Passions, emotions, dreams,

such poignancies

so easy to find

life dispersed like God to bear

i take i drink i feel for all

my heart adhered to love

like a thief it steals resolve

the task subdued

as even occupiers brood

protests dull in mood

laws and actions null

bought and sold to siphon off and scold

what art adrift

a lonely solace in spare grace

corroding angst cathartic sleep

what will demand my sorrows’ need

and rage against the time unspent

The human heart

it holds you on your sleeve

dripping slowly warmth

an eternal pulse indeed

a comfort healing mind

at ease such love a soothing power

and grace unfurled through pores divine

what gentle streaming passion

no want would dare to bear

timeless in its grasp

undone without

yet whole within

to see and feel the meaning of our lives

touched by the sentiment of love

how i want to keep it

smother it all over my face

always seeping essence dear and sweet

what warning signs tell of its loss

and delicate sway our longings bare

oh plight of will be gone

fair tidings drilled with angst

never to be sour or dull

what image holds my knowing

a selfless lodging in my throat

as mighty words indeed caress

oh savior’s blood my tears

each day the forward fight

and onward still my love

Media Malpractice

Rachel Maddow is one of the most important anchors in the news business. Her show is essentially insightful painstakingly investigative and does a great service to the American people. She is a watch dog and one of the nation’s greatest champions raking up the muck scattered throughout Washington and the GOP, but her latest commercial points to a dangerous precedence in news media today. Standing before the Hoover Dam Maddow says the fight we are having is between austerity and stimulus. This is exactly what the Fed and Wall Street want us all to debate. The issue has been stolen. Even stalwart liberals continue to stake their ground pushing for a return to reasonable tax rates and further stimulus, as the politically motivated budget battle continues and the focus remains on taxes verses austerity. The truth is the wealthy aren’t worried about higher taxes or even closing loop holes. It’s a distraction. A smoke screen for what they are actually worried about and that’s structural change.

The greatest failure of the news media even among those that are talking about structural change like Dylan Ratigan, Cornel West, Matt Taibbi, James Lieber, Mike Malloy, John Tolbott and, truthdig.org, just to name a few, is the lack of legislative simplification. It is abundantly clear that the driving factor of recession is based entirely on two fundamental laws that completely changed our economic structure. Make no mistake these laws changed our ideology with a drastic oligarchical revolution. That fact that most of you reading this cannot name these laws proves my point about the failure of news to inform us of their consequence. Even the very meek slight regulatory gains made by our bought and sold president acts as a damping of the pertinent task at hand; namely to reinstate Glass Steagall and to repeal the CFMA of 2000 (the commodities futures modernization Act). The reversals of these two drastic criminal changes are the main actions required to place our economic structure in order again, to in effect reestablish capitalism in the world. What we have now is a new world order based on a corporate communist structure controlled by the Fed and Wall Street.

Thinking back on what I have seen on the air since the awakening of 2008 three striking moments come to mind; one is the emergence of the Dylan Ratigan Show. He and West are our only big media saviors who day in and out repeat the need for structural change. Another was a day I happen to catch Morning Joe, when Ratigan was on and Eugene Robinson responded saying that the Obama administration had no interest in structural change with regard to Wall Street. And third, was on the day Chris Matthews asked a guest, I fail to remember who, if credit derivatives and or naked credit swaps should be banned. I was stunned he had asked the question finally and I waited with bated breath. The answer, “It is pivotal”. No follow up, no explanation, just, “it, is pivotal”. Meaning what? Too many people are going to lose money watching their hedge funds disappear? Or is it the Democratic Party that would disappear without the backing of the financial district?

Too many people don’t know that the Bill of Rights were not in the original constitution and in fact were added later as the first ten amendments because of an outcry from the people! It is this outcry that is once again needed to restore our capitalist structure. And it must be simplified into two clear demands. Banks can no longer be allowed to be investment firms ( as established in Glass Steagall) and credit derivatives can no longer be used to manufacture profit ( as created by the CFMA of 2000). As Maddow says, we must invest in America again. It’s a zero sum game and the very few are cashing in. We can’t afford to wait for another meltdown. So get out the big inserts and fly by nights bugs, with catchy tunes and for God sake get angry. I can’t wait to see Ratigan’s Lean Forward commercial calling on Americans to sign a petition.

A tight tug,

my chest

remembering when

clouds and pockets held the lord

my desires, now

like the rain,

a breath forever still…

Distorting excess be gone

Obama’s New Jobs Act

It sounds so great to heart and is seemingly inevitable as we approach the presidential election. The competition, whether Huntsman or Romney can break through the Looney tunes, will dictate how strong Obama’s comeback will become.

His rebuttable on health care, agreeing to let states decide, is already on paper to take down that tiger. What is left, no pun intended, is politically viable legislation on the jobs front. Obama should and must tie job creation to any tax increase with the announcement that any job creation whether from an individual or a firm can be met with tax reductions. Obama’s new Jobs Act can be that simple by raising taxes on all those making more than 200 thousand dollars a year unless they directly create new long term sustaining jobs. Although similar incentives already exist they are not tied to tax increases. Since it doesn’t seem politically viable to stop Wall Street and the banks from gambling and force them to invest in real assets we must make job creation the driving incentive. The government can grow claws and sharpen its teeth by regulating through taxation. This could eventually help end our deficit and the recession by weaning the global economy off of fantasy assets.

Meek’s Cutoff, the independent fact based film showing currently at the Film Forum in Manhattan, is an experience that draws you in from a rugged distance on a long journey of self discovery and instinct as we follow a small wagon train on the Oregon Trail, circa 1845.
Lost, desperate, and politically identifiable even in today’s modern climate of hostile conspiratorial plutocracy; the measured distance is perhaps too real, as the dialogue is several times too low and the cinematography though adequate and clever doesn’t do this new great American classic justice. I feel almost guilty to want vast color and more beauty but, as such is the symbolism wrought with nature and the heart of the earth beating with every look and stare, engrossing in its dust from a tree to the dessert. In this way director Kelly Reichardt makes the audience part of the experience. It is so immersing, that I almost walked away at the end incidentally without my bag, not to mention my opinion which I quickly changed upon further thought.
Our culture feeds us emotion like fried Twinkies to the point where we are banged on the head with morality, vanity and punditry forgetting the importance of the journey.
This daring original stage performance of a script is a minimalist masterpiece that takes us where we need to be. It should be treasured and even studied by school children. One can’t help but come away affected by the well drawn out lessons of trust, patience, and spirituality; not of a blind faith but from the clarity of the heart. The existentialists have finally made their peace with God here; Beckett and Camus be dammed! A heart must be earned and given.
This is not a film for someone who wants to be awed and entertained with grandiose landscapes, gratifying emotion or high pace action. It is a thinking man’s film with a lady hero leading the way as a moral rock. Michelle Williams, of Dawson’s Creek, was stellar. All the performances were excellent, their subtle distinctions, superb and worth the price of admission alone. The acting and the script coupled with its slow steady realism and symbolism is sheer poetry but don’t go run to see it, walk slowly there, in the rain.