What a crappy, if prolific week: A (hopefully temporary) set back in Wisconsin. Violence in Libya. An earthquake and tsunami and nuclear emergency in Japan. Bad, winter weather, flooding and power outages, in Eastern New York and New England. Your bloguero is about ready to push back from the keyboard and run away to join the nearest circus. Maybe he could be the elephants’ poopsmith. Although there are signs of Spring’s arrival (redwing blackbirds, March Madness, the first buds), your bloguero’s seasonal affective grumpiness (SAG) continues unabated. He needs to see the first crocus. Not a green stem. No. An actual, honest to goodness flower. And he needs it badly.
The week ended on Saturday with a sad memorial, For Mike, the husband of our sister Port Writers Alliance bloguera, Diane. She and her family are in our thoughts and prayers. She has our condolences.
The weekend also brought your bloguero the recognition that things aren’t over in Madison, Wisconsin. No, not at all. It’s not the end, it’s the beginning of movement. And, of course, MSNBC got it all wrong. Wisconsin: It’s Not Over Until It’s Over points out the Trad Media outlet’s folly of pessimism. Stooges .
The devastation in Japan brought your bloguero to prayer. There didn’t seem to be anything else that could be done. Kyrie Eleison For Japan is Christian, Jewish and Buddhist, a prayer for those suffering in Japan in the wake of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear emergency. Even if you don’t pray, please keep these people in your thoughts and do what you can to be of help to them.
Six Town Court Haikus, are as the title says, six haikus your bloguero wrote while wearing his lawyer clothes and sitting in an unnamed Town Court somewhere in Upstate New York, waiting for justice to be done. For years and years, lawyers and politicians have tried to eliminate these small, formerly justice of the peace courts to no avail. The New York Times has criticized them regularly. Is there an outcry? Crickets.
The night when Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate acted on their pronounced willingness to do the bidding of the Koch Brothers rather than the citizens and pulled a fast one on the electorate led your bloguero to write On Wisconsin!. Your bloguero sees this maneuver as a temporary setback, and one that will lead to a real people’s movement. Maybe your bloguero should thank the Wisconsin Republicans. Not very forking likely.
Any time you can get an alligator and gerbil into the same poem, you’re doing ok. Haiku For March does just that.
Your bloguero noted the passing of Moacyr Scliar, who invented the plot for Life of Pi, in which a person and a tiger are together alone in the same small boat, and Alberto Granado, who accompanied Che Guevara on his motorcycle trip.
And your bloguero reminded his six readers of that Saturday’s demonstration in Madison, Wisconsin in Solidarity With Wisconsin’s Workers. At the time, your bloguero had no hint that Governor Koch-head had a plan to steal the cheese (and the workers’ right to bargain collectively) and would appear later in the week to be running the Wisconsin government as if it were a game of 3-card Monty.
And the week began with hope, the first sign that just maybe, Winter was on it’s way out. At Last: A Hint Of Spring noted the arrival of the first redwing blackbird.
Your bloguero also notes that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is supposed to be posted early Sunday morning. Yes, he knows it’s still Saturday (again). But your bloguero wants to go to the drum circle on Sunday morning and beat his brains out. See you next week if the creek don’t rise on Sunday early. No drum circle next weekend. 🙁
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