Saturday, May 10, 2003

HANDWRITING ON THE WALL

Raven is having a down day. So am I, for that matter; I didn't even get up to make our cups of earl grey until almost 11. Raven just picked at his mushroom and serrano chile omelet, and took his sweet roll out to the garden.

*************
Raven hears the roar
as the great incoming waves
gobble up the beach,
and he sees the sand shrinking.
Even as he watches it,

the ocean expands
its territory; inch by
inch it spreads across
the land with no intention
of receding. Now he knows

how the mammoth must
have felt when he saw the ice
approaching closer--
until it covered him up
like a fly trapped in amber.

Raven, though a bird,
has always lived on the land;
as pedestrian
as they come, he sees the sea
as an enemy taking

away his back yard,
sweeping him into the street
to scrap with the gulls
for his livelihood. Raven,
scavenging for ideas

on the beach, feels waves
erasing his best sources
and leaving tide pools
in their place. He knows that he
is becoming obsolete.

Friday, May 09, 2003

YESTERDAY CUBA, TODAY IRAN

Despite the bluster on the part of the Bush Gang in regard to:
first blowing Syria out of the desert and
then Cuba out of the water,
the reality of Iran’s enormous oil and gas reserves has situated it in the cross-hairs of the Petrocriminals as the real next target for invasion.

Supposedly, Iran has been developing nuclear weapons in the reactor at Natanz.
Wow, are they fast!
That installation was just visited 3 months ago by the General Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed el Baradei, who reported nothing illegal or even unusual....
Now the Petrocriminals announced in The New York Times that Natanz is an “obvious” nuclear weapons factory!

I am really beginning to wonder if the US public has been so brainwashed by its government and its mass media that it no longer has 2 digits to rub together to make an IQ....

Raven is not at all optimistic. He feels if they had to invent fire again, they wouldn’t be able to rub 2 sticks together either.

Thursday, May 08, 2003

PRO CUBA

Raven and I are really busy this week, and tomorrow we will be showing "La revolución no será transmitida"--new documentary from Ireland about last year's brief "golpe de estado" in Venezuela that took Hugo Chávez out of the presidency for almost 48 hours--so that means preparations....

However, we are very concerned about the increasing saber rattling on the part of the Bush Gang in regard to Cuba--the one country in this hemisphere which has kept the imperial monster at bay for 44 years--as well as Otto Reich's delusions of grandeur about becoming the neo-nazi Reich-chancellor of Cuba. Here in Latin America many intellectuals have jumped on the bandwagon to protest the latest threats against a sovereign nation. You may add your name to that protest by going into this web site:
www.porcuba.cult.cu

Indicate at the top of the page that you want English, then click on SIGNATURES to fill out the form.

The following is the text of the protest statement:

TO THE CONSCIENCE OF THE WORLD

The international order has been violated as a consequence of the invasion against Iraq. A single power is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation amongst countries. This power has invoked a series of unverified reasons in order to justify its invasion. Unilateral action has led to massive loss of civilian life an devastation of one of the cultural patrimonies of humanity.

We only possess our moral authority, with which we appeal to world conscience in order to avoid a new violation of the principles, which inform and guide the global community of nations. At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion. Therefore, we call upon citizens and policy makers to uphold the universal principles of national sovereignity, respect of territorial integrity and self-determination, essential to just and peaceful co-existence among nations.

Mexico, April 2003

The Bush Gang is playing the board game of RISK with our planet.

Raven: "They are also not playing with a full deck. Stop them."


Monday, May 05, 2003

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Raven is grumpy this morning. We had french toast for breakfast (freedom toast, if we were in Washington, D.C.), and Raven hates french toast. He feels that soaking perfectly crunchy bread in a batter of milk and eggs and then frying it is a barbarity—and drenching it all in maple syrup is the final straw.

“The Final Solution, precisely”, Raven indicates as he pushes his plate away. “This is as close as it gets to Terrorism by Food.”

Surely you exaggerate, Rave—the annals of war are filled with run-ins with spoiled food, c-rations and other culinary culprits. On some Pacific islands during World War II there was cannibalism. Not to mention what has traditionally been served up in prisons.

“I suppose Guatanamo fare is not worse than this, but I think we could be eating better.”

What does it matter, if we can’t stomach what’s happening in the world? Rumsfeld has tipped his hand, and now we can expect Phase Two in Iraq: The War against Terrorist Networks.

“Maybe you could open a fast french toast eatery there”, Raven snickers.

I could be part of any of the network of terrorists he’s swearing to hunt down, I suppose. And about as legitimate as any group he’s identifying, too. It’s all a bit retro—probably more appropriate for the Algerian National Liberation Front, circa 1955—but as we talked about a couple of days ago, the 50s are back with a vengeance: North Korea, McCarthyism, the Military-Industrial Complex as Public Enemy Number 1.

“What about poodle skirts and hula hoops?”

They don’t need to retread those frivolous elements to create a diversion—they have the Patriot Act so they can put the screws to anyone who doesn’t conform to their standards of citizenry. They can barge into Chinese restaurants, stand the customers up against the wall for hours and drag undocumented Mexicans out of the kitchens and slap them in mini-Guatanamos with impunity—all the while shouting, “Don’t you assholes know we´re at war?”

“So, who’s next on the menu?”

Well, in the fifties the French blamed the terrorism in Algeria on Tunisia and Egypt. Robert Fisk mentions that in his piece in La Jornada today, “¿Terminó la guerra?”. He says that Rumsfeld will put the blame for the terrorism in Iraq (read: shiite resistance to the US military occupation) on Iran and Syria.

“Rounding up the Usual Suspects, in short.”

Right. Play it, Sam. Again.

Raven may be black, but he’s no Dooley Wilson. But then, I doubt that too many people would mistake me for Humphrey Bogart....


Sunday, May 04, 2003

A NEW CAPER

This morning the sky is overcast above the bay. I walk to an Internet café past a number of rundown tour buses; clearly, it’s the end of the four day Labor Day “puente”. Tomorrow it’s back to work for all of us who have been loafing these days away. Raven, on the other hand, has been busy.

*****
Raven, that rascal,
has a new trick up his sleeve:
he is going to
start a business flying
his customers to heaven.

It sounds outrageous,
but he believes it will work.
Who am I to rain
my reservations on his
parade, when he reminds me

that people have shelled
out millions just to pretend
to be astronauts?
Raven is offering more:
A chance to interview God—

To ask Him or Her
the Big Questions: the meaning
of our existence
on this petroleum-cursed
planet; what really wiped out

all those dinosaurs;
if the Chicago Cubs will
win the World Series
before the world ends—the stuff
everyone wants to know, but

is afraid to ask.
And if God doesn’t exist?
Raven doesn’t care:
if there’s a heaven without
God, someone will step forward

and pay him double
for the chance to pretend to
be God—or to take
over up there. After all,
dictators go for a dime


a dozen down here.
Raven is cackling with glee
at his cleverness:
he’ll make himself a fortune
whether he wins or loses.

And the rest of us?
Raven is convinced that we’ll
get what we deserve—
that next we’ll be lining up
to take his charters to hell.