Dedication

The mountains bend before this grief,
the great river does not flow,
but the prison locks are strong
and behnd them the convicts’ holes,
and a deathly sadness.
For someone the fresh wind blows,
for someone the sunset basks...
We don’t know, we are the same everywhere;
we only hear the repellent clank of keys,
the heavy steps of the soldiers.
We rose as though to early mass,
and went through the savage capital,
and we used to meet there, more lifeless than the dead,
the sun lower, the Neva mistier,
but in the distance hope still sings.
Condemned...Immediately the tears start,
one woman, already isolated from everyone else,
as though her life had been wrenched from her heart,
as though she had been smashed flat on her back,
still, she walks on...staggers...alone...
Where now are the chance friends
of my two hellish years?
What do they see in the Siberian blizzard,
what comes to them in the moon’s circle?
I send them my farewell greeting.

March 1940
Anna Akhmatova

Sometimes I Go About Pitying Myself
Sometimes I go about pitying myself,
and all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky.

Chippewa music

Today's Interesting Cloud:

"The Iraqui Horror Picture Show"

I credit this line to Andrew Nagen,who is very funny and hits the nail on the head with this summation of the whole awful story.

My blog has become taken over by a dark force, which is exorcised by my posting one miserable brutality after another, caught up in a spiral of bad news and ugly images.

I am most disgusted by the "stats" on who is coming to visit this page - the words "photos abused Iraqui prisoners" have put C. Little, No Less at #3 on a Google search for those words!
I can't continue this and so I am taking a new/old approach to blogging. I am going back to photography and poetry, and will attempt to lift up out of the insanity. I will post links for some of the more noteworthy political punditry, but otherwise I am
moving on. Join me.

Lieberman's lunatic comments
Fake democrat Joe Lieberman sucked up to
his true allies during Rumsfeld's testimony
before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.

LIEBERMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, the behavior by Americans at the prison in Iraq is, as we all acknowledge, immoral, intolerable and un-American. It deserves the apology that you have given today and that have been given by others in high positions in our government and our military.

I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized.
Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq working to liberate Iraq and protect our security have never apologize.

Here's what Atrios says about it: "Lieberman is making one of two
points. Either he's just saying 'USA! Not quite as bad as the worst
people on the planet!' Or, he's saying 'I just want to point out that some brown people unconnected to this event did some bad things!'" Link also through boing-boing.net

Mad Cow Cafe


On Edith NW, Albuquerque New Mexico
More on Mad Cow in this blog - 2/14/04

West Wall

In the unmade light I can see the world
as the leaves brighten I see the air
the shadows melt and the apricots appear
now that the branches vanish I see the apricots
from a thousand trees ripening in the air
they are ripening in the sun along the west wall
apricots beyond number are ripening in the daylight.

Whatever was there
I never saw those apricots swaying in the light
I might have stood in orchards forever
without beholding the day in the apricots
or knowing the ripeness of the lucid air
or touching the apricots in your skin
or tasting in your mouth the sun in the apricots

W. S. Merwin

The racism behind the general American view of the world, and in particular of the Arab world, is so all-pervasive that Americans don't even notice it anymore. Think about this excerpt from an article by Virginia Tilley (and think about it in particular if you ever have the misfortune to read any of the anti-Muslim rantings of Daniel Pipes and his ilk):

"The irony here is that, if these photos had instead portrayed American soldiers abused in some Arab prison, screaming right-wing US media would have waved them as substantiating every racist claim of inherent Arab depravity. On Fox News, ranks of flunky intellectuals would have soberly propounded the social-psychological violence inherent in Muslim theology and the 'Arab mind'; tears of patriotic passion would have celebrated US military might as the golden force opposing the dark ferocity of the savage Arab masses. Feeble liberal protest - that it is wrong to extrapolate from one prison policy to a whole culture - would have been derided and silenced. And high-minded speeches would have emerged from the White House, mustering US patriotic zeal to combat these forces of evil which produced such an outrage. Yet when others launch similar stereotyping distortions of us, we claim the high ground: those ignorant savage Arabs, we sneer, with no conception of our culture. How gullible and backward they are, to fail to grasp the truth and be so enflamed. It must be al-Jazeera's fault."

Continue reading - More from Xymphora -

Update May 7 2004:
True to form, the horrible syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer (could you have a worse name than that?) wrote this, published in the Albuquerque Journal today --

Let's be clear. The things we have learned so far about Abu Ghraib are not, by far,
the worst atrocities committed in war. Indeed, they pale in comparison with what Arab insurgents have done to captured Westerners, and what Saddam Hussein did to his own people.

OMIGOD -- these photos, eg a uniformed American woman holding
a naked Arab man on a leash - are not just accidental, incidental, humorous or even voyeuristic digital capturing....There is more going on here than meets the eye. I did not want to see these photos. I don't want to see a "snuff film" of innocent Iraquis...but there has to be an explanation why these images have been staged and created and distributed. Why? the Congressional hearings today were by and large sycophantish ass-kissers condoning and congratulating Rummy for his "expert handling" of two very difficult wars and a large budget. the slime actually had the cojones to say that, "under other circumstances", such "effective methods of eliciting intelligence would have been considered a job well done." OMIGOD!

Update May 12 2004
This situation has gotten more and more bizarre, I feel - especially with the recent video
release of the Arab beheading of a 26-yr old from Philadelphia, info about photoshopped
cellphone pics and staged abuse - I don't know what is true anymore. Worse yet, the highest
hits I have gotten on this site (via Blogger stats) is incoming links on the words Ira-i
abu-e phot-s and I don't want this site found by people looking for those photos, like I
would post them. I think I will drop this subject and try to forget it, but please look at
this very strange link - to a psychic/mystic who channels St.Catherine and thinks God loves
condoleeza more than you and I and that the photos were all staged to discredit The Shrub.
Link Reaaaaallly weird stuff.

Cinco De Mayo

West Wall - Casa San Ysidro

______________________________________________
From a new blog-discovery:
www.xymphora.blogspot.comSaturday, May 01, 2004

The announced withdrawal of American troops from Falluja, unless it is
scuppered by the neocons (and I have no doubt they are working on scuppering
it), is a very important development.

It represents the first acknowledged defeat for the neocon 'shock and awe'
mad-dog strategy of American military dealings with the rest of the world.
Basically, psychos like Ledeen and Perle decided that the United States has
the only domineering army in the world, and American foreign policy should
be to use it to violently coerce the rest of the world to follow American
big business interests. This would be accomplished by picking example
countries like Iraq and using American military violence to completely
destroy the country and terrify the population.

The massacre in Falluja is the most blatant manifestation of this policy.
The neocons were prepared to kill almost every person in Falluja until any survivors were so terrified that their terror and the deaths of the rest could be used as an example to any others in Iraq or the rest of the world who might question the decisions of the American occupiers. It didn't work.

Again, facts have proven that an army, even the best army in
the world, is useless in fighting a determined civilian resistance (Vietnam,
southern Lebanon, the thirteen colonies, etc.). The only way you can 'win'
such an encounter is if you are morally prepared to murder or incapacitate
every last inhabitant (are the Americans ready for the Byzantine Empire
solution of blinding every male in Iraq?). We have seen the neocon strategy
over and over again in Iraq, starting with the 'shock and awe' bombing of
civilians, and carrying through the murder of journalists, the abuse of
civilians, and the torture of prisoners.

It is laughable for the Americans to claim that the recent evidence of misuse of prisoners is an anomaly, when we have seen so much evidence of other incidents in the past. Now they claim they are going to 'investigate'.
How many investigations have been promised
before? How many people have been punished?

American claims of innocence won't fly anymore. Brutality is the express and implicit policy of the Pentagon in Iraq. The soldiers who brutalize Iraqi civilians and prisoners
do so because they understand that they are supposed to.

The withdrawal from Fallujah represents an incredible loss of control by the Pentagon in Washington over the American military. It is apparent that the American commanders on the ground in Falluja came to the conclusion that whoever was giving the orders in Washington was insane (Dr. Strangelove), and that they were no
longer prepared to participate in a massacre that not only would fail in its
short-term military goal, but would turn the whole country violently against
the Americans (not to mention completely destroying the moral integrity of
the American military by forcing soldiers to murder civilians). They
negotiated a cease-fire unknown to the Pentagon in Washington and against
the express wishes of the civilian neocons in charge of the Pentagon. In
fact, Falluja was being micromanaged by the White House itself. No to put
too fine a point on it, the cease-fire in Falluja was a mutiny by the
American commanders in Falluja (the hero seems to be Marine Lt. Gen. James
Conway). This explains why we were simultaneously hearing announcements of a
cease-fire in Iraq and vehement denials from the Pentagon in Washington. It
also explains why some Americans had stopped the massacre, while others,
still under the control of Washington, continued. Paul Wolfowitz (Captain
Bligh) said the situation was 'confusing', which is a very odd thing for the
guy supposedly in charge to say. It was confusing to him because a
cease-fire was being negotiated on the ground in Falluja behind Wolfowitz's
back. The central command in Washington has become so bad - both incompetent
and treasonous - that American soldiers in the field have to make their own
cease-fires. Perhaps there is hope for the United States yet.

There are conflicting accounts of just how close the new Iraqi military
leader of Falluja was to Saddam Hussein, but he looks just like him!

Prozac in the Water

(We have often said they must put Prozac in the water down there
at The Villages in Florida...those people are just too darn happy.
Now it appears, that may be true!. ed.)

http://www.rense.com/general52/proz.htm

Prozac Found In US Surface Water & Fish
Popular Antidepressant Also Affects Unborn Babies
By Maggie Fox
Health and Science Correspondent
Reuters

One of the most popular antidepressants, best known
by the brand name Prozac, can affect the development of babies when pregnant
women take the drug, according to a government report released on Tuesday.

Normal doses can cause babies to be born lighter and sleepier than normal,
or make them jittery or cause respiratory problems, the panel appointed by
the National Toxicology Program said.

"These effects appear to result more readily from in utero exposure late in
gestation," the report, issued for public comment, reads.

The report is a summary from a working group of experts who studied dozens
of medical studies using the drug, known generically as fluoxetine.

"The observed toxicity may be reversible, although long-term follow-up
studies have not been conducted to look for residual effects," it adds.

"The evidence suggests that developmental toxicity can also occur in the
form of shortened gestational duration and reduced birth weight at term."

The experts also noted several reports that found fluoxetine could affect a
patient's ability to achieve sexual climax -- both male and female.

It can get into breast milk and is found in the blood of newborns of mothers
taking the drug.

The report, available on the Internet at
http://cerhr.niehs.nih.gov/news/fluoxetine/fluoxetine_final.pdf , says
fluoxetine is widely used and can now be found in the environment.

"Fluoxetine has been reported in U.S. surface waters, presumably derived
from urine and feces of people on therapy," the report reads. One researcher
found fluoxetine in bluegill fish.

"The presence of fluoxetine ... in wastewater/groundwater/sediment should be
investigated," the report recommends.

But the report noted it could be more dangerous for an expectant or new
mother to be seriously depressed.

"Mood disorders are common in women of child-bearing years and it has been
estimated that 15.6 percent of women meet criteria for major depression
during the third trimester of pregnancy," the report reads.

The panel also said more study was needed to find out how and why
antidepressants such as fluoxetine can stimulate production of new brain
cells. That could also affect a fetus or newborn baby in unexpected ways,
they said.
-----------------------
---Okay, so what they are saying here is that it is WORSE for a mother to
be depressed during pregnancy than for her baby to be exposed to Prozac --
or for ALL of us to imbibe a little fluoxetine in our drinking water?

Furthermore - last night I saw a TV ad for Paxil....we were out listening to our
friend's band -- Witness Protection ! -- and a TV in the bar was running
the text commentary overlay. It looked to me like it said...in so many words...
that the side-effects of Paxil which had just been recited in a long list could
actually be WORSE when you stop taking it! So, does that mean if you start
this stuff, you had better not stop!?

Oh well, no problem, just drink lots of water, it's good for you!