The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld and other political poems

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Glass Box

You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—

Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

A Confession

Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

Happenings

You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.

It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.

Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.

All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

The Digital Revolution

Oh my goodness gracious,
What you can buy off the Internet
In terms of overhead photography!

A trained ape can know an awful lot
Of what is going on in this world,
Just by punching on his mouse
For a relatively modest cost!

—June 9, 2001, following European trip

The Situation

Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.

—Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

Clarity

I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.

And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

from- thanks to Slate
posted on elemming.com by Gary Denton

Like Others, Rumsfeld Has 9/11 Memento

WASHINGTON, March 12 — A Justice Department investigation that criticized F.B.I. agents for taking relics from the Staten Island landfill that held the rubble of the World Trade Center also found that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld kept a piece of the airplane that struck the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

The report, which also determined that at least two senior F.B.I. officials and numerous agents had kept mementos that once were in the World Trade Center, did not accuse Mr. Rumsfeld of any wrongdoing.

Mr. Rumsfeld picked up a footlong, twisted metal shard from the plane, had it mounted on a plaque that he keeps in his office as a vivid reminder of the terrorist attack, and has shown it to "hundreds of visiting dignitaries, members of Congress and other visitors," said Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Defense Department spokesman.

"It would be incorrect to say this is a souvenir," Mr. Di Rita said in a telephone interview Friday night. "It's not the secretary's. It's a memento on display in the Pentagon."

from NY Times article, March 13 by Eric Schmitt

Hahahahahahahaha! This gave me the best laugh in many days.
He has a piece of the plane! That proves it!
I wonder if anyone is asking, Where's the rest of the plane?
(go on, use Picosearch below to look for The Amazing PentaLawn 2000--which poses the question - Where's The Boeing?

New Neitzschean Diet!

Eat all you want of what you are afraid of.

"The basics of the Nietzschean regimen are simple," Hollingdale wrote in the book's foreword. "The dieter exercises a painful amount of self-honesty in order to identify the primary object of his or her deepest human dread as personified by a wide-ranging group of foodstuffs. Once the dieter's Fear has been identified, he eats that food exclusively, in unlimited amounts, until the food no longer appetizes or frightens him. "

"By conquering your Fear, by eating it in Heroic Portions, by laughing at that Fear which you have eaten, one avoids the Eternal Recurrence of cyclic 'Yo-Yo' Weight Loss and Weight Gain," Nietzsche wrote.

Fat Is Dead is selling briskly, as are the accompanying recipe pamphlets Beyond Food And Evil; Human, All Too Fat A Human; and Swiss Steak Zarathustra.

Stearns said it was worth noting that Nietzsche died depressed, delirious, and overweight in Zurich after 10 years of near-catatonia.

"Those wishing to begin a diet, let alone a highly moralistic pre-Freudian diet, should consult with their physicians," Stearns said. "Otherwise, they run the risk of long-term health problems - not to mention the possibility of their diet being misinterpreted by a rabidly cuisinophobic nationalist sect and used to justify a world takeover by diet Nazis."
posted by Gary Denton at elemming


Alameda Boulevard, 6 PM 3/6/04

We're back home, after a trip to Florida and Georgia - lots of visiting and talking
and driving and laughing and hanging out. It was a needed break. My computer
also spent the time in surgery, getting a new hard drive and general physical.
Here are a few photos and more to come, promise!


Indian Rocks Beach - sunset, with chemtrails

Morning verses
There is little to look at now,
sitting on the back stoop
drinking coffee--alone before dawn,
without the company of birds.
Beneath a sickly gray cover of clouds
(sickly because they reflect the gaseous
light of human occupation)
noise carries from the Radnor Yards,
squeals and siren soundings,
couplings and uncouplings all night long,
an orgy of trains.

Kurt Brobeck

I found this also at elemming blog


Florida Trees - Live Oaks with Spanish Moss