Old Times (by Peter Marin)

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 31st, 2010 @ 04:33:47 pm , using 159 words
Category: Poetry

  Old Times   I am looking   for a note from you   and "Seven Easy Dinners" comes up   on the screen and suddenly   I remember how we left   the food on our plates   that first night, coming   home to fuck. Say yes to all things   and t… more »
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Not Quite Ready to Get Government Off Our Backs

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 29th, 2010 @ 12:00:45 pm , using 636 words
Category: Commentary, Repetitions

Does anyone still believe we need less government? ?   Despite an unprecedented string of failures and catastrophes, it took the horrors of Katrina for many Americans finally to realize the extent of the incompetence of the Bush Administra… more »
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Versed, Rae Armantrout's Pulitzer-Winning Book of Poetry

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 27th, 2010 @ 11:43:33 am , using 898 words
Category: Poetry, Reviews

Spending time on Versed, Rae Armantrout's Pulitzer Prize winning poetry collection. My friend Geoff Young (The Figures Press) published her first book in 1978. Thought of her as part of the Language Poets, but never could quite dig what any of them were… more »
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The Rite of Spring--Nijinsky (poem by Neil Nelson)

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 25th, 2010 @ 03:16:40 pm , using 74 words
Category: Poetry

                               The Rite of Spring                                  Nijinsky’s Crone              for Lee & Eva Choreographed             to be what we              tribes were she                                 is,… more »
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Corporate Rage and the Obama Presidency

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 24th, 2010 @ 11:28:32 am , using 785 words
Category: Commentary

'.. seething corporate anger,' writes Paul Krugman in today's NY Times and the war is in full swing. Poor corporate managers having to deal with this awful socialist agenda, trying to tax the rich and give to the poor in some ersatz Robin Hood move that… more »
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Responsibilities re: The Vietnam War

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 23rd, 2010 @ 05:27:44 pm , using 304 words
Category: Commentary

   Vietnam broke the back of any kind of solidarity in this country, and former Senator Larry Pressler's opin (NY Times Editorial) that 'responsibility' was shirked by too many and that there was a responsibility to engage in what was clearly a disastrou… more »
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Obama's Presidency So Far

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 22nd, 2010 @ 11:36:52 am , using 1597 words
Category: Commentary

This from a Diary by David Bromwich in London Review of Books from May 13. Intelligent offerings and certainly a reminder that Obama's presidency is a work in progress at a very contentious time in world history. BP   Many people continue to feel a… more »
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Libertarian Limits

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 22nd, 2010 @ 11:17:04 am , using 296 words
Category: Commentary

Many Americans are sputtering mad, believing that government has let them down in abetting a ruinous recession, bailing out bankers and spending wildly. But is Rand Paul really the remedy they had in mind? His views and those of other Tea Party candidate… more »
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Fears

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 22nd, 2010 @ 10:55:03 am , using 113 words
Category: Poetry

Fears     for Peter Marin   Is it death          finally behind it?       pulling the plug                   on grandpa? End of life care-- One Tea Part y sign reads 'No more Afro-Leninism'   No guns for terrorists? 'You're with… more »
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Republican Attorneys General Oppose Health Reform

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 20th, 2010 @ 11:36:35 am , using 660 words
Category: Commentary

Editorial in today's NY Times about the lawsuits against the Health Reform Law. The suits from  Republicans running for office and from attorneys general of various states are based on two elements of the reform bill:    a mandate that virtually ev… more »
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Obama and Calderon Meeting

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 17th, 2010 @ 04:08:07 pm , using 344 words
Category: Commentary

Castaneda lays out some possiblitiesfor the forthcoming meeting with Obama and Calderon. There is much to deal with; one hopes it will be productive.   Mexico should propose, and Obama should welcome, a new stage in bilateral relations whose purpos… more »
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Republican Extremism & The Media Playbook

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 17th, 2010 @ 11:39:55 am , using 735 words
Category: Commentary

Krugman in NY Times on why the right's extremism seems so much in full swing. The economy, Obama, Tea Party, Bennett's loss in Utah, etc. PK is really saying it's been there all along, but is now on the media's front burner. The right’s answer, of co… more »
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Pashtun Humiliations, Reconciliations

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 15th, 2010 @ 10:12:34 am , using 582 words
Category: Commentary

This from David Ignatius about the senstivities of the Pashtun (Taliban) culture to humuliation. It is a subject matter that is actually in many ways universal, but it would seem to be taken to nuanced extremes in this culture.  One wonders, concomitantl… more »
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H.B. 2281

Posted by: Steve Belasco
Published on May 15th, 2010 @ 02:04:36 am , using 929 words
Category: Commentary

Arizona’s latest legislative effort, H.B. 2281, is one of those ‘it’s about time’ pieces of lawmaking that we so rarely see. How our sixth largest state has managed to limp along all these years with no law prohibiting classes that “promote the overthrow… more »
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Playbook Post 5-14-2010

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 14th, 2010 @ 11:36:13 am , using 554 words
Category: Commentary

Friday posts from Mike Allen's Playbook (Politico). Variety of interests always the latest from those multiple fronts...Quantity of oil spill really out there beyond belief...Poor creatures trying to survive there...Maneuvering in Afghanistan has a stran… more »
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Lena Horne 1917-2010

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 11th, 2010 @ 07:52:35 am , using 421 words
Category: Commentary

The passing of the amazing Lena Horne was marked by clips from her shows, interviews, and the reminder of her stature in the breakthrough capacity to enter a segregated industry with her beauty and her voice. Her version of 'Stormy Weather' is always a j… more »
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Pundits: May 8, 2010

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 8th, 2010 @ 02:09:18 pm , using 658 words
Category: Commentary

Saturday punditry from sources far & wide.... Charles Blow: Racist. Tea Party. Are those separate concepts or a single one? Depends on whom you ask. According to an article accompanying a Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Wednesda… more »
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The Order Of Things by Peter Marin

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 5th, 2010 @ 09:41:40 am , using 112 words
Category: Poetry

     THE ORDER OF THINGS                             (For Stanley Keleman)     The order of things   revealing itself permits us   the freedom of rest --   this, then, is our world.   Mathematicians know it   among numbers, thinkers   am… more »
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IRRESISTABLE

Posted by: Steve Belasco
Published on May 2nd, 2010 @ 04:10:37 pm , using 149 words
Category: Commentary

A t-shirt vendor alerted police to a car bomb in Times Square. Police cleared the area and removed the threat. All ended well. A reporter asks the t-shirt vendor if he felt good about what he had done. He looks at the reporter with thinly disguised conte… more »
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Obama on Civility

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 2nd, 2010 @ 09:59:38 am , using 444 words
Category: Commentary

President Obama at the U. of Michigan from his commencement address. I realized the other night in a casual conversation with a conservative that it is becoming more difficult to have a conversation without some kind of outrage entering the conversation.… more »
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Thoughts on Moyers, reverence, living and a dream

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on May 1st, 2010 @ 06:45:40 am , using 409 words
Category: Commentary

Bill Moyers' last show a sort of farewell and his last guest, Barry Lopez had a few things to say aout keeping heads above sinking and for a reminder about finding a reverence for life that gets us beyond shadow and darkness and a sense of the futility o… more »
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