through an eardrum, piercing brain tissue. She slipped a neatly manicured hand into the dressing table drawer, the other tracing to a tear already burning at the corner of her eye. Through the haze, she saw the bluish clump of metal.
Just a day earlier, she’d sat in this very chair, wrapped in the luxury of the moment, the velour robe softly hugging the still damp, though gently scented curves of her supple body. The tawny mane of hair was tucked away inside a spiral of towel. The V neck of her robe fell open to the bare, rising slopes of womanhood, a weapon as deadly as any she’d ever wielded. The pen in her hand, slender, delicate as everything else in the boudoir, etched a simple missive.
Later the same evening, he would unfold the note and read it one last time before stuffing the scrap of linen stationery into the garbage disposal and flipping the switch.
She worked the slide on the automatic pistol, sighted down the blade sight. With oil can ease, she disassembled the handgun, carefully inspected firing pin, lubricated the action and reassembled the weapon. She had hoped it wouldn’t come down to this.
Her ears caught the crunch of a footstep on the gravel outside. It seemed hours but was mere minutes stretched into an awful eternity, that she stood, looked out the window, waited for a sign. Then it came.
Sweet Enchantment, art by Aaron Wilder
Consubstantiation: Memes and Ideas
The Consubstantiation Principle of Memetic Evolution
Lloyd Bardell
The memetic process is one marked quintessentially by the union of disparate linguistic and epistemological substances in the evolution of an idea from a meme. In other words, there is a transitional or pubescent point at which some successful memes may take on the characteristics of an idea or an idea complex as the meme moves from an a-rationally based viral concept or pattern of thought to a rationally based idea or science. A good example of this might be the Nazi “Science” of Eugenics. Nazism’s rich, though evil, mixture of all of the major memetic complexes – religion, language or media, politics, and pre-science marked the puerile state of genetic science among other numerous studies.
In Nazi Eugenics, we have a consubstantiation of meme and idea that will eventually evolve into bioengineering in the late twentieth century. In the stage of consubstantiation, we have what equates to a viral soup of ideas – a kind of intellectual minestrone or gumbo. The two or more substances that exist in the memetic-consubstantiation share components – with one system reasoning meaning and the other declaring its own truth. Frequently, the successful emergence of a meme from the unreasoned state into a reason-based state is dependent upon the structure of the language in which it finds itself. Both the success of meme and success of an idea are frequently conditional to the linguistic structure of its hosts. It has been stated that language itself is a meme complex or memeplex - this is true only from the standpoint that it can be both. Whether language is meme or idea is dependent upon how the language is being used at any given time and perhaps upon who it is that is using the language. Language would more accurately be described as building material for both the meme and idea. And, in as much as both the meme and idea are made from the same substance, the word or communication is the basis for both. What we have here is a process that is similar to the workings of an atom in terms of its component parts – at the final reduction, there is no real difference in the materials that compose the different entities formed by those materials. The significant factor is the process of evolutionary differentiation and not primeval reduction – unless that reduction is being used to force another stage forward in the evolutionary process. Cloning or atomic power would be examples of evolutionary leaps forward with the potential of progressing mankind to a higher level of existence. It should be remembered however that devolution is just as real a possibility as is evolution in a possible scenario. This devolution or transference could be from idea to meme, meme to idea, or species to species in the concept of that which is fittest for a changed environment – Neanderthal to Homo Sapiens, for instance.
It should be clear now the memes rely upon epistemological opacity – were there a kind of checksum attached to a memetic frame – it would be obvious that the meme is not an idea of self-sustaining merit. Memetic frames are however successful broadcasters and do replicate and undergo mutation processes – making them difficult to pin down or to eradicate once they are rooted in an appropriate class of hosts. The opacity is a successful defense mechanism that relies upon obfuscation of thought for its defense.
Idea versus meme evokes the differentiation of Intuition-based Logic versus Classical Logic.
Intuitionistic logic substitutes justification for truth in its logical calculus. Instead of a deterministic, bivalent truth assignment scheme, it allows for a third, indeterminate truth value. A proposition may be provably justified, or provably not justified, or undetermined. The logical calculus preserves justification, rather than truth, across transformations yielding derived propositions.*
It is possible for an idea to retrograde back into a state of consubstantiation or to once again become a meme. An excellent example of this process is the “Intelligent Design” movement, which offers itself up as an alternative scientific approach to “Natural Selection.” In this movement we also have a theft of language of meaning – that is, the Intelligent Design movement seeks to cloak itself in scientific language and thereby gain acceptance and replicate as another scientific theory. With ID, either we have an apparent mutation of the old “Creationism” meme or a regression of the “Theory of Evolution” – there are probably actually of few flavors of each of these processes going on in the movement. The dialectic certainly resides in the conflict of meme with idea – the synthesis is the transitory wedding of idealism and materialism or a short-lived Weberian-Marxian activation of the ideal in history. This transitory state does not survive in the “real world” of continuous social mutation nor does its language remain fixed by its very proponents, Marx begat Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin and so on. Constant flux or the ephemeral state of the social dynamic is reminiscent of evolutionary adaptation like that of the finches in Darwin’s studies. Any particular ideology is most likely the regression of an idea into a state of consubstantiation or the evolutionary mutation of a meme into a memeplex. Not hoping to read too much into Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws, the environment of a meme or an idea certainly affects its mutation process and outcome.
* http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Constructivist+logic
Freedom
Edwinna Bryant
I shall not allow myself to love you again. Or anyone who reminds me of you. Or who wears the same cologne as you. Or who is built like you.
I shall love someone who is the complete opposite of you. Non- judgmental. Open minded. Willing to compromise.
I shall not speak your name again. I will forget you. I will lose you on the side of the road. I will cleanse myself of you. I will wash away all the sweet dreams, gone sour. And all of your fresh touches, gone stale.
And I shall not allow my heart to stay arrested by your love that walked away.
When the best thing, you have done for me, since the moment our lips stop slow dancing with each others. Is give me back, all that I could no longer claim when I was with you,
My freedom.
My freedom.
My .... Freedom.
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