Where History and Hysteria Converge...

Take a brief slideshow tour of Central State
http://www.kizoa.com/slideshow/d1504922k5834261o1/where-history-and-hysteria-converge

'Please to no come back again ever!'

BEEN FOLLOWING THE EVENTS unfolding in Cairo and other Egyptian cities the last few weeks, all of the demonstrations, rallies, riots and clashes between the government and protesters. And that includes the harsh crackdown on professional journalists and amateurs able to get their word out through blogs and Facebook. There hasn’t been this much calamity in that country since Moses commandeered an uprising, leading his folks on an exodus away that thick-headed Pharaoh, who couldn’t get the hint after some fairly dramatic plagues.

Sadly, people wielding tremendous power so often are unable to read the handwriting on the wall. I don’t know enough to know whether President Mubarak should pull a Nixon, but it seems at this point he has no ttrump card in the hand he’s playing.

All of this has gotten me to remembering about my own brief time near that part of the world during the winter of 1991. You see, the magazine I worked for had bought my pitch to send me and staff photographer John Simon to Saudi Arabia to cover the unfolding Desert Storm war. Remember that? Saddam Hussein’s troops rumbled into oil-rich Kuwait in August 1990 and occupied its capital and other key places. Kuwait’s ruling class was able to get the hell out of Dodge into safer havens while the lower and largely imported hired hands were forced to hang on nearly eight months under a brutal force.

A sweet song and a dead leaf

During last week’s ice storm I was fortunate to have the flexibility to work from home for two days, thanks to the Internet and ability to tap into my company’s internal server. It was a good opportunity for a variety of reasons: I could wear my battered Grateful Dead sweatshirt and flannel pajama bottoms, not have to scrape the whiskers from my face, drink endless cups of Cuisinart-crushed fresh coffee, and do what I do most days when I am not wearing the button-down uniform of the typical day.

I was working the “Operation Snowflake” beat in the Frozen City, wondering why Al Gore and the other zanies were noticeably absent for interviews during this assault, and I was providing updates on closings and delays about our hospitals and other pedestrian communications. While refilling my “I Love Grandpa” coffee mug at one point, I could hear the creaking of sagging tree limbs, similar to the sounds of my knees and elbows when I get up each morning. 

And then I heard a faint sound of a bird – singing its blessed heart out against that cold chorus. It was the sweetest sound of optimism I ever have heard.

With profound apologies to Walt Whitman

 I Hear America Bitching

I hear America bitching, the varied noises today I hear,

Those of media commentators of every chordless type, each singing and underestimating the good sense of folks who don’t see the world and its myriad issues splattered against a black-and-white canvas,

The well-paid extremists who swarm in to condemn a drunk-driving cop who kills an innocent biker, yet remain light years away and mute when a decent officer is gunned down dead,

The minions of a Kansas maniac professing God’s hate of gays, Catholics, Jews [for that matter everybody] and who show up at service members’ funerals merely to grab sound bites for the news media,

The benign bleatings of career politicians, whose melodies of promise and pledges are shorn swiftly with such sheepish ease,

The warped arias of pin-striped, corporate cowboys on whom so many livelihoods depend, falling safely and richly beneath canopies of gold in the aftermath of their misdeeds and mismanagement,

The song of the lazy and those who don’t give a damn, whose misguided measures with many rest signs seek full harvest without sowing one seed,

Perhaps soon we shall hear new tunes, each measure robust and hopeful,

Singing with open mouths a similar lyric echoing 1776 and stretching for future harmony.

The Wacky Maniac Resurfaces



The Arabic Al Jazeera news network today aired a videotaped message from Osama Bin Laden where he threatened "dire consequences" if judges failed to select him as a contestant for American Idol. U.S. intelligence analysts have confirmed that the likeness is genuine, adding that they have been pursuing leads that the maniacal terrorist has infiltrated a popular ventriloquist's comedy tour.



A star is reborn

I am here -- somewhere.

I remember a few days before my good Dad died back in November 1990, I had this fleeting dream of him. For whatever reason, he was wearing the tattered clothes that were the uniform-of-the-day for boys of the Great Depression. A skinny, red-haired lad in a large, hardscrabble family near Yankeetown, Ind. But there he was, amidst all of the misery of those days, scampering through a field and then suddenly hopping around the stars you still can see in back-country Hoosierland on a clear night.

That wonderful dream has clung to me for two decades. I think of the Creator, the profound philosophers and even the great scientists who, in their different ways, say we all come from the stars and are destined to return to them. I like that; I believe it.

To this day I recall those three Magi who followed that Star to Bethlehem that is one symbol of my faith. And I recall the great explorers who navigated their way through this planet and into outer space. What wondrous journeys we are capable of, eh?

Meal ticket

"Well, fellas I gotta tell ya, the only da Vinci code here is the mystery of who's gonna pick up the tab for this dinner. But I hear Judas has just come into some extra cash."