Today is also the anniversary of the beginning of Ghandi's Salt March."The March to Dandi."

Poem-of-the-Day (Or Whenver I Feel Like It and Have Time) Dept.:

Today is the birthday of Jack Kerouac.

"Then it's goodbye
Sangsara
For me
Besides
Girls aren't as good
As they look
And Samadhi
Is better
Than you think"

From "Bowery Blues ."

". . . whenever they were talking about the unions and the bosses and there was a possibility of a strike, the unions would always 'threaten to strike.' The bosses would then 'warn of the consequences.' It was never that the bosses would threaten to make all these cutbacks and the unions would then warn that the consequences would be a strike. The unions were always the aggressors and the bosses were responding. It's the same with Israel and the Palestinians. One is always depicted as the aggressor and the other is always defending itself."

"Python swallows Bush!" is an interview with Python (as in Monty's), Mediaeval scholar and author Terry Jones, by Laura Miller at Salon. (This link, among others, has been sitting in storage as a "draft" post at Blogger, so it's a little old; but it's still informative and stimulating reading. So.)

"Behind the Cedars: Nonviolent protest in the Middle East" by Jesse Walker at Reason is interesting.

Hmm. I'm not concerned that what appear to be changes for the better in the Middle-East recently indicate that the Bushies' policies and actions are "working," or that the rape of Iraq is justified thereby. What I object to and will continue to protest against are the self-congratulatory lies coming from the White House and the Pentagon--and the rationalizations of the American Right; and this isn't just another squawk in the barnyard squabble of America's domestic politics; the election to the Presidency of George W. Bush recently should be (and has been, largely) seen as a frightening thing not just for Americans but for everyone in the world.

I think that any good things happening in the Middle-East are happening, perhaps as a consequence of, but nevertheless in resistance to prevailing U.S. policies and military actions. I'm not sure what Walker means by "a general quickening effect" of what's happening in Iraq, and I don't really see the point of Walker's Left-Right equilibrium-balancing exhortation at the end of his article, but still it's intelligent and perceptive.

"Reprieve" by Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section.

Credit Where Credit Is Due (and Not Where It's Not) Dept.:

" What rise in freedom?" by Robert Kuttner at Boston.com: "As Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker after the Iraqis managed to hold an election, 'One can marvel at the power of the democratic idea. . . . Perhaps it can even survive the fervent embrace of George W. Bush.'" I'm not holding my breath.

Kuttler's piece is illuminating, but I disagree with his characterization of Aljazeera, likening it to Fox News, for which latter I don't think there's even a close match in terms of ignorance, blind partisanship and general idiocy--except perhaps for Tass under the Soviets. And though we've a right to expect as much from him, I don't think it's likely we'll see George W. Bush holding to his word on anything.

Debauched Innuendo Dept.:

The above unintentionally hilarious image has supposedly been floating around on the internet for a long time. It and similar are to be found at Superdickery.com.

". . . we got there by mistake, and we are staying there by mistake." Dexter J. Kamilewicz in "How Dare Some Say, 'Support our Troops'?" at Common Dreams.