Dear White People

Really?

Sincerely,
George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James Knox Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin, Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, James Abram Garfield, Chester Alan Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Gamaliel Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Clark Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight David Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon, Gerald Rudolph Ford, James Earl Carter, Jr., Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, George Walker Bush, Barack Hussein Obama

The Day in Cartoons: Karl Rove and Fox News - Dave Granlund

Karl Rove and Fox News Dave Granlund

Karma finally, finally circled round and smacked Karl between the eyes. Time will tell if he stays down, or if, like the Undead, (or a creepy Svengali Vampire), will rise again to feed on living flesh.

The reasons Karma needs to be involved in the first place, are too numerous to list (Valerie Plame, Yellowcake/WMD, Bush's brain, Citizens United/Crossroads GPS - a good start). 

 

I think this news calls for a letter:

Dear Karl,

I really am a bitch.

 

See you soon,

Karma

P.S. Things get worse before they get better, so remember to Smile.

Interesting Reading:

Christian Science Monitor - Is Karl Rove's media career kaput

Los Angeles Times - Fox News reportedly benches Karl Rove after election meltdown

The Daily Beast - Why Fox Benched Karl Rove and Dick Morris

Washington Post - Karl Rove coming off Fox News bench?

Salon.com Grand old grifters rebuked

Poem Therapy 5:22 P.M. 28 August 2012: Roadside Attractions with the Dogs of America - Ada Limon

Roadside Attractions with the Dogs of America
Ada Limon

It's a day when all the dogs of all
the borrowed houses are angel footing
down the hard hardwood of middle-America's
newly loaned-up renovated kitchen floors,
and the world's nicest pie I know
is somewhere waiting for the right
time to offer itself to the wayward
and the word-weary. How come the road
goes coast to coast and never just
dumps us in the water, clean and
come clean, like a fish slipped out
of the national net of "longing for joy."
How come it doesn't? Once, on a road trip
through the country, a waitress walked
in the train's diner car and swished
her non-aproned end and said,
"Hot stuff and food too." My family
still says it, when the food is hot,
and the mood is good inside the open windows.
I'd like to wear an apron for you
and come over with non-church sanctioned
knee-highs and the prettiest pie of birds
and ocean water and grief. I'd like
to be younger when I do this, like the country
before Mr. Meriwether rowed the river
and then let the country fill him up
till it killed him hard by his own hand.
I'd like to be that dog they took with them,
large and dark and silent and un-blamable.
Or I'd like to be Emily Dickinson's dog, Carlo,
and go on loving the rare un-loveable puzzle
of woman and human and mind. But, I bet I'm more
the house beagle and the howl and the obedient
eyes of everyone wanting to make their own kind
of America, but still be America, too. The road
is long and all the dogs don't care too much about
roadside concrete history and postcards of state
treasures, they just want their head out the window,
and the speeding air to make them feel faster
and younger, and newer than all the dogs
that went before them, they want to be your only dog,
your best-loved dog, for this good dog of today
to be the only beast that matters.

---
Oh, people, read these words and you will find the whole animal of America howling in each of the syllables.

You and I both know we desire above all things, to be the good dog of today, the only beast that matters.

I feel a letter of gratitude is in order.

Dear Ada,

I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe me when I tell you that only a few hours ago, before I discovered your poem and in the process the treasure chest of you, that sitting at my desk, staring down a screen of unanswered emails, I had imagined my life as a dog, running haul ass down a country road, legs sparking dust behind me.

Sincerely,
Danna

P.S. In case you were wondering, I'd be a Border Collie.

 

Letters: Thomas Cromwell to Henry VIII

the new yorker 19 october 2009

On this day, 28 July 1540, Henry VIII had his chief advisor executed for trumped up charges of treason and heresy. The real reason for his fall from grace was more of the office politics variety; Norfolk hated Cromwell, mainly because Cromwell was the most powerful and able man at court and he wasn't a noble, just the son of a lowly blacksmith. The King lamented his rash decision. He never found a man as capable to serve him.

I just finished Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall early this morning, so a letter from Tom to Harry seems fitting.


Dear Henry,


Did I not tell you that you would miss me when I was gone?


Sincerely,
Thomas Cromwell


P. S. Wolsey asked that I relate the following unto you: Sit on a spit thou cockered and doghearted codpiece giglet.

Letters: Dear Bashar al-Assad from Niccolo Machiavelli

Wernere Horvath

Dear Bashar al-Assad

I once advised, "A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise."

I knew princes.

You sir, are no prince.

Sincerely,
Niccolo Machiavelli

It's The World As We Know It

The news of the day is of a world gone mad. I feel so utterly powerless watching tanks roll through residential neighborhoods, knowing that families are being wiped out in the dozens, hundreds, daily. Doctors, nurses, reporters are being targeted.

Leaders of the world are meeting, deciding. Please hurry!

I created this playlist of youtube videos to reflect the moment, and what I hope is the near future.

Mad World

Hurt

It's The End Of The World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine...)

Halleujah