Howard Zinn 1922 ~ 2010

Artwork courtesy of Rose and Isabel

“Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,
can transform the world.”

J.D. Salinger 1919 - 2010

“An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.”

Side Door Unhinged

"A prominent upper lip is a sign of power and confidence" ~ Jonathan Bartlett

When they let the light in Iskandor found that she could see behind the faces of the surrounding crowd of technicians.
Unsurprised she proceeded to explain to them exactly what it was that made them so who they were.
She watched as they processed her words; dispersing with expressions of discomfort.
“You are an Empath” said the doctor, smiling, and Iskandor felt his pity and Iskandor felt his pride but she could not find a place to process that information.

When they let the light in Iskandor found herself unable to view her own hinterland; as if her outward attention were a current that allowed nothing to flow in the opposite direction.
When left alone on the white room she lost all sense of the world, hearing only the echoes of the doctor’s life; his hopes and dreams.
In her mind she could see the glass jar that sat on the doctor’s desk. She did not find this to be strange, even though her body had never left the white room.
The glass jar contained her until the doctor returned.

In the white room the doctor asked Iskandor if she could remember what she was.
Iskandor observed that the constant feeling of disappointment experienced by the doctor stemmed not, as the doctor so firmly believed, from the incompetence of others, but rather from the doctor’s own inability to accept, and act upon, criticism.

Alone in the white room Iskandor found that the glass jar on the doctor’s desk contained a small, self contained world; a world held in a delicate balance of plant life, light, decay and moisture.
Iskandor rested there, for in this perfect world there was no noise; no people; no ambition but the need to survive.

In the white room the doctor told Iskandor that she was a very special person and that her powers, with the doctor’s guidance, would change the world.
Iskandor observed that the doctor’s ambitions were not, as he believed, guided by altruism, but rather fuelled by the arrogance of one who believes that he can change the world.

Alone in the white room Iskandor noticed that the glass jar reflected light from a full moon. Unable to resist she was drawn up on the rays of silver light and found herself in a hush and calm more profound that that contained within the glass jar; a place where not even the air could touch her.
The moon spoke of isolation and subservience to unfathomable laws.
The moon called her “Sister”

In the white room Iskandor told the silent doctor that the reason he, the doctor, was unable to achieve his desires was his obstinant belief that he could define the world around him with words and that he could twist and shape those words to fit his own view of the world.

When they took the light away Iskandor had passed beyond the realm of light; she had taken advice from the planets; she had argued with the sun; she had answered questions posed by collapsing stars and infinite expanding universes; she had become.

Pond Life

Takashi Murakami

Looking up at plankton dust filtered
Through the gills of the moon’s sting rays
The algae asks:
“What you gonna do with these dreams?”
While the hooks in my skin
Barbed and unbaited
Conspire with the ice, (a true glass ceiling)
To hold me fast in a watery stasis

In Celebration of a Dystopian Melodrama

Self-congratulatory political bodies with interchangeable heads
Cheap voodoo photography, white washed, frames the dead
Voices bray the virtue of their charity; the piety of their gifts
While down below victims breathe sand and choke upon their need

The great black weight of guilt a pixel shadow lays
Across the platitudinous waves of media bullshit
That washes pornographic images in the misery of others
While words so razor thin leave no mark upon the world

These piles of rubble are now manifestations
Of centuries of punishment by the empires of greed
On those who had the gall
To demand freedom from slavery

Mark Steel: Consider the risks before you send your cash to Haiti

Satan's terms and conditions must have got worse in recent times. America's most prominent TV evangelist, Pat Robertson, announced that the Haiti earthquake was a result of a "pact with the Devil", made when they overthrew slavery 200 years ago. But in the old days a pact with the Devil brought you a life of fame and riches and earthly pleasures. Now you get a few years of life in the world's poorest country and then buried under a pile of rubble.

Maybe the Devil will issue a statement soon, that "due to difficulties arising from the current economic climate, I have found it necessary to temporarily restrict certain privileges to my valuable customers. But you can be certain I will endeavour to maintain my usual high standard of evil, and look forward to satisfying more gluttony than ever once it is financially responsible to do so."

At least Robertson claims a spiritual logic for his sociopathic judgement. Whereas TV presenter Rush Limbaugh complained about the aid effort, saying, "We've already donated to Haiti. It's called income tax." That's the trouble. It's just take take take with some people isn't it?

Or there's the Heritage Foundation, an influential group among American politicians, which declared that "the earthquake offers an opportunity to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy."

That's the aid they need, a hand-up not a hand-out. Because it takes a functional economist to see a disaster zone and think, "That's handy." If only the Heritage Foundation could get people out there to rummage through the wreckage searching for survivors, so they could call into an air pocket, "I could rescue you, but that would only make you dependent. So come up with a business plan, young fellow, and in years to come you'll thank me for this. Ta-ra."

To start with you'd think if the Haiti government had their wits about them they'd realise there are a lot of reporters out there with very few provisions, so a couple of branches of Costa Coffee would make a healthy return. But no, they're too dysfunctional to organise it.

The most worrying part of this craziness is it isn't far off the official US strategy. The International Monetary Fund has extended $100m in loans to Haiti for the disaster, and according to The Nation magazine, "These loans came with conditions, including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public employees except those making minimum wage, and keeping inflation low." I suppose the idea is not to make things even worse. Give them more than the minimum wage and then you'd have binge-drinking to worry about as well.

This deal was probably arranged by the bank ringing Haiti's government and saying "Hello is that the Prime Minister? It's Miriam here from the IMF. I'd like a few moments to talk to you about your account, only I notice from our records that you've had a tectonic catastrophe so you'll need to revise your payments."

Several aid organisations have complained about the role the American government is playing. For example, a spokesman from the World Food Programme said: "They organise 200 flights a day, but most are for the US military. Their priority is to secure the country." This may be why Bill Clinton was able to tell business leaders that this is an ideal time to invest in the country, because, "the political risk in Haiti is lower than it has ever been in my lifetime." Who can honestly say they don't consider the political risk before handing out money to a disaster zone? All of us wonder, as we make our donation, whether we'll get our 50 quid back, with a bit of profit for our trouble, otherwise we're being fools to ourselves.

But Clinton had a point. Because at one point Haiti was ruled by President Aristide, who refused to implement all the IMF's demands for privatisation and keeping wages to a minimum. So the US government backed a coup that overthrew him, exiled him and banned his political party, making the place much less risky for business.

This might explain why the American forces are being treated with suspicion, as their priority may not be to provide aid, but to "secure the country." This could also explain the statement by Robert Gates, US defence secretary, who said he couldn't use transport planes to drop supplies in Port-au-Prince as "air drops will simply lead to riots."

Maybe someone should consult an expert on theology, but I'd say there's a chance that if the Devil's still doing pacts, there'll be something way off the Richter scale soon passing right under Wall Street.

Soloista!

Nobody knows you at the centre of the crowd
Your tattooed fingerprints
The weapons in your head
You can walk through this city an invisible man
Without touching another mind
Behind masks of brittle iron
You carry all your collected dreams autumn blue
In pockets winter deep
Coiled for the spring
And your footsteps scuff flint against incendiary stone
To light the fuse
For summer's expansion

Babel

Tame ~ Frederico Bebber

It was when he’d stopped listening to the music that she realised just how far he’d fallen. His eyes had lost their focus on the room and he’d stared straight through her increasingly desperate conversation.
She’d been propping him up for months without knowing it (not consciously anyway); negating his negatives with her own brand of optimism; a trait evolved as a daughter of defeated socialist revolutionaries from a time when positive change seemed possible.
When, some days previous, the feathers had first appeared in the entangled morning bed she had assumed that they’d escaped from the pillows, but that morning they had been too large and too complex for her to feel anything else than some part of her reality had been broken; torn to allow the night in.
The feathers were silvery, brittle, warm to touch and, when viewed up close, their edges had fractal-ed out, drawing her mind deeper and deeper into a spiral of complex and unpronounceable understanding until she’d had to tear her eyes away for fear of falling - forever.
He’d stopped speaking when she asked about the feathers; never uttered another word, just given her that wounded look that she’d come to hate over the years.
He’d sat down on the couch with the music playing load, his shoulders hunched, staring at the hands in his lap as if they were an opened book that promised to stitch together all of the broken thoughts that had haunted him since as far back as she could remember.
His isolation had been impenetrable; she’d sat beside him for hours, pretending that nothing was wrong; talking and talking; changing the music in an attempt to shake some response out of him.
Then he had lost focus on the room; on the music and on the person who’d shared more that half his life. He’d removed his shirt as if it were some alien and distasteful deposit on his body, exposing as he did so the mottled silver skin on his back.
Looking back on that day she still can’t remember committing the act that had left her crouched on his chest with that silvery liquid warm on her hands and his newly-formed wing crushed beneath the weight of both their bodies.
She runs the day through her mind, over and over, but she cannot find flaw in the sequence of events as she remembers it.
The medication that they pump through her brain changes nothing – it happened just like that.

Bell Jar

The watcher holds his orbit tight
Spins up there in meat satellite
Cables snap to drag the clouds
Curtains drench the numbing crowds

He takes my blood my budding horns
Says there’s is no beauty in a rose without thorns
And the ghosts that flee his haunted look
Pass through walls of unread books

Cradling Cats he calls the night
Presumes himself neither wrong nor right
While fashioning hooks to end these lines
With knives and spoons and bent fork tines

New Year