Bookmarked: Fence, The Kipling Society, and The Diary of Samuel Pepys.

". . . the Los Angeles Times - along with the big east coast dailies - should all be called US OFFICIALS SAY."

Thus journalist Robert Fisk. Why? Fisk explains and elucidates, in some detail and with unerring logic, in his essay "The Farcical End of the American Dream" at Common Dreams.

This is, by the way, World Poetry Day. And, in the U.S., National Poetry Month fast approaches, lilacs all a-flutter. (It strikes me as odd that the Academy of American Poets website makes no mention of World Poetry Day, and it's a pretty important thing if you're a poet or an avid reader of poetry or anyone who thinks that poetry is important . . . .)

"Last Friday, reporting on a new assault by the U.S. military in Iraq, a headline on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle said: 'Biggest air attack since the invasion seen as delivering a message.'

"Delivering a message.

"Forty years ago, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said it was necessary to drop bombs on North Vietnam in order to deliver a message to the Communist leaders in Hanoi. The former war correspondent Chris Hedges, in his book 'War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning,' recalls that when he was reporting from El Salvador, one morning he and other reporters woke up at their hotel and discovered that death squads had dumped corpses in front of the building overnight, and in the mouths of those corpses were written messages threatening the journalists.

"In Yugoslavia, during the spring of 1999, the bombs fell with the U.S.-led NATO forces delivering a message. And when, at noontime one Friday in the city of Nis, cluster bombs fell courtesy of U.S. taxpayers and ripped into the body of a woman holding a bag of carrots from the market, that too was an instance of sending a message.

"Time after time, leaders send messages by inflicting death. On September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden sent a message at the World Trade Center. And in the fall of 2001 the U.S. military sent a message to Afghanistan, where the civilians who died, if we are going to count numbers, were at least as numerous as those who died at the World Trade Center.

"And now, George W. Bush continues to send a message . . . ."

From Norman Solomon's "Why Are We Here?" at BuzzFlash.

Poem of the Day Dept.:

"Romance" by that wild and crazy guy Arthur Rimbaud.

Bookmarked: robert-fisk.com.

BuzzFlash is selling Ugandan Fair Trade Coffee.

"Not Just a Cup, but a Just Cup" is the clunky but catchy slogan they've got up. At $25 for a pound and a half, that makes it pricewise well within the economic ballpark of most "gourmet" coffees; there are two roasts, a "Light" and a "Dark," of the Arabica-bean "Mirembe Kawomera," which means "delicious peace" coffee. The coffee comes from a cooperative composed of Ugandan Muslims, Jews and Christians. White-wine-and-soft-cheese-consuming, PBS-and-Gevalia-hooked culture dilettantes with guilty consciences to expiate take note--here's a chance to put your money literally where your mouth is.

Bookmarked: The Global Medical Relief Fund and nomorevictims.org, from which latter comes the above image.

Straighten Up and Fly Right-Wing . . .

"There's more at stake here than local politics. Since the 'war on terror' began, too many Americans have become inured to enforced patriotism and ideological litmus tests. We hardly notice the way that speech itself has come to be regarded as something to be policed, or the way that dissent, the lifeblood of freedom, is constantly devalued."

From the editor's of The Nation in "An American Inquisition?"

Bookmarked: The EServer Poetry Collection.

Poem of the Day Dept.:

A bleak and troubling vision. Byron's "Darkness."

Bookmarked: Poets Against War.

Bookmarked: CyberSangha.

"Americans favor Feingold's proposal to censure Bush" by Evan Derkacz at AlterNet.

Bookmarked: Science & Consciousness Review, Cyber-Geography Research, and Rachel's Words.

"Rachel Corrie: Too Hot for New York" by Philip Weiss, at AlterNet, originally from The Nation.

Bookmarked: Unclaimed Territory.

The March of Progress Dept.:

"Lots of big words, but is it literature?" by Norm Cohen at the International Herald Tribune's website.

It occurs to me that when at last a computer that can read a book the way a human does actually gets built, we will have created a sentient "machine" . . . well, a human. That hasn't happened yet, loud or merely implied claims to the contrary notwithstanding. In the meantime, we'll have to put up with the sort of silliness described in Cohen's article.

The March of Progress Dept.:

"Progressing at our current rate, it won’t be long until Americans become a society of invalids complaining that we have to open our eyes in the morning, and that we actually have to breathe."

From "Our Culture of Little Demand" by Daniel Taverne, at American Chronicle.

Taverne's projections of a possible future of fully-automated Americans seem unlikely to me because they are a bit too simple in their extremity; but his main point stands up well enough: that is that the U.S. is succumbing to--largely has succumbed to--a kind of culture of convenience.

Bookmarked: Philip K. Dick.

Bookmarked: Married to the Sea.