well..

Awesome

Used without permission from the wonderful http://www.supportstructure.org/

Assembly!

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 131 For decades, Democrats have controlled the Assembly, and the mapmaking for their own house. That is why the district for Democrat Susan John in the Rochester area looks a little like a teapot. The bulk of her district is in the suburbs, prime Republican territory, but to keep Ms. John in office, the mapmakers added what looks like a curl of steam that runs through the most Democratic areas of Rochester. Without it, Ms. John’s seat could easily turn Republican.

Nasty Nippers

Nipped on the nose by nasty nippers. Was this the result of your last confrontation with a Murray cray? If so, and if you still want to observe the finer details of this magnificent creature, from a safe distance—not more than half a nose away—you can at the John Lake Centre.

food

we pay for our huge portions
pay cheap at wal-mart
or expensive with wine
then we pay for
appetite reducers
and anti craving pills

and the rest of the world

oh who cares about the rest, really?
every second one dies
one hundred thousand a day
while we eat and throw up
in our own little way

...

. . .there are limits to the power of the will. The will knows about survival and endurance; it can direct attention and energy; it can finish things. But we cannot remember a tune or a dream on willpower. . . The will by itself cannot heal the soul. And it cannot create.

-Lewis Hyde


I think we all create.

No?

har har

I would like to have the men of Heaven
In my own house:
With vats of good cheer
laid out for them.

I would like to have the three Marys,
Their fame is so great.
I would like people
From every corner of Heaven.

I would like them to be cheerful
In their drinking.
I would like to have Jesus too
Here amongst them.

I would like a great lake of beer
For the King of Kings,
I would like to be watching Heaven’s family
Drinking it through all eternity.

Celtic poem from 10th century Ireland, as seen

Broken

Two weeks ago was my first time working with Grand Central Food Program. I went on a van route throughout Bronx and at designated stops, got out and passed out food to the people waiting. Young, old, white, black, latino, proud and humble all came.

We underestimate the extent of the real

-Steve Paxton, initiator of the contact improvisation dance movement

Handing out oranges, chicken noodle soup in a styrofoam container, mini-cartons of milk, and a random bagel or danish was my only way of being close to these people. It was through an act of charity. As I look back and try to remember those faces and eyes, I feel as though I am trying to remember Jesus himself. The hungry, un-sheltered, young and old, language impaired, beautiful people. Who else was Jesus? Who else did Jesus spend time with?

Why, I must ask, did I only now at the age of 20 come into close contact with these people? And why for such a fleeting moment. Where in the world can I find Jesus again?

I remember Jesus said, this is my body broken for you, and this is my blood. Then, he broke the bread and probably passed it around telling people to eat it. Jesus wanted us to eat and drink and remember him, a broken bloody body who loves us. I hope I never forget Jesus as I pass out food to my fellow broken and weary brothers and sisters. From my broken hands to their broken mouths, in remembrance of a broken Jesus. Deep to deep, glory to glory. Hallelujah.

Some Christians curse

If your poor, praise God! Jesus was poor, what a perfect condition to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
If your rich, praise God! Jesus was rich in heaven, until he forsake his heavenly riches to save our souls. What a wonderful example to follow.
If your sick, abused, tortured, raped, addicted, depressed, praise God and praise God! Jesus fucking died for our souls and you are very much alive.
I tell you, if your hearing my voice right now Jesus can be alive in you and you can fully live. If your hearing my voice you can be the hands and feet of Jesus.
Praise God for life, but do we ever live it?

========================================

We always try to create our own little heavn-on-earths. Comfort, joy, happiness, exhilaration, prosperity, security, wealth, health, inner, selfish, pride. What ever happened to that verse about rejoicing in our suffering? If we believed in heaven at all we would live much more reckless lives. I think if we had any faith in God at all we would lock our doors less, hold onto our cell phones and laptops less, buy less clothes, care less about our own well being and our own appearances and care more about the lives of others. We wouldn’t care because we would have so much more in heaven. We can have heaven on earth I believe, but not by caring for ourselves. Not by looking outward. Because Jesus did nothing of the sort for us, we should do nothing of the sort period. Jesus hung on a cross.

radical social action

"There is both continuity with the old and significant redirection into new and, I would say, more enlightening paths that are built around what the African American philosopher, Cornel West, describes as 'creative responses to the precise circumstances of our present moment', a 'new cultural politics of difference' aimed at empowering and enabling radical social action."
-Edward W. SOJA

कैन इ?

can i?

peer at a demon

peel back my mask
to peer at a demon
a faceless being
exists further then feeling

or maybe coexists
constant state of flux
this mirage helps me face
a world with no luck

i'll peel back my face
and ask it a question
i have been here before man
but a different sort of passion

passion asking for
relentless dedication
maybe if my demon was hiding
i could find some meaning

i take off my mask
take off my mask
peel back this mask
peel back my mask

pain rain and struggle
bring in the light

I have decided

Oh to blog, to blog again.

But I think I will continue blogging, or start blogging again. A lot has happened since my last post which I think was just some random memory like poems, and I have a lot to say. So, electronically, via the internet and my 4 year old powerbook, I will start blogging again.

I have decided something though, I will blog about absolutely whatever I want.

I have to face the fact eventually that I am horribly disorganized and will never have individual blogs for my individual interests.

With that, im going to fetch a ride to Church with my pop, steal my mom's car from her sushi dinner meeting, and read a old book in cafe corner. Then, somehow, grab my bike from work and ride it home, maybe stuff it in the car.

My room is a mess and my head feels the same. Everywhere, scrambled. Tomorrow will be a little more clear.

It rained icy cold rain today. I ate three bagels.

-john

PS - wrote this a while ago, finally posted it because I cannot post from my laptop.

Italy! Where are you?

Left field

Some things happen

Reactions follow

When does your character change?

When does it actually hit home?

-----

And I think its going to rain today

-----

this is just wack
we skip stones with energy
this should be easy
-----
Tuesday came and went
Tomorrow I renew vows
Or maybe the next
-----
Easy come, hard to go
Like a long drawn out rain
That encompasses it all
-----
No if's, and's, or but's
Thats just not how it works
Hope always dies last

Obama quote

Is Barack the one we have been waiting for? Or is it the other way around? Are we the people we have been waiting for? Barack Obama is giving voice and space to an awakening beyond his wildest expectations, a social force that may lead him far beyond his modest policy agenda.

— Tom Hayden, endorsing the Obama Movement

Poem

NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS
by Courtney Druz

Courtney Druz is a Jewish poet, mother, and former architect now living in New Jersey. Her poems have appeared in several publications including the current issue of Entelechy: Mind & Culture. She holds a BA in religious studies from Brown University and a MArch from the University of Pennsylvania.

It matters that this is true:
that pushing the stroller up the hill,
filled with sleeping boy and girl,
I thought about my muscles and
didn’t see the sky like smoke
at four o’clock, the drying trees
like black veins in the gray.

It matters that I thought
about my boots, that they were good,
and didn’t hear the red-eyed cars
rushing like wind, their terrible trumpets,
then the whisper of leaves.

All I saw, all at once,
black letters
stenciled on the pavement like a cut into stone,
the black showing through from a great distance:
NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS

Float

float

float, said the man

the world spurns failure
a latent truth


while the man told me to float

Apathy

We may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings. - Helen Keller

Most human beings have an infinite capacity for taking things for granted. - Aldous Huxley

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. - Albert Einstein

Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on. - Frederic Chopin

Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie, but rather mourn the apathetic, throng the coward and the meek who see the world's great anguish and its wrong, and dare not speak. - Ralph Chaplin

I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate -- it's apathy. It's not giving a damn. - Leo Buscaglia

I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference! - Jack Kerouac

Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. - James 4/17

Why

Why are their twelve months? Why not two big months? Or 52 small ones? Why weeks for that matter?

What about 24 hour days?

Why can't man rebel against the scorch of the sun and the cool of the moon, and live in a rebellious 33 hour day? I could use the extra hours... Then we go to work at night sometimes, and at day sometimes. We see the sunrise more often. There is no such thing as an overnight job really, because some of the time it would be during the.

We will ever be dictated by Gods hand; by the seasons, the sun, and the moon. By 24 hour body cycles. It is the way the designer created us. It could not be random.