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MY PERSONAL REVENGE
Tomás Borge and Louis Enrique Mejia Godoy
(English Translation by Jorge Calderon)
My personal revenge will be the right
Of our children in the schools and in the gardens
My personal revenge will be to give you
This song which has flourished without panic
My personal revenge will be to show you
The kindness in the eyes of my people
Who have always fought relentlessly in battle
And been generous and firm in victory
My personal revenge will be to tell you good morning
On a street without beggars or homeless
When instead of jailing you I suggest
You shake away the sadness there that blinds you
And when you who have applied your hands in torture
Are unable to look up at what surrounds you
My personal revenge will be to give you
These hands that once you so mistreated
But have failed to take away their tenderness
It was the people who hated you the most
When rage became the language of their song
And underneath the skin of this town today
Its heart has been scarred forevermore
It was the people who hated you the most
When rage became the language of their song
And underneath the skin of this town today
Its heart has been scarred forevermore
And underneath the skin of this town today
Red and black, its heart's been scarred
Forevermore
Man Shot in Downtown Bowling Green
BOWLING GREEN -- A Bowling Green man is in police custody. He's accused of shooting another man in downtown BG.
Shots rang out in this typically quiet community early this morning near the intersection of Wooster and Prospect Streets. Police say 22-year-old Brian Steen shot 20-year-old Matthew Llanas twice in the legs. Llanas was air-lifted to St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries. Police say a second man was not wounded, but did have a bullet go through his shirt.
[...]
"I heard it on the news this morning. I think it's kinda scary, because things like that don't happen in Bowling Green," said one resident Theresa Boggs.
"I think it's kinda freaky. I mean you really don't expect that to happen. It's mostly why you come to school someplace like this is to stay away from the big city and guns and things and stuff," said another resident Caleb Woods.
Officials: Dead Woman Had Up to 40 Drinks
FORT COLLINS, Colo. - A 19-year-old college student drank up to 40 beers and shots of liquor in an 11-hour period before she was found dead in a fraternity house, investigators said Friday.
Samantha Spady had a blood-alcohol level of 0.436 percent — above the 0.4 percent considered potentially deadly — when her body was found Sept. 6 at the Sigma Pi fraternity house at Colorado State University, Deputy Coroner Dean Beers said.
Spady drank the equivalent of 30 to 40 12-ounce beers or 1-ounce shots of liquor, Beers said, but her death was ruled an accident and there was no evidence of foul play. Spady was found fully clothed, and her body had not been moved.
Spady began drinking with companions at 6 p.m. on Sept. 5 and did not stop until about 5 a.m. the next day. Investigators said Spady and her friends started with beer but later switched to vodka.
Spady's body was found in a lounge of the fraternity house by a fraternity member giving a tour the evening of Sept. 6. Beers said Spady probably died about midmorning that day.
"This just doesn't seem like her at all," Tatro said. "Sam, she was a smart girl. If you knew her at all through high school, she wasn't getting in trouble. She wasn't out doing stupid things. She was an all-around nice girl. This was out of character."
Bruhn added, "She was the one who knew when to go home when she knew she'd had too much (to drink)."
Japanese Baseball On First Strike
Japanese professional baseball players have gone on strike for the first time since the game was introduced from the US 70 years ago.
The action was called over the players' demand that the league suspend a merger between two clubs, Orix Bluewave and Kintetsu Buffaloes.
Such a merger could cause job losses, but the clubs' owners say it is the only way to keep the teams in business.
Today, I took a look at the letters to the editor for the last week or so and was struck almost dumb by a few of them.
Soldiers' job is to defend their countryReading the Sept. 10 editorial, "A lethal milestone," about the 1,000 military deaths in Iraq, reminds me of something that I have not seen nor heard in the media.
Not to minimize these soldiers' deaths or take away the horror of any war, I wonder why these men signed the papers to serve and protect their country?
My time in service (1953-1961) was a period when all men of 18 were eligible for the draft and had to register. There is no draft today. It is strictly voluntary.
Were none of these men aware that there could come a time when they would be asked to defend and fight, even to the death?
Perhaps we should all wait until this country is invaded and then commence our battles (9/11 comes to mind). This could take us back to the time frame of the Revolution when the battles were fought here.
Would it not be more productive to salute these brave men on a continuing basis rather than make every statement sound as if they died in vain?
Bill Scantlen
Whitehouse, Ohio
No, let's not minimize their deaths, Bill... they signed the papers -- that relieves the Bush administration of any responsibility!
Paraphrasing what Michael Moore so eloquently states at the end of Fahrenheit 9/11, those who sign up to "serve and protect" this country do so with the understanding that they will not be placed in harm's way unless absolutely necessary.
Considering that (as Bush has admitted) Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of September 11, 2001, and considering that Saddam Hussein made eleventh-hour overtures to the United States hoping to stave off the imminent attack, I would say that this war was -- to say the least -- not necessary.
Reading on...
To show Abu Ghraib photos is treasonI'm going to guess that Richard is a regular Rush Limbaugh listener since what happened in Abu Ghraib was merely "undress[ing] a few terrorists."I find it amazing that we have a commission investigating the Abu Ghraib prison "abuses." We're talking about people there who want to kill all Americans. You say the American people and the world are "shocked." What would be shocking is if our prison guards were using rubber hoses, cutting off fingers, and threatening to cut off heads like the terrorists did. How you can blame Donald Rumsfeld for Abu Ghraib is a mystery to me.
There are billboards in Florida that state "We Bare All. Couples Welcome." That doesn't seem to shock anyone. We have New Yorkers undressing in the streets as some sort of protest. That isn't shocking. We have strip clubs all over Toledo - the entire country - and that isn't shocking. We abort the unborn, and half of America doesn't care. Turn on your TV, and much of that is filth. All of the premium channels are filthy, and that isn't shocking. It must be all right: We have people paying to see it.
If I used the filthy language that is seen in many movies, you wouldn't print this letter, although I don't believe that it would shock many of your readers. But somehow some Americans find it shocking to undress a few terrorists. And call it abusive. Get real.
What is shocking is that the media published all of those pictures for the world to see. They are the ones who are responsible for giving this information to the radical Islamists to use, as you say, "as vivid recruiting tools for terrorism." That's where the treason lies.
Richard H. Baxter, Sr.
Temperance, Michigan
Clearly, the Bush administration has been successful in equating Iraqis with terrorism. Clearly, the Bush administration has been successful in making the Iraqi people appear to be nothing more than a murderous, anti-American horde.
And finally...
Stumbling on words means unfitness?To paraphrase Matt:Many people are dismissing George W. Bush's competency because once in a while he stumbles over his words, something he openly admits. People then look to John Kerry, tall of stature and tremendous in his ability to speak in public.
Flash back to the 1930s. Would we have been so quick to dismiss Franklin D. Roosevelt as a viable president had we known he couldn't stand up?
By the way, during that time a man in Germany quickly rose to power because he was a great public speaker and said what everyone wanted to hear.
Matt Sussman
Bowling Green, Ohio
Be wary of intelligent people who are capable of articulating their thoughts and ideas for they surely are holocaust inciters-in-waiting.
"I started taking these photographs because I wasn't seeing any images of wounded soldiers. I kept hearing reports on radio, television — three wounded today, four wounded today — but I was never seeing any images, and I wanted to go out and discover, see who these people were, what happened to them and what their life is like now.
"I'm not sure why they are forgotten. There are so many of them — right now there are over 7000 from hostile fire, and many more thousand wounded from accidents, psychological trauma, sickness. I focused on the wounded, because they have stories they can tell. You can see war's effects through them.
"The soldiers all really wanted to participate in the project. They want their stories told, they want to be out there.
"So many of them are so young — I'm talking 19-years-old, 20, 21-years-old. This is not a temporary thing. This is something they will live with the rest of their lives, and people should really get a sense of what war does.
"The injuries are shocking. It's not just a simple bullet wound to the arm. These are injuries like brain damage, amputees, blindness, massive internal injuries — lifelong injuries that soldiers will never recover from.
"The pictures — there is a loneliness that comes through all the pictures, and I think soldiers are very reluctant to express any vulnerability or loneliness, but somehow the camera captures this."
self evident [listen]
yes,
us people are just poems
we're 90% metaphor
with a leanness of meaning
approaching hyper-distillation
and once upon a time
we were moonshine
rushing down the throat of a giraffe
yes, rushing down the long hallway
despite what the p.a. announcement says
yes, rushing down the long stairs
with the whiskey of eternity
fermented and distilled
to eighteen minutes
burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there
yes, it's part of a pair
there on the bow of noah's ark
the most prestigious couple
just kickin back parked
against a perfectly blue sky
on a morning beatific
in its indian summer breeze
on the day that america
fell to its knees
after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you
or please
and the shock was subsonic
and the smoke was deafening
between the setup and the punch line
cuz we were all on time for work that day
we all boarded that plane for to fly
and then while the fires were raging
we all climbed up on the windowsill
and then we all held hands
and jumped into the sky
and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar
looked more like war than anything i've seen so far
so far
so far
so fierce and ingenious
a poetic specter so far gone
that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling
over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on
and i'll tell you what, while we're at it
you can keep the pentagon
keep the propaganda
keep each and every tv
that's been trying to convince me
to participate
in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution
perpetuate retribution
even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution
is still hanging in the air
and there's ash on our shoes
and there's ash in our hair
and there's a fine silt on every mantle
from hell's kitchen to brooklyn
and the streets are full of stories
sudden twists and near misses
and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters
with tales of narrowly averted disasters
and the whiskey is flowin
like never before
as all over the country
folks just shake their heads
and pour
so here's a toast to all the folks who live in palestine
afghanistan
iraq
el salvador
here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore
here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors
who daily provide women with a choice
who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city
just to listen to a young woman's voice
here's a toast to all the folks on death row right now
awaiting the executioner's guillotine
who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads
to find peace in the form of a dream
cuz take away our playstations
and we are a third world nation
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son
who stole the oval office and that phony election
i mean
it don't take a weatherman
to look around and see the weather
jeb said he'd deliver florida, folks
and boy did he ever
and we hold these truths to be self evident:
#1 george w. bush is not president
#2 america is not a true democracy
#3 the media is not fooling me
cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
i've got no room for a lie so verbose
i'm looking out over my whole human family
and i'm raising my glass in a toast
here's to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
and find that train ticket we lost
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
and peeked into all the backyards
and the laundry was waving
the graffiti was teasing us
from brick walls and bridges
we were rolling over ridges
through valleys
under stars
i dream of touring like duke ellington
in my own railroad car
i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face
give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll
yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
so it's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
and clear the air
get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
of someone else's desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever
cuz when one lone phone rang
in two thousand and one
at ten after nine
on nine one one
which is the number we all called
when that lone phone rang right off the wall
right off our desk and down the long hall
down the long stairs
in a building so tall
that the whole world turned
just to watch it fall
and while we're at it
remember the first time around?
the bomb?
the ryder truck?
the parking garage?
the princess that didn't even feel the pea?
remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?
can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design
following a fantastical reversal of the new york skyline?!
it was a joke, of course
it was a joke
at the time
and that was just a few years ago
so let the record show
that the FBI was all over that case
that the plot was obvious and in everybody's face
and scoping that scene
religiously
the CIA
or is it KGB?
committing countless crimes against humanity
with this kind of eventuality
as its excuse
for abuse after expensive abuse
and it didn't have a clue
look, another window to see through
way up here
on the 104th floor
look
another key
another door
10% literal
90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people
on an almost too perfect day
should be more than pawns
in some asshole's passion play
so now it's your job
and it's my job
to make it that way
to make sure they didn't die in vain
sshhhhhh....
baby listen
hear the train?
9/12/2001
Yesterday, almost an hour after it occurred, I heard about the airplane attack on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. I had been reading The Red Tent most of the morning and for some reason had decided not to turn on my radio at 9AM for the replay of NPR's Morning Edition's second hour. I looked at the clock just a couple of minutes before 9:00 and had thought about it. "Nah," I thought. "I'll keep reading."
After hearing the news, I was also told that there was a TV on in one of the vacant offices. As I came into the room I was told that one of the towers had just fallen. I could hardly imagine the number of people who were instantly, suddenly dead. The thought that came to me -- and which I spoke out loud -- was, "and to imagine that someone is celebrating this!"
I turned and walked out.
Without a shred of real evidence, I immediately came to the conclusion that Osama bin Laden was the instigator of all this, but in thinking more and more about it as the day wore on, I had become less and less concerned with who was responsible for these catastrophic, heinous events.
My attention turned to the whys of the event. I thought about all the proclamations of our government officials of how this was such a horrific attack on innocent people... then I thought about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I thought about how we pay lip service to peace in the Middle East and around the world, then do nothing about it when we have the chance. I thought about all the people dead and dying on the streets and rubble of New York -- that they were victims of our foreign policy; victims of our corporate greed.
I thought about our lame-brained president uttering his by-the-book castigation of the villains of this crime: "Cowards" he called them; then I thought about how much of a coward he is for not pursuing peace in the Middle East; for not having a spine when it comes to promoting environmental issues; for not being anywhere near concerned for the thousands of people that die every day in this country as a result (either directly or indirectly) of the policies of our corporate-run government.
I thought of all the mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and sons and daughters who will never make it home or who are waiting at home for someone who will never return.
Last night, I watched "our president" quote from his Bible, from Psalms. I watched as our elected representatives -- instead of taking action towards affecting a real peace in this world -- sang "God Bless America" for the TV cameras.
I am appalled at our short-sightedness with regard to our planned or anticipated actions against those who devised this mass murder. Even friends I have spoken with agree with the "need" to extinguish those at the heart of the terrorism.
Perhaps I'm hopelessly pacifistic, but until we turn our attention to the reasons these terrorists have unleashed their hatred as they have, we will continuously, foolishly chase our tails.
From the moment our first retaliatory missile or bomb or bullet flies, we will continue to be perceived as scurrilous murderers by those who already see us, the United States, as the devil incarnate.
The only way to combat the hatred is to show we are not worthy of it. I have no doubt that our violent knee-jerk reaction will breed more sensless murders. The children of these terrorists will murder our children -- if our children live through Bush's war.
Significantly, it showed the unit joined a "24-hour active alert mission to safeguard against surprise attack" in the southern United States beginning on Oct. 6, 1972, a time when Bush did not report for duty, according to his pay records.
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Flip a penny, reverse the Curse
Sox vendors say 1918 coin is talisman
By Paysha Stockton, Globe Correspondent
September 6, 2004
Could the Curse finally be broken?
Joseph Coen, a 28-year-old beer seller at Fenway Park, believes it is.
Coen and John Redding, a fellow brewmeister, received what they interpret as an irrefutable sign yesterday, just before the Red Sox took on the Texas Rangers: a 1918 penny stuck to the counter of their Heineken and Miller beer stand.
They don't know who planted the coin, alongside a few others, in a patch of sticky beer on the counter of the right field concourse stand.
But its meaning is undeniable, they say: Every fan knows 1918 was the last year the Sox won the World Series, the year before George Herman ''Babe" Ruth was sold to the evil Yankees, reputedly unleashing the legendary Curse of the Bambino.
''Everyone gets it," said Coen of the penny's significance.
The good-luck penny is now taped to the stand's beer fridge, where the men plan to display it for the rest of the season. ''If you're a Red Sox fan and you've been around for this long, you get it."
In fact, the penny is the latest in a series of encouraging signs, said Coen, of Milton. ''It goes around with the other crazy stuff that was going on this year."
The Sox have won 81 games this season and lost 54. With 27 left to play, they're leading the wild-card race, and winning it would take them to the American League playoffs. Yesterday they beat the Texas Rangers, 6-5.
Rumors, superstition, and unbridled hope abound amongst vendors and fans at the park, Coen said. And signals that the team's sixth World Series win could be imminent just keep coming.
For example, Gabe Kapler and Johnny Damon sometimes stand together in the outfield, Coen said. Their numbers: 19 and 18.
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