click.

Simple Truth...

It's sad that rational dialogue has been largely discouraged in this country, more so when legitimate opposition (of which there is sadly a limited amount) is easily discredited as a bunch of quacks and conspiracy theorists...

Here's an excerpt of a recent Zblog post by Chomsky...

There are no “conspiracies,” and it has nothing to do with “brutal men.” True, individuals influence decisions, but within a very narrow framework of choices. And that framework very largely derives from the concentration of domestic power, not surprisingly. That does leave a range. Thus the people around Bush happen to be committed to an unusual extent to serving very narrow concentrations of wealth and power and transferring costs to the great majority of the population and to future generations. Looking at who they are, and where they come from, it’s not hard to understand their role at the extreme of a pretty narrow spectrum.

Here's something else worth looking at...

a poem

A family crossed the quad on a warm spring Sunday at UNC-CH: two boys, a mother, a father

A reflection:

I was once a toddler,

running, struggling to keep up,

my hand out stretched

reaching for the safety and assurance

of being led,

of slowing you down.

I grew.

At five, I ran,

charged ahead to find a world not

found by second-hand experience or

truth. I and my imagination were

Creator, Author:

I was God.

Then came physics and gravity

and experience and understood

insignificance, ignorance, and embarrassment…

I rejected

denied

escaped

embraced skepticism as

the most efficient destructive

tool,

until the scaffolding shook and

I was forced to cling

to something

or ____

So that now I feel dumb,

tormented by simplicity

—by that simplicity which we all always know—

tap-dancing

tip-of-the-tongue

elusive to that singular embrace which could end

this absurdity.

"set vel free," and "turn it blue..."

Today at noon in the pit (the one that Sonic Youth sang about), there was a rally in support of Ms Vel Dowdy, which culminated with the demonstrators marching through Lenoir Dining Hall, her former place of work. Many believe that Ms Dowdy's arrest is more so a tactic of intimidation, of which the University has a long history, in response to her activity with the formation of UE-150. Besides UNC's long history of workers' rights abuses, which arguably can be traced back to it's very founding, as seen by the White names that adorn buildings built by the sweat of Blacks (slaves and the poor freed), this case is further complicated by the fact that dining services are taken care of by contract with Aramark...who, simply put, suck when it comes to workers' rights (including collective bargaining and livable wages). Because Ms Dowdy is a beloved member of the UNC family (which excludes jackass bureaucrats and other worthless money stealing upper management-types...like the Board of Governors and such), students, both organized activists and individuals, are uniting with union activists to try and petition Aramark to drop their charges (which include embezzlement, for letting kids up to eat the shitty food of Lenoir without making them pay) and to reinstate her.

And in other news, UNC's men's basketball team is gearing up for a throw-down in St Louis, tonight...

strange times.

a moment of weakness

tiring,

this weight, this inheritance:

the blood soaking of conquerors and a million or more murders

and my hands are

oily slick with history and

the white-washed bleaching of

pledge allegiance to the corner

of the industrial classroom.

Straining with that burning want of

chaos and

a cigarette choked scream

of desiring to be the bomb—

she’s my hope for the future…

hope that something will come after us.

as she stands guard

in the beauty of nuclear glow

and irony

like falling stars and lightning bugs in july,

to keep june bugs buzzing and bumbling

they can’t seem to grasp the concept of

solid limits and boundaries…

though if I had the chance I’d probably

reveal myself to be that which I

am still a number in the system…

and I’ve spoken too much already.

like a self-serving raised and shaky fist,

a trite attempt to be something abstract.