2007 NEMEROV AWARDED TO......

Michael Juster
for the third time!! Way to go, Michael.

Interestingly enough, I met Mike for the first time last Sunday. We had dinner together, along with Leesburg poet Claudia Gary Annis and her son.

Michael is a delightful man as well as a wonderful poet and the thrice-earned honor is well-deserved.

After dinner, the four of us went next door to Iota, in Arlington, Va., where Wordworks holds monthly poetry readings on the second Sunday of each month which are followed by an open mic period.

The readings are run by Miles David Moore and I highly recommmend the time and place to anyone in the area who's at all interested in poetry. There was a fair-sized crowd present, all of them friendly and polite, and the poetry was well-performed and equally well-received. Most of it was free verse, but a few people did get up and read some strictly formal verse and those poems were welcomed every bit as warmly as their unmetered and less constrained cousins were.

I even read!! Egged on by Michael and Claudia I somehow agreed to let Claudia list me for the open mic. It's an experience I plan to never repeat, but I am glad I did it the once. It gives new meaning to the words "grace" and "courage" - and it was a fairly safe way for me to discover that I am sadly lacking in both qualities.

In other words, I was scared to death and it showed. My legs shook, my arms shook, my hands shook, and worse of all, my voice shook. Badly. Very Badly.

I'll leave the "spoken word" to others from now on and be content to simply write the stuff without attempting to inflict it on others while confined to an enclosed space.

Without a doubt, though, I'll go back to listen.

Next month, February 10th, at 6PM. Be there!!

There's Only This

revision
There’s Only This

There is no graceful end in sight,
no peaceful dimming of the light;
no hand to hold; no gentle kiss
upon your brow. There's only this -
your own reflection in the night.

When fragile flesh and fear collide
and faith alone fails to ignite
a vision of eternal bliss,
there is no grace

your God can grant - no blessing bright
or beautiful. No spirit, sprite
or saviour shall appear. One hiss
of breath is all that still exists.
The end is ice. Cold. Bitter. White.
There is no grace.

Remember....

The girl of your dreams



















is almost always some other guy's nightmare.























Damn - and I thought the stripper next door and I knew how to apply makeup!!

Poor Ex-Miss Arizona contestant. Poor ex-Miss Arizona' Contestant's ex-boyfiend.

Remember....

Jesus Camp

I've been home sick for the last week which means my days and nights have been turned around. I sleep half the day and watch television half the night.

Somewhere around 2AM I was watching A&E and ran across Jesus Camp which I proceed to watch in it's entirety:

In spite of the fact that the camp itself has since been shut down, I'm feeling even sicker now. My reason is simple - why would anyone, Christian or otherwise, willfully cause a small child to cry?

Jesus Camp Trailer

God Bless the Child

That's Got His Own.

Huckabee Reinterprets The Bible - What'll He Do To The Constitution?

Presidential wanna-be (and former minister,) Mike Huckabee, really needs to get his facts straight. If a Chrisitan candidate feels free to reinterpret and rearrange his church's bible, then God only knows what he'd be willing to do to his county's constitution.

According to CNN Huckabee recently gave a 30-minute sermon to the nearly full 5,500-seat auditorium at Cornerstone Church which focused on the Christmas story, which he said was the "remarkable story of an unwed teenage mother."

Excuse me, Mike, but check out the defination of "unwed mother" and then check out
Matthew 1:20-25

20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife
25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her a firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.

Where I come from, a girl is not quite an "unwed" mother if she's someone's wife.

I just love the way people rearrange stories sometimes.

Must be a Republican thing, yes?

One Old Christmas Story, One New Christmas Poem

Behold the season's
greatest joy.
A small green tree
and a red-cheeked boy.





The Gift of the Magi O. Henry Coming Home Jim Hayes

Pinsky Goes Public

Interesting "question and answer" discussion with former Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky.

I especially like the part where he mentions C. Dale Young and Alicia Stallings. I don't know why, but I do. Maybe it's because I know Alicia through Eratosphere, West Chester and Formalista, and because I read C. Dale's blog often enough to feel downright chummy with him in a strictly-internet-sort-of-way.

Anyhow, it's a good read and you'd do well to check it out.

The Terrible Truth About Monday Night Football

Let the truth be told but gently, darling, gently.

Dan and the Annual Swift Contest

Arghhh....Dan made the semi-finals for this year's Swift contest, but not the short-list. What's with those people??? It was really really good!!

Anyhow, you can read it here if you're interested. There's no names posted because it's a blind contest but now that he's out of the running, I think it's ok to acknowledge it. I don't know how it didn't make the final cut - I think it's brilliant.

Sean Taylor and the Quest for Appropriate Punishment

Four Arrested in Death of Sean Taylor

I'm glad they caught these guys. I'm glad one of them has already confessed. I hope they're punished appropriately. (I realize "appropriately" means different things to different people but I don't want to re-start the always ugly disagreement that Dan and I have over the death penalty.)

I do have a few small questions, however, and I hope some really smart prosecuting attorney questions the same things.

1) Why, if the 4 would-be burglars planned this home invasion around the premise that Sean Taylor was going to be away at the time they entered his home, did they carry a gun?

2) Did they think they had pre-knowledge that Jackie, his girlfriend, and Jackie, his daughter, were also going to be out of town playing in a football game? Because if not, then they already knew there was a better than average chance that someone, although maybe not Sean, was going to be home sleeping. That makes it even more sinister, in my humble opinion. Who breaks into a home knowing that only a young woman and a small child are going to be there?

3) Why, if their only intention was burglary, did they not leave the house immediately when they heard the bedroom door being locked? Obviously if a person is locking himself in he has no intention of coming back out. They'd have had more than enough time to make an escape before the police department was notified and on the way if they'd left as soon as they heard a noise and realized someone was home instead of continuing on their merry thieving way. Not only did they not try to beat feet and leave, they went to the opposite extreme, kicking in the bedroom door and firing two shots directly at Mr. Taylor. I don't know about you, but this does not sound like a bunch of kids out to do nothing more than steal a few valuables.

And finally:

4) If this story is to be believed, at least two of the suspects had personal ties to Sean Taylor. Apparently Sean's sister dates (or has dated) a cousin of one of the suspects and he's been to at least one party at Sean's home and another of the suspects cuts Taylor's lawn and does other odd chores around the house for him. Having that sort of working-relationship with the owner of a house means that, at the very least, the would-be burglar could have, without attracting much suspicion, called the house with some bullshit story about wanting to come 'round and cut lawn, pick up sticks, dig up dirt or whatever it is handy-men are hired to do. Why wasn't that easily accomplished and not-hard-to-figure-out phone call made before the "nobody home, let's rob the place" plans were implemented and carried out? How many brain cells would making that one small, confirming phone call have taken?

And lastly, why - why would you bite the very hand that feeds you unless, of course, it really was personal?

As a recently married, middle-aged mother of grown children with a nice safe cushy job who's living in an upscale suburb of Washington D.C., I'm turning pretty mellow nowadays. I'm also a fairly recent convert to the idea of strict gun control, and like all fairly recent coverts to anything, I'm pretty gung-ho over the idea. However, I gotta be honest, the South-Side Chicago Ghetto-Child who still resides inside of me understands that the outcome of this whole thing most likely would have been entirely different had Sean Taylor kept a loaded shotgun instead of a shiny machete hidden under his bed.

But that's blood-lust and spectulation. Justice after-the-fact and appropriate punishment is all that's really left.

I have a son exactly the same age as Sean and a grandson just a wee bit older than Sean's baby, Jackie. I'm not talking street justice here, I'm talking mother justice, and I know exactly what sort of justice this particular mother finds sufficient.

Baby-Love

Visiting the Local Animal Shelter

I am off (in spite of Dan's vigerous protests) to visit the Alexandria Animal Shelter in order to check out Kady the Jack Russell/Pug and Peaches, the Senegal Parrot. They are both approximately one year old and I think either one (or both) would make a good addition to our little "family."






Don't you agree?

FREE RICE

Very fun word game here - and it feeds people. It doesn't get any better than this, does it?

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Why It's Sometimes Good to Be A Woman in America

Someone is beating and raping women in my immediate neighborhood. The first three assaults took place right outside my front door. There are warning notices plastered all over the inside of my condo building and the same print-outs are prominantly displayed on the walls of my office building down the street. The police are becoming more and more visable, especially early in the day when I leave for work. The word is out there and the entire community is rightously and rightfully outraged at these attacks on it's female citizens.

Springfield, Alexandria Masked Assaults Analyzed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A woman walking in the Springfield area of Fairfax County was sexually assaulted early Wednesday, and police are investigating whether the attack is linked to three recent similar incidents in Alexandria.

All four episodes occurred before dawn by a man with the same general description, Fairfax Officer Eddy J. Azcarate said. In Springfield, an 18-year-old woman walking in the 6900 block of Industrial Road about 5:45 a.m. was approached from behind, forced to a remote area and assaulted by a man in a black ski mask, police said.

In Alexandria, women walking alone between 5 and 6 a.m. were dragged off sidewalks and assaulted Aug. 31, Nov. 5 and Nov. 9. Detectives from Fairfax and Alexandria met yesterday to compare the cases, Azcarate said. The assailant in the most recent incident was described as being 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10, with an average build, wearing a black ski mask, a black nylon jacket and bluejeans. The assailant in the second and third Alexandria attacks also wore a ski mask, Alexandria police said.

Quite a different scene than this one that's playing out in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Court Ups Punishment for Gang-Rape Victim

(CNN) -- A court in Saudi Arabia increased the punishment for a gang-rape victim after her lawyer won an appeal of the sentence for the rapists, the lawyer told CNN.

The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.

The victim's attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists' sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.

"After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants," al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. "However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim's sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes."

The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.


As if that weren't enough punishment meted out - her lawyer's had his license to practice law revoked for even taking her case in the first place.


Don't worry, though, The United States is on top of things - or are they?

Read the article and you'll understand why we, as a country, really ought to be a lot more careful about whom we get into bed with.

HATE TO WAIT??

This is marvelously helpful for those of you who hate wasting valuable time and cell phone minutes trying to get past the goddam automated telephone prompts and talk to a real live breathing thinking human being.

www.gethuman.com

God bless whoever had the time and patience to put this all together in one handy-dandy easy to navigate website.

Literary-Cat

So, does anyone know how to spell "tuna?"